New York City, March 20, 2005.

The day started for me by entering the UN building at 7a.m. for the
35th
Annual Earth Day Ceremony and for ringing the UN Peace Bell at the
exact
local time of the Vernal Equinox - this year it happened at 7:33 a.m.

John and Anna McConnell started Earth Day in San Francisco in 1970 - so
this
year Earth Day, a rallying point for environmentalists, is 35 years old
and
John McConnell himself will celebrate his 90-th birthday on March 22,
2005.

March 21 1971, in the presence of UN Secretary-General U Thant, was the
first time the Peace Bell in New York City was rung in the honor of
Earth
Day. Mr. U Thant said at the time “May there only be peaceful and
cheerful
Earth Days to come for our beautiful spaceship Earth as it continues to
spin
and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate
life”.
Now there are 17 locations in the world that rung bells on Earth Day;
these
places included Lithuania, Japan, Romania, Germany, Austria, New
Zealand,
France, etc. The idea is to think about life on earth and the ringing
of
the bell is a mere symbol of this. At the ceremony at the UN, this
year,
participated Ms. Aye Aye Thant, daughter of Mr. U Thant, and President
of
the U Thant Institute. The event was presented by The Earth Society
Foundation, that was created by John McConnell with renown
anthropologist
Margaret Mead in 1973, and represented here by Chairperson Helen
Garland,
President Thomas C. Dow, and Mr. Stanley D. Cohen.

This year’s speakers stressed the subject of water in tune with the
topic of
the UN Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD 13), and a special
guest
was former US Ambassador John W. McDonald who was responsible for
bringing
about the first UN Decade for Water, and recently, with the help of
Tajikistan, was able to initiate for 2005 the start of the second UN
Decade
for Water. He and his wife, Christel G. McDonald also head the Club of
Rome
US chapter. An Apache elder did the “Blessing of the Waters” and
Christofer
Swain spoke about Pollution of the Hudson and Columbia rivers.

The event was started with the singing of “Let There Be Peace on
Earth”, and
ended with everybody joining in “Imagine” by John Lennon, (for words
see -
SustainabiliTank database). At the following breakfast across the
street
from the UN, Robert M. Weir told us about his project of writing the
biography of John McConnell (see - www.RobertMWeir.com).

At noon, I went to Madison Avenue and East 27 Street to see the Persian
Parade commemorating Nowruz, the most cherished and celebrated of all
Iranian festivals. It celebrates the cyclical rebirth and rejuvenation
of
nature observed since 3000 BC by cultures such as the Sumerians,
Babylonians, Elamites, Akaddians, Chaldeans, Persians, and today -
Kurds,
Lurs, Tajiks, Baluchis, Afghans, Tats, Gilanis, Azeris, Armenians,
Assyrians, Kazakhs, Kashmiris, Turkmens etc. Zoroastrianism considers
Nowruz as the last day of the seven-day creation epoch and people pay
homage
to the creator, or Mother Nature.

The Nowruz Festival is also mentioned in context with the Decree of
Cyrus
the Great, who upon entering Babylon in 542 BC, declared “When I
entered
Babylon…I did not allow anyone to terrorize the land… I kept in
view the
needs of Babylon and all its sanctuaries to promote their well-being.
The
citizens of Babylon… I lifted their unbecoming yoke (slavery). Their
dilapidated dwellings I restored. I put an end to their misfortunes”.

Above is corroborated in the Book of Ezra (The Old Testament) in his
liberation of the Jews from Babylon and the restoration of the temple,
and
the Prophet Isaiah even mentions the Lord anointed Cyrus “whose right
hand I
have holden”. Looking at the mix of various groups with representation
in
the parade, despite the present political reality versus Iran, were a
reminder that things could be different - not just here but also in the
Middle East. Is this another potential new beginning?

A few additional words on Zoroastrianism - the message of the
“Manthran”
(thought provoker) Zarathustra Spitaman (in Greek - Zoroaster) who
lived
over 3700 years ago. He had a message of freedom - freedom to choose,
freedom from fear, freedom from guilt, freedom from sin, freedom from
stultifying rituals, superstitious practices, fake spirituality and
ceremonials. God in Zoroastrianism does not care what you wear, what
and
when you eat, or where and when you worship. God instead cares how
righteous and good you are. You are supposed to choose to do good, and
fight evil, through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.

Mazdayasna (The Worship of the Wise), another name for Zoroastrianism,
teaches equality of all mortals before their Wise creator God; who only
sees
a difference in righteousness among mortals. Thus there is equality of
race, nation, gender and social position. One could even say that we
have
here the basis for a spiritual and political democracy thousands of
years
ago.

Following the Parade, fortified with the happenings of the day, so far,
I
made my way back to the UN building.

Thursday and Friday March 17-18, 2005, at the noon UN-DPI
press-briefings,
we were told that on Monday 10 a.m., the Secretary General will address
the
General Assembly to introduce his report “In Larger Freedom”. This
will be
a report on actions needed to implement the Millennium Declaration in
which
world leaders pledged to build a better and safer planet for the next
century through collective security and a global partnership for
development. The Secretary-General’s spokesman, Mr. Fred Eckhard,
described
the document “as a kind of package deal with something to offer
everyone”,
and said “the SG would urge Member States to accept it as a package”.
The document was prepared for the September 2005 UN 60-th anniversary
summit
and take stock of what was achieved in the five years since the
Millennium
Summit.

We were told that the new report is based on two other documents that
were
initiated by the Secretary-General:

(a) The December 2004 report of the 16-member “High-level Panel on
Threats,
Challenges and Change”, that was chaired by Mr. Anand Panyarachun,
former
Prime Minister of Thailand. That report came up with 101 proposals for
dealing with the six areas identified as crucial for world wide
security in
the 21-st century: (1) continued poverty and environmental degradation,
(2)
terrorism, (3) civil war, (4) conflict between states, (5) the
proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), (6) organized crime. It also
proposed formulas for enlarging the Security Council. From those six
areas,
actually only the first area is related to the Millennium Declaration
and
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); all other areas are an
outgrowth of
the realities of today’s news.

(b) The January 2005 report of 250 experts of the “UN Millennium
Project”,
“Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the MDGs”,
chaired by
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a Special Adviser to the SG, containing
directly recommendations on reaching the MDGs.

We were told that after his presentation at the Monday 10:00 am
session of the GA, the SG will talk to the press. In preparation, the
press
can obtain copies of “In Larger Freedom” on Sunday March 20 at 4:00
pm and
be briefed by “a Senior UN official” on Sunday March 20 at 5:00 pm.
Both -
the report and the contents of the background briefing - will be
embargoed
until 10:00 Monday morning.

So, 4 pm, on Earth Day Sunday, I received my copy of the document and
sat
down marking it up before the meeting with representative of the
Secretariat.

The report has 62 pages and its full title is: IN LARGER FREEDOM:
TOWARDS
DEVELOPMENT, SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL (A/59/2005). It has an
Introduction part, then three chapters dealing with “Freedoms” -
“freedom
from want”, “freedom from fear”, “freedom to live in dignity” - then
a
chapter dealing with reworking the UN, and finally a chapter for
Conclusions, and an 8 page annex - “For Decision by Heads of State and
Government”.

In the hour I had, I managed to read about one third of the document,
did
not find any reference to sustainable development, but was happy with
the
inclusion of many aspects of today’s real life and dangers to civilized
society. Got to the conclusion that I will have to study this document
in
depth, and write a larger analysis later. In the meantime, the first
paragraph I could relate to was para. 30 talking of the MDGs: “While
the
Goals have been the subject of an enormous amount of follow-up both
inside
and outside the UN, they clearly do not in themselves represent a
complete
development agenda. They do not directly encompass some of the broader
issues covered by the conferences of the 1990’s, nor do they address
the
particular needs of middle-income developing countries or questions of
growing inequality and the wider dimensions of human development and
good
governance, which all require the effective implementation of
conference
outcomes”. This seems like the recognition that 1992 Rio had a much
wider
scope then 2002 Johannesburg, and that the MDGs are a retreat from the
heights of Agenda 21 and the sustainable development concept.

At 5 pm, on Sunday we were met by three people from the Secretariat,
headed
by Mr. Mark Malloch Brown, the Secretary-General’s Chef de Cabinet. We
were
given a further 7 page Executive Summary and a shorter 2 page Press
Release.
It was obvious that this is a big deal. Further, Mr. Brown expressed
his
anger to the fact that some governments (left unnamed) had passed the
document to journalists and broke the embargo. The SG has thus decided
already at 1 pm on Sunday to remove the embargo as it was broken, and
to
post the document on the UN web-site, this in order to allow a level
field
to all journalists and to give us the additional two documents as part
of
the press-kit we would otherwise have obtained only on Monday.

To the timing of the report - it was set in motion three years ago when
Professor Sachs was charged with the 250 experts to undertake the
Millennium
Project. Then the terrorism issue became prominent and led to the
creation
of President Cardozo’s panel, and the present report integrates the
two.
In putting together this report, the idea was to create a deal that
allows
for everyone to find in it something that they are interested to have
there
- so there will be nobody completely happy and nobody that will
completely
reject the report - I guess it is like developer Trump’s “art of the
deal”.
“Some will like the 0.7% of GDP ODA requirement, others the definition
of
terrorism, and others the setting up of a new human rights council, and
we
recognize that each of these will have opponents; those that want a
stronger
Security Council will have to recognize the need for the 0.7% i.e. an
emergency fund for the vulnerable and help for the failed states are
part of
the deal.

To the title of the report - it comes from the UN Charter and is about
democratic freedom but also about social and economic freedom:

“We The Peoples Of The United Nations Determined to save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war. which twice in our lifetime has
brought
untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human
rights,
in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of
men and
women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under
which justice and respect for the obligation arising from treaties and
other
sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social
progress and better standards of life IN LARGER FREEDOM And For These
Ends
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as
good
neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace
and
security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and
institution of
methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in common interest,
and to
employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and
social
advancement of all peoples, Have Resolved To Combine Our Efforts and
Accomplish These Aims. Accordingly, our respective Governments,
through
representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have
exhibited
their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the
present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an
international organization to be known as United Nations”.

The report calls to structuring of the UN, reforms of the
intergovernmental
commissions, the Secretariat, and the Agencies; the SG inspires the
membership by saying we had a vision in 2000 and now we must look to
support
for security.

Mr. Brown was asked about seemingly missing elements i.e. the topics of
globalization, the Transnational Corporations (TNC), the veto power at
the
Security Council, Agenda 21.

Are we looking indeed at a new spring at the UN? Did Earth Day extend
at
the UN also to the afternoon? Or this is again just an exercise in
renaming
the action, stalling for a few more years on the inevitable path to
real
restructuring of the UN and weeding out some of the most disturbing
elements? Can the UN be saved from itself? In 1992, with the concept
of
Sustainable Development we started on the right path but then proceeded
to
dismantle this process to the point that it is no more part of the
language
of this report. We will endeavor further to look into the substance of
the
proposals which the report calls an historic opportunity in 2005.

Note added the morning of Monday March 21, 2005, after reading The New
York
Times, The New York Sun and the Financial Times, before posting above
article: Warren Hoge, who was at the Sunday briefings, writes in the
NYT
the report was released Sunday after details from drafts emerged in The
Los
Angeles Times and The Washington Post - so here we have two culprits.
Mark Turner, reports in the FT on the Sunday briefing, but the paper
also
carries also a large article by the Secretary-General: “AN ASPIRATION
TO A
LARGER FREEDOM” describing the document’s concepts i.e. “you can be
truly
free only if you are secure from war and violence and your fundamental
rights and dignity are upheld by law. Human rights, development and
security are mutually interdependent and taken together, they add up to
larger freedom”. Seeing the article, knowing about time difference
with
London, could we say that the SG also gave away the report’s content
despite
the embargo? Quite an additional thought?

Second note, based on what I learned Monday at the UN: The first
article
appeared in The Los Angeles Times on Saturday, followed on Sunday by an
article in the Washington Post. In effect, Mr. Mark Molloch Brown held
already a briefing on Sunday 1 pm and the embargo, having been removed
at
that time, allowed the SG to forward the article to the FT, thus not
breaching the embargo anymore as he removed the embargo earlier. The
fact
that the 1 pm briefing was known only to a part of the UN accredited
press
is a secondary matter here, it goes to the transparency problem the UN
bureaucracy seems to have.