Signs of the Times

Iran demands oil pay in yen, not dollars

Robert Lindsay, The London Times

The dollar was driven down against the Japanese yen this afternoon, hit by the news that Iran had asked Japan to pay for its oil purchases in the Japanese currency and not in dollars.

Iran has sent a letter to Japanese refiners, signed by Ali A Arshi, the general manager of crude marketing and exports for Iran's national Iranian Oil Company, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The letter asks for yen payments "for any/all of your forthcoming Iranian crude oil liftings." The request is for all shipments "effective immediately".

Japan's oil payments to Iran rose 12 per cent last year to 1.24 trillion yen (£5 billion).

Iran has been deliberately moving its exposure to the dollar and dollar-based assets, faced with the threat that the US could freeze its US-based dollar accounts in response to its nuclear plans.

Three big oil producing nations—Iran, Venezuela and Russia—have all been moving much of their foreign currency reserves from dollars to euros in recent months.

The latest move can only add to the long term pressure on the dollar, already hit by worries about the US economy based on the crisis in the sub-prime mortgage market.

Dare We Call It Tyranny?

by Sheldon Richman

The American people's response to President Bush's "war on terror" should be … terror. The administration, sometimes with Congress's complicity:

* is preparing for a 50-year stay in Iraq, complete with 14 military bases and an embassy larger than the Vatican. (Can there be a better recruiting program for al Qaeda?)

* has abolished habeas corpus, the principle that for centuries has protected people from arbitrary confinement, for noncitizens declared to be "enemy combatants." (While the federal courts have upheld the abolition of habeas corpus for detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere overseas, fortunately an appellate court has just ruled against the administration in the case of a legal U.S. resident, Kahlah al-Marri, arrested in the United States, a ruling the administration is appealing.)

* unilaterally claims the power to use "enhanced interrogation techniques"—torture—on suspected terrorists and to turn them over to foreign governments known to torture prisoners. This has been done to persons later cleared of wrongdoing.

* runs secret CIA prisons in Europe and elsewhere. Thirty-nine persons seized abroad and believed to have been in U.S. custody have disappeared, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

* violates our privacy by secretly accessing foreign phone calls, e-mails, and financial and other records—approved, if at all, only by a rubber-stamp "court."

* conducts searches without notice or judicially issued warrants. The administration's assurances that it does not engage in misconduct are worth little, considering what has already come to light.

To hold onto the support of the American people for this dictatorial power, the Bush administration has engaged in its own form of terrorism by exposing domestic "plots" involving small rag-tag groups allegedly bent on, among other things, attacking Fort Dix and blowing up fuel tanks and pipelines near JFK International Airport.

The pipeline plot, U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said, "could have resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths and destruction." Yet people who actually understand these things say this is far-fetched.

It looks as though we are being terrorized by the government. To be sure, there must be a few people in the country who, for whatever reason, talk about blowing something up. But skepticism about these supposed threats is in order: the alleged plotters were exposed by FBI informants trying to get their own criminal sentences reduced.

There is a fine line between an informant desperate to cooperate with law enforcement and an agent provocateur—the facts are easily concealed.

The government's past conduct justifies suspicion. Remember Jose Padilla. He first came to our attention in 2002 when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft interrupted a visit to Russia to make a dramatic television announcement that Padilla, an American citizen, had been seized in Chicago for allegedly planning to detonate a dirty (radiation) bomb in the United States. For years Padilla, a former gang leader who talked big, was held—uncharged—in solitary confinement (tortured and drugged, he says) by the military as an unlawful enemy combatant. When he asked the courts to review his detention, the Bush administration objected on grounds that Padilla was entitled to no protections accorded criminal defendants.

He eventually got his case into court, but an initially favorable decision was reversed on appeal. Before the Supreme Court could hear the case, the government moved it to the civilian courts, and Padilla is now standing trial. But he was not charged with plotting to set off a dirty bomb in the United States. Instead, he was charged with planning to commit terrorism in other countries. The U.S. government is the world's policeman.

Avoiding the Supreme Court by taking Padilla to criminal trial enabled the administration to protect its power to hold "enemy combatants" without charge indefinitely, but now the al-Marri ruling makes it a virtual certainty the issue will go to the Supreme Court.

If the administration prevails, Padilla's acquittal wouldn't guarantee his freedom.

Presidential power grabs and unlikely plots: if this doesn't add up to tyranny, what would?

The wrath of 2007: America's great drought

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles, The Independent

America is facing its worst summer drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Or perhaps worse still.

From the mountains and desert of the West, now into an eighth consecutive dry year, to the wheat farms of Alabama, where crops are failing because of rainfall levels 12 inches lower than usual, to the vast soupy expanse of Lake Okeechobee in southern Florida, which has become so dry it actually caught fire a couple of weeks ago, a continent is crying out for water.

In the south-east, usually a lush, humid region, it is the driest few months since records began in 1895. California and Nevada, where burgeoning population centres co-exist with an often harsh, barren landscape, have seen less rain over the past year than at any time since 1924. The Sierra Nevada range, which straddles the two states, received only 27 per cent of its usual snowfall in winter, with immediate knock-on effects on water supplies for the populations of Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

The human impact, for the moment, has been limited, certainly nothing compared to the great westward migration of Okies in the 1930—the desperate march described by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath.

Big farmers are now well protected by government subsidies and emergency funds, and small farmers, some of whom are indeed struggling, have been slowly moving off the land for decades anyway. The most common inconvenience, for the moment, are restrictions on hosepipes and garden sprinklers in eastern cities.

But the long-term implications are escaping nobody. Climatologists see a growing volatility in the south-east's weather—today's drought coming close on the heels of devastating hurricanes two to three years ago. In the West, meanwhile, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests a movement towards a state of perpetual drought by the middle of this century. "The 1930s drought lasted less than a decade. This is something that could remain for 100 years," said Richard Seager a climatologist at Columbia University and lead researcher of a report published recently by the government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

While some of this year's dry weather is cyclical—California actually had an unusually wet year last year, so many of the state's farmers still have plenty of water for their crops—some of it portends more permanent changes. In Arizona, the tall mountains in the southern Sonoran desert known as "sky islands" because they have been welcome refuges from the desert heat for millennia, have already shown unmistakable signs of change.

Predatory insects have started ravaging trees already weakened by record temperatures and fires over the past few years. Animal species such as frogs and red squirrels have been forced to move ever higher up the mountains in search of cooler temperatures, and are in danger of dying out altogether. Mount Lemmon, which rises above the city of Tucson, boasts the southernmost ski resort in the US, but has barely attracted any snow these past few years.

"A lot of people think climate change and the ecological repercussions are 50 years away," Thomas Swetnam, an environmental scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, told The New York Times a few months ago. "But it's happening now in the West. The data is telling us that we are in the middle of one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States." Across the West, farmers and city water consumers are locked in a perennial battle over water rights—one that the cities are slowly winning.

Down the line, though, there are serious questions about how to keep showers and lawn sprinklers going in the retirement communities of Nevada and Arizona. Lake Powell, the reservoir on the upper Colorado River that helps provide water across a vast expanse of the West, has been less than half full for years, with little prospect of filling up in the foreseeable future.

According to the NOAA's recent report, the West can expect 10-20 per cent less rainfall by mid-century, which will increase air pollution in the cities, kill off trees and water-retaining giant cactus plants and shrink the available water supply by as much as 25 per cent.

In the south-east, the crisis is immediate—and may be alleviated at any moment by the arrival of the tropical storm season. In Georgia, where the driest spring on record followed closely on the heels of a devastating frost, farmers are afraid they might lose anywhere from half to two-thirds of crops such as melons and the state's celebrated peaches. Many cities are restricting lawn sprinklers to one hour per day—and some places one hour only every other day.

The most striking effect of the dry weather has been to expose large parts of the bed of Lake Okeechobee, the vast circular expanse of water east of Palm Beach, Florida, which acts as a back-up water supply for five million Floridians. Archaeologists have had a field day—dredging the soil for human bone fragments, tools, bits of pottery and ceremonial jewellery thought to have belonged to the natives who lived near the lake before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century.

Nothing, though, was so strange as the fires that broke out over about 12,000 acres on the northern edge of the lake at the end of May. They were eventually doused by Tropical Storm Barry last weekend. State water managers, however, say it will may take a whole summer of rainstorms, or longer, to restore the lake.

Are the Hitler Parallels Too Close for Comfort?

By John W. Whitehead, Rutherford Institute

On May 9, 2007, with little attention from the snoozing media, George W. Bush issued a "presidential directive" that allows him to assume control of the federal government following a "catastrophic emergency."

Although the directive doesn't specifically identify the types of emergencies that would qualify as "catastrophic," it is vague enough to encompass "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function." As Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive noted, it could include "another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California." In fact, the language is so broad that it could include almost anything the public is led to believe might have a major impact on the country. Not surprisingly, the president's order comes neatly packaged within the trappings of national security and safety.

This directive followed on the heels of a bill, which I have previously written about here, that was pushed through Congress and which gave the president the power to declare martial law and establish a dictatorship. Under these provisions, the president can now use the military as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any "other condition."

In other words, the groundwork has been laid for the president of the United States to do away with our democracy, such as it is, and establish a dictatorship. The president, in effect, has become a power unto himself.

Having said that, I'm aware that I have opened myself up to accusations of paranoia and alarmist sentiment. However, if it is paranoid or alarmist to recognize the potential for abuse and urge Americans to guard against it, then so be it. It's time to sound the alarm.

If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end. After all, it is a tale that has been told time and again throughout history. For example, over 70 years ago, the citizens of another democratic world power elected a leader who promised to protect them from all dangers. In return for this protection, and under the auspice of fighting terrorism, he was given absolute power.

This leader went to great lengths to make his rise to power appear both legal and necessary, masterfully manipulating much of the citizenry and their government leaders. Unnerved by threats of domestic terrorism and foreign invaders, the people had little idea that the domestic turmoil of the times—such as street rioting and the fear of Communism taking over the country—was staged by the leader in an effort to create fear and later capitalize on it. In the ensuing months, this charismatic leader ushered in a series of legislative measures that suspended civil liberties and habeas corpus rights and empowered him as a dictator.

On March 23, 1933, the nation's legislative body passed the Enabling Act, formally referred to as the "Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation," which appeared benign and allowed the leader to pass laws by decree in times of emergency. What it succeeded in doing, however, was ensuring that the leader became a law unto himself. The leader's name was Adolf Hitler. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Yet history has a way of repeating itself. Hitler's rise to power should serve as a stark lesson to always be leery of granting any government leader sweeping powers. But we are clearly not heeding that lesson.

Americans are being lulled to sleep by the government's constant warning that terror and destruction lurk around the corner. Color-coded terrorism threat levels and reports of alleged terrorism plots are constantly paraded before us.

Indeed, since 9/11, the American people have been kept in a state of constant fear and expectation of yet another terrorist attack or, more subtly, another Katrina. Thus, while the recent spate of directives giving the U.S. president broad powers to supposedly ensure America's safety and security from terrorism and natural disaster should serve as a warning, they have caused barely a ripple among the media or the masses.

President Bush has assured us that he will do whatever it takes to keep America safe, and Americans have blindly trusted him. How did he reward that trust? First, he claimed the authority to permanently imprison American citizens alleged to be so-called "enemy combatants." Then he asserted his right to order government intelligence agencies to not only spy on America's enemies but also on Americans. Now he has quietly and unobtrusively granted himself the power to take control of the government in the event of a vaguely defined national emergency.

James Madison, the father of our Constitution, said that Americans should take alarm at the first experiment upon their liberties. But this latest "presidential directive" is not the first attack on our liberties, and I dare say it will not be the last. We'd better open our eyes soon, lest we wake up one morning and find that we live under a new regime. Only, this time, it will be one of our own making.

Drought: A New Norm Across the Nation?

By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA Today

Drought, a fixture in much of the West for nearly a decade, now covers more than one-third of the continental United States. And it's spreading.

As summer starts, half the nation is either abnormally dry or in outright drought from prolonged lack of rain that could lead to water shortages, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly index of conditions.

"The only good news about drought is it forces us to pay attention to water management," says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, a think tank in Oakland that stresses efficient water use.

Gleick says water managers are not reacting forcefully enough to the drought. "The time to tell people that we're in the middle of a drought and to institute strong conservation programs is today, not a year from now," Gleick said.

In other parts of the country, welcome rainfall last weekend from Tropical Storm Barry brought short-term relief to parts of the fire-scorched Southeast. But up to 50 inches of rain is needed to end the drought there, and this is the driest spring in the Southeast since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

Meanwhile, California and Nevada just recorded their driest June-to-May period since 1924, and a lack of rain in the West could make this an especially risky summer for wildfires.

Coast to coast, the drought's effects are as varied as the landscapes:

In Central California, ranchers are selling cattle or trucking them out of state as grazing grass dries up. In Southern California's Antelope Valley, rainfall at just 15 percent of normal erased the spring bloom of California poppies.

In south Florida, Lake Okeechobee fell to a record low of 8.94 feet last week. So much lake bed is dry that 12,000 acres of it caught fire last month.

In Alabama, shallow ponds on commercial catfish farms are dwindling, and more than half the corn and wheat crops are in poor condition.

Dry episodes have become so persistent in the West that some scientists and water managers say drought is the "new normal" there.

This drought has been particularly harsh in three regions: the Southwest, the Southeast and northern Minnesota.

Severe dryness across California and Arizona has spread into 11 other Western states.

US school students don't count in international Class

PARIS (AFP): School students in the US think they are just great at mathematics: but by the age of 14 they are two years behind the level in other industrialised countries and overall come 24th in a class of 29.

The causes are perplexing. But a central factor that has to be corrected is a climate of low school standards, low expectations and not enough exams.

So says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in a survey yesterday of underlying policies and trends in the US economy, against a background of recent warnings that emerging countries such as China and India, are producing more engineers than the US.

The OECD stressed that the higher education system is still a world leader and that overall spending on education is high. But it is damning in its analysis of school standards.

"A country's ability to compete in an ever more integrated economy depends crucially on a highly educated workforce. However ... the US has lost its leading position. Test scores at the compulsory level are at or below the OECD average and lag those in many other major economies."

But US school students think they are the tops in mathematics, a benchmark subject. Surveys show that they have a high opinion of their capabilities, expressing greater confidence than students at a more advanced level in other counties, offering comments such as: "I understand even the most difficult work," or "I learn mathematics quickly," or "mathematics is one of my best subjects."

In fact, the OECD says, US school students "rank 24th out of 29 OECD countries in mathematics performance."

It explained: "By the middle grades, the top achieving countries ... begin the transition to the study of algebra ... geometry and even in some cases, basic trigonometry. By the end of the eighth grade in these countries children have mostly completed US high school courses in algebra 1 and geometry.

"By contrast, most US students are destined to mostly continue the study of arithmetic. In fact, we estimate that at the end of eighth grade (about age 14) US students are some two or more years behind their counterparts around the world."

Part of the explanation, the OECD suggests, is that not only have standards "been lowered to accommodate low performance" but have also been "lowered by more than student ability warranted."

The "astonishing self confidence" expressed by US school students "also suggests standards are lax," the report said.

"Contrary to widespread hopes that promotion of self-esteem and confidence will encourage learning, grade inflation seems to lower performance..."

"In short, one reason why US students perform worse than their international counterparts seems to be that they are not being challenged." Another explanation was that in the US there was no school-leaving exam based on a set curriculum.

"For years, the US high school diploma has been criticised for being little more than an attendance certificate, as states rarely required students to pass a central exam as a condition of graduation.

"Lagging performance is evident across the board, including among affluent and academically successful students. The US does not just have more students performing badly—it also has many fewer students performing well ... Resources do not appear to be at the root of the problem because the system is comparatively well-financed."

U.S. far down the list of most peaceful nations, study shows

WASHINGTON (AP): The United States and Iran finished in a virtual dead heat, far down the list, in an assessment released Wednesday of the peacefulness of 121 countries.

The United States placed 96th and Iran just behind at 97th, according to the global index compiled on the basis of research by the intelligence unit of The Economist magazine.

"The United States suffers because it is the world's policeman, with high levels of militarization," said Andrew Williamson, director for economic research, in an interview.

The data were drawn from the United Nations, the World Bank, peace groups and the intelligence unit's own assessments, Williamson said.

"We are just mechanics and technicians behind the index," he said. "We are not making judgments about foreign policy."

Norway was rated as the country most at peace, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Portugal and Austria. Iraq was in last place, with Sudan and Israel nearest in standing to the embattled Middle Eastern country.

Some two dozen "indicators" were used to compile the index. Among then were wars fought in the last five years, arms sales, prison populations and incidence of crime.

"The United States arguably has kept the peace since 1945, but with a high level of defense spending," Leo Abruzzese, an editorial director for the intelligence unit, said at a news conference at which the report was released.

Abruzzese said a large prison population also contributed to the relatively low U.S. ranking.

Western Europe was found to be the most peaceful region in the world, although France was ranked 34th and the United Kingdom 49th. Their militarization, sophisticated weapons industries and arms exports pushed them down the list, the report said.

Some 80 countries, such as Afghanistan and North Korea, were not included in the first index because reliable information was not available, said Clyde McConaghy, president of the Global Peace Index.