Demonstrations Against China's Tibet Policy Spread to Nepal, Police Attack Demonstrators

Demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent in Nepal's capital Kathmandu, yesterday, as police wielded bamboo clubs and beat demonstrators, including Buddhist monks and nuns. The UN has said Nepal's harsh clampdown on Tibetan demonstrators violates international human rights law, including the right to peaceful assembly, as embodied in treaties signed by Nepal.

Demonstrations that began in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, more nearly 3 weeks ago have now spread to neighboring provinces in China, and into Nepal and India. The Kathmandu clashes came as large crowds accusing China of human rights abuses in Tibet tried to approach the Chinese embassy grounds.

The occasion of the Olympic torch officially passing from Greece to China today also drew more demonstrations. Ceremonies were disrupted last week, and again today, and China is now wrestling with what some observers are describing as a "PR nightmare" for which the Beijing government may be ill-equipped, as it uses force to crush the protests.

Speculation both from official sources and from journalists says Tibet may find itself under near total "military lockdown" during the run-up to the Olympic games, and during the games as well. Foreign journalists have been banned from Tibet, and reports of violence against demonstrators or killings at the hands of security forces have been difficult to confirm.

The UK's Independent newspaper reports that one Tibetan exile, who fled under dangerous conditions 11 years ago, has now returned to film in secret "the stories of torture, murder and forced sterilisation that China does not want the world to hear". Some reports shown in documentaries on British television are highly disturbing, including one video shot by western climbers in 2006, allegedly showing "a line of refugees plodding through the snow, with some of their number suddenly picked off by bullets fired by the Chinese soldiers behind them".

According to the Independent, Tibet, which covers an area roughly the size of western Europe, is under de facto military occupation, with "an estimated one Chinese soldier for every 20 Tibetans – as opposed to one soldier per 1,400 Chinese citizens."

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) notes that "When the International Olympic Committee assigned the 2008 summer Olympic Games to Beijing on 13 July 2001, the Chinese police were intensifying a crackdown on subversive elements, including Internet users and journalists. Six years later, nothing has changed."

The media freedoms watchdog group adds that:

Now, a year before the opening ceremony, it is clear the Chinese government still sees the media and Internet as strategic sectors that cannot be left to the “hostile forces” denounced by President Hu Jintao. The departments of propaganda and public security and the cyber-police, all conservative bastions, implement censorship with scrupulous care.

China is now facing what many view as a crucial moment in its political history. It is planning to "take its place on the world stage" by hosting the Olympics this year, but still needs to grapple with the tension between staunch traditional nationalism, and the pressures placed on its regime by the views of the international community.

Governments around the world, including US president George W. Bush, have called on Beijing to use "restraint" in Tibet, to lift its freeze on foreign reporting from the region, and to hold talks with the Dalai Lama. The fact that official violence against demonstrators has now also spread to other nations is making the Tibet problem even more visible, which means Beijing's efforts to hide it from the eyes of the world may be in vain.

Price of Rice Doubles on World Markets, Undermining Asian Stability

Rice is a basic food staple for nearly half the world's population. The world's two most populous nations, China and India, depend heavily on the grain for basic sustenance, and for economic stability. The price of rice has doulbed in the last 3 months, causing concern about potential for conflict along Asian border regions.

The Philippine president has ordered government agents to investigate potential "hoarders", seeking to either cash in on rising prices or protect themselves against the instability that could result from prolonged scarcity. The causes of this scarcity are complex, tied to environmental trends, rapidly expanding population, elevated living standards, poor water-use planning and the loss of arable land.

The New York Times is reporting that

Shortages and high prices for all kinds of food have caused tensions and even violence around the world in recent months. Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Protests have erupted in Indonesia over soybean shortages, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs.

Food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. But the moves by rice-exporting nations over the last two days — meant to ensure scarce supplies will meet domestic needs — drove prices on the world market even higher this week.

Even agricultural powerhouses like the United States may find themselves impacted by the price increase. The US is already facing down impending recession, and prices have been exploding in food, healthcare and transport, while the overall economy slows to zero growth.

But poor nations with chronic food scarcity will likely be hardest hit. Asia's major rice exporters are limiting or freezing exports, putting rice-poor importers at risk of severe scarcity. Many African nations are struggling with issues of agricultural productivity or economic instability, and cannot easily afford to replace vanishing imports with locally produced grains.

One potential stress on populous Asian nations, which also harbor some of the world's poorest communities, is the risk of mass migration. Failure to generate a sustainable flow of basic food, entire communities can be forced to flee their homes in search of survival. In any environment, this is a stress on local economies; when scarcity is a regional or even global problem, weak economies or political structures can collapse.

OneWorld reports that the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) has found, in its most recent report that "Due to absence of rural infrastructure, incomplete land reforms and limited alternative income generating activities, agriculture productivity has declined", and that an agricultural "revolution" is needed to reverse trends that have impoverished 218 million people.

• NY Times: "High Rice Cost Creating Fears of Asia Unrest"
• OneWorld: "UN report calls for agricultural 'revolution' in Asia-Pacific"
  

Nuclear Material Found in Andes Sign of Proliferation Threat

Reports out of Colombia cite government sources saying the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) acquired uranium on the black market. Colombian authorities claim to have recoverd 66 pounds of uranium. The radioactive material, which in some forms can fuel to a nuclear device, was said to have been recovered after information on 3 laptops seized led authorities to it.

Colombian officials had said previously that they suspected the FARC were trying to acquire nuclear material in order to make a radioactive "dirty bomb", but that has yet to be confirmed. According to reports about the actual find, the material may have been purchased for resale, as a means of generating revenue or aiding other militant groups.

The Seattle Times reports:

The two uranium chunks found Wednesday were described by Colombia's military chief as "impoverished." Only uranium enriched through processing - something most countries, including Colombia, are not equipped to do - can be used to make nuclear weapons or power reactors, scientists say.

While independent confirmation of the recovered material or its origin is not available, the meaning of loose nuclear material traveling through the Andean region on the black market, is a sign of the real risks of proliferation. It is not merely international conflict or state-funded arms races that promote nuclear proliferation; there is also the element tied to the financial interests of smaller players, some of whom may be involved in armed conflict with their nation's government.

This is a wildly different vision of the WMD threat from what was professed so voluminously in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003. "Rogue states" seeking nuclear material from established market providers is a much lower threat, due to the level of oversight, international regulation and foreign management of the resources. The Andean material hints at a network of vendors not answering to governments or to regulatory regimes.

Whether or not this material was intended to be used in a "dirty bomb", or for resale to a shadowy entity seeking to do research, its being loose is itself a threat to public safety, and a sign of ineffectual international regulation. Whether or not Colombia will be able to determine the actual origin of the seized uranium, these reports raise the question as to what sort of diplomatic initiatives would best work to curb the spread of catalytic nuclear materials.

WISE Uranium reports that at least 4 different corporations are conducting new uranium mining exploration projects inside Colombia. So, Colombia itself is a possible source for the materials.

Policy approaches to such incidents must balance the temptation to forceful or coercive responses with a genuine examination of the root causes and the actual security flaws. Overreaching will only worsen the problem. At present, the FARC is reported to refute the authenticity of the laptops, saying they could not have survived Colombia's bombardment of their camp.

• Seattle Times: "Colombia Investigates Uranium Find"
• CSM: "FARC acquired uranium, says Colombia"
• World Information Service on Energy: "New Uranium Mining Projects - South/Central America"

Moving Down the Food Chain

EXCERPT FROM PLAN B 3.0, CH. 9: "FEEDING 8 BILLION WELL"

Lester Brown, EPI :: One of the questions I am most often asked is, “How many peo-ple can the earth support?” I answer with another question: “Atwhat level of food consumption?” Using round numbers, at theU.S. level of 800 kilograms of grain per person annually for food and feed, the 2-billion-ton annual world harvest of grain would support 2.5 billion people. At the Italian level of consumption of close to 400 kilograms, the current harvest would support 5 billion people. At the 200 kilograms of grain consumed by the average Indian, it would support a population of 10 billion.

In every society where incomes rise, people move up the food chain, eating more animal protein as beef, pork, poultry, milk, eggs, and seafood. The mix of animal products varies with geography and culture, but the shift to more livestock products as purchasing power increases appears to be universal. As consumption of livestock products, poultry, and farmed fish rises, grain use per person also rises. Of the roughly 800 kilograms of grain consumed per person each year in the United States, about 100 kilograms is eaten directly as bread, pasta, and breakfast cereals, while the bulk of the grain is consumed indirectly in the form of livestock and poultry products. By contrast, in India, where people consume just under 200 kilograms of grain per year, or roughly a pound per day, nearly all grain is eaten directly to satisfy basic food energy needs. Little is available for conversion into livestock products.

Of the three countries just cited, life expectancy is highest in Italy even though U.S. medical expenditures per person are much higher. People who live very low or very high on the food chain do not live as long as those in an intermediate position. Those consuming a Mediterranean type diet that includes meat, cheese, and seafood, but all in moderation, are healthier and live longer. People living high on the food chain, such as Americans or Canadians, can improve their health by moving down the food chain. For those who live in low-income countries like India, where a starchy staple such as rice can supply 60 percent or more of total caloric intake, eating more protein-rich foods can improve health and raise life expectancy.

In agriculture we often look at how climate affects the food supply but not at how what we eat affects climate. While we understand rather well the link between climate change and the fuel efficiency of the cars we buy, we do not have a comparable understanding of the climate effect of various dietary options. Gidon Eshel and Pamela A. Martin of the University of Chicago have addressed this issue. They begin by noting that the energy used in the food economy to provide the typical American diet and that used for personal transportation are roughly the same. In fact, the range between the more and less carbon-intensive transportation options and dietary options is each about 4 to 1. With cars, the Toyota Prius, a gas-electric hybrid, uses scarcely one fourth as much fuel as a Chevrolet Suburban SUV. Similarly with diets, a plant-based diet requires roughly one fourth as much energy as a diet rich in red meat. Shifting from a diet rich in red meat to a plant-based diet cuts greenhouse gas emissions as much as shifting from a Suburban SUV to a Prius.

The inclusion of soybean meal in feed rations to convert grain into animal protein more efficiently, the shift by consumers to more grain-efficient forms of animal protein, and the movement of consumers down the food chain all can help reduce the demand for land, water, and fertilizer. This reduces carbon emissions and thus helps to stabilize climate as well.

• EPI: "Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization" [Get the Book / Read Online]
• Crisis Policy Forum: "FOOD SUPPLY RESTORATION & SECURITY: AFRICA" [Discussion-solution Forum]
  
• Quipu Economic Forum: "Confluence of Housing, Energy, Commodities, Banking, Jobs & Food-price Strains Called 'Economic Perfect Storm'"
• Quipu Economic Forum: "Why Ethanol Production Will Drive World Food Prices Even Higher in 2008"
  

FOOD SUPPLY RESTORATION & SECURITY: AFRICA

As part of the Crisis Policy Forum, the HotSpring collaborative innovation initiative is now planning an effort to tackle the problem of food supply management and chronic food and water scarcity in Africa. The lessons from this experiment in collaborative research will be applicable in many cases to other situations around the world, and we are open to spurring dialogue in those areas as outgrowths of this ongoing discussion.

Among the basic problems we now face, as a species, is the confluence of difficulties in providing reliable clean drinking water reserves, a viable and sustainable food web, by way of an integrated agricultural and distribution ecosystem, economic stability and cohesive political engagement within a defensible political framework.

Ethnic rivalries, resource-focused regional proxy wars, like the massive decade-long tragedy in DR Congo (in which as many as 14 states played a role), and political manipulations and their fallout, as we have seen in Kenya this winter, threaten to further undermine production and distribution systems.

Add to such conflicts the tens of millions of fatal cases of HIV infection, and we have a crisis of historic proportions where mass peril will drive political structures, borders and aspirations on an unprecedented scale. Small-scale logical enhancements to political and economic stability, democratization and integrated decentralization of administrative resources, are needed to reduce risk of mass starvation and heal mounting tensions.

Discussion is now open: please comment below. We would like to focus on practical solutions to:

1. Problems related to infusing food supply with enough to feed all those in need;
2. Environmental degradation: i.e. resilience services, ecological measures, ecosystem management;
3. Land use deficiencies: how to improve;
   
4. Animal and timber poaching;
5. Economic corrosion and instability;
6. Corruption and funding shortfalls;
7. Cooperative measures for extending food supply to conflict-afflicted areas;
8. Overcoming limits of transportation infrastructure;
9. Contagious disease: treatment, education, socio-economic impact;
10. Communications gaps: get relevant anecdotal and researched data to those who can use it.
    

Tibet Crisis Deepens, Chinese State Media Say "Crush" Protesters

The Chinese government's military crackdown on demonstrators in Tibet and in neighboring Chinese provinces has been intense, though foreign media have been unable to confirm reports of mounting death tolls. In Sichuan province, there are allegations of 23 killed by security forces in one incident, including a 16-year-old. Reports of mounting fear among civilians in Tibet and Sichuan have become common in recent days.

Despite early official reports from Chinese state-run media claiming that protests were limited to radicals in the capital, they have in fact spread across Tibet and well into China. According to the Sunday Times:

[T]he violence reached right into the centre of Chengdu, a city of 11m, where nerves were on edge last week. In scenes not witnessed in a Chinese city since 1989, troops in battledress joined black-uniformed special police in clamping a cordon around the Tibetan quarter.

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has condemned the military assault on civilians, calling the situation "a challenge to the conscience of the world". She also said "If freedom loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world".

While Tibet's independence struggle is political and cultural, linked to the Chinese invasion 60 years ago (political in resisting occupation, cultural in resisting what Tibetan Buddhists believe is Beijing's intention to eliminate its religious traditions), the planned mass migration of ethnic Han Chinese into the agrarian mountain region has caused an escalation in interethnic tensions, and resentment among Tibetans who say economic growth and educational opportunities have been concentrated in Han Chinese communities.

Now, some observers believe, China is facing what appears to be the failure of its post-Tiananmen plan to use economic development as a lure to long-term peace and integration. Chinese in Tibet and in neighboring provinces have reportedly been expressing feelings of despair over the Tibet situation, saying they don't see how Tibet could win its independence, or how China will win Tibetans' hearts.

The conflict could continue to deepen if China depends more heavily on impunity, masking the use of force by way of censored and structured media reports, than on dialogue and working toward a political solution. Some Tibetans are alleging Beijing's plan is to eradicate Tibetan opposition by way of a kind of "economic ethnic cleansing", forcing Tibetans from their homes or even into Chinese cities in search of work.

Today, 29 prominent Chinese intellectuals published an open letter calling on their government to "stop the violent suppression", and suggesting 12 ways to better deal with the worsening but long-lived tensions. The letter went as far as to urge that "As the Chinese government is committed to integrating into the international community, we maintain that it should display a style of governing that conforms to the standards of modern civilization".

Witness.org Brings Truth of Human Rights Abuse to the Eyes of the World

A revolutionary web-based social networking project, Witness.org has created a platform for delivering evidentiary video documenting human rights abuses for the collective conscience of the online world. 'The Hub', as the video sharing platform is called, is designed to ensure that individuals who have documented potential human rights abuses, or who are able to give their testimony via video, can put their message before the eyes of the world.

Begun in 1992, after a number of prominent occasions made it clear that video evidence made it far more difficult to obscure brutal acts of state violence (namely Tiananmen Square, and in an American media phenomenon, the Rodney King tape), Witness was started as an organization whose mission was to find documentary evidence and make it available, in the interests of promoting human rights and righting injustices.

The Hub is now providing select human rights activists with pocket-sized digital video cameras, in hopes they can gather interviews from witnesses to human rights abuses around the world, and begin creating a video archive of testimony from those who know and those who can help to motivate change and spur public opinion abroad to take an interst in specific crises, like those in Darfur, Burma or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Witness has helped to bring abourt awareness of abuses in Darfur, Chechnya, Burma, and many other places, as well as focusing on the plight of the most ignored victims of mass tragedy: internally displaced people (IDP), refugees who remain within the borders of a war-torn country with a totalitarian or ethnically repressive regime, or which is subject to a state of continual anarchy and bloodshed.

3rd Day of Clashes in Tibet Without Independent Media Being Permitted to Verify Death Tolls

Two days after peaceful demonstrations across Tibet turned violent in the capital Lhasa, the Reuters news agency has reported that the violent clashes between protesters and Chinese security forces have spread to neighboring provinces. Supporters of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, say they have confirmed at least 80 deaths among demonstrators.

Xinhua, China's official state-run media organization, reports only 10 civilian deaths and a number of policemen injured. The BBC reported yesterday that mainland China and Chinese-language domestic media were under a near total information blackout regarding the Tibet demonstrations. The government has refused to confirm that security forces were responsible for any civilian deaths.

Calls for an international boycott of the Beijing Olympics later this year have so far been treated as an overreaction by most governments. The Dalai Lama himself said he expects the international community will pressure Beijing authorities to "be a good host" of the Olympics, which means implementing more democratic reforms and disavowing all violence against civilians or persecution of political dissidents.

According to Reuters, in Aba county Sichuan province, China, which has a large Tibetan population, there are reports of firebombings and vandalism, and police firing on demonstrators. The news service also reports "widespread talk of 10 or more dead" in Aba county.

Chinese Security Forces Accused of Firing into Crowd of Demonstrators in Lhasa, Tibet

International media reports say that sources in the Tibetan exile community, from India to New York, have confirmed that at least 30 civilian demonstrators were killed by Chinese security forces as they moved to end a demonstration in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on Friday. Demonstrations had begun on Monday, and for four days, reports suggest the majority of demonstrations were peaceful.

On Friday, however, after what some journalists —including those reporting for the BBC and reportedly censored by the Chinese government— say were persistently harsh reactions by security forces to peaceful demonstrations. Throughout the week, demonstrations are reported to have spread from the capital Lhasa to other cities and smaller provincial towns across Tibet.

China has occupied Tibet for 60 years, claiming it is Chinese territory. Official reports from the Beijing government categorize the invasion as "liberation" of the people of Tibet from the tyranny of feudalism. Since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese government has sought to quell separatist unrest in Tibet through economic development plan and mass migration of Han Chinese citizens to Tibetan territory.

On Friday, police sources allege, the peaceful demonstrations turned violent when a number of shops owned by Han Chinese Tibetan residents were attacked and burned. Due to the government's near total media blackout across Tibet and within China generally, it is not clear whether the vandalism rose to the level of inter-ethnic violence or whether it was provoked by security forces' excesses, as alleged by some rights groups and Tibetan exile activists.

Pharmaceuticals Found in Drinking Water of 24 Major Metropolitan Areas in US

A new study has found that selective seratonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI, or anti-depressants), sex-hormones, painkillers and anti-biotics in significant quantities in the drinking water of 24 out of 28 major metropolitan areas in the United States. Though the term "trace amounts" appears multiple times in today's reporting of the findings, that term does not necessarily speak to quantity.

According to the Washington Post:

Pharmaceuticals, along with trace amounts of caffeine, were found in the drinking water supplies of 24 of 28 U.S. metropolitan areas tested. The findings were revealed as part of the first federal research on pharmaceuticals in water supplies, and those results are detailed in an investigative report by the Associated Press set to be published today.

Health effects are not known, as the question of prolonged unplanned exposure to sub-medical dosages has not been adequately researched, if at all, by the pharmaceutical community or by public health authorities. As the Toronto Daily News points out, in reference to the drugs found in drinking water: "Experts say medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body".

Utilities insist their water is safe for human consumption, but the Associated Press investigation found that water authorities are more often than not reluctant to disclose any information about testing for pharmaceuticals in the water supply. The AP also found that "while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies -- which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public -- have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife."

Among the more astonishing findings in the study was the range of pharmaceutical contaminants found in the Philadelphia metropolitan area:

Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

18.5 million people across southern California are reported to be affected by potential exposure to anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications found in "a portion" of the drinking water supply to that region.

The AP also reported that

The federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water. Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that haven't: Houston, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Phoenix, Boston and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people.

Part of the problem is that pharmaceuticals are not entirely absorbed by those who taken them for medical reasons and water treatment systems are not as yet capable of removing trace pharmaceuticals from water that will be released back into the general public water supply.

Last August, AlterNet published in its environment section a report on apparent behavioral and physical mutations in fish and wildlife exposed to prolonged persistent doses of pharmaceutical runoff. The article specified that long-term effects of such exposure in human tissue are not yet well-studied or well-known, though:

A 1999 (EPA and German) study of pharmaceutical and other personal-care products concluded the "undetectable effects on aquatic organisms are particularly worrisome because effects could accumulate so slowly that major change goes undetected until the cumulative level of these effects finally cascades to irreversible change -- change that would otherwise be attributed to natural adaptation or ecologic succession."

Also, the AlterNet story warned that "Pharmaceuticals have already been linked to behavioral and sexual mutations in fish, amphibians and birds, according to EPA studies." As such, the EPA was by August 2007 planning "preventative measures" to protect against adverse effects on the human population, though there was some suspicion the doses might be high enough to indicate expired pills being flushed by consumers.

• The New York Times: "Drug Traces Common in Tap Water"
• Washington Post: "Area Tap Water has Traces of Medicines"
• Toronto Daily News: "Antibiotics, Antidepressants, Sex Hormones Found in U.S. Drinking Water"
• Charleston Post & Courier: "Local water authorities say impact on health is unanswered question"
• AlterNet: "Pharmaceuticals in Our Water Supply Are Causing Bizarre Mutations to Wildlife"