Ethiopians Returning To Israel. These are people of mixed ancestry who for three thousand of years - give or take according to tradition - believe in belonging to the Jewish people - and so they do indeed. Now some of them live in Israel and this play presented their new found home. Visiting Ethiopia last sumer I met some of these Ethiopians of Israel who came back to show off their roots to their Israeli spouses. I had the chance to meet them, because of my visit to Ethiopia with one such descendent living now in New York - where she arrived after years she lived in Israel tool. In today’s world - when you have roots and you feel that you belong to a nation-state - you can in effect take this feeling with you and live in other places too. The trick is that you must have such roots before you start on your mobility trek. This does not make you then a migrant, but you are rather a traveller. So, the issue is the need of a rooted feeling to start with - rather then a will to escape.

nbsp;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/736197…

Darfur deaths ‘could be 300,000′. Says BBC Wednesday, 23 April 2008.

An estimated 300,000 people, about 100,000 more than previously thought, have died in the last five years of conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, John Holmes, humanitarian affairs head for the United Nations, said Wednesday. Sudanese officials dispute such high figures, saying only around 10,000 people have died. You can bet your lunch that the Africans will not bring this subject up at Durban II.

Not to be exposed to genocide does not seem to be part of Africa’s leaders view of human rights.
More than two million have been displaced by the conflict.
The figures released today are an increase of 50% from the previous figure of 200,000 killed in the five years of fighting in the region in western Sudan.
Mr Holmes gave the revised total to a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York.
Sudan disputes the figure, saying 10,000 are now known to have died.
The previous figure of 200,000 came from a 2006 study by the World Health Organisation.
It included those killed in the fighting itself as well as people who died from disease and malnutrition because of the conflict.
The 2006 figure “must be much higher now - perhaps as much as half again,” Mr Holmes said.
He said the new total was an extrapolation from the previous figure and was not based on a new study.

Speaking later to reporters, Mr Holmes added: “I am not trying to suggest this is a very scientifically-based figure. It is extrapolated from the 2006 figure, it is not new research.” Mr Holmes said: “We continue to see the goal posts receding to the point where peace in Darfur seems further away today than ever.”

The UN Security Council is told of ‘high levels of sexual violence and exploitation’ in Darfur.
Mr Holmes’ comments were hotly disputed by the Sudanese ambassador to the UN, Abdul Mahmoud Abdel-Halim, who accused him of exaggerating the figure.
“These remarks by Holmes are not helpful, are not correct, are not credible,” Mr Abdel-Halim told the Reuters news agency.
“He should tell us who made that study, who commissioned it and how was it done.”
Mr Abdel-Halim put the number who died at 10,000, which is 1,000 higher than the Khartoum government’s previous estimate. The Sudanese number only comprises those who have died in combat, he said.

Eric Reeves, the American author of a book on Darfur, “A long day’s dying” says the figure may be even higher than that estimated by Mr Holmes. “We know that the figure has been far too low, for far too long,” Mr Reeves told the BBC.

“Mr Holmes said that 300,000 was a conservative figure. In my own view based on many mortality assessments, looking at all the data that I can put my hands on the figure is likely to be closer to 500,000,” he said.

He also said that the government in Khartoum was refusing to allow mortality studies to be conducted in Darfur.

Peacekeeping force: {that is the macabre joke!}

The Security Council was also told that the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur is unlikely to be up to full strength this year.

The joint UN-AU special representative for Darfur, Rodolphe Adada, said troop levels in the UNAMID mission he leads “is at less than 40% of its mandated level of 19,555 and it is very unlikely to achieve full-operating capability before 2009″.

After the meeting, he suggested the force could reach 80% of its strength at the end of this year as attempts were made to accelerate deployment.

The conflict in Darfur in western Sudan began in 2003 after rebel groups began attacking government targets, saying their communities were being discriminated against in favour of Arabs.

In retaliation, the government launched a military and police campaign in Darfur, prompting 2m people to leave their homes.

Arab Janjaweed militia are accused of following up on government raids on villages with a campaign of murder and rape.

The Sudanese government denies links to the Janjaweed, but admits establishing “self-defence militias”. It says the problems have been exaggerated.

International Conference on Renewable Energy in Africa
16-18 April 2008 | Dakar, Senegal

 Just Got In:    Mugabe Skips Regional Summit on Zimbabwe.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 13, 2008
Filed at 2:28 a.m. ET

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) – Southern African leaders discussed Zimbabwe’s deepening electoral crisis in a marathon summit that ended before dawn Sunday with a weak declaration that failed to criticize the absent President Robert Mugabe.

Instead, the declaration issued at the end of the 12-hour summit called for the expeditious verification of results in the presence of the candidates or their agents ”within the rule of law.” The declaration also urged ”all parties to accept the results when they are announced.”
Independent tallies indicate Mugabe lost the election, but garnered enough votes to force a runoff.
The summit promised to send observers if there were a second round of elections. The team it sent in March was led by a junior minister from Angola, a country that has not held elections since 1992.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa had called the emergency summit with 48 hours’ notice. Afterward, his foreign affairs minister told reporters there was no crisis in Zimbabwe, echoing statements made by South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki said Saturday there was ”no crisis” after he had to fly to Zimbabwe before Saturday’s summit to engage Mugabe, who reportedly was not taking calls from African leaders last week.

Mbeki’s policy of ”quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe has been likened to appeasement that allows Mugabe to continue his autocratic rule unimpeded. The Southern African Development Community that held the summit has been accused of pandering to Mugabe with disregard for its own constitution to promote democracy.

Presidents at the conference rushed away when the meeting ended, refusing to answer questions. They left Zambia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kabinga Pande to declare, ”We listened to both parties, the opposition and the government, and both have said there is no crisis.”

Tendai Biti, the secretary-general of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Party, denied that was what it said. Tsvangirai had hurriedly left the summit four hours before it closed and did not return as promised.

Inviting Tsvangirai to the meeting was an unprecedented move that probably accounted for Mugabe’s absence.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said it would conduct a full recount of the presidential and parliamentary vote on April 19, the state-run Sunday Mail newspaper reported. Commission chairman George Chiweshe said candidates, party representatives and observers would be allowed to witness the process, the paper said. Mugabe’s party had demanded a recount, even without results of presidential elections announced.

Pande said the summit could not demand election results while Zimbabwe’s High Court is considering opposition application asking a judge to order the immediate publication of results. The court, stacked with judges loyal to Mugabe, has dallied more than a week over the urgent appeal.

There was no comment from Mugabe or the three hard-line ministers he sent to represent him at the summit.

Mugabe’s allies indicated Saturday’s summit was part of a Western plot to overthrow him because of his land reform program, which was touted as an effort to redistribute the wide swathes of fertile land owned by the tiny white community to poor blacks. Instead, farms went to Mugabe’s relatives, friends and cronies and the economy of the former food exporter collapsed.

”This time, African leaders are supposed to do the bidding of the white West, that is to pressure Zimbabwe to abet regime change agenda,” said a column in the state-run Herald newspaper Saturday.

With Mugabe on the defensive after the election, ruling party officials have encouraged militants to invade the country’s few remaining white-owned farms and some farms owned by black opponents, saying they were trying to protect Zimbabweans from encroaching colonialism. Opposition officials say such attacks are a smoke screen for assaults on mainly black opposition supporters.

The summit was seen as a major test for the Southern African Development Community.

”The very integrity and utility of the SADC is at stake,” said New York-based Freedom House, which charts democracy’s progress around the world.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, of Ghana, warned the leaders they had ”a grave responsibility to act, not only because of the negative spillover effects on the region, but also to ensure that democracy, human rights and the rule of law are respected.”

An estimated one-third of Zimbabwe’s population has fled the country as it descended into political and economic chaos.

”If SADC cannot even get a state to release their election results, it’s going to be very difficult for SADC,” she said.

The release of Zimbabwe’s election results ceased after results from legislative races held the same day as the presidential vote showed Mugabe’s party lost control of parliament for the first time.

Mwanawasa, the Zambian leader, had opened the summit with a reassuring message for Zimbabwe’s leaders, saying ”This summit is not intended to put President Robert Mugabe in the dock.”

——–

Associated Press writers Joseph J. Schatz in Lusaka, Zambia, and Angus Shaw in Harare, Zimbabwe, contributed to this report.

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

BAN KI-MOON WELCOMES ANNOUNCEMENT OF AFRICAN SUMMIT ON ZIMBABWE says the UN official UN News.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today he is pleased that regional leaders in southern Africa are mobilizing to “help Zimbabwe overcome its post-electoral crisis through peaceful means.”

Through a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban congratulated the leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for arranging a summit of heads of State in Lusaka, Zambia, on 13 April to discuss the situation.

Earlier this week, Mr. Ban expressed concern that the results of presidential elections in Zimbabwe have not been released and urged the electoral authorities to do so “expeditiously and with transparency.”

“The situation in Zimbabwe could deteriorate if there is no prompt action to resolve this impasse,” he added in today’s statement.

In the presidential poll, the incumbent, Robert Mugabe, is facing Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni. If a winning candidate does not win more than 50 per cent of the total votes, a run-off race is required.

Mr Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, petitioned Zimbabwe’s High Court to demand the release of the election results. The electoral authorities have already announced the results of the Senate and parliamentary elections, which were held on the same day as the presidential vote.

———–

It seems that even in the tightly controlled Zimbabwe, the elections were won by Tsvangirai. Mugabe, who has outlived a long time ago his usefulness to his people, does not accept the end to his rule and called for new elections which he will now control better. Tsvangirai, in full right, does not want to go for new elections. Will now South Africa finally realize that the region has had enough of Zimbabwe? Previously South Africa chose to stab in the back all of Africa by supporting Mugabe’s Zimbabwe in its quest to chair the UN CSD and now can only blame themselves for having turned to shambles that UN outstretch to Africa.

Mugabe, who is Zimbabwe’s ruling President since Independence, has turned a country that was the bread-basket of its region to a perpetual needy country living now on food imported from Zambia. This must change if there is to be hope for Southern Africa.

“Carbon market opportunities for the forestry sector of Africa”
Walker, SM, Pearson T, Munishi, P, and Petrova, S.

With support of FAO, this document was presented at 16th Session of African Forestry and Wildlife Commission, Khartoum, Sudan, February 2008.

The development of carbon projects in the agriculture, land use, and forestry sector of Africa has a large potential for financial generation, environmental and sustainability improvement, and social benefits.  This document describes what opportunities exist for Africa and presents recommendations on what steps can be taken for African countries to increase their participation in this market.

You can find this document here and on  website:

 carbonservices at winrock.org with any questions, comments, or inquiries.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ecosystem Services
Winrock International
1621 N. Kent Street, Ste. 1200
Arlington, VA 22209
Ph. 703-525-9430 ext. 656
Fax.703-525-1744
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Desmond Tutu: Millions are dying on the world’s roads. It’s time to act.
This epidemic comes with a vaccine in the form of simple life-saving measures.

Monday, 31 March 2008, Editorial, The Independent.

Meeting today at the UN General Assembly in New York, the world’s governments have an opportunity to start the fightback against one of the world’s most destructive, yet least reported, health emergencies: the epidemic of death and injury being played out on the world’s roads.

The scale of the crisis is not appreciated. In the 10 seconds it has taken you to read this far, another two people have been killed or injured by traffic. Each year, more than 1.2m lives are lost. Over 50m people are injured, many of them suffering long-term trauma and disability. And the numbers are going up.

Every road death is a human tragedy that leaves grief, shock and anger in its wake. To these costs can be added wider impacts. Lost productivity that comes with traffic injuries costs developing countries 1-2 per cent of GDP. Health systems are placed under immense stress. And for the poor, a road injury is often a one-way trip into poverty.

Following a push from groups like the Make Roads Safe campaign, the UN will vote on holding a first ever road safety summit. If the children, pedestrians and cyclists in developing countries who represent the vast majority of casualties had the vote there would be only one outcome.

Rich countries are now making real progress in cutting the human toll, putting in place more stringent traffic rules, designing safer roads, and protecting people from metal. Sadly, the casualty curve in developing countries is heading in the opposite direction. Road deaths are already comparable in scale to malaria and tuberculosis. For the 10 - 24 age group, they are the single biggest cause of mortality. The World Health Organisation projects an 80 per cent increase in death by 2020. Yet unlike malaria, road deaths do not generate global initiatives – they are absent from global agendas.

Africa has some of the world’s most dangerous roads. There are two deaths for every 10,000 cars in the US, compared to over 190 in Uganda and Ethiopia. Many victims are children and poor farmers in rural areas far from emergency services.

But this epidemic is global. Traffic is a major source of death in Latin America; South Asia has the fastest growing casualty lists. In contrast to rich countries, where car occupants account for most victims, in developing countries it is people too poor to own a car bearing the brunt. Visit a trauma ward in Nairobi, Sao Paolo, or Manila, and more than one-in-every five beds will be occupied by a road traffic patient.

What is driving this carnage? Speeding cars, badly maintained roads, and roads designed for speed, rather than lowering pedestrian risk, play a part. Add to this lethal cocktail anarchy in the form of disregard for traffic rules and you have a perfect storm.

Aid donors are part of the problem. The G8 has pledged $1.2bn for Africa’s roads. We welcome this because roads are vital to poverty reduction and the development of market opportunities. But Africa needs safe roads. International norms dictate that 10 per cent of transport infrastructure spending should be for safety. The G8 has allocated just 1 per cent.

This is an epidemic with a vaccine that comes in the form of simple life-saving measures. Well-designed roads, speed limits, the enforcement of laws on crash helmets do not require rocket science.

Some developed countries are setting new safety standards transforming road safety by putting people first. Sweden has adopted a ‘Vision Zero’ programme. The aim: to design roads geared to minimise risk.

Many developing countries are also leading by example. Rwanda, has cut road deaths since 2000. When truck drivers enter from Kenya, they now have to adjust from 60km to a 40km speed limit. In Vietnam and Thailand, education and law enforcement on helmets has dramatically cut deaths. Bogota, has invested in walkways, cross points, and regulated public transport.

An international summit could build on these positive examples. The Make Roads Safe, campaign is calling for a $300m action plan to help poor countries strengthen road safety. But we do not have to wait for an international summit to act. The stakes are rising by the day. Investing political capital and financial resources in safer roads today will prevent countless human tragedies, enhance public health, lift people out of poverty and boost economic growth tomorrow.

We desperately need a people-first transport policy for the 21st Century. The UN General Assembly has a chance to take us in that direction by voting for a road safety summit. Any other outcome would be indefensible.

Desmond Tutu is Emeritus Archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

The Session was Chaired by Geofrey Carr, the Science Editor for The Economist. He specializes since 1995 in topics covering disease, climate science, evolution, genetics, neuroeconomics, neuroscience, and synthetic biology.

The panel included:

Ken Drinkwater of the University of Bergen, Senior Scientist at the Centre for Climate Research. He worked on marine-ecosystems for over 35 years. His recent research has focused on the Barents and Norwegian Seas as part of the ongoing 2007-2008 International Polar Year (IPY);

Grete K. Hovelsrud, Senior Research Fellow, Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo. She works now on impact, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change developing theoretical and methodological frameworks for multi-factor interdisciplinary studies;

Eystein Jansen, Professor, Dept. of Geology and Director, Bjerkness Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen works now on defining water mass structures, rates of change, and variability of the climate system with different natural forcings;

Peter Schlosser, Professor, Columbia University, with Earth and Environmental Engineering, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science , Associate Director and Director of Research, The Earth Institute. His interests are in aqueous geochemistry, physical oceanography, climate and contaminant transport.

Daniel M. White, Director, Institute of Northern Engineering (INE), Civil and Environmental Engineering, U of Alaska at Fairbanks. He works on Climate Change impacts in the Arctic on Drinking Water and Water Resources.

We are posting the above as we were intrigued by the heavy Norwegian involvement which makes sense in the light of Norway’s direct interest in the changes of the Arctic geography, but as we did not get to listen to the discussions we will have to come back after we obtain transcripts.

Further, the first “after lunch” speaker was Mr. Jonas Gahr Store, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway.

The Keynote Speaker of Session 2 was Mr Jan Egeland of Norway, now Director of te Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and Special Assistant to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former USG under the Previous UNSG Kofi Annan.

—————–

State of the Planet is a bi-annual event - so next one will be in 2010. By definition these meetings are intended as multi-disciplinary bringing in thinkers to assess the state of natural and human systems with the goal being SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.

The other three Sessions at this two-day Conference, March 27 and 28, 2008, were:

Session 1: Eradicating Poverty As The poor population Expands;

Session 2: Addressing Areas of Conflict in our Changing World;

Session 3: identifying Energy Solutions for Sustainable Development.

—————-

The Keynote Speaker, after the opening remarks, March 27, 2008, was Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Mr. Kofi Annan serves now as President of the Geneva based, UK backed, Global Humanitarian Forum launched on June 30, 2007,

and chairs - The Africa Progress Panel (APP) launched in Berlin on April 24, 2007 including Peter Eigen of Transparency International, Bob Geldorf, Graca Machel, Michel Camdessus, Robert Rubin, and Muhammad Yunus, funded by Bill Gates it will demand accountability on promises made on supporting development and fight poverty in Africa;

also The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), established by The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in September 2006 ;

and The Prize Committee of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation - an African initiative that has been established to “Stimulate debate on good governance across sub-Saharan Africa and the world” - the first award was given to former President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, on 22nd October 2007, he was awarded US$5 million over 10 years and US$200,000 annually for life thereafter, plus up to US$200,000 a year for 10 years towards the winner’s public interest activities and good causes, and this is the largest monetary award in existence.

—————-

Session 1 included Mr. Kemal Dervis, the Administrator of UNDP, as its Keynote Speaker.

Session 2, besides Jan Egeland of Norway, who was under UNSG Kofi Annan the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, appointed in 2003 to succeed Kenzo Oshima of Japan, included from the UN also the USG for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Marie Guehenno, of France.

Session 3 included as Keynote Speaker Paula Di Perna, Executive VP, Corporate recruitment and Public Policy, Chicago Climate Exchange.

————-

After Session 4, we listened to Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs summarize the two days of the conference:

“We saw that the challenges are now global and interconnected. With a world Economy growing at 5%/year - the World Production doubles in 40 years. The stress on the planet is unmanageable and growing. Without global action we will have very large problems” he said.

The scientists are absolutely vital. The mechanisms of change require most ingenuous analysis. Sometimes we encounter problems that we do not understand to the last moment - this was the case of ozone layer depletion. We could not have imagine that the inert refrigerant could do it. Linking the science to what has to happen requires Government leadership and Civil Society involvement. Nobody is in charge because we do not have a global government. Property rights incentives and the markets. Much of what is discussed here does not lend itself to privatization. You cannot privatize water ….

America is based on “You don’t have to like your neighbor,” but these problems involves us and the neighbor.

The Earth Institute found that “we need to create a new Climate Center to include it all - water, Climate Change Science, Engineering, Food Production.” Minister Roberto Rodrigues (Former Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, now Coordinator of the Getulio Vargas Foundation Agrobusiness Center, President of the Superior Agriculture Council of Sao Paulo’s Federation of Industries and Co-Chairman, Interamerican Ethanol Commission) who spoke in Session 3 - spoke on biofuels - human land use - the changes will be highest in the global food production. Rodrigues saw an intensification of the agriculture.

Professor Sachs told the audience that the Earth Institute has initiated a global classroom with 15 campuses simultaneously participating. He expects by 2010, next State of the Planet Conference, that the Conference could also become a global event with participants in many places in the world.

——————

Also, on Thursday night, March 27, 2008, there was a special “Economist Debate.” Moderator was Vijay Vaitheeswarran, Global Correspondent of the Economist.

The Topic was “The United States and Climate CHange.” The Proposition for the Debate was: “THE UNITED STATES WILL SOLVE THE CLIMATE CHANGE PROBLEM.”

The United States is the world’s largest consumer of oil and largest producer of greenhouse gases. Its consumption of resources is unmatched, even in nations with quadruple the population. And despite a broad international consensus about climate change, the US has refused to adopt serious domestic emission’s-control measures or to support international efforts to curb climate change such as the Kyoto Protocol. Will this stance continue when President George Bush leaves office? Will the bipartisan addiction to oil in the Us prove impossible to cure? Will the US continue to be a bigger part of the problem than the solution? Or will technological innovation and entrepreneurship change the dynamics of this issue?

It was announced that Vijay Vaitheeswarran will monitor a debate about leadership on climate change, and will have two teams, of two experts each, that will participate in an Oxford-style debate on the proposition - “The United States Will Solve The Climate Change Problem.”

IN FAVOR of the Proposition:

David Victor, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

Vinod Khosla, formerly a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins and Founder of Sun Microsystems, founded the Khosla Ventures in 2004.

AGAINST the Proposition:

Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professorof Environmental Law and Policy, Yale Law School and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. He is also the Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

Michael Grubb, Chief Economist at UK Carbon Trust and Senior Research Associate in the Cambridge University Faculty of Economics. He is a leading international researcher on economic, technology and policy aspects of climate change and related energy issues.

The Moderator - Vijay Vaitheeswarran is an MIT-trained engineer who spent ten years covering energy and environment issues for the Economist. he is the author of “Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change our Lives and maybe Even Save the Planet” from Farrar, Straus & Giroux . Also, “Zoom: the Global Race to Fuel thye Car of the Future.”

Again, we are sorry for only posting now the outline of an event. It sounded interesting and we will fill in when further information becomes available.

—————-

Also, for the sake of the interest in the arctic - something we just picked up from www.DotEarth.com -

March 29, 2008, 10:27 pm The New York Times Blog on Climate Science Touched the Arctic from an original angle:
 http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0…

March 30, 2008, 1:27 am

Polar Cities a Haven in Warming World?

By Andrew C. Revkin

One vision of a “polar city” in an overheated world. (Illustration by Deng Cheng-hong)

Danny Bloom, a freelance writer, translator and editor living in Taiwan, is on a one-man campaign to get people to seriously consider a worst-case prediction of the British chemist and inventor James Lovelock: life in “polar cities” arrayed around the shores of an ice-free Arctic Ocean in a greenhouse-warmed world.

Dr. Lovelock, who in 1972 conceived of Earth’s crust, climate and veneer of life as a unified self-sustaining entity, Gaia, foresees humanity in full pole-bound retreat within a century as areas around the tropics roast — a scenario far outside even the worst-case projections of climate scientists.

After reading a newspaper column in which Dr. Lovelock predicted disastrous warming, Mr. Bloom (a frequent comment poster on Dot Earth these days) teamed up with Deng Cheng-hong, a Taiwanese artist, and set up Web sites showing designs for self-sufficient Arctic communities.

Mr. Bloom told me his intent was to conduct a thought experiment that might prod people out of their comfort zone on climate — which remains, for many, a someday, somewhere issue.

I interviewed Dr. Lovelock two years ago on his dire climate forecast and prescriptions — and also his ultimately optimistic view that humans will muddle through, albeit with a greatly reduced population. There’s a video of my chat with Dr. Lovelock here.

“At six going on eight billion people,” Dr. Lovelock told me, “the idea of any further development is almost obscene. We’ve got to learn how to retreat from the world that we’re in. Planning a good retreat is always a good measure of generalship.”

The retreat, he insists, will be toward the poles.

It’s a dubious scenario, particularly on time scales shorter than centuries. But — as we’ve written extensively in recent years — there is already an intensifying push to develop Arctic resources and test shipping routes that could soon become practical should the floating sea ice in the Arctic routinely vanish in summers.

Sensing the shift, the Coast Guard has proposed establishing its first permanent Arctic presence, a helicopter station in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the United States.

It’s not a stretch to think of Barrow as a hub for expanding commercial fishing and trade through the Bering Strait.

The strategic significance of an opening Arctic recently made the pages of Foreign Affairs magazine, in an article by one of my longtime sources on this issue, Scott Borgerson, a former Coast Guard officer who is now a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“It is no longer a matter of if, but when, the Arctic Ocean will open to regular marine transportation and exploration of its lucrative natural-resource deposits,” he wrote.

So even if humanity isn’t driven to Arctic shores by climate calamity at lower latitudes, it’s a sure bet that the far north will be an ever busier place. Urban planners, get out your mukluks.

In the meantime, scientists, marathon runners, and others are already making the North Pole a busy place.

UN: Attacks on Darfur villages a ‘deliberate’ strategy.

from Geneva, Switzerland, by AF, and picked up on Mail&Guardian of South Africa.
 http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?art…

20 March 2008 12:11

Attacks on four villages in West Darfur in January and February by the Sudanese armed forces amounted to a “deliberate” military strategy, the United Nations said in a report on Thursday.

The attacks resulted in at least 115 deaths, according to a report issued jointly by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN African Union Mission in Darfur.

“The scale of destruction of civilian property, including objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, suggests that the damage was a deliberate and integral part of a military strategy,” said the report.

Sudan has been locked in a serious humanitarian crisis since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur took up arms against Khartoum in 2003.

Arab militias aligned to the Sudanese government have been accused of horrendous violence against civilians in quelling the rebellion.

The United States has described the violence in Darfur as genocide.

In its latest report, the UN detailed attacks in four villages which it described as part of “a major military campaign” launched by the Sudanese government.