The G7 passes the buck to the G20

• Impossible to certify the end of capitalism’s global crisis

Joaquín Rivery Tur

THEY may be the 20 countries with the most economic weight in the world, but they are not wizards, nor are their computers fortune-tellers. Nobody on the planet can sign the death certificate of capitalism’s global crisis. What just took place in Pittsburgh, in the United States, is best described as buck passing.

The Group of Eight (G8: United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Italy plus Russia) was unable to deal with the global crisis, much less with controlling the tangled neoliberal financial web of the capitalist system, and had no choice but to pass it on to the Group of 20, possibly to dilute the responsibility of the world’s most developed countries for the economic turmoil into which the planet has sunk, and to look to another 12 nations to share the blame.

In reality, the Pittsburgh Summit represents the total failure of the richest nations in their desire to rule and exploit a world that is totally ungovernable for two reasons; one, the social movements are increasingly up in arms over the generalized injustice and, two; the large financial corporations have rooted their power within the highest layers of officials, so as to have free reign for their profit ambitions and, therefore, they cannot be controlled. Governments have always been accomplices.

According to the news agencies, the leaders of the G20 — within which the seven richest nations have greater ability to exert pressure, more influence and the power to coerce — agreed that the new group is to be transformed into "a principal forum for international economic cooperation."

That is an ambiguous sentence. It assumes that the fundamental purpose of the meeting was to collectively attain greater control over financial corporations in order to avert – as far as possible – the risks of a crisis as profound as the one humanity is currently experiencing. In fact, in order to do so, the seven richest countries demonstrated their will to increase by at least 5% the voting power of emerging countries — such as China, India, Brazil and others — within the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as if that could actually change the relationship of forces, and above all, as if the move signifies a major change in the international financial architecture, which the underdeveloped countries have been demanding.

The summit called for stricter regulations on banking activities and limiting bonuses paid to banking/financing executives, who had the power to raise their own bonuses by millions, even in cases where their companies were showing losses that resulted in bankruptcy.

The problem is that a 5% increase in voting power for emerging countries does not mean, for example, that the United States will lose its veto power in the IMF or the World Bank. Instead, it retains a strong lever of pressure, mostly on the Third World, which desperately needs help and investments to pull it out of underdevelopment, but without those nations becoming part of the crazy model of U.S. consumption, which is leading the world to environmental destruction due to climate change and the depredation of nature.

The measures approved in Pittsburgh are an attempt to avoid the phenomena that led to the formation of financial bubbles with a tremendous capacity for explosion and the creation of new crises, but the most serious problem will be how to really control the financial giants, and how to dictate mandatory regulations to govern their fraudulent operations. Is that possible in unbridled capitalism?

It is very difficult not to hold the IMF responsible in good part for what is happening internationally, because its experts should have realized that the financial bubble was about to burst.

On top of the repeated affirmations about how everybody is supposedly emerging from the crisis, in a contradictory fashion, the G20 agreed not to withdraw government aid packages to the major corporations because of a risk of another downturn. Even Chinese President Hu Jintao stated that the alleged recovery "is not as yet solid," and he wasn’t exactly referring to his own country, where not even the crisis has been able to deter its booming economic growth.

Apparently, nobody has learned anything. The G8 (which still exists) has incorporated another group of countries into its vicissitudes, but even that is not a solution, because it is a question of agreements within capitalist globalization, whose neoliberal character is incompatible with government controls. Nevertheless, protectionism is still growing.

The big banks want deregulation, absolute freedom to cheat and take risks in order to satisfy the adrenaline needs produced by financial speculators’ ambition for profits.

With respect to the famous bail-out, in early September, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington revealed that in the second quarter, banks with capitalization and bad loan problems (impossible to collect) totaled 416; in other words, 111 more than in the previous period. A very befogged atmosphere.

The IMF put the frosting on the cake of the crisis a few days ago, when it announced that the planet-wide financial hurricane will affect economic growth for at least seven years, and suggested — now! — the implementation of structural reforms. The result of the crisis forecast by everybody is less employment, less growth, less investment and less productivity. The problem is not one of phenomenon, but of essence. It is called capitalism, no matter how many times you spin the wheel.

granma.cu

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Cuba slashes tobacco acreage amid flagging demand

By Marc Frank:

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cash-short Cuba is slashing the amount of land devoted to growing its famous tobacco by more than 30 percent as the global recession and worldwide spread of smoking bans bite into sales of the country's prized cigars.

Demand for Cuba's cigars fell 3 percent in 2008 and earlier was reported down 15 percent in 2009 because of the recession and the smoking bans adopted in a growing number of places as a public health measure.

Cuba's National Statistics Office, in a report posted on its web page (www.one.cu), said land to be planted with tobacco for next year's crop had dropped to 49,000 acres, down from 70,000 acres, which was in turn less than 2008.

It said the coming crop was expected to be 22,500 tons, down from a planned 26,800 tons. The office blamed the drop on "financial restrictions that made it impossible to count on the necessary resources."

Cuba's prized cigar brands, including Cohiba, Montecristo, Trinidad and Partagas, dominate the world's premium market with 70 percent of sales.

That jealously guarded market share excludes the United States, however, where Cuba's cigars are banned under the 47-year-old US trade embargo against the communist-led island.

A representative of the exclusive distributor of Cuban cigars, Habanos S.A., a joint venture between Cuba and British tobacco giant Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, said the company had no comment on the statistics office report.

Some 200,000 private farmers and their families depend on growing and curing the precious leaf under contract with the government, and tens of thousands of workers earn their living hand rolling the crop into the famous "Habanos" or "Puros" for export.

Tobacco seedlings are currently being readied for planting from November through January, with harvesting of the quick growing leaf beginning 45 days later. After that a year-long process of drying and curing begins.

Cuba's dozens of cigar rolling factories have operated at well below capacity this year.

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

G20 may blacklist Caribbean regulatory havens

ISTANBUL, Turkey (Reuters) -- The Group of 20 major nations may blacklist countries that have lax financial regulation and impose sanctions on them, mirroring its crackdown on tax havens, Chancellor Alistair Darling was quoted as saying.

"Just as we want to go after tax havens, we want to go after regulatory havens as well," Darling told Emerging Markets magazine in an interview published on Saturday.

"It is not good for financial stability that some companies can operate out of a Caribbean island, and shelter behind a veil of secrecy, and we don't know what they are up to."

Darling's remarks, some of the strongest yet on the issue by a senior G20 official, suggested the group was determined to impose financial reforms comprehensively around the globe to reduce the risk of another credit crisis.

The G20, which groups the United States and other rich countries along with developing nations such as China and India, is pushing for wide-ranging changes in financial regulation -- from bank capital standards and bankers' pay to corporate accounting rules and supervision of financial institutions.

Emerging Markets magazine said the Financial Stability Board, which coordinates the G20's regulatory initiatives, would prepare a "provisional blacklist" of regulatory havens by a meeting of G20 finance ministers in November, as well as a grey list of countries that also should tighten standards.

The FSB will suggest the use of positive sanctions, such as help with improving a country's regulatory capacity, as well as negative sanctions, such as raising the cost of doing business with banks in a blacklisted area, the magazine reported.

Darling, visiting Istanbul for a meeting of finance officials from the Group of Seven rich nations and the International Monetary Fund's semiannual meeting, was quoted as saying big institutions which triggered the credit crisis had traded in every corner of the globe.

"We have an interest in making sure that the regulatory regime is robust, so that you don't end up with banks falling between stools," he said.

"I am concerned about countries that don't have such robust regimes. As it becomes less and less clear what exactly their arrangements are, that could have quite a destabilising effect on other countries."

The G20's crackdown on tax havens has had considerable success. G20 leaders agreed in April to name and shame the world's tax havens with a public list, and threatened sanctions for countries not falling into line.

Since then, some European countries, such as Switzerland, have made concessions on bank secrecy laws in an effort to get off the list. On Thursday, the government of France said French banks had promised to close all their branches in jurisdictions considered to be tax havens from March 2010 onwards.

October 5, 2009

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

U.S. Congress Urged to End Ban on Cuba Travel

By Maria Peña:

WASHINGTON – Activists lobbied on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a bill that would remove restrictions on travel to Cuba for all Americans, arguing it would be in keeping with President Barack Obama’s pledge to change U.S. policy toward the communist-ruled island.

During a meeting at the House of Representatives’ Rayburn House Office Building, several congressional leaders and more than 70 activists from a dozen states said the travel ban violates Americans’ basic rights.

Supporters of the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, including Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel and Bill Delahunt and Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, say Washington has tried for more than four decades to isolate Cuba economically and diplomatically without achieving the desired result.

They added that now is the time to try something different and that the bill has enough support in the House and Senate to be approved before year’s end.

The measure, submitted in March, would allow all Americans to travel to the island, not only Cuban-Americans with family members living there. Only in the event of war or imminent danger to Americans could travel to Cuba be disallowed.

While hearings on the legislation could begin next month, the proposal faces opposition from Republicans and Cuban exiles, who denounce the continued violation of human rights on the island.

In April, Obama lifted restrictions of Cuban-Americans’ travel and remittances that had been imposed by the Bush administration and allowed U.S. telecommunications companies to apply for licenses to operate in Cuba.

In an exception to the economic embargo imposed in 1962, Washington for several years has allowed the sale of U.S. farm products to Cuba. The value of those transactions averages around $500 million a year.

Some experts who took part in Wednesday’s meeting told Efe that the measures Obama has adopted thus far are limited and insufficient.

“It disappoints me that more things aren’t being done more quickly, because most Americans support a relaxation of the embargo. We have nothing to show for the embargo, which has been in place for decades,” said John Block, agriculture secretary under the Ronald Reagan administration.

“We travel to and do business with China and Vietnam. Aren’t we being hypocritical with this? We should open up trade with Cuba because this embargo is only providing the regime in Havana with an excuse” for the island’s economic woes, Block said.

For his part, Wayne Smith, who served from 1979-1982 as chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, said that Obama “hasn’t done anything” and that, as a step toward change, “we should start a dialogue and lift the travel restrictions.”

“It’s disgraceful for a handful of lawmakers to block legislation when most Americans and the new generation of Cuban-Americans want relations with Cuba to improve,” Smith said.

Obama has said he will not consider lifting the embargo – imposed three years after Fidel Castro took power – unless Cuba frees political prisoners and undertakes democratic reforms.

Wednesday’s lobbying effort, described by organizers as an “education day for lawmakers,” comes amid a possible thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba, which have resumed talks on immigration, suspended in 2004, and are mulling the possible resumption of postal service after 46 years.

Bisa Williams, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, met recently in Havana with high-ranking Cuban officials to discuss a range of issues. She visited an agricultural facility and areas affected by the three hurricanes that battered the island last year, the State Department said Tuesday.

She was the highest-ranking State Department official to visit Havana since 2002.

Leaders of Cuba’s dissident movement said Wednesday that they met with Williams during her stay on the island.

The chairman of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Elizardo Sanchez, told Efe that encounter took place over lunch at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Miriam Leyva, founder of the Ladies in White, a group comprising relatives of political prisoners, said Williams encouraged them to express their opinions and “showed solidarity at all times.”

Among the issues discussed, Leyva said, was the plight of Cuba’s 208 political prisoners, the government’s repression of the opposition and the situation in general on the island.

Also present for the lunch were prominent dissidents Vladimiro Roca, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Laura Pollan and Marta Beatriz Roque. EFE


laht.com

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

Dark days of revolution and coup

Analysis by Rickey Singh:



MANY DISTURBING questions remain about the destruction of Grenada's "revolution" and the related United States military invasion of 1983 that occurred some seven years prior to the aborted Muslimeen coup in Trinidad and Tobago.

There continues to be, for instance, disagreements over the precise number of those killed and buried in unmarked graves 26 years ago on that bloody day of October 19, when Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, symbol of "the revo" was executed along with leading cabinet colleagues.

Likewise, there continues to be serious questioning of the "legality" of the US military invasion one week later, as was hatched in Washington and carried out by the then Ronald Reagan administration in the face of a sharply divided Caribbean Community.

Among the lead objecting governments were those of Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and The Bahamas while Barbados, Jamaica and St Lucia were in the category of primary collaborators.

There have been court trials and sentencing of those convicted for the murders committed in Grenada, with the leading players, like Bernard Coard, now finally freed.

Here, in Trinidad and Tobago, there remains unfinished legal battles and political squabbles about the roles of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen and its leader Yassin Abu Bakr.

For all the passionate debates about the abortive Muslimeen coup and the collapse of the 'revolutionary' experiment in Grenada, no government in either Port-of-Spain or St George's has shown the slightest interest to date in the establishment of an international commission of inquiry, with clearly defined mandates, so that the public could benefit from the lessons of the respective tragedies of 1983 and 1990.

In the absence of such lessons to be learnt, some may well recall the maxim of the philosopher George Santayana, that "those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it".

Now, as fresh debates surface over the implications of the Muslimeen's failed coup and the US invasion of Grenada , concerns are being expressed over some claims involving the executioners of Bishop and others.

One example I have chosen to focus on pertains to the tales told by a retired Barbadian police officer who has been "recollecting" his "discoveries" as an "investigator" into the circumstances of the killings that took place at Fort Rupert on October 19, 1983.

'Heartless killers", he claimed in an interview published by the Barbados Daily Nation on September 14. It subsequently appeared, in part, in other regional newspapers, including the Trinidad Express.

The "heartless killers" headline was taken from a statement attributed to the retired crime investigator, Jasper Watson, in reference to the release, a few days earlier, of Bernard Coard and others who, he feels, "should have been hanged" for the murder of Bishop and others.

Having previously written much about the killing spree of October 19, 1983; the primary executioners and their victims; the death of the "People's Revolutionary Government; as well as the US invasion, my primary interest at this time is to secure, if possible, some answers to a few of the claims of the former Barbadian "lead investigator" during that those dark days in Grenada.

Watson is entitled to his views that Coard and fellow condemned 'comrades' should have been hanged. Personally, I do not favour the death penalty for murder. My interest in his "heartless-killers" contention relates specifically to two observations:

* First, his claim-offered without any supporting information- that he had "discovered a plot to poison the Barbadian police investigators" by immediate relatives and friends of Coard and other then held as prisoners for the slaughter of October 19.

* Secondly, his "recollection" about a three-year-old girl being thrown into a truck and placed among dead bodies..." knocked down with a gun butt by a soldier and carried away while crying 'mummy', 'mummy', and later "buried with the dead at Camp Feddon..."

Is there any way this former lead "investigator" could help, in the interest of public information, to share some relevant details, at least about the little girl who was "buried" (alive?) at Camp Feddon, even if reluctant to offer more than his claimed "poison plot discovery"- useful as this also would be?

Journalists and others with whom I have spoken (including in Grenada, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago) to seek help on Watson's astonishing claims, have admitted to "no recollections" of either the "poison plot", or the more traumatic incident told about the three-year old child.

Hence, the following questions:

* Did any of those claims/allegations surface at the trials of the accused condemned for the murder of Bishop and others?

*Is there any police record, known to Watson, about this child among "missing persons" during that dark period in Grenada's history?

Since, as Watson said, the tragedy of the little girl "will remain with me for eternity", he should enlighten us about his own efforts to trace her family connection as well as indicate whether he had engaged the Grenada Police Force, then or subsequently, about either the "poison plot" claim, or the "burial" of the unknown little girl?

I anxiously await Mr Watson co-operation in the interest of facts and justice.


October 4th 2009

trinidadexpress

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Honduras: UN officials sound alarm over crackdown on freedoms

2 October 2009 – The head of the United Nations agency tasked with upholding the freedom of expression today led a chorus of UN voices expressing concern over the suppression of civil liberties in Honduras following a coup d’état in the Central American country in June.

Since the return of ousted President José Manuel Zelaya to Honduras on 21 September, authorities have declared a state of emergency, suspending freedom of opinion and expression, movement and association.

“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Honduras,” said UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura.

“Freedom of expression is a particularly important human right that must be preserved if a durable solution, acceptable to all, is to be found to the crisis,” stressed Mr. Matsuura.

The authorities who took power in June have issued a decree sanctioning the suspension of any media outlet that “attacks peace or public order,” or that broadcasts messages that “offend human dignity, officials, threatens the law or government resolutions” after Mr. Zelaya returned to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, and sought shelter in the Brazilian embassy.

“It is important that political tensions in the country be resolved in a manner that is mindful of the rights of citizens to engage in informed debate,” said Mr. Matsuura in a message calling on authorities to reconsider their position in the light of democratic principles.

A group of independent UN human rights experts noted that the decree also allows the police to repress all non-authorized public meetings or demonstrations, and had resulted in the deaths of five people in the last few rallies, including an 18-year-old youth.

“It is worrying that police and military officers are resorting to the use of excessive force, including beatings and shootings, in order to dissolve street protests,” the group of four experts said in a joint news release.

“The result of these interventions has been large-scale detentions, in some cases in non-authorized detention facilities, where those arrested run the risk of being subjected to torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” the experts added.

The group of experts, who report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on an unpaid basis, consisted of El Hadji Malick Sow, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; Margaret Sekaggya, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

UN News

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Unemployment rate inches higher in Latin America and Caribbean, UN reports

2 October 2009 – The urban unemployment rate in Latin America and the Caribbean has climbed slightly to 8.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2009, with the United Nations forecasting that rate will stay constant through the end of the year.

This marks a 1 per cent rise in unemployment from last year, which means that 2.5 million more people have joined the 18.4 million people out of work in the region, according to a bulletin published by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The second quarter saw exports contract in response to sluggish demand on global markets, while remittances and foreign direct investment also plummeted due to the global financial turmoil, it said yesterday.

“Since the end of 2008, the countries of the region had started to implement countercyclical policies – albeit with significant differences – in an effort to use public spending to counter flagging investment and consumer-spending levels and boost aggregate demand,” according to the bulletin, the second joint effort by the two UN agencies.

Gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted nearly 2 per cent in the region so far this year,

Labour-market trends observed in the first half-year, together with the forecast for a 1.9 per cent decline in regional GDP in 2009, suggest that the average annual rate of urban unemployment in the region will be close to 8.5 per cent.

“Youth have paid a high cost for the crisis or economic slowdown, given that unemployment among youths has increased significantly,” the bulletin said.

But it said that there are signs that the worst of the economic crisis has already been seen in mid-2009, with signs of recovery, including an end to production declines.

“Public investment can undoubtedly be a powerful tool for creating jobs and boosting the economy in times of crisis,” ECLAC and ILO said, also calling for emergency employment programmes.

Boosting public investment to spur job growth entails a lag, they said, underscoring the need for speeding up projects and execution of existing resources in the short term.


UN News

Bahamas Blog Bahamas