http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/14/2215873.htm?section=world
Food riots 'an apocalyptic warning'
By Karen Barlow
Posted Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:03am AEST
Basic access to food is slipping out of reach for many people in developing countries.
The cost of the rice has risen by more than three-quarters in two months and the price of wheat has more than doubled in the same time.
The desperation in dozens of countries has turned deadly of late. In the past week alone there have been violent, food-related riots in Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cameroon.
World Vision Australia head Tim Costello says the situation is desperate and chronic.
"It is an apocalyptic warning," he said. "Until recently we had plenty of food. The question was distribution.
"The truth is because of rising oil prices, global warming and the loss of arable land, all countries that can produce food now desperately need to produce more."
Help from developed countries is the best remedy that The Group of Seven industrialised countries, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) can think of.
They have been meeting in Washington over the past week hoping to forge a new deal for global food policy.
World Bank president Robert Zoellick says part of that new deal is meeting the immediate crisis and the needs of those who are now facing hunger, malnutrition, and starvation across the world.
"Throughout the weekend, we've heard again and again from ministers in developing countries and emerging economies that this is a priority issue," he said.
IMF managing director Dominic Strauss-Kahn says if food prices continue to rise there will be dire consequences, particularly in Africa.
"Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving," he said.
"Disruption may occur in the economic environment so that at the end of the day most governments, having done well for the last five or 10 years, will see what they have done totally destroyed and their legitimacy facing the population destroyed also."
Mr Zoellick says the food price surge could push 100 million people in developing countries further into poverty and governments must step in.
"Hunger, malnutrition and food policy have formed a recurrent theme at this weekend's meetings," he said.
"I believe we've made some progress, but it'll be important to continue to retain this focus as we leave Washington."
Aid and charity groups says Australia can do more.
Mr Costello says there is a great responsibility being a major food producer.
"So our both growing more food and contributing that to the world's poor is now urgent and is a morally serious claim on us," he said.
The Federal Government says it takes the warning about food prices seriously.
Parliamentary secretary for international development assistance, Bob McMullan, says Australia is one of the world's largest donors of World Food Program assistance.
"We all look sympathetically at this most recent approach from the World Food Program and I'll have a look at whether there's something extra that arises from what the chairman of the World Bank has had to say," he said.
"But in the main, we are very well aware that this is a big issue and some of the underlying factors are long-term.
"Some of them are short-term, including the Australian drought, but there are some long-term factors that are impacting on the price of food."
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805?printable=true¤tPage=all
INVESTIGATION
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
by DONALD L. BARLETT and JAMES B. STEELE
May 2008
Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small—a really small—country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. “It made me and my business look bad,” he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, “You got the wrong guy.”
When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers—anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the “seed police” and use words such as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” to describe their tactics.
When asked about these practices, Monsanto declined to comment specifically, other than to say that the company is simply protecting its patents. “Monsanto spends more than $2 million a day in research to identify, test, develop and bring to market innovative new seeds and technologies that benefit farmers,” Monsanto spokesman Darren Wallis wrote in an e-mailed letter to Vanity Fair. “One tool in protecting this investment is patenting our discoveries and, if necessary, legally defending those patents against those who might choose to infringe upon them.” Wallis said that, while the vast majority of farmers and seed dealers follow the licensing agreements, “a tiny fraction” do not, and that Monsanto is obligated to those who do abide by its rules to enforce its patent rights on those who “reap the benefits of the technology without paying for its use.” He said only a small number of cases ever go to trial.
Some compare Monsanto’s hard-line approach to Microsoft’s zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto’s seeds can’t even do that.
The Control of Nature
For centuries—millennia—farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head.
Monsanto developed G.M. seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, offering farmers a convenient way to spray fields with weed killer without affecting crops. Monsanto then patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. “It’s not like describing a widget,” says Joseph Mendelson III, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which has tracked Monsanto’s activities in rural America for years.
Indeed not. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world’s food supply. In its decision, the court extended patent law to cover “a live human-made microorganism.” In this case, the organism wasn’t even a seed. Rather, it was a Pseudomonas bacterium developed by a General Electric scientist to clean up oil spills. But the precedent was set, and Monsanto took advantage of it. Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
Farmers who buy Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto.
This radical departure from age-old practice has created turmoil in farm country. Some farmers don’t fully understand that they aren’t supposed to save Monsanto’s seeds for next year’s planting. Others do, but ignore the stipulation rather than throw away a perfectly usable product. Still others say that they don’t use Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds, but seeds have been blown into their fields by wind or deposited by birds. It’s certainly easy for G.M. seeds to get mixed in with traditional varieties when seeds are cleaned by commercial dealers for re-planting. The seeds look identical; only a laboratory analysis can show the difference. Even if a farmer doesn’t buy G.M. seeds and doesn’t want them on his land, it’s a safe bet he’ll get a visit from Monsanto’s seed police if crops grown from G.M. seeds are discovered in his fields.
Most Americans know Monsanto because of what it sells to put on our lawns— the ubiquitous weed killer Roundup. What they may not know is that the company now profoundly influences—and one day may virtually control—what we put on our tables. For most of its history Monsanto was a chemical giant, producing some of the most toxic substances ever created, residues from which have left us with some of the most polluted sites on earth. Yet in a little more than a decade, the company has sought to shed its polluted past and morph into something much different and more far-reaching—an “agricultural company” dedicated to making the world “a better place for future generations.” Still, more than one Web log claims to see similarities between Monsanto and the fictional company “U-North” in the movie Michael Clayton, an agribusiness giant accused in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit of selling an herbicide that causes cancer.
Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds have transformed the company and are radically altering global agriculture. So far, the company has produced G.M. seeds for soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton. Many more products have been developed or are in the pipeline, including seeds for sugar beets and alfalfa. The company is also seeking to extend its reach into milk production by marketing an artificial growth hormone for cows that increases their output, and it is taking aggressive steps to put those who don’t want to use growth hormone at a commercial disadvantage.
Even as the company is pushing its G.M. agenda, Monsanto is buying up conventional-seed companies. In 2005, Monsanto paid $1.4 billion for Seminis, which controlled 40 percent of the U.S. market for lettuce, tomatoes, and other vegetable and fruit seeds. Two weeks later it announced the acquisition of the country’s third-largest cottonseed company, Emergent Genetics, for $300 million. It’s estimated that Monsanto seeds now account for 90 percent of the U.S. production of soybeans, which are used in food products beyond counting. Monsanto’s acquisitions have fueled explosive growth, transforming the St. Louis–based corporation into the largest seed company in the world.
In Iraq, the groundwork has been laid to protect the patents of Monsanto and other G.M.-seed companies. One of L. Paul Bremer’s last acts as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority was an order stipulating that “farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties.” Monsanto has said that it has no interest in doing business in Iraq, but should the company change its mind, the American-style law is in place.
To be sure, more and more agricultural corporations and individual farmers are using Monsanto’s G.M. seeds. As recently as 1980, no genetically modified crops were grown in the U.S. In 2007, the total was 142 million acres planted. Worldwide, the figure was 282 million acres. Many farmers believe that G.M. seeds increase crop yields and save money. Another reason for their attraction is convenience. By using Roundup Ready soybean seeds, a farmer can spend less time tending to his fields. With Monsanto seeds, a farmer plants his crop, then treats it later with Roundup to kill weeds. That takes the place of labor-intensive weed control and plowing.
Monsanto portrays its move into G.M. seeds as a giant leap for mankind. But out in the American countryside, Monsanto’s no-holds-barred tactics have made it feared and loathed. Like it or not, farmers say, they have fewer and fewer choices in buying seeds.
And controlling the seeds is not some abstraction. Whoever provides the world’s seeds controls the world’s food supply.
Under Surveillance
After Monsanto’s investigator confronted Gary Rinehart, Monsanto filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Rinehart “knowingly, intentionally, and willfully” planted seeds “in violation of Monsanto’s patent rights.” The company’s complaint made it sound as if Monsanto had Rinehart dead to rights:
During the 2002 growing season, Investigator Jeffery Moore, through surveillance of Mr. Rinehart’s farm facility and farming operations, observed Defendant planting brown bag soybean seed. Mr. Moore observed the Defendant take the brown bag soybeans to a field, which was subsequently loaded into a grain drill and planted. Mr. Moore located two empty bags in the ditch in the public road right-of-way beside one of the fields planted by Rinehart, which contained some soybeans. Mr. Moore collected a small amount of soybeans left in the bags which Defendant had tossed into the public right-of way. These samples tested positive for Monsanto’s Roundup Ready technology.
Faced with a federal lawsuit, Rinehart had to hire a lawyer. Monsanto eventually realized that “Investigator Jeffery Moore” had targeted the wrong man, and dropped the suit. Rinehart later learned that the company had been secretly investigating farmers in his area. Rinehart never heard from Monsanto again: no letter of apology, no public concession that the company had made a terrible mistake, no offer to pay his attorney’s fees. “I don’t know how they get away with it,” he says. “If I tried to do something like that it would be bad news. I felt like I was in another country.”
Gary Rinehart is actually one of Monsanto’s luckier targets. Ever since commercial introduction of its G.M. seeds, in 1996, Monsanto has launched thousands of investigations and filed lawsuits against hundreds of farmers and seed dealers. In a 2007 report, the Center for Food Safety, in Washington, D.C., documented 112 such lawsuits, in 27 states.
Even more significant, in the Center’s opinion, are the numbers of farmers who settle because they don’t have the money or the time to fight Monsanto. “The number of cases filed is only the tip of the iceberg,” says Bill Freese, the Center’s science-policy analyst. Freese says he has been told of many cases in which Monsanto investigators showed up at a farmer’s house or confronted him in his fields, claiming he had violated the technology agreement and demanding to see his records. According to Freese, investigators will say, “Monsanto knows that you are saving Roundup Ready seeds, and if you don’t sign these information-release forms, Monsanto is going to come after you and take your farm or take you for all you’re worth.” Investigators will sometimes show a farmer a photo of himself coming out of a store, to let him know he is being followed.
Lawyers who have represented farmers sued by Monsanto say that intimidating actions like these are commonplace. Most give in and pay Monsanto some amount in damages; those who resist face the full force of Monsanto’s legal wrath.
Scorched-Earth Tactics
Pilot Grove, Missouri, population 750, sits in rolling farmland 150 miles west of St. Louis. The town has a grocery store, a bank, a bar, a nursing home, a funeral parlor, and a few other small businesses. There are no stoplights, but the town doesn’t need any. The little traffic it has comes from trucks on their way to and from the grain elevator on the edge of town. The elevator is owned by a local co-op, the Pilot Grove Cooperative Elevator, which buys soybeans and corn from farmers in the fall, then ships out the grain over the winter. The co-op has seven full-time employees and four computers.
In the fall of 2006, Monsanto trained its legal guns on Pilot Grove; ever since, its farmers have been drawn into a costly, disruptive legal battle against an opponent with limitless resources. Neither Pilot Grove nor Monsanto will discuss the case, but it is possible to piece together much of the story from documents filed as part of the litigation.
Monsanto began investigating soybean farmers in and around Pilot Grove several years ago. There is no indication as to what sparked the probe, but Monsanto periodically investigates farmers in soybean-growing regions such as this one in central Missouri. The company has a staff devoted to enforcing patents and litigating against farmers. To gather leads, the company maintains an 800 number and encourages farmers to inform on other farmers they think may be engaging in “seed piracy.”
Once Pilot Grove had been targeted, Monsanto sent private investigators into the area. Over a period of months, Monsanto’s investigators surreptitiously followed the co-op’s employees and customers and videotaped them in fields and going about other activities. At least 17 such surveillance videos were made, according to court records. The investigative work was outsourced to a St. Louis agency, McDowell & Associates. It was a McDowell investigator who erroneously fingered Gary Rinehart. In Pilot Grove, at least 11 McDowell investigators have worked the case, and Monsanto makes no bones about the extent of this effort: “Surveillance was conducted throughout the year by various investigators in the field,” according to court records. McDowell, like Monsanto, will not comment on the case.
Not long after investigators showed up in Pilot Grove, Monsanto subpoenaed the co-op’s records concerning seed and herbicide purchases and seed-cleaning operations. The co-op provided more than 800 pages of documents pertaining to dozens of farmers. Monsanto sued two farmers and negotiated settlements with more than 25 others it accused of seed piracy. But Monsanto’s legal assault had only begun. Although the co-op had provided voluminous records, Monsanto then sued it in federal court for patent infringement. Monsanto contended that by cleaning seeds—a service which it had provided for decades—the co-op was inducing farmers to violate Monsanto’s patents. In effect, Monsanto wanted the co-op to police its own customers.
In the majority of cases where Monsanto sues, or threatens to sue, farmers settle before going to trial. The cost and stress of litigating against a global corporation are just too great. But Pilot Grove wouldn’t cave—and ever since, Monsanto has been turning up the heat. The more the co-op has resisted, the more legal firepower Monsanto has aimed at it. Pilot Grove’s lawyer, Steven H. Schwartz, described Monsanto in a court filing as pursuing a “scorched earth tactic,” intent on “trying to drive the co-op into the ground.”
Even after Pilot Grove turned over thousands more pages of sales records going back five years, and covering virtually every one of its farmer customers, Monsanto wanted more—the right to inspect the co-op’s hard drives. When the co-op offered to provide an electronic version of any record, Monsanto demanded hands-on access to Pilot Grove’s in-house computers.
Monsanto next petitioned to make potential damages punitive—tripling the amount that Pilot Grove might have to pay if found guilty. After a judge denied that request, Monsanto expanded the scope of the pre-trial investigation by seeking to quadruple the number of depositions. “Monsanto is doing its best to make this case so expensive to defend that the Co-op will have no choice but to relent,” Pilot Grove’s lawyer said in a court filing.
With Pilot Grove still holding out for a trial, Monsanto now subpoenaed the records of more than 100 of the co-op’s customers. In a “You are Commanded … ” notice, the farmers were ordered to gather up five years of invoices, receipts, and all other papers relating to their soybean and herbicide purchases, and to have the documents delivered to a law office in St. Louis. Monsanto gave them two weeks to comply.
Whether Pilot Grove can continue to wage its legal battle remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome, the case shows why Monsanto is so detested in farm country, even by those who buy its products. “I don’t know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base,” says Joseph Mendelson, of the Center for Food Safety. “It’s a very bizarre business strategy.” But it’s one that Monsanto manages to get away with, because increasingly it’s the dominant vendor in town.
Chemicals? What Chemicals?
The Monsanto Company has never been one of America’s friendliest corporate citizens. Given Monsanto’s current dominance in the field of bioengineering, it’s worth looking at the company’s own DNA. The future of the company may lie in seeds, but the seeds of the company lie in chemicals. Communities around the world are still reaping the environmental consequences of Monsanto’s origins.
Monsanto was founded in 1901 by John Francis Queeny, a tough, cigar-smoking Irishman with a sixth-grade education. A buyer for a wholesale drug company, Queeny had an idea. But like a lot of employees with ideas, he found that his boss wouldn’t listen to him. So he went into business for himself on the side. Queeny was convinced there was money to be made manufacturing a substance called saccharin, an artificial sweetener then imported from Germany. He took $1,500 of his savings, borrowed another $3,500, and set up shop in a dingy warehouse near the St. Louis waterfront. With borrowed equipment and secondhand machines, he began producing saccharin for the U.S. market. He called the company the Monsanto Chemical Works, Monsanto being his wife’s maiden name.
The German cartel that controlled the market for saccharin wasn’t pleased, and cut the price from $4.50 to $1 a pound to try to force Queeny out of business. The young company faced other challenges. Questions arose about the safety of saccharin, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture even tried to ban it. Fortunately for Queeny, he wasn’t up against opponents as aggressive and litigious as the Monsanto of today. His persistence and the loyalty of one steady customer kept the company afloat. That steady customer was a new company in Georgia named Coca-Cola.
Monsanto added more and more products—vanillin, caffeine, and drugs used as sedatives and laxatives. In 1917, Monsanto began making aspirin, and soon became the largest maker worldwide. During World War I, cut off from imported European chemicals, Monsanto was forced to manufacture its own, and its position as a leading force in the chemical industry was assured.
After Queeny was diagnosed with cancer, in the late 1920s, his only son, Edgar, became president. Where the father had been a classic entrepreneur, Edgar Monsanto Queeny was an empire builder with a grand vision. It was Edgar—shrewd, daring, and intuitive (“He can see around the next corner,” his secretary once said)—who built Monsanto into a global powerhouse. Under Edgar Queeny and his successors, Monsanto extended its reach into a phenomenal number of products: plastics, resins, rubber goods, fuel additives, artificial caffeine, industrial fluids, vinyl siding, dishwasher detergent, anti-freeze, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides. Its safety glass protects the U.S. Constitution and the Mona Lisa. Its synthetic fibers are the basis of Astroturf.
During the 1970s, the company shifted more and more resources into biotechnology. In 1981 it created a molecular-biology group for research in plant genetics. The next year, Monsanto scientists hit gold: they became the first to genetically modify a plant cell. “It will now be possible to introduce virtually any gene into plant cells with the ultimate goal of improving crop productivity,” said Ernest Jaworski, director of Monsanto’s Biological Sciences Program.
Over the next few years, scientists working mainly in the company’s vast new Life Sciences Research Center, 25 miles west of St. Louis, developed one genetically modified product after another—cotton, soybeans, corn, canola. From the start, G.M. seeds were controversial with the public as well as with some farmers and European consumers. Monsanto has sought to portray G.M. seeds as a panacea, a way to alleviate poverty and feed the hungry. Robert Shapiro, Monsanto’s president during the 1990s, once called G.M. seeds “the single most successful introduction of technology in the history of agriculture, including the plow.”
By the late 1990s, Monsanto, having rebranded itself into a “life sciences” company, had spun off its chemical and fibers operations into a new company called Solutia. After an additional reorganization, Monsanto re-incorporated in 2002 and officially declared itself an “agricultural company.”
In its company literature, Monsanto now refers to itself disingenuously as a “relatively new company” whose primary goal is helping “farmers around the world in their mission to feed, clothe, and fuel” a growing planet. In its list of corporate milestones, all but a handful are from the recent era. As for the company’s early history, the decades when it grew into an industrial powerhouse now held potentially responsible for more than 50 Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites—none of that is mentioned. It’s as though the original Monsanto, the company that long had the word “chemical” as part of its name, never existed. One of the benefits of doing this, as the company does not point out, was to channel the bulk of the growing backlog of chemical lawsuits and liabilities onto Solutia, keeping the Monsanto brand pure.
But Monsanto’s past, especially its environmental legacy, is very much with us. For many years Monsanto produced two of the most toxic substances ever known— polychlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs, and dioxin. Monsanto no longer produces either, but the places where it did are still struggling with the aftermath, and probably always will be.
“Systemic Intoxication”
Twelve miles downriver from Charleston, West Virginia, is the town of Nitro, where Monsanto operated a chemical plant from 1929 to 1995. In 1948 the plant began to make a powerful herbicide known as 2,4,5-T, called “weed bug” by the workers. A by-product of the process was the creation of a chemical that would later be known as dioxin.
The name dioxin refers to a group of highly toxic chemicals that have been linked to heart disease, liver disease, human reproductive disorders, and developmental problems. Even in small amounts, dioxin persists in the environment and accumulates in the body. In 1997 the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, classified the most powerful form of dioxin as a substance that causes cancer in humans. In 2001 the U.S. government listed the chemical as a “known human carcinogen.”
On March 8, 1949, a massive explosion rocked Monsanto’s Nitro plant when a pressure valve blew on a container cooking up a batch of herbicide. The noise from the release was a scream so loud that it drowned out the emergency steam whistle for five minutes. A plume of vapor and white smoke drifted across the plant and out over town.Residue from the explosion coated the interior of the building and those inside with what workers described as “a fine black powder.” Many felt their skin prickle and were told to scrub down.
Within days, workers experienced skin eruptions. Many were soon diagnosed with chloracne, a condition similar to common acne but more severe, longer lasting, and potentially disfiguring. Others felt intense pains in their legs, chest, and trunk. A confidential medical report at the time said the explosion “caused a systemic intoxication in the workers involving most major organ systems.” Doctors who examined four of the most seriously injured men detected a strong odor coming from them when they were all together in a closed room. “We believe these men are excreting a foreign chemical through their skins,” the confidential report to Monsanto noted. Court records indicate that 226 plant workers became ill.
According to court documents that have surfaced in a West Virginia court case, Monsanto downplayed the impact, stating that the contaminant affecting workers was “fairly slow acting” and caused “only an irritation of the skin.”
In the meantime, the Nitro plant continued to produce herbicides, rubber products, and other chemicals. In the 1960s, the factory manufactured Agent Orange, the powerful herbicide which the U.S. military used to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, and which later was the focus of lawsuits by veterans contending that they had been harmed by exposure. As with Monsanto’s older herbicides, the manufacturing of Agent Orange created dioxin as a by-product.
As for the Nitro plant’s waste, some was burned in incinerators, some dumped in landfills or storm drains, some allowed to run into streams. As Stuart Calwell, a lawyer who has represented both workers and residents in Nitro, put it, “Dioxin went wherever the product went, down the sewer, shipped in bags, and when the waste was burned, out in the air.”
In 1981 several former Nitro employees filed lawsuits in federal court, charging that Monsanto had knowingly exposed them to chemicals that caused long-term health problems, including cancer and heart disease. They alleged that Monsanto knew that many chemicals used at Nitro were potentially harmful, but had kept that information from them. On the eve of a trial, in 1988, Monsanto agreed to settle most of the cases by making a single lump payment of $1.5 million. Monsanto also agreed to drop its claim to collect $305,000 in court costs from six retired Monsanto workers who had unsuccessfully charged in another lawsuit that Monsanto had recklessly exposed them to dioxin. Monsanto had attached liens to the retirees’ homes to guarantee collection of the debt.
Monsanto stopped producing dioxin in Nitro in 1969, but the toxic chemical can still be found well beyond the Nitro plant site. Repeated studies have found elevated levels of dioxin in nearby rivers, streams, and fish. Residents have sued to seek damages from Monsanto and Solutia. Earlier this year, a West Virginia judge merged those lawsuits into a class-action suit. A Monsanto spokesman said, “We believe the allegations are without merit and we’ll defend ourselves vigorously.” The suit will no doubt take years to play out. Time is one thing that Monsanto always has, and that the plaintiffs usually don’t.
Poisoned Lawns
Five hundred miles to the south, the people of Anniston, Alabama, know all about what the people of Nitro are going through. They’ve been there. In fact, you could say, they’re still there.
From 1929 to 1971, Monsanto’s Anniston works produced PCBs as industrial coolants and insulating fluids for transformers and other electrical equipment. One of the wonder chemicals of the 20th century, PCBs were exceptionally versatile and fire-resistant, and became central to many American industries as lubricants, hydraulic fluids, and sealants. But PCBs are toxic. A member of a family of chemicals that mimic hormones, PCBs have been linked to damage in the liver and in the neurological, immune, endocrine, and reproductive systems. The Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, now classify PCBs as “probable carcinogens.”
Today, 37 years after PCB production ceased in Anniston, and after tons of contaminated soil have been removed to try to reclaim the site, the area around the old Monsanto plant remains one of the most polluted spots in the U.S.
People in Anniston find themselves in this fix today largely because of the way Monsanto disposed of PCB waste for decades. Excess PCBs were dumped in a nearby open-pit landfill or allowed to flow off the property with storm water. Some waste was poured directly into Snow Creek, which runs alongside the plant and empties into a larger stream, Choccolocco Creek. PCBs also turned up in private lawns after the company invited Anniston residents to use soil from the plant for their lawns, according to The Anniston Star.
So for decades the people of Anniston breathed air, planted gardens, drank from wells, fished in rivers, and swam in creeks contaminated with PCBs—without knowing anything about the danger. It wasn’t until the 1990s—20 years after Monsanto stopped making PCBs in Anniston—that widespread public awareness of the problem there took hold.
Studies by health authorities consistently found elevated levels of PCBs in houses, yards, streams, fields, fish, and other wildlife—and in people. In 2003, Monsanto and Solutia entered into a consent decree with the E.P.A. to clean up Anniston. Scores of houses and small businesses were to be razed, tons of contaminated soil dug up and carted off, and streambeds scooped of toxic residue. The cleanup is under way, and it will take years, but some doubt it will ever be completed—the job is massive. To settle residents’ claims, Monsanto has also paid $550 million to 21,000 Anniston residents exposed to PCBs, but many of them continue to live with PCBs in their bodies. Once PCB is absorbed into human tissue, there it forever remains.
Monsanto shut down PCB production in Anniston in 1971, and the company ended all its American PCB operations in 1977. Also in 1977, Monsanto closed a PCB plant in Wales. In recent years, residents near the village of Groesfaen, in southern Wales, have noticed vile odors emanating from an old quarry outside the village. As it turns out, Monsanto had dumped thousands of tons of waste from its nearby PCB plant into the quarry. British authorities are struggling to decide what to do with what they have now identified as among the most contaminated places in Britain.
“No Cause for Public Alarm”
What had Monsanto known—or what should it have known—about the potential dangers of the chemicals it was manufacturing? There’s considerable documentation lurking in court records from many lawsuits indicating that Monsanto knew quite a lot. Let’s look just at the example of PCBs.
The evidence that Monsanto refused to face questions about their toxicity is quite clear. In 1956 the company tried to sell the navy a hydraulic fluid for its submarines called Pydraul 150, which contained PCBs. Monsanto supplied the navy with test results for the product. But the navy decided to run its own tests. Afterward, navy officials informed Monsanto that they wouldn’t be buying the product. “Applications of Pydraul 150 caused death in all of the rabbits tested” and indicated “definite liver damage,” navy officials told Monsanto, according to an internal Monsanto memo divulged in the course of a court proceeding. “No matter how we discussed the situation,” complained Monsanto’s medical director, R. Emmet Kelly, “it was impossible to change their thinking that Pydraul 150 is just too toxic for use in submarines.”
Ten years later, a biologist conducting studies for Monsanto in streams near the Anniston plant got quick results when he submerged his test fish. As he reported to Monsanto, according to The Washington Post, “All 25 fish lost equilibrium and turned on their sides in 10 seconds and all were dead in 3½ minutes.”
When the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) turned up high levels of PCBs in fish near the Anniston plant in 1970, the company swung into action to limit the P.R. damage. An internal memo entitled “confidential—f.y.i. and destroy” from Monsanto official Paul B. Hodges reviewed steps under way to limit disclosure of the information. One element of the strategy was to get public officials to fight Monsanto’s battle: “Joe Crockett, Secretary of the Alabama Water Improvement Commission, will try to handle the problem quietly without release of the information to the public at this time,” according to the memo.
Despite Monsanto’s efforts, the information did get out, but the company was able to blunt its impact. Monsanto’s Anniston plant manager “convinced” a reporter for The Anniston Star that there was really nothing to worry about, and an internal memo from Monsanto’s headquarters in St. Louis summarized the story that subsequently appeared in the newspaper: “Quoting both plant management and the Alabama Water Improvement Commission, the feature emphasized the PCB problem was relatively new, was being solved by Monsanto and, at this point, was no cause for public alarm.”
In truth, there was enormous cause for public alarm. But that harm was done by the “Original Monsanto Company,” not “Today’s Monsanto Company” (the words and the distinction are Monsanto’s). The Monsanto of today says that it can be trusted—that its biotech crops are “as wholesome, nutritious and safe as conventional crops,” and that milk from cows injected with its artificial growth hormone is the same as, and as safe as, milk from any other cow.
The Milk Wars
Jeff Kleinpeter takes very good care of his dairy cows. In the winter he turns on heaters to warm their barns. In the summer, fans blow gentle breezes to cool them, and on especially hot days, a fine mist floats down to take the edge off Louisiana’s heat. The dairy has gone “to the ultimate end of the earth for cow comfort,” says Kleinpeter, a fourth-generation dairy farmer in Baton Rouge. He says visitors marvel at what he does: “I’ve had many of them say, ‘When I die, I want to come back as a Kleinpeter cow.’ ”
Monsanto would like to change the way Jeff Kleinpeter and his family do business. Specifically, Monsanto doesn’t like the label on Kleinpeter Dairy’s milk cartons: “From Cows Not Treated with rBGH.” To consumers, that means the milk comes from cows that were not given artificial bovine growth hormone, a supplement developed by Monsanto that can be injected into dairy cows to increase their milk output.
No one knows what effect, if any, the hormone has on milk or the people who drink it. Studies have not detected any difference in the quality of milk produced by cows that receive rBGH, or rBST, a term by which it is also known. But Jeff Kleinpeter—like millions of consumers—wants no part of rBGH. Whatever its effect on humans, if any, Kleinpeter feels certain it’s harmful to cows because it speeds up their metabolism and increases the chances that they’ll contract a painful illness that can shorten their lives. “It’s like putting a Volkswagen car in with the Indianapolis 500 racers,” he says. “You gotta keep the pedal to the metal the whole way through, and pretty soon that poor little Volkswagen engine’s going to burn up.”
Kleinpeter Dairy has never used Monsanto’s artificial hormone, and the dairy requires other dairy farmers from whom it buys milk to attest that they don’t use it, either. At the suggestion of a marketing consultant, the dairy began advertising its milk as coming from rBGH-free cows in 2005, and the label began appearing on Kleinpeter milk cartons and in company literature, including a new Web site of Kleinpeter products that proclaims, “We treat our cows with love … not rBGH.”
The dairy’s sales soared. For Kleinpeter, it was simply a matter of giving consumers more information about their product.
But giving consumers that information has stirred the ire of Monsanto. The company contends that advertising by Kleinpeter and other dairies touting their “no rBGH” milk reflects adversely on Monsanto’s product. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in February 2007, Monsanto said that, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that there is no difference in the milk from cows treated with its product, “milk processors persist in claiming on their labels and in advertisements that the use of rBST is somehow harmful, either to cows or to the people who consume milk from rBST-supplemented cows.”
Monsanto called on the commission to investigate what it called the “deceptive advertising and labeling practices” of milk processors such as Kleinpeter, accusing them of misleading consumers “by falsely claiming that there are health and safety risks associated with milk from rBST-supplemented cows.” As noted, Kleinpeter does not make any such claims—he simply states that his milk comes from cows not injected with rBGH.
Monsanto’s attempt to get the F.T.C. to force dairies to change their advertising was just one more step in the corporation’s efforts to extend its reach into agriculture. After years of scientific debate and public controversy, the F.D.A. in 1993 approved commercial use of rBST, basing its decision in part on studies submitted by Monsanto. That decision allowed the company to market the artificial hormone. The effect of the hormone is to increase milk production, not exactly something the nation needed then—or needs now. The U.S. was actually awash in milk, with the government buying up the surplus to prevent a collapse in prices.
Monsanto began selling the supplement in 1994 under the name Posilac. Monsanto acknowledges that the possible side effects of rBST for cows include lameness, disorders of the uterus, increased body temperature, digestive problems, and birthing difficulties. Veterinary drug reports note that “cows injected with Posilac are at an increased risk for mastitis,” an udder infection in which bacteria and pus may be pumped out with the milk. What’s the effect on humans? The F.D.A. has consistently said that the milk produced by cows that receive rBGH is the same as milk from cows that aren’t injected: “The public can be confident that milk and meat from BST-treated cows is safe to consume.” Nevertheless, some scientists are concerned by the lack of long-term studies to test the additive’s impact, especially on children. A Wisconsin geneticist, William von Meyer, observed that when rBGH was approved the longest study on which the F.D.A.’s approval was based covered only a 90-day laboratory test with small animals. “But people drink milk for a lifetime,” he noted. Canada and the European Union have never approved the commercial sale of the artificial hormone. Today, nearly 15 years after the F.D.A. approved rBGH, there have still been no long-term studies “to determine the safety of milk from cows that receive artificial growth hormone,” says Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist for Consumers Union. Not only have there been no studies, he adds, but the data that does exist all comes from Monsanto. “There is no scientific consensus about the safety,” he says.
However F.D.A. approval came about, Monsanto has long been wired into Washington. Michael R. Taylor was a staff attorney and executive assistant to the F.D.A. commissioner before joining a law firm in Washington in 1981, where he worked to secure F.D.A. approval of Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone before returning to the F.D.A. as deputy commissioner in 1991. Dr. Michael A. Friedman, formerly the F.D.A.’s deputy commissioner for operations, joined Monsanto in 1999 as a senior vice president. Linda J. Fisher was an assistant administrator at the E.P.A. when she left the agency in 1993. She became a vice president of Monsanto, from 1995 to 2000, only to return to the E.P.A. as deputy administrator the next year. William D. Ruckelshaus, former E.P.A. administrator, and Mickey Kantor, former U.S. trade representative, each served on Monsanto’s board after leaving government. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney in Monsanto’s corporate-law department in the 1970s. He wrote the Supreme Court opinion in a crucial G.M.-seed patent-rights case in 2001 that benefited Monsanto and all G.M.-seed companies. Donald Rumsfeld never served on the board or held any office at Monsanto, but Monsanto must occupy a soft spot in the heart of the former defense secretary. Rumsfeld was chairman and C.E.O. of the pharmaceutical maker G. D. Searle & Co. when Monsanto acquired Searle in 1985, after Searle had experienced difficulty in finding a buyer. Rumsfeld’s stock and options in Searle were valued at $12 million at the time of the sale.
From the beginning some consumers have consistently been hesitant to drink milk from cows treated with artificial hormones. This is one reason Monsanto has waged so many battles with dairies and regulators over the wording of labels on milk cartons. It has sued at least two dairies and one co-op over labeling.
Critics of the artificial hormone have pushed for mandatory labeling on all milk products, but the F.D.A. has resisted and even taken action against some dairies that labeled their milk “BST-free.” Since BST is a natural hormone found in all cows, including those not injected with Monsanto’s artificial version, the F.D.A. argued that no dairy could claim that its milk is BST-free. The F.D.A. later issued guidelines allowing dairies to use labels saying their milk comes from “non-supplemented cows,” as long as the carton has a disclaimer saying that the artificial supplement does not in any way change the milk. So the milk cartons from Kleinpeter Dairy, for example, carry a label on the front stating that the milk is from cows not treated with rBGH, and the rear panel says, “Government studies have shown no significant difference between milk derived from rBGH-treated and non-rBGH-treated cows.” That’s not good enough for Monsanto.
The Next Battleground
As more and more dairies have chosen to advertise their milk as “No rBGH,” Monsanto has gone on the offensive. Its attempt to force the F.T.C. to look into what Monsanto called “deceptive practices” by dairies trying to distance themselves from the company’s artificial hormone was the most recent national salvo. But after reviewing Monsanto’s claims, the F.T.C.’s Division of Advertising Practices decided in August 2007 that a “formal investigation and enforcement action is not warranted at this time.” The agency found some instances where dairies had made “unfounded health and safety claims,” but these were mostly on Web sites, not on milk cartons. And the F.T.C. determined that the dairies Monsanto had singled out all carried disclaimers that the F.D.A. had found no significant differences in milk from cows treated with the artificial hormone.
Blocked at the federal level, Monsanto is pushing for action by the states. In the fall of 2007, Pennsylvania’s agriculture secretary, Dennis Wolff, issued an edict prohibiting dairies from stamping milk containers with labels stating their products were made without the use of the artificial hormone. Wolff said such a label implies that competitors’ milk is not safe, and noted that non-supplemented milk comes at an unjustified higher price, arguments that Monsanto has frequently made. The ban was to take effect February 1, 2008.
Wolff’s action created a firestorm in Pennsylvania (and beyond) from angry consumers. So intense was the outpouring of e-mails, letters, and calls that Pennsylvania governor Edward Rendell stepped in and reversed his agriculture secretary, saying, “The public has a right to complete information about how the milk they buy is produced.”
On this issue, the tide may be shifting against Monsanto. Organic dairy products, which don’t involve rBGH, are soaring in popularity. Supermarket chains such as Kroger, Publix, and Safeway are embracing them. Some other companies have turned away from rBGH products, including Starbucks, which has banned all milk products from cows treated with rBGH. Although Monsanto once claimed that an estimated 30 percent of the nation’s dairy cows were injected with rBST, it’s widely believed that today the number is much lower.
But don’t count Monsanto out. Efforts similar to the one in Pennsylvania have been launched in other states, including New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Utah, and Missouri. A Monsanto-backed group called afact—American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology—has been spearheading efforts in many of these states. afact describes itself as a “producer organization” that decries “questionable labeling tactics and activism” by marketers who have convinced some consumers to “shy away from foods using new technology.” afact reportedly uses the same St. Louis public-relations firm, Osborn & Barr, employed by Monsanto. An Osborn & Barr spokesman told The Kansas City Star that the company was doing work for afact on a pro bono basis.
Even if Monsanto’s efforts to secure across-the-board labeling changes should fall short, there’s nothing to stop state agriculture departments from restricting labeling on a dairy-by-dairy basis. Beyond that, Monsanto also has allies whose foot soldiers will almost certainly keep up the pressure on dairies that don’t use Monsanto’s artificial hormone. Jeff Kleinpeter knows about them, too.
He got a call one day from the man who prints the labels for his milk cartons, asking if he had seen the attack on Kleinpeter Dairy that had been posted on the Internet. Kleinpeter went online to a site called StopLabelingLies, which claims to “help consumers by publicizing examples of false and misleading food and other product labels.” There, sure enough, Kleinpeter and other dairies that didn’t use Monsanto’s product were being accused of making misleading claims to sell their milk.
There was no address or phone number on the Web site, only a list of groups that apparently contribute to the site and whose issues range from disparaging organic farming to downplaying the impact of global warming. “They were criticizing people like me for doing what we had a right to do, had gone through a government agency to do,” says Kleinpeter. “We never could get to the bottom of that Web site to get that corrected.”
As it turns out, the Web site counts among its contributors Steven Milloy, the “junk science” commentator for FoxNews.com and operator of junkscience.com, which claims to debunk “faulty scientific data and analysis.” It may come as no surprise that earlier in his career, Milloy, who calls himself the “junkman,” was a registered lobbyist for Monsanto.
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele are Vanity Fair contributing editors.
16 April 2008
Food Riots and the Harvest of Fear
Effects of the Financial Crisis in Eastern Europe
Telepolis
<http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/27/27737/1.html>
Die Party geht zu Ende
Tomasz Konicz 16.04.2008
Weltbank und Internationaler Währungsfonds warnen vor einem Konjunktureinbruch in Osteuropa
Für eine eher auf vorsichtige Formulierungen bedachte Institution wie den Internationalen Währungsfonds (IMF) klang die jüngste Prognose der konjunkturellen Entwicklung Osteuropas beinahe alarmistisch. Laut dem jährlich publizierten Global Financial Stability Report <http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/gfsr/2008/01/index.htm> (1) des IMF droht der gesamten osteuropäischen Peripherie eine konjunkturelle "harte Landung", die hauptsächlich durch die globale Finanzkrise ausgelöst werden könnte.
Als besonders besorgniserregend nennt der Währungsfonds die in der Region verbreitete Tendenz zur Ausbildung eines dramatischen Leistungsbilanzdefizits. In der grundlegenden ökonomischen Kategorie Leistungsbilanz werden nicht nur – wie bei der Handelsbilanz - die Handelsströme, sondern auch der Austausch von Dienstleistungen und die Finanzüberweisungen zwischen einer Volkswirtschaft und dem Ausland erfasst. Ein Leistungsbilanzdefizit ist mit einem Vermögensrückgang einer gegebenen Volkswirtschaft gleichbedeutend – und hier können die ein scheinbar robustes Wachstum vorweisenden Länder Osteuropas wahrlich erschreckende Rekorde vorweisen.
So kam Lettland <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/09/ccimf209.xml> (2) in 2007 auf ein Leistungsbilanzdefizit von 22,9 Prozent des Bruttosozialprodukts (BSP). Ähnlich dramatische Werte weist Bulgarien mit 21,4 Prozent auf. Über ein ansehnliches negatives Leistungsbilanzsaldo verfügen noch Serbien (16,5 Prozent des BSP), Estland (16), Rumänien (14,5) und Litauen (13,3 Prozent). In Bulgarien wird für dieses Jahr eine weiter zunehmende Leistungsbilanz von 22 Prozent des BSP erwartet.
Zur Verdeutlichung dieser Dimensionen dürfte der Hinweis auf das Leistungsbilanzdefizit Polens <http://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-news/article.aspx?StoryId=7d6c74ca-81dc-4cb5-a9ba-f1fc9f5a0470> (3), der größten Volkswirtschaft des ehemaligen Ostblocks, ausreichen. Dieses stieg von Januar bis Februar 2008 von 3,7 auf 3,9 Prozent des BSP. Konkret flossen während des vergangenen Februars 1.32 Milliarden Euro aus unserem östlichen Nachbarstaat, während es im Vorjahreszeitraum nur 733 Millionen Euro waren. Das Handelsbilanzdefizit macht bei allen osteuropäischen Staaten den Löwenanteil der negativen Leistungsbilanz aus - im Fall Polens waren das 933 Millionen Euro im vergangenen Februar.
Boom auf Pump
In den meisten Ländern dieser erst kürzlich der EU beigetretenen Region wird das robuste Wirtschaftswachstum der letzten Jahre von der Inlandsnachfrage getragen, die sich teilweise geradezu stürmisch entwickelte. Doch die große Konsumparty im Osteuropa wird nicht in erster Linie durch das steigende Lohnniveau getragen, da die nominalen Gehaltszuwächse größtenteils von der rasant um sich greifenden Inflation aufgezehrt werden. Der von der Nachfrage getriebene Boom Osteuropas läuft hingegen weitgehend dank exzessiver Kreditfinanzierung ab. So wuchs <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/09/ccimf209.xml> (4) die Gesamtsumme privater Kredite allein im vergangenen Jahr in Bulgarien um 62 Prozent, in Rumänien waren es 60,4 Prozent, im Baltikum stieg die Verschuldung um 45 Prozent und selbst Polen schaffte es mit seinen 39 Millionen Einwohnern, die private Verschuldung um 39,4 Prozent zu steigern.
Diese massive Verschuldung wird hauptsächlich von westlichen Banken finanziert, die sich schon längst eine dominierende Stellung auf dem osteuropäischen Finanzmarkt gesichert haben. Mit der sich ausweitenden Finanzkrise könnte diese kreditfinanzierte Konsumparty ein jähes Ende finden. Der IMF nennt in seinem Bericht vor allem skandinavische Banken, die sich im Baltikum engagierten, sowie österreichische und italienische Kreditinstitute, die durch ihre überaus großzügigen Kreditpraktiken in die Bredouille geraten könnten. Das westliche Kapital habe laut IMF massiv "negative Positionen während des osteuropäischen Booms in dieser Region aufgebaut", doch nun versiege aufgrund der Finanzkrise die Liquidität für diese Banken, denen es immer schwerer falle, an "Geld auf den globalen Märkten zu kommen". Durch diesen globalen "Credit Crunch" könne eine "sanfte konjunkturelle Landung" in Osteuropa ernsthaft gefährdet sein, da insbesondere die Volkswirtschaften des Baltikums und Südosteuropas durch eine Einschränkung der Kreditvergabe durch westliche Banken hart getroffen würden:
Osteuropa insbesondere verfügt über eine Anhäufung von Staaten mit einem Leistungsbilanzdefizit, die durch Privatschulden oder Überweisungen finanziert werden, wodurch die privaten Kredite an Haushalte rapide wachsen. Eine globale konjunkturelle Verlangsamung oder ein scharfer Fall der Kapitalzuflüsse in diese Länder könnte eine schmerzhafte Anpassung auslösen.
IMF-Bericht
Die Weltbank sieht dieses Szenario einer "schmerzhaften Anpassung" bereits als wahrscheinlich <http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp041108.shtml> (5) an. Am 10. April erklärte Shigeo Katsu, der Vizepräsident der Weltbank für Osteuropa und Zentralasien, dass die Länder des östlichen Europas und der ehemaligen Sowjetunion aufgrund der Finanzkrise eine "Verlangsamung" ihres Wirtschaftswachstums erfahren könnten. Dabei würden vor allem die Armen besonders hart getroffen, weswegen Katsu die Staaten der Region bereits aufrief, ihre öffentlichen Ausgaben entsprechend zu restrukturieren, um den "Schlag abzufedern", der auf die Ärmsten dieser Region vermittels der Finanzkrise zukomme. Als eine weitere besorgniserregende Entwicklung machte die Weltbank die galoppierende Inflation in der Region aus. Es gebe "einen starken inflationären Druck, der durch die steigenden Energie- und Lebensmittelpreise" angetrieben werde, so Katsu.
Ausufernde Inflation
Tatsächlich liegt die Inflation in weiten Teilen Osteuropas weitaus höher als im westlichen Kernland der EU. In Polen liegt die Teuerungsrate noch bei relativ moderaten 4,1 Prozent <http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/04/15/afx4890501.html> (6), doch Rumänien erreichte im März 2008 bereits auf eine Inflationsrate von 8,6 Prozent gegenüber dem Vorjahresmonat, während Bulgarien im vergangenen Jahr sogar Preissteigerungen von 12,4 Prozent verkraften musste.
Bei anderen osteuropäischen Ländern sieht es kaum besser aus: In der Tschechischen Republik betrug die Teuerungsrate im November 2007 fünf Prozent, in Ungarn liegt sie bei 6,9 Prozent. Den absoluten Spitzenreiter stellt sicherlich das baltische Lettland dar, das in 2007 eine Inflation von 13,7 erreichte.
Zu einem Großteil wird diese Teuerungswelle von der seit Monaten anhaltenden Preisexplosion bei Lebensmitteln und Energieträgern getragen. EU-Neumitglieder wie Bulgarien mussten eine Verteuerung der Grundnahrungsmittel von nahezu 25 Prozent binnen eines Jahres hinnehmen; ähnlich stark stiegen die Preise in Rumänien. In Ungarn, dessen Bevölkerung gerade eine neoliberale Rosskur zwecks Haushaltssanierung verabreicht bekommt, waren es 22,5 Prozent. Lettland meldete allein im November 2007 einen Anstieg der Brotpreise binnen eines Monats um 16 Prozent. Selbst in der als stabil geltenden Tschechischen Republik kletterten die Lebensmittelpreise um 13,7, in Polen um sieben Prozent.
Da das Lohnniveau in allen osteuropäischen Ländern erheblich niedriger als in Westeuropa ist, verschlingen die Ausgaben für Lebensmittel und Energie einen viel größeren Anteil der Löhne. In Ländern wie Rumänien, Bulgarien, Serbien oder der Ukraine zehren die Aufwendungen für Nahrungsmittel sogar nahezu die Hälfte der Einkünfte <http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/eastconomist/371312/index.do> (7) auf. Bei der Berechnung der dortigen Inflationsrate werden diese Umstände berücksichtigt, zumeist indem entsprechende statistische "Warenkörbe" zusammengestellt werden. Die deutschen Statistiker sind hingegen er Ansicht, dass die hiesige Bevölkerung nur 10,3 Prozent ihrer Einkünfte für Nahrungsmittel aufwenden muss.
Schluss mit billig?
Ein weiteres Problem ergibt sich für die osteuropäischen Volkswirtschaften aus dem oftmals desaströs verlaufenden Privatisierungen der 90er Jahre, als ganze Industriezweige unter dubiosen Umständen an westliches Kapital verscherbelt und oftmals platt gemacht wurden. Viele östliche Volkswirtschaften wurden so ihrer eigenen, ökonomischen Kapazitäten beraubt - sie wurden de facto deindustrialisiert, ihre industrielle Basis ging verloren.
Der osteuropäische Boom der vergangenen Jahre wurde hauptsächlich durch ausländische Direktinvestitionen (FDI) getragen, durch westlich Konzerne, die das niedrige Lohnniveau der Region ausnutzend dort ihre "verlängerten Werkbänke" aufbauten. Zumeist wurden arbeitsintensive Produktionsschritte wie Montagetätigkeiten ausgelagert, um dann die fertigen Produkte erneut hauptsächlich in den westeuropäischen Zentren zu verkaufen.
Doch inzwischen nehmen die FDI in Osteuropa wieder ab. Dem Foreign Direct Investment Index 2007 des globalen Beratungsunternehmens A.T. Kearney zufolge fallen nahezu alle osteuropäischen Länder in der Gunst der Investoren <http://www.atkearney.at/content/presse/pressemitteilungen_unternehmen_detail.php/id/49951> (8). Laut Kearney-Umfrage sank die "Attraktivität" der Standorte Polen und Tschechien im vergangenen Jahr merklich: So rutschte die Tschechische Republik von Rang zwölf auf Rang 25 unter den beliebtesten Standorten, Polen fiel sogar von Platz fünf auf 22. Nach Angaben der Europäischen Wiederaufbaubank EBRD <http://www.ebrd.com/> (9) waren 2007 die ausländischen Direktinvestitionen (FDI) in Osteuropa bereits leicht rückläufig, da die "Privatisierungen weitgehend abgeschlossen" seien, wie die österreichische Presse bemerkte <http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/eastconomist/351950/index.do> (10).
Einen weiteren Grund für die ermüdende Investitionstätigkeit nannte <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0b33385c-0a85-11dd-b5b1-0000779fd2ac.html> (11) die Financial Times in dankenswerter Offenheit. In einem Kommentar erwog das Wirtschaftsblatt die Konsequenzen aus einem Streik der rumänischen Belegschaft der Renault-Tochter Dacia, die in ihrem Werk das beliebte Billigauto "Logan" herstellt. Nach 19 Tagen eines erbittert geführten Arbeitskampfes habe Renault schließlich einer Lohnerhöhung von 28 Prozent zustimmen müssen. Zuvor haben die Dacia-Arbeiter im Schnitt gerade mal 280 Euro netto verdient. Dabei sei Renault nicht der einzige Konzern, der "die Hitze militanter Gewerkschaften in den so genannten Niedrigkosten-Ländern Osteuropas" gespürt habe, so die FT. Ähnliche Erfahrungen habe Ford in St. Petersburg sammeln müssen, wo die Arbeiterschaft Lohnerhöhungen von 30 Prozent forderte.
Überhaupt gehen der FT die Gehaltserhöhungen in Osteuropa viel zu schnell von statten, da laut dem Wirtschaftsblatt "schon in 10 Jahren" die Löhne sich in einigen Ländern ans westeuropäischen Niveau angeglichen haben könnten. So stiegen <http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/04/15/afx4890501.html> (12) beispielsweise die in der Privatwirtschaft Polens gezahlten Bruttolöhne im vergangenen Jahr um 10,2 Prozent auf 3,144 Zloty (900 Euro). Für die Financial Times scheinen solche Vergütungen unzumutbar: "Die Unternehmen werde wohl noch weiter Draußen nach langfristigen Lösungen für ihre Kosten suchen müssen", schlussfolgerte das wirtschaftsnahe Leitmedium.
Links
(1) http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/gfsr/2008/01/index.htm (2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/09/ccimf209.xml (3) http://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-news/article.aspx?StoryId=7d6c74ca-81dc-4cb5-a9ba-f1fc9f5a0470 (4) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/09/ccimf209.xml (5) http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp041108.shtml (6) http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/04/15/afx4890501.html (7) http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/eastconomist/371312/index.do (8) http://www.atkearney.at/content/presse/pressemitteilungen_unternehmen_detail.php/id/49951 (9) http://www.ebrd.com/ (10) http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/eastconomist/351950/index.do (11) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0b33385c-0a85-11dd-b5b1-0000779fd2ac.html (12) http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/04/15/afx4890501.html
Copyright © Heise Zeitschriften Verlag
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp041108_pr.shtml
Business & Economics: WORLD: CIS COUNTRIES AMONG HARDEST HIT IN GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS 4/11/08 By Heather Maher
The World Bank is warning that the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union could experience a slowdown in economic growth as a result of the downturns in financial markets in the United States and Western Europe. The World Bank says the poor will be hardest hit by the global financial crisis. For that reason, the bank is urging governments in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to restructure their public expenditures in order to make room for spending that will cushion the blow to the most vulnerable members of society. Shigeo Katsu, the World Bank's vice president for Europe and Central Asia, told reporters in Washington on April 10 that years of reforms have helped make the region's economies resilient to financial shocks, and that the fundamentals of the ECA (Europe and Central Asia) economies are still "pretty good." But he says there is no room for complacency in the tightening international financial environment. “There are strong inflationary pressures that have come both through energy price increases but also food price increases," Katsu says. "And it will be very important for the governments to adopt timely measures, while maintaining the growth momentum and the reform momentum also, to make sure that the poorest segment of the populations are considered and proper, targeted provisions are being applied.” The World Bank briefing came ahead of the spring meeting of the bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington on April 12-13. From 1998 to 2006, per capita income in the ECA region, which comprises 460 million people, rose by $3,000 -- from $5,600 in 1998 to $8,600. That increase lifted an estimated 50 million people out of poverty, the bank said. But while economic growth has been strong in the region, it is now expected to slow in light of the global instability of financial markets, which was sparked by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States.
Continue With Structural Reforms
Pradeep Mitra, the World Bank's chief economist for Europe and Central Asia, says economic expansion is already slowing in countries like Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, and Hungary, and is expected to slow in Croatia, Kazakhstan, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Mitra recommends that governments continue with the structural reforms that most have already begun. He says that will help reduce their economies' vulnerability to inflation and market instability. Those reforms should include tightening fiscal policy where it has been lax, intensifying banking supervision, and improving the investment climate to attract foreign direct investment. Volatile financial markets aren't the only problem, though. Across the region, food and energy prices are rising. "Inflation is back," Mitra says. "It was something that countries thought they had put behind them, but not only is it back, it's back in double digits. Often for reasons that the countries themselves – certainly the oil importers – are not in a position to control." Energy prices have risen more than 30 percent in what the World Bank calls "low-income" CIS countries, which include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Food prices have risen the most – 20 percent -- in the category of "middle-income" CIS countries, which include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. But all countries in the region have seen food costs increase. This has put enormous financial pressure on the poorest citizens of these countries. According to the bank, the average family in Central Asian countries – excluding Kazakhstan – spends more than half its total household budget on food. That means that any rise in prices, however slight, could push the poorest citizens into deep crisis. "Some calculations that we've done suggest that a 5 percent increase in food prices increases poverty rates by 2 to 3 percentage points in some of the low-income CIS countries," Mitra says. "Two to 3 percentage points is not a small number. This is a kind of ECA-specific phenomenon. A lot of the poor in low-income CIS countries are pretty close to the poverty line. So a little change in prices can tip them in the wrong direction."
'Top Up' Social Assistance
To protect these vulnerable citizens, the World Bank is urging governments to restructure their public expenditures and spend on social assistance. "Given what we know about the impact of food price increase on poverty, it is important that countries ‘top up’ their targeted social assistance schemes," Mitra says. "A number of countries in our region have fairly well-functioning social assistance schemes – it's important that they ‘top up’ whatever assistance is necessary in order to help the poor." As to how governments might confront rising energy prices, the bank has fewer suggestions. Mitra says the region's energy efficiency has traditionally been very low, so one recommendation is to implement widescale energy-saving measures wherever possible. Overall, Mitra says the regions' central banks have a challenge ahead. He is urging them to "stay focused on inflation management" and especially refrain from imposing controls on trade, which could work against the food supply in the longer term.
03 March 2008
Newly Released FBI Timeline Reveals New Information about 9/11 Hijackers
Cooperative Research.org
2/14/2008
Latest Findings Raise New Questions about Hijackers and Suggest Incomplete Investigation
A contributor to the History Commons has obtained a 298-page document entitled Hijackers Timeline (Redacted) from the FBI, subsequent to a Freedom of Information Act request. The document was a major source of information for the 9/11 Commission’s final report. Though the commission cited the timeline 52 times in its report, it failed to include some of the document’s most important material.
The printed document is dated November 14, 2003, but appears to have been compiled in mid-October 2001 (the most recent date mentioned in it is October 22, 2001), when the FBI was just starting to understand the backgrounds of the hijackers, and it contains almost no information from the CIA, NSA, or other agencies. This raises questions as to why the 9/11 Commission relied so heavily on such an early draft for their information about the hijackers.
Specific new information:
Unfortunately, much of the FBI timeline is heavily censored, with entire pages sometimes being completely redacted. But from what we do know, this timeline indicates that many questions remain about the hijackers and the 9/11 attacks. We know that the FBI’s timeline was available to the 9/11 Commission, so why did the commission fail to mention any of the information listed above?
It’s interesting to compare the results of the 9/11 Commission with the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry that proceeded it. For instance, while the 9/11 Commission downplayed any possible ties between the hijackers and the Saudi government, the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry wrote an entire chapter on the topic. Unfortunately, all 28 pages of that chapter were censored. But Sen. Bob Graham, co-chair of the inquiry, later claimed that evidence relating to the two hijackers who lived in San Diego “presented a compelling case that there was Saudi assistance” to the 9/11 plot. He alleged that Omar al-Bayoumi in fact was a Saudi intelligence agent. He also concluded that President Bush directed the FBI “to restrain and obfuscate” investigations into these ties.
Now, we’re finally beginning to see some of what was in those missing 28 pages. One anonymous official who has seen the pages claims: “We’re not talking about rogue elements. We’re talking about a coordinated network that reaches right from the hijackers to multiple places in the Saudi government.”
The 9/11 Commission also downplayed the idea that the hijackers had any assistance in the US. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, by contrast, noted that many people who interacted with the hijackers in the US, including Omar al-Bayoumi, were under FBI investigation even before 9/11.
Unfortunately, neither the 9/11 Commission nor the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry was a complete and unbiased investigation. If this timeline reflects just some of what only the FBI knew about the hijackers one month after the attacks, one can only guess at how much more all the US agencies combined know about the hijackers now. Why is that information being kept secret?
2/14/2008
Newly Released FBI Timeline Reveals New Information about 9/11 Hijackers that Was Ignored by 9/11 Commission
Latest Findings Raise New Questions about Hijackers and Suggest Incomplete Investigation
A contributor to the History Commons has obtained a 298-page document entitled Hijackers Timeline (Redacted) from the FBI, subsequent to a Freedom of Information Act request. The document was a major source of information for the 9/11 Commission’s final report. Though the commission cited the timeline 52 times in its report, it failed to include some of the document’s most important material.
The printed document is dated November 14, 2003, but appears to have been compiled in mid-October 2001 (the most recent date mentioned in it is October 22, 2001), when the FBI was just starting to understand the backgrounds of the hijackers, and it contains almost no information from the CIA, NSA, or other agencies. This raises questions as to why the 9/11 Commission relied so heavily on such an early draft for their information about the hijackers.
Specific new information:
- New evidence suggests that some of the hijackers were assisted by employees of the Saudi government. It has previously been reported that Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who was paid by the Saudi government despite not doing any work, assisted hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi when they first moved to the US. The FBI timeline shows that when these two hijackers moved into their first San Diego apartment, they indicated that they had been living with Bayoumi in the apartment next door for the previous two weeks. In fact, they had been with him in that apartment since January 15, 2000, the very day they first flew into the US, arriving in Los Angeles. The timeline also reveals that hijacker Hani Hanjour was seen in Bayoumi’s apartment.
- The new book The Commission by New York Times reporter Philip Shenon published last week further reveals that Bayoumi had close ties to Fahad al-Thumairy, a radical imam working in the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles. For instance, Bayoumi frequently called al-Thumairy while living next door to the two hijackers, and also frequently called the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C. The book also reveals that the 9/11 Commission was aware of “explosive” revelations about the ties between Bayoumi, Thumairy, and the two hijackers, but the commission’s final report omitted “virtually all of the most serious allegations against the Saudis,” due to diplomatic considerations. Now, thanks to this FBI timeline, we are discovering more of this suppressed evidence relating to Saudi Arabia.
- Security camera footage obtained by the FBI after 9/11 indicated that Khalid Almihdhar and possibly Salem Alhazmi cased Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., the evening before 9/11. This fits the account of a security guard , related in Unsafe at Any Altitude by Joe and Susan Trento, who independently claimed to have seen two hijackers, Salem’s brother Nawaf and Marwan Alshehhi, casing Dulles Airport the night before 9/11. This guard claims the two hijackers were part of a group of five men, three of whom were dressed in United Airlines ramp worker uniforms, that behaved suspiciously. Despite a lawsuit by 9/11 victims’ relatives against United Airlines and others for negligence, the US government has never revealed the existence of this video footage which might support claims that the hijackers had inside help.
- Hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Hamza Alghamdi purchased hundreds of dollars of “pornographic video and sex toys” in Florida. They spent $252 on video and toys in early July 2001, and then another $183 later that month. Furthermore, Satam Al Suqami likely paid for a sex escort in Boston on September 7, 2001. Alshehhi was also recognized by six dancers at Cheetah’s, a nightclub in Pompano Beach, Florida. This fits in with other evidence of the hijackers drinking alcohol, paying for lap dancers, watching pornographic videos, etc…—hardly the expected behavior of religious radicals.
- On March 20, 2000, either Khalid Almihdhar or Nawaf Alhazmi used a phone registered to Alhazmi to make a call from San Diego to an al-Qaeda communications hub in Sana’a, Yemen, run by Almihdhar’s father-in-law. The call lasted 16 minutes. According to the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, the call was intercepted by the NSA, which had been intercepting Alhazmi and Almihdhar’s calls for over a year, but the FBI was not informed of the hijackers’ presence in the US. The call is only briefly mentioned as a family phone call by the 9/11 Commission in a endnote, and it is not mentioned that the call was monitored.
- When hijacker Satam Al Suqami’s passport was recovered on 9/11 on the street near the World Trade Center, it was “soaked in jet fuel.”
- Hijacker Hamza Alghamdi booked several flights after 9/11. He booked a continuation from Los Angeles to San Francisco later on the day of the attacks. Then, on September 20, he planned to fly from Rome to Casablanca, to Riyadh, to Damman, Saudi Arabia.
- It has been widely assumed that the hijackers did everything using their real names, or aliases close to their real names. But a still-classified CIA report found that the hijackers used 364 aliases and name variants. The FBI’s timeline discloses what some of them were. For example, Hani Hanjour and Ahmed Alghamdi rented a New Jersey apartment using the names Hany Saleh and Ahmed Saleh. Fayez Ahmed Banihammad used the aliases Abu Dhabi Banihammad and Fayey Rashid Ahmed. Mohamed Atta frequently liked to use variants of the name El Sayed, for instance calling himself Awaid Elsayed and even Hamburg Elsayed. And when Majed Moqed flew into the US on May 2, 2001, the name Mashaanmoged Mayed was on the flight manifest. This suggests that some travel and actions of the hijackers could have been missed when they used unlikely aliases.
- There has been very little video footage released of the hijackers. So far, the only known footage has been two video stills of Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed using an ATM machine, one still each of Waleed Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami, several stills of Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari in Portland the night before 9/11, and a few more stills and footage of several hijackers in airports on the morning of 9/11. But the FBI’s timeline reveals there is more video footage that has never even been publicly hinted at: Mohamed Atta used an ATM in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 19, 2001. Salem Alhazmi and Ahmed Alghamdi used an ATM in Alexandria, Virginia, on August 2. Hanjour and Mojed used a Kinko’s for half an hour in College Park, Maryland, on August 10. Moqed and Nawaf Alhazmi shopped at an Exxon gas station in Joppa, Maryland, on August 28. Waleed and Wail Alshehri wandered around a Target store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on September 4. Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari were in a Florida bank lobby on September 4, and the audio of Atta calling Saudi Arabia was even recorded in the process. Fayez Ahmed Banihammad used an ATM on September 7 in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Salem Alhazmi was at the Falls Church DMV on September 7. Low quality surveillance video at the Milner Hotel in Boston showed Alshehhi and possibly Mohand Alshehri on multiple occasions in the days just before 9/11. Ziad Jarrah and possibly Saeed Alghamdi were videotaped using a Kinko’s for about an hour near Newark on September 10.
- Some credit cards used by the hijackers were still used in the US after 9/11. For instance, a credit card jointly owned by Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi was used twice on September 15. This helps confirm news reports from late 2001 that hijacker credit cards were used on the East Coast as late as early October 2001. At the time, a government official said that while some of the cards might have been stolen, “We believe there are additional people out there” who helped the hijackers.
- The FBI timeline shows other intriguing hints that the hijackers had associates in the US. For instance, on September 8, 2001, hijackers Majed Moqed and Hani Hanjour went to a bank with an unnamed Middle Eastern male. This man presented a Pennsylvania driver’s license for identification, but none of the 9/11 hijackers have been reported to have a driver’s license from that state. There is also a highly redacted section hinting that a woman in Laurel, Maryland, was helping Middle Eastern men and may have had links to hijackers Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah.
- Around 10:00 a.m. on the morning of 9/11, a housekeeper at the Park Inn in Boston went to clean the room that hijackers Wail and Waleed Alshehri used the night before. She was confronted by a foreign male who told her that someone was still sleeping in the room and that she should come back around 1:00 p.m. The FBI was obviously puzzled by this, as the FBI’s timeline entry for this event ends with five question marks.
- It has previously been reported that shortly before 9/11, hijackers Nawaf Alhamzi and Khalid Almihdhar left a bag at a mosque in Laurel, Maryland, with a note attached to it saying, “Gift for the brothers.” The FBI’s timeline identifies this mosque as the Ayah Islamic Center. But the only contents mentioned in the bag were pilot log books, receipts, and other evidence documenting the brief flight training that Alhazmi and Almihdhar underwent in San Diego in early 2000. It is unclear why they would have kept the receipts, some mentioning their names, for over a year and then left them at a mosque to be found. After 9/11, a former high-level intelligence official told journalist Seymour Hersh that “Whatever trail was left [by the hijackers] was left deliberately—for the FBI to chase.”
- On June 11, 2001, hijackers Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Alnami, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta checked in to the Deluxe Inn, in Dania, Florida. The manager of the hotel later identified Saeed Alghamdi as having been there at the time with the others. However, travel records indicate Alghamdi did not arrive in the US until June 27. Other previously released evidence has suggested that many other hijackers were in the US before they officially arrived.
- Several months ago, the London Times reported on an al-Qaeda leader imprisoned in Turkey named Luai Sakra. Sakra claims to have trained six of the hijackers in Turkey, including Satam Al Suqami. The FBI’s timeline supports his account, because Al Suqami’s passport record indicates he spent much of his time between late September 2000 and early April 2001 in Turkey. Furthermore, Sakra claimed that Al Suqami was one of the hijacker leaders, and not just another “muscle” hijacker as US investigators have alleged. The FBI’s timeline supports this, because it shows that Al Suqami was frequently on the move from 1998 onwards, flying to Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Malaysia, as well as Turkey, and he travelled to most of these countries more than once. This is particularly important because contributors to the History Commons have put together evidence suggesting that Sakra was a CIA asset before 9/11, which would suggest that Al Suqami and other hijackers were actually trained by a CIA asset.
- When Ahmed Alghamdi arrived in the US from London on May 5, 2001, an immigration inspector apparently noted that Alghamdi commented to him that the media was distorting the facts about Osama bin Laden and that bin Laden was a good Muslim. Alghamdi also indicated that he was travelling with more than $10,000 worth of currency. Shortly after 9/11, the New York Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers reported that by the spring of 2001, US customs was investigating Alghamdi and two other future 9/11 hijackers for their connections to known al-Qaeda operatives. One British newspaper even noted that Alghamdi should have been “instantly ‘red-flagged’ by British intelligence” as he passed through London on his way to the US because of a warning about his links to al-Qaeda. It has not been explained how Alghamdi was able to pass through British and US customs, even as he was openly praising bin Laden.
- Hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi was mugged outside of his apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, by an “unknown black male” on May 1, 2001. He filed a police report about this and gave his correct name and address. In August 2001, Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar were watchlisted by the CIA, and an FBI investigator began looking for them in the US. But, as one news report later noted, the investigator “never performed one of the most basic tasks of a police manhunt. He never ran Almihdhar or Alhazmi through the NCIC computer,” a widely used police database that should have listed this mugging, as well as a speeding ticket Alhazmi had received the month before.
- On August 26, 2001, Nawaf Alhazmi’s car was queried by police in Totowa, New Jersey, just a few miles from where he was living in Paterson. Police took down details of his rental car and put all the information in the NCIC database. On August 29, with Alhazmi still living in Paterson, an FBI agent was assigned to look for him. But as mentioned above, he didn’t search the NCIC database. On September 2, this agent did search a national motor vehicle database, and this, the mugging, and other encounters Alhazmi had with police should have shown up there as well, but for some inexplicable reason the agent still did not discover that Alhazmi was in the US.
- Hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari lost his plane ticket just before 9/11. He reported it lost on September 8, and picked a replacement ticket up from the American Airlines terminal at Logan airport in Boston the next day. The US government has generally promoted what one FBI official has called “the Superman scenario” - the idea that the hijackers made no mistakes. For instance, in 2004 one FBI official claimed, “These guys were pros. For us to have done anything, these guys had to make a mistake. And they didn’t.”
Unfortunately, much of the FBI timeline is heavily censored, with entire pages sometimes being completely redacted. But from what we do know, this timeline indicates that many questions remain about the hijackers and the 9/11 attacks. We know that the FBI’s timeline was available to the 9/11 Commission, so why did the commission fail to mention any of the information listed above?
It’s interesting to compare the results of the 9/11 Commission with the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry that proceeded it. For instance, while the 9/11 Commission downplayed any possible ties between the hijackers and the Saudi government, the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry wrote an entire chapter on the topic. Unfortunately, all 28 pages of that chapter were censored. But Sen. Bob Graham, co-chair of the inquiry, later claimed that evidence relating to the two hijackers who lived in San Diego “presented a compelling case that there was Saudi assistance” to the 9/11 plot. He alleged that Omar al-Bayoumi in fact was a Saudi intelligence agent. He also concluded that President Bush directed the FBI “to restrain and obfuscate” investigations into these ties.
Now, we’re finally beginning to see some of what was in those missing 28 pages. One anonymous official who has seen the pages claims: “We’re not talking about rogue elements. We’re talking about a coordinated network that reaches right from the hijackers to multiple places in the Saudi government.”
The 9/11 Commission also downplayed the idea that the hijackers had any assistance in the US. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, by contrast, noted that many people who interacted with the hijackers in the US, including Omar al-Bayoumi, were under FBI investigation even before 9/11.
Unfortunately, neither the 9/11 Commission nor the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry was a complete and unbiased investigation. If this timeline reflects just some of what only the FBI knew about the hijackers one month after the attacks, one can only guess at how much more all the US agencies combined know about the hijackers now. Why is that information being kept secret?
*****
13 February 2008
EU plans to require biometrics of all non-European visitors
International Herald Tribune
Sunday, February 10, 2008
BRUSSELS: All non-Europeans would need to submit biometric data before crossing Europe's frontiers under sweeping European Union proposals to combat illegal migration, terrorism and organized crime that are to be outlined this week.
The plans - arguably the biggest shake-up of border management in Europe since the creation of an internal travel zone - would apply to citizens of the United States and all other countries that now enjoy visa-free status.
They would, however, allow EU citizens and "low risk" frequent travelers from outside the bloc to pass through automated, fast-track frontier checkpoints without coming into contact with border guards. Voluntary programs for prescreening such visitors, who would register fingerprints and other data, would be stepped up.
The proposals, contained in draft documents examined by the International Herald Tribune and scheduled to go to the European Commission on Wednesday, were designed to bring the EU visa regime into line with a new era in which passports include biometric data.
The commission, the EU executive, argues that migratory pressure, organized crime and terrorism are obvious challenges to the Union and that the bloc's border and visa policy needs to be brought up to date.
It also wants a new European Border Surveillance System to be created, to use satellites and unmanned aircraft to help track the movements of suspected illegal migrants.
If approved by the commission this week, the measures would need the approval of all EU states.
The United States routinely requires European citizens to submit fingerprints when crossing its borders and the commission's document notes that America plans to introduce an electronic travel-authorization system for people from countries like Britain, France and Germany that are in its Visa Waiver Program.
The commission's proposals cover the Schengen zone, Europe's internal free-travel area named after the village in Luxembourg near where the original agreement between five countries was signed on June 14, 1985. Twenty-four countries are now members.
It is unclear whether Britain and Ireland, which along with Cyprus are not members of Schengen, would opt into the program.
Each year more than 300 million travelers cross EU borders, but there is no obligation for countries inside the Schengen free-travel zone to keep a record of entries and exits of non-European third-country nationals in a dedicated database. Moreover, if the visitor leaves from another Schengen country, it is often impossible to determine whether or not the visitor overstayed his or her visa.
The proposals, drafted by the European commissioner for justice and home affairs, Franco Frattini, suggest that non-Europeans on a short-stay visa would be checked against a Visa Information System that is already under construction and should be operational in 2012.
Frattini also is calling for a new database to be set up to store information on the time and place of entry and exit of non-European nationals, using biometric identifiers. Once a person's visa expired, an alert would go out to all national authorities that the visitor had overstayed his or her allotted time.
Travelers from countries with a visa requirement would need to provide biometric data at European consulates before leaving their home country. Those arriving from nations not requiring visas, like the United States, would also need to submit fingerprints and a digitalized facial image.
But the European Union would try to make the system more user-friendly for Europeans and some categories of bona fide visitors by granting them the status of "registered traveler." They would be able to have their biometric travel documents scanned and checked by machines.
All Europeans should be able to use such a system when EU countries complete the task of issuing passports with two biometric identifiers, by 2019 at the latest. The 27 EU countries started issuing passports with a digitalized facial image in August 2006 and, in June 2009, will add the holder's fingerprints. European residence permits will also contain the same identifiers.
Non-Europeans could gain the same, fast-track status providing they have not overstayed previous visas, have proof of sufficient funds to pay for their stay in Europe and hold a biometric passport.
All non-European nationals would be asked to make an electronic application, supplying key data, before their arrival, allowing them to be checked against anti-terror databases in advance.
The draft documents also highlight weaknesses in Europe's efforts to guard its borders. One paper points out that, in the eight EU countries with external borders in the Mediterranean Sea and southern Atlantic, frontier surveillance is carried out by about 50 authorities from 30 institutions, sometimes with competing competencies and systems.
The plans foresee increased use of satellites and unmanned surveillance aircraft to monitor unauthorized movements, and a computerized communication network to share information.
Frattini also wants to see a bigger role for the agency that coordinates cooperation over external borders, known as Frontex. Although the agency has been criticized in some southern European nations for failing to match the scale of the challenge over illegal migration, the commission argues that it has achieved impressive results.
In 2006 and 2007 more than 53,000 people were apprehended or denied entry at a frontier and at least 2,900 false travel documents were seized. In addition, 58 people suspected of links to illegal trafficking have been arrested.
EU plans to require biometrics of all non-European visitors
By Stephen CastleSunday, February 10, 2008
BRUSSELS: All non-Europeans would need to submit biometric data before crossing Europe's frontiers under sweeping European Union proposals to combat illegal migration, terrorism and organized crime that are to be outlined this week.
The plans - arguably the biggest shake-up of border management in Europe since the creation of an internal travel zone - would apply to citizens of the United States and all other countries that now enjoy visa-free status.
They would, however, allow EU citizens and "low risk" frequent travelers from outside the bloc to pass through automated, fast-track frontier checkpoints without coming into contact with border guards. Voluntary programs for prescreening such visitors, who would register fingerprints and other data, would be stepped up.
The proposals, contained in draft documents examined by the International Herald Tribune and scheduled to go to the European Commission on Wednesday, were designed to bring the EU visa regime into line with a new era in which passports include biometric data.
The commission, the EU executive, argues that migratory pressure, organized crime and terrorism are obvious challenges to the Union and that the bloc's border and visa policy needs to be brought up to date.
It also wants a new European Border Surveillance System to be created, to use satellites and unmanned aircraft to help track the movements of suspected illegal migrants.
If approved by the commission this week, the measures would need the approval of all EU states.
The United States routinely requires European citizens to submit fingerprints when crossing its borders and the commission's document notes that America plans to introduce an electronic travel-authorization system for people from countries like Britain, France and Germany that are in its Visa Waiver Program.
The commission's proposals cover the Schengen zone, Europe's internal free-travel area named after the village in Luxembourg near where the original agreement between five countries was signed on June 14, 1985. Twenty-four countries are now members.
It is unclear whether Britain and Ireland, which along with Cyprus are not members of Schengen, would opt into the program.
Each year more than 300 million travelers cross EU borders, but there is no obligation for countries inside the Schengen free-travel zone to keep a record of entries and exits of non-European third-country nationals in a dedicated database. Moreover, if the visitor leaves from another Schengen country, it is often impossible to determine whether or not the visitor overstayed his or her visa.
The proposals, drafted by the European commissioner for justice and home affairs, Franco Frattini, suggest that non-Europeans on a short-stay visa would be checked against a Visa Information System that is already under construction and should be operational in 2012.
Frattini also is calling for a new database to be set up to store information on the time and place of entry and exit of non-European nationals, using biometric identifiers. Once a person's visa expired, an alert would go out to all national authorities that the visitor had overstayed his or her allotted time.
Travelers from countries with a visa requirement would need to provide biometric data at European consulates before leaving their home country. Those arriving from nations not requiring visas, like the United States, would also need to submit fingerprints and a digitalized facial image.
But the European Union would try to make the system more user-friendly for Europeans and some categories of bona fide visitors by granting them the status of "registered traveler." They would be able to have their biometric travel documents scanned and checked by machines.
All Europeans should be able to use such a system when EU countries complete the task of issuing passports with two biometric identifiers, by 2019 at the latest. The 27 EU countries started issuing passports with a digitalized facial image in August 2006 and, in June 2009, will add the holder's fingerprints. European residence permits will also contain the same identifiers.
Non-Europeans could gain the same, fast-track status providing they have not overstayed previous visas, have proof of sufficient funds to pay for their stay in Europe and hold a biometric passport.
All non-European nationals would be asked to make an electronic application, supplying key data, before their arrival, allowing them to be checked against anti-terror databases in advance.
The draft documents also highlight weaknesses in Europe's efforts to guard its borders. One paper points out that, in the eight EU countries with external borders in the Mediterranean Sea and southern Atlantic, frontier surveillance is carried out by about 50 authorities from 30 institutions, sometimes with competing competencies and systems.
The plans foresee increased use of satellites and unmanned surveillance aircraft to monitor unauthorized movements, and a computerized communication network to share information.
Frattini also wants to see a bigger role for the agency that coordinates cooperation over external borders, known as Frontex. Although the agency has been criticized in some southern European nations for failing to match the scale of the challenge over illegal migration, the commission argues that it has achieved impressive results.
In 2006 and 2007 more than 53,000 people were apprehended or denied entry at a frontier and at least 2,900 false travel documents were seized. In addition, 58 people suspected of links to illegal trafficking have been arrested.
*****