August 19, 2010, before the UN started its meetings, the Asia Society in New York opened the discussion on the Pakistan Flood response by diving right to the bottom truth – the latest mega-disasters have one common cause – human induced climate change. It was Financier George Soros who injected the topic and the media was allowed by Ambassador Holbrooke to follow up. See what you can do when you go outside the UN!

Ambassador Dr. Richard C. Holbrooke, former Chairman of the Board of the Asia Society, and now US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan,  chaired the 8:30 am event at his New York home – the Asia Society – on the day when for 3:00 pm the UN General Assembly scheduled a pledging event for funding Pakistan relief. At the UN, for the US, spoke Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton, and I saw on TV  the complete  Asia Society American team sitting in the hall. The team included also Judith A. McHale, US Department of State Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Dr. George Erik Rupp, a theologian, President of the International Rescue Committee and former President of Rice University and Columbia University, and Raymond Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America.

The opening speaker after Ambassador Holbrooke was Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and the panel included also USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah. Then there was a list of guests that made their comments, followed by questions from the floor and answers from Administrator Dr. Shah and Ambassador Qureshi.

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L to R: USAID’s Dr. Rajiv Shah, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke. (Else Ruiz/Asia Society)

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Judith A. McHale, a former media head herself ( President and Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Communications – 1987 to 2006), and now with the US Government, said that information is critical. “We work with the government of Pakistan to provide the critical information on the ground. It is posted on www.State.gov

Among the guests were Financier George Soros, whose Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations work on the ground in Pakistan – he announced that he adds another $5 million to the funds that his foundation will work with in helping directly civil society in Pakistan,  Christopher MacCormac of the Asian Development Bank, which is leading the effort to assess the flood damage, said much of the economic infrastructure of the area has been destroyed. 2 million ha. of crops were lost and livestock have been devastated, which has taken a large toll on Pakistan farmers. ADB has said that after the immediate contribution of $3 million from the ASia-Pacific Disaster Fund, it would loan Pakistan $2 billion to help the country rebuild, and Pakistan’s rock star turned political activist Salman Ahmad, known as Pakistan’s Bono, or as Holbrooke pointed out, “Bono is the Irish Salman Ahmad,” pointed out a very important topic:

“This is a defining moment in Pakistan,” Ahmad said. “This flood has set back Pakistan in a huge way. Out of 175 million people, 100 million are under 25. Those young people are skeptical, and they feel abandoned by the world. The international community has to win hearts and minds of those 100 million youth in Pakistan.” “If there is a sluggish response the terrorists/extremists win.” He also said that last year he had a concert at the UN to show to the young people in Pakistan that there was hope – he said that he is sure the international community will react positively.

Ambassador Holbrooke said that in the catastrophe there is also an opportunity, that we should not miss -  the people in Pakistan should see that the world is ready to help. He found that these elements of hope in opportunity were missing in the day’s article in The New York Times.

For the US the strategic implications are clear. The US pulled out helicopters from the military effort in order to help in the rescue effort. Will the Taliban take advantage of this? A US transport ship with materials arrived to Karachi, and Japan will now also send helicopters to help in the rescue effort.

The meeting was summarized by The Asia Society and there is also the full tape at -

 http://asiasociety.org/policy-politics/e…

Further, Ms. Nafis Sadik from the UN, now a Trustee Emeritus of the Asia Society and Chair of the Pakistan Foundation at the Asia Society called for Ramadan giving to the Foundation. Other Pakistan-Americans spoke and told of their own efforts to raise funds for the Pakistan relief program as the State’s capacity to meet the challenge has been overstretched. Today Pakistan , one fifth of its territory submerged, 68 million of its people affected, and 1,600 people dead, crops, animal stock, and infrastructure devastated – Pakistan is calling – humanity is calling they said. We saw a video proving every point. The Pakistan-American Foundation was inspired by Hilary Clinton’s “Pakistani Peacebuilders.”

Oxfam America was joined by “Save the Chidren” NGO  representative Gorel Bogarde said the obvious – what children most need is food, clean drinking water and shelter. She is most concerned for the moment about the outbreak of water-bourne diseases, such as cholera.

We will not repeat here further figures of loss and the size of the calamity. We assume that these are known by our readers by now – we want rather to point out the blunt comments that resulted from the statement by Mr. Soros who linked what happens to our lack of readiness to do something about the human-made climate change. Pakistan is the biggest of the recent disasters he said and we must deal with the root causes he continued. CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE ROOT CAUSE FOR ALL THESE RECENT DISASTERS. Mr. Soros spoke of the coincidence of the Himalaya glaciers melting and the monsoons getting stronger at the same time.

He also said “there is a certain amount of fatigue in responding to these disasters… [but] we have to come to terms with the fact that they are in fact connected, that there is climate change.”

At the Q & A part of the program, I asked the last question that was intended to bring the attention back to what Mr. Soros said.
My question was something like – I am with Sustainable Development Media and I wonder what Pakistan thinks about Mr. Soros’ statement about climate change – the reason being that the present calamity will repeat itself, so how does one do reconstruction work that makes sense?

Ambassador Holbrooke said Thank You and addressed the question first to Mr. Rajiv Shah.

When asked if there was a connection between the floods and climate change, USAID’s Shah said “while it’s very hard to attribute any single event to what we’re doing to our global environment it is very clear that that trend is leading to a greater number of large hurricanes, a greater number of floods, hotter and dryer conditions in places that are dependent on weather and rainfall for agriculture, and it’s making it very difficult for the least resilient, the most lower income communities of the world to survive.”

We heard from Mr. Christopher MacCormac that after the Earth Quake of 2005 the rebuilding of houses was done according to higher standards – so what we need here in the response to the present calamity is also to build better – but he did not specify, neither did Mr. Holbrooke. This, with the understanding that the increased monsoon floods,  joined with the melting of the Himalaya Glaciers, is indeed not a one time shot – but the beginning of a trend – leaves us with very bad premonitions about the future of Pakistan and other low lying lands of the region. This  has  clearly left me thinking about what means building better? Are we going to take into account these new phenomena resulting from global use of fossil fuels when going from the immediate reaction to the suffering from the floods to the longer range rebuilding stage? This is clearly an area that will be written up much more in the foreseeable future.

Ambassador Qurashi was asked by Mr. Holbrooke to react to the climate change implications. Are there additional run-off from the Himalayas?

The answer included: The Glaciers melt and what we have in Pakistan are Monsoon water plus glacier melts combined. We have above normal moisture.

He also said that “There are local NGOs in Pakistan that help push back the extremists and you have shown the world that you are a helping Nation.”

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The ordeal in Pakistan reminded us of the -

June 2, 2010

Himalayan countries must set aside their differences and  collaborate on science in order to avoid a common water crisis, says a report.

Environmental pressures, including those from climate change, could have unprecedented effects on the livelihoods of millions of people in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region, according to the study, published by the UK-based Humanitarian Futures Programme, the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, and China Dialogue. Yet scientific research is either non-existent or, where it exists, is not shared beyond a country’s borders, said the report, ‘The Waters of the Third Pole: Sources of Threat, Sources of Survival’. And scientists are failing to communicate what they do know to the public and policymakers, it added.

The Hindu-Kush Himalaya region provides water for one fifth of the world’s population including countries stretching from Pakistan to Myanmar. “This region is a black hole for data,” said Isabelle Hilton, editor of China Dialogue and a contributor to the report.

“Managing this water requires knowledge and cooperation,” she said at the launch of the report last week (19 May) in the United Kingdom. But the region “lacks the institutions and in some cases the political will to address issues cooperatively”. History, diverse languages and cultures, and military conflicts are behind the lack of a concerted effort to study the waters, she said, and now “a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach is needed” to catch up. But this is not high on the public agenda, she said.

Stephen Edwards, an earth scientist and research manager at the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, called for more high-quality, peer-reviewed data. “We need to understand problems before we know how to manage them,” he said. But science itself is not enough, he added, “scientists have to interact with economists and policymakers — we need proper dialogue”.

Andreas Schild, director general of the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, agreed with the report’s conclusions.”Water is one of the most important resources,” he said. “Traditionally there has been no free exchange of information on water discharge and this is practically still the case today. “It is not just a concern between countries, but even within countries, as between the individual states of India.

“Researchers in all concerned countries are very interested in having cross-border collaboration and exchange of information,” he told  SciDev.Net. “But when it comes to cooperation on concrete issues at the level of government institutions, we face a completely different situation, where agreements with various other partners in the country are required.”If you want to close the knowledge gap here in the Himalayas then you have to strengthen the institutions [there].”

Otherwise, short-term foreign development funds mean there is no consistent long-term data and continuity in research by the institutions based in the region, said Schild. But he added that European organisations, with “Europe-centric” research methods, must share the blame.

“A lot of research conducted on this region by European universities and other institutions is often not shared. Sometimes we even get the impression that they are only looking for a partner in the South to use as Sherpas.”

Link to full ‘The Waters of the Third Pole: Sources of Threat, Sources of Survival’ report
[2MB]

 http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2010…

AFP/Getty Images New buildings tower above boats on the Saigon vier in Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese city says its economy grew by 8% last year. Vietnam’s economy lures some who left in the 1970s. By Kathy Chu, USA TODAY, August 18, 2010. HO CHI MINH CITY {who many call again Saigon}, Vietnam — At age 9, Johnny Tri Nguyen fled by fishing boat from this war-torn land of re-education camps and rationed food. He and his family were captured twice — and jailed — before finally escaping and establishing a life for themselves in California. Despite the harrowing experience, he holds little bitterness, just hope, for his homeland. After 17 years in the USA, he returned to Vietnam to make a movie based loosely on his grandfather’s life. “Much has changed, and the whole reason we left in the first place is no longer there,” says Nguyen, a Vietnamese actor and filmmaker known for his role in The Rebel, along with his stunt work in movies such as Spider-Man. “I find it very comfortable to live here now.” When the Vietnam War ended 35 years ago, millions of Vietnamese fled a communist country whose growth had been stymied by war, oppression and uncertainty, seeking a better life for themselves and their children in the USA, Canada and Europe. Today, some of those who left years ago now look at Vietnam as a land of opportunity. At least 500,000 Viet Kieu, as they are known, return every year to this nation of 86 million, some to stay. “Vietnam’s economic reforms and growth as well as the recent economic downturn in America may be part of the reason” why a growing number of Viet Kieu are returning to the country, says Nguyen Manh Hung, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “There is a sentimental reason, too: the feeling of being at home in a familiar culture with a familiar way of life,” he says. REMITTANCES: Vietnamese abroad send money The return here of some Vietnamese-Americans comes as the Communist Party that runs Vietnam continues to loosen state controls on the economy in an attempt to boost the standard of living here. The fall of South Vietnam to the communist North in 1975 left the country bound by a totalitarian regime that stripped many people of their land and businesses. The legacy of the war and the party’s clampdown on free markets was rampant poverty. Change came in the mid-1980s, when Vietnam instituted reforms called doi moi that opened up the economy to foreign investment and introduced some forms of capitalism. Today, Vietnam’s economy is the one of the fastest-growing in Asia. It may eventually claim the mantle of the fastest-growing emerging economy, based on its growth between 2007 and 2050, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the financial advisory firm. ‘The best of both worlds’ Some of those returning are people who risked their lives to leave. Dang Tuyet Mai, who once was married to a former South Vietnamese prime minister, Nguyen Cao Ky, escaped by plane two days before the war ended. After three decades in the USA, Dang ventured back to her homeland to open a noodle shop. “It’s a mixed feeling being here,” admits Dang, whose former husband was a prominent figure in South Vietnam’s fight against communism. “But when you are Vietnamese, you always think of going back to the country where you were born.” During lunch time at her restaurant, Pho Ta, in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, the tables teem with Vietnamese businessmen and women. Steaming bowls of noodles are placed before them along with heaping mounds of fresh vegetables to dunk into the anise-scented broth. In a country where a bowl of pho can be found as easily as a hamburger in the States, Dang says hers stands out because of the homemade noodles, low fat content and a broth simmered over a low flame for 12 hours. “Even the Prime Minister of Vietnam (Nguyen Tan Dung) has eaten at my store,” says Dang, whose beauty first captivated the country in the 1960s when she was an Air Vietnam stewardess. Even today, some customers are drawn to Pho Ta to catch a glimpse of her. Dang is hoping the next celebrity to grace the restaurant will be Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I really admire her, and I want to shake her hand,” Dang says. Clinton came to Hanoi in July for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations but didn’t end up stopping by Ho Chi Minh City. Another local establishment, Pho 2000, gained followers and a new slogan, “Pho for the President,” after then-president Bill Clinton sampled a bowl there 10 years ago. Like many new returnees, Dang hasn’t committed to living full-time in Vietnam but spends a quarter of the year in Southern California with her daughter and granddaughters. Her ability to live in two countries — and to juggle dual cultures — isn’t suitable for the travel weary or the weak of heart. But for Viet Kieus such as Trung Dung, the founder of electronic payments company Mobivi, this freedom is a blessing. “I have the best of both worlds,” says Dung, 43, who spends up to 80% of his time in Vietnam and the rest in California, where his son and sisters live. The main draw of Vietnam, he says, is that it feels like home. But entrepreneurs like him also are captivated by the business opportunities stemming from a third-world country transitioning into one of the region’s most promising economic powerhouses. Dung is betting that as the country booms, its largely cash society will transition to electronic payments, benefiting companies such as Mobivi. “I was very fortunate in witnessing the Internet revolution (in the USA), and it was an incredible time to be in the Silicon Valley,” says Dung, who became a billionaire in his 30s after selling his software company, OnDisplay, to Austin-based Vignette Corp. “The same thing is happening in Vietnam. We’re at the very early phase of creating things that will be here for a long time.” ‘The culture is so rich’ As Viet Kieu flock to Vietnam, the government is encouraging them to start up businesses and buy real estate to power the economy. It’s also stepping up efforts to attract foreign companies. U.S. companies including Intel and General Electric have already established a presence here, and others are exploring the possibility, attracted partly by Vietnam’s highly educated, skilled and young population (a quarter of residents are under 15). Thuy Vo Dang, a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, believes the success of the government’s efforts to woo Viet Kieu will depend partly on its ability “to overcome the tension that still exists between the overseas community and the country.” “It’s one thing to welcome visitors,” she notes, but the government needs to address corruption, which is widespread and entrenched in Vietnam. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index of 2009, based on surveys of international businesspeople, considers Vietnam one of the world’s most corrupt countries, with a ranking of 120 out of 180 countries. Property, construction and government contracts are reportedly riddled with bribery, according to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. The regulatory environment is not transparent and Vietnam’s legal system is not independent and hindered by corruption, it said. Oppression and lack of religious and political freedoms are also causing concern among some of the Viet Kieu. Some people interviewed said they felt constrained about discussing injustices for fear of offending the government and inviting actions against them or their businesses. The U.S. State Department has criticized Vietnam for its jailing of political opponents and especially Catholic priests and bloggers who speak out in favor of the kinds of basic freedoms the Viet Kieu have enjoyed in the West. The Viet Kieu, because they have citizenship elsewhere, generally enjoy more freedoms than Vietnam’s citizens. “The progress made on the economic front has not transferred in any way to human rights,” says Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch‘s Asia division. “There are still significant restrictions on freedom of association and independent trade unions, and the government uses very broad national security legislation to go after dissidents.” As a growing number of Viet Kieu invest in Vietnam, it’s creating jobs and fueling the country’s economy. But the investment may also be seen as “condoning the government’s lack of freedoms for the country,” Vo Dang warns. “Blind investment in the homeland could, in fact, create more problems than it solves.” Yet the lure of their homeland is so powerful that for some Viet Kieu, it trumps memories, beliefs and politics. Nguyen, the actor, remembers his family being so poor after the Vietnam War that he had to make his own toys from clay he dug up from nearby ponds. But what struck Nguyen when he first returned to Vietnam was not the vestiges of war lingering in every city’s memorials to the departed, but the connection he felt to the country and its beautiful scenery. “This culture is so rich in cinematic” promise, he says. On a sweltering July day, amid the ancient rock formations of Ninh Binh province in northern Vietnam, Nguyen’s brother-in-law, filmmaker Jimmy Nghiem Pham, seeks to capitalize on this cinematic promise. Between scenes of a new movie he’s helping produce —Khat Vong Thang Long, a film that commemorates the 1,000-year anniversary of the nation’s capital moving to Hanoi and is being made in cooperation with the government — Pham describes how Vietnam has become a “land of opportunity” for independent filmmakers. “If you don’t have a lot of money, Vietnam is the best place to make a movie,” says Pham, whose budgets have ranged from $15,000 to $1.6 million. A graduate of the film school at Cal State Long Beach, Pham lived in Southern California — home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the USA — for more than a decade before returning to Vietnam. He feels strong ties to both countries, but says matter-of-factly that “if my movie career is better, then I will stay here.” For Henry Hoang Nguyen, his ties to Vietnam are becoming more compelling than those to the USA. In the spring of 2001, Hoang Nguyen, 37, landed a New York-based consulting job for McKinsey & Associates that was to begin in the fall. But the start date was delayed by six months because of the economic hangover from the Internet bust. This gave him time to explore opportunities in Vietnam’s emerging telecom sector. Nine years and a few business opportunities later, Hoang Nguyen is now managing general partner of IDG Ventures, a $100 million venture capital fund focused on technology, media and telecom investments in Vietnam. He has married a Vietnamese woman who has no intention of leaving the country. And the former “all-American” kid is proudly rediscovering his extended family and his heritage. Being a generation removed from the war has given him an unvarnished appreciation for Vietnam — free from painful memories still in the minds of previous generations. “I don’t carry any burdens or feelings of negativity,” says Hoang Nguyen, whose parents left Saigon, the name locals still use to refer to Ho Chi Minh City, long before he was old enough to remember life there. “I just feel a real strong attachment and patriotism for Vietnam.” Such feelings are also felt by Viet Kieu David Thai, an entrepreneur who once dreamed about being a basketball player or snowboarder. Thai grew up in Seattle but came back to the country he left as a toddler to study Vietnamese civilization. Business opportunities conspired to keep him here, including the launch of a Starbucks-like chain, Highlands Coffee, and of American icon Hard Rock Cafe in Vietnam. Coming from Seattle, “I missed good coffee,” he says. But the overarching business goal, adds Thai, is “to build a national brand, to make Vietnam known for investment and business.” Yet for every tale of business success in Vietnam, there’s another tale of failure in a market laden with government restrictions. And for those who choose to live and work in this country, there are compromises to be made. Nguyen Qui Duc, who moved to Hanoi and started Tadioto bar and art gallery, doesn’t enjoy the same creative freedoms in Vietnam — a country where state censorship is widespread — that he had as a journalist and as an artist in the United States. Duc, who once hosted a radio show on Asian affairs in the United States, says he has learned to work within the system in Vietnam. “I can’t change the system, but I work with artists to express themselves,” he says. “Freedom of expression is getting better in Vietnam.” Despite the challenges, Nguyen Qui Duc says he’s glad he moved back because it has allowed him to rediscover the simplicity of life. “I’m 50 years old, and I’m riding a motorcycle,” he says. “In the States, I was tired of living a life where I never talked to my neighbors. I prefer life here where you can walk down the street and talk to people.”

UNITED NATIONS, ICP, August 11, 2010  — Starting with a 200 page book of “Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew,” the get-things-done founder of modern Singapore, American author Tom Plate is engaged in a Giants of Asia trilogy. The next in the series is Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia.

The third Giant of Asia, Plate said at a VIP book party on August 10, will be UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Plate told an audience including the Permanent Representatives to the UN of Vietnam, Costa Rica, The Netherlands and of course Singapore, which hosted the event, that in his experience Asian leaders are more concerned about community rights than individual or human rights.

He asked rhetorically, do you want to solve the problem of drug gangs in Los Angeles? Give Lee Kuan Yew $10 billion, and look away for 18 months. Come back and it will be solved.

Some in the audience wondered what might happen during those 18 months, from the leader who instituted caning for the mis disposal or even chewing of gum. A professor in the audience asked about the balance between development and human rights.

Plate responded that while to the “Western” mind, publicly punishing the wrong person in order to send a message to others might violate due process, to Lee Kuan Yew and presumably the other Giants of Asia, the calculus is not so simple.

If the mis-punishment helps the community at large, it might on balance be a good thing, Plate said.

Inner City Press, invited without conditions to the event but then asked to not mention at least one of the attendees, asked Plate if he would consider interviewing some of the some openly authoritarian strong men of Asia, including Than Shwe of Myanmar and Kim Jong-Il of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Plate replied that if asked to go to Pyongyang and given access to Kim Jong-Il, he would be on the next plane. He said that he doubted Than Shwe, at 76, could endure the type of multi-day interview process which he engaged in with Lee Kuan Yew.

One wonders, then, how a sitting Secretary General, embroiled in a management scandal triggered most recently by the damning End of Assignment Report of outgoing lead UN investigator Inga Britt Ahlenius, will have time to sit for this Giants of Asia profile.

Without attributing the concerns, there seem to have been a belated request not to publicize the identity of Plate’s third Giant of Asia until after Mr. Ban’s second term is more secure.

But, one cynical in the audience asked, is the problem the publicity or the vanity book project itself?

UN’s Ban Depicted in Sri Lanka: Giant of Asia?

Inner City Press first heard of Plate’s book when a section about Sri Lanka was circulated, largely by the Tamil diaspora. Lee Kwan Yew is quoted on page 55 saying the -

“example is Sri Lanka. It is not a happy, united country. Yes, they [the majority Sinhalese government] have beaten the Tamil Tigers this time, but the Sinhalese who are less capable are putting down a minority of Jaffna Tamils who are more capable. They were squeezing them out. That’s why the Tamils rebelled. But I do not see them ethnic cleansing all two million plus Jaffna Tamils. The Jaffna Tamils have been in Sri Lanka as long as the Sinhalese…[referring to Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa] ‘I’ve read his speeches and I knew he was a Sinhalese extremist. I cannot change his mind.’”

Plate was asked about this section of the book, and said that it was difficult to keep it in. Afterward, Inner City Press asked Plate to explain: how had wanted the section to come out? Of all that he said Tuesday night, this was the only time that Plate asked to go off the record. We will respect that, just as we’ll respect the request to omit the presence of at least one individual and entourage.

Singapore’s Mission to the UN, its Permanent Representative Vanu Gopala Menon, his Deputy, wife and staff are to be commended for hosting such an eclectic crowd, and serving afterward such good food, including the Indian paratha break renamed roti — and tinged with coconut — when it arrived in Lee Kuan Yew’s giant laboratory in one of the smallest nation states.

There was Tamil advocates among the attendees, including the son of the plaintiff in a recent free speech case in the U.S. Supreme Court. Some wondered at the irony of Ban Ki-moon, who long delayed naming, and still has not begun, a panel about accountability for civilian deaths in Sri Lanka in 2009, choosing as his conversational biographer the writer who coaxed the above quoted analysis of ethnic cleansing and Sinhalese extremism in Sri Lanka, to the level of the president.

We will have more on this and on the rest of Plate’s illuminating talk, including his and Lee Kuan Yew’s views of the UN and the ways in which its Secretary General are elected and, at times, re-elected. The interplay of Ban’s drive for re-election and his participation at Plate’s third “Giant of Asia” will also be explored.

* * *

At UN, Ban’s Travails Trigger Candidacy Tales, De Mistura, Zeid, Kubis, Kerim or even Bachelet or Bill Clinton, Game On

UNITED NATIONS, August 9 — Alternate candidates to Ban Ki-moon are emerging before the next UN Secretary General term begins on January 1, 2012. Tellingly, even people given UN posts by Ban Ki-moon are among reported candidates.

Ban named Staffan de Mistura as his representative in Afghanistan, after de Mistura hired Ban’s son in law Siddarth Chatterjee as his chief of staff with the UN in Iraq. (Ban’s son in law has since been hired by Jan Mattsson as a high official of the UN Office of Project Services in Copenhagen).

But, people recruited to work for the UN in Afghanistan tell Inner City Press, de Mistura harbors the dream of swooping in as a dark horse candidate to replace Ban in late 2011.

There is “blood in the water,” these sources say, particularly following the damning End of Assignment report of Inga Britt Ahlenius. Ban’s “melt down” then retraction on August 9 about job promises made in the course of replacing Ahlenius won’t help either.

The problem for de Mistura and other non-Asian contenders is that the S-G position is said to belong to a regional group for at least 10 years.

When the U.S. vetoed Egypt’s Boutros Boutros Ghali in 2005, the post next went to another African. So it would be with Ban, the assumption goes, with China demanding equal treatment for Asia.

But, as Inner City Press reported some time ago, even Team Ban has a theory that the U.S. might trade its de facto ownership of the top World Bank post to China in exchange for the right to replace Ban with a S-G of its choice.

De Mistura, having served as U.S. ground cover and fig leaf in Iraq and then Afghanistan, feels he would have U.S. support. A long shot candidate mentioned is Bill Clinton. Others point to Jose Ramos Horta of Timor Leste, in the Asian group like another candidate, Zeid Bin Ra’ad of Jordan.

UN’s Ban and de Mistura: one bleary eyed with lack of sleep, the other looking long

Lula of Brazil would appear to have lost U.S. support, given his country’s vote against the recent sanctions on Iran. Shashi Tharoor appears to have shot himself in the foot with Cricket-gate.

More savvy, some say, is Michelle Bachelet. She is understood to have not leaped at the offer of the top UN Women post. Does this mean that, like with the UNICEF post given to Tony Lake, she is shooting higher?
From those heights, at UNDP, Helen Clark is often mentioned.

There are other plotters. Some point to the alliance between Ms. Ahlenius and Alicia Barcena, who left the top UN Management post when Ban came in and went to ECLAC in Santiago, Chile. She was in New York and dined with Ahlenius shortly before Ahlenius leaked her memo. Also involved, sources say, was Barcena’s Management predecessor Christopher Burnham.

Next in line, they argue, are the Eastern European states. From 2006, there is Vaira Vike-Freiberga. Jan Kubis is mentioned (Ban gave him a temporary post during the violence in Kyrgyzstan), along with former General Assembly president Srgjan Kerim, to whom Ban gave a Special Envoy on Climate Change UN post. Do you see a pattern here?

“There are candidates galore, and there is blood in the water,” as one source puts it. Let the games begin.

This all comes, as Inner City Press first reported, against the backdrop of ad hoc meetings to “revitalize the General Assembly” which are discussing requiring Ban Ki-moon to come before the GA to seek his second term, and not only the Security Council.

Specifically, under the heading “Selection of the Secretary General,” the draft “takes note of the views expressed at the Ad Hoc Working Group at the 64th session and bearing in mind the provisions of Article 97 of the Charter, emphasizes the need for the process of selection of the Secretary General to be inclusive of all Member States and to be made more transparent.. including through presentation of candidates for the position of the Secretary General in an informal plenary of the General Assembly.”

Interestingly, the marked up draft of this pending paragraph reads as follows:

“10. Affirms its commitment to continuing its consideration of the revitalization of the General Assembly’s role in the selection and appointment of the Secretary General, including through (encouraging (Algeria / NAM: delete and add ‘the’) Russian Federation: retain) presentation of candidates for the position of Secretary General in an informal plenary of the General Assembly before the Security Council considers the matter (Russian Federation); Russian Federation: bracket entire para.”

10 Alt. Also encourages formal presentation of candidatures for the position of the Secretary General in a manner than allows sufficient time for interaction with member states, and requests candidates to present their views to all Member States of the General Assembly (Belgium / EU, US & Russia) (Algeria / NAM supports Islamic Republic of Iran proposal of retaining as OP 10 bis).”

In the Security Council, placating or giving patronage to the five Permanent Members would be enough to gain the second term. But if the GA and regional grouping get involved, Ban’s snubs like that of Africa for the deputy post in the UN Development Program, and the devaluation of the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, could come back to haunt Ban, along with his more recent appointment of Alvaro Uribe to his Gaza flotilla panel, over the objections of Venezuela which wil head the Group of 77 and China.

* * *

At UN, As Ban Denies Deals with Israel and for OIOS Posts, Doubts Raised About Both, What was US Told?

UNITED NATIONS, August 10 — Just as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated on August 9 that he made no “agreement behind the scenes” that Israeli Defense Forces will not be interviewed by his Panel of Inquiry, he now maintains that no commitment of posts in the Office of Internal Oversight Services was made to gain support for his replacement candidate to head OIOS, Carman Lapoint-Young.

But questions arose on August 10 about discrepancies between the transcript of Ban’s August 9 remarks and the UN’s subsequent denial. Ban said

“he was one of the finalists, the South African whom you are talking about. If he [had been] willing to take the job, then I was okay [for him] to fill that post. There are certain cases when someone was applying for a certain post, and where she or he was not successful for that post, and because of the excellent quality of the candidate – we really wanted to keep certain candidates in our system – we offered a lower rank.”

But shortly after he said this — even the transcript is inaccurate — Ban’s Office said

“The Secretary-General wants to make it absolutely clear that the recruitment process for the Director of the Investigations Division will start only after the new Under-Secretary-General of the Office of Internal Oversight Services has taken up her post. This selection will be conducted strictly in accordance with the established rules and procedures. The assertion that a South African was offered the job is completely unfounded.”

Inner City Press on August 10 asked Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky had Ban had meant by “we offered a lower rank.” Nesirky resplied that Ban “was confused by what the question was,” and claimed that the comment was a “general statement of principle not related to OIOS.” Video here, from Minute 31:26.

It is not a general statement of principle to say ““he was one of the finalists, the South African.. we offered a lower rank.” It is a statement about a particular individual being made an offer.

Likewise, Israel’s Benyamin Netanyahu insisted on August 10 that despite Ban’s August 9 denials, Ban has made a “discrete” agreement that the panel would not interview IDF personnel. Ban had said he made no “agreement behind the scenes.”

At the end of his August 9 press conference, Ban urged journalists to focus on the “big issues” and not personnel (or “personal”) disputes. But if an answer about offering OIOS post(s) in order to gain support for a candidate for OIOS does not have credibility, how does an answer about a “discrete” agreement about the mandate of the UN Gaza flotilla panel?

UN’s Ban and Barak, discrete agreement not shown

A Security Council diplomat on August 10 approached Inner City Press with another connection between the August 9 OIOS questions and Ban’s panels on Gaza and Sri Lanka. If Ban was so rattled and pushed by a single journalist — even the “overgrown schoolboy” –imagine, the diplomat mused, what happens between Ban and Israel, or Sri Lanka.

As for the outgrown schoolboy, he points out: wasn’t it a schoolboy who said “the Emperor has no clothes”?  Indeed…

Footnote: further to US Ambassador Susan Rice’s statement that the UN’s Gaza flotilla panel is “not a substitute” for national proceedings, Inner City Press is that during the Security Council consultations on the press statement by which Council welcomed Ban’s panel, the U.S. opposed linking the panel to the Council’s own May 31 – April 1 President Statement calling for an investigation.

So what did Ban tell Susan Rice and the US about the panel and its scope? Or about post promises made to get Ms. Lapoint confirmed as head of OIOS?

* * *

At UN, Ban “Melts Down, Admits” Dealing An OIOS Post to a South African, Calls Ethics Questions Small, 2d Term in Play

UNITED NATIONS, August 9, updated – “I always do the right thing,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday, faced with long pending questions about mis-management and undermining the independence of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services.

But Ban appeared to admit violating a founding principle of OIOS, that the Secretary General not intrude and give out top OIOS jobs on a political basis.

He was asked repeatedly to confirm or deny that he promised the second level OIOS post to a South African, to gain support for his appointment of a Canadian, Ms. Lapointe Young, to replace outgoing Inga Britt Ahlenius. (Inner City Press was the first to report this deal, here.)

At first Ban suggested these questions be dealt with in a separate session. Then he portrayed them as “small” questions. Many reporters were unclear if they were being directed to not get into “personal” or “personnel” questions.

The latter seems difficult, since Ban ultimately said he had personally taken the personnel decision to give the second OIOS post, even before the ostensibly independent new director comes in, to a South African candidate.

Many correspondents were frustrated at how the press conference was run, with no questions taken on Sudan — which is threatening to throw the UN out, while starving the residents of the Kalma Camp — or the Rwanda election or the Ban administrations flip-flip on Kashmir.

But even those most focused on UN management and Ms. Ahlenius’ damning End of Assignment Report were dissatisfied by Ban’s answer that any questioning of his administration’s ethics is unfair. There are a range of questions, including about Ban’s most senior advisers. These, they say, will be coming out as a second term for Ban is considered.

UN’s Ban pre melt down, post deals not shown

Ban was asked about his Gaza flotilla panel — he said no side agreement was made with Israel not to interview its soldiers — but not about his stalled and even most constrained panel on Sri Lanka war crimes.

He was asked about appointing Alvaro Uribe to the Gaza panel, despite Venezuela’s recent complaints. Ban said he has known Uribe as Secretary General for a long time, and that Uribe has his “full confidence.” What will Venezuela, the next head of the Group of 77 and China, say?

As one snarky correspondent said after what he called Ban’s “melt down,” this politically is the time when alternate candidates to become Secretary General in 2012 will begin to appear, even before the upcoming General Debate in mid September. Watch this site.

Footnote: even on the ostensible topic of Ban’s first press conference since the Ahlenius memo, the High Level Panel on Global Sustainability, lack of candor became apparent. When, after his loss of power in Australia, Kevin Rudd flew to New York and met with Ban, Inner City Press attended the photo op, and noted that Ban’s climate advisor Janos Pasztor was in attendance, and that the meeting lasted a full 50 minutes.

Inner City Press asked Ban’s spokesperson if the meeting involved the offering of a UN position of any kind. It was just a courtesy call, Inner City Press was repeatedly told — even after Rudd, back in Australia, bragged through his spokesman about the offer of a post.

At the end of Ban’s press conference, Inner City Press asked Pasztor if in the meeting with Rudd, the supposed courtesy call, this post was discussed. Yes, Pasztor said. Some courtesy call. The same snarky reporter laughed at the inclusion of US Ambassador Susan Rice on the panel, calling it a craven attempt to nail down US support for a second term as Secretary General. We’ll see.

Update of 12:41 pm: after publication of the above, UN Spokesperson – Do Not Reply sent this:

Subject: UN Spokesperson’s clarification regarding the Office of Internal Oversight Services
Date: Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 12:34 PM

The Secretary-General wants to make it absolutely clear that the recruitment process for the Director of the Investigations Division will start only after the new Under-Secretary-General of the Office of Internal Oversight Services has taken up her post. This selection will be conducted strictly in accordance with the established rules and procedures. The assertion that a South African was offered the job is completely unfounded.

“If you say so.” Compare to video, here. And, there are two D-2 posts in OIOS…

President Obama was supposed to go to Jakarta, but first postponed, then canceled the trip. Whatever the official explanation – Jakarta responded and was a no-show at the Washington meeting of the large economies (in effect we did raise the question with the US Department of State and on the record – we did not get a satisfactory answer and reported accordingly).

We saw a series of missteps that eventually will have to be corrected. We wrote about that earlier and moved Indonesia into the front page of our website with the understanding that the largest Muslim country that is a democracy with a growing middle class, will eventually live up to its potential of being a world leader. The following article strengthens us in above belief.

We also expect Indonesia to move on issues of Sustainable Development and Climate Change as it stands only to gain by becoming home to clean technologies. Indonesian leaders understand that much of their recent environmental disasters are global warming related – they also can be counted upon in efforts to restrain the forces of aggressive extreme Islam.

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After Years of Inefficiency, Indonesia Emerges as an Economic Model.

Enny Nuraheni/Reuters

After years of being known for inefficiency, corruption and instability, Indonesia is becoming an economic powerhouse in Asia.

By AUBREY BELFORD, an Independent journalist based in Indonesia. //

JAKARTA — After years of being known for inefficiency, corruption and instability, Indonesia is emerging from the global financial crisis with a surprising new reputation — economic golden child.

Adi Weda/European Pressphoto Agency
In Jakarta, worsening traffic and a proliferation of megamalls are seen as signs of the growing strength of the middle class.

The country’s economy, the largest in Southeast Asia, grew at an annual rate of 6.2 percent in the second quarter of this year, data released Thursday showed. That is an acceleration from 2009, when gross domestic product expanded 4.5 percent.

The stock market hit a record high last week and has been among the best-performing equities markets in Asia this year, rising more than 20 percent since Jan. 1. The country’s currency, the rupiah, has appreciated nearly 5 percent this year against the dollar, among the strongest showings in Asia besides that of the yen.

Foreign direct investment, which was held in check for years after the 1997 economic crisis in Asia, is also returning. The country had 33.3 trillion rupiah, or $3.7 billion, in foreign direct investment in the second quarter of this year, a 51 percent rise from a year earlier, the Investment Coordinating Board in Indonesia said last week. The country is on track to attract more foreign investment this year than it did in 2008, when it lured in $14.87 billion.

Such statistics have some here cautiously saying that the country, a Muslim-majority democracy and one of the world’s most populous countries, could soon merit the kind of attention that investors now lavish on China and India.

“Indonesia is one of the most interesting, most attractive destinations in the world,” said Lanang Trihardian, an analyst at Syailendra Capital, a fund management firm based in Jakarta. “Foreign investors have been flowing to Indonesia from maybe around mid-2009. We are seeing a lot of liquidity coming into Indonesia, and it is mostly going to capital markets, to bonds, to stocks.”

Undoubtedly, significant obstacles to sustained growth remain. Despite progress on corruption, investors complain of confusing regulations and labor laws that make it difficult to dismiss employees. Little infrastructure has been built since the Asian economic crisis in 1997, and rolling blackouts have plagued the country for years. While the education system has been successful in fulfilling basic requirements like literacy, the universities and colleges in the country are widely considered archaic.

But more than a decade after the chaotic overthrow of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998 — and subsequent fears of disintegration at the hands of separatist groups, as well as the threat of Islamic militancy — the country seems to have stabilized. It is rich in natural resources like palm oil, copper and timber, commodities that are in great demand in China.

The administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won plaudits for reducing debt and has achieved some success fighting graft. Mr. Yudhoyono was resoundingly re-elected to a second five-year term in 2009, and changes aimed at introducing more democracy have seen power devolved to local governments, where elections have been largely peaceful, orderly affairs.

In one sense, Indonesia appears more attractive these days because much of the rest of the global marketplace looks so gloomy. Its low debt, high growth and a sense of optimism compare favorably with a mood of despondency in developed markets like the United States, Japan and Europe.

The huge consumer market in the country, accounting for more than two-thirds of G.D.P., has largely been credited for maintaining growth. Although the global economic crisis crimped confidence, Indonesia’s relatively young population of 240 million and government stimulus policies, as well as a popular program of direct cash transfers to the poor, have kept consumption humming.

In Jakarta, worsening traffic and a proliferation of megamalls are seen as signs of the growing strength of the middle class. At the center of the capital, the huge Grand Indonesia mall opened in 2007 and expanded during the global downturn, adding theme areas with mockups of New York, Japan, the Arabian Peninsula and Paris, complete with a miniature, spinning Moulin Rouge windmill.

“We’re selling international brands here so Indonesians don’t have to shop abroad for them,” said Teges Prita Soraya, a spokeswoman for the mall, adding that trade, largely in imported luxury brands, had surged ahead despite the global crisis.

The mall is home to the country’s first branch of Harvey Nichols, the upscale British department store, and has boutiques for luxury brands like Chanel, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana — which already have branches in other malls across the city.

Yet there is criticism that economic growth has had less effect than it should have for the majority. About 15 percent of the population lives below the country’s official poverty line of around $1 a day, but advocates for the poor say the percentage would be larger if Indonesia set the bar a little higher, say, at $1.25. Relatively sluggish growth in labor-intensive industries has meant slow progress in curbing unemployment, which is over 7 percent.

The New York Times

The government believes that one solution to moving to a higher level of sustained growth is foreign investment, particularly in industries like manufacturing. The government’s investment coordinating board, known as BKPM, is hoping to attract $30 billion to $40 billion in annual foreign investment by 2015 — three to four times as much as it achieved last year, said Gita Wirjawan, head of the agency.

In an economy currently worth $650 billion a year and expected to grow to $1 trillion in five years, that is not terribly much. But it is “optically” very important for establishing Indonesia as a serious investment destination, he said.

“It’s not a slam-dunk, but it’s achievable,” he said.

Indonesia gets the largest share of its foreign investment from within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with non-Asean states like Japan and South Korea, as well as European countries, making up much of the rest.

Indonesia is working to change rules to make it easier to acquire land for infrastructure and is seeing interest in infrastructure investment, Mr. Wirjawan said.

The government recently eased investment rules in areas including health care, construction and electricity generation. At the same time, it is working to put the flow of “hot,” or speculative, money to better use, passing rules on government bonds requiring foreign investors to keep their money in the country for longer.

Such efforts seem to be paying off. The government announced this week that China’s sovereign fund, China Investment Corp., was hoping to invest $25 billion in infrastructure projects in Indonesia. Posco, the South Korean steel giant, signed a $6 billion deal on Wednesday to build a plant in Indonesia with the local producer Krakatau Steel.

While investment in manufacturing still lags behind other sectors, Mr. Wirjawan said that Indonesia, with its relatively low labor costs, was reaping the benefits of rising costs in regional competitors.

“We’re seeing an increasing relocation of factories by the Taiwanese, the Koreans and Japanese from Vietnam and China, given their rising labor costs and given the increased stability that people are seeing in Indonesia from an economic and political standpoint,” he said.

The Indonesian Footwear Association has said that major brands including Asics, Mizuno and New Balance have shifted part of their production to Indonesia this year because of rising costs elsewhere. Indonesia’s footwear industry employs 640,000 people and exported $1.8 billion worth of goods in 2009, said the association’s chairman, Eddy Widjanarko. Producers are hoping to increase that figure to $2 billion this year.

Katja Schreiber, a spokeswoman for Adidas — which has also been aggressively expanding production in Indonesia — said the country, its third-biggest supplier, offered “abundant labor availability, good quality, competitive prices and political stability.” Although production here is growing rapidly, she said, it is not happening at the expense of its top suppliers, China and Vietnam.

The local stock market has reflected the perceived strengths of the economy. Shares related to commodities, Indonesia’s main export sector, have been strong earners. Banking stocks have risen along with the generally upbeat mood on consumption and the relatively good health of the sector, which, for the most part, weathered the credit crisis reasonably well. Major consumer shares like Unilever Indonesia and the car distributor Astra International have been consistent leaders on the local index.

All this exuberance has raised some fears that inflation could become a big problem. The country’s central bank, Bank Indonesia, decided to hold its benchmark interest rate at 6.5 percent this week, despite a jump in annual inflation to 6.22 percent in July.

Regardless, many feel that Indonesia’s time has come again.

“In Asia there is a feeling that after you invest in China and after you invest in India, where are you going to invest? said Fauzi Ichsan, senior economist for Standard Chartered in Indonesia.

“It’ll have to be Indonesia. It’s a natural destination.”
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/busine…

• DEFENDING BAN
  The U.N.’s Response to Criticism
• FRESH EYES
  Canadian to Head U.N. Internal Oversight

 http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts…

 http://www.smartbrief.com/servlet/encode…

A top former U.N. investigator who was passed over for the top job in the U.N.’s investigations division has filed a grievance before the U.N.’s personnel disputes tribunal accusing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top advisors of discriminating against him because he is an American male, and demanding about $1.4 million in damages and wages, according to the complaint.

Robert Appleton, a former federal prosecutor in the United States who once headed a U.N. task force that probed about 300 cases of potential wrongdoing, claimed that Ban’s refusal to endorse his nomination for the senior U.N. anti-corruption job on two occasions, primarily on the basis of his gender and nationality, “constitutes a discriminatory practice, directly contrary to the Charter of the United Nations.”

The complaint, which was filed Monday in the U.N.’s administrative disputes tribunal, marks a deepening of a political crisis over Ban’s handling of the U.N.’s anti-corruption efforts. It will subject the case to a review by U.N. judges who have frequently clashed with the U.N. leadership over its treatment of staff. Last month, the tribunal awarded $700,000 to a former senior U.N. official who contested the U.N.’s refusal to promote him to a more senior job.

The administrative battle comes more than a week after the U.N.’s outgoing chief of internal oversight, Inga- Britt Ahlenius of Sweden, wrote a sharply worded end-of-assignment report that accused Ban of undercutting her independence and interfering with her effort to hire Appleton. The confidential report, which I reported on first for the Washington Post and Turtle Bay, accused Ban of “deplorable” and “reprehensible” behavior. She also accused Ban of leading the U.N. into an era of “irrelevance” and “decline.”

Today’s filing marks the first time Appleton has weighed in on the matter. Appleton headed the U.N. Procurement Task Force, which conducted a series of aggressive investigations into wrongdoing from 2006 through 2009.

The task force’s probes have resulted in 17 misconduct findings against U.N. staff and triggered several criminal investigations by federal prosecutors.

The task force also cooperated in a federal probe of Vladimir Kuznetzov, a Russian diplomat, who was convicted in 2007 of money laundering in connection with a kickback scheme.

The task force infuriated governments, including Singapore and Russia, whose nationals it targeted. In late 2008, Russia sought unsuccessfully to push for the adoption of a resolution that would have prevented the U.N. from hiring Appleton or any member of a white-collar criminal team.

The task force, which was intended to be temporary, was shut down at the end of 2008, but its expertise was supposed to be preserved in the U.N.’s investigations division.

Martin Nesirky, the U.N.’s chief spokesman, declined to comment on the Appleton case, saying “consistent with our practice, it would be inappropriate to comment on a case pending before the Dispute Tribunal.” A senior U.N. official, who recently briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said that no political pressure had been applied on Ban to block Appleton’s hiring. U.N. officials said the appointment was blocked because Ahlenius had manipulated the recruitment process so that Appleton would get the job.

Angela Kane, the U.N. under secretary-general for management, claimed last month that Ahlenius’s account contained “many inaccuracies, misrepresentations and distortions.” Ahlenius, she noted, “did not comply with established U.N. rules and policies” designed to ensure the integrity of the recruitment process. “The Secretary-General and his team consider these instruments key to building a modern U.N. that strives for excellence and reflects our diverse membership – including true gender balance.  Indeed, the Secretary-General has appointed more women to senior positions than ever before in the Organization’s history.”

But another senior U.N. official hinted that there might be other reasons for the U.N.’s decision to reject Appleton, and suggested that he had outlived his usefulness to the United Nations. “There is only one American in the whole wide world who can run the investigations division?” the official said in a recent interview. “I certainly don’t believe that.”

The U.N. Charter states that the “the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.” In practice, U.N. secretaries-general have always relied heavily on key member states to recommend candidates for top posts. Many of the top jobs, including the heads of the departments of peacekeeping and political affairs, are generally reserved for candidates from the United States, Britain and France.

The power struggle between Ban and Ahlenius has its roots in an ambiguous mandate that provided her office with “operational independence” but placed it under the authority of the secretary-general, and makes it dependent on the U.N. secretariat for funding. Ban’s advisors maintain that while Ahlenius had the authority to propose a shortlist of three candidates for the job, Ban had the ultimate authority to pick the winning candidate.

Appleton’s complaint cites administrative instructions that bolster Ahlenius’s claim that she had the sole authority to hire her own top advisors. David Walker, a former U.S. controller general who chairs the U.N.’s Independent Audit Advisory Committee, noted that her “operational independence” provides that “the Under Secretary General for Internal Oversight Services will have authority to appoint all staff members whose appointments are limited to service with the office up to the D-2 level.” Appleton’s post was a D-2 job.

Appleton argues that the U.N. leadership had an obligation under the U.N. Charter and various General Assembly resolutions and staff directives to give him “full and fair consideration” for the job. He cited a 2008 General Assembly resolution saying that employment “should be based on merit, and that no person should be refused employment based upon race or gender or any other impermissible purpose.” But Ban issued a bulletin imposing a rule that he be allowed to appoint senior staff in the investigation’s division in January 2009, after Ahlenius had selected Appleton for the job, according to Ban and Ahlenius.

“There is no such rule that women be considered for every D2 position…it is a singular effort to operate outside the rule of law for their own political purpose and even more incredibly to do so retroactively,” Appleton asserts. The process, according to Appleton’s claim, calls into question Ban’s top advisors’ respect “for the most basic principles of the organization, and the fundamental rule of law. They should be held accountable for these acts.”

Appleton also claims that a senior official in the U.N. Office of Human Resources Management made an “inappropriate attempt” to persuade Ahlenius to consider unqualified candidates for the job, including a U.N. staffer who was married to one of the senior official’s subordinates, implying a conflict of interest. U.N. official’s said that the candidate’s spouse was a personnel officer in the U.N. peacekeeping department, not in the Office of Human Resources, and that there was no conflict of interest.

Appleton writes that the protracted hiring process, which played out over more than two-and-a-half years, has caused him financial hardship and damaged his reputation. “The applicant has been subjected to the embarrassment of having his candidacy discussed by the organizations officials in the public media for a continuous and extended period of time, promoting the false perception that the process was not legitimate or transparent; thereby impugning his own character.”

Please follow me on Twitter @columlynch.

As we are in the habit of reading everything that was put in print or posted on the web, we are hit from time to time also with delicious stories of real lives – not just your pedestrian oil blowouts.

This Saturday I saw first the story of the Chinese woman that became Jewish to find out that whatever she does – she will always be Chinese – viewed as such and honestly proud of it just as well.

Then, fell in my hands the July 22-29, 2010, City Week of OUR TOWN of Manhattan that included a note about a Saturday afternoon “Identity Crisis” at The Midtown International Theatre Festival that seemed to me to be in the same genre of a real life story that involves Asians living in the United States and ending up, in spite of their efforts to fit in, being recognized rather for what they really are and getting to the heights of their achievements only after having made peace with themselves. www.mdtownfestival.org

Dear reader, I hope you will not be surprised to find out that the propulsion that sent me off that afternoon to the Strelsin Theater was a thought to see if I can throw some light on the best potential for achieving an energy & climate bill for President Obama – if he were only to stand up and represent his real inner self. Will he decide to do this after November 2010, when it will become clear that there is no way for a future that mimics the present of the majority that surrounds him?

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Asian Belle

This show is part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival. Here’s the official blurb: The daughter of a Vietnamese war bride spends her youth aspiring to be a Southern Belle….a funny, touching and true solo show.

————

Before the show started I happened to chat with another delightful lady, Annie Guetti – a mother to a daughter about 10 years old. Annie has a  show in the Short Subjects Series of this festival – this one about motherhood – “ONCE UPON A MAMA” – at the nearby Jewel Box Theater – that same evening at 8:30 pm – and was carrying with her a suitcase – I guess with the wardrobe.  About her – www.facebook.com/pages/MAMA-Productions/160612856005

From Annie Guetti I learned that she and Michelle Glick participated in the same class that Matt Hoverman is giving for Playwriting and acting – he is a prominent coach for New York City Theatre in that he develops solo programs that encourage actor/playwrights in bringing out what is best in themselves and eventually birthing good theater.

Annie thought very highly of Michelle and said while Michelle came to the class thinking about writing on all sort of issues, it was this wonderful coach that led her in bringing out what is really part of herself – because that is her truth. Now, if dear reader, you are still with me – right there I got convinced that Matt Hoverman should get an invitation – in public or in secret – to the White House private quarters!

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Michelle Glick is  a Vietnam war product – American serviceman and Vietnamese mother. She grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and was friendly there with the local belles and black guys – she thought of herself as part of the environment until she was offered in a school play the role of an Oriental Chauffeur. But she did not want to wear yellow clothes she wanted the white clothes like the other girls. She was lucky to have a feisty mother who trooped to school to tell that much to the astonished teacher – she also wanted to make it clear that her younger son’s name was Kal – a honored name for five generations in her family, and not Carl as the school was calling him. Michelle got the role of a maid.

The mother was fully adjusted to America – eventually, years later she became independent after her children grew up and she moved to California.

Michelle Glick is a terrific actress capable to switch around three or four accents. She is tall gaunt like a model and from her Vietnamese genes she got terific Cheek bones – moving around her long hands, standing on her long legs, she at times invoked the impression of a praying mantid completely adjusted to get what she wants – even when the issue is just to get her belongings monogramed – because this is the way Southern Bells have to have it. At this stage she was the perfect Asian Belle in her own image.

When she eventually moves to New York at 25, and got her first roommate right there at the baggage claim at Greyhounds, she liked to hang around Chinatown – because there she saw people with black hair like hers. There one Chinese old store owner told her that instead of copying Chinese she should go and visit Vietnam and get in contact with her own roots.

Michelle convinced her Vietnamese uncle Harry, who after release from Communist jail came to live with them in Alabama, to go back and show her around.  She saw how people can be happy with simple things in life – like holding a cup of tea with both their hands and smile to her – even there was no good verbal communication.

She sat orientally with both her legs crossed on top of the chair and said she felt her Asian background and pronounced Aloha – Hawaii – here I come. She seemed to get her way in any environment she chose to do so!

To Backstage.com, Michelle Glick said that she wants an international career spending part of the year in Asia, working “I am thinking about paving the way doing that.” In the meantime she intends to explore producing and writing.
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Now, did I make myself clear about Obama?

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NO LONGER INTERMARRIED BUT STILL CHINESE.

February 22, 2010
 http://www.interfaithfamily.com/news_and…

Because it is clear from my appearance that I am ethnically Chinese, total strangers will tell me all about their various Asian acquaintances. I think these people are trying to prove that they do not harbor racial prejudices. Frankly, I consider these experiences to be mildly annoying. But I can’t change my face, so I’ve accepted that this kind of experience is just something I will always have to deal with.

Debbie Burton is wearing her late maternal grandmother’s Chinese jacket on a visit to her cousins for Chinese New Year, January 2009. She is looking at a book of photos of the school in rural China her family established in her grandmother’s memory. She sent the photo with the note: “I feel that my Chinese family’s values of social justice and education mean that those same Jewish values particularly resonate for me.”

I also stand out in a synagogue because I do not “look Jewish”. My husband however is half Ashkenazi and thus does look more typically Jewish. So people have often taken one look at the two of us and assumed that we were intermarried. For the first 22 years of our marriage, they were right. But since I finally converted to Judaism, it is no longer the case, and I even have a real Jewish ketubah to prove that we now have a legitimate “Jewish marriage.”

But I’m still Chinese, so I still don’t look Jewish even though I am now. And people still sometimes react strangely because of my appearance, although I should point out that the strange or rude reactions are not typical, just memorable. In fact, if many Jews think it is surprising to see someone Chinese at synagogue, they are too polite to mention it. A few people have even assumed that I am a Jew by birth.

A student at a university Hillel Kabbalat Shabbat service told me very earnestly that he had read about and was excited to meet a Kaifeng Jew–meaning me. (A small Jewish community has existed in Kaifeng, China for hundreds of years.) I was sorry to disappoint him and explained that most Chinese Jews that he would meet in this country would be converts. These days I would add that they might also be adoptees, such as the two Chinese girls from the Orthodox congregation that meets in the same building as my congregation.

Before I converted, when people treated me differently because I was Chinese, I didn’t like it, but felt like maybe I “deserved” it because by marrying me my husband had violated the strong Jewish prohibition on intermarriage. I felt guilty that for some people, meeting me would only reinforce the idea that an Asian person in a synagogue was likely to be a non-Jewish spouse. I felt that it would make it that much harder for Jews who were Asian, but were born or raised their whole lives as Jews, like the adopted girls mentioned above, the three Korean adoptees in my congregation, or even my own children who were converted when they were young and are half-Chinese.

But just as my formal conversion signified my own acceptance of who I am religiously and spiritually, I’m coming to see that maybe it is not such a bad thing that my Chinese appearance means that I can’t so easily leave behind the fact that I was previously intermarried. A recent interaction that stemmed from my being Chinese even ended up being a positive experience.

My minyan meets in a Reform synagogue that is the simultaneous home for congregations from each of the three major movements (which are unaffiliated with each other, unlike minyanim at a university Hillel). I am a member of the lay-led egalitarian Conservative congregation that meets there, but one Shabbat a man from the Orthodox minyan started to talk to me as we left the building at the same time. He asked me about my ethnic background. When I replied “Chinese,” he went on to ask “And you’re Jewish?” Although I told him no, which was the technically correct answer, I added, “But I’ve been going to shul for 24 years.” I didn’t tell him that I was also studying with a rabbi for the purpose of conversion.

Some weeks later, this same man accosted me in the coat room after services and asked me why I had not converted if I had been attending synagogue for so long. I was embarrassed to be asked such a personal question with other people from both congregations around. I told him simply that the main reason was that I was afraid that my parents would take my conversion as a rejection of them. I assumed his questions stemmed from mere curiosity.

Then many months later, I saw him again and told him that I had formally converted to Judaism since we had last spoken. He seemed genuinely delighted by my news, but showed real sensitivity in telling me carefully that he was happy for me because it was something that I had clearly chosen for myself and that I was happy about it. Then he mentioned that his wife is Japanese. I thought to myself that of course she probably converted before they got married. But I had scarcely formulated the above thought when he totally surprised me by adding that his wife is not Jewish.

This news gave me a very different perspective on his questions. It sounded like his own wife was not interested in Judaism, at least for herself, and I think he wanted to understand what it was that caused me, another Asian non-Jew, to feel so drawn to Judaism. We didn’t talk for very long, but I think that he felt better to learn about another intermarriage in which the Jewish spouse was active in and committed to Judaism. And I was glad to learn about someone who self-identifies as Orthodox who is intermarried. I know from my own experience that intermarriage does not have to reflect a failure in a person’s Jewish identity, but it is such a prevalent assumption and it causes many Jews to automatically react negatively to intermarried couples.

So my looking Chinese had enabled that connection to be made because that man would never have approached me if I looked European. The experience also reminded me I don’t have to be ashamed of having been intermarried. Being Chinese makes my ethnicity more visible while obscuring my religious identity, which oddly enough pushes me to accept myself for both who I am now and who I was.

For one thing, see there is a good South African Restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and we go there for inspiration and nourishment from time to time. www.madibarestaurant.com/  – info@madibarestaurant.com.
 http://politic365.com/2010/07/19/happy-b…

Based on the above – we write: Two freedom fighters I most admire, writes Noel Anderson, Professor at Brooklyn College, in the struggle for South African democracy are Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. Law partners and comrades, both men helped to shape the direction of the country, with Mandela leading the struggle from within, while Tambo raised international consciousness and money while exiled abroad. Tambo is no longer with us, but Mandela keeps the best of that struggle alive, becoming the first truly democratically elected President of South Africa after decades of imprisonment, and continuing to serve as a moral symbol for African and world affairs.

Born 92 years ago on July 18th, 1918, into a royal family in the Transkei, Mandela has been at the center of not just South African but global freedom struggles. He was the head of the ANC youth league and became a founding member of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”) the armed wing of the ANC, before being imprisoned for 27 years.

President Obama, in tribute to Mandela’s work, has called on all to engage in community service. (In effect this past weekend everyone of us was called to put aside 82 minutes of his time and dedicate those 82 minutes to the community.  The United Nations has also recognized his birthday as Nelson Mandela International Day by calling on November 10, 2009 to make the !8th of July The International Mandela Day – and this year – the July 18th 2010, was supposed to be The First International Mandela Day. But it fell on a Sunday and that is a no-no for the UN Free Birds that must keep the weekend in New York for free enjoyment – really – what other reason for spending the time in this hot city? So, the UN moved to celebrate the day, this year, on  Thursday night and Friday Morning – 15th and 16th of 2010.

Strange as it sounds, its important to recognize that “Madiba” (his term of endearment), the 92 year old grandfather, still has a revolutionary spirit and still… very much alive. The press tends to talk about him the past tense, as if he is long gone and only his legacy survives. Yes, health concerns has led him to retreat from a once rigorous travel schedule, and his chronological age puts him in the twilight of his life. But Mandela is  mentally very lucid, weighs in on global politics and still advises in the affairs of his philanthropic foundation. Further, despite the controversial painting of Mandela, depicting him as dead and being used for an autopsy by political leaders, he still speaks with leaders on pressing concerns, and remains loyal to those countries that supported the freedom struggle.  Happy Birthday, Madiba!

{Dr. Noel S. Anderson is Associate Professor of Political Science and Education at the City University of New York – Brooklyn College. His work focuses on urban politics, human development and education and comparative issues in public policy – U.S. and South Africa}.

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The celebration started on Thursday night 6:30 pm with a series of three talks and the screening of the documentary “MANDELA: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation, in the new ECOSOC Chamber in the UN temporary North Lawn building.

No one from the high flyers of the UN was there – their place taken by fill-ins, but luckily Jonathan Demme the director, and Peter Saraf, the co-producer of the film were there – so the aesthetics of their production could be brought up.

For the UN spoke Margaret Novicki and Nicholas Haysom.

Margaret Novicki was appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan  as the Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Pretoria, South Africa.  Ms. Novicki, a national of the United States, brings to this post extensive experience in communications, media relations and journalism, much of it acquired in Africa. Prior to Pretoria she worked for the UN in Accra. She chaired the evening. She spoke on behalf  of the UN USG for UNDPI – Mr. Kiyotaka Akasaka.
Why DPI? Why not the Secretary General himself?

Nicholas Haysom, as an attorney of the South African High Court, he litigated in high-profile human rights cases between 1981 and 1993.  He acted as a professional mediator in labour and community conflicts in South Africa between 1985 and 1993, and has advised on civil conflicts in Africa and Asia since 1998. Founding partner and senior lawyer at the human rights law firm of Cheadle Thompson and Haysom Attorneys, and an Associate Professor of Law and Deputy Director at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University in South Africa until May 1994, when he was appointed Legal Adviser to President Mandela.

Mr. Haysom was closely involved in the constitutional negotiations leading up to the interim and final Constitutions in South Africa.  He served as Chief Legal Adviser throughout Mr. Mandela’s presidency, and continued to work with Mr. Mandela on his private peace initiatives up to 2002.

Since leaving the office of the President upon Nelson Mandela’s retirement in 1999, Mr. Haysom has been involved in the Burundi Peace Talks as the Chairman of the committee negotiating constitutional issues (1999–2002). He continued to serve on the implementation committee of the Burundi Peace Accord after 2002.

Incoming UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Professor Nicholas Haysom of South Africa as Director for Political Affairs in his Executive Office, May 16, 2007. Our friend Matthew Russell Lee complained that he is never seen at the UN – but in a careful reading of the article we find there the concept of preventive diplomacy – we wish had more credence at the UN.  “He said there is a resistance to preventive diplomacy among member states, leading to the blocking of reform and regional offices of the Department of Political Affairs — he ascribed the most strenuous opposition to Latin America — and to resistance to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and Ed Luck’s appointment as special advisor on the topic.” In short – he actually seems to be well ahead of the UN but not really of the UN – where he finds it difficult to execute policy that is factually set by only the Permant Five of the Veto Power.

What we said above was that both speakers for the UN are somehow South Africa based and not UN based.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Xhosa pronunciation: [xo?li?a?a man?de?la]; born in a Xhosa home in Qunu, Transkei,where his father, the Town Counselor, had 4 wives and the boys lived in a separate home from the parents. Chief Jogintamba saw his potential and sent him to the Clakebury Boarding School. In 1933, at 15, he got involved in the Walter Sisulu led ANC and when he reached 30 years, that is when coincidentally Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd’s contribution to Afrikanerdom was to dress up apartheid and make it appear respectable to his followers, and the Mandela & Tambo law-firm took on the anti-apartheid legal defense.

In 1956 Mandela prepared the Freedom Charter and the people declared – “We Stand by Our Leader.” Then in 1960 happened the Sharpeville masacre and the call changed to: “Freedom in Our Time” and Wolfie Kadesh, a white man, was an activist. In 1962 Mandela went underground and George Bizios, also a white man, was his lawyer. Eventually, Mandela was apprehended and was in jail 1961 – 1988. Gowan Mbeki was imprisoned for 25 years. In August 1989 Botha resigns and De Klerk takes over and leeds the negotiations with Mandela. November 1993 both of them get the Nobel Prize. Friday, 10 Dec 1993 was Mandela’s speech in Oslo. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen…

Fully representative Democratic elections took place on 27 April 1994, and Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist. We saw how he got there from his village roots and we learned about the 27 years he spent as a FREE MAN behind bars – freer in his spirit then his captors that knew that they were the captives in the hands of the true Free World. Yes – those years – post World War II – when the UN was young and small – the World had hope for a future that will be very different from the way history evolved prior to those days. Today we can say that the hope tuned out to be pre-mature and Nelson Mandela who moved with his times forged an image for the World well ahead of his time. But no despair, his personal example moved at Least South Africa to ending its internal conflict even though many other conflicts in the World continue to rage on.

Mandela, son of Africa and Father of the New South Africa, depicted in advertisement as a barefoot young boy in what looks like a general’s coat, armed with a stick, said that his watchwords were TRUTH & FREEDOM.

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From the screening event at the UN I hurried down to the Manhattan Village – to TEATROIATI at 64 East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Av,) where Sabrina Lastman of Uruguay was having a showing of her CANDOMBE JAZZ PROJECT – mixture oral tradition AFRO-URUGUAYAN MUSIC with elements of Jazz. I bring this in here because in many ways it was befitting the Mandela event.

In the Mandela documentary we saw much of the peoples culture of the Indigenous Africans of the original South Africa, and somehow it must have been quite similar to what Africans, probably from the Congo region, brought with them to what are now Uruguay and Argentina. The fact that this music has survived, and in effect has now a revival, are signs of its resilience, but also of the influence Mandela’s achievements had world-wide.

The Candombe Jazz Project is a New York City-based ensemble playing Candombe, the Afro Uruguayan music tradition. CJP presents an exciting concert of original compositions by Sabrina Lastman & Beledo, arrangement of oral tradition songs, & songs by renown Uruguayan songwriters.

Candombe Jazz Project includes:
Sabrina Lastman – voice / compositions
Beledo – guitar / keyboard / compositions
Arturo Prendez – candombe drum / percussions
Special guests: Agrupación Lubola Macú

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“PEACE IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF CONFLICT – IT IS THE CREATION OF AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE ALL CAN FLOURISH,” Mandela said. He also wanted to see the emancipation of women – not just the races. These are things the UN must write on its flag – does it?

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On Friday was the Official Commemorative Ceremony, in the big General Assembly Hall, that started with the usual UN delay at 10:20 am., with many Missions to the UN having one warm body sitting in their row – only South Africa, headed by a Minister, having all six seats, and some more, occupied. This was a Special Plenary, ahead of the regular daily Plenary.

The UN had the event open to outsiders, and that was nice. The problem that there were not many insiders present.

The President of the General Assembly, the former Libyan Foreign Minister Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, who is under a Schengen Travel Ban,  was not there, and that was good. Instead was one of his seconds, but the Press kit just goes ahead selling him to the innocents. We do not even know the name of the nice lady that chaired the meeting she defined as an “INFORMAL Meeting” of the GA.

“IT IS IN OUR HANDS TO CREATE A BETTER WORLD” said Mandela – God bless him and save the GA.

That was followed by a video message from the UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon, who said that Mandela’s greatness came from: “HE FOUGHT HIS OPRESSORS FOR YEARS AND THEN FORGAVE THEM. – HE CONSTANTLY REMINDS US HE IS AN ORDINARY MAN, BUT HE ACHIEVED UNORDINARY THINGS.”

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This was followed by The Minister of International Relations and Commonwealth Relations of South Africa, Ms. Maite Nkoana-Mashbane, who said that in October 1994 he helped Free South Africa.

She continued saying that in the next two days – to July 18th, people of the globe will get together to hear the words that inspired us in South Africa. She thanks in the name of President Jacob Zuma for adopting in November 2009 this resolution to have the International Mandela Day started this year. South Africa and the World are fortunate to have had a man as Nelson Mandela. She added that the UN was all the way on “Our” side in our fight against Apartheid. We owe our freedom to the role of this august house. By celebrating Mandela Day we celebrate the best for what the UN was created. UBUNTU – we believ in ourselves for what we are.

Her words were followed by a video, and we saw February 19, 1994 people of all South Africa standing peacefully in line and giving their vote.

The Minister’s presentation was clearly the highlight of the informal ceremonial, that was then followed  {informally?} by one representative from each one of UN’s major group.

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This was a sad succession of obligatory diplomatic bows with some sparks of freshness.

Egypt spoke on behalf of the Non-aligned Movement – the enigma of the UN,

The Republic of Congo on behalf of the African States, spoke of the recent World Cup,

Darussalam on behalf of the Asian States, this is the Brunei Darussalam State, that clearly needs still its own liberation,

Belarus on behalf of the East European States, spoke interestingly of a long walk to Freedom,

Saint Lucia on behalf of the Group of Latin & Caribbean States, who in our opinion was the best speech  we called the Mission and asked for the speech. We attach the full speech to the end of our posting. The Afro-Caribbean Ambassador, surely descendant of slaves, H.E. Donatus Keith St Aimee, in obvious heart felt fashion said that “Few persons whose name resonate with approval on all continents – All our efforts at the UN came to essence in his life.”

Belgium on behalf of the Western European and Other States, but was mis-introduced by the Chair as speaking for the EU as temporary President of the EU. The main point was that “Let us remind ourselves that our work is far from complete – our work is for freedom or all.”

The last speaker was for the host country – the USA. who said that Apartheid was twisted and grotesque in its effort to justify oppression. Mandela overthrew apartheid by force of example.

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STATEMENT BY H. E. DONATUS ST AIMEE.

PERMANENT REPRESENTAIVE OF SAINT LUCIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS
ON BEHALF OF THE GROUP OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES (GRULAC).

ON THE OCCASION OF THE OBSERVANCE OF NELSON MANDELA INTERNATIONAL DAY.

FRIDAY JULY 16TH, 2010

Mr. Chairman, I am honored to speak on behalf of Member states comprising the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean (GRULAC), as we show our respect and admiration for an icon of the ages.

In the annals of recorded history there are few individuals whose names resonate with esteem and are uttered with deference on all continents and in all societies.  There are few lives that are unequivocally admired or unreservedly revered by all races and ethnicities; and there are few persons who in a more emotional sense, are cherished and held dear by such a large segment of humanity. Like all celebrated and remarkable men or women, this person whom we come to honor today is identified internationally with one single name befitting his role in our global society and that name is – MANDELA.

We are here today to honor Nelson Mandela pursuant to the adoption of Resolution A/64/L.13. We are here today to commemorate a man who in a lifetime of dignity has come to represent the very ideal for which we struggle daily in the United Nations. All our words, all our actions, all our individual and collective efforts aim in their sum total to equal what is represented by the life of Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela became an international symbol because of his struggle against oppression generally and apartheid in South Africa in particular. We know his history:

· From the early nineteen forties he was a leader of one of the most significant non-violent movements in history.
· For 27 years he was imprisoned under brutal conditions even as he heard of the death beyond his prison walls, of his brothers and sisters in the struggle against apartheid. How many times he must have wondered when his time would be coming to also face death at the hands of his captors.
· Finally he was released on 11th February, 1990.
· To understand the magnitude of his suffering and indignity of his incarceration, we must comprehend that he entered prison at the age of 45 and left at age 72.

These facts as we know them only scratch the surface of the beauty that is the life of Nelson Mandela. What was it that resulted in Nelson Mandela receiving more than 250 awards over four decades including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize? It was not his physical incarceration that captured the imagination of people, it was not the brutality of apartheid nor the interest of so many supporters the world over to stop this aberration.

What captured our imagination was that Nelson Mandela’s indomitable spirit, his humanity, his humility and his vast love of his people could not be imprisoned in any way by iron, concrete or barbed wire. He went into prison in 1963 as an unbowed, proud, determined South African fighter and came out in 1990 as an unbowed, proud, determined 20th Century leader and icon.

As Mandela himself put in words:

“I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom… I cannot sell my birthright, nor am I am prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free…”

Mandela turned down freedom at an earlier date because he insisted that it had to be unconditional and as President from 1994 to 1999, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation in order to harness all the resources of South Africa to lift the economic conditions of his people. His spirit of forgiveness, his turning of the other cheek has ensured that South Africa joined as an equal partner in the nations of this world, so that within the past month we have all had the great joy of watching South Africa host the World Cup in splendid and successful fashion.

How important it is that the Member States of the United Nations saw it fitting to adopt a Resolution to commemorate Nelson Mandela International Day, an annual event which the world would observe, now for the first time on the occasion of his 92nd Birthday, and for years to come.

We the Member States of GRULAC, have experienced in similar forms many of the travails experienced by South Africa and personified in the life of Nelson Mandela. Our region has had its own icons, and we remember their considerable contributions to the development of our nations when we pause here to honor the life of Mandela.  For this reason his life, his response to adversity, his humanity, resonates not just in our minds for the success of his mission but in our hearts for the beacon he has become for all peoples suffering repression.

What this man said was merely a punctuation for what he did, and what he did is being recognized today in this august forum so that present and future generations need not wonder as to the path to success in nation building, but merely need to follow the footsteps of this great man.

He truly is an ordinary man who has behaved in an extraordinary way!

To UN Women, $100 M Offer by Qatar for HQ, But UNFPA Inks 15 Yr NYC Lease.

UNITED NATIONS, July 14 — Less than two weeks after the formation of “UN Women,” to consolidate the UN’s agencies working on the issue, one of the agencies has gone forward with a major lease of real estate in Manhattan.

The UN Population Fund, UNFPA, has just reportedly signed a 15 year lease for three floors (131,000 square feet) at 605 Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan.

Meanwhile, multiple sources tell Inner City Press that during the negotiations to form UN Women, Qatar offered $100 million if it the headquarters would be put in Qatar.

But as Inner City Press reported earlier this month, Qatar is one of only three countries which has never sent a female athlete to the Olympic Games, along with Brunei and Saudi Arabia.

So now matter how much money is offered, some ask how could the headquarters of UN Women be in Qatar?

UN’s Ban and Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, $100 M not shown

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A Group of 77 source complained, as to UN agency headquarters, that an effect of the European Union’s push to form a UN Environment agency would be to undermine the status of Nairobi, where the current UN Environment Program is headquartered.

But maybe if UNEP stepped out and signed a big long term lease for more Kenyan real estate…

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At UN, As Rudd Meets Ban for 50 Minutes, Pasztor Is Present, Job for Climate Change in Air?

UNITED NATIONS, July 14 — When Kevin Rudd, just ousted as Australia’s prime minister, met late July 14 with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, there was one attendee rarely as such meetings: Janos Pasztor, the head of the UN’s climate change unit.

This came a day after Inner City Press reported that the UN is being urged by the Obama Administration to give Rudd a climate change job.

Inconveniently, the IPCCC top post was recently awarded to Christina Figueres of Costa Rica. (Pasztor competed for the job, temporarily and partially recusing himself from his past and current job, but lost out.)

Now, while the U.S. wishes the IPCCC post were open, it appears that a new special envoy on global warming post would have to be created. One wonders what Pasztor thinks. Also present in the meeting were Ban’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar and his deputy, but most senior advisor, Kim Won-soo.

UN’s Ban and Rudd

Prior to meeting Rudd, Ban had an audience with representatives of the Korean Red Cross. They bought a gift, which was waiting by the elevator. Moments before Rudd came in, Ban emerged from his office and began walking to his spot at the table.

Moments later, Pasztor joins

Then he stopped, remembering – he had forgotten to put on his glasses. He went back and got them. Then Rudd entered, then Pasztor. The photos were taken, and the photographers hustled out.

But Rudd did not leave until 6:20 p.m. — 50 minutes later….

Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Discusses Advancing Agreement at COP 16

Call for Applications

Asia Regional Writeshop to Support Developing Country Publications on Disaster Risk Reduction and Adaptation to Climate Change: 20-24 September 2010, Bangkok, Thailand.

The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) are calling for applications from young scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and others from Asia who are working in the field of climate change and disaster risk reduction to participate in a writeshop from 20-24 September 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand.  Through the writeshop, participants will produce a peer-review quality publishable article and they will gain enhanced awareness of the process of writing papers for academic journals.  These skills will allow their work to be incorporated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other high-level scientific bodies and consequently inform policy making on key issues of disaster risk and climate change adaptation.

The writeshop will involve one-on-one work with facilitators to provide supplemental training on academic writing and argumentation, in order to help new authors reach a standard of writing suitable for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

How it works

Participants’ papers are selected based on quality and relevance to the writeshop’s chosen focus areas.  After having been selected, participants are paired up with a facilitator with whom they will work to improve the paper.  Prior to the writeshop, there will be some communication between the participant and the facilitators to ensure that each participant is at a good stage in the writing of the paper before coming to the writeshop.  At the writeshop, the participants will work closely on various aspects of the paper. Finally, some follow-up work between the participants and mentors will be necessary to get the paper finalised.

Writeshops run for 5 days.  This includes plenary sessions on the first day, and small group discussions and independent work on the second day.  The third day is only half a day to give participants time to refresh their minds and take a break.  On the fourth and fifth day, new versions of the papers are drafted in collaboration with facilitators and during plenary and independent sessions.

Participation requirements

Participants must be committed to completing the paper.  For this reason, the organisers will require the participants to sign an agreement at the beginning stating their intent to fulfil this requirement.  If mentors do not consider the paper to be of sufficient quality to be submitted to a peer-review journal, they will assist participants in ensuring that the output is at least at a level where it can be submitted to a magazine or a non-peer review publication.  Participants must also recognise that involvement in the programme does not guarantee publication – this will be determined by the peer-review process, which can sometimes be harsh.

Selection Criteria and Applications

Applications should be emailed to Nipa Laithong (nipa.laithong@sei.se) by 31 July 2010.  Please read the selection criteria carefully.  All travel costs and lodging will be covered by the organisers.

Participants will be selected based on the following criteria:

Ø   They have carried out action research or project implementation that has provided them with new insights on one of the topics covered in Annex I.

Ø   They qualify as ‘young professionals’ and are building their careers as academics, policy makers or practitioners in the fields of disaster risk reduction, climate change or other relevant topic.

Ø   They live and work in the region of the writeshop or are from Asia.

Ø   They speak sufficient English to be able to write a first draft of a paper in English.

Ø   They commit to working with a mentor before and after the writeshop, to completing a paper,  and to seeing it through the publication process.

The application should include:

Ø   A brief biographical statement, explaining the candidate’s background, current career hopes and rationale for wanting to be part of the programme, maximum 500 words.

Ø   An extended abstract or summary of their paper, including a brief description of the methodologies applied, the results of the work, whether the work was the result of research or project implementation, maximum 2 pages.

Writeshop themes

The writeshop will address topics that are relevant to climate change adaptation and the 2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR).  Papers selected for the writeshop can therefore focus on any of the following themes:

Enabling Environments

-        How can policies in trade and productive sector development increase resilience and adaptive capacity, particularly for small and vulnerable economies, such as SIDS and land-locked countries?

-        How can trade and productive sector development policies increase these countries’ resilience to disasters and the harmful impacts of climate change?

-        How can existing social assistance and poverty alleviation programmes be improved to increase poor communities to disaster loss?

-        How can employment policy and programmes, such as rural employment guarantee programmes, increase communities’ resilience to disaster loss?

-        What are the mechanisms and enabling conditions that allow innovative practices at the community and local levels to be scaled up to district and national level implementation?

-        How can investment of large quantities of adaptation and risk reduction funding respond to local needs and mobilizes local resources?

Governance

-        How do decentralisation processes empower local and city governments and facilitate local risk reduction and community-based adaptation?

-        How can innovative institutional and legislative arrangements for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation can facilitate implementation? How have some governments succeeded in integrating the arrangements for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction and in moving the centre of gravity from traditional emergency management organizations to central ministries for planning and finance, including the integration of risk reduction into national development plans and budgets?

-        How have risk reduction considerations been incorporated into planning and regulation, for example using cost-benefit analysis? What regulatory frameworks (e.g., building codes and land use planning policies) have been used and how effective have they been at reducing disaster risk?

-       How have market-based mechanisms, such as parametric insurance, catastrophe bonds, micro-finance and others increased resilience and adaptive capacity at the national, local and household levels?  How have risk-reduction incentives been successfully integrated into market-based mechanisms? What are the practical steps and economic and social considerations required to develop targeted and transparent instruments? What institutional and governance arrangements required?

Ecosystem services

-        What are the benefits of different approaches to managing, enhancing, protecting and restoring ecosystem services as a strategy for reducing disaster risk and strengthening adaptive capacity? Where have these approaches been employed most effectively? And what are the factors (political, economic, regulatory, etc.) that allow for these approaches to be implemented?

For any questions, email lisa.schipper@sei.se

——————————
Dr. Lisa Schipper

Senior Research Fellow
Stockholm Environment Institute

15 Floor, Witthyakit Building
254, Chulalongkorn University
Chulalongkorn Soi 64 Phyathai Road
Bangkok 10330 Thailand
Tel: +66 2 251 4415 x107
Fax: +66 2 251 4419

email: lisa.schipper@sei.se

HOLOCAUST A CONFLATED SCAM TO CONFISCATE PALESTINIAN LAND – PURPORTS AHMADINEJAD.

10 July 2010, The San Francisco Sentinel.

Haaretz

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the historic dimensions of the Holocaust but rejected the label of an anti-Semite, the Fars news agency reported Friday.

“The West made a claim – about the Holocaust – and urges all the people in the world to accept it or otherwise go to prison,” Ahmadinejad told a group of Islamic scholars Thursday in Nigeria, where he attended a summit of the Developing Eight, a group of countries with large Muslim populations.

»Don’t miss The June 15 Condemnation Of Israel – The Worldwide Ignorance – The San Francisco Board Of Supervisors – The Sentinel Opinion

“The West allows everybody to question prophets and even God but not to pose a simple question and open the black box of a historic event,” he charged.

Ahmadinejad had earlier sparked international fury by calling for the eradication of Israel from the Middle East and its relocation to Europe or North America and by describing the murders of 6 million European Jews by Germany’s Nazi regime as a “fairy tale.”

He said Thursday that the Holocaust was an excuse for Israel and the West to take land away from millions of Palestinians and give it to Israel.

Iran does not recognize Israel and maintains that a referendum by all Palestinians, including refugees, and Jews should decide the future fate of a Palestinian state.

“We are after a diplomatic settlement through a referendum, but they [the West] say Ahmadinejad wants to kill people and is an anti-Semite,” the Iranian president said.

“No, this is wrong,” he added. “I love all Muslims, Christians and Jews. What I dislike are the Zionists, which are a party that has availed itself of the Holocaust as an excuse to establish the illegitimate state of Israel.”

The West fears the political differences between Iran and Israel might lead to a military confrontation between the two countries.

The international concern has increased amid fears that Iran might be using its nuclear program to make an atomic bomb.

Iran possesses 2,000-kilometer range missiles capable of targeting any part of Israel.

Tehran has said it has no secret nuclear projects and all its military capabilities were merely for the purpose of self-defense and deterrence.

But Tehran also warned that if Israel attacks the country’s nuclear sites, Iran would use its missiles to bomb Israel in retaliation.

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Developing Eight summit in Nigeria.
Published: July 8, 2010.

ABUJA, Nigeria, July 8 (UPI) — Improved trade and better visa arrangements for business people are among the discussion topics for the Developing Eight, meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, Thursday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is among dignitaries in Abuja for the meeting of the Developing Eight, a consortium of the world’s largest Muslim countries, includes Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey, Radio France Internationale reported. Turkish President Abdullah Gul also was attending the summit.

Because Turkey and Indonesia also are members of the G20, Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamed al-Oraby said they would be asked to convey concerns of developing countries {it does not say Islamic here} during the next G20 meeting, scheduled for South Korea in November 2010.

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Interesting to note – these Big Eight Islamic States include only Egypt from among the Arab States; neither was included India which has the second largest Islamic population among UN Member States and is a true democracy.

On the other hand, how would you react if the Big Eight from among the Christan majority States would meet, or “God-forbids” – whatever God – the biggest Eight Countries with Chinese Communities meet and criticize some white (read European) intruder? Just think the meaning of it all! We really would like to hear from you on this.

This brings us back to the notion that time has come for the Biggest Eight Democracies to meet
and see how they can establish solid leadership for the UN!

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	from:	Energy and Capital <eac-eletter@angelnexus.com>
subject:		I Got the Asian Itch.

I’ve got the Asian itch, and it won’t be hard to see why…

I’ve got this itch because the region’s economies continue to grow while economic tremors continue to rock Europe and the United States.

I’ve got this itch because Asia’s investment in cleantech continues to grow while it shrinks in other areas:

.

I’ve got this itch because Asian governments turned to cleantech as the obvious choice for financial stimulus — with China, South Korea, and Japan allocating $20 billion more to the sector than the United States:

.

I’ve got this itch because China out-invested us 2:1 last year in new energy technologies:

.

Which makes their long-term cleantech investment curve look like this:

.

While ours looks like this:

Scratching the itch…

With a financial investment edge like that, you can bet Asia’s — particularly China’s — dedication is translating to wins in the public markets as well.

Five years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find more than one or two Chinese companies on global top ten lists…

Now, they’ve taken three of the top 10 global wind spots and six in the solar race:

And not only are they whooping us in investment and production capacity; European and U.S. companies look silly next to Chinese stars:

That’s why 19 of the last 60 or so winners I’ve closed in the Alternative Energy Speculator have been China-based.

But my itch isn’t satisfied yet…

You see, only Asia’s dominance of the solar market has been thoroughly established in U.S. markets, where Chinese ADRs are common.

And while their dominance of wind and smart grid industries is definitely being plotted and executed, there’s been no way to play it in domestic markets — until now.

Sinovel (the #3 company in the table above) has announced ambitions to be the world wind leader in the next five years. I’m guessing this company, along with a few other Chinese entrants, will go the initial public offering route.

And if you think there’s work to be done on our grid, you should have a look at Asia where, in some places, there is no grid at all.

In fact it’s being built from scratch.

Just last week, Bloomberg broke news that “smart grid technology will be one of the key industries for research and development support in China’s upcoming 12th Five Year development plan, due to be enacted at the beginning of 2011.”

China’s largest grid operator, the State Grid Corp., has already said it will invest $37 billion this year alone to build a nationwide smart grid network.

So to recap…

China has leveraged its massive economy to become world leaders in solar and wind technology, outinvesting other nations by far.

Now they’re turning to the smart grid, which we’ll be necessary if they’re ever to harness that solar and wind potential effectively.

And make no mistake — only the Chinese survive in China. They take care of and nurture their own.

Like the Chinese solar companies now sharply outperforming their foreign competitors, I’ve found the one company about to become a global smart grid and electric car juggernaut.

As you can tell from all the data above, China is betting on a clean energy future.

And it’s winning.

While the U.S. continues to lag behind, you can satisfy your Asian itch by following China’s lead.

Call it like you see it.
Nick

P.S. China’s thirst for energy is incomparable. And it’s not just clean energy they’re after… My friend Christian DeHaemer is fresh off a trip to Mongolia, where he cozied up with a tiny company sitting on $51 billion worth of crude. And China wants it — bad.

He’s going to release a full report on the company and its massive find tomorrow. But because you’re a loyal reader of Energy & Capital, I figured I’d give you early access to it today.

———————–

China’s Next Cleantech Takeover: World’s Largest Automaker!

It was just a tiny, $10 battery company…

But right now, as part of China’s rapid cleantech mission, this little gem is rapidly on the verge of becoming the world’s largest automaker!

Click here for your free report.

UNITED NATIONS, July 2 — As UN Women, the world body’s so-called Gender Entity, was birthed Friday in the General Assembly, Inner City Press learned for a well placed Mission about six of the eight candidates for the Under-Secretary General position at the top of UN Women.

These are the Rwandan foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, UN gender advisor Rachel Mayanja (nominated by Gabon), a Malaysian official who heads up the gender work of the Non Aligned Movement, officials from Tunisia and Norway and, Inner City Press is told, Sri Lanka’s Radhika Coomaraswamy.

The biggest donor, assured for that reason a seat on the Executive Board, is said to agree that the USG should come from the Global South. So the Norwegian, it seems, has little chance.

UN’s Ban and Bachelet, UN Women not shown

Earlier on Friday, Inner City Press asked UN Deputy Secretary General Asha Rose Migiro to name the candidates, since she had said the process would be open and transparent. Eight countries, she said, have submitted names, including one country naming another’s national. She gave as an example the United States nominating her. “Have they?” Inner City Press asked. No, she said.

Not on the list is Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Some say she wanted UNICEF and is miffed. Others say she will only take it if offered: i.e., if it is not a competitive process.

FOCUS ON LOCAL DEVELOPMENT COULD AID CAMBODIA OVERALL, SAYS UN REPORT .

A national strategy for local development in Cambodia could bridge the rural-urban divide and bring the Southeast Asian country closer to achieving the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a report released today by the United Nations.

Beyond the Midpoint: Achieving the MDGs and by the Local Development Outlook on Cambodia, produced by the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), is the first publication of its kind to provide a comprehensive overview of local development trends in Cambodia.

It shows that decentralization would allow local governments to respond more appropriately to the needs of local communities.

“A strong consensus is emerging that a new policy approach is needed, one that builds on local knowledge to tailor public policy to specific circumstances,” UN Resident Coordinator Douglas Broderick told some 340 people who attended the launch of the report.

Such an approach would help guide Cambodian decision-makers “harness local potential and exploit opportunities for economic diversification and development,” he said at the gathering, which drew Government officials, representatives of academia and civil society, and development partners.

The report’s release comes two months ahead of the MDG Summit to be convened by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in September in New York.

With the 2015 deadline to achieve the MDGs looming, Mr. Ban has been urging world leaders to try to accelerate progress towards achieving the eight development goals, which include targets for slashing poverty, boosting school enrolment rates, improving maternal health and increasing access to clean water and decent sanitation.

Thailand Fights Addiction to Plastic Bags.
Lynette Lee Corporal
 http://ipsterraviva.net/UN/currentNew.as…

BANGKOK, June 28 (IPS) – Buy a hairpin and the sales clerk has a microscopic plastic bag for it. A soda purchase from a corner store may end up having the liquid poured into a plastic bag, and then topped off with a plastic straw. There is no plastic bag yet that could fit a car, but if there was one country that could come up with one, Thailand would probably be it.

But here in the capital, local authorities have restarted a campaign to wean the residents of the Thai capital from their plastic bag ‘addiction’. For the second year in a row, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) is holding its 45-day ‘No Bag, No Baht’ project, which offers consumers a one-baht (three U.S. cents) discount for every 100 baht (nearly three dollars) purchase if they use their own cloth bags when shopping in several local markets. Meanwhile, each plastic bag will cost them one baht.

This year’s BMA campaign was launched on Jun. 5, World Environment Day. Last year, the campaign targeted a cutback of 4.4 million plastic bags among Bangkok consumers. This year, BMA authorities want a cutback that is three times that figure. BMA figures show that every day, more than 600,000 plastic bags are used in this city of nine million people.

Their annual disposal cost reaches more than 600 million baht (18.4 million dollars), city officials have said. Local media have quoted BMA deputy governor Porntep Techapaibul as saying that of the city’s daily 10,000 tonnes of trash, about 1,800 tonnes are plastic bags, a number projected to increase by about 20 percent each year.

By now, many Bangkok residents have heard of the health and environmental hazards posed by plastic bags. Made from a non-renewable natural resource, petroleum, the bags have for their main ingredient polyethylene – or polythene – which is said to take 1,000 years to decompose on land and 450 years in water.

But even green-minded residents have problems avoiding the use of plastic bags. Thai Fund Foundation coordinator Chomphu Rammuang says that although she brings a big cloth bag to the supermarket and a lunch pack to work, she can still wind up with a plastic bag in hand by day’s end.

Thailand, after all, is a major manufacturer of plastic. That could help explain why even micro-entrepreneurs here think nothing of shoving their merchandise in plastic bags.

For instance, Yakult health drink vendor Suprathit says that a 100-piece pack of small plastic bags costs her only five baht (15 cents). Pusadee, who sells office lunches in clear plastic bags, also says she buys a kilo of these for 70 baht (two dollars). She says a kilo’s supply lasts her two days.

Thailand produces other plastic products. According to Greenpeace South- east Asia-Thailand country representative Tara Buakamsri, the country is among South-east Asia’s biggest manufacturers of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is the third most widely produced plastic after polythylene and polypropylene.

Cheap, durable and easy to assemble, it is often used to make pipes, water bottles, credit cards. It is also non-biodegradable.

In April, the English-language daily ‘Bangkok Post’ reported that domestic demand for PVC is about 450,000 tonnes per year.

A study presented in 2009 by Wuthichai Wongthatsanekorn at the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology in Dubai, says that the recovery rate of plastic waste in Thailand in 2000 was only 23 percent.

It also says that only about 35 percent of the solid wastes collected from parts of Thailand outside of Bangkok are properly managed, while the rest of the waste products are “piled up in open dumping areas waiting to be dissolved.”

For a campaign to be effective, Tara says, consumers have to be aware of the importance and the long-term effect of the scheme.

“We need to study what economic mechanism will work if plastic bags are banned in Thailand,” he says. “What would be the reaction of the huge plastic industry in the country? What will be the economic incentive for people to follow this campaign?”

The good news, though, is that many establishments like supermarket chain Tesco Lotus and furniture store Home Pro are open to taking part in the BMA project. In fact, even before the ‘No Bag, No Baht’ project was relaunched, Tesco Lotus already had its very own ‘Green Bag Green Point’ campaign. For each bag saved, a customer can earn one Green Clubcard point.

Tesco Lotus senior corporate affairs manager Saofang Ekaluckrujee told IPS in an email interview, “We are very pleased to see policymakers such as the BMA making this issue a national priority. Our Green Bag Green Point scheme’s initial target is to reduce plastic bag usage by 9.8 million bags in 2010.” Other huge shopping malls like Siam Paragon and Central also give incentives like bonus shopper points for not using their bags – plastic or paper ones for that matter – or a 5 percent discount at certain times of the month.

Even small businesses are joining in. During the BMA campaign’s soft relaunch in May, than 5,000 stores in Bangkok’s famous Chatuchak weekend market participated.

Chomphu also reports that her monthly visits to the Chatuchak weekend market have become a pleasant experience, plastic bag-wise. “The vegetarian store near Chatuchak that I go to is actively participating in the project,” she says. “Buyers are encouraged to bring their own bags.”

From the reporting by IPS/TerraViva.   http://ipsterraviva.net/UN/currentNew.as…
The final communiques of the G8 and G20 did little to assuage the central grievances that were expressed before the events in Huntsville and Toronto, during the ‘People’s Summit’ held by activists Jun. 18-20, in Toronto, or in the many peaceful demonstrations held prior to and during the summits.

The major issues being protested – lack of commitment regarding climate change and clean energy, the mounting concerns regarding the development of the Albertan tar sands, ongoing wars and foreign occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the imposition of fiscal austerity measures on member states despite continuing fallout from the global economic crisis which began in 2008 – were not resolved.

And perhaps the core concern – that a select, if somewhat broadened, group of elites are making decisions that concern all peoples around the globe largely in secret – appeared to be flaunted by members of the corporate elite, dubbed the ‘B20′ (Business 20), who were on hand.

During the summit, several dozen of the globe’s most powerful CEOs were given exclusive, off-the-record meetings with the G20′s finance ministers and Prime Minister Harper.

The G20 includes the “world’s most industrialised nations” (which also comprise the G8): Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States.

Its other members are Australia, Mexico, Turkey and South Korea, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, plus the 27-member European Union.

In concert with the eventual announcement by the G20 that they would seek to halve deficits by 2013 (with the exception of Japan), one business leader projected, “Stimulus is winding down and the private sector is going to have to come in and pick up the slack.”

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty praised the corporate leaders, saying “The advice we get from you is invaluable in terms of our deliberations and the deliberations of our leaders.”

Offering an indication of the B20′s influence, South Korean Finance Minister Jeung-Hyun Yoon told Toronto’s Globe and Mail, “I sincerely hope the business summit can serve as a platform for public-private collaboration and the starting point of the new normal in the global economic architecture.”

As the effects of the latest policy pronouncements begin to be felt, many fear that Toronto will become known also as the staging ground for the security model that will be deployed to protect this new architecture. {The B2o that is!}

Shortly after we posted our reporting from the June 24, 2010, meeting of the Cecilia Attias Foundation For Women – Dialogue for Action, we received the following e-mail relating to Myanmar/Burma:

See YouTube – BURMA – NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE THE STAND.

To All Concerned,
URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT

See YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD_Ss9WrjMw – BURMA-NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE THE STAND (English)

See YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_SB4A6KyiY – BURMA-NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE THE STAND (Burmese)
See YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUUnFdRN7L0 – Burma Freedom Song – NOW IS THE TIME (English)

See YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85jmHQ4IXgA – Burma Freedom Song – NOW IS THE TIME (Burmese)