Ibero-American News Digest

NAWAPA Is the Solution to Hunger in Mexico

Aug. 29 (EIRNS)—The likely PRI Presidential candidate for the 2012 Presidential elections, State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto, told the national convention of the National Peasant Confederation (CNC) that Mexico had to return to a policy of food self-sufficiency, because "we have great dependence on the world market for our supply of food, and we can't ignore the fact that tomorrow ... the borders of those countries could close and leave our country with shortages."

The last time that Mexico had such a policy of food self-sufficiency, was in the early 1980s under President José López Portillo. More recently, it was also promoted by Cong. Francisco Rojas, the head of the PRI's congressional delegation. The Peña Nieto campaign—despite the candidate's own shallowness and his numerous unsavory political alliances—has become a rallying point for what remains of nationalist forces in the PRI party, which have been largely shattered and demoralized by the British Empire's destruction of Mexico since López Portillo's Presidency.

Peña Nieto also said that a new Green Revolution (in its original, human sense) was needed, with an emphasis on using technology to increase agricultural productivity. Green Revolution creator Norman Borlaug worked in Mexico for years, including in the state of Sonora, where the political movement that is promoting the Northwest Hydraulic Plan (PLHINO) and NAWAPA as the only solution to the country's food problem, is widely identified as strong "Borlaug-istas."

Nothing less than a U.S.-led NAWAPA reactivation of the North American economy will work to pull Mexico back from the abyss, and help feed its hungry population as well as return the country its lost sovereignty.

'Congratulations, Brazil!' Interest Payments Have Stolen Everything!

Sept. 2 (EIRNS)—The same day as Brazil's Health Minister Paulo Macedo announced that Federal budget cuts require drastic cuts be made in the National Health Service upon which millions depend for their health care, including shutting some emergency centers and possibly also hospitals, the national Association of Machinery Producers (ABIMAQ) published a statement by its president, Luiz Aubert Neto, tearing into the monetarist policy which turned Brazil into an exemplar of why the global monetarist system must be buried, once and for all. Brazil has the dubious distinction of feeding the insane global financial "carry trade," by maintaining the highest real interest rates in the world.

Wrote Neto: "Congratulations Brazil! It's now more than 2 trillion reals spent only on the payment of interest on the public debt.

"That's it! Over the last 17 years (eight of the Cardoso government, eight of Lula, and one of Dilma [Rousseff]), Brazil has already spent nearly 2.04 trillion reals only on the payment of interest on the public debt. Has anyone tried to imagine what 2 trillion of something represents? By way of illustration, in the entire Milky Way there are about 300 billion stars. Imagine, then, what 2 trillion might mean, in this case of reals.

"We're dealing with the biggest transfer of income in the history of world capitalism, towards a single sector of the economy, the financial sector....

"A rich and developed country is built when investments in three sectors are treated as priorities: education, health, and science and technology.... To give you an idea, in this same period (the last 17 years) ... barely 897 billion reals [were invested in these three sectors], less than 45% of what was spent on the payment of interest on the public debt.... To give you an idea, there are 36 million people in Brazil who don't have access to potable water; 86 million who don't have sewage....

"The SELIC [interest] rate and its consequences are the greatest cancer that we have in Brazil, and everything described above is basically the result of a policy favoring the vampires of the financial market (and their defenders) who benefit from the blood that Brazil produces."

Argentina Proposes a South American Space Agency with Brazil

Sept. 5 (EIRNS)—Speaking in São Paulo, Brazil Aug. 29, Argentine Defense Minister Arturo Puricelli proposed to his Brazilian counterpart, Celso Amorim, that Argentina and Brazil cooperate to create a South American space agency. Puricelli was attending the seminar sponsored by Brazil's Defense Ministry on "Defense Industry Transformation as an Inducer of National Defense."

Amorim, a former foreign minister, warmly received the proposal, although he emphasized that its consideration would fall under the jurisdiction of Brazil's Science and Technology Ministry, which oversees the country's space agency.

Recently Dr. Conrado Varotto, head of Argentina's space agency, CONAE, reported that his agency considered the creation of a South American space agency as a top priority for CONAE, and that cooperation with a number of nations in the region for this purpose is already underway.

"It would be vital for our region to have a South American space agency," Puricelli stated. "We should unite our technological forces," to this end.

The Argentine defense minister also emphasized the importance of developing an independent satellite-launching capability. "Our communications are dependent on services that are satellite data from countries in other regions, and that's why we should join forces to be able to reach space by means of a South American space agency," he said. "To have a South American satellite launcher? What's to stop us?" The challenge for South American governments, he said, is to create a South American space agenda "and have our own satellites by 2025."