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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 22nd, 2010 We feel that if the data here is accurate, Arab business is rather looking for new talent in the new world. We believe that most young recruits to businesses in North Africa and the Middle East are returning young talent and that this positions well these business companies for the changing global atmosphere. It is rather that then looking to hire on the cheap. The business slow down has just helped refresh the human capital of MENA (The Middle East – North Africa Arab region). ————— MENA firms hire new graduates to cut costs – pollby Elsa Baxter, Sunday, 22 August 2010. 
GRADUATES: 37.6 percent of people said their employers preferred to hire fresh graduates post recession. (Getty Images)
Almost 40 percent of Middle East and North African (MENA) employees said their company was more interested in hiring new university graduates since the global recession, according to the latest poll by Bayt.com. The survey, which consulted 13,197 respondents from across the region, found that 37.6 percent of people said their employers preferred to hire fresh graduates, while 26.4 percent said they were less inclined to do so. A further 19.2 percent of respondents said things were unchanged. More than half (51.7 percent) of participants said the number one motivation behind the hiring was financial because new graduates command lower salaries and fewer benefits, while 12.7 percent said it was because they would have more passion for the job. A further 10.4 percent it was because new graduates would have more creativity, 8.4 percent said it was due to their fresh analytical thinking, and 5.1 percent cited better communication skills. {our math says this is 37.6% or that one out of 2,9 respondents was honest about the motives. The others belong to the commonly held idea that age makes people wiser while we rather think that today ag makes most people more obsolete} Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 20th, 2010 EU Sees Solar Power Imported From Sahara In 5 YearsDate: 21-Jun-10
Europe will import its first solar-generated electricity from North Africa within the next five years, European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said in an interview on Sunday. The European Union is backing projects to turn the plentiful sunlight in the Sahara desert into electricity for power-hungry Europe, a scheme it hopes will help meet its target of deriving 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources in 2020. “I think some models starting in the next 5 years will bring some hundreds of megawatts to the European market,” Oettinger told Reuters after a meeting with energy ministers from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. He said those initial volumes would come from small pilot projects, but the amount of electricity would go up into the thousands of megawatts as projects including the 400 billion euro ($495 billion) Desertec solar scheme come on stream. “Desertec as a whole is a vision for the next 20 to 40 years with investment of hundreds of billions of euros,” said Oettinger. “To integrate a bigger percentage of renewables, solar and wind, needs time.” The EU is backing the construction of new electricity cables, known as inter-connectors, under the Mediterranean Sea to carry this renewable energy from North Africa to Europe. Some environmental groups have warned these cables could be used instead to import non-renewable electricity from coal- and gas-fired power stations in north Africa. “This is a good question but not a question to destroy our project,” Oettinger said. “This question must be answered by a good answer and so we need ways to ensure that our import of electricity is from renewables.” He said he believed it was technologically possible to monitor electricity imports to the EU and establish if they come from renewable sources or fossil fuels. “This question must be solved in the next years,” he said. SOLAR SUBISIDIES The Desertec consortium includes major firms such as Siemens, RWE and Deutsche Bank. They are expected to seek public money for the project. Oettinger said the EU’s assistance was likely to include help coordinating stakeholders, updating regulations to allow the imported electricity to move across European borders, and financing feasibility studies. On the prospect of EU subsidies, or the European Commission permitting state aid to firms involved in the project, he said that would become clear once the consortium has presented a detailed business plan. Oettinger said all three energy ministers at the meeting in the Algerian capital sent a signal they were willing to build the infrastructure and common market rules needed to allow a trade in renewable electricity with Europe. He countered concerns expressed in the past by some officials in Algeria that the project could involve Europeans exploiting north Africa’s natural resources. “Renewables are a two-way partnership because electricity produced here is for the home market of north African countries,” he said. “Maybe a bigger percentage of the electricity will be exported to Europe but at the same time we have to export the technology, tools, machines, experts, and so it’s a real partnership, not only a partnership by selling and by buying.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 19th, 2010 « Rencontre Régionale: Adaptation aux changements climatiques au Maghreb: Bilan et Perspectives » from: Prof. Dr. Med-Saïd KARROUK to African Le Comité National IGBP, et l’Université Hassan II, Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines Ben M’Sick, Casablanca (Maroc) – Avec le soutien du programme ACCA du CRDI et du DFID Organisent : La « Rencontre Régionale: Adaptation aux changements climatiques au Maghreb: Le 16 et 17 mars 2010, FLSH Ben M’Sick, Casablanca Préambule : En réponse aux défis environnementaux et socio-économiques majeurs liés aux changements climatiques, placés actuellement au cœur de l’ordre du jour des grandes réunions internationales, et dans la perspective d’une contribution à l’effort mondial de sensibilisation sur les enjeux du changement du climat, que cette rencontre sur l’adaptation aux changements climatiques au Maghreb est organisée, à laquelle seront invitées des personnalités de très haut niveau et d’éminents scientifiques et experts. D’autre part, un plan d’action concret sera proposé pour la mise en place de projets prioritaires d’adaptation pour les gouvernements, les entreprises et la société civile. Ceci permettra en même temps d’imprimer une dynamique nouvelle aux actions jusqu’ici timides des pays maghrébins sur le plan international dans le domaine des changements climatiques. La diffusion de l’information recueillie durant cette conférence sera effectuée par le réseau « ClimDev » qui desserve plus de 10 000 lecteurs francophones à travers le monde. A cela s’ajoutera la publication des actes de la conférence qui seront adressés aux différents acteurs visés par la conférence : les décideurs, les scientifiques, les ONG, …etc. Objectifs de la rencontre : Cette rencontre a trois objectifs : Les axes de cette rencontre sont les suivants : Enjeux : Gravement préoccupés par la vulnérabilité des systèmes socioéconomiques et de production du Maghreb au changement climatique et aux faibles capacités de riposte de la région, les décideurs politiques ont retenu le changement climatique comme l’une des préoccupations prioritaires et ont lancé un appel de coopérations aux partenaires pour appuyer leurs pays et les communautés économiques régionales afin qu’ils puissent intégrer de façon efficace la problématique du changement climatique dans leurs plans de développement. Les négociations actuelles sur le changement climatique recherchent un nouvel élan pour l’après 2012 qui prendrait en compte les leçons du Protocole de Kyoto et la nécessaire convergence des priorités des diverses Parties. Dans cette perspective elles ont identifié quatre domaines-clés pour un dialogue de haut niveau, pour la coopération et l’action de long terme sur le changement climatique. Il s’agit : Le Maghreb se doit d’y inscrire sa spécificité et ses priorités et d’en saisir les opportunités pour son développement. La Rencontre de Casablanca s’intègre dans cet élan et souhaite participer à l’aide à la décision pour une adaptation efficace par la recherche et le renforcement des capacités vis-à-vis de ce crucial problème, celui des Changements Climatiques au Maghreb. Public cible : Comité scientifique : KARROUK Mohammed Saïd, Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines Ben M’Sick, Casablanca Comité d’organisation : KARROUK Mohammed Saïd, Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines Ben M’Sick, Casablanca Date-limite et directives pour soumettre des résumés : Nous voudrions inviter les participants à présenter des communications orales et des affiches basés sur les thèmes de la rencontre, liés à la région du Maghreb. Les résumés doivent être soumis avant le 31 janvier 2010 par courriel, en anglais, français ou arabe. Aide aux participants : La rencontre fournira l’aide de voyage, d’hébergement et de restauration, partielle ou totale, à un nombre limité de participants qui sont dans le besoin d’aide financière. On s’attend à ce que les participants puissent financer leurs propres dépenses et ou recevoir l’appui d’une autre organisation pour couvrir les frais. Conditions : Frais de participation : Conférences invitées : Programme Prévisionnelle : Programme : 09:00 – 09:30 *************** Directeur Exécutif du Comité National IGBP (Global Change) Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 25th, 2010 www.SustainabiliTank.info has backed this concept from its start. We ————
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 6th, 2010 From the latest news coming from Washington – “Under the new airport There may be a Jamaican convert to Islam who preached terrorism in the UK But what about Cuba? Fidel Castro is more atheist then Catholic, surely Mr. President, I watched Bolivia and Venezuela leaders speak in Copenhagen, Please start by taking him of that list! Having said the above – let us get now to the point – MR PRESIDENT - * * * * Please look – I am posting here four reference – links to news New Air Security Checks From 14 Nations to U.S. Draw Criticism In Yemen, U.S. Faces Leader Who Puts Family First Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties Kenya Seeks to Deport Muslim Cleric to Jamaica ———————— THE UPDATE: We have received a comment on this post and it presents a very valid point supposedly made at the UN General Assembly by the Foreign Minister of Cuba: “I mean if they were going to include us, then they should have at least thrown in North Korea.” Even if the e-mail we received from ajay - akazif at gmail.com as presented by www. eggplantpost.com in http://eggplantpost.com/2010/01/05/cuba-… were a made up story, the argument holds water nevertheless. DID THE US INCLUDE CUBA ON THAT LIST BECAUSE IT WANTED TO AVOID BEING SEEN AS GOING AFTER A RAG-TAG OF ISLANIC COUNTRIES? Now, we believe that US security should be spoken here – not again US appeasement-for-oil please! Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2009 Date: 27-Aug-09
RABAT – A 400 billion euro ($774 billion) plan to power Europe with Sahara sunlight is gaining momentum, even as critics see high risks in a large corporate project using young technology in north African countries with weak rule of law. Desertec, as the initiative is called, would be the world’s most ambitious solar power project. Fields of mirrors in the desert would gather solar rays to boil water, turning turbines to electrify a new carbon-free network linking Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Its supporters, a dozen finance and industrial firms mostly from Germany, say it will keep Europe at the forefront of the fight against climate change and help North African and European economies to grow within greenhouse gas emission limits. Others warn of numerous pitfalls, including Maghreb politics, Saharan sandstorms and the risk to desert populations if their water is diverted to clean dust off solar mirrors. They say the concentrated solar power (CSP) technology behind Desertec involves greater costs and risks than the fast-growing patchwork of smaller-scale photovoltaic cell installations that generate most of Europe’s solar energy today. Desertec’s founders are lured by the fact that more energy falls on the world’s deserts in six hours than the world consumes in a year. “The Sahara offers every advantage you want — proximity to Europe, virtually no population and more intense sunlight,” said George Joffe, a research fellow and Maghreb expert at Cambridge University, who is not affiliated to the plan. “It would be mad to pass up this opportunity.” Proposed by the Club of Rome, an international group of experts that suggests solutions to global problems, Desertec became an industrial project last month when reinsurer Munich Re hosted its launch at its headquarters in the Bavarian capital. “We have a special relationship with climate change: it affects our core business, the insurance of weather-related natural catastrophes, which count among the most expensive losses we have to bear,” said Peter Hoeppe, Head of Munich Re’s Geo Risk Research department. EMISSIONS GOALS Many European governments aim to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Desertec’s backers say it would also be a positive gesture from the developed world to countries of the Middle East and North Africa, which stand to suffer most from the more frequent droughts and desertification blamed on global warming. They have yet to draw up a business plan or specify how it will be funded but hope to recruit shareholders and partner companies from a variety of countries. Desertec officials say the Sahara could one day deliver 15 percent of Europe’s electricity, but expect the plan to advance in small stages with completion not before 2050. Supporters of more established solar energy technology, such as photovoltaic cells, argue decentralized generation will prove more popular as falling prices make the heavy infrastructure needed for CSP unviable. They also think European governments, which already accept the risk of importing energy from north African countries such as Algeria, would given the choice opt for the security of producing renewable energy within their own borders. “Sahara power for northern Europe is a mirage,” said Hermann Scheer, a member of Germany’s parliament and head of the European Association for Renewable Energy. “Those behind the project know themselves that nothing will ever come out of this,” said Scheer, an architect of renewable energy policy in Germany, which included a strong emphasis on photovoltaic technology. Scheer said the costs of Desertec were being downplayed artificially and its technical capabilities over-estimated. “EVERYONE LOVES IT” Desertec would need 20 or more efficient, direct-current cables each costing up to $1 billion to transmit electricity north beneath the Mediterranean. CSP installations placed in the Sahara generate around 30 percent more power per area than in southern Spain, according to Morocco’s renewable energy agency CDER. “Desertec can help reduce emissions in Europe and foster economic and social development in northern Africa, so everyone loves this project,” said Santiago Siage, head of Desertec consortium member Abengoa Solar. Abengoa is developing installations combining CSP with combined-cycle gas power generation in Morocco and Algeria. Southern countries that import most of their energy like Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan would also benefit from Desertec. Morocco buys in 96 percent of its energy and subsidizes fuel to make it more affordable for the poor, a massive drain on state resources that could be used to fight poverty and bring services to isolated rural areas. The Moroccan government says Desertec could solve Morocco’s energy dependency and leave plenty of power for Europe. “Morocco doesn’t have even 1 percent of Europe’s energy consumption, so let’s be realistic,” said Said Mouline, the head of Morocco’s renewable energy agency. “We would be generating enough power for us, and for export, for the next 100 years.” EXPLOITATION? Among hazards facing the scheme are the fact that Desertec would need tight coordination between governments to succeed, yet Maghreb states have tried and failed for two decades to integrate their economies and deepen political ties. The border between Morocco and Algeria is shut and relations are poisoned by a disagreement over the Western Sahara. Morocco says it has already identified sites to place the curved solar mirrors, not deep in the Sahara but in populated areas just north of the desert to ensure a supply of water to clean mirrors and cool turbines. Algeria has the biggest chunk of desert and private Algerian firm Cevital has signed up for Desertec, but Africa’s second-largest country is isolated and struggling to reform a Soviet-style economy after a brutal civil conflict in the 1990s. The government has tightened terms on inward investment and says it will only work with Desertec if it allows partnerships between Algerian and foreign firms and a transfer of technology. “If these conditions are not met, we are not interested,” said Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil. “We don’t want foreign companies exploiting solar energy from our land.” Analysts play down the risk to Desertec’s infrastructure posed by Al Qaeda-aligned rebels based in Algeria, saying investment risks pose a far bigger problem. “There is the risk of expropriation of assets, reneging on license agreements, corruption and bureaucratic red tape which could stop things getting off the ground,” said Henry Wilkinson of Janusian Security Risk Management. Wolfram Lacher of Control Risks consultancy agreed: security risks can be managed, but the project could become entangled in broader talks between the EU and north Africa on energy, investment and trade. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 13th, 2009 http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-arab-future-conspiracy-vs-reality The Arab future: conspiracy vs reality.A legal conflict between the daughters of former Egyptian presidents is a sad commentary on the Arab world’s condition, says Hazem Saghieh.
12 – 08 – 2009
he predicament of the Arab world is exposed in unexpected ways. Consider the following passage, part of a lengthy news-item in the 28 July 2009 edition of the London-based Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi:
“The judgment-enforcement services visited Dr Hoda Abdel Nasser’s apartment in the new Egyptian suburbs in order to seize her assets and furniture, in execution of a court judgment in favor of Ruqaya Sadat, daughter of late president Anwar Sadat. The south Cairo court had ordered [the daughter of Sadat's predecessor as Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser] to pay a 150,000 Egyptian-pound indemnity to Ruqaya, whom she had accused of tainting her father’s image after she had accused him of masterminding a plan to kill Gamal Abdel Nasser.” Hazem Saghieh is senior commentator for the London-based paper al-Hayat Hazem Saghieh’s articles onopenDemocracyinclude: “Rafiq al-Hariri’s murder: why do Lebanese blame Syria?” (21 February 2008) “Syria and Lebanon: keeping it in the family” (14 December 2005) “How the European left supports Lebanon” (14 August 2006) “Lebanon’s internal struggle: two logics in combat” (19 December 2006) “The Arab defeat” (11 June 2007) “Lebanon’s ‘14 March’: from protest to leadership” (1 April 2008) “Lebanon’s elections: reading the signs” (12 June 2009) “Iran: dialectic of revolution” (23 June 2009) “Arabs and the Iranian upheaval” (9 July 2009) “Hizbollah’s ‘divine victory’: three years on” (20 July 2009) “Israeli settlement, Arab movement” (28 July 2009)Hoda Abdel Nasser, the paper continued, had in 2008 lost a court case after describing Ruqaya Sadat as “the killer of my father” because he is “an American agent, and American newspapers have said this.” The main characters in this drama are not ordinary ones: the daughter of Nasser, who ruled Egypt for eighteen years (July 1952-June 1970), and the daughter of Sadat, who ruled it for eleven years (June 1970-October 1981) – and the link between them nothing less than a murder accusation! It is obvious that there is enough material here to produce a long and entertaining soap opera. The plot is irresistible, and rewrites Egypt’s modern history. The myth that Sadat was Nasser’s loyal companion, his vice-president, speaker of parliament and heir is at last exploded. Rather, he is an anti-Nasser plotter; and since he killed him politically (by turning away from his policies) couldn’t he also be his biological killer, and in the pay of the CIA? The mix of farce and bathos here is accentuated by the story’s timing: days after the commemoration of the “July 23 revolution”, referring to themoment in 1952 when the young Nasser and his “free officer” colleagues seized power and changed Egypt for ever. The memory of this “revolution” is today so emptied of all meaning that the Israeli president Shimon Peres and his prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could celebrate it in the Egyptian ambassador’s house in Tel Aviv. Indeed, the daughters’ dispute is all that this year has had to energise the occasion and refill its void with content. But this content gives no ground for celebration. For what is on display here is only an exaggerated form of the conspiracy theories that are reaching unprecedented levels in Egypt and the Arab world. The leading Palestinian politician Farouk Qaddumi has accused the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas of killing Abbas’s own predecessor Yasser Arafat. It is surely time to ask: can the “natural” death of any Arab leader be taken as a fact? Is it possible for an Arab leader to die without being murdered? The shared feature of the “murder victims”, Nasser and Arafat is that these very different political figures represent a way of thinking and behaving that is now dead. Since admitting its death is hard, a resort to conspiracy theories becomes for those who seek to “keep them alive” an urgent duty and necessary outlet. The alternative, after all, is hard. It would require the parties involved to discard conspiracies and summon the courage to face the death of the political current that prevailed between the mid-1950s and the early 1970s, known as the Arab national-liberation movement. The evidence, from the Maghreb to the Mashreq, is plain. The Algerian revolution, the jewel of this movement, produced a regime that incubated a civil war costing around 200,000 deaths. The Yemeni revolutions of north and south were followed by military coups, mutinies, and assassinations; the dream of “unity” between the two states has for many Yemenis turned into a nightmare. The Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi marries pan-Arabism one day only to divorce it the next. Sudan has been transformed from the time of Jaafar Nimeiri (who initiated his regime by liquidating Sudan’s Communist Party) into a state ruled by Islamists responsible for the Darfur genocide. The Ba’ath party itself, crucible of the Arab nationalism mission and of the drive to unit the “eternal Arab nation”, split into two groups centred on Damascus and Baghdad; each then gave birth to further rival claimants. Before and since Saddam Hussein’s demise, the record of theBa’athists in power in both capitals was characterised by voices of family betrayal, siblings at war, sons and daughters exchanging shrill accusations of violating the scared cause. The circle here loops back to the daughters of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat – the repetition of history, but “the second time as farce”. This spectacle, the death of an entire project, does not need conspiracies to grasp it. It only requires the tracing of the adventurous journey of the corpse, including Ayatollah Khomeini’s attempt to inherit it in 1979 and George W Bush’s very different effort to appropriate it in 2003. Now, the decomposition is well advanced. To evade it, to prefer conspiracy to reality, is to allow the putrefaction to grow. Arabs can’t keep quiet much longer. Hoda and Ruqaya are the latest to disclose our family secret.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 13th, 2008 UPCOMING MEETINGS IN AFRICA: November 2008 African Conference of Ministers in Charge of Environment on Climate Change for post-2012: Algiers, Algiers; 19-20 November 2008: The African Conference of Ministers in Charge of Environment on Climate Change for post 2012 is expected to discuss and adopt outcomes related to: the Bali Action Plan: international Cooperation basis or obligation of the share of commitments; meaning and scope of the concepts of ” Comparable efforts” and “Shared Vision” for developing countries; sectoral approach: impacts and consequences on African countries’ development; and meaning and scope of the concepts of Measurable, Verifiable and Reportable (M.R.V) for developed and developing countries. Meeting of the Executive Committee and Technical Advisory Committee of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW): 24-28 November 2008, Nairobi, Kenya. The AMCOW Executive Committee (AMCOW-EXCO) and the AMCOW Technical Advisory Committee will meet to consider approaches to carrying forward the Sharm El Sheikh Declaration and Commitments on Water and Sanitation (adopted by the African Union Summit, Egypt, June 2008). Ecological Agriculture: Towards Food Security and Sustainable Rural Development in Africa: 26-28 November 2008, African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This conference is organized by the African Union, UN Food and Agriculture Organization and Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in collaboration with the Institute for Sustainable Development, Ethiopia and Third World Network. The conference aims to raise the awareness of policy makers so that they can enhance the capacity of Africa’s smallholder farmers. Richard Sherman International Institute for Sustainable Development http://www.iisd.org Subscribe for free to our publications http://www.iisd.ca/email/subscribe.htm —————— Further from IISD: Dear AFRICASD-L Subscribers; To subscribe to the LAND-L list, please visit http://www.iisd.ca/email/subscribe.htm This new distribution list, similar to IISD’s other announcement lists CLIMATE-L, FORESTS-L, WATER-L, CHEMICALS-L, MEA-L, OCEANS-L, ENERGY-L and AFRICASD-L, has been launched in conjunction with the new Comprehensive Communication Strategy of the UNCCD The purpose of LAND-L is to provide a free, moderated, community communications tool, allowing subscribers to post announcements related to desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD) as well as sustainable land management (SLM) events, policy developments, publications and new initiatives. LAND-L is not a discussion list and is limited to non-commercial, non-political announcements. After signing up for LAND-L at http://www.iisd.ca/email/subscribe.htm please check your email folders after subscribing and respond to a confirmation email. Any subscriber may use this new list to send announcements to the other subscribers on the list by sending emails to LAND-L at lists.iisd.ca For assistance in subscribing to LAND-L, please send email to IISD Reporting Services Digital Manager, Diego Noguera, at diego at iisd.org ———————————————————————- Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 16th, 2008 From: messouli at gmail.com The University of Marrakech and its partners (DMN, CDRT, START, OSS), with the support of the Climate Change and Adaptation in Africa program (CCAA), announce a two day international workshop to be held on 25 and 26 of November 2008 in Marrakech. The title of the conference is ” Climate change in the Maghreb: thresholds and limits to adaptation The overall objective of this conference is to consider strategies for adapting to climate change, in particular to explore the potential barriers to adaptation that may limit the ability of societies in the Maghreb countries to adapt to climate change and to identify opportunities for overcoming these barriers Deadline for Submission of Abstracts is 10 October 2008. to register, please go to this link at your soonest convenience and discover other information on the workshop: Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 14th, 2008 Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008, The Japan Times online. Regarding The Trips to Libya – “Oily Moves to Compensate” by Gwynne Dyer from London. Libya was the diplomatic crossroads of the planet last weekend: Condoleezza Rice made the first visit by a U.S. secretary of State in 55 years (to discuss a murky deal involving payments to American victims of terrorist attacks allegedly sponsored by Libya); radical Bolivian President Evo Morales showed up (to beg for money or cheap oil); and Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi arrived to promise Libya $5 billion in compensation for the brutalities of Italian colonial rule. Details of the deal have been left vague, and nobody will say where the money for the Libyan victims of U.S. airstrikes is coming from. If it is coming from the U.S. government, that would be an interesting precedent. But everybody knows what is really at play here.
Gadhafi’s key move was to dismantle his fantasy “nuclear weapons program” — he never really had more than bits and pieces — in 2003. This let President George W. Bush claim that his “war on terror” was scaring the bad guys into behaving better, so the mood music improved immediately. Even before that, Libya sent a couple of low-level intelligence agents to face an international court over the Lockerbie bombing (one was acquitted, one was convicted, and the Libyan regime was scarcely mentioned).
The history behind Silvio Berlusconi’s deal with Gadhafi is much clearer, and so are the motives behind it. Italy conquered Libya, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1911, and ruled it until 1943. Tens of thousands of Libyans who resisted were killed, many more had their land confiscated and given to Italian settlers, and the country was run for Italy’s benefit, not that of its own people. Italy owes — but why is it paying now, half a century later? The answer is partly oil — a quarter of Italy’s oil and a third of its gas come from Libya — but also illegal immigrants. Italy is the destination for a growing stream of economic migrants from Africa who use Libya as a jumping-off place for their trip across the Mediterranean, and Berlusconi needs Gadhafi’s cooperation to stem the flow. So Libya gets $5 billion of Italian money to compensate for all the wrongs of the colonial era (and Italy’s compensation will come later, in apparently unrelated deals).
But the victims’ heirs shouldn’t spend their money until they actually have it in their hands, and they shouldn’t hold their breaths while waiting. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 7th, 2008 From: liasieghart at hotmail.com
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 6th, 2008 Libya Preaches to Durban II on Racism Against Maids, as Qaddafi Jr. Arrested for Beating Maids The Incident The conflict began after Hannibal, the youngest son of Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Qaddafi, and his wife Aline were arrested by Geneva police in their luxury hotel, which is situated next to the UN human rights office. Two of their servants, a Moroccan man and a Tunisian woman, had complained of being beaten with a belt and coat hanger, causing hotel staff to call in the authorities. (The desert despot’s 32-year-old son has a long record of violent run-ins with the law across European capitals.) The couple were charged with assault. Hannibal spent two evenings in detention while his wife, who came to Geneva to give birth, was transferred to a maternity unit. Released on $500,000 bail, they flew back to Libya escorted by doctors from Geneva’s main hospital. Retaliation was swift. Aisha Qadaffi, sister of the accused, warned that her country would respond on the principle of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” The Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution halted all oil shipments to the Helvetic confederation. Swiss companies in Libya, including Nestlé, were shut down or padlocked, and diplomats sent packing. Two Swiss nationals were seized as hostages. “Spontaneous” demonstrations against the Swiss aggressor erupted in the capital. The outrage has ebbed, but the crisis remains. Today’s Tribune de Geneve reports that Foreign Minster Micheline Calmy-Rey may head on a special mission to Libya. Which bring us to the irony of it all. Of all Western democracies, the current Swiss government must be the last to ever have imagined being targeted by mad Middle East dictators, who have always felt so at home at Geneva’s hotels, boutiques and banks — so much so, that their spoiled progeny jet over to have their babies born there. Some say Foreign Minister Calmy-Rey stumbled in her early handling of the current crisis. No wonder. She must have been in a state of shock. After all, was it not she who, to seal a $28 billion gas deal, recently visited with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a time when no other self-respecting democratic leader would do the same? Did she not go the extra mile to pose smilingly with the world’s most dangerous fomentor of racist hatred, even donning the Islamic headscarf, for added measure? Did she not keep silent over the brutal human rights situation in Iran, despite being asked to speak out by Shirin Ebadi, the renowned women’s rights advocate? But it’s more. The current Swiss government has always profited from special ties with Qaddafi – the extent to which the current episode has highlighted as never before. It turns out that half of Switzerland’s oil comes from Libya. That Libyan company Tamoil owns one of Switzerland’s two oil refineries and runs 320 filling stations in the country. The Libyans also threatened to withdraw their assets from Swiss banks. And how much is that? Some $6 billion. But it’s more, more than just oil, investments and trade. It’s political and moral support. In the past year, Calmy-Rey and her diplomats worldwide waged a massive campaign to elect her Geneva friend Jean Ziegler — the 1989 co-founder of the “Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize” — as a senior adviser to the UN Human Rights Council. When the vote was won, Swiss UN ambassador Blaise Godet literally embraced his colleague from Cuba’s Castro regime, Ziegler’s other favorite government, thereby revealing another unholy alliance.
However, the newspaper noted, “the sociologist categorically refuses to comment on the current crisis between Switzerland and Libya.” Nor did Ziegler ever say a word — or lift a finger – over all the years that the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor were cruelly held hostage in Libyan jails. Durban II: Libya Pledges to Confront “New Form of Racism Related to Maids” Perhaps the greatest unspoken irony is that of Libya’s role. The country currently chairs the planning of the April 2009 Durban Review Conference, the UN’s next world conference against racism and intolerance. In advance of an African preparatory session later this month, Libya has just submitted a UN questionnaire on its policies and practices. Here we learn that the sixth principle of Qaddafi’s Green Charter “defines Libya’s society of non-discrimination.” And that the penal code “does not discriminate between local or foreign workers in Libya.” And that Article 420 prohibits “all forms of slavery” and “forced labor.” Finally, “Libya does not only not practice racism but we combat the practice of regimes against the African people.” How? By confronting — get this — a “new form of racism related to house helpers (maids).” No less. Yes, over the next year the world shall look to the Guide of the Revolution to guide us all on how to treat foreigners, how to practice tolerance, and — as its most shining example — how to treat house helpers and maids. Meanwhile, in Libya, the mother of the abused Moroccan servant has been thrown into jail, and his brother forced into hiding. Eventually, a deal will be struck, Calmy-Rey will kowtow before Qaddafi, the criminal case will be closed. Hannibal will then be free to return to his beloved Lake Geneva playground. As Libya’s leading expert on how to address what it calls a new form of racism — how to treat house helpers — why not have Hannibal Qaddafi take the place of the current Libyan represenative and personally head the UN’s Durban II process? More than anyone, he will appreciate the job’s diplomatic immunity. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 24th, 2008 Solar power from Saharan sun could provide Europe’s electricity, says EU.
Alok Jha, science correspondent
A tiny rectangle superimposed on the vast expanse of the Sahara captures the seductive appeal of the audacious plan to cut Europe’s carbon emissions by harnessing the fierce power of the desert sun. Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity. Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission’s Institute for Energy, said it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts to meet all of Europe’s energy needs. The scientists are calling for the creation of a series of huge solar farms – producing electricity either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the sun’s heat to boil water and drive turbines – as part of a plan to share Europe’s renewable energy resources across the continent. A new supergrid, transmitting electricity along high voltage direct current cables would allow countries such as the UK and Denmark ultimately to export wind energy at times of surplus supply, as well as import from other green sources such as geothermal power in Iceland. Energy losses on DC lines are far lower than on the traditional AC ones, which make transmission of energy over long distances uneconomic. The grid proposal, which has won political support from both Nicholas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, answers the perennial criticism that renewable power will never be economic because the weather is not sufficiently predictable. Its supporters argue that even if the wind is not blowing hard enough in the North Sea, it will be blowing somewhere else in Europe, or the sun will be shining on a solar farm somewhere. Scientists argue that harnessing the Sahara would be particularly effective because the sunlight in this area is more intense: solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in northern Africa could generate up to three times the electricity compared with similar panels in northern Europe. Much of the cost would come in developing the public grid networks of connecting countries in the southern Mediterranean, which do not currently have the spare capacity to carry the electricity that the north African solar farms could generate. Even if high voltage cables between North Africa and Italy would be built or the existing cable between Morocco and Spain would be used, the infrastructure of the transfer countries such as Italy and Spain or Greece or Turkey also needs a major re-structuring, according to Jaeger-Walden. Southern Mediterranean countries including Portugal and Spain have already invested heavily in solar energy and Algeria has begun work on a vast combined solar and natural gas plant which will begin producing energy in 2010. Algeria aims to export 6,000 megawatts of solar-generated power to Europe by 2020. Scientists working on the project admit that it would take many years and huge investment to generate enough solar energy from north Africa to power Europe but envisage that by 2050 it could produce 100 GW, more than the combined electricity output from all sources in the UK, with an investment of around €450bn. Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, welcomed the proposals: “Assuming it’s cost-effective, a largescale renewable energy grid is just the kind of innovation we need if we’re going to beat climate change.” Jaeger-Walden also believes that scaling up solar PV by having large solar farms could help bring its cost down for consumers. “The biggest PV system at the moment is installed in Leipzig and the price of the installation is €3.25 per watt,” he said. “If we could realise that in the Mediterranean, for example in southern Italy, this would correspond to electricity prices in the range of 15 cents per kWh, something below what the average consumer is paying.” The vision for the renewable energy grid comes as the commission’s joint research centre (JRC) published its strategic energy technology plan, highlighting solar PV as one of eight technologies that need to be championed for the short- to medium-term future. “It recognises something extraordinary – if we don’t put together resources and findings across Europe and we let go the several sectors of energy, we will never reach these targets,” said Giovanni de Santi, director of the JRC, also speaking in Barcelona. The JRC plan includes fuel cells and hydrogen, clean coal, second generation biofuels, nuclear fusion, wind, nuclear fission and smart grids. De Santi said it was designed to help Europe to meet its commitments to reduce overall energy consumption by 20% by 2020, while reducing CO ² emissions by 20% in the same time and increasing to 20% the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources. Backstory High voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines are seen as the most efficient way to move electricity over long distances without incurring the losses experienced in alternating current (AC) power lines. HVDC cables can carry more power for the same thickness of cable compared with AC lines but are only suited to long distance transmission as they require expensive devices to convert the electricity, usually generated as AC, into DC. Modern HVDC cables can keep energy losses down to around 3% per 1,000km. HVDC can also be used to transfer electricity between different countries that might use AC at differing frequencies. HVDC cables can also be used to synchronise AC produced by renewable energy sources. ———————- Other topics noted as Environment in The Guardian: Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 14th, 2008 This WEEK in the European Union EUOBSERVER / AGENDA (6 – 13 July) – Next week will be marked by the launch of the EU’s Union for the Mediterranean, as well as by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s presentation in the European Parliament of his priorities for France’s six-month EU presidency. The Mediterranean Union was proposed by France last year to boost ties with the EU’s southern neighbours, and its official launch is planned to take place during a summit in Paris on Sunday (13 July).
The launch of the Mediterranean Union in Paris is expected to be one of the cornerstones of the French EU presidency. (Photo: French presidency of the EU) It is a major project of the French presidency and the brainchild of Mr Sarkozy – but its initial version was met with opposition by some member states and was eventually watered down. Additionally, it is not yet clear who exactly will attend the Paris summit on Sunday. Leaders of all 27 EU members, plus 17 Mediterranean states, have been invited to the event, but some countries, including Algeria and Turkey, have still to decide whether they will accept the invitation or not. Meanwhile Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who has spoken out strongly against the idea, has said he would not go. Before hosting the launch of the project and the celebrations in Paris, Mr Sarkozy will pass by Strasbourg on Thursday (10 July), where he will present the priorities of his country’s EU presidency to MEPs gathered for their monthly plenary session. Parliament plenary in Strasbourg The deputies will also host European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet on Wednesday (9 July) for a debate on the parliament’s annual report on the ECB, following the bank’s decision to raise interest rates and in a global context of rising prices. On Wednesday, MEPs will also debate and vote on a report on the EU’s future enlargement strategy, stressing that the bloc’s own capacity to absorb new states should be taken into account when considering membership applications in the future. The report – which also says the EU will respect the commitments it has already taken, was approved by MEPs in the parliament’s foreign affairs committee on 24 June. Other issues on the parliamentarians’ agenda will include a first-reading vote on the EU’s energy package, in particular on the part focusing on gas unbundling – or the extent to which gas suppliers should be separated from gas distribution networks – on Wednesday, preceded by a debate on the issue on Tuesday. They will also debate on Tuesday in a second reading and vote on a plan to include aviation in the EU’s emissions trading system; a package of reforms to EU rules on food additives; and rules on airline ticket pricing that aims to do away with the annoyance of hidden taxes and charges in online ticket pricing. On Thursday, MEPs will also vote on resolution on Zimbabwe and China, preceded by debates with the commission and the EU presidency on Wednesday.
This week (7 – 9 July), leaders of the group of eight largest economies in the world – US, Canada, Russia, Japan, the UK, Germany, Italy and France, collectively referred to as the G8 – will meet in Tokyo to discuss, among other things, the challenge of climate change and increasing concerns about global inflation, which is being driven by soaring oil and food prices. With only a few days left before the summit, World Bank president Robert Zoellick this week called on the G8 leaders to act immediately to address the issue of increasing food prices, calling the crisis “a man-made catastrophe … [that] must be fixed by people.” Meanwhile, the European Commission will on Monday (7 July) present a proposal to change the current directive on value added tax (VAT) in the EU, so as to allow member states to apply reduced VAT on a permanent basis in some sectors. On Tuesday, the EU executive is to adopt a package aiming to make transport greener; a proposal for a School Fruit Scheme with the goal of increasing the share of fruit and vegetables in the diets of children at school; and two communications on the situation in the fisheries sector following the surge in oil prices. On the same day, the commission will present a proposal for a special financing tool to help farmers from poorest countries boost their food production in the context of soaring food prices. According to press reports, Brussels is to offer €1 billion from the EU’s unspent agriculture funds to achieve this goal. ———— TOKYO — The Group of Eight, holding its summit in Japan starting Monday, has always been a club for the world’s biggest economies. Now a growing chorus is saying it’s time that the clubhouse doors swing open to some newcomers. China has eclipsed more than half the club’s members in economic size, and the gross domestic product of Brazil is larger than Russia’s. “When do they move from the G-8 to the G-13?” asked Lael Brainard of the Brookings Institution, a Washington public policy organization. “None of these problems can be solved without the participation of countries like China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa.” Indeed, the G-8′s grip on the world economy isn’t what it used to be. The United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia accounted for 58 percent of the world economy at current prices in 2007, International Monetary Fund figures show — down from 65 percent in 1997. China’s $3.4 trillion economy is the fourth-largest in the world, nipping at the heels of No. 3 Germany. Brazil has the 10th-largest economy, just behind Canada but ahead of Russia. After Russia awaits fast-growing India. It’s not only raw economics. The five nations mentioned by Brainard include serious military powers and the world’s two most populous nations, China and India. It wouldn’t be the first time the G-8 has changed its membership. The group held its initial summit in France in 1975 with six members: the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy and Japan. Canada came on board the following year. Russia formally joined in 1997. In recent years, as G-8 countries have struggled to address the concerns of the rest of the world, such as poverty in Africa, the list of summit participants has ballooned, though the core nations still hold exclusive meetings. A total of 22 heads of government — eight from the members, seven from Africa and seven from other leading economies — will be at the summit in Japan. Members themselves are split over whether they need to formally open the group to new entrants. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been outspokenly in favor, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also supports expansion. “It is in our interest to put them at the negotiating table, to treat them like partners and to put them face to face with their obligations,” Sarkozy told the French-Japan Club in November. Others are not so sure. Japan, which has long basked in the honor of being the G-8′s only Asian member, has repeatedly shrugged off suggestions of expansion in the weeks leading up to the summit. Then there’s the question of democracy. John Kirton, director of the G-8 research group at the University of Toronto, has argued that the summit’s founding principles included promotion of open democracy. By that criteria, China does not meet requirements for membership, he has written. ————— Sarkozy beaming at birth of Mediterranean Union. ELITSA VUCHEVA, July 14, 2008, EUOBSERVER / PARIS – France officially announced the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean on Sunday (13 July) – the brainchild of its president Nicolas Sarkozy, who did not hide his pride in seeing the project’s official birth. “We had dreamt of it. The Union for the Mediterranean is now a reality,” a visibly content Mr Sarkozy told journalists in Paris after a four-hour long working session with leaders of the countries members of the Union. The project – under its official name Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean – regroups 43 states, including all EU members, and will be co-presided over by one EU and one Mediterranean country – currently Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, and Mr Sarkozy himself. The goal is to boost ties between the EU and its southern neighbours, while the aim of the co-presidency will be to “improve the balance and the joint ownership” of the Union, reads the final declaration adopted by the 43 leaders. Some critics of the project however had accused European states of wanting to dominate their southern partners. But “north and south will be on an equal footing … We have exactly the same rights, exactly the same obligations,” said the French president during the opening of the summit. Details of the Union for the Mediterranean’s institutional structure are still to be sorted out, but it will have a Joint Permanent Committee based in Brussels that will assist in the preparation of meetings of senior officials; and a joint Secretariat – whose “political mandate,” location, as well as the nationality of its director, are to be decided by the Union’s foreign ministers, who will meet in November. A Union for the Mediterranean high-level summit will take place once every two years, while its foreign ministers will meet once a year. The only one who was invited but declined to attend was Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi – an outspoken opponent of the project, while the kings of Morocco and Jordan did not come, but instead sent representatives. “Concrete projects:” The leaders unanimously adopted a declaration deciding to work on six “concrete projects” as initial activities, Mr Sarkozy said. 4. The yet to be established Secretariat will also aim to “explore the feasibility, development and creation of a Mediterranean Solar Plan,” looking into solar energy as an alternative source of energy. 5. A Euro-Mediterranean University, whose seat will be somewhere in Slovenia, hopes to “contribute to the establishment of a Euro-Mediterranean Higher Education, Science and Research area.” 6. Additionally, a so-called Mediterranean Business Development Initiative will support small and medium-sized enterprises. A diplomatic success? But the project’s overarching goal is to progressively lead to peace in the Middle East, Mr Sarkozy said. Conflicts in the region are seen as the main reason preventing the Barcelona Process – an initiative started in 1995 with similar ambitions to the new project – from achieving significant results. On Sunday, “over the course of four hours, everybody was there. Everybody spoke, discussed and agreed [on things] … If it is possible during four hours, if we could agree on all these projects, we will continue, we will go further,” Mr Sarkozy told the press, stressing there had been no incidents at the summit, despite the tense relations between some of the leaders, and said he already saw a chance for peace from this first meeting. Prior to his statement, Israel’s premier, Ehud Olmert, said Furthermore, the French president announced on Saturday that Relations between the two countries have been particularly tense since the assassination of Lebanon’s former premier, Rafiq Hariri, in April 2005 – followed by Syria’s troops’ forced withdrawal from Lebanon. Damascus has denied any involvement in Mr Hariri’s killing, but a number of UN inquiries have suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence forces had played some role in the assassination. “Our position is that there is no problem with the opening of embassies between Syria and Lebanon … If Lebanon is willing to exchange embassies, we have no objections to doing it,” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was quoted as saying by French news agency AFP. But the two countries must “define the steps to take to arrive at this stage” before mutual recognition, he stressed. Observers have adopted a cautious approach however, insisting that many things have been said about peace in the region over the years and one should wait for concrete results before claiming success. At the summit, Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, warned: “The world is not going to be changed by the meeting today,” reported AFP. “But the entire region will, hopefully, be changed over time by this particular approach,” he added. ———————— Sarkozy revels in Club Med ‘bringer of peace’ role. France gathers world leaders for Bastille Day parade – Les Français sont arrivés. A gargantuan summit of European and Middle Eastern leaders in Paris has produced a series of breakthroughs and diplomatic coups for the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. It remains to be seen whether the Sarkozy-inspired, 43-nation “Union for the Mediterranean”, launched yesterday, will suffer the same fate as previous botched efforts to establish formal links between Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The success of the inaugural summit suggests the new “Club Med” – dismissed by some as just another talking shop – might finally allow Europe to become a serious player in the game of Middle East peace. Middle Eastern leaders joined their EU counterparts, including Gordon Brown, to discuss practical co-operation on issues such as energy, pollution, climate change and immigration. War and peace were not on the formal agenda but the unprecedented gathering provided an opportunity, and impetus, for deal-making between perennially hostile neighbours. Mr Olmert, under increasing domestic pressure from allegations of corruption, held pre-summit talks in Paris yesterday morning with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. M. Sarkozy also attended. Afterwards, Mr Olmert said that the two sides had “never been as close to the possibility of reaching an accord as we are today”. Israeli officials said that Mr Olmert was ready to release an unspecified, but large, number of Palestinian prisoners to help to achieve a settlement with Mr Abbas, on the permanent boundaries of the West Bank (Jerusalem excepted). The Israeli Prime Minister and Syrian President took their seats in the vast summit chamber in the sprawling, glass-roofed Grand Palais exhibition hall, just off the Champs Elysées. They did not exchange a handshake or a word or establish eye-contact. All the same, this was, as President Sarkozy pointed out, “a historic event”: The “Union for the Mediterranean”, linking the 27 European Union member states, and 16 nations on the southern and eastern rims of the Med, is not what President Sarkozy first intended. He wanted an organisation which united only those countries with a Mediterranean coast-line. Germany and Spain objected. President Sarkozy – currently president of the EU council – agreed to merge his idea with an existing, and largely moribund, EU-Mediterranean association launched in Barcelona in 1995. The new Union for the Mediterranean will attempt to set up common approaches to, among other things, global warming, investment, solar energy, water shortages, illegal immigration, maritime pollution, road and sea transport and university exchange programmes. President Sarkozy said, in his opening speech to the summit, that this was an attempt to emulate the nuts-and-bolts approach of the original European Common Market. Age-old national quarrels and hatreds would be doused in debate and co-operation on vital issues of everyday importance. “The European and the Mediterranean dreams are inseparable,” he said. “We will build peace in the Mediterranean together, like yesterday we built peace in Europe … We will succeed together; or we will fail together.” The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, the co-chairman of the summit with M. Sarkozy, stressed the importance of progress on practical, everyday issues as “building blocks” for peace. The inaugural summit owed its success partly to President Sarkozy’s energy and vision – and partly to luck. Officials pointed out that several favourable factors came together: the diplomatic vacuum created by the change of administration in the US; the Israeli Prime Minister’s domestic political crisis, which made him hungry for progress with the Palestinians; and the Syrian President’s strategic decision to reduce his country’s diplomatic isolation. All the same, the summit will go down as a diplomatic and political triumph for President Sarkozy: perhaps the most important single event in his 14 months in the Elysée Palace. But Syrian and Israeli Leaders did not see eye-to-eye: The men were among more than 40 leaders gathered in Paris for the EU-Mediterranean summit and it was the first time they had ever been in the same room together. Although Syria recently revived indirect negotiations with its long-time foe, President Assad clearly considered it was too soon to shake hands, chat or even nod to Mr Olmert. As Mr Olmert entered the main hall of the Grand Palais, a Reuters photographer captured him casting glances toward the tall Syrian leader. But Mr Assad turned away, raising one hand to his face as if to block off any eye contact with the Israeli. Mr Assad skirting the far wall, where interpreters sat in plexiglass booths, as Mr Olmert turned to talk to another delegate. The Syrian leader had left the room byt the time Mr Olmert gave his speech. A seating chart showed Mr Olmert had been assigned a place almost directly opposite Mr Assad for the round-table discussion. Earlier yesterday, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid al-Mouallem, attended talks at which his Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, was also present. He did not speak to her and left the room when she got up to speak. Reuters Damascus has denied any involvement in Mr Hariri’s killing, but a number of UN inquiries have suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence forces had played some role in the assassination. “Our position is that there is no problem with the opening of embassies between Syria and Lebanon … If Lebanon is willing to exchange embassies, we have no objections to doing it,” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was quoted as saying by French news agency AFP. But the two countries must “define the steps to take to arrive at this stage” before mutual recognition, he stressed. Observers have adopted a cautious approach however, insisting that many things have been said about peace in the region over the years and one should wait for concrete results before claiming success. At the summit, Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, warned: “The world is not going to be changed by the meeting today,” reported AFP. “But the entire region will, hopefully, be changed over time by this particular approach,” he added. ——————–
right, attend a meeting at the Elysee Palace Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 28th, 2008 From: rcervigni at worldbank.org We are pleased to announce the launch of the World Bank web site on climate change in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). The site contains information on ongoing and planned World Bank activities aimed at helping MENA countries enhance their resilience to Climate Change, and move to a low carbon development path. The URL for the site is: http://www.worldbank.org/mena/climatecha… Raffaello Cervigni Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 23rd, 2008 Algeria unimpressed by Sarkozy’s Med union as per http://www.theparliament.com/press-revie… French prime minister François Fillon has failed to convince Algerian leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika to take part in the inaugural meeting of the union for the Mediterranean during a visit to the country, Le Monde reports. Libyan president Muammar Gadaffi is the only African leader who has so far declined to attend, calling the idea an “affront” to the southern nations. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on April 30th, 2008 OK, the UN has no power to put people in jail – but it does have enough power to squish information channels. As we were not in the room – the UN restricts the participation of folks looking into its activities, we have to rely on the only truly free soul reporting from that meeting and about the atmosphere surrounding that meeting – that is we rely on the reporting by InnerCityPress. Also, in order to toot our own horn, please refer also to previous articles on www.SustainabiiTank.info: Japan Foreign Ministry Will Teach Senior Officials How To Handle Foreign Press. This Because It Sees Any Press As A Potential Tool To Disseminate The Government’s Information As A Tool Of A PR Office. The Washington DC Panel on the UN and Its Problematic Rapport With The Reporters For The Global Press: Reflections on The Way the UN Squashes Information – Occurrences That May Have Covered Corruption. And Who Asked Google To Take Matthew Off Google News? What Tripped Nicolas Michel? But we will have also our own reporting as we went to the second day of this Committee’s meeting – we will update this posting accordingly.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 2nd, 2008 A victory for Matthew Russell Lee, the best journalist accredited with the UN, a person who knows to ask the right questions and does not allow the UN to get away with murder. As we reported in http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2008/02… question of soft porn being sold at the UN was brought up by Matthew Lee on February 25, 2008: Soft Porn Sold in UN Lobby, Despite Gender Advisor’s Complaints to UN Management. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, February 25 — As the UN on Monday launched its Campaign to End Violence Against Women, in the lobby of UN Headquarters, soft porn remained for sale. At the newsstand next to the elevator to the Secretary-General’s offices on the building’s 38th floor, titles such as Curve and Smooth and King, along with Dirty South, were on display, with oiled-up women vamping for the camera. Following a press conference at noon at which time apparently did not permit Inner City Press to ask this question despite a hand raised high throughout the question and answer period, the question was put to the UN’s Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, Assistant Secretary-General Rachel N. Mayanja. “I am glad you are raising it,” she told Inner City Press. “I am very appalled. I had already raised it to the Department of Management and had been assured they were going to ask them to take it down.” Now four days later the UN did react indeed. See http://www.innercitypress.com/un3genders… Disputed Soft Porn Quietly Removed from UN Lobby, “They Told Us to Take It Down” Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, February 29 — Four days after the sale of soft porn in the UN lobby was first covered by Inner City Press, and Asked where the soft porn had gone, the newsstand attendant said forlornly, “They came and told us to take them down.” What a difference two days make.
But then Matthew Lee’s final comments: And that is why we find it important to post this. It is not just an issue of soft porn in the building of the UN headquarters even though the institution wants us to believe that they are serious about gender issues. It is also this aspect of defensiveness and cover-up by staff that work in counter purpose to the intended purposes of the UN. This case showed once more – how when the issue was raised, the first instinct by the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General was to pass the buck. Then it took two more days to do quietly the right thing. Now why did I say they can get away with murder? clearly this is by way of exaggeration, but the two Austrian human bodies that were removed from the UN a week ago, are a case in point. I learned from other journalists that both cases still remain “unclear.” In the case of Hans Janitschek, in spite of a UN official release that his heart attack was cared for satisfactorily to the UN, it seems that incompetence and delays are rather more accurate descriptions. Will there be a reconciliation of the different stories in this matter? Or the UN staff just rules according to an internal logic and private conscience? Then, How does it happen that UN Personnel gets killed in Algeria after a local UNDP Officer asked the Algerians to improve security conditions at the UN compound, and the UN could not find another investigator of the issue then Algerian Lakhdar Brahimi, probably imposed because of deference to the Algerian government’s wishes? Now, seemingly,instead of investigating the Algerian case he moves to more global issues. Will the families of those that died in Algiers find out if it was UN negligence or Algerian negligence – and what was the proportion in the total amount of negligence? **Brahimi Panel Lakhdar Brahimi, the Chair of the Independent Panel on Safety and Security of UN Personnel and Premises, today, February 28, 2008, announced five other members of the Panel that he leads. They are: Elsayed Ibrahim Elsayed Mohamed Elhabbal of Egypt; Anil Kumar Gupta of India; Umit Pamir of Turkey; Thomas Boy Sibande of South Africa; and Margareta Wahlström of Sweden. Mr. Brahimi said that the Panel would take a critical look at the security situation for the United Nations, prompted by the 11 December attack last year in Algiers, and that it would examine the current and potential capability to provide safety and security for UN staff and premises worldwide. We have more information about the Panel members and its work upstairs. And it’s certain most of you were at the press conference earlier today. Spokesperson: This is Mr. Brahimi’s… You’re asking that question? Question: Is he the one? Did he choose the other Panel members or did the Secretary-General? Spokesperson: He chose them, of course in agreement with the Secretary-General. Question: What is the Secretary-General’s response to the Staff Union letter raising concerns about the process and their involvement in it? Spokesperson: I don’t have an answer at this point. Question: As a follow-up to that question, in deciding to assign Mr. Brahimi to this task, what sort of deliberation process did the Secretary-General make in making that appointment in the first place? Spokesperson: As you know, Mr. Brahimi has a very distinguished career at the UN and he has done a number of investigative reports for the United Nations. So, it’s a choice the Secretary-General made after considering different possibilities. Question: We’ve all read some of Mr. Brahimi’s reports, they’re very seminal pieces on peacekeeping and things like that, so it’s clear that he definitely is a person held in high esteem at the UN. But as part of the investigation, there will be some processes in which they’ll be looking at how the Algerian Government responded to the security concerns and, since Mr. Brahimi is certainly not an outsider to the Algerian leadership and Government, historically, is that something the Secretary-General was concerned with? Spokesperson: The Secretary-General thinks Mr. Brahimi has always been an extremely objective observer of situations and he’s certainly a very qualified person to lead that Panel. [The Spokesperson later added that Mr. Brahimi had served with distinction as head of the independent panel established to review United Nations peace operations. The report, released by the panel in 2000 and known as the "Brahimi Report", assessed the shortcomings of the existing system of peacekeeping and made specific recommendations for change, focusing on politics, strategy and operational and organizational areas of need. She said that the Secretary-General thinks that Mr. Brahimi can certainly be an objective observer and is well qualified to lead the Panel.] Question: Am I to understand that at the moment the Secretary-General has not figured out what his position will be to allay the concerns that were raised by the Staff Union in terms of representation? Spokesperson: I don’t have an answer on that yet. There has to be, of course, consultation with Mr. Brahimi on this. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 3rd, 2008 This is an update of our first posting of February 1, 2008, when to fliers by the UN Staff Union were brought to our attention. We attach these two fliers to the end of the article. The flier of January 23, 2008 talks about the bombing in Algiers and demands an outside independent investigation as it was done after the Baghdad bombing of the UN compound there. But the other flier shows total distrust of the UN top brass. The December 17, 2007 flier came about because the killing of two Red Cross workers in Sri Lanka beginning of 2007, and also of aid workers killed in 2006. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced his opposition to the killings, but did he stand up to the Sri-Lanka government when it accused UNICEF Country Representatives that protested the killings. If the UNSG cannot stand up to Sri Lanka and Algeria, why in the world will a UN employee want to serve in a troubled country knowing that he/she is not completely backed by the UN system? The original article: The Algerians Insisted That Algerias Lakhdar Brahimi Be The Investigator In The Killing of 17 UN Staff In Algiers. Does The UNSG Not Care For The Safety Of UN Civilian Staff? Last evening we went to the UN to watch an Academy Award winning documentary – “Into The Arms Of Strangers: Stories Of The Kindertransport.” That was the story of 10,000 children that were sent off by their Jewish parents from Nazi occupied European continent to Britain – this in order to give them the chance to live. Not an easy task for parents and children alike. On the way to the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium we passed the BESA exhibit that shows Albanian Muslims – Kosovarians – that saved Jews during the war – so humanity can feel that in those days of darkness there were Muslims that felt repulsion to Nazi behavior. After the movie I happened to talk to a journalist accredited to the UN that told me – you know what? Ban Ki-moon looked high and low and landed upon an Algerian Ex-Minister and perpetual Algerian UN emissary to investigate the recent killing of 17 UN employees in Algeria. If I would not be afraid that someone would accuse me of racism – I would clearly say that this stinks of “WHITEWASHING.” I cannot see why the stomachs of UN civil employees would not turn over with these news. People of their ilk, were indeed killed like they were in the bombing of the Baghdad UN compound – this because the UN top brass is back-bone-less when it comes to stand up to what it calls a sovereign government – and do not wink when in the process they sacrifice lives of UN employees. You can say that military people have sold their safety when signing up for serving in an army, but civilians did not. The UN Staff Committee, if they have any backbone must now speak up. If they are also run by interested country citizens on the UN quota based system, so good luck when next bomb strikes. With above information in my head, I discovered at home that things start filtering to the press via the very few outlets of true investigative journalism that still operate at the UN. After Algiers Bombing, UN to Appoint Algerian Ex-Minister Lakhdar Brahimi to Investigate. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, January 31 — “In the wake of the bombing last month that killed UN staff in Algiers, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would appoint an outside panel to investigate. The Algerian government protested, saying it had not been consulted. Ban and his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar both met with Algerian officials, and Thursday night Algerian diplomats said that the choice to head the UN panel is former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi.” At the UN, some scoffed at such a choice as an accommodation which would call into question any independence of the panel. Others called it astute politics, given that Brahimi’s previous study of peacekeeping made it likely that he will exonerate the UN system, too. But UN Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis, asked by Inner City Press about UNDP’s Marc de Bernis’ role in not having raised the threat assessment level after the April 2007 bomb attack in Algeria, said that the UN had in fact asked the Algerian government to help block off the street in front of the UN building, without any formal response. So this time, in effect there was a UN employee who on location asked for improved security from the Algerians. Obviously, nobody from UN headquarters in New York has moved onto that subject in those days. Mr. Marc de Bernis was killed in the bombing – so now we rely on his widow’s statements. “Algerian officials have fired back, including at a conference in Tunis on Thursday, when Algeria’s interior minister Yazid Zerhouni spoke, in front of UN Security chief David Veness, of the need for \’respect for the sovereignty of states… without interference in their internal affairs.’ Hours later, other Now that is what we keep saying all the time – THE UN IS JUST AS GOOD AS THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR OF ITS SOVEREIGN STATES – and this is lower then low. David Veness, it should be said, was previously with Britain’s Scotland Yard, for which he investigated without success the disappearance of three million dollars from UN custody in Somalia. Now Scotland Yard is providing the veneer of outside investigation to Pervez Musharraf’s inquiry into the murder of his political rival Benazir Bhutto. Matthew writes that “one wag at the UN Thursday night, at the end of the month of Security Council presidency reception by the Libyan mission, asked and answered a question. What is the difference between Pervez Musharraf and Ban Ki-moon? (A beat.) At least Pervez Musharraf has Scotland Yard.” So, the UNSG will not even show strength of looking for cover by reaching out to someone like David Veness to look into what hapened in Algiers. That corects us now – THERE WILL NOT BE EVEN A WHITEWASH in the Algiers affair – plain lack of trust in the so called Algerian in-house investigation. WE HAVE A SUGGESTION – WHY WOULD NOT BAN KI-MOON ASK FOR AN ISRAELI EX-MOSSAD MAN TO VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW THE BRAHIMI CONCLUSIONS. TO BE MORE PRECISE – HE SHOULD ANNOUNCE THIS AS HIS UN INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE WHEN ACCEPTING THE ALGERIAN SOVEREIGN CHOICE OF BRAHIMI. ONLY A DRASTIC MOVE LIKE THIS CAN RETURN A SEMBLANCE OF CREDIBILITY BEFORE THE UN STAFF.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 16th, 2008 After several days of hesitation – finally it seems that security at the UN facilities in Algiers were as lacking as they were at the time in Baghdad – and the UN is afraid to speak up when faced by a recalcitrant Moslem Government. Those that are being sacrificed because of a lack of backbone by the persona of the UN Secretary-General are the UN’s own officials and their staff. Finally, at least a month too late, Mr. Ban Ki-moon allowed himself to be pushed to calling for an outside investigation of what was wrong in UN’s own security at the Algiers complex, and he is faced now by a recalcitrant Algerian Prime Minister who does not understand seemingly that the Monkey sits on the backs of both of them. UNDP is in Algeria in order to help the people of Algeria, like the UN was in Iraq in order to help the people of Iraq. As we shall see from this posting there are now perhaps six UN offices in the world where staff is told now to work from home because the offices are not safe. Why does the UN operate in places where the local government does not realize that they are responsible for the safety of the UN staff. If they plead lack of power – that is one thing, but if they plead arrogance wrapped in sovereignty, that is something else altogether – and the UNSG has the personal responsibility to close the UN offices in such a case. But that is something no high official at the UN has yet contemplated. They will rather try to bamboozle the less then a handful of good investigative journalists that were not yet removed from the UN – this in the belief that truth can be shoved under the rug for a little while longer. The UN of Ban Ki-moon starts to look like Pakistan of General Musharraf. Investigations will be allowed when all the evidence has been chewed up. The following Breaking stories will keep thinking minds busy for a while. Time May have come indeed for thorough plowing of the UN furrows.
Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (R) shakes hands with United Nation’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as they pose for a photograph after their meeting at the presidential palace in Algiers December 18, … Algeria says “unilateral” UN bomb probe unwelcome. 16 Jan 2008 10:55:23 GMT ALGIERS, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Algeria does not welcome a United Nations investigation into a bombing that killed 17 U.N. staff because the move was decided without consulting Algerian authorities, the prime minister said. The U.N. said on Monday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had appointed an independent panel to probe the Dec. 11 bombing in Algiers. The government daily, El Moudjahid, quoted Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem on Wednesday as saying the Algerian ambassador at the U.N. had not been consulted and “Algeria’s view on this issue has not been taken into consideration”. The move “can not be welcomed favorably because Algeria is doing its duty with regard to the subject in question”, the newspaper quoted Belkhadem as saying. The probe was a “unilateral move”, he said. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of U.N. buildings in Algiers and another attack the same day that killed a total of at least 41 people, according to officials, including 17 U.N. employees. Medical sources say more than 60 people were killed in the two car bombings. Ban’s spokeswomen Michele Montas said on Monday the team would be asked “to establish all the facts concerning the Algiers attack and also to address … staff security for the United Nations in its operations around the world.” (Reporting by Lamine Chikhi, editing by William Maclean and Richard Balmforth) UN says had asked Algeria for more security 16 Jan 2008 18:06:39 GMT UNITED NATIONS, Jan 16 (Reuters) – The United Nations had asked Algeria to step up security for its offices in Algiers that were later destroyed by a suicide bombing, but got no formal response, a senior U.N. official said on Wednesday. Two bombings on Dec. 11 killed at least 41 people, including 17 U.N. staff, mainly employees of the U.N. Development Program, or UNDP. A group called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility. “We already do know that the U.N. … designated security official (in Algiers) did ask the government for particular security measures, including blocking off the street, and that the government did not respond to that,” UNDP chief Kemal Dervis told a news conference. Dervis later specified that there was no written response, although he could not say for certain if the government had responded orally. “This is definitely one issue that we need to follow up on,” he said. The United Nations has already made a preliminary internal report on the bombing. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to set up an independent panel to investigate it further, his spokeswoman said on Monday. Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem was quoted in a a government newspaper on Wednesday as saying his country did not welcome the new investigation because the move was decided without consulting Algerian authorities. UN says had asked Algeria for more security 16 Jan 2008 20:33:39 GMT (Adds quotes, details, background) By Patrick Worsnip UNITED NATIONS, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Algeria failed to act on a U.N. request to block off the street in Algiers where its offices were sited and the building was later bombed, killing at least 41 people, a senior U.N. official said on Wednesday. Seventeen U.N. staff, mainly employees of the U.N. Development Program, or UNDP, were among those killed in two bombings on Dec. 11. A group called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility. UNDP chief Kemal Dervis told a news conference that following the blast U.N. staff in half a dozen countries had been asked to work from home due to a growing perception that the world body was a target for bombers. “We already do know that the U.N. … designated security official (in Algiers) did ask the government for particular security measures, including blocking off the street, and that the government did not respond to that,” Dervis said. Dervis said the request had been submitted after bombs killed some 30 people in the Algerian capital last April. He later specified that there was no written response, although he could not say for certain if the government had responded orally. “This is definitely one issue that we need to follow up on,” he said. The United Nations has already made a preliminary internal report on last month’s bombing. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has now decided to set up an outside panel to investigate it further, his spokeswoman said on Monday. Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem was quoted in a a government newspaper on Wednesday as saying his country did not welcome the new investigation because it was set up without consulting Algerian authorities. But Dervis said: “I am sure they have been consulted.” U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban had discussed the panel with Belkhadem at a meeting on Tuesday evening in Madrid, where the U.N. chief was attending a cultural conference. She gave no further details. THREAT LEVEL Dervis, asked why the U.N. building in Algiers had been at the lowest threat level, said that was based on an assessment of the target of the April attack. “Part of the story in Algiers was that this was targeted against the government and at that time there was no indication that there was any targeting of the U.N.,” he said. Similarly in Pakistan, where opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Dec. 27, the U.N. threat level was also at its lowest, Dervis said, saying he had sent a mission there to investigate. “The definitions have to be changed so that many more places in the world, unfortunately, get classified into higher threat levels,” he said. The UNDP chief also said the Algiers building had not been certified by U.N. officials as complying with minimum operating security standards. Since the bombing, Algerian authorities had offered another building, but the United Nations had rejected it as not secure enough, he said. “The choice we have at this point is basically saying ‘work at home’, and we’ve done that I think in six countries … or we have to house them temporarily in hotels,” Dervis said. He declined to identify the countries, except for Algeria. ================================= At the noon Briefing to the Press by UN Spokesperson, Ms. Michele Montas, there was no mention of Algeria but two of correspondents – Mattew Lee of Inner City Press and Benny Avni of New York Sun – hammered on this subject – as follows: **Questions and Answers Let’s have some brief questions because Mr. Holmes is with us now. Yes. Spokesperson: Yes, Matthew. Question: We just heard from Kemal DerviÅŸ from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that the UN system had asked the Government of Algeria to block the street in Algiers prior to the bombing, and he said that the Government didn’t respond in any way. I’m asking whether that’s something you can confirm. He also said that there are six countries where — I’m not sure if it’s UNDP or UN staff — have been told to work from home and not to go to the central building, due to danger. Spokesperson: I don’t have to comment on what Mr. DerviÅŸ said. He said it and he’s standing by his word. Of course, it’s his prerogative. Question: He also said the external review will be “finished in a few weeks”. That I definitely want to ask you about, since it hasn’t been named yet. What’s your timeline for it to be finished? Spokesperson: Actually, we don’t have a timetable on that yet. Let’s not second-guess what was said earlier. Let’s go on to other questions. Yes. Spokesperson: Yes, Benny. Question: There’s a report from Algiers that the Government of Algeria says that it hasn’t been consulted by the UN about the commission and it does not welcome it. Can the investigation go on without the cooperation of the Algerian Government? And what does Secretary-General Ban intend to do to convince them to accept it? Spokesperson: Well, as I said, he met with the Prime Minister when he was in Madrid. We will not comment on what the Prime Minister is reported to have said. As I said earlier this week, the independent panel is tasked with establishing all the facts concerning the Algiers bombing, but its scope is much wider than that, as it will address strategic issues vital to staff security in UN operations worldwide. So the panel itself is not just about the Algiers bombing. I’m sure there will be discussions with the Algerians once the panel is set up. It will be set up. Question: But since the Algeria bombing is at least a part, and probably the trigger, for the setup of this commission, can it operate in Algeria without the cooperation of the Government? Spokesperson: We will try to obtain maximum cooperation. Yes. Question: To follow up, yesterday, the Algerian Prime Minister, in a press conference in Madrid, said that his Government objects to the decision of Mr. Ban Ki-moon regarding the investigation of this bombing. Spokesperson: Well, it’s the same question that we had earlier; it’s the same answer. Yes, Edie. Question: Is it fair to say that the question of an investigation by an independent commission was discussed by the Secretary-General and the Prime Minister this morning at their meeting, and is there any further readout on what else they discussed? Spokesperson: No, nothing further than what I said. They discussed mainly the establishment of the independent panel. Spokesperson: Yes, Benny. Question: Following up on this question, had the Secretary-General, before he announced that he was setting up this commission, consulted with the Government of Algeria? Spokesperson: Well, he consulted with several Governments. It was his decision that it was necessary to appoint a panel because staff security is of the utmost concern. Question: You said several Governments, was the Algerian Government…? Spokesperson: I cannot at this point say how extensive the consultations were, but it was a decision by the Secretary-General. Because the security of the staff all over the world is at stake, it was important to name that panel. Question: I’m asking a simple question. Was there a phone call, an e ——————————— And UN’s Review of Algiers Bombing is Slow and Thus Far Secret, As Questions Multiply Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, January 14 — A month after the bombing of UN premises in Algiers, the head of the UN’s own Department of Safety and Security David Veness delivered a report to Ban Ki-moon, the UN’s Secretary-General. Secret is the operative word: on Monday at the UN, Inner City Press asked Mr. Ban, “at what point do you think some of these reports would be made public, where you feel comfortable with the public, or at least the staff, seeing what the findings are?” Ban replied, “I think it is not appropriate at this time to make any interim report public. When there is a time, then we will let you know about our findings and recommendations.” Following the August 19, 2003 bombing of the UN’s Iraq headquarters in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, similar interim and internal reports were begun. A month after that bombing, then-Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Finland’s former president Martti Ahtisaari to chair an “Independent Panel on the Safety and Security of UN Personnel in Iraq.” Ahtisaari quickly appointed three others to assist him, traveled to Baghdad, Amman and Geneva, and delivered a report on October 20, 2003, which was made public two days later. The report, among other things, criticized the UN for ignoring signs of a worsening security situation in Baghdad. What has been learned, in the four years since? Many UN insiders question why a month has been wasted on an internal review which one knew needed to be superseded by an outside investigation. These insiders are troubled that there is not even a commitment that the outside review will be made public. At Monday’s UN noon briefing, most questions revolved about the withheld internal report, and warnings the UN may or may not have received. Beyond the UN’s Senegalese security coordinator in Algiers, Inner City Press is told by knowledgeable sources that a staffer of the UN’s Department of Field Support, previously Department of Peacekeeping Operations, on information and belief from within the MINURSO mission in Western Sahara, also conveyed relevant information.
At Monday’s briefing, a correspondent who Kofi Annan called a cheeky schoolboy questioned persistently about Ban’s statement that no warning had been received. Inner City Press read into the record what Mr. Ban had said, that “the United Nations has never received any advanced warnings from whatsoever sources on this issue,” and then asked:
The spokesperson said yes, the entire system and that she didn’t know if Mr. Veness spoke to de Bernis. Last Wednesday, Inner City Press asked UNDP’s Office of Communications to “describe the role in security in Algeria of UNDP’s Marc de Stanne de Bernis, including confirming or denying that he ever received requests to raise the threat level, or phase, in Algeria.” The request was reiterated to UNDP on Monday, but still without response. Back on January 8, Inner City Press had asked Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson, “Was Mr. de Bernis himself actually in charge of raising the level or did he have to run it by somebody above himself?” The spokesperson then said, “All this will be in the report that Mr. Veness will submit on the 11th. I am just asking you to wait until the 11th.” But January 11th came and went with no information being released. On Tuesday, January 15, the spokesperson said that the new panel is expected to be named “early next week.” Watch this site. January 15th Matthew Russell Lee writes: UNDP has refused for a week to answer whether its staffer in Algiers, Marc de Stanne de Bernis, blocked safety improvements and threat index raising requested by UN staffers in Algiers including Babacar Ndiaye, who was killed in the December 11 bombing, on the basis that he thought the government of Algeria might be offended by threat level raising or the installation of more substantial security around the UN building. January 16th Matthew Lee Writes: Algeria Ignored Security Requests Prior to Bombing, UNDP’s Dervis Says, Insurance Unanswered UNITED NATIONS, January 16 — The UN asked the Algerian government to help block off the street in front of the UN building in Algiers that was ultimately bombed on December 11, but the government never responded, UN Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis told a press conference on Wednesday. Answering a question from Inner City Press regarding if UNDP’s Marc de Bernis had declined to raise the security threat level earlier in 2007, in order not to anger the Algerian government, Dervis said that the setting of threat levels is “ultimately managed by the UN’s Department of Safety and Security… headed by Sir David Veness.” Video here, from Minute 39:48. Mr. Veness submitted a report on the bombing to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on January 11, a report that has yet to be made public. Now an external review panel has been called for, which Dervis on Wednesday said will be “finished in a few weeks.” Since the members of the panel have yet to be named, and the Algerian government now says it will not cooperate, Inner City Press later at Wednesday asked Ban’s spokesperson Michele Montas to confirm Dervis’ statement of timing. Ms. Montas said there is no time line, and saying “let’s not second guess,” declined to confirm Dervis’ statement that UNDP had asked the Algerian government to block off the street. Since In fact, Inner City Press is told by UNDP sources that Marc de Bernis declined to act on a request by UN staffer Babacar Ndiaye to install waist-high metal barricades that can be raised and retracted, and did not raise the threat level above “One,” the lowest of five numeric ratings. Dervis on Wednesday, apparently in an attempt to deflect responsibility from UNDP and attention from Algiers, told reporters that the UN’s threat level is still “One,” even today, in Islamabad, Pakistan. He also said that there are six or seven countries in which UN staff are told to work from home, due to danger or insecure UN buildings. Dervis refused to name the countries, other than acknowledging that Algeria is now one of them.
Dervis said that the claimed request was made to the Algerian government soon after bombings in Algiers in April 2007. Algerian interior minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni has been quoted that “based on information gleaned from members of the GSCP [Salafist Group for Call and Combat / Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb] arrested by the security services after the April 11 attacks, public buildings like the U.N. headquarters were among the targets of the organization.” Dervis on Wednesday said he wasn’t sure if Minister has denied this, and so refused to comment. Dervis also did not respond on an issue raised by Inner City Press as part of the first question in the press conference: what is the status of insurance coverage of, and payments to, UN staff and contractors and their families? Inner City Press is informed by UNDP sources that an attempt is being made to tell the insurer, Willis and Lloyd’s, that the bombing on December 11 was not a terrorist event, that issues of who is covered and future insurance premiums are being dealt with an a non-transparent manner while some families are being told that payments to them for the death of their loved one are “voluntary.” Dervis acknowledged that there are today UN building which are not compliant with MOSS, Minimum Operating Security Standards. He insisted that the Algiers building had not be certified as MOSS compliant. That, and the new review, are incongruous with a previously paid-for “validation exercise undertaken by Control Risk Group, an outside security risk management company” for the UN, according to a July 2004 memo obtained by Inner City Press. If MOSS and safety was subject to an external review in 2004, why did the UN still occupy non-MOSS compliant buildings in 2007, and what is going to be the function, and public output, of the external review panel whose members are slated to be named next week? We’ll have more on this, and on UNDP. Watch this site. ———————————- The New York Times’ Warren Hoge worded the situation as follows: U.N. Says Algeria Ignored Security Requests Before Bombing. By WARREN HOGE “They didn’t say, ‘no,’ they simply didn’t respond,” said the official, Kemal Dervis, leader of the United Nations Development Program, whose offices there were hit by the blast on Dec. 11. Mr. Dervis said the resident United Nations security officer had asked for the protective measure after two other car bombings in Algiers in April and had followed it up with a number of requests, both oral and written. The Algerian mission at the United Nations said Mourad Benmehidi, the deputy ambassador, was unavailable for comment. Mr. Dervis’s remarks, made during a news conference about the agency’s plans for the new year, underscored deep fears in the United Nations’ senior ranks that the organization was increasingly becoming an explicit target of terrorist groups. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda, took responsibility for last month’s bombing, and a recent statement attributed to Osama bin Laden denounced United Nations troops in Lebanon as “crusader” forces. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a year-opening news conference last week that he realized that the United Nations’ neutrality was coming under question in some parts of the world and exposing the organization to increased danger. “The United Nations is not working for any group of nations over another,” he said. He added that this “must be correctly understood and communicated.” Mr. Dervis said that he had ordered his agency’s workers in Algeria and five other countries, which he would not identify, to stay away from their offices and to work from home or hotels. Noting that taking cover was a difficult course of action, he said: “The U.N. is working in the field, on the ground, and cannot be barricaded from where the work is taking place. These are civilians working in development and humanitarian work; they are not soldiers who have signed up for battle.” He said that when attacks abroad were thought to be directed against a government, the United Nations took no action to protect itself but that the practice must now change. As an example, he said, the alert level for the United Nations in Pakistan had until recently remained at the lowest level despite repeated outbreaks of insurgent violence. Mr. Ban said Monday that he was appointing an independent panel to investigate the Algiers bombing and to recommend protective steps. In Algiers on Wednesday, El Moudjahid, the government-controlled newspaper, quoted Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem as complaining that the creation of the panel was a “unilateral” move by Mr. Ban without proper consultation with Algeria and so was not “welcomed favorably.” In response, Michèle Montas, Mr. Ban’s spokeswoman, said: “I am sure that there will be discussions with the Algerian government once the panel is set up. And it will be set up.” ——————————- And The New York Sun’ Benny Avni: “Blame Game Escalates Over Attack on U.N. in Algiers” By BENNY AVNI UNITED NATIONS — The blame game between Algeria and the United Nations significantly escalated yesterday as senior officials of both camps publicly made accusations related to each other’s responsibility for security failures in last month’s terrorist attack on U.N. offices in Algiers. The U.N. Development Program administrator, Kemal Dervis, told reporters that Algeria’s security officials declined to erect barriers around the Algiers U.N. headquarters prior to last month’s bombing, despite requests to do so from the world body’s security officials. Seventeen U.N. employees were killed in the December 11 twin car bombing, the largest terrorist attack ever against the world organization. At the same time, Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem of Algeria said yesterday that his country would not welcome the independent inquiry team that Secretary-General Ban has said he would establish. The premier spoke to reporters yesterday after meeting Mr. Ban in Madrid during a U.N.-sponsored conference. “Algeria’s view on this issue has not been taken into consideration,” and therefore the U.N. inquiry “cannot be welcomed favorably,” Mr. Belkhadem told a government-owned daily, El Moudjahid. His complaint may have been a reaction to allegations made last week by unnamed U.N. officials about the government’s shortcomings in protecting the organization from terrorists. Such allegations became more acute yesterday as they were expressed publicly by Mr. Dervis, who said officials of the organization asked the Algerian government “for particular security measures, including blocking off the streets” and that “the government did not respond to that.” Mr. Dervis, a Turkish national who arrived in Algiers immediately after the deadly bombing, also said that in at least six countries where the U.N. is active, employees have since been asked to avoid coming to their U.N. offices and to work from their residences instead. He could not explain why, after Algerian government installations were bombed by an Islamic organization last April, the U.N. security preparedness in Algiers remained at the lowest level — Level 1. And in an apparent reference to decisions made by the U.N. top security official, David Veness of Britain, Mr. Dervis expressed criticism of some current security arrangements. Specifically, he said he would not have allowed the U.N. offices in Pakistan to remain, as they currently are, under Level 1 security arrangements after last month’s assassination of a former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. After the Algiers attack, the widow of the man charged with security there, Babacar Ndiaye, said her husband had warned his superiors about terrorist threats against the organization. According to several sources, Ndiaye had specifically written to a UNDP coordinator, Mark De Bernis, asking for improvement in security measures. Mr. Dervis said yesterday that he would not react until the independent investigation ordered by Mr. Ban would delivered its findings. Permalink |
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