Goodbye Pippa

From the blog of Pino Scaccia, 12 april 2008.

Buried few inches below ground, just before midnight the Turkish police have found the naked corpse of Giuseppina Pasqualino, the 33 year old Milanese artist who disappeared on 31 March in Istanbul where she had arrived with an Italian friend.
A chronicle of news like many others, a girl killed, the curiosity of her bridal clothes. Friends used to call her Pippa and she had a peace plan, those clothes had a specific meaning. There is the Brides on Tour website (note: in Italian but look at the map - Kay) to explain the project:

"An ambitious and poetic dream. A dream of travelling independently through countries that were upset by recent wars and not always completely secure. The trip is not the normal travel of two daring travellers, but the journey of two beautiful brides dressed for a wedding that perhaps has already happened or is not done or perhaps is the trip itself. A marriage to the earth, peace, all people, or in search of the bridegroom? Who is and what is the husband? Two brides, two is a number for togetherness and femininity, also of multiples, and difference. Readings of an artistic gesture of this type are endless. The bride is white, light, feminine, she generates life, so peace, love and purity. "
A dream shattered, in the worst possible way. The world is not yet ready for the idea of peace. Good bye, Pippa

Pino Scaccia (in translation)

Our global food crisis

Watch (in Italian) RAI Report

A few days ago Marco Revelli [Professor of Science of Politics at the University of eastern Piedmont] wondered how it was possible that the alarm launched by FAO in Rome on global food crisis in the closing days of the Italian election campaign was not taken into account by politicians. Right now, in thirty countries of the southern world, beginning with Egypt and Haiti, the population is in turmoil.

But during the weekend election in Italy one early evening a RAI Report dedicated to food was broadcast: importing a kilo of asparagus from Peru which is air-freighted to get to our flat, we were told, means leaving in the air six kilos of CO2; meanwhile we pay eight euros per kilo for grated carrots contained in a [plastic] tank, while those who produce it earn a few cents. But that price does not include even paying the cost that nature pays with the pollution of air, land and water.

Reports also gave some alternatives: Solidarity Purchasing Groups [and from that day hundreds of people have begun to question the promoters SPG], the "kilometer zero" food and restaurants, organic farming. Perhaps the model of industrialization of agriculture [and therefore the use of pesticides, the import of products not in season on the other side of the world, the removal of land to be allocated to agrofuels] all to the advantage of the multinationals' agrobusiness has arrived at the endpoint. Certainly, this food crisis and the interest of thousands of people wanting to consume good, healthy and equitable food, say that we can’t carry on like this.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Chronicles from a dictatorship

Burma, Birmania, Myanmar...
In 2007 the increase in the price of petrol caused the rise in price of basic needs, resulting in the famous protest of the Buddhist monks who were joined by students and other groups. Protests were strongly repressed by the military regime of General Than Shwe who holds unlimited power after decades of military "socialist" dictatorship .

A few days ago the fifty four members employed by the Burmese government for the drafting of the new constitution finished their work, 194 pages that will be on sale at 1000 Kyat, one euro in governmental libraries. All those who can afford to may buy and read the text before the referendum for its conversion into law set for May 10 next year. In the web it is said about strong pressures and threats to farmers by the military to get a "yes" vote.

The new constitution, the writing of which opposition parties were not allowed to contribute to, strengthens the power of the military against opposition and minorities. In the future Burmese parliament 440 seats out of 110 in the high chamber and about 56 of 224 lower chamber will be reserved for the military. There is also an "ethnic barrier": no politician married to a foreigner can be elected. This clause excludes nominations from the opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the widow of an English professor.

The military junta has also reiterated its rejection of the presence of UN observers during the referendum and the elections in June. Only the Chinese government can bring assistance.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

From war to peace in Nepal

This man has a complicated name but he is better known as Prachanda, the Fierce.
For ten years he drove tens of thousands of Nepalese Maoists in a bloody war against the ancient pluricentenaria monarchy and its one hundred thousand soldiers, in a country of nearly 30 million inhabitants. The war has killed more than 13 thousand, there has been abuse, kidnappings, torture, massacres, atrocities of all kinds. Both armies were responsible, civilians have been the victims, as always.
In 2006 the opposition parties and the Maoists agreed on a democratic programme based on the abolition of monarchy, and the war is over. The King did everything to oppose this but in the end there were democratic elections, supervised by an international team of observers led by Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States. The American government has the Nepalese Maoists on a list of terrorists!
Civilians, once victims, have become actors and democratically voted for a constituent assembly in which the Maoists have easily won a majority of seats, contrary to all expectations of Western observers.
Other parties to win elections were the autonomous southern ones struggling with strikes and weapons for the rights of Madhesi people, majority in the rich southern plains. Whoever called Madhesi to boycott was repudiated by the great participation in the vote.
The ferocious Prachanda has led his supporters in the war and now leads them to peace, in a democracy that will write a new constitution, abolishing the monarchy and its privileges, making agrarian reform and seeking good relations with powerful neighbours, India and China.
The people were called to vote and gave him great confidence. Confidence will be removed if the promises of the Maoists not become reality.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

China is a polluter!

Today on BBCnews homepage there is an article claiming: China 'now top carbon polluter'
The news say that according to a report from the University of California, China has overtaken the United States for CO2 emissions, even if they do not know exactly when this happened.
But we already knew it...
A very alarming sentence says, "unless China radically changes its energy policies, its increases in greenhouse gases will be several times larger than the cuts in emissions being made by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol."
But we already knew it...
The only possible solution, says some super-researcher Max Auffhammer, is a "massive transfer of technology and wealth from the West."

...mmm ... ...?!?

But is it not the Western Countries who, while possessing wealth and technologies in abundance, have until now polluted more than China?
Is it not Australia that, in proportion to population, is pollutinig today ten times more than China?
Is it not that we have cut our forests, polluted our rivers, contaminated our land, depleted our seas, destroyed our biodiversity? Is it not that we go around with antismog masks and die of cancer and liver cirrhosis?
Technology and riches are sacred, nobody denies this.
But is it not the solutions perhaps in a massive change in lifestyle by middle-rich class? Anybody has ever heard of sustainable development?
When will they stop selling us the miracles of technology, 1 euro the bottle?
Technology does not make miracles.
The solutions are always in our political choices and China is failing its environmental policies as we have failed ours. And for the same reasons.

Dear Chinese,
We offer you our technologies and our lifestyle. And our lies and the secret to live well with all of it: blame the others for your future economic, social, cultural and environmental crises.
Good luck!

Genetically Modified Organisms

The distribution of GMO cultivation in the world

GMO, literally Genetically Modified Organisms, are organisms obtained through the alteration of their natural gene system through genetic engineering techniques.
There is talk about the use of GMOs for pharmaceutical purposes, to improve agricultural production, as an answer to hunger in the world.
The only certainty at the moment is the risk of genetic contamination due to the dispersion of transgenic pollen going to affect soil and other plants, with evident danger of altering the natural system with unpredictable consequences. The history of GMOs as an solution for hunger in the world is a fairy tale written by multinational companies that own and sell GM seeds. The hunger in the world is not due to a lack of production but to an unbalanced distribution of income and productive resources, which reduces access to food for the peoples of the southern world.

From Carta daily news, 14 March 2008.
The European Farmers Coordination [CPE] and the Coordination of agricultural organizations and farmers [Coag] have called for a moratorium on all European transgenic crops as of this year. In the call we can read:

"The European Union must now take a clear decision. The majority of Europeans farmers and consumers are opposed to the use of GMOs in agriculture and in food. GMOs are used by large corporations to privatize seed to the detriment of food sovereignty of peoples and communities of rural world. An increasing number of scientific studies show that the transgenic organisms are harmful to health and the environment."

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Bush aware!

Read the whole article on ABC News, April 11, 2008.

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

Read the whole article on ABC News, April 11, 2008.