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.

———————————————————-

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…

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.

—————————–

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.

—————————-

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!

————————

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!}

Ethical and Sharia-compliant Investing Takes Off.

as per: http://english.alrroya.com/node/47032

Monday, 28 June 2010  at  09:26, By Ron Robins, Founder & Analyst – Investing for the Soul.

White House is feeling weight of controversies surrounding oil spill.

Washington DC, Friday, June 4, 2010

At virtually every turn lately, the White House cannot shake the appearance that it is hamstrung and a step behind. From a major crisis such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to smaller and seemingly avoidable controversies over internal Democratic Party politics, President Obama and his team are on the defensive.

The question many Republicans and even some Democratic allies of the administration are asking is whether the collective weight of all these problems will diminish the president’s ability to get his agenda through Congress, or further weaken his party before the November midterm elections.

That all this has happened to a White House staffed by the team that so successfully navigated the 2008 presidential campaign is a source of surprise and consternation for Democrats. The missteps have also become easy ammunition for Republicans seeking to capitalize on what may be self-inflicted wounds.

Defenders of the administration argue that there was nothing the White House could have done early on to stop the oil that has been gushing from the well in the gulf.

————

Then Comes the information: “President Obama has once again postponed his trip to Indonesia and Australia, telephoning the leaders of the two countries late Thursday night,” the White House said.

It is the second time the trip has been canceled. It was originally planned for March but was put off because the president wanted to be in Washington for a critical health-care vote in Congress.

Now, the president needs to stay in Washington to oversee the worsening environmental crisis from the oil spill off the Gulf Coast, making a seven-day venture oversees impractical and politically problematic.

Obama had been scheduled to leave June 13 and stay abroad for a week, spending time in Indonesia, Guam and Australia. There was no indication in the statement about when he might try again.

“President Obama spoke tonight with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, and with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement sent out just before midnight. “President Obama expressed his deep regret that he has to postpone his trip to Asia that was scheduled for later this month. The President looked forward to rescheduling so that he can visit both countries soon.”

The statement continued: “President Obama underscored his commitment to our close alliance with Australia and our deepening partnership with Indonesia. He plans to hold full bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Rudd and President Yudhoyono on the margins of the G-20 meeting in Canada” in late June.

————-

But we think that not going on that trip these days is a major mistake. We believe that there is a tremendous opportunity that the President is missing and we wrote about it in our posting:  http://www.sustainabilitank.info/categor…

An oil drilling accident offshore Brunei in 1979 caused a mud volcano which took nearly 30 years and 20 relief wells to stop. The Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia, PT Lapindo Bratas gas exploration resulted in an on land mud volcano, May 29, 2006, when it wiped out four villages. It is still an ongoing disaster. Louisiana and Washington DC beware: The real model against which the BP Deepwater blowout should be compared are THE MUD VOLCANOES and the time frame is very serious. Why not establish a School for Government and Industry LEARNING responsibility in Sidoajo, Indonesia, an area suggested for TOURISM by President Yudhoyono ?

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 26th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com)

President Obama could have made it his point to visit the Sidoajo MUD VOLCANO and explain the perils of drilling for oil.

In Sidoajo, on ground, not under 5,000 feet of water, there is to be seen a still active blow-out of gas that has wiped out four villages. He could have spoken from there to the people of the United States and explain the perils of geoengineering in search of oil. Indonesia would have cooperated – President Yudhoyono wants to turn the place as a site for educational eco-tourism.

There are also other reasons for the originally planned trip. There are important questions about the US leadership in international institutions like the UN and on climate at the UNFCCC. There is an aspiring UN Secretary-General in Australia – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd – and much interest in Climate in both countries. There is also interest in Guam at a time the US might have to reconsider its military installations in the region, but the opportunity to address the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, while standing next to that Mud Volcano, was like heaven sent in order to extricate himself from the Washington Furies.

—————–

The following shows how mindless Republican legislators can be – at this stage, without exhonorating Obama from having failed to clean up Washington from the Republican remnants in the bureaucracy, we are clearly pointing fingers at that anti-Americanism Republican style.

see from the following:

“For the past several weeks, much of the debate in the capital has centered on whether the President and his team reacted quickly enough to the threat of the oil gushing from the bottom of the ocean floor.”

And what are they saying? Had the alarm bells sounded earlier, could anyone have done anything?

Is it not true that years of submission to oil industry dictates over Washington have rendered the country helpless? Is there anything short of “Drill Baby Drill!” that propels the Republican onslaught on Obama these days? The idea is to be allowed to drill in shallow water and on land in order to avoid similar spills in the future – this is nothing short of holding the revolver at whatever heads there are still in existence in that town.

As President Obama heads to the Gulf Friday for his third oil-spill visit, his most ardent critics back in Washington will be stirring up trouble.

Credits for the following go to a tip I got from a friend, Bob Larick, at a presentation by Ambassador Federico Alberto Cuello Camilo to the UN University on topics of Environment and Migration on the Hispaniola Island where man made disasters in Haiti augment the fact that a fault goes through the island, and poses a natural danger to both States – Haiti and the Dominican Republic. While we cannot but be defensive when it comes to nature, we must nevertheless make sure we do not compound on those potential disasters. This friend gave me the example of the MUD VOLCANO OF INDONESIA.

————————–
 http://www.eturbonews.com/15181/sidoarjo…

DO WE SEE HERE AN INDONESIA GOVERNMENT COVER-UP?

OK – LET IT BECOME A SITE FOR TOURISM — BUT LET IT BE ALSO A SITE FOR LEARNING.

WHY NOT ESTABLISH A SCHOOL FOR OIL INDUSTRY EXECUTIVES AND GOVERNMENT PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD – RIGHT THERE IN SIDOARJA, INDONESIA – SO RESPONSIBILITY CAN BE TAUGHT THERE. WE SUGGEST THAT THE WORLD REINSURANCE INDUSTRY SPONSOR THE SCHOOL!

Indonesia

Sidoarjo mud vulcano disaster zone – new tourist attraction?

Sidoarjo mud vulcano / Image via discover-indo.tierranet.com

Mar 29, 2010JAKARTA, INDONESIAN – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday visited a disaster zone caused by a massive mud volcano blamed on gas drilling and said it could be turned into a tourist attraction.

The mud has been devouring land and homes in East Java’s Sidoarjo district since May 2006, endangering as many as 100,000 people and causing US$4.9 billion (S$6.86 billion) worth of damage, an Australian expert estimates. It has buried 12 villages, killed 13 people, displaced more than 42,000 and wiped out 800 hectares (1,977 acres) of densely populated farming and industrial land.

In a rare visit to the area, Mr Yudhoyono acknowledged community anger over delayed compensation payments but promised that the disaster would be turned into an opportunity.

‘With good layout and good concepts, we can turn this place into something useful for the community, whether as a geological tourist attraction, fishery or for other public activities,’ he said. ‘If it’s managed well, I have confidence this will be an attractive place and bring good to the local community. We need to think of a long-term solution and development of the district for the interests of the larger community.’

He did not explain whether the proposed geological tourism attraction would perpetuate the official line that the volcano was triggered by a small earthquake at Yogyakarta, 280 kilometres (174 miles) away.

Independent scientists earlier this year unveiled fresh evidence that gas drillers were to blame for the ongoing mudflow which continues to ruin lives. In a paper published by the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology in February, a group led by experts from Britain’s Durham University said a nearby gas drilling operation was almost certainly responsible. The company being fingered for the disaster, Lapindo Brantas, replied in the same journal that the earthquake unleashed the volcano as its gas drillers probed for gas nearby.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_volcano

MUD VOLCANOES:

“A mud volcano may be the result of a piercement structure created by a pressurized mud diapir which breaches the Earth’s surface or ocean bottom. Temperatures may be as low as the freezing point of ejected materials, particularly when venting is associated with the creation of hydrocarbon clathrate hydrate deposits.

Mud volcanoes are often associated with petroleum deposits and tectonic subduction zones and orogenic belts; hydrocarbon gases are often erupted. They are also often associated with lava volcanoes; in the case of such close proximity, mud volcanoes emit incombustible gases including helium, whereas lone mud volcanoes are more likely to emit methane.

A drilling accident offshore of Brunei in 1979 caused a mud volcano which took 20 relief wells and nearly 30 years to stop the eruption.

Drilling or an earthquake may have resulted in the Sidoarjo mud flow on May 29, 2006, in the Porong subdistrict of East Java, Indonesia. The mud covered about 440 hectares, or 1,087 acres (4.40 km²), and inundated four villages, homes, roads, rice fields, and factories and displaced about 24,000 people, killing 14. The gas exploration company was operated by PT Lapindo Brantas. In 2008, it was termed the world’s largest mud volcano and is beginning to show signs of catastrophic collapse, according to geologists who have been monitoring it and the surrounding area. A catastrophic collapse could sag the vent and surrounding area by up to 150 meters in the next decade. In March 2008, the scientists observed drops of up to 3 meters in one night. Most of the subsidence in the area around the volcano is more gradual, at around 0.1 cm per day. Now named Lusi, the mud volcano appears to be a hydrocarbon/hydrothermal hybrid. Lusi is actually a contraction of Lumpur Sidoarjo, where lumpur is the Indonesian word for “mud”".

——————

In Azerbaijan, eruptions are driven from a deep mud reservoir which is connected to the surface even during dormant periods, when seeping water still shows a deep origin. Seeps have temperatures up to 2–3 °C above the ambient temperature.^[1]

Approximately 1,100 mud volcanoes have been identified on land and in shallow water. It has been estimated that well over 10,000 may exist on continental slopes and abyssal plains.

Features:

• Gryphon: steep-sided cone shorter than 3 meters that extrudes mud
• Mud cone: high cone shorter than 10 meters that extrudes mud and rock fragments
• Scoria cone: cone formed by heating of mud deposits during fires
• Salse: water-dominated pools with gas seeps
• Spring: water-dominated outlets smaller than 0.5 meters
• Mud shield and many other kinds of features

Emissions:

Hydrate-bearing sediments, which often are associated with mud volcano activity.
Source: USGS, 1996.

Most liquid and solid material is released during eruptions, but various seeps occur during dormant periods.

First order estimates of mud volcano emissions have recently been made (1 Tg = 1 million metric tonnes).

• 2002: L.I. Dimitrov estimated that 10.2–12.6 Tg/yr of methane is released from onshore and shallow offshore mud volcanoes.
• 2002: Etiope and Klusman estimated at least 1–2 and as much as 10–20 Tg/yr of methane may be emitted from onshore mud volcanoes.
• 2003: Etiope, in an estimate based on 120 mud volcanoes: “The emission results to be conservatively between 5 and 9 Tg/yr, that is 3–6% of the natural methane sources officially considered in the atmospheric methane budget. The total geologic source, including MVs (this work), seepage from seafloor (Kvenvolden et al., 2001), microseepage in hydrocarbon-prone areas and geothermal sources (Etiope and Klusman, 2002), would amount to 35–45 Tg/yr.”^[2]
• 2003: analysis by Milkov et al. suggests that the global gas flux may be as high as 33 Tg/yr (15.9 Tg/yr during quiescent periods plus 17.1 Tg/yr during eruptions). Six teragrams per year of greenhouse gases are from onshore and shallow offshore mud volcanoes. Deep-water sources may emit 27 Tg/yr. Total may be 9% of fossil CH₄ missing in the modern atmospheric CH₄ budget, and 12% in the preindustrial budget.^[3]
• 2003: Alexei Milkov estimated approximately 30.5 Tg/yr of gases (mainly methane and CO₂) may escape from mud volcanoes to the atmosphere and the ocean.^[4]
• 2003: Achim J. Kopf estimated 1.97×10¹¹ to 1.23×10¹⁴ m³ of methane is released by all mud volcanoes per year, of which 4.66×10⁷ to 3.28×10¹¹ m³ is from surface volcanoes.^[5] That converts to 141–88,000 Tg/yr from all mud volcanoes, of which 0.033–235 Tg is from surface volcanoes.

Locations

Europe and Asia

Two mud volcanoes on the Taman Peninsula near Taman Stanitsa.

Satellite image of mud volcanoes in Pakistan.

Mud volcanoes are generally few in Europe, but dozens can be found on the Taman Peninsula of Russia and the Kerch Peninsula of southeastern Ukraine. In Italy, they are common in the northern front of the Apennines and in Sicily. Another relatively accessible place where mud volcanoes can be found in Europe are the Berca Mud Volcanoes near Berca in Buz?u County, Romania, close to the Carpathian Mountains.

Many mud volcanoes exist on the shores of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. Tectonic forces and large sedimentary deposits around the latter have created several fields of mud volcanoes, many of them emitting methane and other hydrocarbons. Features over 200 meters high exist in Azerbaijan, with large eruptions sometimes producing flames of similar scale (see below). Iran and Pakistan also possess mud volcanoes in the Makran range of mountains in the south of the two countries. In fact, the world’s largest and highest volcano is located in Balochistan, Pakistan.^[6]

China has a number of mud volcanoes in Xinjiang province. There are also mud volcanoes at the Arakan Coast in Myanmar (Burma). There are two active mud volcanoes in South Taiwan, and several inactive ones.

The island of Baratang, part of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands, Indian Ocean, has several sites of mud volcanic activity. There was a significant eruption event in 2003.

A drilling accident offshore of Brunei in 1979 caused a mud volcano which took 20 relief wells and nearly 30 years to stop the eruption.

Drilling or an earthquake may have resulted in the Sidoarjo mud flow on May 29, 2006, in the Porong subdistrict of East JavaIndonesia. The mud covered about 440 hectares, or 1,087 acres (4.40 km²), and inundated four villages, homes, roads, rice fields, and factories and displaced about 24,000 people, killing 14. The gas exploration company was operated by PT Lapindo Brantas. In 2008, it was termed the world’s largest mud volcano and is beginning to show signs of catastrophic collapse, according to geologists who have been monitoring it and the surrounding area. A catastrophic collapse could sag the vent and surrounding area by up to 150 meters in the next decade. In March 2008, the scientists observed drops of up to 3 meters in one night. Most of the subsidence in the area around the volcano is more gradual, at around 0.1 cm per day. Now named Lusi, the mud volcano appears to be a hydrocarbon/hydrothermal hybrid. Lusi is actually a contraction of Lumpur Sidoarjo, where lumpur is the Indonesian word for “mud”.

In Pakistan there are more than 80 active mud volcanoes, all of them in Baluchistan province; there are about 10 locations having clusters of mud volcanoes. In the west, in Gwadar District, the mud volcanoes are very small and mostly sit in the south of Jabal-e-Mehdi toward Sur Bandar. Many more exist in the north-east of Ormara. The remainder are in Lasbela District and are scattered between south of Gorangatti on Koh Hinglaj to Koh Kuk in the North of Miani Hor in the Hangol Valley. In this region, the heights of mud volcanoes range between 800 to 1550 feet. The most famous is Chandaragup. The biggest crater found is about 450 feet in diameter. Most mud volcanoes in this region are situated in out-of-reach areas having very difficult terrain. Dormant mud volcanoes stand like columns of mud in many other areas.

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan and its Caspian coastline are home to nearly 400 mud volcanoes, more than half the total throughout the continents. In 2001, one mud volcano 15 kilometers from Baku made world headlines when it suddenly started ejecting flames 15 meters high.^[7]

North and South America

A cold mud pot in N. California, showing the scale of them

Glen Blair, CA, cold Mud Pot

Mud volcanoes of the North American continent include:

• A field of small (<2 meters high) fault controlled cold mud volcanoes is located on California’s Mendocino Coast, near Glen Blair/Fort Bragg. The fine grained clay is occasionally harvested by local potters.^[8]
• Shrub and Klawasi mud volcanoes in the Copper River basin by the Wrangell Mountains, Alaska, USA. Emissions are mostly CO₂ and nitrogen; the volcanoes are associated with magmatic processes.
• An unnamed mud volcano 30 m high and with a top about 100 m wide, 24 km off Redondo Beach, California, and 800 m under the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
• A field of small (<3 meters) mud volcanoes in the Salton Sea geothermal area near the town of Niland, California. Emissions are mostly CO₂.
• Smooth Ridge mud volcano in 1,000 m of water near Monterey Canyon, California.
• Kaglulik mud volcano, 43 m under the surface of the Beaufort Sea, near the northern boundary of Alaska and Canada. Petroleum deposits are believed to exist in the area.
• Maquinna mud volcano, located 16-18 kilometers west of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
• There are many mud volcanoes in Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, near oil reserves in southern parts of the island of Trinidad. As of August 15, 2007, the mud volcano titled the Moruga Bouffle was said to being spitting up methane gas which shows signs that it is definitely active. There are also several other mud volcanoes in the tropical island which include:
  • the Devils Woodyard mud volcano near Hindustan
    

    

    One of the Devil’s Woodyard Volcano (Hindustan, Trinidad & Tobago)

  • the Moruga Bouffe mud volcano near Moruga
  • the Piparo mud volcano
  • the Chatham mud volcano located underwater in the Columbus Channel; this mud volcano periodically produces a short-lived island.

Yagrumito Mud Volcano in Monagas, Venezuela (6 km from Maturín)

South American mud volcanoes include:

• Venezuela. The eastern part of Venezuela contains several mud volcanoes, all of them, as in Trinidad, having an origin related to oil deposits. The image shows the Volcán de lodo de Yagrumito, about 6 km from Maturín, Venezuela. Its mud contains, water, biogenic gas, a certain amount of hydrocarbons and an important quantity of salt. Cows from the savanna often gather around to lick the dried mud for its salt content, which is an integral part of their diet needed to produce milk.

• Colombia. Volcan El Totumo [1], which marks the division between Bolivar and Atlantico in Colombia. This volcano is approximately 50 feet (15 m) high and can accommodate 10 to 15 people on its crater; many tourists and locals visit this volcano due to the medicinal benefits of the mud; the volcano is located next to a cienaga, or lake. This volcano is currently under a legal fight between the Bolivar and Atlantico Departamentos because of its tourist value.

Yellowstone’s “Mud Volcano”

Yellowstone’s “Mud Volcano” feature (NPS, Peaco, 1998)

The name of Yellowstone National Park‘s “Mud Volcano” feature and the surrounding area is misleading; it consists of hot springs, mud pots and fumaroles, rather than a true mud volcano. Depending upon the precise definition of the term mud volcano, the Yellowstone formation could be considered a hydrothermal mud volcano cluster. The feature is much less active than in its first recorded description, although the area is quite dynamic. Yellowstone is an active geothermal area with a magma chamber near the surface, and active gases are chiefly steam, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide.^[9]

The mud volcano in Yellowstone was previously a mound, until suddenly, it tore itself apart into the formation seen today.^[10]

http://ipsterraviva.net/UN/currentNew.aspx?new=7644

Encroaching Forest, Oil Palm Plantations Alarm Villagers in Malaysia.
by Anil Netto for IPS

PENANG, Malaysia, May 23 (IPS) – An increasing number of natives in
Sarawak state in north Borneo are alarmed at encroaching forest and
oil palm plantations, which are taking over their native customary
land and destroying their traditional lifestyles and biodiversity.

In Long Berawan, a village in the north of the state, a community of a
thousand Berawan and Tering indigenous people who live in longhouses
is worried about plans by a reforestation and plantation group to take
over 80,000 hectares of native land. And there are other villages and
communities similarly affected. “The land is being given to the big
companies to do the plantations in our area,” says Dennis Along, a
villager who comes from a traditional farming family. “In future, it
will be very hard for the longhouse people to do farming. There is no
free land for us to do farming anymore, because the company is taking
over the land.”

The villagers here used to cultivate paddy, plant rubber trees and
grow a variety of local fruit trees – as part of a shifting
cultivation tradition that goes back hundreds of years. “We move to a
new area every year because we want to make the ground more fertile,”
explains Along. “When we move our rice fields, we plant fruit trees -
rambutan, durian, langsat, jackfruit – to help replenish the soil.”
Their land is also home to wildlife such as wild boar, monkeys, deer
and all kinds of local fish varieties.

Now, they are going to lose all that as a company has taken over their
land for plantation, laments Along, referring to Pusaka KTS, a joint
venture between timber-based conglomerate KTS Group of Companies and
the Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corporation.

Similar large forest plantation projects are slated for the Kakus and
Belaga regions.

The loss of biodiversity when land is cleared for plantations is
alarming. “When a huge area is cleared for plantations, all the plants
will be cleared, because they are clearing up the land,” explains
Raymond Abin, coordinator of the Sarawak Conservation Action Network,
which consists of environmental and indigenous rights groups in
Sarawak.

“After that, they will do the excavating work in order for them to
plant the oil palm. This will invariably lead to serious soil erosion
that would flow into the streams and rivers and kill a lot of fish.”

In addition, foreign workers hired by the plantation firms are often
concerned about their own survival and extract as much fish from the
rivers as they can. “There will be little wildlife once the forest is
gone and replaced by tree or oil palm plantation,” says Abin.

The immediate impact on surrounding communities is water pollution and
flash floods.

In Sarawak, forest plantations are mainly of fast maturing tree
species such as acacia mangium and rubberwood (timber latex clones).
Acacia mangium is a highly invasive species regarded as a threat to
natural forests and the natural environment.

Whatever the condition of the existing forest, planting fast-growing
acacia involves prior clear-felling and removal of stumps, resulting
in a denuded landscape ready for replanting. It is also a sterile
monocrop that allows little to grow beneath it. Acacia plantations
thus cannot support the rainforests’ original faunal diversity.

The ‘Global Biodiversity Outlook 3′ report released by the Secretariat
of the Convention on Biological Diversity – an international treaty
adopted in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 – earlier this month noted that
the 2010 biodiversity target agreed to by the world’s governments in
2002 has not been met at the global level.

“The loss of biodiversity is an issue of profound concern for its own
sake. Biodiversity also underpins the functioning of ecosystems, which
provide a wide range of services to human societies. Its continued
loss, therefore, has major implications for current and future human
well-being,” the report said.

According to the website of the Malaysian Timber Industry Board, the
Plantation Industries Ministry aims to develop 375,000 hectares of
forest plantation for timber at an annual planting rate of 25,000
hectares per year for the next 15 years.

This is part of an aggressive programme that includes providing soft
loans to companies for the development of such plantations “to reduce
pressure on native forest as a source for raw materials and to ensure
its continuous availability for the domestic timber industry.” Sarawak
also plans to double its oil palm coverage to one million hectares by
this year.

The loss of biodiversity in tree plantations in Sarawak is significant
in the global equation, says political economist Andrew Aeria. “But
don’t expect Sarawak politicians to be bothered by all this. All they
are interested in is the profit margin of their crony companies and
their family-linked companies involved in tree plantation projects.”

The federal government, with the collaboration of the Sarawak
government, is in the process of finalising a mechanism on how to
solve the issue of native customary rights land in the state,
Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok
was quoted as saying Thursday by the Bernama national news agency.

Meanwhile, the villagers in Long Berawan are still engaged in farming
using their traditional practices – but for how much longer?

“When the plantations come – and they are starting work now…”
Along’s voice trails off. “Now they are doing work in the jungle, and
after the jungle, the native customary land, and after that, the whole
place, and definitely our farms will go.”

The UNFCCC does not provide, even now, any direct information about the UN Member States that submitted names for candidates to the post of Executive Secretary of the Climate Convention. Whatever Press Conferences were held on the subject at UN Headquarters, to-date, were private Press Conferences organized by individual countries – not official UN or UNFCCC Press Conferences.

The fact that such information is not forthcoming has reduced to a minimum the number of media outlets that deal with this issue – and some that did ended up having only partial information or even wrong information. From the major media outlets, only the Washington Post has tackled the issue, but picked up only six names missing one more name.  The spokesman for the UN Secretary-General has not released the information – though the closing date for submission was March 31, 2010.

To ad insult on injury, the UNFCCC website of News from the Media, to the best of our knowledge, also does not post what is written or posted on the subject – but now seemed to gloat when The Washington Post was pushed into making a correction regarding having missed the candidate from Barbados. We post this because we understand the difficulties The Washington Post had in its efforts to collect the names of the candidates. The UN secrecy on this matter, and in other matters, is just not a good omen for an open flow of information that we expect from the UN.

The gloating matter is as follows:

“Barbados seeks top U.N. climate post The Washington Post
A recent Post Carbon item about the contest to become the next executive secretary for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change left out the name of one candidate: Barbados’ Elizabeth H. Thompson.”

————————

But that is not all – today, having forced the issue many the Small Island States have backed Senator and former Energy and Environment Minister Elizabeth Thompson from Barbados for the position of Executive Secretary. Which is fine except that she was proposed by Barbados Already March 18, 2010 – not just today.

ALSO – THE RELEASE FROM THE UN IS CLEARLY ASTONISHING AS WE KNOW THAT THERE WAS NO INDONESIAN CANDIDATE BY THE CUT OFF DATE OF MARCH 31st. We are informed by the UN that this release is just a summary of what was said by Barbados and not by the UN – so what – should not the UN say something if they believe that there are inaccuracies in a report they are facilitating?

WE KNOW OF 7 CANDIDATES AS WE POSTED EARLIER. THE LIST DOES NOT INCLUDE INDONESIA BUT DOES INCLUDE HUNGARY, ECUADOR AND PAKISTAN THAT ARE MISSING FROM THIS  RELEASE FROM THE PC .

Please see the full release

15 April 2010

Press Conference on Barbados’ Candidature for UN Climate Change Treaty Chief

 http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/20……

Barbados today announced the nomination of Senator and former Energy and Environment Minister Elizabeth Thompson as its candidate for Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, bringing to five the number of countries that have so far nominated candidates for the same position:  Costa Rica; South Africa; India; and Indonesia.

Christopher Hackett, Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations, made the announcement at a Headquarters press conference in New York to introduce Ms. Thompson as his country’s candidate for the post.  Her candidacy has been presented to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who has to name the official to take over from the outgoing Yvo de Boer of the Netherlands.

Mr. Hackett pointed to Ms. Thompson’s “extensive and rich” leadership experience in national, regional and international issues, which he said qualify her for guiding the United Nations work on climate change affairs.  He said given the respected and principled voice his country had in the international community on questions of sustainable development, particularly as reflected in the role Barbados played in the first conference in 1994 on the sustainable development of small island developing States, that someone from that location with her level of experience would be an effective leader of the UNFCCC.

For Barbados, and the wider Caribbean, climate change and sustainable development were important challenges, Mr. Hackett said, adding that Ms. Thompson had received the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Champion of the Earth award, in 2008.

Articulating the case for her candidature, Ms. Thompson made reference to the 2007-2008 Human Development Report, which described climate change as the most important development challenge of the present era.  With that in mind, the post she was vying for was of extreme significance at the global level, and its leadership was one of tremendous importance and should be approached with great care.  Barbados was of the view that not only was the country from among the region’s most vulnerable to climate change, but for several other reasons her candidature was significant.  It was based on three planks; namely, Barbados’ own record and strength; her own record and strength; and lastly, “just sheer competence”.

Expanding on the first plank, she said as a small island developing State with very few resources, Barbados had managed to be recognized and ranked thirty-first on the Human Development Index.  Despite being a small island developing State, and despite its very limited resources, the country had managed to address successfully several of the development challenges facing the globe, and to include in its policy framework several very effective policies to address issues relative to the environment and to climate change.  Also, the country was known for its good governance and had an excellent reputation in the world community.

Not only had Barbados managed development issues well, but generally, the country was recognized as being well-managed, she said.  Added to that, it had a strong environmental record of achievement and of policy; if there was a single country which had the background that would allow it to bridge North and South, developed and developing –- that country was in very many respects Barbados.  She declared that having been a member of her country’s Cabinet for 14 years, and having led Barbados’ environmental policy agenda framework from 1994 until 2009, she had contributed, not only to the country’s general management and governance as a Cabinet member, but specifically to its environmental policy, climate change agenda and reputation in that realm.

On the more personal second plank, she said she was politically, professionally and academically qualified for the post in many ways, as evidenced by the persons with whom she shared the UNEP Champion of the Earth award, namely, Prince Albert of Monaco; former United States Vice President Al Gore; former United States Senator Tim Wirth; former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, and now United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator; and former Presidents of the Russian Federation and South Africa, respectively, Mikhail Gorbachev and Thabo Mbeki.

“So, at an international level, my leadership, my skill, the quality of my contribution to environment in Barbados and in the Caribbean has been recognized by the UN.  I managed to catch their radar,” she stated.  Politically, she added that she had been a politician, and the post of UNFCCC Executive Secretary required political skill and savvy.  For some 20 years, she had been engaged in decisions that required the delicate balancing of policy choices against international demands and demands of an electorate and population, as well as against budget considerations.  “So, I don’t just see climate change and development issues from the perspective of the negotiating table.  I understand how one then has to move the negotiating outcomes to practical implementations.  And those are decision that I have had to take”, she explained.

Equally, at the academic level, she said she was a lawyer; held an MBA from the University of Liverpool; a Masters in Law from the Robert Gordon University in Scotland; and is also trained in Economics; renewable energy; international petroleum negotiations; alternative dispute resolution; and in arbitration.

Since leaving the cabinet in January 2008 when her party lost the elections, she had been leader of opposition business in the Barbados Senate, she said, adding that the Government had nominated her because it felt that she had the capacity and the competence to do the job.  It was not often that a Government nominated a leader form the opposition, she noted.  Additionally, she had also been working as an energy consultant for various agencies, including the Organization of American States (OAS) and other international consultancies.

Also present at the press conference were the Permanent Representatives of Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Camillo Gonzalves; Grenada, Dessima Williams; Jamaica, Raymond Wolfe; the Solomon Islands, Collin Beck; and Saint Lucia, Donatus St. Aimee — all of whom said they endorsed Ms. Thompson’s candidature.

In brief remarks, Mr. Gonzalves, who is the current chair of the Permanent Representatives Caucus of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) at the United Nations, said Ms. Thompson brought a wealth of experience and a multiplicity of skills, and a demonstrated passion to the issue of the environment and climate change and sustainable development, which should make the Secretary-General’s job of selecting a candidate “very easy”.  CARICOM generally, and Barbados specifically had long held a leadership position on climate change and sustainable development, and a great deal of Ms. Thompson’s leadership on the issue could be directly attributable to her work as minister in charge of the environment for over 14 years.  She would bring not only the political talent that would be needed in such a sensitive position, but the political gravitas befitting the importance of the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC and raise the profile of the position.

“We think that it is important that she is from a small island State, and that she is from a nation that is somewhat removed from the great power intrigue and not necessarily an ideologue on either the North-South divide or the East-West divide.  We think that she will focus on the very important substance of climate change, and for small island developing States, it is critical to us that we get back to the substance of the matter, and divorce ourselves from some of the extraneous matters involved,” he declared.  In that regard, CARICOM was “exceedingly pleased” that Barbados had offered her as a candidate for the post.

Asked for her views about the allegations of some Member States that the Copenhagen process had not been an open one, Ms. Thompson said what transpired at the end of the meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009 had been “a last-ditch attempt” to rescue the process from what had appeared to be certain failure.  In that regard, she felt that those who were the authors should be commended for making that attempt.  At the same time, it should be recognized that a large number of countries had now associated themselves with the accord, which meant that regardless of how the process was characterized, there seemed to be some consensus coalescing around it.

However, she added, it was also clear that there were concerns about the process, and it was her view that the new Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC had to ensure that whatever emerged in the future was party-driven and that countries and regions felt that they had value, that their perspective was being heard and that they could contribute to the process in the interest of their stakeholders and their citizens.  A top objective of hers was to ensure there was transparency within the processes and there was scope for all countries to feel represented.

As for those countries that had not fully associated themselves with the Copenhagen outcome, she said it was critical to look at their issues of concern and to determine how best to address their concerns.  It was important too to look at the accord because it contained some positives and because strength could be drawn from those countries that supported it.  Whether the process was lamentable or not, the accord was the text on the table.  The challenge now for the new Executive Secretary was to determine how best to use it and to make it viable for all the countries, incorporating the many perspectives and concerns.

Asked how she would facilitate better cooperation between developed and developing countries, she said the Executive Secretary should not herself behave as if she had a vested interest in the outcome, because essentially what she was doing was trying to bring countries to the table who had strong vested interests.  Her skills as a facilitator and manager of the process, therefore, were critical.  To a further related question, she said that as Executive Secretary, she would have come from the bosom of Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), and there was no doubt that Barbados was the “birth mother” of the Barbados Programme of Action, which was the United Nations agenda, and she delighted in that heritage.

More importantly, she stressed that she was cognisant of the fact that, beyond her own perspectives and background, her responsibility as Executive Secretary was to the process and to the convention and to all countries, adding:  “My greater role is to bring North and South together; to bring developed and developing countries together; to find a way for us to work together on what unites us and what we have in common, and to find an agreement and a solution that politicians and ministers and Governments find acceptable for their countries and their citizens.”

Also important, she said, was to bring academia into the climate change process and to work with non-governmental organizations, which she noted was part of the difficulties encountered at Copenhagen, where many of the latter group had complained that they had not been given enough space to contribute or that their perspectives had not been accepted.  She pledged to facilitate the participation of non-governmental organizations because she believed a party-driven consensus was important, and that ultimately, a legally-binding agreement involving all was vital.  “But the immediate vision, and the vision has got to be short-, medium- and long-term, the immediate thing is to get parties in a frame of mind to work without rancour at Mexico.  That’s the immediate- and short-term goal.”  The long term goal would be a legally binding agreement, she said.

Jakarta. Indonesia will announce its candidate to contest the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) top post next week, but three of four names tipped to chair the position at the international body refused to be nominated.

The deadline to submit candidate nominees to the UN office will close on March 31. Indonesian nominees will compete with nominations from Costa Rica, India and South Africa to replace Yvo de Boer.

Special assistant to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on climate change issues, Agus Purnomo, said that Indonesia would go ahead to race the climate top post with recruitment of the candidate conducted by the Foreign Ministry.

“There will be a meeting with President Yudhoyono to approve a candidate to represent Indonesia to bid for the executive secretary post at the UNFCCC,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Purnomo is among potential candidates along with former foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda, former environment minister Rachmat Witoelar and expert to environment minister on international cooperation Liana Bratasida.

The last three candidates — Hassan, Rachmat and Liana — have refused to be nominated.

“I have talked with Environment Minister Pak Gusti Muhammad Hatta and told him I was not ready for the post,” Liana said Thursday.

She said that Minister Gusti had asked her to compete the post.

Liana was former member of the UN Clean Development Mechanism executive board that was tasked to determine whether the carbon projects were approved.

At the Bonn climate meeting last year, Liana was named the Subsidiary Body for Implementation chairwoman to discuss crucial issues including the emission cut target, financing, mitigation and technology transfer.

Rachmat, chairman of the National Council on Climate Change, said that he was not interested in the post and wanted to focus on strengthening the country’s position in global climate talks.

Rachmat was former president of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC during the Bali climate talks in 2007, which produced the much-hailed Bali road map.

De Boer, who announced his resignation in February, will leave the UN office in July, just months before negotiators from 190 countries will gather again to hammer out a long-delayed binding treaty on emission cut targets.

As of March, Costa Rica, India and South Africa are among countries that have announced their
interest in racing the climate-change post.

Indian environment secretary Vijay Sharma and South African tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk first made the public announcement to race the post. Costa Rica planned to nominate its lead climate negotiator Christiana

Figueres, who has had a long career in the UNFCCC and has been a Costa Rica negotiating team member since 1995.

Source: The Jakarta Post – 26 March 2010

——————————————————

The SEE Forum is an Asia-Pacific academic, scientific and technological network that brings forward the dialogue on global issues of common concern.

The overall goal of the SEE Forum is to promote “New Energy Initiatives” and to seek academic, scientific and technological cooperation that will contribute to the global climate and energy security issues.

In this context, the Joint International Conference on “Innovations for Renewable Energy: How Science can help” (IRE) that combines “Innovations for Environmental Actions” Symposium and “7^th SEE Forum” Meeting will be held at Hanoi University of Science (HUS), Vietnam during 20^th – 23^rd September 2010.

This Joint International Conference will bring a sound effect towards the entire framework of the SEE Forum (www.seeforum.net).

Please send your abstract as an extended abstract containing about 2,000 characters. For further obligatory details see web pages: https://hus.edu.vn

Important dates

15^th June 2010: Deadline for submission of abstract

30^th June 2010:   Acceptance of abstract

31^st July 2010:   Deadline for submission of full papers

15^th August 2010: Early Bird Registration

20^th -23^rd September 2010: IRE 2010 Conference

International Advisory Board

Prof. Nguyen Hoang Luong, HUS, VNU Hanoi, Vietnam

Prof. Susumu Yoshikawa, Kyoto University, Japan

Prof. Bundit Fungtammasan, JGSEE, KMUTT, Thailand

Prof. Takeshi Yao, Kyoto University, Japan

Prof. H. P. Garg, BLS Group of Institutions, India

Prof. Sudharto P. Hadi, Diponegoro University, Indonesia

Prof. Luu Duc Hai, HUS, VNU Hanoi, Vietnam

Please find in the attachment our first circular call for papers.

N. Agya Utama, PhD

Programme Coordinator

Japan Science and Technology (JST)

Graduate School Energy Science

Kyoto University

Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku

Kyoto 606-8501

Japan

o. +81-75-753-4750

m. +81-80-6103-5071

e. agyautama@energy.kyoto-u.ac.jp

alt.e. agya.utama@gmail.com

With the announcement that President Obama postpones his trip to Jakarta till June 2010, Indonesia was left to decide on its candidate without the prodding presence of President Obama.

Having discussed with someone in the know of the four men and one woman on the Indonesian list we posted here, it seems that Mr. Hassan Wirajud who is now Member of the Advisory Council to President Yudhyono and was the Foreign Minister who led Indonesia’s delegation at the 2007 Bali conference, has the upper hand as he is considered to be a gifted diplomat and that is what Indonesia think it will be most appreciated in New York.

The other most prominent name is Mr. Rachmat Witoelar the continuing Environment minister who was the actual President of Bali’s Conference of the Parties (COP) 13 in 2007.

The strength of both these men is that they hark back to Bali – the pre-Poznan and pre-Copenhagen times – that is when in effect the last real UNFCCC document was forged. We still think that a Brazilian candidate could find much backing also. This could be seen on the other hand as disengagement from the Dutch leadership that was started with Ms. Joke Waller-Hunter, and the look for new ideas as we witnessed in Copenhagen.

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

Futures of the Obama Administration:

Dan Rather says the President must show resolve and steel. This was echoed by Helene Cooper (He must start showing his accomplishments) and Joe Klein (people want to see him crack the whip). Despite this 11 said he must play to the center and only one said he must play to the left.

There is no contradiction here – all agreed that the Democratic base is a varied coalition while the Republican base is the Republican idiosyncratic right (a much less flattering word was used).

So what do the Democrats need now? The answer in the TV and Internet age is that you must be authentic and have a conversation with the broad constituency that is the country.

——–

Helene Cooper reminded us that in Foreign countries Obama did very well – now he will have a huge welcome in Indonesia and the Tea Party folks will say that this proves he is not from here. But they may overplay because again the President will show he can raise in the world the essence of an ideal. Indonesia is a poor country in recession and a probable breeding ground for Al Qaeda with a war going on in nearby Philippines.

Joe Klein kept repeating that even in the US people rank Obama’s foreign policy much more then his economic policy – so some will say that when he goes overseas to take of the news the needed US internal economic policy – he does not face the economy.

But above is not correct – he actually goes to the energy markets – Indonesia, then India, and probably after that South Africa. This follows the trip he made to China. So there is a pattern here.

Also – we were reminded that Iran has an operation to extract Uranium in a remote location in Venezuela – and yes – there is now a daily flight from Tehran to Caracas while there is only a weekly flight from Caracas to Bogota. AHA – is this not what we say all the time since Copenhagen? Obama needs to have in the White House a clear Western Hemisphere desk in order to be able to do all these other needed activities that are mainly Asia oriented.

We learned that Rahm Emanuel – the White House pragmatist – said all the time – the futures are ENERGY and JOBS. That should have been the laser guided policy from day one.

On the Israeli Palestinian issue, with the latest misery for all to see and a consensus building that the killing in Dubai and the slap to Vice President Biden, were “botched-on-purpose” events. Simply – they are so botched that they must have been on purpose and the purpose was that Israel wanted the world to know that they are ready to take responsibility for their future because they do not want to have to pay for complicated world policies that may treat them as collateral.

The two issues with most impact on the Middle East are clearly the global look into the maze of State-to State energy policies and what seems to emerge – a border set between Israel and the West Bank run by the Palestinian Authority. This as a “what-can-be-done” approach to get us out of this impasse. With the AIPAC meeting coming up in Washington – March 21-23, 2010, President Obama out of town, and Vice President Biden having been pushed aside by the Israelis, it remains now for Secretary Hillary Clinton to try to build such an approach for the only two direct factors in the dispute, and the Arab States the US has friendly relationship with. If this is not accepted by the two sides, the best the US can do is to drop this topic from its agenda all together, and wait the sides come back begging for new mediation.

Karl Rove is making the rounds of the TV stations in order to sell his book “Courage and Consequences.” It is him, former VP Cheney, the daughter Liz Cheney (Chris Matthews Calls Liz Cheney ‘Daughter of Dracula’), and pundist Bill Krystal that try to reinvent history. Of interest to US foreign policy is the mention now that the mismanagement of the war in Iraq under the Bush-Cheney Administration was the fault of Turkey – because of their reluctance to allow NATO overflights. Quite true – but did not one look into such things when planning a war?

Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, declared that  US President Obama is liked in the world but not feared. Russia and China are not going to allow greater restrictions on Iran. She also said that Israel is probably not as fearful of Iran as it is assumed because had they had Iran in mind they would not have turned against the US and the UK the way they did. She thinks the events in Dubai were a clear provocation to the UK. France and the UK will go along with the US grudgingly on Iran but others at the UN Security Council, like Lebanon and Brazil will not.

Candy Crowley’s program was underlined with the idea that the gridlock in Washington on health-care has signaled to the world that it also carries no power overseasand that Obama will now stress in his relations to Congress what he already said: “Ignore the Washington Eco Chamber!”

————-

Pakistan turns into a US Administration’s Show-case: At least something that showed some changes for the better.

On Farred Zakaria with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke – “Pakistan is looking up – A victory for Obama. It helped by dangling of showers of aid – so the Hakami faction of the Taliban that was previously tolerated by the military is now being attacked.

Holbrooke finds that the Afghans in Khandahar and Marja in general, want a conservative society but no corruption. They want education including for girls and are mad at the Taliban. The district leader in Marja is an Afghan who returned from Germany. There are returnees and the US encourages also afghans in the US to return and participate in the rebuilding.

———–

With Fareed – The Jeffrey Sachs, Amity Schlaes (conservative formerly with The Wall Street Journal and presently Council of Foreign Relations specialist), and Christa Freeland (global editor-at-large, The Financial Times – middle of the road, right leaning):

The underlying Jeff Sachs dictum: “EVERY DECENT SOCIETY ENSURES CITIZENS HAVE ACCESS TO HEALTH-CARE.” Without reforms of the health-care delivery system we will get nowhere – this was really not discussed yet he said.

The problem is that we have no cost controls so we use four times more Cat-Scans then Switzerland or France.

Freeland concurred  and said THE SYSTEM ENCOURAGES DOCTORS TO DO TOO MUCH! She had found that in the American system you have to fight excessive treatment more then anywhere else. She herself gave birth in Toronto, Paris, New York and the US was worse. She asked why all those Cesarean treatments for first birth in the US? She concluded that it was not only a problem of greed – which it is – but also a problem of the legal system, the high insurance of the profession, that makes doctors more worried and pushes them to prescribe unnecessary treatments. SO – WE ARE BACK TO THE INSURANCE AND TO THE HEALTH-CARE IMPASSE. She also pointed out that 80% of the health-care cost is in the last years of life and this should be something to be looked at also.

The two seemed to agree that with 10% unemployment it is wrong to tie-in health-care to a job – and Freeland suggested HELP RATHER PEOPLE TO BUY AN INSURANCE.

Talking about the economy at large, Jeff Sachs said we were in a panic situation last year – that was removed – but we are out of control with the budget and a burdened debt consumer is no consumer. We risk a downward spiral as for two and a half years we really did nothing on the economy. He predicts that the US is out for a double recession.

Amity Schlaes in all of this was a parody of the Wall Street Journal – “A person who gets a job – not the happy consumer that goes to the mall – is who saves the economy. Which she is obviously right but nowhere in the discussion did we see an indication of how to get there. Cut spending? From where? She brings up Indiana State tax cuts as an example, but Professor Sachs cuts her short by saying the US is already the lowest taxed country in the developed world and we are paralyzed because we cannot do what a civilized country must do. Can we have a value added tax Fareed asks Schlaes and she gives a clear NO!. We read her stuff in the WSJ many times and wonder now what she can do for the Council on Foreign Relations. We thank Fareed Zakaria for having brought her in to the panel so we understand better what US institutions of long-standing have done to split America.

With a 10% of GNP budget gap while the entitlement amount to a total of 15% for Social Security and existing Health-Care, there is just no way that the US can cut itself out of the coming recession without falling back into the ranks of a third world country – whatever the meaning of that term which we clearly do not accept as part of our own parlance. Clearly – Presidential leadership is needed here and plain conversation with the electorate is the way to honestly explain the situation to the public. Do not expect the media to be able to do this public relations job.

David Axelrod on all channels, kept saying that Illinois got 60% insurance increases this year and the President will speak in Ohio where a woman wrote to him that she had to chose between health insurance and her home – so she stopped her insurance. Then when cancer struck – now she will lose her home. This is the biggest driving force of the economy that the Federal Government must take into consideration first. We say power to him.

Further, on Fareed Zakaria’s program, we learned that March 9th was a year since the Wall Street Dow Index hit bottom from which it climbs up again. Banks have recapitalized with new $150 billion to a safe position, managers make fabulous pay again, Timothy Geithner who took the country on a middle road has shown success, refusing to nationalize the banks, but what did this do to the person on main street who will be voting in November?

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Intricacies of the Arab and Islamic world:

On the Amanpour program we started with Sheikh Dr. Tahir Ul-Qadri – an Islamic Theologian from London who started the JIHAD-AGAINST-JIHAD movement. He was a former special advisor on Islamic Law to the Pakistani Supreme Court.

He says – No ifs – No buts – Terrorism is Terrorism. Any good intentions cannot allow terrorism.

A terrorist does not reach Shihada (martyrdom) or in lay language – he does not go to heaven – he rather goes to hell!

He was questioned about “Khawarij” in the “Hadit” – the words of the Prophet as reported by men that wrote them down – “whoever fights against the people (that is the believers) has more rights to Allah then others.”

Sheikh Ul Qadri answered that the ideology that says those that are not Muslims – their blood is allowed – he does no accept. He fights for peace and when asked if his life is in danger he said he is not afraid “one has to live for truth and die for truth” – he is thus a jihadist-against jihad.

Elias Khouri is an Arab lawyer living on the West Bank near Jerusalem. Both – his father and his son were killed by other Palestinians as part of their war against Jews. The father back in the pre-Israel days, the son, George Khouri, who went to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in March 2004, when he was mistaken for a Jew.

Elias Khouri paid from his money for the translation into Arabic of the book “A Tale of Love and Darkness” by the famed Israeli author Amos Oz, and had it published in Beiruth so that Arab readers can learn something about the Israelis. This bereaved person wants to help remove prevailing stereotypes in the Middle East.

Amos Oz who can be defined as an Israeli who clearly wants to live in a Middle East mixed environment, depicted in this book the non-heroic ways of the first settlers who lead to the foundation of the State. Elias Khouri says that knowledge is needed to be able to understand if we want to fight them or go along. Since the offer to translate the book, the two families – the Khouri and the Oz families became close friends and visit each other. Amos Oz says that he tried always to put himself in the other’s shoes. Anyone in the Arab world who reads the book will understand the historical events better. Oz says – Imaging the other is a moral thing.

Jews, Muslims can defeat common enemies.

by Rabbi Marc Schneier and Imam Shamsi Ali
January 25, 2010
 http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfai…

American Jews and Muslims can defeat a common enemy by working together. That common enemy is prejudice – and if one needed statistical evidence for it, stark proof was revealed this week.

A Gallup poll found that 43 percent of Americans admit to at least “a little” prejudice against Muslims, and that such self-reported feelings are strongly linked to the respondent’s views on Jews. Remarkably, those who say they feel “a great deal” of prejudice toward Jews are about 32 times more likely to report feeling a “great deal” of prejudice toward Muslims, according to the polling company.

Such numbers should serve as a call to action for both the Jewish and Muslim communities: We must work together as individuals on the grass-roots level to promote tolerance and reduce anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Barriers start to crumble when rabbis, imams and the members of their houses of worship take the time to learn about each other — and then show the rest of the country that they share a common value system.

Of course, Jews and Muslims don’t agree on everything, but there are many more areas of agreement. Gallup also noted this week that compared with other religious groups in the United States, Muslim Americans and Jewish Americans are most similar in terms of political ideology, education and political party identification, according to previous research. And a poll of Israelis earlier this month found a plurality of voters in Israel would oppose a ban on the construction of minarets on mosques built in Israel. The poll was taken after Swiss voters approved a resolution banning the construction of minarets late last year.

Jews and Muslims can use such common interests to forge and strengthen relationships and build an agenda that works for the betterment of a society as a whole. Sharing common roots as children of Abraham, Jews and Muslims can talk about their similarities in theology, as well as the times during history when their two peoples co-existed successfully. And they can forge bonds by talking about their similar interests in such issues as saving the environment, fighting poverty and reforming the U.S. immigration system.

For example, last November, Jews and Muslims in Buffalo turned those views into action. Doctors and dentists worked together to provide joint health screenings for people without health insurance in their community, and the success of that program has encouraged other mosques and synagogues to put similar programs together. Such a project not only builds relationships among Jews and Muslims, but also shows those who may still harbor some bias toward the two faiths that our similarities override our differences.

Coming just days after the horror of extremist violence at Fort Hood, the Weekend of Twinning was heartening evidence that most Muslims are moderates, and that majorities in both the Muslim and Jewish communities seek better relations. As a member of the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md. told the Washington Jewish Week newspaper, the Fort Hood tragedy actually made it easier to attract his fellow mosquegoers, because “it made people more willing to come out and say, ‘We need to meet each other.’”

But we can’t let such traumatic events guide our actions. Jews and Muslims must be consistently engaged in such projects – whether it is programs that educate each other on their respective religious practices or partnering to provide help for the most disadvantaged among us.

That’s the best way to form the trust and friendships necessary to help Jews and Muslims fight anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. As Gallup has shown, hatred of Jews and Muslims is linked, and therefore Jews and Muslims must be linked in our responsibility to fight it.

Imam Mohammad Shamsi Ali is the spiritual leader of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. Rabbi Marc Schneier is the founding rabbi of The New York Synagogue and president of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

Indonesia deports journalists covering Greenpeace.
 http://us.asiancorrespondent.com/breakin…

Nov. 19 2009 – AP
Indonesia has deported two foreign journalists covering a Greenpeace demonstration against forest destruction on the western island of Sumatra  bringing to 15 the number of people kicked out of the country over the protest.

Kumkum Dasgupta, an editor for the Hindustan Times, and Raimondo Bultrini, an Italian reporter from the L’Espresso weekly newspaper, were questioned for hours after visiting a Greenpeace camp near land owned by PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper, one of Indonesia’s largest paper companies.
The two journalists had received their visas from the central government, but had not sought permission from local officials to travel in the area, said Jumintar Lubis, the head of immigration in Riau Province.

Greenpeace had sought to draw attention to destruction of forests ahead of a key U.N. climate conference in Denmark. Indonesia’s once abundant jungle is being torn down at an alarming rate, threatening endangered tigers, elephants and orangutans.

Thirteen foreign Greenpeace activists have been deported this week over the protest, including 11 over the weekend, the environmental group said. Indonesian police also detained 44 Indonesian activists and charged 21 with allegedly trespassing on private property.

Restricting the media’s movements is out of step with Indonesia’s improved press freedom since late dictator Suharto was swept from power more than a decade ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement.

Italy denounced the expulsion of Bultrini and an Italian Greenpeace activist at the Indonesian Embassy in Rome. The Foreign Ministry requested that their rights be guaranteed by Indonesian authorities.

-Associated Press

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Close to the departure of President Obama on his all-important trip to Asia with stops in Tokyo November 12th, Singapore November 13-15, Shanghai November 15th, Beijing November 16-18, and Seoul November 18-19, the Japan Society has planned co-incidentally the event we are reporting about here.

Japan is the only original OECD member in Asia, as such Japan clearly feels justifiably it is a US prime partner in Asia. It also was clearly instrumental in nailing down the 1987 Kyoto Protocol to The Framework Convention on Climate Change, and hopes that this material will continue to be the base for future climate negotiations. That was the basis for having co-organized and hosted  the following meeting – November 10th.

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Copenhagen & Beyond: A Multilateral Debate about Climate Change Policy.
Green Japan Series
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at the Japan Society, New York.

The positions and participation of Japan, China and the United States in any successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol will help determine its success or failure. In a Tuesday November 10, 2009 panel, at the Japan Society, New York, Masayoshi Arai, Director, JETRO New York, Special Advisor, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI); The Honorable Zhenmin Liu, Ambassador Extraordinary and Deputy Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations; Elliot Diringer, Vice President, International Strategies, Pew Center on Global Climate Change; and Takao Shibata, chair of the working group that drafted the Kyoto Protocol, debated the direction of international climate change policy.

It was Moderated by Jim Efstathiou, Correspondent, Bloomberg News, and co-organized by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

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Takao Shibata, who is now a Chancellor Lecturer at the University of Kansas and Japan Consul General in Kansas City,mentioed that Japan is ready to commit to a 2020 reduction of 25% in emissions provided that there is FAIR and EFFECTIVE agreement with a VIGUROUS COMPLIANCE agreement as part of it. He stressed that the problem with Kyoto was that there was no compliance paragraph in the Protocol. All it said was that we postpone decision.

The OBJECTIVE must be: THE STABILIZATION OF CO2 CONCENTRATION IN THE ATMOSPHERE rather then fighting over figures of temperature increase or concentrations in parts per milion numbers. We have already a Framework he said – the Copenhagen process should be about STABILIZATION. Later he added that we must at least agree to a 2050 position.

Mr. Masayoshi Arai, who is in New York since June 2009, with The Japaese External Trade Organization (JETRO), after having held 16 positions within Japan Government, includingthe Prime Minister’s task force that created the Japan Consumer Protection Agency, and with The Fair Trade Commission and Agency for Natural Resouces and Energy and its Research Institute, Supervised manufacturing industries in their CO2 emissions reduction, and has also an MBA from Wharton, probably because of his present government trade position, was rather careful in what he said. He said that we ned something “meaningful”  for global warming  and left the Japanese point of view to Professor Shibata.

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Eliot Diringer whose organization, the Washington based Pew Center, is a link between Environmentalism, industry and government made it clear that what is lacking is a legal architecture in place to deal with the problems created by climate change to which now Professor Shibata answered on the spot that the history is such that already in Berlin, later in Kyoto, the US was against a legal concept – that is a clear 15 year old problem. In Kyoto, the US Vice President came to seal the Protocol in full knowledge that it is unratifiable in Washington. Shibata does not want a repeat of this with a US that is in no position to ratify an agreement.

Diringer came back with the suggestion that he can see that Developing countries will accept self prescribed domestic reductions and will request an agreement that makes this possible for them to do so. That means a new FRAMEWORK that is more flexible then the original.

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Ambassador Zhenmin Liu, Deputy Permanent Representative of China to the UN in New York since 2006, in charge of China’s participation on the Second Committee at the UN, with prior experience at the UN in Geneva and as Director-General of the Treaty and Law Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been involved in Climate Change negotiations for China. He was actually the only member of the panel entitled to express a national negotiating position, and he did indeed come through.

Ambassador Liu said that he cannot have now a document to replace Kyoto – this lines him up with what might be a Japanese interest, but clearly is no answer to the problems that were pointed out at why Kyoto was a failure.

But then he also said that you need a GLOBAL CAP for the GHG emissions that must then take into account, when talking about individual nations, their level of industrialization.

A certain raport evolved between him and Washingtonian Diringer.

It was agreed that there is the need for Technology Innovation, Technology Cooperation, and Technology Transfer.

Diringer said that China is very well positioning itself for the green technology economy. People in the US start to understand that the US will lose the competition for future technology and there must be a start for support in US Congress for energy action right now.

These exchanges gave me an opening to ask mty question about what goes on right now – the days that President Obama plans for his trip to Asia with a long stopover in China.

I started my question to ambassador Liu by saying that on the internet there is a lot of talk about a G-2 US-China agreement needed to jump start the Copenhagen negotiations, and I saw visually the Ambassador cringe.  to this idea of a G-2. I continued by asking that what can we expect as an outcome from the meetings in Beijing if there is anything he could tell us as we believe that some concluding material was negotiated prior to the deision for this trip considering tha this is in effect the second meeting between the leaders?

I was honored with a long answer that included several main points.

The first point is that the US has accepted Kyoto and I guess China does not want to renegotiate Kyoto.

Then, China has 20% of the world population the US only 5%, but China has only a fraction of the GDP per capita then the US, so there is no G-2 situation here. That must have been the reason for the cringing – China does not want to lose its place as leader of the underdeveloped nations.

Secondly – this is not a US – China negotiation but a negotiation for all groups.

Thirdly, there is place for clean energy cooperation, bilateral programs and projects – to jointly use clean technology.

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Professor Shibata added that we talk of the atmosphere where there are no national boundaries. We talk of sovereign areas only on the surface of the earth – and we must realize that the effects turn up in the air and we have no national control of the air.

Further, he said that in the west when something bad happens, the first thing we do is we sue the polluter – ask him to pay. He continued saying “I would encourage everyone to think about that.”

Mr. Diringer added that the CDM was introduced to harness market forces to get reduction of CO2 emissions at lowes cost.

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To summarize – it was nice for Japan to try to host a US-China debate before moves that will inevitably have to bring the US and China closer together. To follow up – let us look at President Obama’s itinerary to get further in depth to what a reorientation of the US towards Asia could mean.

Japan, South Korea, and China are trying to form an East Asia Trilateral grouping with a Free Trade Agreement among the three countries. Obviously, this will open the Chinese market to Japan and Korea and there is no way for the US, with its own effective NAFTA agreement with Canada and Mexico. Japan wants thus perhaps more then just be a pivot in US – Chiba negotiations, it rather has also to make sure that it can hold on to its own agreements with both main countries. President Obama has thus quite a few non-climate topics to talk about in his Yokyo and Seoul stops.

The second big stop is in Singapore where he will meet the 21 members of APEC: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong (part of China), Indonesia, Japan,  Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, The Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Thailand, The United States, and Viet Nam. This will be the reintroduction of the US to the Pacific region in general – an area that the locals contend was totally neglected by the US in the eight years of the Bush administration. A main point in this meeting will be to help redirect the participating economies from export to the US to supply to their local populations – this so that they help both areas – their own and the US economy as well.

Will they also consult on whom to back for the job of UN Secretary-General in 2010? That is about the time to start this sort of negotiations, and Singapore seems to be the right place to look for the best viable candidate.

Eventually, the Third leg of the trip – the stops  in China – will have to be the clear main target of the trip – as said here by Ambassador Liu, the business deals in clean energy that can underpin both economies  (US and China) so they become an example for cooperation on climate change that presents direct benefits to economies looking for sustainable growth, that is a match to the needs of the people and the climate as well -  this is what we call Sustainable Development that is mutual – for the newly industrializing nation and for the phasing out of the old polluting industries of the past.

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for information from President Obama’s Asian trip we recommend:

www.ft.com/obamainasia 

www.ft.com/rachmanblog

– Why am I doing this stupid meaningless job? – Why did I choose journalism and marketing when I could have studied sustainability or environmental management? – Why the hell did I vote for Labour and not the Greens? – How much greenhouse gas have the 50 (or so) flights that I’ve taken emitted? – What do I have all this crap at home for? – Who do I know of political influence that would actually listen to me about this?   Added to which I feel absolutely devastated about the guilt attached with flying now. Travelling is what’s given my life meaning and made me the person that I am today. I have a holiday booked to Vietnam and another three booked in my head to Japan, South America and the South Pacific. It’s a shitty feeling.   I was sitting there last night listening to you talk and ask if anyone wants to help and I couldn’t say anything. I DO want to help, but I think I need to make some changes in my own life first.   So I’ve made some decisions;   1. I have ordered an Age of Stupid DVD and donated to the film cause on the website   2. I’m going to talk everyone I know into watching the doco and try to organise a screening somewhere. I have a massive family and a huge circle of friends, many of who are mad activists and humanitarians so I reckon if I can get them on board they will spread the word.   3. Tonight is my last night eating beef, which is going to be horrible because I’m a complete carnivore. But I’m going to slowly cut out other forms of meat and dairy – in a few months it’ll be pork, and then chicken. (I don’t know about roo or goat yet)   4. T and I are going to majorly invest in eco-friendly technology when we buy a house and we don’t care how expensive it’s going to be. T is researching wind-turbine kits, I’m researching worm-farms, we’re buying 2 tanks and a solar panel. Hopefully we can make our house carbon neutral.   5. I am going to write to Penny Wong and SA Minister for Environment and Conservation Jay Weatherill every week up until Copenhagen   I don’t know if I’m doing all this because I actually think it will make a difference, or to make myself feel better about the whole situation but I have to start somewhere. So thanks again. I really respect what you’re doing and you sure as hell have converted someone.

From:
Syamsidar Thamrin

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

The Government of Indonesia developed the Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund (ICCTF) with the goal to advance investment towards our country’s low-carbon growth strategy and greater resilience to the negative climate change impacts.

The Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund (ICCTF) was launched on Monday, 14 September 2009, by the Minister of National Development Planning (Bappenas) and the Minister of Finance. The fund is designed to assist the Government of Indonesia in addressing Indonesia’s emerging and immediate needs with respect to climate change, which are currently being formulated in the 20 Years Indonesian Climate Change Sectoral Roadmap (20-ICCSR). More specifically, three priority areas for the ICCTF have been identified: The energy sector, including renewable energies and energy efficiency as well as the sustainable management of forest and peat land will be main priorities on the mitigation side, while reducing the vulnerability of agriculture, water and coastal zones will be the adaptation priority.

The ICCTF will not only pool and coordinate grant funding from development partners and other contributors, but also try to catalyze investment and other sources of funds, in order to bridge the gap between financial needs and national budget capacities. Countries that already pledged funds for the ICCTF are the UK, Netherlands, Australia, Norway and Sweden – so that it can begin to pursue its goal of mitigating climate change and increasing Indonesia’s resilience in the face of adverse climate change impacts as quickly as possible.

The detailed design of the ICCTF is contained in the ICCTF Blueprint document, which will shortly be made available on the ICCTF website:  http://icctf.org/

Contact: Syamsidar Thamrin, Deputy Director for Weather and Climate, Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas E-mail:  sthamrin at bappenas.go.id