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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UN’s Ban and Barak, discrete agreement not shown

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russia’s new war anniversary.

As we posted earlier, From 2-6 August 2010, delegates were meeting in Bonn, Germany, for the eleventh session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC AWG-LCA 11) and the thirteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 13). AWG-LCA 11 will consider the Chair’s revised text circulated in July.

As part of above meeting, at the opening session, the new Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, headquarterd in Bonn, made her maiden speech to the organization.

We have here her own words, the Press release from the Bonn office and the Press release of the UN headquarters in New York.

Our argument is that there is no perfect correlation between these three documents, and we will argue that seemingly the process to undermine the new Executive Secretary has already started. It was such activities, directed seemingly from the New York headquarters that sunk Yvo de Boer, and might be intended to sink now also Christiana Figueres.

What we read in Christiana’s statement is the recognition that the reality is such that the dream-world of the UN revolving around Kyoto was finished and Copenhagen was the start of a new era of attempts to find more realistic ways.

What the two Press releases show is an adherence to the dead world of Kyoto which translates into an adherence to continuation of the 11th – going to 12th year old stagnation. By disallowing interested press from participating at these press conferences, this disinformation becomes norm.

————————————–

The thirteenth session of the AWG-KP and the eleventh session of the AWG-LCA
Bonn, 2 August 2010

Opening speech by Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

Just over 500 years ago, Christopher Columbus set sail for uncharted waters, determined to
change the map of the world.  While he was a man of his times with all the faults of his times, he
certainly far exceeded his own expectations.

Like Columbus, we are people of our times with all the constraints of our times and yet we,
too, stand on the threshold of a new world.  Whether we succumb to the storms of climate change or
work together to reach the far shore is up to us to decide.

What is at stake here is none other than the long-term, sustainable future of humanity. Thus
as individuals, as governments, as a global community, we must all exceed our own expectations,
simply because nothing less will do.

We know the milestones science has set.  We know by when and by how much greenhouse
gas emissions must drop to have a chance of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, devastating
for the most vulnerable and the poorest around the world.

Time is not on our side.  Decisions need to be taken, perhaps in an incremental manner,
but most certainly with firm steps and unwavering resolve.  We must progress in the full knowledge that we
cannot cross the ocean on a single gust of wind. But, if we don’t raise the sails higher now, we may
never discover a safer, more stable world.

Friends, for 15 years, I worked with you in our shared task of delivering the solutions that governments must offer humanity.

Now, as your Executive Secretary, it is my honour to work for you.  It is my priority to
ensure that the secretariat continues to support the negotiations and enhance the implementation of your
decisions with its unflagging commitment, professionalism and integrity.

I approach this task with a deep sense of humility, honouring the achievements of these
negotiations, but also acutely aware of the rapidly rising scale and urgency of what must still be done.

Governments alone can not solve climate change, but only governments, working together, can help the
world pilot the course most effectively.

Like Columbus, citizens, societies and businesses everywhere today need the incentives and the resources
to set off confidently into uncharted waters.  It is the prime task of governments to set the sails ever higher,
to help humanity capture the powerful winds of change that are waiting to be released.

Transformations like this are made by grasping the politically possible at every step, by
turning countless, diverse and sometimes conflicting interests to a common purpose.

The governments of the world, represented by you here today, have been steadily building
that common ground since the UNFCCC began; in Rio, Kyoto, Marrakesh, Bali, and yes, Copenhagen.
And this year, in Cancun, the climate negotiations can further the cause of multilateralism.

In Cancun, my friends, you have both the responsibility and the opportunity to take the next essential step:
to turn the politically possible into the politically irreversible.

Five hundred years after Columbus sailed, another man from a very different world has
triumphed over his own long and difficult journey.

Nelson Mandela, very much a man of our times, tells us: “There is no passion to be found
playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.  We must use time
wisely, and forever realise that the time is always ripe to do right.”

Friends, the time is ripe. I trust you will do right.

Thank you.

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

AND HER PRESS OFFICER – THE REPRESENTATIVE OF HEADQUARTER UN DPI – SAID:

UNITED NATIONS
NATIONS UNIES

FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE – Secretariat
CONVENTION – CADRE SUR LES CHANGEMENTS CLIMATIQUES  – Secretariat

PRESS RELEASE

UNFCCC Executive Secretary: Governments meeting in Bonn have responsibility to take next essential step in fight against climate change

(Bonn, 2 August 2010)  The third round of UN climate change negotiations this year kicked off
on Monday with representatives from 178 governments meeting in Bonn, Germany. The Bonn UN
Climate Change Conference (2 to 6 August) is designed to prepare the outcomes of the UN
Climate Change Conference in Cancun in November and December.

Governments have a responsibility this year to take the next essential step in the battle
against climate change, said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. How
governments achieve the next essential step is up to them. But it is politically possible. In Cancun,
the job of governments is to turn the politically possible into the politically irreversible, she said.

The government delegates will discuss the second iteration of the text to facilitate
negotiations under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the
Convention (AWG-LCA). The negotiating group is tasked to deliver a long-term global solution to
the climate challenge.

The Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto
Protocol (AWG-KP) is also meeting in Bonn in parallel to the AWG-LCA. The focus of this group is
on emissions reduction commitments for the 37 industrialised countries that have ratified the
Kyoto Protocol for the period beyond 2012.

The UN’s top climate change official Christiana Figueres pointed to the opportunity to
capture the promises, pledges and progress that governments have already made, in accountable
and binding ways. According to Ms. Figueres, governments now need to resolve what to do with
their public pledges to cut emissions. All industrialised countries have made public pledges to cut
emissions by 2020 and 38 developing countries have submitted plans to limit their emissions
growth.

“This needs to be captured in internationally agreed form,” the UN’s top climate change official said:
“More stringent actions to reduce emissions cannot be much longer postponed and industrial nations must lead,” she added.

{NO! WE DID NOT FIND THIS IN HER TEXT – THIS IS FALSE FEED TO THE PRESS! SHE AVOIDED SAYING WHAT INDUSTRIAL NATIONS OUGHT TO DO!}

Ms. Figueres pointed out that governments agree to a comprehensive set of  ways and means to allow developing countries to take concrete climate action. SHE DID NOT SAY THIS EITHER!!

Mailing Address: CLIMATE CHANGE SECRETARIAT (UNFCCC), P.O. Box 260 124,  D-53153 Bonn, Germany
Office Location: Haus Carstanjen, Martin-Luther-King-Strasse 8,  D-53175 Bonn, Germany
Media Information Office: (49-228) 815-1005  Fax: (49-228) 815-1999
Email:  press at unfccc.int  Web: http://unfccc.int
UNFCCC/CCNUCC

This includes adapting to climate change, limiting emissions growth; providing adequate
finance; boosting the use of clean technology; promoting sustainable forestry; and building up
the skills and capacity to do all this.

The new UNFCCC Executive Secretary also noted the urgent need for industrialised
nations to turn their pledges of funding into reality. Last year, these countries promised 30 billion
dollars in fast-track finance for developing country adaptation and mitigation efforts through
2012.

i?Developing nations see the allocation of this money as a critical signal that industrialised
nations are committed to progress in the broader negotiations,i? Christiana Figueres said.

Industrialised countries further pledged to find ways and means to raise 100 billion dollars
a year, by 2020.

i?Governments need to achieve clarity on how institutional arrangements, particularly
financial arrangements, lock into other issues,i? said Christiana Figueres. i?For example, how could
institutional arrangements for financing be linked most effectively to an operational technology
mechanism or action on adaptation?,i? she said.

Ms. Figueres said that countries wanted to see that what they agree with each other is
measured, reported and verified in a transparent and accountable way.

“It’s called  in the negotiations and it simply means that countries want to be confident that what they see is what they get,” she said. “Progress here will be a gauge that countries are moving towards common ground,” she said.

Finally, Christiana Figures pointed to the fact that governments agree that pledges need
to be captured in a binding manner but they need to decide how to do it. {YES  – SHE DID SAY THAT}

“Governments need to deliver this combination of accountability and binding action so
that civil society and business can be confident that clean, green strategies will be rewarded
globally, as well as locally,” the UNFCCC Executive Secretary said.

The Bonn gathering is being attended by around 3100 participants, including government
delegates, representatives from business and industry, environmental organisations and research
institutions.

The next UNFCCC negotiating session is scheduled to take place from 4 to 9 October in
Tianjin, China, before the UN Climate Change Conference 29 November to 10 December in
Cancun.

About the UNFCCC:

With 194 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto
Protocol has been ratified by 190 of the UNFCCC Parties. Under the Protocol, 37 States,
consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to
a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The
ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

AGAIN – HOW DOES A 192-Member UN COME UP WITH 194 PARTIES – GRANTED THE EU IS NUMBER THE FICTION OF A NUMBER 193?

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

AND EVEN MORE DIRECTLY – From the UN Daily NEWS of August 2, 2010 – we have:

NEW UN CLIMATE CHANGE CHIEF RALLIES GOVERNMENTS TO STEP UP ACTION.

With the future of humanity at stake, governments must continue
building common ground to further progress on climate change, the new
United Nations chief on the issue said in the latest round of
international negotiations which kicked off in Bonn today.

“Whether we succumb to the storms of climate change or work together
to reach the far shore is up to us to decide,” Christiana Figueres,
Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), said, invoking the journey made by Christopher Columbus more
than five centuries ago. {OK – NOT EXACT QUOTE BUT THE SPIRIT IS THERE!}

This was her first address to UN climate change talks as head of the
UNFCCC since taking over from Yvo de Boer last month.

“As individuals, as governments, as a global community, we must all
exceed our own expectations, simply because nothing less will do,” Ms.
Figueres told delegates.

Science, she said, has shown when and by how much greenhouse gas
emissions must drop to avert climate change’s worst impacts.

“Time is not on our side,” Ms. Figueres stated. “Decisions need to be
taken, perhaps in an incremental manner, but most certainly with firm
steps and unwavering resolve.”

The week-long talks under way in Bonn are the third round of UN
climate change negotiations so far this year, ahead of the next
conference of parties to the UNFCCC in Cancun in November.

At that gathering in the Mexican city, Ms. Figueres told delegates
today, “you have both the responsibility and the opportunity to take
the next essential step: to turn the politically possible into the
politically irreversible.”

Speaking to reporters, she said that governments can build on progress
made so far in five main areas.

Firstly, the public pledges made by all industrialized countries to
slash emissions by 2020 and the plans put forward by more than one
third of developing nations to limit their emissions growth must be
captured in an internationally-agreed form, she said.

Secondly, governments must forge ahead with efforts to agree on ways
to allow developing countries to take action in areas including
adapting to climate change, limiting emissions growth, providing
adequate finance and enhancing the use of clean energy.

In another key area, “industrialized nations can turn their pledges of
funding into reality,” she said.

Last year, these countries promised to provide $30 billion in
fast-track financing for developing countries to adapt and mitigate
climate change through 2012, with pledges having been made to raise
$100 billion annually by 2020.

“Developing nations see the allocation of this money as a critical
signal that industrialized nations are committed to progress in the
broader negotiations,” Ms. Figueres said.

Further, “countries want to see that what they agree with each other
is measured, reported and verified in a transparent and accountable
way,” she pointed out. “Countries want to be confident that what they
see is what they get.”

Finally, the UNFCCC chief said, while governments agree that pledges
must be captured in a binding manner, “they need to decide how to do
it.”

Governments, she added, “need to deliver this combination of
accountability and binding action so that civil society and business
can be confident that clean, green strategies will be rewarded
globally, as well as locally.”

{The above UN mantra is known – and most probably in some form came up in a Bonn Press Conference, but I could not locate the verbatim of a Bonn Press Conference and had no-one to ask – so all I can say is that I have nothing on this on the UNFCCC/News website,} It continues then with the informative ending:

More than 3,000 people – including government delegates and
representatives of the private sector, environmental groups and
research institutions – are attending the Bonn gathering this week.

The next round of talks is slated to take place in Tianjin, China, in
early October, weeks before the start of the Cancun conference.

Opinion: It’s a WikiLeaks World, Get Used to It.

by Jim Harper, Director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Special to AOL News
 http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/o…

(Aug. 5) – No matter where right or wrong lie in the posting of classified military reports on WikiLeaks.org, one lesson should be clear: This is how it’s going to be. Technology will continue to undercut secrecy — not just in the military, but in all large organizations.

Government and corporate leaders who aren’t ahead of this problem may already have trouble on their hands they don’t know about.

When 90,000 pages of documents chronicling the Afghan war went online last week, their potential effects on military planning and security caused the White House to strongly condemn their posting as “irresponsible.” Differing more than slightly, Salon commentator Glenn Greenwald praised WikiLeaks.org as “one of the most valuable and important organizations in the world.”

Culture: Cultural trends are coming into play as well. Military service-members today live in a culture of information sharing that might baffle their senior officers. They expect to be in touch with the outside world during their tours. Their service is long and difficult enough without quarantining them in a communications bubble for protracted periods. Indeed, doing so would undermine military effectiveness by cutting deeply into the morale of young men and women whose stateside lives are “always connected.” This is the generation that knows the value and power of sharing information.

Doubling down on information security is an option, but there are better approaches than to hunker in the secrecy corner.

Information technology is a strong and growing adversary, and it is better to turn its strengths to one’s advantage than to waste resources trying to fight against it.
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Pentagon Wants WikiLeaks to Return Classified War Documents.

by Christopher Weber, aol Correspondent
 http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/05/…

A week after WikiLeaks dumped 92,000 classified military documents online, the Pentagon is ordering the whistle-blower Web site to give them back.

“The Defense Department demands that WikiLeaks return immediately to the U.S. government all versions of documents obtained directly or indirectly from the Department of Defense databases or records,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters Thursday.

The Pentagon also ordered WikiLeaks to delete all the documents, most of which relate to military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, from its Web site and records, The Associated Press reported.

Morrell didn’t say what efforts, besides asking firmly, the Defense Department might be able to take to ensure WikiLeaks complies. Right now, Morrell said, the Defense Department hopes WikiLeaks will “do the right thing.”

WikiLeaks has not responded to the Pentagon request.

The Web site posted the reports, mostly raw intelligence reports, July 25, 2010.

Wikileaks is a 3-year-old nonprofit founded by Julian Assange that allows anonymous sources to upload private documents so anyone can read them online.

Oldest university on earth is reborn after 800 years.

Nalanda, an ancient seat of learning destroyed in 1193, will rise again thanks to a Nobel-winning economist.

By Andrew Buncombe

GETTY IMAGES

The ruins of Nalanda, the 2,000-year-old Buddhist University near Rajgir in the northern part of India.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please follow me on Twitter @columlynch.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20100801a1.html

China rapidly boosts investments in JGBs (Japanese Government Bonds.

Officials express concern over motive for expansion.

“COMMON WEALTH:  Economics for a Crowded Planet.”

by Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs

A New York Times Bestseller

Penguin Books, 2008

ISBN 978-1-59420-127-1  (hc.)

ISBN 978-0-14-311487-1 (pbk.)

386 p.

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The obligatory textbook for any would-be policy maker in the Twenty-first Century.

Don’t elect any one to Congress unless he testifies that he has read this book.

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We have a crowded planet and there are common challenges – it does not matter where you live.
We all get nourished from a source of common wealth that we must learn to honor as Environmental Sustainability.

We tried to draw a system in our own “Promptbook on Sustainable Development For The World Summit in Johannesburg August 2002,” but Professor Sachs did a much better job then I was able to do and I tip my hat before him.

Professor Sachs, with his knowledge, and with the tremendous resources of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, clearly achieved a much larger scope then we could have attempted – his book is full of data and still readable – even by policy makers that are not economists.

“Lucid, quietly urgent, and relentlessly logical . . . this is Big think with capital B.” says the New York Times Book Reviewer quote on front cover – and he is right.

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Let us start from the realization that the 20th Century saw the end of European dominance of global politics and economics and the 21st Century will witness the decline and end of American dominance.

The world is passing to new powers – China, India and Brazil.

Our own estimate is that Europe could have held on for a little longer had the European Union succeeded in creating a real Union – but in the form of the present cloud of competing States it is finished. The US, had it presented a united leadership, it could also have competed for a while longer, but as we heard today, from Senator Kerry on the Fareed Zakaria show, with the ongoing obstructionism in US Senate, we just watch how China has moved from 5% of the global production of solar panels – just two years ago, to the global production in 2010 of 60% of those panels, and this week’s announcement that the US Senate is incapable of gathering 60 votes for a Climate & Energy Bill this year – and hearing just one day after that the Chinese say that they are going to cap carbon emissions – this means that “WE WILL BE RIPPED OUT OF THE MARKET PLACE – WE ARE CUTTING OUR OWN THROAT HERE,” concluded Senator Kerry.

And why does this happen? The established economies grow fat and complacent – the world turns to new ideas from large and hungry Nations that are ready to learn fast and innovate and grow. They push the old mush to the sideways. Can the obfuscating politicians understand this?


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The mush starts from the refusal to recognize that resources are scarce, there are environmental stresses, and there will be large areas that become eventually uninhabitable leading again to great mass migration, clashes of civilization, warfare and mayhem. The above will be reinforced by the human created climate change, that gets super imposed on the power change to new Mega-Nations of more then a billion people each, and we must note that the world population has risen by 4 billion people in the span of just 60 years since 1950 – the Korea War – that came after what was thought to be the start of a post WWII peace.

For the world to save itself we must recognize the Anthropocene, when human activity became the dominant driver of the natural environment, and look for Global Solutions to Climate Change and Water Needs – to start a new strategy of Economic Development, end poverty traps, and create economic security in this changing Globalized World.

Our leaders must rethink Foreign Policy in the light of Global Goals which Prof. Sachs ends up as defining as “The Power of One.”

He points out that we are not only the subjects of history, carried along by blind forces, but agents of history.

Further, we have to gird ourselves against the unholy trinity of reactionary rhetoric identified by the great development economist Albert Hirschman. He noted that every new idea for constructive change is met with three attacks.

The first is futility: the course of reform cannot work because the problem is unsolvable.

The second is perversity: any attempt at solution will actually make matters worse.

The third is jeopardy: attempting to solve the problem will take attention and resources away from something even more important.

This negativism is a state of mind, not a view based on facts.

Relentless acceptance of the status quo is not acceptable in the face of the challenges we confront.

Be’chol Lashon is the Hebrew for “In Every Tongue” and it advocates for the Growth & Diversity of the Jewish People. Today Jews come indeed in every color and every stripes and some leaders do the outreach to embrace them all. Just look at Dr. Lewis Gordon of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, Mr. Romiel Daniel of Queens, New York, The head of Jews of India in our region, Dr. Ephraim Isaac, of the institute for Semitic Studies. They do not look like your stereotype Jew. I met them and was impressed – the latter actually for the first time as we both visited Addis Ababa at the time of the delayed Ethiopian Millennium. Then Rabbi Hailu Paris with his communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Ethiopian born and graduae of Yeshiva University, and his Assistant Monica Wiggan (http://www.blackjews.org/Essays/RabbiParisEthiopianTrip.html), and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu of the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda from whom I got a very distinctive kippah with the menorah – of the old temple worked in. Then Dr. Rabson Wuriga of the Hamisi Lemba clan in South Africa and Zimbabwe and so on – in Nigeria, in Peru, in India, in China.

And who has not heard by now of the present White House Rabbi – Cappers Funnye – the cousin of Michelle Obama – and associate director of Bechol Lashon and spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nei Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation of Chicago?

The New York regional director of DiverseJews.org is Lacey Schwartz who is also National Outreach Director of BecholLashon.org, assisted by Collier Meyerson and to top it all Davi Cheng, Director of the Los Angeles region is Jewish, Chinese, and Lesbian. As I said it is all a new image of the Jew.

Last night, at the Gallery Bar, 120 Orchard St., NYC there was a Shemspeed Summer Music Festival event.

The two further upcoming events in New York will be on:

Monday, August 2nd – the Shemspeed Hip Hop Fest at Le Poisson Rouge – 158 Bleeker Street NYC Featuring Tes Uno, Ted King & guest Geng Grizlee and others with CD Release parties for “A Tribe Called Tes” and “Move On.”

Thursday, August 5th – Shemspeed Jewish Punk Fest at Pianos, 158 Ludlow Street, NYC Featuring Moshiach Oil & The Groggers.

info on each event above and at http://shemspeed.com/fest

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A Jewish Woman Living in Ethiopia

Rethinking How U.S. Jews Fund Communities Around the World.

The Forward
Published: May 27, 2010

For more than half a century, North America’s Jewish federation system has divided its overseas allocations between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Joint Distribution Committee. The Jewish Agency has been dedicated to building up Israel and encouraging aliyah, while the Joint has focused on aiding Jewish communities in need around the globe.

Today, both agencies are working to assert their continued relevance in a changing Jewish world. With aliyah slowing, the Jewish Agency is moving toward embracing a new agenda: promoting the concept of Jewish peoplehood. The JDC, meanwhile, has sought to claim a larger share of the communal pie, which had long been split 75%-25% in the Jewish Agency’s favor.

After a recent round of sniping over the funding issue, the two sides are now stepping back from their public confrontation and recommitting to negotiations over the future of the collective funding arrangement. Underlying this fight, however, is a more fundamental tension over communal funding priorities: Should overseas aid be focused on helping needy Jews and assisting communities that have few resources of their own, or should it be used to bolster Jewish identity?

With this debate raging, the Forward asked a diverse group of Jewish thinkers and communal activists from around the world to weigh in and address the following question: How should North America’s Jewish community be thinking about its priorities and purposes in funding Jewish needs abroad?

New Century, New Priorities

By Yossi Beilin

During the 20th century, the challenges facing world Jewry were the following: rescue of Jews who encountered existential danger, assistance to Israel, helping with the absorption of those who immigrated to new countries and opening the gates for those who were denied the right to emigrate. In the 21st century, ensuring Jewish continuity is the greatest challenge facing the Jewish people.

Yet too often Jewish organizations in the United States and elsewhere remain focused on the challenges of the previous century. (Indeed, Jewish groups were not very receptive when I first proposed the idea for Birthright Israel 17 years ago.)

Ensuring the existence of Jewish life (religious and secular) throughout the world via Jewish education, encounters between young Israeli and Diaspora Jews, creating a virtual Jewish community using new technologies — these must be at the top of the global Jewish agenda. This requires American Jewish philanthropy and leadership, which in turn requires discerning between past and present priorities.

Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister of Israel, is president of the international consulting firm Beilink.

Reviving Polish Jewry

By Konstanty Gebert

The rebirth of Central European Jewish communities after 1989, though numerically not very impressive, remains significant for moral and historical reasons. It is also crucial for Jewish self-understanding. An enormous proportion of American Jews can trace their origins to what used to be Poland alone. This is where much of Diaspora history happened.

Alongside the courage and determination of local Jews, the far-sighted support of several American Jewish organizations and philanthropies made this rebirth possible. In Poland the Joint Distribution Committee, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation and the Taube Foundation played key roles. Their support has translated not only into Jewish schools and festivals in places once believed to be Jewish-ly dead, but also in most cases into changed relations between local Jewish communities and their fellow citizens as well as clear support for Israel on the part of these countries’ governments.

Yet for all this progress, Central European Jewish communities might never become self-financing. The support given them by American Jewry remains a vital Jewish interest. It must be strengthened.

Konstanty Gebert, a former underground journalist, is a columnist at the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and founder of the Polish-language Jewish monthly Midrasz.

What We Give Ourselves

By Lisa Leff

More than any Jewish community in history, postwar American Jews have used our prosperity to help Jewish communities around the world. On one level, the greatest beneficiaries of this support have been Jews abroad. But we should also recognize that these philanthropic efforts have shaped our communal values and identity.

Through our international aid, we have dedicated ourselves to universalist and cosmopolitan ideas like tikkun olam and solidarity across borders. In helping disadvantaged and oppressed Jews abroad, we have also deepened our community’s commitments to democracy, human rights and economic justice for all. It’s only natural that Jewish groups pitch in on Haitian earthquake relief and advocate on behalf of oppressed people of all backgrounds.

Whatever the outcome of the federations’ deliberations over how to divide allocations between the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, it is imperative that American Jewry maintain its commitment to our values through supporting international philanthropy.

Lisa Leff is an associate professor of history at American University and the author of “Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: The Rise of Jewish Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century France” (Stanford University Press, 2006).

Putting Identity First

By Jonathan S. Tobin

The choices we face are not between good causes and bad or even indifferent ones but between vital Jewish obligations. But since the decline in giving to Jewish causes means that we must make tough decisions, programs that reinforce Jewish identity and support Zionism both in the Diaspora and in Israel must be accorded a higher priority.

At this point in our history, with assimilation thinning the ranks of Diaspora Jewry and with continuity problems arising even in Israel, the need to instill a sense of membership in the Jewish people is an imperative that cannot be pushed aside. Under the current circumstances, absent an effort that will make Jewish and Zionist education the keynote of our communal life, the notion that Jewish philanthropies or support for Israel can be adequately sustained in the future is simply a fantasy.

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of Commentary magazine.

Collective Responsibility

By Richard Wexler

One cannot have a meaningful discussion about framing the national Jewish community’s priorities and purposes in funding Jewish needs abroad without first asking the question: Is there actually a collective “North American Jewish community” today?

Collective responsibility has been and remains the foundation upon which the federation system and, therefore, the national Jewish community are built. It is what distinguishes the federations from all other charities. It is embodied in our participation in the adventure of building Israel and in meeting overseas needs through the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, in the dues that federations pay to the Jewish Federations of North America and so much more. But today, federations “bowl alone.”

Collective responsibility gives meaning to kol Yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh — all Jews are responsible for one another. Until federations understand once again that Jewish needs extend beyond the borders of any one community, we cannot have a meaningful priority-setting process for funding Jewish needs abroad.

Richard Wexler is a former chairman of the United Israel Appeal.

Originally published here: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/rethinking-how-u-s-jews-fund-communities-around-the-world-1.292527

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Rabbi Gershom Sizomu and Be’chol Lashon director Diane Tobin at the opening of the Health Center.

Gary Tobin’s Legacy Lives on in New Ugandan Health Center

By Amanda Pazornik

The J Weekly
Published: July 22, 2010

On the day of the grand opening of the Tobin Health Center in Mbale, Uganda, health professionals were already hard at work treating patients inside.

The center was open for business, but that didn’t slow down the lively June 18 celebration, which featured song and dance performances and speakers. About 3,000 people gathered at the center’s grounds to mark the occasion.

Seated under colorful tents was Diane Tobin, director of S.F.-based Be’chol Lashon and wife of the late Gary Tobin, for whom the center is named, along with three of their children, Aryeh, Mia and Jonah.

“Everyone was amazing, friendly and so generous of spirit,” said Tobin, who was visiting Uganda and its Abayudaya Jewish community for the first time. “They were so appreciative of having the center and demonstrated a tremendous willingness to work together. It’s a great model for the rest of the world.”

Andrew Esensten, Be’chol Lashon program coordinator, and Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, spiritual leader of the Abayudaya Jews and the first chief rabbi of Uganda, joined them, in addition to government and medical officials, and representatives from Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities.

The Tobin Health Center is named for Gary Tobin, the founder of the S.F.-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research, of which Be’chol Lashon (“In Every Tongue”) is an initiative. Tobin died one year ago after a long battle with cancer. He was 59.

“He really has left a legacy,” said Debra Weinberg of Baltimore, who attended the opening with her husband, Joe, and their 14-year-old son, Ben. The couple also helped fund the project. “I think he would feel deeply comforted to know it’s improving the lives of people.”

The 4,000-square-foot facility is a major component of the ongoing Abayudaya Community Health and Development Project undertaken by the Abayudaya Executive Council and Be’chol Lashon, a nonprofit that reaches out to Jews of color and helps educate the mainstream community about Jewish diversity.

It cost approximately $250,000 to erect the two-story center, using donations collected over five years. While patients pay for their services, continuous fundraising is a necessity, Tobin said.

Construction began in July 2009, enabling more than 50 Africans from diverse ethnic backgrounds to earn a living.

Stars of David are featured in the window grids, ceilings and floors of the health center, a “lovely expression of their Judaism,” Tobin said. Private rooms make up most of the top floor, with patient wards on the ground floor. A mezuzah is affixed to every door.

A large portrait of Gary Tobin hangs in the lobby.

“It’s so heartwarming,” Diane Tobin said of the visual tribute. “Gary would be so honored to have this health center in the middle of Africa named after him.”

Prior to the opening of the Tobin Health Center, the nearest medical facility to the Abayudaya Jews was Mbale Hospital, an overcrowded and understaffed institution not accessible to all the residents of the region. Tobin said there are other clinics in the area, but they lack the preventive health care measures necessary to respond to the community’s needs.

The Tobin Health Center is licensed by the Ministry of Health and is certified to operate a pharmacy and laboratory. It serves all who seek basic medical care in the region, providing life-saving health services and simultaneously creating jobs.

“The goal is to raise the standard of medical care,” Tobin said.

In addition, rental units on the bottom and top floors of the center will provide more job opportunities for locals. The first business recently opened — a hardware store that sells bags of cement, plumbing equipment and sheet metal — with a beauty salon and video rental outlet in the works.

The center “is rewarding on a number of levels,” said Steven Edwards of Laguna Beach, who, along with his wife, Jill, has been involved with the Abayudaya for six years. “The most obvious is to see this beautiful, clean building. On top of that, local dignitaries noted how lucky Mbale is to have the Jewish community and how much they contribute to the larger community by bringing jobs.”

The Abayudaya Jews comprise a growing, 100-year-old community of more than 1,000 Jews living among 10,000 Christians and Muslims. They live in scattered villages in the rolling, green hills of eastern Uganda. The largest Abayudaya village, Nabagoye, is near Mbale, the seventh-largest city in Uganda and the location of the center.

Research conducted by Be’chol Lashon in 2006 showed that contaminated water and malaria-carrying mosquitoes pose the biggest health risks to the community. A year later, the organization launched the Abayudaya Community Health and Development Project with the drilling of the first well in Nabagoye.

Since then, nearly 1,000 mosquito nets have been purchased and distributed throughout the community.

“Our goal is to respond to the needs of communities,” Tobin said. “If there are other communities that need health centers, we will be there.”

Originally published here: http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/58727/s.f.-researchers-legacy-lives-on-in-new-ugandan-health-center/

 http://www.unelections.org/?q=node/2054

 http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/29/so…

UN needs a chief who can manage.

The following is a year old (July 1, 2009) series of two articles by Matthew Russell Lee showing the way the UN Department, that is supposed to provide Information to the Public, does nothing more then glorify the Secretary-General. Frankly – this is the understanding the UN has of the concept of information – that is no different then in China or Egypt – but then, according to today’s article that is based on criticism from OSCE – to be fair – this is the structural problem also in France. We will undertake looking into these issues further, as the UN will release these days its final decision on who is a journalist. Will they allow for the eventuality that true journalism is entitled to criticize the UN, or they will continue on the path of obfuscation and cover-ups.

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 http://www.innercitypress.com/unrules1me…

UN Says and Shows It Won’t Cover Stories Countries Don’t Like, Critics Targeted.

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 — The UN runs its own News Service, its own Video and Radio operations. The chief of these divisions, Ahmad Fawzi, was asked on July 1 what the UN does on the story if “a country regards it as not a good story.”

“We don’t do it,” Mr. Fawzi. The audience at the UN-TV showcase, mostly comprised of UN staff members, laughed. Inner City Press followed up, asking if the UN would cover news events that trigger criticism of the UN, like the slaughters in Rwanda or Srebrenica.

Fawzi replied that the UN commissioned a report on the failures of its member states and peacekeeping operation in Srebrenica. He added, “Are we going to produce a video about it? I don’t know.”

Inner City Press has previously interviewed Mr. Fawzi’s colleague Susan Farkas, now the head of UN TV and Radio and present at the July 1 screening, who told the Press, “I find it astonishing that you think there’s a story in the fact that we don’t investigate the UN… The UN pays us. The UN pays us to produce a program which promotes the issues that the UN cares about.”

Thus, the first of the videos shown on July 1 concerned children left behind in Moldova as their parents migrate for jobs. The second concerned the genocide in Rwanda, but merely mentioned without explaining that prior to the upsurge in killing, nearly all UN personnel left.

It certainly did not mention the UN Development Program staffer who used UN equipment to round up and target Tutsis to be killed. That is not the only story, but it is part of the story. And a stoytelling that is precluded from the beginning from including all pertinent facts cannot be called independent.

Inner City Press asked Fawzi about the UN News Service, which churns out relentlessly pro-UN stories, ranging from Ban Ki-moon’s popularity to the UN’s successes in the Congo. Appearing to take the question to be about the UN’s press release service, Fawzi said “we cover what happens in the building [but] it is not gloss, it is not promotional, it tells what goes on in the House.”

But UN News Service covers nearly every statement by UN agency, never quotes a critic or even raises a question. It is not unlike the state news agencies of some member countries. And any member state, it appears, can get a story removed from the Service. A story on Nagorno Karabakh, for example, fell under criticism and was quietly taken down. So too a story about Sri Lanka from the affiliated — but ostensibly even more independent — UN humanitarian Relief Web news service.

While in the previous interview Ms. Farkas went on to ask, “Do you work for the Heritage Foundation,” on July 1 Fawzi said, “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart.”

It is not clear what “we” he was referring to. Consider a “Dear Colleague” letter circulated to the 435 members of the House of Representatives earlier this week, the text of which is below.

In UN-TV, Fawzi (at right) monitors Ban Ki-moon’s image

“Angered by past and continuing media reports of corruption, mismanagement and inaction at the United Nations, the UN is again seeking to cover up evidence and stifle freedom of the press.

Meeting on May 8 about ‘reporting by the press,’ high level UN officials discussed sending threatening letters to several press agencies and other bodies, as well as complaining to Google News about a small, independent news agency that has uncovered numerous UN scandals. Last year, a similar complaint resulted in that agency’s temporary removal from Google News. In response to a question about that meeting, the Secretary General’s spokeswoman furiously retorted, ‘I don’t have to account to you for meetings I participate in.’

The UN’s Department of Management is also reportedly pushing to obstruct press coverage, seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight.

These UN efforts to restrict press freedom and oversight directly contravene the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognized that ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression… and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Once again, the UN is actually undermining the principles on which it was founded.”

The May 8 meeting, involving Under Secretaries General Angela Kane (Management), Kiyo Akasaka (Public Information — the boss of both Mr. Fawzi and Ms. Farkas) and Patricia O’Brien (Legal Affairs), as well as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s speech writer Michael Meyer and Spokesperson Michele Montas, was memorialized in a memo from Ms. Kane to Ban.

Inner City Press was shown the memo, wrote and asked Ban’s spokeswoman Michele Montas about it by email, along with the three USGs, none of whom has yet to explain how their participation is consistent not only with the First Amendment, which they say does not apply, but even to the cited Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

While it has previously been claimed to Inner City Press that the UN would not, for example, even consider seeking to have a publication removed from Google News, Ms. Kane’s memo shows different. What was that again, that “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart”?  Some do and some don’t.

Footnote: the “Dear Colleague” letter circulated on Capitol Hill states that the UN is “seeking to charge media outlets $23,000 to maintain office space, and to move journalists covering the UN into open, un-walled offices — deterring whistleblowers from coming forth and preventing oversight.” Previously the Department of Public Information, where Mr. Fawzi works and which Mr. Akasaka heads, told UN journalist they would have the same walled free space during and after the fix-up on the UN building.

Now that first $23,000 was demanded, then wall-less “whistlebelower free” zones have been offered, no explanation of the change has been offerer, nor how it is consistent with the statement that “there are others whose job it is to look at us critically and we accept that with a very open mind and an open heart.” Watch this site.

UN E-mails Allege Plot to Deny Ban a Second Term, Trick for Supachai at UNCTAD?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 — Weeks after the filing with the UN investigative unit of emails showing a dirty tricks campaign by staffers of UN Conference on Trade and Development chief Supachai Panitchpakdi to get a second term, on Wednesday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nevertheless announced he is supporting Supachai for another four years.

Inner City Press, which exclusively reported the filing on June 22, asked Ban’s spokesperson if Ban had considered its contents, and acknowledged any connection between them and the reappointment.

The most explosive part of the emails, being published for the first time today by Inner City Press, are the arguments made in a May 8, 2009 email by Supachai’s special adviser Kobsak Chutikul, that African and other countries were supporting Ivory Coast’s former trade minister to deny Supachai from Thailand a second term in order to set a precedent to deny Ban Ki-moon a second term as Secretary General, due to “his perceived Western backers.”

Ban’s spokesperson declined to comment on the filing, saying it is before the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. Video here from Minute 10:45. But senior Ban officials including Management chief Angela Kane and Ethics Officer Robert Benson have had the complaint since June 4. Meanwhile, the complainant has reportedly been demoted.

Inner City Press asked Supachai if his UNCTAD has any whistleblower protection provisions. Yes we will follow those, Supachai answered. He claimed he “never campaigned,” despite what the emails show his special adviser Kobsak Chutikul doing. He claimed he only “responded to some countries’ remarks.” Video here, from Minute 56:18.

Given these statement, Inner City Press is today publishing some of the emails at issue, here.

UN’s Ban and UNCTAD’s Supachai: a snub of latter hurts former?
In a May 8, 2009 email marked Attachment E and headlined, “NAM Note Verbale,” Chutikul wrote to three senior UNCTAD staff, including the subsequent complainant:

“Gentlemen, please see attached NAM Note Verbale sent out to all NAM Missions today. In light of this new development, it is the assessment of Thai and some ASEAN Ambassadors that the picture has become clear — UNCTAD SG post has become an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bigger struggle… The goal seems to be to insist on geographical rotation of posts, and undermining the practice / tradition of two continuous terms, with the real target being the UN SG (and his perceived western backers).”

This argument raises the issue, for some interviewed by Inner City Press so far: did Ban have something of a conflict of interest in overriding (after working to override and change) African Group resistance and giving Supachai a second term? In fact, that too is laid out in Supachai’s special adviser’s Mach 8 e-mail, referring to telling Team Ban “things like ‘you are the real target’ or ‘you are next.’”

The emails point to several other improprieties, and it is extraordinary that Team Ban wants or wanted to ignore them and simply reappoint Supachai.

Following Chutikul’s”all hands on deck” e-mail, the press was on to get Ban to announce his referral of Supachai’s renomination to the General Assembly. A Chinese staff member conferred with Beijing, and that asked for evidence of which way Ban was leaning (Attachment G). Another UNCTAD staffer questioned why the African Group targeted the second term of Supachai and not Frenchman Pascal Lamy at the World Trade Organization — “because he’s white”? The e-mails are replete with racial references.

Now what will happen?

Media freedom threatened in most European countries, says OSCE

“Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property,” says the OSCE

IN FRANCE IT IS THE PRESIDENT WHO NOMINATES THE HEAD OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – CLEARLY AN INFRINGEMENT OF THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS NOT UNKNOWN IN TOTALITARIAN STATES.

HONOR MAHONY

July 30, 2010 -  http://euobserver.com/9/30561/?rk=1

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Media freedom is threatened in most European countries, warns the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe, highlighting incidences in several of its member states including EU countries France, Italy and Greece.

In a report published Thursday (29 July), the 56-member OSCE, a loose gathering of states monitoring regional security, says that “freedom of the media concerns arise in most OSCE participating States. They only manifest themselves differently.”

The breaches, either existing or potential, to media freedom range from a draft law on electronic surveillance and electronic eavesdropping law in Italy which could “seriously hinder investigative journalism” to a draft law in Estonia that may allow too many exemptions to the right to protect the identity of sources, to the fact that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is head of the public service broadcaster, France Televisions.

“The presidential nomination of the head of a country’s public service broadcaster is an obstacle to its independence and contradicts OSCE commitments,” said the body’s Dunja Mijatovic, in charge of monitoring media freedom.

Other areas of concern include the recent adoption by the Hungarian Parliament of parts of a media package with elements threatening media freedom and a possible threat in Greece to a minority radio station that broadcasts in Turkish, while the organisation expresses hope that Germany will adopt a law protecting investigative journalists.

Beyond the EU, the “brutal attack” against a Serbian journalist known for his outspokenness against nationalism was highlighted as was the the “high number of criminal prosecutions” against journalists in Turkey covering sensitive issues as well “serious infringements” on media pluralism in Kyrgyzstan and a series of attacks against journalists in Russia.

“Many argue that media freedom is in decline across the OSCE region. In some aspects, I can subscribe to that,” said Ms Mitjatovic.

“Authorities have yet to understand that media are not their private property and that journalists have the right to scrutinize those who are elected.”

“Violence against journalists equals violence against society and democracy and should be met with harsh condemnation and prosecution of the perpetrators,” she added.

With the internet changing the nature and scope of reporting, Ms Mijatovi also promised a study into the various internet laws in place across the OSCE countries.

“My office is currently working on the compilation of the first comprehensive matrix on internet legislation which will include an overview of legal provisions related to freedom of the media, the free flow of information and media pluralism on the internet in the OSCE region.”

What makes a good UN story? We hinted at the Kevin Rudd idea earlier but we were still waiting for further developments.

Are we seeing here rumors because of infighting in Australia on the way to their National elections August 21, 2010?

Are we on the trail of rumors intended to save the Ban Ki-moon reelection to a second term?

Are we watching an Obama approach to create a new environment to save negotiations on climate?

Kevin Rudd would be an excellent choice to extricate the UN from the hole it created in the “Seal the Deal” charade when every child could have seen that the G192 is no environment to talk about Sustainable Energy options.

Australia is no good example either – but Kevin Rudd was ready to step out of his nation’s “is” and aim for a better future.

He got punished for this and perhaps is now ready for revenge by working on a global level that will then sweep with him his own country as well.

With his experience as Australia’s Prime Minister with-vision that was cut short from bringing his own country into the group of real leaders for tomorrow, he can work with President Obama and perhaps the other four leaders that hammered out the Copenhagen platform that is not dependent on all climate mongers of the UN circuit. As a fresh figure, he could perhaps sit down with the ALBA folks and take the best ideas they have and incorporate them also in a new recipe under the SUSTAINABILITY big sky of the future.

Will the UN accept him as a new Super Czar of a combined  UNCSD and UNFCCC – or let him form a new structure so these older structures will just wilt away into oblivion slowly? Who knows? But let us follow this new world hype.

The subject having slowly boiled in the PRESS has reached also www.UNelection.org – so it is time for us to try out the waters ourselves also. This then reinforced the UNelections interest in the issue as per added -
http://unelections.org/?q=node/2056

=================================================
 http://unelections.org/?q=node/2052

 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special…

Click here to read “Kevin Rudd could be offered UN role before end of election campaign” – Herald Sun, July 29, 2010

Kevin Rudd talks with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon / AP Source: AP

KEVIN Rudd’s new United Nations post could be announced before the end of the election in what looms as another major embarrassment for Julia Gillard.

The Herald Sun can reveal the UN body Mr Rudd is being considered for is being set up under the working title High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability.

Mr Rudd is believed to have been backed for the post by the UN’s chief climate adviser, Janos Pasztor, and is odds-on to be offered the job.

Diplomatic sources said the decision could be made within weeks, which raises the spectre of an appointment before the election.

“It’s on the cards,” a source said of a pre-election announcement.

The Herald Sun believes Mr Rudd is favoured in part because he will have direct access to resources paid for by the Australian taxpayer.

This is on the assumption that the former prime minister is re-elected to Federal Parliament on August 21, 2010.

Related Coverage

• Cabinet leakers face the axe Daily Telegraph, 6 hours ago
• Kevin Rudd signs off on nomination Adelaide Now, 1 day ago
• Why Labor fears a vengeful Kevin Rudd NEWS.com.au, 2 days ago
• Rudd ‘not fit’ to be in Labor Cabinet Perth Now, 6 days ago
• Man tackled at Gillard speech Herald Sun, 7 days ago

Climate change reform will be the centrepiece of the panel, virtually guaranteeing conflict with a Gillard government, assuming Labor is re-elected.

Sources said it would be created to look at climate change in the context of broader sustainable development, and would be part-time.

Mr Rudd has declined to say whether the appointment would be paid.

If he were to be paid, this could raise allegations he would be a part-time MP.

Mr Rudd’s spokesman directed questions to the UN, declining to say whether he already had accepted the position.

Mr Rudd has previously said he would serve a full term in Parliament and that any UN position would be part-time.

“It is a matter, of course, for the United Nations Secretary-General to clarify what roles would be played by any individual on such a panel,” Mr Rudd said on July 22.

The biggest political risk for the Government is that the UN body clashes on climate change policy backed by Ms Gillard.

Mr Rudd previously backed a 5 per cent emissions cut on 2000 levels by 2020 as well as a so-called cap-and-trade scheme, which involves setting limits on carbon emissions but allowing heavy polluters to buy permits to allow them to emit more carbon.

Mr Rudd dropped his legislation this year when it was blocked by the Coalition in the Senate and his handling of the issue was considered crucial to him being dumped as PM.

The facts as described in: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/07…

Canadian woman is next top UN internal watchdog.

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer
Posted: Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010

UNITED NATIONS The United Nations turned to a Canadian woman on Wednesday who was chief auditor for the World Bank as its choice for the next head of the U.N.’s internal watchdog agency.

Carman Lapointe-Young won approval from the General Assembly to become the undersecretary-general for oversight. She will be given the huge task of trying to quickly fix an agency that her predecessor says is in disarray.

She will start her job on Sept. 13, the U.N. announced. She will move to New York from Rome, where she has headed the oversight office of the U.N.’s fund for agricultural development since February 2009.

The Manitoba native was appointed to the non-renewable, five-year term as head of the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose leadership was severely criticized in an end-of-assignment memo by outgoing OIOS head Inga-Britt Ahlenius of Sweden.

Ban said in a statement that Lapointe-Young has the “breadth and depth of experience and expertise required for this demanding position.” He said she will be expected to rebuild OIOS and fill its many vacancies as soon as possible.

Ban is reviewing Ahlenius’ memo and has ordered a review of the U.N.’s ability to investigate itself, his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, said last week.

Bea Edwards of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based nonprofit law firm, said Wednesday one of the key challenges Lapointe-Young will face is to redirect OIOS investigations onto cases of major financial fraud and corruption.

Her firm has represented at least one OIOS investigator who filed a whistleblower complaint against the division’s acting director.

“We would just hope that she would re-focus the attention of OIOS onto the more significant cases of fraud and corruption, and there would be less emphasis on these petty, internal investigations,” said Edwards, referring to internal probes that she said were focused on allegations such as improper travel expense claims and pornography on computers.

Over the past decade the U.N. has been rocked a series of corruption scandals in its multibillion-dollar spending. The best known resulted from a two-year investigation into the U.N.-run oil-for-food program for Iraq led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

Volcker’s inquiry culminated in an October 2005 report accusing more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein’s regime to bilk $1.8 billion from a program aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions.

As a result of the scandal, the U.N. created a special anti-corruption task force between 2006 and 2008 that found 20 significant corruption schemes. Its work led to sanctions against about 50 U.N. vendors, many of which were permanently debarred, and felony convictions against three U.N. officials, including two senior procurement officials.

Lapointe-Young won the nod despite some grumbling among diplomats from developing nations who said her appointment upset an informal understanding that the top accountability post should alternate between developing and rich Western nations.

At the General Assembly, several diplomats touched on the issue of geographical diversity. U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky acknowledged the concerns of representatives of “regional groups” in the General Assembly who were consulted before Wednesday’s approval, but said Ban’s selection was based on “merit,” ultimately.

From 2004 to 2009, she was the auditor general of The World Bank Group. It was during that time that Paul Wolfowitz resigned as president of the World Bank amid controversy over a pay package for his girlfriend, a bank employee.

She succeeds Ahlenius, who left the OIOS post in mid-July after blaming Ban for blocking her attempt to hire a former U.S. federal prosecutor as permanent head of the investigation division and taking other measures that she said undermined the operational independence her office is supposed to have.

Ban and his senior advisers have quickly closed ranks and disputed many of the memo’s assertions while trying to put the dispute quickly behind them.

“Where there are lessons to be learned, we will draw them,” Angela Kane, the undersecretary-general for management, said in a statement Wednesday.

In a statement labeled “Accountability for a Stronger United Nations,” Kane said Lapointe-Young will inherit “an office with 76 vacant posts” because Ahlenius failed to fill them.

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AT THE FAREWELL PARTY GIVEN BY OUTGOING AMBASSADOR H. E. YUKIO TAKASU OF JAPAN, SEEMINGLY MR. BAN KI-MOON EXPRESSED SURPRISE AT REPORTS THAT SOUTH AFRICA WAS PROMISED A SENIOR POST AT OIOS IN EXCHANGE FOR NOT BLOCKING THE APPOINTMENT OF A CANADIAN. so, here we have his commitment to let the new OIOS Chief pick her own Deputy?

At UN, Farewell to Takasu Amid Echoes of OIOS, of Human Right to Water and Sushi

UNITED NATIONS, July 28 — Japan’s Yukio Takasu held a farewell to New York and the UN on Tuesday night at his country’s East Side townhouse.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was there — expressing surprise at reports that South Africa was promised a senior post at the Office of Internal Oversight Services in change for not blocking the top spot going to a Canadian - as well as his Under Secretaries General Lynn Pascoe, Kiyotaka Akasaka and Angela Kane.

After Mr. Ban and his well liked bride left, much talk turned to the controversy stirred by the damning End of Assignment Report of outgoing OIOS chief Inga Britt Ahlenius. While usually at the UN, the press asks Ambassadors for information and opinion, this time is was the reverse.

Several Ambassadors asked Inner City Press, What do you think this means for Ban getting or not getting a second term? Major Permanent Representatives had read the critical Press coverage. “This is not good,” they said. “But will Obama have the decisiveness to act?”

Susan Rice was asked and told the media as if by rote that the US supports Ban. Others in the Obama Administration are not saying the same thing.

Ban’s USGs worked the crowd. Angela Kane of Ban’s Department of Management bowed, Japanese style, with an outgoing members of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions from, where else, Japan.

Due to ACABQ’s penchant for anonymity, we will not name her but wish her well. As the UN’s envoy to Darfur said earlier at the stakeout, ACABQ recently visited El Fasher. She noted of Inner City Press, your coverage of ACABQ is always fair. Hey, it’s the only accountability mechanism in the UN, along with the press.

Kiyo Akasaka of Ban’s Department of Public Information was in his element, offering food recommendations and this new media news, that the UN is agreeing to a refer in their forthcoming guidelines to a willingness to accredit bloggers — and not only “journalists who write blogs” — although, strangely, confined to a footnote. We’ll see.

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The reality at the UN is that seemingly there is much financial interest by many countries and this includes covering of plain corruption – so – OIOS would have its hands full if it were to go after this plateful of problems.

Take for instance all those companies that bribed their way through the Iraqi “Oil for Food” project. Did anyone look at them, i.e. the French bank that was involved? Paul Volcker put it all in the open and the UN pushed it back under the rug by appointing OIOS. Will it finally be picked up?

Then, Ms. Alhenius also had a clear conflict. It is a Swedish company that got a non-competitive contract to redo the UN buildings. Some at he UN wanted to see this reviewed – clearly a matter for OIOS – but we heard no action on this. Only some members of the Press kept pointing at the problem.

So far we do not know of conflicts of interest involving Canada, will the new Chief start out with her right foot in staking her position – as controller – the buck stops here? Something like the US GAO – US Comptroller General?

In what regards her attitude when auditing the World Bank, we found an excellent interview with her:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4153/is_3_64/ai_n27504378/?tag=content;col1

that we highly recommend to our readers.

Making a difference: the World Bank Group’s Auditor General Carman Lapointe-Young says her team of auditors is playing its part in the organization’s fight to end poverty.

Internal Auditor, June, 2008 by Neil Baker

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Further, we are gratified that our article was picked up byUNelections.org
 http://unelections.org/?q=node/2047

Canadian Woman is Next Top UN Internal Watchdog (Opinion) – July 28

WORLD NEWS – JULY 29, 2010
 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424…

Climate report shows Earth has heated up over 50 years.

Which in the printed Wall Street version was rechristened – “CLIMATE STUDY CITES 2000 as WARMEST DECADE.” This appropriate to the US inward look of New York, while the above title is clear better positioned for the world at large -

By GAUTAM NAIK

A new assessment concludes that the Earth has been getting warmer over the past 50 years and the past decade was the warmest on record.

The State of the Climate 2009 report, published Wednesday as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, was compiled by 300 scientists from 48 countries and drew on measures of 10 crucial climate indicators.

Seven of the indicators were rising, including air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, sea level, ocean heat and humidity. Three indicators were declining, including Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere.

“Each indicator is changing as we’d expect in a warming world,” said Peter Thorne, senior researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, a research consortium based in College Park, Md., who was involved in compiling the report.

The report’s conclusions broadly match those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body, which published its last set of findings in 2007. The IPCC report contained some errors, which further stoked the debate about the existence, causes and effects of global warming.

The new report incorporates data from the past few years that weren’t included in the last IPCC assessment. While the IPCC report concluded that evidence for human-caused global warming was “unequivocal” and was linked to emissions of greenhouse gases, the latest report didn’t seek to address the issue.

The report “doesn’t try to make the link” between climate change and what might be causing it, said Tom Karl, an official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration involved in the new assessment.

The report said, “Global average surface and lower-troposphere temperatures during the last three decades have been progressively warmer than all earlier decades, and the 2000s (2000-09) was the warmest decade in the instrumental record.” The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere.

The scientists reported that they were surprised to find Greenland’s glaciers were losing ice at an accelerating rate. They also concluded that 90% of planetary warming over the past 50 years has gone into the oceans. Most of it had accumulated in near-surface layers, home to phytoplankton, tiny plants crucial to virtually all life in the sea.

A new study has found that rising sea temperature may have had a harmful effect on global concentrations of phytoplankton over the past century.

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BUT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL IS VERY ANEMIC ON CONTENT OF ABOVE NEWS – IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, AS MOSTLY ALMOST – GO TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES. HERE YOU FIND FIONA HARVEY’S FULL ARTICLE – SHE  CONTRIBUTES TO THE EDITORIAL SECTION AS WELL. YOU WILL BE IN THE CLEAR ABOUT THE MACHINATIONS IN WASHINGTON AS WELL.

You will also see there the Washington rot as in the following: “Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US, formerly in charge of energy with the powerful CSIS, said the new report would not change people’s minds. “It’s clear that the scientific case for global warming alarmism is weak. The scientific case for [many of the claims] is unsound and we are finding out all the time how unsound it is.”

You will find that there was no doubt about the implication that it is humans who did it except in the words of that outspoken minority of industry lobbyists that hold power over Washington.

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 http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/author…

NOAA finds “human fingerprints” on climate

July 28th, 2010  by Fiona Harvey

 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d1fd25c-9a69-…

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 http://planetark.org/wen/58965

Developing Nations See Cancun Climate Deal Tough.

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

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

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

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

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Asian Belle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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NO LONGER INTERMARRIED BUT STILL CHINESE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following is just another example of efforts to keep us do what we are used to do – squander fossil carbon because some interests want us to stay hooked to that stored global poison. Instead of us changing our ways – the idea here is to change the world around us. This is so much hubris and some say a real danger to the planet. We are no proponents of the methods mentioned below. But whatever, it surely lets our imagination wander in new directions.

We touched on this last week in our:

Bastille Day was celebrated in Rockland County, NY, on Saturday July 17, 2010. We had a great time that started at the Public Library in South Nyack where Eli Kintisch presented his new book “HACK THE PLANET: SCIENCE’S BEST HOPE – OR WORST NIGHTMARE FOR AVERTING CLIMATE CATASTROPHE.” From there I continued to Piermont, NY, where they were shooting in the street and eating cornichons. The Climate Change walls must come down with geoengineering? That is something like a new quantum jump of logic.

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 20th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com)
 http://www.sustainabilitank.info/page/2/…

and we will do the subject better justice based on “HACK THE PLANET” – Science’s Best Hope – or Worst Nightmare – for Averting Climate Catastrophe, the recently released book by Eli Kintish  Wiley.com Publishers) that reached us today by mail.

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 http://www.truth-out.org/climate-control…

Climate: Controlled

Sunday 25 July 2010

by: Jason Mark, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Geoengineering Threatens to Save the Planet from Global Warming.

The sky would look white, but the sunsets would be an out-of-this world explosion of reds and oranges. The clouds would have a chrome sheen to them. Giant dirigibles might dot the horizon in a kind of Blade Runner set piece – but at least they’d keep the temperatures in check.

Such scenes are what we could expect to see if, as some of the world’s top climatologists are warning, we have to resort to what’s called “geoengineering”: large-scale manipulation of Earth to counteract global warming.

Worried that global political systems aren’t responding to changes in the planet’s physical systems, some scientists and environmentalists say that we might need to artificially reduce the amount of sunlight striking the globe and/or manipulate plants or the oceans to absorb huge amounts of CO2. Having unintentionally warmed the planet, we may have little choice but to intentionally cool it back down.

Since they sometimes sound like science fiction (a space-based mirror umbrella?), geoengineering schemes were, until recently, relegated to the imaginations of the tinfoil hat crowd. But at least two geoengineering approaches are now generating serious discussion. In a planetary version of pulling down the shades, Stanford climatologist Ken Caldeira has proposed sowing the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide to catalyze water condensation that would reflect sunlight away from the planet. This idea enjoys the advantage of a real-world experiment – the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinutabo in the Philippines, which blew 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere and cooled global temperatures by half a degree Celsius. Caldeira and others envision using massive artillery or a fleet of high altitude blimps to inject the sulfur aerosol into the sky.

Another geoengineering strategy – called cloud bleaching – imagines an armada of robotic ships sailing the oceans, equipped with giant fans to kick seawater into the clouds to make them more reflective. This idea has big money behind it. The Times of London reported earlier this month that Bill Gates has invested $300,000 in a firm investigating cloud whitening.

The Gates investment is fueling fears of what’s been dubbed a “greenfinger scenario”: that is, a maverick, if well-meaning, billionaire who decides to do an end-run around paralyzed governments and start manipulating the globe’s climate without the consent of the rest of us. That prospect has scientists, NGOs, and governments scrambling to work out a system for governing geoengineering. In March, scientific ethicists met at Asilomar in California to lay out rules for experimenting with the atmosphere. United Nations officials working under the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nairobi in mid-May discussed protocols for global climate control. The British Parliament and the US Congress are looking into the issue.

As with any new technology, the tensions surrounding geoengineering come down to the issue of power. Who would decide how, whether, and when to start modifying the entire planet? Or, as Alan Robock, a Rutgers University philosopher with a National Science Foundation grant to investigate geoengineering, put it to me, “Whose hand will be on the thermostat? What if Russia and Canada decide they want it warmer and India wants it cooler? How do you decide those things?”

Geopolitical complications aside, there’s no question that geoengineering is tempting. With scientists warning that we are on the edge of serious ecosystem disruptions – and our politicians unwilling to respond to the threat – who doesn’t want some kind of deus ex machina to swoop in and save us?

But this is a temptation we should resist, because, in the final analysis, geoengineering isn’t any solution to the problem of global climate change. It’s merely a perpetuation of the same mindset that has led us to this emergency situation. If mitigation (reducing emissions) is the hope of the idealist, and adaptation (preparing for rising waters) is the consolation of the realist, then geo-engineering (call it circumvention) has become the refuge of the cynic. Geoengineering assumes that although we may be able to alter how the planet works, we are incapable of changing the way we run the world.

Geoengineering is a great example of the old Albert Einstein aphorism, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Geoengineering takes a problem, simplifies its cause, and then exaggerates its solution. It’s like a Rube Goldberg machine, employing eight or nine steps when one or two would do. Instead of pursuing the elegant solutions – trading in our cars for buses, turning off the coal and turning on the wind – we are going to build a contraption to make the clouds shinier.

This makes geoengineering (the ambivalence of its supporters notwithstanding) human hubris compounded. It’s like doubling down on self-regard, a bet that we can save ourselves by divorcing our species from the rest of the planet. Bill McKibben warned about just such a fate in his seminal book The End of Nature when he cautioned that global warming would turn us into a “bubble species.”

As soon as we put our hand on the lever controlling the weather, we will be in charge in a way we never have been before, knowing that if for any reason we were to cease overseeing the sunlight, global temperatures would shoot upward again, leading to even worse trouble. The new role will force on us an existential anxiety much like the Cold War “strategy” of mutually assured destruction. If we take control of the sky, we will always be fearful of letting our grip slip from the machines that keep the planet in a semblance of balance.

Even were geoengineering to succeed, it would nonetheless mark a failure of humanity. Resorting to geoengineering would prove that we can’t act in concert to address collective problems. Worse, it would transform Earth, our home for all of history, into a trap, a place where we are held captive by our own technology.

from: Coninck,mw H.C. de (Heleen) <deconinck@ecn.nl> subject: Call for papers: Special issue on CCS Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change”

The Journal for Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change will be publishing a Special Issue on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in 2011. The Special Issue is entitled “Five years after the IPCC Special Report on CCS: state of play”. The editors are looking for a broad range of review articles that examine and analyze the developments in a variety of CCS-related areas and/or build on the review done by the IPCC in 2005. The articles will be subjected to normal peer review.

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The timeline for submitting articles is as follows:

October 30^th 2010 First submission. It is possible to send an abstract to the editors in advance for an early quick scan

November 2010 Editors send the selected papers to reviewers

March 2011 Final submission by authors – June/July 2011 Publication

The aim is to have a critical review of several topics in CCS, for instance (but not limited to):

· Overview of technical progress in the field of capture technologies in power systems and/or in specific industrial processes

· Review of storage integrity studies: Is the “fraction retained” outcome in the IPCC Special Report still suitable?

· Economics of CCS, including retrofits versus new power plants with CCS

· Review of assumptions in scenario studies: what explains high CCS, high nuclear or renewable

· Biomass and CCS: what can we expect in terms of short- and long-term feasibility?

· CCS-readiness: what does it mean in practice?

· Insights from research on public perception, community engagement and communication issues around CCS

· Knowledge sharing, capacity building and technology transfer: How realistic is CCS in emerging economies and developing countries?

· Government policy and industry business models for CCS

The deadline for the first submission of articles is October 30^th, 2010. Articles should be between 5,000 -8,000 words. For author instructions, related to electronic submission of manuscripts, can be found at https://www.editorialmanager.com/miti/. Inquiries or early abstracts can be sent to John Kessels at john.kessels@iea-coal.org, Heleen de Coninck at deconinck@ecn.nl, or Haroon Kheshgi at Haroon.S.Kheshgi@ExxonMobil.com

Also on behalf of the other guest editors John Kessels and Haroon Kheshgi, we look forward to your contributions!

Heleen de Coninck

———————————–

Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), Unit Policy Studies

Group manager international energy and climate issues

Radarweg 60, 1043 NT Amsterdam, Netherlands

Phone: +31 224 564316; Fax: +31 224 568339

Website: http://www.ecn.nl/units/ps/our-experts/heleen-de-coninck/

We ate in Ramallah restaurants, walked around freely in town – people want to live free normal lives there like everywhere else, so who does not let them achieve this? Good there are some that call out for RETHINK on how to achieve these goals by selling Tabouleh Salad and Musakahn rather then playing the “he hit me” game in order to disturb the peace of the whole world. Just think of the upcoming new Hezbolah flotilla leaving Lebanon these days in order to provoke an Israeli reaction that will send roses to Gaza and the fallen false martyrs of that new provocation.

Why do they not rather make good Musakahn in Gaza and make a life for themselves also there – then eventually they could trade with Israel and the de-facto Palestine in the West Bank. Yes, when I was in Ramallah I ate Palestinian Hummus – not occupied Palestinian Hummus. It was really good, and could have tasted even better without any Israeli troops assumed present. I say assumed because I did not see them in the street – the place was kept secure by the Palestinians themselves and by their shopkeepers doing business even with people that perhaps they had reasons to dislike.

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I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributors

Free the Tabouleh.

By JERROLD KESSEL and PIERRE KLOCHENDLER
Published by The International Herald Tribune online, July 23, 2010.
 RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — “Money, money, money,” hums Nasser Abdulhadi behind the counter of his fast-food joint. He’s selling tickets for this evening’s Boney M concert. Business is brisk. Life isn’t all sordid in this centerpiece of the future Palestinian state.