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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 30th, 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/lebanon/7916925/Lebanon-facing-crisis-if-Hizbollah-charged-over-political-murder.htmlLebanon facing crisis if Hizbollah charged over political murder. Lebanon could be pitched into crisis if a tribunal set up to investigate the murder of the former prime minister, Rafik Harari, recommends charging Hizbollah members.by Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent 
Rafik Harari, pictured, Photo: AP
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a massive blast on Beirut’s Corniche in 2005. Photo: AP
– Indications that the international tribunal investigating the massive car bomb that killed the veteran Lebanese leader would indict Hizbollah operatives has drawn a furious reaction from the leadership of the Iranian-backed terrorist group. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, raised the threat of withdrawal from the national unity government as it fought the tribunal, which he condemned as an “Israeli project”. Related Articles:
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 30th, 2010 http://www.unelections.org/?q=node/2054 http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/29/so… UN needs a chief who can manage.By Michael Soussan, Special to CNN.comJuly 29, 2010
Editor’s note: Michael Soussan, a former Program Coordinator for the UN “oil-for-food” operations, resigned from the organization in 2000. His memoir “Backstabbing for Beginners” (Nation Books, 2008) will be adapted to film by award-winning Danish Director Per Fly. STORY HIGHLIGHTS
New York (CNN) – The recently leaked memo from departing chief United Nations corruption investigator, Inga-Britt Ahlenius, to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will make it impossible for the White House to support the UN chief’s candidacy for a second four-year term next year. That is, unless the Obama administration itself was only joking when it promised to push for greater transparency and accountability at the United Nations. In a 50-page “end-of-mission” report, the widely respected former auditor of Sweden — who was originally brought in to help the UN fix the spectacular accountability gap exposed during the excruciatingly painful “oil-for-food” scandal — paints a detailed, well-documented tableau of Ban’s managerial incompetence. In a spectacular break from tradition, Ahlenius did what few senior diplomats ever dare to do: She spoke truth to power. In her report, Ahlenius documents Ban Ki-moon’s repeated efforts to undermine his own senior officials, including her own office of internal oversight, by stemming the flow of information, interfering in the appointment of staff, or worse, failing to appoint people to senior management positions altogether. Critical leadership posts were left vacant for as long as possible, thereby strengthening Ban’s power over the bureaucracy. The UN Secretariat, she concludes, is “in a process of decay … falling apart … and drifting into irrelevance.” It may be that many member states do not actually want the UN to get in the way of their realpolitik. But when it comes to standing for the principles of its charter in difficult, often dangerous mission areas, the UN cannot succeed unless its staff are led and supported by a better-managed Secretariat in New York. As it happens, even their very physical security did not appear to be a priority for the Ban Ki-moon administration. It failed to appoint another Under Secretary-General for Safety and Security for a full 11 months after accepting the resignation of David Veness, in June 2008, following the deadly bombing of the UN’s Algeria headquarters. Ban’s failures to perform his duties as the UN’s chief administrative officer in a timely manner — the Ahlenius report describes these failures as widespread –have repercussions all the way down the line on staff security and morale. Instead of being empowered to do their job, the staff, including Ahlenius herself, end up feeling undermined by their boss. Unless Hillary Clinton and her UN ambassador, Susan Rice, are prepared to contradict Ahlenius’ assessment, they will have no choice but to withdraw America’s support for Ban’s re-election (his term expires at the end of 2011). Unfortunately for Ban’s administration, few people were better placed than its own auditor to draw such conclusions. And she is not alone in her assessment. Ahlenius has managed the rather undiplomatic feat of saying out loud what a lot of UN officials, including some at the highest levels, have been murmuring for several years. While it is not altogether unheard of for former UN bureaucrats to blow their top after they leave office, it is without doubt the first time such a senior official has done so with as much competence, and credibility, as Ahlenius. As a former employee of the UN’s “oil-for-food” operation — the organization’s fraud-ridden $64 billion humanitarian operation that saw billions of dollars diverted from needy Iraqi civilians into the pockets of Saddam Hussein and an international clique of corrupt politicians — I have learned to recognize the elements that go into making large-scale diplomatic fiascos. After I had contributed to blowing the whistle on that program in 2004, some UN officials spent more time trying to discredit my testimony than to fix the cracks in the system that led to the debacle in the first place. Not so Ms. Ahlenius. In fact, she invited me to spend an afternoon conducting a “lessons learned” discussion with her entire senior staff. Her approach was so markedly different from what I had experienced that I caught myself feeling hopeful, thereafter, about the chances of seeing real management reforms happen after all. Unfortunately, it would seem Ahlenius has become a whistleblower herself. If such a senior UN official can’t seem to communicate her concerns to her boss and is forced into the very uncomfortable position of having to speak out with such force as she did in her latest report, it is difficult to conclude that all is well at the top echelons of the world body. If Ban Ki-moon were well advised, he would not seek a second term in office. If he were earnest about pushing for UN reform, he would free himself from the pressure the member states may try to exert upon his office, officially make public those parts of Ahlenius’s report that do not affect staff security, and dedicate himself to mending the cracks in the system identified by his departing auditor. Instead, Ban left it up to his chief of staff to issue a response which, both in form and substance, does a great job of confirming Ahlenius’ criticism. In a July 19 letter to Colum Lynch of the Washington Post, who broke the story, Vijay Nambiar says that his boss “is also concerned” that critical senior managerial positions (now including that of Ahlenius) remain unfilled. The problem is, Ban’s job is not just to “be concerned.” It is to actually make appointments — or “to put butts on seats,” as one U.S. official once put it to me off the record. In this instance, Ban ignored the best advice of a 15-member independent panel and refused to appoint John Appleton, the former Connecticut attorney, to head Ahlenius’s investigation division. In the wake of the oil-for-food meltdown, Appleton had led an unprecedented exercise in accountability (so successfully, in fact, that his office was shut down in 2008). Perhaps Ban would prefer to appoint someone else who, like he, prefers to show “concern” about the challenges facing the world organization than to take them on — with deeds, not just words. For the UN’s own sake, let’s hope the leaders of the world’s democracies can do better than that when it comes to electing a new leader for the United Nations in 2011. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Michael Soussan. ————————— UN official defends secretary-general from accusationsPosted on 28 July 2010 by admin UNITED NATIONS, July 28 (Xinhua) — Angela Kane, the UN under- secretary-general for management, on Wednesday issued a rebuttal in response to attacks on Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s accountability that have emerged due to a scathing report by an outgoing internal oversight official. Kane asserted that there were “many inaccuracies, misrepresentation, and distortions” in the end-of-assignment report filed by Inga Britt-Ahlenius of Sweden, former UN under- secretary-general for the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), the group charged with carrying out internal audits of the UN and rooting out corruption in the global organization. The rebuttal statement from Kane came as the General Assembly approved Ahlenius’ replacement, Carman Lapointe-Young of Canada on Wednesday. The approval of Lapointe-Young came despite considerable objections from some member states who would have preferred a candidate from the global South. Kane firmly opposed Ahlenius’ accusations in her incendiary report that the secretary-general undermined her ability to hire her own staff at the most senior level, thus restricting the independence of the OIOS. “A formal review mechanism, established to ensure the integrity of the recruitment process, found that Ms. Ahlenius did not comply with established UN rules and policies and noted further that she failed to rectify these basic shortcomings despite repeated requests,” Kane said. The rules and policies that Ahlenius complained of in her report dictate that a female candidate must be on the shortlist for all senior level jobs at the UN in order to achieve “true gender balance” and that senior level hires are subject to a UN review mechanism. “Review mechanisms and established rules are no end in themselves but key building blocks in the system of Organizational accountability,” Kane stated. Kane pointed out that despite Ahlenius’ ability to hire lower level staff members for OIOS, Ahlenius left 76 vacant positions at this level when her term ended on July 16. Kane also refuted another claim by Ahlenius in her report that Ban attempted to create an additional investigative organization that would undermine the authority of the OIOS. “As part of his reform agenda, the secretary-general is engaging with member states on how to strengthen UN investigations, ” Kane said. However, she stressed that these efforts do not amount to a takeover of the OIOS and its functions, and that Ban supports bolstering the group’s Investigative Division for the sake of building more accountability and transparency at the UN. Lapointe-Young, who formerly served as auditor general for the World Bank, will face numerous challenges as Ahlenius’ successor. “The new chief will be expected to build up the OIOS team, filling vacancies and taking on responsibilities of the department that in recent years have unfortunately gone unmet,” Kane said. ” The staff of OIOS have been working under difficult circumstances and we are all committed to taking action that will help the Office carry out its work.” Less developed countries, such as members of the diplomatic African Group, approved Lapointe-Young’s appointment in the General Assembly but also voiced their concerns that she was the third out of four under-secretary-generals of OIOS that came from the more developed countries of the “North.” Egypt, the current chair of the African Group, criticized Ban’s hiring choice at the General Assembly on Wednesday. “This, in our view does not fulfill the principle of geographical rotation stipulated in the resolution establishing the OIOS in particular and the standing practice in the United Nations at large,” the Egyptian delegate said. “In this regard the African Group, which is underprivileged and underrepresented in the senior positions within the UN, believed to have a strong claim to that position.” Egypt asked Ban to “look into ways and means to correct the current imbalance in the near future.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 30th, 2010 The following is a year old (July 1, 2009) series of two articles by Matthew Russell Lee showing the way the UN Department, that is supposed to provide Information to the Public, does nothing more then glorify the Secretary-General. Frankly – this is the understanding the UN has of the concept of information – that is no different then in China or Egypt – but then, according to today’s article that is based on criticism from OSCE – to be fair – this is the structural problem also in France. We will undertake looking into these issues further, as the UN will release these days its final decision on who is a journalist. Will they allow for the eventuality that true journalism is entitled to criticize the UN, or they will continue on the path of obfuscation and cover-ups. ================= UN Says and Shows It Won’t Cover Stories Countries Don’t Like, Critics Targeted. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, July 1 — The UN runs its own News Service, its own Video and Radio operations. The chief of these divisions, Ahmad Fawzi, was asked on July 1 what the UN does on the story if “a country regards it as not a good story.” “We don’t do it,” Mr. Fawzi. The audience at the UN-TV showcase, mostly comprised of UN staff members, laughed. Inner City Press followed up, asking if the UN would cover news events that trigger criticism of the UN, like the slaughters in Rwanda or Srebrenica. Fawzi replied that the UN commissioned a report on the failures of its member states and peacekeeping operation in Srebrenica. He added, “Are we going to produce a video about it? I don’t know.” Inner City Press has previously interviewed Mr. Fawzi’s colleague Susan Farkas, now the head of UN TV and Radio and present at the July 1 screening, who told the Press, “I find it astonishing that you think there’s a story in the fact that we don’t investigate the UN… The UN pays us. The UN pays us to produce a program which promotes the issues that the UN cares about.” Thus, the first of the videos shown on July 1 concerned children left behind in Moldova as their parents migrate for jobs. The second concerned the genocide in Rwanda, but merely mentioned without explaining that prior to the upsurge in killing, nearly all UN personnel left. It certainly did not mention the UN Development Program staffer who used UN equipment to round up and target Tutsis to be killed. That is not the only story, but it is part of the story. And a stoytelling that is precluded from the beginning from including all pertinent facts cannot be called independent. Inner City Press asked Fawzi about the UN News Service, which churns out relentlessly pro-UN stories, ranging from Ban Ki-moon’s popularity to the UN’s successes in the Congo. Appearing to take the question to be about the UN’s press release service, Fawzi said “we cover what happens in the building [but] it is not gloss, it is not promotional, it tells what goes on in the House.” But UN News Service covers nearly every statement by UN agency, never quotes a critic or even raises a question. It is not unlike the state news agencies of some member countries. And any member state, it appears, can get a story removed from the Service. A story on Nagorno Karabakh, for example, fell under criticism and was quietly taken down. So too a story about Sri Lanka from the affiliated — but ostensibly even more independent — UN humanitarian Relief Web news service. While in the previous interview Ms. Farkas went on to ask, “Do you work for the Heritage Foundation,” on July 1 Fawzi said, “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart.” It is not clear what “we” he was referring to. Consider a “Dear Colleague” letter circulated to the 435 members of the House of Representatives earlier this week, the text of which is below.
“Angered by past and continuing media reports of corruption, mismanagement and inaction at the United Nations, the UN is again seeking to cover up evidence and stifle freedom of the press. Meeting on May 8 about ‘reporting by the press,’ high level UN officials discussed sending threatening letters to several press agencies and other bodies, as well as complaining to Google News about a small, independent news agency that has uncovered numerous UN scandals. Last year, a similar complaint resulted in that agency’s temporary removal from Google News. In response to a question about that meeting, the Secretary General’s spokeswoman furiously retorted, ‘I don’t have to account to you for meetings I participate in.’ The UN’s Department of Management is also reportedly pushing to obstruct press coverage, seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight. These UN efforts to restrict press freedom and oversight directly contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognized that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression… and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Once again, the UN is actually undermining the principles on which it was founded.” The May 8 meeting, involving Under Secretaries General Angela Kane (Management), Kiyo Akasaka (Public Information — the boss of both Mr. Fawzi and Ms. Farkas) and Patricia O’Brien (Legal Affairs), as well as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s speech writer Michael Meyer and Spokesperson Michele Montas, was memorialized in a memo from Ms. Kane to Ban. Inner City Press was shown the memo, wrote and asked Ban’s spokeswoman Michele Montas about it by email, along with the three USGs, none of whom has yet to explain how their participation is consistent not only with the First Amendment, which they say does not apply, but even to the cited Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While it has previously been claimed to Inner City Press that the UN would not, for example, even consider seeking to have a publication removed from Google News, Ms. Kane’s memo shows different. What was that again, that “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart”? Some do and some don’t. Footnote: the “Dear Colleague” letter circulated on Capitol Hill states that the UN is “seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight.” Previously the Department of Public Information, where Mr. Fawzi works and which Mr. Akasaka heads, told UN journalist they would have the same walled free space during and after the fix-up on the UN building. Now that first $23,000 was demanded, then wall-less “whistlebelower free” zones have been offered, no explanation of the change has been offerer, nor how it is consistent with the statement that “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart.” Watch this site. * * *
UN E-mails Allege Plot to Deny Ban a Second Term, Trick for Supachai at UNCTAD? Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive UNITED NATIONS, June 24 — Weeks after the filing with the UN investigative unit of emails showing a dirty tricks campaign by staffers of UN Conference on Trade and Development chief Supachai Panitchpakdi to get a second term, on Wednesday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nevertheless announced he is supporting Supachai for another four years. Inner City Press, which exclusively reported the filing on June 22, asked Ban’s spokesperson if Ban had considered its contents, and acknowledged any connection between them and the reappointment. The most explosive part of the emails, being published for the first time today by Inner City Press, are the arguments made in a May 8, 2009 email by Supachai’s special adviser Kobsak Chutikul, that African and other countries were supporting Ivory Coast’s former trade minister to deny Supachai from Thailand a second term in order to set a precedent to deny Ban Ki-moon a second term as Secretary General, due to “his perceived Western backers.” Ban’s spokesperson declined to comment on the filing, saying it is before the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. Video here from Minute 10:45. But senior Ban officials including Management chief Angela Kane and Ethics Officer Robert Benson have had the complaint since June 4. Meanwhile, the complainant has reportedly been demoted. Inner City Press asked Supachai if his UNCTAD has any whistleblower protection provisions. Yes we will follow those, Supachai answered. He claimed he “never campaigned,” despite what the emails show his special adviser Kobsak Chutikul doing. He claimed he only “responded to some countries’ remarks.” Video here, from Minute 56:18. Given these statement, Inner City Press is today publishing some of the emails at issue, here.
“Gentlemen, please see attached NAM Note Verbale sent out to all NAM Missions today. In light of this new development, it is the assessment of Thai and some ASEAN Ambassadors that the picture has become clear — UNCTAD SG post has become an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bigger struggle… The goal seems to be to insist on geographical rotation of posts, and undermining the practice / tradition of two continuous terms, with the real target being the UN SG (and his perceived western backers).” This argument raises the issue, for some interviewed by Inner City Press so far: did Ban have something of a conflict of interest in overriding (after working to override and change) African Group resistance and giving Supachai a second term? In fact, that too is laid out in Supachai’s special adviser’s Mach 8 e-mail, referring to telling Team Ban “things like ‘you are the real target’ or ‘you are next.’” The emails point to several other improprieties, and it is extraordinary that Team Ban wants or wanted to ignore them and simply reappoint Supachai. Following Chutikul’s”all hands on deck” e-mail, the press was on to get Ban to announce his referral of Supachai’s renomination to the General Assembly. A Chinese staff member conferred with Beijing, and that asked for evidence of which way Ban was leaning (Attachment G). Another UNCTAD staffer questioned why the African Group targeted the second term of Supachai and not Frenchman Pascal Lamy at the World Trade Organization — “because he’s white”? The e-mails are replete with racial references. Now what will happen? Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 30th, 2010 Media freedom threatened in most European countries, says OSCE“Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property,” says the OSCE IN FRANCE IT IS THE PRESIDENT WHO NOMINATES THE HEAD OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – CLEARLY AN INFRINGEMENT OF THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS NOT UNKNOWN IN TOTALITARIAN STATES. July 30, 2010 - http://euobserver.com/9/30561/?rk=1 EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Media freedom is threatened in most European countries, warns the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe, highlighting incidences in several of its member states including EU countries France, Italy and Greece. In a report published Thursday (29 July), the 56-member OSCE, a loose gathering of states monitoring regional security, says that “freedom of the media concerns arise in most OSCE participating States. They only manifest themselves differently.” The report, published annually, says the “freedom to express ourselves is questioned and challenged from many sides” and the threats manifest themselves through “traditional methods” to silence free speech as well as “new technologies to suppress and restrict the free flow of information and media pluralism.”
The breaches, either existing or potential, to media freedom range from a draft law on electronic surveillance and electronic eavesdropping law in Italy which could “seriously hinder investigative journalism” to a draft law in Estonia that may allow too many exemptions to the right to protect the identity of sources, to the fact that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is head of the public service broadcaster, France Televisions. “The presidential nomination of the head of a country’s public service broadcaster is an obstacle to its independence and contradicts OSCE commitments,” said the body’s Dunja Mijatovic, in charge of monitoring media freedom. Other areas of concern include the recent adoption by the Hungarian Parliament of parts of a media package with elements threatening media freedom and a possible threat in Greece to a minority radio station that broadcasts in Turkish, while the organisation expresses hope that Germany will adopt a law protecting investigative journalists. Beyond the EU, the “brutal attack” against a Serbian journalist known for his outspokenness against nationalism was highlighted as was the the “high number of criminal prosecutions” against journalists in Turkey covering sensitive issues as well “serious infringements” on media pluralism in Kyrgyzstan and a series of attacks against journalists in Russia. “Many argue that media freedom is in decline across the OSCE region. In some aspects, I can subscribe to that,” said Ms Mitjatovic. “Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property and that journalists have the right to scrutinize those who are elected.” “Violence against journalists equals violence against society and democracy and should be met with harsh condemnation and prosecution of the perpetrators,” she added. With the internet changing the nature and scope of reporting, Ms Mijatovi also promised a study into the various internet laws in place across the OSCE countries. “My office is currently working on the compilation of the first comprehensive matrix on internet legislation which will include an overview of legal provisions related to freedom of the media, the free flow of information and media pluralism on the internet in the OSCE region.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 30th, 2010 What makes a good UN story? We hinted at the Kevin Rudd idea earlier but we were still waiting for further developments. Are we seeing here rumors because of infighting in Australia on the way to their National elections August 21, 2010? Are we on the trail of rumors intended to save the Ban Ki-moon reelection to a second term? Are we watching an Obama approach to create a new environment to save negotiations on climate? Kevin Rudd would be an excellent choice to extricate the UN from the hole it created in the “Seal the Deal” charade when every child could have seen that the G192 is no environment to talk about Sustainable Energy options. Australia is no good example either – but Kevin Rudd was ready to step out of his nation’s “is” and aim for a better future. He got punished for this and perhaps is now ready for revenge by working on a global level that will then sweep with him his own country as well. With his experience as Australia’s Prime Minister with-vision that was cut short from bringing his own country into the group of real leaders for tomorrow, he can work with President Obama and perhaps the other four leaders that hammered out the Copenhagen platform that is not dependent on all climate mongers of the UN circuit. As a fresh figure, he could perhaps sit down with the ALBA folks and take the best ideas they have and incorporate them also in a new recipe under the SUSTAINABILITY big sky of the future. Will the UN accept him as a new Super Czar of a combined UNCSD and UNFCCC – or let him form a new structure so these older structures will just wilt away into oblivion slowly? Who knows? But let us follow this new world hype. The subject having slowly boiled in the PRESS has reached also www.UNelection.org – so it is time for us to try out the waters ourselves also. This then reinforced the UNelections interest in the issue as per added - ================================================= http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special… Kevin Rudd could be offered UN role before end of election campaign
 Kevin Rudd talks with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon / AP Source: AP KEVIN Rudd’s new United Nations post could be announced before the end of the election in what looms as another major embarrassment for Julia Gillard. The Herald Sun can reveal the UN body Mr Rudd is being considered for is being set up under the working title High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability. Mr Rudd is believed to have been backed for the post by the UN’s chief climate adviser, Janos Pasztor, and is odds-on to be offered the job. Diplomatic sources said the decision could be made within weeks, which raises the spectre of an appointment before the election. “It’s on the cards,” a source said of a pre-election announcement. The Herald Sun believes Mr Rudd is favoured in part because he will have direct access to resources paid for by the Australian taxpayer. This is on the assumption that the former prime minister is re-elected to Federal Parliament on August 21, 2010. Climate change reform will be the centrepiece of the panel, virtually guaranteeing conflict with a Gillard government, assuming Labor is re-elected. Sources said it would be created to look at climate change in the context of broader sustainable development, and would be part-time. Mr Rudd has declined to say whether the appointment would be paid. If he were to be paid, this could raise allegations he would be a part-time MP. Mr Rudd’s spokesman directed questions to the UN, declining to say whether he already had accepted the position. Mr Rudd has previously said he would serve a full term in Parliament and that any UN position would be part-time. “It is a matter, of course, for the United Nations Secretary-General to clarify what roles would be played by any individual on such a panel,” Mr Rudd said on July 22. The biggest political risk for the Government is that the UN body clashes on climate change policy backed by Ms Gillard. Mr Rudd previously backed a 5 per cent emissions cut on 2000 levels by 2020 as well as a so-called cap-and-trade scheme, which involves setting limits on carbon emissions but allowing heavy polluters to buy permits to allow them to emit more carbon. Mr Rudd dropped his legislation this year when it was blocked by the Coalition in the Senate and his handling of the issue was considered crucial to him being dumped as PM. —————————————–
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 30th, 2010 The facts as described in: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/07… Canadian woman is next top UN internal watchdog. By JOHN HEILPRIN UNITED NATIONS The United Nations turned to a Canadian woman on Wednesday who was chief auditor for the World Bank as its choice for the next head of the U.N.’s internal watchdog agency. Carman Lapointe-Young won approval from the General Assembly to become the undersecretary-general for oversight. She will be given the huge task of trying to quickly fix an agency that her predecessor says is in disarray. She will start her job on Sept. 13, the U.N. announced. She will move to New York from Rome, where she has headed the oversight office of the U.N.’s fund for agricultural development since February 2009. The Manitoba native was appointed to the non-renewable, five-year term as head of the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose leadership was severely criticized in an end-of-assignment memo by outgoing OIOS head Inga-Britt Ahlenius of Sweden. Ban said in a statement that Lapointe-Young has the “breadth and depth of experience and expertise required for this demanding position.” He said she will be expected to rebuild OIOS and fill its many vacancies as soon as possible. Ban is reviewing Ahlenius’ memo and has ordered a review of the U.N.’s ability to investigate itself, his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, said last week. Bea Edwards of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based nonprofit law firm, said Wednesday one of the key challenges Lapointe-Young will face is to redirect OIOS investigations onto cases of major financial fraud and corruption. Her firm has represented at least one OIOS investigator who filed a whistleblower complaint against the division’s acting director. “We would just hope that she would re-focus the attention of OIOS onto the more significant cases of fraud and corruption, and there would be less emphasis on these petty, internal investigations,” said Edwards, referring to internal probes that she said were focused on allegations such as improper travel expense claims and pornography on computers. Over the past decade the U.N. has been rocked a series of corruption scandals in its multibillion-dollar spending. The best known resulted from a two-year investigation into the U.N.-run oil-for-food program for Iraq led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Volcker’s inquiry culminated in an October 2005 report accusing more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein’s regime to bilk $1.8 billion from a program aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions. As a result of the scandal, the U.N. created a special anti-corruption task force between 2006 and 2008 that found 20 significant corruption schemes. Its work led to sanctions against about 50 U.N. vendors, many of which were permanently debarred, and felony convictions against three U.N. officials, including two senior procurement officials. Lapointe-Young won the nod despite some grumbling among diplomats from developing nations who said her appointment upset an informal understanding that the top accountability post should alternate between developing and rich Western nations. At the General Assembly, several diplomats touched on the issue of geographical diversity. U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky acknowledged the concerns of representatives of “regional groups” in the General Assembly who were consulted before Wednesday’s approval, but said Ban’s selection was based on “merit,” ultimately. From 2004 to 2009, she was the auditor general of The World Bank Group. It was during that time that Paul Wolfowitz resigned as president of the World Bank amid controversy over a pay package for his girlfriend, a bank employee. She succeeds Ahlenius, who left the OIOS post in mid-July after blaming Ban for blocking her attempt to hire a former U.S. federal prosecutor as permanent head of the investigation division and taking other measures that she said undermined the operational independence her office is supposed to have. Ban and his senior advisers have quickly closed ranks and disputed many of the memo’s assertions while trying to put the dispute quickly behind them. “Where there are lessons to be learned, we will draw them,” Angela Kane, the undersecretary-general for management, said in a statement Wednesday. In a statement labeled “Accountability for a Stronger United Nations,” Kane said Lapointe-Young will inherit “an office with 76 vacant posts” because Ahlenius failed to fill them. —————————- AT THE FAREWELL PARTY GIVEN BY OUTGOING AMBASSADOR H. E. YUKIO TAKASU OF JAPAN, SEEMINGLY MR. BAN KI-MOON EXPRESSED SURPRISE AT REPORTS THAT SOUTH AFRICA WAS PROMISED A SENIOR POST AT OIOS IN EXCHANGE FOR NOT BLOCKING THE APPOINTMENT OF A CANADIAN. so, here we have his commitment to let the new OIOS Chief pick her own Deputy? At UN, Farewell to Takasu Amid Echoes of OIOS, of Human Right to Water and Sushi By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 28 — Japan’s Yukio Takasu held a farewell to New York and the UN on Tuesday night at his country’s East Side townhouse. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was there — expressing surprise at reports that South Africa was promised a senior post at the Office of Internal Oversight Services in change for not blocking the top spot going to a Canadian - as well as his Under Secretaries General Lynn Pascoe, Kiyotaka Akasaka and Angela Kane. After Mr. Ban and his well liked bride left, much talk turned to the controversy stirred by the damning End of Assignment Report of outgoing OIOS chief Inga Britt Ahlenius. While usually at the UN, the press asks Ambassadors for information and opinion, this time is was the reverse. Several Ambassadors asked Inner City Press, What do you think this means for Ban getting or not getting a second term? Major Permanent Representatives had read the critical Press coverage. “This is not good,” they said. “But will Obama have the decisiveness to act?” Susan Rice was asked and told the media as if by rote that the US supports Ban. Others in the Obama Administration are not saying the same thing. Ban’s USGs worked the crowd. Angela Kane of Ban’s Department of Management bowed, Japanese style, with an outgoing members of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions from, where else, Japan. Due to ACABQ’s penchant for anonymity, we will not name her but wish her well. As the UN’s envoy to Darfur said earlier at the stakeout, ACABQ recently visited El Fasher. She noted of Inner City Press, your coverage of ACABQ is always fair. Hey, it’s the only accountability mechanism in the UN, along with the press. Kiyo Akasaka of Ban’s Department of Public Information was in his element, offering food recommendations and this new media news, that the UN is agreeing to a refer in their forthcoming guidelines to a willingness to accredit bloggers — and not only “journalists who write blogs” — although, strangely, confined to a footnote. We’ll see. ——————————- The reality at the UN is that seemingly there is much financial interest by many countries and this includes covering of plain corruption – so – OIOS would have its hands full if it were to go after this plateful of problems. Take for instance all those companies that bribed their way through the Iraqi “Oil for Food” project. Did anyone look at them, i.e. the French bank that was involved? Paul Volcker put it all in the open and the UN pushed it back under the rug by appointing OIOS. Will it finally be picked up? Then, Ms. Alhenius also had a clear conflict. It is a Swedish company that got a non-competitive contract to redo the UN buildings. Some at he UN wanted to see this reviewed – clearly a matter for OIOS – but we heard no action on this. Only some members of the Press kept pointing at the problem. So far we do not know of conflicts of interest involving Canada, will the new Chief start out with her right foot in staking her position – as controller – the buck stops here? Something like the US GAO – US Comptroller General? In what regards her attitude when auditing the World Bank, we found an excellent interview with her: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4153/is_3_64/ai_n27504378/?tag=content;col1 that we highly recommend to our readers. Making a difference: the World Bank Group’s Auditor General Carman Lapointe-Young says her team of auditors is playing its part in the organization’s fight to end poverty.Internal Auditor, June, 2008 by Neil Baker———————————— Further, we are gratified that our article was picked up byUNelections.org Canadian Woman is Next Top UN Internal Watchdog (Opinion) – July 28 Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 29th, 2010 WORLD NEWS – JULY 29, 2010 Climate report shows Earth has heated up over 50 years. Which in the printed Wall Street version was rechristened – “CLIMATE STUDY CITES 2000 as WARMEST DECADE.” This appropriate to the US inward look of New York, while the above title is clear better positioned for the world at large - By GAUTAM NAIK A new assessment concludes that the Earth has been getting warmer over the past 50 years and the past decade was the warmest on record. The State of the Climate 2009 report, published Wednesday as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, was compiled by 300 scientists from 48 countries and drew on measures of 10 crucial climate indicators. Seven of the indicators were rising, including air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, sea level, ocean heat and humidity. Three indicators were declining, including Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere. “Each indicator is changing as we’d expect in a warming world,” said Peter Thorne, senior researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, a research consortium based in College Park, Md., who was involved in compiling the report. The report’s conclusions broadly match those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body, which published its last set of findings in 2007. The IPCC report contained some errors, which further stoked the debate about the existence, causes and effects of global warming. The new report incorporates data from the past few years that weren’t included in the last IPCC assessment. While the IPCC report concluded that evidence for human-caused global warming was “unequivocal” and was linked to emissions of greenhouse gases, the latest report didn’t seek to address the issue. The report said, “Global average surface and lower-troposphere temperatures during the last three decades have been progressively warmer than all earlier decades, and the 2000s (2000-09) was the warmest decade in the instrumental record.” The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere. The scientists reported that they were surprised to find Greenland’s glaciers were losing ice at an accelerating rate. They also concluded that 90% of planetary warming over the past 50 years has gone into the oceans. Most of it had accumulated in near-surface layers, home to phytoplankton, tiny plants crucial to virtually all life in the sea. A new study has found that rising sea temperature may have had a harmful effect on global concentrations of phytoplankton over the past century. —————————– BUT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IS VERY ANEMIC ON CONTENT OF ABOVE NEWS – IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, AS MOSTLY ALMOST – GO TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES. HERE YOU FIND FIONA HARVEY’S FULL ARTICLE – SHE CONTRIBUTES TO THE EDITORIAL SECTION AS WELL. YOU WILL BE IN THE CLEAR ABOUT THE MACHINATIONS IN WASHINGTON AS WELL. You will also see there the Washington rot as in the following: “Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US, formerly in charge of energy with the powerful CSIS, said the new report would not change people’s minds. “It’s clear that the scientific case for global warming alarmism is weak. The scientific case for [many of the claims] is unsound and we are finding out all the time how unsound it is.” You will find that there was no doubt about the implication that it is humans who did it except in the words of that outspoken minority of industry lobbyists that hold power over Washington. ————————– NOAA finds “human fingerprints” on climateJuly 28th, 2010 by Fiona Harvey
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 28th, 2010 The following are examples from today’s publication of the UN’s best friend – the $1 Billion UN Foundation’s UN Wire. I see [Saddam Hussein] like Nebuchadnezzar, the emperor of Mesopotamia — an utterly ruthless, brutal man who sat with a revolver in his pocket and could use it to shoot you.” Blix faults U.S., British over pre-Iraq war intel http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/world/… —– ================== Security Council mulls future of Darfur mission: Kidnapped German, American aid workers in Darfur speak out: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk… – International terror networks taking root in DR Congo? Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 28th, 2010
For UN, Is Merely Being There Enough, with Ban Under Fire for a 2d Term? UNITED NATIONS, July 26 — What has Ban Ki-moon accomplished as UN Secretary General in Myanmar and Sudan, Inner City Press asked his spokesman Monday, for the fourth day in a week. But the three achievements listed were only “being there” — celebrities have traveled to Haiti, and to refugee camps in Darfur and elsewhere. Meanwhile reports on the UN’s performance in Sudan are largely negative. Rubble still fills Haiti’s streets. And even the Goldstone response is late, due to failure to translate. Myanmar, telling, was not even mentioned. Is being there enough? “We don’t need to comment on every piece,” Nesirky said, calling that piece a “rehash.. a lot of what is in the piece has been seen before.” A lot by not all: the piece mentions inaction on Sri Lanka: “A peacekeeping official pointed out that Ban had insisted on behind-the-scenes diplomacy in Sri Lanka even as the government was killing thousands of civilians in its campaign to erase the brutal insurgency of the Tamil Tigers: “We’re doing everything we can to avoid saying anything at all about it. That’s been our line on practically everything. The SG is clear that his final consideration is going to be the political costs of whether he should or shouldn’t speak.” That’s a very real calculation every secretary-general must make. But, he added, “There’s no sense that the deliberations include, ‘What should we do?’”” Only this year, Ban after saying he would name a panel of experts on war crimes in Sri Lanka, then delaying 90 days, has gone out of his way to limit the scope of the panel to providing advice on “models of accountability” to himself and the Rajapaksa government, if they want it. The Rajapaksas have said they will deny visas to the group; Ban through Nesirky has repeated declined to comment on the refusal to cooperate. Nesirky once again declined comment, except to say there is “very strong, overwhelming support” for the nominee. Sort of like the overwhelming support for a second term? It is time for Ban Ki-moon to speak for himself on this controversy — time for him to “be there,” as it were. He will appear before the press Monday at 5:30. Before his appearance Friday at a reception for the press, Inner City Press was repeatedly told not to ask about the controversy, not to “hijack” the event. That cannot similarly be asked on Monday evening. Watch this site. * * * At UN, As Ban Ki-moon Switches from S. African to Canadian As New OIOS Chief, Post-Ahlenius Rebellion Spreads, Sources Say. UNITED NATIONS, July 23 — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, reeling from the damning exit memo of the outgoing head of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, may now get himself in more troubling in naming a replacement. Earlier this year, Inner City Press reported that the new head of OIOS was slated to be an auditor from South Africa. This would conform to many member states’ understanding that developed and developing countries would alternate atop the OIOS: Karl Paschke of Germany, then Dileep Nair of Singapore, then Inga Britt Ahlenius of Sweden. The next was slated to be from South Africa. This has triggered outrage among developing countries. It comes against the backdrop of ad hoc meetings to “revitalize the General Assembly” which are discussing requiring Ban Ki-moon to come before the GA to seek his second term, and not only the Security Council.
In the Security Council, placating or giving patronage to the five Permanent Members would be enough to gain the second term. But if the GA and regional grouping get involved, Ban’s snubs like that of Africa for the deputy post in the UN Development Program, and the devaluation of the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, could come back to haunt Ban. -————————————– NOW – THE LATEST IN THE OIOS SAGA & UNSG BAN Ki-moon. At UN, To Buy Support for Canadian Auditor, S. Africa Promised Deputy Post. By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 27 — When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last Friday dumped a South African candidate in favor of a Canadian to head the Office of Internal Oversight Services in the discordant wake of Inga Britt Ahlenius leaving, several developing world countries cried foul. But, this being the UN, the Ban Administration quickly moved to try to cut a deal. Ban spokesman Martin Nesirky, Monday at noon, predicted “overwhelming” support to confirm Ms. Lapoint. A senior Ban administration official told Inner City Press that the vote would be Wednesday, that the regional groups were right that “geographic rotation” had been envisioned for OIOS, but that it just wasn’t possible this time. Tuesday, as Ms. Lapoint’s nomination was put in the General Assembly agenda for the next morning, Inner City Press was told by diplomatic sources that the deal reached involves giving the contested OIOS “to a South African.” The developing world was supposed to get the top spot, as one source put it, but settled for the second fiddle. It has happened before. But the irony here is that Ban rejected Ahlenius favorite Robert Appleton in the name of a competitive, transparent selection process. Now diplomatic sources say the deputy job has been promised to a particular country and group, non transparent, non competitive, quid pro quo. Not an auspicious beginning. South Africa and the African Group might want to remember: when Ban selected developed world Helen Clark to head UNDP, the deputy post was promised to the African Group. Then it was given to a Costa Rican. Bait and switch?
From the July 26 UN noon briefing transcript: Inner City Press: Friday evening, I was told by several people that participated that there was a meeting between the Secretary-General and regional groupings. This name that she’s referring to, Carman Lapointe-Young, was raised. But the thing I really want to ask you, because there seems some controversy about it, is that, one, did the Secretary-General say he couldn’t find a qualified developing world candidate and, two, does he disagree with some Member States, including Venezuela and Cuba, that the understanding in forming OIOS is that the directorship would alternate between developed and developing world, and does he… this seems to be being raised. Does he disagree with that? And if so, is it true that he couldn’t find a qualified developing-world candidate? Spokesperson: Well, I will be able to come back to you once we get a little further down the road, I’ll be able to come back to you with more on this. But what I can say is that, from the conversations so far, there appears to be very strong, overwhelming support for the candidate put forward by the Secretary-General. But, as I say, we’ll come back to it in more detail at a later stage, I think. * * *
At UN, Ban Doubles Down on Developed World for OIOS, Nambiar Spins to Staff. By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 26, updated — The UN Secretariat may be playing fast and loose with applicable resolutions and Administrative Instructions as it races to try to put behind it the controversy opened by the End of Assignment Report by outgoing chief of the Office of Internal Oversight Services Inga Britt Ahlenius, diplomats and UN staff say. As Inner City Press exclusively reported on the night of July 23, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with regional groups and told them he couldn’t find a qualified replacement for Ahlenius from the developing world, and so he was going with a Canadian. The name of Carman Lapointe-Young is being submitted to the General Assembly. But several developing world countries are now saying that when OIOS was founded, the top post was supposed to rotate between the developed and developing world. So far it has been Germany, Singapore, Sweden — and Canada? Even if Ban manages to ram his nomination of Carman Lapointe-Young through the General Assembly, it will increase bad feelings, and bad karma.
Next, we have the letter from Ban’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar to OIOS staff, trying to assuage them with assurances that Ban respects the “operational” independence of OIOS. But in fact, applicable Administrative Instructions show that Ban was supposed to appoint a OIOS review panel which, once appointed, could confirm D-2 level staff like Robert Appleton without Ban having a veto. This was never done, and Catherine Pollard’s lengthy answers last week did little to buttress Ban’s position. Ban held a reception with the Press on Friday, but Inner City Press was repeatedly told not to ask anything about the Ahlenius memo, and didn’t. Ban will appear more formally with the press on Monday at 5:30 p.m. — it’s hard to imagine these issues not arising them. * * *
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 28th, 2010 Maradona out as coach as Argentina’s soccer coach. “Diego shut himself off to any change,” executive committee member Luis Segura said on Argentine television. “Diego has all the right to do what he wants. But so does AFA.” The federation had offered Maradona a four-year contract through the 2014 World Cup, but Maradona said he would do so only if his entire staff remained. That was unacceptable to AFA president Julio Grondona. He had asked for several assistants to be replaced, including Maradona’s close friend Alejandro Mancuso. The federation said its executive committee unanimously decided to not keep Mardona. AFA spokesman Ernesto Cherquis Bialo called the decision “very painful” but said there was no way to solve the impasse. “This marks the end of a first chapter with Mr. Maradona,” Cherquis Bialo said. “The doors to this house, as always, will be open to him.” Youth team manager Sergio Batista was appointed interim coach for the Aug. 11 exhibition at Ireland, which will be followed by a Sept. 7 home exhibition against world champion Spain. Possible permanent successors include two club coaches in Argentina: Alejandro Sabella of Estudiantes and Miguel Russo of Racing. Asked about the full-time coach, Cherquis Bialo said: “The people who were in the meeting have no name in their imaginations. It has just been announced that the contract with the coach will not be renewed. And so, a new stage begins.” The 49-year-old Maradona became Argentina’s coach in November 2008, replacing Alfio Basile and taking over a team he led to the 1986 World Cup title and the 1990 final. He had little coaching experience, and his team absorbed two of the worst losses in the country’s history: a 6-1 rout at Bolivia in World Cup qualifying and the World Cup defeat to Germany. Argentina attacked with flair in South Africa, with Messi setting up scoring strikes by Gonzalo Higuain and Carlos Tevez. Maradona, dressed on the sideline in a gray suit, was an enthusiastic cheerleader, but that could not compensate for his team’s tactical deficiencies. The loss to Germany exposed frailties on defense and lack of midfield speed. Messi, widely regarded as the game’s best player, left with World Cup without scoring a goal. Maradona never explained why Messi — he was left to roam the field on his own — wasn’t scoring. “Nobody ever told me where to play. So I shouldn’t have to tell Messi where to play, either,” Maradona said. Maradona, who has fought cocaine and alcohol addiction, grew up in a Buenos Aires slum, and his escape from poverty has endeared him to many. But he has worn out his welcome in other quarters. Maradona ruffled the government of President Cristina Fernandez, who twice invited the coach to meet with her. But cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez said Maradona failed to respond or answer the phone, forcing the president’s secretaries to leave messages. Fernandez had been openly supportive of keeping Maradona as coach, and one legislator has proposed building a monument to honor him. Two weeks ago, the federation offered Maradona the chance to extend his contract. But Maradona put off meeting with Grondona to travel to Venezuela at the invitation of a friend — President Hugo Chavez. Still, Maradona had many supporters. “I want Maradona to stay,” Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo said Tuesday in an interview on radio La Red. “We will support his decision. If he leaves we will miss him.” Added team trainer Fernando Signorini: “I have no doubt they didn’t want him. Maradona is like a stone in the shoe of power.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 28th, 2010 Paul the Psychic Octopus Attacked by Ahmadinejad? {Oi Wey!} David Knowles (July 27, 2001) — Perhaps the Iranian president picked Germany to win the World Cup? Last week, at a national youth conference held in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took aim at Paul the “Psychic” Octopus, the seemingly clairvoyant, German-based cephalopod who accurately predicted the outcome of eight matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, including Spain as the overall winner. In the midst of a fiery speech denouncing Israel, the U.S. and Iran’s other “enemies,” Ahmadinejad suddenly and surprisingly turned his vitriol on Paul, declaring the creature a symbol of “Western propaganda and superstition.” Paul, who recently retired following his pitch-perfect prediction record, has not yet issued a response. ——————- and we read and posted earlier that both – Spain and Russia are ready to pay good money to have the honor to host Paul the Octopus in their aquariums. Is Ahmedi-nejad envious of the offers to Paul? Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 26th, 2010 http://www.truth-out.org/red-sea-the-oth… Red Sea: The Other Oil Spill.Friday 16 July 2010 by: Jon Jensen | GlobalPost | Report Hurghada, Egypt – When Hamdy Shahat and his four-man crew first set sail from this resort town last month, he expected to return with a boatload full of red snapper to sell at the market later that night. Instead, the 33-year-old skipper came back empty-handed, except for several streaks of thick, brown oil gummed along the hull of his wooden boat. Thousands of miles from the Gulf of Mexico, the site of BP’s massive oil leak, Shahat had inadvertently discovered Egypt’s own oil spill. Now, just like most Americans, Egyptians are asking what went wrong in the Red Sea. For fishermen like Shahat, navigating around small patches of oil floating in the otherwise turquoise-colored Rea Sea is not all that new. Egypt’s portion of the waterway is, after all, home to about 180 oil platforms and heavily trafficked by massive tankers heading north from the Middle East to Europe through the Suez Canal. In an environment like this one, small-scale oil leaks are almost the norm. But this time, the oil was nearly impossible to avoid. “I remember the slick looking like a lot more oil than usual,” said Shahat. “The way the sunlight hit the surface of the water the patch looked so big that we thought it was actually underwater coral.” Last month, Shahat was among the first in Hurghada to discover, like other fishermen who inadvertently sailed through it, what some experts are already calling one of Egypt’s worst oil spills in recent years. Many details regarding the source of Egypt’s latest spill, which washed up on the shores of an area rich in biodiversity and popular with foreign tourists, are still unknown. The leak, initially reported to have blanketed a 12-mile stretch of sea, was first reported on June 18, though many here believe the oil started seeping into the water days earlier. Scientists and conservationists admit that serious environmental damage was limited to only a few offshore islands because of strong currents and winds that quickly pushed the slick to Hurghada’s shoreline, rather than underwater to the coral reefs. And by most accounts, the total amount of oil spilled in Egypt was small when compared to other international incidents, like the BP spill that was finally capped on Thursday. But for many residents in Hurghada, there is little comfort knowing they won’t have to face the huge levels of crude oil that is now washing up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The uncertainty over exactly what happened in the Red Sea in June, coupled with the possibility of larger spills in the future, is enough to keep everyone here on edge. Nearly one month after the spill’s discovery, very few details have emerged regarding the source of the leak and the actual amount of oil released, prompting accusations of government mismanagement from a host of activists, independent scientists and local businessmen. Amr Ali, director of the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Agency, an organization started by a group of divers, is leading the charge against the government’s handling of what Ali calls a “catastrophic” spill. The parties responsible for the leak, Ali said, did not notify anyone of the spill until Hurghada’s fishermen literally sailed into it — a full three days after it started. “This is not just about the spill — it’s about how crises like this are handled with zero transparency,” he said. “Whoever caused this spill should not get away without a penalty.” Ali said he was surprised to hear Egypt’s government eventually announce that they had sealed the leak, while simultaneously pleading ignorance on the exact location of the source. Video footage shot by Ali’s organization, which was later posted to the group’s YouTube channel days after the start of the spill, shows an oil-like substance floating in the water outside an offshore drilling platform. In the video, a small boat dumps what appear to be chemical dispersants into the water near the rig. The platform is identifiable in the footage as a similar rig run by PetroGulf Misr, a government-controlled oil company based near Geisum Island, just north of Hurghada. For its part, the company has denied any involvement in the spill. Khaled Boraie, a spokesman for PetroGulf Misr, provided GlobalPost only the following statement: “We have no relation with the oil spill in Hurghada.” A sign displayed in the lobby of the company’s Cairo’s office proudly announced that they had gone 107 days without incident or accident. Egypt’s petroleum ministry finally weighed in one week after the incident, issuing a lengthy press release denying that the company’s platform could have caused any spillage and offering several possible alternative sources. “The spill was due to passing oil tankers that discharged their ballasts or spilled oil from their loads and then the wind likely spread it to the beaches,” said Khaled Ismail, a chemist with the government-run Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, echoing the press release. Another possible source of oil, which only amounted to between 30 and 50 barrels, according to Ismail, was older sludge spilled years ago on nearby islands that had melted under higher-than-average heat and slid back into the Red Sea. Several independent scientists, however, refute those claims. “I cannot accept [the ministry’s account] because the amount of oil found was much more than would come from a passing ship. And it was all crude oil,” said Salah el-Haggar, a professor of energy and environmental studies at the American University in Cairo. “They are aware of the problem but we are not. So we still don’t know how this happened and who is responsible.” Though Egypt’s petroleum and environmental ministries were generally praised for the rapid cleanup of Hurghada’s beaches — thoroughly swept within just three days — many believe it was a cosmetic attempt to rescue only the areas tourists frequent. Mahmoud Hanafy, professor of marine sciences at the Suez Canal University, worries that although the spill was limited in size, lingering pollution may have already disrupted the ecology on the islands off Hurghada’s coast. The uninhabited Northern Islands are home to a variety of species of fish and turtles and also serve as nesting grounds for the white-eyed gull, a “near threatened” species endemic to the Red Sea. The oil washing up during the initially unreported first few days of the spill hit these beaches hard, according to Dr. Hanafy. “The problem is that the spill happened in an area with a sensitive ecosystem. This is a very valuable piece of land for diving, as an ecological site and for oil production,” Hanafy said. “The challenge for Egypt is to figure out how to reach a balance between oil production and conservation of the Red Sea.” Egypt produced an average of 685,000 barrels of oil per day in 2009. About 70 percent of that oil, according to Hanafy, comes from the fragile Red Sea ecosystem. Many conservationists and tour operators saw a minor victory when, in the wake of the spill last month, Egypt’s petroleum minister said he would consider reducing the number of oil concessions granted in the Red Sea area. Egypt’s tourism sector, by comparison, especially around the Red Sea beaches and coral reefs, is one of the largest sources of national revenue. In 2007, over 11 million foreign tourists visited Egypt, earning the country more than $7.6 billion. Several beaches in Hurghada temporarily closed for a few days during the cleanup period last month. Sameh Hwaidak, chairman of the Red Sea Hotel Association, admits that tourism in Hurghada was not significantly affected by the spill. But like many hoteliers here, Hwaidak watches the events transpiring in the Gulf of Mexico with grave concern, worrying that the possibility of an equally devastating oil spill in Egypt — with a similar response from the government here — would cripple the local tourism. “We only found out about this the minute oil hit the beach. We put down booms and cleaned the sand, but that’s not the solution,” he said. “The solution is to stop the oil platforms from operating so close to our beaches.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 25th, 2010 BARGEMUSIC REVISITED. We posted the following two weeks ago, and said at the time that we will return to the Barge that is moored at Fulton Ferry Landing under the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, NY. Our target was going to be “The HERE AND NOW Series in Celebration of Terry Riley’s 75th Birthday. See also www.bargemusic.org Our previous posting was: UPDATED – With Climate Change and a local government that does not care, a decreasing quality of public transportation, scorched at 103 F (39.4 C), New York City has nevertheless BARGEMUSIC. The Innovative spirit of its people does not give up. Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 13th, 2010 The performers where THE VOXARE QUARTET that included: Emily Ondracek-Peterson and Galina Zhdanova – violins, Legendary American composer, Terry Riley – DigiDan, 18 Mar 2010
Terrence Mitchell Riley, born June 24, 1935, in California, is an American composer associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music. He is usually mentioned together with Steve Reich and Philip Glass. However – His most influential teacher, however, was Pandit Pran Nath (1918–1996), a master of Indian classical voice, who also taught La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. Riley made numerous trips to India over the course of their association to study and to accompany him on tabla, tambura, and voice. Throughout the 1960s he traveled frequently around Europe as well, taking in musical influences and supporting himself by playing in piano bars, until he joined the Mills College faculty in 1971 to teach Indian classical music. The Voxare presenters took the stand that it is incorrect to call Terry Riley a minimalist and at times it seemed indeed that he simply expanded classic music by introducing new elements and being ready to experiments that when picked up later by other composers led to the revolutionary 1960s in American music. The first piece on Friday - “Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector,” was composed in 1980 for the Kronos Quartet, a result of a longtime collaboration of Mr. Riley’s and included improvisations based on North Indian raga instead of formal composition, but then we were told that at Kronos’s insistence he notated the score for “Sunrise.” Still, as Ms. Ondracek explained gaily, he wrote sections of the score on different sheets of paper so the performers could decide the order of performance. The Voxare Quartet offered a high-energy performance, vividly conveying the work’s beautiful angles. It started with something that sounded like American folklore fiddles and felt like a wakening up. The two Russian-background violinist ladies really tore into the music with gusto, followed by the cello and then the viola. I got the impression that the music was debating with itself and had a lot of internal life. Eventually we had a return to the opening notes. Was this the improvisation of Voxare? The second piece on Friday was the 1960 String Quartet. That was pure minimalism – or I do not understand the term. It was about the San Francisco Harbor foghorns. The sound came mainly from the cello, and the whole piece, considering the Barge-location was the most appropriate thing you could imagine The barge was swaying as there was a bit of rain outside – and it was a foghorn – pure and simple. The third piece on Friday was “The Wheel / Mythic Birds Waltz.” This piece is post-Indian period of Mr. Riley and it was a result of improvisation on a piano with Indian and Jazz references and I felt that at times moved over to sound like bells and a Bela Bartok gypsy ending. After Intermission, on Friday, the fourth piece was G-song that in effect was the result of a commission he got for music for a French movie. It had sort of a melancholic feeling to it and I wonder what was that movie about. The fifth Terry Riley piece we heard on Sunday – it was “Cortejo Funebre en el Monte Diablo” from his 1998 “Requiem for Adam” the son of David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet. Young Adam died of a heart ailment. The music starts with bell sounds and a tape of trumpets moves in. It turns out that what we hear are electronically generated sounds – this is music of a different kind. The violins move in – then the quartet stops and the funeral proceeds. It was an all around fascinating piece. David Harrington formed Kronos after hearing George Crumb’s Black Angels, a powerful piece about the Vietnam war; ever since he has sought to give voice to twentieth century composers all over the world. At this moment there are hundreds of pieces being commissioned by them. The Kronos have performed pieces by Thelonious Monk, John Zorn, Philip Glass, Charles Ives, Dmitri Yanovsky, Scott Johnson, Terry Riley, and a slew of European and African composers. With a balance of fervid dedication, spirituality, and a liberal sense of humor, the Kronos Quartet have taken on the awesome responsibility of saving an entire musical universe. They have released Howl U.S.A, a grim portrait of the dark side of America, in which the The Kronos passionately accompany the voices of J. Edgar Hoover, Harry Partch, I.F. Stone, and Allen Ginsberg. For the past twenty years the Kronos Quartet have performed music that expresses the anxiety, tension, ferocious energy and mystic yearnings in the twentieth century. Single-handed they have saved a genre (the string quartet) that was well on its path to extinction. With a cover Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze, spiffy outfits, and hip hairdos they have widened the audience of quartet music from those who were well schooled in public classrooms about classical music, to those who barely get the Bugs Bunny “Kill the Wabbit” reference to Wagner. Baby boomers and hip college students flock to the Kronos, craving music that is truly contemporary — a bracing change from dinosaur genres like classic rock. Terry Riley loved what they were doing. The sixth Riley piece, or the second on Sunday, was “Cadenza on a Night Plain.” This is a masterpiece of early 1994 with Upper Mid-West and Native America influences. Each section is different – a different Cadenza. Mr. Peterson, the viola player, likened his section as “March of the Old-Timers.” He said that the directions say “Stoned Enthusiasm” then “Marching to more serious matters” – “which might mean smoking reef.” ————– The add-ons were: The Lou Harrison’s – 1917-2003 – striking “String Quartet Set” (1979), “Variations on Walter von der Vogelweide” revealed, we were told, Mr. Harrison’s joint interest with Terry Riley in nature and old music. The score had five-movement piece ranges from the melancholy “Plaint” to the exuberant “Estampie,” which uses the cello as a percussive instrument. The performance was excellent, with distinctive contributions from each player. It ended with Usul – or a Turkish coda. – Steve Reich, the opening piece on Sunday, “Different Trains” of 1988 – for String Quartet and Tape – the Tape at times being just talk and at other times further sound. Steve Reich, born in 1936, was recently called “our greatest living composer” (The New York Times), “America’s greatest living composer.” (The Village VOICE), “…the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New The particular piece we hear on Sunday has to do with his upbringing that involved commuting by train between New York and Los Angeles as his divorced parents, both of them, shared in custody over him – so – he was having this privilege of traveling often – coast to coast by train. That was until 1942 – eventually he learned about refugees from Europe arriving to New York and going also by train to the West Coast or wherever. The piece has three parts – America before the war – Europe during the war – America after the war. This is not just about a Jewish boy shuttling between his two parents – but about Holocaust and its effects – the fortunate ones traveling on the same train with him – here in the US. It is a clearly difficult concept but he came up with some appropriate music. At times it sounded to me like Robert Wilson’s shows – whoever the composer – perhaps Philip Glass? There is a repetitiveness in the background that does not allow us to forget! The second part – in what I heard – ended in Smoke. The instrumentation called for violins being stroked by the bows backwards – the resultant sounds quite unusual. The third part – after the war – had happier sounds. – THE WHO - The piece is based on Graceland and Pete Townshend with a concept of a commune Rock farm in Ireland had it at 90 minutes length but Maher Baba reworked it and we had delightful 7 minutes. It was a real winner. It started with Mr. and Mrs. Peterson fiddling with gusto the viola and violin and no joke – it seemed that as they went on with more force, the barge reacted and started to sway stronger – then a huge barge showed up and we realized that this was not from heaven. The piece was a clear winner and the applause laud.
Baba O’Riley Lyrics Out here in the fields I don’t need to fight Don’t cry Sally, take my hand The exodus is here Teenage wasteland ——————————————– A trip to the lower levels of Brooklyn Heights is always a joy not to be missed. Slowly, the area is being reclaimed from the old port slips. Next to the barge there is the Ice Cream Factory, and on the other side the Bridge Cafe. You can get a bite and sip wine in the open – be it 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Further there is the Bridge Restaurant. If you love Pizza – the best this side of the ocean is to be had at GRIMALDI’S – old country – real Coal-Brick Oven Pizzeria “Under the Brooklyn Bridge.” But know ye all – the lines to this pizzeria are a block long and you can rent a chair for two dollars if you prefer to sit rather then stand in line. But, trust me – it is worth the effort – once in your life-time. For me it was a Pizza pie with extra cheese and fresh garlic cloves and a Peroni beer for a total of $28. If you really do not want to undergo the above – let me suggest the Tutt Cafe – as in King Tutt - www.tuttcafe.com, at 47 Hicks St. where I got an excellent Merguez Pitza (that must be the old Egyptian spelling of the pie, and the Merguez is Moroccan lamb sausage), and my wife got a spicy Falafel Wrap (not a pocket) – all of it for $16 total. ——————————————-  Richard Termine for The New York Times Voxare Quartet: From left, Emily Ondracek, Galina Zhdanova, Adrian Daurov and Erik Peterson playing a Bargemusic concert in Brooklyn. The East River in the background. The picture was taken at the Friday night concert. During the Saturday afternoon concert – there was some rain and the visual effect grey. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 23rd, 2010 Wanted: BP’s Libyan Fixer.by Philip Shenon Inf, July 23, 2010, The Daily Beast online.
Philip Shenon, a former investigative reporter at The New York Times, is the author of The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation
Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi (Newscom) U.S. officials tell The Daily Beast they are convinced an ex-MI6 spy—now a senior adviser to BP—helped free the Pan Am 103 bomber. Philip Shenon on the man the Senate wants to question. Did a former top British spy now on BP’s payroll – a man known as “BP’s Lawrence of Arabia” – win the release of the Lockerbie bomber and preserve BP’s huge oil-drilling business in Libya? U.S. law-enforcement and congressional officials tell The Daily Beast they are convinced the retired MI6 spy—Sir Mark Allen, now a senior adviser to BP in London—played a key behind-the-scenes role in freeing the Pan Am 103 bomber, Abdel Baset al Megrahi, who was released from a Scottish jail last summer and allowed to return home to Libya. Through a BP spokesman, Allen, a well-respected spook who specialized in the Arab world in his career at MI6 and who led U.K. government efforts after the 9/11 attacks to persuade Libya to give up its WMD programs and restore ties to the West, denies he made any effort to help Megrahi. “If we get the chance to call in some of the BP officials to testify about Megrahi, Allen will be on the top of our list for testimony,” a Senate aide said.
“Allen seems to be at the heart of this story,” said a Senate aide whose boss joined with other Senate Democrats this week in calling on the State Department and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to investigate BP’s connection to the bomber’s release. The Senate Democrats say their outrage over Megrahi’s freedom has only grown in the wake of new reports from Libya that the Lockerbie bomber, released from a Scottish jail because he was supposedly only weeks from dying from terminal prostate cancer, is far from dead—and may in fact survive for several more years. “If we get the chance to call in some of the BP officials to testify about Megrahi, Allen will be on the top of our list for testimony,” the Senate aide said. “Certainly some of us think subpoenas are in order.” Allen should be quizzed, the aide said, about the instructions he received at BP from the man who hired him at the company in 2004—then-Chief Executive John Browne, who later stepped down from BP in the wake of a perjury scandal. (In a book, Browne admitted having made mistakes in court papers testifying to details of a gay relationship he had.) Allen had obvious appeal to BP, given his close ties to Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi and his friendships with other leaders of oil-rich Arab nations—friendships cultivated in part through Allen’s love of falconry, the hobby of choice of many Arab rulers. (Allen’s book, Falconry in Arabia, was published in 1980.) Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) singled out Allen by name this week in calling for an investigation of BP’s involvement in Megrahi’s release, alleging that the energy company may have “gained access to Libyan oil reserves by using a mass murderer as a bargaining chip.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 21st, 2010 Excerpts from “At UN, Of Africa Days and Al Qaeda Evenings, Burundi and Bacardi Gold.” UNITED NATIONS, July 15 — With small countries in Africa dominating the Security Council’s July 15 schedule … one of the four countries already on the “Peace Building Commission” (PBC) agenda, Burundi, recently had a one party election marred by tossed grenades and now the threat of attack by Al Shabab. Burundi has soldiers in Somalia {and this is the reason why it has become fair game to Al Shabab}. Inner City Press spoke this week with the UN’s envoy to Burundi Charles Petrie. He put a positive spin on the one party election, saying it was not as violent as it might have been. Petrie said the opposition is weak, and the UN must play the counter-balance that civil society and opposition parties would in other countries. He should know: he was thrown out of Myanmar by the government, then served for a time in a humanitarian role on, but not in, Somalia. He was in the French military …. The Council should have heard from him but didn’t. The same might be said of the UN’s new envoy to Somalia, Augustine Mahiga. He went into the Council’s quiet room on July 14, but was not heard from by the Council as a whole. He met with the Permanent Five, one by one. He stopped to speak to Inner City Press, about including Al Shabab on the Al Qaeda sanctions list under Council Resolution 1267 in the wake of the Kampala bombings {This again, because Uganda has military forces for peace Keeping in Somalia.}. Later on July 14, at an ill-attended UK reception on climate change in the General Assembly lobby, Inner City Press asked UK Permanent Representative Mark Lyall Grant about 1267 and the Shabab. He pointed out that they are already on the Somalia sanctions list, and who knew who is or is not truly affiliated with Al Qaeda. An Ethiopian diplomat added, not surprisingly, they are “definitely” with Al Qaeda. But the Council sticks to its schedule. Guinea Bissau was the topic for July 15. The coup leader now heads the military; the UN “took note” of it. A Presidential Statement is to be drafted in the coming days. Still and all, the Permanent Representatives of France, Japan and Mexico strode into the Council just after 10 a.m.. {Liberia is now becoming the fifth small African Country on the PBC operating table.} UNITED NATIONS, July 12, updated — A day after the Kampala double bombing which killed more than 60 people, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had yet to issue any kind of statement. In front of the Security Council on Monday morning, one non-permanent member’s spokesperson wondered under what agenda item the Council might issue a statement: Somalia? Another spokesperson said moves were afoot for the issuance of a press statement, later in the day. Would it say who is responsible? After the bombing of trains in Madrid, the Council issued a statement blaming it on ETA. When Al Qaeda later took responsibility, the Council’s statement was never retracted. Here, nearly all speakers including Uganda authorities are pointing the finger at Islamist Somali insurgents. They had vowed retaliation for the Ugandan and Burundian AMISOM peacekeepers’ shelling of a market in Mogadishu. Others pointed out the targeting of “Ethiopian Village,” given antagonism between irridentist Somalia and Ethiopia. Motive is certainly there– and, the media pointed out, opportunity. As the draft text of the press statement was distributed to members, a Council diplomat told Inner City Press it did not assign blame, only the Council’s “standard terrorist attack language.” Might that change? Update of 3:20 p.m. — Nigeria’s Ambassador, the Council’s president for July, read out a four paragraph statement. As Inner City Press predicted this morning, it did not assign blame. But in the interim, the spokesman for Al Shabab has taken credit for the bombings, saying they were months in the planning. Inner City Press asked Nigeria’s Ambassador on camera why blame was not ascribed, and if this might not discourage countries from sending peacekeepers to Somalia. She declined the first, and to the second question said “there is a peace to keep in Somalia.” Afterward, Inner City Press was told that Al Shabab’s confession came after the statement was circulated and concurrence obtained. They didn’t want to delay it. But wouldn’t it have been stronger if more specific? An Ethiopian diplomat spoke about Eritrea. If ten Taliban are coming off the 1267 Al Qaeda sanctions list, does that mean there’s room for Al-Shabab? In Kampala, the Ethiopian Village? Incoming UN envoy on Somalia, Tanzania’s former Ambassador Mahiga, spoke to Inner City Press at the UN in New York last week, including about the peacekeepers’ use of “long range artillery” and the civilian casualties caused. Will Mahiga take this so-called “collateral damage” more seriously than Ould Abdallah did? ———————————– From the above we see clearly that when it come to the need to blame an Islamic insurgency, the UN is very slow at pointing a finger. There clearly must internal UN be reasons for that. Now let us see what Fared Zakaria and his high-brow participants in his circle of policy reviewers think about the situation: His program included Jeffrey Gettleman, the New York Times Bureau Chief in East Africa Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya) who saw the situation on location in Somalia, and Ken Menkhaus of Davison College in New Jersey, who served as UN Political Advisor in Somalia 1993-94. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/podcast… —————- THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE ON EARTH
 Chaos and lawlessness rule in Mogadishu, Somalia. And Al Shabab, a Somali affiliate of Al Qaeda, is exploiting that power vacuum and exporting terror. Al Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombing of World Cup viewers in Uganda and is practicing an extreme form of Islamic justice. What exactly is Al Shabab doing in Somalia and what can we expect next? Is there anything the U.S. or its allies can do to help the country that is called “the world’s worst failed state?” ————— Somalia is a country of 6-8 million people and at the end of the cold war they were the most militarized country in the world. Now there are 1-1.5 million people living outside Somalia and the country was destroyed – not by bombings but by small caliber guns. There is no central authority in the country and it has become ideal terrain for an Al Qaeda base. In 1992 the First President Bush had there 20,000 troops and left to avoid worst disaster leaving behind total vacuum. The locals are incapable of establishing a functioning government. Foreign funds that go to an interim government are dissipated but nevertheless there is a will on the outside to view this government as a transition – the question transition to what? The Al Shabab is widely unpopular but viewed as an alternative to useless government. This Al Shabab practices the most tuthless of Islam justice – like the cutting off of arms for suspected thieves. In this second level of vacuum move in the foreigners – be these the Al Qaeda people from Pakistan who want to see if they can move here as a new home base, and some more benevolent home comers from among the Somali diaspora that actually are ready to provide their skills in building government at locality levels like cities. These are very welcome by the elders who are ready to back their efforts with the elder prestige. This latter is the hope – but this is a bottom up government – and who will say that this will lead to a National government in its present borders? Would it not make sense to let them rule according to the ethnic divisions of the country and resulting in two or three smaller States that can then go their own ways? Jeffret Gettleman has seen this function on the ground in several locations where the situation is thus much better then in the country at large. The importance of this goes well beyond Somalia and the case that came to mind in this CNN/GPS program was Iraq. With the Iraqi elections held 133 days ago and a Parliament that todate has met only for the grandiose time of 18 minutes, and with the upcoming holidays, the evidence that nothing else can be expected before September and the US troops starting by then to leave the country, is Iraq going to be next Somalia? So – the conclusion is that government can be built only bottom up if the idea is to reach up to democracy – and then why insist on having a non-unified country when the only evidence at hand is that the people actually hate each other and belong to various groups with the only semblance of unity is the unity of cleptocrats? This disaster of Somalia may turn out to speak not only of Africa, but also of Iraq and why not of Afghanistan? These problem go well beyond the limited scope we started out with. ————————— Somalia Centre Stage Ahead of AU Summit. The blasts, which killed at least 74 people and wounded 82 others watching the World Cup finals on big screens at the Ethiopian Village Restaurant in Kampala’s Kabalagala neighbourhood, and at the Kyaddondo rugby grounds. The attacks came just two days after a spokesperson for Somalia’s al-Shabaab group, which is fighting against the weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG) for control of the country, said Uganda would be targeted for its role in the conflict.
Targeting the AU mission in Somalia Uganda contributes the majority of the 5,000 troops in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which has helped the TFG maintain a tenuous hold over parts of the capital, Mogadishu, but little more. Bahoku Barigye, spokesperson for AMISOM, told IPS that the mission’s mandate should be expanded from peace-keeping – its terms of reference originate in a U.N. resolution authorising a “training and protection” mission – to one of peace enforcement, for which more soldiers would be needed. “We have troops guarding the airport, the presidential palace, the port and other key installations this leaves us with few men to defend the civilians,” says Barigye. Security personnel in Uganda have so far made 20 arrests; two men have also been detained in neighbouring Kenya in connection with the bombings. Despite previous commitments by members of the African Union to contribute to a force of 20,000 peacekeepers, there are only about 5,000 troops in the Somali capital in support of the weak transitional federal government. Over 3,000 of these are from Uganda, the rest are from Burundi. Uganda undeterred At a Jul. 14 meeting called after the Kampala bombings, the Inter Government Authority on Development, a regional bloc of countries in the Horn of Africa, agreed to send an additional 2,000 soldiers. Uganda has indicated it will send in more of its own troops if other countries are not willing. Addressing a news conference at his private home in Ntugamo, western Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni said, “It was a very big mistake on their side; we shall
l deal with the authors of this crime.” He is also reported to have assured the U.S., which takes an active interest in Somali Islamist activity, that Uganda would not try to disentangle itself from the conflict in Somalia. The U.S. ambassador to Uganda, Jerry Lanier, said, “We believe the Uganda mission is more important than ever now.” The ambassador said the U.S. planned to increase assistance to Uganda and AMISOM. Political scientist Yassin Olum says the Ugandan president needed more time to reflect on the matter before making statements. “What this means is that we are no longer neutral in the conflict and we are fighting on the side of the Transitional Federal Government which is dangerous. This is not conventional warfare where you need more troops to defeat the enemy.” Fred Bwire, a Kampala city resident, voices the attitude of many ordinary Ugandans towards the Somali mission. “What are we doing there? Our people are being killed for nothing. Why aren’t Kenyans – who are neighbors with Somalia – bothered?” Hussein Kyanjo, an opposition member of parliament, believes the main beneficiary of Uganda’s continued involvement in Somalia is President Museveni himself. “He knows that the United States of America opposes the al-Shabaab and so he fights U.S. enemies to blind them to his dictatorial tendencies.” Amama Mbabazi, Uganda’s minister for security, responds that Kyanjo forgets that Uganda was suffered terrorist attacks long before it sent troops to Somalia. “The Allied Democratic Forces – another rebel outfit with links to Al-Qaeda – killed many people in the past and my friend Kyanjo seems to have forgotten this.” In their struggle against the government, the Islamist ADF rebels attacked police posts, schools and trade centres in the west of the country beginning in 1996; in 1998, it carried out several bombings in Kampala, killing five and wounding six others. Military action by the Ugandan army largely destroyed the group the following year. ———————————————— July 21, 2010 as per official UN NEWS we are not convinced the UN has the faintest idea of what to do about Somalia beyond calling for wasting some more money on it: UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE 21 July, 2010 ========================================================================= UN SOUNDS THE ALARM AS DIRE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION CONTINUES TO GRIP SOMALIA . As Somalia remains in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, it is vital to ensure adequate funding to assist the 3.2 million people – or more than 40 per cent of the population – who rely on international aid, a senior United Nations aid official stressed today. UN agencies and their partners have so far received only 56 per cent of the $600 million needed to fund critical areas such as health, water and sanitation, nutrition and livelihood support in Somalia, which is recovering from drought and years of chaos and is also in the throes of ongoing violence. The conflict has led to Somalia being one of the countries with the highest number of uprooted people in the world – an estimated 1.4 million displaced within the country and almost 595,000 living as refugees in neighbouring countries. “Conflict is the driving cause behind displacement and most of it comes from Mogadishu,” he said, noting that 20,000 people were displaced in the capital in June, and an estimated 200,000 people have been displaced from the city this year. In addition, fighting in Mogadishu since March this year has led to more than 3,000 conflict-related casualties. “What I genuinely hope is that we try to find some way of reducing the impact of this conflict on the civilian population and all parties need to find more peaceful means of settling their disputes,” he said, adding that where that is not possible, to at least avoid the considerable collateral damage on civilians. Some major achievements include keeping the country free of polio amid a resurgence of the disease in a number of other African countries. This is thanks to the provision of clean water to 1.3 million people, as well as vaccination campaigns that were carried out, even in volatile areas. “We are able to make progress in terms of managing humanitarian operations in extremely difficult circumstances, which include control of large parts of the country by rebel groups and active conflict in other parts,” he noted. ———————————— And Inner City Press from the UN continues its bleak reporting from the UN that really shows again and again that the UN will not lead the Somalis out of their misery. See - http://www.innercitypress.com/un1soa0721… Killing of Civilians by UN Supported Troops in Somalia Admitted But Not Acted On. By Matthew Russell Lee – On Child Soldiers Supported by UN in Somalia, UNSC Will Respond After 3 Years. By Matthew Russell Lee This has not been raised to the Security Council, Secretary Espinosa replied, not even to the Working Group. …… more ——————– Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 20th, 2010 CNN
July 19, 2010 “We are even prepared to put him in the Moscow City Aquarium if that were the condition.” He said Paul would be given “the best food” and officials would ..
bettor.com (blog)
July 19, 2010 Paul the German octopus living in an aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany at sea life centre and became famous when he forecasted and concluded, …
We wonder if a group from China’s Macao will top the Russian offer? Will the Las Vegas bookmakers make a move?
————————————————————— Germans arrest 6 suspected of rebel Tamil support.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: Mar 5, 2010 9:05 PM BERLIN: German prosecutors said Friday that they have arrested six people suspected of being members of a wing of the Tamil Tiger rebels and of forcing Tamils living in Germany to make donations to the banned group. The three German and three Sri Lankan nationals were arrested on Wednesday following searches in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, federal prosecutors said in a statement. The six are accused of serving in the leadership of the Tamil Coordination Committee, or TCC. The TCC is a Germany-based wing of the Tamil Tigers, who were defeated in 2009 after 25 years of civil war in Sri Lanka. The Tigers are listed as terrorists by the European Union. Prosecutors said the committee was “tasked with siphoning finances off of Tamils living in Germany and transferring the collected money and objects to Sri Lanka.” The six were identified only as Vijikanendra V. S., 34 — the alleged ringleader — Sivanathan T., 58, and Ragulan S., 22, all Sri Lankan citizens. The German citizens were identified as Sasitharan M., 33, Koneswaran T., 39, and 42-year-old Poobalasingham T. Kriminalität : Tamilische Tiger mit Büro in Oberhausen? Oberhausen, 05.03.2010, Helen Sibum Oberhausen. Organisation mit Sitz an der Marktstraße soll Geld für die „Befreiungstiger“ eingetrieben haben. Nur ein kleines Klingelschild weist hin auf das, was die Bundesstaatsanwaltschaft für den deutschen Ableger einer Terrororganisation hält. „TCC“ steht darauf, eine Abkürzung für „Tamil Coordination Committee“. Von einem Wohn- und Geschäftshaus an der unteren Marktstraße aus soll die Organisation Gelder eingetrieben haben für die „tamilischen Befreiungstiger“. Das Bundeskriminalamt hat die Räume am Mittwoch durchsucht und sechs mutmaßliche Spitzenmänner des TCC festgenommen. Vorwurf der Erpressung Einen der Männer im Alter zwischen 22 und 58 Jahren fasste man am Mittwoch in Oberhausen, die übrigen in anderen Städten Nordrhein-Westfalens. Laut Bundesanwaltschaft handelt es sich beim TCC um das Führungsgremium der deutschen Sektion der „Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam“ (LTTE). Die Europäische Union stuft die LTTE als Terrororganisation ein. Schon deshalb ist es strafbar, sie finanziell zu unterstützen, und genau das wirft man den Beschuldigten vor. „Sie haben Geld für den bewaffneten Kampf in ihrer Heimat beschafft“, so Frank Wallenta, Sprecher der Karlsruher Behörde. Hinzu kommt, dass die nun Festgenommenen offenbar erheblichen Druck auf Landsleute ausübten, um ihr Ziel zu erreichen. Das TCC habe „ein durchstrukturiertes, hierarchisches Eintreibungssystem aufgebaut, in dessen Rahmen auch erpresserische Mittel eingesetzt wurden“. So habe man hier lebenden Tamilen gedroht, bei Nicht-Kooperation ihre Angehörigen in der Heimat zu verschleppen oder als Soldaten zu rekrutieren. Der Bürgerkrieg in Sri Lanka gilt seit 2009 als beendet. Die singhalesische Regierung erklärte die „Befreiungstiger“ für besiegt, diese kündigten einen Waffenstillstand an, nachdem sie mehr als 25 Jahre für einen unabhängigen Tamilenstaat gekämpft hatten. Den freilich wünschen sich viele Tamilen nach wie vor und beklagen eine unterdrückerische und diskriminierende Politik Sri Lankas. Bei einem symbolischen Referendum im Januar verliehen Tamilen auch in Oberhausen ihrem Unmut erneut Ausdruck (die NRZ berichtete). Freiwillig gespendet Deutliche Distanzierungen von den LTTE hört man dabei selten – es ist die ewige Diskussion über die Grenze zwischen Terrorismus und Befreiungskampf. „Die singhalesische Regierung war schlimmer“, sagt ein tamilischer Seelsorger. Er habe früher selbst für die LTTE gespendet – freiwillig, wie er betont. Von der Existenz des TCC weiß er, nicht aber von Erpressungen. Kleidersammlungen und tamilischen Unterricht soll das Komitee organisiert haben. Andere Tamilen weichen auf das TCC angesprochen aus – ob aus Überzeugung oder aus Angst, wer weiß das schon. http://www.derwesten…-id2682889.html Terror in Oberhausen : Terroristischer Organisation auf der Spur Oberhausen, 05.03.2010, WAZ Die Bundesanwaltschaft hat in NRW mutmaßliche Führungskräfte des „Tamil Coordination Committee“ festnehmen lassen. Im Zentrum des TCC in Oberhausen traf es den 22 Jahre alten sri-lankischen Staatsangehörigen Ragulan S., der jetzt in Untersuchungshaft sitzt. Er soll dem Führungsgremium des TCC seit Sommer 2008 angehören und seitdem koordinierende Tätigkeiten im TCC-Zentrum Oberhausen ausgeübt haben. Neben Ragulan S. wurden fünf weitere Männer im Alter von 33 bis 58 Jahren festgenommen. Bis auf einen, gegen den der Haftbefehl außer Vollzug gesetzt wurde, sitzen alle in Untersuchungshaft. Das TCC ist das Führungsgremium der deutschen Sektion der „Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam“ (LTTE), heißt es in einer Presseerklärung der Bundesanwaltschaft. Die LTTE gilt als terroristische Vereinigung. Die TCC habe die Aufgabe, in Deutschland lebenden Tamilen Geld abzuknöpfen. Die Gelder fließen nach Sri Lanka, um dort terroristische Aktionen zu finanzieren. Das TCC hat, so die Bundesanwaltschaft, ein Eintreibungssystem aufgebaut. Die Mitglieder schreckten vor Erpressung nicht zurück. So würde gedroht, in Sri Lanka lebende Familienangehörige der Exiltamilen zu verschleppen oder zwangsweise als Soldaten zu rekrutieren. Ähnliche Phänomene gibt es bei der Kurdenorganisationen PKK oder der türkischen DKKPC (Revolutionäre Volksbefreiungspartei-Front). Bundesanwaltschaft – Tamilen-Führer in Nordrhein-Westfalen festgenommen Tamilen-Führer in Nordrhein-Westfalen festgenommen Im Rahmen der Ermittlungen wurden acht Objekte durchsucht, darunter das Zentrum des TCC in Oberhausen. Die Tatverdächtigen sollen sich an einer kriminellen Vereinigung beteiligt haben. Die Organisation TCC gilt als Führungsgremium der deutschen Sektion der Separatistenbewegung «Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam» (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. Die LTTE ist nach Angaben der Bundesanwaltschaft aufgrund eines Beschlusses des Rats der Europäischen Union seit Mai 2006 als terroristische Vereinigung gelistet. Es ist daher nach dem Außenwirtschaftsgesetz strafbar, der Organisation Vermögens- oder Sachwerte zukommen zu lassen. Das TCC hat demnach die Aufgabe, die in Deutschland lebenden Tamilen finanziell abzuschöpfen und die eingetriebenen Gelder sowie Gegenstände, die die LTTE für ihre terroristischen Zwecke benötigt, nach Sri Lanka zu transferieren. Um ein möglichst hohe Einnahmen zu sichern, hat das TCC laut Bundesanwaltschaft ein durchstrukturiertes hierarchisches Eintreibungssystem aufgebaut, in dessen Rahmen auch erpresserische Mittel eingesetzt werden, etwa die Drohung, die im Einflussgebiet der LTTE in Sri Lanka lebenden Familienangehörigen der Exiltamilen zu verschleppen oder zwangsweise als Soldaten zu rekrutieren. Die Beschuldigten wurden am Mittwoch und Donnerstag dem Ermittlungsrichter des Bundesgerichtshofs vorgeführt, der ihnen die Haftbefehle eröffnet und gegen fünf Tatverdächtige den Vollzug der Untersuchungshaft angeordnet hat. Bei einem Beschuldigten wurde der Haftbefehl gegen Auflagen außer Vollzug gesetzt. Mit den weiteren Ermittlungen ist das Bundeskriminalamt beauftragt. Karlsruhe/Oberhausen (ddp) Führungsfunktionäre der Tamil Tigers in Deutschland verhaftet Fünf führende Funktionäre eines deutschen Ablegers der terroristischen Tamil-Tiger-Organisation aus Sri Lanka sind auf Betreiben der Bundesanwaltschaft verhaftet worden. Karlsruhe – Den Beschuldigten im Alter von 22 bis 58 Jahren wird Mitgliedschaft in einer kriminellen Vereinigung vorgeworfen, wie die Anklagebehörde am Freitag in Karlsruhe mitteilte. Wie es hieß, wurden die Männer am Mittwoch auf Grundlage des bereits am 16. Dezember ausgestellten Haftbefehls festgenommen. Daran waren Beamte des Bundeskriminalamts und örtliche Polizeikräfte aus Nordrhein-Westfalen beteiligt. Den Angaben zufolge wurden im Rahmen der Ermittlungen acht Objekte durchsucht, darunter das Zentrum des „Tamil Coordination Committee“ (TCC) in Oberhausen. Die Männer seien dringend verdächtig, sich in der aus Führungskadern des TCC bestehenden kriminellen Vereinigung betätigt zu haben, erklärte die Behörde von Generalbundesanwältin Monika Harms. Die Bundesanwaltschaft bezeichnete das „Tamil Coordination Committee“ als Führungsgremium der deutschen Sektion der „Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam“ (LTTE). Die LTTE wird nach einem Beschluss des Rats der Europäischen Union seit Mai 2006 als terroristische Vereinigung gelistet. Es sei daher nach dem Außenwirtschaftsgesetz strafbar, der Organisation Vermögens- oder Sachwerte zukommen zu lassen. Das TCC habe aber die Aufgabe, die in Deutschland lebenden Tamilen finanziell abzuschöpfen und die eingetriebenen Gelder oder Gegenstände, die die LTTE für ihre terroristischen Zwecke benötige, nach Sri Lanka zu transferieren. Angehörige von Exiltamilen in Sri Lanka verschleppt Um ein möglichst hohes Aufkommen an Einnahmen zu sichern, habe das TCC „ein durchstrukturiertes hierarchisches Eintreibungssystem aufgebaut, in dessen Rahmen auch erpresserische Mittel eingesetzt werden“. Dazu gehöre etwa die Drohung, im Einflussgebiet der LTTE in Sri Lanka lebende Familienangehörige der Exiltamilen zu verschleppen oder zwangsweise als Soldaten zu rekrutieren. Als Rädelsführer bezeichnete die Anklagebehörde den festgenommenen 34 Jahre alten sri-lankischen Staatsangehörigen Vijikanendra V.S. Er soll seit Juni 2006 Deutschlandverantwortlicher des TCC sein. Alle Beschuldigten wurden am Mittwoch und Donnerstag dem Ermittlungsrichter des Bundesgerichtshofs vorgeführt, der ihnen die Haftbefehle eröffnete. Er ordnete in vier der fünf Fälle den Vollzug der Untersuchungshaft an. Nur für einen 42-jährigen Festgenommenen wurde der Haftbefehl gegen Auflagen außer Vollzug gesetzt. Mit den weiteren Ermittlungen wurde das Bundeskriminalamt beauftragt. (apn) apn-Nachrichten/AP-Bilder – alle Rechte vorbehalten. apn-Nachrichten und AP-Bilder dürfen ohne vorherige ausdrückliche Erlaubnis weder veröffentlicht, umgeschrieben oder weiter verbreitet werden, sei dies zu gewerblichen und anderen Zwecken. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 19th, 2010 The culture war at the UN, to block the granting to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, re-ignited on July 19 in the ECOSOC committee. The blocking was over-ridden, and the non governmental organization granted consultative status with the UN, on a vote of 23 in favor, 13 against, and 13 abstaining. 5 were absent or not voting. Total 54 in the ECOSOC membership.
US Deputy Permanent Representative Rosemary DiCarlo introduced an ECOSOC resolution to overrule the NGO Committee and grant consultative status to IGLHRC. In statements before the vote, Saudi Arabia and Egypt outright opposed the group and U.S. motion. Eight more speakers signed up. Belgium’s Permanent Representative Grauls, on behalf of the European Union, spoke in favor of IGLHRC, saying a “no” vote would be discrimination. Norway and UK DPR Parham echoed this, as did Argentina, where gay marriage was just legalized. The votes in the 54 member ECOSOC, on this resolution granting IGLHRC special consultative status, were as follows: Vote For – 23
Votes Against – 13
Abstaining – 13
Absent – 5
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/19-10
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The interesting votes were the abstentions of Turkey, India, Moldova, the Ukraine, Mongolia, and the absent St. Lucia.
Besides Turkey, all other Islamic countries voted NO and were joined by the States that do not appreciate individualism – China, Russia and Venezuela and some of their friends: Namibia and Zambia.
Western oriented countries in Latin America and Asia joined the progressive West and voted YES.
Not a single African country was among those inclined to extend human rights to people they do not agree to their life-style – this just one single day after celebrating Nelson Mandela International Day.
THIS IS SHOCKING INDEED! ———————————
US pushing UN status for gay rights group.
By EDITH M. LEDERER (AP) – July 17, 2010 UNITED NATIONS — The Obama administration and 14 members of the U.S. Congress are urging the U.N. Economic and Social Council to accredit the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission so it can work at the United Nations. The U.S.-based organization, which has offices in South Africa, Argentina and the Philippines, has been trying since 2007 to get consultative status with the council, which serves as the main U.N. forum for discussing international economic and social issues. The organization, the U.S. government and the members of Congress believe the group’s application has not been approved because it promotes gay rights. The council, known as ECOSOC, is currently holding its high-level meeting at U.N. headquarters and the United States decided to seek approval directly from its membership. A U.S. draft resolution circulated Friday would have ECOSOC grant the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission consultative status. Jessica Stern, the commission’s program director, said the group expects the 54 members of ECOSOC to vote on the U.S. draft on Monday. “Given that more than 70 countries around the world still have sodomy laws in effect and that homophobia is rampant around the world, the opportunity to be recognized by the international community and the human rights standards that the U.N. represents is invaluable to our work,” Stern said. In a letter to ECOSOC, the members of Congress said last month’s decision by the committee that accredits non-governmental organizations to take “no action” on the gay rights group’s application was aimed at preventing the full ECOSOC from making a decision. The 14 Democratic lawmakers said the “no action” motion, as well as questions and statements by some member states, indicated that the commission’s application was not approved because of its focus “on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.” The members of Congress — including Massachusetts’ Barney Frank, who is gay — urged ECOSOC to support the international commission’s application which would send a message to the NGO committee “that it must review all applications without discrimination.” “Diversity of civil society at the United Nations is essential to respecting, protecting and promoting the human rights of all people and to achieving sustainable peace and human security,” the letter said. “Please do not allow the voices of marginalized people to be silenced by discrimination and procedural roadblocks.” Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said the U.S. “is determined to make U.N. committees live up to their founding principles and be true to the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.” “The purpose of the NGO committee is to give civil society a strong voice at the U.N., and that includes the important contributions that gay and lesbian groups … can make on issues like human rights and combating HIV/AIDS,” he said. Stern said Egypt, which proposed the successful “no action” motion last month, has led the opposition to the commission’s application. A telephone call to Egypt’s U.N. Mission seeking comment was not returned. Stern said that of several thousand organizations with consultative status at ECOSOC only nine are gay and lesbian groups. The international commission is the first American-based gay and lesbian NGO to apply in several years, she said. —————— U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the outcome. “I welcome this important step forward for human rights,” Obama said in a statement. “Today, with the more full inclusion of the International Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Commission, the United Nations is closer to the ideals on which it was founded, and to values of inclusion and equality to which the United States is deeply committed.” British Deputy Ambassador Philip Parham told ECOSOC that the group’s presence at the world body “will add an important voice to our discussions at the U.N.” Cary Alan Johnson, the group’s director, said the decision was “an affirmation that the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have a place at the United Nations as part of a vital civil society community.” “The clear message here is that these voices should not be silenced and that human rights cannot be denied on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Johnson said. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 19th, 2010 South Sudan’s road to independence.By Barney Jopson Published: March 20 2010
http://happyarabnews.blogspot.com/2006/1… Barely an hour into a journey that was about to get longer and second lieutenant Thomas Bakata’s Chinese motorbike was handling as it usually does on the route from Juba to Yei: like a bucking bronco. It jerked and jolted over sandy ridges and stony pits as the rabbit-ear flaps on his green hat flailed in the wind, and the Wellington boots trussed to boxes on the back wriggled to get free. On Bakata’s number plate was a flag belonging to a land-locked country-in-waiting at the rawest end of Africa’s wilderness spectrum. This is south Sudan, and the dirt track its lifeline to civilisation – a road so rough that drivers say taking it more than three times a week will scramble your internal organs. Bakata, a regular traveller, lurched around another bend and squinted through his counterfeit Ray-Bans: a rope-and-streamer roadblock had been thrown up. He sighed and applied the brake, bringing the Senke 125cc to a halt. “How long will we wait here?” he asked, showing off a gap between his front teeth. The answer was 30 minutes, time enough to talk. “This land of ours,” he told me, “we have been many years fighting. Some of our fathers fought, so we have been fighting too.” He became a soldier 20 years ago, joining the then-guerrilla ranks of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) six years into the second phase of Africa’s longest civil war. The marginalised south was rebelling against a brutal Arab-led regime in Khartoum – the latest in a succession – and the bullets and flames of a scorched-earth campaign had arrived in Bakata’s village. He was 18 years old. It was a war that killed two million people – equivalent to 20-25 per cent of the region’s population today – either in raids or battles, or through the hunger and disease that spread around them. The road where Bakata had stopped was a key fighting ground in the mid-1990s, when Juba was a garrison town controlled by Khartoum and surrounded by the SPLA. That is how the path and its hinterland came to be peppered with landmines – and why Bakata’s journey had been delayed. On the other side of the barrier, personnel from MineWolf Systems, a Swiss-German demining company, clomped forward in suits that were half-astronaut, half-beekeeper, clearing the last vestiges of the civil war from beneath the soil. The conflict began in late 1955, a few months before Sudan gained independence from colonial Britain, and was passed down through generations. It was in part about race and religion, about the people of the south asserting that they were different from but equal to northerners. This came in the face of racist Islamist campaigns to impose Arab culture, Islam and sharia law across Sudan. Most southerners are Christian or have traditional beliefs that imbue the natural world with spiritual power. “We worship the ostrich, but we consider it like Jesus, like a mediator,” one man explained. “It is not a God itself.” There were also issues of poverty and injustice: there are huge disparities in income and living standards within Sudan and a key reason, beyond the effects of the war, is the economic exploitation of the south by the north, which came to be symbolized by northern slave-raiding. “It’s Sudan: it means ‘the black people’,” says Bakata. “We are the real Sudanese. Those who are brown, they came like the Arabs. They came from the north to sit with us and we the black people got annoyed because there was no development. If you go to Khartoum, you see lots of things.” Strapped over Bakata’s shoulder was the same Kalashnikov rifle he was given when he joined the liberation struggle, its butt chipped and scratched. “It is working okay,” he said, “because we don’t use it anyhow. It is only for protection. Last time was when we were fighting.” In 2005, after three years of intense negotiations and international pressure, the war ended with a peace deal between the SPLA and the Khartoum regime of president Omar al-Bashir. The deal gave the south partial autonomy and provided for a six-year interim period in which attempts would be made to heal the north-south rift through a more equitable distribution of power and resources. That has not succeeded. “The Arabs, we are over with them,” Bakata said dismissively. Instead, attention has shifted to the peace deal’s get-out clause: a referendum on southern self-determination due next January in which an overwhelming majority of southerners are expected to vote for secession. It’s possible the referendum will be delayed; it’s possible Khartoum will choose to fight another war rather than let the south go; it’s possible the international community will get last-minute jitters over the rupture and try to thwart it. If none of that happens, south Sudan will become the world’s newest country as early as next July (following a six-month transitional period). But what kind of country? Plenty of places have been rebuilt after devastating wars, but nowhere has a nation-state been built from nothing in six years. “This is still bare-bones stuff,” said one British aid worker. “You’re looking at society before civilisation.”
The future capital of any future country is Juba, situated on the Bahr el-Jebel stretch of the White Nile river, a boom town in a region also known as the Wild South. The main unit of construction here is the shipping container; there is no public water supply; electricity comes from personal diesel generators; and only last year did the length of its paved roads surpass four miles. Yet it is home to a circus cast of outsiders who have flocked here since 2005: roughshod profiteers, UN drones in pressed shirts, bleeding heart aid workers, insta-fix briefcase consultants. They are attracted by its danger and its desperation and they have given Juba its signature impermanence and incoherence. “There’s this sense that everything arrived yesterday and that it’s changing before your eyes,” said one man on the payroll of a European government. The area is the ancestral home of the Bari people and that’s why you can turn a corner and stumble across a community of tukul mud huts with conical straw roofs, or a team of hammer swingers making one of the region’s few indigenous products: broken rocks. This is the thing about Juba: it’s got bits of the pre-industrial era and it’s got bits of the 21st-century, but there’s a gap where the western 20th century could have been. So it has mass illiteracy and US aid workers carrying Kindles – but precious few school textbooks. It has inter-tukul rumour mills and a “3.75G” mobile phone network – but no landlines. It has women fetching river water by hand and a few dust-churning Hummers – but no donkey-drawn carts. It also has oil – lots of it. Ninety-eight per cent of its non-aid budget this year comes from crude, so a future country is likely to be the world’s most oil-dependent. It is also headed towards being more dependent than anywhere else on aid agencies: they are estimated to provide 85 per cent of both education and health services in the region. During the war, the south’s main settlements had been garrison towns controlled by Khartoum whose economies were run by white-robed merchants from the north. Those merchants fled after the 2005 peace deal and left an economic vacuum that only risk-taking outsiders could fill: Ugandan steel suppliers, a Chinese mineral water trader, Eritrean hotel owners, a Canadian farmer, and so on. They got the region working but they have also stoked resentment at profiteering. Indeed, business people told me they were pocketing profit margins of 50, 100 or even 200 per cent. Evan Hadjimichael, a Greek born in Egypt and joint owner of Notos, a Mediterranean restaurant that tries to be different by offering “value”, said: “Everyone here tries to make a quick buck. They have an absurd pricing structure.” Part of that is because no one knows whether national elections scheduled next month or the referendum next January will trigger renewed conflict, or whether the tenuous rule of law will protect them from land and tax grabs. Stories circulate of businesses that lost out in disputes with locals who got their way through brute force – for example, KK Security of Kenya, whose operation was violently seized. Nestled among rolls of chain-link fencing and spaghetti-like stacks of steel cables, Chesta Musoke reclined at a “technology hub” grafted on to the side of a corrugated iron kiosk, reading an old copy of Red Pepper, a scandal-sheet from his native Uganda. A laid-back sophisticate, he looked out of place among the grizzled traders and truckers who have made Juba’s Mawunna trading centre the drop-off point for goods at the end of the Yei road. But they appreciate him for charging their mobile phone batteries – using a bank of sockets available for two Sudanese pounds (60p) a go – and for injecting some cheer into the grim workaday scene by pumping out music from his computer. He tossed down his newspaper as I approached to chat. When I asked about the locals, he jabbed a finger at a picture on his computer screen of Destiny’s Child, the female R&B group, and told me about the reaction of his archetypal south Sudanese man. “He sees her here and he says he wants to talk to her. Now. Now. He is not yet aware of technology,” he said. “You bring the radio, he listens, then he comes back with money and says he wants to buy the songs inside. He sees the mirror and he wants to pass through it because he sees the traffic moving inside.” The long civil war left most of the people frozen in time for 50 years while the rest of the world – including city dwellers in neighbouring African countries – raced ahead. Now they have been asked to cover in six years the ground that took the rest of us decades, centuries. “It’s a culture of no exposure to so many things,” says Suzanne Jambo, the garrulous head of external relations for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the political wing of the former rebel army, which rules the south. “It’s like baby steps. You have to take people on baby steps.” The lack of familiarity with the modern world extends to concepts such as work, employment, commerce – even farming. South Sudan oozes fertility, but during mango season an overpowering stench assails parts of the region because heaps of the fruit are left rotting where they fall. Meanwhile, expats in Juba drink Ceres-branded mango juice imported from Uganda. “There’s a culture of dependency, a culture of not taking pride in earning your own income,” says Jambo. “It’s a way of thinking. It’s like an entitlement. Do you know? That’s how it is.” Beyond war itself, such attitudes have their roots in Operation Lifeline Sudan, a food relief effort run by the UN and aid agencies during the conflict; it kept hundreds of thousands of civilians alive, but is now criticised for having pulled them into garrison towns and killed off agriculture and self-reliance. Members of the diaspora returning to south Sudan are helping to counteract this but they are often overpowered by a postwar indigenous economy that can be summarised as “oil revenues in, state salaries out”. South Sudan’s former guerrilla leaders turned public sector employment into a patronage tool, creating a state payroll of more than 300,000, including the army. It is as messy as it is unproductive: there are drivers with no cars, schools with more cleaners than teachers. But via hand-outs given to relatives the salaries probably support up to half the population.
The labels have been stuck on the store-room shelves – ampicillin, flagil, septazole – but the spaces above them are empty. The adjustable baby-delivery chairs gleam after a scrub, but some do not work because their screws have fallen out. The amateur midwives are literate and hard-working, but they tend to panic when a labour doesn’t go according to plan. This is the maternity ward in the Juba Teaching Hospital; too often it is also the scene of avoidable tragedy. “Recognising complications during birth is an issue,” Sake Jemelia, head of the ward, told me. “Most of the mothers die because of that … The community midwives run up and down calling for the doctor. But the doctor is not there and there is no blood to replace what is lost.” South Sudan’s human development indicators are among the worst in the world. The UN spells them out on a list entitled “Scary Statistics”. Under maternal mortality it says: “One out of seven women who become pregnant in S Sudan will probably die of pregnancy-related causes.” Babies are only in marginally less danger: 102 die per 1,000 live births. A non-Sudanese doctor who had visited the maternity ward told me: “You see the babies are pulled out like logs, they are convulsing, and you ask the midwife and she doesn’t know anything. I just made the sign of the cross. I don’t want to go there again.” The hospital’s reliance on amateur staff is explained by another statistic on the UN list: there are only 100 certified midwives in the whole of the south Sudan, or roughly one per 100,000 people. The picture for water, sanitation and education – the other basic services – is equally grim. Luka Biong Deng, minister of presidential affairs, said the figures were better than five years ago but had been adversely affected by a decision to focus public spending on roads and buildings. Yet south Sudan has also received just over $2bn in foreign aid since 2005. Why has it made so little difference? The region seems to embody two of aid’s recurring weaknesses: short-termism and a failure to understand local circumstances. “It’s inter-generational change you need in south Sudan,” said Allan Duncan, a former aid worker who, as a KPMG consultant, became the new government’s Mr Fix-it in its early days. “It’s not a five to 10-year time frame. That’s where a lot of people had unrealistic expectations about what they could achieve.”
Rather than building the country methodically, he said donors and NGOs had set time horizons that end at next year’s referendum, triggering a rush to launch dozens of over-optimistic and ill-considered projects. “It’s been like an end-of-the-world party,” Duncan told me in his Nairobi office. “2011 became this cliff and everyone knew you’d have to step off it. But no one knew if it was 1ft high or 100ft high. So there’s never been any form of institution-building for 2011 and beyond.” Members of the aid brigade in Juba spend a lot of time blaming one another for what’s gone wrong, but the most popular punchbag is the World Bank, which was chosen to administer a flagship recovery fund into which western governments poured $524m. The bank had little experience of post-conflict zones, it could not attract good staff to Juba, and it applied criteria that were ludicrously stringent in a place as raw as south Sudan. The result: by the end of last year, little more than a third of the money had been spent, leaving donors furious. Most of the money that has got out has gone to aid agencies. Some of their staff reminded me with pride that they provide the bulk of health services in south Sudan. “We are basically the ministry of health,” said a worker with Médecins Sans Frontières. But others voiced the criticisms that come with that. “They set up completely parallel systems and they have reacted very self-righteously when someone in the SPLM tries to control them,” said John Ashworth, a Sudan veteran who heads the Nairobi office of IKV Pax Christi, a Christian campaign group. Aid agencies get barbs elsewhere in Africa for letting governments ignore their responsibility to provide services to their citizens. But in south Sudan, the international community made the opposite error: it tried to manage too much in partnership with a novice government that knew as little about governing as its people did about farming or computers. One World Bank official told me wearily about “weeks and weeks” that had been lost as the ministry of legal affairs vetted agreements for recovery fund projects. “The concept of general conditions of contracts seemed not to be known,” he said. “Guys were trying to negotiate what is force majeure, which the whole world has accepted.” Duncan, the Mr Fix-it from KPMG, recalled his realisation in 2005 that some of the finance ministry officials who were due to be trained in budgets, procurement and auditing would first need remedial maths classes.
When 2nd Lt Thomas Bakata was joining the struggle, eight-year old Philip Achuoth had already been in a refugee camp for two years. He was another face of the civil war, a Lost Boy: one of thousands who trekked more than 1,000 miles to safety, losing touch with their families and seeing friends picked off by air force bombers and Arab militias, lions and crocodiles, exhaustion and starvation. “A lot of my colleagues died,” Achuoth told me. “You would see them lying by the path. Or you would say, ‘Wake up, wake up,’ to the one next to you in the morning, you would push him, and he was dead. You would feel like you would be the next.” Today he is a towering man with a domed forehead framed by an Afro. I met him at a Juba restaurant whose scattershot menu offered rogan josh and pizzas, chicken chow mein and vegetable quesadillas. He didn’t smile once. His earnestness was overpowering and his angst about south Sudan obvious. What bothered him above all was cronyism, corruption and the inaction of the government. “For we who assess development in terms of quality of life, it has not done anything,” he said. That sentiment is common, and although the former rebels are unlikely to lose power in national elections next month, they are braced to be chastised by the people. The SPLM itself is split along policy lines, between radicals who want to spurn the north after referendum day, pragmatists who see a need to co-operate with it and unionists who still want Sudan to remain as one. It is also divided between leaders from the south’s largest tribe, the Dinka, and those from the Nuer tribe, notably the vice-president and the army’s deputy commander-in-chief: they both fought against the SPLM in a war within the civil war and they control former militias imperfectly integrated into the southern army. Indeed, the army as a whole is still fragmented into a series of half-reformed guerrilla groups, which are often reviled by the local populations they prey on and not disciplined by an effective command structure. As for the people themselves, ethnic violence surged last year as more than 2,000 people were killed by rival tribes in disputes over cattle, water and grazing land. The upheaval of the civil war has created lingering suspicions, too – between those who were in garrison towns during the war, those who lived in rebel-held territory and those who fled the country. What has held the fractious south together in the past five years has been its need to manage Khartoum’s political chicanery, get to the referendum and prepare for the contingency of renewed war. If it becomes independent without conflict, the “Arabs” against whom it has defined itself will be diminished as a common enemy. That is when the south’s internal divisions could come to the fore, threatening the security and cohesion of a place where guns are everywhere and belligerence hangs in the air. It is not the foreigners who will determine its future; that will hinge on the ability of the south Sudanese to find mutual interests and a unified identity. Achuoth said that, having cheated death and the circling vultures who feasted on fallen Lost Boys during their long march, he now wanted to help other survivors return home. But at the very least, that home must be safe. “This liberation struggle,” he said, “I have seen too much. I want to see a good outcome. I don’t want to see other people experiencing the same, going back to square zero.” Barney Jopson is the FT’s East Africa correspondent Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 19th, 2010 For one thing, see there is a good South African Restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and we go there for inspiration and nourishment from time to time. www.madibarestaurant.com/ – info@madibarestaurant.com. Based on the above – we write: Two freedom fighters I most admire, writes Noel Anderson, Professor at Brooklyn College, in the struggle for South African democracy are Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. Law partners and comrades, both men helped to shape the direction of the country, with Mandela leading the struggle from within, while Tambo raised international consciousness and money while exiled abroad. Tambo is no longer with us, but Mandela keeps the best of that struggle alive, becoming the first truly democratically elected President of South Africa after decades of imprisonment, and continuing to serve as a moral symbol for African and world affairs. Born 92 years ago on July 18th, 1918, into a royal family in the Transkei, Mandela has been at the center of not just South African but global freedom struggles. He was the head of the ANC youth league and became a founding member of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”) the armed wing of the ANC, before being imprisoned for 27 years. President Obama, in tribute to Mandela’s work, has called on all to engage in community service. (In effect this past weekend everyone of us was called to put aside 82 minutes of his time and dedicate those 82 minutes to the community. The United Nations has also recognized his birthday as Nelson Mandela International Day by calling on November 10, 2009 to make the !8th of July The International Mandela Day – and this year – the July 18th 2010, was supposed to be The First International Mandela Day. But it fell on a Sunday and that is a no-no for the UN Free Birds that must keep the weekend in New York for free enjoyment – really – what other reason for spending the time in this hot city? So, the UN moved to celebrate the day, this year, on Thursday night and Friday Morning – 15th and 16th of 2010. Strange as it sounds, its important to recognize that “Madiba” (his term of endearment), the 92 year old grandfather, still has a revolutionary spirit and still… very much alive. The press tends to talk about him the past tense, as if he is long gone and only his legacy survives. Yes, health concerns has led him to retreat from a once rigorous travel schedule, and his chronological age puts him in the twilight of his life. But Mandela is mentally very lucid, weighs in on global politics and still advises in the affairs of his philanthropic foundation. Further, despite the controversial painting of Mandela, depicting him as dead and being used for an autopsy by political leaders, he still speaks with leaders on pressing concerns, and remains loyal to those countries that supported the freedom struggle. Happy Birthday, Madiba! {Dr. Noel S. Anderson is Associate Professor of Political Science and Education at the City University of New York – Brooklyn College. His work focuses on urban politics, human development and education and comparative issues in public policy – U.S. and South Africa}. ————————– The celebration started on Thursday night 6:30 pm with a series of three talks and the screening of the documentary “MANDELA: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation, in the new ECOSOC Chamber in the UN temporary North Lawn building. No one from the high flyers of the UN was there – their place taken by fill-ins, but luckily Jonathan Demme the director, and Peter Saraf, the co-producer of the film were there – so the aesthetics of their production could be brought up. For the UN spoke Margaret Novicki and Nicholas Haysom. Margaret Novicki was appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Pretoria, South Africa. Ms. Novicki, a national of the United States, brings to this post extensive experience in communications, media relations and journalism, much of it acquired in Africa. Prior to Pretoria she worked for the UN in Accra. She chaired the evening. She spoke on behalf of the UN USG for UNDPI – Mr. Kiyotaka Akasaka. Nicholas Haysom, as an attorney of the South African High Court, he litigated in high-profile human rights cases between 1981 and 1993. He acted as a professional mediator in labour and community conflicts in South Africa between 1985 and 1993, and has advised on civil conflicts in Africa and Asia since 1998. Founding partner and senior lawyer at the human rights law firm of Cheadle Thompson and Haysom Attorneys, and an Associate Professor of Law and Deputy Director at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University in South Africa until May 1994, when he was appointed Legal Adviser to President Mandela. Mr. Haysom was closely involved in the constitutional negotiations leading up to the interim and final Constitutions in South Africa. He served as Chief Legal Adviser throughout Mr. Mandela’s presidency, and continued to work with Mr. Mandela on his private peace initiatives up to 2002. Since leaving the office of the President upon Nelson Mandela’s retirement in 1999, Mr. Haysom has been involved in the Burundi Peace Talks as the Chairman of the committee negotiating constitutional issues (1999–2002). He continued to serve on the implementation committee of the Burundi Peace Accord after 2002. Incoming UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Professor Nicholas Haysom of South Africa as Director for Political Affairs in his Executive Office, May 16, 2007. Our friend Matthew Russell Lee complained that he is never seen at the UN – but in a careful reading of the article we find there the concept of preventive diplomacy – we wish had more credence at the UN. “He said there is a resistance to preventive diplomacy among member states, leading to the blocking of reform and regional offices of the Department of Political Affairs — he ascribed the most strenuous opposition to Latin America — and to resistance to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and Ed Luck’s appointment as special advisor on the topic.” In short – he actually seems to be well ahead of the UN but not really of the UN – where he finds it difficult to execute policy that is factually set by only the Permant Five of the Veto Power. What we said above was that both speakers for the UN are somehow South Africa based and not UN based. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Xhosa pronunciation: [xo?li?a?a man?de?la]; born in a Xhosa home in Qunu, Transkei,where his father, the Town Counselor, had 4 wives and the boys lived in a separate home from the parents. Chief Jogintamba saw his potential and sent him to the Clakebury Boarding School. In 1933, at 15, he got involved in the Walter Sisulu led ANC and when he reached 30 years, that is when coincidentally Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd’s contribution to Afrikanerdom was to dress up apartheid and make it appear respectable to his followers, and the Mandela & Tambo law-firm took on the anti-apartheid legal defense. In 1956 Mandela prepared the Freedom Charter and the people declared – “We Stand by Our Leader.” Then in 1960 happened the Sharpeville masacre and the call changed to: “Freedom in Our Time” and Wolfie Kadesh, a white man, was an activist. In 1962 Mandela went underground and George Bizios, also a white man, was his lawyer. Eventually, Mandela was apprehended and was in jail 1961 – 1988. Gowan Mbeki was imprisoned for 25 years. In August 1989 Botha resigns and De Klerk takes over and leeds the negotiations with Mandela. November 1993 both of them get the Nobel Prize. Friday, 10 Dec 1993 was Mandela’s speech in Oslo. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen… Fully representative Democratic elections took place on 27 April 1994, and Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist. We saw how he got there from his village roots and we learned about the 27 years he spent as a FREE MAN behind bars – freer in his spirit then his captors that knew that they were the captives in the hands of the true Free World. Yes – those years – post World War II – when the UN was young and small – the World had hope for a future that will be very different from the way history evolved prior to those days. Today we can say that the hope tuned out to be pre-mature and Nelson Mandela who moved with his times forged an image for the World well ahead of his time. But no despair, his personal example moved at Least South Africa to ending its internal conflict even though many other conflicts in the World continue to rage on. Mandela, son of Africa and Father of the New South Africa, depicted in advertisement as a barefoot young boy in what looks like a general’s coat, armed with a stick, said that his watchwords were TRUTH & FREEDOM. ———————- From the screening event at the UN I hurried down to the Manhattan Village – to TEATROIATI at 64 East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Av,) where Sabrina Lastman of Uruguay was having a showing of her CANDOMBE JAZZ PROJECT – mixture oral tradition AFRO-URUGUAYAN MUSIC with elements of Jazz. I bring this in here because in many ways it was befitting the Mandela event. In the Mandela documentary we saw much of the peoples culture of the Indigenous Africans of the original South Africa, and somehow it must have been quite similar to what Africans, probably from the Congo region, brought with them to what are now Uruguay and Argentina. The fact that this music has survived, and in effect has now a revival, are signs of its resilience, but also of the influence Mandela’s achievements had world-wide. The Candombe Jazz Project is a New York City-based ensemble playing Candombe, the Afro Uruguayan music tradition. CJP presents an exciting concert of original compositions by Sabrina Lastman & Beledo, arrangement of oral tradition songs, & songs by renown Uruguayan songwriters. Candombe Jazz Project includes: ——————– “PEACE IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF CONFLICT – IT IS THE CREATION OF AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE ALL CAN FLOURISH,” Mandela said. He also wanted to see the emancipation of women – not just the races. These are things the UN must write on its flag – does it? —————— On Friday was the Official Commemorative Ceremony, in the big General Assembly Hall, that started with the usual UN delay at 10:20 am., with many Missions to the UN having one warm body sitting in their row – only South Africa, headed by a Minister, having all six seats, and some more, occupied. This was a Special Plenary, ahead of the regular daily Plenary. The UN had the event open to outsiders, and that was nice. The problem that there were not many insiders present. The President of the General Assembly, the former Libyan Foreign Minister Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, who is under a Schengen Travel Ban, was not there, and that was good. Instead was one of his seconds, but the Press kit just goes ahead selling him to the innocents. We do not even know the name of the nice lady that chaired the meeting she defined as an “INFORMAL Meeting” of the GA. “IT IS IN OUR HANDS TO CREATE A BETTER WORLD” said Mandela – God bless him and save the GA. That was followed by a video message from the UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon, who said that Mandela’s greatness came from: “HE FOUGHT HIS OPRESSORS FOR YEARS AND THEN FORGAVE THEM. – HE CONSTANTLY REMINDS US HE IS AN ORDINARY MAN, BUT HE ACHIEVED UNORDINARY THINGS.” —————– This was followed by The Minister of International Relations and Commonwealth Relations of South Africa, Ms. Maite Nkoana-Mashbane, who said that in October 1994 he helped Free South Africa. She continued saying that in the next two days – to July 18th, people of the globe will get together to hear the words that inspired us in South Africa. She thanks in the name of President Jacob Zuma for adopting in November 2009 this resolution to have the International Mandela Day started this year. South Africa and the World are fortunate to have had a man as Nelson Mandela. She added that the UN was all the way on “Our” side in our fight against Apartheid. We owe our freedom to the role of this august house. By celebrating Mandela Day we celebrate the best for what the UN was created. UBUNTU – we believ in ourselves for what we are. Her words were followed by a video, and we saw February 19, 1994 people of all South Africa standing peacefully in line and giving their vote. The Minister’s presentation was clearly the highlight of the informal ceremonial, that was then followed {informally?} by one representative from each one of UN’s major group. —————- This was a sad succession of obligatory diplomatic bows with some sparks of freshness. Egypt spoke on behalf of the Non-aligned Movement – the enigma of the UN, The Republic of Congo on behalf of the African States, spoke of the recent World Cup, Darussalam on behalf of the Asian States, this is the Brunei Darussalam State, that clearly needs still its own liberation, Belarus on behalf of the East European States, spoke interestingly of a long walk to Freedom, Saint Lucia on behalf of the Group of Latin & Caribbean States, who in our opinion was the best speech we called the Mission and asked for the speech. We attach the full speech to the end of our posting. The Afro-Caribbean Ambassador, surely descendant of slaves, H.E. Donatus Keith St Aimee, in obvious heart felt fashion said that “Few persons whose name resonate with approval on all continents – All our efforts at the UN came to essence in his life.” Belgium on behalf of the Western European and Other States, but was mis-introduced by the Chair as speaking for the EU as temporary President of the EU. The main point was that “Let us remind ourselves that our work is far from complete – our work is for freedom or all.” The last speaker was for the host country – the USA. who said that Apartheid was twisted and grotesque in its effort to justify oppression. Mandela overthrew apartheid by force of example. ———————————- PERMANENT REPRESENTAIVE OF SAINT LUCIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS ON THE OCCASION OF THE OBSERVANCE OF NELSON MANDELA INTERNATIONAL DAY. FRIDAY JULY 16TH, 2010 Mr. Chairman, I am honored to speak on behalf of Member states comprising the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean (GRULAC), as we show our respect and admiration for an icon of the ages. In the annals of recorded history there are few individuals whose names resonate with esteem and are uttered with deference on all continents and in all societies. There are few lives that are unequivocally admired or unreservedly revered by all races and ethnicities; and there are few persons who in a more emotional sense, are cherished and held dear by such a large segment of humanity. Like all celebrated and remarkable men or women, this person whom we come to honor today is identified internationally with one single name befitting his role in our global society and that name is – MANDELA. We are here today to honor Nelson Mandela pursuant to the adoption of Resolution A/64/L.13. We are here today to commemorate a man who in a lifetime of dignity has come to represent the very ideal for which we struggle daily in the United Nations. All our words, all our actions, all our individual and collective efforts aim in their sum total to equal what is represented by the life of Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela became an international symbol because of his struggle against oppression generally and apartheid in South Africa in particular. We know his history: · From the early nineteen forties he was a leader of one of the most significant non-violent movements in history. These facts as we know them only scratch the surface of the beauty that is the life of Nelson Mandela. What was it that resulted in Nelson Mandela receiving more than 250 awards over four decades including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize? It was not his physical incarceration that captured the imagination of people, it was not the brutality of apartheid nor the interest of so many supporters the world over to stop this aberration. “I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom… I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I am prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free…” Mandela turned down freedom at an earlier date because he insisted that it had to be unconditional and as President from 1994 to 1999, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation in order to harness all the resources of South Africa to lift the economic conditions of his people. His spirit of forgiveness, his turning of the other cheek has ensured that South Africa joined as an equal partner in the nations of this world, so that within the past month we have all had the great joy of watching South Africa host the World Cup in splendid and successful fashion. How important it is that the Member States of the United Nations saw it fitting to adopt a Resolution to commemorate Nelson Mandela International Day, an annual event which the world would observe, now for the first time on the occasion of his 92nd Birthday, and for years to come. We the Member States of GRULAC, have experienced in similar forms many of the travails experienced by South Africa and personified in the life of Nelson Mandela. Our region has had its own icons, and we remember their considerable contributions to the development of our nations when we pause here to honor the life of Mandela. For this reason his life, his response to adversity, his humanity, resonates not just in our minds for the success of his mission but in our hearts for the beacon he has become for all peoples suffering repression. What this man said was merely a punctuation for what he did, and what he did is being recognized today in this august forum so that present and future generations need not wonder as to the path to success in nation building, but merely need to follow the footsteps of this great man. He truly is an ordinary man who has behaved in an extraordinary way! Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 19th, 2010 RECEIVED FROM: Editeur : RIAED | Réseau international d’accès aux énergies durables
THIS IS THE INFORMATION No. 41 from RIAED WHICH IS THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR ACCESS TO SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FOR THE FRENCH SPEAKING COUNTRIES OF WEST AFRICA, BUT THEY HAVE ALSO A LINK TO THE ENGLISH FORM OF THIS LETTER. THE POSTING IS INTERESTING AS IT SHOWS LOTS OF ACTIVITIES THAT GO ON IN THE REGION SINCE 2006 AND CONTINUE TO DATE.
Voici la lettre d’information du site RIAED | Réseau international d’accès aux énergies durables.
A la UneUn inventaire des opportunités de réduction d’émissions de GES en Afrique subsaharienne Un rapport de la Banque mondiale détaille, sur 44 pays d’Afrique subsaharienne, les opportunités de réduction d’émissions de gaz à effet de serre dans 22 domaines. Au travers de l’approche MDP, cette étude a pour objectif d’explorer le potentiel offert par les projets énergétiques à faible contenu en carbone qui peuvent contribuer au développement de l’Afrique subsaharienne. Dans ce but, l’équipe de réalisation de l’étude a identifié les technologies pour lesquelles il existe déjà des méthodologies MDP et qui ont déjà donné lieu à projets MDP dans d’autres régions en voie de développement. ActualitésLiberia : deux firmes américaines financent la construction d’une centrale hydroélectrique Les firmes Buchanan Renewable Energies (BRE) et Overseas Private Investment Company (OPIC) basées aux États-Unis, ont déboursé 150 millions de dollars pour la construction d’une centrale hydro-électrique à Kakata, dans la région de Margibi (environ 45 kilomètres de la capitale Monrovia). Maroc : lancement du plus grand parc éolien en Afrique Le Maroc a lancé le 28 juin 2010, au nord du pays, le plus grand parc éolien en Afrique, pour une enveloppe de 2,75 milliards de dirhams (400 millions de dollars) soit une des étapes – clés du Programme marocain intégré de l’énergie éolienne, qui table sur un investissement d’environ 31,5 milliards de dirhams (4 milliards de dollars). Cap Vert : la CEDEAO ouvre un centre des énergies renouvelables La Communauté économique des États de l’Afrique d l’Ouest (CEDEAO) a ouvert un nouveau centre pour les énergies renouvelable (ECREEE) aux Iles du Cap Vert pour développer le potentiel de la région en énergies renouvelables. Côte d’Ivoire : l’état relance le barrage de Soubré Dans le cadre des mesures annoncées pour palier aux difficultés dans le secteur de l’énergie électrique, l’état ivoirien va relancer le projet de construction du barrage hydroélectrique de Soubré. Malawi : un projet de biogaz mène à d’autres services Une unité de production de biogaz de petite échelle au Malawi, récemment créée dans le but d’atténuer le changement climatique, peut également, si elle est bien exploitée, améliorer la sécurité alimentaire et les moyens de subsistance dans les régions rurales du Malawi. Afrique sub-saharienne : les meilleurs produits d’éclairage hors réseau gagnent le soutien de Lighting AfricaCinq produits innovants ont été sélectionnés lors de la conférence de Lighting Africa et du commerce équitable à Nairobi en mai dernier. Bénin : projet d’amélioration de l’acccès à l’énergie moderne Le Gouvernement de la République du Bénin a obtenu un crédit auprès de l’Association Internationale de Développement (IDA) d’un montant équivalant à quarante sept millions cinq cent mille Droits de Tirages Spéciaux (47 500 000 DTS) soit soixante dix millions de dollars US (70 000 000 USD) pour financer le Projet de Développement de l’Accès à l’énergie Moderne (DAEM). Afrique de l’Est : Les micro-entrepreneurs font leurs entrées dans le marché de l’énergie, à temps pour la coupe du monde Un groupe de 20 micro-entrepreneurs originaires de Ranen, un marché local de l’ouest de Kenya, sont les premiers entrepreneurs DEEP formés et mis en relation avec les institutions financières pour obtenir des facilités de crédits et développer leurs affaires dans le secteur énergétique. L’Égypte compte ouvrir sa première centrale à énergie solaire fin 2010 L’Égypte compte mettre en service sa première centrale électrique à énergie solaire d’ici la fin de l’année 2010, a indiqué lundi 14 juin 2010 le ministère égyptien de l’Énergie. Accord entre le Pool d’énergie ouest-africain et la BEI Le président de la BEI (Banque Européenne d’Investissement) se félicite de la seconde révision de l’Accord de Cotonou et signe avec le Pool d’énergie ouest-africain un accord d’assistance technique en faveur d’un projet dans le secteur libérien de l’énergie. Colloques, conférences, rencontres, forum…France : Forum EURAFRIC 2010 La 10ème édition du Forum EURAFRIC « Eau et Énergie en Afrique » se tiendra du 18 au 21 octobre 2010 au Centre des Congrès de Lyon (France).(29/06/2010) Sénégal : salon ENERBATIM 2011 La deuxième édition du Salon International des Energies Renouvelables et du Bâtiment ENERBATIM en Afrique se tiendra du 6 au 9 avril 2011 au CICES (Dakar). Tunisie : Congrès international sur les Énergies Renouvelables et l’Environnement Ce congrès aura lieu du 4 au 6 novembre 2010 à Sousse (Tunisie). Algérie : salon international des énergies renouvelables ERA 2010 Le Salon international des énergies renouvelables, des énergies propres et du développement durable, se tiendra les 19, 20 et 21 octobre 2010 à Tamanrasset (Algérie). Afrique du Sud : forum Hydropower Africa 2010 Ce forum sur l’hydroélectricité en Afrique aura lieu du 16 au 20 août 2010 à Johannesburg (Afrique du Sud) RessourcesDerniers documents (études, applications…) proposés en libre téléchargement : La revue de Proparco – n°6 – mai 2010 Cette revue bimestrielle n°6 de Proparco (groupe AFD) a pour thème : « Capital-investissement et énergies propres : catalyser les financements dans les pays émergents » Les petits systèmes PV font la différence dans les pays en développement La coopération technique allemande (GTZ), a publié une étude qui fait le point sur l’impact des petites installations photovoltaïques sur le processus d’électrification rurale hors réseau, dans les pays en développement. L’électricité au cœur des défis africains Manuel sur l’électrification en Afrique – Auteur Christine Heuraux Interactions bioénergie et sécurité alimentaire Ce document de la FAO fournit un cadre quantitatif et qualitatif pour analyser l’interaction entre la bioénergie et la sécurité alimentaire. Blogues du RiaedPetit site dédié à un projet, une rencontre, une institution… Vous pouvez présenter vos connaissances et proposer des ressources en libre téléchargement. Accès aux blogues hébergés par le Riaed : http://www.riaed.net/spip.php?rubrique41 Annuaire du RiaedInscrivez vous en qualité d’expert, ou inscrivez votre entreprise / institution / projet, etc. dans l’annuaire du Riaed pour être facilement identifiable et joignable. Vous le ferez en ligne, en quelques minutes, à la page http://www.riaed.net/spip.php?breve6. Vous pouvez aussi le faire en adhérant au réseau du Riaed, en qualité de membre, à la page http://www.riaed.net/spip.php?breve11 et en précisant à la fin votre souhait d’être aussi présenté publiquement dans l’annuaire (cocher la case ad hoc). ASAPE ASAPE ou Association de solidarité et d’appui pour l’environnement Burkina énergies et technologies appropriées (BETA) BETA est une entreprise solidaire qui a fait le choix de s’investir dans la promotion de l’accès à l’énergie en milieu rural. Opportunités de financement de projetsEuropeAid – Facilité Énergie n°39 – Newsletter de juin 2010 Ce numéro de la lettre de la Facilité Énergie de la Commission Européenne nous fournit les statistiques sur l’évaluation des notes succinctes. Formation, stages, partenariat, bourse d’échangesMaroc : formation continue « La pérennisation des systèmes énergétiques décentralisés » L’objectif de cette session est la formation d’un groupe de techniciens impliqués dans les aspects techniques et socio-économiques de l’introduction de l’énergie solaire photovoltaïque dans l’électrification des zones rurales et isolées. Burkina Faso : formation continue « Développer son expertise pour économiser l’énergie dans les bâtiments climatisés » L’IEPF et 2iE ont développé une formule qui comprend non seulement la formation proprement dite, mais également le suivi des bénéficiaires de cette formation (en particulier les entreprises industrielles), avec un engagement de leur part à mettre en oeuvre les recommandations des audits, en finançant tout ou partie des coûts. Sites francophones sur l’énergieUne liste de sites francophones et de réseaux sur l’énergie est proposée à la page http://www.riaed.net/spip.php?rubrique=34 ====================================================== (Autres liens et réseaux)THAT IS – THE SIMILAR TEXT IN ENGLISH FROM THE FRENCH SPEAKING COUNTRIES OF AFRICA SEEMS TO BE AVAILABLE AT: Une liste de sites anglophones et de réseaux internationaux sur l’énergie est proposée à la page http://www.riaed.net/spip.php?rubrique=35 ===================================================== THE BLOGGS LINK IS THE FOLLOWING BUT IT SEEMS OLD: http://www.riaed.net/spip.php?rubrique41 Permalink |
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