No Agenda Episode 604 - "Dead Jellyfish"
by Adam Curry
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- Executive Producers: Brian House Sir Baz Von Bateau, Todd Brink
- Associate Executive Producers: Edgar Rothermich, Sir Mac Tank, Dame Sam Menner
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- Knighthoods: Sloan Kelly -> Sir Sloan of the Falls, Brian House -> Sir Baz Von Bateau
- Titles: Dame Joan d'Audiffret -> Baroness
- New: Directory Archive of Shownotes (includes all audio and video assets used) nashownotes.com
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- TODAY
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- Presidential Proclamation -- Cesar Chavez Day, 2014
- Office of the Press Secretary
- BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- On Cesar Chavez Day, we celebrate one of America's greatest champions for social justice. Raised into the life of a migrant farm worker, he toiled alongside men, women, and children who performed daily, backbreaking labor for meager pay and in deplorable conditions. They were exposed to dangerous pesticides and denied the most basic protections, including minimum wages, health care, and access to drinking water. Cesar Chavez devoted his life to correcting these injustices, to reminding us that every job has dignity, every life has value, and everyone -- no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from -- should have the chance to get ahead.
- After returning from naval service during World War II, Cesar Chavez fought for freedom in American agricultural fields. Alongside Dolores Huerta, he founded the United Farm Workers, and through decades of tireless organizing, even in the face of intractable opposition, he grew a movement to advance "La Causa" across the country. In 1966, he led a march that began in Delano, California, with a handful of activists and ended in Sacramento with a crowd 10,000 strong. A grape boycott eventually drew 17 million supporters nationwide, forcing growers to accept some of the first farm worker contracts in history. A generation of organizers rose to carry that legacy forward.
- The values Cesar Chavez lived by guide us still. As we push to fix a broken immigration system, protect the right to unionize, advance social justice for young men of color, and build ladders of opportunity for every American to climb, we recall his resilience through setbacks, his refusal to scale back his dreams. When we organize against income inequality and fight to raise the minimum wage -- because no one who works full time should have to live in poverty -- we draw strength from his vision and example.
- Throughout his lifelong struggle, Cesar Chavez never forgot who he was fighting for. "What [the growers] don't know," he said, "is that it's not bananas or grapes or lettuce. It's people." Today, let us honor Cesar Chavez and those who marched with him by meeting our obligations to one another. I encourage Americans to make this a national day of service and education by speaking out, organizing, and participating in service projects to improve lives in their communities. Let us remember that when we lift each other up, when we speak with one voice, we have the power to build a better world.
- NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2014, as Cesar Chavez Day. I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate service, community, and education programs to honor Cesar Chavez's enduring legacy.
- IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.
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- Ukraine / F-Russia
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- France offers 4 fighter jets to Poland, Baltics to boost NATO patrols - Economic Times
- AFPMar 21, 2014, 05.35PM IST
- (France will offer to send'...)
- TALLINN: France will offer to send four fighter jets to the Baltic states and Poland to boost NATO air patrols over the region, a source close to the French defence minister said Friday.
- Besides the Rafale and Mirage 2000 aircraft, Paris will also offer to ensure "AWACS patrols from France around twice a week" if asked by NATO, the source said during the minister's visit to the Estonian capital Tallinn amid the Ukraine turmoil.
- The AWACS aircraft - Airborne Warning and Control System, are among the most sophisticated planes in the NATO armoury, capable of monitoring huge swathes of airspace. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will also visit Estonia's fellow Baltic state Lithuania and neighbouring Poland on Friday.
- The visit is a bid to reassure "Balts and Poles, Russia's neighbours, given the Ukraine crisis," the source said, adding that the NATO military alliance has assured patrols over the Baltics since 2004. The United States is responsible for the patrols until May. Given the situation in Ukraine, it sent additional F-15 fighter jets to the region earlier this month, bringing their total to 10 aircraft.
- Poland will then take over the patrols from the US. The ministry source said France will offer the fighter jets, along with the AWACS early warning aircraft, if NATO and Poland deem them necessary. NATO has already deployed AWACS reconnaissance aircraft to overfly Poland and Romania as part of its efforts to monitor the Ukraine crisis.
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- More U.S. jets on NATO patrol in Baltics amid Ukraine crisis: source | Reuters
- By Phil Stewart and David Alexander
- WASHINGTONWed Mar 5, 2014 4:37pm EST
- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon will more than double the number of U.S. fighter jets on a NATO air patrol mission in the Baltics and do more training with Poland's air force as it strives to reassure allies alarmed by the crisis in Ukraine, officials said on Wednesday.
- General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate hearing that he had directed the U.S. military's European Command to "consult and plan within the construct of the North Atlantic Council" while stressing the intent was to help stabilize the situation in Ukraine.
- "Obviously we want to provide NATO's leaders with options that stabilize and not escalate tensions in the Ukraine," Dempsey said.
- The United States has shown no interest in pursuing military options in the dispute with Russia over the Crimea, but it has taken other actions, such as cutting off military exchanges with Russia on Monday.
- Dempsey said he spoke with his Russian counterpart on Wednesday and urged restraint in the days ahead "in order to preserve room for a diplomatic solution."
- Russia and the West are locked in their most serious confrontation since the end of the Cold War.
- Centered on influence in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic with historic ties to Moscow, the crisis has worsened daily since President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted on February 22 amid protests over his decision to quash a trade deal with the European Union.
- A strategic link between East and West, Ukraine is also a major commodities exporter.
- Ukraine has said that Crimea is now occupied by Russia, which has a base there for its Black Sea fleet.
- After Yanukovich's ouster, Russia effectively occupied Ukraine's Crimea region. This has raised international tensions and fears of war and a punishing decline on Monday in Russia's ruble and stock market.
- Moscow has asserted that troops that have seized control of the Black Sea peninsula are not under its command but are militia. These assertions have been ridiculed by the West.
- "My military judgment is these are soldiers who have been taken out of their traditional uniforms, re-purposed for placement in the Crimea as a militia force," Dempsey said, adding that although he did not have evidence at this time he believed such evidence would likely become available.
- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the United States would step up its participation in NATO's 10-year-old air policing missions over the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The duties rotate among NATO members.
- The United States took over air policing duties from Belgium in January, providing four F-15 aircraft through May. The jets are on call to respond to any violations of Baltic airspace.
- One U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Pentagon would send six additional F-15 jets and one KC-135 refueling aircraft this week to augment the mission.
- A second U.S. defense official said there were about 10 U.S. Air Force personnel in Poland to support rotations of U.S. aircraft, including F-16 fighter jets, for training.
- Hagel said the United States would boost training with Poland's air force.
- "Across the administration, our efforts ... (are) focused on de-escalating crisis, supporting the new Ukrainian government with economic assistance and reaffirming our commitments to allies in Central and Eastern Europe," Hagel said.
- It was unclear how the United States would increase training but one option would be to do more of it or to open training to regional allies, both U.S. defense officials said.
- (Reporting by Phil Stewart and David Alexander; Editing by Andrew Hay, Toni Reinhold)
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- BBC News - Ukraine crisis: RAF jet to monitor Ukraine border
- 11 March 2014Last updated at 00:57 ET An RAF reconnaissance aircraft will be sent to monitor the crisis in Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence has said.
- A UK E-3D Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (Awacs) jet will fly from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.
- The aircraft would carry out its mission while staying within Polish and Romanian airspace, the MoD said.
- Meanwhile, officials from several countries are due in London to discuss sanctions against Russian officials over its incursion into Ukraine.
- David Cameron has said targeted sanctions could be introduced "within days" after Russian troops were deployed into the region of Crimea, in the south-east of the country.
- Pro-Russian troops are still blockading Ukrainian troops across the autonomous region ahead of a secession referendum there on Sunday.
- 'Alliance territory'Continue reading the main story Airborne warning and control systems, or Awacs, Based on Boeing 707/320B airliner Contains a radar system that can detect, identify and track enemy aircraft, and direct fighters to meet them, from the ground up into the stratosphere Flight crew of four plus mission crew of 13-19 In use by the US, UK, France and a joint-Nato force Reconnaissance planes will fly over Poland and Romania to monitor neighbouring Ukraine - not crossing into either Ukrainian or Russian airspace, said Nato.
- Nato gave the go-ahead for the flights, which it said would "enhance the alliance's situational awareness", on Monday.
- "All Awacs reconnaissance flights will take place solely over alliance territory," the official said.
- An MoD spokeswoman said a single RAF plane and pilot would be involved in the mission.
- "The North Atlantic Council on Monday decided to employ Awacs reconnaissance flights over Poland and Romania, as part of the Alliance's efforts to monitor the crisis in Ukraine," she said.
- "We have said that the UK will meet all our commitments under the next level of Nato crisis response measures.
- "As the UK E-3D Awacs is part of the Nato Awacs force, then it is only right that the UK undertakes its share of this mission."
- 'At risk'The US, Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Japan, Turkey and Canada are all expected to attend the talks in London later.
- They will discuss measures including travel bans and asset freezes against 18 people linked to Vladimir Putin's government.
- David Cameron has said Britain's own security and prosperity would be at risk if countries were able to flout international rules without facing consequences.
- But he has said Russia still has an opportunity to resolve the situation diplomatically.
- Moscow has officially denied that its troops are taking part in the blockades in Crimea but the government in Kiev - as well as the US and EU - accuse Russia of invading Ukraine, in violation of international law.
- Unrest in Ukraine erupted in November after former President Viktor Yanukovych's last-minute rejection of a landmark EU deal in favour of a bailout from Russia.
- Mr Yanukovych was ousted last month, and a new government has been voted in by the Ukrainian parliament which Russia says was a "coup".
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- Britain seeks to make up lost ground with US over Ukraine
- By Julie Hyland28 March 2014Lord Dannatt, the former chief of the UK's general staff between 2006 and 2008, has called for an increase in the number of Britain's Armed Forces. The retired Army officer, writing in the DailyTelegraph, said the change was necessary in response to events in Ukraine.
- A 2010 review of military forces undertaken by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition had taken place in the ''midst of an economic crisis'', he wrote, so as to ''prioritise equipment over manpower.'' Nonetheless, doubts remained as to ''whether a regular Army of just 82,000 is sufficient for our needs'...''
- ''[S]trategic shocks happen,'' he continued, citing Ukraine and what he described as the ''Russian takeover of Crimea.'' Faced with a ''resurgent Russia, this is a poor moment for the US-led West to be weak in resolve and muscle.''
- Dannatt's article turns reality on its head. It was the US and the European Union that orchestrated the putsch in Kiev, installing a gang of fascists and oligarchs as part of their encirclement of Russia.
- This was spelled out by President Barack Obama on his tour of Europe Tuesday, when he set out what his foreign policy adviser described as a ''strategic pivot'' towards confrontation with Russia. At the centre of this is an aggressive policy of expansion on the part of NATO.
- This strategy was underscored by Dannatt's comments, particularly his suggestion that Britain should maintain an additional brigade of 3,000 troops in Germany.
- It is not clear whether Dannatt has asked Germany's opinion on such a scenario. British troops have been stationed in Germany since the end of the Second World War as an integral part of the Cold War buildup against Moscow. Numbers have been steadily reduced since German reunification and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and were due to be withdrawn completely by 2019.
- Dannatt was proposing a reversal in this policy, as part of a new military buildup against Moscow. And while Prime Minister David Cameron said such a move was ''unnecessary'', he made clear that Britain intends to play a lead role in bolstering NATO's provocative moves against Russia, centering on the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
- Europe Minister David Lidington was touring Latvia and Lithuania earlier this week, as part of what Cameron described as the UK's ''very clear message to our NATO partners and allies that we believe in NATO and we believe in their security.''
- The Guardian described his comment as a reaffirmation of the ''collective defence'' principle of NATO, under Article 5 of which, ''all NATO members agree that an armed attack against one member is an attack against all.''
- Given that Russia has made no moves whatsoever against the Baltic states, the actions of Britain and other Western powers are a clear provocation.
- NATO currently patrols the air space of the Baltic states from the Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania. The US took charge of the air policing operation at the start of this year, running four F-15C Eagles. These are to be joined by six F-15s from RAF Lakenheath, England along with a Typhoon Eurofighter combat aircraft.
- Earlier this month the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia signed a military pact creating a unified combat unit, called the Visegrad 4, which will operate under the auspices of NATO and EU. The US had sent 12 warplanes and 300 personnel to Poland following the Crimea referendum on joining Russia. Last week, NATO announced E-3 AWACs surveillance aircraft would begin patrolling Poland and Romania from bases in England and Germany.
- The UK has confirmed that an undisclosed number of British forces are to join the Rapid Trident 2014 exercise in Lviv, Ukraine near the Polish border in July. The exercise, planned for some time, consists of 1,300 mainly US troops, along with units from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, Germany, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
- The UK's aggressive military response contrasts with its seemingly more cautious, although supportive, response to the Western-orchestrated coup. So much so that many commentators complained that London had been sidelined, with events and responses largely coordinated between Washington, Berlin, Paris and Warsaw.
- More damaging still was the leaking of a secret prime ministerial briefing document, stating that the ''UK should not support, for now, trade sanctions . . . or close London's financial centre to Russians.''
- Coming at the time when Washington was pressing the EU for harsher sanctions against Moscow, the briefing highlighted the degree to which Britain's ruling elite appeared hugely reliant on Russian oligarchs who have crowded into the capital.
- London is home, for example, to Alisher Usmanov, Russia's richest man, worth an estimated $18.6 billion, and Mikhail Fridman, Russia's second-richest worth $17.6 billion. In addition, 113 Russian companies are now quoted on the London Stock Exchange.
- Not all the oligarchs are sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and British support for some, like Boris Berezovsky, had upset relations between Moscow and London. So too had the 2006 assassination of former Russian security agent, Aleksandr Litvinenko, in London with polonium. When the UK moved to charge another former agent, Andrei Lugovoi, who had dined with Litvinenko before he was taken ill, Russia refused extradition, sparking a diplomatic row.
- One result was that British capital lost out in the Russian market in comparison with its German and French competitors. The UK has just 600 companies doing business in Russia, compared to more than 7,000 German. France has concluded major arms deals.
- Cameron had worked to rebuild relations. Following talks with Putin in 2012, it was agreed to launch ''strategic dialogue'' between British and Russian foreign and defence ministries. The two countries embarked on a series of deals, including on military cooperation. Britain's Military of Defence confirmed to the Telegraph in January, ''Work is ongoing on a Military Technical Cooperation Agreement (MTCA) between the UK Ministry of Defence and Russian Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation, which will provide a framework for Russian and UK defense companies to cooperate at an unclassified level.''
- It was due to be signed in the spring.
- At the same time, the government backed off on any further action over the Litvinenko killing, refusing a coroner's ruling that a public inquiry should be held.
- The disclosure that London was dragging its feet over Washington's intended economic sanctions was gravely damaging. Writing in the New York Times, Ben Judah complained that England's ''old imperial elite has become crude and mercenary.''
- ''Any moralizing remnant of the British Empire is gone'', he wrote; ''it has turned back to the pirate England of Sir Walter Raleigh.''
- Accusing Britain of damaging Washington's intended united front over sanctions, he railed, ''It boils down to this: Britain is ready to betray the United States to protect the City of London's hold on dirty Russian money. And forget about Ukraine.''
- Judah's complaints were echoed by the British media and sections of the ruling elite, alarmed at any further diminution of the supposed ''special relationship'' between the two countries'--especially in the wake of last August's parliamentary vote against joining a war against Syria.
- Writing in the Independent, Steve Richards complained that while President Barack Obama was posing with Francoise Hollande at the White House, and Germany's Angela Merkel was making all the EU's running on Ukraine, Britain no longer ''has a foreign policy.''
- Cameron has very quickly reverted to type. Having apparently been reassured that financial sanctions will not damage the City of London, he is echoing Washington's demands for greater European trade and military sanctions against Russia'--measures that will, however, impact on Berlin and Paris.
- Former defence minister Gerald Howarth has boasted, ''Only 1.6 percent of our exports go to Russia, and only 1.7 percent of our imports come from Russia, and we are dependent on Russian energy for only 1 percent of our natural gas requirement,'' while senior Tory right-winger Charles Walker asserted, ''Russia is not the power that it once was. It is riddled with corruption, and with a population of only 143 million, it has a failing demographic.''
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- Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
- Video March 28U.S. actress Angelina Jolie addresses a conference in Sarajevo against wartime sexual violence, protesters in Moscow demand the resignation of a university rector, and a tree-planting initiative gets underway in Iraq, plus stories from Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Belarus, and Georgia.
- Video March 27Afghan President Hamid Karzai hosts the international Norouz festival, Pakistani paramedics demand a pay rise, and an exhibition titled "Ten Centuries of Art in Belarus" opens in Minsk, plus stories from Russia and Belarus.
- Video March 26Crimean retirees queue up for pensions, traders in Pakistan strike against extortion, and a commemoration in Serbia for Albanian victims of the war in Kosovo, plus stories from Afghanistan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Iraq, and Tajikistan.
- Video March 25Tight security in Kabul following a suicide attack, Kyrgyz women's rights activists march for peace, and a protest in Pakistan against the abduction of civilians, plus stories from Russia, Armenia, and Georgia.
- Video March 24Fighting continues in Iraq's Anbar Province, an alleged mafia boss goes on trial in Serbia, and health workers get heavy security in Pakistan during an antipolio campaign, plus stories from Georgia, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan.
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- FLARING BAN-URKAINE GAS PLAN-UPDATE 5-Obama considers new climate regulations for oil, gas sector | Reuters
- Sat Mar 29, 2014 1:00am IST
- (Adds comment from Environmental Defense Fund, Clean Air Task Force, paragraphs 17, 19-20)
- By Roberta Rampton and Timothy Gardner
- WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - The White House said on Friday it will take a hard look at whether new regulations are needed to cut emissions of methane from the oil and gas industry, part of President Barack Obama's plan to address climate change.
- The suggestion drew a sharp rebuke from the main oil and gas lobby group. The American Petroleum Institute said its members were already taking steps that will cut emissions and expressed concern that more regulations could put a damper on natural gas drilling by raising costs.
- But environmental groups said regulations are needed to make sure all players take action to reduce methane emissions. The greenhouse gas is 84 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the first 20 years after being released, afccording to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
- The White House said regulators will propose new rules later this year to reduce venting and flaring from oil and gas wells on public lands, one way to begin cutting emissions of methane.
- However, most oil and gas production takes place on privately owned land. So the Environmental Protection Agency is going to study this year whether additional, broader regulations are needed for methane emissions under the Clean Air Act, said Dan Utech, Obama's top energy and climate aide.
- If the agency deems more regulations are needed, they will be completed before Obama leaves the White House at the end of 2016, Utech said.
- Obama has said he wants to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2020.
- "This methane strategy is one component, one set of actions the administration is going to take to get there," Utech told reporters on a conference call.
- Methane is the main component of natural gas. It is also released by dairy farms, landfills and coal mines.
- The EPA will propose additional regulations for methane produced by new landfills in coming months, and will consider updating rules for existing landfills, the White House said.
- Next month, regulators will gather comment on developing a program to curb methane emissions from coal mines on land leased from the federal government.
- The government will also work with the dairy industry on voluntary measures to cut emissions from their barns, the White House said.
- But the biggest part of its strategy looks at how to stop leaks of methane from natural gas wells and pipelines, which the White House said was responsible for 28 percent of U.S. methane emissions in 2012.
- Recent studies have found that U.S. methane emissions have been higher than estimated by the EPA. A study led by Stanford University last month said emissions of the gas from the U.S. natural gas supply chain were nearly two times higher than current estimates.
- The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an advocacy group, said the administration could look to Colorado's tough new rules to limit air pollution from oil and gas drilling as a model.
- The rules, approved in February, emerged from a deal struck between the EDF and energy producers Anadarko Petroleum, Noble Energy, and Encana Corp.
- "We know from the information that's out there that what the EPA will find is there are abundant opportunities to deal with this problem right now with technologies that are at hand and inexpensive to implement for the oil and gas industry," said Jeremy Symons, the EDF's senior director for climate policy, on a conference call with reporters.
- The EPA in coming months will issue a series of "white papers" to look at the technology and evaluate its options, determining later this year whether regulations are needed.
- The Clean Air Task Force, a health and environmental group, said it was cautiously optimistic more regulations were in store.
- "We applaud this strategy as a good first step by the administration, but it doesn't commit them to reaching the end of that road," said Conrad Schneider, advocacy director for the group.
- The American Petroleum Institute said it expects the EPA will find that additional regulations are not required.
- By January 2015, natural gas wells will be required by existing EPA regulations to use technology to reduce air pollution, including methane emissions, Howard Feldman, the lobby group's director of regulatory and scientific affairs, said in a telephone interview.
- As the United States enjoys a boom in natural gas production many power plants have switched to the fuel, which releases half as much carbon dioxide as coal when burned.
- "Somewhere that's gotten lost," Feldman said. (Additional reporting by Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by Ros Krasny, Meredith Mazzilli and Jonathan Oatis)
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- German magazine Die Zeit calls for reintroduction of compulsory military service
- By Christoph Dreier29 March 2014A day after US President Barack Obama intensified NATO's confrontation with Russia in Brussels, Germany's second largest weekly newspaper, Die Zeit, has come out in favour of the reintroduction of compulsory military service.
- In Thursday's edition, editor Peter Dausend questioned the direction of the reform of the armed forces, which aims to transform Germany's army from a territorial and defensive force in to an interventionist force with modern weaponry capable of acting globally. Since the mid-1980s, the number of troops has been reduced from almost half a million to the current number of 175,000. Three years ago, compulsory military service was scrapped.
- For Dausend, the reform represents ''security policy in a parallel universe,'' because the current conflict with Russia raises the question of national and collective defence once again. The need to defend NATO had ''become a lot more likely with Russia's intervention in Crimea.''
- ''Today, NATO does not end at the wall and death strips of a divided Germany, as in the Cold War, but rather on the border between the Baltic states and Russia,'' according to Dausend. In the case of a military confrontation with Russia, ''the German army,'' he continued, was ''hardly in a position to defend effectively.''
- Dausend based himself on the former general inspector of the German army and current security consultant for the German government, Harald Kujat. In response to the Crimea crisis, he has called upon the German government to undertake a ''fundamental re-evaluation'' of its position on security policy. ''In my opinion, this means that territorial defence as the defence of our allies should be at the heart of our considerations,'' Dausend cited Kujat.
- Kujat added on Zeit Online, ''The career of a soldier will either become much more attractive, such as with a noticeable increase in pay, or compulsory military service is reintroduced.'' The latter option was more likely.
- Kujat also called for a massive rearming of the German army. In the event of a Russian attack on the Baltic States, ''there are not enough planes to transport heavy equipment into the crisis region,'' Die Zeit cited him saying. The German army had ''too few fighter planes, too few helicopters, not enough heavy weaponry and above all too few soldiers.''
- Former NATO General Egon Ramms declared in the Bild newspaper, ''We need compulsory military service. Germany cannot achieve territorial defence in an alliance system without it. Certainly not on the basis of volunteers. But we also require the necessary arms for such a case. With the materials that we currently have, it cannot be done.''
- The demands from Dausend, Kujat and Ramms express the new orientation of German foreign policy. At the beginning of February, Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union), President Joachim Gauck and foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party) declared at the Munich Security Conference that the era of German military restraint was over. Germany was ''too big and too important'' to continue to limit itself to ''commenting on global politics from the sidelines.''
- The action in Ukraine and the confrontation with Russia are viewed as test cases for the German government's preparedness to pursue this aggressive foreign policy course.
- Last Saturday, defence minister Von der Leyen told Der Spiegel, ''It is now important for the alliance partners on the external borders that NATO shows its presence.'' The next day, she added on public broadcaster ARD that it had to be made clear to Russia that ''NATO doesn't just exist on paper.''
- Other European countries are also rearming. On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that he would increase the defence budget further and expand military cooperation with the United States. A total of '¬30 billion has already been set aside in the budget to modernise the Polish military over the next ten years.
- The reintroduction of compulsory military service would have dire consequences for young people born in the 1990s and afterwards. Like their great-grandfathers in 1914 or their grandfathers in 1939, they would again be available as cannon fodder for German imperialism.
- In the 19th century, Prussia was the only European country that maintained compulsory military service after the Napoleonic wars. In the wars to put down the democratic revolution of 1848, against Austria, Denmark and France, and in the First World War, millions of young men fell as victims.
- The Versailles Treaty abolished military service, and it was only reintroduced by Hitler in March 1935. The Reichswehr was renamed Wehrmacht and military service was extended from one to two years in August 1936. Between 1939 and 1945, millions more died on the battlefields of Europe and North Africa.
- When the new German army was founded in 1955 and military service reintroduced in 1956, there were mass protests, but it was finally in 1999 that German soldiers conducted their first full military operation abroad'--sent to fight by a Social Democrat-Green Party coalition as part of NATO's war against Yugoslavia.
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- Ukraine conflict exacerbates tensions in the Caucasus
- By Clara Weiss29 March 2014The Ukraine conflict is exacerbating the already tense situation in the Caucasus. Following the US and European Union-backed coup in Kiev, moves are now underway to speed up the inclusion of Georgia and Moldova into the EU and NATO, and strengthen ties with Azerbaijan. Both Georgia and Azerbaijan have lined up behind the imperialist powers and the right-wing government in Kiev in their campaign against Russia.
- The Caucasus has been a renewed focal point of imperialist interests since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent independence of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. The region provides access to the Caspian Basin'--one of the largest energy reserves in the world'--and serves as a bridge between Europe and Central Asia.
- Following the US-funded ''Rose Revolution'' in 2003, Georgia has emerged as the main partner of the US and the EU in the Caucasus. In 2008, Georgia conducted a war against Russia in an abortive bid to regain control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The two regions remain under Russian control and tensions between Russia and Georgia have intensified enormously.
- At the end of February, Georgian President Irakli Garibashvili met with US President Barack Obama in Washington and urged the United States to accelerate the integration of the post-Soviet states into NATO and the EU. In particular, he called for NATO to accept Georgia earlier than previously planned. Garibashvili described the independence referendum in the Crimea as ''illegal''.
- NATO had originally promised Georgia membership in 2008, but allowed the date to pass after its confrontation with Russia. The admission of Georgia into NATO would be an open provocation and threat of war against Russia.
- Both Georgia and Moldova, which also has territorial disputes with Russia due to the secession of Transnistria, are also on the verge of concluding an Association Agreement with the European Union. Its signing has been brought forward for a second time, and will now take place in June.
- Western propaganda frequently claims that after Crimea, Georgia could be Russia's ''next target''. In fact, there is a real risk that Georgia could provoke a war with Russia as it did in 2008. With its open support for the coup in Kiev, the Georgian government has left no doubt as to its willingness to once again provide a casus belli.
- After Georgia, Azerbaijan is the second most important US ally in the Caucasus'--not only against Russia but also against Iran. The Azerbaijani media is openly discussing direct military confrontation between the imperialist powers and Russia and a possible territorial breakup of Russia. The right-wing opposition Musavat party, which is pushing for an even stronger orientation to the West, vigorously supported the Kiev protests.
- Following weeks of silence, the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev addressed the crisis in Ukraine for the first time on 20 March, a few days after Russia's annexation of Crimea. Without naming Russia, he declared that the ''territorial integrity of a country'' could not be ''changed without its consent,'' thereby echoing the political line of Washington and Brussels.
- The Internet newspaper Eurasianet quoted a senior Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry official, who stated that Baku could break all relations with Crimea: ''There is still no decision made, but I expect it'', he said.
- In the war between Georgia and Russia in the summer of 2008, Baku refrained from taking sides. The integration of Azerbaijan into the preparations for war against Iran, however, has served to intensify tensions with Moscow in recent years. At the end of December 2012 the government in Baku forced Russia to abandon its radar station in Azerbaijan by demonstratively increasing the rent from 7 to 300 million dollars per year. The station was originally planned as the starting point for a joint missile defense project between Russia and Azerbaijan.
- Azerbaijan is becoming increasingly important to the strategy of US imperialism following the war preparations against Iran and attempts to re-route energy supplies from the post-Soviet region to Europe, bypassing Russia. On 18 March the American ambassador in Baku, Richard Morningstar, stated that the crisis in Ukraine made relations between Azerbaijan and the US and the EU even more important.
- George Friedman of the Stratfor Information Service, which has close links to US intelligence agencies, proposes forming an alliance of states, stretching from Estonia across Poland and Romania to Azerbaijan in order to ''to engage and confront Russia'' These states should build up their armed forces in a massive fashion and receive US military training, Friedman states.
- ''A failure to engage at this point would cause the countries around Russia's periphery, from Estonia to Azerbaijan, to conclude that with the United States withdrawn and Europe fragmented, they must reach an accommodation with Russia'' Friedman writes. ''This will expand Russian power and open the door to Russian influence spreading on the European Peninsula itself. The United States has fought three wars (World War I, World War II and the Cold War) to prevent hegemonic domination of the region. Failure to engage would be a reversal of a century-old strategy.''
- In a document from December 2013, ''Azerbaijan's security and U.S. interests: time for a reassessment'', Stephen Blank, who works for the United States Army War College, and various Washington think tanks, stresses that Azerbaijan is a key country in the region.
- He quoted former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who wrote in the 1990s: ''Azerbaijan can be described as the vitally important ''cork'' controlling access to the 'bottle' that contains the riches of the Caspian Sea basin and Central Asia. An independent, Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan, with pipelines running from it to the ethnically related and politically supportive Turkey, would prevent Russia from exercising a monopoly on access to the region and would thus also deprive Russia of decisive political leverage over the policies of the new Central Asian states.''
- Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey form an important corridor for the transportation of oil and gas from the Caspian region to the West, bypassing Russia. A number of pipelines are already up and running. The Trans-Anatolian pipeline (TANAP) is due to be completed in 2018 and is expected to deliver up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field in the Balkans.
- TANAP could also supply Ukraine, which struck a deal with Baku in November 2013 to form a joint consortium for the construction of the pipeline. Ukraine is heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies and has tried for years to lessen its dependency by promoting shale gas, liquefied natural gas imports and finding other energy suppliers.
- Since the beginning of the TANAP project Azerbaijan has expanded its economic relations with a number of other Eastern European countries. On 18 March, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said that the Ukraine crisis could transform TANAP into the key pipeline project in the region.
- The ruling elites in Azerbaijan, however, are divided on the question of how far they should seek confrontation with Russia, fearing a resurgence of the war over Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the small mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh resulted in around 25,000 fatalities between 1988 and 1994. A million were made homeless, and many have still found no permanent place to live. Since then there have been repeated border conflicts.
- Tensions have increased in recent months with many observers fearing a new outbreak of war. Armenia has close political and military links with Russia, while Azerbaijan has close relations with NATO member Turkey.
- The confrontation between Russia and the imperialist powers in Ukraine has served to further exacerbate the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia is the only Caucasian country to back Russia. So far, peace negotiations have been carried out by the so-called Minsk Peace group led by Russia, the US and France. Given the sanctions imposed by the West against Russia and a possible escalation of the conflict, however, it is unlikely that this fragile framework will be able to stabilize the situation.
- Decades of Stalinist rule, the destruction of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism have transformed the entire region into a powder keg that could explode at any time. As was the case in Yugoslavia, the imperialist powers are exploiting national and ethnic tensions in Russia and the entire post-Soviet sphere to prepare military action aimed at imposing their control over the vast resources of the region.
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- Readout of the President's Call with President Putin
- Office of the Press Secretary
- President Putin called President Obama today to discuss the U.S. proposal for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, which Secretary Kerry had again presented to Foreign Minister Lavrov at the meeting at the Hague earlier this week, and which we developed following U.S. consultations with our Ukrainian and European partners. President Obama suggested that Russia put a concrete response in writing and the presidents agreed that Kerry and Lavrov would meet to discuss next steps.
- President Obama noted that the Ukrainian government continues to take a restrained and de-escalatory approach to the crisis and is moving ahead with constitutional reform and democratic elections, and urged Russia to support this process and avoid further provocations, including the buildup of forces on its border with Ukraine.
- President Obama underscored to President Putin that the United States continues to support a diplomatic path in close consultation with the Government of Ukraine and in support of the Ukrainian people with the aim of de-escalation of the crisis. President Obama made clear that this remains possible only if Russia pulls back its troops and does not take any steps to further violate Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. President Obama reiterated that the United States has strongly opposed the actions that Russia has already taken to violate Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
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- Multilateralism
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- NWO!!!-\Multilateralism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- In international relations, multilateralism is multiple countries working in concert on a given issue. Multilateralism was defined by Miles Kahler as ''international governance of the 'many,''' and its central principle was ''opposition [of] bilateral discriminatory arrangements that were believed to enhance the leverage of the powerful over the weak and to increase international conflict.'' [1] In 1990, Robert Keohane defined multilateralism as ''the practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states.[2]
- International organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization are multilateral in nature. The main proponents of multilateralism have traditionally been the middle powers such as Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the Benelux countries and the Nordic countries. Larger states often act unilaterally, while smaller ones may have little direct power in international affairs aside from participation in the United Nations (by consolidating their UN vote in a voting bloc with other nations, for example). Multilateralism may involve several nations acting together as in the UN or may involve regional or military alliances, pacts, or groupings such as NATO. As these multilateral institutions were not imposed on states but were created and accepted by them in order to increase their ability to seek their own interests through the coordination of their policies, much of these international institutions lack tools of enforcement while instead work as frameworks that constrain opportunistic behaviour and points for coordination by facilitating exchange of information about the actual behaviour of states with reference to the standards to which they have consented.[3]
- Recently the term "Regional Multilateralism" has been proposed suggesting that "contemporary problems can be better solved at the regional rather than the bilateral or global levels" and that bringing together the concept of regional integration with that of multilateralism is necessary in today's world.[4]
- The converse of multilateralism is unilateralism in terms of political philosophy.
- History[edit]One modern instance of multilateralism occurred in the nineteenth century in Europe after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, where the great powers met to redraw the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna. The Concert of Europe, as it became known, was a group of great and lesser powers that would meet to resolve issues peacefully. Conferences such as the Conference of Berlin in 1884 helped reduce power conflicts during this period, and the 19th century was one of Europe's most peaceful.[citation needed]
- Industrial and colonial competition, combined with shifts in the balance of power after the creation - by diplomacy and conquest - of Germany by Prussia meant cracks were appearing in this system by the turn of the 20th century. The concert system was utterly destroyed by the First World War. After that conflict, world leaders created the League of Nations in an attempt to prevent a similar conflict.[5] A number of international arms limitation treaties were also signed such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact. But the League proved insufficient to prevent Japan's conquests in Eastern Asia in the 1930s, escalating German aggression and, ultimately, the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.[citation needed]
- After the Second World War the victors, having drawn experience from the failure of the League of Nations, created the United Nations in 1945 with a structure intended to address the weaknesses of the previous body. Unlike the League, the UN had the active participation of the United States and the Soviet Union, the world's two greatest contemporary powers. Along with the political institutions of the UN the post-war years also saw the development of other multilateral organizations such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (now the World Trade Organization), the World Bank (so-called 'Bretton Woods' institutions) and the World Health Organization. The collective multilateral framework played an important role in maintaining world peace in the Cold War.[citation needed] Moreover, United Nations peacekeepers stationed around the world became one of the most visible symbols of multilateralism in recent decades.
- Today there are several multilateral institutions of varying scope and subject matter, ranging from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Many of these institutions were founded or are supported by the UN.
- Challenges[edit]Compared to unilateralism and bilateralism where only the country itself decides on what to do or make decisions between two nations, multilateralism is much more complex and challenging. It involves a number of nations which makes reaching an agreement difficult. In multilateralism, there may be no consensus; each nations have to dedicate to some degree, to make the best outcome for all. The multilateral system has encountered mounting challenges since the end of the Cold War. The United States has become increasingly dominant on the world stage in terms of military and economic power, which has led certain countries (such as Iran, China, and India) to question the United Nations' multilateral relevance. Concurrently, a perception developed among some internationalists, such as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, that the United States is more inclined to act unilaterally in situations with international implications. This trend began[6] when the U.S. Senate, in October 1999, refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which President Bill Clinton had signed in September 1996. Under President George W. Bush the United States rejected such multilateral agreements as the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel land mines and a draft protocol to ensure compliance by States with the Biological Weapons Convention. Also under the Bush administration, the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the Nixon administration and the Soviet Union had negotiated and jointly signed in 1972. In a direct challenge to the actions of the Bush administration, French president Jacques Chirac directly challenged the way of unilateralism: "In an open world, no one can live in isolation, no one can act alone in the name of all, and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules." He then proceeded to tout the advantages of multilateralism.
- Global multilateralism is presently being challenged, particularly with respect to trade, by emerging regional arrangements such as the European Union or NAFTA, not in themselves incompatible with larger multilateral accords. More seriously, the original sponsor of post-war multilateralism in economic regimes, the United States, has turned to unilateral action and bilateral confrontation in trade and other negotiations as a result of frustration with the intricacies of consensus-building in a multilateral forum. As the most powerful member of the international community, the United States has the least to lose from abandoning multilateralism; the weakest nations have the most to lose, but the cost for all would be high.[7]
- Multilateralism is the key, for it ensures the participation of all in the management of world affairs. It is a guarantee of legitimacy and democracy, especially in matters regarding the use of force or laying down universal norms.Multilateralism works: in Monterrey and Johannesburg it has allowed us to overcome the clash of North and South and to set the scene for partnerships'--with Africa notably'--bearing promise for the future.Multilateralism is a concept for our time: for it alone allows us to apprehend contemporary problems globally and in all their complexity.[8]^Kahler,Miles. ''Multilateralism with Small and Large Numbers.'' International Organization, 46, 3 (Summer 1992),681.^Keohane, Robert O. ''Multilateralism: An Agenda for Research.'' International Journal, 45 (Autumn 19901), 731.; see for a definition of the special features of "regional multilateralism" Michael, Arndt (2013). India's Foreign Policy and Regional Multilateralism (Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 12-16.^Keohane, Robert O., Joseph S. Nye, and Stanley Hoffmann. "The End of the Cold War in Europe." Introduction. After the Cold War / International Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989-1991. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1993. 1-20. Print.^Harris Mylonas and Emirhan Yorulmazlar, "Regional multilateralism: The next paradigm in global affairs", CNN, January 14, 2012.^"The United Nations: An Introduction for Students." UN News Center. UN, n.d. Web. 25 Sept. 2013. .^Hook, Steven & Spanier, John (2007). "Chapter 12: America Under Fire". American Foreign Policy Since World War II. CQ Press. p. 305. ISBN 1933116714. ^"Multilateralism" in Oxford Dictionary of Politics "Multilateralism". ^Unilateralism or Multilateralism: U.N. Reform and the Future of the World, Wednesday, 1 October 2003See also[edit]
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- Reasons
- 2008 bailout financed worldide by the fed
- No way to handle another meltdown
-
- A rundown
- With March quickly coming to an end it appears there will be no
- passage of supporting legislation in Congress for the IMF 2010 Quota and
- The House of Representatives introduced a new aid bill for
- Ukraine which did not include the reforms. An earlier version of the
- bill did in fact include the reforms.
- We are entering into a situation where the G20 countries have told
- the United States that they have until the Finance Ministers and Central
- Bank Governors meeting on April 10th and 11th to enact the required
- supporting legislation for the IMF Reforms.
- Let’s recall that the G20 countries have stated that they will take
- aggressive measures to by-pass the United States and its veto power over
- the IMF Executive Board by the April meeting.
- Let’s recall that Russia has threatened to dump its US Treasury Bonds
- and begin settling trade in other currencies other than the US dollar.
- As many have predicted, this will be the death of the petrodollar and
- reserve currency status of the American dollar.
- America has but a few weeks to enter into multilateral agreements
- with the rest of the world and show its willingness to become part of a
- more balanced and centralized financial system. The financial power of
- the rest of the world has created a situation for the US where it is
- collapse or consolidation.
- How easy would it be for the rest of the world, represented by a
- disgruntled G20 and International Monetary Fund to aggressively
- restructure the US debt into the SDR bond allocation and composition
- system, while using the Bank for International Settlements as the
- clearing house for all transactions?
-
- The Plan
- Restructure U.S. sovereign debt. (other countries as well)
- Final payout on historical bonds.
- Revaluation of currencies.
- Preliminary SDR bond agreements.
- Soft landing for stock markets.
- re-evaluation based on GDP, Natural resources, gold, production vs ownership (under the ground) (see key XL pipeline)
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- aangirfan: STRAUSS-KAHN FEARED BEING FRAMED
- 1. On 28 April 2011, Liberation conducted an interview with Dominique Strauss-Kahn.(Oui, j'aime les femmes, et alors?>> - Lib(C)ration)
- Strauss-Kahn told Liberation that he had strong evidence that he was being watched.
- He referred to Sarkozy's Interior Minister.
- He told Liberation that he imagined a scenario in which a woman is bribed with one million Euros.This woman would then lie about being a rape victim.
- (Thanks to Mr. Friend's Blogfor alerting us to this)~~~
- Thanks to Penny for bringing the following to our attention (Banker vs Banker - Dominique Strauss Kahn vs Ben Bernanke.):
- 2. The IMF under Dominique Strauss Kahn has been planning to issue bonds that could compete with US treasuries.Countries and investors could buy SDR bonds rather than US treasuries.
- "It will effectively end the USA's ability to print off the debt."
- (Was IMF Head Dominique Strauss Kahn arrested over SDR Bonds?)
- 3. "Unhappy with the U.S. dollar-dominated global monetary system in place today, officials in China and Russia and some economists have called for the enhanced use of the IMF's SDRas a global currency '' the belief being that, backed by an impartial institution, it would be more stable than the greenback, which is governed by national policies crafted to a great degree by the Fed." (What Strauss-Kahn's arrest means for the IMF.)
- 4. From theGuardian:Strauss-Kahn allowed his staff earlier this year to attack the US, its main paymaster, for running a bigger budget deficit while others tried to reduce theirs.
- He alsochanged the emphasis of the fund's lending from simply a means to impose neo-liberal capitalism on near-bankrupt victims, to a more sympathetic programme with less micro-management from Washington.
- At the IMF's most recent conference in Washington, Strauss-Kahn stressed the failure of western governments to promote job creation as a means of safeguarding social democratic structures.
- He feared the riots in Athens would spread across Europe.
- Thanks to Penny for bringing all this to our attention(Banker vs Banker - Dominique Strauss Kahn vs Ben B...)
- ~~~Europe VS Asia for Top IMF Post
- http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/
-
- Penny for your thoughts: Banker vs Banker - Dominique Strauss Kahn vs Ben Bernanke?
- SDR vs US Dollar?The IMF vs the Federal Reserve?Banker vs Banker.This may get ugly.Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Saw a picture of him sitting and looking rather miserable.I imagine a night in a Harlem precinct is a far cry from a $3000.00 a night hotel room.There seemed a natural kind of justice in that. A poetic justice. I am sure it will be lost on Mr. Kahn.Oh well, he doesn't get my sympathy.
- In yesterday's post I touched on the fact that DSK may have been taken down in a political power struggle over just who will be at the helm of the IMF.
- The shifts in the global economic power structure seemed to prelude an end to the practice of giving the IMF's top job to a European.
- Noting the IMF had been very critical of the US.DSK had also instituted changes in the allocation of voting shares
- "the IMF overhauled the way it allocates voting shares. China vaulted over nations such as Britain, Germany and France to become the third-biggest shareholder after the United States and Japan. The clout of former European powers such as Belgium was seriously curbed in favour of rising powers such as Brazil. "
- I would like to expand on the issues. Issues that may have been behind DSK's takeout.An interesting article here
- The IMF under Dominique Strauss Kahn has been over the past 3 years been planning it's own currency of reserve. Calling on a currency, called an SDR (special drawing rights) in focus the point that could be the major issue is the SDR bond that allows the IMF to issue bonds that could (and most likely would) compete with US treasuries.
- The moment the SDR BOND becomes popular is the exact moment the US dollar loses it's currency reserve status.
- But alas, the guy that was pushing this through finds himself behind bars on what some say are bogus charges.
- You could imagine what is at stake. The US dollar itself.
- -If Dominique Strauss Kahn was able to pull this off and use the IMF to draw SDR Bonds you will see a dramatic drop in the value of the US debt. ( I do not see this as the real issue because the US is already devaluing their dollar)
- - Countries and investors would be buying SDR bonds rather than US treasuries. It will effectively end the USA's ability to print off the debt.(This is the meat and potatoes of the issue with SDR)
- - Was this engineered to keep the US Dollar as the currency of reserve?
- Is that the reason Strauss Kahn was taken out?If the US dollar is no longer the global currency, the reserve currency, how could the US continue on their warpath? How could the US continue to bury all other nations with indebtedness that through their economic policies, the US is deflating away?Is this the reason as mentioned the US wanted an American at the helm of the IMF?
- A quick aside: I see David Cameron is ok with an American at the helm of the IMF. He has suggested looking beyond Europe. Which would on the surface seem an odd position, but, thinking in term of banksters, it isn't.
- Here is another article where the writer is making mention of the IMF's war on the US dollar-Your will find this one quite interesting!
- I've been baffled over the past couple years by calls for the IMF to play a greater role in the international economy. Unhappy with the U.S. dollar-dominated global monetary system in place today, officials in China and Russia and some economists have called for the enhanced use of the IMF's SDR as a global currency '' the belief being that, backed by an impartial institution, it would be more stable than the greenback, which is governed by national policies crafted to a great degree by the Fed.
- The fact that Strauss-Kahn may have tossed away his political career for a hotel maid doesn't give me much confidence in his judgment on issues regarding the life and death of the global economy. Would you rather have Strauss-Kahn or Ben Bernanke making the key decisions that impact the global monetary system? Despite his own failings, I'd put my money on Bernanke
- Strauss-Kahn or Ben Bernake? A European or an American? SDR's as global currency or a continuation of the US dollar dominance of the globe?From the Guardian
- Strauss-Kahn allowed his staff earlier this year to attack the US, its main paymaster, for running a bigger budget deficit while others tried to reduce theirs.He also changed the emphasis of the fund's lending from simply a means to impose neo-liberal capitalism on near-bankrupt victims, to a more sympathetic programme with less micro-management from Washington.At the IMF's most recent conference in Washington, Strauss-Kahn stressed the failure of western governments to promote job creation as a means of safeguarding social democratic structures. He feared the riots in Athens would spread across Europe.
- Was Strauss-Kahn biting the hand that feeds the IMF? Besides the SDR? By allowing the IMF to vocally express their disdain with the US? Job creation is an issue, but, not one that benefits the elite classes of asses. Did Strauss Kahn wish to avoid global collapse of society?From all I have read over the past few days it is clear, quite clear to me, that DSK was taken out politically. Call it a honey pot, call it a set up, whatever?Dominique Strauss Kahn was humiliated, worse then he had allowed the IMF to embarrass the US in their public drubbing.He was removed from leading the IMF, an IMF that was going to use SDR's to challenge US dollar global supremacy.He bit the hand that fed him. He crossed the Fed.Bankers vs Bankers.The fall out shall be interesting.
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- Interview Jim Rickards On The Death Of Money | In Gold We Trust
- I had the privilege to meet with Jim Rickards, while he was in The Netherlands for one day, to do an interview about his new book ''The Death Of Money''. Accompanied by friend (and author of the book the The Big Reset) Willem Middelkoop we met at the hotel were Jim was staying and for one and a half hours we fired questions at him. Below you can read the highlights of the conversation.
- Koos Jansen: Do you think there will be a collapse in the worldwide monetary system, including chaos, social unrest and bank failures because all policy makers will do too little too late?
- Jim Rickards: My new book, The Death Of Money, is about the demise of the dollar. A world wide monetary collapse and the collapse of the dollar are the same thing. The dollar is the keystone of the system today, if the world loses confidence in the dollar the whole system collapses. Could there be disruptions, social unrest and other problems before the monetary system collapses? I think we're seeing them already, in the Ukraine, in the Crimea and the Chinese navy sending vessels to these islands they are in disputes with near Japan. US monetary policy was also a contributing factor to protests in the Arab Spring's early stages. We're seeing signs happening already and that will continue.
- I do expect that policy makers will continue to pursue the wrong policies, they won't make the structural adjustments that are needed; unemployment remains high, growth remains weak and deflation continues to have us in its grip. These are all things that will lead to social instability, income and wealth inequality and we could see a lot of stresses before the collapse of the monetary system.
- Central banks and governments have made it clear that the big banks can't fail. That's what they stated, all these too big to fail banks will not be allowed to fail. Now what are the consequences once they've said that? It invites reckless, parasitic and exploitative behaviour on behalf of the bankers. This allows them to grow too large which destabilizes the system. I don't think we'll see big bank failures along the way, but big banks will fail as part of the collapse. It's the policy of too big to fail that leads to the dysfunction of the system that will lead to the collapse.
- Koos Jansen: Will the coming collapse of the monetary system be more severe than any prior one?
- Jim Rickards: The point I'm making in the book is that the international monetary system has collapsed three times in the last one hundred year. In 1914, 1939 and 1971. So it does happen, it's not that unusual. When it happens it not the end of the world. What it means is that the major trading powers, the financial powers, come together and reset the system. There is actually a name for this, it's ''the rules of the game''. That's not a phrase I made up, it goes back one hundred years. So the major powers will rewrite the rules of the game, but here's the problem. The last crisis we had the Fed reliquify the world. There were tens of trillions of dollars in swap lines with the ECB, they guaranteed all the bank deposits in the US and they guaranteed all the money market funds in the US. It did prevent things from getting worse, but the problem is the Fed raised their own balance from $800 billion to $4 trillion after the liquidity crisis. We had a liquidity crisis in late 2008, but we haven't had one in the last five years. So now what happens if we have a liquidity crisis tomorrow? They've got no more dry powder; they can't go to $12 trillion.
- The next crisis will be bigger than the last one, and it will be bigger than the Fed because they already trashed their own balance sheet. Then the only balance sheet left is the IMF's.
- Koos Jansen: Do you consider it a possibility the SDR will be the new world reserve currency backed by gold, like mentioned in Willem's book The Big Reset? And following up on that, could it be all national currencies will be floating around such an SDR?
- Jim Rickards: Yes, there is a probability the SDR will be the new global reserve currency. Gold and oil would be then be priced in SDR's. It will be used for some of the balance of payments between countries, the creation of reserves and probably the financial accounts of the world's largest corporations. So Siemens, General Electric and IBM will produce their financial statements in SDR's, because they're global corporations.
- Koos Jansen: But will this SDR be backed by gold at a fixed parity?
- Jim Rickards: It might be, this is where it gets interesting. That is not what our global leaders want. What they want is a paper SDR to replace the paper dollar. The question is, will people go along with that? Our global leaders may have to go back to gold not because they want to but because they need to restore confidence. It can go either way. The SDR project that will replace the dollar is already in the works. If the elites get enough time, they need about ten years, they will roll out a paper SDR. If the collapse comes sooner than that they'll have to gold, or, if they insist on a paper SDR, they'll have to go with martial law and neo-fascism.
- Koos Jansen: Are you familiar with concept of freegold?
- Jim Rickards: I've heard of it, I'm not really an expert on it.
- Koos Jansen: Do you believe in Austrian economics?
- Jim Rickards: My view is that Austrian economics has a lot to offer, but it is not a complete explanation of dynamics in capital markets. I consider myself a complexity theorist and I am one of those applying complexity theory to capital markets. Complexity theory is only about 55 years old as a science, but it is highly complementary to Austrian theory because it agrees with Hayek that the economic system has far too many autonomous agents of highly diverse views ever to be efficiently planned. If von Mises had been born 40 years later, he would have warmly embraced complexity theory.
- Koos Jansen: If you were the president of the world, what would you implement as the most stable monetary system.
- Jim Rickards: I favour what I call the King dollar. I'm a bit of an old school American. I don't necessarily want the gold standard, and I don't want the SDR's, I want the dollar as the dominant currency in the world. I think America has the potential for a force for good in the world and therefore the American dollar as a global monetary standard to me would be a good thing. The problem is, the US government doesn't agree. They don't want a strong dollar, they want a weak dollar.
- Willem Middelkoop: Is that the reason you began writing books? because you're fed up with how the dollar is managed.
- Jim Rickards: Absolutely.
- Koos Jansen: Isn't it always unsustainable if a national currency is used as the world reserve currency?
- Jim Rickards: That doesn't have to be, it can be. This is Triffin's dilemma. What Triffin said in the sixties was that if one country issues the global reserve currency they need to run a persistent current account deficit because that's the only way for the rest of the world to get enough money to finance world trade. But if you run deficits long enough you go broke. Now after 50 years the US is going broke.
- There is another solution, which is real growth without money printing. What's wrong with price stability, real price stability, why do we have to have inflation? Let people earn their dollars, or let the US maintain the value of it's dollar with education, innovation, growth, productivity, good public policy, low taxes and a good business climate. These are the ways you drive growth, not by money printing. The answer is real growth.
- Koos Jansen: If the world starts to lose confidence in the dollar, will Yellen be forced to raise interest rates like Volcker did in the early eighties?
- Jim Rickards: The problem is how do you raise interest rates when 50 million Americans are on food stamps, 26 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, 11 million Americans have disability, with all due respect to people with genuine disability, a lot of the disability is abused. My point being, given an extremely weak economy, given deflationary trends, given high unemployment and declining labour force participation how on earth do you raise interest rates? However, the market will raise interest rates in a way the Fed won't be able to control. That's when you may see'... who knows? Debt restructuring of the treasury market'...
- Jim Rickards: More QE and the Fed may use more financial repression. Why haven't interest rates gone up already? Because of financial repression.
- If there is a loss of confidence and the market wants to push rates higher, the Fed will respond by trying to suppress rates by printing money, which will lead to more loss in confidence. This will show up the foreign exchange market, it will show up in the price of gold and it will show up in some interest rates.
- A lot of this will happen really quickly, it wouldn't play out in one day, but we will see gold making moves of a hundred dollars in one day. People will say it's a bubble, of course it's not a bubble it's a sign of panic. Then we'll see gold moving five hundred dollars a day.
- What I look at is the price of gold; to me gold is a constant. The price of gold is just the inverse of the value of the dollar. If gold goes up, what is actually happing is that the dollar goes down. When you see the price of gold jumping up what that tells you is that the dollar is collapsing. Even if the Fed is repressing interest rates, gold will tell you when the dollar is done.
- Willem Middelkoop: That's why the price of gold has to be controlled.
- Jim Rickards: Yes, but a couple of thing on that. The Fed right now wants the price of gold to be higher. The Fed's problem today is not inflation it's deflation. The Fed wants controlled inflation and they can't get it. So how do you get inflation? You have to change expectations. So allowing the price of gold to go up helps to increase inflationary expectations. It can't go too far too fast, it can't do what we just described. But the Fed wouldn't mind if the price of gold would go to $1400, $1500, $1600 dollars because that would get people into an inflationary mindset; trying to get them spending more dollars, borrowing more etc. That's what the Fed wants. Where the Fed is wrong is to think that they can just dial it up or down. They did do that in 2011 when gold went to $1900, the Fed was very fearful gold would go to $2000, a big psychological threshold, so they had to push it down. Right now I don't think the Fed is doing anything to hold price of gold down, China might be.
- Koos Jansen: Was it China behind the drop in the price of gold In April 2013, or was it maybe a collaboration between the US and China? A scenario could have been: China would support the dollar and in return could buy physical gold at extremely low prices.
- Jim Rickards: Look, I'll tell you what I know and what I don't know.
- When you're a detective and you have a dead body and are looking for the killer, you're looking for a motive. So who benefitted from the drop in the price of gold? China '' they're the most likely party. I know for a fact that SAFE, which is a Sovereign Wealth Fund that manages the foreign exchanges reserves of the People's Bank Of China, bought 600 tons of physical gold through June and July 2013. I know this from the Perth Mint and Chinese dealers. At this moment the gold is on the balance sheet of SAFE but this can be flipped to the PBOC's sheet like it happened in 2009.
- Whether the Chinese caused the drop price I can't be sure, though I suspect it, but I know for sure they took advantage of it.
- China right now has an interest in keeping the price low because they want to buy more. But at some point, if there will be inflation in the US, they want the price to go higher because that's their hedge. That's the reason they're buying gold. All this talk about China backing the renminbi with gold is nonsense.
- China has got $4 trillion dollars in reserves, their preference is a stable dollar. If the US devalues the dollar by 10 %, that's a wealth transfer of $400 billion from China to the US. China's hedge is gold, if the dollar would go down gold goes up.
- Koos Jansen: China knows the US will need to devalue the dollar?
- Koos Jansen: Does SAFE buy it's gold through the Shanghai Gold Exchange?
- Jim Rickards: They have various ways.
- Koos Jansen: How will the power be distributed in Asia after the monetary reset?
- Jim Rickards: It will be based on gold.
- A lot of analysts look at gold as a percentage of foreign exchange reserves, I think that's meaningless. In the US gold represents 70 % of reserves, but the US can print dollars and they don't need euros or Swiss francs. A better way of thinking about it is the amount of gold relative to the size of an economy in terms of GDP. Russia is on par with the US. China needs to have at least 4500 tons to get on par with the US.
- In Chapter 6 of my book I write about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it's not a treaty but a mutual cooperation organization between primarily Asian and central Asian powers. This is the primary forum for Russia and China to cooperate and stand up against the US. Eventually there will be two empires in Asia. Russia will have an empire comprised of Russia, eastern Europe and central Asia. China will have an empire comprised of the mainland, its immediate periphery and east Asia.
- Koos Jansen: All the physical gold that's exported to China is in 1 Kg 9999 bars. Gulf nations are remelting their 400 ounce London Good Delivery bars into 1 Kg 9999 bars through Switzerland. What's your take on that?
- Jim Rickards: In my view the 1 Kg 9999 bars will be the new Good Delivery standard. We'll look back in a couple of years and wonder why we ever messed around in 400 ounce bars. The history of 400 ounce bars is interesting. They were intentionally made very large so people couldn't have them '' they were for central banks only or very wealthy individuals. In 1910 people used gold coins to pay for goods and services, then little by little central banks wanted to get rid of the gold coins, they wanted people to use paper certificates, which gave central banks more flexibility.
- Koos Jansen: Will the Bundesbank get its gold back from the US?
- Jim Rickards: What a lot of people don't understand is that the Bundesbank doesn't want it's gold back. The reason the Germans want to have it in New York is because they want to able to engage in price suppression. New York and London are markets for leasing, Frankfurt isn't. For every ton of gold you remove from New York, there is 10 tons of paper gold that needs to be unwound. That's why they're taking eight years and that's why they're doing it in tranches.
- There's not such a leasing market in China either. Central banks are able to suppress the price of gold through the leasing market in New York. For example SAFE, a subsidiary of the PBOC, could call JP Morgan in New York and ask to actively lease their gold, which is partially stored in New York, and JP Morgan would do it.
- Koos Jansen: Is the NSA Involved in financial warfare?
- Jim Rickards: No, not to my knowledge.
- Willem Middelkoop: I know wealthy Americans taking measures like getting a second passport and moving their money offshore. Do you see this happening in your surroundings?
- Jim Rickards: Yes, I see it all the time. There are billionaires who build vaults in their own houses because they don't trust Brinks.
- Willem Middelkoop: What does that tell you?
- Jim Rickards: It tells me that they see what I see, in some ways, but their not willing to talk about it. They're ready for the collapse but want to milk the system in the meantime.
- Willem Middelkoop: Which part of all your activities do you like most?
- Jim Rickards: Writing. That's why I've done two books, and now I will start a new book project sooner than later. It will hopefully be a four book series. I have some sketches.
- Koos Jansen: We'll be looking forward to reading more of your books. For now, thank you very much for your time Jim.
- Share this articleWritten by Koos Jansen on March 24, 2014 at 1:56 pm
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- An IMF Proposal to Ban Banks from Issuing Money | Veterans Today
- A Last Ditch Effort to Save Global Capitalism?
- By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall
- For the past 18 months ago, IMF economists Michael Kumhof and Jaromir Benes have been circulating a proposal to end the ability of banks to create money.
- As Kumhof explains in the Nov 2013 video below, the perception that governments create money is totally false. In the current global economic system, only about 3% of money (mainly coinage) is created by government. The other 97% is created by private banks out of thin air when they generate new loans. See The Real Vampires: an Insider's View of Banks.
- For various reasons, which Kumhof explains in the video, he and Benes believe that unlimited and unregulated private money creation by banks is responsible for the current economic crisis. And that full recovery is only possible if the privilege of creating and controlling the money supply is restored as a government function.
- In addition to assuming sovereign control over the money supply, national governments would also require banks to hold 100 percent reserves for the loans they initiate. This effectively terminates the ability of private banks to create money out of thin air. And this, in turn, massively reduces their political power.
- Ironically, the proposal isn't new. Entitled the Chicago Plan, it was first put forward by University of Chicago professors Henry Simons and Irving Fisher during the Great Depression.
- The History of Private vs Sovereign Money
- During the Q&A at the end, Kumhof briefly discusses previous experiments with government-issued sovereign money, which have mainly occurred in the US. Sovereign money funded the original 13 colonies, the American War of Independence and the Civil War.
- In their paper The Chicago Plan Revisited, he and Benes trace the history of sovereign money back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, all currencies were publicly controlled (by kings and the Pope). Until 1666, when Charles II transferred control of money creation to private banks with the English Free Coinage Act.
- YouTube - Veterans Today -
- The slides, which are difficult to see in the video, are available here
- For me the high point of the video is Kumhof's disclaimer that he doesn't represent the IMF '' that he's only doing research. Yeah right. I sure wish I had an understanding boss who let me run around making radical proposals to strip investment banks of their power and wealth.
- It seems more likely that people in high places know the ship of capitalism is going down '' that this is a last ditch effort to save it.
- The IMF proposal is merely one approach. I personally prefer a second model described in Modernising Money by Andrew Jackson and Ben Dyson (Positive Money 2012). Unlike the Chicago Plan, the Positive Money proposal isn't obsessed with debt payments to bondholders. Given the IMF's singular focus on servicing debt, their heavy emphasis on debt repayment isn't terribly surprising.
- photo credit: Tracy O via photopincc
- Related Posts:Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=294958
- The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT or any other VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors or partners. Legal NoticePosted by Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall on Mar 29 2014, With 0 Reads, Filed under Corruption, Economics & Markets, Economy, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
- To post, we ask that you login using Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail in the box below.Don't have a social network account? Register and Login direct with VT and post.Before you post, read our Comment Policy - Feedback
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- White House backs Joe Hockey's plans for IMF reform | smh.com.au
- John Kehoe February 10, 2014
- Treasurer Joe Hockey in his Parliament House office. Photo: Andrew Meares
- The Obama administration supports Treasurer Joe Hockey's call for the United States to hand over power to emerging economies at the International Monetary Fund, but some Republicans are digging in over blocking reforms of the fund.
- Foreign policy experts are warning the US's failure to follow through on the IMF reforms is damaging its reputation and angering China, India, Brazil and other emerging economies.
- In an agenda-setting speech last week before hosting G20 finance ministers and central bank governors later this month, Mr Hockey made the strongest public comments yet by an Australian politician urging its US ally to ratify reforming the IMF. "To secure global economic stability into the future, the United States must support IMF reform now," Mr Hockey said.
- "Failure to reform means that we risk a shift away from the IMF and the multilateral system towards bilateral or regional approaches and an international financial architecture that's fragmented and misaligned."
- Under a proposed change agreed to by the G20 in 2010 to enhance the resilience of the global financial system, the IMF's permanent resources would be doubled to $US733 billion ($818 billion). The board's voting shares would be reallocated towards emerging economies such as China and away from Europe to reflect the changing weights of countries in the global economy.
- The Obama administration supports the changes, which would require the US to commit an additional $US314 million and shift $US63 billion in existing loans to permanent capital.
- However, Republicans suspicious of multilateral institutions such as the IMF and United Nations claim the extra taxpayer funds could be blown on bailing out bankrupt European economies.
- "Many Americans question the wisdom of supporting the IMF and other multilateral financial institutions that take their hard-earned dollars and use them to bail out other countries," Texas Republican and House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling said.
- US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who is due to attend the G20 in Sydney on February 22 to 23, said last month the government had made a "full-court press to get it done". A US Treasury spokeswoman said on Friday the administration was disappointed that Congress had failed to pass the 2010 quota and governance reforms.
- "The United States remains committed to implementing the 2010 quota and governance reforms, and we are examining options to do so as soon as possible," she said.
- Republicans are trying to extract concessions unrelated to the IMF from President Barack Obama in return for supporting reform of the fund.
- Ted Truman, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and assistant secretary of the US Treasury in the Clinton administration, said the US resistance was "bad for the United States and bad for the global financial system". It reduced the US's ability to take leadership in international economic issues, he said.
- "Mr Hockey is quite right to be upset and disappointed, because Australia has a leadership position on this and it's central to the G20 exercise," Mr Truman said.
- The IMF requires an 85 per cent majority to approve the reforms and the US has a 17 per cent voting stake, enabling it to veto the reform.
- Even under the changes that would shift power to emerging markets, the US would retain its veto power.
- US business groups including the Chamber of Commerce, Financial Services Roundtable and Business Roundtable have all written to Congress imploring it to support the changes.
- Tim Adams, a former US Treasury Under Secretary in the George W Bush administration and now president of the Institute of International Finance, said reforming the IMF was an important part of strengthening the global financial institutional framework.
- "So I'd like to see a good strong commitment to the fund at the G20 in Sydney," Mr Adams said.
- As part of the 2010 G20 deal, a subsequent review of IMF quotas and resources was supposed to be finished by January 2014, but this has not occurred because of the US refusal to ratify.
- Currently the fund relies on borrowed resources from its 188 members.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- The Bretton Woods Committee | philosophyofmetrics
- This post comes from the hard work of readers BGSV and DANEACKERMAN who have been digging for nuggets of truth and evidence to support the thesis we are presenting here on this site. Namely that the IMF 2010 Code of Reforms will be the first of many catalysts which will enact the required changes for the world to move from the old financial system to a new multilateral system centralized around the IMF and the SDR's.
- My approach to this subject was from underneath by way of pattern recognition and micro/macro comparisons. As such, there were many things I missed along the way.
- The quality of readers who have been attracted to my blog has overwhelmed me. The links and supporting evidence that they have discovered and shared on this site have been outstanding.
- In many cases the comment sections of each post is more valuable than the original information provided. As an example, just over the last few days the readers I referenced above have discovered and shared information regarding The Bretton Woods Committee. On their website it states:
- ''The Bretton Woods Committee is the nonpartisan network of prominent global citizens, which works to demonstrate the value of international economic cooperation and to foster strong, effective Bretton Woods institutions as forces for global well-being.''
- It would be beneficial for all readers to also explore that site and get a broader understanding of the quality and level of people involved in the movement to transition the world to a multilateral financial system which will be centralized around the IMF. The SDR will no doubt become the much talked about supra-sovereign reserve currency.
- The site can be found at the following link:
- http://www.brettonwoods.org/
- As BGSV and DANEACKERMAN have discovered, the Bretton Woods Committee released a ''unified message'' on March 12, 2014, encouraging the US Congress to pass the 2010 IMF Reforms. From the press release:
- ''Today 190 policy experts, business and academic leaders, and former Senate-confirmed appointees who had oversight responsibilities for organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank delivered a unified message to Congress: promptly enact IMF quota reform legislation.''
- For anyone who doubts the importance of these reforms, this message from the Bretton Woods Committee should make them think twice. Including the demands of Russia and the G20 as well.
- The full message from the group can be downloaded as a PDF below. It contains the actual signatures of the authors.
- BWC Top Cabinet and National Security Officials Letter on IMF
- I'm on vacation this week from my regular job but have been trying to do some updates and a little writing. I will continue to share when and as much as possible.
- Things continue to happen quickly here, especially in regards to the Ukrainian situation. Just today, the US stated that they will not become militarily involved in the Ukraine. Ukraine military itself is retreating from Crimea and the final conclusion is pretty much what we were assuming it would be.
- A few things to watch over the coming days will be how Russia responds to the weak sanctions opposed on them by the west.
- And how will the world respond to the US reluctance to implement the 2010 Quota Reforms as we move into April and its G20 meeting? Will Congress accomplish what the obviously influential Bretton Woods Committee is asking them to do?
- If not, what will be the consequences? The G20 has already stated that they will use aggressive measures to enact the reforms without US compliance. This will mean the removal of the dollar as the worlds reserve currency by force, as Russia has threatened. America will also be stripped of its veto vote on the IMF Executive Board.
- Perhaps this is the ultimate plan. Make the reforms impossible to pass in Congress so the aggressive measures can be justified. Perhaps the members of the Bretton Woods Committee are attempting one last effort to save the United States from a Soviet Union style collapse.
- Our televisions will say that no one saw this coming. But there are those of us who do see it coming. Will it be consolidation or collapse? We still wait and wonder. '' JC Collins
-
- "A New Multilateralism for the 21st Century: the Richard Dimbleby Lecture" By Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
- By Christine LagardeManaging Director, International Monetary FundLondon, February 3, 2014As Prepared for Delivery
- Good evening. It is a great honor to be invited to deliver this year's Dimbleby Lecture, and I would like to thank the BBC and the Dimbleby family for so kindly inviting me'--and especially David Dimbleby for his warm words of introduction.
- This evening, I would like to talk about the future. Before looking ahead, however, I would like to look back'--for the clues to the future can often be read from the tea leaves of the past.
- I invite you to cast your minds back to the early months of 1914, exactly a century ago. Much of the world had enjoyed long years of peace, and giant leaps in scientific and technological innovation had led to path-breaking advances in living standards and communications. There were few barriers to trade, travel, or the movement of capital. The future was full of potential.
- Yet, 1914 was the gateway to thirty years of disaster'--marked by two world wars and the Great Depression. It was the year when everything started to go wrong. What happened?
- What happened was that the birth of the modern industrial society brought about massive dislocation. The world was rife with tension'--rivalry between nations, upsetting the traditional balance of power, and inequality between the haves and have-nots, whether in the form of colonialism or the sunken prospects of the uneducated working classes.
- By 1914, these imbalances had toppled over into outright conflict. In the years to follow, nationalist and ideological thinking led to an unprecedented denigration of human dignity. Technology, instead of uplifting the human spirit, was deployed for destruction and terror. Early attempts at international cooperation, such as the League of Nations, fell flat. By the end of the Second World War, large parts of the world lay in ruins.
- I now invite you to consider a second turning point'--1944. In the summer of that year, the eminent economist, John Maynard Keynes, and a delegation of British officials, embarked on a fateful journey across the Atlantic. The crossing was risky'--the world was still at war and enemy ships still prowled the waters. Keynes himself was in poor health.
- But he had an appointment with destiny'--and he was not going to miss it.
- The destination was the small town of Bretton Woods in the hills of New Hampshire, in the northeastern United States. His purpose was to meet with his counterparts from other countries. Their plan was nothing less than the reconstruction of the global economic order.
- The 44 nations gathering at Bretton Woods were determined to set a new course'--based on mutual trust and cooperation, on the principle that peace and prosperity flow from the font of cooperation, on the belief that the broad global interest trumps narrow self-interest.
- This was the original multilateral moment'--70 years ago. It gave birth to the United Nations, the World Bank, and the IMF'--the institution that I am proud to lead.
- The world we inherited was forged by these visionary gentlemen'--Lord Keynes and his generation. They raised the phoenix of peace and prosperity from the ashes of anguish and antagonism. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.
- Because of their work, we have seen unprecedented economic and financial stability over the past seven decades. We have seen diseases eradicated, conflict diminished, child mortality reduced, life expectancy increased, and hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty.
- Today, however, we are coming out of the Great Recession, the worst economic crisis'--and the great test'--of our generation. Thanks to their legacy of multilateralism'--international cooperation'--we did not slip into another Great Depression that would have brought misery across the world yet again. We all passed the test'--rejecting protectionism, reaffirming cooperation.
- Yet there will be many more tests ahead. We are living through a time every bit as momentous as that faced by our forefathers a century ago. Once again, the global economy is changing beyond recognition, as we move from the industrial age to the hyperconnected digital age.
- Once again, we will be defined by how we respond to these changes.
- As we look ahead toward mid-century, toward the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit from us, we need to ask the question: what kind of world do we want that to be'--and how can we achieve it?
- As Shakespeare says in Julius Caesar: ''On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.''
- This evening, I would like to talk about two broad currents that will dominate the coming decades'--increasing tensions in global interconnections and in economic sustainability.
- I would then like to make a proposal that builds on the past and is fit for the future: a strengthened framework for international cooperation.
- In short, a new multilateralism for the 21st century.
- Tensions in global interconnections
- I will start with the first major current'--tensions in global interconnections, between a world that is simultaneously coming closer together and drifting further apart.
- By ''coming together'', I mean the breakneck pattern of integration and interconnectedness that defines our time. It is really the modern counterpart of what our ancestors went through in the fateful years leading up to 1914.
- Just look at the great linking of the global economy over the past few decades.
- For one thing, world trade has grown exponentially. We are now in a world of integrated supply chains, where more than half of total manufactured imports, and more than 70 percent of total service imports, are intermediate goods or services. A typical manufacturing company today uses inputs from more than 35 different contractors across the world.
- Financial links between countries have also grown sharply. In the two decades before the crisis in 2008, international bank lending'--as a share of world GDP'--rose by 250 percent. And we should expect this to rise further in the future, as more and more countries dive into the financial nexus of the global economy.
- We are also living through a communications revolution. It has produced a starburst of interconnections, with information traveling at lightning speed from limitless points of origin. The world has become a hum of interconnected voices and a hive of interlinked lives.
- Today, 3 billion people are connected to each other on the internet. Three million emails are sent each second. There are almost as many mobile devices as people on the planet, and the ''mobile mindset'' is deeply embedded in all regions of the world. In fact, the highest rates of mobile penetration are in Africa and Asia.
- Back in 1953, when people tuned into the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, their experience was mediated essentially by one voice'--the masterful Richard Dimbleby, whom we honor today. In contrast, when Prince George arrived last summer, his birth was heralded by more than 25,000 tweets a minute!
- With such a dizzying pace of change, we can sympathize with Violet Crawley, Downton Abbey's countess, who wondered whether the telephone was ''an instrument of communication or torture!''
- This brave new world'--this hyperconnected world'--offers immense hope and promise.
- Stronger trade and financial connections can bring tangible benefits to millions of people'--through higher growth and greater convergence of living standards. The dream of eliminating extreme poverty is within our reach.
- The communications revolution too can be a potent force for good. It can empower people, unleash creativity, and spur change. Think about how twitter messages helped to galvanize the participants in the Arab Spring, or how social media carrying the message of Malala in Pakistan pricked the conscience of the entire world.
- It is not all bright skies, however. When linkages are deep and dense, they become hard to disentangle. In such an interwoven labyrinth, even the tiniest tensions can be amplified, echoing and reverberating across the world'--often in an instant, often with unpredictable twists and turns. The channels that bring convergence can also bring contagion.
- Because of this, the global economy can become even more prone to instability. If not managed well, financial integration can make crises more frequent and more damaging. Consider, for example, where and how the recent global financial crisis began'--in the mortgage markets of suburban America'--and spread all around the world.
- The communications revolution too has a dark side. It can sow discord, instill factionalism, and spread confusion. Instead of an online forum for ideas and expression, we could have a virtual mob or a global platform to promote intolerance or hatred. Instead of a beautiful symphony, we could have an ugly cacophony.
- So the key challenge for us in all this will be to magnify the good and diminish the bad.
- If managing the great ''coming together'' were not difficult enough, it will be further complicated by the other current that I mentioned: the tendency for the world to grow further apart, even as it draws closer together.
- This is a paradox. What do I mean? I mean the diffusion of power across the world'--toward more diverse geographical regions and more diverse global stakeholders. Unlike with integration, our forefathers experienced nothing like this. It is a defining feature of our hyperconnected age.
- One of the major megatrends of our time is the shift in global power from west to east, and from north to south'--from a few to a handful, to a myriad.
- Fifty years ago, the emerging markets and developing economies accounted for about a quarter of world GDP. Today, it is half, and rising rapidly'--very likely to two-thirds within the next decade.
- The diffusion of power also goes beyond country relationships, extending to a whole host of networks and institutions that inhabit the fabric of global society.
- Think about the rising nexus of non-government organizations, which can use the communications revolution to extend their reach and amplify the voice of civil society. In just 20 years, the number of these groups associated with the United Nations rose from 700 to nearly 4000.
- Think about the growing power of multinational corporations, who now control two-thirds of world trade. According to some research, 12 multinational corporations now sit among the world's top 100 economic bodies in terms of sheer size.
- Think about powerful cities'--31 of them are also on that list of the top 100. And they continue to grow. By 2030, about 60 percent of the world's population will live in cities.
- Think also about the rising aspirations of citizens who feel increasingly part, yet not quite adjusted to, our interconnected ''global village''. By 2030, the global middle class could top 5 billion, up from 2 billion today. These people will inevitably demand higher living standards, as well as greater freedom, dignity, and justice. Why should they settle for less?
- This will be a more diverse world of increasing demands and more dispersed power. In such a world, it could be much harder to get things done, to reach consensus on issues of global importance.
- The risk is of a world that is more integrated'--economically, financially, and technologically'--but more fragmented in terms of power, influence, and decision-making. This can lead to more indecision, impasse, and insecurity'--the temptations of extremism'--and it requires new solutions.
- Tensions in economic sustainability
- We will also need solutions for the second broad current that will dominate the next few decades'--tensions in economic sustainability, between staying strong and slowing down.
- Of course, the immediate priority for growth is to get beyond the financial crisis, which began six years ago and is still with us, as the markets remind us these days. This requires a sustained and coordinated effort to deal with problems that still linger'--a legacy of high private and public debt, weak banking systems, and structural impediments to competitiveness and growth'--which have left us with unacceptably high levels of unemployment.
- You are used to the IMF talking about these issues, I know. Tonight, however, I want to set these issues in the context of longer-term impediments. Three in particular'--demographic shifts, environmental degradation, and income inequality. As with global interconnections, some of these problems would look familiar to our ancestors'--rising inequality, for example. But others are new and novel'--such as pressures on the environment.
- Let me start with demographics. Over the next three decades, the world's population will get much larger and much older.
- In 30 years time, there will be about two billion more people on the planet, including three quarters of a billion people over the age of 65. By 2020, for the first time ever, there will be more old people over 65 than children under 5.
- The geographical distribution will also change'--young populations in regions like Africa and South Asia will increase sharply, while Europe, China, and Japan will age and shrink. In the coming decades, we expect India to surpass China, and Nigeria to surpass the United States, in terms of population. And both China and India will start aging in the near future.
- This can create problems on both ends of the demographic spectrum'--for youthful countries and for graying countries.
- Right now, the young countries are seeing a ''youth bulge'', with almost three billion people'--half the global population'--under 25. This could prove a boon or a bane, a demographic dividend or a demographic time bomb.
- A youthful population is certainly fertile ground for innovation, dynamism, and creativity. Yet everything will depend on generating enough jobs to satisfy the aspirations of the rising generation.
- This calls for a single-minded focus on improving education'--and, in particular, on the potentially massive effects of technological change on employment. Looking ahead, factors such as the internet revolution, the rise of smart machines, and the increasing high-tech component of products will have dramatic implications for jobs and the way we work. Yet governments are not thinking about this in a sufficiently strategic or proactive way.
- Aging countries will have different problems, of course. They will face slowing growth precisely at a time when they need to take care of a retiring generation'--people who have contributed to society and expect, as part of the social contract, to be provided with decent social services as they move into their twilight years. This too can create tensions.
- Migration from young to old countries might help to release some pressure at both ends. Yet it could also inflame tensions'--the brain drain could sap productive potential from source countries and a sudden influx of people could erode social cohesion in host countries and fuel nationalism. Yes, migration can help, but it must be managed well.
- Environmental degradation
- So demographics is one potential long-term obstacle. A second is environmental degradation, the newest and greatest challenge of our era. We all know what is at stake here. More people with more prosperity will stretch our natural environment to the limit.
- We can expect growing pressure points around water, food, and energy scarcity as the century progresses. By 2030, almost half of the world's population will live in regions of high water stress or shortage.
- Hovering over all of this is the merciless march of climate change. Because of humanity's hubris, the natural environment, which we need to sustain us, is instead turning against us.
- Make no mistake, it is the world's most vulnerable people who will suffer most from the convulsions of climate. For example, some estimates suggest that forty percent of the land now used to grow maize in sub-Saharan Africa will no longer be able to support that crop by the 2030s. This will have hugely disruptive implications for African livelihoods and lives.
- A few years back, Prince Charles gave this very Dimbleby lecture. He used the occasion to make an impassioned plea to respect the natural law of ecological sustainability. ''In failing the earth,'' he said, ''we are failing humanity''.
- The bad news is that we are getting perilously close to the tipping point. The good news is that it is not too late to turn the tide'--even with rising seas.
- Overcoming climate change is obviously a gigantic project with a multitude of moving parts. I would just like to mention one component of it'--making sure that people pay for the damage they cause. Why is this aspect'--getting the prices right'--so important? Because it will help to reduce the harm today and spur investment in the low-carbon technologies of tomorrow.
- Phasing out energy subsidies and getting energy prices right must also be part of the solution. Think about it: we are subsidizing the very behavior that is destroying our planet, and on an enormous scale. Both direct subsidies and the loss of tax revenue from fossil fuels ate up almost $2 trillion in 2011'--this is about the same as the total GDP of countries like Italy or Russia! The worst part is that these subsidies mostly benefit the relatively affluent, not the poor. Reducing subsidies and properly taxing energy use can be a win-win prospect for people and for the planet.
- Demographics and degradation of the environment are two major long-term trends'--disparity of income is the third. This is really an old issue that has come to the fore once again.
- We are all keenly aware that income inequality has been rising in most countries. Seven out of ten people in the world today live in countries where inequality has increased over the past three decades.
- Some of the numbers are stunning'--according to Oxfam, the richest 85 people in the world own the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the world's population.
- In the US, inequality is back to where it was before the Great Depression, and the richest 1 percent captured 95 percent of all income gains since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent got poorer. In India, the net worth of the billionaire community increased twelvefold in 15 years, enough to eliminate absolute poverty in this country twice over.
- With facts like these, it is not surprising that inequality is increasingly on the global community's radar screen. It is not surprising that everyone from the Confederation of British Industry to Pope Francis is speaking out about it'--because it can tear the precious fabric that holds our society together.
- Let me be frank: in the past, economists have underestimated the importance of inequality. They have focused on economic growth, on the size of the pie rather than its distribution. Today, we are more keenly aware of the damage done by inequality. Put simply, a severely skewed income distribution harms the pace and sustainability of growth over the longer term. It leads to an economy of exclusion, and a wasteland of discarded potential.
- It is easy to diagnose the problem, but far more difficult to solve it.
- From our work at the IMF, we know that the fiscal system can help to reduce inequality through careful design of tax and spending policies. Think about making taxation more progressive, improving access to health and education, and putting in place effective and targeted social programs. Yet these policies are hard to design and'--because they create winners and losers'--they create resistance and require courage.
- Nevertheless, we need to get to grips with it, and make sure that ''inclusion'' is given as much weight as ''growth'' in the design of policies. Yes, we need inclusive growth.
- More inclusion and opportunity in the economic life also means less cronyism and corruption. This must also rise to the top of the policy agenda.
- There is one more dimension of inequality that I wish to discuss here'--one that is close to my heart. If we talk about inclusion in economic life, we must surely talk about gender.
- As we know too well, girls and women are still not allowed to fulfill their potential'--not just in the developing world, but in rich countries too. The International Labor Organization estimates that 865 million women around the world are being held back. They face discrimination at birth, on the school bench, in the board room. They face reticence of the marketplace'--and of the mind.
- And yet, the economic facts of life are crystal clear. By not letting women contribute, we end up with lower living standards for everyone. If women participated in the labor force to the same extent as men, the boost to per capita incomes could be huge'--27 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, 23 percent in South Asia, 17 percent in Latin America, 15 percent in East Asia, 14 percent in Europe and Central Asia. We simply cannot afford to throw away these gains.
- ''Daring the difference'', as I call it'--enabling women to participate on an equal footing with men'--can be a global economic game changer. We must let women succeed: for ourselves and for all the little girls'--and boys'--of the future. It will be their world'--let us give it to them.
- A Multilateralism for a New Era
- I have talked tonight about the main pressure points that will dominate the global economy in the years to come'--the tension between coming together and drifting apart; and the tension between staying strong and slowing down. I have talked about pressures that would have seemed familiar a century ago, and some that are entirely new.
- Now, how do we manage these pressure points? Where are the solutions?
- Overcoming the first tension really boils down to a simple question: do we cooperate as a global family or do we confront each other across the trenches of insularity? Are we friends or are we foes? Overcoming the second tension requires us to face common threats that are not bound by borders. Do we face adversity together, or do we build yet more borders and Maginot Lines that will be mere illusionary protections?
- The response to both tensions is therefore the same: a renewed commitment to international cooperation; to putting global interest above self-interest; to multilateralism.
- As Martin Luther King once said, ''We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.''
- This is really an old lesson for a new era. At such a momentous time as this, we need to choose the ethos of 1944 over 1914. We need to rekindle the Bretton Woods spirit that has served us so well.
- That does not mean, however, that we need to go back to the drawing board.
- Thanks to the inheritance of history, we have specific, working, forms of cooperation at hand. Again, think about the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization'--and of course the IMF. We might call these concrete'--or ''hard'''--forms of global governance.
- We also have a number of ''soft'' instruments, such as the G20 at one end and networks of non-government organizations at the other. These entities have no formal mandates or legal powers of enforcement, but they do have value. They can move quickly and they can wedge open the doors of dialogue. And, as Winston Churchill famously said, ''to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war''!
- We have seen the power of multilateralism in action, both ''hard'' and ''soft''. For an example of soft cooperation, we need look no further than right here in London five years ago, when the G20 countries rallied to turn back the tide of crisis, and made sure the world did not slip into a second Great Depression.
- As for more concrete forms, I invite you to consider the historic role played by the IMF down through the years'--helping Europe after the war, the new nations of Africa and Asia after independence, the former eastern bloc after the Iron Curtain fell, and Latin America and Asia after crippling crisis. During the current crisis, we made 154 new lending commitments, disbursed $182 billion to countries in need, and provided technical assistance to 90 percent of our member nations. And we have 188 of them.
- The beauty of the new multilateralism is that it can build on the old'--but go further. The existing instruments of cooperation have proven extremely successful over the past decades, and they must be preserved and protected. That means that institutions like the IMF must be brought fully up to date, and made fully representative of the changing dynamics of the global economy. We are working on that.
- More broadly, the new multilateralism must be made more inclusive'--encompassing not only the emerging powers across the globe, but also the expanding networks and coalitions that are now deeply embedded in the fabric of the global economy. The new multilateralism must have the capacity to listen and respond to those new voices.
- The new multilateralism also needs to be agile, making sure that soft and hard forms of collaboration complement rather than compete with each other. It needs to promote a long-term perspective and a global mentality, and be decisive in the short term'--to overcome the temptation toward insularity and muddling through.
- Fundamentally, it needs to instill a broader sense of social responsibility on the part of all players in the modern global economy. It needs to instill the values of a global civil market economy'--a global ''guild hall'', as it were.
- What might this mean in practice? It clearly means many things, starting with all global stakeholders taking collective responsibility for managing the complex channels of the hyperconnected world.
- For a start, that means a renewed commitment to openness, and to the mutual benefits of trade and foreign investment.
- It also requires collective responsibility for managing an international monetary system that has traveled light years since the old Bretton Woods system. The collective responsibility would translate into all monetary institutions cooperating closely'--mindful of the potential impact of their policies on others.
- In turn, that means we need a financial system for the 21st century. What do I mean by that?
- I mean a financial system that serves the productive economy rather than its own purposes, where jurisdictions only seek their own advantage provided that the greater global good prevails and with a regulatory structure that is global in reach. I mean financial oversight that is effective in clamping down on excess while making sure that credit gets to where it is most needed. I also mean a financial structure in which industry takes co-responsibility for the integrity of the system as a whole, where culture is taken as seriously as capital, and where the ethos is to serve rather than rule the real economy.
- This has special resonance right here in the City of London. As a financial center with global reach, it must be a financial center with global responsibility. And with all due respect and admiration, that goes beyond hiring a Canadian to head the Bank of England!
- We also need the new 21st century multilateralism to get to grips with big ticket items like climate change and inequality. On these issues, no country can stand alone. Combating climate change will require the concerted resolve of all stakeholders working together'--governments, cities, corporations, civil society, and even private citizens. Countries also need to come together to address inequality. As but one example, if countries compete for business by lowering taxes on corporate income, this could make inequality worse.
- Overall, the kind of 21st century cooperation I am thinking of will not come easy. It might get even harder as time passes, when the curtains fall on this crisis, when complacency sets in--even as the seeds of the next crisis perhaps are being planted.
- Yet given the currents that will dominate the coming decades, do we really have a choice? A new multilateralism is non-negotiable.
- On that note, let me end by going back again to the beginning'--to Keynes and that famous tryst with destiny.
- Referring to that great multilateral moment, he noted that ''if we can so continue, this nightmare, in which most of us here present have spent too much of our lives, will be over. The brotherhood of man will have become more than a phrase.''
- History proved Keynes right. Our forefathers vanquished the demons of the past, bequeathing to us a better world'--and our generation was the main beneficiary.
- We are where we are today because of the foundation laid by the generation before us.
- Now it is our turn'--to pave the way for the next generation. Are we up to the challenge? Our future depends on the answer to that question.
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- Christine Lagarde: Congress Can Help the U.S. By Reforming The IMF - WSJ.com
- March 24, 2014 6:57 p.m. ET
- From its founding in 1945, the International Monetary Fund has had a unique role in the global economy. Again and again it has provided vital financing and economic support in times of crisis'--from the postwar reconstruction of Europe, to the transformation of the countries of the former Soviet Union into free market economies, to the resolution of the financial crises in Asia and Latin America to the current recovery from the great recession.
- The IMF's lending, policy advice and capacity building has promoted economic...
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- IMF's Lagarde says can't do much about reform without U.S. support
- IMF's Lagarde says can't do much about reform without U.S. supportTop News
- IMF's Lagarde says can't do much about reform without U.S. support
- BEIJING (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said on Sunday that there was not much she should could to push reform at her organization and give emerging economies a bigger say without the support of the United States.
- China in January called on IMF member nations to stick to a commitment to give emerging markets more power at the global lender after U.S. lawmakers set back historic reforms that would give developing countries a greater say.
- The remarks by China's foreign ministry were an indirect criticism of the United States, the biggest and most powerful IMF member, where lawmakers that month failed to agree on funding measures needed for the reforms to move forward.
- The U.S. Congress must sign off on the IMF funding to complete 2010 reforms that would make China the IMF's third-largest member and revamp the IMF board to reduce the dominance of Western Europe.
- Speaking at Beijing's elite Tsinghua University, Lagarde said this was a matter for the United States to complete the process and ensure that the relevant legislation can be passed.
- "This is not something I can do much about," she told students.
- She added that she hoped emerging economies could have a bigger voice within the institution.
- The reform of the voting shares, known as quotas, cannot proceed without the United States, which holds the only controlling share of IMF votes.
- After putting off the request in 2012 because of the U.S. presidential election, the U.S. Treasury has sought to tuck the provision into several bills since March of last year.
- The administration's requests, however, have been met with skepticism from some Republicans, who see them as tantamount to approving fresh funding in a tight budget environment.
- Some U.S. lawmakers have also raised concerns about how well the IMF is helping struggling economies in Europe and the risks attached to IMF loans, suggesting Congress is in no hurry to approve any changes.
- Developing nations have long viewed the IMF with suspicion for promoting disastrous privatizations that complicated the transition from communism for some emerging nations in the early 1990s, and for pushing budget cuts that exacerbated debt crises in Asia and Latin America a few years later.
- That suspicion has been compounded by a power structure that dates to IMF's founding in 1944. The structure was shaped by the victors of World War Two - the United States and other Allied nations.
- (Reporting by Shao Xiaoyi and Ben Blanchard; E$diting by Nick Macfie)
- IMF's Lagarde says can't do much about reform without U.S. supportTop News
- IMF's Lagarde says can't do much about reform without U.S. support
- BEIJING (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said on Sunday that there was not much she should could to push reform at her organization and give emerging economies a bigger say without the support of the United States.
- China in January called on IMF member nations to stick to a commitment to give emerging markets more power at the global lender after U.S. lawmakers set back historic reforms that would give developing countries a greater say.
- The remarks by China's foreign ministry were an indirect criticism of the United States, the biggest and most powerful IMF member, where lawmakers that month failed to agree on funding measures needed for the reforms to move forward.
- The U.S. Congress must sign off on the IMF funding to complete 2010 reforms that would make China the IMF's third-largest member and revamp the IMF board to reduce the dominance of Western Europe.
- Speaking at Beijing's elite Tsinghua University, Lagarde said this was a matter for the United States to complete the process and ensure that the relevant legislation can be passed.
- "This is not something I can do much about," she told students.
- She added that she hoped emerging economies could have a bigger voice within the institution.
- The reform of the voting shares, known as quotas, cannot proceed without the United States, which holds the only controlling share of IMF votes.
- After putting off the request in 2012 because of the U.S. presidential election, the U.S. Treasury has sought to tuck the provision into several bills since March of last year.
- The administration's requests, however, have been met with skepticism from some Republicans, who see them as tantamount to approving fresh funding in a tight budget environment.
- Some U.S. lawmakers have also raised concerns about how well the IMF is helping struggling economies in Europe and the risks attached to IMF loans, suggesting Congress is in no hurry to approve any changes.
- Developing nations have long viewed the IMF with suspicion for promoting disastrous privatizations that complicated the transition from communism for some emerging nations in the early 1990s, and for pushing budget cuts that exacerbated debt crises in Asia and Latin America a few years later.
- That suspicion has been compounded by a power structure that dates to IMF's founding in 1944. The structure was shaped by the victors of World War Two - the United States and other Allied nations.
- (Reporting by Shao Xiaoyi and Ben Blanchard; E$diting by Nick Macfie)
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- America and the IMF: Dereliction of duty | The Economist
- ANYONE who doubts the importance of the International Monetary Fund should look at Ukraine. Every Western nation is talking about helping the Ukrainians resist Vladimir Putin. In terms of immediate cash, America has come up with $1 billion of loan guarantees, while the European Union has found '¬1.6 billion ($2.2 billion) of budget support. The IMF, meanwhile, is discussing lending Ukraine's government about $15 billion. It is the only outfit capable of mobilising large sums fast. That is why, for the past 70 years, the fund has been the world's financial firefighter. And it is why Congress's refusal to support reforms to strengthen it is shockingly shortsighted.
- The reforms in question concern the IMF's system of ''quotas''. Each country's quota determines how much it pays in, its clout in the organisation and how much it can borrow if it gets into trouble. America's quota is the biggest, giving it veto power. But today's system gives excessive heft to small countries in Europe and too little to emerging economies. And, at $370 billion, the total value of the quotas is modest compared with the scale of global capital flows. That is why, during the 2008-09 financial crisis, the fund's resources were topped up with temporary credit lines from big economies. And it is why, in December 2010, at America's instigation, the fund's members agreed to a bolder reform that would double the quotas and raise the emerging economies' voting power.
- More than three years later, Congress has still not endorsed this reform. It failed to do so once again this week, and in a particularly galling manner. The Obama administration tried to attach quota reform to the legislation approving America's bilateral aid to Ukraine. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate refused to include it. Just as the fund is promising billions for a country that America is desperate to support, Congress has undercut it.
- This is a shameful outcome, driven largely by ignorance. The fund's most vociferous congressional critics, mainly Republicans, misunderstand both the organisation and its reforms. They argue that the quota change would put more taxpayer money at risk and weaken America's influence within the fund. Both claims are bogus. America will retain its veto power. The larger role for emerging economies comes at the expense of European countries. Nor does a larger quota add to America's overall exposure, not least because its credit lines to the fund will be commensurately cut.
- The real risk to Americans lies in Congress's failure to support the reforms that its technocrats championed. This has infuriated the fund's other member countries, making them less inclined to support America's priorities. Big assistance packages, such as that for Ukraine, could be a casualty of their anger at America's unwillingness to live up to its promises. And with a smaller quota and greater reliance on credit, the fund's finances will be less secure that they should be. America's arsenal of economic diplomacy will be the emptier for it.
- Unravelling Bretton Woods, one vote at a time
- Depressingly, few politicians in Washington seem to care. The sense of hegemonic responsibility that led America to create organisations like the IMF and World Bank in 1944, and to nurture them in subsequent decades, is eroding fast. Republicans, particularly the isolationist tea-party sort, deserve much of the blame. But so, too, does the White House. A few wonks within the Obama team care a lot about the IMF, but it has never been a priority for the president himself. As with trade deals, Mr Obama is loth to invest effort or political capital in supporting the IMF. It is an abdication of leadership that America will come to regret.
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- SDR-IMF-Exchange Rate Archives by Month
- Last Updated: Saturday, March 29, 2014Exchange Rate Query Tool - This query tool allows the user to retrieve exchange rates data from the IMF rates database, and view, print, or save the data. For additional historical monthly data for exchange rates, see eLibrary.
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- Inconvenient truths about IMF reform and Ukraine | TheHill
- Next week, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will make his case before the House Financial Service Committee for linking IMF reform to U.S. bilateral aid for Ukraine. If the past is any guide, he will do so by putting forward a set of disingenuous arguments in favor of his case. This has to be regretted. For both Congress and the American people deserve that an issue as important as IMF reform be debated on an accurate set of facts rather than on half-truths about the issue at hand that might suit the administration's purposes.
- The principal argument that Secretary Lew must be expected to make is that IMF quota reform is essential for large-scale IMF Ukrainian financial support. This argument glosses over the fact that under the IMF's lending policy under ''exceptional circumstances'', which has been resorted to on many occasions since the 1994 Mexican tequila crisis, the amount that the IMF can lend a country bears little relation to the size of that country's IMF quota. Whereas prior to 1994 the IMF had limited itself to lending no more than 300 percent of a country's IMF quota, by the time of the European sovereign debt crisis in 2010, the IMF loaned countries like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal as individual circumstances dictated between as much as 1,500 percent and 2,000 percent of their respective IMF quotas.
- Ukraine is reportedly currently seeking around a U.S. $15 billion IMF economic adjustment loan. If Mr. Lew were to be candid, he would inform Congress that such an amount represents only around 800 percent of Ukraine's present IMF quota or less than half the amount of quota that the IMF recently committed to several countries in the European economic periphery. He would also inform Congress that the IMF presently has more than U.S. $400 billion in uncommitted loanable resources. This would make the IMF's prospective loan to Ukraine but a drop in the IMF's large bucket of available resources even without IMF reform.Another less than candid argument that Secretary Lew might be expected to make is that the U.S. would give up little by agreeing to a shift of the U.S. $63 billion it has already committed under the New Arrangement to Borrow to the IMF's general resource account. He will point out that according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office such a transfer would cost the US budget less than U.S. $400 million. However, what Mr. Lew will not tell Congress is that were it to agree to such a transfer, the U.S. would be giving up effective control over how an important part of the IMF's resources might be used. Since while the US has an effective veto over IMF loan authorizations under the New Arrangement to Borrow it does not have such a veto over the IMF's use of its general resources.
- The U.S. Treasury never tires of assuring Congress that large-scale IMF lending poses no risk to the US taxpayer. It bases its argument on the fact that the IMF enjoys preferred creditor status and that to date no major country has defaulted on its IMF loans. However, the Treasury conveniently glosses over the fact that IMF loan repayment experience with past IMF lending on a small scale might not be a good guide to what might happen on IMF loans of an unprecedentedly large scale. To understand that there now might be a real risk to the US taxpayer from IMF lending, one only need reflect on the IMF's current Greek lending experience. Greece's public debt is now mainly officially owned and it amounts to over 175 percent of GDP. It is far from clear that the European Central Bank will go along with the idea that the IMF enjoys senior status over the ECB in terms of Greece's loan repayments.
- Perhaps the most critical question that Mr. Lew will choose to gloss over is whether in fact we really need as big an IMF on a permanent basis as the IMF reform would entail. In particular, one should not expect him to note that since the December 2010 G-20 meeting, which agreed upon the need for IMF reforms, fundamental institutional changes have occurred in Europe that would argue in favor of a very much smaller sized IMF.
- Those changes, which now put Europe in the position to deal with its own crisis without massive IMF support, included the setting up of a EUR500 billion permanent European Stability Mechanism. They also included the introduction by the European Central Bank (ECB) of an Outright Monetary Transaction (OMT) program. Under the OMT, the ECB is authorized to buy as much of a member country's government bonds with a maturity of up to 3 years as might be needed subject to that country having negotiated an ESM economic adjustment program.
- All of this is not to argue that in the end Congress should not accede to IMF reform. Rather it is to argue that the issue of IMF reform should be debated on an accurate set of facts. It is also to argue that the question of US bilateral support to Ukraine should not be held hostage to passage of IMF reform that might not stand on its own merits.
- Lachman is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a former deputy director in the International Monetary Fund's Policy Development and Review Department and the chief emerging market economic strategist at Salomon Smith Barney.
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- U.S. Treasury Secretary urges Congress to ratify IMF reform package - Xinhua | English.news.cn
- WASHINGTON, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on Wednesday urged the U.S. congress to ratify the much- delayed quota and governance reform package agreed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) governors in 2010.
- "At a time when the United States is at the forefront of international calls in urging the Fund to play a central and active first responder role in Ukraine, it is imperative we secure passage of IMF legislation now so that the IMF can provide the most effective assistance to Ukraine in this vulnerable moment and we can preserve our influential voice in this indispensable institution," Lew said in his testimony before the Senate Budget Committee.
- Lew said Ukraine may seek a rescue package of as much as 15 billion U.S. dollars from the IMF. "That's why the IMF is so important. It is the first responder."
- The IMF's Board of Governors approved a quota and governance reform package on Dec. 15, 2010. The package included a doubling of IMF quotas and a shift in quotas to dynamic emerging markets and under-represented countries, and a proposed amendment to reform the executive board that would facilitate a move to a more representative and all-elected executive board. The reforms would give the emerging economies more say in the 188-member global lender.
- The IMF previously had intended to make the 2010 reform package effective before October 2012, but Congress of the United States, the Fund's largest shareholder, has become the major stumbling block for the reform.
- The United States holds 16.7 percent voting shares, which gives it the veto power to the reform package that needs 85 percent voting shares to take effect.
- Lew said the refusal to approve the previously negotiated IMF reforms weakens the U.S. voice in this institution. "We're already hearing calls by some to say, 'if the United States doesn't approve (the IMF) reforms, we should maybe move on without them,'" Lew told the Senate lawmakers. "That's not a good place for the United States to be."
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- IMF directed r(C)gime change in Ukraine | Featured |Axisoflogic.com
- In the days following the Ukraine coup d'Etat of February 23, leading to the ousting of a duly elected president, Wall Street and the IMF''in liaison with the US Treasury and the European Commission in Brussels'' had already set the stage for the outright takeover of Ukraine's monetary system. The EuroMaidan protests leading up to ''regime change'' and the formation of an interim government were followed by purges within key ministries and government bodies.The Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Ihor Sorkin was fired on February 25th and replaced by a new governor: Stepan Kubiv.
- Stepan Kubiv is a member of Parliament of the Rightist Batkivshchyna ''Fatherland'' faction in the Rada led by the acting Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk (founded by Yulia Tymoshenko in March 1999). He previously headed Kredbank, a Ukrainian financial institution largely owned by EU capital, with some 130 branches throughout Ukraine.
- Kubic is no ordinary bank executive. He was one of the first field ''commandants'' of the EuroMaidan riots alongsideAndriy Parubiy co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda) andDimitry Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector Brown Shirts, which now has the status of a political party.
- Kubiv was in the Maidan square addressing protesters on February 18, at the very moment when armed Right Sector thugs under the helm of Dmitry Yarosh were raiding the parliament building.
- A few days later, upon the establishment of the interim government, Stepan Kubiv was put in charge of negotiations with Wall Street and the IMF.
- The new Minister of Finance Aleksandr Shlapak is a political crony of Viktor Yushchenko '' a long-time proteg(C) of the IMF who was spearheaded into the presidency following the 2004 ''Colored Revolution''. Shlapak held key positions in the office of the presidency under Yushchenko as well as at the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). In 2010, upon Yushchenko's defeat, Aleksandr Shlapak joined a shadowy Bermuda based offshore financial outfit IMG International Ltd (IMG), holding the position of Vice President. Based in Hamilton, Bermuda, IMG specialises in ''captive insurance management'', reinsurance and ''risk transfer.''
- Minister of Finance Aleksandr Shlapak works in close liaison with Pavlo Sheremeto, the newly appointed Minister of Economic Development and Trade, who upon his appointment called for ''deregulation, fully fledged and across the board'', requiring ''as demanded in previous negotiations by the IMF'' the outright elimination of subsidies on fuel, energy and basic food staples.
- Another key appointment is that of Ihor Shvaika, a member of the Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party, to the position of Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food. Headed by an avowed follower of World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera [see image below], this ministry not only oversees the agricultural sector, it also decides on issues pertaining to subsidies and the prices of basic food staples.
- The new Cabinet has stated that the country is prepared for socially ''painful'' but necessary reforms. In December 2013, a 20 billion dollar deal with the IMF had already been contemplated alongside the controversial EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Yanukovych decided to turn it down.
- One of the requirements of the IMF was that ''household subsidies for gas be reduced once again by 50%''.
- ''Other onerous IMF requirements included cuts to pensions, government employment, and the privatization (read: let western corporations purchase) of government assets and property. It is therefore likely that the most recent IMF deal currently in negotiation, will include once again major reductions in gas subsidies, cuts in pensions, immediate government job cuts, as well as other reductions in social spending programs in the Ukraine.'' (voice of russia.com March 21, 2014)
- Economic Surrender: Unconditional Acceptance of IMF Demands by Western Puppet GovernmentShortly after his instatement, the interim (puppet) prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk casually dismissed the need to negotiate with the IMF. Prior to the conduct of negotiations pertaining to a draft agreement, Yatsenyuk had already called for an unconditional acceptance of the IMF package: ''We have no other choice but to accept the IMF offer''.Yatsenyk intimated that Ukraine will ''accept whatever offer the IMF and the EU made'' (voice of russia.com, March 21, 2014)
- In surrendering to the IMF, Yatsenyuk was fully aware that the proposed reforms would brutally impoverish millions of people, including those who protested in Maidan.
- The actual time frame for the implementation of the IMF's ''shock therapy'' has not yet been firmly established. In all likelihood, the regime will attempt to delay the more ruthless social impacts of the macroeconomic reforms until after the May 25 presidential elections (assuming that these elections will take place).
- The text of the IMF agreement is likely to be detailed and specific, particularly with regard to State assets earmarked for privatization.
- Henry Kissinger and Condoleeza Rice, according to Bloomberg are among key individuals in the US who are acting (in a non-official capacity) in tandem with the IMF, the Kiev government, in consultation with the White House and the US Congress.
- The IMF Mission to KievImmediately upon the instatement of the new Finance Minister and NBU governor, a request was submitted to the IMF's Managing director. An IMF fact finding mission headed by the Director of the IMF's European Department Rez Moghadam was rushed to Kiev:
- ''I am positively impressed with the authorities' determination, sense of responsibility and commitment to an agenda of economic reform and transparency. The IMF stands ready to help the people of Ukraine and support the authorities' economic program.'' Press Release: Statement by IMF European Department Director Reza Moghadam on his Visit to Ukraine
- A week later, on March 12, Christine Lagarde, met the interim Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk at IMF headquarters in Washington. Lagarde reaffirmed the IMF's commitment:''[to putting Ukraine back] on the path of sound economic governance and sustainable growth, while protecting the vulnerable in society. '... We are keen to help Ukraine on its path to economic stability and prosperity.''(Press Release: Statement by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Ukraine
- The above statement is wrought with hypocrisy. In practice, the IMF does not wield ''sound economic governance'' nor does it protect the vulnerable. It impoverishes entire populations, while providing ''prosperity'' to a small corrupt and subservient political and economic elite.IMF ''economic medicine'' while contributing to the enrichment of a social minority, invariably triggers economic instability and mass poverty, while providing a ''social safety net'' to the external creditors. To sell its reform package, the IMF relies on media propaganda as well as persistent statements by ''economic experts'' and financial analysts which provide authority to the IMF's macroeconomic reforms.
- The unspoken objective behind IMF interventionism is to destabilize sovereign governments and literally break up entire national economies. This is achieved through the manipulation of key macroeconomic policy instruments as well as the outright rigging of financial markets, including the foreign exchange market.
- To reach its unspoken goals, the IMF-World Bank ''often in consultation with the US Treasury and the State Department'', will exert control over key appointments including the Minister of Finance, the Central Bank governor as well as senior officials in charge of the country's privatization program. These key appointments will require the (unofficial) approval of the ''Washington Consensus'' prior to the conduct of negotiations pertaining to a multibillion IMF bailout agreement.
- Beneath the rhetoric, in the real World of money and credit, the IMF has several related operational objectives:
- to facilitate the collection of debt servicing obligations, while ensuring that the country remains indebted and under the control of its external creditors.to exert on behalf of the country's external creditors full control over the country's monetary policy, its fiscal and budgetary structures,to revamp social programs, labor laws, minimum wage legislation, in accordance with the interests of Western capitalto deregulate foreign trade and investment policies, including financial services and intellectual property rights,to implement the privatization of key sectors of the economy through the sale of public assets to foreign corporations.to facilitate the takeover by foreign capital (including mergers and acquisitions) of selected privately owned Ukrainian corporations.to ensure the deregulation of the foreign exchange market.While the privatization program ensures the transfer of State assets into the hands of foreign investors, the IMF program also includes provisions geared towards the destabilization of the country's privately owned business conglomerates. A concurrent ''break up'' plan entitled ''spin-off'' as well as a ''bankruptcy program'' are often implemented with a view to triggering the liquidation, closing down or restructuring of a large number of nationally owned private and public enterprises.The ''spin off'' procedure ''which was imposed on South Korea under the December 1997 IMF bailout agreement'' required the break up of several of Korea's powerful chaebols (business conglomerates) into smaller corporations, many of which were then taken over by US, EU and Japanese capital. Sizeable banking interests as well highly profitable components of Korea's high tech industrial base were transferred or sold off at rock bottom prices to Western capital. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, Montreal, 2003, Chapter 22).
- These staged bankruptcy programs ultimately seek to destroy national capitalism. In the case of Ukraine, they would selectively target the business interests of the oligarchs, opening the door for the takeover of a sizeable portion of Ukraine's private sector by EU and US corporations. The conditionalities contained in the IMF agreement would be coordinated with those contained in the controversial EU-Ukraine Association agreement, which the Yanukovych government refused to sign.Ukraine's Spiraling External DebtUkraine's external debt is of the order of $140 billion.
- In consultations with the US Treasury and the EU, the IMF aid package is to be of the order of 15 billion dollars. Ukraine's outstanding short-term debt is of the order of $65 billion, more than four times the amount promised by the IMF.
- The Central Bank's foreign currency reserves have literally dried up. In February, according to the NUB, Ukraine's foreign-currency reserves were of the order of a meagre US$13.7 billion, its Special Drawing Rights with the IMF were of the order of US$16.1 million, its gold reserves US$1.81 billion.There were unconfirmed reports that Ukraine's gold had been confiscated and airlifted to New York, for ''safe-keeping'' under the custody of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
- Under the bailout, the IMF '' acting on behalf of Ukraine's US and EU creditors '' lends money to Ukraine which is already earmarked for debt repayment. The money is transferred to the creditors.The loan is ''fictitious money''. Not one dollar of this money will enter Ukraine.
- The package is not intended to support economic growth. Quite the opposite: Its main purpose is to collect the outstanding short term debt, while precipitating the destabilization of Ukraine's economy and financial system.
- The fundamental principle of usury is that the creditor comes to the rescue of the debtor: ''I cannot pay my debts, No problem my son, I will lend you the money and with the money I lend you, you will pay me back''.
- The rescue rope thrown to Kiev by the IMF and the European Union is in reality a ball and chain. Ukraine's external debt, as documented by the World Bank, increased tenfold in ten years and exceeds 135 billion dollars. In interests alone, Ukraine must pay about 4.5 billion dollars a year. The new loans will only serve to increase the external debt thus obliging Kiev to ''liberalize'' its economy even more, by selling to corporations what remains to be privatized. Ukraine, IMF ''Shock Treatment'' and Economic Warfare By Manlio Dinucci, Global Research, March 21, 2014
- Under the IMF loan agreement, the money will not enter the country, It will be used to trigger the repayment of outstanding debt servicing obligations to EU and US creditors. In this regard, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)''European banks have more than $23 billion in outstanding loans in Ukraine.'' (Spiegel Online, February 28, 2014)
- What are the ''benefits'' of an IMF package to Ukraine?According to IMF's managing director Christine Lagarde the bailout is intended to address the issue of poverty and social inequality. In actuality what it does is to increase the levels of indebtedness, while essentially handing over the reins of macro-economic reform and monetary policy to the Bretton Woods Institutions, acting on behalf of Wall Street.
- The bailout agreement will include the imposition of drastic austerity measures which in all likelihood will trigger further social chaos and economic dislocation. It's called ''policy based lending'', namely the granting of money earmarked to reimburse the creditors, in exchange for the IMF's ''bitter economic medicine'' in the form of a menu of neoliberal policy reforms. ''Short-term pain for long term gain'' is the motto of the Washington based Bretton Woods institutions.
- Loan ''conditionalities'' will be imposed ''including drastic austerity measures'' -which will serve to impoverish the Ukrainian population beyond bounds in a country which has been under IMF ministrations for more than 20 years. While the Maidan movement was manipulated, tens of thousands of people protested they wanted a new life, because their standard of living had collapsed as a result of the neoliberal policies applied by successive governments, including that of president Yanukovych. Little did they realize that the protest movement supported by Wall Street, the US State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was meant to usher in a new phase of economic and social destruction.
- History of IMF Ministrations in UkraineIn 1994 under the presidency of Leonid Kuchma, an IMF package was imposed on Ukraine. Viktor Yushchenko '' who later became president following the 2004 Colored Revolution '' had been appointed head of the newly-formed National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). Yushchenko was praised by the Western financial media as a ''daring reformer''; he was among the main architects of the IMF's 1994 reforms which served to destabilize Ukraine's national economy. When he ran in the 2004 elections against Yanukovych, he was supported by various foundations including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). He was Wall Street's preferred candidate.
- Ukraine's 1994 IMF package was finalized behind closed doors at the Madrid 50 years anniversary Summit of the Bretton Woods institutions. It required the Ukrainian government to abandon State controls over the exchange rate leading to an massive collapse of the currency. Yushchenko played a key role in negotiating and implementing the 1994 agreement as well as creating a new Ukrainian national currency, which resulted in a dramatic plunge in real wages:.
- Yushchenko as Head of the Central Bank was responsible for deregulating the national currency under the October 1994 ''shock treatment'':
- The price of bread increased overnight by 300 percent,electricity prices by 600 percent,public transportation by 900 percent.the standard of living tumbledAccording to the Ukrainian State Statistics Committee, quoted by the IMF, real wages in 1998 had fallen by more than 75 percent in relation to their 1991 level.Ironically, the IMF sponsored program was intended to alleviate inflationary pressures: it consisted in imposing ''dollarised'' prices on an impoverished population with earnings below ten dollars a month.
- Combined with the abrupt hikes in fuel and energy prices, the lifting of subsidies and the freeze on credit contributed to destroying industry (both public and private) and undermining Ukraine's breadbasket economy.
- In November 1994, World Bank negotiators were sent in to examine the overhaul of Ukraine's agriculture. With trade liberalization (which was part of the economic package), US grain surpluses and ''food aid'' were dumped on the domestic market, contributing to destabilizing one of the World's largest and most productive wheat economies, (e.g. comparable to that of the American Mid West). (Michel Chossudovsky IMF Sponsored ''Democracy'' in The Ukraine, Global Research, November 28, 2004)
- The IMF-World Bank had destroyed Ukraine's 'bread basket''.
- By 1998, the deregulation of the grain market, the hikes in the price of fuel and the liberalisation of trade resulted in a decline in the production of grain by 45 percent in relation to its 1986-90 level. The collapse in livestock production, poultry and dairy products was even more dramatic. (Seehttp://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2003/cr03174.pdf). The cumulative decline in GDP resulting from the IMF sponsored reforms was in excess of 60 percent from 1992 to 1995.
- The World Bank: Fake Poverty AlleviationThe World Bank has recently acknowledged that Ukraine is a poor country. (World Bank, Ukraine Overview, Washington DC, updated February 17, 2014):
- ''Evidence shows Ukraine is facing a health crisis, and the country needs to make urgent and extensive measures to its health system to reverse the progressive deterioration of citizens' health. Crude adult death rates in Ukraine are higher than its immediate neighbors, Moldova and Belarus, and among the highest not only in Europe, but also in the world.''
- What the report fails to mention is that the Bretton Woods institutions ''through a process of economic engineering'' played a central role in precipitating the post-Soviet collapse of the Ukrainian economy. The dramatic breakdown of Ukraine's social programs bears the fingerprints of the IMF-World Bank austerity measures which included the deliberate underfunding and dismantling of the Soviet era health care system.With regard to agriculture, the World Bank points to Ukraine's ''tremendous agricultural potential'' while failing to acknowledge that the Ukraine bread-basket was destroyed as part of a US-IMF-World Bank package. According to the World Bank: ''This potential has not been fully exploited due to depressed farm incomes and a lack of modernization within the sector.''
- ''Depressed farm incomes'' are not ''the cause'' they are the ''consequence'' of the IMF-World Bank Structural Adjustment Program. In 1994, farm incomes had declined by the order of 80% in relation to 1991, following the October 1994 IMF program engineered by then NUB governor Viktor Yushchenko. Immediately following the 1994 IMF reform package, the World Bank implemented (in 1995) a private sector ''seed project'' based on ''the liberalization of seed pricing, marketing, and trade''. The prices of farm inputs increased dramatically leading to a string of agricultural bankruptcies.
- The IMF's 2014 ''Shock and Awe'' Economic BailoutWhile the conditions prevailing in Ukraine today are markedly different to those applied in the 1990s, it should be understood that the imposition of a new wave of macro-economic reforms (under strict IMF policy conditionalities) will serve to impoverish a population which has already been impoverished. In other words, the IMF's 2014 ''Shock and Awe'' constitutes the ''final blow'' in a sequence of IMF interventions spreading over a period of more than 20 years, which have contributed to destabilizing the national economy and impoverishing Ukraine's population.
- Preliminary information suggests that IMF bailout will provide an advance of $2-billion in the form of a grant to be followed by a subsequent loan of $11 billion. The European Investment Bank (EIB) will provide another 2 billion, for a total package of around $15 billion. (See Voice of Russia, March 21, 2014)
- Drastic Austerity MeasuresThe Kiev government has announced that the IMF requires a 20% cut in Ukraine`s national budget, implying drastic cuts in social programs, coupled with reductions in the wages of public employees, privatisation and the sale of state assets. The IMF has also called for a ''phase out'' of energy subsidies, and the deregulation of the foreign exchange markets. With unmanageable debts, the IMF will also impose the sell off and privatisation of major public assets as well as the takeover of the national banking sector.
- The new government pressured by the IMF and World Bank have already announced that old aged pensions are to be curtailed by 50 %. In a timely February 21 release, the World Bank had set the guidelines for old age pension reform in the countries of ''Emerging Europe and Central Asia'' including Ukraine. In an utterly twisted logic, ''Protecting the elderly'' is carried out by slashing their pension benefits, according to the World Bank. (World Bank, Significant Pension Reforms Urged in Emerging Europe and Central Asia, Washington DC, February 21, 2014)
- Given the absence of a real government in Kiev, Ukraine's political handlers in the Ministry of Finance and the NUB will obey the diktats of Wall Street: The IMF structural adjustment loan agreement for Ukraine will be devastating in its social and economic impacts.
- Elimination of SubsidiesPointing to ''market distorted energy subsidies'', price deregulation has been a longstanding demand from both IMF-World Bank. The price of energy had been kept relatively low during the Yanukovych government largely as a result of the bilateral agreement with Russia, which provided Ukraine with low cost gas in exchange for Naval base lease in Sebastopol. That agreement is now null and void. It is also worth noting that the government of Crimea has announced that it would take over ownership of all Ukrainian state companies in Crimea, including the Black Sea natural gas fields.
- The Kiev interim government has intimated that Ukraine's retail gas prices would have to rise by 40% ''as part of economic reforms needed to unlock loans from the International Monetary Fund''. This announcement fails to address the mechanics of full fledged deregulation which under present circumstances could lead to increases in energy prices in excess of 100 percent.
- It is worth recalling, in this regard, that Peru in August 1991 had set the stage for ''shock treatment'' increases in energy prices when gasoline prices in Lima shot up overnight by 2978% (a 30 fold increase). In 1994 as part of the agreement between the IMF and Leonid Kuchma, the price of electricity flew up over night by 900 percent.''Enhanced Exchange Rate Flexibility'' One of the central components of IMF intervention is the deregulation of the foreign exchange market. In addition to massive expenditure cuts, the IMF program requires ''enhanced exchange rate flexibility'' namely the removal of all foreign exchange controls.
- Since the outset of the Maidan protest movement in December 2013, foreign exchange controls were instated with a view to supporting the hyrvnia and stemming the massive outflow of capital.
- The IMF sponsored bailout will literally ransack the foreign currency reserves held by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). Enhanced exchange rate flexibility under IMF guidance has been endorsed by the new NBU governor Stepan Kubic. Without virtually no forex reserves, exchange rate flexibility is financial suicide: it opens the door to speculative short-selling transactions (modelled on the 1997 Asian crisis) directed against the Ukraine's currency, the hrynia.
- Institutional speculators, which include major Wall Street and European Banks as well as hedge funds have already positioned themselves. Manipulation in the forex markets is undertaken through derivative trade. Major financial institutions will have detailed inside information with regard to Central Bank policies which will enable them to rig the forex market.
- Under a flexible exchange rate system, the Central Bank does not impose restrictions on forex transactions. The Central Bank can however decide '' under advice from the IMF '' to counter the speculative onslaught in the forex market, with a view to maintaining the parity of the Ukrainian hryvnia. Without the use of exchange controls, this line of action requires Ukraine's central bank (in the absence of forex reserves) to prop up an ailing currency with borrowed money, thereby contributing to exacerbating the debt crisis.
- It is worth recalling in this regard that Brazil in November 1998 had received a precautionary bailout loan from the IMF of the order of 40 billion dollars. One of the conditions of the loan agreement, however, was the complete deregulation of the forex market. This loan was intended to assist the Central Banking in maintaining the parity of the Brazilian real. In practice it spearheaded Brazil into a financial crash in February 1999.
- The Brazilian government had accepted the conditionalities. Marred by capital flight of the order of 400 million dollars a day, the money granted under the IMF loan ''which was intended to prop up Brazil's central banks reserves'' was plundered in a matter of months. The IMF loan agreement to Brasilia enabled the institutional speculators to buy time. Most of the money under the IMF loan was appropriated in the form of speculative gains accruing to major financial institutions.
- With regard to Ukraine, enhanced exchange flexibility spells disaster. Contrary to Brazil, the Central Bank has no forex reserves which would enable it to defend its currency. Where would the NBU get the borrowed forex reserves? Most of the funds under the proposed IMF-EU rescue package are already earmarked and could be used to effectively defend the hrynia against ''short-selling'' speculative attacks in the currency markets. The most likely scenario is that the hrynia will experience a major decline leading to significant hikes in the prices of essential commodities, including food, fuel and transportation.
- Were the Central Bank able to use borrowed reserves to prop up the hrynia, this borrowed money would be swiftly re-appropriated, handed over to currency speculators on a silver platter. This scenario of propping up the national currency using borrowed forex reserves (i.e. Brazil in 1998-99) would, however, contribute in the short-term to staving off an immediate collapse of the standard.
- This procedure provides ''extra time'' to the speculators, who are busy plundering the Central Bank's (borrowed) currency reserves. It also enables the interim government to postpone the worst impacts of the IMF's ''enhanced exchange rate flexibility'' to a later date.
- When the borrowed hard currency reserves of the Central Bank run out ''i.e. in the immediate aftermath of the May 25 presidential elections'' the value of hrynia will plunge on the forex market, which in turn will trigger a dramatic collapse in the standard of living. Coupled with the demise of bilateral economic relations with Russia pertaining to the supply of natural gas to Ukraine, energy prices are also slated to increase dramatically.
- Neoliberalism and neo-Nazi ideology join hands: Repressing the Protest Movement against the IMFWith Svoboda and Right Sector political appointees in charge of national security and the armed forces, a real grassroots protest movement directed against the IMF's deadly macroeconomic reforms, will in all likelihood be brutally repressed by the Right Sector's ''brown shirts'' and the National Guard paramilitary led by Dmitri Yarosh, on behalf of Wall Street and the Washington consensus. In recent developments, Right Sector Dmitry Yaroch has declared his candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections. (Popular support for the Yaroch is less than 2%).
- ''Russia put Yarosh on an international wanted list and charged him with inciting terrorism after he urged Chechen terrorist leader Doku Umarov to launch attacks on Russia over the Ukrainian conflict. The ultra-nationalist leader has also threatened to destroy Russian pipelines on Ukrainian territory.'' (RT, March 22, 2014)
- Meanwhile, Ukraine's State prosecutor who also belongs to the Neo-Nazi faction, has implemented procedures which prevent the holding of public rallies and protests directed against the interim government. Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America's ''War on Terrorism''(2005). His most recent book is entitled Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.
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- Senate Republicans Seek to Void IMF Money in Ukraine Aid - Bloomberg
- By Kathleen HunterMarch 25, 2014 12:30 AM EDTA partisan dispute over the International Monetary Fund will be at the center of the U.S. Senate debate this week on legislation providing aid to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.
- After a Senate vote yesterday, 78-17, to advance the bill, Republicans say they'll try to strike language boosting the U.S. share, or quota, at the IMF and implementing a 2010 international agreement giving rising economies more voice.
- ''If the IMF reform is in there, you're not going to have that strong show of unity from the Congress,'' said Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, who said he would offer an amendment to eliminate the language. ''Hopefully we can strip that out so that we have as singular a voice coming from Congress as possible.''
- Full coverage of the Ukraine Crisis
- The IMF provision has slowed Senate consideration of legislation that otherwise has drawn broad bipartisan support. The Senate measure, which Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday he wants to complete this week, would provide about $1 billion in loan guarantees and authorize $150 million in direct assistance to Ukraine.
- Senators could begin considering amendments as soon as today. In addition to removing the IMF provision, Republicans will seek to boost U.S. natural gas exports to countries that are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
- 'Russia's Influence'Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, told reporters yesterday that the IMF changes Democrats are seeking ''would decrease America's influence at the IMF and perversely would increase Russia's influence in the IMF.''
- ''These provisions have no business in a Ukraine aid package,'' Cruz said, adding that taking out the IMF language would be the ''easiest way'' to quickly pass the legislation.
- Significantly, Cruz said he wouldn't try to block a final vote on the underlying bill as long as Republicans are given a vote on their amendment to remove the IMF provision.
- A Snapshot of Ukraine's Past and Future
- Delay ''sends a very weak message'' to Moscow, said Reid, who blamed Republicans for slowing action, noting that Russia moved to annex Crimea while Congress was on a week-long break that ended yesterday.
- ''It's impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to this Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice, which we did not do,'' Reid said.
- A Ukraine aid bill passed by the House on March 6, H.R. 4152, didn't include the IMF provision sought by President Barack Obama.
- Senate VotesSenate Democrats, who control 55 seats in the 100-member chamber, have the votes to preserve the IMF language, setting up a showdown with the Republican-led House. The Obama administration yesterday endorsed the Senate measure's handling of IMF funding.
- ''The United States has an essential responsibility to lead the international effort to support Ukraine's reforms at this time of geopolitical challenges, and we need to fulfill our international commitments,'' Treasury Department spokeswoman Holly Shulman said in an e-mailed statement. ''We will continue to work with Congress to get this done as quickly as possible.''
- IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde urged Congress to complete work on legislation that would boost the U.S. commitment to the fund, saying in a Wall Street Journal opinion article that such a move would help ''promote global economic stability and prosperity into the future.''
- Asset RecoveryThe Senate Democrats' bill, S. 2124, would require Obama to impose sanctions against Ukrainians and Russians deemed responsible for corruption and violence. Russian officials, as well as their close associates or family members, also could be subject to sanctions, which could include blocking access to assets held in the U.S. and prohibiting travel to the U.S.
- The legislation would require the U.S. government to assist the Ukrainian government in the recovery of assets secured through acts of corruption by former president Viktor Yanukovych, his family and other government officials
- The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the measure on March 12 by a bipartisan vote of 14-3 with Republicans John Barrasso of Wyoming, Rand Paul of Kentucky and James Risch of Idaho voting against it in part to protest the IMF language.
- House Republicans are insisting that a one-year delay in Internal Revenue Service rules governing political activity by some nonprofit groups be paired with the changes to IMF financing that Democrats want.
- Codify SanctionsReid has vowed to block Republicans from extracting a delay in the IRS rule in exchange for the IMF money.
- House lawmakers could vote as soon as this week on another bill that would increase U.S. sanctions on Russia, including additional asset freezes and visa bans on senior officials and corporations.
- That measure would codify sanctions already announced by Obama and encourage imposing more penalties on Russians with ''significant influence over the formation and implementation of Russian foreign policy'' involving Ukraine, according to the bill's text.
- The bill, H.R. 4278, includes additional economic assistance for Ukraine and would signal U.S. plans to increase natural gas exports. Republicans have said such a move eventually would reduce Russia's leverage over other European nations that depend on its gas exports.
- To contact the reporter on this story: Kathleen Hunter in Washington at khunter9@bloomberg.net
- To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jodi Schneider at jschneider50@bloomberg.net Michael Shepard
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- Devaluation-Ukraine gets financial lifeline from IMF in return for major reforms | euronews, economy
- Ukraine has won a financial lifeline from the International Monetary Fund.
- Up to 13 billion euros in standby credit from the IMF will unlock further aid from the European Union, the United States and other lenders over two years.
- In Ukraine's parliament Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk explained the price for that aid will be tough economic reforms '' including higher taxes on incomes, alcohol and tobacco; layoffs of government workers; and a 50 percent hike in people's gas bills from the start of May.
- Without the loans Ukraine is doomed Yatsenyuk said: ''The country is on the brink of economic and financial bankruptcy. If these reform laws are not accepted we predict default and we predict a 10 percent decrease in GDP.''
- He blamed the country's economic state on mismanagement and theft by the government of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.
- The IMF said it does not see a need to restructure the country's debt at this time.
- ''We don't proceed with programmes if they're deemed to be unsustainable,'' IMF spokesman Bill Murray told reporters. ''So the fact that we're proceeding with the programme indicates we don't envisage at this point a debt restructuring.''
- Murray added that he believed Ukraine's new government was committed to economic reforms.
- ''We've consulted widely in Ukraine across the political spectrum,'' he said. ''The Ukrainian authorities have voiced publicly and privately a keen interest in getting their economic house in order.''
- The IMF's two most recent programmes with Ukraine went off track because of the previous governments' failure to follow through with politically difficult measures such as raising gas prices, which the IMF said was necessary to put the government's finances in order.
- Reform of the energy sector is a top IMF priority.
- Ukraine's Naftogaz, which imports gas from Russia's Gazprom, will be closely looked at to improve the transparency of its accounts and with a view to restructuring the company to reduce its costs.
- With the International Monetary Fund calling the shots, Ukrainians will also face higher inflation cutting their spending power.
- The IMF considers the currency, the hryvnia, to have been ''overvalued,'' and has said a flexible exchange rate is needed to boost exports and economic growth.
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- IMF-Statement by the Press Secretary on Ukraine | The White House
- Office of the Press Secretary
- The United States welcomes the preliminary agreement between the Government of Ukraine and International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff on a loan program of $14-18 billion. This represents a powerful sign of support from the international community for the Ukrainian government, as we help them stabilize and grow their economy, and move their democracy forward. The agreement is expected to unlock roughly $27 billion in total support from the international community for Ukraine's people over the next two years, as the country implements historic reforms to address long-standing problems that have undermined Ukraine's economic strength and prosperity. It is important now for both the Government of Ukraine and the IMF to move expeditiously and complete the steps necessary to gain approval from the IMF Executive Board.
- Together with our allies and partners, President Obama will continue to build international support for the Ukrainian people at this critical time. The IMF program will be a central component of a package of assistance to support Ukraine as it implements reforms and conducts free and fair elections that will allow all the Ukrainian people to determine the future of their country. We are working alongside international partners, including the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), to disburse rapid additional assistance to complement the IMF program and ease Ukraine's economic transition, particularly for the most vulnerable. As part of this international effort, we are working with Congress to quickly provide a $1 billion loan guarantee and are offering technical and financial assistance to help Ukraine meet its most pressing needs. We also remain committed to providing the IMF with the resources it needs '' in partnership with Congress '' to provide strong support to countries like Ukraine as well as reinforcing the Fund's governance to reflect the global economy.
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- Our shareholders [EBRD - About us]
- ÐÑа ÑÑÑаниÑа не доÑÑÑÐна на ÑÑÑÑком ÑзÑке.
- The EBRD's shareholder countries and organisations each made a capital contribution, which collectively forms a solid capital base. This enables us to borrow funds on the international capital markets.
- More on how the EBRD is funded
- Our shareholdersMember countryDate joinedCapital subscription('¬ 000)Albania18 Dec 199130,010Armenia7 Dec 199214,990Australia30 Mar 1991300,140Austria28 Mar 1991684,320Azerbaijan25 Sep 199230,010Belarus10 Jun 199260,020Belgium10 Apr 1991684,320Bosnia and Herzegovina17 Jun 199650,710Bulgaria28 Mar 1991165,980Canada28 Mar 19911,020,490Croatia15 Apr 1993109,420Cyprus28 Mar 199130,010Czech Republic1 Jan 1993256,110Denmark28 Mar 1991360,170Egypt28 Mar 199121,010Estonia28 Feb 199230,010European Investment Bank (external link)28 Mar 1991900,440European Union (external link)28 Mar 1991900,440Finland28 Mar 1991375,180FYR Macedonia21 Apr 199317,620France28 Mar 19902,556,510Georgia4 Sep 199230,010Germany28 Mar 19912,556,510Greece29 Mar 1991195,080Hungary28 Mar 1991237,110Iceland29 May 199130,010Ireland28 Mar 199190,040Israel28 Mar 1991136,560Italy28 Mar 19912,556,510Japan2 Apr 19912,556,510Jordan29 Dec 20111,000Kazakhstan27 Jul 199269,020Korea, Republic of28 Mar 1991300,140Kosovo17 Dec 20125,800Kyrgyz Republic5 Jun 199221,010Latvia18 Mar 199230,010Liechtenstein28 Mar 19915,990Lithuania5 Mar 199230,010Luxembourg28 Mar 199160,020Malta28 Mar 19912,100Mexico28 Mar 199131,510Moldova5 May 199230,010Mongolia9 Oct 20002,100Montenegro3 June 20064,200Morocco28 Mar 199110,500Netherlands28 Mar 1991744,350New Zealand19 Aug 199110,500Norway28 Mar 1991375,180Poland28 Mar 1991384,180Portugal5 Apr 1991126,050Romania28 Mar 1991144,070Russian Federation9 Apr 19921,200,580Serbia19 Jan 2001140,310Slovak Republic1 Jan 1993128,070Slovenia23 Dec 199262,950Spain28 Mar 19911,020,490Sweden28 Mar 1991684,320Switzerland29 Mar 1991684,320Tajikistan16 Oct 199221,010Tunisia29 Dec 20119,860Turkey28 Mar 1991345,150Turkmenistan1 Jun 19922,100Ukraine13 Apr 1992240,110United Kingdom28 Mar 19912,556,510United States of America28 Mar 19913,001,480Uzbekistan30 Apr 199244,120
- Last updated 17 December 2012
- The EBRD and donors factsheetThis factsheet provides an update on donor funding in 2011.
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- Frequently asked questions [EBRD - About us]
- What is the EBRD?The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is an international financial institution that supports projects in over 30 countries, from eastern Europe to central Asia and the southern and eastern Mediterranean. Investing primarily in private sector clients whose needs cannot be fully met by the market, the Bank promotes entrepreneurship and fosters transition towards open and democratic market economies.
- What is the EBRD's mandate?The mandate of the EBRD stipulates that it must only work in countries that are committed to democratic principles. Respect for the environment is part of the strong corporate governance attached to all EBRD investments.
- What support does the EBRD provide its countries of operations?The EBRD provides project financing for banks, industries and businesses, both new ventures and investments in existing companies. It also works with publicly owned companies, to support privatisation, restructuring state-owned firms and improving municipal services. The Bank uses its close relationship with governments in the region to promote policies that will bolster the business environment.
- What are the criteria for an EBRD investment?Every EBRD investment must help move a country closer to a full market economy. It should take risk that supports private investors and does not crowd them out. And the investment should apply sound banking principles.
- Are there any areas that the EBRD does not finance?The Bank does not finance defence-related activities, the tobacco industry, selected alcoholic products, substances banned by international law and stand-alone gambling facilities
- Who owns the EBRD?The EBRD is owned by 64 countries and two intergovernmental institutions, the European Union and the European Investment Bank (EIB).
- How is the EBRD governed?The powers of the EBRD are vested in the Board of Governors to which each member appoints a governor, generally the minister of finance. The Board of Governors delegates most powers to the Board of Directors, which is responsible for the EBRD's strategic direction. The President is elected by the Board of Governors and is the legal representative of the EBRD. Under the guidance of the Board of Directors, the President manages the work of the Bank.
- Who is the President of the EBRD?Sir Suma Chakrabarti is the President of the EBRD. He succeeded Thomas Mirow on 3 July 2012.
- What are the official languages of the EBRD?The four official languages of the EBRD are English, Russian, German and French.
- Which are EBRD's 34 countries of operations?The EBRD invests and operates in the following 30 countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, FYR Macedonia, Georgia, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The EBRD ceased making new investments in the Czech Republic in 2007, but still manages a portfolio in the country.
- Which of the EBRD countries of operations are EU candidate countries?FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina (the last two as potential candidates).
- Which of the EBRD's countries of operations are EU member states?Bulgaria, , Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia.
- What makes the EBRD different from other IFIs?We are a multinational institution set up with the specific aim of assisting countries to develop into market-oriented economies. Our shareholders include countries from both the region and the rest of the world, plus the European Commission and the European Investment Bank.
- Aside from the EBRD's regional focus, the strongest advantage of the Bank relative to other IFIs lies in our ability to operate both in the public and private sectors and to have at our disposal the broadest range and flexibility of financing instruments. The Bank is uniquely equipped in staff and range of instruments to support the different stages of transition.
- Specifically, we seek to promote the development of the private sector within these economies through its investment operations and through the mobilisation of foreign and domestic capital.
- How does the EBRD differ from a commercial bank?The EBRD's main advantages, compared with private commercial banks, lie in its willingness and ability to bear risk, as a result of its shareholder base.
- This allows us to act at the frontier of commercial possibilities and be an effective 'demonstrator'. The Bank also shares the project risk by acting with other private sector entities, such as commercial banks and investment funds, as well as multilateral lenders and national export credit agencies.
- The EBRD assists companies that have difficulty in securing financing: as such, it complements the efforts of other lenders. While its structure is unlike that of a commercial bank, the EBRD has a similar approach to dealing with projects. A project has to be commercially viable to be considered. The EBRD prices its products on a commercial basis. It does not issue guarantees for export credits or provide retail banking services. With its AAA credit rating, the Bank is able to raise funds at the finest rates from international capital markets.
- Why does the Bank prepare country strategies?Each country is at a different stage in its transition towards establishing a market economy. Local conditions determine how the Bank can operate, shape its strategy and in some cases lead it to devise innovative ways of providing financing and reducing risk. The EBRD prepares detailed strategies for each of its countries of operations, adapting its financial tools and working methods to the opportunities and needs of each country and project. The level and pattern of demand for EBRD financing vary depending on the country's stage of transition and its attractiveness to private sector investors.
- What range of products and services are procured by EBRD or its clients?The Procurement section details procurement activities, products and services procured by the Bank and its clients.
- Where can I find information on procurement notices?All procurement notices and opportunities are published and available on this web site. Potential suppliers are advised to browse through the relevant section of the procurement page to identify the specific products or goods that the Bank or its clients are in need of.
- How can I apply for a job?You can find out more about our employment opportunities, staff profiles and how to apply for a job here.
- Where are the headquarters and the local offices of the EBRD?The EBRD Headquarters is based in London at:
- One Exchange SquareLondon EC2A 2JNUnited KingdomSwitchboard: +44 20 7338 6000Central fax: +44 20 7338 6100
- The EBRD has 34 resident offices in its countries of operations.
- How can I contact EBRD staff?All relevant contact details for EBRD staff in headquarters and regional offices can be found here.
- How do I organise a visit to the EBRD Headquarters? I would like to takepart in a conference /invite a staff member of the EBRD to be a speaker at a conference.For 'Group Visit' and conference requests contact:Email : visitrequest@ebrd.com Tel: +44 20 7338 6868Fax: +44 20 7338 6102
- Last updated 13 August 2013
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- What we do [EBRD - About us]
- We provide project financing for banks, industries and businesses, both new ventures and investments in existing companies. We also work with publicly owned companies.
- Each of our projects is tailored to the needs of the client and to the specific situation of the country, region and sector. Direct investments generally range from '¬5 million to '¬230 million. We provide loan and equity finance, guarantees, leasing facilities and trade finance. Typically we fund up to 35 per cent of the total project cost.
- The Bank invests only in projects that could not otherwise attract financing on similar terms. For each project we finance, we assign a dedicated team of specialists with specific sectoral, regional, legal and environmental skills.
- Through donor funds we mobilise investment capital and expertise by giving local business access to consultant experts. Donor programmes are funded by governments and international institutions, and are managed by the EBRD.
- We also manage six nuclear safety and decommissioning funds. The biggest of these is for the transformation of the destroyed reactor in Chernobyl into an environmentally safe state.
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- Roberto Herencia - Chicago Tribune
- September 24, 2012|By Becky Yerak, Chicago Tribune reporter
- Roberto Herencia, CEO of BXM Holdings Inc., keeps his Harleys in his ''man cave,'' which is a storage unit in Glenview that also has a couch and a 6-foot lucha libre mask. (Keri Wiginton, Chicago Tribune)
- Roberto Herencia occasionally rides to work on one of the four Harley-Davidson motorcycles he keeps in his "man cave," a Glenview storage facility equipped with a red couch, a TV and a 6-foot lucha libre mask, an icon of Mexican wrestling.
- When headed to his BXM Holdings Inc. office on West Madison Street in downtown Chicago, where he's chief executive, the banker, clad in appropriate safety gear, might hop on one of the smaller hogs, like the V-Rod or Road King.
- "If I'm feeling a little playful, I use the Fat Boy because it's the loudest," Herencia, 52, muses of his yellow bike. "And it's comfortable for long trips," he adds, mentioning journeys to the Finger Lakes in New York and Route 66 to California.
- It's a long way in space and time from Puerto Rico, where Herencia was born and raised until leaving for college at Georgetown University.
- Today, Herencia's world centers around three private equity-backed banking enterprises, including a group that said in April it planned to invest $150 million in Chicago's troubled Metropolitan Bank Group Inc. He also advises a fourth entity, Chicago-based private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, on potential banking deals.
- Backers in Herencia's BXM Holdings include Juan Beckmann, whose family owns the Jose Cuervo tequila company as well as a stake in the Chicago building in which BXM is located, and Antonio del Valle, who Bloomberg News in March named a "hidden billionaire" worth $3.2 billion for his family's stake in chemical-maker Mexichem.
- After being nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate, Herencia last year began serving on the 14-member board of Overseas Private Investment Corp., which helps provide financing for U.S. businesses that want to expand globally.
- He sees parallels between motorcycle retailing and banking.
- Herencia lives near a Harley dealership, but instead buys and services his bikes '-- his fourth is an Ultra Classic '-- at Illinois Harley-Davidson, 23 miles away in Countryside.
- "Their service is fantastic," Herencia said of the dealership's owner, Bob Maxant. "If he sees you in the shop or store, he comes out and talks and asks what's going on. It always reminds me that this is what we need to do in banking as well."
- Metropolitan's problem isn't so much service as bad loans made during the real estate bust. But the proposed deal to rescue the $2.8 billion asset owner of such lenders as North Community Bank, Metrobank and Archer Bank has many constituencies to satisfy.
- "It's going a bit slower than we'd like, but it's a complicated transaction given the stress levels of the bank," Herencia said.
- Metropolitan is privately owned by the Fasseas family, founders of the PAWS Chicago animal charity.
- Their bank is among a relatively small group of lenders that received bailout money from the U.S. Treasury Department. As part of its Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, the Treasury bought about $80 million in securities in Metropolitan. The bank has since deferred five dividend payments to the U.S. government. If Metropolitan were to fail, U.S. taxpayers could lose their entire investment in it.
- Herencia said he's "very optimistic" the deal will be consummated.
- "It will be a shame if it doesn't," he said. "We have the money, the management and tremendous confidence in our ability to turn it around."
- Herencia has identified the team that would run the bank, and he would be a director of the reconstituted board. The Fasseas family declined to be interviewed.
- Herencia is the oldest of four children, ages 52 to 48. His siblings all live in Puerto Rico. His father, who died at 56 from stomach cancer, was an accountant for a brewery, and his mother, a certified public accountant, worked from home for small-business clients. She recently turned 75 and is still working.
- Jayne Thompson, former first lady of Illinois, said she was having lunch recently with Herencia at Naha in River North when he mentioned that, on a recent trip to Puerto Rico, he, his sister and his mother were all working at their respective jobs at her home on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
- "I thought it was interesting that he credited his mother for his family's work ethic and for his success," she said.
- Says Herencia: "There's a sense of responsibility to always be the best you can be for the people you work for."
- Herencia's high school principal, the Rev. Charles Beirne, also had a major impact on his life. He helped Herencia get a scholarship to Georgetown. While there, Herencia read an article in which Barry Sullivan, former head of First Chicago, discussed the value of a Jesuit education.
- Herencia decided he wanted to work for Sullivan. Beirne knew Sullivan, and made the introduction.
- Herencia got a job at First Chicago after college. He still has the employment offer stating that he'd start out making $17,500 a year as a credit trainee. In the 1980s, Herencia spent four years working for First Chicago operations in Mexico and Brazil.
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- OPIC mobilizes private capital to help solve critical development challenges | OPIC : Overseas Private Investment Corporation
- OPIC is the U.S. Government's development finance institution. It mobilizes private capital to help solve critical development challenges and in doing so, advances U.S. foreign policy. Because OPIC works with the U.S. private sector, it helps U.S. businesses gain footholds in emerging markets, catalyzing revenues, jobs and growth opportunities both at home and abroad. OPIC achieves its mission by providing investors with financing, guarantees, political risk insurance, and support for private equity investment funds.Established as an agency of the U.S. Government in 1971, OPIC operates on a self-sustaining basis at no net cost to American taxpayers. OPIC services are available for new and expanding business enterprises in more than 150 countries worldwide. To date, OPIC has supported more than $200 billion of investment in over 4,000 projects, generated an estimated $76 billion in U.S. exports and supported more than 278,000 American jobs.
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- Ottomania
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- Turkey PM faces local election test
- 30 March 2014Last updated at 06:27 People in Turkey are voting in local elections that analysts say could determine the political future of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
- They are the first elections since mass protests erupted last June and a corruption scandal hit the government.
- Mr Erdogan is not standing but has campaigned tirelessly in support of his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
- The government blocked Twitter and YouTube in the run up to the elections, following a series of online leaks.
- Mr Erdogan said social media was spreading misinformation.
- 'Ottoman slap'On Saturday pro- and anti-government factions held rival demonstrations in Istanbul, which saw the Gezi Park protests of May and June last year.
- The opposition Republican People's Party is fighting there to win the mayor's office from Mr Erdogan's ally Kadir Topbas.
- The BBC's James Reynolds in Istanbul says the opposition candidate, Mustafa Sarigul, drove around the city in an open-topped bus - throwing out red T-shirts to spectators leaning from their balconies.
- Mr Erdogan is himself a former mayor of the city and the vote has become an unofficial referendum on his administration, our correspondent says.
- The prime minister lashed out at his political opponents during a series of rallies on Saturday.
- "They are all traitors," he told the crowd in Istanbul.
- "Go to the ballot box tomorrow and teach all of them a lesson. Let's give them an Ottoman slap."
- Mr Erdogan was forced to cancel a number of rallies on Friday on doctors' orders to rest his voice.
- 'Foreign plot'The prime minister has purged hundreds of people from the judiciary and police since several of his allies were arrested over a corruption scandal in December.
- He has accused the judiciary of being behind a series of wiretaps and social media leaks allegedly exposing major corruption, and blamed the probe on a "foreign plot".
- The scandal has pitted the prime minister against a former ally, US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, who has many supporters in the police and judiciary.
- Mr Erdogan and his Islamic-leaning AK Party have been in power for over a decade.
- Sunday's local assembly and mayoral elections are being seen as a key test ahead of presidential elections in August and parliamentary elections next year.
- The government faced major street protests last year sparked by plans to raze Istanbul's Gezi Park and redevelop it. The police crackdown galvanised anti-government demonstrators in several cities.
- The anger which led to the unrest flared up again earlier this month, with the news of the death of a 15-year-old boy who had been in a coma since last June.
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- Turkish officials plan false-flag attacks to create pretext for war with Syria
- By Alex Lantier29 March 2014In a devastating exposure of the criminality of the US-led proxy war in Syria, Turkish officials have been caught planning an attack on their own forces to manufacture a pretext to attack Syria.
- This is the content of a leaked audio recording, posted to YouTube, of a meeting between top Turkish diplomats and intelligence officials, including Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT). At one point in the meeting, these officials discuss the possibility of organizing an attack from inside Syria across the Turkish-Syrian border, or on the Tomb of Suleiman Shah. Under the 1921 Treaty of Ankara between Turkey and France, then the colonial power in Syria, this tomb is a piece of sovereign Turkish territory inside Syria, guarded by Turkish forces.
- Davutoglu says: ''The prime minister said that in the current conjuncture, this attack [on Suleiman Shah Tomb] must be seen as an opportunity for us.''
- Fidan replies: ''I'll send four men from Syria, if that's what it takes. I'll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey. We can also prepare an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb if necessary.''
- Turkish officials responded to the leak by attempting to suppress it, banning access to YouTube inside Turkey. They did not contest the authenticity of the recording, however. Instead, in a speech in Diyarbakir, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the leaking of national security meetings as ''immoral.''
- The Turkish Foreign Ministry called the recording ''partially manipulated'' and a ''wretched attack'' on Turkish national security.
- The leak is an unanswerable indictment of the war on Syria led by Washington and the European powers. Recklessly arming Islamist opposition militias linked to Al Qaeda in a semi-covert dirty war for regime-change in Damascus, the Western powers have devastated Syria and created fertile ground for the type of provocations exposed by the leak.
- The leak provides evidence of a conspiracy to attack a state that has not attacked Turkey'--implicating Turkey, a NATO member state, in crimes against peace, a violation of international law for which Nazi officials were hanged at Nuremburg after World War II.
- In this, the conduct of the Erdogan regime is not substantially different from that of the leading NATO powers. A decade after Washington launched the 2003 war in Iraq based on lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, it tried to launch a war with Syria based on false claims that the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons. NATO powers nearly attacked Syria on this pretext last September, even though similar accusations in May had fallen apart when UN officials stated that the poison gas had been used by the US-backed opposition.
- Erdogan's Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) is turning to military provocations as it considers attempting to rally internal support by launching a war. It faces sharp losses in communal elections tomorrow amid an economic and export slowdown driven by recession in Europe. It also confronts continuing protests over its repression of last year's Gezi Park protests.
- Tensions between the AKP and other sections of the ruling elite, including the army brass and the CIA-linked Islamist G¼len movement, are intensifying. Some reports suggest the leak was the result of spying operations within the Turkish state by the G¼len movement or its allies.
- Erdogan's foreign policy has become increasingly aggressive and incoherent. After the Egyptian revolution began, he abandoned his ''zero problems with neighbors'' policy and positioned the AKP as a model for an Islamist-led Middle East, backing the Syrian war despite its unpopularity in Turkey. This policy collapsed after last July's US-backed coup in Egypt ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, and Obama in September stepped back from military strikes against Syria.
- The Western imperialist powers themselves have turned on the AKP, issuing various hypocritical criticisms of Erdogan, including over the Turkish military's recent decision to shoot down a Syrian fighter jet. One European official told Al Monitor that it was part of a policy of backing Islamist opposition militias inside Syria, which he called ''a stupid move by the Turkish side.''
- ''Turkey picked up the strategy of helping these radicals. This cannot be reversed now,'' he told Al Monitor. ''The bombing of the Syrian [MIG-23 fighter jet] was for helping these radicals.''
- Since the Erdogan regime ''picked up'' the ''stupid'' strategy of arming Al Qaeda forces from the CIA, it only underscores the criminal character of NATO policy in Syria. NATO officials indicated that their main objection to Turkey's moves to launch a war with Syria was that it would distract from their campaign to back the ultra-right regime they recently installed in Ukraine and isolate Russia.
- A NATO source told Al Monitor: ''In next week's NATO foreign ministers meeting [on April 1 and 2]'... I assume that people will directly share their concern with Minister Davutoglu over Turkish behavior. They will probably give the message that they do not want to be dragged into the Syrian quagmire while the Ukraine issue is keeping them busy at this stage.''
- No one warned, however, of the vast and dire implications of a Turkish decision to launch a war with Syria. Such a war would threaten to escalate into a conflagration involving Turkey's NATO allies and Syria's main backers, Iran and Russia, as nearly happened last September.
- Underlying this silence is the fact that, in Turkey as in the imperialist states, the ruling elites use war as a tool to divert attention from social and political tensions for which they see no solutions. This state of affairs was brought out particularly clearly by later passages in the leaked Turkish tape.
- The undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Feridun Sinirlioglu, complains: ''National security has been politicized'... All talks we've done on defending our lands, our border security, our sovereign lands in there, they've all become a common, cheap domestic policy outfit.''
- Later, another official adds: ''Do even one of the opposition parties support you in such a high point of national security?... In what matter can we be unified, if not a matter of national security of such importance? None.''
- As they discuss a major military escalation with unforeseeable consequences for Turkey and the world, the officials themselves seem deeply demoralized about the war in Syria and unclear on what they are trying to achieve. They describe the arming of Islamist opposition militias, a US-led strategy in which the Erdogan regime plays a major role, as a deadly threat to their own interests.
- Sinirlioglu says: ''There are some serious shifts in global and regional geopolitics'... That ISIS [an Al Qaeda-linked opposition militia in Syria] and all that jazz, all those organizations are extremely open to manipulation. Having a region made up of organizations of a similar nature will constitute a vital security risk for us.''
- Later on, Foreign Minister Davutoglu appears to complain that Turkey did not mount a major attack on Syria earlier: ''The year 2012, we didn't do it in 2011. If only we'd taken serious action back then, even in the summer of 2012.''
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- 'CAUGHT PLANNING FALSE FLAG ATTACK'
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- SnowJob
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- The Hill article on Mike Rogers resigning as intel chair | Scribd
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- Cumulus Media-Inside Radio, The Most Trusted News in Radio`
- Michigan Republican Mike Rogers announces he will leave Congress and launch a career in radio. The former FBI agent who's now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee will host a syndicated talk show for Cumulus Media. ''You may have lost my vote in Congress but not my voice,'' Rogers, 50, told his constituents in a letter. Rogers has served in the House since 2001.
- "We are thrilled to have chairman Rogers join our team,'' Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey said in a statement. ''He has been instrumental helping to shape many of the most important issues and events of our time and will play a significant role in our expanding content platform.''
- Rogers' show launches in January after he completes his term in Congress. Rogers says no daypart has been settled on for the program.
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- GCHQ and NSA Targeted Private German Companies - SPIEGEL ONLINE
- The headquarters of Stellar, a company based in the town of H¼rth near Cologne, are visible from a distance. Seventy-five white antennas dominate the landscape. The biggest are 16 meters (52 feet) tall and kept in place by steel anchors. It is an impressive sight and serves as a popular backdrop for scenes in TV shows, including the German action series "Cobra 11."
- Stellar operates a satellite ground station in H¼rth, a so-called "teleport." Its services are used by companies and institutions; Stellar's customers include Internet providers, telecommunications companies and even a few governments. "The world is our market," is the high-tech company's slogan.
- Using their ground stations and leased capacities from satellites, firms like Stellar -- or competitors like Cetel in the nearby village of Ruppichteroth or IABG, which is headquartered in Ottobrunn near Munich -- can provide Internet and telephone services in even the most remote areas. They provide communications links to places like oil drilling platforms, diamond mines, refugee camps and foreign outposts of multinational corporations and international organizations.
- Super high-speed Internet connections are required at the ground stations in Germany in order to ensure the highest levels of service possible. Most are connected to major European Internet backbones that offer particularly high bandwidth.
- Probing German Internet Traffic
- The service they offer isn't just attractive to customers who want to improve their connectivity. It is also of interest to Britain's GCHQ intelligence service, which has targeted the German companies. Top secret documents from the archive of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden viewed by SPIEGEL show that the British spies surveilled employees of several German companies, and have also infiltrated their networks.
- One top-secret GCHQ paper claims the agency sought "development of in-depth knowledge of key satellite IP service providers in Germany."
- The document, which is undated, states that the goal of the effort was developing wider knowledge of Internet traffic flowing through Germany. The 26-page document explicitly names three of the German companies targeted for surveillance: Stellar, Cetel and IABG.
- The operation, carried out at listening stations operated jointly by GCHQ with the NSA in Bude, in Britain's Cornwall region, is largely directed at Internet exchange points used by the ground station to feed the communications of their large customers into the broadband Internet. In addition to spying on the Internet traffic passing through these nodes, the GCHQ workers state they are also seeking to identify important customers of the German teleport providers, their technology suppliers as well as future technical trends in their business sector.
- The document also states that company employees are targets -- particularly engineers -- saying that they should be detected and "tasked," intelligence jargon for monitoring. In the case of Stellar, the top secret GCHQ paper includes the names and email addresses of 16 employees, including CEO Christian Steffen. In addition, it also provides a list of the most-important customers and partners. Contacted by SPIEGEL, Stellar CEO Steffen said he had not been aware of any attempts by intelligence services to infiltrate or hack his company. "I am shocked," he said.
- Intelligence workers in Bude also appear to have succeeded in infiltrating competitor Cetel. The document states that workers came across four "servers of interest" and were able to create a comprehensive list of customers. According to Cetel CEO Guido Neumann, the company primarily serves customers in Africa and the Middle East and its clients include non-governmental organizations as well as a northern European country that uses Cetel to connect its diplomatic outposts to the Internet. Neumann also says he was surprised when he learned his firm had been a target.
- The firm IABG in Ottobrunn appears to have been of particular interest to the intelligence service -- at least going by a short notation that only appears next to the Bavarian company's name. It notes, "this may have already been looked at by NSA NAC," a reference to the NSA's network analysis center.
- IABG's history goes back to the 1970s. The company was established as a test laboratory for aerospace and space technologies. The German Defense Ministry was an important client as well. Although the company has been privately held since 1993, it has continued to play a role in a number of major projects connected at least in part to the government. For example, it operated the testing facility for Germany's Transrapid super high-speed maglev train and also conducted testing on the Airbus A380 super jumbo jet and the Ariane rocket, the satellite launcher at the heart of the European space program.
- IABG also does considerable business with the Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces. The company states that its "defense and security" unit is "committed to the armed forces and their procurement projects." These include solutions for "security issues, for prevention and reactions against dangers like terrorism and attacks against critical infrastructure."
- Like Stellar and Cetel, the company also operates a satellite ground station -- one that apparently got hacked, according to the GCHQ document. It includes a list of IABG routers and includes their network addresses. In addition, it contains the email addresses of 16 employees at the company named as possible targets. IABG did not respond to a request for comment from SPIEGEL. In a statement, GCHQ said it does not comment on intelligence-related issues but "all of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate."
- Classic Acts of Espionage
- Monitoring companies and their employees along with the theft of customer lists are classic acts of economic espionage. Indeed, such revelations ought be a case for the German federal public prosecutors' office, which in the past has initiated investigations into comparable cases involving Russia or China.
- So far, however, German Federal Public Prosecutor Harald Range has been struggling with the NSA issue. Some experienced investigators have had a problem applying the same criteria used to assess intelligence services like Russia's to those of the United States and Britain. Federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe have provided a preliminary assessment, but so far no decision has been made about whether the agency will move forward with legal proceedings.
- Under review at the moment are allegations that the NSA monitored the chancellor's mobile phone and also conducted mass surveillance on the communications of millions of Germans. Range recently told the Berlin-based daily Die Tageszeitung the affair was "an extremely complicated issue."
- "I am currently reviewing whether reasonable suspicion even exists for an actionable criminal offense," he told the newspaper. "Only if I can affirm that can I then address the question of whether a judiciary inquiry would run contrary to the general public interest -- a review required for any espionage-related crime" in Germany. A decision is expected soon.
- The launch of legal proceedings against GCHQ agents or NSA employees would quickly become a major political issue that would further burden already tense trans-Atlantic relations. An additional problem is the fact that Range is in possession of very few original documents, particularly those pertaining to the NSA's monitoring of Chancellor Merkel.
- A secret NSA document dealing with high-ranking targets has provided further indications that Merkel was a target. The document is a presentation from the NSA's Center for Content Extraction, whose multiple tasks include the automated analysis of all types of text data. The lists appear to contain 122 country leaders. Twelve names are listed as an example, including Merkel's.
- The list begins with "A," as in Abdullah Badawi, the former Malaysian prime minister, and continues with the presidents of Peru, Somalia, Guatemala and Colombia right up to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The final name on the list, No. 122, is Yulia Tymoshenko, who was Ukrainian prime minister at the time. The NSA listed the international leaders alphabetically by their first name, with Tymoshenko listed under "Y". Merkel is listed under "A" as the ninth leader, right behind Malawian President Amadou Toumani Tour(C), but before Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
- The document indicates that Angela Merkel has been placed in the so-called "Target Knowledge Database" (TKB), the central database of individual targets. An internal NSA description states that employees can use it to analyze "complete profiles" of target persons. The responsible NSA unit praises the automated machine-driven administration of collected information about high-value targets.The searchable sources cited in the document include, among others, the signals intelligence database "Marina," which contains metadata ingested from sources around the world. The unit also gives special attention to promoting a system for automated name recognition called "Nymrod". The document states that some 300 automatically generated "cites," or citations, are provided for Angela Merkel alone. The citations in "Nymrod" are derived from intelligence agencies, transcripts of intercepted fax, voice and computer-to-computer communication. According to internal NSA documents, it is used to "find information relating to targets that would otherwise be tough to track down." Each of the names contained in Nymrod is considered a "SIGINT target."
- The manual maintenance of the database with high-ranking targets is a slow and painstaking process, the document notes, and fewer than 200,000 targets are managed through the system. Automated capture, by contrast, simplifies the saving of the data and makes it possible to manage more than 3 million entries, including names and the citations connected to them.
- The table included in the document indicates the capture and maintenance of records pertaining to Merkel already appears to have been automated. In any case, the document indicates that a manual update was not available in May 2009. The document could be another piece of the puzzle for investigators in Karlsruhe because it shows that Chancellor Merkel was an official target for spying.
- In addition to surveillance of the chancellor, the Federal Prosecutor's Office is also exploring the question of whether the NSA conducted mass espionage against the German people. The internal NSA material also includes a weekly report dating from March 2013 from the Special Sources Operations (SSO) division, the unit responsible for securing NSA access to major Internet backbone structures, like fiber optic cables.
- In the document, the team that handles contact with US telecommunications providers like AT&T or Verizon reports on the legal foundations with which it monitors the data of certain countries. According to the SSO report, FISA, the special court responsible for intelligence agency requests, provided the NSA with authorization to monitor "Germany" on March 7, 2013. The case number provided in the ruling is 13-319.
- The documents do not provide sufficient information to precisely determine the types of data included in the order, and the NSA has said it will not comment on the matter. However, lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union believe it provides the NSA with permission to access the communications of all German citizens, regardless whether those affected are suspected of having committed an offense or not. Under the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA is permitted to conduct blanket surveillance in foreign countries without any requirement to submit individual cases for review by the court, whose deliberations and rulings are top secret.
- According to the partial list in the document, the court has provided similar authorization for countries including, China, Mexico, Japan, Venezuela, Yemen, Brazil, Sudan, Guatemala, Bosnia and Russia. In practice, the NSA uses this permission in diverse ways -- sometimes it uses it to monitor telecommunications companies, and at others it surveils individuals.
- "So far, we have no knowledge that Internet nodes in Germany have been spied on by the NSA," Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, which is also responsible for counterintelligence measures, said last summer.
- It's also possible the Americans don't even have to do that, at least not directly. It's quite feasible they have better access through major US providers like AT&T or Verizon whose infrastructure is used to process a major share of global Internet traffic. The NSA could use that infrastructure to access data from Germany. This would be totally legal from the American perspective -- at least according to the FISA court.
- Editor's note: You can read an additional report on spying by the NSA and GCHQ on Germany and Chancellor Merkel on The Intercept.
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- Newly Released and Reprocessed Documents Responsive to a Freedom...
- Newly Released and Reprocessed Documents Responsive to a Freedom of Information Act Request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Docket Number BR 08-13March 2, 2009 '-- Order from the Foreign Intelligence Court (Updated)
- In light of the compliance incidents identified and reported by the Government, the FISC ordered NSA to seek Court approval to query the telephony metadata on a case-by-case basis, except where necessary to protect against an imminent threat to human life ''until such time as the Government is able to restore the Court's confidence that the government can and will comply with the previously approved [Court] procedures for accessing such data.''
- Docket Number BR 09-06June 22, 2009 '-- Order (Updated)
- In response to the Government's reporting of a compliance incident related to NSA's dissemination of certain query results discovered during NSA's end-to-end review, the FISC ordered the Government to report on a weekly basis, any disseminations of information from the metadata telephony program outside of NSA and provide further explanation of the incident in its final report upon completion of the end-to-end review.
- Docket Number BR: 10-82November 23, 2010 '-- Supplemental Order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Newly Released)
- Supplemental Order issued by the FISC in response to a government request for records concerning an individual target, not an application requesting records in bulk. The order interprets the relationship between the Right to Financial Privacy Act and Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.
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- TELEPHONEY ONLY?-IC ON THE RECORD ' Joint Statement by Attorney General Eric Holder...
- Joint Statement by Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on the Declassification of Renewal of Collection Under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act (50 U.S.C. Sec. 1861)
- Earlier this year in a speech at the Department of Justice, President Obama announced a transition that would end the Section 215 bulk telephony metadata program as it existed, and that the government would establish a mechanism that preserves the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk data. As a first step in that transition, the President directed the Attorney General to work with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to ensure that, absent a true emergency, the telephony metadata can only be queried after a judicial finding that there is a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the selection term is associated with an approved international terrorist organization. The President also directed that the query results must be limited to metadata within two hops of the selection term instead of three. These two changes were put into effect on Feb. 5, 2014, when the FISC granted the government's motion to amend its Jan. 3, 2014, primary order approving the production of telephony metadata collection under Section 215. Following a review for declassification the Jan. 3 primary order, the government's motion to amend that order, and the order granting the motion were posted to the FISC's website, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence website and icontherecord.tumblr.com.
- In addition to directing those immediate changes to the program, the President also directed the Intelligence Community and the Attorney General to develop options for a new approach to match the capabilities and fill gaps that the Section 215 program was designed to address without the government holding this metadata. He instructed us to report back to him with options for alternative approaches before the program came up for reauthorization on March 28. Consistent with the President's direction, we provided him with alternative approaches for consideration.
- After carefully considering the available options, the President announced yesterday that the best path forward is that the government should not collect or hold this data in bulk, and that it should remain at the telephone companies with a legal mechanism in place that would allow the government to obtain data pursuant to individual orders from the FISC approving the use of specific numbers for such queries. The President also noted that legislation would be required to implement this option.
- Given that this legislation is not yet in place, and given the importance of maintaining this capability, the President directed the Department of Justice to seek a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, which includes the modifications that he directed in January. Consistent with both the President's direction, and with prior declassification decisions, in light of the significant and continuing public interest in the telephony metadata collection program, DNI Clapper declassified the fact that the United States filed an application with the FISC to reauthorize the existing program as previously modified for 90 days, and that today the FISCissued an order approving the government's application. The order issued today expires on June 20, 2014. The Administration is undertaking a declassification review of this most recent court order. When the review is complete the ODNI will post the documents to its website and icontherecord.tumblr.com.
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- Fact Sheet: The Administration's Proposal for Ending the Section 215 Bulk Telephony Metadata Program
- Office of the Press Secretary
- On January 17, 2014, President Obama gave a speech at the Department of Justice on his Administration's review of certain intelligence activities. During this speech, he ordered a transition that would end the Section 215 bulk telephony metadata program as it previously existed and establish a new mechanism to preserve the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk metadata. The President made clear that he was ordering this transition to give the public greater confidence that their privacy is appropriately protected, while maintaining the tools our intelligence and law enforcement agencies need to keep us safe. This fact sheet describes the steps the Administration has taken to implement this transition, details the President's proposal for a new program to replace the Section 215 program, and outlines the steps the Administration will be taking in the near future to realize the President's vision.
- Ending the Section 215 Bulk Telephony Metadata Program as it Existed
- On January 17, 2014, the President directed the first step in the transition of the Section 215 program; that the Department of Justice (DOJ) to seek to modify the program to ensure that:
- Absent an emergency situation, the government can query the telephony metadata collected pursuant to the program only after a judge approves the use of specific numbers for such queries based on national security concerns; andThe results of any query are limited to metadata within two hops of the selection term being used, instead of three.On February 5, 2014, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) approved the government's request to modify the program.
- The President's Proposal to Replace the Section 215 Program
- For the second step in the transition, the President instructed the Attorney General and the Intelligence Community (IC) to develop options for a new program that could match the capabilities and fill the gaps that the Section 215 metadata program was designed to address without the government holding the bulk telephony metadata records. The President further instructed the Attorney General and the IC to report back to him with options for alternative approaches before the program comes up for reauthorization by the FISC on March 28th.
- Consistent with this directive, DOJ and the IC developed options designed to meet the criteria the President laid out in his speech -- to preserve the capabilities we need without the government holding this metadata. The Administration has also consulted with Congress, the private sector, privacy and civil liberties groups, and other interested groups.
- On the basis of these consultations, and after having carefully considered the available options, the President has decided on a proposal that will, with the passage of appropriate legislation, allow the government to end bulk collection of telephony metadata records under Section 215, while ensuring that the government has access to the information it needs to meet its national security requirements. Under the President's proposal, a new program would be created with the following key attributes:
- the government will not collect these telephone records in bulk; rather, the records would remain at the telephone companies for the length of time they currently do today; absent an emergency situation, the government would obtain the records only pursuant to individual orders from the FISC approving the use of specific numbers for such queries, if a judge agrees based on national security concerns;the records provided to the government in response to queries would only be within two hops of the selection term being used, and the government's handling of any records it acquires will be governed by minimization procedures approved by the FISC;the court-approved numbers could be used to query the data over a limited period of time without returning to the FISC for approval, and the production of records would be ongoing and prospective; andthe companies would be compelled by court order to provide technical assistance to ensure that the records can be queried and that results are transmitted to the government in a usable format and in a timely manner.The President believes that this approach will best ensure that we have the information we need to meet our intelligence requirements while enhancing public confidence in the manner in which this information is collected and held.
- Legislation will be needed to implement the President's proposal. The Administration has been in consultation with congressional leadership and members of the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees on this important issue throughout the last year, and we look forward to continuing to work with Congress to pass a bill that achieves the goals the President has put forward. Given that this legislation will not be in place by March 28 and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities in question, the President has directed DOJ to seek from the FISC a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, which includes the substantial modifications in effect since February.
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- The fraud of Obama's NSA ''reform''
- 27 March 2014The Obama administration's proposal to modify the National Security Agency's bulk telephone records spying program is a political fraud. Far from curtailing the NSA's activities, the administration is seeking to expand the amount of data to which the spy agency has access, while obtaining a legislative imprimatur for the illegal and unconstitutional activities of the American government.
- Details of the White House plan have not been released, but the basic outline is clear. Instead of phone record data being stored on the NSA's own servers, the information will be retained by the telecommunications companies, which will be required by law to make it available on demand, in standardized form and on a continuously updated basis. Phone companies will retain call records for 18 months, which the NSA and White House deem sufficient for their purposes.
- Requests for data by the NSA will be approved by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a rubber-stamp body that routinely grants spy agency requests. The NSA will be given access to the data of anyone who is two degrees of separation (or ''hops'') from a target, while ''targets'' will be defined in extremely broad language.
- Perhaps the most significant component of the proposal is one that has been buried in the media coverage. The new legislation will reportedly require telecommunications companies to give the NSA access to cell phone records, a central preoccupation of the spy agency. US officials disclosed in February that only about 30 percent of all call records are available to the NSA because of the widespread use of cell phones, which have up to now not been part of the information handed over to the government.
- In the end, the NSA will get access to even more data, and it will do so in even closer daily collaboration with the giant companies that exercise a virtual monopoly over the US phone networks.
- That the proposed ''reform'' has been drafted by and for the military-intelligence apparatus is clear from the figures who are backing it. The White House is working closely with the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, both of whom have hysterically denounced Edward Snowden and journalists who have published his revelations for exposing the truth to the American people.
- Aside from minor differences, including whether the FISC gives its stamp of approval before or after the NSA collects data from the telecommunications companies, Obama's proposals are broadly similar to those unveiled by Rogers and Ruppersberger on Tuesday'--a plan given the Orwellian title, ''End Bulk Collection Act.''
- The call to ''end the bulk data program'' has also been endorsed by outgoing NSA head General Keith Alexander, Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein.
- The sham ''reform'' announced this week is the outcome of an extended political process. Snowden's leaks, which began last spring, have revealed a vast police state spying apparatus that operates outside of all legal and constitutional constraints, creating a serious crisis for the government.
- Snowden has exposed not only the phone records program, but the seizure and monitoring of emails, text messages, internet chats and an array of other information in the United States and countries throughout the world. The US has engaged in international cyber espionage and cyber warfare and targeted foreign leaders. The NSA has collaborated with its partners in other countries to tap into the Internet backbone and access virtually all online communications and activities. It has worked systematically to break encryption methods, while installing malware on targeted computers all over the world.
- Top administration figures, including the president and the heads of the various spy agencies, are implicated in impeachable and prosecutable offenses, including the systematic violation of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Government officials, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, have been exposed as perjurers.
- The revelations have generated enormous popular opposition'--a fact to which Obama alluded Tuesday when he spoke of the ''skepticism'' of the American people toward the intelligence apparatus. The exposure of a totalitarian spying network has severely undermined the legitimacy of the state.
- In response, the Obama administration and intelligence agencies have pursued a multi-track strategy. They launched a vicious campaign against Snowden, who committed the unpardonable sin of revealing government criminality. The administration defended the legality of the spy programs, lied shamelessly about what the government was doing, and worked with the media to bury the most significant revelations.
- At the same time, the White House has sought to counter popular sentiment by calling for fig-leaf reform measures drawn up in close consultation with the NSA itself.
- A significant political aim of the NSA ''reforms'' now being prepared is to establish a bipartisan consensus in Congress, bringing together the White House and Republicans with Democrats who have postured as critics of the spy programs (such as Senator Ron Wyden, who declared Obama's proposal ''exciting news for the constitutional rights of the American people.'') The illegal programs are to be codified in laws passed by Congress, further entrenching and institutionalizing them, while providing cover for those guilty of criminal offenses. Continuing popular opposition will be treated as illegitimate and criminalized.
- Among those who have praised Obama's announcement is Snowden himself, who declared it ''a turning point'' and the ''beginning of a new effort to reclaim our rights from the NSA and restore the public's seat at the table of government.'' Obama, Snowden wrote in a statement, has confirmed that ''these mass surveillance programs'... are in fact unnecessary and should be ended.''
- In Snowden's case, one is dealing not with political duplicity, but a lack of understanding of the social and political forces that are driving the police state measures that he has courageously exposed. However, illusions about the character of Obama's proposals are highly dangerous, for the working class and for Snowden personally. The administration's ''reforms'' are entirely compatible with an intensification of the vendetta against the NSA whistle-blower.
- The entire process that began with the initial Snowden revelations nearly 10 months ago has confirmed that there does not exist a significant constituency within any section of the political establishment for the defense of democratic rights. This is because the erection of the apparatus of a police state is rooted in the immense growth of social inequality and the determination of the corporate and financial aristocracy to pursue a deeply unpopular policy of endless war abroad and social counterrevolution at home.
- A real turning point in the defense of democratic rights will come not from the actions of Obama, the intelligence-agent-in-chief, but through the independent political mobilization of the American and international working class against the capitalist system.
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- Vaccine$
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- Prospective Grant of Exclusive License: Multivalent Vaccines for Rabies Virus and Ebola and Marburg (Filoviruses)
- This is notice, in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 209 and 37 CFR 404, that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is contemplating the grant of a an exclusive license to practice the following invention as embodied in the following patent applications: E-032-2011/0, Blaney et al.,''Multivalent Vaccines for Rabies Virus and Filoviruses,'' U.S. Patent Application Number 61/439,046, filed on February 3, 2011, PCT Application Number PCT/US2012/23575, filed on February 2, 2012, U.S. Patent Application Number 13/983,545, filed on August 2, 2013, European Patent Application Number 12702953.6, filed on February 2, 2012, and Canadian Patent Application Number 2826594, filed on February 2, 2012, to Exxell BIO, Inc., having a place of business in Shoreview, Minnesota, United States of America. The patent rights in these inventions have been assigned to the United States of America and Thomas Jefferson University.
- Only written comments and/or application for a license which are received by the NIH Office of Technology Transfer on or before April 30, 2014 will be considered.
- Requests for a copy of the patent application, inquiries, comments and other materials relating to the contemplated license should be directed to: Peter Soukas, Office of Technology Transfer, National Institutes of Health, 6011 Executive Boulevard, Suite 325, Rockville, MD 20852-3804; Email: ps193c@nih.gov; Telephone: (301) 435-4646; Facsimile: (301) 402-0220.
- No vaccine candidates against Ebola virus (EBOV) or Marburg virus (MARV) are nearing licensure, and the need to develop a safe and efficacious vaccine against filoviruses continues. Whereas several preclinical and clinical vaccine candidates against EBOV or MARV exist (please see below for further elaboration), their further development is a major challenge based on safety concerns, pre-existing vector immunity, issues such as manufacturing, dosage, and marketability, and funding for development. The inventors have developed a new platform based on live or chemically inactivated (killed) rabies virus (RABV) virions containing EBOV glycoprotein (GP) in their envelope. In preclinical trials, immunization with such recombinant RABV virions provided excellent protection in mice against lethal challenge with the mouse adapted EBOV and RABV. More specifically, the inventors have developed a trivalent filovirus vaccine based on killed rabies virus virions for use in humans to confer protection from all medically relevant filoviruses and RABV. Two additional vectors containing EBOV Sudan GP or MARV GP are planned to be constructed in addition to the previously developed EBOV Zaire GP containing vaccine. Live attenuated vaccines have been developed for use in at risk nonhuman primate populations in Africa and inactivated vaccines have been developed for use in humans.
- The prospective exclusive license will be royalty bearing and will comply with the terms and conditions of 35 U.S.C. 209 and 37 CFR 404. The prospective exclusive license may be granted unless, within thirty (30) days from the date of this published Notice, NIH receives written evidence and argument that establishes that the grant of the license would not be consistent with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 209 and 37 CFR 404.
- The fields of use may be limited to (1) inactivated vaccines against rabies virus and filoviruses for use in humans and (2) live attenuated vaccines against rabies virus and filoviruses for use in non-human animals.
- Properly filed competing applications for a license filed in response to this notice will be treated as objections to the contemplated license. Comments and objections submitted in response to this notice will not be made available for public inspection, and, to the extent permitted by law, will not be released under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552.
- Director, Division of Technology Development and Transfer, Office of Technology Transfer, National Institutes of Health.
- [FR Doc. 2014-07023 Filed 3-28-14; 8:45 am]
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- Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program: Pandemic Influenza Countermeasures Injury Table
- Written comments must be submitted on or before May 30, 2014. Subject to consideration of the comments received, the Secretary intends to publish a final regulation.
- You may submit comments in one of three ways, as listed below. Please submit your comments in only one of these ways to minimize the receipt of duplicate submissions. The first is the preferred method.
- 1. Federal eRulemaking Portal. You may submit comments electronically to www.regulations.gov. Click on the link ''[S]ubmit electronic comments on HRSA regulations with an open comment period.'' You may submit attachments to your comments in any file format accepted by Regulations.gov.
- 2. By regular, express, or overnight mail. You may mail written comments to the following address only: Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Attention: HRSA Regulations Officer, Parklawn Building, Room 14-101, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857. Please allow sufficient time for mailed comments to be received before the close of the comment period.
- 3. Delivery by hand (in person or by courier). If you prefer, you may deliver your written comments before the close of the comment period to the same address: Parklawn Building, Room 14-101, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857. Please call in advance to schedule your arrival with one of our HRSA Regulations Office staff members at telephone number (301) 443-1785. This is not a toll-free number.
- Because of staffing and resource limitations, and to ensure that no comments are misplaced, the Program cannot accept comments by facsimile (FAX) transmission. When commenting by any of the above methods, please refer to file code: #0906-AA79. Comments received on a timely basis will be available for public inspection as they are received, beginning approximately three weeks after publication of this notice, online at www.regulations.gov or in person at: Parklawn Building, Room 14-101 of the Health Resources and Services Administration's offices at 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD on Monday through Friday of each week from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (excluding Federal holidays). Phone: (301) 443-1785. This is not a toll-free number.
- Please visit the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program's Web site, http://www.hrsa.gov/cicp/, or contact Dr. Vito Caserta, Director, Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, Healthcare Systems Bureau, HRSA, Parklawn Building, Room 11C-06, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857. Phone calls can be directed to (855) 266-2427. This is a toll-free number.
- The President encourages Federal agencies through Executive Order 13563 to develop balanced regulations by encouraging broad public participation in the regulatory process and an open exchange of ideas. The Department of Health and Human Services accordingly urges all interested parties to examine this regulatory proposal carefully and to share your views with us, including any data to support your positions. If you have questions before submitting comments, please see the ''For Further Information'' box below for the names and contact information of subject matter experts involved in this proposal's development. We must consider all written comments received during the comment period before issuing a final rule.
- If you are a person with a disability and/or a user of assistive technology who has difficulty accessing this document, please see the ''For Further Information'' box below for the names and contact information to obtain this information in an accessible format. Please visit http://www.HHS.gov/regulations for more information on HHS rulemaking and opportunities to comment on proposed and existing rules.
- The PREP Act (Pub. L. 109-148) directs the Secretary to establish, through regulations, a Covered Countermeasures Injury Table (Table) identifying serious physical injuries that are presumed to be directly caused by the administration or use of covered countermeasures identified in PREP Act declarations issued by the Secretary. The Secretary may only add injuries to a Table if it is determined based on ''compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence'' that the administration or use of the covered countermeasure directly causes such covered injuries.1 Such a Table informs the public about serious physical injuries supported by medical and scientific evidence known to be directly caused by covered countermeasures. In addition, such a Table creates a rebuttable presumption of causation, for compensation purposes, for eligible individuals whose injuries are listed on a Table and meet the requirements of a Table.
- The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005 (PREP Act), part of the ''Department of Defense, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006,'' Public Law 109-148, establishes liability protections for certain covered persons and authorizes the payment of benefits to eligible individuals injured by covered countermeasures. Both liability protections and compensation are available under the PREP Act based on the terms of the PREP Act declarations (hereafter declarations or Secretarial declarations) issued by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (the Secretary).
- The purpose of a Secretarial declaration is to identify a disease, health condition, or a threat to health that is currently, or may in the future constitute, a public health emergency. In addition, the Secretary, through a declaration, may recommend and encourage the development, manufacturing, distribution, dispensing, and administration or use of one or more covered countermeasures to treat, prevent, or diagnose the disease, condition, or threat specified in the declaration.2
- This notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) concerns only the compensation program authorized by the PREP Act, not the liability protections set forth therein. Specifically, the PREP Act authorizes the Secretary to establish and administer this program to provide timely, uniform, and adequate compensation to certain individuals who develop serious physical injuries or to certain survivors of individuals who die as a direct result of the use or administration of a covered countermeasure identified in a Secretarial declaration. [3] The Secretary delegated responsibility for establishing and administering the Program to HRSA, within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
- The PREP Act authorizes the Secretary to publish regulations to establish and administratively implement the Program. Specifically, the PREP Act authorizes the Secretary to determine Program eligibility, the process to apply for benefits, the methods of payments and amounts of compensation, and the process for further review of Requests for Benefits submitted by, or on behalf of, requesters. To be considered for compensation for any serious physical injury or death, an individual must submit a Request for Benefits with the required information.
- The Secretary published the interim final rule implementing the Program on October 15, 2010. [4] This rule, which was published as a final rule on October 7, 2011, explains the Program's policies, procedures, and requirements. Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) § 110.20(a) states that individuals must establish that a covered injury occurred in order to be eligible for benefits under the Program. A covered injury is death or a serious injury determined by the Secretary to be: (1) An injury meeting the requirements of a Covered Countermeasures Injury Table, which is presumed to be the direct result of the administration or use of a covered countermeasure unless the Secretary determines there is another more likely cause; or (2) an injury (or its health complications) that is the direct result of the administration or use of a covered countermeasure. This includes serious aggravation caused by a covered countermeasure of a pre-existing condition. 42 CFR 110.3(g).
- Serious injury means serious physical injury. Physical biochemical alterations leading to physical changes and serious functional abnormalities at the cellular or tissue level in any bodily function may, in certain circumstances, be considered serious injuries. As a general matter, only injuries that warranted hospitalization (whether or not the person was actually hospitalized) or injuries that led to a significant loss of function or disability (whether or not hospitalization was warranted) will be considered serious injuries. 42 CFR 110.3(z).
- Through this NPRM, the Secretary proposes adding subpart K to 42 CFR part 110, which had been reserved for the purpose of creating an Injury Table for covered countermeasures. These countermeasures are identified in Secretarial declarations relating to pandemic influenza, including influenza caused by the 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza virus (hereafter referred to as the 2009 H1N1 virus), and other potential pandemic strains, such as H5N1 avian influenza.
- The Table proposed in this notice is limited to pandemic influenza covered countermeasures. Future Countermeasure Injury Tables (Tables) may be created for other countermeasures relating to threats to health that pose or constitute public health emergencies, since the PREP Act mandates the establishment of a Program Table identifying covered injuries that may be presumed to be directly caused by the administration or use of a covered countermeasure. To date, declarations have been issued with respect to countermeasures against pandemic influenza A viruses, anthrax, botulism, smallpox, and acute radiation syndrome. The Secretary may publish Tables in the Federal Register through separate amendments to 42 CFR part 110 in the future.
- The 2009 H1N1 virus outbreak quickly emerged into an influenza pandemic in the spring of 2009. An influenza pandemic is a worldwide epidemic of the disease and occurs when: (1) A new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no or very limited immunity; and (2) the virus can spread easily from person-to-person in a sustained manner.
- The 2009 H1N1 virus was a new recombinant influenza A virus of swine origin that was first recognized as causing human illness with transmission from person to person in Mexico and the United States in the early spring of 2009. The first documented case in the United States was confirmed by laboratory testing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on April 15, 2009. The virus then spread rapidly throughout the world and it was determined that the human population had very limited immunity to this novel influenza A virus.
- The virus has been reported to cause a wide range of influenza-like symptoms, including fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headaches, chills, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea. Most infections have been mild and self-limiting; however, serious illnesses including pneumonia and death have occurred.
- Due to the novel nature of the 2009 H1N1 virus and the increasing number of CDC-confirmed cases indicating rapid spread, the Acting Secretary of HHS issued a public health emergency determination, under section 319 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act [5] on April 26, 2009, titled ''Determination that a Public Health Emergency Exists.'' This determination stated that a public health emergency was in existence nationwide involving the pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza virus because it affected, or had significant potential to affect, national security. More information is available at http://www.flu.gov/planning-preparedness/federal/h1n1emergency042609.html#. This declaration was renewed by the Secretary on July 24, 2009; October 1, 2009; December 28, 2009; and March 23, 2010. Each renewal, titled ''Renewal of Determination that a Public Health Emergency Exists,'' focused specifically on the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. HHS did not further renew this determination, which resulted in the expiration of the Secretary's 2009 H1N1 influenza public health emergency determination on June 23, 2010, under section 319 of the PHS Act. [6] However, HHS still encourages individuals to continue to practice flu prevention techniques (http://www.flu.gov/prevention-vaccination/index.html#).
- The Secretary has issued several PREP Act declarations concerning pandemic influenza covered countermeasures, pursuant to section 319F-3(b) of the PHS Act. [7] ''Covered countermeasure'' is defined in the PREP Act and includes three categories. [8] The first category, consisting of ''qualified pandemic or epidemic product[s],'' is defined in section 319F-3(i)(7) of the PHS Act. [9] This category includes products (drugs, biologics, and devices) manufactured, used, designed, developed, modified, licensed, or procured to diagnose, mitigate, prevent, treat, or cure a pandemic or epidemic or to limit the harm such pandemic or epidemic might otherwise cause. The category also extends to products used to diagnose, mitigate, prevent, treat, or cure a serious or life-threatening disease or condition caused by a ''qualified pandemic or epidemic product.'' [10] To qualify, a drug, biologic, or device must be: (1) Approved or cleared under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) or licensed under the PHS Act; (2) the subject of research for possible use and subject to an exemption under sections 505(i) or 520(g) of the FD&C Act; or (3) authorized for emergency use in accordance with section 564, 564A, or 564B of the FD&C Act.
- The second category includes ''security countermeasure[s].'' A security countermeasure, defined in section 319F-2(c)(1)(B) of the PHS Act, [11] is a drug, biologic, or device that the Secretary determines: (1) Is a priority to diagnose, mitigate, prevent, or treat harm either from an agent identified as a material threat or from a condition that may result in injuries or deaths, and may be caused by administering a drug, biologic, or device against such an agent; (2) is a necessary countermeasure; and (3) is approved or cleared under the FD&C Act or licensed under the PHS Act or will likely be approved, cleared, or licensed within ten years or is authorized for emergency use under section 564 of the FD&C Act.
- The final category consists of drugs, [12] biologics, [13] or devices [14] that are authorized for emergency use in accordance with section 564, 564A, or 564B of the FD&C Act.
- To be eligible for the liability protections of the PREP Act or to receive benefits under the compensation provisions of the PREP Act, a covered countermeasure must meet one of these three categories and must also be described by the Secretary in a declaration.
- In this section, we provide an overview of the covered countermeasures subject to Secretarial declarations that will be included on the proposed Table.
- The Secretary published a declaration covering pandemic influenza A H5N1 vaccines on January 26, 2007. [15] This declaration was amended on November 21, 2007, with the effective date of November 30, 2007, adding influenza vaccines caused by subtypes H7 and H9. [16] The January 26, 2007, declaration was further amended on October 10, 2008, to add influenza caused by subtypes H2 and H6 and covering vaccines to prevent these diseases. [17] A fourth amendment was signed by the Secretary on June 15, 2009, which specified that pandemic H1N1 influenza and vaccines are covered. [18] The June 15, 2009, declaration also republished the amended January 26, 2007, declaration in its entirety and stated that the 2009 H1N1 virus and resulting disease constituted a public health emergency. The June 15, 2009, republished declaration was amended on September 28, 2009, adding provisions regarding the H5N1, H2, H6, H7, H9 subtypes and 2009 H1N1 vaccines. [19] The declaration was amended on February 26, 2010, which republished the June 15, 2009, declaration with amendments. [20]
- This February 26, 2010, amended declaration widened the scope of the previous declarations to extend to vaccines against pandemic influenza A viruses with pandemic potential and to associated adjuvants. [21]
- The declaration was further amended on February 29, 2012. This amendment extended the effective time period, reformatted the declaration, modified or clarified terms, and republished the February 26, 2010, declaration with amendments. [22]
- Although the ''determination that a public health emergency exists'' under section 319 of the PHS Act [23] expired, the PREP Act declarations remain effective as described above.
- Diagnostics, Personal Respiratory Protection Devices, and Respiratory Support Devices Declarations Back to TopOn December 17, 2008, the Secretary signed a PREP Act declaration concerning pandemic influenza diagnostics, personal respiratory protection devices, and respiratory support devices. [24]
- Pandemic influenza diagnostics are defined in section IX of the declaration as ''diagnostics to identify avian or other animal influenza A viruses that pose a pandemic threat, or to otherwise aid in the diagnosis of pandemic influenza, when (1) [l]icensed under section 351 of the Public Health Service Act; (2) approved under section 505 or section 515 of the FD Act; (3) cleared under section 510(k) of the FD Act; (4) authorized for emergency use under section 564 of the FD Act; (5) used under section 505(i) of the FD Act or section 351(a)(3) of the PHS Act and 21 CFR part 312; or (6) used under section 520(g) of the FD Act and 21 CFR part 812.'' [25]
- Pandemic influenza personal respiratory protection devices are defined in section IX of the declaration as being ''for use by the general public to reduce wearer exposure to pathogenic biological airborne particulates during public health medical emergencies, such as an influenza pandemic, when (1) [l]icensed under section 351 of the Public Health Service Act; (2) approved under section 505 or section 515 of the FD Act; (3) cleared under section 510(k) of the FD Act; (4) authorized for emergency use under section 564 of the FD Act; (5) used under section 505(i) of the FD Act or section 351(a)(3) of the PHS Act and 21 CFR part 312; or (6) used under section 520(g) of the FD Act and 21 CFR part 812.'' [26]
- Pandemic influenza respiratory support devices are defined in section IX of the declaration as, ''devices to support respiratory function for patients infected with highly pathogenic influenza A H5N1 viruses or other influenza viruses that pose a pandemic threat when (1) [l]icensed under section 351 of the Public Health Service Act; (2) approved under section 505 or section 515 of the FD Act; (3) cleared under section 510(k) of the FD Act; (4) authorized for emergency use under section 564 of the FD Act; (5) used under section 505(i) of the FD Act or section 351(a)(3) of the PHS Act and 21 CFR part 312; or (6) used under section 520(g) of the FD Act and 21 CFR part 812.'' [27]
- The Secretary signed a PREP Act declaration on October 10, 2008, adding the influenza antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza as pandemic influenza covered countermeasures. [28] This declaration was amended on April 26, 2009, to expand the category of covered diseases to all animal influenza A viruses that are or may be capable of developing into a pandemic strain. [29]
- In addition, the Secretary signed a September 28, 2009, PREP Act declaration for the antiviral drug, peramivir, when used to treat influenza caused by the pandemic 2009 H1N1 virus. [30]
- The effective dates for the above-referenced declarations vary, and the Secretary has the authority to amend the declarations at any time. The declarations, including amendments to the declarations, are published in the Federal Register.
- In addition to the above-referenced declarations, the Secretary also has issued declarations for countermeasures to the security threats of anthrax, smallpox, botulism, and acute radiation syndrome. Injury Tables for these covered countermeasures may be published at a later date.
- As noted above, the PREP Act authorized the Secretary to create Tables for each covered countermeasure identified in a declaration if there is compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence that the countermeasure directly causes a covered injury. In this NPRM, the Secretary proposes a Table for injuries directly resulting from the use or administration of pandemic influenza covered countermeasures identified in the above-referenced declarations. The proposed Table lists serious physical injuries that have been demonstrated by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence to be directly caused by the administration or use of the covered countermeasures. [31] Only injuries supported by this type of evidence are proposed for inclusion on the Table.
- For each countermeasure, the proposed Table will include the covered injuries and/or conditions directly caused by such countermeasure and the applicable time intervals for the first symptom or manifestation of onset of injuries. The Program's statute directs that covered injuries presumed to be caused by the administration or use of a covered countermeasure must be included on a Table. [32] The Secretary proposes also to note on the Table if no injuries or conditions qualify for a Table presumption for a particular countermeasure at this time. This is done to reflect that she considered the possibility of Table injuries for these covered countermeasures. Claims related to any injuries alleged to be caused by these countermeasures will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
- General information about applying for compensation/benefits under the Program is outside the scope of this NPRM, but is available in 42 CFR part 110.40 or on the Program's Web site, www.hrsa.gov/gethealthcare/conditions/countermeasurescomp/howtofile.html. The implementing regulations for this Program can also be found at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-10-07/pdf/2011-25858.pdf.
- This NPRM proposes to amend the Program's implementing regulations [33] and, if adopted, would establish a table of injuries resulting from the administration or use of pandemic influenza covered countermeasures. Certain conditions of interest that are currently not being proposed for inclusion on the Table also are discussed in this NPRM.
- General Requirement of Serious Physical Injuries or Deaths Back to TopBy statute, only serious physical injuries or deaths directly resulting from the use or administration of a covered countermeasure may be compensable under the Program. [34] The serious physical injury or death may be compensable regardless of whether the injury is a Table injury or a non-Table injury. Because this requirement of a serious physical injury applies to all Requests for Benefits filed with the Program, the Secretary considered this requirement while drafting the proposed Table included in this NPRM.
- In general, only injuries or significant aggravation of injuries that warranted hospitalization (whether or not the person was actually hospitalized) or that led to a significant loss of function or disability will be considered serious physical injuries. [35] It is recognized that the term ''disability'' can be defined in many ways, and there are several definitions used by the Federal government specific to various programs and services. To provide further clarity as to the type of disability that would qualify as a serious injury for the Program, under this proposed rule, the term ''disability'' is defined as ''a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of an individual.'' This definition corresponds with the first listed definition of disability in the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12102(1)(A). This definition was chosen because it is consistent with the Program's existing authorities and adds further guidance by using a widely accepted definition familiar to the general public.
- In addition, pursuant to 42 CFR 110.3(z), ''physical biochemical alterations leading to physical changes and serious functional abnormalities at the cellular or tissue level in any bodily function may, in certain circumstances, be considered serious physical injuries.'' According to the preamble to the interim final rule, serious physical injuries also include ''instances in which there may be no measurable anatomic or structural change in the affected tissue or organ, but there is an abnormal functional change. For example, many psychiatric conditions are caused by abnormal neurotransmitter levels in key portions of the central nervous system. Thus, it is possible that certain serious psychiatric conditions may qualify as serious physical injuries if the psychiatric conditions are a manifestation of a physical biochemical abnormality in neurotransmitter level or type caused by a covered countermeasure. One way of determining that an abnormal physical change in neurotransmitter level is causing the injury would be a clinical challenge that demonstrates a positive clinical response to a medication that is designed to restore the balance of appropriate neurotransmitters necessary for normal function in an injured countermeasure recipient.'' [36]
- Only serious physical injuries believed to have a direct causal relationship with the use or administration of a covered countermeasure based on compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence may be included on the Table.
- Minor injuries do not meet the definition of a serious physical injury. For example, covered injuries do not include common and expected skin reactions (such as localized swelling or warmth that is not of sufficient severity to warrant hospitalization and does not lead to significant loss of function or disability). Expected minor reactions, such as headaches and body aches, commonly occur with influenza vaccinations. However, if a minor injury leads to a serious physical injury, and the minor injury was directly caused by a covered countermeasure, the Program may compensate the individual for the serious physical injury. The injury's causal link to the countermeasure must be based on compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence. The Program will consider such claims on a case-by-case basis.
- Serious Aggravation of Pre-Existing Conditions Back to TopInjuries covered under the Program may include serious aggravations of pre-existing conditions if such aggravations were caused by a covered countermeasure (i.e., any disorder that is proven to the satisfaction of the Secretary to have been made significantly more severe as the direct result of the administration or use of the covered countermeasure). The serious aggravation of the pre-existing condition must be supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence and show a direct causal link between the aggravation or worsening of the pre-existing condition and the countermeasure. The Program will consider claims involving serious aggravations of pre-existing conditions on a case-by-case basis.
- The proposed Table includes time intervals, per covered injury, describing the time interval between the administration or use of the covered countermeasure and the first symptom or manifestation of onset of injury after the administration or use of the countermeasure. In addition to meeting the requirements of the Table injury, the symptom or manifestation of onset of injury must be evident within the time period described on the Table. The time intervals are biologically sound time intervals based on medical and scientific evidence in which nearly all of the cases of injury are known to appear when the injury is actually caused by the covered countermeasure. As is the case for non-Table injuries, Table injuries not meeting the Table time intervals may be compensated based on adequate demonstration of compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence supporting that the countermeasure had a causal role.
- The proposed Table also includes definitions of the terms and conditions included on the Table which sets forth the requirements necessary to establish the Table injuries. For this reason, the Table definitions and requirements are considered part of the Table. To receive compensation for a Table injury, the individual must meet the time interval, Table definition, and any other Table requirements, in addition to the other Program requirements.
- For purposes of this Program, a rebuttable presumption exists that a Table injury was directly caused by the administration or use of a covered countermeasure if the first symptom or manifestation of onset of an injury listed on the Table occurred within the time period indicated, and the Table's definitions and requirements are satisfied. By statute, this presumption only applies to Table injuries. [37] An individual may obtain this presumption of causation by submitting medical documents demonstrating that the covered injury occurred, that it began within the time interval specified on the Table after administration or use of a covered countermeasure, that there was not another more likely cause, and that all other applicable Table requirements and Table definitions are met.
- Nevertheless, the presumption is not conclusive. It may be rebutted if, based on review of the relevant medical and scientific evidence, the Secretary determines that the Table injury was more likely caused by other factors and not directly caused by the countermeasure.
- Compensation may be available for individuals who develop an injury not included on the Table, or an injury that is included on the Table but where the injury begins outside the allotted time interval provided by the Table, or the injury does not satisfy the definition or requirements included on the Table with respect to such injury. In these cases, the requester does not receive the presumption of causation for a Table injury and must demonstrate that the use or administration of the covered countermeasure directly caused the injury. The regulation administratively implementing the Program includes more information about the requirements for such an injury. [38] For example, a temporal association between the administration or use of a covered countermeasure and onset of the injury (i.e., the injury occurs a certain time after the administration or use of the countermeasure) alone is not sufficient to show that an injury is the direct result of a covered countermeasure. [39] Proof of a causal association for the non-Table injury must still be based on compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- Sequelae (Health Complications) of Table and Non-Table Injuries Back to TopA requester who demonstrates a Table injury may be entitled to benefits related to sequelae (health complications), including death, if the Program determines that the sequelae resulted from the Table injury. This is also applicable to a requester who develops sequelae from a non-Table injury, but only if the non-Table injury is shown to be directly caused by a covered countermeasure, and the evidence shows a causal relationship based on compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence. The Program will consider compensation for sequelae that develop from Table and non-Table injuries on a case-by-case basis.
- Injuries Sustained as a Result of a Pandemic Influenza Virus Back to TopAn individual will not have suffered a covered injury if a covered countermeasure is ineffective in diagnosing, preventing, or treating the underlying disease for which the countermeasure was administered or used, and the individual sustains an injury caused by the disease and not by the covered countermeasure. An injury sustained as the direct result of a disease (or health condition or threat to health), e.g., 2009 H1N1 influenza infection, for which the Secretary recommended the administration or use of a covered countermeasure in a declaration, is not a covered injury. This is because the injury results from the disease itself and not from the administration or use of a covered countermeasure. For more information, see 42 CFR 110.20(d).
- Amendments to the Proposed Table of Injuries Back to TopThe Secretary has the discretion to modify the Table in the future. For example, the Secretary may amend the Table by adding or removing injuries, modifying the governing time intervals, and/or revising the Table definitions and requirements. The Secretary will monitor new studies and evolving medical and scientific evidence concerning any causal relationships between covered countermeasures and injuries or death. The Secretary may amend the Table at any time while the Program remains operational. Changes to the Table will be accomplished as amendments to 42 CFR part 110 and will be published in the Federal Register.
- The Table in Effect at the Time a Claim Is Filed Back to TopThe version of the Table that applies to a requester is the one that is in effect on the filing date of his/her Request for Benefits unless a subsequent one is published that may provide greater benefit to the requester. If a new Table or an amendment to an existing Table would benefit a requester, as described in the following section, the requester may have an additional opportunity to file a Request for Benefits.
- Filing Deadlines and Table Additions or Amendments Back to TopIn accordance with 42 CFR 110.42(f), in the event that the Secretary issues a new Covered Countermeasure Injury Table or amends a previously published Table, requesters may have an extended filing deadline based on the effective date of the Table amendment. This extended filing deadline will apply only if the Table amendment enables a requester who could not establish a Table injury before the amendment to establish such an injury. For example, if the Table proposed in this NPRM is adopted, any person who meets the Table requirements for an injury of anaphylaxis after receiving the monovalent 2009 H1N1 vaccine (2009 H1N1 vaccine) would have one year from the effective date of the Table's adoption to file a Request for Benefits. This filing deadline applies regardless of whether the requester previously filed a request form with the Program.
- Individuals may seek compensation for one or more injuries stemming from a single administration of a covered countermeasure. However, if individuals have previously received compensation for an injury through the Program, they may not re-file a claim for compensation if the same injury is later added to a Table. The inability for individuals to re-file their claim avoids such individuals having the opportunity to receive additional compensation for the same serious physical injury. However, this does not preclude filing a Request for Benefits for an injury or aggravation of an injury, resulting from the subsequent administration or use of the same type of covered countermeasure. It also does not preclude subsequent Requests for Benefits for an injury, or an aggravation of an injury, resulting from the administration or use of a different covered countermeasure or a different injury from the same countermeasure.
- The filing deadline provided under 42 CFR 110.42(f) is an additional filing period to the one afforded to all potential requesters under 42 CFR 110.42(a). Therefore, persons who would be eligible to use the filing deadline described in § 110.42(f) could rely on the deadline provided under § 110.42(a) or § 110.42(f).
- It is important to note that the additional filing deadline described in 42 CFR 110.42(f) is only available to persons who meet the requirements of: (1) A new Table or an amendment(s) to a Table; (2) the Table time interval(s); (3) Table definitions; and (4) any other Table requirements. In this case, such persons may be eligible for the presumption of causation. Persons who sustained injuries not included on the Table, or those who do not meet all of the requirements for such a Table injury but may prove causation of the injury through other means, will not be afforded an additional one-year filing deadline based on the Table change. Because the Table change would not enable such individuals to establish a Table injury, they would be subject to the standard filing deadline described in 42 CFR 110.42(a) (i.e., one year from the date of administration or use of the covered countermeasure).
- Through this NPRM, as authorized by statute, the Secretary is proposing a Table for several covered countermeasures listing serious physical injuries (i.e., illnesses, disabilities, conditions, etc.). The serious physical injuries included on the Table are injuries that are supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence showing that the administration or use of the covered countermeasures directly causes such covered injuries. The Table lists the serious injuries directly caused by a specific countermeasure, if any, the time interval within which the first symptom or manifestation of onset of adverse effects must appear, and the definition of the injury. Table definitions are included to further explain each covered injury and the level of severity necessary to qualify as a Table injury. However, as discussed above, individuals with injuries not meeting these requirements of the Table injury may still pursue their claims as non-Table injuries under the Program.
- The injuries included on the proposed Table and the time intervals, Table definitions, and Table requirements reflect the Secretary's best efforts to identify those serious physical injuries causally related to the covered countermeasures. The causal linkages between the covered countermeasures and these associated Table injuries are based on compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence. The Secretary will stay informed of updates in the scientific and medical field concerning new information about causal association between injuries and covered countermeasures.
- Pandemic Influenza Countermeasures Injury Table Back to TopIn response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the 2009 H1N1 vaccine was licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a strain change from the seasonal influenza vaccine. The vaccine was developed using the same FDA-approved manufacturing processes used to produce the seasonal influenza vaccine.
- The United States has a long record of safety regarding seasonal influenza vaccines. Because the 2009 H1N1 vaccine was produced using the same processes as the annual seasonal influenza vaccine, its safety profile was expected to be similar to that of any strain change of the seasonal influenza vaccine.
- The Federal response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic centered on a mass vaccination program unprecedented in its size and scope in the United States. Because of this response, the Federal government significantly increased its vaccine safety monitoring efforts. [40] After the 2009 H1N1 vaccination program began in the fall of 2009, HHS and its Agencies worked in close partnership with the Department of Defense and others in the areas of research, surveillance, and programmatic activities to determine if vaccine safety signals or adverse events following immunization were related to the 2009 H1N1 vaccine by chance or were truly adverse reactions to the vaccine. In addition, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC), which provides advice to the HHS Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH), established the H1N1 Vaccine Safety Risk Assessment Working Group (the Working Group), with the charge to conduct independent, rapid reviews of available safety monitoring data for the 2009 H1N1 vaccine. The Working Group met regularly to review available data from Federal vaccine safety monitoring systems. The NVAC deliberated on the Working Group's findings and shared information with the ASH. HHS also worked with other countries to share vaccine data and safety information on the 2009 H1N1 vaccine. At the local level, public health departments and public and private medical health entities collaborated in Federal vaccine safety monitoring efforts as well.
- The Secretary is aware of minor adverse events associated with the 2009 H1N1 vaccine and other pandemic influenza vaccines. Specifically, for the 2009 H1N1 injectable vaccine, common minor adverse events included temporary tenderness, pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, and acute systemic reactions such as headache, malaise, and muscle aches in people of all ages, and fever in children. For the 2009 H1N1 intranasal vaccine, common minor temporary adverse events include runny nose, cough, nasal congestion, and headache in all age groups; sore throat and tiredness or weakness in adults; and abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and fever in children. Cases involving unusually severe forms of minor adverse events that meet the serious physical injury standard may qualify as non-Table injuries and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Program. As described above, minor injuries are excluded from the Table.
- The proposed Table not only includes the covered injuries listed, but also the necessary time intervals between the administration of the vaccine and the first symptom or manifestation of onset of the Table injury required for a Table presumption of causation. In addition, the Table lists Table definitions and Table requirements for each covered injury.
- The proposed Table lists the injuries of anaphylaxis, syncope, and deltoid bursitis for pandemic influenza vaccines, including the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) for only the 2009 H1N1 vaccine.
- Anaphylaxis is a single discrete event that presents as a severe and potentially life threatening multi-organ reaction, particularly affecting the skin, respiratory tract, cardiovascular system, and the gastrointestinal tract. In an anaphylactic reaction, an immediate reaction generally occurs within minutes after exposure, and in most cases, the individual develops signs and symptoms within four hours after exposure to the antigen. The immediate reaction leads to a combination of skin rash, mucus membrane swelling, leakage of fluid from the blood into surrounding tissues, tightening of the air passages in the lungs with tissue swelling, and gastrointestinal symptoms that can lead to shock, organ damage, and death if not promptly treated.
- Symptoms may include swelling, itching, rash, trouble breathing, chest tightness, and/or dizziness. Death, if it occurs, usually results from airway obstruction caused by laryngeal edema (throat swelling) or bronchospasm and may be associated with cardiovascular collapse.
- Other significant clinical signs and symptoms may include the following: cyanosis (bluish coloration in the skin due to low blood oxygen levels), hypotension (low blood pressure), bradycardia (slow heart rate), tachycardia (fast heart rate), arrhythmia (irregular heart rhythm), edema (swelling) of the pharynx and/or larynx (throat or upper airway) with stridor (noisy breathing on inspiration), dyspnea (shortness of breath), diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Autopsy findings may include acute emphysema (a type of lung abnormality), which results from lower respiratory tract obstruction, edema (swelling) of the upper airway, and minimal findings of eosinophilia (an excess of a type of white blood cell associated with allergy) in the liver. When death occurs within minutes of exposure without signs of respiratory distress, lack of significant pathologic findings would not exclude a diagnosis of anaphylaxis.
- Anaphylaxis may occur following exposure to allergens from a variety of sources including food, aeroallergens, insect venom, drugs, and immunizations. Most treated cases resolve without sequelae. Anaphylaxis can be due to an exaggerated acute systemic hypersensitivity reaction, especially involving immunoglobulin E antibodies, as in allergic anaphylaxis, or it could be a non-immunologically mediated reaction leading to similar clinical symptomatology as in non-immune anaphylaxis. Non-immune anaphylaxis cannot be detected by skin tests or in vitro allergy diagnostic procedures. As stated, anaphylaxis is a single discrete event. It is not an initial episode of a chronic condition such as chronic urticaria (hives).
- Anaphylaxis following immunization is a rare occurrence with estimates in the range of 1-10 per 1 million doses distributed, depending on the vaccine studied. [41] The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has reported that the evidence favors acceptance of a causal relationship between certain vaccines and anaphylaxis based on case reports and case series. The IOM has reported that causality could be inferred with reasonable certainty based on one or more case reports because of the unique nature and timing of anaphylaxis following vaccine administration and provided there is an absence of likely alternative causes. [42] It also has found that the evidence convincingly supports a causal relationship between influenza vaccine and anaphylaxis. [43]
- Because influenza vaccines are currently prepared from influenza viruses propagated in embryonated chicken eggs, the final vaccine product contains a limited quantity of egg protein that can induce immediate hypersensitivity reactions in some persons with severe egg allergies. The inactivated injectable vaccine (prepared from inactivated or killed influenza virus) may also contain gelatin proteins, which can be a source of allergic reactions in sensitized individuals. The live attenuated intranasal vaccine (containing living weakened virus) contains egg proteins, gentamicin, and gelatin, which may cause allergic reactions in sensitized individuals.
- The 1994 IOM Report noted in support of a causal association that there exists an observation of a spectrum of host responses to the influenza vaccine that follow a logical biological gradient from true anaphylaxis to milder hypersensitivity reactions. Biological gradient refers to the observation of a spectrum of responses from mild to severe, and in the case of hypersensitivity reactions the reported spectrum after the vaccine runs from mild skin manifestations to chest and throat tightness and cardiovascular events to full blown anaphylaxis. [44] The CDC adopted the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice's findings, concluding that ''[i]mmediate'--presumably allergic'--reactions (e.g., hives, angioedema, allergic asthma, and systemic anaphylaxis) rarely occur after influenza vaccination. These reactions probably result from hypersensitivity to certain vaccine components.'' [45]
- For its 2012 report, the IOM reviewed certain adverse events for their association with seasonal influenza vaccine. The 2009 H1N1 vaccine contains many of the same anaphylaxis-causing components as the seasonal influenza vaccine (e.g., egg protein). Although the IOM reported limited confidence in the epidemiologic evidence, they assessed the mechanistic evidence regarding an association between influenza vaccine and anaphylaxis as strong. This assessment was based on 22 cases in the medical literature that present a strong temporal relationship, the finding of antigelatin IgE in two cases, the finding of two cases with positive skin prick tests to gelatin, and one case with positive rechallenge (where the same acute adverse event occurs after more than one administration of the vaccine). The IOM concluded that ''the evidence convincingly supports a causal relationship between influenza vaccine and anaphylaxis.'' [46]
- The IOM also stated that the onset of anaphylaxis generally occurs within a few hours of exposure. [47] Consistent with the time interval for the first manifestation of anaphylaxis after vaccines covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), the Program proposes an onset interval of 0-4 hours for anaphylaxis to be covered under the proposed Table.
- Based on the nature and timing of anaphylaxis and the medical literature (including the fact that it is a very rare event with significant symptomatology), compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence shows a direct link between influenza vaccines, including pandemic influenza vaccines (e.g., the 2009 H1N1 vaccine) and anaphylaxis. [48] Anaphylaxis is proposed for inclusion on the Table because it is a serious physical injury that may be directly caused by the use of the pandemic influenza vaccine, as supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- In a very small minority of cases of acute anaphylaxis, initial symptoms of the immediate reaction may present up to 12 hours after exposure. A more slowly evolving late phase hypersensitivity reaction is also possible, with an onset that usually begins 4-8 hours after the immediate reaction ends. The medical literature contains reports of late phase onset up to 72 hours later. [49] The late phase reaction results from a different immunologic mechanism of action. The late phase reaction is part of a biphasic reaction. It is possible for the first immediate hypersensitivity reaction to be relatively mild, unrecognized, or not observed.
- There may be unusual cases in which the immediate reaction is delayed and/or cases in which the immediate reaction is not recognized, with the first apparent manifestation occurring in the late phase. These unusual cases will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and the Secretary will determine causation based on the presence of compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- Vasovagal syncope is a temporary loss of consciousness (fainting) and postural tone that includes a reflex drop in blood pressure and may be triggered by an event associated with pain or anxiety. This reaction is known to occur as a result of any injection, including the injection of a vaccine. Some people may experience jerking movements after losing consciousness which generally are not seizures.
- In its 2012 report, the IOM concluded, based on mechanistic evidence, that the evidence convincingly supports a causal relationship between the injection of a vaccine and syncope. Included in the evidence was one case of positive re-challenge involving influenza vaccine. [50] As a rule, syncope after vaccination is not associated with serious injuries; however, in approximately 10 percent of reported cases it can cause serious injury related to physical trauma from an associated fall or other related accidents. Only serious injuries are eligible for compensation.
- Most cases of syncope occur within one hour of vaccination. The Program will therefore propose an onset interval of 0-1 hour for vasovagal syncope caused by injected pandemic influenza vaccine to be covered under the proposed Table. Vasovagal syncope is proposed for inclusion on the Table because it may result in serious physical injury that is directly caused by the use of the vaccine, as supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- Subdeltoid bursitis (i.e., deltoid bursitis, subacromial bursitis) is an inflammation of the bursa located between the deltoid muscle and the capsule of the shoulder joint. A bursa is a closed fluid-containing sac. Bursae serve to reduce friction between bones and tendons, or bones and skin. The pain from subacromial or subdeltoid bursitis is usually located in the lateral aspect of the shoulder. There is frequently tenderness to direct palpation (the process of using your hands to examine the body, especially while perceiving/diagnosing a disease or illness) below the acromion process (part of the shoulder). A shoulder with isolated bursitis should have full passive range of motion with more tenderness on actively resisted abduction than on passive abduction. This bursa extends below the deltoid muscle, and it is possible for a deep injection given high in the shoulder to inadvertently enter the bursa causing an inflammatory bursitis. Subdeltoid bursitis can result in debilitating pain or immobility. Only serious injuries are eligible for compensation.
- The IOM evaluated three cases of positive re-challenge associated with influenza vaccine from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in addition to a published report of 13 claims in the VICP. Most of the cases had onset of symptoms within 48 hours of vaccination. The IOM concluded that the evidence convincingly supports a causal relationship between the injection of a vaccine and deltoid bursitis. [51] The Program will therefore propose an onset interval of 0-48 hours for subdeltoid bursitis caused by injected pandemic influenza vaccine to be covered under the proposed Table.
- Injury to other musculoskeletal structures in the shoulder or upper arm (e.g., tendons, ligaments, bone, muscle, nerves) due to direct injection of the vaccine into these structures, or injuries resulting from the localized inflammation caused by the vaccine in close proximity to these structures, will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
- Subdeltoid bursitis is proposed for inclusion on the Table because it may be a serious physical injury that may be directly caused by the use of the pandemic influenza vaccine, as supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- Multiple studies performed to monitor the safety of 2009 H1N1 vaccine provide evidence that demonstrates a small, statistically significant increased risk of GBS in the six weeks following administration of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, as outlined below.
- GBS is an acute paralysis caused by dysfunction in the peripheral nervous system (i.e., the nervous system outside the brain and spinal cord). GBS may manifest with weakness, abnormal sensations, and/or abnormality in the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system. In the United States, each year approximately 3,000 to 4,000 cases of GBS are reported, and the incidence of GBS increases in older individuals. Senior citizens tend to have a poorer prognosis. Most people fully recover from GBS, but some people can either develop permanent disability or die due to respiratory difficulties. It is not fully understood why some people develop GBS, but it is believed that stimulation of the body's immune system, as occurs with infections, can lead to the formation of autoimmune antibodies and cell-mediated immunity that play a role in its development.
- GBS may present as one of several clinicopathological subtypes. The most common type in North America and Europe, comprising more than 90 percent of cases, is acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP), which has the pathologic and electrodiagnostic features of focal demyelination of motor and sensory peripheral nerves and roots. Demyelinating refers to a loss or disruption of the myelin sheath, which wraps around the axons of some nerve cells and which is necessary for the normal conduction of nerve impulses in those nerves that contain myelin. Polyneuropathy refers to the involvement of multiple peripheral nerves. Motor nerves affect muscles or glands. Sensory nerves transmit sensations. Another subtype called acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN) is generally seen in other parts of the world and is predominated by axonal damage that primary affects motor nerves. AMAN lacks features of demyelination. The axon is a portion of the nerve cell that transmits nerve impulses away from the nerve cell body. Another less common subtype of GBS includes acute motor and sensory neuropathy (AMSAN), which is an axonal form of GBS that is similar to AMAN, but also affects the axons of sensory nerves and roots.
- The diagnosis of the AIDP, AMAN, and AMSAN subtypes of GBS requires bilateral flaccid (relaxed with decreased muscle tone) limb weakness and decreased or absent deep tendon reflexes in weak limbs, and a monophasic illness pattern with the interval between onset and nadir of weakness between 12 hours and 28 days with a subsequent clinical plateau. (The clinical plateau leads to either stabilization at the nadir of symptoms, or subsequent improvement without significant relapse. Death may occur without clinical plateau. Treatment-related fluctuations in all subtypes of GBS can occur within nine weeks of GBS symptom onset and recurrence of symptoms after this time frame would not be consistent with GBS.). In addition, there must not be a more likely alternative diagnosis for the weakness.
- Other factors in all subtypes of GBS that add to diagnostic certainty but are not required for diagnosis include electrophysiologic findings consistent with GBS or cytoalbuminologic dissociation (i.e., elevation of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) protein and a total white cell count in the CSF less than 50 cells per microliter).
- The weakness in the AIDP, AMAN, and AMSAN subtypes of GBS is usually, but not always symmetric, and usually has an ascending pattern of progression from legs to arms. However, other patterns of progression may occur. The cranial nerves can be involved. Respiratory failure can occur due to respiratory involvement. Fluctuations in the degree of weakness prior to reaching the point of greatest weakness or during the plateau or improvement phase may occur, especially in response to treatment. These fluctuations occur in the first nine weeks after onset and are generally followed by eventual improvement.
- According to the Brighton Collaboration, [52] Fisher Syndrome (FS), also known as Miller Fisher Syndrome, is a subtype of GBS characterized by ataxia, areflexia, and ophthalmoplegia, and overlap between FS and GBS may be seen with limb weakness. The diagnosis of FS requires bilateral ophthalmoparesis; bilateral reduced or absent tendon reflexes; ataxia; the absence of limb weakness (the presence of limb weakness suggests a diagnosis of AIDP, AMAN, or AMSAN); a monophasic illness pattern; an interval between onset and nadir of weakness between 12 hours and 28 days; subsequent clinical plateau (the clinical plateau leads to either stabilization at the nadir of symptoms or subsequent improvement without significant relapse); no alteration in consciousness; no corticospinal track signs; and the absence of an identified more likely alternative diagnosis. Death may occur without a clinical plateau.
- Exclusionary criteria for the diagnosis of GBS include the ultimate diagnosis of any of the following conditions: Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), carcinomatous meningitis, brain stem encephalitis (other than Bickerstaff brainstem encephalitis), myelitis, spinal cord infarct, spinal cord compression, anterior horn cell diseases such as polio or West Nile virus infection, subacute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy, multiple sclerosis, cauda equina compression, metabolic conditions such as hypermagnesemia or hypophosphatemia, tick paralysis, heavy metal toxicity (such as arsenic, gold, or thallium), drug-induced neuropathy (such as vincristine, platinum compounds, or nitrofurantoin), porphyria, critical illness neuropathy, vasculitis, diphtheria, myasthenia gravis, organophosphate poisoning, botulism, critical illness myopathy, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, hypokalemia, or hyperkalemia. The above list is not exhaustive. [53]
- For all subtypes of GBS (AIDP, AMAN, AMSAN, and FS), the onset of symptoms less than three days (72 hours) after exposure essentially excludes that exposure as a cause because the immunologic steps necessary to create symptomatic disease require a minimum of three days.
- CIDP is clinically and pathologically distinct from GBS. The onset phase of CIDP is generally greater than eight weeks and the weakness may remit and relapse. CIDP is also not monophasic. [54]
- In the past, GBS has been causally associated with certain vaccines. For example, rabies vaccines produced in nervous system tissue such as goat, sheep, or suckling mouse brain have been tied to an increased risk of GBS in people vaccinated with this vaccine. However, this method of vaccine production is no longer used in the United States.
- Another example is the 1976 influenza A (swine flu) vaccine, which was found by the IOM to be causally associated with GBS. The risk of developing GBS in the six-week period after receiving the 1976 swine flu vaccine was 9.2 times higher than the risk for those who were not vaccinated. [55] Since the 1976 influenza season, numerous studies have been conducted to evaluate whether other influenza vaccines were associated with GBS. In most published studies, no association was found, but one large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine evaluated the 1992-93 and 1993-94 influenza seasons and suggested approximately one additional case of GBS out of one million persons vaccinated, in the six weeks following vaccination, may be attributable to the vaccine formulation used in those years. The background incidence of GBS not associated with vaccine among adults was documented in the study to be 0.87 cases per million persons for any 6-week period. [56]
- The IOM published a thorough scientific review of the peer reviewed literature in 2004 [57] and concluded that people who received the 1976 swine influenza vaccine had an increased risk for developing GBS. Based on its review of the published literature, the IOM also decided that the evidence linking GBS and influenza vaccines in influenza seasons other than 1976 was not clear. This led to the IOM's conclusion that the evidence was inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between influenza immunization and GBS for years other than 1976.
- In 2012, the IOM published another report that evaluated the association of seasonal influenza vaccine and GBS. Pandemic vaccines, such as the influenza vaccine used in 1976 and the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine, were specifically not evaluated. The IOM concluded that the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between seasonal influenza vaccine and GBS. [58]
- The Working Group, in its February 7, 2012, final report to the NVAC regarding 2009 H1N1 safety surveillance, reported that a meta-analysis combining the results from each study group participating in the 2009 H1N1 enhanced safety surveillance revealed a small, statistically significant increased risk of GBS in the six weeks after receiving the 2009 H1N1 vaccine. The meta-analysis was predominantly based on enhanced safety surveillance studies performed by different investigators with different populations in the Emerging Infections Program (EIP), the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), and the Post-Licensure Rapid Immunization Safety Monitoring (PRISM) System.
- The VSD enhanced safety surveillance includes active surveillance and medical record review in a well-defined population of nine million people. The self-controlled risk interval study design showed a statistically significant relative risk of 4.4 of GBS after monovalent inactivated 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine. The corresponding risk difference or attributable risk was 5.0 per million vaccine doses in the six weeks following vaccination. The authors concluded that there was a relatively small elevated risk (a quadrupling of the risk) of GBS following monovalent inactivated 2009 H1N1 vaccine, but that there was no increased risk following the trivalent seasonal vaccine (when administered without 2009 H1N1) in the 2009-2010 influenza season. [59]
- The EIP implemented active population-based surveillance for GBS following H1N1 vaccine in 10 different areas of the country, capturing a population of approximately 45 million people. Analyses using self-controlled methods found a statistically significant increased relative risk of GBS after 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine of between 2.1 and 3.0, depending on the exact methods used. The corresponding attributable risks per million doses administered in the six weeks after vaccination were 1.5 and 2.8. The authors concluded that the results suggest a low increased risk (a doubling or tripling of the risk) of GBS following the monovalent 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine. [60]
- Another analysis using EIP data found a statistically significant adjusted rate ratio of 1.57 with a corresponding attributable risk of 0.74 excess GBS cases per one million vaccine doses in the six weeks following monovalent 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccination. The findings for seasonal vaccine demonstrated a rate ratio similar to that for 2009 H1N1 vaccine, but the association was not statistically significant. Although the authors conclude that the relationship between monovalent 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine and GBS during the 2009-2010 influenza season was likely weak (the study found a 57 percent increased risk of GBS in the six weeks after vaccination compared to controls) and that the excess risk of GBS was small, these data support a causal connection due to the results showing a statistically significant increased risk. [61] The consistent trend across studies of an increased risk provides support that the measured association of a 57 percent increase in risk after the vaccination is real and that it reflects a causal association even if this one analysis demonstrates a modest or small increase in relative risk.
- The EIP combined the data obtained from doses of the monovalent live attenuated 2009 H1N1 vaccine and the monovalent inactivated 2009 H1N1 vaccine and therefore the conclusions provide compelling evidence related to the administration of both vaccines and GBS.
- The PRISM system is a cohort-based active surveillance network that conducted a retrospective analysis to determine if the 2009 H1N1 vaccine was associated with an increased risk of any of 14 pre-specified outcomes. Five health insurance and associated companies with 38 million members, together with nine immunization registries, contributed records related to approximately 2.6 million doses of 2009 H1N1 vaccine. The self-controlled risk interval analysis of chart-confirmed GBS cases found an elevated but not statistically significant incident rate ratio for GBS after inactivated 2009 H1N1 vaccine. The incident rate ratio was 2.5 with a confidence interval of 0.42 to 15. [62] Although this study does not reach statistical significance, the results trend in the same direction of an increased risk of GBS after receiving the 2009 H1N1 vaccine as outlined in, and consistent with, the studies above. The wide confidence interval suggests this analysis did not have sufficient power to reach statistical significance.
- A meta-analysis was performed of the VSD, EIP, and PRISM data mentioned above, together with additional data from safety surveillance studies performed by Medicare, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which analyzed data from 23 million vaccinated people. The meta-analysis found that the 2009 H1N1 inactivated vaccine was associated with a small increased risk of GBS within six weeks of vaccination. This excess risk is equivalent to 1.6 excess cases in the six weeks after vaccination per million people vaccinated.
- The meta-analysis provides the benefit of additional statistical power. Statistical power reflects the ability of a study to detect a true effect from the exposure being studied. Additional statistical power allows for the analyses of certain hypotheses, not possible to analyze individually in the six studies that made up the meta-analysis. This increased risk found in the meta-analysis was consistent: (1) Across studies looking at different groups of people; (2) using different definitions of illness; (3) in people who received or did not receive a concurrent seasonal influenza vaccine or had influenza like symptoms; (4) across various time windows; and (5) in different age categories. This suggests that these five factors did not affect the risk of developing GBS. [63]
- Considering the totality of the evidence, and particularly the enhanced surveillance studies and meta-analysis performed to monitor the safety of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, compelling evidence demonstrates a small increased risk of GBS in the six weeks following administration of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine. The Program will therefore propose an onset interval of 3-42 days for GBS caused by the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine to be covered under the proposed Table. Day 3 begins 72 hours after administration of the vaccination and takes into account the time interval needed to show first signs or symptoms after exposure. [64] GBS is proposed for inclusion on the Table because it is a serious physical injury, and the fact that it may be directly caused by the use of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine is supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- Pandemic Influenza Countermeasure Conditions of Special Interest Back to TopAlthough the conditions listed below are of special interest to the public and are being monitored by HHS, the Secretary does not propose including them on the Table at this time because compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence of causation does not currently exist. The conditions include the following:
- (1) Spontaneous MiscarriageThe Secretary has a special interest in spontaneous miscarriages with respect to the 2009 H1N1 vaccine because pregnant women were a priority group targeted for this vaccination. Spontaneous miscarriages commonly occur regardless of the use or administration of any vaccines. There are about six million clinically recognized pregnancies in the United States each year, and approximately 15 percent of those pregnancies will end in clinically recognized miscarriages with no known cause (spontaneous miscarriages). This calculates to approximately 900,000 miscarriages per year, or an average of 2,466 per day in the United States regardless of vaccination status. Given the large number of women who experience spontaneous miscarriages with no known cause and the large number of pregnant women who received the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, it is expected that a significant number of pregnant women would demonstrate a coincidental temporal association between the vaccine and miscarriages with no other evidence of a causative role.
- The H1N1 Working Group, in its February 7, 2012, final report to the NVAC regarding 2009 H1N1 safety surveillance, reported on pregnancy outcomes. Some studies showed weak statistical signals for an increased risk of pre-eclampsia and miscarriage after 2009 H1N1 vaccine administration. These results were not consistent across different studies, and there were several important methodological limitations to these analyses, suggesting that it was not a real association with the vaccine. The H1N1 Working Group concluded that surveillance associated with the 2009 H1N1 vaccine was adequate to detect serious pregnancy complications that occurred with a high incidence. However, a high incidence of serious pregnancy complications was not seen. To discern smaller effects, the Working Group recommended the performance of methodological work to enhance surveillance of vaccine adverse events in pregnant women.
- There is, therefore, no compelling evidence to date supporting a causal relationship between the 2009 H1N1 vaccine and spontaneous miscarriage. For this reason, the Secretary does not propose including spontaneous miscarriage as a Table injury. Should compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence demonstrate such a link, the Secretary may add this injury to the Table. Unless such an amendment is made, the Program will consider any claims for spontaneous miscarriage on a case-by-case basis as non-Table claims.
- (2) Febrile SeizuresInfluenza vaccinations are known to occasionally cause fever in some children. Seizures secondary to fever (febrile seizures) from any cause have been observed in 2-5 percent of children between the ages of three months and five years, with the peak age being 14 to 18 months.
- For its 2012 report, the IOM reviewed the medical evidence for non-pandemic influenza vaccine causing seizures. The IOM had a moderate degree of confidence in the epidemiologic evidence. The studies reviewed had sufficient validity and precision to assess an association between influenza vaccine and seizures. These studies consistently reported a null association. The IOM concluded that the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between seasonal influenza vaccine and seizures. [65] In addition, enhanced surveillance to assess the safety of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine provided evidence that this vaccine did not cause seizures. [66]
- In 2011, enhanced surveillance for febrile seizures in the United States was conducted through the VSD. More than 200,000 children between the ages of six months and four years were studied. The analyses showed that febrile seizures following trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine and pneumococcal vaccine (PCV 13) given at different visits rarely occurred. The seizures were most common in children age 12 to 23 months when the two vaccines were given in the same health care visit. The analyses demonstrated one additional febrile seizure among every 2,000 to 3,000 children vaccinated. However, these analyses do not apply to the 2009 H1N1 vaccine.
- Compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence does not currently exist causally linking seizures, including febrile seizures, with the 2009 monovalent H1N1 influenza vaccine. The Program will consider a claim for febrile seizure leading to serious injury or death on a case-by-case basis as a non-Table claim.
- (3) BronchospasmBronchospasm is a constriction of the muscles in the walls of the smaller breathing tubes (bronchioles) in the lungs. It is facilitated by cells in the immune system under the influence of various stimuli. The resulting constriction and inflammation causes a narrowing of the airways and an increase in mucus production, which reduces air exchange. This causes breathlessness, coughing, and wheezing. Some common causes of bronchospasm in a susceptible person are allergic reactions to certain foods and medications, chemical irritation, and infections.
- Evidence indicates that the 2009 H1N1 intranasal vaccine may be associated with bronchospasm in children younger than two years of age; however, this has not been observed consistently in older individuals. For this reason, the intranasal vaccine is not recommended for children younger than two years of age. To date, no direct link has been shown between bronchospasm and the 2009 H1N1 vaccination through surveillance when given to recommended populations. Therefore, the Secretary does not propose including bronchospasm on the Table for the 2009 H1N1 vaccine at this time.
- In its 2012 report, the IOM concluded that the evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between seasonal Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (LAIV) and asthma exacerbation or reactive airway disease episodes in both children younger than five years of age and persons who are five years of age or older. In addition, this same IOM committee concluded that the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between inactivated influenza vaccine and asthma exacerbation or reactive airway disease episodes in children and adults. [67]
- Should compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence arise to demonstrate a direct link between bronchospasm and the 2009 H1N1 vaccine with respect to populations for which the vaccine is indicated, the Secretary may add this injury to the Table. Unless such an amendment is made, the Program will consider any claims for bronchospasm leading to serious injury or death on a case-by-case basis as a non-Table claim.
- Influenza antiviral medications including Tamiflu and Relenza have been reported in controlled trials to shorten the time to symptom improvement in acute uncomplicated influenza caused by circulating viral strains; based on retrospective observational studies and pooled analyses, many experts believe they can reduce the severity and duration of influenza and can reduce the risk of influenza-related complications, severe illness, and death. Tamiflu, Relenza, and peramivir have been used to combat influenza A and B viruses by inhibiting the viral neuraminidase enzyme involved in releasing viral particles from the infected cell. These antivirals were used to treat and protect against illness due to the 2009 H1N1 virus in the 2009-2010 pandemic influenza season. Tamiflu and Relenza are covered when used to treat or protect against a current or potential pandemic influenza. Peramivir is covered when used to treat 2009 H1N1 influenza during the 2009 pandemic season. The use of these drugs for the treatment or prevention of seasonal influenza is not covered.
- Tamiflu is a prescription medicine taken by mouth for the prevention and treatment of influenza. Similarly, Relenza is an inhaled prescription drug used for the prevention and treatment of influenza. Peramivir is an intravenous investigational antiviral drug currently limited in use in the United States. For example, it has been used in clinical trials and for a time was available under an emergency use authorization (EUA) in response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. However, this EUA is currently not in effect.
- The proposed Table currently includes anaphylaxis for Tamiflu, Relenza and peramivir because compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence establishes a causal relationship between these drugs and anaphylaxis. A discussion of anaphylaxis can be found in the pandemic influenza vaccines section of this preamble to this NPRM. Further support for causation is based on the well-established biological mechanism that anaphylaxis, according to the IOM reports of 1994 and 2003 on vaccine adverse events, can occur after exposure to a foreign antigen or drug and by the temporal sequence of observed events following exposure. In addition, the spectrum of host responses that follows a logical biologic gradient, as described by the IOM, from mild hypersensitivity reactions to true anaphylaxis have been observed and are known to occur in post marketing surveillance for Tamiflu and Relenza. During the pandemic there was only limited use of peramivir under IND or EUA in the United States, and postmarketing experience comparable to Tamiflu and Relenza is not available, but peramivir is included here on the basis of experience with similar drugs.
- Compelling, reliable, valid, scientific and medical evidence supports that antiviral drugs can cause anaphylaxis if the onset of the condition occurs within four hours after the administration or use of the antiviral. [68] According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, any person can develop an allergic drug reaction to any drug (http://www.acaai.org/allergist/allergies/Types/drug-allergy/Pages/default.aspx).
- Tamiflu capsules contain gelatin, which is a protein known to cause allergic reactions and anaphylaxis in sensitized individuals. With Relenza, each dose inhaled contains lactose powder that also contains milk proteins, which may cause the spectrum of allergic reactions in sensitized individuals. Based on the unique nature of the presentation and timing of anaphylaxis together with consensus in the medical community regarding causation and the existing medical literature, the Secretary proposes including anaphylaxis on the Table for Tamiflu, Relenza, and peramivir. For the reasons discussed for anaphylaxis, the Secretary proposes including an onset interval of 0-4 hours on the Table after the administration or use of Tamiflu, Relenza, or peramivir. Anaphylaxis is proposed for inclusion on the Table because it is a serious physical injury that may be directly caused by the use of these antiviral medications, as supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- Since only serious physical injuries qualify as covered injuries, the Secretary does not propose including minor adverse events for Tamiflu, Relenza and peramivir on the Table. Minor side effects associated with Tamiflu include nausea and vomiting, which usually occur in the first two days of treatment. Minor side effects associated with Relenza include cough, nasal irritation, nausea, vomiting, headache, and ear, nose, and throat infections. The more commonly reported side effects of peramivir, which may or may not be related causally, are diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and a decrease in white blood cell count. These side effects were reported from clinical trials. Possible side effects of receiving any medication (including peramivir) by vein are brief pain, bleeding, bruising of the skin where the needle entered, soreness and swelling, and inflammation or infection at the needle entry point. These reactions are usually minor and resolve without complication. However, in cases in which these symptoms worsen and lead to serious physical injury or death, the Program will consider these claims on a case-by-case basis as non-Table claims.
- Pandemic Influenza Antivirals Conditions of Special Interest Back to TopThe Secretary does not propose to include the following conditions associated with the antiviral drugs on the Table at this time, although they are of special interest to the public. These conditions may be added in the future if compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence becomes available showing a direct link between the antiviral drug(s) and these conditions. Such conditions include:
- (1) BronchospasmBronchospasm is a constriction of the muscles in the walls of smaller breathing tubes (bronchioles) in the lungs. It is facilitated by cells in the immune system under the influence of various stimuli. The resulting constriction, inflammation, and increased mucus production causes a narrowing of the airways which reduces air exchange and may lead to breathlessness, coughing, and/or wheezing.
- Serious cases of bronchospasm, including fatalities, have been reported to FDA and manufacturers during treatment with Relenza in patients with and without underlying airway disease. [69] Many of these cases were reported during post-marketing surveillance and causality was difficult to assess because, for example, some patients without prior pulmonary disease may also have respiratory abnormalities from acute respiratory infection that could resemble this adverse drug reaction.
- Should compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence become available and demonstrate a direct link between bronchospasm and Relenza the Program may add this injury to the Table. Unless such an amendment is made, the Program will consider any claims for bronchospasm leading to serious injury or death on a case-by-case basis as non-Table claims.
- (2) Neuropsychiatric EventsRarely, transient neuropsychiatric events such as self-injury or delirium have been reported in post-market monitoring among persons taking Tamiflu and Relenza. The majority of reports were among children and adolescents living in Japan. Because influenza infection itself may be associated with a variety of neurologic and behavioral symptoms (e.g., seizures, delirium and hallucinations), it is unclear whether the antiviral drugs are responsible for these neuropsychiatric effects. To date, retrospective analyses conducted by the manufacturers of Tamiflu and Relenza and the Vaccine Safety Datalink have not found evidence for an increased risk of neuropsychiatric events after Tamiflu or Relenza use. [70]
- Should compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence become available and demonstrate a direct link between neuropsychiatric effects and Tamiflu and/or Relenza, the Program may add these injuries to the Table. Unless such an amendment is made, the Program will consider any claims for neuropsychiatric effects leading to serious injury or death on a case-by-case basis as non-Table claims.
- Pandemic Influenza Personal Respiratory Protection Devices Back to TopTo reduce the risk of infection in certain populations and areas with confirmed cases of 2009 H1N1 influenza, the CDC has put forward recommendations for the use of personal respiratory protection devices. Personal respiratory protection devices are for use by individuals to reduce wearer exposure to pathogenic biological airborne particulates according to the Secretarial declaration of December 17, 2008. [71] Such devices also can be used to reduce transmission of infection from the person wearing the device to another. Examples of personal respiratory protection devices are ''facemasks'' and respirators. The term ''facemask'' refers to disposable facemasks approved by FDA for use as medical devices, including facemasks labeled as surgical, dental, medical procedure, isolation, or laser masks. These facemasks loosely fit the face. They have specific levels of protection from penetration of blood and body fluids and help stop droplets from being spread by the individuals wearing them. Furthermore, a facemask acts to prevent splashes or sprays from reaching the mouth and nose of the person wearing the facemask. A facemask generally does not protect against breathing in very small aerosolized particles that may contain viruses.
- A respirator refers to an N95 or higher filtering face piece respirator. A respirator that fits properly on the face can filter out virus-containing small particles in the aerosol that can be generated by an infected person. Compared to a facemask, it is harder to breathe through a respirator for long periods of time. Although some respirators may cause latex or contact allergies, these reactions are generally self-limited and do not usually rise to the level of serious injury.
- The Secretary considered potential injuries due to the use or administration of personal respiratory protection devices. The use of personal respiratory protection devices may cause injury in some wearers. However, the Secretary finds that use or administration of personal respiratory protection devices generally are not known to cause serious physical injuries. Therefore, the proposed Table indicates that there presently is ''[N]o condition covered'' for this countermeasure. Injuries may be added in the future if compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence develops revealing a causal relationship between a personal respiratory protection device and a serious adverse event. The Program will consider a claim leading to serious injury or death from the use or administration of a personal respiratory protection device on a case-by-case basis as a non-Table claim.
- Pandemic Influenza Respiratory Support Devices Back to TopInfection with the 2009 H1N1 virus and other pandemic strains of influenza can lead to serious respiratory tract disease, including pneumonia. Additionally, influenza infection can make people more susceptible to bacterial pneumonia and other serious complications. Individuals infected with covered influenza A viruses may require respiratory support with respiratory devices, such as mechanical ventilators, lung expansion devices, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Mechanical ventilators assist or control respiration continuously. Lung expansion devices include products such as intermittent positive-pressure breathing, nasal positive end-expiratory pressure, and continuous nasal positive airway pressure. ECMO mechanically provides for essential lung functions outside the body.
- Generally, patients requiring respiratory support devices already have a significant degree of injury or compromise to their lungs. Notwithstanding any prior lung injuries, it is possible to sustain serious respiratory tract damage directly from these devices. Complications from the underlying influenza infection may have a great deal of overlap with effects or adverse events secondary to the use of respiratory support devices.
- The proposed Table includes post-intubation tracheal stenosis, ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), and ventilator-associated tracheobronchitis (VAT) as injuries caused by mechanical ventilators. Bleeding events also are listed as Table injuries associated with receiving anticoagulation medication for ECMO. These are proposed for inclusion on the Table because they are serious physical injuries that may be directly caused by the use of respiratory support devices, as supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- The proposed Table includes tracheal stenosis, which is an abnormal narrowing in the windpipe that can increase the work of breathing. Oral or nasal endotracheal tubes or tracheostomy tubes (tubes placed in the throat to assist with breathing) are most commonly used to deliver mechanical ventilatory support in respiratory failure. Despite technological improvements, tracheal stenoses still constitute an important group of complications after intubation and tracheostomy. Early endotracheal tubes were not designed to minimize pressure from the tube's cuff, leading to a much higher incidence of tracheal stenosis than is seen with more modern endotracheal tubes with more compliant cuffs. These newer cuffs have been shown to greatly reduce, but not eliminate, the incidence of tracheal stenosis. Endotracheal intubation is used to secure a patient's airway, to act as a means to deliver oxygen gas from the ventilator to the patient, to prevent aspiration, and/or to help to clear secretions. Pressure from the endotracheal tube itself or from the cuff of the endotracheal tube, which achieves a pneumatic seal between the tube and trachea, can lead to regions of tracheal ischemia (a restriction in blood supply) that may eventually cause tracheal stenosis.
- The reported incidence of symptomatic or clinically significant tracheal stenosis following tracheostomy and laryngotracheal intubation currently is less than one percent. When stenosis occurs, the process leading to airway narrowing can begin at any time after intubation or placement of a tracheostomy tube. Tracheal stenosis due to endotracheal intubation mostly occurs at the cuff of the tube due to decreased blood flow to the trachea caused by the cuff. The most important reason for stenosis at the tracheal stoma site (the opening of a tracheostomy) is damaged cartilage and wound infection. In addition, previous cervical or tracheal trauma can negatively affect healing of the stoma leading to stenosis.
- The usual presenting symptoms of tracheal stenosis may include shortness of breath, stridor (an abnormal, high-pitched, inspiratory sound produced by turbulent airflow through a partially obstructed airway), and/or wheezing. A slow resumption of physical activity after being on a ventilator can mask or delay the first symptom or manifestation of the onset of injury of tracheal stenosis. These obstructive symptoms appearing in a person who is at rest indicate the diameter of the trachea has decreased to 30 percent or less of its normal size at the point of narrowing. Less stenosis can become symptomatic with exertion, and shortness of breath on exertion is the most common presenting symptom. Symptoms usually develop within 2 to 42 days after removal of the tube in people who develop symptoms.
- The length and severity of a tracheal stenosis lesion is ideally determined by bronchoscopic evaluation including laryngoscopy to assess vocal cord function and the presence and location of stenosis in the windpipe. Computerized axial tomography (CT) scans can serve as a rough guide to the location of the stenosis. Other causes of tracheal stenosis include malignant and benign tumors, infections of the trachea (such as tuberculosis and fungal diseases), radiotherapy, tracheal surgery, trauma, congenital abnormality, inflammatory diseases, and autoimmune diseases.
- Compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific literature support a direct link between tracheal stenosis and ventilators due to the placement of an endotracheal or a tracheostomy tube. [72] Therefore, this injury is proposed for inclusion on the Table.
- Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP) and Ventilator-Associated Tracheobronchitis (VAT) Back to TopVAP and VAT are other potential conditions that can be caused by ventilator use. VAP and VAT are defined as occurring in patients who manifest pneumonia or tracheobronchitis more than 48 hours after being intubated. There is no minimum period of time of ventilator use for the pneumonia or tracheobronchitis to be considered ventilator-associated. Bacteria growing in the mouth and on the breathing tube can easily enter the normally bacteria-free trachea and lungs, and this is generally the source of the bacteria for VAP and VAT. Most of the diagnostic criteria for VAP and VAT include clinical symptoms and signs of infection, including the signs of a lung infection, new onset of fever, purulent sputum (upper respiratory secretions containing pus), leukocytosis (increased white blood cell count), leukopenia (decreased white blood cell count), wheezing, cough, bradycardia (diminished heart rate), chest pain, coughing blood, abnormal breath sounds, altered mental status, laboratory evidence of infection, and a decline in the ability to oxygenate and remove carbon dioxide from the blood. [73] An individual with these symptoms and signs and no abnormalities on chest x-ray may have VAT because the infection in the trachea may not be seen on a chest x-ray. Patients with chest x-ray findings consistent with pneumonia may have VAP. VAT can be related to VAP with regard to cause, but is different because the location of the infection is in the trachea instead of the lungs.
- VAP is the most common infection acquired in intensive care units. Recent publications report that the rate of VAP ranges from 0.0 to 5.8 cases per 1,000 ventilator days. [74] Patients with VAP require more days of mechanical ventilation and hospitalization, and more medications. The mortality rate may exceed 10 percent.
- There is compelling reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence indicating that VAP and VAT are injuries that may be caused by mechanical ventilator use. [75] Thus, VAP and VAT are proposed Table injuries for respiratory support devices that are used to mechanically ventilate covered patients.
- There may be cases where an individual has VAP or VAT but does not meet the proposed definition of VAP or VAT. Such cases will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and the Secretary will determine medical eligibility based on the presence of compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.
- The medical literature demonstrates that mechanical ventilation can harm the lung and result in VILI. [76] VILI occurs as a result of mechanical trauma to lung structures induced by the positive pressure delivered to the lungs by the ventilator. The positive pressure produces alveolar (air sac) stretching leading to non-physiologic (abnormal) stretching which leads to lung damage (volutrauma). Trauma caused by the positive pressure from the ventilator is called barotrauma. The non-physiologic stress and strain produced by barotraumas and volutrauma can promote the release of inflammatory chemicals (cytokines) resulting in lung inflammation. This biological reaction to mechanical forces is known as biotrauma. Serious abnormal conditions included under VILI, that are known to be caused by the barotrauma and volutrauma forces generated by mechanical ventilators, include pneumothorax (a type of lung collapse), pneumomediastinum (abnormal air in the middle portion of the chest), lung cysts, systemic air embolism, and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). [77]
- Compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence indicates that VILI is an injury directly caused by mechanical ventilator use. Thus, VILI is proposed to be added to the Table as a covered injury for respiratory support devices that are used to mechanically ventilate patients who have developed an infection caused by a pandemic influenza.
- As mentioned above, diffuse alveolar damage that is identical to ARDS may occur as a result of alveolar trauma resulting from mechanical ventilation. In addition, ARDS may also be caused by an underlying airway disease that leads to the requirement of mechanical ventilation. The mechanical ventilation may or may not aggravate a case of ARDS caused by something other than a respiratory support device. It may be difficult to differentiate the cause for ARDS because it can be caused by: (1) An underlying lung disease; (2) a 2009 H1N1 influenza pneumonia; or (3) the ventilator treatment needed to support a patient with 2009 H1N1 influenza pneumonia. ARDS is a frequent complication of severe influenza pneumonia. [78]
- Because of the difficulties in determining the cause of ARDS, for purposes of the Table, ARDS will not be considered part of the VILI disease spectrum and will not be added to the Table. However, the Program will consider a claim for ARDS leading to serious injury or death on a case-by-case basis as a non-Table claim.
- Positive pressure mechanical ventilation may also compromise the cardiovascular system because the positive airway pressure during inspiration reduces blood return to the heart and may decrease cardiac output with decreased profusion. [79] A decreased cardiac output can adversely affect multiple organ systems. Because of the complexity of the potential effects of this diminished cardiac output on multiple organ systems, these cases will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
- As mentioned under the previous section, the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus was a worldwide cause of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Most people with fatal 2009 H1N1 influenza infections died as a result of unrelenting hypoxemia (low oxygen levels in the blood) and respiratory failure. Conventional treatment of this condition with a ventilator can lead to additional lung injury due to factors such as barotrauma, volutrauma, and biotrauma. Select patients with severe ARDS who do not respond to advanced modes of mechanical ventilation may have extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) as a treatment option. ECMO uses cardiac bypass technology to provide gas exchange (the function of the lungs) mechanically outside the body in a bedside machine. This temporary takeover of the lung function by ECMO allows ventilator settings to be reduced, thereby causing less lung damage and providing the opportunity for the lungs to heal and improve.
- With ECMO, catheters are inserted through the skin into large veins for drainage and infusion of blood. People on ECMO must have their blood thinned (anti-coagulated). ECMO involves the removal of large volumes of venous blood from the person receiving treatment, and then circulating the blood with a pump outside the body through an oxygenator (artificial lung) that inserts oxygen into the blood and a carbon dioxide scrubber that removes carbon dioxide. The oxygenated blood is then re-infused back into the treated person as arterial blood.
- An international registry compiled by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization, referred to as the ''ECMO registry,'' indicates that ECMO has been used frequently to treat H1N1 influenza associated with respiratory failure. This is likely because critically ill H1N1 patients are mostly young, otherwise healthy people without other significant illnesses who are therefore prime candidates for ECMO. The most recent statistics from the H1N1 ECMO registry reflect that as of April 13, 2011, there were 323 patients from 76 centers on the registry. [80]
- An observational study that examined 68 patients with 2009 H1N1 influenza-associated ARDS treated with ECMO found that 54 percent of patients had bleeding complications (due to the necessary anti-coagulation), with the most common sources being the catheter insertion site (22 percent), the gastrointestinal tract (10 percent), the respiratory tract (10 percent), vaginal bleeding (9 percent), and intracranial hemorrhage (9 percent). [81]
- The above-referenced bleeding complications are related to the use of ECMO and may be a consequence of the use of this countermeasure. These events constitute serious physical injuries that may be caused by the use of ECMO, as supported by compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence, and therefore are proposed to be added to the Table. The time interval for the first manifestation of the covered injury is the time period during which the injured person is under the effects of the anti-coagulant therapy, including the time needed to clear any clinically significant effect after the medication is stopped, as measured by relevant coagulation testing.
- Pandemic Influenza Diagnostic Testing Devices Back to TopPandemic influenza diagnostics are tests to identify or otherwise aid in the diagnosis of avian or other animal influenza A viruses that pose a pandemic threat. [82] A number of diagnostic tests are available to detect the presence of influenza infection in respiratory specimens. The tests differ in many ways, including their sensitivity and specificity for detecting influenza viruses, their commercial availability, processing time, approved clinical setting, and ability to distinguish among different influenza virus types and among influenza A subtypes (e.g., 2009 H1N1 versus seasonal H1N1 versus seasonal H3N2 viruses).
- The tests most commonly used to diagnose infection with the 2009 H1N1 virus are the real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction tests (rRT-PCR tests). The rRT-PCR tests identify the 2009 H1N1 virus by amplifying the viral genetic material from a sample. A positive result indicates that the patient is presumptively infected with the 2009 H1N1 virus, but it does not identify the stage of infection. A negative result does not, by itself, exclude the possibility of the 2009 H1N1 virus infection.
- Tests, such as a CT scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), performed to determine the extent or seriousness or sequelae of influenza infection in a patient are not considered diagnostic tests for the purpose of diagnosing the presence of pandemic infection in the individual or for the purposes of this Program. Only influenza diagnostic tests performed for the purpose of identifying the presence in the body of the pandemic influenza virus are covered.
- The Secretary considered potential serious injuries due to the use or administration of pandemic influenza diagnostics testing devices. Adverse events associated with the use or administration of these testing devices include potential consequences of an inaccurate result and potential discomfort during sample collection. However, these diagnostic testing devices are generally not known to cause serious physical injury. Therefore, the proposed Table does not list any injuries related to pandemic influenza diagnostic testing devices and indicates that there presently is ''[N]o condition covered'' for this countermeasure. However, injuries may be added to the Table if compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence develops showing causation between a serious physical injury and a diagnostic test. The Program will consider a claim from the administration or use of diagnostic testing devices leading to serious injury or death on a case-by-case basis as a non-Table claim.
- Compensation will not be available merely because a diagnostic test provides inaccurate results, such as failure to diagnose a pandemic influenza infection that is present or yielding a positive result for a pandemic influenza infection that is not present. The Program cannot compensate for injuries that are the direct result of the covered condition or disease for which the countermeasure was administered or used, and that are not the direct result of the administration or use of the covered countermeasure (for example, if the covered countermeasure is ineffective). See 42 CFR 110.20(d).
- HRSA has examined the impact of this rulemaking as required by Executive Order 12866 on Regulatory Planning and Review (September 30, 1993), Executive Order 13563 on Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review (January 18, 2011), the Congressional Review Act (5 U.S.C. 804(2)), the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) (September 19, 1980, 96), section 202 of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (March 2, 1995; Pub. L. 104-4), section 654(c) of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act of 1999, and Executive Order 13132 on Federalism (August 4, 1999).
- Executive Order 12866 requires that all regulations reflect consideration of alternatives, costs, benefits, incentives, equity, and available information. Regulations must meet certain standards, such as avoiding an unnecessary burden. Regulations that are ''significant'' because of cost, adverse effects on the economy, inconsistency with other agency actions, effects on the budget, or novel legal or policy issues, require special analysis. In 2011, President Obama supplemented and reaffirmed Executive Order 12866. This rulemaking is not being treated as a significant regulatory action under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, the proposed rule has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget.
- Executive Order 13563 provides that, to the extent feasible and permitted by law, the public must be given a meaningful opportunity to comment through the Internet on any proposed regulations, with at least a 60-day comment period. In addition, to the extent feasible and permitted by law, agencies must provide timely on-line access to both proposed and final rules of the rulemaking docket on Regulations.gov, including relevant scientific and technical findings, in an open format that can be searched and downloaded. Federal agencies must consider approaches to maintain the freedom of choice and flexibility, including disclosure of relevant information to the public. Regulations must be guided by objective scientific evidence, easy to understand, consistent, and written in plain language. Furthermore, Federal agencies must attempt to coordinate, simplify, and harmonize regulations to reduce costs and promote certainty for the public.
- In this NPRM, the Secretary proposes a Table identifying serious physical injuries that shall be presumed to result from the administration or use of the covered countermeasures, and the time interval in which the onset of the first symptom or manifestation of each such serious physical injury must manifest in order for such presumption to apply. The Secretary is also proposing Table definitions and requirements. This proposed rule would have the effect of affording certain persons a presumption that particular serious physical injuries were sustained as the result of the administration or use of covered countermeasures. The Table, if implemented, will establish a presumption of causation and relieve requesters of the burden of demonstrating causation for covered injuries listed on the Table. However, this presumption is rebuttable based on the Secretary's review of the evidence. This Table may afford some requesters a new filing deadline.
- Other than showing that a serious physical injury or death directly resulted from an injury included on the Table for compensation purposes, individuals may, in the alternative, receive compensation if they are eligible and can show a causation-in-fact relationship between an injury or death and a covered countermeasure. This NPRM is based upon legal authority.
- Because any resources required to implement the regulatory requirements imposed by the Program are not required by virtue of the establishment of a Table, and because the Secretary conducted an independent analysis concerning any burdens associated with the implementation of the Program when the Secretary published the companion regulation [83] setting forth the Program's administrative implementation, the Secretary has determined that no resources are required to implement the provisions included in this NPRM. Therefore, in accordance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA) and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, which amended the RFA, the Secretary certifies that this NPRM will not have a significant impact on a substantial number of small entities.
- The Secretary has also determined that this NPRM does not meet the criteria for a major rule as defined by Executive Order 12866 and would have no major effect on the economy or Federal expenditures. The Secretary has determined that this NPRM is not a ''major rule'' within the meaning of the statute providing for Congressional Review of Agency Rulemaking, 5 U.S.C. 801. Similarly, it will not have effects on State, local, and tribal governments and on the private sector such as to require consultation under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995. This NPRM comports with the 2011 supplemental requirements.
- The Secretary has determined that this NPRM will not have effects on State, local, and tribal governments and on the private sector such as to require consultation under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995.
- The Secretary has also reviewed this NPRM in accordance with Executive Order 13132 regarding federalism, and has determined that it does not have ''federalism implications.'' This NPRM, if implemented, would not ''have substantial direct effects on the States, or on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government.''
- This NPRM will not adversely affect the following elements of family well-being: Family safety, family stability, marital commitment; parental rights in the education, nurture, and supervision of their children; family functioning, disposable income, or poverty; or the behavior and personal responsibility of youth, as determined under section 654(c) of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act of 1999. In fact, this NPRM may have a positive impact on the disposable income and poverty elements of family well-being to the extent that injured persons or their families may receive medical, lost employment income, and/or death benefits paid under this part without imposing a corresponding burden on them.
- Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, as Amended Back to TopThis NPRM has no information collection requirements.
- AnaphylaxisAnticoagulationAntiviralAvianBenefitsBiologicsBleedingBursitisCompensationCountermeasureDeclarationDeltoidDiagnosticsDeviceEligibilityExtra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO)Fisher SyndromeGuillain-Barre Syndrome2009 H1N1InfluenzaInjury TableImmunizationOseltamivirPandemicPeramivirPublic Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act)Radiation SyndromeRespiratory ProtectionRelenzaRespiratorRespirator SupportTamifluTracheal StenosisVaccineVasovagal SyncopeVentilatorVentilator-Associated Pneumonia and TracheobronchitisVentilator-Induced Lung InjuryZanamivirDated: February 28, 2014.
- Administrator, Health Resources and Services Administration.
- Approved: March 13, 2014.
- Therefore, for the reasons stated in the preamble, the Department of Health and Human Services proposes to amend 42 CFR part 110 as follows:
- 1.The authority citation for part 110 continues to read as follows:
- Authority:42 U.S.C. 247d-6e.
- 2.Add § 110.100 to subpart K to read as follows:
- § 110.100 Injury tables.(a) Pandemic Influenza Countermeasures Injury Table.
- Covered countermeasures under secretarial declarationsSerious physical injury (illness, disability, injury, or condition)1Time interval (for first symptom or manifestation of onset of injury after administration or use of covered countermeasure, unless otherwise specified)1Serious physical injury as defined in 42 CFR 110.3(z). Only injuries that warranted hospitalization (whether or not the person was actually hospitalized) or injuries that led to a significant loss of function or disability will be considered serious physical injuries.2The use of ''No condition covered'' in the Table reflects that the Secretary at this time does not find compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence to support that any serious injury is presumed to be caused by the associated covered countermeasure. For injuries alleged to be due to covered countermeasures for which there is no associated Table injury, requesters must demonstrate that the injury occurred as the direct result of the administration or use of the covered countermeasure. See42 CFR 110.20(b), (c).I. Pandemic influenza vaccines administered by needle into or through the skinA. Anaphylaxis B. Deltoid Bursitis C. Vasovagal SyncopeA. 0-4 hours. B. 0-48 hours. C. 0-1 hour.II. Pandemic influenza intranasal vaccinesA. AnaphylaxisA. 0-4 hours.III. Pandemic influenza 2009 H1N1 vaccineA. Guillain-Barr¨ SyndromeA. 3-42 days (not less than 72 hours and not more than 42 days).IV. Oseltamivir Phosphate (Tamiflu) when administered or used for pandemic influenzaA. AnaphylaxisA. 0-4 hours.V. Zanamivir (Relenza) when administered or used for pandemic influenzaA. AnaphylaxisA. 0-4 hours.VI. Peramivir when administered or used for 2009 H1N1 influenzaA. AnaphylaxisA. 0-4 hours.VII. Pandemic influenza personal respiratory protection devicesA. No condition covered2A. Not applicable.VIII. Pandemic influenza respiratory support devicesA. Postintubation Tracheal StenosisA. 2-42 days (not less than 48 hours and not more than 42 days) after extubation (removal of a tracheostomy or endotracheal tube).B. Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia and Ventilator-Associated TracheobronchitisB. More than 48 hours after intubation (placement of an endotracheal or tracheostomy tube) and up to 48 hours after extubation (removal of the tube).C. Ventilator-Induced Lung InjuryC. Throughout the time of intubation (breathing through an endotracheal or tracheostomy tube) and up to 48 hours after extubation (removal of the tube).IX. Pandemic influenza respiratory support device: extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)A. Bleeding EventsA. Throughout the time of anticoagulation treatment for ECMO therapy, including the time needed to clear the effect of the anti-coagulant treatment from the body.X. Pandemic influenza diagnostic testing devicesA. No condition coveredA. Not applicable.(b) Qualifications and aids to interpretation (table definitions and requirements). The following definitions and requirements shall apply to the Table set forth in this subpart and only apply for purposes of this subpart.
- (1) Anaphylaxis Anaphylaxis is an acute, severe, and potentially lethal systemic reaction that occurs as a single discrete event with simultaneous involvement of two or more organ systems. Most cases resolve without sequelae. Signs and symptoms begin minutes to a few hours after exposure. Death, if it occurs, usually results from airway obstruction caused by laryngeal edema or bronchospasm and may be associated with cardiovascular collapse. Other significant clinical signs and symptoms may include the following: Cyanosis, hypotension, bradycardia, tachycardia, arrhythmia, edema of the pharynx and/or trachea and/or larynx with stridor and dyspnea. There are no specific pathological findings to confirm a diagnosis of anaphylaxis.
- (2) Deltoid Bursitis. Deltoid bursitis is an inflammation of the bursa that lies beneath the deltoid muscle and between the acromion process and the rotator cuff. Subdeltoid bursitis manifests with pain in the lateral aspect of the shoulder similar to rotator cuff tendonitis. The presence of tenderness on direct palpation beneath the acromion process distinguishes this bursitis from rotator cuff tendonitis. Similar to tendonitis, isolated bursitis will have full passive range of motion. Other causes of bursitis such as trauma (other than from vaccination), metabolic disorders, and systemic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, dialysis, and infection will not be considered Table injuries. This list is not exhaustive. The deltoid bursitis must occur in the same shoulder that received the pandemic influenza vaccine.
- (3) Vasovagal Syncope. Vasovagal syncope (also sometimes called neurocardiogenic syncope) means loss of consciousness (fainting) and loss of postural tone caused by a transient decrease in blood flow to the brain occurring after the administration of an injected countermeasure. Vasovagal syncope is usually a benign condition but may result in falling and injury with significant sequelae. Vasovagal syncope may be preceded by symptoms such as nausea, lightheadedness, diaphoresis, and/or pallor. Vasovagal syncope may be associated with transient seizure-like activity, but recovery of orientation and consciousness generally occurs simultaneously. Loss of consciousness resulting from the following conditions will not be considered vasovagal syncope: Organic heart disease; cardiac arrhythmias; transient ischemic attacks; hyperventilation; metabolic conditions; neurological conditions; psychiatric conditions; seizures; trauma; and situational as can occur with urination, defecation, or cough. This list is not complete. Episodes of recurrent syncope occurring after the applicable time period are not considered to be sequelae of an episode of syncope meeting the Table requirements.
- (4) Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). (i) GBS is an acute monophasic peripheral neuropathy that encompasses a spectrum of four clinicopathological subtypes described below. For each subtype of GBS, the interval between the first appearance of symptoms and the nadir of weakness is between 12 hours and 28 days. This is followed in all subtypes by a clinical plateau with stabilization at the nadir of symptoms, or subsequent improvement without significant relapse. Death may occur without a clinical plateau. Treatment related fluctuations in all subtypes of GBS can occur within nine weeks of GBS symptom onset and recurrence of symptoms after this time frame would not be consistent with GBS.
- (ii) The most common subtype in North America and Europe, comprising more than 90 percent of cases, is acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP) which has the pathologic and electrodiagnostic features of focal demyelination of motor and sensory peripheral nerves and nerve roots. Another subtype called acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN) is generally seen in other parts of the world and is predominated by axonal damage that primarily affects motor nerves. AMAN lacks features of demyelination. Another less common subtype of GBS includes acute motor and sensory neuropathy (AMSAN), which is an axonal form of GBS that is similar to AMAN, but also affects the sensory nerves and roots. AIDP, AMAN, and AMSAN are typically characterized by symmetric motor flaccid weakness, sensory abnormalities, and/or autonomic dysfunction caused by autoimmune damage to peripheral nerves and nerve roots. The diagnosis of AIDP, AMAN, and AMSAN requires bilateral flaccid limb weakness and decreased or absent deep tendon reflexes in weak limbs; a monophasic illness pattern; an interval between onset and nadir of weakness between 12 hours and 28 days; subsequent clinical plateau (the clinical plateau leads to either stabilization at the nadir of symptoms, or subsequent improvement without significant relapse); and, the absence of an identified more likely alternative diagnosis. Death may occur without a clinical plateau.
- (iii) Fisher syndrome (FS), also known as Miller Fisher Syndrome, is a subtype of GBS characterized by ataxia, areflexia, and ophthalmoplegia, and overlap between FS and AIDP may be seen with limb weakness. The diagnosis of FS requires bilateral ophthalmoparesis; bilateral reduced or absent tendon reflexes; ataxia; the absence of limb weakness (the presence of limb weakness suggests a diagnosis of AIDP); a monophasic illness pattern; an interval between onset and nadir of weakness between 12 hours and 28 days; subsequent clinical plateau (the clinical plateau leads to either stabilization at the nadir of symptoms, or subsequent improvement without significant relapse); no alteration in consciousness; no corticospinal track signs; and, the absence of an identified more likely alternative diagnosis. Death may occur without a clinical plateau.
- (iv) Evidence that is supportive, but not required, of a diagnosis of all subtypes of GBS includes electrophysiologic findings consistent with GBS or an elevation of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) protein with a total CSF white blood cell count below 50 cells per microliter. Both CSF and electrophysiologic studies are frequently normal in the first week of illness in otherwise typical cases of GBS.
- (v) For all types of GBS, the onset of symptoms less than three days (72 hours) after exposure to the influenza vaccine excludes vaccine exposure as a cause.
- (vi) To qualify as GBS, there must not be a more likely alternative diagnosis for the weakness. Exclusionary criteria for the diagnosis of all subtypes of GBS include the ultimate diagnosis of any of the following conditions: Chronic immune demyelinating polyradiculopathy (''CIDP''), carcinomatous meningitis, brain stem encephalitis (other than Bickerstaff brainstem encephalitis), myelitis, spinal cord infarct, spinal cord compression, anterior horn cell diseases such as polio or West Nile virus infection, subacute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy, multiple sclerosis, cauda equina compression, metabolic conditions such as hypermagnesemia or hypophosphatemia, tick paralysis, heavy metal toxicity (such as arsenic, gold, or thallium), drug-induced neuropathy (such as vincristine, platinum compounds, or nitrofurantoin), porphyria, critical illness neuropathy, vasculitis, diphtheria, myasthenia gravis, organophosphate poisoning, botulism, critical illness myopathy, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, hypokalemia, or hyperkalemia. The above list is not exhaustive.
- (5) Tracheal Stenosis. (i) Postintubation tracheal stenosis means an iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment) and symptomatic stricture of the airway (narrowing of the windpipe) resulting from:
- (A) Trauma or necrosis from an endotracheal tube;
- (B) Stomal injury from a tracheostomy; or
- (C) A combination of the two.
- (ii) Tracheal stenosis or narrowing due to tumors (malignant or benign), infections of the trachea (such as tuberculosis, fungal diseases), radiotherapy, tracheal surgery, trauma, congenital, and inflammatory or autoimmune diseases will not be considered postintubation tracheal stenosis. Postintubation tracheal stenosis requires either tracheostomy with placement of a tracheostomy tube or endotracheal intubation. Diagnosis requires symptoms of upper airway obstruction such as stridor (inspiratory wheeze) or exertional dyspnea (increased shortness of breath with exertion), and positive radiologic studies showing abnormal narrowing of the trachea or bronchoscopic evaluation that demonstrates abnormal narrowing.
- (6) Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP) and Ventilator-Associated Tracheobronchitis (VAT). (i) Definition-VAP is defined as an iatrogenic pneumonia caused by the medical treatment of mechanical ventilation. Similarly, VAT is an iatrogenic infection of the trachea and/or bronchi caused by mechanical ventilation. The initial manifestation of VAP and VAT must occur more than 48 hours after intubation (placement of the breathing tube) and up to 48 hours after extubation (removal of the breathing tube). VAP will be considered to be present when the patient demonstrates a new or progressive radiographic infiltrate in the lungs that is consistent with pneumonia, fever, leukocytosis (increased white blood cell count) or leucopenia (decreased white blood cell count), purulent (containing pus) tracheal secretions from a tracheal aspirate, and a positive lower respiratory tract culture. The positive lower respiratory tract culture is a diagnostic requirement only if there has not been a change in antibiotics in the 72 hours prior to collection of the culture. In addition, a tracheal aspirate that does not demonstrate bacteria or inflammatory cells in a patient without a change in antibiotics in the previous 72 hours is unlikely to be VAP and shall not be considered a condition set forth in the Table.
- (ii) VAT will be considered to be present when the patient demonstrates fever, leukocytosis or leukopenia, purulent tracheal secretions, and a positive tracheal aspirate culture in the absence of a change of antibiotics within the 72 hours prior to culture. Tracheal colonization with microorganisms is common in intubated patients, but in the absence of clinical findings is not a sign of VAT.
- (7) Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury (VILI). VILI results from mechanical trauma such as volutrauma leading to rupture of alveoli (air sacs in the lungs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged with the blood) with subsequent abnormal leakage of air. VILI manifests as iatrogenic pneumothorax (abnormal air from alveolar rupture in the pleural space), pneumomediastinum (abnormal air from alveolar rupture in the mediastinum (middle part of the chest between the lungs)), pulmonary interstitial emphysema (abnormal air in the lung interstitial space between the alveoli), subpleural air cysts (an extreme form of pulmonary emphysema where the abnormal air in the interstitial space has pooled into larger pockets), subcutaneous emphysema (abnormal air from alveolar rupture that has dissected into the skin), pneumopericardium (abnormal air from alveolar rupture that has traveled to the pericardium (covering of the heart)), pneumoperitoneum (abnormal air from alveolar rupture that has moved into the abdominal space), or systemic air embolism (abnormal air from alveolar rupture that has moved into the blood). These manifestations must occur in patients who are being mechanically ventilated at the time of initial manifestation of the VILI.
- (8) Bleeding events. Bleeding events are defined as excessive or abnormal bleeding in patients under the pharmacologic effects of anticoagulant therapy provided for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment.
- (c) Covered countermeasures. (1) Pandemic influenza vaccines. See the most recent Secretarial declaration at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2010-03-05/pdf/2010-4644.pdf. Any amendments will be automatically incorporated into this declaration and be published in the Federal Register.
- (2) Tamiflu. See the most recent Secretarial declaration at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-06-19/pdf/E9-14412.pdf. Any amendments will be automatically incorporated into this declaration and be published in the Federal Register.
- (3) Relenza. See the most recent Secretarial declaration at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-06-19/pdf/E9-14412.pdf. Any amendments will be automatically incorporated into this declaration and be published in the Federal Register.
- (4) Peramivir. See the most recent Secretarial declaration at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-10-02/pdf/E9-23761.pdf. Any amendments will be automatically incorporated into this declaration and be published in the Federal Register.
- (5) Personal respiratory protection devices. See the most recent Secretarial declaration at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-12-22/pdf/E8-30510.pdf. Any amendments will be automatically incorporated into this declaration and published in the Federal Register.
- (6) Respiratory support devices. See the most recent Secretarial declaration at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-12-22/pdf/E8-30510.pdf. Any amendments will be automatically incorporated into this declaration and published in the Federal Register.
- (7) Diagnostic testing devices. See the most recent Secretarial declaration at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-12-22/pdf/E8-30510.pdf. Any amendments will be automatically incorporated into this declaration and published in the Federal Register.
- [FR Doc. 2014-06102 Filed 3-28-14; 8:45 am]
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- How Is Autism Treated? | What is Autism? | Autism Speaks
- Image Courtesy UNC Medical Center
- Each child or adult with autism is unique and, so, each autism intervention plan should be tailored to address specific needs.
- Intervention can involve behavioral treatments, medicines or both. Many persons with autism have additional medical conditions such as sleep disturbance, seizures and gastrointestinal (GI) distress. Addressing these conditions can improve attention, learning and related behaviors. (Learn more about Treatment of Autism's Core Symptoms and Treatment of Associated Medical Conditions.)
- Early intensive behavioral intervention involves a child's entire family, working closely with a team of professionals. In some early intervention programs, therapists come into the home to deliver services. This can include parent training with the parent leading therapy sessions under the supervision of the therapist. Other programs deliver therapy in a specialized center, classroom or preschool. (Learn more about Early Intervention.)
- Typically, different interventions and supports become appropriate as a child develops and acquires social and learning skills. As children with autism enter school, for example, they may benefit from targeted social skills training and specialized approaches to teaching.
- Adolescents with autism can benefit from transition services that promote a successful maturation into independence and employment opportunities of adulthood. (Learn more about Transition in our Transition Tool Kit.)
- What Early Intervention Therapies Are Currently Available?
- Objective scientific studies have confirmed the benefits of two methods of comprehensive behavioral early intervention. They are the Lovaas Model based on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and the Early Start Denver Model. Parents and therapists also report success with other commonly used behavioral therapies, including Floortime, Pivotal Response Therapy and Verbal Behavior Therapy. For still more information, also see the ''Treatment and Therapies'' chapter of our 100 Day Kit.
- Treatment Options for Toddlers and Preschool Children
- Scientific studies have demonstrated that early intensive behavioral intervention improves learning, communication and social skills in young children with autism. While the outcomes of early intervention vary, all children benefit. Researchers have developed a number of effective early intervention models. They vary in details, but all good early intervention programs share certain features. They include:
- ' The child receives structured, therapeutic activities for at least 25 hours per week.
- ' Highly trained therapists and/or teachers deliver the intervention. Well-trained paraprofessionals may assist with the intervention under the supervision of an experienced professional with expertise in autism therapy.
- ' The therapy is guided by specific and well-defined learning objectives, and the child's progress in meeting these objectives is regularly evaluated and recorded.
- ' The intervention focuses on the core areas affected by autism. These include social skills, language and communication, imitation, play skills, daily living and motor skills.
- ' The program provides the child with opportunities to interact with typically developing peers.
- ' The program actively engages parents in the intervention, both in decision making and the delivery of treatment.
- ' The therapists make clear their respect for the unique needs, values and perspectives of the child and his or her family.
- ' The program involves a multidisciplinary team that includes, as needed, a physician, speech-language pathologist and occupational therapist.
- Do Children or Adults Diagnosed with Autism Ever Move Off "the Spectrum"?
- Growing evidence suggests that a small minority of persons with autism progress to the point where they no longer meet the criteria for a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Various theories exist as to why this happens. They include the possibility of an initial misdiagnosis, the possibility that some children mature out of certain forms of autism and the possibility that successful treatment can, in some instances, produce outcomes that no longer meet the criteria for an autism diagnosis.
- You may also hear about children diagnosed with autism who reach ''best outcome'' status. This means they have scored within normal ranges on tests for IQ, language, adaptive functioning, school placement and personality, but still have mild symptoms on some personality and diagnostic tests.
- Some children who no longer meet the criteria for a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder are later diagnosed with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety disorder or a relatively high-functioning form of autism such as Asperger Syndrome.
- Currently, we don't know what percentage of persons with autism will progress to the point where they ''lose their diagnosis.'' We likewise need further research to determine what genetic, physiological or developmental factors might predict who will achieve such outcomes.
- We do know that significant improvement in autism symptoms is most often reported in connection with intensive early intervention'--though at present, we cannot predict which children will have such responses to therapy.
- We also know that many people with autism go on to live independent and fulfilling lives, and that all deserve the opportunity to work productively, develop meaningful and fulfilling relationships and enjoy life. With better interventions and supports available, those affected by autism are having better outcomes in all spheres of life.
- For more information and resources, please see our Video Glossary and FAQs and special sections on Symptoms, Diagnosis, Learn the Signs, Your Child's Rights, Asperger Syndrome and PDD-NOS. We also offer a number of resource-packed tool kits for free download from our Family Services Tool Kits page and our Autism Treatment Network Tools You Can Use page). Our 100 Day Kit is for families who have a child recently diagnosed with autism. These resources are made possible through the generous support of our families, volunteers and other donors, as well as through grants administered by the National Institutes of Health.
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- DSM-5 TEST-Please Share Your DSM-5 Experiences | | Autism Speaks
- Autism Speaks wants to ensure that all who need autism services continue to receive them; please take our survey...
- Share Your Experience with DSM-5 Evaluation for AutismAbout DSM-5May 2013 brought the long-anticipated publication of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Clinicians use the DSM to diagnose mental health conditions including autism. (For more background, see Autism Speaks ''DSM-5 News and Updates.'')
- The DSM-5 brings three major changes in the way doctors and therapists diagnose ASD in the United States:
- The former subtypes of autism '' including autistic disorder, Asperger syndrome and PDD-NOS '' are now folded into one broad category of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Rather than three categories of ASD symptoms (social difficulties, communication impairments and repetitive/restricted behaviors), there are now two '' social-communication impairment and repetitive/restricted behaviors.Children with social-communication impairments who don't have two or more types of repetitive/restricted behavior receive the new diagnosis of social communication disorder (SCD).Last year, the results of the first DSM-5 studies suggested that around 95 percent of those who received an ASD diagnosis using the old DSM-IV criteria would still receive an ASD diagnosis with the DSM-5. Autism Speaks is funding additional studies to clarify these preliminary results. (Learn more about these studies.)
- At the same time, Autism Speaks is committed to ensuring that all who need autism-related treatment and services continue to receive them.
- ''We're calling on individuals and families evaluated for ASD or SCD under the new criteria to share their experiences with us using the feedback form below,'' says Autism Speaks Chief Science Officer, Geri Dawson. ''Your stories will help us gauge the real-life effect of these changes. By working together, we can ensure that all those who need autism-related services receive them in a timely and effective manner.''
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- The Drugging of the American Boy - Esquire
- Published in the April 2014 issue
- If you have a son, you have a one-in-seven chance that he has been diagnosed with ADHD. If you have a son who has been diagnosed, it's more than likely that he has been prescribed a stimulant'--the most famous brand names are Ritalin and Adderall; newer ones include Vyvanse and Concerta'--to deal with the symptoms of that psychiatric condition.
- The Drug Enforcement Administration classifies stimulants as Schedule II drugs, defined as having a "high potential for abuse" and "with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence." (According to a University of Michigan study, Adderall is the most abused brand-name drug among high school seniors.) In addition to stimulants like Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse, and Concerta, Schedule II drugs include cocaine, methamphetamine, Demerol, and OxyContin.
- According to manufacturers of ADHD stimulants, they are associated with sudden death in children who have heart problems, whether those heart problems have been previously detected or not. They can bring on a bipolar condition in a child who didn't exhibit any symptoms of such a disorder before taking stimulants. They are associated with "new or worse aggressive behavior or hostility." They can cause "new psychotic symptoms (such as hearing voices and believing things that are not true) or new manic symptoms." They commonly cause noticeable weight loss and trouble sleeping. In some children, some stimulants can cause the paranoid feeling that bugs are crawling on them. Facial tics. They can cause children's eyes to glaze over, their spirits to dampen. One study reported fears of being harmed by other children and thoughts of suicide.
- Imagine you have a six-year-old son. A little boy for whom you are responsible. A little boy you would take a bullet for, a little boy in whom you search for glimpses of yourself, and hope every day that he will turn out just like you, only better. A little boy who would do anything to make you happy. Now imagine that little boy'--your little boy'--alone in his bed in the night, eyes wide with fear, afraid to move, a frightening and unfamiliar voice echoing in his head, afraid to call for you. Imagine him shivering because he hasn't eaten all day because he isn't hungry. His head is pounding. He doesn't know why any of this is happening.
- Now imagine that he is suffering like this because of a mistake. Because a doctor examined him for twelve minutes, looked at a questionnaire on which you had checked some boxes, listened to your brief and vague report that he seemed to have trouble sitting still in kindergarten, made a diagnosis for a disorder the boy doesn't have, and wrote a prescription for a powerful drug he doesn't need.
- If you have a son in America, there is an alarming probability that this has happened or will happen to you.
- On this everyone agrees: The numbers are big. The number of children who have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder'--overwhelmingly boys'--in the United States has climbed at an astonishing rate over a relatively short period of time. The Centers for Disease Control first attempted to tally ADHD cases in 1997 and found that about 3 percent of American schoolchildren had received the diagnosis, a number that seemed roughly in line with past estimates. But after that year, the number of diagnosed cases began to increase by at least 3 percent every year. Then, between 2003 and 2007, cases increased at a rate of 5.5 percent each year. In 2013, the CDC released data revealing that 11 percent of American schoolchildren had been diagnosed with ADHD, which amounts to 6.4 million children between the ages of four and seventeen'--a 16 percent increase since 2007 and a 42 percent increase since 2003. Boys are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed as girls'--15.1 percent to 6.7 percent. By high school, even more boys are diagnosed'--nearly one in five.
- And overall, of the children in this country who are told they suffer from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, two thirds are on prescription drugs.
- And on this, too, everyone agrees: That among those millions of diagnoses, there are false ones. That there are high-energy kids'--normal boys, most likely'--who had the misfortune of seeing a doctor who had scant (if any) training in psychiatric disorders during his long-ago residency but had heard about all these new cases and determined that a hyper kid whose teacher said he has trouble sitting still in class must have ADHD. That among the 6.4 million are a significant percentage of boys who are swallowing pills every day for a disorder they don't have.
- On this, too, everyone with standing in this fight seems to agree.
- But on the subject of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, that is where the agreement ends.
- For example: Doctors, parents, and therapists give a lot of different explanations for the sharp rise. Increased awareness'--that's a big one. We know more now. Other possibilities put forth: Too many video games. Too much refined sugar. Pharmaceutical companies pushing ADHD drugs. Lack of gym classes at schools. All of these factors are cited. And people have a lot of different ideas about what to do for the children who receive these diagnoses. Many believe that medicine should be the first treatment, either combined with behavioral therapy or not. Others feel that drugs should be a last resort after making every other alleviative effort you can find or think of, from hypnosis to herbal treatments to neurofeedback.
- Given today's prevailing pharmaceutical culture, clinicians who believe that drugs should never be used to treat ADHD in children are very much in the minority. Marketing is powerful, and blockbuster drugs like Ritalin are big business. Business booms, market share grows when scripts are written, and countercultural doctors and therapists who advocate caution and who believe that diagnoses are made too easily'--doctors and therapists who preach alternatives to drugs'--are finding themselves the butt of jokes.
- But more about them shortly.
- The United States government first collected information on mental disorders in 1840, when the national census listed two generally accepted conditions: idiocy and insanity. A century later, psychiatrists knew more. They had options when making diagnoses, and by the 1940s difficult kids were classified as "hyperkinetic." Other terms would follow, like minimal brain dysfunction. In 1955, there came a pill doctors could prescribe for these children to temper their hyperactivity and make them behave more like "normal" children. It was a stimulant, so called because it heightened the brain's utilization of dopamine, which can improve attention and concentration. The active ingredient was a highly addictive compound called methylphenidate. The drug was called Ritalin.
- By 1987, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had settled on a more refined name for a disorder among children who exhibited the same set of symptoms, including trouble concentrating and impulsive behavior: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. ADHD. At the time, in American schools, it was still considered unusual for a child to take Ritalin. It was, frankly, considered weird.
- Today, it has simply become a default method for dealing with a "difficult" child.
- "We are pathologizing boyhood," says Ned Hallo-well, a psychiatrist who has been diagnosed with ADHD himself and has cowritten two books about it, Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction. "God bless the women's movement'--we needed it'--but what's happened is, particularly in schools where most of the teachers are women, there's been a general girlification of elementary school, where any kind of disruptive behavior is sinful. What I call the 'moral diagnosis' gets made: You're bad. Now go get a doctor and get on medication so you'll be good. And that's a real perversion of what ought to happen. Most boys are naturally more restless than most girls, and I would say that's good. But schools want these little goody-goodies who sit still and do what they're told'--these robots'--and that's just not who boys are."
- Especially when they're young. One of the most shocking studies of the rise in ADHD diagnoses was published in 2012 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. It was called "Influence of Relative Age on Diagnosis and Treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children." Nearly one million children between the ages of six and twelve took part, making it the largest study of its kind ever. The researchers found that "boys who were born in December"'--typically the youngest students in their class'--"were 30 percent more likely to receive a diagnosis of ADHD than boys born in January," who were a full year older. And "boys were 41 percent more likely to be given a prescription for a medication to treat ADHD if they were born in December than if they were born in January." These findings suggest, of course, that an errant diagnosis can sometimes result from a developmental period that a boy can grow out of.
- And there are other underlying reasons for the recent explosion in diagnoses. Stephen Hinshaw, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and the editor of Psychological Bulletin, the research publication of the American Psychological Association, presents evidence in a new book that ADHD diagnoses can vary widely according to demographics and even education policy, which could account for why some states see a rate of 4 percent of schoolchildren with ADHD while others see a rate of almost 15 percent. Most shocking is Hinshaw's examination of the implications of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which gave incentives to states whose students scored well on standardized tests. The result: "Such laws provide real incentive to have children diagnosed and treated." Children with ADHD often get more time to take tests, and in some school districts, tests taken by ADHD kids do not even have to be included in the overall average. "That is, an ADHD diagnosis might exempt a low-achieving youth from lowering the district's overall achievement ranking"'--thus ensuring that the district not incur federal sanctions for low scores.
- In a study of the years between 2003 and 2007, the years in which the policy was rolled out, the authors looked at children between ages eight and thirteen. They found that among children in many low-income areas (the districts most "targeted" by the bill), ADHD diagnoses increased from 10 percent to 15.3 percent'--"a huge rise of 53 percent" in just four years.
- Source: Psychiatry, April 2010; The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, October 1999.
- And yet among many of the people interviewed for this story, the most common explanation for the staggering increase in diagnoses is that doctors know more now. Great strides have been made. "I don't think there's an epidemic of new cases," says Mario Saltarelli, a neurologist and the senior vice-president of clinical development at Shire, which manufactures Adderall and Vyvanse. (Since our interview, he has left the company.) "It's always been there. It's now more appropriately understood and recognized." Instead of lumping together all the kids with high energy and bad behavior and calling them hyper, many experts say, doctors can identify the children who exhibit the symptoms specific to ADHD and treat them accordingly. "We were paying attention," says Jeffrey Lieberman, the president of the American Psychiatric Association and chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. "We [now] have reliable descriptions and the means of diagnosing."
- Every fifteen years or so, the APA publishes a book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which doctors around the world use as a guide for diagnosing mental disorders in their patients. Known as the DSM, it has been published seven times, first in 1952 and most recently in 2013. For each revision, a new task force of psychiatrists tweaks, refines, and often expands the descriptions, definitions, and symptoms of hundreds of psychiatric disorders. It's not uncommon for definitions to be written more broadly, thus broadening the universe of people who might be diagnosed with a given disorder.
- In the DSM-5, the 916-page version that came out last year, there was one important change made to the section on ADHD. The age at which a child can be diagnosed with ADHD was raised from seven to twelve. In the previous edition of the DSM, in order to meet the criteria for diagnosis, several symptoms of ADHD had to be present by age seven. Citing "substantial research published since 1994," the authors increased the window for diagnosis by five years, meaning that twenty million more children are now eligible to be told they have ADHD.
- And so if a child is deemed to meet the criteria for ADHD as defined in the DSM, even by a rushed pediatrician after a cursory twelve-minute examination, the clinical-practice guidelines strongly recommend medication as part of the first step in treating kids starting at age six. (Behavior therapy is recommended as a first step for four- and five-year-olds, followed by methylphenidate, or stimulants, if the behavior therapies "do not provide significant improvement and there is moderate-to-severe continuing disturbance in the child's function.")
- A cynical person might wonder whether the task forces who write the DSM are influenced by pharmaceutical companies, seeing that with each new disorder they add and each new symptom they deem valid, more people can get expensive prescriptions. ADHD drugs alone were a $10.4 billion business in 2012, a 13 percent increase over the year before.
- "I think it happens in an indirect but nonetheless powerful way," says Lisa Cosgrove, a clinical psychologist who is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a fellow at the Center for Ethics at Harvard. In a study of the DSM-5, she found that 69 percent of the task force acknowledged ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Many of these were likely indirect affiliations, but Cosgrove says that doesn't matter. "It's not that I think there's this quid pro quo kind of corruption going on. But when the individuals who are charged with the responsibility of developing criteria or with changing the symptom criteria'--I don't think they are consciously aware of the way in which industry affiliations create pro-industry habits of thought." Cosgrove points to what she calls a "major gap" in the APA's disclosure policy for doctors who worked on the DSM-5: It allows unrestricted research grants from drug companies. "Now, 'unrestricted' means that the pharmaceutical company cannot in-house analyze the data...but there's a wealth of social-psych research that shows that when you are paid even small amounts'--and there's the potential for future payment'--it affects your behavior. If I get an unrestricted research grant from Pfizer for $500,000, and I'm hoping to get a $2 million grant, at some level I'm going to be aware of how I talk about the results."
- The journal Accountability in Research chose Cosgrove's paper "Commentary: The Public Health Consequences of an Industry-Influenced Psychiatric Taxonomy" for publication in 2010, when a first draft of the DSM-5 was made public. In the paper, Cosgrove and her coauthors lambasted the psychiatric community for supporting a manual that largely ignores side effects and promotes diagnosis by constantly adding symptoms and disorders. "A psychiatric taxonomy [i.e., the DSM] which touts indication for medications, but is effectively silent about their associated risks, is evidently unbalanced and raises questions about undue influence," they wrote. "The time has come to seriously reconsider whether the heavily pharmaceutically funded APA should continue to be entrusted with the revision of the DSM."
- Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University School of Medicine, the former chairman of its psychiatry department, and the chairman of the DSM-IV (1994) task force, feels the problem is not corruption but the slow creep of misinformation. "I know the people. They're not doing it for the drug companies'--they really believe what they're doing is right. They really believe ADHD is underdiagnosed, and they want to help people who should be getting medication. I just think they're dead wrong."
- Frances points to the fact that in August 1997'--the same year the CDC first started tallying ADHD cases in the United States'--the Food and Drug Administration made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to advertise their drugs to consumers. Spending on direct-to-consumer drug advertising increased from $220 million in 1997 to more than $2.8 billion by 2002.
- It's not that Frances believes ADHD is not a real and valid diagnosis; he just believes that these days it's made so frequently it has been rendered meaningless. "It's been watered down so much in the way it's applied that it now includes many kids who are just developmentally different or are immature," he says. "It's a disease called childhood."
- Falsely diagnosing a psychiatric disorder in a boy's developing brain is a terrifying prospect. You don't have to be a parent to understand that. And yet it apparently happens all the time. "Kids who don't meet our criteria for our ADHD research studies have the diagnosis'--and are being treated for it," says Dr. Steven Cuffe, chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Florida College of Medicine, Jacksonville and vice-chair of the child and adolescent psychiatry steering committee for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
- The ADHD clinical-practice guidelines published by the American Academy of Pediatrics'--the document doctors are supposed to follow when diagnosing a disorder'--state only that doctors should determine whether a patient's symptoms are in line with the definition of ADHD in the DSM. To do this accurately requires days or even weeks of work, including multiple interviews with the child and his parents and reports from teachers, plus significant observation. And yet a 2011 study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that one third of pediatrician visits last less than ten minutes. (Visits for the specific purpose of a psychosocial evaluation are around twenty minutes.) "A proper, well-done assessment cannot be done in ten or fifteen minutes," says Ruth Hughes, a psychologist who is the CEO of Children and Adults with ADHD (CHADD), an advocacy group.
- Only one significant study has ever been done to try to determine how many kids have been misdiagnosed with ADHD, and it was done more than twenty years ago. It was led by Peter Jensen, now the vice-chair for psychiatry and psychology research at the Mayo Clinic, but at the time a researcher for the National Institute of Mental Health. After a study of 1,285 children, Jensen estimated that even way back then'--before ADHD became a knee-jerk diagnosis in America, before one in seven boys had been given the diagnosis'--between 20 and 25 percent were misdiagnosed. They had been told they had the disorder when in fact they did not.
- Part of the problem is subjectivity, and the power of a culture that has settled on a drug-based solution. Decades of research have gone into trying to define the disorder in a clinical way, and yet the ultimate diagnosis'--Your son has ADHD'--is inherently subjective. And insurance companies don't reimburse or reward doctors for time spent doing the diligent work involved in giving a proper opinion. "You have to observe the behavior of the child over different environments. You have to talk to the parents. You have to talk to the teachers. I don't know an insurance company out there that pays for a pediatrician to call and talk to the teachers. They just don't," says Hughes.
- Ned Hallowell does not accept insurance in his private psychiatry practice, which he says allows him to spend more time with patients. "But for the average person, it's the luck of the draw," he says. "Do they have a good, savvy pediatrician who can be careful about the diagnosis, or do they have somebody who just hears 'ADD' and writes a prescription?"
- Lieberman, the APA president, says most doctors try to get it right. "Are there pressures that are packed on clinicians that make them less than optimally rigorous [in making a diagnosis]? Unfortunately, there are," he says. "But I mean, you have our health-care financing system that's quite dysfunctional, and it's created a situation where doctors have to spend a certain amount of time with bureaucratic, administrative paperwork and regulatory-compliance stuff.... We also have a culture where there's pressure, both from schools as well as from parents, to do something'--to alleviate the problem and enhance the performance of the child. That's no excuse, and doctors shouldn't succumb to that. But, you know, doctors are human.... We'd like everybody to be these heroic figures who fulfill the virtues of the Hippocratic oath. I think most doctors aspire to try to do that. But human limitations being what they are...caveat emptor."
- Ask Glasser all your ADHD questions...
- One man believes that drugging children's brains is too risky. That until we get a lot closer to achieving a foolproof diagnosis for ADHD, we need to think twice about giving a single pill to a single child. He believes that what is called attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder might in fact be a boy's greatest gift, the gift of energy. And that the best way to treat it is to first teach the boy to control the energy all by himself, because by learning to control it all by himself, a boy can channel that energy to help him succeed. That the responsible thing to do is first to see if there is some problem with the boy's heart'--not with the way it pumps blood, but with its ability to show and accept love. The man's name is Howard Glasser, and he is one of those countercultural clinicians who, as American society has become inured to giving psychotropic drugs to kids, has built a practice predicated on opposing the very idea.
- If he were a child today, Glasser would be given a prescription for a stimulant in about five minutes. Little Howie was a wired kid. Obstreperous. But good. A good kid. And when he grew up and became a family therapist'--he has applied to earn his doctorate in education from Harvard starting this fall'--he created a way of dealing with wired, obstreperous, uncontrollable kids who are, beneath all that, good. And he believes all of them are good.
- He calls the method the Nurtured Heart Approach, and it seems simple on the surface: You nurture the child's heart. If a child is hyperactive and defiant and has trouble listening and concentrating, Glasser feels it is our responsibility as a society'--as grown-ups'--to do everything we can for a child's heart before we start adding chemicals to his brain, because what if his brain is fine? What if the diagnosis isn't right? And even if it is, what if something else works?
- Hyperactive, defiant'--he was all those things. At home'--the apartment his parents rented in Kew Gardens, a leafy, almost suburban corner of Queens'--he was sometimes so defiant that his mother would shout into the air, asking what she had done to deserve this, her face brightening with incarnadine helplessness. His father was a salesman of electrical supplies, and he and Howie used to go at it pretty good. Sometimes, when it was his turn to teach Howie a lesson, his father would reach for the rubber machine belt. Howie took that punishment laughing. Heartbreaking laughter.
- At school he would sit in the back of the class, cracking jokes until his teachers were overcome with that unique kind of exasperation that results from feeling outrage and disappointment at the same time. Outrage because you wouldn't believe the mouth on this kid. Disappointment because he was so smart. Because he had so much potential.
- Man, was Howie Glasser smart. That was the problem nobody saw: He was a funny, clever kid who scored high in both English and math without much studying. School bored him. The teachers, though, had to teach to every student in the class, and Howie felt forgotten. He didn't need to listen, so he sat in the back of the room and goofed off, his gangly frame folded awkwardly into a too-small wooden chair. Kids would laugh, and he'd do it more. And every time the teachers got angry and pointed their fingers toward the principal's office, struggling to keep from screaming at Howie'--to keep from smacking him, probably'--they were only feeding his recalcitrance. Finally, someone was paying attention to him! Deep down Howie didn't like the negative attention, but it was better than no attention at all.
- In junior high school, they wanted to hold him back. He couldn't handle the next grade, they said'--he couldn't concentrate, he was hanging around with the wrong kids, he just wasn't ready. But then Howie took a test, and his score surprised even the teachers who knew he was smarter than he let on. He scored high enough to skip ahead and graduated high school at sixteen.
- Glasser graduated from City College with a degree in psychology, then got a master's in counseling at New York University. He had started work on a Ph.D., also at NYU, but after a year or so he dropped out to do the thing he loved most, the thing that made all the noise go away, all the trouble, all the teachers who couldn't figure out how to harness and channel his energy, his hollering parents who didn't understand why he couldn't be more like his older brother: He worked with wood.
- Howie's Woodworking opened on Third Avenue and East Twelfth Street in New York in 1980. He collected wood around the city'--old floorboards from gutted townhouses, planks, pallets, scraps. He made planters and mosaics and odd pieces of furniture. People would see the sign and come in and ask if he could do bigger jobs'--cabinetry, fine furniture, storefronts. Glasser would always tell them he could do it, even though he had no idea how. Then he'd hire people who could show him.
- After a few years, Glasser moved out west, far from the overdrive of New York, to the Arizona desert. On his way out, in Boulder, Colorado, he got to know a man named Michael Davis, who, with his wife, Anita, was raising four sons, two of whom were adolescents at the time. The first time Glasser visited Davis's house, there was some kind of minor drama unfolding that day, the kind of argument that periodically bubbles up in a house where teenagers live.
- And the way the Davises handled it made Glasser weep.
- "Michael and Anita were talking to their kids in the most loving way. I had never until that day'--ever'--encountered anybody who talked to their kids that way. I had tears streaming down my face," he says. "In my world, in my circumscribed world, it was not the culture. It's kind of breathtaking to me now." Even as he tells this story almost thirty years later, Glasser has to pause, swallow hard, and clear his throat.
- He eventually moved to Tucson with the woman who would be the mother of his only child, a daughter. Almost as soon as he arrived, he found a job at a family-therapy institute where he could use his psychology training. "It was like the sea parted," he says. He felt as if he was doing what he needed to be doing. He got a second job at a clinic that was known for helping kids with behavior problems. Many of them had been diagnosed with ADHD.
- "I had been one of these kids," he says. "And here I am with twelve preadolescent kids who aren't on their meds on the weekends'--I would meet with them on Saturday mornings. So you get to see: These are very interesting human beings. I got to experience the truth of these kids off medication."
- Glasser would open up group discussions by asking what the rules should be. The children half-raised their hands and called out predictable answers: no hitting, no yelling, no bad words, no this, no that. The first time it happened, Glasser was seized with memories, a darkness moving over his brain like a shadow. "It was PTSD for me. I grew up with rules that start with no, and I hated rules that start with no. They always led to me getting in trouble, and ultimately getting hit," he says. "It got my attention that kids saw rules that way."
- The clinic and the therapy institute both employed other bright young therapists, and they all called on their state-of-the-art psychology training to try to help the troubled families in their care. They used positive reinforcement. Instead of rules that started with no, they set rules like "Be respectful" and "Use nice words." This was all fine and hewed closely to the education and therapy trends of the day. Kids behaved better. Families improved. But they didn't change. Positive reinforcement is great, but there was only so far it could go with a difficult child. Glasser knew he hadn't truly scraped away the artifice of defiant behavior to get at whatever pain was festering inside these kids. He wasn't finding whatever it was that stirred them to yell and swear and make the grown-ups think they needed medication.
- The problem with the positive rules was that there didn't seem to be a very good way to teach them. The old rules were mostly taught when children broke them. If the rule is "No hitting" and one kid hits another, you'd teach the child the rule in that moment. "What you just did was wrong." You'd tell him to go sit in the corner, or go to his room, or apologize. But in those moments, everyone's upset. The kid who got hit is crying, the hitter is angry and scared, and the grown-up is amping up the authority. The offending child gets all the attention. The rule doesn't stick.
- Still, Glasser saw that kids seemed to like "no" rules because they're clear. The line of transgression was definite. He had an idea: What if he told the children how great they were when they didn't break a rule? It would be like a video game. When you do something great while playing a video game'--when you simply do what the game expects'--you get points and you get to keep going. When you go out of bounds or break one of the game's rules, no one yells at you or reminds you what rule you've broken. You simply miss a turn or lose points. And there is no grudge once you pay the fine. As Glasser wrote in his first book in 1999, Transforming the Difficult Child, "When the consequence is over, it's right back to scoring."
- Kids love video games. "They don't need us to figure out a video game for them," he says. "They figure it out in three minutes, and then they become stars. The beauty of those games is the energy of success is so strong, consistent, reliable, available. If they break a rule in the next two seconds, the game unplugs momentarily. Grown-ups look at the consequences in these games and we don't always see the truth of what's going on. It looks to us like, Oh my God, huge consequence'--blood spurting, heads rolling. But actually, the kid's out of the game for two seconds but it feels like an eternity to them because they've become such a devotee of being plugged in to success, and they vividly feel the energy of missing out. When the consequence is over, they don't just come back into the game, they come back ever more determined: I'm not gonna break another rule."
- And so he thought, What if a child was sitting quietly, not bothering anyone, and you went out of your way to congratulate him on that, very specifically, by telling him how proud you are that he's not hitting anyone, not screaming, not throwing toys, but just sitting quietly? What if you gave a child the equivalent of points'--what if you thanked him or hugged him'--for not putting his feet on the couch? How would he respond to that?
- He'll like it, it turns out.
- "I started accusing kids of being successful for not breaking rules. Nobody ever in my professional career had done that," he says. "All of a sudden'--and it was as weird as it could be'--I knew I was speaking to some level of a kid's soul. I knew it was nourishing them in some way. It was like me weeping at Michael Davis's house. In my professional career, no kid had ever been told they were successful when it came to rules."
- Many of the people I interviewed who have had direct experience with ADHD'--parents of children who'd been diagnosed, psychiatrists, adult ADHD patients'--assured me, within the first minute of our conversation, that ADHD is a real disorder, not some made-up condition.
- "It's important to understand that ADHD is a very real, serious, neurobiological disorder," said Saltarelli, the neurologist who was formerly senior vice-president of clinical development at Shire, maker of Adderall and Vyvanse, which is now the most common brand of stimulant prescribed for ADHD. He repeated this point several times during our hour-long conversation.
- "I don't think in the medical community or in the research community there is any question that this is a brain disorder. I really don't think that is in question," Ruth Hughes, the CHADD CEO, told me after I asked her about the validity of brain scans that purport to show ADHD, which have been disputed by other scientists.
- "There is no doubt in my mind that I really believe this is a disorder, disease, condition, whatever you do'--like, it is for real," said Tracie Giles, a parent of four children, two of whom have been diagnosed. She is the coordinator of the local CHADD chapter in Wayne County, Michigan.
- The interesting thing is I never asked any of these people whether ADHD is real. But their defensiveness is understandable. ADHD isn't strep throat'--there's no culture, no test. To find out if you have it, or if your son has it, or if your daughter has it, you just need a human being to say so'--a physician or a psychiatrist'--and that makes some people skeptical. Google "Does ADHD exist?" Up pop the detractors who call the very disorder into question.
- ADHD has become the most controversial medical topic in America when it comes to children. In 2000, Bob Schaffer, then a Colorado congressman, called a hearing about ADHD medication before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. "I had been in politics a long time even before I had this hearing," he says. "And you would think that with issues of national missile defense, the space program, the billions we spend on public education, the China trade bill I voted on'--that something else would have resulted in more blowback, but I can't think of anything else that did. It inspired more personal hostility and defensiveness than anything else I'd ever been involved in."
- The biggest reason: Managing ADHD, for most people who receive the diagnosis, includes taking medication. If the diagnosis is real, a prescription can turn around a child's life in an instant, improving his ability to concentrate and jacking up his self-esteem. Denying a child who needs the medicine is as cruel as forcing it on a kid who doesn't. Even Howard Glasser is not anti-medication'--not entirely. He believes that in rare cases it can be effective as a temporary measure. But it's a terrifying choice to make for many parents.
- Ned Hallowell once famously said that stimulants were "safer than aspirin," a statement he has since backed off of. ("That's almost a preposterous statement for anyone to say," says Saltarelli.) "I think that was misleading," Hallowell says now. "I was dealing with people who thought these medications were extremely dangerous, and if they're used properly, they are not. But now I don't say that anymore because I'm worried about high school students taking them without any medical evaluation." But Hallowell stands by his assertion'--widely corroborated'--that it's silly to try to treat ADHD without medicine. "I certainly am not gonna try to persuade you to use medication, but once you learn the facts, chances are you will want to. Because doing a year, say, of non-medication is sort of like saying, Why don't we do a year of squinting before we try eyeglasses."
- In 1999 the National Institute of Mental Health published its landmark study "Multimodal Treatment of ADHD," which was led by Peter Jensen; 579 children ages seven to nine took part. The study declared that the best treatment, across the board, is medication combined with behavioral therapy'--but that the combination works only marginally better than medication on its own, with no behavioral component. This made a lot of parents feel better about accepting a prescription for their children, and the study is frequently cited by pharmaceutical companies, psychiatrists, and organizations like CHADD.
- Research published since the multimodal study, however, suggests that treating kids who have ADHD with cognitive behavioral therapy can have the same positive effect as stimulants. A new study in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology shows that behavioral therapy, alone or in combination with stimulants, is far more effective than medication alone. The children in the study'--forty-four boys, four girls, all diagnosed with ADHD'--were given varying doses of medication and behavioral therapy, and researchers monitored their episodes of "noncompliance" each day. The worst-behaved children were the ones receiving only drugs and no behavioral therapy. Even kids given a placebo while also receiving some behavioral therapy behaved far better than kids being treated with drugs alone. The sweet spot was a low dose of medication plus behavioral therapy.
- William Pelham of Florida International University, the lead author of the study and one of the original investigators on the multimodal study, says that these findings show that psychosocial treatments "are the key to long-term success. Medication alone is not the solution to the long term."
- I wanted to talk to an actual person at a drug company about the difficult choice. I called Novartis, which manufactures Ritalin and Focalin XR. A media-relations specialist, Julie Masow, declined to make anyone from the company available to me for an interview, citing the fact that it was summer and people were traveling, and instead provided me with a vague written statement. But eventually Masow agreed to provide written answers to any questions I wished to send her via e-mail. It was a fairly fruitless exercise'--a lot of anodyne corporatespeak about how "ultimately, the decision to prescribe an ADHD treatment for a child with ADHD is between the physician and the patient's parent/guardian" and "Patients and parents/guardians also receive a copy of the medication guide included in the drug package insert."
- Novartis is right, to a point'--pharmaceutical companies do not prescribe the drugs they manufacture. So do they care what happens once the drugs leave the factory? When I asked Saltarelli of Shire whether drug companies should do anything to make sure their products are used correctly, he said, "It is our responsibility to make sure that the drugs are being appropriately utilized. It's obviously impossible for us to be in any way involved in diagnosis, let alone in every doctor's office where diagnoses are being made. But we do feel an ethical obligation'--and we've actually invested quite a bit to do whatever we possibly can through educational efforts to make sure that these drugs are being used appropriately." When I asked the same question of Novartis, the answer (via e-mail) was "Novartis supports only the appropriate use of ADHD medicines as indicated and prescribed by qualified, licensed health-care providers. Novartis does not participate in the diagnosis of patients with ADHD, as the diagnostic criteria..."
- Karen Lowry, a nurse in Medford, New Jersey, helps run a local CHADD chapter. She has four children, the youngest of whom has ADHD. "When he was first diagnosed, we were adamantly against medication. No, it might prevent his brain growth. We'll deal with behavioral programs. It's not happening," she says. "But as first grade progressed and we saw our child with an ADHD diagnosis experiencing hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattentiveness in a classroom setting with a teacher who was really not very understanding, we saw a kid who was falling through the cracks. We saw a kid who was not developing friendships, peers who were always blaming him for everything that was going on around him. So my husband and I looked at each other again and said, Oh my gosh, we need to rethink this. Are we not being fair to him? What's worse? Not fully understanding the medication and what can happen in a positive way, or just standing our ground saying, We're unsure about this?"
- Lowry and her husband ended up putting their youngest son on a stimulant. His behavior improved vastly, and the ADHD seemed to be under control. But toward the end of the school year, he developed severe facial tics, a side effect of some ADHD medications. They took him off the medication for the summer, a decision many parents make at some point. "He's adjusted pretty much," she says. "He's on a very low dose because he does get the headaches. It's sometimes hard to balance, you know, the side effect with the effects of the drug." Overall, Lowry thinks they made the right call. It's a question she gets a lot from other parents of children with ADHD. "I would never tell anyone to put their kid on medication. All I will say is look at the results. And I always commend the parents who come to our classes, even if they're frantic: Your kid will be okay because you're here."
- Ruth Hughes, CHADD's CEO, finds herself defending'--or justifying'--ADHD as a diagnosis regularly. More than twelve thousand people are members of the organization. Its annual budget is about $3.5 million, of which up to 30 percent can come from the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture ADHD drugs, according to Hughes.
- During our phone interview, I asked Hughes whether CHADD could be classified as pro-medication. "Well, I'm going to reframe this a little bit," she said. "We are pro-science, pro-research. Our issue is to make parents or adults who potentially have ADHD to be very well informed consumers of medical services."
- I told her I was asking because while there are lots of books and articles out there about how to treat ADHD without medication, you hardly ever see anything about that on CHADD's Web site or in its bimonthly magazine, Attention.
- If we don't know what we're doing, maybe we shouldn't be doing it. Putting a child on highly addictive psychotropic drugs ought to be very difficult, not shockingly easy. And yet even if Peter Jensen's twenty-year-old estimates about misdiagnosis are still correct, an astonishing 25 percent of today's 6.4 million kids, overwhelmingly boys with developing brains, might be experiencing side effects for no reason. Because he made that assumption long before ADHD became such a popular diagnosis, the number could be far higher now.
- Yes, the drugs these children consume may work. They help them focus for longer periods of time. They help them do better in school. But consider this: Stimulants work on just about anyone. "These are powerful drugs," says Bob Schaffer, the former Colorado congressman. "They would work on me. They would make anyone more focused. And everyone's happy because the kid is now under control." The fact that the drugs would help you perform better at work doesn't mean you should take them. And it certainly doesn't mean a seven-year-old boy who doesn't suffer from a psychiatric disorder should be taking them.
- Why not, if they help him do better? Because, for one thing, an important study of four thousand children published last year concluded that children who took stimulants didn't do any better in school than kids who didn't. But also, and perhaps more important, because he might not be the same seven-year-old boy once he starts, and he may never be the same boy again.
- Another little-examined feature of these drugs is the global changes in personality that they can cause. Jim Forgan is a psychologist in Jupiter, Florida. The first thing you see on his Web site is an ad:
- "Dr. Jim Forgan's Parent Support System
- Over 80 Educational Videos
- The video support system is available for a one-time fee of $49.97. Forgan is the coauthor of a book called Raising Boys with ADHD, also available for purchase. He speaks from experience. His son has been diagnosed with ADHD. Forgan knows all the warning signs, and he tells parents about them. He's in favor of drugs when they're administered correctly'--starting with low doses, watching vigilantly for side effects, stopping use if the side effects outweigh the benefits.
- How do you know if the side effects outweigh the benefits?
- "Careful monitoring," says Forgan. "And for me personally, with my son being on the stimulant medications, those are medications you don't have to take every day, so we would give him the holiday breaks on the weekends and spring break and summertime, just so that he didn't have the medication all the time. And yeah, there's a difference, he has more energy. My son doesn't like to take the medications because he feels like it makes him feel flat, and he doesn't like what it does to his personality. And he says he's not the same fun person that he is when he's not on the medication. And some of that fun gets him in trouble at school, because he's funny and knows how to entertain people. But at the same time, he likes that characteristic about himself'--that he is fun and knows how to get people laughing and working together and bring energy into a room. Kinda like the life of the party."
- I tell Forgan that there is something heartbreaking about the fact that such a lively part of his son's personality disappears when he's on medication, and that his son knows it disappears. "Is it just that he was getting into too much trouble?" I ask.
- Forgan pauses and says, "Right. Yup, it gets him in trouble and he hasn't'--when he was in elementary school, he didn't have his own ability to have the self-control not to say impulsive things and do impulsive things that other people find funny but the teacher finds very annoying."
- "And you see the fun part of him reemerge during breaks from the medicine?"
- Howard Glasser's biggest fear in life is that a child might grow up not knowing how great a person he is. It keeps Glasser awake at night sometimes, this image of a kid thinking he's no good. It lodges a pit in his throat.
- Ned Hallowell, the ADHD expert who has the disorder, writes books about it, has talked about it on Dr. Oz, and thinks medication usually gets good results, feels the same. "The medical model is so slanted toward deficits that it excludes strengths'--and it also reinforces stigma, that this is shameful, this is bad, this means you're a loser. And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's the old line of whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. And what breaks my heart is how these kids, and the parents along with them, get broken in school, and they come out of twelfth grade believing that they're stupid. Believing that they're defective. But this trait, these are the people who colonized this country! Just think of it: Who in the world would get on a boat in 1600 and come over here? You had to be some kind of a nut. You had to be a visionary, a dreamer, an entrepreneur'--you know, a risk-taker. That's our gene pool. So this country is absolutely full of ADD."
- So there is something great about having ADHD. The question is how to treat the difficult parts in a way that pushes the greatness forward.
- "I confront kids with their own greatness," Glasser says. "Because that's what I think allows a kid to go from an ordinary life to a purposeful life. To see who they really are. The worst-case scenario in life is that a boy grows up thinking: Who I really am is a kid who annoys everybody."
- In 1994 Glasser opened the Center for the Difficult Child in Tucson, his first effort to teach therapists his Nurtured Heart Approach. In 1999 he published Transforming the Difficult Child, which has quietly sold nearly 250,000 copies. Today he runs an organization he named the Children's Success Foundation, which is an expanded effort to teach educators and therapists around the United States how to use what he has found from twenty years of practicing the Nurtured Heart Approach.
- "It's much more about reaction than attention." That sentence appears on page 10 of Transforming the Difficult Child. It's a profound distinction, and there is no deeper nor more simple understanding of a child's needs. Parents of intense boys can shower their children with love and attention, and still the boys might be difficult boys. What's important is how you react to what a child does, good or bad, Glasser says. Mostly, we get animated when our kids do something bad. We get worked up, and we give them energy'--negative energy, but energy nonetheless. But when a difficult child is sitting quietly, playing or writing or drawing, not disturbing anyone, not throwing food, not picking on a sibling'--we do nothing. We don't acknowledge it at all. The way a difficult child gets a parent's energy, then, is to do something bad.
- "Most parenting approaches have you giving a strong punitive consequence that's all energy and that confirms that, as a parent, you're highly available through negativity'--you're a toy that works when they push buttons," he says. "And you work if and only if they act out bigger."
- Watching Glasser work with a child is a marvel.
- He is sitting on the carpeted floor of a family's basement playroom, his lanky frame contorted into what passes for comfort for a sixty-three-year-old man sitting on the floor. He is watching a sandy-haired boy of seven play with his toys. A few minutes before, the boy had been hitting his younger brother, and he had been scolded, hit his brother again, and been banished from the kitchen. Now he plays peacefully.
- "I see that you are very calmly building with your Legos," Glasser says to the boy, in a smooth and even voice, as if he were commenting on clouds moving across the sky. "That's really great to see. It shows that you respect your mom and dad, because they love it when you play nicely."
- The boy just nods without looking up, like, Sure, thanks mister. So Glasser keeps at it.
- "So I assume you heard what I said. And I just want to elaborate a little more. Because here's what's great: You have this wonderful quiet way of thinking things through. I can tell that you're thinking about what it means to be calm. And maybe you don't quite know what calm means. Let me tell you how great calm is. What does it take to be calm?"
- The boy looks up now. Words are starting to register with him. His face is blank, but he's thinking. This is unusual for him'--getting attention, getting a reaction, for being so good.
- "Well, while you're thinking about it, let me tell you. It takes wisdom, for one thing, because you could be yelling. You could be annoying people. Have you ever been annoying? Well, you're not being annoying. You're not running around the lunch table. You're not throwing your food or hitting your brother. All these things that kids your age could do, you're not doing. That's being calm. That shows me you're being thoughtful. That you care about other people, and that you're in control of your body. Being in control takes a lot of concentration and effort. Doesn't it?"
- The boy nods, just barely. He is looking right into Glasser's eyes. For years, since he was two, the boy has had trouble controlling his body sometimes. Sometimes the energy inside him is just too much, and it builds like gas trapped in rock until it bursts forth in a violent, painful mess. At times he has driven his parents to a crisis of helplessness. The heartbreaking part is the boy has tried so hard to control his energy, and he's gotten better at it. But sometimes he still just can't. Once, in the middle of the night, when he was four, he wouldn't go to sleep and kept throwing toys at the door until his mother cried and his father yelled, and then through the tears streaming down his tiny cheeks he looked up at his father over the plastic gate that was jammed in his bedroom door and, in a moment of astonishing self-awareness, pleaded, "I need to calm my body down!" When he started school, his parents mentioned to the school psychologist that their son sometimes had an issue with impulsive behavior. The psychologist, who had never met him'--who had never met the boy'--told the parents that it sounded like he probably had ADHD. The parents had had their son evaluated by child psychologists, pediatricians, teachers, and independent therapists, and not one person had ever suggested ADHD, and in fact, the boy's pediatrician and the rest of the school's counseling, teaching, and professional staff said resolutely the boy showed no signs of it. (When he heard that a school psychologist had said this, Glasser wasn't surprised. "Sure. Your son is intense. If you wanted to go out and get him a prescription for ADHD medication, you could do it tomorrow," he told the parents.)
- "That's right," Glasser says to the boy. "It does take a lot of effort. And I want to tell you something: A few minutes ago, you hit your brother. And he started crying, and then you got really upset when your parents told you to stop. You were really mad at him and at them. But look at you now. Look at yourself! You calmed yourself down so beautifully. And that was an amazing, amazing thing to do, because it's hard to calm yourself down when you're so upset. But you figured out how to control your body in a really bad moment. You did that yourself. No one did it for you. And that shows greatness. That shows me and everybody else that you have greatness inside you."
- The boy is looking at him still, locked in.
- And, slowly at first, the boy begins to smile. And then the smile spreads across his whole, beautiful seven-year-old face. His teeth, missing here and there and sticking out in gaps where he used to suck his thumb, shine across the room, and he lets out a giggle, and the giggle turns into the kind of proud, embarrassed laugh kids do when they haven't learned how to take a compliment. His face is lit up'--he is shocked by what he has just heard, and shocked by his own joyful reaction. He's laughing, looking at this man who has just told him that he has greatness within his soul, and the kid slaps the floor, then crosses his skinny arms on top of his head, and smiles with pride. He is euphoric.
- It is almost as if he has been drugged.
- QUESTIONS? Ask ADHD Expert Howard Glasser >>PLUS:David Granger on Medicating Boyhood >>
- ADHD can feel like a lonely place.
- The parents of millions of American boys have been told their sons have ADHD, and yet many of those parents will tell you they struggled with what to do when they got the news. Trust it? Get a second opinion? Put their son on medication? Try something else? But what?
- There are forums and support groups, chat rooms and books to read, but on Esquire.com, our hope is to collect stories that may be of use to parents (or aunts or uncles or grandparents or caregivers) of boys. Because while ADHD is a growing fact of life among American children, the statistics show that among boys, it is a crisis.
- What has been your experience with ADHD? Has your son been diagnosed? What was the experience like for you and your family? Which of your questions went unanswered? Did ADHD drugs work? Would you handle it the same way a second time?
- Email it to editor@esquire.com. Maybe it will help someone who's just been told their son has ADHD and should be medicated, and who wants to make sure, beyond all doubt, that this is the right thing to do.
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- Six Week Cycle
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- Constructing Truth: the FBI's (non)recording policy - Forbes
- Log in with your social account:Or, you can log in or sign up using Forbes.New Posts+4 posts this hourMost PopularWu-Tang's Secret AlbumListsThe Midas ListVideoThe Biz Behind Fenway12 Stocks to BUY for 2014Help|Connect
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- Obama Nation
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- No to Detroit water shutoffs!
- Utilities are a basic social right!By Lawrence Porter28 March 2014Lawrence Porter, the assistant national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party and chairman of the February 15 Workers Inquiry into the Bankruptcy of Detroit and the Attack on the DIA & Pensions, issued the following statement.
- As chairman of the Workers Inquiry into the Bankruptcy of Detroit, I condemn the decision by the Detroit officials to begin the shutoff of water service to 170,000 households, which are more than two months late on their water bills. If this brutal and inhuman measure is carried out tens of thousands of men, women and children will be deprived of the most elemental necessity of life.
- In a city that sits astride one of the largest concentrations of pure water on the planet, up to 3,000 households a week will lose water for drinking, cooking, cleaning and the disposing of sewage. This will inevitably lead to tragedies and death.
- Like everything else under capitalism, the corporate and financial lords who rule society see water as a commodity to be bought and sold for profit. Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr wants to squeeze every penny he can out of city residents in order to make the Water and Sewerage Department more attractive to private investors. Several private equity firms are already looking to take over one of the largest municipal water systems in America, jack up rates and make a mint.
- Orr has already handed the public lighting system to DTE, turned Belle Isle over to the state for private development, forced the Detroit Institute of Arts into the grip of wealthy foundations and given away enormous tracts of land to billionaires Dan Gilbert and Mike Ilitch. At the same time, he is robbing retired city workers of their hard-earned pensions and health care benefits and driving them into destitution to pay off the Wall Street banks and big bondholders that control the city's debt.
- The mass shutoffs are part of a bigger plan to ''shrink'' the city by cutting off water, street lighting, fire and EMS service to entire neighborhoods deemed too poor or underpopulated for private investment. In recent comments at the University of Michigan, Orr said his policy was to help ''pockets'' of the city because it was not viable to provide services to residents in all 139 square miles of Detroit. In other words, the ''revitalization'' of the city is intended to benefit only the rich and the most affluent layers of the upper middle class, while the majority of the population is condemned to darkness, disease, hunger and thirst.
- The Detroit News recently endorsed the shutoffs in a hypocritical editorial entitled, ''Water cutoffs send notice to scofflaws,'' which painted the city's residents'--over 40 percent of whom live in poverty'--as lawless thieves who refuse to pay their bills. Supporting the privatization of the department, the News wrote, ''A private manager will have very little tolerance for nonpayments, so Detroiters should get used to the new reality.''
- The water department's shutoff policy, the News continued, should be modeled on DTE Energy and would teach residents to pay their bills on time. In 2013, DTE shut off gas and electricity to over 150,000 households in southeast Michigan affecting anywhere between 375,000 to 500,000 people because many families now double up. Over the years these vicious shutoffs have resulted in fatal fires, which claimed the lives of hundreds of victims who desperately sought to keep themselves warm in the winter.
- In 1993, seven children died in a house fire on Mack Avenue on the near east side after the city shut off water to a family in the middle of winter. The father, thinking that the water pipes had frozen, attempted to thaw the pipes with a burning roll of newspapers. Embers underneath the house later triggered a fire that engulfed the house. In an inquiry convened by the Workers League, the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party, our party proved that the tragedy was not caused by ''negligent'' parents'--as the media and politicians had claimed'--but the criminal utility shutoff policy of the city and energy monopolies and the desperate conditions of poverty in Detroit.
- To call Detroit residents ''scofflaws'' is a joke. The media is not demanding the shutoff of water and electricity to the properties owned by Gilbert and Ilitch, who have dodged paying millions of dollars they owe to the city in taxes. Moreover, as the Workers Inquiry established, the whole gang of conspirators who threw the city into bankruptcy'--Orr, Governor Snyder, former State Treasurer Andy Dillon, ex-Mayor David Bing, Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, the Wall Street bankers'--are guilty of deliberately violating one law after the other, including the state constitution.
- The water shutoffs expose the real purpose of the bankruptcy: to rip away every benefit and right working people have won over the course of more than a century in order to further enrich the wealthy elite.
- Predictably, there hasn't been the slightest criticism of the water shutoffs by the Democratic politicians, the unions or the media'--which are all complicit in the looting of the city. At a press conference at the University of Michigan Wednesday, Orr praised the unions for working hard to reach an agreement to expedite the bankruptcy, while behind the scenes he is offering the union executives a half-billion-dollar retiree health care benefit slush fund to buy their cooperation and support. As for Mayor Mike Duggan, the City Council and the Obama administration, they are all bought and paid for by the corporations and banks.
- A report issued by the Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute last year titled Tapped Out illustrates the public health disaster threatened by water privatization. ''In the United States today, the goal of universal water service is slipping out of reach,'' the report notes, because of increased rates and the growth of poverty. The study, reviewing conditions in Detroit and Boston, showed restricted access to water leads to health problems such as dehydration, sewerage backup and the growth of psoriasis and eczema in children.
- Landlords are now adding water as an extra charge, making the cost of rent even higher while unpaid bills in private houses are added to property taxes making home ownership even more unaffordable. If water is shut off, residents face the danger of having their homes condemned as unfit for habitation or their children taken away by the state for failing to provide habitable housing.
- The February 15 Workers Inquiry held by the Socialist Equality Party exposed the social, economic and political forces behind the bankruptcy and outlined a strategy to mobilize the working class to defend the right to pensions, health care, access to culture and all the other necessities of modern life. It showed that the only force capable of opposing this attack was the working class, which must be organized independently of the corrupt trade unions and the two big-business parties.
- The shutoff of service goes hand in hand with the attack on water department workers, who are facing 700 job cuts. We call on utility workers and private contractors to reject orders to shut off water to city residents, an act that will have dire and even fatal consequences. Water and all utilities are social rights! The provision of water, electricity, gas and other essential utilities cannot be left in the hands of giant monopolies and big bondholders only concerned with their profits. Instead, the water department, DTE and Consumers Energy must be turned into publicly owned utilities, under the control of working people and run on the basis of meeting human need, not private profit.
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- Chiner$
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- A new 'silk road' linking Germany and China - The Local
- One of the world's longest railways -- a "modern-day silk road" -- covers some 11,000 kilometres (7,000 miles) en route from the Chinesee megacity of Chongqing to Duisburg, a key commercial hub in western Germany. It's an industrial marvel lauded by both nations as AFP's Estelle Peard discovered.On Saturday, as part of his landmark visit to Germany, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the last stop on the "Yuxinou" rail line, an industrial feat that promises to revolutionise transport between Europe and Asia.
- Duisburg is a steel-making town of around half a million on the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers that boasts the world's biggest inland port and is one of Germany's most important transport and commercial hubs.
- Despite the vast distances between them, it takes just 16 days for trains to travel to Duisburg from Chongqing, a sprawling metropolitan symbol of rising China with a population of more than 30 million.
- Xi, accompanied by a large delegation and German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, ceremoniously welcomed a freight train crammed with laptops andelectronics after it completed its journey through Central Asia, Russia, Belarus and Poland.
- Set up in 2011 by a group of rail companies, the Yuxinou is just 2,000 km short of the world's longest rail line that links Germany to Shanghai. It has shaved more than 20 days off the sea route.
- The route is particularly useful for Chongqing -- home to vast car parts and IT factories -- since it lies 1,500 km from China's main seaports.
- "The value of this rail link, known in China as the 'new silk road', is more than just symbolic," the spokesman of the port of Duisburg, Julian B¶cker, told AFP.
- "It has found itself a position in the market and now operates up to three weekly services," he said.
- But one of the biggest challenges will be to boost traffic in both directions to make it more profitable.
- It is not uncommon for the Yuxinou trains, which can transport as many as 50 containers, to be full when they arrive in Duisburg but empty when they return to China.
- "At the moment, the amount of goods travelling from China to Europe is much larger than the other way round. That's a problem," said Maria Leenen,director of market research group SCI Verkehr.
- It was sea transport that gradually supplanted the historic Silk Road trade route linking Asia with Europe centuries ago.
- Sea transport still accounts for more than 95 percent of goods trading between the two regions, said Burkhard Lemper of the logistics consultants ISL.
- Rail's share of the market remains tiny, and for now, the Yuxinou link only complements existing transport systems.
- But "rail is twice as fast as sea transport and twice as cheap as air freight," said Erich Staake, head of the company that operates the Duisburg port.
- For Leenen, "both sides benefit" from the link.
- "Europe can meet a sudden surge in demand in industry or trade, say in textiles, while China can reach its markets more rapidly," she said.
- The link provides a welcome transport connection and gateway for Chinese provinces situated deep inside the country.
- "It's still early days yet for this mode of transport. But it could have a promising future if the conditions are right, notably in terms of safety and security, punctuality and a stable political situation," Leenen said.
- Other electronics companies, such as Foxconn of Taiwan which supplies Apple, or computer giant Acer, as well as car parts suppliers and machine-tool makers, all have factories in Chongqing.
- The port of Duisburg hopes that the importance of the rail link will increase after Xi's visit.
- "We're in negotiations with companies, such as automakers, on a possible expansion of the service," B¶cker said.
- "There are people who aren't aware that it even exists," he said. "We hope to increase customers in both directions."
- China is Germany's top trade partner in Asia, while Germany is China's leading European partner. Bilateral trade exceeded $161.5 billion (117 billioneuros) last year.
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- AFRIKA
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- Hugh Jackman - Three Things You Don't Know About The Congo
- I'm going to tell you three things about the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The first thing is something you probably already know. That is, the Congo has it's problems. If the Congo were your home you'd be 7 times more likely to have AIDS, your income would be 99.35% less, and would probably live 23.51 years less. The idea that much of Africa is poor and beset with problems is a common preconception. The Congo, in particular, is emerging from a brutal war so things are especially unsettled. That is, this preconception is not untrue in Congo's case.
- Now I'm going to tell you a couple things you might not know. The Congo should be one of the wealthiest countries in human history. It is a country rich with just about every natural resource you can imagine. There is oil, gold and precious minerals, no doubt, but it also contains some the richest agricultural lands anywhere. Part of the reason the wars have been so brutal is because the stakes are high. A vast country, about half the size of the United States, centrally located in the content, is also well positioned to be a trading hub.
- The last thing might be the biggest surprise. Despite all these problems, the global trend is that poverty everywhere is receding. Part of the reason investors are exploring African enterprises is because it is now possible to see the continent turning a corner. The important step now, as places like the Congo move toward achieving prosperity, is supporting the best products and the quickest path forward. The Chinese government is investing substantial amounts in Africa, but are the best models and the right people getting the resources?
- Eleven years ago a group of farmers in the Kivu area, survivors of the so called "conflict years," teamed up to cultivate buyers for their coffee. This enterprising group of small farmers called themselves "Sopacdi." The collective now consists of over 5600 farmers. It is also interesting to note that 20% of the farmers are women who lost their husbands in war. To further assist single parents in supporting their families, Sopacdi's female members receive a price premium for coffee delivered to the cooperative.
- Inmacul(C)e Nimavu Musangi, a single mother and president of Sopacdi's women's group, gets up early to ready her two children for school before spending all day working on her small farm. In the early evening she returns home to cook dinner. The price premiums allow Inmaculee to live an independent life, provide quality food for her family, and be a successful farmer.
- The growth of Sopacdi is indicative of how things have begun to recover for families of the region. This phenomena, however, is global and not unique to the Congo. Researchers at Goldman Sachs state that closing the gender gap in employment could boost GDP by billions of dollars. The U.N. similarly claims that if women farmers were provided the same opportunities as men they could reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 100 million to 150 million. According to Melanne Verveer, the U.S. State Department's ambassador for global women's issues, women have become the focus of US foreign policy. While on a trip top Kabul, women activists told Melanne, "Please don't see us as victims, but look to us as the leaders we are." Women can and will change how we conduct business and how we live and treat each other.
- Laughing Man Coffee and Tea, inspired by this promising trend, arranged to source coffee from Sopacdi. It is more important than ever before for women to seek economic independence. Laughing Man Coffee and Tea is committed to partnering with women like Inmacul(C)e Nimavu Musangi of Sopacdi. Together we can chart a better course for the Congo and the world.
- I don't think it matters whether you have a celebrity profile or not. We all want to contribute in the most effective and practical way we can at work, in the community, or in our home. This desire is natural to who we are. When I left Ethiopia with the promise to use my voice on behalf of the community, I thought my voice was the most powerful tool I had. But after speaking at the United Nations, I realized that it was time to act on a practical level, not just talk about or drink fair trade coffee, and enter the marketplace to trigger change from within. I started the Laughing Man marketplace to highlight the stories of the entrepreneurs willing to help others and the people who share in their success.
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- Meme Alert
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- Luxury Fashion Brands Targeting Global 'Yummies': Young Urban Males - Businessweek
- Luxury fashion may be switching gender and age roles. In much of the world now, the most attractive demographic for such companies as Burberry (BRBY) and Coach (COH) isn't middle-aged women with sky-high credit limits; it's twentysomething men with smartphones and self-esteem issues.
- At least that's the theory put forth recently by a three researchers at HSBC. The future of retail is in young, urban males'--or as HSBC dubs them, ''Yummies'' (a handy verbal shortcut if one can say it without gagging).
- ''The metro-sexual, that clich(C) from 20 years ago, is now becoming a commercial reality,'' the HSBC team writes.
- Young dandies want to flash blue-chip brands as soon as they can afford them, while older consumers closer to the top of the socioeconomic pyramid don't have as much to prove. The silver-backed master of the universe is secure in his Speedo swimsuit and skin-tight driving gloves; he doesn't need a camouflage backpack from Prada (1913:HK) ($980) to make his mark on the world.
- But hasn't it always been thus? Apparently not. HSBC notes that a lot of men are marrying later in life these days, freeing up income in their twenties that would otherwise have gone to supporting a family. The college fund can go to Coach totes, and the diaper budget is diverted to baby-soft driving moccasins.
- In trying to impress, HSBC says many young men are also looking past cars for the first time. After all, anyone with a few hundred dollars a month to spare can lease a Lexus (TM), but a traveling martini satchel from Tumi (TUMI) takes $5,000.
- Not only are these gents making generous incomes, but thanks to increasingly global marketing and media, they don't have to be anywhere near the epicenters of luxury to know what's on-trend. These days, a brand with a solid smartphone store can capture opulent returns around the world. Burberry, for example, is now streaming its runway shows online and working on a plan called ''Customer 360'" to track an individual's buying habits worldwide.
- The report points to a handful of luxury companies making significant investments in luring male shoppers. Michael Kors (KORS), for example, is hoping to grow its annual menswear revenue to $1 billion, which would amount to almost a sevenfold increase. Coach, meanwhile, is close to that goal, having expanded its sales to men from $100 million in 2010 to about $700 million today.
- The story is similar at Burberry, a company that simply licensed its menswear to third parties until three years ago. ''We see significant growth opportunity in men's, especially in these high-growth underdeveloped markets,'' Chief Executive Officer Angela Ahrendts told analysts in November.
- The sole exception to the trend is the market in China, where HSBC says women will fuel the future of luxury fashion. Up until the mid-1990s, almost all of the plush purchases in that country were made by men'--often as gifts for other men. Half of senior managers in China are now female, and women account for about half of luxury spending. Chinese retailers are playing catch-up on that front.
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- Young urban males or 'yummys' are the new target market for big banks and luxury brands | News.com.au
- Young urban males like the Hemsworth brothers are the new target market for luxury brands. Pictured Luke, Liam and Chris.Source: Getty Images
- ARE you a ''Yummy''? HSBC wants you to be.
- The multinational bank sent out a report this week about the economic potential of targeting ''young urban males,'' hence the instantly off-putting moniker, ''Yummy.'' So, what makes a Yummy?
- A Yummy is a young urban male professional who cares about his appearance, cares about luxury items, is marrying later in life and thus has the disposable income to spend on the aforementioned and is using his smartphone to shop for luxury brands from all over the world.
- Aside from maybe the smartphone thing, you're probably thinking that this trend sounds an awful lot like one from about 20 years ago: the ''metrosexual.'' And that is essentially all it is: a rebranding of a consumer identity that never really caught on with consumers.
- An article on the Yummy trend in Bloomberg Businessweek talks about the Yummy who ''looks past cars'' and instead buys a ''travelling martini satchel from Tumi'' for $5,000. The fact is, there will always be members of the rich elite who are willing to spend $5,000 on a ''travelling martini satchel,'' but that is not representative of the average male consumer.
- At 42, Jared Leto is the ultimate yummy.Source: Supplied
- That's where the rebranding of the term ''metrosexual'' comes in: The issue advertisers had in the past with the term ''metrosexual'' was trying to erase the connotation to homosexuality they feared would alienate heterosexual consumers. By rebranding the term ''metrosexual'' to ''Yummy'' and asserting that it is a trend, advertisers can cast out a wider net to male consumers willing to buy in to the label. It's the metrosexual trend all over again, except this time advertisers won't limit it to a niche group '-- if you have disposable income, you can be a Yummy.
- The average male consumer is not going to buy the $5,000 martini satchel, but if he believes that there is an elite class of men above him living beautiful lives surrounded by beautiful things who would buy the satchel, and that this is the new standard of masculinity, it's possible that he will spend in order to buy a piece of this identity.
- Would James Franco wear a travelling man bag? If so, count us in.Source: AFP
- And even though the term ''metrosexual'' never entirely caught on with the average male consumer, the belief that the trend existed was enough to convert some men on to the ideas of increased personal grooming and styling.
- Think of, for example, Steve Carrell's character in the The 40-Year-Old Virgin. His friend tells him that all men are ''manscaping'' these days and convinces him to wax his chest, only for him to find out that his friend has never even done it himself.
- He buys in to the myth that all men are now metrosexuals and thinks that he has to live up to that standard, even though he has no interest in it.
- There is no doubt that some men are routinely waxing their chests and some men are buying $5,000 travelling martini satchels, but no one should be fooled that it is the new standard of masculinity or the new norm.
- Speaking of ''norm,'' weren't we being told a few weeks ago that ''normcore'' was the new trend for both young men and women? If both these trends are in fact occurring simultaneously, they're obviously capturing very different audiences of young men and neither is the majority of men, but rather just a portion.
- This seems like an exaggeration of a niche trend that will rely on consumers fuelling it into life by believing in it.
- The ''Yummy'' trend will no doubt be used by advertisers who will try to redefine masculinity as something that has to be bought in a store. And that is only the truth if you believe it is.
- What do you think of the Yummy brand? Continue the conversation on Twitter @newscomauHQ
- This article originally appeared on AskMen
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- Agenda 21
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- White House regulate cow flatulence climate agenda | The Daily Caller
- As part of its plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the Obama administration is targeting the dairy industry to reduce methane emissions in their operations.
- This comes despite falling methane emission levels across the economy since 1990.
- The White House has proposed cutting methane emissions from the dairy industry by 25 percent by 2020. Although U.S. agriculture only accounts for about 9 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, it makes up a sizeable portion of methane emissions '-- which is a very potent greenhouse gas.
- Some of these methane emissions come from cow flatulence, exhaling and belching '-- other livestock animals release methane as well.
- ''Cows emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with a lesser amount through flatulence,'' according to How Stuff Works. ''Statistics vary regarding how much methane the average dairy cow expels. Some experts say 100 liters to 200 liters a day'... while others say it's up to 500 liters'... a day. In any case, that's a lot of methane, an amount comparable to the pollution produced by a car in a day.''
- ''Of all domestic animal types, beef and dairy cattle were by far the largest emitters of [methane],'' according to an EPA analysis charting greenhouse gas emissions in 2012. Cows and other animals produce methane through digestion, which ferments the food of animals.
- ''During digestion, microbes resident in an animal's digestive system ferment food consumed by the animal,'' the EPA notes. ''This microbial fermentation process, referred to as enteric fermentation, produces [methane] as a byproduct, which can be exhaled or eructated by the animal.''
- It's not just the dairy industry that the Obama administration is clamping down on. The White House is looking to regulate methane emissions across the economy from agriculture to oil and gas operations '-- all this despite methane emissions falling 11 percent since 1990.
- Methane emissions have largely been reduced because of the incentive for companies to capture it and sell it for monetary gain. Oil and gas companies, for example, have been looking for ways to increasingly capture methane leaked from drilling operations which they can then sell.
- ''The industry has led efforts to reduce emissions of methane by developing new technologies and equipment, and recent studies show emissions are far lower than EPA projected just a few years ago,'' said Howard Feldman, head of scientific and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute. ''Additional regulations are not necessary and could have a chilling effect on the American energy renaissance, our economy, and our national security.''
- ''Methane is natural gas that operators can bring to the market,'' he added. ''There is a built-in incentive to capture these emissions.''
- Environmentalists have been pushing the Obama administration to crack down on methane emissions for some time, arguing that they drive global warming and pollute the air and water. Activists have argued that the methane leakage rate from natural gas operations is 50 percent higher than the EPA estimates.
- ''President Obama's plan to reduce climate-disrupting methane pollution is an important step in reining in an out of control industry exempt from too many public health protections,'' Deborah Nardone, campaign director of the Sierra Club's Keeping Dirty Fuels in the Ground campaign. ''However, even with the most rigorous methane controls and monitoring in place, we will still fall short of what is needed to fight climate disruption if we do not reduce our reliance on these dirty fossil fuels.''
- Republicans and the oil and gas industry argue that the methane leakage rate has been estimated to be 50 times lower than the EPA's estimate. The GOP argues that the EPA's estimate is simply an attack on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
- ''The EPA has been on a witch hunt to shut down hydraulic fracturing, and yet again the evidence doesn't back up their excessive claims,'' said Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter. ''All too often we see the Agency using flawed science for political purposes, but this report '' partially funded by environmental activists no less '' shows EPA's emissions estimates from hydraulic fracturing are way off.''
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- Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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- Ideas: A Climate Falsehood You Can Check for Yourself
- One problem in arguments about climate (and many other things) is that most of the information is obtained at second, third, or fourth hand, with the result that what you believe depends largely on what sources of information you trust. One result is that people on either side of the argument can honestly believe that the evidence strongly supports their view. They trust different sources; different sources report different evidence. It is thus particularly interesting when on some point, even a fairly minor one, you can actually check a claim for yourself. I believe I have found an example of such a claim.Cook et. al. (2013) is the paper, possibly one of two papers, on which the often repeated claim that 97% of climate scientists support global warming is based. Legates et. al. (2013) is a paper which criticizes Cook et. al. (2013). Bedford and Cook (2013) is a response to Legates et. al. All three papers (the last a pre-publication version) are webbed, although Legates et. al. is unfortunately behind a pay wall.
- Bedford and Cook (2013) contains the following sentence: "Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97% endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause."
- To check that claim, look at Cook et. al. 2013. Table 2 shows three categories of endorsement of global warming reflected in the abstracts of articles. Category 1, explicit endorsement with quantification, is described as "Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming." Category 2 is explicit endorsement without quantification. The description, "Explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a known fact" is ambiguous, since neither "causing" nor "anthropogenic global warming" specifies how large a part of warming humans are responsible for. But the example for the category is clearer: 'Emissions of a broad range of greenhouse gases of varying lifetimes contribute to global climate change.' If human action produces ten percent of warming, it contributes to it, hence category 2, as implied by its label, does not specify how large a fraction of the warming humans are responsible for. Category 3, implicit endorsement, again uses the ambiguous "are causing," but the example is '...carbon sequestration in soil is important for mitigating global climate change,' which again would be consistent with holding that CO2 was responsible for some but less than half of the warming. It follows that only papers in category 1 imply that "human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause." Authors of papers in categories 2 and 3 might believe that, they might believe that human emissions of greenhouse gases were one cause among several.Reading down in Cook et. al., we find "To simplify the analysis, ratings were consolidated into three groups: endorsements (including implicit and explicit; categories 1''3 in table 2)." It is that combined group, ("endorse AGW" on Table 4) that the 97.1% figure refers to. Hence that is the number of papers that, according to Cook et. al., implied that humans at least contribute to global warming. The number that imply that humans are the primary cause (category 1) is some smaller percentage which Cook et. al. do not report.It follows that the sentence I quoted from Bedford and Cook is false. Cook et. al. did not find that "over 97% endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause." (emphasis mine). Any interested reader can check that it is false by simply comparing the two papers of which Cook is a co-author. John Cook surely knows the contents of his own paper. Hence the sentence in question is a deliberate lie.
- That Cook misrepresents the result of his own research does not tell us whether AGW or CAGW is true. It does not tell us if it is true that most climate scientists endorse AGW or CAGW. It is nonetheless interesting, for two related reasons.
- In recent online exchanges on climate, I repeatedly encountered the claim that 97% of climate scientists believed humans were the main cause of global warming. That included an exchange with one of the very few reasonable and civil supporters of the CAGW claim that I encountered in the online arguments, where most participants on either side are neither. So far as I know, the paper says nothing that is not true. But it appears designed to encourage the misreading that actually occurred. It does so by lumping together categories 1-3 and reporting only the sum and by repeatedly referring to "the consensus" but never stating clearly what that consensus is.
- The closest it came to defining the consensus is as the "position that humans are causing global warming," which leaves it unclear whether "causing" means "are one cause of," "are the chief cause of," or "are the sole cause of." To discover that it meant only the former, a reader had to pay sufficiently careful attention to the details of the paper to notice "contribute to" in the example of category 2 in Table 2, which few readers would do. The fact that Cook chose, in a second paper, to misrepresent the result of the first is pretty good evidence that the presentation of his results was deliberately designed to mislead.
- There is a second, and more important, reason why all of this matters. Beliefs on either side depend largely on what sources of information you trust. I have now provided unambiguous evidence, evidence that anyone on either side willing to carefully read Cook (2013) and check what it says against what Bedford and Cook claims it says can verify for himself, that John Cook cannot be trusted. The blog Skeptical Science lists John Cook as its maintainer, hence all claims on that blog ought to be viewed with suspicion and accepted only if independently verified. Since, as a prominent supporter of the position that warming is primarily due to humans and a very serious threat, Cook is taken seriously and quoted by other supporters of that position, one should reduce one's trust in those others as well. Either they too are dishonest or they are over willing to believe false claims that support their position.
- The fact that one prominent supporter of a position is dishonest does not prove that the position is wrong. For all I know, there may be people on the other side who could be shown to be dishonest by a similar analysis. But it is a reason why those who support that side because they trust its proponents to tell them the truth should be at least somewhat less willing to do so.P.S. A commenter has located the data file for Cook et. al. (2013). By his count, the number of articles classified into each category was:
- Level 1 = 64Level 2 = 922Level 3 = 2910Level 4 = 7970Level 5 = 54Level 6 = 15Level 7 = 9
- The 97% figure was the sum of levels 1-3. Assuming the count is correct'--readers can check it for themselves'--that 97% breaks down as:
- Level 1: 1.6%Level 2: 23%Level 3: 72%
- Only Level 1 corresponds to "the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause." (emphasis mine) Hence when John Cook attributed that view to 97% on the basis of his Cook et. al. (2013) he was misrepresenting 1.6% as 97%. Adding up his categories 5-7, the levels of rejecting of AGW, we find that more papers explicitly or implicitly rejected the claim that human action was responsible for half or more of warming than accepted it. According to Cook's own data.
- Would anybody now like to claim that lumping levels 1, 2, and 3 together and only reporting the sum was not a deliberate attempt to mislead?P.S. John Cook eventually responded to my criticism, not here but on the comment thread of another blog that linked to this one. See his response and my comments on it here.
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- Common Core
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- Common Core Worksheet Asks Fourth-Graders To Describe Story About Adultery'... | Weasel Zippers
- At first I thought this had to be a hoax, it is not. The story itself is from last year but our friends at Liberty Unyielding posted about it today.
- The text of the question:
- Ruby sat on the bed she shared with her husband holding a hairclip. There was something mysterious and powerful about the cheaply manufactured neon clip that she was fondling in her newly suspicious palms. She didn't recognize the hairclip. It was too big to be their daughter's, and Ruby was sure that it wasn't hers. She hadn't had friends over in weeks but here was this hairclip, little and green with a few long black hair strands caught in it. Ruby ran her fingers through her own blonde hair. She had just been vacuuming when she noticed this small, bright green object under the bed. Now their life would never be the same. She would wait here until Mike returned home.
- Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to put a question like that into a grade school assignment?
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- Rubicon
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- Venezuela to Probe Crossword Puzzles' Role in Protests - Bloomberg
- By Anatoly KurmanaevMarch 27, 2014 12:32 PM EDTCrossword puzzles in a local Venezuelan newspaper are calling readers to violent protests with conspiratorial messages, the country's information minister said today.
- Delcy Rodriguez called for an investigation of El Aragueno daily from the industrial town of Maracay, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Caracas for putting ''encrypted messages'' in its puzzles, she said in a post on her Twitter account. She didn't give any details.
- One person died in Maracay in a month and a half of protests against the government's handling of an economic crisis that has pushed inflation to the highest in the world and led to shortages of basic items. At least 35 people have died in the protests, according to President Nicolas Maduro.
- Brain teasers have triggered the alarm of Venezuela's socialist government before. In May 2012, state television accused the biggest national newspaper Ultimas Noticias of trying to organize the assassination of then-President Hugo Chavez through coded crossword messages. Chavez died from cancer a year later.
- An Information Ministry spokesman, who can't be named because of internal policy, declined to comment on the investigation plans. El Aragueno editor Corina Rodriguez wasn't immediately available for comment.
- To contact the reporter on this story: Anatoly Kurmanaev in Caracas at akurmanaev1@bloomberg.net
- To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Soliani at asoliani@bloomberg.net Philip Sanders, Harry Maurer
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- NGO's @ Work
-
- Venezuelan generals arrested in alleged coup plot
- By Bill Van Auken28 March 2014After nearly two months of violent right-wing-led protests, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro revealed Tuesday that three air force generals had been arrested on charges of plotting a military coup.
- ''We captured three generals who attempted to raise the air force against the legitimately constituted government,'' Maduro announced during a meeting with foreign ministers of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), who arrived in Caracas as part of a bid to broker a settlement between the government and its rightist opponents.
- While Maduro failed to name the generals, they were subsequently identified by the Venezuelan media as Carlos Alberto Milln Yaguaracuto, who belonged to the Strategic Operational Command of the Armed Forces, Jos(C) Daniel Machillanda Daz, who was assigned to the General Aviation Command in La Carlota and Oswaldo Hernndez Snchez, who was vice minister of education for the Defense department and also a commander at the Jos(C) Antonio Pez air base. All three were being held at the Division of Military Intelligence.
- Maduro stated that the generals had been the subjects of an investigation after junior air force officers asked to join in the conspiracy alerted the government. He charged that the three had forged ''direct links with opposition sectors'' and had told others that ''this next week was going to be decisive.''
- The news that a significant layer of Venezuela's military command was involved in a coup plot has profoundly unsettling implications for the Maduro government.
- For the past 50 days, the government has identified its main enemy as the ''fascist'' right, which has orchestrated violent street demonstrations under the slogan ''la salida est en la calle'' (the way out is in the street). This opposition is openly demanding the fall of Maduro, who was elected last April by a narrow majority, succeeding former president Hugo Chavez, who died a month earlier.
- While this campaign has led to violent clashes across the country, leaving at least 36 people dead and hundreds more wounded, along with over 1,800 arrests, it has at no point demonstrated the ability to oust the government.
- The major demonstrations and street barricades have been confined to the better off and middle class neighborhoods. While Venezuela's poor'--who constitute over a third of the population'--and the working class are increasingly hostile to rising prices, shortages and government policies that have benefited the financial elite while driving down living standards, they have rejected the leadership of the right, which is identified with the interests of the country's old oligarchy and US imperialism. In recent days, the protests have waned, even as casualties from ''opposition'' snipers have risen.
- Discontent within the military, however, poses a threat of a far greater magnitude to the government, whose so-called ''Bolivarian Socialism'' has always rested heavily on the Venezuelan armed forces. Hugo Chavez was himself a former army lieutenant colonel who led an abortive military coup in 1992. Active and retired military personnel occupy a quarter of the seats in Maduro's cabinet, while holding 11 of the 20 governorships won by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). They are also in charge of a number of state-owned industries, including the Venezuelan Guyana Corporation industrial conglomerate.
- Both Chavez and Maduro have sought to cement the military's loyalty, with its members consistently awarded pay raises above the rate of inflation'--which topped 56 percent last year'--even as real wages of the working class have steadily fallen. Its higher-ranking officers are prominent within the so-called boliburguesia, the layer of wealthy businessmen who have enriched themselves off state contracts and government influence.
- To the extent that this layer sees the Maduro government as incapable of containing political unrest and social tensions and thereby assuring stability, it could turn against the government and organize a military coup'--something which has happened at least five times in the last 70 years of Venezuela's history.
- In an evident response to such concerns, the military high command issued a statement Wednesday accepting the arrest and court martial of the three generals, while proclaiming the ''cohesion of the Bolivarian National Armada Forces,'' the ''clarity of their mission and vision'' and their commitment to ''civilian-military unity.'' The document concluded with a description of the military as ''the people in uniform.''
- The UNASUR mission, composed of the foreign ministers of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, concluded its work Thursday after meeting with government officials as well as representatives of the right-wing opposition coalition the MUD (Unified Democratic Roundtable).
- The Maduro government declared itself in full agreement with the regional body's recommendations, which included a push for mediated negotiations with the Venezuelan right, and announced on Thursday the formation of a National Council on Human Rights to hear all charges of human rights abuses. It also said it would convene a ''Peace Conference'' in the western state of M(C)rida. Previously, the government had created a ''Truth Commission'' to investigate the source of the recent violence.
- In reality, negotiations between the government and the right-wing opposition are nothing new. Talks are already underway involving the government, the church, some leading businessmen and a few opposition politicians. Moreover, the government entered into such talks after last December's municipal elections, which the opposition, having declared them a referendum on Maduro's rule, ended up trailing the PSUV by 9 percent in the total popular vote, while the ruling party won 77 percent of the mayoral races.
- Maduro, having denounced the MUD politicians as ''fascists'' in the campaign, quickly sought negotiations with them once the election was over. The aim was to achieve political unity behind a set of economic austerity measures'--including a rise in the heavily subsidized price of gasoline'--which would be deeply unpopular. The MUD enthusiastically endorsed these policies and vowed to coordinate with the government in suppressing any popular opposition. The government went ahead with a 79 percent devaluation, which deepened the crisis for average workers. It postponed the raising of gas prices, however, for fear of social upheaval.
- While Henrique Capriles, the former MUD presidential candidate and governor of the state of Miranda, and other prominent MUD officials backed the austerity plan, seeking to push the Maduro government further to the right, a rival, more right-wing faction led by Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado and the Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party opted for the campaign of violent street demonstrations to destabilize and topple the government.
- Lopez was arrested on charges of fomenting violence, while Machado, a long-time recipient of US National Endowment for Democracy funding, has been stripped of her National Assembly seat for accepting an appointment as an ''alternative delegate'' of Panama as part of a failed scheme to deliver an anti-government speech before the Organization of American States last week.
- Meanwhile, in a virtual press conference with Latin American media on Thursday, the US undersecretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, Roberta Jacobsen, reiterated an earlier threatening statement to Congress by Secretary of State John Kerry that as far as Washington is concerned ''all options are on the table'' in relation to Venezuela.
- She added that this ''this does not include military action,'' but that the Obama administration was not discarding the possibility of imposing economic sanctions against the Latin American nation.
- The tensions within the military, the move toward negotiations between the government and the right and the threat of escalating US imperialist intervention all pose a substantial threat to the Venezuelan working class. It is this class alone that can provide a way out of the current crisis by forging its own revolutionary leadership, independent of the government and the PSUV, and fighting for a workers' government and a genuine socialist solution to the capitalist economic and social contradictions that have continued to deepen under the regimes of Chavez and Maduro.
- Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
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- Trains Good, Planes Bad (Whoo Hoo!)
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- Mayors Voice Support for Private Bullet Train
- Posted Friday, March 28th 2014 @ 5am by KTRH's Nik Rajkovic
- Plans for a privately-funded bullet train between Houston and Dallas is now getting some public support.
- The mayors of Dallas and Fort Worth personally came down to Houston Thursday to back the Texas Central Railway project.
- Dallas' Mike Rawlings calls it a no-brainer.
- ''You've got over half the population of the state of Texas in these two markets,'' Mayor Rawlings told reporters at City Hall. ''This is mega big, and that's why I think this is going to work.''
- Texas Central Railway is promising a high-speed rail experience at 200 m.p.h. that would transport riders between downtown Houston and downtown Dallas in roughly 90 minutes.
- ''There are currently more than 50,000 super commuters who travel between Houston and Dallas more than once a week,'' said Houston Mayor Annise Parker. ''Wouldn't you rather be able to jump on a train and work on something else while you're making that commute?''
- As Texas Central Railway prepares for the formal permitting process set to begin next month, public officials are praising it as privately-funded, market driven project.
- ''I think that is extremely important for taxpayers as we approach this,'' said Rawlings.
- Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price says as both regions continue to grow, it only makes sense to bring them together.
- ''We simply have to connect our communities,'' added. ''As Mayor Parker mentioned, the super commuters who travel weekly, this gives us a great opportunity to connect them, and its a great opportunity to be on a more global stage.''
- The connection planned between Fort Worth and Dallas would be separate from the Texas Central Railway proposal.
- ''The Houston to Dallas leg is privately funded,'' said Price. ''The Fort Worth to Dallas will be a public-private partnership.''
- Price says TxDOT has formed a committee to study how best to tie-in that second leg.
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- VIDEOS-CLIPS-DOCS
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- VIDEO-"One Of The Suspicious Objects Was A Dead JELLYFISH!" The Search For Flight 370 Continues - YouTube
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- VIDEO-Biden: '11 Million Undocumented Aliens Are Already Americans in My View' | MRCTV
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- VIDEO- NSA "Reforms" DO NOT INCLUDE EMAIL! NSA Still Collecting ALL Emails Made Or Received In The U.S.! - YouTube
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- VIDEO-Senator Robert Menendez Ukraine Bill | Video | C-SPAN.org
- March 25, 2014Foreign Relations Committee Chair Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) spoke on the Senate floor about Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV)'... read more
- Foreign Relations Committee Chair Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) spoke on the Senate floor about Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) decision to drop the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reform language from S. 2124, the Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy, and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014 close
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- *The transcript for this program was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning.
- Hosting OrganizationMore Videos FromU.S. SenateMore VideosRelated VideoMarch 24, 2014Senate Debate on UkraineSenator John McCain (R-AZ) spoke on the Senate floor in favor of sanctioning Russia and called for military assistance'...
- March 24, 2014Senator Dan Coats on Ukraine BillSenator Dan Coats (R-IN) spoke on the Senate floor in favor of S. 2124, Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity,'...
- March 24, 2014Senator Chris Murphy on Ukraine Aid BillSenator Chris Murphy (D-CT) spoke in favor of S. 2124, Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy, and Economic'...
- March 27, 2014Senator McCain on Aid to UkraineSenator John McCain (R-AZ) spoke on the Senate floor about aid to Ukraine.
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- VIDEO-FY2015 Department of State Budget
- Thank you very much, Chairwoman Granger and Ranking Member Lowey, Mr. Chairman Rogers of the full committee. Let me just thank all of you, first of all, for your very generous comments of understanding of the complications of the world we're living in today, but also I just want to thank you for your thoughtful and substantive consideration of all of these issues that face us. We're deeply appreciative for the leadership that this committee brings to the country.I, as you all know, spent a lot of time up here, 29-plus years. And in that time I learned that choosing to be on the Foreign Relations Committee or the Foreign Appropriations Committee, et cetera, is not necessarily automatically the easiest thing to explain at home, and it doesn't always result in some of the direct claims that you can make about ways in which you've assisted your district. But on the other hand, I think it does, because you assist them by advancing the values and the interests of the country and by helping us to increase American security and stability in the world, all of which comes home to roost one way or the other, either in jobs for districts, states, for the country, but also in the safety and security that we are able to achieve as a result of that.
- Let me just say that I'm privileged to lead a remarkable department with men and women all over the world. We've just held our several-days conference of all of our chiefs of mission called back to Washington. Susan Rice spoke to them yesterday, I spent a fair period of time doing this sort of open meeting with them, as well as other meetings we've had. And it's really intriguing to see the energy and interest and passion that they all bring to the effort to represent our country abroad, and with some remarkable 70,000 people in total in various ways '' Civil Service, Foreign Service, local employees, particularly local employees make a huge difference to our ability to do our job, and I want to salute all of them.
- You have each, in your opening comments, focused on the complications of the world we're living in today, different from anything any of us might have imagined, vastly different from the world of bipolar East-West cold war, and even different from the early years of exuberance in the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now there are sectarian, religious extremists, terrorists, and other challenges released as a consequence of the fall of those countries and the changes in those countries. And so we're challenged. And I believe it is important for us to get caught trying to change things. That's who we are in the United States. And I cannot tell you how much it has been impressed on me in all of the journeys I have made on behalf of the President and our country how much people do look to the United States of America.
- I hear it again and again and again everywhere. It's our responsibility to help to make a difference in lots of different situations, and we have to be clear-eyed about the challenges. And obviously, the environment has to be ripe for a breakthrough in one place or another. But particularly for instance in Ukraine. Congresswoman Lowey, you mentioned the need to try to find a diplomatic solution. And our interest is in protecting the sovereignty and the independence and the territorial integrity of Ukraine with our European partners and others. And we have a responsibility to be engaged, and we are engaged. We also have to be willing to try to sit down and de-escalate the situation, as you said, Congresswoman Lowey.
- That is why President Obama has asked me to leave tomorrow evening and fly to London to meet with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday. And I will do that. And we have had previous conversations. As you know, we spoke earlier this week. The President has talked several times to President Putin. We '' I will make clear again, as I have throughout this crisis, that while we respect, obviously, that Russia has deep historical, cultural, and other kinds of interests with respect to Ukraine and particularly Crimea, nothing justifies a military intervention that the world has witnessed.
- There are many other legitimate ways to address Russia's concerns, and we are trying to make that very, very clear. In my discussions with Minister Lavrov, I have made it clear that there are many reasons for Russia to choose a path of de-escalation and of political solution here. We believe that interests can be met and that most importantly, the desires of the people of Ukraine can be respected, and that the international law can be respected.
- We do not seek a world in which we have to apply additional costs to the choices that have been made thus far. We don't think anybody is more served, better served, not for the interests of our efforts in Iran, not for the interests of our efforts in Syria, not for the interests of our efforts with nuclear weapons or Afghanistan or many other places, by isolating Russia. But we will do what we have to do if Russia cannot find the way to make the right choices here. And our job is to try to present them with a series of options that are appropriate in order to try to respect the people of Ukraine, international law, and the interests of all concerned.
- So we will offer certain choices to Foreign Minister Lavrov and to President Putin through him, and to Russia, with hopes '' and I think the hopes of the world '' that we will be able to find a way forward that defuses this and finds a way to respect the integrity and sovereignty of the state of Ukraine.
- It couldn't be any clearer: What you all do here and what we talk about here today really matters. And when I think about that, I can't help but recall standing in Kyiv just a few days ago near the Maidan on Institutska Street, right at the spot where so many were struck down by the snipers, looking at the bullet holes up and down lampposts, looking at these extraordinary memorials that people had spontaneously built '' stacks of flowers, candles, photographs; and juxtaposed to the street, which was filled with these extraordinary barricades of bedposts and tires and all kinds of detritus, and a street that was covered in a film of the results of the fires that had been lit and the burning that had taken place and the chaos that had ensued.
- What came through to me were the voices of the people I talked to on the street, telling me how much they wanted to be able to determine their own future and how grateful they were for our support and assistance, and how they just wanted to be able to live like other people. One man particularly struck me. He had come back from Australia, and he said, ''You know, I saw how other people are living, and we just want to be able to make the same choices and live the same way.''
- What we do is true not just for Kyiv but it's true in so many places, and some places that don't always get the headlines. It matters in a place like South Sudan, a nation that Frank Wolf and some of you helped to give birth to, a nation that is now struggling and needs our support in order to be able to have a chance to survive its infancy. It matters in the Maghreb, where the State Department is coordinating with France to take down al-Qaida, making sure that French forces have the technology and the weapons that they need.
- What we do matters to us in terms of where we '' what we do in Central Asia, where we're working with several nations to stop the trafficking of narcotics, to keep more heroin off our streets, and to cut off financing for terrorists and extremists. What we do matters on the Korean Peninsula, where we're working with our partners from the Republic of Korea to make sure that we can meet any threat from North Korea and to continue to push for the denuclearization of North Korea. I was just in China and we can talk about that a little later, if you want.
- But thanks to the State Department's work, the South Koreans are now making the largest financial contribution to these efforts in the peninsula in the history of our joint security agreement. What we do matters from Bosnia to Indonesia, in our work with NGOs and civil society groups to defend religious freedom, protecting the universal rights of people to practice their faith freely, and working to bring an end to the scourge of anti-Semitism.
- This isn't just what we do in this budget; this is an essential part of who we are as Americans. I firmly believe that in this increasingly interconnected world, global leadership isn't a favor that we do for other countries, as you mentioned, Madam Chair, it's vital to our own strength. It's vital to our security and the opportunities that we can provide for our children. Now, I spent enough years here to know that you shouldn't call anything that costs billions of dollars an automatic bargain. But when you consider that American '' Americans, the American people pay just one penny of every tax dollar with 46.2 billion in investments in this request, I believe the American people are getting an extraordinary return on their investment.
- We have kept our funding request in line with what was appropriated to the Department and USAID in Fiscal Year 2014 within our base request of 40.3 billion. And the additional part of our request for OCO, Overseas Contingency Operations, totals 5.9 billion. And with OCO funding, we support programs, as you know, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as we continue to right-size those commitments. These resources also provide the U.S. '' the State Department and USAID with the ability to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Syria and flexibility to meet unanticipated peacekeeping needs.
- I know it's easy for some in Congress to support larger cuts in the budget, but what's impossible to calculate completely is the far greater price our country would pay for inaction on many of the things that we're facing today. It's impossible to calculate the dangers in a world without American leadership and the vacuum that that would create for extremists and ideologues to exploit. But I am telling you, without any doubt, more deeply than I ever believed it before when I chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, this year has impressed on me the degree to which, if we aren't engaged in these things, we will pay the price somewhere down the road for the vacuum that will be created and for the dangers that will come to our country as a result.
- For me, it is no coincidence that the places where we face some of the greatest national security challenges are also places where governments deny basic human rights to their nations' people. And that's why development assistance, investing in our partnership with our allies, supporting human rights and stronger civil societies is so critical. These are the surest ways to prevent the kind of tragedy that we are seeing unfold in Syria today.
- Now, I know that Frank and others of you have seen these horrors firsthand, as have I. You've looked in the eyes of refugees. There's simply no way to articulate how important it is for the richest, most powerful nation on this planet to do its part to try to make the world a safer and a better place. For the Syrian people, for Lebanon, Turkey, for Jordan, coping with how to keep their societies running and keep extremists at bay while they host millions now of refugees, our support is critical to that. We're the largest donor in the world. And that helps us, because it is critical to us that Lebanon and Jordan remain stable.
- With our assistance to one of our oldest allies in the Pacific as it recovers from one of the worst natural disasters in history, Typhoon Haiyan, we're also leading the way. Through an $86 million contribution from State and USAID to the Philippines, we're working with our partners so that hundreds of thousands of people literally can put their lives back together. And I visited that devastation and saw how it just flattened that community in a matter of minutes.
- With our core budget request, there's a 1.35 billion contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. And the goal that President Obama has set today for an AIDS-free generation would have been absolutely unthinkable 10 years ago. It was, I'm telling you, because I wrote the legislation with Bill Frist in the Senate that created the first effort on AIDS, and we got the support of Jesse Helms. And the story since then, with President Bush growing it into PEPFAR and all the things that have happened, is an amazing story for the United States of America and for the world, and an accomplishment. And we're now working to transition the leadership of these lifesaving programs to local hands, with Rwanda, Namibia, and South Africa some of the first to take the reins.
- Because of our leadership, children are waking up today in Sub-Saharan Africa who face a very different future from what they did only 10 years ago. And just as our partners in Asia and Europe make a transition from being recipients of American aid '' 11 of the 15 countries that we used to give aid to, the biggest aid recipients, are now donor countries. Remarkable story. Korea, a donor country, was a major recipient of aid and so forth. We can be proud of this. Americans '' I think we need to talk about it more. We need to get people to see the huge benefit of this one penny on the dollar investment.
- And part of making sure that African nations and many other emerging markets make the most of opportunities and improving reforms to the International Monetary Fund is going to be a critical part of that. I think all of you know the IMF has been a central part of the transformation of so many countries. And it's also important to greater trade with people in our own hemisphere as well as right here at home, and particularly for trade with Brazil, Chile, Colombia, India, Korea, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, all of whom once borrowed from IMF and now are some of the most powerful traders in the world.
- So I'll just close by saying to you that Ukraine's struggle for independence, particularly its financial independence, will depend on Congress ratifying reforms that will help Ukraine borrow through the IMF's Rapid Financing Instrument. Our $200 million investment and sovereign loans are needed urgently, but it's only through the IMF, a reformed IMF, that Ukraine is going to receive the additional help it needs in order to stand on its own two feet.
- We are doing, I think, amazing stuff out of many of our embassies and consulates around the world. And I'd just say to you, look at the advocacy from Embassy Lusaka that helped a New Jersey-based firm win an $85 million contract to build 144 bridges in Zambia, with the potential to grow to a $250 million contract. That's jobs at home. That's U.S. tax benefit and the strengthening of our economy. Our consular staff in Kolkata helped bring an Illinois-based Caterpillar together with Sasan Power Limited on a $500 million deal to develop a 3,960 megawatt power plant. Embassy Wellington and Embassy Apia in Samoa helped TE SubCom, a company based in New Jersey, land a $350 million contract to lay fiber optics across the Pacific.
- When 95 percent of the world's consumers live outside of our market, and when foreign governments are out there aggressively backing their own businesses, believe me, this is the kind of advocacy that American workers need to compete. And that's why I've said since day one of becoming Secretary of State, economic policy is foreign policy. And we've just talked about that with all of our embassy chiefs and mission chiefs who have come back to Washington. We've put in place a very strong economic team. And we believe that it's critical to be able to strengthen that.
- So Madam Chairwoman, this budget keeps our ironclad partnership with Israel intact, $3.1 billion in security assistance. And as we make these investments around the world, we can never eliminate every risk, especially in a world where our vital interests are not confined to secure and prosperous capitals. But we can and will mitigate these risks, and we have been in implementing the ARB and working off the lessons learned in Benghazi. This budget does that, and it does more. It implements all of the recommendations of the independent Benghazi Accountability Review Board, and it makes additional investments that go above and beyond that.
- Every week, I am sitting with our team to evaluate the threats against a number of different embassies, the levels. We've drawn down, we've added back, we've had authorized departures, we've had mandatory departures. It's a constant challenge. But I believe we're meeting that challenge appropriately and allocating our resources in a way that best protects the men and women serving our country.
- I believe this budget strikes a balance between the need to sustain long-term investments in American leadership and the political imperative to tighten our belts here at home. I believe the budget's a blueprint providing the minimum our people need to be able to carry out their mission and to enhance national security and promote global stability.
- I will just close by saying to you it is never '' and this is not the budget that we would have liked to have; this is the budget we have to have under the circumstances of the budget agreement. And that's a longer conversation. Maybe we'll get into some of that today.
- Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
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- VIDEO-Tsarnaev defense: FBI visits may have triggered bombing plot | Local News - WCVB Home
- Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers asked a judge on Friday to order federal prosecutors to turn over evidence related to his family as they try to build a case that his older brother was the "main instigator" behind the deadly attack.
- Watch NewsCenter 5's report
- The defense team is seeking a host of records from prosecutors, including any evidence to support its claim the FBI had asked Tamerlan Tsarnaev to be an informant.
- In a court filing, Dzhokhar's lawyers said they want records of all FBI contact with Tamerlan, based on information from the Tsarnaev family and unidentified other sources that the FBI asked Tamerlan to be an informant on the Chechen and Muslim community.
- The Boston FBI office declined to comment on the claims made in the court filing but cited a statement it released in October in which it said the Tsarnaev brothers were never sources for the FBI, "nor did the FBI attempt to recruit them as sources."
- Twin explosions at the April 15 marathon killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Tamerlan, 26, died in a shootout with police four days after the attack. Dzhokhar, who was 19 at the time of the bombings, was captured soon after his brother's death and has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges, including using a weapon of mass destruction.
- More than half the charges carry the possibility of the death penalty. His trial is scheduled to begin in November.
- Dzhokhar's lawyers, in their filing, note that a report released this week by the House Homeland Security Committee suggests that government agents monitored Tamerlan and his communications during 2011 and possibly 2012. The report said the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted a threat assessment of Tamerlan, an ethnic Chechen, in response to a 2011 alert from the Russian government that he was becoming radicalized.
- Dzhokhar's lawyers wrote: "Any surveillance, evidence, or interviews showing that Tamerlan's pursuit of jihad predated Dzhokhar's would tend to support the theory that Tamerlan was the main instigator of the tragic events that followed."
- Prosecutors say the Tsarnaev brothers built two pressure cooker bombs and planted them near the marathon's finish line.
- In their court filings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers say that if a jury convicts him, its decision on whether to give him life in prison or the death penalty "could well turn on how it apportions the brothers' relative responsibility for conceiving and carrying out the attacks, and on the extent to which it views Tamerlan Tsarnaev as having induced or coerced his younger brother to help commit them."
- "For this reason," the defense argued, "any evidence tending to show that Tamerlan supplied the motivation, planning, and ideology behind the Boston Marathon attack, and that his younger brother acted under his domination is material ... and is also subject to disclosure."
- The brothers had lived in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan and the Dagestan region of Russia. They moved to Cambridge with their parents and two sisters about a decade before the marathon bombings.
- Dzhokhar's lawyers also asked a judge to order prosecutors to disclose whether they plan to use evidence obtained through secret surveillance, arguing that any evidence showing Tamerlan's pursuit of Islamic holy war predated Dzhokhar's would tend to support the defense theory that Tamerlan was the driving force behind the marathon bombing. They asked for any evidence collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
- A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz did not return a call seeking comment on the defense filings.
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- VIDEO-How Did Joe Cool Turn Into Joe Spender? - Businessweek
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- VIDEO-IMF Videos - A New Multilateralism for the 21st Century: the Richard Dimbleby Lecture
- A New Multilateralism for the 21st Century: the Richard Dimbleby Lecture February 3, 2014
- Categories: About the IMF | Speeches
- Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
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- VIDEO-Debate Ukraine Aid Russia Sanctions | Video | C-SPAN.org
- March 27, 2014House members debated H.R. 4278, which provides aid to Ukraine and expands sanctions on Russian officials involved in the recent annexation of Crimea.
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- *The transcript for this program was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning.
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- VIDEO-Weekly Address: Raise The Minimum Wage -- It's The Right Thing To Do For Hardworking Americans - YouTube
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- Valerie Jarrett Orders Hollywood To Include Pro-Obamacare Propaganda In Film and Television (VIDEO)
- Something about this video just creeps me the hell out. Knowing the backstory that is Valerie Jarrett, to see her moving about the corridors of Hollywood power, making demands for film and television to give them pro-Obama propaganda is, when placed in historical context, something that should leave everyone wondering just how far this White House is willing to go to try and program the minds of all Americans. History is rife with dictators and despots who engaged in the very same kind of behavior, and yet, here we are, witnessing de facto President Valerie Jarrett openly doing the same.
- ''You name it,'' said Jarrett. ''That's part of why I'm in L.A. I'm meeting with writers of various TV shows and movies to try to get it into the scripts.'' When Jarrett says ''it into the scripts,'' she's referring to getting references to Obamacare, the president's signature legislation, into the scripts of TV shows and movies. LINK
- REMINDER: The Obama administration has delivered significant tax breaks to Hollywood. Now this same administration is demanding further payback. If you or I did such a thing, we'd be charged with a crime. In this Age of Obama, it is just business as usual'...
- ______________________________-Tina Fitzsimmons
- ''As a medical professional, this book rings true with the conspiracies of our government and pharmaceutical giants.''
- See The New Cover For ''MAC WALKER'S 40,000 FEET''
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- VIDEO-SET SCIENCE FREE
- TED Public Rebuttal & Petition Delivery | APRIL 2, 2014 | 12-2PM | 250 Hudson St., NYC
- Set Science Free will hold a public rebuttal in front of TED's offices at 250 Hudson Street, NYC on April 2nd, 2014 between 12-2pm. The rebuttal is in regards to the segregation of Rupert Sheldrake's TEDx Talk within TED's YouTube channel. This will be a filmed media event, so we encourage all those who join us to HAVE A ONE MINUTE STATEMENT PREPARED regarding the segregation and/or the issues of dogma in science.
- In addition, we encourage everyone to have their voice heard on April 2nd even they are not physically present by signing our PETITION FOR PHDs and MDs or our PETITION FOR TED WATCHERS. We will be delivering the petitions to TED during the rebuttal.
- '--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--
- On April 2, 2013,TED.com finalized their decision to segregate Rupert Sheldrake, PhD's TEDx Talk, ''The Science Delusion'' from their main database of searchable talks. Sheldrake's talk focused on general dogma and other assumptions in science, more specifically the theory of materialism (the view that all reality is reducible to physical matter including mind, will, humor, emotions, and memory). Read more about materialism.
- The decision to remove the talk was handed down by TED's 'anonymous scientific board' which, according to TED, consists of a few unnamed scientists and journalists. TED's 'scientific board' initially challenged the scientific validity of the talk but failed and their objections were ultimately retracted. Yet despite being unable to find any reasonable justification, TED proceeded to remove it, ignoring the advice of a multitude of scientists who had called for them to reinstate it. The removal of the lecture has ignited an intellectual and scientific backlash against TED that has been raging for nearly a year.
- [DISCLAIMER] While we understand Ted is a private company with no legal responsibility to accept the thought of all scientists or thinkers, it has become the central hub of cutting edge social and scientific thought internationally. With 1.5 billion+ followers, Ted is often referenced by schools, universities and other institutional communities (scientific, religious, philosophical and more) as the online hub for the most current thought. We accept and appreciate Ted for this. As avid fans of TED and other scientific discourses, our goal is not to destroy Ted, but rather to ensure its stage promotes evolving thinking. We believe Ted, as an institution with so much influence and trust from its constituents has a duty to hear, acknowledge and respond to those same constituents.
- On April 2, 2013,TED.com finalized their decision to segregate Rupert Sheldrake, PhD's TEDx talk ''The Science Delusion'' from their main database of searchable talks. Sheldrake's talk focused on general dogma and other assumptions in science, more specifically the theory of materialism (the view that all reality is reducible to physical matter including mind, will, humor, emotions, and memory). Read more about materialism.
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- VIDEO-John Kerry: Include IMF changes in Ukraine package - Seung Min Kim - POLITICO.com
- 'We must have IMF reform, we must have the quota,' Kerry said. | Getty
- CloseSecretary of State John Kerry urged Congress to approve reforms to the International Monetary Fund that the administration says is a critical component of aid to Ukraine but is running into opposition from some Republicans.
- ''We must have IMF reform, we must have the quota,'' Kerry told a Senate appropriations subcommittee Thursday. ''It would be a terrible message to Ukraine for everybody to be standing up talking, appropriately, about what's at stake and not to be able to follow through.''
- A partisan divide over changes to the IMF is slowing down efforts on Capitol Hill to provide assistance to Ukraine after the recent Russian incursion.
- (Also on POLITICO: Reid: Kochs blocking Ukraine aid)
- A bill heading to the Senate floor gives congressional approval to a 2010 IMF decision that reconfigures the amount of money the United States and other countries contribute to the organization. But many Republicans worry the move could expose taxpayers to risk and say it's unrelated to the crisis in Ukraine. The GOP-controlled House passed a Ukraine measure last week that didn't include the IMF provision.
- ''The IMF money has nothing to do with Ukraine,'' Speaker John Boehner said Thursday. ''I understand the administration wants the IMF money but it has nothing at all to do with Ukraine. So let's just understand what the facts are here.''
- The Ohio Republican urged the Senate to swiftly pass the House legislation before next week's recess. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has already rejected that option.
- (Also on POLITICO: Biz: Don't go overboard on sanctions)
- Kerry, who also pressed House lawmakers on the IMF issue Wednesday, noted that the U.S. is the only member of the organization that hasn't approved the reforms. The implications of that, he said, are ''just enormous.''
- ''Our leadership in this is now in doubt,'' Kerry told senators. ''We're inadvertently hurting ourselves by sending a message that we're not prepared to lead.''
- Some congressional Republicans are concerned that taxpayer dollars could be at a greater risk under the changes, however. Some Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tried to get rid of the provision during a Wednesday markup, but were defeated by Democrats and a few Republicans.
- Kerry is headed to London Friday to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The secretary of state told senators Thursday morning that he had spoken briefly with Lavrov, who was meeting in Sochi with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- He also warned that while Russia did not currently have the capacity to take over all of Ukraine, ''that could change very quickly.''
- As voters in Crimea faces a March 16 referendum on ratifying a decision to leave Ukraine and join Russia, Kerry warned of a ''very serious series of steps'' on Monday both in Europe and in the United States regarding ''options available to us'' if there is no progress on a resolution by the vote.
- ''Our hope is to have Russia join in respecting international law,'' Kerry said. ''There is no justification, no legality to this referendum that is taking place.''
- Still, Kerry acknowledged that there was little doubt over what the results of the referendum will be. The Crimean parliament voted earlier this month 78-0 to join Russia.
- Jake Sherman contributed to this report.
