Oil 1 Peak Oil 21
Developing Countries – Pakistan Advantage Indo-Pak War Impact
Download 9.54 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Developing Countries – Pakistan Extension
- Developing Countries – State Failure Terror
- Food Prices - Violence
Developing Countries – Pakistan Advantage Indo-Pak War ImpactAn India-Pakistan war will cause extinction. Helen Caldicott, Founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2002 George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex The use of Pakistani nuclear weapons could trigger a chain reaction. Nuclear-armed India, an ancient enemy, could respond in kind. China, India's hated foe, could react if India used her nuclear weapons, triggering a nuclear holocaust on the subcontinent. If any of either Russia or America's 2,250 strategic weapons on hair-trigger alert were launched either accidentally or purposefully in response, nuclear winter would ensue, meaning the end of most life on earth. Developing Countries – Pakistan ExtensionIncreased food prices create immense instability threatening collapse of Pakistan Simon Roughneen, senior correspondent for ISN Security Watch, 4-14-08 http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18857, The global food fight Jean Francois Bayart's above-named treatise took its title as a metaphor for the corrupt and patronage-addled nature of post-colonial African politics. But there seems to be a more literal application these days. Politics has at least partly caused the food price increases, with corrupt administrations unwilling to maximize food-production potential, and other developing economies unable as yet to improve yields - with the worst performers squandering their thriving agriculture systems. More directly, producer governments are restricting exports - notably rice - to meet domestic demand, but leaving neighboring importers in a quandary. C Peter Timmer, visiting professor at Stanford University's Food Security and Environment Institute, gave ISN Security Watch access to his work-in-progress analysis of the current food price situation. He wrote, "The newly elected populist government in Thailand did not want consumer prices for rice to go up, so they started talking about export restrictions [...]. On March 28 rice prices in Thailand jumped US$75 per metric tonne. They have risen another US$200 per metric tonne since. This is the stuff of panics [...]." David King is secretary-general of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers. He told ISN Security Watch that "for example, only one-quarter of the irrigation potential along the Niger river valley is being exploited" and that "yields in Africa are very low compared with other regions, but there is massive potential for improvement." In 1998, food price increases brought people onto Zimbabwe's streets, accelerating Robert Mugabe's turn to demagoguery as a diversion from his regime's frailties, and sparking his ruthless suppression of any political opposition. Zimbabwe was once called "the breadbasket of Africa," but now cannot feed its own people, much less function as a swing supplier, helping meet demand and reduce prices. Burma was once the world's biggest rice exporter, now many of its people hunger under the quixotic and brutal dictatorship ensconced in its jungle hideaway-fortress capital in Napyidaw. Politically expedient choices made by governments - donors and recipients alike - contribute to the structural issues undermining food supply in vulnerable locations. As David King puts it, "it is much easier for developed countries to send their food surpluses as aid to somewhere like Ethiopia, than it is to make focused long-term investments in water management technology to reduce that country's drought vulnerability. It is also easier for any recipients to divert attention from their own administration to external factors - such as food aid - when things go wrong." The impact of food price increases could well be serious instability in many countries. Pakistan's pivotal parliamentary elections were depicted as a policy-wonkish litmus-test for Muslim democracy and counterterrorism policy. But ordinary people voted for who they thought best able to help them make ends meet. The incumbent coalition led by President-General Pervez Musharraf took a hammering, as voters fused his anti-democratic policies with rising inflation now hitting consumers in the pocket. These days, Pakistani troops are guarding rice warehouses against looting, with similar scenes in the Thailand and Vietnam - the world's number one and three rice exporters, respectively - and in the Philippines and Indonesia, both rice importers. In Manila, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently jailed nine coup plotters, but legitimately expressed disaffection with her administration simmers on. She recently admonished rice traders against hoarding - saying that "anyone who steals rice from the people" will be jailed. Arroyo is clearly hoping that rice supply can be maintained on the domestic market, heading off any further price increase or shortage, which could bring people onto the streets. Such "people power" manifestations have twice changed governments in the Philippines, in 1986 and 2001 - the latter bringing the incumbent Mrs Arroyo to power. But with Thailand, India and Vietnam all more or less ceasing rice exports, and China rebuffing Manila's request for additional wheat, urgent calls were being made over recent days for high-level pan-Asian talks on the food price crisis. David King's timely warning to ISN Security Watch that "this type of thing can bring down a government in a developing country," was realized on Saturday, 12 April, with Haiti's Senate sacking the prime minister in a deliberate snub to President Rene Preval over his response to Port-au-Prince's deadly food riots. The price spike provoked "tortilla riots" in middle-income Mexico, and wealthy consumer groups in Italy staged a one-day protest at the price of pasta. But it is the world's poor who are feeling the pinch. Most vulnerable could be the aid-dependent in Darfur, Somalia, North Korea and elsewhere. Brenda Barton told ISN Security Watch that “on 20 March the WFP appealed to donors for an extra half-billion dollars - just to enable us to meet the needs we projected back in June 2007." "This does not even account for any emergency or contingency funding needed, say, if another Niger-type scenario came about," she added, referring to the August 2005 near-famine in that impoverished Sahelian country, which left over three million people verging on starvation. But the overall global economic downturn and rising inflation means less money, and with demand elsewhere soaring, food aid might be squeezed - bad news for the 73 million people across 78 countries that need WFP-sourced assistance. As Barton explains, malnutrition has some serious spin-off effects: "While the food shortages and potential malnutrition are deadly serious in themselves, this issue affects development issues across the board, with at least six MDGs compromised: take education- children cannot learn when hungry, and with money tight, kids get pulled from school so parents can pay for food." "A slow onset of malnutrition can have a devastating impact: Even as families cut from three to two to one meal per day, economizing on quality as well as quantity, and the very young are worst-affected," she added. Developing Countries – State Failure & TerrorOil price spikes will devastate developing countries leading to terrorism and state failure Matthew Burrows, Director of the Long Range Analysis Unit at the US National Intelligence Council and Gregory Treverton, Director of RAND Corporation’s Center for Global Risk Security; 9-1-07 Informaworld, A Strategic View of Energy Futures Survival, vol. 49 no. 3, pp. 79-90 If the potential big winners include Russia and Iran, the big losers are the poor countries. If prices stay high, growth in the rich countries will decline, but only by about 0.5–1%, because of continuing declines in the energy intensity of economic growth.8 Poor countries, however, will be disadvantaged by higher prices even if those prices do not produce a global economic slowdown. A slowdown would be bad for everyone, but higher prices alone will hit the poor countries especially hard, curtailing development prospects with consequences ranging from state failure and new terrorist havens to large-scale migration. Countries in the Horn of Africa would be especially vulnerable to higher energy prices Food Prices - ViolenceRising oil prices create extreme poverty, risking violent outbreaks Jalal Ghazi, associate producer of Mosaic: World News from the Middle East, 6-22-08 http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=79d0a7ca3f1e85c9605bfd8d078a9cf7&from=rss, High Oil Prices Create Wealth in Qatar and Poverty in Egypt, New America Media, Qatari nationals also receive free education and heath care thanks to oil revenue. But if high oil prices helped create extreme wealth, they have also created extreme poverty. Qatar, population less than a million, stands in stark contrast with Egypt, the most populated Arab country, with 76 million. Saoud Al-Mannai, a Qatari student in Education City, told Al Jazeera. “If oil and gas were not there, none of this would have happened, none of this advancement, especially building the Education City.”Twenty percent of Egypt’s population lives on less than $2 a day. After a protest over food prices in which three people were killed, the Egyptian government was forced to subsidize the most important food item in Egypt: bread. However, not all Egyptian bakeries sell subsidized bread, which has created huge pressures on those that do. As a result, it is common for many Egyptians to wait many hours before being able to buy bread at subsidized prices. In an average store one beta costs 10 cents, while in a subsidized shop it costs only one cent. “Unsubsidized bread used to be affordable but now the prices have skyrocketed,” one bakery owner told Al Jazeera. After long hours of waiting in long lines to buy bread all over Cairo, people sometimes lose their temper, with fatal results. Eleven people have died in bread feuds – some in knife fights – in the past 11 months. If the price of food continues to rise, more violence is expected. According to Al Jazeera, Egypt saw widespread riots over bread in 1977, which left up to 70 people dead. Meanwhile, some families have become vegetarian since they can no longer offered to buy meat. Most Egyptians now rely on potatoes and rice to feed their large families. A mother of five, Hala Suliman told Al Jazeera, “I was forced to give up many important things in my life due to the rise in food prices. My kids want meat and fruits, but I have no money.” Suliman and her husband work at a coffee shop and have a combined income of $4 a day, but they have five children to feed. Each day, Suliman’s oldest son waits three or four hours in bread lines instead of going to school. Egyptian journalist Mahmoud el-Askalani told Al Jazeera, “Of course, as a journalist, my salary isn’t bad, but I’ve been affected because the increase in food prices is too high even for the middle class.” In fact, he felt so strongly about the rise in food prices that he started an organization called Citizens Against Price Rises. El-Askalani told Al Jazeera, “I want to achieve through this organization a popular movement that stands up to the rise in food prices.” He believes that the pro-business government has allowed businesses to make huge profits while many people go hungry. Some families in Egypt have taken their children out of school, are visiting doctors less, and eat smaller meals. According to Heba Kamel of the World Food Programme, the rise of food prices has created “new faces of hunger” as “more and more middle income earners are feeling the crunch of food prices.” Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 9.54 Mb. Share with your friends:
|