The following is from a China Government Media enterprise – the English language China Daily – it has become a major paper in the US and the UK.

Politics

Fight against economic crime needs cooperation.

Twenty-four suspects in a transnational telecom fraud case are escorted by police from the Philippines to Beijing on Feb 2, 2011. Liu Jie / Xinhua News Agency

CHINA DAILY – ASIA PACIFIC has sections on Asia Pacific, Mainland China, HK/Macao, and Taiwan – quite balanced news and tacitly reminding the US that there are global issues that are unfettered by the US elections. Simply said – the US Administration must be engaged all the time and cannot afford the luxury of taking time out while electing the President of Ohio and Florida.

Some articles today are:

Washington does not accept Japan’s claims to Diaoyu Islands

By Zhao Shengnan
October 9, 2012 – 9:00am www.chinadailyapac.com

A US Congressional report said Washington has never recognized Japan’s sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and takes no position over the territorial row between Japan and China.

The report, published on Sept 25 by the Congressional Research Service, said the US recognizes only Japan’s administrative power over the Diaoyu Islands after the Okinawa Reversion Treaty was signed in 1971.

China-Japan relations hit the lowest point in years after Tokyo’s so-called purchase of the Diaoyu Islands on Sept 10, a move sparking wide protest across China. The islands have been Chinese territory for centuries.

During Senate deliberations on whether to consent to the ratification of the treaty, the US State Department asserted that the US took a neutral position with regard to the competing claims of Japan and China, despite the US’ return of the islands to Japanese administration.

“Department officials asserted that reversion of administrative rights to Japan did not prejudice any claims to the islands,” said the report from the Congress’ think tank, the public-policy research arm of the US Congress.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Monday said he noted the US’ neutral position on the Diaoyu Islands in the report and added he hopes the US will “walk the talk”.

Analysts said the report, which reflects the Obama administration’s stance over the territorial row between its ally and China, is an effort to ease the escalating tension but can hardly change the US’ Japan-tilt policy.

However, according to the report, the Diaoyu Islands fall under the scope of the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty since 1972, which stipulates that the US is bound to protect “the territories under the administration of Japan”.

Under the treaty, the US guarantees Japan’s security in return for the right to station US troops – about 50,000 – in dozens of bases throughout the Japanese archipelago.

Washington has been ambiguous on the Diaoyu Islands issue as it supports Tokyo with the US-Japan Security Treaty, but has warned Tokyo not to break the “red line” of China or cause large-scale conflicts, said Feng Wei, an expert on Japanese studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Both Japan and the US have made some compromises in front of China’s all-round countermeasures over the issue, and “Washington is especially worried that the China-Japan territorial dispute could threaten US and Japan’s economy as well as the Asia-Pacific stability amid its strategic pivot to the region”, he said.

On Friday, Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba delivered a written statement to Taiwan saying that the Japanese government hopes to resume talks on fishing in the waters in the East China Sea.

But at the same time, two US aircraft carrier strike groups have been deployed since mid-September to the Western Pacific in an apparent attempt to keep the activities of the Chinese military in check and as a response to China’s launch of its first aircraft carrier at the end of September, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun said on Oct 6.

Hong told a regular news conference that Chinese marine surveillance ships and fishery patrol ships will continue their official duties in waters near the Diaoyu Islands, which are under China’s jurisdiction.

Fishery authorities said on Saturday that five fishery patrol ships were in the area during the National Day holiday from Sept 30 through Sunday to continue their patrol missions. Four Chinese marine surveillance ships also arrived in the waters on Oct 2.

“Safeguarding China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests is the Chinese military’s sacred duty,” Hong said.

He also once again urged Tokyo to correct its mistakes and return to negotiations to resolve the dispute, as well as to strictly comply with the one-China policy and properly handle relevant issues.

In sensitive situations like this, favoring one party helps little in de-escalating a potentially violent conflict, Mike Honda, a Japanese-American and US representative for California, said on his blog earlier this month.

“If this conflict becomes violent on the East China Sea, we will see shipping thwarted, more factories closed, costs of imports climb and other foreign policy decisions affected,” he said.

zhaoshengnan@chinadaily.com.cn

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China boosts economic diplomacy

By Li Xiaokun , Zhao Shengnan
October 10, 2012 – 9:07am www.chinadailyapac.com

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday established the Department of International Economic Affairs to serve economic diplomacy, which is increasingly important in China’s diplomatic blueprint.

The move shows that Beijing has recognized its increasing power in the economic field and is moving forward to make better use of it, Chinese experts said.

A rapidly growing number of international business disputes intertwined with political factors forced the Foreign Ministry to set up the new body to protect national economic security, they added.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily briefing on Tuesday that the new body will assume responsibility for international economic affairs including preparation for, and follow-up actions resulting from, Chinese leaders’ attendance at significant events such as the G20 and APEC summits, and meetings of BRICS countries.

The department is set to work with other Chinese government organs to make arrangements for the country to cooperate in economic and development fields within the United Nations and other international and regional cooperation frameworks, Hong said.

It will also focus on research work on issues such as global economic governance, international economic and financial situation and regional economic cooperation, he added.

Zhang Jun, former Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands, was appointed as the first chief of the newly established department.

Zhang, 52, returned from the Netherlands in July. He previously served as deputy director-general of the ministry’s international department from 2002 to 2004.

Economic topics closely related to politics are increasingly dominating major international forums like the G20, said Zhu Caihua, vice-dean of the School of International Economy under the China Foreign Affairs University.

That is why China needs a specialized organ to study relevant strategies, she said.

“China’s soaring economic strength enables it to provide due assistance to developing countries and the European Union hit by the debt crisis. These moves also give China more say and flexibility in foreign relations,” she said.

Hong said China is willing to strengthen financial cooperation with Europe, when commenting on the inaugural board meeting of the European Stability Mechanism in Luxembourg on Monday.

Earlier this year, Premier Wen Jiabao said China was considering how to get “more deeply involved” in resolving Europe’s debt crisis through the mechanism and European Financial Stability Facility.

Another case where the new department can play an important role is the recent spontaneous boycott by Chinese of Japanese products to protest Tokyo’s so-called purchase of Diaoyu Islands in September.

The Chinese government did not instigate these boycotts, and called for rational patriotism after Japanese-owned businesses were looted and damaged in some Chinese cities.

The new department will also help handle economic disputes with political backgrounds, which cannot be solved solely by the Ministry of Commerce, Zhu said.

On Sept 6, the EU launched an anti-dumping investigation of Chinese solar panels, involving more than $20 billion in Chinese exports, the largest so far. The move constitutes a test of the EU’s commitment to free trade.

In the run-up to the US presidential election in November, both US President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney frequently blamed China for domestic economic woes.

The latest case is a report by the US House Intelligence Committee accusing two Chinese technology firms – Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp – of posing a national security threat to the US.

A spokesman for Huawei on Monday refuted the allegation, saying “the report is little more than an exercise in China-bashing and misguided protectionism”.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said at the inaugural ceremony on Tuesday that the new department will help safeguard China’s national development interests and economic security, and contribute to world economic growth.

State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who is in charge of foreign policies, has required the Foreign Ministry to “deeply understand the reality and long-term significance of intensifying economic diplomacy under the new situation”.

Still, experts warned when handling business disputes China should be prudent with economic sanctions, a double-edged sword with an adverse effect.

The Foreign Ministry has expanded its organization based on the development of China’s foreign relations, said Dong Manyuan, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies.

The ministry set up the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs in 2009 and increased its news conferences from twice to five times a week in 2011.

Contact the writers at lixiaokun@chinadaily.com.cn and  zhaoshengnan at chinadaily.com.cn

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Firms help create jobs in US

By Chen Weihua (in the Mainland China section of China Daily Asia Pacific)
October 9, 2012 – 8:56am www.chinadailyapac.com

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People line up to meet the Los Angeles Lakers star Robery Horry (right) at the Haier stand at 2012 International CES, a consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Chinese appliance maker has hired 350 people in its South Carolina plant. (Provided to China Daily)

Direct investment deals add 27,000 to payrolls in the country since 2000

Although US politicians often raise fears about Chinese investment stealing US jobs and posing threats to national security, analysts paint a very different picture.

The latest report released by New York-based Rhodium Group shows that the 600 Chinese direct investment transactions made between 2000 and 2012 support 27,000 jobs in the United States today, compared with 10,000 jobs five years ago.

The companies in the study are all US subsidiaries with Chinese majority ownership. They do not include those in which Chinese hold a minority interest – which account for $8 billion, or 40 percent of Chinese investment in the US during the 12 years – or indirect job creation related to the construction of factories or at suppliers. For example, Tianjin Pipe Corp’s new steel plant in Texas is estimated to employ up to 2,000 construction workers.

The study on the employment impact of Chinese FDI in the US also finds that more than $3.5 billion worth of greenfield investment, or investment in new facilities, since 2000 has created 8,000 US jobs.

Major job creators include auto parts maker Wanxiang, which employs 6,000 Americans, mostly in Illinois; appliance maker Haier hiring 350 in South Carolina; telecom equipment firm Huawei with 1,500 in California, Texas and New Jersey; and Sany, which runs a facility in Georgia employing more than 130 people.

Admitting that the impact on US jobs of mergers and acquisitions is less clear, the study finds that the 170 transactions in which Chinese investors have majority control of US firms were “overwhelmingly positive”.

“We see no evidence of asset-stripping behavior and find that most Chinese parent firms have maintained or added staff after acquiring companies in the US,” wrote Thilo Hanemann, research director of Rhodium Group, and Adam Lysenko, research analyst at Rhodium.

Compared with previous owners, Chinese investors were able to inject capital to maintain expenditure in times of crisis, bring better access to the fast-growing Chinese market and create synergies with existing operations in China that increased the value of US assets.

Even the few acquisitions that have resulted in job losses have not been subject to asset stripping by Chinese companies, but rather structural adjustment and reorganization of value chains to react to changes in costs or demand, according to the report.

Although the 27,000 jobs associated with Chinese investment now make up less than 1 percent of the 6 million jobs created by US-based foreign affiliates, the report emphasized that the potential is huge, given that Chinese FDI is expected to increase dramatically in the coming decade.

It projects that if the US can attract between $150 billion of Chinese global outbound investment by 2020, there will be 300,000 Americans on the payroll of Chinese US affiliates. Rhodium expects total Chinese outbound investment to hit $1 trillion by 2020.

The report, however, noted that such a result is not guaranteed. Chinese companies will only continue to invest in the US if the US manages to sustain its attractiveness to foreign investors by fixing its structural problems.

“If fear mongering and populism gain the upper hand, Chinese firms may choose more hospitable investment destinations in Europe or Asia to expand their overseas business and generate jobs there,” the report said.

The report also called for improved corporate governance and transparency on the part of Chinese investors and less Chinese government involvement in overseas investment decisions.

Both Hanemann and Dan Rosen, a partner at Rhodium Group, do not believe that US President Barack Obama’s recent executive order requiring Ralls Corp, owned by executives of China’s Sany Group, to abandon a wind farm project near a military base in Oregon and divest all related assets is politically motivated or signals a more restrictive US policy toward Chinese investment.

But Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, described Obama’s decision as sending the wrong message.

Saying Obama was the first president in 22 years to issue a formal order blocking foreign investment into the US on national security grounds, Alden said the decision will unfortunately be seen as yet another signal – this time from the highest possible level – that the US does not really want Chinese investment.

“And for an economy still struggling to create jobs, that’s the wrong signal to send,” Alden said.

He said the Obama administration had handled the case “abysmally”.

“If the location of the wind farm did indeed pose real security concerns, the US government should have worked quietly with the company to help it find a reasonable way to divest,” he said. “By forcing a presidential action, it becomes a big, public slapdown to another Chinese company. That is not in the economic interest of the US that needs all the foreign investment it can get.”

Joel Backaler, director of the Frontier Strategy Group in Washington, said that Obama’s motivation may have been to help his presidential campaign. “Cracking down on China” is a spotlight issue for both Democratic and Republican parties.

“If future investment decisions by Chinese companies meet similar resistance, though, the end result of such decisions will hinder, not help the US economic recovery,” Backaler wrote in the Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.

chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn

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Betting on a diversified economy in Macao.

By Li Tao
October 10, 2012 – 10:20am www.chinadailyapac.com

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Despite being crowned the gaming capital of the world, the Macao Special Administrative Region is striving to become a more diversified economy as its gambling business has weighed way too much on the region’s overall growth.

It is a city where almost all the local residents are more or less implicated to its one and only compellingly dominated business: gambling. As the only place that has a legalized gaming sector throughout the Chinese territory till today, the importance of buoyant gaming economy to Macao remains phenomenal.

A 20-year-old Macao resident, who does not want to identify himself, told China Daily that although he didn’t even study at a university, after working only two years as a dealer in one of the most prestigious casinos in the city, he is now able to earn almost 17,000 patacas ($2,130) a month.

This compares with the median monthly wage of 10,000 patacas reported in a Macao government employment survey for the third quarter of 2011 — a historic high record in the city, which also outstripped the median HK$13,000 ($1,677) earned by its neighboring Hong Kong people.

“To many of us who are content with the status quo, working in a casino is almost a guaranteed life-time job,” the dealer said, adding that the casinos in Macao these days generally have to put in a great deal of effort to recruit new employees as the number of applicants are so huge due to the low entrance threshold.

Other data also demonstrated the city’s extreme over reliance on gambling revenue these days. By the end of 2011, over 50,000 local residents of Macao’s 345,000 working population were working in the gaming and related sector, such as hotel and restaurants inside the casinos.

At the same time, the booming gaming industry accounts for over 60 percent of the city’s gross domestic product (GDP) today, and which even pays nearly 90 percent of the total taxes that the local government collects every year, according to news reports.

Concerns over the monotonous money-making pattern never stop reverberating in Macao since the city’s casino operators have seen explosive gains from the visitors particularly from the mainland. Some skeptics even pictured a bleak outlook for Macao, claiming that the whole economy will fall out once dice players no longer favor the city any more.

Doubts are also supported by sharp contracting gambling revenue results starting this year, after the city’s casino operators reported poorer results, a direct contrast to the enormous profits growth of some 40 percent over the past few years.

Gaming revenue in the world’s biggest gambling hub this July rose only a tepid 1.5 percent to 24.6 billion patacas compared with the 24.2 billion patacas a year earlier, according to Macao’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, representing the slowest pace since June 2009 when the city was impacted by the previous financial tsunami.

Global rating agency Fitch in July revised its Macao gaming revenue growth forecast to 10 to 12 percent for this year from the previous 15 percent. It cited reasons including a “more cautious view with respect to the near-term impact of the slowdown on the mainland”.

“Buying Macao’s casino stocks is like gambling these days,” said Alvin Chung, a Hong Kong-based associate director of Prudential Brokerage. “Growth of new arrivals to Macao have subsided notably, but casino operators have not even planned to halt their expansion plans, giving rise to greater opportunities for over capacity within the market, “ Chung added.

Casino operators, apparently, view it in a different way. Las Vegas Sands Corp, the world’s largest gambling group, launched its Sands Cotai Central integrated resort in Macao’s Cotai Strip this April. The project’s construction was once suspended in 2008 due to financial stress, according to the company.

US billionaire Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the group, is still convinced that its Chinese arm Sands China Ltd has yet to fully benefit from the wealth spurs among the middle-class on the mainland.

“We wouldn’t be expanding if there is no future here,” Adelson said in Macao on September 20 during the launch ceremony of its third hotel project within the resort.

“(Currently) about 13 percent of the US population visit Las Vegas each year. If it is the same story for the Chinese, the numbers will reach nearly 200 million here.”

Adelson’s bullish plan also accompanies the fact that unlike other traditional casinos which primarily feature gambling, the newly launched integrated resorts in Macao today, including Sands Cotai Central, are basically giant complexes congregated with shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, as well as some gaming places — which are not even conspicuous in the resort.

Ricardo Siu, an associate professor of business economics at the University of Macau, told China Daily that the casino operators are also determined to seek ways to diversify their business combinations in Macao as they’ve also realized that solely having gaming attractions for the visitors alone are unlikely to be sustainable if there are no other profitable channels to explore.

The move is also in line with the Central Government’s blueprint, which dates back to the year 2006, when a goal to diversify Macao’s gambling-dependent economy was set in its 11th Five-Year Plan. In the latest 12th Five-Year Plan starting 2011, the Central Government further positioned the city as a global center of tourism and leisure.

“It is not even an option. It is a must-do,” said Siu. “Since the Macao government liberalized the gambling industry in 2002, concerns over the sector has never ceased as the city relies too much on the gaming sector. Meanwhile, people also worry that the single pillared economy will be doomed once favorable policies from the Central Government fade out.”

The crux in diversifying the Macao’s economy is to boost growth of non-gaming revenues, Siu said that this was the philosophy, but in reality, it is really something easy to say but hard to achieve, particularly over the short period.

Even integrated resorts like Sands Cotai Central, which enlists over 200 shops, high-end restaurants, theaters as well as three branded hotels that provide nearly 6,000 rooms, is still unable to highlight the importance of non-gaming revenues at the moment, according to Edward Tracy, chief executive of Sands China

Without disclosing any solid data, Tracy said the non-gaming gains only take up about 12 percent of the company’s total revenue in the resort, remaining a relatively small part due to the extremely huge income from gambling.

Gambling revenue reached 268 billion patacas in Macao last year, almost six times the Las Vegas Strip’s $6.07 billion, according to data from gambling authorities of the two sides.

Estimating that Macao’s non-gaming revenue will continue to play a minor part even in the next decade, Siu said he supported the idea of stimulating developments in other areas of the economy that have failed to keep up with the gaming sector.

“Macao should be transformed from a casino gaming place to a more family and business travel destination, meaning the city should not be concerned with filling up the casinos with visitors, but also a place where everyone could come to and relax with their families over the weekends,” said Siu.

According to government reports, 16.16 million visitors from Chinese mainland visited Macao in 2011, accounting for 58 percent of the city’s total visitor arrivals.

Davis Fong, director of the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming at the University of Macau believes people shouldn’t make such a fuss on Macao’s over reliance on gaming as each city needs a clear identification of its own positioning, and for Macao which is labeled as a gaming capital of the world has proven to be a success.

It is an era in which metropolitan areas compete with one another, rather than just single economies. While neighboring Hong Kong is positioned as a global financial center and the Pearl River Delta (PRD) is famous for its manufacturing bases, Macao which is themed to attract tourists all over the world, has also fully played out its own advantages, according to Fong.

“On the other hand, the inflow of people to any part of the metropolitan area is tipped to benefit the overall economy particularly after transportation facilities connecting the region are fully put into use,” Fong said.

After a bridge being built across the Pearl River estuary to link Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao is completed in 2016, transportation convenience between the three cities will become greatly enhanced.

“It means the inflow of visitors to Macao will be further lifted, with more travelers from Hong Kong and the mainland who may initially only prepare to spend some time in Macao,” added Fong.

litao@chinadailyhk.com

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and in the Taiwan section of the paper:

Taiwan politician heads home

A senior member of Taiwan’s opposition party Frank Hsieh left Beijing on Monday after concluding a high-profile visit to the mainland, which experts expect to prompt more non-…

• Publishers talk books in Taipei
• Sea drill in the Taiwan Straits to ensure safe…
• Improved Taiwan arms deal mooted

Agreements expected to boost cross-Straits trade

The mainland and Taiwan signed two agreements on Thursday — on investment protection and promotion, and customs cooperation.

• Taipower expects 4th nuke plant to come online in…
• Highwealth stock falls on capital reduction plan
• Mainland investment to open further in March

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and under ASIAN LEADERS:

An Australian Man of Energy Who Heads the  Australia-China Business Council.

By Karl Wilson
September 28, 2012 -  www.chinadailyapac.com

As a young boy growing up in Western Australia, a job in the resources sector was as far away from Frank Tudor’s mind as possible.

“I thought I was destined for life in the academic world, probably teaching science or mathematics,” says the CEO and managing director of Western Australia’s regional and remote electricity provider Horizon Power.

Tudor, who is also national president of the Australia China Business Council, joined the West Australian government-owned Horizon six years ago after a successful career with Woodside, Australia’s biggest oil and gas producer.

Working for BP and Woodside saw the family moving quite a bit in his early working life.

Tudor says he was interested in renewable energy and the impact it was going to have on the industry within Western Australia.

The resources-rich state, especially in iron ore that is feeding China’s enormous economic growth, occupies roughly a third of the entire continent of Australia and is home to less than two million people.

“Horizon was a good starting point; it operated in some interesting parts of the state across the complete supply chain through generation to retail.

“There were a lot of natural energy sources, such as wind and solar, and there was an opportunity to see what difference that could make (to) the state’s energy.”

Tudor went in as the general manager at Horizon. Then he was appointed CEO in April 2011. He was given the mandate to shape the strategy and work closely with the board.

“I also wanted to stay with my family in Western Australia,” he adds.

Tudor says family is important to him. “I like to keep a good balance between the two,” he says.

Speaking from his home in Perth, Tudor says his time with BP and Woodside opened many doors in China and enabled him to build relationships that are still in place.

“It never occurred to me when I was studying mechanical engineering at Curtin (University) that I would end up working in the oil and gas industry,” he says.

“It was a friend of the family (who) asked me if I would like some vocational work at BP’s Kwinana oil refinery just south of Perth. I said yes and towards the end of my studies, a full-time position came up at the refinery and I took it.

“It wasn’t planned …”

Kwinana is the largest refinery in Australia with a capacity of 137,000 barrels of crude oil a day. It is the only refinery in Western Australia.

“Within a couple of years I was in London with BP where I stayed for 10 years, then to Perth, then to Melbourne and back to Perth,” Tudor says. “All up I was with BP for just over 20 years before moving to Woodside.”

He says his experience with BP helped to widen his horizons and gave him an understanding of the emerging economic power that China has become.

The early 1990s saw him in Papua New Guinea for BP, developing gas interests for the growing Chinese energy market.

“The global financial crisis, however, hit much of that on the head,” he says. “But China was still expanding, still growing.”

In early 2000 he moved to Woodside, which had already developed strong ties with China through its massive North West Shelf oil and gas project off the northern coast of Western Australia.

Vast quantities of natural gas and condensate were discovered beneath the sea bed on the North West continental shelf in the 1970s.

The discovery marked the birth of Australia’s largest oil and gas resource development.

Since then more than A$27 billion ($28 billion) has been invested in facilities which today include offshore production platforms and sub-sea infrastructure, onshore processing and storage facilities at the Karratha gas plant.

They also include loading facilities, jetties, associated infrastructure and liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships.

Between 2003 and 2005 Tudor headed up Woodside’s business development operations in China and “up the foundation for the PetroChina gas deal on Browse which has since lapsed”, he says.

It was a 2007 agreement between PetroChina and Woodside for the potential sale of two million to three million tons of LNG per year from the Browse LNG development facility off the north-west coast of Western Australia.

“That was about the time I started to get involved with the Australia China Business Council,” he says. “For me it seemed like a pretty good fit.

“On the one hand you had China with an insatiable appetite for resources to drive its industrial base, and on the other, Australia, rich in the resources China wanted.”

Tudor sees the role of the council as a bridge builder between Australia and China and a hub for the “many ideas driving debate and highlighting opportunities associated with the Sino-Australian relationship”.

Some of the current debate in Australia over China’s investments in it, he says, is “frankly, ill informed”.

“We need to change those perceptions,” he says. “Australians need to understand just how important China is, not only for the country but to individual households.”

As a country, Australia is unique among industrialized nations as a net exporter of commodities and a net importer of manufactured goods.

“We have valuable commodities and increasingly manufactured goods and services that China needs to fuel its massive industrialization and urbanization,” he says. “At the same time we import manufactured goods and to a lesser extent services that China can supply at much lower prices than we could produce them.

“Australian households have a strong appetite for variety and value in consumer goods which China supplies, such as clothing, computers, telecoms equipment, toys, games, sporting goods, furniture and chemicals.”

He says that in 2010-11 the average value of trade with China per household in Australia was worth A$13,470 – a 93 percent increase since 2006-2007.

“These are the sort of messages we need to get across … not the ill-informed political rhetoric of some,” he says. “Education is the key.”

And Tudor knows what he is talking about when it comes to education. He has degrees from Perth’s Curtin University, London School of Economics, and the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales.

In 2008 he completed an eight-week advanced management program at Harvard Business School.

“I remember meeting a man when I first started at BP who inspired me a great deal,” he recalls.

“His name was Marcel Dell and he had emigrated from Europe. He came here with nothing but a desire to do well. He went to night school and later went on to university and a senior position with BP at Kwinana.

“I also think he may have been instrumental in my going to London with BP. He showed me what can be achieved if you work hard for it and the value of education.

“I see this all the time in China.”

Tudor says Australia lacks a coherent strategy towards China and he hopes that the government’s long awaited white paper on Australia in the Asian century will be a good start.

“Industry, academia, states and the federal government need to work much more closely to create such a strategy, and become much more tactful in the way we engage.

“Despite what we read in some sections of the media in Australia, China is playing an active role in Australia, moving from simple off-taking to investment in onshore infrastructure and greenfield developments right across the Australian economy.”

Tudor says with China’s middle class growing there are numerous opportunities for Australian companies to invest.

“You are starting to see that in education, legal and financial services. The opportunities are there, we just need to go out and do it,” he says. “Getting in the door is half the battle.”

Bio
FRANK TUDOR
CEO and managing director, Horizon Power

CAREER MILESTONES

2006-present: Joins Horizon Power as general manager and becomes its CEO in 2011

2009-present: Chairman of the board and national president of the Australia China Business Council

1980-2006: Holds a number of senior positions at BP and Woodside

EDUCATION

First class degrees in engineering, economics and business administration

QUICK TAKES

Role model:

I guess if I were to choose someone it would be a guy I got to know at the Kwinana refinery by the name of Marcel Dell. Marcel was an emigrant from Europe who started off as a boiler maker, put himself through night school, then went on to university where he got first class honours in mechanical engineering.

He went on to build an impressive career at BP. Yes, if I were to choose someone it would be him. He sort of epitomized what Australia is all about.

Walking the tightrope between work and family:

Switched from alcohol to coffee. Jokes aside, family is very important to me. I think it is important to understand that. I try not to let work interfere in that balance.

How do you relax?

I like to windsurf. There is plenty of water although we do have some large fish … fish with very sharp teeth (sharks).

President Clinton Opened 2012 Annual Meeting, Emphasizing Action.

New York City, Sunday, September 23, 2012

President Clinton Opened 2012 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting Emphasizing Action through Social Investment, Empowering Girls and Women, and Designing for Impact

Featured speakers included Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, IDEO Chief Executive Officer Tim Brown, and Walmart President and CEO Michael T. Duke

New commitments focusing on environmental protection, women’s empowerment, sustainable energy and global health and progress reports on previous commitments announced.

{On Fareed Zakaria’s CNN/GPS show this morning, President Clinton announced that Walmart is a major producer, and user in its operations of Photovoltaic solar power and wind-mill power  – globally.}

New York, NY – Today, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, and Walmart President and CEO Michael T. Duke joined President Bill Clinton and other global leaders in New York City at the opening of the eighth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. Over the course of the three-day meeting, pioneers and innovators from business, government, and civil society will examine the most effective ways to design a more prosperous and sustainable world and confront the most urgent global challenges.

“As CGI’s eighth Annual Meeting begins, I am deeply grateful that such a diverse group of esteemed leaders are here with us to motivate global action and change lives worldwide,” said President Clinton. “Their dedication reminds us that the international demand for solutions must take priority over the differences that divide us. It’s the same dedication to humanity that has helped CGI members make nearly 2,300 commitments that have impacted the lives of more than 400 million people since 2005. In the next three days, I look forward to seeing how the world’s leading thinkers will propose creative and inclusive solutions to the obstacles facing our planet.”

This year’s theme, “Designing for Impact,” focuses on the capacity of global citizens to cultivate an environment where their lives and the systems they utilize can serve as an effective vehicle for change. Through this theme, participants will convey how innovation and creativity can transform into platforms for global action. Each day of the Annual Meeting, CGI members will use a different lens to approach designing their work for impact from the empowerment of women and girls to social investment.

President Clinton moderated the opening panel featuring Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, and Walmart President and CEO Michael T. Duke, who discussed how we can better design our world to cultivate greater opportunity and equality. The conversation followed opening remarks from IDEO CEO Tim Brown, whose cutting-edge ideas on design have influenced the meeting’s creative focus this year.

In addition to moderating the discussion in the plenary session, President Clinton announced new commitments for 2012 and reports on progress of commitments made at past CGI Annual Meetings.

The 2012 CGI Annual Meeting is sponsored by Abraaj Capital, American Federation of Teachers, Ambassador Gianna Angelopoulos, APCO Worldwide, Barclays, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cisco, CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, Delos Living, Deutsche Bank, Diageo PLC, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy Corporation, ExxonMobil, The Ford Foundation, Varkey GEMS Foundation, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, Hewlett Packard Company, Inter-American Development Bank, InterEnergy, Jive Software, Knoll Inc, Laureate International Universities, Microsoft Corporation, NRG Energy Inc, Procter & Gamble, The Rockefeller Foundation, Shangri-La Industries, Standard Chartered Bank, Starkey Hearing Foundation, Swiss Reinsurance Company, Tom Golisano, Toyota Motors Corporation, United Postcode Lotteries, The Victor Pinchuk Foundation, and Western Union Financial Services Inc.

The full program, webcast schedule, and list of all CGI Annual Meeting commitments are available here: clintonglobalinitiative.org/2012.

The following new commitments were announced today in plenary sessions:

GIVE: Lights and Power for Panzi Hospital
Commitment by: GlobalECHO Foundation
In 2012, the GlobalECHO Foundation committed to providing $150,000 over a two-year period that will help the Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo transition from a reliance on diesel fuel and an undependable grid to clean, sustainable, and renewable energy. Specifically, the Foundation will fund the installation of solar panels donated by another CGI member, Suntech Power Holdings Company Limited.

Health Justice for People with Intellectual Disabilities
Commitment by: Paychex Corporation and Special Olympics International
In 2012, Tom Golisano committed $12 million to fund 12 Special Olympics (SOI) International Healthy Communities Demonstration Projects worldwide. Through this contribution, SOI will identify communities where they will deliver a sustained set of health interventions and supports for individuals with intellectual disabilities in a comprehensive, community-based year round model. This commitment will enable SOI to expand its data collection and ability to document the global health status of people with intellectual disabilities, raising awareness and generating collaborative solutions to the issue of health disparities facing people with intellectual disabilities.

Empowering Palestinian Women In and Through Media
Commitment by: NISAA Broadcast Radio Company
In 2012, 96 NISAA FM, a woman-owned radio station in the West Bank, committed to train and eventually hire community reporters and students in radio reporting and broadcasting. In order to work against gender stereotypes in media by increasing both women’s roles in media leadership as well as positive representations of women in media, every trainee will learn essential reporting skills, such as gathering news from the field, producing audio reports, reporting live, and working inside the NISAA studio.

Bridging the Gap: Empowering Women Through Education
Commitment by: Georges Malaika Foundation
In 2012, the Georges Malaika Foundation (GMF) committed to expand educational access and quality learning opportunities to 340 young girls in the Katanga Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Through the use of a holistic approach to education, the GMF School will provide tuition-free education that also offers two meals a day, clean drinking water, sanitary latrines, internet access, and highly-trained teachers.

Man Up Congo: Youth Ending Violence Against Girls in Schools
Commitment by: Man Up Campaign
In 2012, the Man Up Campaign committed to support its two youth delegations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who create community-based programs to combat gender violence, specifically the normalization of sexual violence against girls in school. Through Man Up’s support, the two youth delegations will be able to implement awareness raising activities (theater and workshops) to directly engage over 300 students around issues of gender-based violence.

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The following progress reports were announced today in plenary sessions:

P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water: Save a Life an Hour
Commitment by: Procter & Gamble
In 2010, Procter and Gamble (P&G) committed to increase its scope of providing clean drinking water to developing countries by aiming to save a life every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by 2020. The PUR packet program has provided 1 billion liters of clean drinking water in the last 10 months and hopes to scale up with the PUR packet providing 2 billion liters a year by 2020.

Avon Foundation Global Breast Cancer Clinical Scholars
Commitment by: The Avon Foundation
In 2011, the Avon Foundation committed to create the Women Global Breast Cancer Clinical Scholars Program (Avon Global Scholars) to provide clinically-focused scholarship opportunities to breast cancer specialists outside the United States. The goal of the program is to give advanced training at leading U.S. breast cancer centers affiliated with the Avon Foundation to improve treatment and care of women facing breast cancer around the world.

Addressing Sexual Violence Against Girls
Commitment by: Becton, Dickinson & Co. (BD)
In 2009, Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) and many other partners committed, via Together for Girls (TfG), to develop and implement sexual violence prevention and response programs at the country level. Together for Girls, the first global initiative to address human injustice and public health impact of sexual violence against girls, uses information from national surveys to mobilize government leaders, civil society, and donors.

Dream Builder: The Women’s Business Creator
Commitment by: Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Foundation
In 2011, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, along with the Thunderbird School of Global Management, committed to develop and pilot an online Women’s Business Academy with the goal of providing business skills training to an estimated 3,400 women who plan to start or grow small businesses. The official program name has since been changed to “DreamBuilder: The Women’s Business Creator.” With curriculum and technological design well under way, DreamBuilder is on track to fulfill the Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to train 3,400 women over the next 5 years.

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September 25, 2012 - THE CLOSING DAY.
We tried to fit in the CGI – in between meetings at the UN – but found out fast that if you do not have business credentials the CGI young ladies at the desk do not think that you are of value to them – so be it – we stil think that the former President glides on water and attempts wonders, but we have some doubts about company he keeps.

We post material as we obtained from his public relations’ office. and had to forget about an attempt at direct interviews at this time. We had better success in past years but are yet to be able to authenticate success on the ground of projects we posted.

On this last day, likted in New York by the onset of the Jewish Yom Kippur – President Clinton Hosts President Barack Obama, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, and Governor Mitt Romney on Closing Day of 2012 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting.

Eighth CGI Annual Meeting Closes with over 150 new commitments made valued at more than $2 billion, expected to impact nearly 22 million people. Members have now made nearly 2,300 commitments, which will improve the lives of over 400 million people in more than 180 countries

First CGI Latin America established. CGI University, CGI America dates announced.

New York, NY – Today, President Barack Obama, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney joined President Clinton and other international leaders on the final day of the eighth Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting. Over three days, an array of heads of state, CEOs, non-profit leaders, and other global luminaries made over 150 new commitments, expected to impact nearly 22 million lives. To close the meeting, President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton announced plans for CGI University, CGI America, and the first CGI Latin America Meeting in 2013.

“I am convinced that cooperation, not conflict, will define this century,” said President Clinton. “From the capitols of the world to the most remote villages, people everywhere understand that there are universal challenges which face us all and are beyond the power of any individual to solve alone. As the eighth CGI Annual Meeting draws to a close, I celebrate our members who have committed to working together to meet these challenges head on. Their creative and focused actions will help to bring about a stable, sustainable world in which all people have a chance to thrive.”

The day’s theme, “Designing Our Systems,” emphasized that our interconnected world requires intentional systems of governance, community welfare, and commerce in order to create economic growth and provide for the social good. In the day’s sessions, CGI members examined tools and approaches used to design systems that enable sustainable prosperity and opportunity for all. Clinton Foundation and CGI board member Chelsea Clinton moderated a session called “The Case for Optimism in the 21^st Century.”

Following President Clinton’s conversation with President Morsi, Chelsea joined President Clinton to announce details for CGI University 2013. Washington University in St. Louis will serve as next year’s site for the gathering that brings students, youth organizations, topic experts, and celebrities together to explore innovative solutions to pressing global challenges. The meeting will take place April 5-7, 2013 and convene more than 1,000 students representing approximately 300 colleges and universities around the world.

President Clinton revealed that CGI will hold CGI Latin America in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil next year in December. It marks the Clinton Global Initiative’s first overseas meeting since convening CGI Asia in Hong Kong in 2008. President Clinton also announced that CGI America, a meeting focused on collaborative solutions to economic recovery in the United States, will return to Chicago in June 2013.

Last night, President Clinton also honored this year’s recipients of the Clinton Global Citizen Award:
Carlos Slim Helú, founder of Fundación Carlos Slim;
Luis A. Moreno, president of Inter-American Development Bank;
Denis O’Brien, chairman and founder of Digicel Group;
Pepe Julian Onziema, programme director and advocacy officer of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG);
The Right Reverend Christopher Senyonjo, executive director of St. Paul’s Reconciliation and Equality Centre;
and Katie Stagliano, founder and chief executive gardener of Katie’s Krops.

Featured speakers on the closing day of the Annual Meeting included
Barack Obama, 44^th President of the United States of America,
Bill Clinton, 42^nd President of the United States of America and founding chairman of the Clinton Global Initiative,
Felipe Calderón, President of Mexico,
Mohamed Morsi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt,
Tony Blair, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
Mitt Romney, former Governor of Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
Akinwumi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Federal Republic of Nigeria,
Her Highness Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel, Vice Chairwoman and Secretary General, Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundations,
Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. Department of the Treasury,
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister, Federal Republic of Nigeria,
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder and Chairperson of BRAC,
Walter A. Bell, Chairman of the Board, Swiss Re America Holding Corporation,
Deepak Chopra, Founder, The Chopra Foundation and Founder and Chairman of the Board of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing,
Wesley Clark, Chairman and CEO of Wesley K. Clark & Associates,
Chelsea Clinton, Board Member of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative,
Piers Morgan, host of CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight,
Art Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Holdings,
Clarence Otis, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Darden Restaurants, Inc.,
Bill Parish, President of Mosaic,
Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation,
Charlie Rose, Executive Editor and Anchor of Charlie Rose,
Irene B. Rosenfeld, Chairman and CEO, Kraft Foods Incorporated,
Richard Stengel, Managing Editor of TIME Magazine,
Luis A. Ubiñaa, President, The Ford Foundation, and will.i.am, Founder, i.am.angel Foundation.

The 2012 CGI Annual Meeting is sponsored by Abraaj Capital, American Federation of Teachers, Ambassador Gianna Angelopoulos, APCO Worldwide, Barclays, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cisco, CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, Delos Living, Deutsche Bank, Diageo PLC, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy Corporation, ExxonMobil, The Ford Foundation, Varkey GEMS Foundation, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, Hewlett Packard Company, Inter-American Development Bank, InterEnergy, Jive Software, Knoll Inc, Laureate International Universities, Microsoft Corporation, NRG Energy Inc, Procter & Gamble, The Rockefeller Foundation, Shangri-La Industries, Standard Chartered Bank, Starkey Hearing Foundation, Swiss Reinsurance Company, Tom Golisano, Toyota Motors Corporation, United Postcode Lotteries, The Victor Pinchuk Foundation, and Western Union Financial Services Inc.

The full program, webcast schedule, and list of all CGI Annual Meeting commitments are available here: clintonglobalinitiative.org/2012.

The following new commitments were announced in Plenary Sessions today:

NGO 2.0 Shaping the Next Generation of Social Entrepreneurs
Commitment by: Hult International Business School
In 2012, the Hult Prize committed to help launch a new wave of student social entrepreneurs in response to a challenge made by President Clinton and building on the successes of past Hult competitions. This will be achieved by creating a start-up accelerator for social entrepreneurship designed to fund, mentor, advise and launch new social businesses. Through the continuation of its established global competition, Hult will bring together more than one thousand college and university students from over 130 countries, totaling more than 300 different colleges and universities. Working in five-person teams this spring, these students will compete at one of five global locations and online for the opportunity to spend the summer at the Hult Accelerator — a world-class center for innovation in Boston — and secure US$1 million in seed funding to start their businesses. Out of the hundreds of teams who will attend the regional stage of the competition, the best six teams will be selected to work at the Accelerator. Each of the six winning teams will then pitch their idea at CGI’s Annual Meeting in September 2013, where President Clinton, along with CGI Meeting attendees will select and award the winning team with a $1 million prize.

Rwanda Human Resources for Health Program
Commitment by: Rwanda Ministry of Health
In 2012, the Government of Rwanda, partnering with the US government, the Global Fund, and leading health sciences universities committed $152,000,000 to create the Human Resources for Health (HRH) Program to build the health education infrastructure and workforce necessary for a high quality, sustainable healthcare system. Partnering with 7 leading medical schools, 5 nursing and midwifery schools, and 1 health management school, the program will send more than 100 faculty members to Rwanda annually to assist medical, nursing, and public health schools and teaching hospitals and to mentor educators and students.

20 x 20: To Serve 20 Million People by 2020
Commitment by: STARS Foundation
In 2012, STARS Foundation committed $70,000,000 to impact the lives of 20 million people by 2020. This commitment will expand the Impact Awards program, which provides $100,000 grants in unrestricted funding to local NGOs, into 100 countries. A new awards category for NGOs improving access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) will be added, with grants to be awarded to organizations that together serve 10 million people. STARS will also launch “STARS Projects,” a new operational unit that will deliver new products and solutions for ‘base of the pyramid’ markets serving an additional 10 million people.

Post Harvest Project: Reducing Waste for Food Security
Commitment by: nanoICE
In 2012, nanoICE committed $8,945,000 to launch the Post Harvest Project (PHP). This commitment will install new cold chain systems at the Port of Tema and Lake Volta that will dramatically reduce fish waste and fish shrinkage, providing more protein for Ghanaians and more income for fishers. The commitment will also install a manufacturing plant at the Port of Tema with a transportation station at Lake Volta to make organic fertilizer from fish waste to provide an environmentally safe, locally made fertilizer for 134,000 hectares.

mHealth From the Ground Up in Rural Liberia
Commitment by: Tiyatien Health
In 2012, Tiyatien Health and Medic Mobile committed $1,000,000 to build a model for community-based, mobile-enabled maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) services in the Konobo district of Grand Gedeh, which has no mobile network and only one health facility. Through this commitment, Tiyatien Health will equip a pilot cadre of frontline health workers to deliver primary health care to all villages in the district for the first time.

Agri-Fin Mobile: Increasing Small-holder Income Through Mobile
Commitment by: Mercy Corps and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
In 2012, Mercy Corps and SDC committed $3,800,000 to develop new business models that offer mobile agricultural and financial services to small-holder farmers in Indonesia, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The Agri-Fin Mobile program will offer farmers access to mobile-based agricultural and financial services, including farm and crop management tools, financing, micro-insurance, and access to markets for their products, to increase their income.

In Women’s Hands: Empowering the Next Generation of African Female Leaders
Commitment by: the MPULE Institute
In 2012, The MPULE Institute committed $280,000 to develop the Network of Women Investing in Africa (NEW Africa) Leadership Program. By training and empowering women to excel in leadership roles in Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa, NEW Africa will increase young African women’s representation and participation in the global development agenda, increase investment in social services and labor-saving technologies that are most beneficial to women, and unlock new opportunities in sectors proven to lift women and their families from poverty.

Brighter Futures: Ending Child Marriage in Turkey and Abroad
Commitment by: Sabanci Foundation
In 2012 and 2013, the Sabanci Foundation committed $400,000 to financially support, and help design, a meeting to take place in Istanbul in February 2013 and organized by Girls not Brides, where participants will design advocacy and communication strategies to end child marriage. Using these strategies, the Turkish National Platform to End Child Marriage will educate 200 parliamentarians and policy makers and 500 families, religious leaders, teachers, and officials in Turkey about the negative impacts of child marriage.

Next Generation Technology for Frontline Health Workers
Commitment by: IntraHealth International
IntraHealth commits $500,000 to design a scalable e/mLearning Program in Kenya, building on initial success in its partnership with the Kenyan Medical Training College network. IntraHealth will design a scalable eLearning model that will first be applied in two training institutions, where more than 80 frontline health workers will be equipped with new a/mLearning skills. Once the model is designed and tested, IntraHealth will make it available to frontline health workers across Kenya.

A Budding Interest: Organic Farming
Commitment by: The PRASAD Project
In 2012, the PRASAD Project committed to addressing regional issues of environmental degradation, economic disempowerment, illiteracy, and food insecurity in the Tansa Valley of India by supporting local farmers and their families address these issues through the establishment and expansion of several programs, including the adoption of organic farming techniques.  To address land degradation and soil erosion problems, the PRASAD Project will provide training in organic farming and horticulture to local farmers.  They will aid in the implementation of an integrated watershed program for better, more sustainable water resource use and will implement soil conservation and tree planting programs.  To address regional economic issues, the PRASAD Project will help farmers and their families access markets for their food and other agricultural outputs. The PRASAD Project, in conjunction with these activities, commits to providing a series of trainings to community residents which include literacy, vocational, environmental education, social health awareness, and sanitation and solid waste management programs. To support the long term impact and sustainability of these programs and initiatives, the PRASAD Project will conduct these trainings with the support of a number of Self-Help Groups (SHGs). Adopting a multifaceted approach recognizes that these issues are interrelated and inextricably linked.

Essential Capital Fund
Commitment by: Deutsche Bank Americas
In 2012, Deutsche Bank committed to structuring an innovative seven-year investment fund – the “Essential Capital Fund” – that provides crucial catalytic funds to socially responsible investment funds and enterprises that support the microfinance and social enterprise sectors. The Fund represents a pioneering effort in the impact investing field because it provides risk mitigation mechanisms for others investors. Specifically, by deferring a portion of its management fee, generating a savings reserve via a step coupon mechanism for investor returns and offering a 10 percent guarantee, the Fund promises to unlock significant capital currently reluctant to engage in unproven sectors. Slated to reach $50 million in portfolio size by 2015 and designed in collaboration with leading social impact stakeholders, the Essential Capital Fund will invest in 1) “first loss” positions of debt funds, 2) guarantees on loan syndications, 3) loans to impact investments and 4) other innovative opportunities.

United Water ‘Solution’: Investing in America’s Water
Commitment by: United Water
In 2012, United Water committed to partner with institutional investors to form entities that will provide Nassau County, New York and the City of Bayonne, New Jersey with private capital to pay down accumulated debt and initiate capital investment in their municipal water systems. Through this five year commitment, United Water will take over operations and repairs of these water systems in exchange for resident-paid water usage fees. The municipalities, while clearing millions of dollars of accumulated debt, will maintain ownership and regulatory oversight of these systems. This unique partnership and innovative financial solution will promote job creation, create a cleaner environment, and ensure that ownership and stewardship of the water system never leaves public hands.

Establishment of the Shared Value Initiative
Commitment by: FSG Advisors
In 2012, FSG committed to establish the Shared Value Initiative (SVI), a multi-stakeholder organization that will serve as a global knowledge and learning hub for companies and other stakeholders on the shared value concept, with key corporate co-founders. The SVI will capitalize on the current momentum around shared value by driving adoption amongst companies and by improving implementation at companies that have already engaged in shared value strategies. The SVI will engage in four major activities – deepen and document knowledge, create toolkits for implementation, build communities of practice via physical and virtual engagement opportunities, and steward the concept of shared value. Within the first two years, the founding partners aim to establish the SVI by developing an interactive communications platform, developing shared value content and events, and conducting outreach to a wide-range of stakeholders by identifying and developing outreach plans for stakeholders critical to shared value adoption and implementation.

Building a Global Movement to Redefine Success in Business
Commitment By: B Lab
In 2012, B Lab committed to extend the B Corp movement globally and grow the community of B Corps by 250 businesses, with a goal of reaching 20 countries on 6 continents by December 2013. Organizations that register as B Corps are purpose-driven to create a more inclusive and sustainable economy, with legal underpinnings that allow them to produce value for society as well as shareholders. B Lab will build on the momentum of the B Corp movement in the US and begin its global campaign first in South America, partnering with its first international partner Sistema B to build a founding class of 100 B Corps in the region by the end of 2013. This global initiative will include policy work to create a new corporate form and policy incentives, extensive use of B Lab’s standards and technology platform, and partnerships with organizations that have regional presence and expertise.

The following progress reports were announced in Plenary Sessions today:

General Mills/PEPFAR/USAID Partnership for Food Security
Commitment by: General Mills, Inc.
In 2009, General Mills, in partnership with the Office of United States Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), committed to link its technical and business expertise with small and medium-sized (SME) mills and food processors in sub-Saharan Africa, with the goal of improving those companies’ ability to produce high-quality, nutritious, and safe food at affordable prices. This partnership will utilize the expertise of 1,200 experts in General Mills’ research and development arm to investigate the challenges to locally sourcing supplemental and therapeutic foods for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Ultimately, General Mills, in close partnership with the USAID Agriculture Bureau, aims to engage multiple Fortune 500 food companies in the provision of technical assistance to up to 200 SMEs in 15 countries.

Pollinator Habitat Improvement
Commitment by: Grief, Inc.
In 2009, Grief, Inc. committed to improving pollinator habitats using various silvicultural activities. Grief expects these treatments to increase pollinator populations and, ultimately, improve wildlife habitat for game and non-game species, songbirds and migratory birds. By improving wildlife habitat, timberland owners will justify increases in hunting lease revenues. Increasing pollinator populations will allow for greater yield on agricultural lands.

Girls Not Brides: Partnership to End Child Marriage
Commitment by: The Elders, The Ford Foundation, NoVo Foundation, and Nike Foundation
In 2011, the Elders, the Ford Foundation, the Nike Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation committed to jointly establish ‘Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage’ (Girls not Brides). Girls not Brides is a member-driven partnership with a global focus. They also committed to raise $3 million to ensure the functioning of the partnership, the creation of a secretariat, and to seed activities to end child marriage in priority countries. In addition, they committed to establish a network of donors to support programs to end child marriage worldwide.

Developing MFI Social Performance Scorecard & Ratings
Commitment by: The Moody’s Foundation
In 2010, Moody’s, one of the world’s leading sources for credit ratings, research, and risk analysis, committed to develop a scorecard and standardized rating for assessing the social performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs). The social performance rating will consider items such as client protection principles, client service, social impact measurement, and governance. As part of this process, Moody’s will work with investors and MFIs to develop an understanding how social performance is assessed, create customized social performance tools, and publish research on how the industry assesses social performance. Moody’s will work with a consortium of partners including The Social Performance Task Force, Grameen Bank, Women’s World Banking, Blue Orchard, The MIX Market, Deutsche Bank, and ImpAct to design and develop the scorecards.

Western Union’s Our World, Our Family Program
Commitment By: Western Union Foundation
In 2008, Western Union Foundation made a commitment to initiate the Western Union’s Our World, Our Family® program, a five-year, $50 million initiative designed to equip migrants and the communities they leave behind with the skills, knowledge, and resources essential to alleviating poverty. Worldwide, there are an estimated 500 million migrants working outside of their home countries, who sent home an estimated $369 billion in remittances in 2007. Western Union and its partners seek to leverage the talents, experience, and resources of migrants and other stakeholders to build capacity and extend access to capital and financial services to communities outside the financial mainstream. Since its inception, this program has achieved key milestones including developing a global partnership with Mercy Corps, launching an employee volunteerism program, introducing Western Union Global Giving Circles to support educational initiatives in India, and collaborating with the Economic Intelligence Unit to develop research and convene leading experts around the issue of migration.

Medical Supply Chain Transformation Project
Commitment By: The Coca-Cola Company
In 2010, the Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) committed to share its route-to-market expertise to support the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (The Global Fund)’s ability to get vital drugs, medicines, and medical supplies to the people who need them most. It will do this initially through a pilot project wherein 10 months of direct support will be provided to the Medical Stores Department in Tanzania. There is potential for additional phases of work. The objective will be to test this innovation in public private partnering to build a model that encourages others to add their expertise. The company hopes to create a scalable, sustainable and replicable model that can be rolled out to other countries facing similar challenges related to the supply chains of critical medicines. It is envisaged that partnerships with multiple organizations from the public sector, private sector and civil society could be encouraged in future replications of this work.

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About the Clinton Global Initiative
Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 150 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media. To date CGI members have made nearly 2,300 commitments, which have already improved the lives of more than 400 million people in more than 180 countries. When fully funded and implemented, these commitments will be valued at $73.1 billion.

CGI also convenes CGI America, a meeting focused on collaborative solutions to economic recovery in the United States, and CGI University (CGI U), which brings together undergraduate and graduate students to address pressing challenges in their community or around the world. For more information, visit clintonglobalinitiative.org and follow us on Twitter @ClintonGlobal and Facebook at facebook.com/clintonglobalinitiative.

On September 13, 1999 the 53rd UN General Assembly adopted by consensus a set of principles for a Culture of Peace. Following that the UN had a decade for the International Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the children of the World – 2001-2010. Looking at what goes on in the World these days the UN needed a reminder and moved to have this High Level day 0n Friday September 14, 2012.

Chaired by outgoing President of the General Assembly, Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser of Qatar whose term ends next Monday, and with the UN Secretary General on the podium next to him, the hall of the General Assembly listened to excellent presentations by Mr. Jan Eliasson, the Deputy SG, Mr. Federico Mayor wearing the hat of President of the Foundation Culture of Peace, and Ms. Cora Weiss, wearing the hat of the President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, and after statements from 8 supporting Ambassadors to the UN, this morphed then to two further panels.

We heard that POVERTY IS VIOLENCE and looked at Resource Wars that can be ended only by developing Renewable Resouces and avoiding wars for what is left from the conventional resources. Also I heard from Cora Weiss that CO2 emissions must be reduced.

We learned that $1.7 trillion are spent yearly on weapons. She said that Nations have the right to defend themselves but is not that amount exaggerated?

Resolutions are needed to come up with a nuclear treaty. Also we to accelerate the end of poverty process and have a resolution on the right to peace, she said.

But later on, after the First panel titled – “The Culture of Peace at the core of Humanity’s agenda: New partnerships, new developments” chaired by Ambassador Dr. Paulette Bethel of the Bahamas, it was a Nigerian diplomat who said that there is a need to elevate the discourse to actions – WE SHOULD STOP TALKING JUST ABOUT WAR CRIMES he said, AND START TO TALK ABOUT THE CRIME OF WAR – WHOEVER INSTIGATES TO WAR COMMITS A CRIME.

Going back to basics – the culture of Peace should be seen as the essence of a new Humanity. It should be based on inner oneness and outer diversity and a transition from force to reason – from conflict and violence to dialogue and peace. A little booklet we got was the UN Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, and a larger magazine “Unity” that is published in Hong Kong in English and Chinese.

Remarks to the American Jewish Committee’s National Energy Committee.

… Remarks to the American Jewish Committee’s National Energy Committee.
Reported by Robert F. Cekuta Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs.

www.state.gov/e/enr/rls/rem/2012/189212.htm

posted the same day also by the US Consulate in HongKong  as:

hongkong.usconsulate.gov/uscn_state_2012050206.html

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

The Bureau of Energy Resources takes a broad view of what is integral to U.S. and global energy security. Doing so means focusing on three areas. The first is what we have traditionally thought of as energy security, going back to the days of the Arab oil embargo and before: the flow of traditional hydrocarbons, in particular oil and gas. Hydrocarbons today still make up 85% of the world’s fuel resources. We continue to use our diplomacy to ensure that access to oil, gas, and coal is adequate, reliable, and affordable. However, we need to be aware even this traditional aspect of energy security is changing as new markets and new technologies alter the traditional energy landscape. For example emerging market economies such as China and India are driving tremendous growth in the world’s demand for resources. New technologies — shale oil in North Dakota or the revolution in unconventional gas — and new producers, such as Brazil or countries in East and West Africa, are affecting the supply picture. The realities of climate change are also a factor.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

There is a third focus in addition to the energy world that we have long known and the energy world of the future — that is the access to energy for the 1.3 billion people around the world today who do not have it. We are already seeing the effects of expanding access in those who only a few years ago had no access to energy in Brazil, China, India, or the other rapidly industrializing economies have had on global energy markets and the expectations regarding supply and demand.

[ ...Intervening Text... ]

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by -

Washington, DC
May 2, 2012

beginning as -

Let me thank the American Jewish Committee (AJC) very much as well for organizing this event and for offering this opportunity to talk with you about improving America’s energy security.

Since President Obama took office, U.S. domestic oil and gas production has increased each year. Our reliance on foreign oil has decreased, and that trend is expected to continue thanks in part to the historic fuel economy standards established by President Obama, effectively doubling the efficiency of the cars we drive and saving consumers thousands at the pump. In 2009, the United States produced 5.3 mmbd. Current U.S. crude production is 6.1mmbd, a figure which is equal to the production we saw at the close of 2011, when U.S. crude oil production reached its highest level since 2003. The 6.1 mmbd U.S. production figure is also an increase over 2010 levels by an estimated 120,000 barrels per day.

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Yes, but the above was only the introduction, the meat of the presentation was that America is also front-runner in Renewable Energy as this is needed for many reasons, and he focused clearly on something this audience is very keen interested in – the decreased dependence on Middle East oil – though it is framed in the increased need for energy because of the emerging economies. So you have it – America, for its own good and for the global good, is bound to decrease the blown out of any logical proportion – the importance of the Middle East “Oilocrats” that got a hold of the world by its tail since that famous 1945 visit between President Roosevelt and the Saudi King.

For the full article please go to the link –  www.state.gov/e/enr/rls/rem/2012/189212.htm

You get these by putting the link in your browser.

Revolt Begins Like Others, but Its End Is Less Certain.

By MICHAEL WINES, in Print The New York Times: December 17, 2011 – published on the web December 16, 2011.

The New York Times, A developer planned to buy 134 acres of land in Wukan.

WUKAN, China — Each day begins with a morning rally in the banner-bedecked square, where village leaders address a packed crowd about their seizure of the village and plans for its future. Friday’s session was followed by a daylong mock funeral for a fallen comrade, whose body lies somewhere outside the village in government custody.

It has been nearly a week since the 13,000 residents of this seacoast village, a warren of cramped alleys and courtyard homes, became so angry that their deeply resented officials — and even the police — fled rather than face them. Now, there is a striking vacuum of authority, and the villagers are not entirely sure what to make of their fleeting freedom.

“We will defend our farmland to the death!” a handmade banner proclaims, referring to a possible land deal they fear will strip them of almost all their farmland. “Is it a crime,” another muses, “to ask for the return of our land and for democracy and transparency?”

How long they will last is another matter. As the days pass, the cordons of police officers surrounding the village grow larger. Armored trucks and troop carriers have been reported nearby. On local television, a 24-hour channel denounces the villagers as “a handful of people” dedicated to sabotaging public order, with the names of protesters flashing on a blue screen, warning that they will be prosecuted. Many here fear this will all end badly. “The SWAT teams and the police here are acting like they’re crime organizations, not police forces,” said Chen Dequan, a 50-year-old farmer and fisherman. “The entire village is worried.”

The dispute that emptied Wukan of its government officials is, on its face, like hundreds — if not thousands — of others that inspire protests here each year: villagers who believe their land was taken illegally take to the streets when their concerns are ignored.

But the suspicious death of a well-liked villager, who was selected to negotiate on the citizens’ behalf, appears to have turned this long-simmering grievance into a last-straw standoff with the authorities.

The land deal inspiring the protests involved one of China’s largest property developers, a Hong-Kong listed company called Country Garden that prides itself on fast-paced construction in mostly suburban areas. Yang Huiyuan, described by analysts as the company’s chairwoman, is often listed as one of the richest women in China.

The company has faced controversy before. Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said this year that it had bought Anhui Province land to build a golf course in a deal that smacked of “the typical collusion of real estate business and local government.” The agency’s signed commentary said more than 10 government officials had been punished after that transaction and other cases of illegal purchases and use of land there.

Here in Wukan, many residents believed that the national government had not yet intervened to resolve matters simply because it had been misled by nefarious local officials to believe that all was well.

So far, however, it seems from inside this locked-down village that government leaders at all levels are flummoxed at their blue-moon, if temporary, loss of control.

Lin Zuluan, 67, a retired businessman who is now the village’s de facto leader, said that officials had approached him to negotiate an end to the protest, but that talks had gone nowhere, in part because the officials would not meet villagers’ demands to return all their land.

“I do have concerns” over the lack of progress, he said. “But I do believe this country is ruled by law, so I do believe the central government will do whatever it has to do to help us.”

In the meantime, life here goes on in an aura of unreality as much as uncertainty, a mixture of grief and optimism and somewhat willful ignorance of the hints of trouble at every police roadblock and on every news broadcast.

Relatives carried a picture of Xue Jinbo, who died in police custody after villagers chose him to negotiate a solution to a land deal in Wukan, China.

.Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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Inside the village, citizens hail foreign journalists as visiting saviors, bombarding them with endless cigarettes, bowls of rice-and-seafood porridge and free rides on the backs of scooters. The villagers bristle at the government’s suggestion that they are being financed by unnamed foreigners, but are convinced that only reporting outside the state-run press will bring word of their plight to leaders in Beijing.

Corruption accusations against Country Garden, the developer, go back for years. In 2007, the Southern Weekly newspaper alleged irregularities in a hotel construction contract awarded to the company by a district government in Zhangjiajie, in Hunan Province. The paper suggested that the government heavily discounted the project’s land cost because most of Country Garden’s payment was secretly diverted to a company in which two Country Garden officials had invested.

In a faxed statement Friday, Country Garden said both the other projects in Anhui and Hunan were wholly aboveboard. The firm said the Anhui deal was free of corruption and the Zhangjiajie contract was awarded through open, transparent bidding. Officials have contended that the money supposedly diverted was in fact spent for legitimate public purposes related to the project.

In Wukan, two people familiar with the Country Garden proposal said the company planned to buy at least 134 acres of land for villa homes and shopping centers here. About half of that land is controlled by Fengtian Livestock, a pig-raising firm that holds a 50-year lease issued by the government; the rest is apparently in villagers’ hands.

Chen Wenqing, the livestock firm’s owner, said Country Garden was negotiating directly with the local authorities last spring when the deal fell through over a difference on price. Country Garden said it had intended to build a project but has signed no agreements.

But Mr. Lin, the retired businessman, said villagers became angry in September when they saw construction work at the pig-farm site. Officials of Lufeng city, a district that controls Wukan, ordered the building stopped, he said, and asked villagers to select a committee of locals to settle the controversy.

Negotiations to return the land to villagers produced little, however. On Dec. 9, unidentified men abducted one of the negotiators, a 42-year-old leather worker named Xue Jinbo, and four other men from a local restaurant.

The other four soon turned up in nearby jails, accused of inciting villagers to subvert the government. Mr. Xue was seen only on the night of Dec. 11, when local government officials summoned relatives to view his body at a mortuary.

They said that he had died of a heart attack in a hospital and that medical records of his care would be provided.

But family members say officials confiscated their mobile telephones before allowing them into the funeral home, apparently to prevent them from taking photographs. Mr. Xue’s nose was caked with blood, his body was black with bruises and his left thumb was broken, apparently pulled backward to the breaking point, one of them, a nephew named Xue Ruiqiang, said on Friday in an interview.

Word of Mr. Xue’s death brought the villagers into the streets and sent members of the village committee that was involved in the land negotiations fleeing.

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Shi Da contributed research from Wukan, and Mia Li from Beijing. Sharon LaFraniere and Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting from Beijing.

Mr. Xue’s 21-year-old daughter, Xue Jianwan, said before the service that her father “was a straightforward man who always stood up for people.”

“Mom said that if he hadn’t been such a straightforward person, he probably wouldn’t have ended up like this,” she added.

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BEIJING — Officials announced new rules on Friday aimed at controlling the way Chinese Internet users post messages on social networking sites that have posed challenges to the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machinery.

www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/world/asia/beijing-imposes-new-rules-on-social-networking-sites.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha26

Beijing Imposes New Rules on Social Networking Sites.

By EDWARD WONG, Published – The New York Times: December 16, 2011

For many users, the most striking of the new rules requires people using the sites, called microblogs, or weibo in Chinese, to register with their real names and biographical information. They will still be able to post under aliases, according to a report by Xinhua, the state news agency.

Some analysts say the real-name registration could dampen some of the freewheeling conversations that take place online, and that sometimes result in a large number of users criticizing officials and government policy.

The rule on real-name registration had been expected for several months now by industry watchers, and Internet companies in China had already experimented in 2009 with some forms of this. It was the ninth of 17 new microblog regulations issued on Friday by Beijing government officials, who have been charged by central authorities with reining in the way microblogs are used.

The regulations also include a licensing requirement for companies that want to host microblogs and prohibitions on content, including posts aimed at “spreading rumors, disturbing social order or undermining social stability.” But officials have long put pressure on microblog companies to self-censor, and the lists of limits on content are more an articulation of the boundaries already in place.

The regulation announced by the Beijing officials applies only to companies based in the capital, where several of the largest microblog platforms, including Sina and Sohu, are located.

One large rival, Tencent, is based in Shenzhen, a special economic zone in the south, and an editor there said Friday that the authorities had yet to issue any new regulations that would affect the company. But analysts expect that that city and others across China will soon put in place rules similar to the ones announced by Beijing.

“It’s just a further sign of the way things are going,” said Bill Bishop, an analyst and businessman based in Beijing who writes about the Internet industry on a blog, Digicha. Some Internet users, he added, may now ask themselves, “ ‘Why bother to say something? You never know.’ ”

There were many comments of outrage on Friday from those posting on microblogs. “Society is going backwards,” wrote one user by the name of Cheng Yang. “Where is China’s path?”

Many prominent commentators and writers with influence over public opinion already post under their real names. For example, Pan Shiyi, a wealthy real estate developer who posts regularly, has more than seven million followers. He recently used his platform to advocate stricter air pollution reports from the Beijing government.

“In fact, serious weibo users have already opted to use their real names out of their own interests,” said another editor at Tencent who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of talking about government policy.

Internet companies hosting microblogs have been told to comply with the new rules within three months. Sina and Tencent have more than 200 million registered users each; it is unclear how the companies will go about ensuring that each user has registered with real data.

But Mr. Bishop said the technology was already in place and had been used by one large Internet company, Baidu, when it ran its own version of a microblog, which no longer exists. The registration information that users enter online can be matched up against a police database, he said.

Leaders here have long discussed how to better control the Chinese Internet, which has about 485 million users, the most of any country. Most vexing for officials has been the speed with which information can spread on microblogs. This year, several episodes highlighted the reach of microblogs, including posts that ignited mass anger over both the Wenzhou high-speed train crash and the hit-and-run death of a 2-year-old toddler, Yueyue.

China has for years blocked Twitter and Facebook, and officials here carefully monitored the rebellions this year in the Middle East to see how they were organized and what role social networking sites played.

But Chinese officials also see the microblogs as useful. The sites allow people to vent anger, and officials can track posts to see the direction of public opinion. More and more officials are also being encouraged to use microblogs for propaganda and to mold discussions. Talk within the party about controlling the Internet accelerated after a policy meeting of the party’s Central Committee in October that focused on culture and ideology.

In the announcement Friday, Beijing officials said microblogs should “actively spread the core values of the socialist system, disseminate socialist advanced culture and build a socialist harmonious society.”

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

NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED COLUMNIST

Will China Break?

By PAUL KRUGMAN, Published: December 18, 2011

AFRICAN LEADERS AT UN-BACKED FORUM URGE FUNDING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION

African leaders gathered in a United Nations-backed meeting today urged the international community to support a fund intended to help poor countries adapt to the consequences of climate change and mitigate its effects of their economies and the environment.

“Finances are critical,” Abdoulie Janneh, UN Under Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), told UN Radio at the end of the five-day Seventh African Development Forum in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

“We must mobilize our own resources to really again underpin the importance we attach to climate change. But this is the challenge that was imposed on Africa.

“We are not contributing much to this phenomenon of climate change and therefore what we are saying is that those countries that have created this should really come up with the resources necessary,” Mr. Janneh said.

The theme of the Forum was “acting on climate change for sustainable development in Africa,” and was jointly convened by the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank and ECA.

At the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, last December, developed nations pledged $30 billion of fast-track funding for developing countries through 2012 and committed to raise $100 billion annually by 2020.

* * *

AFRICA LAUNCHES WOMEN’S DECADE WITH KEYNOTE ADDRESS FROM DEPUTY UN CHIEF

The African Union (AU) today launched the African Women’s Decade, with a top United Nations official calling on the continent’s leaders to seize the opportunity to eliminate a raft of ills, from exclusion from land tenure, credit and inheritance to violence and genital mutilation.

“Empowering women is a moral imperative, a question of fundamental rights,” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told an AU forum in Nairobi, Kenya, in a keynote address. “It is also sound policy. This is our chance to put principle into practice… Investing in women and girls is one of the greatest investments we can make.

“Gender equality and women’s empowerment are not add-ons – they are integral to development. Furthermore, they will have a multiplier effect on sustainable growth, and provide resilience to future challenges. Let us therefore work to empower Africa’s women and girls.”

She recited a litany of discrimination faced by women, especially those in rural areas. They do most of the agricultural work, yet endure the worst working conditions, with low pay and little or no social protection. They produce most of the food, yet are often excluded from land tenure, credit and business services. They are the primary users and custodians of local natural resources, but seldom have a voice on the bodies that decide how these resources are managed.

“They are the care-givers and managers of households, but rarely share these responsibilities equally with men or have a say in major household decisions,” Ms. Migiro declared. “We need to right these wrongs. We must ensure that rural women can access the legal, financial and technological tools they need to progress from subsistence agriculture to productive agriculture.”

She called for better income-generating opportunities and education for women, noting that women make up over two thirds of the 800 million adults in Africa who cannot read and write.

“This is denying women the chance to work, to prosper, to assert their rights and take their place as equal participants in society,” she said. “It also denies their countries an invaluable asset.”

More than half of Africans infected of HIV/AIDS are women, up to three-quarters of those aged 15 to 24. “The statistics tell a shocking story,” she added. “Young women are powerless in negotiating safer sex. Let us empower them. Healthy women and girls means healthy societies, healthy nations.”

Turning to violence against women, she called it “a topic that pains me – that should pain us all… It is endemic in our societies. We must unite to end it. It comes in many forms: domestic violence; the abuse of vulnerable young girls; genital cutting; rape. Such crimes can never be rationalized as culture or tradition. Wherever they occur they should be condemned. They should be prosecuted. And most of all, they should be prevented.”

African leaders must take their commitments seriously, Ms. Migiro underlined.

“We need national and local action to make women’s rights a reality, to end discriminatory traditional practices, and to end impunity for gender-based violence,” she said. “Let us accept in our minds, and in our laws, that women are rightful and equal partners – to be protected, to be respected, and to be heard.”

* * *

SECRETARY-GENERAL ARRIVES IN MOROCCO TO ADDRESS GLOBAL CONFERENCE

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon touched down in Morocco today, where he will address an international policy conference on the theme of global governance.

In his speech to the gathering organized by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) tomorrow, Mr. Ban is expected to spotlight the need for enhanced ways of working together as global interdependence deepens.

He will identify three main challenges for global governance: ensuring that the global economy works for all people; combating climate change; and addressing new challenges, such as migration and organized crime.

The three-day gathering in Marrakech will draw some 140 representatives from governments, the private sector, academia and the media.

While in the country, the Secretary-General will meet with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and the UN Country Team in the capital, Rabat.

From Morocco, he will travel to Strasbourg, France, to address the Council of Europe and meet with European officials.

* * *

UN WEST AFRICA ENVOY IN NIGER TO DISCUSS RETURN TO CONSTITUTIONAL RULE

Said Djinnit, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for West Africa, visited Niger today as part of a joint mission with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to underline the support of the international community for the country’s transition to constitutional order.

A coup took place in the impoverished Sahelian nation in mid-February when renegade soldiers stormed the presidential palace and deposed Mamadou Tandja, who had been accused by opposition figures and others of anti-democratic practices.

Niger’s head of State, General Salou Djibo, reassured the ECOWAS-UN delegation today that recent developments in the country will not affect the transition or respect of the agreed timeline.

The electoral timetable provides for polls to be held between 31 October and 6 April 2011, beginning with a referendum on the new constitution and culminating with the election of a new president who will be inaugurated on 11 April. Members of the transitional government and the military and security forces will be ineligible to stand.

Last month, Mr. Djibo called on the UN and other international organizations to observe the upcoming elections, stressing the transitional Government’s determination to “guarantee free, fair, transparent and credible elections.”

Addressing the annual high-level General Assembly debate, he noted that “the commitments that we made the day after the events of 18 February 2010, are at an advanced stage of fulfilment and will be held within the agreed timetable, with your support.”

Mr. Djinnit and the joint delegation later travelled to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where they will meet with President Blaise Compaoré, the ECOWAS mediator for Guinea, to discuss the situation in the country ahead of the second round of the presidential election, set to be held on 24 October.

Yesterday, Mr. Ban spoke with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in his role as head of ECOWAS, which has been assisting the process to ensure that the much-delayed run-off is held as scheduled in Guinea.

The Secretary-General voiced hope that in the remaining days, any outstanding issues would be resolved, according to his spokesman.

He thanked Mr. Jonathan for his direct engagement together with Mr. Compaoré of Burkina Faso to ensure that the poll is held in a peaceful climate.

Guinea’s independent electoral authority earlier cited technical difficulties when it postponed the second round between Cellou Dalein Diallo and Alpha Condé, the two candidates with the highest number of votes in the first round in June.

Mr. Djinnit has warned that further delays could seriously undermine the transition process in Guinea. At least one person died earlier this month following clashes in the capital, Conakry, related to the election tensions, and Guinea has been plagued by misrule, dictatorships and coups since it gained independence in 1958.

The election is the final stage of the interim Government’s efforts to set up a democracy after the forces of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara – who seized power in a coup in 2008 after the death of long-time president Lansana Conté – shot, raped and attacked hundreds of civilian demonstrators attending a rally in Conakry in September 2009, killing at least 150.

Frank Lavin is now Chairman, Public Affairs, Asia Pacific, at Edelman – the largest PR company in the Asia-Pacific region. He previously was Under Secretary for International Trade at the US Department of Commerce and Ambassador to Singapore. In those capacities he was responsible for Trade agreements with China, India, Singapore – among his other imprint on US Asian commerce policy. Now he lives in Hong Kong.

When the US was in a position that there might not have been a US pavilion at this year’s -  six months long – May 1 to Oct 31, 2010 – World Fair in Shanghai, he volunteered to organize one with the help of business companies, and the friendly assistance of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Now he can look and say – we did it! It took him a mere one year to put up a respectable “Great Hall of the American People” pavilion.

This fair will have three times as many visitors as the New York World Fair and will be the largest ever in every respect – in size – number of countries exhibiting – 189, number of heads of State visiting 100. There are 240 pavilions that include 57 that are not by governments – such as IOs, NGOs, and businesses. 40 million visitors have already seen it by August 14th. It is expected that 60 million Chinese and 10 million foreigners, will have seen the Fair by the time it closes.

I found it extremely interesting that the Fair includes pavilions for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao – very nice and non-controversial -  and the Chinese go and see them. Also interesting that in their statistics these lands are counted as foreign. I wonder how are displayed the Chinese provinces and how the competition between them is handled? Is a decentralized vuew of China allowed in the Chinese huge and very beautiful red and white Chinese pavilion?

The main item in the US pavilion is a film that shows a girl that sees through her window the need to plant a tree in order to beautify the neighborhood. This is a subtle way to tell the visitors – mainly Chinese – that with initiative and cooperation, one can change the world for the better. It is not a government, but the individual human spirit that does it. You learn that you are responsible for the environment and your actions count. The overall theme of this year’s Fair is “Better City , Better Life, so there is nothing revolutionary in the US story here except this interpretation that it calls for an individual response to environmental needs.

It is hoped that this will be appreciated by the average person in the region – the fact that the US did not come to toot its horn by showing off achievements of the past – the US makes rather attempts at cooperation with the Chinese in many areas of common interest. That reminded me of the G2 approach that President Obama initiated ahead of going to Copenhagen – now we see that it could also be a people’s action if people are ready to do what is right for their communities. Maybe we should recommend that Americans also go to see this US pavilion in Shanghai.

Asked what else he could have done for the pavilion, Frank Lavin said that besides the content for the 30 minutes he planed for there are several minutes of waiting time in line that could have been used. For the people in lines outside – there is entertainment that changes – visiting bands – so on. Several people in the Asia Society audience have already been to see the pavilion, quite a few more said that they are scheduled to go. Michael Roberts, Executive Director, New York Public Programs at Asia Society chaired the event.

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THE UPDATE:

Above we posted on August 27, 2010, but now we got the posting that was done by The Asia Society and a bit of the actual tape – so we include these in the UPDATE.

The Shanghai Expo:
Inside ‘The World’s Largest Event.’

watch video

Frank Lavin explains how the US Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo emphasizes what Americans and Chinese have in common. (1 min., 48 sec.)

• Watch the complete program

NEW YORK, August 26, 2010 – “The Shanghai Expo, at an annualized rate about 150 million people a year, would be something like eight or nine times what the number one theme park in the world does, which is Disney World,” said ambassador Frank Lavin, Chairman of the USA Pavilion’s Steering Committee, referring to the number of people who will visit the 2010 Expo. “In fact, it is not just the largest World’s Fair in history, but this is the largest event in human history.”

Speaking at Asia Society’s New York Headquarters, the former US Ambassador to Singapore was sharing his insider’s perspective on the Shanghai Expo, the latest incarnation of the World’s Fair that runs from May 1 to October 31, 2010.

Lavin helped organize this year’s United States Pavilion. He explained that since the average Expo attendee spends only 30 minutes in each pavilion, early decisions were made not to treat the American exhibit as a “college seminar course in US history,” but to present a “show, don’t tell” narrative of American society and culture.

By exposing millions of Chinese to unfamiliar countries and cultures, Lavin said the Expo is an important opportunity to educate the country’s citizens about the rest of the world. Although 47 million Chinese will travel abroad this year, more than 50 percent will only visit the semi-autonomous enclaves of Hong Kong and Macao. With over 90 percent of the 70 million fairgoers Chinese, the Expo is accessible to a much larger population of Chinese citizens who want to experience foreign cultures.

Asked about how the United States pavilion’s message will help its public diplomacy with China, he responded, “Of course there are many issues where the United States and China have different points of view.”  But at the American Pavilion, “The average Chinese fairgoer is going to see that he or she has a lot in common with the same American in a similar position.” He concluded that the media tends to only focus our few disagreements, rather than our many points of commonality.

Although the 2010 Expo will be the most attended event in human history, American attendance is quite low. Lavin noted, however, that this isn’t because Americans aren’t interested in foreign cultures; rather, “When an American goes to visit China, he is not going to go to the Expo. He is going to go to the Great Wall, Summer Palace, Forbidden City, and see the sights of Beijing and Shanghai.”

Reported by Zachary Raske

THE MOTOR VEHICLE:

BYD POISED TO GO WHERE NO OTHER CHINESE AUTOMAKER HAS GONE BEFORE

The Shenzhen-based BYD (an acronym for Build Your Dreams) was founded by Wang Chuanfu in 1995 on a $300,000 loan. Over ten years it grew to become China’s largest manufacturer of mobile phone batteries, and producing over half of ALL rechargeable phone batteries worldwide. Applying its battery technology to cars, BYD Auto was founded in 2002. As of 2009, it is the sixth-largest car manufacturer in China, and exports cars globally to Africa, South America, and the Middle East.

In 2008 BYD attracted the attention of uber-entrepreneur Warren Buffet, who invested $250 million in the company, buying up a 10% stake. In the beginning of 2010, Wuang Chuanfu was named the richest man in China.

A blanket of smog covers the Hong Kong skyline  as air pollution hit record levels, raising pressure on the authorities to do more to contain home-grown pollution. Being just of Mainland China does not help. Air Quality in Hong Kong Seen as Possible Liability.
By BETTINA WASSENER
Published in The New York Times: March 31, 2010.
 www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/busine…

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Nevertheless, the G-20 seem to have other things in front of their eyes:
 mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inb…

China reprimanded by G20 leaders.

By Chris Giles in London and Alan Beattie in Washington
Published: March 30 2010, The Financial Times.

Five prominent members of the Group of 20 leading economies, including the US and UK, sent a coded rebuke to China on Tuesday against backsliding on economic agreements.

In a letter to the rest of the G20 that shows frustration at slow progress this year, the leaders warned: “Without co-operative action to make the necessary adjustments to achieve [strong and sustainable growth], the risk of future crises and low growth remain.”

G20 officials said the letter – signed by Stephen Harper and Lee Myung-bak, the Canadian and South Korean leaders who will chair the group’s two summits this year, Barack Obama, US president, Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, French president – was an attempt to restore flagging momentum to the international process.

Ottawa and Seoul are concerned that the G20 summits they will host, in June and November respectively, might fail to live up to expectations.

In a move that will irritate China, the five leaders specifically raised the issue of exchange rates in relation to reducing trade imbalances, a topic the G20 avoided in 2009 to help secure agreement at the London and Pittsburgh summits.

“We need to design co-operative strategies and work together to ensure that our fiscal, monetary, foreign exchange, trade and structural policies are collectively consistent with strong, sustainable and balanced growth,” the letter said.

It has been released in the middle of an intense debate in Washington about how the White House should confront Beijing over the perceived strength of the renminbi. Some lawmakers are ratcheting up calls for China to be designated a currency manipulator in a forthcoming report.

Charles Schumer, the third most senior Democrat in the Senate, this week again advocated a bill that would allow the US to include estimates of currency misalignment when calculating anti-subsidy duties to be imposed on imports.

As well as refusing to budge on its currency, China has been obstructing the G20 process this year. It has hampered efforts by the International Monetary Fund to issue a report which Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director, told the Financial Times in January would conclude that national strategies for growth around the world “will not add up”.

The leaders’ letter makes reference to the slow progress of this process, urging all G20 members to “move quickly” to “report robustly on what each of us can do to contribute to strong sustainable and balanced global growth”.

The letter also sounded a warning note over the so-called Doha round of global trade talks, which is at a virtual standstill after the collapse of negotiations in 2008.

“With regard to Doha, we need to determine whether we can achieve the greater level of ambition necessary to make an agreement feasible,” the letter said.

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A – yes – Cochabamba, this we posted twenty minutes ago – please see also: www.sustainabilitank.info/#14140

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Dalai Lama voices support for Uighurs

Posted by World Watch.

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Had China accepted the reality that it needs to allow more self-government to its ethnic and politically different component  regions – there would be no problem with the reintegration of Taiwan as part of a confederation of friendly states and cities.     We say this all the time on this website and we think it would be in China’s interest.

U.S.-China Spat Escalates Over Internet Freedom.

WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (IPS) – The stern warning given to China by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemning internet censorship and responding to allegations that Chinese hackers had accessed Google email addresses has received a pointed response from the Chinese government, raising questions over what the next move will be for Google, the United States, and U.S. firms that do business in China.

On Thursday, Clinton laid out the national security threat posed by cyber attacks and warned that attacks would not go unnoticed and would bring a response. “States, terrorist and those who would act as their proxies must know that the United States will protect our networks,” said Clinton. “Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society,” she continued.

The Chinese response to Clinton’s remarks took sharply differing tones depending on which audience Beijing was addressing. On the foreign ministry website, the government responded on Friday with measured language, saying, “The U.S. attacks China’s internet policy, indicating that China has been restricting internet freedom. We resolutely oppose such remarks and practices that contravene facts and undermine China-U.S. relations,” and, “We urge the U.S. to respect facts and stop attacking China under the excuse of the so-called freedom of internet.”

But in state-controlled news outlets, primarily published for a domestic readership, the war of words was much more harshly framed. “Accusation that the Chinese government participated in cyber attacks, either in an explicit or inexplicit way, is groundless and aims to denigrate China. We are firmly opposed to that,” a spokesman of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told Xinhua News Agency on Sunday.

The state-controlled newspaper, The Global Times, wrote, “China’s real stake in the ‘free flow of information’ is evident in its refusal to be victimised by information imperialism.” “With the Chinese-language media, there are two important themes to keep in mind. First, [the controversy over Google] is really not that big a deal. The Chinese Google saga is really more interesting to people in Washington than most average folks in Beijing or elsewhere,” Christina Larson, an expert on Chinese civil society and a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, told IPS. “The second thing is that it’s portrayed [in the Chinese media] as really this sense that foreign companies don’t really have the right to come in and dictate their terms to China,” Larson continued.

The war of words between Beijing and Washington was set off on Jan. 12 when Google announced its intention to cease the censorship of its search engine results in China and disclosed that a number of Google email accounts used by human rights advocates, diplomats and journalists had been breached by Chinese hackers. The accusations were followed by other rumours and allegations that Chinese hackers had stolen proprietary Google source code, and that cyber attacks and corporate espionage originating from China were becoming increasingly big concerns for the U.S. government and U.S. companies doing business in China.

The mixture of accusations coming from Google, and Clinton’s calls for a Chinese investigation into the allegations, have left a somewhat confusing message about what Google seeks from Beijing in the upcoming discussions over its refusal to continue censoring search results.

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We actually sympathize with the idea that Media should not be monopolized by Big Business, but when private people in China, and even international Google,  tell us that the Chinese do not get full free flow of internet information we know China is not talking truth. We are also worried about China inpact on dissemination of information by multinational organizations like the UN where they insist on having a superviser appointment to be given to one of their nationals.

Friday, Jan. 22, 2010 – Stop the presses — foreign media pulling out of Japan.
With China rising and revenues falling, priorities have changed.

By MARIKO KATO
Staff writer, The Japan Times online

Major foreign media outlets are leaving Japan in droves, a sign of financial difficulties at home as the news industry struggles with falling advertising revenue. But observers note that Japan is also losing its appeal as the most newsworthy country in Asia, with China now the hot spot.

Read all about it: U.S. news magazines Time and Newsweek are among the major foreign media companies that have recently closed or scaled down their presence in Tokyo.

In the latest withdrawal from Japan, the news magazine Time closed its editorial branch in Tokyo earlier this month. Last year, Newsweek shut down its editorial section in Tokyo while the editorial staff of BusinessWeek merged with Bloomberg after the financial news service announced it would buy the magazine last October.

Among newspapers, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have been reported to have drastically reduced their forces in Japan.

“When I heard about Time I thought foreign media coverage in Japan has really finished,” Takashi Uesugi, a freelance journalist and expert on journalism who used to be a reporter at the Tokyo branch of The New York Times, told The Japan Times.

Observers agree that a big reason for the force reduction here is the decrease in ad revenue at home, due partly to the effects of the global financial crisis and partly to consumers increasingly turning to the Internet for news.

But Uesugi said there are other reasons for the foreign media’s flight that are rooted in Japan.

“The financial situation of the companies in their own countries is a big factor,” he said. “But the second reason is (the decrease in) Japan’s national power. Foreign media are becoming increasingly more interested in China and setting up offices there, while they withdraw from Japan.”

According to Uesugi, The New York Times office in Tokyo had 13 full-time employees covering much of Asia and Russia when he worked there from 1999 to 2002. Now there are only three, while the newspaper has opened offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, he said.

The Washington Post office in Tokyo has only one reporter left and the Los Angeles Times branch has closed, according to Uesugi.

Numbers reflect the trend. According to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, its foreign members numbered around 250 during the late 1980s and early 1990s when the booming economy provided both interesting news and an attractive home for overseas correspondents. The count was more than 300 if Japanese staff employed by foreign media companies were included.

However, the ranks have since been decreasing steadily, with only 144 foreign members registered as of March 2009.

“This means that news about Japan becomes more dependent on news wires. Even if (those media that have left Japan) hire temporary staff here, only correspondents are actually eligible to write stories, which would lead to lack of depth or analysis,” Uesugi said.

For correspondents elsewhere in Asia to visit Japan and report news, the event would need to be as big as Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system or the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which both happened in 1995, or last year’s Lower House election that led to the first major change in government since the 1950s, he added.

But others say it is not all bad news. According to Hiroshi Kakiyama, regional director of the Tokyo sales office for BusinessWeek, the magazine is stronger now that Bloomberg reporters can contribute articles.

“It’s been reported that the U.S. media (are) disappearing, but that image doesn’t apply to us,” he said.

BusinessWeek used to have two correspondents and one reporter in Tokyo, of which only one correspondent remained to join forces with Bloomberg.

“When there were only three members of staff, the articles they could write on Japan were very limited, but from now on we will be able to cover a wider range,” Kakiyama said, adding that four Bloomberg reporters in Tokyo contributed to the New Year’s issue.

BusinessWeek’s main target is businessmen, according to Kakiyama, while Bloomberg staff have the experience of accommodating a slightly different audience that includes investors and government financial officials.

While financial difficulties are a key reason for the foreign media’s retreat, the government is also at fault for not extensively opening up news conferences to foreign reporters, according to Uesugi.

Major news organizations that are members of press clubs attached to government offices and industries have easy and quick access to breaking news and off-the-record information. This has been a long-term problem for foreign journalists as well as local free-lancers and magazine writers who, as nonmembers, are refused entry into news conferences and briefings.

Uesugi said the hostile setup has served to encourage foreign correspondents to move elsewhere in Asia.

“Japanese tend to think it’s only the West that has open news conferences, but it’s the whole world except Japan,” he said, giving as examples South Korea, India, Brazil and China, although Beijing places other restrictions on the press.

There was a glimmer of light for journalists locked out of the press club system when the Democratic Party of Japan won the August election. DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama, now prime minister, had said he would open up news conferences if his party took power.

But while some Cabinet members — including Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Shizuka Kamei, the state minister for financial and postal issues — have taken the initiative to even the playing field, the change has not been extensive throughout government.

“The current government has the desire to communicate more with the outside world, but it needs to do more,” Uesugi said.

He acknowledged it is already too late to woo the foreign press back to Japan, except for the unlikely event that Japan’s national power increases or China’s politics becomes too unstable to remain there.

“But opening up press conferences is a start, and the only way forward. If you’re switched off at the source, then there’s no point in wondering why the telephone doesn’t connect,” Uesugi said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A certain raport evolved between him and Washingtonian Diringer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

www.ft.com/obamainasia 

www.ft.com/rachmanblog

GCC ministers meet to discuss swine flu threat
by Martin Morris on Saturday, 02 May 2009

SWINE FLU: Outbreak may not be as severe as earlier inidcated. (Getty Images)

GCC health ministers and their Yemeni counterpart held an emergency meeting in Doha on Saturday to discuss urgent measures to fight swine flu.

UAE Health Minister Humaid Al Qatami, who headed the UAE delegation, said it had been agreed to set up a unified Gulf strategy – effective next week – to combat swine flu.

Secretary-General of the GCC, Abdulrahman Al-Attiyah, said GCC members have developed the necessary plans for dealing with any eventuality and are in contact with other Arab and foreign countries in following up developments of the fatal disease, KUNA news agency reported.

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Related: Swine flu – Egypt to cull pig population
by AFP on Saturday, 02 May 2009

Egypt is to begin a controversial slaughter of the nation’s 250,000 pigs in earnest on Saturday, despite the World Health Organisation saying there was no evidence the animals were transmitting swine flu to humans.

Cairo governor Abdel Halim Wazir told the state news agency MENA that the government will begin slaughtering an estimated 60,000 pigs raised by rubbish collectors in a shanty town in Egypt’s sprawling capital.

Egypt announced on Wednesday that it will slaughter the nation’s entire pig population after an outbreak of swine flu in other countries, even though no cases have been detected in Egypt.

(The pigs belong to poor Coptic Christians, the bottom of the Egyptian human pyramid, for whom this is a real blow – and this is totally unnecessary!   So far as Israel is concerned, without a Minister of Health in the new government, but only a Rabbi-in-charge, Rabbi Litzman,   with the title as Deputy Minister, though two cases are known, imports from Mexico, there is no talk of Swine Flu – as swine is not to be mentioned in a Kosher ministry – they call it Mexican Flu instead – SustainabiliTank comments. We liked the fact that the GCC call it swine flu – but then what about this leading to the Egyptian excess?)

Related: Latest figures on swine flu
by Joanna Hartley on Saturday, 02 May 2009

Latest worldwide figures show that as of 6.00 GMT on may 2, show 15 countries have officially reported 615 cases of swine flu, influenza A (H1N1) infection.

Mexico has reported 397 confirmed human cases of infection, an increase of 241 in the past 24 hours, which include 16 deaths.

The rise in cases was due to ongoing testing of previously collected specimens, WHO said.
The US government has reported 141 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death.

The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths – Austria (1), Canada (34), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Denmark (1), France (1), Germany (4), Israel (2), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (4), Republic of Korea (1), Spain (13), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (13).

Individuals are advised to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water on a regular basis and should seek medical attention if they develop any symptoms of influenza-like illness.

No restrictions have been announced on international air travel and borders should remain open, WHO said.

It has also reiterated the point that cinsuming well cooked pork products contains no risk of infection in humans.

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GCC Ministers agreed to put the health facilities of the region on high alert by activating national surveillance and early warning systems.

The meeting’s final communique advised GCC nationals to avoid travel to countries hit by the epidemic.

Commenting on the advice, Al-Attiyah said it does not mean a travel ban to and from such countries.

Al-Attiyah, also sought to allay citizens’ fears telling reporters: ”We should not exaggerate ….. the swine flu epidemic, especially when we have (had) a successful experience in dealing with bird flu (H5N1).”

He added: “We were able to defeat the bird flu through collective measures and close coordination among the GCC countries.”

Elsewhere, new laboratory data showed fewer people have died in Mexico than first thought from the H1N1 flu strain.

Mexico cut its suspected death toll from the virus to up to 101 from as many as 176, as dozens of test samples came back negative. Fewer patients with severe flu symptoms were also checking into hospitals, suggesting the infection rate of a flu that has spread to Europe and Asia was declining.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed the outbreak may not be as severe as it looked a few days ago, citing many mild cases that were not immediately noticed.

The World Health Organization said on Saturday 15 countries have reported 615 infections with the new flu virus A-H1N1.

President Barack Obama said the United States was responding aggressively to the new flu strain.

He outlined steps his administration was taking to address the virus, including school closures, and said antivirals were being distributed to states where they may be needed and new stockpiles had been ordered.

It has world health experts racing to find a vaccine and is wreaking havoc with a travel industry that flies hundreds of thousands of people to and from Mexico each week.

China suspended flights to Mexico after Hong Kong authorities on Friday confirmed a Mexican man who flew via the Chinese mainland was infected with the flu strain.