Reports

Billions of dollars belonging to Iraq is not accounted for by the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was given responsibility by the United Nations for the country's finances, British lawmakers and aid activists said Monday...

http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040628/API/406280628


From Information Clearing House

by Tom Hamburger Times Staff Writer

Sat Jun 26, 7:55 AM ET

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has ordered that government scienists must be approved by a senior political appointee before they can participate in meetings convened by the World Health Organization (news - web sites), the leading international health and science agency.

A top official from the Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Department in April asked the WHO to begin routing requests for participation in its meetings to the department's secretary for review, rather than directly invite individual scientists, as has long been the case.

Officials at the WHO, based in Geneva, Switzerland, have refused to implement the request, saying it could compromise the independence of international scientific deliberations. Denis G. Aitken, WHO assistant director-general, said Friday that he had been negotiating with Washington in an effort to reach a compromise.

The request is the latest instance in which the Bush administration has been accused of allowing politics to intrude into once-sacrosanct areas of scientific deliberation. It has been criticized for replacing highly regarded scientists with industry and political allies on advisory panels. A biologist who was at odds with the administration's position on stem-cell research was dismissed from a presidential advisory commission. This year, 60 prominent scientists accused the administration of "misrepresenting and suppressing scientific knowledge for political purposes."

The president's science advisor, Dr. John Marburger, has called the accusations "wrong and misleading, inaccurate."

The newest action has drawn fresh criticism, however, as the request has circulated among scientists.

"I do not feel this is an appropriate or constructive thing to do," said Dr. D.A. Henderson, an epidemiologist who ran the Bush administration's Office of Public Health Preparedness and now acts as an official advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. "In the scientific world, we have a generally open process. We deal with science as science. I am unaware of such clearance ever having been required before."

Henderson worked for the WHO for 11 years directing its smallpox eradication program. He said he could not recall having to go through government bureaucrats to invite scientists to participate in expert panels, except in the case of small Eastern European countries. In 2002, Henderson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (news - web sites), and was praised by Bush as "a great general in mankind's war against disease."

A few scientists have been worried about the department's vetting demand since April, but concerns heightened this week when Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) complained in a letter to Thompson. "The new policy … politicizes the process of providing the expert advice of U.S. scientists to the international community," Waxman wrote.

Thompson's spokesman, Tony Jewell, called Waxman's criticism "seriously misguided."

"No one knows better than HHS who the experts are and who can provide the most up-to-date and expert advice," Jewell said. "The World Health Organization does not know the best people to talk to, but HHS knows. If anyone thinks politics will interfere with Secretary Thompson's commitment to improve health in every corner of the world, they are sadly mistaken."

The WHO, founded in 1947, is the United Nations (news - web sites) agency dedicated to health. It is governed by 192 member states and conducts forums, recommends international health and safety standards and draws leading scientists from around the world to expert panels that review the latest literature on chemical, biological, industrial and environmental threats.

The organization traditionally insists on picking experts to sit on official scientific review panels.

"It's an important issue for us," Aitken said. "We do need independent science. If we want government positions, we have government meetings. We have many, many of these government assemblies, but they address a separate set of concerns" than the scientific gatherings.

Scientists who attend the meetings are reminded that they are invited to offer their scientific views, not to represent their government or financial interests.

The letter to Aitken declaring the new vetting policy was signed by William R. Steiger, special assistant to Thompson. He came to Washington with Thompson from Wisconsin, and is the son of a congressman and the godson of former President George H.W. Bush.
"Except under very limited circumstances, U.S. government experts do not and cannot participate in WHO consultations in their individual capacity," Steiger wrote. Civil service and other regulations "require HHS experts to serve as representatives of the U.S. government at all times and advocate U.S. government policies."

The letter asserts that "the current practice in which the WHO invites specific HHS officials by name to serve in these capacities has not always resulted in the most appropriate selections."

The letter provided no specifics. But WHO panels sometimes have disagreed with positions taken by the administration. A WHO panel met in Lyons, France, this month and declared formaldehyde a known carcinogen — relying on studies that Bush administration political appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) had rejected as inconclusive.

Voting members of the panel included scientists from the National Cancer Institute (news - web sites) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health who had been authors of the studies.

Several leading scientists said the new policy would undermine scientific deliberations.

"This is really tampering with a process that has worked very well," said Linda Rosenstock, the dean of the UCLA School of Public Health who directed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health under President Clinton (news - web sites). "To have this micromanaged at the HHS departmental level raises the specter that political considerations rather than scientific considerations will determine who is allowed to go" to the world's most important scientific meetings.

Rosenstock said that some WHO divisions — including the one reviewing cancer threats — have become targets of industry groups. "There is real concern that science could be trumped by politics and vested interests."

For Waxman, a frequent critic of the administration, the department's letter to the WHO is part of a pattern of mixing politics with science — and one he contends diminishes U.S. stature internationally.

Times staff writer Kathleen Hennessey contributed to this report.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/whitehousetriestoreininscientists


Informant: Halojumper82

Don't make the effort to tell the World Bank what it got wrong. They know it since ages - and just love to read your valuable comments, while relaxing in the Bahamas. So don't waist your time and money by giving them your good advice, as they request (during a laughable 30 day period at:

http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/energy/eirresponse.nsf/comments

they just would be happy that they had forestalled all your arguments already and in any case just like to know - free of charge of course - how far they could go in their continued robbing frenzy!

But make the following efforts:
a) Indigenous peoples: Initiate a vote of No Confidence in parliament, wherever a national government continues to dish out your country and/or assets and money to the WB or its so called affiliates!

b) Local communities: Don't allow any World Bank official or agent into your area.

c) Consumers: Boycott any World Bank financed project (even if it comes as "money for the poor!" (like the micro-credit scams) or "money for the environment!" (like the GEF-scams). Don't forget all this money comes at a price ! - and that price you and your children will have to pay ! Watch out – already many NGOs are in the pocket of the WB!

d) Workers (manual or academic): Don't seek employment with the WB or in WB financed projects - you might get some of the looted money, but your children and fellow humans have to pay for it by being robbed or enslaved.

World Bank ignores own analysis

Indigenous peoples and local communities not even recognized as equal partners ! Neo-colonial business as usual ! World Bank in new robbing frenzy !

Last Friday the long expected answer by the World Bank management to the Extractive Industries Review (EIR) for the sectors of oil, gas, mining and chemicals production was made publicly available. See:

http://www.worldbank.org/ogmc/files/eirmanagementresponse.pdf

The EIR, a report commissioned by the World Bank itself, has examined the role of the World Bank in the raw material sector and found serious flaws in World Bank's policy as well as with the management of its programs and projects.

But, as can be seen in the report itself

http://ifcln1.ifc.org/ifcext/home.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/ExtractiveIndustries.pdf/$FILE/ExtractiveIndustries.pdf

the World Bank wants to continue as before. This is nothing new, since the World Bank also flawed other attempts to improve it in terms of its social and environmental responsibility in other sectors, like forestry or agriculture, where the WB, instead of improving the situation for the peasants and consumers at present is investing strongly in Genetic Engineering (GE), which is masterminded by the transnational corporations.

Non-Governmental Organizations the world over are disappointed and angry about the answers given by the World Bank to this report. Though the EIR has clearly determined that the raw material sector is not able to reduce poverty as long as certain minimum requirements are not fulfilled, the World Bank just wants to continue like before and ignores the results of its own analysis. While a short while ago the World Bank admitted that 20 years of their "work" had not helped Africa, today they present themselves with slimy words again as good-doers since 60 years, which were 60 years of robbing nations and peoples and people of their assets !

The biggest shame: The WB is not even willing to take up core issues of the EIR recommendations, like the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples to refuse or to agree to WB projects. "Consultation" is the only level they want to commit themselves to in the interaction with local people. This means as before: They allow you to speak, but you have no right to decide - and this in your own house and concerning the assets of your own territories !

The diplomatic language and insulting rhetoric used in the response by the World Bank intends to blur the clear view of the observer, but it can not hide that the envisaged hardly differs from the current policy and thereby does not meet in any way the EIR recommendations. Thereby the World Bank finally terminates its socially justified work-permit and underdeveloped as well as the developing countries should follow swift by terminating their stay. The World Bank must not any longer be allowed to operate outside the G8 countries - let them play with each other.

The World Bank also rejects another EIR recommendation, whereby the WB would have to withdraw until 2008 from the oil sector, since it has been proven that the poor of a country never benefited from such activities. Already at the much-celebrated renewable energies conference in Bonn / Germany this year, the World Bank had been criticized for their halfhearted announcements concerning the promotion of renewable energies. With "business as usual" and how it is presented now again by the WB nothing will change. The poor, which allegedly are placed at the "heart" of the World Bank, are still only there to serve the bankers and other robber clans of the taker societies and because the megalomaniac G8+1 need them to survive only under the condition to surrender their assets and to work for them.

Maybe you just can tell the World Bank to bugger off:

http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/energy/eirresponse.nsf/comments

ECOTERRA Intl.
(excerpt)

The US has sidelined the UN Security council, world opinion... and even the so-called "sovereign" government of Iraq, to unilaterally declare US troops IMMUNE from prosecution for killing Iraqis! So much for Iraqi independence and sovereignty, so much for international law, so much for decency.

Mark Vallen


U.S. Immunity In Iraq Will Go Beyond June 30

By Robin Wright

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 24, 2004

The Bush administration has decided to take the unusual step of bestowing on its own troops and personnel immunity from prosecution by Iraqi courts for killing Iraqis or destroying local property after the occupation ends and political power is transferred to an interim Iraqi government, U.S. officials said.

The administration plans to accomplish that step -- which would bypass the most contentious remaining issue before the transfer of power -- by extending an order that has been in place during the year-long occupation of Iraq. Order 17 gives all foreign personnel in the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority immunity from "local criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction and from any form of arrest or detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their parent states...

... the full story can be read at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A757-2004Jun23.html

United Nations-mandated auditors have sharply criticised the US occupation authority for the way it has spent more than $11bn in Iraqi oil revenues and say they have faced "resistance" from coalition officials...

http://tinyurl.com/2mabq

Deckmäntelchen für Umweltzerstörer

Presseerklärung vom 21. Juni 2004

Kooperationsvertrag von Bayer und UN-Umweltprogramm UNEP

Der Bayer-Konzern unterzeichnet heute in Leverkusen einen Kooperationsvertrag mit der UN-Umweltorganisation UNEP. Über einen Zeitraum von drei Jahren will Bayer jährlich eine Million Euro für das UNEP-Programm „Jugend und Umwelt“ bereitstellen. Schwerpunkt der Zusammenarbeit soll die Region Asien-Pazifik sein.

Hierzu Philipp Mimkes von der Coordination gegen BAYER-Gefahren e.V.: „Bayer hat – wie jedes multinationale Unternehmen – kein „grünes Gewissen“ sondern Profitinteressen. Über seine Lobbyverbände bekämpfte der Konzern bislang jedes Umweltabkommen – vom Kyoto-Protokoll zum Klimaschutz bis hin zum neuen EU-Chemikalienrecht. Für den Umweltschutz bedeutet es einen großen Rückschlag, wenn sich Konzerne wie Bayer ein grünes Deckmäntelchen mit der Aufschrift „UNO“ umhängen dürfen.“ Mimkes erinnert daran, dass Bayer eine große Zahl hochgefährlicher Stoffe herstellt: Uralt-Pestizide auf Phosphorsäureester-Basis, hormonschädigende Substanzen wie Bisphenol A, Weichmacher, Phosgen, etc. „Die Unterstützung der UNEP ist für Bayer eine reine Werbemaßnahme – billiger und unverbindlicher ist ein gutes Firmen-Image nicht zu bekommen“, so Mimkes weiter.

Bereits vor vier Jahren gehörte Bayer zu den Unterzeichnern des UN Global Compact, in dem sich mehr als 100 Unternehmen zu Umweltschutz, Arbeitssicherheit und Menschenrechten bekennen. Doch auch beim Global Compact legt die UNO keine noch so niedrige Messlatte an: alle Unternehmen – vom Hersteller von Atomkraftwerken bis hin zu Ölkonzernen – dürfen teilnehmen. Nach der Unterzeichnung durch das jeweilige Unternehmen erfolgt keinerlei Überprüfung, alle Übereinkünfte sind unverbindlich.

„Besonders paradox ist der Asien-Schwerpunkt der Kooperation von Bayer und UNEP“, so Philipp Mimkes weiter. Bayer bemüht sich in Asien intensiv um Zulassungen für gentechnisch veränderten Reis. Doch die Einführung von Gen-Reis hätte dramatische Konsequenzen: Reis ist für 2,5 Milliarden Menschen das Hauptnahrungsmittel. Millionen Bauern, die bislang durch Tausch und Eigenzüchtungen ihr Saatgut selbst produzieren, würden in Abhängigkeit von multinationalen Konzernen geraten. Durch den bereits in der „grünen Revolution“ beobachteten Konzentrationsprozess würden Millionen Landwirte ihre Existenz verlieren und in die Elendsgebiete rund um die Metropolen abwandern.

Lokal angepasste Reissorten würden durch Hochertragssorten verdrängt, was zu erhöhten Schädlingsaufkommen, verstärktem Einsatz von Pestiziden und einer Verringerung der Artenvielfalt führt. Die Verdrängung lokaler Sorten kann langfristig zu großen Problemen bei der Bekämpfung von Reis-Krankheiten führen. Studien haben zudem nachgewiesen, dass Auskreuzungen von Gen-Reis auch naturbelassene Sorten kontaminieren. „Die UNEP sollte keine Partnerschaft mit einem Unternehmen eingehen, dessen Produkte die weltweite Ernährungssicherheit gefährden“, so der Sprecher der Coordination gegen BAYER-Gefahren.

Bayer rühmt sich des UN Engagements auf seiner homepage und in zahlreichen Werbebroschüren. Sogar im Bayer-Geschäftsbericht wurde ein Grußwort von Kofi Annan abgedruckt – mit Foto und UN-Logo. Der internationale Umweltverband Friends of the Earth beklagt daher eine „schleichende Übernahme der Vereinten Nationen durch die Privatwirtschaft“ und befürchtet, dass „auf Freiwilligkeit beruhende Abkommen die Verabschiedung bindender Regeln verhindern“.

Eine ausführliche Analyse der Zusammenarbeit von UNO und Bayer lesen Sie in unter „Der Ausverkauf der Vereinten Nationen“

Coordination gegen BAYER-Gefahren
CBGnetwork@aol.com
http://www.CBGnetwork.de
Tel: 0211-333 911
Fax 040 – 3603 741835


Beirat
Dr. Sigrid Müller, Pharmakologin, Bremen
Dr. Erika Abczynski, Kinderärztin, Dormagen
Eva Bulling-Schröter, ehem. MdB, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rochlitz, Chemiker, ehem. MdB, Burgwald
Dr. Janis Schmelzer, Historiker, Berlin
Wolfram Esche, Rechtsanwalt, Köln
Dorothee Sölle,Theologin, Hamburg (U 2003)
Prof. Dr. Anton Schneider, Baubiologe, Neubeuern
Prof. Jürgen Junginger, Designer, Krefeld

Washington Times

by Stefan Halper & Jonathan Clarke

06/20/04

One reason the United States finds itself at the edge of a foreign policy disaster is its underinformed citizenry, a key weakness in a democracy. Some seven years ago, the veteran journalist Garrick Utley noted a counterintuitive paradox. As U.S. global power -- military and economic -- expanded in the 1990s, coverage of international affairs in the U.S. press diminished. A closer look revealed that except for the principal national newspapers, most major metropolitan papers had little or no staff reporting daily from abroad. News editors say they could not justify the cost of expensive overseas bureaus in view of their readers' limited interest in foreign affairs. As a result, readers were offered fewer foreign stories and
had less context for understanding overseas events...

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040619-104225-1057r.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp