Solon’s Solution: Freedom From Debt (Servitude)

Athens, unlike Sparta, was a money-mad commercial city. The constitution written by Solon mitigated the class struggle between rich and poor, and allowed for the growth of democratic institutions.
Solon "Lawmaker of Athens" 638 - 559 BC

Let's go back to Athens around 602 BC to: The Laws of Draco

I wont even begin to discuss the esoteric implications of "Draco" (reptilian) laws being written for the Athenians at that time, that were so severe all crimes were to be punished by death. I don't know if these humans were interacting with 'entities' .. but this had to be a specific power group who showed little regard for their fellow man.

Aristotle described the crisis prior to Solon`s economic reforms:
There was contention between the nobles and the mass of the people for a long time.. the poor were in servitude to the rich…now the whole country was in the hands of a few…the hardest and bitterest feature for the masses was their servitude…for in nothing, one might say, had they any share.

Solon’s Solution: Freedom from Debt

Solon’s first action was to proclaim the celebrated law known as the “shaking off of burdens”. He cancelled the debts of the poor. That’s right, he cancelled debt! And every citizen who had been sold abroad into slavery was brought back to Athens with public funds. “Shaking off of burdens” became the name of a festival of thanksgiving held every year in Solon’s honor, and the Athenians never tired of extolling Solon, whom they proudly called the “Father of Democracy”.

Solon also required every man to teach his son a trade, and forbade the export of selected raw materials to foreigners. That is, he mandated local production before “free trade”.
On The Verge of Civil War

Does all of this sound familiar? Do the struggles of ancient Greece sound sort of similar to the social and economic struggles of today? Well, it seems to be a human drama playing itself out in cycles .. perhaps because we do not learn; but simply repeat the patterns of the past.

Under Athenian law at that time, if a loan went into default, the creditor could seize the debtor and his family and sell them as slaves to get money to pay off the debt. The cruelty and arrogance of the rich caused the poor to form into gangs to save themselves and rescue those who had been made slaves through usury.
Solon by Plutarch

Well, in reality what are we talking about here? Surely about resource conflicts. This is the basis of current economics. Resources are wealth, land is wealth, populations are wealth. For example, when the Anglo Saxons invaded Celtic Britain they enslaved the local populations to their laws and designs. Colonizing Celtic Wales, Ireland and Scotland was not only about land ownership; but it was also about ownership of the local populations - who are considered a resource until today.

Let's go back to Athens and Greece, where banks and institutions consider land, resources and populations as 'wealth'. I am not talking about 559 BC .. I am talking about now .. as in today!

Sovereign Debt & Servitude
As the future unfolds surely everyone knows or is aware that Greece will never pay back its 'debts'. Athens will also not agree to a 'land grab' .. assets for debt. Go back and study the history of this region. To the people of Athens and to the people of Greece any attempt to exchange land and resources for 'debt' will be seen as an 'invasion'. I am assessing this purely from a historical perspective.

You can 'lend the Greeks money'; but they will never exchange their land resources for 'debt' .. nor do they make good slaves .. from a historical perspective that is just the way they are. They wont do it for God, they wont do it for banks and they wont do it for the EU...

You may as well call the debt institutions 'Draco', from a historical perspective!

Some wicked men are rich, some good men poor,
But I would rather trust in what's secure;
Our virtue sticks with us and makes us strong,
But money changes owners all day long.
- Solon of Athens

China Plan Mega City In Flood Risk Zone

China (developers) have announced plans to create the world's biggest city by expanding nine cities at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta, in South China. That's a great idea and later Australia can help China relocate the 42 million people and help rebuild if the predicted rise in sea level unfolds.

The Sea Level Rise Explorer shows the problematic of building in coastal areas vulnerable to changes in weather cycles, changes in water levels (flooding) or sudden changes in sea level (including tsunamis). Hong Kong and China's Pearl River Delta could face increasing risk of flooding following an overall trend that has seen an increase in heavy rain storms over the past 10 years.

I don't call it 'global warming'. I see a long term trend of climate instability due to large swings in fluctuation through layers of the Earth's magnetic field. Imagine many layers of magnetic density layered like strata. Those ribbons of varying magnetic density undulate and flow together like sea currents. There you have a pictograph of the serpents of the skies battling each other.

During times of extreme magnetic flux the undulating fields can drop down suddenly causing a heavy water deluge to flood key areas all at once. I imagine that key river delta areas also draw the water to them, so there is a magnetic interaction between the atmospheric layers and the magnetic flux of the land.

The developers of the Pearl River delta are planning a mega city population of around 42 million people. The Delta region is an economically rich area. They produce mega wealth for China. But take time to look at the map. Dongguan to the East, Guangzhou to the North, Jiangmen and Zhongshan to the South all have below sea level elevations [up to 10 below sea level if I am correct].

World's River Deltas Sinking Due To Human Activity: A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder indicates most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking from human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk. Science Daily

This 2009 study was reported in China, "Three river delta areas sinking".

Humans get great benefits, increased economic benefits, from their use of river, coastal and delta areas. We also tend to forget that the Earth has its own long term cycles for maintaining life, of which we are largely unaware. It is not an 'accident' that such an abundance of life exists on this planet. The Earth actively maintains the bio-systems that supports an incredible diversity of species on this planet.

The announcement to create a mega city of 42 million people in such a vulnerable area is not only a question of the future potential for catastrophic floods; but the disruption of the fragile bio-mechanism that is the life-blood of the River Delta area itself. The 16,000 square mile urban mega city will cover an area twice the size of Wales. Do human beings really have to go down that road?

Cyberspace Generated Financial Flood Plains

This has to be evidence of the ghost in the machine... I was reading the 'Crop Circles' in Cyberspace article @ the Fortean Times. It occurred to me that these electronic financial 'flash flood' crashes are artificially creating crisis-cyberspace-patterns (out of greed).

The financial trading programs are designed to maximise the profits of their masters any way they can. One could imagine they manufacture financial drought/flood disasters across the market plains as assets are automatically bought and sold at subatomic speed. Researchers are discovering that trading programs are creating their own patterns, as described in the article by Ian Simmons about the trading patterns identified by software engineer Jeffrey Donovan.

Of course, once you release them - these electronic rivers of 'information' are a law unto themselves. Just stop and look at the real world consequences of this kind of trading behaviour dominated by machines... Peoples lives and estates can end up under water or suffering severe drought where they lose everything. The consequences could backfire to destroy the companies and institutions using these system trading options, destroying those who use them.

Crop circles are based on a high level of art, balance and magnetic sacred geometry. So, perhaps it is possible to create this kind of harmonic pattern in trading circles - rather than random forms of chaos. For this to happen the human mind would have to stop lying and cheating out of greed and selfishness. Values would have to deny beggar-thy-neighbour policies in favour of planetary co-operation. Perhaps a 'Heart Crop Circle' will appear in a field in 2011 and show us the way...

Ian Simmons 'Crop Circles' in Cyberspace : Most intriguing, though, is the idea that no one is responsible – that instead, the systems are doing it for themselves. The financial markets’ digital systems are now so complex, and the number of organisations using bespoke trading bots so huge, that the interaction between the programs could well be generating emergent phenomena spontaneously.

That is, these patterns are just weird side effects that come about in much the same way that fract­als come about as a result of chaotic phenomena, emerging fully formed from the ether with no design or overall purpose. But they are nonetheless there, asking for quotes and behaving in ways that every so often have an influence on trading. New behaviours could be evolving from the combination of, and interaction between, the behaviours that the programmers intended.

The question remains, though: how long has this been going on? After all, no one thought to look before May of this year. There already seems to be a huge amount of this kind of activity taking place, and as the markets increase in size and complexity, how will the behaviour of these patterns, now dubbed ‘Algorithmic Crop Circles’, develop? And what will the outcome be? Will they eventually disrupt electronic trading to the point where it is no longer viable? Will they remain creatures of the financial undergrowth, lurking out of sight and rarely interacting with the real world? Or perhaps the rolling financial crisis will eventually render them extinct?

It’s not often you get a completely new phenomenon emerging, and I wouldn’t say that the financial markets are the first place I’d have looked for one. It’ll be interesting to see how this one shapes up.

Athenian Real Estate Panic and Bank Crisis

How Trading Bankers Always Collapse - A Guide To The Future? It is no accident that the fall of Greece, Europe and America has its roots in ancient Athenian sneaky tricks and slight of economic hand between 'wealthy friends' .. This is a PDF file from Martin Armstrong AthenianCrisis found on the website of JSMineSet.com .. the Gold website that (as Gene Roddenberry said) dares to go where no man has gone before °>)

Martin Armstrong politely calls this a "banking crisis" .. are we headed into another banking crisis? But EarthChanges11 asks: Is BANKING the correct word for this crisis? Armstrong goes on to say that, corruption between the governments and the bankers is nothing new ..

During the 4th Century BC, money that was donated to the Gods became the 'temple treasure'. Typically, the government would borrow from this hoard of cash. In Athens, there was one of the early banking crisis events in what we would call the Secretary of the Treasury so to speak and his banking friends .. The Temple kept its donations in the Opisthodomos.

The Temple was not earning interest on its hoard of cash. The treasurer agreed to lend the money to personal banking friends who would then pay the treasurer interest that he could then personally put in his pocket. When the banking crisis hit and there was a liquidity problem, the banks could not repay the loans to the Temple.

Demosthenes (384-322 BC) tells us that banking transactions were completely confidential in Athens. He tells us that the rich could "conceal [their] wealth... in order that [t]he[y] might obtain secret returns through the bank .. [go read the PDF]

Aristotle in his "Politics" argued against the idea of supply and demand insofar as he saw the problem from the demand side disconnected from supply. Aristotle thus saw that the problem that demand would rise and fall and sometimes exceed the supply without just cause.

You really have to make an effort to read this report and understand what is it showing you, because as long as you are ignorant of the forces blindsiding you into the illusion of elite banking welfare for the rich .. you, your children and your grandchildren will be slaves to that illusion.

The basics of real 'economics' are land, water, shelter, food and resources. Watch any of the Survival Videos by Ray Mears .. begin with his Sweden Survival video series: Ray Mears in Sweden part 1/7 which are fun to watch .. or go search his other wilderness extreme-survival locations.

I have studied univeristy economics, but I cannot separate economy from local resources due to ancestral awareness and I cannot separate economics from basic survival .. my early Pictish / Celtic Scottish ancestors lived for thousands of years in a direct living relationship with land, water, resources and food.

My basic tutorial is: Place a paper currency on the table in front of you and place beside it blades of grass, vegetables, rice, lentils, seafood, fish, meat or herbs .. even the simplest herbs have more nutritional value than the printed piece of paper currency.

History of Banking - How To Build A Fire - Ray Mears Fire - Fire In The Desert - Fire Log - Buttress Tree Fire - From Fungus To Fire - Venison & Seafood

China To Hoard Rare Earth Minerals

Beijing is drawing up plans to prohibit (restrict) exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China. Metals that play a vital role in cutting edge technologies from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors and precision-guided weapons. Read: World faces hi-tech crunch as China eyes ban on rare metal exports - The Telegraph

On July 24 I posted: The Neodymium Wars - Neodymium is a rare metal whose production is essential to the future of all hi-tech nations. China produces 97 percent of the world's output of Neodymium...

On August 24 The Telegraph print an article warning that... "China is planning to hoard reserves." This is a very good article, you should read it as it may effect your future and your grandchildren's future .. Unless we take an alternative path into the future.

If you research this - the rare earth minerals future is similar to the Middle East and the extraction of oil. I am saying that the human species on this planet do not have to travel down that road. Also, I do not think we are going to travel down that road.

I am going to say something that most people will consider absurd - but I am going to say it anyway. You are conditioned to believe that in order to progress you have to dig and dig for rare earth minerals as oil becomes more difficult to extract from the Earth.

However, people on this planet do not need to dig for these minerals if they use their intelligence and their hearts. Love and respect for the Earth will lead people to find other solutions. The crazy thing I am about to say will one day become reality.

In green plant cells are all the elements to create a new Science, a new technology. Until now we have walked the path of metal and fire. Those days are over. Metal and fire will no longer rule the passage of man and cut up the Earth.

There are scientists and researchers in the future who will discover they can adapt plant cell life into functioning materials that allow human beings to live peacefully on this planet and create a life worth living.

Let the Chinese Government hoard their rare-metals, the toxicity will probably make them sick. There are alternatives to this insanity on every continent, existing for all people. The cells of plants will one day reveal, to the enlightened observer, a process that will illuminate our world to a new technological revolution. We are going plant-based as we leave fire and metal behind us.

Fire and metal have always signalled power of one over the other. This is what China's elite are threatening the world with, in the same pattern as the last 12,000 years. This is not the path the world is going to take. This is a re-run of the old Colonial show and it is boring ... unless the re-run is Star Trek '- )

We are heading for GREEN technology - literally. The geometry of plant cells will unravel compounds so revolutionary your grandchildren's children need never look back. The fire power of metal is coming to an end. Not through conflict - but through intelligence (enlightenment).

The world is so fearful -- Oh! Swine Flu! What will I do? Oh! Energy lost through reactions. Supply restrictions of rare earth elements! Oh! No! If you restrict the supply you increase the value. You force up the price and it is worthwhile to dig that stuff out and sell it.

Humans today are so stupid. Do you know what Magic really means? It means everything is a part of everything. You can find the same elements in bacteria, in plant cellulose, in probotics and replicate it. The efficiency of plant cells turning energy into power can be utilised by man.

The collective collaboration and cooperation of individuals understanding how common elements work and how they can be applied to sustainable communities is called development. The time of digging is over. It is time to plant!

The Neodymium Wars

The smallest things in life can often have the biggest impact on the world. The Neodym wars are happening now, unseen, undetected hardly noticed by the masses who depend on this mineral for their hi-tech existence. As well hidden as an underground base with secret entrances, the Neodymium mineral [Nd] is at the heart of all our future woes...

Sound too dramatic?

Neodymium is a rare metal whose production is essential to the future of all hi-tech nations. China produces 97 percent of the world's output of Neodymium - an essential component of hi-tech industries. In 2007 China began cutting back its exports exports, as they want to develop their own permanent magnet industry. As a result Neodymium prices increased from 7 U.S. dollars a kilo to 60 dollars a kilo,during that time.

Neodymium today generates more than 25% of the gross revenues from all rare earth dependent end-use products being manufactured. It is projected that by 2014 this figure will be at least 50%. Economically then it is clearly the most valuable and the most important rare earth metal. Ninja Neodymium Investors

When you talk about "clean energy" you talk about Neodymium oxide and high powered Neodym magnets: "Neodymium magnets have a magnetic force nine times stronger than conventional magnets." Business Mirror

At the momment China supplies most of the world’s Neodymium oxide - a necessary component in Prius motors and wind turbines. Although, it is the second most common rare earth element within the earth’s crust, China currently dominates the production and the supply of magnets.

If the technological world would switch from oil to batteries dependent on Neodymium oxide? How realistic is this? Pumping oil is one thing, you can pump it into barrels, but mining is another matter. Its another dependence industry all the way down the line. I do not see this kind of manufacture as the answer to the world's energy problems...

Clean Energies Dirty Little Secret - Mountain Pass’s mine contains a rare-earth ore that yields neodymium, the pixie dust of green tech—necessary for the lightweight permanent magnets that make Prius motors zoom and for the generators that give wind turbines their electrical buzz. In fact, if we are going to make even a few million of the hybrid and electric cars that are supposed to help rescue the planet from global warming, we will need to double production of neodymium in short order.

This form of technology keeps us dependent on a central-energy-supplier, rather than have the energy being generated from within the system. Intelligence would innovate and develop a closed power unit. At present we use open power units: power (energy) has to be injected and stored, and through use the energy goes out and is lost. The dependence system is add energy, use it and lose it - go back to the supplier for more.

With a closed energy system, you would generate the power from within the unit and there would be no loss. It would be self-perpetuating. One would not rely on an open system of creator/supplier and loss (creating demand). These are not current technical terms, they are terms I am using to describe another type of energy regeneration within a self-perpetuating unit.

The whole dependence system being set up around the mining, manufacture and supply of Neodymium oxide could lead to conflict(s), power struggle(s), supply problems, technological insecurity. It just sounds like a very heavy process to go through to create "clean energy"...

Swiss Funding Rainforest Destruction

Two of the largest Swiss banks, Credit Suisse and UBS, are to fund Rainforest destruction through expanding Palm Oil plantations in Indonesia. Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) will develop 1.3 million hectares of land for palm oil plantations with Swiss finance on the island of Indonesia Kalimantan (Borneo) and in Papua on the Western half of the island of New Guinea, as reported by Forest.org

ALERT! Swiss Francs Threaten Indonesian Rainforests
July 9, 2009
Major Swiss banks Credit Suisse and UBS are to further fund Golden Agri-Resources [search] (GAR), the world's largest listed palm oil company, which currently produces 10 percent of Indonesia's palm oil. A further 1.3 million hectares of land are to be developed for palm oil plantations [search] with Swiss finance on the island of Indonesia Kalimantan (Borneo) and in Papua on the Western half of the island of New Guinea. Let these banks and the Swiss government know that their financing of rainforest destruction and climate change is completely unacceptable and will be protested until it ends.
RainForest Protection

The Swiss banks create wealth for themselves and big Agri-Corporations through these kind of enterprises, while at home in Switzerland destruction of the local environment is a big issue. What if the whole plantation game falls into complete disrepair and major financial loss due to climate changes and degradation of the land? Who will pay for that in the future? Will some World Council hold the Swiss accountable, having helped finance the destruction of the environment in Indonesia?

In a strange twist of fate major banks of the world helped finance - through their greed - the current economic collapse. Ecologists and environmentalists know that million hectare mono-plantations are not sustainable long term. They are a short term option, especially when markets change due to coming revolutionary energy developments.

The people on this planet are going to have to take a lot of time to recover that land, and heal what is being destroyed. I foresee a future World Council, in a different world than the one we live in today. They are going to have to redress the balance. People do not want to see that the future of our whole planet is at stake. When you have no water and no food... maybe there is no choice but to face the facts and change the way you live?

My own impression is: why go there? Are people so brain-dead that they don't see the ecological crash coming? What are these people going to eat? Their Agro-dollars? As an example the Blogpost below: Rivers Dry - Crisis Looms is one account of a story of ecological degradation and destruction leading to loss of resources.

*A Scottish firm has been implicated in funding a plan that would destroy the rainforest habitat of critically endangered orangutans in Sumatra. Read More

Credit Suisse, UBS, BNP Paribas to help finance cutting of rainforests for palm oil, say NGOs: Swiss banks, Credit Suisse and UBS, together with the French BNP Paribas, are helping Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources raise up to 280 million Swiss francs ($258 million) to finance conversion of large areas of rainforest in New Guinea and Borneo for oil palm plantations, reports the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), a group that campaigns on behalf of forest people in Southeast Asia. Read More

KeyWords: Palm Oil Action - Destroying Ecosystems - Rainforest Action Network - Friends of The earth

Rivers Dry - Crisis Looms

This story, the illegal logging and destruction of the Aberdare forest has a history of its own. In 1999 people could see that the smaller rivers were drying up, and yet the exploitation and greed continued until today. In Kenya, the exploitation and degradation of the forest and water catchment areas have lead to a water crisis, and without water there is no life.

BBC News - July 10 2009 - A severe water shortage in in Kenya's capital Nairobi is being compounded by low water levels in Ndakaini Dam, which feeds the city with water. The dam has a capacity of 70m cubic metres but it is now down to just more than 26m cubic metres.

Environmentalists are attributing the low water levels to the failed rains and the destruction of the Aberdare forest catchment area in Central Province. Three of the four rivers that flow from the Aberdare forest to feed the Ndakaini Dam have dried up.

Rampant Logging Endangers Aberdare Forest
Forest.org - Nairobi (The Nation, January 6, 1999) - Saw-millers are gutting the Aberdare Forest, threatening water catchment areas. Trucks are penetrating the interior of the forest to fetch timber products. A team of journalists touring Zaina, Kabage and Njoguini areas of the Aberdare ranges found large clear patches arising from logging.

No signs of re-afforestation were noted. At one section, the saw-millers have cleared a large patch under pinus patula, which are less than 10 years old, making small streams dry up. The Press saw more than six lorries ferrying logs towards Nyeri Town. The targeted trees include pines, red cider and muhuru.

A Destroyed Forest
Islam Online - June 11 2007 - The expansion of Nairobi and other urban centers fueled the flames of profiteering from Kereita forest as they offered ready markets for its timber and charcoal products. "The Kereita forest destruction is an epitome of the wanton degradation that has reduced millions of hectares of most African forests to barren lands," said Nganga.

Kenya: Crisis looms as water sources dry up
Nairobi - July 9 2009 - An acute shortage of water resources has hit Kenya pushing the country into a crisis as water sources dry up in what experts say is a looming ecological disaster. The shortage has been complicated by drying up of water sources including rivers, lakes , dams ,wells and springs and worsened by a an ongoing 10 month drought. The result is that, households in cities and villages are going without water for days as pastoralists clash and kill each other over few remaining water points in arid parts of the country.

Palm Oil - Destroying Ancient Forests

Why is oil palm replacing tropical rainforests?
Why are biofuels fueling deforestation?

In a word, economics, though deeper analysis of a proposal in Indonesia suggests that oil palm development might be a cover for something more lucrative—logging.

Recently much has been made about the conversion of Asia's biodiverse rainforests for oil-palm cultivation. Environmental organizations have warned that by eating foods that use palm oil as an ingredient, Western consumers are directly fueling the destruction of orangutan habitat and sensitive ecosystems.

So, why is it that oil-palm plantations now cover millions of hectares across Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand? Why has oil palm become the world's number one fruit crop, trouncing its nearest competitor, the humble banana?

The answer lies in the crop's unparalleled productivity. Simply put, oil palm is the most productive oil seed in the world. A single hectare of oil palm may yield 5,000 kilograms of crude oil, or nearly 6,000 liters of crude according to data from JourneytoForever. For comparison, soybeans and corn—crops often heralded as top biofuel sources—generate only 446 and 172 liters per hectare, respectively.

Beyond biofuel, the crop is used for a myriad of purposes from an ingredient in food products to engine lubricants to a base for cosmetics. Palm oil is becoming an increasingly important agricultural product for tropical countries around the world, especially as crude oil prices top $70 a barrel. For example, in Indonesia, currently the world's second largest producer of palm oil, oil-palm plantations covered 5.3 million hectares of the country in 2004, according to a report by Friends of the Earth-Netherlands.

These plantations generated 11.4 million metric tons of crude palm oil with an export value of US$4.43 billion and brought in $42.4 million (officially) to the Indonesian treasury. Since then, the value of palm oil has only climbed. The price of palm oil currently stands at more than $400 per metric ton [by 2007 prices were more than twice this figure], translating to about $54 per barrel—quite cost competive to petroleum.

Beyond the loss of forest ecosystems, the production of palm oil, as currently practiced, can be quite damaging to the environment. In 2001 Malaysia's production of 7 million tons of crude palm oil generated 9.9 million tons of solid oil wastes, palm fiber, and shells, and 10 million tons of palm oil mill effluent, a polluted mix of crushed shells, water, and fat residues that has been shown to have a negative impact on aquatic ecosystems.

For palm oil or something else?
On paper, given the vast area of tropical forest in the region and the relatively high value of palm oil, the plan may seem like a viable option from an economic standpoint. However, closer analysis of the suitability of the land for oil-palm cultivation has green groups questioning the stated purpose of the plan, suggesting that there may be other intentions.

Surveys of the region commissioned by WWF found that much of the land is poorly suited for oil palm. Mountainous terrain combined with inappropriate altitude and climate for oil palm means that only 10 percent at most can be considered adequate for cultivation and lends credibility to claims by environmental groups that the entire plan may be a cover for a massive logging scheme to harvest the area's rich timber resources.

Greenomics, an Indonesian forestry non-governmental organization, has calculated the timber value in the border region at $26 billion. Logging the area set aside for oil-palm plantations would net substantial amounts of revenue for logging firms and considerable tax income for the Indonesian government. Further, since the oil palm project calls for extensive road construction, the infrastructure would be in place to deliver valuable—albeit previously inaccessible—timber to market. Read More...

Oil & Gas Uncover Colonial Dinosaurs

Environmental groups yesterday condemned British plans to claim sovereignty over a vast tract of the seabed off the coast of Antarctica, with Greenpeace and WWF expressing dismay that the Foreign Office was contemplating possible oil, gas and mineral exploration in the region.

Plan to exploit region seen as huge ecological risk

The Guardian yesterday revealed that the Foreign Office was preparing to submit a rights claim to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf (CLCS) for 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) of seabed off the coast of the British Antarctic Territory.

Any claim, it is alleged, could threaten the stability of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which froze territorial disputes on the world's least explored continent. Drilling for oil or gas would disrupt the fragile marine ecology of the Southern Ocean, environmentalists warn.

Simon Walmsley, head of WWF-UK's marine programme, insisted: "There should be no oil or gas exploitation in Antarctica. It's such a fragile habitat. Some of the sea creatures there are killed by a rise in temperature of merely 1.1C. It would be a body blow for the whole region. Guardian Unlimited

Progress Can Kill

Speaking about the desperate health situation of his people, Davi argues that the only way to save the rainforest is to save the Indians, by recognising their land rights ‘Progress can kill’ details for the first time how separation from their lands leads to the physical and mental breakdown of tribal peoples:

‘You napëpë (whites) talk about what you call ‘development’ and tell us to become the same as you. But we know that this brings only disease and death. Now you want to buy pieces of rainforest, or to plant biofuels. These are useless.

‘The forest cannot be bought; it is our life and we have always protected it. Without the forest, there is only sickness, and without us, it is dead land. The time has come for you to start listening to us. Give us back our lands and our health before it’s too late for us and too late for you.’ Survival International

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, shaman speaks of the coming of the white people, and the dream of origins:

Discovering the white people
A long time ago, my grandparents, who lived on the headwaters of the Toototobi River, sometimes visited other Yanomami established in the lowlands along the Aracá River. It was there that they met white people for the first time. During those visits our old ones got their first machetes. They told me that many times, when I was a child.

But it was a lot later, when we lived at Marakana, closer to the mouth of the Toototobi River, that the white people first visited our home. At the time our old ones were still all alive and we were many, I remember. I was a boy, but was beginning to become conscious of things. It was there that I started to grow up and discovered the white people. I had never seen them, I knew nothing about them. When I saw them I cried, I was so afraid.

The adults had already met them a few times, but I hadn’t! I thought they were cannibal spirits that were going to devour us. I thought that they were very ugly, whitish and hairy. They were so different they terrified me. Besides, I couldn’t understand a single one of their entangled words. It sounded like they spoke a ghost’s language.

The old ones used to say that they stole children, that they had already captured some and taken them when they went up the Mapulaú River, in the past. That’s also why I was so scared: I was sure that they were going to take me away too. My grandparents had already told that story many times.

When those strangers would come into our house my mother would hide me under a large basket in the back of our house. Then she’d say, ‘Don’t be afraid! Don’t say a word!’, and I stayed there, trembling under my basket, saying nothing. I remember it, but I must have been very small at the time or I wouldn’t have fit under that basket! My mother would hide me because she too was afraid that the white people would take me with them, like they had stolen those children the first time.

Later I really began to grow up and to think straight, but I continued to ask myself, ‘What are the white people doing here? Why do they open paths in our forest?’ The older ones would answer, ‘No doubt they come to visit our land in order to live here with us later!’ They understood nothing of the white people’s language; that’s why they let them enter their lands in such a friendly way. Had they understood their words, I think they would have expelled them.

Those white people fooled them with their presents. They gave them axes, machetes, knives, clothes. In order to make their distrust sleep they would say, ‘We, the white people, will never leave you deprived of things, we will give you many of our products and you will become our friends!’ But, shortly thereafter, almost all of our relatives died in an epidemic, then in another one. Later, a lot of other Yanomami again died when the highway entered the forest and many more when the garimpeiros (gold prospectors) arrived with their malaria. But this time I had already become an adult and I thought straight; I really knew what the white people wanted when they entered our land.

In the land of the white people
When I saw Europe, the white people’s land, I was distressed. Some cities are beautiful, but the noise never stops. They run around in them with cars, on the streets and even with trains underground. There’s a lot of noise and people all over. One’s mind becomes dark and entangled, one can no longer think straight. That’s why the thoughts of the white people are full of dizziness and they don’t understand our words. All they say is, ‘We are very happy to roll and fly! Let’s continue! Let’s look for oil, gold, iron!’ The thought of those white is obstructed, that’s why they mistreat the land, stripping it everywhere, and they dig it even under their houses. They don’t think that one day it will end up collapsing.

We, we want the forest to be kept as it is, always. We want to live in it with good health, and we want the xapïripë [shamanic] spirits, the game and the fish to continue to live in it. We plant only the plants that feed us, we want no factories, no holes in the ground, nor dirty rivers. We want the forest to remain quiet, the sky to remain clear, the evening darkness to really fall and for the stars to be seen.

The white people’s lands are polluted, they are covered by a smoke- epidemic that has extended very high to the sky’s bosom. This smoke is coming towards us but has not reached us yet, because the celestial spirit Hutukarari still repels it incessantly. Above our forest the sky is still clear, because the white people haven’t been coming close to us for that long. But later, when I’m dead, maybe this smoke will grow big to the point of extending darkness over the earth and turning off the sun. The white people never think of these things that the shamans know, that’s why they are not afraid. Their thought is filled with forgetfulness.

Dreams of the origins
The xapiripë [shamanic] spirits have danced for the shamans since the earliest time and continue to do so now. They look like human beings but are as minuscule as particles of shining dust. In order to see them one has to inhale the powder of the yãkõanahi tree many, many times.

The xapiripë dance together on great mirrors that come down from the sky. They are never grey like the humans. They are always magnificent: their bodies are painted with urucum [annatto paint] and lined with black drawings, their heads are covered with white feathers of king vulture, their beaded arm straps are full of parrot, cujubim [a type of bird] and red macaw feathers, their waists are wrapped with toucan tails.

Thousands of them come to dance together, waving leaves of young palms, emitting cries of joy and singing ceaselessly. Their path looks like spider’s thread sparkling like moonlight and their feather ornaments move slowly at the pace of their steps. It’s a joy to see how beautiful they are!

The spirits are so numerous because they are the images of the forest animals. Everything in the forest has an utupë image: those who walk on the ground, those who climb in the trees, those who have wings, those who live in the water. It is those images that the shamans call and make come down to become xapiripë spirits.

Those images are the true centre, the true interior of the forest beings. Common people cannot see them, only the shamans. But they are not images of the animals we know today. They are the images of these animals’ fathers, they are our ancestors’ images. In the First Time, when the forest was still young, our ancestors were humans with the names of animals and ended up becoming prey. It is them whom we kill with arrows and eat today. But their images have not disappeared and it is they who dance for us as xapiripë spirits.

White people draw their words because their thoughts are filled with forgetfulness. We have kept the words of our ancestors within us for a long time and we continue to pass them on to our children. The children who know nothing about the spirits hear the chants of the shamans and then want to see the spirits in their turn. This is how, even though they are very old, the words of the xapiripë always become new again. It is they who increase our thoughts. It is they who make us see and know far away things, the things of the old ones. It is our study, which teaches us how to dream. Survival-international.org

A Face In The Web of Life

A woman's tear stained face appears at the mysterious window known as The Web of Life. Her face and her tears are the life and blood of the Burmese people. The rest of the world look on in shock and horror, as the terrible monster of Globalisation rolls over the broken bones of the impoverished people living in this ancient land.

Global corporations and banking institutions, dance hand in hand the dance of death, extracting the earth's resources and in the process killing the human soul one country at a time. People around the world, for now in relative safety, observe the Global monster devouring planet earth, devouring its human populations, its bio-diversity, its rivers, oceans, forests and cultures.

The stench of death progresses, stealth like, around the earth country by country. The Burmese monks today are the Germans, French, Spanish, Greeks and Italians of tomorrow. Trees, forests, bird and animal habitats, the ocean's creatures, fresh water rivers and humans are being devoured at a rate unknown to the earth's inhabitants until now.

All of mankind are part of the web of life. Destroy the people of Burma, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and of China and you destroy the expression of the human soul as well as the unique diversity of the planet we are inhabiting.

James: "I can appreciate that people feel a natural stewardship to earth, and many can now see the consequences of hyper-consumption and how it has diminished the quality of our ecosystem. But the earth is not a delicate or fragile thing. Nor is it separate from us energetically. We are all connected, and it is because of this interconnection, and the super-resilience of earth, that the Event Temples will focus on energetically supporting people first and foremost. - Event Temples

Keywords: China Crush The Burmese Monks - Burma's True Leaders - Beijing's Embrace of Death - How London Finance Repression In Burma

The Future of Food

Control seeds and you control the world

Destroying the rights of farmers to save seeds
THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply.

Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, THE FUTURE OF FOOD examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system. Alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, organic and sustainable agriculture, offer real solutions to the farm crisis today.

Future Food?
Terrorising farmers to stop them developing and saving their own seeds.

Farming For The Future
Local Organic Farming: Pesticides are an unnecessary hazzard.

The Silent War on the People of India
No bombs have been dropped in this war. Instead, the aggressors have chosen two weapons that kill silently, slowly. Those weapons are deliberate contamination of India’s seeds with genetically engineered organisms and radioactive contamination of around 400 million people in India. The aggressors are: the United States Government and the multinational seeds companies [chiefly Monsanto and its Indian partners]. Other Ag-biotech firms are not far behind.

The United States Government, Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow, Bayer and a few others comprise a group that should rightly be called the mega criminal corporation; this one single group has the wherewithal to decimate world civilization as we have known and the process of decimation is on. That group includes Indian officials: without their support this war on Indians could not have taken place. Perhaps the same story of government officials colluding with these criminals has been repeated in nearly every country on planet earth. What is going on?

Exploiting Tibet

The Central Tibetan Administration is deeply concerned at the accelerating Chinese immigration to Tibet, and intensified mineral exploitation.

"We cannot but be alarmed at the rate of Chinese migrant workers coming to Tibet and China's mining of various minerals on the Tibetan Plateau" said Kalon Tempa Tsering of the Department of Information and International Relations of the Central Tibetan Administration.

"The pace of China's settlement of Tibet's urban centres with Chinese migrant workers and its exploitation of Tibet's mineral resources are undermining the ability of the Tibetan people to hold on to their distinct cultural heritage," Kalon Tempa Tsering said.

Kalon Tempa Tsering said, "It is precisely for this reason that we are firmly committed to the Middle-Way Approach of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, which will allow Tibetans to have an effective say in their affairs and the allocations of their resources without undermining Chinese sovereignty."

Kalon Tempa Tsering is reacting to news reports that say China is involved in mining of a host of minerals in Tibet and the unloading of thousands of Chinese migrant workers to Lhasa on a daily basis.

There are two kinds of one-way traffic on the rail line, both harmful to Tibet. Coming in on one-way tickets, costing as little as $49 to come all the way from Beijing, are fortune seekers, often desperately poor, those displaced from the countryside by China’s voracious demand for urban construction land.

Our sources on the ground estimate that the train to Lhasa, operational since July 2006, brings five or six thousand people a day to Lhasa, but when one observes the trains leaving Lhasa for China only two or three thousand people are aboard. They are the genuine tourists. The stayers are fortune hunters, seeking any niche they can find, often by elbowing aside Tibetans from even small street stall trading.

In 1950, the population of Lhasa, despite its spiritual importance to Tibetans, was only 20,000. Today, due to massive immigration attracted by China’s government led urban construction boom, the population has swollen to nearly 300,000, occupying almost all the valley. Now there are reports that China’s target for Lhasa is a population of 700,000. Based on our observations of the train occupancy in and out of Lhasa, that target will be reached very quickly.

Kalon Tempa Tsering said, "The Tibetan Plateau cannot sustain such a population explosion. Already the Tibetans in Lhasa are a small quarter of the city, excluded from the construction boom all around them. We oppose all development project that does not benefit but marginalises Tibetan population socially and culturally."

Poor Tibetans live in shantytowns on the outskirts, seeking employment, only to be muscled aside by non-Tibetan immigrants who contribute nothing to the Tibetan economy, because they remit their savings to their home province.

The other equally alarming aspect of the one-way traffic is the export of minerals from Tibet to feed Chinese factories, said Kalon Tempa Tsering.

When the railway was first extended into Tibet in the 1980s, as far as the desert staging post of Gormo, the purpose was to extract Tibetan oil, which has gone, at rate of two million tons a year for the past 20 years. In addition China mines the salt lakes of the same area in the Tsaidam Basin on a large scale. Gas was discovered in huge amounts in the 1990s, also in the Tsaidam Basin, and a pipeline was built to supply China’s hungry energy demand for fuels for manufacturing and electric power generation. Tibetan gas is now piped right across China.

China is investing huge effort of geological exploration, mapping mineral deposits all over Tibet. Recently the China geological survey announced the discovery of more than 600 new mineral deposits after concluding a seven-year geological study on Tibetan plateau, which has nothing less than $128 billion dollars worth of various minerals potential for extraction.

The biggest concern lies with two minerals: copper and chromite, particularly the major reserves currently under development and are easily accessible. For example: Shetongmon, close to Shigatse, the second city of Tibet, and the chromite deposits at Norbusa, close to the town of Tsethang and the chromite at Dongchao (Ch:Dongqiao), close to the rail line at the village called Draknak (Amdo County) in Nagchu Prefecture. In all three cases, the railway makes possible large-scale extraction, as each deposit is close to the railway, or to its proposed short extensions.

Yulong Copper mine, which is known to have world class potential, located in Chunyido village in Chamdo prefecture has remained undeveloped due to remoteness but infrastructure necessary for mining is now reportedly close to completion. Chromite mine in Dongchao, was also closed because of remoteness but now it is no longer remote due to railway, and it could re-open on a much bigger scale. Both copper and chromite are vital to China's development and industrialisation, but as a raw material are in very short supply. China has relied heavily on imports for these minerals for the past few decades.

Of the many mineral deposits found so far, few have been developed into full-scale commercial operations, largely because of the high transport costs of trucking ores out of Tibet on unreliable highways. It is further exacerbated by harsh climatic condition that forces the mine to remain closed during the winter.

The arrival of the railway to Lhasa dramatically changes the economics of mineral exploitation, especially since it is not only the cost of a ticket to Lhasa that is subsidised; a freight subsidy also enables miners to send minerals out of Tibet for as little as US 1.5 cents per ton per kilometre.

Most of the Tibet's copper, including Yulong deposit is of prophyry type. Mines like these have to be large scale, extracting hundreds of tons of rocks per day in order to produce a profitable amount of processed or refined copper each year. The resulting need in all types of mine to dispose of large quantities of waste could severly impact the environment. Soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, grassland degradation and pollution of watercourses are some of the potential impacts of the mining. Mining waste contaminates the water bodies often leading to substantial reductions in water quality affecting the people living downstream and destroying aquatic ecosystem. Tibet is the principal source of rivers flowing in Asia upon which 47% of world's total population depends for their livelihood.

Besides as has often been the case, local Tibetans displaced by the mine receive almost nothing for their compensation, and the skilled jobs invariably go to non-Tibetan immigrants. Chinese discrimination against Tibetans and increasing settlement of Chinese workers in Tibet with railway already in operation would not only transform Lhasa and other towns in Tibet but also will create new distinctly Chinese towns and villages just as it happened in Gormo which serves as a model of concern. This is the beginning of Chinese colonialism. Gormo, once desert area inhabited by few scattered nomads has now grown to a large town with 200,000 populations according to 2000 census out of which less than two per cent are Tibetan. It was initially established as prison farm and resource extraction site but since the arrival of railway, immigration and development has created a distinctly Chinese settlement.

Life-and-death Struggle to Crush an Ancient Civilization

Death of Kelsang Namtso at Nangpa-La

Save Tibet