UN’s Ban Slams Zimbabwe on Bias, But Lets Slide Russia’s Kosovo Critique and North Korea’s Lack of Voting and Human Rights

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, Saturday July 13, 2008 — Minutes after the UN Security Council’s draft resolution to impose sanctions on the Robert Mugabe government failed on July 11, subject to a rare double veto by both Russia and China, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the UN Boniface Chidyausiku told the Press that the office of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has shown it cannot “be an impartial arbiter of the situation in Zimbabwe.”

Inner City Press asked him why the resolution’s proponents had insisted on calling a vote, even once they knew that there would be not only an abstention by Indonesia and five votes against, from South Africa, Viet Nam, Libya and Russia and China with their vetoes. It was “the arrogance of the Americans,” Chidyausiku said. Video here, from Minute 2:37.

  On the evening of Saturday, July 12, the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Michele Montas, issued a statement that “we strongly regret the highly inappropriate and unacceptable comments by the Permanent Representative of Zimbabwe questioning the Secretary-General’s impartiality toward events in Zimbabwe.” The response was at odds with the usual position, that the Secretary-General defers to and does not comment on the Security Council or member states.

   On July 9, about other Council member comments critical of Ban Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked Ms. Montas

Inner City Press: Yesterday at the stakeout, Russian Ambassador Churkin said the Secretary-General had overstepped his bounds in the reconfiguration in Kosovo, and he specifically took issue with this idea that the EULEX force would not be reporting either to UNMIK or to the UN in New York.  Is there any response to what Churkin said?

Spokesperson Montas: This is the position, of course, of the Russian Ambassador and he expressed his opinion and that’s all I can say.

  But when Zimbabwe’s Ambassador similarly questioned the Secretariat’s actions, this same Spokesperson did not let it go as one Ambassador’s opinion and “that’s all I can say.” Rather, the Zimbabwean’s comments were strongly criticized as “highly inappropriate and unacceptable.”

  The question arises: what’s the difference?

Mugabe and Ban, questions of outside influence and bias not shown.

  Is it, as some close observers opine, that while the U.S. and to a lesser extent UK / European Union shape Ban Ki-moon’s policies both on Zimbabwe and Kosovo, it was considered to have less political cost to lash back at Zimbabwe than at Russia? Is it that Russia is a Permanent Five member of the Security Council, with veto power not only over resolutions but over a possible second term for Ban Ki-moon?

Until the vetoes were cast, South Africa’s Mbeki was viewed as Mugabe’s main supporter, and the U.S. has signalled that with Jacob Zuma waiting in the wings, critique of Mbeki, and in this case of Zimbabwe, can be ratcheted up.

   Others contrast Ban Ki-moon’s approach to Zimbabwe with, for example, his approach to North Korea, another government which widely violates human rights, and which doesn’t even purport to have elections. In the past week, Inner City Press conducted an informal but wide-spread poll in the UN, whether people would rather live in Zimbabwe or North Korea. The results were similar to those in Equatorial Guinea, which Ban Ki-moon has not criticized — an over 90% win, in this this case for Zimbabwe as a comparatively better place to live than North Korea. But compare the UN’s statements.

  Here is what Zimbabwe’s Ambassador said on July 11:

“We believe that the office of the Secretary-General is good offices for the resolution of any political situation in the world.  He must have the perception that, that office is impartial.  What we have witnessed in Zimbabwe, all the reports that have come from the Department of Political Affairs, are pro-opposition and they never say anything positive about the government of Zimbabwe.  We believe they are partisan and with that type of an approach, there’s no way they can be impartial arbiter in the resolution of the situation in Zimbabwe.”

   The critique is of the Department of Political Affairs and “they,” that is, Team Ban. When the Secretariat has been making statements in recent weeks about Zimbabwe, a question was muttered, who is writing this stuff? Some pointed at the nationality of the head of the Department of Political Affairs, Lynn Pascoe, a former U.S. State Department official. Mr. Pascoe was slated, along with fellow American Robert Orr, to appear with Ban Ki-moon at his July 10 press conference.

  Perhaps concerned with how it would look, to finally appear for a sit-down press conference flanked by two senior advisers both from the same country, Ban ended up appearing accompanied on the rostrum only by his Spokesperson, who once again controlled the question-asking in such a way that none of these issues, including Kosovo and objectivity, were inquired into or addressed.

 Relatedly, in a small but telling detail, the Spokesperson’s daily summaries of press converage of the UN and Ban Ki-moon systemically omit certain critical and investigative coverage. In light of an interesting report of Ban reading in the Mugabe-controlled Herald of Harare of Chidyausiku’s critique, and laughingly commenting, I guess he doesn’t like me much, the shrill Saturday slap-down is all the more surprising.

  To be charitable, since Mr. Ban seems pleasant and has long been a diplomat, some wonder if all of the above originates with him.

G8 climate rift emerges says the Toronto Star - PM Harper pushed softer deal on climate.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper worked to ensure that the Group of Eight leaders produced a climate change agreement that did not contain overly ambitious goals for cutting greenhouse gases, a senior Canadian government official says.

Les Whittington, OTTAWA BUREAU, The Toronto Star, July 9, 2008, from Toyako, Japan:
The stage has been set at the Group of Eight summit for a lengthy duel between rich nations and fast-developing economies like India and China over a global strategy for dealing with climate change.

The G8 nations—Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, Japan, France, Britain and Russia—overcame their differences to sign an accord here in which they vowed to work to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050.

While environmentalists derided the agreement as woefully inadequate, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other G8 leaders heralded it as an important breakthrough because it was the first time U.S. President George W. Bush has accepted the need to set targets for cutting carbon emissions.

On the third day of the summit, the G8 group engaged Chinese President Hu Jintao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders of so-called “major economies” in the climate change debate.

But by then the so-called Group of Five—Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa—had already slammed the G8 climate change accord announced on the second day of the Japan summit. The five countries said it’s up to the rich nations to do more to tackle global warming because they have contributed heavily to the problem. The G8 should commit to deep short-term cuts that would reduce emissions by 25 per cent to 40 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels, the G5 leaders said.

{and you know what - for once we applaud the above Group of 5 whae compared to Canada’s Harper and his Group of 8 - this is www.SustainabiliTank.info comment}

On Wednesday, after a meeting of the G8 and Hu, Singh and the other emerging economy leaders, a joint agreement was released in which they committed to work toward worldwide greenhouse gas reductions during United Nations-led negotiations over the next 18 months.

The leaders agreed that they need to cooperate to develop “a long-term global goal for emission reductions” but the statement does not give any specific targets for emissions cuts.

And all indications were that China and India declined, at least for now, to sign on to the G8’s plan to halve emissions by 2050.

The statement also stresses that efforts to combat climate change should be undertaken “in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities,” meaning that poorer countries should not be expected to make the same sacrifices as rich nations.

This fundamental split between industrialized G8 powers and emerging economies poses a significant hurdle for the next phase of international efforts to confront the climate crisis under UN-led negotiations. The goal, as set at a UN-backed conference in Bali last year, is to reach an agreement by the end of 2009 to replace the emissions-reduction targets in the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, along with U.S. President George W. Bush, insists that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must include developing nations as well as industrialized economies.

“We’ve got to have reasonable participation by everybody,” Harper said at a press conference wrapping up the G8 summit.

The G8 is committed to halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Harper noted. But “by 2050, the developed world will probably represent no more than 20 per cent of emissions. You can’t get a 50 per cent cut from 20 per cent of the emissions. { ??? what is he talking about? It is 50% from Canada’s emissions and this is totally irrelevant from how much this is from the Global total. }

“We’ve obviously got to find a reasonable accommodation that respects different economic circumstances,” he said. In the case of some developing nations, it may not be necessary to actually reduce emissions, Harper suggested. Instead, a country might be able to contribute to fighting global warming simply by slowing the rate of growth of emissions.

Harper also told the media that rising oil and food prices are a “major concern.”

“There are serious risks to (world economic) growth and to the advancement of people in poor countries as a consequence of food price increases.”

He said this is why Canada has raised its food aid this year. But “more has to be done to deal with that problem.”

In all, the G8 has contributed $10 billion since January to support food aid and at the Japan summit, the G8 agreed to set up a task force to coordinate action to deal with the current food crisis.

But anti-poverty groups complained that the G8 made only passing reference to government policies promoting production of biofuels, which some analysts say is the prime cause of runaway food inflation.

Harper also said that in the closed-door discussions here, G8 leaders expressed unanimous support for the effort by Canada and other countries to bring stability to Afghanistan in the face of a Taliban insurgency.

“Every one of the G8 countries understands that success in Afghanistan is critical and understands that we have serious challenges there,” he said.

“There’s not necessarily easy answers,” he added, particularly when it comes to dealing with the volatile Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But Canada has lots of support from its allies in this effort, Harper said.

Harper also defended the G8, which many observers say has outlived its usefulness during its three decades of annual big power meetings.

Harper said the G8 is valuable because it brings together “the major, developed democratic nations of the world.” He said it’s often easier to reach consensus among this like-minded group and that allows member nations to “more forcefully make our position to the wider world.”

At the same time, he said it’s important for the G8 to bring other leaders into the annual discussions, as is being done with countries such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

On certain issues, Harper said, “We can’t make the kind of progress we’d like to make unless we have certain major developing countries at the table.”

With the G8 wrapping up, Harper was scheduled to fly to Tokyo, where he will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and business leaders.

———–

We wish Harper well in his endeavors, but by 2009 seemingly the US, Canada and Japan will be led by a new set of Heads of State, and the change will be for the better we assume.

Global Markets - latest news

No formal greenhouse targets at G8 summit.
Bush: Call for reductions marks ’significant progress’

By William L. Watts & Chris Oliver, MarketWatch. a Wall Street Journal Blog.
July 9, 2008

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Leaders of 16 nations at a multilateral gathering in Japan agreed to back a plan for making long-term reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, although the deal fell short of establishing formal reduction targets.

“We, the leaders of the world’s major economies, both developed and developing, commit to combat climate change in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,” the nations said Wednesday in a communiqué at the Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido.

The G8 nations include the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy Canada and Russia.

Backers included Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico and South Africa, in addition to the G8.

But the joint statement didn’t include language from Tuesday’s statement issued by the G8 leaders, in which they said they shared a vision to cut greenhouse emissions in half by 2050. See full story.

Only three of the non-G8 countries in attendance — South Korea, Australia and Indonesia — backed the 50% reduction, Reuters reported, and this prevented inclusion of the language in Wednesday’s statement.

Leaders of emerging economies have argued that developed countries should first spell out their own goals for emissions reductions.

All the same, President Bush hailed the final statement as a sign of “significant progress.”
“The G8 expressed our desire to have a significant reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. We made it clear and the other nations agreed that they must also participate in an ambitious goal, with interim goals and interim plans to enable the world to successfully address climate change,” Bush said. “And we made progress, significant progress, toward a comprehensive approach.”

In the end, Wednesday’s statement said the leaders shared a vision for “long-term cooperative action, including a long-term global goal for emission reductions that assures growth, prosperity, and other aspects of sustainable development, including major efforts towards sustainable consumption and production, all aimed at achieving a low-carbon society.”

William L. Watts is a reporter for MarketWatch in London.
Chris Oliver is MarketWatch’s Asia bureau chief, based in Hong Kong.

So both gentlemen were not in Hokkaido - their reporting is based on material they read on the web - Did the WSJ really see it like we did - that this G8 exercize, under Japan leadership subservient to the US wishes, will not come up with real and meaningful results?

——————

If it was a G8 meeting - why not take as final decision what was decided already on Friday without the participation of the other 8?

Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa - the remaining 5 out of the additional 8 - plain and simple said that they do not participate in games when the G8 do not have the stomach for real figures put down in real time. By saying that they want first to see a real offer from the G8, before putting on the record their own participation in emissions reduction, they are actually in full rights and have done nothing worse then pointing flashlights at the meager document of the G8.

As we said already in another posting today, it was the Bush, Harper Fukuda position that doomed these 2008 G8 meetings under Japan leadership. President Bush won this battle.

Our only remaining question is - why did Fukuda invite the other 8 to participate? Had the G8 met in their own closed cocoon and come up with a final declaration, was that not expected to be better then having a bigger show with folks to be held later as responsible for this failure? What does now Fukuda frame next to his Prime Minister chair in order to say that the meeting he chaired was a success?

—————–

And the previous article - a day earlier - that was referenced in the July 9, 2008 article - The VISION thing that came to nothing a day later:

G8 leaders share ‘vision’ on emission cuts.
By MarketWatch
July 8, 2008

LONDON (MarketWatch) - Leaders of the Group of Eight wealthy nations on Tuesday said they shared a “vision” to cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050.

In a joint statement on the environment and climate change, the G8 leaders said they “seek to share” with all parties involved in U.N.-brokered talks “the vision of … the goal of achieving at least 50% reduction of global emissions by 2050, recognizing that this global challenge can only be met by a global response.”
Leaders of the G8 nations - the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia - are meeting in Toyako, Japan.

Japan and the European Union are seeking to formalized emission-reduction targets, building on last year’s general agreement among the G-8 nations to “consider seriously” the reductions.
Senior officials held a late-night session Monday to iron out the wording behind the agreement that would allow leaders to sign onto the deal without committing to a numerical target, a Reuters report said.

The U.S. and several other developed countries { read here Canada and Japan } have said they will not enter an agreement to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions which does not include binding commitments by growing industrial powers such as China and India to cut carbon.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was pleased with progress made toward climate change and other issues following a morning meeting with President Bush.

“As always, we’ve had a very interesting exchange of view, very intensive exchange of view, and let me tell you that I’m very satisfied with the work that has gone on, on the G8 documents, as regards progress on the issue of climate change, cooperation in the area of food and oil,” Merkel said at a photo opportunity with Bush.

This year’s summit, held at a lakeside resort on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, brought together leaders from 22 nations, including the top G8 officials.

{ 8+8+5 - the last five are Africans in need and they were not even deemed a reference in the article the following day that speaks of 16 - so, our question is even more to the point - if you had no intention in bringing these other 13 into the decision making process, except for eventually blaming the first 5 from among the second group of 8 for the failure, who needed here also the second group of five that did not even get invited to dinner? All of this is part of our various postings these last few days. We predicted disaster - and here it is starring at us }

 Missed Opportunity for G8 Leaders on Climate Change Says Achim Steiner.

Nairobi,  9  July  2008  -  As the G8 Summit wrapped up in Japan, Achim Steiner, the Executive
Director  of  the  United  Nations  Environment  Programme  (UNEP),  said  the world’s richest
countries had shown insufficient leadership on climate change.

“We  are  under pressure to act. We have no time left to waste,” said Mr Steiner. ” However, I
think the G8 leaders missed an opportunity to provide the kind of signal that would accelerate
the international negotiation process,” he added.

“I  think  the  G8  delivered  what  it  could. But in terms of what the world needs, what the
Intergovernmental  Panel  on Climate Change has asked for and what is necessary in view of the  Copenhagen meeting in 2009 — the results fall short,” he said. “The South African Minister of  the Environment called it empty slogans — where is the substance?”

“The  G8  Summit  has  not delivered enough leadership. We have some 500 days until we meet in
Copenhagen  to  reach  a  global agreement,” the UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive
Director  said. “We have less than seven years to stabilize emissions globally. The absence of
short-  and  medium-term  targets  and  commitments by the leading industrialized nations is a
shortfall of the summit.”

“We  are  beyond the rhetoric of climate change. We must now put numbers on the table. We must
also give developing nations the clear conviction that industrialized nations are taking their
responsibilities seriously,” he said.

 Mr  Steiner  noted  that a number of countries including Germany, Norway and the UK as well as  South Africa and Indonesia are now committing to targets.

“We will continue to be stuck until all industrialized nations commit to firm targets–ones to
be met by 2020 not in 42 years time,” he said.

***********************************
Jim Sniffen
Information Officer
UN Environment Programme
New York
tel: +1-212-963-8094/8210
 info at nyo.unep.org
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World News Desk – July 3, 2008 - www.realtruth.org
AFRICA

African Union Seeks to Resolve Zimbabwe Crisis.

The African Union (AU) held its 11th summit, primarily to discuss the political crisis in Zimbabwe. The result wa a call for a national unity government, following the widely condemned run-off re-election of incumben President Robert Mugabe. To escape the ensuing violence, the challenging opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has withdrawn a week earlier, taking refuge in the Dutch embassy for more than a week.

The meeting of the pan-African summit highlighted a deep division among the continent’s other countries regarding what to do about the Zimbabwean crisis, particularly Mr. Mugabe, who has historically been considered a “liberation hero.” The summit’s resolution fell short of a much stronger statement wanted by some nations.

According to a Reuters report, Botswana, which borders Zimbabwe’s west, called for Mr. Mugabe to be barred from both the AU and the Southern African regional body SADC. Mompati Merafhe, vice-president of Botswana, said that Mr. Mugabe’s participation in African meetings “would give unqualified legitimacy to a process which cannot be considered legitimate.” He added that the government and opposition must be treated as equal in any mediation. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga made a similar call.

South Africa, the regional power, resisted the stronger statement for the AU, and called for the crisis to be resolved by the SADC, which it chairs. South African President Thabo Mbeki, however, has been criticized for what has been seen as ineffective mediation and favoritism towards Robert Mugabe. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), an opposition party to Mr. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), issued a statement: “The MDC’s reservations about the mediation process under President Mbeki are well known. It is our position that unless the mediation team is expanded to include at least one permanent representative from the African Union, and the mediation mechanism is changed, no meaningful progress can be made toward resolving the Zimbabwean crisis. If this does not happen, then the MDC will not be part of such a mediation process.”

In addition, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who just began his six-month presidency of the European Union, said the EU would only accept a Zimbabwean government led by Mr. Tsvangirai, who is generally accepted to have beaten Mr. Mugabe in the first round of the March 29 election.
The AU’s position is tenuous at best, as Mugabe representative George Charamba had earlier rejected any Kenyan-style power-sharing deal, and MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti more recently said there was no chance of negotiations.

A Christian Science Monitor article pointed out that the AU’s inability to directly rebuke Robert Mugabe regarding an election that its own monitors say “fell short” of AU standards (e.g., due to acts of violence) shows that the body is unable to live up to promises of “African solutions for African problems.”

“This clearly indicates that there are no shared and common values around what good governance is, what democracy is,” said Chris Maroleng, a security analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Tshwane, South Africa. “A lot of our leaders have questionable democratic credentials, so it’s not surprising that the AU fell short of the mark” (ibid.).

“A government of national unity at this stage is a nonstarter,” Mr. Maroleng added. Unless there is a complete restructuring of the Zimbabwean constitution, a change in the executive powers of the presidency, any power-sharing deal at this point would permanently tilt the advantage, in the favor of Mr. Mugabe. “It’s placing icing over a rotten core. It would look nice, but underneath, it would still be rotten” (ibid.).

In the meantime, the U.S. was preparing a United Nations resolution calling for economic sanctions against Robert Mugabe and 11 of his compatriots, as well as imposing an embargo on arms sales or military hardware to Harare. The position was to express “deep concern at the gross irregularities during the June 27 run-off presidential election (and) the violence and intimidation perpetrated in the run-up to the election that made impossible the holding of free and fair elections” (Reuters).

All the while, the people of Zimbabwe continue to endure severe financial and social hardship.

On photo of rape-seed plants, it says “Biofuels are responsible for 75 percent of recent food price rises, according to a secret World Bank report.”

Food and fuel crises pushing world into ‘danger zone’, says World Bank’s Robert Zoellick.

LEIGH PHILLIPS, for the EUobserver, July 4, 2008.

As the head of the World Bank warns world leaders that the planet is entering the “danger zone” with millions thrown into extreme poverty by the twin food and fuel crises, a leaked report from his organisation shows that biofuels have pushed up global food prices by 75 percent - a much bigger role in the disaster than previously thought.

In a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, ahead of next week’s G8 summit, and copied to other G8 leaders, World Bank president Robert Zoellick has called on them to act immediately to address the “man-made catastrophe” of soaring food and oil prices.“What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster - a silent tsunami or a perfect storm. It is a man-made catastrophe and as such must be fixed by people,” he said in the letter.

There has been an 82 percent rise in food commodity prices since 2006, with the crisis worsening since April, Mr Zoellick warned.

This has pushed an additional 100 million people worldwide into extreme poverty, he said, noting that some 41 countries have lost three to ten percent of their GDP from rising food, fuel and commodity prices since January 2007. Over 30 countries have been hit by food riots, as the impact of the crisis reaches the household level, said Mr Zoellick.

He described the current situation as an “unprecedented test” for the international community and called on wealthy countries to stump up €6.4 billion ($10 billion) in immediate short-term emergency aid for the countries hardest hit by the crisis.

Over the medium term, an additional €2.2 billion ($3.5 billion) is needed for agricultural supports and social programmes for the poor in a further 50 countries, he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Zoellick’s organisation has produced a confidential report leaked to a UK newspaper that says that the rush for biofuels, particularly by the EU and US, is responsible for 75 percent of the rise in global food prices.

Until now, the US has claimed that biofuels policies have resulted in only three percent of the rise in food prices, while European Union officials have repeatedly claimed their policies have had a “negligable” impact, without attaching any percentage.

Other international institutions have assigned considerably more blame to such policies. The UN Food and Agriculture organisation says that biofuels explain 10 percent of recent price rises.

The International Monetary Fund puts this figure at 30, the same number reached in assessments from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

“Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate,” the report says.

EU and US leaders have argued that it is not biofuels, but rather higher demand from India and China as incomes there rise, alongside increased oil costs and droughts in parts of the world such as Australia.

The World Bank report, produced by Don Mitchell, a senior economist at the institution, argues that emerging economies are not to blame. “Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases,” reads the report, adding that droughts in Australia have had a marginal impact.

Higher energy and fertiliser prices were responsible for an increase of only 15 percent says Mr Mitchell, while biofuels have been responsible for 75 percent of the price rise of 140 percent between 2002 and February 2008.

This happened in three ways, the report explains: the diversion of grain from food to fuel; the encouragement of farmers to set aside land for biofuel production; and the speculation in grains.

The report also says that other estimates of the role of biofuels have come to smaller estimates because they analysed the crisis over a longer period. Mr Mitchell instead studied food price rises month by month.

Separately, international development NGO ActionAid on Tuesday (1 July) published a report that claims that the “biofuels juggernaut” is responsible for leaving some 290 million people hungry or at risk of chronic hunger.

Additionally, on Thursday at a Brussels conference hosted by the French EU presidency, John Holmes, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, called on the EU to “look again” at its target that would see biofuels to fuel 10 percent of vehicles by 2020.

www.SustainabiliTank.info has argued for a long time that agricultural-land set-asides were invented to “support” prices of the commodities. The bio-fuels can thus safely be produced from putting back into production those already existing set-asides.

If the World Bank would like to do something for the world’s poor, it would start helping those poor directly with microcredit type of lending rather then seeking out large corporate-based government credit-seekers. Go out and study Malawi - learn how help comes only for those that are ready to help themselves - not their Mugabe kind of despots. Zoelick, Don Mitchell, and George Bush are doing disservice to humanity by not laying bare a reality study and instead talk of symptoms rather then the underlying cancer. US and EU agriculture have caused the destruction of autonomous production in places like Africa - first by underselling them, then by keeping them dependent of “benevolent” hand-outs when teaching to fish is much more important then shipping away free fish. NGOs’ help has also been misconstrued so it makes the philanthropists feel good by having around dependent poor - why in the world don’t you go to Malawi and learn how to make a whole country independent? Why don’t you not simply say to Africa - if you do not get rid of your Mugabes we will not dish food to you anymore. Without your Mugabes we are ready to come help you organize your self-help - and by god - we are really intent to help you this time.

———–

In total 15 EU states (out of 27) have nuclear power plants, accounting for nearly a third of electricity generated in the EU. So, 12 States do not have nuclear plants, but being part of the European grid get their electricity from such plants anyway.
Support for nuclear power in Europe growing, says commission survey
RENATA GOLDIROVA, from Brussels, for the EUobserver, July 3, 2008

Although nuclear energy continues to be a “strongly” divisive subject in the European Union, support for the controversial source of electricity generation has grown “significantly” over the last three years, a new European Commission survey suggests. A “permanent, safe solution” to managing radioactive waste seems to be the decisive factor when it comes to a possible shift in opinion about nuclear energy.

Should such a solution be found to safely storing the waste, some 39 percent of people say they would change their mind about nuclear energy, according to the poll released by the commission on Thursday (3 July). { What about the decommissioning of these plants when time has come for their closing? Do you have any solution for this problem ? }

Dutch, Belgians, Lithuanians, Britons, the French, Slovenians and Finns are the most open to new arguments. Half the opponents in these countries would change their view regarding nuclear energy should a solution to waste be developed.

However, 48 percent of Europeans - mainly in Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Portugal and Germany - would stick to a firm No irrespective of any solution to waste. Eight percent are convinced there is no solution to be found. The European Commission itself stopped short of saying what a permanent and safe solution should be, saying it instead is promoting expert discussion on the issue.

Brussels has recently set up a high-level group designed to establish common criteria on ways how radioactive waste should be treated. One of the possible methods discussed has been “geological storage facilities”, currently used in Finland, the commission spokesperson said.

He also referred to a piece of EU legislation on radioactive waste that “is still on the table of the council [representing EU capitals] and has not been addressed”.

According to the survey, 93 percent of Europeans say a solution for high level radioactive waste “should be developed now and not left for future generations”.

In general, some 44 percent of Europeans express support for nuclear energy, while a nearly identical number, 45 percent, oppose it. The figures represent quite a shift i