Government Grants for All

Obama’s “Moms Return to school” Federal Grant – Making Dreams Come to Reality

The “Moms return to school” federal grant is one of the best bills that have been introduced by president Obama. Teen moms and single mothers, who didn’t complete their education, are at the heart of America’s new president. The new legislation offers mothers the chance to return to school or even go to college with the aid of appropriate federal financial support.

The economic recession has touched almost every American, especially middle classed citizens. Accordingly, more young aged moms are quitting school to comply with obligations of motherhood. However, college degrees can surely reward those mothers with better paying jobs and can positively influence their beloved ones. The new federal grant can fund scholarships for both on campus and learn-from-home education programs; hence, opening horizons for all mothers even those who are short on time. Moreover, the new bill has further lowered the cost of learning by exempting those mothers from some education tax rates.

If you are a young mother you can now qualify to receive more than 5000 bucks of fund aid to help you return to school and complete your degree. The money can be spent on school fees, books or even internet bills if you choose to adopt an online degree program. Almost any young mother who hasn’t completed her studies is eligible.

The new bill secures funds for online learning programs; thus, encouraging hesitant mothers to learn while in their pajamas. So, if you can learn at home without having to leave your kids, why wouldn’t you earn a college degree?

Filling a free application for federal student aid (FAFSA) is the most important step for qualifying for the newly increased education grant. You can fill the form online after determining your dependency status. No specific confidential data is required but only information is needed to determine if a mother is a candidate or not for receiving the new education grant. How easy is that! However, take care the internet is full of scams. Sites may ask for payment for a service that is freely provided by the federal government. On the other end, some true online programs can offer you up to 10000 dollars worth scholarships.

The new “Mother return to school” education grant is expected to allow more than two hundred thousand mothers to complete their studies. The bill is a social achievement that surely will have a positive influence on the life of every young American mother.

Moms can go back to school with free $10,000 Scholarships. Find out more visit: Scholarships for Moms.

Tags: Come, Dreams, Federal, Grant, Making, Moms, Obama's, Reality, Return, School

Moms Back to School Obama’s Scholarship Program

Every mom has the chance to pursue college education for free provided by Obama’s new administration. An amount up to $10,000 scholarship money grant will be provided to every mom who will be part of the said program. The Federal Pell grant, an institution helping low income student with their education for many years now is responsible in determining the amount of money to be granted to every scholar mom.

The basis will depend on every case. The budget allotted for mom who will choose to travel and study to a university nearby town would be more compared to the budget allotted for moms who will be studying at home online. The money provided is definitely free since it is intended for a scholarship. You don’t have to worry about paying the money you used after you have completed your studies.

The project’s overall objective is to help poor moms enhance their way of life starting with attaining proper education. It will help several moms be able to employ to several good jobs that will provide them enough income for them and for their families. It is an advantage on the part of moms who are able to earn a degree since most jobs offering good income requires education as the main requirement. Employers perceive someone who was able to have a formal training in their field will contribute better to the company. Employment is the main source of income by many and companies where they work help the country’s economy. The better firm you are in, the better benefits you would be enjoying, and all of these require higher education to be able to attain it.

The government also believe that through this program, it can help fight poverty among mothers and their families. We hear it over and over again that the more education one has attained, the better life lies ahead of them. Education is a very powerful key to realize your dreams and be successful in life.

You can find complete and relevant information regarding the said Obama’s program in benefit of mothers through education online, local library or universities and colleges near you. You will have necessary info on how you will be able to apply for the program and if you are eligible.

Don’t waste the opportunity of being able to go back to school and finish the course you’ve been wanting. It will not only benefit you personally but of course your family especially your kids. So what’s holding you back? Take advantage of a $10,000 scholarship drawing. Registration is free if you visit http://www.scholarshipsformomsfinder.info/.

Tags: Back, Moms, Obama's, Program, Scholarship, School

SEO Consultant VS SEO Software

SEO Consultant VS SEO Software

This article is about Consultant VS SEO Software who is better?

Everybody discuss the SEO software and it can grant you the top
search engine placement on Google, Yahoo, and Bing however have you ever consider
it from an SEO consultant viewpoint. Each person is almost certainly to come to
hear an answer of who is better? In this article I will clarify to you a number
of of the advanced SEO techniques that are practices by SEO consultants and
compare it with SEO software performance.

Capacity:

When it comes to the capabilities of software solution it is
limited to software version. The software is developed by developers who
develop software as per “development requirement” and the software will not carry
out tasks outside the development condition. Hence this will bound this
software to restricted functions. You may improve the capabilities of the
current software by purchasing a newer version however it will still be restricted.

When it comes to SEO consultant it depends on quantity of
factors such as experience, brightness research, and training. Also a fine SEO
consultant is a consultant that researches allot and attempts numerous of strategies
into the search engine and determine the best strategy. Hence this will make
SEO consultant better to SEO software due to unrestricted capabilities of the consultant
from the research, experience and training. You must ask your self a question
who assists in the development of the SEO software. The answer is an SEO
consultant determines the main capabilities of the SEO software during early phase
of software development.

Who can perform better?

This is very clear from the above point and I able to
assurance you that an SEO consultant will perform way better than SEO software bearing
in mind if the same amount of time is used in an SEO campaign. I have tried many
SEO packages during my initial period of SEO consultancy and it doesn’t matter
what you do, you cannot perform better than first attempts my position will drop lower as a result of competition. One method of improved attempts
is to seek other software which may perform a tiny better and again the search
engine ranking will drop as a result of competition. This is the stage where
you need an SEO consultant to boost your search engine placement higher.

Search Engine Algorithm update:

In many occasions the search engine update algorithm that directly
affects the search engine ranking results. The SEO software will be incapable
to make the essential change because it is programmed. An example of that would
be Search Engine changes keyword density from 3% to 2%.

 This update can make
your search engine placement to dive. If the software recommended a 3% keyword
density. From my experience this drop will be rather like 2-4 pages depending on
the keyword density used. Simply the software will not be intelligent enough to
detect the change unless you buy a new software version that is compatible with
the new update. The SEO consultant can easily analyse the change and reduces
the keyword density to 2% which is faster. SEO consultants can also make a
quick action regarding the following changes:

·        
Search Engine decrease the significance of page
title

·        
Search Engine decrease the importance of meta
description

·        
Search Engine restrict the number of incoming
links from page A to page B

·        
Search Engine restrict the number of incoming
links from site A to site B

In each instance the software will not be intelligent to
think like a human. Therefore the SEO campaign suffer form the limitation of
software. In termination I declare nothing will substitute top SEO consultant
and I be able to verify it to you for instance type the keyword “SEO” in Google
search box you will see on page 1 of Google the list of many SEO companies who
used SEO consultants to optimize their site.

Article Tags:
Engine Placement, Search Engine, Keyword Density

Tags: Consultant, Software

Single Parenting Tips

Single parenting requires a lot of hardwork and sincere dedication to your role as a single mother or father. It is a difficult challenge to raise a child single handedly without your spouse to help you out. You’ll need to take decisions that you never ever thought of. You need to juggle your work and home efficiently and try and be involved in every aspect of child care. Many times balancing the two makes you lose out on some lifetime opportunities.

Children are most vulnerable as they do not understand their emotions and how to handle them correctly. Single parenting effects have sometimes resulted in children becoming sad or withdrawn from the society. When the child misses the absent parent, the single parent has to act as the mother and father and fill the empty space in the child’s heart. You’ll need to garner support from everyone in your family, especially the grandparents. Speak to your siblings, closest friends and give an outlet to your emotions. Once you remove the baggage of emotions off your shoulders, only then can you handle your child’s feelings sensitively. The following single parenting tips will help you raise your child.

Tips for Single Parenting

Find time as much as possible and spend it constructively with your child. Speak to the child about his/her day at the school. Ask the child about his progress in studies and if he/she needs help with homework. If the child asks you for help with his studies and projects, make sure you are there and help the child positively.
Get involved in the child’s parent teacher meets. If your child has taken part in any extra curricular activity or sports, make sure you are present to cheer and motivate the child.
Run all the errands in one trip. Do not keep things pending as it requires you to spend more time outside the house than with the child. Take the child along with you to trips to the supermarket or for your errands.
Listen to your child. That’s the most important thing parents miss out when raising children. Understand the needs of your child and act accordingly. Do not assume all’s well even if the child seems normal to you. Do not wait till the child gets in trouble, be it at school or in the neighborhood. Try and share your feelings and emotions with your child. This makes the child feel confident and open with his/her feelings. Always have time to hear what the child has to say to you.
Honestly is the best policy when dealing with your child. Speak honestly about the past, especially about your ex and the divorce. The child may have a number of questions regarding the other parent. Do not speak ill of the other parent unnecessarily just to get back at him/her. Be straightforward and do not lie. Children have a way of getting to know the truth some way or the other. Explain and answer their questions according to their level of maturity and age.
Ask for help from your parents and other relatives when you can’t handle things alone. Let the children be friendly with their grandparents, aunts and uncles. It help them overcome their emotional barriers and makes them feel loved. It completes the family picture without missing the presence of the other parent.
You should develop a life of your own. Visit the gym or take a dance class. Do this when your child is occupied at the school or with his/her friends. This makes the child feel everything is normal and part of life.
Do not shelter your child too much. You should allow him/her to be independent. Give them responsibilities to share with you. Let them visit friends and families they are comfortable with. Allow them to take some of their daily decisions on their own, so that they learn to take the major decisions in future.
Take proper decisions regarding your finances. Do not take impulsive decisions that may affect your financial standings. Plan your finances and build your savings. There are many single parent grants and financial aids offered by the United States government for raising children which you can apply for yourself and your child.
Let go of the past and start living in the present. Stay happy and enjoy whatever life has to offer. This builds up a positive attitude in the child, as well and it will help you cope up with stress.
Forgive your ex and don’t hold grudges. It is very difficult to forget the past but holding on to feelings consumes more of your energy. Do not dwell on disappointments and sufferings as it develops negative tendencies in the child.
If you have more than one child, then give equal attention to all of them. Do not play favorites knowingly or unknowingly. This makes the other child feel left out and miss the other parent more.
It is not necessary to provide the child with all the things money can buy. This won’t make him/her happy, but it will make the child give more preference to materialistic things more in life. Shower the child with lots of love and affection as it is more precious than gifts. Simple things like taking a walk in the park, playing basketball or even cooking together makes the child feel loved. These activities also nurture healthy child development.
Do not set unrealistic goals for yourself. Be as natural you can be and give your best as a parent. This will decrease the chances of disappointments and set backs.
Create a healthy atmosphere in the home and make the child understand that you are the boss. Do not allow your child to become your equal partner in running the house. Involve them in the decision-making process, but let the final decision be yours. This helps discipline the child and he will learn to stay within limits.
Create a stable home to make the child feel secure. Do not become a cigarette, alcohol or drug addict. This gives wrong signals to the child’s tender mind. Speak to the child with respect and care. Do not abuse the child verbally or physically, even if you are under a lot of stress.
Some children require more affection and attention. Behave with the child accordingly. Children love to hear how much you love them and how proud you are to have him/her as your child.
If the other parent has rights to visit the child, give them space. Let the child connect with the other parent. Your ex may be a better parent than a spouse. Do not argue or fight in front of the child. If there are any issues to be discussed, speak when the child is not around.
Join a support group like a single parents meeting, to know and understand the various hardships faced by other single parents. This will help you find solutions to your problems and become a better parent.
These were some simple but very important single parenting tips. The sole aim of a single parent is to raise a happy, healthy and understanding child. It is very sad for the child to hear he/she belongs to a broken home. Thoughtless adults often use this term casually, but they do not understand the damaging impact it has on the child’s mind. So before you speak and give your opinion about single parent and their children, think twice.

I can relate to this concept of single parent and give single parenting tips confidently, as I was raised by a single mother. Although I have never met my father, I never felt the need to do so. My mother has been an excellent single parent who faced all the difficulties in life single handedly making me a happy, strong, independent and adjusting adult. She has fulfilled all my emotional needs not only as a doting mother but also as a strict father. My mother is my idol, and she has inspired me to be a better mother, in future. She was well supported by her parents who helped her immensely in raising me. Therefore, build a support group with the help of your parents, siblings and friends as they provide moral support and motivation. Thus, I feel personally, it is basically our perspective towards life that makes us face difficulties head on. Facts about single parenting shows that it is not as difficult as it sounds. Make the right decisions for yourself and you’ll indirectly be making the right decisions for your child.

Tags: Parenting, Single, Tips

Scholarship for Single Mothers – Women’s Opportunity Awards

If you’re looking for a scholarship for single mothers, why don’t you apply for the Women’s Opportunity Awards? This program is given by the Soroptimist, an organization for professional women and business. The aim of the Soroptimist is to improve the lives of girls and women all over the world.

The organization’s name means ‘best for women’ and their program may be your ticket in finishing your college degree. The applications should be submitted before December 1 of every year. You can email your application to a region contact before the said date.

What are the eligibility requirements? Single mothers usually serve as the primary financial provider of the family, and so you will definitely qualify. Aside from that, you should be living in any of the member states of Soroptimist including US, Venezuela, Taiwan, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Guam, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Panama, Canada, Mexico, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia. If you don’t live in these countries, you will not be eligible.

The organization will also evaluate the financial need of the single mother. As an applicant, you should not be related to any of the employees of the organization, and you should not have been a previous recipient of the program. If you meet all these requirements, then you can fill out the application form from the website of Soroptimist.

Fill out the form completely. Click ‘file’ then chose ‘save as’. The default filename will appear as WOAonlineappLG.pdf; now, you will need to change the ‘LG’ into your initials and then click ‘save’. Don’t forget to get two references persons because they will also need to fill out the reference form.

You can simply email your application to the designated regional office in your country or state, but you must do this before December 1. To determine the applicable region, you can check out the website of Soroptimist for details. Don’t send your applications directly to the headquarters at Philadelphia because it will not be entertained.

The Women’s Opportunity Awards can help you in finishing your college degree. The good thing about this scholarship for single mothers is that you don’t have to repay it.

**Update**

Did you know you can get a $10,000 scholarship for Moms just for registering? Apply right now for free at: Scholarships for Moms.

Tags: Awards, Mothers, Opportunity, Scholarship, Single, Women's

Ecoterra Press Release 300 – The Somalia Chronicle June – December 2009, no 113b

What Fate of Uganda’s Troops in Somalia Reveals About Our Politics
By Charles Onyango Obbo (Monitor)

A week ago a terrorist bomb exacted a heavy toll on the struggling Somalia government, when an explosion blasted a Mogadishu graduation ceremony, killing 19 civilians, including three ministers.

A few weeks earlier, there had been another deadly attack, this time on the African Union peacekeepers, where several members of the Ugandan contingent of the AMISOM force in Somalia were killed.

That attack forced AMISOM to reveal, for the first time, that it had lost 80 of its soldiers in explosions and clashes with Somali militants since the force deployed there in March 2007.

The 5,000 AU troops are mostly from Uganda and Burundi. Of the 80 soldiers killed, 37 of them are Ugandan.

The anniversary of the Somalia mission usually passes without comment, and Ugandan casualties there get one or two days in the media, and are then quickly forgotten.

One reason for this is that the public has grown cynical of UPDF missions abroad, and the interests the army serves at home. The defining experience was the nearly 10 years that the UPDF spent in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during which time it came to be viewed as nothing less than a bandit force used by rogue officers and NRM big wigs and their cronies in Kampala to plunder minerals, timber, coffee, and even wild game.

In Somalia, many reasoned that the UPDF role in the mission was part of a scheme by President Museveni to buy favour from the West, and shield him the pressure over his push to amend the Constitution in 2005, which opened the door for him to be president for life.

Even if that were true, on close scrutiny, the UPDF peacekeeping in Somalia is different from the disastrous one to the DRC in major ways. Unlike the DRC, the group of militants who eventually take power in Somalia can have far-reaching implications for East African security. Right now, the radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab that controls most of Somalia has governments in the region and the West running scared. They believe that an Al-Shabaab take over will be the equivalent of having Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda ruling Somalia.

My own view is that Somalis are among Africa’s most pragmatic people (which is why they succeed where they have been scattered by the crisis back home) and that the risk of an Al-Shabaab takeover is overstated, but it is understandable why others might be alarmed.

So unlike DRC, the UPDF in Somalia have nothing to loot. In fact, don’t expect them to return with local women in tow and chicken dangling from their backs, as happened with the troops in Congo.

That said, even if Museveni has his own private agenda, for once the UPDF mission in Somalia – its most dangerous and thankless such task — is part of something big.

If you look closely at the kind of officers in Somalia, you begin to see something else. Quite a few of them belong to the old National Resistance Army idealistic tradition, which believed that they would take over power and bring about a fair, law-abiding, corruption free political order in Uganda.

This school lost out years ago, and the power-hungry and blood-sucking wolves have taken over and are calling the shots. Indeed, they are growing stronger.

The UPDF in Somalia, therefore, is what the national army would have looked like if it hadn’t been turned into a fiefdom of a largely tribal officer corps, serving dishonourable interests of the NRM political elite – like stealing elections, tormenting the opposition, and serving as a palace guard. The contrast of the UPDF in Mogadishu with that at home, where it is has been deployed to guard land which influential people have bought out of the speculative calculation that they will make a killing from the oil in it, could not be more stark.

Compare again, the kind of officers who were deployed to hunt down the Lords Resistance Army and its leader Joseph Kony at their Sudan-DRC border bases earlier in the year. With the help of the US, the hopes were high that Kony would be killed, or at least captured. Therefore politically favoured, but inexperienced, officers who are part of the Museveni grand succession project were given the command, in the hope that their success against Kony would catapult them to national stardom. It didn’t happen.

By contrast, there will be national stardom for the Ugandan officers in Somalia, however successful they are, in part because they are part of a multinational effort. Secondly, success in Somalia will not come dramatically from a battlefield victory. In that sense, the UPDF mission is driven by old school but honourable values of service, not personal glory.

If you are a student of Ugandan, or more specifically NRM politics, pay attention to the mission in Mogadishu. Pay attention because it represents ideals that are dying in the army back home, and this might be the last time you will see them. The only thing the boys in Somalia have with those back home, is that they both have not been paid their salaries for some months now.

Shifta war refugees cry for justice
By Ali Abdi

Fearing for his life as the shifta war raged in the 1960s, Halake Maamo fled from his home in Isiolo to Somalia.

The shiftas, or guerrillas of Somali origin, waged a secessionist war against the Government in the harsh and dry plains of northern Kenya.

However, after Somalia’s dictator Siad Barre was overthrown and life became intolerable, Maamo returned to his homeland and settled in Garbatulla, Isiolo District.

But life has never been the same again for Maamo and thousands of other returnees. Most of them do not have Kenyan identity cards and lead poor lives, as they are yet to recover from the turmoil that disrupted their lives.

Although they are at peace unlike when they were in Somalia, their major concern is lack of national identity cards and government support to rebuild their lives.

While a few wealthy ones with political connections have obtained the crucial documents, many, especially those who stay in remote parts, are yet to be issued with IDs.

Maamo says he applied for the document on arrival in 1995 after a thorough vetting process. He is still waiting. Another vetting was done last year and he is now waiting for a response from the Government.

“The only thing new in my life is the peace otherwise I feel like a prisoner as my movement is restricted because I do not have a national identity card. I cannot travel to Isiolo town to see my relatives for fear of arrest by police who refer to me as that refugee from Somalia,’’ said Maamo in a recent interview.

Secession

Maamo, 78, left Merti in Isiolo North, one of the five epicentres of the war triggered by secessionists who wanted to cede Northern Frontier District (NFD) to Somalia, when his family was killed in 1967.

The previous year Maamo and his eldest son Dida, then only aged seven, had watched his father and relatives frog-matched from their huts and shot dead at a ‘concentration’ camp in Merti.

Today, he recalls that scores of other villagers labelled sympathisers of the rebel movement were killed.The secession campaign was spearheaded by the Northern Peoples’ Progressive Party (NPPP).

“The elders were brought from Sericho, Modogashe, Iresaboru, and here (Merti) and taken to Garbatulla. They were loaded onto two trucks to Isiolo. About five kilometres away, they were told to alight and run. But they shot them from the back,” says Maamo, a father of five.

Others who share Maamo’s story include Isiolo County Council chairman Adan Ali (Kinna ward) and his counterparts Mr Godana Tache (Garbatulla), Ali Adhi (Modogashe) and Mr Hassan Balla (Garfasa). They all lost their fathers in the incident.

Died Poor

‘‘My father Ali Wako was brought from Modogashe and was among those massacred in Garbatulla during the same incident. The elders viewed as anti-Kenyatta government were rounded up from villages across Isiolo South Constituency,” says Ali.

Ali is a grandson of the late Wako Happi, one of NPPP’s presidents who spearheaded the secessionist campaign in northern Kenya, then known as the Northern Frontier District.

Ali said his grandfather was detained in 1963 and released in 1969 after the movement was crushed.

“He fled to Somalia in 1972 and came back in October 1984. He died a poor man in Isiolo in 1996,” Ali said.

The co-ordinator of Friends of Nomads International, Mr Yusuf Dogo, says about 3,000 returnees are impoverished because they have no documents to show they are Kenyan.

They cannot get jobs or crucial government services, and many young people dare not step into the town for fear of arrest.

Most of those displaced by the Shifta war started the journey back home from Somalia refugee camps from 1984 following retired President Moi’s plea to leaders of Northern Frontier District (NFD) to come back home with their followers.

For more than 20 years now, they are still refugees in their own country.

Ali says unlike other pastoralists in the country, the returnees have experience in farming and should be helped by the Government to start and run irrigation projects.

Compensation

“The Government promised to help the returnees re-build their lives. They should be given IDs and helped start income generating projects,’’ said Ali.

The councillors want the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and other rights bodies to help them sue the Government for compensation.

“If the internally displaced people of the post-election violence have been compensated why not us whose families were killed and property destroyed?’’ posed Tache, the Garbatulla councilor.

Isiolo District Registrar of Persons M Auma confirms that the returnees lack identity cards, with some waiting for more than a decade. He said his office in collaboration with local elders, the provincial administration and the National Security Intelligence Service have vetted hundreds of applications since 2004.

“When we took up the matter with the head office in Nairobi, we were informed that the case of the returnees would be dealt with by the Ministry of Immigration. We are still waiting,’’ says Auma.

Dogo says the returnees should be helped rebuild their lives through income generating projects. And Dogo suggests irrigation projects in areas such as Gafarsa, Muchuru, Malkadaka and Rapsu for those from Isiolo.

He also advises the Government to unconditionally issue them with identity cards, saying it is their constitutional right.

Dogo says the military employed the infamous scotch-earth tactics to round up and kill the livestock as one way to defeat the rebels.

Dogo attributes the widespread poverty in the region to the indiscriminate killing of livestock during the war.

Livestock rounded up indiscriminately from the residents were detained and slaughtered in a camp where Daawa Primary School and Orphanage stands today.

Africa’s Problems Success story of the West
By Regis Maburutse (BBD)

African Politics and economics is directly linked to its cultural diversity, from the north tip down to the south, Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, which for years cultural differences has traditionally been used as a measure of defining tribal superiority in the dispensation of national wealth and political leadership.

Political superiority in this continent is generally not defined by democratic principles rather by tribal lines. The value imposed by western Aid has vastly added to a further compounding and cementation of these old and outdated beliefs of who should be a leader of any African nation based on tribal grounds.

African problems are further compounded by the AIDS scourge as one could pick out any country in the world and talk about its problems and maybe as Africa has been so tragically ravaged by AIDS in the last 30 years or so it stands out on a world scale.

Africa is a large continent with many countries making up its bulk. They are many and varied from the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert to the Zulus of Kwazi Natal to the wandering nomads of the Sahara.

Geographically, the continent runs from this large expanse of desert of Botswana through to equatorial jungle in the Congo and down the rift valley of Ethiopia past the mountains of the moon the source of the mightiest river, the Nile, running through Sudan and Egypt perhaps Africa’s greatest tourist draw card apart from the safaris.

So although varied and vibrant a native of Mombasa is going to experience totally different problems to one of the Kalahari Desert. Piracy has been round for many years off the coast of Somalia and many of the eastern African countries are Muslim.

Now one of the real problems in Sudan is religion for it is fueling a war between Muslims and the rest of the country. Even one of Africa’s greatest tragedies the genocide in Rwanda was ignited by old religious conversions. So yes missionary work has added in part of Africa’s problems just as it has elsewhere around the world by imposing a state of western beliefs over traditional ones and in Africa these would be many and varied, Witchdoctors still hold power today. Also bad medicine like childhood Muti practices are problem from within.

But the problems from without began to arrive with the onset of colonialism and the fay the likes of Van Rens Burg set up the Cape Colony and David Livingstone trekked through what was then Rhodesia and a steady flow of foreigners came to the continent to seek their fortune.

De Beers is known all over the world for diamonds taken out of African soil. Of course this sort of exploitation is going to cause problems especially if the assumption is the black man is inferior and can work for peanuts. The advent of slavery where people were taken from the west coast to America did not help this prejudice.

For years in the recorded history of Africa there had been tribal invasions running the entire length of the continent. In the history of Botswana it is recorded that the vultures flew constantly over the kalahari as the peaceful Bushmen were no match for the tribes from the north. So like any tribal nation as Australia was there were going to be tribal conflicts over land motivated by power and greed so these problems were her before colonization.

In Mozambique it is recorded that when the Belgians left they just up and went leaving reasonably sophisticated infra structure in the hands of the locals and the government crumbled.

South Africa is experiencing the same problems now since the hand over from President De Klek. The resignation recently of Thabo Mbeki and the controversy over the criminal background of the incumbent President Zuma show that in the wake of a colonial or foreign influence the locals are struggling.

It was reported in the early days of the handover from Mbeki to Kgalemani Motlanthe that the indigenous vineyard workers whom had now takeover the vineyards in such places as Stellenbosh in Cape province were actually wiring out workers pay cheques when there was no money in the bank.

The most publicized and tragic problem Africa has had to face is without doubt the AIDS virus and its democratic values. Speculation still exists as to how it came to be but if you believe the documentary showing how it came from the Belgian Congo then it is a direct result of western nations meddling.

It was reported that back in the 1950’s the medical researchers European were trying to find a polio vaccine that could be taken orally. Their research led them to Africa and of all places to the kidneys of a chimpanzee. They built a large compound in the Congo far up a river and housed many chimps and began experimenting.

They dissected the innards of the monkeys and used them in the manufacture of the new drugs. But one small oversight as in the kidneys lay dormant and unnoticed another virus AIDS. When they tried experimenting on the locals and it started to show deathly results the European researchers vanished. They know it to be valid as locals had been eating monkey and coming down with the same illness. So this huge problem was caused by outside interference.

Population growth without proper birth control education will be an internal problem for Africa for many years. It is very common to practice polygamy and if you are producing many children from many wives as the king of Swaziland then there will be more children to fed and treat medically.

All in all Africa’s problems were set in motion by foreign intervention and like any economic venture much of the continent was raped and not much put back for the African people. Look at the Shell Company’s involvement in Nigeria and the mess it has left with oil fires burning near villages.

As many counties are independent of foreign rule now the rest of the problems in Africa will fall on local shoulders and it is the hope of the whole world that for once in her history Africa can reach a stage of enlightenment in many countries and many areas but the war in Sudan must stop now to set the example for the rest of the country and problems of Zimbabwe must go too.

A Toilet in Somalia
By Charles G. Cogan

Intelligence professionals get it. But the general public does not. The image is out there of terrorists in djellabas negotiating fences in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. This was in the good old days, before 9/11. Such, the pensée unique goes, is what would happen if the Taliban took over in Afghanistan again and brought al-Qaeda back.

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen was quoted in the New York Times on December 2 as saying, “There is no direct impact on stopping terrorists around the world because we are or are not in Afghanistan.” Rolf knows whereof he speaks: a graduate of West Point, a former CIA Chief in Moscow and lately chief of intelligence at the Department of Energy, he is now the reigning guru on nuclear terrorism. The article goes on to state that, “Mr. Mowatt-Larssen, now at Harvard, argued [...] that a safe haven can be moved to many different states, and the bigger threat exists in cells, including in Europe and the United States.” In other words, al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorists don’t need Afghanistan to carry out terrorist operations. These can be mounted from anywhere or anyplace, from Yemen to Somalia, to Hamburg or to … Detroit.

In carefully chosen but tortuous formulations, President Obama, almost subliminally, got across the notion that the Taliban are different from al-Qaeda, in his speech at West Point:

I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda…We must keep up the pressure on al Qaeda…Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and to its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.

We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens.

In other words, al-Qaeda are the real bad guys, whereas there may be some good guys among the Taliban. Then, one may ask, since al-Qaeda’s terrorists, numbering in the hundreds, are now in a safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas, why are we sending thousands more combat troops into … Afghanistan!

In his speech at West Point, President Obama recognized the protean nature of the al Qaeda threat: “Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere – they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.”

Yet the President, in ordering 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan, in addition to the 21,000 he sent last spring, aligned himself not only with his pre-campaign rhetoric about a “necessary war,” but also with the sway that the military has established within American society. At least he did allow himself an out, which is quite unaligned with military doctrine: “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

It was, indeed, a tortuous exercise for a tortured President.

(*) Dr. Charles Cogan Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and was the chief of the Near East South Asia Division in the Directorate of Operations of the CIA from August 1979 to August 1984. It was from this Division that the covert action operation against the Soviets in Afghanistan were run. He is currently an Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Modern Slave Trade

Pinoy sailors send home record $2.5 billion in 9 months

The cash sent home by overseas Filipino sailors rose by $108 million or 4.51 percent to a new record of $2.501 billion in the nine months to September this year, from $2.393 billion over the same period in 2008, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines reported Tuesday.

TUCP secretary-general and former Senator Ernesto Herrera attributed the nonstop rise in remittances from sea-based migrant Filipino workers to increased enlistment by shipowners in Europe and Asia.

“A growing number of European and Asian shipping firms are disbanding their multinational crews, and replacing them wholesale with all-Filipino personnel that are younger and more able,” said Herrera, former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development.

“Foreign employers find Filipino sailors quick learners, and easier to train compared to other nationals. This may be due to their superior instruction here, apart from their ability to understand English,” Herrera said in a statement.

Herrera, meanwhile, renewed TUCP’s plea for the International Maritime Organization and shipowners to aggressively repel piracy and protect sailors. At least 71 Filipino sailors are still being held by pirates off Somalia.

According to the Department of Labor and Employment, some 229,000 Filipino sailors are on board merchant shipping vessels around the world at any given time.

>From January to September this year, remittances from Filipino sailors based in Norway soared by 110 percent to $229.551 million from $109.079 million over the same nine-month period in 2008.

Remittances from Filipino sailors based in Japan were also up 57 percent to $222.505 million from $141.886 million.

The other fast-growing sources of remittances from Filipino sailors were the United Kingdom, up 122 percent to $192.373; Germany, up 47 percent to $175.067 million; Singapore, up 60 percent to $107.945 million; Greece, up 67 percent to $93.446 million; Cyprus, up 23 percent to $46.390 million;

The Netherlands, up 114 percent to $41.281 million; Denmark, up 182 percent to $28.864 million; Oman, up 24 percent to $24.948 million; Hong Kong, up 33 percent to $24.870 million; and Sweden, up 126 percent to $24.223 million.

The double to triple-digit increases more than offset the 24 percent drop in remittances from Filipino sailors based in the U.S., to $1.216 billion from $1.595 billion.

The cash sent home by sailors accounted for 20 percent of the aggregate remittances from all migrant Filipino workers in the nine-month period.

Migrant Filipino workers wired home a total of $12.789 billion in the nine months to September this year, up $516.62 million or 4.21 percent from the $12.273 billion they remitted in the same period in 2008, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

[N.B.: All the foreign hard currency sent as remittance home by worker from the Philippines is channelled through the system of the Philippine government first before given to the families in local currency. Therefore the labour abroad - if maid or mercenary - from the governmental perspective needs to be pushed as hard possible, which safeguards unscrupulous manning agencies from being prosecuted for their abusive practices and abused workers hardly find any assistance or help at their foreign missions. In Syria it is specifically bad, where Filipinas after running away from their employers, because they can not stand the working conditions "under their masters" any longer then are sued and even arrested until they pay a "disengagement fee" - often several thousand dollars. The benefit of foreign currency generation for the Philippine government is also the reason why the governmental orders to not let Filipinos sail into piracy-prone areas are neglected and were never enforced.]

WE SAY: Corruption is all about perception (IslandsBusiness)
‘So do people in the islands need to take note of these rankings? Is there anything they must do about it? We think not. From the foregoing discussion, it is clear that it is all about perceptions and it is hard to change those. The Cook Islands tried to grab the world’s attention by declaring itself a recession free zone earlier this year. While it was a brilliant marketing ploy, it didn’t change people’s perception. Indices like these, like many other “perception indices” are of little value and contribute nothing to the profiles of nations and only serve as a distraction’

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2009 was published last month. The index measures the perceived level of corruption in a nation’s public sector, which obviously includes government, its various departments and public enterprises. This year, New Zealand has bagged the numero uno spot. It has always been hovering at the top but this time it beat the reputedly squeaky clean Scandinavian countries like Denmark, Sweden and Finland (2nd, 3rd and 6th places respectively) and the exceptionally entrepreneurial Singapore.

New Zealand must feel lucky to have bagged the top spot this year. In fact, some people were even surprised that it did.

For, in the past couple of years, the country’s governments have been embarrassed by more than a smattering of corruption cases, not to mention the questionable financial dealings of several ministers while in office.

The most high profile one was of former Labour Party—and later independent—Member of Parliament Taito Phillip Field, who became the first New Zealand MP to be convicted on charges of corruption and awarded a six year jail sentence. Field, a long time citizen of New Zealand but of Samoan origin, was found guilty of 11 charges of bribery and corruption and 15 charges of attempting to obstruct or pervert the course of justice.

Also last year, an enquiry into the academic qualifications claim of the head of Immigration New Zealand and Deputy Secretary of Labour, Mary Anne Thompson, revealed that she did not hold a degree from the prestigious London School of Economics. She had used that claim, it was believed, to apply for a number of government positions. It was also brought to light that under her watch the performance of the Pacific Division had deteriorated and it was alleged that she helped relatives or friends from Kiribati gain residency in New Zealand.

Some commentators at the time sought to give these two high profile cases an “us and them” type of spin saying such incidents were inevitable as New Zealand’s population becomes culturally diverse and that as some immigrants rise to positions of power, whether administrative or political, they are bound to bring the social and cultural mores of their original countries along with them. Both the individuals in question having had Pacific roots, the invisible finger was pointed at Pacific islands culture.

But like love, sex, crime and politics, corruption too is a starkly human trait and cannot be blamed exclusively on culture or race by any stretch of logic. Just as these New Zealand commentators found out in the months after the Field and Thompson sagas.

Several ministers have been found to have used ingenious subterfuge to claim allowances and pecuniary gain for travel (in some cases palming off the costs of travel of partners to taxpayers), housing and other benefits, especially in an environment that was charged with public anger on the continuing fall out of not just the global financial meltdown but also of New Zealand’s own subprime crisis—the domino-like fall of dozens of finance companies gobbling up the life savings of thousands of mums and dads’ investors.

And most recently, an investigation has found that New Zealand lawyers have been fraudulently skimming off more than a hundred million dollars from tax payers annually through the legal aid system—yet another damning evidence of corruption going unchecked for years. All this in a country that the world perceives to be the most clean and green in the world.

Incidentally, the green image also has received a bit of a bruising recently with the country’s agriculture and farm sector contributing excessively to greenhouse gases when compared to its geographic size and that of its population and the more recent revelation that one in six New Zealanders may be drinking unsafe water.

In the case of the lawyers, it was not about an individual or two. It was a whole bunch of them that were rorting the system almost giving it the colour of the “institutionalised” corruption that is most commonly associated with governments in developing countries.

Clearly, therefore, as the Transparency International report calls itself, corruption is all about perception, notwithstanding the fact that there are dozens of statistical tools that are employed to compute the final rankings using the expertise of a number of professionals and researchers.

And people’s perceptions of nations are no different from their perception of brands. Some nations, like some brands, are always favoured in the public mind (no matter how many chain emails you receive about the amazing corrosive tooth dissolving and toilet cleaning powers of bottled fizzy drinks, no one really stops drinking them. In fact their sales grow every year).

The Pacific Islands score far worse than New Zealand and Australia (ranked eighth). While Fiji has not been ranked this year, Samoa leads the islands pack at 56, followed by Tonga at 99, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati sharing the number 111 spot and Papua New Guinea coming in last at 154 (the last in the list is Somalia at 180).

So do people in the islands need to take note of these rankings? Is there anything they must do about it? We think not. From the foregoing discussion, it is clear that it is all about perceptions and it is hard to change those. The Cook Islands tried to grab the world’s attention by declaring itself a recession free zone earlier this year. While that it was a brilliant marketing ploy, it didn’t change people’s perception. Indices like these, like many other “perception indices” are of little value and contribute nothing to the profiles of nations and only serve as a distraction and of course fodder for the news media.

On the other hand, indices that are based on hard research and verifiable data and not mere “perception”, which help the people of a nation to hold their governments accountable—such as those that measure human development and those that evaluate the ease of doing business in countries—are far more useful.

It will be interesting to see if, following the string of incidents of corruption that have come to light in New Zealand this past year, whether it still retains the top spot next year.

Haven’t They Always?
Nobel Committee Celebrates War As Peace
By Rick Rozoff

On Thursday December 10 U.S. President Barack Obama will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced its selection for the prize on October 9 of this year, less than nine months after Obama assumed the mantle of the American presidency and less than a month after that announced the doubling of his nation’s troops for the world’s longest-running war in Afghanistan. The first contingent of new forces, consisting of 1,500 Marines, is to arrive next week, right before Christmas.

Ten days before the bestowal of the Nobel Peace Prize, the American president delivered a speech at the West Point Military Academy in which he pledged an additional 30,000 troops for a war now in its ninth year. His (and his predecessor George W. Bush’s) Defense Secretary Robert Gates hastened to add that 3,000 more support troops would be deployed, bringing the total to over 100,000, only 20,000 short of American soldiers in Iraq, and with as many as 50,000 more non-U.S. forces serving under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. In his West Point address Obama reminded his listeners that “When I took office, we had just over 32,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan….” He has ordered that number to be more than tripled.

A brief report on Obama’s peace prize appeared on the CBS News website on December 7 with the seemingly paradoxical title “A Peace Prize for a War President” by the news agency’s White House correspondent, Mark Knoller.

Neither the title nor the article it introduced was ironic. They reflected the straightforward truth.

The feature stated “There’ll be no effort by Barack Obama to disguise or obscure the fact that he’s a war president when he accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Thursday.

“The ceremony takes place ten days after he announced plans to escalate the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan by deploying another 30,000 American troops there.”

The selection of Obama evoked a prompt and aptly indignant response from Michel Chossudovsky at the Centre for Research on Globalization, who on October 11 published a piece called “Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War Becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth” [1] which stated inter alia that “When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,” then “the Lie becomes the Truth.”

Although there are no firm, codified guidelines for nominating and agreeing upon a Peace Prize recipient, Alfred Nobel’s will states that it should be conferred upon a “person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Those criteria have arguably never been honored or strictly abided by since the annual prize was first awarded in 1901. Several winners have been cited for helping to end wars – often by simply prevailing in them. One of the two American presidents previously awarded the prize, Woodrow Wilson, is such a one.

The other was Theodore Roosevelt, who as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897 said “I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.”

Both Roosevelt in 1906 and Wilson in 1919 were standing presidents when they received the prize. The first had fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War (the war he demanded a year before it began) and Wilson brought the United States into the First World War.

The Spanish-American War inaugurated the expansion of the U.S. from a hemispheric to an Asia Pacific power. And an empire. World War I placed the American army on the European continent for the first time and signaled its emergence as a international military power. Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901 when William McKinley, who launched the conflict with Spain and acquired Cuba, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico as spoils of war, was assassinated; Wilson not only sent over one million soldiers to France but also deployed 13,000 troops to fight the new Russian government of Vladimir Lenin in 1918.

But neither Roosevelt nor Wilson were commanders-in-chief of a war when they were given the Nobel Prize. And they received it for, at least in theory, contributing to ending wars; the Russo-Japanese War and World War I, respectively. Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to a head of state escalating a war already in its ninth year half a world away from his own nation is a precedent that was reserved for this year.

Reuters quoted White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on December 7 stating “We’ll address directly the notion that many have wondered, which is the juxtaposition of the timing for the Nobel Peace Prize and – and his [Obama's] commitment to add more troops around – into Afghanistan.”

Juxtaposition, paradox, irony, contradiction and so forth are terms too weak and inaccurate to describe the timing of the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient, coming as it did between two pledges of military reinforcements for the world’s largest-scale and longest-running war. Travesty is a better word.

Speculation was rife after October 9 regarding the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s rationale and motives for awarding Obama the prize, and press pundits were not amiss in offering explanations. But actions are more revealing than assumed or imaginary intentions and what the Nobel Committee has accomplished is to yet further tarnish its reputation and that of the prize it grants.

It is hard to think of any recipient, and surely any recent one, who personifies the qualities indicated by Alfred Nobel himself. Advocating and working for peace seem to have little if anything to do with being awarded the nominal Peace Prize. But twice in the last three years it has been conferred upon individuals far more deserving of indictment for violating the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, especially that section of Principle VI, Crimes against peace, which is defined as “Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances.”

Two years ago the prize was shared by Al Gore, who as the vice president of the U.S.’s first post-Cold War administration helped preside over deadly street battles in Somalia and bombing – incessant bombing – attacks in Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Yugoslavia. And the launching of Plan Colombia in 1999, the latest fruit of which is the Pentagon’s acquisition of seven new military bases in the country and the resulting threat of armed conflict with its neighbors. Arranged by this year’s Peace Prize recipient. But, again, Gore received the prize years after leaving office and for work in an area unrelated to his former government posts.

Obama’s December 1 speech was larded with lines evocative of the worst rhetorical excesses of his predecessor combined with allusions to broadening the war reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s and Henry Kissinger’s expansion of what had previously been America’s longest war from Vietnam into Cambodia in 1970. “[S]hortly after taking office, I approved a long-standing request for more troops. After consultations with our allies, I then announced a strategy recognizing the fundamental connection between our war effort in Afghanistan, and the extremist safe-havens in Pakistan. I set a goal that was narrowly defined as disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies….”

The current administration has, in addition to plans to boost combined U.S. and NATO (“our allies”) military forces to 150,000 in Afghanistan, dramatically escalated drone missile attacks inside neighboring Pakistan and, as the above quote demonstrates, declared western and southern Pakistan part of the expanding war theater.

The president mentioned or alluded to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization several times in his address, in one instance with a degree of hyperbole that is as frightening as it is extravagant. “For what’s at stake is not simply a test of NATO’s credibility – what’s at stake is the security of our Allies, and the common security of the world.

“We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.”

The entire world is threatened by a spreading cancer. This alarmist and crude phraseology was employed by a 21st century leader of the world’s superpower, a Harvard graduate, but could as well have been lifted from the lowest yellow journalism screed of the Cold War.

In attempting to deny the obvious – the inevitable – Obama continued by stating that “there are those who suggest that Afghanistan is another Vietnam. They argue that it cannot be stabilized, and we are better off cutting our losses and rapidly withdrawing. Yet this argument depends upon a false reading of history. Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations….”

Troops from America’s NATO and NATO partner vassals and tributaries in the war against barbarians – the terms are those of Zbigniew Brzezinski from his 1997 The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives – will not be limited to the war in Afghanistan, which in fact is a laboratory for a far broader global strategy, as “The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan….Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere –

they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.”

U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones said in October that “according to the maximum estimate, al Qaeda has fewer than 100 fighters operating in Afghanistan without any bases or ability to launch attacks on the West.” Government estimates for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are in the neighborhood of 20,000.

This is the global cancer that requires 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops and an Afghan army of a quarter million or more troops. And a war that will continue well beyond the 2011 deadline mentioned in the West Point speech and be fought with intensified vigor and as far from Afghanistan as the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Southeast Asian archipelago.

With the deployment of “senior members of Mr. Obama’s war council,” as the New York Times characterized them, on the Sunday morning television news program circuit on December 7, the scope and the length of the already biggest and longest war in the world became undeniable.

The National Security Adviser, former Marine general and NATO top military commander James Jones, told CNN’s State of the Union: “We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times. We’re going to be in the region for a long time.”

He added that the influx of more American and NATO troops “will allow us to move our forces back towards the border regions, where really the most important struggle that we’re going to have is to make sure that on the Pakistani side of the border, that we eliminate the safe havens.”

Pentagon chief Robert Gates said on NBC’s Meet the Press that although there would still be over 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan in 2011, only “some handful, or some small number, or whatever the conditions permit, will begin to withdraw at that time.”

The Pentagon’s Central Command chief, General David Petraeus, appeared on Fox News Sunday and acknowledged that there were no plans for a “rush to the exits” and that there “could be tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan for several years.” [2]

Little noted with the expansion of the war is that its range is widening as its intensity is deepening.

The top U.S. Air Force commander in Europe and Eurasia, General Roger A. Brady, was in Georgia on December 7 and in the neighboring South Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan on the 8th to discuss both nations’ increased troop deployments to Afghanistan and solidifying strategic military relations.

The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has recently and once again threatened war against Nagorno Karabakh and by unavoidable implication Armenia, which is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization with Russia. The latter is obligated to provide Armenia military assistance under terms of the treaty in the event of it becoming the victim of aggression. With the American commander listening attentively, defense minister of Azerbaijan Colonel-General Safar Abiyev said that ongoing negotiations over Nagorno Karabakh “were not fruitful and such a situation forced Azerbaijan to use other ways to liberate its lands from the occupation.” [3]

On December 4 the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, who fought a five-day war with Russia in August of last year, spoke of his offering the U.S. and NATO 1,000 more troops for the Afghan war and ominously added: “This is a unique chance for our soldiers to receive a real combat baptism.

“We do not need the army only for showing it in military parades….While our allies – in this case the United States and Europe – are concentrating on other issues [Afghanistan and Iraq], our enemy is getting active. The sooner the Afghan situation is resolved and sooner the war is over in Iraq, [the sooner] Georgia will be more protected.” [4]

The enemy is Russia and the quid pro quo is U.S.-trained Georgian troops receiving a war zone “baptism” for a future conflict with their “numerous, dangerous and perfidious” adversary. The adjectives are also Saakashvili’s, as are these words: “We need an army that knows how to fight. And participation in the operation in Afghanistan is a unique chance to study this and receive experience….Our final aim is to free the occupied territories [Abkhazia and South Ossetia] and unite and integrate Georgia.” [5]

Other nations are obtaining combat experience in Afghanistan under NATO auspices for use in and on the borders of their homelands, including, like Azerbaijan and Georgia, nations bordering Russia – Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, Poland and Ukraine – as well as future belligerents in conflicts elsewhere like Colombia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

If the world’s sole superpower and its NATO entourage can employ the military necessity at will to advance their interests abroad, their “vassals” will be emboldened to do so nearer home and will receive the arms and training to execute their designs.

Far from promoting peace, even an enforced peace, a Pax Americana, the war in Afghanistan and U.S. foreign policy in general are igniting power kegs around the world.

If it can be argued that Obama inherited the war in South Asia from George W. Bush and is intent on “finishing the job,” his signing of the $106 billion Iraq and Afghanistan War Supplemental Appropriations in July and the $680 billion 2010 National Defense Authorization Act in late October belies any claim of objection to the enhanced use of the military in general and war in particular.

Next year’s Pentagon budget is the largest, in both current and real U.S. dollars, since 1945, the last year of World War II. Although it contains $130 billion for the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq that previously would have been appropriated as separate supplemental funds, immediately after the signing of the Defense Department budget the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, stated “he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” [6] with the first request to be approximately $50 billion.

With the announcement on December 1 of another Afghan troop surge, the Pentagon’s requests for “emergency financing” can be expected to grow in both size and frequency. As with the claim of a troop withdrawal (or “drawdown”) by 2011, the alleged ending of war supplements is a public relations ploy and sleight of hand trick employed to beguile a gullible public.

Even in a world that over the last decade has been afflicted with such logical and moral affronts as humanitarian war and preemptive retaliation, awarding a peace prize to a war president represents a new nadir of cynical realpolitik and a flagrant endorsement of militarism, however well-disposed many may have been toward its most recent recipient.

Notes:

1) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=15622&context=va

2) New York Times, December 7, 2009

3) Azeri Press Agency, December 8, 2009

4) Civil Georgia, December 5, 2009

5) Rustavi2, December 4, 2009

6) Associated Press, November 1, 2009

International Counterterrorism Policy in the Obama Administration
By Daniel Benjamin (*)

If memory serves, when I spoke to you two years ago, my view was that the United States had developed great skills at what I called tactical counterterrorism–taking individual terrorists off the street, and disrupting cells and operations. On the strategic side, I thought we were losing ground. Now, I believe the administration is redressing that gap. In my roughly six months in office, my view of our tactical capabilities in the areas of intelligence, the military, and law enforcement have more than amply been confirmed. One of the great rewards of government service is the chance to work with colleagues in all of these areas, and I must say that their level of competence and professionalism is really extraordinary. When I consider how far we have come since my days at the NSC in the late 90s, I think it is quite remarkable.

And we are now working to match their proficiency by formulating the kind of policies that seek to shape the environment that terrorists operate in so that they find their efforts more constrained. We are rebuilding and reinvigorating old partnerships to combat terror and establishing new ones with others who have been on the sidelines. As we look at the problem of transnational terror, we are putting at the core of our actions a recognition of the phenomenon of radicalization—that is, we are asking ourselves time and again: Are our actions going to result in the removal of one terrorist and the creation of ten more? What can we do to attack the drivers of radicalization, so that al- Qaida and its affiliates have a shrinking pool of recruits? And finally– and vitally–are we hewing to our values in this struggle? Because as President Obama has said from the outset, there should be no tradeoff between our security and our values. Indeed, in light of what we know about radicalization, it is clear that navigating by our values is an essential part of a successful counterterrorism effort. Thus, we have moved to rectify the excesses of the past few years by working to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, forbidding enhanced interrogation techniques, and developing a more systematic method of dealing with detainees. We are also demonstrating our commitment to the rule of law by trying Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other al-Qaida operatives in our court system.

Finally, we have a strategy for success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The President has put forward a clear plan to constrain the Taliban and destroy the al-Qaida core, and the administration is putting up the resources necessary to achieve that goal. Moreover, we are working with Pakistan to establish the kind of relationship, based on trust and mutual interests, that will lead to the defeat of radicalism in that country, which has in recent months seen so much violence. We understand the trust deficit, built up over decades that created the current situation. We know that challenges in the region will not be overcome overnight. But we believe we are now firmly on the right track.

Before going any further, we need to consider the threat today: On any given day, al-Qaida remains the foremost security threat the nation faces. Yet having said that, it is clear that for al-Qaida, it has been a difficult period. The group is under severe pressure in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the U.S. and its allies have succeeded in severely degrading its operational leadership. The coming troop increase in Afghanistan will further reduce al-Qaida’s capabilities and those of other extremist organizations. The Pakistani military has been working to eliminate militant strongholds in its territory. As a result, al-Qaida is finding it tougher to raise money, train recruits, and plan attacks outside of the region.

In addition to these operational setbacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Qaida has not been successful in carrying out the attacks that would shake governments in the Arab world, which continues to be a primary long-term focus. It has failed to mobilize the masses–and this is a key point–which they have repeatedly said is their means of establishing Islamic emirates in the region.

Finally, there has been a decline of support for al-Qaida’s political program and there are several reasons for this: indiscriminate targeting of Muslim civilians in Iraq and Pakistan alienated many who were previously sympathetic to al-Qaida’s larger aspirations. The result has been both popular disaffection and a backlash from clerics in Muslim countries who have issued fatwas against the killing of other Muslims, notably in Iraq, although I note that this has yet to happen on a large scale in Afghanistan.

Second, al-Qaida’s ideological hard line has alienated more pragmatic organizations and individuals in the wider militant community. It has also created confusion over who carries the true banner of Islamic resistance to Western imperialism.

Third, denunciations of al-Qaida by extremist clerics have damaged the religious legitimacy of the group and raised questions about the proper use of violence in countries where there is no overt military action.

Fourth, al-Qaida and similar groups are becoming increasingly vague about who the primary enemy is, creating confusion in the militant community about the fundamentals of its strategic direction.

Yet despite these setbacks, al-Qaida has proven to be adaptable and resilient in two arenas. The first is in ungoverned or under-governed areas, often where there are tribal conflicts in which it can attach itself to the different parties. Thus in Yemen, al-Qaida operatives are marrying into the local tribes, and taking up their grievances against the government. In the sparsely populated Sahel, al-Qaida operatives, sometimes operating with individual local tribesmen and nomads, kidnap foreigners. In the FATA, operatives are marrying into local Pashtun tribes and are serving the larger interests of the Taliban insurgency by providing technical know-how and disseminating propaganda. And in Somalia, al-Qaida’s allies in al-Shabaab now control significant tracts of territory. These weakly-governed or entirely ungoverned areas are a major safe haven for al-Qaida and its allies and to dismiss their significance is to misunderstand their historical importance for training, recruitment, and operational planning. Quite frankly, the problem of un- and under-governed spaces is one of the toughest ones this and future administrations will face.

The second arena where Sunni radicals continue to succeed is in persuading religious extremists to adopt their cause, even in the United States. A bus driver, Najibullah Zazi, was trained in Pakistan and now faces charges in federal court for planning to set off a series of bombs in the United States. An indictment that was unsealed Monday in Chicago portrays an American citizen–David Headley–playing a pivotal role in last year’s attack in Mumbai, which killed more than 170 people and dramatically raised tensions in South Asia. So even if this radical movement is not mobilizing the masses, it is still galvanizing enough people to take to violence and poses a continuing, powerful threat. The importance of these two cases should not be glossed over–the conspiracies these men were engaged in had roots in the FATA, and eight years after 9/11, should give us all pause. The threat to the U.S. remains substantial and enduring despite the operational constraints on al-Qaida central.

It is also multifaceted as we have seen in the movement of young men, many of them motivated by a sense of ethnic duty, who have left their communities in Minnesota, been radicalized in Somalia, and fought and died for al-Shabaab.

As the example of David Headley indicates, al-Qaida is not the only group with global ambitions that we have to worry about. Lashkar e-Taiba has made it clear that it is willing to undertake bold, mass-casualty operations with a target set that would please al-Qaida planners. The group’s more recent thwarted conspiracy to attack the US embassy in Bangladesh should only deepen concern that it could evolve into a genuinely global terrorist threat. And let me say as an aside, very few things worry me as much as the strength and ambition of LeT, a truly malign presence in South Asia. We are working closely with allies in the region and elsewhere to reduce the threat from this very dangerous group.

As you know, I worked on terrorism in the White House when al-Qaida first surfaced in the late 1990s and I can tell you now, after having access to the intelligence again, that the threat has become far more complicated due to the proliferation of groups and the cross-pollination of networks. The global radical milieu has become thicker. There is so much more that we have to keep tabs on than there was in 1999.

So what are we doing to meet this challenge? Faced with this continuing and evolving threat, President Obama has articulated a clear policy – to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida and its allies. That is our overriding objective, and to achieve it we are using all the tools at our disposal. In weakly-governed areas we are collaborating with the relevant local authorities to bolster their security forces to prevent al-Qaida safe havens. Moreover, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies and those of our allies continue to disrupt terrorist plots at home and abroad–as we have here in Denver and New York, in London, and in other countries around the world. We are working with the international financial community to deny resources to al-Qaida and its supporters. Now, as al-Qaida affiliates turn to kidnapping for ransom to raise funds, we are urging our partners around the world to adopt a no-concessions policy toward hostage-takers so we can diminish this alternative funding stream in regions like the Sahel, the FATA, and Yemen.

But this is not enough, as the continuing flow of recruits–and the lengthening roll call of conspiracies testifies. As President Obama succinctly put it, “A campaign against extremism will not succeed with bullets or bombs alone.” We need to look to look to what my colleague Deputy National Security John Brennan has called the upstream factors. We need to confront the political, social, and economic conditions that our enemies exploit to win over the new recruits…the funders…and those whose tacit support enables the militants to carry forward their plans.
The threat is global and our enemies latch on to grievances on behalf of the entire Muslim world, so we must work to resolve the long-standing problems that fuel those grievances. At the top of the list is the Arab-Israeli conflict, and, as you know, President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Special Envoy George Mitchell are working very hard to resolve it.

Even with their efforts, peace in the Middle East will take time, and as we know, it will not eliminate all of the threats. But while the big policy challenges matter in radicalization, local drivers are critical as well. We are developing tailored-approaches to alter them. How do these different elements of our global counterterrorism strategy fit together?

To be sure, terrorism is a common challenge shared by nations across the globe—one that requires diplomacy—and one that the United States cannot solve alone. As Secretary Clinton has said, “Today’s security threats cannot be addressed in isolation. Smart power requires reaching out to both friends and adversaries, to bolster old alliances and to forge new ones.” The Obama administration has worked hard to reach out and, on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect, to forge international coalitions. The administration has been working at reinvigorating alliances across the board and reengaging in the multilateral fora concerned with counterterrorism—fora that, in all honesty, were neglected for some time at the many UN entities, the G8, and the vast range of regional organizations that are eager to engage on counterterrorism issues.

Building the counterterrorism capacity of our partners at the national level is also a top priority. Consistent diplomatic engagement with counterparts and senior leaders helps build political will for common counterterrorism objectives. When the political will is there, we can address the nuts and bolts aspect of capacity building. We are working to make the counterterrorism training of police, prosecutors, border officials, and members of the judiciary more systematic, more innovative, and far-reaching, and we are doing this through such efforts as the Antiterrorism Assistance Program. In its more than 25-year old history, the ATA program has trained more than 66,000 professionals from 151 countries, providing programs tailored to the needs of each partner nation and to local conditions.

ATA is just one of many programs–on the civilian and the military sides of the house—that is increasing the ability of others to ensure their own security. With this kind of work, we are making real the President’s vision of shared security partnerships as an essential part of US foreign policy. This is both good counterterrorism and good statecraft. We are addressing the state insufficiencies that terrorism lives on, and we are helping invest our partners more effectively in confronting the threat–-rather than looking thousands of miles away for help or simply looking away altogether.

We are also addressing the local drivers of radicalization that still lead large numbers of people to adopt al-Qaida’s ideology, and as I said earlier, we understand the dangers of radicalization, and we are working both to undermine the al-Qaida narrative and to ameliorate the conditions that make it attractive. We know that violent extremism flourishes where there is marginalization, alienation, and perceived–-or real–-relative deprivation. In recognition of this, my first step has been to build a unit focusing on what we in the government call “Countering Violent Extremism” in my office to focus on local communities most prone to radicalization. There is a broad understanding across the government that we have not done nearly enough to address underlying conditions for at-risk populations–-and we have also not done enough to improve the ability of moderates to voice their views and strengthen opposition to violence.

Adopting a tailored-approach to countering violent extremism does not mean we can neglect broader structural problems. There is no denying that when children have no hope for an education, when young people have no hope for a job and feel disconnected from the modern world, when governments fail to provide for the basic needs of their people, when people despair and are aggrieved, they become more susceptible to extremist ideologies. But a tailored-approach to CVE requires identifying which of these problems are driving radicalization and are amenable to change with the help of local governments and leaders who understand the problems best.

Over time, the measures and the methods I have described above will reduce terrorists’ capacity to harm us and our partners. No element can be neglected if we are to succeed since they reinforce one another. Global engagement builds coalitions based on mutual interests and mutual respect. And these coalitions, in turn, help us partner with individual nations to enhance their capacity to counter extremism. This, finally, enables us to work with them to develop tailored-approaches to preventing extremists from becoming violent extremists.

I don’t want to leave you today with the impression that we have figured it all or that there won’t be real setbacks in the future. The contemporary terrorist threat was decades in the making and it will take many more years to unmake it. There is much we still need to learn, especially about how to prevent individuals from choosing the path of violence. But I believe we now have the right framework for our policies, and ultimately, I am confident, this will lead to the decisions and actions that will strengthen security for our nation and the global community.

(*) Daniel Benjamin, Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism – U.S. Government

We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:

A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local “distributors” and dealers – and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn – come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality yourself!) – and if you need lively stills or video material on Somalia, please do contact us.

There is no limit to what a person can do or how far one can go to help
- if one doesn’t mind who gets the credit !

ECOTERRA Intl. maintains a register for persons missing or abducted in the Somali seas (Foreign seafarers as well as Somalis). Inquiries by family member can be sent by e-mail to office[at]ecoterra-international.org

For families of presently captive seafarers – in order to advise and console their worries – ECOTERRA Intl. can establish contacts with professional seafarers, who had been abducted in Somalia, and their wives as well as of a Captain of a sea-jacked and released ship, who agreed to be addressed “with questions, and we will answer truthfully”.

ECOTERRA – ALERTS and pending issues:

PIRATE ATTACK GULF OF ADEN: Advice on Who to Contact and What to Do http://www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2008-09-08-2

NATURAL RESOURCES & ARMED FISH POACHERS: Foreign navies entering the 200nm EEZ of Somalia and foreign helicopters and troops must respect the fact that especially all wildlife is protected by Somali national as well as by international laws and that the protection of the marine resources of Somalia from illegally fishing foreign vessels should be an integral part of the anti-piracy operations. Likewise the navies must adhere to international standards and not pollute the coastal waters with oil, ballast water or waste from their own ships but help Somalia to fight against any dumping of any waste (incl. diluted, toxic or nuclear waste). So far and though the AU as well as the UN has called since long on other nations to respect the 200 nm EEZ, only now the two countries (Spain and France) to which the most notorious vessels and fleets are linked have come up with a declaration that they will respect the 200 nm EEZ of Somalia but so far not any of the navies operating in the area pledged to stand against illegal fishing. So far not a single illegal fishing vessel has been detained by the naval forces, though they had been even informed about several actual cases, where an intervention would have been possible. Illegally operating Tuna fishing vessels (many from South Korea, some from Greece and China) carry now armed personnel and force their way into the Somali fishing grounds – uncontrolled or even protected by the naval forces mandated to guard the Somali waters against any criminal activity, which included arms carried by foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters.

LLWs / NLWs: According to recently leaked information the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden are also used as a cover-up for the live testing of recently developed arsenals of so called non-lethal as well as sub-lethal weapons systems. (Pls request details) Neither the Navies nor the UN has come up with any code of conduct in this respect, while the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) is sponsoring several service-led acquisition programs, including the VLAD, Joint Integration Program, and Improved Flash Bang Grenade. Alredy in use in Somalia are so called Non-lethal optical distractors, which are visible laser devices that have reversible optical effects. These types of non-blinding laser devices use highly directional optical energy. Somalia is also a testing ground for the further developments of the Active Denial System (ADS) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD). If new developments using millimeter wave sources that will help minimize the size, weight, and system cost of an effective Active Denial System which provides “ADS-ACTD-like” repel effects, are used has not yet been revealed. Obviously not only the US is developing and using these kind of weapons as the case of MV MARATHON showed, where a Spanish naval vessel was using optical lasers – the stand-off was then broken by the killing of one of the hostage seafarers. Local observers also claim that HEMI devices, producing Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) Bioeffects, have been used in the Gulf of Aden against Somalis. Exposure to HEMI devices, which can be understood as a stun-gun shot at an individual over a larger distance, causes muscle contractions that temporarily disable an individual. Research efforts are under way to develop a longer-duration of this effect than is currently available. The live tests are apparently done without that science understands yet the effects of HEMI electrical waveforms on a human body.

WARBOTS, UAVs etc.: Peter Singer says: “By cutting the already tenuous link between the public and its nation’s foreign policy, pain-free war would pervert the whole idea of the democratic process and citizenship as they relate to war. When a citizenry has no sense of sacrifice or even the prospect of sacrifice, the decision to go to war becomes just like any other policy decision, weighed by the same calculus used to determine whether to raise bridge tolls. Instead of widespread engagement and debate over the most important decision a government can make, you get popular indifference. When technology turns war into something merely to be watched, and not weighed with great seriousness, the checks and balances that undergird democracy go by the wayside. This could well mean the end of any idea of democratic peace that supposedly sets our foreign-policy decision making apart. Such wars without costs could even undermine the morality of “good” wars. When a nation decides to go to war, it is not just deciding to break stuff in some foreign land. As one philosopher put it, the very decision is “a reflection of the moral character of the community who decides.” Without public debate and support and without risking troops, the decision to go to war becomes the act of a nation that doesn’t give a damn.”

ECOTERRA Intl., whose work does focus on nature- and human-rights-protection and – as the last international environmental organization still working in Somalia – had alerted ship-owners since 1992, many of whom were fishing illegally in the since 1972 established 200 nm territorial waters of Somalia and today’s 200nm Exclusive Economic Zone (UNCLOS) of Somalia, to stay away from Somali waters. The non-governmental organization had requested the international community many times for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state from all exploiters, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand – even with the navies.

ECOTERRA members with marine and maritime expertise, joined by it’s ECOP-marine group, are closely and continuously monitoring and advising on the Somali situation. (for previous information concerning the topics please google keywords ECOTERRA (and) SOMALIA)

The network of the SEAFARERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME and ECOTERRA Intl. helped significantly in most sea-jack cases. Basically the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme tackles all issues of seafarers welfare and ECOTERRA Intl. is working in Somalia since 1986 on human-rights and nature protection, while ECOP-marine concentrates on illegal fishing and the protection of the marine ecosystems. Your support counts too.

Please consider to contribute to the work of SAP, ECOP-marine and ECOTERRA Intl. Please donate to the defence fund.

Contact us for details concerning project-sponsorship or donations via e-mail: ecotrust[at]ecoterra.net

Kindly note that all the information above is distributed under and is subject to a license under the Creative Commons Attribution. ECOTERRA, however, reserves the right to editorial changes. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/. The opinion of individual authors, whose writings are provided here for strictly educational and informational purposes, does not necessarily reflect the views held by ECOTERRA Intl. unless endorsed. With each issue of the SMCM ECOTERRA Intl. tries to paint a timely picture containing the actual facts and often differing opinions of people from all walks of live concerning issues, which do have an impact on the Somali people, Somalia as a nation, the region and in many cases even the world.

Send your genuine articles, networked or confidential information please to: mailhub[at]ecoterra.net (anti-spam-verifier equipped)

Pls cite ECOTERRA Intl. – www.ecoterra-international.org as source (not necessarily as author) for onward publications, where no other source is quoted.

Press Contacts:

ECOP-marine
East-Africa
+254-714-747090
marine[at]ecop.info
www.ecop.info

ECOTERRA Intl.
Nairobi Node
africanode[at]ecoterra.net
+254-733-633-733

EA Seafarers Assistance Programme
Mshenga Mwacharo (Information Officer)
+254-721-513 418 or +254-734-010 056
sap[at]ecoterra.net

SAP / ECOTERRA Intl.
Athman Seif (Media Officer)
+254-722-613858
office[at]ecoterra-international.org

N.B.: If you are missing certain editions of our updates, this can have two reasons: Either you have not white-listed our sender address office[at}ecoterra-international.org for your inbox and your server provides for censorship (beware of aol, yahoo or gmail as mailservice and barracudacentral as filter - it shows only that you want to remain dumb folded) or you do not belong [yet] to our trusted friends and supporters, who receive all updates including those with classified content. Join the network or become a funding supporter to get them all. Look up earlier public updates on the internet – e.g. at: http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=136&Itemid=229

Note: ECOTERRA is not responsible for the spam that sometimes appears to come from our domains. This is spoofed mail, is part of a systematic, ongoing harassment targeting many independent groups and websites. 90% of spam is sent not by people but systems, which are part of a scheme to restrict the internet. For more information see this article in The Nation or this article in Wired News.

To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this listserve – just send a mail with reference SMCM to office[at]ecoterra-international.org

We welcome the submission of articles for publication through the SMCM.
One tree makes approx. 16.67 reams of copy/printing paper or 8,333.3 A4 sheets.
Kindly print this email only if strictly necessary.

Tags: 113b, 2009, Chronicle, December, Ecoterra, June, Press, Release, Somalia

Domestic Warfare

It wasn’t much more than a week ago that the Tories announced an end to their war against single parents. This was tactical rather than practical, I believe, since it is customary for the end of a war to be announced by its winner. The Tories must have hoped thereby to persuade us that they had won. Whereas in fact, by any measurable scale, single parents must have won, since it’s statistically impossible in this country to be less popular than the Conservative party.

Principle carers (as lone parents are so non-judgmentally known by the child support agency) must have thought they would be given a short while to regroup and maybe hand out a few medals, but no, a new war has been launched almost immediately, this time by the government itself. Poor carers, they must feel like Poland.

In an effort to make things “fairer and faster”, the CSA has announced a new scale to calculate the financial input of the non-resident parent. The formula, which was meant to be introduced in April but will not take effect until some time next year, requires the absent parent to pay 15% of his or her income for one child, 20% for two and 25% for three. This amounts to a cut in payments to single parents of up to 19%, but does not affect the ones who live on benefits. Therefore, it is effectively a penalty on being a single parent with a job, which is a little bit rich coming from a government that spent so much of its first term trying to get single parents back to work.

The CSA’s position is that the system needs to be changed, because it is unworkable at the moment. It has some good evidence to support this claim – in August, it transpired that the agency had written off £2bn worth of debt, and considered a further £150m “uncollectable”.

Sir John Bourne, the auditor general, estimated in July that 81% of the CSA’s maintenance assessments were wrong. In other words, this is the most comprehensively rubbish finance collection agency this country has ever seen. If a lone parent failed at its quotidian duties this woefully, it would have its children taken away.

So, the quest for simplification and greater efficiency is understandable, but when the end result is to round down the amount owed to the main carer, you can’t help thinking that behind this fiasco there’s prejudice at work.

Try to imagine what would happen if the Inland Revenue got most people’s tax assessments wrong, wrote off vast quantities of its debts because it couldn’t be bothered to chase them and then said “sod it, let’s charge them all a bit less, and see if that works”. Well, it would make the whole business of being taxed a lot more fun, and we wouldn’t be able to afford a war against Iraq, but on the downside, society would disintegrate and we would all get cholera.

The decision is absolutely obscure; it doesn’t benefit the working single parent, and ultimately it cannot benefit the government. If the employed are to be penalised, those on very low incomes will necessarily be forced out of work and back on the dole. The only people gaining from this are the absent parents, who are in effect being rewarded for the merry £2bn dance they’ve led the CSA on since its inception nine years ago.

Of course, this is infinitely worse than the now-defunct Tory war – it doesn’t make any difference to anyone whether or not the opposition party thinks they got pregnant just to get a council flat. If anything, the act of annoying Norman Tebbit might add to your overall quality of life.

The government scheme, on the other hand, has important and damaging financial ramifications. But the thinking behind New Labour and Old Tory is the same – single parents are quite simply worth less than other groups. They are worth less than dual parents, they are worth less than the childless and – most ridiculously – they are worth less than absent parents. Their payments are chased less tenaciously than bloody parking fines, they were harried back to work with the most patronising of poster campaigns and now they are penalised for being in work.

The very people who demonstrate their sense of social responsibility most assiduously are the ones who are treated with least respect by their society. Conceivably, this all stems from a moral agenda that still puts some crazy value on marital respectability, even though the only people who really stay married for life these days are politicians themselves, and that’s just because they have such, ahem, fun-packed professional lives.

Possibly, there is a misogynist undertone here since, though we all strive with modern even-handedness not to group resident and absent parents by gender, the former are still mainly women. I wonder, though, whether it isn’t all a bit more pragmatic than that – lone parents are notoriously time-poor individuals, being so busy with kids and whatnot. If you’re going to victimise anyone, you may as well victimise the ones who don’t have time to fight back.

Tags: Domestic, Warfare

More People Need to Know the True Benefits of Debt Reducing Government Grants!

The truth about the benefits of the government grants has been somewhat watered down in the press other than that which has been created by the government itself. The government grants have been very advantageous to the millions of families who have received them. There are millions of dollars left to be claimed and more families need to know the real benefits of these programs so that they will apply for them too.

These government grants have been designed specifically to reduce personal and business debt as well as to create the opportunity to rebuild credit that has been ruined through having so much debt. True, the full amount of debt will not be dissolved but the percentages that will be taken off are often a large help to those individuals.

There are so many grants available in different categories that it would be impossible in one small piece to name them all plus their requirements and instructions. So here is a rundown of a few of them. The main basic requirements are that you are an American citizen of the age of 18 or older earning less than $30,000. The main categories are small-business, mortgage, education, loan consolidation, tax rebate, and medical bill assistance.

For more information check out the government grant website. If you know someone who needs help with their debt, then spread the word along. It could change their life as well. It would be the good deed of your day, and if both of you are successful in receiving these grants then you’ll be helping yourselves and the economy at the same time.

***Update***
I have done a bit of research for you. Government Grant Experts can help you get the grants you deserve by helping you get out of debt fast. You can find out if you qualify for a Government Grant for free!

Click here to fill out a short form to save your finances and get out of debt as early as this week!

Tags: benefits, Debt, Government, Grants, Know, More, Need, People, Reducing, True

Energy Efficiency Analysis Program for Hotels Unveiled

Energy Efficiency Analysis Program for Hotels Unveiled

EcoGreenHotel President, Scott Parisi, announced the launch of his company’s new Energy Efficiency Analysis program, or E2A, designed to help green hotels
assess their exact energy usage and develop cost-effective ways to reduce it.

Normal
0

false
false
false

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:”";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}

Company Develops New Energy Efficiency Program for the
Hospitality Industry

 

ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. – EcoGreenHotel President, Scott
Parisi, announced the launch of his company’s new Energy Efficiency
Analysis program, or E2A, designed to help green hotels
assess their exact energy usage and develop cost-effective ways to reduce it.

 

“As other
industries look to reduce their negative impacts on the environment, hotels
have struggled to do the same without it having an adverse effect on the guest
experience and the bottom line.  Energy
efficiency programs that have been good for other industries have not necessarily
been applicable to hospitality for those reasons,” Parisi said.  “Our goal was to develop a
hospitality-specific program for evaluating and increasing the energy
efficiency of hotels without sacrificing guest satisfaction or the hotel’s
financial wellbeing, and we’ve achieved that with E2A.”

 

The energy
efficiency process begins with EcoGreenHotel analyzing a year’s worth of each
property’s utility bills using ENERGY STARS benchmarking system.  An EcoGreenHotel E2A professional
conducts an on-site visit to evaluate the property’s operations and efficiency.  EcoGreenHotel then creates a customized,
cost-effective energy efficiency strategy taking industry-specific factors,
property specifics and region into account.

 

Once the
analysis is complete, each hotel receives a comprehensive report, a
cost-benefit breakdown for each of the recommended Energy Conservation Measures
(ECM’s), a five-year cash flow analysis for each of the ECM’s, and a list of
federal, state, local and utility-sponsored rebates, grants, incentives and
loans that will help pay for them.

 

“Our
mission is to encourage greater energy efficiency throughout the hospitality
industry, and our new partnership with EPA’s ENERGY STAR Program will greatly
enhance that effort,” Parisi said.

 

“Another
thing that sets EcoGreenHotel’s E2A program apart is that it’s
completely vendor neutral,” Parisi said. 
“Our recommendations for products, services and technology are based
solely upon our clients’ best interests, and nothing more.  We guarantee that each E2A program
will result in an actionable plan that will save our clients money, lessen the
impact on the environment and improve cash flow.”   

 

To learn
more about EcoGreenHotel’s E2A program, visit Energy Efficiency Analysis for Green Hotels.

 

 

About EcoGreenHotel

EcoGreenHotel
LLC is a privately held company,
dedicated to help lodging facilities address the broad spectrum of
sustainability issues. The company provides information, tools, checklists,
current news and trends to the hospitality through its website, www.EcoGreenHotel.com.
In 2009, the company launched an online marketplace for green products and
services at www.EcoGreenHotelStore.com. In addition to the
online offerings, EcoGreenHotel provides customized consulting services in the
areas of energy efficiency and certifications (LEED, Green Seal and Energy
Star), tailored to the needs of the hospitality industry. For those properties
that have reached certified levels of sustainability with marketing services to position the properties within the growing “green”
space and enhance revenue. For further information emailinfo@EcoGreenHotel.com
or call 888.229.0213.

Article Tags:
Energy Efficiency Analysis, Energy Efficiency, Efficiency Analysis

Tags: Analysis, Efficiency, Energy, Hotels, Program, Unveiled

Small Business Financing and Mixed Signals

Small business financing and working capital loans are producing mixed signals for commercial borrowers. These mixed signals are due to a variety of financial and economic issues, but the end result is likely to be confusion for small business owners. Business lenders are increasingly reducing or canceling commercial lines of credit, turning down new requests for business financing and declining to refinance commercial real estate loans. In contrast to their actual lending practices, most lenders have announced that they are lending normally to businesses.

Looking at this perplexing situation from a lending perspective, it is likely that most commercial lenders truly want to be more active in providing small business financing programs than they currently are. Many banks have been forced to increase their liquid assets to satisfy government standards because they are overcapitalized. In most cases, this literally forces such lenders to make fewer loans and to cancel some existing loans. In other cases, lenders have depended excessively on short-term commercial financing sources and now find themselves short of capital to make loans because their own business funding sources are proving to be inadequate.

Having enough cash flow to support daily operational requirements is a critical need from the perspective of a small business owner. The inability to borrow needed funds on an ongoing basis will quickly produce serious consequences for any business because very few businesses are debt-free. The average business owner probably does not understand why they cannot get adequate working capital or commercial real estate financing from their existing bank. The primary mission for commercial borrowers is likely to involve locating new sources of capital once they realize that their current lenders might not be up to the task of helping their business financially.

Because there appears to be an adequate supply of new lending sources to fill the void left by the exit of many banks and other lenders from commercial lending, there is good news emerging from this confusing and complicated lending climate for small businesses. A prominent commercial lender recently announced that they needed more capital in order to continue making small business loans. It has become clear that there are other lending sources sufficient for solving the immediate problem, recognizing that the failure of this lender would be an inconvenience to businesses using their services.

Despite the confusion and mixed signals from lenders, business owners are in better shape than they probably realize to make it through the current small business financing chaos. In order to increase the chances of their business surviving, borrowers should take a more active role in working capital management.

Tags: Business, Financing, Mixed, Signals, Small