Tag Archives: democratic
US: ‘Common-sense test’ holds Assad responsible
US: ‘Common-sense test’ holds Assad responsible (AP) / 9 September 2013 President Barack Obama’s top aide on Sunday pressed the case for “targeted, limited consequential action” to degrade the capabilities of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to carry out chemical weapons attacks as the White House mounted a major push to win support from a divided Congress and skeptical American public for a military strike. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough asserted that a “common-sense test” dictates that the Syrian government is responsible for a chemical weapons attack that Obama says demands a US response. But he said the Obama administration lacks “irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” that lawmakers who will start voting on military action this week are seeking. “This is not a court of law. And intelligence does not work that way,” Denis McDonough said, part of a five-network public relations blitz Sunday to build support for limited strikes against Assad. “The common-sense test says he is responsible for this. He should be held to account,” McDonough said of the Syrian leader who for two years has resisted calls from inside and outside his country to step down. McDonough pressed the case for “targeted, limited consequential action to deter and degrade” the capabilities of Assad’s regime “to carry out these terrible attacks again. The US, citing intelligence reports, says sarin gas was used in the August 21 attack outside Damascus, and that 1,429 people died, including 426 children. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from a network of anti-regime activists, says it has so far only been able to confirm 502 dead. In an interview on Sunday, Assad told US journalist Charlie Rose there is no conclusive evidence about who is to blame and again suggested the rebels were responsible. From Beirut, Rose described his interview that is set to be released on Monday on television shows hosted by Rose. At the same time, Obama has planned his own public relations effort. He has scheduled five network interviews on Monday and then a nationally televised speech from the White House on Tuesday, the eve of the first votes in Congress. On Wednesday, the Democratic-led Senate is expected to hold the first showdown vote over a resolution that would authorise the “limited and specified use” of US armed forces against Syria for no more than 90 days and barring American ground troops from combat. A final vote is expected at week’s end. A vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives appears likely during the week of September 16. Obama faces a tough audience on Capitol Hill. A survey by The Associated Press shows that House members who are staking out positions are either opposed to or leaning against Obama’s plan for a military strike by more than a 6-1 margin. “Lobbing a few Tomahawk missiles will not restore our credibility overseas,” said Rep. Mike McCaul, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee. Added Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat: “For the president to say that this is just a very quick thing and we’re out of there, that’s how long wars start.” Nearly half of the 433-member House of Representatives and a third of the 100-member Senate remain undecided, the AP survey found. “Just because Assad is a murderous tyrant doesn’t mean his opponents are any better,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, a conservative Texas Republican. On Saturday, a US official released a DVD compilation of videos showing attack victims that the official said were shown to senators during a classified briefing on Thursday. The images have become a rallying point for the administration. “Those videos make it clear to people that these are real human beings, real children, parents being affected in ways that are unacceptable to anybody, anywhere by any standards,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in Paris. “And the United States of America that has always stood with others to say we will not allow this — this is not our values, it’s not who we are.” But McDonough conceded the United States doesn’t have concrete evidence Assad was behind the chemical attacks. Recent opinion surveys show intense American skepticism about military intervention in Syria, even among those who believe Syria’s government used chemical weapons on its people. Congress, perhaps, is even more dubious. “It’s an uphill slog,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who supports strikes on Assad. “I think it’s very clear he’s lost support in the last week,” Rogers added, speaking of the president. Complicating the effort in the Senate is the possibility that 60 votes may be required to authorise a strike. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said he would consider using Senate procedural maneuvers to delay shutting off debate, but noted such a tactic was unlikely to permanently block a vote. Still, Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, has predicted authorisation of military strike against Syria. While the publicly discussed information lacks a direct link between Assad and the use of chemical weapons, the private briefs are no better, two lawmakers said. “The evidence is not as strong as the public statements that the president and the administration have been making,” said Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan. “There are some things that are being embellished in the public statements. … The briefings have actually made me more skeptical about the situation.” Republican Rep. Buck McKeon of California, said “they have evidence showing the regime has probably the responsibility for the attacks.” But that’s not enough to start military strikes. “They haven’t linked it directly to Assad, in my estimation,” said McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. McDonough, an Obama foreign policy adviser dating back to his 2008 presidential campaign, said the dots connect themselves. “The material was used in the eastern suburbs of Damascus that have been controlled by the opposition for some time,” McDonough said. “It was delivered by rockets — rockets which we know the Assad regime has and we have no indication that the opposition has.” At the same time, McDonough acknowledged the risks that military action could drag the US into the middle of a brutal civil war and endanger allies such as Israel with a retaliatory attack. The US is “planning for every contingency in that regard and we’ll be ready for that.” Congress resumes work on Monday after its summer break, but already a heated debate is under way about Syria. Vice-President Joe Biden planned to host a dinner on Sunday night for a group of Senate Republicans. Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, plans to discuss Syria in a speech on Monday at the New America Foundation and later meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. A bipartisan, classified briefing for Congress is set for Monday and another is slated for Wednesday. McDonough spoke with ABC’s “This Week,” CBS’ “Face the Nation,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CNN’s “State of the Union” and “Fox News Sunday.” McCaul and Sanchez were on NBC. Cruz appeared on ABC. Rogers and Amash spoke to CBS. Paul was interviewed on Fox. McKeon was on CNN. Continue reading
World Food Demand Climbs But More Competitors Enter Field
Posted Aug. 1st, 2013 by D’Arce McMillan Many countries have the potential to expand arable farmland and help meet food demand. The expectation of big harvests across the Northern Hemisphere this year is pushing down crop prices. It seems to fit with the growing perception among traders that the period of strong commodity prices that started around 2005 is coming to an end. High prices encourage commodity producers, whether they be farmers, miners, oil drillers or metal processers, to invest in producing more. Once the supply-demand situation become balanced, commodity prices fall. Also, China’s phenomenal economic growth, which focused on infrastructure development for the past decade and which required massive quantities of metal, minerals and energy, is slowing. Economies usually slow as they mature and shift from infrastructure and export growth to slower domestic consumer-led growth. As well, demographics resulting from the one child policy mean China’s population is rapidly aging. However, if you have attended any farm meeting in the past 10 years, you likely encountered pundits who said the boom in agriculture was more sustainable. The increasing prosperity of many Third World consumers would cause them to improve their diets, incorporating more protein, mostly from meat. The increasing demands on livestock production meant rising demand for feedstuffs, from corn to oilseed meal, feed wheat to distillers dried grain. The pundits said there wasn’t a lot of new land available for cultivation so this increasing food demand would largely have to be met by increased crop yields. All that still holds true. However, a new team of pundits now coming out the woodwork say that maybe the food shortage thing is a bit overstated. An agricultural symposium this month hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City featured several speakers who said global agriculture has lots of resources to meet the increasing demand for food. Many of the presentations are on the bank’s website at www.kc.frb.org. Ray Wyse, senior director of trading and oilseeds for Gavilon, a multinational agricultural trader, had one of the more sobering presentations. He noted that the traditional annual consumption growth from food and animal feed has not changed much over the past 30 years if you take away the big demand growth for corn and oilseeds from the biofuel industry. Government policy-driven ethanol growth in the United States has plateaued and it appears the same thing is happening in other countries. Wyse disputes the argument that there is little new land to bring into agricultural production. About 136,000 acres, almost all of it outside the United States, have been added to grain, oilseed and cotton production since 2005. He notes that current cultivated land in the former Soviet Union is 74 million acres less than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. That is an area about the size of the U.S. soybean crop and could be brought back into production. One of the great agriculture stories of the past decade was Brazil’s huge growth. Its arable land stands at 170 million acres, but the country has the potential to add another 470 million. Africa has huge unrealized agricultural potential, Wyse said. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has similar climate and water resources as Brazil, and it has the potential to add 200 million acres with the potential to produce three crops a year. Although yield growth has stagnated in the U.S. in recent years, the expanding application of modern farming techniques in the rest of the world is leading to annual yield growth in corn of more than 10 percent outside of the U.S. The introduction of genetically modified seeds also leads to rapid yield growth. He noted that the introduction of B.t. cotton in China raised yields by 40 to 50 percent and in India by 70 to 80 percent. There can even be profound change in North America. He noted that the development of short season corn and soybean varieties has caused farmers in North Dakota and Canada to shift away from traditional small grains into corn and soybeans and are harvesting much larger tonnages per acre. The result of all this is that there is a growing list of competitors for the global market. Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan have joined Brazil and Argentina, and other export powerhouses might be possible in Africa in coming decades. These countries tend to have weaker currencies than the U.S. and Canada, making their grain cheaper. Also, they have neither the storage nor farm credit systems that give farmers here the market power to match the stream of supply to demand and wait out price dips. Wyse warned that the result of all this is crop price moderation. The follow-on implication is a risk for land prices in the U.S. and in Canada, which have risen to reflect the recent grain price boom. Reading the presentations from the Kansas meeting is a little depressing, but the reaction should be prudent debt and risk management and business planning rather than panic. No one really knows how much food demand will increase as formerly poor societies in Asia advance and become more wealthy. And while there might be lots of land that is potentially available for crop production, it will require enormous on-farm investment plus astronomical investment to tie it into the global export network. Developing that land also has environmental implications. Also, we seem to be moving into a period of more variable climate, which adds another wild card to the forecast. The last few years were exceptionally good ones for North American farmers. Nothing lasts forever, but the future isn’t necessarily bleak, either. Continue reading
Agnes Ndetei plots to block Mutula Jnr from Makueni race
Former Kibwezi legislator Agnes Ndetei is at it again, for the second time in less than a month Ndetei is in court, this time round she has appealed against … Continue reading
