Malaysian plane crashes on Ukraine-Russia border - live

[Magda Hassan]

I don't know if these have been posted before but I think they should be here. They show the big picture of other events that are happening in the back ground but for which there has been little MSM coverage in the western MSM. Firstly and not coincidentally against the concurrent slaughter in Gaza there is the deal with Russia's Gazprom to develop the Palestinian gas fields. The second is the announcement of the BRICS bank which will break the western control and manipulation over finance and banking and will bring an end to US $ dominance. A serious threat to the US (and their dependant puppets and client states).

Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz Hails New BRICS Bank Challenging U.S.-Dominated World Bank & IMF

download: Video Audio Get CD/DVD More Formats




Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor at Columbia University and former chief economist at the World Bank. He is author of numerous books. In 2002, Stiglitz published a best-selling book called Globalization and Its Discontents, in which he critically examined international institutions such as the IMF, WTO and World Bank.





Printer-friendly
A group of five countries has launched its own development bank to challenge the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Leaders from the so-called BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa unveiled the New Development Bank at a summit in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza. The bank will be headquartered in Shanghai. Together, BRICS countries account for 25 percent of global GDP and 40 percent of the world's population. To discuss this development, we are joined by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University and the World Bank's former chief economist. "It's very important in many ways," Stiglitz says of the New Development Bank's founding. "This is adding to the flow of money that will go to finance infrastructure, adaptation to climate change all the needs that are so evident in the poorest countries. It [also] reflects a fundamental change in global economic and political power. The BRICS countries today are richer than the advanced countries were when the World Bank and the IMF were founded. We're in a different world but the old institutions haven't kept up."
Click here to watch Part 2 of this interview.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A group of five countries have launched their own development bank to challenge the United States-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Leaders from the so-called BRICS countriesBrazil, Russia, India, China and South Africaunveiled the New Development Bank at a summit in Brazil. The bank will be headquartered in Shanghai. Chinese President Xi Jinping said the agreement would have far-reaching benefits for BRICS members and other developing nations.

PRESIDENT XI JINPING: [translated] Through the concerted effort from all sides, we have managed to reach a consensus in the creation of the BRICS development bank today. This is the result of the significant implications and far reach of BRICS cooperation and is therefore the political will of BRICS nations for common development. This will not only help increase the voice of BRICS nations in terms of international finance, but, more importantly, will bring benefits to all the people in the BRICS countries and for all peoples in developing countries.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Chinese President Xi Jinping. Together, BRICS countries account for 25 percent of global GDP and 40 percent of the world's population.
For more, we're joined now by Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor at Columbia University, author of numerous books. His new book is called Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress.
We welcome you to Democracy Now!
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Good to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance of this bank.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Oh, it's very, very important, in many ways. First, the need globally for more investmentin the developing countries, especiallyis in the order of magnitude of trillions, couple trillion dollars a year. And the existing institutions just don't have enough resources. They have enough for 2, 3, 4 percent. So, this is adding to the flow of money that will go to finance infrastructure, adaptation to climate changeall the needs that are so evident in the poorest countries.
Secondly, it reflects a fundamental change in global economic and political power, that one of the ideas behind this is that the BRICS countries today are richer than the advanced countries were when the World Bank and the IMF were founded. We're in a different world. At the same time, the world hasn't kept up. The old institutions have not kept up. You know, the G-20 talked about and agreed on a change in the governance of the IMF and the World Bank, which were set back in 1944there have been some revisionsbut the U.S. Congress refuses to follow along with the agreement. The administration failed to go along with what was widely understood as the basic notion that, you know, in the 21st century the heads of these institutions should be chosen on the basis of merit, not just because you're an American. And yet, the U.S. effectively reneged on that agreement. So, this new institution reflects the disparity and the democratic deficiency in the global governance and is trying to restart, to rethink that.
Finally, there have been a lot of changes in the global economy. And a new institution reflects the broader set of mandates, the new concerns, the new sets of instruments that can be used, the new financial instruments, and the broader governance. Realizing the deficiencies in the old system of governance, hopefully, this new institution will spur the existing institutions to reform. And, you know, it's not just competition. It's really trying to get more resources to the developing countries in ways that are consistent with their interests and needs.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the importance of countries like China, which obviously has huge monetary reserves, and Brazil, which had developed its own development bank now for several years, their being key players in this new financial organization?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Very much. And that illustrates, as you say, a couple interesting points. China has reserves in excess of $3 trillion. So, one of the things is that it needs to use those reserves better than just putting them into U.S. Treasury bills. You know, my colleagues in China say that's like putting meat in a refrigerator and then pulling out the plug, because the real value of the money put in U.S. Treasury bills is declining. So they say, "We need better uses for those funds," certainly better uses than using those funds to build, say, shoddy homes in the middle of the Nevada desert. You know, there are real social needs, and those funds haven't been used for those purposes.
At the same time, Brazil hasthe BNDES is a huge development bank, bigger than the World Bank. People don't realize this, but Brazil has actually shown how a single country can create a very effective development bank. So, there's a learning going on. And this notion of how you create an effective development bank, that actually promotes real development without all the conditionality and all the trappings around the old institutions, is going to be an important part of the contribution that Brazil is going to make.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how has that bank functioned differently, let's say, than other development banks in the North?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, we don't know yet, because it's just getting started. The agreementit's been several years underway. The discussions began about three years ago, and then they made a commitment, and then theyyou know, they've been working on it very steadily. What was big about this agreement wasthere was a little worry that there would be conflicts of the interests. You know, everybody wanted the headquarters, the president. Would there be enough political cohesion, solidarity, to make a deal? Answer was, there was. So, what it is really saying is that in spite of all of the differences, the emerging markets can work together, in a way more effectively than some of the advanced countries can work together.
AMY GOODMAN: Joe Stiglitz, you're the former chief economist of the World bank. What's your assessment of the World Bank under the tenure of Jim Yong Kim, who is the former Dartmouth president? We just passed the second anniversary of his tenure there.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, it's still too soon to say.
AMY GOODMAN: When it comes to issues of debt and other issues.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: You know, because it takes a while for somebody to get in charge of the bank and toyou know, it's like a big ship, and you're trying to shift it. I think there's a broad concern that he brings certain very positive strengths to the banka focus on health and other social issuesbut successful development will have to continue to have a focus on some of the old issues. So, you know, you have to grow. And he has a little bit less experience in the fundamentals of economic growth. I think he has probably more sensitivity to some of the problems that have plagued these international financial institutions in the past, the high conditionality. But he faces a governance problem. And that's what this issue is about, a governance problem, where the head of the World Bank is chosen by the U.S., even though the U.S. is not playing the economic role and the leadership role that it did at one time. And we all believe in democracy, but a democracy says it shouldn't be just assigned to one country.
One of the interesting aspects of the discussions that I've heard is, you know, during the East Asia crisis, one of the senior, very senior U.S. Treasury officials said, "What are you complaining about, about our telling countries what to do? He who pays the piper calls the tune." And what I hear now is the developing countries, emerging markets, China and the other countries, saying, "We're paying the tune. We're the big players now. We have the resources. We're where the reserves are. And yet, you don't want to let us play even a fair share in the role, reflecting the size of our contributions in the economy, in trade." And so, that's one of the real grievancesI think valid grievances. And it's hard for an institution where the governance is so out of tune with current economic and political realities to be as effective as it could be.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about a subject we just had onwere discussing in an earlier segment: immigration and this whole issue of the world economy and financial systems. You have the contradiction that, on the one hand, globalization is breaking down barriers to capital everywhere, and yet, in the advanced countries especially, you have the growth of anti-immigrant movements, not just in the United States, but in Europe, in England and in Holland. And so you have a situation where there's an effort to erect barriers to labor and to the free flow of labor. And the impact of these kinds of debatesjust a few days ago, you had Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Sheldon Adelson, a conservative Republican, all blasting Congress for not being able to achieve some kind of comprehensive immigration reform. The impact of this on the world economy?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, I think there are a couple of aspects of this that one has to appreciate. On the one hand, it's absolutely true that free mobility of labor would have an impact on global incomes that is an order of magnitude greater than the free mobility of capital. So, the agenda that the U.S. has pursued, that free mobility of capital, has been driven not by on the grounds of global economic efficiency. It's really special interests. It's the banks that wanted this. On the other hand, both the movement of capital and labor can have disturbing effects. You know, we saw how free mobility of capital, short-term capital, especially, going in and out, can cause crises. We also know that migration of labor hassocial adjustment processes have to occur. One of the real concerns, increasing concern, say, in a country like the United States, is thathow do you share the benefits of globalization? And there are wages are drivingbeen driven down. You know, the median income, income in the middle, of the United States today is lower than it was a quarter century ago. Median income of a full-time male worker is lower than it was 40 years ago. Productivity of workers has gone up over 100 percent in, say, the last 40 years
AMY GOODMAN: We have 15 seconds.
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: but wages are down by 7 percent.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to have to continue this conversation off air, and then we will post it at democracynow.org. I also want to ask you about the Trans-Pacific Partnershipyou talk about it being on the wrong side of globalizationyour assessment of President Obama when it comes to the growing gap in inequality in this country. Joe Stiglitz is the Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor at Columbia University, former chief economist of the World Bank. He is author of many books; his latest, Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress.

Russia preparing to develop Gaza gas field

In a significant political and economic development, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Jan. 23 with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting came as a prerequisite to officially sign an investment agreement aiming to develop the Gaza offshore gas field in the Mediterranean Sea. It is only logical to assume that this step will raise the ire of Israel. The latter does not appreciate the role Russia plays in the region, especially since Israel has never come to an agreement with Russia.
Summary⎙ Print Russia and the Palestinian Authority are making preparations to sign an agreement for Russia to develop Gaza's offshore gas fields, after years of stalled efforts.
Author Helmi Moussa Posted January 24, 2014 Translator(s)Steffi Chakti

Original Article اقرا المقال الأصلي باللغة العربية

AFP reported that there were talks of investing $1 billion to develop the Palestinian gas field. It is known that the two fields explored offshore of Gaza in the Mediterranean are called Gaza Marine 1 and 2. In 1999, the Palestinian Authority granted the British Gas Group the exclusive rights to explore gas. In 2000, the company announced that it discovered gas and was seeking to develop the field in partnership with Consolidated Contractors Company and the Palestinian Authority. However, the eruption of the second Palestinian intifada, in addition to Ariel Sharon assuming the premiership of the Israeli government and his refusal of funding the Palestinian Authority through gas revenues, has impeded the finding of markets to produce and subsequently develop this field. Back then, the Israeli government sought to buy gas from Egypt to avoid buying gas from the Palestinian field.
Ever since that time and until recently, the British Gas Group, in addition to the British and US governments and the former quartet envoy to Palestine Tony Blair, have attempted in vain to find solutions to the issue of the gas field. When the split between Hamas and Fatah occurred in 2007, and dealing with the Gaza government became prohibited, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah was no longer powerful. This would then increase the frustration of the British Gas Group, leading the company to stop its communications aiming to sell gas and to shut down its offices in Israel a year after that.
However, three months ago, the Financial Times mentioned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had granted his approval to develop the field. The newspaper noted that Netanyahu had given the green light to the development of the field hoping to create joint economic interests between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. At the time, Israeli sources noted that Netanyahu has probably started to believe that Gaza Marine constitutes a source of natural gas, which compensates for the loss of Egyptian gas. These fields would help avoid a gas crisis, before the Leviathan gas field begins to produce gas in 2017, at the earliest. Some economic experts noted progress in the stance of Netanyahu, which is attributed to his desire not to place the Israeli economy under the mercy of Tamar-Leviathan partners, especially that the driving force behind them are the American Noble Energy and the Israeli Delek.
The official Russian news agency Itar-Tass noted that the Russian energy giant Gazprom wishes to produce 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas as part of its process to invest the field. It also worth mentioning that the Russian engineering company Technopromexport is studying the feasibility of investing in the process of oil exploration in a small land field located near the city of Ramallah. AFP, however, explained that the progress of communications in terms of the two deals is not yet clear, as well as the launching of the work.
It is important to note that according to economic estimations, the reserve of Marine Gaza can hold up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas, noting that its development will need three to four years and will cost around a billion dollars. The revenues of this field are estimated at $6 to $7 billion a year, throughout many years. A part of the said revenues will be given to the Palestinian Authority in the form of taxes and fees. This is supposed to render the authority independent from donor countries.
Abbas announced in Moscow that he is dealing with Russia as a major power, which has to play a key role in the Middle East. He added, "We are happy to see that Russia is an active and influential power on the international arena." Abbas old Itar-Tass, "We would like to see Russia playing a leading role in the Middle East, since it is a major power."
This issue prompts the following question: Is this development related to the fact that the deadline of US-brokered negotiations is imminent? It is only normal for the Palestinian Authority not be satisfied with the US stance, which constantly refuses any pressure exerted on Israel to implement international resolutions. Could Russia, however, enter the area of Israeli economic influence, without coming to an agreement with the government of Netanyahu?

IDF's Gaza assault is to control Palestinian gas, avert Israeli energy crisis

Israel's defence minister has confirmed that military plans to 'uproot Hamas' are about dominating Gaza's gas reserves

A Palestinian boy plays in the rubble of a house destroyed in an Israeli air strike on Beit Hanoun, Gaza. Photograph: Khalil Hamra/AP

Yesterday, Israeli defence minister and former Israeli Defence Force (IDF) chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon announced that Operation Protective Edge marks the beginning of a protracted assault on Hamas. The operation "won't end in just a few days," he said, adding that "we are preparing to expand the operation by all means standing at our disposal so as to continue striking Hamas."
This morning, he said:

"We continue with strikes that draw a very heavy price from Hamas. We are destroying weapons, terror infrastructures, command and control systems, Hamas institutions, regime buildings, the houses of terrorists, and killing terrorists of various ranks of command… The campaign against Hamas will expand in the coming days, and the price the organization will pay will be very heavy."

But in 2007, a year before Operation Cast Lead, Ya'alon's concerns focused on the 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas discovered in 2000 off the Gaza coast, valued at $4 billion. Ya'alon dismissed the notion that "Gaza gas can be a key driver of an economically more viable Palestinian state" as "misguided." The problem, he said, is that:

"Proceeds of a Palestinian gas sale to Israel would likely not trickle down to help an impoverished Palestinian public. Rather, based on Israel's past experience, the proceeds will likely serve to fund further terror attacks against Israel…
A gas transaction with the Palestinian Authority [PA] will, by definition, involve Hamas. Hamas will either benefit from the royalties or it will sabotage the project and launch attacks against Fatah, the gas installations, Israel or all three… It is clear that without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement."

Operation Cast Lead did not succeed in uprooting Hamas, but the conflict did take the lives of 1,387 Palestinians (773 of whom were civilians) and 9 Israelis (3 of whom were civilians).
Since the discovery of oil and gas in the Occupied Territories, resource competition has increasingly been at the heart of the conflict, motivated largely by Israel's increasing domestic energy woes.
Mark Turner, founder of the Research Journalism Initiative, reported that the siege of Gaza and ensuing military pressure was designed to "eliminate" Hamas as "a viable political entity in Gaza" to generate a "political climate" conducive to a gas deal. This involved rehabilitating the defeated Fatah as the dominant political player in the West Bank, and "leveraging political tensions between the two parties, arming forces loyal to Abbas and the selective resumption of financial aid."
Ya'alon's comments in 2007 illustrate that the Israeli cabinet is not just concerned about Hamas but concerned that if Palestinians develop their own gas resources, the resulting economic transformation could in turn fundamentally increase Palestinian clout.
Meanwhile, Israel has made successive major discoveries in recent years - such as the Leviathan field estimated to hold 18 trillion cubic feet of natural gas which could transform the country from energy importer into aspiring energy exporter with ambitions to supply Europe, Jordan and Egypt. A potential obstacle is that much of the 122 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.6 billion barrels of oil in the Levant Basin Province lies in territorial waters where borders are hotly disputed between Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Cyprus.
Amidst this regional jockeying for gas, though, Israel faces its own little-understood energy challenges. It could, for instance, take until 2020 for much of these domestic resources to be properly mobilised.
But this is the tip of the iceberg. A 2012 letter by two Israeli government chief scientists which the Israeli government chose not to disclose warned the government that Israel still had insufficient gas resources to sustain exports despite all the stupendous discoveries. The letter, according to Ha'aretz, stated that Israel's domestic resources were 50% less than needed to support meaningful exports, and could be depleted in decades:

"We believe Israel should increase its [domestic] use of natural gas by 2020 and should not export gas. The Natural Gas Authority's estimates are lacking. There's a gap of 100 to 150 billion cubic meters between the demand projections that were presented to the committee and the most recent projections. The gas reserves are likely to last even less than 40 years!"

As Dr Gary Luft - an advisor to the US Energy Security Council - wrote in the Journal of Energy Security, "with the depletion of Israel's domestic gas supplies accelerating, and without an imminent rise in Egyptian gas imports, Israel could face a power crisis in the next few years… If Israel is to continue to pursue its natural gas plans it must diversify its supply sources."
Israel's new domestic discoveries do not, as yet, offer an immediate solution as electricity prices reach record levels, heightening the imperative to diversify supply. This appears to be behind Prime Minister Netanyahu's announcement in February 2011 that it was now time to seal the Gaza gas deal. But even after a new round of negotiations was kick-started between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and Israel in September 2012, Hamas was excluded from these talks, and thus rejected the legitimacy of any deal.
Earlier this year, Hamas condemned a PA deal to purchase $1.2 billion worth of gas from Israel Leviathan field over a 20 year period once the field starts producing. Simultaneously, the PA has held several meetings with the British Gas Group to develop the Gaza gas field, albeit with a view to exclude Hamas and thus Gazans from access to the proceeds. That plan had been the brainchild of Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair.
But the PA was also courting Russia's Gazprom to develop the Gaza marine gas field, and talks have been going on between Russia, Israel and Cyprus, though so far it is unclear what the outcome of these have been. Also missing was any clarification on how the PA would exert control over Gaza, which is governed by Hamas.
According to Anais Antreasyan in the University of California's Journal of Palestine Studies, the most respected English language journal devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel's stranglehold over Gaza has been designed to make "Palestinian access to the Marine-1 and Marine-2 gas wells impossible." Israel's long-term goal "besides preventing the Palestinians from exploiting their own resources, is to integrate the gas fields off Gaza into the adjacent Israeli offshore installations." This is part of a wider strategy of:

"…. separating the Palestinians from their land and natural resources in order to exploit them, and, as a consequence, blocking Palestinian economic development. Despite all formal agreements to the contrary, Israel continues to manage all the natural resources nominally under the jurisdiction of the PA, from land and water to maritime and hydrocarbon resources."

For the Israeli government, Hamas continues to be the main obstacle to the finalisation of the gas deal. In the incumbent defence minister's words: "Israel's experience during the Oslo years indicates Palestinian gas profits would likely end up funding terrorism against Israel. The threat is not limited to Hamas… It is impossible to prevent at least some of the gas proceeds from reaching Palestinian terror groups."
The only option, therefore, is yet another "military operation to uproot Hamas."
Unfortunately, for the IDF uprooting Hamas means destroying the group's perceived civilian support base which is why Palestinian civilian casualties massively outweigh that of Israelis. Both are obviously reprehensible, but Israel's capacity to inflict destruction is simply far greater.
In the wake of Operation Cast Lead, the Jerusalem-based Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (Pcati) found that the IDF had adopted a more aggressive combat doctrine based on two principles "zero casualties" for IDF soldiers at the cost of deploying increasingly indiscriminate firepower in densely populated areas, and the "dahiya doctrine" promoting targeting of civilian infrastructure to create widespread suffering amongst the population with a view to foment opposition to Israel's opponents.
This was confirmed in practice by the UN fact-finding mission in Gaza which concluded that the IDF had pursued a "deliberate policy of disproportionate force," aimed at the "supporting infrastructure" of the enemy - "this appears to have meant the civilian population," said the UN report.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is clearly not all about resources. But in an age of expensive energy, competition to dominate regional fossil fuels are increasingly influencing the critical decisions that can inflame war.