The UN General Assembly opened last week with an electrifying
speech by President Dilma Rousseff who slammed US cyber-snooping
activities with President Barack Obama in the audience.
INTERNET spying by the US government became a major issue at the
United Nations General Assembly last week when political leaders heard a
blistering attack by the Brazilian president who was visibly angry
about how her country and her own office have been targets of
cyber-snooping activities.
She called the US action a breach of international law, a grave
violation of human rights and civil liberties, and a disrespect for
national sovereignty.
It was condemnation in the strongest terms at the highest political
forum in the world, with UN and commercial TV stations beaming the
speech live.
The surveillance issue, which has caused ripples with continuous
revelations in the media emerging from whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s
files, has now reached the UN.
And in the most spectacular fashion. It was an extraordinary scene
when President Dilma Rousseff gave the opening speech among the
government leaders gathered for the annual General Assembly.
Traditionally, Brazil’s president speaks first, followed by the US
president. Thus, Barack Obama could not avoid hearing her speech.
Many had expected Rousseff to touch on the Internet spying issue,
since she had strongly criticised the US when the media broke the news
on specific instances of US Internet surveillance on the Brazilian
President’s office, other departments, including the Brazilian Mission
to the UN, and the national oil company Petrobas. She recently cancelled
a state visit to Washington.
But her speech and performance was far beyond what was anticipated.
With the atmosphere electrifying in the packed hall of leaders, the
Brazilian president cut out the usual diplomatic niceties while
addressing one of the most sensitive issues to have emerged globally in
recent years.
She called it “a matter of great importance and gravity ... the
global network of electronic espionage that has caused indignation and
repudiation in public opinion around the world.”
Rousseff described the Internet spying as creating “a situation of
grave violation of human rights and of civil liberties; of invasion and
capture of confidential information concerning corporate activities, and
especially of disrespect to national sovereignty”.
She started by laying the foundation of her argument: “A sovereign
nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign
nation.
“The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be
guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another
country. The arguments that the illegal interception of information and
data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained.”
She said she fought against authoritarianism and censorship, and thus
has to uncompromisingly defend the right to privacy of individuals and
the sovereignty of her country.
“In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom
of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the
absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the
relationship among nations,” she added.
Her speech touched on three actions. First, Brazil had asked the US
for explanations, apologies and guarantees that such procedures will
never be repeated.
Second, Brazil is planning actions to defend itself from the spying.
It will “adopt legislation, technologies and mechanisms to protect us
from the illegal interception of communications and data”.
Third, she proposed international action, saying: “Information and
telecommunication technologies cannot be the new battlefield between
states. Time is ripe to create the conditions to prevent cyberspace from
being used as a weapon of war, through espionage, sabotage, and attacks
against systems and infrastructure of other countries.”
Stating that the UN must play a leading role to regulate the conduct
of states with regard to these technologies, she called for the setting
up of “a civilian multilateral framework for the governance and use of
the Internet and to ensure the effective protection of data that travels
through the web”.
She proposed multilateral mechanisms for the worldwide network, based
on the principles of freedom of expression, privacy and human rights;
open, multilateral and democratic governance; universality; cultural
diversity; and neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and
ethical criteria, with no restrictions allowed on political, commercial,
religious grounds.
Delegates who hoped that Obama would respond were disappointed. He
did not refer to the Brazilian president’s address made only a few
minutes before.
He made only a passing reference to the issue, saying: “we are reviewing the way we gather intelligence.”
Rousseff’s speech came at the right time and venue, since people
worldwide have been increasingly troubled or outraged by the extent of
cyber-spying revealed by the media.
The issue is even more serious for developing countries. Media
reports indicate that there are double standards, with the US spying
programme requiring a special court procedure for opening data on
individual US citizens, while there is no such procedure for residents
outside the US, and thus the surveillance is comprehensive for the world
outside the US, with the citizens, companies and government offices all
being targets.
Moreover, the media reports show that the US actions do not stop at
surveillance. There are also schemes to engage in cyber actions or
attacks.
Rousseff’s speech at the UN indicates Brazil plans follow-up moves in
the UN for setting up a multilateral system to regulate the use and
misuse of the Internet. This would be a timely international response to
the recent revelations.
Contributed by Global Trends, MARTIN KHOR
The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.
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Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Monday, September 30, 2013
Monday, September 24, 2012
New global currency wars warning!
The recent money-pumping measure by the United States has been criticised by Brazil as a protectionist move which will adversely affect developing countries.
But the Fed’s measure to revive “quantitative easing” is not being welcomed by all. It has instead caused anxiety in some developing countries.
Their fear is that a large part of the massive amounts of money being unleashed into the financial markets may fail to boost the US economy but will find its way as unwanted capital flows into some developing countries.
Bernanke announced that the Fed would purchase US$40bil (RM124bil) per month of mortgage-linked assets from the market, and do so continuously until the jobs situation improves.
The hope is that cheap and abundant money will encourage entrepreneurs and consumers to spend more and spark a recovery.
However, previous rounds of such quantitative easing did not do much for the US economy.
A large part of the extra funds were placed by investors not in new US production but as speculative funds in emerging markets or in the commodity markets, in search of higher returns.
In developing countries that received the funds, adverse effects included an inflation of prices of property and other assets, as well as appreciation of their currencies which made their exports less competitive.
On the other hand, the US dollar depreciated because of the increased supply of US dollars and the reduced interest rates, making US exports more competitive.
Brazil has been in the forefront of developing countries that are critical of the US money pumping. Last week, the Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega called the US Fed measure a “protectionist” move that would re-ignite global currency wars.
Mantega told the Financial Times that the third round of quantitative easing would only have a marginal benefit in the United States as the already high liquidity in the United States is not going into production.
Instead, it is really aimed at depressing the dollar and boosting US exports.
Japan has also decided to expand its own quantitative easing programme in response to the US move, and this is evidence of tensions and a currency war, said Mantega.
In previous rounds of liquidity expansion in recent years, Brazil has been one of the developing countries adversely affected by sharp currency appreciation, which reduced its export competitiveness and facilitated import increases.
Recently, Brazil’s currency, the real, has weakened from the high of 1.52 real to the dollar to the present two real, which has improved its competitiveness.
But the new liquidity expansion in the United States may again cause a flood of funds to enter Brazil and reverse the currency trend.
In such a situation, Brazil may be forced to take measures to stop the real from appreciating, said the minister.
Previously, the country had taken capital controls to discourage inflows of foreign funds.
What has irritated Brazil even more is an accusation by the US Trade Representative Ron Kirk that Brazil has become protectionist in raising some tariffs, even though the Brazilian measures were within its rights in the WTO framework.
Brazil’s Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota last week wrote to Kirk pointing out the unfairness of a protectionist US accusing Brazil of protectionism.
“The world has witnessed massive monetary expansion and the bailout of banks and industrial companies on an unprecedented scale, implemented by the United States and other developed countries,” said Patriota.
“As a result, Brazil has had to cope with an artificial appreciation of its currency and with a flood of imported goods at artificially low prices.”
He pointed out that the United States was a major beneficiary, as it almost doubled its exports to Brazil from US$18.7bil (RM58bil) to US$34bil (RM105bil) from 2007 to 2011.
“While you refer to WTO-consistent measures adopted by Brazil, we, on our side, worry about the prospect of continued illegal subsidisation of farm products by the United States, which impact Brazil and other developing countries, including some of the poorest countries in Africa.
“The US has managed in a short period to remarkably increase its exports to Brazil and continues to reap the benefits of our expanding market. But it would be fairer if those increases took place in an environment not distorted by exchange rate misalignments and blatant Government support”.
As the quantitative easing from the United States and Japan is only going to take effect in future, it remains to be seen whether history will repeat itself – it will have minimal effect on the United States and Japanese economic recovery but will cause problems for developing countries – or whether it will be different this time.
GLOBAL TRENDS By MARTIN KHOR
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Friday, December 2, 2011
Active-service aircraft carriers in world
Tweet
Summary:
USA Russia Japan UK France Italy Spain Brazil Ag'tna India SKorea Thai.Total
3 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 15
1) USS Kitty Hawk
(CV-63) aircraft carrier of the United States
2) USS Nimitz (CVN-68) aircraft carrier of the United States
3) USS Enterprise (CVN-65) aircraft carrier of the United States
4) HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier of the United Kingdom
5) Hyuga aircraft carrier of Japan
6) ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2) aircraft carrier of Argentina
7) HTMS Chakri Naruebet aircraft carrier of Thailand
8) NAe São Paulo aircraft carrier of Brazil
9) ROKS Dokdo (LPH 6111) aircraft carrier of South Korea
10) INS ViraatINS Viraat aircraft carrier of India
11) Principe de Asturias-class aircraft carrier of Spain
12) Conte Di Cavour aircraft carrier of Italy
13) Giuseppe Garibaldi aircraft carrier of Italy
14) Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier of Russia
15) Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier of France
Newscribe : get free news in real time
Summary:
USA Russia Japan UK France Italy Spain Brazil Ag'tna India SKorea Thai.Total
3 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 15
1) USS Kitty Hawk
(CV-63) aircraft carrier of the United States
2) USS Nimitz (CVN-68) aircraft carrier of the United States
3) USS Enterprise (CVN-65) aircraft carrier of the United States
4) HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier of the United Kingdom
5) Hyuga aircraft carrier of Japan
6) ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2) aircraft carrier of Argentina
7) HTMS Chakri Naruebet aircraft carrier of Thailand
8) NAe São Paulo aircraft carrier of Brazil
9) ROKS Dokdo (LPH 6111) aircraft carrier of South Korea
10) INS ViraatINS Viraat aircraft carrier of India
11) Principe de Asturias-class aircraft carrier of Spain
12) Conte Di Cavour aircraft carrier of Italy
13) Giuseppe Garibaldi aircraft carrier of Italy
14) Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier of Russia
15) Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier of France
Newscribe : get free news in real time
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