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ADVICE ON STOLEN CREDIT CARDS

June 22, 2006
ATTORNEY’S ADVICE RE STOLEN CREDIT CARDS

1. The next time you order checks have only your initials (instead of first name) and last name put on them. If someone takes your checkbook, they will not know if you sign your checks with just your initials or your first name, but your bank will know how you sign your checks.

2. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put "PHOTO ID REQUIRED".

3. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, DO NOT put the complete account number on the "For" line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won’t have access to it.

4. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box, use that instead of your home address. If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address. Never have your SS# printed on your checks. You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have it printed, anyone can get it.

5. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place. I also carry a photocopy of my passport when I travel either here or abroad. We’ve all heard horror stories about fraud that’s committed on us in stealing a name, address, Social Security number, credit cards.

Unfortunately I, an attorney, have firsthand knowledge because my wallet was stolen last month. Within a week, the thieve(s) ordered an expensive monthly cell phone package, applied for a VISA credit card, had a credit line approved to buy a Gateway computer, received a PIN number from DMV to change my driving record information online, and more.

But here’s some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or to someone you know:
1. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately. But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.

2. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one).

    But here’s what is perhaps most important of all: (I never even thought to do this.)

3. Call the 3 national credit-reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and Social Security number. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over the Internet in my name. The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by phone to authorize
new credit.

By the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all the credit checks initiated by the thieves’ purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away this weekend (someone turned it in). It seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks.

Posted by adrian at 8:12 pm | permalink | Add comment

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Cancer information and prevention

Knowing the facts makes us aware of what we should and should not do.
Here’s some very useful and important information about cancer
prevention that I would like to share with you.

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not
show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few
billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer
cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable
to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable
size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s
lifetime.

3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be
destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person  has multiple
nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic environmental, food
and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and
including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and
also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow,
gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys,
heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and
damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce
tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not
result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and
radiation the immune system is  either compromised or destroyed,hence the
person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and
become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer
cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by
not feeding it with the foods it need to multiply.  Sugar is a
cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off on important food supply to the
cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful etc
are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute
would be Manuka honey or molasses - but only in very small amounts.

Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the
gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting
with unsweetened soya milk, cancer cells are being starved. Milo,
Ovaltine, Horlicks are made with milk and best avoided.

Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic
and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or
pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones,
parasites, etc., which are all harmful to people with cancer.

A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds,
nuts and little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment.
About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices
provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to
cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of  healthy
cells. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have caffeine. Green tea
is a better alternative and  has cancer-fighting properties.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive
enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied
and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from
or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls
of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer
cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence,
Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc. to enable the body’s
own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements(Maitake
e.g.) are known to cause cancer cells apoptosis, that is, induce cancer
cells to commit.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and
positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger,
unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic
environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax,
enjoy and trust God for healing.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising
daily and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular
level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

17. Cancer can be reversed with nutrition, supplements and clinically
proven complementary and alternative therapies.

18. Cancer can be healed by divine intervention of God the Healer

Posted by adrian at 8:38 am | permalink | comments[4]

IF YOU ARE CHEATING OR HAVING AN AFFAIR

June 20, 2006

Hi Adrian

If you missed the Today show and you would like to watch it, you can
watch it online. I thought our brief piece, the introduction, was
handled nicely, and it did give the message that a marriage can
survive this.

Here is the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633/

Scroll down the page, next to where it says "A Day for Dad" on the
right, look for the title "Should you tell if you cheated?" on the
left, and click on it to watch the segment online.

We have our work cut out for us as far as breaking down conventional
myths as to what people believe about affairs. Research proves
Cosmopolitan’s Michele Promaulayko’s view that you should not share
the details of the affair is not true.
http://www.dearpeggy.com/results.html

We’re not saying the one who had the affair should share all kinds
of personal details of the affair if the faithful spouse doesn’t want
to know, but they should willingly answer the questions and tell what
the faithful spouse wants to know. To the faithful spouse, we say be
careful. Make sure you don’t ask questions if you aren’t ready to
accept the truth. All your question asking should be done with a
motive to understand, not to point fingers at your spouse for what
they did and make them feel worse.

As far as if a spouse who’s had an affair should tell, we believe
they always should, but they should give thought to the timing and
how they tell.

Although some unfaithful spouses may tell for the wrong motives, I
think they missed a very important reason for telling, which is to
create intimacy in the marriage by getting rid of the lies and
preventing future affairs by creating an atmosphere of real honesty
in the marriage.

I believe an unconfessed affair is like having a rotting corpse in a
closet in your house. You might lock the door and not be able to see
it, but it’s stinking up the place, and you’ll never have a great
marriage with this kind of unconfessed secret in your relationship.
As Brian so rightly made the point on the show, there is a high
possibility that the "secret" will come out at some later date, and
then it will do even more damage. We’ve worked with many, many
couples where this is the case, and the worst of all, when the
betrayed spouse finds out after their unfaithful spouse has passed
away. This seems to be the worst case scenario of all.

It is often said that the reason someone doesn’t confess their
affair to their spouse is because they are being so kind and loving
that they are sparing their spouse the pain. I’d like to suggest,
that it is more likely themselves, the unfaithful spouse who is
sparing themselves the pain and shame of having to face the
consequences of their actions.

It is also said that the reason that one should not confess their
affair is to keep the marriage together. The question I have is why
is it the one who has been unfaithful who gets to make the
decision of whether or not the marriage should stay together after
infidelity? This seems wrong to me.

I have yet to meet a single betrayed spouse who has told me they
wish their spouse never told them. Interesting.

To read more on this topic, I recommend Peggy Vaughan’s article:
http://www.dearpeggy.com/com019.html

Sincerely,

Anne Bercht

Posted by adrian at 8:38 am | permalink | Add comment

WHAT IS LOVE AND MARRIAGE

One day, Plato asked his teacher,"What is luv? How can I find it?"
The teacher answered, "There’s a large wheat field in front. Walk there without turning back, and take just one leaf. If you can find one leaf that you think it’s extraordinary, it means you have found luv."
So Plato walked .. and not long after that, he came back empty handed.
The teacher asked him,"Why don’t you bring any leaf?"
Plato said, "I can only bring just one leaf and when I walk I cant turn back. Actually I have found one extraordinary leaf, but I dunno whether there’s anymore extraordinary leaf in front, so I didn’t take that leaf. When I walked further, I realized that the leaves I found are not as extraordinary as I’ve found previously. In the end, I didn’t take any single leaf."
Then the teacher told him, "So .. that is luv."
Another day, Plato asked his teacher again, "What is marriage? How can I find it?"
The teacher answered, "There is a forrest in front. Please walk there and don’t look back. You can only cut one tree, and cut the one that you think is the highest, because that means you find what is marriage."
Plato walks there, and he came back not long after that bringing one tree. The tree is not a very good tree and not a very tall one, either. It’s just an ordinary tree.
The teacher asked him, "Why do you cut that kind of tree?"
Plato answered, "Because, according to my previous experience, after walking thru the field, I came back with nothing. So this time, when I
saw this tree, and I think the tree is not so bad, so I decided to cut it and bring it here. I don’t want to lose another chance to get it."
And the teacher said, "Well .. that is marriage."
Little notes:
The more you look for luv, you will find nothing. Luv is in your heart, when you can control your desire and your hope to find something better.
When you have endless hope and wish of luv, you will only get emptiness .. because you wont get anything and time can not be turned back. Accept luv for what it is.
Marriage is a continuation of luv. It’s a process of having chances, and you choose the best option among all the alternatives. If you want to have a perfect match and a perfect marriage, you will only waste your time,because there is no perfect marriage
Posted by adrian at 8:02 am | permalink | Add comment

BILL GATES WILL SEMI-RETIRE

June 18, 2006

Gates Announces Semi-Retirement
Jason Lee Miller | Staff Writer

It’ll take two men to fill Bill Gate’s shoes at Microsoft. In a
surprise announcement late yesterday, the behemoth software company
chairman, whose Windows operating system changed the face of personal
computing, said he would "transition" out of a day-to-day role in the
company so he could more intensely focus on charity work.

Not only will it take two men, Chief Technical Officers Ray Ozzie
and Craig Mundie to take on Gates’ responsibility, but they will be
learning the ropes of the world’s premiere company over a two-year
period. By July 2008, Ozzie will assume the title of chief software
architect; Mundie will be the newly created chief research and
strategy officer while partnering with general counsel Brad Smith
to guide Microsoft’s property and technology policy efforts.

Though Gates will continue to serve as the company’s chairman and
advisor on key development projects, but the majority of his time will
be devoted to global health and education, the focus of Gates’
nonprofit Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

=====================================================================

"This was a hard decision for me," Gates added. "I’m very lucky to
have two passions that I feel are so important and so challenging.
As I prepare for this change, I firmly believe the road ahead for
Microsoft is as bright as ever." Gates said. "I remain fully
committed and full time at Microsoft through June 2008 and will be
working side by side with Ray and Craig to ensure that a smooth
transition occurs."

Gates, 50, started Microsoft in 1975 with childhood friend Paul
Allen. He took Microsoft public in 1986 and was the company’s
chairman and CEO until 2000, when Ballmer took over as CEO. For
the past six years Gates has focused on Microsoft’s software
development as the company’s chairman and chief software architect.
In 2000, with his wife, he formed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
whose assets now are $29.1 billion.

=====================================================================
SFor an idea of what a profitable investment was when Microsoft went
public, a $5000 investment in 1986 would be worth millions today.

In January 2000, Gates transferred the daily activities and the title
of CEO to Steve Ballmer to assume the role of chief software
architect. Ozzie and Mundie are the latest stage of an expansion of
leadership and transfer of power.

"This is a very sensible and thorough approach. A two-year transition
will ensure that the company has a smooth transfer of strategy and
knowledge from Bill to the next generation of leaders," said James
I. Cash, Ph.D., member of the Microsoft board of directors and former
James E. Robison Professor, Harvard Business School. "Steve and his
management team are very impressive, and I’m confident the company
will not miss a step."

Posted by adrian at 6:44 pm | permalink | Add comment

I LOVE YOU MAKE A WISH

June 16, 2006

Did you know that the three most difficult things to say are:
I love you, Sorry and help me



Did you know that those who dress in red are more confident in themselves?
Did you know that those who dress in yellow are those that enjoy their beauty?
Did you know that those who dress in black, are those who want to be unnoticed and need your help and understanding? 
Did you know that when you help someone, the help is returned in two folds?



Did you know that it’s easier to say what you feel in writing than saying it to someone in the face? But did you know that it has more value when you say it to their face?

Did you know that if you ask for something in faith, your wishes are granted?

Did you know that you can make your dreams come true, like falling in love, becoming rich, staying healthy, if you ask for it by faith, and if you really knew, you’d be surprised by what you could do.


Today, the ball of FRIENDSHIP is in your court, send this to those who truly are your friends (including me if I am one). Also, do not feel bad if no one sends this back to you in the end, you’ll find out that you’ll get to keep the ball for other people want more ..

Send to ALL your FRIENDS!
But you have to DO THIS within an hour after you open this mail!
Now….. MAKE 1 WISH!!!!!!

Posted by adrian at 5:04 pm | permalink | Add comment

WTO AND THE PHILIPPINES

June 12, 2006
Hi All,

This post is also in blogsite: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/.  
Click on:    ICE ROCKET SEARCH  for 50+ past postings.

Appreciate forwarding the postings to relatives and friends , especially in the homeland
To post a response, go to blogsite and click "comments". Thanks!

PS. Listen to Classic Kundiman and/or APO HIKING SOCIETY; Click under PREFERRED LINKS in Blogsite.
WTO: Serving The Wealthy, Not The Poor
Walden Bello
The WTO, say the US and its allies, is essential for the world’s poorest countries. In practice, it systematically undermines them.

WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: Back in 1995, the Fidel Ramos government, with the enthusiastic support of then Senator Gloria Arroyo, was one of the first among the Third World (poor countries) to sign into the WTO in the Philippines. Obviously, most of our native technocrats in the national government and private institutions that deal and partner with foreign businesses were all for it.

Remember that at the time even the EU member nations (except England) and Japan were hesitant and ambivalent about the WTO. Being more nationalistic and thus protective of their own subsidized agriculture and industries, these developed nations were content with the well-functioning General Trade and Tariff Agreement ( GATT) for liberalizing trade.
With the threat of a potentially stronger and unified EU, it was only the USA which was really pushing hard for the WTO. Everyone who knows reality economics are aware that America (as most other developed nations) still practice protectionism and yet preach and work against its practice by weak and poor countries like ours. We Filipinos have our enthusiastic native apologists of the WTO — they profit from it (WTO is the polite name and facilitator for bolstering neoliberalism or neocolonialism as seen by those who seriously see the big picture.)
Of course, given our damaged culture , colonial mentality and subservience to American policies by our national leadership in government and business, they unquestioningly followed the American line despite the warnings by other Asian leaders such as Dr. Mahathir, then Prime Minister of Malaysia, who of course was/is detested by the American leadership.
We Filipinos, due to our miseducation , seem to have an American residing inside our minds, thus we tend to think like we are Americans, love to mimic the Americans, decide like the Americans, i.e. what is good for America is good for the Philippines. Thus, we Filipinos and our homeland are in deep shit for so long and who knows until when (hopefully we will grow up and free ourselves from our "liberators." Some informed and decent Americans wish we would really grow up).

Fast forward today, 11 years since, thanks to this WTO Agreement, our homeland, our national economy, our patrimony, etc. and our native peoples have drastically and continually slid down the slippery slope of national misery, hunger and poverty for the already suffering native majority, a majority becoming enlarged due to a dwindling native middle class (not the foreign middle class of Chinese, Koreans, Americans, etc.).

 
Since the drastic slide, our homeland is being converted into a paradise garden exclusively of and for the few native rich, and the growing number of foreigners , who live like kings in our homeland and who would really be nothing in their own homelands. So we have many of these Chinese who were either smuggled into until they became legalized thanks to the Marcos Dictatorship and thus able to bring in more of their relatives and friends, Americans -including ex-servicemen, now Koreans, etc. who find our homeland cheap, our native Malay people hospitable and naive and thus decide to stay.
Let me add that the growing presence of American citizens and businesses can be used as an excuse for US military intervention/invasion in the future. In fact, with the camouflage of "war against terrorism" (in lieu of the demised "Cold War"), the US troops through the unconstitutional Visiting Force Agreement (VFA) now in the homeland, mostly unknown whereabouts to the native majority may already be directly involved in fighting against Filipino rebels, such as the NPA and MILF.
Recent American history has demonstratively reinforced the American militarism in US government and foreign policies. And US troops have shown their desire to be in foreign lands because they enjoy so much amenities than if they were stationed in their own homeland (USA).
All these foreigners say they love our homeland not because they really care for the native Filipino. They do say they love our homeland because it easily make them rich, become more rich, and live rich. Which they can neither have nor be in their own homelands. The situation of the native Filipino today is worse than that of the Black or Negro people in the old cotton plantations in the Deep South or below the Mason-Dixon line of America of the 19th century and early 20th century. Then, at least the Black people were cared for, to some albeit meager degree, by their white masters.
Our native countrymen many of whom due to poverty are/become/kept ignorant and naive , conditioned to feel inferior to foreigners and easily duped or manipulated. While at the same time looked down upon, with no voice in his own homeland, given the callously uncaring and traitorous attitudes and behaviours of our so-called leaders in business and government.
"The chief business of America is business" - President Calvin Coolidge, 1925

"The glory of the United States is business" - Wendell L. Willkie, 1936

"There is no literate population in the world that is poor; there is no illiterate population that is anything but poor." – John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)

"One of the major errors in the whole discussion of economic development has been the tendency to look at the United States or Canada and say that this has worked here, and therefore it must work in the poor countries." – John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)

"Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation..keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States…The adherence of the Unted States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States..to the exercise of an international police power." – American President Theodore Roosevelt (opening of 58th Congress, 1903-1905)

""Upang maitindig natin ang bantayog ng ating lipunan, kailangang radikal nating baguhin hindi lamang ang ating mga institusyon kundi maging ang ating pag-iisip at pamumuhay. Kailangan ang rebolusyon, hindi lamang sa panlabas, kundi lalo na sa panloob!" –Apolinario Mabini, La Revolucion Filipina (1898)
"Nations, whose NATIONALISM is destroyed, are subject to ruin." - Colonel Muhammar Qaddafi, 1942-, Libyan Political and Military Leader
"As to the source of leadership, we Filipinos still look up and limit ourselves to the same socioeconomic-political elite, the same prominent dynasties, many of whom were of the collaborationist and mendicant variety. There is potentially good leadership, maybe still unknown, OUTSIDE the selfish, morally bankrupt and oftentimes subservient elite. When we have done away with our massive ignorance, we Filipinos can surely find and actively ensure that only individuals -with courage and strong nationalism- earn respect; thus who will successfully propel the people to fight, and finally win for the common good" – GADFLY(1947-present).
*******************************************************
Wto: Serving The Wealthy, Not The PoorWalden Bello
The WTO, say the US and its allies, is essential for the world’s poorest countries. In practice, it systematically undermines them.
The World Trade Organisation and its agreements do not serve the interests of developing countries; they serve those of the developed world, and the USA in particular.
It was US pressure that brought agriculture into the GATT-WTO system in 1995, for reasons that were articulated quite candidly by then US Agriculture Secretary John Block at the start of the Uruguay Round negotiations in 1986: "[The] idea that developing countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure their food security by relying on US agricultural products, which are available, in most cases at much lower cost."
It was the US that pushed to bring services under WTO coverage, with its assessment that in the new burgeoning area of international services, and particularly in financial services, its corporations had a lead that needed to be preserved. It was also the US that pushed to expand WTO jurisdiction to the so-called Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) and Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs).
The first sought to eliminate barriers to the system of internal cross-border trade of product components among TNC (transnational corporations) subsidiaries that had been imposed by developing countries in order to develop their industries; the second to consolidate the US advantage in the cutting-edge knowledge-intensive industries.
And it was the US that forced the creation of the WTO’s formidable dispute-resolution and enforcement mechanism after being frustrated with what US trade officials considered weak GATT efforts to enforce rulings favourable to the US.
As Washington’s academic point man on trade, C Fred Bergsten, Head of the Institute of International Economics, told the US Senate, the strong WTO dispute settlement mechanism serves US interests because "we can now use the full weight of the international machinery to go after those trade barriers, reduce them, get them eliminated".
Similarly, it was not global necessity that gave birth to the WTO in 1995, it was the US’s assessment that the interests of its corporations were no longer served by a loose and flexible GATT but needed an all-powerful and wide-ranging WTO. From the free market paradigm that underpins it, to the rules and regulations set forth in the different agreements that make up the Uruguay Round, to its system of decision-making and accountability, the WTO is a blueprint for the global hegemony of Corporate America.
Is the WTO necessary for developing countries?
The necessity of the WTO is one of the biggest lies of our time, and its acceptance is due to the same propaganda principle practised by Joseph Goebbels: if you repeat a lie often enough, it will be taken as truth. The WTO is necessary only to the United States, not to the rest of the world.
When the Uruguay Round was being negotiated, there was considerable lack of enthusiasm for the process by the developing countries. Largely passive spectators, with a great number not even represented during the negotiations owing to resource constraints, the developing countries were dragged into unenthusiastic endorsement of the Marrakesh Accord of 1994 that sealed the Uruguay Round and established the WTO. True, there were some developing countries, most of them in the Cairns Group of developed and developing country agro-exporters, that actively promoted the WTO in the hope that they would gain greater market access to their exports, but they were a small minority.
To try to sell the WTO to the South, US propagandists evoked the fear that staying out of the WTO would result in a country’s isolation from world trade ("like North Korea") and stoked the promise that a "rules-based system" of world trade would protect the weak countries from unilateral acts by the big trading powers.
With their economies dominated by the IMF and the World Bank, with the structural adjustment programmes pushed by these agencies having as a central element radical trade liberalisation, and much weaker as a bloc owing to the debt crisis, most developing country delegations felt they had no choice but to sign on the dotted line.Over the next few years, however, these countries realised that they had signed away their right to employ a variety of critical trade measures for development purposes.
Loss of trade policy as a development tool
In signing on to GATT, Third World countries were committed to banning all quantitative restrictions on imports, reducing tariffs on many industrial imports, and promising not to raise tariffs on all other imports. In so doing, they have effectively given up the use of trade policy to pursue industrialisation objectives. The way that the NICs, or ‘newly industrialising countries’, made it to industrial status, via the policy of import substitution, is now effectively removed as a route to industrialisation.
The anti-industrialisation thrust of the GATT-WTO Accord is made even more manifest in the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). In their drive to industrialise, NICs like South Korea and Malaysia made use of many innovative mechanisms, such as trade-balancing requirements that tied the value of a foreign investor’s imports of raw materials and components to the value of his or her exports of the finished commodity, or ‘local content’ regulations which mandated that a certain percentage of the components that went into the making of a product was sourced locally.
These rules were successfully employed by the NICs to marry foreign investment to national industrialisation. They enabled the NICs to raise income from capital-intensive exports, develop support industries, and bring in technology, while still protecting local entrepreneurs’ preferential access to the domestic market. In Malaysia, for instance, the strategic use of local content policy enabled the Malaysians to build a ‘national car’, in co-operation with Mitsubishi, that has now achieved about 80 per cent local content and controls 70 per cent of the Malaysian market. Thanks to the TRIMs accord, these mechanisms are now illegal.
The restriction of technological diffusion
Like the TRIMs agreement, the TRIPs regime is seen as effectively opposed to the industrialisation and development efforts of Third World countries. This becomes clear from a survey of the economic history not only of the NICs but of almost all late-industrialising countries. A key factor in their industrial take-off was their relatively easy access to cutting-edge technology. The US industrialised, to a great extent by using but paying very little for British manufacturing innovations, as did the Germans. Japan industrialised by liberally borrowing US technological innovations, but barely compensating the Americans for this. And the Koreans industrialised by copying quite liberally and with little payment US and Japanese product and process technologies.
But what is ‘technological diffusion’ from the perspective of the late industrialiser is ‘piracy’ from that of the industrial leader. The TRIPs regime takes the side of the latter and makes the process of industrialisation by imitation much more difficult from hereon. It represents what UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) describes as " a premature strengthening of the intellectual property system… that favours monopolistically controlled innovation over broad-based diffusion".
The TRIPs regime provides a generalised minimum patent protection of 20 years; increases the duration of the protection for semi-conductors or computer chips; institutes draconian border regulations against products judged to be violating intellectual property rights; and places the burden of proof on the presumed violator of process patents.
The TRIPs accord is a victory for the US high-tech industry, which has long been lobbying for stronger controls over the diffusion of innovations. Innovation in the knowledge-intensive high-tech sector (electronic software and hardware, biotechnology, lasers, opto-electronics, liquid crystal technology, to name a few) has become the central determinant of economic power in our time. And when any company in the NICs and Third World wishes to innovate, say in chip design, software programming, or computer assembly, it necessarily has to integrate several patented designs and processes, most of them from US electronic hardware and software giants like Microsoft, Intel, and Texas Instruments. As the Koreans have bitterly learned, exorbitant multiple royalty payments to what has been called the American ‘high tech Mafia’ keeps one’s profit margins very low while reducing incentives for local innovation.
The likely outcome is for a Southern manufacturer simply to pay royalties for a technology rather than to innovate, thus perpetuating the technological dependence on Northern firms.
Weakening "special and differential treatment"
Owing to historical and structural considerations, developing countries need special consideration and special assistance in levelling the playing field for them to be able to participate equitably in world trade.
While GATT was not centrally concerned with development, it did recognise the "special and differential status" of the developing countries. Different sections of the evolving GATT code allowed countries to renegotiate tariff bindings in order to promote the establishment of certain industries; allowed developing countries to use tariffs for economic development and fiscal purposes; allowed them to use quantitative restrictions to promote infant industries; and conceded the principle of non-reciprocity by developing countries in trade negotiation. The 1979 Framework Agreement known as the Enabling Clause also provided a permanent legal basis for General System of Preferences (GSP) schemes that would provide preferential access to developing country exports.
A significant shift occurred in the Uruguay Round. GSP schemes were not bound, meaning tariffs could be raised against developing countries until they equalled the bound rates applied to imports for all sources. Indeed, during the negotiations, the threat to remove GSP was used as a form of bilateral pressure on developing countries". Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) was turned from a focus on a special right to protect and special rights of market access to "one of responding to special adjustment difficulties in developing countries stemming from the implementation of WTO decisions", as analyst John Whalley put it. Measures meant to address the structural inequality of the trading system gave way to measures, such as a lower rate of tariff reduction or a longer time frame for implementing decisions, which regarded the problem of developing countries as simply that of catching up in an essentially even playing field.
STD has been watered down in the WTO, and this is not surprising for the neoliberal agenda that underpins the WTO philosophy differs from the Keynesian assumptions of GATT: that there are no special rights, no special protections needed for development. The only route to development is one that involves radical trade (and investment) liberalisation.
Fate of Third World "special measures"
Perhaps the best indicators of the marginal consideration given to developing countries in the WTO is the fate of the measures that were supposed to respond to the special conditions of developing countries. There were three key agreements that promoters of the WTO claimed were specifically designed to meet the needs of the South:
* The Special Ministerial Agreement approved in Marrakesh in April 1994, which decreed that special compensatory measures would be taken to counteract the negative effects of trade liberalisation on the net food-importing developing countries;

* The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, which mandated that the system of quotas on developing country exports of textiles and garments to the North would be dismantled over ten years;

* The Agreement on Agriculture (AOA), which, while ‘imperfect’, nevertheless was said to promise greater market access to developing country agricultural products and begin the process of bringing down the high levels of state support and subsidisation of EU and US agriculture, which was resulting in the dumping of massive quantities of grain on Third World markets.

The Special Ministerial Decision taken at Marrakesh to provide assistance to ‘Net Food Importing Countries’ to offset the reduction of subsidies that would make food imports more expensive for the ‘Net Food Importing Countries’ has never been implemented. Though world crude prices more than doubled in 1995/96, the World Bank and the IMF scotched the idea of any offsetting aid by arguing that "the price increase was not due to the Agreement on Agriculture, and besides there was never any agreement anyway on who would be responsible for providing the assistance".
A key feature of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, meanwhile, was supposed to be the lifting of quotas on imports restricted under the Multifiber Agreement (MFA) and similar schemes that had been used to contain penetration of developed country markets by cheap clothing and textile imports from the Third World. Developed countries retained, however, the right to choose which product lines to liberalise when, so that they first brought mainly unrestricted products into the WTO discipline and postponed dealing with restricted products till much later. Thus, in the first phase, all restricted products continued to be under quota, as only items where imports were not considering threatening — like felt hats or yarn of carded fine animal hair — were included in the developed countries’ notifications. Indeed, the notifications for the coverage of products for liberalisation on 1 January 1998, showed that "even at the second stage of implementation only a very small proportion" of restricted products would see their quotas lifted.
Given this trend, John Whalley notes that "the belief is now widely held in the developing world that in 2004, while the MFA may disappear, it may well be replaced by a series of other trade instruments; possibly substantial increases in antidumping duties".
When it comes to the Agreement on Agriculture, little gains in market access for developing country imports after five years into developed country markets have been accompanied by even higher levels of overall subsidisation for first world farming interests — through ingenious combinations of export subsidies, export credits, market support, and various kinds of direct income payments.
The figures speak for themselves: the level of overall subsidisation of agriculture in the OECD countries rose from $182 billion in 1995 when the WTO was created, to $280 billion in 1997 to $362 billion in 1998! Instead of the beginning of a New Deal, the AOA, in the words of a former Philippine Secretary of Trade, "has perpetuated the unevenness of a playing field which the multilateral trading system has been trying to correct. Moreover, this has placed the burden of adjustment on developing countries relative to countries who can afford to maintain high levels of domestic support and export subsidies."
The collapse of the agricultural negotiations in Seattle is the best example of how extremely difficult it is to reform the AOA. The European Union opposed till the bitter end language in an agreement that would commit it to "significant reduction" of its subsidies. But the US was not blameless. It resolutely opposed any effort to cut back on its forms of subsidies such as export credits, direct income for farmers, and "emergency" farm aid, as well as any mention of its practice of dumping products in developing country markets.
Oligarchic decision-making
While far more flexible than the WTO, the GATT was, of course, far from perfect, and one of the bad traits that the WTO took over from it was the system of decision-making. It responded to the same problem that faced the IMF and the World Bank’s developed country members: how to assure control at a time that the numbers gave the edge to the new countries of the South. In the Fund and the Bank, the weight of a country’s vote is determined by the size of its capital subscriptions, which gives rich countries effective control of the two organisations.
In the GATT, a one-country one-vote system was initially tried, but the big trading powers saw this as inimical to their interests. Thus, the last time a vote was taken in GATT was in 1959. The system that finally emerged was described by US economist Bergsten as one that "does not work by voting. It works by a consensus arrangement which, to tell the truth, is managed by four — the Quads: the United States, Japan, European Union, and Canada." He continued: "Those countries have to agree if any major steps are going to be made, that is true. But no votes."
Indeed, so undemocratic is the WTO that decisions are arrived at informally, via caucuses convoked in the corridors of the ministerials by the big trading powers. The formal plenary sessions, which in democracies are the central arena for decision-making, are reserved for speeches. The key agreements to come out of the first and second ministerials of the WTO in Singapore and Geneva were all decided in informal backroom sessions and simply presented to the full assembly as faits accompli. Consensus simply functioned to render non-transparent a process where smaller, weaker countries were pressured, browbeaten, or bullied to conform to the ‘consensus’ forged among major trading powers.
With surprising frankness, at a press conference in Seattle, US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, who played the pivotal role in all three ministerials, described the dynamics and consequences of this system of decision-making: "The process, including even at Singapore as recently as three years ago, was a rather exclusionary one. All meetings were held between 20 and 30 key countries… And that meant 100 countries, 100, were never in the room… [T]his led to an extraordinarily bad feeling that they were left out of the process and that the results even at Singapore had been dictated to them by the 25 or 30 privileged countries who were in the room."
Then, after registering her frustration at the WTO delegates’ failing to arrive at consensus via supposedly broader ‘working groups’ set up for the Seattle ministerial, Barshefsky warned delegates: "…[I] have made very clear and I reiterated to all ministers today that, if we are unable to achieve that goal, I fully reserve the right to also use a more exclusive process to achieve a final outcome. There is no question about either my right as the chair to do it or my intention as the chair to do it…"
And she was serious about ramming through a declaration at the expense of non-representativeness, with India, one of the key developing country members of the WTO, being "routinely excluded from private talks organised by the United States in last ditch efforts to come up with a face-saving deal".
Even in damage-containment mode after the collapse of the Seattle Ministerial, no rich country representatives have declared any intention of pushing for a one-county/one-vote majority decision-making system or a voting system weighted by population size, which would be the only fair and legitimate methods in a democratic international organisation. The fact is that such mechanisms will never be adopted, for this would put the developing countries in a preponderant role in terms of decision-making.
It is clear that the WTO systematically protects the trade and economic advantages of the rich countries, particularly the United States. It is based on a paradigm that denigrates the right to take activist measures to achieve development on the part of less developed countries, and raises inequality into a principle of decision-making. It cannot possibly claim therefore to serve the interests of the poor of developing countries.
Dr Walden Bello is Executive Director of Focus on the Global South and Professor of Sociology and Public Administration at the University of the Philippines. He attended all three WTO Ministerials as an NGO delegate. He is the author of several works on the WTO including Iron Cage: The WTO, the Bretton Woods Institutions, and the Third World (Bangkok: Focus on the Global South, 1999).
The WTO: Key Facts
Name: World Trade Organisation0
Location: Geneva
Established: 1 January 1995
Created by: Uruguay Round negotiations (1986-94)
First thought of: Bretton Woods, 1944
Membership: 139 countries
Budget: [pound]53.36 million for 2000
Secretariat staff: 500
Director-General: Mike Moore (New Zealand)
Main functions:
* Administering WTO trade agreements: designed to remove barriers to trade and corporate profits worldwide
* Forum for trade negotiations (in secret): where key issues are effectively decided by the major industrialised powers
* Handling trade disputes (in secret): with legally binding powers to authorise the imposition of heavy financial and trade sanctions
Opinion
"Developed countries cannot, on the one hand, justify protecting and helping mature producers in their agricultural and high-technology sectors and, on the other, deny such possibilities to developing countries facing their own particular problems."
UNCTAD, 1999.
COPYRIGHT 2000 MIT Press JournalsCOPYRIGHT

2001 Gale Group

- BERT   http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/

"To read the destiny of a people, it is necessary to open the book of its past" - Dr. Jose Rizal'’. 

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IMMUNE SYSTEM-TRANSFER FACTOR

June 7, 2006

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The Immune System Connection: Allergies

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Q: What are allergies and who do they affect?

A: Allergies are caused by a mistake within the immune system, referred to as an autoimmune condition. In allergic situations, the immune system strongly reacts to something that would otherwise be totally harmless. Every year, more than 50 million Americans suffer from allergies, including food and seasonal allergies and asthma. It is the sixth leading cause of chronic disease in the United States. (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology) Allergies occur when the body reacts inappropriately to an otherwise harmless substance. Allergic symptoms include: runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing, hives, headaches, coughing, nasal congestion, fatigue and wheezing.

Almost 17 million doctor office visits a year are attributed to seasonal allergies. (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology)

More than 20 percent of the US population suffers from some type of allergic disease. (American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology)

Q: How does the immune system work?

A: The immune system’s ability to protect your body is both instinctive and learned—in other words, it fights invasions with both innate and acquired responses. Each individual is born with innate immunity—the ability of the immune system to generally recognize foreign invaders. Along with passive defenses like skin, stomach acid and mucus, the innate immune system also contains active immune response mechanisms that include Natural Killer, or NK cells, and macrophages. Like all innate front line defense agents, NK cells do not need prior exposure to an infectious microbe in order to act. They simply recognize foreign cells and go to work.

Any substance that triggers an immune response is called an antigen. Sometimes a germ makes it past your immune system and you catch a cold, the flu or worse. An illness is a visible sign that your immune system failed to stop the germ. But you do get better; and that’s proof that your immune system is doing its job. It gathered knowledge about the invader, mounted a defense and eliminated it properly. If your immune system didn’t do anything, the infection would eventually overrun your body.

Unfortunately, even the strongest innate immune system can’t handle all the various microbes we encounter daily. That’s where acquired immunity comes in. Immune cells learn new skills and build new tools to deal with ever-increasing microbial invaders. But for this system to adapt for attack, it first must recognize a threat before it can build the tools to fight, which is why you sometimes feel like you’re “coming down with something” for several days. The good news is that after the acquired immune system builds the tools for a specific infection, it remembers it and is ready for the next attack.

Inflammation is an immediate response by the immune system to an infection or injury, such as when you get a cut on your arm. In most cases, as the immune system deals with the problem, the immune cells then retreat from the area and inflammation and swelling go down. But occasionally, the immune cells do not withdraw and the inflammation continues, creating a chronic problem within the body. Researchers are beginning to discover a link between chronic inflammation and a host of conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

Sometimes the immune system makes a mistake and acts inappropriately to a certain situation. One such mistake is autoimmunity. For reasons not entirely understood by scientists, the immune system begins to attack the cells, tissues, and organs of the body the same way it would normally react to a germ. Autoimmune conditions include allergies, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome and many others.

Q: How are allergies and the immune system connected?

A: As previously discussed, allergies are an autoimmune disorder, or a situation in which the immune system makes a mistake. In allergic situations, the immune system strongly reacts to something that would otherwise be totally harmless. The immune system incorrectly identifies the allergen as an invader, and immune cells overreact and cause harm to the body. The allergen might be a certain food, a certain type of pollen or a certain typeof animal fur. For example, a person allergic to bee pollen may experience a runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing or even hives, whenever he or she is in the vicinity of the pollen. Some other common allergy symptoms include headaches, coughing, nasal congestion, fatigue and wheezing.

Q: What are some important nutrients to combat allergies?

A: Scientific research has uncovered several important nutrients that can support the immune system and protect your body against the damaging effects of allergies.

  • Transfer factors

Transfer factors, tiny molecules that transfer immunity from one entity to another, can boost or balance the immune system, whatever your body’s particular situation requires. They promote the immune system’s ability to remember past invasions, allowing your body to more quickly respond to similar health threats. Transfer factors also educate naïve immune cells about a present or potential danger in your body, along with a plan for action, as well as speed up the recognition phase of an infection.

Because of the unique immune situation surrounding allergies, ingredients that simply boost the immune system response will not help remedy the problem. In fact, it could make the problem worse by helping the immune system continue to overreact to an otherwise benign substance. What is needed is something to calm down the overactive immune system and restore balance. Transfer factors have the unique ability to suppress the immune system and help it stop overreacting to a particular substance. Transfer factors can be extracted from a variety of sources, the two most powerful and most abundant being cow colostrum (first milk) and chicken eggs. Combining these two sources of transfer factors provides a broad spectrum of support, utilizing the strength of two animals for maximum power for your immune system.

  • Acidophilus

Acidophilus is a probiotic, or good bacteria. Probiotics help us fight disease, metabolize hormones and nourish new cells. Sensitivities to food can be caused by a lack of good bacteria. Acidophilus replenishes the levels of good bacteria within the body and works to prime the immune system against dysfunctions like allergies.

  • Digestive enzymes

Enzymes help your body break down the proteins, sugars, carbohydrates and fats that you absorb every day. As we get older, our ability to properly digest foods decreases. Enzymes can be of particular help for people suffering from food allergies by breaking down undigested proteins into smaller pieces, reducing the chance of allergic reactions.

Success Stories

Alvaro B.
New York, New York
Ever since I was a child I have suffered from allergies and asthma. I had a very weak immune system. Things only got worse as an adult. I had constant pain in my throat, nose, muscles and joints.  I also had chronic fatigue. When I moved to New York I was treated by professionals in the medical field. They gave me everything under the sun to treat my problems.  Nothing they tried made a difference. Every time the seasons changed my situation would get worse.

One day I was in class with a friend and she suggested a transfer factor product for my allergies. I started taking the product and by noon that next day, I had changed a hundred and eighty degrees.  I started taking it regularly.  I have never felt better in my whole life. I no longer have to go to my doctor for my allergy problems.

Vincent H.
Red Hill, Pennsylvania
I have suffered with allergies for many years. I was allergic to grass, dust, pollen, ragweed, molds and perfume. I also developed food allergies. During allergy season, I couldn’t eat anything with tomatoes, chocolate or cola. I went to the doctor, got allergy shots every other week, eye drops, nose sprays and allergy medication. I got to the point where I had to carry a box around in my car with all different types of sprays, atomizers, etc., just to make it through the day. I was tired. I had to sleep in a chair at night. I couldn’t lay down in bed. I was irritable. I had a lack of energy.

I started taking a product containing transfer factors. After a few weeks—what a difference! It’s so hard to explain to people! I’m so used to sneezing at work all the time. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t carry four handkerchiefs around anymore. I don’t carry a box of tissues anymore. I don’t have that box of medication anymore. And I have not been back to my allergy doctor since!

Kiya C.
Walnut Creek, California
For the better part of my life I have struggled with allergies to food, pollen, dust, animals, etc. I sometimes feel that I just landed in a body that wasn’t quite up to dealing with life. Being involved in the holistic field and energy balancing, I really made it a priority to focus on my health and well-being. Over the years, I have made wonderful progress, except for two areas that were causing me major difficulty, my allergies to cats and dogs. It was challenging for me, socially, and I felt that I really needed to limit my interaction with people, which was very unfortunate.

I started taking a product containing transfer factors two years ago. One weekend, my daughter invited me to come stay at her house.  She has two dogs and I said yes. She was stunned that I would even consider it.  I went to her house and I noticed my nose didn’t run and my lungs didn’t get tight.  There wasn’t any difficulty at all.  My daughter watched me with absolute amazement.  I was not only tolerating the situation; I was comfortable in it. I was so excited. 

 
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June 4, 2006

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voice OF THE youth

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