A planetary bargain?

Madeley, John

compared to nine percent for House members . This statistic, on top of the fact that two-thirds of the senators up for reelection this year are Democrats, made the Republican leadership...

...At this point Mr...
...Extreme cold, chronic hunger, backbreaking labor and medical neglect, according to Vins, ensure the -.;% 26 September1980:517...
...The Brandt report has been widely read in Europe, less so in North America...
...Developing countries asked for a firm commitmentfrom rich countries that they would reach the UN aid target by 1984, transferring 0.7 percent of their national incomes to them by that date...
...In exchange the West received a basis for arguing that inquiries into human rights matters from abroad are not necessarily intervention in Soviet internal affairs...
...If, said the Commissioners, the North would increase aid and scale down trade barriers, the South would have more purchasing power to buy the goods of the North, thus helping to cut down unemploymentin industrialized countries...
...Holland, Denmark, and the Scandinavian countries supported developing countries in their request...
...in the United States only 6,000...
...if it is missing they are never likely to happen...
...It was for the purpose of injecting more political will into North-South relations that the Brandt Commission report suggested that a twenty-five-nation summit be held...
...If the pOlitical will is there these reforms could be done quickly...
...Shelkov was subsequently deported to Tabaga, a Siberian labor camp in the autonomous republic of Yakutsk...
...The news media also focused considerable attention on the official campaign to rid Moscow of dissidents and other perceived trouble-makers before the start of the summe~ Olympics...
...A strategy for the 1980s was formulated at the session, but it is capable of meaning anything or nothing...
...There was also disagreement over the content of the global round of talks which should begin in January 1981...
...Together with the U.S...
...Northern countries have committed,themselves to reducing or eliminating"existing restrictions on imports from developing countries...
...Genscher said that the West should now admit that developing countries were right to claim that development efforts were useless, "u~iess the external conditions for development are created through the reform of the world economic structures...
...Carter fears Anderson will drain votes away from him, and he and his aides tried hard if vainly to bar the independent candidate from as many state ballots as possible...
...COMING: David O'Brien analyzes the political paralysis of American Catholicism . Thomas Power tells why PD 59 opens anew era in nuclear' strategy...
...Secretary of State Edmund Muskie put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of oil-producing countries' adopting "stable price and supply policies" and joining the consuming countries in working for rational global energy arrangements.The North was at the UN expecting changes from the OPEC group, and the developing countries were there expecting changes from the North...
...But news of one of the most glaring Soviet violations of the spirit of Helsinki has not caught the Western public's notice...
...In return for this promise the USSR received a document that affn'med its borders and legitimized the status quo in Europe...
...This Mexico summit is a natural follow-up to the special session...
...He went on to say that West Germany stood on the side of the non-aligned countries in their struggle for self-reliance...
...On this score there is a conflict of interest between President Carter and Democratic candidates for the House and Senate...
...Carter is refusing to enter the first television debate because of the presence of Mr .Anderson .But congressional candidates estimate that Anderson's candidacy may bring to the polls millions of moderate and liberal voters who might otherwise stay home in disgust ; such voters, they calculate, would support Democratic House and Senate candidates rather than conservative Republican contenders . Indeed, some calculate that this factor alone might save eight Senate seats and as many as twenty-five House seats for the Democrats...
...He has described Tabaga as a camp of"death...
...Furthermore a bargain of this kind would do a great deal to secure for the North the raw materials, copper and cobalt, for example, that are vital for industrial and strategic processes...
...But the Brandt report was not powerful enough to persuade every industrial country at the special session that the moment was right to make the all-important breakthrough in NorthSouth relations and launch a planetary bargain...
...Human rights VLADIMIRSHELKOV ANOTHER SOVIET AFFRONT TO HELSINKI ONAUGUST 1, 1975 the Soviet Union signed the Helsinki Accord on European Security and Cooperation...
...It just might see a break with the old polarities that, as Pope John Paul II said in a message to the special session, must cease to dominate the North-South dialogue.JOhN MADELEY (John Madeley isan international development economist who contributes to the London Observer, the Guardian, Church Times and other publications...
...Carter's subsequent rise in the polls, it became the turn of the Democrats to wax optimistic . Democratic leaders now express confidence that they will retain control of both House and Senate this fall, a control they have maintained for a quarter of a century, although probably with slimmer majorities than they now enjoy . Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill expects a net loss of not more than ten to eighteen seats in the House, and majority leader Byrd has reversed himself on his former fearful predictions, now saying that it might even be possible that the Democrats would win additional Senate seats . A hard-to-figure aspect to all this is the Anderson candidacy...
...in April 1979, served four years in that camp for his religious beliefs...
...Delegates had considerable difficulty in reaching agreement because they had different perceptions of what the main problems really are .Developing countries say that poverty in their countries is generally getting worse and that the world trading system does not help them...
...In March 1979, a Soviet court in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, sentenced Vladimir Shelkov, a frail eighty-three-year-oldman in poor health to five years of hard labor...
...This was precisely the argument of the Brandt Commission report on international development issues which was published earlier this year(North-South: A Program for Survival, MIT Press,.95) . The Commission was made up of eighteen distinguished statesmen from both North and South including four former prime ministers . At the end of two years of deliberations, they were unanimous in agreeing that a formula could be worked out that would serve mutual interests and thereby satisfy all sides . The Brandt report pointed out that the present international economy is working badly for both North and South...
...In any case, whatever the ultimate effect of the Anderson candidacy, the Democrats would be wise to run scared . For the first time since Herbert Hoover, they are going into the November race with the economic issues heavily weighted against them, and on election day normally Democratic voters may stay home by the thousands . Indeed, present poll predictions indicate that this year's turnout will no more than match that of 1976 when, at fifty-four percent, it was lower than it had been in the previous twenty-eight years . Democratic candidates are running with a presidential nominee considered by many even inside his own party to be inept and inefficient . Despite current Democratic optimism about the House and Senate contests, if Carter does run a poor race, he could still drag the entire ticket down, and this could set the stage for a Republican takeover of Congress, if not in 1980 then in 1982, with all that such a switch would mean for national policymost immediately, perhaps, on the vital and highly vulnerable SALT H treaty...
...They also agree to "take steps" to reform the world monetary system...
...Pastor Georgi Vins, a Baptist leader exiled to the U.S...
...The United States and Britain strongly opposed any commitment to a f'n'm date for reaching the target...
...Further, that the rich ought to be prepared to share a little more of their affluence .Northern countries, especially the United States and Japan,see the North-South dialogue largely in terms of energy supplies and prices...
...Although it is no secret that the Soviet Unionhas made little effortto respect the provisions of the accord, Westerners remain only dimly aware of the severity of the continuing violations...
...The industrialized North has twenty-five million people out of work despite the fact that some of the goods it could produce are urgently needed in the South...
...Again the talks, when they do begin, could lead anywhere or nowhere...
...Commonweal:516North-South relations A PLANETARBARGAIN...
...Five years have now passed since Helsinki...
...In theory a kind of planetary bargain could have been struck, in which OPEC agreed to hold prices reasonably steady if Western countries agreed to scale down barriers against Third World goods, give more aid, and reform the world monetary system...
...In such a deal, OPEC would agree to keep oil prices fairly steady or at least only increase them by predictable amounts...
...and thirty-three other countries it pledged, among other things, to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms...
...Soviet officials left Helsinki dated: they witnessed the culmination of twenty years of Soviet diplomatic efforts...
...Detailed reports on the exile of Russian physicist and Moscow dissident Andrei Sakharov to the city of Gorky have reached Western readers...
...Sales to date in Britain total 40,000...
...compared to nine percent for House members . This statistic, on top of the fact that two-thirds of the senators up for reelection this year are Democrats, made the Republican leadership a trifle cocky about their chances of winning a Senate majority as late as in August . After the Democratic convention, a few Reagan gaffes, and Mr...
...This is likely to take place in January 198i at Mexico City...
...UN SPECIAL SESSION ON DEVELOPMENT AMAJOR UNITED NATIONSsession met in Nework in late August and early September to review the state of North-South relations .Officially known as the UN Special Session of the General Assembly on Economic Development the session had the task of formulating a strategy for the 1980s, the third development decade, and of launching a global round of talks on the most pressing North-South issues-energy, finance, commodities, and so on . In fact, the session became bogged down in the technicalities that have tended to characterize recent rich-poor negotiations .And yet underlying the discussions there was something of an awareness that change cannot long be delayed, because the existing North-South economic order is unsatisfactory for both sides...
...West German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher told the spegial session that his government had revised its concept of development in the light of the Brandt report...
...A great deal hinges on whether the North is willing to give the issue sufficient priority...
...The report has persuaded one powerful European country to change its mind about development...

Vol. 107 • September 1980 • No. 17


 
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