This seemingly endless and ugly game of the peace process is now finally over– Karma Nabulsi

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/23/middle-east-peace-process-over-palestinians?CMP=twt_gu

By Karma Nabulsi

The Guardian, Great Britain

It’s over. Given the shocking nature, extent and detail of these
ghastly revelations from behind the closed doors of the Middle East
peace process, the seemingly endless and ugly game is now, finally,
over. Not one of the villains on the Palestinian side can survive it.
With any luck the sheer horror of this account of how the US and
Britain covertly facilitated and even implemented Israeli military
expansion – while creating an oligarchy to manage it – might overcome
the entrenched interests and venality that have kept the peace process
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-peace-talks
going. A small group of men who have polluted the Palestinian
public sphere with their private activities are now exposed.

For us Palestinians, these detailed accounts of the secretly
negotiated surrender of every one of our core rights under
international law (of return for millions of Palestinian refugees,
on annexing Arab Jerusalem, on settlements) are not a surprise. It
is something that we all knew – in spite of official (more…)

The story behind the Palestine papers

How 1,600 confidential Palestinian records of negotiations with Israel from 1999 to 2010 came to be leaked to al-Jazeera

Seumas Milne and Ian Black The Guardian, Monday 24 January 2011

The revelations from the heart of the Israel-Palestine peace process are the product of the biggest documentary leak in the history of the Middle East conflict, and the most comprehensive exposure of the inside story of a decade of failed negotiations.

The 1,600 confidential records of hundreds of meetings between Palestinian, Israeli and US leaders, as well as emails and secret proposals, were leaked to the Qatar-based satellite TV channel al-Jazeera and shared exclusively with the Guardian. They cover the period from the runup to the ill-fated Camp David negotiations under US president Bill Clinton in 2000, to private discussions last year involving senior officials and politicians in the Obama administration.

The earliest document in the cache is a memo from September 1999 about Palestinian negotiating strategy. It suggests heeding the advice of the Rolling Stones: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you can get what you need.” The final one, from last September, is a Palestinian Authority (PA) message to the Egyptian government about access to the Gaza Strip.

The Palestine papers have emerged at a time when a whole era of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, starting with the Madrid conference in 1991, appear to have run into the sand, opening up the prospect of a new phase of the conflict and potentially another war.

In particular, they cover the most recent negotiations, before and after George Bush’s Annapolis conference in late 2007 – when substantive offers were made by both sides until the process broke down over Israel’s refusal to freeze West Bank settlement activity.

The bulk of the documents are records, contemporaneous notes and sections of verbatim transcripts of meetings drawn up by officials of the Palestinian negotiation support unit (NSU), which has been the main technical and legal backup for the Palestinian side in the negotiations.

The unit has been heavily funded (more…)

By Paul Beebe

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: February 19, 2011 10:53PM

Harris Simmons doesn’t want to express an opinion about the $8 million civil fine federal regulators recently levied against Zions Bank for serious deficiencies in its Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering controls.

But there are a few things that Simmons, chairman of parent company Zions Bancorp, wants shareholders and customers of the biggest home-grown financial institution in Utah to know.

Zions takes its obligation to comply with federal banking laws seriously, Simmons said in an interview.

He also wants to say that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network didn’t find evidence of any illegal money transfers, only that there were lapses in Zion’s compliance.

“We spend millions a year, [and] we have at last count 90 people working full time on this kind of compliance. They are monitoring about half a billion transactions year worth about $8 trillion,” he said.

Like other financial institutions, Zions is required to report suspicious money transactions to the government within 30 days. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a Treasury Department agency that fights money laundering, said Zions failed to file on time 132 reports representing $12.3 billion in suspicious activity (more…)

by Philip Wilcox
Foundation for Middle East Peace President Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. issued the following statement February 18, 2011

The U.S. veto in the United Nations Security Council on February 18 of a draft resolution demanding that “Israel cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” and reaffirming that settlements are “illegal,”  undermines American interests in the Middle East and prospects for a two-state peace.

We heartily agree with Philip Wilcox. Publicly we have condemned Israeli settlements as an impediment to peace, but at the United Nations we veto the very goal we supposedly are trying to achieve.

What it amounts to is that the United States has been playing games with peace for years with no intention of peace (except during the Carter years). We have been deceptive with the Palestinians. We have been pulling off a major ruse in falsely pretending to be ‘fair brokers.’

The Obama Administration, along with Hilary Clinton, are big disappointments. Our blind allegiance to Israel has caused enormous problems throughout the Middle East.

The United States of America has been a disaster for the people of the Middle East. We have propped up dictators for our own selfish purposes while they abused their people with our concurrence.

The Obama Administration has continued this tragedy and it is starting to backfire and we are going to reap what we’ve sowed.

The Obama administration has worked strenuously (more…)

Below is the pathetic offering provided as a supposed news story by The Deseret News regarding the charges and fines of $8 million against Zions Bank for ‘money laundering.’ The story came two days after the public announcement of the fines by two government agencies and a front page major headline and detailed story in the Salt Lake Tribune.

The close ties to Zions Bank by both the LDS Church and The Deseret News are well known, and for the sake of journalistic integrity one would think that the Deseret News would have made a better effort to cover the issue objectively. But NO, it tried to hide it and tried to downplay it, and in the process showed that the new ‘corporatized’ de-journalized Deseret News is apparently going to rely on ‘faith-based’ reporting out of the same mold the church deals with its own history.

(The extensive reporting of the case by the Salt Lake Tribune is posted elsewhere on this blog.)

The Deseret News Headline

Zions Bank fined $8M in lax wire transfers case
By Chi-chi Zhang
Associated Press

Published: Monday, Feb. 14, 2011 3:57 p.m. MST
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah-based Zions Bank has agreed to pay $8 million to settle allegations it failed to monitor billions of dollars’ worth of illegal wire transfers.

The federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said Monday the violations occurred in 2006 and 2007, when the bank opened a new wire transfer business but failed to meet anti-money laundering regulations.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network cooperated in the investigation. It says Zions failed to report 132 cases of suspicious activity worth about $12.3 billion in transactions that it says may have involved drug trafficking accounts.

Zions hasn’t acknowledged or denied the allegations.

The bank has offices in 10 Western U.S. states. It closed its foreign correspondent banking business in 2008 and has agreed to pay an $8 million lump sum penalty fee.

That’s all folks. We got five paragraphs from the Deseret News downplaying the potential laundering of $12.3 billion dollars. Because of rules and regulations regarding banking and because a couple of federal agencies actually performed their public duty we now know that Zions Bank was involved in at least 132 transactions (potential money laundering) in amounts that totalled $12.3 billion dollars.

What the public still doesn’t know, and good journalism should pursue it, is who sent what to whom and for what purpose? These numbers are so big that most of us don’t take the time to do the math. We just know it’s a helluva lot of money. Also, the public may be able to put together the pieces a lot better than a few regulators who don’t understand the connections between names and entities. Names please! Who are these guys?

Let’s do the math—132 transactions totalling $12.3 billion amounts to nearly $100,000,000 each transaction. Now, this isn’t small (more…)

This column by Pulitizer Prize winner Leonard Pitts is one of our all time favorites. Mitt Romney was the justifiable target of Pitts’ laser sharp comments. This was written several years ago, but is worth reprinting again today in view of Romney’s double-speak at the recent CPAC convention. The lies and deliberate manipulations by two-faced Republicans to please their ideologically, radical, almost totally unthinking base stands reason on its head—and nobody has ever put it any clearer than Leonard Pitts.

“We need change, all right. Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington. We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals.”

— Mitt Romney, Sept. 3

And then the gorilla run knee-socks paint porno on the Cadillac. But school laughed and didn’t we sing hats?

Ahem.

Maybe you wonder what the preceding gobbledygook means. I would ask which gobbledygook you mean: mine or Mitt Romney’s? If he’s allowed to spew nonsense and people act as if he’s spoken intelligently, why can’t I? If he gets to behave as if words no longer have objective meaning, why can’t I?

I mean, baffle grab on the freak flake. Really.

And again, ahem.

If you’re a regular here, you’ve heard me rant from time to time about intellectual dishonesty. By this, I mean more than just your garden-variety lie. No, to be intellectually dishonest means to argue that which you know to be untrue and to substitute ideology for intellect to the degree that you’ll do violence to language and logic rather than cross the party line. (more…)

By Paul Beebe

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: February 12, 2011 09:15AM

Two federal agencies have slapped Zions Bank with multimillion-dollar civil penalties for failing to monitor suspicious wire transfers of billions of dollars related to transactions that may have involved drug trafficking and other crimes.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday said it imposed an $8 million penalty against Zions for shortcomings in its anti-money laundering controls — violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and the USA Patriot Act.

Oh these damnable regulations! They are such a nuisance. How can we hide money laundering if we have to be regulated? Well, maybe the regulators will be asleep at the switch. Maybe the regulators will be understaffed and not get around to us. Maybe our political contributions will keep us out of jail! Maybe our white shirts and ties and memberships in all the right clubs and churches will throw them off the track! This is our business and it is none of their business. Why do we have to put up with these intrusions of government? Don’t they know our God is Laissez Faire and (more…)

Column by Walter Williams published in Deseret News

A killer agency: The invisible victims of the FDA’s slow processes

Published: Friday, Feb. 11, 2011 12:00 a.m. MST

Sam Kazman’s “Drug Approvals and Deadly Delays” article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (Winter 2010), tells a story about how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s policies have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Let’s look at how it happens.

During the FDA’s drug approval process, it confronts the possibility of two errors. If the FDA approves a drug that turns out to have unanticipated, dangerous side effects, people will suffer. Similarly, if the FDA denies or delays the marketing of a perfectly safe and beneficial drug, people will also suffer. Both errors cause medical harm.

This column by very conservative columnist Walter Williams provides a good example of the continual tug-of-war between the values of regulation and deregulation. It is always a constant battle between the rigid regulationists and the extremist deregulationists. The ultimate goal should be to arrive at the perfect center, where there is not too much regulation that destroys initiative and yet there is enough regulation to protect the public.

It is a challenge not only within the Food and Drug Administration, but that tug-and-pull exists in every regulatory agency.

There are extremes on both sides of the regulation philosophy and generally speaking we have arrived at the sensible middle in most cases. The agencies go through swings when extremely conservative presidents like George W. Bush stacked all the agencies with ultra-deregulationists and opened the floodgates of laissez faire philosophy in all aspects of government.

Forming an opinion of this column by Williams will give you a hint about where you stand (more…)

By Brian Moench

Opinion Piece in Salt Lake Tribune

Published: January 8, 2011 01:01AM

In December 1952, an episode of London smog killed more than 12,000 people in less than a month, most within the first four days. It changed forever how the world regarded air pollution. As thick winter smog once again smothers the Wasatch Front, a review of research published in 2010 should be the next milestone in how Utahns regard air pollution.

In May, the American Heart Association published the AHA’s Updated Scientific Statement on Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease. Based on hundreds of research papers, it suggested a formula for calculating the number of premature deaths in a community based on the concentrations of PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 microns).

This formula produces the same conclusions that the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment have been stating since 2007. Between 1,000 and 2,000 people in Utah die prematurely every year because of our air pollution.

In 2010, numerous studies added Alzheimer’s, autism, diabetes and breast cancer to an already long list of health consequences that showed significant increases with air pollution. The exclamation point to all this research came with a remarkable study published (more…)

By Paul Beebe

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: January 14, 2011 07:56PM

The leaders of Utah’s two largest newspapers on Friday staked out strikingly different views of where their publications are going as more readers migrate to online sources for news and advertising revenue remains weak.

On one side, the Deseret News increasingly is practicing “values-based” journalism written by fewer reporters and charted out by academics and businesspeople who came late to news-gathering and in many cases previously held top positions at online and technology companies. The paper is looking ahead to a time when it ceases to publish a print edition.

The Huffington Post was purchased by AOL for $315 million. In just six years Arianna Huffington turned a blog into an online newspaper and it made money last year for the first time on revenue of $30 million. Meanwhile, the value of the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune has been slipping.

Is there room for a hard copy daily newspaper in the tech era? Time will tell.  We wish them both well. Newspapers are the foundation of a community, a state, and the nation.

“Whether it’s 10 years or 15 years, I don’t know. But at some point the printed newspaper is going to die,” said Mark Willes, who heads Deseret Management Co., the for-profit arm of the Mormon Church, which owns the News.

Willes and Nancy Conway, The Salt Lake Tribune’s top editor, spoke at length and answered questions at a legislative policy summit held in advance of the start of the 2011 legislative session on Jan. 24.

The Tribune places greater faith in the staying power of traditional print newspapers. Utah’s largest daily paper guards its (more…)

By MICHELLE CONLIN

and ANDREW VANACORE

The Associated Press

Published: February 7, 2011 07:21PM

New York • Tim Armstrong has looked like the unluckiest man in media for the past year. He used to be Google’s ad sales maestro, the definition of digital success. But ever since May 2009, when he took the job of turning around AOL, he has overseen abysmal earnings, wretched morale and a local news strategy that has been slammed as a money-losing Web sweatshop.

Then, in a move that not even the most gossipy of media obsessives saw coming, Armstrong announced at the Super Bowl in Texas that AOL was buying The Huffington Post, the Internet news darling, for $315 million. Armstrong went from looking lame to looking awfully sharp. And awfully lucky.

In a matter of just six years the charismatic Arianna Huffington started a blog worth almost nothing and has turned it into a value of $315 million.  She had significant money of her own and used it well and was willing to invest heavily in making continual improvements in her blog—and look what it has reaped for her.

Part of the attraction to blogs has been their independence from corporate influence. The purchase by AOL will undoubtedly change that, although AOL plans to keep her in charge of the blog.

Perhaps no online property was lusted after by media moguls like the one Arianna Huffington founded six years ago. Its traffic rivals The New York Times. Its infrastructure is virtually zero-cost. Its social media strategy is practically perfect. Oh, and it turned its first profit last year on $30 million in revenue. HuffPo expects to triple revenue by 2012.

Huffington’s original vision was to create the political left’s answer to the right-leaning Drudge Report, minus the venom. When it launched (more…)

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER

The Associated Press

Published: February 7, 2011 07:03PM

Washington • Taxes too high?

Actually, as a share of the nation’s economy, Uncle Sam’s take this year will be the lowest since 1950, when the Korean War was just getting under way.

And for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W. Bush, thanks to a weak economy and a growing number of tax breaks for the wealthy and poor alike.

Income tax payments this year will be nearly 13 percent lower than they were in 2008, the last full year of the Bush presidency. Corporate taxes will be lower by a third, according to projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The poor economy is largely to blame, with corporate profits down and unemployment up. But so is a tax code that grows each year with new deductions, credits and exemptions. The result is that families making as much as $50,000 can avoid paying federal income taxes, if it has at least two dependent children. Low-income families can actually make a profit from the income tax, and the wealthy can significantly cut their payments.

“The current state of the tax code is simply indefensible,” says Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “It is hemorrhaging revenue.”

In the next few years, many can expect to pay more in taxes. Some increases were enacted as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. And many states have raised taxes because — unlike the federal government — they have to balance their budgets each year. State tax receipts are projected to increase in all but seven states this year, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.

But in the third year of Obama’s presidency, federal taxes are at historic lows. Tax receipts dropped sharply in 2009 as the economy sank into recession. They have since stabilized and are expected to grow by 3 percent this year. But federal tax revenues won’t rebound to pre-recession levels until next year, according to CBO projections.

In the current budget year, federal tax receipts will be equal to 14.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, the lowest level since Harry Truman was president. In Bush’s last year (more…)

Politicians need to stay out of athletics

By Doug Robinson

Deseret News

Published: Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011 12:49 a.m. MST

Memo to state legislators: Butt out.

Stay out of high school sports.

Find something else to meddle with.

Oh, wait, we’re supposed to tone down the rhetoric.

Butt out … pa-lease.

Remember the little drama that began last summer when the state Legislature, led by Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, wanted to turn the high school transfer rule on its head by having NO RULES WHATSOEVER? A kid could transfer anytime, anywhere. He could play three different sports for three different schools in one school year.

That was a doozie, wasn’t it? Which is why legislators went back to work on the bill and modified it. The hope was that common sense would prevail, and they’d forget the whole business when (more…)

Published: February 7, 2011 12:15AM

There’s a modern analogy to the old proverb “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” It’s paying your Visa bill with your Mastercard.

No matter what idiom you use, moving money around is not the same as increasing the amount in the pot. But Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, and Rep. Merlynn Newbold, R-South Jordan, convinced the Legislature to do just that. And then to claim they have provided the new money needed to educate an expected influx of more than 14,000 new students in Utah schools next year. That’s pure baloney.

It’s not like the Tribune to call ‘baloney’ on Senator Lyle Hillyard. He is the best the hill has got on state budgeting and financial matters. However, it appears that nothing has been done to fund the increase in students and the status quo isn’t good enough let alone continue to fall farther behind.

The base budget for education passed by the Legislature last week would take $76 million from one education-fund pot, called the flexible allocation WPU (weighted pupil unit) distribution, and use it to fund enrollment growth. The problem with that is that the flexible allocation distribution is money Utah schools are already allotted and are using to help pay for mandatory retirement and Social Security costs.

If the flexible allocation distribution is used to hire teachers or buy supplies for the thousands of new students, then school districts will have to cut their budgets for such programs and services as reading, remedial assistance, busing and school nurses in order to make up the difference.

Sen. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, calls the maneuver “smoke and mirrors,” and we agree with her. To claim (more…)

Tribune Forum Letter

By Brian Slade

Published: February 7, 2011 12:15AM

This past year I kept reading about the report that two-thirds of Utah third-graders don’t read at grade level, and how this benchmark is critical because through third grade, students learn to read. After that, they read to learn. If we fail them by the third grade, we’ve failed them for the rest of their lives.

The noise about this was so loud, tragic and embarrassing that I thought surely the 2011 Legislature would address this pivotal problem upon which turns so much else, from classroom cohesion to dropout rates to crime and a vibrant Utah workforce.

This is a problem that is solvable: by not (more…)

By EDWARD WYATT

The New York Times

Published: February 7, 2011 10:03AM

Washington • If a company’s financial reporting were so bad that its auditor had pointed out significant weaknesses in its accounting for seven years running, the Securities and Exchange Commission would most likely be all over it.

But what if the company were the SEC itself?

Since the commission began producing audited statements in 2004, the Government Accountability Office has faulted its reporting almost every year. In November, the GAO said the commission’s books were in such disarray that it had failed at some of the agency’s most fundamental tasks: accurately tracking income from fines, filing fees and the return of ill-gotten profits.

“A reasonable possibility exists that a material misstatement of SEC’s financial statements would not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis,” the auditor concluded.

The auditor did not accuse the SEC of cooking its books, and the mistakes were corrected before its latest financial statements were completed. But the fact that basic accounting continually bedevils the agency responsible for guaranteeing the soundness of U.S. financial markets could prove especially awkward just as the SEC is saying it desperately needs money to increase its regulatory power.

When we have businesses and especially banks that are too big to fail we need a regulatory agency that is big enough and competent enough to protect us. Let’s not be penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to strict regulation of Wall Street. They have failed us too many times.

Like the rest of the federal government, the SEC is operating without an increase in its budget, which was $1.1 billion last year. With President Barack Obama talking about extending the freeze (more…)

By Paul Rolly

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published Feb 07 2011 04:16PM

Gay-rights activist Eric Ethington met with a group of BYU students at the J. Reuben Clark Law School on the Provo campus Thursday night to discuss efforts to get nondiscrimination ordinances passed in Provo.

When he left the meeting to drive back to Salt Lake City, he discovered the tires on his car had been slashed.

Ethington said his car bore Equal Rights Campaign and Equality Utah bumper stickers, making it obvious he was a gay-rights supporter. Word of his meeting also could have gotten around campus, he said, because the meeting with about 30 students had been planned after they expressed interest in pursuing the ordinance changes.

When he got to his car, he noticed the right front tire was completely flat. He changed the tire with a spare, then drove away. By the time he got on Interstate 15, the left front tire had gone flat. Upon inspection, he noticed both tires had been slashed.

He was towed to a tire shop in Lehi and picked up his car on Friday.

He filed a complaint with the BYU Police Department on Friday.

Maybe Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper, can file a bill exempting vandals from prosecution if they are able to show religious conviction motivated their vandalism.

Interestingly, Apostle Dallin Oaks just gave a speech at Chapman University in which he declared that those with religion have a higher sense of morality–that religion is the source of moral understanding.

I guess, since we don’t know for sure, the tire slashing can be blamed on an atheist, or perhaps someone whose toe stuck up out of the water and he was not completely baptized. Without instant replay only God would know.

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

Published: February 3, 2011 01:01AM

San Diego • Many Americans are keeping a watchful eye on the developments halfway around the world in Egypt. However, they must not forget the crisis next door in Mexico.

The situation in the Middle East commands attention because one spark could ignite the whole region. But Mexico is way beyond sparks. It is on fire. We worry about Egypt because it is too important — strategically, diplomatically — to be consumed by chaos. Yet what about the chaos on our back porch?

That is the question being asked by the family and friends of Nancy Shuman Davis, a 59-year-old American missionary who — along with her husband, a fellow missionary — lived and traveled in Mexico for more than 30 years. Recently, the couple was driving along a Mexican highway in a region fought over by rival gangs that move drugs into Texas. They encountered gunmen who fired into their vehicle, striking Nancy in the head. Her husband sped across the border to a hospital in McAllen, Texas, where she died.

Tragedies like this should be enough to focus the minds of Americans on what is happening south of the border.

At this point, that’s probably the one thing that Mexican President Felipe Calderon wants most from his neighbors: focus. Calderon still needs the aid promised by the United States under the Merida Initiative. And he still needs a full partner, not a silent one. But none of this can happen until Americans learn to focus on Mexico.

Focus seems to be lacking in the Obama administration. The only person in this shop who seems to have a clue what the stakes are (more…)

By Thomas l. Friedman

The New York Times

Published: February 3, 2011 01:01AM

Ramallah, West Bank • I’m meeting a retired Israeli general at a Tel Aviv hotel. He begins the conversation with: “Well, everything we thought for the last 30 years is no longer relevant.”

That pretty much sums up the disorienting sense of shock and awe that the popular uprising in Egypt has inflicted on the psyche of Israel’s establishment. The peace treaty with a stable Egypt was the unspoken foundation for every geopolitical and economic policy in Israel for the last 35 years, and now it’s gone. It’s as if Americans suddenly woke up and found both Mexico and Canada plunged into turmoil on the same day.

This is a perilous time for Israel, and its anxiety is understandable. But I fear Israel could make its situation even more perilous if it succumbs to the argument one hears from a number of senior Israeli officials today that the events in Egypt prove that Israel can’t make a lasting peace with the Palestinians. It’s wrong and dangerous.

To be sure, Hosni Mubarak, Israel’s longtime ally, deserves all the wrath being directed at him. The best time to make any big, hard decision is when you are at your maximum strength. You’ll always think and act more clearly. For the last 20 years, Mubarak has had all the leverage he could ever want (more…)

Global Crisis Strengthens WSF’s Legitimacy

by Julio Godoy

Published on CommonDreams.org

BERLIN – European non-governmental organisations combating neo-liberal globalisation find their position vindicated by the ongoing socio-economic and environmental crisis upsetting the world.

The legitimacy of the demands of the European members of the World Social Forum (WSF) is not only founded in the massive support they enjoy from workers and peasants groups across the globe. Now, it enjoys the endorsement of governments which not long ago were supporters of neo- liberal globalisation. [1]

“The endorsement by European governments of our basic demands, such as the transaction tax, constitutes a great satisfaction,” Hugo Braun, of the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC), told IPS.

The financial crisis that has devastated the world has awakened the masses to the failure of capitalism and alternative forms of commerce or at least significant modifications are destined to take seed.

What has happened in Tunisia and Egypt is only the beginning. It will not stop there, and it will spread beyond the Arab world and into Europe, and America will not escape untouched.

The problems in Egypt are not so different than the problems everywhere. The unequal distribution of enormous wealth at the top of the food chain while the masses remain in poverty. The pr0phets of capitalism have always preached that wealth trickles down, but they have proven to be false prophets. The opposite (more…)