One World, Many Peaces

The Nile Treaty, Water Security and the Future of Peace in Africa

The Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement (or Nile Treaty, under the auspices of the Nile Basin Initiative, NBI) seeks the establishment of a permanent Nile River Basin Commission through which member countries will act together to manage and develop the resources of the Nile, the world's longest river. To many who visit, the Nile and its fertile valleys are a beautiful backdrop for a cruise or vacation. But for those who live around and depend upon the river, it is that and the source of their physical survival and cultural heritage.

Formally launched in February 1999, the NBI provides an institutional mechanism, a shared vision, and a set of agreed policy guidelines to provide a basinwide framework for cooperative action, according to the Nile Basin Initiative website. The initiative's policy guidelines define the following as the primary objectives of the NBI:

•To develop the Nile Basin water resources in a sustainable and equitable way to ensure
•Prosperity, security, and peace for all its peoples
•To ensure efficient water management and the optimal use of the resources
•To ensure cooperation and joint action between the riparian countries, seeking win-win gains
•To target poverty eradication and promote economic integration
•To ensure that the program results in a move from planning to action.

The NBI's Strategic Action Program represents Nile riparian concerted approach to achieving sustainable socioeconomic development in the basin through “equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.” The Strategic Action Program provides the means for translating this shared vision into concrete activities through a two-fold, complementary approach:

•Lay the groundwork for cooperative action through a regional program to build confidence and capacity throughout the basin (the Shared Vision Program)
•Pursue, simultaneously, cooperative development opportunities to realize physical investments and tangible results through sub-basin activities (Subsidiary action programs) in the Eastern Nile and the Nile Equatorial Lakes regions.

So far, five countries have signed the Nile Treaty: Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and most recently, Kenya. However, two countries key to the viability of the whole project, Egypt and Sudan, have so far vehemently opposed the Nile Treaty on the grounds that it will detract from their economic interests in the river. 

Nonetheless, Egypt, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda belonged to the Technical Co-operation Committee for the Promotion of the Development and Environmental Protection of the Nile Basin (TECCONILE), founded in 1992, a forerunner to the NBI.

As the African population grows with the rise of industrialism, and bigger cities replacing villages, water security and agriculture will be of paramount importance. The Nile Treaty gives reason to hope that these potential conflicts will not turn violent, but no guarantee.

The Nile remains a current event after thousands of years of human dependency on it, and will create a future of peace only if humans can work their problems out before they become violent. 

Selenium Cells: The Secrets of Next-Generation Solar Energy Revealed

By Rosalind Sanders

Scientists at the American Institute of Physics are seeking to identify superior light-catching substances in order to better transform more of the sun's power into carbon-free electric power. And their learned labors are now bearing fruit that could change the way the world gets its energy forever: cheaper, faster and less harmfully to the environment.
 
A new study in Applied Physics Letters (published by the American Institute of Physics) describes how solar energy could potentially be collected by using oxide materials that have the element selenium. A team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, inserted selenium in zinc oxide, a relatively low-priced component that could make more cost-efficient use of the sun's power.
 
The research team determined that even a relatively small level of selenium, just nine per-cent of the mostly zinc-oxide base, dramatically enhanced the material's performance in absorbing light.
 
The principal author of this analysis, Marie Mayer (a fourth-year College of California, Berkeley doctoral student) says that photo-electrochemical water splitting, that signifies employing energy from the sun to cleave water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, could potentially be the most revolutionary future application for her work. Using this reaction is key to the eventual creation of zero-emission hydrogen powered automobiles, which hypothetically will run only on water and sunlight.

The conversion effectiveness of a PV cell is the proportion of sunlight energy that the solar cell converts to electricity. This is very important when discussing Photovoltaic products, because boosting this efficiency is vital to making Pv electricity competitive with more standard sources of energy (e.g., fossil fuels).
 
For comparison, the very first Photovoltaic products converted about 1%-2% of sunlight power into electric energy. Today's Pv devices convert 7%-17% of light energy into electric power. Of course, the other side of the equation is the dollars it costs to make the PV devices. This has been reduced over the years as well. In fact, today's PV systems generate electricity at a fraction of the cost of first PV systems.
 
In the 1990s, when silicon cells were twice as thick, efficiencies were much smaller than today and lifetimes were reduced, it may well have cost more energy to produce a cell than it could generate in a lifetime. In the meantime, the technological know-how has progressed significantly, and the energy repayment time (defined as the recovery time required for generating the energy spent to produce the respective technical energy systems) of a modern photovoltaic module is normally from 1 to 4 years depending on the module type and location.
 
Normally, thin-film technologies - despite having comparatively low conversion efficiencies - obtain considerably shorter energy repayment times than standard systems (often < 1 year). With a normal lifetime of 20 to 30 years, this signifies that current solar cells are net energy producers, i.e. they generate significantly more energy over their lifetime than the energy expended in producing them.
 
Rosalind Sanders is the publisher of, and writes for, The Solar Panel Review, which focuses on helping homeowners reduce expenses with solar energy.

Win $1000 in this Peace Writing Contest (And Make A Difference, Too)

Friends of the Arc (FOTA) is a nonprofit advocacy organization that believes that the Arc, developed by the RAND Corporation (a problematic sponsor, on which more below) and Suisman Urban Design, has the potential according to them "to ensure a viable Palestinian state and a Middle East that knows sustainable peace, prosperity, and security."

FOTA has announced a $1,000 prize for the best essay by a college or graduate student, in the form of a policy brief to President Barack Obama, on the topic of the usefulness of RAND Corporation’s Arc concept for the current Middle East peace negotiations.

According to RAND's website: "Palestine’s crumbling infrastructure presents a major challenge for a new Palestinian state. Yet it also provides an opportunity to plan for sustainable development and to avoid the environmental cost and economic inefficiencies of haphazard, unregulated urban development that might otherwise result from the need to accommodate a rapidly growing population. The Arc, RAND’s concept for developing the physical infrastructure of a Palestinian state, provides such a plan." More information about the Arc is available here.

Submissions should respond to the following prompt:

With the resumption of direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, many observers doubt that more purely political discussions will finally produce a comprehensive peace settlement; they suggest that some paradigm-changing idea is needed to break the deadlock. You have been asked to brief President Obama about the Arc project. Prepare a policy brief making the case that the Arc plan is just such a compelling idea, and that with U.S. support, it could help negotiators achieve a breakthrough for peace.

Submissions are due October 8, 2010, at 6 pm ET and should be no more than 1,000 words in length. Before crafting their submissions, participants should view the 30-minute Arc video and other resources at www.friendsofthearc.org. College and graduate students from any country are eligible to apply.

One World, Many Peaces deems it necessary to point out the RAND has close ties to the military, that the Arc project is being developed without the express consent of the Palestinian people, and that it is all-too remeniscent of the Soviet-style infrastructure development projects that brought so much of post-colonial Africa and Eastern Europe close to ruin. These could be topics for consideration for the peace writing contest.

We asked the contest's organizers how they resolve the paradox with the close military ties and this "peace" project, here is what they had to say:

"The RAND Corporation certainly has its origins in conducting studies and R&D (R&D is the origin of the name RAND) for the US Air Force.  These days, it remains a publicly funded think tank for conducting studies and performing R&D.  But, now its funding is much more diversified with over half of its funding going to topics such as health, education and development.  The Arc study was actually privately financed by philanthropists interested in how development strategies could spur peace, prosperity and security in the Middle East.  RAND, which brought on world renowned designer Doug Suisman through his urban design firm Suisman Urban Design, conducted the study to answer the questions posed by the sponsors – just as they do any other study.  RAND only conducted a study.  By charter, RAND cannot and does not advocate or implement.  As such, RAND is not “helping negotiators achieve a breakthrough for peace”.  But Friends of the Arc, which is a worldwide network of individuals who see the power of the Arc concept in inspiring peace, prosperity and security in the Middle East, is working to advocate the Arc as something that could help negotiators to a breakthrough for peace."

The winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize and will be featured on our website. FOTA reserves the right to post all essays on its website and to send one or more to President Obama. For all competition details, please visit www.friendsofthearc.org/essaycontest

A Turning Point in China-U.S. Relations, But Too Late?

Below the global mainstream media radar, an urgent meeting between Chinese and U.S. officials recently took place in Beijing. The topics discussed amongst the senior officials included the now obstinately standard currency and trade disputes on both sides, but also and more importantly the underlying military tensions and arms race between the two countries. This was, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, a get-to-know-you meeting, though inasmuch it can be considered a turning point in early 21st-century China-U.S. relations. But has it come too late?

"The key point of the talks is not to make significant agreements, but to improve understanding of each other's stance. If tensions can be reduced to some degree and confidence increased, that is an achievement," said Shi Yinhong, an expert on the U.S. at Renmin University in Beijing. He emphasized that U.S.-China relations are troubled, but the worst seems to be over and both sides are headed toward reconciliation. Many in the international relations field would consider this outlook overly optimistic and especially premature, given the preliminary nature of the discussions.

What's most troubling is that they are still preliminary. It has been obvious for decades that China is the rising global superpower along with India, yet relations between the two are strained, as are those with the declining superpower, the U.S. China becoming the world's second largest economy, beating Japan, was a wake up call, but only because almost everyone was sleeping. Chinese state media has criticized U.S.-South Korea military exercises in the Yellow Sea and U.S. claims about South China Sea territory, in addition to U.S. arms sales to Chinese rival Taiwan and an Obama meeting with Chinese nemesis the Dalai Lama. For it's part, China's increases in military spending dwarf that of others globally.

There can be no doubt that the peace and prosperity of the world in the 21st century depends on open communications channels and cooperation between China and the U.S., and as a step in that direction this meeting is indeed a turning point. Even if it is too early to determine their outcomes, it has come both too late and at last. "Continuing to develop a positive and comprehensive China-U.S. relationship contributes to our two countries' major interests in peace, security and development," China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said. We couldn't agree more.

Just for Fun? Peace Games and Toys for Everyone

Most of us can't remember our childhood without at least passing thought of war-related games and toys, from action figures to first-person shooter videogames, to military strategy board games  and beyond. But can you imagine what the world would be like now and can be in the future with next-generation game and toy makers taking up the cause of peace in their designs? Here are just a few fun examples for everyone:

A Force More Powerful: The Game of Nonviolent Strategy, by York Zimmerman Inc.: Remove corrupt regimes, secure the right to organize free trade unions, organize for women's rights and self determination for ethnic minorities, force an end to aggressive foreign policy, and hold free and fair elections in the groundbreaking peace videogame.

Give Peace a Chance 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle, by Aquarius: An awesome 1000-piece puzzle featuring beautiful peace images forming a mosaic peace sign,  measures 20 x 27 when completed, full color with snug fitting pieces and 100% officially licensed merchandise.

PeaceMaker: Play the News. Solve the Puzzle (Mac or PC), by ImpactGames: Inspired by real events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict using real news footage and images, two games in one: play both the role of the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President.

Decorate-Yourself Peace Sign Canvas, by DM Creations: Personalize your own artwork with this paint-your-own Peace Sign on canvas, includes painting guide, 12"x12" canvas, paints and paint brushes.
 
Conflict Resolution Game Theory, by Ichiro Nishizaki and Masatoshi Sakawa: Presents important concepts in noncooperative and cooperative games, advances in game theory in fuzzy and multiobjective environments, and several game representations and solution concepts. Also demonstrates the computational methods used to find these solutions.

However, it is important to keep in mind that few if any peace games and toys makers give a portion of their profits towards actual peacebuilding efforts. This could be take as a form of peace profiteering, similar to war profiteering, just as clothing manufactures like Gap and Victoria's Secret use the peace sign without paying any royalties or licensing to any peace organization. Still, wouldn't the world be a better place if future generations grew up playing with peace games and toys instead of war ones?

China + Taiwan = China + Hong Kong

It is quickly becoming clear that China is going after Taiwan like a corporate takeover, predator after prey, dog in heat, you pick the analogy. And it has a well established precedent of re-integration in Hong Kong, which has since spurred economic development on the mainland in a way Chinese leaders can only be wet dreaming of with Taiwan. Here's the story of the secret love affair that is being consummated economically and politically as you read this, and why the U.S. is the loser lover.

Like all love affairs, the relationship was rekindled earlier last year after a bitter fight, meaning an atrocious civil war, lasting some fifty years over nothing so important, ideological-economic systems. Taiwan was on the side of pro-U.S. democracy and capitalism, where Hong Kong was on the side of post-imperial (British) democracy and, yes, capitalism. China, it goes without saying, was on the side of communism, but now in a form so perverted (or improved?) that Mao would turn over in his grave, though I believe Marx may have approved. As they say, Marx wouldn't be a Marxist today.

The make-up first took the form of a historic opening dialogue between senior officials in July of 2009, which mainstream media largely ignored, let along its historic significance. Only the people directly involved probably know the diplomatic tact and the preparation it took for that meeting to come to fruition. After reporting this on One World, Many Peaces, the next major event we reported on took place a few months ago, with an actual Hong Kong official playing go-between (or mariage counselor) with China and Taiwan. He was, by all accounts except a few protestors, successful.

How do we know this? Because just a weeks ago, China and Taiwan signed a historic two-way trade deal. The governments say the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, signed in the Chinese city of Chongqing, will give Taiwanese companies tariff benefits in China that are similar to those received by Southeast Asian countries under a separate trade pact with China. All that was heard about in mainstream western media was the street protestors, who really cares that this is as significant as Japan's turn towards China and away from the U.S., too.

The coup de grace for the Chinese and the fatal flaw for the U.S. is the primacy the former places on economics and the latter on politics. China is winning hands down on this point not only in Asia, but in Afghanistan and Africa too. So unless Americans want to tout democracy and starve in the near future, they better figure out what China's mutated Marxism is all and start doing it too.

First, Do No Harm: Lessons from the BP Gulf Oil Spill Ecocatastrophe

By Robert Koehler

As Planet Earth continues to hemorrhage crude oil from its wound — with a worst-case estimate of as much as 100,000 barrels a day — we grope, beyond our anger and guilt, simply to imagine what damage we have done in the pursuit of human empowerment.

This is bigger than BP, blameworthy though the company may be. This is bigger than any sort of “us vs. them” scenario we can think of. It’s a crisis of civilization, which means all of us.

If we drive, use energy, buy products wrapped in absurd, throwaway plastic — if we live at all — it cuts across our lives. The roots of this disaster, and, God help us, the ones to come, are political and corporate and governmental, and they are also intensely personal. We all collude in society’s “addiction” to oil, or what I would call its sense of entitlement: This is our planet. We’re the boss.

What we’re truly addicted to, or at least inextricably caught up in, is what my friend Jim Oberg calls “doomsday capitalism” and its need for reckless, unlimited economic growth. With this system operative, we trend toward war, empire and exploitation.

Maybe, as we look at the graphics of this disaster — pelicans, for instance, covered in black goo — we begin to grasp our immaturity as a species. Let’s say we do survive ourselves and create a sustainable, eco-harmonious way to live and prosper: What we’re presently churning up in our clumsiness and techno-entitlement is a warning to the future of how not to be. We’re scaring up a whole new mythology, and new definitions of sacrilege.

I know nowhere to start except here. And I know of nothing less to reach for than . . . salvation.

I use this language not to promote existing religions, which far too often collude in the problem, but to reach deep into the human core, into the raw material of existence, to find new commonality with one another and to discover new — or perhaps I mean to rediscover ancient, uncompromised and uncorrupted — principles to live by.

The rebuilding of human society cannot be superficial. It must begin with a realization that those in power mostly have no idea what they’re doing; they operate with crippling short-sightedness, in a context of eerily limited self-interest. (“History, we don't know,” George Bush said to Bob Woodward, regarding future assessments of the Iraq war. “We’ll all be dead.”) We’re, like, on our own here.

Knowledge that this is the case leads either to despair and cynicism or translates into a deeper, more profound sense of personal responsibility. I opt for the latter, understanding that present-day U.S. democracy is comfortable with a spectator citizenry: entertained, isolated and disengaged. We don’t pursue the sort of awareness that would propel us into troubled discontent, and we’re not supposed to. But it’s our only choice. And while this sort of awareness doesn’t translate into easy or obvious action, maybe that’s OK.

First, do no harm.

What if that phrase, which is the byword of many professions, became a sort of operating principle with which to proceed, individually and collectively, into the future? Even if it’s an impossible standard, wouldn’t we be far better off attempting to live by its implications, or at least reflecting on them and debating them, than by mockingly dismissing them?

Our most destructive enterprises all depend on moral relativism and a suspension of this value, allegedly in service to a greater good, which generally fails to materialize. I submit that the “greater good” argument is a convenient scam, pulled out of a hat time and again by those intent on gaming the system for limited, self-serving ends.

Yet it springs eternal — certainly as the ultimate argument for war, but also for anything that might generate a profit.

Harvey Wasserman, for instance, writing about the resurgence of the nuclear power industry and its backing by the Obama administration, notes that, “Like BP, their builders would enjoy financial liability limits dwarfed by damage they could do.”

Nuclear power has been able to recast itself as a green alternative to coal and oil only by minimizing or dismissing the problem of radioactive waste and the dangers of meltdown. “If the White House has a reliable plan for deploying and funding a credible response to a disaster at a reactor that’s superior to the one we’ve seen at the Deepwater Horizon, we’d sure like to see it,” Wasserman writes.

As I read this, my thought is that the forces that ultimately determine the future of this industry will be responding to something more short-sighted and “pragmatic” than my proposed operating principle: First, do no harm.

The United States is both an aggressive empire and a throwaway society. We wage open-ended wars that are mostly for the sake of resource control, and we package our groceries in “disposable” plastic bags, given away by the billions, which are made from the primary resource we seek to control.

The crisis is upon us. Our paradoxes have come home to roost, and they’re covered with oil.

Photo Credit: The National Guard

Disarmament Talks Blend Economics and Ethics for Greece and Turkey, in Arms Race

In the midst of the worst debt crisis in recent history, Greece has received unprecedented diplomatic, economic and disarmament overtures from neighbor and longtime foe, Turkey.

Late last week the two countries held joint cabinet meetings in Athens, with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan talking directly with embattled Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou about how the two countries can halt and reverse their arms races as a step towards Greece regaining a sound economic footing. Of course, Turkish aspirations to join the European Union (EU) were not far in the background, if seldom mentioned.

"I honestly feel national shame each time I am forced to buy weapons we do not need — based on an objective and correct estimate of the dangers the world as it is holds for Greece," said Deputy Prime Minister Theodore Pangalos to a Greek-Turkish business conference being held during Erdogan's visit.

"I know that on the other side of the border too the Turks are also buying weapons they do not need ... due to an imaginary threat that arises from a political confrontation, which can be solved and must be solved." All in all, twelve agreements were tendered between the two Premiers, including trade deals in the billions of Euros.

The animosity between Greece and Turkey dates back hundreds of years to when the Ottoman Empire that disintegrated into modern Turkey ruled Greece with an iron fist. After World War One, by which time Greece was again independent, the Turkish government expelled the large Greek population living throughout the country, tightening the tensions even more.

Then came the conflict over the island Cyprus, never fully resolved. Relations between the two countries improved after Greece provided aid to Turkey after its devastating earthquake of 1999. Armed conflict flared three times between 1976 and 1996, with military tension easing for the first time only now.

The point is that debt crises are usually tied to escalation in military tensions, not de-escalations as is the case here. As an increasing number of commentators draw parallels between what is happening to Greece now and what may happen to the U.S. with its own debt crisis, the demilitarization spurred by debt between Greece and Turkey is something to be studied first, and celebrated later.

As a current event creating the future, what  Papandreou and Erdogan are up to is surely deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel Economics Prize.

A Tale of Two Neo-Colonialisms: China and the U.S. in Africa

There's a new "Scramble for Africa" taking place as you read this, one that rivals that which gripped and stripped the people and resources of the continent in the hands of Europeans in the late nineteenth century. But now, it's being waged in unprecedented twenty-first century ways that build upon those of the late twentieth, with two main players not a handful as before: China and the U.S.

Taking a closer look at what's been happening since the waves of supposed decolonization of the 1950s-1970s makes it clear that there are two very different kinds of neo-colonialism making inroads now, and they're not shaping up to be what you may expect from the two superpowers, the one old, the other even older.

This U.S. neo-colonialism actually being in the early 1800s, shortly after Americans through off the British yoke they tried to impose their own by supporting the nascent Liberia. The pattern has repeated itself innumerable times since: remain sovereign in name, while we supply you with capital, ideology and military support. During the Cold War, programs like the Peace Corps put a palatable veneer on what was then called neoliberalism in the next few decades, code name for the exportation of capitalism and democracy, whether the receiving country likes it or not.

The results have been mixed at best, and totally off target at worse, causing some of the worst humanitarian crises in human history while the upper classes of the oil-rich countries benefit and the lower classes continue to suffer, as they always have. Meanwhile purportedly global financial institutions, actually the U.S. and its allies in disguise, like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) lend African countries sums and at rates they cannot possibly repay just as they "give" them foreign aid that gets sucked dry by men with guns supplied by the U.S. off before it reaches its most desperate targets.

As U.S. neo-colonialism began, China was doing its best not to be colonized by the West, only to be so by the Japanese in the early and mid twentieth century, often considered worse than Nazi occupation. By the time the Communist takeover was complete in the 1950s, China had such serious internal problems that looking outside its borders was practically impossible, let alone doing something. That situation changed when the toil and trouble of the billion or so Chinese made their country a manufacturing, and now middle class consumer, global powerhouse.

Ironically, for the past two decades, China has been anything but communist or neoliberal in its neo-colonialism, instead preferring to make huge direct investments in the infrastructure and resources of dozens of African countries without the pretenses and airs of democracy and military security (at least so far for the latter) Americans like to put on in doing exactly the same thing.

Together, American and Chinese neo-colonialism in Africa are likely to dominate Africa for the foreseeable future, or until such time as they come into conflict with one another. When they do, it will not be a battle of ideology that takes place, but a battle of the businesses and organizations that each country has and will put in place on the continent. That is, unless the pitiable African Union shapes itself up to be the continental leadership it can be and itself throw off all yokes, once and for all.

Or, better yet, keep the yokes that work as current events, make them their own and then disappear, and discard those that don't, at which point we will be in a future created by U.S. and Chinese neo-colonialism in Africa which cannot yet be predicted.

New 'Prison Valley' Shockumentary Offers Rare Window into Growing Industry

If you're looking for what may become the next big shockumentary, here it: Prison Valley, directed by David Dufresne and Philippe Brault and produced by Alexandre Brachet, the group who also brought us the critically acclaimed Gaza/Sderot. Certainly not for the weak at heart or mind, the much-anticipated film (at least in certain circles) is sure to make a stir and cause long-term trouble for the blooming American prison industry. It's slogan could be: One town, thirteen prisons. Terrible but true.

The film, which will be featured at this year's International Documentary Film Festival (IDFF) in Amsterdam, is already raising eyebrows in France, where one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century, Michel Foucault, made the study of prisons into a full-fledged activist discipline aimed at changing, and even perhaps eliminating, them. At least as we know them today, which is the focus of the film, revolving around the prison industry that for the most part sustains the 36,000 inhabitants of Fremont Country, Colorado, and contains the lives of more than 7,000 inmates, mostly African-American men.

"Using the Riviera Motel as the base of operations, the visitor moves around Prison Valley to investigate the background of the prison industry," the IDFF reports. "Along the way, he or she meets the people involved, including the sheriff, a journalist, and a prison guard. But the visitor is never alone, because other visitors are always "visible," and at various points in the story all the visitors and those affiliated with the industry can access "interactive zones." Foucault's famous analysis of the panopticon, social media style.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, as is well known, is among America's biggest investors in the prison system (perhaps trying to extend his successful hair-splitting legalist international record at home?). He won't like this movie. Depending on what your views on the current prison system in the U.S. are, the film could be very good or very bad news, but nothing in between. A trailer of the film is available here.

See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons