The UPDATE comes in the form of a letter from an organization that helps people who seek asylum in the US and we thought to attach it here:
Hi,I wanted to shoot you an e-mail thanking you for compiling so much great information and links on your website www.sustainabilitank.info/category/africa/sudan/darfur/. I did find couple of broken links though! If you are still
updating your page, the company I work for has a great link that is related to your site! The site is:
Adding this resource will make your page even more helpful for future visitors.Thank you for your time and consideration.Thank You,
Cooper Brimm
American Immigration Center.
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As published March 14, 2012:
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?
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.
The explosions were not preceded by the usual growl of aging Antonov aircraft. The Sudanese military has been relentlessly bombing the Nuba Mountains since June, killing hundreds of civilians, trying to quash a dug-in rebel movement. At the faintest sound of approaching aircraft, many Nuban people scramble up the steep, stony mountainsides to take cover in caves. But that day, silence preceded the two loud bangs that jolted Mr. Boyette, giving no time to run.
When Mr. Boyette, 30, dashed out to the blast site, he found his wife, Jazira, stunned, and many children crying.
“Rockets,” the locals told him. “That was the rockets.”
The Sudanese Army, according to aid workers such as Mr. Boyette and weapons experts in East Africa, has begun using long-range, Chinese-made rockets to bombard the Nuba Mountains, adding a new weapon to an increasingly unsparing counterinsurgency strategy.
The rockets, fired from more than 25 miles away, travel at 3,000 miles per hour and pack a 330-pound warhead often loaded with steel ball bearings to increase lethality, experts say. Where they land is random, witnesses say, and they often slam into villages instead of legitimate military targets.
“They arrive without any warning,” said Helen Hughes, an arms control researcher at Amnesty International. “And they are being used indiscriminately, which is violation of international humanitarian law.”
According to Mr. Boyette, more than 70 rockets have been fired into the Nuba Mountains since December, killing 18 people, including several children.
From photographs of bomb sites and remains of the rocket motors, Western experts have identified the rockets as Chinese-manufactured Weishi truck-launched rockets. China is one of Sudan’s closest strategic allies, buying billions of dollars of Sudanese oil and selling Sudan advanced weaponry.
The Sudanese government does not deny using rockets in the Nuba Mountains, insisting that they are a legitimate weapon.
“Rockets are part of combat,” said Al-Sawarmi Khalid, a Sudanese military spokesman. “And the armed groups also use the same rockets and weapons we use.”
Witnesses in the Nuba Mountains said the rebels used a much smaller, shorter-range rocket, and only during battles.
The government rockets are the latest twist in one of Africa’s more intractable conflicts. Tens of thousands of rebel fighters in the Nuba Mountains refuse to disarm, saying that they are fighting for more autonomy from a government that has marginalized and persecuted them. The Sudanese government’s response has been to lay siege to the area: bombarding it, cutting off the roads, blocking emergency supplies and most aid workers and outside observers.
Some analysts see similarities between the brutal tactics used in Nuba and those employed in Darfur, in Sudan’s west, during the height of the violence there several years ago.
The Nuba conflict is complicated by the separation of South Sudan from Sudan in July. The Nuban fighters were historically allied to the south but after South Sudan’s independence found themselves just north of the new border, in hostile territory.
Mr. Boyette, the aid worker, is one of the only Westerners providing battlefield updates. He came to the area several years ago to work for an American aid organization, married a local woman and refused to leave once the conflict began.
Sudan and South Sudan are divided over oil, having not yet come up with an agreement of how to share oil profits. While 75 percent of the oil is in the south, the pipeline to export it runs through the north. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that in the coming weeks Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, would make his first visit to South Sudan since the country gained independence to meet with South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir.
Isma’il Kushkush contributed reporting from Khartoum, Sudan.
A parched Syria turned to war, scholar says, and Egypt may be next.
Prof. Arnon Sofer sets out the link between drought, Assad’s civil war, and the wider strains in the Middle East; Jordan and Gaza are also in deep trouble, he warns.
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)
Kissinger at the UN, Story of a Photo Not Taken, Wheelchair Sans Mr. K
By Matthew Russell Lee
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.
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.”
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?
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.
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?
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.
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
THE Democratic Republic of Congo, which erupted in violence again earlier this month, ought to be one of the richest countries in the world.
Its immense mineral reserves are currently valued by some estimates at more than $24 trillion and include 30 percent of the world’s diamond reserves; vast amounts of cobalt, copper and gold; and 70 percent of the world’s coltan, which is used in electronic devices. Yet the most recent edition of the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index ranked Congo last among the 187 countries and territories included in the survey.
Congo has been poorly governed throughout its post-colonial history, and is chronically prone to violence. What is the secret to stabilizing the resource-rich country?
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.
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.”
LONDON — With no nation to represent and no countrymen to cheer him on, Guor Marial has a marathon to complete this weekend at the Summer Olympics. More than 3,500 miles away in South Sudan, his family will tackle an even longer distance.
Marial, a 28-year-old marathon runner, hasn’t set eyes on his family since 1993, when he fled his home as a child in the midst of the Sudanese civil war. Lacking a passport for travel, he doesn’t know when he might be reunited with them, but Marial says members of his family are planning to watch him compete Sunday in the longest running event of the Summer Games. The slight problem: The nearest television is about 30 miles away from their tiny village.
It’s the rainy season in South Sudan, and vehicles can’t pass on the rural roads that connect their village to the nearby town of Panrieng. So they’ll complete a marathon of their own, making the long walk with the hope of seeing just a glimpse of their long-lost son, an athlete without a country, finding refuge in these Olympics.
Marial was just 9 years old when he said goodbye. With great difficulty, he eventually escaped to Egypt, where he lived with an aunt and uncle. Then to New Hampshire, where he attended high school. And Iowa, where he enrolled in college. And now Arizona, where he lives, works and runs. But Marial doesn’t identify himself as American and certainly not as Sudanese. Just one week before the Opening Ceremonies, Marial learned he would be allowed to compete at these Summer Games unaffiliated with any nation. He’s running under a white flag that features the Olympic logo.
“Representing the five rings, it’s the best,” Marial said Friday. “I’m representing the whole world, basically.”
Marial was born in the early stages of a troubled nation’s bloody civil war. His family now calls their home the Republic of South Sudan, the year-old nation carved out of so much strife and death. To compete at the Summer Games, a country must have a recognized Olympic committee. Forming such a sports organization wasn’t high on South Sudan’s to-do list in its early stages of countryhood.
Last fall, Marial posted a qualifying time for the Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) initially urged him to represent Sudan, whose Olympic committee extended him an invitation to join its team. But that was never an option, Marial said.
“When I left Sudan, there was a lot of issues that happened to me,” he said, “that happened to the South Sudanese.”
Eight of his siblings were among an estimated 2 million people who died during the course of the war. Marial was just a child when he was kidnapped and forced into hard labor. There were no luxuries then and each day was focused around finding enough food to eat. “Survival of the fittest,” Marial calls it.
“I didn’t know what the outside world was,” he said. “I knew this was the only world we have, being able to survive this way.”
The idea of running — competitive running — was foreign. The Olympics didn’t exist there because televisions didn’t exist there.
===============================
On the other hand:
Arata Fujiwara, who does not belong to a running club, coaches himself and trains for speed instead of endurance, is nevertheless considered Japan’s best medal hope in the men’s marathon in 20 years. We shall see if being an outsider can actually help to develop running technique.
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
——————————————-
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
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.
The Press Conference of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as guest of Austrian President Heinz Fischer, at the Vienna Hofburg Palace, and under the strong symbolic presence of Empress Maria Theresa, did not mention
Global Warming that leads to Climate Change in he World.
—
Indeed later on in a speech in a large hall full of Austrian dignitaries and their guests – in the Ceremonial Hall, he did mention in passing once Rio+20, but that meeting was rather for Austrian consumption and not an indication
of primary interest to the press in general.
—
To us this silence provided the main noise effect of the Press Conference, as we expected in February a word or two about what the UN calls Rio+20 in June.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
THE VERBATIM: Remarks at Joint Press Encounter with President Heinz Fischer
Vienna, 16 February 2012
Thank you your Excellency President Fischer for your kind hospitality and kind welcome. I always feel at home whenever I come to Vienna not because I was serving as Ambassador many years ago but because this is another home of the United Nations .. the UN office in Vienna is one of the four largest missions in the world. And I’m very grateful for such strong support and commitment of the Austrian Government and people for multilateralism in working together with the United Nations in keeping peace and security and on development and human rights issues.
Ladies and gentlemen. Guten morgen und Grüss Gott. It’s a great pleasure to meet you today.
Vienna is the place where we carry out vitally important work on some of the leading global challenges of our time.
This morning I participated in the Third Ministerial Meeting on combating the illegal drug trade in Afghanistan and its neighbours.
Tomorrow morning I will help commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
Austria plays a lead and vital role in the global fight against drug trafficking and organized crime. Austria’s active participation in and support for the Paris Pact conference particularly demonstrated in today’s Third Ministerial Meeting of the Paris Pact Partners is greatly appreciated.
President Fischer and I covered many important issues, global issues and visionary issues in our wide ranging discussions.
We also discussed the protection of civilians, particularly the need to help UN peacekeeping missions to discharge their mandates in this area more effectively.
Defence Minister Darabos, President Fischer and I discussed the current situation in the Golan Heights where Austria is now sending the largest contingent to UNDOF. I am receiving daily reports from the Force Commander of UNDOF and they are now on full alert taking all necessary preparations considering what is happening in Syria.
We also discussed the rule of law, an issue that Austria and President Fischer has been very active in promoting at the United Nations.
I know this is something to which President Fischer attaches great importance, and I look forward to seeing President Fischer in New York in September for the General Assembly’s High Level Meeting on the Rule of Law – the first such event of its kind on this subject.
I also thanked President Fischer for Austria’s strong support of human rights and also human security. Their contribution in the Human Rights Council is very much appreciated. And I expressed gratitude for Austria’s continued commitment to promoting peace and development in the Western Balkans, including Austria’s successful integration of 80,000 refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina. I understand that President Fischer is also taking a very important initiative of visiting those countries including Croatia soon.
We also discussed Libya, Iran and the Middle East peace process.
On Syria, I continue to be gravely concerned at the level of violence and mounting loss of life.
I call again on the Syrian government to comply with international humanitarian law and immediately end the shelling and use of force against civilians.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights told the General Assembly on Monday, February 13th, that Syrian security forces have killed well over 5,400 people last year — men, women, children… military personnel who refuse to shoot civilians.
Thousands more are reported missing; 25,000 people have fled to other countries; and more than 70,000 are estimated to have been internally displaced.
Every day those numbers rise. We see neighbourhoods shelled indiscriminately. Hospitals used as torture centres. Children as young as ten years old jailed and abused. We see almost certain crimes against humanity.
The lack of agreement in the Security Council does not give the government license to continue this assault on its own people.
The longer we debate, the more people will die.
During recent days, I have been meeting and speaking with world leaders in New York and here in Vienna.
Yesterday, I had a telephone talks with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu of Turkey. I am going to have a series of bilateral meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Alain Juppé of France, also Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger of Austria and others.
As you are well aware, the General Assembly is going to adopt a draft resolution to back up the Arab League efforts.
The UN Secretariat and myself is now considering all the necessary options once either the General Assembly or the Security Council takes a decision on Syria.
I commend the continued efforts of the League of Arab States to stop the violence and to seek a peaceful resolution of the crisis that meets the democratic and legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people.
Once again, I urge the international community to speak in one voice: Stop the violence. Stop the bloodshed.
On Sudan, I have been increasingly concerned by the lack of progress in negotiations on post-independence issues.
The situation is both complex and precarious.
That is why I welcome the signing earlier this week of a Memorandum of Understanding on Non- Aggression and Cooperation between the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan.
I urge both Governments to maintain the positive spirit that led to this step.
Neither country can afford a relapse into war.
Any breakdown in trust will have profound humanitarian consequences. I will continue to do my utmost to avoid any further escalation and help both sides to reach agreements on all outstanding issues.
Thank you very much. Danke schoen. Q: Mr. Secretary-General, you have repeatedly stressed the importance of a Security Council resolution condemning the Assad regime in Syria. This afternoon, as you said, you have the possibility to talk to Mr. Lavrov, the Foreign Minister of Russia. What are you going to tell him concerning this matter? And what can a country like Austria do to support a solution in this crisis or in this civil war, as you might call it? Thank you.
SG: It was a regrettable thing that the Security Council was not able to take the draft resolution taking coherent, and in one voice, one action but now this is behind us. We have to look for the future. Then we will discuss and assess the current situation what is happening in Syria. Foreign Minister Lavrov was himself in Syria discussing this matter seriously with President Assad and I appreciate such personal efforts. But what is important at this time is how the international community led by the United Nations can formulate the political framework where there will be a ceasefire, there will be an end of the violence and discuss how this situation could be resolved peacefully without causing any further violence to the people. The second important issue, and that is even more important at this time, how to provide humanitarian assistance to many people who have been affected, who really need support from the international community. We have a serious access problem we will discuss together with the world leaders how we can establish the humanitarian access. The Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator of the United Nations, OCHA, is now discussing this matter, taking all necessary measures to have some forward logistic support framework. We need support from the whole international community and there will be another important meeting “Friends of Syria” on February 24th in Tunisia. I hope this conference will also provide a political framework as well as how we can work on humanitarian support. These are all issues which I would like to have a very close coordination and discussions with Foreign Minister Lavrov and also with Foreign Minister Alain Juppé of France.
Q: Mr Secretary-General, how do you view President Assad’s announcement of a referendum on the constitution?
SG: I read that in the report. It’s their decision to have a referendum but what is his important at this time is that first the Syrian authorities must stop killing their own people, must stop violence. And this violence should stop from all sides whether by national security forces or by opposition forces. We are working on this political framework, this may be one of the elements which should be included, how they are going to have, what kind of a political system in future they should have, this referendum may be one of them. But what is most urgently needed at this time is first stop the violence and then discuss in an inclusive manner their political future and at the same time in parallel with this we should be able to provide humanitarian assistance to many people who really need the medical support, who really need all this basic necessary things.
The VERBATIM of the UNSG presentation, “Empowering People in a Changing World” at the following invitation of the Austrian President as released by the Austrian Presidency Press Office.
The following material we did not obtain by the UN Press channels.
————-
Address by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
“EMPOWERING PEOPLE IN A CHANGING WORLD”
Vienna, 16 February 2012
Your Excellency President Heinz Fischer,
Excellencies,
Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for this honor.It’s wonderful to be back in Vienna. There are many words to describe this city – historic … glorious … dazzling.
All fit – especially here in the magnificent Hofburg Palace.
But the first word that comes to mind when I think of Vienna is “home”.
I’m at home in Vienna.
I am at home here for many reasons.
Personally, because I spent a couple of unforgettable years in Vienna as an ambassador. It is good to see so many familiar faces and old friends here today.
And professionally, because Vienna is a pillar of the United Nations – and at epicenter for global action. You are are one of four UN headquarters worldwide – and you host the International Atomic Energy Agency … the UN Office on Drugs and Crime …. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization … and the Preparatory Commission For The Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Organization where I served as chairman.
But perhaps most of all, I am at home in Vienna because of your commitment to multilateralism … your ethic of engagement.
So it is fitting that we gather here to talk about empowering people in our changing world.
The time is right.
This is a period of global transition.
Economic shocks around the world. Shifts in power and new poles of global growth. The rising threat of climate change. And, of course, a revolution of people-powered change.
Think back at the events and images of the past year.
Tahrir Square and the fight for democracy throughout the Arab world.
Occupy Wall Street … go indignados in Puerta del Sol … protests in Greece.
What was the common thread? Look at the faces in the crowd.
They were overwhelmingly women and young people.
Women demanding equal opportunity and participation.
Young people worried about their future … fed up with corruption … and speaking out for dignity and decent jobs.
Their power and activism turned the tide of history.
Throughout these events, we called on leaders of the region to listen … to listen to their people.
Some did – others did not, as we see in Syria today.
From the very beginning, I talked with President Assad and urged him to change before it was too late. Instead, he declared war on his own people.
Lack of access has Prevented the United Nations from knowing the full toll, yet credible reports Indicate more than 5.400 people were killed last year.
Every day those numbers rise. We see neighborhoods shelled by tanks. Hospitals used as torture centers. Children as young as ten years old jailed and abused.
We see almost certain crimes against humanity.
We can not predict the future in Syria. We do know this, however: the longer we debate, the more people want to.
I commend the Efforts of the League of Arab States to find a solution. During recent days,
I have been meeting and speaking with many world leaders, among them Mr. Alain Juppe and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian and French foreign ministers, here in Vienna today.
Once again, I urge the international community to speak in one voice: Stop the violence. Stop the bloodshed.
Ladies and gentlemen,
There’s a broader lesson here, beyond Syria.
I believe that every institution and every leader … everywhere … must ask that same question:
Are we listening? Are we doing enough … fast enough?
I am convinced that we must act now.
We face a once-in-a-generation opportunity to empower people in our changing world.
Last month, I announced an action agenda for the future. I outlined five imperatives for the next five years.
Sustainable development is at the top of the list. This is critical to empowering people – to Eradicating poverty, generating decent jobs, expanding education, and protecting our fragile planet.
Today, I want to focus on providing women and young people with a greater say in their own destiny and a greater stake in their own dignity.
This is fundamental to our entire agenda – crucial to everything we do.
I want to talk about this with you – at esteemed audience at all seasons of life.
All of us – women and men … the young and what I might call the “formerly young” … – have a profound interest in getting this right.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Half the world is women – and half the world is under 25 years of age.
One out of five people are between the ages of 15 and 24
Nearly 90 percent of them live in developing countries youth – nearly one billion live in Asia and Africa.
In places like Gaza, three out of four people are under the age of 25th In Iraq, one-quarter of the population was born since the start of the in 2003, alone.
Some Demographers call this a “youth bulge”.
I am not a big fan of that term.
I do not see the largest-ever generation of young people as a “bulge.” It is a dividend.
It is not a threat, it is an opportunity.
To seize it, we must face a new generation of empowerment challenges.
Let’s start with empowering women.
Around the world, women educate the children … they are the key to healthy families … they are Increasingly the entrepreneurs.
Wherever I travel, I urge leaders to put more women in genuine decision making roles.
More women in the Cabinet. More women in Legislatures. More women leading universities. More women on corporate boards.
Studies have found that Fortune 500 companies with the highest number of women on the governing boards were far more profitable than those with the fewest number.
Today, many look to the world of social media. The Majority of those who use it are women – and the chief operating officer of Facebook is a woman.
Yet many are asking: Why are there no women on the corporate board of Facebook, Twitter or other young, dynamic companies?
I believe that’s a fair question.
In my visits around the globe, I always make the case for greater women’s representation in Parliaments – including in the Arab world.Some suggest quotas or other special steps.
There is plenty of evidence that shows how seeking temporary measures can make a permanent difference.
We must not miss this opportunity to write more deeply into women’s rights the constitutional and legal framework in the Arab region and beyond.
We are also putting women at the core of our Efforts to Strengthen equality and growth while protecting our planet. Women hold the key to sustainable development.
You will hear more about this as we approach the Rio +20 Conference on Sustainable Development.
I am committed to doing much more.
This includes deepening our work to combat violence against women – and
expanding women’s participation in peacebuilding efforts.
And within the United Nations, I will keep leading by example.
In my first five years as Secretary-General, I have nearly doubled the number of women in senior UN positions.
Our top official Humanitarian and our top development official … our head of our top management … doctor … top lawyer … even our top cop … all are women.
And we have the largest number of women in UN history – five and counting – leading UN peacekeeping missions and managing thousands of soldiers in the field. From Timor-Leste to South Sudan. From Central Africa to Cyprus to Burundi.
And at New York headquarters, we have the new UN Women – headed by the former president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet.
I am also keenly aware that we have much more to do to empower women within the United Nations. And I am deterministic mined to keep building on our record.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We can apply the lessons we learn from women’s empowerment for youth empowerment.
Window dressing will not do it. Neither will band-aids politically expedient.
Let me tell you what I mean.
Not long ago, a Head of State called on the United Nations to Establish an International Year on Youth.
He claimed he wanted young people to make their voices heard.
The bad news is that the leader was President Ben Ali of Tunisia.
The good news is …. it worked!
A few months into the International Year of Youth, he heard the voice of his country’s young people – and so did the world.
President Ben Ali was forced to leave office because he listened too late.
But, once again, we are reminded that we all have an obligation to listen.
That is what I do.
I try to meet with young people wherever I go.
Those exchanges are some of the toughest, most candid, spirited discussions that I have.
Young people everywhere talk jobs. They want the dignity that comes from a decent work.
Economic hard times and austerity measures are making it more difficult.
The global economic crisis is a global jobs crisis. And youth are hardest hit.
Unemployment rates for young people are at record levels – two, three, sometimes even six times the rate for adults.
But joblessness is only part of the story. Many who are working are stuck in low-wage, dead-end work.
Many others are finding that their degrees are not always a ticket to jobs.
After years of study, they learn a new lesson: their schooling has not equipped them with the tools for today’s job market.
This must change.
Young people also tell me that they not only want jobs – but the opportunity to create jobs. So we must do more on entrepreneurship.
Austria has much to teach us. You are tackling youth unemployment – just as you are working to address the new requirements of an aging workforce.
The Austrian apprenticeship model is the kind of initiative that young people say they would like to see in their own countries.
Now is the time to step up our efforts.
Last year, the world’s population crossed trillion 7th In five years, it will be 7.5 billion. {?}
The world will need 600 million new jobs over the next decade.
Without urgent measures to stem the rising tide of youth unemployment, we risk creating a “lost generation” of wasted opportunities and squandered potential.
That is why I pledge that the United Nations wants to go deeper into identifying the best practices and helping countries deliver on education, skills, training, and job-rich growth for young people.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Economic empowerment and political empowerment go hand-in-hand.
Technology, education and awareness are combining to give young people a voice like never before. And they are using it.
They are standing up for rights and against discrimination based on gender, race and sexual orientation.
They are leading the way for sustainable development and green solutions.
They are putting on the global agenda inequality.
Our job is to help them build the future they want.
Above all, young people have told me they want a seat at the table. They want a real voice in shaping the policies that shape their lives.
The priorities of young people should be just as prominent in our halls as they are on the streets and squares. They should be just as present in our meeting space as they are in cyberspace.
I am deterministic mined to bring the United Nations closer to people and make it more relevant to young people.
That is one reason we want to expand the UN Volunteer Programme. Today, the average age of UN Volunteers is 37 – we will open the doors for young people and are looking for support.
But that is just the beginning.
We must put a special focus where the challenges of empowering women and empowering youth come together – and that Is In The lives of young women.
Young women are potential engines of economic advancement. They are drivers of democratic reform.
Yet far too often – a combination of obstacles including discrimination, social pressure, early marriage – hold them back.
These forces set in motion a chain of unequal opportunities that last a lifetime.
Young women must have the tools to participate fully in economic life and to have their voices heard in decision-making at all levels.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We have been working to address all these areas at the United Nations.
But I am not satisfied.
Too often our work has been piecemeal, scattered. The whole is not greater than the sum of the parts. There is a coordination gap. It must be bridged.
That is why I will appoint the first-ever United Nations Special Advisor on Youth.
We need a top-to-bottom review our programs and policies are Sun working with and for young people.
We need to mobilize coalitions for action.
We need to pull the system together that Sun is pulling for youth.
I will ask my Special Advisor to do just that.
We have a choice.
Young people can be embraced as partners in shaping their societies, or they can be excluded and left to simmer in frustration and despair.
Let us recognize that addressing the needs and hopes of the world’s women and young people is not simply to act of solidarity, it is an act of necessity.
We do not have a moment to lose. We have the world to gain.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Here in this beautiful palace in the Redoutensäle, there is a painting. It covers the entire length of the ceiling – 400 square meters.
And in it, the artist included the words of the esteemed Viennese poet Karl Kraus and his work “youth” – “Youth”.
An older man Reflects on life and the rejuvenating spirit of youth.
“Since even the leaves fallow
I will not delay
inside and outside
To dream of spring. “
“Even as the leaves change, I do not want to miss, inside and outside, dreaming of spring.”
We all hold on to our youth. We remember with both sadness and sweetness the moment when the doors opened before us of the future.
This is what carries us. This is what rejuvenates us. Let us pass that women dream to all the world’s youth and.
Let us hear their voices and let us act in the spirit of spring.
We will do much more than empower people. We want to empower societies. And we will change our world for good.
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.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
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.
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}
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.
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.
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.
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.
* * *
At UN on Syria, An “Attempt to Break the BRICS,” To Leave Russia & China Solo
Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong told Inner City Press that his county and Russia would not be attending. We had a meeting yesterday of the BRICS, he said with the smile.
Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative Pankin added: the BRICS, you build with them.
Later Russian Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin, when Inner City Press asked him if the BRICs would be broken, said with bravado, “Never!”
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.”
“A four-year-old Filipino girl born in Israel was arrested with her mother Tuesday morning in Tel Aviv and awaits deportation at a special holding facility in BenGurion Airport.
The girl was born in Israel and was enrolled in a state run daycare facility but did not meet criteria that would allow her to stay in Israel. According to a cabinet decision made last August, children of foreign workers who did not meet a series of criteria would face deportation.
These criteria stipulate that the child studied during the past school year in an Israeli state school, is enrolled for the next year in first grade or higher, has lived for five consecutive years in Israel, was born in Israel or arrived before age 13.
The child’s parents must also have entered Israel on a valid work visa, and the child must speak Hebrew. Around 400 of the estimated 1,200 children of foreign workers in Israel do not meet the criteria to stay in the country.
This March, Interior Minister Eli Yishai ( Shas) announced that the government will delay the deportation of children enrolled in state-run kindergartens and day schools. The Population, Immigration and Borders Authority said that the decision did not apply to children who did not meet those criteria.
According to PIBA spokesman Sabine Haddad, the decision to arrest the girl and her mother is not new, in spite of media reports that it was an unprecedented move.
“So far there have been dozens of children who were born in Israel that have been deported under the state criteria. The child in question was not in a state-run compulsory kindergarten and was not even in a state-run preschool. Not only is she not a borderline case, she is far from being on the borderline of meeting the state criteria to stay.”
Haddad added that the PIBA has not deported anyone who is enrolled in state-run kindergarten because they are too “ borderline” to the state’s own criteria, but that they would continue to carry out the cabinet decision.
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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.
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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:
SUDANESE BISHOP CALLS ATTENTION to SOUTH KORDOFAN SITUATION (MaximsNewsNetwork)
Reverend Andudu Adam Elnail (centre), Anglican Bishop of Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan State, Sudan, discusses the “Enough is Enough” campaign, a plea to the Security Council and the wider international community to stop ethnic cleansing in Sudan, particularly in South Kordofan’s Nuba mountains region.
He is joined by (from left), Nicola Reindorp, Adviser to Avaaz, a global campaign mobilizing organization; Jonathan Hutson, Director of Communications of the Satellite Sentinel Project and the Enough Project; and Peggy Hicks, Global Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch. 05 August 2011.United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium, UN headquarters, UN Photo: Rick Bajornas
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UN SECRETARY-GENERAL MEETS REPRESENTATIVE of SOUTH SUDAN (MaximsNewsNetwork)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) meets with Luka Biong, Representative of the Government of South Sudan and former Minister of Cabinet Affairs of the Republic of the Sudan. 05 August 2011. United Nations, New York. UN Photo: Rick Bajornas
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.”
A parallel announcement was made in Juba, the new country’s capital,
where the president of the new country, Salva Kiir, met with Jacques
Revach, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Africa division, and Dan
Shacham, Israel’s nonresident ambassador to a number of African
countries.
The nature of the relations, including the appointment of ambassadors,
will be discussed in the coming days, the Foreign Ministry said in a
statement.
Just three days after South Sudan declared independence on July 9,
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke to Kiir and said Israel would
be happy to help the fledgling country in “any way.”
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 theserefuge-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.”
Mandela Day 2010: Make SA work, and fix our schools.
July 14, 2010
Members of the public can donate money towards the restoration of local schools, as their way of commemorating Mandela Day 2010.
On July 18 this year, all South Africans have been invited to give 67 minutes of their time to projects that honour the life and spirit of Nelson Mandela.
The NGO Men On the Side of the Road (MSR) has thrown its full support behind the Mandela Day campaign. MSR is a marketplace for casual workers where men gather at organised collection points in seven cities across South Africa.
MSR has decided to focus on the restoration of schools, as a way of linking with the education theme of this year’s Mandela Day.
“Not everyone can give their time to the Mandela Day campaign. Instead, why not donate 67 minutes of their earnings,” suggested Peter Kratz, national director for MSR. “Our registered painters and builders in seven cities can be called in to fix local schools in dire need of a facelift. The money donated by members of the public will make this restoration work possible and cover the costs of hiring workers and purchasing materials.”
Customers in seven cities can visit MSR collection points if they are looking for workers, on a part time or contract basis, that are able, trustworthy and skilled in particular areas. MSR have verified all their skills and workers have identity cards on them at all time.
With unemployment at critical levels, the MSR aims to facilitate the placement of skilled and semi skilled workers in part-time or full-time work. For as little as R120 per day potential employers can hire a reliable and trustworthy worker.
Kratz hopes that members of the public will nominate a school in their community which is in need of restoration work. The money they donate will be used for work on that specific school, to help make quality education a reality for its learners.
Donations can be deposited at Standard Bank, account name MEN ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD, account number 070-956-383 (reference MD).
Remarks by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative To the United Nations, at a General Assembly Meeting on South Sudan.
Thank you, Mr. President.
– Excellencies, Vice President Machar, Ladies and Gentlemen,
On Saturday, I had the privilege of standing in Juba and watching as the huge, beautiful flag of the Republic of South Sudan was raised for the very first time. The crowd roared, and in that wave of joy, you could hear a new nation claiming its voice.
Today, that same flag will fly proudly among 192 others. South Sudan will take its rightful place among the community of sovereign nations. On behalf of the United States, and the American people, as host country to this organization, I warmly welcome the Republic of South Sudan as the newest member of the United Nations.
This historic and hopeful day was reached only after great suffering and almost unimaginable loss. The independence of the world’s newest country is a testament to the people of South Sudan. It is also an inspiration to all who yearn for freedom. May the memory of your own struggle, for liberty, always serve as a reminder to insist on the universal rights of all people, to remember those still in shackles, to lift up the hungry and the desperate, and to bring hope to the broken places of the world.
Your statehood is new, but your friendship is not. The bonds between the American people and the people of South Sudan go back many decades. The United States will remain a steadfast friend as South Sudan works to pursue peace, to strengthen its democracy, and provide opportunity and prosperity to all its citizens. We look forward to working alongside South Sudan as it shoulders the rights and responsibilities of a full and sovereign member of the community of nations.
At the United Nations General Assembly last September, President Obama said, and I quote, “After the darkness of war, there can be a new day of peace and progress,” end quote. Today, like Saturday, is such a day for the people of South Sudan. We will support you as you work for an enduring peace rooted in coexistence between two viable states. We will stand by you as you forge the conditions for lasting democracy, prosperity, and justice. And we will partner with you as you seek to meet the high hopes of your citizens that have been raised along with your flag.
On behalf of the United States of America, let me say again: congratulations, and welcome. Thank you very much.
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Stakeout by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative To the United Nations, After a Security Council Debate on South Sudan and Sudan.
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Ambassador Rice: Good morning, everyone, and it is indeed a good morning. We had the opportunity in the Security Council to, by acclamation, recommend to the General Assembly that the Republic of South Sudan be admitted as the newest and 193rd member state of the United Nations. I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow in the General Assembly when we have the opportunity to formally admit the Republic of South Sudan. As many of you know, I had the privilege of leading the U.S. delegation to Juba on the weekend. It was a moment of enormous joy and optimism, and it was a personal and professional honor to be able to witness that and to convey on behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States our strongest support and enthusiasm for the independence of the Republic of South Sudan.
But obviously very, very significant challenges remain both for South Sudan as a newborn country and certainly with respect to the relationship between the government of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan, as they still need to resolve many complex remaining outstanding CPA issues. And as I said today in the Council, we’re deeply, deeply concerned about the escalating violence in Southern Kordofan and potential to spill over into Blue Nile, the threats that persist for civilians and humanitarian crisis underway, and we have stressed the utmost urgency of an immediate cessation of hostilities and full humanitarian access. That issue has the potential to undermine progress in other areas and it’s one on which we are focused with great urgency. So let me stop there and take a few questions.
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Reporter: Tomorrow afternoon the Security Council will be seeing a briefing on IAEA on its report on Syria’s nuclear facility. What does the U.S. see as the appropriate role for the Security Council going forward beyond that event? And what is the likelihood the Council, given its provisions, will be able to fulfill that expectation?
Ambassador Rice: Well, first of all, Bill, we think it’s very important and significant that the Council will take up, for the first time, the issue of the Syrian nuclear facility. We support it and very much welcome and think it was appropriate for the IAEA to refer this issue to the Security Council. So tomorrow’s meeting in itself is an important step and an important event. We will hear directly from the IAEA, what we hope will be a detailed summary of their report. and that will begin a process of discussion within the Security Council. But I think as was obvious given the vote in Vienna that there are certain members of the Council, and several members of the Council in fact, including some veto-wielding members, who did not support the referral and who are unlikely to be prepared to support a Council product at this time. And I think that’s the reality. But our view is that, nonetheless, it’s very important that this issue be taken up by the Council, and certainly from the United States’ point of view, we’re very concerned, we take it seriously, and we think that any and all issues of nonproliferation need to be dealt with seriously by this Council.
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Reporter: On Sudan, you said in your statement that, “the Government of Sudan has wavered in its commitment to this June 28th agreement about South Kordofan.” It seems like they’ve actually kind of totally broken it. They’ve said that they don’t stand behind it. What’s your understanding of where it stands? What can the UN peacekeepers that are there do even pending an agreement? And also Darfur, which I didn’t see mentioned — what does today’s development in South Sudan mean for the people in Darfur? Is there a loss of focus? What are the implications for the conflict in Darfur?
Ambassador Rice: First of all, with respect to Southern Kordofan, the Government of Sudan did sign an agreement. And it would be most unfortunate if they formally reneged on that agreement. We’ve been concerned to see that senior leaders in Khartoum have expressed reservations and concerns about that agreement. It was an important step, and our view is that it ought to be respected and followed by an immediate agreement on a cessation of hostilities. I also mentioned in my statement the United States’ deep regret that the Government of Sudan has compelled the withdrawal of UNMIS forces from the North, and this will have significant implications for the protection of civilians and humanitarian access in Southern Kordofan. As the UN forces are now by necessity having to withdraw, their ability to act and implement their prior mandate no longer pertains. And they are in the mode of withdrawal so they are not going to—unless the government of Sudan changes its mind—have the ability to do what we think is very important for them to do.
With respect to Darfur, we are very much still focused on the crisis in Darfur. It’s the subject of deep concern to the United States, to President Obama, and all in our government. We have not let up in our focus and attention, even as we have worked very hard to support the independence of South Sudan and successful implementation of the CPA. We will have ample time this month in the Council to give the attention that is necessary, and that will remain sustained attention to Darfur, as we renew the UNAMID mandate. And certainly, our efforts on behalf of the people of Darfur continue.
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Reporter: (Inaudible) will we see an end of unilateral sanctions against Sudan?
Ambassador Rice: Well, I think first of all, the United States—I think that’s who he was referring to—has been very clear in ou
r direct discussions with the Government of Sudan about our desire to improve our bilateral relationship and see it move in the direction of normalization. We have communicated very clearly—in black and white, repeatedly, to the Government of Sudan going back to last November—the roadmap that we envisioned for the improvement of our bilateral relations. That is staged and very much focused on Sudan, in the first instance, completely fulfilling its obligations under the CPA. And while certainly we celebrate the remarkable achievement of Saturday and the independence of the Republic of South Sudan, it goes without saying that many important aspects of the CPA remain unresolved, including issues of the border, of revenue sharing, of citizenship, of Abyei, and indeed the situations in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile which are very much a part of the CPA. So, we hope that circumstances will soon be such that these issues are addressed and resolved and that we have a resumption of a more stable security situation in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile and the opportunity for the popular consultations to continue as envisioned. And that’s why the agreement that was signed between the SPLM-North and the government with respect to Southern Kordofan was important. But that has always been very clearly, from a U.S. point of view, the full implementation of the CPA, a critical element in the first stage which would accompany reciprocal steps on the United States side for improvement in the bilateral relationship.
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Reporter: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Rice: Well, first of all we think it was very important that the Council issued the press statement that it did yesterday, strongly condemning the attacks on the U.S. Embassy, U.S. residents, and the French Embassy, which were outrageous and utterly unacceptable. The United States has been very, very clear in our forceful condemnation of the violence and actions of the Government of Syria as it continues to violate the rights of its citizens and use indiscriminate force to suppress the legitimate efforts and aspirations of the people of Syria to express their political will in peace and freedom. And so, we are very focused, as you have heard from Secretary Clinton and President Obama on making very clear that what has transpired and the actions of President Assad and the Government of Syria are utterly unacceptable, and indeed he is well on the way, as President Obama said, and increasingly losing his legitimacy.
That said, we have not, quite plainly, been able to forge a sufficient agreement in this Council on a strong statement or resolution condemning what has transpired in Syria. That is something that I regret, I know many of my colleagues on the council regret. We think it is not a good reflection on this Council that we have not yet been able to come together on that.
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Reporter: (Inaudible)
Ambassador Rice: We think that it is wise to treat the issues of the nuclear program and the political circumstances separately. And so I don’t think they will be conflated tomorrow. Thank you.
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.
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.