Le Monde Diplomatique

Speculate to accumulate
by Serge Halimi
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
The International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation promised that more trade would help to eradicate poverty and hunger. Foodcrops? Self-sufficiency in food? They had a better idea. Local farms would be closed down or encouraged to concentrate on exports. This would make the most, not of natural conditions which might be good for growing tomatoes in Mexico or pineapples in the Philippines, but of the fact that production costs are lower in Mexico and the Philippines than they (...)

Are they saviours, predators or dupes?
by Ibrahim Warde
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
The US recession, record oil prices and a costly war on terror have added to the sense of unease generated by the present, unprecedented credit crisis. Sovereign wealth funds from emerging countries are now appearing as indispensable investors of last resort.
“Do we want the communists to own the banks or the terrorists?” asked Jim Cramer, star analyst of the CNBC financial news network. Then he answered: “I'll take any of it, I guess, because we're so desperate” . The near simultaneous entry of (...) (password requested)

It's all in the bonus
by Ibrahim Warde
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
What was the motivation of Jerôme Kerviel, a lowly and unremarkable trader at Société Générale, to pull off the largest financial fraud in history? The media mostly discounted the money motive. In the words of French prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin, he wanted to “appear an exceptional trader, someone who could unerringly anticipate market fluctuations” and did not seek personal enrichment. Daniel Bouton, the bank's head, called him a “swindler” and a “terrorist” but thought he “apparently did not (...)

Looking into the abyss
by Ibrahim Warde
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
On 14 March Bear Stearns, fifth investment bank in the United States, facing a severe liquidity crisis, appealed to the Federal Reserve. In order to save the bank after its battering by the subprime crisis, the Federal Reserve lent $30bn to JPMorgan Chase, which announced two days later that it was buying Bear Stearns for $236m.
This rescue was unusual, if not shocking. Until then, government-engineered rescues had only taken place when deposit-taking institutions were at risk and the (...) (password requested)

US presidents-to-be in denial
by Dahr Jamail
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
As soon as it was clear that the presidential primaries would be the news story of the year in the US, Iraq was dropped by the media. The occupation and the campaign for the presidential nominations were de-linked almost from the start. So we don't know what the potential candidates would do in Iraq. But pulling troops out doesn't seem to be an option for any of them.
Amman, April 2008: the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, said he wanted “to highlight the (...)

The demand for grain won't stop growing
by Dominique Baillard
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
African populations are suffering the consequences of rising grain prices, and there have been hunger riots and demonstrations against the cost of bread. Meanwhile, grain is breaking all records on the American markets.
Food security is once again causing concern, even in industrialised nations. Observers such as Jean Ziegler (until recently UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food) raise the spectre of famine in west Africa. Even in the United Kingdom, where agriculture was long ago (...) (password requested)

Ethanol: the new anti-depressant
by Dominique Baillard
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
John McCain joked during the US presidential campaign that he always has “a glass of ethanol before breakfast every morning”.
This from a senator who was a fierce opponent of biofuels until 2006, and particularly the subsidies supporting the rapid development of this nascent, corn-based industry.
But defending the ethanol cause was indispensable in the rural Midwest, where the caucus process began, if he was to win the nomination of his party. Hillary Clinton is also a convert, though it's (...) (password requested)

Egypt: bread riots and mill strikes
by Joel Beinin
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
The Mubarak regime has promoted a new, privatised Egypt in which only 10% of Egyptians participate; the rest of society is trying to cope with high inflation and shortages of crucial subsidised food. Strikes and collective action have provoked reprisals, yet also secured some pay rises.
Outrage against soaring inflation, the scarcity of subsidised bread and discontent with the regime of President Hosni Mubarak exploded on 6 April in Mahalla al-Kubra, a major industrial city north of Cairo. (...) (password requested)

Tibet: dream and reality
by Slavoj Zizek
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
The West is projecting not only its own spiritual fantasies upon Tibet, but its own economic fears upon China, imagining a power struggle quite different from that which has actually happened in Tibet. We have to learn to look at Tibet as it is – and China too.
All the media reports impose an image which goes like this: the People's Republic of China, which illegally occupied Tibet in 1950, engaged for decades in brutal and systematic destruction not only of the Tibetan religion, but of the (...)

Germany turns left
by Peter Linden
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
The forces gathered by the new left party Die Linke have shaken the traditional left-right split in German politics. But it is only a recent development, and the new left has yet to overcome all its internal divisions.
On the wall of Klaus Lederer's office there's a portrait of Karl Marx in slightly faded oils and when he turns on his PC, the screen displays a colourful photo of a mass demonstration. Lederer is head of the Berlin branch of the party Die Linke (the left) and has been part of (...) (password requested)

Who's who
by Peter Linden
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
Die Linke (the left) came into existence when the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative and Social Justice Party (WASG) merged in 2007. Die Linke won 8.7% of the vote in the last general election on 18 September 2005 (up 4.7% on the combined 2002 score of its two component parts). Since then it has won seats in several regional assemblies in western Germany.
Bündnis 90-Die Grünen (Alliance-90 and the Greens). Die Grünen, in western Germany, and Bündnis 90, a civil (...) (password requested)

Turkey: in or out?
by Andrew Finkel
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
Just the promise of EU membership has attracted much desired investment to Turkey, while at the same time inducing the Turkish government to improve its democratic accountability and standard of governance. However, negotiations are going through a difficult patch at present.
Turkey is currently feeling a little like Groucho Marx – maybe it doesn't want to belong to a club that would actually admit it as a member. Public opinion in Turkey is retreating from desire for membership of the (...) (password requested)

Whose South Africa?
by Philippe Rivière
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
South Africa will host the World Cup in 2010 so construction – and corruption – is booming. But almost none of the building or the money can be accessed by the poor who live in shantytowns without proper water, sanitation or electricity. These inequalities could be a major issue in the 2009 presidential election.
“All people shall have the right to live where they choose,
be decently housed, and to bring up their families
in comfort and security.”
(Article 9 of the Freedom Charter adopted
by (...)

No water, no loos, no power
by Philippe Rivière
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
“They filmed Tsotsi here in Kliptown, then they just disappeared. The film made money, but didn't even help us build a football pitch for the youngsters from the community.”
One night in late summer the rain bounced off the corrugated iron roof above the small room where the Kliptown Concerned Residents' Committee were meeting. This is one of the oldest suburbs of Soweto – where, in 1955, 3,000 representatives of anti-apartheid organisations met to proclaim the Freedom Charter. The Walter (...)

Segregated museums
by Philippe Rivière
30 Apr 2008 at 10:00pm
The Apartheid museum is halfway between Johannesburg and Soweto, on the motorway that links the city with its emblematic township. The imposing concrete structure, emblazoned with the words Freedom and Respect, stands in a natural park that looks like the veld. Visitors receive an entry card – white or non-white. Arbitrarily given a non-white pass, I had to follow an arrow down a corridor to the right, between metal grilles, until the two paths merged again, 10 metres on.
After this, (...)