Tag Archives: united-states
Obama cancels US exercises, but not aid, with Egypt
Obama cancels US exercises, but not aid, with Egypt (AFP) / 16 August 2013 US President Barack Obama on Thursday canceled exercises with Egypt’s military to protest the killing of hundreds of demonstrators but stopped short of suspending $1.3 billion in annual aid. Obama urged Egypt’s army-installed authorities to lift a state of emergency and allow peaceful dissent, saying he “strongly” condemned the crackdown on protesters. “While we want to sustain our relationship with Egypt, our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual when civilians are being killed in the streets and rights are being rolled back,” Obama told reporters during his vacation on the tony island of Martha’s Vineyard. Obama said the United States had informed Egypt it was calling off the Bright Star exercise, which has been scheduled every two years since 1981. In 2009, more than 1,300 US troops took part in Bright Star, in which Germany, Kuwait and Pakistan also participated. But the exercises were also canceled in 2011 as Egypt was in the throes of the revolt that overthrew longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak, a close US ally. More than 500 people have died since Wednesday when Egyptian security forces, defying appeals for restraint by the United States and other powers, crushed pro-Mursi demonstrations. The United States has carefully avoided calling Mursi’s ouster a coup, a designation that would require the United States to cut assistance. Obama said that Mursi was “not inclusive” and that “perhaps even a majority” of Egyptians opposed the Muslim Brotherhood leader. “While we do not believe that force is the way to resolve political differences, after the military’s intervention several weeks ago, there remained a chance for reconciliation and an opportunity to pursue a democratic path,” Obama said. Instead, Obama said, Egypt has taken “a more dangerous path.” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who has spoken more than 15 times to Egypt’s military chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi since early July to counsel restraint, called him again Thursday to voice concern about the violence. But Hagel also said that the Pentagon “will continue to maintain a military relationship with Egypt.” Obama administration officials said they were reviewing US assistance to Egypt but made no announcements. Egypt has been one of the biggest recipients of US largesse since it signed a peace treaty with close ally Israel in 1979. Secretary of State John Kerry earlier praised the army and said it was “restoring democracy” by ousting the elected president, although he later backtracked on his remarks. Senator Rand Paul, a member of the rival Republican Party who is critical of foreign aid, urged an immediate termination of assistance. He charged that Egyptian forces were using US military vehicles to quell dissent. “While President Obama ‘condemns the violence in Egypt,’ his administration continues to send billions of taxpayer dollars to help pay for it,” Paul said in a statement. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, a frequent critic of military abuses overseas, also said that, as per US law, aid to Egypt “should cease until they restore democracy.” But a bid by Paul to end military aid to Egypt was easily defeated in the Senate on July 31, with much of his own party agreeing with Obama on Egypt. Israel has urged US policymakers to continue aid to Egypt, seeing it as vital to preserving the peace treaty and ensuring the military’s cooperation against Islamist hardliners. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki pointed to the “important role Egypt plays in regional stability” and acknowledged the limited impact of canceling the exercises. “I don’t think anyone in the government thinks that, certainly, the cancelation of Bright Star is going to change actions on the ground,” she told reporters. Faced with the violence, the State Department urged US citizens to defer travel to Egypt and leave if they are already there. Continue reading
Feeding The Planet: Beyond The £250,000 Hamburger
The creation of the world’s most expensive fast food is proving to be a distraction from the real problem facing global menus Share 17 Email Editorial The Guardian , Sunday 11 August 2013 By creating the world’s most expensive hamburger last week , Professor Mark Post and his team also engineered a savoury distraction from the real problem on the planetary menu: how to feed a population fast closing in on 10 billion. It is an issue that gets ever more serious. Consider: Britain, France and Germany produce 12% of the world’s wheat harvest, yet yields per hectare, which have almost trebled in one human lifetime, are no longer rising . These three countries are blessed with rich soil, good rainfall, long summer days, sophisticated agricultural science and all the fertiliser they need, so if yields are no longer increasing, then crops may be reaching their biological limit. In Japan and South Korea, rice yields may also be reaching a plateau. In the Middle East, where agriculture and civilisation began in symbiosis 10,000 years ago, grain yields have started to fall because water supplies have begun to dwindle: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have all seen wells dry, and aquifers depleted. India, China and the United States rely on irrigation to sustain high crop yields but may be depleting groundwater faster than it can be replenished. Altogether, 18 countries may not have enough water to go on growing more and more grain: around 3.6 billion people live in these countries. That is about half the population of the planet . By 2050, the number of mouths to feed will have increased by 2 billion. As food supplies dwindle, and demand increases, food prices will rise: that is how markets work. But 2 billion people already survive on an income of less than $2 a day: almost a billion people go to bed hungry each night right now; 2 billion are, according to UN calculations, in some way malnourished. As food prices rise, so will political discontent. The Arab spring began with unprecedented rises in food prices; riots followed in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya . It is this chronology that enables some to argue that citizens can bear governmental incompetence, corruption and even oppression, as long as they can be sure of their supper. Add to this several other ominous trends. One is climate change: analysts who looked at 21 studies of civil war, ethnic conflict and street violence in modern societies found a consistent link with drought and high temperature in all 21 cases . Since many climate change projections forecast a 2C rise in average global temperatures some time near mid-century, and since crop yields tend to fall with extremes of temperature, this is not good news, for food security or for civilisation. There are other problems. One is waste. About 2m tons of food are lost every year: the crop never gets to the market in the poorest countries, or it is scraped off the plate and into the bins in the richest nations . Another is the switch from food crops to biofuel: in 2011 as gasoline prices rose, 127m tons – a third of the US grain harvest – were diverted to the production of ethanol. For the US farmers, it looked like a bargain: a $2 bushel of corn could be turned into 2.8 gallons of ethanol at $3 a gallon . But the grain to fill the tank of an American sports car just once would be enough to feed someone for a whole year: this is the market economy at its most grotesque. As incomes rise for the middle classes in the developing nations, so does global demand for meat and milk . The switch from staple crops to cheeseburgers signals both a soaring obesity epidemic and higher prices for grain: two disasters for the price of one, three if you chuck in the burning of the tropical forests, the settlement of the savannahs and the extinction of wild species to make new space for livestock. There is a clear need for concerted political action at an international level: to change the direction of agriculture, produce more food more sustainably and distribute it more fairly. That way, everybody is better off. Governments know this, because they see food security as one of the grand challenges of the century. Yet what, actually, are they doing about it? And are they doing enough? Sadly, we already know the answer. Continue reading
Eid protests in Egypt as military holds off
Eid protests in Egypt as military holds off (Reuters) / 9 August 2013 Ssupporters of Egypt’s deposed president Mohammed Mursi held a festive rally for the Eid Al Fitr on Thursday to demand his restoration after the military-led authorities that removed him held off from a threat to break up protest sit-ins. The rarely-seen wife of Mursi, Naglaa Mahmoud, made a surprise appearance on stage at the main demonstration in Cairo to appeal for her husband’s return as the crowds roared “Returning! Returning!” Interim President Adly Mansour declared on Wednesday that international diplomatic efforts had failed to resolve the political crisis and the government warned activists to leave the protest camps, saying the decision to remove them was final. US and European Union envoys left Cairo after the breakdown of their attempts to broker a solution, which had also involved Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. However, a person involved in the mediation effort said the authorities and Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood might yet step back from confrontation and implement mutual confidence building steps that could lead to a negotiated settlement. “It’s not over yet,” the diplomat said. “It could work but we don’t have any guarantees. Everything is very fragile.” Government and military sources also said the talks were not terminated but had been frozen to assuage public anger over perceived foreign interference in Egypt’s affairs and among some at the authorities’ willingness to negotiate with the Brotherhood after months of demonising them. A military source said the authorities were holding back from using force to clear the protest camps partly due to fear that liberal Vice-President Mohamed ElBaradei would resign, removing a source of political legitimacy for army rule. State-owned newspapers splashed giant red headlines such as “The last warning”, “Government to Brotherhood: diplomacy is finished”, and “Egypt rejects sermons from the American Satan”, sign of the contempt with which the public holds the United States, which provides Egypt with $1.5 billion in annual aid. Mursi has been jailed at a secret location since the military removed him from power on July 3 and other senior Brotherhood figures have been rounded up. Thousands of Mursi followers have maintained vigils at two Cairo locations for five weeks, despite government orders to disband and two mass shootings when security forces killed scores of them with live fire. Interim Prime Minister Hazem El Beblawi visited the Central Security Forces with the interior minister in an apparent effort to calm hardliners impatient for tougher action. “He assured them that the government places security at the top of its priorities and that there is no stable society without security that is founded on the law, and that protects the sovereignty of the state and the lives of its citizens and their possessions,” a statement from Beblawi’s office said. Thousands of demonstrators converged on the Brotherhood protest camp in northeastern Cairo in a festive atmosphere to attend prayers and a rally on the first day of the Eid Al Fitr. “I came here because I want to make a small difference,” said Ghada Idriss, 35, who travelled from the rural province of Minya by car with her husband, two young sons, and two-month-old daughter Lougine. “By sitting here peacefully, they will understand and know that we refuse the return of the system of Hosni (Mubarak),” he said of the former autocrat swept from office in a 2011 revolt. The public appearance of Mursi’s wife after five weeks out of the limelight since her husband’s detention caused wild excitement outside the Rabaa Al Adawiya mosque. She waved her hands above her head, flanked by senior Brotherhood leader Mohamed El Beltagi. “Of course it’s very difficult for me to speak. God willing he is returning, God willing, God willing,” she said in a strong voice, dressed in a cream-coloured waist-length veil over a long burgundy dress. “Praise God, the Egyptian people proved that they are Islamist… God willing, Islamist,” she said. Secular and leftist groups have also called for mass demonstrations and public prayers across Egypt to support what they see as a popular revolution that led to the overthrow of Mursi by the military after just a year in office. In one apparent conciliatory gesture, prosecutors dropped the main charge against the head of the Brotherhood’s political wing, Saad El Katatni, in a possible prelude to releasing him. The Brotherhood allowed a human rights organisation and a European Parliament delegation to visit the Rabaa Al Adawiya sit-in, where anti-Mursi media have alleged that weapons had been stockpiled – a charge denied by the Islamists. The person involved in the mediation effort said a sequence of statements and confidence building measures aimed at reducing tensions and reassuring public opinion might yet lead to direct or indirect negotiations between the two sides. So far, the Brotherhood has refused to accept what it calls the illegal coup and has publicly demanded the return of the elected president. The new authorities have accused Islamist leaders of inciting violence, frozen the Brotherhood’s assets and vowed to put them on trial. “The train of the future has departed, and everyone must realise the moment and catch up with it, and whoever fails to realise this moment must take responsibility for their decision,” interim president Mansour said in an Eid broadcast. Diplomats have said any settlement would have to involve a dignified exit for Mursi, Brotherhood acceptance of the new disposition, the release of political prisoners arrested since the takeover and a future political role for the Brotherhood. The United States and the EU said on Wednesday they were very concerned that the Egyptian parties had not found a way to break what they called a dangerous stalemate. “This remains a very fragile situation, which holds not only the risk of more bloodshed and polarisation in Egypt, but also impedes the economic recovery, which is so essential for Egypt’s successful transition,” US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement. Continue reading
