By Mitch Ginsburg May 9, 2013, The Times of Israel

Some look at the upheaval in Syria through a religious lens. The Sunni and Shia factions, battling for supremacy in the Middle East, have locked horns in the heart of the Levant, where the Shia-affiliated Alawite sect has ruled a majority Sunni nation for decades.

Some see it through a social prism. As they did in Tunis with Muhammad Bouazizi — an honest man who couldn’t make an honest living in this corruption-ridden part of the world — the social protests that sparked the war in Syria started in the poor and disenfranchised parts of the country.

Others look at the eroding boundaries of state in Syria and other parts of the Middle East as a direct result of the sins of Western hubris and Colonialism.

Professor Arnon Sofer has no qualms with any of these claims and interpretations. But the upheaval in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, he says, cannot be fully understood without also taking two environmental truths into account: soaring birthrates and dwindling water supply.

Over the past 60 years, the population in the Middle East has twice doubled itself, said Sofer, the head of the Chaikin geo-strategy group and a longtime lecturer at the IDF’s top defense college, where today he heads the National Defense College Research Center. “There is no example of this anywhere else on earth,” he said of the population increase. Couple that with Syria’s water scarcity, he said, “and as a geographer it was clear to me that a conflict would erupt.”

The Pentagon cautiously agrees with this thesis. In February the Department of Defense released a “climate-change adaptation roadmap.” While the effects of climate change alone do not cause conflict, the report states, “they may act as accelerants of instability or conflict in parts of the world.” Predominantly the paper is concerned with the effects of rising seas and melting arctic permafrost on US military installations. The Middle East is not mentioned by name.

But Sofer and Anton Berkovsky, who together compiled the research work of students at the National Defense College and released a geo-strategic paper on Syria earlier in the year, believe that water scarcity played a significant role in the onset of the Syrian civil war and the Arab Spring, and that it may help re-shape the strategic bonds and interests of the region as regimes teeter and borders blur. Sofer also believes that a “Pax Climactica” is within reach if regional leaders would only, for a short while, forsake their natural inclinations to wake up in the morning and seek to do harm.

Syria is 85 percent desert or semi-arid country. But it has several significant waterways. The Euphrates runs in a south-easterly direction through the center of the country to Iraq. The Tigris runs southeast, tracing a short part along Syria’s border with Turkey before flowing into Iraq. And, aside from several lesser rivers that flow southwest through Lebanon to the Mediterranean, Syria has an estimated four to five billion cubic meters of water in its underground aquifers.

From 2007-2008, over 160 villages in Syria were abandoned and some 250,000 farmers relocated to Damascus, Aleppo and other cities. The capital, like many of its peer cities in the Middle East, was unable to handle that influx of people. Residents dug 25,000 illegal wells in and around Damascus, pushing the water table ever lower and the salinity of the water ever higher.

For these reasons the heart of the country was once an oasis. For 5,000 years, Damascus was famous for its agriculture and its dried fruit. Since 1950, however, the population has increased sevenfold in Syria, to 22 million, and Turkey, in an age of scarcity, has seized much of the water that once flowed south into Syria.

“They’ve been choking them,” Sofer said, noting that Turkey annually takes half of the available 30 billion cubic meters of water in the Euphrates. This limits Syria’s water supply and hinders its ability to generate hydroelectricity.

In 2007, after years of population growth and institutional economic stagnation, several dry years descended on Syria. Farmers began to leave their villages and head toward the capital. From 2007-2008, Sofer said, over 160 villages in Syria were abandoned and some 250,000 farmers – Sofer calls them “climate refugees” – relocated to Damascus, Aleppo and other cities.

The capital, like many of its peer cities in the Middle East, was unable to handle that influx of people. Residents dug 25,000 illegal wells in and around Damascus, pushing the water table ever lower and the salinity of the water ever higher.

This, along with over one million refugees from the Iraq war and, among other challenges, borders that contain a dizzying array of religions and ethnicities, set the stage for the civil war.

Tellingly, it broke out in the regions most parched — “in Daraa [in the south] and in Kamishli in the northeast,” Sofer said. “Those are two of the driest places in the country.”

Professor Eyal Zisser, one of Israel’s top scholars of Syria, agreed that the drought played a significant role in the onset of the war. “Without doubt it is part of the issue,” he said. Zisser did not believe that water was the central issue that inflamed Syria but rather “the match that set the field of thorns on fire.”

Rebel troops transporting two women to safety along the Orontes River, which has shrunk in recent years and grown increasingly saline (Photo credit: CC BY FreedomHouse)

Since that fire began to rage in March 2011, the course of the battles has been partially dictated by a different sort of logic, not environmental in nature. “Assad is butchering his way west,” Sofer said. He believes the president will eventually have to retreat from the capital and therefore has focused his efforts on Homs and other cities and towns that lie between Damascus and the Alawite regions near the coast, cutting himself an escape route.

Sofer and Berkovsky envision several scenarios for Syria. Among them: Assad puts down the rebellion and remains in power; Assad abdicates and a Sunni majority seizes control; Assad abdicates and no central power is able to assert control. The most likely scenario, Sofer said, was that the Syrian dictator would eventually flee to Tehran. But he preferred to avoid that sort of micro-conjecture and to focus on the regional effects of population growth and water scarcity and the manner in which that ominous mix might shape the future of the region.

Writing in the New York Times from Yemen on Thursday, Thomas Friedman embraced a similar thesis, noting that the heart of the al-Qaeda activity in the region corresponded with the areas most stricken by drought. Sofer published a paper in July where he laid out the grim environmental reality of the region and argued that, as in Syria, the conflicts bedeviling the region were not about climate issues but were deeply influenced by them.

Egypt, Sofer wrote, faces severe repercussions from climate change. Even a slight rise in the level of the sea – just half a meter – would salinize the Nile Delta aquifers and force three million people out of the city of Alexandria. In the more distant future, as the North Sea melts, the Suez Canal could decline in importance. More immediately, and of greater significance to Israel, he wrote that Egypt, faced with a water shortage, would likely grow more militant over the coming years. But he felt the militancy would be directed south, toward South Sudan and Ethiopia and other nations competing for the waters of the Nile, and not north toward the Levant.

The Nile River, the lifeblood of Egypt’s 82 million people (Photo credit: CC BY Simona Scolari, Flickr)

As proof that this pivot has already begun, Sofer pointed to Abu-Simbel, near the border with Sudan. There the state has converted a civilian airport into a military one. “The conclusion to be drawn from this is simple and unequivocal,” he wrote. “Egypt today represents a military threat to the southern nations of the Nile and not the Zionist state to the east.”

The Sinai Peninsula, already quite lawless, will only get worse, perhaps to the point of secession, he and Berkovsky wrote. Local Bedouin will have difficulty raising animals in the region and will turn, to an even greater degree, to smuggling material and people along a route established in the Bronze Age, through Sinai to Asia and Europe.

Syria, even if the war were swiftly resolved, is “on the cusp of catastrophe.” Jordan, too, is in dire need of water. And Gaza, like Syria, has been battered by unchecked drilling. The day after Israel left under the Oslo Accords, he said, the Palestinian Authority and other actors began digging 500 wells along the coastal aquifer even though Israel had warned them of the dangers. “Today there are around 4,000 of them and no more ground water. It’s over. There’s no fooling around with this stuff,” he said.

Only the two most stable states in the region – Israel and Turkey – have ample water.

Turkey is the sole Middle Eastern nation blessed with plentiful water sources. Ankara’s control of the Tigris and the Euphrates, among other rivers, means that Iraq and Syria, both downriver, are to a large extent dependent on Turkey for food, water and electricity. That strategic advantage, along with Turkey’s position as the bridge between the Middle East and Europe, “further serves its neo-Ottoman agenda,” Sofer said.

He envisioned an increased role for Turkey both in the Levant and, eventually, in central Asia and along the oil crossroads of the Persian Gulf, pitting it against Iran. Climate change, he conceded, has only a minor role in that future struggle for power but it is “an accelerant.”

Israel no longer suffers from drought. Desalination, conservation and sewage treatment have alleviated much of the natural scarcity. In February, the head of the Israel Water Authority, Alexander Kushnir, told the Times of Israel that the country’s water crisis has come to an end. Half of Israel’s two billion cubic meters of annual water use is generated artificially, he said, through desalination and sewage purification.

For Sofer, this self-sufficiency is an immense regional advantage. Israel could pump water east to Jenin in the West Bank and farther along to Jordan and north to Syria. International organizations could follow Israel’s example and fund regional desalination plants, which, he noted, cost less than a single day of modern full-scale war.

Instead, rather than an increase in cooperation, he feared, the region would likely witness ever more desperate competition. Sofer said his friends see him as a sort of Jeremiah. But the Middle East, he cautioned, is a region where “leaders wake up every morning and ask what can I do today to make matters worse.”

Arnon Sofer, a longtime professor at the IDF’s National Defense College, sees a link between the war in Syria and the water shortages there (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/ Flash 90)

UNITED NATIONS, May 7 — It was inside the UN, but there was no sign on the door. In Conference Room E of the Temporary North Lawn Building, Inner City Press was told, Henry Kissinger was speaking.

  Having covered, in the time of Occupy Wall Street, a mock award ceremony for Henry Kissinger held in front of a midtown Manhattan hotel (video here), Inner City Press had a sense there could be news: Kissinger in the UN! Again!

And so Inner City Press set up shop at a Cafe Austria table in front of Conference Room E. The electronic blue sign which usually announces what’s taking place in a UN meeting room — the Law of the Sea, or even sometimes, “Questions about Information” — was blank.

There was a paper sign on the door itself, DPI-NGO, but that event (which Inner City Press also covered, in the context of an internship with an NGO inside the UN being auctioned off for $26,000) was over.

A UN Security medical officer arrived, to unfold and man a wheelchair, along with two bodyguards. Two of the three looked skeptically at Inner City Press. But it is an open area.

After several false alarms, the moment came. Henry Kissinger came out of Conference Room E. But he said, even before he was out, “no pictures of me in a wheelchair.”

Well.

  There have been other sightings by Inner City Press in the UN this year: Judith Miller of Iraq and New York Times fame, here in the time of Syria and chemical weapons, on April Fool’s Day no less.

  Beyonce, for whom photographers were ordered to turn over their memory cards and have them erased. (Meanwhile, the UN took photos while raiding Inner City Press’ office on March 18, then shared them and had them leaked on March 21 once the UN was asked about the raid.)

There are many orders in the UN, usually by the UN or its allies, on what to publish. This one, we will respect. What remains is a picture of the wheelchair sans Kissinger, here.

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UNITED NATIONS, May 7 — What are this UN’s priorities, when it comes to the death of a UN Peacekeeper in Abyei and at least five questions left unanswered?

  On May 6, Inner City Press asked the chief of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, did the UNISFA mission under this command provide notification of its travel, in which at least one peacekeeper and paramount chief Kuol Deng Kuol were killed?

Ladsous refused to answer. (This is a pattern, video here.)

So Inner City Press submitted several questions in writing to the UN’s top three spokespeople. But they did not answer, even as on Tuesday morning Ladsous’ spokesman Kieran Dwyer was giving information to other scribes, not about the death in Abyei, but other peacekeepers, in the Golan Heights. Priorities.

  So Inner City Press went to Tuesday’s UN noon briefing and asked spokesman Martin Nesirky:

Inner City Press: I wanted to ask you about the death of the peacekeeper in Abyei. I had sent you some questions, but I need to ask them [here]. One, did UNISFA [United Nations Interim Security Force in Abyei] give notification of its travel? Two, how large was the protection element? There have been some complaints now by South Sudan that it wasn’t large enough. And what were the casualties to the UN’s knowledge on the Misseriya side?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Well, we’ve already answered that question, Matthew…

Inner City Press: How?

Spokesperson: The last part: that we are not aware of the casualties suffered amongst the assailants, those who attacked that particular group. I don’t have anything further beyond what we have already given to you both in this room and subsequently by e-mail. If that changes, I will certainly update you.

Inner City Press: It seems like the permission question…

Spokesperson: I said if I have anything further, I will certainly update. Do you have some other question, Matthew?

  Well, yes. Here’s more: A, B and C:

  In firefight it’s reported in Sudan that 17 Misseriya were killed and 12 injured.

a) What were the numbers and weapons used on each side?

b) What happened afterward with the remaining Misseriya? Did the UNISFA take prisoners, or disarm the remainder of the group? Did they get identities of the ambushers?

c) Did they find out who leaked the route of the convoy?

  Is it even worth sending questions to the UN, when Ladsous openly refuses to answer questions and the disease seems to be spreading and, incidentally, hurting the UN?

WHY DOES NOT SOMEONE SPEAK THE TRUTH TO THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND ITS SECURITY COUNCIL?

THE LARGEST STATES OF AFRICA MUST BE BROKEN UP IN ORDER TO ALLOW THE PEOPLE CREATE THE GOVERNMENT THEY NEED SO THEY CAN  THRIVE FROM THE HUGE RESOURCES THESE COUNTRIES POSSES. ANYTHING ELSE IS SIMPLY THE CONTINUATION OF COLONIALISM BY PROXY EMPIRES.

SUDAN FOR INSTANCE HAS FINALLY BEEN ALLOWED TO BREAK INTO TWO – BUT EVEN SO IT IS TOO LARGE TO BE GOVERNED OUT OF ARAB KHARTOUM. CONGO IS JUST AS BAD AND HIDING BEHIND THE WORDS DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IS NOT EVEN A FIG LEAF OVER ITS NAKEDNESS.

The New York Times Op-Ed Contributor

To Save Congo, Let It Fall Apart

J. PETER PHAM writes – Congo isn’t too big to fail; it’s too big to succeed. Rather than striving to hold it together, we should let it break up.

To Save Congo, Let It Fall Apart

By J. PETER PHAM
Published: November 30, 2012 – in print December 1, 2012

Instead of prosperity, Congo’s mineral wealth has brought only an endless procession of unscrupulous rulers eager to exploit its riches, from King Leopold II of Belgium to Mobutu Sese Seko, who was allowed by the logic of the cold war to rule the same area as a private fief. And last year, the current president, Joseph Kabila, who inherited the job from his assassinated father more than a decade ago, awarded himself another five-year term in elections that were criticized by everyone from the European Union to the country’s Roman Catholic bishops.

If some enterprises, public or private, can be said to be “too big to fail,” Congo is the reverse: it is too big to succeed. It is an artificial entity whose constituent parts share the misfortune of having been seized by the explorer Henry Morton Stanley in the name of a rapacious 19th-century Belgian monarch. From the moment Congo was given independence in 1960, it was being torn apart by centrifugal forces, beginning with separatism in the mineral-rich southern province of Katanga.

The international community has repeatedly dodged this reality by opting for so-called peace deals with shelf lives barely longer than the news cycle. Rather than nation-building, what is needed to end Congo’s violence is the opposite: breaking up a chronically failed state into smaller organic units whose members share broad agreement or at least have common interests in personal and community security.

In recent weeks, a rebel group calling itself the March 23 Movement, or M23, has stormed through eastern Congo, scattering poorly trained units loyal to the government and reducing a huge United Nations peacekeeping force to a helpless bystander as M23 seized control of Goma, the capital of the resource-rich North Kivu province. The rebel advance rekindled fears of a renewal of the bloody 1998-2003 Second Congo War, which drew the armies of a host of African countries as well as countless local militias into what was aptly dubbed “Africa’s world war.”

The M23 rebels appear indistinguishable from the several dozen other armed groups lurking in or around Congo, but in many respects they are quite different. Many M23 members are veterans of an earlier insurgent group, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, known by the French acronym C.N.D.P., which consisted largely of ethnic Tutsi Congolese who had banded together to fight the former Hutu génocidaires who fled to Congo following the end of their killing spree in Rwanda in 1994.

In a peace deal that was reached nearly four years ago, the Kabila government promised to facilitate the return of more than 50,000 Congolese Tutsi refugees, to integrate C.N.D.P. fighters into the national army, and to share power with the group’s leaders. Mr. Kabila’s failure to honor these commitments led to the current M23 revolt.

A United Nations report has accused the Rwandan government of supporting M23. Although Rwanda has denied it, this may well be true, and it is perfectly understandable given that the M23 rebels are fighting former Hutu génocidaires who still dream of invading Rwanda and finishing what they started nearly two decades ago.

Others have dismissed the M23 leaders as “warlords.” But warlords, even if they do not acquire power through democratic means, tend to provide some sort of political framework, often based on kinship ties or ethnic solidarity, that is seen as legitimate. They also tend to provide some basic security — which is more than the questionably legitimate Kabila government in Kinshasa provides for most Congolese.

Whatever else Congo’s various armed groups may be, they are clearly viewed by large segments of some communities as de facto protectors — a point underscored by the several hundred government soldiers and police officers who recently defected to M23 and publicly swore allegiance to it after the fall of Goma.

If Congo were permitted to break up into smaller entities, the international community could devote its increasingly scarce resources to humanitarian relief and development, rather than trying, as the United Nations Security Council has pledged, to preserve the “sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity” of a fictional state that is of value only to the political elites who have clawed their way to the top in order to plunder Congo’s resources and fund the patronage networks that ensure that they will remain in power.

Despite its democratic misnomer, Mr. Kabila has repeatedly delayed holding local elections since 2005. For years, every last mayor, burgomeister and neighborhood chief in the entire country has been appointed by presidential decree.

Given the dysfunctional status quo and the terrible toll it has exacted in terms of lives and resources, the West should put aside ideological dogmatism in favor of statesmanlike pragmatism and acknowledge the reality that, at least in some extreme cases, the best way to break a cycle of violence is to break up an artificial country in crisis and give it back to its very real people.

J. Peter Pham is director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council.

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Room for Debate

How to Stabilize Congo

Dire Scene in Congolese City as Rebels Prepare to Leave (December 1, 2012)

Israel to build model farm in South Sudan.

Mashav, Israel’s international development agency is already helping to provide African nations with sustainable agriculture.

Israel is planning to build a model agricultural village in the new nation of South Sudan, aimed at teaching local farmers how Israel’s breakthrough agricultural methods and technologies can help the fledgling African nation survive and thrive.

The idea took shape when Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon got to talking with South Sudan’s Minister of Agriculture, Betty Ogwaro, at the Agritech 2012 expo in Tel Aviv last May.

“Betty met not only people from our ministry but also our minister of agriculture, and the discussion became very productive,” Israeli Ambassador to South Sudan Haim Koren tells ISRAEL21c. “We suggested to her that we have plenty of experts in agriculture and irrigation who can give a hand, but since she knows better than we do what the needs are, we asked her to prioritize the issues.”

Ogwaro recently told Koren, who travels to the year-old country frequently, that she wants the demonstration farm set up in Eastern Equatoria, one of the 10 states comprising South Sudan.

“The idea is first to help supply vegetables, a very basic food of which there is a shortage so they have to import everything,” says Koren. “They simply need it for their survival.”

Building a new agricultural industry

The problem is not a lack of arable soil or of water – South Sudan is blessed with an abundance of both thanks to the nearby Nile River and a relatively long rainy season – but a lack of expertise.

“Basically it’s a society of shepherds and cowherds, not farmers,” Koren explains. “They are not qualified to deal with farming.”

As it happens, many Sudanese refugees who sought better lives in Israel over the past few years were placed on kibbutzim where they learned advanced Israeli methods of farming and drip irrigation. Now that many of these refugees are being repatriated to South Sudan, the Foreign Ministry is hoping to integrate them directly into running the new agricultural project.

“We can contribute the technology and enable some [South Sudanese] people to get jobs working on the farm,” says Koren. “It needs a training staff, and we’ll work to prepare the basic program for the project, present it to Betty and let her take it from there. I’m back and forth all the time, following up with relevant ministries and bureaucrats.”

Koren was planning to escort the first group of Israeli experts in September to assess the scope of the project and draw up a budget proposal to present to the Israeli government.”

The ambassador has assigned as project manager Dr. Yossi Baratz from MASHAV, Israel’s international development agency. Baratz, a physician, formerly served as the agency’s representative in Kenya, and in 2010 oversaw the inauguration of an Israeli-built emergency room at Kisumu East District Hospital in that African country.

Women farming in Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. Photo by Peter Biro/IRC

“I would like Israel to translate their skills in small-scale agriculture to Sudan,” Ogwaro told Israel National News at Agritech. “I see them improving agriculture through irrigation … this is very important.”

Contributing to nation-building

Koren is hopeful that the farm can be started at the beginning of 2013, and will eventually involve Israeli agricultural experts from the private sector. “The idea is approved and now we need to make it come true,” he says.

The project budget will come entirely from the Israeli government, and is intended as the first of several agricultural projects in South Sudan. The country’s population is about 8.5 million, similar to Israel’s, but spread out over a very large territory.

“We have strong bilateral relations,” says Koren. “It is the youngest country on earth, only one year old, and still coming out of a very difficult situation. We have abilities to help them, so it’s a great opportunity.”

He explains that aid to developing countries “is a very important tool in foreign policy, and part of being a developed country.”

“When Israel was accepted into the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development], we committed to international projects, not just aid and assistance but also money,” Koren says. “We are also members of the United Nations and contribute money for all kinds of projects to benefit the international community through the UN. We happen to be experts in some fields and it’s wonderful to be able to contribute to the process of nation-building.”

Guor Marial: A man without a country on world’s biggest athletic stage.

South Sudan celebrates year of freedom.

REPORTING BY CHINA DAILY.

Dancing and singing, South Sudanese on July 9 put aside dire warnings over the stability andeconomic viability

of their fledgling nation, the world’s newest, to celebrate its first year ofindependence.

Celebrations began at midnight as crowds took to the streets of the capital, Juba, with peoplecrammed into cars

driving around the city and honking horns to mark the anniversary ofseparation from former civil war foe Sudan.

Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun (second left), Assistant Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu (right) andSouth Sudan Ambassador Eluzai Mogga Yokwe (second right) cut a cake to celebrate the firstanniversary of the African country’s independence on Monday. Cui Meng / China Daily

“It is a good day because it’s the first birthday of my country,” said Rachel Adau, a nurse, whoarrived soon after dawn to secure  a place at the official ceremony, which took place at themausoleum of the late rebel leader John Garang.

“Today is the day we celebrate when the people came out from the Arabs and liberatedthemselves,” said Michael Kenyi Benjamin, a student.

South Sudan has spent the past year wracked by border skirmishes with the rump state ofSudan, as well as internal violence and the

shutdown of its vital oil production in a bitter disputewith Khartoum.

While South Sudan has made progress, it remains one of the world’s poorest countries, whereeven the most basic infrastructure,

such as roads, electricity and water-distribution networks, islacking.

The outstanding issues, including the sharing of revenues of oil, were among the most prominent differences that prevented the establishment of normal ties between Khartoum andJuba.

South Sudanese are also suffering from a lack of development and basic services, and fromhigh prices for basic commodities.

Mohamed Hassan Saeed, a Sudanese expert, told Xinhua that ”the events which followed theseparation of South Sudan have proved

that the security issue is still the major threat to thestability of relations between the two countries”.

“Full normalization in relations between Khartoum and Juba cannot be achieved withoutexploring a settlement for security issues,”  he added.

The issues with the Blue Nile and South Kordofan areas as well as oil-rich Abyei should beresolved first, and then the two sides can search for an agreement that will restore pumping ofthe south’s oil  through Sudan, he added.

He said the current disputes between Sudan and South Sudan are the result of theirseparation because both countries are having

trouble adapting to the situation.

“The south is suffering from the difficulties of building a state from nothing under chronic tribalconflicts, scarcity of resource and

a lack of infrastructures, while Sudan is suffering fromeconomic, security and political issues,” he said.

AFP-Xinhua

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Nation looks to China for model.

Updated: 2012-07-10 07:08

By Qin Zhongwei ( China Daily)

China’s economic miracle and rapid growth during the past 30 years is a good example tolearn from, South Sudan’s

new ambassador to China said on Monday.

Eluzai Mogga Yokwe, who arrived in Beijing over the weekend, spoke to China Daily on thefirst anniversary of his country’s

independence.

Related readings: S. Sudan celebrates year offreedom

Given that China took three decades to transform itself into theworld’s second-largest economy, “I wonder how long it will takeus to develop.

We definitely can learn something from China,”Yokwe said.

China began to send teams of doctors to what was thenthe southern part of Sudan in the 1970s. The countryhas more than 3,000 Chinese there now, the ambassador said. An increasing Chinesepresence is touching local people’s lives through telecommunications, hotels and restaurants.

“The friends who come when really need help are true friends,” he said.

Chinese companies are also involved in the building of South Sudan’s infrastructure, the youngnation’s biggest priority, Yokwe said.

Meanwhile, the South Sudan people still hold on to their faith and pride as their country isblessed with many riches not yet

developed -not only the oil, but also the agriculture potentialsand mineral resources such as gold, Yokwe said.

South Sudan also is seeing more international cooperation and support in areas such asclean-water production and education, not just with China, but also the United States, Britainand Egypt, among other countries, he said.

And South Sudan’s admission as a member of the African Union last year not only ensures thecountry won’t be ”left out”, but also

helps it to be more involved in the affairs of the continent,Yokwe said.

South Sudan’s foreign minister is scheduled to come to Beijing later this month to attend the5th Ministerial Conference of the

Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which will be from July19 to 20. It will be the first time South Sudan participates in the forum.

One year after South Sudan’s separation from Sudan, relations between the two countries arebleak. South Sudan stopped pumping

its oil through Sudan earlier this year because of adisagreement over the charge to export South Sudan’s oil through Sudan’s pipeline.

But Yokwe is optimistic about achieving a peaceful resolution to the current deadlock, as bothsides want peace and ”we can all benefit from the oil”. And he noted the bilateral negotiationsare still going on.

“Problems created by human beings can also be solved (by human beings), as long as if youcan sit down together and talk to each

other,” he said. “You can always find a solution.”

China will definitely play an important role in the mediation as a good friend of both Sudan andSouth Sudan, he added.

Liang Liang contributed to this story.

qinzhongwei@chinadaily.com.cn

Mr. George Clooney, accompanied by John Prendergast of the Satellite Sentinel Project, Audu Adam Elnail, Anglican Bishop at Kadugli, Southern Kordofam, Sudan, and Omer Ismail an activist from Darfur, Sudan formed at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York City, a panel   chaired by Ann Curry of NBC News.

The four arrived directly from Sudan where they looked at the ways Sudan is scaring the Nuba of South Kordofam into leaving their villages and hiding in caves. They used to farm the arid land where they live, but now there is no agriculture and no food, and they just live in those Nuba mountain caves.

This happens like it did earlier in Darfur – the Arab Sudanese want to clear the land from the somewhat darker African Nuba people.

We were told this was not a problem of religion – both sides are mainly Muslim and there are some Christians present as well. The problem is rather one of heritage intermixed with a longer war of Non-Arab regions against the Central Government.  The rebels believe they are Sudanese but want some autonomy for their area.  The Government reacts by trying to undercut from the regions any hope, cause starvation in an effort to get them to leave. Left to themselves – this just becomes another Darfur. The four speak about South Kordofam;s Kadugli.

The troops come in daylight, ask the Arabs among the population to operate noisy radios in order to signal that they are Arab Somalis, while the quieter homes are being destroyed. John Prendergast has satellite photos to show the bombings and the prople heading for the caves.

The bishop says that the dark Nuba are the Biblical people of Kush. South Sudan does not support the Nuba, people from among the Nuba that fled to South Sudan come back to fight, but the villagers do not fight – they are just plain victims according to the four witnesses.

The Bishop does not find religion as a cause to the trouble – it is heritage – cultural and oil. South Sudan has decided to stop sending oil to the pipeline to refining in the North. The Chinese have invested $20 Billion in producing this oil and when they are forced to buy oil somewhere else this increases the cost of oil to everybody. This impacts the economy, including here in the US, and has political repercussions. Cloony thus says that what is needed is peace in Sudan and this can be achieved only after the present government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been removed. In the present mess, the Government of Sudan has bombed some Chinese oil wells which turned also China away from Sudan. Nevertheless, Arab governments and Africans still let Criminally indicted al-Bashir come for visits and business as if his deeds do not count. The four cry foul and want to make sure that the world knows – they put the fame of George Clooney and John Prendergast on this public relations line. They will testify in Congress and visit with President Obama. Will the people listen and understand that what is here that confronts them are not just the activities in Sudan, but the US economy and the price of gasoline at the pump. Is that what it takes to save poor people from Arab manipulations?

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By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: IN SUDAN’S NUBA MOUNTAINS, GOVERNMENT ROCKET ATTACKS SOW FEAR, WITNESSES SAY.

www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/world/africa/in-sudans-nuba-mountains-rocket-attacks-spread-fear.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120314

NAIROBI, Kenya — Ryan Boyette, an American aid worker living in one of the most active war zones in Africa — Sudan’s Nuba Mountains — was in a thatch-roof office on a clear January day when he heard two thunderous blasts.

TWO NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIALS of JANUARY 10, 2012:

–  The Corporate Candidates

The Republican presidential hopefuls with backgrounds in ordering layoffs and lobbying Congress can’t relate to struggling voters.

–  Violence Continues in Syria

The Arab League is failing to do all it can to encourage a peaceful solution. It needs to get tougher with President Bashar al-Assad.

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

The Corporate Candidates

Published: January 9, 2012

The more Mitt Romney pretends to empathize with the millions of Americans who are struggling in this economy, the less he seems to understand their despair. And the rest of the Republican field seems to have no more insight into the concerns of most voters than he does.

Mr. Romney claims his background as a businessman provides him with an understanding of the economy and the ability to fix it. His opponents — particularly Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Rick Perry — say their political experience provides the same advantage. In truth, none have offered anything but tired or extremist economic prescriptions, providing little evidence that they can relate to those at the middle or bottom of the ladder.

The problem with Mr. Romney’s pitch is the kind of businessman he was: specifically, a buyer of flailing companies who squeezed out the inefficiencies (often known as employees) and then sold or merged them for a hefty profit. More than a fifth of them later went bankrupt, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. This kind of leveraged capitalism, which first caught fire in the 1980s, is one of the reasons for the growth in the income gap, tipping the wealth in the economy toward the people at the top.

Mr. Romney doesn’t like to talk about the precise nature of his business experience. Instead, he prefers to claim his occupation as a leveraged buyout king actually benefited ordinary workers, even casting himself as one of them. “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re going to get fired,” Mr. Romney said, astonishingly, on Sunday. “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.” Mr. Romney, the son of privilege and power, has never known personal economic fear, and said laterthat he was referring to his early days at Bain Capital, the investment firm he would later run.

He has, however, been responsible for issuing many a pink slip while leading Bain. The firm bought Dade International, a medical supplier, and collected eight times its investment but laid off 1,700 workers, The New York Times has reported. Reuters reportedlast week that a steel mill in Kansas City, Mo., was shuttered less than a decade after Bain bought it, and its 750 laid-off workers got no severance pay.

Mr. Romney dismisses these layoffs, and thousands more, as the cost of capitalism. He claims that, over all, Bain’s investments produced a net gain of 100,000 jobs. But his campaign and his former firm have refused to provide any documentation for that number, showing exactly how many people were laid off and how many hired as a result of Bain’s investments during his period there. The claim cannot be taken seriously until he does so.

Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Perry have sharply criticized Mr. Romney for his buyout work, but some of those attacks ring hollow. Mr. Gingrich himself was on an advisory board for Forstmann Little, another private equity firm with a business model similar to Bain’s. Mr. Perry simply seems opportunistic. He criticized Mr. Romney for ruthlessly practicing modern-day capitalism a day after he called Mr. Obama “a socialist.”

Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum have avoided talking about their own financial histories, having become multimillionaires by peddling their influence to big corporations after leaving Congressional office. For voters worried about the economy, neither a past record of buyouts nor lobbying should inspire any confidence.

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Violence Continues in Syria

Published: January 9, 2012

The Arab League is failing the Syrian people. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria grudgingly agreed to the league’s peace plan last month, but his brutal 10-month crackdown against mostly peaceful protesters shows no signs of easing. To have any chance of stopping the bloodshed, the league — backed by the international community — needs to get tougher with the butcher in Damascus.

We always suspected that the manipulative Mr. Assad would pay only lip service to the plan. He promised to end the violence, withdraw troops from residential areas and talk to the opposition. He also agreed to allow the league to monitor progress. But Syrian activists say that in the two weeks since 100 or so monitors arrived, at least 400 more civilians have been killed, in addition to the 5,000 dead already counted by the United Nations.

Independent accounts are hard to come by because Syria also reneged on its promise to allow greater news media access. Still, the reports are credible enough to unnerve many Arabs; last week, the Arab Parliament, which advises the league, questioned whether the monitoring mission should be abandoned since Mr. Assad seemed clearly to be using it as cover for further repression.

Yet the Arab League’s official response has been pathetically weak. Meeting in Cairo on Sunday, Prime Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani of Qatar, the chairman of the league’s committee on Syria, and other officials did little more than plead with Mr. Assad to end the bloodshed and let the monitors operate freely.

This won’t work. The only meaningful course is for the Arab League to enforce theeconomic sanctions it approved in November. These include a freeze on Syrian government assets in Arab countries and a ban on transactions with Syria’s central bank.

In addition, Arab League members should insist that the United Nations Security Council — stymied for months by Mr. Assad’s enablers, Russia and China — condemn his behavior and impose tough sanctions of its own that would also bring pressure to bear on his allies. And they should lean on Turkey, which promised sanctions against Damascus, to follow through.

League officials have agreed to continue the monitoring mission (at least until they reassess later this month) and boost its size. There is also talk of United Nations-led training for monitors, who are very inexperienced.

In theory, these are good ideas. But they assume that Mr. Assad is not playing for time and playing the Arab League for a fool as he clearly is. People across the Arab world are horrified by the bloody events in Syria and fears of broader war. Their leaders and the major powers must do all they can to peacefully stop the violence.

South Sudan, Israel’s New Ally

by Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times
January 3, 2012

Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

www.danielpipes.org/10486/south-sudan-israel-allies

It’s not every day that the leader of a brand-new country makes his maiden foreign voyage to Jerusalem, capital of the most besieged country in the world, but Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, accompanied by his foreign and defense ministers, did just that in late December. Israel’s President Shimon Peres hailed his visit as a “moving and historic moment.” The visit spurred talk of South Sudan locating its embassy in Jerusalem, making it the only government anywhere in the world to do so.

This unusual development results from an unusual story.

Today’s Sudan took shape in the nineteenth century when the Ottoman Empire controlled its northern regions and tried to conquer the southern ones. The British, ruling out of Cairo, established the outlines of the modern state in 1898 and for the next fifty years ruled separately the Muslim north and Christian-animist south. In 1948, however, succumbing to northern pressure, the British merged the two administrations in Khartoum under northern control, making Muslims dominant in Sudan and Arabic its official language.

Accordingly, independence in 1956 brought civil war, as southerners battled to fend off Muslim hegemony. Fortunately for them, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s “periphery strategy” translated into Israeli support for non-Arabs in the Middle East, including the southern Sudanese. The government of Israel served through the first Sudanese civil war, lasting until 1972, as their primary source of moral backing, diplomatic help, and armaments.

Mr. Kiir acknowledged this contribution in Jerusalem, noting that “Israel has always supported the South Sudanese people. Without you, we would not have arisen. You struggled alongside us in order to allow the establishment of South Sudan.” In reply, Mr. Peres recalled his presence in the early 1960s in Paris, when then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and he initiated Israel’s first-ever link with southern Sudanese leaders.

Sudan’s civil war continued intermittently from 1956 until 2005. Over time, Muslim northerners became increasingly vicious toward their southern co-nationals, culminating in the 1980-90s with massacres, chattel slavery, and genocide. Given Africa’s many tragedies, such problems might not have made an impression on compassion-weary Westerners except for an extraordinary effort led by two modern-day American abolitionists.

Starting in the mid-1990s, John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International redeemed tens of thousands of slaves in Sudan while Charles Jacobs of the American Anti-Slavery Group led a “Sudan Campaign” in the United States that brought together a wide coalition of organizations. As all Americans abhor slavery, the abolitionists formed a unique alliance of Left and Right, including Barney Frank and Sam Brownback, the Congressional Black Caucus and Pat Robertson, black pastors and white Evangelicals. In contrast, Louis Farrakhan was exposed and embarrassed by his attempts to deny slavery’s existence in Sudan.

The abolitionist effort culminated in 2005 when the George W. Bush administration pressured Khartoum in 2005 to sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the war and gave southerners a chance to vote for independence. They enthusiastically did so in January 2011, when 98 percent voted for secession from Sudan, leading to the formation of the Republic of South Sudan six months later, an event hailed by Mr. Peres as “a milestone in the history of the Middle East.”.

Israel’s long-term investment has paid off. South Sudan fits into a renewed periphery strategy that includes Cyprus, Kurds, Berbers, and, perhaps one day, a post-Islamist Iran. South Sudan offers access to natural resources, especially oil. Its role in Nile River water negotiations offers leverage vis-à-vis Egypt. Beyond practical benefits, the new republic represents an inspiring example of a non-Muslim population resisting Islamic imperialism through its integrity, persistence, and dedication. In this sense, the birth of South Sudan echoes that of Israel.

If Kiir’s Jerusalem visit is truly to mark a milestone, South Sudan must travel the long path from dirt-poor, international protectorate with feeble institutions to modernity and genuine independence. This path requires the leadership not to exploit the new state’s resources nor dream of creating a “New Sudan” by conquering Khartoum, but to lay the foundations for successful statehood.

For the Israelis and other Westerners, this means both helping with agriculture, health, and education and urging Juba to stay focused on defense and development while avoiding wars of choice. A successful South Sudan could eventually become a regional power and a stalwart ally not just of Israel but of the West.

Noda to schmooze with world chiefs at N.Y. meet.

Kyodo

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will make his diplomatic debut this week during a trip to New York City to attend U.N. meetings and hold bilateral talks with President Barack Obama and other world leaders.

The prime minister will deliver a speech Friday at the 66th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

During his four-day visit to the city starting Tuesday, Noda will at the United Nations outline the lessons Japan has learned about nuclear safety and disaster preparedness following the March disasters, government officials said.

Noda,  will deliver a keynote speech Thursday at a high-level U.N. meeting on nuclear safety and security, at which he will describe the ongoing efforts to bring the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant under control, the officials said.

Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba will also travel to New York City on Monday to attend a series of meetings and hold talks with his overseas counterparts.

China is sounding out Japan over a visit by Vice Premier Li Keqiang in late October, sources familiar with bilateral relations have said.

China hopes the visit would help improve ties ahead of the 40th anniversary next year of the normalization of bilateral relations, the sources said Friday.

{Is there going to develop an inroad by Japan direction Africa that China wants to avoid? – our comment}

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from:  http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110918a1.html

SDF may aid South Sudan peacekeeping

Noda to unveil engineering role in U.N. speech

Sunday, Sep. 18, 2011

Kyodo

Japan is considering sending Ground Self-Defense Force engineers to South Sudan to take part in U.N. peacekeeping operations, government sources said Saturday.

The government plans to soon send a survey team to the recently created country, and a dispatch would likely take place early next year, the sources said.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is expected to unveil the plan to send a GSDF engineering unit to the African nation when he visits New York this week. Noda hopes the dispatch will demonstrate Japan’s commitment to tackling issues of international concern, the sources said.

The prime minister plans to include the plan in his speech at the U.N. General Assembly session on Friday, and to discuss it with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon during their meeting, they said.

South Sudan’s information minister, Benjamin Marial, said his country would welcome the dispatch of GSDF engineers.

Marial described Japan as a friend of South Sudan, and said he hopes the GSDF unit would help build infrastructure such as roads and train the country’s military in carrying out construction work.

The United Nations has sought Japan’s support in its nation-building efforts in South Sudan, which became an independent state in July.

The survey team will gather information on local needs, the security situation and supplies of food and fuel, according to the sources. Based on the team’s findings, the government will be able to decide on specific details such as the size of the unit and its mission.

When Ban visited Japan in August, he held meetings with then Prime Minister Naoto Kan and then Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and requested that Japan send a GSDF engineering unit to the peacekeeping mission in the oil-rich African nation.

At the time, Kitazawa said it would be difficult to send Self-Defense Forces engineers because they were engaged in rebuilding operations following the March 11 quake and tsunami, and some were participating in a U.N. mission in Haiti.

Kitazawa said Japan would limit its involvement to dispatching two SDF officers in rotation to the U.N. mission headquarters. The government started sending GSDF engineers to the U.N. Mission in Sudan in 2008. The two officers have taken charge of managing logistics and a security information database at the mission’s headquarters.

Some in the Defense Ministry are cautious about sending GSDF engineers to South Sudan at the present time because of the unstable security situation and the difficulty in securing supplies, the sources said.

The Foreign Ministry, however, hopes the plan will be a highlight of Noda’s foreign affairs debut at the United Nations, and noted that the SDF’s full-fledged involvement in restoring Japan’s devastated northeast ended in August.

As Lebanon Heads UNSC, Salam Riffs on Palestine, Doesn’t Defer to NATO

By Matthew Russell Lee

www.innercitypress.com/sc1leb1sep090211.html

UNITED NATIONS, September 2 — With the UN Security Council presidency being taken over by Lebanese Permanent Representative Nawaf Salam for September, the month of the General Debate and when Palestine might ask the Council to join the UN, many of wondered if Lebanon’s complex politics might impact the Council’s plumbing, if not its ultimate decisions.

Lebanon, for example, blocked the first proposed Press Statement on Syria, then disassociated itself from the Presidential Statement adopted  August 3.

While the two dueling Syria resolutions now pending in the Council may pose a problem for Salam — on Friday he said his “good offices” to mediate haven’t been requested — an issue he clearly feels passionate about is Palestine.

During his press conference on Friday, his longest answer concerned the questions of Palestinian statehood. He recalled that Palestine declared itself a state in 1988. He cited the 1933 Montevideo Convention and said that Palestine has all the attributes of a state.

On the question of undefined borders, he compared it with South Sudan, which is still in a dispute with Khartoum for Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States.

Palestine is not, however, listed on the Council’s program of work for September, even in the footnotes.

Inner City Press asked Salam about Kordofan and Blue Nile. He said they could be addressed at the September 8 consultations on Sudan and South Sudan, and said he would come speak to the press after those consultations.

On Libya, Inner City Press asked Salam about a statement by French president Nicolas Sarkozy on September 1, that the so-called “Group of Friends of Libya” had decided that NATO can keep bombing.

The same is implied in the UN Secretariat’s Libya plan written by Ian Martin, which Inner City Press exclusively obtained and published. Inner City Press asked Salam, but isn’t that the Security Council’s decision?

Salam said that yes, the Council can consider and decide on NATO’s mission, at its Libya consultations scheduled for September 26. That seems late, but at least Salam said it’s not just up to NATO.

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Salam & his political coordinator with then PGA Treki, of whom we’ll have more soon

THIS PICTURE REMINDED US THAT ALI TREKI, THE PRESIDENT OF THE 64th UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY (2009-2010) – who was GADDAFI’S FORMER FOREIGN MINSTER. See also a previous Inner City Press posting -

June 10, 2010 — As Libya moves to expel the UN’s refugee agency, Inner City Press has asked the office of UN General Assembly President Ali Treki, former foreign minister and senior adviser to the country’s longtime leader, if Treki is doing anything to avoid a cut of in assistance to refugees and involuntary migrants in Libya.

Rather than describe any efforts, his spokesman said that Treki “is not representing the Government of Libya. He is in his capacity as President of the sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly.” But UNHCR is a organ of the General Assembly. Shouldn’t Treki try Something?

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Salam is an intellectual, having for example edited and written a chapter in the 2003 book “Lebanon in Limbo.” His review copy inscription says, “Best wishes from a region (and not only my country) in limbo.”

We will be reviewing the book during his month; we’ll see where he comes out between the mere three media stakeouts held in May by French Ambassador Gerard Araud, and the eight full blown stakeouts conducted by Hardeep Singh Puri of India in August.

I came last night to the Tsavta Theater in order to see Socharei Gumi or “The Rubber Merchants” – one of the earliest Hanoch Levin satires about life in Israel 40 years ago – the time the first generation of the Sabra (Israel born) were coming on their own and interacting with the generation that did create the State. That play was going to start at 8:30 PM and when I arrived I learned that somewhat later, in another hall, officially at 9:00 PM, there will be a benefit for the unwanted Israeli children that became just these weeks famous in the Israeli media – some of these “foreigners” were going to perform!

I saw bunches of little kids, mainly Philipino, but quite a few blacks, running around Tsavta and behaving like happy and normal children and their mothers were there talking among themselves. Then there were already in the hall quite a few good looking early teenagers – all the youngsters were clad in one of two kinds of T-shirts pointing out their station in life – some accepted Israelis – others up for deportation. I decided that this is the real theater of life, but knowing the time table, I decided to proceed with my original plan to see the Gumi Rubber Merchants first, and cleared with the other group to walk in when the show ends – and so I did. Here I will write now about the second event first and will pick up the Rubber Merchants after that.

Ben Hartman wrote in The Jerusalem Post of Wednesday, August 17, 2011 - “Filipino child born here faces deportation.”

—

You have it – Israelis do not want to take care of their old – their parents and grand-parents and hire foreign labor to do so. Most of these are Philipino women – some Philipino men. There are sprinklings of other Asians – Nepalese, Ecuador, Vietnamese even Chinese. Most of the women come alone, some with husbands. They come legally via the airport and have working visas.

A different group are the Africans that come on foot crossing the long border with Egypt. Most of them are men – but some families come as well. Interesting – this is the same border that is now in the news as infiltrators responsible for the latest terrorist activities used exactly the same passage as well. These people usually work in menial jobs like cleaning the streets. These are mainly from Sudan – Darfur and South Sudan – refugees from areas of disaster that tried to save themselves by coming to Israel in the belief it is the Holy Land.

As long as these people just work there is no problem, but they learn the language, many of them are talented people – they sing, dance and are open to learning. The Africans have no visas at all, the Philipinos came on a visa but may have stayed over. Technically these people are illegal – the gray class hiding in the cracks in the walls. But these are human beings and produce children – born in Israel the children  are technically Israelis. But Israel has no immigration law – it has only EXPULSION laws.

Take the Mayor of Tel Aviv – Mr. Ron Huldai – he created a school for the children. The Knesset came up with laws regarding the children, but the officials in the government do their best to deport rather then let THESE ISRAELIS just be. The case of the Hartman described girl hit the press and the wife of the Prime Minister stepped in asking, obviously via her husband, that the deportation be stopped. How do you send away non-Jewish Israeli kids that have done no harm while still wanting their mothers to perform work that you know you have no substitute personnel? The Minister of Interior Eli Ishai of the religious Shas Party has no heart for this sort of issues – this became clear from what I learned at the benefit. His Ministry is under attack for many other reasons as well – it is occupied by non-professionals and was at the center of many other problems.

Gila Almagor, the presently reigning First Lady of the Israeli Theater, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, made it clear last night. The behavior of these Israeli leaders cannot be compared to those that caused the Holocaust – but she asked – have we learned nothing from what happened to us? How is it that we cause people that did us no harm to have to hide before us? The laws that already do exist are also not implemented. if someone applies according to above regulations they just do not get an answer – then they may find themselves on the way to the airport without even having had the chance to present their case. Is the causing of such injustice a Jewish behavior?

We saw last night good performances, in good Hebrew, by some of these kids. We saw about 40 of the 100 kids that face deportation right now. We saw a film clip taken by that NGO on Rothschild Boulevard as this injustice is now included in the long list of injustices the protest movement has taken into its large tent. The point is that these kids, that have never known another country, are clearly Israelis and nothing else – how do you deport an Israeli?

The songs included – I got a feeling, I will survive, Poker pace, and ended in Imagine.

In the Tsavta Theater, the people that paid for the benefit sat in the central rows downstairs. It seemed that these were all part of the beautiful Israeli generation. I am sure it included also some that might be of the “tycoons” that were touched by the injustice. So there is hope to Israel – but it is much harder to find at the government level.  The people about whom this benefit was organized filled the side rows and the balcony. As I entered late I was directed to the balcony and enjoyed immensely that company.

———

Moving back from the above benefit to The Rubber Merchants is an anticlimax. In the play the rubber is obviously the condom and the business is the life of the people – they try to trade in their lives and do this business with one another. 20 years pass – and then what? Did anything change? Not really – life was miserable, stayed miserable, this because they never were ready to give anything – they tried only to take – and there were no partners when everyone wants only to take. Oh! yes! some of the rubber was used up but most of it was still there.

The performers – Tamar Ben-Ami, Roman Gerschkowitz, Ido Zecharia were good and I think Hanoch Levin would have approved. Looking up the internet, I understand that there was a movie version and the play was produced at least also in Bulgaria and Spain.

UN SECURITY COUNCIL CALLS for END to IMPUNITY in ATTACKS on UN-AU FORCE in DARFUR (MaximsNewsNetwork)

UN Peacekeepers serving with joint United Nations-African Union Mission (UNAMID) in Darfur.

The UN Security Council today condemned “in the strongest terms” Friday’s attack on a joint United Nations-African Union force in Darfur (UNAMID) patrol in which one peacekeeper from Sierra Leone was killed and another wounded. 8 August 2011.

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So they came to the UN and Maxims News showed the pictures:

Israel and South Sudan formally establish ties.

From the papers in Israel – Israel and South Sudan formally established diplomatic relations on Thursday, some two weeks after the new country declared independence from Sudan, a radical Islamic state and one of the most hostile countries to Israel in Africa.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced the establishment of
ties, issuing a statement saying “the cooperation between the two
countries will be based on solid foundations, relations of equality
and mutual respect.”

Israel recognized the new country on July 10, 2011.

A number of revelers in Juba celebrating independence waved Israeli
flags, a gesture interpreted by some as a sign of gratitude to Israel
for support during years of struggle against the north.

About 8,000 Sudanese migrants, many of them from South Sudan, are believed to be in Israel. One of the first topics of discussion between the two countries is likely to be the repatriation of many of these refuge-seekers.

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We wonder now how will the Israeli Foreign Ministry handle the topic of 8,000 Sudanese refugees living now in Israel.

Many of these Sudanese are from Darfur, some from South Sudan, some of these having learned their way to Israel from stories of Israel having air lifted Ethiopian Jews via Sudan.

We think Israel has now the chance of working some of the Sudanese into an army of Ambassadors to Africa. Israel will need the expertease  of these people – their knowledge of the area and the languages. We hope that what was meant is not an expulsion in form of repatriation – but rather the development of a joint interest with people that have learned also the better side of life in Israel.

Summer days in Vienna and life is fun – so former Vice Chancellor from the OEVP and Women’s Minister, Member of the Parliament, Ms. Maria Rauch-Kallat decided that time has come to change the National Anthem which in one of its lines says “Homeland of Great Sons” – what about daughters, she asked? Surely she was not the first to asks this, but always with so much else one has to worry about – nobody did stake out a position on this.

Ms. Rauch-Kallat persisted and her party managed to get the Parliament vote and these days an honored singer Ms. Ildiko Raimondi has sung three variations on this theme: “Homeland Great Daughters, Sons” or “Homeland Great Daughters and Sons” or “Great Daughters, Great Sons.” The verdict is that when Ms. Raimondi sings it is all great  no matter what she says – so now the debate will continue after the people will listen to the U-tube presentations.

Why do we write about this?

Because this sort of public discussion makes people not notice that Austria has extended a friendly hand to some not so nice regimes – just so that there is some benefit for Austria in oil terms while some other European Nations or the US may shun doing so at this time – and that is one of our main interests as our readers know.

So what am I talking about?

First there was the issue of Mr. Rakhat Aliyev former Ambassador of Kazakhstan and former son in law of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nasarbajew. The accusation is that he was involved in the abduction, extortion,  and the killing of two bank directors from Kazakhstan. This happened in 2008 but the bodies were found only May 2011. The families of those killed have an Austrian lawyer – Gabriel Lansky – and he asks how is it that Aliyev lived peacefully in Austria after his former father in law fired him. What are the personal problems between the two? Whom were the Austrians owing a favor In the meantime Aliyev moved out of reach to Malta – he says it is all fabricated against him.

Then exploded the Lithuanian problem that pits now all three former Soviet Baltic Republic against Austria. It all started with a KGB murderer – Michail Golovatov – against whom was an international hold order, passing through the Vienna airport. He was correctly arrested but the Austrians did not wait to get the details of the order against him translated into German from the original – presumably Lithuanian – and let him continue to Russia. Lithuania, fellow members in the EU, withdrew their Ambassador from Vienna – the other two Baltic EU members – Latvia and Estonia are following same protest – but Austria’s Foreign Minister who is also Minister for Inter-European Affairs insists that the border people dealt correctly by not waiting to see the documents. Was this so that Austria avoids a confrontation with Russia, like it avoided confrontation with Kazakhstan in the previous case.

Now comes a third case – a tour of two Sudanese Ministers - Ali Ahmed Karti, Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Sudan and Yahia Hussain, State Minister for International Cooperation of the Republic of Sudan, that came to campaign for better relations with Austria after the split-of with South Sudan. The word oil was all over, and it is about the exports via Port Sudan. The problem that this was the wrong Sudan – it was the remaining North Sudan that has just lost to independence of South Sudan which has 60% of the oil and is much better advised to figure out its own pipeline to places like Djibouti, Mombasa, or some better located terminal in between. After all – South Sudan’s new allies will be to the East and West rather then to the North. Austria’s OEMV oil company will be in the running, like it is in relations with the States that were part of the former Soviet Union. Will Austria now run after the oil in complete disregard of who the partners are and what sort of behavior one can expect from them? Does Austria attribute importance to the concept of “Responsibility to Protect” – the all important R2P that asks States to act responsibly towards their own citizens?

To top all of this, an opposition leader Heinz-Christian Strache, a follower of Joerg Haider in the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOE) sends another party official, David Lasar, to meet right now with a son of Gaddafi – with whom and with Gaddafi’s oil-money, that party has long standing relationships. The argument was that they try to bring about peace – we ask for whom?

So, this is a little comment about weighty issues we see and do not like.

Nelson Mandela honored with global call to serve – WorldWatch of CBS News.

written by Pamela Falk on Mandela’s birthday.

After first lady Michelle Obama and her daughters Sasha and Malia met Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa last month, the first family kicked off the U.S. commemoration of Nelson Mandela International Day, created by the U.N. two years ago to mark the democracy icon’s birthday. {what I diversion from the daily ashes of Washington! – this is our comment}

“Madiba continues to be a beacon for the global community, and for all who work for democracy,  justice and reconciliation,” said Michelle Obama at the time, referring to Mandela by his nickname.

For 2011, the U.N. is marking Mandela Day, and Mandela’s 93rd birthday, with a request: 67 minutes of community service, from everyone, in honor of the man who has given so much himself. The “Take Action! Inspire Change” campaign for Nelson Mandela International Day asks communities to take just over an hour for community service to honor Mandela’s 67 years of service, which culminated in his election as the first democratically-elected president of a post-apartheid South Africa.

“Everybody remembers — and, indeed, needs — an inspirational figure who has played a signal role in their lives,” said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “Nelson Mandela has been that role model for countless people around the world.”

In 1993, Mandela, who was in prison for 27 years, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with then-President of South Africa FW de Klerk, for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new, democratic South Africa.

In South Africa, 12 million schoolchildren sang “Happy Birthday” to the elder statesman as classes began, and at U.N. Headquarters in New York, visitors are able to make their pledge to “67 minutes of service” in an open message that will be sent to Mandela. (You can also make the pledge on the Mandela Day website.)

In New York’s Central Park, South Africa’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador, Advocate Doc Mashabane Mashabane, is planning to paint park benches with the help of other volunteers.

Not tainting the day, U.S.-South Africa relations have soured recently over the issue of Libya and have been particularly edgy with the participation of South Africa as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

South African President Jacob Zuma has been critical of the U.N. resolution which is enabling the ongoing NATO bombing of Libya, which was meant to protect civilians.

“We strongly believe that the resolution is being abused for regime change, political assassinations and foreign military occupation,” Zuma charged recently.

Zuma was not available during the first lady’s trip to South Africa – widely seen as a missed opportunity, at best, and, at worst, a slight.

Along with Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev, Zuma has been trying to negotiate an end to the Libya conflict between Qaddafi and the rebel umbrella group, the Transitional National Council, which the U.S. formally recognized this past week.

Regardless of current friction, Nelson Mandela International Day has taken off around the world in the two years since the U.N. created it.

“Mandela has been a lawyer and a freedom fighter, a political prisoner, a peacemaker and president,” the Secretary-General said, “A healer of nations and a mentor to generations, Nelson Mandela – or Madiba as he is affectionately known by millions – is a living symbol of wisdom, courage and integrity.”

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Also, please see our article of last year: It started with:

PROCESS TOWARDS UN MEMBERSHIP GETS UNDER WAY FOR NEW NATION OF SOUTH SUDAN

The process aimed at attaining United Nations membership got under way today for the Republic of South Sudan as the President of the Security Council referred the application of the world’s newest country to the body tasked with examining such requests.

The Council’s Committee on the Admission of New Members met this afternoon to review the application, which was submitted by the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, on 9 July, the day the country formally separated from Sudan and became independent.

“I have the honour, on behalf of the Republic of South Sudan and its people, in my capacity as President, to submit this application for membership in this esteemed body as a full Member State,” Mr. Kiir wrote in a letter sent to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“The Republic of South Sudan accepts the obligations contained in the Charter of the United Nations and solemnly undertakes to fulfil them,” added the letter, which Mr. Ban referred to the Presidents of the Council and of the General Assembly.

Any recommendations for admission must receive the affirmative votes of nine of the Council’s 15 members, provided that none of its five permanent members – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States – vote against the application.

If the Council recommends admission, the recommendation is presented to the 192-member Assembly, where a two-thirds majority of members present and voting is necessary for admission of a new State.

Should South Sudan’s application be approved by the Council and subsequently the Assembly, the country of more than 8 million people will become the UN’s 193rd member. Membership becomes effective on the date the resolution for admission is adopted by the Assembly.

South Sudan’s independence is the result of the January 2011 referendum held under the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the decades-long civil war between the North and the South.

In a related development, the Council today decided to close the six-year-old UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), which was set up to assist the parties in implementing the CPA, and called on the Secretary-General to complete the withdrawal of all its uniformed and civilian personnel, except those needed for its liquidation, by 31 August.

In a unanimously adopted resolution, the Council emphasized the need for an orderly withdrawal of UNMIS following the 9 July termination of its mandate to pave the way for the new UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS).

The Council also requested the Secretary-General to transfer appropriate staff and supplies, including “the logistics necessary for achieving the new scope of functions to be performed,” from UNMIS to the new Mission and to the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), which the Council set up last month to monitor the withdrawal of northern and southern troops from the region that is disputed by both sides.

 africommons.wordpress.com/2011/07…

Somaliland, now on maps part of Somalia, tries to become the 55th African State. They had an official invitation from South Sudan at the July 9th Independence Day events in Juba.  Our website has a space for Somaliland for quite a while as we look at peoples – not just lines on old colonial maps.

Somaliland’s President Silanyo Official Guest for Saturday’s South Sudan Independence Ceremony.

HARGEISA (SomalilandPress)—President Ahmed Siilaanyo received an official invitation from the president of South Sudan Salva Kiir to attend the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of South Sudan on the 9th of July, 2011. South Sudan is set to become the 54th nation in the African continent after long fought civil against Northern Sudan’s rule that saw thousands of lives lost and millions displaced.

The invitation of Somaliland’s president Ahmed Siilanyo to South Sudan’s historic day has been welcomed with delight in Somaliland by both the government of Somaliland and its citizens.

Somaliland believes it could use the south’s independence as a precedent as it seeks more support for its case for international recognition and become the 55th nation in the continent after South Sudan. Some foreign observers and politicians believe the Juba government will recognize Somaliland which will pave the way for other regional powers to follow.