Chris Hedges's Blog, page 353

Bernie Sanders Warns Against U.S. Involvement in Venezuela

Amid warnings that the Trump administration is actively seeking to topple the elected government of President Nicolas Maduro, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday spoke out against the U.S. government’s “long history of intervening inappropriately in Latin America” even as he criticized Maduro for his violent crackdown on opposition protesters and violations of the country’s constitution.

“The Maduro government in Venezuela has been waging a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election that many observers said was fraudulent,” Sanders said in a statement. “Further, the economy is a disaster and millions are migrating.”

Sanders continued by saying the U.S. while “should support the rule of law, fair elections and self-determination for the Venezuelan people,” it must also “condemn the use of violence against unarmed protesters and the suppression of dissent” in the country.

“However,” he added, “we must learn the lessons of the past and not be in the business of regime change or supporting coups—as we have in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. The United States has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American countries; we must not go down that road again.”

But we must learn the lessons of the past and not be in the business of regime change or supporting coups—as we have in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil & the DR. The US has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American nations; we must not go down that road again. 3/3

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 24, 2019

Prior to Sanders’ statement on Thursday, as Common Dreams reported, more than 70 activists and scholars issued an open letter condemning recent moves by the Trump administration—including its decision earlier this week to officially recognize the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the “Interim President” of the country.

While the letter acknowledged the very real and difficult domestic conflict within Venezuela, it stated: “In such situations, the only solution is a negotiated settlement, as has happened in the past in Latin American countries when politically polarized societies were unable to resolve their differences through elections.”

Standing against further outside agitation from the U.S., the signers called for “international actors” to instead “support negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents that will allow the country to finally emerge from its political and economic crisis.”

While Sanders has yet to announce whether or not he’ll run for president in 2020, In These Times this week has been tracking the reactions to the situation in Venezuela by declared or likely Democratic candidates.

“Of the major Democrats or progressives who have declared–or are expected to–only [Democratic Congresswomen from Hawaii] Tulsi Gabbard  and Bernie Sanders have made statements,” the left-leaning outlet reported Thursday.

Teen Environmentalist Greta Thunberg Pushes Davos Elites on Climate Action

DAVOS, Switzerland—While domestic woes sidelined major figures like U.S. President Donald Trump, this year’s gathering of the global elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos showcased divisions on pressing issues like trade and the environment.

In the end, a spunky 16-year-old Swedish climate activist all but stole the show.

The World Economic Forum, which wrapped up Friday, was characterized by discord over momentous issues like Brexit and world trade. Many of the leaders closest to those questions — from Trump to Britain’s Theresa May and China’s Xi Jinping — did not show up as they had in past years.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, howled about alleged hypocrisy after reports that a record number of flights by carbon-spewing private jets would ferry rich corporate bigwigs to talk at the event this year — including about global warming.

As the adults deliberated, Greta Thunberg, an environmentalist teenager, sounded the alarm.

“I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day,” said the student, who got a waiver from school to travel 32 hours from her home in Sweden — by train, to keep her carbon footprint down.

Since founder Klaus Schwab first gathered European business executives back in 1971, the World Economic Forum has defended globalization as a force for good that improves lives and boosts prosperity.

Now, advocates of closer economic and cultural ties are on the defensive. Trump’s “America First” sloganeering, the Brexit-style self-interest, populist politics and the rise of “strongman” leaders in countries from the Philippines to Brazil have shaken confidence in the international rules and organizations set up since World War II.

The conference center in Davos still bustled with business executives, presidents and prime ministers, heads of non-governmental organizations, scientists, and artists. They met privately or sat on publicly broadcast discussions about world issues: Poverty, climate change, the rise of machines, diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer, and trade disputes among them.

Organizers of the event trumpeted some achievements and commitments made in Davos.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan will push for global data governance when it hosts the Group of 20 leading industrialized and developing nations this year. Leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia held talks toward ending the long-standing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Britain’s health secretary unveiled a five-year plan to tackle the global threat of antimicrobial resistance.

“If it didn’t exist, someone would have had to create it, because we cannot solve the most pressing global challenges without a unique partnership between governments, business and civil society,” WEF President Borge Brende said Friday of the gathering.

Still, the WEF has struggled to shake off the impression that it hosts champagne-swilling executives more interested in their bottom line and power-hungry politicians more interested in polishing their global image than in the state of the world.

Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, pledged to work “in harmony with the world” to cut carbon emissions. The nationalist leader has faced international concerns that his country could allow far more aggressive deforestation in the oxygen-rich Amazon. But he provided no details and was asked no probing questions by the WEF organizers about his policies.

Several hundred environmentalists and political activists waved green and red flags as they demonstrated their opposition to the WEF and capitalism in Davos’ snow-and ice-covered streets Thursday. One sign read: “Let them eat money.”

The forum’s organizers were already on the defensive after a charter-flight company cited estimates that a record number of private jet flights headed to Davos this year. They published a rebuttal, insisting they issue carbon offsets and labelled flying by private jet as “the worst way to travel to Davos,” which is merely two hours from Zurich by car. Christoph Kohler, who heads a company that tracks the aviation industry, said precise figures on business jet flights from the area weren’t yet available.

Thunberg, the teenager whose speech to a climate conference in December had gone viral and gave another to the World Economic Forum on Friday, did not mince her words amid concerns that nations won’t meet their target of keeping global warming below 1.5-degrees Celsius (2.7-Fahrenheit).

“We owe it to the young people, to give them hope,” she said. “I want you to act … as if the house was on fire. Because it is.”

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Ivana Bzganovic, Ben Jary, Theodora Tongas and Paul Wiseman in Davos contributed to this report.

Trump Confidant Roger Stone Is Arrested, Faces Obstruction Charges

WASHINGTON—Shouting “FBI, open the door,” authorities arrested Roger Stone, a confidant of President Donald Trump, before dawn Friday in a criminal case that revealed that senior members of the Trump campaign sought to benefit from the release of hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton.

Stone, a self-proclaimed “dirty trickster,” faced a seven-count indictment in the first criminal case in months from special counsel Robert Mueller.

The indictment provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates in the summer of 2016 were actively seeking the disclosure of emails the U.S. says were hacked by Russia, then provided to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. It alleges that unidentified senior Trump campaign officials contacted Stone to ask when stolen emails relating to Clinton might be disclosed.

The indictment does not charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks or with the Russian officers Mueller says hacked the emails. Instead, it accuses him of lying to Congress about WikiLeaks, tampering with witnesses and obstructing the probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to tip the election.

Some of those false statements were made to the House intelligence committee, prosecutors allege.

CNN aired video of the raid at Stone’s Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home, showing FBI agents in body armor using large weapons and night-vision equipment, running up to the home and banging repeatedly on the door.

“FBI open the door!” one shouts. “FBI, warrant!” Stone could then be seen in the doorway in his sleepwear before he was led away. He is expected to appear in court later Friday.

Stone is the sixth Trump aide charged in Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign and the 34th person overall. The investigation has laid bare multiple contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign and transition period and efforts by several to conceal those communications.

The case against Stone comes weeks after Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was castigated by a judge in open court and just hours before Paul Manafort, his ex-campaign chairman, was due in court on allegations that he had lied to Mueller’s prosecutors.

In referring to Trump campaign officials and their desire to leverage hacked emails, the criminal case brings Mueller’s investigation into the president’s inner circle but it does not accuse the president of any wrongdoing or reveal whether he had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks trove.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s press secretary, told CNN on Friday the charges brought against Stone “don’t have anything to do with the president.”

Well-known for his political antics and hard ball tactics, Stone has reveled in being a Washington wheeler-dealer dating back to the Nixon administration. He has also pushed several conspiracy theories and was an early and vocal supporter of Trump’s candidacy.

Stone was one of Trump’s earliest political advisers, encouraging both his presidential runs. He briefly served on Trump’s 2016 campaign, but was pushed out amid infighting with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Stone continued communicating with Trump on occasion and stayed plugged into the circle of advisers — both formal and informal — who worked with and around Trump.

According to the indictment, many of Stone’s conversations during the campaign involved WikiLeaks. The indictment lays out in detail Stone’s conversations about stolen Democratic emails posted by the group in the weeks before Trump, a Republican, beat Clinton. Mueller’s office has said those emails, belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, were hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

The document says that by June and July 2016, Stone had told senior Trump campaign officials that he had information indicating that WikiLeaks had obtained documents that could be damaging to Clinton’s campaign.

After the July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, the indictment says a senior Trump campaign official “was directed” to contact Stone about additional releases and “what other damaging information” WikiLeaks had “regarding the Clinton campaign.” The indictment does not name the official or say who directed the outreach to Stone.

Another Trump campaign official cited in the indictment is Steve Bannon, who later became Trump’s chief strategist in the White House. Bannon, referred to as a “high-ranking Trump Campaign official,” exchanged emails with Stone in October 2016 about WikiLeaks’ plans for releasing hacked material. The indictment quotes from those emails, which had previously been made public by news outlets.

While the indictment provides some new insight into the Trump campaign, it deals largely with what prosecutors say were Stone’s false statements about his conversations with conservative writer and conspiracy theorist, Jerome Corsi, and New York radio host, Randy Credico. Corsi is referred to as Person 1 in the indictment, and Credico as Person 2.

The indictment accuses Stone of carrying out a “prolonged effort” to keep Credico from contradicting his testimony before the House intelligence committee. During that effort, prosecutors note that Stone repeatedly told Credico to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli,’” a reference to a character in “The Godfather: Part II” who lies before a congressional committee.

Stone is also accused of threatening Credico. The indictment cites several messages, some of which have already been public, that Stone sent to Credico last year. On April 9, Stone called Credico a “rat” and a “stoolie” and accused him of backstabbing his friends. Stone also threatened to “take that dog away from you,” a reference to Credico’s dog, Bianca.

“I am so ready. Let’s get it on. Prepare to die (expletive),” Stone also wrote to Credico.

The indictment had been expected. Stone has said for months he was prepared to be charged, though he has denied any wrongdoing. A grand jury for months had heard from witnesses connected to Stone. And the intelligence committee last year voted to release a transcript of Stone’s testimony to Mueller as a precursor to an indictment.

On Thursday, hours before his arrest, Stone posted on Instagram a photo of himself with Trump and the caption, “Proud of my President.” He also posted a screen shot of a CNN segment and complained that the network had found the “worst photo of me possible.”

Attorney Grant Smith, who represents Stone, did not return phone messages seeking comment Friday.

Stone has publicly denigrated the Mueller investigation and echoed the president’s descriptions of it as a witch hunt. But he has long attracted investigators’ attention, especially in light of a 2016 tweet that appeared to presage knowledge that emails stolen from Podesta would soon be released. Stone has said he had no inside information about the contents of the emails in WikiLeaks’ possession or the timing of when they’d be released.

Stone has said he learned from Credico that WikiLeaks had the emails and planned to disclose them. Stone has also spoken openly about his contacts with Corsi.

Credico hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing. Last year, Mueller’s prosecutors offered a plea agreement to Corsi that would have required him to admit that he intentionally lied to investigators about a discussion with Stone about WikiLeaks. But he rejected the offer and denied that he lied.

In a tweet Friday, Podesta wrote that it was now “Roger’s time in the barrel.” That was a play on Stone’s own words. Stone had tweeted cryptically before the Podesta emails were disclosed that it would soon be Podesta’s “time in the barrel.”

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Read the indictment: http://apne.ws/1P23qpR

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Associated Press writers Terry Spencer, Jennifer Kay and Kelli Kennedy contributed to this story from Florida.

Official: Asylum Seekers to Wait in Mexico Starting Friday

SAN DIEGO—The Trump administration on Friday will start forcing some asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. courts, an official said, launching what could become one of the more significant changes to the immigration system in years.

The changes will be introduced at San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing, according to a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because it was not yet publicly announced. San Ysidro is the nation’s busiest crossing and the choice of asylum seekers who arrived to Tijuana, Mexico, in November in a caravan of more than 6,000 mostly Central American migrants.

The policy, which is expected to face a legal challenge, may be expanded to other crossings. It does not apply to children traveling alone or to asylum seekers from Mexico.

The details were finalized during bilateral talks in Mexico City over the last few days. It calls for U.S. authorities to bus asylum seekers back and forth to the border for court hearings in downtown San Diego, including an initial appearance within 45 days.

The Trump administration will make no arrangements for them to consult with attorneys, who may visit clients in Tijuana or speak with them by phone.

U.S. officials will begin processing only about 20 asylum claims a day at the San Diego crossing but plan to ramp up to exceed the number of claims processed now, which is up to 100 a day, the official said.

The policy could severely strain Mexican border cities. U.S. border authorities fielded 92,959 “credible fear” claims — an initial screening to have asylum considered — during a recent 12-month period, up 67 percent from a year earlier.

While illegal crossings from Mexico are near historically low levels, the U.S. has witnessed a surge in asylum claims, especially from Central American families. Due largely to a court-imposed 20-day limit on detaining children, families are typically released with a notice to appear in immigration court. With a backlog of more than 800,000 cases, it can take years to settle cases.

The Department of Homeland Security said the policy would “reduce the number of aliens taking advantage of U.S. law and discourage false asylum claims” and will no longer let asylum seekers “disappear into the U.S. before a court issues a final order.”

It’s not clear if Central Americans will be deterred from seeking asylum in the U.S. if they have to wait in Tijuana, a booming city with plenty of jobs. Tijuana doesn’t come close to matching the U.S. on wages, and asylum seekers generally have far fewer family ties than they do in the U.S.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy is President Donald Trump’s latest move to reshape immigration policy, though it may prove temporary. Other major changes have been blocked in court, including a ban on seeking asylum by people who cross the border illegally from Mexico and dismissing domestic and gang violence as grounds for asylum.

It is also an early test of relations between two populist presidents — Trump and Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office Dec. 1. Mexico has steadfastly rejected Trump’s demand that it pay for a border wall, leading the president to ask Congress for $5.7 billion in a stalemate that has partially closed the government for more than a month.

Mexican officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Roberto Velasquez, spokesman for Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, emphasized earlier this week that there would be no bilateral agreement and that Mexico was responding to a unilateral move by the United States. He said discussions covering “a very broad range of topics” are aimed at preparing Mexico for the change.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen worked on the plan for months with Mexican officials, and the broad outlines came together at a meeting in November.

The next month, Mexico said it would give temporary humanitarian visas to people seeking U.S. asylum while their cases are settled and they could seek permission to work in Mexico.

Mexico said at the time that it would coordinate with the U.S. on the policy’s mechanics, which would ensure migrants access to information and legal services. Incoming Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Dec. 24 that he wanted more information to ensure “orderly and secure” protocols.

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, director of the University of California, San Diego’s Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies, said last week that Mexico had not fully considered the impact on Mexican border towns.

“This could have lasting repercussions for Mexican border cities,” Fernandez de Castro said. “We have to assess the potential numbers and how to help them stay healthy. We don’t have that assessment.”

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Associated Press writers Maria Verza in Mexico City and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.

Iranian TV Anchor Says U.S. Jailed Her as a Warning

WASHINGTON—A prominent American-born anchorwoman for Iran’s state television says she believes the U.S. government jailed her because of her work as a journalist and her beliefs, and as a warning to her to “watch your step.”

Marzieh Hashemi spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday, a day after being released from custody. She was not charged with a crime but was detained for 10 days as a material witness in a grand jury investigation in Washington. Details of the investigation are under seal, and Hashemi said she could not provide details. But she said it is not related to terrorism and has to do with her job and the fact that she lives in Iran.

Hashemi said her arrest was unnecessary because she would have voluntarily appeared for questioning and would have complied with a federal subpoena.

“I’m not sure what the meaning of ‘Make America Great Again’ is, but if it means just basically taking away human rights more and more every day, that doesn’t seem to be a very great America to me,” she said, in a reference to President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan.

Responding to a request for comment, the Justice Department noted that federal law allows judges to order witnesses to be detained if the government can “demonstrate probable cause to believe that the witness can provide material evidence, and that it will be impracticable to secure the witness’s attendance at the proceedings by means of a subpoena.”

The Justice Department had previously released two unsealed court orders. One confirmed that she was a material witness and the second confirmed she had been released.

Arrests of material witnesses occur infrequently, but the length of Hashemi’s detention wasn’t unusual for a material witness.

The case comes at a time of heightened U.S.-Iran tensions over President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from a nuclear deal and criticism against Iran over its arrests of dual citizens and other people with Western ties. Iranian officials decried her arrest as part of what they called the “apartheid and racist policy” of the Trump administration.

Hashemi, 59, who works for the Press TV network’s English-language service, is a U.S. citizen and was born Melanie Franklin. She lives in Tehran and returns to the United States about once a year to see her family and work on documentaries.

In the interview, Hashemi gave her first detailed account yet of her arrest. She was waiting to board a plane with her son in St. Louis, Missouri, on Jan. 13 after filming a Black Lives Matter documentary when she heard her name called. Hashemi went to the gate and was told she had been selected for pre-boarding, she said. As she was walking down a jet bridge with her son, she was stopped by two FBI agents who told her she had to come with them, she told the AP.

She said an agent told her, “You’re under arrest in connection with some investigation.'”

Hashemi was brought to a hotel in St. Louis and held overnight before being flown to Washington. When she arrived at an FBI facility there, she was fingerprinted and forced to provide a DNA sample, she said.

The next day, she appeared before a judge and was told she was being held as a material witness. Prosecutors argued they needed to take the drastic measure because Hashemi was a flight risk, she said.

“I said, ‘I’m not running away from anything because I haven’t done anything,'” Hashemi recalled. “You had no basis to say I was a flight risk.”

Hashemi said she believes she was detained “because of my belief system, because of who I am.”

“I am a firm believer in truth and speaking out the truth. I believe in adding a voice to the voiceless, and there are times that this, of course, will contradict the policies of the powers that be. That’s a big part of it,” she said.

Hashemi appeared before a judge four times and was questioned by prosecutors before the grand jury on three occasions, according to court documents. She said prosecutors appeared to only have “circumstantial” evidence in the case and did not have “anything of any concrete importance.”

At the Washington jail, Hashemi said she was forced to remove her hijab, despite objecting because of her religious beliefs. She was offered a white T-shirt to put on her head. As she was led down a hallway in a facility that houses both male and female inmates, she was told by officers that she could not wear the shirt to cover her head and could only wear it once she arrived at her cell, she said. For several days, her religious dietary restrictions were also not met, she said.

A spokeswoman for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Three of Hashemi’s children were also subpoenaed to the grand jury, though only one was compelled to provide testimony. Prosecutors also threatened to charge Hashemi if she did not cooperate with their investigation, she said.

“This is not the United States that we want. This is not what we believe in,” she said.

She also decried the federal material witness statute and will participate in a demonstration Friday protesting what opponents see as an arcane and unfair law.

A 2012 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general identified 112 cases in which material witnesses were detained from 2000 until 2012. In those cases, the median period of time the witnesses were detained was 26 days.

“If we allow it, if we turn a blind eye to it, believe me, it will come back to haunt us, and I don’t think most Americans want the country to go in that direction,” she said.

The Financial Secret Behind Germany’s Green Energy Revolution

The “Green New Deal” endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.-N.Y., and more than 40 other House members has been criticized as imposing a too-heavy burden on the rich and upper-middle-class taxpayers who will have to pay for it. However, taxing the rich is not what the Green New Deal resolution proposes. It says funding would come primarily from certain public agencies, including the U.S. Federal Reserve and “a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks.”

Funding through the Federal Reserve may be controversial, but establishing a national public infrastructure and development bank should be a no-brainer. The real question is why we don’t already have one, as do China, Germany and other countries that are running circles around us in infrastructure development. Many European, Asian and Latin American countries have their own national development banks, as well as belong to bilateral or multinational development institutions that are jointly owned by multiple governments. Unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve, which considers itself “independent” of government, national development banks are wholly owned by their governments and carry out public development policies.

China not only has its own China Infrastructure Bank but has established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which counts many Asian and Middle Eastern countries in its membership, including Australia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia. Both banks are helping to fund China’s trillion-dollar “One Belt One Road” infrastructure initiative. China is so far ahead of the United States in building infrastructure that Dan Slane, a former adviser on President Donald Trump’s transition team, has warned, “If we don’t get our act together very soon, we should all be brushing up on our Mandarin.”

The leader in renewable energy, however, is Germany, called “the world’s first major renewable energy economy.” Germany has a public sector development bank called KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau or “Reconstruction Credit Institute”), which is even larger than the World Bank. Along with Germany’s nonprofit Sparkassen banks, KfW has largely funded the country’s green energy revolution.

Unlike private commercial banks, KfW does not have to focus on maximizing short-term profits for its shareholders while turning a blind eye to external costs, including those imposed on the environment. The bank has been free to support the energy revolution by funding major investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Its fossil fuel investments are close to zero. One of the key features of KfW, as with other development banks, is that much of its lending is driven in a strategic direction determined by the national government. Its key role in the green energy revolution has been played within a public policy framework under Germany’s renewable energy legislation, including policy measures that have made investment in renewables commercially attractive.

KfW is one of the world’s largest development banks, with assets totaling $566.5 billion as of December 2017. Ironically, the initial funding for its capitalization came from the United States, through the Marshall Plan in 1948. Why didn’t we fund a similar bank for ourselves? Simply because powerful Wall Street interests did not want the competition from a government-owned bank that could make below-market loans for infrastructure and development. Major U.S. investors today prefer funding infrastructure through public-private partnerships, in which private partners can reap the profits while losses are imposed on local governments.

KfW and Germany’s Energy Revolution

Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind, solar and biomass. Renewables generated 41 percent of the country’s electricity in 2017, up from just 6 percent in 2000; and public banks provided over 72 percent of the financing for this transition. In 2007-09, KfW funded all of Germany’s investment in Solar Photovoltaic. After that, Solar PV was introduced nationwide on a major scale. This is the sort of catalytic role that development banks can play—kickstarting a major structural transformation by funding and showcasing new technologies and sectors.

KfW is not only one of the biggest financial institutions but has been ranked one of the two safest banks in the world. (The other, Switzerland’s Zurich Cantonal Bank, is also publicly owned.) KfW sports triple-A ratings from all three major rating agencies—Fitch, Standard and Poor’s, and Moody’s. The bank benefits from these top ratings and the statutory guarantee of the German government, which allow it to issue bonds on very favorable terms and therefore to lend on favorable terms, backing its loans with the bonds.

KfW does not work through public-private partnerships, and it does not trade in derivatives and other complex financial products. It relies on traditional lending and grants. The borrower is responsible for loan repayment. Private investors can participate, but not as shareholders or public-private partners. Rather, they can invest in “Green Bonds,” which are as safe and liquid as other government bonds and are prized for their green earmarking. The first “Green Bond—Made by KfW” was issued in 2014 with a volume of $1.7 billion and a maturity of five years. It was the largest Green Bond ever at the time of issuance and generated so much interest that the order book rapidly grew to $3.02 billion, although the bonds paid an annual coupon of only 0.375 percent. By 2017, the issue volume of KfW Green Bonds reached $4.21 billion.

Investors benefit from the high credit and sustainability ratings of KfW, the liquidity of its bonds, and the opportunity to support climate and environmental protection. For large institutional investors with funds that exceed the government deposit insurance limit, Green Bonds are the equivalent of savings accounts—a safe place to park their money that provides a modest interest. Green Bonds also appeal to “socially responsible” investors, who have the assurance with these simple and transparent bonds that their money is going where they want it to. The bonds are financed by KfW from the proceeds of its loans, which are also in high demand due to their low interest rates, which the bank can offer because its high ratings allow it to cheaply mobilize funds from capital markets and its public policy-oriented loans qualify it for targeted subsidies.

Roosevelt’s Development Bank: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation

KfW’s role in implementing government policy parallels that of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in funding the New Deal in the 1930s. At that time, U.S. banks were bankrupt and incapable of financing the country’s recovery. President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to set up a system of 12 public “industrial banks” through the Federal Reserve, but the measure failed. Roosevelt then made an end run around his opponents by using the RFC that had been set up earlier by President Herbert Hoover, expanding it to address the nation’s financing needs.

The RFC Act of 1932 provided the RFC with capital stock of $500 million and the authority to extend credit up to $1.5 billion (subsequently increased several times). With those resources, from 1932 to 1957 the RFC loaned or invested more than $40 billion. As with KfW’s loans, its funding source was the sale of bonds, mostly to the Treasury itself. Proceeds from the loans repaid the bonds, leaving the RFC with a net profit. The RFC financed roads, bridges, dams, post offices, universities, electrical power, mortgages, farms and much more; it funded all of this while generating income for the government.

The RFC was so successful that it became America’s largest corporation and the world’s largest banking organization. Its success, however, may have been its nemesis. Without the emergencies of depression and war, it was a too-powerful competitor of the private banking establishment; and in 1957, it was disbanded under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. That’s how the  United States was left without a development bank at the same time Germany and other countries were hitting the ground running with theirs.

Today some U.S. states have infrastructure and development banks, including California, but their reach is very small. One way they could be expanded to meet state infrastructure needs would be to turn them into depositories for state and municipal revenue. Rather than lending their capital directly in a revolving fund, this would allow them to leverage their capital into 10 times that sum in loans, as all depository banks are able to do, as I’ve previously explained.

The most profitable and efficient way for national and local governments to finance public infrastructure and development is with their own banks, as the impressive track records of KfW and other national development banks have shown. The RFC showed what could be done even by a country that was technically bankrupt, simply by mobilizing its own resources through a publicly owned financial institution. We need to resurrect that public funding engine today, not only to address the national and global crises we are facing now but for the ongoing development the country needs in order to manifest its true potential.

Threats to Airline Safety ‘Growing by the Day’ as Shutdown Drags On

Air travel, with its cramped seats, delays and long security lines, was already stressful before the government shutdown. It has only become worse for airline workers and travelers alike, as the Transportation Security Administration is hit by the partial government shutdown, now entering its second month. Employees are about to miss their second paycheck, and as one TSA officer told CNBC on Wednesday, “The rent is not going to happen.”

TSA workers and even executives at major airlines have sounded the alarm on the need for a resolution. “The longer this goes on, the longer it will take for the nation’s air travel infrastructure to rebound,” Robin Hayes, the chief executive officer of Jet Blue, said on a conference call with analysts and investors, according to Bloomberg.

According to the New York Times, “as many as one of every 10 transportation security officers is not showing up for work and reserve workers are being flown in to bolster depleted ranks at some airports.”

Now, union leaders representing air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants who represent more than 130,000 employees have issued what The Times calls a “dire warning” about the “safety threat that is growing by the day.”

The joint statement from Paul Rinaldi of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Joe DePete of the Air Line Pilots Association and Sara Nelson of the Association of Flight Attendants addressed concerns about closed security checkpoints, a lack of safety inspectors and impediments to reporting safety data.

“We have a growing concern for the safety and security of our members, our airlines and the traveling public due to the government shutdown,” the leaders wrote, adding, “In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break.”

Equally worrying for nervous fliers is the impact the shutdown has on safety reporting. The leaders write that “we are not confident that system-wide analyses of safety reporting data, which is used to identify and implement corrective actions in order to reduce risks and prevent accidents is 100 percent operational due to reduced FAA resources.”

They add that “staffing in our air traffic control facilities is already at a 30-year low and controllers are only able to maintain the system’s efficiency and capacity by working overtime.”

Read the full statement here.

Senate Rejects Rival Dem, GOP Plans for Reopening Government

WASHINGTON — A splintered Senate swatted down competing Democratic and Republican plans for ending the 34-day partial government shutdown on Thursday, leaving President Donald Trump and Congress with no obvious formula for halting the longest-ever closure of federal agencies and the damage it is inflicting around the country.

In an embarrassment to Trump that could weaken his position whenever negotiations get serious, the Democratic proposal got one more vote than the GOP plan. There were six Republican defectors, including freshman Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who’s clashed periodically with the president.

There were faint signs that lawmakers on both sides were looking for ways to resolve their vitriolic stalemate. But Thursday was mostly a day for both parties, in conflicting ways, to show sympathy for unpaid federal workers while yielding no ground in their fight over Trump’s demand to build a border wall with Mexico.

The Senate first rejected a Republican plan reopening government through September and giving Trump the $5.7 billion he’s demanded for building segments of that wall, a project that he’d long promised Mexico would finance. The 51-47 vote for the measure fell nine shy of the 60 votes needed to succeed.

Minutes later, senators voted 52-44 for a Democratic alternative that sought to open padlocked agencies through Feb. 8 with no wall money. That was eight votes short. It was aimed at giving bargainers time to seek an accord while getting paychecks to 800,000 beleaguered government workers who are a day from going unpaid for a second consecutive pay period.

Flustered lawmakers said the results could be a reality check that would prod the start of talks. Throughout, the two sides have issued mutually exclusive demands that have blocked negotiations from even starting: Trump has refused to reopen government until Congress gives him the wall money, and congressional Democrats have rejected bargaining until he reopens government.

Thursday’s votes could “teach us that the leaders are going to have to get together and figure out how to resolve this,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate GOP leader. He added, “One way or another we’ve got to get out of this. This is no win for anybody.”

For now, partisan potshots flowed freely.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., accused Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross of a “let them eat cake kind of attitude” after he said on television that he didn’t understand why unpaid civil servants were resorting to homeless shelters for food. Even as Pelosi offered to meet the president “anytime,” Trump stood firm, tweeting, “Without a Wall it all doesn’t work…. We will not Cave!” and no meetings were scheduled.

As the Senate debated the two dueling proposals, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Democratic plan would let that party’s lawmakers “make political points and nothing else” because Trump wouldn’t sign it. He called Pelosi’s stance “unreasonable” and said, “Senate Democrats are not obligated to go down with her ship.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized the GOP plan for endorsing Trump’s proposal to keep the government closed until he got what he wants.

“A vote for the president’s plan is an endorsement of government by extortion,” Schumer said. “If we let him do it today, he’ll do it tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.’

Even so, there were suggestions of movement.

Vice President Mike Pence attended a lunch with GOP senators before the vote and heard from lawmakers eager for the standoff to end, participants said. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said their message to Pence was “Find a way forward.”

In consultation with their Senate counterparts, House Democrats were preparing a new border security package they planned to roll out Friday. Despite their pledge to not negotiate until agencies reopened, their forthcoming proposal was widely seen as a counteroffer to Trump. Pelosi expressed “some optimism that things could break loose pretty soon.”

The Democratic package was expected to include $5.7 billion, the same amount Trump wants for his wall, but use it instead for fencing, technology, personnel and other measures. In a proposal that the rejected Senate GOP plan mirrored, Trump on Saturday proposed to reopen government if he got his wall money. He also proposed to revamp immigration laws, including new restrictions on Central American minors seeking asylum in the U.S. and temporary protections for immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.

In another sign of hope, Thursday’s vote on the Democratic plan represented movement by McConnell. For weeks, he’d refused to allow a Senate vote on anything Trump wouldn’t sign and has let Trump and Democrats try reaching an accord. McConnell has a history of helping resolve past partisan standoffs, and his agreement to allow Thursday’s vote was seen by some as a sign he would become more forcefully engaged.

In addition, House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., said that at a closed-door meeting among House Democrats Wednesday night, Pelosi expressed “some optimism that things could break loose pretty soon” but provided no specifics.

With the impacts of the shutdown becoming increasingly painful, however, lawmakers on both sides were trumpeting their willingness to compromise in the battle over border security and immigration issues, such as protection against deportation for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.

“We can work this out,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

At a panel discussion held by House Democrats on the effects of the shutdown, union leaders and former Homeland Security officials said they worried about the long-term effects. “I fear we are rolling the dice,” said Tim Manning, a former Federal Emergency Management Agency official. “We will be lucky to get everybody back on the job without a crisis to respond to.”

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AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and writers Laurie Kellman and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

Trump Calls on Maduro to Resign as Foe Claims Venezuela Presidency

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s crisis quickly escalated Wednesday as an opposition leader backed by the Trump administration declared himself interim president in a direct challenge to embattled socialist Nicolas Maduro, who retaliated by breaking off relations with the United States, his biggest trade partner.

For the past two weeks, ever since Maduro took the oath for a second six-year term in the face of widespread international condemnation, the newly invigorated opposition had been preparing for nationwide demonstrations Wednesday coinciding with the anniversary marking the end of Venezuela’s last military dictatorship in 1958.

While Maduro has shown no signs of leaving, his main rival, National Assembly President Juan Guaido, upped the ante by declaring himself interim president before masses of anti-government demonstrators — the only way, he said, to rescue Venezuela from “dictatorship.” Outside the capital, seven demonstrators were killed amid disturbances during protests that rocked several cities.

In a seemingly coordinated action, the U.S. led a chorus of Western hemisphere nations, including Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, that immediately recognized Guaido, with President Donald Trump calling on Maduro to resign and promising to use the “full weight” of the U.S. economic and diplomatic power to push for the restoration of Venezuela’s democracy.

“The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law,” Trump said in a statement.

The stunning move, which to some harkened back to dark episodes of heavy-handed U.S. interventions in Latin America during the Cold War, drew a strong rebuke from Maduro. He responded by swiftly cutting off diplomatic relations with the United States, the biggest importer of the OPEC nation’s oil, giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave the country.

“Before the people and nations of the world, and as constitutional president. …. I’ve decided to break diplomatic and political relations with the imperialist U.S. government,” Maduro thundered while holding up a decree banning the diplomats before a crowd of red-shirted supporters gathered at the presidential palace.

“Don’t trust the gringos,” he said, rattling off a long list of U.S.-backed military coups — Guatemala, Chile, Brazil — in decades past. “They don’t have friends or loyalties. They only have interests, guts and the ambition to take Venezuela’s oil, gas and gold.”

Not to be undone, Guaido issued his own statement, urging foreign embassies to disavow Maduro’s orders and keep their diplomats in the country. A few hours later, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would abide by Guaido’s directive and ignore Maduro’s order to withdraw its diplomats.

The 35-year-old Guaido, a virtually unknown lawmaker at the start of the year, has reignited the hopes of Venezuela’s often beleaguered opposition by taking a rebellious tack amid a crushing economic crisis that has forced millions to flee or go hungry.

Raising his right hand in unison with tens of thousands of supporters, the fresh-faced leader of the opposition-controlled congress took a symbolic oath to assume executive powers he says are his right under two articles of Venezuela constitution to take over as interim president and form a transitional government until he calls new elections.

“Today, January 23, 2019, I swear to formally assume the powers of the national executive as president in charge of Venezuela,” he told the cheering crowd as he stood behind a lectern emblazoned with Venezuela’s national coat of arms.

“We know that this will have consequences,” he shouted, moments before quickly slipping away to an unknown location amid speculation he would soon be arrested.

The price of oil slipped for the third time in four days Wednesday, an indication that international energy markets are not overly concerned yet that the situation in Venezuela — America’s third top oil supplier and owner of Houston-based Citgo — will disrupt global crude supplies.

The assault on Maduro’s rule came after large crowds gathered in Caracas waving flags and chanting “Get out Maduro!” in what was the largest demonstration since a wave of unrest that left more than 120 dead in 2017.

While the protests in the capital were mostly peaceful there were no signs that security forces heeded Guaido’s call to join the anti-Maduro movement and go light on demonstrators.

Hours after most demonstrators went home, violence broke out in Altamira, an upscale zone of Caracas and an opposition stronghold, when National Guardsmen descended on hundreds of youths, some of them with their faces covered, lingering around a plaza. Popping tear gas canisters sent hundreds running and hordes of protesters riding two and three on motorcycles fleeing in panic.

Blocks away, a small group knocked a pair of guardsman riding tandem off their motorcycle, pelting them with coconuts as they sped down a wide avenue. Some in the group struck the two guardsmen with their hands while others ran off with their gear and set their motorcycle on fire.

Elsewhere, four demonstrators were killed by gunfire in the western city of Barinas as security forces were dispersing a crowd. Three others were killed amid unrest in the border city of San Cristobal.

Amid the showdown, all eyes were on the military, the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela — and to whom Guaido has been targeting his message.

Maduro, who lacks the military pedigree of his mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, has sought to shore up support from the armed forces by doling out key posts to top generals, including heading the PDVSA oil monopoly that is the source of virtually all of Venezuela’s export earnings. He has also been playing commander in chief, appearing last week at a military command meeting wearing camouflage fatigues and receiving the blessing of the defense minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who said his troops were prepared to die for Maduro.

But beyond the public displays of loyalty from the top brass, a number of cracks have started to appear.

On Monday, Venezuelans awoke to news that a few dozen national guardsmen had taken captive a loyalist officer and seized a stockpile of assault rifles in a pre-dawn raid. The government quickly quelled the uprising, but residents in a nearby slum took to the streets to show their support for the mutineers by burning cars and throwing stones at security forces, who fired back with tear gas.

Disturbances continued into Tuesday, with small pockets of unrest in a few working-class neighborhoods where the government has traditionally enjoyed strong support.

Retired Maj. Gen. Cliver Alcala, a one-time aide to Chavez and now in exile, said the opposition’s newfound momentum has reverberated with the military’s lower ranks, many of whom are suffering the same hardships as regular Venezuelan families.

“I am absolutely certain that right now, especially younger troops are asking themselves whether Maduro is their commander in chief or a usurper,” Alcala said.

Though intimidation has worked for the government in the past, it may not this time, said Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst. Discontent now appears to be more widespread and the ranks of security forces and government-allied groups have been thinned by the mass exodus of mostly young Venezuelans, he said.

“The government is resorting to its old tricks, but the people no longer believe them,” Pantoulas said.

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Associated Press writers Scott Smith, Fabiola Sanchez and Jorge Rueda in Caracas and Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.

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Joshua Goodman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APjoshgoodman

The Corporatists Who Want Venezuela’s President Ousted

Gleisi Hoffmann grew up in a Catholic household in Curitiba where, after giving up plans to become a nun, she entered the student movement, affiliated with the Brazilian Communist Party (PC do B) and was elected President of the Curitiba, Parana State and National High School Student’s Unions. Afterward, she became a lawyer, affiliated with the Workers Party (Partido de Trabalhadores/PT) and began a political trajectory that culminated with her serving as Dilma Rousseff’s chief of staff (2011-2014), senator, and her current position as national president of the PT.

In 2015 she was accused of corruption as part of the US Department of Justice/Brazilian Public Prosecutors Office’s  Lava Jato investigation, headed by Jair Bolsonaro’s current Justice Minister Sergio Moro. According to a plea bargain testimony made by a convicted criminal in exchange for sentence reduction, she was accused of receiving bribes from Petrobras state petroleum company. The case came up to the Supreme Court in 2017, where it was thrown out by unanimous decision due to lack of material evidence.

On Jan. 10, Hoffmann traveled to Venezuela to participate in the inauguration ceremony for President Nicolas Maduro. That week, she was broadly attacked in the media. I managed to catch up to her on Jan. 19 to give her a chance to explain to an English speaking audience why she felt it so important to go to the inauguration.

Brian Mier: Your visit to Nicolas Maduro’s inauguration in Venezuela was widely criticized in the North–even by Anglo journalists who write for supposedly progressive publications such as the Guardian. You published a statement about your visit, saying that anyone who criticized it does not understand the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination. Judging from the way the Anglo media responded to your visit, I believe that a lot of people in the historically imperialist nations of England and the US really do not have a good understanding of these concepts. Why are the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination important and how do they relate to your recent visit to Venezuela?

Gleisi Hoffmann: Sovereignty is related to the non-recognition of a higher body in the external order. In other words, the nation has supreme authority – there is no hierarchy among nations. Self determination is the right that a people have to govern themselves, to make their choices without foreign intervention. This is why I mentioned that the US government and those who criticized me don’t understand sovereignty and self-determination – because they believe that forces from outside Venezuela should solve their problems. We believe the opposite. Only the Venezuelan people have the capacity to solve their problems, through a process of dialogue, learning and relationships. My trip to Venezuela, therefore, was related to what the Workers Party thinks about sovereignty and self-determination. No other nation or external body has the right to preach for violence and intervention and meddle in the affairs of another nation. We can, on the other hand, support building dialogue, drawing together the opposing parties and encourage a peaceful solution to conflicts. This is what President Lula always did.

BM: I would like to ask you about lawfare – the use of the legal system to engage in character assassination and political persecution. Just as Lula is a victim of this process, you were persecuted for years in a US Department of Justice/Brazilian Public Prosecutors lawfare operation, Lava Jato, led by Bolsonaro’s current Justice Minister Sergio Moro. Beforehand a lot of people thought you would run for President. Personally, I saw the legal/mediatic character assassination that was carried out against you as an attempt to block you from running. How did this lawfare process affect your life?

GH: Lawfare has evolved into a system of political persecution and an instrument of certain sectors of Brazilian society to access power. It is not just Brazilian society – it is a phenomenon that we are seeing in all of Latin America. It has spread out across the continent, unfortunately. I was deeply affected by the case against me. I was absolved of all the charges they mounted against me by a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, but before this happened I passed through a series of public embarrassments. My house was invaded by the police. My husband was arrested and released. There were protests against me – the criticism in the press was always acidic – I was persecuted on social media and my children were harassed in public. It was a very painful process. But I was very relieved that this situation was clarified when my final appeal was analyzed and I was absolved of all charges. However, it still causes problems for me in my social relations and my political trajectory.

BM: What are the risks of having a highly politicized ultra-conservative like former Lava Jato investigator, prosecutor and judge Sergio Moro running the Justice Ministry?

GH: Minister of Justice Sergio Moro is now responsible for political persecution. In other words, he is that one who will eliminate rivals and enemies of the system and he will do this using lawfare. He will do this by mounting and directing investigative processes against people who oppose his government or who can create obstacles to what they are trying to accomplish in terms of negotiations and projects.

BM: Was the U.S. involved in these lawfare processes?

GH: I have no doubt about the interests and involvement of the United States in the Lava Jato investigation process in Brazil. I don’t know if their objective was to persecute the PT, but certainly they engaged in the operation to advance the commercial goal of opening Petrobras to the North American petroleum companies, and they succeeded. These are very strong business interests. And certainly if they manage to weaken or destroy whoever engages in political opposition and is not aligned with their concept of international relations, they will not hesitate to do this.

BM: What is the role that the international petroleum industry played in the 2016 coup, in the character assassination and persecution of Lula and the coup attempt that appears to be underway in Venezuela?

GH: US government got involved in the Lava Jato process in Brazil due to its interest in accessing our petroleum. We have huge offshore petroleum reserves in the pre-salt layer. We recently developed a way to extract it very cheaply due to the technology that was developed by our state petroleum company, Petrobras. We developed an extraction process and policies for use of this petroleum that were very different from what is done with normal commercial petroleum wells. We developed specific laws and a sharing regime to give limited drilling concessions. We created a fund for saving part of the money that was raised through this drilling and we allocated part of the profits to the public education system, In other words we acted with sovereignty over our petroleum. This was not interesting to the North American petroleum companies, that wanted to come here and extract the pre-salt petroleum the way that they work in other places around the world by making a bid and keeping all of the oil without having to be accountable to the Brazilian government or the Brazilian people. Therefore I have no doubt that this coup process is totally connected to facilitated access to Brazilian petroleum- so much so that immediately after the 2016 coup which deposed President Dilma ( and there are interviews with Edward Snowden showing that Brazil, President Dilma and Petrobras were subject wire tapping and communications monitoring from the US Government) – a law was ratified in Congress changing the rules for exploitation of the pre-salt petroleum reserves. Now they are working on another one, changing the regulations for auctioning off the wells. So this is clear. Above all the coup government minimized and greatly weakened Petrobras, forcing it, after the Lava Jatoinvestigation, to sell off its assets.

Lula is a great leader of the Brazilian people and he always worked for our sovereignty and our self-determination without ever disrespecting any other country. So they knew that Lula would have been a huge resistance to these interests that they had here. He would have mobilized popular support against these foreign interests and he would have, in fact, been elected President. They arrested him to prevent him from being elected.

This is all evident in Venezuela as well. Venezuela has the world’s largest petroleum reserves. It is a lot closer to the US than the Middle East. It has a strategic geographical position in Latin America. Since Chavez took over the government over 20 years ago, Venezuela has adopted a different posture in relation to the commercialization of its petroleum and also in relation to its internal policies. And this has greatly displeased the Americans because Venezuela has not aligned with them. So all of this talk about democracy in Venezuela, about Maduro being a dictator, in reality, masks very strong commercial interests in accessing the petroleum. It’s the same thing that happened in Iraq. Nobody discusses whether Iraq has democracy or whether the Iraqi people are doing well these days, they have simply forgotten. The Americans succeeded in positioning themselves in Iraq to access the petroleum and the situation was resolved. So paying close attention and taking a position in favor of Venezuela’s sovereignty and self-determination is essential now. The problems with the opposition should be resolved through a process of mediation and debate and a peaceful solution.

BM: You visit Lula frequently. How is he?

GH: Lula is well. Lula is a political, emotional and physical fortress, even though he survived cancer and so many other problems in his life. Of course he is 73, so this imprisonment has consequences on his disposition. But he is politically well and has a clear vision of his role in history and what we have to do here to defend Brazil – what we have to do to position ourselves on the side of the Brazilian people. We have no perspective on when he will be released. All legal measures were blocked. We have done everything that we could legally and we are fighting politically. Lula’s imprisonment is political. It’s not based on legal facts because no proof was mounted to back up his conviction. His condemnation was not made on the basis of material evidence. There is not even a clearly defined crime. So this is very serious. But, unfortunately, since we are victims of lawfare here in Brazil, I don’t see any perspective for a rapid release of Lula. We are going to fight a lot, and we will always defend our former President to Brazilian society.

BM: What can the international community do to help?

GH: The international community can and is helping us. It is fundamental that supporters of democracy, intellectuals and people who understand Lula and Brazil’s story show their support, and many already have. I also think that the Nobel Peace Prize for Lula – even just his nomination – would serve as recognition of his innocence. I have no doubt that if he won the Nobel Peace Prize it would be out of recognition of what he means for Latin America and the World in terms of pacification of conflicting relationships. Lula was very important – not only from the external point of view of peace building, but from the internal point of view when he gave the Brazilian people access to dignified living conditions.