CLIMATE CHANGE: PLANETARY OR GALACTIC?…ROCKET SCIENTIST BACKTRACKS GLOBAL WARMING

CLIMATE CHANGE: PLANETARY OR GALACTIC?…ROCKET SCIENTIST BACKTRACKS GLOBAL WARMING

Erle Frayne Argonza

 

We cannot deny, as shown by evidences, that Earth changes are taking place today. There are no fixed interpretations of the changes though, and the scientific community is the least unified about such interpretations.

Whether the fixed idea of ‘global warming is carbon-based monstrosity’ is fully accepted across the sciences and civic groups remains as a hot issue. It is, for one thing, too contentious, and in my opinion as a social scientist, too reductionist with pugnacious eco-fascist underpinnings.

Astronomers have recently reported updates about all planets of the solar system undergoing changes in their polar areas. Even the sun does not escape its own equivalent changes that have repercussions on the electromagnetic belt of our very own planet.

Unfortunately, global Establishment media and information niches have released the news in separate, isolated packets so that they won’t be noticed by the public, thus sustaining the rather erroneous and suspicious fixed idea of a carbon-based or human intervention-induced Earth changes.

Below is a news item about an Australian rocket scientist who was previously among the most vocal interpellators of a carbon-based global warming problematic. The same scientist has now backtracked on his previous statement, indicating as such the disagreements within the scientific community about the subject.

[27 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to the Executive Intelligence Review database news.]

 

Former Global Warming Rocket Scientist Cools to Reality

July 18, 2008 (EIRNS)—

An Australian Greenhouse Office consultant from 1999 to 2005, David Evans, now slams the global warming theory he once supported. In an opinion piece in Rupert Murdoch’s national newspaper, The Australian, Evans stated that: I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.”We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.”

Evans said he initially thought the evidence seemed “pretty good,” but had admitted it was not conclusive. Now he says straight out: “There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. [They are] going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.”

VATICAN OKEYED ALIENS’ EXISTENCE, WILL WORLD POWERS FOLLOW SUIT?

VATICAN OKEYED ALIENS’ EXISTENCE, WILL WORLD POWERS FOLLOW SUIT?

Erle Frayne  Argonza

 

The BRA (Britain-America-Russia) ‘triumvirate of alien researchers’ holds something so special in their respective vaults of knowledge that each power held as top secret for many decades now. It has a great deal to do with the Extra-Terrestrial Intelligences or ETIs, the results of which were actually inferred through systematic research and interaction with ETIs. 

The question that the rest of us Earth humans or Earthans are asking now is, why has there been so much secrecy regarding the ETI phenomenon? Does it suffice to claim that humanity is not prepared yet for the knowledge about the ETIs, and so the policy of the BRA Establishment is to keep mum about the matter? Or is it because the knowledge derived from the research is of military significance, and anything militarily-oriented is classified information?

We could say that all of the above reasons held true last century, more so in the decades after World War I. Humanity was still mired in superstition and Victorian mindsets than, the level of knowledge was still in the level of the Enlightenment Era and was pathetically narrow to comprehend ETIs, and the military information given by the ETIs whom the BRA interacted with were pure and plain classified.

But that was true for the 20^th century though. Mankind had moved on since those early exploratory decades. It may be time to make public pronouncements about the ETIs.

Fact is, the Nazi Germans were the first to study the ETIs intensively and may have received knowledge from some ETI groups. The same knowledge may have been used to design the nuclear bomb, and were it not that Allied onslaught wiped out German military production altogether, the same Bomb could have been dropped on Germany’s enemies, permitting Germany to establish its 1000-year Reich. Japan and Italy could have benefitted enormously from the 1000-year tyranny, thanks to ETI technology.

It did not happen that way though. The BRA countries, which were the core leaders of the Allied Forces, also had their own intensive R&D done on the subject, at the same time when relativity theory and quantum mechanics were revolutionizing the sciences. They later got hold of Nazi scientists who were ETI researchers, and secretly employed the same in their own research pursuits.

But another world power, the Vatican, silently observed those occurrences during the past decades. Little did the world outside know that after Vatican II, the church installed its own ETI research bureau, headed by a cardinal and staffed with scientist priests and lay. The bureau was instrumental in collating previous data and evidences, the most baffling being some skulls of unusual shape—deposited in Vatican relics—that do not at all cohere with any of the hominoid and hominid skulls known to man. These were alien skulls right inside the Vatican!

As the Vatican ETI bureau did its work silently, only occasionally coming out with seemingly independent views by church members, it also secured its own information about what the BRA ‘triumvirate’ was doing about ETI and their state-of-the-art technological applications.

Now that the planet had entered the starting phase of its post-industrial, Information Age phase, humans are simply ready to accept knowledge about their own brethren beyond our star systems. The Vatican was expecting that the secular BRA triumvirate, reinforced by UN and international scientific circles, should make the pronouncement now, at this very moment, when people are looking for some hope to be able to get out of the growing global chaos.

But the BRA officialdom failed to do its part, for one reason or another. And this could have prompted the Vatican hierarchy to do the first salvo of revelation, by utilizing an astronomer priest to pronounce the official policy about ETIs. Accordingly, God created many life forms and life streams, including human-related beings, and so ETIs are well within the ambit of the integrity of Creation. 

What a bombshell this revelation is! A true bombshell! Now the Vatican is examining the public feedback from the pronouncement to see if there are hostile or antipathetic thoughts whatsoever. And there are none! Which now empowers the Church all the more, mandating it to make the official heraldry about ETIs in the next couple of years.  

There’s no way that the BRA countries would counter this move with PR slanders against the Church for the latter to keep its mouth shut. No force on Earth can do that on the Vatican, remember. Or else the Church will mastermind the economic collapse and fragmentation of the world power involved, this being its sanguine leverage against any arrogantly abusive power.

[28 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

WITCH HUNTING NANOTECHNOLOGY? QUE SERA SERA BRAZIL!

WITCH HUNTING NANOTECHNOLOGY? QUE SERA SERA BRAZIL!

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Magandang araw! Good day!

 

It seems that Brazilians have among them a new crop of superstitious punks whose noxious superstition discovered their enemy whom they need to stake to death in public: nanotechnology practitioners. By practitioners we mean those who practice the research & development of nanotech into usable byproducts.

 

The superstitious witch hunters have found allies among legislators who are proposing to ban nanotech items in food & beverage or F&B labels. If these Inquisitors have their way, they may end up heaping up public hysteria on the nanotech practitioners who may get lynched or stoned to death.

 

Fortunately, there are more sane minds than madmen among the legislators in the noblesse federal republic. Of course, it need not be stressed that the sane legislators struck down as impertinent and dismissed the inquisitional stone age superstitionists.

 

You can find the reportage about the rather ubiquitous inquisition below.

 

[Manila, 06 October 2013]

 

Source: http://www.scidev.net/global/technology/feature/brazil-struggles-to-regulate-emerging-nanotechnology.html

Brazil struggles to regulate emerging nanotechnology

Speed read

• Congress has rejected a bill to label food and drugs containing nanotech
• Yet a US$186 million nanotechnology initiative was launched last month
• A new bill is pending, which may introduce what some see as badly needed regulation

[RIO DE JANEIRO] The Brazilian Congress has rejected a bill that aimed to introduce labelling on all food, drugs and cosmetics containing nanostructures, arguing that it was alarmist and that there was no scientific basis for warning people about nanotechnology in products.
 
The move is the latest rebuff to such regulation, even as the country spearheads multimillion-dollar nanotechnology programmes and experts argue that better oversight of this new technology could benefit both industry and consumers.
 
A Senate report on the rejected bill said that the proposed labelling could have been interpreted as a “warning” even on products improved by nanotechnology, potentially causing losses to companies that have invested in improving their products through this technology.
 
Consequently, there could be a fall in research and development investment in the sector, which would undermine national investment into nanotechnology such as the National Nanotechnology Programme, a multimillion-dollar initiative launched in 2005, and its extension the Brazilian Nanotechnology Initiative launched last month (19 August) that is worth 440 million reals (approximately US$186 million) by the end of 2014.
 
The bill’s demise marks the second failure to regulate the fast-growing sector: in 2005, a more ambitious bill, with provisions for a national policy on nanotechnology, including labelling, risk assessment and other decisions, was evaluated by the industry, science, and finance committees  from Congress’s Chamber of Deputies, which found the field to be at too early a stage for legislation.
 
The benefits of legislation
 
Meanwhile, some experts argue that regulation would make nanotechnology and its industrial applications more transparent, providing a good basis for advancing research and public support for it.
 
It would also help guide research and define, evaluate and minimise potential risks to human health and the environment, they say.
 
The most recently rejected bill was less ambitious than its predecessor, aiming primarily to introduce product labelling.

“Regulation … would bring only benefits to industry, trade, scientists and society.”

Edson Duarte, former
member of the Chamber of Deputies

First presented to Congress’s Senate in May 2010, the bill proposed changing existing laws to incorporate products made using nanotechnology, based on the argument that consumers have the right to know exactly what is in things they buy.

Just as genetically modified foods have to be labelled in some countries, the bill would have forced firms to label any foods, drugs and cosmetics containing nanotech.
 
But two of the Senate’s commissions — for social affairs and for the environment and consumer protection — that reviewed the proposal said there was no scientific basis for imposing “warnings” over nanotechnology’s use.
 
The senators added that the labels were not sufficient to inform consumers, who could be confused and then avoid what could actually be “improved products”.
 
This “alarmism” would harm companies that have invested in nanotechnology and halt plans for the sector’s development in the country, they said.
 
But the author of 2005 bill, which was rejected for similar reasons, says this reasoning is misguided.
 
“My bill was rejected on the grounds that it could inhibit research and development of new products. It is an absolutely misguided justification,” says Edson Duarte, former member of the Chamber of Deputies. “Regulation would serve to establish a minimum level of control over the sector and would bring only benefits to industry, trade, scientists and society.”
 
Further legislation
 
The Senate may soon have another stab at legislating on the issue: a new bill, proposing the creation of a labelling law for all nanotech products, including imports and exports, is pending in the Chamber of Deputies.
 
Instead of changing existing laws on foods and drugs to include the labelling of anything made using nanotechnology, as the recently rejected bill attempted, the new proposal would encompass labelling all products containing nanotech, without requiring other laws to change.
 
“We are confident that our proposal will be approved,” says José Sarney Filho, the new bill’s author and a representative in the Chamber.
 
In his view, the business sector is becoming more aware of growing consumer pressure for information and is less resistant to labelling regulations, both of which may help convince senators to approve the bill. The bill was favourably reviewed by the Committee for Economic Development, Industry and Trade, in the Chamber of Deputies, last month.
 
But Duarte says that a remaining obstacle for nanotech regulation in Brazil is opposition by free-market groups. “These are the ones who can hamper regulation and press [Congress] not to create laws for industry,” he says.
 
Duarte is worried about nanotechnology advancing rapidly with no regulation.
 
Yet Oswaldo Luiz Alves, a nanotech expert at the State University of Campinas and a member of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation’s Advisory Committee on Nanotechnology, says the time lag between big investment in a new technology and its regulation is not unique to the nanotech sector.
 
“This situation has been happening with many technologies. Even in developed countries, regulation came in second,” he says.
 
Despite the setback of the bill’s rejection, Alves believes the situation is now favourable to advancing nanotechnology regulation in Brazil, especially as the nation’s new nanotechnology initiative gets under way.
 
“But we need to consistently move forward with the right steps and, above all, in harmony with the international context so that we do not create situations that prevent us from participating, as effective actors, in the trillion-dollar economic activity of nanotechnology,” says Alves.
 
Link to the senators’ report on the rejected bill (in Portuguese)
 
Link to the newly proposed labelling bill (in Portuguese)
 
Link to the 2005 rejected bill (in Portuguese) 

 

HAS MONSANTO INVADED CHILE’S SMALL PLANTERS?

HAS MONSANTO INVADED CHILE’S SMALL PLANTERS?

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

“God must be angry on Chilean peasants, He’s sending Monsanto here!” could be an apt idiom by angry Chileans over the passing of the Monsanto Bill in their legislature. I am very much in sync with the protesting farmers and concerned Chileans, as I know the dire implications of getting Monsanto to invade their country.

 

I was among the social activists in the Philippines who opposed the signing of the GATT-Uruguay Rounds in the mid-90s, and spoke in many venues to expose the social costs that the treaty would spawn. The rise of gigantic trusts or monopolies has been on the agenda plate of the global oligarchs in the the 90s when the treaty was signed, and, as an adroit observer of international political economy, I was among those who forecast the rise of such global monopolies that will control certain sectors of agriculture such as seed production.

 

That monopolization is taking place in steel and mining. Ditto for agriculture, with Monsanto as the flagship trust. I am no professional basher of genetic modification of organisms, as I myself witnessed the great benefits brought forth by genetic engineering on many varieties of veggies, fruits, and grains in my backyard country. However, the likes of Monsanto gobbling up grains, which effectively prohibits small farmers to own seeds for re-cultivation later, is pure EVIL.

 

The Monsanto Bill had raised blood pressures in Chile that is rising fast as a developing country in South America. Details of the issues raised are reflected in the reportage below.

 

[Manila, 30 September 2013]

 

Source: http://www.scidev.net/global/bioprospecting/news/farmers-rights-at-stake-in-chile-s-monsanto-law-bill.html

Farmers’ rights ‘at stake in Chile’s Monsanto law bill’

Speed read

• Campaigners say the bill suits big firms rather than ordinary farmers
• But biotech companies deny claims that it would unfairly restrict seed use
• Strong intellectual property rights could also aid agricultural exports, say the bill’s supporters

[SANTIAGO] Campaigners who last month marched through more than a dozen Chilean cities against a bill dubbed the ‘Monsanto law’ after the giant US biotech firm, plan to protest again if the bill progresses through the country’s Senate.
 
Meanwhile, the bill’s supporters — mainly associations of large-scale farmers — are lobbying senators to back it.
 
At issue is the legal implementation in Chile of the latest version of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 91).
 
As a signatory to the 1978 version, Chile already protects plant breeders’ rights, but campaigners claim that the new version of the convention suits commercial rather than conventional breeders.
 
“UPOV 91 extends the intellectual property rights of companies that produce seeds, thus increasing their monopoly over seed production and exchange,” Iván Santandreu, co-founder of the NGO Chile without GMOs (genetically modified organisms), tells SciDev.Net.
 
“If UPOV 91 becomes law, it will become illegal for farmers to save and exchange seeds,” he adds.

But Miguel Sánchez, executive director of ChileBIO, an association that represents agricultural biotechnology companies, says: “UPOV 91 allows a seed developer to charge a farmer for using any intellectually protected seed, even retroactively.
 
“But nobody forces this farmer to buy and use intellectually protected plant varieties. If he does, it is because he believes the protected seed will increase his yields.”
 
Sánchez adds that campaigners’ fears that UPOV 91 will not stop large firms from appropriating native vegetable species and varieties or their agricultural or medicinal uses are misplaced.
 
“A seed developer cannot claim intellectual property rights for a vegetable species such as maize. He can only do so if he has bred a maize variety that is new and distinct,” Sánchez tells SciDev.Net.
 

“If UPOV 91 becomes law, it will become illegal for farmers to save and exchange seeds.”

Iván Santandreu,
Chile without GMOs

Another of the campaigners’ concerns is that the proposed law would introduce GMOs into the country through the backdoor by allowing companies to register GM seeds (GMOs are banned in Chile).
 
“This allegation is wrong: UPOV 91 does not mention GMOs,” Patricio Parodi, scientific advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile, tells SciDev.Net.
 
“Campaigners are conflating it with the bill on genetically modified plants, which has been stagnating in the National Congress since 2006. Only this law would make way for the general use of GMOs in Chile,” he adds.
 
Santandreu replies that, while UPOV 91 may not mention GMOs by name, it refers to genetic improvement and defines this process as ranging from hybridisation to genetic engineering.
 
But the politicians, large farm owners and agricultural companies backing the bill argue that an agricultural exporter such as Chile needs solid intellectual property rights.
 
“We cannot be seen as a country that practises intellectual property piracy. Chile has signed many free trade agreements, including with the US and Japan, on the basis of reciprocal intellectual property rights,” says Parodi.
 
José Antonio Poblete, commercial manager of the Fruit Nurseries Association of Chile, told the Constitutional Court last year: “If Chile does not adhere to UPOV 91, there will be no reward for all the efforts made by 12 new, state-backed genetic programmes that are developing new fruit varieties”.
 
But anti-GMO campaigners remain unconvinced.
 
“We are waiting for the next significant development in Congress before we march again,” Santandreu says.
 
Link to International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants

WORMS CAN BE WIPED OUT BY GM BACTERIA

WORMS CAN BE WIPED OUT BY GM BACTERIA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Worm parasitism, notably of the pinworm variety, infects over 2 billion children and pregnant mothers across the globe. That’s nearly 1 in every 3 Earthlings infested by the worm disease!

 

Sadly, many worms are now resistant to drugs. Reversing the process, with the object of eliminating worm parasitism in the long run, seems to find its salvation in the genetic modification of a certain bacterium. But while the new panacea awaits trial results on humans, many children and pregnant women will face the scourge of disabilities brought by worm parasitism.

 

The GM bacterium was already tested on hamsters in the laboratory. Gladly, the finds about the impact of the GM strain on the parasite-infested hamsters were positive and conclusive. The next stage—of testing the panacea on humans—is now in the works, which should cheer up many children and mothers.

 

The brightening reportage is shown below.

 

[Manila, 18 September 2013]

 

 

Source: http://www.scidev.net/global/medicine/news/gm-bacteria-could-help-mass-produce-hookworm-drugs.html

 

GM bacteria could help mass produce hookworm drugs

Speed read

• GM bacteria similar to those used in food makes proteins against parasitic worms
• The proteins are more effective in animal experiments than currently used drugs
• The work has yet to reach the pre-clinical stage but plans are underway

[SÃO PAULO] Researchers have produced a protein that kills parasitic intestinal worms, by genetically engineering a bacterium similar to those used in probiotics — raising hopes of more effective and safer therapies for infections that affect up to two billion people worldwide.

“There is a growing number of drug resistant parasites.”

Rose Gomes Monnerat 

The protein, Cry5B, has previously been shown to kill parasitic worms. It is normally produced by Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium used as an insecticide and not considered safe for use in people.

Bacteria containing Cry5B could be an ideal drug against human parasites, researchers say, as they can be easily and cheaply produced in large quantities, as well as shipped and stored under adverse conditions.

The researchers inserted the protein-producing gene into another related bacterium, Bacillus subtilis — strains of which are commonly used in foods such as probiotic yoghurts.

They first showed that the modified strain successfully produces the protein, and then tested it for treating parasitic worms in hamsters.

When given in small doses to hamsters infected with hookworm, Ancylostoma ceylanicum — which is capable of infecting people, and is related to a major human parasite, A. duodenale — the protein reduced the parasite burden by 93 per cent.

The study reports that this is comparable or even more effective than currently approved drugs for treating hookworms, whipworms and large roundworms.

These parasitic worms “are the leading causes of disease burden and disability in children and pregnant women worldwide” and “infect mostly impoverished people in the developing world and contribute significantly to keeping these people trapped in poverty”, the study says.

Rose Gomes Monnerat, a researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), and a member of the study team, tells SciDev.Net: “Treatment of gut parasites has been done with highly toxic drugs so far.”

“There is also a growing number of reports of drug resistant parasites. So it is important to have alternatives to their control,” she adds.

Manoel Victor Franco Lemos, a biologist at São Paulo State University, Brazil, says: “Although the results have been achieved by using animal models of parasitic infections, the worm species used are quite close to those that cause the same infections in humans”.

But he highlights the need for trials on humans.

Raffi Aroian, co-author and a biologist at the University of California, San Diego, says: “We are talking to knowledgeable people about how much pre-clinical testing would have to be done prior to human clinical trials”.

One of the main challenges, Aroian adds, is that although the B. subtilis strain used is a model for food-safe bacteria and used in some probiotics, it is not a proven food-safe bacterium.

“Now we need to put the gene into a proven food-safe one,” he says.

“Additionally, several toxicity tests must also be done until we can ensure its safety,” says Monnerat.

The study will be published in the September issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Link to full article in Applied and Environmental Microbiology

References

Applied and Environmental Microbiology doi:10.1128/AEM.01854-13 (2013)

AID AGENCIES BETTER LOCALIZE THEIR PURCHASES OF MATERIALS

AID AGENCIES BETTER LOCALIZE THEIR PURCHASES OF MATERIALS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

$69 Billion is spent each year by international aid agencies for procurements of needed materials from external markets. The total amount is over half of aid funding for developing countries.

 

The advisory from experts who know the development processes in Africa is this: aid agencies better source materials locally. The behavior will impact as sound social development practice. Besides, the materials sourced from local markets do reduce the cost of materials.

 

I still recall, in my studies on economic history, when aid agencies infused massive aid funds supposedly on Philippine agriculture in the late 40s through the 60s. PH during those days was predominantly agricultural, with farmers and fisherfolks comprising past 75% of the population. Studies showed that the aid agencies bought tractors, fertilizers and seedlings from International Harvester and outside sources. The tractors alone provided headaches for the end-users, as they are hardly practicable in terrains that are hardly fit for them.

 

Let it be stressed that procuring materials in external market bring along with them inefficiencies. Besides, there could be corruption in the procurement processes, as they could favor certain manufacturers or producers that result to padding of prices. In the end, a very small portion of the aid funds actually go directly to the target beneficiaries, thus defeating the purpose of the development endeavor.

 

Below is the insightful report about the subject matter.

 

[Manila, 12 September 2013]

 

Source: http://www.scidev.net/global/aid/news/aid-agencies-should-go-local-when-sourcing-materials.html

Aid agencies should ‘go local’ when sourcing materials

Speed read

• Buying locally would slash costs, and identify locally appropriate solutions
• 20 per cent of aid purchases are still tied to firms in donor countries
• Local social enterprise experts firms to carry out policy reviews

Aid agencies should source development products from local manufacturers to help them make the most of their budgets and improve their impact, a group of small businesses, service providers and manufacturers from Africa said this week.

Development agencies spend around US$69 billion each year on procuring goods and services from external providers — more than 50 per cent of total official development assistance — according to a press release by AidEx, a global humanitarian and development aid event held annually in Brussels. But 20 per cent of bilateral aid purchases are still tied to firms in donor countries, resulting in project expenses increasing by up to 40 per cent.

The group of businesses participating in the AidEx Developing World Supplier Zone — an area of 25 free stalls designed to help businesses from developing countries reach an international buying audience — is now urging aid agencies to carry out procurement policy reviews that would compare the cost, delivery time and social benefits of obtaining goods and services through local providers. They are also calling for the removal of conditions that tie donors to procurement in donor countries.

“Aid agencies’ use of local suppliers is key to maximising business opportunities and upskilling communities.”

Ben Solanky

By using local businesses in Africa, aid agencies could lower transaction costs, shorten delivery times and improve the investment climate in the surrounding region, the press release said.

“It’s vital for aid organisations to seriously consider locally developed solutions in their procurement, as these companies’ offerings have already been tried and tested ‘on the ground’,” said Grant Gibbs, project manager at Hippo Water Roller, a water technology project in South Africa.

“Superimposing First World business models can underestimate differences in African infrastructure — particularly at the rural level — and lead to inefficiencies,” Gibbs added.

Simon Lucas, CEO of Reltex Africa, a humanitarian relief materials supplier based in Kenya, said the benefits of the organisation’s location in Mombasa, for example, are that it “can easily access raw materials and re-export finished goods through supply chain routes across East Africa.”

“This,” he said, “has led to reduced transportation times and decreased environmental impact for humanitarian aid deliveries.

“When looking at purchasing products from Africa, I urge procurement managers to look further than just the price and take into account the social benefits and economic input to the region.” 

Charles Mugasa, of Ugandan social enterprise start-up Chiabiz, said: “Aid agencies must prioritise local companies that have grassroots connections with the community if they are to realise their goals, otherwise the bureaucratic nature of governments can get in the way.”

And Ben Solanky, director of Global Hand, a non-profit matching service for public-private partnerships, added: “Aid agencies’ use of local suppliers is key to maximising business opportunities and upskilling communities.

Dialogue, openness and connectivity between for-profits and non-profits is crucial in Africa — to see the idea of ‘doing well’ become an economic reality.”

 

FOLKLORE TO IMPROVE LITERACY: ORAL TRADITION IN ASEAN

FOLKLORE TO IMPROVE LITERACY: ORAL TRADITION IN ASEAN
Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Ra

Visual and oral traditions are very strong among the peoples of ASEAN region. In our current analytic models, Southeast Asians are strongly right-brained as learners.
The right-brained facet of ASEAN peoples is largely a legacy of the Lemuro-Atlantean race (part of 4th ‘root race’). As per explications from Divine wisdom or Theos Sophia, the current Southeast Asians, with Malayan and IndoMongolian ethnicies as the largest, were among the last sub-races to evolve in the Atlantean racial phenotypes. The Mahatmas termed them as Lemuro-Atlantean, as they were bred from the surviving Lemurians that appeared prior to Atlantis’ heyday.
The use of folklore as potent tools for learning is practically accepted in the entire ASEAN region. Below is an example of a human development effort in Malaysia in substantiation of the folklore as learning tool.
[Philippines, 16 June 2011]
Source: http://www.unicef.org/malaysia/media_7099.html
Folklore inspiration to improve Malaysian Orang Asli children’s literacy
By Indra Nadchatram
KUALA LUMPUR, 25 July 2007 – Malaysia’s Orang Asli children will soon get to improve their literacy skills as a result of a specially tailored education program which will incorporate Orang Asli folklores and legends into teaching and learning aids.
Organised by the Ministry of Education and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the remedial program will introduce story-telling techniques in the classroom together with story books designed to capture the imagination of close to 6,000 Orang Asli children, with the aim of encouraging reading habits and improving writing skills.
While the country has achieved impressive results in education with a net enrolment rate of 96% in primary school for Malaysian children, most children from the Orang Asli community however are found lagging behind. Orang Asli children together with children from Sabah and Sarawak’s indigenous groups make up for a sizeable proportion of Malaysia’s remaining 4% children who fair poorly in both primary school enrolment rates and achievements.
Trapped in poverty
Due to poor education performances, Malaysia’s Orang Asli remain one of the poorest in the country. A household income survey carried out less than ten years ago found as many as 51% of the population living below the poverty level.
Teacher Santey anak Dugu (24) who hails from Malaysia’s Mah Meri ethnic group in Selangor’s Carey Island blames the lackadaisical attitude of Orang Asli parents towards education for low school enrolment, absenteeism and drop out rates.
“Orang Asli parents simply don’t realise the value of an education. When girls reach 10 or 11 year old, they are often asked to stay at home to look after their younger siblings and do household chores, while boys will be taken out to sea to fish,” says Santey. “It is a huge loss to our community because without an education, we will always remain trapped in poverty”.
Collecting folk stories
Santey together with 19 Orang Asli teachers representing 5 ethnic groups – Jakun, Mah Meri, Semai, Semalai and Temuan from the states of Pahang, Johor, Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka came together recently for a four day workshop to share Orang Asli folklores and legends with the Ministry of Education and UNICEF.
Like many other Orang Asli teachers who participated in the Workshop, Santey relied heavily on the knowledge of her village elders for Mah Meri folklore. She is particularly glad for the program as it means the culture and beliefs of her community will be kept alive for the younger generation through the story books.
“I am excited about the value the Ministry of Education and UNICEF is placing on our cultural heritage. It gives me pride to be able to share stories from my own community for others to learn from,” continues Santey.
Santey believes the folk stories, each with its own important life lesson, will be a powerful incentive to encourage both parents and children to get involved in learning. At the same time, the initiative will help the others learn about the traditions and beliefs of the different Orang Asli ethnic groups in Malaysia.
Children’s love for stories
A total of 13 stories were collected during the workshop to develop story telling materials and text books for use by Year Two and Year Three Orang Asli students in the country. In addition, the Ministry of Education and UNICEF will train Orang Asli teachers from 93 schools in techniques and practices of storytelling which will include the use of facial expressions, body gestures and exaggerated character voices.
According to the Ministry of Education’s Assistant Director, Puan Norhayati Mokhtar, the program design takes into consideration children’s love for stories.
“Stories are most meaningful and best able to promote literacy when they speak to a student’s world. Using folklores can help children develop pride in their ethnic identity, provide positive role models, develop knowledge about cultural history, and build self-esteem,” explains Puan Norhayati.
This recent initiative builds on the Ministry of Education and UNICEF’s 1997 Special Remedial Education Program for Orang Asli children.
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VALUES EDUCATION VIA FOLKLORE: BRUNEI SHOWCASE

VALUES EDUCATION VIA FOLKLORE: BRUNEI SHOWCASE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Guru Ra

Values education is of fundamental import in awareness-raising and human formation anchorage. It is important too that values are made to work for those imbued with it, for the powerlessness to assert values make people less human.

There are many entry points to values education, which renders values formation an open field for the exercise of creative imagination and ingenuity. One of these entry points is folklore. Among the showcases for the region is that of Brunei, which I will echo in this note.

As argued by me in previous writings, folklore is a depository of ancient wisdom in Southeast Asia. I would hasten to add the Polynesians as manifesting also such a deep embeddedness of ancient or divine wisdom in their folklore. Values are part of the practical domains for divine wisdom, as it is in values where virtues (dharma) are made to work in demonstrative ways.

Below is a news briefer of the Brunei efforts.

[Philippines, 16 June 2011]
Source: http://bruneitimes.com.bn/news-national/2011/01/28/promoting-values-through-folktales
Promoting values through folktales
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
Friday, January 28, 2011
ANTHOLOGIES of local folk tales should be published to promote Brunei stories as such books are found to be lacking in many Asian countries, with the exception of Japan, said an expert.

Dr Chu Keong Lee, a lecturer from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore made this suggestion when he presented his working paper “Promoting values using folk tales from Brunei” during the last day of the Brunei Information Resource Collection Symposium at Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Local folklore are well worth promoting and libraries are the organisation most well-placed to promote them, said Dr Chu.

Additionally, governments can play a part in ensuring that local schools purchase a specific number of books for their students to encourage publishers to print local stories.

“Stories play an important role in the transmission of culture in a society, in effective organisational communication and learning, in knowledge sharing and in helping to understand a person’s illness experience,” said Dr Chu.

His paper analysed four local folk tales published in The Singing Top: Tales from Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei by Margaret Read MacDonald in 2008.

The four folk tales were The Dollarbid and the Short-tailed Monkey, The King of the Mosquitoes, Dayang Bongsu and the Crocodile and Si Perawal, the Greedy Fisherman.

It also discussed the ways in which libraries can leverage on indigenous stories in promoting the values within the tales locally and internationally.

The stories were first read as a whole to obtain a gist of the story, after that, each story was read carefully to find out what it was about and what value was being referred to.

The values identified from The Dollarbid and the Short-tailed Monkey were the importance of paying heed to good advice and the consequences of ignoring it, bravery, compassion and the perseverance of nature.

The King of the Mosquitoes emphasised the consequences of greed, bravery, not judging a book by its cover and the fruits of kindness.

In the paper, Dr Chu suggested that librarians should train tertiary students to be engaging and sensitive storytellers when promoting folk tales and their values, and then the students can be sent to primary and secondary schools to tell the stories to other students.

This, he said, was a method successfully employed by the Mahasarakham University Storytelling Project in Thailand.

“Senior citizens should be mobilised as their real-life experiences contain many valuable lessons that can be used as examples that illustrates the manifestations of these values.

“Senior citizens are probably the best people to convey these values to the young because of the Asian values of respect for elders,” he said.

The two-day symposium which concluded yesterday was attended by librarians, researchers, teachers, archivists, information specialists as well as government officers.

The symposium was aimed at sharing best practices and advancements in the management and dissemination of local information collection, while highlighting efforts to enhance collections and resources for the benefit of the teaching and learning community. — Zareena Amiruddin

The Brunei Times

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POTATO BATTERY

POTATO BATTERY

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good news meets you rural folks as well as field workers, as research & development discovered the positive usable energy stored in potato that can be used for micro-instruments.

The cooking pot surely promises lots for those living in hinterlands, as boiled potato was shown to exhibit positive energy capacities. That is, just to stress, when potato is boiled.

Potato is eventually available everywhere, which explains why it was chosen among diverse agri products for the research & development project. From rural to urban markets, potatoes can be found. They comprise the 4th most abundant agri products.

Below is the exciting news about the a battery of the future.

[Philippines, 20 April 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/potato-battery-could-help-meet-rural-energy-needs.html
Potato battery could help meet rural energy needs
James Dacey
25 June 2010 | EN
The holy grail of renewable energy research may lie in the cooking pot, according to scientists.
The search for a cheap source of electricity for remote, off-grid communities, has led to batteries that work on freshly boiled potatoes.
One slice of potato can generate 20 hours of light, and several slices could provide enough energy to power simple medical equipment and even a low-power computer, said a research team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
“The technology is ready to go,” co-researcher Haim Rabinowitch told SciDev.Net. “It should take an interested body only a short while, and very little investment, to make this available to communities in need.”
The team, which described its work in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy earlier this month (7 June), said its work hinges on a recent discovery that the electrical flow from potatoes — long known to be natural electrolytes — can be enhanced tenfold when their cell membranes are deliberately ruptured by boiling.
To demonstrate, the researchers created a series of batteries out of slices of boiled Desiree potatoes about the size of a standard mobile phone, though they say the type and size of potato slice do not determine its power.
The device had the same basic components as conventional batteries, consisting of two electrodes separated by an electrolyte (the potato). Each battery powered a small light for 20 hours, after which a new slice could be inserted.
Potato batteries are estimated to generate energy at a cost of approximately US$9 per kilowatt hour (kW/h), which compares favourably with the best performing 1.5 volt (AA) alkaline cells — or D cells — which generate energy at US$50/kWh.
Banana and strawberry batteries could also be used, said Rabinowitch, but their softer tissues would weaken the structure of the battery and the sugars could attract insects.
“Potatoes were chosen because of their availability all over including the tropics and sub-tropics,” he said. They are the world’s fourth most abundant food crop.”
Teo Sanchez, energy technology and policy advisor at Practical Action, a charity which promotes technology for development, said: “With half the world’s population having no access to modern energy, this research is a valuable contribution to one of the biggest challenges in the world”.
But he is concerned about the limited amount of power that individual batteries can generate and the possible implications of diverting a food crop into energy production.
Link to abstract in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
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Comments (9)
Dr.A.Jagadeesh ( Nayudamma Centre for Development Alternatives | India )
28 June 2010
Any energy generation must be consistent,economic and available in plenty. Potatos are primarily for food. There are several ways of generating electricity. For a school project POTATO ELECTRICITY is OK but not for commercial exploitation. Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore (AP), India
Boris Rubinsky ( University of California at Berkeley | United States of America )
6 July 2010
The potato serves as a solid state salt bridge. The advantage is in the convenience of a solid component with a naturally generated composition. The quantity of potatoes needed for the salt bridge function is negligible relative to food consumption. The wearable material is the Zn. In fact with proper studies it may turn out that the migration of Zn ions into the potato may provide nutritional benefits to the potato slice used in the battery. Therefore no food is wasted. Furthermore, as mentioned in the paper, while the potato may be optimal because it is widely available, every tuber or solid plant material could be used as a solid state bridge. Nevertheless, reducing the internal impedance of the salt bridge through actions such as boiling is crucial to increasing efficiency.
Agnes Becker ( Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London, UK | United Kingdom )
6 July 2010
Definitely need something more sustainable. Take a look at e.quinox (http://www.e.quinox.org/), a non-profit, humanitarian project that hopes to bring cost-effective renewable energy to developing countries. They have already set up energy kiosks in rural Rwanda in which a local staff member uses solar energy to recharge portable battery packs that people can take home and use for electricity.
musoke christopher ( MUST | Uganda )
19 August 2010
Potato electricity is a good idea in regions where potatoes are grown in plenty. Regions like western Uganda where potatoes rot due to the inability to transport them to urban areas in time for sale, the idea can work perfectly well. If the people are sensitized, excess food crop can be converted in electricity.
Arthur Makara ( Uganda )
13 January 2011
This is a marvellous invention, it should not merely be dismissed on the pretex of encroachment on food. It is s significant scientific find and can be modified or improved upon to a commercial value level using substitute sources of appropriate materials to avail energy rural communities. It should be encouraged!

Arthur Makara, Science Foundation for Livelihoods and Development, Kampala, Uganda
ironjustice ( Canada )
15 January 2011
Quote: Regions like western Uganda where potatoes rot due to the inability to transport them to urban areas in time for sale

Answer: “A solar crop dryer developed by a UNSW photovoltaic and solar energy engineering student has the potential to provide a living for thousands of people”

“It’s particularly great for women because they are the ones that sell foods through the local markets.”
http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2011/jan/solar_dryer.html
SteveK ( United States of America )
3 April 2011
There is a huge amount of cattail rhizome going to waste in Lake Chad. I doubt that this is the best way to use it, but it beats wasting it.
louandel ( Jacob Eco Energy Ltd | United Kingdom )
3 May 2011
I find it extraordinary that people should find this obvious move forward in renewable resources not only innovative and creative but also potentially effective to global community if it is taken seriously. All renewable resources were considered marginal and off-beat when they first came to being. Now they are part of our everyday lives. Give this the same respect.
elecsolar ( offgrid energy alternative technologies | Kenya )
29 March 2012
This is brilliant idea, so glad that soon the rural people will have clean cheap electricity thanks to LED discovery. i have also been working on a charcoal battery which have impressed me very much since am able to make none spill-able charcoal battery for portable use it lasts for many days. Women and children can make it when they need it and there is no need to switch it off after use .Thanks to these technologies
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POPULATION IMPACTS CROPS LARGER THAN CLIMATE CHANGE

POPULATION IMPACTS CROPS LARGER THAN CLIMATE CHANGE

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

I have no fondness for Malthusian bogey perspectives about population outstripping food production. And I do scorn such fear-mongering neo-Malthusians as Paul Erlich’s nauseating ‘population bomb’ thesis.

 

Albeit, there is indeed validity to the pressure exerted by burgeoning population on limited arable lands. A study done in Africa shows the demographic factor as having greater impact on crops than the much ballyhooed climate change. However, the study didn’t go to the extent of prescribing genocide and population decimation strategies in order to return the food security situation of the past, as such mad prescriptions belong more to the Malthusians and the eco-fascists hiding under the rubric of ‘environmentalists’ or ‘greens’.

 

Below is a special report on the subject coming from the SciDev.net.

 

[Philippines, 19 October 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/farming-practices/news/population-has-bigger-effect-than-climate-change-on-crop-yields-study-suggests.html

Population has bigger effect than climate change on crop yields, study suggests

Bernard Appiah

4 October 2011 | EN

Climate change and population hike might mean smaller maize yields in the future

Population pressure will be as significant a factor as climate change in reducing crop yields — and thus increasing food insecurity — in West Africa, according to a modelling study.

The authors inserted different climate change, land use, and demographic change scenarios, into an internationally validated model to estimate maize yields in Benin from 2021–2050.

They found that, as the population increases, farmers frequently cultivate cropland without allowing adequate resting periods for the soil to regain its fertility — thus reducing crop yields.

Overall, they found that various land use scenarios reduced maize yields by up to 24 per cent over the period, whereas climate change scenarios reduced them by up to 18 per cent.

But beyond 2050, “climate change is most likely to be the predominant driver for crop productivity”, they concluded.

“Our main assumption [before conducting the study] was that the low-input fallow systems (which allow resting periods for ploughed, but un-seeded land) in Benin and other West African countries would not change in the near future,” said Thomas Gaiser, lead author and a researcher at the University of Bonn, Germany.

“If governments in the region introduce policies such as the promotion of the use of mineral fertilisers, then the decrease [in the amount of land left fallow] will not be as serious as that without fertilisers,” he added.

Gaiser said farmers should use mineral fertilizers or intercrop with leguminous crops to promote soil fertility and increase yields.

He added that the findings are relevant to many Sub-Saharan African countries relying on leaving land fallow for soil fertility, like Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

“I am not surprised by the findings,” said Brian Keating, the director of Sustainable Agriculture Flagship of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), based in Australia. “It is important to look at all the factors that contribute to agricultural productivity output, and not just on climate change.”

But Keating told SciDev.Net that many farming systems in West Africa yield only 20–30 per cent of what would be possible if better practices and technologies were adopted.

Temi Ologunorisa, director of the Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research at Osun State University, in Nigeria, said African governments should adopt climate change adaptation strategies.

“Agriculture in Africa is about 80 per cent rain-fed, and this must change given the declining amount of rainfall,” Ologunorisa said.

The study was published in the August edition of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology.

Link to abstract in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

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SCIENCE JOURNALISTS PRESS FREEDOM

SCIENCE JOURNALISTS PRESS FREEDOM
Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Assessing the link between science and journalism is an emerging concern across the globe. There may be rampant incidences of journalists being denied access to scientists, incidences that feed into the fertile mindsets of conspiracy theorists.
Let us take the case of astronomers in the USA for instance. Astronomers have stumbled upon the fact that all the planets of our solar system are undergoing radical changes in their polar regions, a fact that tend to undercut the ecofascist contention that climate change is solely localized to Earth. Accordingly, astronomers in the know are being exterminated in America, a silent decimation aimed to keep the information classified.
Ecofascist circles are being primed to replace old-fogey communism as an ideological weapon of the global oligarchy to heap up anti-human hysteria. That is, blame humanity for the ecological woes of Earth, thus rationalizing the mad agenda to depopulate Earth down to a manageable level of 2 Billion by 2050.
Below is a report on the state of science-journalism link.
[Philippines, 18 July 2011]
Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/press-freedom-the-next-challenge-for-science-journalists-1.html
Press freedom: the next challenge for science journalists
David Dickson
8 July 2011
Government attempts to control science communication clash with public demands for accountability, and journalists must resist this trend.
Until recently, distrust has been the biggest obstacle preventing scientists interacting with journalists in the developing world. Scientists have feared — often with justification — that they will be misquoted and their work misrepresented by journalists who do not understand the technical details.
This has resulted in a frequent reluctance even to grant interviews. “Go away and read my paper” has too often been scientists’ response to journalists seeking information about their work.
Fortunately, this is now changing. Scientists are becoming more willing to come out of their ivory towers. In Malaysia, for example, researchers are encouraged to be more open about their research and its implications as part of their funding contract.
Journalists, in turn, are becoming more professional in their approach, supported by initiatives such as the SjCOOP training programme of the World Federation of Science Journalists.
But the old barriers to communication are being replaced by a new one: efforts by governments and institutions to control the content of the communication process. This was one of the key messages of the highly successful World Conference of Science Journalists held in Doha, Qatar, last week.
As journalists increase their skills in seeking out ‘the news behind the news’, governments and research institutions are responding by placing obstacles in the way of reporters who, correctly, see their role as more than reproducing press releases or official statements.
The challenge ahead for science journalists is to contest this trend, which conflicts directly with public demands for transparency and accountability — demands fuelled by the growing popularity of social media.
Access denied
Transparency and accountability in the way that scientific knowledge is generated, used and distributed is essential at a time when tackling so many of the world’s problems, from climate change to food security, requires decisions made on robust evidence.
Science journalists have a key role in ensuring that this happens. They can also help remove obstacles that prevent the transparent use of scientific information, for example by highlighting occasions when their access to information has been blocked, or by pushing for legislation that makes transparency a requirement for public funding.
Sadly, participants in last week’s meeting heard of several instances in which journalists were denied access to scientists in the course of their work.
Richard Stone, for example, the Asia news editor of the journal Science, told delegates how local government officials in the Chinese province of Yunnan barred him from speaking to researchers studying an unexplained disease — known as Yunnan Unknown Cause Sudden Death — even though he had been granted permission by the national government in Beijing.
There were more stories from journalists working in other countries. In Egypt, journalists have been told not to make direct contact with scientists despite having a proven track record of accurate reporting.
The problem is not restricted to developing countries. Several science journalists reported difficulties in getting technical information from the Japanese government about the damage to the nuclear plant at Fukushima after the tsunami hit the country’s northeast coast.
And in Canada, new rules have been introduced restricting the access of journalists to government scientists. Journalist Margaret Munro said that climate change scientists can no longer speak freely to the media, and gave examples of cases where journalists had their interviews recorded by press officers, after obtaining their consent.
Press freedom
Restrictions imposed for credible reasons of national security are clearly appropriate. The same is true when commercial confidentiality is at stake.
But attempting to gag scientists who may be critical of government policy or report findings that may prove embarrassing to government officials is a different issue.
Some speakers at the Doha meeting, including Stone, suggested that journalists counter these restrictions by avoiding official channels of communication, such as press officers, and contact scientists directly. This is now easier than ever before, with email and mobile telephones.
This is, however, an extreme solution. It may provide the information that a journalist is seeking, but it puts scientists at risk, particularly when they are being officially discouraged from talking to the media. And it can only exacerbate tensions between research institutions, government agencies and the science journalists who cover their activities.
A long-term solution requires governments to accept that transparency in all their affairs — including the work of their scientists — is essential for the effective functioning of a modern democracy. The press must also accept that it has a responsibility to use this transparency wisely.
And scientists can add their weight to journalists seeking the lifting of excessive restrictions, both within their institutions and at a political level.
Last week’s meeting was moved from Cairo to Doha because of continuing uncertainties over the recent unrest in Egypt. And delegates were constantly reminded that what united the protesters in Tahrir Square was a common commitment to greater accountability by the Egyptian government.
There were also reminders that developed and developing countries alike have had to fight, over many centuries, for the prized commitment to the freedom of the press that helps to make this greater accountability possible.
The next conference, to take place in Helsinki, Finland, in two years’ time, will, in the words of its organisers, include an exploration of the work of science journalists around the world “in the light of the Enlightenment-period notions of critical questioning and the public sphere”.
This will be an excellent opportunity to explore in greater detail how vital it is for science journalism that governments respect the free flow of scientific information. It will also be an opportunity to take stock of the pressures that prevent this from happening, and the steps that are needed to resist them.
David Dickson
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CHINA’S 450-KPH BULLET TRAIN IS WORLD’S FASTEST!

CHINA’S 450-KPH BULLET TRAIN IS WORLD’S FASTEST!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good afternoon from the Pearl of the Orient!

A stunningly good news was recently released concerning the success of the test drives for the bullet train of China. Built by the Foton state corporation, which also manufactures cars, buses, and a whole line of transport vehicles, the bullet train accordingly capped the 450 kilometer per hour speed.

That speed is the world’s fastest today for the bullet train. I extend my Big Kudos to China and the Foton group for the successful tests!

Let us all recall that Western analysts were of the consensus that the year 2007 was the turning point when Asia surpassed the West in terms of cutting edge technologies. Since then, sector after sector of the economy, from consumer goods to capital goods industries, the East’s cutting edge over the West had been breached.

The 450 kph bullet train is another one of those milestone events that shows the upward ascent of Asia at a time when the West is on a rapid decline. Since the prototype of the Foton bullet train is now perfected, after so many tests were done, it is time to build the commercial prototypes, and the launching of the said trains could come just couples of months away from now.

Japan used to hold the record for building the first bullet train tracks, commercializing the maglev or magnetic levitation technology for trains, and launching the bullet trains right on its very island groups. Those trains ran as fast as 250 kph, and traversed 500-kilometer distances in just over two (2) hours to a maximum of three (3) hours.

Germany followed through with the maglev tech and bullet trains, and launched its own versions of the same right within its territorial confines. Since then, Germany has commissioned to build maglevs cum bullet trains of other countries, following from the successful experiences of Japan about the same development.

It is irrelevant to talk of the USA concerning maglevs, as America neglected the development of its railways, a sector that has been in rut there for six (6) decades now. Fact is, America just erected its first maglev, which runs along the California-to-Nevada corridor, and that project was done by an external player.

However, China’s 450 kph speed is a recent development, showing that it had eclipsed the cutting edge of both Japan and Germany. Such a development is very important, as it practically slaps the arrogance of the OECD countries to which Japan, Germany and USA belong to. Increasingly, the braggadocio and condescension of OECD countries is turning more into ‘wet chicken’ self-pitying mien, as the once mighty coalition of filthy rich countries is on its way down.

As China and Asian countries are erecting and launching projects such as the latest maglev & bullet train, Western powers are raining bombs on Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, and who knows what country would be the next target of weapons of mass destruction or WMD. Clearly, the difference between Asian cooperation and Western polarity is being felt across the globe today.

[Philippines, 06 May 2011]
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RE-ECHOING ROOSEVELT’S ‘PHYSICAL ECONOMY’ SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL FINANCIAL COLLAPSE

Erle Frayne Argonza

My beloved country remembers the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt very well. It was his presidency that paved the way for preparing the Philippines as an independent state, by first granting the country the status of a commonwealth with its own constitution (1935 Constitution), and by permitting such domestic government to prepare the legislative measures and policy environment for a future independent state (granted independence in 1946).

Roosevelt’s regime also paved the way for the developmental paradigm that would propel the Philippines along the road to industrialization (we now term this as Import-Substitution Industrialization). The paradigm, based on the works of previous thinkers Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich von List, and the exemplar development policies of Abraham Lincoln, puts great stress on the ‘physical economy’ as the foundation for a prosperous and mighty economy in the long run.

Roosevelt further went on to cogitate that colonialism should fold up after the war, and that all former colonies must follow the road to development and prosperity, this being the road to genuine international peace and cooperation. The international doctrine of Roosevelt became the foundation for post-war cooperation, and buttressed the founding of the Bretton Woods agencies whose mandates were propelled precisely by the physical economy framework, the need for undertaking development in the former colonies, and the need to regulate national currencies via fixed exchange rate backed by the gold standard.

The current circumstance is now too remote from the ‘physical economy’ policy regime of the post-war era. Economic liberalization policies led to globalization and the galvanization of the ‘virtual economy’ based on predatory finance. The ‘virtual economy’ had led to de-industrialization, agricultural decay, decline of S&T, and deteriorating infrastructures in the most affected economies, and had fragmented developing states into ‘failed states’.

The global financial system created by the relentless liberalization of financial, fiscal and monetary policies across borders, had already collapsed and is beyond salvation using the present intervention tools that now seem to be burnt out tools altogether. A global conference must be convened most urgently to carve out a new financial architecture based on a ‘physical economy’ framework, and to decisively criminalize predatory finance.

Below is a press release of relevant notes on the global financial collapse, by the economist Lyndon LaRouche.

[27 July 2008, Quezon City, Metromanila. Thanks to the Executive Intelligence Review database news.]

 

LaRouche: Financial System Is Dead, Cannot Be Saved

July 13, 2008 (EIRNS)—This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC).

With the U.S. and British financial press full of wild speculation about how the Bush Administration is going to intervene Monday morning, to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lyndon LaRouche today issued a sharp, preemptive warning: “The financial system is already dead. It cannot be saved.”

LaRouche expanded: “If any of the reports of a planned bailout of the two big mortgage lenders, by the Treasury Department or the Federal Reserve are true, I say, ‘Forget it.’ Any such efforts to delay the funeral of the present global financial and monetary system will only make matters worse. A bailout will cause an accelerated hyperinflationary explosion, far worse than the hyperinflation that hit Weimar Germany in the autumn of 1923. Back then,” LaRouche continued, “Germany had a gun pointed to its head. The gun was called the Versailles Treaty, and Germany had no choice. Today, the United States has a choice. I spelled out the choice in numerous recent locations.”

LaRouche cited his recent call for the Federal Reserve to immediately raise interest rates to 4 percent, as a stop-gap measure to prevent a massive flight of institutional capital from the banking system. He demanded that this move be accompanied by clear statements from the Fed that there will be no more Bear Stearns-style bailouts of the speculative bubble. Instead, the Fed will protect the chartered Federal and state banks, through bankruptcy reorganization, on the model of what Franklin Roosevelt did, when he first took office in March 1933, and faced the same kind of collapse of the banking system that we face now. “Only, today’s crisis is orders of magnitude worse,” LaRouche added, “due to the massive leveraging by the banks and other financial institutions.”

LaRouche warned that Bush Administration and Fed officials, like Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke, may be on an “ego trip—unwilling to admit that they have failed miserably. But the reality is that they, like the George W. Bush Administration, have failed, with wretched incompetence. For one thing, they failed to reverse the Alan Greenspan monster bubble, which is now blowing.”

LaRouche added that there is no way to even estimate the magnitude of the financial bubble, that has now blown. “The collapse of Fannie and Freddie means the end of the system. And that has already happened, and nothing can be done, within the rules of the current system, to solve that problem. We can keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alive, but only through actions reforming the system, in terms echoing the precedents of President Franklin Roosevelt, that in ways appropiate for the actual conditions of today.

“The only alternative is to implement my three-step solution to the crisis,” LaRouche concluded. “If the so-called leadership in Washington is unwilling to do that, then this financial system, and, by extension, these United States, are finished. It may be a tough reality to swallow, but it is the only reality that there is.”

Lyndon LaRouche will be delivering an international webcast on Tuesday, July 22, 2008, at 1:00 p.m. (EDT). The webcast takes place on the first anniversary of LaRouche’s July 25, 2007 Washington, D.C. webcast address, in which he announced that the financial system had already crashed. Days later, the collapse of Countrywide, and other major mortgage lenders, and the blowout of Bear Stearns, illustrated that LaRouche was 100% correct.

US WATCH: S & T CUTTING EDGE EROSION

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

 

As I’ve been stressing in previous articles, “it’s the economy” that count much as top agenda to be addressed by policy makers, bureaucrats and growth stakeholders in the USA. And this should be the primary concern of the political bigwigs when election comes by the end of the year.

 

A policy shift that will veer away America from the destructive flames of the ‘virtual economy’ founded on predatory finance, back to the ‘real economy’ based on tangible outputs in manufacturing, agriculture, infrastructures, S & T, and transportation & communications.

 

This time around, do make reflections on the S&T facet of America’s economy and society. For over two (2) centuries the USA was a hallmark of development, precisely due to the ingenuity manifested by its entrepreneurs who built the mighty industrial economy. The S&T facet of production has been a well established fact-of-life in America, and I should stress that facet here means ‘cutting-edge’.

 

Without S&T cutting-edge, America would still be a backwoods economy today, much like some backwoods states there. But since the founding fathers of America laid down the foundations of growth and prosperity—foundations based on the ‘real economy’ or ‘physical economy’—and propelled by the collective will to drive relentlessly till the grand visions are achieved, America has risen meteorically to where it is: a mighty economic juggernaut, the object of high esteem by many nations.  

 

But when the ‘virtual economy’ began encroaching on every economic sector there, most specially after the collapse of the gold standard, gradually did the priority for developing S & T erode. Today that erosion is severely felt, as many analysts from the West have heralded the admission that Asia had already surpassed the essential technological cutting edge of the West as early as 2007 yet.

 

Let’s take solar technology for instance. Solar panel design had already reached maturity in California, home to solar energy development. The early take off of the industry there prompted the investors to immediately establish branches overseas, one of which is the Philippines. One leading company was so surprised that its Filipino engineers (Philippine-based) had already surpassed the innovation designs of their California counterparts (Americans) before the end of 2007 yet.

 

Now, as you go from one economic sector to another, most specially the productive sectors, and assess the cutting edge situation of technologies, then you can see the reality that America & EU (West) were already surpassed. It won’t take long before the wealth boosted by the Asian cutting edge will move up, making Asian regions surpass both the US and EU in terms of GDP.

 

Well, the other option is the ‘neo-con’ option: nuke all competitor nations back to the stone age. If you do so, say if you nuke the Philippines today which designs and produces ½ of the worlds Intel chips, think of the consequences. Nuke India, China, ASEAN, South Korea, come on demonic neo-cons! Enjoy your Nero madness with wild abandon!

 

I’d rest my case.

 

[07 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]