Why the President Didn't Go To The Eco-Socialist Jamboree..

[Lost Cause]

How can you make a point to people that don't want to hear it, and already have an agenda, World Socialism. Do you think Bush going there to get beat up would do any good? Another waste of the U.N.'s money, where's the terrorists when you need them?


South African President Thabo Mbeki, called for an end to "global apartheid" between a rich minority of prosperous consumers and the mass of suffering poor.

As the summit formally begins, Nelson Mandela, who led black South Africans to freedom from white minority rule, will address some of the tens of thousands of campaigners who have arrived in Johannesburg to lobby their leaders.

Protesters accuse the United States and European Union of pushing the interests of globalized big business at the expense of the very poor. Some activists have already confronted police, who clamped down hard and have warned they will not tolerate the kind of mayhem seen at summits in Seattle, Genoa and elsewhere.

Mbeki recalled the solidarity that helped overcome apartheid in 1994: "This is a world in which a rich minority enjoys unprecedented levels of consumption, comfort and prosperity while a poor majority enjoys daily hardship, suffering, dehumanization," he said.

"Our common and decisive victory against domestic apartheid confirms that you, the peoples of the world, have both a responsibility and a possibility to achieve a decisive victory against global apartheid."


**Until they end this global finger pointing, they will always be the World's welfare case!

 

[Lost Cause]

Why this is a fraud.....

From a British newspaper;

The sickening champagne and caviar lifestyle being enjoyed by Earth Summit delegates was exposed yesterday.

They are gorging on mountains of lobster, oysters and fillet steak at the Johannesburg conference — aimed at ending FAMINE.

As the summit began yesterday, desperate kids in nearby shanty towns queued for water at standpipes.

Bigwig politicians among the 60,000 delegates, including Deputy PM John Prescott, also get vintage bubbly and brandy.

Taxpayers are footing the £500,000 bill for the 70-strong British party. Friends of the Earth called the extravagance “deplorable”.

And Desmond Morgan declared: “Money is no object.”

The chef is in charge of meals at Johannesburg’s five-star Michelangelo Hotel, where world leaders and other VIP delegates are staying during the “save the planet” conference, which opened yesterday.

While people are going hungry at shanty towns just a couple of miles away, Mr Morgan told how he had stocked up with an extraordinary array of delicacies and fine wines.

It includes 5,000 oysters, more than 1,000lbs of lobster and other shellfish, buckets of caviar and piles of pâté de foie gras.

He has also got in more than 4,400lbs of fillet steak and chicken breasts, 450lbs of salmon, 220lbs of a tasty South African fish called kingclip — and more than 1,000lbs of bacon and sausages.

The huge bill is paid for by taxpayers of participating nations including Britain.

Mr Morgan said: “Whether they want Beluga caviar, foie gras or bacon sandwiches — we have it all.

“In my experience, heads of state don’t decide what they want to eat or drink until the last minute.

“So I have to make sure I have everything they can possibly want.”

Vintage champagne, fine wines, spirits and liqueurs have been flown in from around the globe so the VIPs can wash down their meals in style.

A new kitchen has been especially created for world leaders, including the Sultan of Brunei, who have their own cooks and tasters.

The £35million summit — aimed at combating hunger, poverty and pollution — is centred around Sandton, the most exclusive suburb in Africa.

Its streets are lined with expensive restaurants, gated villas and gleaming shopping malls.

Yet close by, families scratch a desperate existence in the sprawling shanty town of Alexandra.

They live in corrugated shacks. Hungry children play among piles of rubbish and queue for water at standpipes.

The average weekly wage for the few who work in the township is less than the cost of a vintage brandy at the Michelangelo.

Aid agencies say southern Africa is facing its worst food crisis for more than a decade.

More than 14million people — most of them children — are threatened with starvation.

The 60,000 summit delegates from 182 countries are expected to drink 80,000 bottles of mineral water during the conference.

Yet each day 6,000 African children die from diseases caused by contaminated water.

Since the last Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992, the number of Africans living in poverty has soared from 220million to 300million.

Several other environmental issues will be discussed at the ten-day summit, organised by the United Nations.

But in another ironic twist, hundreds of trees have been felled around the conference centre so fleets of limousines will have unhindered access.

The 70-strong British delegation, led by Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett, is costing taxpayers £500,000.

Most other countries fund their delegations too — but the poorest nations get financial help from the richest countries.

Tony Blair is scheduled to address the summit for half an hour. He will spend less than 12 hours in his £550-a-night suite, complete with butler service, at the Michelangelo.

Globe-trotting Deputy PM John Prescott arrives at the hotel, which boasts an “executive lifestyle” fitness centre, tomorrow.

He and the British team, which also includes Environment Minister Michael Meacher, have five Mercedes cars at their disposal, plus two people carriers for aides.

**

 

[KillerMuffin]

One wonders why we should go to the environmental thing in Johannesburg. Our senate has already expressly stated that they will not ratify Kyoto Protocol until there is meaningful participation from the G77 and China--who emphatically refuse to have anything to do with emissions limits let alone reductions. When Bush tried to negotiate a change in the treaty last year the rest of the world pretty much said, we'll try to change it after we make it law.

We have no intention of signing their agreement. They have no intention of altering their agreement. Why waste the money and manpower sending someone in to negotiate when it's already been clearly stated that it's non-negotiable?

 

[miles]

Just caught a few sound bytes of it on the news and that was enough.

When I hear someone utter the phrase "Economic apartheid," I knew it was something worth watching.

I'm sure "environmental racism" would have been next.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

From the London Times:

Mbeki attacks West's 'survival of the fittest'
From Anthony Browne, Environment Editor in Johannesburg






PRESIDENT MBEKI of South Africa launched a thinly veiled attack on the West yesterday, calling for the end of a world political system based on "survival of the fittest" and demanding one that was caring and humane.

He made the demands as he opened the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, where there is growing despair among developing nations about the West's political will to help combat world poverty.

Mr Mbeki told the opening session of the 10-day World Summit on Sustainable Development that the current imbalances of wealth in the world could not be allowed to continue. “A global human society characterised by islands of wealth surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable” he said.

His comments echoed those he made at the grand opening ceremony on Sunday night comparing the division of the world into haves and have nots to “global apartheid”.

Developing nations are becoming increasingly critical of what they say is Western governments’ lack of commitment to the summit. The West has ruled out any new aid money, or making it easier for developing nations to sell agricultural produce to them.

The United States has delivered the biggest snub. President George Bush has refused to attend, sending Secretary of State Colin Powell in his place, and the US delegation has repeatedly said that it does not want to agree to any binding targets.

Tony Blair has also been criticised for planning to attend for just 24 hours to make a five-minute speech towards the end of the conference.

However, Mr Mbeki said that failure was not an option. “The peoples of the world expect that this World Summit will live up to its promise of being a fitting culmination to a decade of hope,” he said.

“We do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest”. He said that society had for the first time in human history the capacity, knowledge and resources to eradicate poverty

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

And now....for the rest of the story.....

World News

August 27, 2002

Earth protesters stranded on another planet
From Anthony Browne, Environment Editor in Johannesburg

ACROSS the other side of town, and on another planet from the main Earth Summit of national delegations and corporate lobbyists, is a second, alternative summit.

The Global Forum is where the United Nations has put all the charities, protest groups and campaigners who want to have their say. It is a jamboree of workshops, speeches, placards and dancing. It is also a festival of anger and caring, of outrage and good intentions, all mixed together with chaotic disorganisation.

It was here that an excited crowd of 2,000 yesterday sat waiting and waiting for a speech by Saint Nelson Mandela, only to be told by the chairman that he had just learnt that their hero was not going to turn up.

Mr Mandela’s office later explained that the former South African President was sitting at home writing a book and had no idea the conference organisers had expected him to speak.

Fortunately the delegates to the Global Forum had plenty of other events to go to, such as the Pan African Congress meeting on “Landlessness and Food Security — Privatization of Natural Resources”, or the Youth Channel Group seminar on “Building Social Movements for Sustainable Development”.

Posters advertise a range of events such as the First Muslim Convention on Sustainable Development, which asks simply: “What is sustainable development? Can Muslims play a role?” Others urge: “End Poverty: Land! Food! Jobs! Organise and Unite!” Whereas the main summit has political indifference, the Global Forum has passion. Whereas the main summit delegates dine on caviar, the Global Forum delegates eat hot dogs.

They are a mixture of environment groups, human rights groups, religions and campaigners against isms. The Environmental Justice Networking Forum protests against a bewildering number of things while also creating livelihoods for the unemployed by selling clothes made out of recycled rubbish.

Their energetic chairwoman, Masoso Mosupa, said: “Mining companies leave the land unrehabilitated. GM crops are coming to South Africa and we plan a campaign of destruction against them. Our water is being polluted and people are dying. We must save us and save our minerals. It’s all the fault of the World Trade Organisation.”

Among the stands, Solar Cookers International shows people how to cook with the sun. At the Mvula Trust stand they demonstrate simple ways to improve sanitation, including the delightfully named Urine Diversion Toilet.

The British charity Pump Aid proudly shows off its Elephant Pump, which can provide water to a whole village for just £200. Oxfam and the International Fund for Animal Welfare also have stands, but most of the mainstream charities seem to have given it a miss, as have most of the public.

“It’s been absolutely disastrous, a complete waste of time,” one disappointed participant said. “There have been more wheelie bins than people. The organisation is so bad that people just aren’t bothering to show up.”

The problem, it seems, is that you have to pay £10 to attend — a vast sum for South Africans — and you have to be accredited, ensuring that no members of the public can go. Just a week after the three-week exhibition got under way, a large number of the stands lie empty.

I've read about that pump program. It is a great program and it is doing a tremendous amount of good in many parts of the globe.

 

[Sillyman]

Like I want Bush ANYWHERE outside the country. He sent Powell. GOOD. Let's leave this to someone who can find South Africa on the map.

 

[alltherage]

Somehow Texas Twangs just dont play at global summits. We need the boy here so that he and his buddies can continually manipulate the media into covering that evil man saddam. As an american I can honestly say I hate the idea the the states are the worlds only super power. I can only imagine how arogant we look to the world.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

He said that society had for the first time in human history the capacity, knowledge and resources to eradicate poverty

I guess he forgets that we've invested billions and billions into trying to eliminate poverty and hunger, but it never works and it's never enough. I guess he isn't aware of the 190,000 tonnes of American grain floating around the country just north of him that is feeding the indigent of that country. He must not be aware of the farm equipment and training that Africans have been through for many years while the practically unused hulk's of metal that were once brand new and expensive machinery sit still as ancient ruins upon the landscape.