FAO Promotes Organic Agriculture

FAO Report says organic farming fights hunger, tackles climate change, good for farmers, consumers and the environment. Sam Burcher

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FAO favours organic agriculture

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has come out in favour of organic agriculture. Its report Organic Agriculture and Food Security explicitly states that organic agriculture can address local and global food security challenges [1]. Organic farming is no longer to be considered a niche market within developed countries, but a vibrant commercial agricultural system practised in 120 countries, covering 31 million hectares (ha) of cultivated land plus 62 million ha of certified wild harvested areas. The organic market was worth US$40 billion in 2006, and expected to reach US$70 billion by 2012.

Nadia Scialabba, an FAO official, defined organic agriculture as: “A holistic production management system that avoids the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and genetically modified organisms, minimizes pollution of air, soil and water, and optimises the health and productivity of plants, animals and people.”

The strongest benefits of organic agriculture, Scialabba said, are its reliance on fossil fuel independent, locally available resources that incur minimal agro-ecological stresses and are cost effective. She described organic agriculture as a “neo-traditional food system” which combines modern science and indigenous knowledge.

The FAO Report strongly suggests that a worldwide shift to organic agriculture can fight world hunger and at the same time tackle climate change. According to FAO’s previous World Food Summit report [2], conventional agriculture, together with deforestation and rangeland burning, are responsible for 30 percent of the CO2 and 90 percent of nitrous oxide emissions worldwide.

Organic agriculture overcomes paradox of conventional food production systems

The new FAO Report frames a paradox within the conventional food production systems as follows:

Global food supply is sufficient, but 850 million are undernourished and go hungry
Use of chemical agricultural inputs is increasing; yet grain productivity is dwindling to seriously low levels
Costs of agricultural inputs are rising, but commodity costs have been in steady decline over the past five decades.
Knowledge is increasingly provided through fast information technologies, but nutritionally related diseases are rising
Industrialised food systems cause deaths through pesticide poisonings and high numbers of farmer have committed suicides, while millions of jobs have been lost in rural areas.

In contrast, organic agriculture offers an alternative food system that improves agricultural performance to better provide access to food, nutritional adequacy, environmental quality, economic efficiency, and social equity. This is crucial if agricultural production in developing countries is to rise by 56 percent by 2030 to meet nutritional needs, as stated in the Report.

Researchers recommend a shift to organic agriculture especially for poor developing countries

Evidence presented to the FAO by the Danish Research Centre for Food and Farming confirm the potential of a new organic farming paradigm to secure more than enough food to feed the world, and with reduced environmental impacts [3]. The results, using a computer model developed by the Washington DC based Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), show that a fifty percent conversion to organic farming in sub-Saharan Africa would not harm food security. Instead, it would help feed the hungry by reducing the need to import subsidised food, and produce a diverse range of certified organic surpluses to be exported at premium profit.

The conversion of global agriculture to organic farming, without converting wild lands for agricultures and using N-fertilizers, would result in a global agricultural supply of 2 640 to 4 380 kcal/day/person. These conclusions came from a research team led by Catherine Badgley at the University of Michigan [4], based on extensive review of the evidence from both the developed and developing world (see Scientists Find Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World and More, SiS 36 [5]).

The fact that sustainable intensification of organic agriculture could increase production by up to 56 percent is good news, as despite gains in food production and food security in some countries, sub-Saharan Africa produces less food per person than it did 30 years ago; and the number of chronically malnourished people in the region has doubled since 1970, from 96 million to over 200 million in 1996 [2]. This reflects the wider picture that developing countries have registered outright declines in yield increases under conventional agriculture between 1972-1992.

In contrast, the current FAO Report presents evidence that organic management systems have doubled yields in arid and degraded soils in Tigray, Ethiopia. (See The Tigray Project [6] and Organic Production for Ethiopia [7], SiS 23). Alexander Mueller, the FAO assistant director-general praised the research, and noted that as the effects of climate change are expected to hurt the world’s poorest, a shift to organic farming could be beneficial to cope with the rising number of global hungry.

Recommendations arising from the FAO report feed directly into the framework for the Right to Adequate Food and also into the Millenium Development Goal (MDG)1 for reducing hunger and poverty, MDG7 for environmental sustainability, and MDG 8 for global partnerships with emphasis on hidden, acute or chronic hunger.

Environmental and economic benefits of organic agriculture

The Danish researchers [3] suggest that a 50 percent organic conversion by 2020 in the food exporting regions of North America and Europe would have little impact on the availability and prices of food. Converting from chemically intensive farming to organic farming can initially decrease yields, but the adjustment evens out over time and provides numerous non-material benefits such as land improvement.

The FAO Report points to further benefits such as better animal welfare, wildlife protection, avoidance of GMOs and pesticides, more jobs and less energy used. Results from studies carried out by the US Department of Agriculture [8] support the FAO findings; showing that organic crops are worth more than conventional crops on the market, and on average, farmers could net $50-$60 more per acre by going organic, even with the highest transitional costs.

The expansion and intensification of conventional farming is harmful not only to the environment, but also to the very resources essential to farming. Over the past two decades, some 15 million ha of tropical forests are lost each year to provide land for agriculture, and at a tremendous loss of genetic diversity [2]. During the same period, soil erosion and other forms of land degradation cost the world between 5-7 million ha of farming land every year; a further 1.5 million ha are lost to waterlogging and salination, and an additional 30 million ha damaged.

Organic agriculture has the potential to reverse those trends, and reduce carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane, greenhouse gasses (GHG) that contribute to global warming [1]. Organic agriculture could double soil carbon sequestration in livestock based systems and decrease GHG by 48-60 percent. For example, organic systems have decreased the use of fossil fuels by between 10-70 percent in Europe, and 29-37 percent in the USA.

On organic farms, increasing soil organic matter and microbial biomass is a fundamental principle to support agro-ecosystem stability. Mandatory crop rotation, the use of seeds and breeds that are adapted to local conditions, and the regeneration of functional biodiversity all contribute further to ecological balance.

Organic networks meet local food demands and benefits farmers

The FAO gives top priorities to agricultural production that targets local food needs in local markets, allowing imports only for items not grown locally, and exporting high value produce.

In developing countries, food quantity, quality and availability in urban areas are enriched by organic market gardens where local produce is sold to international markets and domestic supermarkets. This reduces dependence on cheap subsidized imports, which are projected to rise to more than 160 million tonnes by the year 2010. For example, a food network in Argentina that covers 3.5 million people reports 70 percent self-sufficiency in vegetable production through organic urban garden networks.

A successful conversion to organic agriculture has occurred in parts of Egypt where scarce or polluted water supplies led to the development of thriving local markets. In China, the awareness of environmental pollution and the need for environmental and health protection resulted in organic-managed land rising from 342 000 ha in 2003 to 978 000 ha in 2005, and increasing local farmers incomes nine-fold. Cuba is an inspiring example of how food crises can be averted by drastically reducing chemical inputs and relinquishing dependency on fossil fuels [9]. National food security was maintained with some help from food aid, by re-localizing organic food production, and ensuring food access through food rationing and social safety nets such as food and nutrition surveillance systems. Furthermore, organic urban gardens create a healthy environment for the inhabitants and supply local restaurants, markets and shops with nutritious foods.

As organic produce enters the mainstream, consumers are willing to pay higher prices in exchange for truthful labelling and absorb some of the extra costs of organic agriculture. Demand for organic produce has encouraged countries like Brazil (fast becoming a world leader in organic farming) and India to reconcile their local food demands. The main challenge to international markets is bringing producers together to create value chains of fair trade, informed choice and traceability [1]. And, as Catherine Badgely argues [4], food security depends as much Government policies and market price as it does on yields.

Producing organic food has distinct benefits for farmers too. Farmers’ rights to local seeds and varieties are strengthened, knowledge sharing is promoted, incomes are raised, production increased, environmental and health protection is improved, natural resources are conserved and outward rural migration is reversed. As organic farming is highly knowledge intensive, the FAO recognises that the organization of organic farmers and growers associations, co-operatives, enterprises, and community groups is crucial to research and development. Farmers converting to organic methods also increase incomes by minimizing chemical inputs and other industrial interventions and thereby break the cycle of indebtedness that has devastated hundreds of thousands of farmers livelihoods (See Stem Farmers’ Suicides with Organic Farming, [10], SiS 32). Ensuring farmers well-being and increasing national and regional self reliance in food production methods that meet key environmental and animal welfare standards will not only enhance food security, but will also reduce the use of fossil fuel use for food transportation and production. (See Food Miles and Sustainability, [11] SiS 28)

Health benefits of organic agriculture

As the FAO Report points out, organic foods tend to have higher micronutrient content that contributes to better health, lower incidence of non-communicable diseases and boosts plant and animal immunity against disease (See Organic Farms Make Healthy Plants Make Healthy People, [12] Organic Strawberries Stop Cancer Cells, [13], SiS32). The UK Soil Association carried out a systematic review of the evidence comparing trace minerals in organic and non-organic food, and found that on average, organic food contains higher levels of vitamin C and essential minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and chromium [14]. An independent study found higher levels of all 21 nutrients in organic crops, particularly potatoes, cabbage, spinach and lettuce [15].

Evidence suggests that organic crops contain up to fifty percent fewer mycotoxins (toxins produced by fungi) (See Increased Mycotoxins in Organic Produce? [16]), and have a longer shelf life.

Organic farmers produce good food from developing a balanced living soil and using only as a last resort four of the hundreds of pesticides on tap to conventional farmers. Non-organic fruits can be sprayed up to 16 times with 36 different pesticides [17]. In 2003 the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) conceded that: ”…buying organic is a way to reduce the chances of your food containing these pesticides.” [18]. Pesticide residues used in conventional farming such as organophosphates are linked with cancers, foetal abnormalities, chronic fatigue syndrome, and Parkinson’s, [19] as well as allergies, especially in children [20], and breast cancer in women [21]. The US Government linked pesticide residues to the top three environmental cancer risks. A study in Seattle [22] found concentrations of pesticide residues 6 times higher in children eating conventionally farmed fruits and vegetables. The restriction on synthetic inputs by organic farmers prevent pesticide poisonings that cause around 20 000 deaths each year in conventional agricultural practices, (see Picking Cotton Carefully [23]); and stop phosphates and nitrates leaching into drinking water.

Organic agriculture provides long term solutions

The FAO Report concludes that a broad scale shift to organic agriculture can produce enough food on a global per capita basis to feed the world’s population over the next 50 years. Workable solutions to pressing problems such as the growth in population and consumption, oil peak, fossil fuel dependence, food transport, and agricultural sector employment are all built in holistically to the organic agriculture paradigm. Therefore, as the myth of “low yield organic agriculture” recedes [24], it is up to the agricultural researchers, officials and Governments to invest in long-term alternative agricultural systems such as green manures that can provide enough biologically fixed nitrogen to replace all the synthetic nitrogen currently used on the planet [4]. Despite scepticism at the potential of organic agriculture to feed the world [25], if conventional farmers adopted only some of its principles such as soil health and ecology, the results would strongly benefit farmers, consumers and the environment.

THE UNITED NATIONS - AN INSTITUTION ANALYSED

With its largest peacekeeping mission ever about to begin in Sudan, Eric Walberg considers the UN's track record in the first of two articles

AL-AHRAM, Cairo, 16 - 22 August 2007

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/858/in3.htm

Founded amidst the rubble of World War II -- well, actually in untouched San Francisco, with delegates spirited in by United States military planes, and nursed and spied on by a US determined to make the most of its new unrivalled world hegemony -- the United Nation started out with much more potential than its stillborn predecessor, the League of Nations, precisely because the US was committed. Even the Republicans were onboard, and all the major powers were present and willing. However, this US blessing was a two-edged sword and the UN's history is one of ups and downs with few political highpoints.

The UN got its first body blow with the launching of the Cold War by Churchill and Truman as part of their strategy of trying to mould international relations to save the imperial order from the expected tidal wave of socialist revolutions. The use of the UN label to send US and allied troops into Korea in 1950 was the first salvo in this ongoing battle. The other fatal blow was the agreement of the major powers, in particular, the US and Russia, to create a Jewish state in the British mandate of Palestine in 1948 (interestingly, Britain abstained on this tragic decision, and it passed by one vote).

These two policies have haunted it ever since and, with a very few exceptions, have meant that the UN has been effectively undermined in its political role as peacekeeper and harbinger of collective security, the focus of this article. The second article in this series deals with its other main peace-making function -- social and economic development assistance to the poor -- where it has had more success, but has been undermined in recent years by underfunding and the encroaching corporatisation of the UN.

Its political role in the tumultuous Middle East is instructive. The Arab-Israeli war that followed the declaration of a Jewish state in Palestine by the UN meant it had to immediately deal with the problem it created. Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg was agreed as mediator, but was promptly assassinated by Israeli terrorists. After more than a year of painstaking negotiations, his assistant, African-American Ralph Bunche, managed to secure separate armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria, which left Israel with all the territory it had conquered, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, and no state of Palestine -- a template for all future Israeli "compromises", for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1950. Huh? Since then, Israel has basically ignored the UN and its dozens of critical resolutions. There are currently three UN peacekeeping missions that have been protecting Israel ever since, at great expense and with no gratitude, we might note. On the contrary, Israel has killed dozens of UN peacekeepers over the years with impunity.

Then there's the centrepiece of UN peacekeeping efforts and its first fully fledged effort in this role -- UN peacekeepers covered the withdrawal of British, French and Israeli forces from Egypt, following their invasion in the wake of the nationalisation of the Suez Canal and kept the peace for 10 years.

Why was this such a stunning success, after the disastrous efforts in Palestine, Korea and Kashmir? Could it be because US imperial plans diverged from British and French, and because Egypt had the Soviet ace up its sleeve? A rare confluence of events, which President Gamal Abdel-Nasser took masterful advantage of. Interestingly, Canada's Lester Pearson managed to negotiate the imperial powers' tiff and got the 1957 Nobel Prize for his UN-sponsored mediation. However, the denouement was not so happy, as when Nasser ordered the UN troops to withdraw in 1967, Israel went on the attack, occupying all of Palestine and Sinai, killing the 14 remaining UN soldiers in the process. Too bad Pearson didn't give back his prize in protest.

The only effort that gets an A in my books dates from the late detente period: the 1989 supervision of Namibian independence, where the UNTAG monitored the withdrawal of South African troops, registered voters, and managed the 1989 elections. Like the Suez crisis, another case where the US was onside. Of course the aftermath there rivals that of UN efforts in Palestine and the Congo in terms of horror -- the US was no longer onside.

Virtually all other UN efforts have been at best disappointing and at worst disastrous -- the Congo in 1960, where the UN effectively allowed the assassination of the legitimate President Patrice Lumumba, Cyprus in 1964 and still counting, the Golan Heights in 1974 and still counting, Kuwait (1991), Somalia (1992), Bosnia (1993), Rwanda (1994), East Timor (1999), Sierra Leone (2000)... Nothing to be proud of, though the Nobel Committee yet again awarded UN peacekeepers its 1988 prize, this time "for lifetime achievement" so to speak.

The latest in the string of UN efforts looks to be a US-led effort to occupy western Sudan under UN aegis, despite the African Union's albeit underfunded presence there now. This proposed action, as was the case with NATO intervention in disintegrating Yugoslavia is justified as "humanitarian intervention", a term first employed in the late 1960s around the Biafran War and developed in the 1990s by Medecins san frontieres co-founder and current French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. The logic behind this term is self-explanatory, though the way it is used in a US- dominated unipolar world makes any application fraught with peril (or rather imperialism).

So what is the prognosis for a successful mission in Sudan? Will the massive presence of 30,000 troops and personnel undermine the Sudanese government? Will it lead to the disintegration of Sudan with the succession of Darfur and the south, allowing hungry world powers to gain easy access to Sudan's oil and many other resources? Will it succeed as a beachhead against the further spread of Islam in Africa? Or will it bring peace, stability and prosperity to a region that has never known such things, with no hidden agenda?

It's impossible to predict the future, but experience does not give us much reason for optimism. We do know that this adventure will be very expensive -- $2b a year, money which if channelled into development assistance would obviate the need for Western-backed military intervention. The wild card is China, which grudgingly approved the UN intervention but is actually working closely with the Sudanese government to develop its oil resources despite accusations that the Sudanese government is responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. China is happy to support regimes on a pragmatic business basis, with no hidden agenda to destabilise them, unlike the US, which is always looking for ways to promote political changes to meet its imperial needs.

Of course, it is rather much to expect peacekeeping to create a permanent solution. The goal is to stabilise a situation to give the politicians and diplomats the opportunity to establish a permanent peace. Hence, the UN's Peacekeeping Department's Peace- building and Peacemaking Sections. But nice labels do not make a success story. The mission in Sudan just might "work", at least to separate the many warring factions and allow tempers to cool. But after that, the real agenda for the region -- succession from Sudan and/or the divvying up of its resource wealth will make a smooth transition to long term peace impossible. And the real actor here is not the UN, whose peacekeeping/making has been increasingly overshadowed by "humanitarian interventions" by the US and NATO, and their own newfound interest in state building.

The launching of the Cold War led to the founding of NATO in 1949, ostensibly to counter the Soviet threat. However, once the "Soviet threat" disappeared its real role in the defence of the US empire has become clearer, with its many interventions where the UN feared to tread; namely, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, to name just the most infamous. Another tact in this policy has been its radical expansion into eastern Europe and "partnerships" and "dialogues" with various regions -- including Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Israel and others as part of the Mediterranean Dialogue established in 1994. The US even managed to con Russia into establishing a NATO-Russian Federation Council in 1997 for cooperation, but this nonsense has now been deposited in history's rubbish bin along with Russia's hapless precursor.

NATO and bald US invasions have overshadowed UN efforts since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And with the launching of NATO's Rapid Response Force in 2003, we can expect more frequent and more "rapid" invasions around the world to keep things under control. Suffice it to say, only if and when the US enters its post-Iraq Vietnam-syndrome phase and ends its present terrifying "war on terror" can we even imagine that real peacekeeping can take place. And only then will it be possible to resolve the other tragic flaw in UN peacekeeping efforts -- Israel and its mini- imperial "interventions" in the Middle East. Until we get there, peacekeeping will inevitably fail as a strategy to make the world truly safer to live in. ==

Achieving peace: chicken or egg?

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/860/in2.htm

While UN peacekeeping has done little to calm the world's troubled waters, the UN's other mandate -- development -- has had some success despite its many problems, argues Eric Walberg

The debate over how to achieve peace revolves around two poles: world peacekeeping and disarmament vs economic and social development. The latter argument goes: busy literate hands and full stomachs obviate the need for war, just as the improvement of women's status leads to reduced family size. In part one (16-22 August) the UN's political role as peacekeeper was found to be woefully lacking, especially now that the US hyperpower calls all the shots. Peacekeeping must be followed up by disarmament for it to be the road to peace, but post-WWII history has shown how ineffective this policy is.

How about the other route? The myriad UN agencies such as UNESCO, UNDP, UNICEF, and their financial cousins the WB and IMF, have become household names and initially had a positive impact in alleviating distress, promoting development, and presumably peace, or at least not contributing to war. However, these international institutions fashioned by the allies during WWII have been increasingly co-opted into the US imperial project and the result today is far from pretty.

Many countries protested when the new UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-Moon appointed US diplomat B Lynn Pascoe under-secretary-general for political affairs, the UN's chief diplomatic position. Since the days of President Reagan, the UN has come under concerted attack by the US, demanding changes in UN structure and policy, effectively crippling many programmes. Even under the supposedly enlightened Clinton regime, pressure to corporatise the UN and bring it closer to US priorities continued and bore fruit in secretary- general Kofi Annan's sweeping reform proposals responding to US criticisms.

The best of the reforms involved the creation of common country UN plans, known as United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks, or UNDAFs, to coordinate the myriad assistance programmes for each country. Down with bureaucracy -- no problem there. In Egypt, the second UNDAF began work in January 2007 for the period ending 2011, with its own set of Millennium Development Goals, benchmarks to raise education and health standards. Egypt, for one, takes its MDGs seriously and has been given a B+ in a recent assessment.

However, the MDGs and economic development goals are now pursued more and more by private means under the UN logo. Annan caved in to the privatisation mania of the 1990s, creating partnerships with multinationals, according to which the UN would act as a "monitor" of corporate practices and "moderate" between Third World governments and transnationals, providing the latter with the prestigious UN logo and reputation, local contacts and field expertise, and charging each company 20 pieces of silver ($50,000) for the privilege. The corporations would, in turn, transfer technology and investments and alleviate poverty by employing local labour and building up local businesses. A joint venture between the UNDP and some 20 transnational companies, euphemistically called "Global Sustainable Development Facility", is still in the planning stages.

So, for example, to great fanfare, ExxonMobil Egypt recently announced it donated 60 computers to youth organisations in Egypt within the company's partnership with UNICEF and the agency's Adolescent Development Programme. "Through providing necessary facilities to improve education and increase opportunities, we can make a difference in the future of these young people in areas of employment, health and others," said Tom Walter, chairman and managing director of ExxonMobil Egypt. "The large number of youth in Egypt, and the implications it has for this country's growth and development, underscore the need for the active participation of corporate citizens such as ExxonMobil Egypt," said Erma Manoncourt, UNICEF Egypt representative. ExxonMobil PR boasted it is involved in "community service" in 120 countries.

Yes, one of the world's worst polluters (remember Valdez?), which earns billions extracting oil from Third World countries, destroying local cultures and environments, can, for the cost of a few computers, now tell fairytales about its humanitarian efforts with the heartfelt gratitude of the obliging UNESCO country rep.

UN development agencies played a major role in the ex-socialist bloc, where they quickly moved in to assist the new pro-Western governments privatise state-owned industries. They play the same role throughout the Third World. The results have been less than spectacular and have produced a backlash, for privatisation is essentially a transfer of wealth from the broader society to the rich, radically increasing income disparity and unemployment, hardly part of the original UN mandate.

As for the international financial institutions, right from the start, the World Bank head has been directly appointed by the US president (the IMF head by the Europeans) which culminated recently in the scandalous appointment of Paul Wolfowitz. Both function less to promote development than to ensure US dollar hegemony, and have planted monetary daggers in the heart of many a socially-minded leader, directly contributing not to peace but to political violence and repression. Recent South American experiences -- especially Argentina -- have revealed this starkly, and the past 10 years have witnessed more and more countries paying off all IMF debts as political health insurance. And economic as well, as these countries have actually thrived as a result of kicking out their IMF overlords and tearing up their "adjustment packages". So much so, that the IMF is in serious financial difficulties -- no one to squeeze dry, no work for its army of accountants.

Ban, no doubt prompted by his political under-secretary, has been focussing on facilitating the US political agenda these days, pushing development into the background. He has raised hackles with his proposed expansion of the peacekeeping department so that it could better handle the largest increase in "peacekeeping" missions in history -- the latest being the US- promoted intervention in Sudan, while downgrading the disarmament department, which is popular among poor countries concerned with the nuclear arsenals of powerful nations and not particularly happy with current rash of invasions and the subsequent need for "peacekeeping".

Ban also caused considerable concern in the UN bureaucracy with his recent announcement that the UN development role in Iraq will be expanded, despite the 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Iraq that killed 21 staff and the UN envoy Vieira de Mello and caused it to pull out in ignominy. Ban dismissed the unanimous UN staff association opposition and said the present 65 personnel would be increased to 95. He called on member countries to provide $130 million to build the UN a "fortified compound" in Baghdad. The US generously offered to help out.

Alejandro Wolff, the acting US ambassador to the UN until Khalilzad was appointed, said in February that fears that Ban is doing Washington's bidding are baseless and hampering sincere efforts to carry out "concrete and practical and apolitical reforms. The conspiracy theorists out there are convinced this is an American agenda and that this is a secretary- general who is essentially responding to American demands." Translation: Ban is doing Washington's bidding and shut up and accept the facts of life.

The UN and its financial cousins had some coherence when they were forged by partners, even if the partners hated each other's guts, and their first four decades made a real contribution to development and alleviation of poverty . Now that they have become the playthings of our unipolar hegemone, they are being left behind as the world desperately tries to deal with the mess the US is making everywhere. Will we still be talking about a UN in 10 years time? Will it collapse along with its main founder? Or fade away into irrelevance, as it seems to be doing now?

One possible reform is to expand the Security Council to include some combination of Germany, India, Brazil, Japan, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. Even if the existing five members keep their veto, an expanded council would make it more difficult to allow another US-led imperial venture like the invasion of Iraq, which the council effectively condoned.

Another possible direction for reinvigorating it politically is the creation of a UN parliamentary assembly (UNPA), composed initially of elected parliamentarians from around the world. This has been the project of the World Federalists since the UN was formed, and has gained some momentum in the past 15 years. "A parliamentary assembly would make the UN more transparent, more efficient and more democratic", said former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, patron of a WF conference planned for October. Initially, the UNPA could be composed of a small number of representatives from each national parliament and would eventually be composed of directly elected members, evolving into a world parliament.

As for development alternatives, there are now 40,000 internationally recognised NGOs, some of them actually legitimate and effective, dealing with environment, development, and disarmament, with the UN acting as an umbrella. The very phrase "non-governmental organisation" first came into popular use with the establishment of the UN in 1945. A prominent example is the World Social Forum (WSF) which is a rival convention to the elitist World Economic Forum. The seventh WSF in Nairobi, Kenya in February was attended by representatives from more than 1,000 NGOs.

So with warning signs of trouble at the IMF, and mounting discontent with privatisation as a panacea and the UN as US handmaiden, the future for the UN at best promises to be one of turmoil. If the world magically turns socialist, the WSF and the legitimate NGOs could become the cradle of a new international order, but then so could the UN.

No, we must wait for the scam that is the New World Order to come crashing down along with its dollar scaffolding, or for Russia and China to work with other dissatisfied countries to create credible alternative financial institutions and an international currency arrangement free of the US. There is little likelihood that Ban's UN will play much of a role in this, either politically or economically, but creation of a world parliament could be a move towards real forum for the world's peoples without interference from their governments.

NEWS FLASH: THE HYPOCRISY OF THE UN

Thursday at the UN's noon press <http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2007/db070802.doc.htm> briefing, a correspondent asked who is in charge of the sale and placement of items in the UN's bookstore. While Ban Ki-moon's Associate Spokesman said he would look into it, Inner City Press' requested at the store Jimmy Carter's recent book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," which had been displayed on the front table.

The sales clerk checked his computer, and saw that the title was still listed. He accompanied Inner City Press to the front table, and verified that the books was no longer on display. He made a phone call. Inner City Press asked, "Will any more be sold?" The sale clerk shook his head. "Finito," he said. Finished.

By then, the Associate Spokesman had "<http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2007/db070802.doc.htm> said that the Department of Public Information has oversight over the bookstore."

It was later said that this UN Department of Public Information got involved and the book was pulled. Who made the complaint is not known. While in the store on Thursday, Inner City Press noticed still on sale the propaganda tome, "The UN Development Program: A Better Way?" (click <http://www.innercitypress.com/undp120406.html>here for review) and, for example, "River of Lost Footsteps: A History for Burma." And what if the Myanmar regime complains? Developing.

--
Peter Myers,http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers