Harriet Harman was yesterday moved to issue an emphatic commitment that she would not run for leader of the Labour party in an attempt to draw a line under a weekend of widespread speculation about Gordon Brown's future.
The deputy Labour leader's comments mean all three senior politicians tipped to be "caretaker" leaders of the Labour party have appeared in public over the bank holiday weekend to rule themselves out.
Rebellious MPs, convinced Brown is too damaged to remain as PM, are pushing for a veteran to be prepared to take over after what they expect will be a mauling in the local and European elections on 4 June.
Labour MPs are astounded at inept government handling of changes to MPs' expenses and a misreading of the mood on the backbenches over plans to limit rights for Gurkhas – inflicting on the government its first parliamentary defeat under Brown – and believe the prime minister's position will be untenable should the party not improve on its performance last year when it only got 24% of the national vote.
The vocal minority agitating for a leadership change, with as much as a year before the next general election, appeared to receive high-profile endorsement this weekend when the communities secretary Hazel Blears described the government's "lamentable failure" to engage with voters and warned of "dire consequences" if the government did not re-engage.
Within hours, however, Blears issued a statement saying Brown had her "100% support". Later justice minister Jack Straw and health secretary Alan Johnson mounted gushing defences of Brown, with their united front bolstered by former Labour leader Neil Kinnock describing rumours of leadership challenges as "ludicrous and damaging".
As part of a renewed reckoning with its increasingly fractious backbenches, the government is working hard to head off another Commons rebellion on plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail by reaching a compromise with the centre-left campaign group Compass which would see the service run along the lines of Network Rail.
Yesterday, Harman also dashed backbenchers' hopes, denying a newspaper report suggesting she would fight to replace Brown if he stood down. Harman called the reports "rubbish".
When asked on the BBC's Today programme whether she planned to run, should a vacancy arise, Harman said: "No." She went on: "I am saying there are no circumstances ... I do not want to be prime minister. I do not want to be leader of the party. I want Gordon Brown to remain PM after the next election as well as before the election."
Harman allies said the current atmosphere made it necessary for the deputy leader to knock on the head all speculation. Emily Thornberry, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, described her comments as "neither here nor there". She said: "It wasn't a surprise to me that Harriet ruled herself out. She's been the subject of endless tittle tattle and it's not surprising that she'd want to draw a line under them."
However, the force of Harman's comments is surprising since she has been seen to command the kind of broad support across unions, MPs and party members needed in any race to replace Brown. In contrast to Alan Johnson – who apparently inadvertently found himself saying over the weekend "I'm not saying there are no circumstances" – Harman has now put on record that there are no circumstances in which she will go for the top job. Brownites will be concerned that since Johnson's comments were the most ambiguous, he has now become the front runner for those intent on mobilising.
Rebel MPs, such as former ministers Frank Field and Kate Hoey, were already talking openly of a possible challenge if Labour did badly in the European and local government elections. This week another serial rebel Graham Stringer is to convene a meeting of dissatisfied MPs to discuss mechanisms for changing leader.
Moves by Harman over the last year – including attacks on City bonuses, sex discrimination, and the pension of Sir Fred Goodwin – have consistently been interpreted as positioning to be the natural successor to Brown if he were unseated. After Labour's defeat in the Glasgow East byelection, Harman is alleged to have said "this is my moment".
However, Jon Cruddas, the MP for Dagenham, who has been described as a possible running mate for Harman, has said he believes the deputy leader to have been briefed against by cabinet colleagues for "having the temerity to develop a policy agenda of her own".
Yesterday colleagues said Harman's denial was not quite as copper-bottomed as that made by Lyndon B Johnson in 1968 – himself borrowing that of American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman – announcing he would not seek a second full term when he said: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."
Deputy news editor
Harriet Harman leaned across the BBC's sofa yesterday morning, "grabbed" a marker pen and into the headline Harman: I'd Fight for Leadership on the front page of the Daily Telegraph inserted the word NOT. She explained: "When I ran … in a big contest for the deputy leadership of the Labour party I said first and foremost I'll be a loyal deputy to Gordon Brown. That is exactly what I am doing. That is why I corrected the headline for you."
Harman is the not the first to prefer some theatrics with a marker pen to the letters page of a newspaper. Last summer her cabinet colleague David Miliband was similarly accused of plotting to replace Brown and into the main headline of that day's Daily Telegraph, proclaiming Labour at War, he also added the word NOT.
Monday, May 4, 2009
PM seeks deal with rebel MPs over Royal Mail
Gordon Brown's aides have been in private talks with leaders of the Labour rebellion over the future of Royal Mail in an effort to avert another Commons revolt which could fatally weaken the prime minister's authority.
The aides have been examining proposals to turn Royal Mail into a not-for-profit company on a similar model to Network Rail and the BBC Trust instead of pursuing a plan to sell a 49% stake to the private sector. Details of a possible change of heart came as ministers were told that up to 100 Labour rebels were determined to vote against Brown's original plan.
After a weekend of turbulence surrounding Brown's leadership, in which Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson faced close questioning about their ambitions for the top job, the prime minister will try to right himself tomorrow with a policy speech on education, promising parents fresh powers to drive school improvement.
But questions over Brown's ability to control his party continue to dominate after his first Commons defeat on the Gurkhas vote last week.
The future of Royal Mail is the next combustible problem he faces and Nick Brown, the chief whip, has warned the strength of backbench opposition means it may be impossible to pass legislation through the Commons next month without the support of the Conservatives.
The prospect of another defeat in the Commons weeks after what is expected to be a bad showing in the European elections triggered the search for a compromise.
The private talks have been held between No 10's policy unit and Neal Lawson, the author of a pamphlet published tomorrow by the left-leaning thinktank Compass, calling on all sides of the Labour party to "step back from the brink" and rally behind the idea of keeping Royal Mail in the public sector on the model of Network Rail.
Some of Brown's aides claim the scheme would achieve the government's objective of new management, private finance and modernisation, but without selling a minority stake.
The Blairite moderniser Stephen Byers said tonight: "With goodwill on both sides it should be possible for the government to meet its manifesto commitment [not to privatise the Royal Mail] and to modernise the service." He believes the Network Rail structure should be examined as a possible model. Dan Corry, the head of No 10's policy unit, was Byers's special adviser and helped design the Network Rail model, but there is concern in Downing Street that such a move may not be seen as enough of a fresh start for Royal Mail.
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary currently steering the bill through the Lords, is unimpressed by the Compass proposal. His aides are concerned by the risk-averse mood of the whips following last week's Gurkhas defeat and recognise the issue is now in the balance and a decision lies with the prime minister.
Mandelson is concerned that Royal Mail is losing its business at a rate of 8% a year and needs fresh management expertise to oversee modernisation.
In his Compass pamphlet, Lawson says his solution "would heal wounds and suspicions in the party". He writes: "The alternatives of defeat at the hands of Labour backbenchers, or privatisation, but only with the help of Tory frontbench, are both too awful to contemplate."
The pamphlet concedes that Royal Mail does need new investment, some job losses, and a change in industrial relations. The leadership of the Union of Communication Workers, the main Royal Mail union, recognises the need to change, the pamphlet says.
But it also criticises the government's review of Royal Mail, conducted by Richard Hooper, for considering only a solution involving the sale of a major minority stake to a private sector mail operator such as TNT, the Dutch postal company.
It is claimed there is no need to sell shares in Royal Mail, which would, in any case, have to be sold at a knockdown price. The investment necessary for the service to meet the pressures created largely by competition from the internet can be secured from within the public sector, the pamphlet states. It points to an adapted version of Network Rail – "a not for profit dividend company, operating under a licence, whose sole purpose is to provide a service and not a profit".
It goes on: "Network Rail's financing requirements are principally met by debt raised from the capital markets. In total the government has borrowed close to £20bn which does not count as government borrowing because technically it is deemed by the Office of National Statistics not to be in the public sector".
Network Rail's board's objectives are set by 110 members that act as shareholders, drawn from industry and public.
The Compass pamphlet also challenges the government's view that Royal Mail is a commercial basket case, noting it made a profit of £225m in the first three quarters of this year. "It could be making profit of £600m a year if it did not have to fund the pension deficit and in effect subsidise the private sector competitors through lower than cost access charges," the pamphlet says. Ministers have committed themselves to take on the deficit but only on the condition that shares are sold and private sector expertise introduced.
A Downing Street said: "The government has said its door is open to those with ideas on the future of the Royal Mail and Neal Lawson has taken advantage of the opportunity to present the proposal he is publishing this week to government officials.
"We do not believe his alternative is workable and it is not under consideration."
The aides have been examining proposals to turn Royal Mail into a not-for-profit company on a similar model to Network Rail and the BBC Trust instead of pursuing a plan to sell a 49% stake to the private sector. Details of a possible change of heart came as ministers were told that up to 100 Labour rebels were determined to vote against Brown's original plan.
After a weekend of turbulence surrounding Brown's leadership, in which Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson faced close questioning about their ambitions for the top job, the prime minister will try to right himself tomorrow with a policy speech on education, promising parents fresh powers to drive school improvement.
But questions over Brown's ability to control his party continue to dominate after his first Commons defeat on the Gurkhas vote last week.
The future of Royal Mail is the next combustible problem he faces and Nick Brown, the chief whip, has warned the strength of backbench opposition means it may be impossible to pass legislation through the Commons next month without the support of the Conservatives.
The prospect of another defeat in the Commons weeks after what is expected to be a bad showing in the European elections triggered the search for a compromise.
The private talks have been held between No 10's policy unit and Neal Lawson, the author of a pamphlet published tomorrow by the left-leaning thinktank Compass, calling on all sides of the Labour party to "step back from the brink" and rally behind the idea of keeping Royal Mail in the public sector on the model of Network Rail.
Some of Brown's aides claim the scheme would achieve the government's objective of new management, private finance and modernisation, but without selling a minority stake.
The Blairite moderniser Stephen Byers said tonight: "With goodwill on both sides it should be possible for the government to meet its manifesto commitment [not to privatise the Royal Mail] and to modernise the service." He believes the Network Rail structure should be examined as a possible model. Dan Corry, the head of No 10's policy unit, was Byers's special adviser and helped design the Network Rail model, but there is concern in Downing Street that such a move may not be seen as enough of a fresh start for Royal Mail.
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary currently steering the bill through the Lords, is unimpressed by the Compass proposal. His aides are concerned by the risk-averse mood of the whips following last week's Gurkhas defeat and recognise the issue is now in the balance and a decision lies with the prime minister.
Mandelson is concerned that Royal Mail is losing its business at a rate of 8% a year and needs fresh management expertise to oversee modernisation.
In his Compass pamphlet, Lawson says his solution "would heal wounds and suspicions in the party". He writes: "The alternatives of defeat at the hands of Labour backbenchers, or privatisation, but only with the help of Tory frontbench, are both too awful to contemplate."
The pamphlet concedes that Royal Mail does need new investment, some job losses, and a change in industrial relations. The leadership of the Union of Communication Workers, the main Royal Mail union, recognises the need to change, the pamphlet says.
But it also criticises the government's review of Royal Mail, conducted by Richard Hooper, for considering only a solution involving the sale of a major minority stake to a private sector mail operator such as TNT, the Dutch postal company.
It is claimed there is no need to sell shares in Royal Mail, which would, in any case, have to be sold at a knockdown price. The investment necessary for the service to meet the pressures created largely by competition from the internet can be secured from within the public sector, the pamphlet states. It points to an adapted version of Network Rail – "a not for profit dividend company, operating under a licence, whose sole purpose is to provide a service and not a profit".
It goes on: "Network Rail's financing requirements are principally met by debt raised from the capital markets. In total the government has borrowed close to £20bn which does not count as government borrowing because technically it is deemed by the Office of National Statistics not to be in the public sector".
Network Rail's board's objectives are set by 110 members that act as shareholders, drawn from industry and public.
The Compass pamphlet also challenges the government's view that Royal Mail is a commercial basket case, noting it made a profit of £225m in the first three quarters of this year. "It could be making profit of £600m a year if it did not have to fund the pension deficit and in effect subsidise the private sector competitors through lower than cost access charges," the pamphlet says. Ministers have committed themselves to take on the deficit but only on the condition that shares are sold and private sector expertise introduced.
A Downing Street said: "The government has said its door is open to those with ideas on the future of the Royal Mail and Neal Lawson has taken advantage of the opportunity to present the proposal he is publishing this week to government officials.
"We do not believe his alternative is workable and it is not under consideration."
Obama crackdown on tax loopholes
President Barack Obama has proposed outlawing offshore tax-avoidance techniques in a move that could hit US corporations with overseas divisions.
His proposals would axe some tax deductions for firms that earn profits in countries with low tax rates.
His plan envisages 800 extra federal agents to police the laws, and may reap $210bn (£140bn) in tax over the decade.
The president said he wanted to "make it easier" for US companies to create jobs at home.
'Corporate loopholes'
He wants to close tax provisions that allow firms to put off paying taxes on profits made overseas as long as those earnings are invested back into the overseas subsidiaries.
"The steps I am announcing today will help us deal with some of the more egregious examples of what is wrong with our tax code," he said at a joint announcement with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
While "most Americans meet their responsibilities" with regard to tax, he said there were others shirking theirs.
He now needs congressional approval for the changes, which some business leaders oppose, before they could come into effect in 2011.
The president said his proposals would fix a tax code "full of corporate loopholes " which encourage US companies to send jobs overseas.
'Balance'
His administration wants to prohibit American firms from taking deductions on the expenses for their overseas operations, until after they have booked their profits in the US.
However, expenses on research and experimentation would be exempt.
In addition, at present US firms are allowed to claim a credit against their American taxes for foreign taxes paid.
But the Obama administration wants to end this practice as it says some firms take advantage of this by artificially increasing the amount of taxes they owe.
And the administration also wants to restrict the strategy that allows US-based multinational firms to shift profits into low-tax jurisdictions.
To prevent this it would require some foreign subsidiaries to be considered as separate corporations for US tax purposes.
The president also called for more transparency in bank accounts held by US citizens in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.
It is proposed that reporting requirements for overseas investments are tightened and that tougher penalties are introduced for those who fail to report foreign accounts.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the package of proposals "would bring balance to our tax code".
But Drew Lyon, a tax expert at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, said: "It's really hitting most Fortune 100 companies that depend to a great deal on growth of foreign markets for growing their total earnings."
His proposals would axe some tax deductions for firms that earn profits in countries with low tax rates.
His plan envisages 800 extra federal agents to police the laws, and may reap $210bn (£140bn) in tax over the decade.
The president said he wanted to "make it easier" for US companies to create jobs at home.
'Corporate loopholes'
He wants to close tax provisions that allow firms to put off paying taxes on profits made overseas as long as those earnings are invested back into the overseas subsidiaries.
"The steps I am announcing today will help us deal with some of the more egregious examples of what is wrong with our tax code," he said at a joint announcement with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
While "most Americans meet their responsibilities" with regard to tax, he said there were others shirking theirs.
He now needs congressional approval for the changes, which some business leaders oppose, before they could come into effect in 2011.
The president said his proposals would fix a tax code "full of corporate loopholes " which encourage US companies to send jobs overseas.
'Balance'
His administration wants to prohibit American firms from taking deductions on the expenses for their overseas operations, until after they have booked their profits in the US.
However, expenses on research and experimentation would be exempt.
In addition, at present US firms are allowed to claim a credit against their American taxes for foreign taxes paid.
But the Obama administration wants to end this practice as it says some firms take advantage of this by artificially increasing the amount of taxes they owe.
And the administration also wants to restrict the strategy that allows US-based multinational firms to shift profits into low-tax jurisdictions.
To prevent this it would require some foreign subsidiaries to be considered as separate corporations for US tax purposes.
The president also called for more transparency in bank accounts held by US citizens in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.
It is proposed that reporting requirements for overseas investments are tightened and that tougher penalties are introduced for those who fail to report foreign accounts.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the package of proposals "would bring balance to our tax code".
But Drew Lyon, a tax expert at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, said: "It's really hitting most Fortune 100 companies that depend to a great deal on growth of foreign markets for growing their total earnings."
US seeks Pakistan nuclear pledge
The US national security adviser has told the BBC that Washington needs guarantees from Pakistan that its nuclear arsenal is safe from militants.
General James Jones said Pakistan's army had repeatedly told him the stockpile was "under control", but "this is very much an ongoing topic".
The Pakistani government is fighting to stop Taleban militants expanding their power in the north-west of the country.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is due to meet Barack Obama this week.
Taleban threat
In an interview with the BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, Gen Jones said that "things are moving in a more positive direction" in Pakistan, but that more assurances were needed about the safety of the country's nuclear weapons.
"If Pakistan doesn't continue in the direction that it presently is and we're not successful there then, obviously, the nuclear question comes into view."
"We have received many assurances from the military that this is something they have under control but this is very much an ongoing topic," he added.
"The world would like to know that on this question, that there's absolute security and transparency."
The safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has become more of a concern to the US government since Taleban fighters began expanding their influence in northern Pakistan beyond the Swat valley, which they already largely control.
The Pakistani military has been engaged in an offensive to remove Taleban insurgents from the Lower Dir and Buner regions, parts of which are just 100km (60 miles) from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taleban would be "the very very worst case scenario," said Gen Jones.
"We're going to do anything we can within the construct of our bilateral relations and multilateral relations to make sure that doesn't happen."
On the subject of Iran, Gen Jones warned that the US would not "wait forever" for Iran to respond positively to President Obama's attempt to improve US relations with the country.
"We're interested in getting this new relationship established, to the extent that there is going to be one, but it takes two - and we're still waiting for the appropriate response from the Iranians," he said.
General James Jones said Pakistan's army had repeatedly told him the stockpile was "under control", but "this is very much an ongoing topic".
The Pakistani government is fighting to stop Taleban militants expanding their power in the north-west of the country.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is due to meet Barack Obama this week.
Taleban threat
In an interview with the BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, Gen Jones said that "things are moving in a more positive direction" in Pakistan, but that more assurances were needed about the safety of the country's nuclear weapons.
"If Pakistan doesn't continue in the direction that it presently is and we're not successful there then, obviously, the nuclear question comes into view."
"We have received many assurances from the military that this is something they have under control but this is very much an ongoing topic," he added.
"The world would like to know that on this question, that there's absolute security and transparency."
The safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has become more of a concern to the US government since Taleban fighters began expanding their influence in northern Pakistan beyond the Swat valley, which they already largely control.
The Pakistani military has been engaged in an offensive to remove Taleban insurgents from the Lower Dir and Buner regions, parts of which are just 100km (60 miles) from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taleban would be "the very very worst case scenario," said Gen Jones.
"We're going to do anything we can within the construct of our bilateral relations and multilateral relations to make sure that doesn't happen."
On the subject of Iran, Gen Jones warned that the US would not "wait forever" for Iran to respond positively to President Obama's attempt to improve US relations with the country.
"We're interested in getting this new relationship established, to the extent that there is going to be one, but it takes two - and we're still waiting for the appropriate response from the Iranians," he said.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Top-10 firms add Rs 1 lakh cr in a month; RIL gains Rs 40K cr
The country’s 10 most valued firms added whopping Rs 1,31,961 crore to their total market capitalisation in April, with Reliance Industries contributing over one third to the cumulative gain.
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries added Rs 40,085 crore to its market cap in April over the previous month, taking its total valuation to Rs 2,83,709 crore.
The total market cap of 10 most valued firms on the Bombay stock Exchange, comprising four private and six public sector entities, stood at Rs 12,47,619 crore at the end of April.
In March, the clubs valuation was Rs 11,15,658 crore.
Two state run entities ONGC and power major NTPC together added Rs 18,977 crore to their market cap at the end of the month. The market cap of ONGC and NTPC stood at Rs 1,85,119 crore and Rs 1,56,787 crore respectively, at the end of April.
FMCG major ITC dropped to the 10th place after adding Rs 932.19 crore to its market valuation at Rs 71,374 crore.
The club also witnessed country’s largest public sector lender State Bank of India notching a seventh position in April and mining giant NMDC jumping one spot to ninth from previous month
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries added Rs 40,085 crore to its market cap in April over the previous month, taking its total valuation to Rs 2,83,709 crore.
The total market cap of 10 most valued firms on the Bombay stock Exchange, comprising four private and six public sector entities, stood at Rs 12,47,619 crore at the end of April.
In March, the clubs valuation was Rs 11,15,658 crore.
Two state run entities ONGC and power major NTPC together added Rs 18,977 crore to their market cap at the end of the month. The market cap of ONGC and NTPC stood at Rs 1,85,119 crore and Rs 1,56,787 crore respectively, at the end of April.
FMCG major ITC dropped to the 10th place after adding Rs 932.19 crore to its market valuation at Rs 71,374 crore.
The club also witnessed country’s largest public sector lender State Bank of India notching a seventh position in April and mining giant NMDC jumping one spot to ninth from previous month
India joins race for land in Africa, China way ahead
After years of competing for overseas oil and mines to fuel their still-growing economies, India and China are silently scouring the world for their next great need: farmland to grow food.
The destination: Africa, where economies are poor and land is cheap.
Buying farmland abroad is not new, but it has gained urgency after a worldwide spike in food prices through 2007 and 2008.
So, more than a dozen companies from India, backed by the government, invested about $2 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) in leasing land and installing plants in Ethiopia last year to produce sugar, tea and several other crops. That number is expected to double to $4 billion this year, said Gurjit Singh, India’s ambassador to Ethiopia.
While India is just warming up, China and rich Gulf states that face graver land and water shortages have been aggressively acquiring land across Africa and some parts of Asia, said a report prepared by
the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
There are others.
Last May, South Korea joined the race, buying 690,000 hectares — about five times the size of Delhi — in Sudan to grow wheat.
Land worth between $20 billion and $30 billion (Rs 100,000 crore and 150,000 crore) was bought in Africa and Asia over the past three years, said Joachim von Braun, director general of IFPRI, who authored the report.
How much land has been sold? Between 15 million and 20 million hectares, which is more than all of Germany’s farmland, said Braun.
“Many governments, either directly or through state-owned entities and public-private partnerships, are in negotiations for, or have already closed deals on, arable land leases, concessions, or purchases abroad,” said the IFPRI report titled ‘Land Grabbing by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries: Risks and Opportunities’.
Unlike earlier, when companies from the developed world bought land for profit, the new deals are driven by spiralling shortages in emerging economies such as India or China, where rising incomes are pushing up demand for food so fast that governments fear domestic production could eventually fall short.
Currently, India’s annual food grain production of 230 million tonnes is just about what the country needs. By 2020, the Planning Commission estimates the demand to grow to 240 million tonnes. There are also forecasts that put the figure as high as 250 million tons.
But economists say, unlike China, India need not look to farmland elsewhere to meet that demand, because it can fill the gap by increasing farm productivity, said Mahendra Dev, chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, a government organisation that recommends procurement prices for major farm produce.
Still, the Indian government and several companies have intensified the chase for farmland abroad. “Even farmers from Andhra Pradesh have gone and invested in land in Kenya,” said Dev
The destination: Africa, where economies are poor and land is cheap.
Buying farmland abroad is not new, but it has gained urgency after a worldwide spike in food prices through 2007 and 2008.
So, more than a dozen companies from India, backed by the government, invested about $2 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) in leasing land and installing plants in Ethiopia last year to produce sugar, tea and several other crops. That number is expected to double to $4 billion this year, said Gurjit Singh, India’s ambassador to Ethiopia.
While India is just warming up, China and rich Gulf states that face graver land and water shortages have been aggressively acquiring land across Africa and some parts of Asia, said a report prepared by
the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
There are others.
Last May, South Korea joined the race, buying 690,000 hectares — about five times the size of Delhi — in Sudan to grow wheat.
Land worth between $20 billion and $30 billion (Rs 100,000 crore and 150,000 crore) was bought in Africa and Asia over the past three years, said Joachim von Braun, director general of IFPRI, who authored the report.
How much land has been sold? Between 15 million and 20 million hectares, which is more than all of Germany’s farmland, said Braun.
“Many governments, either directly or through state-owned entities and public-private partnerships, are in negotiations for, or have already closed deals on, arable land leases, concessions, or purchases abroad,” said the IFPRI report titled ‘Land Grabbing by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries: Risks and Opportunities’.
Unlike earlier, when companies from the developed world bought land for profit, the new deals are driven by spiralling shortages in emerging economies such as India or China, where rising incomes are pushing up demand for food so fast that governments fear domestic production could eventually fall short.
Currently, India’s annual food grain production of 230 million tonnes is just about what the country needs. By 2020, the Planning Commission estimates the demand to grow to 240 million tonnes. There are also forecasts that put the figure as high as 250 million tons.
But economists say, unlike China, India need not look to farmland elsewhere to meet that demand, because it can fill the gap by increasing farm productivity, said Mahendra Dev, chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, a government organisation that recommends procurement prices for major farm produce.
Still, the Indian government and several companies have intensified the chase for farmland abroad. “Even farmers from Andhra Pradesh have gone and invested in land in Kenya,” said Dev
Interrogation Debate Sharply Divided Bush White House
The proclamation that President George W. Bush issued on June 26, 2003, to mark the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture seemed innocuous, one of dozens of high-minded statements published and duly ignored each year.
The United States is “committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example,” Mr. Bush declared, vowing to prosecute torture and to prevent “other cruel and unusual punishment.”
But inside the Central Intelligence Agency, the statement set off alarms. The agency’s top lawyer, Scott W. Muller, called the White House to complain. The statement by the president could unnerve C.I.A. interrogators Mr. Bush had authorized to use brutal tactics on Al Qaeda prisoners, Mr. Muller said, raising fears that political winds could change and make them scapegoats.
White House officials reaffirmed their support for the C.I.A. methods. But the exchange was a harbinger of the conflict between the coercive interrogations and the United States’ historical stance against torture that would deeply divide the Bush administration and ultimately undo the program.
The aftershocks of the interrogation policy continue. President Obama’s recent decision to release Bush administration legal memorandums on interrogation and to fend off calls for a broad investigation has only fueled debate over the efficacy, legality and morality of what was done. Just last week, bloggers seized upon a new video clip of Condoleezza Rice, a former secretary of state, sharply defending the program to a Stanford undergraduate and saying nothing about the bitter internal arguments that accompanied the demise of the program.
Most news accounts of the C.I.A. program have focused on how it was approved and operated. This is the story of its unraveling, based on interviews with more than a dozen former Bush administration officials. They insisted on anonymity because they feared being enmeshed in future investigations or public controversy, but they shed new light on the battle about the C.I.A. methods that grew passionate in Mr. Bush’s second term.
The consensus of top administration officials about the C.I.A. interrogation program, which they had approved without debate or dissent in 2002, began to fall apart the next year.
Acutely aware that the agency would be blamed if the policies lost political support, nervous C.I.A. officials began to curb its practices much earlier than most Americans know: no one was waterboarded after March 2003, and coercive interrogation methods were shelved altogether in 2005.
Yet even as interrogation methods were scaled back, former officials now say, the battle inside the Bush administration over which ones should be permitted only grew hotter. There would be a tense phone call over the program’s future during the 2005 Christmas holidays from Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, to Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director; a White House showdown the next year between Ms. Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney; and Ms. Rice’s refusal in 2007 to endorse the executive order with which Mr. Bush sought to revive the C.I.A. program.
The real trouble began on May 7, 2004, the day the C.I.A. inspector general, John L. Helgerson, completed a devastating report. In thousands of pages, it challenged the legality of some interrogation methods, found that interrogators were exceeding the rules imposed by the Justice Department and questioned the effectiveness of the entire program.
C.I.A. officials had sold the interrogation program to the White House. Now, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, knew that the inspector general’s report could be a noose for White House officials to hang the C.I.A. Mr. Tenet ordered a temporary halt to the harshest interrogation methods.
The report landed on the desks of some White House officials who were already having their doubts about the wisdom of the C.I.A.’s harsh methods. John B. Bellinger III, who, as the National Security Council’s top lawyer, played a role in discussions when the program was approved in 2002, by the next year had begun to research past ill-fated British and Israeli discursions into torture and grew doubtful about the wisdom of the techniques.
Mr. Bellinger shared his doubts with his boss, Ms. Rice, then the national security adviser, who began to reconsider her strong support for the program.
If the inspector general’s report was a body blow to the C.I.A. program, the bill passed by Congress the next year was a knockout punch. Provoked by the abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and pushed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who had been tortured by the North Vietnamese, the 2005 bill banned cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Top C.I.A. officials then feared that the agency’s methods could actually be illegal. Mr. Goss, who had succeeded Mr. Tenet at the C.I.A., wrote a memorandum to the White House saying the agency would carry out no harsh interrogations without new Justice Department approval.
The national security advisor, Mr. Hadley, was angered by the C.I.A.’s response. He called Mr. Goss at home over the Christmas holidays to complain; Mr. Goss, backed by his lawyers, would not budge. Mr. Hadley decided he could not push the C.I.A. to do what it thought might be illegal.
Nobody knew it then, but the C.I.A.’s fateful experiment in harsh interrogation was over. The “enhanced” interrogation, already scaled back, would not be used again.
But Bush administration officials could not agree about what to do with the agency’s prisoners. Already, disclosures of secret prisons in Eastern Europe had prompted the C.I.A. to fly many in a hurry to Afghanistan.
Mr. Cheney led those who argued that publicly acknowledging the detainees would reveal secrets and expose the program to exaggerated accusations of torture.
Ms. Rice, on the other hand, advocated moving the 14 remaining detainees in C.I.A. custody to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Only by publicly admitting that the United States had held the prisoners could Mr. Bush end what critics called the “disappearing” of terrorism suspects, she told colleagues.Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales proposed a middle ground: move the detainees to Guantánamo but never acknowledge having held them in secret prisons. This proposal, lampooned by some officials as the “immaculate conception” option, was dismissed as unrealistic.
After a tense meeting in the White House’s grand Roosevelt Room in summer 2006, Mr. Cheney lost the argument to Ms. Rice. Within days the C.I.A. prisoners were loaded onto a C-17 cargo plane and taken to Cuba.
Still, Mr. Cheney and top C.I.A. officials fought to revive the program. Steven G. Bradbury, the head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel and author of the recently declassified 2005 memorandums authorizing harsh C.I.A interrogations, began drafting another memorandum in late 2006 to restore legal approval for harsh interrogation. Mr. Bradbury noted that Congress, despite the public controversy, had left it to the White House to set the limits.
Early drafts of the memorandum, circulated through the White House, the C.I.A. and the State Department, shocked some officials. Just months after the Supreme Court had declared that the Geneva Convention applied to Al Qaeda, the new Bradbury memorandum gave its blessing to almost every technique, except waterboarding, that the C.I.A. had used since 2002.
Forced as secretary of state to defend the C.I.A. program before angry European allies, Ms. Rice and her aides argued that it had outlived its usefulness.
In February 2007, Mr. Bellinger wrote to the Justice Department challenging Mr. Bradbury’s position. He called Mr. Bradbury’s memorandum a “work of advocacy” that gave a twisted interpretation of the Geneva Conventions and told colleagues he might resign.
When Mr. Bush finally reauthorized C.I.A. interrogations with an executive order in July 2007, it reflected the yearlong lobbying of Mr. Bellinger and Ms. Rice: forced nudity was banned, and guidelines for sleep deprivation were tighter.
But Mr. Cheney and his allies secured other victories. The executive order preserved the secret jails and authorized a laundry list of coercive methods. Ms. Rice, several officials say, declined to endorse the order but chose not to block it.
When Mr. Obama was sworn in on Jan. 20, the C.I.A. still maintained a network of empty jails overseas, where interrogators were still authorized to use physical pressure. Within 48 hours, he banned the methods.
Finally, last month, the program that had been the source of so many vigorous fights in Washington’s power corridors met a prosaic end.
Leon E. Panetta, the new C.I.A. chief, terminated the agency’s contracts providing the security and maintenance for the prisons, emphasizing the economic benefits. Closing the C.I.A. prisons, Mr. Panetta said, would save taxpayers $4 million.
The United States is “committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example,” Mr. Bush declared, vowing to prosecute torture and to prevent “other cruel and unusual punishment.”
But inside the Central Intelligence Agency, the statement set off alarms. The agency’s top lawyer, Scott W. Muller, called the White House to complain. The statement by the president could unnerve C.I.A. interrogators Mr. Bush had authorized to use brutal tactics on Al Qaeda prisoners, Mr. Muller said, raising fears that political winds could change and make them scapegoats.
White House officials reaffirmed their support for the C.I.A. methods. But the exchange was a harbinger of the conflict between the coercive interrogations and the United States’ historical stance against torture that would deeply divide the Bush administration and ultimately undo the program.
The aftershocks of the interrogation policy continue. President Obama’s recent decision to release Bush administration legal memorandums on interrogation and to fend off calls for a broad investigation has only fueled debate over the efficacy, legality and morality of what was done. Just last week, bloggers seized upon a new video clip of Condoleezza Rice, a former secretary of state, sharply defending the program to a Stanford undergraduate and saying nothing about the bitter internal arguments that accompanied the demise of the program.
Most news accounts of the C.I.A. program have focused on how it was approved and operated. This is the story of its unraveling, based on interviews with more than a dozen former Bush administration officials. They insisted on anonymity because they feared being enmeshed in future investigations or public controversy, but they shed new light on the battle about the C.I.A. methods that grew passionate in Mr. Bush’s second term.
The consensus of top administration officials about the C.I.A. interrogation program, which they had approved without debate or dissent in 2002, began to fall apart the next year.
Acutely aware that the agency would be blamed if the policies lost political support, nervous C.I.A. officials began to curb its practices much earlier than most Americans know: no one was waterboarded after March 2003, and coercive interrogation methods were shelved altogether in 2005.
Yet even as interrogation methods were scaled back, former officials now say, the battle inside the Bush administration over which ones should be permitted only grew hotter. There would be a tense phone call over the program’s future during the 2005 Christmas holidays from Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, to Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director; a White House showdown the next year between Ms. Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney; and Ms. Rice’s refusal in 2007 to endorse the executive order with which Mr. Bush sought to revive the C.I.A. program.
The real trouble began on May 7, 2004, the day the C.I.A. inspector general, John L. Helgerson, completed a devastating report. In thousands of pages, it challenged the legality of some interrogation methods, found that interrogators were exceeding the rules imposed by the Justice Department and questioned the effectiveness of the entire program.
C.I.A. officials had sold the interrogation program to the White House. Now, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, knew that the inspector general’s report could be a noose for White House officials to hang the C.I.A. Mr. Tenet ordered a temporary halt to the harshest interrogation methods.
The report landed on the desks of some White House officials who were already having their doubts about the wisdom of the C.I.A.’s harsh methods. John B. Bellinger III, who, as the National Security Council’s top lawyer, played a role in discussions when the program was approved in 2002, by the next year had begun to research past ill-fated British and Israeli discursions into torture and grew doubtful about the wisdom of the techniques.
Mr. Bellinger shared his doubts with his boss, Ms. Rice, then the national security adviser, who began to reconsider her strong support for the program.
If the inspector general’s report was a body blow to the C.I.A. program, the bill passed by Congress the next year was a knockout punch. Provoked by the abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and pushed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who had been tortured by the North Vietnamese, the 2005 bill banned cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Top C.I.A. officials then feared that the agency’s methods could actually be illegal. Mr. Goss, who had succeeded Mr. Tenet at the C.I.A., wrote a memorandum to the White House saying the agency would carry out no harsh interrogations without new Justice Department approval.
The national security advisor, Mr. Hadley, was angered by the C.I.A.’s response. He called Mr. Goss at home over the Christmas holidays to complain; Mr. Goss, backed by his lawyers, would not budge. Mr. Hadley decided he could not push the C.I.A. to do what it thought might be illegal.
Nobody knew it then, but the C.I.A.’s fateful experiment in harsh interrogation was over. The “enhanced” interrogation, already scaled back, would not be used again.
But Bush administration officials could not agree about what to do with the agency’s prisoners. Already, disclosures of secret prisons in Eastern Europe had prompted the C.I.A. to fly many in a hurry to Afghanistan.
Mr. Cheney led those who argued that publicly acknowledging the detainees would reveal secrets and expose the program to exaggerated accusations of torture.
Ms. Rice, on the other hand, advocated moving the 14 remaining detainees in C.I.A. custody to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Only by publicly admitting that the United States had held the prisoners could Mr. Bush end what critics called the “disappearing” of terrorism suspects, she told colleagues.Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales proposed a middle ground: move the detainees to Guantánamo but never acknowledge having held them in secret prisons. This proposal, lampooned by some officials as the “immaculate conception” option, was dismissed as unrealistic.
After a tense meeting in the White House’s grand Roosevelt Room in summer 2006, Mr. Cheney lost the argument to Ms. Rice. Within days the C.I.A. prisoners were loaded onto a C-17 cargo plane and taken to Cuba.
Still, Mr. Cheney and top C.I.A. officials fought to revive the program. Steven G. Bradbury, the head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel and author of the recently declassified 2005 memorandums authorizing harsh C.I.A interrogations, began drafting another memorandum in late 2006 to restore legal approval for harsh interrogation. Mr. Bradbury noted that Congress, despite the public controversy, had left it to the White House to set the limits.
Early drafts of the memorandum, circulated through the White House, the C.I.A. and the State Department, shocked some officials. Just months after the Supreme Court had declared that the Geneva Convention applied to Al Qaeda, the new Bradbury memorandum gave its blessing to almost every technique, except waterboarding, that the C.I.A. had used since 2002.
Forced as secretary of state to defend the C.I.A. program before angry European allies, Ms. Rice and her aides argued that it had outlived its usefulness.
In February 2007, Mr. Bellinger wrote to the Justice Department challenging Mr. Bradbury’s position. He called Mr. Bradbury’s memorandum a “work of advocacy” that gave a twisted interpretation of the Geneva Conventions and told colleagues he might resign.
When Mr. Bush finally reauthorized C.I.A. interrogations with an executive order in July 2007, it reflected the yearlong lobbying of Mr. Bellinger and Ms. Rice: forced nudity was banned, and guidelines for sleep deprivation were tighter.
But Mr. Cheney and his allies secured other victories. The executive order preserved the secret jails and authorized a laundry list of coercive methods. Ms. Rice, several officials say, declined to endorse the order but chose not to block it.
When Mr. Obama was sworn in on Jan. 20, the C.I.A. still maintained a network of empty jails overseas, where interrogators were still authorized to use physical pressure. Within 48 hours, he banned the methods.
Finally, last month, the program that had been the source of so many vigorous fights in Washington’s power corridors met a prosaic end.
Leon E. Panetta, the new C.I.A. chief, terminated the agency’s contracts providing the security and maintenance for the prisons, emphasizing the economic benefits. Closing the C.I.A. prisons, Mr. Panetta said, would save taxpayers $4 million.
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