Stop the poverty to stop the terrorism

Trade and Industry Secretary PATRICIA HEWITT talks to GARY JONES

AMERICA risks fuelling terrorism by failing to keep its promise to help the world's poorest countries, Cabinet Minister Patricia Hewitt warned yesterday. Recruiting terrorists will be easier unless the US and Europe finally adopt fair and open trade policies, said the Trade Secretary. But the Bush administration appears to have forgotten the lessons of September 11, when it expressed willingness to reach out to impoverished nations, she said.

In an interview with the Daily Mirror she said: "There certainly are people in the US and in the administration who understood that very carefully after September 11. "I think they should remember that now. It was a time when the world pulled together. I think America realised that if we were going to have an international coalition against terrorism, it had to be underpinned by an international coalition for economic growth and prosperity. There is a huge amount more to do and American leadership on this issue is vital if we are to create a new economic world order." She added: "This is a make or break time for the future of our world. If Europe and America don't change then we will deepen the gulf between the developed and developing world. We will make the world a poorer place and we will also make the world a more dangerous place. Although terrorism is not necessarily the result of poverty - there are many factors behind international terrorism - there is no doubt at all that it is much easier to recruit people to terrorism when there is massive injustice and poverty in the world."

Speaking in the run-up to the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September she called for richer countries to make dramatic changes to improve the lot of 1.2billion people in the world who survive on 60p a day. She expressed frustration at the slow progress in bringing down trade barriers, tariffs and agricultural subsidies in the US, Europe and Japan.

Ms Hewitt said it was "crazy and immoral" to spend £1billion in the last 10 years subsidising sugar production in Europe while it is produced for half the price in Mozambique. "So our consumers are paying more than they need and our taxpayers have to pay to subsidise the sugar beet farmers. Mozambique, which is one of the poorest countries in the world, can produce sugar at half the cost of Europe. Yet we refuse to buy their sugar because we want to keep our own farmers in business. We then export our subsidised sugar to developing country markets and we lock the Mozambican farmers out of those markets as well. It is a double whammy and a scandalous situation."

Eighteen months ago trade ministers from 142 countries tried to hammer out a new world trade deal at Doha in the Gulf state of Qatar. But progress since then has been disappointingly slow. Talks at the World Trade Organisation HQ in Geneva are stalled over subsidies, access to cheap medicines and special rules for the developing world. And it is feared September's meeting may end in disappointment and recriminations - like the last one in Seattle when poor countries walked out in disgust. Ms Hewitt said: "If we don't deliver what we promised at Doha then the gulf between the developed and developing countries will open up again. "At a time of great international danger and lingering divisions over Iraq we would be very foolish indeed if we let this opportunity pass us by."

She called for a cut in the level of protectionist tariffs. "If tariffs in the developed and developing world were halved, developing countries would gain £150billion a year - three times what they get in aid. "And the number of people living in poverty would reduce by over 300million by 2015, a substantial prize that will make trade fair as well as free if we can achieve it. The real challenge to Europe and America is to open up our markets because the best route out of poverty for people in poor countries is to trade their way out of poverty. They need access to our markets."

Ms Hewitt said the £31billion spent each year to fund Europe's Common Agricultural Policy put £8 or £9 a week on the average food bill for the British family. She said the Government is committed to reform Europe's lavish agricultural subsidies, which encourage farmers to overproduce and dump their produce on third world markets, ruining their farmers. "We can't afford to go on supporting our rural communities and our farmers by paying them to grow products that are simply uncompetitive around the world. We can support them and help them diversify ... but we don't have to do it at the expense of sugar farmers in Mozambique and poor farmers around the world. “

“There is a growing swell of opinion that this injustice has to stop. We need it for the sake of our own consumers and our own environment but above all we need it for the sake of the poorest people in the world. If we can create a system of world trade that is fair as well as free we will make developing countries better off and as the world economy grows we will be become better off as well. We will be able to buy cheaper food, which will good particularly for poor families. The great challenge is to start closing the gap between rich and poor. The way to do that is to create an international trade system that is fair as well as free. People who are desperately poor and dependant on handouts from the rich world can start to wean their way out of poverty."

Questions and Tasks:

1. What are the roots of terrorism in your opinion?

2. Can fighting poverty stop terror?

3. What is the best way to end the era of terrorism? Military or peaceful actions?

4. Who must decide what to do? A superpower, an alliance or whatever?

5. Do you approve of violence as means of protesting?

6. How should terrorists be punished?

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Australia apologizes to the ‘lost generation’

Aborigines organized breakfast barbecues in the Outback, schools held assemblies and giant TV screens went up in state capitals as Australians watched a live broadcast of their government Wednesday apologizing for policies that degraded its indigenous people.

In a historic parliamentary vote that supporters said would open a new chapter in race relations, lawmakers unanimously adopted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's motion on behalf of all Australians. "We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians," Rudd said in Parliament, reading from the motion. The apology is directed at tens of thousands of Aborigines who were forcibly taken from their families as children under now abandoned assimilation policies.

"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry," the motion said. "And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry." Aborigines remain the country's poorest and most disadvantaged group, and Rudd has made improving their lives one of his government's top priorities.

In 2002 data collected on health status reported that Indigenous Australians were twice as likely as non-indigenous people to report their health as fair/poor and one-and-a-half times more likely to have a disability or long-term health condition (after adjusting for demographic structures). In 1996-2001, the life expectancy of an Indigenous Australian was 59.4 years for males and, in 2004-05, 65.0 years for females, approximately 17 years lower than the Australian average.

According to the 2001 Census, an Indigenous Australian is almost three times more likely to be unemployed (20.0% unemployment) than a non-Indigenous Australian (7.6%). The difference is not solely due to the increased proportion of Indigenous Australians living in rural communities, for unemployment is higher in Indigenous Australian populations living in urban centres (Source: ABS). The average household income for Indigenous Australian populations is 60% of the non-Indigenous average.. Indigenous Australians are 6-fold more likely to be homeless, 15-fold more likely to be living in improvised dwellings, and 25-fold more likely to be living with 10 or more people.

Indigenous Australians gained the unqualified right to vote in Federal elections in 1962, but it was not until 1967 that they were counted in the population for the purpose of distribution of electoral seats. Only two Indigenous Australians have been elected to the Australian Parliament, Neville Bonner (1971-1983) and Aden Ridgeway (1999-2005). There are currently no Indigenous Australians in the Australian Parliament.

ATSIC, the representative body of Aborigine and Torres Strait Islanders, was set up in 1990 under the Hawke government. In 2004, the Howard government disbanded ATSIC and replaced it with an appointed network of 30 Indigenous Coordination Centres that administer Shared Responsibility Agreements and Regional Partnership Agreements with Aboriginal communities at a local level.

In October 2007, just prior to the calling of a federal election, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, advocated a referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution. Reaction to his surprising adoption of the importance of the symbolic aspects of the reconciliation process, was mixed. The ALP supported the idea. Some sections of the Australian public and media suggested it was a cynical attempt in the lead-up to an election to whitewash Mr Howard's poor handling of this issue during his term in office. David Ross (Central Land Council) said "its a new skin for an old snake."