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A “Slow Motion Train Wreck”
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
By Stephen Lendman
RINF Alternative News
These days, financial/market punditry seems to follow two opposite lines of thinking. It ranges from the predominant view that world economies are growing and sound, problems in them minor and fixable, and current volatility (aka turmoil) is corrective, normal and a healthy reassessing and repricing of risk. Contrarians, on the other hand, believe the sky is falling. Most often, extreme views like these turn out wrong and are best avoided. Things are never that simple and hindsight usually proves only Cassandra was good at forecasting although calling market tops and bottoms wasn’t her specialty.
Amidst all the commentary and sorting out of market Strang und Durm these days, some financial world figures stand head and shoulders above the rest for their wisdom, level-headednessness and believability. One in particular is Jeremy Grantham, called by some the philosopher king of Wall Street even though he’s based to the northeast in Boston. In 1977, he co-founded Grantham, Mayo and Van Otterloo, now known as GMO. In his Quarterly Letters to clients, he assesses current market conditions and usually takes a longer view as well. His commentaries are detailed, scholarly, sober and clear.
The Vanguard Group of mutual funds founder John Bogle calls Grantham “one of the top two or three individuals in this business (and) If there’s anybody in this whole business who calls a spade a spade (that person is) Jeremy Grantham.” A metaphor for his wisdom, attitude and investing style sits aside his office desk. It’s a huge 9th century stone Buddha signifying “everything in moderation” and one of Grantham’s core beliefs that all markets eventually revert to their mean values from their highs and lows.
Based on his company’s exhaustive research, there are “no exceptions ever.” Bubbles come and go, but, in time, they all settle back in same place. As Grantham puts it: “We know one principal truth at GMO and that is that we live in a mean-reverting world in investing. (Our research) has shown….that all bubbles….eventually break (and our definition of a bubble is a) 2 standard deviation event - the kind of moves that occur about every 40 years.” Grantham mentions four stock market ones in particular that stand out - the US in 1929, US again in 1965 - 72, 1989 in Japan (in land and stocks) and the still ongoing greatest ever US 2000 bubble yet to come back to its mean.
Grantham is known in the trade as a value investor. That means buying financial assets at less than their intrinsic value or what famed investor/Columbia University professor Benjamin Graham (1894 - 1976) called a “margin of safety.” Warren Buffett today calls it “finding an outstanding company (or any financial asset) at a sensible price” as opposed to a bargain that may turn out bogus or a booby trap. Grantham correctly called the equity bubble in the late 1990s and believes the 2000 - 2003 bear market is secular, long-term, and unlikely to end before 2010 despite a continuing four year cyclical bull run reprieve from 2003 to the present. Only in the fullness of time will he, and the rest of us, know if he’s right.
Earlier in the year, Grantham toured the world for six weeks, returned worried, and wrote about it in his April Quarterly Letter titled “It’s Everywhere, In Everything: The First Truly Global Bubble.” It’s “bubble time,” he observed “from Indian antiquities to modern Chinese art; from land in Panama to Mayfair; from forestry, infrastructure, and the junkiest bonds to mundane blue chips.” All the necessary conditions are in place - “fundamental economic conditions” look excellent; central bank supplied liquidity is plentiful and cheap; and there’s so much around, it’s easy to leverage. Since around mid-July or so, the latter condition no longer is true or perceived to be by investors turned cautious and in some cases even panicky.
Grantham explains human behavior causes bubbles when positive market conditions unleash “animal spirits” to capitalize on opportunities that get carried to extremes when there’s enough cheap credit around as fuel. Even in the best of times, that’s a recipe for trouble with success feeding on itself. It signals by leveraging up, the better investors can do until the music stops as it always does, and the longer and louder it’s been playing, the severer the subsequent headache.
No one knows for sure when big trouble’s coming next or how bad it’ll be when it arrives. Up to early summer, it was smooth sailing and easy profits, but Grantham says what he sees today is unprecedented: “everyone, everywhere (in all asset classes) is reinforcing one another.” Across the world you hear it confirmed that “they don’t make any more land (and) with these growth rates and low interest rates, equity markets must keep rising (and) private equity (plus merger mania, huge stock buy-backs and plenty of central bank supplied fuel) will continue to drive the markets.”
It’s become self-reinforcing and the results are “predictable and consistent.” The three major asset classes - real estate, stocks and bonds - are “expensive compared with (their) replacement cost where it can be calculated.” Equally worrisome, risk premiums “reached a historic low everywhere” until just weeks ago.
Grantham’s conclusion is these are all warning signs spelling eventual trouble because as noted above “Every bubble has always burst (with no exceptions, ever).” When the 2000 bubble deflation resumes, “it will be across all countries and all assets, with the probable exception of high grade bonds.” In addition, risk premiums will widen (and now are) forcing companies to pay higher financing costs for borrowed funds that will depress investor confidence and reduce economic activity.
No one knows how deep or protracted a decline will be, but Grantham stresses it’s coming because the current global bubble is unprecedented. “No similar global event (of this magnitude ever) occurred before.” Now that’s pretty scary stuff to chew on because economic troubles bite everyone and most of all those most vulnerable and least able to weather the storm. That includes ordinary working people with little or nothing invested.
During the current bull run, Grantham was troubled as early as January, 2004 when he advised clients that “The outlook for 2004 is not bad, but the (stock) market is very overpriced and all predictors look bad for the next year and the year after.” As things turned out, he was wrong, or perhaps with future hindsight just way early in his judgment. He was troubled again at year end 2005 when he told investors to “prepare for a decline in the performance of equities and other risk assets in 2006.” Once more, his call was either early or wrong as the past 18 months saw considerable strength until just recently.
His January, 2007 Quarterly Letter assessed what happened saying “Against all odds, Goldilocks tiptoed through the perils of the first (2005) and second (2006) year of the Presidential Cycle….it (2006) was the rarest of rare birds - a perfect year.” As a result, “risk taking also prospered” because of low global inflation, no financial crises anywhere, low interest rates, and “very very” available credit. As things turned out, “this was almost certainly the best year in the entire history of finance for the selling of high credit risks at low premiums.”
One extreme measure of it was the quadrupling of so-called securitized Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) instruments (packages of risky and other debt) to around $2.5 trillion facilitated by the so-called “expanded ‘carry trade’ of borrowing in cheap (low interest) Japanese and Swiss currencies.”
Downsides often accompany opportunities, and Grantham explained conditions going into 2007 in breathtaking terms. “Goldilocks global conditions, especially cheap and easy credit, have caused the broadest overpricing of financial assets - equities, real estate, and fixed income - ever recorded.” However, he stressed, “Just because risk taking is off the charts does not mean it can’t keep going for another year” or longer.
The end of a Goldilocks economy was clearly on the minds of people Grantham met on his world tour. Everywhere he travelled he was asked “What is the catalyst for a (market) break” when none was then visible or imminent? He answered citing these vulnerabilities: rising inflation (that’s greater than reported) constraining central bank support for a weakening economy, pointing to the US as an example. This, in turn, will slow economic activity and reduce profit margins that are still way above global norms but will come down.
Then there’s the housing decline a Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) report shows is the result of overbuilding and home prices rocketing 70% in value since 1995 adjusted for inflation. It “created $8 trillion in housing bubble wealth” and an unprecedented oversupply of unsold homes and “vacant ownership units.” CEPR believes the coming housing bubble correction “is likely to throw the economy into a recession and quite possibly a very severe (one).”
It notes housing construction has to decline, and revaluing $8 trillion in housing wealth excess will reduce consumption and bring saving rates “back to more normal levels.” Consumers need all they can get because, at today’s elevated prices, the average potential home buyer can’t afford one, and, as one analyst observed, lenders are relearning how to say “no.”
Current economic conditions worry PIMCO’s Bill Gross as well. PIMCO is a 36 year old firm and “one of the largest specialty fixed income managers in the world.” Gross is one its founders and serves as managing director and chief investment officer. In his July Investment Outlook, he said people are “looking for contagion in all the wrong places.” The Bear Stearns and other hedge fund losses are “now primarily history (and) can be papered over with 100 cents on the dollar marks.” The real problem lies in “those millions and millions of homes….not going anywhere….except for their mortgages….going up, up, and up….and so are delinquencies and defaults.”
He cites a recent Bank of America estimate that about $500 billion of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) will be reset in 2007, another $700 billion in 2008, and a large proportion of them are subprimes. He noted 7% of these loans are now in default, and the “percentage will grow and grow like a weed in your backyard tomato patch.” This will affect real money in the hundreds of billions of dollars of “toxic waste” that will spill over into reduced consumption, less new home construction, and even AAA-asset backed commercial paper “feel(ing) the cooling Arctic winds of a liquidity constriction.”
In Gross’ view, the sky isn’t falling, and “there is no hint yet of a true ‘crisis’ - these developments” may, in fact, have a salutary effect with “easy credit becoming less easy (and) excessive liquidity returning to more rational levels.” Gross still sees strong global growth ahead, but as a bond fund manager, he’s paid to worry.
In his report, Grantham is worried, too, and notes the housing decline affects prices, credit growth and consumption when subprime and other loan rates are reset higher with a considerable amount coming this year and even more ahead as just noted. In addition, and most significantly, he says rising inflation and widening risk premiums lower “the feasible leverage in private equity deals and place many deals that can be done today (meaning last spring) out of reach, which, in turn, has dire effects on the current stock market (and economy).”
In his current July client Letter, Grantham conceded “no areas of this unprecedented global bubble had yet gone hyperbolic like the internet and tech stocks did in 1999 (until now):” The “candidate” is “the growth rate of leveraged loans. At (a hugely speculative) $545 billion for the first half of this year, it is running 60% up on last year” that’s about the same size gain dot.com and tech stocks made year over year in 1999 with painful consequences not far behind for investors owning them.
Grantham’s July commentary mentioned one other likely market headwind after the 2008 election. It’s the expected fallout from “piling on” moves of “more wealth to the wealthy by shifting more of the tax load to sales and income taxes of average taxpayers and away from the capital gains and dividend taxes of the wealthy.” It means “ordinary working stiffs are not doing particularly well….and are getting antsy” enough to worry politicians to raise taxes on the most well-off.
Grantham expects them to come in higher taxes on capital gains, dividends and top-end ordinary income rates as well as redefining what income is. That will mean more of it will be taxed to reduce the gross disparity between what rich and ordinary folks now pay, and not a moment too soon for those championing fairness, not special privilege. If this happens, however, it “will not be good for the animal spirits of investors” who represent the most important bubble-sustaining input.
Grantham sums up his current thinking with what he calls a “torture(d) analogy.” He compares the global financial system to a giant suspension bridge. “Thousands of bolts hold it together. Today a few of them have fractures and one or two seem to have failed completely. The bridge, however, with typical redundancy built in (unlike the Minnesota one that collapsed), can (easily) take a few failed bolts, perhaps quite a few….This global financial structure is far too large and has far too many interlocking pieces for weakening US house prices and a few subprime issues to bring it down.”
What is worrisome is whether or when we reach a “broad-based level of financial metal fatigue” causing simultaneous multiple bolt failures “with ultimately disastrous consequences.” What’s also scary is the global financial structure is heavily “faith based, held together by unprecedented amounts of animal spirits” moving in the same positive direction. If the faith wanes, it’s then “every man for himself” and look out below.
Also worrisome, but so far contained, is growing subprime mortgage trouble. Until a month ago, equity markets were totally unaffected and may bounce back from their current sell-off. Grantham isn’t panicking but shows concern about flat to declining home prices, a high inventory of unsold homes likely moving higher, and mortgage “honeymoon rate” reset increases up to 2.5 points coming soon for holders “already stretched.” We’re told, he says, that even the subprime market is “contained,” but we have to wonder if “the container, in this case, will turn out to be Pandora’s.”
Then there’s a slowing economy, inflation concerns, high oil and other industrial commodity prices and now agricultural ones as well “boosted by ethanol production” pressuring consumers. “So two of the three great asset classes (now all three) are having the wobblies in some of their components” - real estate and low grade debt (and since mid-July equities and other type debt instruments as well), “especially real-estate related but increasingly including corporate loans and private equity funding….”
Grantham may have written this commentary before the the July-mid-August equity market sell-off. However, based on his prior (and long-standing) comments, his current analysis probably still holds true: “stocks (will likely) make it through this third (and traditionally strongest) year of the Presidential (four year market) Cycle.” The third year in the Cycle “has never declined materially and should be considered the bane of short sellers (and equity market naysayers) everywhere.”
In sum, Grantham says, “a few more bolts in the bridge may fail, but in the end you have to bet the bridge will hold, supported by amazing animal spirits.” At least that’s true up to October when the fourth year of the Cycle begins. Then, the “odds of failure rise” but won’t likely become high until October, 2008 with a new administration and Congress soon to take power. Grantham then gets blunt stating “based on history” (and tax increases he expects), that’s the most likely time for a bear market, and he’s betting on one that could be nasty.
He concludes saying he’s been trying to come up with a simple way to explain “how serious the situation is for the overstretched, overleveraged financial system.” He does it this way: “In 5 years I expect….at least one major bank (broadly defined) to have failed and up to half the hedge funds and a substantial percentage of the private equity firms in existence today (to have) simply ceased to exist.”
He continues saying he’s been too bearish at times in the past 12 years but his language “has almost never been this dire.” His feeling is that today we’re “watching a very slow motion train wreck” beyond the point of stopping so watch out ahead. It’s a good idea to be cautious and prepare. If he’s right and economic conditions deteriorate enough, everyone will be affected through job and income losses along with investors losing big from speculative and other investments. All financial bubbles end. Sadly, even those not participating in them get burned, especially those most vulnerable and least able to ride out the storm that could be mean, nasty and long.
Engineering the Coming Wreck
Back in October, 2002, Grantham took aim at a financial icon Wall Street and the financial press practically defied when he chaired the Federal Reserve from August, 1987 to end of January, 2006. It didn’t matter to them (and still doesn’t) that he engineered the largest ever stock market bubble and bust in history through incompetence, timidity, dereliction of duty or a combination of all three. In their eyes, Alan Greenspan was above reproach. He could do no wrong, and here’s why. His policies made it possible for wealthy and powerful investors to cash in big as long as the party lasted, and then get plenty of advance warning when to exit.
Most ordinary investors, on the other hand, were caught flat-footed based on advice from market pundit fraudsters with Mr. Greenspan most deceptive and influential of all. In January, 2000, just weeks short of the market peak, he claimed “the American economy was experiencing a once-in-a-century acceleration of innovation, which propelled forward productivity, output, corporate profits and stock prices at a pace not seen in generations, if ever.”
Grantham’s reply to this outburst: “Phew!” He might have also drawn an analogy to famed Yale University economics professor Irving Fisher’s comments just before the 1929 stock market crash. He claimed economic fundamentals in the country were strong, the stock market was undervalued, and an unending period of prosperity lay ahead. It just took over a decade to arrive and plenty of pain to go around before it did.
Grantham spared Fisher, but bashed Greenspan saying: “The internet (highlighted by the dot.com bubble), which had ‘pushed back the fog of uncertainty’ for corporations, was his particular pet.” It’s hard to believe now Greenspan actually said: “Lofty equity prices have reduced the cost of capital. The result has been a veritable explosion of spending on high-tech equipment….And I see nothing to suggest that these opportunities will peter out anytime soon….Indeed many argue that the pace of innovation will continue to quicken….to exploit the still largely untapped potential for e-commerce, especially the business-to-business arena.”
One week later, the Nasdaq peaked at 5048 and fell to a low of 1114 on October 9, 2002 losing 78% of its value. The broadly based S&P 500 stock index merely dropped from its March 24, 2000 high of 1527 to an October 9, 2002 bottom at 777 for a loss of 49%. Mr. Greenspan was nowhere in sight but was busy reengineering phase two of the bubble with a tsunami of easy money. His successor now continues the same policy despite his high-sounding Fedspeak concerns for inflation and a stable economy. Call it more Fedbaloney pointing to the obvious eventual consequences ahead. The Fed-built credit bubble and other excesses are unwinding. Before it’s over, they’ll be plenty of pain to go around and another culpable Fed Chairman claiming no responsibility and being able to get away with it.
Grantham was clearly upset in October, 2002 and made his views known to investors. His commentary was titled “Feet of Clay - Alan Greenspan’s Contribution to the Great American Equity Bubble.” He started out with a Fed Chairman’s job description saying “In its earlier years, the Fed’s emphasis seems to have been on economic activity….By the nineties, the heavy emphasis (shifted) to inflation control.” Both objectives are “critical to stability,” because the Fed’s “underlying job” is to maintain “general economic stability,” not fuel bubbles. “Nothing threatens (that stability) more than the deflating of a major stock market bubble.” It’s the Fed’s job to spot and moderate them in time and be willing “to bear the (political) consequences” for its actions. Alan Greenspan failed on all counts.
“Did he see the (largest in US history) bubble coming,” Grantham asked? He provided generous amounts of liquidity fueling it, and when things began getting out of hand, all he did was suggest “irrational exuberance” might have “unduly escalated asset values” in a December, 1996 speech. He did nothing to curb it then or thereafter whereas he could have raised interest rates, margin requirements and added a lot more jawboning persuasion to cool an overheated market and restore stability.
Grantham was clear and emphatic: “Had Greenspan been prepared to use all the tools available and shown his determination, it almost certainly would have worked” enough to prevent the market plunge after March, 2000. Not only did he fail to act, but he then denied all responsibility for what Grantham called “the Greenspan fiasco….he has overtaken my efforts with his breathtakingly shameless and complete denial of responsibility….he seems to have believed….this new era nonsense (at its) March 2000 (peak more completely) than anyone else….the title of ‘most credulous’ (and Fed Chairman) belong to the same man.” By his concocted “logic,” he’d have “fail(ed) a Finance 101 final.”
Even worse, Greenspan “had the knowledge, experience, and belief and failed to act.” Yet, to this day he’s gotten away with it. He’s still extolled in lofty terms, practically elevated to the ranks of sainthood, and is now retired to new “green” pastures of lucrative book deals and speaking engagements (at $100,000 fees) where his every word is still taken as market gospel. In addition, Greenspan Associates began operating in May with his lawyer, Robert Barnett, saying “virtually every major investment-banking firm” in the world is eager to hire him for his rainmaking connections. Better those than his advice best avoided.
The Greenspan legacy got Grantham to conclude: “You can indeed ‘fool most of the people all of the time.’ ‘Most of the people’ this time probably included Her Majesty who (days earlier on September 26) knighted (Sir Alan) for his global services. My secret hope though is that she justified it by having had a good short position for the last 3 years.” Or “short” of that, been tipped off in time to bail out at the top and let her subjects take the pain.
Engineering the Coming Wreck - Part II
Other than rampaging armies on the move, no institution anywhere has more power than central banks. And no central bank has more of it than the US Federal Reserve unless it’s the secretive, unaccountable Bank of International Settlements (BIS) founded in 1930 and based in Basle, Switzerland. The BIS is central banker to its member banks (a sort of financial boss of bosses) that includes the Federal Reserve.
Some savvy financial experts believe the world’s ruling elites control this bank of banks and intend using it to establish a global borderless financial world controlled by them. It’s no hairbrained conclusion with the European Union in place, talk of a similar one in Africa, and a North American Security and Prosperity Partnership arrangement coming to a head that will create a borderless continent headquartered in Washington and likely will aim next to link with the EU for greater global control.
So what’s important about the Fed, and why should we care? Despite common belief, the Federal Reserve is not a government agency. It’s a privately owned for profit cartel of powerful banks (including Wall Street ones) protected by law, even though the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 violates the US Constitution. It’s Article I, Section 8 states “The Congress shall have Power To coin Money (and) regulate the Value thereof…” In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled only Congress has this power and cannot constitutionally delegate it to another group or body, and that includes private for profit bankers running the Fed.
Simply put, commercial banks in charge of printing and controlling the nation’s money supply constitutes criminal fraud. It’s the reason the Federal Reserve was designed to look like a government agency when, in fact, it isn’t. Being headquartered in Washington in the stately mausoleum-looking Eccles building is just part of the clever subterfuge.
But it’s even worse than that. By establishing the Federal Reserve, Congress and President Woodrow Wilson privatized the nation’s money creation system relinquishing the most important power governments have that got famed banker Baron MA Rothschild once to say: “Give me control over a nation’s currency and I care not who makes its laws.”
Ever since US private bankers got it, they’ve been empowered to print money in any amount, control its supply and price, and benefit hugely by loaning it out for profit. That includes making government pay interest on its own money it wouldn’t have to do by printing its own. This amounts to no less that government sanctioning the right to counterfeit the national currency for private gain with the Fed and private bankers being world class pirates masquerading as guardians of the public interest.
It’s no exaggeration to call this the all-time, greatest ever financial scam, still ongoing, and totally beyond the reach of public or any other type scrutiny. If there were any, it would be learned this institution was created as a scheme to transfer wealth from ordinary people to giant banks and Wall Street. It’s worked like a charm, and few people are the wiser.
But there’s more still to the story, and it keeps getting uglier. Supposedly, the Federal Reserve was established to stabilize the economy; smooth out the business cycle; maintain a steady, healthy rate of sustainable growth; create price stability and control inflation; and work for the betterment of everyone. So let’s grade it on its performance.
Since 1913, we had economic crashes in 1921, and the major one in 1929 followed by The Great Depression lasting until the outbreak of WW II. Post-war, we then had recessions in 1953, 1957, 1969, 1975, 1981, 1990, 2001, and we’re likely heading for future major trouble resulting from past Fed policy abuses under Alan Greenspan and his successor, Ben Bernanke, carrying on in the same fashion. We also had a serious inflation problem beginning in the 1960s that became crisis-level severe in the 1970s and early 80s. In addition, in the wake of reckless financial market deregulation in the 1980s and lack of government oversight (with the Fed’s blessing), we had a major financial crisis causing more bank failures than ever before or since in our history.
Further still, under the Fed, we’ve had -
– soaring consumer debt;
– record high federal budget and current account deficits;
– an off-the-charts national debt, far higher than the fictitious reported number;
– a high and rising level of personal bankruptcies and mortgage loan delinquencies and defaults;
– an enormous government debt service obligation we’re taxed to pay for;
– the systematic loss of manufacturing and other high-paying jobs to low-wage countries;
– a secular declining economy, 84% service-based, and mostly comprised of low-wage, low or no-benefit, non-unionized jobs;
– an unprecedented wealth gap disparity;
– growing rates of poverty in the richest country in the world;
– a decline of essential social services; and
– a lawless nation devoted to militarism and imperial conquest with the Federal Reserve complicit in supplying all the funds needed to fuel it, and all the while caring not for the public interest it’s supposed to serve.
This type record adds up to a clear conclusion. Above all else, the Federal Reserve failed to accomplish what it’s supposed to do revealing instead what’s really going on. The Fed doesn’t serve the public interest. It abuses it because that’s how bankers and all corporate predators make money. In the world of finance, ordinary people lose out because giant banks and Wall Street are allowed to pull off the grandest of grand thefts, their thievery continues unabated, and the stakes keep rising.
Some astute financial observers now believe current excesses and resulting turmoil were caused by the intentional engineering of the US housing bubble with the Fed in on the scheme. Insiders made loads of easy money in the process and now stand to cash in big buying troubled assets for a fraction of their value the way they always do in the wake of market meltdowns. It’s called “vulture” investing with shrewd buyers profiting hugely in good and bad times that are all good for them.
One analyst calls the subprime mortgage turbulence a global bank run with potential huge yet to emerge consequences. Writer Danny Schechter has another view in his article titled: “Subprime Or Subcrime? Time to Investigate and Prosecute,” and he makes a strong case. He calls the subprime credit squeeze a “sub-crime ponzi scheme (causing) millions of people (to lose) their homes because of criminal and fraudulent tactics used by financial institutions (posing) as respectable players in a highly rigged casino-like market system.” There’s nothing free and open about it.
The problem is deep, structural and aided by stripped away regulatory protections giving predatory lenders and Wall Street schemers free reign to target unsuspecting victims. Part of Schechter’s fix is calling for a “jailout,” not a “bailout,” but with friends in high places, don’t bet on it beyond a small fry or two. It’s sad and disturbing because this type behavior is part of the American “ethic” to scheme, defraud and prey on the innocent knowing big players nearly always get away with it, and under George Bush, it’s practically guaranteed.
With a clear field ahead and friends in high places, the “Masters of the Universe” are now heading for their perfect kind of buying opportunity if Jeremy Grantham and other worriers are right. Manipulation aside, Grantham’s persuasive evidence suggests we’re watching an unstoppable “very slow motion train wreck” likely to be pretty ugly on “impact.” By his reckoning, it’s probably too late to undue the enormous damage done no one will escape from. His advice is that to be forewarned is forearmed to prepare as best as possible although for most people it’s practically impossible.
It’s a good time to think of the ancient Chinese proverb, that’s, in fact, a curse and not of Chinese origin, but it sounds good saying it is: “May you live in interesting times.” Whoever coined the phrase intended it to be ironic and “interesting” meant dangerous, turbulent or uncertain. That, indeed, is true now but to what degree we’ll only know in the fullness of time.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time and now archived for easy listening.
Have Your Say: A “Slow Motion Train Wreck”
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The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Investigative journalist Mark Schapiro discusses why companies that manufacture hazard-free products for the European Union often produce toxin-filled versions of the same items for America and developing countries.
American industry would have you believe that taking potentially hazardous and toxic chemicals out of everyday consumer products — removing phthalates from children’s toys and cancer-causing coal tar from hair dye — would damage our economy and result in a loss of American jobs. In his latest book, Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products, Mark Schapiro busts this myth and reveals the grim fact that some companies, whether American or international, often have two production lines: one that manufactures hazard-free products for the European Union and another that produces toxin-filled versions of the same items for America and developing countries.
Schapiro examines how America, once a leader in environmental protection, came to allow potentially toxic and mutagenic chemicals, banned by the EU, into everyday products. He also looks at how the EU’s economy — almost identical to that of America — continued to thrive even after these chemicals were banned, essentially “calling the bluff” of the American industry.
Schapiro, an investigative journalist for more than two decades, has built an award-winning track record with a focus on environmental and international affairs. His work has appeared in Harper’s, the Nation, Mother Jones, and the Atlantic Monthly. He has also been a correspondent on NOW with Bill Moyers, Frontline/World, and Marketplace.
AlterNet spoke with Schapiro in Berkeley at the Center for Investigative Reporting, where he is currently the editorial director.
Vanja Petrovic: Why did you choose to write this book now?
Mark Schapiro: I’ve been following the evolution of the European Union for some time now, just because I spent a lot of time working in Europe. I’ve been both a reporter and an editor in Western Europe as well as Eastern Europe after 1989. And I spent quite a bit of time reporting in and out of the European Union. So, I watched as this entity, called the European Union, evolved into a functioning, powerful political and economic body.
What I think most Americans have missed is that, in the interim, this very powerful political force has emerged within Europe. It has enforced laws from Brussels that are applied now in 27 different countries.
Traditionally, the United States has been the single most powerful economic force in the world — that’s what we’ve seen until now. Suddenly, the EU has a bigger economy than the United States of America. The EU exports more goods to the rest of the world than the United States of America. The EU has a higher GNP than the United States of America.
Now, I think, we are in a historic period. There’s an enormous historic shift that’s going on right now. And that shift, when historians look back on this time period, they’re going to look at this enormous tectonic shift in international influence and international power. What they’re going to see is a kind of dramatically dwindling American influence, and that’s partly a result of the foreign policy of the current administration, and it’s also partly a result of the sheer, cold economic numbers, in which the United States is no longer the only dominant economic force in the world. That shift has enormous implications, and I think it’s one of the biggest untold stories of the 21st century. What I wanted to look at is what the environmental implications of that shift are.
Petrovic: What is the message behind this book?
Schapiro: The environmental battles in the United States have been kind of repeated over 20 years, and it’s the same battle over and over with different ingredients. The environmental community says, “Take this chemical out of this because it’s dangerous,” and the industry says, “One, it’s not dangerous, and two, it’s not economical, and we’ll fall out of business, and Americans are going to lose their jobs.” And this goes back and forth over and over again — it’s like Kabuki theater.
So, for the first time what you have is an economic power that’s the equivalent of the United States — it’s the equivalent in terms of affluence, in terms of education, in terms of overall sophistication and overall development — which is saying, “No, we can actually take these particular toxic chemicals out of these products, out of our computers, out of our pajamas, out of our cosmetics, and still be successful as an economy.”
Cont http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/59714/?page=2
Have Your Say: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products
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Army suicides highest in 26 years
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest since the 102 suicides in 1991.
“Iraq was the most common deployment location for both (suicides) and attempts,” the report said.
The 99 suicides included 28 soldiers deployed to the two wars and 71 who weren’t. About twice as many women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide as did women not sent to war, the report said.
Preliminary numbers for the first half of this year indicate the number of suicides could decline across the service in 2007 but increase among troops serving in the wars, officials said.
The increases for 2006 came as Army officials worked to set up a number of new and stronger programs for providing mental health care to a force strained by the longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the global counterterrorism war entering its sixth year.
Failed personal relationships, legal and financial problems and the stress of their jobs were factors motivating the soldiers to commit suicide, according to the report.
“In addition, there was a significant relationship between suicide attempts and number of days deployed” in Iraq, Afghanistan or nearby countries where troops are participating in the war effort, it said. The same pattern seemed to hold true for those who not only attempted, but succeeded in killing themselves.
There also “was limited evidence to support the view that multiple … deployments are a risk factor for suicide behaviors,” it said.
About a quarter of those who killed themselves had a history of at least one psychiatric disorder. Of those, about 20 percent had been diagnosed with a mood disorder such as bipolar disorder and/or depression; and 8 percent had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, including post traumatic stress disorder — one of the signature injuries of the conflict in Iraq.
Firearms were the most common method of suicide. Those who attempted suicide but didn’t succeed tended more often to take overdoses and cut themselves.
In a service of more than a half million troop, the 99 suicides amounted to a rate of 17.3 per 100,000 — the highest in the past 26 years, the report said. The average rate over those years has been 12.3 per 100,000.
The rate for those serving in the wars stayed about the same, 19.4 per 100,000 in 2006, compared with 19.9 in 2005.
The Army said the information was compiled from reports collected as part of its suicide prevention program — reports required for all “suicide-related behaviors that result in death, hospitalization or evacuation” of the soldier. It can take considerable time to investigate a suicide and, in fact, the Army said that in addition to the 99 confirmed suicides last year, there are two other deaths suspected as suicides in which investigations were pending.
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7/7 Survivors and relatives demand an independent public enquiry
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Survivors of the 7 July London bombings have threatened legal action over the government’s refusal to grant an independent public inquiry. A group of survivors and relatives of those killed have handed a letter into the Home Office.
This document outlines the group’s intention to pursue a Judicial Review if the government does not allow a public inquiry to be held.
The four suicide bombings killed 52 people and injured nearly 800.
The group of survivors and relatives of the dead have said they would prefer not to pursue a formal judicial challenge and incur potentially costly litigation.
‘Unimaginable suffering’
But James Oury, senior partner of Oury Clark Solicitors, said because the former Home Secretary, Dr John Reid, refused their request earlier this year to grant an independent public inquiry, they had been forced to consider this legal challenge.
Mr Oury said: “There is continued uncertainty over the events leading up to the attacks on 7 July 2005 and an independent inquiry is seen as an appropriate way to address this concern.
“Our clients have endured unimaginable suffering in physical and emotional terms and it is unfair and inappropriate for the government to force our clients into an adversarial, costly and complex court setting - a litigation corner”.
The group say that the Intelligence and Scrutiny Committee report published by government into the bombings is ‘imperfect’.
They also say they do not accept that any of the investigations or reports carried out so far sufficiently comply with the government’s obligation to protect life.
BBC
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Britain cuts arms to Israel due to feers of Human rights violations
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
The British government has blocked almost one third of British military exports to Israel this year, citing possible threats to regional stability and fears the equipment might facilitate human rights violations.
According to official figures, the value of UK military sales arms to Israel declined by one third last year, and has fallen by a drastic 75 percent since 2005.
“There is evidence that the British government’s export control policy to Israel may have been tightened up,” said Parliament’s new 2007 Strategic Export Controls report, issued by the Quadrapartite Commission, which comprises representatives from four ministries.
The change in policy, said the report, reflects a convergence of government attitudes with its own official guidelines.
The report comes amid a period of uncertainty in Anglo-Israeli relations.
While the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, has voiced public support for Israel and has appointed several pro-Israel MPs to cabinet positions, he has also promoted a leading critic of US and Israeli policy, former UN deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch Brown, to a key Foreign Office post.
Outside of government, the opposition Liberal Democrat party has called for a rethinking of arms sales to Israel, while in May the UK’s Legal Services Commission, the state agency that provides funding for attorney’s fees for indigent defendants, agreed to underwrite the costs of litigation brought by a Palestinian man in a British court seeking a ban on arms sales to Israel.
The August 7 Quadripartite Committee report largely praised the government’s overall handling of strategic exports but warned that the rapid pace of technological change and rising threat of terrorism required increased state vigilance.
“Any gaps in the legislation could have serious consequences for the UK,” it concluded.
However, it criticized as “unclear” the British government’s policies on arms sales to Israel.
While the “case-by-case” approach gave the government a “flexibility” that allowed a “latitude to adjust policy without the need for public explanation,” its arms sales policies towards Israel were “neither transparent nor accountable,” the panel found.
The committee asked that “the government explain its policy on licensing exports to Israel, Jordan or other countries in the Middle East and that it explain whether it has adjusted its policy since 1997 as events in the Occupied Territories and Middle East have unfolded.”
“We further recommend that the government explain how it assesses whether there is a clear risk‚ that a proposed export to Israel might be used for internal repression,” it said.
Statistics published by the committee showed that arms exports to Israel totaled 14.5 million pounds last year (about $29 million), compared to GBP 22.5 million in 2005. Between 1997 and 2006 Britain granted Israel 1561 Standard Individual Export Licenses (SIELs) valued at GBP 113 million. During the same period it authorized 626 SIELs valued at GBP 136.5 million for shipment to Jordan.
However, over the last 10 years, 190 application for military sales to Israel have been prohibited, comprising 11 percent of all applications for sales of military equipment. During the same period, only two such applications were rejected for military and restricted goods bound for Jordan.
The British government reported it had approved 37 military SIELs to Israel in the first quarter of 2007 valued at GBP 1.5 million, a rate that if held constant throughout the year would cut British sales to Israel by three quarters since 2005.
The UK also blocked 11 SIELs to Israel in the first three months of 2007: three for airborne guidance systems, four for information security systems and equipment, one for munitions, one for fire control equipment, one for electronic components, and one for specialty aluminum alloys.
Three SIELs for the sale of radar and avionics guidance systems to a third country for use in aircraft destined for the IAF were blocked this year also.
The 14 rejected SIELs violated various “Consolidated EU and National Arms Licensing Criteria,” the Foreign Office stated, citing concerns the shipments would not respect “human rights and the fundamental freedoms in the country of final destination,” would worsen the “the internal situation in the country of final destination;” and would harm “regional peace, security and stability.”
One SIEL was denied due to the “behavior of the buyer country with regard to the international community; in particular its attitude to terrorism, the nature of its alliances and respect for international law,” while concerns the equipment would be “diverted” for non-approved uses or “re-exported under undesirable conditions” were cited in rejecting three SIELs.
The Foreign Office said in its annual human rights report to Parliament that “progress on improving the human rights situation” in Israel and the territories had been “limited.”
Testifying before the committee on March 15, foreign secretary Margaret Beckett stated that the Foreign Office kept a “close eye” on the uses made by the IDF of British military equipment.
The then-foreign secretary said: “If we discovered that equipment had been sold to Israel and was being used contrary to agreed terms, we would regard that with grave concern and we would make sure we did not issue licenses for such equipment in the future.”
Beckett said at the time that Britain’s total arms sales to Israel were slight. “I believe something like 0.1% of Israel’s total arms imports comes from the United Kingdom, and we have not sold main equipment like tanks or artillery or warships to Israel since 1997,” she said, noting the Blair government had “visibly conformed” to EU guidelines not to sell equipment that might harm regional peace, security and stability in the Middle East.
During last year’s Second Lebanon War, the leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat party urged the government to review its arms sales to Israel.
Sir Menzies Campbell said the government “must now comply with its own arms export rules and institute an immediate suspension of all UK arms exports to Israel.”
Pressure is also being exerted through the courts to end arms sales to Israel.
Last November, Public Interest Lawyers, in cooperation with the Palestinian rights group, al-Haq, filed suit against the British government on behalf of Saleh Hasan of Bethlehem. Hasan claimed the sale of military goods to Israel violated British export guidelines and contributed to his “oppression” as a Palestinian by Israel.
Phil Shiner, head of Public Interest Lawyers, stated the crux of their case was whether the British government had met its own criteria about what it can and cannot do in terms of arms exports where there is a risk of internal repression in another country.
In May, a spokesman for the Legal Services Commission said Hasan’s lawsuit was receiving legal aid as a test case.
“The fact that applicants may live abroad is not a factor under the legal aid scheme,” he told The Times. “The key is whether the case involves issues of English law and will be tried in this jurisdiction.”
The case is scheduled for a court hearing in October.
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Rove’s dirty tricks: Let us count the ways
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
By Amy Goodman
Karl Rove’s resignation as deputy White House chief of staff cements the political future of the waning Bush administration. George W. will have little to do except wield his veto pen; he doesn’t need the steadying hand of Rove for that, or his strategic insight.
As Rove joins the ranks of discredited politicians who resign “in order to spend more time with family,” a retrospective of his dirty tricks might be in order. Much is attributed to Rove, dubbed “Bush’s Brain” by Texas journalists Wayne Slater and James Moore, yet very little sticks to the man. Bearing in mind that we presume innocence until guilt is proven, read on:
Regardless, the art and science of the political dirty tricks, learned by Rove in the Nixon years and perfected by him in the George W. Bush White House, will be with us for years to come.
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Unelected President Bush claims IRAN’s top fighting unit is a terrorist outfit
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
By John Blacker
The Bush crook is warming up for his war in Iraq it would seem. The New Butcher of Baghdad is about to become the Butcher of Earth before he has to go in 2008.
I suspect he has no idea he could technically get his butt kicked big time. If Iran were to attack Baghdad and cut off reinforcements from Basra, incite all the local Teliban to uprise and hold down any reinforcement support, then get the Israelis preoccupied in Lebanon to keep them tied down, use the Syrian & Iranian air force to preemptively attack carriers in the gulf by flying at low level - Bush & Brown could in theory be beaten in combat.
Break the supply lines and hold that ground for 1 month and our chaps would have to withdraw or surrender.
Do you think that would make the UK and USA any safer?
So what will Bush do - he will use nukes, which could bring China and Russia into the war on the side of Iran to protect their economic interests, if that happened then troops would pour into Canada and take the US because the US has most of its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Also India may attack the southern boarder with China - recent chinwags between India and china could have mentioned this possibility.
I have a gut feeling WW3 is here and about to grow big time.
US to brand Iran Guard ‘terrorist’
Al Jazeera
The US government has confirmed that the White House is about to formally designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group, a new escalation in tensions between the two nations.
Iran’s foreign ministry has dismissed the move as “worthless propaganda”.
Analysts see the move as a reflection of frustration in Washington over Tehran’s nuclear programme and suspected role in Iraqi violence.
Trita Parsi, an Iranian affairs analyst, said: “This is coming at a time when the Bush administration is seeking Iran’s help to stabilise Iraq.
“And it’s very hard to see how the administration expects diplomacy to succeed when at the same time it is designating partners in that diplomacy as terrorists.”
George Bush, the US president, is under pressure from members of congress and members of his own administration, including his vice-president, Dick Cheney, who are frustrated by lack of progress in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The US military also says the Revolutionary Guards provides military support for anti-American fighters in Iraq.
The terrorist designation would allow the Bush administration to target the group’s extensive business operations, including a crackdown on non-US companies doing business with the Guard’s various financial enterprises.
The UN Security Council levied sanctions on specific Guard commanders and their businesses this year.
The Bush administration is expected to formally put the terrorist label on the Guard before the UN General Assembly meeting next month.
Washington is also pushing the security council to prepare another resolution against Iran over its refusal to give up sensitive uranium enrichment work - but it has had problems getting agreement from Russia and China.
It would be the first time the US has placed the armed forces of any sovereign government on its list of terrorist organisations.
The US list of individuals, businesses, charities and groups believed to be engaged in terrorist activities includes al-Qaeda; Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement; and Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both Palestinian groups.
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Troops die from Depleted Uranium poison even before going into battle
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Soldier exposed to depleted uranium in training dies of leukemia caused by toxic weapon residue
Several young U.S. Marines in the same California hospital ward are suffering from the same aggressive form of leukemia, and the cancer may be linked to exposure to depleted uranium (DU). DU is a super-dense radioactive material that’s mainly used as plating on U.S. munitions, functioning as an extremely effective kinetic-energy penetrator to pierce armor.
At least one Marine, Eric Renner of Oregon City, has died from this form of leukemia. However, Renner reportedly never even went to Iraq. It’s believed DU exposure during live-fire training brought on his illness.
Renner’s father, Steve, went public with his concerns about DU after hearing that another Marine, 22-year-old Andy Rounds, may have been exposed to DU when a munitions dump exploded at his base in Iraq—an event that resembles the incident at Camp Doha in the first Gulf War that spread enough DU particles and shrapnel around to qualify it for current-day research on DU’s role in Gulf War Illness (GWI), otherwise known as Gulf War syndrome.
“Rounds’s treatment is not being covered [financially] by the military because he was not diagnosed until after he was out of the Army,” reported KPTV Channel 12, a Fox News affiliate in Portland, Ore. that ran this story regionally. Matters concerning DU rarely make the national news. The state of Oregon is covering Rounds’s expenses.
The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illness, a VA-chartered panel meeting in Dallas, put DU on its research list but demoted it to a relatively low priority. The committee, with $15 million a year in funding for five years through fiscal 2010, is studying GWI diagnostic techniques and proposed treatments.
A doctor at the Dallas meeting told AFP that GWI was limited to the first Gulf War, and is not linked with the current conflict. This opinion was later disputed by Dr. Doug Rokke, who served as a DU cleanup specialist in Gulf War I, is himself sick from war exposures and opposes the continued use of DU, which started in Gulf War I by the U.S. military.
Rokke insists the government needs to follow its established procedures and regulations pertaining to DU exposure (medical testing of urine and feces should be done within 24 hours of suspected exposure to DU aerosols, residue and shrapnel from combat), and he is calling for the military to follow its own guidelines and clean up the environment in the Persian Gulf, as well as in the Balkans and anywhere else DU has been used.
The Israeli military uses DU as well. Scores of civilians in or near battle zones have been plagued by myriad illnesses, including cancers and birth defects at least partly attributable to DU contamination of soil, water, food, etc., Rokke says, based on his military experiences.
Meanwhile, as KPTV noted, the U.S. military denies a link: “The military says it has done extensive research and found no connection between depleted uranium and leukemia.” Military spokesmen routinely refer to DU as having “low level” radiation that is “harmless.”
Back when Renner visited his dying son at a California military hospital, “four other Marines in the same ward were said to be fighting the same cancer,” KPTV reported. “I thought it was kind of strange,” Renner was quoted as saying by KPTV, which on Aug. 2 posted its report on this matter on its web site, complete with a video link. “This is a bigger problem than anybody really knows.”
Renner, who hopes speaking out about the DU-leukemia connection will help prevent more cases, told KPTV, “Maybe there’s no conclusive evidence, but based on what I’ve seen and read, there is some responsibility on the military’s part and on the government’s part.”
As for then-Private Rounds, in 2004, he was serving at a post near Kirkuk, Iraq. Rounds says that he and a few friends were walking one night when the sky lit up, due to a munitions dump filled with old weapons that exploded on his base. Because of brain damage and treatments, Rounds barely remembers the incident. But his mother, Lisa Rounds, believes that whatever exploded that night might have poisoned the surroundings.
“Why would a healthy, young guy get leukemia when it’s mostly very young children who have a genetic predisposition to it or old people who’ve been exposed to radiation for many years?” she told KPTV.
Tests showed that Rounds had a white blood cell count of more than 400,000, 40 to 50 times that of a normal count, diagnosed as AML, or acute myelogenous leukemia. Rounds had been out of the military for about two years when he passed out on the floor and was rushed to the hospital, the incident that led to his diagnosis.
Doctor Tibor Kovascovics, a doctor at the Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute, was quoted as saying that “he cannot make a connection” between Rounds’ military service and his leukemia.
Rokke, however, told AFP recently that DU exposure can manifest itself in many ways, from chronic fatigue to respiratory problems, nervous disorders such as ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), fibromyalgia, immune system disorders, rashes, decalcification of teeth and cancers. He stresses that unless soldiers are properly checked for DU exposure right away, following established procedures that he says are ignored, time quickly passes and it becomes harder and harder to pinpoint what caused a soldier to develop a given illness.
Mrs. Rounds, contacted Aug. 7 by AFP, said that the purpose of getting her son’s story out was to sound the alarm. “They have got to stop treating the soldiers like they’re widgets in a machine,” she said. She wants other soldiers and parents of soldiers to know that Rounds, whose health unfortunately was worsening as of Aug. 7, “started with a sinus infection” which seemed relatively minor, at first.
Everyone in this situation, even if it seems like a minor illness initially, should immediately get a CBC (complete blood count) “before it snowballs,” she stressed.
Asked if she thinks DU is the culprit, Mrs. Rounds replied, “Oh, definitely,” adding: “A lot of people would choose not to join the military if they knew they were going to be exposed.”
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China’s Toys containing lead too toxic
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
This has become stupid as we are so concerned about toys from China and disregard the other heavy metals such as Mercury and Aluminum. We don’t complain about the pesticides and other so called chemicals and compounds that have negative effects on ourselves and children. The Mercury and Aluminum are injected into our children yet Lead is what we worry about most.
Our understanding about the mercury substances ethyl and methyl mercury seems to be less of a priority. The fact is that mercury is the second most toxic substance to man behind plutonium. Is this fact too hard to understand? Your child just may have more access to mercury than lead in these days of seeking causes for developmental disorders.
I am to the point where I am thinking of just giving up. Genetics and environmental triggers is what we all have been saying for years. Because we took this stand on the mercury preservative in vaccines we are junk scientists? We well understand that civilization has again caused its own demise. Do you really think that those that may have poisoned our children would admit it?
Just as the Love Canal and Woburn the denials come first and then the studies that are so very expensive we allow those that poison to continue operations. We seem to protect the guilty ones and deny the innocent. Could thimerosal be the only trigger? Are vaccines alone the true blame?
I as most of the junk scientists and researchers have shown that it is a combination of toxins that causes this upswing in disorders and diseases that we see. In 1999 it was known that little was known about thimerosal. In 2007 the same holds true. Can we allow our immunity to be destroyed any further? Does this not also have a contribution to wht we see?
This is not that hard to figure out as we can see that all toxins have this name for a reason. The word toxin means that this substance may harm you depending on amount and genetic susceptibility. Your government agencies have known the dangers and only when the junk scientists record enough information can we find answers.
Is Autism still climbing? How can we know for the toxin was still there until 2003 or 2004. Thimerosal is still used in many vaccines that are on the recommendation charts that doctors use. More than mercury or lead is toxic to our children. The combinations and just plain over exposure result in the diseases and disorders that we see today. This is simple science.
Is it that we just don’t really understand or is it that we do and allow sacrifices at these rates? Let us boycott lead and all heavy metals may we include pesticides and industrial pollutants? Have we not become so advanced that we have become stupid?
Keep your children from lead containing toys, however allow the other toxins to be valid as they are accepted in foods, air or water. Makes no sense to me does it to you?
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Just what the Middle East needs — more WMDs
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Ehud Olmert thanked the Bush administration for boosting U.S. military aid to Israel.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns flew to Tel Aviv on Wednesday to finalize a deal in which the United States will donate $30 billion in defense grants to Israel over the next decade, a 25 percent increase over the current assistance.
Burns met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of the official signing ceremony Thursday.
“The prime minister asked the undersecretary to convey his appreciation and thanks to U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for the efforts invested,” Olmert’s office said in a statement.
“The prime minister noted that the U.S. aid deal is a significant development for Israel and proves once more the depth of the relations between the two countries, as well as the commitment of the United States to the security of Israel and the preservation of its qualitative edge.”
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Govt gives anti-Bush school production a bad review
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
The Australian Government has accused a Sydney high school of hijacking an annual competition to protest against a visit by United States President George W. Bush at next month’s Sydney Apec summit.But the organisers and the New South Wales education authority have defended the school’s anti-war themed entry in the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge, saying the event is about freedom of expression.
Bush will be in Sydney when the event is staged on September 6.
Bad Knight II, the production by northern Sydney’s Davidson High School, depicts Bush as the pilot of a crashing plane and attacks the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop questioned whether the students were performing material of their own choice.
One pupil involved in the production said the concept for the performance came from one of the school’s teachers and did not represent the views of all the students involved.
“There appears to be a teacher’s political agenda here,” said Bishop.
But the NSW Department of Education said while the idea may have come from a teacher, parents and students had been advised of the content of the performance and had been free to withdraw.
“The department supports the school and the way they have gone about their Rock Eisteddfod production,” a department spokesman said. “No student could participate without signed parental approval.
“This is not about politics, it’s about the ability of students to express their views in the atmosphere of a stage production,” he said.
Rock Eisteddfod Challenge executive producer Peter Sjoquist said organisers had no say in the themes schools chose for the event.
“Our view is that we provide a professional venue and crew to these schools to enable them to perform on stage,” he said. “The choice of theme is up to the school, parents and students. We don’t get involved in censorship.”
Opposition education spokesman Andrew Stoner said the NSW Government needed to make it clear that politicising the classroom was unacceptable. “The Department of Education should ensure the positives of the Rock Eisteddfod are not overshadowed by divisive politics,” Stoner said. “Students in our public schools must be allowed the chance to develop their own viewpoints as they grow up.”
NSW Premier Morris Iemma said students should be allowed to express themselves. “I’ve seen George Bush many times on television and I’ve heard him say that he believes in people’s free speech,” he said. “I don’t think George Bush would want any intervention … that would curtail the right of those students to make their point.”
- AAP
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