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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 15th, 2010 The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreed in 2001 to create a shared currency to help them integrate economies and pursue a monetary policy more independently of the US. All of the council’s members except Kuwait peg their currencies to the dollar. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar on December 15 announced the creation of a Monetary Council, a step toward establishing a shared currency. The board of the council, which will set a timetable for establishing a joint central bank and choose a currency regime, will meet for the first time on March 30. Oman opted out in 2007. The UAE, the second-biggest Arab economy, withdrew from the currency project in May 2009 after the Saudi capital, Riyadh was selected as the location for the Monetary Council, the future central bank. The UAE has no plans to rejoin the union project, said January 6, 2010 central bank Governor Sultan bin Nasser al-Suwaidi.Today, in Abu Dhabi, he said that the UAE remains committed to the concept of a single currency, though free trade in the region must come first. That is the reason for a Bloomberg new report on the topic.
“For the time being of course we are out because the remaining members of the Gulf monetary union, they want to go at a very high speed and they want to go for a single currency regardless of the status of completion of the common market,” al-Suwaidi said. “If we establish a common currency before a common market then a common currency won’t help us, it will not create for us new growth engines,” al-Suwaidi said. “You need to fix the borders, entry and exit through the borders, you need to fix company laws to implement similar company laws, commercial laws, labor laws.” Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Sabah al-Salem al- Sabah said on December 8, 2010 that a single currency may take 10 years to establish. The original target was this year. The regime of the future currency will be decided by the Monetary Council, which will set a “road-map” for the project, Mohammed al-Mazrooei, assistant secretary general for economic affairs at the GCC, said on January 14, 2010. The Gulf states must work to maintain the political will for the union, agree on the design for the new currency and establish measures to protect it from counterfeiting, al-Mazrooei said. The chairman of the future central bank also needs to be chosen, he said. We post this because it seems to us that the States of the Arab Peninsula seem reluctant to learn from the experience of the EU, that you cannot come up with an effective common policy if you are not ready to cede of your sovereignty to the common market. Also, you do not succeed if you try to set the seat of the new body in the capital of the largest economy of the group you try to unite. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 13th, 2010 UNEP NEWS: John Scanlon appointed as New Secretary-General of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) Geneva (Switzerland)/Nairobi (Kenya), 13 March 2010 – John Scanlon, a top advisor at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), has been named as the new Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). Mr. Scanlon was selected after a global search and selection process yielding close to 200 applicants and will assume his new position in May 2010. A lawyer by training, he has had a long and distinguished career in environmental law, policy and management at national and international levels. Among other roles, he was Australia’s first independent Commissioner on the Murray Darling Basin Commission, he held the position of Strategic Advisor to the World Commission on Dams in Cape Town (South Africa), and headed the Environmental Law Programme (Bonn, Germany) at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He also served as Chief Executive of the Department of Environment, Heritage and Aboriginal Affairs in South Australia and held several senior roles in New South Wales including as Deputy Director-General of the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources. CITES is an international agreement between Governments that was adopted in 1973 in order to ensure that international trade of wild animals and plans does not threaten their survival. With some 175 Parties, the Convention is one of the world’s most important agreements on species conservation and the sustainable use of wildlife. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNEP, said: “John Scanlon is a highly qualified and accomplished professional in the fields of environmental law, international policy and governance. His extensive management experience in public institutions and the strategic role he played in UNEP’s recent reform programme make him an outstanding candidate for leading the CITES Secretariat at this critical juncture when the efficacy of environmental governance instruments is under scrutiny.” CITES is currently holding its fifteenth meeting of the Conference of Parties in Doha, Qatar, from 13 to 25 March. Over 42 proposals are on the table, reflecting growing international concern about the accelerating destruction of the world’s marine and forest ecosystems through overfishing and excessive logging, and the potential impacts of climate change on the biological resources of the planet. A growing number of commercially exploited fish have come under CITES controls in recent years. For instance, basking and whale sharks were included in Appendix II in 2002, the great white shark and the humphead wrasse in 2004, and the European eel and sawfishes in 2007. 2010 marks the International Year of Biodiversity and the role of CITES in regulating the global trade in plant and animal species is widely regarded as central to promoting the dual objectives of conservation and sustainable use. Mr. Scanlon succeeds Mr. Willem Wijnstekers who served the CITES Convention as Secretary-General since 1999 and will retire on 1st May 2010. For more information, please contact ————– CITES world conference opens with call for new wildlife trade rules Decisions on the budget will show how seriously 175 member States take new measures to conserve and manage natural riches of the planet. Doha, 13 March 2010 – Some 1,500 delegates representing more than 170 governments, indigenous peoples, non-governmental organizations and businesses are attending the triennial world conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Bluefin tuna, elephant populations and a wide range of sharks, corals, polar bears, reptiles, insects and plants are top of the agenda for the two-week meeting. CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers thanked Qatar for hosting the meeting and noted that existing and new challenges require increased political support for the 35-year old treaty to match present day demands. Mr Wijnstekers congratulated the member States for the many conservation successes during these years but warned that more needs to be done. “We do not want to risk letting down the developing world in its struggle to ensure that trade in wild fauna and flora is conducted legally and sustainably”, he said. Many of the 42 proposals on the table reflect growing international concern about the accelerating destruction of the world’s marine and forest ecosystems through overfishing and excessive logging, and the potential impacts of climate change on the biological resources of the planet. The UN General Assembly has declared 2010 the international year of biodiversity and the CITES Conference will be one of the key occasions governments have this year to take action to protect biodiversity. Member States will decide by consensus or a two-thirds majority vote for measures to conserve and manage species on the agenda. “2010 is a key year for biological diversity. By ensuring that the international trade in wildlife is properly regulated, CITES can assist in conserving the planet’s wild fauna and flora from overexploitation and thus contribute to the improved management of these key natural assets for sustainable development”, said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, which administers the CITES Secretariat. Other issues on the agenda include the adoption of urgent measures to tackle illegal trade of tiger products, rhinos and other species that are on the brink of extinction. It will also address the potential impacts of CITES measures on the livelihoods of the rural poor, those on the frontlines of using and managing wildlife. For more information on CITES, see www.cites.org. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 16th, 2010 This website participates in Inter-religious dialogue as a way to mutual understanding by religions that agree beforehand to live in peace with one-another. This includes Imams in the US and wherever else – that are ready to enter this larger tent. The following new leaders in Islam are welcome to the above tent – but as a new breed – not as apologists for the “is” – the problem is not the “Misperception” but the hurt from the effect of on-going actions. The a-priory perception is that Muslims that come to live in the west have done so in order to avoid oppression in their lands of origin – this like all those that moved to the West before them and came from other religious backgrounds. Some came because they were oppressed, others because they did not agree with the oppression – both groups created new harmonies here – that is the melting pot that has to be understood and cherished. We wish all the best to those interviewed in the following article, and those that go to meetings like the one in Doha, Qatar, mentioned in the article. We hope they change the leadership of Islam, the relationship to their women, the material learned in the madrassas, the perception of the infidel, etc. That does not mean a castration of their culture, but the bringing out to the forefront of the postive in their culture that we can easily admire also. The venom is what has to be removed internally before an attempt to claim misperception. Westerners are ready to accept the idea that the venom is not the juice of the pure religion it claims to be the guardian thereoff. ————- NEW YORK, Feb 15 (IPS) – Islamophobia is rising in the West, and sectarian clashes have undermined unity in the Muslim world, but there is hope from “within”, says a group of young Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow (MLTs) working to address these problems. “There is a lot of misinformation out there about our face, and there are many obstacles to getting the right information out,” Asim Rehman, a member of MLT in the United States, told IPS. Rehman is also president of the Muslim Bar Association of New York, a professional grouping of Muslim lawyers, law students, and legal professionals. “When you see a 10-second clip of an angry young Muslim but there is no context to it, it disheartens and saddens me that this particular part of the faith has been given priority,” added member Rusha Majeed. Majeed, also based in New York City, is dedicated to bridging the gap between the wider public and the Muslim community through dialogue, culture, arts, academia and current affairs. Muslims are currently living in a pivotal period of enormous challenge and transformation, they said, and Muslims seeking positive Islamic solutions must directly tackle this situation. The MLT programme brings together diverse young Muslims from around the world who are committed to fostering healthy Muslim identities, and working as agents of change in their communities. In only six years, the network has expanded from 25 countries in Western Europe to about 75 countries all over the world, ranging from Somalia to Iraq to Kosovo, and coming from diverse schools of thought and myriad ethnic, cultural, socio-economic and professional backgrounds. Rehman says the group’s biggest challenge in the U.S. is undoing the negative perception of Islam. The diverse Muslim community here is an asset in this effort, he said, since “Americans see greater potential for intra- and inter-religious harmony in the U.S. than we do in other countries, because of the melting pot model.” MLT’s focus for the Muslim community in the U.S. is on interfaith work, building coalitions with different religious communities, and a balanced portrayal of Islam in the media, which is “crucial and critical and a big challenge to keep the conversation going”, according to Majeed. At the MLT convention in Doha, Qatar, last January, the MLT global network was launched to tackle thorny issues such as violent extremism, competing values, and strained relations with the West. One of the outcomes was that 86 percent of participants said Muslims face a crisis in religious authority. “There are competing voices for that space and traditionally there is the Ulema – the educated class of Muslim legal scholars – where people go to,” Majeed explained. However, many young Muslims don’t know who to turn to if they have questions about Islam, she said, and there is confusion about who is the “right” authority to consult – ranging from the local imam to the popular search engine Google. “I truly feel that if non-Muslims just knew a little bit more about their Muslim neighbours, and if Muslims themselves were to be a little more open to embrace both non-Muslims and the diversity within Islam, we’d all be in a much better place,” Rehman said. There are a lot of unqualified Muslim imams in the world, and others blindly follow them, he added. The MLT programme is the largest of its kind, with 300 young civic-minded Muslim leaders from diverse backgrounds stepping up around the globe as spokespersons, journalists, religious leaders, activists for peace and tolerance, leaders of NGOs, writers and academics. One Dutch MLT works to affect change by playing music. An Italian MLT and a local imam are working to promote interfaith harmony. And an MLT from Pakistan is involved in reform of the madrasah, the schools of Islamic theology and religious law. Although the MLT programme does not have an explicit focus on women, the number of female MLTs is remarkable, since many interpretations of Islam oppose women taking leadership roles. “We aim to keep the group diverse and representative, which includes encouraging women to participate,” said Majeed. Majeed joined the network two years ago, and says it has provided her with the opportunity to meet a fascinating group of people. “The MLT programme has done an amazing job in connecting young Muslim leaders around the world,” agreed Rehman. “These are people I can reach out to in participation. It is very inspiring to see people doing the work that they are doing.” “The MLT network helps building a tremendous confidence for people in their own work. You need a level of pride in order to really make a change for communities,” he concluded. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 21st, 2009 The title may look strange, and indeed nobody put the three meetings I attended Friday, November 20, 2009, in direct contact with each other – but then my imagination was busy telling me – what if those people would indeed sit in the same room and plan together for a better functioning world? First – the Solar Tower Technology: An experimental smaller tower I saw years ago in Israel, but in the 1980s a German firm built a 50 kw prototype tower in Spain and operated it for 8 years collecting data. That tower was 650 feet tall and 33 feet wide, and the collector was about 1000 feet wide. The technology combines wind and solar technologies to produce electricity without emissions, without using up water, and at a price competitive with fossil fuels. The Solar Tower uses solar insolation and radiation to heat air beneath a large translucent collector (greenhouse) that creates a constant flow of air to drive electricity-generating turbines. The turbines are located at the base of the tower in a shape like an orange cut in a half. There is an updraft of air in the tower. There is also a capability to store heat so the system works also at night and electricity is delivered 24/7. A 200MV Tower is planned for the Mohave desert in Arizona. The tower will reach 2400 feet height and the inside temperature will be 180 degrees. The location was picked so that it will supply electricity to a market in California. The information was presented by Mr. Christopher Davey, President, EnviroMission (USA), Inc. and hosted by Mark Townsend Cox, Managing Partner of New Energy Fund www.newenergyfundlp.com with further backing from Raymond James & Associates, Inc., members of the New York Stock Exchange. Second – the financial meeting was billed as The Middle East Leaders Forum 2009 and was hosted by DLA Piper a law firm with pan-Gulf presence www.dlapiper.com I www.MiddleEastLeadersForum.com was organized with the help of Edgar Perez, CEO of Golden Networking who chaired the event. www.goldennetworking.com DLA has 3,500 lawyers in 29 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Egypt, the US, South Asia, and Asia in general. The panels dealt with - The speakers ranged from the Thompson Reuters Head of Islamic Finance to various International Investment Groups – management and strategy heads. What I came away with is the clear understanding that there is a lot of private money out there – even if much of it is held by individuals in the name of Sovereign entities. This money will not want to buy US treasuries. Places like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar – the smaller members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – have turned into Financial Centers and one of the speakers called the GCC the biggest bank in the world. Sure, there was a lot of talk of outside investments potential in the GCC States, also about income from oil, but now the ruling families are rather interested in being seen as investors and manager of finances then oil producers. So, here is my angle – why not invest in the technologies of the future – like the Solar Tower I mentioned above? There is also the angle of Islamic Finances that do not have as a target gains from interest – so why not turn this into investments instead? There is a lot of sun in the desert, but no water – so these towers could do a lot of good for the development of the GCC region itself. They could also invest in the production of electricity in Sahara and sell it in Europe. Cables will be the new energy pipelines. They could start by participating already in the first development of the technology in Arizona. This could also improve the image of states that seem to be pushing only for sales of oil – something they can start being less dependent on because of their new standing as financial centers. The technology could also be related to desalination projects … Third – the Friendship Ambassadors Foundation that since 1973 facilitates cultural exchange programs that promote mutual understanding and peace. The foundation brings volunteers and NGOs for meaningful exchanges that also focus on sustainable development. These are the people that could through example facilitate thinking that there is a common good in helping bring about change when change is needed – and today doing something about decreasing a potential runaway of climate change is the order of the day. Patrick Sciarratta, is the Executive Director of the Ambassadors – they could try to promote a common ground between those that have the money they could use to work out needed answers to the stalled Copenhagen process, and the technology people that have the know-how. www.FAF.org One not so trivia I learned about the Friendship Ambassadors last evening was the fact that among the many young people they brought from the Developing world to the United States were Kofi Annan and Shashi Tharoor, when they were still young students – they later became among the most successful, low key, public servants in UN history. Kofi Annan as perhaps the only other Secretary General, besides Dag Hammarskjold, that left a positive imprint on the organization, and Shashi Tharoor, author of many books of thought, the highest intellectual Under-Secretary General in charge of Communications, who tried to be Annan’s successor, but was seemingly too much for the G.W. Bush Administration for that job. I mention this here as it seems that this youth-Ambassador NGO, that was funded originally from the Readers Digest fortune, has indeed had the penchant of picking right people – specially among the young – to promote global understanding for right causes. My conclusions for the day – there is hope if the right people will provide the links between the different elements that are in place already, rather then allow these elements to fester in their solitude and pursue a detrimental future unconnected. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 6th, 2009 Exclusive report by Robert Fisk for The Independent of London. In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading By Robert Fisk
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. China Threatens Dollar In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar. Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars. The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 29th, 2009 Musicians from Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Norway, and the United States, joined together to promote Middle East peace. Itamar Eichner in Yedioth Ahronoth, June 29, 2009. In a pastoral farm near Oslo, capital of Norway-far from the eyes of the media-a group of Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian musicians gathered this past week, and tried to make music together for the sake of peace. Behind this initiative stands a Norwegian peace activist. He invited musicians from the region for a joint 10-day workshop. Participants from Israel included Kobi Oz, Aya Korem, Ohad Hitman and Mika Sadeh. Three musicians came from the Palestinian Authority, and four arrived from Jordan. They were joined by Norwegian and American musicians. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 15th, 2009 Energy Risk USA, Houston – Next week!
From: Mustafah Abdullah Dear Pincas, If you can only attend one event this year and haven’t booked on Energy Risk USA, here’s what you are missing out on…… John Kilani, Director of the Sustainable Development Mechanisms (SDM) Programme at the UNFCCC brings with him a unique perspective combining his regulatory role and his extensive senior management experience in Qatar Petroleum. He will outline how different carbon policies will impact your business and shed new light on the regulation versus legislation debate.
An extended panel on the pitfalls of moral hazards and how you can decrease rogue activities at no cost. Our speakers from Labhart Risk Advisors, Entergy Services, and International Commerce tell you how you can instil a self-correcting risk culture. PLUS all your traditional risk issues addressed in a fully interactive and concise CRO roundtable led by the Committee of Chief Risk Officers: Credit risk Regulatory risk Operational risk Market risk For the event guide click here Energy Risk USA is the most anticipated event of year in the energy industry. Make this your most astute time out of the office. See you in Houston!
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 10th, 2009 For the first time, Christians in Qatar worship in church By Caryle Murphy – The Christian Science Monitor The move is seen as part of an effort to modernize the emirate and demonstrate traditional Islam’s tolerance. DOHA, Qatar – When the Rev. Tomasito Veneracion arrived in this Muslim nation seven years ago, his Roman Catholic parishioners prayed in small groups scattered in apartments, schools, and one tiny makeshift chapel. At Easter, Indian Catholics gathered in one place, Filipinos in another, Arabs in yet another. But with last year’s opening of Our Lady of the Rosary Church, his congregants for the first time had a recognized, central place to worship. On Christmas Eve, 15,000 attended a midnight mass, with those who couldn’t cram into the 2,700-seat church watching on video screens outside. “When I first came here, the church was not recognized. But now we are enjoying this gift,” Father Veneracion says. “It’s a tremendous feeling of relief that we can breathe, worship, and pray in a place without fear and without disturbance.” The decision to permit church building is widely seen as part of an effort by Qatar’s leader, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, to modernize the tiny emirate, made wealthy by its natural-gas reserves, and demonstrate traditional Islam’s flexibility and tolerance. “It’s showing the world they are open to new ideas, and I guess it’s part of growing up as a nation,” said Veneracion. Our Lady of the Rosary will soon be joined by several churches under construction in what is informally known as “Church City,” a 99-acre site leased to Christian denominations by the Qatar government. Qatar’s Christians, estimated at 70,000 to 80,000, are almost entirely expatriate workers, principally from India and the Philippines. The move gave Qatar its first church since Islam took root here in the 7th century. It also brought Qatar into line with most of its Gulf neighbors, which have all had at least one church for decades. The one exception is Saudi Arabia, whose inflexible strain of Islam still bans worship of another faith. Diplomats in Riyadh say, however, that a more relaxed atmosphere has emerged in recent years. Private services in homes are disrupted far less often, and fewer Christians are arrested, diplomats report. Customs agents no longer confiscate Bibles and crucifixes from arriving foreigners. Though Qatar is not a pioneer in permitting an open Christian presence in the Gulf, it is bucking a massive ultraconservative drift in contemporary Islam around the world that rejects cooperation with other faiths. Al Qaeda spokesmen have berated Qatar for authorizing church construction. Qatar’s 200,000 citizens, who enjoyed the world’s highest per capita income as of 2007, adhere to the same Islamic legal tradition as Saudi Arabians. But they differ in practice, being far more relaxed about publicly enforcing a strict social and moral code. Most Qataris “are happy with what we’re doing because they are devout Muslims and they want their Christian employees to be able to pray,” said the Rev. Canon Bill Schwartz, Anglican rector of Doha’s Church of the Epiphany. Mr. Schwartz is overseeing construction of the Anglican church complex going up next door to the Catholic compound. Under an agreement with the government, the facility will also be used by several other Protestant and Evangelical denominations. Schwartz anticipates that it will serve 20,000 worshipers in any given week. The complex, likely to cost around $12 million and take years to complete, is being built in stages. Schwartz is hopeful the first phase can be ready for use by the end of 2009. “We’re asking for money from anybody who’ll give it to us,” he says. “It is very much a work of faith, including on the part of the contractor.” Besides the Anglican and Roman Catholic compounds, buildings are also under construction for Copts, Greek Orthodox, and Indian Protestants at the leased site about eight miles from downtown Doha. The government’s move to permit church building, which began to surface after it established diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 2002, was controversial among Qataris. A final decision was taken only after a 2003 referendum approving the country’s new Constitution, which guarantees freedom of worship. Also, Qatar-based Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has wide influence in the Middle East, ruled that Christians have a right to build a church in Muslim lands, just as Muslims are permitted to construct mosques in non-Muslim countries. Both Schwartz and Veneracion, who wear their clerical collars when visiting government offices, but not elsewhere, say that they have not encountered hostility. “The government asks us to be discreet,” says Schwartz, which is why none of the churches have exterior bells or crosses. Christian proselytizing is forbidden. Veneracion said that Qatar’s prime minister attended last March’s ribbon-cutting ceremony at his church, whose $15 million cost was financed mostly by Catholics living in the Gulf states. The next day’s consecration of the building was attended by six bishops, 40 priests, and congregants from 67 nations, who carried their flags in a parade. “We have 16 masses on Friday alone” with an average attendance of about 8,000, said Veneracion, who is Filipino and has a staff of five other priests. Masses are said in Konkani, English, Tagalog, Sinhala, Arabic, Malayalan, Urdu, Tamil, French, and Italian. During a recent visit to the church, a police car was stationed outside. It is there 24 hours a day, Veneracion says, to protect against any untoward incident. A group of young Lebanese Catholics socializing in the sun-filled plaza said they were thrilled to have a worship place of their own. “You know, the church is first a community before being a stone place,” said Maroun Nassar, an electrical engineer who runs the Arabic catechism classes. “But now, we can gather officially without offending the Qataris.” The next day, Indonesian Catholics gathered in one of the small church halls for a belated Christmas service. There were two decorated trees, and the choir, accompanied by an electric keyboard, sang “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” “You cannot imagine,” said engineer Adi Dwinanto when asked how he felt about the new church. “It’s just amazing, that here in this country we can do this freely…. All of us are happy, for sure.” ________________________________________________________________ ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 1st, 2009 Why did President Obama Chose to speak with an Arab TV in his first interview to a foreign media?
The answer is as he said himself: He has Moslem members of his family and he lived in Islamic countries. Beyond that he has a double job to perform – he has to communicate to the Islamic World that Americans are not their enemies, and to the Americans that there are valuable, honorable Muslims that just want to live their simple lives in peace.
He wants the Muslims to see in him someone really ready to listen, and do the right thing for simple people wherever. He will be speaking to Iran – if they are ready to unclench the fist, they will find that he is ready for conversation.
Nick Robertson – the International correspondent for CNN, says that people in the Middle East wanted to hear these words – so, it is a positive opening. Asked if the Saudis are receptive to the US opening discussions with Iran, Nick Robertson said that the Arab World wants to see that Iran does not go to an expansionist phase – so they would rather see a diplomatic opening.
President Obama spoke to Hisham Melhem of Al Arabiya, a media group that was established on March 3, 2003 in order to be a direct competitor of Qatar-based Al Jazeera. I remember how the Washington-based correspondent for Al Arabiya, came to the UN in New York to introduce this venture at the UN Correspondents’ Association Club, and the Arabs and Pakistanis were saying this is an American undercover organization. In effect, at the time the head of UNCA was a Pakistani.
According to a 2008 New York Times profile of Al Arabiya director Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, the station was founded “to cure Arab television of its penchant for radical politics and violence,” with Al Jazeera as its main target. Mr. Rashed alleged that Arab television’s coverage of militant groups was overly friendly. “You have to remember, it was television that made bin Laden into a celebrity,” Rashed said. “That made Al Qaeda, and its recruiting, and this is how violence spread throughout the region.”
The international news station, Al Arabiya, is based in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates, and is partly owned by the Saudi-controlled broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC). Actually, the original investment in Al Arabiya was $300 million by MBC, with Lebanon’s Hariri Group, and other investors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, so, in reality this is as well a Lebanese company – with connection to other Hariri investments in media and air traffic. The Middle East in the name of the company standing indeed for Lebanon. Al Arabiya broadcasts 24 hours a day with news updated at the top of the hour. The free-to-air channel carries news, current affairs, business and financial markets, sports, talk shows, and documentaries. It is consistently rated among the top pan-Arab stations by Middle East audiences. Mr. Rashed said Al Arabiya works to describe incidents of Islamist violence with neutral, non-supportive language. He also said the station had pushed Al Jazeera to be more critical of the insurgency in Iraq. “Now Al Jazeera is a very soft, reasonable station when it comes to the Iraqis,” he said. He said Al Arabiya has, in turn, drawn accusations of pro-American or pro-Saudi bias, in part due to MBC’s Saudi ownership.
On January 26, 2009 President of the United States Barack Obama gave his first formal interview as president to the television channel to Hisham Melhem, the Washington based head of Al Arabiya.
Hisham Melhem has appeared many times on US TV channels, including the Charlie Rose program where he appeared with American and Israeli officials – http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/1506
Today, February 1, 2009, Mr. Hisham Melhem was already a member of the Mclaughlin Gang. We assume that he will now be recognized as the best conduit to the President’s approach to the Middle East. We understood that he is also writing for a print media in Lebanon. On Mclaughlin he did not participate only on Middle East issues, but he got involved in questions of how to move forward the US economy. He clearly believes in capitalism, and said capitalism is strong in Lebanon, and made all the right comments – that even Bush understood at the end that government must intervene.
While the perennial right end of the panel – Monica Crawley took the old Cheney positions on everything, calling Obama a “classical liberal big-government Democrat” Melhem actually saw things much like we see them. Melhem came through much more to the center.
Furthermore, he predicted that the promised trip of Obama to a Muslim capital within the first 100 days of his presidency, will be to Indonesia. This makes sense – it will be seen sort of a second home-coming – like the one to Kenya. This while previous media reports were suggesting that the trip will be to the conventional address – to Morocco.
From the internet we got the following:
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
United States President Barack Obama chose to give his first interview as president to the Arabic satellite news channel Al Arabiya, with veteran journalist Hisham Melhem succeeding in getting the interview of the century. Like thousands of other journalists, Melhem … More
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
In his first interview since taking office, President Barack Obama told Arab satellite station Al Arabiya that Americans are not the enemy of the Muslim world and said Israel and the Palestinians should resume peace negotiations. “My job to the Muslim world is to … More
And as per http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/01/29/65264.html Thursday, January 29, 2009
First interview choice met with excitement, enthusiasm
Obama reaches Arabs, Muslims via Al Arabiya, DUBAI (Courtney C. Radsch)
When American President Barack Obama decided to give the first interview of his presidency to an Arab station, Al Arabiya, he knew that his choice of venues would become a story in and of itself and send a message to Americans and the Arab world about the direction his administration would take. In his inaugural address Obama reiterated his desire to engage with the Muslim world and pursue a different approach to foreign policy than his predecessor, and as several analysts and commentators have noted, the best way to do this was to speak directly to his target audience through their media.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 28th, 2009 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2009 MIDEAST: A Tale of Two Summits. Analysis by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani for IPS. CAIRO, Jan 27, 2009 – Despite declarations of Arab unity at a recent economic summit, Egyptian commentators say that fundamental differences between rival Arab camps – especially over the issue of Palestine – are far from over. “The deep divisions currently plaguing the Arab world cannot be solved over the course of an official state luncheon,” Mohamed Abu Al-Hadid, political analyst and chairman of the board of the state-owned Dar Al-Tahrir publishing house wrote in official daily Al-Gomhouriya Thursday (Jan. 22). Regional heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia, however, declined to attend. Instead, they announced their intention to discuss the crisis at a scheduled Arab economic summit in Kuwait three days later. The move highlighted the longstanding divide among AL members, which pits Washington’s “moderate” Arab allies – including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan – against those opposed to U.S. policy in the region.
Abbas recognises Israel and insists on holding U.S.-sponsored negotiations with Israeli counterparts, despite the abject failure of talks to realise even modest Palestinian demands. By contrast, Hamas – democratically elected in 2006 – rejects Israel’s legitimacy, cleaving instead to a strategy of armed resistance. Israel’s 2006 war on southern Lebanon fostered similar divisions, with Washington’s Arab allies supporting the U.S.-backed Beirut government against Lebanese resistance faction Hizbullah. Israel’s recent war on the Gaza Strip – which lasted from Dec. 27 to Jan. 17 and resulted in more than 1,300 Palestinian deaths – aggravated the longstanding rift. According to Nabil Abdel Fattah, assistant director at the semi-official Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, the decision by Egypt and Saudi Arabia to avoid Doha reflected “conflicts over how to deal with the crisis” then playing out in Gaza. “Qatar wanted to take a very tough stand against Israel,” Abdel Fattah told IPS. “The moderate states, meanwhile, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, wanted to adopt a more nuanced approach in hope of persuading Israel to halt hostilities.” In the absence of leading “moderate” representatives, the Doha meeting took a relatively strong stand against the Israeli aggression in Gaza, with both Qatar and Mauritania announcing the suspension of official relations with Israel. In a joint declaration, participants urged Arab countries to cut all ties and break off all peace talks with Israel, which they charged with committing war crimes. The statement also demanded that Israel “cease its assault on Gaza and leave unconditionally,” and called for the immediate reopening of the embattled enclave’s borders. Speaking at the meeting, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad described the 2002 Arab peace initiative – which offers full Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for key Palestinian demands – as “dead”. He went on to say that Syria had called off indirect talks with Israel, launched last year through Turkish mediators.
“Qatar has tried to take a leading role in the region, and Egypt and Saudi Arabia see this as an infringement on their own diplomatic roles,” he said. “Egypt also fears that Qatar might be acting as a mask for Iranian and Syrian influence.” On the summit’s first day, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz hosted a formal luncheon for the leaders of Kuwait, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Qatar. At the conclusion of the closed-door event, attendees announced they had turned a “new page” of Arab reconciliation, declaring an end of traditional rivalries, particularly those between Egypt and Qatar and between Syria and Saudi Arabia. “We turned a new page for the good of the Arab world,” Qatari PM Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem told satellite news channel Al-Jazeera shortly afterwards. The following day, Arab leaders announced the establishment of a sizable financial trust for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, along with a number of other joint economic projects. In a final statement, longstanding political differences between participants were downplayed or avoided. Most local commentators, meanwhile, doubted the sincerity of the abrupt expressions of unity heard at the conference. “These declarations don’t amount to real reconciliation,” said Abdel Fattah. “The same old divisions remain – over Israel, the role of the Palestinian resistance and the role of non-Arab neighbours in the region.” According to Abdelhalim Kandil, editor-in-chief of independent weekly Sout Al-Umma, the issue of Arab division is largely illusory, “since both camps appear to be on the U.S.-Israeli doorstep, albeit to differing degrees.” “All these regimes are fully aware that there is no difference between Israel and the U.S.,” Kandil wrote Jan. 19. “Yet despite the massacres taking place in Gaza, none of them ever considered cutting relations with Washington or expelling the U.S. military presence from their respective countries.” He added: “This, of course, is because the U.S. is in the region expressly to protect these regimes.” ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 19th, 2008
By BARBARA SURK, AP DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Nov. 18) – The owner of a Saudi oil supertanker hijacked by Somali pirates over the weekend said the company is working to win the release of the crew and vessel, which is carrying about $100 million in cargo. Dubai-based Vela International Marine Ltd., a subsidiary of Saudi oil company Aramco, said in a statement Monday that company response teams have been created. The MV Sirius Star is the largest ship ever taken by Somali pirates, according to the U.S. Navy. Dangerous Waters ? …. and How Many Boing 747 Can Feed This Ship? Then How Many Fish Can Kill This Ship?
The statement gave no further details. Employees who answered the phone said no one was immediately available to comment and that Vela executives were meeting to discuss the situation. They declined to give their names. The statement posted on Vela’s Web site late Monday said the ship was hijacked Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained. A coalition of warships from eight nations and from NATO and the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is patrolling a critical zone in the Gulf of Aden leading to and from the Suez Canal. The gulf is where most of the more than 80 attacks this year have taken place. The Saudi tanker, however, was seized far to the south of the patrolled zone, about 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, according to the U.S. Navy. Maritime security experts said they have tracked a southward spread in piracy over the last several weeks into a vast area of the Indian Ocean, noting with alarm that the area would be almost impossible to patrol. “I don’t anticipate any U.S. ships on station,” said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet, speaking from its headquarters in Bahrain. He would not elaborate on how the Navy was watching the hijacked tanker. “Of course, as long as there is no firm deterrent, pirates will continue to attack. The risk is low and returns are extremely high. You will see more and more of such attacks,” he told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Saudi tanker was just a few miles from shore Tuesday morning, said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman. “I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship as big as this one,” he said. “There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship, which they can see with their naked eyes.” Including the Sirius Star, Vela owns and operates a fleet of 19 vessels classed as Very Large Crude Oil Carriers and five product tankers of various sizes. It transports supplies primarily between the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to the company’s Web site. The Sirius Star was sailing under a Liberian flag and its crew includes citizens of Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia. A British Foreign Office spokesman said there were at least two British nationals on board. ————– The UN sensation of the day as per Title of UN Wire: From: un.wire at smartbrief.com
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 21st, 2008 Uri Avnery THE POLLS were wrong, as usual. And in a big way. As usual. Instead of winning by a huge margin, as predicted until the very last moment by all the polls, she just squeaked through. Of the 72 thousand or so registered Kadima members, only 39,331 troubled themselves to go to the polls, and among these she defeated Shaul Mofaz by just 431 votes. But a majority is a majority. Tzipi Livni was duly installed as Kadima chairperson. FIRST OF ALL: this is the victory of a person without a military background over someone with almost nothing apart from a military background. On the advice of his right-wing American political strategist, Stanley Greenberg, Mofaz emphasized the word “security” on every occasion, almost in every sentence. A popular talk-show turned this into a parody: Security, security, security, security. Well, it did not work. T-h-e general, the chief of Staff, the Defense Minister, was beaten by a mere woman devoid of any military experience (even if she did serve for 15 years in the Mossad.) That does not mean that Tzipi Livni may not turn out to be a warmonger, like Elisabeth I, Catherine the Great, Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi. But fact is fact: the Kadima voters have preferred a non-general to a general. MOREOVER, KADIMA is a party of the center. The very center of the center. Its members are not fervent about anything, neither on the right or the left, they have no strong convictions of any kind. So their decision can be regarded as a reflection of the general mood. Mofaz presented himself not only as Mr. Security, but also as a genuine right-winger, a man who opposes both peace with Syria and peace with the Palestinians, a leader prepared to set up a coalition with the Right, even with the extreme Right. He was the declared exponent of open-ended-war. Tzipi Livni presented herself as the personification of the peace effort, the woman who conducts the negotiations with the Palestinians, who prefers diplomacy to war, who points the way to the end of the conflict. All this may be sleight of hand, pure deceit. Perhaps there is no difference at all between the two. But even if this is so, that is not the most important aspect. The important fact is that the Kadima voters, the most representative group in the country, accorded victory – well, a tiny victory – to the candidate who at least pretended to favor peace. In his “The Second Coming”, the Irish poet W. B. Yeats describes utter chaos: “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold”. The metaphor is taken from military history: in bygone days, armies drew up for battle with the main force in the center, and lighter forces defending the two flanks. As long as the center held, everything was fine. In Israel today, the center is holding. The centrist party voted for the woman of the center. *** I REMEMBER the elections nine years ago. In May 1999, Ehud Barak won a decisive victory over the incumbent, Binyamin Netanyahu: 56.08% against 43.92%, a difference of 388,546 votes. The public was just fed up with Netanyahu. The response was overwhelming. The general feeling in the peace camp was of a release from servitude to freedom, from an era of failure and corruption into an era of peace and well-being. Without any proclamations, without anybody planning it, masses of people streamed into Tel-Aviv’s Rabin Square, the place where a Prime Minister had been assassinated four years earlier. I was among them. In the square, the atmosphere was intoxicating. Delirious people danced, embraced each other, kissed. Tel Aviv had not seen anything like it since November 1947, when the United Nations General Assembly decided to establish a Jewish (and an Arab) state. I experienced a similar scene in April 1948, when I was part of the force that brought a huge relief convoy into beleaguered and starving West Jerusalem. A similar atmosphere was captured by film of Charles de Gaulle entering liberated Paris. Barak promised to be a second Rabin, only more so. He promised to make peace with the Palestinians within months. A rosy future was warming the horizon, “the dawn of a new day”. A year and a half later, nothing of all this remained. Ehud Barak, the hero of peace, brought on us the greatest disaster in the annals of the struggle for peace. He came back from the Camp David conference, which had taken place on his express demand, with a declaration that was to become a mantra: “I have turned every stone on the way to peace / I have offered the Palestinians unprecedented generous terms / Arafat has rejected everything / We have no partner for peace.” With 20 Hebrew words Barak destroyed the peace camp and brought about a public mood which even Netanyahu could not create: that there is no chance for peace, that we are condemned to live with an everlasting conflict. Therefore, no one got excited about Tzipi Livni’s victory. The masses did not stream into the square, did not dance and did not embrace – and not only because this was just a party-internal election. The general reaction was a sigh of relief and a shrug of the shoulder. So Kadima has voted. So it has a new chairperson. So there will be a new Prime Minister. Let’s wait and see. *** There are already jokes circulating about “Tzipi and the Tzipiot” (a Hebrew word-play, “tzipiot” meaning expectations), a new rock-band which is about to take to the road. Nobody really knows what kind of a Prime Minister she will be. Strong or weak. Determined or open to pressures. Tough or compromising. Warmonger or peace-seeker. One can only point at her background, as I hinted last week, and perhaps go into some detail. On the eve of the elections, in one of those vapid questionnaires the media are so fond of, she was asked who was her hero. Her answer: Jabotinsky. That was the most predictable answer there could be. Tzipi Livni grew up in a Revisionist household. She is a Revisionist, model 2008. What does that mean? Her father, Eitan, who was born in Grodno (a town that has belonged variously to Lithuania, Poland, Russia and now Belarus), came to this country at the age of 6 and joined the Irgun underground in 1938 (the same year as I did), when he was 19 years old. He lived all his life under the influence of Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky and his teachings. Eitan Livni, as I knew him, was not a brilliant or exceptional person, but rather solid, loyal, as his name suggests. (In Hebrew, “eitan” means strong, steadfast). A person one could rely on. He served in the Irgun as an operational officer, and among other operations he took part in the daring break-out from Acre prison, where he was being held. As a Knesset member for the Herut Party, the predecessor of today’s Likud, he was rather inconspicuous and supported Menachem Begin through thick and thin. In order to understand Tzipi, one has to go back to Jabotinsky. His many enemies have often called him a Fascist, but that is inaccurate. He was born in the 19th century, and was a nationalist in the 19th century mold. Born in Odessa, he lived for some years as a young man in Italy, and his heroes were the leaders of contemporary Italian nationalism: the ideologue Giuseppe Mazzini and the fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi. Jabotinsky wanted, of course, all of Palestine to become a Jewish state. When he founded his party in the 1920s, he named it according to this vision: the demand was for a “revision” of the British decision to separate the land west of the Jordan river from the land east of the river, today’s Kingdom of Jordan, then called Transjordan. In her youth, Tzipi sang Jabotinsky’s most famous song: “Two banks has the Jordan – this one belongs to us and that one, too.” But Jabotinsky was also a real liberal, and a real democrat. He entered the political arena for the first time when he formulated the “Helsingfors (Helsinki) Plan”, which demanded human and national rights for the Jews and the other minorities in Czarist Russia. A PERSON educated according to these values is faced today with a tough dilemma. ***
*** It seems that Tzipi, like her hero Jabotinsky, adheres to the national view. Hence her emphasis on “two nation-states for two peoples”. She speaks about a Jewish nation-state and is ready to sacrifice Greater Israel on this altar. That may not be an ideal basis for peace (what would be the status of Israel’s Arab citizens in this Jewish nation-state?) but it is realistic. If she has the power to implement her ideas, she can make peace. If. REACTING TO the election results, Gideon Levy wrote that the heart wants to hope, but the brain cannot. That is an understandable reaction. Since Tzipi, short for Tzipora, means bird, one wants to cry out: Fly, Tzipora, fly! Fly to heaven! After your election as Prime Minister, lose no time! Set up a government coalition with the peace forces, use the first few months of your term to achieve peace with the Palestinians, call new elections and submit yourself and the peace agreement to the public test! As Livni herself phrased it in her direct way: “There is no time for bullshitting!” That is what Ehud Barak should have done in 2000. He did not take the chance, and therefore he lost. Will Tzipora the bird reach these heights? The heart hopes. The brain has its doubts. ————- Collected articles http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/chan… permlink: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/chan… ————- ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 8th, 2008 Middle East peace talks =Palestinians lose faith in two-state solution: A group of prominent Palestinian figures has proposed a radical change in strategy to demand a single, bi-national state if the current round of Middle East peace talks fails. The Palestinian Strategy Study Group, an EU-funded project written by 27 leading Palestinian figures from across the political spectrum, argued that the current two-state framework for peace talks is failing to bring the promised independent state. Instead, it suggested ending the negotiation process that has gone on now for nearly 20 years, reconstituting the Palestinian Authority into what might become a “Palestinian Resistance Authority”, and developing a form of “smart” resistance. “The central aim will be to maximise the cost of continuing occupation for Israel, and to make the whole prospect of unilateral separation unworkable,” it said. The final, and most striking proposal, is to shift to a “single state outcome” as the Palestinians’ preferred goal. This, it said, would regain the strategic initiative for the Palestinians. “Although many Palestinians may still prefer a genuine negotiated two-state solution, a failure of the present Annapolis initiative will greatly strengthen those who argue against this,” the report said. “Most Palestinians are then likely to be convinced that a negotiated agreement is no longer possible.” ———– The greatest disquiet is on the Palestinian side, where even moderates are now beginning to sense the two-state formula is moving out of reach. “I feel that a two-state solution is losing currency amongst both our peoples and with the world community beyond,” said Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister and former World Bank and IMF economist, in a speech he wrote for a meeting of former Israeli diplomats yesterday and which was delivered by Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister. Malki himself admitted that, despite 10 months of talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, which began in Annapolis, in the United States, not a single word of agreement had been put on paper. The Annapolis process, the first such peace talks in seven years, were supposed to produce a peace agreement by the end of this year – a goal that has proved wildly unrealistic. *** However, it noted that the chief risk of calling for a single, bi-national state was that nothing would change and the status quo would simply worsen given how deeply unpopular the idea is among Israelis. “With so little support from the more powerful neighbour, it seems unlikely that the Palestinian call for unity will bring many positive results in the near term,” it said. Instead, it concluded: “We feel that a tightly coordinated non-violent campaign toward statehood is the best option.”
Hamas has long argued against negotiations with Israel. “We don’t see any fruits from the political negotiations,” Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas advisor said in a recent interview in Gaza. “So we have to make an evaluation for the whole Palestinian national project. Since Madrid in 1991 until now it’s been 17 years but we’ve seen nothing on the ground. How can I convince people that we are going in the right direction?” On the Israeli side, opinion is more mixed. In general the two-state solution is still broadly regarded as a reasonable goal, although there are many on the rightwing who say Israel should not give up the land it captured in 1967 or who say Israelis have a Biblical right to settle in the West Bank that cannot be negotiated away. *** Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister who is likely to replace him as head of the ruling Kadima party, also argues in favour of negotiations and has been deeply involved in the latest talks, although she has said she would resist pressure to hurry the negotiations. Ehud Barak, the defence minister, suggested yesterday that some of the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem might become the future capital of a Palestinian state, an idea which has not always been palatable to Israelis. *** Yet there are others beginning to voice different ideas. In a newspaper column in the Yedioth Ahronoth this week, Giora Eiland, a former head of the National Security Council and former national security adviser under Ariel Sharon, said the gap between Israel and the Palestinians was “enormous” and growing. “The maximum that the Israeli government [any government] will be able to offer the Palestinians [and survive politically] falls short of the minimum that the Palestinian government [any government] can agree to accept [and survive politically],” he wrote. Eiland argued that a final status peace deal “will not be achievable in the foreseeable future” and that new ideas should be considered. He suggested returning control of the West Bank to Jordan, who controlled it before the 1967 war. —————– At www.SustainabiliTank.info, we go even further – we are advocating a Three State Solution. That is sort of a Hamasstan in the Gaza Strip – to be started under the supervision of Egypt, and a Palestine-West-Bank State that will start out with organized help led by Jordan. The aim of the two “supervising states” will have o be well defined in advance – not as annexation – but as a management for obtaining future total independence. If in the end this leads to some sort of confederation that involves also Israel, so much the better. But without first preparing the ground for some sort of clearly defined Palestinian economies (and I mean two of them in parallel) there is no future for any sort of solution. A united -one-Palestinian entity is not in the cards, so a two State solution is also very difficult. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 7th, 2008 From: liasieghart at hotmail.com
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 2nd, 2008 Gulf ruler buys top club – then reveals his plan to spend, spend, spend… The tiny Gulf state of Abu Dhabi launched an audacious raid on one of Britain’s top football clubs yesterday in a move that will transform the shape of global football. The £210m takeover of Manchester City threatens to dethrone their closest rivals Manchester United and establish City as the biggest team in the world. The club announced that it had signed a memo of understanding with the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), a holding company set up by Middle East investors, backed by the country’s royal family. The new regime’s first move was an attempt to gazump United’s £30m signing of Tottenham Hotspur’s star striker Dimitar Berbatov with an offer of £34m. And they quickly followed that by lodging bids for Spain’s highly rated forward David Villa and Stuttgart’s Mario Gomez. ADUG will spend the nextfew weeks examining the club’s books before taking control, and will become the first Middle East investor to be in control of a Premier League team. The Arab group is fronted by Sulaiman Al Fahim, a multi-billionaire nicknamed the “Donald Trump of Abu Dhabi,” who has pledged to invest enough to break up the “Big Four” of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal by next year. It could herald a whole new era for transfer fees, as the investors’ plans could dwarf even Roman Abramovich’s outlay at Chelsea, estimated at more than £500m. A Dubai group failed in an attempt to buy Liverpool two years ago. Dubai International Capital (DIC), held talks about a £450m takeover but lost to two US investors. It remains interested and, given the turmoil in Liverpool’s boardroom, there is a serious chance they could yet buy into the Merseyside club. Middle Eastern influence in football has grown recently, with Manchester United travelling to Saudi Arabia last year and announcing a £10m marketing deal with Saudi Telecom. Emirates, one of the largest airlines in the regions, has invested heavily in the Premier League, sponsoring Chelsea before switching allegiance to Arsenal, whose new stadium carries the Dubai-based carrier’s name. It is the latest demonstration of the region’s financial muscle. Investors from across the region, particularly state-owned sovereign wealth funds, have grown in strength off the back of the soaring oil prices, which hit record levels just shy of $150 a barrel this summer. It comes at a time when the credit crunch has wreaked havoc across Western economies causing many to look for outside investment. Mr Al Fahim spoke of plans to support the Manchester City manager, Mark Hughes, “by bringing in the best football players in the world” and had fans dreaming of stars including Thierry Henry, David Villa and Ronaldo lining up at Eastlands. The world record transfer fee of £46m which took Zinedine Zidane to Real Madrid in 2001, now looks under severe threat. After the Premiership, the next step will be Europe, Mr Sulaiman said. Yet City fans will be most interested in overhauling United, their bitter rivals, who have claimed the bragging rights in Manchester for the past 30 years. Manchester United claim the most supporters worldwide and, according to accountancy group Deloitte, are second only to Real Madrid in terms of generating cash. This year was the first time that three clubs from one country made the top five of the revenue league table – the other two being Chelsea and Arsenal. Manchester City didn’t even make the top 20. The Arab investors have targeted businesses that would have been off limits five years ago. Sovereign wealth funds have invested hugely in the largest financial institutions in the world, taking significant stakes in banks including Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and UBS. In the UK, Qatar has spent about £1.8bn in becoming the largest investor in Barclays, while Dubai invested £880m in taking a stake in the London Stock Exchange, according to data from Thomson Reuters. No brand is off limits, it seems. Although Qatar failed in a £10bn bid for Sainsbury’s last year, the market hasn’t ruled out a second attempt, and a Middle East-backed group bought the luxury car group Aston Martin for almost £500m last year. Arab investors have also built holdings in the property companies Minerva and British Land during the past few months. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 29th, 2008 WTO Talks Collapse: Was There Ever a Future for Bananas? This latest round of trade talks was launched in the Qatar capital in November 2001, but has long been stalemated over issues of farm subsidies called for by the U.S., Japan and the EU, as well as tariffs on industrial goods imposed by the developing economies of Latin America and Asia. Proposed changes included EU and U.S. farm subsidy reductions of up to 80 percent. The compromise was that developing countries would open their markets to imports of manufactured goods, removing so-called “import shields.” In the deal last weekend, Latin American banana producers and EU officials appeared to begin the process of putting to rest a quarter-century banana “war.” Many Latin American banana exporters had contended for years that the EU routinely gave preferential treatment to their former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP), and had kept import tariffs artificially high on the fruit that originates on mainland Latin America. The complaint was originally filed by the U.S. because three of the largest banana producers in Latin America are U.S. multinational corporations. COHA repeatedly has argued in the past that U.S. banana companies, and not Latin American economies, are likely to benefit from the removal of the tariffs (see “Banana Wars Continue – Chiquita Once Again Tries to Work Its Omnipotent Will, Now Under New Management: Likely Big Losers Will Be CARICOM’s Windward Islands”). In addition to this contention, many view the present Doha round as an inappropriate forum for banana talk to occur in the first place, as any new arrangement could anger some of the ACP nations and thus would endanger the future of the round. Nonetheless, it is important for the banana conflict to be resolved so that Latin America, as well as U.S. corporations and English-speaking Caribbean exporters (who in most cases depend upon such exports for their economic survival), can see the benefits from the sale of their largest cash crop. Throughout the negotiations, it can be said that the U.S. was less than sensitive to the importance of a favorable outcome to such islands as Dominica, Grenada, and St. Lucia- a matter of sheer survival.
It now should be clearer than ever as to why WTO talks have been at a stand still for so many years. It is not an enigma why it has been so difficult to achieve consensus with a myriad of players in the field with a lot to gain, but even more to lose. Lucrative deals for some nations can be devastating to others: WTO negotiations certainly have not proven to be a win-win game. This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associates Revaz Ardesher and Jessica Wayne ———————- WTO Talks Collapse Amidst Developing Countries’ Reluctance to Sacrifice Food Security. Opinion from – The Center for Economic and Policy Research. {The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people’s lives. CEPR’s Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman, professor of economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, professor and director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. } Indian women farm laborers plant rice. India and other developing nations are reluctant to sacrifice food security measures during World Trade Organization negotiations. Last-minute attempt to push through a WTO expansion “deal” fails.
www.SustainabiliTank.info does not accept that this was just about bananas – we just posted the case of the airline industry that would have come under the services end of the World Trade Agreement. A WTO was supposed to balance global trade so that everyone has to get something out of this, but when those that have neither the money, nor the fuel, have to do something to benefit interests that are placed in position to hurt them even more – so better put up barriers to harming trade. For some this means close in your agriculture, but we just pointed at some that would be better off if they closed in their airtransport -this just as an example. So let us be blunt here – the US would be completely in its right now to put an extra “oil-cost-tax” on the National airlines of the oil-states. With an end to the running-around-Doha exercize there is no reason why the US should not do this to help its airlines. ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 29th, 2008 Today’s News are full with the woes of private airlines. “Fuel Prices hurt Ryanair and Shares Tumble 25%;” “Airport Lounges are the latest casualty of the current crisis in the airline industry;” “Delta will charge for the second suitcase;” but Emirates is introducing showers to its first class passengers. The point is that Emirates and other government owned oil-state airlines benefit from clear subsidy of their fuel costs thus undermining air-transport competition. DOHA happens to be in such a State and DOHA is the keyword for ongoing trade negotiations that include also services – and air transport is these days a main service. We know that when you are dependent on the power that has the cash, and also happens to have the fuel that your country is addicted to – you may not have the stomach for true negotiations. The DOHA round, supposedly is stuck on agriculture – but what about transport – be it air transport loke in the case of “Emirates” or maritime transport like in the case of Norway – will the negotiators on world trade step up now to an honest witness stand? That is the Question in our present posting. As Most Airlines Struggle, Middle East Carriers Are Expanding. HAMBURG — As carriers from American Airlines to Thai Airway International respond to high oil prices by shedding jobs, culling routes and grounding aircraft, Middle Eastern carriers are expanding as fast as they can in hopes of redefining their region as the aviation crossroads of the globe. Emirates, which in 2000 became the first customer to sign a firm commitment to buy A380s, has since increased its order more than eightfold to 58 planes. At Monday’s ceremonial delivery, Sheik Ahmed signed a letter of intent for an additional 60 Airbus jets with a total price tag of $13.3 billion: 30 wide-bodied A330 planes and 30 of the A350s that are still under development. The Middle East is pouring $54 billion into airport expansion over the next decade, according to the International Air Transport Association, and airlines in the region have ordered 700 planes at a cost of $140 billion over the last three years. “The size of our order mirrors the rising prominence of the Middle East and its increasing emergence as a new focal point of global aviation,” said James Hogan, the chief executive of Etihad, an airline based in the region that ordered 100 aircraft in July, including 10 Airbus A380s. The big Emirates order for the superjumbos — which would be able to compete with low-cost carriers if configured for 750 passengers in economy class — might sound like a recipe for overcapacity. But so far, airlines in the gulf have done well in matching demand, which grew 11 percent in the first five months of this year, with capacity that rose 11.1 percent, according to the transport association. Furthermore, the gulf airlines are mining fast-growing routes. Passenger traffic between the Middle East and Africa rose 19.8 percent in the five months to June this year, and 14 percent between the Middle East and Far East, though from a low base, the association said. That compares with average growth of 4.5 percent for all international routes. The Middle Eastern carriers are also running a tight ship. During the five months to May, the load factor, or percentage of available seats sold, on the region’s airlines was 74.6, according to association figures, in line with a “high” global average of 75.2. The level means that Middle Eastern airlines are flying as full as their rivals and suggests that they are not emptying their competitors’ planes. But over the longer run, aviation experts said, airlines like Emirates, which compete on price for the mass market and on service for business travelers, should make some inroads against competitors. The A380 that Sheik Ahmed received Monday represents a crucial element of a business strategy that makes the Middle Eastern airlines “a competitive threat to any European-based carrier,” according to Daniel Solon, an independent aviation consultant based in Barcelona. The technological advances of the A380 mean that it can fly more passengers farther and for less money than their competitors. In eight capitals on the Indian subcontinent, Emirates already offers travelers to the United States a chance to change planes in Dubai as an alternative to congested European airports. “The capability of airlines has changed the reach of the gulf region,” said Chris Tarry, an analyst at Ctaira, a British aviation consulting firm. “If you’ve got planes that can fly farther, you change the structure of the market.” ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 25th, 2008 From: Call for pact to combat terrorism.
MADRID • Islamic, Christian and Jewish leaders yesterday called for an international agreement to combat terrorism, at the end of a landmark Saudi-organised conference. The representatives of the world’s great monotheistic religions also appealed for a special session of the UN General Assembly to promote dialogue and prevent “a clash of civilizations.” “Terrorism is a universal phenomenon that requires unified international efforts to combat it in a serious, responsible and just way,” participants at the three-day World Conference on Dialogue said in a final communique. “This demands an international agreement on defining terrorism, addressing its root causes and achieving justice and stability in the world.” They called for more “ways of enhancing understanding and cooperation among people despite differences in their origins, colours and languages,” and a “rejection of extremism and terrorism.” Around 200 participants attended the gathering in Madrid, organised by the Makkah-based Muslim World League from an initiative by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia and aimed at bringing the world’s great monotheistic faiths closer together. Among the representatives were the secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, Michael Schneider, and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is in charge of the Vatican’s relations with Muslims. Tauran said Pope Benedict XVI had expressed “a great interest” in the conference. “His Holiness is convinced that dialogue based on love and truth is the best way to contribute to harmony, happiness and peace for the people of the earth,” he told the closing session. The cardinal said the conference had “stressed the main convictions that we have in common.” The secretary general of the Muslim World League, Abdullah bin Abdulmuhsin Al Turki, said more such conferences are planned, including possibly one in Japan. The event took place against a backdrop of tensions between the Islamic world and the West since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. They range from restrictions on the use of the veil by Muslim women in some European countries to cartoons regarded as blasphemous by Muslims and the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Organisers had billed the conference as a chance for the different religions to “get to know each other.” In that limited respect, observers said it had succeeded. It also demonstrated King Abdullah’s desire to restore the tarnished image of Islam in the West since 9/11. “I expect some important Jewish leaders will be taking back positive reports about the opportunity to engage with Muslims,” said Walter Ruby, in charge of Muslim-Jewish relations at the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. He noted some prior resistance to the event among conservative Jewish elements in the US, “who are suspicious about Muslims and feel this is a PR thing… But I think it was a bold and important step. It was King Adbullah’s ‘Perestroika’ moment,” he said. One leading Muslim participant reported a “very good feeling” during the three days of talks. “Nowadays, you have news about war everywhere, but there is no news about peace. At this conference, we sat down and had very good relations,” the secretary general of the Kuwait-based World Organisation of Pan-Islamic Jurisprudence, Al Seyed AbolGhasem Al Dibaji, said. ————————-
Rabbi aims to improve Muslim-Jewish ties Rabbi David Rosen, who has been invited to an interfaith conference in Madrid hosted by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah next week, said Thursday that he expects to make significant progress in Muslim-Jewish relations while there.
Rosen is the only Israeli rabbi to be invited to the conference, which will host 200 spiritual leaders from July 16-18, including representatives from Iran, Lebanon and Syria. Several American rabbis from varying streams have also been invited. Born in England, Rosen moved to Israel in 1967 and now serves as the president of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation, based in Jerusalem. While he acknowledges the controversy surrounding the conference, Rosen sees attendance as an opportunity to bridge cultural barriers and bring about political reconciliation. { what this article forgot to mention is that Rabbi Rosen has also a British Passport – so he was not invited as Israeli but as British. No Israelis were invited period! For even handedness perhapse, also no Palestinians were invited. } “This is just a first step in breaking stereotypes and increasing communication between the Jewish and Muslim worlds, even the Israeli and Arab worlds, and decreasing the violent abuse of religion,” Rosen told The Jerusalem Post. “I believe that we have everything to gain through encouraging this process and a great deal to lose if we turn our back on it.” Even so, Rosen feels that Saudi Arabia has an ulterior motive in sponsoring the conference and that limited benefits will come out it. “The primary motive is that the king of Saudi Arabia understands that the image of his land has a serious problem in the Western world and would like to demonstrate how it can be positively and constructively involved in confronting challenges,” he said. “Obviously, whatever the Saudis want to achieve, they feel that they have to do it step-by-step.” Rosen’s main qualm with the conference is that it includes neither an official Israeli representative nor a Palestinian delegate. While he is an Israeli citizen, Rosen is not listed as such by the conference. “One thing we’ll have to make clear is that the Jewish people sees Israel as central to its national identity,” he said. “Israel has been intensely discriminated against; so have the Palestinians. You cannot claim to have a full dialogue with the Jewish people if Israel is not officially represented.” The Spanish government, however, feels that the conference is an important first step in dialogue. “The Spanish government is part of the interfaith and intercultural movement,” said an official for the Spanish embassy. “Spain has its origins in the middle ages from the three monotheistic religions. That was a golden age for the coexistence of the three religions.” While Rosen believes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to these negotiations and plans to address it in private discussions at the conference, he does not plan to raise the issue publicly because of cultural understandings in Arab society. “Anybody who has any experience with public encounters in the Arab world knows there’s a public choreography where you have to show loyalty to the cause,” he said. “The last thing the Saudis want is to lose any credibility as champions of the Muslim, Arab and Palestinian cause.” Despite these challenges, Rosen feels that dialogue with hostile nations, however intolerant, is crucial to reaching an understanding. “There are well known Israelis that say that Israel should only have contact with entities that are democratic,” he said. “If that’s the approach, Israel will wait a very long time and through lots of bloodshed. You should engage the most problematic of dictatorial regimes and through those negotiations have a salutary effect on those countries that will hope lead to a democratic regime.” Representatives of one totalitarian regime with whom Rosen will be in contact are members of an Iranian delegation of ayatollahs to the conference. Rosen is not worried about the meeting, as he has met Iranian officials before. “It would not be a problem to meet the ayatollahs whom I’ve met at different places,” he said. “By definition, those ayatollahs who go to these conferences aren’t the ones who call the shots, but you have no idea what impact changing their perspectives has.” While some have criticized Rosen for his plans to attend the conference, he feels that he is doing the right thing. “There are those who accuse me of serving as a fig-leaf for the Saudis, playing into their legitimating,” he said. “Anyone who’s not criticized is not doing anything worth doing.” Jul 11, 2008 13:32 ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 28th, 2008 From: rcervigni at worldbank.org We are pleased to announce the launch of the World Bank web site on climate change in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). The site contains information on ongoing and planned World Bank activities aimed at helping MENA countries enhance their resilience to Climate Change, and move to a low carbon development path. The URL for the site is: http://www.worldbank.org/mena/climatecha… Raffaello Cervigni ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 15th, 2008 Tracing back to 1492 Spain, via Turkey and Syria – the family settled in Jerusalem and became staples of the modern Israeli culture and its economy. They were at the periphery of its politics and had they wanted to reach for it – both brothers, very popular, could have also been part of Israel political scene. Their life is testimony to the fact that Israel belongs to its place in the Middle East. What coincidence that Benny’s passing happened on the day that President Bush was being celebrated in Jerusalem for his backing the unrelenting stubbornness of this State to show just that. The obituary is from the New York Times of today, May 15, 2008. Below are remarks by the President to the Knesset. This speech is worth taking the time to read.
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