China’s State Capitalism Poses Ethical Challenges.

By Ian Bremmer, Devin T. Stewart

GlobalPost, August 10, 2010

Earlier this summer, a company owned in part by the Chinese government bought a 5.1 percent stake in the only American-owned provider of enriched uranium for use in civilian nuclear reactors.

The stake is small, but its implications are considerable. The American company, USEC, was involved with the original development of the atomic bomb during World War II. Chinese involvement could raise concerns about national security in Washington, and given China’s opaque form of economic management, the transaction raises other ethical issues around transparency and fairness.

In the long run, however, free market economies like the United States would best serve the cause of individual freedom worldwide by practicing what they preach. They should keep the global flow of money, ideas, and goods open.

As China’s economy grows, its political influence will expand, bringing Beijing into ever-closer contact with the interests of others. As the world’s largest exporter, for example, China will find itself in competition (and sometimes conflict) with a diverse set of multinational companies and governments. Within China, there will be more clashes involving the collision of local rules with foreigners and their business models.

Beijing continues to welcome foreign investment, but recent labor disputes at a Honda Motor factory and a spate of suicides involving workers at Foxconn, a Taiwanese-invested Chinese company that manufactures the Apple iPhone, underline the clash of political and commercial cultures. Sometimes these confrontations produce compromise or even a convergence of standards. At other times, open conflict is the likelier scenario.

China is the world’s leading practitioner of state capitalism, a system in which governments use state-owned companies and investment vehicles to dominate market activity. The primary difference between this form of capitalism and the Western, more market-driven variety, is that decisions on how assets should be valued and resources allocated are made by political officials (not market forces) with political goals in mind.

In China, robust growth is a good thing, as long as it doesn’t have second-order effects that undermine the leadership’s monopoly hold on political power. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other governments practice various forms of this system, but China gives state capitalism its global significance.

The political agenda behind China’s state capitalist development is a complicated one. On the one hand, the financial crisis and global market meltdown have bolstered the arguments of those within the Chinese leadership who warn that reliance for economic growth on exports to Europe, America, and Japan exposes China to Western market volatility. In response, Beijing will gradually work to increase domestic demand for Chinese products and to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign consumers. On the other hand, the leadership knows that Chinese companies must adopt Western working standards and management techniques if labor unrest is to be contained.

The cases of Honda and Foxconn, which employs some 800,000 people in China, underline a remarkable trend: Chinese workers are demanding and receiving better working conditions and wages. For example, the Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress may give workers the officially sanctioned right to strike. This marks a positive development in the interaction of state capitalist and market-driven economics, but continued progress won’t come easy. The Chinese leadership will respect labor rights when necessary and ignore them when possible.

The financial crisis and BP’s oil spill remind us that excessive focus on near-term profits continue to plague market-driven capitalism. Yet, state capitalism poses profound ethical challenges of its own.

First, when state-owned companies go abroad in search of new contracts, they are not bound by shareholder opinion or reputational risk. As a result, they can do business in places and with people that their private-sector rivals cannot—and with a high degree of secrecy.

There are familiar examples like Iran, Sudan, and Myanmar. In Guinea last year, just 15 days after soldiers shot down 157 pro-democracy demonstrators, an unnamed Chinese company signed a $7 billion mining contract with the Guinean government. Multinational companies can no longer afford such transactions.

In addition, within free market democracies, courts exist to safeguard the rights of individuals and companies. In state capitalist countries, they exist to legitimize the state’s hold on political power. As a result, when the White House pressures BP to pay damages, the company knows it will have its day in court. In China, a foreign company is unlikely to win a ruling against the government.

In the United States, companies “lawyer up.” In China, they are “Googled out.”

Take Google, for example. When Google executives decided that cyber-attacks on its Gmail accounts from inside China could no longer be tolerated, they decided on open confrontation with China’s government over censorship issues. Google remains a relatively popular brand with Chinese internet users, but there were several reasons why Beijing would rather force Google out than compromise with it.

First, there are other search engine firms that do not challenge the leadership’s right to restrict the flow of information. Second, one of those firms is Baidu, a Chinese company with friends in government and a much larger Chinese market share than Google. The message sent to Google was clear: Lawyer up if you want to, but you have started a war you cannot win.

The clash of market-driven and state-driven capitalism poses other questions. Should U.S. lawmakers allow a company or investment fund owned by a foreign government to own significant stakes in a U.S. financial firm or oil company?

On the one hand, the political firestorm that erupted in Washington when China National Offshore Oil Corporation tried to buy U.S.-owned Unocal in 2005 generated plenty of friction in U.S.-Chinese relations and did lasting damage to America’s reputation as a destination for foreign investment.

Yet, there are good reasons to scrutinize these kinds of proposals. State-owned companies and sovereign wealth funds based in authoritarian countries are often as opaque as their governments. Is it not reasonable to wonder how such a company or fund will manage its new assets before approving a sale with potential security implications?

On the other hand, if relatively free market countries are to compete successfully with state capitalist systems, it won’t be by trying to beat them at their own protectionist game.

The unprecedented cross-border flows of ideas, information, people, money, goods, and services have already done a lot of good for a lot of people. If allowed to develop further, they will eventually open state capitalist systems to a degree of free market competition that will force them to change.

Not all trades are good ones. Some foreign investment might legitimately compromise U.S. national security. But if the goal is to shift power and wealth from authoritarian governments into the hands of private citizens, the game must be played on free market terms.

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Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and author of The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations? Devin Stewart is program director and senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, where Bremmer is a trustee.

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.

from The Korea Society <The_Korea_Society@mail.vresp.com>

Like everyone else we try to understand the sense in the sinking of the South Korean (the Republic of Korea ROK) ship and we were glad to have the chance to listen to the official ROK version, this after we were familiar with a Japan Times article that mentioned two South Korean professors living in the US that expressed serious doubt about this version. We are trained to discredit the North Korea version because we have indeed little belief in anything this only remainig Stalinist regime puts forward. So this is not our problem. Our problem is rather that we sense here a difference of points of view betwen ROK and the US and this could sign in new times of danger in the Far East.

What does this have to do with Sustainable Development? It does. We wrote several times in the past of the terrific internal market a re-united Korea would have, so its future could be as bright as that of the re-united Germany. The placing of a Germany of the East in the middle of the China – Japan – India triangle could help push forward the whole region and help with the new economy of the 21st century.

South Korea wants to be granted an image of stability and stable management of the Peninsula. After analyzing the Security Council resolution on the Cheonan incident, it looks like one-sided and strengthening the US-ROK relations with a strong feeling of recomitment in the US. Was this the objective of an exercise?

On the North Korean side they clearly would like to stabilize the economy. They do not come out with large provocative acts but continue since Cheonan with a string of small provocations and it is remembered that they have some 30-40 kilo of Plutonium.

Politically the language is strange.

The ROK speaks of PEACE, ECONOMY, HAPPY COMMUNITY on the peninsula, while the North wants to talk via the 6-Party dialogue intermediary route.

Now to the ROK Cheonan: “It was an underwater explosion of a CHT -02D torpedo that created a shock wave and bubble effect that broke the ship in half.” This is backed by an international group of experts that was organized by South Korea. But then, as we will see from the article in the Japan Times, there seem to be signs that the old ship had structural problems, the Aluminum was being attacked – some white powder was found and perhaps it was just a plain accident that was indeed not caused by the North Koreans. But that does not mean anyway that they are angels.

The Vice Minister points out that the US has returned to Korea 47 out of the 80 bases it had and the USFK relocation project concentrates the forces to two hubs.

With all of this Moody’s ratings went up and there is hope a US-Korea Free Trade Agreement will be ratified.

——————

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20100710b2.html

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Scholars doubt Cheonan finding
Staff report, The Japan Times

Two visiting U.S.-based experts called Friday in Tokyo for a
reinvestigation into the sinking of a South Korean warship allegedly
by a North Korean submarine, arguing a multinational probe and report
on the incident had many inconsistencies and flaws.

The report, released in May, was based on a probe by the Joint
Civilian-Military Investigation Group (JIG) to look into the March
sinking of the Cheonan and the loss of 46 South Korean sailors.

Jae Jung Suh, an associate professor of international politics at
Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C., and Seung Hun Lee, a
professor of physics at the University of Virginia, claimed the
condition of the salvaged Cheonan is inconsistent with the JIG
conclusion that the sinking was due to a shock wave and a bubble
effect and that the blue ink marking on the torpedo reading “No. 1″ in
Hangul would have been burned off in a detonation.

They also said the “white compounds” found on both the recovered ship
and torpedo were not substances resulting from an explosion but are
most likely “rusted” aluminum exposed to moisture or water for a long
time.”

“We do not know (what happened to the Cheonan), and nobody knows at
the moment,” Suh said Friday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of
Japan in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward.

————————————

THE UPDATE IS THAT WEDNESDAY JULY 22, 2010, US Secretary of State Ms. Hillary Clinton and US Secretary of Defense Mr. Robert Gates, will be in Seoul to discuss security issues and the continuing tension with North Korea.

At UN, N. Korea Ambassador Declares Victory, Came Late to Dark Press Area.
By Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press.
UNITED NATIONS, July 9 — North Korea’s Ambassador Sin Son Ho came late to the UN press area, 20 minutes after Susan Rice of the U.S. and her Japanese and South Korean counterparts had spoken and left.
He sat with Inner City Press, asking where the other reporters were. They had left, but following tweets from InnerCityPress and others, some returned. But there was no UNTV crew, and therefore no sound.

Sin Son Ho sat in the penned in press area, sweating. Inner City Press offered him a fan, one handed out in June at a largely Japanese march from Times Square to the UN. “NO! Nuclear Weapons” were the words on fan. Sin Son Ho declined.
Inner City Press asked him if he has seen the photo exhibit in the UN’s entrance about the De-Militarized Zone. He nodded. “My country very beautiful,” he said. “Very beautiful.”

Why did he come so late to the stakeout, after Ambassadors Rice, Takasu and Park had already spoken. He didn’t want to mixed with them, was the answer.

Other reporters began to arrive. Some wondered how the UN Secretariat could be treating North Korea and its Ambassador this way. The emphasis, however, was on getting him to speak and take questions before he left. Inner City Press plugged the lights in. The microphone stand was tilted.

Finally the UNTV crew arrived, and Sin Son Ho began. He denounced the Security Council, which he said “failed to bring the correct judgment or conclusion to this case.” He said the Peninsula was now at a “trigger point” and could “explode at any moment.”

The first question was in Korean, but Sin Son Ho answered in English. This was, he said, a great diplomatic victory. Inner City Press began asking about his statement, in an earlier press conference, that he would lose his job if the Council took action.
A reporter shouted, “Will North Korea take military action?” Sin Son Ho replied, “Thank you for coming,” and walked away from the microphone.

A swarm of TV camera people, mostly from Japanese media, ran after him and up the stairs. A long time UN Security officer tried to stop the camera people, who surrounded Sin Son Ho as he passed through the turnstile. And then he was gone.

* * *

At UN, Korean Ship Attack But Not Attacker Condemned, Faster Action on Lebanese Rock Throwing.

By Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press.

UNITED NATIONS, July 8 — At the UN Security Council, it’s hurry up and wait. The sinking of the Cheonan ship was suddenly put on the agenda for consultations Thursday afternoon at 4:30. Some media reported that a statement condemning the sinking, and presumably North Korea, would be issued that same afternoon.

But Council sources told the Press that the meeting was only for the purpose of finally distributing the draft Presidential Statement to the other members of the Council, beyond the P-5 Plus Two. At least for appearance’s sake, the pretense of non P-5 agreement must be kept up. Therefore no statement will issue until Friday.

And when it does, it will not squarely blame North Korea-see below “the Security Council condemns the attack which led to the sinking”

Also slated for Friday is a “quick and dirty” press statement in support of France’s peacekeepers, heroically fighting rock throwers in South Lebanon. France has drafted what it wants, and thinks it will get agreement.

Even though UN staff were barricaded into their offices in Sri Lanka by a mob led by a government minister, and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was burned in effigy, belatedly blamed it on the government, the Security Council has not, and in all probability will not, take up the issue. Until a ship gets sunk. And yet then…. Watch this site.

from: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/08d6fc3a-8600-…

we learned the following – “Argentina in Cup dilemma.”

After the completion of the third round we know now that the 16 are made up from 6 Latin American teams, 6 EU teams, two teams from Asia, just one from Africa, and the US.

The six Latin American teams are all five teams of the Southern cone – the ABC and Uruguay and Paraguay, wth the addition of Mexico.

The six EU teams are the two Iberian countries, England, Netherlands, Germany, and Slovakia.

The two Asians are South Korea and Japan.

And then is Ghana, the only African State to make it, and the US. These two teams will meet immediately in the first round of the elimination games – thus making it clear that the upcoming eight eight might not include any African team, or it will miss the US.

The conclusion so far is that when one speaks soccer, the kings are again from the Latin cone and the Iberian Peninsula, with this year the addition of The Netherlands and Germany. The only teams that came out the full amount of 9 points – that is three wins – are The Netherlands and Argentina. The prizes for elimination-with-shame go to France and Italy. North Korea’s participation was a fluke. In their last game they lost to The Ivory Coast at 0:3.

Comparing with our interim article, we seem vindicated by what we wrote about these games and this week-end’s Toronto G-20.

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After the completion of just two rounds of the pre-elimination stage in the World Cap games it is clear that Argentina, Brazil and Chile (the Latin ABC) and The Netherlands, will be among the competing golden 16. But Portugal wins our laurels. They shut out North Korea with a stunning 7:0, while Brazil played them only to a diplomatic 2:1 that allowed North Korea to crow that their Stalinism is succeeding.

On the other hand – it took just two rounds to show it clearly that Europe is in deep crisis.

France is in complete disintegration, England is preoccupied with the BP oilspill and even though they played an equalizer 1:1 with the US but it just does not cover the economic disaster of one of their top corporations and  economically they are sinking together with the US. Soccer-wise they also played an 1:1 game with Nigeria’s oil and may be left out like France from the golden 16. This is shocking indeed in both cases but quite obvious for someone who analyses Europe at large. Personally – for transparency – I have to confess that I did bet on the Nigeria draw and am making some money of the English disaster.

Then Italy and Germany and Spain – they may not make it either. Italy managed just two draws one with our favorite country – New Zealand (that is favorite in general but not in soccer).  Germany, having lost to Serbia is not assured either of a spot among the 16 (For transparency – I was not as bold as thinking they will lose, I only bet on a draw but they ended worse then our prediction).
Spain lost to Switzerland – right there at starting game?

Could anyone imagine a World Cup 16 without France, England, Germany, Italy …?  All of them having their independent seats at Toronto’s G-20 table? Can I say once more that there is not an EU Half-life Crisis – face up to it – it is rather that the rest of the world is moving up and Europe must Unite in order to have future value. This World Cup Chaos is a bellweather! The United Siates might make it into the circle of the 16 – in soccer of all things – because it is now more united then the EU. That is even stranger.

Thanks Portugal – you were the only ones to show there is still life left in Europe.

from Jeffrey Laurenti <laurenti@tcf.org> date Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 3:25 PM subject Century Foundation: Obama’s Russia investment recouped in canceled missiles

Investment Recouped in Canceled Missiles

by Jeffrey Laurenti

President Obama’s conservative critics have carped about his Russia “reset,” his moves toward nuclear build-down, his hesitant opening to Iran, and the supposedly insipid sanctions he squeezed out of the Security Council on Iran’s nuclear program this week.  They sneered at his Nobel Peace Prize last fall, saying it was an award for rhetoric since he had produced no results.

Where, they have demanded, is the beef?

Today there is a very big beef delivery from the Moscow policy stockyards, one that will feed speculation in policy circles from Washington to Tehran.  The Russians have canceled the long-planned sale of S-300 missiles to Iran.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, adopted June 9th, bans the sale of heavy weapons systems to Iran, including “missiles and missile systems.”  While the S-300 missile sale to Iran was a cash cow for Russia’s hard-pressed military industries, President Dmitri Medvedev agreed these sanctions had to bite in order to prompt Iranian officials to recalibrate their nuclear posture.

Despite Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s public bravado, the canceled missiles are not flies he can casually swat away.  Iran has very much wanted a modernized missile defense system to protect its nuclear facilities against possible attack.  It now knows it cannot get them till those nuclear facilities are under strict international supervision and its enrichment of nuclear fuel is checked.

The suspended sale will not immediately change Iran’s nuclear policy.  But it underscores that Iran’s self-isolation on the issue carries costs that are not trivial.  As Tehran begins to absorb this new reality, the United States should seek direct talks with the Iranians on both the nuclear file and the broader range of American-Iranian relations.  The sanctions, of course, are not an end in themselves, but a wake-up call to invigorate the politics of diplomacy.

Medvedev’s collaboration on fencing in Iran’s nuclear program could only happen because Barack Obama’s far-reaching transformation of U.S. foreign policy has cleared away the toxins that years of aggressive unilateralism had built up in America’s international relations.

The symmetry between the suspended missile sale and Obama’s cancellation of the Bush administration’s ill-conceived antimissile system in Poland is not coincidental.

Obama’s patient investment in rebuilding the bilateral relationship with Russia, his administration’s scrupulous respect for international obligations and rejection of double standards, and the president’s embrace of nuclear weapons phaseout have all been crucial to this telling step in reducing nuclear dangers.

The beef is real.  Well done.

———————–

Jeffrey Laurenti
Senior Fellow anD
Director, Foreign Policy Programs
The Century Foundation

41 East 70th StreeT
New York, New York  10021   USA
Tel.:  +1  (212) 535-4441 ext. 339
E-mail:  laurenti@tcf.org
Web:  www.tcf.org

Disaster in the Amazon

By BOB HERBERT, New York Times, Op-Ed Columnist.

Published: June 4, 2010

“As horrible as the gulf spill has been, what happened in the Amazon was worse,” said Jonathan Abady, a New York lawyer who is part of the legal team that is suing Chevron on behalf of the rainforest inhabitants.

It has been a long and ugly legal fight and the outcome is uncertain. But what has happened in the rainforest is heartbreaking, although it has not gotten nearly the coverage that the BP spill has.

What’s not in dispute is that Texaco operated more than 300 oil wells for the better part of three decades in a vast swath of Ecuador’s northern Amazon region, just south of the border with Colombia. Much of that area has been horribly polluted. The lives and culture of the local inhabitants, who fished in the intricate waterways and cultivated the land as their ancestors had done for generations, have been upended in ways that have led to widespread misery.

Texaco came barreling into this delicate ancient landscape in the early 1960s with all the subtlety and grace of an invading army. And when it left in 1992, it left behind, according to the lawsuit, widespread toxic contamination that devastated the livelihoods and traditions of the local people, and took a severe toll on their physical well-being.

A brief filed by the plaintiffs said: “It deliberately dumped many billions of gallons of waste byproduct from oil drilling directly into the rivers and streams of the rainforest covering an area the size of Rhode Island. It gouged more than 900 unlined waste pits out of the jungle floor — pits which to this day leach toxic waste into soils and groundwater. It burned hundreds of millions of cubic feet of gas and waste oil into the atmosphere, poisoning the air and creating ‘black rain’ which inundated the area during tropical thunderstorms.”

The quest for oil is, by its nature, colossally destructive. And the giant oil companies, when left to their own devices, will treat even the most magnificent of nature’s wonders like a sewer. But the riches to be made are so vastly corrupting that governments refuse to impose the kinds of rigid oversight and safeguards that would mitigate the damage to the environment and its human and animal inhabitants.

Pick your venue. The families whose lives and culture are dependent upon the intricate web of waterways along the Gulf Coast of the United States are in a fix similar to that of the indigenous people zapped by nonstop oil spills and the oil-related pollution in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Each group is fearful about its future. Both have been treated contemptuously.

The oil companies don’t care. Shell can’t wait to begin drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska, an area that would pose monumental problems for anyone trying to deal with a catastrophic spill. The companies pretend that the spills won’t happen. They always say that their drilling operations are safe. They said that before drilling off Santa Barbara, and in the rainforest in Ecuador, and in the Gulf of Mexico, and everywhere else they drill.

Their assurances mean nothing.

President Obama has suspended Shell’s Arctic drilling permits and has temporarily halted the so-called Arctic oil rush. What we’ve learned from the BP debacle in the gulf, and from the rainforest, and so many other places, is just how reckless and inept the oil companies can be when it comes to safeguarding life, limb and the environment.

They’re dangerous. They need the most stringent kind of oversight, and swift and severe sanctions for serious wrongdoing. At the same time, we need to be searching with a much, much greater sense of urgency for viable energy alternatives. Treating the Amazon and the gulf and the Arctic as if they were nothing more than toxic waste sites is an affront to the planet and all life-forms that inhabit it.

Chevron doesn’t believe it should be called to account for any of the sins Texaco may have committed in the Amazon. A spokesman told me that the allegations of environmental damage were wildly overstated and that even if Texaco had caused some pollution, it had cleaned it up and reached an agreement with the Ecuadorian government that precluded further liability.

The indigenous residents may be suffering (they’re in much worse shape than the people on the gulf coast) but the Chevron-Texaco crowd feels real good about itself. The big money was made, and the trash was left behind.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinio…

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Curse of the Black Gold

Hope and betrayal on the Niger Delta.

 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/0…

At independence in 1960, few observers expected that Nigeria would mature into an oil giant. But in subsequent decades, the oil companies, led by five multinational firms—Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Italy’s Agip, and ExxonMobil and Chevron from the U.S.—transformed a remote, nearly inaccessible wetland into industrial wilderness. The imprint: 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) of pipelines, 159 oil fields, and 275 flow stations, their gas flares visible day and night from miles away.

No one can deny the sheer technological achievement of building an infrastructure to extract oil from a waterlogged equatorial forest. Intense swampy heat, nearly impenetrable mangrove thickets, swarming insects, and torrential downpours bedevil operations to this day. But mastering the physical environment has proved almost simple compared with dealing with the social and cultural landscape. The oil firms entered a region splintered by ethnic rivalries. More than two dozen ethnic groups inhabit the delta, among them the Ijaw, the largest group, and the Igbo, Itsekiri, Ogoni, Isoko, and Urhobo. These groups have a history of fighting over the spoils of the delta, from slaves to palm oil—and now, crude oil. The companies disturbed a fragile landscape that supported fishing and farming. Engineers and project managers constructing pipelines through a mangrove swamp, or laying roads through marshland, could disrupt spawning grounds or change the course of a stream, threatening a village’s livelihood.

Recent reports by the United Nations Development Program and the International Crisis Group identify some of the questionable strategies employed by oil companies: paying off village chiefs for drilling rights; building a road or dredging a canal without an adequate environmental impact study; tying up compensation cases—for resource damages or land purchases—for years in court; dispatching security forces to violently break up protests; patching up oil leaks without cleaning up sites.

“After 50 years, the oil companies are still searching for a way to operate successfully with communities,” says Antony Goldman, a London-based risk consultant. The delta is littered with failed projects started by oil companies and government agencies—water tanks without operating pumps, clinics with no medicine, schools with no teachers or books, fishponds with no fish.

“The companies didn’t consult with villagers,” says Michael Watts, director of the African Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley. “They basically handed out cash to chiefs. It wasn’t effective at all.”

 http://www.aolnews.com/story/iran-to-shi…

Iran to ship uranium to Turkey in nuclear deal.
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, AP, May 17, 2010

TEHRAN, Iran -Iran agreed Monday to ship most of its enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country’s disputed nuclear program and deflate a U.S.-led push for tougher sanctions.
The deal was reached in talks with Brazil and Turkey, elevating a new group of mediators for the first time in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities. The agreement was nearly identical to a U.N.-drafted plan that Washington and its allies have been pressing Tehran for the past six months to accept in order to deprive Iran — at least temporarily — of enough stocks of enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon.
The United States had no immediate comment, but Germany greeted the news with caution.
The key question is whether the agreement fulfills the demands that the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency has made of Tehran, German government spokesman Christoph Steegmans said.
Steegmans noted that the point remains whether Iran suspends enrichment of nuclear material at home, raising a possible sticking point since the agreement reaffirmed Tehran’s right to enrichment activities for peaceful purposes.
The heart of the deal is a swap in which Iran would send abroad most of its low-enriched uranium and in return received fuel rods of medium-enriched uranium to use in a Tehran medical research reactor that produces isotopes for cancer treatment.
But for months, Iran has haggled over the terms, making counterproposals that were repeatedly rejected by the U.S. and its allies. With the deal announced Monday, Tehran seems to have agreed to almost all of the original terms. However, making the deal with Turkey and Brazil may have been more palatable, allowing Iran to argue that it did not bend to American pressure.
“It was agreed during the trilateral meeting of Iranian, Turkish and Brazilian leaders that Turkey will be the venue for swapping” Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium for fuel rods, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on state TV.
Washington has cited the Iranians’ intransigence against the original deal as proof of the need for new U.N. sanctions.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the new deal meant Iran was willing to “open a constructive road.”
“There is no ground left for more sanctions or pressure,” he told reporters in Iran, according to Turkey’s private NTV television.
Monday’s deal was announced after talks between Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran.
The main difference from the U.N.-drafted version is that if Iran does not receive the fuel rods within a year, Turkey will be required to “immediately and unconditionally” return the uranium to Iran.
Iran feared that under the initial U.N. deal, if a swap fell through, its uranium stock could be seized permanently.
The process would begin one month after a final agreement is signed between Iran and its main negotiating partners, including the United States and the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran dropped an earlier demand for the fuel exchange to happen in stages and is now willing to ship abroad its nuclear material in a single batch. It also dropped an insistence that the exchange happen inside Iran as well as a request to receive the fuel rods right away.
The U.N. draft has a gap of about a year to allow time for the rods to be manufactured in France.
While kept under international supervision in Turkey, the uranium would still be considered Iranian property until Iran receives the fuel rods, said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, who is also the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, called Monday’s deal historic.
The United Nations has already imposed three rounds of financial sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. The process is key to concerns over its program, because it can produce either low-enriched uranium needed to fuel a nuclear reactor or the highly enriched uranium needed to build a warhead. Iran says its program is entirely peaceful and says it has a right to enrich uranium for reactor fuel.
The fuel swap deal on the table since October was touted as a way to reduce tensions and ensure Iran cannot build a bomb in the short term. The material returned to Iran in the form of fuel rods cannot be processed beyond its lower, safer levels. Iran needs the fuel rods to power an aging medical research reactor in Tehran that produces isotopes for cancer treatment.
Under the agreement announced Monday, Iran will ship most of its enriched uranium — about 2,600 pounds, or 1,200 kilograms — to Turkey to be kept under U.N. and Iranian supervision. In return, it will get fuel rods containing uranium enriched to higher levels needed for the research reactor, Mehmanparast said.
Iran first reached out to Turkey and Brazil in its efforts to avoid tougher U.N. sanctions for its refusal to stop enriching uranium altogether. Both countries are non-permanent members of the Security Council.
Monday’s deal was signed by the foreign ministers of the three countries.
Iran says its enrichment program is only for peaceful uses, such as producing fuel for nuclear power plants.
Mehmanparast said a letter will be sent to the IAEA within a week to pave the way for a final agreement.
“Should they be ready, an agreement will be signed between us and the group,” he said, referring to the U.S., France, Russia and the IAEA.
A month later, the uranium — currently enriched to a level of 3.5 percent — would be sent to Turkey, where it would be stored under IAEA and Iranian supervision, Mehmanparast said. The fuel rods would contain material processed to just under 20 percent.
Enrichment of 90 percent is needed to produce material for nuclear warheads.
—
Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed to this report from Ankara, Turkey.
—
Online:
The agreement —
 http://www.mfa.gov.tr/17-mayis-2010-tari…

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Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

• Iran Creates Illusion of Progress in Nuclear Negotiations – Glenn Kessler
  By striking a deal to ship some of its low-enriched uranium abroad, Iran has created the illusion of progress in nuclear negotiations with the West, without offering any real compromise. (Washington Post)
  See also A Sham Deal with Iran – Bronwen Maddox
  Brazil and Turkey claim to have pulled off a triumph in persuading Iran to freeze the heart of its nuclear program. But this is almost certainly a sham deal – and one that, dangerously, will undermine the drive to bring new sanctions against Tehran. (Times-UK)
• Changing the Paradigm of U.S. Assistance to Egypt: Alternatives to the “Endowment” Idea – J. Scott Carpenter
  Recently leaked documents detail an exchange between Washington and Cairo regarding the future of U.S. economic assistance to Egypt, indicating that the Obama administration has welcomed Cairo’s idea of ending traditional assistance in favor of creating a new endowment, “The Egyptian-American Friendship Foundation.” This idea has a long, checkered history and, if implemented, will be bad for both American taxpayers and the Egyptian people. The administration should work with Egypt to craft alternatives that advance common objectives, including democratic reform. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

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Observations:

Iran Maneuvers to Delay Sanctions – Ronen Bergman (Ynet News)

• The agreement between Tehran and Ankara is a nice achievement for the Iranians that will somewhat delay the international sanctions against them and provide an alibi for the Russians and Chinese to maintain excellent economic ties with Tehran.
• Every time Iran feels that it’s approaching the point of no return in respect to Security Council or EU decisions on sanctions, it comes up with a “new initiative” and announces that it will in fact accept the international community’s conditions. Yet when it actually needs to sign an agreement, it presents new conditions.
• The Iranians agreed and reneged on this kind of arrangement eight times. Indeed, this is just part of the ongoing ritual of Iranian maneuvers aimed at buying time in order to get as close as possible to the bomb.

Iran’s Nuclear Coup – Editorial (Wall Street Journal)

• Iran said it would send 1,200 kg. of low-enriched uranium to Turkey within a month, and no more than a year later get back 120 kg. enriched from somewhere else abroad. This makes even less sense than the flawed October deal. In the intervening seven months, Iran has kicked its enrichment activities into higher gear. Its estimated total stock has gone to 2,300 kg. from 1,500 kg. last autumn, and its stated enrichment goal has gone to 20% from 3.5%.
• If the West accepts this deal, Iran would be allowed to keep enriching uranium in contravention of previous UN resolutions. Removing 1,200 kg. will leave Iran with still enough low-enriched stock to make a bomb, and once uranium is enriched up to 20% it is technically easier to get to bomb-capable enrichment levels.
• Only last week, diplomats at the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges it is using to enrich uranium. According to Western intelligence estimates, Iran continues to acquire key nuclear components, such as trigger mechanisms for bombs. Tehran says it wants to build additional uranium enrichment plants. The CIA recently reported that Iran tripled its stockpile of uranium last year and moved “toward self-sufficiency in the production of nuclear missiles.” Monday’s deal will have no impact on these illicit activities.

Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010, Kyodo News of Japan:

Six-party talks up to North: Bosworth.

U.S. special envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth said Saturday in Tokyo he hopes to see “fairly soon” the resumption of the stalled six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs, but added whether that is realized depends on the North.

“Five of the six parties are prepared to move very quickly. And we would hope that the sixth, that is to say the DPRK, will also decide to move ahead very quickly,” Bosworth told reporters, referring to North Korea by its official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

But the U.S. point man for North Korea policy also said, “In the end, of course, the decision as to whether they are going to come back and when, it is up to the DPRK.”

While admitting that there is no agreement yet on when to resume the multilateral talks involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, Bosworth said, “I hope that, in the not too distant future, but fairly soon, we will see a resumption of the talks.”

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

UN-North Korea talks hint at a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula
Source: Global Times ,  February 21 2010
By Ronda Hauben also of www.taz.de/blogs/netizenblog

This June 25 marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. Only an armistice and a temporary agreement, not a peace treaty, are in place to help prevent a renewed outbreak of hostilities.

A four-person delegation from the office of the UN Secretary-General which included B. Lynn Pascoe and Kim Won-soo recently returned to the UN after their visit to North Korea, between February 9 and 12, 2010.

This was the first delegation to establish official relations between North Korea and the UN Secretariat since Maurice Strong acted as an envoy of Kofi Annan to North Korea in 2004.

At the press conference at the UN, held on the return of the UN delegation, only minimal information was provided about the issues that North Korea raised.

In his brief presentation, Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, mentioned some of the issues discussed, including a statement that there had been back-and-forth talks about a peace treaty.

Pascoe said, however, that he was not going to get into details. A little later in the press conference, a question was asked about what issues North Korea had brought up. Pascoe’s response included that North Korea did talk about a peace treaty and why they saw it as an important way to build trust.

Much of the press conference, focused on questions about North Korea returning to the Six-Party Talks.

A purpose of the UN secretariat trip was to convey messages from other parties of the Six-Party Talks to North Korea, and to convey the Secretary- General’s view that talks need to begin without preconditions.

At the end of WWII, Korea was artificially divided into two separate entities: the Republic of Korea in the south, or South Korea, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north, or North Korea. This division was initially regarded as temporary. Instead, it was maintained and reinforced by various actions of the UN. Then during the Korean War, the United Nations flag and name were used.

North Korea sees the need for a peace treaty to help calm the tension that exists because currently there is only the temporary armistice agreement.

North Korea proposes that three parties to the armistice, the US (for the UN command), North Korea, and China (the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army) to negotiate for the peace treaty. It also proposes to include South Korea.

This is proposed as the means to build confidence among these four parties so as to be able to return to the Six- Party Talks with experience to make possible reaching an agreement on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The actual denuclearization will be a task that will involve both North Korea giving up its nuclear weapon capability and South Korea giving up the protection that the US offers it by including it under the US’s nuclear umbrella.

The press conference at the UN, however, didn’t discuss the issue of the peace treaty or the need to consider the denuclearization of both nations on the Korean Peninsula.

Instead, the majority of questions concerned whether North Korea would return to the Six-Party Talks.

North Korea has criticized the talks as not helpful to solving the disputes that continue to breed hostility in the region. Recent talks have focused on removing the nuclear capability of North Korea, rather than similarly considering North Korea’s claim that it needs its nuclear capability as a security measure as long as hostile actions continue by other members of the Six-Party process.

In previous talks between North Korea and the US, one of the negotiators explained the most difficult part of the negotiations was determining how to phrase the issue of the talks so that it recognized the interests of different parties to the controversy. He said that North Korea made the reasonable request that the issue be phrased in a way satisfactory to both North Korea and the US.

One would expect a similar problem will need to be solved to facilitate discussion among the parties to the Six-Party Talks, or to facilitate negotiations toward a peace treaty to end the Korean War.

After the press conference, Kim Won-soo, Deputy Chef de Cabinet of the UN, said the dispute over how to get back to negotiations could be seen as a difference over what sequencing was acceptable.

What order of actions would the parties agree to with regard to discussing a peace treaty, ending the UN sanctions, or returning to the Six-Party Talks process, could be considered an issue to be discussed, rather than phrasing the problem in terms favorable to one side or the other. This is the basis for further discussion and negotiation among North Korea and the other countries.

The UN is technically still at war with North Korea. These current developments raise the question of whether Ban Ki-moon is willing to use the good offices of his position as Secretary-General to offer what help he can to facilitate a peace treaty to end the Korean War.

Even this first step of an official visit by the four-member UN Secretariat delegation and the mere mention that the North Korea referred to the desire for a peace treaty can be seen as a step forward.

The Secretary-General is endeavoring to help solve the stalemate among the parties regarding the continuing tension on the Korean Peninsula.

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The author is an award-winning US journalist covering the United Nations.  netizenblog at gmail.com
 http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/commentary…

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Global Times appears in English and originates from Beijing.

Contact the Global Times (GT) newspaper:
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Mongolia is an unassuming country, sandwiched in between Russia and China and has sworn to stay nuclear free and made known it is no danger to anyone. This is Mongolia’s highest contribution to its region and it could be an example to North Korea when that State decides to attempt change. Mongolia can smooth the way to the six parties talks.

Mongolia is the 19th largest and the most sparsely populated independent country in the world, with a population of about three million people. It is also the world’s second-largest landlocked country after Kazakhstan. The country contains very little arable land, as much of its area is covered by steppes, with mountains to the north and west, and the Gobi Desert to the south. Approximately 30% of the population are nomadic or semi-nomadic. The predominant religion in Mongolia is Tibetan Buddhism, and the majority of the state’s citizens are of the Mongol ethnicity, though Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. About 20% of the population live on less than US$1.25 per day. Global warming has had a serious impact on Mongolia and its land became even drier with very active further desertification; but Mongolia is rich in minerals and exporting minerals such as Coal, Uranium, Lithium, Copper, Molybdenum, Tin, Tungsten, Gold and oil provide it with cash flow. Companies and Financing from China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Russia, Canada are active in Mongolia.

In Mongolia during the 1920s, approximately one third of the male population were monks. By the beginning of the 20th century about 750 monasteries were functioning in Mongolia. The Stalinist purges in Mongolia beginning in 1937, affected the Republic as it left more than 30,000 people dead. Japanese imperialism became even more alarming after the invasion of neighboring Manchuria in 1931. The Soviet threat of seizing parts of Inner Mongolia induced China to recognize Outer Mongolia’s independence. So – the mutual distrust between China and the Soviets allowed for an independent Mongolia.

The introduction of perestroika and glasnost in the USSR by Mikhail Gorbachev strongly influenced Mongolian politics leading to the peaceful Democratic Revolution, and the introduction of a multi-party system and market economy. A new constitution was introduced in 1992, and the “People’s Republic” was dropped from the country’s name. The transition to market economy was often rocky, the early 1990s saw high inflation and food shortages. The first election wins for non-communist parties came in 1993 (presidential elections) and 1996 (parliamentary elections). So, Mongolia, an ex-communist country moved to a market economy.

The evolution of Mongolia is now of special interest to those that would like to see movement in efforts to solve the Korean peninsula schism. Mongolia could be an example for North Korea if it becomes interested in dropping its attachment to the former Soviet way of managing a country – and that is what brought a high level Mongolian group to The Korea Society in New York City, for breakfast, today, February 23, 2010.

The speaker was H.E. Damdin Tsogtbaatar, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Next to him sat the Mongolian Permanent Representative to the UN H.E. Enkhtsetseg Ochir. Also present was the Deputy Permanent Representative Sodnom Gankhuyag.

The presentation started with the geopolitics and the paradox that both neighbors – China and Russia – are conservative cultures but when changing they are revolutionary. Being enclosed in that sandwich, the Mongolian Foreign Policy has to be an open policy and with both neighbors nuclear  – it had to mean for Mongolia that it can only be free of nuclear weapons. From here he looked at the other two countries that started out in similar conditions like Mongolia – Cuba and North Korea. While Mongolia developed a democracy romanticism – this was not the case with the other two. In effect North Korea looked down at Mongolia and closed its embassy in 1999 and used the excuse that they do so because of economy conditions. Mongolia watched the South Korean Sunshine Policy towards North Korea and as regional Mongolian expats live in South Korea, and Mongolia’s interest to help stabilize the region in its own interest, they started to get more and more interested in what goes on on the Korean Peninsula and in Japan. For one thing – North Korea was interested in Petroleum. North Korea is isolated by its own choice – but someone must get interested in North Korea. In fact in the 1970′s North Korea was ahead of South Korea – more developed – but se now. During the Korean War – only the Russian and Mongolian Ambassadors were left in North Korea. Mongolia also helped by taking in the N. Korean orphans and returned them when hostilities stopped.

Mongolia does not think that the North Koreans are totally irrational, even though he told of some instances that you real wonder – one such was the idea of developing an ostrich farm in N. Korea. Mongolia initiated cultural exchanges that include also Japanese groups. The idea is that Mongolia can try to prepare the ground on which the meetings of the six parties could be restarted.

Mongolia does not believe that sanctions will work – they only punish the people who then clam up and there is no progress. That is when I noted that the two Mongolian men in the room both had purple ties, and I wandered if this is an effort not to look blue or red? Further – Acquiring nuclear technology is not the end – he said – see Kazakhstan and the Ukraine – they had nuclear and gave them up – eventually comes a government and changes of a sudden are possible.

North Korea – the transition of power is supposed to happen in 2012, but considering the health of the leader it could happen earlier. About money reform -That had an impact only on those that had money. It affected people in the cities – not the countryside.

John Delury, an Associate Director at the Asia Society Center on US-China Relations, said that when he spoke to North Koreans when asked why they do not evolve according to the China model, they answered that they are on the China track. See, China first got nuclear, then only formalized relations with the US after they became nuclear. Only then kicked in stage three that was economical.

The answer was – That it is so – Mao Tse-Tung got nuclear first, on account of Stalin. Mongolia does not want to be any-body’s model – “we avoid the word.”

Mongolia was able to put at one table North Korea and Japan but to bring together both Koreas is more difficult. First, with President Lee the Sunshine policy was ended, and a strong anti-North Korean approach was established. The feeling is that the South Koreans, like any democracy, became tired to wait. The situation is now such that both Koreas say – we know what to do – thanks – no – thanks.

Mongolia does no believe in treaties and going to court like lawyers when you deal with nuclear weapons. One can push the button and it is over – but then he said earlier that the belief is there that eventually people are rational – so what is it? Do we must be careful to avoid such situation by stopping a country like Iran from getting nuclear, in order to avoid later dilemmas? Anyway – Iran was not the Issue here but North Korea – so let us say that Mongolia can nevertheless provide an example to North Korea, even if not a model – that changing from threat to agreement could help economically. In effect the day before, the Mongolian envoy had an hour-long meeting with UNSG Ban Ki-moon.

In North Korea, UN Did Not Raise Press Freedom, Hires Staff from Gov’t Lists, UN’s “Comparative Advantage”?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 16 — How badly does the UN under Secretary General Ban Ki-moon want to be relevant in North Korea? His senior advisor Kim Won-soo and his Political Affairs chief Lynn Pascoe traveled to Pyongyang and did not even raise the issue of press freedom.

In response to questions from Inner City Press upon their return, Mr. Kim said that “things are moving forward,” while Mr. Pascoe claimed that the UN Development Program “hires its own employees now rather then take them through the government.” Video here, from Minute 12:52.

But Mr. Kim later clarified that UNDP staff will still be chosen from lists forwarded by the Kim Jong-Il government, only there will be “multiple” candidates. He acknowledged that the UN still has problems with “access and visas” but said there are at the “local level.” In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, it all comes from the top: Kim Jong-Il, with whom the two did not even meet.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists has named North Korea as the most censored country on earth, and had called on Ban Ki-moon to speak out more forcefully on press freedom. Inner City Press asked Pascoe and Kim Won-soo about this. Pascoe said they hadn’t raised press freedom “per se.” Kim Won-soo, who was asked twice about press freedom, did not answer the question.

Most questions were about whether North Korea will rejoin the Six Party talks about its nuclear programs. That is up to the Six Parties, Pascoe and Kim Won-soo repeatedly said. The UN is a go between. For example, Pascoe said that his staffer Aleksandr Ilitchev is “going to Moscow tomorrow,” after along with Ban staff Lee Sang-Hwa being on the trip, presumably to brief on the Six Party talks.

On UNDP, Mr. Kim told Inner City Press, “You are right, UNDP’s program has been suspended for two and a half years. The Resident Coordinator [moved back] three months ago.” According to Mr. Kim, he’s had to focus on renovating the UN office and residence. “The building was empty, so we couldn’t see any safe there,” he said, referring to the safe in which counterfeit dollars were found, which UNDP never reported until a whistleblower raised it.

That whistleblower was something of an elephant in the briefing room on Tuesday, with Mr. Kim Won-soo assuring that all UN programs in North Korea will now be scrutinized. Ironically he mentioned a “geo-spacial” mapping project which was one of those that got the UNDP program into trouble two and a half years ago.

Background: Five months into Ban’s tenure atop the UN, in May 2007, he was angered by the leak to Inner City Press of a internal memo (“Korea Peninsula UN Policy and Strategy Submission to the Policy Committee”) proposing that the UN use its “comparative advantage” to make itself relevant on the North Korea issue.
Now, the competitive advantage is being used.

Back in 2007, Ban had been forced to order an audit of the UN Development Program’s North Korea practices, including funding project which it could neither visit nor oversee. UNDP’s program had been suspended.

The UN memo stated that “Unless [the suspension] is reversed, the UNDP program risks being terminated. Rather than being able to support the six-party talks process and international engagement with North Korea at this critical juncture, the UN will lose its unique comparative advantage in that area altogether.”

Recently, despite the continuing nuclear standoff and renewed firing across the border, as well as lack of movement on human rights, UNDP re-started its North Korea program. And now the Ban administration’s “comparative advantage” is back.

UN’s Ban, Mr. Kim and Lynn Pascoe, press freedom not in the picture.

After the February 16 briefing, Mr. Kim Won-soo stayed and answered further questions. He said there are 39 international staff from six UN agencies currently in North Korea. He said the programs there spend approximately $45 million a year; he pointed out that’s $2 a person. UNDP will come up with a five year plan by “sometime in March,” then seek approval from the UNDP board. Things are, he said, moving in the right direction. And on those who seek to leave the country? And on press freedom? Watch this site.

Footnote: this was Kim Won-soo’s first on the record briefing at the UN, following requests made based on the JoongAng Ilbo’s on the record quote about the trip attributed to Mr. Kim. Later, also on the record, Ban’s Associate Spokesperson Choi Soung-ah told Inner City Press that Mr. Kim “did not give an exclusive to JoongAng Ilbo.” But the UN never sought a retraction. Mr. Kim appeared on Tuesday, and Inner City Press asked him to return for another briefing about the Ban administration’s wider work. We’ll see.

We congratulate Mr. Ban Ki-moon for finally taking this initiative as
his first term at the UN has entered its last year. We have advocated
this move from the first day he won the UN contest for the job he
holds. It was obvious to us that a success there, against the odds
that none of the powers involved likes to see a united Korea on their
global bloc – I mean the US, China, and Japan – this will cover for
all the other impossible jobs that were his lot. Compared to these
other topics, a well programmed approach by his right-hand man -
Ambassador Kim Won-soon – at a time North Korea is really down, has a
good chance of success, if he can just get full backing from his home
government in Seoul.

In the global economic conditions of today, building from scatch North
Korea could become the greatest thing for South Korea – and the united
Korea has the potential of being the united Germany of the Far East.
This requires the acceptance of North Korea leadership as part of the
United Korea leadership according to a Federal construct of the State.

In the process – a denuclearized Korean Peninsula can be established
and threats against China and Japan avoided.The Obama US
Administration, with its own economical problems today, has no reason
to insist on guarding the two Koreas from each other, while it could
be a clear winner when being able to pull the major part of the US
troops out of Korea. China, on its part, will be relieved of the
danger of an imploding nuclear Korea and the mass migration of Koreans
into China. The only remaining resistance might come from Japan that
might fear the economic competition from the United Korea. Even that
can be handled with economic agreements that will bind the two
countries by providing cheap labor also for Japanese industry that
moves into Korea.

Will now the Korean UNSG make this as the main topic to deal with in
the coming few months? Will the US President, he also seeking a
break-through this year, give him his blessing for going ahead with
this effort? It seems that such an agreement exists when judging the
composition of the three people group that will handle the approach to
North Korea. If on this team is also Mr. Lynn Pascoe is an american.
The third member seems to be the Chef de Cabinet – Mr. Vijay Nambiar -
an Indian.
 http://www.innercitypress.com/unban2kore…

As UN’s Ban Rolls Dice on N. Korea Trip, Kim Won-soo Is Asked to Brief Press.

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 3 — UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, returning from a brief trip during which protesters in South Sudan told him to “repent before judgment” while he was snubbed in Cyprus by four political parties, is said by close observers to be “rolling
the dice” on a trip to North Korea.

“Ban wants to be remembered as the S-G when the Koreas reunited,” the close insider said. “If it happens, all the other failures will be forgotten.”
The importance of the upcoming trip to Ban’s closest inner circle is reflected by on the record quotes that his main advisor Kim Won soo — Ban’s Karl Rove, as some put it — gave to the JoongAng Daily. Inner City Press asked Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky, with his own Korean connections, about the quote at Wednesday noon briefing, UN transcription here, video here:

Inner City Press… You said the other three members; who are the other three members of Mr. Pascoe’s team?

Spokesperson Nesirky: Kim Won-soo, the Deputy Chef de Cabinet is one of them, and two other members of staff.

Inner City Press: Of DPA or of the Executive Office of the Secretary General?

Spokesperson: One of each.

Inner City Press: Okay. I had asked earlier about when it was first announced that Kim Won-soo was quoted in Joong Ang Daily, describing the trip, saying it may have a nuclear component, as well as humanitarian. So, I was wondering, I mean, those are his quotes, right? That he spoke on the record Joong Ang?

Spokesperson: Well, you have to ask Kim Won-soo.

Inner City Press: That’s why I asked. When it first came up, I actually asked whether he could be a part of the briefing with Lynn Pascoe, since I don’t think he’s ever briefed the media on the record, but he seems to have a pretty important role within the Executive Office of the Secretariat, and obviously he is willing to speak on the record to at least some media. Is that possible to convey thatrequest?

UN’s Kim, at left, with UN’s Ban and Munoz, on glaciers

Spokesperson:
I will certainly convey it.
Hours later when Ban and his entourage, including Vijay Nambiar and Lynn Pascoe,
passed the Press at the Security Council stakeout, Kim Won-soo waved over. Correspondents recounted anecdotes from Ban’s trip last month to Haiti. There was general agreement: Mister Kim must brief the press, and on the record. We’ll see. Watch this site.
================

Monday February 8, 2010 UPDATE with information from the UN.

UN POLITICAL CHIEF HEADS TO DPR KOREA FOR TALKS WITH DPRK SENIOR OFFICIALS.

The top United Nations political official will arrive in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) tomorrow for talks with senior Government officials after wrapping up meetings in Beijing and Seoul.

As the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe will depart the Chinese capital tomorrow morning to hold comprehensive talks on all issues of mutual interest and concern with the DPRK during his visit to Pyongyang, slated to run from today through Friday.

While in the DPRK, he also plans to meet with the UN country team and foreign diplomats, as well as visit several UN project sites.

Over the weekend in Seoul, Mr. Pascoe held talks with officials from the Republic of Korea – including Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan and the country’s chief negotiator to the Six-Party Talks, which also involve Japan, China, Russia and the United States – on its relationship with the UN as well as the DPRK, among other topics.

Mr. Pascoe also conferred with UN-related civil society leaders, including former prime minister Han Seung-soo, who is now president of the World Federation of UN Associations (WFUNA), before travelling to Beijing for talks with officials from that country.

In September, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with the DPRK’s Vice Foreign Minister Park Gil Yon at UN Headquarters in New York, where he discussed the country’s nuclear issue along with the humanitarian and human rights situations.

In a report to the General Assembly last year, Mr. Ban voiced concern over the impact of the humanitarian situation on human rights in the country, where more than one third of the nearly 24 million-strong population is in need of food assistance.

The Asian nation’s humanitarian problems – including food shortages, a crumbling health system and lack of access to safe drinking water – seriously “hamper the fulfilment of human rights of the population,” he wrote.

“THE WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT: PYONGYANG ATTACKS THE MARKET.”

That was the title of a lunch event at The Korea Society Forum on Wedneday, January 27, 2010, and the speaker was Mr. Marcus Noland, Deputy Director at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, and  Senior Fellow at the East-West Institute.He has held academic positions at Yale, Johns Hopkins, USC, Tokyo U, Saitama U, The U. of Ghana, and the Korea Development Institute. He was also a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers to the President of the USA.

The event was chaired by Mr. Evans Revere, President and CEO of the Korea Society. Both of them also old hands of the US Department of State – former Ambassadors with deep knowledge of Korea.

The paper that was presented was co-authored by Mr. Noland with Stephan Haggard with whom he also co-authored a book titled:  “Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform.” Other books he wrote are “Pacific Basin Developing Countries: Prospects for the Future and Korea after Kim Jong-il,” and he edited “Economic Integration of the Korean Peninsula.” His book “Avoiding the Apocalypse: the future of the Two Koreas,” won the Ohira Memorial prize.

The reason for having this meeting was the North Korea’s recent currency reform of November 30, 2009, that literally threw North Korea back to Stalinistic Days of unbelievable economy these days of the 21st century.

North Korea also declared a ban on the use of foreign currencies on top of having declared useless their own National currency account. The net result was a clear blow o the market – so there is literally no market – thus no real economy – only a barter system.

History: In the last 15-20 years there was a bottom up marketization of the North Korean economy. It started with households and local government offices. It somehow evolved in the 1990s into a highly distorted market economy and the State was not comfortable with this because of the private origin of this up-swell – it was outside the State Control. There was also some intrusion of foreign companies – such as an Egyptian Telecoms that provided for individuals and businesses a cellphone network. The recent currency reform is simply the outcome – a clamp down on private initiative – and as there are no civil society institutions there is also no way to channel the peoples unhappiness. What we have now said Noland – is a revival of the Stalinist economy of the 1950s.

There have been conventional currency reforms in many countries – Turkey, Romania, Ghana … usually you cut off three zeros from the currency and you get it exchanged – but not in North Korea. Here, on November 30, 2009, North Korea announced a reform to replace all currency in circulation with new bills and coins. You had to declare all what you have and you could only exchange a small part of what you had – so the rest became useless paper. It was thus a confiscatory measure. Businesses operated in cash – so this destroyed the financial basis of the economy that operated outside the government controlled system. Call it the return to State socialism for those that tried to make a living for themselves. The Chinese never entered this North Korean world – they just do not operate in this sort of environment anymore.

The inflation was spiralling out of control before this sort of reform, now people did not even know how to price their products – it did not make sense to obtain this new currency – so how do you run a market under these conditions?

Things even sound worse when you realize that most North Koreans are government employees. – People join the government system so they can participate in the corruption cycle. If you ask in North Korea someone -Have you ever been detained? Most likely the answer will be yes. Even in this case – the currency exchange law – it was several days before it happened and you felt there was a dollarization of the system. Many knew it is coming and did buy dollars for their soon to be devalued money.

Some information became available when mid January a North Korean defected from the Embassy in Ethiopia.

Look at the difference between North Korea and Vietnam. Both were hit by withdrawal of Soviet assistance in the 1980s. While Vietnam changed and took off – North Korea stagnated and rolled back.

China started its reforms in the 1970s – Vietnam in the 1980s – both started from a high agriculture society. They had parades of improvement and everybody participated and took advantage of the changes. THey did freeze State Planning and people improved. Now North Korea did the opposite – they froze the market and demonetized the economy and the society. There is no lending – there is no banking – nothing. NORTH KOREA IS A FAILED STATE! What about the nukes? {as we shall see this was only the last question and came from a Japanese Government official.}

Before November 30, 2009, if you had some drive – you did push yourself up, or you left for China. What now? If there is no market you cannot sell even if you make something.

It amounts to a militarized workers party regime. Being a conscript in the lower ranks of the army is no big deal – but then the further down the ladder you go in North Korea – the more sensible the people are! The closer you are to Pyongyang – the more ideological and worse people get.

Interesting – the word nuclear was not uttered by the speaker or by people asking questions – this until the last question that came from a Japanese Consulate person. Mr. Noland pointed out that he was already hoping, against his expectations, that nobody will touch upon this. Then he stressed that development assistance is important – but you must make sure that like food assistance, it goes for good purpose to the right people. Such efforts are fungible and might produce no results if you are not careful.

———–

At the end of the Forum, I stayed around to discuss issues with some of the people present – it was a roomful – maybe 40 people. My cklear question was about reunification of the Koreas and I got quite a few skeptical answers. It is obvious they thought that a united Korea will be nuclear and the Japanese official just had no interest in this. Others just did not trust the North Korean leadership of being ready to give up the reins for an unsafe future – that is as if today their future is safe.

What about the real huge internal market that would open up by reunification? Why not do it in such a way that some leadership position is left in the hands of the present leaders of the North, in the hope that an Angela Merkel type will emerge from among them also? It will be no big thing to award penssions and guarantee the condition of those that will have to give up power? No tribunals please – just future well behavior can be the link. Part of this generation will be non-productive, but the young people from the North will show talents that can help all of Korea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GLOBAL WARMING IGNITES BORDERS AS WELL

By Manuel Manonelles, BARCELONA, (IPS) Posted by Other News January 3, 2009.

Little by little, it is being confirmed that the melting of the polar ice caps, whether in Antarctica or the Arctic, is happening significantly faster than initially predicted. The consequences of this for peace, one of the main victims of climate change, are enormous.

Glaciers and areas of high-altitude mountains that were previously considered zones of perpetual snow are now melting. A paradigmatic case is that of the alpine border between Switzerland and Italy where during a recent routine verification, certain sections of ice or perennial snow that had been on the map since 1861 were found to be missing. In this case, the two countries have enjoyed long periods of peaceful coexistence and are approaching the problem in a logical and cordial fashion, forming a commission to find a technical solution.

However, the possible implications of cases like this in other geographical areas are very worrisome. The destabilising potential of a similar development on the India-Pakistan border would be enormous, particularly in the zone of Kashmir or the Siachen glacier, where more than 3000 soldiers of both countries have died since 1984. The same is true of the tense China-India border, or the deeply problematic border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which will grow increasingly porous with melting, contributing to a rise in destabilisation in what are already two of the most unstable countries on the earth.

Another major effect of global warming is the gradual opening of major global shipping lanes in areas that had previously been impassable because of ice. The Northeast Passage along the north of Russia, used recently for the first time in history, shortens travel between the ports of China, Japan, and Korea and Hamburg, Rotterdam, and South Hampton by 4,000 kilometres. With the Northwest Passage along northern Canada, travel between the China and the ports of the eastern United States is similarly shortened.

The opening of these new routes will completely change the dynamics of intercontinental trade and might render irrelevant places that until now were considered geostrategically essential, such as the Panama and the Suez Canal.

Add to this the draw of massive reserves of raw materials expected to be present in the Arctic, ever more accessible as the ice recedes, which is provoking a race for control of the area – including an arms race – and is stoking tensions particularly between Russia, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The Russian news agency TASS has calculated oil reserves in the area at over 10 billion tonnes. Last year Canada approved an extraordinary 6.9 billion dollar arms bill to strengthen its military presence in its arctic zone, while Russia has resumed tactical flights of nuclear bombers in its polar region, triggering the protests of numerous countries.

This also explains, in part, the speed with which the European Union is processing the application for EU membership of bankrupt Iceland, which would place the body in the best possible position for future negotiations and territorial claims in the area with regard to future access to the “Arctic banquet”.

The melting of the ice caps is also the major cause of rising sea levels, which have other irreversible territorial, social, and economic consequences, such as the physical disappearance -partial or total- of certain small island states of the Pacific likely to occur within a few years -the Maldives, Samoa, Kiribati, among others. Obviously the implications are vast, including – in addition to the personal, environmental, cultural, and national trauma – the political and legal status of future states that have no territory. The principal components of the global infrastructure, from ports and refineries to airports and nuclear plants, are also seriously at risk, and will find themselves near or at or even below sea level.

It is important to note in this context that the majority of the global population lives in areas close to the sea, starting with megacities like Mumbai, London, New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires, and densely-populated areas like the Ganges delta in Bangladesh, where rising sea levels are already wreaking havoc in the form of water pollution and related effects. Recent studies indicate the possibility of some 200 million new environmental refugees in coming years -refugees who would only increase the already considerable humanitarian pressures and tensions in these areas and exacerbate existing or latent conflict.

The Global Humanitarian Fund issued a report this year that shows unequivocally that climate change today is responsible for some 300,000 deaths per year. Numbers for the medium and long-term are even higher. In this context, the urgency of fighting climate is a pre-condition for a peaceful future. Therefore, the international community has no other option, specially after the fiasco in Copenhagen, to spring into action as soon as possible. It is about climate, but also about peace and human lives.

—————-

This and all “other news” issues edited by Roberto Savio can be found at http://www.other-net.info/index.php

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

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

————-

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

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

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

————–

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

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

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

————-

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

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

—————

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

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

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

A certain raport evolved between him and Washingtonian Diringer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

www.ft.com/obamainasia 

www.ft.com/rachmanblog

 

ALL ABOARD THE UN KYOTO-COPENHAGEN EXPRESS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE. 

A one-time train link between Kyoto and Copenhagen opens up next week – a United Nations-sponsored one-month, 9,000-kilometre journey symbolically joining the site of the last global warming pact with what is hoped to be the birthplace of the next major, and stricter, treaty to combat climate change. 

Launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Union of Railways (UIC) and the global conservation organization WWF, the Train to Copenhagen – in fact a carriage – will roll across the globe through the vast wilds of Russian Siberia and into Europe as part of the UN Seal the Deal! campaign to galvanize political will and public support for reaching a comprehensive global climate agreement in December. 

Train operators from around the world will participate in the Train to Copenhagen, raising awareness of the impact of the transport sector, which already accounts for over one fifth of global CO2 greenhouse emissions. These emissions are projected to double within only 40 years and railways are crucial in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing sustainable transport systems. 

“We are on the road to nowhere if existing policies and economic models prevail with their over-emphasis on private cars and on shifting shipments of goods to the roads,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said. “The Train to Copenhagen project is a showcase of sustainable transport solutions that will be part and parcel of a resource-efficient, low-carbon Green Economy of the 21st Century. 

“By Sealing the Deal on an ambitious climate agreement in Copenhagen, governments will get into gear to propel the world to a low-carbon future so that societies may also finally embark on a journey to more sustainable transport.” 

During the journey, environmental experts and climate change campaigners will send eye-witness accounts of global warming signs under way. Siberia is a global climate change hotspot, where thawing permafrost and melting peat bogs could slowly release billions of tons of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over coming years. 

The Train will roll out of Kyoto station on 5 November – leaving behind the Japanese city where the Kyoto Protocol that sets binding greenhouse gas reduction targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union (EU) was adopted on 11 December 1997 – and make its way by ferry to Daejeon, Republic of Korea (ROK). 

There it will board another ferry for Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East for that vast transcontinental journey to drum up support for a new compact with much stronger cuts to replace the Protocol on the expiration of the first commitment period at the end of 2012. 

Rumbling across Siberia, it will be hauled along the famous Trans-Siberian Railway and go by ferry across Lake Baikal, the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world, and stop in Moscow, the Polish city of Poznan and then Berlin before arriving on 5 December in Brussels, where it will join the Climate Express, which will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy. 

This Express will take on board more than 400 climate change negotiators, campaigners and other high-profile personalities going to Copenhagen, for a 12-hour on-track conference focusing on how to solve the challenges posed by the transport sector with regard to global warming.  

On arrival, the Climate Express will remain at Copenhagen Central Station throughout the two-week conference, serving as a mobile exhibition open to the public about low-carbon transport solutions.  

“It is clear that business as usual is not an option if we want to reverse current trends and prevent catastrophic climate change,” UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said. “If we can really integrate the costs of pollution into the price of transportation, rail will be a big winner.” 

 

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BAN VOICES CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM AHEAD OF COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CONFERENCE 

Although much work remains to be done ahead of December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said he is optimistic that world leaders will reach an ambitious agreement in the Danish capital. 

Provided that four key benchmarks are decided upon, the gathering will be a success, Mr. Ban told reporters today during his monthly press conference. 

Those four criteria, he said, are: emissions reductions targets by developed countries and enhanced mitigation actions by developing nations; adaptation measures; the provision of financing and technology for poorer nations; and the creation of an equitable global governance structure. 

“We are not lowering expectations” ahead of the Copenhagen meeting, the Secretary-General stressed, noting that he has been working closely with Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who is holding discussions with governments on the substance and form of an agreement that could emerge from the summit. 

“There is a long way to go still,” he said, with only five weeks to go before that meeting. 

Post-Copenhagen, Mr. Ban emphasized to reporters that countries must endeavour to ensure that any agreements reached during the technical negotiations in Denmark can be built upon to become legally binding. 

Negotiators are set to meet next week in Barcelona, Spain, for the last round of negotiations before the two-week Copenhagen gathering kicks off on 7 December. 

In an opinion article published earlier this week in the New York Times, Mr. Ban wrote that despite the gridlock at the last round of climate negotiations held in Bangkok, Thailand, in early October, “the elements of a deal are on the table.” 

All that is needed to put them in place is political will, he said. “We need to step back from narrow national interest and engage in frank and constructive discussion in a spirit of global common cause.” 

The leadership of the United States in this endeavour, the Secretary-General said, is vital, noting that he is encouraged by last week’s bipartisan initiative in the US Senate. 

“We cannot afford another period where the United States stands on the sidelines,” he emphasized, adding that an “indecisive or insufficiently engaged” US will result in unnecessary and unaffordable delays in tackling global warming.