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Latin America
A brief assessment of Latin America’s political process to date
Mercosul
US presence in Latin America
Fidel Castro takes a leave of absence of the presidency of Cuba
The year of 2006 for the United States
The power problem
Europe
A year of profound crisis in the Middle East
Asia
Africa
Trade, economy and multilateralism
The UN in 2006
News from the working world
The debate over the question of immigration
News from the social movement

Latin America

The first new president to assume the government of a country this year was Evo Morales in Bolivia in January. In May, he took the initiative of nationalizing gas and oil reserves which, regardless of the polemic, made it possible to negotiate deals with every multinational company, including Petrobras, and thus ensuring that the Bolivian position was respected.

On July 2 were elected the deputies that formed Bolivia’s national constituent assembly, mainly to define property over natural resources, the country’s administrative structure and the incorporation of the original peoples to every citizen aspect. Out of a total 255 seats, President Evo Morales’s Movement toward Socialism (MAS) obtained 139, or 50.7% of the votes, the Podemos (We can), 15.3% and 62 seats, the National Union, 7.2% and seven chairs, and the remaining parties, 26.8% and 47 constituent deputies.

The MAS succeeded, under protests from the right, in passing a motion establishing that each item of the new constitution be approved by a 50%-plus-one majority and not the 2/3 the opposition sought. This larger quorum will only be applicable to the final voting of the entire Charter and to the popular referendum that it will also be submitted to. On July 2 there was held the election to compose Bolivia’s National Constituent Assembly as well as the referendum on the autonomy of the country’s departments (as Bolivian states/provinces are called).

The dispute over the Constituent’s quorum and the attempt made by the MAS administration to regulate the functioning of departmental governments, whose governors were until recently appointed, are right now being challenged by demonstrators in the departments where the right is stronger, as Pando, Tarija, Santa Cruz and Beni, including threats of the proclamation of autonomous governments.

Bachelet is the fourth representative of the “Concertación” (the Concert) –Chile’s governmental coalition formed by the Christian-Democrat, Socialist and Radical parties– to be elected since direct presidential elections were reintroduced in the country after Pinochet’s dictatorship was defeated in the 1988 plebiscite when he sought to approve a new Constitution and extend his mandate for a few more years. She was sworn in in March.

The two first Concertación presidents were Christian Democrats. The third was Ricardo Lagos, a socialist, and it was during his term that the Pinochet regime had its most corrupt facet revealed, adding to what was known with regard to the violation of human rights. Bachelet formed her cabinet with ten women and ten men, and has been involved in the task of tearing down the privatized State structure the dictatorship had set up, particularly in the areas of education, health and pensions.

The end of the month of May was marked by the occurrence of a huge demonstration of secondary students in Chile. They took to the streets with the support of their university peers, teachers and many parents associations, and managed to hold marches that brought together more than a million people. Such protests were targeted at the Chilean educational legislation and claimed for more public spending on education, designed specially to benefit poorer students.

On December 10, 2006 the ex-dictator died, ironically on the date of the celebration of “Human Rights Day”, without having to serve the sentences he would most likely be passed for his involvement in arbitrary arrests, tortures and assassinations of opponents during his term, on top of the recent discovery that he possessed resources invested abroad as a result of kickbacks and corruption schemes.

In Chile, as in Argentina and Uruguay, there is a broad range of measures under appreciation to revoke the amnesty implemented by each country’s respective military regimes of the 1970s and 1980s.

In the month of March there were municipal elections in El Salvador and the great question was how the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) would fare after the poor result obtained in the last presidential elections and some internal schisms in the party.

The Front kept the same number of votes it had obtained in the last municipal election: around 700,000. It lost in some cities but won in others. Yet, it retained power in the capital city of San Salvador, overcoming the tough game played by the right and the fact that the current mayor, Carlos Zamora, left the party. The new mayor is called Violeta Menjivar.

Also in March, René Préval, the president-elect of Haiti, who had ruled that country from 1996 to 2001, took his office. He belongs to the same Fanmi Lavalas party of President Bertrand Aristide who resigned or was toppled in 2003. The distance between the two concepts is very narrow.

Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) won the presidential elections in Nicaragua in October with some 38% of the ballots against 29% of the runner-up, Eduardo Montealegre, of right wing Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN).

According to that country’s electoral legislation, the winner of the first round is the candidate who reaches a minimum of 40% of the votes or, otherwise, 35% if, in such case, there is a minimum difference of 5% in relation to the second place. This second alternative is what occurred in Nicaragua.

The result means the return of the FSLN to power after 17 years, when the same Daniel Ortega failed to be reelected in the 1989 presidential election. However, he returns under quite different circumstances than those in which he left the presidency.

There is no more cold war or armed conflicts in Central America, yet the country is even poorer and in this regard is second only to Haiti in the continent. Ortega himself has moderated his political positions to lure the center’s electorate, but in spite of this effort by the Sandinistas, Paul Trivelli, the new US ambassador appointed in 2005 to the country, stated to the press early in the electoral process that he would make any effort to unite all right-wing parties, whom he calls democratic, around a single candidacy which, to the Americans, was Montealegre.

The left’s presidential candidate in Ecuador, Rafael Correa, who ran for the Alianza País (Country Alliance), the AP coalition, won the second-round runoff elections held on November 26. He defeated Álvaro Noboa, the “Banana Tycoon” by a 14-percent margin –57% to 43%.

Notwithstanding Noboa’s wealth, Correa managed to bring together almost all the left in support for his candidacy in the second round, and his victory was important because it opens a new road for Ecuador since he announced during his campaign that he wouldn’t sign the Free Trade Agreement with the US, or renew the license agreement of the Manta Air Base with the Americans, and that he would call a referendum to consult the population on the appropriateness of drafting a new Constitution or not.

President Hugo Chávez Frias, as expected, was reelected president of Venezuela on December 3 for another 6-year term. He obtained 63% of all valid votes and defeated the opposition candidate, Manoel Rosales, who only got 36.7 %.

At the beginning of the presidential campaign 22 candidates stepped forward, but nearly all, with the exception of Rosales, quit. Rosales is the governor of the state of Zulia and is a member of the Democratic Alliance (AD), Venezuela’s social-democratic party that had at first considered not launching a candidate and sticking to its position of not recognizing the country’s political process.

Besides these victories there were other elections whose results should be analyzed in a distinct way: Canada, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico.

The more conservative right won parliamentarian elections in Canada in late January, but will rule with a minority government, which might avert the approval of more radical measures, especially a closer alignment with the Uses foreign policy. The new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, replaces liberal Paul Martin, whose party occupied the office for 11 years.

Canada is a parliamentarian democracy in which four main parties co-exist: the Tories, the Liberals, the Quebecois Bloc and the New Democratic Party (NDP), which, as a rule, is supported by the unions. The number of seats each party got after the election was, respectively, 124, 103, 51 and 29. An independent MP was elected, thus completing Parliament’s 308 seats.

Oscar Sanchez Árias, of the National Liberation Party (PLN), was the victor of the presidential elections in Costa Rica held in February. Having been president from 1986 to 1990, Árias ran the 2006 elections on an absolutely neoliberal platform in defense of the privatization of the country’s state-owned companies and of the signing of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (Cafta).

Árias, however, only defeated his main adversary, Ottón Sollis –who had been Árias` Minister of Planning and resigned at the time for disagreeing with the structural adjustment plan implemented by Árias by orientation of the IMF– by a 1.1-percent margin. Árias ran for the Citizen Action Party (PAC), which was founded in 2002 and on that occasion had come as a surprise by electing 24 federal deputies. His rise to the second place interrupted a tradition of a bi-partisan exclusive race between the PLN and the Christian-Democrat Party of the Christian Social Unity (PUSC), both weakened by a string of corruption scandals.

In Peru, the main contest took place in June 2006 between Ollanta Humala, a retired military and candidate for the Union for Peru coalition and Alan Garcia, who presided over the country in the 1980s for the Aprista Party.

Humala presented himself with a nationalist, pro-social rights platform that granted him the largest voting in the first round, though insufficient to win the elections. In the second round, support by right-wing parties to Garcia gave him a 54% majority of votes.

While Alan Garcia won easily in the capital city and nearby provinces, Ollanta Humala triumphed in the 16 countryside provinces, especially in the poorest regions. His coalition is the most represented in parliament with 36%, followed by Garcia’s APRA with 30%, though with a still unclear political and programmatic position. The leftist parties as the socialist PSP, the communist PCP and the Red Homeland (Pátria Roja) together had a mere 1.5% of the votes in the first round and were left without parliamentarian representation because they failed to meet the minimum 4% established by the electoral law barrier clause.

In Colombia, President Álvaro Uribe was reelected in the first round in May with 62.2% of the votes. Yet, the Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA) finished in second, with the Carlos Gavíria candidacy, outweighing the Liberal Party and thus becoming a real alternative to the country. This electoral leap of the left is due to a process of social struggles, of the building of the Pole’s unity, as well as to local alliances and the success obtained in the municipal and state governments conquered in 2003 as for instance the municipal government of Bogotá and the state of Valle.

Uribe has held a majority in parliament since the March 2006 legislature and has been carrying out his neoliberal program that includes the signing of an FTA with the US. Incidentally, the Colombian government has been one of the most important allies of American interests in Latin America. Despite the conservative majority, the PDA also grew in parliament and obtained almost a million votes in March, in a country where voting is optional and turnout traditionally low.

Recently the Uribe administration has been rattled by a charge by the country’s Supreme Court that the former director-general of the federal police Security Administrative Department (DAS), Jorge Noguera Cates, has ties with the paramilitary and drug dealers. Apart from the accusations pending against him, three parliamentarians were arrested for the same motive.

Mexico was the stage for one of last year’s fiercest electoral campaigns. The candidate of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), Andrés Manoel Lopez Obrador, held the lead almost all of the time against a harsh smear and anti-communist campaign carried out by the remaining candidacies and supported by the Fox administration and the big corporate media.

Though in the final stretch the National Action Party (PAN) candidate, Felipe Calderón, managed to rise in the opinion polls, even so it would be extremely difficult for him to win the elections. Yet on September 6, Mexico’s Judiciary Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE) announced him as the winner of the presidential election held on July 2, by a difference of only 243,000 votes (0.58%), out of a total 41 million votes.

The coalition supporting Obrador denounced the occurrence of irregularities in some 50,000 ballot boxes of a total 132 thousand, that is, placed under suspicion almost 38% of the votes cast.

The PRD initiated a process of judicial recourses and mobilizations to pressure the TRIFE to recount all the votes. Such mobilization included huge assemblies in Mexico City’s downtown area for almost two months usually gathering more than one million people, and supporters camped out on the Zócalo, the city’s central square, plus the blocking of the capital’s main avenues.

On September 16, the Lopez Obrador supporters deliberated to suspend the mobilization held thus far and approved a movement of civil disobedience and non recognition of Mexican institutions, starting by not legitimizing the new president of the republic. This assembly proclaimed Obrador the president-elect and decided to swear him in as such and as the leader of a parallel government on November 20, a symbolic date, since it marked the beginning of the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

Even the leftist sectors that had called for the annulment of the votes on the ground that the PRD and the Lopez Obrador candidacy did not represent any significant difference in relation to the remaining other parties and candidates, recognized that the electoral participation of the PRD, the radical questioning of the Mexican electoral system and the September 16 assembly that decided to establish a parallel government constituted the most important political actions of the last years.

Lopez Obrador was not sworn in as the de jure president because the right combated him fiercely, from the attempt to prevent him from running, followed by the vile smear campaign and culminating in the fraud. The pro annulment of votes campaign and that all were “birds of a same feather” helped the right to put Calderón in the presidential office. His inauguration took place inside the Mexican Congress on December 1, swiftly, with no celebrations and under vehement protests by parliamentarians from the opposition. The 2006 Mexican election confirmed the decadence of the PRI and reaffirmed the PRD as today’s second political force and an alternative to the government.

In addition to the fierce electoral contest that involved the whole country, in the state of Oaxaca there is a popular movement mobilized since July that is fighting for the ousting of the authoritarian and corrupt PRI governor, Ulisses Ortiz Ruiz. However, Ruiz is being defended at all costs by a strong repression of the population by the federal government, which does not want the most likely election of a PRD candidate to replace him, since his permanence is a condition to secure the PAN-PRI alliance that will give Calderón a majority in Congress. Up to now, there are several fatal casualties and many people wounded and arrested.

A brief assessment of Latin America’s political process to date

This cycle of presidential elections, which is to end with the contest in Argentina in 2007, consolidated and further broadened the spectrum of progressive and leftist governments in Latin America and demonstrated that the majority of the population of our continent is willing to take the road to change and not to remain under neoliberal hegemony.

To the continent’s progressive forces, the electoral bottom line was quite positive. Besides the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, progressive and/or leftist presidents were elected in Bolivia, Panama, Uruguay, Nicaragua and El Salvador, while the position was maintained in Chile with the election of Michelle Bachelet. The right won in Colombia, but the Alternative Democratic Pole became the second political force in that country, as did the PRD in Mexico.

Traditional leftist forces fared very badly in Peru, for they were not able to elect a single parliamentarian. However, the candidate dubbed by the media as leftist was Ollanta Humala, who arrived in second though his Union for Peru coalition elected the largest representation to the Peruvian parliament.

The right-wing parties, the media and the economic forces in our region sought to depict this situation in a rather different way, as a victory of market forces who barred “leftist populism in Peru, Colombia and Mexico”.

In fact, naming our governments populist is a way to try to stigmatize their policies. When Lula or Chávez visit poor neighborhoods or implement social programs it is populism, but when Fernando Henrique Cardoso mounts on a mule, wears a northeasterner cangaceiro hat and eats typical regional food, as he did in 1994, it is plain electoral campaign.

Another trick, this one devised by the former foreign relations minister of the Fox administration, Jorge Castañeda, is to categorize progressive governments as modern or lagging left. In the first group would be Kirchner, Tabaré Vázquez, Lula and Bachelet, and in the second Fidel Castro, Chávez and Evo Morales. The problem is that that corroborates some Manichean conceptions that exist in the left as well, by not considering the reality and historical processes of each country and wishing that everything should evolve in the same way and at the same pace, which is a wrong perspective.

The press too played a decisive role against the left in these elections, and the most recent examples were Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela, where it campaigned unabashedly and set out to attack and slander, without admitting any preferences. Yet, a rather interesting fact was noted: a loss of credibility and influence of the media over the electorate in comparison with past elections.

Mercosul

There is a treaty signed many years ago by Argentina and Uruguay defining the joint administration of the Uruguay River along the border of the two countries, including the care with its environmental preservation. In 2004, two large multinational pulp and paper companies –Finnish Botnia and Spain’s Ence– announced a US$ 1.8 billion investment to build their mills on the river edge of the Uruguayan municipality of Fray Bentos.

The contentious started when the population of the Argentinean town of Gualeguaychu, under allegations that the mills would cause environmental damages to the river, mobilized and with the support of the governor of the province of Entrerios blockaded the passage of vehicles on the bridge uniting both countries, a dispute still pending resolution.

The issue, one of a seemingly easy solution, was “politicized” and made into national causes, generating a deadlock not only for the two countries but also for Mercosul as a whole. The perception of the Uruguayan society is that the two big countries of the region, Brazil and Argentina, are not concerned with the development of the two smaller partners, making investing difficult. Besides, the bigger partners have reduced their imports of Uruguayan and Paraguayan goods.

Both countries had to put up with some embarrassing situations with regard to the theme. Uruguay during the Iberian-American Conference held in Montevideo in November, when the president of Argentina unilaterally requested the mediation of King Juan Carlos of Spain, and Argentina because the World Bank approved a US$ 170 million loan so that one of the companies involved, Botnia, may conclude the 40% of the remaining works. In addition, the bank declared that Botnia would operate according to the highest international standards, complying with the bank’s social and environmental requirements.

The other company, Spanish Ence, which had also planned to set up a mill in the same locality as Botnia, the city of Fray Bentos in Uruguay, since it had barely begun construction decided to take the project to another region of the country.

The great novelty of the 30th Mercosul Ordinary Summit Meeting and associated countries, on July 21 in the city of Cordoba, Argentina, was the participation of Venezuela already boasting the status of full member though with a calendar to harmonize its trade tariffs with the four original member countries’ Common External Tariff (TEC).

The remaining decisions were basically designed to bolster the region’s energy integration by way of the Gas Pipeline of the South, to which Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay have also adhered; to advance in the definition of a customs code for the Mercosur; to conduct regional trade transactions in local currencies rather then the American dollar; to define the rules for the functioning of the Structural Convergence Fund (FOCEM); to launch a program to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease in the region; to sign an economic complementation agreement with Cuba involving some 3,000 tariff lines; and to sign a protocol toward the negotiation of a free trade agreement with Pakistan.

The III Mercosul Educational Forum was held in November in Belo Horizonte, which in addition to bringing together member countries government officials specialized in the area also sponsored a parallel international meeting of social entities linked to education in the same countries.

In December, already under the pro tempore presidency of Brazil, the Mercosul Parliament was installed, which will initially have the participation of 18 deputies appointed by the parliaments of member countries. As of 2010, they will be elected directly. At that month’s Common Market Committee meeting, Bolivia’s accession was approved as a member country and not as an associated country as before.

Owing to the realization in December of the South-American Community of Nations meeting, the Mercosul Presidential Summit was adjourned to January 18-19, when the Consultative Council of States and Municipalities is also to be installed.

US presence in Latin America

On April 4, a representative of the US State Department testified in the American Congress on his government’s initiatives to curb money laundering in the three countries that form the region known as the Triple Border –Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay– through the creation of “Trade Transparency Units” to verify the origin and destination of trade transactions, and thereafter inform governments, the American included, about distortions that could represent potential frauds, money laundering or the financing of terrorist activities.

As customary, the Americans suggest that the Triple Border has no controls and that, therefore, this would be their mission, which apart from being an unacceptable interference in the three nations’ sovereignty, would allow them to monitor Mercosul’s trade flows, thus obtaining strategic information for their own international trade policy.

The Department’s annual report on world terrorist activities published in mid-2006 concluded that the Brazilian government “vigorously condemns terrorism, but does not provide the material and political support necessary to strengthen anti-terror institutions”, praised the improvement of the COAF database “with American aid”, as an important instrument to combat money laundering and, at the same time, criticized the fact that Brazil acknowledges Hamas and Hezbollah as political parties.

What the American government expects is that all governments of the world modify their legislation to adapt it to the US’s own national security rules adopted after 9/11 and which was followed by many of its more or less unconditional allies, as England, for instance.

With a careless statement, the new commander of the US’s Advanced Operations at the Manta Air Base, Javier Delucca, a North-American army general raised the discussion over the installation of military bases in Latin America by stating that the location of the Manta base, in western Ecuador, was of great use to Plan Colombia to combat drug dealing. Delucca spurred reactions from political and social groups and human rights organizations on considerations that the existence of such apparatus directly involves Ecuador in Plan Colombia.

There is yet another American military base being set in operation in Latin America, that of Mariscal Estigarribia in Paraguay. US efforts to get closer to Paraguay resulted in the signing of an agreement that became Law 2594/05, whereby North-American troops can enter into and enjoy immunity to act in Paraguay for an 18-month period, from July 2005 to December 2006.

In order to minimize the North-American presence in the region, the Brazilian government announced the creation of an Intelligence Center for the Triple Border, which will be put into operation together with Argentina and Paraguay.

Fidel Castro takes a leave of absence of the presidency of Cuba
Due to his hospitalization in late July for surgical reasons, Fidel Castro took a leave of absence from the presidency of his country, and has not reassumed his functions. He was replaced on an interim basis by Raúl Castro as president of the country.

The episode was celebrated by his enemies, particularly those in the American government and members of the Cuban community living in Miami, USA, who received the news as if they had managed to overthrow the Cuban regime, which is what they have unsuccessfully been trying to do for so many years.

The press was filled with political speculation, with some analysts venturing to say that Raul Castro would coordinate a transition toward a radical change of the Cuban political system; the Cuban government, institutions and the population remained solid though. Raul Castro has exercised his mandate discreetly and the country’s diverse political/administrative spheres have functioned as they have always had.

The year of 2006 for the United States

The year of 2006 saw the return of the Democratic Party to the control of the US House of Representatives and the Senate, after 12 years in the hands of the Republicans.

The November 7 vote to elect the full House, one third of the Senate and 36 of the 50 State governors modified the country’s political landscape. Until then the Republican Party had 15 seats more than the Democrats in the House and five more in the Senate. Now, Democrats have a majority in both houses and in state governorships as shown in the table below:

The Senate Speaker is Vice-President Dick Cheney, who has not been included in this table.

An accident, however, may keep a victory in the ballots from being put into practice since Democratic Senator Tim Johnson suffered a stroke early in December and, in case he does not recover, his vacant seat, according to US legislation, may be filled by a Republican appointed by Vice-President Cheney.

The Democrats still hold an edge in the House and the future speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has pushed her agenda, which includes ethics in politics, a stricter control of the country’s intelligence services, etc. Yet the Senate, which had 51 Democrats against 49 Republicans, might be tied now and make it easier for the Bush administration to approve measures of its interest since the swing vote in Senate voting sessions is a prerogative of the Vice-President according to the US Constitution.

At any rate, the next two years will be tough for George W. Bush. The 2008 presidential race has already begun and the war that elected Bush was responsible for the Democrats’ victory in the 2006 elections and should determine the workings of the new House and Senate with regard to the withdrawal of the American troops from Iraq.

Lastly, the US media started to admit that the situation in Iraq is analogous to a civil war and that pressure is mounting against the government to find a solution and stabilize Iraq without foreign troops.

Still, President Bush says that he will only present his new plan for Iraq in January “when he will be able to show that the troops will have accomplished their mission”. One of the doubts is whether Bush will make the decision of sending more troops to Iraq in an attempt to restore order, which would go counter the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (ISG).

Bush advisors say that the president has been studying the group’s reports and analyzed the issue based on other reports and updates including requests by the generals who are in Iraq for more resources to invest in army materiel. He seems to be inclined to accept the requests for an increased capacity of the army and navy, but wants first to hear the opinion of Robert Gates, the new secretary of defense who replaced Rumsfeld, the first major post-electoral loss, who has already stated that he wants to study how the American troops are deployed around the world and whether and how it would be possible to reallocate them on Iraqi territory.

The Iraq Study Group is a bipartisan committee presided by former secretary of state James Baker and the ex-chief of the Congress Intelligence Committee, Lee Hamilton. The group’s report defined the situation in Iraq as grave and deteriorating and made 79 recommendations to improve the country’s status quo. Although they avoided providing any calendar for the withdrawal of the troops from Iraqi soil, the report states that in the first quarter of 2008 most American combat troops might be out of the country. The report was highly criticized by the Iraqi government, stating that the recommendations undermine the country’s sovereignty.

The mismanagement of the war in Iraq, the effects of hurricane Katrina, the leakage of the name of spy Valerie Plume, who is married to a diplomat who denied the purchase of uranium from Niger by Saddam Hussein and thus demonstrating that the drive for the war was fabricated, the debate on torture and the successive scandals involving the Republican Party were instrumental to the changes brought about by the November 7 elections in the US.

Bush’s strategy to strengthen his party by pushing an agenda addressing national security issues had initially suffered a setback with the Senate’s reaction to his bill on military detentions. The so-called “Torture Bill”, in which the president defines who is the “enemy combatant”, the length of his/her detention and the forms of interrogatory the detainee may be submitted to provided they do not cause prisoners permanent physical or psychological damage, prohibits “gravely” disrespecting the Geneva Convention and impedes defendants from alleging the Convention was disrespected during the trial. Habeas corpus was suspended for military detainees. These proposals passed in the Senate by 65 votes in favor with 34 votes against and, after a similar result in the House of Representatives, were submitted to presidential sanction. It was an attempt to show electors that the Republicans are the defenders of the country against terrorism, unlike Democrats.

It was precisely as part of this effort that Bush confirmed the information that the government has kept prisoners in secret prisons administered by the CIA outside the US and that he intends to transfer them to Guantanamo. Bush and his advisors were hopeful that these measures would boost the Republicans electoral appeal with public opinion but what he has just managed to do is to embarrass his European allies, who have now to explain to their citizens to what extent they supported these illegal actions by the Americans.

Still, in an attempt to strengthen his conservative support base, the government toughened immigration policies in 2006, passed a bill for the construction of a wall along the border with Mexico and the Sensenbrenner-King bill criminalizing undocumented immigrants. The passage of this bill stemmed huge demonstrations organized by the Latino community with the presence of hundreds of thousands of participants, the largest of them, “A Day without Mexicans”, on May Day.

It is expected that, for 2007, changes will be made to America’s foreign policy. Cheney’s isolation, without his partner Donald Rumsfeld and the control of the legislative by the Democratic Party, will most certainly affect trade relations with Latin America with the possibility of the Free Trade Agreements with Central America, Peru and Colombia being reviewed.

The TPA that Bush obtained in 2002 by one vote expires in early 2007 with slim prospects of being renewed. The most likely outcome is that Democrats may want to reduce Bush’s power to a minimum especially in such a sensitive area. This will not affect Brazil directly but delays indefinitely a possible WTO agreement on agriculture, plus an effort by a sector of the democrats to resurrect the link between trade and labor in trade agreements.

The power problem

The energy issue and the world’s dependence on oil, gas and coal were crucial in 2006. On July 14, two days after the beginning of the Israel-Lebanon conflict, oil prices reached their highest mark since 1980: US$ 78.40 per barrel.

Gas and electric energy services prices hikes have become more and more common in Europe, where in some countries, Holland for instance, they have already surpassed 50% over the last three years. Privatization of basic public services, such as electricity, gas and water, in the industrialized countries of the northern hemisphere have produced a new cost of living paradigm for its citizens and yet another attack against the Welfare State, particularly in Europe.

In England, despite their high cost and risk for the environment, Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced the modernization of the country’s nuclear reactors by 2025, when they will be responsible for up to 20% of the country’s power generation.

It is not only in South America that the debate over the exploitation of natural gas has been heated. With oil prices rising on account of speculation, gas has become the most viable power alternative in the medium range. The problem is that 43.4% of the known reserves are in Russia (27.8%) and in Iran (15.6%).

One quarter of the gas that Western Europe consumes comes from Russia, and the Putin administration has constantly used gas supply interruptions to contain its neighbors, as Ukraine and Georgia, which question that country’s politics, and has invested heavily in the construction of oil pipelines to those countries where it seeks to gain some influence as, for instance, Turkey.

There is an offensive by the US and the European Union to try to reduce Russia’s present power after the latter became less dependent upon western support, due to the good performance of its economy over the last years based on its natural resources.

At the same time, the US started to pressure India not to build the gas pipeline that would enable the country to tap into the gas coming from Iran. This helps to explain the contradiction of the agreement made in the first semester allowing India to build more nuclear plants offering nuclear technology in exchange for authorizing international inspections in part of its atomic installations.

Russia, however, is a nuclear power and a member of the UN Security Council with power of veto. The fact that that country is a key supplier of natural gas to Europe has also had its weight. Germany’s new prime minister, Angela Merkel, has already softened her positions with regard to the Putin government, and the former German chancellor, Gerard Schroeder, assumed the chair of a Russian-German business consortium for the transmission of natural gas.

Iran, which had suspended its project for the acquisition of uranium-enrichment technology, decided to resume it in the beginning of the year, despite the opposition of the US and the EU, which brought the theme to be debated at the UN Security Council without, however, achieving in practice the sanctions they sought in order to force the country to abandon its program.

For one, the agreement with India represented double standards, for Iran has declared that the country only pursues this technology for peaceful purposes, which is a legitimate right. Besides, Iran, unlike India, is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which presupposes the possibility of regular inspections by international institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

For another, the argument of the great powers of the risk of nuclearization of the Middle East collapsed in December with the unprecedented acknowledgement by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel possesses nuclear weapons.

Europe

On April 9 there were legislative elections in Italy. The poor performance of the economy over the last years, changes in the labor laws with the elimination of many workers rights, the increase of the age for retirement and the involvement of Italy in the war in Iraq contributed to the defeat of the Berlusconi government, albeit the slim margin (25,000 votes – 0.1%).

The composition of the new chamber gave 348 deputies to Prodi and 281 to Berlusconi, while in the senate each bloc got, respectively, 158 and 156 senators. It was the vote of the Italian foreign residents that gave the majority to Prodi in the Senate, for of the five senators that could be elected by the foreign residents’ vote, his coalition, L’Unione, elected four.

To preside the Chamber was elected the president of the Communist Rifundazione, Fausto Bertinotti, and for the Senate, the former secretary-general of the CISL (an Italian trade union federation), Franco Marini, for a party that stemmed from the old Christian Democracy, a party which dismantled as Italy’s largest party in the late 1990s after the discovery by Operation Clean Hands that several of its leaders were involved with corruption.

The new president of Italy is Giorgio Napolitano, aged 81, originally from the Italian Communist Party and later a member of the Leftist Democracy (Democratici de Sinistra). Until then he had been a senator for life. Massimo D’Alema, one of the leaders of the “Democratici”, who had raced for the nomination for prime minister against Prodi before the elections, was appointed vice-president and minister of foreign relations.

With the end of the vote count coming from abroad for the first time, the election of a Brazilian-Italian senator, Edoardo Pollastri –the chairperson of the Italy-Brazil Chamber of Trade and Industry– was confirmed.

Worthy of mention was the virulence and lack of scruples of the Berlusconi campaign, who took advantage of the fact that he owns Italy’s largest communications conglomerate, which was used in spite of the law on several occasions. He also resorted to foul language to refer to the people who voted in the opposition and to attack the presence of the Communist in Prodi’s coalition. He even came to say that the Chinese communists at the time of Mao Zedong “cooked babies to make manure”.

Clandestine group Euzkadi Ta Askatasuma (ETA), the Basque Motherland and Freedom, created in 1953, announced in March a permanent ceasefire and that it would be willing to pursue the autonomy of the Basque Country by other means. Though not officially acknowledged, it seems there is a negotiation under way between the ETA and the socialist government of Spain seeking to ensure this group’s arms deposition and their integration into institutional politics.

The desire for autonomy of regions such as Catalonia and the Basque Country is a true political fact. The inhabitants of these regions have millenary cultures and their own language, and as their economies strengthen, the desire grows. With the end of armed actions by the ETA, chances grow that this process may occur in a democratic and negotiated fashion.

The review of the statutes of the 17 Spanish autonomous regions was one of the promises made by Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero when he assumed the government, and the negotiation with the ETA has been on the table ever since the group announced a permanent ceasefire last March. The approval of Catalonia’s Statute of Autonomy and the imminent start of negotiations to rid the Basque Country of violence strengthen the socialist administration of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Tony Blair’s Labour Party suffered a humiliating defeat at May 5 municipal elections. The conservative Tories achieved 40% of the votes, while Labour got 26% and the Whigs, 30%. He announced this would be his last term in office. If he keeps his word, his successor at the head of the party should be the incumbent minister of finance, Gordon Brown.

At the Summit held in 2006 that brought together the member countries of the European Union, a decision was made to adjourn for 2 years the adoption of the European Constitution after two referendums, in France and the Netherlands, rejected it supposedly because of the understanding of those countries` majority of the public opinion that the Constitution would grant too much power to the community’s institutions at the expense of national legislations.

Fredrik Reinfeldt, the leader of the Swedish opposition, saw his center-right alliance come out victorious in the country’s general elections, bringing an end to 12 years of social-democratic governments. His main campaign banner was the proposal to diminish taxes and pare the welfare system as a way to combat joblessness, one of the electorate’s main concerns today.

Reinfeldt and the opposition bloc led by his Moderate Party obtained a slim edge over social-democratic Prime Minister Goran Persson and his Green Party and Communist Party allies (48.1% of the votes for the moderates against 46.2% for the social democrats).

Angela Merkel experienced a tough defeat in Germany’s regional elections held on September 17. Her popularity in the international sphere did not translate into votes at home. Her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), reaped its worst result since its founding in 1949, trailing the social-democratic SPD by 9 percentage points.
According to opinion polls, the CDU’s popularity fell dramatically as a reflection of the plan to increase taxes, strongly criticized by entrepreneurs, and of the plan to overhaul the German public health system.

The primaries of the French Socialist Party were held on November 16, and Ségolène Royal was chosen by 60.62% of the party’s registered voters against 20.83% of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and 18.54% of Laurent Fabius, the two other candidates.

At the voting held last November 22, the Dutch Christian-Democratic Party was the most voted party, yet did not achieve a majority. The CDA ensured 41 of the 150 seats while labour PvdA obtained 33. The socialists came third with 26 seats, followed by the VVD with 22. The PvdV got nine seats and the Left Green, 7, while the other 4 parties obtained 6 or fewer seats.

A year of profound crisis in the Middle East

First it was the publication of Prophet Mohamed’s cartoons by Danish newspaper Jylands Posten, which generated protests in several Muslim countries against Danish diplomatic facilities and companies, or other European countries where the cartoons were reproduced, causing tens of deaths as a result of police repression against demonstrators.

Then came the release of new photos of tortures and violations of human rights practiced by North-American military personnel in the Abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq, plus the Amnesty International’s report which also described arbitrary arrests and torture practices in that country. The internal conflicts in Iraq involving Kurds, Shiahs and Sunnis have escalated after a blast at a Shiah mosque in February.

The new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unlike the policies adopted by his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, of resuming dialog with the West, revived the anti-American and anti-European rhetoric of the more orthodox ayatollahs. On the one hand, he contributed to raise tensions but, on the other, the move broadened Iranian influence in the region through the political parties linked to Shiah sectors, as in Iraq and Lebanon.

In April was sworn in the new Palestinian parliament and the new majority government formed by the Hamas, an embarrassing electoral result for the US and the EU since the election was democratic and no one can question its legitimacy. Even so, both impose conditions to recognize the new government and withhold financial aid to the region, particularly the recognition by the Hamas of Israel’s right to existence. Israel, in turn, decided to suspend the transferring of taxes levied in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority as long as the winning party does not abandon armed fight and recognizes the agreements signed by both countries.

On March 28, elections were held to form Israel’s new parliament. The 37% abstention was considered high and the traditional polarity between the Likud and the Labour Party did not occur since the former split when former prime minister Ariel Sharon and his group left to create a new political party named Kadima. Labour supporters, in turn, replaced Shimon Peres at the party presidency for Amir Peretz, the former president of Israeli trade union federation Histadrut. Both parties joined forces with smaller parties to compose the new government and Peretz took up the ministry of defense office, a move that later proved to be disastrous to Labour.

Kadima’s main proposal during the campaign was to establish Israel’s borders with Palestine unilaterally, which would imply definitively incorporating a sizable portion of the West Bank to its territory, where Israel’s colonies are most populous, plus the entire city of Jerusalem. In November, the Peace Now movement denounced that the land occupied by the colonies had been taken from private Arab proprietors and were not vacant lands as the Israeli government had claimed.

As the new deadlock between the Olmert administration in Israel and Ishmael Haniya, the new Hamas Palestinian Prime Minister, unfolded, personalities connected with the Al Fattah and the same Hamas, who are in an Israeli prison, released a joint proposal for what would constitute a Palestinian State based on the 1967 borders and that the Palestinians should concentrate their resistance on that point. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, sided with the initiative, but a Hamas spokesperson rejected it, claiming that one of the group’s principles is not recognizing the state of Israel.

The new Palestinian lawmakers with the Hamas majority were sworn in on March 29. Some of those who live on the West Bank had to take part in the ceremony through a video conference since the Israeli authorities refused to allow them to cross Israeli territory to reach the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile tension grew between the Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas, for although the former holds a parliamentarian majority that allows it to appoint government ministers, the latter has the power to remove the prime minister and also coordinates the security forces. The Hamas attempted to create its own parallel militia, which ultimately provoked some armed skirmishes involving the two groups.

Abbas came up with a proposal for the holding of a plebiscite in July for the population to express their position in face of the prisoners’ proposal and on the recognition of the State of Israel, a movement designed to put the Hamas in a political straitjacket given the fact that there were polls indicating that more than 70% of the Palestinian population would support the recognition. This would also permit a diplomatic offensive against Israel.

Yet a series of missiles fired from the Gaza Strip by some smaller Palestinian groups that did not adhere to the truce in force prompted the Israeli government to restart its policy of targeted assassinations with missiles and artillery. In one of these strikes, a whole family that was picnicking on a Gaza beach was killed, causing great commotion and forcing the Hamas and other groups to announce a suspension of the truce.
The incident, apart from its criminal aspect, caused political damage everywhere, for Israel’s minister of defense is Labour Party’s Amir Peretz, now indirectly accountable for the massacre of innocent people, and a call for a plebiscite to recognize Israel and propose peace negotiations given the circumstances would be unfeasible and was promptly discarded.

In July, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip under the justification of an action by a group of Palestinians who attacked an Israeli army checkpoint, killing two soldiers and capturing one. The retaliation caused the death of tens of civilians; hundreds of people, including Palestinian Authority ministers, were arrested and several public utilities, as Gaza’s central power sub-station, were destroyed, interrupting energy and water supply and further worsening an already precarious situation.

Soon after that came the attack against Lebanon allegedly in response to a raid by Hezbollah militants in northern Israel, with the arrest of two Israeli soldiers and the launching of rockets against cities in northern Israel. The indiscriminate air, sea and land bombardments that lasted more than 30 days destroyed most of the country’s infrastructure and caused the death of approximately 1,500 people, 80% of which were children, women and persons with disabilities and difficulties. Among the victims, there were also Red Cross and UN staff.

Nonetheless, the Israelis failed to accomplish their objectives. They were met with fierce resistance, lost soldiers and equipment, failed to free the two soldiers, were unable to defeat the Hezbollah and to occupy the 20-kilometer stretch they intended to in southern Lebanon to neutralize rockets being launched into Israeli territory. As highlighted by The Economist on its cover, “Nasrallah wins the war”, so the UN brokers a ceasefire accord.

In Israel, post-defeat public opinion polls demonstrated that the current governmental coalition would not be reelected if elections were held at that moment. It would be replaced by the right represented by the Likud, possibly in alliance with far-right party Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel Our Home”) led by Avigdor Lieberman.

Yet this party ultimately joined the incumbent governmental coalition thus eliminating any prospect of centrist politics and adding 11 MPs to the government, which came thus to have a majority of 78 lawmakers out of a total of 120 in parliament. Lieberman, however, became known for advocating the expulsion of Arab citizens from Israel and death penalties to whoever decided to talk to the Palestinian Hamas or the Lebanese Hezbollah. The Labour Party, against the measure at first, eventually gave in and resigned itself.

Nevertheless, a fragile cease-fire agreement was made between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, whereby the latter will seek to control the activities of the different Palestinian factions that have been striking against Israel in exchange for the withdrawal of the Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.

The new attempt by the Palestinians to try to break the isolation imposed by Israel, the US and the EU, including the financial blockade of the Palestinian Authority, was announced by its president, Mahmoud Abbas: a coalition government formed by the Al Fattah and the Hamas. Premier Ishmael Haniyeh, however, said he would not take part in a government that recognized the State of Israel. Later on, a consensus candidate was found, but negotiations deteriorated in the wake of incidents and assassinations of militants, and today both groups are on the brink of initiating another armed conflict. The last fact was the call made by Abbas, under protests of the Hamas, for new legislative and presidential elections.

Meanwhile, Iraq was on the verge of a civil war according to assessment reports by British and American military in the country. July was the deadliest month since the beginning of the war, with approximately 3,500 civilian casualties, an average of 110 deaths a day, and despite the unveiling of a new security plan by the incumbent government.

This figure is 10% higher than June’s is and twice the number of occurrences of the first months of the year. The counting was based on hospital and funeral parlor records, and pointed Baghdad as the area with the highest concentration of deaths.

In Iraq there is an ongoing process of division of the country between the Curds, Shiah Muslims, Sunni Muslims and Christians, whereby the two first groups will occupy better and oil-rich territories, while the other two will be confined to areas with gloomier prospects of development. Meanwhile, the civil war escalates with the occurrence of 50 Iraqis dead on average per day while the number of dead American soldiers has exceeded 3,000.

Violence in the region continued over the following months at very high levels, with 202 people being killed in one day in the month of November. Legislative elections in the US and the Republican Party’s overwhelming defeat, however, have apparently produced some initiatives to change Bush’s current policy for the Middle East, if not for any other reason, for fear of yet another inevitable loss in the 2008 presidential elections.

It is against this backdrop that a plan devised by James Baker, former secretary of state of Bush Senior, and the ISG was presented proposing an agreement between the US, on one side, and Syria and Iran, on the other, so that the two last countries’ influence over the political factions in Iraq may mitigate the conflict before the American government can hand over the security of the country to the Iraqi armed forces and withdraw from the country as soon as possible.

In Lebanon tensions –fueled by foreign meddling– mounted between the different communities and parties that compose the government soon after the end of Israel’s latest incursion into the country. One of these foreign interferences comes from the American government and Israel, which demand the Hezbollah to disarm, a position that is backed in Lebanon by the Sunni prime minister, Fuad Siniora, by the Lebanese Phalanx composed partly by Christians and by the Socialist Party, representing the Druse community.

Such is not the position of the Christians in ex-general Michel Aoun’s Patriotic Front, of the so-called “Third Force” of former prime minister Sellim Al Hoss, of the Amal Shiah Party and, obviously, of the Hezbollah itself.

Against Siniora’s position, the Shiahs started to demand more space in the cabinet to broaden their influence on the government. Once their demands were not met, ministers of the Amal and the Hezbollah resigned their posts, which was responded with the approval for the installation of a special court to investigate, and eventually try, those responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 in order to embarrass the Shiahs, who are supported by the governments of Syria and Iran.

Sunni and Phalanx leaders blame the Syrians for both Hariri’s and Christian former minister of industry Pierre Gemayel’s assassinations; however, though no hypothesis can be overlooked in the complex Lebanese game board, Syria and its allies have very little to profit with those deaths. Nor does the resurgence of a civil war in Lebanon seem to be in the best interest of the Shiahs in general and the Hezbollah in particular, since they already widened their political power with the recent victory over the Israeli army and the support for the country’s reconstruction, which they must keep.

A crowd of approximately 800,000 people converged on the Martyrs Square in downtown Beirut on the funeral day of Pierre Gemayel to protest against his murder. On December 1, yet another even larger demonstration –this one organized by the Shiah parties, the Patriotic Front and other organizations– took place to demand the government’s resignation and the holding of new elections. This group affirmed they would keep mobilized until they achieved their objectives.

Asia

Less than a day after the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the popular movement that toppled the Ferdinando Marcos dictatorship on February 24, 1986, President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines decreed a National State of Emergency with the support of the army in an attempt to neutralize the entire opposition, from the political one expressed in Parliament and on the streets to the armed opposition of communist group People’s Army, which after a considerable time without conducting any action reappeared.

In Nepal, there was a general strike against the dictatorial regime of King Gyanendra coordinated by trade union central bodies and the main opposition parties. The several weeks’ long demonstrations and a five-day general strike forced him to withdraw and reopen the Nepalese parliament, closed since the 2005 military coup, and authorize the functioning of the political parties. Police repression against the demonstrations caused 14 deaths.

Two years ago the Congress party recovered power in India in a coalition called the United Progressive Alliance with other 23 parties, the main and most decisive one being the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – the CPI(M). At the May 10 election in five Indian states –Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu–, the CPI(M) was elected for the seventh consecutive time in West Bengal since 1977 and conquered the government of Kerala, dislodging the Congress Party.

At the same time, Indonesia’s attorney-general decided to withdraw charges of corruption against former President Suharto basing the decision on the president’s old age –84– and his poor health conditions.

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri decided for the dismissal of some 600 members of the armed forces in East Timor in June, nearly half the 1400-strong army, for their participation in a strike against low wages and against alleged discriminations in the promotion process

The prime minister’s loyal forces violently crushed a demonstration organized by the sacked soldiers, who took refuge in the mountains and promised to start a guerrilla movement to overthrow him. Later on, a group of soldiers opened fire at unarmed police officers who were being escorted by UN peacekeepers, killing ten of them. Remnants of the militias and other gangs brewed by the country’s persisting poverty got involved too, and violence spread uncontrollably. After the Prime Minister’s resignation, José Ramos Horta, former foreign relations minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was chosen to the vacant post while still holding the defense portfolio.

China surpassed the United Kingdom in 2005 and was raised to the 4th place in the ranking of the top economies of the world, according to data by the World Bank. The US, Japan and Germany, respectively, occupy the three first positions.

On occasion of the 61st anniversary of the Japanese surrender to the allies in the II World War, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi paid homage to the dead by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, considered by China and Korea as a symbol of Japanese militarism. The South-Korean government released the following note in reference to the visit to the shrine: “Japan should look at history in a straightforward manner and earn the trust of its neighbors if it intends to act in a responsible way and contribute to the region’s peace and prosperity”.

Koizumi’s term ended in September and the key to solving this crisis, or further deepening it, lies with Shinzo Abe, who succeeded Koizumi in the post. Yet, while other candidates aspiring to the post of prime minister fend away any association with the shrine, Abe has declared that this year he also intends to visit Yasukuni and expects to have the understanding of China and South Korea.

Thailand was practically the only country of Indochina boasting a western-style democracy until it was disrupted by yet another coup that toppled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on September 19, as he attended the UN General Assembly inaugural session.

The new “strong man”, who already obtained the support of the King, is Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, the chief commander of the armed forces. The justification for the coup was widespread corruption during the Shinawatra administration, a wealthy entrepreneur whose arrogant manners and centralizing attitudes generated great dissatisfaction in the country’s urban centers.

This year’s joint IMF/World Bank meeting was held in Singapore. The customary protests were choked by the government, which even came to deny activists and NGO representatives, including some of the meeting’s guests, authorization to enter the country. The alternative was to organize a parallel meeting in Batam, Indonesia.

In October, North Korea detonated a low-intensity atomic bomb underground and became a member of the Nuclear Club, though not without being pressured by many nations, including China, one of the few allies the country has.

The UN Security Council unanimously approved several economic and political sanctions against North Korea, which will tend to worsen the situation of a country that is poor, albeit technologically skilled as the blast demonstrated.

Africa

Darfur is a region in western Sudan bordering Chad, where there is an ongoing, armed conflict involving different political and ethnic groups, which has caused more than 200,000 deaths and made 2 million Sudanese refugees over the last years. This situation has caused commotion worldwide and prompted artists and personalities to engage in a humanitarian campaign to provide assistance to the refugees and demand peace negotiations.

In spite of the signing of a peace agreement between the central government and the main guerrilla groups in January 2005, the conflict proceeded and, in December, the UN decided to send a mission to observe the situation.

The Soweto uprising, in June of 1976, against the mandatory teaching of the language of the white oppressors, Afrikaans, and which cost the lives of many secondary students, celebrated 30 years in 2006.

In mid November it was announced the result of the second-round runoff presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 58.05% of the votes going to Joseph Kabila, the incumbent president, and 41.95% to Jean Pierre Bemba, his vice-president. Although international observers such as the Carter Center representatives deny the possibility of frauds, Bemba refused to accept the result, which might reignite armed conflicts in the country.

Last year the Chinese celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the first African country, namely, Egypt, under the Gamal Abdel Nasser government in 1956.

Several other countries, as Tanzania and Zambia, also enjoyed some form of Chinese support after their independence. Over these 50 years, some 18,000 Africans of over 50 nationalities studied in China and approximately 16,000 Chinese medical doctors, engineers, technicians and military officers worked in various African countries.

Angola and the Equatorial Guinea sell approximately a third of their oil production to China. In 2005, Africa exported approximately US$ 17 billion to China, while importing nearly US$ 15 billion, with the bilateral trade flow growing by 38% in 2006 in comparison with 2005, and expected to grow even further.

Trade, economy and multilateralism

As expected, negotiations at the WTO scheduled to be completed in April, as a follow up to the V Conference in Hong Kong, were fruitless and so were the other subsequent rounds of negotiations.

The most likely scenario is that the Doha Round will have been definitely buried by the time the electoral process for the presidency of France begins and the American Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) –which will in all likelihood not be renewed to favor a reduction in the US’s domestic farming subsidies and thus make it easier to reach a deal today– expires.

The developing countries want a substantive reduction in the developed countries’ domestic subsidies and in their agricultural products’ export subsidies. The developed countries in turn refuse to reduce subsidies and push the developing countries to open their services sectors and reduce their tariffs on non-agricultural products significantly.

In early November, Vietnam was approved by the WTO council to join the institution and become its 150th member. Since 1995 the country prepared its accession to the WTO, 8 of these 11 years devoted to negotiations with member countries and with the institution’s expert group, which met 14 times to discuss with the Vietnamese negotiators.

According to the integration agreement, Vietnam agreed with the current tariffs and quotas on agricultural subsidies and, in some cases, with the calendar for the gradual implementation of the cuts. The country also signed a document wherein it describes in which services markets it will allow the participation of foreign services companies, as well as any additional provisos, including limits on foreign stakes in national companies.

The 2006 annual G8 meeting was held in Saint Petersburg, Russia on July 15-17 and, as usual, had the presence of some guest countries such as Brazil, India, Congo, among others, but its agenda and formal resolutions brought no news, although the meeting was held following another failure of the WTO instances to define a conclusion for the Doha Round and while Israeli attacks against the Lebanese territory escalated.

The III European Union-Latin America Conference took place in Vienna, Austria, with too general resolutions covering a broad range of topics, from drugs to emigration, basically reaffirming already existing agreements.

The North-American government announced in October that as of 2009 it will grant full autonomy for an American non-governmental organization to manage the Internet dominions. The NGO actually will continue the same International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) which is based in California and was created by the US State Department in 1998.

The proposal does not meet the demands set by Brazil, India, Iran and other countries that the UN should take over the control of the internet, but at least opens up the possibility of a cooperation model, intermediary, defended by the European countries and which allows for more transparency, besides assigning more responsibility to the Icann.

The OECD prepares another Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) for developing countries. The agreement, which now is called Policy Framework for Investment, was available on the organization’s site for comments of those interested.

Differently from the failed 1998 MAI negotiations, for lack of consensus among the industrialized nations when attempting to establish an international treaty in the ambit of the OECD, now what is being offered is a package with proposals of voluntary application to the developing countries.

These proposals address ten thematic axes aiming at facilitating investments: promotion, investments and investment facilitation policy, trade policy, competition policy, fiscal policy, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, human resources development, infrastructure and financial services development and public management.

In early April, there was the meeting of the governors of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where various themes were debated, particularly its loan portfolio priorities and conditions, both for the public and the private sectors.

A delicate theme was a proposal for the pardoning of the US$ 3.5 billion debt of the continent’s poorest countries with the bank, in this case Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guyana and Bolivia. All the board agreed provided the Bank is able to recover the amount in some other way, say, with extra contributions from the developed countries.

On September 9-10, the G-20 held a meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Guests included not only its members but also the coordinators of various specific interest groups working within the WTO, both permanent, as with agricultural negotiations, and ad hoc, as with the elimination of cotton subsidies.

Other attendees were government officials from the US, Japan and the European Union, besides the WTO Director-General, Pascal Lamy. The goal was to discuss how to resume negotiations at the WTO.

From September 11 through 16, in La Havana, Cuba, was held the XIV Conference of the Non-Aligned Countries Movement, the international association of countries that has today 117 members from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The only European country to take part, and even so from Eastern Europe, was Belarus.

The UN in 2006

The year of 2006 ends with the inauguration of a new secretary-general for the United Nations, South-Korean Ban Ki-Moon, who becomes the 8th leader of the multilateral entity, replacing Kofi Annan, who stood at the head of the UN for 10 years.

In his speech at the ceremony on December 14, the South-Korean diplomat expressed his support for the expansion of the Security Council and declared that his biggest challenge will be to build more confidence in the UN. At the press conference following his inauguration, he made a point of stressing that he does not agree with his predecessor’s position regarding the United States. Ban’s criticism was made in the wake of Annan’s statements that the American diplomacy did not take multilateralism into account.

If we recall that the South-Korean was elected with strong support from the United States, his position in defense of the role of the United States in the institution and in the international arena becomes clear, as when he declares that he “would like to underscore the important contribution of the US to the international community’s peace and prosperity”. Besides his admiration for the US, little is known about the appointments he will make and his plans for the organization.

The last document written by Kofi Annan before the end of his tenure was the report presented at the General Assembly with proposals to overhaul the UN and with a suggestion to include four new goals to the 2000 Millennium Development Goals.
According to Annan, the measurement of the world’s poverty and development levels would only be complete with the inclusion of the concept of decent work, the importance of which has already been argued for in the ambit of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the UN Economic and Social Council, access to HIV/AIDS treatment, pre-natal treatment and a measurement of the loss of biodiversity.

The assessment that is expected today from each ILO member is in relation to their deficit of decent work, the main point of the discussions held at the ILO Latin-American Regional Conference in Brasília in late June, which concluded that Brazil, for instance, showed a significant improvement in combating child and slave labor.

In September in New York, in addition to the opening of the General Assembly, a ceremony traditionally conducted by the Brazilian president, President Lula attended the launching of the UN International Drug Purchase Facility (Unitaid), the fruit of efforts by the Brazilian government and the governments of France, Norway and Chile. By participating in this debate and with the publication of the good results obtained with the investment in social policies in the country, Brazil reached a prominent place in the international scene with regard to alternative financing mechanisms for development and the fight against hunger and poverty.

Another important change set in motion at the UN last year was the opening of the new Human Rights Council replacing the old Human Rights Committee. The first session was held on June 19, opening a two-week program involving 47 countries, which, among other items, established the council’s modus operandi.

Regarding the energy issue, an important event last year was the Climate Change Conference in Kenya, from November 6-17, which ended without having established a firm calendar for cutting CO2 and methane emissions after the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol.

According to the 1997 Protocol and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 35 industrialized nations are supposed to reduce their 1990 levels of combined emissions of GHGs by 5% by 2012, when the document expires. So far, 189 countries have signed the UNFCCC, 165 of which have ratified it. The meeting managed to define the beginning of the discussions toward reviewing the protocol for 2008.

With the increased perception of the problems that stem from climate change over the past years and with growing water access problems, the traditional report on Human Development, published annually by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), this year focused on the issue of water supply and sanitation services in 177 countries.

The 2006 report shows that almost 2 million children die each year for lack of water and sanitation. The text denies the idea that the global water crisis is a result of shortage and argues that poverty, power relations and inequality are at the core of the problem. The report states that, at today’s pace, the water- and sanitation-related Millennium Development Goals will not be accomplished according to schedule.

Two Latin-American candidates stepped forward to compose the UN Security Council for the next two-year term: Guatemala and Venezuela, the first, fully backed by the United States, and the second, supported by Brazil and the other countries of the continent. Despite almost 20 voting sessions, neither country managed to obtain the two-thirds required. On an initiative of the Group of Latin-American and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC), both countries withdrew their candidacies and a third country, Panama, was elected as the continent’s consensus candidate.

Dr. Margaret F C Chan, an Avian flu (SARS) specialist, was appointed as UN World Health Organization Director-General. Dr. Chan was elected at a special session and will be the first Chinese to head a UN agency since its founding.

News from the working world

The Inter-American Regional Labour Organization (ORIT) headquarters moved from Caracas, Venezuela to the 4th floor of 367 Formosa Street in downtown São Paulo in the month of March.

Huge students and workers demonstrations happened in France against Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s proposal to reform the country’s labor law. One of the main issues referred to a new employment policy for youths, whereby companies hiring workers aged 26-under will receive a governmental subsidy but will be able to fire them without any notice, thus stimulating companies to opt for this hiring modality rather for stable jobs, as costs will be lower.

The French students and workers defeated the government after three weeks of mass demonstrations, forcing Prime Minister Villepin to submit a new First Employment Contract bill to Parliament.

In Germany came to an end a long public employees’ national strike motivated by the three spheres of government’s intention to increase the working week from 36.5 hours to 40 hours a week, without raising wages. The strike ended when the civil servants accepted to increase the working week by one hour, to 37.5 hours.

Late in 2005, the US House of Representatives passed the Sensenbrenner-King bill on immigration, co-authored by the two Republic lawmakers after whom the bill is named. If approved in the Senate and sanctioned by George Bush, it would transform the 11-12 million undocumented immigrants in the US, including more than a million Brazilians, into felons, as well as those who aid them in any way.

The prospect of a final decision in the Senate prompted the Latino-immigrant population, especially, to organize huge demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of participants who colored the streets of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and many others, against the law. Such demonstrations were the largest in the country after the 1960-1970 civil rights campaign and the Vietnam War protests.

May Day celebration in Mexico was dubbed “A Day Without Gringos” in support of immigrants in the US, with a 200,000-strong march according to the president of the Workers National Union (UNT) and of the Telephone Workers Union of Mexico, Francisco Hernández Juarez. Other countries where there were important May Day celebrations were Indonesia, Brazil and Cuba.

In mid-August, the president of the AFL-CIO, the largest trade union federation in the US, John Sweeney, signed a partnership agreement with the National Day Labor Organizing Network, which has more than 140 centers organizing those who work informally doing odd jobs of all sorts in exchange for, usually, daily payments. The Network played a key role in the immigrants’ mobilization in May.

The debate over the question of immigration

While in the US the debate over the construction of a wall separating Mexico from the US along the two countries common borders is still quite heated, in the post riots France a tougher anti-immigrants law was passed in June, one that is being considered racist by French human rights advocates.

The new bill was drafted by the Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, who is viewed as a strong right-wing candidate for the 2007 presidential elections, includes new requisites to grant residence permissions, making it more difficult for low-schooling migrants to stay in the country and abolishing the right illegal immigrants had to a residence permit after 10 years living in France.

The Montevideo Commitment approved at the XVI Iberian-American Summit held in November included three principles regarding immigrant rights, their non-criminalization and facilitating the regularization of their stay in the countries that hosted them. Additionally, a unanimous motion was approved condemning the American proposal to build the wall along the Mexican border to prevent the migratory flow from Latin America into the US (See Periscope 8).

News from the social movement

As part of the polycentric process, the World Social Forum was held in Karachi, Pakistan from March 24 to 29, which could not take place on the same date as the events in Bamako and Caracas because of the earthquake that devastated the country, delaying all preparations. With the participation of around 30,000 people, the event was very important, with many debates focusing on decrying the world’s militarization and calling for the promotion of peace processes.

The European Social Forum was held for the fourth time on May 5-6 in Athens, Greece, while in Vienna, Austria was held the Embracing Alternatives 2, parallel to the European Union Summit.

During the months of December and January were held three very important activities organized by the social movement. Two of them happened in December, the Cochabamba Social Summit during the South-American Community of Nations meeting and the Mercosul Social Summit, despite the adjournment of the Mercosul Presidential Summit in Brasília. The third event will be the seventh edition of the World Social Forum, to take place in Nairobi, Kenya.