People and Institutional Participation in Forest Management for Sustainable Development of Grasslands in Sudan. By Edinam K. Glover Last edited: Saturday, July 31, 2010 Posted: Saturday, July 31, 2010 Background Information Dr Edinam K. Glover, Postdoctoral Researcher associated with Viikki Tropical Resources Institute (VITRI), University of Helsinki (2005-2006); specialist in community-based natural resource management planning and public/private partnership arrangements; Doctor of Laws (LL.D) Candidate (International Environmental Law), Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, Finland. Glover’s works focus on international, regional and national environmental law instruments for sustainable natural resources management. He presented his studies at the “Drylands, Deserts, and Desertification – 2008 Conference, at the Sede Boger Campus of Israel’s University of The Negev. The paper discussed aspects of sustainable development and participation, especially in the context of land and forest management in the Sudan. It also examined the increasingly relevant question of who should manage forest land; and is forest management more sustainable in the hands of local users or regulatory institutions. “Edinam K. Glover, 2008. People and Institutional Participation in Forest Management for Sustainable Development: Options for drylands based on experiences from Sudan. The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research,Sede Boqer Campus, Israel.” (December 14-17, 2008) I was actually there having come after the failed COP on Climate Change at Poznan. Dr. Glover did his PhD in Finland on grasslands in Sudan and his many papers on the subject can be found by Googling “Edinam K. Glover”  we bring this here because it seemed intriguing that of all places, it was in Israel, that studies on arid zone in Sudan where being discussed. We are specially taken by the above because we realized that at the UN, there was really no interest of what causes people in Sudan to fight each other – nothing about desertification, climate change, even oil, was allowed by the UN DPI in the News Briefing Room when reports of killings where looked at. Oh Well! The Israelis did it!

UN REFUGEE AGENCY CALLS ON SAUDI ARABIA TO STOP DEPORTING SOMALIS.

The United Nations refugee agency today called on Saudi Arabia to halt deportations of Somali refugees and asylum-seekers to the conflict-stricken capital, Mogadishu, where dozens of civilians were killed in escalating clashes this week.

In June alone, more than 1,000 Somalis were reported from Saudi Arabia, according to local reports from Mogadishu, said Melissa Fleming, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UHNCR).

So far this month, nearly 1,000 more Somalis are already estimated to have been forcibly returned.

Monitoring reports indicate that most deportees say they fled Somalia due to conflict, indiscriminate violence and human rights abuses, with most coming from southern and central Somalia, which includes Mogadishu.

A majority of those being sent back from Saudi Arabia are women, including a young woman who was detained on her way to a market and deported to Mogadishu with her two infants.

“UNCHR consider such deportations to be incompatible with UNHCR’s guidelines on international protection needs of Somali refugees and asylum-seekers,” Ms. Fleming said.

“Given the deadly violence in Mogadishu, UNHCR is urging the Saudi authorities to refrain from future deportations on humanitarian grounds.”

The spokesperson said that the agency is in contact with Saudi officials about introducing a joint screening procedure before deportation decisions are taken, characterizing this as “an encouraging measure.”

UNHCR has consistently called on governments to provide protection to Somali civilians fleeing violence and grave human rights abuses in their country.

“It is our view that involuntary returns to central and southern Somalia under today’s security and humanitarian circumstances in the country place people at risk,” Ms. Fleming stressed.

Fighting between Government forces and the Al-Shabaab militia in Mogadishu has claimed the lives of dozens of civilians, wounding scores more this week. The violence has also driven many more from their homes.

UNHCR today deplored the continuation of indiscriminate fighting in the Horn of Africa country, which has often targeted civilians and homes in heavily-populated parts of the capital.

More than 300,000 of the 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), out of a total population of nearly 8 million, are sheltering in Mogadishu. Most of the uprooted live in poor conditions on makeshift sites in southern and central Somalia.

This week’s events, UNHCR said, highlight the importance of assessing asylum claims from people coming from the area in the broadest possible way.

“Where refugee status is not granted, UNHCR is advising governments to extend complementary forms of international protection, which would allow Somalis legal residence until conditions improve for safe return,” Ms. Fleming stated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Jewish Woman Living in Ethiopia

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

The Forward
Published: May 27, 2010

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

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

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

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

New Century, New Priorities

By Yossi Beilin

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

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

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

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

Reviving Polish Jewry

By Konstanty Gebert

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

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

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

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

What We Give Ourselves

By Lisa Leff

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

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

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

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

Putting Identity First

By Jonathan S. Tobin

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

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

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of Commentary magazine.

Collective Responsibility

By Richard Wexler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Amanda Pazornik

The J Weekly
Published: July 22, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A large portrait of Gary Tobin hangs in the lobby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:40:54

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Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns and Indian Ambassador to the United States H.E. Meera Shankar today signed the Arrangements and Procedures Pursuant to Article 6(iii) of the Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy regarding the reprocessing of U.S.-obligated nuclear material in India. Upon entry into force, the Arrangements and Procedures will enable reprocessing by India of United States-obligated nuclear material at a new national reprocessing facility to be established by India dedicated to the reprocessing of safeguarded nuclear material under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. These Arrangements and Procedures will facilitate participation by United States firms in India’s expanding civil nuclear energy sector.

This arrangement, negotiated and concluded under President Obama, reflects the Administration’s strong commitment to building successfully on the landmark U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative and is a prerequisite for U.S. nuclear fuel suppliers to conduct business with India. Previously, the United States had extended such reprocessing consent only to the European Union (EURATOM) and Japan. The Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative has facilitated significant new commercial opportunities across India’s multi-billion dollar nuclear energy market, including the designation of two nuclear reactor park sites for U.S. technology in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Increased civil nuclear trade with India will create thousands of new jobs for the U.S. economy while helping India to meet its rising energy needs in an environmentally responsible way by reducing the growth of carbon emissions.

Open letter from Dr. James Hansen, published in Aftenposten, May 19, 2010

Dear Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg

As you know, I am fond of Norway, and have great respect for your country and its citizens, as well as for your personal ambitions to protect global climate. Your recent rainforest initiative is a splendid example of leadership the world desperately needs. And your commitment at the Copenhagen climate talks to reduce Norway’s emissions 40 per cent by 2020 was exemplary.

However, and especially in light of that, I am disappointed to learn that Statoil, Norway’s state-owned oil company, has taken such backward strides through its strategic decision to invest in Canada’s destructive tar sands industry. As the most energy-intensive source of oil, this project represents the worst of what humans are doing to the planet in a quest to prolong our global addiction to fossil fuels.

It is still feasible to stabilize the climate, but only if we leave the tar sands in the ground. The massive greenhouse gas amounts from the tar sands surely would cause the climate system to pass tipping points, while also trampling on the human rights of Canada’s First Nation communities and greatly damaging the Canadian boreal forest.

Prime Minister Stoltenberg, the world has reached a critical juncture in the climate debate. We can either move into the production of the most damaging fossil fuel, or we can begin to address our destructive addiction. We desperately need leadership at this time. I am confident that you could provide that leadership. Please do not prove me wrong.

In your capacity as owner or more than two-thirds of the shares in Statoil, I urge you to end Norway’s involvement in this dangerous, dirty and destructive project. I ask that you support the resolution at Statoil’s upcoming AGM on May 19th, that Statoil show environmental leadership and pull out of the Canadian tar sands. Statoil may pride itself on being a more responsible company than others, but that will not be enough in the tar sands. If we extract and use the tar sands, there can be no sustainable future for young people.

I look forward to my visit to Norway in June. I hope that it can be a time to celebrate Norwegian leadership in responsible environmental policies

Dr. James Hansen
James E. Hansen is member of the National Academy of Sciences, an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and at Columbia’s Earth Institute, grandfather and winner of the Sophie Prize 2010.
James E. Hansen will visit Norway June 22 and 23 2010 to receive the Sophie Prize.

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The answer from the Government:

Dear Mr. Hansen,

Thank you very much for your e-mail to the Prime Minister, which was forwarded to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy as the governmental body responsible for Statoil ownership issues. Let me first take this opportunity to congratulate you on being awarded the Sophie-prize for 2010. I know a lot of people are looking forward to your visit to Norway, and I hope you will enjoy your stay here.

On behalf of the Government, I am pleased to say that we hold your work on climate change in high esteem, and further, that we appreciate your engagement and your views on Norway’s efforts to find good sustainable solutions to the global climate challenges.

As you now know from the results of the Statoil Annual General Meeting, we see Statoil’s oils sands investment as a commercial decision which is within the Statoil board’s area of responsibility. We are of the opinion that such decisions should not be overturned by the AGM. It is our opinion that this is in line with good corporate governance, a view that is also shared by a vast majority in the Norwegian Parliament. I can however assure you that we will continue our offensive stance on climate change issues both at home and abroad, and we look forward to your continued engagement.

Yours faithfully
Robin Martin Kåss
Statssekretær, Olje- og Energidepartementet
Deputy Minister, Ministry of Petroleum and Energy
Postboks 8148 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway

Fra: Jim Hansen
Sendt: 24. mai 2010 14:08
Til: Postmottak SMK
Kopi: Jim Hansen
Emne: Climate Change and the Tar Sands Development Vedlegg: Hansen text for ad and letter in both languages.doc

Dear Prime Minister Stoltenberg,

I understand that you may have missed my open letter to you published in Aftenposten, so for your convenience I have attached it here.

My wife Anniek and I are looking forward to visiting your beautiful country in June.
With kind regards,
James E. Hansen

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AND THE – Message from Sophie Prize Winner.

I am grateful to Jostein Gaarder and the Sophie Foundation for the opportunity to discuss the state of Earth’s climate, the implications for people and nature, and action that is needed.

Our planet today is close to climate tipping points. Ice is melting in the Arctic, on Greenland and Antarctica, and on mountain glaciers worldwide. Many species are stressed by environmental destruction and climate change. Continuing fossil fuel emissions, if unabated, will cause sea level rise and species extinction accelerating out of humanity’s control. Increasing atmospheric water vapor is already magnifying climate extremes, increasing overall precipitation, causing greater floods and stronger storms.

Stabilizing climate requires restoring our planet’s energy balance. The physics is straightforward. The effect of increasing carbon dioxide on Earth’s energy imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of ocean heat gain. The principal implication is defined by the geophysics, by the size of fossil fuel reservoirs. Simply put, there is a limit on how much carbon dioxide we can pour into the atmosphere. We cannot burn all fossil fuels. Specifically, we must (1) phase out coal use rapidly, (2) leave tar sands in the ground, and (3) not go after the last drops of oil.

Actions needed so that the world can move on to the clean energies of the future are possible and practical. The actions would restore clean air and water globally, assuring intergenerational equity by preserving creation – the natural world — thus also helping achieve north-south justice. But the needed actions will happen only if the public becomes forcefully involved.
Citizens can help by blocking coal plants, tar sands, and mining the last drops of fossil fuels from public and pristine lands and the deep ocean. However, fossil fuel addiction can be solved only when we recognize an economic law as certain as the law of gravity: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy they will be used.

Solution therefore requires a rising fee on oil, gas and coal – a carbon fee collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry. All funds collected should be distributed to the public on a per capita basis to allow lifestyle adjustments and spur clean energy innovations. As the fee rises, fossil fuels will be phased out, replaced by carbon-free energy and efficiency.
Governments today, instead, talk of “cap-and-trade-with-offsets”, a system rigged by big banks and fossil fuel interests. Cap-and-trade invites corruption. Worse, it is ineffectual, assuring continued fossil fuel addiction to the last drop and environmental catastrophe.

We need a simple honest flat rising carbon fee across the board. It should be revenue neutral – all funds distributed to the public – “100 percent or fight”. It is the only realistic path to global action. China and India will not accept caps, but they need a carbon fee to spur clean energy and avoid fossil fuel addiction.

But our governments have no intention of solving the fossil fuel and climate problem, as is easy to prove: the United States, Canadian and Norwegian governments are going right ahead developing the tar sands, which, if it is not halted, will make it impossible to stabilize climate.

Our governments knowingly abdicate responsibility for young people and future generations. I have been disappointed in interactions with more than half a dozen nations. In the end, they offer only soothing words, “goals” for emission reductions at far off dates, while their actual deeds prevent stabilization of climate.

The Sophie Prize provides a new opportunity to draw attention to the actions that are needed to stabilize climate. Norway may be the best place, with its history of environmentalism. I can imagine Norway standing tall among nations, taking real action to address climate change, drawing attention to the hypocrisy in the words and pseudo-actions of other nations.

So I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister suggesting that the government, as the majority owner of Statoil, should intervene in planned tar sands development. I appreciate the polite response, by letter, from the Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Energy. The government position is that the tar sands investment is “a commercial decision”, that the government should not interfere, and that a “vast majority in the Norwegian parliament” agree that this constitutes “good corporate governance”. The Deputy Minister concluded his letter “I can however assure you that we will continue our offensive stance on climate change issues both at home and abroad”.

A Norwegian grandfather, upon reading the Deputy Minister’s letter, quoted Saint Augustine: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

The Norwegian government’s position is a staggering reaffirmation of the global situation: even the greenest governments find it too inconvenient to address the implication of scientific facts. Perhaps our governments are in the hip pocket of the fossil fuel industry – but that is not for science to say.

What I can say from the science is this: the plans that governments, including Norway, are adopting spell disaster for young people and future generations. And we are running out of time.

Stabilizing climate is a moral issue, a matter of intergenerational justice. Young people, and older people who support the young and the other species on the planet, must unite in demanding an effective approach that preserves our planet.

Because the executive and legislative branches of our governments are turning a deaf ear to the science, the judicial branch may provide the best opportunity for redressing the situation. Our governments have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the rights of young people and future generations. I look forward to working with young people and their supporters in developing the legal case for young people and the planet.

To the young people I say: Stand up for your rights, for your future. Demand that the government be honest, admit and face the consequences for you from their policies.

To the old people I say: we are not too old to fight. Let us gird up our loins and prepare to fight on the side of young people for protection of the world they will inherit.

I look forward to standing with the youth of the world as they demand their proper due and fight for nature and their future.

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Other Recent Publications by Dr. James Hansen:

2010. Obama’s Second Chance on the Predominant Moral Issue of this Century. Op-ed on Huffington Post, Apr. 5.

2010. Only a carbon tax and nuclear power can save us. Op-ed in The Australian, Mar. 11.

 http://www.koreadaynyc.org/

July 30 Korea Day at Central Park

Friday, July 30, 11 am~7 pm
Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park (Mid-Park from 66th to 72nd Streets)

The event will begin with the 60th anniversary of Korean War Commemoration to prompt visitors that South Korea has rapidly become fully developed.

Central Park has been arbitrarily picked for New Yorkers and tourists to reach without any difficulty, also gathered wide variety of plans to globalize Korean Culture with main stage and booth functions.

Our Strategy is to give out samples of food representing Korea such as Bibimbap, Bulgogi, Naengmyun (Korean style cold noodles), rice punch, cinnamon punch and so on.

Eye catching traditional performances will be showing off its talents conducted with Janggo and Buk including modern dance, electric violin, and jazz portraying modern culture.

Korea Day is sponsored by Korean Cultural Service NY, Agro-trade & Exhibition Center, Korea Tourism Organization and etc; with an accompaniment of Korean Cuisine Globalization Committee.

For more information call (212) 448-1080,

UN TO SPOTLIGHT MEDIA’S ROLE IN PROMOTING MIDDLE EAST PEACE

The role of the media in fostering dialogue and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians will be the focus of a two-day United Nations meeting to be held later this week in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon.

The upcoming media seminar, which starts on Thursday, will be the 17th such gathering organized by the UN Department of Public Information (DPI), and aims to sensitize public opinion on the issue of Palestine and the peace process.

With this year marking the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the landmark resolution 1325, which stresses the importance of giving women equal participation and full involvement in peace and security matters, their role in achieving peace will also be discussed.

Some 120 people from the Middle East, including both Israelis and Palestinians, and from around the world are set to attend, including Government officials, representatives of civil society organizations, academics, journalists and others.

Five panel sessions will be held during the seminar on topics such as the role of the Israeli and Palestinian media in reducing tensions, the use of new media to bring about positive change, and the part that mayors from both sides can play in advancing peace.

The participants will include Jorge Sampaio, the former Portuguese president and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, set up under UN auspices to promote better cross-cultural relations worldwide.

Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, and Robert Serry, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, will also address the event.

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UN POLITICAL CHIEF UNDERSCORES NEED FOR DIRECT ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN TALKS

With efforts to move to serious negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians on achieving a two-State solution having reached a “critical juncture,” the top United Nations political official today underlined the need for direct negotiations between the two sides to begin as soon as possible.

“These talks are essential for ending the 1967 occupation, ending the conflict and resolving all core issues between the parties, including Jerusalem, borders, refugees, security settlements and water,” Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe told the Security Council today.

Six rounds of proximity talks facilitated by United States Special Envoy George Mitchell have been held since they began in May.

The goal of the diplomatic Quartet – comprising the United Nations, the US, Russia and the European Union – continues to be US-facilitated direct negotiations as soon as possible, Mr. Pascoe said, urging Israel and Palestinians to take advantage of the current opportunity to make progress.

Direct talks, he noted, could boost “confidence in the possibility of genuine progress on the core issues and on the ground, including restraint in Jerusalem, implementation of Roadmap obligations on settlements and further measures to empower the Palestinian Authority.”

Earlier this month, in a move welcomed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other officials, the Israeli Government announced it was increase the scope and quantity of materials allowed into Gaza.

Since then, new food and productive items have entered the Strip and the volume of imports into the area has risen steadily, with a 40 per cent increasing in the number of truckloads entering Gaza every week.

“While these are positive steps forward, we hope they can be enhanced to address the deplorable conditions in the Strip,” Mr. Pascoe said, calling for additional steps to be taken to allow exports and movement of people, as well as to streamline procedures for approval for projects.

He also announced at today’s meeting that agreements agreed by the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) on ensuring the cargo onboard Turkish ships have been implemented.

Those ships were part of an aid flotilla intercepted by the Israeli military on 31 May, resulting in the deaths of nine civilians and the wounding of at least 30 others.

Mr. Pascoe said that arrangements are also being made to transfer material carried by a Libyan-sponsored vessel, which arrived in Egypt last week, to Gaza.

“Such convoys are not helpful to resolving the basic economic problems in Gaza and needlessly carry the potential for escalation,” he told the meeting, which heard from dozens of speakers.

During the reporting period, Palestinian militant groups fired 41 rockets and mortars into southern Israel, causing no injuries, while the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) carried out six air strikes and 21 incursions, killing four Gazans, including one alleged militant, and injuring 23 others, the Under-Secretary-General said.

Turning to Lebanon, he said that the situation in that country remains stable. The Lebanese Parliament has continued talks on draft legislation on the civil rights of Palestinian refugees.

“Consensus appears to be within reach and the United Nations would welcome this as a first step,” Mr. Pascoe said.

Paul Badji, Chairman of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, said at the meeting that serious direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians “can only be successful in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence in a comprehensive, just and lasting outcome.”

This, he said, requires both sides to implement their obligations under the Roadmap.

The Committee remains “alarmed” by Israel’s refusal to heed international calls to halt settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in East Jerusalem.

Also addressing the Council today was Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev, who said her country called for direct negotiations with Palestinians with “no preconditions, no delays.

“With Jerusalem and Ramallah only 10 minutes apart, direct negotiations are the only path to bridge the existing gaps,” she stressed.

Ms. Shalev emphasized the need for mutual recognition, noting that Israel’s recognition of “a Palestinian State as the nation-State of the Palestinian people must be met with an acknowledgment that Israel is the nation-State of the Jewish people.”

For his part, the Palestinian representative, Riyad Mansour, told the Council that “it seems strange that such a volatile situation persists in light of the international and regional efforts being exerted for revival of the peace process.”

Although his side has taken part in the proximity talks in good faith, “the same cannot be said for Israel,” which he said has “repeatedly challenged those talks with illegal, reckless actions.”

 http://www.unelections.org/?q=node/2054

 http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/29/so…

UN needs a chief who can manage.

The following is a year old (July 1, 2009) series of two articles by Matthew Russell Lee showing the way the UN Department, that is supposed to provide Information to the Public, does nothing more then glorify the Secretary-General. Frankly – this is the understanding the UN has of the concept of information – that is no different then in China or Egypt – but then, according to today’s article that is based on criticism from OSCE – to be fair – this is the structural problem also in France. We will undertake looking into these issues further, as the UN will release these days its final decision on who is a journalist. Will they allow for the eventuality that true journalism is entitled to criticize the UN, or they will continue on the path of obfuscation and cover-ups.

=================
 http://www.innercitypress.com/unrules1me…

UN Says and Shows It Won’t Cover Stories Countries Don’t Like, Critics Targeted.

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

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 — The UN runs its own News Service, its own Video and Radio operations. The chief of these divisions, Ahmad Fawzi, was asked on July 1 what the UN does on the story if “a country regards it as not a good story.”

“We don’t do it,” Mr. Fawzi. The audience at the UN-TV showcase, mostly comprised of UN staff members, laughed. Inner City Press followed up, asking if the UN would cover news events that trigger criticism of the UN, like the slaughters in Rwanda or Srebrenica.

Fawzi replied that the UN commissioned a report on the failures of its member states and peacekeeping operation in Srebrenica. He added, “Are we going to produce a video about it? I don’t know.”

Inner City Press has previously interviewed Mr. Fawzi’s colleague Susan Farkas, now the head of UN TV and Radio and present at the July 1 screening, who told the Press, “I find it astonishing that you think there’s a story in the fact that we don’t investigate the UN… The UN pays us. The UN pays us to produce a program which promotes the issues that the UN cares about.”

Thus, the first of the videos shown on July 1 concerned children left behind in Moldova as their parents migrate for jobs. The second concerned the genocide in Rwanda, but merely mentioned without explaining that prior to the upsurge in killing, nearly all UN personnel left.

It certainly did not mention the UN Development Program staffer who used UN equipment to round up and target Tutsis to be killed. That is not the only story, but it is part of the story. And a stoytelling that is precluded from the beginning from including all pertinent facts cannot be called independent.

Inner City Press asked Fawzi about the UN News Service, which churns out relentlessly pro-UN stories, ranging from Ban Ki-moon’s popularity to the UN’s successes in the Congo. Appearing to take the question to be about the UN’s press release service, Fawzi said “we cover what happens in the building [but] it is not gloss, it is not promotional, it tells what goes on in the House.”

But UN News Service covers nearly every statement by UN agency, never quotes a critic or even raises a question. It is not unlike the state news agencies of some member countries. And any member state, it appears, can get a story removed from the Service. A story on Nagorno Karabakh, for example, fell under criticism and was quietly taken down. So too a story about Sri Lanka from the affiliated — but ostensibly even more independent — UN humanitarian Relief Web news service.

While in the previous interview Ms. Farkas went on to ask, “Do you work for the Heritage Foundation,” on July 1 Fawzi said, “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart.”

It is not clear what “we” he was referring to. Consider a “Dear Colleague” letter circulated to the 435 members of the House of Representatives earlier this week, the text of which is below.

In UN-TV, Fawzi (at right) monitors Ban Ki-moon’s image

“Angered by past and continuing media reports of corruption, mismanagement and inaction at the United Nations, the UN is again seeking to cover up evidence and stifle freedom of the press.

Meeting on May 8 about ‘reporting by the press,’ high level UN officials discussed sending threatening letters to several press agencies and other bodies, as well as complaining to Google News about a small, independent news agency that has uncovered numerous UN scandals. Last year, a similar complaint resulted in that agency’s temporary removal from Google News. In response to a question about that meeting, the Secretary General’s spokeswoman furiously retorted, ‘I don’t have to account to you for meetings I participate in.’

The UN’s Department of Management is also reportedly pushing to obstruct press coverage, seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight.

These UN efforts to restrict press freedom and oversight directly contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognized that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression… and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Once again, the UN is actually undermining the principles on which it was founded.”

The May 8 meeting, involving Under Secretaries General Angela Kane (Management), Kiyo Akasaka (Public Information — the boss of both Mr. Fawzi and Ms. Farkas) and Patricia O’Brien (Legal Affairs), as well as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s speech writer Michael Meyer and Spokesperson Michele Montas, was memorialized in a memo from Ms. Kane to Ban.

Inner City Press was shown the memo, wrote and asked Ban’s spokeswoman Michele Montas about it by email, along with the three USGs, none of whom has yet to explain how their participation is consistent not only with the First Amendment, which they say does not apply, but even to the cited Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While it has previously been claimed to Inner City Press that the UN would not, for example, even consider seeking to have a publication removed from Google News, Ms. Kane’s memo shows different. What was that again, that “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart”?  Some do and some don’t.

Footnote: the “Dear Colleague” letter circulated on Capitol Hill states that the UN is “seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight.” Previously the Department of Public Information, where Mr. Fawzi works and which Mr. Akasaka heads, told UN journalist they would have the same walled free space during and after the fix-up on the UN building.

Now that first $23,000 was demanded, then wall-less “whistlebelower free” zones have been offered, no explanation of the change has been offerer, nor how it is consistent with the statement that “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart.” Watch this site.

UN E-mails Allege Plot to Deny Ban a Second Term, Trick for Supachai at UNCTAD?

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

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 — Weeks after the filing with the UN investigative unit of emails showing a dirty tricks campaign by staffers of UN Conference on Trade and Development chief Supachai Panitchpakdi to get a second term, on Wednesday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nevertheless announced he is supporting Supachai for another four years.

Inner City Press, which exclusively reported the filing on June 22, asked Ban’s spokesperson if Ban had considered its contents, and acknowledged any connection between them and the reappointment.

The most explosive part of the emails, being published for the first time today by Inner City Press, are the arguments made in a May 8, 2009 email by Supachai’s special adviser Kobsak Chutikul, that African and other countries were supporting Ivory Coast’s former trade minister to deny Supachai from Thailand a second term in order to set a precedent to deny Ban Ki-moon a second term as Secretary General, due to “his perceived Western backers.”

Ban’s spokesperson declined to comment on the filing, saying it is before the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. Video here from Minute 10:45. But senior Ban officials including Management chief Angela Kane and Ethics Officer Robert Benson have had the complaint since June 4. Meanwhile, the complainant has reportedly been demoted.

Inner City Press asked Supachai if his UNCTAD has any whistleblower protection provisions. Yes we will follow those, Supachai answered. He claimed he “never campaigned,” despite what the emails show his special adviser Kobsak Chutikul doing. He claimed he only “responded to some countries’ remarks.” Video here, from Minute 56:18.

Given these statement, Inner City Press is today publishing some of the emails at issue, here.

UN’s Ban and UNCTAD’s Supachai: a snub of latter hurts former?
In a May 8, 2009 email marked Attachment E and headlined, “NAM Note Verbale,” Chutikul wrote to three senior UNCTAD staff, including the subsequent complainant:

“Gentlemen, please see attached NAM Note Verbale sent out to all NAM Missions today. In light of this new development, it is the assessment of Thai and some ASEAN Ambassadors that the picture has become clear — UNCTAD SG post has become an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bigger struggle… The goal seems to be to insist on geographical rotation of posts, and undermining the practice / tradition of two continuous terms, with the real target being the UN SG (and his perceived western backers).”

This argument raises the issue, for some interviewed by Inner City Press so far: did Ban have something of a conflict of interest in overriding (after working to override and change) African Group resistance and giving Supachai a second term? In fact, that too is laid out in Supachai’s special adviser’s Mach 8 e-mail, referring to telling Team Ban “things like ‘you are the real target’ or ‘you are next.’”

The emails point to several other improprieties, and it is extraordinary that Team Ban wants or wanted to ignore them and simply reappoint Supachai.

Following Chutikul’s”all hands on deck” e-mail, the press was on to get Ban to announce his referral of Supachai’s renomination to the General Assembly. A Chinese staff member conferred with Beijing, and that asked for evidence of which way Ban was leaning (Attachment G). Another UNCTAD staffer questioned why the African Group targeted the second term of Supachai and not Frenchman Pascal Lamy at the World Trade Organization — “because he’s white”? The e-mails are replete with racial references.

Now what will happen?

Media freedom threatened in most European countries, says OSCE

“Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property,” says the OSCE

IN FRANCE IT IS THE PRESIDENT WHO NOMINATES THE HEAD OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – CLEARLY AN INFRINGEMENT OF THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS NOT UNKNOWN IN TOTALITARIAN STATES.

HONOR MAHONY

July 30, 2010 -  http://euobserver.com/9/30561/?rk=1

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Media freedom is threatened in most European countries, warns the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe, highlighting incidences in several of its member states including EU countries France, Italy and Greece.

In a report published Thursday (29 July), the 56-member OSCE, a loose gathering of states monitoring regional security, says that “freedom of the media concerns arise in most OSCE participating States. They only manifest themselves differently.”

The breaches, either existing or potential, to media freedom range from a draft law on electronic surveillance and electronic eavesdropping law in Italy which could “seriously hinder investigative journalism” to a draft law in Estonia that may allow too many exemptions to the right to protect the identity of sources, to the fact that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is head of the public service broadcaster, France Televisions.

“The presidential nomination of the head of a country’s public service broadcaster is an obstacle to its independence and contradicts OSCE commitments,” said the body’s Dunja Mijatovic, in charge of monitoring media freedom.

Other areas of concern include the recent adoption by the Hungarian Parliament of parts of a media package with elements threatening media freedom and a possible threat in Greece to a minority radio station that broadcasts in Turkish, while the organisation expresses hope that Germany will adopt a law protecting investigative journalists.

Beyond the EU, the “brutal attack” against a Serbian journalist known for his outspokenness against nationalism was highlighted as was the the “high number of criminal prosecutions” against journalists in Turkey covering sensitive issues as well “serious infringements” on media pluralism in Kyrgyzstan and a series of attacks against journalists in Russia.

“Many argue that media freedom is in decline across the OSCE region. In some aspects, I can subscribe to that,” said Ms Mitjatovic.

“Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property and that journalists have the right to scrutinize those who are elected.”

“Violence against journalists equals violence against society and democracy and should be met with harsh condemnation and prosecution of the perpetrators,” she added.

With the internet changing the nature and scope of reporting, Ms Mijatovi also promised a study into the various internet laws in place across the OSCE countries.

“My office is currently working on the compilation of the first comprehensive matrix on internet legislation which will include an overview of legal provisions related to freedom of the media, the free flow of information and media pluralism on the internet in the OSCE region.”

An Entire Generation of India’s Brightest Students is Galvanized into Tackling Sustainability, Climate Change, Energy Security and the Environment.

IIT Madras to Host The 2010 Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™, India, in Chennai, September 30 ? October 3, 2010.

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The The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition^TM 2010 to be held at IIT Madras
September 30 – October 3, 2010.

Founded in early 2007, The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™, Asia’s first and most prestigious sustainable/clean technology business plan competition, brings green and sustainable technologies to market through entrepreneurship, to fortify energy security, enhance sustainability on the planet, and tackle climate change.

Now in its third year, the competition is the brainchild of Prof. Oopali Operajita, CEO, Cicero, A Trans National Advisory, a Senior Strategic and International Affairs Adviser to several of India’s prominent political leaders in India’s Parliament, and a former Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University,USA.

The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition^TM is a student-led business plan competition, which provides mentoring for, and exposure to, the development of sustainable technology ventures from around the world, to combat climate change and fortify energy security.  The competition supports the creation of real businesses that bring about positive change through new technologies in a sustainable manner.

The IIT Madras Finalist Team (Greenext Technology Solutions) from the 2009 Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™ won the First Coveted ‘NYC Next Idea’ Prize from Mayor Bloomberg in New York City. Here’s a link to the story. Here‘s the coverage on the leading Indian television channel NDTV 24×7.

http://www.cicerotransnational.com/agstvc.html

or send us email mail at: agstvc (at) shaastra (dot) org        or agstvc (at) gmail (dot) com

What makes a good UN story? We hinted at the Kevin Rudd idea earlier but we were still waiting for further developments.

Are we seeing here rumors because of infighting in Australia on the way to their National elections August 21, 2010?

Are we on the trail of rumors intended to save the Ban Ki-moon reelection to a second term?

Are we watching an Obama approach to create a new environment to save negotiations on climate?

Kevin Rudd would be an excellent choice to extricate the UN from the hole it created in the “Seal the Deal” charade when every child could have seen that the G192 is no environment to talk about Sustainable Energy options.

Australia is no good example either – but Kevin Rudd was ready to step out of his nation’s “is” and aim for a better future.

He got punished for this and perhaps is now ready for revenge by working on a global level that will then sweep with him his own country as well.

With his experience as Australia’s Prime Minister with-vision that was cut short from bringing his own country into the group of real leaders for tomorrow, he can work with President Obama and perhaps the other four leaders that hammered out the Copenhagen platform that is not dependent on all climate mongers of the UN circuit. As a fresh figure, he could perhaps sit down with the ALBA folks and take the best ideas they have and incorporate them also in a new recipe under the SUSTAINABILITY big sky of the future.

Will the UN accept him as a new Super Czar of a combined  UNCSD and UNFCCC – or let him form a new structure so these older structures will just wilt away into oblivion slowly? Who knows? But let us follow this new world hype.

The subject having slowly boiled in the PRESS has reached also www.UNelection.org – so it is time for us to try out the waters ourselves also. This then reinforced the UNelections interest in the issue as per added -
http://unelections.org/?q=node/2056

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 http://unelections.org/?q=node/2052

 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special…

Click here to read “Kevin Rudd could be offered UN role before end of election campaign” – Herald Sun, July 29, 2010

The facts as described in: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/07…

Canadian woman is next top UN internal watchdog.

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer
Posted: Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010

UNITED NATIONS The United Nations turned to a Canadian woman on Wednesday who was chief auditor for the World Bank as its choice for the next head of the U.N.’s internal watchdog agency.

Carman Lapointe-Young won approval from the General Assembly to become the undersecretary-general for oversight. She will be given the huge task of trying to quickly fix an agency that her predecessor says is in disarray.

She will start her job on Sept. 13, the U.N. announced. She will move to New York from Rome, where she has headed the oversight office of the U.N.’s fund for agricultural development since February 2009.

The Manitoba native was appointed to the non-renewable, five-year term as head of the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose leadership was severely criticized in an end-of-assignment memo by outgoing OIOS head Inga-Britt Ahlenius of Sweden.

Ban said in a statement that Lapointe-Young has the “breadth and depth of experience and expertise required for this demanding position.” He said she will be expected to rebuild OIOS and fill its many vacancies as soon as possible.

Ban is reviewing Ahlenius’ memo and has ordered a review of the U.N.’s ability to investigate itself, his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, said last week.

Bea Edwards of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based nonprofit law firm, said Wednesday one of the key challenges Lapointe-Young will face is to redirect OIOS investigations onto cases of major financial fraud and corruption.

Her firm has represented at least one OIOS investigator who filed a whistleblower complaint against the division’s acting director.

“We would just hope that she would re-focus the attention of OIOS onto the more significant cases of fraud and corruption, and there would be less emphasis on these petty, internal investigations,” said Edwards, referring to internal probes that she said were focused on allegations such as improper travel expense claims and pornography on computers.

Over the past decade the U.N. has been rocked a series of corruption scandals in its multibillion-dollar spending. The best known resulted from a two-year investigation into the U.N.-run oil-for-food program for Iraq led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

Volcker’s inquiry culminated in an October 2005 report accusing more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein’s regime to bilk $1.8 billion from a program aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions.

As a result of the scandal, the U.N. created a special anti-corruption task force between 2006 and 2008 that found 20 significant corruption schemes. Its work led to sanctions against about 50 U.N. vendors, many of which were permanently debarred, and felony convictions against three U.N. officials, including two senior procurement officials.

Lapointe-Young won the nod despite some grumbling among diplomats from developing nations who said her appointment upset an informal understanding that the top accountability post should alternate between developing and rich Western nations.

At the General Assembly, several diplomats touched on the issue of geographical diversity. U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky acknowledged the concerns of representatives of “regional groups” in the General Assembly who were consulted before Wednesday’s approval, but said Ban’s selection was based on “merit,” ultimately.

From 2004 to 2009, she was the auditor general of The World Bank Group. It was during that time that Paul Wolfowitz resigned as president of the World Bank amid controversy over a pay package for his girlfriend, a bank employee.

She succeeds Ahlenius, who left the OIOS post in mid-July after blaming Ban for blocking her attempt to hire a former U.S. federal prosecutor as permanent head of the investigation division and taking other measures that she said undermined the operational independence her office is supposed to have.

Ban and his senior advisers have quickly closed ranks and disputed many of the memo’s assertions while trying to put the dispute quickly behind them.

“Where there are lessons to be learned, we will draw them,” Angela Kane, the undersecretary-general for management, said in a statement Wednesday.

In a statement labeled “Accountability for a Stronger United Nations,” Kane said Lapointe-Young will inherit “an office with 76 vacant posts” because Ahlenius failed to fill them.

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AT THE FAREWELL PARTY GIVEN BY OUTGOING AMBASSADOR H. E. YUKIO TAKASU OF JAPAN, SEEMINGLY MR. BAN KI-MOON EXPRESSED SURPRISE AT REPORTS THAT SOUTH AFRICA WAS PROMISED A SENIOR POST AT OIOS IN EXCHANGE FOR NOT BLOCKING THE APPOINTMENT OF A CANADIAN. so, here we have his commitment to let the new OIOS Chief pick her own Deputy?

At UN, Farewell to Takasu Amid Echoes of OIOS, of Human Right to Water and Sushi

UNITED NATIONS, July 28 — Japan’s Yukio Takasu held a farewell to New York and the UN on Tuesday night at his country’s East Side townhouse.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was there — expressing surprise at reports that South Africa was promised a senior post at the Office of Internal Oversight Services in change for not blocking the top spot going to a Canadian - as well as his Under Secretaries General Lynn Pascoe, Kiyotaka Akasaka and Angela Kane.

After Mr. Ban and his well liked bride left, much talk turned to the controversy stirred by the damning End of Assignment Report of outgoing OIOS chief Inga Britt Ahlenius. While usually at the UN, the press asks Ambassadors for information and opinion, this time is was the reverse.

Several Ambassadors asked Inner City Press, What do you think this means for Ban getting or not getting a second term? Major Permanent Representatives had read the critical Press coverage. “This is not good,” they said. “But will Obama have the decisiveness to act?”

Susan Rice was asked and told the media as if by rote that the US supports Ban. Others in the Obama Administration are not saying the same thing.

Ban’s USGs worked the crowd. Angela Kane of Ban’s Department of Management bowed, Japanese style, with an outgoing members of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions from, where else, Japan.

Due to ACABQ’s penchant for anonymity, we will not name her but wish her well. As the UN’s envoy to Darfur said earlier at the stakeout, ACABQ recently visited El Fasher. She noted of Inner City Press, your coverage of ACABQ is always fair. Hey, it’s the only accountability mechanism in the UN, along with the press.

Kiyo Akasaka of Ban’s Department of Public Information was in his element, offering food recommendations and this new media news, that the UN is agreeing to a refer in their forthcoming guidelines to a willingness to accredit bloggers — and not only “journalists who write blogs” — although, strangely, confined to a footnote. We’ll see.

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The reality at the UN is that seemingly there is much financial interest by many countries and this includes covering of plain corruption – so – OIOS would have its hands full if it were to go after this plateful of problems.

Take for instance all those companies that bribed their way through the Iraqi “Oil for Food” project. Did anyone look at them, i.e. the French bank that was involved? Paul Volcker put it all in the open and the UN pushed it back under the rug by appointing OIOS. Will it finally be picked up?

Then, Ms. Alhenius also had a clear conflict. It is a Swedish company that got a non-competitive contract to redo the UN buildings. Some at he UN wanted to see this reviewed – clearly a matter for OIOS – but we heard no action on this. Only some members of the Press kept pointing at the problem.

So far we do not know of conflicts of interest involving Canada, will the new Chief start out with her right foot in staking her position – as controller – the buck stops here? Something like the US GAO – US Comptroller General?

In what regards her attitude when auditing the World Bank, we found an excellent interview with her:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4153/is_3_64/ai_n27504378/?tag=content;col1

that we highly recommend to our readers.

Making a difference: the World Bank Group’s Auditor General Carman Lapointe-Young says her team of auditors is playing its part in the organization’s fight to end poverty.

Internal Auditor, June, 2008 by Neil Baker

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Further, we are gratified that our article was picked up byUNelections.org
 http://unelections.org/?q=node/2047

Canadian Woman is Next Top UN Internal Watchdog (Opinion) – July 28

In Australia – A vote for moving forward.A model for the Obama Party.

An op-ed article that appeared last week (July 22) in The Washington Post, written by Post columnist E J Dionne, titled A Democratic Model Down Under, offers comments on the Australian general election scheduled for next month, on Aug 21, 2010.

Dionne suggests that the beleaguered (US) Democratic Party can learn a thing or two from campaign rhetoric of new Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard who took office in June after the fall of her predecessor Kevin Rudd. Dionne quotes Prime Minister Gillard delivering her Labor Party’s message to the public: “This election will revolve around a clear choice: Whether we want Australia to move forward or back.” Dionne adds that in one minute and 41 seconds of her speech, she used a variation of “move forward” six times and “go back” four times.

“Can this forward-or-back theme work for US Democratic Party?” Dionne asks. Apparently, Democratic Party is under attack as the party of more waste, more debt, and more taxes.

Dionne implies that Democratic Party may, nonetheless, prevail in the mid-term elections next November if, indeed, it hones in on the forward-or-back theme, since many believe that Republican Party is conservative and backward-looking, meaning anti-change.

BACKWARD-LOOKING NATION

Ask any ordinary person on the streets of Kathmandu why the country has been in so much mess and, very likely, seven out of 10 will place the blame squarely on our leaders: That they are a corrupt, self-serving, unprincipled, and a power-hungry bunch. Indeed, our politicians rarely have behaved like leaders – leaders who choose to sacrifice their own self-interests for the common good. Most would agree that none among Nepal’s politicians – past or present – qualifies to be a leader, measured by the level of selflessness they have shown, to promote public good. The most recent example of this is late Girija Prasad Koirala (GPK).

Everyone in the country knew about GPK’s repeated failure as prime minister, his reputation for nepotism and corruption, and his intolerance for democratic opposition of any sort. In the judgment of many, GPK, more than anyone else, is responsible for the crisis that we have today.

But, ironically, thousands lined up the Kathmandu streets – many crying openly – to pay their last respects when he died last March, regardless of his political failures. Among the past failed leaders, former prime minister, KP Bhattarai, continues to attract wide appeal and is considered worthy of reverence, despite him making a false start with democracy at a critical juncture in the country’s history in 1990. And, lastly, people have started to amend their feelings toward the former king, Gyanendra, and show up in large numbers at his gatherings, probably to express their guilt for supporting his ouster.

With such level of tolerance, forgiveness, even forgetfulness, there is then no wonder that failed leaders and failed parties have been brought back to power and assigned public responsibilities – not once but many times – in the hope that they have learned something from their past mistakes; that they would use their experience for improved performance; and that they will try harder for redeeming their battered reputation. However, in almost all of the cases, such attempts at redemption and rehabilitation have brought back deeper disappointments.

With this much of background, we can now view more clearly why Madhav Kumar Nepal and his CPN-UML party was able to get the post prime ministership and the reigns of government last year and why Ram Chandra Poudel and his Nepali Congress (NC) have a fair chance at it this year. No one had believed that Madhav Nepal or his party had the mandate for leadership. The same will be repeated if Poudel gets elected prime minister since neither him nor his party is recognized for leadership and, certainly, there is no record of any solid achievements. Indeed, NC’s public image is much more soiled than UML’s, which, at least, has a reputation for running a clean administration during their sort time in office, in 1995, and is much less prone to other public vices, like nepotism and opportunism.

NEED TO LOOK FORWARD

In the midst of all this doom and gloom pervading the nation, there seems to be little risk in trying something new – giving chance to Maoist-Madhesi alliance. There are several reasons for exercising this option and risks associated with this choice appear minimal.

The first obvious reason is that these two groups are new – and hence forward-looking – and so it would be worthwhile giving them a chance to get tested. Of course, the Maoists have had a stint at governing at which they failed. However, this failure does not disqualify them from a second chance if they are allowed back under different circumstances and, we can add, under a different mandate. A Maoist-Madhesi alliance will provide substance to their second-coming.

Second, with Maoists out of favor, the old but losing parties in the election had a chance to regroup and isolate the Maoists to form a shaky coalition to get a majority. However, there was never any hope that this coalition of losers will accomplish anything of significance or will last for a long-term and, certainly, no one believed that it can provide leadership in the drafting of a new constitution. A Maoist-Madhesi alliance will do much better.

Third, a new grouping with different actors – first Jhalanath Khanal and now Poudel – is being tried to form yet another government which, however, is proving more difficult than had been the case last year. However, even if it comes to pass, it is bound to be more shaky and short-lived than its predecessor. This is so because a NC government led by Poudel has got no firm political base, is viewed as lacking democratic convictions, and is seen being less enthusiastic for the drafting of constitution due to the reason that it remains emotionally tied to monarchy.

Fourth, and finally, continued political uncertainty and instability of government may justify seeking extreme solutions, including a presidential rule, army takeover, reinstatement of monarchy, and even inviting foreign forces to help ‘stabilize’ the situation. If that happens, peace and prosperity will be gone forever.

MADHESIS FOR THE RESCUE

In the midst of the emergence of apparently a hopeless situation, there are indications that some miracles might occur which I will not hesitate to call a divine intervention. I would characterize the second miracle to be a Maoist-Madhesi alliance, which provides a new and forward-looking alternative for the nation, similar to the choices presented for Australian and US elections noted in Dionne’s piece above.

Some progress has been made that gives the hope that events may, indeed, be unfolding in this direction, looking at the evidence of a growing sense of unity among Madhesi parties in recent weeks. Admittedly, this unity is still very shaky and can melt away at the first sign of stress. However, for the time being, let us assume that this unity is for real and will prove to be less fragile than it appears now.

The next forward-looking step, then, will be that Madhesi group aligns with Maoists in the background of informal understandings but without pre-conditions. With Maoists holding 237 seats in the Constituent Assembly (CA), and Madhesi parties’ 82 seats, a simple majority in the 601-member CA can clearly be established.

While the point about numerical legitimacy is obvious, moral authority is less so and let me explain this. Nepal has existed, from the time of the Ranas up until the democratic change in 1990, basically as an ethnic enclave of pahades, in which the other half of population, ethnic Madhesis, were excluded from government participation. After the political change in 1990, democratic reforms were made through equal representation of all population but the extent of Madhesi participation in state affairs remained basically the same, reflecting, in part, attempts by the mainstream parties – NC and UML – to safeguard their political base in Madhes and also the inability of Madhesi parties to put up a united front.

We can then say, without much exaggeration, that political disarray and economic decline in the country as we witness today is the direct consequence of a policy of exclusion – not by design but more of it reflecting the tolerance level of people who have been excluded.

A Maoist-led government, backed by unflinching and unconditional support from a united Madhesi front, will basically mean an opportunity to unite a divided nation and a segregated society. In any situation, it would be hard to conceive of political stability and economic progress ushering in a nation so divided as Nepal, for the main reason that exclusionary policies tend to obstruct the full utilization of country’s human and physical resources and it imparts a sense of despondency among the segment of population feeling excluded.

Finally, to the advantage of Maoists, Madhesi support will give credence to their claim that they would follow democratic norms. What this means is that Maoists’ alliance with Madhesi parties will force them to democratize, since Madhesi population, no matter how deprived they may be, cannot vote communists. A durable alliance then will require both sides to make difficult adjustments but in return for huge potential benefits – government stability under the alliance’s rule and an enabling environment that would foster prosperity.

sshah1983@hotmail.com

WORLD NEWS – JULY 29, 2010
 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424…

Climate report shows Earth has heated up over 50 years.

Which in the printed Wall Street version was rechristened – “CLIMATE STUDY CITES 2000 as WARMEST DECADE.” This appropriate to the US inward look of New York, while the above title is clear better positioned for the world at large -

By GAUTAM NAIK

A new assessment concludes that the Earth has been getting warmer over the past 50 years and the past decade was the warmest on record.

The State of the Climate 2009 report, published Wednesday as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, was compiled by 300 scientists from 48 countries and drew on measures of 10 crucial climate indicators.

Seven of the indicators were rising, including air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, sea level, ocean heat and humidity. Three indicators were declining, including Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere.

“Each indicator is changing as we’d expect in a warming world,” said Peter Thorne, senior researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, a research consortium based in College Park, Md., who was involved in compiling the report.

The report’s conclusions broadly match those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body, which published its last set of findings in 2007. The IPCC report contained some errors, which further stoked the debate about the existence, causes and effects of global warming.

The new report incorporates data from the past few years that weren’t included in the last IPCC assessment. While the IPCC report concluded that evidence for human-caused global warming was “unequivocal” and was linked to emissions of greenhouse gases, the latest report didn’t seek to address the issue.

The report “doesn’t try to make the link” between climate change and what might be causing it, said Tom Karl, an official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration involved in the new assessment.

The report said, “Global average surface and lower-troposphere temperatures during the last three decades have been progressively warmer than all earlier decades, and the 2000s (2000-09) was the warmest decade in the instrumental record.” The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere.

The scientists reported that they were surprised to find Greenland’s glaciers were losing ice at an accelerating rate. They also concluded that 90% of planetary warming over the past 50 years has gone into the oceans. Most of it had accumulated in near-surface layers, home to phytoplankton, tiny plants crucial to virtually all life in the sea.

A new study has found that rising sea temperature may have had a harmful effect on global concentrations of phytoplankton over the past century.

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BUT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IS VERY ANEMIC ON CONTENT OF ABOVE NEWS – IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, AS MOSTLY ALMOST – GO TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES. HERE YOU FIND FIONA HARVEY’S FULL ARTICLE – SHE  CONTRIBUTES TO THE EDITORIAL SECTION AS WELL. YOU WILL BE IN THE CLEAR ABOUT THE MACHINATIONS IN WASHINGTON AS WELL.

You will also see there the Washington rot as in the following: “Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US, formerly in charge of energy with the powerful CSIS, said the new report would not change people’s minds. “It’s clear that the scientific case for global warming alarmism is weak. The scientific case for [many of the claims] is unsound and we are finding out all the time how unsound it is.”

You will find that there was no doubt about the implication that it is humans who did it except in the words of that outspoken minority of industry lobbyists that hold power over Washington.

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 http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/author…

NOAA finds “human fingerprints” on climate

July 28th, 2010  by Fiona Harvey

 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d1fd25c-9a69-…

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 http://planetark.org/wen/58965

Developing Nations See Cancun Climate Deal Tough.

The following comes from

http://iranliberty.com/nukes/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11690

and it is very disturbing to us. We received the link in an e-mail and it shows clearly that the Rutgers University Center for Middle Eastern Studies has on its faculty a clear bigot originating from Iran, Dr. Afshin Razani, who should not hold the position he was entrusted with – the shaping of the mind of a new generation of Americans whom he feeds plain hate-mongering rubbish.

Yes we know the Middle East is very complex as he says, but he is not the man to unravel it – this because he speaks untruth and half-truths and smears past Administrations because he just wants to wish Israel away from its home in the Middle East.

We know the Director of the Center at Rutgers, Dr. Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American scholar, and we are surprised that he keeps this sort of staff in his court – Dr. Razani is not the man that will help you understand neither Iran nor Palestine.

Furthermore, when you read the rubbish we posted here and which comes all of it from above link, you will also see that as Rutgers University is a State University – a New Jersey Public University – the implication that what is taught at the center is Islamic Religion, may in effect undermine the  legal status that covers the establishment of the Center.

We follow up here with what appears in the English part of above link

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Profile

Dr. Razani received his BS in economics and public administration from Pahlavi University, Shiraz, Iran. After completing military service, he traveled to the United States and received his master’s degree in economics and his PhD in sociology from Southern Illinois University. Dr. Razani has taught economic and sociology courses including Introductory Economics, Introductory Sociology, Social Stratification, Social Change, Contemporary Social Problems, and Sociological Theory, at both undergraduate and graduate levels at Southern Illinois University, Ramapo College (Mahwah, NJ), and Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ). He has done extensive research on subjects related to the politics of Iran and the Middle East, focusing upon issues of democracy, social justice, and social movements, and has delivered public lectures and speeches on these topics throughout the United States and Canada. He has authored and translated numerous analytical articles on Iran and the Middle East for such publications as Iran Today, and Akhgar in the United States, and Tchissta, a monthly journal in Tehran

Afshin Razani, Ph.D.
Instructor in Middle Eastern Studies
Assistant Director, Public & Executive Affairs
Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Lucy Stone Hall, B-327
54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue
Piscataway, NJ 08854
Tel: 732-445-8444, ext. 18
Fax: 732-445-8446
Email:  arazani at rci.rutgers.edu

The People Perceived As A Threat To Security

An Article by Randa A. Kayyali

Emergency Relief and Reconstruction Funds for Lebanon

How can you help – we took this out because we do not believe we want to help Dr. Razani

……………….

Pols undermine U.S. by pandering to Israel  – Home News Tribune Online 06/5/07 – BY HASSAN MAHMOUD

According to a recently published book, “Presidential Courage” by presidential historian Michael Beschloss, Harry Truman was an anti-Semitic bigot who called New York City a “Kike town” and said, “Those goddamned Jews are never satisfied. Jesus Christ couldn’t please them when he was here on earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck?” While staying in Independence to interview Truman in 1961, the talk-show host David Susskind asked him why he never invited him into his home. Truman replied, “You are a Jew, David, and no Jew has ever been in the house.”

By the approach of the presidential election of 1948, Truman’s approval rating was very low. At that time, the United Nations was debating the partition of Palestine between the indigenous Palestinians and the immigrant Jews from Europe. The White House counsel, Clark Clifford, strongly suggested that Truman recognize a Jewish State for which the Jewish donors would support his campaign. As per the book, John Kennedy, allegedly, later insisted that recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast because a Zionist bagman handed the president $2 million in cash in a suitcase. On the other side, Secretary of State George Marshall, whom Truman described as the “great one of the age” and the “architect of victory who won the war,” told the president that if he followed Clifford’s advice and if he were to vote in the election he would vote against him. He and Assistant Secretary of State Loy Henderson and Under Secretary Robert Lovett warned that the founding of a Jewish State in Palestine would be a strategic mistake as it would throw away many years of hard work with the Arabs, would jeopardize oil supplies, turn the whole Arab world into our enemy and make Israel a burden on the United States.

With the hypocritical personality of a U.S. president as such, one wonders how national vital decisions were made.

Since 1948, many upheavals occurred in the Middle East resulting in many wars and destruction and loss of hundreds of thousands of lives — including thousands of Americans — and periodic economic turmoil due to disruption of oil supply, plus the birth of international terrorism. All of these catastrophes could have been alleviated or minimized if we could have wisely managed the aftermath of the creation of Israel in the midst of a sea of Arab and Muslim nations by evenhandedly forcing the adherence of the antagonists to the United Nations resolutions of 1947, which demarcated the boundaries of two states — Palestine and Israel.

Unfortunately, our politicians never learned from the past. When President Bush is asked about the fallacy of the allegations upon which the ruinous Iraq war was waged, his recent answer during his news conference of May 24 was that a main reason for the war was Saddam’s payment to the families of the killed Palestinians who attacked Israel. When he speaks of the dispute with Iran, he always invokes the danger of Iran to Israel. Can’t our politicians stop holding our security and economic interest hostages to the whims of the extremist Israelis who are pursuing colonialist policies in the Middle East and always demand from us to back their follies even by scarifying the lives of our soldiers and our economic welfare?

Amazingly, at the time when a number of our soldiers are kidnapped in Iraq, some New Jersey politicians thought that the fate of our kidnapped soldiers is not worth as much as the fate of three Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah and Hamas. Assemblyman Eric Monoz and state Sen. Thomas H. Kean Jr., both R-Union, Somerset, Essex, Morris, sponsored resolutions that call on the United Nations to take action to help free the three Israeli soldiers. Munoz stated: “I want Israeli citizens here and abroad and the government of Israel to know that the United States — and in particular the State of New Jersey — stands united with them in their efforts to bring these young men home safely.” One wishes that these comforting words and strong resolutions are spoken and made on behalf of the missing Americans and their families. Shame on those politicians. Their pandering to foreign interests blinded them to the interests of America.

“Be Counted” columnist Hassan Mahmoud is a resident of Westfield. “Be Counted” columnists are members of the public. Their opinions do not represent those of the Home News Tribune.
A New Jersey few know: Paterson’s thriving Arab community
The Star-Ledger, Sunday, April 08, 2007

BY MILTON VIORST

I enter Paterson over the Broadway hill past Eastside Park, where as a kid I biked on clear days, turning to gaze at the Manhattan skyline a dozen miles away. The park is where I caught fireflies in a jar on hot summer nights and belly-flopped on a sled on cold winter afternoons, where I sold sodas to picnickers on Sundays and once tried out, unsuccessfully, for the high school baseball team. Just below the park, in the direction of downtown, is Derrom Avenue, whose elegant mansions long advertised the wealth of Paterson’s commercial aristocracy. Incongruously, amidst these mansions now stands the Islamic Center, Paterson’s principal mosque, symbol of the city’s latest transformation.

Paterson, it is widely said, is home to America’s second-largest Arab community. Dearborn, Mich., is first. Paterson is also the hub of several hundred thousand Arabs living in northern New Jersey. Yet, growing up, how come I knew no Arabs? The city, rather handsome and well-kept in those days, was shaped by solidly middle-class Irish, Italian and Jewish communities. Since Alexander Hamilton persuaded George Washington to harness the power of the roaring falls of the Passaic River, its wealth derived from industry, but in the 20th century it also served as a commercial hub for several hundred thousand residents of the North Jersey region. My grandfather came from Poland in 1900 to work in Paterson’s silk mills, the industrial core; my father, after a turn in the mills, found retailing more compatible. The earliest Arab immigrants were Christian Syrians drawn from the textile workshops of Aleppo; Muslims, a second wave that began in the 1920s, preferred to set up small shops. By the 1940s, Arabs were an identifiable community, but I never saw them. Paterson’s ethnic groups were largely strangers to one another, gathered on their own turf around their churches, later their synagogues, then their mosques. Though we lived in neighborhoods that were tightly juxtaposed, only rarely did we cross the lines…

More

ADC-NJ wishes to thank all of our supporters for making our 9th Annual Banquet a great success. The event, which took place at the Grand Ballroom of the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton, was attended by approximately 300 supporters and members.

This year’s Achievement Award was presented to Ms. Sarah El-Shazly, of the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General and the Recognition Award was presented to The Mental Health Association in Passaic County.

Among the many dignitaries present were: Ambassador Shereef EL-Kholy, Consul General of Egypt in New York; Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein; representatives from the offices of Congressman Scott Garrett and Congressman Bill Pascrell; Joe Orlando, CEO of Barnert Hospital; Andre Sayegh, Member, Paterson Board of Education and Chief of Staff for State Sen. Girgenti; from the New Jersey Commission on Civil Rights: Chairman, Hon. John Campbell and Commissioner, Hon. Dr. Joan Rivitz; and from the Rutgers University Center for Middle Eastern Studies were: Director Dr. Hooshang Amirahmadi, Dr. Afshin Razani, Dr. Charles Haberl and staff member Paola Rizzuto.

Also present were representatives from the following organizations: The Arab American Family Support Center of NJ (Tanweer), ADC-NY, ADC-Greater Philadelphia Area, American Muslim Union (AMU), Egyptian American Professional Society (EAPS), Egyptian American Group, Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC), Islamic Center of Jersey City, NAAP, New Jersey Muslim Lawyer’s Association, Palestinian Heritage Foundation (PHF), and Wafa House.

We would like to thank our keynote speaker, Senator Lincoln Chafee, for offering the ADC-NJ audience an honest, sensible and realistic approach to the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process. We offer our sincerest thanks to all who attended and helped to make this years Banquet a success.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions as to how we can make next year’s Banquet even more successful. Please email your comments and suggestions to adc@adcnj.us

Photos, media coverage of the event and the keynote speaker’s ( Sen. Lincoln Chafee) speech among other speeches will be posted shortly

Middle East studies in the News

Mideast Program Growing in Diversity [on Middle East studies at Rutgers, Peter Chelkowski of NYU]

by Katie O’Connell
The Daily Targum [Rutgers student newspaper]
December 11, 2006
http://www.dailytargum.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=77fc6395-f79a-4648-9f75-c9fd081f9468

The world’s fastest growing religion has a growing department at the University studying it.

The Rutgers University Center for Middle Eastern Studies is a program through which students can explore the diverse canvas of cultures, societies, religions, languages, histories and politics of the countries that comprise the region of the Middle East.

“The Middle East is much more complex than it appears on the surface,” said Afshin Razani, an instructor in the Middle Eastern Studies Department.

“Islam is the fastest growing religion, with nearly 1.3 billion followers who come from many different parts of the world,” said Paola Rizzuto, staff member at the center.

“Despite this fact, Islam is still one of the least understood faiths.”

The region of the Middle East cannot be defined or generalized in any one specific manner, and one must be able to understand the complexity and diversity of the Middle East, as to avoid any one-sided interpretations, Razani said.

Razani said some of the most popular courses of the department are Introduction to the Modern Middle East, a required course for a major and minor in the program, and courses that focus on contemporary Middle Eastern issues and politics.

The department’s language courses are also very popular, Razani said. Students can take courses in Persian, Arabic, Hebrew and, as of this semester, Turkish.

Currently, the center is expanding and will be introducing a contemporary Arab studies program and a class called Islam and Democracy in the near future, Razani said.

The center’s Web site is also undergoing a major overhaul to make it more interactive and informative, said Razani.

The expansion of the program is due in part to the help of community leaders. The center strives to be involved both with the Rutgers community and surrounding communities, said Razani.

A part of this community involvement is achieved through programs the center hosts throughout the semester.

This semester, the center hosted the speaker Azar Nafisi, author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran”; a unity iftaar, breaking of the fast during Ramadan; a fundraising dinner that focused on Islam in the Contemporary world and Gaza: Pictorial of a Humanitarian Crisis with AP photographer and Washington reporter on Middle East Affairs correspondent Mohammed Omer, according to an e-mail from Rizzuto.

The center is planning to host several more events next semester, Rizzuto said.

The center’s fundraiser event last Thursday, entitled “Rituals in Islam,” was meant to increase awareness about the Islamic faith and was attended by 60 to 70 people, Rizzuto said.

The event hosted Emmy award-winning journalist Anisa Mehdi and Peter Chelkowski, New York University professor of Middle Eastern Studies.

In addition to hosting events that educate the community on Middle Eastern cultures, the center also works with outside groups such as Global Citizen 2000, a program that will enable high school teachers to increase the quantity and quality of teaching about the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and globalization, according to the Global Citizen 2000 Web site.

“As members of the Rutgers University community, we are in a unique position to foster unity and to raise cultural awareness,” Rizzuto said. “New Jersey is the most diverse state in America, and this is reflected in the demographics of our community of scholars.”

Note: Articles listed under “Middle East studies in the News” provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch’s critique

Maradona out as coach as Argentina’s soccer coach.

AP – Argentina’s national soccer team coach Diego Armando Maradona listens to a question from the press prior … Also Brazil’s soccer team gets new coach Reuters.
By DEBORA REY, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 27, 2010.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Diego Maradona was given the boot as Argentina’s soccer coach before he could resign. His stint as coach of the Albiceleste ended far less successfully than his time as a player with the national team. The Argentine Football Association, which hired the former star in November 2008, said Tuesday that his contract will not be renewed. The decision came 3 1/2 weeks after his team, led by star Lionel Messi, was eliminated from the World Cup with a humiliating 4-0 loss to Germany in the quarterfinals.

“Diego shut himself off to any change,” executive committee member Luis Segura said on Argentine television. “Diego has all the right to do what he wants. But so does AFA.”

The federation had offered Maradona a four-year contract through the 2014 World Cup, but Maradona said he would do so only if his entire staff remained. That was unacceptable to AFA president Julio Grondona. He had asked for several assistants to be replaced, including Maradona’s close friend Alejandro Mancuso. The federation said its executive committee unanimously decided to not keep Mardona.

AFA spokesman Ernesto Cherquis Bialo called the decision “very painful” but said there was no way to solve the impasse.
“The president said that there was a significant difference between what AFA wanted to achieve and Maradona’s aspirations for the future,” Cherquis Bialo said. “There was a wide gap, and it was impossible to narrow it.” The spokesman hinted, however, there might be a role in the future for a man with an unpredictable history.

“This marks the end of a first chapter with Mr. Maradona,” Cherquis Bialo said. “The doors to this house, as always, will be open to him.”

Youth team manager Sergio Batista was appointed interim coach for the Aug. 11 exhibition at Ireland, which will be followed by a Sept. 7 home exhibition against world champion Spain. Possible permanent successors include two club coaches in Argentina: Alejandro Sabella of Estudiantes and Miguel Russo of Racing.

Asked about the full-time coach, Cherquis Bialo said: “The people who were in the meeting have no name in their imaginations. It has just been announced that the contract with the coach will not be renewed. And so, a new stage begins.”

The 49-year-old Maradona became Argentina’s coach in November 2008, replacing Alfio Basile and taking over a team he led to the 1986 World Cup title and the 1990 final.

He had little coaching experience, and his team absorbed two of the worst losses in the country’s history: a 6-1 rout at Bolivia in World Cup qualifying and the World Cup defeat to Germany.

Argentina attacked with flair in South Africa, with Messi setting up scoring strikes by Gonzalo Higuain and Carlos Tevez.

Maradona, dressed on the sideline in a gray suit, was an enthusiastic cheerleader, but that could not compensate for his team’s tactical deficiencies. The loss to Germany exposed frailties on defense and lack of midfield speed.

Messi, widely regarded as the game’s best player, left with World Cup without scoring a goal. Maradona never explained why Messi — he was left to roam the field on his own — wasn’t scoring. “Nobody ever told me where to play. So I shouldn’t have to tell Messi where to play, either,” Maradona said.

Maradona, who has fought cocaine and alcohol addiction, grew up in a Buenos Aires slum, and his escape from poverty has endeared him to many. But he has worn out his welcome in other quarters.

Maradona ruffled the government of President Cristina Fernandez, who twice invited the coach to meet with her. But cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez said Maradona failed to respond or answer the phone, forcing the president’s secretaries to leave messages.

Fernandez had been openly supportive of keeping Maradona as coach, and one legislator has proposed building a monument to honor him. Two weeks ago, the federation offered Maradona the chance to extend his contract. But Maradona put off meeting with Grondona to travel to Venezuela at the invitation of a friend — President Hugo Chavez.

Maradona’s relationship with key individuals in Argentine soccer also was tense. He barred federation leaders and businessmen with commercial ties to the organization from practices in South Africa while allowing reporters to enter.

Still, Maradona had many supporters. “I want Maradona to stay,” Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo said Tuesday in an interview on radio La Red. “We will support his decision. If he leaves we will miss him.”

Added team trainer Fernando Signorini: “I have no doubt they didn’t want him. Maradona is like a stone in the shoe of power.”

Paul the Psychic Octopus Attacked by Ahmadinejad? {Oi Wey!}

David Knowles
Writer, AOL News Surge Desk
 http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/articl…

(July 27, 2001) — Perhaps the Iranian president picked Germany to win the World Cup?

Last week, at a national youth conference held in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took aim at Paul the “Psychic” Octopus, the seemingly clairvoyant, German-based cephalopod who accurately predicted the outcome of eight matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, including Spain as the overall winner.

In the midst of a fiery speech denouncing Israel, the U.S. and Iran’s other “enemies,” Ahmadinejad suddenly and surprisingly turned his vitriol on Paul, declaring the creature a symbol of “Western propaganda and superstition.”

“Those who believe in such things cannot be the leaders of the world nations towards human perfection, while the Iranian nation, with its love for the entire blessed values, is after establishing a humane world that would move towards absolute perfection,” Ahmadinejad said, according to a translation provided by the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Over the past two weeks, both Europe and the U.S. have introduced tough new sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program. The country’s national soccer team also failed to qualify for the World Cup this year.

Paul, who recently retired following his pitch-perfect prediction record, has not yet issued a response.

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and we read and posted earlier that both – Spain and Russia are ready to pay good money to have the honor to host Paul the Octopus in their aquariums. Is Ahmedi-nejad envious of the offers to Paul?