How to steal America. How to steal the World.

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Get a bunch of fat, rich international friends together and decide to skim the cream off the worlds’ populations.

Start about 30 years before anything becomes public knowledge.

Work in secret.

Make sure you have no desire to help anyone but the richest 1% of the world (Your “Base”).

Be heartless in your loyalty to wealth.

Be deaf to the cries of children suffering from hunger and disease in every part of the world.

Count on the blind faith of most human beings that their leaders mean them no harm.

Be Godless, and speak of God with Righteousness.

Be black of heart, yet speak of Christ as if you are his representative on Earth.

Make sure you appeal to the superstitions of the most ignorant members of the human race. Set as many tribes against each other as possible.

Make certain that you yourself are stupid enough, greedy enough, dyslexic in spirit enough, to ignore the fable of the Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg.

Prepare yourself for the idea that your own grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren will exist in this world as inhabitants of a Lord-Of-The-Flies-Universe where the demons will have your name.

By all means, if you have any ability to see beyond your own nose, blind your eyes with the glitter and gleam of a thousand shiny things.

That’s all there is to it.
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November 26, 2005

Privatizing the American West

While lawmakers are in recess, it is worth reflecting on one particular part of the mess they have left behind. Last week, a budget bill scraped through the House, 217 to 215. Democrats and moderate Republicans had already stripped a provision to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But the House bill left intact an evil trap to be sprung on the American public: Richard Pombo's plan to put a few hundred million acres of publicly owned land up for sale in the American West.

Mr. Pombo, Republican of California, is head of the House Resources Committee and has long been determined to privatize as much of the West as he can lay his hands on. His bill would allow the holders of mining claims to buy the land outright instead of leasing it - a substantial revision of the current practice. He argues that his proposal would merely adjust laws and affect only about 360,000 acres where mining claims are currently being developed or explored.

But the bill is so vaguely drawn that at least 6 million acres of public land, and possibly as much as 350 million acres, could wind up in the hands of private buyers. These buyers need to express only the intent to develop a mineral claim without any need to demonstrate commercial mining potential. Once the land is bought, it can be developed as the owners see fit. This is a blatant fraud on the American people, expressed in bland legislative legalese.

The question is, Who is going to stop it?

The bill has to clear a few more hurdles before becoming the law of the land - a House-Senate conference committee and final votes in the House and the Senate. In the best of all possible worlds, the House negotiators would reject the worst aspects of the Senate bill, which authorizes drilling in the Arctic refuge, and the Senate negotiators would reject the worst aspects of the House version, including Mr. Pombo's outrageous raid on the public lands.

This is not the long shot it might have seemed as recently as a week ago. Americans have come to understand that America can't drill its way out of dependency on Middle Eastern oil, and that ravaging the Arctic is no substitute for sound energy policy. They also understand that Mr. Pombo's sleight of hand is little more than legislative robbery.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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Strikers in Italy protest budget cuts

By Elisabetta Povoledo
International Herald Tribune

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2005

ROME In the sixth general strike since Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi came to power in 2001, tens of thousands of Italian workers took to the streets Friday to protest widespread spending cuts in the government's 2006 general budget.

Public transportation workers, airline pilots and railroad personnel walked out for several hours, paralyzing airports and train stations, and triggering traffic mayhem throughout the country. Most public administration offices were closed as a result of the strike called by Italy's three main labor unions, which represent more than half of the country's work force.

Berlusconi is facing re-election next spring, and Italy's weak economic growth has reflected negatively on the prime minister in recent opinion polls, which show him several points behind Romano Prodi, leader of the center-left opposition. On Friday, Berlusconi dismissed the strike as a "trite ritual that has no effect."

The government has already won a confidence vote in the Senate tied to the budget. The lower house is expected to vote next week on the budget, which must be approved before the end of the year.

"This strike is sacrosanct because there's a great difference between the reality of the country and the deafness of a government that continues to make mistakes," Guglielmo Epifani, leader of Italy's largest union, CGIL, told the thousands of demonstrators in Rome's central Piazza Navona on Friday. As irate workers blew whistles and chanted, Epifani ticked off sectors that will be affected by government cuts, from state aid to local administrations, to health care and education.

The 2006 budget foresees nearly 17 billion, or $20 billion, worth of deficit-cutting measures, as well as one-time measures like real-estate sales of state property. But union leaders object that the government has proposed little to stimulate Italy's stagnant economy - which grew 0.3 percent in the third quarter - or to curb the public debt.

"The government hasn't come up with a constructive plan of action so that we can be competitive against countries that have low labor costs like China," said Elvira Di Cioccio, who works for Esso and is a CGIL union representative.

In Milan, Savino Pezzotta, leader of the CISL union, said that the budget was "harmful for workers and retired people and useless for the development of the country," and lacking the "courage to face the country's real problems," which he listed as industrial development, the defense of earning power and Italy's depressed South.

Copyright © 2005 The International Herald Tribune
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Ford facing labor unrest in Russia

By Andrew E. Kramer
The New York Times

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2005


VSEVOLOZHSK, Russia An industrial action at Ford Motor's plant in Russia that has slowed production by about 25 percent is coming at a delicate time for Ford in Russia.

On Saturday, a union will vote on whether to strike in mid-December for higher wages. Currently, union members are engaged in a work slowdown battle with management.

Ford is striving to gain a larger share of the booming automobile market here, which is driven by the inflow of oil wealth, but is being undersold by cheaper Asian brands like Hyundai, and is planning to double production next year. Successful union actions are rare in Russia. Ironically, the union at the plant north of St. Petersburg has succeeded partly because of Ford's strict adherence to Russian labor laws - something not common among domestic producers, union leaders and analysts say.

Aleksei Etmanov, president of the union here, said union organizing this summer met with no resistance from Ford management.

"We don't want to strike. But we have our demands," Etmanov, a welder at the plant, said. "We're big fans of Ford. We say as productivity goes up, so should our salaries."

The dispute stems from the rapidly changing economy in Russia because of windfall revenues from oil, a major export commodity, Etmanov said.

When the plant opened in 2000, just two years after Russia's financial crisis, Ford offered the desirable factory jobs in the Leningrad Region, the industrial belt that loops around St. Petersburg. But now the company has competition. Caterpillar, the U.S. heavy equipment maker, and Nokia, the Finnish cellphone company, have plants in the region, and Russian factories are also getting back on their feet.

The union roll grew from 100 or so last winter to 1,100 by Friday after an attempt by managers to cap labor costs last winter, Etmanov said. The factory froze a pay grade system that awarded higher salaries to more experienced workers, and then reintroduced it a week later but with a lower pay scale, he said.

In September, the union presented Ford with four demands: a 30 percent pay raise; an end-of-the-year bonus; an end to the two-tier salary system that resulted from the new pay grades introduced in March; and union oversight of the factory's social welfare funds.

Etmanov said Ford had agreed only to union oversight of social spending. Ford declined an offer of arbitration on Nov. 8, he said. The work slowdown began Tuesday.

The president of Ford in Russia, Henrik Nenzen, declined to comment on specifics of the negotiations in an interview by telephone. Ford issued a statement saying the plant had "minor delays of production in some units" because of the industrial action.

The waiting list for a Russian-made Focus is already six months. Dealers and analysts say customers are turning to other makes rather than waiting, in spite of Ford's popularity. The factory expects to make 35,000 Focus sedans this year, but plans to ramp up output to 60,000 in 2006. Ford has already slipped from the second-most popular foreign brand in Russia in 2003 to fifth place this year. Hyundai, with plants in southern Russia, is No.1.

The problem, said Elena Sakhnova, an automotive analyst at United Financial Group brokerage in Moscow, is that Ford is operating in Russia on "very, very miserable margins" and possibly a loss because of the price structure of the market.

Copyright © 2005 The International Herald Tribune
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International Herald Tribune

Other Views: Handelsblatt, The Guardian, Daily Star

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2005


DÜSSELDORF German vision for the EU required

DÜSSELDORF: For months the European Union has been waiting for its biggest member state to be fully functional again. Expectations are correspond-ingly high. Basically, the EU is hoping for clear leadership from Berlin. Hopes are high not least because the other "big countries" - France, Britain and Italy - are being led by weakened governments. Chancellor Angela Merkel cannot bank on the French-German axis as much as Gerhard Schröder did. The EU of 25 is too big for one axis. In addition, Germany must find its way back to the traditional mediating role between Washington and Paris. German EU policy also must be broader because German and French visions of Europe are slightly divergent. Merkel has a huge task. She must avoid divisions between the 25 EU members but at same time clearly point the direction in which the EU should develop. (Handelsblatt)


Antipathy toward Al Jazeera

LONDON: It is impossible to know if President George W. Bush was being serious if he did indeed suggest to Prime Minister Tony Blair that the U.S. attack the Arabic satellite television broadcaster Al Jazeera. The White House does not even want to dignify this ''outlandish'' report with an answer. The British government is saying nothing either, but it has charged two men under the Official Secrets Act with leaking a document. U.S. politicians have made no secret of their hostility to the TV station, whose scoops have included interviews with Osama bin Laden as well as videos showing terrorists beheading Western hostages. Such horrors apart, Al Jazeera has been a pioneer of free expression in a part of the world where there is precious little of it. The idea that Al Jazeera journalists could be legitimate targets for countries purporting to support democracy is outrageous.(The Guardian)


A violation of Lebanese sovereignty

BEIRUT: In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a warning from Israel, in the form of thousands of leaflets, drifted down from the sky into the streets of Beirut and South Lebanon. Israeli warplanes and combat helicopters violated Lebanese airspace (again) to deliver a message to the Lebanese people: ''Hezbollah is causing enormous harm to Lebanon.'' The Arabic note, signed by the state of Israel, also suggested the Lebanese political party and resistance group wants the ''return of destruction.'' What are we to think of this reminder that the Israelis can invade our territory at will by flying warplanes over our country and drop whatever they like — whether propaganda or bombs — on the heads of our civilians? What would happen if the Lebanese could reciprocate this act of communication? the citizens of Israel and the international community react to such a blatant intrusion? (Daily Star)


Copyright © 2005 The International Herald Tribune
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German leader moves to seize the initiative

By Judy Dempsey
International Herald Tribune

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2005


BERLIN Germany's new government moved quickly this week to re-establish its central role in European politics, reaching out to the new states of the European Union and negotiating with Britain for a quick agreement on an EU budget.

Chancellor Angela Merkel - who took office on Tuesday and visited Paris and Brussels on Wednesday - met in London on Thursday with Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is also chairman of the EU's rotating presidency and is preparing budget proposals for a European summit meeting next month.

Negotiations over the EU budget collapsed in acrimony in June as Britain and France clashed over subsidies. London refused to consider revisions to the budget rebate it has been receiving since 1984 unless there were sweeping changes in the Common Agricultural Policy, which subsidizes Europe's agricultural sector. France, the policy's main beneficiary, refused to budge on the subsidies. More than 40 percent of the EU's 101 billion budget is allocated to agriculture.

In Berlin on Thursday, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met his Estonian counterpart, Urmas Paet, before traveling to the Netherlands, and he plans to visit Italy and Spain on Friday. On Saturday, Steinmeier will meet the Czech foreign minister in Berlin and then go to New York and Washington next week.

After his talks with Steinmeier, Paet said that further delays in reaching agreement on a budget would hamper Estonia's efforts to implement projects that require EU financing. "The structural funds are very important to us," he said. "We would like a deal as soon as possible." EU structural funds provide generous financing for modernizing infrastructure.

Merkel will visit Poland next week, which is also eager for agreement on an EU budget for the period of 2007 to 2013. "A budget agreement is very important for the new member states," Steinmeier said. "Germany will mediate. It wants a solution for the EU budget."

As a net contributor, paying in more than it receives, Germany will continue to fight hard for a cap on EU spending, particularly since the new coalition government is committed to getting its own budget under control through savings of 37 billion by 2007.

So far, nobody has any idea what budget proposals Blair plans to make, and Paet said he was disappointed that Blair had not yet presented any. "Britain might present them on December 6. But that does not give us much time before the summit, especially if there are big changes," Paet said.

One thing Germany and the new member states fear is that the basic budget proposals presented at last June's summit will be rejected by Sweden and the Netherlands. Both countries, which are net contributors and no longer benefit from structural funds, want budget spending to shift to research and development as well as justice and interior affairs.

The new member states oppose such proposals and are working on a joint letter urging EU leaders to clinch a deal on the EU budget next month, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, the Polish prime minister, said Thursday in London.

Now it appears that they can expect strong support from the new German government for that aim.

Merkel also seemed to set a new tone in Germany's relations with new EU members in her meetings with French and EU leaders this week.

She made it clear to President Jacques Chirac of France that the new member states "had to feel they were secure in the EU." That was an indirect reference to the perception that these countries looked more to the United States than to Europe for their security.

Chirac criticized some of them for supporting the U.S.-led war against Iraq, and advised new members at an EU summit meeting two years ago to "shut up" over issues about which they knew nothing.

Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, allied himself with France and Russia against the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and several of the new member states concluded that he was more interested in cultivating a relationship with Russia than in defending the interests of former Soviet satellites. Some also concluded that Germany was less interested in using its close relationship with France to further European integration.

But while Chirac could rely on Schröder in the past to criticize Britain over the rebate issue, Merkel has made it clear she was not prepared to place the blame squarely on Britain for last June's budget failure.

"We need a reliable framework that is valid, particularly for the new member states, but also for the Eastern German states," she said, adding that the British rebate was part of the "complex compendium."

The rebate is now worth 4 billion and could swell to 7 billion by next year, according to commission estimates.

Copyright © 2005 The International Herald Tribune
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