International Day of the Disappeared

Sunday 30th August marks the International Day of the Disappeared:

James Balao, an activist working on Indigenous Peoples rights, was forcibly disappeared on 17 September 2008 in Baguio City, Philippines. He was last seen near his home being roughly bundled by armed men into a white van. One of the men who took him shouted at onlookers, and told them not to interfere because they were police officers arresting James. A court has ordered the authorities to reveal where he is, and do no further harm to him, but has not authorised his family to look for him in places of detention. He is one of hundreds of Filipinos who have been forcibly disappeared and have not been found yet .

James, a member of the Indigenous Benguet Ibaloi tribe in the Cordillera region in Northern Philippines, dedicated himself to research and fighting for Indigenous Peoples rights, particularly ancestral land rights. He contributed to the drafting of the Philippines’ Constitution. He is one of the founding members of the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA), an alliance of local organizations from the different Indigenous tribes in the Cordillera region.

Take action! Join the call to Surface James Balao and Stop Enforced Disappearances in the Philippines. Take photos of yourself or with friends, ideally in front of a local landmark to show international solidarity, holding up a message such as: “End Enforced Disappearances — the world is watching” or “Where is James Balao?”

The photos will be used as part of an international solidarity campaign on the one-year anniversary of James’ disappearance. Email photos to philmasteam@gmail.com or online.communities@amnesty.org by 31 October 2009.

Amnesty International

About James Balao and His Disappearance

 

Climate Talks at Copenhagen

There is no way an agreement can be reached between parties involved (the environmentally-minded public versus industry and governments), that would satisfy the concerns of both during Climate talks. The public will never be satisfied with low quotas, neither will industries agree to limiting factory outputs, nor governments allow national economies to struggle.

And how effective are the Climate talks when industrial nations can negotiate the “purchase” or trade of CO2 quotas from developing or non-industrial countries in order to circumvent the quota rule? How effective are the Climate talks when industrial nations (like Japan) set their targets way below of anything that impacts change in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions?

A more long-term solution is necessary, and one that could satisfy both. How about finding a scientific solution to neutralising greenhouse gas and CO2 emissions? I’m sure governments and industries will finance the research on that. Of course, it will still be necessary to set quotas, but a Plan B should also be considered, since Plan A falls short of reducing the pollution.

• COP15: United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen 2009
• Adopt a Negotiator: Help track negotiations as they head towards the UN Climate Conference in December 2009
• Home by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

And you adolescent losers, expressing contempt for and subjecting to ridicule those who are trying to save the planet and the world: If you can do a better job, let’s hear it, but unless you have a better solution, I suggest you listen.

 

2012

The Long Count Calendar of the Mayan civilisation suggests that the end of time may occur on the 21st of December 2012. In spite of a lack of scientific measuring instruments by the Mayans in their studies of the movements of the stars from which this foresight is based, they had noted a one-degree shift in that movement through lifetimes of observations.

I would be sceptical of any doomsday prophecy, even this made by people whose civilisation began in 2000BC, if it were not for the fact that the year 2012 coincides with the scientifically-based prediction that sunspots (causing sun flares) will reach its highest point of development on that same year. We are going to get fried.

Knowing this, we should think that perhaps our lives would be of better use in helping others and making the world a little more bearable to live in.

2012: Science or Superstition
The Maya Civilisation

 

Choose Peace

When we shall look back at history, we will all be able to say with conviction that Bush has effectively destroyed America’s goodwill with the rest of the world. Now America will choose a new leader, and between Obama and McCain, Obama would be the better President. He is far more intelligent, and far more likely to make wise decisions than his rival. McCain is a walking warmonger and fearmonger, itching for confrontation.

Will America’s enemies take advantage of Obama’s so-called inexperience? Will McCain make things better or worse with America’s enemies? Having your plane shot down in Vietnam does not automatically qualify one to lead a nation, nor is that experience enough for it. Taking advantage of the emotional empathy this circumstance generates in order to get into politics is contemptible.

But will a new President change what its enemies think of America? Whatever you want to think, please choose peace. Please give Obama the chance to prove that there is still goodwill left in America.

• Biography: Barack Obama: Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University, where he majored in political science and specialized in international relations. He then attended Harvard Law School, graduated magna cum laude, and served as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he worked as a community organizer and a civil rights lawyer in Chicago. He also taught at the University of Chicago Law School as a senior lecturer specializing in constitutional law.

• MarketWatch: Why McCain would be a mediocre president: Like the current occupant of the White House, McCain got his first career breaks from the connections and money of his family, not from hard work…. With the help of his new wife’s wealth, his new father-in-law’s business connections and some powerful friends he had made as a lobbyist for the Navy, he was elected in 1982 to Congress in a district that he didn’t reside in until the day the seat opened up.

… McCain says he doesn’t understand the economy. He’s demonstrated that he doesn’t understand the workings of Social Security, or the political history of the Middle East. He doesn’t know who our enemies are. He says he wants to reduce global warming, but then proposes ideas that would stimulate — not reduce — demand for fossil fuels.

… His major accomplishment, in Vietnam and in the Senate, has been merely to survive.
Just surviving doesn’t make you a hero, or a decent president. America needs to do more than survive the next four years.

• The New York Times: Rivals Split on U.S. Power, but Ideas Defy Easy Labels
• The Nation Institute: McCain and the POW Cover-up

update:
• BBC: Al-Qaeda’s ‘mild’ message to Obama
• alJazeera: Mideast echoes Obama’s ‘change’ message

 

Massive Fraud and the Financial Crisis

I once had a discussion with a fellow British blogger who is studying Economics in London. He argued that for a state economy to be productive, free enterprise is the way to go. I argued that it is the duty of the State to look after its people and to regulate the economy to ensure prosperity for all.

Capitalism is well and good for individuals who have capital to begin with, and when the majority of the populace are of equal socio-economic status. But what about the little guy, the salary-man who survives day-to-day, whose livelihood, take-home pay and means of survival are at the whim of enterprise? When there is a gap between the rich and poor, the inequality raises serious social, political and economic issues.

Let’s say that these same salary-men place their savings in stocks and bonds, touted as good investments. Let’s say they also invest in a home, tied to a bank mortgage. They hope that by joining the bandwagon, they would make a profit off the volatile caprices of the market, traders gambling on a bet that the market would go this way or that.

Then the whole arrangement collapses. Who is now asked to step in, but told to keep out when the wolves were at the slaughter? Who is now asked to do something to save the traders who most profited by paying themselves appallingly huge salaries? Disgustingly huge salaries for a job that supposedly they had the know-how of, to wisely invest hard-earned money for a profit. It now appears that the Government will use taxpayers’ money to bail out banks and investment houses. All that hard-earned money gone to pay enormous bonuses and salaries, and empty pockets for the investors.

Now Capitalism is asked to step aside and Socialism to come in to salvage what little there is left to salvage in a financial crisis that capitalism has no means to solve.

Lehman Bros head took home $300m in pay and bonuses
How the financial turmoil affects you

• Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
• Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole

• Betraying the Spirit of Capitalism, by Nicolas Sarkozy: An unprecedented crisis of confidence is rocking the global economy. Major financial institutions are threatened, millions of small savers in the world who have invested their savings on the stock market are seeing them melt away, day after day, millions of pensioners who contributed to pension funds fear for their retirement, millions of modest households are being put in a difficult position by the rise in prices.

Basically, a certain idea of globalization is biting the dust with the end of a financial capitalism which had imposed its rationale on the whole economy and contributed to corrupting it. The idea of the all-powerful market which wasn’t to be impeded by any rules or political intervention was a mad one. The idea that the markets are always right was mad.

For several decades we created conditions in which industry operated with the aim of achieving short-term profitability. The growing risks people were forced to take to obtain increasingly exorbitant profits were concealed.

Remuneration systems were put in place which drove dealers to take more and more absolutely reckless risks. Banks were allowed to speculate on the markets instead of doing their job which is mobilize savings for economic development and analyzing the credit risk.

The speculator rather than the entrepreneur was financed.

… The current crisis must prompt us to build capitalism on a new sounder foundation, base it on an effort and work ethic; it must prompt us to restore a balance between the necessary freedom and regulation, between collective and individual responsibility. We must find a new balance between the State and the market when public authorities the world over are being compelled to intervene to save the banking system from collapse. A new relationship must be established between the economy and politics through the development of new regulations.

Self-regulation as a way of resolving all problems is finished. Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market which is always right is finished. We must learn the lessons from the crisis so that it doesn’t reoccur. We have just been a fingertip away from disaster and we can’t take the risk of it happening again.

If we want to rebuild a viable financial system, raising the moral standards of financial capitalism is a priority. I have no hesitation in saying that from now on there must be a limit on the remuneration of executives and dealers. There have been too many excesses; there have been too many scandals. So either the financial industry agrees on acceptable practices or the government of the Republic will settle the problem through legislation before the year is out.

The remuneration of executives must be indexed to the business’s actual economic performance. They must not be able to claim a golden parachute when they have committed errors or caused their businesses huge problems. And if the executives have a stake in the company’s performance, which is a good thing, its other employees, particularly the lowest-paid, must too. If the executives have stock options, the other employees must also have them or, failing that, benefit from a profit-sharing system.

We have to find out where the blame lies and those responsible for this collapse must at least pay some financial penalty. …

– Betraying the Spirit of Capitalism, by Nicolas Sarkozy (excerpts from his speech on 25 September 2008), published on ABS-CBN News on 10/9/2008 by Dennis Gaviola

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Sign the petition: Buy In — Not Bail Out: To world leaders: As citizens, we call for a global public “buy-in” to tackle the financial meltdown, instead of a “bail-out” of reckless bankers. We urge you to agree on a bold public rescue package without further delay – taking stakes in the banks, fixing failings, and mobilising public investment to benefit the many not the few.

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Staff at six banks set for huge bonuses: Financial workers at Wall Street’s top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year – despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash….

 

A Class Divided: A Lesson in Discrimination

White people make up less than 50% of the population of the 100 largest cities in the United States for the first time in history, census data show. While they are a majority in 52 of the 100 largest cities, they make up only 44% of the total population of those cities. Hispanics are the fastest growing urban group in the US, according to the census – increasing at a rate of 72% in the 20 fastest-growing cities, compared to 5% for whites. — Whites a minority in US cities

Do unto others as they would have them do unto you. — New Testament, Talmud, Koran, and the Analects of Confucius

 

Carcinogenic Japan

Less than three years after arriving in Japan, I developed an endocrine problem which caused my health to deteriorate. Through the years, I’ve had friends and acquaintances who have developed serious health problems, many of whom have died from cancer. I wondered why.

What was causing all the cancer? Is it in the green tea that most Japanese drink everyday? Is it in the fish they like to eat raw or cooked in some sugar and soy mixture? Is it in the air we breathe here? Is it in the water? I discovered the answer, and it appears to be all of the above — and more.

The carcinogenic substance that finds its way into the air, the drinking water, and the agricultural soil is dioxin, a toxin which is one of the end result of burning plastics and industrial wastes. One gram of dioxin is enough to kill an estimated 10,000 people, and the Japanese government has estimated yearly dioxin emission at a very conservative 5.3 kg (1998).

Japan has the highest dioxin emission in the world, and 90% of Japan’s dioxin emissions are generated from incinerators. About 70% of the world’s number of incinerators are concentrated in Japan. Tall incinerator towers dot cities here, and depending how the wind blows, dioxin is carried in the air to pollute these cities. In a test done on mothers living down-wind of an incinerator, some have been advised to reduce breast-feeding.

Dioxin finds its way into agricultural soil through agrochemical and herbicide use; and eventually, in the vegetables we eat here. In 1999, dioxin-tainted vegetables were discovered. Aside from vegetables, fish from Tokyo Bay were found to contain unusually high levels of dioxin, a result of these agrochemicals. Aside from causing cancer, dioxin is an endocrine inhibitor which alters the functions of hormones.

But there are also other sources of toxic contamination. Japan has limited natural resources, and the Japanese have resorted to recycling household water by chemically treating it in order to make it potable again. Many years ago, I was watching the News on television and they showed some politicians drinking water recycled from the toilets, telling the public that it was safe to drink. What are those chemicals and to what extent can these be detrimental to our heath? Some of my visiting friends from abroad have remarked that the tap water tastes like chlorine.

Many public baths still use wood to heat the bathing water. The wood used are chemically treated, and one such chemical is arsenic. There is a public bath near my house, and depending how the wind blows, the nauseating smoke coming from their chimney enters through the windows of my house. Just breathing this invisible smoke induces vomiting.

Another cultural tradition is the Japanese penchant for packaging that is pleasing to the eye. The amount of paper, plastic and cardboard wastage that goes into packaging a gift is huge. The Japanese are so very fond of gift-giving, so much so they have two seasonal gift-giving traditional times, one in August and the other at the end of the year. And that’s aside from the many other occasions which requires a gift. A Japanese female friend of mine said that she had to purchase 50 boxes of chocolates, an “obligatory gift” in her company to male employees on Valentine’s day.

Benzene and nitrogen dioxide emissions from auto-mobiles are other air pollutants worth mentioning. The pollution situation still falls short of environmental standards, and it doesn’t help that the Japanese have a nasty habit of letting their cars run idle, often for long periods of time.

I’m sure the Japanese government is doing what it can to reduce the toxic pollution, and who am I to say what they should or should not do. Seemingly obvious solutions like a culture re-think: the over-packaging for a start, or the use of other means than burning wood to heat baths, if public baths are really that necessary. Re-usable chopsticks, instead of the wooden disposable type would go a very long way to conserve trees and obviously reduce the amount of incinerated garbage. But what stands out as an apparent remedy that perhaps has more to it than meets my simple eye (like logistics), is to re-locate the incinerators outside of cities.

But we shouldn’t leave it only to the government to find solutions. We have a very major role to play in reducing the carcinogens in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Sort your household garbage, and make sure plastics are not included in the “burnable” bin. Use canvas bags or any bag which you can re-use to carry your groceries. Find ways to contribute to reducing wastage and controlling pollution. The life you save may be your own.

Cancer is the major cause of death in Japan, but it is a subject of discussion considered taboo among the Japanese. I had asked my doctor what caused my endocrine system to go haywire, and he replied “I don’t know.” If they could just change another culture-think, examine the implications of being labelled the “Dioxin Capital of the World,” then they would know the root cause of cancer in Japan.

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References:
• Dioxin Levels High in Incinerator-Happy Japan
• Dioxin Found Deadly for Sure
• In Japan’s Burnt Trash, Dioxin Threat
• Tokyo Metropolis: No Time to Waste
• Air Pollution Not Improving

See also:
• Presentations at International Conferences
(see articles by Shigeki Masunaga on his research on dioxin pollution in Japan)
• Low Carbon Economy

• The Washington Post: Japan Staunches Stench of Mass Trash Incinerators

 

Blanche

I was about 11 years old when I met a pretty black girl named Blanche. That school in Virginia was predominantly white, but there were these two black girls who kept to themselves and who I would see together all the time.

They were not in my class, but I went up to them to make new friends. At the canteen after lunch, I would go to their table in the corner of the room to chat. One day, I gave her my picture, and she gave me hers. As for the other black girl, she seldom if ever said two words.

Then something happened, and I just couldn’t remember what it was. But one thing that I have felt so bad and so guilty about was that, I tore her picture in front of them. I never spoke to Blanche after that.

I have so wanted to meet her again and apologise. The remorse and the guilt have haunted me all these years. Then I decided to try to recall what transpired.

A few days ago, I remembered. She had reproached me for fraternising with my white classmates. She said I couldn’t be her friend for doing that. And after over thirty years, I finally felt relieved that tearing her picture was not as a result of meanness on my part. She wanted me to choose friendship based on skin colour, and that was a wrong factor in any criteria.

Racism is not confined to Whites, but because the Whites are racist, the repercussions of that is, so became the Blacks. I am Brown, and not belonging to either extreme, both Whites and Blacks do not consider me within their realm. I look down on neither colour, but only feel pity that colour is a factor in the likes and dislikes of people.