UN DAILY NEWS from the UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
22 October, 2008 =========================================================================

TOP ECONOMISTS TO MEET BAN KI-MOON TO DISCUSS IMPACT OF GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will meet with a group of eminent economists tomorrow as part of his evaluation of the impact of the global financial crisis on United Nations efforts to achieve the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Five economists will participate in the meeting in New York, which will also consider the effects of the financial crisis on climate change, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters today.

The economists are Joseph Stieglitz of Columbia University; Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University; Dani Rodrik of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; Nancy Birdsall, President of the Centre for Global Development, a think tank; and Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia.

***

Earlier this week General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto announced he has appointed Professor Stiglitz, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, to chair a high-level task force to review the global financial system.

The composition and terms of reference of the task force, which will examine such major bodies as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are expected to be unveiled next month.

***

In recent weeks Mr. Ban has repeatedly stressed the need for global leadership to help ensure that the battle to achieve the MDGs, which aim to halve extreme poverty and other ills, by their target date of 2015 is not forgotten by countries as they seek to shore up their economic and financial systems.

“Now more than ever we must be bold. In these times of crisis, when we are tempted to look inward, it is precisely the time when we must move pursuit of the common good to the top of the agenda,” Mr. Ban said in a speech delivered yesterday at Harvard.

He later added: “While recently we have heard much in this country about how problems on Wall Street are affecting innocent people on Main Street, we need to think more about those people around the world with no streets. Wall Street, Main Street, no street – the solutions devised must be for all.”

In addition, the world cannot afford to delay action on the issue of climate change, which Mr. Ban called “the ultimate global and existential threat.” He urged countries to conclude a new comprehensive climate deal that can be ratified and in place before the current commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

***

A spokesperson for Mr. Ban also announced today that the Secretary-General has been invited by United States President George W. Bush to attend a financial meeting of the leaders of G-8 industrialized nations, scheduled for 15 November in Washington.

{Lots Of Wind in High Places - But The Good Side Is That This Meeting Hapens After November 5th and we expect it will touch upon the neeede changes at The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund so they work for the benefit of all countries. }

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RECORD-BREAKING 117 MILLION PEOPLE STAND WITH UN AGAINST POVERTY

Shattering previous records, nearly 117 million people in 131 countries stood up last weekend as part of a United Nations-led campaign to demand that world leaders keep their promises to halve extreme poverty and achieve the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their target date of 2015.

Over 8,000 events were held around the globe, from Afghanistan and Burundi to Thailand and Uganda, as part of the “Stand Up and Take Action against Poverty” campaign held from 17 to 19 October.

“We are very proud that there has been such a massive citizen response for the Millennium Development Goals and against poverty,” Salil Shetty, Director of the UN Millennium Campaign, which initiated the project, told reporters in New York today.

Nearly 117 million people – close to 2 per cent of the world’s population – took part in Stand Up-related events, breaking the Guinness World Record for the largest social mobilization ever on a single issue. Another 5 million people took part in events that were not submitted before the Guinness deadline.

This represents a huge increase over 2006, when some 23 million people stood up against poverty, and 2007, when that number grew to almost 44 million.

Mr. Shetty said the biggest mobilizations happened in Asia (over 73 million people), followed by Africa (more than 24 million) and the Arab States (nearly 18 million).

“It’s very appropriate that the parts of the world which are having to live with the daily reality of poverty are the ones who did the biggest mobilization,” he noted.

Highlights of the campaign include the more than 35 million people, or one-third of the population, in the Philippines who stood at various events throughout the country. In addition, Rwandan President Paul Kagame exhorted 10,000 of his fellow citizens to use their hard-won peace as a foundation to fight poverty, during an event at Rubavu Stadium in Western Province.

Meanwhile, 400,000 students in the West Bank and 200,000 in Gaza stood up as part of an annual programme to teach them about the MDGs.

Mr. Shetty added that with the countdown to 2015 well under way, many of the events held around the world were a “wake-up call and a reminder to governments that time is running out and we expect leaders to take action.”

In a message issued for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reminded governments of their commitments to achieving the MDGs, saying that many had pledged new resources to bolster food security, eradicate disease, ensure access to water and sanitation, and manage the financial crisis.

“These commitments are not a matter of charity, but an obligation in the pursuit of human rights for all. If we fail to keep our promise on the MDGs, we create the conditions for greater human misery and global insecurity,” he warned.

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UN TO PUBLISH FIRST-EVER WORLD MAP OF UNDERGROUND FRESHWATER RESOURCES

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will publish the first-ever world map of underground aquifers, which account for some 96 per cent of global freshwater resources, the agency announced in a press release today.

Despite their strategic importance, no global inventory of aquifers – most of which straddle international boundaries – had been compiled before UNESCO started work on its online map, which will be launched to coincide with the submission to the General Assembly of a draft Convention on Transboundary Aquifers next week.

The UNESCO is presenting a detailed map identifying underground water resources that are shared by at least two countries, using data compiled since 2000 by UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme for a groundwater database.

The map will include information about the quality of water and rate of replenishment of the 273 transboundary aquifers – 68 in the American continent, 38 in Africa, 65 in Eastern Europe, 90 in Western Europe and 12 in Asia.

Underground aquifers account for 70 per cent of water used in the European Union, and are often the only source of supply in arid and semi-arid areas – 100 per cent in Saudi Arabia and Malta, 95 per cent in Tunisia and 75 per cent in Morocco. Irrigation systems also depend largely on groundwater resources in many countries – 90 per cent in Libya, 89 per cent in India, 84 per cent in South Africa and 80 per cent in Spain.

Aquifers, which contain 100 times the volume of freshwater than that on the Earth’s surface, in Africa are still largely under exploited. They are among the largest in the world and since they generally expand over several national boundaries, their exploitation presupposes an agreed management mechanism.

Mechanisms of this kind have begun to emerge, such as the agreement in the 1990s between Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan which established a joint authority to manage the Nubian aquifer system, but such arrangements are the exception, according to the UNESCO release.

The draft Convention presented to the General Assembly on 27 October is intended to facilitate the creation of such mechanisms for administering transboundary aquifer systems by calling on aquifer states not to harm existing aquifers, to cooperate, and to prevent and control their pollution.

* * * —————-

US Foreign Policy Towards a Rising Asia - A Conversation with Senator Chuck Hagel

Friday, October 24, 2008
12pm - 2pm Lunch and Program

Senator Hagel is completing his second term in the United States Senate and is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At a time of unprecedented global financial uncertainty and imminent political change in the United States, Senator Hagel will discuss how America can best face its challenges and capitalize on its opportunities in the rising Asia-Pacific region.  Senator Hagel is the author of America: Our Next Chapter, which outlines proposals for the country’s greatest challenges of the 21st century.

Presiding
Joseph Klein
Political Columnist, Time Magazine

Copies of America: Our Next Chapter will be available for purchase and signing.  This book is also available for purchase at the Asia Society bookstore.

Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue at 70th St., NYC
Tickets: $50 Members; $75 Nonmembers

Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008, The Japan Times nline.

Moving from Christian to Muslim democracy.

By JAN-WERNER MUELLER
BUDAPEST — This past summer, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) narrowly escaped being banned by the country’s constitutional court. State prosecutors alleged that the party was trying to “Islamicize” the country and ultimately introduce theocracy. After the decision, not only did AKP supporters celebrate but those in the West who view as a prototype “Muslim Democratic” party also breathed a sigh of relief.

The clear model for a moderately religious party — one committed to the rules of the democratic game — are the Christian Democratic parties of Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, Latin America. Yet opponents of the idea of “Muslim democracy” argue that European Catholics only turned to democracy under orders from the Vatican, and that since Muslims do not have anything like a Church hierarchy, Christian democracy is an irrelevant example.

But history shows that political entrepreneurs and liberalizing Catholic intellectuals were crucial to the creation of Christian democracy. This suggests that Muslim reformers, given the right circumstances, might be similarly capable of bringing about Muslim democracy.

***

Christian Democratic parties first emerged in Belgium and Germany toward the end of the 19th century as narrowly focused Catholic interest groups. The Vatican initially regarded them with suspicion, perceiving their participation in elections and parliamentary horse-trading as signs of “modernism.”

A breakthrough came with the Italian Popular Party’s founding in 1919. Its leader, Don Luigi Sturzo, wanted it to appeal to tutti i liberi e forti — all free and strong men. The Vatican, having prohibited Italian Catholics from participating in the political life of newly united Italy for almost 60 years, lifted its ban. Mussolini soon outlawed the Popolari, and in any event, the Vatican had had a strained relationship with the party, appearing more comfortable supporting pro-Catholic authoritarian regimes in countries like Austria and Portugal.

While Christian democracy got nowhere politically between the world wars, momentous changes were initiated in Catholic thought. In particular, the French Catholic thinker Jacques Maritain developed arguments as to why Christians should embrace democracy and human rights.

During the 1920s, Maritain was close to the far-right Action Francaise, but the pope condemned the movement in 1926 for essentially being a group of faithless Catholics more interested in authoritarian nationalism than Christianity. Maritain accepted the pope’s verdict and began a remarkable ideological journey toward democracy.

He criticized France’s attempts to appear as a modern crusader, incurring the wrath of Catholics in the United States in particular. More importantly, he began to recast some of Aristotle’s teachings and medieval natural law doctrines to arrive at a conception of human rights. He also drew on the philosophy of “personalism” — which was highly fashionable in the 1930s as it sought a middle way between individualist liberalism and communitarian socialism — and insisted that people had a spiritual dimension that materialistic liberalism supposedly failed to acknowledge.

After the fall of France, Maritain decided to remain in the U.S., where he happened to find himself after a lecture tour (the Gestapo searched his house outside Paris in vain). He authored pamphlets on the reconciliation of Christianity and democracy, which Allied bombers dropped over Europe, and he never tired of stressing that the Christian origins of America’s flourishing democracy had influenced him.

Maritain also insisted that Christians, while they should take into account religious precepts, had to act as citizens first. Acceptance of pluralism and tolerance were central to his vision and he forbade one-to-one translation of religion into political life. He was rather skeptical of exclusively Christian parties.

Maritain participated in the drafting of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, and the Second Vatican Council eventually approved many of the ideas that he had been propounding since the 1930s. He also influenced the Christian Democratic parties that governed after 1945 in Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries and, to a lesser extent, France, and which consolidated not only democracy but also built strong welfare states in line with Catholic social doctrine. By the 1970s, the parties even began to stress that one didn’t have to be a believer to join.

Maritain’s example disproves the claim that the analogy between Christian and Muslim democracy fails. It wasn’t the Vatican that took the lead in creating Christian democracy; it was innovative philosophers like Maritain (who never served in the Church hierarchy, though he was briefly French ambassador to the Vatican) and political entrepreneurs like Sturzo (a simple Sicilian priest).

Of course, Muslim democracy will not be brought about by intellectuals alone. After all, Christian democracy’s success is also explained by its strongly anti-communist stance during the Cold War.

Some of the philosophies used in the European Catholic transition to democracy — such as personalism — were rather nebulous, although it was probably their vagueness that helped to bring as many believers as possible on board. But the point remains that ideas matter. So the creation of a liberalized Islam by self-consciously moderate and democratic Muslim intellectuals is crucial.

Jan-Werner Mueller, a professor of politics at Princeton and currently an Open Society fellow at Central European University, Budapest, is the author of “Constitutional Patriotism.”

 
This fall, The New York Review of Books and Guardian America will bring their writers and editors together to discuss the issues shaping the 2008 election campaign and the challenges and opportunities that will face the new administration.

Please click on the links below for more information about these events.

October 15, 7 pm

Harvard Bookstore at Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

Panelists: Mark Danner, Frances FitzGerald, Peter Galbraith, and Michael Tomasky. Event includes a live broadcast of the presidential debate and pizza provided by Cambridge 1.

October 16, 7 pm

Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

Panelists: Elizabeth Drew, Jonathan Freedland, Peter Galbraith, Suzanne Goldenberg, and Michael Tomasky.

October 25, 5 pm

Harbourfront International Festival of Authors, Toronto

Panelists: Richard Adams and Michael Tomasky.

October 27, 6 pm

Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA

Panelists: Martin Kettle, Thomas Powers, Frank Rich, Michael Tomasky, and Robert Silvers.

October 28, 7:30 pm

Kepler’s, Menlo Park, CA

Panelists: Martin Kettle, Thomas Powers, Michael Tomasky, and Gary Younge.

October 29, 7:30 pm

Powell’s City of Books, Portland, OR

Panelists: Thomas Powers, Michael Tomasky, and Gary Younge.

October 30, 7:30 pm

Elliott Bay Book Company at Town Hall, Seattle, WA

Panelists: Martin Kettle, Thomas Powers, Jonathan Raban, and Michael Tomasky

November 10, 7 pm

What Happens Now? A Conversation on the 2008 Election
The New York Public Library, New York, NY
Andrew Delbanco, Joan Didion, Darryl Pinckney, Michael Tomasky, and Garry Wills gather to discuss the post-election landscape with Robert Silvers, editor of The New York Review of Books.

The Transatlantic Institute- Brussels.

Dan Schueftan, Visiting Scholar,
The National Security Studies Center, Haifa University

‘Israel’s National Security Challenges’

Dan Schueftan is a senior Israeli academic and deputy director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, where he also serves as a senior lecturer in the School of Political Sciences. He has also taught at the Israel Defense Forces National Security College and the IDF’s Command and Staff College.

Dan Schueftan has served as an advisor to Israel’s National Security Council, and to former Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin. He is also a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.

Thursday, 23rd October, 2008
08:00 – 09.:30
At the Transatlantic Institute
6 Rue des Quatres Bras
Brussels 1000

To participate, please call:
+32 (0)2 500 7287 or
e-mail:  fellow at transatlanticinstitute.org

Monday, October 13th - Columbus Day 2008 - In Financial Markets The Chefs Of Europe Came To Washington to Save the Old World - The Week Will End With The Europeans Fighting Among Themselves For Positions at the UN.

The good news are that this Monday is much better then the Monday of last week. This because after serious tutoring by the Chefs of Europe, the US was softened to accept what George Soros and a few others said for quite a while - you do not just bailout those that undermined the economy because of their greed, that was allowed to grow thanks to a wrong headed concept of “Less Government Is Best Government.” You re-capitalize the banks and take equity position in them, so you can re-establish rule of ethics in those institutions. The Europeans started by Nationalizing their weak institutions rather then let them fail (like the Lehman case in the US) or bail them out (like the Goldman-Sachs case in the US). As George Soros said, by letting the system in the hands of Goldman-Sachs graduates, you really do not signal that you want to see change indeed. (We add to this that it would be like seating McCain in the Oval Office when the need is to create deep change in Washington.)

Further - just look at The Financial Times of today - for example at page 11 - “Goldman Connection Raises Questions Over Conflict of Interest’ and Page 24 - “Key Lehman Figures Stay On In Europe” - this after Japan’s Nomura bought the European and Middle East operations of Lehman Brothers. Then see page 24 - “Is Nationalization the answer to banks behaving badly?” and look for what went on in Iceland where the whole banking system was Nationalized. Look at the argument - “shareholders win - taxpayers lose” and the question “why not resolve it by making the two groups identical?” That is neither socialism nor demagoguery. It is not Corporate Socialism but plain “Country First” argumentation that has nothing to do with “me interrupt the campaign and go to Washington to pass the Paulson three page non-plan.”

OK, President Bush listened to the G7 on Friday - and magic - after he declared that the US will now buy into banks - not just the “toxic assets” of those banks, the New York Stock market this morning, followed the example of global markets over the week-end, and started returning value to the share-holders. While I write this, Monday at noon, the New York Stock Market DOW is up 520 points. Clearly, not because they trust now Messrs. Paulson & Bernanke more then they did a week ago - it did happen because they trust more the Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy, Angela Markel consortium of individuals.

But, do not jump yet at conclusions - this article is not exactly an ode to old Europe. You can conclude that I trust more The Financial Times then the Wall Street Journal, but I will also point out the show of hands that will happen at the end of this week at the UN, and that will bring to the limelight also shadier aspects of Europe 2008.

 ***

The event will happen on Friday, October 17, 2008, when the UN General Assembly elects five non-permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Outgoing council members are Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, Panama, South Africa.

Uganda is the sole candidate for Africa and will replace South Africa. Mexico is the sole candidate for Latin America and will replace Panama. But for Asia there are two candidates and Japan has the definite advantage over Iran as replacement of Indonesia.

The only real fight will be for the European two seats where Austria, Iceland and Turkey will be fighting for the two seats vacated by Belgium and Italy.

Conventional wisdom at the UN says that Turkey will be a shoo-in with the 192 States voting, but Austria and Iceland will be in a tough fight for the second seat. And this is the reason for my bringing up now these elections.

The last months was very hard on Austria and Iceland. Think of the complete melt-down of the Iceland financial system, and the melt-down of the Austrian governing scheme.

 ***

Let us start with Iceland, as this is the easier case - it is on the surface only about money, but then also about eventual political freedom.

Richard Portes writes in The Financial Times of today “The shocking errors behind Iceland’s meltdown.” Iceland’s Glitnir Bank was the first casualty of Washington letting down Lehman, and precipitating the hermetic closure of the global credit market. Like fellow Icelandic banks, Landsbanki and Kaupthing, they were all solvent and posted good first-half results and had healthy capital adequacy ratios. And that is important - NONE HAD ANY TOXIC SECURITIES. All of them were very well managed for the last two years, but when the credit crisis hit Glitnir, the Icelandic Central Bank (CBI) did not help and moved to Nationalize the bank, creating in its wake a run on all banks. All this triggered a fall of the Krona and a margin call from the European Central Bank. Eventually the banks became collateral damage and some foreign branches taken over.

The problem was that the Icelandic banks  were highly leveraged, and like in the UK and Switzerland, too large relative to the domestic economy. The joke was that the large Icelandic banks had a small country attached to them.

The CBI did some terrible mistakes. They announced on Monday a peg of the Krona to the Euro at a rate well above the market that was unsustainable, and abandoned by Tuesday. They contacted the International Monetary Institutions in Washington and when help was not forthcoming they asked for $4 Billion from Russia that was answered positively, but the deal was not yet consumeted. Now, following the Friday agreements in Washington, it is probable that Iceland will be the first country in this crisis to be helped by the IMF. Perhaps also the Russian deal will be finalized this week, and the question is at what political price will this be for a small country, not an EU member, and positioned from Russia at the opposite end of Europe.

For our story here - What will this do to Iceland obtaining the votes it wants at the UN General Assembly, in its quest for a first-time membership at the UNSC - this as part of the group of Nordic States (that at the EU are indeed part of Europe). Will they get now sympathy votes, or will they be considered as economically non-viable?

***

The other contestant is Austria, and its problems seem even worse. The problem is purely political and this week-end it got thrown into total chaos by the auto-racing death of its fast talking right wing politician Joerg Haider.

The Story started with the brake-up of the traditional governing Red-Black coalition. That is the the left of center Socialists broke up their “Grand Coalition” with the right-of center Peoples Party. The voters at the polls punished both of them and elevated by a  close to 30% the two infighting extreme right parties, leaving 9% to the Austrian Greens. OK, one could go back to a diminished “Grand Coalition”with both parties - the Reds and the Blacks - headed by new leaders. This would be a punishment for their lack of acceptance of the previous debacles when these parties flirted with the extreme right.

The Austrian Freedom Party (FPO - the Blue Party), a small party of 5% of the electorate, entered into a controversial coalition as junior partner to the Reds in May 1983 and remained in power with that party until January 1987.

Appears Joerg Haider and in September 1986  he defeated the Austrian Vice-Chancellor Norbert Steger in a vote for the FPO leadership at the party conference in Innsbruck: many delegates feared that Steger’s liberal views and his coalition with the Social Democrats threatened the party’s existence. Haider attempted to increase his party’s standing by appealing to those opposed to the EU, those against immigration, and those who thought “the Third Reich was not all bad”, including its work creation programmes, and who believed that its crimes were exaggerated. Plain and simple - a Neo-Nazi ideology.

Under Haider’s leadership the FPO went from 4.98 per cent of the vote in 1986 to 26.9 per cent in 1999, putting it on a par with the Blacks. The outgoing Reds could not find a coalition partner and months of negotiations followed until in 2000 the Blacks formed a coalition with Haider’s FPO. This caused a sensation - both in Austria and across Europe - the heads of the governments of the other 14 EU members decided to cease co-operation with the Austrian government.

The coalition remained in office until 2007, although Haider stepped down as the FPO’s chairman in 2000. Without him his party’s voting bloc seemed to evaporate: at the 2002 election it lost nearly two-thirds of its support. Haider remained the FPO’s major figure until 2005, when he founded the Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (BZO, or Alliance for the Future of Austria), the Orange Party.

He was expelled from the Blues but the Orange’s increasing popularity won it 11 per cent of the vote in the September 2008 general election. Last week, Haider and Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the Blues, negotiated to put aside their differences following their combined success at the polls. The results for their two parties came to 28.2 per cent of the ballot, as against 15 per cent in 2006. This placed them on a nearly equal footing with the “winning” Social Democrats.

***

Mr Haider, 58, whose fatal car accident early this Saturday morning, October 11, 2008, left Austria in a state of shock. He was travelling near Klagenfurt in the southern province of Carinthia, his home Province - the Province where he was Governor. He was going  at 88mph (142kph) along a stretch of road which has a 42mph speed limit.

State prosecutors investigating the crash said his car, a three-month-old Volkswagen Phaeton V6, careered off the road after overtaking another vehicle and flipped several times, causing the populist leader massive injuries to his head and chest even though he was wearing a seat-belt.

An ambulance took Mr Haider to Klagenfurt hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Ruling out foul play as a cause of death, Gottfried Kranz, the chief prosecutor, said: “Further speculation about other causes for the accident are invalid.”

Mr Haider, who had been on his way to his mother’s 90th birthday party, had been at a party at a night club less than a hour before the crash. State prosecutors declined to say whether they had found alcohol or traces of drugs in his blood.

Police said the Volkswagen Phaeton that he was driving at speed went off the road.

***

Haider was born in 1950 in the Upper Austrian town of Bad Goisern. His father was a shoemaker, his mother a teacher. Both had been more than nominal members of the Nazi party – his father served as a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht in the Second World War. After attending secondary school in Bad Ischl, where he had first contacts with nationalist youth organisations, in 1968 he moved to the University of Vienna to study law. In 1973 he graduated and shortly after was called up for military service, volunteering for extra service on top of the mandatory nine months. In 1974 he started work at the University of Vienna in the department of constitutional law.

Haider had joined the youth wing of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPO, or Austrian Freedom Party), founded in 1955 as a mixture of political currents opposed to the two main parties, the Catholic-orientated Österreichische Volkspartei (OVP, Austrian People’s Party) and the Sozialistische Partei Österreichs (SPO, Socialist, later Social Democratic Party). These two had ruled Austria in coalition from 1945-66. With its roots in the Pan-German movement, the FPO included both nationalists and liberals.

In 1970 Haider became leader of the FPO youth movement, until 1974. He was party secretary of the Carinthian FPO from 1976 until 1983. In 1979, aged 29, he became the youngest MP of the 183 members of the federal parliament, serving until 1983. He served again in parliament from 1986 to 1989 and from 1992 to 1999. In September 2008 he was elected again to Parliament.

Today’s Independent writes: “Jörg Haider: Charismatic right-wing politician whose controversial beliefs and policies led to isolation for Austria.” The article of The Financial Times is titled: “Demagogue who stirred up Austrian politics.”

“A talented demagogue, he railed against asylum seekers, Muslims and the small Slovene minority in his home province of Carinthia. In 1995 he whipped up anti-EU sentiments.

He praised a member of Hitler’s notorious Waffen SS convicted of eradicating the population of an Italian village as someone “who did his duty.” He said Nazis had created “a good policy of employment.” he condemned the “laziness of the southerners” - meaning immigrants from lands south of Austria, describing their countries as “the place of criminality and corruption.” And in a mocking reference to the first name of Vienna’s Jewish leader, Ariel Muzikant, Haider said: “I don’t understand how someone called Ariel can have so much dirt on his hands.”

***

OK, Haider is dead now, and Haider was never Austria, but Austria has no government at this time, and there is a new bloc of 30% of people-haters that he has managed to gather - indeed only 11% of these seemingly bigots marching under his world-hating Orange flag, while the others might be just plain conservative people. Nevertheless, if this bloc returns to the Austrian Government, what face will Austria have on the international stage?

The best thing that could happen for Austria is if the Reds and the Blacks seize the moment and declare by this Thursday the return to the “Grand Coalition.” If that does not happen, we feel sorry for the good Austrian Ambassador to the UN, H.E. Mr. Gerhard Pfanzelter, who labored for two years with the goal to get for Austria this coveted UN Security Council seat.

Neil MacFarquhar, in the New York Times of this Sunday, October 12, 2008, describes the Icelandic and Austrian UN “charm offensives” in order to woo country votes in the Friday UNGA election. Pfanzelter even brought the Vienna Philharmonic to New York to serenade the 192 Ambassadors and their wives. Austria has had indeed a historic commitment to the UN. It knew to get the third UN Center, after those in New York and Geneva, to be established in Vienna. That was a very important achievement at a time that Austria was trying to safeguard its security and independence with the two superpowers breezing hard close-by in the days of the Cold War.

The International Atomic Agency and the UN agencies for Development (UNIDO) and narcotics are housed there.

IIASA or the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis - the cold war days’ scientific link between East and West is still housed, and doing work at Schloss Laxenburg near Vienna. Today studies like “Atmospheric Pollution and Economic Development” are again the latest rage and very much in fashion. Then, don’t forget also that OPEC is headquartered in Vienna, and personally, I am beholden because of the studies on Energy Policy I was involved at Laxenburg during the end of the 70s - mid 80s. That is when the word Energy was extended from oil, coal, and nuclear, to include also natural gas, and eventually biogas and renewable energy. Those days I had a hand in much of this, and I could see Austria retaking its central position in energy policy for the 21st Century.

Considering above, I hope a miracle happens and Austria’s politicians come up this week with a plan that makes up somewhat for the mess they created this summer.

We will wait to see the UN show of hands this Friday, and when the voting becomes available, we will analyze the outcome.

VIII conferência internacional da Datagro
Sobre açúcar e álcool

VIII international Datagro
Conference on sugar and alcohol

Neste ano, mais uma vez a DATAGRO realiza a sua VIII conferência internacional da DATAGRO sobre açúcar e álcool nos dias 27 e 28 de outubro de 2008, no Hotel Grand Hyatt São Paulo, à Av. Nações Unidas 13301.

Realizada em ambiente agradável, a conferência já se tornou tradicional centro de referência dos principais temas e preocupações do setor para os integrantes de sua cadeia produtiva, proporcionando também ótima oportunidade de networking. O evento contará ainda com ótima infra-estrutura de serviços e tradução simultânea português-inglês-português.
Na edição passada a Conferência Internacional da DATAGRO sobre açúcar e álcool reuniu mais de 530 participantes de 30 países, tendo sido um dos maiores e melhores encontros das maiores autoridades mundiais do setor sucro-alcooleiro. Distinguiu-se promovendo debates e levantando questões de suma importância para o desenvolvimento e crescimento do setor.

Para fazer sua inscrição on-line acesse o site www.conferencia.datagro.com.br ou envie um fax para (0XX11) 4195-6659. Outras informações pelo telefone (0XX11) 4133-3944, com Sr. Alyson.

Again this year, DATAGRO is organizing its VIII international DATAGRO conference on sugar and alcohol on October 27th and 28th, 2008 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel grounds, São Paulo-Brazil?. Held in a pleasant environment, the conference became a traditional center of reference on sugar and alcohol for the production chain members. Also, it provides a good opportunity for networking with the global leaders of these industries. The conference will offer outstanding infrastructure of services and will be available simultaneous translation Portuguese/English/Portuguese.

In the last edition, the international DATAGRO conference on sugar and alcohol attracted more than 530 participants from 30 different countries and was one of the biggest major encounters of the top global authorities in the areas of sugar and alcohol, distinguishing itself by promoting debates and pointing high important questions about the sector growth and development.

Please visit the conference website www.conferencia.datagro.com.br where you will find the conference program, hotel information, and online registration. For more information call us at (5511) 4133-3944 or send a fax to (5511)4195-6659.

Palestrantes Confirmados:
Confirmed Speakers:

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Peter Baron - Diretor Executivo da International Sugar Organization (ISO) - U.K.
Alexis Duval - Tereos - França
Dr. Bruce Babcock - Director, CARD – Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University –  USA
Charlote Opal - Coordinator, Roundtable on Sustained Biofuels - Switzerland
Cláudio Piquet Pessoa - Diretor, Glencore Importadora e Exportadora S/A, Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
Douglas Newman - International Trade Commission – Washington, DC.
Edson Menezes da Silva - Superintendente de Abastecimento, ANP - Agencia Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis, Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
Eduardo Pereira Carvalho - ETH Bioenergia - Brasil
Guilherme Nastari – DATAGRO - Brasil
Ingo Kalder - Sugar Division, Cargill Agricola S/A - Brasil
Jonathan Kingsman - Kingsman & Co - Lausanne, Switzerland
Joseph Schmidhuber - Senior Economist - Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – Italy
Manoel Ortolan - Presidente CANAOESTE - Brasil
Manoel Vicente Bertone - Secretário de Produção e Agroenergia, Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento (MAPA) - Brasil
Michael Betenson - Diretor Comercial da CRYSTALSEV – Ribeirão Preto, Brasil
Dr. Pedro Valls - Professor  Doutor, Fundação Getulio Vargas - Brasil
Dr. Plinio Mario Nastari – Presidente DATAGRO - Brasil
Sérgio Trindade - SE2T - EUA
Stephen Kanitz - Articulista Revista Veja

Presidentes dos Sindicatos das Indústrias do açúcar e do álcool

André Luiz Baptista Lins Rocha – Goiás
Anísio Tormena - Paraná
Antonio Jose de Sousa - Maranhão
Eduardo Ribeiro Coutinho - Paraíba
José Pessoa de Queiroz Bisneto - Mato Grosso do Sul
Luis Custódio Cotta Martins - Minas Gerais
Marcos Jank - São Paulo
Pedro Robério de Melo Nogueira - Alagoas
Piero Vicenzo Parini - Mato Grosso
Renato Pontes Cunha - Pernambuco

A ‘Green New Deal’ can save the world’s economy, says UN.
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor, The Independent of London, Sunday,  October 12,  2008.

Top economists and United Nations leaders are working on a “Green New Deal” to create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty and avert environmental disaster, as the financial markets plunge into their deepest crisis since the Great Depression.

The ambitious plan – the start of which will be formally launched in London next week - will call on world leaders, including the new US President, to promote a massive redirection of investment away from the speculation that has caused the bursting “financial and housing bubbles” and into job-creating programmes to restore the natural systems that underpin the world economy.

It aims to convince them that, far from restricting growth, healing the global environment will be a desperately -needed driving force behind it.

The Green Economy Initiative - which will be spearheaded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), hea