Helen Clark of New Zealand (former three term Prime Minister) and new  UNDP Administrator made First Visit to a donor country capital by going to Washington to meet  with officials from the Obama Administration, the House and Senate and major NGOs.

As well she met the Ambassadors from the Pacific community States.

To the Americans she explained that UNDP helps the US in its foreign policy - something that was not always the case under previous leadership in New York or Washington DC.

 http://www.us.undp.org/BulletinPDFs/June…

As Sri Lanka Arrests Two UN Staff, UNHCR Offers Praise After Staying Silent.

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, June 19 — Two UN staff members were disappeared by the Sri Lankan government six days ago in Vavuniya. For days, the UN said nothing. An e-mail was sent to Inner City Press, along with a photo of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meeting with the staff in Vavuniya on May 23. Those disappeared served as drivers for the UN Office of Project Services and UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency.

After some inquiries, the UN belatedly announced that two staff had been arrested, leading to short articles in the Indian and Canadian press, neither of which included the staff members’ names. They are Kandasamy “Saundi” Saundrarajan of UNOPS and N. Charles Raveendran of UNHCR. They are Tamils.

Meanwhile UNHCR’s country officer for Sri Lanka Amin Awar continued to praise the government and the internment camps in Vavuniya. While in Sri Lanka in May, Inner City Press published a story about another UNHCR staffer, detained by the government since last year.

Amin Awar, who had not responded to an emailed request to comment on the case, approached this reporter in the lobby of the Colombo Hilton on May 23 and argued that the court system in Sri Lanka is complex, but said he was advocating for the detained man.

No update has been provided, and now two more staffers, including one from UNHCR, are detained. How much more will the UN put up with, or as some say, cover up?

The email, lightly edited, is below.

UN’s Ban and Vavuniya staff, standing up for them not shown

Subj: 2 UN Staff abducted 4 days ago and now believed to be tortured by Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence - Pls Help to Release them

From: [Name withheld for fear of retaliation or worse]
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Sent: 6/19/2009

Dear Matthew,

We write this email in desperation seeking your help to put more pressure on Sri Lankan Authorities and release 2 United Nations Staff ( I from UNOPS and 1 from UNHCR ) abducted by Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence Officials in Vavuniya four days ago and currently detained. We have tried all the possible escalations within UN, including an urgent message to our Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon but nothing has helped so far.

We reliably learn that they are now being detained and tortured at a Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence interrogation camp in Kurumankadu, Vavuniya and since it is weekend no one is taking it serious & taking some bold action for their release or access to them & ensure they are safe.

In our May30th Sit Report, our ground officers have highlighted the wide spread abductions and accounted for more than 13,310 missing people in Vavuniya IDP Camps, compared to the previous count. But our higher management in Colombo and Geneva has decided to downplay it and reported it as, “decrease is associated with double counting. Additional verification is required”. They never initiated a project for additional verification. Now we feel the pain of abduction when two of our colleagues are abducted.

Photo of our Vavuniya UN Team Group Photo with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when he visited Vavuniya last month, attached.

We don’t know when we will see our colleagues again and the same smile … please help.

Due to security issues we cant talk on phone and sending this email with great difficulty & hope you will understand it.

Thanks in advance.

Concerned UN Staff, Sri Lanka

* * * * * *
In Sri Lanka Camps, UN Blind and Deaf Without Cameras or Cell Phones, African Concern.

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, June 19 –While it has been reported that in the UN-funded internment camps in Sri Lanka “UN officials have been stopped from bringing in cameras and mobile phones,” the Spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday told Inner City Press, “I don’t think the UN would accept that.”

Since the UN did accept the detention by the government of UN staff earlier this year, it is not clear if the UN would accept being barred from exposing abuses they see in the camps or even photographing them. The Spokesperson said she would check. We’ll be waiting.

Despite these reported restrictions the UN’s top humanitarian John Holmes, who has yet to respond to requests for comment on the government killing off its investigation into the murder of 17 Action Contre La Faim aid workers, is quoted that “We do have pretty much full access to those camps at the moment.”

Would that be, access without cell phones or cameras? What does OCHA do when it becomes aware of abuses? It claimed that it advocated quietly about its detained staff. But the government said the issue was only raised once it was publicly asked about by the Press at the UN.

UN’s Ban speaks with envoy Fowler, kidnapped in Niger, on cell phone not seen in Sri Lanka

At a UN reception Friday day on the topic of sickle-cell anemia, several African Ambassadors expressed to Inner City Press their concern for what has happened this year in Sri Lanka. An Ambassador from the Maghreb asked, whatever happened to the Responsibility to Protect? Before that final push, shouldn’t somebody have stopped it?

Another referred to reports that LTTE officials who tried to surrender by waving the white flag, after communications via UN envoy Vijay Nambiar, had reportedly been shot and killed. “That is not good,” said the outgoing Permanent Representative of a country that itself suffered a genocide. Ironically, these African Ambassadors who are portrayed as more callous than their Western counterparts appear more genuinely concerned. But politics has dictated what has happened, and what is happening. Watch this site.

The Prologue:

The Dear Leader Kim Jong Il  and The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei seem to present to the world their proud contention of being indeed The Axis of Evil that was originally suggested by former President G.W. Bush. (Bush had there also Saddam Hussein, and John Bolton was claiming also the rights of Fidel Castro, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad. Since then Saddam Hussein is gone and his country is normalizing slowly, and the Bolton three are at various stages of trying to undo their fame.) What is clear is that a country is not evil - only its leader can be evil. He can nevertheless influence his people and the country as a whole can become then dangerously evil. That is what happened to Germany and Austria under Adolf Hitler  - The FUERER or THE LEADER -  and that might happen now to North Korea under Kim Jong Il, while there is hope that this is not the case of Iran where the young people may show that they did not absorb the indoctrination that is being dished out in those mosques.

Enter a new US President - Barack Hussein Obama - and he declares that we do not play anymore the game of blame. There is no evil we should not attempt to talk with, and that was completely fine with us. He indeed tried to address the real problems of the world but Jong Il and Ali Khamenei seem to insist that they cannot be by-passed - they want to be recognized as holdovers  entitled  to the crown of evil.

Enter a fly to the White House, in full view of world TV, and forces President Obama to take a resolute immediate reaction - the fly gets squished!

—————–

The Drama:

The students and younger generation, also the internet enlightened women of Iran, they see the obvious - the elections in which they participated in a symbolic vote for Mr. Moussavi, where highhandedly high-jacked by President Ahmadi-Nejad. They chose to go to the street to protest the fact that their symbolic vote was not counted.

They know that Moussavi was also agreed upon by The Supreme Leader, but they liked the contender’s wife who stood by him during the campaign. This was progress, and they were ripe to submit to slow progress - as long as there will be change. Surely, they would prefer faster change, but change in a positive direction was change nevertheless, and they blessed on it.

The Supreme Leader’s support of Ahmadi-Nejad’s holding onto power - honesty or not - has now the potential of turning the obvious into real rebellion - and this is a clear Iran problem. What should Washington do?

Obama is right - stay the course and stay out. the Supreme Leader with old Nazi style information training, will blame the US if it does or if it does not - but the Iranian people - at least a great part of them - will recognize the present US non-involvement and thus the Leader’s lies. It will strengthen their hand in their conviction that time has come for real change and indeed for a new Iranian revolution - this time without the US having caused it!

The same goes for the UK - stay out because in the past you did enough mischief in that part of the world and non-involvement now is the best way to stage the local people’s own involvement according to their own real interests.

 How does a sigle fly show the way to a wondering US President?

The story actually starts with Rene Descartes lying in bed, sometime in 1628, and watching flies. He was trying to track the flies’ position and he realized that he could describe a fly’s position by inventing coordinate geometry - that was the start of the Cartesian coordinate system and a philosophy with “Rules of the Direction of Mind,” that watching what the church did to Galileo in 1633, was eventually published only in 1701 (Descartes lived 1596 - 1650).

Seemingly, a descendant of that 1628 Cartesian fly entered the White House this week to lead President Obama in his search of what to do with Leaders of Evil.

————-

Some in Washington, like Senator John McCain, are trying to trip President Obama, this while the world is learning of the broken bones of precious team members - Robert Gates, Sonia Sotomayor and Hillary Clinton. Senator McCain would like the US to intervene in Iran and see more killing and direct harm to the US. That is his right of having no responsibility for his positions. We think he also did not contemplate in depth the Cartesian fly’s self-sacrifice. Others thought that Dick Cheney might like see the US in trouble in order to vindicate his own failed policies.

Today’s newspapers are full of stories about US fortifying Hawaii Defenses Against North Korean arms and missile threats. Now that is another yet to be cooked case of raw thinking.

More solid thinking suggests that if change in Iran does occur, there is chance that also it will impact on the nuclear issue, but if repression does not allow for change, there is a chance that the outside world changes and more powers are ready to hold Iran on a shorter leash.

———–

The Epilogue:

Obama - The President of the United States - learned from the fly incident that when a nasty intruder gets close to you - you just squish him. The facts are that he did not get up from his seat to chase out the intruding fly.

North Korea, has no velvet, orange, or green revolution - its youth has been brainwashed and all what they know is to march in lockstep. This is a very sorry situation and in Gilbert & Sullivan language - “they never shall be missed.” On the other hand - in Iran there is a new generation of talented people that might yet bring about change - that is in their own country - or as said if this did not work out - in our countries.

North Korea is a candidate for immediate squishing - Iran is not - but with a caveat!

So, when the first North Korean ship does not stop for inspection as ordered by the UN Security Council, give it short warning and SINK IT. Be ready to take on any other mischief from the Dear Leader and follow him to the end - this is the squishing part. They shall not be missed.

Iran, will watch what goes on with North Korea and learn. The larger lesson is that squishing does happen. The wise is expected to learn from this. The pinpointed study is that people that follow blindly a “Dear Leader” get punished eventually.

Remarks: U.S. Amb. to Brazil Clifford Sobel at AS/COA’s São Paulo Conference
June 9, 2009

Remarks by the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Clifford Sobel
at the AS/COA Latin American Cities Conference held
in São Paulo, Brazil, on June 6, 2009.

The Future of the U.S.-Brazilian Partnership: A Call for Global Partnership

Today, I am very pleased to be here to speak with you about the importance of U.S. partnership with Brazil, especially in this era of momentous change on the global stage.I would like to speak briefly about the special position that Brazil has as an emerging global leader–especially given your roots as a democratic nation and a market economy. And I would like to discuss the coalitions that Brazil and the United States can form on common interests, looking at what unites us, and not what divides us.

Importance of the Bilateral Relationship

As a member of the BRIC nations, Brazil has had a profound impact on our world as a new leader in an era of globalization. You are helping to shift the center of gravity. As U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, I must emphasize that our partnership with Brazil is one of our most important bilateral relationships, based on shared values, shared interests, shared challenges. The United States recognizes that on many issues, Brazil has to be a part of the solution, for example, climate change, energy innovation, food security, and regional stability.

What We Have Accomplished

This bilateral relationship is already intensifying as Brazil’s economic stability, and its global reach and engagement grow. And the similarities between our countries make us natural partners. Consider for a moment all that our countries, as partners, have accomplished together:
Biofuels Agreement
CEO Forum
New air routes/Open Skies
Bilateral Military Working Group: closer engagement on Haiti and other military to military priorities
Projeto Pontes
Trip to Northeast/Hospitality
Enter Jovem
Energy and food security
New people: Health Attaché/FAA/RLA/USTDA
These are but a few examples of what Brazil and the United States have been able to do to strengthen our partnership. Imagine what the future can hold!

New Vision

Looking to the future: The United States is ready to lead by example. The Obama Administration has laid out an ever bolder vision of U.S. relations with Brazil, one that deepens our partnership on the global stage. President Obama has brought a fresh voice, and a new approach to U.S. relations in the Americas and worldwide. Some Brazilian journalists have taken to referring to “the Obama Doctrine”–that the U.S. is ready to listen, open to learning from other nations, and ready to lead by example.

This new approach was introduced at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad in April, and one may say manifested in the surprising consensus member nations found regarding revoking Cuba’s expulsion from the OAS. The resolution was an act of statesmanship. Our nations addressed and bridged an historic divide in the Americas, while reaffirming our profound commitment to democracy and the fundamental human rights of our peoples. We removed an historical impediment to Cuba’s participation in the OAS, but we also established a process of engagement with Cuba based on the core practices, principles, and purposes of the OAS and the Inter-American system. This was not an easy process, but the decision was historic. And our collaboration strengthens the OAS as an institution.

Working together our nations can make history!

Just remember, after World War II, the United States and its allies built a new world order. Today, it is up to the emerging global powers such as Brazil, and the developed world, to do it once again! Brazil could have a profound impact on our world as a new leader in the era of globalization. You are shifting the center of gravity.

The United States recognizes our shared responsibility for common problems, and we are looking for partners who demonstrate the political will to meet these challenges head on. Looking at the U.S.-Brazil partnership,  it is clear our nations have shared priorities.  We recognize the importance of:
Solving the global economic crisis and preventing future ones; Promoting prosperity and social inclusion in our diverse nations;
Dealing with climate change through environmental protection, innovation and green energy development;
Strengthening the safety of our communities by cooperating in the fight against violence, drugs, and organized crime.
As President Obama said following his March meeting with President Lula at the White House, the two Presidents “had a wonderful meeting of the minds.” Both presidents recognize that more developed nations such as the United States must work together in partnership with BRIC nations to address the key issues of our time—the global economic crisis, poverty, despair, and the 30 percent of the population that we have left behind.

This was the first topic that Presidents Obama and Lula discussed at the White House in March! We will get through this economic crisis, and our interconnected economies will pave the way for cooperation in many areas, not just in bilateral relations.  But in getting the benefits of globalization to all of the citizens of the world. Together, our leaders need to be wise enough to make the hard decisions to deal with the different issues that confront us all. For today, no country, no region, has the resources or intellectual capital to deal with all of these challenges.

Forecasting the Partnership: What Would Brazil Like?

With Brazil: We are natural partners – parcerias naturais.  And Brazil is an island of stability. Our leaders have nurtured an increasingly close relationship between our governments, our business, and our people.  As a result, I believe there is huge potential for growth in any endeavor we can think of. In its report, A Second Chance: U.S. Policy in the Americas,  the Inter-American Dialogue identified ten priority challenges for the U.S. in the Americas. The 7th involved building a closer relationship with Brazil.  I quote: “Neither Brazil nor the United States is yet ready to develop a broad longterm partnership.  They are not willing to make the concessions or accept the substantial compromises needed to build a more strategic relationship.”

With all due respect, with regard to the United States, I have to disagree with the Inter-American Dialogue. I think this Administration is already working on a longer-term strategic partnership with Brazil that goes beyond an ad hoc set of issues. And I think the indications are clear, too, that the Obama Administration is ready to make compromises and concessions, where necessary, to make such a partnership happen.

As Eduardo Campos said, Brazil is not looking for charity, but for partnership. But… it takes two to make a partnership. Call it what you will, strategic, or otherwise; the question before Brazil today is, what kind of partnership does it want? A pragmatic, fluid, broad-based partnership, based on shared interests and common strategic goals? Or something more cautious, less reliable, more subject to external pressure?

Global leadership today requires engaged and continuing political and diplomatic partnership between developed and developing countries in times of crisis and in times of calm. Global leadership entails making hard diplomatic decisions, not only the popular ones. It is up to Brazil to determine what kind of regional partnership it will seek, but the United States hopes it will not be exclusionary.

And Brazil, perhaps more than any country in Latin America, benefits from globalization. It is up to both our countries not to engage in protectionism. The United States is not looking backwards. This is a time for new vision, new opportunities, and new partnership. That is what President Obama brings as President. Certainly we have an exciting opportunity.  We recall at the G-20, how President Obama smiled when he saw President Lula, and exclaimed, “I love this guy!”

Everything I have seen as Ambassador in nearly three years leads me to believe that the potential of this partnership to create a new, positive-sum game is enormous. The barriers to constructing this partnership are low.  With so much in common, it’s really a question of interest and will. I have seen equal desire throughout my time in Brazil on the part of government ministers, members of congress, state governors and mayors, educators, scientists, students, business people, and civic activists. Of course, there are still some who think of the past and not to the future. It is my hope that in the months and years to come, Brazil will continue its outreach to the United States.

I hope as Brazil develops its strategic interests, that it will include the United States amongst its first and foremost partners. It is my hope that our governments can harness the renewed energy and enthusiasm of the last few months to create a broader and deeper partnership and yes, perhaps even a strategic one. Our nations have so much in common.  We are rich not only in commodities, but in our people.

In 1820, Thomas Jefferson remarked that Brazil and the United States are “brethren of the same family pursuing the same objective.” As I said during the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce annual dinner for Person of the Year:
Brazil and the United States of America are so alike.
We are nations “indivisible” but nations of immigrants
We are citizens of the New World
Innovators and entrepreneurs who share a common vision for the future
It makes me feel proud to stand with those who built and continue to build the bridges of friendship, and the foundations for partnership, between our two nations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the United States stands with Brazil as partners on the world stage. We can accomplish great things together–bi-laterally and multi-laterally–when we act together, as governments and as people. As Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs Thomas Shannon said recently:  “This is a relationship to which both countries need to pay close attention. This relationship will really define what happens in South America and elsewhere in the world.”

Tom Shannon has been a great Assistant Secretary, and I am sure he will make a great Ambassador and  be a leader in working with Brazil to deepen our bilateral partnership. What I ask from Brazil today is: continue to be our partner. Not only our bilateral partner, but our partner in multilateral relationships, our partner worldwide. Together, we have so much room for growth and for success that we ought to be more ambitious about what our countries can do together.

We don’t know what the particular areas for future cooperation between our countries will be. But we know that the future of Brazil is today, and our futures and our prosperity are inter-dependent. This is a great time for Brazil and the United States, with limitless oportunidades. t is up to all of us, governments, the private sector, and our private citizens, to build the bridges, create the partnerships, and seize the moment.

Obrigado!

 Former President Bill Clinton, who earlier this week shared the podium with UNSG Ban Ki-moon at the UN, when the latter appointed him as his representative for Haiti, was scheduled to share with him also the dinner table, podium, and the “GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN AWARD of THE FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION at its 2009 Global Philanthropy Awards Dinner, Wednesday, June 17th, 2009, at the St. Regis Roof Ballroom, Midtown Manhattan.

Considering that all at the UN seem to believe that Mr. Ban Ki-moon has actually started already his re-election campaign, at a time he is very much under criticism for the very low key ways he handles important issues that end up in his lap - this as his main focus seems to be on the dictum “do not offend” when this applies to the main powers that will decide on his reelection. He makes statements that are not intended to lead to results, and some actually even question sometimes the veracity of what was said - this is unforgivable.

We looked at all of this and concluded, these last days, that Bill Clinton was ill advice at cooperating with the UNSG if he is simply used as a way to collect IOUs from the US Administration to be used later in the re-election campaign.

We wrote about this at: http://www.sustainabilitank.info/?s=Ban+…

Thinking about the FPA event, further, these days of Washington’s involvement in Climate Change, sharing the podium also with the CEO of the Italian oil company - ENI - who was getting the FPA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Award - might also not have been the greatest idea either.

Last night I went to St. Regis, saw the Sri Lankan Tamils demonstrating across the street and asking where was Ban Ki-moon when 30, 000 of their people were being killed? Why does he get that Humanitarian Award? They would rather see him go home.

Upstairs, at the dinner table, I saw Mr. Ban Ki-moon, but could not find Mr. Clinton.

Then, when the speaking part started we were informed that Bill Clinton is a no-show. We were told that he could not come because of an emergency in the family - but we were not told what happened. The quiet of the announcement took me back, and I must confess that my feeling was that we were not told the whole truth and secretly I was hoping that Mr. Clinton just decided that this company became too hot for him, and for his wife who is now the official of the family. I listened to the Ban Ki-moon speech, the Paolo Scaroni speech, picked up an ENI documents gift bag, and went home where my wife told me that it was on TV that Hillary Clinton fell and injured her right elbow.

I got my lesson of not jumping to conclusions in the future before collecting more facts, but to be honest, even though I am very sorry for Hillary Clinton’s injury - I think she saved him from future embarrassment as it might have happened had he shared the dinner table last night.

————

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fractured her right elbow during a fall Wednesday, her chief of staff said. Clinton was on her way to the White House when she fell chief of staff Cheryl Mills said.

Clinton was treated at The George Washington University Hospital, just a few blocks from State Department headquarters, before going home. She will undergo surgery to repair her elbow in the coming week, Mills said.

  ———————

Who was at the event? Obviously, many of the FPA members that paid $1,000 per person for that priviledge, but this time also many UN Ambassadors of oil producing countries and at least one top current official of a US oil company. When I looked for the very few Ambassadors from non-oil countries, I found that in India and Poland there is involvement By ENI as well.

Looking at the hand-out material from ENI - it comes in tabloid sized journals called simply “Oil” - the March 2009 Editorial evaluates the new Administration in Washington as: “The begining, however was warm, without being heartwarming.” The first article says that the real world crisis is water and then an article by former Senator Gary Hart, being introduced as a “renowned green politician” who advocates adapting a new lifestyle and energy saving as the only choice for America if it wants to free itself from dependency on oil supplies from the Gulf. Then “The challenge for Obama is foreign policy and not the economy.” That issue was called “Up & Down” and also contained among other material an interview - “Talking to Daniel Yergin” (from the Boston based CERA consultants) - “The impetus towards recovery from the energy industry - the transformations in the energy world will contribute to counterbalancing the downturn. The US and China will form a new axis of international growth.” Talking about Europe ENI finds that “Disunity can be Strength.” There is a positive article about India - “Elephant fights back,” there is the prediction of China increasing consumption, and of Cuba producing oil.

The June issue of “Oil” titled “the choice.” It starts with pieces on “the theocratic democracy in Iran” and then moves about Iran to “the future lies underground” and this means oil and more oil - leading to Obama’s “the choice” and it is about the US-Iran relationship - with protagonists - Obama and Ahmadi-Nejad. “Obama’s overture - the cold and the lukewarm.” It goes deeper - into “IRANOMICS” studying the policy mistakes made by the US in the past and the few issues US diplomacy should concentrate with. ENI finds that Ayatollah and the US have converging interests. Europe, above all, would gain most from a possible easing of tensions. However, talking to an Iranian ex-governor of the Central Bank - Moscow and some Arab countries are opposed to this for fear of losing their role. Not bad as policy studies paid for by oil!

From here to the need for “mature” diplomacy asa understood by Brent Scowcroft of the Nixon days and keeping an eye on geopolitics as seen by Richard Nathan Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations a clearly solid Republican home.

The former Italian Ambassador too India and Iran, Roberto Toscano, finds “less ideology in the Iranian puzzle” and he lifts the veil “on the “curse of oil and the role played by Italy.” Looking back to the days of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, there is hope in finding a future of thawing of relations with Iran that everyone can benefit. There is some more material and we clearly were impressed though we think that all of this goes against what President Obama said about Iraq that paraphrased meant - we will not be after your oil. Now clearly, if Washington does not find other topics of conversation with Iran in order to build a relationship - all of the above is rightly nothing more then another road to disaster.

We hope that someone sent a package of ENI to the missing Bill Clinton and we hope he would think like us - that this is not what Obama and Hillary need.

—–

To the essence of the event,  I will defer to  the excellent report by InnerCityPress - the writing is so good that we will not attempt to compete with it. I will only add that in his opening, when Mr. Ban Ki-moon tipped his hat to the Tamils, he said that he was the first and last of the world leaders to go to Sri Lanka. He also said he met there with Tamil leaders but as we understand from the press - the last point of meeting Tamils is being left in contention by people that were there with him - but where it seems that he does have a point is the fact that in today’s world the Tamils rank for nothing - so if nobody else in leadership position is speaking up for them - who is he to do so?Aha! but he is just getting the Humanitarian Award of the world corporate philanthropies - does that pass onto him the responsibility to go further then the common politicians?

UN’s Ban Tips Hat to Protesters from High Above NY, Claims He Met With Tamils.

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, June 17 — It was projected as a light evening of honor for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to receive from the Foreign Policy Association a Global Humanitarian Award, along with former US president Bill Clinton.

Clinton, however, canceled his appearance due to “family health issues” — word on the street, literally 55th Street in front of the St. Regis Hotel, was that Hillary was in a car crash. And Ban himself was protested, for hours, with chants urging him to resign, or to “go home,” or at least to feel shame.

The protesters, it must be said, were nearly entirely ethnic Tamils. Despite the tens of thousands of people killed in the war in Sri Lanka, unlike Darfur, Myanmar or the Middle East, the victims have yet to gain noticeable solidarity from non-Tamils. This feels of abandonment was palpable Wednesday night in front of the St. Regis Hotel.

Please read the excellent full report at: http://www.innercitypress.com/untrip4may…

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

  While 200 Sri Lanka Tamils demonstrated across the street from the St. Regis Hotel where the UN Secretary General was getting the US Foreign PolicyAssociation’s Global Humanitarian Award for 2009, at different New York location the Human Rights Watch presented that Sri Lanka is law-less. At the FPA Mr. Ban insisted that he did whatver he could.

———

from    HRW Press <hrwpress@hrw.org>

date    Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:23 PM
subject    Sri Lanka: International Investigation Needed

For Immediate Release

Sri Lanka: International Investigation Needed - End of Government Commission on Wartime Abuses Puts Justice at Risk.

(New York, June 17, 2009) – The Sri Lankan government’s announcement that it was ending its special inquiry into conflict-related abuses underscores the need for an international commission to investigate violations of international law by government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Human Rights Watch said today.

“Sri Lanka’s presidential commission of inquiry started with a bang and ended with a whimper,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The need for an international inquiry into abuses by both sides is greater than ever.”

The mandate of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, which was established in 2006 and assigned to investigate 16 incidents of killings, enforced disappearances, assassinations and other serious abuses, expired on June 14, 2009 and reportedly was not renewed. Although the commission’s chairman, former Supreme Court chief justice Nissanka Udalagama, said that seven of the 16 cases had been investigated, none of the commission’s reports have been released or any other public action taken. Among the cases the commission investigated was the brutal killing of five students in Trincomalee, the summary execution of 17 aid workers in Mutur, and the bomb attack that killed 68 bus passengers in Kebitigollewa. Human Rights Watch has expressed concern about the slow pace of the investigations and President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s unwillingness to release the investigation reports.

The last weeks of the war heightened the need for an independent and impartial inquiry. Fighting in northeastern Sri Lanka intensified from early January until the government’s defeat of the LTTE in May. During that period, both sides were implicated in numerous serious violations of the laws of war. LTTE forces used displaced persons as “human shields,” and fired on civilians who tried to flee the conflict area. Government forces repeatedly fired heavy artillery into densely populated areas, including at hospitals caring for the wounded.

During the special session on Sri Lanka of the UN Human Rights Council in May, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pallay, said that an “independent and credible international investigation into recent events should be dispatched to ascertain the occurrence, nature and scale of violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, as well as specific responsibilities.”

On May 23, Rajapaksa and the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, issued a joint statement from Sri Lanka in which the government said it “will take measures to address” the need for an accountability process for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

“The decision to disband the presidential commission shows that President Rajapaksa has little intention of fulfilling his promise to Secretary-General Ban,” said Pearson. “It’s now up to concerned governments to step in and ensure that justice is done for the victims of abuses in Sri Lanka’s long war.”

There have been serious ongoing violations of human rights in Sri Lanka  and a backlog of cases of enforced disappearance and unlawful killings that run to the tens of thousands, as described for example in the 2008 Human Rights Watch report “Recurring Nightmare.” Despite this track record, there have been only a small number of prosecutions.

Human Rights Watch said the presidential commission of inquiry was just the latest inadequate and incomplete effort by the Sri Lankan government to investigate serious human rights abuses and bring those responsible to justice. Other efforts to address violations through the establishment of ad hoc mechanisms in Sri Lanka produced few results, either in providing information or leading to prosecutions.

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Sri Lanka, please visit the following:
·       April 2009 news release, “Sri Lanka: Stop Shelling ‘No-Fire Zone,” at: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/09/sr…
·       March 2008 report, “Recurring Nightmare: State Responsibility for ‘Disappearances’ and Abductions in Sri Lanka,” at:
 http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/03/05…
·       May 2009 news release, “Sri Lanka: UN Rights Council Fails Victims,” at: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/27/sr…
·       Sri Lanka country page, at:
 http://www.hrw.org/en/asia/sri-lanka

For more information, please contact:
In London, Brad Adams (English): +44-20-7713-2767; or +44-79-0872-8333 (mobile)
In New York, James Ross (English): +1-646-898-5487 (mobile)
In New Delhi, Meenakshi Ganguly (English, Hindi, Bengali): +91-98-200-36032 (mobile)

UN Secretary General, in his effort to get the Democrats in Washington to have a favorable view of his eventual reappointment effort to a second term at the helm of the UN, just caught a big fish - he got Former President Bill Clinton to accept his offer to be the be his Special Representative to Haiti and a Press Conference was held at the UN June 15, 2009 - please read about it on www.innercitypress.com - things that you will not pick up in the conventional media.

“The depths of Haiti’s problems emerged at Bill Clinton’s UN press conference on Monday. After Clinton spoke of the need to make a registry of non-governmental organizations to better coordinate their work, Inner City Press asked about the lack of registration of the children that are born, particularly in rural Haiti. Seemingly it is known at the UN that the lack of registration leads to illegal adoptions and even the sale of babies for organs, one Permanent Representative told Inner City Press, urging that this too be asked of Clinton. He was responding to Inner City Press’ June 12 question, at a briefing on child labor, about Haiti’s restavek system.

{A restavèk is a Haitian child who becomes a house slave when she is turned over by her parents to a family which agrees, in principle, to care for the child, provide schooling, food, shelter, and clothing in exchange for domestic labor. Neither the child’s nor the parents’ hopes are usually fulfilled. The restavèk instead spends her formative years isolated from parental love and care, and nurturing contact with siblings, deprived of schooling and subject to long days of work with no pay and living conditions inferior to those of the overseer’s family. She performs whatever services the overseer requires under a constant menace of physical and verbal abuse, often meted out as a matter of routine by members of the household.

Today in Haiti, according to NGOs, an estimated one out of every ten children is a restavèk. These children are such a common part of the social fabric that rare is the Haitian who has not had some association with a restavèk. Some have given away a child or taken one in as a restavèk, or they know a family that has; others have been a restavèk themselves. This familiarity has affected the way most Haitians take these children for granted.}

After Clinton’s opening statement, Inner City Press asked about restavek, the registration of new borns, and the UN’s failure to disclose any discipline meted out to the more than 100 UN peacekeepers repatriated from Haiti to Sri Lanka after being accused of sexual abuse and exploitation. On punishment for sexual impropriety, Clinton said he would not answer, that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would.

But on restavek, he said he knew well of the problem. He said, parents were promised their children would be educated in exchange for work, but the schooling never happened. Some restavek victims are in the United States, he said. He will try to work on the problem. So - here is hope for a Clinton involvement.

   On sexual abuse, Mr. Ban said the UN has received assurances that some discipline took place after repatriation. But the UN has never said what this was. Inner City Press asked Haitian Foreign Minister Alrich Nicolas, also present, but he did not know, either. How can the UN claim a zero tolerance policy when it won’t report this basic information? We will continue on this writes Matthew Russell Lee from Inner City Press.

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So, what we see from the above is infered as the lack of interest on part of the UN Secretary General about the problems of Haiti - the only country of the Western Hemisphere that is among the 50 poorest countries of the World.

Bringing in President Clinton is a great move - provided that Mr. Clinton will also take to task the UN itself - a need  demonstrated by the way the UN hires so called peace-making troops from poor countries, by paying large sums of money to - in many cases - authoritarian governments that pocket the money and then dish out small salaries to their troops. Sometimes these third quality military forces plainly misbehave, and the Sri Lankans in Haiti were such a case in point with the UN winking away the whole issue. Many such cases were known also among “UN Peace Keepers” in Africa. If President Clinton takes his job seriously, he is to remove the cover over these issues, and leave the UN to be seen in its lack of leadership/ nakedness. If he continues in the future also to pass on these sort of problems to his UN boss without investigating the issue - this would be a let down to us.We hope thus that he will not just be a feather in Ban Ki-moon’s cap.

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from the same UN Press Conference, The Chritian Science Monitor, from Washington rather then New York,  has different news:

Bill Clinton can’t help himself, holds forth on Netanyahu speech: Former President Jimmy Carter, too, offered comments about the address during a tour of the Middle East.

By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the June 15, 2009 edition

WASHINGTON - The setting had nothing to do with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech about the Middle East peace process. It was a press event at the United Nations in New York Monday to announce that Bill Clinton would be taking the post of special envoy to Haiti.

But even as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s spokesperson was trying to cut the questions short, the former president could not resist going off-topic – baited, of course, by reporters.

He started by saying that he had not gotten his talking points in the morning from the State Department – read, his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Nonetheless, Mr. Clinton hailed Mr. Netanyahu for “going on the record as open to some two-state solution,” though he added that the conditions the prime minister set would be “completely unacceptable to the Palestinians.”

But drawing on his own experience with the Middle East conflict, Clinton said no one should take Netanyahu’s speech as the final word. “You should see this as opening moves … to not alienate the US and keep the ball rolling.”

Employing the silver tongue for which he is known the world over, he added, “This is the opening play … and it’s a drama that will have a few more acts.”

The reaction of another former US president, however, was less positive. Jimmy Carter has been in the region during the past week, during which time he met with the Hamas leadership in Gaza – one of the few Western leaders who has done so. While visiting the Israeli parliament Sunday, he said: “My opinion is [Netanyahu] raised many new obstacles to peace that had not existed under previous prime ministers.”

“He still apparently insists on expansion of existing settlements, he demands that the Palestinians and the Arabs recognise Israel as a Jewish state, although 20 percent of its citizens here are not Jews. This is a new demand,” Mr. Carter added.

But he said there remains opportunity for compromise. “I have to say that in spite of the differences between my president, Barack Obama, and Prime Minister Netanyahu, greater differences existed between myself and then-prime minister Begin,” Carter said.

Carter, Menachem Begin, and Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat were able to agree to the Camp David Accords, which led to a peace deal between Israel and Egypt in 1979.

For his part, current US President Obama hailed Netanyahu’s address Monday, saying, “I thought that there was positive movement in the prime minister’s speech.”

The Water’s Edge: Tigers’ Tail
Source: FPA Features
Author: Daniel Widome

The Water’s Edge is a monthly column examining the intersection of domestic and foreign policies, with a special focus on the challenges facing the new Obama administration.

May 28th, 2009

This month, one of the world’s longest and bloodiest wars drew to a close. After a massive months-long offensive, the Sri Lankan military cornered the remaining forces of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) into a small patch of territory in the northeast of the country, and on May 16, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared victory in the 26-year conflict. This was a remarkable and welcome achievement for many reasons. What was particularly notable however, was that the victory seems to contradict much of modern military history. Insurgencies, especially those as resilient and sophisticated as that orchestrated by the LTTE, are not supposed to be resolvable through brute military force alone. Yet in Sri Lanka, this is what seems to have happened. The defeat of the LTTE presents lessons and challenges for the evolving U.S. strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Barack Obama has taken notice.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the Tamil Tigers, were founded by Vellupillai Prahhakaran in 1976. From 1983, they waged a separatist war in the north and east of Sri Lanka, claiming to represent the country’s ethnic Tamil minority against the majority Sinhalese government in a conflict that ultimately claimed over 80,000 lives. The LTTE was among the most sophisticated militant organizations in the world. For many years, they controlled much of northeastern Sri Lanka and operated as a ruling authority there, providing a full range of governmental services and effectively defending their territory through conventional military means. In addition to the land-based elements common to most insurgencies, the LTTE also had an air force and a navy, known as the “Air Tigers” and “Sea Tigers,” respectively. The LTTE had the dubious distinction of pioneering suicide bombing; their elite “Black Tigers” unit was responsible for the assassination of a former Indian prime minister and a Sri Lankan president. In short, the LTTE was among the most resilient and well-established insurgencies in the world.

Throughout the 26-year conflict, various attempts had been made to mediate between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. In the late 1980s, India deployed an ill-fated peacekeeping force to the island, and Norway spearheaded a mediation effort early in this decade. These efforts eventually came to naught, and in 2008, the government launched a full-scale offensive against LTTE-held territory in the north of the country. In January of this year, the government intensified its campaign in an effort to deal the LTTE a final blow. As the LTTE retreated into densely populated regions, it made extensive use of civilians as human shields against government attack. But the government largely disregarded this tactic, as well as UN-mediated cease-fires and designated “safe zones” in which civilians could seek refuge. It pursued its offensive aggressively, inflicting severe civilian casualties. By April, the UN estimated that nearly 6,500 civilians had been killed in the offensive and about 14,000 had been injured.

In a sense, the Sri Lankan offensive created the first man-made humanitarian crisis of Barack Obama’s presidency. In April, as the LTTE was being squeezed into an ever-smaller plot of territory, Obama expressed his “deep concern” about the situation and called for an immediate cease-fire. He also “call[ed] upon the Government of Sri Lanka to stop shelling the ‘safe zone’ and blocking international aid groups and media from accessing those civilians who have managed to escape.” This month, just days before the LTTE’s final defeat, Obama prefaced a televised statement on his decision to withhold photographs of detainee abuse—arguably a far more salient issue to a U.S. audience—with further concerns about the situation in Sri Lanka. He specifically “urge[d] the Tamil Tigers to lay down their arms and let civilians go,” and he repeated his calls for government forces to stop indiscriminately shelling civilian areas and to give international aid groups access to civilian refugees. The president’s comments were amplified by similar statements from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton UN Ambassador Susan Rice.

Behind the proclamations, however, was something more remarkable: concrete action. The Obama administration acted to delay a $1.9 billion IMF loan to Sri Lanka due to the humanitarian crisis. According to one U.S. official, “the problem … [was] that the Sri Lankans have refused to engage on the humanitarian crisis as a priority,” and that delaying the loan was “an attempt to get [Sri Lankan] priorities back where they should be.” The administration acknowledged that the loan was only being delayed, not canceled, and that there was no particular expectation that the delay would compel the Sri Lankan government to change its behavior. Even so, the delay of the IMF loan—coupled with the administration’s strong, coordinated criticism of the Sri Lankan government—represented a far more robust response to a humanitarian crisis than had been made by previous administrations in similar circumstances. The Clinton administration’s tepid response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in particular, is known to have shaped the thinking of some Obama advisors; the president himself may have been similarly motivated.

Obama’s response, however strong, did not stop the Sri Lankan government’s offensive or delay the LTTE’s ultimate demise. Humanitarian concerns aside, the conclusive endgame of Sri Lanka’s civil war presents unsettling questions for the United States’ own ongoing counter-insurgency operations. Recent military history suggests that the best (if not the only) way to defeat an ethnic- or religious-based insurgency is by protecting the civilian population, trying to win the “hearts and minds” of local noncombatants, and utilizing a “light” military footprint. Essentially, the goal is to deprive an insurgency of its base of support. An aggressive military response, on the other hand, plays into the insurgents’ plans. It increases local resentment of the dominant power in the region and drives supporters to the insurgent cause. And given the irregular and asymmetrical method of insurgent warfare, blunt military responses rarely achieve their objectives; tanks and bombers cannot kill insurgents hiding in an urban area without putting a much greater number of civilians at risk, which ultimately serves an insurgent’s political objectives. The evolution of the U.S. war in Iraq—from the 2003 invasion, to the bloody occupation period of 2004-2006, to the present “surge” strategy spearheaded by General David Petraeus—only reinforces these lessons.

In Sri Lanka, however, the government did not abide by these principles. It used an abundance of brute force to liquidate the LTTE insurgency. Tanks, planes, and artillery were utilized liberally, and little effort went into winning the “hearts and minds” of the local population. Instead of coaxing the LTTE to lay down its arms or persuading civilians to withdraw their support, the Sri Lankan government pummeled the insurgency mercilessly, along with anything or anyone in its immediate proximity. This strategy is not “supposed” to work. Yet it did. As President Obama oversees a large-scale reinvestment in the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the Sri Lankan experience raises some pertinent questions. Do the lessons that have been learned in Iraq and in previous insurgencies still hold? How and why did the Sri Lankan government succeed? Will the blatant humanitarian costs incurred by its approach eventually outweigh the military defeat of the LTTE, either in the short-term or in the long-term?

Although these are important questions, it is clear that each insurgency is different. Counter-insurgency campaigns must be tailored to local conditions and cannot be transposed or grafted from one dissimilar conflict to another. It is entirely possible, if not probable, that the Sri Lankan government’s aggressive approach may have planted the seeds for long-term resentment and instability that could temper the short-term success it has just achieved. The endgame of the Sri Lankan civil war certainly has been fraught with irony. The LTTE was a violent organization and the civil war was immensely destructive; the end of both is clearly a good thing. But the Sri Lankan government’s final offensive was indiscriminate in its brutality, and it created a genuine humanitarian crisis.

As if to reinforce the irony, the Sri Lankan government has actually credited President Obama with playing a major role in the success of their offensive. “It is undeniable that the LTTE effectively folded shortly after President Barack Obama told the world that the terrorists were holding innocent Tamil civilians as hostages. He was one of the few world leaders to note that fact so forcefully … I believe that the president’s statement had a great influence on the LTTE,” noted Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United States. If such a sentiment is genuine, Obama faces a new opportunity. He could use his newfound clout with the Sri Lankan government to urge it to relieve the still-ongoing humanitarian crisis and to build the foundation for a sustainable peace.

Daniel Widome is a San Francisco-based foreign policy analyst and writer. He can be reached at  daniel.widome at gmail.com

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What above evaluation missed is the simple fact that except for a lukewarm Indian attempt, practically nobody had any interest in the Sri Lanka issue, except that is China that saw here the potential to gain a warm water port facility in Sri Lanka. As a result, the Sri Lanka government got arms and support from China while the Tamil Tigers got only very little help from India which saw in them potential troublemakers for India itself. Considering the above, much of the FPA suggestions may seem not thoroughly threshed out.

The UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL TO HOLD SPECIAL SESSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN SRI LANKA , Tuesday May 26, 2009.

 With this announcement, Sri Lanka joins Sudan, Myanmar (Burma), and Congo (Kinshasa) as only the fourth UN member state to be looked at critically, besides the EIGHT Times it investigated Israel because of Palestinian or Lebanese issues.

Interesting, just one third of the HRC - that is 17 nations - or one more then the minimum of 16 in the 59 member body - that asked for this session. When the US and the other new members join this body, will they be able to increase further its relevance?

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The Human Rights Council will hold a special session to address the human rights situation in Sri Lanka on Tuesday, 26 May starting 3 p.m. in Room XX, the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The special session is being convened following the request submitted by Germany on behalf of the following 17 members of the Human Rights Council: Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Mauritius, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uruguay.

In order for a special session to be convened, the support of one-third of the membership of the Council (16 members or more) is required.  Per Council rules, the list of sponsors for special sessions will remain open up to the holding of the meeting.

“It is hoped that the holding of this special session will contribute towards the cause of peace”, stated Human Rights Council President Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi.  “The Human Rights Council cannot be silent when innocent civilians are caught up in armed conflicts.  The international community must strive to deliver justice to victims of human rights violations wherever they occur and ensure that those found guilty of such crimes are held accountable for their actions”, he added.

This will be the eleventh special session of the Human Rights Council.  The Council’s previous special sessions related to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Darfur, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Global Food Crisis and the Global Economic and Financial Crises.

 The following two articles tell us indirectly that much of what we are doing in above two general areas - The Climate Change area and the Foreign Aid area - is helping the wrong factors - be this the economic baloons builders in the industrialized countries, or the dictators and money skimmers in the truely needy countries - all of them having plenty of lobbyists in places like Washington DC and the UN while the world may be starved by not having in leading position just a few straight minds shooting at the real problems - simple Gordian Knots Cutters. Our Website loves to point fingers.

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From Harry Langer of H. L. Langer & Co., Inc.

 STOPPING GLOBAL WARMING.

Cap and trade measures to combat the global warming effect of greenhouse gasses won’t work. These measures raise concerns about the risk of financial scams and bubbles reminiscent of the CBO crises; business lobbying for free pollution credits that would emasculate national legislation to cap greenhouse gasses; and distant compliance deadlines that could result in economic, social, political, environmental, and health disasters.

It would be better to just eliminate carbon emissions on a fast timetable and simultaneously develop and exchange alternative energy technologies.

Global problems need global solutions. The enactment of uniform international greenhouse gas elimination regulations with timetables for their compliance and the means to enforce them would avoid political and business pressures within individual nations to weaken regulatory standards and eliminate concerns of unfair global competition and compliance evasion. Effective and immediate action is necessary.

A summit meeting of the leaders of the Group of Twenty major industrial nations and the leading international environmental and financial organizations should be convened to establish regulations and implement progressively heavier uniform. limits on carbon/greenhouse gas emissions on the Group of 20 advanced nations (which account for over 80% of the world’s GDP) to eliminate them over a 5 to 10 year timetable.

This would also help economic recovery by creating jobs and revenues. Industry and consumers could be compensated for investment in qualified pollution control or elimination devices; clean energy replacement products or equipment; and research and development of carbon replacement or reduction technology by backward or forward accelerated depreciation tax incentives or credits and low interest government loans or grants. This would be a very effective economic and humanitarian stimulus. Higher fuel and utility taxes could encourage energy conservation and reimburse government for pollution control incentives.

Undeveloped nations would be subject to lower carbon emissions limitation timetables and would be forbidden to allow developed nations to use their countries to circumvent or evade their progressive greenhouse gasses limitation regulations.

The World Court could impose fines and embargoes on nations for non-compliance with the carbon control restrictions and the sharing of pollution control technology. Compliance and the decisions of the court could be overseen and enforced by one or more of the established world organizations like the WTO, OECD, IMF, World Bank, or UN or a special independent entity.

Similar measures should be taken for the establishment of global regulation and enforcement procedures for the preservation and expansion of forests and woodlands according to climate, terrain, and soil conditions. Saving and planting trees and shrubs (preferably fruit and berry ones) is an inexpensive way to aid climate control; balance atmospheric oxygen and carbon gasses; prevent soil erosion and desert expansion; control flooding; increase water resources (replenish groundwater, rivers lakes, rainfall), reclaim agricultural land expand the food supply including fish stocks to combat global hunger; provide jobs; and create self sufficiency via fresh, desiccated, and prepared agricultural industries. A worldwide reforestation program to supply free or subsidized seedlings, plants, and technological assistance to achieve these goals would be relatively inexpensive and highly successful on a cost benefit basis. Subsidized solar powered cooking devices or stoves could help reduce the use of wood as fuel and help preserve trees and shrubs in many countries. Grants, loans, credits, and technical assistance could be given to countries heavily dependent on forest products to develop alternative sources of jobs and revenues.

Harry L. Langer                                                    E-mail:  harrylanger at hllanger.com

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AID ALTERNATIVES FOR UNDEVELOPED COUNTRIES.

Massive financial aid is usually wasted in impoverished countries with inept leadership, poor governance, pervasive corruption and inadequate legal, justice and educational systems (like those in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia). It invariably enriches top officials and maintains them in power at the expense of their citizenry. Such governments also manipulate and exploit well intentioned and generous donors. They become so dependent on the continuing easy availability of funding from donor nations and NGO sources that they have little incentive to improve domestic conditions. Progress, entrepreneurship, and self reliance become stifled and poverty becomes institutionalized.

Consequently, it would be more effective if a major portion of foreign aid took the form of supplies and equipment that could develop agricultural self sufficiency, create both domestic and export industries and jobs, and provide water purification systems for disease control, public consumption, and industrial needs. For example:

(a) In lieu of military aid, donor nations could give not only food but also seeds and fertilizers (suitable for local climate and soil conditions), tools, farm equipment (tractors, spreaders, combines, etc.), solar or wind powered water pumps and generators, and growing and technical assistance to meet domestic needs and create export markets. Water purification systems canning, desiccation, and packaging equipment and technology could also be provided for market development and greater profits.

(b) Supply commercial sewing and textile machinery to produce raw materials and finished products for the domestic and export markets.

(c) Supply equipment and machine tools to extract and fabricate domestic minerals and raw materials. i.e., iron copper, aluminum, glass, wood, hemp, chemicals, herbs and medicinals, etc. for more jobs, higher living standards, and greater revenues.

(d) Similarly, develop fishing and animal husbandry industries with related preparation, canning, and freezing facilities.

e) Micro financing should be a mandatory part of all assistance programs.

(f) It is also essential that business licenses be easily and quickly obtained and that cell phones be available and affordable to all.

Such types of aid could provide jobs, facilitate self sufficiency, reduce poverty, raise living standards and offer alternatives to illegal drug production as a livelihood. It would also create jobs in the donor nations — a win, win situation for all parties.

The United Nations and the IMF could play essential roles in organizing and establishing such alternative aid programs for the Group of 20 Leading Industrial Nations. They would have a greater and quicker global economic stimulus benefit without the risk of inflation or stagflation, without dangerously increasing the money supply and would create the jobs necessary for recovery. Also, the right kind of aid would be directed to where it was most needed. The IMF could allocate the amount of aid and the ratio between cash and goods of each donor and the UN and NGOs could determine the types and sources of the goods needed and undertake their distribution either through its own agencies directly to Village Elders, Tribal Leaders, and/or reliable local entrepreneurs. Each organization would do what it does best. The goods would be permanently marked to prevent resale for profit by corrupt parties.

Harry L. Langer   T.212-517-5942   F 212-861-4053   E-mail:  harrylanger at hllanger.com

 The Times of India, Thiru’puram, May 18, 2009.

MP-elect Shashi Tharoor swings into action.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Thiruvanthapuram, Thiru’puram, Kerala, India

MP-elect and former UN under secretary general Shashi Tharoor has already swung into action — a day after his stunning victory by close to 100,000 votes.

Tharoor has already found out the whereabouts of four local fishermen who were taken into custody by Sri Lankan police, attended close to a dozen weddings, and also visited the trouble torn Bheemapally area where five people were killed after violence broke out between two communities.

“On 17th (Sunday) morning, I got a call from a legislator here saying that four fishermen from here have been taken into custody by the Sri Lankan police. I immediately spoke to my old friend, the foreign secretary, who got in touch with his counterpart in Sri Lanka and found out that the four are safe and will return soon,” Tharoor said here on Monday.

Tharoor created history when he became the Congress candidate to win the Thiruvananthapuram seat with the largest margin in the last two decades.

“The dissatisfaction with the three-year-old Left government and the people here accepting a non-politician — all contributed to my huge victory.

Actually I am humbled by this margin and my focus would be on results than mere slogans,” he said.

Asked if his new role would be a dampener when it comes to his passion of writing books, Tharoor - who has authored 11 books - said this will now have to wait.

“The expectations of the people here are high and they expect me to deliver. Hence writing will have to wait. I have a huge moral obligation to my people here, and I will be opening an office here, which will be staffed six days a week. Moreover, people can get in touch with me on email also,” he said.

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THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Shashi Tharoor had fought and lost an election for the post of UN secretary general, but the Congress candidate on Saturday scored a thumping victory from the Thiruvanathapuram Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala to make his debut in Parliament.

Tharoor defeated his nearest CPI rival P Ramachandran Nair by a margin of over 95,000 votes.

53-year-old Tharoor had a 23-year-long career in the UN and had served as the under-secretary general for communications and public information between June 2002 and February 2007, during the term of secretary general Kofi Annan.

In 2006, he was the official candidate of India for the post of secretary general, and came second out of the seven candidates in the race.

The former diplomat and writer was declared as a Congress candidate from Thiruvanathapuram on March 19. Politics was an entirely different ball game for the former diplomat and writer, but the results showed that he played it with élan.

“I used to joke to the press that after my UN days are over, I will reboot. But after my foray into electoral politics, it seemed rebooting was not enough. I switched on to an entirely new operations system,” Tharoor had said at a recent function her

 The news from Sri Lanka are all bad. The government, armed by the Chinese is now encircling the Tamil rebels and decimates them in what has close resemblance to genocide. In India the government party is being strengthened in the recent elections and might wake up to the possibility of a Chinese fleet based in Sri Lanka. Pakistan is falling apart leaving exposed a very soft Afghanistan underbelly as entree-points for Islamic Jihadists. Former President Musharaf tells America on the Fareed Zakharia TV program that the funds America spent on him were intended as pay for his army that presented the previous administration with specimens of Al Kaida. Iran and North Korea do not seem to play yet according to Washington tunes either - will Israel?

All of the above as the US dependence on China and India is growing - China, you guessed it - it is all about money, India as a possible counterbalance to excessive dependence on China. And above all of this there is yet to consider that America is still dependent on 70% imports for its energy needs - much of this still from the Middle East.

Into all of this, the world, as Helene Cooper writes from Washington, is watching if there is a “New Perspective” that brings in a shift on Mideast policy. The Pope just toured the Palestinian-Israeli territories and was quite a flop - the world talks about “Missed Chances” in the Pope’s visit. So this Pope, US Catholic Universities aside, is quite fallible - but some US Catholics, as the show at Notre Dame proved it today, have yet to accept this reality.

Tomorrow the gears in Obama’s mind will start rotating on the Israel-Palestine-Iran-Egypt-Saudi Arabia theater. Helene Cooper quotes former ambassador Charles W. Freeman, a person well connected in the Arab world and its oil, and indirectly points at one source of pressure on Israel. Practically everybody expects nevertheless a smooth outcome from the Netanyahu-Obama meeting, but how long before the Israeli leadership will request some show of progress in the matter of the Iranian nukes? To compound the headache, Jeffrey Goldberg presented an evaluation of Mr. Netanyahu’s family background that promises tough negotiations behind closed doors of the White House. We thought it interesting to bring here that article and also to remind US Congress that carbon-saving legislation is extremely important now - this so the US can be weaned from its oil-addiction. The future of oil supplies from the Middle East is not assured.

Further, from the www.SustainabiliTank.info perspective, let us remind our readers of a year-old article in the Wall Street Journal “U.S. Military Launches Alternative-Push - Dependence on Oil Seen as Too Risky; B-1 Takes Test Flight.” (By Yochi J. Dreazen - WSJ, May 21, 2008) - we think that the totality of these news means that for environment/climate change, economy, and also security reasons, a stringent oil tax, under any name, should really be viewed as a security tax - under exactly this name. Again, if the Department of Energy cannot get its act together on Capitol Hill, time has come to send some Department of Defense people over there - they get faster attention!

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Thinking about Netanyahu - please note the following article:

Israel’s Fears, Amalek’s Arsenal.

By JEFFREY GOLDBERG
Published: New York Times, Op-Ed Page, May 16, 2009

WHEN the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits the White House on Monday for his first stage-setting visit, he will carry with him an agenda that clashes insistently with that of President Obama. Mr. Obama wants Mr. Netanyahu to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Netanyahu wants something else entirely: the president’s agreement that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Mr. Netanyahu, in his first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, earned a reputation for conspicuous insincerity. It is therefore possible to interpret his fixation on Iran — he told me in a recent conversation that it is ruled by a “messianic apocalyptic cult” — as a way of avoiding the mare’s nest of problems associated with the Middle East peace process, especially the escalating pressure from the Obama administration to curb Jewish settlement on the West Bank.

This reading of Mr. Netanyahu holds that he is, at bottom, a cynic (or, if you agree with him, a pragmatist), who will bluff vigorously but bend whenever he thinks it expedient or unavoidable. In his first term, he betrayed the principles of the Greater Israel movement by relinquishing part of Judaism’s second-holiest city, Hebron, to the control of Yasir Arafat. His pragmatism evinces itself, as well, in his apparent belief that the relationship between Israel and Washington is sacrosanct. In other words, Mr. Netanyahu, despite his rhetoric, would never launch a strike on Iran without the permission of Mr. Obama — permission that in no way appears forthcoming.

But this is to misread both the prime minister and this moment in Jewish history. It is true that Mr. Netanyahu would prefer to avoid hard decisions concerning the Palestinian issue, for reasons both political (he is not, let us say, sympathetic to the cause of Palestinian self-determination) and strategic (he believes the Palestinians, divided and dysfunctional, their extremists firmly in the Iranian camp, are unready for compromise).

Nevertheless, the prime minister’s preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear program seems sincere and deeply felt. I recently asked one of his advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.”

“Amalek,” in essence, is Hebrew for “existential threat.” Tradition holds that the Amalekites are the undying enemy of the Jews. They appear in Deuteronomy, attacking the rear columns of the Israelites on their escape from Egypt. The rabbis teach that successive generations of Jews have been forced to confront the Amalekites: Nebuchadnezzar, the Crusaders, Torquemada, Hitler and Stalin are all manifestations of Amalek’s malevolent spirit.

If Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think. In our recent conversation, Mr. Netanyahu avoided metaphysics and biblical exegesis, but said that Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons represented a “hinge of history.”

“Iran has threatened to annihilate a state,” he said. “In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It’s a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion. Sure, there are perfunctory condemnations, but there’s no j’accuse — there’s no shock.” He argued that one lesson of history is that “bad things tend to get worse if they’re not challenged early.” He went on, “Iranian leaders talk about Israel’s destruction or disappearance while simultaneously creating weapons to ensure its disappearance.”

Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t believe that Iran would necessarily launch a nuclear-tipped missile at Tel Aviv. He argues instead that Iran could bring about the eventual end of Israel simply by possessing such weaponry. “Iran’s militant proxies would be able to fire rockets and engage in other terror activities while enjoying a nuclear umbrella,” he said. This could lead to the depopulation of the Negev and the Galilee, both of which have already endured sustained rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah.

More broadly, he said, a nuclear Iran “would embolden Islamic militants far and wide, on many continents, who would believe that this is a providential sign, that this fanaticism is on the ultimate road to triumph.”

To understand why Mr. Netanyahu sees Iran as a new Amalek, it is essential to understand two aspects of his intellectual and emotional development: The scholarship of his father, and the martyrdom of his older brother.

His father, Benzion Netanyahu, 99, is a pre-eminent historian of Spanish Jewry. “The Origins of the Inquisition in 15th-Century Spain,” his most notable book, toppled previously held understandings of the Inquisition’s birth.

Over more than 1,300 pages, Benzion Netanyahu argued that Spanish hatred of Jews was not merely theologically motivated but based in race hatred (the Spanish pursued the principle of limpieza de sangre, or the purity of blood) that reached back to the ancient world.

The elder Netanyahu also argued that efforts by the Jews of Spain to accommodate their adversaries were futile, in part because the charges against them were devoid of logic or fact, and, perhaps most important, because the written or spoken expression of Jew hatred (his preferred term for anti-Semitism) inevitably led to physical persecution. “What emerges from our survey,” he wrote, “is that the Spanish Inquisition was by no means the result of a fortuitous concourse of circumstances and events. It was the product of a movement that called for its creation and labored for decades to bring it about.”

A close reading of Benzion Netanyahu suggests a belief that anti-Semitism is a sui generis hatred, one that is shape-shifting, impervious to logic and eternal. The only rational response to such sentiment, in the Netanyahu view, is militant Jewish self-defense.

Benjamin Netanyahu and his two brothers were raised in a home darkened by the history of the Inquisition, and they were taught Benzion’s understanding of the consequences of Jewish weakness. In his 1993 book, “A Place Among the Nations,” Benjamin Netanyahu wrote about what he saw as one of the miracles of the Zionist revolution: “The entire world is witnessing the historical transformation of the Jewish people from a condition of powerlessness to power, from a condition of being unable to meet the contingencies of a violent world to one in which the Jewish people is strong enough to pilot its own destiny.”

If his father provided Mr. Netanyahu with his historical framework, his brother Yonatan bequeathed on him the model of a Jew who devoted his spirit to the cause of his people’s survival. Yonatan, who was killed while leading the 1976 raid on the Entebbe airport in Uganda to free Israeli captives of Arab and German hijackers, is perhaps the most venerated figure in the post-Warsaw Ghetto Jewish martyrology, mainly because Entebbe still symbolizes the purest expression of the modern Jewish rejection of passivity.

Friends and advisers say Benjamin Netanyahu took three lessons from his brother’s death: The first is that those who threaten Jews, and have the means to carry out their threats, should be neutralized pre-emptively. The second is that no one will defend the Jews except the Jews themselves. The third is that destiny has chosen the Netanyahus to expose and battle anti-Semitism — before it reaches the point of genocide.

In his eulogy for Yonatan Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defense minister, said: “There are times when the fate of an entire people rests on a handful of fighters and volunteers. They must secure the uprightness of our world in one short hour. In such moments, they have no one to ask, no one to turn to. The commanders on the spot determine the fate of the battle.”

BENJAMIN Netanyahu faces the daunting task of maintaining Israel’s relationship with the United States, while at the same time forestalling Iran’s nuclear program. If Iran gains nuclear capacity, Israel will have judged him a failure as prime minister; if he does serious damage to his country’s standing in Washington, he will have failed as well.

Mr. Netanyahu may be able to convince Mr. Obama that Iran poses an Amalek-sized threat to Israel, but he will have a much more difficult time convincing him that Iran poses an existential threat to America. It is certainly true that a nuclear Iran is not in the best interests of the United States. It would mean, among other things, the probable beginning of a nuclear arms race in the world’s most volatile region, and it would mean that the 30-year-struggle between America and Iran for domination of the Persian Gulf will be over, with Persia the victor. But the short-term costs, in particular, for an American strike — or an American-approved Israeli strike — could be appallingly high.

As the crisis worsens, Mr. Obama will find his options few, and those that exist will require him to bring to bear all his talents of persuasion. In his effort to engage Iran, he will need to promise a complete end to its international isolation in exchange for a halt to its nuclear program. But at the same time, he must be ready to threaten Iran with total estrangement from the West — the limiting of its gas imports, the choking-off of its banking system — if it continues its nuclear program.

To do this, he must convince Europe, China and Russia that a nuclear Iran will be catastrophic for Middle East stability as well as for their own economies. If he’s unwilling to take military action against Iran, President Obama might soon enough be forced to design a containment strategy meant to scare a nuclear Iran into something resembling quiescence.

Talk of containing Iran after it acquires a nuclear capacity, however, does not make the Israelis (or Iran’s Arab adversaries, for that matter) happy and, in fact, might push them closer to executing a military strike. The president, who has shown he understands the special dread Israelis feel about their precarious existence, surely knows this.

Last year, during his campaign, he told me, “I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens.”

Mr. Netanyahu says he supports Mr. Obama’s plan to engage the Iranians. He also supports the tightening of sanctions on the regime, if engagement doesn’t work. But there should be little doubt that, by the end of this year, if no progress is made, Mr. Netanyahu will seriously consider attacking Iran. His military advisers tell me they believe an attack, even an attack conducted without American help or permission, would have a reasonably high chance of setting back the Iranian program for two to five years.

Around the world, this would be an extraordinarily unpopular step, but Mr. Netanyahu knows he would have much of the Israeli public behind him. Even the man who delivered the eulogy at his brother’s funeral, the far more dovish Shimon Peres, has assimilated the lessons Benzion taught his sons.

When I visited recently with Mr. Peres, who is now Israel’s president, I asked him if there is a chance that his country has over-learned the lessons of Jewish history. He answered, “If we have to make a mistake of overreaction or underreaction, I think I prefer the overreaction.”

———–
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, is the author of “Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.”

Maldives Join the Climate Neutral Network with a Pledge to Become World’s First Carbon Neutral Nation
Nairobi, 4 May 2009 - The Republic of Maldives, one of the countries most affected by climate change, has joined the Climate Neutral Network led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

This follows the announcement by Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed earlier this year to make the Indian Ocean island nation the world’s first carbon neutral country in just 10 years’ time, by 2019.

This ambitious objective will be achieved by fully switching to renewable sources of energy such as solar panels and wind turbines, investments in other new technologies, and sharing of best practices.

President Nasheed declared that “the Maldives will no longer be a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions”.

“Climate change isn’t a vague and abstract danger but a real threat to our survival. But climate change not only threatens the Maldives, it threatens us all”, he added.

No part of the Maldives’ 1,200 tropical coral islets rises more than six feet (1.8 meters) above sea level, leaving the 400,000 inhabitants at great risk of rising sea levels and storm surges.

As part of coping with the effects of climate change, the Maldives Government focuses on coastal zone protection, land use management and protection of critical infrastructure.

The Maldives has become the seventh country to join the Climate Neutral Network (CN Net), a UNEP initiative launched in February 2008 to promote global transition to low-carbon economies and societies which also includes cities, regions, companies and organizations.

The other six nations that have pledged to move towards climate neutrality and joined the CN Net are Costa Rica, Iceland, Monaco, New Zealand, Niue and Norway.

Welcoming the Republic of Maldives on board the CN Net, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner stated that: “Climate neutrality is not just a developed nations’ concern, nor is it their prerogative. Developing nations such as Maldives can indeed leapfrog by embracing the low-carbon development model, which will assist in greening their economies and weathering both climatic and economic storms.”

“When the most climate change vulnerable nations display leadership in addressing the cause of the problem which they had very little to contribute to, there is no excuse for others not to act. The global community of nations can and must express its commitment to protecting the planet and powering green growth by sealing an ambitious climate deal at this year’s UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen”, he concluded.

For more information, contact:

At the Government of the Republic of Maldives: Ahmed Saleem, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Housing, Transport and Environment, Tel: 3331695, Fax: 3331694, or e-mail:  saleem at meew.gov.mv, internet: http://www.environment.gov.mv/

At UNEP:

Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson and Head of Media, on Tel: +254-20-762-3084, Mobile: +254-733-632755, or when traveling: +41-79-596-5737, or e-mail:  nick.nuttall at unep.org

Or: Xenya Cherny Scanlon, Information Officer, Climate Neutral Network, on Tel: +254- 20-762-4387, Mobile: +254-721-847-563, or e-mail:  xenya.scanlon at unep.org; internet: http://www.unep.org/climateneutral

***********************************
Jim Sniffen
Programme Officer
UN Environment Programme
New York
tel: +1-212-963-8094/8210
 info at nyo.unep.org
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From: Marc Pallemaerts <MPallemaerts@ieep.eu>
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009

The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) recently carried out an analysis of the extent to which the EU (and its then 15 Member States) fulfilled the solemn promises made to developing countries in the so-called ‘Bonn Declaration’ of 23 July 2001. Eight years ago, at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP6bis) which paved the way for the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, the EU-15 together with five other OECD donor countries (Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) collectively made a ’strong political commitment’ to raise US$410 million a year from 2005 to help developing countries tackle climate change and to review this pledge in 2008. These Annex II Parties to the UNFCCC agreed to provide additional funds in a number of ways: through contributions to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), through other multilateral and bilateral aid channels (additional to 2001 ODA levels), and through three new climate change funds established under the Bonn/Marrakech agreements to provide financial assistance to developing countries: the Special Climate Change Fund, the Least Developing Countries Fund and the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund.

IEEP undertook a detailed analysis of the levels of aid channelled through these different options for each of the EU signatories to the Bonn Declaration (EU-15). Results show that whilst the EU-15 may, overall, have fulfilled their commitments under that declaration, the data published by Member States is far from conclusive and the quality of reporting does not allow full independent verification of the amount of aid provided. Funds made available by the EU-15 through the GEF and dedicated multilateral climate change funds alone (approximately US$160 million/year) amount to less than half of the funds needed to meet the EU’s share of the Bonn commitment (US$369 million/year). Apparently, funding through bilateral channels accounts for most of the aid provided, but such assistance is a lot harder to monitor and verify at the international level. The lack of clarity and transparency in official reporting to the UNFCCC makes it impossible to affirm that much of the ‘additional’ aid actually provided since 2001 did not merely consist of ‘re-branded’ aid money.

To download the IEEP study, presented at a conference in Brussels on 28 January 2009, click http://www.ieep.eu/publications/pdfs/200…

For further information contact:

Dr Marc Pallemaerts
Senior Fellow &
Head of the Environmental Governance Programme
Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP)
Quai au Foin 55
Hooikaai 55
1000 Brussels
BELGIUM
Direct Tel.: 32-(0)2-7387471
Fax: 32-(0)2-7324004
Email:  mpallemaerts at ieep.eu
___________________________________________________________
IEEP is an independent not for profit institute dedicated to advancing an environmentally sustainable Europe through policy analysis, development and dissemination. IEEP undertakes work for external sponsors in a range of policy areas. We also have our own research programmes and produce the Manual of Environmental Policy: The EU and Britain www.mep-online.com. For further information about IEEP, see our website at http://www.ieep.eu or contact any staff member.

THE AGE OF STUPID - the March 15, 2009 Premiere held simultaneously in a special solar tent on the grass of Leicester Square, London, and in many movie houses all over the UK. The producers asked people to go to the theaters in their areas and not to fly to London. The facts are that air-transport is the largest CO2 emitter and thus a very serious contributer to global warming. The movie is about global warming as seen backwards from a point in time - 2050 - from an observatory that was built so people later can have a way to see what life was before the global warming catastrophe struck and ask themselves - did we have to be that stupid? Did we really not see what we were doing to the planet and thus to ourselves? But we did know! So we were that Stupid! Unbelievably Stupid!!

The point is that this movie should turn its viewers into activists - so we do change our ways because we do understand that we cannot have an uncontrolled growth and live as if we hadten planets to our disposal when we indeed have only one. There is still time to change our ways and the target time that Franny Armstrong (writer and Director) Lizzie G (excuse me, I do not have the full name in front of me)(sound), and Pete Poslethwaite (main performer and activist) see - is December 6, 2009 - the start of the Copenhagen meeting on climate change which they love to note as CO2penhagen. Pete Poslethwaite feels so strong about all this that he threatened on camera that he will return his OBE if the UK Government insists on going ahead with the controversial Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent - his original area.

The movie team has already spun off a “vote with your feet to stop climate chaosmovement” www.stopclimatechaos.org that is working on a December 5, 2009 “March in December” - London - mass rally - with “Protect the Poorest” Quit Dirty Coal” “Act Fair & Fast” banners.

I came to London from New York, in a stop-over while timing myself to do so as part of a larger trip to Tel Aviv. This gave me the excuse to fly-in even though I understood the request that creating CO2 while being against it - is indeed a misrepresentation of policy.

I saw the action while at a VUE movie house in Acton, London, where all activity from the solar tent in Leicester Square was being beamed in.

I write this from my hotel, after having returned there by way of the “tube” - the famed London Subway. In the tube I had the chance to rview what we saw with 5 young Britishers. My method was “rapid fire” - I wanted to know why Minister Miliband had on a purple tie. I understood he stands for dirty technologies. He seems to love nuclear power without going into actual details if it saves, and how much, of CO2 emissions, and what do you do with radioactive byproducts? OK - that is interests policy - but why in the UK a purple tie? He seems also to love coal - albeight - he thinks in terms of clean coal or the hiding away somehow of the CO2. Franny Armstrong was not too kind to him and what she called his”cohorts” - read the UK government. Pete Posllethwaite said that “we told Tony Blair” not to go to Iraq - but he did” seemingly we tell now the government to do something about climate change but they do not. But why the purple tie? One of the Britisher ladies said it is the fashion now but perhaps Miliband wants to say he is independent. Aha! now we got a clue. It was the Red Republicans of Bush / Cheney that led Tony Blair into Iraq, but now it is the Blue Democrats that lead Obama to undo what the others did and do something where the others did nothing. So is Britisher Miliband signaling that British Labor is now only half-way in cahoots, because the cohorts still wink to the rear - that is to the American Republicans - and insist on not lining up with progressive forces that intend to march on CO2penhagen?

I asked my British co-travelers; what about Cameron? He is a ”Greenwash” they said. Aha, so Miliband is purple - the color that desribes one as in-between the Republicans and the Democrats in the US, while, he - a Britisher of Labor - has really only Greenwash on his right and on his left. So the purple is that he really wants to say something but has little to line up with on the Islands - so he looks outside but does not want to look Eastwards to Europe - so he looks westwards to the US.

This position is somehow strangely clear to us at www.SustainabiliTank.info where we believe that led by the Bush lack of interest in Climate Change, and the Arab Oil States strong opposition to the subject, the UN undid the Poznan 2008 meeting with the purpose of turning Copenhagen 2009 into Poznan II rather then what some thought will be a Kyoto II formula, but many of us thought more realistically into a potential new Copenhagen I solution. Even so, I completely agreee with Franny and Pete that “THE AGE OF STUPID” must turn our heads around so we undoo that evolution and force the issue so that we will become the GENERATION THAT WAS NOT STUPID. That future does not belong to the PURPLE but to the GREEN. Purple in fashion is a catastrophe of global proportions - Green should be our color - by law and by good business practices. The US needs a Stiglitz in Treasury and not a Goldman-Sachs Man. The UK needs something similar and the Germans and French may indeed help illuminate the way by saying that blind stimuli are poison to the interests of turning away from being stupid. What is rather needed are regulations that smooth the way to being not stupid - and the timing of “The Age of STUPID” happens to be so that it is right before the UK meeting of the G-20 under Gordon Brown’s leadership. Did not President Obama just say so to Gordon Brown - that there is a special US-UK relationship? OK - will now Mr. Brown steer things so that he brings to a realignment of policy between the Merkel-Sarkozy line approach to capitalism and the old coservative way of doing business as seen by the UK-US camp?

The movie was great. The points well presented - the melting glaciers, the destried beaches, the burning cities, the spoils of oil that are not money for the needy - but destruction and poverty - that is all there and more. The Indian entrepreneur who wants to turn a billion people into air travelers is just a good student of Harvard a Wharton - but he is also the “angel of death” not just for India but for all of us. Ah, Yes, I took pictures and a book of notes - these will be used in the future - now I just want to say - GO SEE THE MOVIE WHENEVER IT TURNS UP IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. Don’t travel to see it - but make your leaders see to it that it is shown to your people.

The Maldive Islands announced - for The Age of Stupid Premiere - that they will be the first UN State to be Carbon Neutral - they understand because they are allready going under water - right now!

Best regards to Franny, Lizzie, and Pete, from Pincas Jawetz at www.SustainabiliTank.info

For Immediate Release

Source: Saint Lucia Consulate General

Contacts:
Martha Claudie Smith, Vice Consul, Saint Lucia Consulate General
800 Second Avenue, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10017
+ 1 212 697-9360 -  martha246 at aol.com

Bevan Springer, Marketplace Excellence  + 1 201 861-2056 -  bevanspringer at nj.rr.com

ST. LUCIA PRIME MINISTER AND VETERAN MUSICAL MAESTRO TO CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE IN NEW YORK

Photographs available at:
1) http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgsbbfz_95…
CAPTION: Brooklyn’s Borough President Marty Markowitz (center) congratulates the Government and People of St. Lucia for 30 years of Independence at a recent flag raising ceremony at Brooklyn Borough Hall. In the photograph is St. Lucia’s  Ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Donatus St. Aimee and St. Lucian Ann Marie Adamson, Policy Analyst, in the Office of Brooklyn’s Borough President.

2) http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgsbbfz_95…
Members of the St. Lucian community enjoyed a recent Poetry Night held at St. Lucia’s Consulate and Mission to the United Nations. Here, they cheer New York-based St. Lucian singer Michel Aubertin who delivered a stirring classical rendition.

NEW YORK (March 12, 2009) - St. Lucians across the Tri-State area around New York are eagerly awaiting both the arrival of Prime Minister Stephenson King as well as local musical genius Ronald “Boo” Hinkson, who along with friends and family of the Diaspora, will celebrate the island’s 30th anniversary of Independence this Saturday, March 14.

Prime Minister King will address gala patrons at Brooklyn, New York’s Grand Prospect Hall (263 Prospect Avenue) as St. Lucians gather with their Caribbean and American friends under the theme “A Journey to be proud of, A future to look forward to” at the popular banquet facility.

“We are excited about this weekend’s gala dinner and would like to encourage all St. Lucians and friends of St. Lucia to witness history as our island nation celebrates three decades of self-rule in grand style,” said Ambassador Dr. Donatus St. Aimee, St. Lucia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He added the Prime Minister will have a special message to share with St. Lucians in the United States concerning the island’s development agenda, while Ronald “Boo” Hinkson, a celebrated St. Lucian jazz guitarist, will showcase the island’s “creative cultural genius” and give a sneak-preview of what to expect at the upcoming St. Lucia Jazz festival in May.

Last month, St. Lucians in the New York Tri-State area gathered in impressive numbers to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Independence with cultural presentations, poetry readings, a flag raising ceremony at Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, a church service, and a lively Ambassador’s reception.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz commented: “What a huge milestone 30 years of nation building represents. St. Lucia is truly the jewel of the Caribbean, a land of beautiful beaches and rolling blue skies, but also the intellectual nerve center of the Caribbean … with more Nobel Laureates per capita than anywhere in the world.”

Tickets for the gala are available at the St. Lucia Consulate and from the leadership of various St. Lucian organisations.
St. Lucia gained its Independence from Great Britain on February 22, 1979.

 Forget About Fidel: Things are changing in Cuba, however slowly. The United States should be a part of shaping their direction.

By Richard N. Haass - From the Newsweek magazine issue dated Mar 16, 2009.
There are signs that change may finally be coming to Cuba, 50 years after the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. In a major shakeup, Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother, fired several high-level officials last week. While Raúl did more to raise expectations than living standards in his first year as president, he may now be positioning the government to go beyond the tentative reforms so far introduced. Then again, he might merely be installing loyalists who share his view that the regime should keep a tight grip on society.

What’s more certain is the need for change in Cuba. Last year’s hurricanes cost the already poor island nation $10 billion, 20 percent of its GDP. The global economic slowdown has dampened tourism. The population of 11 million is shrinking, in part because of a housing shortage that’s leading many families to have fewer children. Cuba’s people, the lion’s share of whom were born after 1959, face a future that promises little in the way of either prosperity or freedom.

Some American conservatives maintain that all this is reason enough for the United States to persist in its policy of ignoring Cuba diplomatically and sanctioning it economically. At least in principle, one could argue that the revolution is running out of steam and that regime change from within may finally be at hand. The problem is that this argument ignores Cuban reality. The country is not near the precipice of collapse. To the contrary, the intertwined party, government and military have matters well in hand. The population, ensured basic necessities along with access to education and health care, is neither inclined to radical change nor in a position to bring it about.

The American policy of isolating Cuba has failed. Officials boast that Havana now hosts more diplomatic missions than any other country in the region save Brazil. Nor is the economic embargo working. Or worse: it is working, but for countries like Canada, South Korea and dozens of others that are only too happy to help supply Cuba with food, generators and building materials. Those in Congress who complain about the “offshoring” of American jobs ought to consider that the embargo deprives thousands of American workers of employment.

The policy of trying to isolate Cuba also works-perversely enough-to bolster the Cuban regime. The U.S. embargo provides Cuba’s leaders a convenient excuse-the country’s economic travails are due to U.S. sanctions, they can claim, not their own failed policies. The lack of American visitors and investment also helps the government maintain political control.

There is one more reason to doubt the wisdom of continuing to isolate Cuba. However slowly, the country is changing. The question is whether the United States will be in a position to influence the direction and pace of this change. We do not want to see a Cuba that fails, in which the existing regime gives way to a repressive regime of a different stripe or to disorder marked by drugs, criminality, terror or a humanitarian crisis that prompts hundreds of thousands of Cubans to flee their country for the United States. Rather, Washington should work to shape the behavior and policy of Cuba’s leadership so that the country becomes more open politically and economically.

Fifty years of animosity cannot be set aside in a stroke, but now is the time for Washington to act. Much of the initiative lies with the new president. President Obama, could, for example, make good on campaign promises to allow Cuban-Americans to freely remit funds to relatives in Cuba and to visit them regularly, and could loosen travel restrictions for others as well. (Some of these measures can be found in legislation currently working its way through Congress.) Obama could also initiate technical contacts. Each country already maintains an “interests section,” a small embassy by another name, in the other’s capital. They also share information about weather. But they could resume exchanges on such common challenges as migration and drug interdiction, and initiate them on homeland security and counterterrorism.

Going beyond this and dealing with the basics of the embargo-or removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism-would likely require congressional approval. Current law, though, makes it almost impossible to take such steps. It requires that Cuba effectively become a functioning democracy before sanctions can be lifted. But it’s precisely engagement that is far more likely to reform Cuba. Preconditions are an obstacle to effective foreign policy.

The Obama administration has a great opportunity to begin modifying U.S. policy before or during the Summit of the Americas, to be held in April in Trinidad. A new U.S. policy would not only increase U.S. influence in Cuba, but it probably would also be the single most powerful way in which Obama could improve the U.S.’s standing throughout the Western Hemisphere. The United States can engage with China and Russia, not to mention North Korea, Syria and even Iran. Surely it ought to be able to do so with Cuba.

Haass, a NEWSWEEK contributor and president of the Council on Foreign Relations.