Give your sperm a vitamin D speed boost

By William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

The strongest sperm are the fastest swimmers -- and if your little ones are doing the doggy paddle, don't expect to break into the daddy business anytime soon. 

But don't give up, either, because there's an easy way to get your little swimmers speeding along like Michael Phelps -- and that's with a nutrient you should be getting anyway: Vitamin D. 

Looks like bikinis aren't the only things at the beach that can kick a man's sex gears into overdrive! 

Dutch researchers examined D levels and semen quality in 300 healthy men, and found that those with less than 25 nanomoles of D per liter of blood produced slowpoke tadpoles. 

Men with a more robust 75 nanomoles per liter, on the other hand, had hard-charging sperm capable of backstrokes, breaststrokes, and butterflies -- or at least a faster, straighter journey to the egg. 

What's more, the researchers found that low-D sperm got a speed boost once they were exposed to the nutrient -- but that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's been keeping up with the science on this. 

Several years ago, researchers found that sperm actually have their own vitamin D receptors -- and since sperm don't exactly have room for excess baggage, you know those receptors are there for a reason. 

Put it together with the new study in Human Reproduction, and it's increasingly clear that vitamin D is practically fuel for sperm, giving them the turbo charge they need to find, penetrate, and fertilize the egg in the short time they have to get the job done. 

Other studies have also exposed the link between low D and male fertility problems -- and the animal science here is even clearer. 

In one study, researchers found that rats low in D were less likely to reproduce -- and once that deficiency was corrected, they went on to father pups with typical rodent fruitfulness. 

All we need now is an honest-to-goodness clinical trial pitting D against a placebo in men with sperm problems -- but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for someone to invest the time and money needed to do it right. 

Instead, invest in a comfortable beach blanket so you can get the sunlight you need to make your own D -- and a quality supplement to keep those levels high even when the sun is low.

Michael Jackson - They don't really care about us (Banned version)

HIV=AIDS? The science of panic

The science of panic (English) from la ciencia del panico on Vimeo.

"Herd immunity": the misplaced driver for universal vaccinations

By VRAN

Vaccine Risk Awareness Network

The term, ‘herd immunity’, was coined by researcher, A W Hedrich, after he’d studied the epidemiology of measles in USA between 1900-1931. His study published in the May, 1933 American Journal of Epidemiology concluded that when 68% of children younger than 15 yrs old had become immune to measles via infection, measles epidemics ceased. For several reasons, this natural, pre-vaccine herd immunity differed greatly from today’s vaccine ‘herd immunity’.1,2

When immunity was derived from natural infection, a much smaller proportion of the population needed to become immune to show the herd effect; compare the 68% measles immunity required for natural herd immunity to the very high percentages of vaccine uptake deemed necessary for measles vaccine ‘herd immunity’. In his ‘Vaccine Safety Manual’, Neil Z Miller cites research which concluded increasing vaccine uptake necessary for ‘herd immunity’ ranging from “70 to 80 percent of two year olds in inner cities” in 1991 to “‘close to 100 percent coverage’…with a vaccine that is 90 to 98 percent effective.” in 1997. Miller notes that, “When the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, officials were confident that they could eradicate the disease by 1967.”

Subsequently, new dates for eradication were pronounced as 1982, 2000 and 2010. Meanwhile, “In 1990, after examining 320 scientific works from around the world, 180 European medical doctors concluded that ‘the eradication of measles…would today appear to be an unrealistic goal.’” And in 1984, Professor D. Levy of Johns Hopkins University had already “concluded that if current practices [of suppressing natural immunity] continue, by the year 2050 a large part of the population will be at risk and ‘there could in theory be over 25,000 fatal cases of measles in the U.S.A.’”

Disease-conferred immunity usually lasted a lifetime. As each new generation of children contracted the infection, the immunity of those previously infected was renewed due to their continual cyclical re-exposure to the disease; except for newly-infected children and the few individuals who’d never had the disease or been exposed to it, the ‘herd immunity’ of the entire population was maintained at all times.

Vaccine ‘herd immunity’ is hit-and-miss; outbreaks of disease sometimes erupt in those who follow recommended vaccine schedules. If they do actually “immunize”, vaccines provide only short-term immunity so, in an attempt to maintain ‘herd immunity’, health authorities hold ‘cattle drives’ to round up older members of the ‘herd’ for administration of booster shots. And on it goes, to the point that, now, it’s recommended we accept cradle-to-grave shots of vaccine against pertussis, a disease which still persists after more than sixty years of widespread use of the vaccine.

Russell Blaylock, MD remarks, “One of the grand lies of the vaccine program is the concept of “herd immunity”. In fact, vaccines for most Americans declined to non-protective levels within 5 to 10 years of the vaccines. This means that for the vast majority of Americans, as well as others in the developed world, herd immunity doesn’t exist and hasn’t for over 60 years.”3

In the pre-vaccine era, newborns could receive antibodies against infectious diseases from their mothers who had themselves been infected as children and re-exposed to the diseases later in life. Today’s babies born to mothers who were vaccinated and never exposed to these diseases do not receive these antibodies. In direct contrast to fear mongering disease “facts” and ‘herd immunity’ theories related by Public Health, most of today’s babies are more vulnerable than babies of the pre-vaccine era.

References:

1. “Monthly estimates of the child population ‘susceptible’ to measles, 1900-1931, Baltimore, Maryland”; A W Hedrich; American Journal of Epidemiology; May 1933 – Oxford University Press.

2. ‘Vaccine Safety Manual’ by Neil Z Miller; New Atlantean Press; 2008, 2009; pg 152.

3. Ibid; pgs 16-17.

Street corner autism debate

Mom and doc discussing autism and vaccines

13 facts about military spending that will make your head explode (US)

By Ujala Sehgal

Business Insider

The economy is tanking, schools are underfunded, people don't have jobs.

Let's spend more money on war!

1. America spends more on its military than the next 15 countries combined.
2. In 2007, the amount of money labeled "wasted" or "lost" in Iraq - $11 billion - could pay 220 000 teachers' salaries.
3. America's defense spending doubled in the same period that its economy shrunk from 32 to 23 percent of global output.
4. The yearly cost of stationing one soldier in Iraq could feed 60 American families.
5. The total known land area occupied by U.S. bases and facilities is 15,654 square miles -- bigger than D.C., Massachusetts, and New Jersey combined.
6. Each day in Afghanistan costs the government more than it did to build the entire Pentagon.
7. In 2008, the Pentagon spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earned in a year.
8. The pentagon budget consumes 80% of individual income tax revenue.
9. Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Defense Department still has more than 40 generals, admirals or civilian equivalents based in Europe.
10. The amount the government has spent compensating radiation victims of nuclear testing ($1.5 billion) could fully educate 13,000 American kids.
11. The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
12. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population -- but almost 50% of the world's total military expenditure.
13. So where do they get all the money?

Read more:

http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-defense-spending-2010-11?op=1

Dr Russel Blaylock: Fluoride, vaccines, brain development, cancer and infertility

“Gardasil, One Less Victim of Cervical Cancer?” France says ‘NO’ as they ban Gardasil ads

By Sanevax

France says the award winning advertising campaign for Gardasil is false and misleading. The Sanevax Team wants to know - Where was the press coverage when this happened? Why did no one break the news to the public?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Jan 04, 2011 – Amidst all of the media hype surrounding HPV vaccines, the traditional press has remained silent on many critical issues, not the least of which occurred on the 31 of August 2010 in France. As of that date, Merck’s marketing partner for the HPV vaccine Gardasil, Sanofli-Pasteur, was officially prohibited from advertising Gardasil for cervical cancer prevention in France. 

According to public documentation, the Director General of the French Agency for Safety of Health Products (AFSSAPS) found the sponsor of several Gardasil ads to be in direct violation of the French public health code. 

These violations included, but were not limited to: 

* Claiming longer efficacy than was actually proven: The ads stated an 8.5 year efficacy period when, in fact, “the only data of validated efficacy of GARDASIL in the WMA is limited to a maximum assessment of the effectiveness of 4.5 years…..” 

* Making false claims: The ads in question replaced the officially approved use of Gardasil for the “prevention of low-grade lesions (cervical dysplasia and vulvar)” with statements indicating Gardasil be used for “the prevention of premalignant genital lesions (cervical uterus, vulva and vagina), cancers of the cervix and external genital warts…..” 

*More false claims: According to the French Committee on Immunization Practices (CTV) and the High Council of Public Health (HCSP), “the vaccine’s impact on the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer will only become apparent in the long term, in fifteen to twenty-five years….” 

With these and other violations in mind, the Director of AFSSAPS stepped up to the plate and prohibited Sanofli-Pasteur from advertising Gardasil as a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer in France. 

The SaneVax Team would like to formally thank the French government for examining the situation and taking appropriate action. We sincerely hope governments around the world follow your example and prohibit pharmaceutical companies from continuing to mislead medical professionals and consumers by distorting data and making claims of facts where none exist. 

The SaneVax Team would also like to know why this story was not covered by any of our traditional press counterparts. Where are all of the investigative journalists in the world? One has to wonder. 

(Note: Traditional media has ignored this story to such an extent; it took the SaneVax Team some time to confirm the rumor. We had to resort to contacting colleagues working with the Association for those Affected by HPV Vaccines, in Spain to track down official records of the incident. On behalf of medical consumers the world over, SANE Vax, Inc. thanks them for their assistance.) 

Sources: 

For more info, visit http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do;jsessionid= ... to see the French documentation 

For more info on AAVP, visit http://www.aavp.es/

# # #

SaneVax believes only Safe, Affordable, Necessary & Effective vaccines and vaccination practices should be offered to the public. Our primary goal is to provide scientific information/resources for those concerned about vaccine safety, efficacy and need.

--- end ---   Visit Press Room

The problem with Roundup Ready food

By Joel McNair, Belleville, Wisconsin

Graze

For a few years now — basically since his retirement from Purdue University — plant pathologist Don Huber has been telling people that there are serious problems with glyphosate (Roundup).

To date most of the discussion has taken place within the world of soybeans. Based on two decades of his own research along with the findings of other scientists, Huber is certain that glyphosate is reducing the ability of the soybean plant to take up and utilize manganese, thus reducing yields. It is a charge roundly denied by Monsanto and many mainstream agronomists.

But there is much, much more to Huber’s story, including potential animal and human health implications that deserve further investigation, especially as the United States confronts the very real potential for health care Armageddon. USDA’s late-January approval of Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant (Roundup Ready) alfalfa — and the potential the genetics has to increase both glyphosate use and GMO contamination — makes this a good time to review what Huber is saying, and why the potential implications are so great. The information provided comes from Huber’s article, co-authored with fellow Purdue plant pathologist G.S. Johal, published in the October 2009 issue of the European Journal of Agronomy, plus his presentation at the recent GrassWorks Wisconsin Grazing Conference.

Glyphosate chelates (immobilizes) a tremendous number of soil minerals, reducing plant uptakes of some micronutrients by as much as 80%, Huber says. Calcium, cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, magnesium, nickel, zinc — all are bound up by glyphosate. While it is rapidly immobilized in the soil because it binds with those nutrients, glyphosate can remain in plants and soils for a very long time — up to 22 years in clay soils, Huber contends.

“It’s not just put it on the soil and ‘poof!’, it’s gone. It’s there for a very long time,” Huber told the Wisconsin grazing audience.

Glyphosate is also a potent microbiocide (disinfectant) that kills soils organisms important to converting certain minerals to forms usable by the plant, and in controlling soil-borne diseases that limit nutrient uptakes. While weed scientists have long said this is not a problem due to the its rapid immobilization, Huber contends that phosphorus applications and substances exuded by plant roots can free this locked-up glyphosate to damage plants long after its application. He says glyphosate leads to a nearly tenfold reduction in the soil organisms that make manganese available to plants, while increasing the organisms that make it less available by a factor of at least ten.

At the same time, Huber says there is evidence that the weed killer is producing “super pathogens” — mainly soil fungi such as Fusarium, Pythium and Phytophthora — that are causing problems in a variety of agricultural crops.

Bad as all of that may be, what glyphosate and the Roundup Ready gene does in and to the plant is even worse. Huber says glyphosate inhibits nitrogen fixation in legumes, damages roots, and reduces the ability of plants to utilize the reduced number of nutrients that the nodules and root tips are able to take in to the plant. Lignin production is reduced, thus making the plant more susceptible to disease. Photosynthesis is compromised, as is drought tolerance due to inefficient utilization of water, Huber asserts. He says the Roundup Ready gene itself is no bargain either, leading to drought stress, reduced N fixation and compromised nutrient uptake.

And the plants appear to have fewer nutrients. For example, at the Wisconsin conference Huber presented trial results showing nutrient declines in Roundup Ready alfalfa that had been treated with glyphosate the previous year. Compared to average levels, the declines for GMO alfalfa were: nitrogen 13%; phosphorus 15%; potassium 46%; calcium 17%; magnesium 26%; sulfur 52%; boron 18%; copper 20%; iron 49%; manganese 31% and zinc 18%. Gaze in wonder upon what USDA has just anointed.

This obviously worries Huber. “When you take one micronutrient out, there’s a domino effect. It makes all of them less efficient,” he told the Wisconsin grazing conference audience.

Calcium is important to bone formation, and iron is needed in blood. Manganese and zinc are required for proper liver and kidney function, while the brain needs copper and magnesium. Are the current epidemics of dementia and obesity being fueled at least partly by mineral imbalances in the food we eat and the water we drink?

And here is the very scariest part. In a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack prior to USDA’s RR alfalfa decision, Huber said that a team of scientists has discovered a tiny pathogen in RR soybeans and corn “that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings.” He said that for an infectious agent to promote disease in both animals and plants “is very rare” and, while the work is preliminary, “I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.” He said the pathogen may explain increasing rates of animal infertility and spontaneous abortions.

Vilsack, of course, ignored the warning. Most of what Huber says is disputed in the mainstream agricultural world, which is largely prohibited from doing the properly controlled experiments that might provide further verification to these charges. And of course, most of the research clout is on Monsanto’s side.

Yet there is enough evidence to merit concern. We graziers have known for at least two decades that it is very difficult to get grasses established in fields previously planted to row crops and sprayed with Roundup. None of us actually believed the stuff just went away, especially after many years of heavy use. For more than a decade we have had anecdotal evidence from farmers that their livestock don’t seem to perform as well on GMO grains. We now have studies indicating that modern foods are not as nutrient-dense as those of yore, and that organic foods grown without herbicides retain most of that density.

And we have evidence, both anecdotal and confirmed, that human health problems ranging from reduced sperm counts and diseases of the womb, to dementia and other diseases of late middle and old age, are on the rise in the United States. Is it the food? Is the problem at a broader environmental level in which food is just a part of what’s making us sick?

None of us has an certain answer to this, which is one reason why a few of the university people at Huber’s Wisconsin talk were at least somewhat dismissive. While it is widely understood that glyphosate locks up minerals in hard water, much of the rest of his message has not been proven to the mainstream. Any negative connotations for animal and, especially, human health are far beyond the realm of sound science, according to the scientists.

Still, one extension person who listened to Huber said it is entirely possible that he is on the mark. The history of innovation is rife with examples of the dark sides of a technology not being revealed until many years after its introduction. Whether it was emphysema from living in an Industrial Revolution factory town, or cancer from a toxic insecticide, we have almost always introduced first, and suffered the consequences later.

Someday, after the research is funded and the results published, we will have a better understanding of the consequences of GMOs. What’s particularly dangerous in regard to this particular technology is that we are changing organisms at the molecular level. How are we going to stuff this genie back into the bottle.

Coming back around to health care ... wouldn’t it be interesting if instead of treating symptoms (largely cost and availability), we started going after the root cause of the disease? Almost everyone with eyes and the ability to think knows that something is going on here that has yet to be fully explained. And anyone who is honest about the situation understands that we will not reach a viable health care solution until that something (or perhaps somethings) are discovered and addressed.

Of course there is no money in such, which brings us to what John Ikerd said at the Wisconsin conference. Ikerd, another retired land grant guy (University of Missouri agricultural economics), has for years been urging a move away from our current agricultural system with its focus on short-term profitability, and toward a “sustainable capitalism” that includes social and ecological goals in addition to dollar-and-cents economics.

Ikerd says our total focus on the bottom line in agriculture has created a “carefully oiled machine” that is incapable of functioning should some dirt get into the gears. “Take away government supports, and (the big operations) will collapse,” he warns.

Ikerd believes that change is afoot, and that efforts to address our looming health care disaster will be the impetus for that change. He says awareness of the potential impact of industrial food upon human health is growing exponentially, with the market for “something different” now three times bigger than the ability of farmers to supply it. Ikerd projects that within the foreseeable future, our health care problem will be directly tied to food quality, and that the industrial system will be replaced with something better and more sustainable.

I hope he’s right.

In addition to publishing Graze, Joel McNair grazes dairy heifers and sheep on a small farm in southern Wisconsin.

Contact - Graze • P.O. Box 48 • Belleville WI 53508 • 608-455-3311 • graze@grazeonline.com

More moms give birth at home

Homebirths are on the rise -- and the mainstream couldn't be more terrified. 

New numbers show homebirths shot up by 20 percent between 2004 and 2008 -- with 27 states showing increases and only four with declines. 

Add it all up, and homebirths are enjoying a genuine renaissance -- reaching a peak not seen in 20 years. 

And by every indication, they're going to continue to rise, which has obstetricians and gynecologists absolutely livid. After all, this homebirth trend represents B I G risk. No, not to moms or their babies -- it's a risk to doctors' bank accounts! 

These guys only get paid when they deliver a baby -- and most of them will only deliver a baby in a hospital. So when a woman gives birth at home, it's usually done with a midwife -- not a doctor. 

And that's the REAL reason these docs are so dead-set against home births. 

In reality, having a baby at home is a lot more comfortable than giving birth in a hospital. And despite what you've heard, it might even be safer. 

Drug-resistant superbugs such as MRSA have been turning hospitals into their own private playgrounds -- and they represent a real threat to anyone who sets foot in one, especially moms and infants. 

I haven't seen any recent studies on how frequently newborns are infected in maternity wards and neonatal units, but I've seen enough news reports to know the problem is very real -- and it's about time researchers looked into this. 

I won't say that makes homebirth right for everyone -- there are definite advantages to having the technology of a hospital and a team of doctors at your disposal. 

But if you're in a low-risk pregnancy and you want to give birth in the comfort and cleanliness of your own home, don't let anyone bully you. 

It's your baby -- and your right. 

Special delivery, 

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D. 

Russel Means: Welcome to the reservation

T.R.E.A.T.Y- Total Immersion School
http://treatyschool.org/

Republic of Lakotah
http://www.republicoflakotah.com/

African farmers gathered to discuss agro-ecology in Zimbabwe

Via Campesina

By Pambazuka News

(Masvingo, 13 June, 2011) – Zimbabwean farmers’ organization are hosting a training meeting on agroecology , an encounter organized by La Via Campesina (LVC) Africa in Masvingo province in Zimbabwe, from June 13 to 19. The training workshop brings together LVC member organizations in the continent, key allies including academics, NGOs, social science practioners, and small-scale farmers.

More than 50 participants, from 10 African Countries, as well as visitors from Latin America and Asia, are gathering in Masvingo to discuss and share experiences on agroecology and sustainable peasant agriculture, and organic farming and conservation agriculture practices, that keep build on local knowledge and traditional skills to work the land and produce food ecologically.

The participants of the meeting list several challenges and difficulties that affect peasant production in their countries. Among the difficulties they face is the lack of support from their governments, climate change, the interference of multinational corporations in the agricultural sector, as well as the issue of land grabbing whereby smallholder farmers lose their traditional land, finding themselves in the risk of hunger and poverty.

Other challenges include limited access to markets with decent crop prices, donors conditionality driving anti-smallholder policies, and regulations with negative impacts on peasants. These issues need to be resolved for the peasants in Africa to develop their true productive capacity.

At the end of the seven days of the training participants will come up with proposed solutions and a strategic plan which will be implemented by their organizations and the network.

In these meetings participants are expecting to create a permanent space for the exchange and strengthening of agroecological efforts carried out by LVC organizations in Africa, in order to share experiences, methodologies, educational materials and trainers, as well as to develop a strategic action and working plan on agroecology and peasant agriculture at African level. Participants said that agroecology is the way for farmers to become independent and more productive, and to take control over their own farming systems. It puts us back in the drivers seat, they said.

Mr Nelson Mudzingwa, a smallholder farmer from Zimbabwe, speaking at the meeting, said he will open up his mind from the experience to be shared from other countries on agroecology practices. He gave evidence that organic farmers in Zimbabwe who use agroecology practices like native seeds and organic fertilizers are highly productive without dependence on private seed and fertilizer companies nor government handouts.

He said it is very important for farmers to practice agroecology rather than just theorizing, because without practicing there is no success. He also emphasized information sharing and documentation and sharing of lessons from the success stories. “As I believe in information sharing, I call upon my colleagues that we have to expose all success stories so that others they can easily adopt,” he said.

The participants of the meeting will visit strong Zimbabwean successful example of agroecology, from where they expect to learn how local farmers develop sustainable agriculture form their own seeds and techniques.

In a report titled “Sustainable Peasant Agriculture Can Feed the World” (available at www.viacampesina.org), LVC has compiled evidence at the global level to show that agroecological farming is more sustainable, more productive, and more resilient to climate change than conventional chemical and industrialized agriculture. LVC member organizations in Africa believe that agroecology is key to achieving food sovereignty and ending problems of hunger and rural poverty in the continent.

LVC Communication Team in Africa

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News

Geothermal power heating up world wide

By J. Matthew Roney

Earth Policy Institute

In 1904, Italy's Prince Piero Ginori Conti became the first person to use thermal energy from within the earth to turn on the lights—five of them, to be precise. Now, more than a century after his experiment, 24 countries are using geothermal power. The 10,900 megawatts of capacity installed worldwide generate enough renewable electricity to meet the needs of more than 6 million U.S. homes. Geothermal power has grown at just 3 percent annually over the last decade, but the pace is set to pick up substantially, with close to 9,000 megawatts of new capacity projected for 2015. Some 350 projects are under development in dozens of countries.

The energy source for geothermal electricity generation is the tremendous heat flowing from the Earth's core and mantle and from radioactive isotopes decaying in the Earth's crust. Developers drill wells to reach porous and permeable rock containing reservoirs of hot water or steam that is then brought to the surface to drive a turbine and generate electricity. Historically, this required a water temperature of 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit) or more, which is found in abundance in countries along the Pacific Ring of Fire—including Chile, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States—as well as in Africa's Great Rift Valley region. Recent technology improvements, however, have made power generation using lower-temperature resources possible, enabling Germany, Hungary, and others to begin harnessing their geothermal power potential. 

While geothermal projects require significant up-front capital investments, especially for exploration, drilling, and power plant construction, the typically low operation cost—including zero expense for fuel—means that over their lifetimes geothermal power plants are often cost-competitive with fossil fuel or nuclear power plants. Another plus is that geothermal plants can provide round-the-clock baseload power, requiring no backup from non-renewable fuel generation. 

With 3,100 megawatts installed in nine western states, the United States is the unrivaled leader in geothermal power capacity. (See data at www.earth-policy.org.) Half of this is located at The Geysers, a complex of 17 plants in northern California that is the world's largest geothermal development. 

In the last 20 years, less than 330 megawatts of new geothermal power has been installed in the United States. But thanks to recent government incentives—including loan guarantees, production tax credits, and cash grants—today the U.S. geothermal industry is booming. More than 120 confirmed projects representing close to 1,400 megawatts are under development in 14 states. Most of this activity is in the West, especially in established geothermal havens like California and Nevada, but projects are also emerging to the east in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. More than 750 megawatts of new capacity are slated for completion by 2015. 

While the United States ranks highest in geothermal power generating capacity, nowhere is geothermal energy more pervasive than in Iceland. With 575 megawatts of installed capacity, a figure that could double by 2015, geothermal power provides one quarter of Iceland's electricity. Its state-owned electric utility is even considering building a 1,170-kilometer (727-mile) undersea cable to export geothermal and hydropower to Scotland. 

But above and beyond generating electricity from the Earth's heat, Icelanders use geothermal's heat energy directly. Residents have used natural hot springs for bathing for centuries, and in more modern times they have geothermally heated greenhouses and fish farms. Most impressively, some 90 percent of Iceland's residential space heating comes from geothermal. Nearly 80 other countries also use geothermal heat directly. 

In the Pacific, the Philippines is another nation taking advantage of geothermal resources. Ranking second in the world, with 1,900 megawatts of installed capacity, the Philippines gets 17 percent of its electricity from geothermal. It plans to reach 2,550 megawatts in the next four years. 

But it is Indonesia that has the most ambitious geothermal power goals in the world. The country currently has the third greatest amount of installed geothermal power capacity—some 1,200 megawatts. Most of these plants are operated by Pertamina Geothermal Energy, a subsidiary of the state oil and gas company. As the government looks to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase the reliability of its power sector, it plans to more than triple geothermal installations by 2015. By 2025, Indonesia intends to reach 12,000 megawatts of geothermal power, enough to meet more than 70 percent of current electricity needs. While this would allow the country to back out nearly all coal and oil in the power sector, it would exploit only two fifths of Indonesia's estimated geothermal resource. 

Japan is another country with enormous geothermal resources, but so far just a small fraction—less than 540 megawatts—has been developed. Japan's 80,000 megawatts of potential capacity using conventional technologies could meet half of its current electricity demand. With the government's recent pledge to emphasize renewable energy and energy efficiency over nuclear power, a renewed commitment to geothermal may be imminent. 

In Latin America, Mexico's 958 megawatts of installed geothermal power capacity make it number four on the list of geothermal leaders. Mexico's geothermal capacity currently exceeds that of all other countries in the region combined, but there is enormous potential waiting to be harnessed in many other Latin American countries. A 1999 report from the U.S.-based Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) identified 39 countries, now with a combined 800 million people, whose geothermal resources could meet 100 percent of their electricity needs. Nine of these, including Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Peru, are in Central and South America. El Salvador's 6 million people already obtain 26 percent of their electricity from geothermal; the share for Costa Rica, with 5 million people, is 13 percent. 

Thirteen of the countries identified in the GEA report are in East Africa, with many of these located along the tectonically and volcanically active Great Rift Valley stretching from Eritrea in the north to Mozambique in the south. Only Ethiopia (with 7 megawatts) and Kenya (with more than 200 megawatts) have yet begun to tap their geothermal potential. But other countries, including Rwanda and Uganda, are actively pursuing development. 

Kenya started geothermal exploration in the 1960s, and it now gets some 20 percent of its electricity from geothermal. If the nation achieves its ambitious targets of 2,300 megawatts by 2020 and 5,000 megawatts by 2030, Kenya could within a matter of years meet all its electricity needs with geothermal energy and begin exporting the surplus. 

Beyond the current boom in conventional resource development, the emergence of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) technology promises to fundamentally alter the geothermal landscape. EGS enables energy recovery in parts of the Earth's crust with limited permeability and porosity, dramatically increasing estimated resource potential. For example, a 2008 U.S. Geological Survey report estimated that EGS could multiply U.S. geothermal potential 13-fold over conventionally available resources. EGS technology is still being developed, but if demonstration projects under way in Australia, France, the United States, and the United Kingdom produce favorable results in the next few years, rising investment interest could accelerate geothermal power growth even more than current projections indicate. 

A 2011 Pike Research report projects that even without new pro-geothermal policies, global investment in this energy source will more than double from $3 billion in 2010 to $6.8 billion in 2020. Add to this that the number of countries using geothermal power is expected to jump from 24 at present to 46 in 2015, and geothermal power seems poised for an impressive expansion. The possibilities are almost limitless: the estimated 4.6 million megawatts of potential geothermal capacity worldwide, including from EGS and underwater hydrothermal sources, could power the entire world economy nearly two times over. 

# # # 

Data and additional resources at www.earth-policy.org

Feel free to pass this information along to friends, family members, and colleagues!

America: Freedom to Fascism a documentary by Aaron Russo

Dr Gábor Máté: Obama admin should heed global panel's call to end "failed" US-led drug war

By Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/6/dr_gabor_mat_obama_admin_should

A high-level international panel has concluded the so-called "war on drugs" has failed and that governments should consider legalizing substances, including marijuana. The Global Commission on Drug Policy is comprised of 19 members, including several former heads of state. The Office of National Drug Control Policy at the White House has refuted the findings of the commission’s report. We speak to Dr. Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician and bestselling author of four books, including In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. "On any level you care to name, the war on drugs is a failure," Dr. Maté says.

When the Nile runs dry

By Lester R. Brown

Earth Policy Institute

A new scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on imported grain are panicking. Affluent countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China and India have descended on fertile plains across the African continent, acquiring huge tracts of land to produce wheat, rice and corn for consumption back home. 

Some of these land acquisitions are enormous. South Korea, which imports 70 percent of its grain, has acquired 1.7 million acres in Sudan to grow wheat—an area twice the size of Rhode Island. In Ethiopia, a Saudi firm has leased 25,000 acres to grow rice, with the option of expanding this to 750,000 acres. And India has leased several hundred thousand acres there to grow corn, rice and other crops. 

These land grabs shrink the food supply in famine-prone African nations and anger local farmers, who see their governments selling their ancestral lands to foreigners. They also pose a grave threat to Africa's newest democracy: Egypt. 

Egypt is a nation of bread eaters. Its citizens consume 18 million tons of wheat annually, more than half of which comes from abroad. (See data at www.earth-policy.org.) Egypt is now the world's leading wheat importer, and subsidized bread—for which the government doles out approximately $2 billion per year—is seen as an entitlement by the 60 percent or so of Egyptian families who depend on it. 

As Egypt tries to fashion a functioning democracy after President Hosni Mubarak's departure, land grabs to the south are threatening its ability to put bread on the table because all of Egypt's grain is either imported or produced with water from the Nile River, which flows north through Ethiopia and Sudan before reaching Egypt. (Since rainfall in Egypt is negligible to nonexistent, its agriculture is totally dependent on the Nile.) 

Unfortunately for Egypt, two of the favorite targets for land acquisitions are Ethiopia and Sudan, which together occupy three-fourths of the Nile River Basin. Today's demands for water are such that there is little left of the river when it eventually empties into the Mediterranean. 

The Nile Waters Agreement, which Egypt and Sudan signed in 1959, gave Egypt 75 percent of the river's flow, 25 percent to Sudan and none to Ethiopia. This situation is changing abruptly as wealthy foreign governments and international agribusiness firms snatch up large swaths of arable land in the upper Basin. While these deals are typically described as land acquisitions, they are also, in effect, water acquisitions. 

Now, when competing for Nile water, Cairo must deal with several governments and commercial interests that were not party to the 1959 agreement. Moreover, Ethiopia—never enamored of the agreement—has announced plans to build a huge hydroelectric dam on its branch of the Nile that would reduce the water flow to Egypt even more. 

Because Egypt's wheat yields are already among the world's highest, it has little potential to raise its land productivity further. With its population of 81 million projected to reach 101 million by 2025, finding enough food and water is a daunting challenge. 

Egypt's plight could become part of a larger, more troubling scenario. Its upstream Nile neighbors—Sudan, with 44 million people, and Ethiopia, with 83 million—are growing even faster, increasing the need for water to produce food. Projections by the United Nations show the combined population of these three countries increasing to 272 million by 2025—and 360 million by 2050—from 208 million now. 

Growing water demand, driven by population growth and foreign land (and water) acquisitions, are straining the Nile's natural limits. Avoiding dangerous conflicts over water will require three Basin-wide initiatives. The first is for governments to address the population threat head-on by ensuring that all women have access to family planning services and by providing education for girls throughout the region. The second is to adopt more water-efficient irrigation technologies and shift to less water-intensive crops. 

Finally, for the sake of peace and future development cooperation, the nations of the Nile River Basin should come together to ban land grabs by foreign governments and agribusiness firms. Since there is no precedent for this, international help in negotiating such a ban, similar to the World Bank's role in facilitating the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan, would likely be necessary to make it a reality.

None of these initiatives will be easy to implement, but all are essential. Without them, rising bread prices could undermine Egypt's revolution of hope and competition for the Nile's water could turn deadly. 

# # # 

Lester R. Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute and author of World on the Edge. 

Data and additional resources at www.earth-policy.org

*NOTE: A version of this piece appeared in the New York Times' Op-Ed section on June 2, 2011.

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Pollution: Africa's real resource curse?

By Khadija Sharife

Pambazuka News

Africa has long been synonymous as the poster child of the resource curse. Illicit financial flows, often siphoned through corruption and mis-pricing, are estimated to cost the continent $200-billion annually. Flowing back are the weapons propping up autocratic regimes, with the ‘externalised’ or hidden cost of conflict pegged at more than $300-billion during the past two decades. Despite resource revenues fueling GDP, growth does not necessarily translate into development thanks to exploitative policies implemented by the ‘human’ resources at the helm of the continent’s extractive industries.

But the nature of the ‘curse’ extends beyond ‘blood minerals’ to that of another more widespread externalised cost taking place in countries like Tanzania and Zambia: pollution. Take Tanzania: Africa’s third largest gold producer holds more than 45 million ounces of gold, economically valued at $39-billion excluding extraction costs. Since 1998, production has increased from 1-2 tonnes annually to 50 tonnes, valued at US$876 per ounce (2008). And for every ounce of gold extracted, more than 78 tonnes of mining waste is created.

Like copper and silver, gold is found in rock containing sulphide minerals that when crushed and exposed to air and water forms sulphuric acid. The acidic water dissolves other toxic metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium found in surrounding ore. If not safely contained, acid mine drainage (AMD) - a process that continues as long as sulphides from mine waste, open pits, and tailings interact with air and water - leaches toxins into the ecosystem, stripping life from everything in its wake.

The issue rose to the fore in 2009 when a tailing pond owned by Barrick Gold Corporation’s North Mara mine leaked AMD into the Tigithe River, a tributary of Mara River discharging into the world’s largest tropical basin, Lake Victoria. The process continued for three months, from May to August, when the breached lining was replaced. Ninety per cent of Tanzania’s production takes place around Lake Victoria’s ‘gold belt’.

Though the government banned the use of Tigithe’s water for consumption (samples revealed toxic concentrations of nickel and lead 260 and 168 times higher than similar tests from 2002), no substantial further action was taken. This is unsurprising given the context: during the past decade Tanzania’s rent-seeking regime has lost $400-million in gold revenue due to tax evasion and low royalty rates. Tanzania’s gold mining contracts detailing the financial and environmental requirements even remained a secret from parliament as late as 2009, evidencing secrecy as one weapon of mass destruction.

Another weapon specific to gold mining is cyanide, used to extract gold from ore, releasing lethal metals such as mercury in the process, while breaking down into toxic compounds.

Montana’s Zortman-Landusky open pit mine was one of the first to pour cyanide over heaped ore as a means of dissolving gold. ‘Water treatment will have to go on for hundreds of years, possibly forever,’ said Montana state regulator, Wayne Jepson. Though using cyanide is common practice in the industry, the risks have encouraged Montana to ban it from new open pit mines while EU Members of the European Parliament approved a resolution concerning an EU-wide ban on cyanide by end 2011 - prompted by incidents such as Romania’s cyanide spill that leaked 130,000 cubic meters of tainted water through 150 miles of the Tisza-Danube River system (2000). 

But 70 per cent of gold is mined in developing nations such as South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania. Can nations dependent on foreign investment individually, or collectively, motivate to set the standard?

‘Perhaps the issue should be high recovery of the cyanide used, better concentrations of the cyanide that is not recovered, stringent specifications for mining ponds and higher standards for water effluent treatment using existing and proven technology,’ said Muna Lakhani, coordinator of the Institute for Zero Waste in Africa (IZWA).

Currently, corporations subscribe to the standards of the voluntary International Cyanide Managament Code. Yet one aspect that the code fails to rigorously address is that of closure.

It is a lesson that Zambia’s Kabwe - a mining town inhabited by 300,000 people - has learnt the hard way. Kabwe, Zambia’s second largest city, had the dubious honour of being ranked as Africa’s most polluted city and the world’s fourth most polluted site thanks to the unregulated lead (800,000t) and zinc (1,800,000t) mining and smelter activities that took place from 1906 until 1994.

Kabwe’s Katondo township, for instance, evidenced levels of lead - a neurotoxin - as high as 10,000 parts per million, dispersed through run-offs and as wind-blown dust. The Zambian government, through the Zambian Consolidated Copper Mine Investment (ZCCM), claimed responsibility for decommissioning and rehabilitating the mine’s legacy - classified as toxic by the Kabwe Scoping and Design Study (KSDS). Kabwe’s rehabilitation is part of the broader Copperbelt Environment Project (CEP), largely funded by the World Bank.

Describing the Environmental Council of Zambia as ‘very weak’, the CEP revealed that: ‘Existing regulations are seldom enforced. The regulatory dispositions for the mining sector are currently so weak that they do not deter polluters…Identification and monitoring of environmental risks resulting from mining activities is often inadequate.’

Mining corporations operating in Zambia post-1994 were allowed to adhere to the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), taking precedence over national legislation, with little penalties save for on the spot fines of £17 and letters of warning. Like Tanzania, Zambia’s mining contracts remained secretive.

But while the legacy of ‘dirty gold’ and ‘killer copper’ is not intractable, externalised costs conceal the true impact from the public discourse, forcing the environment, communities and natural treasures such as the Serengeti Park located 10 kilometres northwest from Mara Mine to ‘subsidise’ the extractive industries.

But there is no more lethal example of AMD than South Africa, where the impact of pollution threatens not only the country’s water resources, but through the coal-focused energy complex, catalyses a domino effect. This occurs both directly, within the country, and indirectly, in neighbouring regions such as Lesotho ‘exporting’ water for South Africa’s electricity requirements. South Africa, in turn, also acts as exporters of dirty energy, supplying 45 per cent of regional energy needs, via Eskom, to client countries.

The root causes of AMD, described as the single most dangerous threat to South Africa’s environment, began with the exploitation and occupation of South Africa as a ‘resource colony’ for the British empire. The Witwatersrand region, mined for more than 100 years, is the world’s largest gold and uranium mining basin. 

According to NGO Earthlife Africa, ‘A total of 43,500 tons of gold has been removed from the Witwatersrand area’, while between the 1950s and the first democratic election, ‘a total of 73,000 tons of uranium was mined.’ The result? A gaping mine tailings dams, comprised of waste material measuring 400 square kilometres in addition to six billion tonnes of pyrite (iron sulphide), ‘one of the substances, which, when exposed to air and water, produces acid mine water’. The ‘cradle of mankind’ has already been impacted by 40 million litres of AMD. While South Africa’s agricultural sector uses ten times the water utilised by mining houses (the former is estimated to use 7,920 million m3 per annum), the costs of mitigating the AMD, externalised by mining corporations, is projected at R360-billion in specialised water treatment plants over the next 15 years.

‘Addressing acid mine drainage will be expensive, but as long as most of the mining houses are still raking in billions of rands in profits every year, how can anybody argue that “we” cannot afford to fix the problem? The argument that the mining houses of today should not be held responsible for the problems created by their predecessors over a long period of time holds water with me only up to a point,’ said Stephanie de Villiers, author of the report titled ‘H20-C02 Energy Equations for SA’, produced by the Africa Earth Observatory Network (AEON) to The Africa Report magazine. 

Ironically, the cost of mitigation, which has yet to be forthcoming, mirrors that of Eskom’s new coal plan, set to create 40 new mines while drawing water from three strained catchment systems: the Vaal, Orange and Limpopo systems.

South Africa represents four per cent of Africa’s mass. Over 98 per cent of the country is classified as arid or semi-arid. The country, receiving an annual run-off of 40 mm (from a world average of 266mm), is described by scientists as one of the globe’s most water scarce nations. Over 80 per cent of rainfall precipitation is lost by way of evaporation in Africa itself, the driest of the world’s seven continents, with an annual run-off of 114mm. For South Africa, the estimate is more than 90 per cent. Meanwhile, less than 10 per cent is converted to river run-offs. 

AEON’s report, written by de Villiers, shoots down government’s conservative estimates that future shortages will be in the range of two to 13 per cent. According to de Villiers, water demand will exceed availability by 33 per cent in 2025. Government, said de Villiers, did not take into account the reduced availability of water from pollution, in addition to global warming.

Water resources contaminated by AMD impacts the environment, the economy, chiefly agriculture, and has devastating consequences for the country’s second largest user-base - domestic consumers. Though the agricultural industry are allegedly seriously attempting to curb inefficiencies, mining houses appear concerned solely with making a profit.

De Villiers said the body appointed to look at the problem favours neutralisation as the best solution to the problem of AMD. ‘Certainly, it will be an economically viable solution, if logistics such as the reservoirs needed for the neutralization to be carried out in (continuously over a very long period of time) can be sorted out, which seems unlikely at the moment. 

‘The proposals by corporations to step in with their proposed solutions have apparently been shot down, because they wanted to sell the cleaned water back to Rand Water, making a profit in the process. 

‘I’m not sure why mining houses are allowed to pollute while making a profit, and corporations who want to clean up are apparently expected to do so without the benefit of making a profit,’ she said.

De Villiers was perplexed that government had not taken advantage of these circumstances to establish a state-owned enterprise that would have the potential to generate revenue that could be ploughed back into the state, claiming that government was bogged down by politics.

As predicted by hydrologist Garfield Krige in 1998, the Western Basin began decanting in 2002. leaching 15 mega litres per day. Meanwhile, the Central Basin may begin decanting at 60 mega litres per day within two and a half years, and the Eastern Basin, 82 mega litres per day in three years, once pumping ceases. Moreover, exploitation of gold resources (95 per cent exhausted) will no longer be viable if externalities or hidden costs are taken into account. 

But it seems that mining corporations seeking closure certificates (exonerating companies from ecological liabilities) may have found a solution: through a reverse listing on the AIM board of the London Stock Exchange (under the umbrella of Watermark Global PLC), the Western Utilities Corporation will provide mining houses - the primary ‘owners’ of the initiative - to obtain both closure certificates as well as sell ‘treated’ water to 11 million consumers in Johannesburg via Rand Water. 

‘The WUC deal will give all of the mine owners their closure certificates, and because of the way that government has fumbled the ball, it will also give them a guaranteed 16 per cent return on investment (much larger than many operating mines enjoy),” said Dr Anthony Turton, a water management and hydropolitics specialist suspended from South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) over a presentation on the looming water crisis. 

In an interview with The Africa Report, Turton said that not only will mines evade the legal minimum requirement of the ‘polluter pays principle’ but also profit from it. ‘What’s more, that profit is all but guaranteed, because it will be underwritten by the state in the form of a mooted Public Private Partnership (PPP),’ he said. The deal allows for mining houses to access a R3.5-billion deal with no tendering process, as well as select ‘treatment’ that was described by Turton as the ‘least cost option’ via a process shrouded in secrecy, enabling the WUC to act as both consultant and reviewer. 

Meanwhile, the government directive on the issue of AMD was significantly influenced by mining companies like Rand Uranium, who claimed that while the company would ‘comply with directives…there were aspects that were unachievable, and you can’t be expected to do something that is unachievable. And hence we have been working very closely with the department to get the directive and regulation around the water treatment plant to be achievable.’ (Rand Uranium CEO John Munro as told to Carte Blanche).

According to the hydrologist Garfield Krige, as told to Carte Blanche, the leniency of the directive was similar to that of raising the speed limit to 200km/h to accommodate speeders.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS 

* This article is part of a special issue on water and water privatisation in Africa produced as a joint initiative of the Transnational Institute, Ritimo and Pambazuka News. This special issue is being published in English and in French.

* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News

Pentagon using drug wars as excuse to build bases in Latin America

By John Lindsay-Poland

New America Media

Under the auspices of the drug war, the United States is returning to its historical pattern of using Central America and the Caribbean for its own military and strategic purposes. 

Even as a growing chorus of voices throughout Latin America argue that military responses to drug trafficking are ineffective against the narcotics trade and exacerbate existing human rights abuses and official corruption, the U.S. military presence in the region is growing.

U.S. military construction in Central and South America has more than doubled in the last two years, while a U.S. buildup on military bases in Colombia continues, despite a Colombian court ruling last summer that struck down an agreement for U.S. use of the bases.

Construction of military facilities is slated for this summer in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Belize, funded from an account for “counter-narco-terrorism” operated by the U.S. Southern Command (SouthCom), the Pentagon’s operations arm for Latin America, according to the Army Corps on Engineers plans. But the biggest Pentagon investments are in Panama and at the U.S. air base in Soto Cano, Honduras. [see interactive map for details]

The surge in U.S. military investment in the region parallels statements by SouthCom commander Douglas Fraser that the triangle formed by Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala “is possibly the most violent place on Earth today.” 

Congress approved a $25 million expansion of barracks for enlisted troops at the U.S. base in Soto Cano, Honduras, located 50 miles north of the capital in Tegucigalpa. The base houses about 500 U.S. troops, as well as support personnel, and served as a way-station for the aircraft that whisked President Manuel Zelaya out of Honduras during the June 2009 military coup, according to Zelaya and a leaked State Department cable. Zelaya had proposed making the base intro a commercial airport in 2008. Now, a new operating center for U.S. Special Forces troops is being built on the base. 

The U.S. has also funded military base construction at Caratasca on the Atlantic Coast, which is described in Pentagon contracts as a “forward operating location,” and in April disclosed another base that is being built on Guanaja Island, on Honduras’ Caribbean coast, which will be a counter-narco-terrorism operations center and barracks. The amount of Pentagon contracts for activities in Honduras signed in the six months after the coup ($19.2 million) was more than double the amount from the same period two years earlier. 

The Pentagon is also constructing bases, especially naval bases, elsewhere along the Central American coast, and conducting extensive joint military exercises and training in the region. Even in El Salvador, where center-left Mauricio Funes is president, the United States will lead a massive Special Forces exercise in June, with the participation of troops from 25 nations. The Pentagon is also designing and building a $665,000 “shoot house” for U.S. Special Forces troops in El Salvador, to be completed in August.

In Guatemala, the United States last year conducted training and renovated barracks for the infamous Kaibiles special forces units, which have a base in the remote Petén department. The participation of Kaibiles in Guatemala’s attempted genocide was well documented, and more recently former Kaibilies were reported to have worked with the Zetas in Mexico, former soldiers who serve drug cartels as hired killers.

U.S. construction of a base does not necessarily mean that the United States will have title to the base or keep personnel there. But it is an intelligence asset to know in detail another nation’s military base, and it contributes to “interoperability” —that is, integration—of armed forces. 

Remilitarizing Panama

Although the Panama Canal Treaties required closure of U.S. bases in that nation in 1999, the Pentagon has had an increasing presence in Panama in the last decade, as indicated by more than 700 contracts signed by Defense Department agencies for projects there since 1999. These include the construction of five different military bases on Panama’s coasts. [see map]

In April, Panama announced the establishment on a former U.S. military base of the Regional Security Operations Center, which will host military troops from the rest of Central America and the Dominican Republic and be linked to a Southern Command surveillance base in Florida. The center echoes an unsuccessful 1990s proposal to establish a “Multinational Counternarcotics Center” on U.S. bases on the canal, as a way to maintain a U.S. military presence there. Panama hasn’t yet disclosed if the new center will include a U.S. presence.

In June, Central American leaders will gather in Guatemala, where the United States, the Inter-American Development Bank, and other nations will be urged to pitch in nearly a billion dollars to support a largely military regional security plan. The United States has committed $200 million as part of its own Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), not including Pentagon funds. Yet “officials from nearly every Central American nation maintain that the region was not sufficiently involved in the formulation of …CARSI,” the Congressional Research Service reported in March.

Cycles of U.S. Military Presence, Retreat and Advance

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the United States frequently intervened militarily in Central America and the Caribbean, it did so primarily from the sea, using gunboats to impose its will during a period when it lacked fixed military bases in the region. The installations it established were often coaling stations to supply its naval power. That changed with the establishment of bases in Panama, Cuba, and Puerto Rico in the early twentieth century and World War II. Panama became the regional hub.

In the 1950s, the United States built up the Panama National Guard, which morphed into a more nationalistic and militarized force in the 1960s and 70s. In the wake of the 1989 U.S. invasion that dismantled Panama’s armed forces, the country constitutionally abolished the military.

The implementation of the Panama Canal Treaties in 1999, the expulsion of the U.S. military from Vieques, Puerto Rico, in 2003 and from Ecuador in 2009, the anti-imperialist influences on many regional governments, and the rise of Brazil and China as superpower players in the hemisphere, have placed U.S. military activities in Latin America on a more defensive footing. 

Most of the military bases being constructed in Central America are naval bases, while the 2008 activation of the Fourth Fleet to deploy in Latin America has increased the tempo of naval exercises. The United States military, again, is coming mostly from the sea. 

The projects bankrolled by the Pentagon for Panama include the use of drones in Panama by Stark Aerospace, a division of Israel Defense Industries, as well as an upgrade to firing ranges. Stark is a small firm based in Mississippi whose primary business is producing drones, including both unarmed surveillance vehicles and an armed “Hunter” drone that has been used for bombing missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The firing ranges being upgraded became a thorn in canal treaty implementation in the late 1990s because of the tens of thousands of explosives left behind on live fire areas on the banks of the canal.

Plan Colombia, Continued

The U.S. military buildup in Central America runs parallel to similar developments in Colombia. There, the United States and Colombia signed an agreement in October 2009 that would have given the United States military use of seven bases in Colombia for ten years. 

Last August, Colombia’s Constitutional Court struck down the agreement, because it was never submitted for Congressional approval or judicial review. Yet, even after the agreement was declared “non-existent” by Colombia’s highest court, the Pentagon initiated unprecedented amounts of new construction on bases in Colombia, including for an “Advanced Operations Base” for U.S. special forces.

U.S. military agencies in September 2010 signed contracts for construction worth nearly $5 million at three bases, according to official U.S. documents. U.S. military contracts for Tolemaida in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, were larger than the four previous years combined.

The contracts included two for an “Advanced Operations Base” for the U.S. Southern Command special operations unit in Tolemaida, a training base located south of Bogota. The special operations unit, known as SOCSOUTH, has as its mission “the use of small units in direct or indirect military actions that are focused on strategic or operational objectives,” including “provid[ing] an immediately deployable theater crisis response force.” 

“It is a flagrant violation of sovereignty,” according to former Constitutional Court magistrate Alfredo Beltrán Sierra. “Remember that the government already tried to justify the establishment of U.S. troops with a disguised agreement that the Court finally overturned,” he said.

The base agreement also provoked strong regional opposition in 2009 after Pentagon planning and budget documents referred to “anti-U.S. governments” and the use of “full spectrum operations” in the region, indicating that the Pentagon seeks to project military power in South America. The construction now of a U.S. “advanced operations base” in Colombia raises similar concerns.

Besides the new contracts naming military bases, there were also military contracts for $2.5 million in construction at unnamed locations in Colombia signed in September. Another military construction contract described as being for “Talemaida Avaition” [sic] for $5.5 million was signed in October 2009, just days before the United States and Colombia signed the base agreement.Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) obtained the contract information from a public website that posts federal contract information, including where the contracts will be carried out. 

There is a growing chorus of voices, including former Latin American presidents, as well as Mexicans fed up with the war paradigm, who assert that military responses to drug traffickers are only making the problem worse. The question is, how will civil society in Latin America and the United States respond to the growing U.S. military buildup?

John Lindsay-Poland is research and advocacy director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and author of Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama (Duke).