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

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

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

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

–

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The ordeal in Pakistan reminded us of the -

June 2, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UN’s Ban and Barak, discrete agreement not shown

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To All Concerned,
URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT

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

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

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

from HRW Press <hrwpress@hrw.org> subject REMINDER Tomorrow: June 22, 2010 – Burma Political Prisoner Art & Photo Installation.

Reminder:  Please join Human Rights Watch and creative agency JWT for our Grand Central Station Burma political prisoners art and advocacy event opening early tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m.

The exhibition represents a Burmese prison complex, with interactive, cultural, and educational readings, dance, and other performances throughout the day.  The goal of the project is outreach and education directed at the United Nations ahead of the coming General Assembly.  This project is part of Human Rights Watch’s signature campaign directed at the UN—where, by taking a pen, Grand Central’s thousands of daily visitors can literally “remove” jail bars.  For more details of the installation, see: http://rcpt.yousendit.com/887711163/81c7d618f9f4d2dc395db8ddf9eb717a

What:        One-day art installation to press for the freedom of Burma’s 2,100 political prisoners

Who: Leaders of Burma’s exile community (including former political prisoners, monks, musicians, and artists), representatives of Human Rights Watch, including Executive Director Kenneth Roth, New York artists, performers and writers, and members of JWT’s creative team

When:       Tuesday, June 22, 2010, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Chanting monks kick off opening ceremonies at 7:45 a.m.; full schedule of speakers and events available.

Where:      Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Hall (entrance on 42^nd St. at Park Ave)

For more information, please contact:

Minky Worden: +1-212-216-1250; or +1-917-497-0540 (mobile); or wordenm@hrw.org

Human Rights Watch and JWT
are pleased to invite you to a special event:
Burma Political Prisoners Art and Photo Installation

Tuesday, June 22, 2010, 7:30am- 7:00pm
Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Hall
(entrance on 42nd St at Park Ave)

The centerpiece of this event is an interactive installation created by advertising agency JWT which enables visitors to sign a petition to the leader of Burma’s military government, Senior General Than Shwe.

Please join us for remarks from members of Burma’s exile community (including monks, dissidents, musicians, and artists), representatives of Human Rights Watch, and members of JWT‘s creative team at 8am, 12:30pm, and 6:15pm. There will also be speakers and performances throughout the day.

Richard Attias (born 1959 in Morocc) – he is a  global events producer. As chairman of PublicisLive Attias was the producer of the World Economic Forum in Davos for over fifteen years. His personal history and the history of the organizations he was involved with are plainly fascinating and we write this longer posting because we feel that he is embarking now upon even a greater voyage with his new NEW YORK FORUM, then in his previous activities.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Geneva-based non-profit foundation best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which brings together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world, including health and the environment. Beside meetings, the WEF produces a series of research reports, and engages its members in sector specific initiatives. WEF also organizes the “Annual Meeting of the New Champions” in China, and a series of regional meetings throughout the year. In 2008 those regional meetings included meetings on Europe and Central Asia, East Asia, the Russia CEO Roundtable, Africa, the Middle East, and the World Economic Forum on Latin America. In 2008 it launched the “Summit on the Global Agenda” in Dubai.

The WEF was founded in 1971 by Klaus Martin Schwab, a German-born business professor at the University of Geneva. Originally named the European Management Forum, it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987 and sought to broaden its vision further to include providing a platform for resolving international conflicts.

In the summer of 1971 Schwab invited 444 executives from Western European firms to the first European Management Symposium held in the Davos Congress Centre, under the patronage of the European Commission and European industrial associations, where Schwab sought to introduce European firms to US management practices. He then founded the WEF as a non-profit organization based in Cologny, Geneva, and drew European business leaders to Davos for their annual meetings each January.

Schwab developed the “stakeholder” management approach which based corporate success on managers taking account of all interests: not merely shareholders, clients and customers, but employees and the communities within which the firm is situated, and governments. Events in 1973 including the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate mechanism, and the Arab-Israeli War, saw the annual meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues, and political leaders were invited for the first time to Davos in January 1974.

As the years went by, political leaders began to use Davos as a neutral platform to resolve their differences. The Davos Declaration was signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, helping them turn back from the brink of war. In 1992 South African President F. W. de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the Annual Meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa. At the 1994 Annual Meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reached a draft agreement on Gaza and Jericho. In 2008 Bill Gates gave a keynote speech on Creative Capitalism, a form of capitalism that works both to generate profits and solve the world’s inequities, using market forces to better address the needs of the poor.

Frederik de Klerk and Nelson Mandela shake hands at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Davos in January 1992.

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For The New York Forum

Contact:         Rubenstein Communications, Inc.

Iva Benson (212) 843-8271,  ibenson at rubenstein.com

Thomas Chiodo (212) 843-8289,  tchiodo at rubenstein.com

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BAN KI-MOON
U.N. Looks for Diplomatic Breakthroughs: U.N. looks for diplomatic breakthroughs in 2010.
Posted By Colum Lynch   Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Ban Ki-moon and his diplomatic envoys have been scouring the globe this week in search of a promising peace settlement for 2010, pursuing talks with Kim Jong Il’s government in North Korea, Afghanistan’s Taliban, and Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders.

These latest diplomatic initiatives follow a year that brought few breakthroughs on the mediation front as the U.N. strained to advance democracy in Burma, head off mass rights abuses in Sri Lanka, and manage a crisis that threatens to trigger a resumption of civil war in Sudan.

U.N. officials say the proliferation of new initiatives is largely coincidental, the product of months, if not years, of preparation, but that it provides the U.N. with an opportunity to show that it can achieve some diplomatic wins. “There’s no grand strategy here,” said one official. Here’s a survey of key U.N. diplomatic initiatives for 2010 and their prospects for success {cynics at the UN say that this is propelled by the wish to secure a reappointment for a seconf term at the UN - www.SustainabiliTank.info editor}:

1. Cyprus. Ban traveled to Cyprus this weekend to nudge Demetris Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat, the parties representing the ethnic Greek and Turkish sides of the island, into a breakthrough in a conflict that has lasted more than 35 years despite repeated efforts at mediation. Ban said that he is confident that a political settlement “is within reach.” But the two Cypriot leaders appeared more downbeat about the prospects for a deal. Cyprus has been split since 1974. Talks between the two sides during the past 17 months have produced some results, including an agreement to open a pedestrian crossing in Nicosia, the divided capital. But there is concern that April elections in the Turkish section may bring a hard-liner to power. “Time is not on the side of settlement,” the two leaders acknowledged in a joint statement Monday.

2. North Korea. Ban, a former South Korean diplomat, has been seeking a role in the North Korea crisis since he first took office in January 2007. A confidential U.N. policy paper, produced on April 25, 2007, called for “intensifying and expanding engagement” with Pyongyang, and possibly for the appointment a special North Korea coordinator. But initial attempts to start talks faltered after North Korea launched its missile test and detonated its second nuclear explosive last April and May. On Sunday, Ban announced that he would send his top political advisor, B. Lynn Pascoe, a former U.S. diplomat, to Pyongyang to restart high level U.N. talks later this month. He will be joined by Ban’s top Korean aide, Kim Won-soo. Can Ban be far behind?

3. Afghanistan. The U.N.’s outgoing special representative, Kai Eide, held secret talks with members of the Taliban sometime last year. Eide has been pursuing such contacts with the Taliban since he first started his job. U.N. sources described those talks as highly preliminary, and said that they do not have the approval of the Taliban leadership, which claims that its movement is not negotiating with the U.N. But an official close to the talks confirmed that they had in fact taken place and that Eide’s successor, Staffan di Mistura, would likely continue pursuing those contacts. While these discussions offer little hope of providing a breakthrough, they could provide a useful back channel over the long haul.

4. Sudan. The U.N. faces perhaps its greatest diplomatic challenge in Sudan, which is preparing for presidential elections this year and a referendum in 2011 that will determine whether the country remains unified or whether Sudan’s southerners decide to vote for independence. Ban has said Sudan will be one of his top priorities in 2010, and he has just assigned his two top Africa specialists, Ibrahim Gambari and Haile Menkerios, to manage U.N. operations on the ground. Success in Sudan will largely be measured by the U.N.’s ability to stop the referendum from triggering a renewed civil war. “Partitioning the country without violence: that will be a miracle,” said one Security Council diplomat. “I don’t know how they are going to do it.”

5. Burma. U.N. diplomatic efforts in Burma have pretty much run aground. Ban has reassigned his top Burma envoy, Gambari, to Sudan, and made his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar of India, his temporary point man on Burma. The Burmese military junta recently rebuffed a U.N. request to invite Gambari back to the country for a final visit. U.N. diplomats say that Burma has little interest in meeting with the U.N.’s diplomatic placeholders, particularly now that the Americans are looking to engage the regime directly.

 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has just spent a weekend in Myanmar/Burma with zero achievement to show followed by some hard to understand statements that read as if the ruling general told him that after he makes sure that the generals continue to rule the country, he is ready to take of his military clothes and rule as a civilian. This is about what Ban Ki-moon wants the UN to accept as a result of his trip.

Now, it is clear that the junta has opened the country to international search for oil and that multi-billion dollar reserves of oil were found, and Russia and China ready to make sure that he stays in power as he will be good to their interests – others would like also a piece of the pie – so go and understand what actually goes on in the country.

The one thing clear to the world is that Ban Ki-moon did not get a glimpse of the junta’s prize prisoner – Nobel Peace laureate – San Suu Kyi.

On the other hand, knowing that he travels into unchartered waters, the UN high flying staff made sure that the journalists that will accompany him on this trip will not be of the investigative kind – say mildly rather of the chewing gum kind – so they made sure to clean the list of anyone who might have been of the independently thinking kind, of whose numbers were left preciously few – in effect we could count them on the fingers of one hand.   This last small bunch, is starting to look at the UN and its present chief as the the joke on the East River.

In case you really want to get a better feel of this story, and the information we get from the UN, please read the link we are posting here and you will get that inside reporting:
 http://www.innercitypress.com/ban8burmap…

Why are we so much interested in this? simply as we said in the past, when only just into his new position at the UN, UNSG Mr. Ban went to Addis Abeba beginning of 2007 to what the African Union had planned as a high level meeting on climate change in Africa, but Mr. Ban Ki-moon was set up by his staff to talk there on Darfur and nobody of his spokespeople or information people wanted to hear of anything else. I wanted to go on that trip – but was flatly told yes but not you.

When Mr. Ban came back nobody spoke of climate change. I got eventually my information by going on an independent trip to Ethiopia much later – but learned what the UN staff of this UNSG will allow and how they pick their choices for whom they allow to cover a trip. That is how now M. Matthew R. Lee could not go to Myanmar/Burmah – this because he is one of the few independently thinking journalists left at the UN – the house of the joke on the East River.

Being UNSG is a tough job and real help is hard to find if you do not seek it.

UN’s Ban Avoids Questions of New Cold War, U.S. War on Terror, Excluded Journalists Speak. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis. UNITED NATIONS, September 11 — A new Cold War is how many have described recent dynamics in the UN Security Council. Things came to a boil when American criticized Russian military and political moves with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, breaking away from Georgia. Russia countered by citing the precedent of Kosovo, not only the recognition of its break-away from Serbia earlier this year by the U.S. and most of the European Union, but also NATO’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999. Russia vetoed a draft resolution to impose sanctions on Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, along the China, put Iran sanctions on the slow boat thereto, and asked the U.S. whether it had found the weapons of mass destruction it had claimed were in Iraq. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was largely invisible during these fights. On September 11 he finally held a press conference, and began by apologizing for what he called his summer absence, promise to henceforth do monthly question and answer sessions. Inner City Press asked about what’s called the new Cold War, what Ban thinks and is trying to do about it. Video here, from Minute 14:28. (see the site) *** After reading from notes about humanitarian aid to Georgia, Ban did not answer the question. So Inner City Press repeated it, linking the rift not only to Georgia but also Kosovo and Zimbabwe and asking if Ban is seeking to be an impartial mediator between the U.S. and Russia. “As Secretary-General, I really try to avoid your question,” Ban said. “I do not want to think of that kind of possibility.” Video here, form Minute 19:33. This candidly admitted attempt to avoid questions was repeated in the balance of the press conference. Ban was asked twice to comment on U.S. military incursions into Pakistan in search of insurgents. First he said he was not ready for the question, then that he did not want to answer it. *** A journalist from Lebanon asked about Ban’s previous envoy to Beirut, Johan Verbecke, who as Inner City Press reported left his assignment due to death threats. Ban called these “unavoidable circumstances,” adding that “I do not wish to discuss [them] with you publicly.” Ban was asked, is Kim Jong Il of North Korea dead? “I am not in the position to have any independent source of information to confirm” that, he said. Some of Inner City Press’ sources opine that the North Korean military may have moved against Kim Jong Il, finding him too conciliatory to the West, and then moved to restart North Korea’s nuclear program. Surprisingly, Ban did not raise and no one asked about either Iran or Sudan. The latter can be ascribed to Ban himself. He described Darfur and climate change as his two signature issues. Now things are going so badly in Darfur — even the U.S. contractor to which Ban’s UN gave a $250 million no-bid contract, Lockheed Martin, is leaving in failure — that Ban has dropped the issue. The press corps shouldn’t. *** Speaking of failure, Inner City Press asked Ban about the trip of his envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Mynamar without having met with democracy leader Aung San Soo Kyi or military strongman Than Shwe. “I do not like to characterize it as failure,” Ban said. “Video here, from Minute 14:50. Ban also took issue with press reports, presumably including this one, that focused on a speech he gave to or at his managers in Turin, Italy. Ban said he was misunderstood, that he is flexible, that if anything he was criticizing senior officials, not lower level staff. He was not asked to example the phrase, “I tried to lead by example. Nobody followed.” That line is more and more repeated in the UN and now beyond. How to avert a Cold War, in the UN and more importantly the wider world? While there were on September 11 more responses than before, which must be noted here, no real answered were advanced. Footnote: After the press conference, there were complaints about perceived bias in the way questions were allocated. James Bone, who among other things famously questioned Kofi Annan about the financing and whereabouts of his son Kojo’s Mercedes until being called “an overgrown school boy,” told Inner City Press he has not been called on for a question since. Nizar Abboud, representing both a television station and a newspaper in the Middle East, was again not called on. He told Inner City Press, on the record, that he asked Ban’s Spokesperson why he hadn’t been called on. The Spokesperson in turn asked, “Remember when you walked out of the briefing?” Abboud did remember, it had been in protest of not being called on. “Well it was wrong,” the Spokesperson said. Abboud comments that this shows the arbitrary basis of exclusion, which is also inconsistent because Ban personally is nothing but polite with Abboud and others. Abboud notes that another correspondent more favorable to the U.S. position on Lebanon was called on for three questions. Another long-time correspondent, who asked for anonymity in order to retain access, said that everything Ban does is in favor of the U.S.. But that analysis can wait for another day. To be charitable, Ban was better on September 11 than in previous press conferences. His offer to come at least once a month is welcome. Whether anything will be accomplished is another question, the results of which will be reported on this site.  www.innercitypress.com

From:  media at avaaz.org
Subject: Release: global Olympic handshake to reach Beijing
Date: August 22, 2008

The August 23, 2008 – PRESS RELEASE – Will Appear In the International Herald Tribune and China’s Ming Pao, on the Day of The Beijing Olympics’ Closing. It Willl Say – Love China / Love Tibet / Love Burma / Love Darfur – and Will Promote Human Rights For China – a Hanshake to the World.

175,000 STRONG GLOBAL HANDSHAKE TO LAND IN BEIJING AHEAD OF OLYMPIC CLOSING CEREMONY see avaaz.org

A virtual global handshake will land in Beijing tomorrow ahead of the Olympic Closing Ceremony.

Since the beginning of the Olympics, Avaaz.org has taken actions worldwide to promote a dual message of friendship with China and the need for renewed dialogue and action on human rights post Olympics. Aside from the handshake website, they have launched a sister website in China www.onevoicechina.org, and have run an ad campaign which has made a splash in London, New York, Hong Kong, San Francisco and Sydney using print media, adwalkers, and mobile billboards to carry the message Love China / Love Tibet / Love Burma / Love Darfur. You can see images of these ads at avaaz.org

To culminate the campaign, this weekend, Avaaz.org has taken out an advertisement in Saturday’s International Herald Tribune and China’s Ming Pao to deliver the handshake to the world.

“Some in China have slandered human rights activism as violent and anti-Chinese. Our handshake campaign is an attempt to reach out to Chinese people and show that our call is for peaceful and respectful dialogue”, said Avaaz Executive Director Ricken Patel.

However, Avaaz is concerned that the end of the Olympics may herald an era of further oppression.

“People around the world are concerned that the Olympics are coming to a close without any changes in Chinese policy on Tibet, Burma or Darfur — will things get better or worse?” said Patel.

***

The global handshake petition reads:

“With this handshake, we reach out to one another as citizens round the world in the Olympic spirit of friendship and excellence, committing to hold all our governments to a higher standard of peace, justice and respect for human dignity wherever they fall short – be it in Tibet, Iraq, Burma or beyond. Dialogue is the best way forward, for China, and the world.”
For more information, see www.avaaz.org

***

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW

Ricken Patel, Executive Director,  ricken at avaaz.org, +1 646 229 5416
Brett Solomon, Campaign Director,  brett at avaaz.org, +61 407 419 320

***
ABOUT AVAAZ:

Avaaz is a global web movement with over 3.3 million members worldwide, working to ensure that the views and values of people everywhere inform global decision-making. Avaaz means “voice” in many languages.

From:  unobserver at iom.int
Subject: International Organization for Migration: Press Briefing Notes 29 July 2008.
Date: July 29, 2008

MYANMAR – UK Backs IOM Medical Teams in Cyclone-Affected Irrawaddy Delta – The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has pledged £428,000 (US$ 850,000) to support IOM medical teams providing primary health care to Cyclone Nargis survivors in the Irrawaddy Delta.

The project, which was included in the UN Flash Appeal for Myanmar issued earlier this month, targets primary health care needs in South West Bogale (Tabin Seik), Eastern Bogale (Amar) and Mawlamyinegyun.

IOM mobile medical teams, using Zodiac inflatables and other boats to access remote locations hit by the cyclone, have treated over 24,600 patients in 327 villages in the Delta townships of Bogale, Pyapon and Mawlamyinegyun since the cyclone struck Myanmar on 2nd May.

IOM has also set up 15 temporary tent clinics in areas where medical infrastructure was completely or partially destroyed by the cyclone.

“People are mainly suffering from the effects of unclean water and food, lack of proper shelter and clothing, and a lack of proper sanitation,” says IOM Myanmar National Health Coordinator Dr Aye Aye Than, who heads up the Bogale health team.

The DFID funding will support both the mobile teams and the clinics for up to six months, employing some 44 medical staff, together with ancillary logistics and coordination personnel, as well as paying for essential medicines and medical supplies.

“This funding will allow us to meet one of our top priorities – continuing to deliver primary health care to cyclone survivors – while communities start to recover and rebuild pre-cyclone health infrastructure,” says IOM Health Programme Manager Dr Nenette Motus.

“We are also appealing for additional funding to rebuild primary health care facilities and birth centres, strengthen the delivery of mental health services and raise HIV and AIDS awareness in communities displaced by the cyclone,” she adds.

IOM’s Cyclone Nargis relief operations in the Delta are now coordinated from offices in Bogale, Pyapon and Mawlamyinegyun townships. In addition to providing direct medical aid, they have included the ongoing distribution of relief items including tarpaulins, jerry cans, chlorine for water purification, hygiene/family kits, rain ponchos and insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

Other donors contributing to IOM’s response to the disaster include the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), USAID/OFDA, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), AmeriCares Foundation, International Medical Corps, and Chevron.

For more information, please contact Chris Lom at IOM’s Regional Office in Bangkok. Email:  clom at iom.int. Tel. +66.819275215.

——————–

In the light of the continuing releases by Inner City Press – from the UN building in New York – the UN has lost at least US$10 million in fraudulent exchange rates with the Myanmar government – so how does the UK handle these disbursements for the humanitarian activities in Myanmar/Burma?

Sir John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, is from the UK and it seems that he is continuously fooled by the Burmese Officers’ junta.

We just picked up articles with information right out of Myanmar -
 http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art…

 http://www.irrawaddy.org/article1.php?ar…

Currency Loss Unacceptable, but UN Aid to Continue: Holmes
By LALIT K JHA, Tuesday, July 29, 2008. The Irrawaddy, Covering Burma and South East Asia out of Thailand.

NEW YORK — The chief UN humanitarian official said on Monday that the loss of crucial foreign aid due to distorted currency exchange rates, while “unacceptable,” should not be the basis for stopping or restricting UN-led international relief operations in cyclone-devastated parts of Burma.

“The losses are significant, but not absolutely gigantic,” John Holmes, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York on his return from a three-day trip to Burma.

Holmes was in Burma last week visiting parts of the Irrawaddy delta, which was devastated by Cyclone Nargis in the first week of May, to review the progress of humanitarian relief work in the region, and then traveled to the new capital, Naypyidaw, to meet the prime minister and other senior junta officials.

This was the first visit to Burma by a top-level UN official since Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s trip to the country in May.

Holmes estimated that the UN, which was initially reluctant to acknowledge the substantial loss of foreign aid money due to a currency exchange mechanism dictated by the junta, has lost some US $10 million of the $200 million in aid money it has so far dedicated to the relief effort.

“Clearly this is a significant problem in terms of the loss generated,” Holmes said. “That’s why we’ve raised it with the government now.” He added that the UN was pressing the Burmese regime to help minimize the currency loss.

Responding to a volley of questions from the media on this issue, Holmes said the impact of the currency exchange rate was being felt in areas where money is being spent locally, and not on imported goods or international staff salaries.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has calculated that the exchange rate affected about one third of total aid expenditure, he said.

Holmes said, clearly the current situation “is not acceptable when we’re losing 20 percent, even if it’s only on some of our expenditures.” He acknowledged that donors have expressed concern about the matter, but this is unlikely to have any adverse impact on these countries’ contributions towards the UN flash appeal, which now totals $482 million.

“This is a complicated issue, which we’ve had some time getting our heads around,” he said, adding that OCHA, which he heads, was not aware of the extent of the loss when he presented the revised appeal.

“If we had known it at that time, maybe it would have been better to include it in the appeal,” he said in response to a question.

“Obviously we would like to have a situation where there was no exchange loss. The ideal situation would be if we could pay with our dollars and get the market rate back in kyat—and that is what we’re asking for,” he said.

“Whether that can be achieved is another question, especially since any organization working in a country has to operate according to the rules of the host government. Those rules have been in place for a long time, but the problem is growing because the spread has widened so much,” he observed.

“Perhaps we were a bit slow to recognize—because the spread suddenly widened in June—how big a problem this was going to become for us. We have recognized it and are taking it up with the Government,” Holmes said.

Giving his impression of the progress of the humanitarian relief operations in the Irrawaddy delta, Holmes expressed a sense of satisfaction and said he appreciated the steps taken by the Burmese military junta in this regard.

“We’re in a much better position than we were just a couple of months ago,” Holmes said.

Citing major efforts to rebuild homes, repair schools and get health clinics up and running, Holmes said there has been a lot of progress in the last two months. Farming and other agricultural activities were also picking up, he said.

“A degree of normality” is beginning to return in some areas around the delta region, with many schools functioning and increased traffic on major waterways, he observed.

At the same time, Holmes asserted that challenges remain with regard to the humanitarian relief work in the Irrawaddy delta. “There is no room for any kind of complacency. There is still a lot to do to make this operation a lasting success and to reach all people with what they need for a sustained period,” he said.

The main challenge for the next few months, Holmes said, is to ensure a more systematic pipeline of aid, both food and non-food items. It is important to reach out to those in the most remote areas who were difficult to reach because of poor infrastructure.

“Systematic aid delivery is needed for at least six to nine months,” he said.

Among other challenges for the relief operation is the drop in the number of World Food Programme helicopters from ten to five.

Holmes hoped that some of these five could be kept flying for at least three or four months. This is to ensure that the most remote areas could be reached by aid workers delivering goods and supplies, he said.

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UN loses $10m aid in Burma exchange rate scam.
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent, The Independent of London,
Wednesday, 30 July 2008

The UN has admitted losing about $10m ( £5m) to the Burmese regime while delivering emergency aid to the country in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis because of a distorted official exchange rate.

The UN’s senior humanitarian aid official said it had suffered the “significant” loss because the junta enforced an artificial exchange rate that was at least 15 per cent lower than the genuine rate. It has been alleged that the UN had been aware of the loss for weeks and had accepted it as the price of “doing business” with the regime.

“We were arguably a bit slow to recognise… how serious a problem this has become for us,” John Holmes, the under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, told reporters in New York. “It’s not acceptable.”

The losses came about because of the system whereby, when providing aid, the UN uses foreign exchange certificates with a nominal value of $1 each that are then exchanged for the local currency, the kyat, at a rate set by Burma’s military government. The market rate for kyats is close to 1,100 per dollar, but the UN exchange rate is now about 880. As a result, the Burmese regime has been making a healthy profit even as the UN provides emergency support.

Mr Holmes said he did not know where the money was going or who was directly benefiting. The Inner City Press blog that first posted the allegations of the losses said some humanitarians believed that allowing the government of General Than Shwe to make a profit was a price worth paying. It also said officials have been aware of the losses since early June.

This month, the UN issued an appeal for more than $300m in extra aid for the country.

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We do not say that the loss of funds caused by the fact that the humanitarian activity happens within a country with a very unsavory regime, but we do say that in the private enterprise world a manager with performance like this would be sacked – and this performance is not from just now, and not only by Sir Holmes, but just the same from the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon under whose watch this goes on, and under the Administrator of the UNDP Kemal Dervis, under whom similar activities went on in other similar unsavory regimes the like of North Korea. As said, much more on this can be found on www.InnerCityPress.com and we posted also a general article about this lack of oversight on the part of the UN:

“Now it is Accepted Officially At the UN, Something www. SustainabiliTank.info Argued Three Years Ago – The UN Funds The World’s Worst in a Neat Way – Call It Exchange Rates. We Had Brought This Up As A Way UNDP Did Fund The North Korean Atom Bomb, Now UNSG Holmes Recognized As Correct The ICP Statement That The UN Funds The Myanmar Government.”
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008.

As we realize that it will be hard to come by accountability at the UN, the purpose of our posting this is to ask if the UK government is ready to assume oversight for the funds for which it caries responsibility to UK taxpayers?

Further, we see that also USAID/OFDA, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), or the US and Swiss taxpayers, are funding these operations also. So what do the US and Swiss Administrations say of the transfer of funds to the Burmese junta rather then the full use of those funds for the humanitarian work? Also, even when NGOs or an oil company like Chevron, spend money on a humanitarian operation, these funds are mostly tax-deductible, so again the regular Joe who pays the taxes, it is his money, that was mismanaged under UN auspices.

The Honest Question is – Can This UN Management Be Trusted To Handle Money or Anything Else?

U.N. admits “significant” Myanmar exchange rate loss.
Tue Jul 29, 2008
By Louis Charbonneau and Megan Davies, Reuters, Tuesday, July 29, 2008, based on reporting by Matthew Russell Lee on Inner City Press (ICP), and reposted by the UN WIRE of the UN Foundation.
 http://www.smartbrief.com/alquemie/servl…

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The top U.N. humanitarian affairs official said on Monday the world body had suffered “significant” losses while delivering cyclone aid to Myanmar due to a distorted official exchange rate.

Earlier this month, the United Nations issued an appeal for more than $300 million (150.5 million pounds) in extra aid to cope with the effects of Cyclone Nargis that struck the Irrawaddy Delta region in early May, leaving around 140,000 people dead or missing.

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told reporters the United Nations has lost about $10 million in currency exchanges so far as it pays for a variety of goods and services in Myanmar.

“We were arguably a bit slow to recognize … how serious a problem this has become for us,” Holmes said, adding the loss was “significant” and that the spread between the market and official rates widened suddenly in June.

“It’s not acceptable,” he added. (THAT IS MR. HOLMES OF THE UN.)

The loss comes from a complicated system whereby the United Nations uses foreign exchange certificates with a nominal value of $1 each that are then exchanged for the local currency, the kyat, at a rate set by Myanmar’s military government.

The market rate for kyats is around 1,100 per dollar but the U.N. rate is now around 880, according to the Inner City Press  www.innercitypress.com), a blog that covers the United Nations and first raised the currency exchange issue.

Holmes said the United Nations did not include the issue of the exchange rate losses in the appeal documents because U.N. officials “were not aware of the extent of the loss.”

Holmes, who spoke at the United Nations after returning from a trip to the Irrawaddy Delta, said relief efforts were improving, with almost everyone affected by the cyclone now having been reached with items like food or shelter.

A revised appeal for aid of $482 million had raised about $200 million so far, he said, adding that initial indications from donors were “quite positive.”

He later said he was not aware of any countries refusing to contribute because of the currency loss but that donors were only just realizing themselves the extent of the problems.

Withdrawing aid would only hurt the people of the Delta who needed help, he said.

OVERVALUED EXCHANGE RATE

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he was looking into the issue.

“Of course we are against any waste of resources that taxpayers around the world and member states provide to meet the needs of people around the world,” he said on the sidelines of a Security Council meeting on unrelated issues.

Inner City Press reported last week the junta changed the official exchange rate since the cyclone so that the estimated loss of the United Nations had risen to 25 percent from 15 percent on the spread between the official and market rates.

It reported on Monday that an internal memorandum showed the United Nations was aware of the problem in June.

The International Monetary Fund raised the issue of what it described as Myanmar’s distorted official exchange rate in a report in November 2007.

{ www.SustainabiliTank.info raised the issue way back in 2006 and this was one of the reasons that when the UNSG for Communications and Public Information (the UN DPI) was changed by the incoming new UNSG Ban Ki-moon, our accreditation with the UN DPI was withdrawn – the UN just was not ready to accept our line of questioning. We wondered for how long this suppression of facts will continue, and are now gratified that changes are forthcoming. We hope therefore that with a new US President there might be a higher demand for the truth also at the UN. we know that here, like at the US Supreme Court, changes will have to grow organically – so the world will still have to do with the present conditions for a long time to come. }

“The use of the highly overvalued official exchange rate for conversion purposes results in understatement of external trade and the foreign component of consumption, government expenditures, and investment,” the IMF said in the report said then the IMF.

Holmes said it was unclear where the exchange rate losses were going and who specifically was benefiting.

“I’m not saying that there isn’t some benefit to the government in the spread somewhere — the likelihood is that there is,” Holmes said.

{YES, EVENTUALLY THE UN WILL START SEEING WHERE THESE MONEYS WERE GOING – WE ARE CONFIDENT THAT A PERSON OF HOLME’S STATURE WILL BE CAPABLE OF SEEING THE DARKNESS IN HIS TUNNELS – WILL THE TAXPAYERS IN THE DONOR COUNTRIES SPEAK UP? FACE IT, EVEN CHARITIES END UP BEING BAILED OUT BY THE SIMPLE JOE WHO PAYS THE TAXES – MOST NGO CHARITIES ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE – SO PLEASE THERE IS NO BAMBOOZLE HERE. }

So, what we have here is that the UNSG, on the eve of his departure to East Asia, with a full schedule of events that day, that also took him that evening to the Japan Society – an event we reported, had also made sure that the UN Outreach Division of DPI organize an event intended to save future generations from the horrors that supposedly belong to times predating the UN. The problem is that it took 60 years to reach the point that the institution has finally decided to remember the 1939-1945 Holocaust against Jewish people, the Roma and Sinti, and the murders of others that bared for all to see the extent of the capability of the human species of being subhuman.

But this was not the end to the   sub-humanity – it is being demonstrated in continuing fashion. We know of Rwanda, Bosnia, and we try not to see now Darfur. Different people have different views on ongoing killings. Are these genocide? Let’s sit down and talk – this while the killings go on daily. Neigh, there is no UN decision to go in and stop the killings but we preach that every individual has the responsibility to do what the Governments sitting at the UN refuse to do.

Mr. Akasaka, a UN UnderSecretary-General, opened the meeting and said that fundamental human rights are the basis for the UN charter codified three years later in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He also told us that the Paris September 3-5, 2008 gathering of DPI and NGOs will deal this year with Human Rights as this is the 60th celebration of the signing of the Declaration.

Mr. Akasaka said here something very important.   The UN Charter governs relations between States – large and small; the Universal DHR guards the relations between human beings and the States – The INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF HUMAN BEINGS. And furthermore – on December 9, 1948, the day before the signing of the UDHR, The UN General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention. Thus he continued this logic by saying that the UNSG has said that preventing genocide is a collective and Individual Responsibility and called for the entire UN system to be empowered to prevent massacres.

He Continued by saying that the panel will present stories on how individuals have helped, also how modern technology like satellite imaginary can help and that we will hear how NGOs and media have brought to the front the horror stories.

Prior to that he also said that the UN was established because of the horrors of the Holocaust and the two- the Holocaust and the UN are interrelated like cause and effect that was intended to avoid any repeat of such horrors.

Mr. Akasaka finished his introductory. left the place and Mr. Eric Felt took over.

Mr. Felt introduced   Mr. Jean-Marc Coicaud as moderator. He is the Head of the New York Office of the Tokyo based UN University. He wrote: an article   “Meaning and Value of Political Apology” that he presented on May 23, 2008, at an earlier part of this two part series of the UN DPI Outreach Programme on Genocide related issues.

DOWNLOAD: age-of-apology-jm-coicaud.pdf

That presentation was based on a chapter from “The Age of Apology: Facing Up To The Past” that was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. That book was a product of the Tokyo office of the UNU   Peace and Governance Program. So we see the UN relates Holocaust and Genocide to the future of humanity and the future of the UN – by first taking the step to recognize the wrongs of the past.

On June 26 Dr. Coicaud made reference to that first round of these meetings, and said that the first session dealt with “Can Genocide be Prevented?” and he said that the answer was not clear. WHAT WAS MISSING WAS THE OPERATIONAL ANSWER – how to achieve results in operational terms. He expressed the hope that in this second session we might come up with an answer – and that would be an achievement.

We clearly blessed on his hope, but we, honestly, do not expect such a thing from the UN – though clearly, an institution like the UN University should be allowed to point fingers and say just that – the UN does nice talk sometimes, but is short of actions most of the time. The world cannot do just with talk and demands actions – so one must think of reforming the UN so it would act when action is warranted.

Mr. Felt added to Mr. Coicaud that there is an individual as well as a collective responsibility to prevent genocide.

Now, the first presentations by the   Holocaust   Remembrance institutions. First to make the presentation was Mr. Robert Rozett, Director of Libraries at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel. He presented cases of rescue in the hope we can learn from actual happenings.

He said that we are trained to look at rescue in the form of a cavalier on a white horse, but in the Holocaust we look mostly at neighbors, at the Pope, at people as individuals.

(a) the rescue of Aron Wolff and his family by a neighbor in Carpathia at Scoll. In this case it was a man who was once helped by a loan. Swisten remembered that deed and came to help now without doing this for money. In the end of the war Swisten was killed by another neighbor because he helped a Jew.

(b) the case of Rabbi Weissmandel who tried to get the Vatican to help with the Slovak government. His argument was to create labor camps right there in Slovakia rather then send the Jews to Poland for working camps there (this as in the euphemism for the extermination camps in Poland). His idea would benefit the slovaks he said. Eventually 60,000 Jews were deported – 30,000 stayed.

August 1944, Weissmandel himself and his family were in a car to go to Auschwitz, but was allowed to stay and had to leave his family in the railroad car. He was smuggled to Switzerland to continue his rescue efforts but never forgave himself for leaving his family to go to their death.

(c) the case of a little boy saved by a dog while the farmer who knew the boy was in the dog-house never took a stand – not for the boy nor against him. The dog stood guard for the boy and not just shared his food with him, but actually let him eat first. The lesson here is about the ethics of the dog vs. the ethics of humanity {just go and tell this today to those committing genocide in Africa, Bosnia, or to the likes of Ahmedi-Nejad}.

Here, Mr. Joseph Rubagumya, now with the School of International Public Affairs of Columbia University, originally from Rwanda, told about his own experience from Africa’s wars of extermination. His family left first from Rwanda in 1960   to Congo, then to Uganda,Sierra where they worked on a coffee plantation.   He returned in June 1994 to Rwanda and everything they had was from cans sent in from donors. Eventually people from an NGo helped him get a scholarship to the US.

Further material about Rwanda was distributed at the entrance to the room. It spoke about “Never Again” and the “Responsibility to Protect: Who is responsible for protecting vulnerable peoples?” It also had a couple of pages about “Sexual Violence: A Too of War.” It extolled “Supporting Survivors” and paragraphs about the various   International Criminal Tribunals.

The third speaker was a lady with experience at many of these International Criminal Tribunals – Sierra Leone, Cambodia ….Ms. Daphna Shraga is Principal Legal Officer in the UN Office of Legal Affairs. She seems to be a top lawyer and the crispness of her presentation was in itself a demonstration how tough it is to do justice in a warped UN system.

The UN recognizes as punishable crimes of genocide if bodily and mental harm are committed and killings if it is an act by one group against another by reasons of religion or ethnicity, but excepts if harm is done because of political or cultural differences. So, the genocide convention refers only to racial, ethnic, religious differences.

Prevention and Punishment are two different notions. If punishment prevents – this is only for next cycle of violence – and obviously the violence was not committed yet – so this is something that does not come under the convention.

These strange principles were established at Nuremberg – that the individuals are responsible because states are abstract entities that do not commit crimes. The responsibility thus falls on individuals.

The genocide is about the fact that one is born into the group – this is why political and cultural reasons are not included.

In the case of Bosnia-Herzegowina – the Serbs against the Muslims – there was killing of the young only – not the whole group – the argument was that this does not constitute by definition genocide! As no other crimes come under the statute except crimes a defined genocide by that statute – these crimes were not punishable.

In 2007 the International Court of Justice made the judgement that if the individual is made responsible it is still the responsibility of the State – also because the State did not prevent or punish the crime.

Srebeniza was a special case as here there was enough evidence that genocide was committed against a whole group – basically – here all men were killed – not just young ones.

Is there an obligation of all States to prevent genocide in any State? Even though it was decided already that the obligation extends from the State were it was started – the prevention is to be obligatory to those outside that State.

{we had here a belly full of doubts about much of what was said – legalistics aside. What is culture if not a combination of ethnicity and religion? How can one exclude crimes against people because of their culture? Albeit, it is obvious that the Soviets and China had no interest in safeguarding rights of politics and culture in those dingy days of post San Francisco negotiations, but should not the UN step in and straighten this mess out today?).

Presentations four and five take us back to the Holocaust. Both presenters part of the Washington DC US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Ms. Bridget Conley-Zilkic, the director of the Committee on Conscience, who stated that there is a commitment that the memory is tied to action today – Agitation, Memorialization and Conscience are the three committees in the Museum.
The Holocaust was based on total collapse – the individual, the social, the national, and the international.

Mr. Larry Swaider, Chief Information Officer at the Museum stepped in explaining the communication technology he use at www.ushmm.org a website with 17 million uniques/year coming from 100 countries.

He uses now GoogleEarth and can see villages being burned. Looking at what happens today in the world he can see people fleeing when he picks at following a particular person.

there is today the possibility to use “World of Witness” – a Geo-blog. Also some book clubs, like Oprah’s do follow genocide.

The sixth and last presentation was by the honorable Edward C. Luck, Now on leave from his position at Columbia University, he is Director of Studies at the International Peace Academy and is and was Special Adviser to the last two UN Secretary-Generals. He was also a President of the UN Association of the US. His Focus is on the obligations that come under the Responsibility To Protect and he was involved with former UNSG Kofi Annan in getting this concept accepted by the UN. So, no wonder that his topic was about the Responsibility of the State to Protect its Citizens.

He started by saying that he is sorry Mr. Akasaka is not in the room anymore. This because he wanted to set the record straight on a very important issue. He said that the Holocaust was not mentioned in San Francisco of 1945.
Basically the idea was then to establish the institution of the UN and the hope was that once there is an institution it can then be used for all sorts of things. This was a very fast creation and then the question was posed – so what will the UN do?

The Holocaust teaches us that genocide today is not just about Africa – it is about anywhere. just think what one of the most advanced nations – Germany – did. It can thus happen in a most advanced country in Europe – it can happen anywhere.

There are now policy tools, institutions, and individuals themselves that can make a difference.

Mostly – there is now a responsibility to try. To recognize what is happening and to do something. In Darfur we see a response.

1998 – 1999, Kofi Annan, with the help of Canada worked on this and came up with the R to P idea in 2001.

Responsibility to Protect is not the enemy of Sovereignty because States were created with the responsibility to protect their citizens.

The international community has the responsibility to assist the State. Not to punish the State when they failed, but to help them solve the internal problem. When they fail – there is a responsibility to use diplomacy and help.

Here Prof. Luck brought to his help front page recent news – the Kenya case when Kofi Annan went in recently to mediate between the two warring factions.

Another not so distant case was the dilemma the US had in how do you prevent WWIII with the USSR and all those economic and social issues that came up? The US did not pay enough attention to those issues – only to the National Strategic side.

Ms. Daphna Shraga pointed out that there is this concept that the UN is immune – but it is for the member states to evoke the UN immunity in court. To this Prof Luck said that there is also something like a Court of Public Opinion.

Yad Vashem found very strong interest in China – this also because of receptivity from their own experience at Nanjing. Young audiences in China are interested in how the memory of the Holocaust is kept alive. The task is to keep good documentation of what has happened and such documentation is being organized now in China.

Statement by Baroness Scotland of Asthal, Attorney General of England and Wales, The UK,

At the

Security Council Open Debate On Women, Peace and Security.

19 June 2008

Thank you Madam President.   The United Kingdom welcomes the leadership shown by the United States in holding this debate during their Presidency of the Council, and your presence here today Madam President demonstrates just how important it is for us all to tackle the growing problem of sexual and gender-based violence if we are serious about resolving conflict.

And I Madam President rejoice at the sight and the fact that of the 20 representatives round this Council table, seven are women, and are here to add their voice to the wise counsel given by their male counterparts and colleagues adding substance and support to this resolution which focuses on the plight of women caught in the pernicious tentacles of conflict and may I commend too the Secretary-General for his vision and his determination to increase the number of women who will be able to make their contribution to this Council’s work and the reduction of conflict.

But before I turn to the issue of sexual violence, I would like to say a few words about Aung San Suu Kyi, who as you rightly reminded us Madam President, today spends a further Birthday under house arrest.   The Burmese people have suffered under military rule since 1962.   And it is fitting that we remember Aung San Suu Kyi as we talk about Women, Peace and Security in today’s debate and remember, too, the many ordinary women of Burma who have often borne the brunt of violence, persecution and economic deprivation imposed upon them by the military government.   We call for Aung San Suu Kyi to be released immediately, and that she should be allowed to play a full part in Burma’s political process.

Madam President, in conflict women and children suffer disproportionately.   Sexual violence is among the very worst atrocities that they face, and it is increasingly being used as a deliberate method of warfare.

Every day, we hear reports from the United Nations, from non-governmental organisations, the media and most recently from the International Criminal Court of systematic use of sexual violence to terrorise civil communities and populations, to drive forward ethnic cleansing, and to destroy communities.   And we have seen it in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the ex-genocidaires from Rwanda are primarily responsible.   And we see it in Darfur, in Somalia, and elsewhere.   In Zimbabwe, the hired thugs of Mugabe’s regime brutalise and murder the wives and children of leaders of the opposition MDC.   Only yesterday, the wife of the newly-elected Mayor of Harare was savagely beaten and killed by the so-called war veterans, in order to intimidate the opposition party in next week’s elections.

In all these places we see the physical and psychological scars of the survivors of sexual violence;   and chillingly, the silent testimony of the horribly disfigured bodies of those who did not survive.   And we see the empty burnt out villages from which the population has fled to avoid further attacks.

And that is the point.   The trauma and injuries caused by sexual violence are designed to cripple communities, trigger revenge attacks, and cause lasting bitterness.   In this way gender-based violence   feeds the fires of conflicts that this Council is dedicated to extinguishing.

But some of course will say what’s new about this?   After all, it is true that rape and sexual violence have been associated with conflict since before records began.   Three things have changed.   Firstly, sexual violence is now being used as a tool of warfare, rather than it being just a tragic by-product of conflict, and is taking place on a much larger scale than we have seen before.   Secondly, we now better understand how sexual violence damages   the prospects of post-conflict recovery.   And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, we have the means to tackle this problem within our reach.

Security Council Resolutions 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and 1674 on Protection of Civilians have provided an important foundation.   And many nations, international organisations, and non-governmental organisations are doing valuable work to tackle sexual violence.

But sexual and gender-based violence is evolving, and this Council’s responses must also evolve.   My government believes that the Security Council should show leadership on the issue of sexual violence by firstly, recognising that widespread and systematic sexual violence can pose a threat to international peace and security;   secondly, ensuring that we provide for women’s participation in all processes relevant to conflict resolution and peacebuilding.   The proliferation of sexual violence against women is in part aimed at excluding and marginalising women’s role in society and rebuilding communities.   We have to correct that.   And thirdly, proposing practical measures that parties to armed conflict can take to prevent sexual violence, and ensure that those who commit such crimes are brought to justice.   And this includes peacekeepers as well as belligerents.   And fourthly, but not lastly, requiring regular updates about sexual violence in situations of armed conflict, so that we can better understand how to prevent it.

We are realistic.   Sexual violence will sadly not go away overnight.   But Security Council Resolution 1325 is a crucial building block to tackling this growing problem.   And the civil populations of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur, Somalia, Zimbabwe and elsewhere need the Security Council’s continued efforts to tackle this growing scourge.

And the United Kingdom supports this Resolution without reservation and we thank you Madam President and all those round this table who have lent their voice to this end.

Thank you Madam President.

Hazel Foster (Miss)
Third Secretary Press
United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations
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Visit our blogs at http://blogs.fco.gov.uk

Burma Agrees to “All” Cyclone Aid Workers – as per Reuters – May 23, 2008.

Naypyidaw, Myanmar – Myanmar’s junta agreed on Friday to admit cyclone aid workers “regardless of nationalities” to the hardest-hit Irrawaddy Delta, a breakthrough for delivering help to survivors, U.N. officials said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on a mission to help 2.4 million left destitute by the storm that struck three weeks ago, reached the agreement with junta supremo Than Shwe in a meeting lasting more than two hours in the remote capital of Naypyidaw.

A United Nations official with Ban said foreign aid workers whose movements have been restricted since the May 2 disaster, would be given access to the delta, not just Yangon, the former capital and biggest city.

“The general said he saw no reason why that should not happen…as long as they were genuine humanitarian workers and it was clear what they were going to be doing,” the official said.

{ Now – will the general have to approve that they are “genuine humantarian workers?” }

Ban said Than Shwe had also agreed to allow the airport in Yangon to be used as a logistical hub for distribution of aid, which is still only trickling in due to the restrictions on foreign relief operations.

Asked by a reporter whether the agreement on relief experts was a breakthrough, Ban replied: “Yes, I think so, he has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities.”

Disaster experts say that unless the generals open their doors, thousands more people in the Irrawaddy Delta could die of hunger and disease, adding to the nearly 134,000 reported killed or missing in Cyclone Nargis.

World Vision, one of the few charities operating in Yangon, said any concessions from the junta were welcome, however small. “Any positive noises are better than nothing,” spokesman James East said in the Thai capital, Bangkok. “We are cautiously optimistic. The critical thing is access to the delta.” {what a miserable State in that retro- UN family!}

Than Shwe was taking “quite a flexible position on this matter,” Ban told reporters who traveled with him, a rare concession from the reclusive junta, which is under tougher Western sanctions for cracking down on pro-democracy protests last year. {A Victory for the Dipolmat’s profession!}

Stony Silence:

At the start of the meeting, the 75-year-old Senior General’s stony-faced silence gave no clues as to whether he would overcome deep suspicions of the outside world and grant the U.N. chief his request.

He was in dark green trousers and a shirt covered with military decorations – as he was when he emerged this week from Naypyidaw, 250 miles north of Yangon, to inspect the destruction, the army relief effort and to meet survivors.

Ban saw the extent of the disaster for himself on Thursday, flying in a helicopter over flooded rice fields and destroyed homes in the delta, the former “rice bowl of Asia” that bore the brunt of the storm and its 12 foot (3.5 meter) sea surge.

Government officials told him the situation was under control, repeating a line in army-controlled media that the immediate emergency relief phase of the disaster was over and it was time to look to reconstruction.

Ban will attend a joint U.N. and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) donor-pledging conference in Yangon on Sunday.

However, ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said countries would be reluctant to commit money until they are allowed in to assess the damage for themselves.

He said the amount “depends on the level of confidence, which will require those factors – accessibility, participation, and verifiability.”

Myanmar, one of ASEAN’s 10 members, has accepted relief flights into Yangon from many countries, including the United States, its fiercest critic, but has largely kept Western disaster experts out of the delta. { Is this money for funding this dictatorship or for helping the starving poor?}
Ban’s visit was the talk of Yangon for people desperate for political change after 46 years of unbroken military rule – especially given the U.N.’s abortive attempts to mediate after September’s bloody crackdown on protests led by Buddhist monks. But people accepted his visit would not stray from its humanitarian mission.

Sunday’s conference coincides with the expiry of the latest year-long detention order imposed on opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, under continuous house arrest for five years. Nobody expects her to be released.

Additional reporting by Ed Cropley and Rob Taylor in BANGKOK; Writing by Grant McCool; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Alex Richardson

Fukuda pledges full support for planned ASEAN unified market.

By REIJI YOSHIDA, The Japan Times onlline, Staff writer, Friday, May 23, 2008.

Echoing his late father’s message more than three decades ago, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday that Japan will seek closer ties with Southeast Asian countries by supporting the planned creation of a single integrated market in the region.

In his speech to a symposium in Tokyo, Fukuda reconfirmed Japan’s support for the establishment of an economic community by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations by 2015, while noting Japan’s alliance with the United States will continue to provide security in the Asia-Pacific region.

Fukuda’s father, the late Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, is best remembered for his Fukuda Doctrine of 1977, which declared to Southeast Asian countries that Japan would build closer ties with the region and never again become a military aggressor.

“My first promise to you is that Japan will emphatically support ASEAN’s efforts to realize a community,” Fukuda told the “The Future of Asia” symposium, which was attended by several leaders from Asian nations, including Thailand, Malaysia, Laos and Indonesia. “I am determined to cooperate with the efforts of ASEAN, which is aiming to establish the ASEAN Community by 2015,” he said.

Fukuda meanwhile argued that the security situation in Asia remains unstable, singling out North Korea as one example.

The Japan-U.S. military alliance thus helps stabilize the region and “serve as the cornerstone for Asian prosperity,” he argued. “The Japan-U.S. alliance is now much more than a means for ensuring the security of Japan; rather, it also serves as an instrument for the stability of Asia and the Pacific as a whole.”

The 1977 Fukuda Doctrine was warmly welcomed and is believed to have favorably altered the sentiment of ASEAN countries toward Japan.

At that time, memories of Japan’s wartime aggression were still fresh in the region, which saw Japan’s postwar rise into an economic powerhouse as a cause for concern.

Fukuda also pledged Thursday make Japan a “peace-fostering nation.”

He cited Japan’s Indian Ocean refueling support for U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in Afghanistan, the fight against terrorism and pirates in the Strait of Malacca, as well as Japan’s contributions to regional efforts to cope with natural disasters and the spread of avian influenza.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may…

The issue here is that business is as usual with the Myanmar leadership of Burma. While, in order to preserve their own interests – the continuation of their hold on power – they do nothing for their people and also are slow in allowing international NGOs to move in and do the work for them. But exporting rice, while others try to bring in food? This seems to be news that even some other dictatorial governments may have shrunk back from. Did the Soviets export grain while the Ukrainians were starving in the engineered Great Famine that was intended to subdue them?

Burma Exports Rice as Cyclone Victims Starve.
By Ian MacKinnon
The Observer // The guardian and posted also on truthout.

Sunday 11 May 2008

  Burma is still exporting rice even as it tries to curb the influx of international donations of food bound for the starving survivors of the cyclone that killed up to 116,000 people.

Sacks of rice destined for Bangladesh were being loaded on to a ship at the Thilawa container port at the mouth of the Yangon River at the end of last week, even though Burma’s ‘rice bowl’ region was devastated by the deadly storm a week ago.

      The Burmese regime, which has a monopoly on the country’s rice exports, said it planned to meet all its contractual commitments.

      With rice prices hitting a record high after more than doubling since January, the exports are a valuable source of foreign revenue for the junta and its allies. The fear is that with the rice-growing area in the Irrawaddy delta inundated with salt water from the huge tidal wave, Burma may need to import greater amounts of rice this year. Alarm at the prospect fuelled another spurt in rice prices during the week. The continuing rice sales looked like just another facet of the Burmese regime’s insensitivity to the suffering of its own people as it continues to block international relief to cyclone victims and pressed ahead with the constitutional referendum yesterday. The Burmese leader, General Than Shwe, has urged people to vote ‘yes’.

Critics claim the referendum is designed to cement the generals’ hold on power as it reserves 25 per cent of the seats in parliament for the military. They say it should have been postponed because of the disaster.

      Many of the cyclone’s victims have received little aid. International relief from the UN and other agencies has been blocked, and disaster management experts barred from entering even though there has been little evidence that the Burmese military is alleviating the suffering.

A spokesman for the World Food Programme (WFP) said two planes containing humanitarian supplies had ‘not been released’ by the Burmese authorities after arriving in Rangoon airport yesterday.

The planes contained ‘critically needed supplies and equipment’ provided by the WFP, UNHCR and other aid organisations. While the sacks of rice for export were being loaded on to the freighter at Thilawa last Friday, cyclone survivors from surrounding villages said they had received only hand-outs of spoiled rice from the port’s warehouse, where the storm had soaked 40 per cent of the stored rice.

The cyclone, which hit Thilawa early on Saturday morning, blasted the port so severely that one of the three enormous container cranes toppled and was left crippled. In the nearby village of Thamalone, just 15 miles from Rangoon, the only aid has come from the Free Family Funeral Association which usually provides coffins for poor families but used its trucks to deliver rice to villagers.

—————

Burma Faces “Public Health Catastrophe,” Charity Says.
By Amy Kazmin
The Washington Post

Monday 12 May 2008

Bangkok – An estimated 1.5 million Burmese are on the brink of a “massive public health catastrophe,” the British charity Oxfam warned Sunday, as survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of the devastated Irrawaddy Delta into regional towns in search of water, food and other help.

Burma is facing a “perfect storm” of conditions that could lead to an outbreak of waterborne disease, said Sarah Ireland, Oxfam’s regional director.

“The ponds are full of dead bodies, the wells have saline water, and even things like a bucket are in scarce supply,” Ireland said.

She appealed for Burmese authorities, who have restricted access to the country, to allow humanitarian agencies to send in technical and health experts to help prevent outbreaks of disease.

The struggling relief efforts suffered another setback when a boat ferrying rice, drinking water, clothing and other aid sank in the delta early Sunday, apparently after hitting a submerged tree, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

Residents were able to salvage some of the supplies, meant for more than 1,000 survivors, but river water probably contaminated the food, the organization said. All of those aboard made it safely to land. The boat was carrying one of the first international aid shipments.

“This is a great loss,” said Aung Kyaw Htut, who is supervising the distribution effort. “This would have been our very first river shipment, and it will delay aid for a further day.”

The cyclone and powerful tidal sea surge ripped across the low-lying delta a week ago. The country’s ruling junta on Sunday raised its official tally of the dead to more than 28,000, though humanitarian experts say the toll could run much higher. Thousands remain missing.

The dire warnings came as Burma’s state media declared success in a referendum to secure public endorsement of a new constitution that critics say would perpetuate and legitimize military rule. Burma’s leaders say the charter will lay the foundation for a “discipline-flourishing democracy.”

With conditions in the delta increasingly desperate, survivors began besieging small towns, searching for help. In the town of Laputta, which lost 85 percent of its buildings, about 28 makeshift camps have sprung up. But supplies are limited.

U.N. agencies and international charities that were operating in Burma before the disaster have been slowly setting up aid operations. Emergency supplies are gradually arriving in the country and just beginning to reach the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta, but they are far short of what is needed.

“Time is really of the essence. Already we have seen a diarrhea outbreak in the very urban areas of [Rangoon], and with cyclones you’d usually see pneumonia soon as well, and also malaria because of the standing water,” said Naida Pasion, the Burma program director for Save the Children, which maintains a staff of 500 in the country.

The World Food Program, which on Friday accused authorities of impounding planeloads of emergency food, said cargo and materials sent since then had been released and sent to disaster zones. The International Committee of the Red Cross also sent a planeload of supplies Sunday, including body bags.

Yet a week on, most survivors have not yet received any help, because of the lack of supplies and logistical difficulties.

“Beyond the main arterial roads, it’s a massive challenge, not only because the floodwaters are still there, but also because even when they are not, it’s extremely difficult to navigate,” said Marcus Prior, a WFP spokesman.

The Burmese army insists that it can manage the massive relief operation and has rebuffed offers from the United States, its longtime critic, and countries in the region for military assistance to distribute aid.

But for years, Burma’s military has struggled to feed its own. Vegetables are often grown alongside the runways of army airfields, and chicken coops are usually kept behind barracks across the country, officially known as Myanmar. Troops in far-flung places have long been ordered to “live off the land” because the army command has been unable to reliably supply its 400,000-member force with the food it needs.

“The logistical system in Burma is so shaky that in the 1990s, they told regional commanders and bases outside Rangoon [the country's main city] that they had to take care of their own logistics” for basic needs, said a Western analyst who has studied Burma’s military.

Military analysts warn that Burma’s army has neither adequate equipment nor training to cope with the crisis, and its insistence on going it alone – or through its own “strenuous labor” as state media call it – could cost many lives.

“Disaster relief operations, like any military operation, require training, practice and equipment,” said Robert Karniol, a regional defense writer. “Even if they were well practiced, they would have difficulties responding because of the scale.”

Humanitarian groups are reluctant to cooperate with foreign militaries in disaster response. But the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan showed how foreign militaries could use specialized transportation equipment to move large quantities of supplies to hard-to-reach areas.

The Irrawaddy Delta presents the type of logistical challenge best suited for military hardware. Vast areas remain submerged, accessible only by boat or helicopter, and the region’s ports are inaccessible to civilian ships as a result of the damage.

“The Myanmar military has certain assets, but in a response this size, you need to start using everything you’ve got,” said Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, a civil-military liaison officer with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“In a disaster of this scale, because of the critical needs and limited infrastructure, we would certainly advocate considering the kind of specialized capacities that foreign militaries can give in reaching the people we need to reach,” he said.

Burma has allowed foreign military cargo planes to ferry supplies to the Rangoon airport but has so far refused other foreign military help.

“The regime’s hope is that they will be able to weather the storm of criticism and just get the aid in and handle it themselves,” the Western military expert said. “If that means they can’t do enough quickly and some people die, they’ll accept that.”

Yet the drama could have unforeseen repercussions for a military still shaken by a crackdown in September on Buddhist monks protesting against the government.

The military expert said a disaster-relief failure, and the unnecessary loss of many lives, could undermine the morale of an institution that is built around the notion of safeguarding the Burmese people.

“There must be a great many people in the armed forces who do genuinely care about what has happened,” he said. “If they hear that aid is being refused, or put in a [warehouse] and not being released, that does have the potential to impact troop morale and cohesion. And anything that shakes the cohesion and loyalty of the armed forces will shake the regime.”

——-

Are Myanmar’s Storm Victims Suffering Needlessly? Asks The Washington DC based World Watch Institute.

by Ben Block on May 9, 2008

But the posted article did not mention the effect of climate change that seemingly can make it predictable that similar large scale disasters will become more frequent. also, though pointing out the effects of uncontrolled – so called development – and the lack of interest by the Myanmar government in the wellbeing of its citizens, does not follow up with any reference to the US experience with the recent Hurricanes that hit Louisiana. Eerily, we find similarities here even though we would not go as far as equating the government systems of the US and Myanmar, but we will nevertheless fare to equate the lack of fore-sight when watching, and sometimes even sponsoring, unsound development and removal of natural barriers against furious storms from the sea. Also the post disaster reaction may allow for some comparison.

We mention the above because we hope the Irrawaddy lesson will not be only that Burma is run by a junta, but that the world must think of how to act now so that the scale of future disasters will be less biting then it was in these two recent examples.

Photo courtesy of NASA
Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta is shown before (top) and after (bottom) Cyclone Nargis inundated the coast, killing thousands. The storm further destroyed mangroves that may serve as protective buffers against waves.

As the floodwaters of Cyclone Nargis began to recede from Myanmar’s low-lying Irrawaddy Delta this week, at least one regional leader was quick to note that this devastating disaster could have been partially prevented through better coastal management.

Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), mentioned in an address in Singapore that expanding coastal populations and widespread mangrove degradation played key roles in worsening the cyclone’s impact. Much of the damage from the cyclone was caused by storm surge, powerful waves whipped up by the high winds.

“The mangrove forests, which used to serve as buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and the residential area… all those lands have been destroyed,” Agence France-Presse reported him saying. “Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces.”

Mangrove forests, salt-tolerant trees and shrubs found mainly in intertidal areas of the tropics, provide critical breeding grounds and habitat for many plants and animals, including several high-value fish species. Ever since the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated parts of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand, mangroves have received greater attention for their potential role in protecting coastlines against storm surges. But their role as coastal guardians – including in places like the Irrawaddy Delta – is still disputed within the scientific community.

Of the 100,000 people who Myanmar officials say have perished or face imminent death if they do not receive humanitarian aid in the wake of the May 2 cyclone, many had lived in areas once covered with mangrove forests. Myanmar is home to some of the largest remaining forested areas in Southeast Asia. However, the government junta often encourages citizens to convert mangrove forests into shrimp aquaculture facilities or rice fields. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that Myanmar lost about 9 percent of its mangrove forests – 48,500 hectares – between 1980 and 2005.

Mangrove roots hold together the shifting silt and other debris that flows down a delta and shapes coastal landscapes. By deterring erosion, mangroves prevent the debris from washing inland and damaging agricultural land. “It’s pretty…clear, looking around the world, that it is generally accepted that mangroves help stop erosion and protect coastland,” said Mark Spalding, a senior marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy.

Mangrove branches and roots may also reduce the surging energy of a massive storm wave as it approaches inland. “There are lots of structures that add friction to the movement of water through this fringing mangrove forest,” said Ivan Valiela, a marine biologist with Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts.

But to effectively study the role of mangroves in slowing wave action, researchers need to compare a severely damaged mangrove coast with a similar mangrove coast that was not heavily affected. This has proven to be a major limitation and has prevented scientific consensus, said Valiela, editor of the journal Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Science.

Finn Danielsen, a senior ecologist with the Nordic Agency for Development and Ecology who researched the protective power of mangroves during the Asian tsunami, said computer simulations have accurately measured the effect of mangroves. “There is no doubt that mangroves could have absorbed some of the energy of Hurricane Nargis,” he said. “It is true that other factors also play a role, but this does not mean that the role of coastal tree vegetation is smaller.”

Tom Smith, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, considers himself one of the world’s few researchers who challenges whether mangroves affect a wave’s forces. Data on the subject is “scant and meager,” Smith said. He considers studies that have relied upon computer simulations, satellite imagery, and field studies to be flawed.

Smith concedes that many researchers are uncomfortable with his conclusions, due to concerns that this may slow the momentum of ongoing mangrove conservation efforts. But, he said, more emphasis should instead be placed on relocating people farther inland, which would protect them from dangerous oceanic storms and also help preserve mangrove forests.

According to the United Nations, nearly half of the world’s population lives within 150 kilometers of a coast, and more are projected to move there in coming years due to population growth and tourism. Myanmar is no exception to this trend. The recent cyclone flooded the city of Yangôn, home to more than 4 million people, as well as several other cities of between 100,000 and 500,000 people. “Poorly constructed homes in low-lying, incredibly exposed areas… It’s just set-up for this sort of disaster,” Smith said.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute who covers everything environmental for Eye on Earth. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
9 May, 2008 =========================================================================

The United Nations today appealed for $187 million to help provide humanitarian relief to some 1.5 million people severely affected by the recent cyclone in Myanmar for the next six months.

Launching the Flash Appeal in New York on behalf of 10 UN agencies and 9 non-governmental organizations, the UN’s top relief official emphasized that “the extent of the humanitarian catastrophe is enormous.”

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes noted that the number of those severely affected is between 1.2 and 1.9 million. But he added that “the numbers of people in need may well increase further as we come to understand better the situation on the ground.”

Cyclone Nargis, which struck the South-East Asian nation on 2 May, left a path of death and destruction across the Irrawaddy delta region and the country’s largest city, Yangon. The Government estimates that more than 22,000 people have died and over 41,000 remain missing.

Mr. Holmes noted that the number of deaths has been climbing daily and “could be anywhere between 63,000 and 100,000, or possibly even higher.”

Stressing the need to act quickly and for the Government to facilitate aid delivery, he said that “the sooner humanitarians are allowed in, and the less procedural and other obstacles we encounter, the more lives we can help save.”

He later told reporters that countries at the launch voiced strong hope that the cooperation which is necessary between the international community and the authorities in Myanmar will be “as forthcoming, as flexible, and as rapid as possible to make sure that not only material relief goods can get in but also humanitarian aid workers.”

Today’s Appeal covers 12 areas, with the largest portion of the funding sought for food, water and sanitation, logistics, health and shelter. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is seeking $56 million to provide daily food rations to 630,000 people in severely affected areas or temporary shelters.

Also, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has appealed for $10 million to assist poor farming and fishing communities devastated by Cyclone Nargis, which made landfall in the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) delta region last Friday and then moved on to Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon.

FAO said the five worst-affected areas – Ayeyarwady, Yangon and Bago Divisions, and Mon and Kayin states – are considered Myanmar’s food bowl, producing much of the country’s staple food of rice and fish, and the overall food security situation in Myanmar is “seriously threatened.”

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which is appealing for $3 million, said today that tens of thousands of pregnant women made homeless by the cyclone urgently need lifesaving assistance. UNFPA is working with humanitarian partners to mobilize emergency reproductive health supplies, including safe delivery kits, for those affected.

The agency added that disasters like Cyclone Nargis put expectant mothers and their babies at special risk because of the sudden loss of medical support, compounded by trauma, malnutrition and disease. Another $8.2 million is being sought by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to meet the critical needs of children and women in the wake of the tragedy.

Mr. Holmes said he will be allocating $20 million immediately from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to projects from the Flash Appeal to help ensure that the most urgent needs can be addressed quickly. Some $77 million has been pledged so far by countries, toward the Appeal and in bilateral assistance.

Echoing calls on the Myanmar authorities to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid in the wake of the deadly cyclone which has left some 1.5 million people in need, the top United Nations official in the region today urged the Government to act quickly to avert an even worse tragedy.

“The situation is getting critical and there is only a small window of opportunity if we are to avert the spread of diseases that could multiply the already tragic number of casualties,” said Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

The UN humanitarian chief has warned that the situation in Myanmar following last weekend’s cyclone has become “increasingly desperate.” The storm left a path of death and destruction across the Irrawaddy delta region and the country’s largest city, Yangon.

Both Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have voiced their disappointment at the limited progress made in gaining access to Myanmar, where some 1.5 million people are believed to be severely affected by the disaster.

Ms. Heyzer “urged again the Myanmar authorities to issue visas expeditiously, and if possible, exempt all visa requirements for all UN aid workers, so that aid can reach the people as quickly as possible.”

She also said she plans to personally go as soon as possible to Myanmar to show her solidarity with the people of the South-East Asian nation and to meet with the Government to discuss access and humanitarian assistance.

Meanwhile, UN agencies are continuing to mobilize efforts to assist those in need. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) yesterday airlifted enough high energy biscuits for 21,000 people, most of which has been delivered over the last 24 hours to the hardest-hit areas. Today, two WFP flights arrived with enough high-energy biscuits to feed 95,000 people.

The agency has decided to send in two relief flights as planned tomorrow, while discussions continue with the Government of Myanmar on the distribution of the food that was flown in today, and that has not been released to WFP, spokesperson Bettina Luescher told reporters in New York.

“We’re trying everything to resolve the situation at the airport but we are very encouraged that we were able to distribute food,” she stated.

In addition, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today it is hoping to start airlifting 57 tonnes of emergency shelter – for some 22,000 people – from its stockpile in Dubai.

The first load of 32 tonnes of aid cargo – mainly urgently needed shelter materials such as plastic sheeting, blankets and kitchen sets – is set to be transported on a WFP aircraft, with another 25 tonnes of supplies expected to be airlifted over the weekend on a joint charter flight.

The agency is also emptying its stockpile in north-western Thailand to deliver some 5,000 plastic sheets and some 200 tents to people in desperate need of shelter across the border.

“We are seeking all possible means to send urgent shelter materials and household supplies to victims of the recent cyclone in Myanmar,” UNHCR’s Jennifer Pagonis told reporters.

Now The Myanmar junta does not want to let free access to the International NGOs that come to help, as they seemingly prefer to keep the keys to their hell in their own firm hands. Posturing like the Wall Street Journal Editorial of today – calling for Myanmar’s expulsion from the UN will not help – but forcing the junta by sending in help under cover of a NATO force as suggested by some Europeans, may be a step in the right direction – even if China might say they do not like the idea of an intervention from outside. People in the inflicted area will die without this help.

And an AlterNet Editorial: The Disaster in Burma — How You Can Help
Posted May 10, 2008.

International aid groups are facing problems getting to disaster-stricken areas of Burma, but a group of monks is on the front lines right now.

Note: The following appeal was sent to members of MoveOn.org, offering an alternative way to help with the disaster in Burma.

In the wake of a massive cyclone, tens of thousands of Burmese are dead. A million are homeless.

But what’s happening in Burma is not just a natural disaster — it’s also a catastrophe of bad leadership.

Burma’s brutal and corrupt military junta failed to warn the people, failed to evacuate any areas, and suppressed freedom of communication so that Burmese people didn’t know the storm was coming when the rest of the world did. Now the government is failing to respond to the disaster and obstructing international aid organizations.

Humanitarian relief is urgently needed, but Burma’s government could easily delay, divert or misuse any aid. The International Burmese Monks Organization, including many leaders of the democracy protests last fall, launched a new effort to provide relief through Burma’s powerful grass roots network of monasteries — the most trusted institutions in the country and currently the only source of housing and support in many devastated communities. You can help the Burmese people with a donation and see a video appeal to Avaaz from a leader of the monks.

Giving to the monks is a smart, fast way to get aid directly to Burma’s people. Governments and international aid organizations are important, but face challenges — they may not be allowed into Burma, or they may be forced to provide aid according to the junta’s rules. And most will have to spend large amounts of money just setting up operations in the country. The monks are already on the front lines of the aid effort — housing, feeding, and supporting the victims of the cyclone since the day it struck. The International Burmese Monks Organization will send money directly to each monastery through their own networks, bypassing regime controls.

Last year, more than 800,000 of us around the world stood with the Burmese people as they rose up against the military dictatorship. The government lost no time then in dispatching its armies to ruthlessly crush the nonviolent democracy movement — but now, as tens of thousands die, the junta’s response is slow and threatens to divert precious aid into the corrupt regime’s pockets.

The monks are unlikely to receive aid from governments or large humanitarian organizations, but they have a stronger presence and trust among the Burmese people than both. If we all chip in a little bit, we can help them to make a big difference.

The Ohel Ayalah Community led by conservative Rabbi Judith Hauptman, a Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, held this year’s Passover Seder in the Banquet Hall of the First Presbyterian Church in the Village -on Fifth Avenue at West 12t Street.       The Haggadah that was used was “The Lively Seder Haggadah” by Dr. David Arnow that combines the traditional text with a look at our world today. The real world intruded into the deliberations at this Seder more then at the UN. Participation was by tables. There were 17 tables with the full house I estimated at over 150 people.

BUT SLAVERY IS STILL A REALITY TODAY:

And Just Look At a Story out of Sudan:

FOR THE THE PART OF THIS SEDER THAT TOUCHED UPON CLIMATE CHANGE – AN INSERT THAT WENT BEYOND THE ARNOW HAGGADAH   – AND SPILLED OVER INTO THE SERVING CUPS AND PLATES -
WE ARE RESERVING   A SEPARATE POSTING.

But, nevertheless, let us point out here that as per added material to the Arnow Haggadah, there were two pages written by Rabbi Jeff Sultar and Julia Porper, that point out that PASSOVER IS ABOUT RENEWAL OF EARTH-LIFE IN THE SPRING – something that in Hebrew is expressed as THE FESTIVAL OF SPRING – CHAG HAAVIV – as well as about the renewing of our freedom from oppression – OPPRESIVE TOP_DOWN POWER (as the insert says).

BOTH ABOVE ISSUES ARE RAISED IN THE DANGERS ENHANCED BY THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS.