With Caracas hosting the annual World Social Forum and Washington pondering the pronounced regional tilt to the left, it may be time for a clear-eyed look at the most radical protagonist of that leftward tilt, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. There is no easy characterization of Chávez, but it is clear that he has become one of Latin America’s most astute, self-confident and, for now, influential political leaders, intent on changing the Hemispheric balance of power, significantly improving the lot of the region’s poor majority, and happily—at times with a twinkle in his eye —engendering hopes and fears from South America to Washington and beyond.

Chávez’s recent trip to Brazil demonstrates his political savvy. This past Jan. 19, at his initiative, he and his Argentine and Brazilian counterparts, Néstor Kirchner and Lula da Silva, met in Brasilia to discuss the construction of a 4,500-mile South American pipeline that would carry Venezuela’s natural gas to the region’s Southern Cone.

The project is emblematic of Chávez’s recent initiatives in two ways: It represents a drive toward greater Latin American economic integration and independence, and a faith in public investment as a means to stimulate regional growth and development. Both these elements of Chavista policy—regional integration and public investment—if successful, will redistribute global income to poorer countries and poorer people, reversing more than two decades of widening income inequality throughout the Americas.
tompaine.com

…Progressives reliance on identity politics is in sharp contrast with the historical materialist approach adopted by right wing political regimes and the big business press, which focus on her [Bachelet’s] political practice over the past 15 years, her role as a Cabinet minister (Health and Defense Minister) and her unconditional adherence to neo-liberal free market policies and US regional military doctrine.

To understand the meaning of Bachelet’s election and why the Bush regime is ecstatic one must delve briefly into the background of the so-called “Left-center” regimes, which have governed Chile over the past 16 years.
counterpunch.org

In a June 2005 Jamaica Observer column about the significance of the Haitian revolution, John Maxwell wrote, “the slaves of Saint Dominique, the world’s richest colony, rose up, abolished slavery and chased the slavemasters away.” Maxwell, one of the more astute journalists covering US foreign policy, added, “Unfortunately for them, they did not chase all of the slavemasters away, and out of the spawn of those arose in Haiti a small group of rich, light-skinned people – the elites, whose interests have fitted perfectly into the interests of the racists in the United States. Between them, last year, on the second centenary of the abolition of slavery and the Independence of Haiti, those interests engineered the re-inslavement of Haiti, kidnapping and expelling the president and installing in his place a gang of murderous thugs, killers, rapists and con-men.”

Vehement opponents of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas party, the Bush Administration helped orchestrate the February 2004 coup which ousted the democratically-elected government of Haiti. Among other pro-poor social programs, the Aristide/Lavalas government’s doubling of the minimum wage was anathema to Washington’s “free trade” corporate agenda.
pambazuka.org

Whenever I travel to international gatherings to talk about the war in Iraq, economic development and women’s rights, the question I get asked most frequently is: “Where are the women in the United States? Why aren’t they rising up?”

I hear it from women in Africa, who have lost funding for their health clinics because of the Bush Administration’s ban on even talking about abortion; from Iraqi women, who are suffering the double oppression of occupation and rising fundamentalism; from European women, who wonder how we can tolerate the crumbling of our meager social services; and from Latina women opposed to unresponsive governments that represent a tiny elite.

The question is variously posed with anger, contempt, curiosity or sympathy. But always, there is a sense of disappointment. What happened to the proud suffragettes who chained themselves to the White House fence for the right to vote? What happened to the garment workers, whose struggles for decent working conditions inspired the first International Women’s Day in 1910? What about those who emulated Rosa Parks, risking their lives or livelihoods to confront the evils of racism? Given their tradition of activism, why aren’t American women today rising up against a government that dragged them into war with lies, that spies on their peaceful activities and diverts money from their children’s schools or their mothers’ nursing homes to pay for an immoral war?
commondreams.org

WASHINGTON – January 26 – While Americans suffered through hurricanes Katrina and Rita and sky-high spikes in oil prices this year, ExxonMobil netted the largest profit in the history of corporate America. On Monday, the world’s largest oil company is expected to announce a record-breaking annual profit of roughly $32 billion for 2005.

As the company prepares its announcement, the environmental problems caused by the company are lampooned in a new animated cartoon to be released on Monday by the ExxposeExxon.com Coalition. The funny one-minute FLASH cartoon, “Toast the Earth” mocks the company for spending its record profits on backwards energy policies while sabotaging efforts to slow global warming and shortchanging communities affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

ExxonMobil is the only major oil company that is still a member of Arctic Power, the special interest group that lobbies Congress in support of drilling in the Arctic Refuge, and funds organizations working to confuse the public about the broad scientific consensus on the causes of and solutions to global warming.
commondreams.org

…the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, together with Lords Justices Chadwick and Laws, all dismissed the newspaper’s argument that the 2003 story that the MP received money from Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was covered by qualified privilege.

The judges also agreed that the £150,000 damages awarded to the MP by High Court judge Mr Justice Eady in December 2004 should not be reduced.

“Given the seriousness of the key allegation Mr Galloway had taken money from Iraq for personal profit, we can see no basis upon which this court could interfere with the amount of damages.”
independent.co.uk

In less than a year, India and China have managed to confound analysts around the world by turning their much-vaunted rivalry for the acquisition of oil and gas assets in third countries into a nascent partnership that could alter the basic dynamics of the global energy market.

At stake is not just the issue of joint acquisition, although the most important of the agreements signed in Beijing on January 12 during the visit of Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar envisages ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) and the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) placing joint bids for promising projects elsewhere. Rather, the prospects for Sino-Indian cooperation across the length of the hydrocarbon chain could pave the way for the creation of an Asian energy market and architecture — an Asian axis of oil – with major geopolitical consequences for the United States.

…Linked to an Asian oil market is the billion euro question of non-dollar denominated energy trade. Asian countries collectively hold more than two trillion dollars worth of foreign reserves, the overwhelming share of which is in dollar-denominated instruments. Prudential norms suggest the diversification of the Asian reserve portfolio is overdue. In China, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE has signalled its intention to explore the more “efficient use” of the country’s forex reserves and in India, commentators like S. Venkitramanan have suggested the RBI start thinking along similar lines.

One way to sustain this shift would be to consider yen or euro-based trading in energy. The economic dynamism of Asia for the foreseeable future suggests what is needed is a strategic rather than tactical change in the composition of reserves. The huge and unsustainable deficits being run by the U.S. are undermining the “oil standard” that has been central to the hegemony of both the dollar and Washington for more than three decades. Relying on the dollar for energy trade will hurt Asia’s producers and consumers alike in the long run. An Asian oil market trading in European euros. Now surely that’s a good recipe for a multipolar world.
zmag.org

A week after scrambling to handle a discharge of tonnes of poisonous metals into a local river on which millions rely for drinking water, Jiang Yimin, the chief of the environment protection bureau in Hunan, south-central China, was adamant. Further spillages would be prevented, he vowed to visitors.

In Mr Jiang’s sights were 50 to 60 small factories producing indium, a metallic element used in the manufacture of semi-conductors and liquid-crystal display screens, near the Xiang river, about an hour by road from the provincial capital, Changsha. “I am signing the order to close them today!” he declared.
ft.com

Hidden in the folds of the thickly pork-laden Department of Defense Appropriations bill that slid through Congress just before Christmas and was signed into law a day before New Year’s was a big slab of holiday cheer for the pharmaceutical industry. There were no press releases from congressional offices and no mention in the news – maybe no one wanted to take credit for this latest assault on the 14th amendment.

The so-called “Frist provision” – named after the ethically-challenged physician-turned-politician Bill Frist – will immunize Big Pharma from responsibility for vaccine-induced injuries. The main rationale for this latest gift to industry at the expense of the public is — you guessed it! — the War on Terror.

Our representatives in Congress pled that corporations like Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth, and Eli Lilly might just have to close up shop if they were forced to take responsibility for injuries caused by their products. These companies hardly need the help. Pharmaceuticals, despite their whining about risk, are some of the most profitable businesses in the country with the median profit margin of the top 10 companies more than five times that of all other industries on the Fortune 500 list.
commondreams.org

UNITED NATIONS – Groups fighting for the rights of peasant communities are stepping up pressure on governments to ban the use of genetically modified ”suicide seeds” at UN-sponsored talks on biodiversity in Spain this week.

”This technology is an assault on the traditional knowledge, innovation, and practices of local and indigenous communities,” said Debra Harry, executive director of the U.S.-based Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism.

The group is among organizations urging United Nations experts to recommend that governments adopt tough laws against field testing and selling Terminator technology, which refers to plants that have had their genes altered so that they render sterile seeds at harvest. Because of this trait, some activists call Terminator products ”suicide seeds.”

Developed by multinational agribusinesses and the U.S. government, Terminator has the effect of preventing farmers from saving or replanting seeds from one growing season to the next.
commondreams.org