http://asiasociety.org/style-living/food…

Fasting this Ramadan? Follow these few key guidelines to eating well and staying healthy during the holy month.

(Photo by ulterior epicure/Flickr)

By Rafaya Sufi

Fasting this Ramadan? Or have friends who are? Follow these few key guidelines to eating well and staying healthy during Ramadan.

Since its foundation, Ramadan is celebrated with vigor amongst Muslim communities. A typical day of fasting consists of consuming an overnight breakfast at dawn, restricting any food and drink till sunset. Muslims may continue to eat and drink after the sun has set till the next morning’s fajr prayer at dawn.

The key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle during the month depends on a few practical points.

1. Water: For starters, proper hydration is essential. Fasting does not mean that all bodily functions stop requiring water. Headaches, fatigue, fuzzy thinking, irritability, and illness are often caused by inadequate hydration. We need half our body weight each day to just maintain normal bodily functions. To determine your water needs, use this simple formula:

Your body weight in pounds/2 = The amount of water you need to drink in ounces a day

So, If you weigh 180 lbs/2 = 90 oz/day, minimum

2. Replace Sugar With Fruit (when possible): What’s better than eating a delicious slice of cake (or baklava, or brownie, or some chocolate mousse, or….) once you break your fast? Fruit! Yes, this is a hard one, so quit complaining and follow these instructions for healthier you. You may think you deserve a piece of your favorite dessert after all those hours of restraining, but sugar robs our bodies of minerals and vitamins. During a period of fasting, our bodies need to hold on to as many minerals and vitamins as possible, so don’t let them escape just by giving in to your craving (after all, this is a month of self-restraint). Try baking this nutritious Fried Banana recipe at home as an alternative to sugar-loaded desserts.

3. Soup: A quick, easy, and nutritious food to consume during Ramadan is soup. Soup provides deep nourishment and is easily absorbed by the body. It is also a great way to meet your water needs, and if you blend all the good stuff together, picky eaters will never question what they are eating! After you break your fast, have some soup, and make it a staple diet for the month. Try making some delicious, vitamin-packed Mulligatawny soup at home.

4. Eat Slowly/Don’t Overdo It: What’s the rush? You have all evening! There is a tendency to eat really fast amongst people breaking their fasts. Trying to pack in 101 activities within the first few minutes of breaking your fast, which includes eating 101 foods, can cause some serious indigestion. Avoid that awful feeling by slowing down. Take small bites so you can chew well. The longer you chew your food, the less work your digestive track needs to do and you absorb more nurturance. So overall, it’s a win-win situation.

5. Vitamins and Minerals: Load up on them! Unfortunately, food today is not as nutritious as it was once. Unless you’re consuming 100 percent organic foods, you’ll probably need to replenish your body with lost electrolytes and vitamins. The top nutrients to look at are vitamins C, B-complex, zinc, E, and A. Vitamins C, A, and E along with zinc are known as antioxidants, and unless you’re living under a rock, antioxidants are in–they’re the latest health trend these days because they do wonders for your body. Eat fresh fruits, berries, and vegetables in abundance! B-complex vitamins are great at relieving stress, so be generous with those. Most Americans are already deficient in the B-complex vitamins due to eating high amounts of refined and processed foods, so skip the white bread, and opt for a whole-wheat option instead. Enjoy this healthy Ginger Tea to combat that tired feeling after fasting all day.

That’s all for now, folks. Have a healthy Ramadan!

Watch and learn how to make Harira soup

Traditional Moroccan Soup (Ramadan Special)

cookingwithalia

• Harira -  moroccan soup /soupe marocaine (Ra…101,767 views sousoukitchen
• queue Soupe Harira moderne

Be’chol Lashon is the Hebrew for “In Every Tongue” and it advocates for the Growth & Diversity of the Jewish People. Today Jews come indeed in every color and every stripes and some leaders do the outreach to embrace them all. Just look at Dr. Lewis Gordon of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, Mr. Romiel Daniel of Queens, New York, The head of Jews of India in our region, Dr. Ephraim Isaac, of the institute for Semitic Studies. They do not look like your stereotype Jew. I met them and was impressed – the latter actually for the first time as we both visited Addis Ababa at the time of the delayed Ethiopian Millennium. Then Rabbi Hailu Paris with his communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Ethiopian born and graduae of Yeshiva University, and his Assistant Monica Wiggan (http://www.blackjews.org/Essays/RabbiParisEthiopianTrip.html), and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu of the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda from whom I got a very distinctive kippah with the menorah – of the old temple worked in. Then Dr. Rabson Wuriga of the Hamisi Lemba clan in South Africa and Zimbabwe and so on – in Nigeria, in Peru, in India, in China.

And who has not heard by now of the present White House Rabbi – Cappers Funnye – the cousin of Michelle Obama – and associate director of Bechol Lashon and spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nei Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation of Chicago?

The New York regional director of DiverseJews.org is Lacey Schwartz who is also National Outreach Director of BecholLashon.org, assisted by Collier Meyerson and to top it all Davi Cheng, Director of the Los Angeles region is Jewish, Chinese, and Lesbian. As I said it is all a new image of the Jew.

Last night, at the Gallery Bar, 120 Orchard St., NYC there was a Shemspeed Summer Music Festival event.

The two further upcoming events in New York will be on:

Monday, August 2nd – the Shemspeed Hip Hop Fest at Le Poisson Rouge – 158 Bleeker Street NYC Featuring Tes Uno, Ted King & guest Geng Grizlee and others with CD Release parties for “A Tribe Called Tes” and “Move On.”

Thursday, August 5th – Shemspeed Jewish Punk Fest at Pianos, 158 Ludlow Street, NYC Featuring Moshiach Oil & The Groggers.

info on each event above and at http://shemspeed.com/fest

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A Jewish Woman Living in Ethiopia

Rethinking How U.S. Jews Fund Communities Around the World.

The Forward
Published: May 27, 2010

For more than half a century, North America’s Jewish federation system has divided its overseas allocations between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Joint Distribution Committee. The Jewish Agency has been dedicated to building up Israel and encouraging aliyah, while the Joint has focused on aiding Jewish communities in need around the globe.

Today, both agencies are working to assert their continued relevance in a changing Jewish world. With aliyah slowing, the Jewish Agency is moving toward embracing a new agenda: promoting the concept of Jewish peoplehood. The JDC, meanwhile, has sought to claim a larger share of the communal pie, which had long been split 75%-25% in the Jewish Agency’s favor.

After a recent round of sniping over the funding issue, the two sides are now stepping back from their public confrontation and recommitting to negotiations over the future of the collective funding arrangement. Underlying this fight, however, is a more fundamental tension over communal funding priorities: Should overseas aid be focused on helping needy Jews and assisting communities that have few resources of their own, or should it be used to bolster Jewish identity?

With this debate raging, the Forward asked a diverse group of Jewish thinkers and communal activists from around the world to weigh in and address the following question: How should North America’s Jewish community be thinking about its priorities and purposes in funding Jewish needs abroad?

New Century, New Priorities

By Yossi Beilin

During the 20th century, the challenges facing world Jewry were the following: rescue of Jews who encountered existential danger, assistance to Israel, helping with the absorption of those who immigrated to new countries and opening the gates for those who were denied the right to emigrate. In the 21st century, ensuring Jewish continuity is the greatest challenge facing the Jewish people.

Yet too often Jewish organizations in the United States and elsewhere remain focused on the challenges of the previous century. (Indeed, Jewish groups were not very receptive when I first proposed the idea for Birthright Israel 17 years ago.)

Ensuring the existence of Jewish life (religious and secular) throughout the world via Jewish education, encounters between young Israeli and Diaspora Jews, creating a virtual Jewish community using new technologies — these must be at the top of the global Jewish agenda. This requires American Jewish philanthropy and leadership, which in turn requires discerning between past and present priorities.

Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister of Israel, is president of the international consulting firm Beilink.

Reviving Polish Jewry

By Konstanty Gebert

The rebirth of Central European Jewish communities after 1989, though numerically not very impressive, remains significant for moral and historical reasons. It is also crucial for Jewish self-understanding. An enormous proportion of American Jews can trace their origins to what used to be Poland alone. This is where much of Diaspora history happened.

Alongside the courage and determination of local Jews, the far-sighted support of several American Jewish organizations and philanthropies made this rebirth possible. In Poland the Joint Distribution Committee, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation and the Taube Foundation played key roles. Their support has translated not only into Jewish schools and festivals in places once believed to be Jewish-ly dead, but also in most cases into changed relations between local Jewish communities and their fellow citizens as well as clear support for Israel on the part of these countries’ governments.

Yet for all this progress, Central European Jewish communities might never become self-financing. The support given them by American Jewry remains a vital Jewish interest. It must be strengthened.

Konstanty Gebert, a former underground journalist, is a columnist at the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and founder of the Polish-language Jewish monthly Midrasz.

What We Give Ourselves

By Lisa Leff

More than any Jewish community in history, postwar American Jews have used our prosperity to help Jewish communities around the world. On one level, the greatest beneficiaries of this support have been Jews abroad. But we should also recognize that these philanthropic efforts have shaped our communal values and identity.

Through our international aid, we have dedicated ourselves to universalist and cosmopolitan ideas like tikkun olam and solidarity across borders. In helping disadvantaged and oppressed Jews abroad, we have also deepened our community’s commitments to democracy, human rights and economic justice for all. It’s only natural that Jewish groups pitch in on Haitian earthquake relief and advocate on behalf of oppressed people of all backgrounds.

Whatever the outcome of the federations’ deliberations over how to divide allocations between the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, it is imperative that American Jewry maintain its commitment to our values through supporting international philanthropy.

Lisa Leff is an associate professor of history at American University and the author of “Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: The Rise of Jewish Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century France” (Stanford University Press, 2006).

Putting Identity First

By Jonathan S. Tobin

The choices we face are not between good causes and bad or even indifferent ones but between vital Jewish obligations. But since the decline in giving to Jewish causes means that we must make tough decisions, programs that reinforce Jewish identity and support Zionism both in the Diaspora and in Israel must be accorded a higher priority.

At this point in our history, with assimilation thinning the ranks of Diaspora Jewry and with continuity problems arising even in Israel, the need to instill a sense of membership in the Jewish people is an imperative that cannot be pushed aside. Under the current circumstances, absent an effort that will make Jewish and Zionist education the keynote of our communal life, the notion that Jewish philanthropies or support for Israel can be adequately sustained in the future is simply a fantasy.

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of Commentary magazine.

Collective Responsibility

By Richard Wexler

One cannot have a meaningful discussion about framing the national Jewish community’s priorities and purposes in funding Jewish needs abroad without first asking the question: Is there actually a collective “North American Jewish community” today?

Collective responsibility has been and remains the foundation upon which the federation system and, therefore, the national Jewish community are built. It is what distinguishes the federations from all other charities. It is embodied in our participation in the adventure of building Israel and in meeting overseas needs through the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, in the dues that federations pay to the Jewish Federations of North America and so much more. But today, federations “bowl alone.”

Collective responsibility gives meaning to kol Yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh — all Jews are responsible for one another. Until federations understand once again that Jewish needs extend beyond the borders of any one community, we cannot have a meaningful priority-setting process for funding Jewish needs abroad.

Richard Wexler is a former chairman of the United Israel Appeal.

Originally published here: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/rethinking-how-u-s-jews-fund-communities-around-the-world-1.292527

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Rabbi Gershom Sizomu and Be’chol Lashon director Diane Tobin at the opening of the Health Center.

Gary Tobin’s Legacy Lives on in New Ugandan Health Center

By Amanda Pazornik

The J Weekly
Published: July 22, 2010

On the day of the grand opening of the Tobin Health Center in Mbale, Uganda, health professionals were already hard at work treating patients inside.

The center was open for business, but that didn’t slow down the lively June 18 celebration, which featured song and dance performances and speakers. About 3,000 people gathered at the center’s grounds to mark the occasion.

Seated under colorful tents was Diane Tobin, director of S.F.-based Be’chol Lashon and wife of the late Gary Tobin, for whom the center is named, along with three of their children, Aryeh, Mia and Jonah.

“Everyone was amazing, friendly and so generous of spirit,” said Tobin, who was visiting Uganda and its Abayudaya Jewish community for the first time. “They were so appreciative of having the center and demonstrated a tremendous willingness to work together. It’s a great model for the rest of the world.”

Andrew Esensten, Be’chol Lashon program coordinator, and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, spiritual leader of the Abayudaya Jews and the first chief rabbi of Uganda, joined them, in addition to government and medical officials, and representatives from Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities.

The Tobin Health Center is named for Gary Tobin, the founder of the S.F.-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research, of which Be’chol Lashon (“In Every Tongue”) is an initiative. Tobin died one year ago after a long battle with cancer. He was 59.

“He really has left a legacy,” said Debra Weinberg of Baltimore, who attended the opening with her husband, Joe, and their 14-year-old son, Ben. The couple also helped fund the project. “I think he would feel deeply comforted to know it’s improving the lives of people.”

The 4,000-square-foot facility is a major component of the ongoing Abayudaya Community Health and Development Project undertaken by the Abayudaya Executive Council and Be’chol Lashon, a nonprofit that reaches out to Jews of color and helps educate the mainstream community about Jewish diversity.

It cost approximately $250,000 to erect the two-story center, using donations collected over five years. While patients pay for their services, continuous fundraising is a necessity, Tobin said.

Construction began in July 2009, enabling more than 50 Africans from diverse ethnic backgrounds to earn a living.

Stars of David are featured in the window grids, ceilings and floors of the health center, a “lovely expression of their Judaism,” Tobin said. Private rooms make up most of the top floor, with patient wards on the ground floor. A mezuzah is affixed to every door.

A large portrait of Gary Tobin hangs in the lobby.

“It’s so heartwarming,” Diane Tobin said of the visual tribute. “Gary would be so honored to have this health center in the middle of Africa named after him.”

Prior to the opening of the Tobin Health Center, the nearest medical facility to the Abayudaya Jews was Mbale Hospital, an overcrowded and understaffed institution not accessible to all the residents of the region. Tobin said there are other clinics in the area, but they lack the preventive health care measures necessary to respond to the community’s needs.

The Tobin Health Center is licensed by the Ministry of Health and is certified to operate a pharmacy and laboratory. It serves all who seek basic medical care in the region, providing life-saving health services and simultaneously creating jobs.

“The goal is to raise the standard of medical care,” Tobin said.

In addition, rental units on the bottom and top floors of the center will provide more job opportunities for locals. The first business recently opened — a hardware store that sells bags of cement, plumbing equipment and sheet metal — with a beauty salon and video rental outlet in the works.

The center “is rewarding on a number of levels,” said Steven Edwards of Laguna Beach, who, along with his wife, Jill, has been involved with the Abayudaya for six years. “The most obvious is to see this beautiful, clean building. On top of that, local dignitaries noted how lucky Mbale is to have the Jewish community and how much they contribute to the larger community by bringing jobs.”

The Abayudaya Jews comprise a growing, 100-year-old community of more than 1,000 Jews living among 10,000 Christians and Muslims. They live in scattered villages in the rolling, green hills of eastern Uganda. The largest Abayudaya village, Nabagoye, is near Mbale, the seventh-largest city in Uganda and the location of the center.

Research conducted by Be’chol Lashon in 2006 showed that contaminated water and malaria-carrying mosquitoes pose the biggest health risks to the community. A year later, the organization launched the Abayudaya Community Health and Development Project with the drilling of the first well in Nabagoye.

Since then, nearly 1,000 mosquito nets have been purchased and distributed throughout the community.

“Our goal is to respond to the needs of communities,” Tobin said. “If there are other communities that need health centers, we will be there.”

Originally published here: http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/58727/s.f.-researchers-legacy-lives-on-in-new-ugandan-health-center/

HOLOCAUST A CONFLATED SCAM TO CONFISCATE PALESTINIAN LAND – PURPORTS AHMADINEJAD.

10 July 2010, The San Francisco Sentinel.

Haaretz

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the historic dimensions of the Holocaust but rejected the label of an anti-Semite, the Fars news agency reported Friday.

“The West made a claim – about the Holocaust – and urges all the people in the world to accept it or otherwise go to prison,” Ahmadinejad told a group of Islamic scholars Thursday in Nigeria, where he attended a summit of the Developing Eight, a group of countries with large Muslim populations.

»Don’t miss The June 15 Condemnation Of Israel – The Worldwide Ignorance – The San Francisco Board Of Supervisors – The Sentinel Opinion

“The West allows everybody to question prophets and even God but not to pose a simple question and open the black box of a historic event,” he charged.

Ahmadinejad had earlier sparked international fury by calling for the eradication of Israel from the Middle East and its relocation to Europe or North America and by describing the murders of 6 million European Jews by Germany’s Nazi regime as a “fairy tale.”

He said Thursday that the Holocaust was an excuse for Israel and the West to take land away from millions of Palestinians and give it to Israel.

Iran does not recognize Israel and maintains that a referendum by all Palestinians, including refugees, and Jews should decide the future fate of a Palestinian state.

“We are after a diplomatic settlement through a referendum, but they [the West] say Ahmadinejad wants to kill people and is an anti-Semite,” the Iranian president said.

“No, this is wrong,” he added. “I love all Muslims, Christians and Jews. What I dislike are the Zionists, which are a party that has availed itself of the Holocaust as an excuse to establish the illegitimate state of Israel.”

The West fears the political differences between Iran and Israel might lead to a military confrontation between the two countries.

The international concern has increased amid fears that Iran might be using its nuclear program to make an atomic bomb.

Iran possesses 2,000-kilometer range missiles capable of targeting any part of Israel.

Tehran has said it has no secret nuclear projects and all its military capabilities were merely for the purpose of self-defense and deterrence.

But Tehran also warned that if Israel attacks the country’s nuclear sites, Iran would use its missiles to bomb Israel in retaliation.

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Developing Eight summit in Nigeria.
Published: July 8, 2010.

ABUJA, Nigeria, July 8 (UPI) — Improved trade and better visa arrangements for business people are among the discussion topics for the Developing Eight, meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, Thursday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is among dignitaries in Abuja for the meeting of the Developing Eight, a consortium of the world’s largest Muslim countries, includes Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey, Radio France Internationale reported. Turkish President Abdullah Gul also was attending the summit.

Because Turkey and Indonesia also are members of the G20, Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamed al-Oraby said they would be asked to convey concerns of developing countries {it does not say Islamic here} during the next G20 meeting, scheduled for South Korea in November 2010.

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Interesting to note – these Big Eight Islamic States include only Egypt from among the Arab States; neither was included India which has the second largest Islamic population among UN Member States and is a true democracy.

On the other hand, how would you react if the Big Eight from among the Christan majority States would meet, or “God-forbids” – whatever God – the biggest Eight Countries with Chinese Communities meet and criticize some white (read European) intruder? Just think the meaning of it all! We really would like to hear from you on this.

This brings us back to the notion that time has come for the Biggest Eight Democracies to meet
and see how they can establish solid leadership for the UN!

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Spills in Nigeria Dwarf Gulf Oil Spill Almost Every Year.

 http://www.globalwhisperer.com/2010/06/s…

More than 1,000 spill lawsuits have been filed against Shell alone.

Disaster in the Amazon

By BOB HERBERT, New York Times, Op-Ed Columnist.

Published: June 4, 2010

“As horrible as the gulf spill has been, what happened in the Amazon was worse,” said Jonathan Abady, a New York lawyer who is part of the legal team that is suing Chevron on behalf of the rainforest inhabitants.

It has been a long and ugly legal fight and the outcome is uncertain. But what has happened in the rainforest is heartbreaking, although it has not gotten nearly the coverage that the BP spill has.

What’s not in dispute is that Texaco operated more than 300 oil wells for the better part of three decades in a vast swath of Ecuador’s northern Amazon region, just south of the border with Colombia. Much of that area has been horribly polluted. The lives and culture of the local inhabitants, who fished in the intricate waterways and cultivated the land as their ancestors had done for generations, have been upended in ways that have led to widespread misery.

Texaco came barreling into this delicate ancient landscape in the early 1960s with all the subtlety and grace of an invading army. And when it left in 1992, it left behind, according to the lawsuit, widespread toxic contamination that devastated the livelihoods and traditions of the local people, and took a severe toll on their physical well-being.

A brief filed by the plaintiffs said: “It deliberately dumped many billions of gallons of waste byproduct from oil drilling directly into the rivers and streams of the rainforest covering an area the size of Rhode Island. It gouged more than 900 unlined waste pits out of the jungle floor — pits which to this day leach toxic waste into soils and groundwater. It burned hundreds of millions of cubic feet of gas and waste oil into the atmosphere, poisoning the air and creating ‘black rain’ which inundated the area during tropical thunderstorms.”

The quest for oil is, by its nature, colossally destructive. And the giant oil companies, when left to their own devices, will treat even the most magnificent of nature’s wonders like a sewer. But the riches to be made are so vastly corrupting that governments refuse to impose the kinds of rigid oversight and safeguards that would mitigate the damage to the environment and its human and animal inhabitants.

Pick your venue. The families whose lives and culture are dependent upon the intricate web of waterways along the Gulf Coast of the United States are in a fix similar to that of the indigenous people zapped by nonstop oil spills and the oil-related pollution in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Each group is fearful about its future. Both have been treated contemptuously.

The oil companies don’t care. Shell can’t wait to begin drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska, an area that would pose monumental problems for anyone trying to deal with a catastrophic spill. The companies pretend that the spills won’t happen. They always say that their drilling operations are safe. They said that before drilling off Santa Barbara, and in the rainforest in Ecuador, and in the Gulf of Mexico, and everywhere else they drill.

Their assurances mean nothing.

President Obama has suspended Shell’s Arctic drilling permits and has temporarily halted the so-called Arctic oil rush. What we’ve learned from the BP debacle in the gulf, and from the rainforest, and so many other places, is just how reckless and inept the oil companies can be when it comes to safeguarding life, limb and the environment.

They’re dangerous. They need the most stringent kind of oversight, and swift and severe sanctions for serious wrongdoing. At the same time, we need to be searching with a much, much greater sense of urgency for viable energy alternatives. Treating the Amazon and the gulf and the Arctic as if they were nothing more than toxic waste sites is an affront to the planet and all life-forms that inhabit it.

Chevron doesn’t believe it should be called to account for any of the sins Texaco may have committed in the Amazon. A spokesman told me that the allegations of environmental damage were wildly overstated and that even if Texaco had caused some pollution, it had cleaned it up and reached an agreement with the Ecuadorian government that precluded further liability.

The indigenous residents may be suffering (they’re in much worse shape than the people on the gulf coast) but the Chevron-Texaco crowd feels real good about itself. The big money was made, and the trash was left behind.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinio…

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Curse of the Black Gold

Hope and betrayal on the Niger Delta.

 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/0…

At independence in 1960, few observers expected that Nigeria would mature into an oil giant. But in subsequent decades, the oil companies, led by five multinational firms—Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Italy’s Agip, and ExxonMobil and Chevron from the U.S.—transformed a remote, nearly inaccessible wetland into industrial wilderness. The imprint: 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) of pipelines, 159 oil fields, and 275 flow stations, their gas flares visible day and night from miles away.

No one can deny the sheer technological achievement of building an infrastructure to extract oil from a waterlogged equatorial forest. Intense swampy heat, nearly impenetrable mangrove thickets, swarming insects, and torrential downpours bedevil operations to this day. But mastering the physical environment has proved almost simple compared with dealing with the social and cultural landscape. The oil firms entered a region splintered by ethnic rivalries. More than two dozen ethnic groups inhabit the delta, among them the Ijaw, the largest group, and the Igbo, Itsekiri, Ogoni, Isoko, and Urhobo. These groups have a history of fighting over the spoils of the delta, from slaves to palm oil—and now, crude oil. The companies disturbed a fragile landscape that supported fishing and farming. Engineers and project managers constructing pipelines through a mangrove swamp, or laying roads through marshland, could disrupt spawning grounds or change the course of a stream, threatening a village’s livelihood.

Recent reports by the United Nations Development Program and the International Crisis Group identify some of the questionable strategies employed by oil companies: paying off village chiefs for drilling rights; building a road or dredging a canal without an adequate environmental impact study; tying up compensation cases—for resource damages or land purchases—for years in court; dispatching security forces to violently break up protests; patching up oil leaks without cleaning up sites.

“After 50 years, the oil companies are still searching for a way to operate successfully with communities,” says Antony Goldman, a London-based risk consultant. The delta is littered with failed projects started by oil companies and government agencies—water tanks without operating pumps, clinics with no medicine, schools with no teachers or books, fishponds with no fish.

“The companies didn’t consult with villagers,” says Michael Watts, director of the African Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley. “They basically handed out cash to chiefs. It wasn’t effective at all.”

The interesting day was organized by an active excellent Media Relations Officer of the New York office of the US Department of State – Ms. Melissa Waheibi. She worked this out with the UN MALU (Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit) as we had to get a Temporary Media Pass to the UN.

Our UN hostess was Ms. Robin Dellarocca an Information Officer with the Department of Public Information (DPI), Strategic Communications Division, who was with us at the beginning and at the end of the day, as well as at that Noon Briefing. Most of the day we were accompanied by Ms. Isabelle Broyer, who is the new Chief of MALU within the UN DPI. She was previously Chief of Guided Tours Section in the UN Outreach that also belongs under the DPI, and she was very gracious and started the day by giving us the tour of the old UN – that is the tall building that blocks for the Manhattanites the view to the East River. The problem is that this building is being mothballed for a while because of the need to remove plenty of asbestos that was put into its construction back in the years  1949-1950  when the real estate firm of Wallace Harrison, the personal architectural adviser for the Rockefeller family, was the lead architect for the building. The final project derived from the drawings of Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier. Now, a so called temporary North Lawn building (TNLB), was created this year, and for all practical purposes the UN has changed a lot. We did not go to that building.

Our group numbered 11 people. Seven that had no UN Press Credentials, including our leader from the Foreign Press Center, New York, and four who were actually accredited journalists with the UN DPI. Our Event was called a “United Nations Seminar For Foreign Journalists.” These people come from all over the world and report about the US which in most cases, at least for those stationed in new York, includes interest in the UN. Many do not have a UN accreditation because of the difficult process of getting one, in a few cases their beet does not include the UN – they were all clearly eager to learn more about the UN. The fact that some UN Press-Card holders were also on the tour is a result from the simple reality that the UN DPI does not have such introductory tours for its own newly accredited correspondents – and those that participated in the Seminar were clearly interested in getting some minimal insight into the general workings of the UN. After all – not all journalists covering the UN believe that rewriting UN Press Releases is called journalism.

Eventually we settled around a large table in the office the DPI has for its liaison to the NGOs accredited with DPI, and later, when that room was no more available, we moved next door to class-room setting, and speakers from various departments from the UN and from some affiliates came to tell us about their ongoing activities.

Our morning covered three activities beyond the introductory welcome-tour: The Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); The Acting Chief, UN Resources – Promotion and Distribution Unit, UN Multimedia of DPI; and the Noon Briefing.

Our afternoon covered four sessions and closing:  The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Deputy Director;  The Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO); The Chief of External Communications at the United Nations Development Programme who was specific on the Millennium Development Goals; and The Chief of the Security Council Secretariat Branch that introduced us to the work of the UN Security Council.

So what about the Noon Briefing?

Combining my notes with the official transcript

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

From the Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, May 25, 2010.

Today’s noon briefing was by Martin Nesirky, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon everybody.

I understand we have a number of international journalists joining us today from the New York Foreign Press Centre.  So, welcome to you and welcome to everybody else at the briefing.

**Press Conference and Stakeout Today

A couple of press conferences today, immediately following Security Council consultations, Ad Melkert, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, will speak to correspondents at the Security Council stakeout position.  And then at 12:30 p.m., here in this auditorium, there will be a press conference on the launch of several campaigns to combat violations of children’s rights.

**Secretary-General’s Remarks

This morning, the Secretary-General marked today the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with UNICEF’s new Executive Director, Anthony Lake.

The two Protocols — one on prostitution and child pornography, the other on children and armed conflict — have been endorsed by two thirds of all Member States so far.

Mr. Nesirky spelled out further, beyond the language of the official release, that in too many places children are still treated as commodities.

The Secretary-General urged all countries to adopt these instruments within the next two years in order to provide children with a moral and legal shield.  He said that in too many places children are seen as commodities, treated as criminals, instead of being protected as victims, and that in too many conflicts, children are used as soldiers, spies or human shields.  We have his full remarks in my office.

And this afternoon, the Secretary-General will address the pledging Conference for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.  And that’s at 3 p.m., in the ECOSOC Chamber of the North Lawn Building.

**Security Council

The Security Council heard a briefing by Ad Melkert this morning — that’s the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq.  Melkert told Council members that the recent elections and the Government expected to be formed based on the election results offer a new opportunity to strengthen Iraq’s sovereignty.  It will also allow Iraqis to move with greater determination towards reconciliation.  He added, however, that a host of challenges remain, including the continued violence across Iraq, which so far this year has claimed 2,000 lives and wounded 5,000 civilians.

The Council is now in consultations on Iraq, after which Melkert intends to speak to reporters at the Security Council stakeout position.  We have copies of his remarks to the Council in my office.

And following the consultations on Iraq, the Security Council will hold an open meeting on the situation in Chad, the Central African Republic and the subregion.

**Israel-Palestine

The Secretary-General sent a message today to the UN International Meeting in Support of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process, which is being held in Istanbul under the theme “Ending the Occupation and Establishing the Palestinian State”.

The Secretary-General’s message was delivered by Robert Serry, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.  In it, the Secretary-General expressed his satisfaction that, after a prolonged period of delay and setbacks, proximity talks are finally under way.  He also encourages the parties to avoid provocations or breaches of the Road Map or international law.  He welcomes the modest progress that has been achieved, with the Government of Israel facilitating a number of priority projects and widening the list of commercial goods allowed into Gaza.  We have copies of his message in my office.

And separately, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that Gaza’s agriculture sector is being hit hard.  OCHA says that more than 60 per cent of Gaza households are now food insecure, a situation that agriculture could have helped redress.  However, Israel’s import and access restrictions continue to suffocate the local agriculture sector and directly contribute to rising food insecurity.  There is more in a press release from OCHA in my office.

** Haiti

We have an announcement from the United Nations Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH.

President [René] Préval and the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Haiti, Edmond Mulet, have agreed to establish an independent commission to investigate the incident in Les Cayes Prison on 19 January.  The Commission will be a joint United Nations-Haiti effort.  Further details on its composition and mandate will be soon provided by MINUSTAH.

**Press Conference Tomorrow

A couple of press conferences for tomorrow:  at 11 a.m., there will be a press conference to launch the updated 2010 United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects report.  And at 12:30 p.m., Wilfried Lemke, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Sports for Development and Peace, will hold a press conference about the upcoming 2010 FIFA Football World Cup in South Africa, to take place from 11 June until 11 July, and the activities of the UN system around this event.  And finally at 1 p.m., there will be a press conference by Ambassador David Balton, the Chair of the Review Conference on the Fish Stocks Agreement, who will brief on efforts to strengthen international action to manage and conserve fish stocks on the high seas.

**Secretary-General on Africa Day

So I can also tell you that today is Africa Day, and in a message to mark the Day, the Secretary-General says that this year’s celebration has particular significance as it marks the fiftieth anniversary of independence of several Francophone African States and Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation.

The Secretary-General also notes in his message that by consistently reminding the international community of its responsibility to the most vulnerable, and affirming that we are all members of a global family of nations, Africa has helped to reshape the global agenda.

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

So questions, please.  Yes.

{ and there were four correspondents that asked questions – just only four }

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

**Questions and Answers

(A) Mr. Laolu Akande, Bureau Chief (North America) THE GUARDIAN of NIGERIA. His questions are usually about Africa and the African Union.

Question:  A couple of questions.  One, yesterday the Secretary-General announced that he was going to Nigeria. Do you have more details as to when he is going to go and, apart from the President, who else he is going to be meeting?

Then secondly, on the issue of child rights, I see that the Secretary-General has spoken about that already today.  There is a senator in Nigeria who just married an Egyptian 13-year-old girl.  I was wondering whether the Secretary-General will say something about that?

Spokesperson:  The second, I didn’t quite get that.

Correspondent:  There is senator in Nigeria…

Spokesperson:  Yes.

Correspondent:  …Senator [Ahmad Sani] Yerima, who just married a 13 year old Egyptian, and I was hoping that the Secretary-General will say something about that.

Spokesperson:  Well, on the first question, which is the precise schedule for the Secretary-General’s trip to Nigeria, we don’t yet have the precise layout and the full itinerary.  But we will let you know as soon as we do.  But it will be after the trip to South Africa.  As the Secretary-General mentioned, there is then a leg of that particular trip which takes him to South Africa, to West Africa, I beg your pardon, and Nigeria is part of that.  But exactly where, at what point in the schedule hasn’t been fixed yet.  So we will let you know as soon as we can.

On the second, I don’t think I need to say more than has already been stated about the rights of children.  I think the Secretary-General has been quite clear on that.

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

(B) Mr. Masood Haider, who is registered with THE DAILY DAWN of Karachi, Pakistan, Leading English Newspaper of Pakistan, but when I looked it up already three years ago, I did not find there articles by Masood. On his personal google listings there is much material about him being the President of the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA), and articles on www.MaximsNews.com.  His questions always involve the Middle Eas and end up with an attack on Israel.

So, Masood.

Question:  …specifically about this particular senator, I know that he has made comments.  I want to know whether the United Nations considers itself as having a moral voice, you know, to speak, you know, when such violations of something that it thinks is important to talk about when there is direct violation even by the people who have the power.  Doesn’t the Secretary-General mean to raise the moral voice against such things?

Spokesperson:  The Secretary-General’s moral voice on this question is very clear.  But that doesn’t mean that we have to comment on the specific cases.  But I have stated what the general principle is and so has the Secretary-General.  And I think that that’s a fairly clear answer.  Yes, Masood.

MASOOD HAIDER:  Talking about the moral voice, the disclosure yesterday in the newspaper in London that Israel offered South Africa nuclear warheads in exchange for certain things, and how is that going to impact the nuclear negotiations going on over here at the United Nations on NPT, which Israel refuses to join nor was it disclosed how many weapons it has.  So the Secretary-General was asked this question yesterday, which he did not answer, I mean [inaudible].

Spokesperson:  Well, the Secretary-General did answer the question yesterday, and I have no need to elaborate on what he said.

Question:  But in his…  So what you are saying is it will not have any impact whatsoever on the NPT and the negotiations over there?  Or [inaudible crosstalk]

Spokesperson:  What will have, not have an impact?

Question:  …Middle East nuclear-free zone that he has been espousing?

Spokesperson:  It’s not just the Secretary-General that’s espousing this.  This is an agreement that goes back quite some way.  And it’s not simply the Secretary-General’s voice on this. That’s the first thing.  The second is that the Secretary-General spoke out very clearly yesterday about what’s required of the States parties who are taking part in this Review Conference; that there are people, everybody is watching; the world is watching, and that it’s clear that it’s not easy to reach an agreement.  And it’s clear that there are complications that you are alluding to.  But that doesn’t mean that the countries who are taking part in this Review Conference shouldn’t focus on making their best effort to reach a deal.  That’s what the SG, the Secretary-General, was talking about yesterday.  And I think that there is not much more that I can add to that.  Further questions?  Yes.

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

(C) Ms. Catherine Mercier, CBC Radio-Canada, Producer – United Nations.

Question:  Yesterday the Secretary-General in his press conference mentioned that he wanted to make this building the greenest building possible.  I was wondering if there was a clear plan, for instance, regarding the cafeteria, because it seems to me that even now it could be made much greener than it is.  Not using disposable cups for instance; there are no real glasses, real cups and many people of course it means like hundreds and hundreds of beverages every day.  So is there a clear plan or will there be one?  Maybe it’s a question for Mr. [Michael] Adlerstein, but I just wanted to hear you on that.

Spokesperson:  I’m pretty sure you are right that that is a question for others, not specifically for me.  But that doesn’t mean that I can’t find out, try to find out an answer to it.  But what’s important here is that the idea of transforming this building into a green building is one that will take some time to realize.  We’re not there yet, as everybody knows.  In the meantime, measures can always be undertaken to try to improve the environment or impact that everybody here, whoever it is and whatever we’re doing.  So there is always room for improvement.  So I am sure that folks in the relevant section, the relevant department, can look at measures that could be taken.  Okay.

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

Yes, Matthew.

MASOOD HAIDER  again

Question:  I just wanted to find out…

Spokesperson:  I said Matthew, and then I’ll come to you, Masood, again.  Sorry?

Matthew Russell Lee:  Okay, and then I, you can, then I’ll pass it back to you, Masood.  Unless you’re going environmental?

Spokesperson:  Yeah.  Are you going environmental?  Are you going green?

Masood Haider:  Go ahead, Matthew.

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

(4) MATTHEW R. LEE, of INNER CITY PRESS – The only real investigative reporter at the UN for years. His questions mostly do not get official answers but his postings are most enlightening.

Question:  Okay.  It’s reported that in South Sudan the UN has pulled its staff out of Jonglei state due to unrest.  Is that the case, and what can, what does the UN, doesn’t UNMIS [United Nations Mission in the Sudan] have a protection of civilians mandate?  I mean, are they, what’s the relation between it being too dangerous for civilians staff, or are military personnel of UNMIS going to this location?

Spokesperson:  Well, I’ll try to get further guidance on this.  We’re aware of the reports and we’ll try to get further guidance.  This is always a difficult balancing act here — to get it right, to balance the need to be on the spot, to help the people you are there to help, but at the same time to balance that against your duty of care to the staff you have sent to do that job.  So it’s sometimes a dilemma to do that.  But that’s as a general principle.  I don’t know the full details of this particular case and we’ll try to find out more.

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

Masood.  What’s you question, Masood?

Question:  Okay.  What I am saying is, IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] has now got this thing from Iran.  Now, how will that impact the negotiations over here if it keeps a point of report that Iran in fact is on its way to comply, as the Brazilians and the Turkish people, Turkish [inaudible].  How will that impact the negotiations over here?

Spokesperson:  Well, first of all, as the Secretary-General said yesterday, he spoke to the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mr. [Yukiya] Amano, and the communication that was received from the Iranians is being analysed and assessed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.  So we still don’t know what it said precisely, and we still don’t know precisely what it means.  And therefore it’s difficult to assess what impact it might have on Security Council consultations that are going on.  I’m sure that members of the Security Council, if you ask them, would have their views on it.  The Secretary-General has made clear two things:  one, that this is in general in the hands of the Security Council; and the second thing, that the proposal or the deal struck between Iran, Turkey and Brazil would represent a positive step if combined with the full compliance that the international community expects of Iran with existing Security Council resolutions.

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

Matthew.

Question:  Sure, on Sudan, I wanted, actually, two questions, both about sort of related to yesterday’s press conference by the Secretary-General.  One was this question of both Mr. [Ibrahim] Gambari and Mr. [Haile] Menkerios going to the inauguration of Omer Al-Bashir, given his International Criminal Court indictment.  Was there some — and I have gone over the Secretary-General’s answer a number of times — had, did, particularly for Mr. Menkerios, who is solely a UN not AU employee, was this, did the Office of Legal Affairs, who essentially sort of authorized what seems to many to be a change of policy, even going back as far as, I mean, to have UN officials engage with an indicted, someone indicted for crimes of war is something new.  And who signed off on that?

Spokesperson:  It’s just not true that it’s new. It’s just not true.  The point is that both these gentlemen, Mr. Gambari and Mr. Menkerios, are appointed by the Secretary-General under a Security Council mandate to carry out a job in Sudan — in the case of Mr. Gambari jointly under the African Union, as you pointed out.  Their job is to interact with the Sudanese Government.  That’s their job, to ensure that the missions, the important missions, the large missions trying to do the work that you mentioned in the previous question; they interact.  That’s obvious.  And as the Secretary-General said yesterday, this is no more, no less than their participation in an event that carries political significance as well as being a ceremony.  It has political significance, but crucially, they have a mandate to be there and to interact with the Sudanese authorities.

Question:  [inaudible] keep contact at the high level such as the Secretary-General, I would assume Mr. Menkerios to a minimum necessary to carry out the operational functions, because, I mean, Human Rights Watch has said this is legitimizing, or really, minim… making a mockery of the fact that if somebody is indicted for war crimes and yet can meet openly and be celebrated by UN officials.  Is that, what’s the Secretary-General’s response to that?

Spokesperson:  Well, first of all, Human Rights Watch are entitled to their view, and they do extraordinary work. The second thing is they have a job to do, large missions to run.  They need to be able to interact with the Sudanese authorities and they have a mandate to do so.

Question:  To follow up on that, you say there is no change in policy, but were there any precedents before of such top-level UN officials coming close to someone who was indicted by the ICC?

Spokesperson:  Of course, when it’s been operationally necessary with President Bashir, that’s the case.  But when it’s been necessary for the operational reasons that we’ve talked about here before.  Yeah.

Question:  [inaudible]

Spokesperson:  I don’t think I need to repeat again — I already did once — I don’t think I need to repeat again what the Secretary-General said yesterday.  Okay.  Other questions?

Question:  I have a follow-up?

Spokesperson:  Yeah.

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

Laolu Akande joins the question about Sudan -

Question:  I’m sure you know that it’s a rather tough issue, but we have to ask the question.  Do you think by allowing those two top UN officials to go and be part of that inauguration, simple question, do you think that undermines the work of the Tribunal?

Spokesperson:  Absolutely not.  No.  The fact is Mr. Bashir was elected by the Sudanese people as the President in the recent elections.  That’s a fact.  And there is an inauguration.  That’s also a fact.  It’s a political event as well as a ceremony.  It involves the swearing-in, the inauguration of the Head of State of that country where we have two sizeable missions, with people doing difficult work to help the people of Sudan. And that’s the reason why they are there, and that’s the reasons why the need to interact with the Sudanese authorities.

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

Matthew Lee about Sri Lanka -

Question:  Last Monday, about eight days ago, when this International Crisis Group report came out about Sri Lanka, you’d said that the UN would study it and would have some response to the report, particularly to the part that said, that called for an investigation of the UN’s own actions pulling out of Kilinochi, ineffectively calling for a ceasefire and funding internment camps.  Is that response, is, when can we expect the responses, particularly the factual ones of just how much money was spent on the camps.  Is that ready?

Spokesperson:  Not yet.

Question:  [inaudible] I wanted to, maybe, this goes back to yesterday’s press conference by the Secretary-General.  I was, I’m still trying to understand, I sort of recited the, this, the critique of the ICG.  And he seemed to say, I totally reject it.  That…

Spokesperson:  No, I think, Matthew, that’s wrong.  What he was rejecting was the catalogue of allegations that you listed that were not in the ICG report.

Question:  There was only one that was additional.  So that’s the one that he… he was only rejecting that one?

Spokesperson:  Go through the list and maybe you will see what I mean.

Question:  But I want to, I am going to ask you about that allegation, because I want to know what he rejects about it.  Philip Alston has said that a number of LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] leaders who were, came out to surrender after having spoken with Vijay Nambiar, the Chief of Staff, were in fact — he believes, Alston believes — summarily executed by the Sri Lankan Government.  So the question is, and it’s a question that Alston himself has raised, at least in the corridors, what was Chief of Staff Vijay Nambiar’s role in encouraging them to come out?  No, I don’t know what the role was, but it seems like it’s a fair question to say should there be an investigation to find out whether the Chief of Staff either, you know, God forbid, knew they would be killed or had reason to not tell them to come out if in fact they were killed.  So, what’s he rejecting about that, I guess, that’s the factual question?  And what’s the answer?  What did Vijay Nambiar know when he told them to come out?

Spokesperson:  The Chef de Cabinet { Mr. Vijay Nambiar from India }has talked about this publicly and made clear that this was, that he had no direct contact with the people who were being asked to surrender.  He had no direct contact with them.  He spoke to the Sri Lankan leaders and was conveying a message that was relayed to him not by someone from the Tamil community.  I will be able to give you the exact ins and outs if you need it, but he has spoken publicly about it.

Correspondent:  [inaudible] I really try to cover it very closely.  I’m not, I’m not…

Spokesperson:  Yes, yes he has.  He did so quite recently in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Question:  Can we get, I guess…?

Spokesperson:  Well, you can ask Al Jazeera.

Question:  Maybe, get, I mean…?

Spokesperson:  Have a look at what he said on Al Jazeera.  That’s probably not a bad idea.

Correspondent:  Actually, Al Jazeera is no longer shown in the UN.  It used to be on UNTV, but that’s not…

Spokesperson:  Now look, let’s not go down this road.

Correspondent:  No, I understand, but…

Spokesperson:  Do you know at the moment I can’t see any TV channels at the moment, Matthew?  In my office I can’t see any TV channels because of the technical work that’s going on in the building.  There are difficulties.  So we don’t need to go down that route.

Question:  Can I get a transcript of what he said?  I am assuming that the UN kept a transcript?

Spokesperson:  Just watch Al Jazeera, okay?  You can ask them, I’m sure they can help you.

Spokesperson:  Other questions?  No?  Okay.  All right, we have our guests waiting for us.  Thank you very much.

* ***

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

So what we just witnessed was that one investigative reporter (Matthew Lee) wanted to know about steps the UN has taken in Sudan and Sri Lanka.

In the case of Sudan the UN sent two high officials to participate at the reinauguration of President Bashir who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court of war crimes. It seems that if needed the UN has to deal with Bashir, on a de facto basis – but by going to his party – this is nothing less then an acceptance de jure of his stolen election and a slap at the judges of the ICC.

In the case of Sri Lanka, the question is if the Chef de Cabinet to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was involved in delivering rebels to be executed by the government. If you do not ask these questions you will never know that it is difficult to get straigt answers – and only one journalist at the UN bothers looking for answers – seemingly most others are Press-Release mincers while doing that work in their UN cubicles.

A second active person clearly came there to look for loopholes to attack Israel. That is clearly his right but it reflects on the UN.

A third active Journalist was there because he gathers information on how to better Africa. This is Laudatory.

The Fourth Journalist, the lady from Canada, Catherine Mercier, was gratifying to us – she actually tried to find out if the UN is serious about its professed intent of appearing green – and the truth is indeed very far from the UN stated goals. In all these last, nearly 20 years since the Rio Conference of 1992, and the call for an Agenda 21,  the UN has done in its own buildings absolutely zero.

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

Further, in 2006 the UN used to show these Noon Briefings to the Press on Manhattan Chanel 78 on New York TV. That used to be an inducement to get into the Briefing room many more journalists. Mid – 2007 this was discontinued and when I asked about it from journalists and DPI members no-body knew of any other venue. Now, in this tour, I learned from the lady that spoke on UN Media Resources that the UNTV is being seen in Manhattan on Chanel # 150 on Time Warner Cable and it includes the Noon Briefings.

With this knowledge I followed up by watching the programs on this Thursday May 27th, and Friday May 28th. I was curious to follow up and see who, and how many of the Journalists show up and are active at Question time.

So, for Thursday May 27, 2010:

- There was a journalist from the Republic of Korea who had many questions relating to the Korea situation. He was told that the Secretary-General said that he expects the Security Council to take action to which there was an expression of wonder about the idea of a UNSG telling the Security Council what to do.

- Masood Haider was asking on the situation in Gaza at the time that in Istanbul there is an attempt to restart the proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The answer was that any action that can increase tension while the proximity talks wer started have to be watched very carefully.

- Masood was joined by a correspondent from Lebanon who wanted to know about Israeli actions in Lebanon.

- Matthew Lee implied that the UN must have safeguards to guard it from itself as per a complaint from a member of the Somali delegation who complained about UN spending funds in Mogadishu. Same goes for the EU.

Matthew Lee had specific questions regarding a Sierra Leone UN paid person who declared he will run for elections in Sierra Leone while on UN pay. Thw answer was tat such a thing is clearly not right. The question was specific but the answer was generic.

Matthew continued with questions about the Security Council discussing the renaming of the mission to Congo – what are the priorities? He was answered that on Friday he will have a chance to ask the question from the guest.

- Matthew continue with questions about payments to a UN official in Congo who is under scrutiny.

We had thus again just 4 people – Masood and Matthew and two new participants. One that was seemingly on the Masood team, and a new face interested in Korea.

————–

For Friday May 28, 2010:

Today there were only questions from Masood and Matthew.

The topic for Masood was the Rio meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations under the chairmanship of President Lula, and with the Participation of UNSG Ban Ki-moon. Also about the bombing in Lahore.

Matthew’s questions dealt with the UN in Congo.

The different levels of demeaning a woman in the Islamic world:

Burqa is a most complete body-cover – the covering of the eyes may or may not be also required.

Hijab is a legal term in Islamic law – “curtain” or “cover” that covers everything except face and hands in public.

Niqab is just a veil – least offensive.

Khimar is a headscarf or veil as mentioned in the Quran. This is the way women should cover themselves as per the Quran.

———————-

What is next for Nigeria?

The kernel of the future – the projected five world leaders – are in trouble. With the US and China in a tiff because of Taiwan (arm sales by US manufacturers) and Tibet (a visit with the Dalai Lama), now South Africa, one of the three IBSAs that met with the G2 in Copenhagen, shows sings of 21st century immaturity. You just cannot go on living by Zulu rules if you want to lead your people out of poverty. Tiger Woods learned that very very fast that the limelight of world media will do you in, and even oil rich monarchs do not father now 20 children anymore. The stories about Zuma’s ascent in South Africa were plenty and his people we know told us so when it was rumored that he is in line to take over his country’s helm. It seems that Mandela’s South Africa deserves better – so does the 15 States group of Southern Africa { http://www.sadc.int }, and black Sub-Sahara Africa at large. We said before, South Africa is the third IBSA not alone, but as the symbol of all that immense Sub-Sahara black chunk of resources rich land and its one billion people that have the potential of evolving into next great consumers market to drive their own economy and the world economy. To this mass of people, the South African President must be an example and our prejudice that we knowingly attempt to show by this posting, calls for an exemplary leader for South Africa – someone fit to try on Mandela’s shoes.

This week the African Union rejected the attempt of Libya’s rambling Gaddafi to hold on to the chairmanship of Africa for another year, and voted instead to give the position to Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika. We attach the story about that event at the end of this posting, as we focus on the further ramblings by a Libyan-sponsored group of African traditional leaders from an unnamed French speaking African country, who crowned Qaddafi “King of Kings.” Africa seems to react indeed with understanding to the fact that the world is changing into a 7 to 10 countries structure and that Africa wants one of its own, and that means not Qaddafi, to be part of this structure – a modern man rather then a traditional chieftain – neither do they think anymore that the position of leader in Addis Ababa belongs to a Mediterranean North African settler. They want a black leader – but hiding under a Zulu mantle, and invoking rules of the desert, simply  can not do anymore.

——————–
South Africa’s President Sows (Another) Sex Scandal.

Theunis Bates
 http://abbaymedia.com/News/?p=3699
By JASON McLURE

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, delivered a rambling rebuke of fellow African heads of state Sunday after they chose to replace him as chairman of the African Union and failed to endorse his push for the creation of a United States of Africa.

“I do not believe we can achieve something concrete in the coming future,” said Colonel Qaddafi, before introducing President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi as his successor at the African Union’s annual summit meeting, held in Addis Ababa. “The political elite of our continent lacks political awareness and political determination. The world is changing into 7 or 10 countries, and we are not even aware of it.”

South Africa, Ethiopia and Nigeria were among the countries opposing Colonel Qaddafi’s attempts to form a continental government, which many view as impractical given the political and economic disparities in Africa.

Colonel Qaddafi argued that individual African states are too weak to negotiate with major powers like the European Union, the United States and China. His efforts to become the first African leader to win another one-year term as chairman of the African Union were thwarted by a push for Mr. Mutharika, 75, by the 15-member Southern African Development Community.

The Libyan leader also complained that such summit meetings were boring, that his colleagues were too long-winded and that he often was not informed of African Union decisions.

Colonel Qaddafi did not leave the lectern before giving the microphone to an unnamed representative of a Libyan-sponsored group of African traditional leaders who had crowned him “King of Kings” in a ceremony in 2008.

The representative, bearing a golden scepter and trailed by an aide fanning him with a large feather, spent much of his address praising Colonel Qaddafi.

“You have the African people with you,” said the man, who spoke in French and did not identify himself. “This is what is important, not politicking. It is politicians who have destroyed us.”

From the latest news coming from Washington – “Under the new airport
rules, all citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen must receive a pat
down and an extra check of their carry-on bags before boarding a plane
bound for the United States, officials said. Citizens of Cuba, Iran,
Sudan and Syria — nations considered ‘state sponsors of terrorism’ —
face the same requirement.”

That means Cuba and thirteen Muslim states: Afghanistan, Algeria,
Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia,
Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

These news caused a lot of comments, but we think the wrong comments.

We assume obviously that Washington is ready finally to address the
terrorism issue. Airplane terrorism, as we learned on 9/11, is not
about transport of weapons but about terrorists – to be specific since
9/11 – we speak here about Islamic terrorists. If you want to catch
terrorists you must look for terrorists. Looking for baby formula is
not the answer – but looking for those passengers whose profiles are
suspicious might be a better bet. Sure, obviously, not all Muslims are
terrorists, and profiling is terrible – even illegal, but if you want
to catch terrorists you start with the profile that most fits Islamic
terrorists, and you bet – they are Muslims of any color. Even though
they may be traveling with documents issued by non-Islamic States,
i.e. the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Switzerland, or even the
US.

So, it is not easy to define exactly what papers are carried by the
terrorists, but you can have some guidelines to increase your chance
of catching them. looking for a profile of an Asian or African Muslim.
Then, learn from the Israelis how to talk to them – you may even find
out that they are so convinced that their cause is the right one, that
they will lower their guard and just plainly disclose that what you
see is all they got.

There may be a Jamaican convert to Islam who preached terrorism in the UK
and resides now in Kenya – a case in point. Kenya does want him either and
he will be sent back to Jamaica a second time. yes, this is a problem if you
are American and Jamaica does not cooperate – but he is a Muslim and no
Anti-Defamation league is enrtitled to tell you Mr. President that he should
not be stripped and searched if he wants to travel via the US to Jamaica.
This is simple.

But what about Cuba? Fidel Castro is more atheist then Catholic, surely
no Muslim. Whatever went on in the past is history to me and I do not believe
prologue to Mr. Castro. So why mix him and his country up with 13 Islamic
States involved in Islamic Terrorism? That is unless someone in the US longs
to see him give cover to such terrorists in the future so they get new reasons
to be after him? If the Jamaica case has anything to teach us – it is that the
US is better off reinsuring its rear parts from anger caused by mistreatment
and friendship is not achieved by mulling over past grief. Specially, as several
hundred former sugar baron families living in Florida should not be allowed to
hold hostage the US when it comes to real US interests.

Mr. President, I watched Bolivia and Venezuela leaders speak in Copenhagen,
they fumed and brimmed with words – no stones or missiles. Their ALBA is,
I think, the natural ally of a US that manages to disengage from the Islamic
world of oil. So, it is the US self interest that calls for you, Mr. President, to
invite Fidel Castro to Washington for a tete-a-tete and start on a way that
eventually will give the US the wall of safety it needs when addressing the 21st
Century centers of terror – the Islamists’ terror cancer that will continue to ooze
as long as we use oil.

Please start by taking him of that list!

The thirteen on that list include the obvious Iran – Syria – Lebanon
trio of the Shii’a Islam, it includes the Afghanistan/Pakistan US
theater of operations and Iraq, as well as the other US theater Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan that misses Egypt and the Gaza strip. A
fourth historic region includes Libya and Algeria, then with Nigeria,
these are newer sources of oil for the US, and as such clear potential
sources of unhappy Islamists who complain about the changes in their
countries as fueled by oil money. In very few countries terrorism
against the US was actually started by rulers decree. Libya, Iran,
Syria, Sudan, Somalia may be the exceptions, but Saudi Arabia and
Yemen may have seen rulers who deflected anger against themselves into
anger against foreigners. In the majority of cases the terrorist is a
person of convictions and the situation could have been avoided had
the US and the rest of the Western World, tried to be less squanderous
with the oil we got addicted to.

Having said the above – let us get now to the point – MR PRESIDENT -
PLEASE – TAKE CUBA OFF THAT LIST BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELONG ON THAT
LIST IN 2010.

* * * *

Please look – I am posting here four reference – links to news
articles of today’s New York Times.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05t…

New Air Security Checks From 14 Nations to U.S. Draw Criticism
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

In Yemen, U.S. Faces Leader Who Puts Family First
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

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!

“Full-body scanners on display at Reagan National Airport: Many experts say the full-body scanners would have detected the explosives carried aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, but the
machines have also raised privacy concerns over the detailed body image that is displayed as part of the screening.”

TSA – Transportation and Security Administration – tries to assuage privacy concerns about full-body scans.

By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 4, 2010
It has come to this.

Already shoeless, beltless and waterless, more beleaguered air passengers will be holding their legs apart, raising their arms and effectively baring it all as they pass through U.S. airport security
checkpoints.

Add the “full-body scan” to the list of indignities that some travelers are confronting in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era of vigilance.

Federal authorities, working to close security gaps exposed by the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, are multiplying the number of imaging machines at the nation’s biggest
airports. The devices scan passengers’ bodies and produce X-ray-like images that can reveal objects concealed beneath clothes…….

- – - – - -

now add the “me-au” from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, ADC Legal Director   nshora at adc.org

Washington, D.C. | January 5, 2010 | www.adc.org |

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is deeply concerned by the new Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) directives, which went into effect on January 4th at midnight.  According to news sources, these directives will require citizens from 14 countries, all Arab or Muslim countries, with the exception of Cuba, to go through enhanced security screening. Such screening can include full pat-downs, scans, delays, and anything associated with secondary screening – an extra search of the passenger’s carry-on luggage may also be required.  News sources also stated that the directives are applicable to any travelers, including US CITIZENS, who have passed through one of these 14 countries, or who have taken flights that have originated from these 14 countries.

ADC is very troubled as such directives will have negative ramifications on Arab-Americans, citizens of the 14 countries, and all Americans who visit these countries. A disparate segment of the Arab-American community will be scrutinized because of these new guidelines. The blanket labeling of hundreds of millions of civilians based solely on their country of citizenship or travel is not only unfairly discriminatory based on national origin, but also improperly labels millions of innocent people as somehow suspect or possible terrorists.

The new directives came following the Christmas Day attempted airline attack that threatened our national security, and which ADC has strongly condemned. Implementing an effective and productive counterterrorism tool is paramount. However, casting a wide net against individuals based on their country of origin, race or religion is not an effective counterterrorism tool. During the past decade, similar racial, ethnic and religious profiling tactics and practices have time and again misdirected precious counterterrorism resources, damaged foreign relations with key allies, fueled the fires of extremists by giving them an excuse, stigmatized communities, and most importantly did not have any discernible impact on security. Based on precedent, these new directives will be no different than these past practices and their adverse consequences; and while such directives may appear to make us feel safer, the reality is that they discriminate against innocent persons and divert attention from real threats.

Resources must instead be focused on high-risk individuals based on proper intelligence, better coordination and communication between different governmental agencies. In addition, continued engagement with the Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian community groups must be strengthened, and must not be discouraged by ethnic profiling tactics.

ADC has been in contact with TSA and the Department Homeland Security (DHS) and is planning to file a complaint and request for additional information with the Department.  ADC urges all travelers affected by these new guidelines to always comply with the Transportation Security Officer’s (TSO’s) request.  In the event of any abuse or misuse of authority, please request the TSO’s name and badge number, and file a complaint with ADC’s Legal Department at  legal at adc.org.

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

Honestly, I feel the pain of decent members of the ADC, but am appalled at the chutzpah to announce the complaints of that organization without a single word attached saying that as loyal citizens to this country they are ready to organize themselves in units of informers when it comes to transgressions by people from their country of birth, that are endangering the security of the country that gave to the ADC members the privilege of life under a secular democracy.

Yes, I know that the ADC has members that are Muslim, Christian or atheists. I know they have no Jews in ADC, but that is not the issue. The Arab countries, other Asian countries, and the African Arabized countries, on the list of 13, are all Islamic countries – in all of them Christians and Jews face very serious difficulties. Further, I know of good Muslims in the US and overseas, that participate with enlightened Jews in order to build bridges between communities. in Copenhagen I actually participated during the Climate conference at a pilgrimage that took us to places of worship that were Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim (that last meeting was held in the rooms of a Danish humanist society) – in this time sequence. Yes – good relationships are possible, but that will happen only when, and if, there is a clear understanding, and voiced recognition, that Islamic terrorism originates with Muslim individuals, and that in order to safeguard ourselves, profiling in search of instruments of terror is not a dirty word, but a means of self defense.

Also, in order to avoid needless friction, I suggest that the ADC moves front and center in the global effort to disengage from the addiction to oil.

And one more item – this website does speak up for Cuba as they surely are not part of the group of countries responsible for Islamicists performing acts of terror. So, they do not belong on that list of 14.

Instead of having a signed “deal” at Copenhagen, now it seems that the leaders will be happy with a compilation of National promises. By coincidence, the UN Think Tank of UNU hosted today a panel – “PUBLIC POLICY: FROM NATIONAL TO GLOBAL” – it could not have been at a better time – and trust me – it was excellent. For fun, an NGO called Sustainability had Shell Oil Company over to the UN for lunch.

Not all is useless at the UN – just see what thinking people can come up with.

The 150 minutes event, in the basement of the UN building, at the United Nation University – the New York Office – was the second session of a Global Public Policy Working Group that aims to explore how to make public policy become more of a reality at the global level. This second session tried to find philosophical answers to what it means to have public policy at a global level – what are the conceptual, methodological, intellectual, and political challenges to this concept in an institution that caters to sovereign Nations. How do these challenges play out in various areas, such as security, development, and environment? That is really fascinating – specially in these days when we see before our eyes how difficult it is to many National governments to see beyond the length of their noses when trying to tackle the climate change issue. I saw some UN officials, some members of country representations, many NGOs, many young students, and just one other journalist in the room.

The panel was chaired by Dr. Jean-Marc Coicaud, the Director of UNU – Office in New York, and included Professor Andrew Hurrell of the Oxford University, Professor Thomas Pogge of the Yale University, and Dr. Yomo Kwame Sundaram from Malaysia, who was on many faculties in the US and UK and is now UN Assistant SG for Economic Development at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and member of several panels that look at reforms. At the end there were quite a few questions from the floor.

Policy is what governments do – directly or through agents – this in order to benefit their own citizens. When talking at the global level we have to look at the word – agents – in order to find a way to go around the Sovereignty problem. The Public aspect must involve information, fairness and equality.
The domestic examples are the Public Goods – clean water, electricity, telephone service, education, basic medical care.

Dr. Sundaram reminded us that the San Francisco Conference in 1944, when it started, there was no international organization and Churchill would have preferred a set of bi-lateral agreements. It was Roosevelt who wanted something new and better then the League of Nations. In 1945 with the outcome, the league of Nation was declared dead and multilateralism was born. Then the Marshall plan and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development made allowance for the learning experience why the post WWI experience led to an immediate new resort to war. So – I guess – if you do not want troubles to hit your own citizens, you are wise to help the other side solve its problems also.

From here Dr. Sundaram moved to climate change and mentioned that there were two propositions – one that there be a market for carbon emissions but the Financial Times and the Economist saw immediately that it will not work, and the other – a Global Taxation – but that comes with a huge problem – the increase of the cost of energy. Both suggestions did not as such extend the solution to the need for development. His suggestion is “front loading” – that is pushing now for huge investments – expenditures. If poor countries cannot afford this it is also not good. What he sees is the creation of a Renewable Energy Infrastructure to be created by this Global Development effort.

He sees the current crisis as the chance to kill three birds in one. The current crisis was fueled with cheap credit and we have a tremendous overcapacity and thus no interest in private investment. This is the economic crisis. To get out of this through public spending, do it in one move by developing renewable energy and tackling thus all three problems in one move – the climate change issue – the development issue and the current economic problem.

When the Q&A time came I said that this panel was at the most opportune time as right these days, when the leaders of the UN recognized defeat of their attempt to bring to Copenhagen a Global agreement for all Nations to “seal,” now the talk is to save the event by creating simply a compilation of promises from the individual nations. Dr. Sundaram said that having such compilations is actually a positive element because this compilation can then be used to come up later with a clear agreement, but in this case he is not happy with the outcome – this because it will set a lower bar  to what we already had before. He elaborated about the 450 ppm and the 2 degree warming we had accepted  earlier, and that we know now that those figures are too high – we should go to 350 and 1.5 degrees instead – but we will not find these figures in the compilation and at best the older figures will be kept in the statements. Further, we have now positive changes in the governments of the US, Japan, and Australia, and it seemed possible to go for more then just this compilation. In fact, climate change in the US fell behind the attempt to have a health care program and will be delayed further because of the reorganization of financial regulation that will also get preference.

To another question – “who is the global public?” Prof. Hurrell said that there was the idea of G2 but it creates structural problems. He does not believe in top-down. he rather believes in changing elites among Nations and inside the Nations – with India, China, and Brazil, and their elites will be taken on board. If there is political redistribution it will be in the direction of the emerging powers and their elites. This might open up some normative goals in areas of change. First change will be in Western dominance. The political pressure will be of who speaks to the south? Intellectually, Institutionally, Economically – this is indeed a moment of change.

Asked about Human Rights, Prof. Pogge pointed at the fact that now the poor countries that gain from development polarize internally and this is not a solution for the population at large. The present crisis was for the rich – so there is a chance to create a more unified set of rules. The needs are a policy range of 25 years rather then the 2-3 years that politicians take now as the range of their personal goals.

He also said that Carbon Tax is more solid then the Tobin Tax. People will drive less and save energy – you can then put the money in climate change projects or help on imports. If it causes the poor to have to pay more for energy – let them pay the higher prices and return to them the money in a different way.

————

As my reporting conveys, I was enthusiastic about above UNU event, but my daily amount of good feeling ended of sorts when I discovered in that UN basement that an event in the UN basement that was billed, by an entity that calls itself NGO Sustainability, as a meeting with the Ambassador from Kazakhstan, turned out to be actually an event with old Shell Oil Co.

The speaker was Elizabeth “Libby” Cheney, Vice President – Corporate Support of Shell Exploration & Production – to those that might be inclined to ask – she said that she is not related to that other Vice President Cheney.
The star was Ambassador Mrs. Byrganym Altimova who said a few good words about her country – focusing mainly on its natural resources – and left then in her seat another gentleman from her mission. Pity that the Ambassador, a woman, did not mention that, coincidentally, the same day, another Kazakhstan woman became chair for 3 years of the Asia-Pacific Environmental Journaists’ Association hedquartered in Colombo, Sri Lanka (see our posting).

The Shell Oil presentation was well garnished with flowers – oil, gas, LNG, H2 and other renewables. The list included Natural Gas and this was explained as the bridge fuel that emits less CO2. Nothing wrong with that we also contended years ago that NG should be allowed as a bridge fuel – but we said bridge from petroleum to renewable biogas. Those days Shell Oil like all other oil companies wanted no part of this – now they do – but I still did not hear the word biogas.

Further, I heard windmills – though we learned that after they connected 450,000 homes to Wind Mill Power, they stopped increasing the business and are rethinking the project – that is because they look for newer technology. Someone from the audience suggested that the subsidies ended and the effort was because of the harvesting of the subsidies. H2 is actually under study, but luckily nuclear is not. For reasons unclear neither geothermal nor wave power or any other ocean technology is under consideration – several people gasped and asked why does a company that is specialist in drilling holes under water not look into what would come natural to them?

We were shown that the company developed a 3A – AAA – triangle that stands for: AVAILABLE, ACCESSIBLE, ACCEPTABLE – this for its building-reserves system. The other stuff is for the development of an “alternative business.”

Biofuels – read ethanol – came in as a natural she said. But my memory tells me that just 25 years ago they did not want part of ethanol in their tank – this at the time that people were saying that ethanol was the best octane enhancer to unleaded gasoline. So, thanks to the public opinion in the UK,  the mother company did actually change religion and the US daughter company was clever at grabbing the local subsidies for US corn ethanol.
Today Shell Oil has relationships with universities and the IOGEN company, to study cellulose ethanol. That subject is under study for 30 years to my knowledge but nothing serious is yet on the market – just many PhDs were obtained working on this. We sure believe that it will be done someday – but we know it will be done by an IPO working on it in high secret – then sold to the Chinese for development.

The company has also some contacts of making oil from sea algae that grow very fast – they also know with catalysis to make gasoline-like liquids directly from cellulose.

The old rigs – that is also a treasure to be used environmentally – they are now the base for rebuilding coral reefs in areas destroyed by many causes – not just oil drilling.

To who cannot guess – actually we think that Shell and BP (the other oil company with strong US presence and that is UK headquartered) are our favorites among the oil companies – so we appreciate the fact that Roma Y. Stibravy saw to it that they get a UN hearing. In fact, it was a past CEO of Royal Dutch – Shell Oil Co. that was instrumental in organizing the UN Global Compact, that under UNSG Kofi Annan was formed to bring big corporations into social and environmental  workings of the UN. Our website did follow their activities with positive interest – we even found some genuine feelings on part of the Shell group even though the effort was clearly promoted by plain Public Relations goals.

After some softballs, came also good questions from the three journalists present. Matthew Russell Lee from Inner City Press had to know what Shell did in Nigeria and drove the lady to say that she did not do it. Others wanted to know about “Peak Oil” as she was all roses about production at least to the end of the century. I felt I had to remind her that King Hubbert was the science head of Shell Oil and he was the one to invent the Peak Oil concept. He was fired, and I wanted to know if today someone would say something different from what she presented – he would be fired also? The third journalist present was from the ABC network. Present was also a group of graduate students in International Affairs from Columbia Universlty – clad in black – like future US diplomats. They also asked questions.

OK, Shell has now “Sustainability Integrators” to learn from the Niger Delta experience. Aha! people in Niger are criminals & terrorists – People in Nigeria are family to us – those are the employees of Shell. We had to shut down production. Matthew wanted to know about local opposition and was told that if it is not Shell it is the government.

Next Question – What is Shell going to do in the Polar bears area of Alaska?

———- Forwarded message ———-

OSI-New York, 400 West 59 Street, New York City, is the main headquarters of the Open Society Institute founded by financier George Soros.  Along with OSI-Budapest, it provides administrative, financial, and technical support to the Soros foundations and also operates OSI initiatives, which address specific issues on a regional or network-wide basis, and other independent programs. OSI-New York is also the home of a series of initiatives that focus primarily on the United States.

OSI-New York is now considering the establishment of an initiative that deals with aspects of Global Climate Change. in this regard, July 22, 2009, it arranged for a panel and webcast to discuss – “The Adaptation Imperative—Food Security and Climate Change.” It was chaired by  Ross Gelbspan, a former editor and reporter at the Boston Globe and the Washington Post, author of two acclaimed books on climate change: “The Heat is On” (1997) and “Boiling Point” (2004) and is working now on his third book .  The participants were: Mark Hertsgaard a journalist covering the environment for the Nation and an Open Society fellow, and Sara Scherr who serves on the United Nations Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger and is founder of Ecoagriculture Partners.

It was announced that they will discuss the implications of – the somber reality that scientists calculate that temperatures will keep rising for the next 50 years, no matter how drastically we cut greenhouse gas emissions – for food production and global hunger – in a nutshell – “the implications of climate change for food production and global hunger” – this being clearly related to the main topics that OSI deals with – human rights and democracy – including the emerging and not-yet-emerging poor countries of the world.

The panelists were supposed to “assess the severity of the problem, which is worsened by widespread soil erosion and dwindling rainfall in crop-growing regions. But they will also identify cause for hope. New farming techniques can boost crop yields while enabling plants to store carbon.” I had the feeling that the above is just the needed dry test run for the preparation of fodder for the creation of the new OSI initiative.

As we would like to hope that a new George Soros Initiative that fords the political waters of climate change will be a big deal indeed – I will start here by going over material from the Soros Foundations Network Report 2008.

George Soros began supporting efforts to promote an open society back in 1978 and five years later established the foundation in Hungary which signaled the start of his network that operates now in all parts of the globe. Today, the President of his New York headquarters is famous human rights advocate Aryeh Neier.

The Foundations have offices in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Nairobi for East Africa, Estonia, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Johannesburg for Southern Africa, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Dakar for Western Africa, then further US based offices that deal with Latin America and the Caribbean; Af-Pak, Turkmenistan, Middle East and North Africa; Albania, Bulgaria, Czech and Slovak Republics, Moldova and Rumania; the Caucasus, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan; The States that resulted from the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, the Baltics, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine; Turkey; Burma/South East Asia. The total expenditures of the network was in 2008 over $540 million.

With above scope before us – so what was discussed last night?

In his introduction, Ross Gelbspan made it clear that the Global Climate Change topic has not made it yet through the Global Press – and by saying so he clearly got my vote unconditionally.

He also said that the authoritarian governments that disregard human rights also do little on climate change. Their people suffer and there is no respite. A properly constructed program on this subject could help create important dynamics. Most important – RENEWABLE ENERGY COULD DRIVE GLOBAL ECONOMY.

The importance is global – just look at what Secretary of Energy Prof. Steven Chu has said – “while we talk about Africa we also talk about California.” We have already a major agricultural collapse in California.

Sara Scherr moved to food security in West Africa. Very large areas in Africa will get drier and much higher temperatures. Even in those countries that get cooler, or get more water – there will be problems. There will be floods and diseases that did not exist earlier. There will be a need for change so there will not be gains as some were saying earlier. In short – even when one sees weather improvements this will not translate as desirable. There will be environmental refugees.

GHG – over 30% come from the agricultural sector. Most of the forest emissions come from drivers in agriculture. There will be adaptation issues and there will be talk of irrigation issues.

Mark Hertsgaard added that so far we focused on energy and overlooked agriculture. WHERE DO YOU GET MEAT IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE CAR! he said. How do we eat? On the mitigation side – agriculture is an important tool.

One must get a way to pull the carbon out of the atmosphere he said. Changing the agricultural system we might start turning the clock back in so far as CO2 in the atmosphere. The pressure is to get agriculture high on the Copenhagen agenda he said.

Mark traveled through India and saw that in the last 20-30 years there were large changes in agriculture – they got used to grow trees in the middle of the field. Here it becomes a topic of democracy and human rights as in authoritarian regimes the trees belong to the government – so why grow trees? It is only when the farmer gets acknowledged his property rights that there is interest in those trees. Interesting in this respect to look at the Niger?Nigeria border from the air. You see trees in Niger but not in Nigeria and this is plain demonstration of the larger acceptance of property rights in the more democratic Niger as compared to the authoritarian Nigeria.

At Q&A time questions came about US agriculture and the cap and trade program for dealing with climate change. Is there real advantage in the way how emission permits will be distributed – what about additionality in the agricultural sector, what about the fossil fuels used by agriculture …and we got away from the original issue of Africa. There was talk of monocultures but there was no talk of self sustaining agriculture and what foreign aid in kind does to destroy local potential in agriculture. Can the small local farmer break into the market if there is this unfair competition?

Indeed Ross spoke of the impact the press has by NOT bringing out the full facts of climate change, but then I felt that the speakers still thought that the UN is of help in these matters. I believe that it will take a George Soros push in order to level with a UN that for years did not allow the dissemination of the facts that the Darfur killings started because of the impact of climate change on the environment.

Human rights do not exist when the land cannot support all its children. Here we have security problems, and built in future genocides. These are the kind of issues that must be put on the table, as former UK government did when it brought up the issues to the forefront at the UN Security Council in 2007 and finally broke the UN leadership taboos in this respect. The UN Department of Public Information still had difficulty reporting on African leaders talking about climate change, and they were even slow in disseminating positions that were taken by some on the UN task forces. They were not alone in this. Some known accredited journalists still wanted just figures of how many corpses were found in the killings , but had no interest in why those things happen – do not waste our precious time they said – and it is amazing which self inflated correspondents said this.

NOW – HERE WE HAVE REAL MEAT FOR OSI – AND WE HOPE THAT THE BUDDING INITIATIVE WILL TRY TO PUSH GOVERNMENTS TO SUGGEST POSITIVE MOVES, FOR THEIR REAL ADVANTAGE, EVEN WHEN BUSINESS ATTITUDES MIGHT SUGGEST THAT THEIR INTEREST IS NOT TO ROCK THE BOAT. Could i.e. an OSI work with China to help Sudan avoid internal strife while still pandering for its oil?

————————

Regarding the planting of trees on farmlands – by coincidence we got now also the following:

UNEP NEWS

Trees on Farms Key to Climate and Food-Secure Future; Experts Call for Worldwide Adoption of Sustainable Farming Practices by 2030 ahead of Major International Agroforestry Congress, Nairobi, Kenya, 24 July 2009.

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are calling for the widespread uptake of ‘green’ agricultural practices that will deliver multiple benefits to the world’s rapidly growing populations – from combating climate change and eradicating poverty to boosting food production and providing sustainable sources of timber.

The call was made at the launch of the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry, which will be held in Nairobi from 23-28 August 2009.

Agriculture, deforestation and other forms of land use account for nearly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. With just a few months to go until the crucial UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, agricultural and environmental experts agree that all forms of land use should be included in a post-Kyoto climate regime.

According to a UNEP report, the agricultural sector could be largely carbon neutral by 2030 and produce enough food for a population estimated to grow to nine billion by 2050, if proven methods aimed at reducing emissions from agriculture were widely adopted today. Key among these methods are agroforestry, reduced cultivation of the soil, and the use of natural nutrients such as fertilizer trees.

A study by World Agroforestry Centre scientists, for example, on fertilizer trees that capture nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil indicates that their use can reduce the need for commercial nitrogen fertilizers by up to 75 per cent while doubling or tripling crop yields. “These results should make agroforestry appealing to farmers” noted Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre and Co-Chair of the Congress Global Organizing Committee.

UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: “Addressing the range of current and future challenges – from the food, fuel and economic crises to the climate change and natural resource scarcity ones – requires an accelerated transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy for the 21st century. Farming will be either part of the problem or a big part of the solution. The choice is straight forward: continuing to mine and degrade productive land and the planet’s multi-trillion dollar ecosystems or widely adopting creative and climate-friendly management systems of which agroforestry is fast emerging as a key shining example.”

“If implemented over the next fifty years, agroforestry could result in 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere, about a third of the world’s total carbon reduction challenge,” Dr Garrity said.

Researchers suggest that integrating agroforestry in farming systems on a massive scale would create a vital carbon bank. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates no less than a billion hectares of developing country farmland is suitable for conversion to carbon agroforestry projects.

“Nations must seal the deal on a comprehensive and scientifically-credible new climate agreement in Copenhagen – there is a lot at stake, not least the future of agriculture and farmers’ livelihoods. One key step will be for nations to agree to a scheme for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) which will pave the way for preserving forests and other key ecosystems, as well as closing the gap in global demand for sustainable timber by shifting production from forest to farm,” Mr. Steiner stated.

According to a UNEP report released in June, the farm sector has the largest readily achievable gains in carbon storage, if best management practices were widely adopted. Up to 6 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 equivalent, or up to 2 Gt of carbon, could be sequestered each year by 2030, which is comparable to the current emissions from agriculture. Many of the agricultural practices that store more carbon can be implemented at little or no cost. The majority of this potential – 70 per cent – can be realized in developing countries.

While farmers in developing countries are one of the world’s largest, most efficient producers of sequestered carbon, to date it has not been possible to calculate or verify how much they are removing from the atmosphere. The World Agroforestry Centre and UNEP are partners in a project that promises to provide the basis for widespread adoption of agroforestry and other sustainable forms of agriculture.

The Carbon Benefits Project, launched in May 2009, is developing a standard and reliable method for accurately measuring, monitoring, reporting, and projecting how much carbon each kind of land use is storing. This global project makes use of the latest remote sensing technology and analysis, soil carbon modeling, ground-based measurements, and statistical analysis.

Garrity noted that if nations agree to a scheme for REDD in Copenhagen, the work of the Carbon Benefits Project will provide a more credible basis for smallholders to receive payments for conserving forests, practicing conservation agriculture and increasing tree cover on their farms that sequesters carbon.

“Saving carbon is not a priority for smallholder farmers. But, supporting them to expand their agroforestry systems provides income generation and service benefits to farmers that also have the co-benefit of sequestering carbon” Garrity said. “For example, by using fertilizer trees and other conservation agriculture techniques, farmers have increased their maize yields from an average of 1 tonne per hectare to 3 or even 4 tonnes per hectare while greatly improving exhausted soils. Food security is enhanced while farmers’ production systems become better adapted to climate change.”

Garrity also cited an agroforestry project underway in Malawi, where smallholder farmers are being supported with knowledge about how to plant trees for fertilizer, fruit and fuelwood benefits. The addition of fuelwood and fruit trees on these farms releases women from having to take timber from the forest, and their children are receiving more vitamins and minerals in their diet.

The theme of the Congress is Agroforestry – the future of global land use. It will assess opportunities to leverage scientific agroforestry in promoting sustainable land use worldwide. Over 1,000 researchers, practitioners, farmers, and policy makers from all corners of the globe are expected to attend, including Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and renowned environmental activist, and M. S. Swaminathan, World Food Prize laureate and “Father of the Green Revolution in India”.

Tree geneticists will explain successful processes for domesticating tree species such as rubber, coffee and indigenous fruits. Economists will present findings of studies on value-adding and improving access to markets. And soil scientists will debate the best tree-based systems for reversing land degradation.

2nd World Congress of Agroforestry website www.worldagroforestry.org

The World Agroforestry Centre, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is the world’s leading research institution on the diverse role trees play in agricultural landscapes and rural livelihoods. As part of its work to bring tree-based solutions to bear on poverty and environmental problems, centre researchers – working in close collaboration with national partners – have developed new technologies, tools and policy recommendations for increased food security and ecosystem health. www.worldagroforestry.org

For more information please contact:

For more information on the 2nd World Congress of Agrofrestry, see http://www.worldagroforestry.org/wca2009…
For more information on UNEP’s work in ecosystem management, see http://www.unep.org/ecosystemmanagement/

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and from NPR:

CLIMATE CONNECTIONS: SOLUTIONS
Niger’s Trees May Be Insurance Against Drought.

by Richard Harris

In response to droughts and threatening sand dunes, Niger villagers have grown trees with the help of international aid. Farmers are encouraged to scatter the trees throughout the land in order to grow crops on the same plot.  Although farmers normally prune the limbs only, some farmers clear the land for profit.

All Things Considered, NPR, July 2, 2007.

Scientists studying vegetation patterns in the broad, arid region just south of the Sahara desert have discovered that trees are growing like crazy there. And while it’s a big unknown whether global warming will bring further drought to this impoverished region, these trees will be one of the things that help people in countries like Niger cope.

A huge chunk of Niger is Sahara desert, and what’s not outright desert gets just a smattering of rain. You don’t expect to see a lot of trees in this land-locked, West African country.

But that’s exactly what ecologist Mahamane Larwanou and geographer Gray Tappan see when they roll out a satellite photo of central Niger. Both are passionate about understanding why trees are making a big comeback in many parts of Niger .

In Niger, trees aren’t just aesthetic. They are essential. Ninety percent of the nation’s energy comes in the form of firewood. Trees also feed animals, nourish the soil, provide wood for construction, and bear fruit and lucrative products, like gum Arabic. And unlike most crops, trees can survive the inevitable hard times when the climate suddenly turns even drier and more hostile.

So to get a closer look at the hopeful trend in tree growth, Larwanou and Tappan pack up a couple of four-wheel-drive trucks with gear, food and helpers and head east out of the capital city. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is funding a study to monitor tree growth in Niger, part of which involves a two-week road trip by Larwanou and Tappan.

As we wind through broad agricultural areas and across rocky plateaus, it’s the same thing everywhere: acacia trees, gum Arabic, ebony, tamarind. As we cross a plateau, Larwanou marvels that there’s actually greenery dotted around us.

“Before, this was an unproductive area,” he says. “There was not a single tree, only stones.”

We descend off the plateaus and make our way into the town of Adouna .

Larwanou and Tappan stop on the outskirts of town to measure the trees and figure out how much wood they’re producing.

“If we know the amount of wood that is being produced, we can figure out a sustainable rate of harvest of the wood for firewood,” Tappan says.

First they set up their study plot. Then, they measure the height and width of each tree and bush. Eventually, they will be able to extrapolate these readings to measure tree growth over an area of Niger the size of West Virginia. That’s a lot of wood.

Tappan works for SAIC, a contractor that helps the U.S. Geological Survey run a remote sensing center in South Dakota. He’s precise and a bit reserved, especially in contrast to Larwanou, who is everybody’s instant friend. Larwanou’s face is adorned with tribal markings that look like whiskers.

That gregarious quality serves Larwanou well, because the researchers don’t just want to measure tree growth. They want to understand what people are doing to encourage trees. And to do that, Larwanou talks to the locals.

We wander up a slope overlooking the study plot to talk to three women who have been looking down on us and laughing at the strange activity they see. The women are chopping up a branch that had been lopped off the tree. First, goats and sheep had a chance to eat the leaves. Now the women are taking the rest for firewood.

The first thing we learn is that these trees aren’t all that old. Oomah, the oldest woman, tell us that, long ago, this area was dotted with trees. But during the early 1970s, there was a horrible drought throughout this region of West Africa and people used the trees to survive.

“People suffered in a way that cannot be described. People were displaced by that crazy drought. Those who dared to stay, cut down the trees and took them to the markets to sell,” Oomah says. “That was their only way to get food.”

Even so, the drought killed hundreds of thousands of people throughout Niger and other parts of West Africa .

Gray Tappan picks up the story from there.

“When the people were hit by a second drought within their living memory,” he says, “they realized that they have to consider other options to survive the next drought. Everybody knows that drought is a natural part of this environment here. It is only a matter of time before we see another drought.”

Aid groups from Europe and the United States knew that trees could help people adapt during the bad years. So they planted trees extensively starting in the 1980s. This explains part of the story.

The government of Niger also changed its policies and let local people take ownership of the trees. And that has encouraged farmers to let the trees grow. These days, they prune them for wood rather than chopping them down altogether.

A European aid group volunteered to plant trees to stabilize the dunes — so long as the town’s people built fences to keep the trees safe from the camels, donkeys, sheep and goats. Today, the people in Adouna say those trees saved the village.

The stories vary from one village to the next, but Tappan says the result is the same: Large swaths of Niger are getting greener.

“As we go from village to village, what we are hearing from farmers is they consider themselves better off today than they were 20 years ago. We see less and less migration of youth to cities,” Tappan says. “Youth stay because they can actually make a living on the land today.”

Trees here are really another crop. Farmers generally encourage them to grow scattered throughout their land, so there’s still enough space and light to grow grains on the same plot. But Tappan and Larwanou have also noticed a few curious places in the aerial imagery where trees are growing back much more densely.

“This is literally a forest — there was nothing there in 1975,” Tappan says, looking at the photos. “It is the densest stand of vegetation we have anywhere near this village area.”

So we pile back into the trucks, pass some nomads who are riding camels, and head out — slowly — across deeply- rutted fields.

Across the river, the scene is not at all what Tappan and Larwanou expected. The farmer who owns this land has recently chopped down most of his trees.

“This was all forest a year and a half ago, and now look at all of the stumps. They cut everything,” Larwanou says. “They burned the soil to avoid sprouting. I am highly disappointed. I am an ecologist, and I would like to see everything green. But the farmer has to eat.”

He not only needs to eat, he needs to make his land produce more and more food every single year. That’s because the population here is growing at an astounding pace, doubling every 20 years.

These circumstances are difficult, but Larwanou sees an alternative to poverty’s destructive effects on Niger’s trees. In today’s global carbon marketplace, Niger could receive credit for trees that are soaking up the carbon dioxide produced by rich countries.

The World Bank is already funding a few tree plantations in Niger, so the country can earn cash for taking carbon out of the atmosphere. It is hard to see how individual subsistence farmers could benefit from this exchange. But if Larwanou can find a way for all to reap the benefits, that would be yet another reason for the people in Niger to let their trees grow tall.

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So, we learn that there is a multipurpose for planting tres on African farmland – perhaps not all of this is what we would like to hear. We assume that a Soros Foundation Initiative would look at how to help the locals feed themselves first – this before they fall into a new trap of what is good for the people from affar. We say this even though we are clearly in the corner of the climate change fighting world brigade, but doing another rffort on the back of Africas marginal people is not our thing.

Ghana glows in spotlight of Obama visit.

 Unlike its neighbors, Ghana has a stable democratic system and has made significant economic gains, including halving the poverty rate. It is the only sub-Saharan stop in President Obama’s trip this week, a choice that analysts say acknowledges its democratic and economic gains.
By Robyn Dixon , July 10, 2009 Reporting from Accra, Ghana for the Los Angeles Times.

The White House’s choice of Ghana as President Obama’s only port of call in sub-Saharan Africa this week has triggered envy across the continent.

The visit, his first to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming president, is also being interpreted as a snub to those African governments with records of corruption, poor administration and tainted elections.

“It makes sense that Obama would want to go to Ghana. Because Ghana is everything we are not,” wrote journalist Ayisha Osori in the Nigerian daily This Day.

“Ghana is a shiny example of a West African country which has turned itself around and is doing well.”

Was Ghana chosen because it has slashed its poverty rate nearly in half? Or for its successive democratic changes of government without a shot being fired? Or perhaps its yet-to-be exploited oil in a region where petroleum riches have encouraged the rise of corrupt, venal elites?

“It’s a little bit of recognition of Ghana’s progress in democratic growth, peaceful electoral turnover, especially in a region otherwise full of reversals and disappointments,” said E. Gyimah-Boadi, head of the Accra-based Center for Democratic Development.

Politically stable, Ghana stands out in a chaotic neighborhood. Nigeria, the regional oil power, has been hit by frequent militant attacks, pipeline explosions and kidnappings. Kenya, the homeland of Obama’s late father, was rocked by violence after a disputed presidential election in 2007; more than 1,000 people were killed.

Ghana, with a population of 23.8 million, has become a regional leader since its transition from military rule to a multiparty democracy in the early 1990s.

Its democratic advance contrasts with a history of coups and disputed elections elsewhere in Africa.

“People are coming to understand what democracy is,” said Emmanuel Akli, editor of the independent Chronicle newspaper.

“We are in a volatile region, and it’s only Ghana that is really practicing democracy,” Akli said. “It’s the only country which has changed government twice without a single incident.”

Ghana’s economic growth has averaged more than 5% since 2001, according to World Bank statistics, although the country has been hit hard recently by the global recession. Its poverty rate has been halved to 28% in 2006 from 52% in 1992, according to the World Bank.

Gyimah-Boadi argues that Ghana’s democratic reforms and poverty reduction go hand in hand. Its democracy also may have helped put a brake on corruption: Successive incoming governments have been quick to expose the misdemeanors of the previous regime. Critics, however, say these prosecutions are often political, and that a culture of transparency hasn’t really taken root.

There are other flaws. Ghana ranks No. 135 among 177 countries on the United Nations human development index, a comprehensive measurement of quality of life. Analysts say the collapse of remittances and exports because of the global economic crunch could reverse the country’s progress.

Some analysts fear that revenue from Ghana’s oil reserves could spawn the kind of corrupt elite seen in neighboring countries, potentially squandering years of democratic gains. They argue that the true test of Ghana’s democracy lies ahead.

The global crunch has already hit Ghana’s job creation plan. More than 300,000 jobs were created in the last three years, according to the government.

Accra, the capital, is full of people such as Abu Ayoma, 42, a father of three. He came to the city a decade ago looking for work and ended up as a laborer, carrying heavy loads. Three years ago, he began work for Zoomlion, a private waste management firm contracted by the government.

As part of the National Youth Employment Program, Zoomlion hires and trains jobless people. The government pays the workers allowances.

“It’s better than going to steal,” Abu Ayoma said, pausing as he shoveled dirt into a dumpster at a busy market. “I don’t have any alternative to live on.”

Accra’s canals are green and grassy, with neat “Do Not Litter” signs posted by Zoomlion.

“People respect us. They always congratulate us on what we are doing. We clean up Ghana, so it’s good for the people,” Abu Ayoma said.

The National Youth Employment Program also trains unemployed people to patrol neighborhoods at night, direct traffic, or work as community nurses or teachers. They may also serve in the military, customs or in prisons.

“These programs do a tremendous amount in terms of poverty reduction. You have young people meaningfully engaged in work, young people who were doing nothing,” said Seibik Bugri, a spokesman for the program.

These days, though the jobs program is in arrears, with payments running six weeks late.

“That’s our biggest challenge — how to fund it,” Bugri said. “Even before the credit crunch, it was a problem, so now it’s getting worse. We are dependent on the government, so we are always in arrears.”

With the country aglow about playing host to Obama, Gyimah-Boadi fears the visit could make the people of Ghana complacent. He is afraid Ghana could face democratic setbacks — particularly when the oil money begins to flow.

“There’s a sense we should not be too hard on ourselves in terms of how we handle these new [oil] resources,” he said. “That is where the danger lies.”

Transparency is still weak, checks and balances ineffective, news media independence isn’t well established and power is too centralized, he said.

“It would be good if the [Obama] visit was used to encourage the incumbent administration and opposition to appreciate that they’re carrying a responsibility for themselves, for Ghana and for Africa,” Gyimah-Boadi said.

 robyn.dixon at latimes.com

Some interesting information for President Obama before he hits this week Ghana. Here some further reasons why he chose to avoid some of the other West African countries.
Whatever, the question is now how far can he go if he decides to speak truth to their closed ears.

President Obama will this week become the first African American President to make an official visit to an African country.

The most interesting fact is that he does not go to South Africa or Nigeria – the two countries that compete for the unofficial title of leaders of black Africa. President Obama decided to go to the oil producing belt of West Africa, and this cut out South Africa;   then he chose the unassuming Ghana, rather then the feisty Nigeria – the most populous black state and important partner of the US in oil trade.

Why? What does he teach in this visit?

Nigeria is a corrupt state to its bone. Even its son, the Nobel Price winning Wole Soyinka said that neglecting Nigeria was just the right medicine that Nigeria needed. He continued then with the shocking statement: “I’d ‘stone’ Obama if he showed up in Nigeria and conferred legitimacy on its sorry government.”

Ghana on the other hand, a much smaller West African nation, as of now with little US trade, did hold fair multiparty democratic elections since 1992, and   has a history of incumbents stepping down once they reach their term limits.

Ghana is a beacon of hope to Africa and has produced the only two-terms African UN Secretary-General, Koffi Annan, who we hope will be at hand when President Obama arrives for a day at the end of this week.

Yes, we know, it is rumored that the US is interested in Ghana also as it is the newest arrival to the West Coast Oil-belt, and with China making inroads in the region, the US might be interested to establish here a military base as well as an oil trade relationship.

But even so, this US President showed preference for clean government if this is at all possible.

Africa watch and learn!

The US Chamber of Commerce has commissioned from Baird’s Communications Management Consultants (Baird’s CMC) in partnership with the Africa Business Initiative, an “inside-the-boardroom survey of attitudes toward corporate investment in Africa among leading U.S. corporations.” The information was gathered between January and November 2008 in a series of closed door interviews with senior officers of 30 American Fortune 100 corporations.

The report can be found at:   http://www.usafricainvestment.com

Among the conclusions I found:

“USA Inc. is more interested in Africa than before, because the African market appears increasingly attractive, but Africa has tough competition and high hurdles for US investment. Education is at the top of the US corporate wish list for Africa; ‘educate your people so that we can employ them.’

The African countries that hold most interest are South Africa and some countries in the North, like Egypt; there are also some pockets of interest in West Africa, most notably Ghana, Nigeria and to some extent Angola; while some in the South (Botswana and Mozambique) and East (Uganda and Kenya), are also being watched.”

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The report is in two parts:

Part One: Understand how US corporations view Africa as an investment destination and what their requirements are for investing in Africa on the same scale as their investments in the rest of the developing world.

Part Two: The response of African political and government leaders to these private sector views will be telling; what is the conversation about FDI behind government’s closed doors, when policy is made?

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Why has Africa not attracted more interest from the U.S. business community?

Rule of law – The rule of law does not prevail to the degree required to make Africa an attractive investment destination. This applies to corporate, societal, and criminal law

Attraction — While the enormous natural resources are an attraction, Africa does not offer a sufficiently large middle class of consumers or show consistent economic growth that could promise a future market. Most African countries are small and have poor markets, and there are barriers to regional markets–such as taxes and the freedom of movement of people and goods

Risks versus rewards– Given the currently perceived risks in Africa, the rewards have to be very high to make it worthwhile to invest. Presently, U.S. corporations say that there are very few visible promises of future returns high enough to justify significant interest in investing

Supportive business framework–Transportation and communications infrastructure, trained or trainable human resources, and equitable trade and employment practices are insufficient to support corporate investment

A welcoming environment– African countries are not doing a sufficient job of providing education and health services to the potential workforce, which makes the potential hire-able local insufficient to support investment.

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From the www.SustainabiliTank.info   angle we found the most important comment to be:  

“Africa may want to consider the benefits of encouraging US Corporations whose stated desire is to employ Africans, unlike others who merely exploit African mineral resources without contributing to local employment. Africa may also benefit in the long term from the US approach of skills transfer and technology development, provided that its intellectual property is protected.” This obviously requires African leaders to help educate their people which might then also lead to the obvious requirement to allow in new spirits such as more democratic stiles of government and distribution of wealth produced from this more intimate interaction with the outside world and we hope that this can be agreed upon for a true benefit of Africa.

If this study could open African eyes to such potentialities, then the study might indeed provide the positive basis for moving Africa away from the present dead point where the export of commodities such as oil, minerals, and diamonds, are the one way connections that masquerades as business relations between African governments and US corporations. On the other hand, the US public will have to allow also the opening of the US market to goods manufactured in Africa.All of this while US corporations become also investors in the creation of a more developed African internal market.

The report was brought to our attention by   Fabiane Dal-Ri   –  fabianedalri at usafricainvestment.com