An Interesting book by Hannah Pakula on Madame Chiang Kai-shek (May Ling) that reveals the American right of WWII days – the couple Henry and Clare Boothe Luce – the US media owners of those days. They tried to make history like the right wing US media owners try it today.
The Last Empress and the Publisher: America and the Birth of Modern China.
The Last Empress by Hannah Pakula.
Authors Hannah Pakula (The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China) and Alan Brinkley (The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century) discused the complex ties between American publishing giant Henry Luce and the charismatic Chinese leaders Madame and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
“A rare combination of brilliant writing and insightful scholarship, it captures the complexities of an extraordinary woman in a turbulent time, who influenced the course of China’s history in the 20th century.”
—Henry A. Kissinger on Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China
During May 1941, Henry and Clare Boothe Luce paid a thirteen-day visit to China. The son of missionaries, born in Tientsin in 1914, Luce was primed to be impressed with the country and the Chiangs. As one of his writers and old friends put it, “The trouble with Harry is that he’s torn between wanting to be a Chinese missionary like his parents and a Chinese warlord like Chiang Kai-shek.”
An ardent political reactionary, Luce had already taken on the Chinese Nationalist cause, spearheading a new organization call United China Relief, which could raise $7 million for aid to China.
The Luces stayed with the Kungs in Chungking and had tea with the Chiangs, affording Henry Luce opportunity to declare Chiang Kai-shek “the greatest ruler Asia has seen since Emperor Kang Hsi 250 years ago.”
Having heard that Madame’s pantry had been destroyed by a bomb, the guests brought a huge supply of cigarettes, which they presented to the Chiangs along with a portfolio of photographs of their host, his wife, and leaders of KMT. “An hour later we left,” Luce wrote, “knowing that we had made the acquaintance of two people, a man and a woman, who, out of all the millions now living, will be remembered for centuries and centuries.” In August, May-ling wrote Mrs. Luce to thank her “so much for what you and Mr. Luce have done to help China since your return to America. Since you left,” she added, “I have been having malaria and lately dengue fever.”
Four months after their trip, Luce devoted most of Fortune magazine to China. “The time has come for Americans to awake to the realization that further appeasement in the Pacific will be just as fatal as appeasement was in Europe,” the magazine announced. The message was timely. The month after the Luce’s visit, on June 22, 1941, Hitler had invaded Russia without warning. Stalin asked the Chinese Communists to go to battle against the Japanese in northern China, thus enabling the Soviets to concentrate on defending European Russia, but Mao refused.
…
Suddenly, on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor, sinking five battleships and three cruisers, and destroying 177 planes. More than 2,000 American sailors were killed, over 1,200 injured, and nearly 900 men were missing. Japan also attacked the British in Hong Kong and Malaya. The next day both the United States and Britain declared war on Japan. China, which had waited for the United States’ declaration, followed suit. No longer alone, Chiang sent the following wire to President Roosevelt: “To our new common battle we offer all we are and all we have, to stand with you until the Pacific and the world are freed from the curse of brute force and endless perfidy.” The wire was clearly written by May-ling.
—from The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China by Hannah Pakula
Be’chol Lashon is the Hebrew for “In Every Tongue” and it advocates for the Growth & Diversity of the Jewish People. Today Jews come indeed in every color and every stripes and some leaders do the outreach to embrace them all. Just look at Dr. Lewis Gordon of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, Mr. Romiel Daniel of Queens, New York, The head of Jews of India in our region, Dr. Ephraim Isaac, of the institute for Semitic Studies. They do not look like your stereotype Jew. I met them and was impressed – the latter actually for the first time as we both visited Addis Ababa at the time of the delayed Ethiopian Millennium. Then Rabbi Hailu Paris with his communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Ethiopian born and graduae of Yeshiva University, and his Assistant Monica Wiggan (http://www.blackjews.org/Essays/RabbiParisEthiopianTrip.html), and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu of the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda from whom I got a very distinctive kippah with the menorah – of the old temple worked in. Then Dr. Rabson Wuriga of the Hamisi Lemba clan in South Africa and Zimbabwe and so on – in Nigeria, in Peru, in India, in China.
And who has not heard by now of the present White House Rabbi – Cappers Funnye – the cousin of Michelle Obama – and associate director of Bechol Lashon and spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nei Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation of Chicago?
The New York regional director of DiverseJews.org is Lacey Schwartz who is also National Outreach Director of BecholLashon.org, assisted by Collier Meyerson and to top it all Davi Cheng, Director of the Los Angeles region is Jewish, Chinese, and Lesbian. As I said it is all a new image of the Jew.
Last night, at the Gallery Bar, 120 Orchard St., NYC there was a Shemspeed Summer Music Festival event.
The two further upcoming events in New York will be on:
Monday, August 2nd – the Shemspeed Hip Hop Fest at Le Poisson Rouge – 158 Bleeker Street NYC Featuring Tes Uno, Ted King & guest Geng Grizlee and others with CD Release parties for “A Tribe Called Tes” and “Move On.”
Thursday, August 5th – Shemspeed Jewish Punk Fest at Pianos, 158 Ludlow Street, NYC Featuring Moshiach Oil & The Groggers.
Rethinking How U.S. Jews Fund Communities Around the World.
The Forward
Published: May 27, 2010
For more than half a century, North America’s Jewish federation system has divided its overseas allocations between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Joint Distribution Committee. The Jewish Agency has been dedicated to building up Israel and encouraging aliyah, while the Joint has focused on aiding Jewish communities in need around the globe.
Today, both agencies are working to assert their continued relevance in a changing Jewish world. With aliyah slowing, the Jewish Agency is moving toward embracing a new agenda: promoting the concept of Jewish peoplehood. The JDC, meanwhile, has sought to claim a larger share of the communal pie, which had long been split 75%-25% in the Jewish Agency’s favor.
After a recent round of sniping over the funding issue, the two sides are now stepping back from their public confrontation and recommitting to negotiations over the future of the collective funding arrangement. Underlying this fight, however, is a more fundamental tension over communal funding priorities: Should overseas aid be focused on helping needy Jews and assisting communities that have few resources of their own, or should it be used to bolster Jewish identity?
With this debate raging, the Forward asked a diverse group of Jewish thinkers and communal activists from around the world to weigh in and address the following question: How should North America’s Jewish community be thinking about its priorities and purposes in funding Jewish needs abroad?
New Century, New Priorities
By Yossi Beilin
During the 20th century, the challenges facing world Jewry were the following: rescue of Jews who encountered existential danger, assistance to Israel, helping with the absorption of those who immigrated to new countries and opening the gates for those who were denied the right to emigrate. In the 21st century, ensuring Jewish continuity is the greatest challenge facing the Jewish people.
Yet too often Jewish organizations in the United States and elsewhere remain focused on the challenges of the previous century. (Indeed, Jewish groups were not very receptive when I first proposed the idea for Birthright Israel 17 years ago.)
Ensuring the existence of Jewish life (religious and secular) throughout the world via Jewish education, encounters between young Israeli and Diaspora Jews, creating a virtual Jewish community using new technologies — these must be at the top of the global Jewish agenda. This requires American Jewish philanthropy and leadership, which in turn requires discerning between past and present priorities.
Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister of Israel, is president of the international consulting firm Beilink.
Reviving Polish Jewry
By Konstanty Gebert
The rebirth of Central European Jewish communities after 1989, though numerically not very impressive, remains significant for moral and historical reasons. It is also crucial for Jewish self-understanding. An enormous proportion of American Jews can trace their origins to what used to be Poland alone. This is where much of Diaspora history happened.
Alongside the courage and determination of local Jews, the far-sighted support of several American Jewish organizations and philanthropies made this rebirth possible. In Poland the Joint Distribution Committee, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation and the Taube Foundation played key roles. Their support has translated not only into Jewish schools and festivals in places once believed to be Jewish-ly dead, but also in most cases into changed relations between local Jewish communities and their fellow citizens as well as clear support for Israel on the part of these countries’ governments.
Yet for all this progress, Central European Jewish communities might never become self-financing. The support given them by American Jewry remains a vital Jewish interest. It must be strengthened.
Konstanty Gebert, a former underground journalist, is a columnist at the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and founder of the Polish-language Jewish monthly Midrasz.
What We Give Ourselves
By Lisa Leff
More than any Jewish community in history, postwar American Jews have used our prosperity to help Jewish communities around the world. On one level, the greatest beneficiaries of this support have been Jews abroad. But we should also recognize that these philanthropic efforts have shaped our communal values and identity.
Through our international aid, we have dedicated ourselves to universalist and cosmopolitan ideas like tikkun olam and solidarity across borders. In helping disadvantaged and oppressed Jews abroad, we have also deepened our community’s commitments to democracy, human rights and economic justice for all. It’s only natural that Jewish groups pitch in on Haitian earthquake relief and advocate on behalf of oppressed people of all backgrounds.
Whatever the outcome of the federations’ deliberations over how to divide allocations between the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, it is imperative that American Jewry maintain its commitment to our values through supporting international philanthropy.
Lisa Leff is an associate professor of history at American University and the author of “Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: The Rise of Jewish Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century France” (Stanford University Press, 2006).
Putting Identity First
By Jonathan S. Tobin
The choices we face are not between good causes and bad or even indifferent ones but between vital Jewish obligations. But since the decline in giving to Jewish causes means that we must make tough decisions, programs that reinforce Jewish identity and support Zionism both in the Diaspora and in Israel must be accorded a higher priority.
At this point in our history, with assimilation thinning the ranks of Diaspora Jewry and with continuity problems arising even in Israel, the need to instill a sense of membership in the Jewish people is an imperative that cannot be pushed aside. Under the current circumstances, absent an effort that will make Jewish and Zionist education the keynote of our communal life, the notion that Jewish philanthropies or support for Israel can be adequately sustained in the future is simply a fantasy.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of Commentary magazine.
Collective Responsibility
By Richard Wexler
One cannot have a meaningful discussion about framing the national Jewish community’s priorities and purposes in funding Jewish needs abroad without first asking the question: Is there actually a collective “North American Jewish community” today?
Collective responsibility has been and remains the foundation upon which the federation system and, therefore, the national Jewish community are built. It is what distinguishes the federations from all other charities. It is embodied in our participation in the adventure of building Israel and in meeting overseas needs through the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, in the dues that federations pay to the Jewish Federations of North America and so much more. But today, federations “bowl alone.”
Collective responsibility gives meaning to kol Yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh — all Jews are responsible for one another. Until federations understand once again that Jewish needs extend beyond the borders of any one community, we cannot have a meaningful priority-setting process for funding Jewish needs abroad.
Richard Wexler is a former chairman of the United Israel Appeal.
On the day of the grand opening of the Tobin Health Center in Mbale, Uganda, health professionals were already hard at work treating patients inside.
The center was open for business, but that didn’t slow down the lively June 18 celebration, which featured song and dance performances and speakers. About 3,000 people gathered at the center’s grounds to mark the occasion.
Seated under colorful tents was Diane Tobin, director of S.F.-based Be’chol Lashon and wife of the late Gary Tobin, for whom the center is named, along with three of their children, Aryeh, Mia and Jonah.
“Everyone was amazing, friendly and so generous of spirit,” said Tobin, who was visiting Uganda and its Abayudaya Jewish community for the first time. “They were so appreciative of having the center and demonstrated a tremendous willingness to work together. It’s a great model for the rest of the world.”
Andrew Esensten, Be’chol Lashon program coordinator, and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, spiritual leader of the Abayudaya Jews and the first chief rabbi of Uganda, joined them, in addition to government and medical officials, and representatives from Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities.
The Tobin Health Center is named for Gary Tobin, the founder of the S.F.-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research, of which Be’chol Lashon (“In Every Tongue”) is an initiative. Tobin died one year ago after a long battle with cancer. He was 59.
“He really has left a legacy,” said Debra Weinberg of Baltimore, who attended the opening with her husband, Joe, and their 14-year-old son, Ben. The couple also helped fund the project. “I think he would feel deeply comforted to know it’s improving the lives of people.”
The 4,000-square-foot facility is a major component of the ongoing Abayudaya Community Health and Development Project undertaken by the Abayudaya Executive Council and Be’chol Lashon, a nonprofit that reaches out to Jews of color and helps educate the mainstream community about Jewish diversity.
It cost approximately $250,000 to erect the two-story center, using donations collected over five years. While patients pay for their services, continuous fundraising is a necessity, Tobin said.
Construction began in July 2009, enabling more than 50 Africans from diverse ethnic backgrounds to earn a living.
Stars of David are featured in the window grids, ceilings and floors of the health center, a “lovely expression of their Judaism,” Tobin said. Private rooms make up most of the top floor, with patient wards on the ground floor. A mezuzah is affixed to every door.
A large portrait of Gary Tobin hangs in the lobby.
“It’s so heartwarming,” Diane Tobin said of the visual tribute. “Gary would be so honored to have this health center in the middle of Africa named after him.”
Prior to the opening of the Tobin Health Center, the nearest medical facility to the Abayudaya Jews was Mbale Hospital, an overcrowded and understaffed institution not accessible to all the residents of the region. Tobin said there are other clinics in the area, but they lack the preventive health care measures necessary to respond to the community’s needs.
The Tobin Health Center is licensed by the Ministry of Health and is certified to operate a pharmacy and laboratory. It serves all who seek basic medical care in the region, providing life-saving health services and simultaneously creating jobs.
“The goal is to raise the standard of medical care,” Tobin said.
In addition, rental units on the bottom and top floors of the center will provide more job opportunities for locals. The first business recently opened — a hardware store that sells bags of cement, plumbing equipment and sheet metal — with a beauty salon and video rental outlet in the works.
The center “is rewarding on a number of levels,” said Steven Edwards of Laguna Beach, who, along with his wife, Jill, has been involved with the Abayudaya for six years. “The most obvious is to see this beautiful, clean building. On top of that, local dignitaries noted how lucky Mbale is to have the Jewish community and how much they contribute to the larger community by bringing jobs.”
The Abayudaya Jews comprise a growing, 100-year-old community of more than 1,000 Jews living among 10,000 Christians and Muslims. They live in scattered villages in the rolling, green hills of eastern Uganda. The largest Abayudaya village, Nabagoye, is near Mbale, the seventh-largest city in Uganda and the location of the center.
Research conducted by Be’chol Lashon in 2006 showed that contaminated water and malaria-carrying mosquitoes pose the biggest health risks to the community. A year later, the organization launched the Abayudaya Community Health and Development Project with the drilling of the first well in Nabagoye.
Since then, nearly 1,000 mosquito nets have been purchased and distributed throughout the community.
“Our goal is to respond to the needs of communities,” Tobin said. “If there are other communities that need health centers, we will be there.”
By Michael Soussan, Special to CNN.comJuly 29, 2010
Editor’s note: Michael Soussan, a former Program Coordinator for the UN “oil-for-food” operations, resigned from the organization in 2000. His memoir “Backstabbing for Beginners” (Nation Books, 2008) will be adapted to film by award-winning Danish Director Per Fly.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Michael Soussan: Leaked report shows Ban Ki-moon not managing UN staff effectively
He says US, other democracies should push to replace Ban when his term is up
The UN Secretariat is in danger of becoming irrelevant, the report says
New York (CNN) – The recently leaked memo from departing chief United Nations corruption investigator, Inga-Britt Ahlenius, to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will make it impossible for the White House to support the UN chief’s candidacy for a second four-year term next year.
That is, unless the Obama administration itself was only joking when it promised to push for greater transparency and accountability at the United Nations.
In a 50-page “end-of-mission” report, the widely respected former auditor of Sweden — who was originally brought in to help the UN fix the spectacular accountability gap exposed during the excruciatingly painful “oil-for-food” scandal — paints a detailed, well-documented tableau of Ban’s managerial incompetence.
In a spectacular break from tradition, Ahlenius did what few senior diplomats ever dare to do: She spoke truth to power.
In her report, Ahlenius documents Ban Ki-moon’s repeated efforts to undermine his own senior officials, including her own office of internal oversight, by stemming the flow of information, interfering in the appointment of staff, or worse, failing to appoint people to senior management positions altogether. Critical leadership posts were left vacant for as long as possible, thereby strengthening Ban’s power over the bureaucracy.
The UN Secretariat, she concludes, is “in a process of decay … falling apart … and drifting into irrelevance.”
It may be that many member states do not actually want the UN to get in the way of their realpolitik. But when it comes to standing for the principles of its charter in difficult, often dangerous mission areas, the UN cannot succeed unless its staff are led and supported by a better-managed Secretariat in New York.
As it happens, even their very physical security did not appear to be a priority for the Ban Ki-moon administration. It failed to appoint another Under Secretary-General for Safety and Security for a full 11 months after accepting the resignation of David Veness, in June 2008, following the deadly bombing of the UN’s Algeria headquarters.
Ban’s failures to perform his duties as the UN’s chief administrative officer in a timely manner — the Ahlenius report describes these failures as widespread –have repercussions all the way down the line on staff security and morale. Instead of being empowered to do their job, the staff, including Ahlenius herself, end up feeling undermined by their boss.
Unless Hillary Clinton and her UN ambassador, Susan Rice, are prepared to contradict Ahlenius’ assessment, they will have no choice but to withdraw America’s support for Ban’s re-election (his term expires at the end of 2011). Unfortunately for Ban’s administration, few people were better placed than its own auditor to draw such conclusions.
And she is not alone in her assessment. Ahlenius has managed the rather undiplomatic feat of saying out loud what a lot of UN officials, including some at the highest levels, have been murmuring for several years.
While it is not altogether unheard of for former UN bureaucrats to blow their top after they leave office, it is without doubt the first time such a senior official has done so with as much competence, and credibility, as Ahlenius.
As a former employee of the UN’s “oil-for-food” operation — the organization’s fraud-ridden $64 billion humanitarian operation that saw billions of dollars diverted from needy Iraqi civilians into the pockets of Saddam Hussein and an international clique of corrupt politicians — I have learned to recognize the elements that go into making large-scale diplomatic fiascos.
After I had contributed to blowing the whistle on that program in 2004, some UN officials spent more time trying to discredit my testimony than to fix the cracks in the system that led to the debacle in the first place. Not so Ms. Ahlenius.
In fact, she invited me to spend an afternoon conducting a “lessons learned” discussion with her entire senior staff. Her approach was so markedly different from what I had experienced that I caught myself feeling hopeful, thereafter, about the chances of seeing real management reforms happen after all.
Unfortunately, it would seem Ahlenius has become a whistleblower herself. If such a senior UN official can’t seem to communicate her concerns to her boss and is forced into the very uncomfortable position of having to speak out with such force as she did in her latest report, it is difficult to conclude that all is well at the top echelons of the world body.
If Ban Ki-moon were well advised, he would not seek a second term in office. If he were earnest about pushing for UN reform, he would free himself from the pressure the member states may try to exert upon his office, officially make public those parts of Ahlenius’s report that do not affect staff security, and dedicate himself to mending the cracks in the system identified by his departing auditor.
Instead, Ban left it up to his chief of staff to issue a response which, both in form and substance, does a great job of confirming Ahlenius’ criticism. In a July 19 letter to Colum Lynch of the Washington Post, who broke the story, Vijay Nambiar says that his boss “is also concerned” that critical senior managerial positions (now including that of Ahlenius) remain unfilled.
The problem is, Ban’s job is not just to “be concerned.” It is to actually make appointments — or “to put butts on seats,” as one U.S. official once put it to me off the record. In this instance, Ban ignored the best advice of a 15-member independent panel and refused to appoint John Appleton, the former Connecticut attorney, to head Ahlenius’s investigation division. In the wake of the oil-for-food meltdown, Appleton had led an unprecedented exercise in accountability (so successfully, in fact, that his office was shut down in 2008).
Perhaps Ban would prefer to appoint someone else who, like he, prefers to show “concern” about the challenges facing the world organization than to take them on — with deeds, not just words. For the UN’s own sake, let’s hope the leaders of the world’s democracies can do better than that when it comes to electing a new leader for the United Nations in 2011.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Michael Soussan.
UNITED NATIONS, July 28 (Xinhua) — Angela Kane, the UN under- secretary-general for management, on Wednesday issued a rebuttal in response to attacks on Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s accountability that have emerged due to a scathing report by an outgoing internal oversight official.
Kane asserted that there were “many inaccuracies, misrepresentation, and distortions” in the end-of-assignment report filed by Inga Britt-Ahlenius of Sweden, former UN under- secretary-general for the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), the group charged with carrying out internal audits of the UN and rooting out corruption in the global organization.
The rebuttal statement from Kane came as the General Assembly approved Ahlenius’ replacement, Carman Lapointe-Young of Canada on Wednesday. The approval of Lapointe-Young came despite considerable objections from some member states who would have preferred a candidate from the global South.
Kane firmly opposed Ahlenius’ accusations in her incendiary report that the secretary-general undermined her ability to hire her own staff at the most senior level, thus restricting the independence of the OIOS.
“A formal review mechanism, established to ensure the integrity of the recruitment process, found that Ms. Ahlenius did not comply with established UN rules and policies and noted further that she failed to rectify these basic shortcomings despite repeated requests,” Kane said.
The rules and policies that Ahlenius complained of in her report dictate that a female candidate must be on the shortlist for all senior level jobs at the UN in order to achieve “true gender balance” and that senior level hires are subject to a UN review mechanism.
“Review mechanisms and established rules are no end in themselves but key building blocks in the system of Organizational accountability,” Kane stated.
Kane pointed out that despite Ahlenius’ ability to hire lower level staff members for OIOS, Ahlenius left 76 vacant positions at this level when her term ended on July 16.
Kane also refuted another claim by Ahlenius in her report that Ban attempted to create an additional investigative organization that would undermine the authority of the OIOS.
“As part of his reform agenda, the secretary-general is engaging with member states on how to strengthen UN investigations, ” Kane said.
However, she stressed that these efforts do not amount to a takeover of the OIOS and its functions, and that Ban supports bolstering the group’s Investigative Division for the sake of building more accountability and transparency at the UN.
Lapointe-Young, who formerly served as auditor general for the World Bank, will face numerous challenges as Ahlenius’ successor.
“The new chief will be expected to build up the OIOS team, filling vacancies and taking on responsibilities of the department that in recent years have unfortunately gone unmet,” Kane said. ” The staff of OIOS have been working under difficult circumstances and we are all committed to taking action that will help the Office carry out its work.”
Less developed countries, such as members of the diplomatic African Group, approved Lapointe-Young’s appointment in the General Assembly but also voiced their concerns that she was the third out of four under-secretary-generals of OIOS that came from the more developed countries of the “North.”
Egypt, the current chair of the African Group, criticized Ban’s hiring choice at the General Assembly on Wednesday.
“This, in our view does not fulfill the principle of geographical rotation stipulated in the resolution establishing the OIOS in particular and the standing practice in the United Nations at large,” the Egyptian delegate said. “In this regard the African Group, which is underprivileged and underrepresented in the senior positions within the UN, believed to have a strong claim to that position.”
Egypt asked Ban to “look into ways and means to correct the current imbalance in the near future.”
The following is a year old (July 1, 2009) series of two articles by Matthew Russell Lee showing the way the UN Department, that is supposed to provide Information to the Public, does nothing more then glorify the Secretary-General. Frankly – this is the understanding the UN has of the concept of information – that is no different then in China or Egypt – but then, according to today’s article that is based on criticism from OSCE – to be fair – this is the structural problem also in France. We will undertake looking into these issues further, as the UN will release these days its final decision on who is a journalist. Will they allow for the eventuality that true journalism is entitled to criticize the UN, or they will continue on the path of obfuscation and cover-ups.
UN Says and Shows It Won’t Cover Stories Countries Don’t Like, Critics Targeted.
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, July 1 — The UN runs its own News Service, its own Video and Radio operations. The chief of these divisions, Ahmad Fawzi, was asked on July 1 what the UN does on the story if “a country regards it as not a good story.”
“We don’t do it,” Mr. Fawzi. The audience at the UN-TV showcase, mostly comprised of UN staff members, laughed. Inner City Press followed up, asking if the UN would cover news events that trigger criticism of the UN, like the slaughters in Rwanda or Srebrenica.
Fawzi replied that the UN commissioned a report on the failures of its member states and peacekeeping operation in Srebrenica. He added, “Are we going to produce a video about it? I don’t know.”
Thus, the first of the videos shown on July 1 concerned children left behind in Moldova as their parents migrate for jobs. The second concerned the genocide in Rwanda, but merely mentioned without explaining that prior to the upsurge in killing, nearly all UN personnel left.
It certainly did not mention the UN Development Program staffer who used UN equipment to round up and target Tutsis to be killed. That is not the only story, but it is part of the story. And a stoytelling that is precluded from the beginning from including all pertinent facts cannot be called independent.
Inner City Press asked Fawzi about the UN News Service, which churns out relentlessly pro-UN stories, ranging from Ban Ki-moon’s popularity to the UN’s successes in the Congo. Appearing to take the question to be about the UN’s press release service, Fawzi said “we cover what happens in the building [but] it is not gloss, it is not promotional, it tells what goes on in the House.”
But UN News Service covers nearly every statement by UN agency, never quotes a critic or even raises a question. It is not unlike the state news agencies of some member countries. And any member state, it appears, can get a story removed from the Service. A story on Nagorno Karabakh, for example, fell under criticism and was quietly taken down. So too a story about Sri Lanka from the affiliated — but ostensibly even more independent — UN humanitarian Relief Web news service.
It is not clear what “we” he was referring to. Consider a “Dear Colleague” letter circulated to the 435 members of the House of Representatives earlier this week, the text of which is below.
In UN-TV, Fawzi (at right) monitors Ban Ki-moon’s image
“Angered by past and continuing media reports of corruption, mismanagement and inaction at the United Nations, the UN is again seeking to cover up evidence and stifle freedom of the press.
Meeting on May 8 about ‘reporting by the press,’ high level UN officials discussed sending threatening letters to several press agencies and other bodies, as well as complaining to Google News about a small, independent news agency that has uncovered numerous UN scandals. Last year, a similar complaint resulted in that agency’s temporary removal from Google News. In response to a question about that meeting, the Secretary General’s spokeswoman furiously retorted, ‘I don’t have to account to you for meetings I participate in.’
The UN’s Department of Management is also reportedly pushing to obstruct press coverage, seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight.
These UN efforts to restrict press freedom and oversight directly contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognized that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression… and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Once again, the UN is actually undermining the principles on which it was founded.”
The May 8 meeting, involving Under Secretaries General Angela Kane (Management), Kiyo Akasaka (Public Information — the boss of both Mr. Fawzi and Ms. Farkas) and Patricia O’Brien (Legal Affairs), as well as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s speech writer Michael Meyer and Spokesperson Michele Montas, was memorialized in a memo from Ms. Kane to Ban.
Inner City Press was shown the memo, wrote and asked Ban’s spokeswoman Michele Montas about it by email, along with the three USGs, none of whom has yet to explain how their participation is consistent not only with the First Amendment, which they say does not apply, but even to the cited Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While it has previously been claimed to Inner City Press that the UN would not, for example, even consider seeking to have a publication removed from Google News, Ms. Kane’s memo shows different. What was that again, that “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart”? Some do and some don’t.
Footnote: the “Dear Colleague” letter circulated on Capitol Hill states that the UN is “seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight.” Previously the Department of Public Information, where Mr. Fawzi works and which Mr. Akasaka heads, told UN journalist they would have the same walled free space during and after the fix-up on the UN building.
Now that first $23,000 was demanded, then wall-less “whistlebelower free” zones have been offered, no explanation of the change has been offerer, nor how it is consistent with the statement that “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart.” Watch this site.
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UN E-mails Allege Plot to Deny Ban a Second Term, Trick for Supachai at UNCTAD?
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, June 24 — Weeks after the filing with the UN investigative unit of emails showing a dirty tricks campaign by staffers of UN Conference on Trade and Development chief Supachai Panitchpakdi to get a second term, on Wednesday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nevertheless announced he is supporting Supachai for another four years.
Inner City Press, which exclusively reported the filing on June 22, asked Ban’s spokesperson if Ban had considered its contents, and acknowledged any connection between them and the reappointment.
The most explosive part of the emails, being published for the first time today by Inner City Press, are the arguments made in a May 8, 2009 email by Supachai’s special adviser Kobsak Chutikul, that African and other countries were supporting Ivory Coast’s former trade minister to deny Supachai from Thailand a second term in order to set a precedent to deny Ban Ki-moon a second term as Secretary General, due to “his perceived Western backers.”
Ban’s spokesperson declined to comment on the filing, saying it is before the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. Video here from Minute 10:45. But senior Ban officials including Management chief Angela Kane and Ethics Officer Robert Benson have had the complaint since June 4. Meanwhile, the complainant has reportedly been demoted.
Inner City Press asked Supachai if his UNCTAD has any whistleblower protection provisions. Yes we will follow those, Supachai answered. He claimed he “never campaigned,” despite what the emails show his special adviser Kobsak Chutikul doing. He claimed he only “responded to some countries’ remarks.” Video here, from Minute 56:18.
Given these statement, Inner City Press is today publishing some of the emails at issue, here.
UN’s Ban and UNCTAD’s Supachai: a snub of latter hurts former?
In a May 8, 2009 email marked Attachment E and headlined, “NAM Note Verbale,” Chutikul wrote to three senior UNCTAD staff, including the subsequent complainant:
“Gentlemen, please see attached NAM Note Verbale sent out to all NAM Missions today. In light of this new development, it is the assessment of Thai and some ASEAN Ambassadors that the picture has become clear — UNCTAD SG post has become an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bigger struggle… The goal seems to be to insist on geographical rotation of posts, and undermining the practice / tradition of two continuous terms, with the real target being the UN SG (and his perceived western backers).”
This argument raises the issue, for some interviewed by Inner City Press so far: did Ban have something of a conflict of interest in overriding (after working to override and change) African Group resistance and giving Supachai a second term? In fact, that too is laid out in Supachai’s special adviser’s Mach 8 e-mail, referring to telling Team Ban “things like ‘you are the real target’ or ‘you are next.’”
The emails point to several other improprieties, and it is extraordinary that Team Ban wants or wanted to ignore them and simply reappoint Supachai.
Following Chutikul’s”all hands on deck” e-mail, the press was on to get Ban to announce his referral of Supachai’s renomination to the General Assembly. A Chinese staff member conferred with Beijing, and that asked for evidence of which way Ban was leaning (Attachment G). Another UNCTAD staffer questioned why the African Group targeted the second term of Supachai and not Frenchman Pascal Lamy at the World Trade Organization — “because he’s white”? The e-mails are replete with racial references.
Media freedom threatened in most European countries, says OSCE
“Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property,” says the OSCE
IN FRANCE IT IS THE PRESIDENT WHO NOMINATES THE HEAD OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – CLEARLY AN INFRINGEMENT OF THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS NOT UNKNOWN IN TOTALITARIAN STATES.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Media freedom is threatened in most European countries, warns the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe, highlighting incidences in several of its member states including EU countries France, Italy and Greece.
In a report published Thursday (29 July), the 56-member OSCE, a loose gathering of states monitoring regional security, says that “freedom of the media concerns arise in most OSCE participating States. They only manifest themselves differently.”
The report, published annually, says the “freedom to express ourselves is questioned and challenged from many sides” and the threats manifest themselves through “traditional methods” to silence free speech as well as “new technologies to suppress and restrict the free flow of information and media pluralism.”
The breaches, either existing or potential, to media freedom range from a draft law on electronic surveillance and electronic eavesdropping law in Italy which could “seriously hinder investigative journalism” to a draft law in Estonia that may allow too many exemptions to the right to protect the identity of sources, to the fact that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is head of the public service broadcaster, France Televisions.
“The presidential nomination of the head of a country’s public service broadcaster is an obstacle to its independence and contradicts OSCE commitments,” said the body’s Dunja Mijatovic, in charge of monitoring media freedom.
Other areas of concern include the recent adoption by the Hungarian Parliament of parts of a media package with elements threatening media freedom and a possible threat in Greece to a minority radio station that broadcasts in Turkish, while the organisation expresses hope that Germany will adopt a law protecting investigative journalists.
Beyond the EU, the “brutal attack” against a Serbian journalist known for his outspokenness against nationalism was highlighted as was the the “high number of criminal prosecutions” against journalists in Turkey covering sensitive issues as well “serious infringements” on media pluralism in Kyrgyzstan and a series of attacks against journalists in Russia.
“Many argue that media freedom is in decline across the OSCE region. In some aspects, I can subscribe to that,” said Ms Mitjatovic.
“Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property and that journalists have the right to scrutinize those who are elected.”
“Violence against journalists equals violence against society and democracy and should be met with harsh condemnation and prosecution of the perpetrators,” she added.
With the internet changing the nature and scope of reporting, Ms Mijatovi also promised a study into the various internet laws in place across the OSCE countries.
“My office is currently working on the compilation of the first comprehensive matrix on internet legislation which will include an overview of legal provisions related to freedom of the media, the free flow of information and media pluralism on the internet in the OSCE region.”
What makes a good UN story? We hinted at the Kevin Rudd idea earlier but we were still waiting for further developments.
Are we seeing here rumors because of infighting in Australia on the way to their National elections August 21, 2010?
Are we on the trail of rumors intended to save the Ban Ki-moon reelection to a second term?
Are we watching an Obama approach to create a new environment to save negotiations on climate?
Kevin Rudd would be an excellent choice to extricate the UN from the hole it created in the “Seal the Deal” charade when every child could have seen that the G192 is no environment to talk about Sustainable Energy options.
Australia is no good example either – but Kevin Rudd was ready to step out of his nation’s “is” and aim for a better future.
He got punished for this and perhaps is now ready for revenge by working on a global level that will then sweep with him his own country as well.
With his experience as Australia’s Prime Minister with-vision that was cut short from bringing his own country into the group of real leaders for tomorrow, he can work with President Obama and perhaps the other four leaders that hammered out the Copenhagen platform that is not dependent on all climate mongers of the UN circuit. As a fresh figure, he could perhaps sit down with the ALBA folks and take the best ideas they have and incorporate them also in a new recipe under the SUSTAINABILITY big sky of the future.
Will the UN accept him as a new Super Czar of a combined UNCSD and UNFCCC – or let him form a new structure so these older structures will just wilt away into oblivion slowly? Who knows? But let us follow this new world hype.
The subject having slowly boiled in the PRESS has reached also www.UNelection.org – so it is time for us to try out the waters ourselves also. This then reinforced the UNelections interest in the issue as per added - http://unelections.org/?q=node/2056
Kevin Rudd talks with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon / AP Source: AP
KEVIN Rudd’s new United Nations post could be announced before the end of the election in what looms as another major embarrassment for Julia Gillard.
The Herald Sun can reveal the UN body Mr Rudd is being considered for is being set up under the working title High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability.
Mr Rudd is believed to have been backed for the post by the UN’s chief climate adviser, Janos Pasztor, and is odds-on to be offered the job.
Diplomatic sources said the decision could be made within weeks, which raises the spectre of an appointment before the election.
“It’s on the cards,” a source said of a pre-election announcement.
The Herald Sun believes Mr Rudd is favoured in part because he will have direct access to resources paid for by the Australian taxpayer.
This is on the assumption that the former prime minister is re-elected to Federal Parliament on August 21, 2010.
Climate change reform will be the centrepiece of the panel, virtually guaranteeing conflict with a Gillard government, assuming Labor is re-elected.
Sources said it would be created to look at climate change in the context of broader sustainable development, and would be part-time.
Mr Rudd has declined to say whether the appointment would be paid.
If he were to be paid, this could raise allegations he would be a part-time MP.
Mr Rudd’s spokesman directed questions to the UN, declining to say whether he already had accepted the position.
Mr Rudd has previously said he would serve a full term in Parliament and that any UN position would be part-time.
“It is a matter, of course, for the United Nations Secretary-General to clarify what roles would be played by any individual on such a panel,” Mr Rudd said on July 22.
The biggest political risk for the Government is that the UN body clashes on climate change policy backed by Ms Gillard.
Mr Rudd previously backed a 5 per cent emissions cut on 2000 levels by 2020 as well as a so-called cap-and-trade scheme, which involves setting limits on carbon emissions but allowing heavy polluters to buy permits to allow them to emit more carbon.
Mr Rudd dropped his legislation this year when it was blocked by the Coalition in the Senate and his handling of the issue was considered crucial to him being dumped as PM.
KEVIN Rudd’s new United Nations post could be announced before the end of the election in what looms as another major embarrassment for Julia Gillard. …
Jul 22, 2010 … Our socially-disfunctional-verging-on-autistic ex-PM would fit right in at the UN, spouting platitudes about saving the planet and the evils …
www.australianclimatemadness.com/?p=4315 – Australia – Cached
Jul 29, 2010 …KEVIN Rudd’s new United Nations post could be announced before the end of the election in what looms as another major embarrassment for …
www.heraldsun.com.au/…/kevin-rudd…un…/story-fn5ko0pw-1225898207146
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
SPEECH BY PRIME MINISTER KEVIN RUDD TO THE. UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Acknowledgement. Mr President. I would like to congratulate you on your …
www.un.org/ga/63/generaldebate/pdf/australia_en.pdf
Jul 22, 2010 …KEVIN Rudd has confirmed he has been approached to take up a job with the United Nations.
www.dailytelegraph.com.au/…/united-nations…kevin-rudd…/story-fn5zm695-1225895300050
Jul 22, 2010 … Latest news, breaking news – Kevin Rudd considering UN job as climate … Ousted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is considering a UN…
www.indianexpress.com/news/kevin-rudd…un-job-as…/650285/ – Cached
Jul 22, 2010 … Ousted Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd Thursday confirmed talks over a possible United Nations role but said he did not plan to quit …
www.bangkokpost.com/…/ex-australian-pm-rudd-in-talks-over-un-role – Cached
Jul 22, 2010 … Australian ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd is angling for the post of a climate change adviser to the United Nations, news reports said …
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/…/Kevin-Rudd…UN…/6201236.cms – Cached
Jul 22, 2010 …KEVIN Rudd is being considered by the United Nations for a top-level job that would force him to leave Australia.
www.perthnow.com.au/…/kevin-rudd…un…/story-e6frg15u-1225895337247
Jul 22, 2010 …Kevin Rudd has confirmed he has been sounded out about the possibility of a job with the United Nations, but says he is still committed to …
www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/22/2961142.htm – Cached
Jul 22, 2010 … OUSTED prime minster Kevin Rudd has confirmed he has spoken with the United Nations Secretary-General about a possible appointment.
www.news.com.au/…/kevin-rudd…talk…un…/story-e6frfku0-1225895627286
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer
Posted: Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010
UNITED NATIONS The United Nations turned to a Canadian woman on Wednesday who was chief auditor for the World Bank as its choice for the next head of the U.N.’s internal watchdog agency.
Carman Lapointe-Young won approval from the General Assembly to become the undersecretary-general for oversight. She will be given the huge task of trying to quickly fix an agency that her predecessor says is in disarray.
She will start her job on Sept. 13, the U.N. announced. She will move to New York from Rome, where she has headed the oversight office of the U.N.’s fund for agricultural development since February 2009.
The Manitoba native was appointed to the non-renewable, five-year term as head of the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose leadership was severely criticized in an end-of-assignment memo by outgoing OIOS head Inga-Britt Ahlenius of Sweden.
Ban said in a statement that Lapointe-Young has the “breadth and depth of experience and expertise required for this demanding position.” He said she will be expected to rebuild OIOS and fill its many vacancies as soon as possible.
Ban is reviewing Ahlenius’ memo and has ordered a review of the U.N.’s ability to investigate itself, his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, said last week.
Bea Edwards of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based nonprofit law firm, said Wednesday one of the key challenges Lapointe-Young will face is to redirect OIOS investigations onto cases of major financial fraud and corruption.
Her firm has represented at least one OIOS investigator who filed a whistleblower complaint against the division’s acting director.
“We would just hope that she would re-focus the attention of OIOS onto the more significant cases of fraud and corruption, and there would be less emphasis on these petty, internal investigations,” said Edwards, referring to internal probes that she said were focused on allegations such as improper travel expense claims and pornography on computers.
Over the past decade the U.N. has been rocked a series of corruption scandals in its multibillion-dollar spending. The best known resulted from a two-year investigation into the U.N.-run oil-for-food program for Iraq led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.
Volcker’s inquiry culminated in an October 2005 report accusing more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein’s regime to bilk $1.8 billion from a program aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions.
As a result of the scandal, the U.N. created a special anti-corruption task force between 2006 and 2008 that found 20 significant corruption schemes. Its work led to sanctions against about 50 U.N. vendors, many of which were permanently debarred, and felony convictions against three U.N. officials, including two senior procurement officials.
Lapointe-Young won the nod despite some grumbling among diplomats from developing nations who said her appointment upset an informal understanding that the top accountability post should alternate between developing and rich Western nations.
At the General Assembly, several diplomats touched on the issue of geographical diversity. U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky acknowledged the concerns of representatives of “regional groups” in the General Assembly who were consulted before Wednesday’s approval, but said Ban’s selection was based on “merit,” ultimately.
From 2004 to 2009, she was the auditor general of The World Bank Group. It was during that time that Paul Wolfowitz resigned as president of the World Bank amid controversy over a pay package for his girlfriend, a bank employee.
She succeeds Ahlenius, who left the OIOS post in mid-July after blaming Ban for blocking her attempt to hire a former U.S. federal prosecutor as permanent head of the investigation division and taking other measures that she said undermined the operational independence her office is supposed to have.
Ban and his senior advisers have quickly closed ranks and disputed many of the memo’s assertions while trying to put the dispute quickly behind them.
“Where there are lessons to be learned, we will draw them,” Angela Kane, the undersecretary-general for management, said in a statement Wednesday.
In a statement labeled “Accountability for a Stronger United Nations,” Kane said Lapointe-Young will inherit “an office with 76 vacant posts” because Ahlenius failed to fill them.
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AT THE FAREWELL PARTY GIVEN BY OUTGOING AMBASSADOR H. E. YUKIO TAKASU OF JAPAN, SEEMINGLY MR. BAN KI-MOON EXPRESSED SURPRISE AT REPORTS THAT SOUTH AFRICA WAS PROMISED A SENIOR POST AT OIOS IN EXCHANGE FOR NOT BLOCKING THE APPOINTMENT OF A CANADIAN. so, here we have his commitment to let the new OIOS Chief pick her own Deputy?
At UN, Farewell to Takasu Amid Echoes of OIOS, of Human Right to Water and Sushi
By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 28 — Japan’s Yukio Takasu held a farewell to New York and the UN on Tuesday night at his country’s East Side townhouse.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was there — expressing surprise at reports that South Africa was promised a senior post at the Office of Internal Oversight Services in change for not blocking the top spot going to a Canadian - as well as his Under Secretaries General Lynn Pascoe, Kiyotaka Akasaka and Angela Kane.
After Mr. Ban and his well liked bride left, much talk turned to the controversy stirred by the damning End of Assignment Report of outgoing OIOS chief Inga Britt Ahlenius. While usually at the UN, the press asks Ambassadors for information and opinion, this time is was the reverse.
Several Ambassadors asked Inner City Press, What do you think this means for Ban getting or not getting a second term? Major Permanent Representatives had read the critical Press coverage. “This is not good,” they said. “But will Obama have the decisiveness to act?”
Susan Rice was asked and told the media as if by rote that the US supports Ban. Others in the Obama Administration are not saying the same thing.
Ban’s USGs worked the crowd. Angela Kane of Ban’s Department of Management bowed, Japanese style, with an outgoing members of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions from, where else, Japan.
Due to ACABQ’s penchant for anonymity, we will not name her but wish her well. As the UN’s envoy to Darfur said earlier at the stakeout, ACABQ recently visited El Fasher. She noted of Inner City Press, your coverage of ACABQ is always fair. Hey, it’s the only accountability mechanism in the UN, along with the press.
Kiyo Akasaka of Ban’s Department of Public Information was in his element, offering food recommendations and this new media news, that the UN is agreeing to a refer in their forthcoming guidelines to a willingness to accredit bloggers — and not only “journalists who write blogs” — although, strangely, confined to a footnote. We’ll see.
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The reality at the UN is that seemingly there is much financial interest by many countries and this includes covering of plain corruption – so – OIOS would have its hands full if it were to go after this plateful of problems.
Take for instance all those companies that bribed their way through the Iraqi “Oil for Food” project. Did anyone look at them, i.e. the French bank that was involved? Paul Volcker put it all in the open and the UN pushed it back under the rug by appointing OIOS. Will it finally be picked up?
Then, Ms. Alhenius also had a clear conflict. It is a Swedish company that got a non-competitive contract to redo the UN buildings. Some at he UN wanted to see this reviewed – clearly a matter for OIOS – but we heard no action on this. Only some members of the Press kept pointing at the problem.
So far we do not know of conflicts of interest involving Canada, will the new Chief start out with her right foot in staking her position – as controller – the buck stops here? Something like the US GAO – US Comptroller General?
In what regards her attitude when auditing the World Bank, we found an excellent interview with her:
Making a difference: the World Bank Group’s Auditor General Carman Lapointe-Young says her team of auditors is playing its part in the organization’s fight to end poverty.
Climate report shows Earth has heated up over 50 years.
Which in the printed Wall Street version was rechristened – “CLIMATE STUDY CITES 2000 as WARMEST DECADE.” This appropriate to the US inward look of New York, while the above title is clear better positioned for the world at large -
By GAUTAM NAIK
A new assessment concludes that the Earth has been getting warmer over the past 50 years and the past decade was the warmest on record.
The State of the Climate 2009 report, published Wednesday as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, was compiled by 300 scientists from 48 countries and drew on measures of 10 crucial climate indicators.
Seven of the indicators were rising, including air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, sea level, ocean heat and humidity. Three indicators were declining, including Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere.
“Each indicator is changing as we’d expect in a warming world,” said Peter Thorne, senior researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, a research consortium based in College Park, Md., who was involved in compiling the report.
The report’s conclusions broadly match those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body, which published its last set of findings in 2007. The IPCC report contained some errors, which further stoked the debate about the existence, causes and effects of global warming.
The new report incorporates data from the past few years that weren’t included in the last IPCC assessment. While the IPCC report concluded that evidence for human-caused global warming was “unequivocal” and was linked to emissions of greenhouse gases, the latest report didn’t seek to address the issue.
The report “doesn’t try to make the link” between climate change and what might be causing it, said Tom Karl, an official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration involved in the new assessment.
The report said, “Global average surface and lower-troposphere temperatures during the last three decades have been progressively warmer than all earlier decades, and the 2000s (2000-09) was the warmest decade in the instrumental record.” The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere.
The scientists reported that they were surprised to find Greenland’s glaciers were losing ice at an accelerating rate. They also concluded that 90% of planetary warming over the past 50 years has gone into the oceans. Most of it had accumulated in near-surface layers, home to phytoplankton, tiny plants crucial to virtually all life in the sea.
A new study has found that rising sea temperature may have had a harmful effect on global concentrations of phytoplankton over the past century.
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BUT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IS VERY ANEMIC ON CONTENT OF ABOVE NEWS – IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, AS MOSTLY ALMOST – GO TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES. HERE YOU FIND FIONA HARVEY’S FULL ARTICLE – SHE CONTRIBUTES TO THE EDITORIAL SECTION AS WELL. YOU WILL BE IN THE CLEAR ABOUT THE MACHINATIONS IN WASHINGTON AS WELL.
You will also see there the Washington rot as in the following: “Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US, formerly in charge of energy with the powerful CSIS, said the new report would not change people’s minds. “It’s clear that the scientific case for global warming alarmism is weak. The scientific case for [many of the claims] is unsound and we are finding out all the time how unsound it is.”
You will find that there was no doubt about the implication that it is humans who did it except in the words of that outspoken minority of industry lobbyists that hold power over Washington.
It is the first major piece of new research since the “Climategate” scandals.
It found that, relying on data from multiple sources, each indicator proved consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, marine air temperature, sea level, ocean heat, humidity, and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere.
International scientists have injected fresh evidence into the debate over global warming, saying that climate change is “undeniable” and shows clear signs of “human fingerprints” in the first major piece of research since the “Climategate” controversy.
The NOAA study drew on up to 11 different indicators of climate, and found that each one pointed to a world that was warming owing to the influence of greenhouse gases, said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK’s Met Office, one of the agencies participating.
Seven indicators were rising, he said. These were: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, marine air temperature, sea level, ocean heat, humidity, and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth’s surface. Four indicators were declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers, spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere, and stratospheric temperatures.
Mr Stott said: “The whole of the climate system is acting in a way consistent with the effects of greenhouse gases.” “The fingerprints are clear,” he said. “The glaringly obvious explanation for this is warming from greenhouse gases.”
Some scientists hailed the study as a refutation of the claims made by climate sceptics during the “Climategate” saga. Those scandals involved accusations – some since proven correct – of flaws in the IPCC’s landmark 2007 report, and the release of hundreds of emails from climate scientists that appeared to show them distorting certain data.
“This confirms that while all of this [Climategate] was going on, the earth was continuing to warm. It shows that Climategate was a distraction, because it took the focus off what the science actually says,” said Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics.
But the report nonetheless remained the target of scorn for sceptics.
Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US, said the new report would not change people’s minds. “It’s clear that the scientific case for global warming alarmism is weak. The scientific case for [many of the claims] is unsound and we are finding out all the time how unsound it is.”
Pat Michaels, a prominent climate sceptic, ex-professor of environmental sciences and fellow of the Cato Institute in the US, said the NOAA study and other evidence suggested that the computerised climate models had overestimated the sensitivity of the earth’s temperature to carbon dioxide. This would mean that the earth could warm a little under the influence of greenhouse gases, but not by as much as the IPCC and others have predicted.
“I think it is the lack of frankness about this that emerged with Climategate, and that seems to continue [that make people doubt the findings],” he said.
Steve Goddard, a blogger, said the conclusion that the first half of 2010 showed a record high temperature was “based on incorrect, fabricated data” because the researchers involved did not have access to much information on Arctic temperatures.
David Herro, the financier, who follows climate science as a hobby, said NOAA also “lacks credibility”.
But Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, said the study found that the average temperature in the world had increased by 0.56° C (1° F) over the past 50 years. The rise “may seem small, but it has already altered our planet … Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying, and heat waves are more common.”
Date:29-Jul-10 Country: MEXICO Author: Brian Ellsworth
Reaching a binding climate deal at the upcoming U.N. conference in Mexico will likely be difficult, delegates from a group of developing nations said on Monday, spurring further doubts about a global climate accord this year.
Environment ministers from Brazil, South Africa, India and China — known as the BASIC group — meeting in Rio de Janeiro said developed nations have not done enough to cut their own emissions or help poor countries reduce theirs.
Delays by the United States and Australia in implementing schemes to cut carbon emissions has added to gloomy sentiment about possible results from the Cancun meeting.
“If by the time we get to Cancun (U.S. senators) still have not completed the legislation then clearly we will get less than a legally binding outcome,” said Buyelwa Sonjica, South Africa’s Water and Environment Affairs minister.
“For us that is a concern, and we’re very realistic about the fact that we may not” complete a legally binding accord, she said.
BASIC nations held deliberations on Sunday and Monday about upcoming climate talks, but the representatives said those talks did not yield a specific proposal on emissions reductions to be presented at the Cancun meeting.
“I think we’re all a bit wiser after Copenhagen, our expectations for Cancun are realistic — we cannot expect any miracles,” said Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.
He added that countries have failed to make good on promises for $30 billion in “fast track” financing for emissions reduction programs in poor countries.
“The single most important reason why it is going to be difficult is the inability of the developed countries to bring clarity on the financial commitments which they have undertaken in the Copenhagen Accord,” he said.
Hopes for a global treaty on cutting carbon emissions to slow global warming were dealt a heavy blow last year when rich and poor nations were unable to agree on a legally binding mechanism to reduce global carbon emissions.
More than 100 countries backed a nonbinding accord agreed in Copenhagen last year to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, but it did not spell out how this should be achieved.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday postponed an effort to pass broad legislation to combat climate change until September at the earliest, vastly reducing the possibility of such legislation being ready before the Cancun conference begins in December.
Australia has delayed a carbon emissions trading scheme until 2012 under heavy political pressure on from industries that rely heavily on coal for their energy.
The U.N.’s climate agency has detailed contingency options if the world cannot agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose present round expires in 2012 with no new deal in sight. {But the article does not spell them out and we wonder if they are any different from what we suggested – moving the deliberations away from the UNFCCC – to a much smaller group of Nations modeled along the lines on the evolving G20 with a united EU and a representation of AOSIS/SIDS and Highest suffering countries like Bangladesh on-board,}
Kyoto placed carbon emissions caps on nearly 40 developed countries from 2008-2012. {But Left out any responsibilities for the remaining countries including the above BRICS. Copenhagen was a success in the sense that it made it clear that the BRICS must be part of any agreement if it is going to happen – so, in this trspect, at Copenhagen there was progress – the first time since the beginning of the negotiations within UNFCCC.}
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The comments in green are those made by us – the editor of www.SustainabiliTank.info
WE ARE OPTIMISTS NEVERTHELESS AND WE HOPE THAT WITH THE UN-BASED SMILES FROM THE UN HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK, OUT OF THE WAY, A MORE ATUNNED CHRISTIANA FIGUERES WILL INDEED COME UP WITH A MORE MANAGEABLE DEBATE.
From the Wikipedia: Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen (born August 7, 1956) was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on 17 May 2010, succeeding Yvo de Boer[1][2]. She had been a member of the Costa Rican negotiating team since 1995, involved in both UNFCCC[3] and Kyoto Protocol[4] negotiations. She has contributed to the design of key climate change instruments.[5] She is a prime promoter of Latin America’s active participation in the Convention,[6] a frequent public speaker,[7] and a widely published author.[8] She won the Hero for the Planet award in 2001.[9]
For Latin America, in the BASIC group, speaks Brazil which has created for itself the image of an oil-rich country. This might create further difficulties for Ms. Figueres and we do not yet say that Brazil steaked out a final position for Cancun. In effect, the October 3, 2010 elections will have brought to the fore-front a new President for Brazil and we are yet to see his or her position.
As we are in the habit of reading everything that was put in print or posted on the web, we are hit from time to time also with delicious stories of real lives – not just your pedestrian oil blowouts.
This Saturday I saw first the story of the Chinese woman that became Jewish to find out that whatever she does – she will always be Chinese – viewed as such and honestly proud of it just as well.
Then, fell in my hands the July 22-29, 2010, City Week of OUR TOWN of Manhattan that included a note about a Saturday afternoon “Identity Crisis” at The Midtown International Theatre Festival that seemed to me to be in the same genre of a real life story that involves Asians living in the United States and ending up, in spite of their efforts to fit in, being recognized rather for what they really are and getting to the heights of their achievements only after having made peace with themselves. www.mdtownfestival.org
Dear reader, I hope you will not be surprised to find out that the propulsion that sent me off that afternoon to the Strelsin Theater was a thought to see if I can throw some light on the best potential for achieving an energy & climate bill for President Obama – if he were only to stand up and represent his real inner self. Will he decide to do this after November 2010, when it will become clear that there is no way for a future that mimics the present of the majority that surrounds him?
This show is part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival. Here’s the official blurb: The daughter of a Vietnamese war bride spends her youth aspiring to be a Southern Belle….a funny, touching and true solo show.
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Before the show started I happened to chat with another delightful lady, Annie Guetti – a mother to a daughter about 10 years old. Annie has a show in the Short Subjects Series of this festival – this one about motherhood – “ONCE UPON A MAMA” – at the nearby Jewel Box Theater – that same evening at 8:30 pm – and was carrying with her a suitcase – I guess with the wardrobe. About her – www.facebook.com/pages/MAMA-Productions/160612856005
From Annie Guetti I learned that she and Michelle Glick participated in the same class that Matt Hoverman is giving for Playwriting and acting – he is a prominent coach for New York City Theatre in that he develops solo programs that encourage actor/playwrights in bringing out what is best in themselves and eventually birthing good theater.
Annie thought very highly of Michelle and said while Michelle came to the class thinking about writing on all sort of issues, it was this wonderful coach that led her in bringing out what is really part of herself – because that is her truth. Now, if dear reader, you are still with me – right there I got convinced that Matt Hoverman should get an invitation – in public or in secret – to the White House private quarters!
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Michelle Glick is a Vietnam war product – American serviceman and Vietnamese mother. She grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and was friendly there with the local belles and black guys – she thought of herself as part of the environment until she was offered in a school play the role of an Oriental Chauffeur. But she did not want to wear yellow clothes she wanted the white clothes like the other girls. She was lucky to have a feisty mother who trooped to school to tell that much to the astonished teacher – she also wanted to make it clear that her younger son’s name was Kal – a honored name for five generations in her family, and not Carl as the school was calling him. Michelle got the role of a maid.
The mother was fully adjusted to America – eventually, years later she became independent after her children grew up and she moved to California.
Michelle Glick is a terrific actress capable to switch around three or four accents. She is tall gaunt like a model and from her Vietnamese genes she got terific Cheek bones – moving around her long hands, standing on her long legs, she at times invoked the impression of a praying mantid completely adjusted to get what she wants – even when the issue is just to get her belongings monogramed – because this is the way Southern Bells have to have it. At this stage she was the perfect Asian Belle in her own image.
When she eventually moves to New York at 25, and got her first roommate right there at the baggage claim at Greyhounds, she liked to hang around Chinatown – because there she saw people with black hair like hers. There one Chinese old store owner told her that instead of copying Chinese she should go and visit Vietnam and get in contact with her own roots.
Michelle convinced her Vietnamese uncle Harry, who after release from Communist jail came to live with them in Alabama, to go back and show her around. She saw how people can be happy with simple things in life – like holding a cup of tea with both their hands and smile to her – even there was no good verbal communication.
She sat orientally with both her legs crossed on top of the chair and said she felt her Asian background and pronounced Aloha – Hawaii – here I come. She seemed to get her way in any environment she chose to do so!
To Backstage.com, Michelle Glick said that she wants an international career spending part of the year in Asia, working “I am thinking about paving the way doing that.” In the meantime she intends to explore producing and writing.
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Because it is clear from my appearance that I am ethnically Chinese, total strangers will tell me all about their various Asian acquaintances. I think these people are trying to prove that they do not harbor racial prejudices. Frankly, I consider these experiences to be mildly annoying. But I can’t change my face, so I’ve accepted that this kind of experience is just something I will always have to deal with.
Debbie Burton is wearing her late maternal grandmother’s Chinese jacket on a visit to her cousins for Chinese New Year, January 2009. She is looking at a book of photos of the school in rural China her family established in her grandmother’s memory. She sent the photo with the note: “I feel that my Chinese family’s values of social justice and education mean that those same Jewish values particularly resonate for me.”
I also stand out in a synagogue because I do not “look Jewish”. My husband however is half Ashkenazi and thus does look more typically Jewish. So people have often taken one look at the two of us and assumed that we were intermarried. For the first 22 years of our marriage, they were right. But since I finally converted to Judaism, it is no longer the case, and I even have a real Jewish ketubah to prove that we now have a legitimate “Jewish marriage.”
But I’m still Chinese, so I still don’t look Jewish even though I am now. And people still sometimes react strangely because of my appearance, although I should point out that the strange or rude reactions are not typical, just memorable. In fact, if many Jews think it is surprising to see someone Chinese at synagogue, they are too polite to mention it. A few people have even assumed that I am a Jew by birth.
A student at a university Hillel Kabbalat Shabbat service told me very earnestly that he had read about and was excited to meet a Kaifeng Jew–meaning me. (A small Jewish community has existed in Kaifeng, China for hundreds of years.) I was sorry to disappoint him and explained that most Chinese Jews that he would meet in this country would be converts. These days I would add that they might also be adoptees, such as the two Chinese girls from the Orthodox congregation that meets in the same building as my congregation.
Before I converted, when people treated me differently because I was Chinese, I didn’t like it, but felt like maybe I “deserved” it because by marrying me my husband had violated the strong Jewish prohibition on intermarriage. I felt guilty that for some people, meeting me would only reinforce the idea that an Asian person in a synagogue was likely to be a non-Jewish spouse. I felt that it would make it that much harder for Jews who were Asian, but were born or raised their whole lives as Jews, like the adopted girls mentioned above, the three Korean adoptees in my congregation, or even my own children who were converted when they were young and are half-Chinese.
But just as my formal conversion signified my own acceptance of who I am religiously and spiritually, I’m coming to see that maybe it is not such a bad thing that my Chinese appearance means that I can’t so easily leave behind the fact that I was previously intermarried. A recent interaction that stemmed from my being Chinese even ended up being a positive experience.
My minyan meets in a Reform synagogue that is the simultaneous home for congregations from each of the three major movements (which are unaffiliated with each other, unlike minyanim at a university Hillel). I am a member of the lay-led egalitarian Conservative congregation that meets there, but one Shabbat a man from the Orthodox minyan started to talk to me as we left the building at the same time. He asked me about my ethnic background. When I replied “Chinese,” he went on to ask “And you’re Jewish?” Although I told him no, which was the technically correct answer, I added, “But I’ve been going to shul for 24 years.” I didn’t tell him that I was also studying with a rabbi for the purpose of conversion.
Some weeks later, this same man accosted me in the coat room after services and asked me why I had not converted if I had been attending synagogue for so long. I was embarrassed to be asked such a personal question with other people from both congregations around. I told him simply that the main reason was that I was afraid that my parents would take my conversion as a rejection of them. I assumed his questions stemmed from mere curiosity.
Then many months later, I saw him again and told him that I had formally converted to Judaism since we had last spoken. He seemed genuinely delighted by my news, but showed real sensitivity in telling me carefully that he was happy for me because it was something that I had clearly chosen for myself and that I was happy about it. Then he mentioned that his wife is Japanese. I thought to myself that of course she probably converted before they got married. But I had scarcely formulated the above thought when he totally surprised me by adding that his wife is not Jewish.
This news gave me a very different perspective on his questions. It sounded like his own wife was not interested in Judaism, at least for herself, and I think he wanted to understand what it was that caused me, another Asian non-Jew, to feel so drawn to Judaism. We didn’t talk for very long, but I think that he felt better to learn about another intermarriage in which the Jewish spouse was active in and committed to Judaism. And I was glad to learn about someone who self-identifies as Orthodox who is intermarried. I know from my own experience that intermarriage does not have to reflect a failure in a person’s Jewish identity, but it is such a prevalent assumption and it causes many Jews to automatically react negatively to intermarried couples.
So my looking Chinese had enabled that connection to be made because that man would never have approached me if I looked European. The experience also reminded me I don’t have to be ashamed of having been intermarried. Being Chinese makes my ethnicity more visible while obscuring my religious identity, which oddly enough pushes me to accept myself for both who I am now and who I was.
The following is just another example of efforts to keep us do what we are used to do – squander fossil carbon because some interests want us to stay hooked to that stored global poison. Instead of us changing our ways – the idea here is to change the world around us. This is so much hubris and some say a real danger to the planet. We are no proponents of the methods mentioned below. But whatever, it surely lets our imagination wander in new directions.
We touched on this last week in our:
Bastille Day was celebrated in Rockland County, NY, on Saturday July 17, 2010. We had a great time that started at the Public Library in South Nyack where Eli Kintisch presented his new book “HACK THE PLANET: SCIENCE’S BEST HOPE – OR WORST NIGHTMARE FOR AVERTING CLIMATE CATASTROPHE.” From there I continued to Piermont, NY, where they were shooting in the street and eating cornichons. The Climate Change walls must come down with geoengineering? That is something like a new quantum jump of logic.
and we will do the subject better justice based on “HACK THE PLANET” – Science’s Best Hope – or Worst Nightmare – for Averting Climate Catastrophe, the recently released book by Eli Kintish Wiley.com Publishers) that reached us today by mail.
Geoengineering Threatens to Save the Planet from Global Warming.
The sky would look white, but the sunsets would be an out-of-this world explosion of reds and oranges. The clouds would have a chrome sheen to them. Giant dirigibles might dot the horizon in a kind of Blade Runner set piece – but at least they’d keep the temperatures in check.
Such scenes are what we could expect to see if, as some of the world’s top climatologists are warning, we have to resort to what’s called “geoengineering”: large-scale manipulation of Earth to counteract global warming.
Worried that global political systems aren’t responding to changes in the planet’s physical systems, some scientists and environmentalists say that we might need to artificially reduce the amount of sunlight striking the globe and/or manipulate plants or the oceans to absorb huge amounts of CO2. Having unintentionally warmed the planet, we may have little choice but to intentionally cool it back down.
Since they sometimes sound like science fiction (a space-based mirror umbrella?), geoengineering schemes were, until recently, relegated to the imaginations of the tinfoil hat crowd. But at least two geoengineering approaches are now generating serious discussion. In a planetary version of pulling down the shades, Stanford climatologist Ken Caldeira has proposed sowing the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide to catalyze water condensation that would reflect sunlight away from the planet. This idea enjoys the advantage of a real-world experiment – the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinutabo in the Philippines, which blew 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere and cooled global temperatures by half a degree Celsius. Caldeira and others envision using massive artillery or a fleet of high altitude blimps to inject the sulfur aerosol into the sky.
Another geoengineering strategy – called cloud bleaching – imagines an armada of robotic ships sailing the oceans, equipped with giant fans to kick seawater into the clouds to make them more reflective. This idea has big money behind it. The Times of London reported earlier this month that Bill Gates has invested $300,000 in a firm investigating cloud whitening.
The Gates investment is fueling fears of what’s been dubbed a “greenfinger scenario”: that is, a maverick, if well-meaning, billionaire who decides to do an end-run around paralyzed governments and start manipulating the globe’s climate without the consent of the rest of us. That prospect has scientists, NGOs, and governments scrambling to work out a system for governing geoengineering. In March, scientific ethicists met at Asilomar in California to lay out rules for experimenting with the atmosphere. United Nations officials working under the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nairobi in mid-May discussed protocols for global climate control. The British Parliament and the US Congress are looking into the issue.
As with any new technology, the tensions surrounding geoengineering come down to the issue of power. Who would decide how, whether, and when to start modifying the entire planet? Or, as Alan Robock, a Rutgers University philosopher with a National Science Foundation grant to investigate geoengineering, put it to me, “Whose hand will be on the thermostat? What if Russia and Canada decide they want it warmer and India wants it cooler? How do you decide those things?”
Geopolitical complications aside, there’s no question that geoengineering is tempting. With scientists warning that we are on the edge of serious ecosystem disruptions – and our politicians unwilling to respond to the threat – who doesn’t want some kind of deus ex machina to swoop in and save us?
But this is a temptation we should resist, because, in the final analysis, geoengineering isn’t any solution to the problem of global climate change. It’s merely a perpetuation of the same mindset that has led us to this emergency situation. If mitigation (reducing emissions) is the hope of the idealist, and adaptation (preparing for rising waters) is the consolation of the realist, then geo-engineering (call it circumvention) has become the refuge of the cynic. Geoengineering assumes that although we may be able to alter how the planet works, we are incapable of changing the way we run the world.
Geoengineering is a great example of the old Albert Einstein aphorism, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Geoengineering takes a problem, simplifies its cause, and then exaggerates its solution. It’s like a Rube Goldberg machine, employing eight or nine steps when one or two would do. Instead of pursuing the elegant solutions – trading in our cars for buses, turning off the coal and turning on the wind – we are going to build a contraption to make the clouds shinier.
This makes geoengineering (the ambivalence of its supporters notwithstanding) human hubris compounded. It’s like doubling down on self-regard, a bet that we can save ourselves by divorcing our species from the rest of the planet. Bill McKibben warned about just such a fate in his seminal book The End of Nature when he cautioned that global warming would turn us into a “bubble species.”
As soon as we put our hand on the lever controlling the weather, we will be in charge in a way we never have been before, knowing that if for any reason we were to cease overseeing the sunlight, global temperatures would shoot upward again, leading to even worse trouble. The new role will force on us an existential anxiety much like the Cold War “strategy” of mutually assured destruction. If we take control of the sky, we will always be fearful of letting our grip slip from the machines that keep the planet in a semblance of balance.
Even were geoengineering to succeed, it would nonetheless mark a failure of humanity. Resorting to geoengineering would prove that we can’t act in concert to address collective problems. Worse, it would transform Earth, our home for all of history, into a trap, a place where we are held captive by our own technology.
Call for papers: Special issue on CCS Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change”
The Journal for Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change will be publishing a Special Issue on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in 2011. The Special Issue is entitled “Five years after the IPCC Special Report on CCS: state of play”. The editors are looking for a broad range of review articles that examine and analyze the developments in a variety of CCS-related areas and/or build on the review done by the IPCC in 2005.The articles will be subjected to normal peer review.
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The timeline for submitting articles is as follows:
October 30th 2010First submission. It is possible to send an abstract to the editors in advance for an early quick scan
November 2010Editors send the selected papers to reviewers
March 2011Final submission by authors – June/July 2011Publication
The aim is to have a critical review of several topics in CCS, for instance(but not limited to):
·Overview of technical progress in the field of capture technologies in power systems and/or in specific industrial processes
·Review of storage integrity studies: Is the “fraction retained” outcome in the IPCC Special Report still suitable?
·Economics of CCS, including retrofits versus new power plants with CCS
·Review of assumptions in scenario studies: what explains high CCS, high nuclear or renewable
·Biomass and CCS: what can we expect in terms of short- and long-term feasibility?
·CCS-readiness: what does it mean in practice?
·Insights from research on public perception, community engagement and communication issues around CCS
·Knowledge sharing, capacity building and technology transfer: How realistic is CCS in emerging economies and developing countries?
·Government policy and industry business models for CCS
We ate in Ramallah restaurants, walked around freely in town – people want to live free normal lives there like everywhere else, so who does not let them achieve this? Good there are some that call out for RETHINK on how to achieve these goals by selling Tabouleh Salad and Musakahn rather then playing the “he hit me” game in order to disturb the peace of the whole world. Just think of the upcoming new Hezbolah flotilla leaving Lebanon these days in order to provoke an Israeli reaction that will send roses to Gaza and the fallen false martyrs of that new provocation.
Why do they not rather make good Musakahn in Gaza and make a life for themselves also there – then eventually they could trade with Israel and the de-facto Palestine in the West Bank. Yes, when I was in Ramallah I ate Palestinian Hummus – not occupied Palestinian Hummus. It was really good, and could have tasted even better without any Israeli troops assumed present. I say assumed because I did not see them in the street – the place was kept secure by the Palestinians themselves and by their shopkeepers doing business even with people that perhaps they had reasons to dislike.
“What’s wrong with living a normal life in Ramallah,” proclaims the gold-framed maxim on the wall of “Zeit and Zaater” (Olive Oil and Thyme), Abdulhadi’s little restaurant on main street opposite the famed Rukab ice-cream parlor. Another framed certificate reads: “Guinness Book of World Records: World’s Largest Tabouleh Salad.”
Abdulhadi, 48, is a jovial sort. He likes his food, likes his work, likes doing his bit to win international recognition for independent Palestine. His recipe: Use Guinness to put Palestinian cuisine on the world’s table.
Some dish, that victorious salad. Tabouleh’s usually just an appetizer. Not Abdulhadi’s. His 1,081 kilos of chopped parsley, bulgur wheat, onion, tomato and mint filled a 15-foot plate. What Abdulhadi relished most was the “political victory”: “It took me 18 months to convince Guinness to enter it under ‘Palestine’ – not ‘occupied West Bank,’ not even ‘occupied Palestine,’ simply Palestine.”
Abdulhadi’s food campaign began when he heard from a friend who’d flown in from the U.S. — he himself lived for years in New York — that El Al, the Israeli national airline, served musakhan, chicken and onion on pita bread spiced with purple sumac, as an “Israeli national dish.”
Abdulhadi found that hard to digest. “Everyone knows musakhan is Palestinian. They’ve tried it before with hummus and falafel. Israeli chutzpah, I call it.”
Once his tabouleh was finally consumed, under his ladle, Palestinian chefs went on to win another heavyweight title, “World’s Largest Musakhan.”
“We need recognition for what we achieve in the normal run of life,” Abdulhadi says. “Like people everywhere we love our children, we’re chefs, businessmen, carpenters, farmers, industrialists, shopkeepers, we’re participants in the society of the world. We’re not just a resistance movement fighting the occupation.”
Biggest tabouleh, gargantuan musakhan — hardly world title categories likely to impress the world. But Abdulhadi also knows the power of providing food for thought: “It’s important that people hear about the inequities of daily life under the occupation, I realize that. But what really impresses is when you can identify with us, just because we are like you. Don’t we also laugh, cry, love, eat well, compete? By competing on the world stage, we show we exist. Sometimes, we can also be best.”
If Israelis sometimes grumble at the biblical burden of being designated “God’s chosen people,” Abdulhadi seems content to be chosen only by a contemporary best-seller rival to the Bible, the Guinness Book of World Records. At the least, his irreverence grants him a sense of freedom he doesn’t get from Israel.
Abdulhadi’s goal now is to create a new category, for Palestine to hold the “Biggest Number of Guinness Titles” title. No wonder he’s earned the nickname, “Mr. Guinness in Palestine” (or should that be “Mr. Palestine in Guinness”).
And Abdulhadi isn’t confining himself to “biggest”: “Last year I applied for Palestine as ‘The Longest Occupation.”’ Now that would be a major title.
He was rebuffed. “They said, ‘Tibet has been longer.’ I said, ‘Tibet didn’t apply.’ They said, ‘You’re just being provocative.’ I said, ‘All right, I’m applying for the title, ‘The Most Wonderful Occupation.”’
What if Israel were to object?
“Great, I’d tell them, ‘Beat me at my own game, end your most wonderful occupation, the sooner the better.’ I’ll be thrilled to surrender all our Guinness titles — just so long as they get ‘The End of the Most Wonderful Occupation’ title.”
Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler are Jerusalem-based reporters and documentary filmmakers.
This by Alphonse Mucha, the Czech Nationalist artist, is a Google Contribution to the story – somehow it appeared out of nowhere on our screen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Mu…
“We are even prepared to put him in the Moscow City Aquarium if that were the condition.” He said Paul would be given “the best food” and officials would ..
Paul the German octopus living in an aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany at sea life centre and became famous when he forecasted and concluded, …
We wonder if a group from China’s Macao will top the Russian offer? Will the Las Vegas bookmakers make a move?
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Germans arrest 6 suspected of rebel Tamil support.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: Mar 5, 2010 9:05 PM
BERLIN: German prosecutors said Friday that they have arrested six people suspected of being members of a wing of the Tamil Tiger rebels and of forcing Tamils living in Germany to make donations to the banned group.
The three German and three Sri Lankan nationals were arrested on Wednesday following searches in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, federal prosecutors said in a statement. The six are accused of serving in the leadership of the Tamil Coordination Committee, or TCC. The TCC is a Germany-based wing of the Tamil Tigers, who were defeated in 2009 after 25 years of civil war in Sri Lanka. The Tigers are listed as terrorists by the European Union. Prosecutors said the committee was “tasked with siphoning finances off of Tamils living in Germany and transferring the collected money and objects to Sri Lanka.” The six were identified only as Vijikanendra V. S., 34 — the alleged ringleader — Sivanathan T., 58, and Ragulan S., 22, all Sri Lankan citizens. The German citizens were identified as Sasitharan M., 33, Koneswaran T., 39, and 42-year-old Poobalasingham T.
Kriminalität : Tamilische Tiger mit Büro in Oberhausen?
Oberhausen, 05.03.2010, Helen Sibum
Oberhausen. Organisation mit Sitz an der Marktstraße soll Geld für die „Befreiungstiger“ eingetrieben haben.
Nur ein kleines Klingelschild weist hin auf das, was die Bundesstaatsanwaltschaft für den deutschen Ableger einer Terrororganisation hält. „TCC“ steht darauf, eine Abkürzung für „Tamil Coordination Committee“. Von einem Wohn- und Geschäftshaus an der unteren Marktstraße aus soll die Organisation Gelder eingetrieben haben für die „tamilischen Befreiungstiger“. Das Bundeskriminalamt hat die Räume am Mittwoch durchsucht und sechs mutmaßliche Spitzenmänner des TCC festgenommen.
Vorwurf der Erpressung
Einen der Männer im Alter zwischen 22 und 58 Jahren fasste man am Mittwoch in Oberhausen, die übrigen in anderen Städten Nordrhein-Westfalens. Laut Bundesanwaltschaft handelt es sich beim TCC um das Führungsgremium der deutschen Sektion der „Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam“ (LTTE). Die Europäische Union stuft die LTTE als Terrororganisation ein. Schon deshalb ist es strafbar, sie finanziell zu unterstützen, und genau das wirft man den Beschuldigten vor. „Sie haben Geld für den bewaffneten Kampf in ihrer Heimat beschafft“, so Frank Wallenta, Sprecher der Karlsruher Behörde.
Hinzu kommt, dass die nun Festgenommenen offenbar erheblichen Druck auf Landsleute ausübten, um ihr Ziel zu erreichen. Das TCC habe „ein durchstrukturiertes, hierarchisches Eintreibungssystem aufgebaut, in dessen Rahmen auch erpresserische Mittel eingesetzt wurden“. So habe man hier lebenden Tamilen gedroht, bei Nicht-Kooperation ihre Angehörigen in der Heimat zu verschleppen oder als Soldaten zu rekrutieren.
Der Bürgerkrieg in Sri Lanka gilt seit 2009 als beendet. Die singhalesische Regierung erklärte die „Befreiungstiger“ für besiegt, diese kündigten einen Waffenstillstand an, nachdem sie mehr als 25 Jahre für einen unabhängigen Tamilenstaat gekämpft hatten. Den freilich wünschen sich viele Tamilen nach wie vor und beklagen eine unterdrückerische und diskriminierende Politik Sri Lankas. Bei einem symbolischen Referendum im Januar verliehen Tamilen auch in Oberhausen ihrem Unmut erneut Ausdruck (die NRZ berichtete).
Freiwillig gespendet
Deutliche Distanzierungen von den LTTE hört man dabei selten – es ist die ewige Diskussion über die Grenze zwischen Terrorismus und Befreiungskampf. „Die singhalesische Regierung war schlimmer“, sagt ein tamilischer Seelsorger. Er habe früher selbst für die LTTE gespendet – freiwillig, wie er betont. Von der Existenz des TCC weiß er, nicht aber von Erpressungen. Kleidersammlungen und tamilischen Unterricht soll das Komitee organisiert haben. Andere Tamilen weichen auf das TCC angesprochen aus – ob aus Überzeugung oder aus Angst, wer weiß das schon.
Terror in Oberhausen : Terroristischer Organisation auf der Spur
Oberhausen, 05.03.2010, WAZ
Die Bundesanwaltschaft hat in NRW mutmaßliche Führungskräfte des „Tamil Coordination Committee“ festnehmen lassen. Im Zentrum des TCC in Oberhausen traf es den 22 Jahre alten sri-lankischen Staatsangehörigen Ragulan S., der jetzt in Untersuchungshaft sitzt. Er soll dem Führungsgremium des TCC seit Sommer 2008 angehören und seitdem koordinierende Tätigkeiten im TCC-Zentrum Oberhausen ausgeübt haben. Neben Ragulan S. wurden fünf weitere Männer im Alter von 33 bis 58 Jahren festgenommen. Bis auf einen, gegen den der Haftbefehl außer Vollzug gesetzt wurde, sitzen alle in Untersuchungshaft.
Das TCC ist das Führungsgremium der deutschen Sektion der „Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam“ (LTTE), heißt es in einer Presseerklärung der Bundesanwaltschaft. Die LTTE gilt als terroristische Vereinigung. Die TCC habe die Aufgabe, in Deutschland lebenden Tamilen Geld abzuknöpfen. Die Gelder fließen nach Sri Lanka, um dort terroristische Aktionen zu finanzieren. Das TCC hat, so die Bundesanwaltschaft, ein Eintreibungssystem aufgebaut. Die Mitglieder schreckten vor Erpressung nicht zurück. So würde gedroht, in Sri Lanka lebende Familienangehörige der Exiltamilen zu verschleppen oder zwangsweise als Soldaten zu rekrutieren.
Ähnliche Phänomene gibt es bei der Kurdenorganisationen PKK oder der türkischen DKKPC (Revolutionäre Volksbefreiungspartei-Front).
Bundesanwaltschaft – Tamilen-Führer in Nordrhein-Westfalen festgenommen
Die Bundesanwaltschaft hat am Mittwoch in Nordrhein-Westfalen mutmaßliche Führungsfunktionäre des «Tamil Coordination Committee» (TCC) festnehmen lassen. Wie die Behörde am Freitag in Karlsruhe mitteilte, wurden sechs Personen im Alter zwischen 22 und 58 Jahren durch Beamte des Bundeskriminalamtes mit Unterstützung örtlicher Polizeikräfte festgenommen.
Tamilen-Führer in Nordrhein-Westfalen festgenommen
Im Rahmen der Ermittlungen wurden acht Objekte durchsucht, darunter das Zentrum des TCC in Oberhausen. Die Tatverdächtigen sollen sich an einer kriminellen Vereinigung beteiligt haben.
Die Organisation TCC gilt als Führungsgremium der deutschen Sektion der Separatistenbewegung «Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam» (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. Die LTTE ist nach Angaben der Bundesanwaltschaft aufgrund eines Beschlusses des Rats der Europäischen Union seit Mai 2006 als terroristische Vereinigung gelistet. Es ist daher nach dem Außenwirtschaftsgesetz strafbar, der Organisation Vermögens- oder Sachwerte zukommen zu lassen.
Das TCC hat demnach die Aufgabe, die in Deutschland lebenden Tamilen finanziell abzuschöpfen und die eingetriebenen Gelder sowie Gegenstände, die die LTTE für ihre terroristischen Zwecke benötigt, nach Sri Lanka zu transferieren. Um ein möglichst hohe Einnahmen zu sichern, hat das TCC laut Bundesanwaltschaft ein durchstrukturiertes hierarchisches Eintreibungssystem aufgebaut, in dessen Rahmen auch erpresserische Mittel eingesetzt werden, etwa die Drohung, die im Einflussgebiet der LTTE in Sri Lanka lebenden Familienangehörigen der Exiltamilen zu verschleppen oder zwangsweise als Soldaten zu rekrutieren.
Die Beschuldigten wurden am Mittwoch und Donnerstag dem Ermittlungsrichter des Bundesgerichtshofs vorgeführt, der ihnen die Haftbefehle eröffnet und gegen fünf Tatverdächtige den Vollzug der Untersuchungshaft angeordnet hat. Bei einem Beschuldigten wurde der Haftbefehl gegen Auflagen außer Vollzug gesetzt. Mit den weiteren Ermittlungen ist das Bundeskriminalamt beauftragt.
Karlsruhe/Oberhausen (ddp)
Führungsfunktionäre der Tamil Tigers in Deutschland verhaftet
Fünf führende Funktionäre eines deutschen Ablegers der terroristischen Tamil-Tiger-Organisation aus Sri Lanka sind auf Betreiben der Bundesanwaltschaft verhaftet worden.
Karlsruhe – Den Beschuldigten im Alter von 22 bis 58 Jahren wird Mitgliedschaft in einer kriminellen Vereinigung vorgeworfen, wie die Anklagebehörde am Freitag in Karlsruhe mitteilte.
Wie es hieß, wurden die Männer am Mittwoch auf Grundlage des bereits am 16. Dezember ausgestellten Haftbefehls festgenommen. Daran waren Beamte des Bundeskriminalamts und örtliche Polizeikräfte aus Nordrhein-Westfalen beteiligt. Den Angaben zufolge wurden im Rahmen der Ermittlungen acht Objekte durchsucht, darunter das Zentrum des „Tamil Coordination Committee“ (TCC) in Oberhausen. Die Männer seien dringend verdächtig, sich in der aus Führungskadern des TCC bestehenden kriminellen Vereinigung betätigt zu haben, erklärte die Behörde von Generalbundesanwältin Monika Harms.
Die Bundesanwaltschaft bezeichnete das „Tamil Coordination Committee“ als Führungsgremium der deutschen Sektion der „Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam“ (LTTE). Die LTTE wird nach einem Beschluss des Rats der Europäischen Union seit Mai 2006 als terroristische Vereinigung gelistet. Es sei daher nach dem Außenwirtschaftsgesetz strafbar, der Organisation Vermögens- oder Sachwerte zukommen zu lassen. Das TCC habe aber die Aufgabe, die in Deutschland lebenden Tamilen finanziell abzuschöpfen und die eingetriebenen Gelder oder Gegenstände, die die LTTE für ihre terroristischen Zwecke benötige, nach Sri Lanka zu transferieren.
Angehörige von Exiltamilen in Sri Lanka verschleppt
Um ein möglichst hohes Aufkommen an Einnahmen zu sichern, habe das TCC „ein durchstrukturiertes hierarchisches Eintreibungssystem aufgebaut, in dessen Rahmen auch erpresserische Mittel eingesetzt werden“. Dazu gehöre etwa die Drohung, im Einflussgebiet der LTTE in Sri Lanka lebende Familienangehörige der Exiltamilen zu verschleppen oder zwangsweise als Soldaten zu rekrutieren.
Als Rädelsführer bezeichnete die Anklagebehörde den festgenommenen 34 Jahre alten sri-lankischen Staatsangehörigen Vijikanendra V.S. Er soll seit Juni 2006 Deutschlandverantwortlicher des TCC sein. Alle Beschuldigten wurden am Mittwoch und Donnerstag dem Ermittlungsrichter des Bundesgerichtshofs vorgeführt, der ihnen die Haftbefehle eröffnete. Er ordnete in vier der fünf Fälle den Vollzug der Untersuchungshaft an. Nur für einen 42-jährigen Festgenommenen wurde der Haftbefehl gegen Auflagen außer Vollzug gesetzt. Mit den weiteren Ermittlungen wurde das Bundeskriminalamt beauftragt. (apn)
apn-Nachrichten/AP-Bilder – alle Rechte vorbehalten. apn-Nachrichten und AP-Bilder dürfen ohne vorherige ausdrückliche Erlaubnis weder veröffentlicht, umgeschrieben oder weiter verbreitet werden, sei dies zu gewerblichen und anderen Zwecken.
Swedavia Swedish Airports Chooses Tricorona as Supplier of Gold Standard CDM Carbon Offsets.
Recently, Swedavia Swedish Airports, which runs
Sweden’s state-owned airports, announced that it
has chosen Tricorona as supplier of Gold Standard
CDM carbon offsetts for the next three years.
The initiative is part of Swedavia’s comprehensive climate
strategy, which includes reducing and offsetting
climate impact of the organization’s operations.
“Gold Standard CDM” represents the highest quality
level available for offset projects,” said Lena Wennberg,
environmental manager at Swedavia, “and Tricorona is
one of the few companies worldwide whose projects
meet its strict criteria for genuine carbon reductions
and contribution to sustainable development.”
The offset projects chosen are Sri Balaji, a biomass power
plant in India, and Yinyi and Yangjiayao, two wind
farms in China.
These projects save carbon emissions
by displacing coal power, and have a wide range of
benefits, such as reduced local air pollution and greater
security of energy supply for rural communities.
The emissions to be offset arise from Swedavia’s energy
use in buildings and fuel use in vehicles at all 14 of its
airports, as well as the organization’s business travel.
Information excerpted from Tricorona press release
dated May 25, 2010, see www.tricorona.se.
Oxford and UNDP launch a better way to measure poverty.
London, 14 July 2010 - The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of Oxford University and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today launched a new poverty measure that gives a “multidimensional” picture of people living in poverty which its creators say could help target development resources more effectively.
The new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, was developed and applied by OPHI with UNDP support, and will be featured in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report. The MPI supplants the Human Poverty Index, which had been included in the annual Human Development Reports since 1997.
The 2010 UNDP Human Development Report will be published in late October, but research findings from the Multidimensional Poverty Index were made available today at a policy forum in London and on line on the websites of OPHI (http://www.ophi.org.uk) and the UNDP Human Development Report (http://hdr.undp.org/en/).
The MPI assesses a range of critical factors or ‘deprivations’ at the household level: from education to health outcomes to assets and services. Taken together, these factors provide a fuller portrait of acute poverty than simple income measures, according to OPHI and UNDP. The measure reveals the nature and extent of poverty at different levels: from household up to regional, national and international level. This new multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by Chile and Colombia.
“The MPI is like a high resolution lens which reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households,” said OPHI Director Dr Sabina Alkire, who created the MPI with Professor James Foster of George Washington University.
The UNDP Human Development Report Office is joining forces with OPHI to promote international discussions on the practical applicability of this multidimensional approach to measuring poverty. “We are featuring the Multidimensional Poverty Index in the 20th anniversary edition of the Human Development Report this year because we consider it a highly innovative approach to quantifying acute poverty,” Dr Jeni Klugman, Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office and the principal author of this year’s Report, said. “The MPI provides a fuller measure of poverty than the traditional dollar-a-day formulas. It is a valuable addition to the family of instruments we use to examine broader aspects of well-being, including UNDP’s Human Development Index and other measures of inequality across the population and between genders.”
OPHI researchers analysed data from 104 countries with a combined population of 5.2 billion (78 per cent of the world total). About 1.7 billion people in the countries covered – a third of their entire population – live in multidimensional poverty, according to the MPI. This exceeds the 1.3 billion people, in those same countries, estimated to live on $1.25 a day or less, the more commonly accepted measure of “extreme poverty.
The MPI also captures distinct and broader aspects of poverty. For example, in Ethiopia 90 per cent of people are ‘MPI poor’ compared to the 39 per cent who are classified as living in ‘extreme poverty’ under income terms alone. Conversely, 89 per cent of Tanzanians are extreme income-poor, compared to 65 per cent who are MPI poor. The MPI captures deprivations directly – in health and educational outcomes and key services, such as water, sanitation and electricity. In some countries these resources are provided free or at low cost; in others they are out of reach even for many working people with an income.
Half of the world’s poor as measured by the MPI live in South Asia (51 per cent or 844 million people) and one quarter in Africa (28 per cent or 458 million). Niger has the greatest intensity and incidence of poverty in any country, with 93 per cent of the population classified as poor in MPI terms.
Even in countries with strong economic growth in recent years, the MPI analysis reveals the persistence of acute poverty. India is a major case in point. There are more MPI poor people in eight Indian states alone (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million). The MPI also reveals great variations within countries: Nairobi has the same level of MPI poverty as the Dominican Republic, whereas Kenya’s rural northeast is poorer in MPI terms than Niger.
The recently released 2010 UN Millennium Development Goals Report stressed that the MDGs will be fully achieved only by addressing the needs of those most disadvantaged by geography, age, gender or ethnicity, OPHI researchers point out. “Our measure identifies the most vulnerable households and groups and enables us to understand exactly which deprivations afflict their lives”, said Dr. Alkire. “The new measure can help governments and development agencies wishing to target aid more effectively to those specific communities.”
BEIJING — A leading Chinese Internet regulator has vowed to reduce anonymity in China’s portion of cyberspace, calling for new rules to require people to use their real names when buying a mobile phone or going online, according to a human rights group.
In an address to the national legislature in April, Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, called for perfecting the extensive system of censorship the government uses to manage the fast-evolving Internet, according to a text of the speech obtained by New York-based Human Rights in China.
China’s regime has a complicated relationship with the freewheeling Internet, reflected in its recent standoff with Google over censorship of search results. China this week confirmed it had renewed Google’s license to operate, after it agreed to stop automatically rerouting users to its Hong Kong site, which is not subject to China’s online censorship.
The Internet is China’s most open and lively forum for discussion, despite already pervasive censorship, but stricter controls could constrain users. The country’s online population has surged past 400 million, making it the world’s largest.
Chen’s comments were reported only briefly when they were made in April. Human Rights in China said the government quickly removed a full transcript posted on the legislature’s website. But the group said it found an unexpurgated text and the discrepancies show that Beijing is wary that its push for tighter information control might prove unpopular.
Wang said holes that needed to be plugged included ways people could post comments or access information anonymously, according to the transcript published this week in the group’s magazine China Rights Forum.
“We will make the Internet real name system a reality as soon as possible, implement a nationwide cell phone real name system, and gradually apply the real name registration system to online interactive processes,” the journal quoted Wang as saying.
As part of that Internet “real name system,” forum moderators would have to use their real names as would users of online bulletin boards, and anonymous comments on news stories would be removed, Wang is quoted as saying.
The State Council Information Office did not immediately respond to a faxed request asking whether certain sections of Wang’s address to the legislature were altered in the official transcript.
Wang’s comments are in line with recent government statements that indicate a growing uneasiness toward the multitude of opinions found online. A Beijing-backed think tank this month accused the U.S. and other Western governments of using social-networking sites such as Facebook to spur political unrest and called for stepped-up scrutiny.
China has blocked sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, although technologically savvy users can easily jump the so-called “Great Firewall” with proxy servers or other alternatives. Websites about human rights and dissidents are also routinely banned.
Thank you Dr. Tara for your analytical and thought provoking article that painted the true picture of the last four years.
I pledge no addition or edition of your opinion but simply to ask those who are intending to contest the next election not to hide behind politic rhetoric to confuse the voters to vote for you.
Please give us a clear definition of how our villages are going to included in your plan and do not cover it with pictures of utopia because we know things will get tougher.
We want people who can distinguish between their entitlements and public money.
Marginalization of the villages in meaningful development of villages is an old issue, we have hoped to instill change in the previous elections but failed.
Most new MPs who we banked on were caught unprepared by, gold, glory and you name it.
In this election the loudest voice calling for change are the existing politicians and they are doing this by forming Political Parties left, right and center. Is this not a political ploy to divid us to vote them in, only to find that they throw their different colors and wear the same coats we see in the last house?
Old times we know your works and some a below satisfactory, you have nothing to prove cause your history has already proven who you are and what you are capable of doing.
New Kids on the Block, please if you are going to represent us then go in and do not be lured by power,money and entertainment. We want our villages to have good water supply, sanitation, improved housing, road systems and skills to run our canteens, grow our cocoa, coconut plantations etc. We want to be players in the economic activities in this nation.
We believe you have enough money to achieve the above in the next 12 years if our friend in need and indeed Taiwan continues t help us
Please do not confuse us in the name of dialogue by linking us with the Arab league, they have enough internal problems. Please do not allow us to bear part of their problem. History has shown over and over again that money is linked to human resource.
Old Timers there is still time for you to change your attitudes to deserve our votes. There is room for improvements
New candidates you must be a changed person to induce change . For we can only offer what we have.
Let us forget about “Bottom up Approach”, Rural Advancement” and Rural Development to talk more about Village Development, after all Solomon Islands is made up of villages.
Dear Editor; a couple of weeks ago I wrote to the Solomon Times suggesting that a Solomon Island Green Party be formed.
I have had quite a few enquiries for the Green Party (NZ) constitution from Solomon Islanders in Brisbane, Wellington Taiwan and Japan and I hope they take the initiative and form a SIGP by the next election.
I have read a very good letter from Travis Kalione advising voters to steer clear of candidates making promises. I agree promises are cheap!
Those standing for parliament, however should state very clearly what they stand for; eg. Labour or business etc.
“A man who does not stand for something.
Will fall for anything”
G.K. Chesterton.
This is the Aotearoa New Zealand Charter:
The charter is the founding document of the Green Party of Aotearoa , New Zealand.
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand accepts Te Tiriti o Waitangi [The Treaty of Waitangi] as the founding document of Aotearoa NZ; recognises Maori as Tangata Whenua in Aotearoa NZ; and commits to the following four principles.
[Tangata Whenua; means the 1st people of the land]
Ecological Wisdom:
The basis of ecological wisdom is that human beings are a part of the natural world.
This world is finite, therefore unlimited material growth is impossible. Ecological sustainability is paramount.
Social Responsibility:
Unlimited material growth is impossible; therefore the key to social responsibility is the just distribution of social and natural resourses, both locally and globally.
Appropriate Decision Making:
For the implementation of ecological wisdom and social responsibility, decisions will be made directly at the appropriate level by those affected.
Non Violence:
Non violent conflict resolution is the process by which ecological wisdom, social responsibility and appropriate decision making will be implemented. This principle applies at all levels.
The above is the Greens philosophy in a nut shell, the constitution is an elaboration of the above.
The Charter is simply a declaration of what a party or individual stands for.
The above document can be used as a good yard stick to measure the other parties in the coming election.
Any more inquiries are welcome you can e-mail me at ekard at slingshot.co.nz
God bless
Paul Drake
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 10:20 AM
SI Independence Celebrated in Adelaide, South Australia
BY APOLLOS KALIALAHA IN ADELAIDE
The highlights on the occasion were the Warriors welcome performed by the community’s men and the community’s Children singing the two National Anthems of Solomon Islands and Australia.
The Solomon Islands Community in Adelaide, South Australia, has celebrated the Solomon Islands 32nd Independence Day on the 10th July, 2010.
It was a real Pacific Island atmosphere, as those took part and attended included friends from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, North Solomons, Tuvalu and Tongan communities. Others were friends, in-laws and Ex-RAMSI officers.
The two special guests on the occasion were the South Australian Lieutenant Governor Mr Hieu Van Le and the Solomon Islands High Commissioner to Australia His Excellency Mr. Beraki Gino. The Governor in his speech spoke highly of the effort that the Solomon Islands community has put together to register their community in the Multicultural Community of South Australia.
In his capacity as Chairman of South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission, the Governor has pledged his support for the Solomon Islands Community just as any newly formed community in South Australia. Solomon Islands High Commission to Australia His Excellency Mr. Beraki Gino has congratulated the group and thanked them for inviting him to this historical event.
“Because this is the first official event the community has hosted since becoming a community last year, it was indeed an honor to be part of the celebration,” he said.
As guest of honor he cut the Solomon Islands birthday cake, kindly donated by a PNG family who are very close to the SI community. The High Commissioner hosted a breakfast with the Solomon Islands community before catching his flight back to Canberra the next day.
The highlights on the occasion were the Warriors welcome performed by the community’s men and the community’s Children singing the two National Anthems of Solomon Islands and Australia. Food for the night was an Island dinner menu, something that really impressed most of the guests.
President of the Solomon Islands Wantok Association of South Australia, Apollos Kalialaha thanked the Solomon Islands community and guests for their attendance.
- There are 17 countries that total 80% emissions of CO2.
- The Basic Countries (Brazil, South Africa, India China) believe they are among the poor countries that need technology to store carbon dioxide emissions underground – that technology, seemingly they think so, was developed by Canada, Australia or the United States which they define as the rich countries.“We want a common position on technology transfer through partnerships in which poor countries are given access to technology and that they can get help with applying it as well,” a senior Indian government official said.
- Developing Nations, as defined by above Poor Nations, want new technology and billions of dollars in aid to help them move away from fossil fuels, as part of a deal at Cancun.
But it seems they think there is probably no problem with future technologies, but it is the sharing of the existing technologies that involves looking at issues of intellectual property rights (IPR),” said a New Delhi based independent climate change expert.
- From above we wonder if Minister Ramesh of India thinks the CCS technology is already available, and has to be shared equitably now, while indeed true new technologies will be developed by development front-runners, like the BASIC, so they have no worries of technology transfer in these future days. The financial issue is thus standing only for the technologies dealing with old energy systems – the CO2 emitting technologies – and the concept of storing the CO2 intrigues the Minister. There is no problem, seemingly, as reported, in Mr. Ramesh eyes with the novel technologies like the renewables.
We wonder if what is said in the posting we picked up is indeed what Minister Ramesh said?
=========================================
India Climate Meet Ahead Of Mexico To Push Tech Deal
Krittivas Mukherjee for Reuters from India – July 13, 2010.
India will try to push climate talks forward at a two-day ministerial meeting in November by focusing on winning agreement on sharing clean technologies, a sticky issue that divides rich and poor countries.
The Nov 8-9 talks are aimed at clarifying rules on sharing future innovations and existing technologies involving contentious intellectual property rights (IPR) issues.
The talks will come just weeks before a major U.N. climate meeting in Mexico and are an attempt to breathe new life into global climate negotiations after last December’s Copenhagen summit fell short of agreeing a treaty.
Brazil, South Africa, India and China — dubbed the BASIC group — were among more than 120 nations that agreed a non-binding deal in Copenhagen to limit a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.
But the accord lacked details of how to reach this goal.
Several poor countries said the rich industrialized world was not offering to cut emissions enough and they expressed fears they would not receive sufficient technology and funding to deal with global warming.
Indian officials said Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh made the offer to host the November talks at a meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) countries in Rome last month.
The MEF, which helped nudge big emitters to support a goal of limiting global warming to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, groups 17 nations that account for roughly 80 percent of the world’s emissions.
“We want a common position on technology transfer through partnerships in which poor countries are given access to technology and that they can get help with applying it as well,” a senior Indian government official said.
The BASIC countries say countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States should immediately provide countries like China and India technology to store carbon dioxide emissions underground.
U.N. climate talks are said to have made progress on sharing green technologies, but differences remain.
Developing nations want new technology and billions of dollars in aid to help them move away from fossil fuels, the main source of mankind’s planet-warming greenhouse gases, as part of a deal at the year-end U.N. talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun.
“There is probably no problems with future technologies, but it is the sharing of existing technologies that involves looking at issues of IPR,” said K. Srinivas, a New Delhi-based independent climate change expert.
“The Delhi meet will aim at having some progress in ironing out the differences over the IPR issues I think.”
WASHINGTON, Jul 6, 2010 (IPS) – The bicycle has many attractions as a form of personal transportation. It alleviates congestion, lowers air pollution, reduces obesity, increases physical fitness, does not emit climate-disrupting carbon dioxide, and is priced within the reach of the billions of people who cannot afford a car.
Bicycles increase mobility while reducing congestion and the area of land paved over. Six bicycles can typically fit into the road space used by one car. For parking, the advantage is even greater, with 20 bicycles occupying the space required to park a car.
Few methods of reducing carbon emissions are as effective as substituting a bicycle for a car on short trips. A bicycle is a marvel of engineering efficiency, one where an investment in 22 pounds of metal and rubber boosts the efficiency of individual mobility by a factor of three.
The bicycle is not only a flexible means of transportation; it is ideal in restoring a balance between caloric intake and expenditure. Regular exercise of the sort provided by cycling to work reduces cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and arthritis, and it strengthens the immune system.
World bicycle production, averaging 94 million per year from 1990 to 2002, climbed to 130 million in 2007, far outstripping automobile production of 70 million. Bicycle sales in some markets are surging as governments devise a myriad of incentives to encourage bicycle use. For example, in 2009 the Italian government began a hefty incentive programme to encourage the purchase of bicycles or electric bikes in order to improve urban air quality and reduce the number of cars on the road. The direct payments will cover up to 30 percent of the cost of the bicycle.
China, with 430 million bikes, has the world’s largest fleet, but ownership rates are higher in Europe. The Netherlands has more than one bike per person, while Denmark and Germany have just under one bike per person.
China dramatically demonstrated the capacity of the bicycle to provide mobility for low-income populations. In 1976, this country produced six million bicycles. After the reforms in 1978 that led to an open market economy and rapidly rising incomes, bicycle production started climbing, reaching nearly 90 million in 2007.
The surge to 430 million bicycle owners in China has provided the greatest increase in mobility in history. Bicycles took over rural roads and city streets. Although China’s rapidly multiplying passenger cars and the urban congestion they cause get a lot of attention, it is bicycles that provide personal mobility for hundreds of millions of Chinese.
Among the industrial-country leaders in designing bicycle-friendly transport systems are the Netherlands, where 27 percent of all trips are by bike, Denmark with 18 percent, and Germany, 10 percent. By contrast, the United States and Britain are each at 1 percent.
An excellent study by John Pucher and Ralph Buehler at Rutgers University analyzed the reasons for these wide disparities among countries. They note that “extensive cycling rights-of-way in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany are complemented by ample bike parking, full integration with public transport, comprehensive traffic education and training of both cyclists and motorists.”
These countries, they point out, “make driving expensive as well as inconvenient in central cities through a host of taxes and restrictions on car ownership, use and parking.… It is the coordinated implementation of this multi-faceted, mutually reinforcing set of policies that best explains the success of these three countries in promoting cycling.” And it is the lack of these policies, they note, that explains “the marginal status of cycling in the UK and USA”.
The Netherlands, the unquestioned leader among industrial countries in encouraging bicycle use, has incorporated a vision of the role of bicycles into a Bicycle Master Plan. In addition to creating bike lanes and trails in all its cities, the system also often gives cyclists the advantage over motorists in right-of-way and at traffic lights. Some traffic signals permit cyclists to move out before cars. By 2007, Amsterdam had become the first western industrial city where the number of trips taken by bicycle exceeded those taken by car.
Within the Netherlands, a nongovernmental group called Interface for Cycling Expertise (I-ce) has been formed to share the Dutch experience in designing a modern transport system that prominently features bicycles. It is working with groups in Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Kenya, Peru, South Africa, and Uganda to facilitate bicycle use.
Sales of electric bicycles, a relatively new genre of transport vehicles, also have taken off. E-bikes are similar to plug-in hybrid cars in that they are powered by two sources – in this case muscle and battery power – and can be plugged into the grid for recharging as needed.
In China, where this technology came into its own, sales climbed from 40,000 e-bikes in 1998 to 21 million in 2008. China had close to 100 million electric bicycles on the road that year, compared with 18 million cars. These e-bikes are now attracting attention in other Asian countries similarly plagued with air pollution and in the United States and Europe, where combined sales now exceed 300,000 per year.
In contrast to plug-in hybrid cars, electric bikes do not directly use any fossil fuel. If we can make the transition from coal-fired power plants to wind, solar, and geothermal power, then electrically powered bicycles can also operate fossil-fuel-free.
Above all, the key to realising the potential of the bicycle is to create bicycle-friendly transport systems. This means providing bicycle trails and designated street lanes for bicycles, designed to serve both commuters and people biking for recreation, and making bike parking facilities and showers available at workplaces. This simple bicycle is a winner in the Plan B economy.
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*Lester R. Brown is founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute. This article is excerpted from Chapter 6, “Designing Cities for People” in Brown’s ‘Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilisation’ (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on-line at www.earthpolicy.org
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (Spanish pronunciation: [mi?t?el ?at?e?let]; born September 29, 1951) is a moderate socialist politician who was President of Chile from 11 March 2006 to 11 March 2010—the first woman president in the country’s history.
Facing growing food shortages, the government of Salvador Allende placed Bachelet’s father in charge of the Food Distribution Office. When General Augusto Pinochet came to power in the September 11, 1973 coup, General Bachelet, refusing exile, was detained at the Air War Academy under charges of treason. Following months of daily torture at Santiago’s Public Prison, on March 12, 1974, he suffered a cardiac arrest that resulted in his death. On January 10, 1975, Bachelet and her mother were detained at their apartment by two DINA agents, who blindfolded them and drove them to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious secret detention center in Santiago, where they were separated and submitted to interrogation and torture.[13] Some days later they were transferred to Cuatro Álamos (“Four Poplars”) detention center, where they were held until the end of January. Later in 1975, thanks to sympathetic connections in the military, both were exiled to Australia, where Bachelet’s older brother Alberto had moved in 1969.
Her paternal great-great-grandfather, Louis-Joseph Bachelet Lapierre, was a French wine merchant from Chassagne-Montrachet who emigrated to Chile with his Parisian wife, Françoise Jeanne Beault, in 1860 hired as a wine-making expert by the Subercaseaux vineyards in southern Santiago.
In February 1979, Bachelet returned to Santiago, Chile from East Germany. Her medical school credits from the GDR were not transferred, forcing her to resume her studies from where she had left off before fleeing the country. [citation needed] She graduated as M.D. on January 7, 1983. She wished to work in the public sector wherever attention was most needed, applying for a position as general practitioner; her petition was, however, rejected by the military government on “political grounds.” Instead, because of her academic performance and published papers, she earned a scholarship to specialize in pediatrics and public health at Roberto del Río Children’s Hospital (1983–1986). During this time she also worked at PIDEE (Protection of Children Injured by States of Emergency Foundation), a non-governmental organization helping children of the tortured and missing in Santiago and Chillán. She was head of the foundation’s Medical Department between 1986 and 1990. Some time after her second child with Dávalos, Francisca Valentina, was born in February 1984, she and her husband legally separated. She is a separated mother of three and describes herself as an agnostic.
Driven by an interest in civil-military relations, in 1996 Bachelet began studies in military strategy at the National Academy for Strategic and Policy Studies (Anepe) in Chile, obtaining first place in her class.[2] Her student achievement earned her a presidential scholarship, permitting her to continue her studies in the United States at the Inter-American Defense College in Washington, D.C., completing a Continental Defense Course in 1998. That same year she returned to Chile to work for the Defense Ministry as Senior Assistant to the Defense Minister. She subsequently graduated from a Master’s program in military science at the Chilean Army‘s War Academy.
In 1996 Bachelet ran against future presidential adversary Joaquín Lavín for the mayorship of Las Condes, a wealthy Santiago suburb and a right-wing stronghold. Lavín won the 22-candidate election with nearly 78% of the vote, while she finished fourth at 2.35%. At the 1999 presidential primary of Coalition of Parties for Democracy (CPD), Chile’s governing coalition since 1990, she worked for Ricardo Lagos’s nomination, heading the Santiago electoral zone.
On March 11, 2000 Bachelet—virtually unknown at the time—was appointed Minister of Health by President Ricardo Lagos. She began an in-depth study of the public health-care system that led to the AUGE plan a few years later. She was also given the task of eliminating waiting lists in the saturated public hospital system within the first 100 days of Lagos’s government. She reduced waiting lists by 90%, but was unable to eliminate them completely and offered her resignation, which was promptly rejected by the President. Controversially, she allowed free distribution of the morning-after pill for victims of sexual abuse.
On January 7, 2002 Bachelet was appointed Defense Minister, becoming the first woman to hold this post in a Latin American country and one of the few in the world. While Minister of Defense she promoted reconciliatory gestures between the military and victims of the dictatorship, culminating in the historic 2003 declaration by General Juan Emilio Cheyre, head of the army, that “never again” would the military subvert democracy in Chile. She also oversaw a reform of the military pension system and continued with the process of modernization of the Chilean armed forces with the purchasing of new military equipment, while engaging in international peace operations.
A moment which has been cited as key to Bachelet’s chances to the presidency came during a flood in northern Santiago where she, as Defense Minister, led a rescue operation on top of an amphibious tank, wearing a cloak and military cap.
In late 2004, following a surge of her popularity in opinion polls, Bachelet was established as the only CPD figure able to defeat Lavín, and she was asked to become the Socialists’ candidate for the presidency.
According to The Economist magazine the government of Bachelet opted to make social protection and the promotion of equality of opportunity her main priority. Since becoming President, her government built 3,500 crèches daycare for poorer children. It introduced a universal minimum state pension and extended free health care to cover many serious conditions.
A new housing policy aimed at abolishing the last remaining shanty-towns in Chile by 2010 featured grants to the poorest families. Some of them had to pay just US$400 for a house costing about US$20,000.
In October 2009 Ms Bachelet’s popularity peaked at 80 percent according to a public opinion poll by conservative polling institute Adimark GfK., and in March 2010 she showed an approval rating of 84%, and in terms of specific characteristics attributed to Chile’s president, ‘loved by Chileans’ reached a record 96%.
The Chilean Constitution does not allow a president to serve two consecutive terms, so Bachelet left office in March 2010.
Chile’s October 16, 2006 vote in the United Nations Security Council election—with Venezuela and Guatemala deadlocked in a bid for the two-year, non-permanent Latin American and Caribbean seat on the Security Council — developed into a major ideological issue in the country, and was seen as a test for Bachelet. The governing coalition was divided between the Socialists, who supported a vote for Venezuela, and the Christian Democrats, who strongly opposed it. The day before the vote the president announced (through her spokesman) that Chile would abstain, citing as reason a lack of regional consensus over a single candidate, ending months of speculation.
Continuing the coalition’s free-trade strategy, in August 2006 Bachelet promulgated a free trade agreement with the People’s Republic of China (signed under the previous administration of Ricardo Lagos), the first Chinese free-trade agreement with a Latin American nation; similar deals with Japan and India were promulgated in August 2007. In October 2006, Bachelet promulgated a multilateral trade deal with New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (P4), also signed under Lagos’ presidency. She also held free-trade talks with other countries, including Australia, Vietnam, Turkey and Malaysia. Regionally, she signed bilateral free trade agreements with Panama, Peru and Colombia.
At the beginning of 2010 Chile became the OECD’s 31st member, and its first in South America. This acceptance for OECD membership marked international recognition of nearly two decades of democratic reform and sound economic policies; for the OECD, Chile’s membership was a major milestone in its mission to build a stronger, cleaner and fairer global economy
In 2009 Forbes magazine ranked her as the 22nd in the list of the 100 most powerful women in the world (she was #25 in 2008, #27 in 2007, and #17 in 2006). In 2008, TIME magazine ranked her 15 on its list of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Eleanor Clift wrote on politicsdaily.com on June 10, 2010 that Michelle Bachelet moved the Chilean Government from Macho – to – Maternal. She was clearly the best qualified person to establish and head the new UN institution that was baptized with the terrible name UNWOMEN. And you know what, letting into the UN building a highly qualified person may endanger the minions working there. That, is what doomed on me today, this because I also learned an additional fact about Bachellet’s Chile, and that is why I write this UPDATE. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/10/…
The additional fact I learned today came from reading material that will appear in an Energy Management Magazine Published in India. The article is by – Ms. Jimena Bronfman, Vice Minister of Energy, Chile , and it deals with Chile moving into leadership position on energy issues – and you guessed right if you said that Dr. Bachelet started this. In effect the Ministry of Energy – which for Chile is a Ministry of Energy Efficiency – was set up at the end of her days in the Presidential Office. We are sure that this was not an easy task to fulfill – but we are sure that it will be one of her most important legacies. We know that Energy Efficiency is not a top priority of the G77 real on-going leadership and this, more then anything else, explains the diatribe we described in our original posting which we updated now.
The creation of the Ministry of Energy in February 1st 2010 is an important milestone in this process. The law that is the basis for Chile’s current institutional framework also includes the creation of the Chilean Energy Efficiency Agency, a public private entity that will implement the public policies designed by the Energy Efficiency Division of the Ministry.
Energy Efficiency is one of the main goals of Chile’s national energy policy, families are changing their habits and industries, corporations and local governments are trying to reduce their energy consumption by adopting energy-efficient measures. This fostering environment was recently faced by the February 27th earthquake and tsunami that devastated several regions of our country. We have taken this catastrophe as an opportunity and a challenge to rebuild our towns and cities using energy efficiency and renewable energy.
The Ministry of Energy is working with other ministries, such as the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education to include energy efficiency measures and non-conventional renewable energies in the reconstruction of health and education infrastructure and emergency housing. We are also developing a pilot project to rebuild a town with the leading best practices in sustainability and energy consumption, so it can be replicated in other parts of the region and world.
Energy Efficiency is key to Chile’s competitiveness and economic growth. According to studies carried out before the earthquake, energy efficiency measures could help reduce Chile’s energy demand by around 14% by 2020. This would have a positive financial impact in the reconstruction process, as public funds saved by reduction of energy consumption can be reallocated to other priorities of the rebuilding program.
Energy Efficiency will also help Chile, whose economy is based on exports, to reduce its carbon footprint and be competitive in a world that is increasingly carbon-conscious. Although Chile’s contribution to global greenhouse emissions is low compared to many other nations, our wines, copper, fruits, fish and wood products are sold in developed markets that will require sustainable production processes.
In order to achieve our goals we are currently developing the Energy Efficiency Strategy for 2020. At the moment a draft proposal is being reviewed by key actors from the private and the public sectors who will be involved in the actual implementation of the strategy. The main objective of this process is to promote a broad discussion of the specific proposals, introduce appropriate improvements and gain comprehensive support for the energy saving goals contemplated in the strategy. The official version of the E3 will be published after completion of this discussion period, hopefully by the end of November 2010.
Other challenges for this year include the implementation of the rest of our institutional framework, which will be completed by the creation of the Chilean Energy Efficiency Agency, a public-private non-profit entity that will implement the Ministry’s public policies. It will be funded mainly through public funds but will include private sector representatives in its board. The focus of the Agency’s work will be guided by the E3 strategy; however, we shall also aim at developing other important projects such as education. We strongly believe that a crucial driver for change in these matters is highly-skilled human resources. Therefore, education in schools, undergraduate and post-graduate education is needed to introduce strong energy efficiency programs. Other important aspects of energy efficiency lie in smart-grid and net-metering programs.
Another main priority for 2010 is the development of energy efficiency labelling for cars, new houses and domestic appliances. Labelling is currently mandatory for refrigerators and light bulbs, and we aim to expand this initiative so consumers have all the information available to make the right decisions.
We also want to continue growing our international alliances and cooperation. We have already executed collaboration agreements with several countries and organizations worldwide, and we will work to strengthen and deepen those relationships. Energy Efficiency is a global effort that can be fostered by exchanging best practices that will benefit consumers, industries and countries all over the world.
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The China and Developing States, the full name of the G77 that purports speaking for 130 out of the 192 UN Member States, is a UN charade – simply, because there never was a common interest among all these various States Now, with China becoming at least a G2 with the United States, if not the straight Global Economic Super power, for her to use the leadership of this rag-tag bunch and push into leadership positions at the UN – Libya, Zimbabwe, Sudan etc. resulted in turning the whole UN into a laughable enterprise. Bravo to little Palau that walked out on this continuous obstructionist committee circuit that calls for time-out whenever the UN tries to reach some decision. We watched them at climate Change meetings where Saudi Arabia is their representative.
Perhaps there was once s difference between the industrialized European – North American countries plus Japan, and the rest of the world – this when the UN was created and the decolonizing process was giving birth to many new UN Member States – in effect multiplying by three the total number of global independent States, but since then much has changed.
The Latin ABC, Mexico, Korea, Turkey, India, Indonesia, South Africa have all knocked successfully at the corporate doors of development and entered the G20. The OECD club includes most of these G20 plus most EU States and Israel that is a perpetual G77 pariah. They have now real interests to defend and not much time for posturing – so we will see slowly a realignment also at the UN. OK, China and South Africa will not want to give up their positions as leaders of the 130. It keeps some of their diplomats in the circuit and the UN will continue the fiction, but how long hence that the AOSIS/SIDS will still play this game? When will they see that Palau was indeed a trailblazer? Will the lack of action on Climate Change by some of the major OECD members who effectively joined the Saudis in opposing real action on climate, push these States back into the G77 arms?
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 (IPS) – The Group of 77 (G77) has historically maintained a united front, vociferously protecting the economic interests of developing countries at the United Nations. But its longstanding solidarity is now being threatened by the continued presence of a single Latin American country which recently joined the ranks of a rich elitist group.
Chile, which was formally inducted last May into the 30-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), described as an exclusive club of industrial nations, has given no indications of leaving the G77, thereby triggering a sharp division of opinion among its 130 members. “Chile wants to have it both ways,” one G77 member told IPS, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It wants to have one foot in the OECD and another in the G77. But this is unacceptable to some of us.”
When Mexico and South Korea broke ranks with the developing world and joined the Paris-based OECD back in 1994 and 1996, respectively, both countries quit the G77, the largest single coalition of developing countries at the United Nations.
Chakravarti Raghavan, editor emeritus of the Geneva-based South-North Development Monitor published by the Third World Network, told IPS if Chile does not voluntarily quit the G77, the group must find a way around its longstanding convention of consensus decisions, and “politely but firmly throw Chile out”.
“This will be in line with the spirit and the intentions behind the formation of the Group of 77 and its functioning over all these years,” he added.
“It is probably about time that the G77 being an informal grouping expel Chile – on the simple ground that you can’t belong to two different groupings,” said Raghavan, who is considered a foremost authority on the G77, and who has written extensively about the Group since its inception in June 1964.
“It is my impression that Mexico, when it joined OECD, initially wanted to be in both camps, but was told it was not possible,” he added.
On North-South economic issues at the United Nations, the G77 and the OECD hold diametrically opposite views – most or all of the time.
The OECD is home to some of the world’s major economic powers, including the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan. Most of the emerging economic powers, including Brazil, India, China and South Africa, are longstanding members of the G77 and not members of the OECD.
But according to the OECD, it is planning to have discussions with Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa – all active members of the G77 – “with a view to possible membership”.
The G77 has lost four other members over the years: Cyprus and Malta (both in May 1994) and Romania (January 2007) when they joined the European Union.
A fourth country, Palau, a small island developing nation in the Pacific, withdrew from the G77 in June 2006, ostensibly for financial reasons.
Besides Chile, Mexico and South Korea, the OECD has also added three other non-G77 members into its ranks: Estonia, Slovenia and Israel.
Speaking off-the-record, a diplomat from a G77 country expressed a dissenting point of view when he told IPS: “There is nothing in the G77 rules or guidelines stating that an OECD member has to quit the G77.”
He said Chile is well within its rights to remain a member of the G77.
“And, while there may be a few in G77 who may not be pleased about Chile remaining in the G77, there are no serious moves afoot to push them out of the grouping,” he said. “Most of us, support Chile remaining in the G77. There will be strong resistance from a number of us if anyone tries to eject Chile from the G77.”
And as an after-thought, he added: “The OECD had made leaving the G77 a condition for Mexico’s entry into the OECD. However, when Chile was applying to the OECD, there was no such condition.”
Moreover, he said, Mexico stated that leaving the G77 should not be a condition for Chile’s entry.
Another G77 delegate told IPS that if Chile does not voluntarily leave the Group, as Mexico and South Korea did in previous years, a divided G77 may be forced to take a decision either way.
Meanwhile the former G8 – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia – has been expanded into the G20 to include seven developing nations (besides Australia, Mexico, South Korea, Turkey and the European Union).
The seven developing countries – Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa – are still members of the G77.
Chile has argued that G77 members that belong to the G20 should be considered in the same light as G77 members belonging to the OECD. But the G20 is not considered a formal body like the OECD, which is treaty-based and whose decisions are binding on all its members.
According to an OECD statement, the invitation to Chile to become the Organisation’s 31st member came at a time when the OECD is expanding its relations with the region.
As an OECD member, Chile will participate in all areas of the OECD’s work, from economic and financial policy to education, employment and social affairs. It will also join with other OECD countries to share experiences and best practices, setting new standards and developing new governance mechanisms for its economy and society more broadly.
The statement said that during two years of accession negotiations, Chile was reviewed by some 20 OECD committees with respect to OECD instruments, standards and benchmarks.
The invitation to take up membership confirms that Chile is taking appropriate steps to reform its economy including in the areas of corporate governance, anti-corruption, and environmental protection, the statement said.
Coninck,mw H.C. de (Heleen) <deconinck@ecn.nl>
