Ecologic Institute: An International Think Tank for Environment and Development.

EU Agenda for the May 20, 2013 week -

EU leaders discuss energy and tax next WEEK.

17.05.13

By Nikolaj Nielsen

A Festival of singing people – 440 of them – from 18 choirs – in 16 European Cities – May 9-12, 2013 – held with workshops at the reestablished historic Odeon Theater in Leopoldstadt – the previously mainly Jewish Second District of Vienna.

The Festival culminated in a public concert on Sunday May 12, 2013 at the Austria Center back-to-back with the offices of the Vienna UN compound. The Honorary Chairman of the event was Austria’s President – the Honorable Heinz Fischer.

This after the 2011 revival of the European States Makkabi sports-competitions that brought at the time 60,000 out-of-town visitors to Vienna.

The present event was dedicated to the revival of Jewish culture in European Communities – and at times the choirs including non-Jews as well.

The timing seems symbolical – it started May 9th – the Victory Day over Nazism and ended on Mothers’ Day – if you wish in memory of those Jewish self sacrificing mothers that helped continue Judaism in Europe that proving that Hitler was defeated.

At the workshops the choirs were taught new songs that were then performed jointly by all participants at the grand-finale of the Sunday event. These included Adon Olam with the Chief cantor of Vienna’s Jewish Community Shmuel Barzilay, Ose Shalom, and the israeli National anthem – The Hatikah (Hope).

The professional leader of the event was Choirmaster Roman Grinberg of the Vienna Jewish Choir whose President is a Young man Florian Pollack who was the organizer of the Sunday concert. Though performing also liturgical music, this choir is cultural in content – including both men and women, something that might have been difficult to do if it were directly part of the Orthodox stream of the majority of Vienna Synagogues – though quite normal with the Or Chadash Reform Vienna Synagogue. Nevertheless the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Austria, Rabbi Chaim Eisenberg, who himself has in the past performed with the Vienna Jewish Choir outside the Synagogue, wrote an introductory note to the Sunday program booklet.

The MC on Sunday was Ms. Danielle Spera who is a well known Austrian TV personality, and in 2010 became the Director of the Vienna Jewish Museum. She was the top choice of Vice Mayor Renate Brauner, who is in charge of the Vienna Holding Company that owns the buildings of the two Vienna Jewish Museums that were up for renovation in the 2010-2011 years.

The meeting of the choirs cost 200.000 Euro and the money came from institutional contributions. The main backer was the Bruxells based European Jewish Union that was described by the MC as The Jewish European Parliament.

At the workshops, the nine choirs that belong to the Renanim organization – choirs from Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Dijon, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Paris, Toulouse, and Utrecht chose to appear in a large united choir – thus reducing the number of choirs on Sunday from 18 to 10 facilitating a more manageable situation.

The Sunday event started with one choir on stage and all the others in various locations in the hall – singing together Uru Ahim- Hava Neranna. . .  with an added 1400 people in the large and full hall of the Austria Center (In the audience I spotted also several women with Muslim head-covers). Then, after the introductory, thankfully rather short  speeches, the line-up was thus as follows:

1. The Vienna Jewish Choir led by Roman Grinberg that was created 20 years ago by Dr. Timothy Smolka with 8 people and counts now on 50 active singers having performed at many events all over Europe. Their contribution was mainly in Jidish – old folk-songs.

2. The Assoziazione Coro-Kol of Rome led by Choirmaster Andrea Orlando that started with Verdi’s Va Pensiero and moved to Hebrew Shabbat and wedding songs. This choir was established in 1993 by the Great Synagogue of Rome and has usually a repertory that includes Ladino as well as Yiddish songs.

3. The Masel Tov Choir of Wuppertal, Germany with Rokella Rachel Verenina, formerly of Odessa, the Ukraine, as choirmaster.It is a choir established 15 years ago by Russian immigrants that finally wanted to express themselves freely. It has now 35 active members – Jews and non-Jews and is one of the best in Germany. They sang Yiddish and German. In the choir I spotted also one black man and many of the singers looked like hardened industrial workers – what they probably are indeed.

4. The Boys Choir of The Vienna City Tempel – the Main Synagogue of Austria Shmuel Barzilai, the Chief Cantor in charge. It had 7 boys under the age 13. This Choir is modeled after the famous Vienna Boys Choir. Their songs were all in Hebrew and from the liturgy and were received with warm applause.

5. The Shalom Chor of Berlin led by Nikola David who is an operatic singer who after graduating from cantorial school has now a position with the Erfurt Synagogue. The 37 active members are from the community and from churches around Berlin. They sang in Hebrew and interestingly wore shawls of single colors – red, green, orange, blue, light green – which left me with the impression that they covered the political spectrum of Germany. I wonder if this was indeed the intent of these colors.

6. The Ensemble Vocal Zamir of Paris with Albert Benzaquen as choirmaster ranging in music from Shlomo Carlebach and Naomi Shemer to Chasidic and Ladino. It was created in 1980 from basically members of families from the Sephardic community. They have had many appearances in France and do not miss the choir festival in Israel – the Zimrya in Jerusalem. Working people – they clearly enjoy what they are doing and we were told meet twice a week.

7. The Jewish Choir “Eva” of Saint Petersburg with Elena Rubinovich as choirmaster. An all girls choir. The teen-age girls dressed in white blouses and blue long skirts. They had a large Magen David attached to their blouses above the heart. They started with Jerusalem of Gold in Hebrew, had a Russian song and moved to Yidddish – “Bei Mir Bistu Shein” the Jewish American song. Interesting – this was different then in the written program and clearly they have a large repertory and were excellent – real singing talent – lurks here. We were told that the girls are children and youth organized by the Welfare and Community Centre. Terrific applause.

8. The Varnishkes of Lviv, The Ukraine with Oleksandra Somysh as Band leader of what was indeed a Klezmer-music group.  Another example of terrific applause. The team was born 6 years ago and as they state it – they adore the magic of Yiddishkeit. They include volunteers and foreign students and are lovely. They reminded me of a similar non-Jewish group I saw in Cracow years ago and Elie Wiesel was in the audience then.
The Lviv group – the singing was all in Yiddish – and we understand that young German audiences love to listen to them.

9. Hor Bracha Baruh a Choir named after the Baruch Brothers of Belgrade. This choir is not by definition Jewish – but it was named after three brothers that were killed fighting in the resistance in WWII, and the choir comes to honor their Jewish culture. The choir was founded in 1879 as the Serbian Jewish Singing Society – perhaps the oldest Jewish choir in the world – then re-established under the present name when Yugoslavia split and the Serbs clearly were looking for Israeli recognition mentioning that it was Serbs that were most friendly in those terrible war-years.Their repertory is eclectic – included Serbian, Ladino and Hebrew and sounded well rehearsed. It is a nostalgic but hope-filled experience. The Choirmaster Stefan Zekic – a clear professional.

10. The Renanim combine with Avner Soudry as choirmaster and Therese Beuret-Sadoul as Administrator that gave us a Paul Ben Haim Hebrew composition, a Suite Judeo-Espagnole and a very appropriate Shir LaShalom, then Mipi El. They remained on stage and were joined by everyone else for the Grand Finale.

There were obviously no encores – but everyone, afyer milling around for a while, happily called it a night.

 www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/busine…

In Europe, Paid Permits for Pollution Are Fizzling.

Andrew Testa for The International Herald Tribune

The trading floor at CF Partners in West London. The market for carbon permits is more volatile than its founders envisioned.

By STANLEY REED and MARK SCOTT

Published: April 21, 2013

LONDON — On a showery afternoon last week in West London, a ripple of enthusiasm went through the trading floor of CF Partners, a privately owned financial company. The price of carbon allowances, shown in green lights on a board hanging from the ceiling, was creeping up toward three euros. That is pretty small change — $3.90, or only about 10 percent of what the price was in 2008. But to the traders it came as a relief after the market had gone into free fall to record lows two days earlier, after the European Parliament spurned an effort to shore up prices by shrinking the number of allowances.

Graphic

The Falling Price of Carbon Credits

“The market still stands,” said Thomas Rassmuson, a native of Sweden who founded the company with Jonathan Navon, a Briton, in 2006.

Still, Europe’s carbon market, a pioneering effort to use markets to regulate greenhouse gases, is having a hard time staying upright.

This year has been stomach-churning for the people who make their living in the arcane world of trading emissions permits. The most recent volatility comes on top of years of uncertainty during which prices have fluctuated from $40 to nearly zero for the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide.

More important, though, than lost jobs and diminished payouts for traders and bankers, the penny ante price of carbon credits means the market is not doing its job: pushing polluters to reduce carbon emissions, which most climate scientists believe contribute to global warming.

The market for these credits, officially called European Union Allowances, or E.U.A.’s, has been both unstable and under sharp downward pressure this year because of a huge oversupply and a stream of bad political and economic news. On April 16, for instance, after the European Parliament voted down the proposed reduction in the number of credits, prices dropped about 50 percent, to 2.63 euros from nearly 5, in 10 minutes.

“No one was going to buy” on the way down, said Fred Payne, a trader with CF Partners.

Europe’s troubled experience with carbon trading has also discouraged efforts to establish large-scale carbon trading systems in other countries, including the United States, although California and a group of Northeastern states have set up smaller regional markets.

Traders do not mind big price swings in any market — in fact, they can make a lot of money if they play them right.

But over time, the declining prices for the credits have sapped the European market of value, legitimacy and liquidity — the ease with which the allowances can be traded — making it less attractive for financial professionals.

A few years ago, analysts thought world carbon markets were heading for the $2 trillion mark by the end of this decade.

Today, the reality looks much more modest. Total trading last year was 62 billion euros, down from 96 billion in 2011, according to Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, a market research firm based in Oslo. Close to 90 percent of that activity was in Europe, while North American trading represented less than 1 percent of worldwide market value.

Financial institutions that had rushed to increase staff have shrunk their carbon desks. Companies have also laid off other professionals who helped set up greenhouse gas reduction projects in developing countries like China and India.

When the emissions trading system was started in 2005, the goal was to create a global model for raising the costs of emitting greenhouse gases and for prodding industrial polluters to switch from burning fossil fuels to using clean-energy alternatives like wind and solar.

When carbon prices hit their highs of more than 30 euros in 2008 and companies spent billions to invest in renewables, policy makers hailed the market as a success. But then prices began to fall. And at current levels, they are far too low to change companies’ behaviors, analysts say. Emitting a ton of carbon dioxide costs about the same as a hamburger.

“At the moment, the carbon price does not give any signal for investment,” said Hans Bünting, chief executive of RWE, one of the largest utilities in Germany and Europe.

This cap-and-trade system in Europe places a ceiling on emissions. At the end of each year, companies like electric utilities or steel manufacturers must hand over to the national authorities the permits equivalent to the amount gases emitted.

Until the end of 2012, these credits were given to companies free according to their estimated output of greenhouse gases. Policy makers wanted to jump-start the trading market and avoid higher costs for consumers.

Back at the end of January 2013 we posted – based on an article in “Der Spiegel” – that reached us via the UN Wire – that there was in the making an Islamistan, much more dangerous to the West then the AfPak (Afghanistan & Pakistan) region. This will be a Sahelistan ranging from Mauritania to Somalia, right there as a second southern complete layer to the Mediterranean shore Arab States that stretch from Morocco to Egypt. We call this the SAHELISTAN. Its front line is in Mali, Niger, and Chad.

This layer of Islamism is a combination of conservative Islam used as mortar to bind together locally inspired aspirations to free themselves of the Arab century old imposed rulers and like in the Maghreb States and Libya and Egypt, is supported by the religious leaders out of pure opportunism.

Our old posting is:

• The Larger African Islamistan – from Senegal in the West to Somalia in the East – in the making; much larger then the AfPak region in Asia and at the threshold of Europe. (January 31st, 2013)

Now, in Vienna, I realize further the influence of this newly evolving threat and the reality that Europe is happy to let France, the former Colonial power in that region, shoulder the problem by itself. Further, it is France that running its National energy network on nuclear power, is totally depended on the Uranium they get from those countries, while other Members of the EU have no such dependence.

Further, as we noted last month, at the time of the Vienna Conference of the “Alliance of Civilizations” – as shown by the regional division among the Workshops in that meeting, the Central European States have sort of distanced themselves from the Mediterranean States by showing their economic interest as an extension from Central Europe to Central Asia – that is the Black Sea – Caspian Sea and beyond to the other smaller Muslim States that were part of the former Soviet Union. This leaves the Southern EU States to worry about the Muslim MENA region (Middle East – North Africa) and Turkey – if it has to be.

We also suggested a third tier – the Northern tier – and that is the line that connects the Scandinavian countries – Germany – Poland – with Russia.
That will eventually be the route to bring Russia to the EU when it becomes clear that you must have one billion people at least in order to have a weight in the global economy in just a few years from now.

But that is not where Vienna left this part of the world.

In March I participated further at two wide scope events:

(1)  March 11, 2013, the Austrian Institute for International Politics (OIIP) where Editor Walter Haemmerle of the Wiener Zeitung, was the moderator between three Members of OIIP – all Professors at the University but coming from different areas of interest – Prof. Heinz Gaertner – a political Scientist, Prof. Jan Pospisil for the Arab Space – in particular North Africa, and Prof. Cengiz Guenay, for the Near East/ Middle East Space.

The topic was USA – Near East – Mali – in context of  Changes of International Applications of Power.

(2) March 21, 2013, the Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation (VIDC) - www.VIDC.org – using the space at the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialog – dealt with a more limited topic – and therefore could go down to quite some depth – “Mali: Perspectives for the Political Come-Back.”
At this meeting, moderated by Marie-Roger Biloa of Cameroon, Producer and Editor of the Paris-based “Africa International” – and having published Development Magazines in Cameroon and Gabon,  held in place, with a strong will, three very different panelists – that included two different aspects of Mali, and the French Ambassador to Vienna – Mr. Stephane Gompertz.

The two Malians were – Ismaeel Sory Maiega, Director of the study Center of Languages and African Cultures, and the European Representative of the Tuareg-organized Insurgency MNLA – Mouvement National de Liberation de l’Azawad – National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, Mr. Moussa Assarid.

Ms. Biloa is also the President “Club Millennium” in Paris – an African Think Tank and training place for leadership.

———————————

From the OIIP event:

The issue is the US – it is retrenching from the Reagan – G.W. Bush (the son) days of overextended global involvements – so issues like the insurgency in Mali and other Islamization aspects of North Africa, are to be from now on pure European problems. Even the Middle East will have to take care of itself – the most the US will do is to express encouragement for others to act. Professor Gaertner studied the US elections and his view of the Obama II Administration is very similar to what we wrote on our website. The US is readjusting to the Trans-Pacific Partnership – with China its main focus, so much of what goes on in the Muslim Space will have to be filled in by others. Europeans will have to look across the Mediterranean for their own sake.
This does not mean the US finds of a sudden France – but rather will not interfere if France wants to look for its own interests and put their money where they talk was for quite some time.

Dr. Jan Pospisil did his PhD thesis on US-German military cooperation and then looked at East Africa and Sri-Lanka. Like Prof. Gaertner he sees in Syria the biggest problem for the topic of human rights and both think that this is an area that Austria will pay attention as well. With this background it becomes interesting to note that the Austrian participation in Mali is with 9 people.

Dr. Cengiz Guenay wrote his PhD thesis on “Islam as a political factor in Turkey” and found Libya, Egypt, and now Syria as his main fields of interest and he is called in quite often to explain the situation to the media.

————————

The two main points I marked myself from this discussion were:

A. that Turkey is now a TRADING STATE and will do whatever Mr. Erdogan finds opportune for the literal moment.

B. The World – Instead of Multi-polarity – now it will be MULTI-PARTNERSHIPS.

———————-

Then at the VIDC/Bruno Kreisky Forum event we got to know Mr. Assarid a full blooded Tuareg, dressed to prove it,  who speaks about the Azawad State they want to carve out from the Northern half of Mali – the five towns – Timbuktu, Lere, Hombori, Gao, and Kidal. His bio says he is a writer, journalist and comedian – living in Paris since 1999. He has appeared on TV in several series as actor. He was saying that the Tuaregs have a National movement that is secular. They are not part of an Islamic uprising and their problem is rather that the other side – the present government in Bamako – that took over from an elected government by military coup – is the one that may help the North Africa Al-Qaeda – not the Tuaregs.

Listening to him, and to his opponent, Professor. Maiega, who is an intellectual – head of a Bamako Institute to promote indigenous languages and African Civilizations,  it seems that in effect both of them are more interested in traditional African culture then in Islam, and in effect it is France’s interest in holding on to its previous Colony that is the most problematic aspect of this entanglement. Is it all because of the Uranium, coal, and other natural resources found in Mali? Will this move on to Niger and Chad? What would happen if Mali is allowed to split amicably into two States? Could this be worse then seeing it unravel in fighting that allows other groups to mix the boiling pot?

The French say they want to bring down their fighting troops from 4,000 to 1,000 by the end of April, and have by that time trained the Mali government troops, and the West African troops, that offered to help. I say – Do not hold your breath – I say.
It is easy to get in – it is much more difficult to get out -  and the French Ambassador did not impress us that he really thinks France wants to get out from Mali. Though let me add immediately that Ambassador Gompertz is Professor for classic literature and has a degree in Germanistic – this while in the French Foreign Ministry he was head of the sections on Africa and the Indian Ocean (2009-2012) when he was appointed to Vienna. Before 2008 he was Ambassador to Ethiopia, and with the North Africa and Middle East sections in the ministry – so he is well into the Mediterranean region.

The problem with the desert people maybe much more complicated then what was presented. There is money to be made from those natural resources, and from kidnapping people for ransom. The desert is big and people rather unemployed – so the few can muster the rest, and bamboozle with religion cooked up with social, ethnic, tribal arguments to boot – this works in a world that thinks very little of terrorism, as an accepted tool for those that feel downtroden, and the passage to the world here-after as a move to step up an imagined personalized ladder.

———

Recent History as reported today – April 1, 2013: The fighting reflected the difficulty of securing Mali after a French intervention in January that pushed the rebels out of their northern strongholds.

“Things are quiet this morning. The markets are open, traffic is on the streets, and people are out of their houses,” Timbuktu resident Garba Maiga said by telephone.

Malian military sources said soldiers were sweeping parts of the town to ensure there were no remaining rebel fighters.

At least one Malian soldier was killed in the clashes, along with more than 20 insurgents, according to a government statement on Sunday night. Residents said at least five civilians were killed in the crossfire.

An army spokesman said that groups of rebels had entered the town after setting off a suicide car bomb at a checkpoint, diverting the military’s attention.

Paris is keen to reduce its current 4,000-strong troop presence to 1,000 by the end of the year as it hands over its mission to a regional African force.

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By coincidence – the following arrived in our Inbox and I find this relevant as it stresses US-Senegal relations. Senegal is a Muslim State.

Remarks

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According to the Scottish explorer and scientist Robert Brown, Azawad is an Arabic corruption of the Berber word Azawagh, referring to a dry river basin that covers western Niger, northeastern Mali, and southern Algeria.^[16] The name translates to “land of transhumance“.^[17]

  the flag of AZAWAG

On 6 April 2012, in a statement posted to its website, the MNLA declared the independence of Azawad from Mali. In this Azawad Declaration of Independence, the name Independent State of Azawad was used^[18] (French: État indépendant de l’Azawad,^[18] Arabic:  Dawlat Azaw?d al-Mustaqillah).

On 26 May, the MNLA and its former co-belligerent Ansar Dine – an Islamist group linked to Al-Qaeda – announced a pact in which they would merge to form an Islamist state; according to the media the new long name of Azawad was used in this pact. But this new name is not clear – sources list few variants of it: the Islamic Republic of Azawad^[20] (French: République islamique de l’Azawad),^[21] the Islamic State of Azawad (French: État islamique de l’Azawad^[22]), the Republic of Azawad.^[23] Azawad authorities did not officially confirm any change of name.

Later reports indicated the MNLA had decided to withdraw from the pact with Ansar Dine. In a new statement, dated on 9 June, MNLA uses the name State of Azawad (French: État de l’Azawad).^[24]

The MNLA has unveiled the list of 28 members of the Transitional Council of the State of Azawad (Conseil de Transition de l’Etat de l’Azawad, CTEA) serving as a provisional government with President Bilal Ag Acherif to manage the new State of Azawad.

The Economic Community of West African States, which refused to recognise Azawad and called the declaration of its independence “null and void”, has said it may send troops into the disputed region in support of the Malian claim.^[7][8]

Ansar Dine later declared that they rejected the idea of Azawad independence.^[12] The MNLA and Ansar Dine continued to clash,^[13] culminating in the Battle of Gao on 27 June, in which the Islamist groups Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Ansar Dine took control of the city, driving out the MNLA. The following day, Ansar Dine announced that it was in control of all the cities of northern Mali.^[14]

On 14 February 2013 the MNLA renounced their claim of independence for Azawad; it asked the Malian government to start negotiations on its future status.^[15]

All of this points at a very confusing situation that in effect backs what we heard at the meeting of March 21, 2013 here in Vienna.

Above map suggests that the presence of Tuaregs which were nomads, is not limited to the north of Mali alone, but they are found in neighboring States as well. The history of the region involved wars that extended to Algeria and to larger Morocco. The area was part of empires that existed in Timbuktu and Gao.

Under French rule

Azawad portal

After European powers formalized the scramble for Africa in the Berlin Conference, the French assumed control of the land between the 14th meridian and Miltou, South-West Chad, bounded in the south by a line running from Say, Niger to Baroua. Although the Azawad region was French in name, the principle of effectivity required France to hold power in those areas assigned, e.g. by signing agreements with local chiefs, setting up a government, and making use of the area economically, before the claim would be definitive. On 15 December 1893, Timbuktu, by then long past its prime, was annexed by a small group of French soldiers, led by Lieutenant Gaston Boiteux.^[41] The region became part of French Sudan (Soudan Français), a colony of France. The colony was reorganised and the name changed several times during the French colonial period. In 1899 the French Sudan was subdivided and the Azawad became part of Upper Senegal and Middle Niger (Haut-Sénégal et Moyen Niger). In 1902 it was renamed as Senegambia and Niger (Sénégambie et Niger), and in 1904 this was changed again to Upper Senegal and Niger (Haut-Sénégal et Niger). This name was used until 1920 when it became French Sudan again.^[42]

French Sudan became the autonomous state of Mali within the French Community in 1958, and Mali became independent from France in 1960. Four major Tuareg rebellions took place against Malian rule: the First Tuareg Rebellion (1962–64), the rebellion of 1990–1995, the rebellion of 2007–2009, and a 2012 rebellion. This alone should tell the world that the situation is not stable and that it can be adjusted only if autonomy is granted the Tuareg region.

In the early twenty-first century, the region became notorious for banditry and drug smuggling.^[43] The area has been reported to contain great potential mineral wealth, including petroleum and uranium.^[44]

On 17 January 2012, the MNLA announced the start of an insurrection in Azawad against the government of Mali, declaring that it “will continue so long as Bamako does not recognise this territory as a separate entity”.^[45]On 24 January, the MNLA won control of the town of Aguelhok, killing around 160 Malian soldiers and capturing dozens of heavy weapons and military vehicles. In March 2012, the MNLA and Ansar Dine took control of the regional capitals of Kidal^[46] and Gao^[47] along with their military bases. On 1 April, Timbuktu was captured.^[48] After the seizure of Timbuktu on 1 April, the MNLA gained effective control of most of the territory they claim for an independent Azawad. In a statement released on the occasion, the MNLA invited all Azawadis abroad to return home and join in constructing institutions in the new state.^[49]

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) declared Azawad an independent state on 6 April 2012 and pledged to draft a constitution establishing it as a democracy. Their statement acknowledged the United Nations charter and said the new state would uphold its principles.^[5][50]

In an interview with France 24, an MNLA spokesman declared the independence of Azawad:

Mali is an anarchic state. Therefore we have gathered a national liberation movement to put in an army capable of securing our land and an executive office capable of forming democratic institutions. We declare the independence of Azawad from this day on.

—Moussa Ag Assarid, MLNA spokesman, 6 April 2012^[51]

In the same interview, Assarid promised that Azawad would respect the colonial frontiers that separate Azawad from its neighbours; he insisted that Azawad’s declaration of independence had international legality.^[51]

No foreign entity recognised Azawad. The MNLA’s declaration was immediately rejected by the African Union, who declared it “null and no value whatsoever”. The French Foreign Ministry said it would not recognise the unilateral partition of Mali, but it called for negotiations between the two entities to address “the demands of the northern Tuareg population [which] are old and for too long had not received adequate and necessary responses”. The United States also rejected the declaration of independence.^[52]

The MNLA is estimated to have up to 3,000 soldiers. ECOWAS declared Azawad “null and void”, and said that Mali is “one and [an] indivisible entity”. ECOWAS has said that it would use force, if necessary, to put down the rebellion.^[53] The French government indicated it could provide logistical support.^[52]

On 26 May, the MNLA and its former co-belligerent Ansar Dine announced a pact to merge to form an Islamist state.^[9] Later reports indicated the MNLA withdrew from the pact, distancing itself from Ansar Dine.^[10][11] MNLA and Ansar Dine continued to clash,^[54] culminating in the Battle of Gao and Timbuktu on 27 June, in which the Islamist groups Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Ansar Dine took control of Gao, driving out the MNLA. The following day, Ansar Dine announced that it was in control of Timbuktu and Kidal, the three biggest cities of northern Mali.^[55] Ansar Dine continued its offensive against MNLA positions and overran all remaining MNLA held towns by 12 July with the fall of Ansogo.^[56]

In December 2012, the MNLA agreed on Mali’s national unity and territorial integrity in talks with both the central government and Ansar Dine.^[57]

Religion

Most are Muslims, of the Sunni or Sufi orientations.^{[citation needed]} Most popular in the Tuareg movement and northern Mali as a whole is the Maliki branch of Sunnism, in which traditional opinions and analogical reasoning by later Muslim scholars are often used instead of a strict reliance on ?adith (coming directly from the Mohammed’s life and utterances) as a basis for legal judgment.^[79]

Ansar Dine follows the Salafi branch of Sunni Islam, which rejects the existence of Islamic holy men (other than Mohammed) and their teachings. They strongly object to praying around the graves of Malikite ‘holymen’, and burned down an ancient Sufi shrine in Timbuktu, which had been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.^[80]

Most of the 300 Christians who formerly lived in Timbuktu have fled to the South since the rebels captured the town on 2 April 2012.^{[81][dead link]}

Humanitarian situation

The people living in the central and northern Sahelian and Sahelo-Saharan areas of Mali are the country’s poorest, according to an International Fund for Agricultural Development report. Most are pastoralists and farmers practicing subsistence agriculture on dry land with poor and increasingly degraded soils.^[82] The northern part of Mali suffers from a critical shortage of food and lack of health care. Starvation has prompted about 200,000 inhabitants to leave the region.^[83]

Refugees in the 92,000-person refugee camp at Mbera, Mauritania, describe the Islamists as “intent on imposing an Islam of lash and gun on Malian Muslims.” The Islamists in Timbuktu have destroyed about a half-dozen historic above-ground tombs of revered holy men, proclaiming the tombs contrary to Shariah. One refugee in the camp spoke of encountering Afghans, Pakistanis and Nigerians among the invading forces.^[84]

History of Azawad
Gao Empire
Songhai Empire
Pashalik of Timbuktu
French Sudan
Tuareg rebellion (1962–1964)
Tuareg rebellion (1990–1995)
Tuareg rebellion (2007–2009)
Tuareg rebellion (2012)
Independent State of Azawad   National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad from the MNLA point of view: Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad Participant in Tuareg rebellions Active October 2011 – present Ideology Secular nationalism[1] Autonomy Leaders Bilal Ag Acherif[2] (General Secretary) Mahmoud Ag Aghaly (President of the political bureau) Ag Mohamed Najem (head of military operations) Moussa Ag Acharatoumane Ibrahim Ag Bahanga Area of operations Azawad/northern Mali Strength 9000-10000 (MNLA sources)[3] Part of  Azawad Allies  Libya (under Jamahiriya)  Libya (under NTC) Opponents  Mali (2012)  Algeria Ansar Dine (since June 2012) Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa Battles/wars 2012–present Northern Mali conflict Tuareg rebellion (2012) Battle of Menaka Battle of Gao

The Shame of the Netherlands: A Young Muslim Must Go Into Hiding for Fighting Anti-Semitism.

Passover. This week we will all eat more matzo then we ever thought possible, hear more commentary about the Haggadah and its multiple messages for our time, and sit back in awe and (hopefully) love at the site at of our extended family circle.

But this Pesach, let’s leave some space for one young Muslim who deserves the world’s attention and support. He is not a martyr and desperately wants to avoid becoming one. But as of now, he and his family are in hiding in an undisclosed location in the Netherlands, because of death threats.

His name is Mehmet Sahin, a doctoral student, who has volunteered to reach out to street youth in the city of Arnhem. A few weeks ago he interviewed a group of Dutch-Turkish youth on Nederlands TV2 during which several declared their unabashed hatred of Jews and open admiration of Hitler. “What Hitler did to the Jews is fine with me,” said one. “Hitler should have killed all the Jews,” said another.

While these teens knew all about the fate of iconic Holocaust child victim, Anne Frank, that knowledge did nothing to deter them from expressing their outright hatred of Jews over and over again, and insisting that everyone at their school harbored similar views. When you view the clip you will see that their smirks and body language confirm a deeply-embedded hatred. Watch the video as one boy smiles as he declares: “What Hitler said about Jews is that there will be one day when you see that I am right that I killed all the Jews. And that day will come.”

From where does such bigotry emanate? Here’s a hint. When Mehmet Sahin reprimanded the youngsters and committed to spend however much time it would take to debunk and remove their ignorance and hate, here is how his neighbors reacted:  They collected signatures to demand he leave the area. When Mehmet began to receive death threats, the Mayor of Arnhem, Pauline Krikke, urged him to go into hiding.

And that is where he and his family are today.

Is this the best solution that democratic Netherlands can come up with? A Witness Protection Program for a man guilty of fighting anti-Semitism and standing up for the truth? Are there no consequences for the hate and threats emanating from adults? Are authorities going to question the student’s parents or teachers?

One member of the Dutch Parliament, Ahmed Marcouch says he will raise the scandal in Parliament. “It is horrible that someone has to be afraid because he has done something that we all should do – teach children not to hate.”

Against the backdrop of Anne Frank’s legacy, how today’s Netherlands deals with such deeply embedded hatred of Jews will impact not only on the future of Dutch Jewry but also on the future of Dutch society. SimonWiesenthal, the late Nazi hunter was much revered by the post-WWII generation in the Netherlands. In the 21^st century some have forgotten his oft-repeated warning: warned: “Hate often begins with Jews, but history proves, it never ends with the Jews.”

Mehmet Sahin has written these words; “Within a couple of days, I will move to another city of the Netherlands. My personal situation/story is a shame of the European civilization because it is inconceivable that such barbarism can occur in this country. After what happened in the last three weeks, I understood the eternal loneliness and pain of the Jewish population. In the rest of my life, I will tell the whole world that we all must resist this aggression…”

Dayenu – enough good guys being martyred. We don’t need another martyr. Those kids in the Netherlands and their peers in Europe need Mehmet Sahin and other heroic messengers of truth, peace and tolerance. While me may not be able to guarantee his future we can let him know today, he is not forgotten.  Push the pause button on our Matzoth marathon and take a moment to send a message of solidarity to Mehmet c/o information@wiesenthal.com and together we will let him know he is not alone.

Rabbi Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Feeding the habit by Nick Jacobs

Nick Jacobs grew up in the UK and moved to Brussels in 2008. He works on agri-food, trade and development issues within the team of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, after having spent three years as journalist for Agra Europe.

Why the EU must dare to debate ‘degrowth’

Posted by Nick Jacobs in EU on November 15, 2012

The continuing expansion of the global economy is confusing, but is it also making us poorer?

What if, instead of saying that Europe must get back to growth, European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso decided to say the opposite?

For all of its bluster, the current EU budget battle is being waged over fairly narrow stakes: whether Europe will get back to growth more quickly by spending a little more or a little less at the EU level. The stakes are narrow, firstly because what is spent at EU level is only a fraction of public spending in the 27 member states, and secondly because all of the bickering is focused on how to get growth, and not on whether it is actually necessary or desirable.

Do alternatives to growth really exist? The debate remains on the margins of the public political sphere, but in Europe and elsewhere serious academic theories and grassroots movements are building around the idea of a ‘steady state economy’ with zero growth, or even ‘sustainable degrowth’.

What is degrowth?

The degrowth movements believe that producing more year on year will not make us truly better off, and cannot go on infinitely due to ecological limits.

US ‘steady state economy’ advocate Herman Daly argues that we have already hit a threshold where growth no longer brings net gains even in purely economic terms, i.e. the costs of all the damage done by additional growth (e.g. paying for environmental clean-up and health afflictions linked to pollution) already outweighs the benefits.

Daly argues:

‘No one denies that growth used to make us richer. The question is, does growth any longer make us richer, or is it now making us poorer?’

Degrowth theorists also rubbish the idea that economic growth can realistically be decoupled from growth in resource use and carbon emissions.  According to UK economist Tim Jackson:

‘In a world of nine billion people all aspiring to western lifestyles, the carbon intensity of every dollar of output must be at least 130 times lower in 2050 than it is today’.

What’s more, this growing body of thinkers and activists does not believe that additional growth in advanced economies is socially desirable. Data used by degrowth theorists point to rising wellbeing up to modest per capita income levels of around $20,000, after which it depends much more on other factors such as love, family and friendships. So the extra things that extra growth produces, and our extra per capita income allows us to buy, do not lead to extra wellbeing.

Nudging into the mainstream?

How significant is this movement? Mainstream political parties have been reluctant to debate, let alone to defend, a concept that runs so deeply against the grain of current political discourse. The Greens, in several European countries, are a notable exception (see previous blog on green parties).

The closest that degrowth has come to the corridors of political power was the publication in 2009 of a report drawn up by Tim Jackson for the UK Sustainable Development Commission, an advisory body to the government that was subsequently abolished by David Cameron. Jackson’s ‘Prosperity Without Growth‘ report drew plaudits but has remained on the margins of the debate as politicians in the UK and elsewhere have gone firmly into recession-mode, asking only the old, familiar question: how can we get back to growth?

Meanwhile, grassroots movements have been growing in strength. Over the last two months alone the 3^rd International Conference on Degrowth, Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity has taken place in Venice, while the Global Women’s Forum in Deauville held debates centred on degrowth. Meanwhile the local initiatives that underpin the movement are flourishing. In Italy, where a strong Decrescita Felice (‘happy degrowth’) movement has sprung up, the ‘Cittaslow’ network has brought together dozens of towns and communes in the interests of slowing the pace of urban life and repurposing urban space away from commercial uses – a movement that has now spread to more than 20 countries.

Why should this be the EU’s battle?

But why should EU policy-makers pay attention to these alternative voices if they barely feature in the political debate at national levels?

Firstly, because they can. The EU executive is used to raising the uncomfortable questions and being blamed by national politicians who are themselves more constrained by the short-termism of electoral cycles. ‘Bonkers Brussels wants to ban growth’ and other such headlines would of course abound from the British tabloids if the EU were even to open a reflection on degrowth. But headlines like this are business as usual, and unfortunately are the price that must be paid for bringing a new and sensitive debate into the mainstream.

Secondly, the European Commission should embrace the degrowth debate because disillusionment with growth-based strategies is Europe-wide, and is growing. Across Southern Europe determined protest movements are building against the price of past growth (mountains of debt) and the prescribed remedy for returning to growth (austerity).

The whole bloc is facing hard questions about how to squeeze more growth out of its factories, farms and financial centres. The answers all point towards an unappetising race to the bottom: Europe must work more, work longer, and regulate and spend less for health, wellbeing and the environment.

For many, these are necessary compromises. After all, what are the alternatives? Without more growth, and with an expanding population, everyone’s piece of the pie gets smaller – meaning reduced employment and reduced income.

This, however, is not the whole story. Jackson’s ‘Prosperity Without Growth’ theory openly acknowledges the need to shift to labour-intensive, resource-light activities, where existing work is shared around and people have more time for leisure, volunteering, and tending to themselves and their relationships.

As a result we would earn less, but we would not necessarily be less wealthy – even in strictly monetary terms. Debating growth vs degrowth can help us to understand the cycles we are in: we need lots of money so we work hard; but we also need that money because we work hard.

Paying for crèches, stress and fatigue-related medical expenditure, commuting expenses, on-the-road snacking, comfort purchases, insurance payments for our comfort purchases, expensive getaways… it turns out that many of our financial ‘needs’ are contingent in some way on working (too) hard. Of course if we weren’t taxed so much we wouldn’t need to earn so much in the first place… and yet much of this tax is levied to fund the public services whose need arises from our individual over-working and over-consuming (e.g. healthcare) and our collective over-working of the environment (e.g. the clean-up of water courses from agricultural and industrial run-off).

Can these cycles be broken? Can there be another way? Could it be the European way? Surely this is too important a debate not to have?

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Is it time to vote Green?

Posted by Nick Jacobs in EU on July 15, 2012

Jill Stein, Green candidate for the US presidency, wants full employment as well as environmental action

At last month’s Rio+20 summit, world leaders chalked up what for many people was a failure too far on the environment. The lack of binding agreements on anything, and the general lack of urgency shown by governments, led Greenpeace chief Kumi Naidoo to call for “civil disobedience” in the face of a failing political process.

For those who agree with the general premise, it is perhaps still worth asking whether all political means have truly been exhausted before blockading oil refineries and boycotting the polluters. What about voting Green first?

The environmental battle often feels like it is being waged between mainstream political parties and climate activists from outside the process. For the millions who believe that mainstream parties are failing abjectly on the environment, but find the protests of climate activists too radical, surely voting Green should provide a happy medium?

Why, then, are Green parties not more visible and more widely supported? Are they too ‘hippyish’? Are they single-issue parties without an economic programme? Or are these stigmas thoroughly out of date?

Modest progress

The first thing to bear in mind is that Green parties have in fact been making modest headway in recent years.  The Greens-European Free Alliance took a record 55 seats in the 2009 European Parliament elections, making them the fifth-largest party. The German Greens, having been junior partner in red-green government coalitions from 1998-2005, won a historic victory in the Baden- Württemberg 2011 regional elections and now have their first minister-president.

Within the last two years the UK Greens have had their first MP elected to Parliament – party leader Caroline Lucas – and in Brighton took control of a local council for the first time. Even the US Green party had its own diminutive breakthrough last month, raising enough campaign money to qualify for ‘matching funds’ from federal government for the first time.

‘Single-issue’ parties?

So who are these Green parties, and what do they believe in?

A criticism often levelled at them is that they do not have a serious policy programme beyond advocating environmental conservationism and cuts in GHG emissions. Quizzed in a recent BBC interview about whether the UK Greens were still a “single-issue party”, Lucas replied that the problem was that the media had only ever paid attention to them on that single issue.

A scan of speeches and manifestos by Green parties in various countries suggests that Lucas is right. In modern Green manifestos the holy grail seems to be not full decarbonisation but full employment. The outsourcing of jobs, the privatisation of healthcare and income inequality are vilified just as forcefully as polluting power plants and unambitious GHG targets. The five policy areas highlighted on the UK Green Party’s website are in fact all socio-economic: Banking, Housing, Jobs, Health and Pensions.

Green New Deal in the US?

Meanwhile, the centrepiece of the ‘Green New Deal’ proposed by US Green candidate Jill Stein is a programme to pick up slack in the private sector by taking up to 16 million unemployed workers into “community-based direct employment”. The sectors to which state-subsidised labour would primarily be made available – organic agriculture, public transportation, renewable energy – are indeed those traditionally earmarked as ‘green’, but the scheme would also divert labour to public education, health care, child care and other services with no visible ecological dimension.

This goes to show that the raison d’etre of the scheme is strongly socio-economic. It is a public works programme with a green tinge, rather than the other way around. Even when Stein moves onto the more familiar ground of raising tax on “the rich agribusiness corporations and the oil, mining, nuclear, coal and timber giants”, the primary justification given is to “keep the wealth created by local labour circulating in the community rather than being drained off to enrich absentee investors”. Again it is the distaste for globalisation, and the vocabulary of the financial crisis, that takes centre stage. The environmental content is still there, but is slotted into a narrative which is first and foremost about people’s jobs, livelihoods and communities.

France’s Europe-Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) continues to define itself primarily in its opposition to nuclear power and its advocacy of a domestic energy transition, but like in the US, economic planning ideas are nonetheless present and specific. The EELV eyes full employment and identifies specific tax loopholes it would close in order to finance the creation of thousands of ‘green jobs’ – although in this case the definition would not necessarily stretch to Stein’s social infrastructure jobs.

United and coherent?

While the emphasis and the vocabulary differs, Green parties from various countries appear to gravitate towards the same core policy programme. And far from being fixated on climate change, this programme in fact amounts to a wide-reaching, comprehensive – and fairly coherent – vision for the economy and society.

By and large it involves: shifting financial and human resources away from the military, fossil fuels, nuclear power and polluting industries, and towards renewable energy and labour-intensive, community-focused services; cracking down on tax havens and shifting to more progressive taxation; channelling finance through development banks rather than speculative investors; taking a zero tolerance approach to corporate lobbying and backhanders; supporting unions, cooperatives and companies that choose not to outsource; instituting a living wage (defined by the UK Greens as 60% of average earnings) in place of a minimum wage; providing free or highly subsidised university education; reclaiming public ownership of utilities and transport. All of this sits alongside the policy with which Greens are traditionally associated: going much further and faster than mainstream parties in cutting GHG emissions.

Unrealistic promises – according to who?

So there is a programme, but how realistic is it? The UK Greens claim that their huge public spending promises would be paid for by axing Trident (the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent) and thus saving £78 billion over thirty years. Stein’s Green New Deal would meanwhile be part-financed by closing America’s foreign military bases.

But, their critics would argue, plans of this type are essentially unrealistic. Here the battleground is political discourse. What is ‘realistic’ and ‘unrealistic’ surely depends on global political realities, which are themselves shifting. Is it more unrealistic and unthinkable to envisage withdrawal of the UK’s nuclear capacity, or to envisage continued inaction in the face of catastrophic global warming, resource depletion and environmental degradation, not to mention growing income disparities and structural unemployment?

Playing both sides

The response of mainstream parties is to navigate disingenuously between the two ‘unthinkables’. Since the onset of the financial crisis, many mainstream politicians have touted their own ‘green new deals’ and have railed against the excesses of dirty industries and dirty financiers, promising to use stimulus packages as an opportunity to stimulate green investment, and to shift resources towards the wholesome, hard-working, sustainable parts of the economy.

Yet despite the rhetoric, the vast majority of public money has been ploughed back into banks with few or no strings attached – and therefore the impetus has been handed back to markets to decide where to allocate these resources. Schemes such as ‘cash for clunkers’ in the US are about as ambitious as state interventionism has got, but even here the goal was basically to stimulate automobile sales, rather than to durably shift resources towards greener production methods.

Politicians have talked about systemic problems, hinting at the need to fundamentally change the way that capital is allocated. But at best what they have provided are piecemeal, sectorial actions which are by definition unfit for the challenge. At worst they have recapitalised and left basically unchanged a market system which has proved itself unable to allocate capital to sustainable mortgage arrangements, let alone to environmentally sustainable outcomes.

This is why, even if people do not vote for the Greens, it is crucial to the political process that their voice be heard. They have been honest about the fact that a transition to a sustainable economy has to be holistic and far-reaching, and has to involve big trade-offs (e.g. with military spending).

Does this mean it is time to vote Green? It is certainly time to redefine what is ‘unrealistic’, and to make all political parties emulate the honesty of the Greens by acknowledging the true trade-offs, and pinning their true colours to the mast. If they fail to do so, then voting Green may well be the least unrealistic option.

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The slow death of fast food

Posted by Nick Jacobs in EU on May 16, 2012

How sincere is the McCafé revolution?

Another year, another dire health warning about fast food.

This time the sector is under fire from the influential American Institute of Medicine. The dangerous obesity epidemic engulfing America – and many other countries – cannot be put down to personal choice alone, the report states. Washington is advised to consider a tax on sugary drinks, and to ensure that healthy options – and not merely fast food – are available at shopping malls and sports facilities.

In short, it is the obesogenic environment that must change – and nothing characterises this environment more than fast food outlets and the cheap and abundant calories they offer.

How has fast food survived so long, and what future does it have, when McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC are the public face of a public health crisis? Judging by the figures, the fast food industry is in much ruder health than its customers. Fast food sales remained steady in the US through the worst of the economic crisis, and actually increased in Britain, France and Japan, while whole swathes of the restaurant and retail sectors fell by the wayside.

But while individuals can still afford a Big Mac, the public purse can no longer afford to pay for the fallout. The costs of fighting diet-related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease are becoming untenable: obesity in the US – now afflicting 34% of people – is responsible for an additional $190 billion (€241 billion) per year in healthcare costs, according to Reuters. In this climate, all avenues for tackling overeating will be explored, and fast food will be subject to more scrutiny than ever.

However, recent evolutions in the sector demonstrate just how resilient and adaptable it has proved itself to be. For many years now, a combination of public opinion and regulatory pressure have forced the sector into an ongoing process of rebranding and reinvention. Offering salads and smoothies alongside burgers and coke is no longer an eccentric marketing ploy – it is effectively a prerequisite for chains that wish to stay in business. Burger King fell behind its competitors during the recession, but is bouncing back this year largely on the basis of revamping its menus to include new healthy options. There is, presumably, no healthy way to produce fried chicken – but KFC has nonetheless signposted its own commitment to de-stodgifying its output by bringing in the Kentucky Grilled Chicken range. McDonald’s, through its McCafé experiment, has gone furthest and fastest in its bid to associate itself with Starbucks-style modern consumerism: quick but healthy, snack and beverage-driven, young professional.

From nutritional greenwashing to real change

Often these healthy branding offensives are the nutritional equivalent of ‘green-washing’. McDonald’s new UK kids’ beverage, Fruitizz, contains twelve spoonfuls of sugar – and yet promotional campaigns highlight how it delivers one of the requisite ‘five a day’. Subway, which now holds more franchises worldwide than McDonald’s, goes to lengths to convince customers that it is a fresh sandwich company rather than a fast food outlet. Yet stacks of processed meat, melted cheese, abundant sauce, and the possibility for the sandwich to be 12 inches (30 centimetres!) long, make its offerings nutritionally akin to fast food.

Even when the healthy options are genuinely healthy, expanding and adapting the menu in the way McDonald’s and Burger King have done is a relatively painless rebranding process: the core items remain as fatty, salty, sugary – and cheap – as ever, and continue to drive business.

Only rarely have the ingredients and preparation processes of these core items come under genuine scrutiny – and it is only then that the real change starts to happen.

Following a Jamie Oliver-led campaign, McDonald’s, Burger King and Taco Bell recently declared that they would no longer use ‘pink slime’ – beef containing ammonium hydroxide-treated ground connective tissue – to fill out their burgers. Following a similar outcry in the early 2000s, the leading fast food chains moved to scale back or eradicate trans fats in their cooking oils. Meanwhile the Happy Meal, and similar offerings aimed squarely at children, have been revamped to reduce calories, add fruit and vegetable snacks, and generally pre-empt regulation to this effect – none of which would have occurred had the threat of regulation not been real.

Evolution or revolution?

None of this is enough to stem the negative health outcomes of what remains a food offering based around fried, processed items. But the gradual eradication of the most harmful ingredients and practices does go to show that slowly, surely, with the right mixture of political carrot and stick, and sustained consumer scrutiny, fast food can move towards detoxifying its brand – and the arteries of its customers.

Since the inception of McDonald’s in 1940, fast food restaurants have undoubtedly played a role in democratising the experience of dining out. But healthier options are now available in the same price bracket. A shish kebab – freshly grilled chicken or lamb in pitta bread with ample fresh veg – will generally have a better nutritional profile than the pre-made, pre-frozen burgers that pass through the industrial-scale supply chains of major fast food retailers.

Will consumers eventually abandon the Big Mac in favour of healthier convenience food? Or will McDonald’s and co ditch the Big Mac altogether in favour of wraps, salads, smoothies and coffee? What, then, will be their unique selling point?

Fast food will not reform itself out of existence, whatever the pressures brought to bear on it. But more likely is that it continues along its current path towards a slow death – in the form of gradually eradicating the corner-cutting, obesity-fuelling practices that define fast food as we know it.

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Test-tube burgers and skyscraper farms

An urban greenhouse design that could soon be taking hold

Humankind has degraded its environment and stretched the planet’s ecological limits beyond the point of no return. The food supply is threatened, and the world’s top scientists embark on a race against time to develop novel means of producing food.

This may sound like a science fiction plotline, but it is effectively the thinking behind the massive real life research efforts now being undertaken to secure the food supply of the future. The 2007-2008 and 2010-2011 food price spikes have intensified existing efforts to rethink food production, in the face of rapidly escalating demographic and environmental challenges.

Here are four of the candidates – two well-established, and two recent arrivals on the scene – to lead the technological revolution and become the face of futuristic food.

1. Genetic modification (GMOs) and the ‘climate gene’

Genetic modification involves pre-programming a plant to respond to its environment in targeted ways, by inserting external genes into a plant’s genome. Twenty years in, food safety concerns have been largely assuaged, but the industry has failed to shrug off concerns that wide-scale GMO cultivation leads to ultra-resistant pests, unpredictable impacts from gene leakage, and patent battles over what is, ultimately, a proprietary technology.

There is likely to be an added premium on developing drought-tolerant and flood-tolerant crop types over the coming years. GMO uptake to date has been mostly limited to maize, soybean and cotton cultivation in the Americas, but the quest to ‘climate-proof’ crops will target other staples such as wheat and rice, in other parts of the world.  Drought-resistant qualities are not conferred by a single gene but by several, meaning that whole sequences will need to be patented. Expect controversies on a greater scale.

2. Cloning

Cloning, like GMOs, is a technological heavyweight for which the scientific processes – if not public acceptance – are already well advanced. This is a form of animal breeding where nothing is left to chance. The goal is to yield an animal with identical qualities (e.g. lactation, disease-resistance) to the source animal, and subsequently to use the clone as a breeder.

On the back of welfare concerns for the cloned animal, the EU is primed to place a moratorium on the process. However, Brussels is, by its own admission, powerless to prevent imports of meat/dairy derived from the offspring of clones reaching consumers. Climate change, and the need to breed resilience into our food systems, will once again provide an impetus for wide uptake.

3. Test-tube meat

Dutch scientists unveiled the first test-tube meat tissue to the world last month, raising the possibility that the future of meat production lies in the lab. Using stem cells from adult cattle, the scientists developed strips of beef muscle in a petri dish, and will soon produce an entire burger, to be served up to a celebrity by gourmet chef Heston Blumenthal.

Conventional livestock rearing involves extensive land, GHG emissions and eventual slaughter, not to mention the huge inputs, in the shape of land, water, fertiliser and pesticide, required to produce animal feed. Test-tube meat could offer the diner a taste of flesh, without the fallout. Should the technology become financially viable on a mass scale, and should the taste be to consumer liking, the approach could start to gain serious momentum.

4. Skyscraper farms

Vertical farming is also on the cusp of moving from science fiction to practical application. The attraction of layered ‘skyscraper farms’ – normally envisaged as multi-storey greenhouses – is that every drop of water and nutrient would be recycled within a closed system, while light and temperature would be optimised for plant development. By growing upwards, rather than outwards, we would be squaring the circle and producing more food without consuming more resources. Until recently, the concept had existed only in the imagination of architects. But now a 17-storey conical greenhouse is set to enter the construction phase in the Swedish town of Linköping. Drawing on energy from local power plants, the structure will carry rotating pots of fruit and veg slowly around a central helix, and will sell harvested produce direct to local urban populations. This could be the first of many – or a costly experiment that starts and ends in Linköping.

The opportunity cost

All of these solutions are promising when held up against the initial premise: that conventional food production techniques, working within nature’s self-sustaining cycles, are a spent force. But the danger of promoting these technologies is that they reinforce this very message. It is as if we have over-stepped nature’s self-sustaining capacities, and instead of looking for ways to restore the balance, we are trying to circumvent nature altogether.

The real danger is therefore the opportunity cost. The first test-tube burger will have set scientists back €250,000 euros, while the cost of the biggest vertical greenhouse model (25 storeys) is estimated at $280-$555 million. The cumulative costs of twenty years of public and private GMO research are astronomical, while cloning-related innovation could become an equally bottomless pit.

What if this money were ploughed into simple solutions with a proven track record of restoring and maintaining the ecological balance and biodiversity that must underpin all productive farming in the long term? What if the real funding priority were not food innovation, but the dissemination of existing, highly effective techniques? What if the innovation that did occur was focused on advanced breeding techniques (e.g. marker assisted selection and bio-fortification of crops) that raise less ethical issues, and can be kept free of patents? What if we were to improve agricultural infrastructure in Africa, where more than 30% of crops are spoiled in post-harvest storage and transportation? And what if consumers stopped wasting nearly half of their food, and consumed a bit less meat?

Organic-style solutions cannot feed a world of 9 billion people, critics say. And they are right – not while demand is so wastefully high, and supply so infrastructurally crippled. And not while the custodians of degraded or abandoned farmland are deprived of the know-how to keep this land productive. If climate change is allowed to force farming into ever-more-restricted fertile bands, then we will indeed have to rely on miracle, yield-raising technologies. But sooner or later we’ll be confronted, once again, with the resource pressures that intensive farming entails – in all of its incarnations.

Innovation is crucial. But it must come in addition to, not instead of, much-needed investments in simple, low-tech, non-proprietary solutions which can be used freely and effectively by farmers across the world. With food, as with climate change, there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution, and the sci-fi allure of new innovations should not be an excuse for deferring the key decisions about how to live within our limits.

MEPs 9the Members of the European Parliament) elected Martin Schulz to be the new European Parliament president with 387 votes in favour out of 670 cast. The 56-year old German MEP will lead the European parliament for two and half years, until the beginning of the next legislature in July 2014. This happened January 17, 2012 and his time in office ends July 2014.

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Martin Schulz (S&D, Germany) replaces the outgoing President Jerzy Buzek (EPP, Poland).

In a brief address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg immediately after the vote, Mr Schulz said: “We must grasp the fact that people in Europe have little time for institutional debates because they are too busy worrying about their future, their jobs, their pensions (…). This Chamber is the place where the interests of the people are defended”.

President Schulz warned that “for the first time since it was founded, the failure of the European Union is a realistic possibility” adding that, our interests can no longer be separated from those of our neighbours; on a shared understanding that the EU is not a zero-sum game, in which one person must lose so that another can win. The reverse is true: either we all lose – or we all win. The fundamental basis for this is the Community method. It is not a technocratic concept, but the principle at the heart of everything the European Union stands for!”.

Over the past two years, summits of the Heads of State and Government meant “the representatives of the peoples of Europe have essentially been reduced to the role of rubberstamping agreements reached between governments in backrooms in Brussels: the European Parliament will not stand idly by and watch this process continue”, Mr Schulz said, adding that “the intergovernmental agreement on a new fiscal union will be the first test”.

“Whoever breaches the values enshrined in our Charter of Fundamental Rights must reckon with us as adversaries. That is our duty as Members of the European Parliament”. He also announced the presence of Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban tomorrow in plenary to discuss his country’s controversial constitutional provisions.

A full version of the President’s address will be available via the link next to this article.

Full result of the vote for the President of the European Parliament

Under Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, to be elected President, a candidate must win an absolute majority of the valid votes cast, i.e. 50 per cent plus one.
Blank or spoiled ballots do not count in calculating the majority required.

The result of the first ballot was as follows:

Votes cast: 699

Blank or invalid votes: 29

Valid votes cast: 670

Absolute majority of votes cast required to be elected: 336

Votes for the candidates:

Martin Schulz (S&D, DE) 387: Mr Schulz duly elected President of the European Parliament

Nirj Deva (ECR, UK): 142

Diana Wallis (ALDE, UK): 141

Right after the speech by the newly-elected President Schulz, political groups’ leaders took the floor to comment on the outcome. Most groups expressed the hope that his presidency would reinforce the Union and Parliament’s role, while a few others stressed disagreements with his first speech as President.

On Behalf of EPP, chair Joseph Daul (FR), after congratulating Mr Schulz on his election said “You must, in our view, have three priorities: defending the Community method, advocating the Community method and safeguarding the Community method”, stressing that “nothing is more important than showing our citizens that the Euro is a strong and sustainable currency, as long as we do what we should have done at its creation, i.e. provide political and economic governance”.

S&D Vice-President Maria Badia i Cutchet (ES), said “There is a great need for the new President to strengthen the role of the Parliament.  In the light of the latest discussions around a new inter-governmental treaty, this is of ever greater importance.  We need to ensure that any future action is based on the principle of democratic participation and thus the Community method “.

Guy Verhofstadt (BE), leader of the ALDE group, said “I want a President who fights in favour of the EU, (…) who explains to Member States the truth, that only through a political economic and fiscal union we can save the Union” with a Parliament able “to show the way out of the crisis and that Europe is the solution”.

Rebecca Harms (Greens/EFA, DE), said with regard to the next challenges facing Parliament that “A new approach is needed to press on to the goals set”. She suggested that Mr Schulz should “not give in to diplomacy but take that rough along with you when discussing with Barroso, Van Rompuy, Merkel and Sarkozy”.

Martin Callanan (UK), on behalf of the ECR group, told Mr Schulz that although “We did not agree with many things you said this morning (…), we will ensure fair cooperation with you”, stressing that his first duty will be to represent the Parliament at the next European Summit.

Kartika Tamara Liotard (NL), Vice-Chair of the GUE/NGL group, told Mr Schulz “It is a shame you’re not a woman”. She added that “Some people elected you because they know you are a tough fighter and I believe Parliament has a big role to play in crisis”, urging him to “make sure there is more transparency in these negotiations” on the fiscal compact.

Nigel Farage (UK, EFD), wondered “What kind of President Schulz are we going to get? A calm speaker (…) or the Schulz we got to know: angry, intolerant of everybody with a different point of view, anti-British and who does not like the free market?” He concluded “We want a Europe of trade (…), not a superpower”.

The votes to choose Vice-Presidents and Quaestors will take place on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.

Columbia FDI Perspectives

Perspectives on topical foreign direct investment issues by – the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment

No. 76   August 13, 2012

Editor-in-Chief: Karl P. Sauvant (Karl.Sauvant@law.columbia.edu)

Managing Editor: Jennifer Reimer (jreimer01@gmail.com)

A good business reason to support mandatory transparency in extractive industries

by Perrine Toledano and Julien Topal

Perrine Toledano (perrinetoledano@gmail.com) is the Lead Economics and Policy Researcher at the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (VCC);

Julien Topal (Julien.Topal@eui.eu) is a PhD-researcher at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, and a Research Associate at the VCC.

The authors wish to thank Laurent Coche, Matthew Genasci, Isabel Munilla, and Jessica van Onselen for their helpful peer reviews.

The views expressed by the authors of this Perspective do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Columbia University or its partners and supporters. Columbia FDI Perspectives (ISSN 2158-3579) is a peer-reviewed series.

The material in this Perspective is reprinted by permission of the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment. and is accompanied by the following acknowledgment: “Perrine Toledano and Julien Topal, “A good business reason to support mandatory transparency in extractive industries?”  -  Columbia FDI Perspectives, No. 76 August 13, 2012.  (www.vcc.columbia.edu).

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Transparency demands in extractive industries are tied to the complex paradoxical correlation between significant resource endowment and poverty in many resource-dependent countries. Citizens of these countries and international investors alike only have limited means to scrutinize money-flows between governments and companies, disrupting accountability mechanisms.

Improving accountability and access to information is a step toward ending the resource curse. Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street and Consumer Protection Act, known as the Cardin-Lugar Transparency Amendment, requires extractive companies listed at US-securities exchanges to disclose all payments made to host country governments on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis. Amid corporate opposition, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has only now, more than one year late and after Oxfam America started court proceedings and over 65 Congress members put pressure on the SEC, set a date to vote on the rules. [1] However, despite opposition, there is a business case to be made in support of such mandatory transparency demands.

The debate on the Transparency Amendment has, very broadly, two camps: the opponents — most expressively represented by the American Petroleum Institute — and the proponents, including civil society with Publish What You Pay (PWYP) as the main supporter, groups of investors and certain congressional members. While supporting the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), the corporate lobby opposes the SEC rules for allegedly causing high implementation costs, opposing legal demands and a comparative disadvantage for US-listed companies. The second camp has challenged these claims and has argued in favor of the amendment as a promising answer to the limitations of the voluntary EITI.

Companies maintain that implementation costs can exceed US$ 50 million since they will have to re-devise their accounting instruments to disclose project-based and non-material information. Civil society and even The Economist have contested the veracity of this claim, noting that much information is already collected and calculating that US$ 50 million is little more than 0.1% of ExxonMobil’s last year’s revenue.[2] The claims that demands of the Transparency Amendment contradict host country confidentiality laws are also ill placed. [3] Civil society rebutted this claim by demonstrating that most countries allow for exceptions based on stock exchanges’ disclosure demands.[4]

There is no denying that a certain short-term competitive disadvantage is created for impacted companies — although the European Council’s directive for mandatory payment disclosure limits the scope of not-covered competition. Companies contend they will lose bids either because host countries prefer non-disclosing companies or because disclosed information is commercially sensitive. Here is the reality-check: Angola just awarded deep water oil blocks to Statoil, Eni, Total, and BP, which are all EITI-supporters and covered by the Amendment, which incidentally only deals with non-commercially-sensitive fiscal information widely shared by the industry. Lastly, the competitive disadvantage argument is unduly cynical. Part of the complaint has to do with the limitations on bypassing the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act by “creatively” bribing through either “facilitators” or local partnerships. Bribery is illegal both in the US and Europe; “[k]eeping it hard to expose would not make it more legal.”[5]

Companies have a choice to play either destructive or constructive roles in the quest for transparency.

The choice consists of either accepting narrow capitalism — which prescribes short-term profitability and concomitant opposition to regulatory limitations on corporate operations — or believing in a forward-looking and long-term shared value approach to business. Through a shared value lens, companies seek out benefits for both shareholders and the communities in which they operate since the companies understand that they require a social license to operate to attain long-term success. Increasingly, investors seek out companies based on such long-term credentials.

Various studies by the Vale Columbia Center found that transparency — measured by companies’ country-by-country reporting — holds a promise for better corporate performance. One such study showed a clear correlation between transparency and better financial results along different measures.[6] Interestingly, those transparent companies are also associated with fewer cases of human rights abuse.

Corporate leaders should change tactics and transform a short-term comparative disadvantage into the comparative advantage of being first-movers. This means to follow in the footstep of BP’s former CEO[7] and support recent attempts by the US President to encourage the development of a global transparency regime, which will be achieved either by pushing other stock exchanges — starting with Europe — to follow suit or by improving on the disclosure demands of the current host country-led EITI. For their own sakes, companies should acknowledge that the transparency moment is now and the stakes are high.

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[1] The vote is scheduled for August 22, 2012. Securities and Exchange Commission, available at: www.sec.gov/news/openmeetings/2012/ssamtg082212.htm.

[2] “Extracting oil, burying data,” The Economist, February 25, 2012.

[3]Angola, Cameroon, China, and Qatar have such laws according to API and Shell. API’s letter, January 28, 2011: available at:www.sec.gov/comments/s7-42-10/s74210-10.pdf. PWYP US (www.sec.gov/comments/s7-42-10/s74210-29.pdf andwww.sec.gov/comments/s7-42-10/s74210-118.pdf) and the Cameroonian organization RELUFA (www.sec.gov/comments/s7-42-10/s74210-96.pdf) deny these claims.

[4] VCC’s memo to the SEC, available at: www.sec.gov/comments/s7-42-10/s74210-52.pdf.

[5] “Transparency rules,” Financial Times editorial, February 26, 2012.

[6] The results have been communicated to the SEC: www.sec.gov/comments/s7-42-10/s74210-115.pdf; VCC memos are available at www.vcc.columbia.edu/content/vcc-memos.

[7] John Browne, “Europe must enforce oil sector transparency,” Financial Times, April 24, 2012.

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For further information, including information regarding submission to the Perspectives, please contact: Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, Jennifer Reimer, jreimer01@gmail.com or jreimer@lyhplaw.com.

The Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (VCC – www.vcc.columbia.edu), led by Lisa Sachs, is a joint center of Columbia Law School and The Earth Institute at Columbia University. It seeks to be a leader on issues related to foreign direct investment (FDI) in the global economy. VCC focuses on the analysis and teaching of the implications of FDI for public policy and international investment law.

Most recent Columbia FDI Perspectives

• No. 75, Alex Berger et al., “Attracting FDI through BITs and RTAs: Does treaty content matter?,” Columbia FDI Perspectives, July 30, 2012.
• No. 74, M Sornarajah, “Starting anew in international investment law,” July 16, 2012.
• No. 73, Lorenzo Cotula, “Law at two speeds: Legal frameworks regulating foreign investment in the global South,” June 29, 2012.
• No. 72, Torfinn Harding and Beata Javorcik, “Roll out the red carpet and they will come: Investment promotion and FDI inflows,” June 18, 2012.
• No. 71, Thomas Jost, “Much ado about nothing? State-controlled entities and the change in German investment law,” June 4, 2012.
• No. 70, Terutomo Ozawa, “FDI, catch-up growth stages and stage-focused strategies,” May 28, 2012.
• No. 69, Karl P. Sauvant, “The times they are a-changin’ — again — in the relationships between governments and multinational enterprises: From control, to liberalization to rebalancing,” May 21, 2012.
• No. 68, Sophie Meunier et al., “Economic patriotism: Dealing with Chinese direct investment in the United States,” May 14, 2012.
• No. 67, Paul Antony Barbour et al., “The Arab Spring: How soon will foreign investors return?,” May 7, 2012.
• No. 66, Kalman Kalotay, “Does it matter who invests in your country?,” April 30, 2012.

Karl P. Sauvant, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow
Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment
Columbia Law School – Earth Institute
Columbia University
435 West 116th Street, Rm. JGH 638
New York, NY 10027
Ph: (212) 854-0689
Fax: (212) 854-7946

Please visit our website - www.vcc.columbia.edu

Yesterday, Sunday, August 12, 2012, the 5th Prix Jardin d’Europe has been awarded within the frame of [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series at ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival 2012. The prize goes in equal shares to -

Eeva Muilu & Milja Sarkola (FI) for the production „In Human Disguise“
EUR 5.000,- and an artistic residency

Florentina Holzinger (NL/AT) for the production „Silk“
EUR 5.000,- and an artistic residency

The sculpture „Papilotte“ designed by fine artist Heiri Häfliger (recommended by Atelier Franz West) goes to:
Naoko Tanaka (DE/JP) for the production „Die Scheinwerferin“

The jury consisting of three dance experts Bettina Kogler (imagetanz / Austria), Koen Kwanten (APAP / Belgium) and Gergely Tallo (Workshop Foundation / Hungary) explained its decision to give the price not to the performance they appreciated the most, but to use the Prix Jardin d’Europe to support, stimulate and invest in the future, to give it to the artists they consider to have the biggest potential, deserves the most to be supported and stimulated to continue, and for whom the impact of the prize might be the biggest.

The jury also decided to give the price not to one person, but to give several prices, consisting not only of a financial support, but also of residencies in order to give them new possibilities, experiences and environments for the continuation of their artistic work.

Their decision to hand out the sculpture designed by Heiri Häfliger to Naoko Tanaka the jury members explained in their speech: ”Then, we also decided to give the sculpture of Heiri Häfliger nominated by Atelier Franz West to still someone else, as a symbolic appreciation and stimulus to continue finding his/her way. In this case we want stimulate an artist coming from a different artistic field, crossing borders, looking for a new territory!”

This year’s [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series was programmed by various players. Proposals by ImPulsTanz flew into the programme as well as proposals of Jardin d’Europe network partners and proposals by artists performing in the Choreographic Platform Austria CPA* 2012, which took place at ImPulsTanz 2012. Thus, renowned Austrian artist Chris Haring designated Finnish artists Eeva Muilu and Milja Sarkola, the choice ofNaoko Tanaka’s work was made by French artist Anne Juren living in Austria. Austrian awardee Florentina Holzinger performed within the frame of CPA* 2012 at [8:tension] and was chosen at the recommendation of ImPulsTanz curatorship.

In 2008, the Prix Jardin d’Europe was awarded for the first time, then also within the frame of ImPulsTanz newcomer series [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series. After being guest at other European festivals in Brussels (2009), Istanbul (2010) and last time in Bucharest (2011), it now returned to Vienna.

Olympia 2012: Wo Ex-Terroristen über Gedenken an Terror-Opfer bestimmen.

CHRISTIAN ORTNER (Die Presse, Vienna, Austria) – Friday, August 10, 2012 – the original German language article.

Dass der Toten der Münchener Olympiade 1972 nicht bei der Eröffnung von London 2012 gedacht wurde, ist der opportunistischen Feigheit des Internationalen Olympischen Komitees zu danken.

Wenn am Sonntag die Olympischen Spiele in London zu Ende gehen, dann ist es fast genau 40 Jahre her, dass in München (September 1972) arabische Terroristen ein Blutbad unter israelischen Sportlern anrichteten, bei dem 17 Menschen zu Tode kam.

Das zeitliche Zusammentreffen der Spiele und des runden Jahrestages war freilich für das „Internationale Olympische Komitee“ (IOK) und dessen Präsidenten, Jaques Rogge, noch lange kein Grund, die Erfordernisse menschlichen Anstandes und Taktgefühls einzuhalten und der Toten von München mittels einer kurzen Trauerminute im Rahmen der Eröffnungszeremonie zu gedenken; stattdessen wurde das Gedenken in eine eigene – durchaus gelungene – Veranstaltung outgesourct wie ein Callcenter nach Indien. Dass der Deutsche Bundestag, das Kanadische Parlament und die Knesset, Präsident Obama und der belgische Sportminister um eine symbolische Geste gebeten hatten, ließ den Belgier Rogge unbeeindruckt.

Noch unguter als diese posthume Missachtung der Opfer des Anschlages von München ist freilich der tiefere Grund dieser Fehlentscheidung. Denn als ruchbar geworden war, dass deutsche und israelische Parlamentarier eine derartige Schweigeminute monieren würden, drohten mehrere arabische Staaten und das „Palästinensische Olympische Komitee“ (ja, so was gibt es tatsächlich) mit einem Boykott der Spiele von London. Nicht sehr glaubwürdig – den Palästinensern war extrem wichtig, ihre Fahne in London wehen zu sehen – aber der Belgier knickte wie gewünscht ein und untersagte das Gedenken für die Toten im Rahmen der Eröffnung.

Es ist dies eine Form des mutlos-opportunistischen vorbeugenden Nachgebens, die seit dem Streit um die Mohammed-Karikaturen einer dänischen Tageszeitung im Westen immer wieder zu beobachten ist: im Zweifelsfall die eigenen zentralen Werte zur Disposition zu stellen, um Ärger mit übellaunigen und leicht erregbaren Gegnern dieser Werte zu vermeiden. Genau das machte auch der Präsident des Internationalen Olympischen Komitees: Um Ärger mit der arabischen Welt, der noch dazu höchstwahrscheinlich eh ausgeblieben wäre, ja nicht zu riskieren, opferte Rogge die angemessenere Form des Totengedenkens. Das ist nicht gerade sehr anständig.

Leider wissen wir nicht, ob Rogge wenigstens ein wenig peinlich war, dass Jibril Rajoub, Chef des Palästinensischen Olympischen Komitees, diese Unanständigkeit in einem persönlichen Brief an ihn überschwänglich gelobt hat. Sport, schrieb der Palästinenser da, sei „…eine Brücke der Liebe und dazu da, Frieden zwischen den Nationen“ zu befördern.

Mit Brücken der Liebe und Frieden zwischen den Nationen dürfte sich Rogges neuer Bewunderer Rajoub ganz gut auskennen: israelischen Medienberichten zufolge ging der palästinensische Olympia-Funktionär in seiner Jugend dem in diesem Milieu beliebten Beruf des Terroristen nach. Offenbar nicht ganz erfolglos, denn dafür verknackten ihn die Israelis zu insgesamt 20 Jahren Knast.

Dass Herr Rajoub angesichts dieser Biografie kein überbordendes Interesse hatte, dass im Rahmen einer Schweigeminute auch nur indirekt an die Schweinereien seiner (früheren?) Gesinnungsgenossen erinnert wird, ist nachvollziehbar. Dass jedoch der Präsident des IOC dem nachgegeben hat, spricht nicht für ihn.

Reaktionen senden Sie bitte direkt an: debatte@diepresse.com

Christian Ortner ist Kolumnist und Autor in Wien.
Er leitet „ortneronline. Das Zentralorgan des Neoliberalismus“.

(“Die Presse”, Print-Ausgabe, 10.08.2012)

IPI Press Freedom Manager Barbara Trionfi echoed that assessment. Turkey has rightfully received widespread international criticism over the course of the past year as a result of a disturbing deterioration of media freedom. With nearly 100 journalists currently in prison – apparently the most in any country on Earth – on what look to be spurious terrorism charges, the country needs to take strong steps to demonstrate its commitment to freedom of the press and to democratic principles. These proposals, if adopted, would do exactly the opposite.

Turkey?s Constitutional Reconciliation Commission is working on a new Constitution to replace one adopted by a military government in 1982 – following a coup two years earlier.

IPI/SEEMO Press Release: IPI Urges Turkey to Reject Proposed Changes to Constitutional Media Freedom Protections.

VIENNA, 28 July, 2012 –  The International Press Institute (IPI) and its affiliate, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), today urged a commission responsible for writing a new Constitution for Turkey to reject proposed amendments that would severely weaken current language protecting media freedom.’Bianet reported that Turkey’s Constitutional Reconciliation Commission is set to vote Wednesday on a proposal advanced by the Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led government that would, among other effects, carve out numerous exceptions to an existing article on – “The Freedom of Press and Publication.”

The news website, citing an article from the daily newspaper Milliyet, said the proposed changes would include a provision that “The freedom of press can be restricted to protect national security, public order, public morals, others? rights, private and family life; to avert crimes; to ensure the independence and impartiality of the judiciary; to prevent warmongering and the propogation [sic] of every sort of discrimination, hostility or rancor and hatred.”

IPI’s Turkish National Committee, Basn Enstitüsü Dernei, sharply criticised the proposal, saying the change would represent a step backward for press freedom in the country. “If the new Constitution is going to be issued with this anti-democratic mentality which may create worse conditions than the present Constitution, it is better that [the new Constitution] is not issued, the group saidin a statement posted on its website.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon emphasized that the stakes at this final negotiation before Rio+20 are very high and issues can no longer remain unresolved in the text. He said the Rio+20 outcome should, inter alia, identify: a process to define sustainable development goals (SDGs); a new institutional framework; and mechanisms that stimulate economies to create decent jobs, provide social protection, and support a healthy environment. He called on negotiators to work with the CST and streamline it further in order to make Rio+20 a resounding success.

UNCSD PrepCom Co-Chair John Ashe suggested that delegates look at the entirety of the 80 page Co-Chairs’ suggested text (CST) that was distributed on 22 May 2012, and ask themselves if this is the document that will send the desired message regarding sustainable development for the next 20 years or more. He called this a “make or break” week, and explained that Working Group I will consider sections V (framework for action) and VI (means of implementation), chaired by Ashe; and Working Group II will consider sections I (common vision), II (renewing political commitment), III (green economy) and IV (institutional framework for sustainable development), chaired by PrepCom Co-Chair Kim Sook.

So – the text has now 80 pages and has to be witled down, but every person who knows the UN, knows that those in the room will try to bring back material that was taken out – so the text will grow again.  WE WISH GOOD LUCK TO THE CHAIRS.

Very interesting – at the opening of WG I – at the stage of organizing the work – the G-77/CHINA recalled its proposal to organize the subsections according to the order used in Agenda 21. The EU, CANADA, JAPAN, the REPUBLIC OF KOREA and NORWAY supported the CST. For once we go with the G-77 those that support the co-Chairs remember that the charge of the RIO+20 meeting is to review what was and was not achieved in these 20 years? Does it not make sense to use AGENDA 21 as guide-line and reference?

Another very interesting start was: “the US, opposed by the HOLY SEE, suggested focus on expanding development opportunities of all, rather than only developing countries.” This regarding sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth. The US proposed deleting reference to promoting “universal” access to social services. Co-Chair Ashe called for informal consultations.

JAPAN, opposed by NEW ZEALAND, proposed adding to the aims of rural development the contribution to positive externalities and sustainable use of natural resources, in particular land, water and biodiversity. JAPAN called for further exchange of views. Noting the meeting is “moving in the wrong direction.” NORWAY supported the text as is.

AUSTRALIA, suggested text on “eliminating barriers and policies that distort production and trade” in agricultural products, but there was overall agreement on a paragraph on the role of healthy marine ecosystems and sustainable fisheries.

On Water: CANADA proposed a revised paragraph that would, inter alia: reaffirm the human right of everyone to safe drinking water and basic sanitation as essential for the full enjoyment of life; recognize that the right to safe drinking water and basic sanitation does not encompass transboundary water issues including bulk water trade, nor any mandatory allocation of international development assistance; and indicate that governments will pursue the progressive realization of access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation for their citizens through national and sub-national actions with a particular emphasis on people living in vulnerable situations. The G-77/CHINA, the EU and SWITZERLAND preferred the CST to the Canadian proposal. The G-77/CHINA reserved on text regarding the efforts of developing countries towards efficient and sustainable water resource management. Also, the G-77/CHINA, opposed by the US and SWITZERLAND, proposed deleting text on cooperation at national, transboundary and international levels for water resources management.

The US, supported by SWITZERLAND, NEW ZEALAND and NORWAY, suggested adding language from the previous Co-Chairs’ suggested text on recognizing the key role that natural ecosystems, especially wetlands and forests, play in maintaining freshwater quantity and quality, and supporting efforts to protect and sustainably manage these ecosystems.

On Energy: The EU suggested amending the heading to “Sustainable Energy.” Regarding a paragraph on the role of energy in the development process, the EU suggested underlining the strong interdependence between energy, water and food security.

Eventually, as expected, the disagreements on energy prevailed:

Regarding the role of energy technologies in addressing climate change and in achieving the objective of limiting the global average temperature increase, the EU, supported by the G-77/CHINA and NORWAY, proposed specifying limiting such increase below 2o C above pre-industrial levels. The G-77/CHINA further suggested taking into account the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) and historical responsibilities. CANADA referred to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change text on “respective capabilities,” rather than “historical responsibilities.” The RUSSIAN FEDERATION cautioned against getting into detail on climate change. The US suggested avoiding duplications with language on the section on climate change.

Regarding a paragraph on achieving the Secretary General’s “Sustainable Energy for All” initiative and its aspirational goals, KAZAKHSTAN suggested that international research and capacity development be based on a roadmap to be developed through a multilateral process, involving all stakeholders. The US proposed language stating that resources will be necessary to achieve these results, particularly through enabling environments that unlock private sector investments. The G-77/CHINA supported deleting the paragraph, in order to address the related targets as part of the SDGs process.

Delegates made multiple amendments on a paragraph on subsidies. Noting the contradictory amendments and adding that the issue of subsidies cannot be stereotyped, the G-77/CHINA suggested deleting the paragraph. NORWAY preferred retaining all paragraphs on energy.

On Transport: On sustainable transport, the G-77/CHINA, opposed by the US and the EU, requested deletion of “reducing pollution and emissions.” The G-77/CHINA, opposed by the US, the EU, and the REPUBLIC OF KOREA, requested deletion of reference to “clean fuels and vehicles.” MEXICO suggested an additional paragraph on encouraging non-motorized mobility.

On Desertification: The EU proposed “committing to arriving at” zero net land “and soil” degradation within an internationally agreed timeframe, and added references to “soil” in addition to land in other sections, supported by ICELAND but opposed by the G-77/CHINA and the US. The US added references to a focus on arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid ecosystems. The G-77/CHINA, supported by AUSTRALIA, proposed adding reference to a “land degradation neutral world” in the place of the proposed target on “zero net land degradation.” The G-77/CHINA, supported by ICELAND, added a reference to the consideration of an intergovernmental panel on scientific advice. The US and MEXICO did not support this proposal.

Non government representatives of the MAJOR GROUPS ilk – got to say: NGOs stressed the importance of a rights-based approach to address hunger and food insecurity for vulnerable groups; welcomed the reference to urban-rural linkages to bridge food and the city; underlined the need to recapture food waste; and supported calls for a central role of the Committee on Food Security in sustainable agriculture. On sustainable cities, LOCAL AUTHORITIES prioritized: cohesion of territories beyond municipal boundaries; protection of urban biodiversity; and recognizing the work of organizations working on cities. WOMEN called for a rights-based approach to sustainable development, including language on the human right to water and sanitation, and for strengthened language on women and indigenous peoples in the context of agriculture and food security. On energy, she noted that efforts must be community-led, transparent and inclusive.

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ON WORKING GROUP II – as Reported in the KIMO  Earth Negotiation Bulletin – it was as one can expect from the players:

SECTION I. OUR COMMON VISION: On paragraphs recognizing poverty eradication as the central element of sustainable development and reaffirming that poverty eradication remains the greatest challenge facing the world today, the G-77/CHINA highlighted poverty eradication, but others, including the REPUBLIC OF KOREA, JAPAN, the US and the EU, drew attention to multiple references to poverty eradication and overlap. The HOLY SEE called for retaining sustainable consumption and production (SCP). In the evening, a breakout group chaired by the US reported that two paragraphs on poverty eradication had been redrafted and parties agreed to delete the original text. Outstanding issues included “extreme” poverty, inclusion of CBDR, and whether to refer to “changing unsustainable” or “promoting sustainable” production and consumption patterns.

On reaffirming the importance of freedom, peace and security and respect for all human rights, the G-77/CHINA called for deleting “adequate” in reference to the right to food, while the US supported the right to an adequate standard of living, including food. The HOLY SEE, opposed by the US, NEW ZEALAND, NORWAY, ICELAND, ISRAEL and GRENADA, suggested replacing language on gender equality with language on equality between men and women.

On reaffirming the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the EU, NORWAY, ICELAND and GRENADA supported language to respect, protect and promote human rights. The US preferred “respect, protect and promote.” The EU, G-77/CHINA, LIECHTENSTEIN, NEW ZEALAND, NORWAY, ICELAND, GRENADA and the US supported including reference to disability.

The US clarified that their objection to changes in text reaffirming the importance of freedom, peace and security and respect for all human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is principled as they are uncomfortable reopening language agreed at the last session.  MEXICO, the US, NEW ZEALAND, NORWAY, the REPUBLIC OF KOREA and ICELAND underscored that they were close to agreeing to text reaffirming continued guidance by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and the importance of freedom, peace and security and respect for all human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and expressed concern over extensive reopening of text. The EU cautioned against over-reliance on previously agreed text as circumstances change over time.

On acknowledging good governance and rule of law as essential for sustainable development, the EU, supported by SWITZERLAND, added a reference to democracy, which the G-77/CHINA said was “overemphasis,” and it was dropped. AUSTRALIA proposed text noting that environmental protection is essential for sustainable development, which was accepted. The G-77/CHINA suggested adding reference to “implementation gaps” in text on reaffirming commitment to strengthening international cooperation, but it was not supported.

In the afternoon, several amendments were proposed to text on sustainable development as a joint effort by the HOLY SEE, MEXICO and the EU, rewording language on the fundamental nature (or requirements) of sustainable development and peoples’ participation. The G-77/CHINA suggested adding reference to equity, sovereignty over national resources and the principle of CBDR. The Co-Chair left the paragraph to the break-out group.

SECTION II: RENEWING POLITICAL COMMITMENT

A. Reaffirming Rio Principles and Past Action Plans: On reaffirming that all principles in the Rio Declaration will continue to guide the international community, the G-77/CHINA, opposed by the US, requested inclusion of the principle of CBDR. Chair Kim noted the carefully constructed compromise in this section, which saw agreement that CBDR should be used where it is most needed and not overused. NORWAY and the REPUBLIC OF KOREA said they could accept the CST and underscored that CBDR had to be addressed in the appropriate place.

On reaffirming commitments to international instruments respecting sustainable development, the US requested reference to the Cairo Programme of Action, ICPD+5 and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action to recognize the role of women in sustainable development. The G-77/CHINA said that, if these where referenced, the outcome document of the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development must also be included, which was opposed by the US and the REPUBLIC OF KOREA.

On recognizing the importance of the three Rio Conventions, CANADA proposed modifying reference to CBDR to reflect language in the UNFCCC. The US, the EU, JAPAN and NEW ZEALAND preferred not singling out individual principles from the UNFCCC. NEW ZEALAND suggested a compromise by adding “in accordance to their respective principles” after reference to all three Rio Conventions.

Disagreement ensued on whether to “implement,” “achieve” or “advance” sustainable development, in text on reaffirming commitment to reinvigorate political will and international commitment. SWITZERLAND, opposed by the G-77/CHINA, requested language on the other relevant internationally agreed goals in the economic, social and environmental fields, in addition to development goals.

B. Advancing Integration, Implementation and Coherence: Assessing the Progress to Date and the Remaining Gaps in the Implementation of the Outcomes of the Major Summits on Sustainable Development and Addressing New and Emerging Challenges: The US, opposed by G-77/CHINA, proposed adding “at national level” to language on an enabling environment. The G-77/CHINA also objected to the US adding “voluntary” and “on mutually agreed terms” to technology transfer. The G-77/CHINA supported text on avoiding “backtracking on previously taken international commitments.” The US added reference to pressure on resources through rapid population growth, and the G-77/CHINA called for “a rationalization” of unsustainable consumption and lifestyle patterns in developed countries. The EU and the US did not support two additional paragraphs proposed by the G-77/CHINA on climate change undermining the abilities of developing countries to achieve sustainable development, and on the effect of sanctions. The US, supported by JAPAN, CANADA and NEW ZEALAND, proposed mention of “strategies” on youth employment, with the G-77/CHINA calling for retention of one global strategy.

Paragraphs were agreed ad referendum on challenges faced by countries and on small island developing States (SIDS). On women’s empowerment, the US wished to retain its addition on access to reproductive health services, which the G-77/CHINA and the HOLY SEE suggested deleting. On text on Africa, the US called for deletion of reference to aid lagging behind commitments, and the G-77/CHINA introduced language to stress more attention to Africa and to full implementation of commitments. While reference to transit countries was deleted, the issue of specific challenges faced by middle-income countries led to differences, with the EU suggesting deletion of this paragraph and the RUSSIAN FEDERATION insisting on its retention.

Major Groups: LOCAL AUTHORITIES emphasized that any institutional process should include space for Major Group involvement and highlighted the role of local and subnational governments in implementing sustainable development, such as through local Agenda 21 actions. CHILDREN AND YOUTH said they need not just protection, but fulfillment of the right to develop to their full potential, and that a human rights-based approach must be the basis of the Rio+20 outcome.

So? Where are we heading? The Kimo report in its FROM THE CORRIDORS section lets us know that: “according to a participant, the feeling of urgency in the top echelons of the UN has not yet filtered down to the drafting level, where delegates were making little headway as they struggled to reduce the amount of bracketed text.”

His Holiness Meets the Austrian Chancellor, attends a Science Symposium and the European Rally for Tibet.

May 27th 2012     –     from   www.dalailama.com

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The 14th Dalai Lama mid-May 2012 Europe-trip took him to the UK (where he received The Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities – in front of 2000 people at the St. Paul Cathedral in London and met in private with the Prime Minister and his Deputy), Slovenia, Belgium, and Austria (where he was received by two States – Koernten and Salzberg, and in private by the Federal Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor).

* * * *  This was added by Pincas Jawetz

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Vienna, Austria, 26 May 2012 – The sun shone and a small crowd of well-wishers smiled warmly as His Holiness arrived opposite St Stephen’s Cathedral to be met by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna. They were almost immediately joined by the Austrian Chancellor, Werner Faymann and the three went into a meeting together.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn in Vienna, Austria, on May 26, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHD Standing at a balcony window nearby, Cardinal Schönborn took the opportunity to explain some of the restoration work that has been taking place at St Stephen’s, the most important religious building in Vienna, before the bells rang out calling him back to the cathedral. His Holiness and the Chancellor continued to discuss matters of mutual concern.

Next, His Holiness drove to the University of Vienna to attend a symposium on Buddhism and Science: Mind & Matter – New Models of Reality, where he was welcomed by the Rector of the University, Heinz Engl.

Describing it as a great honour for him to participate in the discussions, His Holiness noted that towards the end of the last century, scientists had begun to take a serious interest in the workings of our minds and emotions. He said he had been fascinated by how things work since he was a child and learned a great deal about how electricity functions from investigating the movie projector and generator that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama.

About 40 years ago he began to learn about cosmology, neuropsychology and quantum physics and for nearly 30 years has been conducting regular dialogues with scientists. The purpose of these dialogues is, firstly, to extend human knowledge, not only in the material field, but also the inner space of our minds, and, secondly, through exploring such phenomena as a calm mind, to promote human happiness.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and fellow panelists during the symposium on Buddhism and science “Mind and Matter – New Models of Reality” at the University of Vienna, in Vienna, Austria, on May 26, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

With Mr Gert Scobel moderating, Prof Dr Anton Zeilinger, Prof Dr Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Dr Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch made their presentations, which explored aspects of quantum physics, Madhyamaka philosophy and psychoanalysis.

His Holiness hosted a lunch at his hotel for all the speakers that was also attended by Kalon Tripa, Dr Lobsang Sangay, social and human rights activist Bianca Jagger, former French Foreign Minister and co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, Bernard Kouchner and other friends who were in Vienna to attend the European Rally for Tibet. In the afternoon session of the Science symposium, Prof Dr Michael von Brück and Prof Dr Wolf Singer gave informative presentations on how the mind understands the structure of reality and the search for neuronal correlates of consciousness.

As the symposium came to an end, His Holiness expressed his appreciation, “Over the 30 or 40 years that I have been acquainted with scientists, I have noticed how many of them are acutely aware of the limitations of their knowledge. It is a good quality to recognise that our scope for learning is vast. They display an open-mindedness that is really admirable.”

A memorandum of co-operation was signed between Prof Geshe Ngawang Samten, Director and Vice Chancellor of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, Varanasi, India and the Rector of Vienna University, Heinz Engl, providing for an exchange of students and scholars of the two institutions. Geshe Tenzin Dhargye, Director of the Tibet Center that has organized the various functions His Holiness has attended in Austria on this visit, offered his thanks to His Holiness and everyone who has participated.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama greeting the crowd of over 10,000 at the European Solidarity Rally for Tibet at the Vienna Heldenplatz in Vienna, Austria, on May 26, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

In the warm, late afternoon, His Holiness drove to Vienna’s Heldenplatz where 10,000 people had assembled for the European Solidarity Rally for Tibet. Addressing his dear brothers and sisters in the crowd, he told them how happy he was to be there and that he would like to first say a few words in Tibetan to the Tibetans present.

“Our culture is under threat of destruction, therefore I want to take this opportunity to speak my own language. Archaeological findings indicate that Tibetan history dates back 3-4000 years. We Tibetans must not forget our identity, for our blood, flesh and bones come from Tibet. Since the 7th century we have employed the Tibetan written language in which the most complete and thorough translations have been made of Buddhist knowledge from the original Sanskrit. This is a treasure for the world, not only for Tibetans. And when we talk about preserving Tibetan Buddhist culture, I don’t mean just paying respects before a Buddhist image, but putting the teachings into practice and trying to live as good human beings.”

He talked about the urgent need to protect the Tibetan environment, which because it is the source of many of the rivers that run through Asia is of value not only to Tibetans but millions of others too. He expressed the fear that once environmental damage has taken place it will take a great deal of time to recover. Distinguishing Buddhist religion, which is the business of Buddhist practitioners, from Buddhist culture, which, as a culture of peace, honesty and compassion, is worth preserving for the good of the world.

Meanwhile, millions of Chinese are already showing interest in Tibetan Buddhist culture. His Holiness stressed that the damage and destruction of Tibetan Buddhist culture that has taken place was not because Tibetans were not interested, but because of the difficult political circumstances in which they find themselves.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaking at the European Solidarity Rally for Tibet at the Vienna Heldenplatz in Vienna, Austria, on May 26, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

“Because of our Buddhist culture we are committed to the principle of non-violence. We are an example of a small community who have remained dedicated to pursuing our struggle through non-violent means, which is why your support is so extremely valuable and I want to tell you how much I appreciate it.

“Finally, I see how many of you are waving the Tibetan flag. Chinese hard-liners often refer to our flag as a symbol of splittist tendencies, but I want to tell you that when I was in China 1954-55, I met Chairman Mao Zedong and other leaders on several occasions. Once, Chairman Mao asked me, ‘Do you have a flag?’ I hesitantly answered, ‘Yes,’ and his reply was to say, ‘Good, it is important that you keep this flag and fly it next to the red flag of China. So I feel I received permission then to fly this flag from Chairman Mao himself.”

Tomorrow afternoon, following a meeting with the press to highlight inter-religious harmony and several private meetings during the morning, His Holiness will board a flight from Vienna to return to India.

Laurence Tubiana is the founder and director of the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) based in Paris and Brussels, professor at Sciences Po Paris, and has previously served as senior adviser on environment to the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. She was responsible for conducting some international environmental negotiations for the French government. She was also a member of the Conseil d’Analyse Economique in the French Prime Minister’s office and when mentioning basics –  she says:

For more than three decades, GDP has been criticized as a poor indicator of social progress. As a pure accounting identity, GDP does not reflect changes in natural stocks. On the opposite, an upsurge in warfare expenses will add positively to the measure called GDP, while their impacts on well-being are more than controversial.

Second, the indicator is also blind to any changes beyond the mean.

GDP does not focus on distributional issues and growth can fail to reach majority of the population – this was the case in the USA from 1975 to 2000. As result, there is a widening gap between GDP increase and the perception of the increase in well-being among the population.

This realization is not new and is shared by a widening community of policy-makers and scholars.

Paradoxically, international organizations continue to use GDP as a measure for social progress in their reports.

It is necessary to move beyond this narrow conception of progress and International Organization and governments must commit to the use of another flagship indicator.

Use of GDP should be limited to comment on the evolution of the volume of exchanges in the economy.

The UN General Assembly should thus rather adopt an indicator – or a panel of indicators- to measure progress.

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Above I picked up from the Brazil sponsored Dialogues on the RIO+20 runway – the panel of  Sustainable development as an answer to the economic and financial crises where Prof. Laurence Tubiana is the principle leader.

To post further examples for the on-line deliberations pleas see:

THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE – AmCham  /  The Transatlantic Business Dialogue  (TABD) – in Brussels.