Elections in Ecuador, Venezuela, France and Netherlands are some of the issues in the newsletter, that also talks about the paramilitary groups and parliamentarians in Colombia, Mercosul Summit, Political confrontations in Bolivia, Outcomes of the Democrats’ victory in the American elections, and others.


Presidential elections in Ecuador
Venezuelan elections
Paramilitary groups and parliamentarians in Colombia
Mexico
Mercosul Summit
Political confrontations in Bolivia
Emigration
Outcomes of the Democrats’ victory in the American elections
French elections and the Socialists’ primaries
Elections in the Netherlands
News from the Middle East
Congo’s presidential election results are announced
Meeting on Climate Change in Kenya
UNDP Report on Human Development
Change of command at the WHO
Vietnam’s accession to the WTO
China and India – giants getting closer

Presidential elections in Ecuador

The left’s presidential candidate in Ecuador, Rafael Correa, running for the Alianza País (AP) coalition, won the runoff elections held on November 26 against banana tycoon Álvaro Noboa by a 14-percent margin –57% against 43%.

The result utterly contradicted some of previous projections made by polling institutes as the Gallup, which had given Noboa a 16-percent lead. Correa warned on several occasions of the possibility of irregularities based on the first round’s chaotic vote counting which gave Noboa a 2-percent lead over Correa. In Ecuador, as in Brazil and in other countries, the press also tried to favor the right-wing candidate, using among other means manipulated poll results.

The last incident to take place, which illustrates the strong internal and external pressure Correa had to face, was the withdrawal of Rafael Bielsa, a former minister of foreign relations of Argentina, as head of the OAS election observer team after he made public statements criticizing Correa at a meeting with NGOs concerned with the election’s fairness.

Correa, nevertheless, managed to bring together most of the left to support his second-round candidacy and achieved an important victory, one that signals a new course for Ecuador, since he announced during his campaign that he would not sign the Free Trade Agreement with the US and would not renew the contract whereby Ecuador grants Americans the right to use the military base of Manta.

There are, however, two serious obstacles to be tackled. The economy’s dollarization, which constrains the Ecuadorian economy, a long shot though, and the absence of a parliamentarian base, since the AP did not launch candidates to parliament. Noboa’s PRIAN and the Patriotic Society led by Gilmar Gutierrez, brother of former president Lucio Gutierrez, elected, respectively, 28 and 24 deputies out of a total 100. The right-wing Social Christian Party (PSC), whose candidate came in fifth place has already declared that she will put up a fierce opposition against the new president. In a nutshell, the right and the center-right’s majority won’t make things easy for Correa.

The response by the new president, who is to be inaugurated on January 15, is to call a plebiscite to consult the population on the installation of a National Constituent Assembly, something that would take six or seven months. What remains to be seen is whether the population, which has overthrown several presidents over the last ten years, is willing to mobilize again.

Read more in Sindicato denuncia a Noboa por violar derechos laborales (Trade union denounces Noboa for violating labor rights).

Venezuelan elections

President Hugo Chávez Frias was reelected president of Venezuela on December 3 for another six-year term. He obtained 61% of the valid votes and defeated the opposition candidate, Manoel Rosales, who got 39 %.

At the beginning of the presidential campaign 22 candidacies were launched, but all, with the exception of Rosales, were withdrawn. Rosales is the governor of the state of Zulia and a member of the Democratic Alliance (AD), the Venezuelan social-democratic party, which had at first considered not launching a candidate and maintaining its position of not recognizing the country’s political process.

All of the incumbent deputies, who belong to the government’s party and constitute the whole of parliament, were reelected, while most of the opposition parties refused to launch parliamentarian candidates and called the population to boycott the election. The few opposition candidates who managed to be elected resigned before being sworn in. The move, however, backfired because the population turned out massively and elected a totally pro-government parliament. The attempt to de-legitimize the election failed and by now the opposition parties must have realized that it would have been preferable to participate as a minority than to self-exclude from the country’s political life.

This does not mean that coup-driven temptations, the American interference and the campaign led by the Venezuelan big press and big business against Chávez won’t continue. His victory, however, legitimizes him once again and dismisses the “populist” misnomer the right and the corporate international press have tried to impose on Chávez.

The result demonstrates that today there is a government in Venezuela that governs for all, but is mainly committed to the traditionally less favored social classes.

Chávez had to face a strong political crisis since his reelection in 2000, already under the rules set forth in the new constitution, until 2004 when he won the plebiscite with 58.25% of the votes and legitimized his power. Until then he had been prevented from implementing a series of more profound economic and social measures, for he had to prioritize the country’s political reform and resist military rebellions, in addition to a coup that removed him from power for a few days and a strike in the oil sector that paralyzed the country. Even with all these hardships he succeeded in implementing a series of policies that benefited the majority of the population, thus guaranteeing the continued popular support.

Venezuela is the world’s fifth largest oil producer and, in the 1970s when oil prices reached record highs, experienced strong economic growth which, however, was not equally distributed and only benefited that segment of the population directly linked to oil production as the entrepreneurs and the middle class.

Now the country was once again favored by high oil prices but, unlike what occurred in the past, the resources are being reinvested in attempts to diversify productive activities and to stimulate small and medium enterprises. Likewise, there are investments in social programs in, among other areas, health and education, as well as attacking two chronic problems in Venezuelan cities which are a housing and water supply shortage.

Such initiatives come together with a very important policy designed to stimulate popular organization through local associations fighting for land and water, production cooperatives, an agrarian reform movement and the setting up of an alternate trade union central body.

As in many other Latin-American countries, a corporatist system had laid its roots in Venezuela too, with the AD as the hegemonic political party, though occasionally rotating in government with the Christian democracy (COPEI), while running the country’s few existing social organizations as the Workers’ Central of Venezuela (CTV) and some rural workers’ organizations. This arrangement started to rot and erupted in a crisis in the late 1980s, especially as a result of a drop in oil prices. That was also the beginning of the recurrent popular demonstrations and the military unrest that provided the political base for Hugo Chávez’s first election back in 1998.

Another highlight of the present term was Venezuela’s foreign policy. In addition to a strong anti-imperialist position, the government prioritized South-South relations and the region’s integration, committing itself to the effort to share the funding of the energy integration of South America.

Read more in Frente opositor avanza, polarización estable (Opposition front advances, polarization stable).

Paramilitary groups and parliamentarians in Colombia

The Álvaro Uribe government is facing its worst crisis to date. On the eve of the parliamentarian elections that occurred last March, charges were made that several candidates of the president’s coalition, the Party of the U and the Conservative Party, were supported by paramilitary groups such as the “United Self-defenses of Colombia” (AUC), prompting some candidacies to be withdrawn.

In Periscope no.1 it was reported here that even so at least a dozen of them retained their candidacies and many were elected. Since November 14 the Supreme Court of Colombia has been summoning several of the deputies and senators allegedly involved in the scandal to be questioned, with three deputies having been arrested so far One of them, representative Muriel Benito Rebollo, is linked to Edwar Cobos Telles, the commander of one of the paramilitary groups, who is in jail now and on whose farm a mass grave was found with the bodies of nearly 100 murdered people.

Besides the charges that so far seriously incriminate three parliamentarians, there is also the case of the ex-general director of Colombia’s federal police (DAS), Jorge Noguera Cates, currently being investigated by an inquest for his connections not only with the paramilitary but also with drug trafficking. (See International Periscope nº 2).

This is probably the president’s most problematic case both because Noguera is close to Uribe and because when the first charges against Noguera surfaced the president rebutted them. Yet just recently he had no option but to suspend him in view of the evidence presented, which includes Noguera having used his authority to delete the records of well-known criminals.

Mexico

In spite of the effort made by the international press to picture Mexico’s political situation as almost normal after the PAN candidate, Felipe Calderón –who was sworn in on December 1 and was announcing his cabinet members–, was declared the winner by the country’s electoral justice, reality is quite different.

On November 20, when the Mexican Revolution celebrated its 96th anniversary, Andrés Manoel Lopez Obrador received the presidential sash from a senator of his own party, the PRD, symbolically acknowledging him as the legitimately president-elect in the recent fraudulent presidential election (See International Periscope nº 6). His installation was accompanied by hundreds of thousands of people who crowded Mexico City’s downtown Zócalo.

Meanwhile, Calderón’s cabinet nominations signal to a composition that will seek to deepen the neoliberal adjustment. The next Finance Minister will be Agustín Carstens, a former IMF president, and the Minister of Labor will be Javier Lozano, the ex-president of the telecommunications regulatory agency, one of the country’s most privatized sectors.

The situation seems rather complex if one considers how a president whose legitimacy is being questioned will head a neoliberal government and rule a country where 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, and that in alliance with the PRI and under strong opposition from the PRD, the second largest Mexican political force. Not surprisingly Calderón has already been dubbed by many as “Felipe the Short”.

Meanwhile, in the state of Oaxaca the mobilization to oust Ulisses Ruiz Ortiz, the authoritarian and corrupt PRI governor, continues. Despite the occupation by the federal police of the downtown area of the state’s capital city, also named Oaxaca, on November 25 there was another demonstration with tens of thousands of people marching in protest.

Police repression injured more than a hundred people and two leaders of Oaxaca’s Popular Assembly of the Peoples (APPO) were detained. In addition to the presence of federal police units downtown and army troops encircling the area, there have been reports of several actions by paramilitary groups linked to the governor, who are responsible for the murders of many demonstrators, including an American journalist, since the rebellion started some five months ago. Recently the Catholic Church rejected a request by the APPO to give shelter to some of its most threatened members (See La Jornada, Nov 26, 2006).

The attempt by the PRD to pass the governor’s impeachment in the Mexican senate was frustrated by the majority formed by the PAN and the PRI. For the time being, at least, keeping Ruiz as the governor of Oaxaca is one of the conditions for such alliance.

Mercosul Summit

Owing to the holding of the South-American Community of Nations meeting in December, the Mercosul Presidential Summit was adjourned to January 18-19, though it was confirmed that the Common Market Group (GMC) –composed of the ministers of the economy and foreign relations, and presidents of central banks of the member countries– would hold its meeting in December. At the summit in January, Brazil will transfer the pro tempore presidency to Paraguay.

Themes on the agenda will initially be dealt with at the GMC meeting, but there is great pressure on the part of Uruguay that the situation of the pulp mills under construction in the country –which are facing strong opposition from the Argentinean government– be discussed. The Uruguayan government has filed the request under the argument that the blockade of the bridge in Gualeguaychú, on the Argentinean side, a region it is alleged will be affected by the mills, hampers the Mercosul trade flow, thus calling for an official position of the bloc’s members.

The Argentine government has already announced that the country won’t accept that the theme be treated at the meeting, practically ruling out such possibility since any theme under discussion in Mercosul forums must be approved by consensus given the absence of institutions vested with power to settle disputes.

Both countries have had to put up with some quite embarrassing situations on account of the issue. Uruguay, firstly, at the Iberian American Conference held in Montevideo in November, because the president of Argentina unilaterally asked for the mediation of King Juan Carlos of Spain and, more recently, because the population of Gualeguaychú once again closed the passage between both countries. And Argentina because the World Bank has just approved a 170-million-dollar loan to one of the pulp companies, Finnish Botnia, so that it may conclude the remaining 40% of the facility. What’s more, the bank stated that the new plant will operate according to world-class standards and will comply with the bank’s environmental and social requirements.

The other company, Spain’s Ence, which had also planned to set up a mill in the same locality as Botnia (the city of Fray Bentos in Uruguay), but had barely started construction, decided to relocate the project to another region of the country.

In the meantime, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, was held the III Mercosul Educational Forum, which apart from bringing together expert education government officials of the four member countries, also promoted a parallel international meeting involving social entities linked to educational projects of the same countries. This meeting was supported by the Brazilian government via the Ministry of Education and the Federal University of Minas Gerais, as well as by the Belo Horizonte city hall. The concept underlying this meeting also had the contribution of a number of Brazilian social organizations as the Institute Paulo Freire, the Instituto Faça Parte and the Workers in Education National Confederation among others.

Political confrontations in Bolivia

Just like we witnessed in Venezuela and to a lesser extent in Brazil during the first terms of, respectively, presidents Chávez and Lula, the Evo Morales administration in Bolivia has also been facing a strong reaction from the right to the changes President Evo plans to implement, particularly those regarding the country’s political structure, nationalization of natural resources and land reform.

There, as here in Brazil and in Venezuela, from minor piecemeal changes to broad structural transformations, each and every of them affect traditional interests of those who have ruled our countries from immemorial times. And that not to mention the more subjective aspect regarding the difficulty encountered by these elites to adapt to a new and unfavorable force correlation and to rulers who have not come from their social class.

Negotiations with the foreign companies operating in Bolivia’s oil and natural gas industry were concluded with the signing, with practically all of them, of agreements based on the parameters proposed by the government during the last month of May (See International Periscope nº 3).

In Bolivia, state governors are appointed by the central government and the resources for their functioning have always been tied to the federal budget. In the new constitution presently being discussed, there are some proposals establishing that governors be elected, allowing though, as President Evo Morales’s party (MAS) advocates, for their destitution should their performance be considered inadequate.

Moreover, the strife over the quorum necessary to vote Constitutional amendments, under elaboration, proceeds. The MAS advocates a 50% plus one majority for altering each item and a two-thirds majority of votes for its final and definitive approval, while the opposition defends a two-third majority for each item. Obviously, if the opposition’s argument prevailed, the right, which constitutes a minority in the country and in the Constitutional Assembly, would have the power of veto on each article and paragraph of the new constitution.

The position announced by the government with regard to the governors spurred new objections from the right wing opposition, which intends to defend its positions from those states in which it is stronger as Santa Cruz, Tarija and Pando, and whose autonomy it defends. Recently a group of people started a hunger strike in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in protest against the central government’s position. And to worsen the process, the opposition succeeded in obtaining a majority in the Bolivian senate, from where it has also created obstacles to the government’s functioning.

The country’s vice-president, Álvaro Linera, has acted as negotiator on behalf of the government to try to broker a deal and enable the political process to move forward –as it is absolutely obstructed by the right now–, a daunting task given the political polarization and the urgency of Bolivia’s economic and social demands.

Emigration

November 5 marked the end of the XVI Iberian American Summit which was held in Montevideo, Uruguay. The main theme addressed by the 22 governments attending the summit was that of emigration, given its implications both for Latin-American and European countries, Spain in particular.

The first “Cumbre” occurred in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico in 1991, and the second in Salvador, Brazil, in 1993. Representing Europe are Andorra, Spain and Portugal, in addition to 19 countries of Latin America who once were Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Today the Brazilian diplomacy is engaged in an effort to allow the incorporation of the other former Portuguese colonies in Asia and Africa. The 2007 Conference is to be held in Santiago, Chile.

The “Montevideo Agreement” approved three principles regarding the theme: the rights of emigrants, their non criminalization and measures designed to facilitate the regularization of their stay in the countries they have settled. Besides that, a motion was unanimously approved condemning the American intention of building a wall along the US’s common border with Mexico to try to halt the migratory flow from Latin America into the US (See International Periscope nº 8).

It is estimated that today some 30 million Latin-American and Caribbean people are emigrants. Over the past ten years Spain has received approximately 3.7 million of them, one million from Latin America alone.

The theme monopolized the debates at the present conference because it is one of the most relevant today, has generated dramatic situations and affects a number of economic and political interests; yet, the trend in developed countries is that of increasingly restrict access to emigrants.

Despite the increased restrictions, it is quite hard to stop poor people with no prospects in their countries of origin from trying to look for places to live which offer them better opportunities. Many come to die in the attempt to cross the borders of developed countries, as frequently happens along the US-Mexico border or in the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean between Chad and the Canary Islands.

It is easy to perceive that there are many interests that play against the possibility of more liberal rules for emigrants, beginning with the flourishing activity of trafficking people across borders. Besides guaranteeing the existence of rings who have no commitment whatsoever to preserving the physical integrity of emigrants, the activity generates big sums of money.

In some countries, as in Spain itself and in the United States, the emigrant workforce accounts for a considerable share of the economy as most emigrants are employed for lower wages than the local population and usually have no social protection. In the US there has been at least one case in which a Mexican worker had his rights denied by a court judge on the ground that he was an emigrant with no legalized stay.

Money remittances to countries of origin have also become a relevant economic factor. Today emigrants overall remit approximately US$ 170 billion a year back to their countries of origin, and in the case of Latin America the figure is nearly USD 50 billion annually. In the case of five Central-American countries remittances represent 10% to 15% of their GDP, 6% in the case of Ecuador and 3% in the case of Colombia.

The cost of remittances is high to emigrants because transfers are carried out by financial institutions whose functioning is precarious. The formal bank network has already shown interest in tapping into this market niche which represents guaranteed profits. However, to move funds via banks in our countries one needs to be documented, and large Spanish banks, such as Santander and BBVA, refuse to intercede on behalf of the regularization of these potential customers.

Politically the theme of emigration has been at the core of many current electoral contests in the developed countries and has helped boost the votes of, especially, right-wing parties in various European countries, since there is the perception by important sectors of their population that emigrant workers jeopardize their job opportunities while simultaneously taking these jobs under poor working conditions. Even social-democratic parties have adopted reactionary positions in relation to emigrants, with an eye on the conservative vote, unlike the past when they defended more open and liberal positions.

This theme is bound to become a permanent source of tension over the next years and will have increasing political relevance for, among others, demographic reasons. In the US, the Latino community is now the largest individual ethnic group, and the Republican Party’s proposal to build the wall helped channel more than 70% of this constituency’s votes to the Democrats in this year’s elections. In Germany it is estimated that by 2030 half of the population will be composed of emigrants and their descendants.

Outcomes of the Democrats’ victory in the American elections

In the most expensive congressional elections in American history, some 2.8 billion dollars were spent according to the Center for Responsive Politics, based on pre-electoral reports. Out of this total the Democrat and Republican parties declared having spent, respectively USD 404 million and USD 304 million, whereas the remaining balance would represent the expenses of other institutions and organizations involved some way or another in the campaign.

Not coincidently candidates who spent the most in the races took 94% of House seats and 66% of the Senate’s. Reelected senator Hillary Clinton spent USD 36 million on her campaign, the most expensive in the country. Read more in 2006 Election Analysis: Incumbents Linked to Corruption Lose, but Money Still Wins.

Yet the most important outcome of these elections was the abrupt change of command in the Pentagon with the replacement of Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the Iraq War, by former CIA director Robert Gates. Gates, a CIA career officer until his retirement, is highly regarded by former president George Bush, the father, and by his national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, with whom he shared his realist vision of the country’s foreign policy and the limited patience with the more aggressive neo-conservatives and nationalists as Vice-president Dick Cheney. He was, however, indirectly involved in the Iran-Contras scandal during the Reagan administration.

With Rumsfeld’s departure, Cheney and the neo-conservatives are bound to become increasingly marginalized. Besides Gates, Condoleezza Rice should gain more power in the administration, with more diplomatic bargaining power.

Though apparently discussed for some time, Rumsfeld’s resignation soon after the elections was designed as a sacrifice to the Democrats since, according to opinion polls, the Iraq War played a decisive role in the Republican’s defeat. The resignation of the Pentagon’s former boss gives the president some time to adjust Iraq-related policies before Congress’s newcomers initiate a fierce opposition.

In his first statement after the Democrats’ victory, Bush vowed to seek common ground with the opposition with regard to Iraq, a position rather distant from that assumed only weeks before when he accused the Democrats of trying to run away from Iraq, rather than dealing with the terrorists there instead of on American soil. On behalf of the Democrats, the new House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the new Senate speaker, Harry Reid, declared the need for a nation-wide discussion on the US policy for Iraq.

The two parties, from now on, must observe the recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan commission appointed by Congress and co-chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and by former chair of the House committee on foreign affairs Lee Hamilton, whose report is scheduled to be released between late this year and early 2007. More information.

Gates is one of the ISG Republican members who, under Baker’s instructions, met with top officials of the Iranian and Syrian governments, both countries diplomatically boycotted by the Bush administration. Such meetings hinted at the hypothesis that the ISG should recommend that Tehran and Damascus, as well as their other neighboring countries, be involved in the strategy toward the withdrawal of the American troops from Iraq and in preventing that sectarian confrontations spread beyond the Iraqi borders.

Over the last months, even within the neo-conservative Christian right there were calls for Rumsfeld’s substitution. The proposal taken to the president was to replace him with the Democrat with neo-conservative views on the Middle East, Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was reelected as an independent with the Republican Party’s votes and support .

In addition to the Middle East, Gates’ more diplomatic stance should also affect US relations with Asia, particularly with China, where tensions fueled by Rumsfeld’s Pentagon played a crucial role to undermine the establishment of a more cooperative relationship between the two powers.

In Latin America’s case, trade relations should be affected in the next two years. The signing of bilateral agreements, as those brokered with Colombia and Peru, may be reviewed and the historically protectionist tendency of the Democrat Party may lead to tougher rules on other countries’ exports.

With Rumsfeld leaving and without his former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, indicted for having lied before a federal jury in October 2005, Cheney is becoming more and more isolated and could be the next target of the opposition against the Bush administration.

Read more in Gates Has History of Manipulating Intelligence, Hail to the chief – Dick Cheney’s mission to expand — or ‘restore’ –the powers of the presidency, Defeating the Bill of Rights- Bush’s Lone Victory and Democrats triumph – Congress falls and Donald Rumsfeld is replaced.

French elections and the Socialists’ primaries

The French Socialist Party primaries, held on November 16, confirmed Ségolène Royal as the chosen candidate of 60.62% of the Socialist constituency, against Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s 20.83% and Laurent Fabius’ 18.54%.

The primaries had the participation of 178,000 voters (82%) of a total of 218,711 party affiliates, leaving no doubt as to the result. Strauss-Kahn and Fabius recognized Royal’s victory and called the party to unite to defeat the right in next year’s elections.

This doesn’t mean that internal differences have disappeared. Each candidate represented different perspectives within the party for the upcoming elections, with Strauss-Kahn focusing more on economic themes and Fabius as the heir to the party’s traditions. Incidentally, Fabius had been forced to step down of the board of the Socialist Party for having campaigned against the European Constitution in the 2005 plebiscite –which his own party supported but was, nevertheless, rejected by a majority of the population.

Ségolène, in turn, presented herself with a rather non traditional discourse, expressing a more progressive position in relation to participatory democracy and a more conservative position with regard to the theme of the emigrants as well as in relation to public employees.

At any rate, facing the likely candidate of the right, Nicolas Sarkozy, won’t be an easy task. What’s more, ultra-right candidate Daniel Le Pen, even before officially announcing his candidacy, receives the support of 18% of respondents of opinion polls, slightly more than what he obtained in the last presidential election. Yet, stemming from aspects of the French electoral legislation, he might eventually be impeded from racing, which means that in this case his votes would tend to favor Sarkozy, who has made strong speeches against immigrants.

Today opinion polls give Ségolène a slight advantage over Sarkozy.

Read more in Royal coronation – Ségolène Royal ushers in a new era of French politics.

Elections in the Netherlands

Following a trend seen in recent elections in Germany and other European countries, the preliminary results of the Dutch elections anticipate a difficult road to forming a new government.

Though having achieved a majority in the legislative, the Christian Democratic Party (CDA) will have to deal with a country highly divided between its tough pro-market and immigration policies and the opposition made by the socialist front led by the Labour Party.

The leaders of the main parties have already individually met with Queen Beatrix in order to discuss the matter. The CDA leader and incumbent prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, was the first of them, who was then followed by Wouter Bos from the Labour Party (PvdA), Jan Marijnissen from the Socialist Party (SP), Mark Rutte from the Liberal Party (VVD), Geert Wilders from the recently formed Party for Freedom (PvdV) and Femke Halsema from the Left Green.

In light of the anticipated difficulties in composing a new coalition government, the Queen is considering appointing a mediator to help in the political parties’ discussions to choose a new prime minister.

In the last November 22nd polls, the CDA secured 41 of the 150 seats while Labour obtained 33. The socialists came in third with 26 seats, followed by the VVD with 22. The PvdV won 9 seats and the Left Green got 7, while the other 4 parties obtained six or fewer seats.

Given the impossibility of maintaining the present center-right coalition, Prime Minister Balkenende may be forced to ally with Labour, a center-left party, a move some analysts view as a sure formula for the country’s political paralysis.

Furthermore, the concern today is that the lack of definition in these and other European elections may affect the functioning of the European Union, highly dependent upon the national politics of the countries composing the bloc.

Read more in Dutch election shows up Europe’s anxieties.

News from the Middle East

Violence in the region continues at very high levels in Iraq, where only in one day in November 202 people died, and in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli artillery and missile strikes have killed mostly civilians.

Nevertheless, the results of the US mid-term congressional elections, which inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Republican Party, seem to have spurred some initiatives to slightly change the policies of the Bush administration, since the continuity of his policy for the Middle East, as it is implemented today, will surely lead to yet another defeat in the 2008 presidential elections.

Such is the background against which the plan elaborated by James Baker was presented, a plan proposing a deal between the US, on one side, and Syria and Iran, on the other, so that the influence of the last two over some of the political forces in Iraq will mitigate the conflict and allow the American government to hand over the country’s security to Iraqi armed forces and withdraw from the country as soon as possible.

Apparently some points of this deal are being implemented, as demonstrated by the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Syria and Iraq, severed 25 years ago. Though the Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad, and Saddam Hussein were both Sunnis, members of the same Baath Party and tried to unify the two countries in the 1970s, they ultimately generated a profound division between the two countries, to the extent that Syria came to support the anti-Iraq coalition in the First Gulf War.

Iran also hinted at the possibility of allowing international inspectors to one of its nuclear activity development centers and is to host a first meeting involving Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian authorities to discuss the situation in Iraq.

In Palestine, though no deal has as yet been struck between the Fattah and Hamas groups toward the establishment of a coalition government, a fragile cease-fire was reached with Israel whereby the Palestinian Authority will seek to control the activities of the different Palestinian factions who have been attacking Israel in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.

In addition to Israel’s ill-fated intervention in Lebanon, the Israeli movement “Peace Now” has just made public that around 60% of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been set up on private property belonging to Palestinians and Arabs, a situation the Israeli government had always denied as a means to preserve the Israeli settlements in the region, and in spite of the international resolutions and the negotiations designed to return part of the territories to the Palestinians.

In Lebanon there was an escalation in the animosity between the different communities that compose the government, which started shortly after the end of the latest Israeli aggression against the country. The Western press insists on presenting the problem as if it were just two positions wrestling for and against Syria, as can be easily observed in any story of the major Brazilian newspapers on the matter.

Despite the 1991 agreement that transferred the responsibility for Lebanese security to Syrian armed forces, a situation that lasted until 2005, that does not mean that the Syrian government still holds today such an influential political presence over some Lebanese political parties as the big press tries to sell.

In general, the Lebanese are nationalists and what is at stake today is far deeper. Firstly, the present distribution of power among Maronite Christians and Sunni and Shiah Muslims dates back to the post-independence period and was defined according to that time’s demographics.

The regime is parliamentarian and this arrangement presupposes that Christians appoint the country’s president and the commander of the armed forces; the Sunnis, the Prime Minister; and the Shiahs, the president of the parliament –though the other 17 existing communities in the country are not automatically granted representation in the government. Nonetheless, whenever this accord was not observed, civil war broke out in the country, something not to be overlooked at the moment, especially if foreign meddling persists, materialized in the positions of the US and Israel.

The two countries are demanding that the Hezbollah should surrender their weapons, a position that is supported in Lebanon by the Sunni Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, by the Lebanese Phalanx, composed by some Christians, and by the Socialist Party, which represents the Druse community. This, however, is not the position adopted by the Christians who compose the Patriotic Front, led by former general Michel Aoun, by the Amal Shiah group and, obviously, by the Hezbollah itself.

Against Siniora’s position, the Shiahs started to demand more space in the cabinet to broaden their influence over the government. Once their claims were rejected, the Amal/Hezbollah ministers resigned their posts, which prompted the approval for the installation of a special tribunal to look into and eventually judge those responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, in order to embarrass the Shiahs and the governments of Syria and Iran, who back them up.

Sunni and Phalanx leaders incriminate the Syrians as responsible both for Hariri’s death last year and for the assassination now of Christian former minister of industry Pierre Gemayel, on November 21 this year. Though no hypothesis should be ruled out in the complex Lebanese game board, Syria and its allies would gain very little with such deaths. Neither is the resurgence of a civil war in the interest of Shiahs in general and the Hezbollah in particular since they already expanded their political clout with the recent victory over the Israeli army and the support for the reconstruction of the country.

A crowd of some estimated 800,000 people occupied Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut to protest against Pierre Gemayel’s assassination on the day of his funeral. Soon another demonstration of at least the same proportions, this time by the Shiah parties, should also take place to call for the resignation of the government and the holding of new elections.

Read more in Iraq and Syria restore diplomatic relations.

Congo’s presidential election results are announced

In mid-November was announced the result of the second-round run-off presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) attributing 58.5% of the votes to Joseph Kabila, the incumbent president, and 41.95% to Jean Pierre Bemba, Kabila’s vice-president (See Periscope no.8).

Even though international observers such as representatives from the Carter Center deny the possibility of there having been any frauds, Bemba refused to concede, which might rekindle armed conflicts in the country. Already an incident occurred on November 24 in the eastern part of the country where clashes left three casualties among federal troops fighting a dissident general’s forces.

The election was a first step toward appeasing a country which throughout its history has never lived under a democratic regime. The Belgian colonial government was replaced in the 1960s by Mobuto Sese Seko’s dictatorship until he was toppled, with the intervention of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), 32 years later. The DRC has a wealth of natural resources and if it succeeds in getting rid of foreign interference and warlord-led ethnic fights, it may stand a chance of making progress and offering better living conditions to its population.

For more, read Congo – A wilderness that may become a state.

Meeting on Climate Change in Kenya

The Climate Change Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya, ended without providing a firm timetable for cutting CO2 and methane emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires.

According to the 1997 protocol –which builds on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)–, 35 industrialized nations would be obliged to reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions by 5% below the 1990 levels until 2012, when the document expires. To date, 189 countries have signed the UNFCCC, but only 165 have ratified it. The US, for instance, which leads the ranking of greenhouse gas emissions with nearly 25% of the world’s total, still has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

The meeting achieved the goal of defining 2008 as the deadline for reviewing the protocol.

The protocol commits American authorities to cut emissions by 7% and was signed during the Bill Clinton administration, though today it’s seen with more reservation by Bush, who believes compliance would affect negatively his country’s industry. American officials claim that the question of global warming will be better addressed if a series of voluntary initiatives takes place, with partnerships between rich countries and developing nations, focusing on economic growth and simultaneously reducing pollution.

Eyes have also turned to China, which until 2010 is expected to outrank the US as the largest carbon dioxide emitter. However, because it is a developing country China is not subject to the mandatory reductions set forth in the Kyoto Protocol. Thus, apart from the discussions involving the continuity of the protocol after 2012, civil society has pressed for the inclusion of an item, during the instrument’s review, regarding those countries whose economies have grown fast and who tend to emit large quantities of greenhouse gases.

The next round of negotiations on Climatic Change will be held in Indonesia in 2007. Read more in United Nations Climate Change Conference – Nairobi 2006, www.nairobi2006.go.ke and Global warming threatens poverty reduction: Kenya.

UNDP Report on Human Development

The traditional report on Human Development published annually by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) was centered this year on the issue of water supply and sanitation in 177 countries.

According to the UNDP, the concept of Human Development is at the core of the Human Development Report and of the Human Development Index. It lies on the assumption that in order to gauge a population’s progress one should not only consider the economic dimension but other social, cultural and political features influencing the quality of human life. The report was conceived by Pakistani economist Mahub ul Haq (1934-1998) and is currently published in tens of languages and in more than a hundred countries.

The 2006 report shows that nearly 2 million children die each year because they have no access to clean water and sanitation. The text rebuts the idea that the world’s water crisis is the result of scarcity and argues that poverty, power and inequality are at the heart of the problem. The report stresses that at today’s pace the Millennium Development Goals with respect to sanitation and water will not be fulfilled according to schedule.

In the Brazilian case, the water goal will be easily achieved, with some 90% of the population to have access to drinking water. As for sanitation, only 75% of the population has their waste water treated, a lower rate than that of Mexico (79%), despite a significant improvement in the numbers over the 1990–2004 period.

The report ranks 177 countries according to their Human Development Indicators, which are made up of four indices: GDP per head, life expectancy, adult literacy for persons aged 15 and older and enrolment rates in the three levels of education.

This year’s report introduced a modification in the way this last indicator is calculated, which makes it difficult to compare previous rankings with this year’s.

In the case of Brazil, the country lost one position (from the 68th to the 69th), yet made progress in 3 of the 4 items that compose the index: longevity, income and education.

Download the full report.

Change of command at the WHO

Dr. Margaret F C Chan, a specialist in SARS and Avian influenza, was appointed the new director-general of this UN agency. What’s more, Dr. Chan was elected at a special session and will be the first Chinese woman to head a UN agency since its creation.

The doctor will replace the post left vacant by South-Korean Dr. Lee Jong-wook, who passed away last May.

After being confirmed for the post, Dr. Chan declared that she hopes to be recognized for her efforts in favor of women’s health and for the impact of measures adopted in the African continent.

For more information on the WHO, log on to the organization’s official site.

Vietnam’s accession to the WTO

In early November Vietnam was approved by the WTO council as the institution’s 150th member.

Since 1995 the country has prepared to join the WTO, 8 of these 11 years spent on negotiations with member countries and with the institution’s special working group, which convened 14 times to hold discussions with Vietnamese representatives.

As set out in the integration accord, Vietnam agreed to the tariffs and quotas in force today for agricultural subsidies and, in some cases, with a gradual cut implementation program. The country also signed a document in which it describes the services markets it will allow the participation of foreign services companies, as well as describing any additional conditions, including limits on foreign participation in local company boards.

Lastly it signed a document that sets out the trade–promotion legal and institutional modifications undertaken as well as commitments subscribed to over the negotiation years.

Read more at WTO/Vietnam and VIETNAM: WTO Brings Challenges and Opportunities.

Only ten days after the announcement of its accession to the WTO, Vietnam hosted a conference of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC), which was also attended by US President George Bush. In addition to Asian countries, other countries of the Americas along the Pacific Rim, such as Canada, the US, Mexico, Chile and Peru, are APEC members. Read more in Fears Over Asia-Pacific Free Trade Zone.

China and India – giants getting closer

Chinese president Hu Jintao declared on his recent visit to India, the first by a Chinese leader in this decade, that there is enough room for the two super powers to develop simultaneously and that their relationship has a global bearing. China’s traditional relation had always been with Pakistan, while India was closer to the former USSR.

Trade between the two fastest-growing economies in the world is at the core of the new partnership. India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated the commitment to double the figures of the two largest Asian countries’ bilateral trade to USD 40 billion by 2010.

The two leaders also discussed old political problems stemming from the territorial dispute over Kashmir in 1962, and pledged to find a solution to a problem which has been dragging on for more than 20 years. Thirteen agreements were signed covering a wide ranging agenda that included the opening of consulates, scientific and technological cooperation and cultural exchange, all measures designed as a strategy to consolidate the growing ties between India and China.

The partnership between the two countries seems perfectly reasonable if one takes into account that, despite the rivalry between the two in the Asian continent and the rather odd historical alliance China has with Pakistan, their growth was achieved by different means and with lessons learned that can be shared. The only issue is how this partnership, which brings together two-fifths of the world’s population, will be received in the US and the EU.