Just Foreign Policy News
February 11, 2010
Afghan Civilians Imperiled by US/NATO Assault in Marjah
The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/480
Rethink Afghanistan: Civilian Casualties "Inevitable" in Largest Military Operation of the Afghanistan War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QUhpHYyTBQ
CCR: Wiesenthal Center Desecrates Muslim Graves to Build "Museum of Tolerance"
The Center for Constitutional Rights files a petition on behalf of the Palestinian families of those buried at the Mamilla Cemetery in Jerusalem, urging international bodies to demand that the government of Israel halt further construction of the "Museum of Tolerance" on the cemetery.
http://www.ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/mamilla
Beverly Bell: Fighting Like Hell
"Walking on Fire" author Beverly Bell on Haiti’s struggle for freedom from foreign domination.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/fighting-hell
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred, the Wall Street Journal reports. The commander of the US unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, many of them used to more liberal rules of engagement in Iraq, frustration is "boiling over" over more restrictive rules of engagement in Afghanistan, the Journal says. [Given that the US is poised to launch a major offensive in the densely populated Marjah district, where tens of thousands of Afghan civlians – many of them no doubt sympathetic to the insurgency – remain in their homes, such frustration over the rules of engagement suggests a strong possibility of imminent war crimes – JFP.]
2) An IAEA document says Iran’s initial efforts to produce more highly enriched uranium are modest, AP reports.
3) Obama’s March "touch down" in the U.S. territory of Guam may be designed to smooth a U.S. military build-up there, write Christine Ahn and Gwyn Kirk for Foreign Policy in Focus. Guam is one of 16 remaining non-self-governing territories listed by the UN. The U.S. military already takes up a third of the island; current plans would bring this up to 40 percent.
4) The Yemeni government is engaging Islamist extremists who share an ideology similar to Osama bin Laden’s in its own civil war, the Washington Post reports. Yemen’s army is allying with radical Sunnis and former jihadists in the fight against Shiite rebels in the country’s north. The harsh tactics of those forces, such as destroying Shiite mosques and building Sunni ones, are breeding resentment among many residents, analysts said.
5) India’s Border Security Force admitted that one of its soldiers might have shot an unarmed youth whose death set off ferocious protests across Kashmir, the New York Times reports. The youth, Zahid Farooq was shot when security forces stormed a playground in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar. Another boy died after being struck by a tear gas canister. Kashmiris chafe at the heavy military presence in Kashmir, the Times says.
6) Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s use of the Iraqi military in political disputes has infuriated political opponents and alarmed U.S. officials, the New York Times reports. The Times says that the process for disqualifying candidates accused of Baathist backgrounds from upcoming elections was so murky that Iraqi officials knew little about what was happening and are still in the dark. The list of those disqualified and the evidence for supporting their disqualification still have not been made public.
Iran
7) China’s top energy group CNPC is pushing ahead with a $4.7 billion project to develop Iran’s South Pars gas field, Reuters reports.
Israel/Palestine
8) Representatives of long-established Palestinian families in Jerusalem petitioned the UN for help in trying to stop Israel and the Simon Wiesenthal Center from constructing a museum on part of a centuries-old Muslim cemetery, the New York Times reports. Sixty Palestinians who say they are descendants of those buried in the cemetery have signed the petition, including Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University.
Brazil
9) Brazil may break patents on U.S. goods in accordance with a WTO ruling allowing it to impose trade sanctions in retaliation for U.S. cotton subsidies, Bloomberg reports. U.S. cotton subsidies help commodity buyers – such as Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Ltd. and ConAgra Foods Inc. – while harming economic development in poorer nations, according to Oxfam America and the Environmental Working Group, which favor subsidy reductions.
Colombia
10) Colombia’s defense minister said the State Department had assured him a planned $55 million cut in U.S. aid was part of across-the-board belt-tightening, and doesn’t mean a change of policy, Reuters reports. [Democratic Senators had asked for a cut in U.S. military aid, citing human rights abuses – JFP.]
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) New Battles Test U.S. Strategy In Afghanistan
Focus on Safeguarding Civilian Lives Frustrates Troops in Taliban Territory
Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704140104575057630668291288.html
Pashmul, Afghanistan – When the first Taliban shots at the U.S. Army patrol cracked from behind the tree line, an Afghan villager who had just been talking to the soldiers crumpled into the mud. An Army medic rushed to help the man, apparently a civilian caught in the crossfire. But hours later, at the American base where the victim was taken for treatment, troops found in his pocket the polished dog tag of an American soldier killed three weeks earlier.
As fighting intensifies here in southern Afghanistan, the central tenet of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy-to protect Afghan civilians-faces a fundamental test: how to separate these civilians from the insurgents in places where much of the population backs the Taliban cause.
Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred. American troops have dubbed Pashmul, a cluster of villages sprawling across the fertile belt of grape and poppy fields west of Kandahar city, "the heart of darkness."
Capt. Duke Reim, commander of the American unit responsible for Pashmul, estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. District Gov. Niyaz Mohammad Serhadi agrees. "People here are on the side of the insurgency and have no trust in the government," he says. "Insurgents are in their villages 24 hours."
Since assuming command of coalition troops last summer, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal curtailed airstrikes, limited house searches, and put the onus on winning the population’s trust. Forgoing some attacks on the Taliban to spare Afghan civilians, the counterinsurgency theory goes, would eventually convince the local population to side with the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan authorities. In the meantime, however, new restrictions on American firepower can also exact a steep toll in American lives-and give the Taliban a tactical advantage.
Among front-line troops, many of them used to more liberal rules of engagement in Iraq, frustration is boiling over. "It’s like fighting with two hands behind your back," says Sgt. First Class Samuel Frantz, a platoon sergeant in Capt. Reim’s unit, the Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion of the 12th Infantry Regiment. "We’re so worried about not hurting the population’s feelings that we’re not doing our jobs."
[…]
2) IAEA suggests Iran’s new enrichment modest
George Jahn, Associated Press, Wed Feb 10, 11:52 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100211/ap_on_re_us/iran_nuclear_68
Vienna – Iran expects to produce its first batch of higher enriched uranium in a few days but its initial effort is modest, using only a small amount of feedstock and a fraction of its capacities, according to a confidential document shared Wednesday with The Associated Press. But the document also indicated that Iran was keeping silent on whether or not it would ramp up production, which would bring it closer to the ability to produce the fissile core of nuclear weapons.
The internal International Atomic Energy Agency document was significant in being the first glimpse at Iran’s plan to enrich uranium to 20 percent that did not rely on statements from Iranian officials.
Iran says it wants to enrich only up to that grade – substantially below the 90 percent plus level used in the fissile core of nuclear warheads – as a part of a plan to fuel its research reactor that provides medical isotopes to hundreds of thousands of Iranians undergoing cancer treatment. But the West says Tehran is not capable of turning the material into the fuel rods needed by the reactor. Instead it fears that Iran wants to enrich the uranium to make nuclear weapons.
Iran denies such aspirations. But its move is viewed with concern internationally because it would create material that could then be processed into weapons-grade uranium more quickly and with less effort than Iran’s present stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium.
On Wednesday, Iranian Vice President Ali Akhbar Salehi said the process of higher enrichment was going smoothly, a day after Iranian officials announced a start of the operation, but gave no details on the scope of the new activities. The restricted IAEA document, however, indicated that, for now at least, they were was modest in scale. "It should be noted that there is currently only one cascade … that is capable of enriching" up to 20 percent, said the document. A cascade is 164 centrifuges hooked up in series that spin and re-spin uranium gas to the required enrichment level.
The document, relying on onsite reports from International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, also cited Iranian experts at the enrichment plant at Natanz as saying that only about 10 kilograms – 22 pounds – of low enriched uranium had been fed into the cascade for further enrichment.
[…] Iranian officials have said that they expect to produce 3 to 5 kilograms (up to 12 pounds) of 20-percent uranium a month. David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said that at that rate, it would take Tehran about three years to produce enough for further enrichment into the 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium needed for one warhead.
[…] France and the U.S. have said Iran’s action left no choice but to push harder for a fourth set of U.N. Security Council sanctions to punish Iran’s nuclear defiance. China remains opposed, but Russia, which has close ties to Iran and has resisted new sanctions, appeared to edge closer to Washington’s position, with senior officials saying the new enrichment plans show the suspicions about Iran’s intentions are well-founded.
In an online briefing Wednesday, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said that "we have no other choice today but to work with our partners to strengthen measures against Iran." And Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax news agency that "working out a new sanctions resolution (now) takes on additional relevance." Still, he suggested Moscow was not in total sync with Western nations, saying they "are thrusting sanctions upon us."
3) Democracy Thwarts U.S. Base Plans
Christine Ahn and Gwyn Kirk, Foreign Policy in Focus, February 10, 2010
http://www.fpif.org/articles/democracy_thwarts_us_base_plans
This March, the Obamas will touch down in the U.S. territory of Guam, en route to Australia and Indonesia. It’s a big deal for this tiny Pacific island seven-and-a-half hours by plane from Hawaii and, according to airport placards, "where America’s day begins." Two senators from Guam, Judith P. Guthertz and Rory J. Respicio, have already written to ask the president "to meet a few of your fellow Americans," instead of the typical orchestrated "pit stop" behind the gates of Andersen Air Force Base.
Obama’s stop-over may be designed to smooth the difficult road ahead for the U.S. military. The Pentagon is shifting bases and soldiers in the Asia Pacific – not surprisingly, without consent of the residents of these countries. But it’s not just local people in Guam, South Korea, Okinawa, and elsewhere who are affected by the increased militarization of the region. The natural environment is at risk through military contamination and through the high military use of oil, an important factor in climate change.
The Bush administration made plans to shift 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa (Japan) to Guam. In addition to support staff, contractors and family members, the total number will be closer to 50,000 people.
This overall deal between the United States and Japan is estimated to cost $26 billion, with the tab largely picked up by Japan. According to the agreement, the Japanese government must fund a new state-of-the-art Marines base to be built alongside an endangered coral reef in Nago (northern Okinawa). This new facility would replace Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, which is currently situated in a dense urban area. The land would then return to Okinawa – presumably after the cleanup of environmental contamination – and 8,000 Marines would go to Guam.
Okinawans have been campaigning for years to be rid of U.S. bases, which were established at the end of World War II. These bases have been the source of noise and environmental pollution, accidents, and crime committed by U.S. soldiers, including violence against women and girls. In a 1998 referendum, Nago voters opposed the new base. When Japanese authorities tried to go ahead with the plan, activists took to their kayaks and fishing boats to block construction, and ultimately disrupted exploratory drilling of the coral reef. The Japanese government tried to find another location in Okinawa or even mainland Japan, but no community agreed to have the new Marines base in their area.
[…] On August 30, 2009, the patient and determined campaigning by the Japanese peace movement paid off. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which promised to review the U.S.-Japan military alliance, defeated the ruling coalition that had been in power for over 50 years. Many of the newly elected representatives criticized Japanese acquiescence toward U.S. foreign policy; others resented U.S. "occupation mentality." In response, both U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Obama made hasty visits to Tokyo, invoking the importance of the alliance and pressing the new government to keep the Okinawa-Guam deal afloat. But the tide of public opinion had turned; the Japanese media branded Gates a "bully" and bridled at such "high-handed treatment."
[…] Despite increasing opposition to the transfer of thousands of U.S. troops, the people of Guam are constrained in their ability to influence the political process. Since the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States has controlled Guam (or Guåhan in the Chamorro language). With a population of 173,456 represented by one non-voting delegate in the U.S. Congress, the island is one of 16 remaining non-self-governing territories listed by the United Nations. Residents are U.S. citizens, but they are not entitled to vote in presidential elections. Most federal-territorial affairs are made in Washington, nearly 8,000 miles away.
[…] The U.S. military already takes up a third of the island. The additional troops will bring this up to 40 percent. Formed from two volcanoes, Guam’s rocky core constitutes an unsinkable aircraft carrier, 30 miles long and eight miles wide. Not only is the economy geared toward servicing the military, the bases are now occupying once productive land. Prior to WWII, Guam was self-sufficient in agriculture. Today, the island imports 90 percent of its food.
[…] The United States should stop the building of yet another base in Okinawa and not redirect Okinawa’s burden to Guam.
[…]
4) Yemen’s Alliance With Radical Sunnis In Internal War Poses Complication For U.S.
Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, Thursday, February 11, 2010; A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021003557.html
Sanaa, Yemen – Even as it fights a U.S.-supported war against al-Qaeda militants here, the Yemeni government is engaging Islamist extremists who share an ideology similar to Osama bin Laden’s in its own civil war, adding new complications to efforts to fight terrorism.
Yemen’s army is allying with radical Sunnis and former jihadists in the fight against Shiite rebels in the country’s north. The harsh tactics of those forces, such as destroying Shiite mosques and building Sunni ones, are breeding resentment among many residents, analysts said, and given the tangle of evolving allegiances could build support for al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, which plotted the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner.
The alliance with the Sunni radicals is one of the most vivid examples of the tangled loyalties within Yemen’s fragile government and raises concerns about the nation’s long-term commitment to U.S. goals to eliminate al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni branch. Those entanglements are evident even at the highest levels of the government, including President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the second most powerful man in Yemen, Ali Muhsin, who commands the armed forces fighting the rebels.
Muhsin, responsible for deploying the Sunni fighters, follows the ultraconservative brand of Sunni Islam known as Salafism. Salafists follow a strict interpretation of the Koran. Many reject violence, but hard-liners, including bin Laden and al-Qaeda followers, see Salafist codes as justification for targeting the West and its allies.
Jihadism and radical Islam have tenacious roots in Yemen, and Saleh has long aligned himself with Salafists and ex-jihadists, to assert authority and deepen his grip on power. "The Salafists and al-Qaeda are like the two faces of the moon," said Muhammad al-Mutawakil, a political science professor at Sanaa University. "The Salafists are the light face and al-Qaeda is the dark face. They have the same culture."
Saleh’s patronage of Salafists has helped fuel Islamist extremism in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation. Senior military, security and religious figures in the country are widely thought to be Salafi sympathizers, some with past links to bin Laden. Some are exercising their authority to limit the U.S.-Yemen relationship.
Senior Yemeni officials do not deny that Saleh and Muhsin deploy Salafists to fulfill their agenda. But they say the Salafists are now being mobilized against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, helping gather intelligence and fighting suspected militants in the north. Yemen’s government has charged that al-Qaeda members support the Shiite rebels, though it has not provided evidence, say Western diplomats and analysts.
[…] Salafism grew out of Yemen’s close relationship with its ultra-religious neighbor Saudi Arabia. Tens of thousands of Yemenis poured into the kingdom for jobs and brought back Saudi values to an already conservative tribal society. Religious schools that taught Saudi Wahhabism, which experts equate with Salafism, spread across Yemen; Saudis funded many of the schools.
In the 1980s, tens of thousands of Yemenis traveled to Afghanistan to wage jihad, or holy war, against the Soviets, partly encouraged and financed by the United States. There, many were introduced to the Salafist ideology. Upon their return, Yemen’s government treated the former fighters as heroes.
[…]
5) Kashmir: India Talks About a Shooting
Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, February 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/world/asia/11briefs-Kashmir.html
India’s Border Security Force admitted that one of its soldiers might have shot an unarmed youth whose death set off ferocious protests across Kashmir. The youth, Zahid Farooq, 17, was shot when security forces stormed a playground in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, on Friday. The circumstances of the attack are unclear. Another boy, Wamiq Farooq, 14, died after being struck by a tear gas canister on Jan. 31. The protests shut down life across much of the Kashmir Valley for several days, though many businesses reopened Tuesday. Kashmiris chafe at the heavy military presence in the valley, which both India and Pakistan claim.
6) Leader Faulted On Using Army In Iraqi Politics
Steven Lee Myers and Anthony Shadid, New York Times, February 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html
Tikrit, Iraq – The Iraqi Army’s Fourth Division cordoned off the provincial council building here overnight on Tuesday and showed no sign on Wednesday of leaving. It was the latest in a series of actions by the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that have infuriated his political opponents, while raising doubts about the strength of the country’s laws and democratic institutions.
In a dispute over the provincial council’s legal powers to appoint a governor, Mr. Maliki ordered in the military here – for the second time – to exert his influence. American military commanders and diplomats expressed alarm at his willingness to use force.
"You have the law on your side," Col. Henry A. Arnold III, commander of the First Infantry Division’s Fourth Brigade, told a council member outside the besieged building on Wednesday morning. "Maliki knows it. The Americans know it. And they’re going to keep reminding him of it."
The intervention in Tikrit, a densely Sunni Arab area near Saddam Hussein’s home village, occurred during an increasingly tense election campaign that has heightened fears of politically tinged violence. It highlighted what Mr. Maliki’s critics have denounced as an abusive use of the law and the security forces to settle political disputes and jockey for advantage in the parliamentary elections, scheduled for March 7.
The political turmoil convulsing Iraq stems not just from suspenseful elections in which Mr. Maliki, a Shiite who has allied with several Sunni politicians, appears to be losing popular support and potentially his chances for re-election. It also stems from an untested separation of powers, opaque back-room agreements and a loose fidelity to the country’s laws, whose interpretation often depends on who is reading them. "Iraq is like a sick person," the speaker of Parliament, Ayad al-Samarrai, said at a recent news conference. "All its organs are ailing."
In just the last week, Mr. Maliki’s government has acted with, at best, disputed legal authority.
In Diyala Province, a leading candidate from one of the main blocs challenging Mr. Maliki’s political coalition, known as State of Law, was arrested Sunday night by special forces sent from Baghdad only days after he took part in a recorded debate in which he criticized the security forces. Warrants are said to have been issued for five other members of that province’s legislature on charges that remain unclear.
When an appeals court last week reversed in part the disqualification of hundreds of candidates who had been barred because of reported ties to Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party, Mr. Maliki denounced the ruling as illegal. He later met with parliamentary leaders and the chairman of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council to hash out a compromise that opponents said illustrated the undue political pressure exerted by Mr. Maliki on a supposedly independent judiciary.
[…] The process for disqualifying candidates accused of Baathist backgrounds was so murky that foreign diplomats, United Nations officials and even Iraqi officials knew little about what was happening – and are still in the dark. The list of those disqualified and the evidence for supporting their disqualification still have not been made public.
[…]
Iran
7) CNPC in Iran gas deal, beefs up Tehran team -source
Chen Aizhu, Reuters, Feb 10
Drilling to start as early as March
Beefs up Iran operations with focus on 3 oil, gas projects
Gas delivery remains in question due to sanctions
http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINTOE61909U20100210
Beijing – China’s top energy group CNPC has clinched a deal to develop phase 11 of Iran’s South Pars gas project, and beefed up its business operations in the Islamic Republic that sits on one of the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves, an industry official told Reuters.
CNPC will start drilling in the gas field as early as March to evaluate the reserves, after its initial overall development plan won Tehran’s approval near the end of last year, pushing ahead the $4.7 billion project after a preliminary pact was sealed last June.
CNPC, parent of listed PetroChina, had beefed up staff in December to about 60, based in Beijing and Tehran, dedicated to operations in Iran that also include two oil projects that together with South Pars will likely cost a combined $10 billion. "The real work will start as soon as after the Chinese New Year holiday," said the official familiar with CNPC’s international operations.
China, one of the five U.N. Security Council members with veto power, reiterated last week that it preferred dialogue to sanctions handling Tehran as six major powers discussed efforts to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment programme.
By starting real exploration works, CNPC will gain a foothold ahead of other international firms such as French major Total or domestic rival CNOOC, which have been stalling at the levels of memorandums of understanding.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
8) Museum Creates New Jerusalem Divide
Isabel Kershner, New York Times, February 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/world/middleeast/11jerusalem.html
Jerusalem – In a dispute that reflects the religious and political divides in this contested city, representatives of long-established Palestinian families petitioned the United Nations on Wednesday for help in trying to stop Israel and the Simon Wiesenthal Center from constructing a museum on part of a centuries-old Muslim cemetery.
It was the latest challenge to the Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance being built here by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization. The project has been plagued by stinging criticism and other problems since 2004, when the sponsors began digging up a 50-year-old parking lot built over part of the cemetery.
At a news conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Palestinian campaigners, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit organization in New York, presented their arguments for preserving the burial site, known as the Mamilla Cemetery, or in Arabic, Ma’man Allah. News conferences were also held in Geneva and Los Angeles.
In Jerusalem, Jamal Nusseibeh, son of the prominent Palestinian philosophy professor Sari Nusseibeh, said at least one of his ancestors was buried in the cemetery, which lies in what is now the predominantly Jewish western part of the city. The cemetery, he said, is "part of the very rich fabric of Jerusalem." The thought that anyone would want to wipe it out, he said, was "very hard to understand."
Sixty Palestinians who say they are descendants of those buried in the cemetery have signed the petition, including Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University, and Abdul Qader Husseini, son of the late Faisal Husseini, a Palestinian leader in Jerusalem.
The petitioners have asked the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, the director general of Unesco and other United Nations officials to act urgently to stop the desecration of ancient graves and to declare the cemetery a protected heritage site.
[…] The architect Frank Gehry, who drew the original designs for the museum, recently withdrew from the project after the Simon Wiesenthal Center said it needed to redesign the museum to reflect new economic realities. After a colleague was quoted as saying the project was "politically sensitive," Mr. Gehry said publicly that his withdrawal was not for political reasons but because his staff and resources were committed to other projects.
Brazil
9) Brazil to Sanction U.S. on Goods, Intellectual Rights
Iuri Dantas, Bloomberg, February 09, 2010
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-09/brazil-to-sanction-u-s-on-goods-intellectual-rights-update1-.html
Brazil may break patents on U.S. goods in accordance with a World Trade Organization ruling allowing it to impose trade sanctions in retaliation for U.S. cotton subsidies, a Brazilian trade official said. "We intend to retaliate on intellectual property rights and services," Marcio Cozendey, head of the economic department of Brazil’s foreign ministry, told reporters in Brasilia. "Breaking patents is a possibility," he added without providing additional details.
The WTO ruled in August that Brazil has the right to impose $294.7 million annually in sanctions against the U.S. because of subsidies paid to American cotton farmers, the second highest amount ever permitted by the Geneva-based trade arbiter.
Brazil says that amount has since grown as U.S. payments to cotton farmers exceed a specific cap. Cozendey said Brazil can impose up to $830 million in sanctions, including $560 million on goods and the rest on intellectual property rights and services.
Brazil’s government will take a decision this month on which of 222 eligible products it will impose the sanctions, Celio Porto, an agricultural ministry trade official said in an interview.
The list of potential targets includes agricultural and textile products as well as U.S. exports such as electronics, cosmetics, ketchup, cars, chewing gum, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. "The broader our retaliation the better it will be, as it increases the pressure on the U.S.," Cozendey said, adding that U.S. trade officials have cited difficulties in winning congressional approval to end the cotton program. "Many sectors of the American society will want their government to follow WTO rules."
As much as $4 billion in annual U.S. payments to cotton farmers violate global trade rules by encouraging excess production and driving down world prices, the WTO found in 2004. The U.S., the world’s largest exporter of the fiber, hasn’t done enough to scrap aid to its cotton producers, the WTO found in 2008.
[…] Subsidies help commodity buyers – such as Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Ltd. and ConAgra Foods Inc. – while distorting trade and harming economic development in poorer nations, according to groups such as Boston-based Oxfam America and the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, which favors subsidy reductions and keeps a database of farm payments.
Colombia
10) U.S. Cuts Aid To Colombia, But They’re Still Drug War Partners
Reuters, Thursday, February 11, 2010; A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021003556.html
The United States remains committed to helping Colombia fight drug trafficking, and a planned $55 million cut in aid will not undermine cooperation between Washington and its top ally in Latin America, Colombia’s defense minister said Wednesday.
During a conference call in Washington, Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said that a high-ranking State Department official had assured him the reduction in aid was part of across-the-board belt-tightening in President Obama’s 2011 budget proposal. "This doesn’t mean a change in policy or it’s a sign of distancing with Colombia," Silva said. "On the contrary, we expect the quality and the role of the U.S. cooperation with Colombia won’t be reduced, and that is what we were told here in Washington." Silva said he met Tuesday with Assistant Secretary of State David Johnson.
The United States has supported Colombia’s efforts to fight drug trafficking with more than $5 billion in aid since 2000. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe recently authorized U.S. forces to operate from several military bases in the country, prompting criticism from other Latin American countries, including Venezuela and Brazil. Silva said he still hoped that Congress would soften any reduction in aid to his country.
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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