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China Pushes Burma Pipelines Amid CriticismAntoaneta Bezlova, Inter Press Service
BEIJING, Sep 9 (IPS) - Despite fresh international criticism of Beijing's backing for as unpopular a regime as the Burmese junta, China sees its alliance with the country's military as a matter of simple economic expediency and is determined to forge ahead with controversial joint dual oil and gas pipelines that will ensure greater energy security for its robust economy.
This month sees the first digs on the mammoth infrastructure project that will connect China's northwestern province of Yunnan with Burma's western coast.The proposed gas pipeline will transfer gas from the offshore Shwe gas fields in Arakan state all the way to the capital Kunming of Yunnan province and possibly further inland in China. The twin oil pipeline will be used to transfer oil shipped from the Middle East and Africa bypassing the strategically vulnerable Malacca Strait shipping route.
After Burmese activists released a detailed report Monday on the project forecasting it will trigger social unrest and create a public relations fiasco for the Chinese company involved, a state-run newspaper in Beijing rejected the allegations, saying the project was unlikely to be stopped.
The Shwe Gas Movement, a group of Burmese exiles in Bangladesh, India and Thailand, also said the junta's recent offensive against ethnic rebels near the pipeline route showed that the regime had no concerns about providing stability for investors, which could translate into great security risks for the project undertakers.
"China is not afraid of the threat and criticism," the 'Global Times' – a paper published by the state news agency – quoted an anonymous Chinese official familiar with the issue. "When Myanmar (Burma's official name) was constructing a pipeline to Thailand in the 1990s, Myanmar activists also criticised the government, but the voice is barely heard now."
Outside observers though believe the new pipeline project carries greater potential risks than the pipeline conveying gas to Thailand, which they described as a "vehicle for a proliferation of human rights abuses" during its construction and after – such as the widespread use of forced labour and forced evictions.
"Such practices, in the likelihood they would re-occur with respect to this latest pipeline, could very well be the spark to set off a broader conflict," said Sean Turnell, a Burma expert at Macquarie University in Australia. "Of course, exacerbating matters is the fact that Chinese energy firms have a less than stellar record themselves when it comes to the ruthlessness with which they pursue energy deals."
China's largest oil and gas producer, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), is due to start the construction of the dual pipelines at a total length of nearly 4,000 kilometres in September. The deal is expected to provide the Burmese military, which has ruled the country with an iron grip since a 1962 coup, with at least $29 billion over 30 years.
Although Burma ranks 10th in the world in terms of natural gas reserves, its per capita electricity consumption is less than 5 percent of neighbouring Thailand and China, as its government exports most of the country's energy resources.
The Shwe Gas Movement report, titled 'Corridor of Power', charges that gas revenues in the past have been lavishly spent by the junta on building a new capital and satisfying the extravagant wishes of its ruling generals.
"People across Burma are facing severe energy shortages, and this massive energy export will only fuel social unrest," said Wong Aung, spokesperson of the Shwe Gas Movement. "These resources belong to our people and should be used for the energy needs of our country."
China – the exclusive buyer of Burma's Shwe offshore gas reserves — sees the pipelines as one of the pieces in a greater energy domino played by Beijing to secure its energy supplies.
Burma's pipelines constitute part of CNPC's four-fold strategy to avoid China's dependence on imported oil shipped by sea. Since 2004 Beijing has negotiated the construction of overland pipelines in four different directions, connecting Chinese energy buyers with suppliers in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Burma.
"The greatest significance of Burma's pipelines for China lies with the possibility for solving our reliance on the Malacca shipping route," said Long Changwei, expert at China University of Petroleum. "Once it is built, the pipeline will be a reliable alternative for oil flowing in from the Middle East and Africa. Even if there is a crisis in the Malacca Straits, China's exposure to it will be greatly minimized."
In addition, the development of a deep sea port on Burma's western coast will provide China with access to the Bay of Bengal — a strategic advantage in its attempts to expand its sphere of influence over the Indian Ocean.
Yet there are flip sides to this new energy corridor. The proposed pipelines run through the north-eastern Shan State, where as recently as late August, ethnic minority armies fought against the regime. The clashes between the Burmese military and the Kokang rebels that sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing across the Chinese border have raised the possibility that there might be more social strife and armed conflicts if the pipelines project gets underway.
CNPC is going to have to be "very careful," said Macquarie University's Turnell. "What was once a simple deal to extract cheap gas for China could blow up into a diplomatic crisis should the pipeline aggravate the incipient conflict between ethnic groups long backed by China, and a regime in Burma that was long thought of as likewise a client of China."
In a longer term, China's willingness to help an unpopular regime stay in power could turn out to be short-sighted as it encourages latent anti- Chinese sentiment. Chinese communities that have worked very closely with military regimes in South-east Asia and become immensely rich in the process have been targeted before, as evidenced by violent anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia when the Suharto regime fell in 1998.
The Shwe Gas Movement report suggests that China would be in a better position to trade with Burma under a stable government. It also argues that the current military rulers' political roadmap does not aim at bringing peace and political stability to the country.
Immigration Reform:
The Call Heard Round the CountryMarcelo Ballvé, New America Media
NEW YORK, Nov 19 (New America Media) - Organizers described them as immigration reform "house parties."Across the country last night, in churches, schools, immigrant support centers and private homes, backers of immigration reform gathered around telephones (the speaker phone turning the device into a de-facto radio) as Hispanic U.S. legislators laid out the strategy for pushing a reform of the immigration system in 2010.
On the call were Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.; Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y.; and Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. Immigrant rights advocates from various parts of the country also spoke.
In effect, the event was a massive conference call, connecting thousands of immigration reform supporters to one another and to Washington, D.C. decision makers.
The "house parties" came less than a week after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the White House was preparing to push the U.S. Congress on immigration reform early in 2010.
On the call, the legislators urged listeners -- 16,000 telephone lines were active during the event, and translation services were provided for tens of thousands of participants -- to call their members of Congress and ask for action on immigration reform.
Immigration reform rally in the United States. © nathangibbs (flickr)The immigrant organizers who spoke on the call urged listeners to call their legislators and use their cell phones to text the words "Justice" or "Justicia" to the number 69866. In the coming months, they would receive, via cell phone, updates about actions they might take to advance immigration reform.
The call, organized by the Washington, D.C.-based Reform Immigration for America campaign, a coalition of pro-reform organizations, was first conducted in English, and 15 minutes later, in Spanish.
Reps. Grijalva, Gutierrez and Velazquez spoke on both calls.
At Make the Road New York, an immigrant services center in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, the first call was heard during an evening English class, the phone on speaker mode placed on a chair in the middle of the room.
"We're going to make sure that the families that were broken by our system have a pathway to reunification," said Rep. Gutierrez, near the end of the call.
Pietro Idrovo, a 43-year-old Ecuador-born welder, was among those in the classroom.
Although some of his classmates were undocumented immigrants, Idrovo said he was a U.S. citizen and had voted in U.S. elections since 2000.
He said the call had made him feel more engaged with the immigration issue. "Since I came to this country, I've been hearing about immigration, but I had never paid that much attention because I came in legally and I'm a citizen," he said. "But that doesn't change this fact -- I'm an immigrant too."
After the call, the English teacher scrawled a list of items on the writing board, while her immigrant students, young and old, looked on.
"Call Congress," the teacher wrote. Below that, she wrote, "Text Justice."
The students dutifully took notes and began pressing the keys on their cell phones.
Meanwhile, the twang of guitars and wheeze of accordions drifted in from a nearby room -- a neighborhood music group was meeting at the same time.
Then the teacher read out the phone number to powerful New York Sen. Charles Schumer and urged her students to give him a call. Again, the students put their cell phones to work.
Fifteen minutes later it was time for the call in Spanish. Some 50 to 60 immigrants were gathered in a large, brightly painted room, and members of the center's staff handed out plates of arroz con pollo and beverages.
During the call, participants from far-flung states like Arkansas and Iowa dialed in and asked questions of the legislators.
The call to action was repeated: Immigrants should prepare for a concerted grassroots push on immigration reform in the first half of January.
"We're committed to having immigration reform be considered by Congress in the next few months," said Rep. Velazquez.
Among those drifting out of the room after the call was Rosa Y., a 34-year-old Ecuadorean who did not want to give her last name because she does not have papers.
She said she had two children in Ecuador whom she had not seen in nine years, and was mainly interested in immigration reform to have a chance to be with them.
"They should give us a chance to get our papers, so that we can work and help our children get ahead," she said.
World Forests Rapidly DisappearingFrom: Friends of the Earth International
ROME, ITALY, MARCH 16 -- In a reaction to the alarming data released today in the 2009 State of the World's Forests report by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Friends of the Earth International and the Global Forest Coalition, two leading networks of environmental and Indigenous Peoples' Organisations, called on world governments to take immediate action to halt deforestation and forest degradation
Deforestation rates continue to be shockingly high in many countries despite increased awareness that forests -which host more than 70% of terrestrial biodiversity- play a key role not only in sustaining the livelihoods of more than one billion people but also in mitigating climate change.
The environmental networks called on the FAO Committee on Forestry to stop promoting plantations and urged governments to immediately halt the conversion of forests into biofuel plantations in their countries.
Governments should also recognize urgently Indigenous Peoples' territories, promote community-based forest management and restoration, ban illegal logging and related trade, and implement immediate deforestation moratoria.
The FAO report notes that the expansion of large-scale monocultures of oil palm, soy and other crops for agrofuel production has been a key factor in the failure to halt deforestation.
The report also states that "the potential for large-scale commercial production of cellulosic biofuel will have unprecedented impacts on the forest sector."
"If cellulosic biofuel leads to a strongly increased demand for wood, it will have a dramatic impact on the world's forests, especially in regions like Africa and Asia, which are already facing increased pressure on forests due to the failure to combat illegal logging and the rapidly rising demand for wood in general," said Andrey Laletin, chairperson of Friends of the Siberian Forests and focal point for North and Central Asia of the Global Forest Coalition.
Another driver for deforestation is illegal logging - 20% of the timber supply comes from illegal sources. "Europe remains one of the main markets for illegal timber despite a 2003 EU action plan to combat illegal logging and related trade. Strong legislation to halt illegal timber trade and to decrease Europe's devastating impact on the world's forests should be adopted as a bare minimum - there is no time to lose," said Friedrich Wulf from ProNatura / Friends of the Earth Switzerland.
According to the FAO report, illegal logging could increase due to the global economic crisis, as it might cause a contraction of the formal forestry sector.
An additional worrying trend is the massive replacement of forests by large-scale tree plantations in many countries.
"Plantations are not forests", said Isaac Rojas, coordinator of the Forest and Biodiversity Program of Friends of the Earth International. "All over the world, plantations destroy the lands and livelihoods of local communities and Indigenous Peoples, as well as biodiversity and water resources. They also store far less carbon than natural forests."
"As they provide very little employment for rural people, tree plantations are also a major cause of rural depopulation and a further shifting agricultural frontier, thus causing the destruction of forests elsewhere," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition.
"By actively promoting monoculture tree plantations, FAO itself is partly responsible for this global trend of replacing biologically diverse forests with straight rows of usually non-native trees," she added.
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