This Week You Need To Know
Here are the remarks of Lyndon LaRouche to a June 9, 2006 Washington webcast. His spokeswoman Debra Freeman introduced LaRouche. After his keynote, LaRouche asked Civil Rights heroine and Schiller Institute Vice Chairwoman Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson to make a few remarks. The full webcast can be viewed at www.larouchepac.com.
Debra Freeman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Debra Freeman. I serve as Lyndon LaRouche's national spokeswoman, and on behalf of the LaRouche Political Action Committee, I'd like to welcome you to today's seminar. I also would like to give a special welcomealthough I know that there are many audiences gathered around the United States, listening to these proceedings via the worldwide web, as well as various audiences gathered around the worldI wanted specifically to give a welcome to the audience which is currently participating from the Argentine Congress. This has become something of a tradition with these webcasts. I'm reminded that this is actually the sixth webcast that is being broadcast directly into the Argentine Congress, so we'd like to give them a special welcome today.
When we scheduled today's proceeding, it was with the idea that we had to escalate the drive in the United States, and we had to escalate the understanding in the United States, of the urgent necessity of Congress moving on a piece of legislation that Lyndon LaRouche motivated with the authorship of the "U.S. Economic Recovery Act of 2006." I think many of you are familiar with this document. For those of you who are not, it is available on the website [www.larouchepac.com].
This document was born largely out of the dialogue at that last proceeding of this type. However, in the period of time that has ensued, as the discussion of Mr. LaRouche's proposal has indeed intensified, not only in the Congress but across the United States, as members of the LaRouche Youth Movement have escalated their interventions in Democratic meetings in virtually every state, in trade union meetings in virtually every state, one of the things that we recognized is that it was very important to identify for people, not simply the bread-and-butter issues, if you will, that Mr. LaRouche addresses in this documentthe issues that have to be addressed from the standpoint of saving the U.S. economy, and of saving our vital machine-tool infrastructure capabilitybut that for people to fully understand the urgency of what Mr. LaRouche was proposing, they had to understand it in a broader strategic context....
InDepth Coverage
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LAROUCHE WEBCAST
Felix Rohatyn and The Nazis
Here are the remarks of Lyndon LaRouche to a June 9, 2006 Washington webcast. His spokeswoman Debra Freeman introduced LaRouche. After his keynote, LaRouche asked Civil Rights heroine and Schiller Institute Vice Chairwoman Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson to make a few remarks. The full webcast can be viewed at www.larouchepac.com.
Rohatyn: The French-Nazi Connection
by Pierre Beaudry and Jeffrey Steinberg
Some gullible individuals, including gullible members of the U.S. Congress, still think that Felix Rohatyn is just another nasty banker. What they don't understand, or choose not to understand, is that Rohatyn is an extension of the 1930s and 1940s Nazi operations inside France, operations associated with a London/Paris-centered faction of international finance, known then and now as the Synarchist International.
Expand, Not Cut, AmeriCorps: Asset for Economic Recovery
by Edward Spannaus
AmeriCorps, the national-service program launched in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, provides a ready-made institutional structure which could be rapidly expanded to involve hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, of youth and others, in full-time programs of national reconstruction and service.
Germany Must Retool Auto To Foster Growth
by Rainer Apel
Between 1991 and 2003, the German national economy lost 2.8 million jobs in the productive industrial sector, or one out of four jobs. Textiles, garments, and leather products lost twothirds of their workforce during this process. These jobs were not replaced by other industrial jobs, and thus led to a drastic increase in long-term unemployment, which forced many workers, including engineers, to work in the service sector.
The World Needs Nuclear Energy Now!
by Marsha Freeman
It's possible today to forgo nuclear energybut only if you are willing to have an average lifespan of under 30 years. Contrary to what you may have heard or read, the world does not need nuclear power because we are running out of oil, because natural gas is too expensive, or because burning coal is leading to 'global warming.' Although none of these axioms is even true, in fact, the world needs nuclear power because it is a superior form of energy, required for a variety of applications that enable the world's population to live longer and better. These include the efficient production of electricity, advances in medicine, improvements in agriculture and the preservation of food, the creation of fresh water and new materials, and propulsion systems to explore the Solar System and beyond.
Iran: The Offer Is On the Table
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
Unless Vice President Dick Cheney jumps the gun and orders a military attack against Iran, under cover of an orchestrated terror incident during the World Cup soccer games in Germany, for example, there would be good reason to believe that the so-called 'nuclear conflict' around Iran's nuclear energy program could be resolved through diplomatic means, giving each side its just reward.
Iraq: Will It Be Peace Or a New Dark Age?
by Hussein Askary
By the first week of June, it was becoming clear that, unless something is done very soon, Iraq would soon look as if the Mongol army of Hulagu was there once again. Something must happen in Washington to change the course of the insane Cheney-Rumsfeld policy, because, although Iraqis might wish to do something, they are not the absolute determining factor.
Lo´pez Obrador Bombshell
Mexico Should Follow Kirchner on Debt
by Gretchen Small
On the campaign trail in Jalisco June 1, Mexican Presidential candidate Andre´s Manuel Lo´pez Obrador dropped a bombshell, announcing that should he win the July 2 elections, he intends to renegotiate Mexico's debt as President Ne´stor Kirchner did for Argentina.
Book Review
Vernadsky Essays On Geochemistry
by William Jones
Essays on Geochemistry and the Biosphere
by Vladimir I. Vernadsky
Sante Fe, N.M.: Synergetic Press, 2006
500 pages, paperback, $49.95
The publication in English of a new volume of writings, Essays on Geochemistry and the Biosphere, by the great RussianUkrainian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, should be viewed with great interest, and not only by those active in the scientific fields with which these essays deal. It is also to be hoped that the publication is a harbinger of more to come in English from the Vernadsky writings.
Cheney Provokes Brawl Within GOP Over NSA Wiretaps
by Edward Spannaus
Frantic to prevent any further exposure of his illegal wiretap and surveillance programs, Vice President Dick Cheney provoked an extraordinary confrontation with the Republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, by going behind his back to block a hearing on the NSA spying program.
Who Funds Rohatyn's Democratic Stooges?
by Judy Feingold and Tony Papert
Among all the groups sharing the 'Democratic' label, the Democratic Leadership Council, or DLC, and its magazine, Blueprint, are the most shameless in their promotion of fascist financier Felix Rohatyn, and their support of his brand identification as a 'Democrat.'
LPAC Ads Demand Congress Act Now!
by Bonnie James
A political bombshell was detonated in the nation's capital during the first week in June, when recipients of the 'mustread' Capitol Hill weeklies, The Hill (June 7) and Roll Call (June 8), opened their newpapers to find a three-quarter-page ad, sponsored by the LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC), under the headline, 'Congress Must Launch Emergency Economic Action Now!'
Conyers Launches New Congressional Caucus for National Health Insurance
by Patricia Salisbury
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) announced the formation of a new Congressional caucus June 7 to rally support for his national-health insurance bill, HR 676. Known as 'Medicare for All,' the Conyers bill would put the country on a singlepayer system to provide coverage for all U.S. residents who sign up for it.
Chip Berlet and the Ford Zoo
by Anton Chaitkin
John Foster 'Chip' Berlet, a sewer creature who has been paid throughout most of his adult life to slander American political leader Lyndon LaRouche, will speak June 23 in Colorado to a conference of a tax-exempt charity, the International Cultic Studies Association. Berlet will exhort his audience to demonize LaRouche. He will say that LaRouche's promotion of the political-economic policies of Franklin Roosevelt, and his attack against the Bush-Cheney Administration, 'are a coded form of historic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that appear in the infamous hoax document, the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' '!
It's Cheney, or the Constitution
Events in Congress this week further underscored what has been asserted, increasingly emphatically, by EIR and Lyndon LaRouche himself over the past nearly four years: as long asVice-President DickCheney is in office, the U.S. Constitution is on its way to becoming a dead letter. And if the U.S. Constitution is destroyed, the same fate awaits our nation itself. We've said it before, but it must be said again: For the United States to survive as a thriving, constitutional republic, Dick Cheney has to be removed from office.
U.S. Economic/Financial News
Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany (1997-2001) and current chairman of Lazard & Co. GmbH in Germany John C. Kornblum made the following comments on globalization. and the need to look at it from the standpoint of the winners, rather than the losers:
"Corporations must assume a growing responsibility for managing change in this new world. Dispersion of governmental power will place burdens on non-governmental players. There will be opportunities, but also dangers. Note the ideological fervor against so-called globalization. These critics reflect the same sorts of arguments that motivated Marx and Engels. They will focus on the losers rather than on the winners. They will paint change as the product of an evil ideology. Capitalism will return as a specter, and global corporations will be the villains."
The comments were in the transcript of a speech (venue unidentified) posted recently on the website of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, where Kornblum is on the board of trustees. Kornblum was Clinton's U.S. Ambassador to Germany at the same time that Felix Rohatyn was U.S. Ambassador to France; he moved to Lazard when Bush took office.
In an editorial commentary in Barron's June 5, Christopher Whalen, co-founder of Institutional Risk Analytics, warned that "there are excesses now visible in the over-the-counter derivatives markets that bear remarkable similarity to the speculative manias fueled by private investment pools in the U.S. a century agomanias that led to financial crashes and the eventual imposition of market regulation by a shocked and outraged Congress."
Whalen says that the various proposals for semi-regulation, such as those of former New York Fed chief Gerald Corrigan, "do nothing to reduce the real deficiencies that continue to make derivatives inefficient, opaque and therefore dangerous to investors," adding his spin that a "public marketplace would eliminate" such problems.
The problem, says Whalen, is that "since highly leveraged hedge funds are the predominant sellers of CDS [credit default swap] contracts to banks, a growing portion of the aggregate credit risk of the U.S. banking system is held by unregulated, undercapitalized players who have little incentive to limit risk."
Meanwhile, the Bank of New York and Amber Partners, a risk certification firm to the hedge-fund industry, issued a warning to investors on June 6 to use "stringent due diligence [and] focus on operational risk processes when choosing hedge fund managers." I.e., choose your seat on the Titanic very carefully.
Fitch Ratings downgraded its issuer default ratings on Ford Motor and its finance unit further, citing an expectation of "accelerated negative cash flows" through at least 2006, Reuters reported June 8. Fitch lowered Ford's issuer default rating by two notches to B+, four levels below investment grade, and its senior unsecured debt one level. Ford Motor Credit's issuer default rating was cut two notches as well, though its debt was unchanged. In the credit derivatives market, meanwhile, the cost to insure against default rose by 12 basis points.
U.S. airlines are expected to lose $3 billion in 2006, but this good news, because it is slightly less than last year, according to media accounts June 5. The airlines have now taken the approach that each flight must be profitable, or it will be cancelled. As a result, the fleet size of the top six airlines has been cut by 21% in the last five years, going from 3,469 to 2,747 planes. American Airlines has just grounded 27 (older) MD-80 craft, while Delta and Northwest have gotten bankruptcy court approval to "return dozens of their aircraft to the leaseholders."
With this decrease in national air transport capability, goes an increase of "pricing power," in Wall Street parlance. Pricing power has risen 9% this year, from an all time low last year. Accordingly, flight capacity is now at a record 77.6%, the highest level its been since the end of World War II, in 1946.
Treasury Secretary nominee Henry Paulson's involvement with China's economic policies is drawing fire from Republican China-bashers, the Washington Post reported June 6. For those who blame China for bringing down the world financial system by being a "currency manipulator," such as the U.S. Business and Industry Council, Paulson has a conflict of interest and should be opposed in the Senate.
Paulson was central to Goldman Sachs' role in managing several major IPOs of Chinese industries, including PetroChina in 2000 and the Bank of China last weeka $9.7 billion deal, the largest IPO in the past six years.
A source in New York, who is close to Paulson, said that the Treasury Secretary to-be will not push the Chinese to revalue, but will push the Fed to continue raising rates to "strengthen" the dollar.
Interestingly, Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the leading critic of China on the Democratic side, has not attacked Paulson on this account, but said that Paulson "will understand the need to get results, and have a good chance of getting it done."
World Economic News
Regulators should closely monitor hedge funds and their complex derivative products to limit systemic risk to the region, as occurred during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, argued Hong Kong's Chief Secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan, who is serving this week as Acting Chief Executive. "I am not sure whether there is sufficient transparency in transactions involving hedge funds to allow regulators to understand and manage the risks involved in the exposure of commercial and investment banks to these firms," Hui asserted at the annual meeting of the International Organization of Securities Commissions June 7.
Hui voiced deep concern about "the high volume and great complexity of new financial instruments for risk transfer, notably financial and credit derivative products."
Derivatives trading is "basically very opaque, posing challenges for regulators in measuring or capturing the financial system's effective exposures," he said. Regulators "should improve the quality of information for risk assessment, especially those relating to financial derivatives and hedge fund activities."
Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission chairman Martin Wheatley also cautioned that the failure of hedge funds "could have widespread consequences for the market."
Hong Kong is home to more hedge funds than any other jurisdiction in Asia, with a total of $17 billion under management by 148 hedge funds in 2005.
United States News Digest
The Los Angeles Times reported on June 5 that the Defense Department has decided to omit a key provision of the Geneva Conventionsthat banning humiliating and degrading treatmentfrom the revised Army Field Manual on Interrogations. If made final, this would violate the McCain-Warner-Graham anti-torture amendment voted up almost unanimously by the U.S. Senate last year, which President Bush asserted that he was not obliged to follow, in a "signing statement" for the defense bill.
It was reported months ago that Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone was in charge of the revision; the Los Angeles Times reported June 5 that Cambone and officials from the Office of the Vice President, particularly Cheney's now-chief of staff David Addington, pressed the hardest in opposition to the State Department and uniformed military lawyers who want to maintain the provision, known as Common Article 3, since it is part of all four of the postwar Geneva Conventions. Common Article 3 bans "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of all persons in a war zone, whether or not they have formal POW status.
A retired Army Ranger, and a long-time activist on veterans issues, told EIR June 5 that the Bush Administration, with its war in Iraq, "set the conditions" for the Haditha massacre to occur. He cited limited and ambiguous rules of engagement and lack of leadership as factors, "but the story that no one wants to write," he said, is that the particular Marine unit has been in Iraq repeatedly, including in both Fallujah battles in 2004, and has suffered heavy losses. "You can only have 9/11 so many days in a row before people are going to break. Yes, a crime was committed, which is inexcusable; however, who is managing the war, managing the rotation of troops, who is conducting the face-to-face clinical encounters after these soldiers are involved in traumatic events, and who is monitoring the medication that they're on? All of these things are parts of the story that haven't been told." He added that, "These soldiers are in survival mode. Foreign policy is so bad, and the situation is so bad, that the only way they think they can get out of there is to kill people."
After being briefed on Lyndon LaRouche's proposal that Iraq war veterans, especially the wounded, be part of an expansion of the Army Corps of Engineers, he said, echoing LaRouche on this very point, that having the ability to draw on a force of people that can respond to infrastructure demands (such as following a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina) is probably a good idea and that's a good place for them.
A resolution voted up by the Maine Democratic Party's state convention, on June 4 calls for a Congressional investigation of "allegations of high crimes and misdemeanors" committed in office by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and urges Congress "to initiate impeachment proceedings against them," if warranted. The resolution accuses the regime of withholding information during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, allowing the torture of detainees, illegally "spying on Americans," and "betray[ing] their oaths" of office, among other charges.
The resolution also calls on the state legislature and Maine's Congressional delegation to push for investigations of Bush and Cheney. Should just one state legislature pass an impeachment resolution, the U.S. House of Representatives would be bound to launch an impeachment investigation.
The convention's resolution came after recent calls for impeachment by Democratic committees in South Portland, and in Hancock, Waldo, and Kennebec counties. The latter is the county of the state capital, where the convention was held June 2-3.
On June 5, ImpeachPAC, a Federal political action committee which funds pro-impeachment candidates for Congress, announced it is endorsing its first candidate for the U.S. Senate, Jean Hay Bright of Maine, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to run against Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe this fall. "I could not believe my ears when I heard that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) said a few weeks ago that the current impeachment talk is just a 'pointless distraction' and would be 'off the table' if the Democrats manage to regain majority status after the November elections," Bright said. On June 1, Bright received the endorsement of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio.
Absent the clear programmatic leadership offered by Lyndon LaRouche, Democrats running in eight state elections June 6 garnered no significant victories, despite the collapsing approval ratings and disarray in the GOP. The "Gore tradition" still prevails, LaRouche commented, and Democrats are trying their best to lose, ignoring the population's demands for something other than talk of the "culture of corruption." One political analyst commented that the Republicans were lucky "to duck a bullet" this time around.
The most closely watched race was the special San Diego election for the seat vacated by Duke Cunningham, now serving a jail term for bribery and other crimes. There, the GOP's Brian Bilbray won over Democrat Francine Busby, 49% to 45%. Although Dems claimed this was a "moral victory," because Busby surpassed John Kerry's 2004 percentage in the Presidential elections there, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee Tom Reynolds, crowed that the results show "that nothing has happened to alter the notion that House elections are about a choice between local personalities focussed on local issues." Busby campaigned largely on "corruption" and "ethics reform," and emphasized Bilbray's work as a "lobbyist." Voter turnout was very low.
Also in California, Dem State Treasurer Phil Angelides beat out State Comptroller Steve Westly 48% to 44%, and will face Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November.
Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni (ret.), in a broad-ranging discussion held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on June 7, called for a complete reassessment of the U.S. role in the world, an assessment that needs to come from within the U.S. "It has to be major and drastic," he said, and it has to include a restructuring of our government to deal with the world as it is. He argued that the government is still based on Cold War structures dominated by stovepipe, bloated bureaucratic structures. "The 9/11 Commission found the problem," he said, "but the response was to create more bloated bureaucracy," which he described as a feudal system of barons that don't talk to each other. "That kind of stovepipe, layered bureaucracy would never survive on the battlefield," he said.
As for Iraq, Zinni was asked by the moderator what were the most important lessons he could bring to the war in Iraq from his experiences in his two tours in Vietnam. Zinni noted that during his first tour, he was sent in as an advisor to the South Vietnamese Marines, after having been trained to speak the language, and that he rarely saw other American troops. From this perspective, "I saw the war through the eyes of the Vietnamese people. They didn't understand what we were asking them to die for. They were just trying to survive. We were selling them an ideal that they didn't see in their government," he said. He invoked Colin Powell's "pottery store" doctrine of "you broke it, you own it." "What we don't understand," he said, "is that when we intervene and become the occupying power, we own it." The problem with the U.S. intervention in Iraq is that we went in with too few troops, with no understanding of the culture, or the security, reconstruction and other issues. "I saw this as a plan to do it on the cheap, which would result in disaster," he said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on June 5, demanding to know if the Pentagon has a policy of blocking letters to Members of Congress from detainees being held at Guantanamo, the Burlington Free Press reported June 8. Leahy said that this was brought to his attention by a Vermont lawyer representing a detainee, who had been told that a letter that a detainee sent to 98 members of Congress had been blocked. "If true, this would be yet another unilateral action by the Bush-Cheney administration to withhold information from Congress, without consultation with Congress," Leahy spokesman David Carle said.
The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, under the leadership of House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif), voted 33-7 to force Rep. William Jefferson (D-La), who is black, off the House Ways and Means Committee. The African American members of the committee strongly objected, arguing that this is the first case of a member who is under investigation, but not indicted, being forced out, and that it smacks of racism.
The Black Caucus used a rule to force a postponement of the vote by the full Democrat Caucus until next week. The Congressional Quarterly reported June 9, however, that Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) talked to Jefferson personally, urging him to step down, but that Jefferson refused.
Ibero-American News Digest
Argentina wants to build its fourth nuclear plant, either on the same site as the Embalse reactor, or the Atucha I (functioning) and Atucha II (which is now being completed, after being stalled for years) reactors, Undersecretary for Fuels Cristian Folgar announced at a conference in Cordoba on June 5.
Argentina's pride at what it has accomplished since the founding of its National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) in 1950 was expressed at the celebrations of "Atomic Energy Day" on May 31, and debunks a recent Greenpeace poll which alleged that "two-thirds of the Argentine people think that the nuclear-energy option should be 'eliminated.'" That pride is expressed not only by the scientists working in the field, but also by workers and the population at large. There are few nations in the world that still celebrate "Atomic Energy Day"!
Dr. Daniel Pasquevich, head of the CNEA-run Bariloche Atomic Center in Rio Negro, underscored in his May 31 speech that nuclear energy "is very important for consolidating the nation," and noted that as a nuclear pioneer, Argentina is well situated to provide technology to those nations which have not yet developed it. He lamented that many highly trained scientists had been forced to leave the country in "self-exile," because of past austerity and anti-science policies, adding that "our human resources are our most valuable ones."
Just about every newspaper in Bariloche, which is also home to the premier nuclear technology company INVAP, owned by the provincial government, issued heartfelt congratulations to CNEA. "We support the national government's decision to complete the Atucha II plant ... which will permit use of the extensive and proven experience of Argentina's nuclear sector," one declared. Another daily welcomed the government's commitment to completing construction of the CAREM prototype reactor "as a prior step toward construction of medium-potency nuclear plants made with Argentine technology."
Argentine synarchists are determined to create a climate of left-right conflict, whipping up military hostility to the government by reviving the dynamic of the 1970s-era "subversives" vs. "the Armed Forces." As President Nestor Kirchner spoke at the El Palomar Military Academy, commemorating the 196th anniversary of the Army's founding on May 29, six officers turned their backs on the President, and another one walked out to protest Kirchner's denunciation of the former leaders of the 1976-83 military junta "who killed their own brothers."
Five days earlier, retired Army officers organized a 3,000-person demonstration in Buenos Aires to rail that Kirchner was siding with the former terrorist Montoneros against the Armed Forces"the Montoneros are in the government" is the lineand to issue a death threat against him (see last week's Ibero-American Digest).
An angry Kirchner responded by leaving the ceremony at the conclusion of his speech, and not reviewing the troops. Lyndon LaRouche commented that he wanted it known, in his name, that Kirchner came out to the event looking for "shining military faces, and all he saw was a bunch of assholes, and he turned on his heels and left."
The old Kissingerian snake Mariano Grondona, columnist for the financiers' daily La Nacion, signalled what's really behind the attacks on the President, when he quoted synarchist Alexandre Kojeveof "purgative violence" famein his June 4 column, to argue that Kirchner governs only through threats and personal attacks, and is therefore an "authoritarian" who is ultimately very weak, against whom the Army is much stronger.
In fact, Kirchner's speech referenced the most revered nationalist figures of Argentine military history, such as Gen. Enrique Mosconi (founder of the state-run YPF oil firm,) and Gen. Manuel Savio (founder of the state-run Somisa steel firm) as examples of the kind of military needed to participate in rebuilding the nation, and be "committed to its future"at the same time, subordinate to its constitutional powers.
Would-be Black Shirt Ollanta Humala was soundly defeated in the June 4 Presidential elections in Peru, giving the victory to former President Alan Garcia, who was widely seen as the "lesser evil." In fact, Garcia publicly acknowledged after his victory at the polls that his 55% vote was only a 25% vote for himself, and the rest was an anti-Humala vote.
A share of the credit for that anti-Humala vote goes to the LaRouche movement, which has organized intensively against the international Synarchist threat that the Humala clanand its backers both in Spain and across Ibero-Americaposes to Peru, including last year's publication of the EIR book The Return of the Beasts: The International Neofascism Behind the Humala.
Garcia has urgently sought to distance himself from his failed first government (1985-1990), while attempting to curry favor with Wall Street, by advocating a free-market economy with a modicum of state involvement. His assertion that the free-market economy "can't solve every problem" is his nod to the widespread hostility to neoliberalism in Peru and throughout the area. At the same time, Garcia has vociferously denounced Venezuelan and Bolivian Presidents Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, and instead, embraced the "pragmatic" models of Brazil's Lula and Chile's Bachelet.
Garcia's pathetic attempt to kiss up to Washington has taken the form of setting himself up as the "anti-Chavez" on the continent, after the Venezuelan President announced a couple of weeks ago that, if Garcia won the elections in Peru, Venezuela would break diplomatic relations with Peru.
Inside Peru, Garcia is starting off with zero popularity. Since no political force has a majority in the Peruvian Congress, Garcia's APRA Party will have to negotiate with the followers of former President Alberto Fujimori, who retain a substantial power base, and with Humala. Despite the defeat of his Presidential bid, Humala took about 16% of the Congress, and had a strong regional showing in the border region with Boliviawhich some observers believe will spell trouble for Garcia.
Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind) and Brazil's Ambassador to the U.S., Roberto Abdenur, published a joint op-ed in the Miami Herald May 6 which idiotically paints cooperation on ethanol as the strategic "key" to reducing frictions between the two countries and accelerating U.S.-Brazil cooperation on all fronts. The U.S. could dramatically lower its oil dependence by spreading the use of E-85 (15% gas/85% ethanol) from the Midwest to the East Coast of the U.S., they write; eliminating U.S. protective tariffs on Brazilian ethanol imports could help encourage East Coast use. They go so far as to propose that the two countries "undertake an international joint action to globalize the production and utilization of ethanol, including by sharing their technology with potential producers of ethanol throughout the world."
So, too, French President Jacques Chirac and Brazilian President Lula da Silva agreed to present a joint proposal on bringing ethanol "technology" to developing countries, Africa and the Caribbean particularly, at the upcoming G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg. Lula called the "Biofuels Declaration" issued on May 25, at the end of Chirac's visit to Brazil, which outlines this idea, one of the principal results of Chirac's visit.
Not to be outdone, Mexican Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorwho otherwise took the daring strategic move June 1, of announcing his intention to renegotiate Mexico's debt à la Argentina (see Indepth this week)also jumped into the ethanol swamp. In a May 31 radio interview, the PRD candidate emphasized the need for "alternative energies" to oil, and said he would discuss implementing a Brazilian-style sugar cane to alcohol program for Mexico, should he win. Lopez Obrador said he has great relations with Brazilian President Lula da Silva, and after July 2, will contact him about this idea.
The Fox government of Mexico is already moving in this direction, as Agriculture Secretary Francisco Mayorga announced on June 2 that five ethanol projects whose production will be exported to the U.S. will be launched this year. Three of the projects will be based on corn, which means there will be less of this basic stable available to the already starving population.
Western European News Digest
According to a report given by Polish Interior Minister Ludwik Dorn during a press conference, 300,000 fans from Poland will be travelling to Germany for the World Cup Soccer games. Of these, only 10,000 have tickets; the rest will watch the games on huge screens in the various cities. According to the Polish Interior Ministry, the Polish Police estimate that there are 3,000 hardcore Polish hooligans who want to travel to Germany. It was also reported that 68 Polish police officers will directly assist the German police during the games.
In a separate interview with German TV Phoenix, outgoing Polish Ambassador Byrt underlined that both Poland and Germany, irrespective of obvious political frictions, have for four years very closely cooperated in the monitoring of the hooligan scene in both countries.
A picture and caption run in the Washington Post June 7 demonstrates the psychological tension before the start of the World Cup Soccer games. The Post ran an archive photo of a confrontation between a soccer player and a policeman during a 1990 soccer game in Zagreb. The caption noted that this was the start of the Balkan wars.
The background to that confrontation were hooligan fights between the Belgrade Red Star team which visited the Zagreb Dinamo Stadium, provoked by a fight between Belgrade soccer player Arkan, Croatian fans and the police. Croatian player Boban got into the fight between the Croatian fans and the police. Today there is a monument in the Zagreb stadium park commemorating that mélée as the "first battle of the war."
The Council of Europe has published a damning report on Europe's role in helping the Bush Administration transport suspects to torture chambers on flights that went through Europe. According to the report, covered in the June 7 Guardian, 14 European nations knowingly cooperated with the U.S., from offering logistical support to supplying intelligence on torture victims.
The investigation was conducted by former Swiss Attorney General Dick Marty, who wrote in the report, "It is now clearalthough we are still far from having established the whole truththat authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities. Other countries ignored them knowingly, or did not want to know." He also said that the program could have operated only with "the international or grossly negligent collusion of the European partners."
The investigation was mostly based on flight information supplied by EuroControl of CIA flights through Europe since 2001. Marty accused the U.S. of creating "new legal concepts" in order to deprive hundreds of suspects of their liberty outside the U.S. "This legal approach is utterly alien to the European tradition and sensibility, and is clearly contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
According to the report, Spain, Turkey, Germany, and Cyprus provided staging posts for rendition operations, while Italy, Sweden, Bosnia, and Macedonia have all allowed the rendition of residents from their soil. Britianlike Ireland, Portugal, and Greeceis described as providing stopovers for CIA planes. Britain is accused of handing over information about its residents and former residents that led to renditions and torture. Based on a study of the rendition flights, Poland and Romania are strongly suspected of providing facilities for the torture of prisoners, despite the fact that they deny it.
In Czechia and Slovakiawhere, in recent years, foreign automobile companies (among them VW, GM, Kia, Hyundai) have opened an enormous concentration of production sites, being offered big tax incentives by the respective governmentsthe gap between rich and poor widening. While in Bratislava, unemployment is at 3%, in Precov, it stands is at 18%. A similar situation exists for wages: In Bratislava, wages are about 30,000; in other parts Slovakia, they are at 17,000, or even 6,000. Add the fact that food, gas, and oil prices have been increasing in recent weeks, as is household debt service, the economic stress on the average citizen is rising.
Hungary held parliamentary elections at the end of April, reconfirming the coalition government of Ferenc Guyrzcany, from the former Socialist Party MSZP, and the liberal party SZDSZ, for a second term. The global financial crisis and last weeks' crisis on the emerging markets not only had a visible effect on Hungary's currency, the Forint, but generally, the mounting tensions in the Eurozone are also reflected in Hungary, as well as in countries such as Slovakia and Czechia. The fight centers around those who insist at adhering to the EU Maastricht criteria at all cost, and those who look for a social-market orientation.
After weeks of unprecedented politically motivated attacks by cabinet ministers of Tony Blair's government in Britain, Jonathan Baume, the general secretary of the First Division Association, which represents 16,000 senior civil servants, shot back at the Blair government, in an interview to be aired on British GMTV.
Baume said the top civil servants he represented were fed up with being "unfairly maligned" by ministers and commentators, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph June 3. The association's membership includes most of the elite group of permanent secretaries heading each goverment department who actually run the British government.
Baume said, "The Labour government is in some difficulty as poll ratings fall and the Conservative Party is revitalized. Some recent criticism of the Civil Service looks like an ill-disguised attempt by some politicians and commentators to make excuses and shift responsibility for struggling policies from ministers to their staff who serve them. These tactics are especially cowardly because civil servants are not allowed to fight back."
The last time such an open criticism by the "mandarins" was launched, was in the dying days of the Conservative government of John Major.
Treasurers of chronically cash-strapped German cities have been lured by clever bankers into more and more speculative investments, under the illusion that they will make some quick euros to balance their budgets, Spiegel reported June 5. Many of these deals have flopped, with the banks always on the winning side, as the ghost of the 1994 Orange County, California bankruptcy hovers over these deals.
At the same time, the association of municipalities in Germany is rightly complaining about the chronic inaction of the government on urgently needed improvements of municipal funding: Emergency repairs of city streets in the range of 25 billion euros, and annual emergency repairs of municipal sewage systems of at least 5 billion euros (with a total backlog of at least 500 billion) cannot be done. Last year, cities did not even have one-third of the funds they needed for urgent repairs. At the same time, several billion euros have been pumped into stadium projects, for the world soccer championship.
Experts warn that another 10-15 years of such degeneration will turn all of Germany's infrastructure into what East Germany looked like, when it collapsed in 1989.
According to a senior Labour Party figure speaking with the Independent June 4, arch-Blairites have taken to emitting scandalous leaks against Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott; this will be brought up at the first meeting of Labour Party MPs after spring vacation. "This just illustrates the level of meltdown that's occurring in No. 10. They are trying to stab John in the back as a way of saving Tony. The Party has had enough of this," the source charged.
Among the only charges brought against John Prescott, who is guilty of supporting strong British entry into the Iraq war, etc., is that he had an affair with a secretary, played croquet at a grace-and-favour mansion on a day when the Prime Minister was away, and waited until being caught playing croquet before giving up the mansion, despite the latest Cabinet reshuffle having taken his department away from him.
The Crown Prosecution Service is reported to be considering bringing possible civil charges against Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan London Police Commissioner, for his role in bungling the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, while branding him with a false terrorist tag, according to press reports June 4.
Meanwhile, no chemical weaponry or equipment to produce it has been located in the case of Mohammed Abdul Kahar and Abul Koyair, who were arrested after Kahar was shot as a suspected terrorist.
Russia and the CIS News Digest
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, at a June 9 press briefing about the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, said that the Presidents of all SCO member states will attend the organization's summit in Shanghai on June 15. He confirmed officially that the Presidents of Afghanistan, India Mongolia, Pakistan, and Iran will participate as observers. He announced that on the sidelines of the summit, Hu will hold bilateral meetings with the Presidents of the SCO members, and also with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Liu also informed the press that India will send its Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Murli Deora, to the summit, and that the CIS and ASEAN will send representatives.
In a series of statements since the beginning of June, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), has begun to specify where Russia will be building the 40 new nuclear plants that he has stated are needed by 2030. Units will be added to existing power plant sites; at Beloyarskaya, Volgodonskaya, and Kalinskaya, units under construction will be completed. Economics Minister German Gref said June 7 that 18 billion rubles, or $674 million, will be allocated for the projects. This also includes the first unit at the Novovorenzhskaya site.
A new site will be opened in the Urals, containing four reactors. Kiriyenko told journalists in Ozersk on May 30 that the region will suffer a lack of electrical energy, "and that a nuclear power plant is needed here to cover the anticipated deficit." He added that nuclear power plants were the largest taxpayers in the Chelyabinsk region. One nuclear plant in the region began construction in 1983, but was suspended in 1990 due to lack of financing and environmentalist protests.
Kiriyenko also announced at the end of May that construction of a $2.1 billion fast-breeder reactor, the BN-800, will be undertaken as a fourth unit at the Beloyarsk plant site. Design work on an advanced sodium-cooled breeder reactor began more than a decade ago, and now will finally be put into operation in 2012.
German financial papers reported prominently on a June 8 Moscow press conference given by Vladimir Dmitriyev, head of the state-owned Vneshekonombank, and the current and incoming leaders, Hans W. Reich and Ingrid Matthaeus-Meyer, of Germany's Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the credit-generating institution that was instrumental in Germany's post-war "economic miracle." The speakers detailed plans for implementation of the agreement, signed April 27 by the two banks, plus Roseximbank and the Russian Development Bank, to establish a new lending institution. Based on a merger of the Russian Development Bank and Roseximbank, the new bank will focus on generating credit for investment projects in three areas: infrastructure, high technology, and housing construction. It will look for medium-sized technology-oriented companies in Russia to back. The bank will be controlled by the Russian government, but, unlike KfW, it will not enjoy explicit state guarantees, at least in the beginning. Germany's KfW will provide assistance. Dmitriyev, who is likely to head the new bank, praised the KfW as a successful example, which Russia needs to copy.
The Russian Development Bank was established at the initiative of Vice-Premier Yuri Maslyukov, during the Yevgeni Primakov government, which was in power for eight months after the financial collapse of August 1998. The RDB has been dead in the water, however, for lack of funding. The new project is slated to be capitalized at over $3 billion. By comparison, Russia's Stabilization Fund, the pool of tax revenue from oil exports that current doctrine forbids to be invested in the national economy, is now over $65 billionand has been sunk largely into foreign government bonds and stock markets.
The LaRouche PAC release, "LaRouche Warns of Cheney Plans To Launch Iran Strike in June," was issued May 24 and began to circulate in Russian five days later. On May 31 Radio Govorit Moskva ("Moscow Speaking") interviewed Yuri Solozobov, current head of the influential National Strategy Institute (NSI) and long-time collaborator of the NSI's founder, Stanislav Belkovsky. Interviewer Serafim Melentyev began by reading aloud to his guest two paragraphs from the LaRouche release, and asking him to comment. Solozobov offered a range of evidence to support LaRouche's warning. He cited the NSI's own February 2005 memorandum, which had "forecast that an aggravation of the situation around Iran, up to and including preventive strikes, would occur exactly between March and October of 2006." At the time, the NSI linked this possibility to the U.S. midterm elections, and now, "Today, Bush's approval rating is 30-35%, which is lower than Nixon's before Watergate, and is one of the lowest ratings any American President has ever had."
The analyst went on to concur with the World Cup Soccer scenario, discussed in LaRouche's release: "Many military analysts, particularly Igor Panarin, of whom I personally think very highly, have pointed to exactly this feature: that the world soccer championship, from a military standpoint, is a good cover, since billions of TV watchers will simultaneously be viewing the stream of news, and there will be online broadcasts, and therefore the picture of an explosion in a stadium, God forbid, could of course become known instantly to TV audiences all over the world." Solozobov commented that the USA would not attempt to sustain a ground attack or occupation, but "action from a distance, including a 12- to 24-day air campaign, has been worked up by the Pentagon a long time ago, and was submitted in February as a working option that can be launched at any moment." This fits with the overall "idea of U.S. military strategy," which is "to be prepared to launch high-precision preemptive strikes, at any moment, against any country that is declared a rogue state."
The Moscow think-tanker commented, "In this context, Lyndon LaRouche's communication, no matter what people's attitude to him may be in America itself, and no matter what his image in the world as an informational scandal-monger, is quite convincingly grounded in both information and analysis."
In the latest of a series of tête-à-têtes they have had since 2003, Russian President Vladimir Putin received former U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger at his residence near Moscow on June 6. Speaking about Russian-American relations, Putin said that the "substance" of the relations was improving, though specific circumstances may cause some variance. Putin said that agreements among the world's great powers, such as the latest proposal for defusing the crisis over Iran's nuclear program, showed that Russia and the USA could understand each other. "Our views do not always coincide, by a long shot, but we on the whole understand each other, which is most important, and we find compromises," he said.
Speaking before the Russian State Duma on June 7, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that "membership in NATO for countries like Ukraine or Georgia would mean a colossal geopolitical shift" and would force Russia to respond. "We evaluate all possible consequences first and foremost from the point of view of the national interest of Russia," he said. Lavrov also attacked U.S. plans to deploy low-yield nuclear weapons and also to put conventional warheads on intercontinental missiles. ITAR-TASS quoted him saying the U.S. was trying "not only to remove the question of disarmament from the world agenda, but also from the public view."
The Duma unanimously voted up a message to the Ukrainian Parliament, expressing its "serious concern" over plans for Ukraine to join NATO. Ukraine's Supreme Rada had still not approved participation in the Sea Breeze 2006 joint exercise with NATO in the Black Sea, scheduled to begin on June 12, and large demonstrations in Crimea have hampered U.S. forces arriving for those maneuvers. Also on June 7, the legislature of Crimea voted 78 to 61 to declare the peninsula "NATO-free territory." Ukraine's President Victor Yushchenko, who has made joining NATO a top priority, asked the Rada to grant permission for foreign troops to be on Ukrainian soil.
Yerevan, Armenia was host to a May 16-17 conference titled, "The Caucasus without Conflict and Terrorism. Dialogue of Civilizations at the Caucasus Crossroads." Speakers and guests from Iran, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Switzerland, and Germany gathered. The conference was opened with a message from his Holiness Garegin II. Catholicos of All Armenians, who later received the participants, followed by the speech of Ara Abrahamian, President of World Armenian Congress and Union of Armenians in Russia, UNESCO Good Will Ambassador. Gagid Harutyunian, chairman of the Constitutional Court of Armenia, Vladimir Pryakhin, head of the OSCE office in Yerevan, and Gegham Gharibjanian, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia followed.
The Russian delegation included a member of the State Duma, retired and active diplomats, the Russian Ambassador to Armenia, and representatives of other institutions. In the Iranian delegation was a senior expert of the Caucasus Center for International and Strategic Research of the Ministry of International Affairs of Iran. Georgia was represented by the Ambassador and a member of Parliament. Important was the participation of a Turkish delegation, official relations between Armenia and Turkey being frozen and their border closed. But a delegation from Azerbaijan was blocked from taking part, by pressure from that country's government. Nagorno-Karabakh, the area disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, was represented by the main advisor to the President and the Foreign Minister.
Schiller Institute representative Karl-Michael Vitt spoke during the opening session, presenting the development perspective of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, in the context of a new financial architecture. The Caucasus area, a crossroads of civilization, was in the known history of the last 4,000 years always a place of imperial or geopolitical influence but also positive crossroads of culture. If Iran, Russia, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were to create a Eu150 billion development fund, they would jointly build great infrastructure projects, linking Eurasia with the Southwest Asia region, which would be in their common interest as well as their interest as sovereign nations. The final resolution of the conference said that the region should not tie itself to any single power. The event was sponsored by Iravunk Holding, which was represented by Haik Babookhanian.
Southwest Asia News Digest
The following exchange took place during the discussion following Lyndon LaRouche's June 9 webcast. This question was posed by a Democratic Member of the House of Representatives, who sits on a committee concerned with the Iraq war. It's on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The complete transcript of the webcast can be found in InDepth this week.
Question: Mr. LaRouche, President Bush, Tony Blair, and Mr. Rumsfeld have all hailed the death of al-Zarqawi as a critical victory in the war in Iraq. And somehow that would seem to be true if our principal enemy in Iraq were indeed al-Qaeda. However, many others, most specifically Congressman John Murtha, have pointed out that the nature of the conflict in Iraq has now moved not to a war against terrorism, but a full-fledged civil war. I'd like your overall assessment of that situation. Would you call it a civil war?
And also, I know you have proposals of your own in this area, but we are right now looking at John Kerry's call for withdrawal by the end of the year, and want to know if you think that there is any viability to his approach?
LaRouche: I would make a very simple statement in part on this, though it requires more attention, of course. I would say, well, since we have an act of murder committedand this was simply an act of murder, which settled absolutely nothing. Killing individuals does not settle issues of this type. Whether he was or was not a Shia agent or whatever, is irrelevant. That killing was a Nazi-like act of murder, and that is what we've been protesting against in the United States, and talking about the barbaric acts, about some action organizations in military and operation sections in the CIA in the past. This is what we said we must not do. You do not go out and take out people for political reasons, because they're your enemy! Because what you do is you sow dragon's teeth. You spread the disease. You spread the conflict. We didn't have to do it. Somebody wanted to do it because they had a political ego trip they wanted to make. Period!
Now, that is all the more reason for supporting Kerry's motion. Because the United States government under the present administration can't be trusted with anything that looks like war, or occupation of war. We've got to get the United States government out of that area, for the simple reason that one of these Congressmen will simply not say: The U.S. government under its present Presidency can not be trusted with the conduct of war, or the declaration of war. It's corrupt, we should have impeached it! And whatever happens to us, if we don't impeach it or get it out some way, we're guilty of everything it does. And the American people have got to wake up and stop being children on this question.
No, Kerry's right. We have to take drastic action to get us out of there, because the guy we've got loose in there is a raving lunatic, a homicidal lunatic, and he's going to make everything worse. Whatever is bad by pulling out, is less bad than allowing Bush and company to be involved in that area. You're saying, I'm saying, implicitly, you've got to impeach the guy. Or get him to resign. That has to happen. I'm not sure the United States can survive in the coming year, if we don't impeach these two characters in the meantime. And sooner is better than later.
That's the situation we have. You've got to be realistic. Don't say, let's formulate the issue, let's discuss the issue. The point is, with this jerk in power, this lunatic up thereeven his father can't get to himget him out of there! The only reason we don't want to get him out first is because we don't want to leave Cheney in there! Get Cheney out now! It can be done, if the requisite number of people in the Congress decide that the nation is more important than their special agendas.
If they really cared about the United States, they would get Cheney out now. And what's already in the Fitzgerald brief, contains the essential evidence for a bill of impeachment against Cheney, in what's in that brief alone. In that brief, he stated a motive for a crime committed by his subordinate. It's like the famous case of the Death in the Cathedral. The king said, get me rid of this priest, and some soldiers went out and killed the priest. Was the king guilty? Of course he was.
Cheney committed a crime, he's impeachable. Get him out!
Also in this week's InDepth:
* "Iran: The Offer Is on the Table," by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
* "Iraq: Will It Be Peace or a New Dark Age," by Hussein Askary
Asia News Digest
Talks called by peace-broker Norway to discuss Sri Lanka's faltering ceasefire failed to take off as planned as on June 8 as Tamil Tigers staged a boycott.
Immediately, New Delhi conveyed to Colombo that it would do whatever is necessary to renew talks in order to avoid "any further worsening" of the situation in the island nation.
In recent months, there were increasing reports of Tiger-led violence in the island. Last month, an attempt was made on the life of the Sri Lankan Army Chief of Staff by a suicide bomber disguised as a pregnant woman.
Meanwhile, Islamabad reports that Colombo has asked Pakistan to facilitate the purchase of military equipment worth $60 million. The request came with a note saying the request should be treated with "utmost priority."
New Delhi is concerned that the resumption of violence once again in Sri Lanka could lead to strategic security problems. Although situated at a distance from the Persian Gulf, Sri Lanka is strategically located on the maritime channel of the Indian Ocean. India also worries that a full-fledged conflict between majority Sinhalas and minority Tamils may result in another wave of Tamil refugees seeking shelter in India. Many of these refugees could very well be Tamil Tigers moving in to create security crisis within India, New Delhi fears.
A desperate NATO will double the number of troops it deploys in Southern Afghanistan next month, when U.S. forces officially move out of the region, CNN-IBN reported from Kabul June 5. This would occur at a time when the Taliban, regrouped, are ready to take control of this area.
NATO's Lt. Gen. David Richards (UK) told a press conference in Kabul that NATO is short of troops there: "We have to put more boots on the ground." He said the figures would increase from an average from 3,000 to 6,000 when the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) assumes responsibility of southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban have emerged as the controller. Observers in the South said the foreign troops receive almost no help from the locals because of large number of civilians killed "mistakenly" in coalition operations in recent weeks.
Lt. Gen. Richards admitted to the press that the security situation in Southern Afghanistan has deteriorated sharply, but then engaged in some wishful thinking, saying he hopes NATO will be able to "gear up" in facing the challenge and come out on the top.
Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono told U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during his visit to Jakarta in early June, to stop telling other nations how to combat terrorism: "As the largest Muslim country, we are very aware of the perception, or misperception, that the United States is overbearing and over-present and overwhelming in every sector of life in many nations and cultures," he stated June 6. The result, said Juwono, will "only hurt the United States, and cause anger and a loss of sympathy among the world's communities."
Juwono also told the Russian News Agency that he would not abandon Indonesia's planned purchase of Russian fighter planes, noting that the U.S. Congress could, at any time, place a ban on the sale of military technologies to Indonesia.
Otherwise, Rumsfeld said the recent restoration of military ties between the two countries was "good for both countries," adding that Washington intended to give Jakarta sustained access to American training and equipment, including the sale of spare parts for C-130 transport planes and patrol ships, shortages of which hampered Jakarta's response to the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The shortages were the result of a U.S. embargo on arms sales after the 1999 flap over East Timor.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a U.S.-trained general, told Rumsfeld he wanted the military relationship to "become permanent because there are efforts in Washington to change these good relations."
With Philippine doctors leaving in droves to work abroad as nurses, government hospitals are hiring Indian doctors to cover the shortage, Jumada al-Ula reported June 5. Rep. Ferjenel Biron, vice chairman of the Philippine House of Representatives committee on health, said the Department of Health has told the committee that Indian doctors could be brought in by next year, as soon as the problems of hiring foreign doctors are ironed out. "It's unfortunate that no one is applying for positions in government hospitals," Biron said in a television interview. "It takes 15 years to produce a doctor, only to see them leave for abroad."
He said doctors have been leaving the country at an average of 800 per year for the past five years. Biron and several other lawmakers filed a bill which seeks to increase salaries of government doctors and provide educational benefits. The Private Hospital Association of the Philippines reported that some 1,000 private hospitals have closed since 2000 due to lack of medical staff, and that the 700 hospitals still in operation are threatened.
The Alliance of Health Workers has also predicted that the country's health-care system would collapse in two years, considering that a total of 51,850 nurses had left the country for greener pastures abroad from 2000 to 2003 alone.
The Philippines Congress has voted to repeal the death penalty, saving over 1,000 lives of people on death row. the Manila Bulletin reported June 7. With President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's full support, both the House and the Senate overwhelmingly approved the measure. Acknowledging that capital punishment has failed to deter crime, the 1993 bill implementing the death penalty, signed into law by Fidel Ramos, was changed to allow only life imprisonment for the worst crimes.
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