ce399 | research archive

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Eugenic Bomb? (Part One)

..not only do we see biology being networked and distributed across the globe, but we are also seeing a hegemonic understanding of biological “life itself” that ceases to make a hard distinction between the natural and the artificial, the biological and the informatic. This is the twofold aspect of biotechnology that this book intends to explore. On the one hand, we witness a range of current events that readily display features of a globalizing industry. On the other hand, we also witness an ongoing integration of biology and informatics, genetics and computers, DNA chips and gene-finding software. The aim of The Global Genome is, then, to comprehend these two developments: to situate changes in the biotech industry within the larger context of globalization and political economy, and, conversely, to understand globalization as a core part of the practices and concepts of the biotech industry.

“Globalization” is a phenomenon that has been widely discussed in a number of contexts: economic (e.g., international organizations such as the World Trade Organization [WTO], the International Monetary Fund [IMF], and the World Bank), political (e.g., the so-called withering of the nationstate and the limits of geopolitical borders), and cultural (e.g., the hegemony of American culture or what some call “cultural imperialism”). But little attention has been given to the consideration of globalization as a biological phenomenon—that is, globalization in the context of biotechnology. The emergence of a biotech “industry” in the 1970s and the continued expansion of the pharmaceutical industry have arguably been global endeavors from the beginning. In this sense, biotechnology is coextensive with globalization. Similarly, “big science” projects such as the mapping of the human genome and events such as the emergence of new infectious diseases (the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome [SARS] outbreak) take place on a global level that includes networks of all kinds. Biological networks of infection (a novel virus strain) are contextualized by networks of transportation (the air-travel industry), which are then affected by governmental modes of regulation (travel restrictions, quarantine), which are countered by medical response efforts (disease surveillance networks), which are linked to medical-economic interventions (new vaccines, “fast-track” U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA] drug approval), all of which have a palpable effect in terms of the mass media and a larger cultural impact (science fiction films or television programs featuring bioterrorist attacks or dirty bombs).

Thus, the primary aim of this book is to understand how the processes of globalization form a core component of biological knowledge and practice, without, however, simply determining it. In our contemporary context, biotechnology and globalization will be seen as indissociable, while not simply being identical. Indeed, it can even be stated that biotechnology and, by extension, a biotech “industry” are unthinkable without a globalizing context. The intersection of biology and informatics in this case is instructive. A largescale scientific endeavor such as the mapping of the human genome integrates genetic and computer codes at many different levels, from the agglomeration of information in databases, to the use of diagnostic technologies, to the development of novel genetic pharmaceuticals. In this increasing globalization of biotechnology, we witness the exchange of not only information, but, specifically, many types of genetic information. The “global genome” is the result
of what happens when biotechnology is globalized, when economic exchanges, political changes, and semiotic exchanges are coupled with biological exchanges.

...

The Global Genome
Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture
Eugene Thacker
MIT Press 2006
ISBN-10: 0-262-20155-0

Encoding / Production   
The Global Genome   
Bioinformatic Bodies and the Problem of "Life Itself"   
A Political Economy of the Genomic Body   
Recoding / Distribution   
Biocolonialism, Genomics, and the Databasing of the Population
The Incorporate Bodies of Recombinant Capital   
Bioinfowar: Biologically Enhancing National Security   
Decoding / Consumption   
The Thickness of Tissue Engineering   
Regenerative Medicine: We Can Grow It for You Wholesale   
Conclusion   
Appendix A: Biotechnology Fields and Areas of Application   
Appendix B: Techniques and Technologies in Biotechnology Research
Appendix C: A Brief Chronology of Bioinformatics    333
Appendix D: Biotechnology and Popular Culture; or, Mutants, Replicants, and Zombies   

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10450&mode=toc

Out of Service

Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio.
contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur:
tuque, Princeps militiae caelestis,
Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute, in infernum detrude.

Amen.

Nazis Tested Crude Atomic Device in 1945

Nazi scientists trying to build an atomic bomb set off a test explosion two months before the end of World War II, killing hundreds of people in eastern Germany, a German researcher claims in a book published Monday.

Hitlers Bomb theorizes that the March 1945 device didnt achieve fission, but did scatter telltale radioactive particles at the Ohrdruf test site. It also claims that Nazi Germany briefly had a working nuclear reactor, something historians generally dispute.

Author Rainer Karlsch, an economic historian, offers no first-hand proof, saying his account is an interpretation of available evidence and he hopes it will spur more research.

He said soil samples from the Ohrdruf site he had analyzed for his book turned up above-average levels of radioactive isotopes such as cesium 137 and cobalt 60, though he quotes the testers as saying the site poses no radiation hazard.

However, access to what he believes was ground zero was barred because of old munitions at the site, which served as a Soviet military training area in East Germany after the war.

A U.S. mission that arrived in Germany with American troops in 1945 to investigate the German atomic bomb program concluded that the Germans were nowhere near making a nuclear weapon.

Karlsch doesnt claim they were near. But based on witness accounts recorded after the war, postwar Allied aerial photos and Soviet military intelligence reports, he argues that a test blast happened March 3, 1945, at Ohrdruf - then being run as a Nazi concentration camp. He says there probably were several previous tests.

Hitlers bomb - a tactical nuclear weapon with a potential for destruction far below that of the two American atomic bombs - was tested successfully several times shortly before the end of the war, the book says.

Gerald Holton, a professor of physics and the history of science at Harvard University, said the main scientists in the Nazi atomic bomb program never mentioned a test blast or having built a working nuclear reactor.

British intelligence bugged the scientists - including a key planner, Walther Gerlach - while they were interned at Farm Hall manor in England after the war.

Any claims of a Nazi test blast would have to have a lot of documentary evidence behind it, Holton said.

It also would have to be checked against the remarks that Gerlach made during his period at Farm Hall ... where none of that sort of planning was discussed by him or anyone else.

Karlsch says scientists around Gerlach had a certain amount of enriched uranium from an as yet unknown source.

The German device probably was a 2-ton cylinder containing enriched uranium, he writes. The amount of uranium was small, meaning the conventional explosives used to trigger the device did not set off a vastly more destructive nuclear chain reaction, Karlsch said.

That would mesh with an account Karlsch said he found in Soviet military archives, apparently based on information from a German informant, that said the blast felled trees within a radius of about 500 to 600 yards.

Witnesses reported a bright flash of light and a column of smoke over the area that day, and residents said they had nausea and nosebleeds for days afterward, Karlsch says.

One witness said he helped burn heaps of corpses inside the military area the next day. They were hairless and some had blisters and raw, red flesh.

Karlsch concludes that the blast killed several hundred prisoners of war and inmates forced to work at the site. Two months later, on May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered after the Soviets captured Berlin.

The book also seeks to turn attention from famous physicists like Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker - who historians believe were often ambivalent about building a nuclear bomb for Hitler - to lesser-known but fiercely ambitious scientists and Nazi officials who Karlsch theorizes were directly involved in the testing program.

Physicist Jeremy Bernstein, who edited the Farm Hall transcripts for the book Hitlers Uranium Club The Secret Recordings at Farm Hall, said a key question was where the enriched uranium could have come from.

To enrich uranium, you need an plant the size of Oak Ridge, and the Germans never had one, he said, referring to the sprawling U.S. facility that produced enriched uranium for the Hiroshima bomb.

Russian officials were unaware of any such test by the Germans, said Nikolai Shingaryov, a spokesman for Russia's Federal Nuclear Agency. Of course we don't know everything, but we don't have data about this, he said.

Tony Czuczka
Associated Press
14 March 2005

http://aye.comp.nus.edu.sg/~min/output/classify.510.htm

Rwanda to Indict French for Genocide

Rwanda is preparing to indict members of the French political and military establishment over their alleged complicity in the country's 1994 genocide after it published a damning report that accuses France of facilitating the killings.

Disputes over the genocide have already shattered diplomatic relations between the two countries. The report, published yesterday in Kigali, is part of the Rwandan government's efforts to defend itself and prevent what it sees as distorted versions of genocide history taking root.

The report implicates some of the most senior figures in the French government at the time, including the late President François Mitterrand and three former prime ministers, Edouard Balladur, Alain Juppé and Dominique de Villepin. Nine French military officers are also named among those "most implicated".

Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda's minister of information, said the findings would be handed to the public prosecutor as the basis for indictments. Rwanda would then consider using the principle of universal jurisdiction in an effort to secure international arrest warrants, she said. This would mark the first occasion that an African country has attempted to extradite European nationals for war crimes.

"We don't believe any French citizen or other citizen is above the law, especially when it comes to crimes as serious as genocide," she said. "We hope the French will take this report as seriously as Rwanda has taken it and, when the indictments come out, will co-operate."

The report was commissioned in 2004 after it became apparent that a French judicial inquiry intended to accuse serving members of the Rwandan administration of conspiring to cause the aircraft crash that killed the country's president at the time, an event that triggered the genocide. In December 2006 Rwanda broke off diplomatic relations with France after the French judge indicted nine close associates of Paul Kagame, Rwanda's president.

France's backing of the previous Rwandan regime, led by President Juvenal Habyarimana, is regarded by many analysts as the nadir of its decades-long engagement in French-speaking Africa. The regime, dominated by ethnic Hutus, created the conditions in which Hutu extremists orchestrated the murder of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a 100-day killing spree that marked the apogee of years of systematic anti-Tutsi violence.

Mr Kagame, who came to power after leading a Tutsi rebel army that drove those responsible for the genocide out of the country, has long accused France of playing an active role in the killings.

A communiqué summarising the report, produced by Jean de Dieu Mucyo, head of a genocide commission, contained a wide range of accusations. Among them are: that France was aware of preparations for the genocide; that it participated in them by training Rwandan troops; that its own soldiers allowed the genocide to continue in an area they were deployed to secure a safe zone; and that they actively participated in the genocide elsewhere.

France's foreign ministry yesterday declined to comment because it had not seen a full copy of the report. The country has previously denied a role in the genocide and claimed its intervention helped to prevent a worse catastrophe.

The report consolidated allegations that have been made in various forums since 1994 and was based partly on fresh testimony and partly on material already in the public domain, including statements by politicians, newspaper reports and books on the genocide.

Allegations of Complicity

Rwandan officials have long claimed that senior members of the French military and political establishment played a role in the 1994 genocide. France provided military assistance and training to the hard-line Hutu regime in the years preceding the genocide and helped repel an initial attack in 1990 by ethnic Tutsi rebels. French reporters and historians have alleged that arms shipments continued after the genocide started.

The Rwandans claim the subsequent French military operation "Turquoise" provided safe haven to perpetrators of the genocide, allowing them to escape from advancing Tutsi rebels. The French have always defended the operation as an effort to save lives and Alain Juppé, foreign minister from 1993 to 1995, dismissed as an "insidious rewriting of history" the allegation that France was complicit in the genocide. In December, President Nicolas Sarkozy said France had to reflect on the "weaknesses or errors" in its stance during the conflict.

Barney Jopson
Financial Times
6 August 2008

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/01b251fe-6350-11dd-9fd0-0000779fd2ac.html

US Agents can Seize Traveler's Digital, Analog and Written Materials

U.S. federal agents have been given new powers to seize travelers' laptops and other electronic devices at the border and hold them for unspecified periods the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Under recently disclosed Department of Homeland Security policies, such seizures may be carried out without suspicion of wrongdoing, the newspaper said, quoting policies issued on July 16 by two DHS agencies.

Agents are empowered to share the contents of seized computers with other agencies and private entities for data decryption and other reasons, the newspaper said.

DHS officials said the policies applied to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens, and were needed to prevent terrorism.

The measures have long been in place but were only disclosed in July, under pressure from civil liberties and business travel groups acting on reports that increasing numbers of international travelers had had their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices removed and examined.

The policies cover hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes -- as well as books, pamphlets and other written materials, the report said.

The policies require federal agents to take measures to protect business information and attorney-client privileged material. They stipulate that any copies of the data must be destroyed when a review is completed and no probable cause exists to keep the information.

Reuters
1 August 2008

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN0126069520080801

Rich Families in North America are on the Rise

�

...

Rich families in north America are on the rise. There are 3.2m individuals with more than $1m in financial assets and their numbers are expected to grow by 7.7 per cent a year between 2007 and 2012. Of these, 38,000 are so-called "ultra-high net worth", with more than $30m of financial assets.

This section of the market has proved relatively resilient to the global downturn.

...

SocGen in Alliance with US Wealth Manager

Scheherazade Daneshkhu
Financial Times
17 June 2008

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto061720081327115387&page=2

Richest 2% own "Half the Wealth" (2006)

Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple. Rembrandt (1635)

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.

The report, from the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world's population own barely 1% of global wealth.

There have of course been many studies of worldwide inequality.

But what is new about this report, the authors say, is its coverage.

It deals with all countries in the world - either actual data or estimates based on statistical analysis - and it deals with wealth, where most previous research has looked at income.

What they mean by wealth in this study is what people own, less what they owe - their debts. The assets include land, buildings, animals and financial assets.

Different assets

The analysis shows, as have many other less comprehensive studies, striking divergences in wealth between countries.

Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and some countries in the Asia Pacific region, such as Japan and Australia.

These countries account for 90% of household wealth.

The study also finds that inequality is sharper in wealth than in annual income.

And it uncovers some striking differences in the types of assets that dominate in different countries.

In less developed nations, land and farm assets are more important, reflecting the greater importance of agriculture in those economies.

In addition, the report says the weighting is the result of "immature" financial institutions, which make it much harder for people to have savings accounts or shares.

In contrast, some citizens of the rich countries have more debt than assets - making them, the report says, among the poorest in the world in terms of household wealth.

However, they are presumably better off in terms of what they consume than many people in developing countries.

Comprehensive

The survey is based on data for the year 2000. The authors say a more recent year would have involved more gaps in the data. As it is, many figures - especially for developing countries - have had to be estimated.

Nonetheless, the authors say it is the most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken.

Why does it matter? Because wealth serves as insurance against times when income tends to fall, such as unemployment, sickness or old age.

It is also a source of finance for small businesses, a particularly important point since it is the countries with lower levels of personal wealth which also tend to have weaker financial systems without the funds, ability or inclination to lend to small firms.

The report is not about policy recommendations.

But one of the authors, Professor Anthony Shorrocks, says it does draw attention to the importance of enhancing banking systems in developing countries to help generate the funds for business investment.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6211250.stm

Let Them Eat Jellybeans?

ce399. 8/8/08. (work in progress)

Rice: This is ridiculous.

Powell: Condi is absolutely right. Now why do you and the President get all of the cookies and m&m's on that side and we only get a very small bowl of m&m's on this side?

Salami: "Our Missles will always be ready to Launch"

...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters the world is not closer to a military confrontation, even though Iran's missile launch came just days after Israel conducted a high-profile military exercise in the Mediterranean. "What we're seeing is a lot of signaling going on," he said, adding that both Israel and Iran "understand [the] consequences" of military action.

...

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack noted that in recent years, Iran has conducted similar exercises, including missile tests. But analysts said the tests, along with Iranian rhetoric, are meant as highly symbolic warning to Israel and the United States.

"We warn the enemies who intend to threaten us with military exercises and empty psychological operations that our hand will always be on the trigger and our missiles will always be ready to launch," Revolutionary Guards air force commander Hossein Salami said yesterday, according to the official IRNA news agency.

The Iranian naval games, dubbed the "The Great Prophet 3," are taking place at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic Persian Gulf waterway that handles about 40 percent of the world's oil. U.S. and British warships are also conducting exercises in the Persian Gulf.

Iran Launches Nine Test Missiles, Says More Are Ready
Glenn Kessler
The Washington Post
10 July 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/09/AR2008070902395_pf.html

Animal Rights "Domestic Terrorism" at UC Santa Cruz

The devices used in two firebombings targeting UC Santa Cruz biologists are similar to some used in the past by animal rights activists, investigators said Sunday.

The bombs were so powerful they were like "Molotov cocktails on steroids," said Santa Cruz police Capt. Steve Clark.

One struck the home of assistant biology Professor David Feldheim on Saturday morning, forcing him to flee with his family. The other exploded just a few minutes earlier, gutting a car parked outside the campus home of a second researcher.

Later, Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies went to the home of a third researcher who received a threatening telephone message, but officers found no explosives.

More than 50 investigators, including some from the FBI's regional terrorism task force, are looking into the attacks.

Feldheim, whose townhouse was firebombed just after 5:30 a.m., uses mice in laboratory research on brain formation.

He told The Chronicle that he and his wife, along with their 7-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, had to drop a ladder from the window of a second-floor bedroom to escape after smoke filled the home's first floor.

"Everyone is OK," Feldheim said in an e-mail. "The kids are taking it pretty well. My wife and I are very shaken up. I also injured both feet in the escape."

Act of Terrorism

Feldheim was treated at a hospital and released, police said. Clark said the attack on Feldheim is being considered an act of terrorism and attempted murder.

Clark said the bomb at Feldheim's house was similar to those used by animal rights extremists in the past, adding, "There are instructions on how to make it on their Web sites."

Feldheim and the unidentified faculty member who received the threatening message were named on pamphlets that were left on a stack of newspapers in a downtown Santa Cruz coffee shop last Tuesday, Clark said. The unsigned pamphlets at Caffe Pergolesi, which printed 13 researchers' pictures and addresses, called them murderers and torturers and said, "Animal abusers everywhere beware."

The name of the researcher whose car was bombed was not on the pamphlets, Clark said.

The attacks may mark an escalation in a series of protests against UC researchers that prompted a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to issue a temporary restraining order against three animal rights groups in February.

In January, a Molotov cocktail exploded on a UCLA researcher's porch. A month later, six people in masks tried to force their way into the home of a UC Santa Cruz researcher and hit her husband on the head, police said.

And at UC Berkeley, officials said 24 animal researchers and seven staffers have been harassed in recent months, with some homes and cars vandalized.

Clark said authorities are offering security to UC Santa Cruz animal researchers and have contacted every person named on the pamphlet, whether or not they were involved in animal testing. He said investigators were combing the Internet to see if anyone would take credit for the attacks. But as of Sunday, no one had.

"It's one thing to be an activist, it's another to be an extremist," Clark said. "It's absolutely outrageous that you would bring this kind of an attack to a family, all because of your passion over this cause. To me, it's indicative of people who have a complete inability to articulate their point in a constructive manner."

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal condemned the bombings as "criminal acts of anti-science violence."

A different view was expressed today by Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, which often posts on its Web site communiques from activists taking credit for attacks. He said the benefit of animal research does not justify its expense or the exploitation of animals.

Vlasak said the bombers likely were not trying to hurt Feldheim, but were instead "trying to send a message to this guy, who won't listen to reason, that if he doesn't stop hurting animals, more drastic measures will be taken ... it's certainly not an initial tactic, but a tactic of last resort."

Feldheim, whose work includes introducing genes into living mouse brains, said Sunday that his research "is aimed at understanding how brain connections form during development, with special focus on the visual system." He said the work is important "so we can learn how to fix these connections after damage due to injury or disease."

Sunday afternoon, Feldheim's front door and concrete patio in a complex of townhouses on Village Circle remained blackened by flames and smoke. A neighbor said that residents, who are mostly faculty and students, awoke to the sound of an alarm.

"I feel bad that anyone would take that drastic a step to harm people," said Miriam Ting, a Santa Cruz pharmacist.

No Answer

Just a few blocks away, no one answered the door at the brown faculty townhouse where the car had been firebombed, and a biology professor listed as living there did not respond to an e-mail. His driveway was still charred; the car was no longer there.

"It's a threat to everyone who lives here," said David Anthony, a history professor whose home is attached to the one where the car was firebombed.

Feldheim described a frightening escape. When the bomb exploded near his front door, he said, his family was awakened by the sound of smoke detectors.

"The downstairs was so smoky that we could not see," said Feldheim. "My wife and children all escaped out of the bedroom window using a fire-escape ladder. A neighbor and then the Fire Department came and put out the fire."

Feldheim said his home had been vandalized last year, with "hateful messages" written in chalk on the sidewalk outside, trash strewn about and some flower planters broken. The university responded by paying for an alarm system and motion-sensitive lights, he said.

"I'm not sure what we'll do in the future," Feldheim said

Santa Cruz Firebombs Look Familiar

Wyatt Buchanan, Demian Bulwa,
San Francisco Chronicle
4 August 2008

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/04/MNMI124HSI.DTL&type=printable

http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/

Firebombs Target UC-Santa Cruz Scientists who use Animals in Research

http://www.animalliberationpressoffice.org/media_coverage2008/2008-08-03_ucscarsons_sjmercurynews.htm

War on the Weak: The History of a Bad Idea

Venezuela Hosts Indigenous Congress, Gives Land Titles to Indigenous (2007)

Coinciding with the launch of the First International Congress of the Anti-imperialist Indigenous Peoples of Latin America (Abya Yala), yesterday, in San Tomé, Anzoátegui state, Venezuelan vice-president Jorge Rodriguez, together with Nicia Maldonado, the Minister of Popular Power for Indigenous Peoples, handed over eleven housing and land titles recognizing indigenous ownership of various indigenous groups throughout the country.

Minister Nicia Maldonado assured that along with the recognition of land titles, the government will provide financial support for projects of integral development and housing for the indigenous communities of Pumé, Yaruro, Kariña and Warao, the first peoples of the states of Apure, Anzoátegui, and Bolívar.

She also said that during the past eight years the Venezuelan government has handed over nine-hundred thousand hectares of land titles to the indigenous peoples of various regions of Venezuela.

The minister said that 2,205 indigenous communities representing more than forty different groups had been identified at a national level, including 26 communities in urban zones and that the delivery of resources for the development of projects would come through financing plans presented by the Indigenous Communal Councils throughout the country.

The minister confirmed that the National Registrar of Indigenous Communal Councils had reached 800 and of these, 520 had so far received financing from the national government for various development projects. She added that financial resources would be made available for the other 280 Communal Councils.

She explained that the Chavez government has encouraged a process of “dignification of the original peoples of the country,” through incorporating them into the education missions, Robinson, Ribas and Sucre, as well as programs of social production such as Mission Vuelvan Caras, now called Mission Ché Guevara, among others.

Maldonado also emphasized that the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela “rescued the dignity and rights of the original peoples,” through the Organic Law of the Indigenous Peoples.

Anti-Imperialist Indigenous Congress Opens

The First International Congress of the Anti-imperialist Indigenous Peoples of Latin America (Abya Yala), also opened yesterday in San Tomé. Minister Maldonado said the conference, while promoting cultural diversity, had an “integrationist and unifying character” with the aim of creating a front against the political hegemony of the US imperialism.

More than a thousand delegates of first peoples from 22 different countries participated, including Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, El Salvador, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Guyana, Suriname, Paraguay, San Vicente and the Grenadines, Brazil, Honduras, United States, Uruguay, Panama, and Venezuela.

The Venezuelan delegation included representatives of forty different indigenous groups, first peoples form the states of Anzoátegui, Amazonas, Apure, Bolívar, Delta Amacuro, Monagas, Sucre, and Zulia, as well as members of Indigenous Communal Councils from diverse regions throughout the country.

The first day of the congress covered issues of empowerment of indigenous people, through the articulation of their demands at a national level and expressions of communal power such as the Communal Councils in Venezuela, as well as the importance of promoting and strengthening cultural diversity and preserving indigenous languages, and the Bolivarian Alternative for the peoples of the Americas (ALBA).

The indigenous peoples of the Americas will also share their experiences of US imperialism, privatization of land and resources and struggles against privatization and for the recognition of land rights. Also to be discussed at the conference is the concept of 'Indo-American socialism', the discourse of Socialism of the 21st Century, and more specifically the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, including the “five constituent motors” for pushing the revolution forward, and the role of indigenous peoples within the revolution.

The conference also provided space to discuss strategies and articulate anti-imperialist proposals to create a better world, including the proposal to form a Continental Anti-imperialist Indigenous Council and a proposal to create an Indo-American Indigenous Network of Alternative Communication.

“We are going to celebrate this congress with the aim of going towards the formation of a Continental Anti-imperialist Indigenous Council, constructing 'Indo-American' socialism and the Bolivarian Alternative of the peoples of the Americas,” declared Maria Caicuto, the vice-minister for the communal indigenous territory of the Deltas, Mountains, Coasts and Mangroves.

The closing of the conference coincides with the International Day of Indigenous Peoples on Aug 9.

Kiraz Janicke
Venezuela Analysis
8 August 2007

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2543

Declaration on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Genetic Resources and Indigenous Knowledge

ce399. 2006

Convened at the Sixth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
May 14-25, 2007
New York, New York

We, the undersigned Indigenous peoples and organizations, having convened during the Sixth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, from May 14-25, 2007, upon the traditional territory of the Onondaga Nation present the following declaration regarding our rights to genetic resources and indigenous knowledge:

Reaffirming our spiritual and cultural relationship with all life forms existing in our traditional territories;

Reaffirming our fundamental role and responsibility as the guardians of our territories, lands and natural resources;

Recognizing that we are the guardians of the Indigenous knowledge passed down from our ancestors from generation to generation and we reaffirm our responsibility to protect and perpetuate this knowledge for the benefit of our peoples and our future generations;

Strongly reaffirming our right to self-determination, which is fundamental to our ability to carry out our responsibilities in accordance with our cultural values and our customary laws.

Strongly reaffirming our commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the Human Rights Council, including, Article 31, which establishes that:

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.

2. In conjunction with indigenous peoples, States shall take effective measures to recognize and protect the exercise of these rights.

Recalling the Declaration of Indigenous Organizations of the Western Hemisphere, Phoenix, Arizona (February 1995), which asserted, "Our responsibility as Indigenous peoples is to ensure the continuity of the natural order of all life is maintained for generations to come...We have a responsibility to speak for all life forms and to the defend the integrity of the natural order. …We oppose the patenting of all natural genetic materials. We hold that life cannot be bought, owned, sold, discovered or patented, even in its smallest form."

Recalling the Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women, issued at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which stated that “We demand that our inalienable rights to our intellectual and cultural heritage be recognized and respected. We will continue to freely use our biodiversity for meeting our local needs, while ensuring that the biodiversity base of our local economies will not be eroded. We will revitalize and rejuvenate our biological and cultural heritage and continue to be the guardians and custodians of our knowledge and biodiversity.”

Recalling the Ukupseni Declaration, at Kuna Yala, Panama, 12-13 November 1997, which declared that “We reject the use of existing mechanisms in the legalization of intellectual property and patent systems use of existing mechanisms including intellectual property rights and patents to legalize the appropriation of knowledge and genetic material, whatever their source, and especially that which comes from our communities.”

Recalling the INTERNATIONAL CANCUN DECLARATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES at the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference - Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico, (12 September 2003), which stated, “Stop patenting of life forms and other intellectual property rights over biological resources and indigenous knowledge. Ensure that we, Indigenous Peoples, retain our rights to have control over our seeds, medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge.”

Concerned by the accelerated elaboration and negotiation of an international regime on access and benefit sharing under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the nation-states who are Parties to the Convention failure, to date, to recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples to control access to, and utilization of, the genetic resources that originate in our territories, lands and waters.

Therefore, we urge the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to

1. Prepare a legal analysis on States, peoples and sovereignty and their relationship, scope and application, to assist the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in understanding sovereignty in the context of the Convention and the role of sovereignty in developing an international regime on ABS;

2. Recommend to the Convention on Biological Diversity that, consistent with international human rights law, states have an obligation to recognize and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples to control access to the genetic resources that originate in their lands and waters, and associated traditional knowledge. Such recognition must be a key element of the proposed international regime on ABS.

3. Prepare a report on the social, cultural and economic impacts of commercialization of genetic resources and indigenous knowledge on Indigenous peoples.

4. Disseminate this Declaration and the above recommended reports to all relevant UN fora.

Indigenous Peoples and Organizations Supporting the Declaration on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Genetic Resources and Indigenous Knowledge

1. Andes Chinchasuyo, Ecuador
2. Traditional Circle of Indian Elders and Youth
3. Tonatierra
4. Rapa Nui Parliament
5. Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)
6. International Indian Treaty Council (IITC)
7. Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB)
8. Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development
9. Native Women’s Advocacy Center
10. Native Women’s Association of Canada
11. South Asia Indigenous Women Forum
12. Indigenous Peace Commission, Nepal
13. Indigenous Women Republic Front, Nepal
14. American Indian Law Alliance
15. Fundación Cholsamaj
16. Centro de Estudios Integrados para el Desariollo Comunal
17. Centro de Proyectos para el Desariollo Comunal
18. Turaga Nation
19. Vanuatu Indigenous Peoples Forum
20. Columbia River Education, Economic Development
21. Diné Care
22. Dewan Adat Papua Jayapura
23. Juventud Indigena Argentine
24. Call of the Earth Llamado de la Tierra
25. El Molo People
26. El Molo Eco-Tourism Rights and Development Forum
27. Tatanka Oyate (Buffalo Nations)
28. Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations
29. Instituto Indígena Brasileiro para Propriedade Intelectual (INBRAPI)
30. Sutsuin Jiyeyu Wayúu –Fuerza de Mujeres Wayúu
31. Red de Mujeres Indígenas Wayúu
32. Consejo Nacional de la Mujeres Indígena
33. Tob Qom Choco Argentine
34. Chirapaq, Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Peru
35. Ecuador CONAIE
36. Consejo de Todo los Tierra – Mapuche Chile
37. Corporacion de Mujeres Mapuche
38. Federacion de Pueblos de Pichincha
39. Nacionalidad Waorani Del Ecuador
40. Asociacion de Comunidades Indígenas
41. Fundacion Para la Promocion del Concimiento Indígena
42. Luz y Vida, Ecuador
43. Cultural Conservation Act (CCA)
44. International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests
45. United Confederation of Taino People
46. Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the Greater Caribbean
47. Consejo General de Tainos Borincanos
48. Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON)

http://www.ipcb.org/resolutions/htmls/Decl_GR&IK.html

Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialsm

Schwarzenegger: "8,000 Jews Could Be Shipped Out" (work in progress)

ce399. 8/8/08

I have a responsibility to make sure that our state has enough money to pay its bills. It is a terrible situation to be in. I don't think any governor wants to be in this situation ... But this is really the only way out at this point - Arnold Schwarzenegger 2 August 2008

Schwarzenegger: "8,000 Jews Could Be Shipped Out" 14 July 2008

"The World still needs German Machines"

 
German engineering companies are enjoying their biggest boom in 40 years despite the credit crunch and the strong euro, according to industry executives.

Renowned for their -conservative outlook, the family-owned Mittelstand - small and medium-sized -concerns - are in the unusual position of being one of the most optimistic sectors about growth prospects in the financial crisis.

"The subprime crisis is not noticeable to us at all. Despite all the negative things, we are in the biggest boom since the end of the 1960s," said Manfred Wittenstein, chief executive of the motor maker Wittenstein and head of the VDMA engineering association. "The underlying conditions are positive for us, with a good global presence and demand for products that are energy efficient."

Other heads of Mittelstand companies - which form the backbone of the economy - at the Hannover Messe, the world's largest industrial trade fair, agreed.

"I have no angst at all when I look at the future because the world still needs German machines," said Thomas Kaeser, head of -Kaeser Kompressoren, the world's largest air compressor company. In line with other German specialist manufacturers his company is benefiting from growing demand for more energy -efficient products.

The VDMA predicts a 5 per cent rise in production this year after double-digit growth both last year and in the first two months of 2008. Companies expect a slowing of growth from the end of this year but all remain optimistic for growth in 2009.

With large listed German groups such as Siemens and BMW cutting thousands of jobs in anticipation of a downturn, the Mittelstand are striking in that they are hiring large numbers of workers. The VDMA this week lifted its forecast for the number of jobs to be created this year in the sector from 10,000 to 30,000.

Eberhard Veit, chief executive of Festo, one of the world's largest makers of automation products, predicted 7-8 per cent growth in revenues this year after 9 per cent in 2007."People don't want cheap technology because a stop in production costs €10,000 a minute. So they are buying high-quality, highly reliable products from us - that come at a cost."

Erhard Tellbüscher, chief executive of Lenze, a maker of drives for conveyors and other machines, tempered the positive mood somewhat. "We are optimistic but we have become less optimistic," he said. "We are seeing some big projects being postponed. So we see 2-3 percentage points less growth but we will still grow in the high single digits this year."

Germany's Engineering Groups Shrug off Financial Crisis

Richard Milne
Financial Times
23 April 2008

http://merzen.blogspot.com/2008/05/ftcom-home-uk-uk-germanys-engineering.html