The conclusions to what we ought to do in the present situation that holds no promise for a global agreement on climate change, and for that matter on Sustainability in general, the best we can do is to work on efficiency, sustainable energy and renewables, on a National level – and I would add through mutually beneficial bi-lateral agreements. Eventually, a network of such agreements is then formed, and can become the basis for multi-lateral agreements. This is a realistic common-sense approach.

———————————————————–

from David Hodas <drhodas@gmail.com> date Mon, Aug 23, 2010 subject International Law and Sustainable Energy

You may be interested in a recent paper, International Law and Sustainable Energy: A Portrait of Failure available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1648906

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Telephone Hours:Monday, Tuesday,Wednesday and Thursday from 8:00 to 17:30,Closed on Saturdays

Reihe: GENIAL DAGEGEN/ kuratiert von Robert Misik

Montag, 6. September, 19.00 Uhr

Bruno Kreisky Forum für internationalen Dialog | Armbrustergasse 15 | 1190 Wien

Anmeldungen unter: Tel.: 3188260/20 | Fax: 318 82 60/10 | e-mail: einladung.kreiskyforum@kreisky.org

FRANZ WALTER

Institut für Demokratieforschung Göttingen

VORWÄRTS ODER ABWÄRTS?

Hat die Sozialdemokratie noch eine Zukunft?

Moderation:   Robert Misik, Journalist und Autor

Vorwärts oder Abwärts?: Zur Transformation der Sozialdemokratie (edition suhrkamp)

Jospin, Blair, Schröder: 1998 sah es so aus, als stünde die europäische Sozialdemokratie vor einem goldenen Zeitalter. Elf Jahre später hat die SPD 10.192.426 Millionen Stimmen verloren und sechs Parteivorsitzende verschlissen, die niederländische Partij van de Arbeid fuhr 2002 das schlechteste Ergebnis ihrer Geschichte ein, die schwedischen Sozialdemokraten 2006, die österreichischen 2008. Der »Dritte Weg« erwies sich als Weg ins Abseits, längst ist vom Ende einer Volkspartei die Rede.

Es sieht so aus, als hätten die Sozialdemokraten keine überzeugende Antwort auf den radikalen Wandel der Arbeitswelt, auf Individualisierung und Globalisierung.

Franz Walter, einer der profiliertesten deutschen Parteienforscher, untersucht die Ursachen für den Niedergang der SPD. Er wirft einen Blick über die Grenzen Deutschlands und fragt, was Freiheit, Gleichheit und Solidarität in unserer Zeit bedeuten.

Melitta Campostrini
Bruno Kreisky Forum
for International Dialogue
Armbrustergasse 15
A-1190 Vienna
tel.: ++43 1 3188260/11
fax: ++43 1 3188260/10
e-mail: kreiskyforum@kreisky.org

www.kreisky-forum.org

Let us remember, back in 1945 in San Francisco, at the founding of the UN, Brazil was considered the leading State outside the five WWII powers that became the Veto wielding P5. Brazil has had its ups and downs since then – quite a few downs – but now it is on a high up – clearly strongest and leading nation on the Southern half of the Western hemisphere.

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Expanding Alliances in the 21st Century: The U.S. and Brazil Unite to Address Matters of National Security

The recent signing of a new defense agreement between the Western hemisphere’s two dominant powers, Brazil and the United States, has brought about an important change to Latin America’s relations with the U.S. On April 12, 2010, Brazil took another step to enhance its geopolitical influence by signing the U.S.-Brazil Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA). The treaty will allow U.S. military cooperation on a Brazilian base with the aim of defending the hemisphere from illicit drug trafficking and to protect both countries’ national interests. As Brazil continues to be a linchpin of economic stability in Latin America and is increasingly viewed as being on its way to becoming a global superpower, the Brazilian government is realizing that its power comes with a price. The cost of such a position carries a price tag in terms of its security costs. Brazil has achieved a sufficiently high profile that it must significantly increase its defense so as to protect its population.

An Uneasy Past

Military relations between the two nations date back to World War II when Brazil participated in the Allied effort by providing troops to fight in the 1942 Italian Campaign. The first defense treaty between the two nations was created in 1952, with the signing of the Brazilian Military Assistance Agreement. The accord enabled the provisional exchange of major weapons and training by the United States to its Brazilian counterpart, as the countries proceeded to form a tenuous alliance that governed their bilateral ties during the Cold War1. However, this alliance was short-lived and suffered multiple blowouts. After Brazil’s 1964 military coup, the U.S. continued to provide military aid in the form of training and supplies in order to support the pro-U.S. governments that were in power. Nonetheless, the U.S. began to limit its assistance during this time.

For full article click here

This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Juan Pablo Pitarque

A new paper released by the Canadian International Council asserts that while Canada may need to wait for the United States before deciding on a carbon pricing system, that should not stop it from exploring other initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Climate Change and Foreign Policy in Canada: Intersection and Influence, written by John Drexhage and Deborah Murphy of the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s climate change and energy program, argues that the Copenhagen Accord has the potential to develop a solid foundation and framework to help countries begin to respond effectively to climate change.

The Canadian government must determine what it wants in terms of a climate and energy regulatory regime; work with the provinces and stakeholders to identify the best way of going forward in Canada; and ensure that this plan would complement US actions and legislation.

The authors recommend the following actions to strengthen Canadian climate change policy:

• A First Ministers’ Meeting to address Canadian energy and climate change policy, and Canada’s profile in the North American energy picture.

• The federal government should develop a credible and comprehensive plan that lays out how Canada intends to meet its target of a 17-percent emissions reduction below 2005 levels by 2020.

• Canada’s $400-million contribution under the Copenhagen Accord should create opportunities for bilateral project assistance, including “signature” projects that can be identified with Canada and led by Canadians.

Climate Change and Foreign Policy in Canada: Intersection and Influence can be accessed online at http://www.onlinecic.org/ .

 http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2010…

AFP/Getty Images New buildings tower above boats on the Saigon vier in Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese city says its economy grew by 8% last year. Vietnam’s economy lures some who left in the 1970s. By Kathy Chu, USA TODAY, August 18, 2010. HO CHI MINH CITY {who many call again Saigon}, Vietnam — At age 9, Johnny Tri Nguyen fled by fishing boat from this war-torn land of re-education camps and rationed food. He and his family were captured twice — and jailed — before finally escaping and establishing a life for themselves in California. Despite the harrowing experience, he holds little bitterness, just hope, for his homeland. After 17 years in the USA, he returned to Vietnam to make a movie based loosely on his grandfather’s life. “Much has changed, and the whole reason we left in the first place is no longer there,” says Nguyen, a Vietnamese actor and filmmaker known for his role in The Rebel, along with his stunt work in movies such as Spider-Man. “I find it very comfortable to live here now.” When the Vietnam War ended 35 years ago, millions of Vietnamese fled a communist country whose growth had been stymied by war, oppression and uncertainty, seeking a better life for themselves and their children in the USA, Canada and Europe. Today, some of those who left years ago now look at Vietnam as a land of opportunity. At least 500,000 Viet Kieu, as they are known, return every year to this nation of 86 million, some to stay. “Vietnam’s economic reforms and growth as well as the recent economic downturn in America may be part of the reason” why a growing number of Viet Kieu are returning to the country, says Nguyen Manh Hung, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. “There is a sentimental reason, too: the feeling of being at home in a familiar culture with a familiar way of life,” he says. REMITTANCES: Vietnamese abroad send money The return here of some Vietnamese-Americans comes as the Communist Party that runs Vietnam continues to loosen state controls on the economy in an attempt to boost the standard of living here. The fall of South Vietnam to the communist North in 1975 left the country bound by a totalitarian regime that stripped many people of their land and businesses. The legacy of the war and the party’s clampdown on free markets was rampant poverty. Change came in the mid-1980s, when Vietnam instituted reforms called doi moi that opened up the economy to foreign investment and introduced some forms of capitalism. Today, Vietnam’s economy is the one of the fastest-growing in Asia. It may eventually claim the mantle of the fastest-growing emerging economy, based on its growth between 2007 and 2050, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the financial advisory firm. ‘The best of both worlds’ Some of those returning are people who risked their lives to leave. Dang Tuyet Mai, who once was married to a former South Vietnamese prime minister, Nguyen Cao Ky, escaped by plane two days before the war ended. After three decades in the USA, Dang ventured back to her homeland to open a noodle shop. “It’s a mixed feeling being here,” admits Dang, whose former husband was a prominent figure in South Vietnam’s fight against communism. “But when you are Vietnamese, you always think of going back to the country where you were born.” During lunch time at her restaurant, Pho Ta, in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, the tables teem with Vietnamese businessmen and women. Steaming bowls of noodles are placed before them along with heaping mounds of fresh vegetables to dunk into the anise-scented broth. In a country where a bowl of pho can be found as easily as a hamburger in the States, Dang says hers stands out because of the homemade noodles, low fat content and a broth simmered over a low flame for 12 hours. “Even the Prime Minister of Vietnam (Nguyen Tan Dung) has eaten at my store,” says Dang, whose beauty first captivated the country in the 1960s when she was an Air Vietnam stewardess. Even today, some customers are drawn to Pho Ta to catch a glimpse of her. Dang is hoping the next celebrity to grace the restaurant will be Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I really admire her, and I want to shake her hand,” Dang says. Clinton came to Hanoi in July for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations but didn’t end up stopping by Ho Chi Minh City. Another local establishment, Pho 2000, gained followers and a new slogan, “Pho for the President,” after then-president Bill Clinton sampled a bowl there 10 years ago. Like many new returnees, Dang hasn’t committed to living full-time in Vietnam but spends a quarter of the year in Southern California with her daughter and granddaughters. Her ability to live in two countries — and to juggle dual cultures — isn’t suitable for the travel weary or the weak of heart. But for Viet Kieus such as Trung Dung, the founder of electronic payments company Mobivi, this freedom is a blessing. “I have the best of both worlds,” says Dung, 43, who spends up to 80% of his time in Vietnam and the rest in California, where his son and sisters live. The main draw of Vietnam, he says, is that it feels like home. But entrepreneurs like him also are captivated by the business opportunities stemming from a third-world country transitioning into one of the region’s most promising economic powerhouses. Dung is betting that as the country booms, its largely cash society will transition to electronic payments, benefiting companies such as Mobivi. “I was very fortunate in witnessing the Internet revolution (in the USA), and it was an incredible time to be in the Silicon Valley,” says Dung, who became a billionaire in his 30s after selling his software company, OnDisplay, to Austin-based Vignette Corp. “The same thing is happening in Vietnam. We’re at the very early phase of creating things that will be here for a long time.” ‘The culture is so rich’ As Viet Kieu flock to Vietnam, the government is encouraging them to start up businesses and buy real estate to power the economy. It’s also stepping up efforts to attract foreign companies. U.S. companies including Intel and General Electric have already established a presence here, and others are exploring the possibility, attracted partly by Vietnam’s highly educated, skilled and young population (a quarter of residents are under 15). Thuy Vo Dang, a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, believes the success of the government’s efforts to woo Viet Kieu will depend partly on its ability “to overcome the tension that still exists between the overseas community and the country.” “It’s one thing to welcome visitors,” she notes, but the government needs to address corruption, which is widespread and entrenched in Vietnam. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index of 2009, based on surveys of international businesspeople, considers Vietnam one of the world’s most corrupt countries, with a ranking of 120 out of 180 countries. Property, construction and government contracts are reportedly riddled with bribery, according to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. The regulatory environment is not transparent and Vietnam’s legal system is not independent and hindered by corruption, it said. Oppression and lack of religious and political freedoms are also causing concern among some of the Viet Kieu. Some people interviewed said they felt constrained about discussing injustices for fear of offending the government and inviting actions against them or their businesses. The U.S. State Department has criticized Vietnam for its jailing of political opponents and especially Catholic priests and bloggers who speak out in favor of the kinds of basic freedoms the Viet Kieu have enjoyed in the West. The Viet Kieu, because they have citizenship elsewhere, generally enjoy more freedoms than Vietnam’s citizens. “The progress made on the economic front has not transferred in any way to human rights,” says Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch‘s Asia division. “There are still significant restrictions on freedom of association and independent trade unions, and the government uses very broad national security legislation to go after dissidents.” As a growing number of Viet Kieu invest in Vietnam, it’s creating jobs and fueling the country’s economy. But the investment may also be seen as “condoning the government’s lack of freedoms for the country,” Vo Dang warns. “Blind investment in the homeland could, in fact, create more problems than it solves.” Yet the lure of their homeland is so powerful that for some Viet Kieu, it trumps memories, beliefs and politics. Nguyen, the actor, remembers his family being so poor after the Vietnam War that he had to make his own toys from clay he dug up from nearby ponds. But what struck Nguyen when he first returned to Vietnam was not the vestiges of war lingering in every city’s memorials to the departed, but the connection he felt to the country and its beautiful scenery. “This culture is so rich in cinematic” promise, he says. On a sweltering July day, amid the ancient rock formations of Ninh Binh province in northern Vietnam, Nguyen’s brother-in-law, filmmaker Jimmy Nghiem Pham, seeks to capitalize on this cinematic promise. Between scenes of a new movie he’s helping produce —Khat Vong Thang Long, a film that commemorates the 1,000-year anniversary of the nation’s capital moving to Hanoi and is being made in cooperation with the government — Pham describes how Vietnam has become a “land of opportunity” for independent filmmakers. “If you don’t have a lot of money, Vietnam is the best place to make a movie,” says Pham, whose budgets have ranged from $15,000 to $1.6 million. A graduate of the film school at Cal State Long Beach, Pham lived in Southern California — home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the USA — for more than a decade before returning to Vietnam. He feels strong ties to both countries, but says matter-of-factly that “if my movie career is better, then I will stay here.” For Henry Hoang Nguyen, his ties to Vietnam are becoming more compelling than those to the USA. In the spring of 2001, Hoang Nguyen, 37, landed a New York-based consulting job for McKinsey & Associates that was to begin in the fall. But the start date was delayed by six months because of the economic hangover from the Internet bust. This gave him time to explore opportunities in Vietnam’s emerging telecom sector. Nine years and a few business opportunities later, Hoang Nguyen is now managing general partner of IDG Ventures, a $100 million venture capital fund focused on technology, media and telecom investments in Vietnam. He has married a Vietnamese woman who has no intention of leaving the country. And the former “all-American” kid is proudly rediscovering his extended family and his heritage. Being a generation removed from the war has given him an unvarnished appreciation for Vietnam — free from painful memories still in the minds of previous generations. “I don’t carry any burdens or feelings of negativity,” says Hoang Nguyen, whose parents left Saigon, the name locals still use to refer to Ho Chi Minh City, long before he was old enough to remember life there. “I just feel a real strong attachment and patriotism for Vietnam.” Such feelings are also felt by Viet Kieu David Thai, an entrepreneur who once dreamed about being a basketball player or snowboarder. Thai grew up in Seattle but came back to the country he left as a toddler to study Vietnamese civilization. Business opportunities conspired to keep him here, including the launch of a Starbucks-like chain, Highlands Coffee, and of American icon Hard Rock Cafe in Vietnam. Coming from Seattle, “I missed good coffee,” he says. But the overarching business goal, adds Thai, is “to build a national brand, to make Vietnam known for investment and business.” Yet for every tale of business success in Vietnam, there’s another tale of failure in a market laden with government restrictions. And for those who choose to live and work in this country, there are compromises to be made. Nguyen Qui Duc, who moved to Hanoi and started Tadioto bar and art gallery, doesn’t enjoy the same creative freedoms in Vietnam — a country where state censorship is widespread — that he had as a journalist and as an artist in the United States. Duc, who once hosted a radio show on Asian affairs in the United States, says he has learned to work within the system in Vietnam. “I can’t change the system, but I work with artists to express themselves,” he says. “Freedom of expression is getting better in Vietnam.” Despite the challenges, Nguyen Qui Duc says he’s glad he moved back because it has allowed him to rediscover the simplicity of life. “I’m 50 years old, and I’m riding a motorcycle,” he says. “In the States, I was tired of living a life where I never talked to my neighbors. I prefer life here where you can walk down the street and talk to people.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please follow me on Twitter @columlynch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Jewish Woman Living in Ethiopia

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

The Forward
Published: May 27, 2010

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

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

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

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

New Century, New Priorities

By Yossi Beilin

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

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

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

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

Reviving Polish Jewry

By Konstanty Gebert

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

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

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

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

What We Give Ourselves

By Lisa Leff

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

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

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

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

Putting Identity First

By Jonathan S. Tobin

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

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

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of Commentary magazine.

Collective Responsibility

By Richard Wexler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Amanda Pazornik

The J Weekly
Published: July 22, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A large portrait of Gary Tobin hangs in the lobby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Open letter from Dr. James Hansen, published in Aftenposten, May 19, 2010

Dear Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg

As you know, I am fond of Norway, and have great respect for your country and its citizens, as well as for your personal ambitions to protect global climate. Your recent rainforest initiative is a splendid example of leadership the world desperately needs. And your commitment at the Copenhagen climate talks to reduce Norway’s emissions 40 per cent by 2020 was exemplary.

However, and especially in light of that, I am disappointed to learn that Statoil, Norway’s state-owned oil company, has taken such backward strides through its strategic decision to invest in Canada’s destructive tar sands industry. As the most energy-intensive source of oil, this project represents the worst of what humans are doing to the planet in a quest to prolong our global addiction to fossil fuels.

It is still feasible to stabilize the climate, but only if we leave the tar sands in the ground. The massive greenhouse gas amounts from the tar sands surely would cause the climate system to pass tipping points, while also trampling on the human rights of Canada’s First Nation communities and greatly damaging the Canadian boreal forest.

Prime Minister Stoltenberg, the world has reached a critical juncture in the climate debate. We can either move into the production of the most damaging fossil fuel, or we can begin to address our destructive addiction. We desperately need leadership at this time. I am confident that you could provide that leadership. Please do not prove me wrong.

In your capacity as owner or more than two-thirds of the shares in Statoil, I urge you to end Norway’s involvement in this dangerous, dirty and destructive project. I ask that you support the resolution at Statoil’s upcoming AGM on May 19th, that Statoil show environmental leadership and pull out of the Canadian tar sands. Statoil may pride itself on being a more responsible company than others, but that will not be enough in the tar sands. If we extract and use the tar sands, there can be no sustainable future for young people.

I look forward to my visit to Norway in June. I hope that it can be a time to celebrate Norwegian leadership in responsible environmental policies

Dr. James Hansen
James E. Hansen is member of the National Academy of Sciences, an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and at Columbia’s Earth Institute, grandfather and winner of the Sophie Prize 2010.
James E. Hansen will visit Norway June 22 and 23 2010 to receive the Sophie Prize.

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The answer from the Government:

Dear Mr. Hansen,

Thank you very much for your e-mail to the Prime Minister, which was forwarded to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy as the governmental body responsible for Statoil ownership issues. Let me first take this opportunity to congratulate you on being awarded the Sophie-prize for 2010. I know a lot of people are looking forward to your visit to Norway, and I hope you will enjoy your stay here.

On behalf of the Government, I am pleased to say that we hold your work on climate change in high esteem, and further, that we appreciate your engagement and your views on Norway’s efforts to find good sustainable solutions to the global climate challenges.

As you now know from the results of the Statoil Annual General Meeting, we see Statoil’s oils sands investment as a commercial decision which is within the Statoil board’s area of responsibility. We are of the opinion that such decisions should not be overturned by the AGM. It is our opinion that this is in line with good corporate governance, a view that is also shared by a vast majority in the Norwegian Parliament. I can however assure you that we will continue our offensive stance on climate change issues both at home and abroad, and we look forward to your continued engagement.

Yours faithfully
Robin Martin Kåss
Statssekretær, Olje- og Energidepartementet
Deputy Minister, Ministry of Petroleum and Energy
Postboks 8148 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway

Fra: Jim Hansen
Sendt: 24. mai 2010 14:08
Til: Postmottak SMK
Kopi: Jim Hansen
Emne: Climate Change and the Tar Sands Development Vedlegg: Hansen text for ad and letter in both languages.doc

Dear Prime Minister Stoltenberg,

I understand that you may have missed my open letter to you published in Aftenposten, so for your convenience I have attached it here.

My wife Anniek and I are looking forward to visiting your beautiful country in June.
With kind regards,
James E. Hansen

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AND THE – Message from Sophie Prize Winner.

I am grateful to Jostein Gaarder and the Sophie Foundation for the opportunity to discuss the state of Earth’s climate, the implications for people and nature, and action that is needed.

Our planet today is close to climate tipping points. Ice is melting in the Arctic, on Greenland and Antarctica, and on mountain glaciers worldwide. Many species are stressed by environmental destruction and climate change. Continuing fossil fuel emissions, if unabated, will cause sea level rise and species extinction accelerating out of humanity’s control. Increasing atmospheric water vapor is already magnifying climate extremes, increasing overall precipitation, causing greater floods and stronger storms.

Stabilizing climate requires restoring our planet’s energy balance. The physics is straightforward. The effect of increasing carbon dioxide on Earth’s energy imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of ocean heat gain. The principal implication is defined by the geophysics, by the size of fossil fuel reservoirs. Simply put, there is a limit on how much carbon dioxide we can pour into the atmosphere. We cannot burn all fossil fuels. Specifically, we must (1) phase out coal use rapidly, (2) leave tar sands in the ground, and (3) not go after the last drops of oil.

Actions needed so that the world can move on to the clean energies of the future are possible and practical. The actions would restore clean air and water globally, assuring intergenerational equity by preserving creation – the natural world — thus also helping achieve north-south justice. But the needed actions will happen only if the public becomes forcefully involved.
Citizens can help by blocking coal plants, tar sands, and mining the last drops of fossil fuels from public and pristine lands and the deep ocean. However, fossil fuel addiction can be solved only when we recognize an economic law as certain as the law of gravity: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy they will be used.

Solution therefore requires a rising fee on oil, gas and coal – a carbon fee collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry. All funds collected should be distributed to the public on a per capita basis to allow lifestyle adjustments and spur clean energy innovations. As the fee rises, fossil fuels will be phased out, replaced by carbon-free energy and efficiency.
Governments today, instead, talk of “cap-and-trade-with-offsets”, a system rigged by big banks and fossil fuel interests. Cap-and-trade invites corruption. Worse, it is ineffectual, assuring continued fossil fuel addiction to the last drop and environmental catastrophe.

We need a simple honest flat rising carbon fee across the board. It should be revenue neutral – all funds distributed to the public – “100 percent or fight”. It is the only realistic path to global action. China and India will not accept caps, but they need a carbon fee to spur clean energy and avoid fossil fuel addiction.

But our governments have no intention of solving the fossil fuel and climate problem, as is easy to prove: the United States, Canadian and Norwegian governments are going right ahead developing the tar sands, which, if it is not halted, will make it impossible to stabilize climate.

Our governments knowingly abdicate responsibility for young people and future generations. I have been disappointed in interactions with more than half a dozen nations. In the end, they offer only soothing words, “goals” for emission reductions at far off dates, while their actual deeds prevent stabilization of climate.

The Sophie Prize provides a new opportunity to draw attention to the actions that are needed to stabilize climate. Norway may be the best place, with its history of environmentalism. I can imagine Norway standing tall among nations, taking real action to address climate change, drawing attention to the hypocrisy in the words and pseudo-actions of other nations.

So I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister suggesting that the government, as the majority owner of Statoil, should intervene in planned tar sands development. I appreciate the polite response, by letter, from the Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Energy. The government position is that the tar sands investment is “a commercial decision”, that the government should not interfere, and that a “vast majority in the Norwegian parliament” agree that this constitutes “good corporate governance”. The Deputy Minister concluded his letter “I can however assure you that we will continue our offensive stance on climate change issues both at home and abroad”.

A Norwegian grandfather, upon reading the Deputy Minister’s letter, quoted Saint Augustine: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

The Norwegian government’s position is a staggering reaffirmation of the global situation: even the greenest governments find it too inconvenient to address the implication of scientific facts. Perhaps our governments are in the hip pocket of the fossil fuel industry – but that is not for science to say.

What I can say from the science is this: the plans that governments, including Norway, are adopting spell disaster for young people and future generations. And we are running out of time.

Stabilizing climate is a moral issue, a matter of intergenerational justice. Young people, and older people who support the young and the other species on the planet, must unite in demanding an effective approach that preserves our planet.

Because the executive and legislative branches of our governments are turning a deaf ear to the science, the judicial branch may provide the best opportunity for redressing the situation. Our governments have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the rights of young people and future generations. I look forward to working with young people and their supporters in developing the legal case for young people and the planet.

To the young people I say: Stand up for your rights, for your future. Demand that the government be honest, admit and face the consequences for you from their policies.

To the old people I say: we are not too old to fight. Let us gird up our loins and prepare to fight on the side of young people for protection of the world they will inherit.

I look forward to standing with the youth of the world as they demand their proper due and fight for nature and their future.

————————

Other Recent Publications by Dr. James Hansen:

2010. Obama’s Second Chance on the Predominant Moral Issue of this Century. Op-ed on Huffington Post, Apr. 5.

2010. Only a carbon tax and nuclear power can save us. Op-ed in The Australian, Mar. 11.

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

Canadian woman is next top UN internal watchdog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

that we highly recommend to our readers.

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

Internal Auditor, June, 2008 by Neil Baker

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

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

The following are examples from today’s publication of the UN’s best friend – the $1 Billion UN Foundation’s UN Wire.

I see [Saddam Hussein] like Nebuchadnezzar, the emperor of Mesopotamia — an utterly ruthless, brutal man who sat with a revolver in his pocket and could use it to shoot you.”
Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix. Read the full story - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/world/…

Blix faults U.S., British over pre-Iraq war intel
Former United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission chief Hans Blix testified Monday at a British inquiry that British and American intelligence officials gave too much credence to assertions of Iraqi defectors on weapons of mass destruction ahead of the 2003 war. Blix said U.S. and British authorities ignored recommendations and findings from the commission and should have allowed more time for investigations. The Independent (London) (7/28) , The New York Times (free registration) (7/27)
 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pol…

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/world/…

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U.S. audit blasts Iraq reconstruction funds process
An audit by the U.S. Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction reports that 95% of the $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil and gas funds earmarked by the U.S. Defense Department for reconstruction cannot be accounted for. The audit report indicates sloppy record keeping and a lack of clear process leaves the Defense Department unable to detail the use of funds. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)/The Associated Press (7/28)
 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/worl…

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

Security Council mulls future of Darfur mission:
The security situation has deteriorated in Darfur and United Nations agencies are no longer able to gain access to many areas, the Security Council heard Tuesday. The council is expected to decide on an extension of a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission this week. CNN (7/28)
 http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa…

Kidnapped German, American aid workers in Darfur speak out:
Kidnappers in Darfur released two German aid workers Tuesday after more than a month in captivity. The two said they were well treated. Another kidnapped aid worker — an American woman — was able to speak with a journalist Tuesday and reported food, water and shelter to be scarce. The kidnappers have demanded ransom from the Sudanese government for her release. AlertNet.org (7/27) , AlertNet.org (7/27
 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk…

 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk…

–

International terror networks taking root in DR Congo?
Intelligence analysts fear the conflict-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo may have a new security concern to contend with — international terrorism. Ugandan investigators believe Congolese group ADF-NALU was involved in the July 11 Kampala bombings alongside al-Qaida-linked Al Shabaab militants from Somalia. Interviews with recent defectors have provided evidence of foreigners visiting ADF-NALU camps on the mountains of eastern DR Congo. The Christian Science Monitor/Africa Monitor blog (7/28
 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Af…

 http://www.innercitypress.com/ban1bether…

For UN, Is Merely Being There Enough, with Ban Under Fire for a 2d Term?
By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 26 — What has Ban Ki-moon accomplished as UN Secretary General in Myanmar and Sudan, Inner City Press asked his spokesman Monday, for the fourth day in a week.
“His record is clear,” Spokesman Martin Nesirky replied. “From standing in front of a still burning warehouse in Gaza, to visiting Haiti five days after the earthquake, to visiting Darfur refugee camps… he has achieved a huge amount.”

But the three achievements listed were only “being there” — celebrities have traveled to Haiti, and to refugee camps in Darfur and elsewhere.

Meanwhile reports on the UN’s performance in Sudan are largely negative. Rubble still fills Haiti’s streets. And even the Goldstone response is late, due to failure to translate. Myanmar, telling, was not even mentioned. Is being there enough?
Seeking the Ban Administration’s — if not yet Ban Ki-moon’s — response to the criticism being heaped upon his tenure, Inner City Press asked Nesirky when he made a piece by a heretofore big UN supporter, “Good Night, Ban Ki-moon.”

“We don’t need to comment on every piece,” Nesirky said, calling that piece a “rehash.. a lot of what is in the piece has been seen before.” A lot by not all: the piece mentions inaction on Sri Lanka: “A peacekeeping official pointed out that Ban had insisted on behind-the-scenes diplomacy in Sri Lanka even as the government was killing thousands of civilians in its campaign to erase the brutal insurgency of the Tamil Tigers: “We’re doing everything we can to avoid saying anything at all about it. That’s been our line on practically everything. The SG is clear that his final consideration is going to be the political costs of whether he should or shouldn’t speak.” That’s a very real calculation every secretary-general must make. But, he added, “There’s no sense that the deliberations include, ‘What should we do?’””

Only this year, Ban after saying he would name a panel of experts on war crimes in Sri Lanka, then delaying 90 days, has gone out of his way to limit the scope of the panel to providing advice on “models of accountability” to himself and the Rajapaksa government, if they want it. The Rajapaksas have said they will deny visas to the group; Ban through Nesirky has repeated declined to comment on the refusal to cooperate.
Now a brewing fight is Ban’s decision to bypass South African and other developing world candidates to nominate a Canadian, Ms. Carman Lapoint-Young, as the new head of the Office of Internal Oversight Services. Inner City Press, which reported exclusively on the move on the night of July 23, asked Nesirky for Ban’s response to developing world countries who say the post was meant for their regions.

Nesirky once again declined comment, except to say there is “very strong, overwhelming support” for the nominee. Sort of like the overwhelming support for a second term?

It is time for Ban Ki-moon to speak for himself on this controversy — time for him to “be there,” as it were. He will appear before the press Monday at 5:30. Before his appearance Friday at a reception for the press, Inner City Press was repeatedly told not to ask about the controversy, not to “hijack” the event. That cannot similarly be asked on Monday evening. Watch this site.

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At UN, As Ban Ki-moon Switches from S. African to Canadian As New OIOS Chief, Post-Ahlenius Rebellion Spreads, Sources Say.
By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive.

UNITED NATIONS, July 23 — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, reeling from the damning exit memo of the outgoing head of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, may now get himself in more troubling in naming a replacement.

Earlier this year, Inner City Press reported that the new head of OIOS was slated to be an auditor from South Africa. This would conform to many member states’ understanding that developed and developing countries would alternate atop the OIOS: Karl Paschke of Germany, then Dileep Nair of Singapore, then Inga Britt Ahlenius of Sweden. The next was slated to be from South Africa.

But diplomatic sources tell Inner City Press that on July 23, after facing questions for a week about his interactions with OIOS, Ban told regional groupings that instead of the South Africa, he would be appointing a Canadian.

This has triggered outrage among developing countries. It comes 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.

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NOW – THE LATEST IN THE OIOS SAGA & UNSG BAN Ki-moon.
 http://www.innercitypress.com/ban3oios07…

At UN, To Buy Support for Canadian Auditor, S. Africa Promised Deputy Post.

UNITED NATIONS, July 27 — When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last Friday dumped a South African candidate in favor of a Canadian to head the Office of Internal Oversight Services in the discordant wake of Inga Britt Ahlenius leaving, several developing world countries cried foul.

But, this being the UN, the Ban Administration quickly moved to try to cut a deal. Ban spokesman Martin Nesirky, Monday at noon, predicted “overwhelming” support to confirm Ms. Lapoint.

A senior Ban administration official told Inner City Press that the vote would be Wednesday, that the regional groups were right that “geographic rotation” had been envisioned for OIOS, but that it just wasn’t possible this time.

Tuesday, as Ms. Lapoint’s nomination was put in the General Assembly agenda for the next morning, Inner City Press was told by diplomatic sources that the deal reached involves giving the contested OIOS “to a South African.”

The developing world was supposed to get the top spot, as one source put it, but settled for the second fiddle. It has happened before.

But the irony here is that Ban rejected Ahlenius favorite Robert Appleton in the name of a competitive, transparent selection process. Now diplomatic sources say the deputy job has been promised to a particular country and group, non transparent, non competitive, quid pro quo. Not an auspicious beginning.

South Africa and the African Group might want to remember: when Ban selected developed world Helen Clark to head UNDP, the deputy post was promised to the African Group. Then it was given to a Costa Rican. Bait and switch?

UN’s Ban and two senior advisers, OIOS deal making not shown

From the July 26 UN noon briefing transcript:

Inner City Press: Friday evening, I was told by several people that participated that there was a meeting between the Secretary-General and regional groupings. This name that she’s referring to, Carman Lapointe-Young, was raised. But the thing I really want to ask you, because there seems some controversy about it, is that, one, did the Secretary-General say he couldn’t find a qualified developing world candidate and, two, does he disagree with some Member States, including Venezuela and Cuba, that the understanding in forming OIOS is that the directorship would alternate between developed and developing world, and does he… this seems to be being raised. Does he disagree with that? And if so, is it true that he couldn’t find a qualified developing-world candidate?

Spokesperson: Well, I will be able to come back to you once we get a little further down the road, I’ll be able to come back to you with more on this. But what I can say is that, from the conversations so far, there appears to be very strong, overwhelming support for the candidate put forward by the Secretary-General. But, as I say, we’ll come back to it in more detail at a later stage, I think.

At UN, Ban Doubles Down on Developed World for OIOS, Nambiar Spins to Staff.

UNITED NATIONS, July 26, updated — The UN Secretariat may be playing fast and loose with applicable resolutions and Administrative Instructions as it races to try to put behind it the controversy opened by the End of Assignment Report by outgoing chief of the Office of Internal Oversight Services Inga Britt Ahlenius, diplomats and UN staff say.

As Inner City Press exclusively reported on the night of July 23, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with regional groups and told them he couldn’t find a qualified replacement for Ahlenius from the developing world, and so he was going with a Canadian. The name of Carman Lapointe-Young is being submitted to the General Assembly.

But several developing world countries are now saying that when OIOS was founded, the top post was supposed to rotate between the developed and developing world. So far it has been Germany, Singapore, Sweden — and Canada? Even if Ban manages to ram his nomination of Carman Lapointe-Young through the General Assembly, it will increase bad feelings, and bad karma.

Carman Lapointe-Young, click here for a speech of hers on audits.

Next, we have the letter from Ban’s chief of staff Vijay Nambiar to OIOS staff, trying to assuage them with assurances that Ban respects the “operational” independence of OIOS. But in fact, applicable Administrative Instructions show that Ban was supposed to appoint a OIOS review panel which, once appointed, could confirm D-2 level staff like Robert Appleton without Ban having a veto. This was never done, and Catherine Pollard’s lengthy answers last week did little to buttress Ban’s position.

Click here for Nambiar’s letter to all UN staff, forwarded to Inner City Press and published here exclusively as a public service.

Ban held a reception with the Press on Friday, but Inner City Press was repeatedly told not to ask anything about the Ahlenius memo, and didn’t. Ban will appear more formally with the press on Monday at 5:30 p.m. — it’s hard to imagine these issues not arising them.

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 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/79a3115c-94eb-…

BP Executive Bob Dudley has said that the company’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico “ will change the industry forever.”
That is not quite how other companies see it.

There is no doubt it has long-lasting ramifications for BP and the US government, whose lax regulators are seen as having contributed to the disaster.

But around the world, from Norway to Australia and among BP’s peers, remarkably little has changed, at least on the side of prevention.

Company executives argue that the accident was preventable and that their own safety systems were robust enough to need no significant reform.

As Pete Slaiby, vice-president of Shell Alaska, told the BBC: “The Gulf of Mexico may have been a wake-up call for some, but not for Shell.”

John Watson, chairman and chief executive of Chevron, the US’s second-biggest oil company, testified before the US Congress that soon after the Deepwater Horizon disaster he had ordered a review of the company’s offshore operations. This swiftly concluded that Chevron’s “deepwater drilling and well-control practices are safe and environmentally sound”, he said.

Around the world oil companies have been giving regulators the same message.

It appears regulators have found the industry’s arguments persuasive and are – at least for now – not insisting that they do any more.

The government of the UK, which is about to approve the deepest well ever drilled in the country’s waters, said: “We have conducted an initial?[review] .?.?.?This shows our regulatory system to be robust and we are recruiting additional environmental inspectors to double our environmental inspections, of drilling rigs, to ensure compliance.”

While the US quickly ordered a deepwater drilling moratorium, others, including Australia, Greenland, Norway, Canada, Libya, China, Brazil and Angola, have not followed suit.

Australia, which had suffered its own major blow-out and spill just months before the Deepwater Horizon accident, was unmoved.

Martin Ferguson, Australia’s resources minister, said: “Shutting down the industry and putting the nation’s energy security, jobs and the economy at risk does nothing [to ensure safe oil exploration].”

In Libya, not only has there been no moratorium, but the government has allowed BP to go ahead with its deepwater drilling programme.

This caused some consternation among Italians and prompted Rome to approve a ban on drilling within five miles of its coast and 12 miles from protected marine areas. This ruling will only apply to future drillings and will barely affect the most promising areas off western Sicily, which Shell believes holds some of Europe’s most important reservoirs.

Environmentalists said Italy’s response to Macondo had been little more than a figleaf.

In Norway, where, as in Canada, public pressure was great, a moratorium was considered, but in the end the government proceeded with the vast majority of its auction of offshore exploration blocks, and a general moratorium was dismissed.

The biggest changes will come in the US, where the industry had for decades resisted any tougher rules.

The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main lobbyist, whose strong influence over the US regulator was seen as having indirectly contributed to the accident, is again taking a proactive role in trying to help shape the way the new regulation develops.

It argues that lawmakers must not forget that the industry is growing and is critical to every sector of the economy. “Any policy changes must bear that in mind,” the API said. “We can protect the environment without jeopardising our economic safety.”

One way the industry is demonstrating this is by announcing plans to fund a large response vessel capable of containing spilled oil.

Several oil company executives have said the major red line for the industry was the idea a second emergency relief well, like the one being drilled by BP, would need to be drilled at every deep offshore well, just in case of a blow-out.

In his testimony, Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil chief executive, said in response to that idea: “I would say you just doubled your risk.”

Another executive noted that such a measure would double a company’s cost.

But companies are resigned to the fact that they will have to submit to more rigorous and comprehensive US rules, such as presenting a safety case.

This would include thorough information of their drilling programmes and the way they intended to develop their projects, and details about how they minimise the risk of a blow-out.

This safety case is very similar to the regulation imposed in the UK in response to the explosion of the Piper Alpha natural gas platform, which killed 167 in the North Sea in July 1988. At the time, the US considered but eventually dismissed doing the same after companies heavily lobbied that such measures should remain voluntary.

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Above is only part of the article – the even more important part is the global map with the reactions from Canada, the US, Brazil, the UK, Norway, and Australia regarding: OIL INDUSTRY SAFETY  – THE RESPONSE TO BP’S SPILL. Some of it is outright shocking.

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please see: http://www.ft.com/cms/b476be56-9576-11df-a2b0-00144feab49a.gif
 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/79a3115c-94eb-…

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Australia‘s Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, said that “Shutting down the industry and putting the nation’s energy security, jobs and the economy at risk does nothing to ensure safe oil exploration.”

On the other hand, a much more attuned Norwegian government minister – Mr. Terje Riis-Johansen, Minister of Energy, said: “It is not appropriate for me to allow drilling in any new licenses in deep-water areas until we have good knowledge of what has happened with the Deepwater Horizon.”

In the UK – The government has increased environmental inspections and has asked a new industry group to report on the UK’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills.

In Canada The National Energy Board has launched a review of Arctic safety and environmental offshore drilling requirements, to inform decisions about future applications for permits. The review will look at safety regulations and spill response.

And in Brazil, a country we had a close look at these last two days and we will report on this in www.SustainabiliTank.info, we found that contrary to our impression based on what we learned here in new York, The Financial Times found a quote from the National Oil Regulator of Brazil (ANP) the following statement – “It is important to complete a deeply technical investigation before deciding on regulatory changes … We only have a preliminary vision.” If what we heard is true, it seems that Brazil prefers not to be bothered with what happens in other locations. What does the Brazilian voter think on this? Seemingly he/her are busy bettering their lives so they are neither informed, nor interested in change.

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UK to hold deepwater inquiry.

BP bosses will be called in front of a new political enquiry into offshore deepwater drilling, MPs announced on Wednesday, writes Kiran Stacey.

The inquiry will be conducted by the energy and climate change select committee and headed by Conservative MP Tim Yeo. It is expected to call Tony Hayward, the BP chief executive, and will consider whether to introduce a temporary ban on deepwater drilling off the coast of Scotland.

The inquiry will look into safety procedures and accident cotingency plans. Mr Yeo said: “We need to explore what excessive risks have been taken and what is still technically too challenging.”

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Eli Kintisch is reporter for Science Magazine and author of “Hack the Planet” released by Wiley April 19, 2010.

Bill McKibben, author of “EARTH: MAKING A LIFE ON A TOUGH NEW PLANET” and co-founder of 350.org, an organization that our readers know that we hold in very high esteem,  wrote about “HACK THE PLANET:”

“Anyone who considers themselves scientifically literate had better get versed in the new discipline of geo-engineering — or planethacking, as Eli Kintisch calls it in his nuanced and useful new account. This discussion is not going to go away anytime soon!”

Once the stuff of science fiction, geoengineering has come into the mainstream, with top scientists, the National Academy of Science and Congress investigating this radical concept.

please look at www.hacktheplanetbook.com

and if you need a contact – the book’s publicity is with Erin Beam of  ebeam at wiley.com

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I got a few minutes late to the library’s lower level and so a nice size roomful of very mixed crowd – from the young shoeless intellectual in the front row to the spectacled white hair retiree in the back row. They all listened very intent and at the end asked good questions.

As my usual way, I went directly to the table loaded with the books for sale, took one and stood next to the wall – leafing from cover to cover. That is how I learned that the book starts with old-time friend Academician Yuriy Izrael from Moscow with whom I shared before the Rio Summit of 1992 two weeks in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil, where local Professor Jose Oswaldo Carioca was preparing for a Brazilian submission to the upcoming UN Conference on Environment and Development. Since then I visited with Academician Izrael a couple of times in Moscow – the last time in Moscow during the September 29 – October 3, 2003 World Climate Change Conference where he was the head of the local organizing scientific committee and co-chair of the Conference, with Mr. A. N. Illarionov (Andrey Nikolayevich), the Adviser of then Russia President Vladimir Putin. Bert Bolin of Sweden, a pioneering climatologist and the first chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was the foreign co-chair of the event.

That was a very important meeting, with participants from over 100 countries, because it dealt with the crucial question – Will Russia Ratify the Kyoto Protocol? At the time Putin was relying on Yu. Izrael and Andrey Nikolayevich, and the world still thought that the KP is imperative for a Multilateral approach to Climate Change. With the US clearly out – Russia became all important in order to reach the magic number of ratifications so the KP gets into effect. Eventually it became Putins decision to say – DA – YES – while his two advisers still said NO!
That was real drama.

Somehow I still have my stash of papers from that meeting and I was looking now at hints at geoengineering in Russia’s position. But I did find a list of 10 questions Illarionov did put before the conference in his presentation that had the title: “Antropogenic Factors in Global Warming: Some Questions.” It was Bert Bolin, chair emeritus of IPCC, who gave the two answers with the last one answering to “How much will it cost.” This is fascinating history from the days we thought we had a plan – but the Russians seemingly were already convinced then that we really had no plan.

Strangely, when I looked up Google I found there on first page for Illarionov -

Answers to the questions raised by A.N. Illarionov during his talk …

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
Answers to Questions by A. Illarionov (Adviser of the President of Russian Federation). Moscow – World Climate Change Conference 2003 …
www.sysecol.ethz.ch/Articles_Reports/Illarionov_QandA_WCCC_2003.pdf

further: As a senior advisor to Russian President Putin, Illarionov was outspoken against Russia’s ratification of Kyoto. Despite Illarionov’s vocal opposition, Putin ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2004. In October 2006, Illarionov was appointed senior researcher of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity of the US libertarian think tank Cato Institute in Washington, DC.

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The above was just an aside and I will get back to it after doing full justice by reading “Hack the Planet” as I am convinced that some form of geoengineering will eventually become part of humanity’s effort to put a lid – cap in BP’s language – in order to control the runaway increase of concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Yuriy Izrael was talking of placing sulfur compounds in the upper atmosphere – others may have various sun deflectors in mind,
I for one may think that the Peter Glazer idea of concentrating sun light in outer space and beaming it back to earth might be a way to provide clean solar energy for our needs. I have no trust in the Carbon Capture and Sequestration concept – this because I do not think that we know how to do it and I mistrust those that promote the idea as it feels rather like an attempt to keep us away from research in positive directions that can wean us from our dependence on oil and coal. Further, it is clear that just companies like Haliburton and large oil companies will be the only ones to be able to implement these programs if there is ever some success with these ideas. This is also a geoengineering concept. Changing fish population in a pond is a case of forced change of nature and we have many examples that led to negative results because of unintended consequences.

Anyway – this is a large topic that serves our attention, so after talking to the great family of presenter Eli Kintisch – he was there with both his parents and kid brother – all knowledgeable in the subject – and to one of the people that asked questions, I continued to Piermont.

There it was all fun, but my connection to the book presentation is clear to me. It will eventually take a revolution to break down the Bastille walls of the anti-progress interests when dealing with climate change.

I saw in Piermont a friend from the UN, bought two interesting T-shirts and went home.

I still visited a great cooperative gallery – The Piermont Flywheel Gallery – that was about half works of Howard Berelson – a colorist with many scenes from East Africa.

He has a great painting from the Serengeti Plain in Tanzania – “Death in the Garden of Eden.” Was that bull failed also because of the high heat? Are the colors of the Hudson River Odyssey – another painting – so that we are reminded of the turning of our area into another hot Africa?

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and if someone is interested in contacting Academician Izrael:

Yuri IZRAEL
Institute of Global Climate and Ecology
Glebovskaya str., 20B
107258 Moscow
RUSSIA
Tel: +(7 095) 1692430
Fax: +(7 095) 1600831
E-mail:  Yu.Izrael at g23.relcom.ru

and as an appetizer see the following:

The journal Russian Meteorology and Hydrology recently published a new kind of geoengineering study whose lead author is the journal’s editor, the prominent Russian scientist Yuri A. Izrael.

Izrael and his team of scientists mounted aerosol generators on a helicopter and a car chassis, and proceeded to blast out particles at ground level and at heights of up to 200 meters. Then they attempted to measure just how much sunlight reaching Earth was reduced due to the aerosol plume.

This small-scale intervention was effective, the Russian scientists say. And in an accompanying article on geoengineering alternatives, Izrael and colleagues note that “Already in the near future, the technological possibilities of a full scale use of [aerosol-based geoengineering] will be studied.”

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Above leads to brain storming:

Billionaire airline tycoon Richard Branson baldly told the press last year, ‘If we could come up with a geoengineering answer to this problem, then Copenhagen wouldn’t be necesary. We could carry on flying our planes and driving our cars.’

And what do you know – there is already a clear reaction to the geoengineering ideas:

But on the eve of this year’s UN-designated International Mother Earth Day, over 60 national and international organizations launched Hands Off Mother Earth (H.O.M.E.). The global campaign, now supported by the Ecologist, includes a website  handsoffmotherearth.org) where signatories upload photos of themselves with their hands up in a ‘stop’ gesture.

The campaign insists that a halt be placed on geoengineering experiments and that the ‘rights’ of Planet Earth be respected. ‘Not just human beings have rights, but the planet has rights,’ asserts Evo Morales, Bolivian president and host of the recently concluded Cochabamba Climate Change Conference in Bolivia. The first right, he says, is ‘the right for no ecosystem to be eliminated’. The second, ‘for Mother Earth to live without contamination’. The final statement by the 35,000 people attending Cochabamba called out geoengineering as a false solution to the climate problem.

Much of the UN rebuttal is mush and we will report on how this unfolds.

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Departing U.N. official calls Ban’s leadership ‘deplorable’ in 50-page memo.

Inga-Britt Ahlenius wrote a 50-page memo upon the end of her term as head of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services. (2008 Photo By Mark Garten/Associated Press)

By Colum Lynch

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 20, 2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071904734.html?referrer=emailarticle

UNITED NATIONS — The outgoing chief of a U.N. office charged with combating corruption at the United Nations has issued a stinging rebuke of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, accusing him of undermining her efforts and leading the global institution into an era of decline, according to a confidential end-of-assignment report.

The memo by Inga-Britt Ahlenius, a Swedish auditor who stepped down Friday as undersecretary general of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, represents an extraordinary personal attack on Ban from a senior U.N. official. The memo also marks a challenge to Ban’s studiously cultivated image as a champion of accountability.

Shortly after taking office in 2007, Ban committed himself to restoring the United Nations’ reputation, which had been sullied by revelations of corruption in the agency’s oil-for-food program in Iraq.

But Ahlenius says that, rather than being an advocate for accountability, Ban, along with his top advisers, has systematically sought to undercut the independence of her office, initially by trying to set up a competing investigations unit under his control and then by thwarting her efforts to hire her own staff.

“Your actions are not only deplorable, but seriously reprehensible. . . . Your action is without precedent and in my opinion seriously embarrassing for yourself,” Ahlenius wrote in the 50-page memo to Ban, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “I regret to say that the secretariat now is in a process of decay.”

Ban’s top advisers said that Ahlenius’s memo constituted a deeply unbalanced account of their differences and that her criticism of Ban’s stewardship of the United Nations was patently unfair.

“A look at his record shows that Secretary General Ban has provided genuine visionary leadership on important issues from climate change to development to women’s empowerment. He has promoted the cause of gender balance in general as well as within the organization. He has led from the front on important political issues from Gaza to Haiti to Sudan,” Ban’s chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, wrote in a response.

“It is regrettable to note,” Nambiar added, “that many pertinent facts were overlooked or misrepresented” in Ahlenius’s memo.

The departure of Ahlenius, 72, coincides with a period of crisis in the United Nations’ internal investigations division. During the past two years, the world body has shed some of its top investigators. It has also failed to fill dozens of vacancies, including that of the chief of the investigations division in the Office of Internal Oversight Services. That post has been vacant since 2006, leaving a void in the United Nations’ ability to police itself, diplomats say.

“We are disappointed with the recent performance of [the U.N.'s] investigations division,” said Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. “The coming change in . . . leadership is an opportunity to bring about a significant improvement in its performance to increase oversight and transparency throughout the organization.”

The U.N. General Assembly established the Office of Internal Oversight Services in 1994 to conduct management audits of the United Nations’ principal departments and to conduct investigations into corruption and misconduct. The founding resolution granted the office “operational independence” but placed it under the authority of the secretary general and made it dependent on the U.N. departments it policed for much of its funding and administrative support.

The dispute between Ahlenius and Ban has underscored some of the resulting tensions and exposed a protracted and acrimonious struggle for power over the course of U.N. investigations.

While Ahlenius cited Ban’s move to set up a new investigations unit as a sign that he was seeking to undermine her independence, Nambiar said that it was intended to strengthen the United Nations’ ability to fight corruption.

Ahlenius also clashed with Ban over her efforts to hire a former federal prosecutor, Robert Appleton, who headed the U.N. Procurement Task Force, a temporary white-collar crime unit that carried out aggressive investigations into corruption in U.N. peacekeeping missions from 2006 to last year. The unit’s investigations led to an unprecedented number of misconduct findings by U.N. officials and prompted federal probes into corruption.

Ban’s advisers said they blocked Appleton’s appointment on the grounds that female candidates had not been properly considered and said that the final selection should have been made by Ban, not Ahlenius.

“The secretary general fully recognizes the operational independence of OIOS,” Nambiar said. But that, he said, “does not excuse her from applying the standard rules of recruitment.”

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The above story, as per – http://www.orf.at/#/stories/2004590/ - also echoed in Vienna.

Scheidende UNO-Diplomatin rechnet mit Ban ab.

Die scheidende Chefkontrolleurin der Vereinten Nationen geht laut Medienberichten mit Generalsekretär Ban Ki Moon hart ins Gericht. Ban habe ihre Arbeit als oberste Korruptionsbekämpferin unterlaufen und die UNO in eine Ära des Niedergangs geführt, schrieb Inga-Britt Ahlenius laut einem Bericht der „Washington Post“ gestern in einem vertraulichen Memorandum.

Entgegen seinen Ankündigungen zum Amtsantritt 2007 habe Ban die durch mehrere Affären angeschlagene Reputation der Vereinten Nationen nicht mit allen Mitteln geschützt.

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„Verwerflich“

Vielmehr habe er ihr Amt der Chefrevisorin mehr und mehr geschwächt, schreibe Ahlenius in dem 50-Seiten-Papier an Ban: „Ihr Handeln ist nicht nur bedauerlich, sondern sogar verwerflich.“ Es sei beispiellos und „meiner Meinung nach für Sie selbst beschämend“. Das Blatt zitierte: „Ich bedaure es, sagen zu müssen, dass das Sekretariat in einem Zerfallsprozess ist.“

Kritiker werfen Ban seit langem vor, die UNO nur zu verwalten und vor wirksamen politischen Initiativen zurückzuschrecken. UNO-Mitarbeiter wiesen die Vorwürfe in der „Washington Post“ als „unfair“ zurück. Ban habe mehrere politische Schwerpunkte gesetzt, etwa beim Klimaschutz und bei der Gleichstellung der Frau. Die Abrechnung der scheidenden Schwedin sei ein „höchst unausgewogener Ausdruck ihrer Differenzen“ mit Ban.,

TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010
Canada Coming With Worse Than Oil.
David Cronin
 http://ipsterraviva.net/UN/currentNew.as…

BRUSSELS, Jul 19 (IPS) – Fears of a trade dispute with Canada have made European Union officials reluctant to categorise tar sands from North America as a more polluting fuel than conventional petrol. Officials working for the EU’s executive, the European Commission, are considering the implementation of a fuel quality law nominally designed to make transport cleaner.

While the overall goal of the directive has been agreed — that oil companies bring down their emissions of climate changing greenhouse gases by 6 percent between this year and 2020 — its fine print has yet to be hammered out. One of the trickiest issues to emerge in the discussions relates to whether imports of non-conventional sources of oil should be restricted.

In a 2009 paper drafted by environment officials tar sands were deemed to be 20 percent more damaging to the climate than the petrol typically used to power Europe’s cars. But this provision was removed from the draft after Ross Hornby, Canada’s ambassador in Brussels, wrote to Karl Falkenberg, head of the Commission’s environment department, in January.

Hornby’s letter – Ross Hornby, Canada’s ambassador in Brussels – was made available to green campaigners, under the EU’s freedom of information rules. In it, he objected to a proposal that fuels derived from tar sands would be treated differently to those using conventional crude oil. The reporting requirements that this would place on energy firms would be too onerous and would constitute a “barrier” to trade, he warned.

Tar sands — a mixture of bitumen, water, sand and clay — lying under the Canadian province of Alberta constitute the world’s second largest proven reserves of oil, outside Saudi Arabia. A study titled Energy Revolution published earlier this month by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council estimated that producing oil from tar sands would release more than four times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than standard oil drilling does today.

A senior Brussels official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the question of how tar sands should be categorised in the EU “goes further than the quality of oil, it is also a trade question.” The official added that “you can be sure” the matter will be discussed in the context of a nominally separate free trade agreement that the EU and Canada have aimed to conclude by the end of next year.

Stuart Trew from the Council of Canadians, a social justice organisation, said a moratorium on the extraction of tar sands is necessary. The eagerness of the Ottawa government to exploit the reserves under Alberta is “a blight on Canada’s reputation and on the world,” he told IPS.

Trew expressed particular concern about how a draft version of the trade agreement would — if implemented in its current form — allow corporations to take action against measures that they perceive as hostile to trade. A similar provision in the North America Free Trade Agreement has enabled companies to attack health and environmental measures in the U.S. and Mexico, he added, noting that the procedure lets corporations bypass courts and instead set up private panels.

“Any attempt to cut back on the production of tar sands, to make stronger environmental rules or to limit the amount of water used to make tar sands could result in a challenge,” he said. Three to five barrels of water are required for every barrel of oil produced from tar sands.

Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s commissioner for climate action, wrote to several green groups Jul. 13 promising that a proposal for regulating tar sands would be put forward after her summer break (most Brussels institutions close during August).

A spokeswoman for Hedegaard said that the Commission is “carefully analysing the different options available and will come up with a balanced proposal, including solid reporting requirements necessary for demonstrating compliance with the target.”

Shell, one of the largest investors in the Alberta tar sands industry, has been vigorously lobbying against tough EU fuel quality rules. In May, it hosted a dinner for members of the European Parliament in an attempt to convince them that tar sands extraction should not be vilified.

Ecologists are adamant that a specific “default value” should be set for tar sands, stating that their production must respect EU moves to reduce the environmental impact of transport fuel. Without such a value, tar sands would be treated the same as conventional petrol.

Nusa Urbancic from the organisation Transport and the Environment said that numerous scientific studies have indicated that tar sands must be regarded as dirtier than conventional fossil fuels. The results of the EU’s discussions will have implications that stretch beyond the Union’s borders, she added.

“The European Commission has a duty to protect the environment, not to protect Canada’s (commercial) interests,” she said. “Europe is a standard- setter when it comes to fuels, vehicles, electronic machinery and things like that. The Canadians fear that if the Europe puts in a value for tar sands, other countries will follow. This is clearly a political decision. If we want to prevent climate change, we should be leaving this stuff underground.”

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Let us remember – when the US decided to make the introduction of unleaded gasoline mandatory and this decreased the market for tetra-ethyl-lead, the company that made the product started to ship out Canada made ingredients to the US forcing their way via International Trade regulations. This was a real headache of penalties for the State of California – or call it trade extortionism?

RECEIVED FROM: Editeur : RIAED | Réseau international d’accès aux énergies durables
http://www.riaed.net/portail

from RIAED | Réseau international d’accès aux énergies durables reply-to dufail@gret.org date Mon, Jul 19, 2010 subject: La lettre d’information du RIAED, n°41

THIS IS THE INFORMATION No. 41 from RIAED WHICH IS THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR ACCESS TO SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FOR THE FRENCH SPEAKING COUNTRIES OF WEST AFRICA, BUT THEY HAVE ALSO A LINK TO THE ENGLISH FORM OF THIS LETTER. THE POSTING IS INTERESTING AS IT SHOWS LOTS OF ACTIVITIES THAT GO ON IN THE REGION SINCE 2006 AND CONTINUE TO DATE.

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THE BLOGGS LINK IS THE FOLLOWING BUT IT SEEMS  OLD: http://www.riaed.net/spip.php?rubrique41

 http://www.iisd.ca/mea-l/guestarticle96….

MEA Bulletin – Guest Article No. 96 – Thursday, 15 July 2010

	A Proposal to Change the Political Strategy of Developing Countries in Climate Negotiations

	By Romina Picolotti (translated from Spanish)*

	Full Article If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done. Peter Ustinov Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Developing countries are definitely looking for different results in global climate negotiations. We want industrialized countries to comply with their obligations to reduce emissions. We want the effective transfer of technology. We want industrialized countries to provide the necessary financing to mitigate and adapt to climate change. And, we want the system we construct to address climate change to be fair and equitable, including the financial mechanism, and not like the present system utilizing the Global Environment Facility (GEF) where donor countries dominate the decision-making process. We have already invested 16 years in climate negotiations under the UNFCCC process since its entry into force in 1994. The last meeting of negotiators this June in Bonn showed some progress, or at least a bit more realism in defining possible achievements for the next key meeting to be held in Cancun later this year, but negotiators clearly have not overcome their incapacity to offer pragmatic solutions to what has become the most important global problem humanity has ever faced. Meanwhile, the science of climate change continues to solidify and tell us in no uncertain terms that inaction or late action means unavoidable and likely irreversible problems later. Of course, as always, the world’s most socially and economically vulnerable will also be the primary targets of the most catastrophic impacts of the planet’s changing climate. In this scenario, developing countries call over and over again for their legitimate claims over the deteriorating climate to be heard, but fail to obtain the necessary responses for these claims in the post-Kyoto rounds of negotiations. What should we do? At the last meeting of the Montreal Protocol signatories, a representative of the Federated States of Micronesia employed a metaphor that can help us find a way. He likened our climate desperation to a hypothetical neighborhood fire. It’s as if our house is about to be consumed by flames from a raging fire, and the city’s firemen show up at the door, with no truck, no water, no equipment and begin arguing about which technique would be most suitable to put out the encroaching flames. All of a sudden a group of experienced volunteer firefighters decked out with fire equipment, a water truck, and ready to put out the fire show up behind the others. As a homeowner in desperation over advancing flames, what do you do? The answer is a no-brainer, you ask the guys with the solution to put out the fire! The metaphor alludes to the Montreal Protocol (MP), hailed as the most successful environmental treaty to date. From 1990 to 2010, MP’s control measures on production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) will have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 135 gigatons of CO2.This is equivalent to 11 gigatons a year, four to five times the reductions targeted in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Yes, this is amazing! The Federated States of Micronesia used the metaphor of the house on fire to illustrate the opportunity before us to fully utilize the strength of the MP to combat the Planetary fire that climate change is becoming. Specifically, he referred to the opportunity to regulate the production and consumption of HFCs, which would produce the equivalent CO2 mitigation of more than 100 gigatons. This proposal, without a doubt, implies a great opportunity for developing countries, not only in terms of the substantive issues involved, but it also fundamentally highlights the political implications underlying the process. If we are looking for different results from climate negotiations, we mustn’t always do the same thing. Utilizing the maximum potential offered under the MP to mitigate climate change, regulating the production and consumption of HFCs would require that industrialized countries and developing countries both assume “mitigation” obligations. Mitigation obligations in the context of the MP do not mean specific CO2 reduction targets. What it means is that developed and developing countries assume the obligation to regulate the production and consumption of HFCs, which are super greenhouse gases, and by doing so we mitigate global warming. Therefore, to assume this “mitigation” obligation under the MP context should not terrify us. This is precisely the value of utilizing the MP. Our largest challenge as developing countries is not to assume or not assume mitigation obligations, but rather it is to assume them in a context that is fair, and not to assume them in the current context of the UNFCCC. From the perspective of a developing country, assuming mitigation obligations without financing, without the transfer of technology, and without decision-making power is simply suicide. It would be however, politically wise to assume these obligations in the context of the MP and set a crucial precedent. The MP has demonstrated over its 23-year history that the technology is effectively transferred, and that industrialized countries have complied with their obligations, including financing what is needed so that developing countries can comply with their own obligations to control ODS after a suitable grace period. We, developing countries, have a full voice and equal vote on the decision-making process under the MP financing mechanism known as the Multilateral Fund. Finally, the MP has also demonstrated that it is capable of creating the necessary confidence amongst States to take bold and continuous steps forward in compliance with all of the established deadlines. Moreover, developing countries have in many cases complied with obligations to reduce production and consumption of ODS before the established deadlines. Everything we are calling for under the UNFCCC process we have already achieved under the MP framework. Advancing with the inclusion of HFCs under the jurisdiction of the MP would substantially strengthen developing countries in a proactive forum as countries that actively contribute to solutions in a fair agreement, and not as countries that can only claim and denounce. Developing countries can demonstrate that with the right institutional structure we are ready to do the job. The political strategy hence, is to take advantage of the opportunity that is offered by the Federated States of Micronesia’s proposal to advance on pro-climate actions available under the MP, and utilize the MP framework to negotiate from a different vantage point in the UNFCCC process. This “other vantage point” shows what developing countries are able to achieve when industrialized countries comply with their obligations, when transfer of technology takes place, when the decision-making process includes developing country voices in a fair and equitable way, and when financing is made available. The latest report on the UN Millennium Development Goals recognizes that “the unparalleled success of the Montreal Protocol shows that action on climate change is within our grasp”. Hopefully, we will wisely take advantage of this invaluable political opportunity that the Federated States of Micronesia and the Montreal Protocol are offering, and we will not succumb to Peter Ustinov’s foreshadowing of the tragic earth-ending expert voice suggesting a solution is beyond our reach.

	*Romina Picolotti, formerly the Secretary of Environment of Argentina, heads the Center for Human Rights and Environment. She received EPA’s Climate Protection Award in 2008 for her leadership in securing historic commitment to accelerate the phase-out of HCFCs under the Montreal Protocol.

IIED is proud to make available an international edition of the documentary The Climate Game and the World’s Poor, which shows what happened when 193 governments tried – and failed – to agree a global deal to tackle climate change.

The film follows delegates from some of the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change during last year’s COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen.

Featuring interviews with senior negotiators and other climate-change experts, the documentary tells the story of what happened when the critical talks began to unravel.

The documentary was directed and filmed by Jesper Heldgaard and Bo Illum Jorgensen, and produced and edited by Anders Dencker Christensen.

You can watch it online here.

http://www.iied.org/climate-change/media/climate-game-and-worlds-poor-documentary-film-inside-cop15-climate-change-summi

or here – http://tinyurl.com/35brvye

Mike Shanahan
Press officer

International Institute for Environment and Development
London WC1H 0DD
Tel: 44 (0) 207 388 2117
Email: mike.shanahan@iied.org

www.iied.org

The interesting points here are:

- There are 17 countries that total 80% emissions of CO2.

- The Basic Countries (Brazil, South Africa, India China) believe they are among the poor countries that need technology to store carbon dioxide emissions underground – that technology, seemingly they think so, was developed by Canada, Australia or the United States which they define as the rich countries. “We want a common position on technology transfer through partnerships in which poor countries are given access to technology and that they can get help with applying it as well,” a senior Indian government official said.

- Developing Nations, as defined by above Poor Nations, want new technology and billions of dollars in aid to help them move away from fossil fuels, as part of a deal at Cancun.

But it seems they think there is probably no problem with future technologies, but it is the sharing of the existing technologies that involves looking at issues of intellectual property rights (IPR),” said a New Delhi based independent climate change expert.

- From above we wonder if Minister Ramesh of India thinks the CCS technology is already available, and has to be shared equitably now, while indeed true new technologies will be developed by  development front-runners, like the BASIC, so they have no worries of technology transfer in these future days. The financial issue is thus standing only for the technologies dealing with old energy systems – the CO2 emitting technologies – and the concept of storing the CO2 intrigues the Minister. There is no problem, seemingly, as reported, in Mr. Ramesh eyes with the novel technologies like the renewables.

We wonder if what is said in the posting we picked up is indeed what Minister Ramesh said?

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India Climate Meet Ahead Of Mexico To Push Tech Deal