Carbon News and Info, Tuesday, 11 November 2008.
The new President of the Maldives says he will begin buying land in other nations as “an insurance policy” in case his nation needs to be evacuated due to rising sea levels from climate change.

The Maldives is a group of 1200 tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, 80 per cent of which are less than one metre above sea level. Much of the most inhabited parts of the country are just 1.5 metres above the water.

The first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Nasheed, and his Vice-President, Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, wasted little time in declaring their plans to British newspapers saying a national fund would be established with royalties from the country’s tourist industry to fund land purchases.

Nasheed told the Guardian that Sri Lanka and India were obvious targets given their proximity, and the cultural similarities of their people to the 300,000 Maldivians. He also named Australia as a possible destination.

Manik said the “worst-case scenario due to sea level rise would be that some or even all of our islands would become uninhabitable and we would have to look for alternative places for Maldivians to live” in an interview with the Financial Times.

“We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It’s an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome,” Nasheed told the Guardian, comparing the concept to Israelis buying land in Palestine.

There is much contention among scientists over how much sea levels can be expected to rise this century. The IPCC landmark 2007 report published conservative estimates of a rise of 25 to 58cm by 2100, criticised as too low by some researchers.

In 2005, authorities announced plans to move the 1000-strong population of the Carteret Atolls, in Papua New Guinea, to Bougainville in what were said to be the first climate change evacuations. Their current homes are predicted to become completely submerged by 2015.

India’s humble rickshaw goes solar.
by Elizabeth Roche Mon Oct 13, 2008.  NEW DELHI (AFP) - It’s been touted as a solution to urban India’s traffic woes, chronic pollution and fossil fuel dependence, as well as an escape from backbreaking human toil. A state-of-the-art, solar powered version of the humble cycle-rickshaw promises to deliver on all this and more.

The “soleckshaw,” unveiled this month in New Delhi, is a motorised cycle rickshaw that can be pedalled normally or run on a 36-volt solar battery.

Developed by the state-run Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), prototypes are receiving a baptism of fire by being road-tested in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk area.

One of the city’s oldest and busiest markets, dating back to the Moghul era, Chandni Chowk comprises a byzantine maze of narrow, winding streets, choked with buses, cars, scooters, cyclists and brave pedestrians.

“The most important achievement will be improving the lot of rickshaw drivers,” said Pradip Kumar Sarmah, head of the non-profit Centre for Rural Development.

“It will dignify the job and reduce the labour of pedalling. From rickshaw pullers, they will become rickshaw drivers,” Sarmah said.

India has an estimated eight million cycle-rickshaws.

The makeover includes FM radios and powerpoints for charging mobile phones during rides.

Gone are the flimsy metal and wooden frames that give the regular Delhi rickshaws a tacky, sometimes dubious look.

The “soleckshaw,” which has a top speed of 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) per hour, has a sturdier frame and sprung, foam seats for up to three people.

The fully-charged solar battery will power the rickshaw for 50 to 70 kilometres (30 to 42 miles). Used batteries can be deposited at a centralised solar-powered charging station and replaced for a nominal fee.

If the tests go well, the “soleckshaw” will be a key transport link between sporting venues at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

“Rickshaws were always environment friendly. Now this gives a totally new image that would be more acceptable to the middle-classes,” said Anumita Roychoudhary of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.

“Rickshaws have to be seen as a part of the solution for modern traffic woes and pollution. They have never been the problem. The problem is the proliferation of automobiles using fossil fuels,” she said.

Initial public reaction to the “soleckshaw” has been generally favourable, and the rickshaw pullers have few doubts about its benefits.

“Pedalling the rickshaw was very difficult for me,” said Bappa Chatterjee, 25, who migrated to the capital from West Bengal and is one of the 500,000 pullers in Delhi.

“I used to suffer chest pains and shortage of breath going up inclines. This is so much easier.

“Earlier, when people hailed us it was like, ‘Hey you rickshaw puller!’ Police used to harass us, slapping fines even abusing us for what they called wrong parking. Now people look at me with respect,” Chatterjee said.

Mohammed Matin Ansari, another migrant from eastern Bihar state, said the new model offered parity with car, bus and scooter drivers.

“Now we are as good as them,” he said.

Indian authorities have big dreams for the “soleckshaw.”

India’s Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal who hailed the invention for its “zero carbon foot print” said it should be used beyond the confines of Delhi.

“Soleckshaws would be ideal for small families visiting the Taj Mahal,” he told AFP.

At present battery-operated buses ferry people to the iconic monument in Agra — but their limited numbers cannot cope with the heavy tourist rush.

CSIR director Sinha said he hoped an advanced version of the “soleckshaw” with a car-like body would become a viable alternative to the “small car” favoured by Indian middle class families.

“Greenhouse gas emissions are showing an increasing trend year on year and 60 percent of this comes from the global transport sector.

“In the age of global warming, the soleckshaw, with improvements, can be successfully developed as competition for all the petrol and diesel run small cars,” Sinha said.

Now that is UN High gear. Oil Money from Arab Countries can buy publicity that aims to translate into public opinion. Nothing strange here. Exxon and Mobil do so with the New York Times. But Nevertheless, this one explains some positions taken in the past by IPS, or some officials of the UN that were busy for years interfering when attempts were made to help in energy to the developing world, and to the World in general.

“‘More than 120 million people from India and Bangladesh alone will become homeless by the end of this century,’ [a Greenpeace report on climate change] says. It estimates that 75 million people from Bangladesh will lose their homes. It predicts that about 45 million people in India will also become ‘climate migrants’… ‘Most of these people will be forced to leave their homes because of the sea-level rise and drought associated with shrinking water supplies and monsoon variability. The bulk… will come from Bangladesh as most of the parts of that country will be inundated,’ Dr. Sudhir Chella Rajan, a climate expert and author of the study, told the BBC.”

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/73…

South Asia in climate change crisis.
By Amitabha Bhattasali
March 25, 2008, BBC News, Calcutta
.

The Indian coastline is ‘extremely vulnerable’

A Greenpeace report on climate change says that if greenhouse gas emissions grow at their present rate, South Asia could face a major human crisis.

“More than 120 million people from India and Bangladesh alone will become homeless by the end of this century,” the report says.

It estimates that 75 million people from Bangladesh will lose their homes.

It predicts that about 45 million people in India will also become “climate migrants”.

Intense cyclones:

The report says that the number of people who could be affected by climate change is almost 10 times greater than the number of people who migrated during and after the partition of India in 1947.

Around 130 million people now live in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in what are called low elevation coastal zones, which comprise coastal regions that are less than 10m above average sea level.

“There is already plenty of evidence to suggest that the average global temperature rise we have already experienced is associated with substantial changes in weather patterns over recent decades,” the Greenpeace report says.

“Droughts have become more common since the 1970s. The frequency of intense tropical cyclones has also increased and there has been widespread retreat of mountain glaciers.”

It is argued that India’s weather is becoming less predictable

The study says that “if global temperatures rise by about 4-5C in the course of the century - as they are projected to - the South Asian region could face a wave of migrants displaced by the impact of climate change”.

“Most of these people will be forced to leave their homes because of the sea-level rise and drought associated with shrinking water supplies and monsoon variability. The bulk of them will come from Bangladesh as most of the parts of that country will be inundated,” Dr Sudhir Chella Rajan, a climate expert and author of the study, told the BBC.

“And Bangladesh is already experiencing the migration,” says an activist from Bangladesh, Mohon Kumar Mondol.

“Though Bangladesh is hardly responsible for the global warming and climate change, the Bangladeshi people are paying the price for it - they have never heard of these terms but are suffering from them.”

The report says the Indian coastline is also extremely vulnerable.

Greenpeace has long campaigned in India

Several large cities within the low elevation coastal zone like Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras will go under the sea if the present growth rate of greenhouse emissions continue.

The report says that while huge investment is being made along the coast line of India, most of these projects are in the danger zone.

“This isn’t going to happen gradually. What we are going to see is a series of coastal surges, you will see inundation, salt water intrusion - which will cause lots of harm and devastate a lot of these infrastructures,” said Dr Rajan.

According to the Greenpeace report, major population movement from the coastal cities to other large urban centres like Delhi, Bangalore and Ahmedabad will take place.

“These cities will have serious resource constraints of their own by the middle of the century, but will have to be prepared to accommodate enormous numbers of migrants from the coasts.”

When receiving the Nobel Price, Al Gore Hit On The US anc China As the Major Culprits - We thought to bring up that old BBC material also.

Gore climate plea to US and China.
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Al Gore’s acceptance speech was a powerful piece of rhetoric
Former US Vice-President Al Gore has urged the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, the US and China, to work together on climate change.

Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Mr Gore referred to climate change as a “planetary emergency”.

He said he hoped for a positive outcome from the UN climate talks in Bali.

The chairman of Mr Gore’s co-laureate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said climate change threatened human security.

“Societies have a long record of adapting to the impacts of weather and climate,” said Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian engineer who has chaired the IPCC since 2002.

“But climate change poses novel risks often outside the range of experience.”

 ”In every land the truth, once known, has the power to set us free”
Al Gore

Climate goes to the movies

The IPCC’s fourth major assessment of climate science, impacts and economics, released over the course of 2007, forecasts increases in droughts, declining crop yields, and scarcity of fresh water over large areas of the planet.

Dr Pachauri paid tribute to the thousands of scientists whose work had contributed to the IPCC assessments, notably its inaugural chairman Bert Bolin, who was unable to attend the ceremony as a result of ill-health.

Rhetorical power

As befits the cinematographic auteur of An Inconvenient Truth, Mr Gore’s speech was a rhetorical tour de force.

“We, the human race, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to the survival of our civilisation that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here,” he said.

“The Earth has a fever, and the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself.

Why the IPCC and Gore won
“We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.”

The former vice-president painted a gloomy picture of the climate impacts that might lie ahead. But he was more upbeat in his assessment that carbon emissions could be tackled.

“In every land the truth, once known, has the power to set us free,” he said.

Essential steps, he said, included the universal ratification of the Kyoto Protocol - a reference to the US which is now alone among industrialised countries in its rejection of the 1997 treaty - a moratorium on conventional coal-fired power stations, widespread taxation of carbon, and the mobilisation of entrepreneurial initiative worldwide.

His warm words for the efforts that Europe and Japan have made in recent years contrasted with his assessment of “two nations that are now failing to do enough” - China and the US.

“Both countries should stop using the others’ behaviour as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.”

Bali heat

Mr Gore and Dr Pachauri now travel to the UN talks in Bali, which have just entered their second week.

Delegates there have also heard stern messages about the potential impacts of climate change.

No unity yet in Bali
Climate goal ‘unreachable’

On the fringes of the conference, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that rising temperatures were already taking malaria into regions where it had previously been too cold, such as Bhutan and Nepal.

The negotiators’ main task is to initiate a process that will result in targets for greenhouse emission reductions when the current Kyoto Protocol targets expire in 2012.

A draft text proposes that industrialised countries agree to cut their emissions by 25-40% by 2020. The US is opposed to any notion of binding targets.

Dr Pachauri said that hopes remained alive for the Bali meeting, “unlike the sterile outcomes of previous sessions in recent years”.

The question, he told delegates in Oslo, was whether policymakers would listen to the voice of science and knowledge.

“If they do so at Bali and beyond, then all my colleagues in the IPCC and those thousands toiling for the cause of science would feel doubly honoured at the priviledge I am receiving today on their behalf.”

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

SRI LANKA’S ‘PARLIAMENT MONK’
As Fighting Flares in Civil War, Key Buddhist Shuns Nonviolence

» Links to this article
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 26, 2008; Page A13

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Draped in his burnt-orange robe, Athurliye Rathana strolled onto the veranda of a posh hotel here one recent evening and an entire wedding party adorned in fine silks knelt as one, in a gesture of respect and honor to one of the country’s best-known monks.

“I guess I’m popular,” said a slightly surprised Rathana, 45, rubbing his shaved head. “I knew our Sri Lankan people love monks. But I didn’t know they loved the ‘Parliament Monk.’ “

Rathana is a celebrated figure in this predominantly Buddhist nation, where monks are cherished for their spiritual guidance. But he is known for more than just his religious leadership. Dubbed the Parliament Monk and the War Monk by the Sri Lankan press, he is a legislator who has pushed for the use of military force to end this island nation’s 25-year civil war, which has left 70,000 dead and displaced nearly a half-million people at its height.

“Am I an extremist? Sometimes I am. Sometimes I am not,” Rathana said over green tea, when asked about reports from foreign human rights groups that accuse his party of hindering peace talks. “The point is that we need to end this war. And we are forced into a military solution.”

Rathana fits into the tradition of monks across Asia who have embraced political causes. Last fall, monks in Burma risked their lives to rise up against the country’s ruling military junta; more recently, monks in Tibet have been at the center of ongoing protests against the Chinese government.

The sporadic war in this country has divided and weakened society, reigniting long-standing ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese, who are predominantly Buddhist, and the minority Tamils, who are mainly Hindus and Christians. In recent months, there has been a surge in fighting between government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the separatist group known as the Tamil Tigers, or LTTE.

The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has regained territory in the eastern reaches of the island, known as the Wild East. But in the thick jungles of the north, heavy fighting still rages. Aid groups operating in the region say hundreds of Tigers and civilians have died over the past few months, though claims cannot be independently verified because the government does not permit journalists to travel near the front lines.

Rathana’s party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya, is led by monks and is the staunchest supporter of the government’s military offensive. The party does not represent most monks in Sri Lanka, who are largely committed to nonviolence.

“As a Buddhist monk, I think every bad thing should be finished,” Rathana said. “Here in Sri Lanka, we have terrorists who brutally murdered people. As monks, we must defend ourselves and fight back. That is reality.”

As many as 30,000 mostly Sinhalese young men have signed up for the army in the past few months, spurred in part by activism by Rathana and others. The Tigers still control the northern tip of the country and have vowed to continue their struggle for a separate Tamil homeland.

The war has left the north and east of this former tourist haven a shambles. White-painted monuments of Buddha are battle-scarred. Many of the roads leading to the country’s mostly Tamil east are potholed and nearly impassable, with checkpoints every few miles where government troops search travelers and their luggage.

Caught in the middle are Tamil civilians. Many fear both the Tigers, who forcibly recruit children and adults, and government troops, whom human rights groups have accused of carrying out false arrests and abductions.

While Rathana is treated like a rock star in Colombo’s elite circles of Sinhalese, he has vocal critics.

Mano Ganesan, a Hindu Tamil member of Parliament, characterized him as "highly divisive and offensive." He said Rathana and his party have "not helped in pushing for a peaceful solution. They are only creating more militant Tamils."

“This is not Buddhism at all,” Ganesan said. “This is using Buddhism to justify politics and a policy of war.”

Rathana’s name, meanwhile, invokes panic among many ethnic Tamils, who say they are often targeted for harassment by police and paramilitary groups.

Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary, said the government was taking those issues "very seriously. But the LTTE is using this to fight a propaganda war. We are reaching out to moderate Tamils to help us fight the terrorists."

Rathana said his entry into political life was not easy, explaining that his parents were unable to accept his political calling at first. Born into the upper middle class — his father was a prosperous goldsmith — he became a monk at age 15.

In his youth, he was a communist. But his views on government changed as he watched the 1998 bombing of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, in the spiritual capital of Kandy, home to a tooth allegedly snatched from Buddha’s funeral pyre, he said.

Rathana has defended keeping foreign monitors out of Sri Lanka, saying the country has for too long been ruled by outsiders, from the Portuguese to the Dutch to the British. The British once favored the Tamils for jobs in their administration, and the Sinhalese, Rathana said, “had to fight to regain representation in the government, even though we were the majority.”

“We can sort this out on our own. We tried to discuss things, but the LTTE always wanted to fight,” he said, sounding more like an army general than a legislator or monk. “We must do our duty on the battlefield.”

Global enterprise can be grateful to Arthur C. Clarke
Published: March 22 2008 Letter to the Editor - The Financial Times, From Dr Ian Mitchell.

Sir, In 1992 I attended an technology exhibition in Geneva, where Apollo 9 astronaut Russell “Rusty” Schweickart gave a talk about how technology was causing the planet to “shrink”. As an astronaut who had looked upon the Earth and seen it as a globe, he tried to explain how technology was creating an encapsulated Earth, a global village with a holistic relationship between environment, society and business. That was the term people used back then, though today we’d call it globalisation and we’d be in a position to cite its negative as well as its positive connotations.

I was reminded of this by the death of Sir Arthur C. Clarke this week. Clarke was a bit of a polymath: the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and numerous other books; a first-class honours graduate in mathematics and physics; and perhaps most importantly for all in business, the person who in 1945 first conceived of the communications satellite.

Global enterprise now harvests the fruits of that idea, as internet queries and responses are transmitted across invisible relays that connect our world and make it transparent.

The communications satellite became a reality through synergy with military projects. Any satellite that could be placed in orbit could (by definition) target anywhere on the planet. This, more than a desire for improved global business, was the impetus behind the space race. Clarke’s idea would find itself piggybacking on military technology of enormous destructive power and global reach.

Fortunately “the button” was never pushed; however, because of Clarke’s strategic vision of global communication, each of us today can push a button of our own and send an e-mail or commit a transaction.

Today, the International Astronomical Union recognises the geostationary orbit in which communication satellites lie as the “Clarke Orbit”.

It is a fitting memento to one of the architects of that global village which astronauts see from afar.

Ian Mitchell,

Barnard Castle,

Co Durham DL12 8NS

This posting starts with the essence of the presentation of the Austrian Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter, and moves then to the article by Matthew Russell Lee on www.InnerCity.Press.com - these related to the UN Security Council open debate on “CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT.” We had before one posting where The Permanent Representative of Israel lamented the fact that some use their own children as human projectiles in suicide bombings - these people obviously have no respect then for the children of the other. We picked the Austrian intervention because it is uncluttered with direct references to reality, and basically makes all the right requests for a world of sanity.

The Austrian presentation stresses that we have already on the books all the tools needed for a sane world - tools that prohibit and criminalize recruitment and use of child soldiers, as well as other abuses of children in armed conflict. We have already the tools for monitoring and reporting of abuse. The problem is that violations just continue without regard to the rules on the books. The Ambassador wants to see that rape and sexual abuse of children should also trigger automatically the requirement for monitoring and reporting mechanisms like it is for the use of the children as soldiers. He is appalled by the level of sexual and gender-based violence against children documented in the Secretary-General’s report. He makes clear allusion to the UN’s own forces, that were tainted, as we well know, with many accusations of sexual abuse.

He requests that child rights training should be an obligatory part of training of UN peace keeping personnel. THE EUROPEAN PEACE UNIVERSITY IN STADTSCHLAINING, BURGENLAND, AUSTRIA, is offering Specialization Courses on Child protection, Monitoring and Rehabilitation also for UN and EU personnel. Similarly, he expressed Austria’s interest in protection of women and girls, and asks for support to the Machel Strategic Review and the development of an Inter-Agency Child Protection Database for applicability in conflict and post-conflict situations.

All of the above is nifty, but then look please on The Inner City posting to see that not all are equal at the UN. Some get away literally with murder, while some that are not big enough, or influential enough, at the UN are doomed to stay as victims. Please - see the attached posting, and consider what can be done to bring reality based corrections into the UN deliberations for enforcing the already existing regulations - equally - for the strong and weak.
For one thing, we were appalled when after the presentation by the Ambassador of Israel, it was the Palestinian representative who spoke of those that do war hiding behind children. He surely meant not his own Palestinians but with straight face and impunity was probably talking of the Israelis. And what happened with troops from Sri Lanka that were returned from Haiti for misusing local children? Was there any reeducation process applied if there was no court action? What about the refusal of Karzai of Afghanistan to let UN look into child recruits by the Taliban? Will pacification intent over-rule looking into child-soldiers issues?

This is an update of our first posting of February 1, 2008, when to fliers by the UN Staff Union were brought to our attention. We attach these two fliers to the end of the article. The flier of January 23, 2008 talks about the bombing in Algiers and demands an outside independent investigation as it was done after the Baghdad bombing of the UN compound there. But the other flier shows total distrust of the UN top brass. The December 17, 2007 flier came about because the killing of two Red Cross workers in Sri Lanka beginning of 2007, and also of aid workers killed in 2006. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced his opposition to the killings, but did he stand up to the Sri-Lanka government when it accused UNICEF Country Representatives that protested the killings. If the UNSG cannot stand up to Sri Lanka and Algeria, why in the world will a UN employee want to serve in a troubled country knowing that he/she is not completely backed by the UN system?

The original article:

The Algerians Insisted That Algerias Lakhdar Brahimi Be The Investigator In The Killing of 17 UN Staff In Algiers. Does The UNSG Not Care For The Safety Of UN Civilian Staff?

Last evening we went to the UN to watch an Academy Award winning documentary - “Into The Arms Of Strangers: Stories Of The Kindertransport.” That was the story of 10,000 children that were sent off by their Jewish parents from Nazi occupied European continent to Britain - this in order to give them the chance to live. Not an easy task for parents and children alike. On the way to the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium we passed the BESA exhibit that shows Albanian Muslims - Kosovarians - that saved Jews during the war - so humanity can feel that in those days of darkness there were Muslims that felt repulsion to Nazi behavior.

After the movie I happened to talk to a journalist accredited to the UN that told me - you know what? Ban Ki-moon looked high and low and landed upon an Algerian Ex-Minister and perpetual Algerian UN emissary to investigate the recent killing of 17 UN employees in Algeria. If I would not be afraid that someone would accuse me of racism - I would clearly say that this stinks of “WHITEWASHING.” I cannot see why the stomachs of UN civil employees would not turn over with these news.

People of their ilk, were indeed killed like they were in the bombing of the Baghdad UN compound - this because the UN top brass is back-bone-less when it comes to stand up to what it calls a sovereign government - and do not wink when in the process they sacrifice lives of UN employees. You can say that military people have sold their safety when signing up for serving in an army, but civilians did not. The UN Staff Committee, if they have any backbone must now speak up. If they are also run by interested country citizens on the UN quota based system, so good luck when next bomb strikes.

With above information in my head, I discovered at home that things start filtering to the press via the very few outlets of true investigative journalism that still operate at the UN.

After Algiers Bombing, UN to Appoint Algerian Ex-Minister Lakhdar Brahimi to Investigate.

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

UNITED NATIONS, January 31 — “In the wake of the bombing last month that killed UN staff in Algiers, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would appoint an outside panel to investigate. The Algerian government protested, saying it had not been consulted. Ban and his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar both met with Algerian officials, and Thursday night Algerian diplomats said that the choice to head the UN panel is former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi.”

At the UN, some scoffed at such a choice as an accommodation which would call into question any independence of the panel. Others called it astute politics, given that Brahimi’s previous study of peacekeeping made it likely that he will exonerate the UN system, too.

But UN Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis, asked by Inner City Press about UNDP’s Marc de Bernis’ role in not having raised the threat assessment level after the April 2007 bomb attack in Algeria, said that the UN had in fact asked the Algerian government to help block off the street in front of the UN building, without any formal response. So this time, in effect there was a UN employee who on location asked for improved security from the Algerians. Obviously, nobody from UN headquarters in New York has moved onto that subject in those days. Mr. Marc de Bernis was killed in the bombing - so now we rely on his widow’s statements.

“Algerian officials have fired back, including at a conference in Tunis on Thursday, when Algeria’s interior minister Yazid Zerhouni spoke, in front of UN Security chief David Veness, of the need for \’respect for the sovereignty of states… without interference in their internal affairs.’ Hours later, other Algerian diplomats named Algerian Brahimi as the UN’s “outside” investigator.”

Now that is what we keep saying all the time - THE UN IS JUST AS GOOD AS THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR OF ITS SOVEREIGN STATES - and this is lower then low.

Lakhdar Brahimi - is he “a fox guarding the hen house,” as one diplomat put it?
Remembering that Algeria is a member of OAPEC and sells oil and gas to Europe - could he be rather the cat that was put in charge of the sour cream jar?

David Veness, it should be said, was previously with Britain’s Scotland Yard, for which he investigated without success the disappearance of three million dollars from UN custody in Somalia. Now Scotland Yard is providing the veneer of outside investigation to Pervez Musharraf’s inquiry into the murder of his political rival Benazir Bhutto.

Matthew writes that “one wag at the UN Thursday night, at the end of the month of Security Council presidency reception by the Libyan mission, asked and answered a question. What is the difference between Pervez Musharraf and Ban Ki-moon? (A beat.) At least Pervez Musharraf has Scotland Yard.”

So, the UNSG will not even show strength of looking for cover by reaching out to someone like David Veness to look into what hapened in Algiers. That corects us now - THERE WILL NOT BE EVEN A WHITEWASH in the Algiers affair - plain lack of trust in the so called Algerian in-house investigation.

WE HAVE A SUGGESTION - WHY WOULD NOT BAN KI-MOON ASK FOR AN ISRAELI EX-MOSSAD MAN TO VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW THE BRAHIMI CONCLUSIONS. TO BE MORE PRECISE - HE SHOULD ANNOUNCE THIS AS HIS UN INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE WHEN ACCEPTING THE ALGERIAN SOVEREIGN CHOICE OF BRAHIMI. ONLY A DRASTIC MOVE LIKE THIS CAN RETURN A SEMBLANCE OF CREDIBILITY BEFORE THE UN STAFF.