New World Blogger

As Brazil and Argentina fight over electrodomestic import taxes, the major alliance in Latin America is strained. Wouldn't it be good for the two governments to play by the same rules by which they have managed to make both the US and the EU abide? Why is Argentina straining relations by demanding that Brazilian electrodomestics have a high imports tax when entering Brazil?Article here:

THE AMERICAS: Brazil president urged to act on Argentine quotas
By Raymond Colitt in Sao Paulo
Financial Times; Jul 15, 2004

"Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, came under increasing domestic pressure yesterday to take a tough stance against trade restrictions that Argentina adopted last week on selected Brazilian products.

Buenos Aires imposed a temporary 21 per cent tariff on television sets and an import licence for white goods, although it postponed their implementation pending bilateral negotiations.

Brazilian industry and labour leaders harshly criticised their southern neighbours this week, saying they were seeking unrealistic quotas on Brazilian imports.

São Paulo metal workers protested on Monday and demonstrated yesterday in front of the Argentine consulate, calling on Mr Lula da Silva to intervene.

The president, himself a former metalworker and union leader, is now caught between siding with Brazilian workers or giving in to Argentine demands as part of his aim to strengthen Mercosur, the South American trade block.

Mr Lula da Silva has been an adamant defender of regional integration and has been applauded by several neighbours for his consensus-building efforts."

Is this even a surprise?

The artickle is a bit older, but it drives home the point:Richest U.S. counties are largely white, suburban: "WASHINGTON — Very suburban and mostly white, some of the richest counties in the nation aren't very diverse.

For instance, of the 10 counties that boasted the biggest increases in median household income during the decade, seven had non-Hispanic white populations of 90 percent or more. Nationally, 69 percent of Americans are white."

It has been very difficult to find the time to write so far since the start of the (northern hemisphere) summer, but here I am :)

A couple of weeks ago I was outraged at reading an article on The Economist that said that Americans are simply failing to see the wonderful economic recovery that is happenign right now, and that's what's keeping the country behind. I was very disappointed, as I've seen quite a few articles from the same magazine in the past that were quite objective and free of any center-right (or center-left, for that matter) slant.

I was also horrified when two days ago I read on the NYT that a man was put in solitary confinement for three months for mistakenly videotaping a building that (he didn't know) hosted some FBI offices...here is a part of the story:

In F.B.I., Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally:

"He was a Buddhist from Nepal planning to return there after five years of odd jobs at places like a Queens pizzeria and a Manhattan flower shop. He was taping New York street scenes to take back to his wife and sons in Katmandu. And he had no clue that the tall building that had drifted into his viewfinder happened to include an office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Yet by the time Mr. Wynne filed his F.B.I. report a few days later, the Nepalese man, who spoke almost no English, had been placed in solitary confinement at a federal detention center in Brooklyn just because of his videotaping. He was swallowed up in the government's new maximum security system of secret detention and secret hearings, and his only friend was the same F.B.I. agent who had helped decide to put him there.

Except for the videotape — "a tourist kind of thing," in Mr. Wynne's estimation — no shred of suspicion attached to the man, Purna Raj Bajracharya, 47, who came from Nepal in 1996. His one offense — staying to work on a long-expired tourist visa — was an immigration violation punishable by deportation, not jail. But he wound up spending three months in solitary confinement before he was sent back to Katmandu in January 2002, and to release him from his shackles, even Mr. Wynne needed help.

The clearance process had become so byzantine that the officer who had set the procedure in motion could not hasten it. Unable to procure a release that officially required signatures from top antiterrorism officials in Washington, Mr. Wynne took an uncommon step for an F.B.I. agent: he called the Legal Aid Society for a lawyer to help the jailed man."

Or here you can read the article, "US economy generates fewer jobs than expected."

Mr. Kim worked for a trading company that supplied the US army. Despite his pleas, begging for his life that appeared on television and on the internet, Mr. Kim was beheaded by Iraqi militants who demanded Korea to pull its 3000 troops out of Iraq. Is death ever justified? Can one single life ever be eliminated against its will, whether for country, or freedom, or anything? This isn't news, but both sides in this war show just how degerate humanity can be.

Too disgusted for words.
Roh firm on sending more troops to Iraq :

"South Korea president Roh Moo-hyun said on Wednesday in a televised address that his government was determined to send more troops to Iraq despite the beheading of a South Korean hostage by Islamist militants.

In his first public response to the death of 33-year old Kim Sun-il, Mr Roh told a nation deeply divided over the country's involvement in Iraq that his government condemned acts of terrorism and was determined to fight against them in cooperation with the international community.

His comments echoed those of George W. Bush, US president, who said on Tuesday night that the US would not be intimidated by Iraqi militants. "They want us to cower in the face of their brutal killings, and the United States will not be intimidated . . . because we believe strongly in freedom and liberty."

Mr Kim, a fluent Arabic speaker, was seized last week near Falluja while working for a Korean trading company supplying the US military. He was killed on Tuesday night in spite of efforts by Iraqi clerics to secure his release."

And on the other side, US approved use of dogs in interrogations::

"The White House on Tuesday released documents showing the US had for a period approved the use of dogs in the interrogation of prisoners. But it said the practice was later withdrawn and it denied ever sanctioning torture.


"I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture," President George W. Bush said from the Oval Office.

Seeking to contain a growing scandal over prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House took the unusual step of releasing a trove of documents that it said reflected thorough and agonising policy deliberations over how to treat detainees in the war on terror.

White House lawyers conceded that some legal theories in the documents could be construed as "controversial"."

Pretty strong title for a Financial Times story:

UN slams US over spending Iraq funds:

"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.


In an interim report, obtained by the Financial Times, KPMG says the Development Fund for Iraq, which is managed by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority and channels oil revenue into reconstruction projects, is "open to fraudulent acts".

The auditors criticise the CPA's bookkeeping and warn: "The CPA does not have effective controls over the ministries' spending of their individually allocated budgets, whether the funds are direct from the CPA or via the ministry of finance."

The findings come after US complaints about the UN's administration of the oil-for-food programme under Saddam Hussein."

FT.com:

Trade conference becomes more pragmatic


Delegates to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) this weekend in São Paulo will be surprised by the shift in focus from the anti-establishment rhetoric of yesteryear to pragmatic, free-market economics.


Representatives, mostly from developing nations, will learn how to combat poverty by slashing capital costs and meeting consumer preferences in wealthy nations. Forty years after its foundation, Unctad is preaching supply-side economics.

"We don't have the least problem with the idea of [a] market economy but for it to work you need to create a supply-side capability," Rubens Ricupero, secretary- general of Unctad, told the FT. "Unctad is still seen as a 1970s organisation but we have changed a lot. Today we are more pragmatic and emphasise export-led devel opment."

This week the Group of Eight summit said it accepted that developing countries should be allowed to liberalise at their own pace.

"American interrogators can legally violate a US ban on the use of torture abroad as part of President George W. Bush's fight against terrorism, US government lawyers have said.

The lawyers concluded in a draft report drawn up last year at the request of senior military commanders overseeing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay that legal statutes against torture could not override Mr Bush's inherent powers.

The revelations are bound to increase international concerns about how the US has conducted its interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at what level any abuses may have been authorised."



Financial Times

Bad news outweighs the good for Brazil, FT.com:

Brazil's financial markets lost ground after Opec announced a lower-than-expected output increase, heightening fears that rising oil prices could derail a worldwide economic recovery.

Currently high oil prices took the shine off approval by the lower house of Congress of a conservative rise in Brazil's minimum wage. The vote was seen as a test of the government's legislative clout and ability to keep to a fiscally sound package.

Civil servants' pensions are pegged to the minimum wage and any rise has a direct impact on public coffers. Investors were paying close attention to the vote for assurance that IMF-agreed budget goals would not be put at risk.

Is poverty an injustice or a misfortune?

The misfortune of being born poor becomes an injustice if the government does not attempt to remedy this situation when it can. The question of disadvantaged birth is already incorporated into many welfare systems. But these systems are often not available to citizens of the third world. Instead, many if not most people in the “first world” will simply consider themselves fortunate and argue that it is a misfortune to be born into more precarious conditions. Likewise, even those in the upper classes in third world nations many times prefer to contend themselves with marveling at their own “fortune” and be thankful that they were not born into the misfortunate that most of their compatriots endure daily. Most of the people born in these countries do not have any chance for upward mobility, and must simply accept their condition. The misfortune of those born into lower positions becomes an injustice as those who can do nothing to help them.

What surprises me the most is that even a Pakistani was killed -- after all, Pakistan is known for breaking with India mostly along Muslim-Hindu lines.

"Saudi siege ends after Briton's body dragged"
"At least nine Saudis and seven foreigners have been killed.

A statement purportedly from Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was posted on Islamist Internet sites claiming responsibility for the attack, the third on foreigners in less than a month in the birthplace of Islam.

An American, a Briton, an Egyptian, two Filipinos, an Indian and a Pakistani were killed in the initial attack, along with two Saudis and seven security force members, the security sources said."

Coug has a pagewith several links to incidents of reported torture currently taking place

"India's new government 'committed'"

For those of you who may have been wondering, the lack of posts in the past couple of weeks were due to the fact that I was travelling. But now I'm back, and back to blogging...

It's hard to believe the economy is getting better. Sure, Bush & Co. are quite busy advertising what we all know simply isn't true. But the global recession doesn't seem to be getting any better, and it goes far beyond US gas prices -- probably the main concern of most Americans right now.

Unemployment soars, especially in the third world. In Sao Paulo alone, 20% of the population is either unemployed orunable to find work. Recession also reaches the first world, and Europe is taking a hit. Inflation rates have reached a two year high. This is significant because the whole of the EU tries to keep strict regulations on inflation so that the individual countries can each keep relatively comparable and compatible economies. Especially with the recent enlargement, further recession could create tension among the 25 member states

In an original post I agreed with the fact that sixty+ universities are complaining to the White House about its strict isolationist policy towards other countries, and how that is hurting universities in the US.

Yet I believe I may have failed to justify my claim. I think I have grown used to a liberal audience, and have begun to make the mistake of assuming that my readers will share the foundational claims behind the issues I discuss. I may have started to focus more on the "how" of what's happening, and less on "why" it is significant from a liberal perspective -- that last part being assumed. Thankfully, the diversity of opinion even among us liberals is still enought to keep me challenged to defend my position at all times...

So, following a reply from Michael, I decided to go more in depth about why having international student and cultural exchanges is consistent and necessary with a liberal position...I'll admit my personal bias upfront: having been a foreign student many times, I can't possibly think that cutting back on international students is a good thing. Nonetheless, there is still a lot to be said from a less personal point of view.

If it weren't for the opportunities for students to go abroad, cultural exchanges (already rare) would be nearly non-existent. Moreover, most students born in third world countries would never even get a chance to get a better education. Some countries, like Colombia, hardly even offer Master's programs at all. That said, were it not for the brain flow coming from Europe during WWII, some of the greatest "progress" the US has made would not have happened.

These foreign students are often made to pay 3x to 4x (10x in Canada, as tuition there is highly subsidized to local students) the amount of tuition of other students, and as competition is fierce these are often the brightest minds of their own countries (though not in all cases, as you can see yours truly got in anyways). It is a known fact that it is a lot harder to enter a university as an international student than as a local one (thanks to quotas, international students have the entire world as competition, whereas local students have more of a chance of getting in). Visa and money requirements are already too strict, ensuring only the upper-middle class gets to travel. If anything, the US and other first world countries need to ease these requirements, as the university group is demanding. Its currently strict position is not only hurting the university life of the US, it is diminishing the already too narrow possibilities for cultural exchanges.

There is also another side to it. I have to admit that in many ways I'm a renegade centrist. Not the irrational, fundamentalist rightwing kind, but the right-of-center in economics kind. I started out extremely liberal, then travelling around made me both consider the opposite point of view, and return to my original one with more conviction as a result of experience.

Spending time in Quebec, one of the most socialist places in the world, and seeing some of the administrative shortcomings of that system made me start to think that perhaps the economic conservatives had it right (pun intended). Then I travelled more -- and suddenly I started to realize what it's like to really put yourself in the shoes of people who are born without any benefits at all. I started to realize that behind the principle of right-of-center economics (along with xenophobia, of which I was never guilty) is a profound apathy for anyone else's condition. I started to realize that poverty is not only a misfortune -- it is an injustice, as long as we perpetuate it by caring only about the size of our tv screen.

I now admire the Canadian system, and fully understand just why Canadians defend their healthcare so much. In fact, I've even noticed a pattern among the kinds of destinations my friends pick when they do exchanges or travel -- the conservatives usually go to Europe and try to avoid the third world entirely (unless it's to stay in some secluded resort where the only natives they encounter are service staff)!!

Europe itself has started to recognize the benefits of cultural exchanges (although it has in many ways restricted itself to pan-European programs only). The EU has created many programs like Erasmus (anyone seen the French movie L'Auberge Espagnole?) to promote student travel and exchange, precisely out of the belief that these exchanges can lead to more of a high-quality, standardized level of education, and to a greater respect and understanding for other cultures (European, in this case). I think if anything the US should be encouraging more of its students to study abroad -- if only in one year exchanges -- to end the isolationism of which it is so often accused.

So shouldn't the US be saddened indeed at losing international graduate students? What do you guys think?

Applications from international students to US graduate programs is down 32 percent this year. This comes at a time of economic recess, when the opposite trend is usually expected. As the economy goes into recession, young professionals return to universities for more advanced degrees. So why are international students shunning US schools, preventing a "brain flow" (as opposed to a brain drain) into the US? The recent changes in US visa requirements and restrictions are exaggerated, to say the least. In a letter from over 60 universities and colleges to the White House, university professors are requesting the US to ease those restrictions.

Financial Times story:

"A broad coalition of American academics warned on Wednesday of a crisis in research and scholarship caused by tighter controls on visas for foreigners.

The 25 organisations, claiming to represent about 95 per cent of the US research community, say urgent reform is needed if their institutions are to remain a favoured destination for the world's brightest international students and researchers.

In a letter to the White House, FBI and state and homeland security departments, they warn: "The US cannot hope to maintain its present scientific and economic leadership positi on if it becomes isolated from the rest of the world." The signatories include organisations representing 60 universities and more than 20 leading scientific bodies.

The Bush administration has signalled it is prepared to reconsider aspects of visa policies. Colin Powell, secretary of state, said on Wednesday that if the US lost foreign students and other scholars because of the delays, "we risk losing their goodwill and that is a priceless thing to lose".

The academics urge the adoption of six reforms to cut bureaucracy created by security checks, which they say has created "the misperception that the US does not welcome international students, scholars and scientists". They say about 14,000 visa applications were flagged for special review in 2002 - up from 1,000 in 2000, before the new rules were enacted.

Foreign applications to US graduate schools have declined 32 per cent this year."

Via Coug

"Several hundred foreign students at Norwegian universities are being monitored by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST). The PST claims they must have intelligence on students that gain knowledge that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction, student newspaper Studvest reports.

In Bergen alone over 500 foreign students are registered by the PST. The lists pertain to students from nations outside of the Schengen area and North America.

Students from countries run by totalitarian regimes or from nations that had not ratified treaties against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are of special interest."

Want to understand better why the latest European offer is significant? Checkthis post on the WTO rulings.

Two weeks ago the World Trade Organization ruled in favour of Brazil against US subsidies of agricultural products. This was a landmark decision where for the first time a third world nation successfully challenged a first world country.

Now, Europe has offered to eliminate its agricultural export subsidies. Europe has been one of the most obstinant opponents to the end of subsidization, leaving many third world countries angered that they had to comply with rules that first world countries did not. So there is hope...

Financial Times:

The European Union will on Monday offer to eliminate its agricultural export subsidies and soften its demands for controversial new trade rules in an attempt to revive progress in the Doha world-trade round.


The offer, in a letter to trade ministers from all 148 World Trade Organisation members, is intended to show that the EU is committed to pushing ahead with the stalled round and is willing to take a more flexible stance.

Signed by Pascal Lamy, EU trade commissioner, and Franz Fischler, agriculture commissioner, the letter comes before important meetings of trade ministers in Paris this week, at which renewed efforts will be made to agree by July a negotiating framework for the round.

Sorry I've been away from blogging, won't happen again (I hope).

I confess I got a little discouraged when key events like the EU enlargement and the WTO ruling against US subsidies didn't even merit an article in most leftists blogs, let alone a mention...I felt like I was trying to fight a thunderstorm alone by trying to spread the world. But that, after all, is the purpose of the New World Blogger -- to bring attention to issues that are not appropriately discussed and covered in the mainstream media, even the mainstream blogosphere.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with the newest sign that the US really is going insane (if we're not there already) -- the newest reality show, I nearly died. Here contestants get to fake their own death and watch their relatives' reactions as they jump out of the coffin. Lovely. Just when you thought the world couldn't get more absurd.

But he doesn't step downFull story here