From ANI
Washington, May 16: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said Osama bin Laden’s death could end up being be a "game changer" in the war in Afghanistan, partly because the killed al Qaeda leader won't be around to obstruct a possible deal with the Taliban.
"If we keep the military pressure on and continue to hold what we seized over the last year and expand the security envelope, a change in the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban could, in fact, this fall or winter, create the circumstances where a reconciliation process could go forward," CBS News quoted Gates, as saying.
On being asked about his opinion about Americans who think that with bin Laden’s death, the US troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan, he said: "I would say that we are getting the upper hand. We have over the last 18 months put in place, for the first time, the resources necessary to ensure that this threat does not rebuild, does not reemerge once we're gone. I think we could be in a position by the end of this year, where we have turned the corner in Afghanistan."
Gates praised President Barack Obama for making one of the ‘most courageous calls’ that he had seen during his tenure of over 30 years under eight presidents, by ordering the country’s Special Forces to track down bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.
He also admired the way the operation was carried out with full coordination by the SEAL team despite the fact that they did not have ‘direct evidence’ whether bin Laden was actually present in the compound.
"It was a perfect fusion of intelligence collection, intelligence analysis, and military operations," he added.
Source
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Showing posts with label GATES. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GATES. Show all posts
Monday, May 16, 2011
Thursday, September 09, 2010
The burning called off
Pastor Terry Jones Calls off Koran Burning, But Deal for Ground ... - 11 minutes ago
Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., emerged from his church in Gainesville, Fla., along with Florida Imam Muhammad al-Masri to announce his decision to ...
ABC News -»
Robert Gates Urged Terry Jones to Call Off Koran Burning -
Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., emerged from his church in Gainesville, Fla., along with Florida Imam Muhammad al-Masri to announce his decision to ...
ABC News -»
Robert Gates Urged Terry Jones to Call Off Koran Burning -
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Just in - The Koran burning at Gainesville - Florida, has been called off by Pastor Terry Jones after reaching an agreement with the Ground Zero Mosque (Islamic Cultural Center), and a persuasive call from Robert Gates:
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------Who is Robert Gates?
Robert Michael Gates (born September 25, 1943) is the 22nd and current United States Secretary of Defense. He took office on December 18, 2006.[2] Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W. Bush as Director of Central Intelligence. Immediately after being recruited by the CIA, he served as an officer in the United States Air Force.[3][4] After leaving the CIA, Gates became president of Texas A&M University and was a member of several corporate boards. Gates also served as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton, that has studied the Iraq War. He was also the first pick to serve as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security when it was created following the September 11 attacks, but he declined the appointment in order to remain President of Texas A&M University.[5]
Gates accepted the nomination for Secretary of Defense on November 8, 2006, replacing Donald Rumsfeld. He was confirmed with bipartisan support.[6] In a 2007 profile written by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Time named Gates one of the year's most influential people.[6] In 2008, Gates was named one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report.[7] He continues to serve as Secretary of Defense in President Barack Obama's cabinet.[8] Gates announced in August 2010 that he plans to retire in 2011.[9]
...
Early life and education
A native of Wichita, Kansas, Gates attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the BSA as an adult.[10][11] He graduated from Wichita High School East in 1961, reportedly with straight A's.[12]
Gates is also a Vigil Honor member within the Order of the Arrow, Scouting's National Honor Society. The Vigil Honor is the third and highest Honor within the Order and statistically there are fewer Vigil Honor members than Eagle Scouts within the Boy Scouts of America.
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Gates then pursued an M.A. in history from Indiana University in 1966. Finally, he completed his doctorate in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University in 1974. The title of his Georgetown doctoral dissertation is "Soviet Sinology: An Untapped Source for Kremlin Views and Disputes Relating to Contemporary Events in China" and is available from University Microfilms International as document number 7421652. He received an L.H.D. (Doctor of Humane Letters) from William & Mary in 1998.
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Gates was nominated to become the Director of Central Intelligence (head of the CIA) in early 1987. He withdrew his name after it became clear the Senate would reject the nomination due to controversy about his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
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Criticism
As deputy director and director of America's leading intelligence agency for many years, Gates and his CIA staff have been faulted for failing to accurately gauge the decline and disintegration of the Soviet Union. More particularly, Gates has been criticized for concocting evidence to show that the Soviet Union was stronger than it actually was, and also for repeatedly skewing intelligence to promote a particular worldview.[61] Also, according to Newsweek, Gates, as deputy director of CIA, allegedly vouched for the comprehensiveness of a CIA study presented to the Senate and President Reagan alleging that the Soviet Union played a role in the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II. A CIA internal review later denounced the report as being skewed,[61] but that Gates did not try to influence the report's conclusions.[62]
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Now lets look at these two distinct titles:
Now lets look at these two distinct titles:
Dove World Outreach Center - Pastor Terry Jones
Islamic Cultural Center of New York - Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
Islamic Cultural Center of New York - Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
A publicity stunt? Or, just more tolerance conditioning?
.A.L.
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Friday, February 19, 2010
“New Dawn” in Iraq
Pentagon
Justin Fishel
“New Dawn” in Iraq
February 19, 2010 - 11:38 AM by: Justin Fishel
At the request of Gen. Raymond Odierno (top general in Iraq), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has approved changing the name of the mission in Iraq from "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to "Operation New Dawn", a senior defense official tells Fox.
According to a memo signed by Secretary Gates this new name better fits with the Security Agreement the US has with Iraq. "Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission", Gates wrote.
The name change takes effect on Sep 1 2010.
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Source: http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/19/new-dawn-in-iraq/?test=latestnews
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Justin Fishel
“New Dawn” in Iraq
February 19, 2010 - 11:38 AM by: Justin Fishel
At the request of Gen. Raymond Odierno (top general in Iraq), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has approved changing the name of the mission in Iraq from "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to "Operation New Dawn", a senior defense official tells Fox.
According to a memo signed by Secretary Gates this new name better fits with the Security Agreement the US has with Iraq. "Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission", Gates wrote.
The name change takes effect on Sep 1 2010.
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Source: http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/19/new-dawn-in-iraq/?test=latestnews
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Friday, November 13, 2009
Billionaire Bill Gates says Wall St pay too high
Billionaire Bill Gates says Wall St pay too high
Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:16pm EST
Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:16pm EST
* Bill Gates warns limits on Wall St pay could backfire
* Gates says government ownership of AIG "unnatural"
By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Bill Gates said on Wednesday he believes Wall Street pay is "often too high" and that U.S. government ownership of American International Group Inc (AIG.N) worries him because it has devalued the giant insurer.
The billionaire Microsoft (MSFT.O) founder, who retired in 2008 to concentrate on philanthropy, blamed a 1993 U.S. law that capped executive salaries at $1 million and warned that further bids to try limit Wall Street pay could also backfire.
"It was a bad milestone in controlling executive salaries when that $1 million cap went on," Gates told a discussion on philanthropy at the 92nd Street Y cultural and community center in New York City.
"The compensation problem is a very interesting problem. I do think compensation is often too high, but it's a very tough problem to solve," said Gates, who was also ranked by Forbes on Wednesday as the 10th most powerful person in the world.
The $1 million limit on salaries encouraged companies to instead give executives lucrative stock options, sending pay to vast new heights.
U.S. officials are again pushing for Wall Street pay practices to be reformed to curb the excessive risk-taking that fueled the crisis and pushed the financial system to the brink of collapse last year.
Huge pay packages for banks and other financial firms have ignited public anger at a time the U.S. unemployment rate is at a 26-year high of 10.2 percent.
"What happened was a surprise to people and it comes from everybody being so optimistic and over ebullient and having a view of risk and price appreciation that was completely out of kilter," Gates said of the financial crisis.
The U.S. government spent hundreds of billions of dollars during the crisis bailing out several Wall Street firms, including Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N) and AIG which is now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers.
"I do worry that when the government owns an entity like AIG that you can greatly devalue that entity by having it essentially have to behave as though it part of the government," Gates said.
"It's an unnatural situation when the government owns a lot of a private company. Unfortunately there is a view that that should exist for a long term. There's some devaluation of what that asset would have been worth if it hadn't had to go through that kind of management structure. It's unavoidable," he said. (Editing by Lincoln Feast)
88887777
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P.S. Isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
I believe that Bill Gates really has lost touch with reality.
He believes that nobody else should achieve the indecent wealth that he has attained.
How ironic that a man that converted his $46 Billion assets into Euros a few years ago should now call for a limit on the amount of dollars that American financial entrepreneurs should earn?
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Bill Gates is calling for a control on how much Wall Street traders should earn. Several weeks ago, President Obama stressed that CEO's of major corporations (ones that received bail-outs?) should have a salary cap. My response to these nouveaux riches idealists is: Why stop at salary limits on Wall Street movers and shakers, or Executives of America's major corporations? Why not also limit the salaries of government (public servants) employees, especially politicians and administrative officials (cabinet members)? I believe it's a crime for most of the citizens to suffice with a supply of ever dwindling crumbs while the elected officials, and those appointed to represent them gallivant around on multiple Hundreds of thousands of dollars stipends (and get $10 -20,000 increases regularly); Living a separate reality from that of the average constituent who barely breaks even after job cuts, rising prices, diminishing dollar value, etc.
.....
Hypocrisy is my response to all those caviar eating jet-set amnesiacs that have forgotten what it's like to have to work all week for peanuts; Here in the land of the Constitution; Not, Tajikistan!
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Freedom begins at home; Or, has is it now changed to Democracy everywhere else, and tyranny for the natives in the USA?
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Arsenio.
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Thursday, November 12, 2009
The fight over the future of food
A worker collects rice at a plantation in Belcreda Gambolo, 30 km (20 miles) southwest of Milan in northern Italy November 6, 2009.REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo
By Claudia Parsons, Russell Blinch and Svetlana Kovalyova
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON/MILAN (Reuters) - At first glance, Giuseppe Oglio's farm near Milan looks like it's suffering from neglect. Weeds run rampant amid the rice fields and clover grows unchecked around his millet crop.
Oglio, a third generation farmer eschews modern farming techniques -- chemicals, fertilizers, heavy machinery -- in favor of a purely natural approach. It is not just ecological, he says, but profitable, and he believes his system can be replicated in starving regions of the globe.
Nearly 5,000 miles away, in laboratories in St. Louis, Missouri, hundreds of scientists at the world's biggest seed company, Monsanto, also want to feed the world, only their tools of choice are laser beams and petri dishes.
Monsanto, a leader in agricultural biotechnology, spends about $2 million a day on scientific research that aims to improve on Mother Nature, and is positioning itself as a key player in the fight against hunger.
The Italian farmer and the U.S. multinational represent the two extremes in an increasingly acrimonious debate over the future of food.
Everybody wants to end hunger, but just how to do so is a divisive question that pits environmentalists against anti-poverty campaigners, big business against consumers and rich countries against poor.
The food fight takes place at a time when experts on both sides agree on one thing -- the number of empty bellies around the world will only grow unless there is major intervention now.
A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has catapulted the number of hungry people in the world to more than 1 billion. The United Nations says world food output must grow by 70 percent over the next four decades to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people by 2050.
International leaders are gathering in Rome next week for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's World Summit on Food Security and will hear competing arguments over how best to tackle the problem. One of the fiercest disputes will be over the relative importance of science versus social and economic reforms to empower small farmers to grow more with existing technology.
"LISTEN TO NATURE"
Much of Europe has moved away from an agricultural system of small farms to mass commercial farming, but Italy still retains a base of family farmers who produce everything from olives to mozzarella cheese.
Oglio is one of them. A charismatic 40-year-old, he dropped out of an agricultural school after growing disillusioned with the farming methods being taught there. Today, he lets nature run its course as he grows cereals and legumes on his small family farm in Belcreda di Gambolo, about 20 miles southwest of Milan.
He does not use any chemical, or even natural fertilizers or pesticides. He does not weed his fields. "All you need to do is observe nature, listen to it, do what nature suggests and it will take care of everything," he said.
His fields, in a low-lying plain that has a long history of growing rice used for risotto, replicate patterns found in nature. For example, clover and millet grow together, feeding each other with necessary minerals.
Oglio said his farm is eco-sustainable. He has slashed operating costs by eliminating expensive commercial products like herbicides and by reducing the use of agricultural machinery to a minimum. Such cheap and low-maintenance farming could be adopted in Africa and other regions hit by poverty and hunger, he said.
"Natural farming will not save the world. But it can feed poor families," he said.
But it's unlikely it can do so on the scale that most experts believe is necessary. And therein lies the rub. Affluent consumers may prefer the Oglios of the world to the Monsantos, but their skittishness about high-tech agriculture is making it more difficult to grapple with the mounting crisis over the lack of food.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
The last time the world faced such dire predictions of famine was before the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when countries like India and China transformed their agricultural systems to become self-sufficient in food. They did so by harnessing plant-breeding technology to raise yields on rice, wheat and other staple crops.
Through massive state investment in hybrid rice, China, the world's most populous country, raised its yields from two tons per hectare in the 1960s to more than 10 tons per hectare by 2004. Chinese scientists seek further gains -- 13.5 tons per hectare by 2015, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which cites China's rice program as one of the true success stories in agricultural development in a study out this week (November 12) called "Millions Fed."
To be sure, the Green Revolution had its downsides -- environmental damage, to name one. In India, for example, water tables are drying up and the soil has been degraded by pesticide and fertilizers. The movement also contributed to the rise of big commercial farms at the expense of small holders, fueling resentment from its early days at what critics see as the "corporatization" of food.
But millions of people were saved from starvation, and the movement's architect, Norman Borlaug, received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.
With their populations soaring, however, India and China -- not to mention most of Africa -- still face challenges, especially as climate change exacerbates environmental problems that have already slowed growth in food production.
IFPRI, part of a global network of agricultural research centers, said last month lower yields due to climate change would cut "calorie availability" for the average consumer in a developing country in 2050 by 7 percent, compared with 2000.
Higher temperatures reduce crop yields while encouraging pests and plant diseases. For almost all crops, South Asia would experience the largest declines in yields. IFPRI said rice output in the region would be 14 percent lower than if there were no climate change.
"India sorely needs another Green Revolution," said Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, joint managing director of Bajaj Hinduthan, India's top sugar producer, which is importing raw sugar after a drought hit the domestic cane crop.
But a second green revolution would face a strong counterinsurgency, even in a place like India that benefited so profoundly from the first one.
"The point is that chemicals destroy the sustainability of productivity in the long run ... Yes, a second green revolution is indeed very essential -- the very need of the hour. But it should not be the same kind of green revolution that the first was," said P.C. Kesavan, a fellow at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, set up by the father of India's Green Revolution.
Economists and scientists in India are demanding a raft of policy initiatives, including allowing genetic engineering, which its proponents argue does the same job as traditional plant hybridization, only quicker and more efficiently.
India has so far allowed GM seeds only for cotton, which has boosted productivity, but suggestions of allowing such seeds for edible crops have always evoked strong protests.
CRADLE OF CORN
It's a similar story in Mexico, where Borlaug started his pioneering research in the 1940s at the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program. Mexico issued permits last month for the first time for farmers to grow genetically modified corn.
Considered by many the cradle of corn, Mexico is home to more than 10,000 varieties, used to make the classic tortilla, a staple of the Mexican diet. Corn was first planted in Mexico as many as 9,000 years ago and the grain was adapted by Spanish conquerors in the early 1500s and eventually spread to the rest of the world.
Mexico faces the same dilemmas over GM corn as do many developing countries -- balancing consumer fears with the need to grow more food.
"We see corn as our cultural heritage, our legacy. For us it's not just a question of food, but about conserving our traditions," said Celerino Tlacotempa, who works for an organization of native Nahuatl farmers in the southern mountains of Guerrero state.
"With genetically modified seeds we will lose our varieties of colored corn. There will be no more purple corn, black corn, white corn," Tlacotempa said. "Above all, we will be condemned to buy seeds from companies like Monsanto. It's not sustainable. It's a real risk for the wellbeing of these communities."
At the same time, other Mexican farmers in the north of the country have been cultivating GM seeds smuggled over the border from the United States for some time, attracted by the crops' greater resilience to drought and pests and higher yields.
Tomas Lumpkin, director of CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center that Borlaug started in Mexico, said the country now imports about half of the corn it consumes. With climate change and other pressures, he said, it was vital to raise production using all tools available.
"It is a much more complex and difficult world than Borlaug faced, but we have much more powerful tools than he had, and we need to start testing those and deploying those," he said.
"GMOs are just another set of tools in the toolbox, but we need to be able to use those tools," Lumpkin said. "If we could deploy those varieties so that the farmer in the developing world has the same powerful seed as the farmer in Iowa, why should they be handicapped?"
RICH CONSUMERS RESIST GM
Monsanto launched the world's first genetically modified crop in 1996 and GM crops are now grown in countries ranging from Australia to South Africa, the Philippines and Brazil.
Up to 85 percent of the massive U.S. corn crop is genetically engineered, as well as up 91 percent of soybeans and 88 percent of cotton, according to U.S. data.
As ingrained as GM crops may seem, a backlash against the technology appears to be growing.
Opposition to genetic modification of seeds has long been strongest in Europe. The European Union severely restricts use of GM seeds on its territory, as well as imports of products containing GM-derived food. Individual countries including Germany ban even GM seeds that are authorized, such as an insect-resistant maize type, MON 810, developed by Monsanto.
Now consumer resistance to what British tabloids long ago dubbed "Frankenfood" is taking root in the United States too.
With North America's industrial farming system, consumers who buy packaged goods from grocery stores are likely eating GM products without even knowing it, according to environmental group the Center for Food Safety. The group, which was involved in a successful court battle to stop introduction of Monsanto's genetically engineered alfalfa seed, also contends that up to 70 percent of soda, soup, crackers and other processed goods sold under major household brands are GM derived.
"There really is no human health analysis of GM crops," said William Freese, science policy analyst for the center. "It's a real result of the policy that our government has put in place, which is basically a presumption of innocence."
A banner issue for U.S. anti-GM crusaders is genetically engineered growth hormones for dairy cows, known as rBGH. Introduced in the United States in 1994, rBGH is a drug to extend milk production after a cow gives birth. It was developed by Monsanto but recently sold to Eli Lilly and Co.
Health Care Without Harm, a global coalition of hospitals and other health groups, believes the drug is dangerous because it increases the likelihood of infection in the cow's udder, which leads to greater antibiotic use in the animals. That contributes to antibiotic-resistance in humans, they argue.
Other critics say it may be linked to cancer in humans, despite U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals.
Proponents have won over a string of big names to reject the drug, including the big yogurt makers Yoplait and Dannon, and have also lobbied coffee chain Starbucks to oppose rBGH.
A Starbucks spokesman said the firm's entire core dairy supply comes from suppliers that do not use the hormone.
"Our core products, coffee and tea, are not genetically modified," the spokesman said in a statement. "We have no plans to purchase coffee or tea that is derived from GM sources, now or in the future."
The industry notes that GM research is supported by a number of august groups, including the Royal Society of Britain and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Keywords: FOOD/
"IDEOLOGICAL WEDGE"
For those seeking to end global hunger, rather than just satisfy rich consumers' craving for cappuccino, Africa presents the greatest challenges.
Monsanto, together with corporate rivals, is working with poor countries and charitable groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set up by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife.
At the annual World Food Prize forum last month, Gates warned that the fight to end hunger was being hurt by environmentalists who insist that genetically modified crops should not be used in Africa. He said it was vital to help small farmers there boost production by all means, including GM crops, fertilizer and chemicals.
"This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two," Gates said at the forum for the prize, which was created by Borlaug, who died in September at the age of 95.
"Some people insist on an ideal vision of the environment," Gates said. "They have tried to restrict the spread of biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it."
Rajul Pandya-Lorch, who has worked for the IFPRI thinktank on food for 22 years, summed it up like this: "I'm a Kenyan. I resent very much people telling us in Africa 'OK, this biotechnology is not good for you.' Well, we have different problems than you do, and if it helps us to solve a problem, we should try it."
Yet, even in Africa, there is suspicion of GM technology. Many countries there, such as Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania, do not allow GM seeds.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a Kenya-based group set up in 2006 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation, targets its programs specifically at small-scale farmers.
Three-quarters of the world's poorest billion people live in rural areas, dependent on farming for their livelihoods.
AGRA's Program for Africa's Seed Systems uses conventional breeding to develop new varieties of maize, cassava, beans, rice, sorghum, and other crops resistant to diseases and pests. The goal is to develop and release more than 1,000 improved crop varieties over the next 10 years.
"We've adopted a small grant mechanism that gets money out to plant breeders on the ground, so that they can, over a period of years, and selections and lots of consultations with local farmers, and access to the world's gene banks, come up with something that's truly novel, much higher yielding and resistant to local diseases and with the taste and texture that local people want," said Joseph DeVries, director of PASS.
"To leap to the GM model at this stage, just seems like it's ignoring a lot of the things that make sense locally, that people can do locally without it," he said.
Kostas Stamoulis, director of the FAO's Agricultural Development Economics Division, said only a few food crops are in wide use in genetically modified forms, and most are not well adapted to the varied and often extreme environmental conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa has eight or more staple crops that are grown in a wide variety of climates and conditions, making it far more of a challenge than in Asia, where single staple crops, such as rice, are grown in relatively homogenous conditions over wide areas. Stamoulis emphasized the need for all kinds of technology, including traditional plant breeding.
He said there should be a balance between "people that, in my view, make the extraordinarily dangerous proposition that you can feed the world with organics, which is absolutely crazy, and those who are fanatic about GMOs without looking at the full balance of options."
WHERE'S THE MONEY?
The FAO said last month the world needs to invest $83 billion a year in agriculture in developing countries to feed a predicted population of 9.1 billion people in 2050.
To achieve that, both public and private investment on a grand scale is needed, but the trend on the public side has been discouraging. Official development assistance to agriculture plunged 58 percent in real terms from 1980 to 2005, dropping from 17 percent of total aid to 3.8 percent over that period. It now stands at about 5 percent, the FAO said.
Yet, the payoff from agricultural investment, particularly by governments, can be seen in Brazil, a case study in how the Green Revolution transformed a developing country.
Within a few decades it developed from a producer of a handful of cash crops into one of the world's largest producers of food stuffs, with an agriculture business worth nearly 300 billion reais ($172 billion) in annual sales.
Brazil began its Green Revolution in the mid-1970s, with the creation of the government farm research firm Embrapa, which resulted in increased diversification and productivity of crops as well as the expansion of cropland.
Each year Embrapa measures the return to society from research in agriculture. Latest figures show that each dollar spent on agriculture research generates a return of $13.50.
Last year's food crisis, when fears of food shortages gripped grain markets -- sending wheat and rice prices soaring to record highs and sparking hoarding and riots -- was a wake-up call, one that experts hope will translate into sustained investment.
The unrest was a powerful reminder of the risks of food insecurity and helped spur the world's richest nations to promise to spend $20 billion over three years to help small, subsistence farmers improve their productivity.
U.S. President Barack Obama has launched a $3.5 billion hunger and food security initiative focused on agriculture.
Back on the farm in Italy, Oglio said an operation like his can be run on a shoe-string budget, without the sort of subsidies that prop up agriculture, even in the wealthy European Union.
The 87-acre (35-hectare) farm that his parents used to run in a conventional way was on the edge of bankruptcy 20 years ago, burdened by high operating costs and competition in the changing economy of Europe.
With his back-to-nature methods, Oglio turned the farm around and now makes profits.
But that is a very European story. His customers, he admits, are willing to pay more for his healthful products because many of them are environmentalists.
The world's poorest people -- 1 billion of them -- may not have the luxury of making that choice.
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON/MILAN (Reuters) - At first glance, Giuseppe Oglio's farm near Milan looks like it's suffering from neglect. Weeds run rampant amid the rice fields and clover grows unchecked around his millet crop.
Oglio, a third generation farmer eschews modern farming techniques -- chemicals, fertilizers, heavy machinery -- in favor of a purely natural approach. It is not just ecological, he says, but profitable, and he believes his system can be replicated in starving regions of the globe.
Nearly 5,000 miles away, in laboratories in St. Louis, Missouri, hundreds of scientists at the world's biggest seed company, Monsanto, also want to feed the world, only their tools of choice are laser beams and petri dishes.
Monsanto, a leader in agricultural biotechnology, spends about $2 million a day on scientific research that aims to improve on Mother Nature, and is positioning itself as a key player in the fight against hunger.
The Italian farmer and the U.S. multinational represent the two extremes in an increasingly acrimonious debate over the future of food.
Everybody wants to end hunger, but just how to do so is a divisive question that pits environmentalists against anti-poverty campaigners, big business against consumers and rich countries against poor.
The food fight takes place at a time when experts on both sides agree on one thing -- the number of empty bellies around the world will only grow unless there is major intervention now.
A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has catapulted the number of hungry people in the world to more than 1 billion. The United Nations says world food output must grow by 70 percent over the next four decades to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people by 2050.
International leaders are gathering in Rome next week for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's World Summit on Food Security and will hear competing arguments over how best to tackle the problem. One of the fiercest disputes will be over the relative importance of science versus social and economic reforms to empower small farmers to grow more with existing technology.
"LISTEN TO NATURE"
Much of Europe has moved away from an agricultural system of small farms to mass commercial farming, but Italy still retains a base of family farmers who produce everything from olives to mozzarella cheese.
Oglio is one of them. A charismatic 40-year-old, he dropped out of an agricultural school after growing disillusioned with the farming methods being taught there. Today, he lets nature run its course as he grows cereals and legumes on his small family farm in Belcreda di Gambolo, about 20 miles southwest of Milan.
He does not use any chemical, or even natural fertilizers or pesticides. He does not weed his fields. "All you need to do is observe nature, listen to it, do what nature suggests and it will take care of everything," he said.
His fields, in a low-lying plain that has a long history of growing rice used for risotto, replicate patterns found in nature. For example, clover and millet grow together, feeding each other with necessary minerals.
Oglio said his farm is eco-sustainable. He has slashed operating costs by eliminating expensive commercial products like herbicides and by reducing the use of agricultural machinery to a minimum. Such cheap and low-maintenance farming could be adopted in Africa and other regions hit by poverty and hunger, he said.
"Natural farming will not save the world. But it can feed poor families," he said.
But it's unlikely it can do so on the scale that most experts believe is necessary. And therein lies the rub. Affluent consumers may prefer the Oglios of the world to the Monsantos, but their skittishness about high-tech agriculture is making it more difficult to grapple with the mounting crisis over the lack of food.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
The last time the world faced such dire predictions of famine was before the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when countries like India and China transformed their agricultural systems to become self-sufficient in food. They did so by harnessing plant-breeding technology to raise yields on rice, wheat and other staple crops.
Through massive state investment in hybrid rice, China, the world's most populous country, raised its yields from two tons per hectare in the 1960s to more than 10 tons per hectare by 2004. Chinese scientists seek further gains -- 13.5 tons per hectare by 2015, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which cites China's rice program as one of the true success stories in agricultural development in a study out this week (November 12) called "Millions Fed."
To be sure, the Green Revolution had its downsides -- environmental damage, to name one. In India, for example, water tables are drying up and the soil has been degraded by pesticide and fertilizers. The movement also contributed to the rise of big commercial farms at the expense of small holders, fueling resentment from its early days at what critics see as the "corporatization" of food.
But millions of people were saved from starvation, and the movement's architect, Norman Borlaug, received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.
With their populations soaring, however, India and China -- not to mention most of Africa -- still face challenges, especially as climate change exacerbates environmental problems that have already slowed growth in food production.
IFPRI, part of a global network of agricultural research centers, said last month lower yields due to climate change would cut "calorie availability" for the average consumer in a developing country in 2050 by 7 percent, compared with 2000.
Higher temperatures reduce crop yields while encouraging pests and plant diseases. For almost all crops, South Asia would experience the largest declines in yields. IFPRI said rice output in the region would be 14 percent lower than if there were no climate change.
"India sorely needs another Green Revolution," said Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, joint managing director of Bajaj Hinduthan, India's top sugar producer, which is importing raw sugar after a drought hit the domestic cane crop.
But a second green revolution would face a strong counterinsurgency, even in a place like India that benefited so profoundly from the first one.
"The point is that chemicals destroy the sustainability of productivity in the long run ... Yes, a second green revolution is indeed very essential -- the very need of the hour. But it should not be the same kind of green revolution that the first was," said P.C. Kesavan, a fellow at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, set up by the father of India's Green Revolution.
Economists and scientists in India are demanding a raft of policy initiatives, including allowing genetic engineering, which its proponents argue does the same job as traditional plant hybridization, only quicker and more efficiently.
India has so far allowed GM seeds only for cotton, which has boosted productivity, but suggestions of allowing such seeds for edible crops have always evoked strong protests.
CRADLE OF CORN
It's a similar story in Mexico, where Borlaug started his pioneering research in the 1940s at the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program. Mexico issued permits last month for the first time for farmers to grow genetically modified corn.
Considered by many the cradle of corn, Mexico is home to more than 10,000 varieties, used to make the classic tortilla, a staple of the Mexican diet. Corn was first planted in Mexico as many as 9,000 years ago and the grain was adapted by Spanish conquerors in the early 1500s and eventually spread to the rest of the world.
Mexico faces the same dilemmas over GM corn as do many developing countries -- balancing consumer fears with the need to grow more food.
"We see corn as our cultural heritage, our legacy. For us it's not just a question of food, but about conserving our traditions," said Celerino Tlacotempa, who works for an organization of native Nahuatl farmers in the southern mountains of Guerrero state.
"With genetically modified seeds we will lose our varieties of colored corn. There will be no more purple corn, black corn, white corn," Tlacotempa said. "Above all, we will be condemned to buy seeds from companies like Monsanto. It's not sustainable. It's a real risk for the wellbeing of these communities."
At the same time, other Mexican farmers in the north of the country have been cultivating GM seeds smuggled over the border from the United States for some time, attracted by the crops' greater resilience to drought and pests and higher yields.
Tomas Lumpkin, director of CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center that Borlaug started in Mexico, said the country now imports about half of the corn it consumes. With climate change and other pressures, he said, it was vital to raise production using all tools available.
"It is a much more complex and difficult world than Borlaug faced, but we have much more powerful tools than he had, and we need to start testing those and deploying those," he said.
"GMOs are just another set of tools in the toolbox, but we need to be able to use those tools," Lumpkin said. "If we could deploy those varieties so that the farmer in the developing world has the same powerful seed as the farmer in Iowa, why should they be handicapped?"
RICH CONSUMERS RESIST GM
Monsanto launched the world's first genetically modified crop in 1996 and GM crops are now grown in countries ranging from Australia to South Africa, the Philippines and Brazil.
Up to 85 percent of the massive U.S. corn crop is genetically engineered, as well as up 91 percent of soybeans and 88 percent of cotton, according to U.S. data.
As ingrained as GM crops may seem, a backlash against the technology appears to be growing.
Opposition to genetic modification of seeds has long been strongest in Europe. The European Union severely restricts use of GM seeds on its territory, as well as imports of products containing GM-derived food. Individual countries including Germany ban even GM seeds that are authorized, such as an insect-resistant maize type, MON 810, developed by Monsanto.
Now consumer resistance to what British tabloids long ago dubbed "Frankenfood" is taking root in the United States too.
With North America's industrial farming system, consumers who buy packaged goods from grocery stores are likely eating GM products without even knowing it, according to environmental group the Center for Food Safety. The group, which was involved in a successful court battle to stop introduction of Monsanto's genetically engineered alfalfa seed, also contends that up to 70 percent of soda, soup, crackers and other processed goods sold under major household brands are GM derived.
"There really is no human health analysis of GM crops," said William Freese, science policy analyst for the center. "It's a real result of the policy that our government has put in place, which is basically a presumption of innocence."
A banner issue for U.S. anti-GM crusaders is genetically engineered growth hormones for dairy cows, known as rBGH. Introduced in the United States in 1994, rBGH is a drug to extend milk production after a cow gives birth. It was developed by Monsanto but recently sold to Eli Lilly and Co.
Health Care Without Harm, a global coalition of hospitals and other health groups, believes the drug is dangerous because it increases the likelihood of infection in the cow's udder, which leads to greater antibiotic use in the animals. That contributes to antibiotic-resistance in humans, they argue.
Other critics say it may be linked to cancer in humans, despite U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals.
Proponents have won over a string of big names to reject the drug, including the big yogurt makers Yoplait and Dannon, and have also lobbied coffee chain Starbucks to oppose rBGH.
A Starbucks spokesman said the firm's entire core dairy supply comes from suppliers that do not use the hormone.
"Our core products, coffee and tea, are not genetically modified," the spokesman said in a statement. "We have no plans to purchase coffee or tea that is derived from GM sources, now or in the future."
The industry notes that GM research is supported by a number of august groups, including the Royal Society of Britain and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Keywords: FOOD/
"IDEOLOGICAL WEDGE"
For those seeking to end global hunger, rather than just satisfy rich consumers' craving for cappuccino, Africa presents the greatest challenges.
Monsanto, together with corporate rivals, is working with poor countries and charitable groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set up by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife.
At the annual World Food Prize forum last month, Gates warned that the fight to end hunger was being hurt by environmentalists who insist that genetically modified crops should not be used in Africa. He said it was vital to help small farmers there boost production by all means, including GM crops, fertilizer and chemicals.
"This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two," Gates said at the forum for the prize, which was created by Borlaug, who died in September at the age of 95.
"Some people insist on an ideal vision of the environment," Gates said. "They have tried to restrict the spread of biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it."
Rajul Pandya-Lorch, who has worked for the IFPRI thinktank on food for 22 years, summed it up like this: "I'm a Kenyan. I resent very much people telling us in Africa 'OK, this biotechnology is not good for you.' Well, we have different problems than you do, and if it helps us to solve a problem, we should try it."
Yet, even in Africa, there is suspicion of GM technology. Many countries there, such as Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania, do not allow GM seeds.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a Kenya-based group set up in 2006 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation, targets its programs specifically at small-scale farmers.
Three-quarters of the world's poorest billion people live in rural areas, dependent on farming for their livelihoods.
AGRA's Program for Africa's Seed Systems uses conventional breeding to develop new varieties of maize, cassava, beans, rice, sorghum, and other crops resistant to diseases and pests. The goal is to develop and release more than 1,000 improved crop varieties over the next 10 years.
"We've adopted a small grant mechanism that gets money out to plant breeders on the ground, so that they can, over a period of years, and selections and lots of consultations with local farmers, and access to the world's gene banks, come up with something that's truly novel, much higher yielding and resistant to local diseases and with the taste and texture that local people want," said Joseph DeVries, director of PASS.
"To leap to the GM model at this stage, just seems like it's ignoring a lot of the things that make sense locally, that people can do locally without it," he said.
Kostas Stamoulis, director of the FAO's Agricultural Development Economics Division, said only a few food crops are in wide use in genetically modified forms, and most are not well adapted to the varied and often extreme environmental conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa has eight or more staple crops that are grown in a wide variety of climates and conditions, making it far more of a challenge than in Asia, where single staple crops, such as rice, are grown in relatively homogenous conditions over wide areas. Stamoulis emphasized the need for all kinds of technology, including traditional plant breeding.
He said there should be a balance between "people that, in my view, make the extraordinarily dangerous proposition that you can feed the world with organics, which is absolutely crazy, and those who are fanatic about GMOs without looking at the full balance of options."
WHERE'S THE MONEY?
The FAO said last month the world needs to invest $83 billion a year in agriculture in developing countries to feed a predicted population of 9.1 billion people in 2050.
To achieve that, both public and private investment on a grand scale is needed, but the trend on the public side has been discouraging. Official development assistance to agriculture plunged 58 percent in real terms from 1980 to 2005, dropping from 17 percent of total aid to 3.8 percent over that period. It now stands at about 5 percent, the FAO said.
Yet, the payoff from agricultural investment, particularly by governments, can be seen in Brazil, a case study in how the Green Revolution transformed a developing country.
Within a few decades it developed from a producer of a handful of cash crops into one of the world's largest producers of food stuffs, with an agriculture business worth nearly 300 billion reais ($172 billion) in annual sales.
Brazil began its Green Revolution in the mid-1970s, with the creation of the government farm research firm Embrapa, which resulted in increased diversification and productivity of crops as well as the expansion of cropland.
Each year Embrapa measures the return to society from research in agriculture. Latest figures show that each dollar spent on agriculture research generates a return of $13.50.
Last year's food crisis, when fears of food shortages gripped grain markets -- sending wheat and rice prices soaring to record highs and sparking hoarding and riots -- was a wake-up call, one that experts hope will translate into sustained investment.
The unrest was a powerful reminder of the risks of food insecurity and helped spur the world's richest nations to promise to spend $20 billion over three years to help small, subsistence farmers improve their productivity.
U.S. President Barack Obama has launched a $3.5 billion hunger and food security initiative focused on agriculture.
Back on the farm in Italy, Oglio said an operation like his can be run on a shoe-string budget, without the sort of subsidies that prop up agriculture, even in the wealthy European Union.
The 87-acre (35-hectare) farm that his parents used to run in a conventional way was on the edge of bankruptcy 20 years ago, burdened by high operating costs and competition in the changing economy of Europe.
With his back-to-nature methods, Oglio turned the farm around and now makes profits.
But that is a very European story. His customers, he admits, are willing to pay more for his healthful products because many of them are environmentalists.
The world's poorest people -- 1 billion of them -- may not have the luxury of making that choice.
For graphics to illustrate this report see: here here (Additional reporting by Carey Gillam, Himangshu Watts, Raymond Colitt, Mica Rosenberg and Ed Cropley; editing by Jim Impoco and Walter Bagley)
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Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Pentagon Keeps Wary Watch as Troops Blog
Over the course of 10 months in eastern Afghanistan, an Army specialist nicknamed Mud Puppy maintained a blog irreverently chronicling life at the front, from the terror of roadside bombs to the tyrannies of master sergeants.
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A Reservist Describes Life on the Warfront (September 9, 2009)
Links to Blogs and Military Resources (September 9, 2009)
At War: Leashing the Blogs of War Post a Comment on the At War blog
A Reservist Describes Life on the Warfront (September 9, 2009)
Links to Blogs and Military Resources (September 9, 2009)
At War: Leashing the Blogs of War Post a Comment on the At War blog
Often funny and always profane, the blog, Embrace the Suck (military slang for making the best of a bad situation), flies under the Army’s radar. Not officially approved, it is hidden behind a password-protected wall because the reservist does not want his superiors censoring it.
“Some officer would be reviewing all my writing,” the 31-year-old soldier, who insisted that his name not be used, said in an e-mail message. “And sooner or later he would find something to nail me with.”
“Some officer would be reviewing all my writing,” the 31-year-old soldier, who insisted that his name not be used, said in an e-mail message. “And sooner or later he would find something to nail me with.”
There are two sides to the military’s foray into the freewheeling world of the interactive Web. At the highest echelons of the Pentagon, civilian officials and four-star generals are newly hailing the power of social networking to make members of the American military more empathetic, entice recruits and shape public opinion on the war.
Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of American forces in Iraq, is on Facebook. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has a YouTube channel and posts Twitter updates almost daily.
The Army is encouraging personnel of all ranks to go online and collaboratively rewrite seven of its field manuals. And on Aug. 17, the Department of Defense unveiled a Web site promoting links to its blogs and its Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites.
The Web, however, is a big place. And the many thousands of troops who use blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to communicate with the outside world are not always in tune with the Pentagon’s official voice. Policing their daily flood of posts, videos and photographs is virtually impossible — but that has not stopped some in the military from trying.
The Department of Defense, citing growing concerns about cybersecurity, plans to issue a new policy in the coming weeks that is widely expected to set departmentwide restrictions on access to social networking sites from military computers. People involved with the department’s review say the new policy may limit access to social media sites to those who can demonstrate a clear work need, like public information officers or family counselors.
If that is the case, many officials say, it will significantly set back efforts to expand and modernize the military’s use of the Web just as those efforts are gaining momentum. And while the new policy would not apply to troops who use private Internet providers, a large number of military personnel on bases and ships across the world depend on their work computers to gain access to the Internet.
To many analysts and officers, the debate reflects a broader clash of cultures: between the anarchic, unfiltered, bottom-up nature of the Web and the hierarchical, tightly controlled, top-down tradition of the military.
“We as an institution still haven’t come to grips with how we want to use blogging” and other social media, said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the commander of the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
One of the Army’s leading advocates for more open access to the Web, General Caldwell argues that social networking allows interaction among enlisted soldiers, junior officers and generals in a way that was unthinkable a decade ago.
He requires students at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth to blog, and the college now sponsors 40 publicly available blogs, including his own, where policies are freely debated.
But getting approval for those blogs, as well as for YouTube and Facebook access at the college, was a struggle. “At every corner, someone cited a regulation,” General Caldwell said. In recent months, however, “the Army has made quantum leaps” in embracing the Web, he added.
Noah Shachtman, editor of Wired.com’s national security blog, Danger Room, which has reported extensively on the new policy review, said he recently asked students at West Point whether they would allow soldiers to blog. Almost every cadet said no.
“Then I asked, ‘How many of you think you can stop the flow of information from your soldiers?’ ” Mr. Shachtman recalled. “Everybody agreed there is no way to stop this information from going out anyway. So there is this sort of dual-headedness.”
Skeptics of the Pentagon review say it is motivated partly by a desire among certain officials to exert control over the voices of troops on the Web.
Since the advent of military blogging during the Iraq war, some commanders have remained uncomfortable with the art form, citing concerns about both security and decorum.
Over the years, blogs have been censored or shut down, and several years ago the Army instituted requirements that bloggers register with their commanding officers and submit posts for review. As a result, some bloggers say, blogs have become tamer — or, as in the case of Mud Puppy’s blog, gone underground.
Officials knowledgeable about the review say it is a result of growing concerns at the United States Strategic Command, which oversees the military’s use of the Internet, that social networking sites make military computers vulnerable to viruses, hackers, identity thieves, terrorists and even hostile governments. (Those concerns are not focused on the military’s secure system for classified material, which does not use the public Internet.)
The review may already be having a chilling effect. The Marine Corps recently restated a ban on using any social media on its network. And the Army, which in June gave some bases access to Facebook, Twitter and other networking sites, recently urged units to avoid creating new social media pages until the final department policy was issued.
Still, even as they consider restricting the troops’ access to social media, the most senior Pentagon officials have clearly come to view Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging as crucial elements of their public information operations.
“This department, I think, is way behind our curve” in using social media, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said in July as he extolled the use of Twitter by Iranian dissidents.
To critics, the Pentagon’s social media sites are goofy at best, propagandistic at worst. “It’s like your parents’ using modern slang and failing miserably,” said Sgt. Selena Coppa, who writes a blog, Active Duty Patriot, which frequently criticizes the Iraq war and, she says, has gotten her into trouble with her superiors.
But to many troops, the deeper question is whether the military will allow personnel in the field to use the sites the Pentagon itself wants to exploit. For a generation raised on the Web, any restrictions will damage morale, those people say.
“What comes out of my blog is the experiences of a soldier right in the middle of all of this,” Mud Puppy (a nickname for military police), who recently returned home to Illinois, wrote in a recent e-mail message. “I think that people need to hear from us, more than they need to hear from the big whigs. War has a cost, and that cost is paid by soldiers.”
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Thursday, July 30, 2009
Gates and Crowley? Deja vu, or what?
Prof. H. L. Gates
Secretary of Defense, Robert GatesSgt. James Crowley
'Billionaire'Bill GatesAlesteir Crowley
Crowley and Gates?
Is it Deja Vu? Wag the Dog? Or, a Dog and Pony Show?
Are these names more common than we can remember?
Or, are there deeper connotations to these two names?
.
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Professor H. L. Gates?
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it......Matthew 16:18
Aleister Crowley?
33° Mason, Aleister Crowley would definitely get some votes in the "most wicked man who ever lived contest" and is the clear cut favorite for the title of "The Father of Modern Satanism". Crowley's wicked life and his intimate association with Freemasonry are both well known. Crowley himself was terribly decadent. A happily heroin-addicted, bisexual Satan worshiper, he asked people to call him "The Beast 666." Crowley believed that he was literally the antimessiah of the apocalypse.
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http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Wicca%20&%20Witchcraft/aleister_crowley.htm
You can't judge a book by its cover;
Or, a story by its names, but, this one makes me wonder...
Are there any coincidences here? With the names, I mean?
Meanwhile, back at the White House, President Obama, Gates and Crowley will imbibe a brew.
A brew?
.
Are we being subliminally conditioned with these names and a brew? Something is brewing.
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Obama: Bud Light
Gates: Red Stripe
Crowley: Blue Moon
as stated in:
http://thepour.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/a-cold-one-at-the-white-house/?hp
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Or, is it the wine of Babylon that's being served ?
Arsenio.
P.S. Sgt. James Crowley? "Jim Crowley"
Wow!
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation
May 24, 2009
Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation
Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation
America's richest people meet to discuss ways of tackling a 'disastrous' environmental, social and industrial threat
John Harlow, Los Angeles
SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.
The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.
Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.
These members, along with Gates, have given away more than £45 billion since 1996 to causes ranging from health programmes in developing countries to ghetto schools nearer to home.
Related Links
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The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.
Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.
These members, along with Gates, have given away more than £45 billion since 1996 to causes ranging from health programmes in developing countries to ghetto schools nearer to home.
Related Links
Climate change 'biggest threat to human health'
Bill Gates funds unorthodox research
They gathered at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan on May 5. The informal afternoon session was so discreet that some of the billionaires’ aides were told they were at “security briefings”.
Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said.
Some details were emerging this weekend, however. The billionaires were each given 15 minutes to present their favourite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an “umbrella cause” that could harness their interests.
The issues debated included reforming the supervision of overseas aid spending to setting up rural schools and water systems in developing countries. Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.
This could result in a challenge to some Third World politicians who believe contraception and female education weaken traditional values.
Gates, 53, who is giving away most of his fortune, argued that healthier families, freed from malaria and extreme poverty, would change their habits and have fewer children within half a generation.
At a conference in Long Beach, California, last February, he had made similar points. “Official projections say the world’s population will peak at 9.3 billion [up from 6.6 billion today] but with charitable initiatives, such as better reproductive healthcare, we think we can cap that at 8.3 billion,” Gates said then.
Patricia Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gives more than £2 billion a year to good causes, attended the Rockefeller summit. She said the billionaires met to “discuss how to increase giving” and they intended to “continue the dialogue” over the next few months.
Another guest said there was “nothing as crude as a vote” but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.
“This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers,” said the guest. “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.”
Why all the secrecy? “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government,” he said.
Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said.
Some details were emerging this weekend, however. The billionaires were each given 15 minutes to present their favourite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an “umbrella cause” that could harness their interests.
The issues debated included reforming the supervision of overseas aid spending to setting up rural schools and water systems in developing countries. Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.
This could result in a challenge to some Third World politicians who believe contraception and female education weaken traditional values.
Gates, 53, who is giving away most of his fortune, argued that healthier families, freed from malaria and extreme poverty, would change their habits and have fewer children within half a generation.
At a conference in Long Beach, California, last February, he had made similar points. “Official projections say the world’s population will peak at 9.3 billion [up from 6.6 billion today] but with charitable initiatives, such as better reproductive healthcare, we think we can cap that at 8.3 billion,” Gates said then.
Patricia Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gives more than £2 billion a year to good causes, attended the Rockefeller summit. She said the billionaires met to “discuss how to increase giving” and they intended to “continue the dialogue” over the next few months.
Another guest said there was “nothing as crude as a vote” but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.
“This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers,” said the guest. “They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.”
Why all the secrecy? “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government,” he said.
Monday, January 12, 2009
The Converging Crisis (David Gates)
mp3 Audio:
David Gates - The Converging Crisis-Part 2 -----51:52
David Gates - The Converging Crisis-Part 3 -----58:21
Google Video:
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Obama Presidency and the Muslim World
Thursday November 06, 2008 (1823 PST)
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There are three issues of significance in the Muslim world where the USA is directly involved:
Palestine
Iraq
Afghanistan
Contrary to widely held view, the issue of Palestine is close to being resolved. Fatah leader Abbas is too close to Americans to have any credibility; Hammas leadership is too intransigent; but the solution is close at hand. Time is Not on the side of Israel and both solutions on offer are viable: 1) two state solution in accordance with UNSC Resolution 242; 2) one state solution based on the ‘right to return’ of Palestinian refugees and majority rule. That the Israeli President has accepted the King Abdullah plan (of two state solution) indicates that Israel now recognises that it is more favourable to it. If Israel continues to colonise the West Bank, the ‘One State Solution’ would become the only viable option. Therefore, if Barack Obama as President did nothing except to ask Israel to negotiate terms for its coexistence with Palestinians and its Arab neighbours itself, the result will be taking up of one of the two options. It is Israel that needs to hurry if it wanted to continue to exist as Jewish states. Benign neglect – giving no money to either side – is a more apt form of even-handedness that would concentrate minds and yield results.
As for Iraq, Obama has won his historic election victory promising to end the war and withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq within 18 months. If he kept that promise, it would be a victory by his own definition. To resile from that promise would be his defeat. In Afghanistan, Senator Obama said he would win a quick victory and pull out. President Obama is likely to follow through. General Patreus of ‘surge in Iraq’ fame is now the Commander of CENTCOM and he would like to deliver on what his new C-in-C wants. There would be ‘surge’ in Afghanistan, an attempt to separate the ‘good Taliban’ from the ‘bad Taliban’, get the good Taliban on their side and with their help General Patreus would be able to secure, or at least declare, a victory. Thus another ‘good war’ would be brought to a ‘good conclusion’.
Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, is already working on a strategy for the war to be concluded quickly and on US terms. The ‘Gates Strategy’ now in place is unlikely to be changed. What is that strategy? It is founded on a realisation that the war in Afghanistan is being fought as a war of liberation not as a war between secularism and fundamentalism as America wanted. America cannot win against forces of liberation. Such a war is both un-winnable and also a ‘bad war’. The Old Guard, who provide the intellectual and strategy support to Barack Obama, is led by Professor Brzezinski. In his view, Pakistan is ripe for several ‘good wars’ i.e. wars for liberation (of the Baloch tribes and other ethnic group desirous of freedom) and war for the triumph of ‘secularism’ over ‘fundamentalism’, which America can and should support.
The new government in Pakistan is also a product of the same strategy. Every party in the ruling coalition – the PPP, the MQM and the ANP – is a ‘secular’ party. And it is eager for a fight with the ‘mullah-military alliance’. In his interview with WSJ, Pakistan’s President Asif Zardari made repeated appeals to America to help him generously (with 100 Billion Dollars) to compensate ‘him’ for the losses being suffered for the ‘good war’ he is fighting for them. The Pakistani Ambassador in the US, Hussain Haqqani, in his interview with the CNN, went further. He said that the military was now under civilian control but the ‘long established links between the mullahs and the military’ cannot disappear over-night. He put the military on notice – join the good war against secularism or be treated as the enemy and be annihilated. That he gave credence to Indo-US propaganda and provided a rationale for continuation of Predator attacks on Pakistan is less important. What is more important is that the Army has been warned that it would be used to defeat the ‘evil’ force of fundamentalism.
So, Zardari- Haqqani interviews provide a clue to the foreign policy of the new civil government. The policy is that Pakistan is ready for a prolonged ‘good war’ against the evils of ‘fundamentalism and extremism’ but that the US must raise the compensation it pays to Pakistan. The line being used by Zardari is the same as General Musharraf’s, who used it stay in power for eight years: “help me stay in power otherwise the mullahs will take over the nukes”. Hussain Haqqani even wrote a book with Mullah-Military Alliance. He earned a professorship in the USA for his service. But he was critical of Musharraf; he alleged that Musharraf was just ‘pretending’ to be a secular liberal whereas he was an active partner in the mullah-military alliance. Having since joined Asif Zardari, he certifies that the liberal and secular credentials of his new boss are impeccable. So, the battle lines have been drawn for a few good wars – wars of liberation and a war for the triumph of secularism over fundamentalism. In this war, the PPP led coalition is on the side of liberal and secular forces; the armed forces have yet to come on side; the majority of the people of Pakistan are the enemy.
The current US strategy is India-centric. The war in Afghanistan in Afghanistan is to go through three phases: attempt at negotiations with the Taliban; a ‘surge’ and declaration of victory; exit by the bulk of US ground troops leaving India in charge. In the war between secularism and fundamentalism inside Pakistan, India would be active on the side of secular forces and would intervene milirtarily at the ‘right time’. The war in Pakistan would also have several phases: 1) an ‘economic meltdown’; 2) intensification of Army operations in FATA and NWFP; 3) heightening of sectarian/ethnic tension in Sindh and Balochistan. All of this would easily lead to break down of law and order that the present incompetent and unpopular government would not be able to cope with. It would end up calling in the USA – the only forces that could bring all those ‘good wars’ to satisfactory conclusion.
An opinion has been openly and repeatedly expressed in the USA that President Obama would be faced with a situation of Pakistan - a ‘nuclear weapon state’ becoming a failed state. That would be the first challenge to ‘test the mettle’ of President Obama soon after his inauguration. It is difficult to say at this time whether its is a trap being set up for the new President, or he is willingly co-operating with the diabolical scheme. But one thing is clear. If Zardari-Haqqani foreign policy continues into Obama Presidency, Zardari’s desire for more money or for prolonging the war in Afghanistan may not be met but Pakistan will become a failed state. An unpopular military dictator at least has the armed forces to rely on; Asif Zardari has no such dependable support from any quarter inside Pakistan and yet he continues to defy public sentiment on the issue of the restoration of judges and is eager for a war (he deems would be lucrative) on the “mullah-military alliance”.
There is one big lacuna in the scheme. Wars of liberation of tribal or ethnic groups or for the triumph of Secularism have failed spectacularly in almost every Muslim country including Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. Why would Pakistan be different? President Asif Zardari and the coalition of secular forces he leads can deliver a ‘failed state’ as well as ethnic strife. But he cannot deliver their victory. The end result would be a bigger mess than any the USA has managed to create with uncertain consequences. The real challenge for President Obama is not to pursue the Bush-Gates strategy more adroitly but to change that strategy before it is too late. The option of Pakistan centric exit strategy is still open. The US (and NATO) military can and should get out of Afghanistan but its benign civil presence would remain welcome not just by Afghans but almost all of the neighbours of Afghanistan including, no, especially, Pakistan.
Like most Muslims, I would like the first ever a black President who has empathy for Islam and Muslims to succeed. I pray that he avoids the pitfall of India-centric ‘exit from Afghanistan’ strategy. All that is needed is to listen to the voice of the majority in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai and Asif Zardari are chips of the same block; both are eager to build their personal and political fortunes on the blood of Afghans and Pakistanis. Obama has been elected to stop senseless hate and slaughter. He must succeed not just for the sake of the American kids fighting and dying in distant lands among unfamiliar peoples who the Bushes and McCains of the world hold in so much disdain and contempt.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
EMPTYING AMERICA OF JOBS
Gates & 'Both' Parties
Emptying America Of Jobs
By Judith Moriarty
3-9-7
See how the obscenely rich live (Gates) below. A far cry from a FEMA trailer or living under a bridge!
It's more than evident that both parties are sold out to the global corporate supremacists (note the silly-xxx antics in Washington).
This week Bill Gates the richest man on earth testified before a hearing (mere theater) that HE would like to see the CAP on H1-b visas REMOVED ENTIRELY on SKILLED workers (mainly engineering, high tech workers).
How thoughtful that Washington didn't see fit to entertain ANY opposing viewpoint. If they had they might have heard testimony about the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of American high tech jobs that have been outsourced to foreign lands. Or, in numerous cases, betrayal/sellouts like that of KLA Temcor in San Jose, California, whose American workers were forced to train their foreign REPLACEMENTS (if they refused to train them, they would lose any paltry severance pay they were due). The company essentially forced its workers to dig their own graves...
There are approximately 500,000 (and growing) American high tech (computer jobs) workers unemployed shining the light on Bill Gate's LIE that America is so 'lacking' in high tech workers that they have to be 'imported.'
Bill lives in a $100,000 million dollar lakeside 'ecology' mansion (66,000 sq. feet including underground), so he's not exactly worrying about the dying American middle class. Below, see him entertaining Chinese dignitaries (more jobs shipped abroad).
China, of course, is the wondrous land where journalists and citizens have no true internet freedom. Gates has the GALL to be encouraging U.S. students to go into computer science...so they can spend years and big money getting college and university degrees...to then compete with hundreds of thousands of jobless high tech Americans!
Above - Gates' place meanders on for acres with guest houses, theaters, tennis courts, gourmet kitchens, dining halls, etc.
Below - Is Gates selling-off more of our jobs? A foreign high tech worker is paid approximately 1/3 of a typcial American high tech salary...and they receive NO pension, NO health care and NO unemployment compensation benefits.
We are becoming a two-class caste system of the extremely wealthy and a lower, feudal class. Note - In little New Hampshire, thousands of IT (information technology) jobs are GONE. 800,000 H1- B visa foreign workers were brought in between 2000 and 2004 alone. And Gates and his corporate buddies want all limits on these workers removed!
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Emptying America Of Jobs
By Judith Moriarty
3-9-7
See how the obscenely rich live (Gates) below. A far cry from a FEMA trailer or living under a bridge!
It's more than evident that both parties are sold out to the global corporate supremacists (note the silly-xxx antics in Washington).
This week Bill Gates the richest man on earth testified before a hearing (mere theater) that HE would like to see the CAP on H1-b visas REMOVED ENTIRELY on SKILLED workers (mainly engineering, high tech workers).
How thoughtful that Washington didn't see fit to entertain ANY opposing viewpoint. If they had they might have heard testimony about the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of American high tech jobs that have been outsourced to foreign lands. Or, in numerous cases, betrayal/sellouts like that of KLA Temcor in San Jose, California, whose American workers were forced to train their foreign REPLACEMENTS (if they refused to train them, they would lose any paltry severance pay they were due). The company essentially forced its workers to dig their own graves...
There are approximately 500,000 (and growing) American high tech (computer jobs) workers unemployed shining the light on Bill Gate's LIE that America is so 'lacking' in high tech workers that they have to be 'imported.'
Bill lives in a $100,000 million dollar lakeside 'ecology' mansion (66,000 sq. feet including underground), so he's not exactly worrying about the dying American middle class. Below, see him entertaining Chinese dignitaries (more jobs shipped abroad).
China, of course, is the wondrous land where journalists and citizens have no true internet freedom. Gates has the GALL to be encouraging U.S. students to go into computer science...so they can spend years and big money getting college and university degrees...to then compete with hundreds of thousands of jobless high tech Americans!
Above - Gates' place meanders on for acres with guest houses, theaters, tennis courts, gourmet kitchens, dining halls, etc.Below - Is Gates selling-off more of our jobs? A foreign high tech worker is paid approximately 1/3 of a typcial American high tech salary...and they receive NO pension, NO health care and NO unemployment compensation benefits.
We are becoming a two-class caste system of the extremely wealthy and a lower, feudal class. Note - In little New Hampshire, thousands of IT (information technology) jobs are GONE. 800,000 H1- B visa foreign workers were brought in between 2000 and 2004 alone. And Gates and his corporate buddies want all limits on these workers removed!
Disclaimer
document.write("Email This Article");
Email This Article MainPagehttp://www.rense.com/This Site Served by TheHostPros
Source: http://www.rense.com/general75/empty.htm
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