US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have told the United Nations they support a new Egyptian plan for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The plan, put forward by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after talks with French President Nicholas Sarkozy this morning, calls for an immediate truce in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

The ceasefire proposal came after at least 30 Palestinians died in an Israeli attack at a United Nations-run school in the coastal enclave on Tuesday. Israel said the artillery strike was targeting Hamas fighters who launching mortar bombs from inside the school.

Israel has agreed to set up a "humanitarian corridor" in the Gaza Strip, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said.

Israel's military will open up "areas for limited periods of time, during which the population will be able to receive the aid", it said.

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Gus: "Then we bomb the hell out of them!.... "

From the NYT

...

We understand Mr. Obama’s decision to leave the current crisis to President Bush. But we hope he and his team are prepared for whatever faces them in this immediate crisis, and that they are working on a broader strategy for the region.

There is little chance of restraining Hamas without dealing with its patrons in Syria and Iran. Mr. Obama will also have to move quickly to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza need to see that there is another way out of their misery and that Hamas and its rockets are not the answer.

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Gus: Has anyone paid any attention to history? see toon at top...

Former prime minister John Howard will be honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour that can be bestowed by a United States president, in recognition of his role in fighting terrorism and standing by the US as an ally.

"The President is honouring these leaders for their work to improve the lives of their citizens and for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said as she announced the list on Monday Washington time.

"And their efforts to bring hope and freedom to people around the globe have made their nations, America and the world community a safer and more secure world," she said.

Police have been given the power to hack into personal computers without a court warrant. The Home Office is facing anger and the threat of a legal challenge after granting permission. Ministers are also drawing up plans to allow police across the EU to collect information from computers in Britain.

Hacking – known as "remote searching" – has been quietly adopted by police across Britain following the development of technology to access computers' contents at a distance. Police say it is vital for tracking cyber-criminals and paedophiles and is used sparingly but civil liberties groups fear it is about to be vastly expanded.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/new-powers-for-police-to-hack-your-pc-1225802.html

More than 100 Australian Jews, including two award-winning novelists and a former federal cabinet minister, have signed a statement condemning Israel's siege of Gaza, heightening tensions within the local Jewish community over the violence.

Authors Linda Jaivin and Sara Dowse, the environment minister in the Whitlam government, Moss Cass, and the NSW Greens leader, Ian Cohen, are among 120 Australian Jews to accuse the Israeli Government of a "grossly disproportionate military assault on Gaza because it was Israel that violated the fragile truce on November 4, 2008".

The statement was co-ordinated, but not endorsed, by the group Independent Australian Jewish Voices. It is part of an international outcry from dissident Jewish groups, including J Street in the US and Gush Shalom in Israel.

read more at Chris Floyd...

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It is remarkable, and scary, to read the US military writing about how it goes around the world bringing "stability" to (often ungrateful) people.  This past October the Army published a manual called "Stability Operations".  It discusses numerous American interventions all over the world since the 1890s, one example after another of bringing "stability" to benighted peoples.  One can picture the young American service members reading it, or having it fed to them in lectures, full of pride to be a member of such an altruistic fighting force.

For those members of the US military in Afghanistan the  most enlightening lesson they could receive is that their government's plans for that land of sadness have little or nothing to do with the welfare of the Afghan people.  In the late 1970s through much of the 1980s, the country had a government that was relatively progressive, with full rights for women; even a Pentagon report of the time testified to the actuality of women's rights in the country.  And what happened to that government?  The United States was instrumental in overthrowing it.  It was replaced by the Taliban.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, US oil companies have been vying with Russia, Iran and other energy interests for the massive, untapped oil and natural gas reserves in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.  The building and protection of oil and gas pipelines in Afghanistan, to continue farther to Pakistan, India, and elsewhere, has been a key objective of US policy since before the 2001 American invasion and occupation of the country, although the subsequent turmoil there has presented serious obstacles to such plans. 

from Crikey …..

The Gaza Strip: Arabs don't count

Here’s a headline from Israel Today that you didn’t see in many local papers: ‘US, Australia back Gaza strike; rest of the world doesn't.’

The Australian army won’t, of course, see action in Gaza but then the service John Howard provided for George Bush was always far more political than military. Australian support added a veneer of legitimacy to Bush’s illegal invasion – and, as the Israeli press notes, that’s the part Gillard’s playing now.

In fact, with most of the world erupting in anti-war demonstrations, if you close your eyes, it might be 2003 all over again.

As with Iraq, the military campaign follows a crippling regime of sanctions, the effects of which were largely ignored by the Western press. Famously, in 1996, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when confronted by the figure of half million Iraqi children dead because of the blockade, responded: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it." The Israelis arrived at the same calculation about Gaza where, even before the attacks, Palestinians were suffering from malnutrition. As to their state now, well, you can either believe Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (there is, she says, "no humanitarian crisis in Gaza") or Amnesty International ("The health sector in Gaza lacks equipment, medicine and expertise at the best of times and has been further depleted due to the prolonged Israeli blockade. It is now completely overwhelmed and unable to cope with the large number of casualties.")

Perhaps more importantly, though it’s rarely acknowledged in the Western media, for some time now Hamas has indicated that it would accept a two-state solution. In April this year, MSNBC reported the following:

Khaled Mashaal told The Associated Press that he made the offer to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in talks on Saturday. “We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition,” Mashaal said.

In his comments Monday, Mashaal used the Arabic word “hudna,” meaning truce, which is more concrete than “tahdiya” - a period of calm - which Hamas often uses to describe a simple cease-fire. “Hudna” implies a recognition of the other party’s existence.

As recently as 23 December, Hamas was still making similar offers.

Hamas would consider renewing a lapsed truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip, but wants guarantees the Jewish state will halt incursions and keep border crossings open for supplies of aid and fuel, a spokesman said today.

One doesn’t have to admire Hamas’ political philosophy or strategic orientation to recognize that it’s not an amorphous expression of innate evil, firing missiles at Israel just for the hell of it. Given that the blockade of Gaza has been condemned by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and just about every reputable human rights organisation in the world, Hamas’ insistence on the opening of the border as a precondition of peace seems entirely reasonable. But, in 2003, we were told that Saddam refused admission to weapons inspectors (when in fact they were withdrawn by Richard Butler), and today we hear constantly that Hamas that makes negotiations impossible.

Today, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald draws attention to Michael Goldfarb, the editor of the Weekly Standard (an American version of Quadrant), writing about Israel’s assassination of a Hamas leader.

What the world learned from Iraq is that Arabs don’t count. And that’s what we’re seeing again in Gaza.

From Michael Duffy

What is to be done about the biggest problem that emerged in 2008? I refer, of course, to the rise in global food prices, up 83 per cent since 2005. For the many poor people who spend a large proportion of their meagre incomes on food, this is a disaster. But as we shall see, it's a disaster the West could do a lot to solve quite easily. If only we can overcome a few modern superstitions.

According to Foreign Affairs magazine, there have been food riots in 30 countries. In Haiti they have brought down the prime minister. "For some consumers in the world's poorest countries," the researcher Paul Collier says, "the true anguish of high food prices is only just the beginning. If global food prices remain high, the consequences will be grim both ethically and politically."

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Gus; Michael Duffy starts on the right foot but soon alarms bells ring in his analysis.

The food shortages were mainly brought out by two major factors: the major rice shortage due to drought in Australia and second the advent of biofuel. Add on top of these factors a growing population and the problem becomes chronic.

The solutions espoused by Duffy smell of mega-multi-national propaganda without proper study of the consequences of their profitable venture. I had a Freudian slip here and nearly wrote vulture instead of venture.
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Duffy continues
According to Collier, this means confronting several major Western prejudices. The first is the widespread affection for peasant agriculture. Collier says the West needs to support the commercialisation of agriculture in Africa, through research and by encouraging African governments to make the necessary changes to property law to allow the amalgamation of what are at the moment relatively unproductive small farms.

The next prejudice is Europe's ban on genetically modified crops, which unfortunately has been copied by most African nations in order to maintain their access to European markets. Collier calls the anti-GM movement "romantic populism", a result of agricultural protectionism, anti-Americanism, and the "paranoia of health conscious consumers". Its effects on agricultural productivity have been grievous.

The final piece of Western thinking keeping up food prices is America's fantasy of escaping dependence on Arab oil by making ethanol, mainly from corn. "There is a good case for growing fuel," Collier believes. "But there is not a good case for generating it from American grain: the conversion of grain into ethanol uses almost as much energy as it produces."
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Sure, the problems are complex. But to me using Genetically Modified crops AND using commercialised agriculture can only compound the problems.

Peasant (mostly traditionally organically grown) agriculture in Africa can provide more than adequately the need of Africa for food. Elements missing in Duffy/Collier's equation are the major displacement of population and the huge environmental costs.

On the displacement of population alone, using "commercialised" farming techniques would reduce the number of employed people on the land, raising unemployment, unemployed moving to city, creating more urban poor than sustained country-folks across the board — in the long run creating a larger problem than ever before, inevitably increasing crime. Furthermore the "industrialisation" of agriculture would also destroy the cultural life — a cultural life that we Westerners may or may not understand but is very important for the societies who farm by the seasons...

Not only that, the food structure in many "poor" countries is not based on wheat or corn or other mass produced crops, apart from rice that may be the most cultivated crop on earth. We know that intensive commercialised rice farming can have major problems — from the water shortage to crop failure in time of drought, such as in Australia.

What Collier calls "relatively unproductive small farms" are gems. They do not use super-phosphate, insecticide, herbicides — all products that become more and more used as "commercialisation' of farming is increased. As scientists decry the loss of wildlife, from birds and bees to frogs in Europe, the impact of wanton use of death products via industrialisation of farming is vastly negative.
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"Commercial agriculture may be irredeemably unromantic," Collier says, "but if it fills the stomachs of the poor, then it should be encouraged."
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Smart "if"!!! Bollocks!

In the long run, we should encourage smaller farms to be effective provider for the locals, rather than the opposite. "Small is beautiful" is still the mantra underpinning our best hopes on all fronts, including independence. But of course multinationals want us to be dependent...

That there were riots in 30 countries is unfortunate. But one has to realise most of these 30 countries DID NOT produce enough of their own food and relied heavily on "commercialised" agriculture from other countries — while most of these 30 countries have enough skills, enough people and enough lands to produce their own supplies. One needs to know to that there are more than one hundred and fifty non aligned countries that were able to supply their own population, during the "food shortage". 

But countries like Haiti live under the sword of "cheap" food imports, possibly becoming lazy suppliers in this basic area of life. The shortage of rice worldwide was due to the Australian drought. And worldwide droughts are not going to go away, including those in Australia. Large "commercialisation" of crops have failed miserably in drought times. Well managed small farms with water retention device such as tanks or dams can be more effective and employ more people than a cropping machine. In "commercialisation" of agriculture, vast amounts of forests, or tree clumps would be destroyed, compounding the general problem of global warming, as well as displacing populations. There is also more value in eating more green plants, beans, lentils and root vegetables than excessive amount of carbohydrates like wheat, which the West is prone to — thus having to deal with related obesity.

The Multinationals want our business, fair enough, but in the end when we are at the mercy of their supplies, as food would be more and more under the Collier proposal, there would be a small step to have to pay a king's ransom on credit, while the multinational would "manage" our needs and wants to suit their profits — all without counting the other costs borne by the social structures or the environment.

War and security apparatus needed to maintain the implementation of such a structured plan would only further defeat the purpose of "feeding the poor". War is more devastating than food shortage and many wars are not waged for food but for erroneous beliefs and for "commercial" richness...

Increasing commercialisation of agriculture — including GM crops — in most country will only lead to a new larger kind of greater poor. When food is abundant on "commercial" farms in Australia, plagues of mice or locusts often devastate the crops or the stored grains, then the mice and the locust die out from starvation. Another boom and bust cycle awaiting humanity under the idea of "industrialisation" of agriculture... demanding more and more controls to stem the new problems

Modern superstitions? No. Our inflated economies that have just crashed should give us the true perspective on this subject of food supply...

Small scale is beautiful.