Global Information Media

Authors of articles on global issues

Mir Adnan Aziz, Walden Bello, Shepherd Bliss , Patrick Bond, Gary Brecher, Michel Chossudovsky, Germain Dufour, Ali al-Fadhily, Joshua Frank, Aquene Freechild, Dahr Jamail, Michael T. Klare, Thandokuhle Manzi , Dr. Leo Rebello, Charles Sullivan, Shiney Varghese

Articles on global issues

Date sent	Theme or issue, author	Read
June 12, 2008	FROM ONE TEACHER TO ANOTHER TEACHER - an important letter to the President of Iran, from India by Dr. Leo Rebello Inspite of your austere and simple life based on simple humanitarian principles, the stories of oppression and islamic intolerance keep flying in the face. Your own Iranians in exile in India and elsewhere talk against the regime that violates Human rights of its own citizens inspite of signing international protocols. Take for example Haleh Rouhi, 29, Raha Sabet 33, and Sasan Taqva 32, were each sentenced to four years in prison and then suddenly taken into custody on 19th November 2007 on a trumped up charge of "propaganda against the regime" for running social service projects to help underprivileged children and youth in Shiraz. The details can be read on pages 8 and 9 of ONE COUNTRY, International Quarterly, which I received today (4 June 2008). Simply because they are Baha'I, to round them up for their beliefs which are more or less akin to Islam, is NOT proper and and I think you should immediately consider presidential Amnesty to them and censor those who interpret laws in un-islamic manner in an Islamic Democracy, which has stood the American onslaught.	Read
June 7, 2008	Destroying African Agriculture by Walden Bello Foreign Policy In Focus, Countercurrents.org Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains. Whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, the story has been the same: the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets. African agriculture is a case study of how doctrinaire economics serving corporate interests can destroy a whole continent’s productive base. The lower cost of U.S. products stemmed from subsidies that were becoming more massive each year, despite the fact that the WTO was supposed to phase out all forms of subsidy. From $367 billion in 1995, the first year of the WTO, the total amount of agricultural subsidies provided by developed country governments rose to $388 billion in 2004. Subsidies now account for 40% of the value of agricultural production in the European Union (EU) and 25% in the United States. The social consequences of structural adjustment cum agricultural dumping were predictable. According to Oxfam, the number of Africans living on less than a dollar a day more than doubled to 313 million people between 1981 and 2001 – or 46% of the whole continent. The role of structural adjustment in creating poverty, as well as severely weakening the continent’s agricultural base and consolidating import dependency, was hard to deny. As the World Bank’s chief economist for Africa admitted, “We did not think that the human costs of these programs could be so great, and the economic gains would be so slow in coming.” In sum, biofuel production did not create but only exacerbated the global food crisis. The crisis had been building up for years, as policies promoted by the World Bank, IMF, and WTO systematically discouraged food self-sufficiency and encouraged food importation by destroying the local productive base of smallholder agriculture. Throughout Africa and the global South, these institutions and the policies they promoted are today thoroughly discredited. But whether the damage they have caused can be undone in time to avert more catastrophic consequences than we are now experiencing remains to be seen. Walden Bello is a senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, a program of Chulalongkorn University's Social Research Institute, and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org).	Read
June 6, 2008	Our Urban Nightmare by Mir Adnan Aziz miradnanaziz@gmail.com, Countercurrents.org On May 23, 2007, the world reached a seemingly invisible but momentous milestone. For the first time in history the world's urban population outnumbered the rural one. Now more than half its human population, 3.3 billion is living in urban areas. By 2030, this is expected to swell to almost 5 billion. Many of the new urbanites will be poor. Their future, the future of our cities and the future of humanity itself, all depends very much on decisions made now in preparation for this growth. Towns and town creation play an important role to impose control over the country. It also directs the activities of urban residents towards the larger purpose of establishing an administrative network and helps attain national prosperity. Unfortunately powerful political and economic interests shape urban policies to line their own pockets. The middle and working classes pay the bills for humongous, perpetually undelivered projects and programs. There is an ominous divide between the urban and rural economy. Incomes in the cities have greatly increased for some whereas rural residents, who make up a huge section of the population, have barely felt the effect. This economic differential leads to large scale resentment and a sense of deprivation. The widening divide in turn drives millions into the cities, creating slums filled with poor, dislocated people. To slow down this stampede, we have to bring jobs to the countryside. Investors should be encouraged to build factories away from the presently focused main cities and help boost the local cottage industry. The course of sustainable development at the local and regional levels requires the pursuit of economic policies that do not add new burdens to the carrying capacity of our locale. Population shifts or migrations to urban areas globally have traditionally been a tell-tale sign of many issues. Here people move for assumed advantages, such as employment, educational and economic opportunities. There is also forced movement to flee environmental crises, persecution and violence at the hands of the feudal. A lack of imagination, rather than lack of skills, is a far more critical distinction between survivors and victims. To learn to make our cities livable we will have to break some longstanding chronic habits. The hardest habit to break is the 'syndrome of tragedy', that brooding feeling, like we are terminal patients in almost all walks of life. There is absolutely no dearth of 'specialists' out to prove that change is not possible. What has to be explained to them is that it takes the same energy to say why something cannot be done as to figure out how to do it, provided an honest working will is there. Today our struggling cities, like almost everything else, are portrayed as evolutionary dead ends, with no future to contemplate. Our vision should be less a dream, an end-point or an unrealizable utopian existence, out there somewhere in the future; it should instead be an unending process to promote social justice and economic well-being among all Pakistanis. We should work towards peace with nature and that enveloping ecosystem which sustains life on our planet and is the true source of our natural capital. It is time to raise our voices in opposition to the degradation of our lives, the jeopardizing of our individual and collective health and well being and above all the pollution of our politics. The consumer culture we inhabit bombards us with messages to buy beyond our budgets and live beyond our means. We can be more happy and content if we could but get off the habit of buying too much and consuming thoughtlessly. Hiding our unhappiness by frolicking in this consumer paradise for some, we who can, eat too much, spend too much, and waste too much time on things that do not matter. Along the way, we contribute to the plunder of nature's depleting capital and the theft of our children's future. It is time to construct a future where people and nature matter, where wealth is based on the things that count rather than merely the things that can be counted. It is time to find the means for putting our urban house in order by planting seeds that will establish new roots for our urban community; enliven and enrich the nourishing soil on which we depend for human life itself.	Read
June 6, 2008	Food, Water And Fuel. Three Fundamental Necessities Of Life In Jeopardy by Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, Countercurrents.org We are at the crossroads of the most serious economic and social crisis in modern history. The process of global impoverishment unleashed at the outset of the 1980s debt crisis has reached a major turning point, leading to the simultaneous outbreak of famines in all major regions of the developing World. There are many complex features underlying the global economic crisis pertaining to financial markets, the decline in production, the collapse of State institutions and the rapid development of a profit-driven war economy. What is rarely mentioned in this analysis, is how this global economic restructuring forcibly impinges on three fundamental necessities of life: food, water and fuel. The provision of food, water and fuel is a precondition of civilized society: they are necessary factors for the survival of the human species. In recent years, the prices of these three variables has increased dramatically at the global level, with devastating economic and social consequences. These three essential goods or commodities, which in a real sense determine the reproduction of economic and social life on planet earth, are under the control of a small number of global corporations and financial institutions. Both the State as well as the gamut of international organizations --often referred to as the "international community"-- serve the unfettered interests of global capitalism. The main intergovernmental bodies including the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organizations (WTO) have endorsed the New World Order on behalf of their corporate sponsors. Governments in both developed and developing countries have abandoned their historical role of regulating key economic variables as well as ensuring a minimum livelihood for their people. We are dealing with a complex and centralized constellation of economic power in which the instruments of market manipulation have a direct bearing on the lives of millions of people. The prices of food, water, fuel are determined at the global level, beyond the reach of national government policy. The price hikes of these three essential commodities constitute an instrument of "economic warfare", carried out through the "free market" on the futures and options exchanges. These hikes in the prices of food, water and fuel are contributing in a very real sense to "eliminating the poor" through "starvation deaths". The sugar coated bullets of the "free market" kill our children. The act to kill is instrumented in a detached fashion through computer program trading on the commodity exchanges, where the global prices of rice, wheat and corn are decided upon.	Read
June 5, 2008	The Roots of 'Necklacing': Why White Farmers in Zimbabwe Are Responsible for the Killings in South Africa by Gary Brecher AlterNet, The Mix is the Message, Foreign Policy South Africans wouldn't be killing Zimbabwean refugees if it weren't for the stranglehold Zimbabwe's whites have on its farmland. There was a sad little war in South Africa last week. Actually, it was one of the latest battles in a war that's been going on for over a hundred years. Like they say in the Congo, "Mokilo e komplike," "It's a complicated world. Like a lot of wars, this one was between two groups that lost out in the bigger war. Now they're forced to fight each other for scraps, while the real bad guys, the British, send camera crews to go "tsk-tsk" at how uncivilized it all is. The way the BBC tells it, this wasn't even a war, just "riots" by Zulu mobs targeting Zimbabwean immigrants, but it was war. In most places and most times, war isn't uniformed armies meeting on the field of battle, but mobs looking for people from the enemy tribe to kill. When they find them, they kill them just like the Zulu mobs killed any Zimbabwean immigrant lucky enough to fall into their hands: in the goriest way possible, in order to scare the rest of the enemy tribe off the disputed turf. A better question to ask would be, what sent so many Zimbabweans fleeing into South Africa, driving wages down and messing up the place? The official answer to that in the Western press is that it's all the fault of Robert Mugabe, the old ex-guerrilla who runs Zimbabwe. I don't buy it. Mugabe's an old fool, an egomaniac, yeah -- most of the men who rule countries are. Bu the damage to Zimbabwe was done a long time ago, and Mugabe's in trouble with the Western newspapers for trying to fix things. That's what blows me away: in all this coverage of Zimbabwe, nobody asks simple questions like, "Who owns the farmland, and why?" The situation's changing fast now, but keep in mind that just ten years ago, 4000 white farmers "owned" three-quarters of all the good land. That's less than one percent of the country's population controlling three-quarters of its useful farmland. That's why Zimbabwe's a mess. Imagine what this country would look like if there were 300 million Native Americans crowded into shantytowns, with a few thousand European settlers living on huge plantations. That's the population profile of Zimbabwe. Mugabe's been taking that land back, and whatever else he's done, he was in the right. He has the military power, and for all you Christians out there, he has every moral right too, as far as I can see. After all, what right do those white settlers have to the land? Their great-grandfathers stole it at gunpoint, or got it by dirty tricks, a little over a century ago. Funny how nobody ever wants to talk about that. The man who took Zimbabwe for the Brits, Cecil Rhodes, was a classic Victorian closet case who distracted himself from his sinful urges with a bloodsoaked vision of British flags flying from Cape Town to the Mediterranean. Rhodes would use any sleazy trick to take the land he needed. When he couldn't force or trick King Lobengula, leader of the Matabele who ruled southern Zimbabwe, into selling off his land, he sent the king a British doctor who was under orders to turn the King into a morphine addict. Once the King was strung out, Rhodes grabbed the Matabeles' land. King Lobengula killed himself. That's how a few whites ended up with three-quarters of the decent land. And this didn't happen in the long-ago far-away time. It was barely over a century ago (1884-1902). So when rightwing papers like the UK Telegraph scream about Mugabe's land grabs, I have to laugh.You can't rob a thief, and the Brits who grabbed Zimbabwe's farmland are nothing but thieves who've lost their power to hold onto what they stole. They're just getting their loot taken back by the people they stole it from, but if you listen to the BBC you'd think these farm seizures are the greatest crime in history. BBC crews have been out there for years, filming every "white-owned farm" that gets handed over to Mugabe's guerrilla veterans, showing long sobby close-ups of the dear old white guys' heartbroken livestock as if this was the real tragedy. They love to focus on the little dogs especially -- boo hoo, little doggy lost its home! Nobody ever mentions the sick stuff that happened to put that farm into British hands in the first place. The Zulus who are necklacing a few poor Zimbabweans now lost out the same way, massacred by British armies using modern weapons in a series of wars a little over a century ago. Until they sent warriors armed with spears up against the redcoats' repeating rifles, they were one of the great empires of the world, moving south in their own wave of conquest. But like everyone who got in the Empire's way, they were slaughtered and forced off the good land by the same holier-than-thou white people who stole all the farmland in Zimbabwe. That's what we have here: two groups of Africans robbed and gutted by the Empire, forced to fight over scraps, while the descendants of the white land thieves still hold all the land and money.	Read
June 2, 2008	Why Is South Africa Being Torn Apart? by Thandokuhle Manzi & Patrick Bond Socialist Worker, Countercurrents.org The low-income black township here in Durban, which suffered more than any other during apartheid, Cato Manor, was the scene of a test performed on a Mozambican a week ago Wednesday morning. Thousands of Zimbabweans and Mozambicans living in Johannesburg and Durban returned across the borders, but most went nearby to police stations, community centers and churches. The notoriously corrupt Cato Manor police station now has several hundred people sheltering in the immediate vicinity, and a large tent was erected for shelter. In fact, when police do come–as to Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church on January 30, where 1500 Zimbabweans had taken refuge–their agenda is often pure brutality. Host bishop Paul Verryn was beaten that evening, and almost all the Zimbabweans were arrested. But no charges stuck. Apartheid-era super-profits for capital were the result. Now, with more porous borders and the deep economic crisis Zimbabweans face (in part because President Thabo Mbeki still nurtures the Mugabe dictatorship), South African corporate earnings are roaring. It is hard to celebrate Africa Day given that, in the meantime, neoliberalism and paranoid nationalism imposed from above have made mockery of Africa’s ubuntu philosophy (we are who we are through others). From below, the thugs who beat up that Mozambican have merely joined a rapidly growing movement in the opposite direction: to barbarism. Patrick Bond has written several books about African history and politics. Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation details how exploitative debt has helped keep sub-Saharan Africa mired in poverty. Fanon’s Warning shows how the New Partnership for Africa's Development counterposed sustainable growth to Africa's rapid integration into the world economy. Ashwin Desai’s We Are the Poors: Community Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa focuses on the Chatsworth community movement against cut-offs of water and electricity.	Read
June 1st, 2008	Federation of Global Governments essential services are offering the " Global Movement to Help " by Germain Dufour Spiritual Leader of the Global Community Summary As a first step to getting help, all nations can and should approve those first three sections on the Scale of Global Rights. The approval would supersede the political and physical borders of participating member nations. The Global Protection Agency (GPA) would have the approval from all member nations to give immediate help, bypassing normal government protocols. Somewhat like an emergency unit but at the global level. That is what those first three sections mean. They represent an efficient and immediate emergency response to help. First, participating member nations need to give their approval to the GPA. The GPA is a global organization much like the World Trade Organization (WTO) for trade between nations, the World Health Organization (WHO) for health, or the European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFT), South American Community of Nations (SACON) for trade and economics. The GPA offers an efficient emergency response to help. The GPA is a short term solution, an immediate and efficient response to help. There are also long term solutions. As with the short term solution, the most significant long term solution is also related to the Scale of Global Rights. The Scale was entrenched in the Global Constitution and is thus the fundamental guide to Global Law. Now the Scale of Global Rights is a long term solution and is also a part of the Global Movement to Help of the Global Community. The Scale was designed to help all life on Earth. What would be preferable is that nations unite amongst themselves to help. Over time, we have seen the creation of the United Nations, the European Union, the South American Community of Nations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Except for the UN, these organizations are mainly concerned with trade and economics. The Global Community offers a more meaningful union in the form of nine or more Global Governments. For instance the South American Community of Nations can be a Global Government by simply accepting the Global Constitution as a way of dealing between member nations. A Global Government is concerned not only with economics and trade, but also with the environment, health, agriculture, energy, food, social, cultural and many other essential aspects. The Federation of Global Governments is the place of meeting between Global Governments. The very first step of the Federation, and maybe the only one for several decades ahead of us, would be the approval of essential services amongst the participating member nations. The Global Community has researched and developed such services and listed them here. All of them are already in operation on a small scale. Introduction Key words: Global essential services, Global Community, Federation of Global Governments, Global rights, Scale of Global Rights, global citizens, Global Parliament, Global Protection Agency (GPA), Global Information Media (GIM), Earth Government, Earth Executive Council, House of Elected Representatives, House of Advisers, Global Ministries, Ombudspersons Office, volunteering for the Global Community, Global Community Assessment Centre (GCAC)	Read
May 29, 2008	Peak Food And Peak Water by Shepherd Bliss Inter Press Service, Countercurrents.org Petroleum supplies are declining as demand increases. This unfolding trend will radically change human habitation on the Earth. Among the consequences will be the drastic reduction of food and fresh water available to people, not only in poorer parts of the globe, but throughout the planet. Industrial societies with their industrial agriculture are dependent upon fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal for many things, including transportation, electricity, and making plastics and other modern essentials. Oil is the main ingredient in conventional food. As the supply of petroleum and other fossil fuels decline Peak Water and Peak Food will follow. In recent months we have seen the return of food riots in the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa. Industrial societies run on electricity powered by the cheap energy of fossil fuels. As the supply of those energy sources decline and world-wide competition for them through wars and other means heighten, more electrical grids will fail, and with them access to both food and water. The pace quickens. The signs are more numerous. We need even more than food security; we need food sovereignty. Who controls your food? Growing at least part of one's own food--and having something to trade--will be essential to survival. Dr. Shepherd Bliss, sbliss@hawaii.edu, teaches at Sonoma State University and has run the organic Kokopelli Farm for most of the last 15 years.	Read
May 16, 2008	Toxic Chemicals Are Maiming Thousands Around the World by Aquene Freechild Environmental Health Fund , AlterNet, The Mix is the Message, Environment Over time, our bodies lose their ability to cope with toxic chemicals, and each exposure has a more severe effect. My first visit to the SIPCOT Chemicals Hub in Cuddalore, India could have appeared deceptively pleasant to outside eyes. It's a beautiful day and there's a good breeze as we drive past the welcome sign for SIPCOT. The air in some places seems far cleaner than the air in nearby Chennai. In some spots it smells sweet, in others, like opening a bottle of ibuprofen -- an antiseptic, medicinal smell. A chemical that will have no visible effect on an adult, can have catastrophic effects on the developing fetus and the young child -- dulling the mind, triggering birth defects, and setting the stage for autism, asthma, allergies and cancer. What may only make an adult nauseated, will cripple the dreams of a child and of a family for a healthy future; a whole and better life. In the U.S., epidemics of cancer, autism, asthma, and reproductive birth defects in baby boys are sky high. Yet the air quality is far better in the U.S. than in most Indian cities. In India garbage piles are burnt spewing whole incinerator's worth of dioxin into the common air. Americans benefit from better environmental standards and enforcement for vehicle and factory emissions. Both India and U.S. have addressed the air quality problems of their cities -- particularly the places where the well-to-do live -- by exporting the sources of pollution -- Texas; Louisiana; Gary, Indiana; and the Port of Los Angeles are cases in point. The urban poor in either country would recognize these lit up refineries, chemical factories and power plants through the stinging fog. Childhood cancer increased .6% a year from 1975-2002 according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. One in almost 7 women will suffer from breast cancer in their lifetimes; hormonally active toxins may be determining cancer outcomes for our children before they are even born. We are just starting to see public discussion of the science of how certain chemicals attach to our DNA and are passed down from generation to generation. No longer is our chemical inheritance limited to in utero exposure and breast milk -- fathers are now known to contribute the effects of their chemical exposures as well. This widespread low level toxic contamination has been building its biological trap for more than four generations. In the U.S. and U.K., one in 250 boys is born with a malformed penis; one in 200 with autism.	Read
May 15, 2008	Food Crisis Hits Fallujah by Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail Inter Press Service, Countercurrents.org Sharp increases in food prices have generated a new wave of anti-occupation and anti-U.S. sentiment in Fallujah. Fallujah faces this new crisis after much of the city was destroyed by U.S. military operations in 2004. The area around Fallujah city, which lies 70 km west of Baghdad, has traditionally been one of the most agriculturally productive in Iraq. Farmers planted tomatoes and cucumbers north of Fallujah, others grew potatoes south of the city near Amiriya. Both areas had plenty of date palm trees and small fruit plantations. Now production is down to a fraction of what it was. Farmers have been struggling with changing times. Residents say they are told of a world food crisis that may be affecting them. But their crisis arises mainly from local factors like shortage of water, fuel and electricity. Whatever the reason, residents simply want relief. "We just want our lives back," said a college student who gave her name only as Nada. "We want to eat, buy clothes, get proper education and breathe pure air. No thanks to Americans for their effort to bring us democracy that killed half of us by their bombs and is now apparently killing the other half by starvation. Can you pass this message to the American people for us?" According to the UN, at least four million people in Iraq do not have enough food, while approximately 40 percent of the 27.5 million population do not have access to clean drinking water. At least 30 percent do not have access to proper health services.	Read
May 15, 2008	Ecological Seeing: Walking In A Sacred Manner by Charles Sullivan Countercurrents.org All beings have impact, and thus all of them leave an ecological footprint. Some of those impacts are in harmony with the biosphere and thus are in accord with the organizing principles of life; whereas others are discordant. Harvesting nuts in a sustainable manner, leaving enough for other animals to use and for the reproduction of the species in perpetuity is an example of harmony; whereas clear cutting and mountain top removal are examples of excess and discord. Some actions compliment life; others diminish it. Over consumption and waste and the endless economic expansion they cause are the governing principle of capitalism and over population; and, like it or not, they fundamentally conflict with the natural order of things. This ideology is counter to the organizing principle of life and it has the effect of diminishing biodiversity and the ecological processes upon which all life depends. Capitalism and reductionism hold that every component of the biosphere are resources when, in fact, they are sources of life. At some point in human history, man began taking things apart in an attempt to gain detailed scientific knowledge and understanding; however, in nature—anything apart from the organic whole is dead. It is easily understood that if someone removes another’s heart from his or her chest cavity, that person will quickly die. The heart is a vital organ that pumps blood to every part of the body; it is a part of a connected whole. Sever that connection and the body collapses and death ensues. Likewise, nature has no unimportant parts. The earth functions like a single living organism of world-size proportions. Everything under the sun exists for a purpose; every organism plays a vital role in the local, regional, and the global ecology. Remove or destroy a part and the whole suffers; one has diminished possibilities, foreclosed options, and subverted natural processes, with consequences to untold numbers of species, including Homo sapiens. Western humans tend to give value to the parts of nature that can be economically exploited, and under values those that cannot. By continually teasing out the separate parts of nature and isolating them from the organic whole, we are undoing the very fabric of life: we are playing god. Thus, we are living in the midst of the sixth great extinction episode in the earth’s 4.5 billion year history, and we are the primary cause. Few Americans are aware of this fact. It does not behoove capitalism to advertise that it is killing the biosphere; it is not good for business. Who wants to be a cancer? And fools believe that business, rather than ecology, makes the world go round. After all, the highway signs leading into West Virginia, the state where I live, are followed by these revealing words: open for business. Whatever happened to wild and wonderful? Charles Sullivan is a nature photographer, naturalist, environmental educator and free-lance writer residing in the Ridge and Valley Province of geopolitical West Virginia. He welcomes your comments at: csullivan@copper.net	Read
May 14, 2008	The Triple Threat: Our Food, Water and Climate Challenges by Shiney Varghese Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy , AlterNet, The Mix is the Message, Environment Food prices rose 4 percent in the United States last year, the highest rise since 1990. All over the world food prices are on the rise. At the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank finance ministers wanted to focus the world's attention on food crisis rather than the credit crisis. There are many factors contributing to this current crisis, including the rising price of oil, deregulated agricultural markets, financial speculation, and biofuels. Another key factor is climate change, which is affecting crop yield and food production. It is time for us to get serious about understanding the way climate change affects water resources for food production and conversely the way agricultural water use is leading to climate change. Agricultural practices geared towards growing export-oriented monoculture crops are chemical intensive and have resulted in high levels of pollution in local water systems. In addition, nitrogen used in fertilizers leaches into water courses increasing the indirect nitrous oxide emissions downstream. This model of production has intensified water use, both in terms of the water going into the growing of the commodities themselves, but also in terms of inter-basin water transfers. Protecting our waters in local watersheds and wetlands and using them judiciously in support of local agricultural systems and livelihood practices, rather than continuing with the current strategy of promoting export-oriented, monoculture, industrial, water-guzzling agricultural systems, is key to reducing the water sector's direct contributions to climate change. Moreover local practices that conserve and enhance local water availability to ensure resilience of rain-fed agricultural systems are necessary as an adaptation mechanism, to meet climate challenges and to help meet food security goals, two of the biggest challenges for developing countries today. It is time to reevaluate our agricultural policies that promote water and energy intensive agriculture. We will have to make some major changes in our agriculture systems to address some of the upcoming climate challenges. Doing so will help us cope with extreme changes in the hydrological cycle and resultant food and water crises many communities and nations are sure to face. Effective and sustainable water management in agriculture in support of healthy food systems needs to be part of the climate solution.	Read
May 12, 2008	The Pentagon Is America's Biggest Polluter by Joshua Frank Health and wellness , AlterNet, The Mix is the Message The U.S. has a grossly corrupted health protection system. The nation's biggest polluter isn't a corporation. It's the Pentagon. Every year the Department of Defense churns out more than 750,000 tons of hazardous waste -- more than the top three chemical companies combined. Yet the military remains largely exempt from compliance with most federal and state environmental laws, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Pentagon's partner in crime, is working hard to keep it that way. For the past five decades the federal government, defense contractors and the chemical industry have joined forces to block public health protections against perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that has been shown to effect children's growth and mental progress by disrupting the function of the thyroid gland which regulates brain development. Perchlorate has been leaking from literally hundreds of defense plants and military installations across the country. The EPA has reported that perchlorate is present in drinking and groundwater supplies in 35 states. Center for Disease Control and independent studies have also overwhelmingly shown that perchlorate is existent in our food supplies, cow's milk, and human breast milk. As a result virtually every American has some level of perchlorate in their body.	Read
May 9, 2008	Portrait Of An Oil-Addicted Former Superpower by Michael T. Klare Tomdispatch.com, Countercurrents.org Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe. Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making. When it comes to the U.S.-Russian relationship, just how much the balance of power has shifted was evident at the NATO summit at Bucharest in early April. There, President Bush asked that Georgia and Ukraine both be approved for eventual membership in the alliance, only to find top U.S. allies (and Russian energy users) France and Germany blocking the measure out of concern for straining ties with Russia. "It was a remarkable rejection of American policy in an alliance normally dominated by Washington," Steven Erlanger and Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times reported, "and it sent a confusing signal to Russia, one that some countries considered close to appeasement of Moscow." For Russian officials, however, the restoration of their country's great power status is not the product of deceit or bullying, but a natural consequence of being the world's leading energy provider. No one is more aware of this than Dmitri Medvedev, the former Chairman of Gazprom and new Russian president. "The attitude toward Russia in the world is different now," he declared on December 11, 2007. "We are not being lectured like schoolchildren; we are respected and we are deferred to. Russia has reclaimed its proper place in the world community. Russia has become a different country, stronger and more prosperous." The same, of course, can be said about the United States -- in reverse. As a result of our addiction to increasingly costly imported oil, we have become a different country, weaker and less prosperous. Whether we know it or not, the energy Berlin Wall has already fallen and the United States is an ex-superpower-in-the-making. Michael Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of the just-released Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books).	Read

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The Editor of the Global Information Media is now accepting articles, letters, reports, research papers, discussions and global dialogues, and messages for publication. This Media is a way to communicate workable sound solutions to problems arising in the world. Let us share our problems and workable sound solutions. Sharing information is a necessity to all life and humanity's survival. Our world is changing fast before our eyes, and we must react quickly and hard to protect all life on Earth. No hesitation! Right now and no waiting! Life on the planet is our first priority. We must protect it at all costs. We, global citizens, fight to protect life on Earth for this generation and the next ones. We are the defenders of the environment and the global life-support systems. We know who the beasts are, and how they destroy the living on our planet. We have rallied together all over the world to protect our home, Earth. But this time we are not alone. We know it all! We know how everything works. And we will do whatever it takes to protect life on Earth. "We the Peoples", the Global Community, are the Earth revolutionaries, and we will protect life on Earth at all costs.

This is the main index for the Global Information Media (GIM)

concerning activities of the Global Community.

GIM was organized with more than sixty sections. Each section allows everyone to participate in the Global Dialogue. You pick an issue, and you participate. All sections may contain any of the following information: abstracts, research papers, notes, outlines, videos and other works of art, posters, articles, letters, press releases, reports, and newsletters. They may also contain discussions, global dialogues, brain-storming exercises on issues, or just email messages from interested participants and groups.

We are delighted to receive new articles for future Newsletters from our readers. It is imperative that, if you give us permission to re-print, all or in part, you include all copyright verification of permission of quote. We do not have a copyright research expert to do this work.

Just so you all know we don't pay anyone, and we don't pay expenses. We do volunteer work for humanity. We expect volunteers to be responsible and accountable of all their actions. We do soft activism work. The Global Constitution shows us how to operate our organization. We follow Global Law as shown in the Global Constitution. All those who do volunteer work for us must become familliar with it and become 'global citizens'. We want our volunteers to be completely loyal to the Global Community and to the values and principles we promote.

The Editor.

Message from the Spiritual Leader of the Global Community

The world is in a state of perpetual turmoil. We are worlds within worlds orbiting in and through each other’s space. Our interactions with one another can be planned and executed in a caring, considerate manner so that all may exist and not destroy the other.

A good place to start this day would be to see the people living in far away places as we see our neighbors. Neighbors are people we should see as people very much like ourselves. Love your neighbors as yourself. Many scientists have shown that our genetic make-up as human beings are not that much different than that of many other life-forms. The reality is that we as people are not that much different from one another. Our education and upbringings are different and created cultural and religious differences. Conflicts originate often because of these cultural and religious differences.

My teaching for the day is to make the effort to understand what make us different from one another and find a way to appreciate those differences. We also have to make the effort of understanding other life-forms in Nature and appreciate the differences. Because of brain capacity, we dont expect other life-forms of understanding us, but we do have a moral responsibility of understanding them and appreciate the differences. God loves diversity in Nature and in Souls. God loves good Souls from all cultures and religions, and from all life. Yes there is a Soul in every living life-form and God loves them too.

Germain
Spiritual Leader of the Global Community
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/Lifeisprotected.htm

Message from the President of Earth Government

Ever wonder why Canadians and Mexicans were never asked in a referendum the kind of relationship we want to have with Americans and the White House? Ever wonder why Canadians and Mexicans dont have a veto power on the White House's policies and legislation, and yet we feed Americans with our resources? How is that possible? What does that do to the world, to all life on Earth, and to the next generations? As of January 30, 2008, the total U.S. federal debt held by the public was roughly $5.1 trillion and the annual deficit roughly $400 billion. They paid very little for our resources and with money they borrowed every year from China. Americans buy our ' home grown corporations ' with money they dont own. When they have not borrowed the money, they have invaded other nations and taken their resources. Blood resources. Blood money.

How can we trust a partner that is basically bankrupted morally and economically? How can we let our governments be dealing with the White House on an agreement such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)?

Soon there will be a meeting in Louisiana State between the governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico to discuss about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). I urge all Canadians and Mexicans to oppose such an agreement. It is fundamentally flawed. Instead, Canada and Mexico must negotiate the establishment of the Global Government of North America (GGNA) with the United States to include all economic, social, cultural, and environmental aspects, and a veto power for each partner, and have that approved in a referendum by all Canadians and Mexicans.

The Global Community Assessment Centre (GCAC) is the Centre of assessment of local/global indicators about the four major quality systems: Environment, People, Economic Development and the Availability of Resources. Ever since 1985, the yearly assessment of these indicators have resulted in giving the Global Community a sense of direction as to ensure a sound future for Earth. Local and global indicators developed by the Global Community have also been used as basic scientific information.

The GCAC is about the restoration of the planet, our home.

In order to do this GCAC will continue to amass a body of scientific information based on formal assessments such as those on Biodiversity, Climate Change, Human Development Report, World Development Report, struggle for Human and Earth Rights, life species Conservation, Health, Economic Analyses, Commission on Sustainable Development, etc., which have bridged the distance between incomplete science and contentious policy.

Furthermore, no one really understands what assessment processes have been most effective in the past, or why others have failed. GCAC’s goal is to explore how assessment of local/global indicators can better link scientific understanding with the progressive implementation of effective policy solutions to global changes. Achieving this integration is fundamental. The Global Community needs this annual assessment to effectively manage global changes.

GCAC has also conducted yearly surveys on global issues. An appropriate voting system was researched and developed by the Global Community through its Global Dialogue. The Global Dialogue is itself a way to ask people from all over the world to tell us their opinions and needs on global issues, and to participate in finding better ways of doing things. That is how we have developed the global concepts, the Global Constitution, the Federation, the Global Protection Agency (GPA), and many other aspects of the Global Community, and what made us the real governing body of Earth. We have researched and developed global laws, and we want everyone to comply with the laws.

You have often been asked to vote on global issues. Once more we ask you to vote. Voting is part of our "we the people democracy". It is a the global referendum. It is direct democracy. You have been giving the freedom to choose. We want you to tell us the choices of your local community on global issues. A process was created for this purpose alone. GCAC manages it. Voting on global issues will now be a part of our monthly Newsletter. Vote now.

Make sure you understand the process of voting. As a start, read about the Global Dialogue 2008 OVERVIEW of the process.

Read the articles included here in this Newsletter. Just background.
Choose a global issue from the list.

You might want to propose your own global issue. Indicate that you do in your email to us.
Then vote yes or no. Send us an email including both the global issue and your choice. We will include your choice in the table below.

The theme of April Newsletter will be about the Global Community Peace Movement. We ask everyone to send articles, comments, projects, etc.

Again in April Newsletter, we will promote the coming Celebration of Life Day on May 26. Millions of people all over the world are celebrating. Tell us what you are planning to do on that day.

Germain Dufour
President
Earth Government

Note concerning personal info sent to us by email

Our policy concerning personal information is simple: we dont show it. That includes phone numbers, fax numbers, addresses and any personal notes. Please do indicate what you consider a personal note as sometime it is hard to tell.

What we show is the work done by participants and authors, and their email addresses if any. We will show any work concerning issues, email discussions, opinions, articles, letters, reports, works of art, research papers, discussions and global dialogues, and messages for publication.

And also please note that our computer harddrives will not be containing personal info either. This is because of the damage hackers can do.

Global Community year 2007 accomplishments

Our greatest accomplishment in year 2007 has been the streamlining of the participation process in the Global Dialogue.

The Global Community has developed a process for discussion on issues. Our Global Roundtable and Group Discussion by email are a very efficient way for sharing information and discussion. So I thought to include your messages for discussion along with many others. Others will come later.

I have included your email messages in several locations.

Now go to the Portal at http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/Portal.htm and from there click on the Global Dialogue 2008 icon which then takes you to the lead page of the global dialogue at
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/2008GIMglobaldialogue.htm
On this lead page notice the image with five arrows (like the one shown here).

The five arrows show you the five different ways of participating in the global dialogue.

What may interest you most are the

1) Group Discussion by email and
2) Global Roundtables

Actually both a Group Discussion by email and a Global Roundtable are supplementing one another. Connect with either one. It shows a Main Index in either page.

Once you are in a Main Index take a look at the 'Listing of Global Roundtables 2008' or the 'Listing of 2008 Group Discussions by email ', and connect
with any of the following roundtables or email discussions:

R1 = Democracy for the people (459,460,482,487,482)
R2 = Global governance (491,501,502,514,557)
R3 = Global Economic Model (466,497,531,540,549)
R4 = Law of property ownership (465,467,468,474,490,526)
R5 = Global Movement for Taxation (504,506,509,518,537,538,547,552)
R6 = Global commons (499,500,513,534,535,541,546,562)
R7 = Earth management (492)
R8 = The planet - Life - Soul of Humanity symbiotical relationship (458,476,477,478,544)
R9 = The meaning of 'a global community' in the context of 'Who owns the Earth?' (462,463)
R10 = The meaning of 'the Global Community' in the context of 'Who owns the Earth?' (457,464,469,470,471,475,479,480,484,553)
R11 = Global Community Peace Movement and land ownership (483,493,528)
R12 = The primary social adjustment of the Global Community is a denial of justice (485,516)
R13 = The huamn right to land and other natural resources (488)
R14 = Scale of Earth and Human Rights and land ownership (494,498,503,523,527,529,533)
R15 = Labour force, taxation and land ownership (507,508,512,532,539,548,550,551)
R16 = Global Community, taxation and land ownership (472,510,511,515,517,521,522,524,542,545,558,559)
R17 = Enforceable global law (519,563)
R18 = Health of a person and health of the Earth (520)
R19 = Global development, taxation and land ownership (473,486,525,536)
R20 = Land ownership and the 'new way of doing business and trade' (489,530,554,560)
R21 = Agriculture, taxation and land ownership (555,556)
R22 = Environmental protection, taxation and land ownership (495,496,561)
R23 = Poverty eradication and land ownership (481,505,543)
R24 = Security for all life on the planet and land ownership (461)
R25 = Climate change, global warming and land ownership (495,496,561)
R26 = Social harmony and land ownership (459,460,482,487,482)
R27 = Social justice and land ownership (519,563)
R28 = Religion and land ownership (458,476,477,478,544)
R29 = Global citizenship and land ownership (462,463)
R30 = Earth Government and land ownership (491,501,502,514,557)
R31 = Global Governments and land ownership (491,501,502,514,557)
R32 = Global Constitution and land ownership (491,501,502,514,557)
R33 = Agency of Global police and land ownership (483,493,528)
R34 = Global sustainability and land ownership (466,497,531,540,549)
R35 = Global civilization and land ownership (457,464,469,470,471,475,479,480,484,553)
R36 = Preventive actions against polluters and land ownership (495,496,561)
R37 = Earth resources management and land ownership (492)
R38 = Sustainable cities and land ownership (473,486,525,536)
R39 = Global economy, taxation and land ownership (466,497,531,540,549)
R40 = Food production, manufacturing and land ownership (466,497,531,540,549)
R41 = Mining and land ownership (492)
R42 = Natural resources protection and land ownership (492)
R43 = Biodiversity, Earth ecosystems, global life-support systems, and land ownership (492,495,496,561)

and by reading the section 'Work from participants and authors with a summary or abstract of each work', you find that the listing and description of participants and authors with links to their work.

Now go back to the Portal and click on the Earth. There you have the special roundtable on 'Who owns the Earth?'

If you decide to participate your message or work will be included here:
       http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/2008GDDemocracy.htm
       http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/2008GDgovernance.htm
       http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/2008GDGEM.htm
       http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/2008GDlawownership.htm
       http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/2008GDtaxation.htm
       http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/2008GDcommons.htm
       http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/2008GDmgmt.htm

What is important here is the possibility of organizing a major roundtable on 'Who owns the Earth?' with group discussion by email.

Let me know if this is OK for you.

Keep in touch.

Germain

Germain Dufour
Spiritual Leader of the Global Community
President
the Global Community
Global Community Earth Government

Celebration of Life Day, May 26, 2006

Celebration of Life Day is May 26 every year, a day to say
thank you God for the gift of Life on Earth

Dear friends,

On and around May 26 of every year millions of people around the world join together in a global call to celebrate Life, the gift to the universe from God.

On May 26, 2008, the Global Community is asking all Peoples of the world to participate in this celebration of Life in your own community. The following project is appropriate to everyone.

From the experience in your life and local community tell us:

*    Why are you important to this "Global Community"?
*    Why is it important to you?
*    What do you like about it?
*    What bothers you about it?
*    Anything need to be done?
*    What is really good there?
*     What is very very important?
*     What is not so important?
*     What is not good?
*     What is needed to keep the good things?
*     What could make them even better?
*     What could you do to keep the good things good?
*     Could they help get rid of bad things?
*     What unimportant things need to go?
*     How could you help get rid of these things?

to sustain Earth, humanity and all life.

Please send us the following information:

1.     What are the most important issues that would allow your community become more sustainable? Over the past several years, many communities have held Life Day dialogues to determine the answer to this question. We look forward to hearing from all of you.

2.     A brief story of success in your community from the last 10 years in regard to a sound sustainable development.

3.     A picture related to the above or to a Life Day event.

4.     A sample of your idea of the Earth Flag.

We will gather this information from groups all over the world and compile it into a comprehensive report. Your work will be shown during the new Global Dialogue 2006. Please mail or email your ideas, pictures and descriptions, Earth Flag samples to:

Germain Dufour, President
Earth Government

Visit our website for more details concerning the Celebration of Life Day.

Celebration of Life Day

On May 26, as part of the Global Community Peace Movement,

the Human Family,we will be rejoicing with all Peoples of the world , and all life, for the annual Celebration of Life Day. Life is the most precious gift ever given by God to the universe and this event needs to be celebrated.

At the early stage of the formation of the Earth, and a while later, all the conditions for the formation of life were present, and life was created to better serve God. Life was made of matter and every particle of that matter had a Soul that merged with all the others. A Soul is a part of the Spirit of God, His consciousness, and is a living, loving presence, a Being. A Soul can merge with other Souls and become one Soul, and it can evolve as well. The first spark of life was the cause for the formation of a unique and independent Soul to better serve God. Throughout the different evolutionary stages of life on Earth, Souls have guided the step-by-step evolution of life and kept merging with one another to better serve God. They guided the evolutionary process in small, incremental ways over a period of several billion years. Many groupings of Souls became more complex than others as they were much brighter beings than other groupings, but all serve God in their own special way.

One unique and most wonderful grouping was the grouping that made the Human Soul. God loves the human Souls a lot because of their wonderful qualities. Over the past thousands of years, through their Souls human beings became conscious of God in many different ways. Religions of all kinds started to spread on Earth to adore God and pray. Different groupings of Souls affected human beings in different ways and Peoples today have different religious beliefs. God is like a river feeding plentifully and bountifully all lifeforms and plants. There are many pathways leading to the river. They are God's pathways. God loves diversity in Nature and in Souls. God loves good Souls from all religions.

Different religions have different ways to love, adore and pray to God. And God's Heaven exists. Heaven on Earth is different from God's Heaven. To be in Heaven with God will mean a Soul has left the matter of the universe forever to enter God's Heaven.

The Divine Will or Will of God is the most powerful force of the universe and is pure spiritual energy. The Will of God is for life to reach God, God’s Pure Light, in the best possible ways. Life is the building block through which Souls can have a meaningful relationship with God. By observing the Universe, the galaxies, we are observing and studying God. We are seeing His magnificence, His greatness, and His complex making. There is more to the Universe we observe today, that is, there is more to God, much more. God is self-existent, eternal and infinite in space and time. Follow God's Word. God's Plan was revealed to humanity a short while ago.

The Divine Plan for humanity is:

a) for everyone to manage Earth responsibly, and
b) about to reach the stars and spread Life throughout the universe and thus help other Souls to evolve and serve God in the best possible ways.

Humanity’s higher purpose is to serve God by propagating life throughout the universe. Humanity will evolve spiritually to fulfill God's Plan. The human species has reached a point in its evolution where it knows its survival is being challenged. The human species knows through the Souls and now that all human Souls have merged together and formed the Soul of Humanity, we will find it easier to fight for our own survival. The Soul of Humanity does not make decisions for us and can only help us understand and guide us on the way. In the past, human beings have had some kind of symbiotical relationship

(which is something common in Nature between lifeforms in an ecosystem) with the Souls, and now with the Soul of Humanity. We work together for both our survival and well-being. Cooperation and symbiosis between lifeforms (especially human beings) on Earth and between lifeforms and their Souls and the Soul of Humanity have become a necessity of life. We help one another, joint forces, and accomplish together what we cannot accomplish separately. Several billion years ago this symbiosis between matter and Souls resulted in the making of complex biochemical systems. Symbiosis has worked throughout the evolution of life on Earth and today, the Soul of Humanity has decided to be more active with humanity by purifying Souls. The Soul of Humanity shows us the way to better serve God.

The Soul of Humanity is helping to bring about the event of Peace

in the world. Knowing that Earth is a spiritual entity as well as a physical entity in space and time in the universe we begin to have a better relationship with Earth and with all its living inhabitants. This way Earth management

will become a spiritual and a natural process whereby each person is responsible and accountable for its management the best they can. Peace in the world and Earth management have for too long been in the hands of and affected by government and business leaders, in the hands of a few people on the planet, as opposed to being in the hands of all of us (7 billion people on Earth) working together to keep our planet healthy. We are the keepers of the Earth.

The Soul of Humanity will help us:

*     resolve problems, concerns and issues peacefully;
*     reinstate the respect for Earth;
*     work with humanity to keep Earth healthy, productive and hospitable for all people and living things;
*     bring forth a sustainable global society embracing universal values related to human and Earth rights, economic and social justice; respect of nature, peace, responsibility to one another;
*     protect the global life-support systems and manage Earth;
*     evolve spiritually to fulfill God’s Plan; and
*     enter God’s Heaven, His Spirit, His Pure Light, His universal mind and global consciousness.

We have the responsibility of managing Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within the Global Community. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as oppose to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.

Life exists on millions of other planets in the universe and our species got to be who we are today through the evolutionary process. Other lifeforms in the universe may have evolved to be at least as advanced as our species. Their Souls may even be more complicated than ours. They may have merged a trillion times more than the human Souls. They may have evolved as well.

We the Peoples of the Global Community, the Human Family, are reaffirming faith in the fundamental human and Earth rights, the Scale of Human and Earth Rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small. We the Peoples implies every individual on Earth, every community and every nation. Earth management is now a priority and a duty of every responsible person on Earth. The Global Community has taken action by calling the Divine Will into our lives and following its guidance. Divine Will is now a part of the Soul of Humanity to be used for the higher purpose of good and life's evolution. We will learn to serve humanity and radiate the Will of God to others.

As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning. This requires a change of mind and heart, and calling Divine Will to come into our life to show us the way. It requires a new sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. We must develop and apply the vision of a sustainable way of life locally, nationally, regionally, globally, and within ourselves throughout life. Our cultural diversity is a precious heritage and different cultures will find their own distinctive ways to realize the vision. We must deepen and expand the global dialogue that generated the ongoing collaborative search for truth and wisdom.

Life often involves tensions between important values. This can mean difficult choices. However, we must find ways to harmonize diversity with unity, the exercise of freedom with the common good, short-term objectives with long-term goals. Every individual, family, organization, and community has a vital role to play. The arts, sciences, religions, educational institutions, media, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and governments are all called to offer creative leadership. The partnership of government, civil society, and business is essential for an effective global governance based on global concepts and the Scale of Human and Earth Rights.

In order to build a sustainable global community, each individual, each local community, and national governments of the world must initiate their commitment to the Human Family.

Let our time be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life. Let our expanding consciousness blend with that of the Soul of Humanity.

Humanity welcomes the "Belief, Values, Principles and Aspirations of the Global Community" (see the Global Constitution

on our website) with Faith in the Divine Will and without fears such as the fear of change. Humanity seeks meaningful experiences and embraces the future for the better. Divine Will has caused the event of the Global Community.

Our time is the age of global cooperation and symbiotical relationships. There are many different kinds of symbiotical relationships. Symbiotical relationships exist between nations of the European Union. It is mainly an economic base symbiotical relationship. Other types of symbiotical relationships maybe created all over the world between communities, nations, and between people themselves. The Global Community, the Global Governments Federation, and the Global Government of North America are examples. They may be geographical, economical, social, business-like, political, religious, and personal. There has always been symbiotical relationships in Nature, and between Souls and the matter of the universe to help creating Earth and life on Earth to better serve God.

The Global Community has begun to establish the existence of a meaningful global co-operation all over the planet. National governments and large corporations have taken the wrong direction by asserting that free trade in the world is about competing economically without any moral safeguards and accountability to peoples and the environment. The proper and only way is for free trade to become a global cooperation between all nations. Surely, if we can cooperate in fighting against terrorism, then we should also be able to cooperate in fighting against the effects of the type of free trade and the emergence of the planetary trading blocks as applied by national governments members of the World Trade Organization(WTO). It has already been shown (see Newsletters on our website) that these effects will be disastrous socially and environmentally and are a direct threat to the existence of life on Earth. The Global Community is proposing a solution that the process of trading within the planetary trading blocks be changed from a spirit of global competition to that of global economic cooperation. This is the new way of doing business, the new way of life.

The Global Community has made clear that globalization and planetary trading blocks should be serving the Human Family and not the other way around, the people around the world serving the very few rich individuals. The September 11 event was the result of bad trading of arms and oil and the absence of moral responsibility and accountability in our way of doing business with the Middle East nations. By applying proper moral safeguards and accepting responsibility and accountability of all products (arms and oil in this case), from beginning to end where they become wastes, each corporation would make free trade and globalization serving the Human Family. The September 11 event was also a turning point in human history and indicated the end of the last superpower in the world and the birth of the Global Community. Over its long past history trade has never evolved to require from the trading partners to become legally and morally responsible and accountable for their products from beginning to end. At the end the product becomes a waste and it needs to be properly dispose of. Now trade must be given a new impetus to be in line with the global concepts of the Global Community. When you do exploration work, and develop, manufacture, produce, mine, farm or create a product, you become legally and morally responsible and accountable of your product from beginning to end (to the point where it actually becomes a waste; you are also responsible for the proper disposable of the waste). This product may be anything and everything from oil & gas, weapons, war products, construction products, transportation and communications products and equipment, to genetically engineered food products. All consumer products! All medical products! All pharmaceutical products! In order words, a person (a person may be an individual, a community, a government, a business, an NGO, or an institution) becomes responsible and accountable for anything and everything in his or her life.

Certainly an important action has been for the Canadian Government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol as it is. No more waiting! Time for action is now! We are all responsible for the creation of global warming, and there are plenty of observable effects. Greenhouse gases are accumulating dangerously in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, and temperatures are rising globally due to these activities. Climate changes have to be manage without delays and the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is only the beginning of a long fight for the protection of life on Earth. There is much more to be done to even come close to what we have to do. The ratification was only the beginning to help save the next generations.

Global consumption is a very important aspect of globalization. Consumers should be concerned with the impact of their decisions on the environment but also on the lives, human and Earth rights and well-being of other people. Since one of the key functions of families as a social institution is to engage in production (selling their labour in return for wages) and consumption (using those wages to buy goods and services), then the role of families has impacts on sustainable consumption and development. Corporations are required to expand their responsibilities to include human and Earth rights, the environment, community and family aspects, safe working conditions, fair wages and sustainable consumption aspects. Global Community has summarized the rights of every person on Earth by developing the Scale of Human and Earth Rights.

The scale will eventually be replacing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Global Constitution established all rights.

Just as corporations have social responsibilities and so do consumers in societies. Consumers are socialized to improve the quality of their lives. Quality of life is a multi-dimensional, complex and very subjective concept. For instance, someone who has changed their consumption habits to better ensure that their choices will make a better quality of life for themselves, the environment and future generations, may be seen by others as having a lower or inferior quality of life since they have removed themselves from the materialistic mainstream characteristic of our consumer society. Someone may feel that an absence of violence and abuse in their life leads to a higher quality of living even though they have fewer tangible resources, money, or shelter; peace of mind and freedom from abuse has increased the quality of their daily life relative to what it was like before. There are universal quality of life values which lead to "human betterment" or the improvement of the human condition. In addition to the value of species survival (human and other living organisms), they include: adequate resources, justice and equality, freedom, and peace or balance of power. A better quality of life for all people of the Global Community Earth Government is a goal for all of us and one of our universal values.

Global Community found that an adequate level of health care is a universal value as well as a human right. We expect adequate health services to be accessible, affordable, compassionate and socially acceptable. We believe that every individual of a society is co-responsible for helping in implementing and managing health programmes along with the government and the public institutions.

Being unified under the Soul of Humanity, Divine Will, God the Spirit and the Human Family dissolve all barriers and expand our global consciousness. We become more whole and complete within ourselves and as a group. Our common Spirit is able to resolve planetary problems in a coherent way. One common 'global Vision'

allows us to see how all the parts of the whole relate to each other. We have the right relationship with one another, with all lifeforms and Earth itself, and with the Soul of Humanity, the Divine Will and God the Spirit.

On May 26, let us all celebrate life in our heart, mind and Spirit. Let us thank God for the gift of life.

Cultural Appreciation Day August 22 of each year

On August 22 of every year the Global Community celebrates the Global Cultural Day, the Cultural Appreciation Day. The event's theme is "Culture, Values and Social Development."

Noting that culture and development are not mutually exclusive, event organizers are asked to promote a union between historical preservation and future local - global growth. The Global Community is rich with tradition and art. Culture is certainly tangible - churches, temples and monuments; and intangible - heritage with performing arts, fine arts or visual arts. Every community is based on a society distinctly different from any other country and its people.

The Cultural Appreciation Day celebration.

The Cultural Appreciation Day celebration promotes the meaning of culture, the real nature of Humanity and what inhibits its development.

It is for all, regardless of education, age, race, political or religious beliefs. The idea of the Cultural Appreciation Day celebration is that Humanity in truth is limitless, and that there is a unity underlying all the apparent diversity in our daily lives.

Activities

Activities during the celebration may include mask making, cooking, singing, music, dance/drama, and puppet making by and for the children.

The day provides vendors, live entertainment, children's activities, and food in celebration of the various cultural groups.

The Cultural Appreciation Day celebration occurs at the same time and is an important part of the Global Exhibition.

For the third year since the first time ever promoting of a Global Exhibition, there is a Global Exhibition at the time of Global Dialogue 2008, and at the same site in Nanaimo. It is also occurring everywhere else in the world along with Global Dialogue 2008. People of all nations are asked to organize a Global Exhibition during the period August 17 - August 22 of each year.

Contact Information
Telephone: 250-754-0778
Postal address: 186 Bowlsby Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada V9R 5K1
Electronic mail: globalcommunity@telus.net

Website: http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/
Webmaster: gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com