Friday, April 18, 2008

French push for EU food response

BBC News


France is urging EU countries to come up with a global initiative on food security in the wake of violence linked to price rises in basic foodstuffs.

Agriculture minister Michel Barnier said Europe could not remain passive and leave the situation to the markets.

As he spoke, UN special rapporteur Jean Ziegler accused the EU of agricultural dumping in Africa.

He said producing biofuels, a key part of the EU's plans to tackle climate change, was a "crime against humanity".

The European Union has set a target of providing 10% of its fuel for transport from biofuels by 2020, which its own environment advisers have said should be suspended.

There are fears that the use of farmland to grow crops for biofuels has reduced the scope for food production.

The European Commission said on Monday that there was no question at the moment of the target being dropped, as work was currently under way to implement it in a sustainable way.

According to a spokesman, less than 2% of EU cereal production is currently used for biofuels.

'Humanitarian tsunami'

The EU is well aware of the risks of soaring food prices and, only last week, Development Commissioner Louis Michel warned of the crisis leading to a "humanitarian tsunami" in Africa.

France will take over the presidency of the EU in July and, in a statement on Friday, four ministers made it clear that the violent response to price rises in Haiti could easily be replicated in 30 other countries.

Protests because of a big increase in the cost of rice have led to a number of deaths in Haiti as well as the fall of the government.

Mr Barnier told French radio on Monday: "We cannot, and we must not leave food for people... to the mercy of the rule of the market alone and to international speculation."

He is proposing four ideas:

  • Production of more and better food to enable Europe to respond to the food challenge
  • To bring together the efforts of various member states to help developing countries rebuild their agriculture
  • To redirect public development aid towards the agriculture sector
  • To ensure that poorer countries do not become the victims of the World Trade Organization's Doha round of negotations.

Last week, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, whose country holds the presidency of the G8 industrialised nations, calling for a "fully co-ordinated response".

He proposed urgent short-term action to tackle immediate hardship and a medium-term response in trade and agriculture.

Dumping claim

The UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, told German radio that the EU financed the exports of European agricultural surpluses to Africa, "where they are offered at one-half or one-third of their (production) price".

But a European Commission spokesman said it was an old argument that simply was not true anymore.

He said that initial reform of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy had done away with the link between production and subsidy and further changes would free farmers to respond better to the market.

Farmers to kill off 150,000 pigs

The Chronicle Herald Canada




EDMONTON — In what is being called an unprecedented move, the federal government will pay Canadian pork producers $50 million to kill off 150,000 of their pigs by the fall as the industry teeters on the brink of economic collapse.

The animals are being destroyed at slaughter plants and on pig farms in a bid to cull the swine breeding herd by 10 per cent.

RELATED

  • UN warns of food emergency as prices escalate
  • Most of the meat is to be used for pet food or otherwise disposed of, but up to 25 per cent of it will be made available to Canadian food banks.

    "The value that the market is providing to hog farmers for their breeding animals has fallen to virtually nothing," said Martin Rice, executive director of the Canadian Pork Council on Monday.

    "It is due to the economic collapse of the industry. These are farms that families have spent decades building up. We cannot see relief coming. It is agonizing for them. It takes a toll."

    Producers are weighed down by the cumulative impact of low prices, increasing feeds costs and the high value of the loonie. They are also facing new country-of-origin labelling rules for meat products in the United States that are to go into effect later this year.

    Canada’s 10,000 pork producers are mainly in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

    Farmers who wish to take part in the cull can apply for federal compensation payments until the end of August. Those who qualify for payments must agree to kill off an entire breeding barn of pigs and not to restock the barn for three years. The program is retroactive to November 2007 and farmers have until this November to complete the cull.

    The council estimates that about 50,000 pigs have already been destroyed, with about 100,000 more to come by the fall.

    To ensure that the animals are treated in a humane way, producers are being encouraged to ship their pigs to approved slaughter plants. Producers who live in areas without plants will be asked to ship their animals to a province with such a facility.

    But there is nothing to prevent producers from killing the animals on their farms themselves.

    "We want to minimize the amount of on-farm euthanizing," Rice said. "Before we would approve that application we would need to know how it was going to be done — that it was going to be done humanely and in an environmentally sound way."

    Rice said the U.S. government’s decision to require country-of-origin labelling on meat products has made a bad situation even worse.

    Producers are dealing with American companies that don’t want to buy Canadian hogs or meat products after years of doing business because they aren’t sure how consumers will respond to such labels. The situation is squeezing the hope out of the Canadian industry, which exports much of what it produces to the United States.

    "They cannot look forward to a rebound in their market," Rice said.

    But as pork producers suffer through the downturn, more than 670 food banks across Canada hope to benefit from the swine cull.

    The Canadian Association of Food Banks is working with the pork council to come up with a plan to distribute some of the meat to the 720,000 Canadians who depend on food banks each month. "We are pleased that the government is allowing some of the product within this program to come to the food bank community," said Katharine Schmidt, executive director of the Canadian Association of Food Banks in Toronto. "We are working as hard as we can to see how much we can actually get into the hands of those who need it most.

    "One of the food groups that food banks are always in need of is protein."

    Thursday, April 10, 2008

    Barak Obama lying about his C.F.R./N.A.U ties




    Obama & The CFR



    The 2004 Democratic
    National Convention may be remembered most for a young and energetic
    senator that immediately drew comparison to the Kennedys. Obama's
    speech launched his name and image into the public spotlight, and his
    fresh style of rhetoric filled a growing anti-war political void –
    He voted against the Iraq war and wasn't afraid to criticize it's
    handling. Excitement and support for the senator eventually
    snowballed into his current presidential campaign. He enjoys a
    popular image as a liberal democrat, and his harsh criticism of the
    Iraq war has earned him support from a population united in it's
    discontent with the current government. To a select crowd of
    Americans, Obama preaches against the handling of the Iraq war. To
    other more private groups, Obama advocates military strikes on new
    middle eastern countries. Obama has aligned himself with several
    lobbying firms and nongovernmental organizations who seek further US
    militarization of the world. In several speeches and essays, Obama
    makes his foreign policy goals clear – and he is not anti-war. Is
    Obama intentionally sending a deceptive message to his constituency?

    In a recent speech
    given to the American Israeli Political Action Committee, Obama
    outlines a plan for U.S. hegemony. He suggests polarizing political
    alignments that are already breeding anti-U.S. sentiment.
    Specifically, Obama pledges unfaltering military support to Israel.
    The U.S. has long supported Israel – this year they were given $30
    billion for defense of the young state. To put this in perspective,
    less than $7 billion has been federally granted to rebuild homes
    destroyed after hurricane Katrina. Although the U.S. has always
    given billions in aid to Israel, his alliance backs preemptive
    strikes against countries deemed a threat. Israel is unpopular in
    the region, and is threatened by Iran's desire for modern nuclear
    energy in the future. Regarding Iran's nuclear program, Obama states
    “We should take no option, including military action, off the
    table”. The US has already constructed massive permanent military
    bases in Iraq and Afghanistan to serve as hubs for such an operation.
    The fleet of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf continues to
    grow, while politicians and media simultaneously hype a nonexistent
    enemy. This reckless policy leaves the U.S. on the brink of full
    scale war at all times.

    Obama differed from
    many of his peers by admitting the Iraq war was heavily motivated by
    Iraq's oil reserves. Iran's oilfields, and the military buildup of
    the Persian Gulf creates and incentive for military action. It has
    been questioned if the U.S. military even has the capability of
    securing the strategic oil reserve. Iran has some of the most
    lucrative oilfields in the region, and provides energy to Asia and
    Europe. International economies would be disenfranchised with the US
    military disruption of its energy supplies. Meddling in other
    countries' foreign affairs has spurred backlash against the U.S.
    This phenomenon is referred to as “blowback”, or, the
    consequences from provoking actions. Ignoring this cause and effect,
    Obama advocates troops in Iraq be redeployed to Pakistan and
    Afghanistan to fight amorphous groups of “terrorists”. Regarding
    the war on terror, Obama differs from his colleagues in that he does
    not believe nuclear weapons should be used – a small concession for
    an ambitious military operation. This policy still backs preemptive
    strikes and the further militarization of the middle east, all at the
    expense of US resources.

    Obama outlines his
    ambitious geopolitical plans in a recent essay for Foreign Affairs
    magazine. Foreign Affairs is published by the Council on Foreign
    Relations, which describes itself as a non-partisan group of which he
    is a member. Established in the 1920's and headquartered in New
    York, its membership includes prominent politicians and business
    elite, including heads of academia and media. The organization seeks
    to centralize both political power and market power to craft
    legislation outside the checks and balances of democracy. The CFR is
    rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, making it difficult to
    fully gauge its influence. When it is mentioned in the press, it is
    likely whitewashed as trivial or irrelevant. Notable members of the
    CFR include:


    Dick Cheney

    John Kerry

    Bill Clinton

    Al Gore

    Ronald Reagan

    George H. W. Bush

    Gerald Ford

    Richard Nixon


    John, David &
    Nelson Rockefeller

    Condolezza Rice

    Paul Wolfowitz

    Alan Greenspan

    Colon Powell

    Henry Kissinger

    Angelina Jolie
    (Yes, the actress has a five year term membership as an
    ambassador)


    Its membership list
    is a who's who of Washington and Wall St. elite going back nearly a
    century. It should not be surprising that most presidential
    candidates in the 2008 election are CFR members. Candidates do not
    advertise their CFR membership to the public. They pose as
    “liberals” and “conservatives” to control all aspects of the
    debate. The CFR has stacked the deck for the 2008 election with
    several members in the race from both sides of the isle:

    Democrat CFR
    Candidates:

    Barack Obama

    Hillary Clinton

    John Edwards

    Chris Dodd

    Bill Richardson

    Republican CFR
    Candidates:

    Mitt Romney

    Rudy Giuliani

    John McCain

    Fred Thompson

    Newt Gingrich

    The mainstream
    media's self-proclaimed “top tier” candidates are united in their
    CFR membership, while an unwitting public perceives political
    diversity. The unwitting public has been conditioned to
    instinctively deny such a mass deception could ever be hidden in
    plain view. Presidential Candidate & Congressman Ron Paul is
    the only “top tier” candidate who is not a member of the CFR.

    Although many
    politicians hold membership, It must be noted that the Council on
    Foreign Relations is a non-governmental organization. The CFR's
    membership is a union of politicians, bankers, and scholars, with
    several large businesses holding additional corporate memberships.
    Corporate members include:


    Halliburton of
    Dubai

    British Petroleum

    Dutch Royal Shell

    Exxon Mobile

    General Electric
    (NBC)

    Chevron

    Lockheed Martin

    Merck
    Pharmaceuticals

    News Corp (FOX)

    Bloomberg

    IBM

    Time Warner

    JP Morgan/ Chase
    Manhattan

    & several other
    major financial institutions

    Members are united
    in their interventionist intentions with the goal of a consolidated
    global governance. The CFR's mission is to influence policy through
    the reach of its members and publications. Those who study the CFR
    ideology are recruited and cultured for membership. The best and
    brightest university students are taught to propagate the CFR model.
    Individuals who both subscribe to the CFR ideology and can bring an
    element of capital (political status, business influence, money) to
    the group will be given membership. Members meet at the CFR
    headquarters in Manhattan and Washington DC, and round-table style
    discussions are held for its membership to discuss foreign affairs
    and make recommendations on policy. The CFR often creates “task
    forces” to report “findings and policy prescriptions” (cfr.org)
    for specific current world events, and also publishes the periodical
    Foreign Affairs magazine. CFR authors are often found in mainstream
    media publications. In a recent issue of TIME magazine, one CFR
    member writes: “The US should make (Pakistani President & US
    intelligence asset) Musharraf the best dictator he can be”.
    Another author, this time in Newsweek magazine objectively argues to
    the readers that the world really isn't all that bad in an article
    titled “Don't Worry, Be Happy”. Currently, the front page of
    CFR.org features essays on European anti-terrorism measures, radical
    Iranians, and the reemergence of the nuclear threat (CFR members in
    government control the nuclear football). Many prominent
    publications are influenced and controlled by the CFR:


    Time

    Newsweek

    US News & World
    Report

    Atlantic Monthly

    Forbes

    & several major
    publishing houses


    Members of the CFR
    in the media intend to inject it's pro-globalist arguments into the
    mainstream consciousness. Although the CFR is self-described as a
    non-partisan association, it unabashedly promotes a
    one-world-government agenda without regard for US sovereignty or the
    desires of the American people.

    The goals of the
    CFR is best described by its very own members. Bill Clinton's
    Georgetown mentor and CFR member Carroll Quigley states: “The
    Council on Foreign Relations is the American branch of a society
    which originated in England... (and) ...believes national boundaries
    should be obliterated and one world rule established.”. Quigley
    differs from many of his CFR colleagues in that he believes their
    plan for a new world order should be more publicly disclosed. In his
    book Tragedy and Hope, Quigley concedes he is unique among his peers
    in that he believes the new world order plan of global government's
    “role in history is significant enough to be known”. Quigley
    also admits that the two-party system allows for both groups to be
    controlled at the highest level but operate like bitter rivals. As
    Quigley says, this gives the voters the chance to “throw the
    rascals out at any election without leading to any profound of
    extreme shifts in policy.”. Controlling Washington elite allowed
    private central banks to “dominate the political system... ...and
    economy of world as a whole” and implement a new system of
    “feudalist fashion” through “secret agreements”. Although he
    believes the CFR's intentions should be more public, Quigley
    understands the average person doesn't understand feudalism or
    serfdom and will never read his book.

    Surprisingly, many
    of its own members admit the CFR goal is to subvert the democratic
    process. CFR member and Judge Advocate General of the US Navy
    Admiral Chester Ward writes “The main purpose of the (CFR) is
    promoting the disarmament of US sovereignty and national dependence
    and submergence into and all powerful, one world government.”.
    This high ranking military officer went on to explain their
    procedures for influencing policy, claiming: “Once the ruling
    members of the CFR shadow government have decided that the US
    government should adopt a particular policy, the very substantial
    research facilities of the CFR are put to work to develop arguments,
    intellectual and emotional, to support the new policy and to confound
    and discredit, intellectually and politically, any opposition.”.

    The CFR's strategy
    is also being used to promote world government as well as the new
    environmental agenda. Obama and most candidates have made the
    environment a major issue in the policy. The CFR has long suggested
    a global tax, specifically identifying the environmental movement as
    a means for its advancement. All CFR candidates align themselves
    with the position that the government has both the ability and
    responsibility to maintain the world's environment. Good intentioned
    individuals may genuinely seek environmental protection, but
    nongovernmental organizations are quickly capitalizing on land
    acquisitions and taxes in the name of global warming. While most
    scientist agree the planet earth is undergoing a degree of climactic
    change, the CFR admits the environmental argument will be used to
    erode national sovereignty and build up their global authority.
    Proposed “Carbon Taxes” place carbon expenditure ratings on
    mundane human activities. Contrary to popular misconceptions, CO2
    is by no means a pollutant. As an essential gas for life, plants
    thrive on increased levels of CO2 which in turn they produce higher
    levels of oxygen. Furthermore, carbon based life forms emit carbon
    to the atmosphere, hence a “Carbon Tax” is a tariff for doing
    nothing but maintaining life. A popular movement lead by the CFR's
    own Al Gore would have you believe CO2 is the root cause of
    environmental woes while ignoring real industrial pollution in
    developing countries. There are serious environmental problems that
    are ignored in favor of issues that can be used to tax the broad
    population.

    Environmental
    protection has already lead countries to willingly surrender control
    of natural resources. The US has ceded control of natural resources
    to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
    Organization (UNESCO) in a land grab under the guise of environmental
    protection. UNESCO is part of the United Nations, an organization
    controlled by many CFR members like permanent US ambassador John
    Bolton. The CFR's President Richard N. Haass boldly admits “Some
    governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to
    address the threat of global climate change.”. He adds that this
    “Globalisation thus implies that sovereignty... ...needs to become
    weaker.”. While it is important to be conscious of humans' effects
    on the earth, nongovernmental organizations like the CFR see an
    opportunity to redistribute wealth through selective enforcement
    targeting the US. The CFR openly states its intentions of using the
    environmental movement and other emotional arguments to build up
    global authority and undermine US sovereignty.

    The CFR backs other
    programs that promote regional governments. Another ambitious goal
    of the CFR is the implementation of regional unions under the control
    of a central world government. World leaders are moving towards a
    regional partnership of North America consisting of Canada, the US,
    and Mexico. In 2005, the CFR released a report titled “Building
    an American Community” which sought to eliminate borders between
    the three North American countries. One part of the plan called for
    decreasing government control of cross-border traffic in an effort to
    dissolve national borders. Robert Pastor, a vice chairman of the
    task force that released “Building a North American Community”,
    names the “Amero” as a hypothetical unified North American
    currency similar to the Euro. Carried out with precision, the
    private, run-for-profit federal reserve bank has massively devalued
    the US dollar, allowing foreign corporations to buy up US resources
    for literal pennies on the dollar.

    The European Union
    is a similar model to the North American partnership. The EU was
    hugely opposed by Europeans, and took a half century for the
    complicit European power elites to fully implement the union.
    During his time as Prime Minister, Tony Blair tried several times for
    the United Kingdom's adoption of the unpopular EU constitution that
    was also staunchly rejected by French and Dutch voters. The current
    Prime Minister Gordon Brown continues to advance a similar
    constitution under a new name. Like the EU, American countries would
    keep their governmental infrastructure but all policy would be
    superseded by a regional constitution.

    Already in place in
    North America is the Security and Prosperity Partnership (spp.gov)
    established in a meeting between Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox,
    and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. The SPP consolidates
    protection of the North American Union by establishing a security
    perimeter extending north of Canada to the Mexican/ Guatemalan
    border. This measure was authorized under Bush's ambiguous executive
    authority, thus avoiding any congressional input or oversight. It is
    a precursor to a trilateral authority between the three North
    American economies.

    A similar measure
    to the SPP in the establishment of a unified North American region is
    the NAFTA “Superhighway” which eliminates border restrictions on
    shipping, allowing imported goods destined for the US to arrive in
    North America at ports in Mexico. Rather than arriving at the port
    of Long Beach, imported goods would enter the US via a “port” in
    the mid-west that lies along the shipping lane. This measure has
    been unanimously opposed by US cities in proximity of the highway,
    but the democratic voice is ignored as the government covertly
    advances. Congress has largely looked away from the issue. Members
    who are aware of this plan avoid this issue and prefer that it stay
    secret, and the CFR presidential candidates will not address it. The
    presidential candidates' association with the the self-described
    “shadow government” compromises the the voting process and
    defrauds the constituency.

    Barack Obama has
    captivated voters from all parties with his refreshing new style of
    rhetoric. He has the voting record to back his criticism of the Iraq
    war. But like his CFR colleagues, he vows to continue the pursuit of
    a shadowy enemy under the vague threat of “terrorism” - a policy
    that has cost citizens their personal liberties, trillions in debt
    and untold lives. The war on terror has been crafted to spend the
    US into bankruptcy and setup a domestic police state. Money
    continues to be being printed out of thin air by the private
    run-for-profit Federal Reserve, while China remains leveraged with
    over $1 trillion in US dollar holdings. In the middle east, the
    CFR's blank check for U.S. military operations will deplete U.S.
    resources while inciting sectarian strife and anti-U.S. sentiment,
    ignoring the history of blowback as documented by the CIA. Obama and
    other CFR candidates affiliation with the organization is not
    promoted on their websites or in any press releases because the
    organization has centralized political power and financial capital to
    set policy the public would otherwise oppose. The career
    politicians in the CFR know corporate sponsorship is frowned upon by
    voters. The Council is one of the major conduits between government
    and business leaders in the US. The CFR is guaranteeing power by
    owning all the horses in the race that is the 2008 election. Obama
    is captivating unlike most of his competition, undoubtedly
    intelligent enough to understand his political niche. Another CFR
    US president guarantees more of the same costly foreign policy that
    protects corporate interests and isolates the US. Like his
    colleagues, Barack Obama's stated foreign policy intentions foment
    the long term militarization and balkanization of the middle east
    while resources will continue to be spent in deficit to finance an
    illegal foreign policy. Only when the control of the CFR is fully
    exposed will the voters have a real democratic choice.