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Today's Stories August 9, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts In the Hole to China William S. Lind One Step Forward, Two Back August 8, 2007 Andy Worthington Backing Up Lt. Col. Abraham on Gitmo Abuse Jeff Halper The Catch in Israel's "Generous Offers" at Jericho Greg Moses No Light in August for Texas Refugees: Judge Orders Baby Sent to Palestine Nurit Peled-Elhanan The Murder of Abir Aramin, 9 Years Old Sukant Chandan British Prisons as Islamic Universities Robert Fisk A Lebanese Surprise George H. Strauss The Military Society D.K. Wilson Bonds, the Haters and 756: Why Bob Costas Can't be Trusted Bill Day Leonardo DiCaprio's Baggage: the Perils of Celebrity Environmentalism Tim Campbell Monkey See, Monkey Do Politics Website of the Day Periodic Table of Visualization Methods   August 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Why the Surge Has Failed Andy Worthington Why Do We Need the Democrats?: They Have Failed to Restrain Bush on Gitmo, Iraq and Domestic Spying Kathy Kelly The Little Girl of Hiroshima Stan Cox The Antiwar Majority: Look Quickly, You Might Miss It Sonja Karkar Israel's Settlement Project Sen. Russ Feingold A License to Wiretap--Anyone Alan Farago Dancing in the Light of Florida Norman Solomon Let Us Now Praise an Infamous Woman Binoy Kampmark Giving Good Face: What Jeremy Bentham and Facebook Have in Common Dave Lindorff The Gelding Congress John Stauber Coffee with the Troops at Yearly Kos Website of the Day George Carlin on Education August 6, 2007 Bill Quigley Fighting for the Right to Learn in New Orleans Kathy Rentenbach Guatemalan Gold, Guatemalan Bones Uri Avnery White Elephants: Bush's Middle East Arms Deals Col. Dan Smith Of Time and Iraq Ralph Nader Cruise Ship Blues James Neshewat War? What War?: a Report from the New SDS Confab in Detroit D.K. Wilson Barry, Bud and 755 Greg Moses Safe Passage for Willie Nelson Fidel Castro Hard and Obvious Realities Mike Whitney Judgment Week on Wall Street   August 4 / 5, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Rupert Murdoch and the Luck of the Bancrofts Peter Linebaugh Speaking in Irish Tongues Saul Landau Faith-Based War Alan Farago The Candidates and the Collapsing Economy Dave Zirin When Domes Attack: Even in Minnesota Barucha Calamity Peller Oaxaca is Not Over Anthony DiMaggio Double Standards in U.S. Aid to the Middle East Dave Lindorff Spy Power: Bush Demands, Democrats Deliver--Again and Again and Again Fred Gardner Write Off Your Congressman Nicola Nasser The Iranian Option Benjamin Dangl Privatizing Repression in Paraguay Rannie Amiri Bribe, Divide and Conquer Daniel Gross CSR on Trial: Starbucks Behind the Brand Sherwood Ross Obama Renounces Use of Nuclear Weapons Manuel Garcia, Jr A Bridge Truth Movement?: From 9/11 to Minneapolis Missy Beattie The First Mannequin and the "Crime Scene" Ron Jacobs The Outlaw Trip to Mexico: Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad Website of the Weekend Photos: Texas Immigrant Prison   August 3, 2007 Gabriel Matthew Schivone An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Responsibility, War Guilt and Intellectuals Jonathan Cook Israel's Jewish Problem in Tehran Patrick Cockburn Sunnis Walk Out of Iraq Government Little Steven Van Zandt Die, Greedy Swine! Die! Die!: How the Record Companies are Killing Rock Music Christopher Brauchli Bush Makes Putin Look Like James Madison D. K. Wilson Two Sides and a Middle: Michael Vick Ain't the One to Ask Linda Ford and Ira Glunts Maxwell's Silver Hammer: Syracuse University Enlists in the Global War on Terror Kelly Overton The Casualties of Green Scare: the Feds' War on the Animal Rights Mvt. Monica Benderman In Freedom's Name Manuel Garcia, Jr. Minneapolis Bridge Collapse: Was Cheney at the Scene? Website of the Day A Cinematic Look at the Police State in Action   August 2, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts The Return of the Robber Barons Stanley Heller Report from the Land of Apartheid Eric Ruder Fighting PTSD; Fighting the Army Robert Fantina Still Getting It Wrong: the NYT and Iraq Alan Farago The Toxic Mortgage Waste Crisis Chris Floyd Chertoff, Chiquita and Death Squads Franklin Lamb Lebanon's Crucial Special Elections Sen. Russ Feingold Closing the Book on the Abramoff Era Anthony Papa Drug Treatment isn't a Silver Bullet Norman Solomon The Big Guns of August Website of the Day Louie, Louie Video Contest   August 1, 2007 Debbie Nathan More Secret Payments by Former NYT Reporter to Web Porn Star Surface in Nashville Courtroom Fred Gardner Ciao, Michelangelo Gary Leupp Why Iraq's Best-Loved Athlete Can't Go Home David Rosen America's Top 10 Political Sex Scandals Winston Warfield Is the Tillman Case Still a Coverup? Daniel McBride Lessons from Bomber Harris: If the US Strikes Pakistan Glen Ford The Corporate Plan to Crush Black Resistance Thomas P. Healy The Toxic Career of Indiana's Environmental Commissioner John V. Whitbeck The Five Percent Solution David Krieger Nuclear Weapons and the University of California Website of the Day The Tragic Story of Hisham Mohammed   July 31, 2007 Kathy Kelly Dancing in the Darkness: the Story of Abu Mahmoud Clancy Sigal The Ghosts of Passchendaele Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Baby Doll to Cheney Joe DeRaymond Return to the Republic of Death? Diane Christian "Winning": What Bush Could Learn from the Shade of Achilles Chris Floyd Good News is No News: Why the Bush Adm. Buries Accounts of Extremist Recantations Ramzy Baroud Bush's Real Agenda in Palestine Alan Farago Battle for the Soul of Florida Fidel Castro In Spite of Everything: Reflections on the Pan American Games Dan Bacher The Fish Terminator: Schwarzenegger's Campaign to Build the Delta Canal and More Dams   July 30, 2007 Marjorie Cohn: Independent Counsel Time Patrick Cockburn Four Million Iraqis on the Run Peter Quinn Irish in America Uri Avnery A Warning to Tony Blair John Ross Zapatista Intergalatica Lands on Earth Ron Jacobs Free the San Francisco 8 David Vest Farewell, Old Friend: Another Legend of the Blues is Gone Jeffrey St. Clair T99 Nelson: Seduced by a Legend of the Blues Website of the Day Collateral Repair Project   July 28 / 29, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Now the NYT is Selling "Bloodbath" as a Rationale to Stay in Iraq Ralph Nader Rotten Justice Robert Fantina American Lies and Iraqi Nationalism Fred Gardner Prohibitionists Attack, Reformers Fundraise   Yves Engler Handwashing and the Bottomline   July 27, 2007 John Ross Bombing Pemex--or Not? Arthur Neslen Gaza was a Gas for Blair Dave Lindorff Declaring the US a Battlefield: Martial Law is Now a Real Threat Julene Blair The Environmentalist Within Christopher Brauchli Bush Uses Children as Shock Troops in His War on Socialized Medicine Jesse Hagopian Fund the Wounded, Not the War Charles Modiano Manufacturing a Villain: Sports Illustrated's Vilification of Barry Bonds Bill Day The Hollow Environmentalism of Leonardo DiCaprio Walter Brasch Leaders Afraid to Lead M.D. Mitchell Farm Based Camps Website of the Day Fighting Sarcoma   July 26, 2007 Kathleen Christison The Siren Song of Elliot Abrams Andy Worthington Why the Pentagon's Gitmo Study is a Joke Clancy Chassay How the Bush White House Seeks to Destroy Lebanon Marjorie Cohn Showdown Over Executive Privilege Susie Day Apartheid Americana David Price Tour de Witch Hunt: Drugs, Diaries and Purges Marie Trigona Argentina's "Dirty War" Crimes Trial: The Torturer Priest Norman Solomon Media Spin on Iraq: We're Leaving (Sort Of) William S. Lind How to Win in Iraq Natsu Saito Ward Churchill and the Regents at the University of Colorado John Stauber Netroots and the Iraq War: Does Ending It Matter to Them Anymore? Website of the Day Sticking It to the Man   July 25, 2007 Andy Worthington Gains and Losses at Gitmo Gary Leupp Bush Speechwriter, Michael Gerson, Calls for Attack on Syria Ray McGovern The Sad Decline of John Conyers Dr. Susan Block Bonobo Bashing in the New Yorker Joshua Frank Hillary's Neocon: the Imperial Vision of Richard Holbrooke Tina Richards What Harry Reid Doesn't Know About His Own Bill Ben Terrall Indonesia's Bloody Brand of CounterTerrorism Farzana Versey God Acquitted!: Lessons from the Case of Darwood Ibrahim Mohammad Ali Salih A Bomb in My Briefcase? Laura Carlsen A Strange Homecoming: Reflections on the First US Social Forum Ron Jacobs Come to Kennebunkport! Sunsara Taylor Knocked Up is F**ked Up Website of the Day Wal-Mart's Flip Flops: Feet Killers July 24, 2007 Saul Landau How to Walk in Bushtime Kathy Kelly The Plight of Iraqi Refugees in Jordan Russell Mokhiber The Michael Vick / George Bush Thing M. Shahid Alam Islam Now, China Then Patrick Cockburn and Anne Penketh Meeting in Baghdad Dave Lindorff Overcoming John Conyers Binoy Kampmark You Tube You Can't: Failure of a Medium Richard Neville Murdoch's Transplant: a Warning to the Wall Street Journal Cindy Sheehan We Must Move Beyond Politics as Usual Evelyn Pringle Anti-Depressants and Birth Defects: Why is the CDC Downplaying the Risks? Norman Solomon Media Corrections We'd Like to See CP Newswire Reading Harry Potter Not Sinful Website of the Day Sea Islands Black Heritage Festival   July 23, 2007 Andy Worthington Narcolepsy on Gitmo Detainees Uri Avnery A Trap for Fools Patrick Cockburn Turkish Prime Minister Threatens to Invade Northern Iraq Sousan Hammad The Children Without a Title John Walsh Todd Gitlin's Nader Fixation Harvey Wasserman Spinning Kashiwazaki: PR Flacks Rush to Aid of Crippled Nuke Martha Rosenberg The Life and Times of a Hog-Hanging Farmer Collin Baber Here Come the MRAPs: Resurrecting Apartheid Armor for Iraq Reza Fiyouzat Iran's Forgotten Anti-Nuke Movement Stephen Lendman Saving a President: Scare-Mongering and Executive Orders Website of the Day The Port Huron Project   July 21 / 22, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Giuliani and the Dogs of War Werther How to Read a National Intelligence Estimate Ralph Nader Atomic Blowback David Keen Buy Hard: How to Sell an Endless War Fred Gardner Karl Rove, Pothead: When Good Drugs Happen to Bad People Gary Leupp Edelman's Edict: Is Hillary "Reinforcing Enemy Propaganda?" Robert Fantina Fear in Iraq Saker The Future of Palestine: an Interview with Jonathan Cook Rannie Amiri Nasrallah in the Crosshairs: How will the Third Lebanon War Start? Mike Whitney The Crisis in Hedgistan Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD The Hidden Injuries of Powerlessness: Linking Alienation and Dissociation Monica Benderman Facing the Truth Dan Bacher Deltagate: the Politics of Fish Kills Michael Baney Fujimori's Long Race From Justice Missy Beattie Here, There and Everywhere Ron Jacobs Tremble, Tyrants Adam Engel Radical Language: an Introduction Thomas Naylor California Split: an Open Letter to Schwarzenegger Poets' Basement Landau, Ford and Engel Website of the Weekend Surge in Action   July 20, 2007 Eliza Szabo Fatal Neglect: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan Pam Martens Doctoring the News: CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Laura Bush and Merck Alan Farago Winners and Losers in the Housing Market Crash Harvey Wasserman Lies and Leaks: The Earthquake That Screamed "No Nukes!" Marjorie Cohn Iraqis will be the Deciders Dave Zirin White Noise and the Black Athlete Anthony DiMaggio American Public Opinion and Israel Scott Liebertz Oaxaca on Edge Linn Washington, Jr. British Cops Assault Rape Allegations Bill Piper / Anthony Papa Flying High?: The Political Junkets of Bush's Drug Czar Ramzy Baroud Bush's War Policy: When Time Heals Nothing Website of the Day The Prankster Art of Mark Jenkins   July 19, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Next Invasion of Iraq Remi Kanazi Is This Ben Gurion or Hell?: a Palestinian Adventure Through Israel's Largest Airport Winslow T. Wheeler The Surging Costs of the Iraq War Sharon Smith Democrats and Health Care: Behind the Rhetoric Dave Lindorff Killing Cabbies in Iraq Conn Hallinan Have Gun, Will Travel: Mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan D. K. Wilson The Michael Vick Case Pulls Back the Veil on Who We Really Are Joshua Frank Democrats as Leviathan: Another Step Toward War with Iran Norman Solomon The Ghost of Wayne Morse Russell Hoffman Rattling the Reactor: Quakes, Fires and Leaks at the World's Largest Nuke Ray McGovern Bush's Wooden Headedness Kills Website of the Day Protesting Power July 18, 2007 Brenda Norrell Spy Towers on the US Border Col. Dan Smith How the US Could "Lose" Saudi Arabia Martha Rosenberg Lord of Crookharbour: the Trial of Conrad Black Conn Hallinan Bombing and Spraying Afghanistan Binoy Kampmark The SIM Card Terror Case Patrick Bond / Rehana Dada Who Killed Sajida Khan? Tom Johnson The Long Road ... to Nowhere Paul Craig Roberts A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth? Bob Quellos Pushing the Poor Out of House and Home Felice Pace Falling for Lieberman's Iran Resolution Robert Weissman National Health Insurance: More Humane and More Efficient CP Newswire Shocking Report Showing Involvement of US Psychologists in Torture Website of the Day Gilad Atzmon Live!   July 17, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Just Another Day in Iraq: 100 Fathers, Mothers and Children Killed Marjorie Cohn Out of Control: Executive Power Plays Evelyn Pringle Inside Bush's FDA David Rosen Moral Hypocrisy on the Hill: the Christian Right, Sexual Scandal and the Pleasures of the Courtesan Susan Miller Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall Franklin Lamb Did the UN Cave to Israel on Lebanon's Shabaa Farms? Don Monkerud Considering Victory in Iraq Harvey Wasserman Nuclear Surge Russell Hoffman Japan Dodges a Radioactive Bullet Dave Lindorff Feingold Turns to Dross Dave Zirin Reclaiming Sports as True Fiction Website of the Day Che at the UN: 1964   July 16, 2007 Gary Leupp Cheney Urges Bush to Strike Iran Ellen Cantarow The Untold Story of Iraqi Women Paul Craig Roberts Impeach Now Allan J. Lichtman The D.C. Madam's Public Service Dan Bacher Cheney and the Klamath: Was the Veep Behind the Nation's Worst Salmon Kill? Patrick Cockburn The Killing of Khalid W. Hassan Manuel Garcia, Jr. Property is Racism James Brooks AIPAC and Mahmoud Abbas: the Undemocratic Road to Defeat Liaquat Ali Khan The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan Julie Flint Suleiman Jamous in Limbo Website of the Day Free Suleiman Jamous!   July 14 / 15. 2007 Alexander Cockburn Support Their Troops? Andy Worthington Gitmo's Tangled Web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majhid Khan, Dubious US Convictions and a Dying Man Ralph Nader Lawlessness, Waste and Incompetence Robert Fantina The Illegalities of the Iraq War Ron Jacobs Architecture as Military Strategy Joshua Frank Eat, Fight, Screw, Pray: An Interview with Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Guns, Foundations and Free Trade: How the Right Targets Africa Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD War and Dissociation John Ross No En Nuestro Nombre!: a Letter to the Mexican Antiwar Movement Fred Gardner Who's Afraid of Cannabidiol? Rannie Amiri A Primer on Israeli Doublespeak Charles Modiano ESPN's Rap Sheet: Pacman as Black Man Anthony DiMaggio America's Parochial Press China Hand Executive Orders and Coercive Diplomacy Missy Comley Beattie Reprobate Rhetoricians Dr. James J. Murtagh, Jr. Harry Potter Battles Big Brother Kenneth Rexroth On Thomas More's "Utopia" Poets' Basement Engel, Davies and Orloski Website of the Weekend GOP Sex Hypocrites: a Slideshow

August 9, 2007 Horror in the Brazilian California The Dark Side of Agrofuels By RAUL ZIBECHI "When the airplane passed, pouring out that bath of poison, my father was soaked. He fell ill because of the toxins that are sprayed over the cane. This is the end for many young people here, " says a female cane cutter from the region of Ribeirao Preto, in São Paulo state. "The people work and they give them a slip of paper to shop with in the supermarket. The people don't see money, just the bill of what they owe," confirms a worker from the same region, where seven of every 10 cane cutters did not finish primary school.1 Other cutters explain that they are cheated by the scales that the bosses control—they calculate that they have to carry 110 kilograms for the scale to reach 100. Almost all of them were lured from Brazil's poorer Northeast by promises that they would earn very high salaries. Many moderate analysts see working conditions as reminiscent of slavery. But the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said before the G-8 Summit that biofuels have "enormous potential to generate jobs and income" and that "they offer a real option for sustainable development."2 Behind the "politically correct" jargon lurks a reality poised to destroy the Amazon, a reality that destroys millions of young bodies and promises lucrative business to investors. The very name biofuels seems to be destined to foment the confusion. João Pedro Stédile, head of the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement (MST), points out that the defenders of ethanol "use the prefix bio to make it seem like it's a good thing," and that because of this its opponents prefer to call it like it is and use the term "agrofuels" because the term refers to agriculturally produced energy.3 Backtracking Four Centuries According to the ex-governor of São Paulo state, Claudio Lembo, agrofuels will spread monoculture farming across the whole country. Although he is a conservative politician and member of the Liberal Front Party (now the Democratic Party), he thinks that Brazil "backtracked 500 years to the same place" as it was as a Portuguese colony. In his opinion, agricultural land will be lost when used for sugarcane and the history of those four centuries will be repeated, when "thousands were expelled from their communities by the leviathan of monoculture, which creates concentrated wealth."4 Looking closer at the cane cutters' working conditions, a terrifying world appears—a world that should give people who are enthused by the idea of substituting fossil fuels with agrofuels something to think about. According to various reports, around a million people work in the industry, of which 500,000 are in the agricultural sector. Close to 80% of cane harvesting is manual. The workers only get paid if they reach the output set by the bosses, which in the Ribeirao Preto region is some 12 tons a day, double the 1980 target. If they don't reach it, they aren't paid at all.5 To reach this output target they must work some 10 or 12 hours a day, but sometimes 14, many of these under the burning sun. Many parents bring their small children to help them reach the production goal. Although the numbers of working children have declined, in 1993 one in every four cane cutters in the state of Pernambuco was between seven and 17 years old, and many did not receive any salary. In the last two harvests, 14 people died as a result of excess work. The cutters are recruited in other regions and have to live in the same hacienda, in mattress-less cabins, with neither water nor a kitchen; they have to cook in tins over little bonfires and buy their groceries in the same hacienda at prices exceeding market values. The cane is cut after being burned, which facilitates harvesting but gravely endangers the environment and produces serious respiratory complaints. In the Piracicaba municipality, in São Paulo, hospitalizations of children with respiratory problems increase 21% during periods of cane burning. For every 10 tons, the cutter must make 72,000 machete blows and flex their legs 36,000 times. They lose around 10 liters of water per day and walk 10 km a day while they complete their job. The monthly salary ranges from US$150-200 a month. According to the sociologist Francisco de Oliveira, the cutters' average lifespan is less than that of colonial slaves.6 The minister of Work, Carlos Lupi, admitted before the International Labor Conference in Geneva that part of the production of cane in Brazil is done with degrading work in awful conditions: "They work without protection and even lose fingers."7 Maria Aparecida de Moraes Silva, who has studied the work on sugarcane plantations for 30 years now, affirms that 45% of the cutters come from the Northeast. The migrants are preferred by employers because while far from their families they tolerate the abuses unquestioningly, and after the seven-month-long harvest they return to their villages, making it difficult for them to organize unions.8 They Call This Progress Little by little harvesting machines are being introduced that do the work of a hundred people. As a result, the plantation owners have raised the cutters' productivity targets. They order them to cut the cane closer to the ground, as the machines do. The result is that they now choose younger and younger workers who receive one dollar per ton. The economic journal Jornal do Valor explains how people fall into servitude: "There is a manpower middleman who covers the poorer states, especially in the North and the Northeast. He chooses the youngest ones. When they get on the bus to go to the city where they are contracted, the cutters get in to their first debt, for the transportation. The middleman earns 60 reales (US$30) for every worker that he takes. It is not unusual for him also to be responsible for the sale of the first goods that the workers need. He becomes the 'owner' of this manpower through the accumulation of debt."9 The expansion of cane cultivation destroys the social fabric. In the region of the small city of Delta, in Minas Gerais state, 300,000 hectares have been planted in the last four years. The city has 5,000 inhabitants that swell to 10,000 during the harvest. According to a report by the newspaper Correio Braziliense the small city has begun to register homicide rates that were unimaginable before the multiplication of the cane farms. Many female children and young people are kidnapped to boost prostitution in the region, where 20,000 cutters arrive a year. The cutters overflow at the edges of small cities where alcoholism and the consumption of crack proliferate. The expansion and modernization of the cane industry inundates towns and municipalities. José Eustaquio da Silva, mayor of Delta, has recognized that "the municipality is close to collapse. The health facilities, hospitals, and schools are packed, and the worst thing is that along with the workers come all sorts of people and bandits." In Delta there isn't a single hotel but there are 27 brothels. Journalists have discovered that various public figures of the county are involved in the trafficking of minors and in cases of pedophilia with the children of cane-cutters. The middlemen (who are nicknamed "gatos" or cats) carry arms and impose their rules. Stédile always uses the same example to illustrate the social problems generated by mono-crop farming. "The municipality of Ribeirao Preto in the center of São Paulo is considered the 'Brazilian California' due to its high level of technological development in the cane industry. Thirty years ago, this city produced all its food, had a peasantry in the interior and, in fact, it was a rich region with equitable income distribution. Now it is an immense sugar plantation, with some 30 sugar mills controlling all the land. In the city, 100,000 people live in slums (out of the 540,000 inhabitants of the municipality). The prison population is at 3,813 people—counting only the adults—while the population living from and working in agriculture is just 2,412 people, including the children. This is the cane monoculture model of society. There are more people in jail than there are dedicated to agriculture!"10 In the 2007 sugar harvest another technological "advance" will come about: for the first time, genetically modified cane will be harvested. It is lighter and holds less water, meaning it will bring large profits to the investors. But the workers will have to cut three times as much to reach 10 tons. In this region, the owners lay off a large number of workers at frequent intervals, in order to keep the best. These are the so-called "productivity champions" who can cut up to 20 tons a day, with a monthly average of 12 to 17 tons a day.11 With the workers suffering from seizures, cramps, spinal pain, and tendonitis on top of frequent cuts, the owners found a "technical solution." The sugar mills distribute a free electrolyte and vitamin supplement, intended for athletes or workers with intense physical activity. At many mills the cutters drink this product before starting work. "Physical pain disappears, the cramps die down, and productivity increases," says Pereira Novaes. The problem is that they need to increase the dose every month. "With supplements and medicines you can keep up the high productivity demanded by the cane. The strongest survive, like in a process of 'natural selection.' But the question is: how and for how long do they survive? Solutions and medicines can be seen as an expression of the paradox of a certain type of modernization and expansion of cane cultivation; it consumes the labor force that makes it flourish," insists Pereira Novaes. There are no official figures but it is certain that there are many young workers who retire due to disability, and dozens of deaths due to exhaustion in the "Brazilian California." The Big Winners In Brazil, cane production began in 1550, but has expanded greatly since 1970, fueled by the rise in oil prices. The forest of the Atlantic coast was halved, the area most affected by this expansion, but now the cane fields advance toward the center and West, where it is predicted that the rich ecosystem of the Cerrados will disappear by 2030 at the hands of monoculture. In the next seven years Brazil will double its production of ethanol and may produce almost 50% more sugar cane, which means building another 100 mills by 2010. It doesn't stop there. The Brazilian National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) aims for Brazil to control 50% of the global ethanol market. This implies increasing the current 17 billion to 110 billion liters a year, for which it will be necessary to plant some 80 million hectares. That is, destroy the Amazon. The government has adopted this sector as its principal development strategy. BNDES, which has more resources than any other regional bank including the Inter-American Development Bank, estimates that it will invest six billion dollars in sugar mills and cane plantations. But Brazil wants to expand agrofuels across the whole region. The immediate plans consist of taking production to countries in Central America and the Caribbean that already signed free trade agreements with the United States (such as CAFTA), to avoid Washington's import tariffs. "The objective is to export the nearly completed product to those countries," says the magazine Peripecias, "finish the process in those nations, and from there enter the U.S. market." The Brazilian bank finances the investments in those countries, but is also negotiating a share of up to 30% of stocks in the Central American projects. In Stédile's opinion, three big sectors come together in the ethanol project: "The oil companies (who want to reduce dependence on oil), the agro-businesses (like Bunge, Cargill, and Monsanto) who want to keep their monopoly in the global agricultural products markets," and now the transnational capital that makes "an alliance with the proprietors of land in the South, and especially in Brazil, to use large areas of land for the production of agrofuels."12 The future is not encouraging. Instead of pressure to modify the patterns of consumption and the energy matrix especially in transportation, the big investors like George Soros and corporations like Cargill are positioning themselves in the Brazilian production of ethanol to increase their profits. Neither global warming nor the cane cutters' working conditions cross their minds. End Notes 1. Testimonies collected by the Comisión Pastoral da Terra and reproduced by Núcleo Amigos da Terra Brasil, p. 15. 2. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, ob. cit. 3. Carlos Vicente, ob. cit. 4. Estado de São Paulo, 13 March 2007, on www.estadao.com.br. 5. All figures from a study by Núcleo de Amigos da Terra Brasil. 6. Francisco de Oliveira, in Folha de São Paulo, 27 May 2007. 7. O Estado de São Paulo, 11 June 2007. 8. Maria Aparecida de Moraes Silva, interview in Instituto Humanitas Unisinos magazine on www.unisinos.br. 9. Jornal do Valor, Sao Paulo, 17 May 2007. 10. Carlos Vicente, ob. cit. 11. José Roberto Pereira Novaes, ob. cit 12. Carlos Vicente, ob. cit. Raúl Zibechi is a member of the editorial board of Montevideo's weekly Brecha, teacher and researcher on social movements in Latin America's Multiversidad Franciscana, and adviser to various social movements. He is a monthly contributor to the Americas Program (www.americaspolicy.org). Translated by Nalina Eggert and Sonja Wolf.

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