The EU refuses to see the multi headed Hydra it has become and expects President Obama to play along. Reality calls – EU please get serious at becoming some sort of one headed entity! The US President is a busy man now with all that US Jazz.

It slowly starts sinking in – we said it a long time ago!

Battling the ‘Multilateral Zombie’ – EU climate strategy after Copenhagen.
LEIGH PHILLIPS

February 3, 2010, http://euobserver.com/9/29354/?rk=1,
 http://old.norden.org/analysnorden/defau…

EUOBSERVER / ANALYSIS – “The EU’s post-Copenhagen strategy should be
just to have a strategy, any strategy,” quips one Brussels think-tank
wag during an interview.

The rough hip-check Europe received in the Danish capital in December,
sidelining the bloc during the eleventh-hour huddle between major
powers that produced the Copenhagen Accord, has produced a wave of
despondency and cynicism amongst Brussels politicians, green
lobbyists, and analysts – and carbon traders across the continent to
boot. They’re all having a crack at how poorly the EU played its hand
during climate negotiations.

For the last three years, if it hasn’t been the institutional reform
of the Lisbon Treaty, it’s been the bloc’s obsession with climate
change that has dominated the EU agenda. Even if the EU is well off
the at least 40 percent cut in emissions that science demands if we
are to avoid catastrophic climate change, it remains the case that as
a result of its 2008 climate and energy package, Europe remains the
most advanced rich-country power on the planet in terms of its binding
CO2 reduction commitment.

With its climate boy-scout badge afixed to its sleeve, Brussels headed
off to Camp Copenhagen expecting at least to see its self-proclaimed
leadership reflected in winning something along the lines of a broad
commitment from other powers to at least a 20-percent cut in carbon
emissions below 1990 levels by 2020.

But in the end, the EU ended up the goody-two-shoes pupil who’s top of
the class, but yet, when he invites all the other kids over for a
party, glumly watches as they end up playing among each other instead
of with him. It was the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa that
cobbled together the last-minute three-page-long Copenhagen Accord
without the EU even in the room, while most of the developing world
complained throughout the two weeks that Brussels was at best just a
cat’s paw for Washington.

Denmark’s Connie Hedegaard, now incoming EU
climate commissioner, was repeatedly attacked for favouring rich
countries over the developing world.

“It was the strangest conference I have been at in my life, from all
points of view,” Mr Barroso told a pow-wow of the leading European
think-tanks in early January.

Typical of the initial EU reaction were comments from Swedish
environment minister Andres Carlgren, who, when meeting in Brussels in
late December with his EU counterparts to debrief after the UN summit
and begin the discussion of what to do next, slammed the result as a
“disaster.”

“It was a really great failure and we have to learn from that,” he
said at the time. { but the gentleman forgot to say whose failure it was!}

Glass half full!

However, after the holidays, a clutch of pollyanna-ish EU officials
have since fervently urged everyone to consider the Accord’s silver
lining. Both President Barroso and the bloc’s chief climate
negotiator, Artur Runge-Metzger, in various venues have emphasised
that many of the things the EU had been pushing for were contained in
the final result – developed countries agreed for the first time a
concrete sum for climate finance, a target maximum average global
temperature increase of two degrees was embraced and a review,
allowing for a ratcheting up of targets if necessary, is foreseen for
2015.

At the same time, EU member states that have never been comfortable
with the bloc’s climate ambitions have used the opportunity to delay
or block European plans to boost its CO2 emissions reduction
commitment from 20 percent on 1990 levels to 30 percent. On 18
January, environment ministers met in Seville, to assess, for the
second time, the reasons for the failure in the Danish capital. UK,
France, Germany, Belgium and Spain continued to push for the increased
pledge, while Italy and Poland said now was not the time given the
poverty of ambition by other states at Copenhagen.

As of this week, the consensus in the bloc is to maintain its target
of 20 percent and conditional offer of 30 percent if other powers make
comparable efforts – in other words exactly the same position the EU
has held for the last year, although Ms Hedegaard has publicly said
she hopes to see a move to 30 percent “by Mexico,” meaning the next UN
climate summit in the Central American nation at the end of 2010.

At the same time, the commission itself is in the ‘twenty-percenter’
camp, pushing this position in Copenhagen, “afraid to be naked” with
nothing left to put on the table in the game of climate strip poker.
Moreover, crucially, the executive’s goal of a transatlantic emissions
trading system is unworkable with cuts pledges that are wildly
divergent and without legally binding commitments from Washington.

The US is looking to a 17 percent emissions reduction on 2005 levels,
which works out to be just three percent when using the same 1990
baseline year as the EU. Watch for the US, if legislation gets
through, at some point to somehow nudge up its cut to 20 percent and
the EU to stick to the same figure, dressed up in language about how
the two targets are now comparable, with a fudge over the differing
baseline years.

Support unravelling:

Separately, four of the five architects of the Accord, Brazil, South
Africa, India and China, have themselves gone lukewarm on the project,
smarting from accusations from much of the rest of the developing
world that these four richest of the poor countries had broken ranks
after a year of unprecedented global south unity.

“The two-track negotiating process …is the only legitimate process
to reach a legally binding treaty in Mexico,” he added.

Meanwhile, the cornerstone of the Accord, an understanding that
however limited America’s commitment, Washington would at least be
able to deliver on this promise.

But with the surprise election to the US Senate of Massachusetts
Republican Scott Brown on an anti-climate-bill ticket, killing the
Democrat’s filibuster-proof majority, the country’s climate
legislation is threatened. A defeated or heavily watered down bill
only engenders further reservations in the minds of Chinese, Indian
and even European leadership about promising tough reduction targets.

For all the public talk of Latin American, Chinese and African climate
“villains” blocking the process in Copenhagen, privately, there is
frustration with Washington as well. A senior EU policy official
speaking to EUobserver described President Obama’s position as the
same as that of George Bush. “We are willing but only if others move,”
the official said, attributing the position to both the current and
former US leaders.

One EU climate voice {?}

A popular post-Copenhagen analysis from the Brookings Institute, the
centrist US think-tank, that has made the rounds of officialdom and
NGO-land warns of a slow-motion failure scenario similar to the Doha
round of WTO talks, a process it describes as a “multilateral zombie”
in which climate negotiations “stagger on piteously, never making much
progress while never quite dying either.”

Nevertheless, despite the dark days and the cynicism of some
onlookers, we can already begin to sense the outlines of a European
strategy.

EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy has already said he hopes to
see a common climate strategy emerge from an 11 February extraordinary
EU summit originally scheduled to deal with the economy. Angela
Merkel, as well, has upgraded a climate meeting in Bonn in June from
expert to ministerial level and the European Commission is preparing a
series of proposals that it is to put to the member states.

While this sort of member-state activity is likely to continue, the
Lisbon Treaty has given the commission a powerful new diplomatic
weapon it intends to use to the fullest.

Sidelining the UN:

Related to this, the major task will be to break the remarkable unity
shown by developing nations. The UNFCCC’s principle dating back to
Kyoto of “common but differentiated responsibility,” is understood by
developing nations to mean that those countries that caused the
problem should pay for solving it and make binding commitments to CO2
reductions.

The third world has said that it would be happy to develop along a
low-carbon path itself, but that the rich north will have to pay for
this and that their emissions cuts should in any case be voluntary.
The World Bank, unhelpfully, has estimated the cost of all this to be
$400 billion a year. Meanwhile, wealthy nations, would rather that the
developing world, but specifically China and to a lesser extent India,
agree to binding, verifiable CO2 cuts without the price tag.

The key advantage of the Copenhagen Accord for rich countries is that
it “weakens or even does away with the principle of common but
differentiated responsibilities,” as the South Centre, a Geneva-based
think-tank close to developing world governments, warns – another
reason why the Basic countries, upon reflection, have taken a distance
from the deal.

In many ways, Copenhagen was a victory for the developing world, in
that it managed to hold off against pressure to junk the Kyoto
Protocol and in the end ensured that the Copenhagen Accord was only
“noted” by the UN plenary instead of endorsed, making it a document
floating in a legal limbo.

Border tariff:

It should also be remembered that many other major powers were
sidelined at Copenhagen. Japan and Russia were also absent from
Copenhagen’s endgame. In many ways, the EU’s limited influence has
been largely a product of its own climate success. Although Europe is
the world’s third largest emitter, this will likely change in the near
future. Ironically, if the continent isn’t going to be as much of a
problem in absolute (as opposed to per capita) terms as China or India
by 2030, it doesn’t have much of a bargaining chip. Washington was
always going to be far more interested in Beijing.

Copenhagen was very much the US and China show, but it won’t always be.

——–

This feature was originially written for the Nordic Council’s Analys
Norden website.

{ We wonder at the last sentence of the article because we think that unless the EU does in fact unite under  one leadership it will not amount to much when the US continues to deal with the BASICs – I mean the countries that are form the basic future. The EU should aim at becoming the G3 to be added to China and the US in future global negotiations that will include also the IBSA and one or two more states. See please next article.}

——————————————————————————-

US blames Lisbon Treaty for EU summit fiasco. Mr Obama – the Madrid summit decision is being seen as a diplomatic snub to Spain.
by ANDREW RETTMAN from Brussels.

February 3, 2010, http://euobserver.com/9/29398/?rk=1
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS  writes -  The US State Department has said that President Barack Obama’s decision not to come to an EU summit in Madrid in May is partly due to confusion arising from the Lisbon Treaty.

State department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told press in Washington on Tuesday (2 February) that the treaty has made it unclear who the US leader should meet and when. { that sounds very clear to me.}

“Up until recently, they [summits] would occur on six-month intervals,
as I recall, with one meeting in Europe and one meeting here. And that
was part of – the foundation of that was the rotating presidency
within the EU. Now you have a new structure regarding not only the
rotating EU presidency, you’ve got an EU Council president, you’ve got
a European Commission president,” he said.

“We are working through this just as Europeans themselves are working
through this: When you have a future EU-US summit meeting, who will
host it and where will it be held?” he added. “All of this is kind of
being reassessed in light of architectural changes in Europe.”

The Lisbon Treaty came into force on 1 December, 2009. It created the post
of a new EU Council president and EU foreign relations chief in order
to give the union a stronger voice abroad.

It kept the institution of the six-month rotating EU presidency as
well, with the member state holding the chairmanship to do the bulk of
behind-the-scenes policy work in Brussels.

The Spanish EU presidency is being closely watched to see how the EU
manages the transition to the new power structure. The EU Council
president has so far taken charge of summits in the EU capital. But
Madrid was to share the limelight with a few top-level events at home.

The state department’s Mr Crowley said the US and Spain have been in
touch “directly” to discuss Mr Obama’s decision after Madrid learned
about it through the media on Monday.

“Obviously, there’s been some disappointment expressed by the
government of Spain, and we understand that and we’ll be working with
them on that,” he said.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero and Mr Obama are both
expected to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on
Thursday. But no bilateral meeting has been announced so far.

Mr Zapatero, a centre-left secularist, has taken flak for his trip in
Spanish media, with the El Pais daily calling his decision to attend
the prayer event “shocking.”

News Alert: Bin Laden blasts U.S. for climate change
06:49 AM EST Friday, January 29, 2010
——————–

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming. In the tape, aired in part on Al-Jazeera television Friday, bin Laden warns of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt

This information we picked up on a page of The Washington Post that includes a large advertisement from CHEVRON Oil Company:

“HUMAN ENERGY” “Every day Chevron invests $59 million in People. In ideas. In progress – Learn more”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012901463.html?hpid=topnews

Bin Laden blasts US for climate change.

Includes also a photo from the FILE – “This is an undated photo of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Bin
Laden issued a new audio message claiming responsibility for the Christmas day bombing attempt in Detroit and vowed further attacks. (Anonymous – AP)

The Associated Press
Friday, January 29, 2010; 6:52 AM
CAIRO — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming.

In the tape, aired in part on Al-Jazeera television Friday, bin Laden
warns of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop
it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt.

He says the world should “stop consuming American products” and
“refrain from using the dollar,” according to a transcript on
Al-Jazeera’s Web site.

The new message, whose authenticity could not immediately be
confirmed, comes after a bin Laden tape released last week in which he
endorsed a failed attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas
Day.

—————-

UNFCCC should take notice of this when next time Saudi Arabia will claim to be paid US Dollars for the losses that it will incur when the world will finally decide to use less oil – their hidden treasure under the desert sand. Whatever we think of Bin Laden – we know that it is the US dollars paid for oil that fuelled both – the monarchy of The House of Saud and the Bin Laden family complaints that these dollars corrupted the purity of the faith as they see it. Now – that is why we post the piece also on our “cartoons” column – not really because of our disbelief in the Chevron statement or the actual content of what is attributed to Osama.

We are afraid that some narrow minded people might actually say that because Osama says that the US is to be blamed for Global Warming – it is obvious that Global Warming is a non-issue – and US CATO will thus bless on Bin Laden – so The Heartland Institute can put him up im its Gallery of Fame. Crazy – I told you so.

The Arab Peninsula and the Horn of Africa -too narrow  straights for the West.

POLITICS: Russia, China Sustain Military Toehold in Yemen.
By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 5 (IPS) – Russia has stolen a march over the United States in the multi-million-dollar arms market in cash-strapped Yemen, whose weapons purchases are being funded mostly by neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni armed forces, currently undergoing an ambitious military modernisation programme worth an estimated four billion dollars, are armed with weapons largely from Russia, China, Ukraine and the former Eastern Europe and Soviet republics.

With the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day by a Nigerian student, reportedly trained by al Qaeda in Yemen, the administration of President Barack Obama has pledged to double its military and counterterrorism aid, to nearly 150 million dollars, to strengthen the besieged government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Currently, Yemen receives assistance under several U.S.-funded programmes, including Foreign Military Financing (FMF), International Military Education and Training (IMET), Non-Proliferation, Anti-terrorism and De-mining, and Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction.

But the proposed military aid to Yemen – all of it gratis – along with U.S. arms supplies, is negligible compared with weapons, military training and technical expertise from non-U.S. sources.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), one of the world’s best known think tanks researching arms control and disarmament, Russia accounted for nearly 59 percent of all major weapons deliveries to Yemen during 2004-2008, followed by Ukraine at 25 percent, Italy at 10 percent, Australia’s five percent, and the United States at less than one percent.

Dr. Paul Holtom, director of SIPRI’s Arms Transfers Programme, told IPS that at the beginning of this year, the Russian media reported that Yemen had signed a deal to buy an estimated one billion dollars worth of arms from Moscow (with some reports giving figures as high as 2.5 billion dollars).

These weapons, he said, included additional MiG-29 combat aircraft, helicopters, tanks and armoured vehicles.

Holtom said there were also published reports suggesting these purchases were part of a proposed four-billion-dollar military modernisation programme.

But he said he does not have an update on the degree of progress made on these arms deals.

Dan Darling, Europe & Middle East Military Markets analyst at the Connecticut-based Forecast International Inc., a leading provider of market intelligence on the military, told IPS that in terms of primary arms suppliers to Yemen, “almost everything revolves around Russia”.

The core of the Yemeni Air Force is of Russian-legacy, including MiG-21s and MiG-29s and Su-22s, he pointed out.

From 2001 through 2008, Yemen received 1.4 billion dollars worth of arms, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), with 600 million dollars in weapons from Russia.

China provided 200 million dollars worth of armaments, while about 400 million dollars in arms were from a mix of former Soviet republics and East European nations (mainly Ukraine, but also Belarus, Czech Republic, Poland, Italy and others).

A resource-starved Middle Eastern nation, Yemen has negligible quantities of oil and is categorised as one of the world’s poorest nations.

The U.S. State Department has described Yemen as “desperately poor” but a “vital counterterrorism partner”.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Saudi Arabia had provided about two billion dollars in aid to Yemen last year – “an amount that dwarfs the 150 million dollars in security assistance that the United States will ask Congress to approve for the 2010 fiscal year”.

With the new terrorist threat from insurgents in Yemen, the United States is gearing itself for a virtual new battle front against al Qaeda – besides Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Darling of Forecast International Inc told IPS: “My take is that Washington understands how crucial Yemen is to regional security and stability.”

He said Yemen’s proximity to Saudi Arabia – from which many al Qaeda operatives are believed to have crossed into Yemen – and its importance in terms of shipping lanes at the mouth of the Red Sea and in terms of combating piracy in the area make ignoring Yemen a risk the U.S. is unwilling to take.

The recent spate of fighting with rebels in the north, combined with the pressures facing President Saleh and the belief that al Qaeda may have found a sort of sanctuary in Yemen, means that the country will garner more and more attention within U.S. government circles, he added.

“The State Department realises the looming potential for disaster in Yemen, where a combination of civil strife, an exploding population, negligible oil reserves, a structurally weak economy, high rates of poverty and unemployment, and deteriorating water supplies all threaten to turn the country into the proverbial failed state,” Darling said. “How they intend to combat this possibility is beyond my purview, but I’m guessing that you will see greater degrees of development assistance and oversight as to how the money is allocated,” he added.

From the latest news coming from Washington – “Under the new airport
rules, all citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen must receive a pat
down and an extra check of their carry-on bags before boarding a plane
bound for the United States, officials said. Citizens of Cuba, Iran,
Sudan and Syria — nations considered ’state sponsors of terrorism’ —
face the same requirement.”

That means Cuba and thirteen Muslim states: Afghanistan, Algeria,
Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia,
Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

These news caused a lot of comments, but we think the wrong comments.

We assume obviously that Washington is ready finally to address the
terrorism issue. Airplane terrorism, as we learned on 9/11, is not
about transport of weapons but about terrorists – to be specific since
9/11 – we speak here about Islamic terrorists. If you want to catch
terrorists you must look for terrorists. Looking for baby formula is
not the answer – but looking for those passengers whose profiles are
suspicious might be a better bet. Sure, obviously, not all Muslims are
terrorists, and profiling is terrible – even illegal, but if you want
to catch terrorists you start with the profile that most fits Islamic
terrorists, and you bet – they are Muslims of any color. Even though
they may be traveling with documents issued by non-Islamic States,
i.e. the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Switzerland, or even the
US.

So, it is not easy to define exactly what papers are carried by the
terrorists, but you can have some guidelines to increase your chance
of catching them. looking for a profile of an Asian or African Muslim.
Then, learn from the Israelis how to talk to them – you may even find
out that they are so convinced that their cause is the right one, that
they will lower their guard and just plainly disclose that what you
see is all they got.

There may be a Jamaican convert to Islam who preached terrorism in the UK
and resides now in Kenya – a case in point. Kenya does want him either and
he will be sent back to Jamaica a second time. yes, this is a problem if you
are American and Jamaica does not cooperate – but he is a Muslim and no
Anti-Defamation league is enrtitled to tell you Mr. President that he should
not be stripped and searched if he wants to travel via the US to Jamaica.
This is simple.

But what about Cuba? Fidel Castro is more atheist then Catholic, surely
no Muslim. Whatever went on in the past is history to me and I do not believe
prologue to Mr. Castro. So why mix him and his country up with 13 Islamic
States involved in Islamic Terrorism? That is unless someone in the US longs
to see him give cover to such terrorists in the future so they get new reasons
to be after him? If the Jamaica case has anything to teach us – it is that the
US is better off reinsuring its rear parts from anger caused by mistreatment
and friendship is not achieved by mulling over past grief. Specially, as several
hundred former sugar baron families living in Florida should not be allowed to
hold hostage the US when it comes to real US interests.

Mr. President, I watched Bolivia and Venezuela leaders speak in Copenhagen,
they fumed and brimmed with words – no stones or missiles. Their ALBA is,
I think, the natural ally of a US that manages to disengage from the Islamic
world of oil. So, it is the US self interest that calls for you, Mr. President, to
invite Fidel Castro to Washington for a tete-a-tete and start on a way that
eventually will give the US the wall of safety it needs when addressing the 21st
Century centers of terror – the Islamists’ terror cancer that will continue to ooze
as long as we use oil.

Please start by taking him of that list!

The thirteen on that list include the obvious Iran – Syria – Lebanon
trio of the Shii’a Islam, it includes the Afghanistan/Pakistan US
theater of operations and Iraq, as well as the other US theater Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan that misses Egypt and the Gaza strip. A
fourth historic region includes Libya and Algeria, then with Nigeria,
these are newer sources of oil for the US, and as such clear potential
sources of unhappy Islamists who complain about the changes in their
countries as fueled by oil money. In very few countries terrorism
against the US was actually started by rulers decree. Libya, Iran,
Syria, Sudan, Somalia may be the exceptions, but Saudi Arabia and
Yemen may have seen rulers who deflected anger against themselves into
anger against foreigners. In the majority of cases the terrorist is a
person of convictions and the situation could have been avoided had
the US and the rest of the Western World, tried to be less squanderous
with the oil we got addicted to.

Having said the above – let us get now to the point – MR PRESIDENT -
PLEASE – TAKE CUBA OFF THAT LIST BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELONG ON THAT
LIST IN 2010.

* * * *

Please look – I am posting here four reference – links to news
articles of today’s New York Times.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05t…

New Air Security Checks From 14 Nations to U.S. Draw Criticism
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

In Yemen, U.S. Faces Leader Who Puts Family First
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

Kenya Seeks to Deport Muslim Cleric to Jamaica

————————

THE UPDATE:

We have received a comment on this post and it presents a very valid point supposedly made at the UN General Assembly by the Foreign Minister of Cuba: “I mean if they were going to include us, then they should have at least thrown in North Korea.”

Even if the e-mail we received from ajay -   akazif at gmail.com  as presented by www. eggplantpost.com in http://eggplantpost.com/2010/01/05/cuba-… were a made up story, the argument holds water nevertheless. DID THE US INCLUDE CUBA ON THAT LIST BECAUSE IT WANTED TO AVOID BEING SEEN AS GOING AFTER A RAG-TAG OF ISLANIC COUNTRIES? Now, we believe that US security should be spoken here – not again US appeasement-for-oil please!

“Full-body scanners on display at Reagan National Airport: Many experts say the full-body scanners would have detected the explosives carried aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, but the
machines have also raised privacy concerns over the detailed body image that is displayed as part of the screening.”

TSA – Transportation and Security Administration – tries to assuage privacy concerns about full-body scans.

By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 4, 2010
It has come to this.

Already shoeless, beltless and waterless, more beleaguered air passengers will be holding their legs apart, raising their arms and effectively baring it all as they pass through U.S. airport security
checkpoints.

Add the “full-body scan” to the list of indignities that some travelers are confronting in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era of vigilance.

Federal authorities, working to close security gaps exposed by the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, are multiplying the number of imaging machines at the nation’s biggest
airports. The devices scan passengers’ bodies and produce X-ray-like images that can reveal objects concealed beneath clothes…….

- – - – - -

now add the “me-au” from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, ADC Legal Director   nshora at adc.org

Washington, D.C. | January 5, 2010 | www.adc.org |

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is deeply concerned by the new Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) directives, which went into effect on January 4th at midnight.  According to news sources, these directives will require citizens from 14 countries, all Arab or Muslim countries, with the exception of Cuba, to go through enhanced security screening. Such screening can include full pat-downs, scans, delays, and anything associated with secondary screening – an extra search of the passenger’s carry-on luggage may also be required.  News sources also stated that the directives are applicable to any travelers, including US CITIZENS, who have passed through one of these 14 countries, or who have taken flights that have originated from these 14 countries.

ADC is very troubled as such directives will have negative ramifications on Arab-Americans, citizens of the 14 countries, and all Americans who visit these countries. A disparate segment of the Arab-American community will be scrutinized because of these new guidelines. The blanket labeling of hundreds of millions of civilians based solely on their country of citizenship or travel is not only unfairly discriminatory based on national origin, but also improperly labels millions of innocent people as somehow suspect or possible terrorists.

The new directives came following the Christmas Day attempted airline attack that threatened our national security, and which ADC has strongly condemned. Implementing an effective and productive counterterrorism tool is paramount. However, casting a wide net against individuals based on their country of origin, race or religion is not an effective counterterrorism tool. During the past decade, similar racial, ethnic and religious profiling tactics and practices have time and again misdirected precious counterterrorism resources, damaged foreign relations with key allies, fueled the fires of extremists by giving them an excuse, stigmatized communities, and most importantly did not have any discernible impact on security. Based on precedent, these new directives will be no different than these past practices and their adverse consequences; and while such directives may appear to make us feel safer, the reality is that they discriminate against innocent persons and divert attention from real threats.

Resources must instead be focused on high-risk individuals based on proper intelligence, better coordination and communication between different governmental agencies. In addition, continued engagement with the Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian community groups must be strengthened, and must not be discouraged by ethnic profiling tactics.

ADC has been in contact with TSA and the Department Homeland Security (DHS) and is planning to file a complaint and request for additional information with the Department.  ADC urges all travelers affected by these new guidelines to always comply with the Transportation Security Officer’s (TSO’s) request.  In the event of any abuse or misuse of authority, please request the TSO’s name and badge number, and file a complaint with ADC’s Legal Department at  legal at adc.org.

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

Honestly, I feel the pain of decent members of the ADC, but am appalled at the chutzpah to announce the complaints of that organization without a single word attached saying that as loyal citizens to this country they are ready to organize themselves in units of informers when it comes to transgressions by people from their country of birth, that are endangering the security of the country that gave to the ADC members the privilege of life under a secular democracy.

Yes, I know that the ADC has members that are Muslim, Christian or atheists. I know they have no Jews in ADC, but that is not the issue. The Arab countries, other Asian countries, and the African Arabized countries, on the list of 13, are all Islamic countries – in all of them Christians and Jews face very serious difficulties. Further, I know of good Muslims in the US and overseas, that participate with enlightened Jews in order to build bridges between communities. in Copenhagen I actually participated during the Climate conference at a pilgrimage that took us to places of worship that were Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim (that last meeting was held in the rooms of a Danish humanist society) – in this time sequence. Yes – good relationships are possible, but that will happen only when, and if, there is a clear understanding, and voiced recognition, that Islamic terrorism originates with Muslim individuals, and that in order to safeguard ourselves, profiling in search of instruments of terror is not a dirty word, but a means of self defense.

Also, in order to avoid needless friction, I suggest that the ADC moves front and center in the global effort to disengage from the addiction to oil.

And one more item – this website does speak up for Cuba as they surely are not part of the group of countries responsible for Islamicists performing acts of terror. So, they do not belong on that list of 14.

The US and Britain, followed by Japan, Germany and others, close their Embassies in Sanaa, Yemen.

About a dozen Yemenis were released by the Bush Administration from Guantanamo and sent back to Yemen. It turns out that they were about the organizers of a stronger Al-Qaeda presence in the country. The Obama Administration has ewleased seven more and still holds 90 Yemenis at Guantanamo. What should they do now with these detainees.

The Bush Administration has released all Saudi detainees from Guantanamo and TV pundits contend that the Bush Administration did not look at these releases as a securuty issue, but rather as an issue of diplomacy. Things get even worse when you listen to Marissa Porges from the Council of Foreign Affairs, who speaks of a Saudi Al-Qaeda unit and a Yemeni Al-Qaeda unit as if the Islamists are divided indeed according to lines the rulers of these countries have literally drawn on the sand. Then she gets even worse by noting that Saudi Arabia to the north has the oil fields that can be attacked if the terrorists are pushed out of Yemen. So, US security better be held at hock by the Saudi oil and the US interests that want the oil?  Not so?

Yemen downplays threat, need for Western intervention.
Yemeni government officials downplayed the threat of al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists operating from and within Yemen and the prospect the U.S. military would intercede in fighting militants in the country on the government’s behalf. The statements reflect concerns regarding the appearance of President Ali Abdullah Saleh before a domestic audience critical of U.S. intervention efforts. Yemeni officials say the government welcomes intelligence sharing but has not committed to conducting joint counter-terrorism operations with Western forces — seemingly contradicting U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus. Los Angeles Times

Yemen’s al-Qaida problem adds to long list of woes: Yemen’s internal problems — which range from water shortages and economic problems to two homegrown insurgencies — have kept the government’s attention focused elsewhere as the country increasingly becomes fertile operational grounds for al-Qaida. Groups from Yemen and Saudi Arabia have joined forces to form a larger, more capable al-Qaida structure. The New York Times

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LA Times -By Borzou Daragahi
January 4, 2010

Reporting from Beirut – Yemeni officials on Sunday dismissed the threat posed by Al Qaeda in their country as “exaggerated” and downplayed the possibility of cooperating closely with the United States in fighting Islamic militants, even as the U.S. and Britain temporarily closed their diplomatic outposts in Yemen because of unspecified Al Qaeda threats.

The statements by Yemen’s foreign minister, chief of national security and Interior Ministry came a day after the region’s top American military commander vowed to step up U.S. military support for the beleaguered Arabian Peninsula nation.

Analysts said the Yemeni statements reflected domestic political concerns about President Ali Abdullah Saleh appearing weak and beholden to the West as he faces numerous political challenges.

The group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the failed attempt at bombing a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day. The alleged attacker’s claim that he was tutored in Yemen set off alarm bells in Western capitals about the relatively lawless nation of 23 million, which is also facing an insurgency in the north and a separatist movement in the south.

U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus visited Yemen on Saturday and vowed to give Saleh increased aid to fight Al Qaeda. His promise was echoed by President Obama, who said the United States would step up intelligence-sharing and training of Yemeni forces and perhaps carry out joint attacks against militants in the region.

But Yemeni officials Sunday appeared to rebuff any close cooperation with the West. Foreign Minister Abubakr Qirbi told a government-run newspaper that his country welcomed intelligence-sharing but had made no commitment to conducting anti-terrorism operations in conjunction with the West.

“Yemen has its own short-term and long-term schemes to tackle terrorists anywhere in the republic that only call for intelligence and information coordination with other countries,” he told the daily newspaper Politics, the official Saba news agency reported.

A statement posted to the U.S. Embassy website cited “ongoing threats by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to attack American interests in Yemen.” The British Foreign Office confirmed that its embassy had been closed for security reasons and said discussions would be held today on when to reopen the facility.

Both diplomatic missions in Sana, the Yemeni capital, normally are open Saturday through Wednesday.

The U.S. Embassy has been the site of attacks in the past. At least 16 people died there in a Sept. 17, 2008, car bomb attack that was claimed by Al Qaeda. Three mortar rounds missed the embassy and crashed into a nearby high school for girls in March 2008, killing a security guard. Police and alleged Al Qaeda militants exchanged small-arms fire near the embassy a year ago.

On Sunday, Obama’s top counter-terrorism advisor said the U.S. had evidence of a viable threat against the embassy, which led to the decision to close it.

“There are indications that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is targeting our embassy and targeting our personnel,” John Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding: “We’re not going to take any chances with the lives of our diplomats and others who are at that embassy.”

Asked whether Americans in the country are safe, Brennan said, “I think until the Yemeni government gets on top of the situation with Al Qaeda, there is a risk of attacks. A number of tourists have been, in fact, kidnapped. A number of tourists have been killed.”

But Yemen’s Interior Ministry posted a message to its website Sunday boasting that Al Qaeda militants were “under surveillance around the clock.”

And Saleh’s national security chief, Ali Anisi, said Sunday that Al Qaeda’s presence in Yemen was “exaggerated” and touted the success of his nation’s forces in stemming terrorism, according to an account of his comments reported by Saba news agency.

He reportedly insisted that Yemen was not a haven for Al Qaeda and pointed to “preemptive operations against militants which thwarted planned attacks on vital domestic and foreign interests in the country.”

According to Saba, he said that only 40% of the five dozen attempted terrorist attacks in the country since 1992 had succeeded.

Analysts say the increased focus on Yemen’s security situation creates a dilemma for Saleh, who is worried about appearing to cede sovereignty to the Americans when he is being politically assailed from all segments of the population.

“It’s about control,” said Abdullah Faqih, a professor of political science at Sana University. “The international actors need to assure the Yemeni government about its control. They don’t want to give concessions” to their rivals in the north or south.

A member of a smaller Shiite Muslim sect, Saleh has been accused for years of gaining political allies by turning a blind eye to the growing influence of Sunni extremists who have begun enforcing Islamic dress codes and setting up religious schools.

Qirbi, the foreign minister, emphasized in the interview published Sunday his nation’s “continuing rehabilitation of and advising misled terrorists,” a reference to its controversial program of re-educating and releasing convicted Islamic militants, some once held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. About 90 Yemeni detainees are still being held at Guantanamo.

Faqih suggested that the United States and Britain announced the temporary closures of their embassies as a way of turning up the heat on Saleh, whose government depends on international assistance to combat a number of issues, including piracy off its Gulf of Aden coast and a drought along its mountain ridges.

“This could also be a kind of pressure,” he said. “If the World Bank decides to close its office, the country might collapse.”

Saleh has presided for decades over the Arab world’s poorest nation, a generally lawless and mountainous land that faces vast unemployment, high birthrates and a plummeting water supply. Rampant corruption and festering tribal disputes exacerbate the problems.

U.S. officials have limited direct aid to Yemen in the past for fear it would disappear into a government widely considered corrupt and unaccountable. But Washington increased the total anti-terrorism assistance from $4.6 million in 2006 to $67 million in 2009, according to the Pentagon.

Following a Dec. 24 airstrike against suspected Al Qaeda militants in Yemen, which killed 30 and was suspected by many of having been directed by Americans, some Yemenis fear U.S. involvement could further destabilize their country.

“We’re afraid that you will repeat the same mistake as in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Mohamed Abdul-Malik Mutawakil, a political scientist at Sana University. “The real challenge is to correct the situation. If you come to Yemen and you push for reform, justice, political change, a better economy, then you will pull the rug out from under Al Qaeda.”

 daragahi at latimes.com

————

The New York Times, By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: January 2, 2010
SANA, Yemen — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has rapidly evolved into an expanding and ambitious regional terrorist network thanks in part to a weakened, impoverished and distracted Yemeni government.While Yemen has chased two homegrown rebellions, over the last year the Qaeda cell here has begun sharing resources across borders and has been spurred on to more ambitious attacks by a leadership strengthened by released Qaeda detainees and returning fighters from Iraq.

The priorities of the Yemeni government have been fighting a war in the north and combating secessionists across the south. In the interim, Al Qaeda has flourished in the large, lawless and rugged tribal territories of Yemen, creating training camps, attacking Western targets and receiving increasing popular sympathy, Yemeni and American officials say.

Al Qaeda’s growing profile in Yemen became clear after a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was able to overstay his visa here by several months, connect with Qaeda militants and, American officials believe, leave this country with a bomb sewn into his underwear.

In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama for the first time directly blamed Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for the bombing attempt and said that fighting the group would be a high priority. “In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels,” he said, adding, “So as president, I’ve made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government.”

The core of the group here is still thought to be small, perhaps no more than 200 people. But the group has the important advantage of being part of a larger, regional structure, having merged a year ago with the Saudi branch of Al Qaeda to form Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And it has been able to originate fairly sophisticated operations here, in Saudi Arabia and now on an airliner headed for Detroit.

Though Yemen played an early role in Al Qaeda’s history — it is Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland, and it was the staging ground for the 2000 attack on the American destroyer Cole — the key chapters in the story of Al Qaeda’s rise here have been written recently by leaders who were released from detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, escaped from Yemeni prisons or were drawn to shelter here by common cause and ideology.

Those men have transformed and reoriented a weak local Qaeda cell that had made a kind of peace with the government after 2003. In the year since the Saudi and Yemeni branches merged, Al Qaeda has taken full advantage of the government’s preoccupation with the rebellions, building support from the tribal structures and traditions in Yemen’s poor and lawless territories.

One big moment came in February 2006, when 23 imprisoned men suspected of being members of Al Qaeda escaped from a high-security prison, reportedly with the aid of some Yemeni security forces. All but three or four of the men were eventually recaptured or killed by Yemeni security forces. But one prisoner, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, became leader of the Qaeda cell in Yemen and moved to reorganize it, focusing it on attacks against nearby Western targets. Another prisoner, Qassim al-Raimi, became the military commander.

The next year, Mr. Wuhayshi found a deputy and, perhaps, a rival for leadership, Said Ali al-Shihri, 36, a Saudi citizen. He was released from six years’ detention in Guantánamo Bay in December 2007 to a Saudi-run rehabilitation program. He disappeared from Saudi Arabia and emerged in Yemen, and he is considered by many to be the rising star of the local movement. Mr. Shihri had traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 and was apparently wounded there, and he was captured crossing back into Pakistan in December of that year.

Another Guantánamo detainee, also captured in Pakistan in 2001 and released to a Saudi rehabilitation program, is Ibrahim Suleiman al-Rubaysh, 30, a Saudi who also disappeared and is now described as the mufti, or theological guide, to Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula.

Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born, English-speaking Internet imam of Al Qaeda here, returned to Yemen, his family’s home, in 2004. He was arrested in 2006 on security charges and was released in December 2007 after 18 months in prison. He then went to Britain and is believed to have returned to Yemen last spring.

Mr. Awlaki, 38, is not thought to have a major operational role. Still, American and Yemeni officials say they believe he provided a crucial link to Mr. Abdulmutallab, first through the Internet and then by meeting him in Yemen and helping to recruit him to the airliner bomb plot. He also provides Qaeda operatives here with a crucial shield against the government: the protection of his powerful tribe, the Awlakis. As in Afghanistan and Pakistan, tribal codes require the protection of those who seek refuge and help — even more so for a clan member and his colleagues. Mr. Awlaki is also said to have helped negotiate deals with other tribal leaders.

Abdulelah Hider Shaea, a Yemeni journalist who studies Al Qaeda and knows Mr. Awlaki, denied in an interview that the imam was a member of Al Qaeda, saying instead that he served as an articulate window to jihadism for English speakers.

Yemeni officials, in two major strikes against Qaeda targets in December, first said that they had killed Mr. Awlaki, but he later spoke to Mr. Shaea to prove that he was alive, as other key leaders seem to be. But dozens of Qaeda family members and local residents were killed, increasing antigovernment sentiment.

In recent years, Al Qaeda has had an increasingly rich recruiting pool.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College, said that many of the nearly 2,000 Yemenis who were believed to have fought in Iraqi insurgencies had returned to join the cause here. And many Yemenis who went to Saudi Arabia to seek work — like Mr. bin Laden’s father — have had children who have been influenced by the more radical Islam of Saudi Arabia, bringing ideas of jihad home to an already conservative Islamic Yemen.

There has also been an influx to Yemen of at least 200,000 refugees from Somalia, according to official figures, and probably many more than that. Al Qaeda has also been very active in Somalia, seeking refuge and recruits among the Islamist groups there. And now that Yemen has proved to be a safe training ground for Al Qaeda, a link between the Yemeni and Somali contingents has strengthened.

“The Somalia problem is merging with the Yemeni issue,” Mr. Ranstorp said.

But Al Qaeda here also has problems, including a possible leadership struggle.

Although Mr. Wuhayshi is still widely believed to be in control, he is considered uncharismatic, and his leadership and the merger were not endorsed by Mr. bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, until spring 2009. But the airliner plot has brought praise from Qaeda-associated Web sites, as did a bold but unsuccessful effort to kill Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism chief, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, who was wounded last August by a suicide bomber equipped with the same explosive provided to Mr. Abdulmutallab.

Al Qaeda’s growth here has come as President Ali Abdullah Saleh, 67, has intensified the war in the north against Houthi rebels, who are Shiites with support from Iran, according to Yemeni officials and analysts. Mr. Saleh’s second priority is a spreading secessionist movement in the south, which has been largely peaceful until now but which further threatens his long hold on power, with his own succession unclear.

“President Saleh’s first priority is to stay in power,” said Abdullah al-Faqih, a political scientist at Sana University. “Two, at this point, is the war in the north. Three is the south. And sometimes Al Qaeda doesn’t even make the list at all — it drops from the agenda.”

In that regard, American officials are finding an uncomfortable resemblance to their fight in Pakistan, where Al Qaeda’s leadership is believed to have sanctuary in rugged tribal areas while the government is preoccupied with its archrival India and the disputed territory of Kashmir. And as in Pakistan, the American military and intelligence involvement in Yemen must be cautious and seen as advisory, without putting troops on the ground.

In addition to sending money, the United States has sent Special Forces troops to help train and equip Yemeni forces and has provided sophisticated satellite and communications intelligence.

Yemen is also the Arab world’s poorest country, with a major water shortage and 70 percent of the gross domestic product coming from oil that is expected to run out in seven years, and it is also deeply corrupt.

The new American focus and money have caught Mr. Saleh’s attention, Mr. Faqih, the political scientist, said. “But right now we have the military in the north and the security services in the south,” he said. “Of course, we’re not ready to fight Al Qaeda. You’d have to reposition the government and the security forces, and it would take months.”

Still, Al Qaeda is also becoming more of a threat to Yemen. In November, Al Qaeda attacked government forces in the Kushum Al Ain area of Hadramawt Province. Three officials were killed. Later that month, near Marib, Al Qaeda executed a senior intelligence officer after holding him for months and then trying him, as if it were the real government of the area.

Al Qaeda has also declared support for the secessionist protests in the south and is thought to be strong in southern Abyan Province, which gives it access to the sea.

Despite the threat, “relations between the government and Al Qaeda are very tricky,” Mr. Faqih noted.

“There is, as in Pakistan, some intertwining of politics, society and the security forces with Al Qaeda,” he said. Al Qaeda has been skillful in making alliances of its own with important tribes in provinces like Hadramawt, Shabwah, Marib, where much of the oil is, and Abyan.

Some of that intertwining has happened because President Saleh has been encouraging a radical Sunni Islamist group to help fight the Shiite Houthi rebellion in the north. Some analysts say they believe that movement is also feeding the support for Al Qaeda. Mr. Saleh has also used jihadis who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq against the Houthis, as he used some of them to fight in the south during the country’s 1994 civil war.

Mr. Faqih warned that Mr. Saleh must seek political ways to calm the rebellions or risk creating even more recruits for Al Qaeda. The war against the Houthis is pushing them toward some kind of alliance with Al Qaeda, despite religious differences, much as Shiite Iran backs the Sunni Hamas movement in Gaza, he said.

“It can happen,” Mr. Faqih said. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and you can turn it into the Kandahar of Yemen.”

They believe Obama is trying to do the right thing, so about Hillary Clinton at State.

From:

UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
30 December, 2009

The Global Nannies at the UN end the year with fairy tails on Copenhagen, Tehran and they tell us how they supply Yemen with better science know-how. We are sure that some world leaders might actually have reached the point that they tell the UN well-wishers – don’t call us – wait for us to call you! From us to our remaining friends at the UN – stick it out – there may yet come a day you will be needed. Happy New Year in the meantime.

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SECRETARY-GENERAL CONFERS WITH WORLD LEADERS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been speaking to numerous world leaders on the heels of the historic United Nations conference in Copenhagen which recently wrapped up with nations reaching a political agreement on climate change.

Following the summit’s end less than two weeks ago, Mr. Ban has made calls to leaders from countries such as China, the United States, Ethiopia, the Maldives, Grenada, France, Brazil and Australia.

The Copenhagen Accord was struck in the Danish capital on 19 December after the Secretary-General intervened at the last minute to assuage nations that felt they had been excluded from parts of the negotiations.

It aims to jump-start immediate action on climate change and guide negotiations on long-term action. It also includes an agreement to working towards curbing global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, efforts to reduce or limit emissions, and pledges to mobilize $100 billion a year for developing countries to combat climate change.

“While I am satisfied that we sealed a deal, I am aware that the outcome of the Copenhagen conference, including the Copenhagen Accord, did not go as far as many have hoped,” Mr. Ban told reporters after returning to New York from Denmark.

The two-week-long UN conference in Copenhagen, attended by more than 100 heads of State and government, was marked by interruptions in negotiations due to divisions between States over transparency and other issues.

“The leaders were united in purpose, but they were not united in action,” Mr. Ban pointed out, exhorting world leaders to act in concert to ensure that a legally binding treaty is reached next year.

Nonetheless, he said that the talks “represent a beginning – an essential beginning,” because without nations hammering out a deal in Copenhagen, the financial and technical support for poorer nations agreed upon would not take immediate effect.

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FACING CLIMATE CHANGE, DEVELOPING WORLD BENEFITS FROM UN ONLINE SCIENTIFIC SCHEME

As part of a project to promote scientific knowledge in the developing world in the face of climate change, the United National environmental agency this month extended its online programme to Yemen, offering it a chance to gain greater access to leading scientific journals.

Yemen is now one of 108 developing countries which have free access to the latest in scientific literature through the Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) project of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

UNEP, Yemen’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and the Ministry of Water and Environment worked together with the UN World Health Organization (WHO) to train 30 Yemeni researchers, scientists, planers, and lecturers about the use of OARE to support the country as it faces increasing environmental challenges due to climate change, food crisis and water scarcity.

Yemen’s economy depends largely on the oil and fishing industries. Even though recent reports show a 25 per cent increase in fish product exports and a 30 per cent increase in fish volume, according to a recent World Bank report, the country is facing an alarming decline in fish stock and production in some areas.

“We need to do much more to get to a climate-smart world,” Katherine Sierra, Vice-President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank, said. “On the energy front, we must tackle difficult issues like technology transfer, investment, and climate finance. But when it comes to adaptation and building climate resilience, the challenge is more complex and the role of knowledge will be key.”

So far, more than 1,600 institutions are registered with OARE to use the wide collection of scientific research and the increasing number of scientific databases and portals. OARE’s expanding role in developing countries comes at a time when the world is focusing on knowledge and technology transfer to promote more sustainable development. Access to the latest findings in environmental science will help those countries adapt to an increasingly changing environment.

In November, a similar workshop was organized in Amman, Jordan, where 35 Jordanian and Iraqi participants were trained. Other trainings are scheduled for Tunisia, Morocco and Afghanistan in early 2010.

The crucial transfer of scientific information to the developing world began two years ago when UNEP negotiated a deal with leading publishers to build one of the largest electronic collections of scientific knowledge in environmental and related areas, in partnership with WHO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Yale and Cornell universities in the United States, international publishers, and private sector groups like Microsoft.

The result is a collection that is available online and contains more than 2,900 scientific and peer-reviewed journals with a value of around $1.5 million a year.

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Exclusive report by Robert Fisk for The Independent of London.
The demise of the dollar

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
Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.

China Threatens Dollar
Find out why China is deliberatelydestroying the Dollar. Free Report
MoneyMorning.com/dollar_china

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.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-arab-future-conspiracy-vs-reality

Water Wars

By Jeffrey Sachs

May 1, 2009

Many conflicts are caused or inflamed by water scarcity. The conflicts from Chad to Darfur, Sudan, to the Ogaden Desert in Ethiopia, to Somalia and its pirates, and across to Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, lie in a great arc of arid lands where water scarcity is leading to failed crops, dying livestock, extreme poverty, and desperation.

Extremist groups like the Taliban find ample recruitment possibilities in such impoverished communities. Governments lose their legitimacy when they cannot guarantee their populations’ most basic needs: safe drinking water, staple food crops, and fodder and water for the animal herds on which communities depend for their meager livelihoods.

Politicians, diplomats, and generals in conflict-ridden countries typically treat these crises as they would any other political or military challenge. They mobilize armies, organize political factions, combat warlords, or try to grapple with religious extremism.

But these responses overlook the underlying challenge of helping communities meet their urgent needs for water, food, and livelihoods. As a result, the United States and Europe often spend tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars to send troops or bombers to quell uprisings or target “failed states,” but do not send one-tenth or even one-hundredth of that amount to address the underlying crises of water scarcity and under-development.

Water problems will not go away by themselves. On the contrary, they will worsen unless we, as a global community, respond. A series of recent studies shows how fragile the water balance is for many impoverished and unstable parts of the world. The United Nations agency UNESCO recently issued the UN World Water Development Report 2009; the World Bank issued powerful studies on India and Pakistan; and the Asia Society issued an overview of Asia’s water crises.

These reports tell a similar story. Water supplies are increasingly under stress in large parts of the world, especially in the world’s arid regions. Rapidly intensifying water scarcity reflects bulging populations, depletion of groundwater, waste and pollution, and the enormous and increasingly dire effects of manmade climate change.

The consequences are harrowing: drought and famine, loss of livelihood, the spread of water-borne diseases, forced migrations, and even open conflict. Practical solutions will include many components, including better water management, improved technologies to increase the efficiency of water use, and new investments undertaken jointly by governments, the business sector, and civic organizations.

I have seen such solutions in the Millennium Villages in rural Africa, a project in which my colleagues and I are working with poor communities, governments, and businesses to find practical solutions to the challenges of extreme rural poverty. In Senegal, for example, a world-leading pipe manufacturer, JM Eagle, donated more than 100 kilometers of piping to enable an impoverished community to join forces with the government water agency PEPAM to bring safe water to tens of thousands of people. The overall project is so cost effective, replicable, and sustainable that JM Eagle and other corporate partners will now undertake similar efforts elsewhere in Africa.

But future water stresses will be widespread, including both rich and poor countries. The United States, for example, encouraged a population boom in its arid southwestern states in recent decades, despite water scarcity that climate change is likely to intensify. Australia, too, is grappling with serious droughts in the agricultural heartland of the Murray-Darling River basin. The Mediterranean Basin, including Southern Europe and North Africa is also likely to experience serious drying as a result of climate change.

However, the precise nature of the water crisis will vary, with different pressure points in different regions. For example, Pakistan, an already arid country, will suffer under the pressures of a rapidly rising population, which has grown from 42 million in 1950 to 184 million in 2010, and may increase further to 335 million in 2050, according to the UN’s “medium” scenario. Even worse, farmers are now relying on groundwater that is being depleted by over-pumping. Moreover, the Himalayan glaciers that feed Pakistan’s rivers may melt by 2050, owing to global warming.

Solutions will have to be found at all “scales,” meaning that we will need water solutions within individual communities (as in the piped-water project in Senegal), along the length of a river (even as it crosses national boundaries), and globally, for example, to head off the worst effects of global climate change. Lasting solutions will require partnerships between government, business, and civil society, which can be hard to negotiate and manage, since these different sectors of society often have little or no experience in dealing with each other and may mistrust each other considerably.

Most governments are poorly equipped to deal with serious water challenges. Water ministries are typically staffed with engineers and generalist civil servants. Yet lasting solutions to water challenges require a broad range of expert knowledge about climate, ecology, farming, population, engineering, economics, community politics, and local cultures. Government officials also need the skill and flexibility to work with local communities, private businesses, international organizations, and potential donors.

A crucial next step is to bring together scientific, political, and business leaders from societies that share the problems of water scarcity—for example, Sudan, Pakistan, the United States, Australia, Spain, and Mexico—to brainstorm about creative approaches to overcoming them. Such a gathering would enable information-sharing, which could save lives and economies. It would also underscore a basic truth: The common challenge of sustainable development should unify a world divided by income, religion, and geography.

• Water: A Global Innovation Outlook Report (Policy Library)
• Managing Water Well (Briefings)
• Ethics Be Dammed? China’s Water Projects (Commentary)
• Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis (Policy Library)

Hijacked Ship Holds $100 Million in Oil

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?

Sirius Star: Somali pirates hijacked the oil tanker, here in an undated photo, about 450 nautical miles off the Kenyan coast Nov. 15. It is the farthest from shore Somali pirates have struck and is thought to be the largest ship ever hijacked. The aircraft-carrier-sized tanker, owned by Saudi oil company Aramco, was carrying crude oil. It can carry about 2 million barrels.

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 Navy said the brand-new MV Sirius Star, with a crew of 25, was seized far off the coast of Kenya on Saturday and the bandits were taking the ship to a Somali port known as a hub of pirate activity. It announced the hijacking on Monday when it first received the information.

The statement posted on Vela’s Web site late Monday said the ship was hijacked Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.
Attacks by Somali pirates have surged this year as bandits have become bolder, better armed and capable of operating hundreds of miles from shore.

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.
The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet said Tuesday it was monitoring the situation but did not expect to send warships to surround the vessel as it has done with a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weaponry the was seized off the Somali coast on Sept. 25 and remains in pirate hands.

“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.
“We remain deeply concerned because this attack represents a fundamental change in pirates’ ability to hijack bigger vessels farther out at sea,” he said.
The Sirius Star is the “largest pirated vessel in the region” to date, Christensen said.
At 1,080 feet, the Sirius Star is the length of an aircraft carrier and can carry about 2 million barrels of oil.
“We are very concerned that a (ship) of this size has been hijacked. We have safety concerns, security concerns, environmental concerns,” said Noel Choong, the head of the International Maritime Bureau’s regional piracy center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“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.
Somali fishermen and witnesses on shore said the pirates apparently anchored the ship last night in Harardhere, a pirate stronghold some 265 miles by land from Eyl.

The Saudi tanker was just a few miles from shore Tuesday morning, said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman.
“As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
He said two small boats floated out to the ship and 18 men — presumably other pirates — climbed aboard with ropes woven into a ladder.

“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.”
Vela, the ship’s owner and operator, says it is one of the largest crude oil tanker companies in the world.

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.
Associated Press Writer Mohamed Olad Hassan contributed to this report from Mogadishu, Somalia.

Hijacked Ship Holds $100 Million in Oil

————–

The UN sensation   of the day as per Title of UN Wire:

From:          un.wire at smartbrief.com
Subject:         Pirates seize Saudi oil supertanker; Court to hear Croatia’s genocide case against Serbia
Date:         November 18, 2008

Pirates seize Saudi supertanker
Los Angeles Times (11/18)

Piracy abates in Southeast Asia
Piratical activity has dropped along the Asian coasts where it once proliferated, falling 11% from last year and 32% from 2006. Many of those attacks off Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia were low-level attacks against small ships or incidents of petty theft of cargo. Naval patrols along the “littoral states” of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are credited for the sharp decline. The New York Times (11/18)

From:  liasieghart at hotmail.com
Subject: Yemen, cogeneration and the CDM an outline of opportunity
Date: September 4, 2008

• International Emissions Trading (IET)
• Joint Implementation (JI)
• Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The latter is the only mechanism that involves developing countries. The CDM allows Annex 1 Parties (or entities from those Parties) to invest in project activities that reduce GHG emissions and contribute to sustainable development in non-Annex 1 countries.The CDM has seen an exponential growth since the Kyoto Protocol came into effect in 2005. The end of 2007 provided a milestone with the 100-millionth certified emission reduction credit being issued. In April 2008 the 1000th project, an energy efficiency project, was registered with the Executive Board. At present there are more 3000 projects in the UNFCCC pipeline.Nevertheless, the number of host countries playing a vital role is still very limited. The geographic dispersion of registered projects remains imbalanced. So far the main share of projects is with Asia and Latin America. Most projects are registered with India as a host country, followed by China, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia and Chile. India and China in particular have been early movers and have grasped the investment opportunities provided by the CDM. The vast majority of projects registered are in the energy sector. Taking into consideration the projects under validation and those requesting registration, it seems that this distribution pattern will not change significantly during the first commitment period.

  There are many reasons why the CDM has so far fallen short of its full potential, many of which are country-specific while others are repeatedly reported from various countries. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region 18 countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but to date only 20 projects have been registered (Table 1). This amounts to ~2 % of the total of registered project activities.

  Click here to enlarge image

  The MENA Region population comprises about 6% of the total world population, almost equivalent to the population of the European Union. Most MENA countries are experiencing a rapid population growth. The region is economically diverse – the spectrum ranges from oil-rich economies to countries that are resource-scarce in relation to population.

  By 2050, the MENA countries will reach an electricity demand of the same magnitude as Europe (3500 TWh/y). In some of the countries, electricity demand is expected to triple from almost 1500 TWh/y at present to 4100 TWh/y in 2050. Correspondingly, the effects of climate change will become more severe. The fossil fuel-based power sector offers enormous potential for CO₂ emission reductions, both through energy efficiency improvements in existing applications as well as utilization of state-of-the-art technology for new capacity additions.

  Given the surging growth in energy demand, the region needs to develop sustainable energy patterns, increase energy accessibility – particularly for marginalized populations in rural areas – and encourage efficient use of energy. Countries need to embark on a less carbon-intensive development path. Utilizing the CDM can provide a vital trigger in this process.

  CHP has a clear opportunity to expand quickly. CHP installations, by combining electricity production with a heat recovery system, provide reliable and cost-effective opportunities for GHG emissions reduction and an important contribution to meeting heat and electricity demand. Cogeneration projects also have the potential to bring energy efficiency measures to large industries in the region, while the MENA oil industry and refinery capacity offers further significant cost-effective potential for heat recovery and cogeneration.

  THE REPUBLIC OF YEMEN

  The Republic of Yemen lies to the south of Saudi Arabia, bounded by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The 2004 census recorded a population of 19.72 million, with an average annual population growth rate of 3.2 % and one of the highest birth rates in the MENA Region. Yemen remains one of the poorest countries in the world, and currently ranks 49 on the UN’s list of the 50 Least Developed Countries. Yemen’s GNI per capita is US$760, compared to, for example, US$12,510 in Saudi Arabia, US$23,990 in the United Arab Emirates and US$9070 in Oman². According to the Country Social Analysis (2006) by the World Bank the GDP growth rate has been falling steadily in recent years. Inflation has been averaging at almost 12% since 2002, rapidly increasing the cost of living.

  The country, a non-OPEC member, is the smallest oil producer in the Middle East³. Nevertheless, the economy is highly dependent on the oil sector, with the country’s oil exports accounting for approximately 85% of export revenues and 33% of gross domestic product (GDP). Yemen’s energy use relies heavily on fossil fuels. Thus, there is potential to reduce GHG emissions in the energy sector, the oil and refinery industry and in the industrial sector.

  GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN YEMEN

  The 2001 First National Communication to the UNFCCC used 1995 as a reference year for Yemen’s GHG emissions inventory due to the high uncertainty of 1994’s information as a result of the April–July 1994 civil war. The total GHG emissions (CO₂, CH⁴, N²O) of the country, in 1995, amounted to 18.7 million tonnes CO₂eq, (CO₂=11.4 million tonnes, CH⁴=128,000 and NO₂=15,000). Taking CO₂ removal into account, the total net emission of CO₂ is 845,000 tonnes. These figures are exclusive of the emission from the international bunker (114,350 tonnes CO₂) and from combustion of biomass (353,290 tonnes CO₂).

  Yemen’s emission profile by gas type for 1995 shows that CO₂ accounts for 61% of the total national GHG emissions (113,580 tonnes CO₂), N²O 25% (465,700 tonnes CO₂eq) and CH⁴ 14% (269,400 tonnes CO₂eq). Table 2 shows gas emissions by various sectors.

  Click here to enlarge image

  If we look at the industrial processes, there are many that create GHG emissions as a by-product of the process itself. Cement production generated the most emissions (99.3%). Other production processes with minor emissions are lime production, limestone use and soda use (food & beverages). The total GHG generated by these processes was estimated at 547,000 tonnes CO₂eq, which accounted for 2.92% of the country’s total GHG emissions. The production of cement in Yemen in 1995 was 1,089,000 tonnes that resulted in CO₂ emission of 543,000 tonnes CO₂eq representing 4.8% of the country’s total CO₂ emissions (energy sector, industrial processes etc), while it represents around 2.9% of the total GHGs.

  The CO₂ emission from cement production was calculated by multiplying 1995 cement production (1,089,000 tonnes) by the emission factor (0.4985 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of cement produced). The SO₂ emitted from cement production was obtained by using an emission factor of 0.3 kg SO₂/tonne cement, thus leading to 330 tonnes SO₂ in 1995.

  THE YEMENI ENERGY SECTOR

  Yemen’s 100% state-owned Public Electricity Corporation (PEC) formed in 1991, under the Ministry of Electricity, is the sole public utility with the mandate for generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity in the country. The entity operates approximately 80% of the country’s generating capacity as part of the national grid. The remainder is generated by small off-grid suppliers and privately owned generators, predominantly in rural areas⁴. In urban areas diesel generators are also used as back-up systems. The efficiency of diesel generators can be up to 40%. Electricity demand amounted to 3294 GWh in 2005, an increase of 9.6% annually since 2000.

  The Yemeni population has the lowest access to electricity in the region, with only 53%⁵ of the total population having access. Of the 72% of the Yemeni population living in rural areas, only 23% have any access to electricity, which compares unfavourably with 85% of the urban population that have access to electricity. Out of this 23%, about 10%–14% is connected to the national grid system while the remainder is estimated to have some access from other sources, typically a diesel generator that operates only a few hours in the evening. Even for those connected to the grid, electricity supply is intermittent, with regular rolling blackouts in most cities.

  Click here to enlarge image

  Yemen has been experiencing a chronic power supply shortage. An estimate for the electric power deficit in 2006 was 220 MW, a figure that is expected to increase to 250 MW in 2008. With the 2005 increase in diesel prices, the cost of diesel generation has become economically unsustainable thereby significantly increasing the demand for a lower-carbon, more-efficient, lower-cost and reliable energy future.

  The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP, 2003–2005) states the following: ‘Indicators show the failure of electric power in Yemen in keeping pace with demand [is] due to the ageing of the power stations and the distribution networks, which is reflected in the high losses that are currently estimated at about 38%, well above the internationally prevailing levels. This situation prevents the full utilization of machinery and equipment in the different productive and service units, or burdens the private sector facilities with the cost of setting up their own generating plants, not to mention the inability to systematically fulfil domestic lighting requirements. This situation is expected to continue over the medium term due to the increase of demand at high rates, and thus increases the adverse aspects on investment opportunities and the growth of output, income and employment, clearly showing the importance of strategic investment by the private sector in this field.’

  In the industrial sector, power is purchased either from the national grid or off-grid from privately owned diesel generators with poor electrical efficiency ranging from 25% up to 35% especially in light industry. Heavy industry, e.g. the cement sector – the most energy intensive of any industry⁶, covers its heat needs using boilers fired either by heavy fuel oil or diesel, again with an overall poor fuel efficiency. The main electricity consuming sections in a cement plant are the mills (finish grinding and raw grinding) and the exhaust fans (kiln/raw mill and cement mill) which together account for more than 80% of the total electrical energy usage.⁷ The separate production of heat and power is an obvious waste of energy. Change is needed by using a range of existing and emerging technologies, particularly in relation to the production and consumption both of heat and electricity.

  The cement industry is considered as one of the main players in the industrial sector. Commercial production started back in 1973 with the launching of the first production line of the Bajil Cement Factory. Cement production is highly competitive, both locally and internationally, so any improvements in production efficiency can result in important increases in competitiveness.⁸

  Despite 16.9 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of proven natural gas reserves, a cleaner source of non-renewable energy, heavy fuel oil or diesel-fuelled power generation remains the energy source. Use of natural gas is hampered by the absence of a domestic natural gas infrastructure. On the downstream side there is a crude refining capacity of 130,000 barrels/day from two ageing refineries. The Aden refinery has a capacity of 90,000 to 120,000 barrels/day, while the capacity at the Marib refinery, is 10,000 barrels/day.

  So the challenge for the government is to meet the energy needs of the country in an economic and environmentally sustainable manner. To address this challenge, one approach is to integrate the use of CHP as part of a larger portfolio of low-carbon energy technology solutions. Also the First National Communication under the UNFCCC suggests CHP as a viable measure to reduce GHG emissions and to cope with climate change.

  COGENERATION – AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YEMEN

  The Yemeni electricity sector driven by fossil-fuelled power generation is characterized by a loss of waste heat and a deficient transmission and distribution system resulting in poor net generation. Energy use and efficiency are important factors for economic development and environmental integrity.

  Click here to enlarge image

  CHP applications could be viable and cost-effective in the Yemeni setting because they:

  • reduce energy-related carbon dioxide emissions
  • provide a decentralized energy source which results in reduced investment in energy system infrastructure
  • reduce transmission and distribution losses.

  Energy-intensive industrial sites such as oil refining, heavy processing (food and textiles) and the cement industry with its simultaneous demand for heat and power, could all benefit. Also the commercial and institutional/residential sectors could match their thermal and electrical needs. CHP application in the commercial/institutional sector could address light manufacturing, hotels, hospitals and large office complexes.

  Despite good potential for CHP, to date no systems are operating in Yemen. The main barriers are: technical, financial, lack of maintenance capacity and awareness, the heavy subsidy of petroleum products and the absence of a domestic natural gas infrastructure – the fuel of choice for most new industrial CHP systems. However, access to reasonably priced and reliable electricity supply systems are an obvious prerequisite for economic stability and development. The development of a strategy for CHP would assist in kick-starting the momentum in Yemen and should include the following elements:

  • identification of projects that could be initially implemented by the public sector and identify pipeline of projects that can be promoted for private sector development
  • formulation of CHP-enabling market
  • elaboration of incentives that attract private investors and lower the costs of electricity generation from CHP applications.

  Coupling GHG emissions abatement with CHP installation would help guide the country’s economic growth to a less carbon-intensive development path. The emission reduction potential makes CHP applications, in principal, eligible for the CDM. In order to qualify for Certified Emission Reductions under the CDM, one needs to address ‘additionality’, ‘permanence’, and ‘leakage’ requirements as well as satisfy sustainable development criteria defined by the country. By gaining CDM support for projects, Yemen could gain access to significant additional flows of technology and finance to assist in achieving a more sustainable, less greenhouse-intensive pathway of development. Also the National Adaptation Programme of Action⁹ is suggesting CHP systems as an efficient method of power generation and a suitable measure to reduce GHG emissions. Considering a cogeneration project as a CDM project activity would assist in generating emission credits and thereby make the project more feasible.

  RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION

  The CDM is a key model fostering broad engagement in climate change mitigation, and can be used as a means of promoting sustainable development by providing access to improved energy services. The energy sector is a major source of GHG emissions and a critical area for socio-economic development of the country. Yemen has a good potential for cogeneration projects in the industrial, commercial and institutional/residential sectors.

  In keeping with the dual aim of climate protection and sustainable development, the CDM can trigger the installation of CHP systems by removing barriers to implementation of state-of-the art technology in this area. Despite the strong potential of cogeneration for GHG reduction to date there is no installed capacity – project developers often lack the technical and financial capacity to identify projects within their operational activities. Mainstreaming carbon finance into business operations would have a catalytic impact on facilitating CDM project development and consequently assist in the feasibility of cogeneration in Yemen.

  Lia Carol Sieghart is with the Ministry of Water and Environment, DNA Secretariat, Republic of Yemen.
  e-mail: sieghart@yemen.net.ye

  References

  1. Status: 29.03.2008

  2. World Development Indicators database, World Bank, 1 July 2007

  3. Report No.: 34008-YE – Republic of Yemen – Country Social Analysis – January 11, 2006 – Water, Environment, Social and Rural Development Department, Middle East and North Africa Region

  4. Energy Information Administration  www.eia.doe.gov): Yemen – Country Analysis Brief (October 2007)

  5. World Bank and UNDP (2005): Household Energy Supply and Use in Yemen: Volume I, Main Report

  6. WADE (2007): Concrete Energy Savings – Onsite Power in the Cement Industry

  7. IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control). 2001. Reference document on best available techniques in the cement and lime manufacturing industries, European Union.

  8. WADE (2007): Concrete Energy Savings – Onsite Power in the Cement Industry

  9. 2001 First National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

  Cogeneration and On-Site Power Production July, 2008

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  To access this article, go to:http://www.cospp.com/articles/article_display.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=338180&p=122
  

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  Copyright © 2008: PennWell Corporation, Tulsa, OK; All Rights Reserved.

 From:      liasieghart at hotmail.com
Subject: new publication – Towards an Effective Implementation of the CDM in the Middle East and North Africa Region – A Perspective from Yemen.
Date: July 30, 2008

Dr. Lia Carol Sieghart
International Advisor
DNA Secretariat
Ministry of Water and Environment
Sana’a, Republic of Yemen
Mob: + 967 7117 8 9994
 www.cdm-yemen.org

The paper aims by taking Yemen as an example to outline some of the reasons why the CDM in the MENA Region has not picked up to its full potential so far. It is anticipated that this publication will assist decision makers, policy analysts and others concerned with the CDM process to deliberate the perceived opportunities and barriers, which may open up ways and means for the CDM in the Region through cooperative action at various levels and sectors of interest.”

Feedback is welcome, please email  sieghart at yemen.net.ye

We did and we got the above statement by the Minister from their website. The Website has also a list of projects and seems to include openness for outside involvement.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Medit…

Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 TREC logo.

The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), also known as the TREC Development Group,^[1][2] is a voluntary association formed in 2003^[3] as an initiative of the German association of the Club of Rome^[1][4] and the Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation.^[1][5]

TREC promotes an increase of Europe’s energy supply^[6] and a reduction of its CO2 emissions by campaigning for renewable non-polluting electric power transmission to Europe via high-voltage direct current (HVDC) lines from solar and wind power stations in the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa.

In 2004 and 2005^[7][8] TREC participated in Middle East and North Africa Renewable Energy Conferences MENAREC-1 and MENAREC-2 sponsored by Jordan’s National Energy Research Center (NERC), founded in 1998 in Amman.^[9]

TREC is supported by the Social Democratic Party of Germany,^[10] the German green party,^[10][11] the German physics society,^[11] the German Advisory Council on Global Change,^[11][12] Greenpeace,^[11] and Prince Hassan bin Al Talal^[13] of Jordan.

German Aerospace Center (DLR) studies

Early in the 2000s, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU) commissioned and funded the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute for Technical Thermodynamics (see technology, thermodynamics) for three studies^[14][15][16] to evaluate the following:

• the anticipated water and power needs through 2050 in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa;
• the potential for renewable energy in the Middle East and North Africa;
• the potential for an electric power transmission grid connecting the three regions.

Dr. Franz Trieb, the principal investigator for these studies, is a member of the TREC-Network.^[17]

Two studies, one on concentrated solar power (CSP) for the Mediterranean Basin,^[14] the other on trans-Mediterranean interconnection and infrastructure,^[15] have been completed.^[18][19] As of mid-2007, the third study of CSP for the desalination of seawater is in progress.^[16]

Images from DLR studies

DLR studies:[14][15] hypothetical infrastructure of HVDC power supply to Europe from Middle East and North Africa.

DLR studies: hypothetical and existing HVDC transmission lines. Key: Blue: before 2020. Red: after 2020. ●: interconnections to AC.

DLR studies: projection that solar power plants in desert areas indicated by red squares would be sufficient to generate the amount of electricity currently consumed by the world, Europe, Germany, respectively.

DLR studies: projected capacity, land area, costs, etc., 2020 to 2050.

Feasibility and implementation

The high solar radiation in the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa outweighs the 10-15% transmission losses between the desert regions and Europe. This means that solar thermal power plants in the desert regions are more economic than the same kinds of plants in southern Europe. The German Aerospace Center has calculated that, if solar thermal power plants were to be constructed in large numbers in the coming years, the estimated cost would come down from 9-22 EuroCent/kWh to about 4-5 EuroCent/kWh.

In addition to direct supporting measures, TREC proposes two projects which are technically feasible but would require financial and political support:

• Gaza solar power and water project:^[20] concentrated solar power plants, for the combined generation of electricity and desalination of sea water for Gaza, which could, it is hypothesized, be located in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula coastal region.

• Sana’a solar water project: desalination and power plants could be located near the Red Sea for the Yemen capital Sana’a which is facing the exhaustion in coming years of its ground water reserves, much of it used to irrigate qat.^[21] The additional cost of transporting desalinated water or pumping it to higher elevations can also be a significant, even an inhibiting, factor.^[21]

Criticism

The European importation of electricity from the Middle East and North Africa entails political risks when the quota exceeds a certain level.^[20] Implementation would require cooperation between the states of Europe (e.g., France prefers nuclear power generation) and the states of the Middle East and North Africa.

Literature

• TREC/Club of Rome White Paper presented in the European Parliament on 28th of November 2007
• Study AQUA-CSP on the Potential of CSP for Seawater Desalination – A DLR Study for the BMU from 2007
• Study TRANS-CSP on an Intercontinental Transfer of Solar Energy – A DLR Study for the BMU from 2006
• Study MED-CSP on the Potential of CSP in the MENA Region – A DLR Study for the BMU from 2005
• Peter Hennicke, Nikolaus Supersberger: Krisenfaktor Öl. Abrüsten mit neuer Energie. oekom verlag, November 2006. ISBN 3865810608
• Toralf Staud, Nick Reimer: Wir Klimaretter – So ist die Wende noch zu schaffen. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Mai 2007. ISBN 3462039083

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Paper for Arab Thought Forum and Club of Rome, Amman (Version: 24-11-2003). “Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation“. Saharawind.com.  ”The TREC Development Group. Formed by initiative of the German Ass. Club of Rome, and of the Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation HKF.”
2. ^ Pincas Jawetz (17 December 2005). “North Africa – Middle East – Europe Renewable Energy Cooperation – an Elixir for the Future“. Sustainable Development Media Think Tank.  ”TREC… is the brainchild of the German Association for the Club of Rome and the Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation… TREC actually was a paper for an Arab Thought Forum held in Amman 2003, in anticipation of the June International Conference on Renewable Energies 2004 in Bonn.”
3. ^ BBC Radio 4. “Interview with Dr. Gerhard Knies (TREC)“. The World Tonight. Transcript published 27 November 2006 on Solarserver Forum for Solar Energy.
4. ^ Deutsche Gesellschaft Club of Rome (German Association Club of Rome) website.
5. ^ Hamburger Klimaschutz-Fonds (HKF, Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation) website.
6. ^ Ashley Seager (27 November 2006). “How mirrors can light up the world“. The Guardian.
7. ^ National Energy Research Center, Amman, Jordan. “MENAREC-1 and MENAREC-2“. NERC website.
8. ^ National Energy Research Center, Amman, Jordan. “MENAREC-2 conference program“. NERC website.
9. ^ “NERC: The Agency for Energy Conservation“. Mediterranean Association of the National Agencies for Energy Conservation (MEDENER).
10. ^ ^{a b} TREC (16 October 2006). “Club of Rome: German Politicians claim “Clean Power from the Deserts”“. Solarserver forum.
11. ^ ^{a b c d} Rolf Hug (23 February 2007). “Solar power from the desert rather than desert in Germany: renewable energy in a trans-European context“. Solarserver forum.
12. ^ Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen (WBGU, German Advisory Council on Global Change) website.
13. ^ United Nations Environment Programme. “Champion of the Earth 2007 West Asia: H. R. H. Prince El Hassan Bin Talal“.
14. ^ ^{a b c} “MED-CSP: Concentrating Solar Power for the Mediterranean Region.” German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute for Technical Thermodynamics (ITT), funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU).
15. ^ ^{a b c} “TRANS-CSP: Trans-Mediterranean interconnection for Concentrating Solar Power.” DLR ITT, funded by BMU.
16. ^ ^{a b} “AQUA-CSP: Concentrating Solar Power for Seawater Desalination.” DLR ITT, funded by BMU.
17. ^ Members of the TREC-Network as of August 2007.
18. ^ Gerhard Knies and Franz Trieb (2006). “Sun cheaper than Oil“. franzalt.com Sun Page.
19. ^ Sigmar Gabriel, BMU minister (19 April 2007). “Innovative Policy and financing instruments for a sustainable energy policy in the European neighbourhood policy” (html). eu2007.de, the website of Germany’s January-June 2007 European Presidency.
20. ^ ^{a b} Speech by Michael Müller, Parliamentary State Secretary for the BMU, at European “Integrating Environment, Development and Conflict Prevention” Conference, Berlin (29 March 2007). “Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment: Challenges for Broadening the European Security Debate” (html). bmu.de.
21. ^ ^{a b} Ismail Al-Ghabiri and Amel Al-Ariqi (June 26-28 2006). “Water expert: Desalination or displacement for Sana’a residents“, Yemen Times, No. 958, Vol. 14.  

From:  rcervigni at worldbank.org
Subject: Climate Change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) – New World Bank web site.
Date: June 27, 2008

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
Senior Natural Resource Economist
Regional Coordinator, Climate Change
Sustainable Development Sector Department (MNSSD)
Middle East and North Africa Region
The World Bank
Room H 8-225
1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20433 USA
Office: 202 458 8473
Fax: 202 614 1688
Cell Phone: 202 378 4432
E-mail:  rcervigni at worldbank.org

EU aid chief says rising food prices risk African ‘humanitarian tsunami:’ As food riots sweep the developing world, the EU’s foreign aid chief has warned that sky-rocketing food price rises threaten a “humanitarian tsunami” in Africa, and has promised a boost in aid to support food security.

“A global food crisis is becoming apparent,” said EU humanitarian aid commissioner Louis Michel after a meeting with African Union Commission President Jean Ping, “less visible than the oil crisis, but with the potential effect of a real economic and humanitarian tsunami in Africa.”

By Leigh Phillips, April 9, 2008, the EUobserver, Brussels.

The commissioner said that the EU would boost emergency food aid from the European Development Funds from its current €650 million to €1.2 billion.

In recent weeks, food riots have swept the developing world as UN World Food Programme officials warn that a ‘perfect storm’ of poor harvests, rising fuel prices, the growth of biofuels and increased pressure from a growing middle class in China and India is rapidly increasing world hunger.

Elsewhere, China, Vietnam, India and Pakistan are introducing restrictions on rice exports.

The UN’s undersecretary for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator, John Holmes, on Tuesday said that rising food prices are threatening political stability throughout the developing world.

“The security implications [of the food crisis] should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe,” said Mr Holmes, speaking at the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development (DIHAD) Conference, according to the Guardian. “Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity,” he added.

Kanayo Nwanza, vice president of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) said on Tuesday: “Escalating social unrest as we have seen in Cameroon, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and in Senegal could spread to other countries,” reports AFP.

African finance ministers met last week in Addis Ababa to consider the food crisis. In a statement, the ministers warned that food price rises “pose significant threats to Africa’s growth, peace and security.”

Last month, the head of the UN World Food Programme, Josette Sheeran, said that high oil prices, low food stocks, growing demand from China and the push for biofuels are causing a food crisis around the world.

“We are seeing a new face of hunger,” she said. “We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it.”

From the spokesperson’s office of UNEP we were sent the following Press Release.

{But let us, note first that –  SustainabiliTank.info finds of particular interest the choice for the African region of
“Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior researcher at Sudan’s Higher Council for Environment & Natural Resources,” and we notice that there is no paragraph when explaining the choice as it was done for all other six choices – the special award, the US award, and the awards from the other five regions. Is this because the gentleman is an official of the government of Sudan and was proposed by the African Union in their routine of spiting the West?     We recreated the paragraph spacing in our posting.}

Climate Change Links 2008 Champions of the Earth Award Winners.

Green achievers from Bangladesh to New Zealand will be honoured at
international award ceremony in April in Singapore

NAIROBI, 28 January 2008 – From protecting the unique biodiversity of
Yemen’s islands to piloting climate-proofing strategies in Sudan and
boosting conservation in Barbados, the 2008 Champions of the Earth are
making their mark across the planet.

Prince Albert II of Monaco, former US Senator Timothy E. Wirth and New
Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark – whose country will host World
Environment Day this year with the theme “Kick the Habit! Towards a Low
Carbon Economy” – are among the seven environmental achievers chosen for
this year’s awards, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
announced today.

The Champions of the Earth prize, which will be given out at a ceremony in
Singapore on 22 April, recognizes individuals from each region of the world
who have shown extraordinary leadership on environmental issues.

The other 2008 Champions of the Earth are: Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior
researcher at Sudan’s Higher Council for Environment & Natural Resources;
Atiq Rahman, the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced
Studies; Liz Thompson, the former Energy and Environment Minister of
Barbados; and Abdul-Qader Ba-Jammal, the Secretary-General of the Yemen
People’s General Congress.

All the winners have spearheaded outstanding initiatives in many different
areas from environmental policy to cutting-edge research, with a particular
focus on sustainable development and the fight against climate change.

The announcement comes on the eve of the 10th Special Session of the UNEP
Governing Council, which will bring together over 100 ministers from around
the world in Monaco from 20 to 22 February. This year’s Governing Council
will also focus on the urgent challenge of climate change – specifically,
the issue of mobilizing finance to realize a low-carbon world.

Achim Steiner, the UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director,
said: “Today, we face environmental challenges of unprecedented magnitude.
More than ever, our planet needs committed leaders and achievers like the
2008 Champions of the Earth who spur real, positive change and fuel
innovative solutions to environmental problems.

In doing so, these inspirational individuals demonstrate not only that
action and different development paths are possible but also the abundant
opportunities arising as a result of a transformation towards a green
economy.”

2008 Champions of the Earth:

UNEP SPECIAL PRIZE
Rt. Hon. Helen Clark

By setting a carbon-neutral goal for New Zealand, Prime Minister Helen
Clark has put her country at the forefront of today’s environmental
challenges. Three major policy initiatives launched by Miss Clark are also
blazing new trails for sustainability and the fight against climate change:
the Emissions Trading Scheme; the Energy Strategy; and the Energy
Efficiency and Conservation Strategy.

Miss Clark’s policies champion renewable energy and energy efficiency
across key sectors of the economy. Her Government is also achieving
substantial work on environmental protection, from forestry and agriculture
to improving public awareness and boosting private sector involvement in
sustainability. New Zealand will be hosting this year’s World Environment
Day – one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations
stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political
attention and action. The event will take place on 5 June 2008 with the
slogan “Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy”.

AFRICA                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Dr. Balgis Osman-Elasha

Dr. Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior scientist from Sudan, is at the forefront
of global research on climate change. A leading author of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, she has produced
groundbreaking work on global warming – the defining challenge of our era –
in Africa, with an emphasis on northern and eastern Africa.

Dr. Osman-Elasha’s emphasis on global warming and adaptation in Sudan is
vital given the strong interlinkages between climate change and conflict in
the country. Her work as a prominent researcher on climate change makes her
a true role model for women in Africa.

The award also recognizes Dr. Osman-Elasha’s efforts to educate Sudanese
university students about the issue of climate change, thus raising
awareness among the country’s new generation.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Dr. Atiq Rahman

Dr. Atiq Rahman is an eloquent advocate for sustainable development from
Bangladesh – a country highly vulnerable to climate change and flooding. As
one of the top specialists in his field, the Executive Director of the
Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) transformed the
non-governmental organization (NGO) into a leading think-tank in South Asia
on sustainable development issues.

Dr. Rahman’s extensive publications on the subjects of environment and
development in Bangladesh are a reference for his peers, and he has also
developed an innovative post-graduate course on sustainable development and
North-South dialogue.

With his national and international experience in environment and resource
management, Dr. Rahman’s expertise remains vital throughout the
Asia-Pacific region and beyond as he helps to raise awareness of the
hazards of global warming.

EUROPE
H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco

One of Prince Albert II’s first acts as sovereign of Monaco was to sign the
Kyoto Protocol – an eloquent sign of his longstanding commitment to the
environment. Prince Albert has been a prominent voice on environmental
issues since the early 1990s and he has been strongly involved in raising
awareness on climate change, leading an expedition to the North Pole in
2006 to draw attention to the consequences of global warming.

The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, which he created in 2006, works
actively on protecting the environment and promoting sustainable
development, with a focus on biodiversity loss, water and the fight against
climate change. Prince Albert is also a patron of the Billion Tree
Campaign, which successfully led to the planting of well over a billion
trees across the planet in 2007.

Prince Albert has also shown remarkable commitment to sustainable
development on his home turf of Monaco. Under his leadership, Monaco is now
applying an exemplary policy on CO2 reduction in every sphere of society as
well as in the business sector.

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
H. E. Liz Thompson

Ms. Thompson has become one of the recognized leaders on environmental
issues of the small island developing States.

During her time as Minister of Energy and the Environment of Barbados, she
enacted a range of progressive policies for sustainable development and
environmental protection.

She also became a key voice to raise awareness of global warming in
Barbados – a country where the challenges of climate change and
conservation are of particular relevance.

Ms. Thompson has also played a role in environmental awareness and
protection across the Caribbean region. She has encouraged small island
States to diversify their economies, undertake sustainability assessments,
and promote community-based programmes that have positive environmental
impacts.

NORTH AMERICA
Timothy E. Wirth

For the last 30 years, Timothy E. Wirth has been an advocate for
environmental issues in the United States. As the president of the United
Nations Foundation and Better World Fund, Mr. Wirth has established the
environment as a key priority and is mobilizing strong resources to address
crucial issues from biodiversity to climate change and renewable energy.

A strong supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, Mr. Wirth was instrumental in
raising awareness and calling for policy action on global warming during
his time as United States Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs.

Mr. Wirth was also a steadfast advocate on environmental issues during his
time as a member of the US Senate, when he engaged in a number of
conservation and natural resource issues in his state of Colorado. Mr.
Wirth authored the Colorado Wilderness Bill as well as other successful
legislation on energy, conservation and environmental protection.

WEST ASIA
H.E. Abdul-Qader Ba-Jammal

Mr. Ba-Jammal has had a truly pioneering influence on environmental
protection in Yemen – a country which faces acute challenges from water
scarcity to desertification. During his time as Minister and then Prime
Minister, he established Yemen’s Ministry of Water and Environment and
Environment Protection Authority, solicited national and international
funding for environmental conservation and sustainable water management,
and implemented a series of groundbreaking environmental policies in Yemen
and its region.

Mr. Ba-Jammal also orchestrated conservation efforts for the Socotra
archipelago, a site of global importance for biodiversity. The Socotra
conservation fund came into being under his patronage, and the archipelago
was listed as a UNESCO Man and Biosphere reserve in 2003.

Among other achievements, Mr. Ba-Jammal also supported the declaration of
several marine and land protected areas in Yemen and established a state
agency for the development of Yemeni islands with a focus on marine
resources conservation. Along with Mr. Ba-Jammal’s work on Yemen’s water
sector, all these projects serve as key examples of environmental awareness
in a region where water and conservation issues are of vital importance –
increasingly so in a climate-constrained world.

Champions of the Earth is an international environment award established in
2004 by UNEP. The annual prize rewards individuals from around the globe
who have made a significant and recognized contribution globally,
regionally and beyond, to the protection and sustainable management of the
Earth’s environment and natural resources. Candidates are judged by a
senior UNEP panel with input from UNEP’s regional offices.

Past Champions of the Earth winners include, among others: Ms. Massoudeh
Ebtekar, the former Vice-President of Iran; H.E. Mikhail Gorbachev of the
Russian Federation; H.R.H. Prince Hassan Bin Talal of Jordan; Jacques Rogge
and the International Olympic Committee; and Al Gore, the former
Vice-President of the United States.

The Champions of the Earth are invited to accept their award at an
international ceremony which will be held in Singapore on 22 April 2008.
The event will be hosted in conjunction with the Business for the
Environment Summit (B4E), details of which can be found on the UNEP
website.

No monetary reward is attached to the prize – each laureate receives a
trophy made of recycled metal especially designed by the Kenyan sculptor
Kioko and representing the fundamental elements for life on earth: sun,
air, land and water.

Background on the Champions of the Earth award and all the laureates can be
found at www.unep.org or from UNEP’s communications division at
 unep.org.

 November 200 “Making of the New 7 Wonders” DVD Now Available!
New7Wonders Voting Analysis Now Online   – Nominate & Support New7Wonders of Nature Candidates NOW!
Check out the New7Wonders Official Silver Medals, Medallions and Song.

Nominate New7Wonders of Nature Candidates NOW, get an Official Supporting Committee going!
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The new New7Wonders of Nature campaign was launched at the end of the Declaration gala on 07.07.07. Since then, we have received input from more than half a million people around the planet, and hundreds of natural sites have been nominated.

There is a wonderful diversity in the nominees. They include bodies of water such as Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia or the Dead Sea between Israel, Jordan and Palestine, canyons such as the Grand Canyon in the U.S. and Colca Canyon in Peru, waterfalls including Iguassu Falls in Brazil and Argentina, Victoria Falls in Zambia, Angel Falls in Venezuela and Niagara Falls between the U.S. and Canada, islands such as Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands and Yemen’s Socotra Island, as well as fjords such as Norway’s Geirangerfjord. Perhaps less easy to categorize but equally impressive are other natural marvels being nominated, such as Sunderbans, the largest mangrove forest in India and Bangladesh, the world’s largest salt flats, Salar de Uyuni, in Bolivia, Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, Mongolia’s Flaming Cliffs and the submarine Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.

Click here to nominate your favorite natural sites, or to support a favorite. We will soon be announcing the start of the first voting stage, during which we will have a live ranking of the Official Supported Nominees online. This phase will determine the Top 77 nominees, from which the 21 finalists will be chosen. So these steps are really important – think of all the beautiful places you know, and nominate them! Then, since only Official Supported Nominees will be able to receive votes, get an Official Supporting Committee going to support them! Spread the word to your family, friends and encourage them to get involved in the world’s only democratic campaign.

Please note: No Official Supporting Committee means no participation in the New7Wonders of Nature campaign.

New7Wonders Official Song.

The beat of the first-ever global election has people grooving from all four corners of the planet. Click here and experience the musical heart of the New 7 Wonders of the World – your feet will soon be tapping along.

Please see the diagram at the bottom of this newsletter for the stages and timing of the New7Wonders of Nature campaign.        The first-ever global election revealed some surprising insights, first and foremost that the largest group that took part in the campaign was – contrary to what you may think – not the Chinese or the Indians, but rather the children! Yes, kids worldwide participated by voting, campaigning, submitting artwork, showing how New7Wonders is stimulating intercultural dialogue and fostering an environment of mutual appreciation.
Unexpectedly to many, it was not the wealthy world, with its Internet connections and non-stop media access which played the key role in choosing the 7 symbols of global unity! Rather, it was people across Latin America, Asia and Africa who voted en masse.

In another interesting twist, monuments inspired real cross-cultural support – sometimes more than national! For example, more Koreans and Japanese voted for the Eiffel Tower than did people in France, and children everywhere cast their votes for fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle – more than people in Germany. In an African sprint, an avalanche of votes in support of Timbuktu were cast in the final weeks of the event from throughout Africa.

Founder and President of New7Wonders Bernard Weber says, “On a personal note, I am especially pleased to see that my two countries, Switzerland and Canada, were amongst the most active participants without having national candidates, along with some more exotic countries like Yemen, Albania and Afghanistan.” Read Bernard Weber’s fascinating, short analysis of the vote by clicking here.

The 07.07.07 celebration truly spanned the globe! Huge, often spontaneous parties were held in the winning countries, like those held to celebrate being named Olympic Games host or winning a major international sporting event.

The journey to the spectacular gala Declaration of the New 7 Wonders in Lisbon was full of exciting, thought-provoking and enlightening moments. Follow Bernard Weber and his team as they travel and work to fulfil the vision of bringing our world together to choose the New 7 Wonders of the World. See magnificent footage of many of the New7Wonders finalists, listen to rare music from many of the cultures represented, and enjoy interviews with people around the world who played a special part in the birth of the New 7 Wonders of the World. This is a great holiday gift, so order NOW!
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Three exciting new additions can now be found in the New7Wonders shop.
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