Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Why the need to defend a modern Clean Energy Project in Ethiopia?

Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe!


Dear Patriotic Global Citizens and Friends of African Union, Greater Ethiopia Without Borders and Global Diaspora Nations and Nationalities.

I read with interest the need for a Clean Energy Developer to defend his work and associates from the criticism of those who claim are " Friends of the Earth, Rivers, lakes and the Sun" and not friends of people who are the center of this project.

Imagine the whole civilized world be it in Europe, Asia or America developed their energy by galvanizing the natural resources especially Rivers, Lakes, the Sun and Wind energy. When the world is moving towards clean natural energies, the out of date pseudo environmentalists want to stop clean energy projects in developing countries.

Mind you the rivers of Asia, Europe and Americas continue to be the main source of energy to day. The Hudson River Basins, the Mississauga River Basin and the Colorado River Basin continue to be the source of the new world energy in the Americas. Just imagine where these Friends of International Rivers were when these great projects have been underway for such a long time.

Are these real Friends of the Earth, Rivers, Lakes, the Sun and the Moon or racist saboteurs who want to continue to see the developing world impoverished by their cynical but suicidal campaigns.

The recent famous book entitled "The White man's Buden" by William Easterly, the Director of the World Bank Research Department says it all. According to Mr Easterly, we have spent over 2.3 trillion on forieng aid over the past 50 years for developing countries and we have nothing to show for it. These series of Friends of the Environment are former World Bank and IMF associates trying to milk the money meant for development with their negative campaigns against development.

We need to expose these crocodile tears once for all! The next 50 years will not be sucked by these parasites of development shedding crocodile tears but by gallant small business enterprises that will transform the Billion Poor in the world.

Just imagine, such backward set of organizations trying to block the road to development by their cynical but poisonous netative campaigns!

Just imagine what will happen if we keep quiet. It is time to speak and expose these wolves in sheep skin covering themselves with all assumed environmental credentials which they do not have.

Let us fight misguide negative campaigns with facts and scientific truth and the following article is just doing that.

I look forward to lean from your perspective. The time to speak and be heard is now!

Yes we can change the tide of negative campaigns towards positive sustainable clean energy enterprises.

Yes We can and get involved! The Nile Basin Civilization will see its Millennial Renaissance as it has done for millennia (7,502 Years), that trail blazed the Greatest Human Civilization!

Seeking your creative input, I remain;

Yours sincerely

Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
The writer can be contacted at GlobalBJesus@gmail.com, 703.933.8737

March 30, 2010, 2:27 PM
Developer Defends Ethiopian Hydro Project
By PETE BROWNE

The Gibe III Hydroelectric dam project in Ethiopia is at the center of a dispute between environmental groups and developers.
Responding to complaints about the Gibe III hydroelectric dam project in Ethiopia, Salini Costruttori, the Italian hydropower developer behind the project, issued a statement late last week arguing that the project’s critics are opposed to Africa’s development.

“The campaign against the construction of the Gibe plant in Ethiopia is merely another initiative without a technical and scientific basis,” the company said.

“We are dealing with an irresponsible campaign, based on critical statements founded on blatant factual errors and mainly due to elementary arithmetic and technical mistakes,” the statement continued. “These statements have already been assessed and denied by authoritative international organizations, such as the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank.”

As we noted last week, a coalition of environmental and human rights groups has mounted a campaign to pressure financiers to cease financing for the project, which is already under way. It is slated to become Africa’s second largest hydroelectric dam.

The sides disagree over the accuracy of documents relating to the potential environmental impacts of the Gibe III project — you can see closeup footage of the project under way in the video above — on the Omo River, which flows from the south of Ethiopia into Lake Turkana in Kenya.


After complaints from Friends of Lake Turkana, one of the groups in the coalition, the African Development Bank agreed to undertake a hydrological assessment of the lake.

The report has twice been delayed, said Terri Hathaway, a spokeswoman for one International Rivers, another of the coalition member, in an e-mail message.

”The European Investment Bank has also put out a bid for an environmental impact assessment on Lake Turkana for Gibe III,” Ms. Hathaway added, “so clearly, the issue has not already been properly studied by project developers.”

Two previous environmental impact assessments conducted for the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation – an initial 2006 study and an additional analysis of the downstream effects in 2008 – have been challenged by the Africa Resources Working Group, a collective of academics from Europe, the United States, and East Africa with experience in large hydro-dam and river basin development.

The working group asserted in 2009 that earlier environmental assessments were based on “faulty premises” and that they were “compromised by pervasive omissions, distortions and obfuscation.”

But Salini argued in its statement that the Gibe III project is the “fruit of the work of hundreds of engineers of worldwide renown in the sector and that thousands of technicians and workers of different nationalities are involved in the project, which has been submitted for approval by authoritative Ethiopian and international organizations.”

The company also said it would “continue to defend its image from further unmotivated and defamatory attacks, which are causing serious damage not only to the company and the dignity of its technicians and workers, but also, especially, to the development of the Horn of Africa.”
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Commerce, Conventional Energy, Efficiency, Energy Business, Energy Economics, Energy Politics, Environmental Politics, General Business, Government Policy, Health and Safety, The Environment, conservation, environmental impact statement, ethiopia, gibe iii, hydropower, omo river
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READERS' RECOMMENDATIONS, REPLIES. Oldest Newest
1.African LA, USA March 31st, 20107:44 am

I agree. This compaign by the fringe "green environmental" groups is not well-founded and full of far-fetched assumptions. Even if we are to believe the worst case scenario they are pushing, the positive impact of this project far outweighs it. The 1800 MW from this dam will bring more economic transformation than all the western handout given to Ethiopia so far.

Once this dam is complete, 90 percent of Ethiopia that is not now electrified will get electricity and be brought into the modern age. No more blackouts. No more power rationing. No more factory closings. Of course, these groups can't allow such development on the African Continent--no way jose!

They will fight to death to cut funding to this partially complete dam and hold 82 million poor Ethiopians hostage because they feel the livelihood of 300,000 Omo tribesmen along the omo river and Lake Turkana may be affected somewhat. What they conveniently forget to point out is that the Ethiopian Government has already prepared a mitigation and massive community-centred development for these tribes that will be rolled as soon as the Dam is completed in 2013.

Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
2.Hannibal Washington, DC, March 31st, 2010, 7:45 am

The policy implication of International Rivers’ position is that Ethiopia should stay as underdeveloped and a beggar. This way of thinking comes from a neo-colonialist mentality.

Ethiopia is the second most populous nation in Africa with over 80 million people. Only about 2 percent of this population gets electricity, usually for three to four hours per day. The rest – about 78, 400,000 – do not get any type of electricity at all. If you do not have electricity, forget industrialization, you do not even have tap water. As a result, millions of people are dying from water related diseases per year. Besides, if you do not have electricity, you need to resort to other forms of energy to cook food. As a result, large amount of forests are being cleared each day to provide firewood for cooking and similar other things. Consequently, Ethiopia has lost about 97% of its forestry during the last five decades.

As compared to other alternative means of energy, hydro-power energy is environmentally friendly. Besides, Ethiopia has, like any other country, a sovereign right to harness one of its natural resources.

I think International Rivers does not undertake its own environmental impact study. For that matter, I do not think it has the skill, expertise, and resource to undertake such a complex study. As a result, it is just accusing the Ethiopian government without any type of scientific evidence. Besides, I do not think it will care for Ethiopians more than Ethiopians do for their own kind.

It is one thing to ask for an environmental impact study by an independent body, but another thing to ask for the total cancellation of the project, which is insanity.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
3.
Wang Suya
Japan
March 31st, 2010
7:45 am
Pity now money go through to end is unresponsibility. Just the dam is supported by many companies and ignore the consequence of dam to ecosystem is not ethics. This dam should be down by life cycle assessment even it is on the way. If life cycle assessment does not get good result, it is should be stoped. Stop before it finish is wisdom decide. If we want to go sustainable, we should strict on every project to understand whether it is destory our envrionment. LCA is the method.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
4.
Abiye
Tokyo
March 31st, 2010
7:45 am
White people, and their NGOs, forever want African nations to remain undeveloped. If all African nations developed, what would white people do with their time that would allow them to feel good about themselves.

This campaign against this dam is bogus. They have their motives and they want the people of Ethiopia to suffer. When its about development in the west, its always okay. But in Africa, they have to treat living nations as if they are studies from their anthropology class.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers

5.Gecho, Beijing, March 31st, 2010, 7:46 am
1. I have yet to come across a single mention on what the people who will be directly affected by the Project actually think (even from Journalists who went to the area and "talked" to the people).

2. Haven't heard strong and fact based argument against the Project.

4. I have yet to come across any Ethiopian who opposes this project (which is quite surprising given the extreme nature of the criticism of these groups).

5. The media seems to be paying more attention to the critics of the project (may be because they are loud). This is clearly seen from the alarming and conclusive titles and the first few paragraphs of most articles on this issue.

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Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc. 4 Peace & Prosperity
Win-win synergestic Partnership 4P&P-focusing on
5Es: Education+Energy+Ecology+Economy+Enterprises
www.Globalbelai4u.blogspot.com; Globalbelai@yahoo.com
V: 571.225.5731; C: 703.933.8738; F: 703.531.0540
Our Passion is to reach our Individual and Collective Potential




--- On Fri, 3/26/10, Belai FM Habte-Jesus wrote:

From: Belai FM Habte-Jesus
Subject: Fw: [Voice of America] Council on Foreign Relations Report Argues United States Should Pursue New Approach to Somalia
To: "EPRDF Support Group EPRDF Support Group"
Cc: EPRDF-Supporters-Forum@yahoogroups.com, Edtior@aigaforum.com, "Abraha Belai" , ethioforum@ethiolist.com
Date: Friday, March 26, 2010, 12:52 PM

Dear Patriotic Global Citizens, Friends of African Union, Greater Ethiopia Without Border and Global Diaspora Nations and Nationalities without border:

Greetings:

If the Israeli Lobby can shake America, why cannot the Diaspora Nations and Nationalities Shake up the VoA and Human Rights Network of America?

We all have 24 hours, two fingers and two eyes and on mouth per person.

We have 7502 years of track record and 110 years of Diplomatic Relations with US, the Israel have 3,000 years of track record and 53 years of diplomatic relations with the US.

No excuses, we do better than this zomby existence to promote and protect the interests of 80 Million indigenous and 5 Million Diaspora Ethiopians.

They have less than 20 Million people across the world. We have both the numbers interms of bodies on earth and 4,000 years more track record.

Wake up, No excuses! Let us see Change we can believe in!

The barrier is all between our ears, our cerebrum and delinquent behavior of blaming others!

Let us work and create a strong Ethiopian caucus and AEPAC right now!

If Obama can change America just in 3 years of campaign and one year of Governance based on Yes We Can!

Why not us?

with regards and looking for Action Soon


Dr BMJ


Belai Habte-Jesus, MD, MPH
Global Strategic Enterprises, Inc. 4 Peace & Prosperity
Win-win synergestic Partnership 4P&P-focusing on
5Es: Education+Energy+Ecology+Economy+Enterprises
www.Globalbelai4u.blogspot.com; Globalbelai@yahoo.com
V: 571.225.5731; C: 703.933.8738; F: 703.531.0540
Our Passion is to reach our Individual and Collective Potential




--- On Thu, 3/25/10, ZEGEYE BELETE wrote:

From: ZEGEYE BELETE
Subject: [Voice of America] Council on Foreign Relations Report Argues United States Should Pursue New Approach to Somalia
To: "Zegeye Belete"
Date: Thursday, March 25, 2010, 7:51 PM

Voice of America

Somalia Report

DATE=03/22/10
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=SOMALIA BRUTON
NUMBER=5-63557
BYLINE=TEWELDE TESFAGABIR
DATELINE=WASHINGTON

HEADLINE: Council on Foreign Relations Report Argues United States Should Pursue New Approach to Somalia

INTRO: A new Council on Foreign Relations report calls for the U.S. government to pursue a policy of constructive disengagement in Somaliaand, recommends the international community to adopt a position of neutrality, and to abandon efforts to pick a winner in the war-torn country. VOA`s Horn of Africa reporter Tewelde Tesfagabir spoke with the author of the report.

TEXT: The report, "Somalia: A new Approach", sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations says the odds of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government emerging as an effective body are "extremely poor."

Report author Bronwyn Bruton maintains the current U.S approach is counterproductive and it is encouraging some Somalis to radicalize.

/// BRUTON ACT 1 ///

"Although the TFG in Mogadishu has got some very good people in it, and it has certainly managed to win the hearts and minds of some Somalis, the odds that it will emerge as an effective institution with the critical mass of supporters is very unlikely. If the U.S and the broader international community continues to back the TFG as one side over others, it will perpetuate a military stalemate and this will be very costly to the U.S because it is hurting the Somalia`s population and it is encouraging some Somalis to radicalize."

/// END ACT ///

The report says that the United States should work with United Nations and African Union to promote reform of Somalia's TFG structures to allow it to become a more inclusive governing mechanism.

Bruton believes it is necessary for the United States to make a final push to try to turn the Transitional Federal Government into an institution that can eventually govern Somalia, and suggested the use of a presidential model in a country fractured along clan lines should be abandoned.

/// BRUTON ACT 2 ///

"In my opinion a presidential model is not a very good model for Somalia. Because there are a lot of different factions, and I do not really see any credible national leaders, and I do not think Somaliahad credible leaders for 30 or 40 years. So, what I would recommend is having a technocratic prime minster consisting of a council of leaders including Sheik Sharif."

/// END ACT ///

At a recent briefing U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson denied recent media reports the United States is leading military efforts to help Somalia's government. He said, "There is no desire to Americanize the conflict in Somalia."

/// REST OPTIONAL ///

In her interview with VOA, Bruton welcomed his comment.

/// BRUTON ACT 3 ///

"I was very gland when Ambassador Carson came out and made this statement, because I think the Somali people need to hear that. It is exactly the right approach to not want to Americanize the conflict. And the U.S should continue to make that point."

/// END ACT ///

Bruton says, the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea poses more danger to the regional instability than the Somali conflict.

/// BRUTON ACT 4 ///

"In a certain way, the conflict of Somalia is tied up in the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Most analysts agree that Eritrea does not really have a stake in Somali conflict, does not have a reason to backal-Shabab over TFG. Eritrea wants to be a bother to Ethiopia, and for that reason Eritrea has allegedly been providing arms to al-Shabab and Hisbul Islam. As to the sanctions on Eritrea, I think diplomatic solutions are what are going to be required here."

/// END ACT ///

Bronwyn Bruton says Eritrea also needs to come around to take a more constructive approach to its neighbors. She says the international community has got to find a way to assist Ethiopia and Eritrea in resolving their dispute and the United States should dissuade Ethiopia from any military action in Somalia in response to possible events in Mogadishu. (SIGNED)
NEB/TT/RAE/KBK

Ethiopia Solaris Elettra- The Electric Car of the Future!

Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe



Ethiopia gets first electric car
Ethiopia has launched an electric car, despite suffering from power shortages. It is only the second African country to do so, after South Africa.

Two versions of the Solaris Elettra will be manufactured in Addis Ababa, costing around $12,000 and $15,000.

The cars will be sold in Ethiopia and exported to Africa and Europe.

But some doubt if Africa, where erratic power supplies, low levels of personal wealth and poor infrastructure are common, is ready for electric cars.

Carlo Pironti, general manager of Freestyle PLC, the company producing the Solaris, told the BBC's Uduak Amimo in Addis Ababa that Ethiopia's electricity shortages were not a major obstacle to operating an electric car.

"Ethiopia in future will have lots of power supply," he said.

"In any case, the car can be recharged by generator and by solar power."

“ From a green country to a green world ”
Carlo Pironti
Taxes on cars in Ethiopia can be more than 100% and many Ethiopians with low incomes will struggle to afford an electric car.

To overcome this problem, Mr Pironti says his company will develop a credit system for less affluent customers.

Six Solaris Elettras will be produced every week for the next three months, rising to 30 per week when Freestyle's factory in Addis Ababa is fully operational, he says.

Mr Pironti says he wants to take the Solaris "from a green country to a green world," referring to the company's plans to export the car from Ethiopia to Africa and beyond.

But Wayne Batty, senior writer at South Africa's Topcar magazine, believes only a small percentage of Africa has the necessary infrastructure to support an electric car.

Mr Batty told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that electric cars are fine for short trips of 40 to 50 km (25 to 31 miles), but African countries lack the recharging points for longer journeys.

Ethiopia's electric car comes after Rwanda launched its first bio-diesel bus last week.

It is currently building a huge hydro-electric dam on the Omo river and hopes to become a major exporter of energy when that is completed.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8596455.stm

Published: 2010/03/31 12:21:46 GMT

© BBC MMX

Monday, March 29, 2010

Here comes the US Militia wanting to visit Guantanamo

Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe

From: This sender is DomainKeys verified"ZEGEYE BELETE" View contact details
To: "Zegeye Belete"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28rich.html?hp


The New York Times


March 28, 2010

Op-Ed Columnist

The Rage Is Not About Health Care

By FRANK RICH

THERE were times when last Sunday’s great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC’s “This Week,” a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his “Hell no, you can’t!” incantation in the House chamber —
instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am’s “Yes, we can!” classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.

But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.

How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.

No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause. The historic Obama-Pelosi health care victory is a big deal, all right, so much so it doesn’t need Joe Biden’s adjective to hype it. But the bill does not erect a huge New Deal-Great Society-style government program. In lieu of a public option, it delivers 32 million newly insured Americans to private insurers. As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.

Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat.

It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.

When Social Security was passed by Congress in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, there was indeed heated opposition. As Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post, Alf Landon built his catastrophic 1936 presidential campaign on a call for repealing Social Security. (Democrats can only pray that the G.O.P. will “go for it” again in 2010, as Obama goaded them on Thursday, and keep demanding repeal of a bill that by September will shower benefits on the elderly and children alike.) When L.B.J. scored his Medicare coup, there were the inevitable cries of “socialism” along with ultimately empty rumblings of a boycott from the American Medical Association.

But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70).

But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. If they want to replay the petulant Gingrich government shutdown of 1995 by boycotting hearings and, as John McCain has vowed, refusing to cooperate on any legislation, that’s their right too (and a political gift to the Democrats).

But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts. We know the end of that story. And they can’t pretend that we’re talking about “isolated incidents” or a “fringe” utterly divorced from the G.O.P. A Quinnipiac poll last week found that 74 percent of Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 16 percent are aligned with Democrats.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.

Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.

************************
Frank Rich, who is of Irish descent, grew up in Washington DC, where his father owned a shoe store, Rich's Shoes. He attended Woodrow Wilson High graduating in 1969, and was the editor of the school paper, The Beacon. Rich graduated from Harvard in 1971, where he was editorial chairman of the Harvard Crimson, studied American History and Literature, and lived in Lowell House. Before joining the New York Times in 1980, he was a film critic for Time.

Rich is married to Alexandra Witchel, who also writes for the New York Times, and has two sons (including humorist Simon Rich, who is currently a writer for the NBC sketch show, Saturday Night Live) from his previous marriage to Gail Winston. He lives in Manhattan. In 2000 he published the memoir Ghost Light where he chronicled his childhood through to his college years in 1950s Maryland with a focus on his lifelong adoration of the theater and the impact it had on his life.


Books authored by Frank Rich


1.The Theatre Art of Boris Aronson. ISBN 0394529138.
2.Hot Seat: Theater Criticism for The New York Times, 1980-1993. 1998. ISBN 0-679-45300-8.
3.Ghost Light: A Memoir. 2000. ISBN 0-375-75824-0.
4.The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina. ISBN 1-59420-098-X.


OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF FRANK RICH

http://www.frankrich.com/

Friday, March 26, 2010

Lords of Poverty and Misery at play again! We need to remove environments that empower criminals first

Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe

Food for Naught
The World Food Programme's Somalia problem is only the latest in a string of scandals.

By Jason McLure | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Mar 24, 2010

The foreign-aid industry has had a bad news cycle. First, British newspapers were consumed with a spat between the British Broadcasting Corp. and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof over a BBC report that tens of millions of dollars of aid to Ethiopia during the 1984–1985 famine were used for arms. Now a more current and equally egregious scandal involving the world's largest humanitarian agency has spun out of Ethiopia's neighbor Somalia.

A U.N. report released last week paints a damning portrait of the World Food Programme's operations there: an estimated 50 percent of food delivered by the U.N. agency is essentially being stolen—not only by the WFP's own personnel and contractors, but also Somalia's armed militias, some of whom are radical Islamists.

Somalia is not the first crisis for the agency. These new allegations join a series of recent missteps there that have brought its contracting and operations under scrutiny for its role in aid missions around the world, from North Korea to the Horn of Africa. And the report sent the U.N. backpedaling in its war of words with Washington over the Obama administration's decision to cut aid to Somali operations last year. What is going on at the WFP?

The ugliest revelations are in the report's details. Three Somali businessmen won about 80 percent of the agency's $200 million in transport contracts last year, in what is described as a 12-year-old "de facto cartel." One of them, Abdulqadir Nur "Enow," apparently staged a hijacking of his own trucks in order to sell the food.

In another case, the report cites witnesses saying Enow's company sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of food aid in local markets, an outcome made possible by the fact that WFP depended on a local agency run by Enow's wife to verify his deliveries. Meanwhile, a second WFP trucking contractor, Abukar Omar Adaani, used his wealth to finance a rebel militia that launched an offensive in Mogadishu last year against Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government and African Union peacekeepers.

Adaani also persuaded the WFP to fund a road officials said was designed to give Islamist insurgents access to an airstrip, according to the report.

In response, the WFP has suspended contracts with the three businessmen and accused U.N. investigators of overstating the amounts of its trucking payments. (In January it suspended operations in some areas controlled by Islamist rebels.) The agency didn't respond to a question from NEWSWEEK about its knowledge of Somali trucking magnate Adaani's links to Somali insurgents, and it said that the Adaani-built road it had funded was meant for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Except these aren't isolated problems. Next door, in Ethiopia (one of the largest recipients of food aid in the world), the WFP has spent millions on contracts with transport companies controlled by the country's increasingly authoritarian ruling party, NEWSWEEK has learned.

In the country's eastern, Somali-speaking region, where nearly 2 million people receive food aid overseen by the WFP (along with other aid agencies) and where insurgents have long claimed the Ethiopian government uses food as a weapon, a mere 12 percent of food reached the people for which it was intended in 2008, according to figures from the U.S. State Department.

Meanwhile, for its $1.2 billion, three-year food-relief program in Afghanistan, the WFP's trucking and shipping costs for food were two to three times above commercial rates, according to an analysis by Fox News's George Russell published last month, which noted that less than 40 percent of the mission's budget was actually for food.

Likewise an investigation by Russell last year also found WFP's planned shipping costs to send more than a half billion dollars of food aid to North Korea were inflated—prompting the agency to admit that some of its shipping budget went to companies owned by dictator Kim Jong Il's government.

As for the WFP, it says it doesn't know how the United States arrived at its calculations about aid deliveries in Ethiopia. In Afghanistan, it said the need to construct warehouses and replace trucks helped account for its high transit costs, and it notes that donor governments and agencies have funded less than a fifth of its North Korea operations. North Korea's remote location and lack of competition in shipping routes to the country also account for the high costs, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, a WFP spokesman said in an e-mail.

Admittedly, places like Afghanistan and Somalia are some of the most difficult countries in the world for aid agencies to work. Some leakage of aid is inevitable. But the U.N.'s agencies are notorious for their high administrative costs and the opacity of their spending.

A 2008 Brookings paper coauthored by William Easterly, a well-known aid researcher, ranked 39 large aid donors on criteria including transparency, overhead costs, and selectivity of aid spending. The WFP, which received $4 billion in donations last year—including $1.8 billion from the United States—tied for last place (though the study noted that data from some agencies was unavailable).

The problem in part may be that U.N. aid agencies see themselves as accountable to the world's governments, which provide 92 percent of the WFP's funding, rather than to the public.

Asked for data on its contracts with ruling-party trucking companies in Ethiopia—including one owned by a conglomerate whose No. 2 official is the Ethiopian prime minister's wife—the WFP said disclosing such information to the public would jeopardize "its ability to negotiate the best possible rates and delivery conditions." A spokesman did not respond to a request for how much it pays Kim Jong Il's government to ship food to North Korea.

Indeed, what's so unusual about the report on Somalia aid isn't just its conclusions, it's the mere fact that an independent body conducted a thorough probe into U.N. contracting and published its findings. As the Brookings paper notes, "it is a sad reflection on the aid establishment that knowing where the money goes is still so difficult and that the picture available from partial knowledge remains so disturbing."

Find this article at
http://www.newsweek.com/id/235385
© 2010

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Ten Immediate benefits of the Health Insurance Reform 1

Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe

Our Passion is to reach our individual and collective potential for excellence and success!

It appears the real beneficiaries are children who will not vote in 2014. So at its best this is a very altruistic bill covering the future of our nation, following the well articulated wise saying...."a civilization is as good as how best it cares for its most vulnerable the young, old and disabled and disenfranchised."

Imagine, America taking this fundamental steps after 234 years of independence! There is a long way to go, as the criminals that is the health insurance people are going to milk all the one trillion dollars without any public option or single payer system that competes with them. We need to continue our COFFEE party to create real competition against the private insurance crooks!

We are just trying to make them accountable, who are not yet responsive. The real change will come when there is a public competition to these criminals like the bankers and financial crooks like Bernie Madoff of Wall Street who stole 60 Billion without any regulation and supervision by any one!

The criminal insurance and bankers are making over 100 million per year doing nothing but stealing money from the public under the watch of the crooks in Congress like Traitor Senator Lieberman who sold his sole to the insurance and drug companies and he has the audacity to stay in the Democratic party and keep his criminal chairmanships where he continues to blunder the public.

The gate keepers like the Liebermans of congress need to join their criminal cousins Bernie Madoff, et, al in jail for 100 years and let he soul burn in hell. Just imagine, if Lieberman had won the Vice Presidency and became president, America would have been the den of thieves of the worst order in the planet and the universe.

Our wise people say, ..."God knew the heart of the snake and denied her feet. Imagine the snake who can walk and fly how much damage it could create."

It is such a crime by few against many that is being allowed to continue.

All the same, this is a baby step in the right direction, and the Citizens have to continue to work on their Coffee Party and there is no turning back against making the criminals accountable.

Democracy is as good as the quality of the citizens, we will face the TEA Party with our COFFEE Party- the Coalition of Free and Fair Enterprising Energies unleashed for ever!

With regards and seeking to learn from your alternative creative Ideas, I remain;

Dr BMJ


As soon as health care passes, the American people will see immediate benefits. The legislation will:

Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;

Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

Lower seniors' prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;

Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;

Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

By enacting these provisions right away, and others over time, we will be able to lower costs for everyone and give all Americans and small businesses more control over their health care choices.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Win like Obama and pass on to the next generation like Mandela

Global7 the new Millennial Renaissance Vision for the Globe

Belai --

I'm writing to you on a great day for America.

This morning, I gathered with members of Congress, my administration, and hardworking volunteers from every part of the country to sign comprehensive health care reform into law. Thanks to the immeasurable efforts of so many, the dream of reform is now a reality.

The bill I just signed puts Americans in charge of our own health care by enacting three key changes:

It establishes the toughest patient protections in history.

It guarantees all Americans affordable health insurance options, extending coverage to 32 million who are currently uninsured.

And it reduces the cost of care -- cutting over 1 trillion dollars from the federal deficit over the next two decades.

To ensure a successful, stable transition, many of these changes will phase into full effect over the next several years.

But for millions of Americans, many of the benefits of reform will begin this year -- some even taking effect this afternoon. Here are just a few examples:

Small businesses will receive significant tax cuts, this year, to help them afford health coverage for all their employees.

Seniors will receive a rebate to reduce drug costs not yet covered under Medicare.

Young people will be allowed coverage under their parents' plan until the age of 26.

Early retirees will receive help to reduce premium costs.

Children will be protected against discrimination on the basis of medical history.

Uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions can join a special high-risk pool to get the coverage they need, starting in just 90 days.

Insured Americans will be protected from seeing their insurance revoked when they get sick, or facing restrictive annual limits on the care they receive.

All Americans will benefit from significant new investments to train primary care doctors, nurses, and public health professionals, and the creation of state-level consumer assistance programs to help all patients understand and defend our new rights.

As I've said many times, and as I know to be true, this astounding victory could not have been achieved without your tireless efforts.

So as we celebrate this great day, I want to invite you to add your name where it belongs: alongside mine as a co-signer of this historic legislation. Organizing for America will record the names of co-signers as a permanent commemoration of those who came together to make this moment possible -- all of you who refused to give up until the dream of many generations for affordable, quality care for all Americans was finally fulfilled.

So, if you haven't yet, please add your name as a proud health care reform co-signer today:

http://my.barackobama.com/cosigner

Please accept my thanks for your voice, for your courage, and for your indispensable partnership in the great work of creating change.

History, and I, are in your debt.

President Barack Obama