|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 3rd, 2008 Oxford Institute for Energy Studies International Adaptation Finance: The Need for an Innovative and Strategic Approach. Oxford Institute for Energy Studies available at http://www.oxfordclimatepolicy.org/publi… Contents Executive Summary ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4 Permalink | ### |
Printer Friendly
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 28th, 2008 It was an amazing C-Span session, this Saturday, June 28, 2008 - but it was recorded actually seemingly already on March 17, 2008. The Middle East Institute, Washington DC, is was founded in 1946 by George Camp Keiser and former Secretary of State Christian Herter and since then “has been an important conduit of information between Middle Eastern nations and American policymakers, organizations and the public.” Their website goes on to note that they “publish quarterly one of the most prestigious journals on the Middle East, The Middle East Journal. The PRESIDENT’S CIRCLE is made up of Chevron Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Raytheon, Saudi Aramco, and Shell. Ambassador Wendy J. Chamberlin is currently MEI’s President and she chaired the meeting with Mr. Screuer. She is a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan - in effect she is the lady that was charged by President Bush to ask General Musharaf if he is with the US or against it - then she was blamed for the outcome. She also seems not to be thankful to the Administration for how she was treated. Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA employee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Sch… In his 22-year career, he served as the Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (aka “Alec Station”), from 1996 to 1999, the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counter-terrorist Center. He then worked again as Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004. Scheuer is now known to be the anonymous author of both Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and the earlier anonymous work, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. Osama bin Laden stated in his September 7, 2007 message: “If you want to understand what’s going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer.” Scheuer’s latest book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq was released on February 12, 2008. In the 9/11 Commission Report, Scheuer is featured in Chapter 4, where his name is given only as “Mike”. He is portrayed as being occasionally frustrated with his superiors’ failure to aggressively target bin Laden. He seems to be on the right and unhappy for the fact how the US and his geographical area of experteze was dealt with. The Jamestown Foundation is a Conservative think tank claiming to report about events and nations strategically important to the United States. www.jamestown.org We went to the length to understand this source because we were quite astonished with what we heard on C-Span as follows: In the Sunni world the Al-Qaeda liberation is in fashion, and in their eyes we are on the right side of history. Bin Laden is extremely talented and he has identified issues in US politics. In the US - no politician will come out and say that we are supporting dictators in the Arab World because we needed the oil. So he knows our weakness and knows we serve his cause that is the cause of Arab liberation. As an example, Scheuer brings up how the extraordinary problem that we pushed Obama to go on TV and say - I will never be a Muslim. Scheuer says flatly - “I would better be inclined to kill Bin Laden then talk to him.” Scheuer advocates a US disengagement from the Middle East, and says “if it was not for the oil, why should we care what they do when we leave?”… “Iran is in effect more of a participatory democracy then any of our allies in the Middle East.” Scheuer’s main point is that if we did not care for their oil we really have no reason to care about them, and the US Republic has no business in spreading democracy. The US is in business to do what is good for its people - fighting for oil, and being dependent on oil, is not good for the American people. We pay with blood for this dependence. The Administration could have saved as a lot of problems in the last years with one bullet to Saddam’s head. “EXTRICATE OURSELVES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST AND PUT OUR RESOURCES IN ALTERNATIVE ENERGY” he said. Scheuer wants the Restoration of our ability to decide when to fight and when not to fight. In that case we would not invest ourselves in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. So, let us say bravo Michael Scheuer - we always thought that real conservatives will want to see US independence of oil. And here is very important to note that Scheuer does not send us to drill in the Arctic or in the off-shore waters. The realist he is he knows that all that talk is hog-wash. He kept repeating INVEST IN ALTERNATIVES TO OIL. he never said just Middle East oil because he knows oil is fungible and as long as we remain dependent on oil we will remain dependent on Middle East oil. Further, mind please that he said this at an institute that is frequented by the oil industry - that in Washington is part of the overpowering oil lobby. Ambassador Chamberlin was obviously compelled to note that any idea expressed at the meeting is personal and not institutional. But then let us note that the Jamestown Foundation has also political power when it comes to US Presidential preferences. We know where Obama stands on the issue, but what will McCains final stand be on the issue? If he does not express clear - No Oil - Thank You - ideas, these Conservatives might find former Congressman Barr much more to the point. So, was this the thank you note from Ralph Nader to the 2008 elections? This Nader spells Barr. Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 20th, 2008 Report on Climate Predicts Extremes More Droughts Likely in North America. By Juliet Eilperin
This Story - Report on Climate Predicts Extreme - How Global Warming Has Changed Climate. The 162-page study, which was led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of how global warming has helped to transform the climate of the United States and Canada over the past 50 years — and how it may do so in the future. While the Southwest is likely to face even more intense droughts, the scientists wrote, heavy downpours will become more frequent in some other parts of the country because of increased water vapor in the air. “This report addresses one of the most frequently asked questions about global warming: What will happen to weather and climate extremes?” said one of the report’s two co-chairs, Thomas R. Karl, who directs NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.. He added that the report, which synthesizes the findings of more than 100 academic papers, “concludes that we are now witnessing and will increasingly experience more extreme weather and climate events.” The authors found that the last decade has seen fewer cold snaps than any other 10-year period in the historical record dating back to 1895. Under a middle-range scenario of future greenhouse-gas emissions, climate models indicate that by mid-century, extremely hot days that now occur only once every 20 years will occur every three years. Richard Moss, vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund, said in an interview that the report was prepared by “an A-list of authors” and is “really frightening.” In a conference call with reporters, Karl and the other co-chair, Gerald A. Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said there is no doubt that human-generated heat-trapping gases have helped intensify both the Southwest’s current drought and heavy downpours, which have been increasing at a rate three times that of average precipitation over the past century. “That’s a certainty,” Karl said. “People aren’t questioning whether there’s been an increase in heavy downpours.” By the end of the century, he added, models predict that intense bouts of precipitation that might have occurred once every 20 years will take place every five years. The researchers, from both the federal and private sectors, reached more tentative conclusions about the connection between greenhouse-gas emissions and hurricanes. The report noted that the intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms, as measured by an index that combines wind strength, duration and frequency, has shown a “substantial” increase since 1970 and that “there has been a strong statistical connection between tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures and Atlantic hurricane activity.” But the scientists said this suggestion of a connection to human activity is not conclusive. NOAA research meteorologist Thomas R. Knutson, who contributed to the report and recently published an article in the journal Nature saying that it is too early to attribute more intense hurricane activity to a detectable human influence, said the synthesis reflects the current disagreement among scientists on the question of hurricanes. “This is a report that is a consensus document, where you have a number of authors who may not agree on all things,” Knutson said. ————— The Real Story Behind the Midwest Floods? Climate Change. The floodwaters are rising, swamping cities, breaching levees. Tens of thousands are displaced. Many are dead. No, I am not talking about Hurricane Katrina, but about the Midwest United States. As the floodwaters head south along the Mississippi, devastating communities one after another, the media are overflowing with televised images of the destruction. While the TV meteorologists document “extreme weather” with their increasingly sophisticated toolbox, from Doppler radar to 3-D animated maps, the two words rarely uttered are its cause: global warming. I asked former Energy Department official Joseph Romm, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, about the disconnect: “Part of the reason is that the people who write about global warming for most newspapers and TV are not the same people as those who tend to cover weather. In general, the media is covering this as all sort of unconnected events, just regular weather maybe gone a little wacky. But, in fact, the scientific community has predicted for more than two decades now that as we pour more heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the planet will heat up, and that would redistribute water. If you heat up the planet … you evaporate more water, and areas that are wetter will tend to see more intense rainfall and deluges and earlier snowmelts, and all that will lead to flooding. So what we’re seeing is exactly what scientists have been telling us would happen because of human emissions.” So if the disasters that follow one another, from hurricanes to tornadoes to flooding, are consistent with global warming, why aren’t the networks, the weather reporters, making the link? Dr. Heidi Cullen, a climate expert on The Weather Channel, created a stir in late 2006 when she wrote in her Weather Channel blog: “If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS [American Meteorological Society] shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval. If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming.” As reporters stood in waist-high water in the flooded downtowns of major American cities, President George Bush basked in the sunlight in Washington, D.C., urging Congress to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling and on oil shale drilling, and to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. While regular people are getting hit in the wallet at the gas pump, paying now more than $4 per gallon for gasoline, the oil, coal and gas industries are reaping huge rewards, and applying pressure to open up protected spaces for resource extraction. One of the candidates to replace Bush has a solution. When I asked Ralph Nader about global warming this week, he said: “We’ve got to have a national mission of converting our economy, and the example for the world is solar energy, 4 billion years of supply. It is environmentally benign, decentralized, makes us energy-independent and replaces the ExxonMobil/Peabody Coal/uranium complex. That is why we have got to go for economic, political, health and safety reasons.” Nader understands how the levers of power and influence operate in Washington, but also how flooding can devastate a community. He grew up in Winsted, Conn., where the Mad River and Still River flooded in 1955, where another Nader confronted another Bush. Ralph Nader’s mother, Rose, shook the hand of Bush’s grandfather, Sen. Prescott Bush, R-Conn., and refused to let go until he agreed to build a dry dam. The dry dam got built, and Winsted hasn’t flooded since. A half-century later, our global problems have gotten far worse. Citizen activists need to shake not hands but the system, holding to account those with power and influence, from politicians to the personalities who report the weather on TV. Denis Moynihan assisted on today’s column. Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 13th, 2008
American Occupation at the Pump: Is $250 a Barrel Oil on Its Way? It’s time to ask whether the U.S. military should have anything to do with American energy security. Think of Miller’s sobering prediction as, at least in part, a result of the Bush administration’s attempt to “secure” the Middle East and the oil-rich Caspian basin by force in two failing wars (and occupations). Now, imagine for a moment, what his price scenario might be if, as journalist Jim Lobe — never one to leap from rumors to sensational conclusions — recently suggested, forces in the Bush administration (and in Israel) in favor of launching an air campaign against Iran are gaining strength. Just the suggestion last week by Shaul Mofaz, an Israeli deputy prime minister, that an attack on Iran is “unavoidable” if that country doesn’t halt its nuclear program — “If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective.” The talk helped send the price of crude oil soaring. Imagine what an actual air attack might do. You know that old joke: military justice is to justice as military music is to music; well, someday, not so far into the future, a similar, though far grimmer joke, is likely to be made about Washington’s attempts to secure the U.S. oil supply by military means. In the meantime, Garrisoning the Global Gas Station - Challenging the Militarization of U.S. Energy Policy. American policymakers have long viewed the protection of overseas oil supplies as an essential matter of “national security,” requiring the threat of — and sometimes the use of — military force. This is now an unquestioned part of American foreign policy. On this basis, the first Bush administration fought a war against Iraq in 1990-1991 and the second Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003. With global oil prices soaring and oil reserves expected to dwindle in the years ahead, military force is sure to be seen by whatever new administration enters Washington in January 2009 as the ultimate guarantor of our well-being in the oil heartlands of the planet. But with the costs of militarized oil operations — in both blood and dollars — rising precipitously isn’t it time to challenge such “wisdom”? Isn’t it time to ask whether the U.S. military has anything reasonable to do with American energy security, and whether a reliance on military force, when it comes to energy policy, is practical, affordable, or justifiable? How Energy Policy Got Militarized: The association between “energy security” (as it’s now termed) and “national security” was established long ago. President Franklin D. Roosevelt first forged this association way back in 1945, when he pledged to protect the Saudi Arabian royal family in return for privileged American access to Saudi oil. The relationship was given formal expression in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter told Congress that maintaining the uninterrupted flow of Persian Gulf oil was a “vital interest” of the United States, and attempts by hostile nations to cut that flow would be countered “by any means necessary, including military force.” As a result, the U.S. military has come to serve as a global oil protection service, guarding pipelines, refineries, and loading facilities in the Middle East and elsewhere. According to one estimate, provided by the conservative National Defense Council Foundation, the “protection” of Persian Gulf oil alone costs the U.S. Treasury $138 billion per year — up from $49 billion just before the invasion of Iraq. { we were present at the CFR when that report was released and asked about the need of disengaging from oil because of Global Warming/Climate Change issues. That was considered an unfriendly queation in that environment. We made ourselves unwanted at the CFR seemingly because we never got invited since - so be it.} The Pentagon as Insecurity Inc. These views, widely shared, then and now, by senior figures in both major parties, dominate — or, more accurately, blanket — American strategic thinking. And yet the actual utility of military force as a means for ensuring energy security has yet to be demonstrated. Keep in mind that, despite the deployment of up to 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars, Iraq is a country in chaos and the Department of Defense (DoD) has been notoriously unable to prevent the recurring sabotage of oil pipelines and refineries by various insurgent groups and militias, not to mention the systematic looting of government supplies by senior oil officials supposedly loyal to the U.S.-backed central government and often guarded (at great personal risk) by American soldiers. Five years after the U.S. invasion, Iraq is only producing about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day — about the same amount as in the worst days of Saddam Hussein back in 2001. Moreover, the New York Times reports, “at least one-third, and possibly much more, of the fuel from Iraq’s largest refinery… is [being] diverted to the black market, according to American military officials.” Is this really conducive to American energy security? {We just got today material on this from the UN - we willl include this at the end of this article - Pincas Jawetz comment}
In reality, the use of military force to protect foreign oil supplies is likely to create anything but “security.” It can, in fact, trigger violent “blowback” against the United States. For example, the decision by the senior President Bush to maintain an enormous, permanent U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia following Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait is now widely viewed as a major source of virulent anti-Americanism in the Kingdom, and became a prime recruiting tool for Osama bin Laden in the months leading up to the 9/11 terror attacks. “For over seven years,” bin Laden proclaimed in 1998, “the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight neighboring Muslim peoples.” To repel this assault on the Muslin world, he thundered, it was “an individual duty for every Muslim” to “kill the Americans” and drive their armies “out of all the lands of Islam.” { So again, these are things www.SustainabiliTank.info keeps remarking on this website } As if to confirm the veracity of bin Laden’s analysis of U.S. intentions, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flew to Saudi Arabia on April 30, 2003 to announce that the American bases there would no longer be needed due to the successful invasion of Iraq, then barely one month old. “It is now a safer region because of the change of regime in Iraq,” Rumsfeld declared. ”The aircraft and those involved will now be able to leave.” If anything, this spiral of militarized insecurity is worsening. Take the expanded U.S. military presence in Africa — one of the few areas in the world expected to experience an increase in oil output in the years ahead. AFRICOM and similar extensions of the Carter Doctrine into new oil-producing regions are only likely to provoke fresh outbreaks of blowback, while bundling tens of billions of extra dollars every year into an already bloated Pentagon budget. Sooner or later, if U.S. policy doesn’t change, this price will be certain to include as well the loss of American lives, as more and more soldiers are exposed to hostile fire or explosives while protecting vulnerable oil installations in areas torn by ethnic, religious, and sectarian strife. Why pay such a price? Given the all-but-unavoidable evidence of just how ineffective military force has been when it comes to protecting oil supplies, isn’t it time to rethink Washington’s reigning assumptions regarding the relationship between energy security and national security? After all, other than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who would claim that, more than five years after the invasion of Iraq, either the United States or its supply of oil is actually safer? Creating Real Energy Security
This is, of course, not the definition of “energy security,” but its opposite. A viable long-term approach to actual energy security would not favor one particular source of energy — in this case, oil — above all others, or regularly expose American soldiers to a heightened risk of harm and American taxpayers to a heightened risk of bankruptcy. Rather, an American energy policy that made sense would embrace a holistic approach to energy procurement, weighing the relative merits of all potential sources of energy. Petroleum would continue to play a significant role in any such approach. Oil retains considerable appeal as a source of transportation energy (especially for aircraft) and as a feedstock for many chemical products. But given the right investment and research policies — and the will to apply something other than force to energy supply issues — oil’s historic role as the world’s paramount fuel could relatively quickly draw to a close. It would be especially important that American policymakers not prolong this role artificially by, as has been the case for decades, subsidizing major U.S. oil firms or, more recently, spending $138 billion a year on the protection of foreign oil deliveries. These funds would instead be redirected to the promotion of energy efficiency and especially the development of domestic sources of energy. Some policymakers who agree on the need to develop alternatives to imported energy insist that such an approach should begin with oil extraction in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and other protected wilderness areas. Even while acknowledging that such drilling would not substantially reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil, they nevertheless insist that it’s essential to make every conceivable effort to substitute domestic oil supplies for imports in the nation’s total energy supply. But this argument ignores the fact that oil’s day is drawing to a close, and that any effort to prolong its duration only complicates the inevitable transition to a post-petroleum economy. A far more fruitful approach, better designed to promote American self-sufficiency and technological vigor in the intensely competitive world of the mid-21st century, would emphasize the use of domestic ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills to maximize the potential of renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, geothermal, and wave power. The same skills should also be applied to developing methods for producing ethanol from non-food plant matter (”cellulosic ethanol”), for using coal without releasing carbon into the atmosphere (via “carbon capture and storage,” or CCS), for miniaturizing hydrogen fuel cells, and for massively increasing the energy efficiency of vehicles, buildings, and industrial processes. All of these energy systems show great promise, and so should be accorded the increased support and investment they will need to move from the marginal role they now play to a dominant role in American energy generation. At this point, it is not possible to determine precisely which of them (or which combination among them) will be best positioned to transition from small to large-scale commercial development. As a result, all of them should be initially given enough support to test their capacity to make this move. In applying this general rule, however, priority clearly should be given to new forms of transportation fuel. It is here that oil has long been king, and here that oil’s decline will be most harshly felt. It is thanks to this that calls for military intervention to secure additional supplies of crude are only likely to grow. So emphasis should be given to the rapid development of biofuels, coal-to-liquid fuels (with the carbon extracted via CCS), hydrogen, or battery power, and other innovative means of fueling vehicles. At the same time, it’s obvious that putting some of our military budget into funding a massive increase in public transit would be the height of national sanity. An approach of this sort would enhance American national security on multiple levels. It would increase the reliable supply of fuels, promote economic growth at home (rather than sending a veritable flood of dollars into the coffers of unreliable petro-regimes abroad), and diminish the risk of recurring U.S. involvement in foreign oil wars. No other approach — certainly not the present traditional, unquestioned, unchallenged reliance on military force — can make this claim. It’s well past time to stop garrisoning the global gas station. Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author of several books on energy politics, including Resource Wars (2001), Blood and Oil (2004), and, most recently, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy. ———————- From: unnews at un.org The United Nations representative on the international body monitoring the handling of more than $100 billion in proceeds from sales of Iraqi oil says financial controls are “deficient” although progress has been made in some areas. Warren Sach, the Secretary-General’s representative on the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) for Iraq, reported to the Security Council today on independent audits that were carried out on the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) in 2007. Under Security Council Resolution 1483, $106 billion was deposited with DFI from petroleum sales between 2003 and 2007. A further $10.4 billion from the balance of the UN oil-for-food programme was deposited with DFI as well as $1.5 billion from Iraq’s frozen assets. “The results of the audits in 2007 indicate that, while many efforts are being made, sometimes at great personal sacrifice, the overall financial system of controls in place in the [Iraqi] spending ministries, the US agencies handling of outstanding commitments using DFI resources and the Iraqi administration of DFI resources remain deficient and financial management reforms need to be pursued further,” Mr. Sach said in his report. Mr. Sach said that the IAMB aims to ensure that the IDF is used in a transparent manner for the benefit of the Iraqi people and that export sales of petroleum were consistent with international market best practices. He said that audit reports on DFI have highlighted weaknesses in internal financial controls, including incomplete record keeping at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance, lack of a comprehensive oil metering system, sale of oil and oil products outside of the DFI, incomplete contract information associated with US agencies’ contracts and bartering. The UN comptroller also reported that fewer than 15 per cent of previous recommendations to Iraqi spending ministries had been implemented. While noting that some progress had been made, “further measures to strengthen the internal control framework are necessary,” Mr. Sach added. On oil metering, Mr. Sach said it was a key factor to achieve financial transparency and accountability and was in accordance with standard oil industry practices, but he noted that while some metering had been installed at oil terminals, there continued to be no metering in oil fields. “The IAMB continues to view this matter as urgent, especially in light of the auditor’s report that showed unreconciled differences related to production, export sales and internal consumption,” he said. Mr. Sach added that the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization continued to use barter transactions, which made it difficult to establish whether fair value had been received for the country’s oil exports, although a barter arrangement with a neighbouring country ceased as of 31 December 2007. In a related development, the Security Council released a press statement noting “continued political, security and humanitarian challenges facing Iraq,” but also recognizing “the important efforts made by the Iraqi Government to improve security, national reconciliation, budget execution, reconstruction, and economic progress, as well as combat terrorism and sectarian violence across Iraq.” Also today, the UN Special Adviser on Iraq, Ibrahim Gambari, in a briefing to the Council, said “there is indeed new hope that the people and Government of Iraq have started to overcome daunting challenges and to work together at rebuilding their country.” Mr. Gambari noted that there had been security improvements in many parts of the country and that there had been steady progress in improving the capacity of Iraqi security forces, as well as the curbing of militias and other armed groups. “The situation still remains fragile,” Mr. Gambari reported. “Ordinary Iraqis continue to face the threat of violence in the form of terrorist attacks, sectarianism or criminal acts and violations of human rights continue to occur.” However, the Special Adviser said that there had been indications of progress on political dialogue in the country. He cited reports that talks on the return of the leading Sunni bloc, Tawafuq, to the Government were apparently progressing well, and added that Turkoman representatives had ended their 18-month boycott of the Kirkuk Provincial Council. Further, the UN also looked this week at Iran, and today the following comment was released also: The chairman of the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions imposed against Iran today updated the 15-member body on the number of countries which have reported on their implementation of these measures, and the work carried out by the panel during the past three months. Ambassador Jan Grauls of Belgium told an open meeting of the Council that “to date, the reporting figures are: 89 reports under resolution 1737, 76 reports under resolution 1747, and 51 reports under resolution 1803.” Resolution 1737 of December 2006 banned trade with Iran in all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology which could contribute to the country’s enrichment-related, reprocessing or heavy water-related activities, or to the development of nuclear-weapon delivery systems. In March 2007 the Council adopted resolution 1747, further tightening the sanctions by imposing a ban on arms sales and expanding the freeze on assets. The 15-member body imposed further sanctions against Iran in resolution 1803, adopted in March of this year. These included the inspection of cargo suspected of carrying prohibited goods, the tighter monitoring of financial institutions and the extension of travel bans and asset freezes, over its nuclear programme. Mr. Grauls also reported that the committee now had revised guidelines for its work that incorporated the relevant provisions of the three separate resolutions. In addition, the group consolidated the annexes to the three texts – containing the names of individuals and entities subject to the travel ban, travel notification or assets freeze – into a single list. By resolution 1737 the committee is also tasked with seeking information from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on actions it has taken to implement measures imposed by the resolution, defining the scope of the technical cooperation provided to Iran. In this regard, Mr. Grauls said that the IAEA had informed the committee that no projects had been added to its technical cooperation programme with Iran since the Agency’s February 2007 report, which was updated the following August. Iran’s nuclear programme – which its officials have stated is for peaceful purposes, but some other countries contend is driven by military ambitions – has been a matter of international concern since the discovery in 2003 that the country had concealed its nuclear activities for 18 years in breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 23rd, 2008 Asia’s rise befalls the West. By FRANK CHING from Hong Kong, Friday, May 23, 2008 — “When many Western observers look at China,” the former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani writes in his latest book, “The New Asian Hemisphere,” “they cannot see beyond the lack of a democratic political system. They miss the massive democratization of the human spirit that is taking place in China.” At a time when the Chinese people have mobilized themselves to cope with the May 12 earthquake, with untold numbers volunteering to give blood, to donate money and to actually travel to devastated towns and villages to help the afflicted, it is easy to see the country’s current vibrancy. There is a new spirit abroad, different from that before Deng Xiaoping launched the country on the road of reform and openness 30 years ago. This book is full of insights — and contradictions. Mahbubani praises the West for Asia’s development. Asian countries progressed, he says, because they implemented seven pillars of Western wisdom: free market economics, meritocracy, pragmatism, a culture of peace, the rule of law, an emphasis on education, and a willingness to pursue advances in science and technology. But while he says the United States has done more good for the world than any other country, he calls it an international outlaw who refuses to be bound by “the constraints of international law.” What makes his book controversial is his assertion that “the era of Western domination has run its course,” although so far “the West has refused either to admit its domination of the world or to contemplate sharing power in a new world order. This is a prescription for eventual disaster.” The thesis of the book is stated in its subtitle: “The irresistible shift of global power to the East.” Mahbubani says that Asia is returning to the position that it had occupied for most of the last 2,000 years, before the industrial revolution catapulted the West forward. “In the period from A.D. 1 to 1820, as British historian Angus Madison has recorded, the two largest economies of the world were China and India,” Mahbubani notes. “The past two centuries of Western domination of world history are the exception, not the rule, during two thousand years of global history.” Citing Goldman Sachs, Mahbubani says that by 2050 three of the four of the largest economies in the world will be Asian: China, India, the U.S. and Japan. And that, Mahbubani seems to say, is the way it ought to be. But that raises the question: Why did China and the rest of Asia fall behind the West? Mahbubani offers a partial explanation: “We have not fully understood why the West leaped ahead. But we know some of the reasons why Asia slipped behind: a religious mind-set that spurned the material world, a lack of belief in the idea of human ‘progress,’ a natural deference to authority, and a lack of critical questioning.” He left out one crucial factor, one identified by Deng as being responsible for China’s backwardness. That was the self-imposed isolation of the country from the outside world after the 15th century, during the Ming dynasty. Deng said in a speech in 1984: “A closed-door policy prevents any country from developing. We suffered from isolation, and so did our forefathers. As a consequence, the country declined into poverty and ignorance.” Since Mahbubani says he doesn’t know what it was that made the West advance, it is possible to question his conclusion that the West must decline. No one doubts that Asia will rise, but that does not necessarily imply a Western decline, other than in a relative sense. It may be true that certain things will change, such as the current cozy arrangement whereby the World Bank is always headed by an American and the International Monetary Fund by a European, with Asians excluded. The rise of Asia means change, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that all global power will pass from West to East. A sharing of power — and responsibilities — is a more likely, and more acceptable, outcome. Whether one agrees with Mahbubani or not, his book is well worth reading. It is crammed with interesting information and provides an Asian perspective that is frequently missing in Western discourses on issues of global importance. And in this day and age, no such discussion is worth anything. In 2006, China produced a 12-part documentary series on “The Rise of the Great Powers,” clearly an attempt on its part to understand the West. It is now incumbent on the West to try to understand Asia and this book will go far to meet that need. Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based journalist and commentator. Permalink | ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 22nd, 2008 Johann Hari: Why bananas are a parable for our times. Below the headlines about rocketing food prices and rocking governments, there lays a largely unnoticed fact: bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible. There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon – in five, 10 or 30 years – the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world – and where they are leading us. A corporation called United Fruit took one particular type – the Gros Michael – out of the jungle and decided to mass produce it on vast plantations, shipping it on refrigerated boats across the globe. The banana was standardised into one friendly model: yellow and creamy and handy for your lunchbox. There was an entrepreneurial spark of genius there – but United Fruit developed a cruel business model to deliver it. |