Op-Ed Contributor of the New York Times

Bomb North Korea, Before It’s Too Late.

By JEREMI SURI,
AUSTIN, Tex.

Published: April 12, 2013

SINCE February, the North Korean government has followed one threatening move with another. The spiral began with an underground nuclear test. Then the North declared the armistice that ended the Korean War invalid. The young dictator Kim Jong-un followed with a flurry of threats to attack civilian targets in South Korea, Japan and the United States.

Earlier this week, North Korea closed the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the only facility where citizens from North and South Korea work together. And now the North is openly threatening (and visibly preparing) to fire a mobile-launcher-based Musudan missile with a range that could reach many of the places Mr. Kim has menaced in his public statements. American intelligence agencies believe that North Korea is working to prepare even longer-range delivery systems to carry the nuclear warheads already in its arsenal.

The Korean crisis has now become a strategic threat to America’s core national interests. The best option is to destroy the North Korean missile on the ground before it is launched. The United States should use a precise airstrike to render the missile and its mobile launcher inoperable.

President Obama should state clearly and forthrightly that this is an act of self-defense in response to explicit threats from North Korea and clear evidence of a prepared weapon. He should give the leaders of South Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan advance notice before acting. And he should explain that this is a limited defensive strike on a military target — an operation that poses no threat to civilians — and that America does not intend to bring about regime change. The purpose is to neutralize a clear and present danger. That is all.

If North Korea is left to continue its threatening behavior, it will jeopardize the fragile economies of the region and it will encourage South Korea and Japan to develop their own nuclear weapons — a policy already advocated by hawks in both countries. Most of all, North Korean threats will encourage isolated states across the world to follow suit. The Iranians are certainly watching. If North Korea can use its small nuclear arsenal to blackmail the region with impunity, why shouldn’t the mullahs in Tehran try to do the same?

The United States and its allies in East Asia have a legitimate right to self-defense and they have a deep interest in deterring future threats on this scale.

Thanks to precise satellite reconnaissance, striking the North Korean missile on the ground would be much easier than after it was launched. Since the United States cannot possibly know the missile’s trajectory before a launch, and Mr. Kim has said he is targeting America and its allies, we have reason to believe that civilians face serious danger.

Since a missile on the ground is an obvious and largely undefended target, we can be reasonably sure that a strike would destroy it and preserve regional stability and the safety of our allies. An American pre-emptive strike would also re-establish necessary red lines for North Korea and other countries in similar circumstances.

As President Xi Jinping of China stated earlier this month, “No one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gains.” By eliminating the most recent North Korean missile threat, the United States will reduce the threat posed by the North’s arsenal. The United States would also reassure everyone in the region, and those watching from other parts of the world, that although it is not seeking regime change, America and its allies will not be blackmailed by threatened missile launches.

The North Korean government would certainly view the American strike as a provocation, but it is unlikely that Mr. Kim would retaliate by attacking South Korea, as many fear. First, the Chinese government would do everything it could to prevent such a reaction. Even if they oppose an American strike, China’s leaders understand that a full-scale war would be far worse. Second, Mr. Kim would see in the American strike a renewed commitment to the defense of South Korea. Any attack on Seoul would be an act of suicide for him, and he knows that.

A war on the Korean Peninsula is unlikely after an American strike, but it is not inconceivable. The North Koreans might continue to escalate, and Mr. Kim might feel obligated to start a war to save face. Under these unfortunate circumstances, the United States and its allies would still be better off fighting a war with North Korea today, when the conflict could still be confined largely to the Korean Peninsula. As North Korea’s actions over the last two months have shown, Mr. Kim’s government is willing to escalate its threats much more rapidly than his father’s regime did. An unending crisis would merely postpone war to a later date, when the damage caused by North Korea would be even greater.

China’s role in a potential war on the Korean Peninsula is hard to predict. Beijing will continue to worry about the United States extending its influence up to the Chinese border. If armed hostilities erupt, President Obama should be prepared for direct and close consultations with Chinese leaders to negotiate a postwar settlement, in a larger multinational framework, that respects Beijing’s legitimate security interests in North Korea. The United States has no interest in occupying North Korea. The Chinese are unlikely to pursue an occupation of their own.

Destroying the North Korean missile before it is launched is the best of bad options on the Korean Peninsula. A prolonged crisis would undermine regional security and global efforts to stop nuclear proliferation. And a future war would be much worse. The most prudent move is to eliminate the most imminent military threat in self-defense, establish clear and reasonable limits on future belligerence, and maintain allied unity for stability — not forced regime change — in the region. This is the kind of pre-emptive action that would save lives and maybe even preserve the uneasy peace on the Korean Peninsula.

ULAN BATOR – After meeting with Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj and Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag in Ulan Bator, Abe told a news conference the two sides will accelerate ongoing bilateral negotiations toward inking a free-trade accord. The two sides agreed to hold a third round of trade liberalization talks in the Mongolian capital from Tuesday.

“As Mongolia is rich in natural resources, Japan’s technological cooperation will lead to a win-win scenario for both countries,” Abe, the first Japanese prime minister to visit Mongolia in nearly seven years, said after the talks.

Abe also pushed the participation of Japanese companies in developing one of the largest coal deposits in the world, at the Tavan Tolgoi site in the Gobi Desert, during the talks. Japan hopes to secure cheaper supplies of natural resources abroad while its nuclear power stations remains stalled in view of the Fukushima disaster.

The suspension of atomic power plants will drive up utilities’ fuel costs for the operation of thermal power stations to a sky-high ¥3.2 trillion in fiscal 2012, which ends Sunday, far in excess of levels seen before the 2011 meltdowns crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

As well as its abundance of coal, Mongolia is also known for rich mineral resources such as gold, copper and uranium, while rare metals and rare earths deposits could also possibly be extracted.

Aside from economic issues, Tokyo also considers Mongolia an important ally from a diplomatic and security perspective since it has diplomatic relations with North Korea — unlike Japan, which has no formal ties with the communist country — and borders China to the south and Russia to the north.

On North Korea, Abe said the two countries had agreed to deal with its recent provocations to the international community in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions. Given Ulan Bator’s ties with Pyongyang, Abe was especially eager to secure its support in resolving the long-standing issue of the North’s abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and ’80s, government officials said.

Last November, Ulan Bator hosted the first talks between senior Japanese and North Korean officials since 2008 on the abduction issue.

Meanwhile, Japan, the largest donor to Mongolia, also intends to provide technical assistance to help the country cope with serious air pollution in the capital and assist the building of new transport infrastructure as a way of alleviating heavy traffic in and around it.

Japan was Mongolia’s fourth-largest trading partner last year, when the fast-growing country’s economy jumped 17.3 percent from a year earlier. China, Russia and the United States occupied the top three positions.

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ALSO:
Japan-Mexico summit eyed in April
Japan and Mexico are arranging to hold a summit for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Enrique Pena Nieto in Tokyo on April 8, when Japan will kick off its diplomatic campaign to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, government sources said.
[MORE] ->
www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/03/31/national/japan-mexico-summit-eyed-in-april/

——————
Last post: Japan’s outdated model is dead; long live the emerging vision
As of today, Roger Pulvers takes leave of Counterpoint, for which he has written weekly since its inception on April 3, 2005. In his final three columns, he set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is the concluding part of that trilogy.
[MORE] ->
www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/03/31/commentary/last-post-japans-outdated-model-is-dead-long-live-the-emerging-vision/

Fareed Zakaria asks Kishore Mahbubani on the CNN/GPS program March 24, 2013 – One thing historically that has always happened is when you have the rise of a middle class, countries tend to become more democratic. Do you think China will become a democracy?

Mahbubani: “I think China will eventually become a democracy. The destination is not in doubt. The only question is the route and timing.

But China is not going to become democratic in the near future, in the next 10 to 20 years. And, by the way, one point people forget is that if you go to Chinese universities and you talk to bright young Chinese and ask them, would you like to get rid of the Communist Party and immediately become democratic tomorrow, most of them would say no. Because they do know that the Chinese Communist Party, over the last 30 years, has delivered the fastest growth in the standard of living.

And they do know that if you dismantle this and if China falls apart, all their dreams of becoming number one in the world will disappear. And the Chinese…the feeling is that they are almost there, the feeling that they’re going to become number one very soon is a very powerful driving force that’s also keeping them together.”

Starting with China and India and looking at the rest of Asia – today there are 500 million people in the middle class – the growth is immense and by 2020 the expectation is that this number will more then triple and there will be 1.75 billion people of that region that will be in the middle class.

The West must show the wisdom to learn to manage the entrance of these Asian states into the Global multinational system – and what more – the US must learn how to be a #2 when finally another Nation becomes #1. Mahbubani talks of THE GREAT CONVERSION as a final result of the development process. He is mostly interested in the political sphere. Today we have a strong International Society and a very weak International Government. Some must learn to conceive that the time of being clear #1 will be over.

Mahbubani is practical and aims at the end of the present system of the so called 5 Superpowers. He shreds the UN Security Council and wants to se it replaced by a set of new 7 Permanent Members augmented with another 7 Semi-permanent Members.

The first set of the NEW PERMANENTS is to be made up of:

The US, CHINA, RUSSIA, INDIA, The EU, BRAZIL, and NIGERIA

The Set of Semi-Permanents will then be made up by counties like Korea, Japan, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia ….

We were flabbergasted as his scheme, except for replacing Nigeria for South Africa, is identical with what we were advocating years ago.  So, to be honest, this posting comes about because we feel justified by the content of Professor Mahbubani’s remarks.

Further, on the Fareed Zakaria program today he had also Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson advocate the US put more money into Space as the present situation of not having a US Space-ship and the need to rent place on Russia’s equipment, not just harms US research, but in effect became a give-away to Russia, China, India, even Canada, of the potential for inovation that comes with investment in space Programs. This is another reason for fore-seable US decline.

Event at the Asia Society in New York – “The US and Asia in 2013: Challenges and Opportunities”

by Irith Jawetz at the Asia Society House on Park Avenue, New York City, Monday March 11, 2013.
Talk by Thomas Donilon, U.S. National Security Advisor on “The U.S. and Asia in 2013:  Challenges and Opportunities.”

Introductory remarks were by Ms. Henrietta Fore, Co-Chair of Asia Society and Chairman and CEO of Holsman International, a manufacturing, consulting and investment company.

She stressed the importance of the Series of talks at the Asia Society – “Beyond the Headlines” -  and said that the Asia Society shares views of cooperation, alliances, and links between the United States and Asia. There are many challenges in the relationship between the US and Asia, she said – especially when it comes to North Korea -  but the opportunities for cooperation outweigh the challenges, she sad. Her approach to foreign policy was a business woman line – the issue being that challenges and opportunities were understood in business terms.

Ms. Fore continued by introducing the speaker – Mr. Thomas Donilon.

Thomas Donilon is the new National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama. 
From 2009 to 2010, he served as Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor.  He chaired the State Department’s transition effort in 2008.  Prior to this, he was a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and served as a member of the firm’s global governing committee.  He has worked closely with and advised three U.S. Presidents since his first position at the White House working with President Carter. 

He served in the Clinton Administration as Assistant Secretary of State and Chief of Staff of the Department. In this capacity he was responsible for the development and implementation of the Department’s major policy initiatives, including NATO expansion, the Dayton Peace Accords, and the Middle East Peace process. He was awarded  the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award in November 1996. His interest in policy does not mean business first. What was he doing at Asia Society during this lunch-time break?

Mr. Donilon started his presentation by acknowledging his good friend Richard Holbrook who was a real “Asia hand” and credited him for dedicating all his efforts to peace and cooperation everywhere. Now – that was the answer to the question in my head. Mr. Danilon came to honor the departed Mr. Holbrook and not because of those present there.

Donilon gave a general review of the Obama Administration’s goals in Asia for his second term.

The world’s economic, political, and strategic center of gravity is shifting toward the Asia-Pacific.  Since its first days in office, the Obama administration has therefore pursued a rebalancing of foreign, economic and defense policy priorities toward the Asia Pacific. This reballance, according to National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon, is working to “sustain a stable security environment and a regional order rooted in economic openness, peaceful resolution of disputes, democratic governance, and political freedom.” 

The United States has been over weighted in some area, i.,e. the Middle East and under weighted in other area, i.e. Asia – and the Obama Administration will make sure to strengthen the ties between the US and the Asia Pacific region.

He mentioned the friendship and cooperation with Japan’s new leadership, with China’s leadership, the friendship with India, and a solid commitment to the security of the Republic of Korea, and announced that the new woman President of the Republic of Korea, Ms. Park will visit the White House this coming May.

The challenges are mainly with North Korea. For 60 years the United States has protected the Republic of Korea and will not accept any nuclear programs in North Korea. There will be consequences if North Korea continues to pursue its nuclear goals. However, there will always be a window open for talks if North Korea changes its course. He brought as example the country of Myanmar with whom the US has now a good relationship. North Korea could take an example from Myanmar.

Mr. Donilon touched upon the good relationship between the US and India, Indonesia, a country that is personally close to Mr. Obama, and China. In relations to China he mentioned that a military dialogue is necessary, economic relations are opening up, however there are problems regarding the cyber security. The Internet has to be open, secure and reliable and there are still concerns in that field.

He further mentioned the TPP, Trans Pacific Partnership, – an organization which now has 11 members, but could be a podium for many countries to join and cooperate for free and open trade between the countries.

In conclusion, he again stressed that the ties between the United States and Asia are a very important subject in the Obama Administration.

Ms. Suzanne DiMaggio, Vice President of Global Policy Programs at Asia Society read a few questions, one relating to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As for Afghanistan Mr. Donilon stressed that the plan is still to have the Afghan forces take over the security of their country
with the US forces in an advisory capacity as of May 2013, and the full withdrawal of US troops from that country by September 31, 2014. The main goal is to defeat Al Qaeda and to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a future haven for terrorists.

As for Pakistan there have always been problems between the US and Pakistan especially after a crisis, i.e. the capture of Osama Bin Laden, but the US is committed to work through those problems and to ensure a stable Pakistan.

Mr. Tom Nagorski closed the session with a concluding remarks thanking Mr. Donilon for his excellent speech and also thanking him for his kind remarks regarding Richard Holbrook.

Tom Nagorski is Executive Vice President of the Asia Society since October 2012 following a three-decade career in journalism – having served most recently as Managing Editor for International Coverage of ABC News. Before that he was Foreign Editor for World News Tonight and a reporter and producer based in Russia, Germany and Thailand. He is the recipient of eight Emmy awards and the Dupont Award for excellence in International coverage as well as a fellowship from the Henry Luce Foundation.
He looked like he understood why Mr. Donilon spent his time here and the fact that the business community ought to understand better the motives of an umbrella approach to foreign policy that comes with a reset away from the oil region.

A Kurt Bayer’s Commentary

• Home
• Global Economic Policy

Populists or Business (Banking) Lobbyists?

The public media and European mainstream parties’ politicians are unisono lamenting the rise of populism as manifested by the strong showing of Beppe Grillo in Italy’s parliamentary election last weekend. They decry, as they did earlier in the case of Greece, when the “populist” Syriza party nearly won the election, the irresponsibility, the negativism, the “against-it-all” attitude of these parties’ leaders. Let us add to these election results the street demonstrations and battles in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in Bulgaria, in Slovenia – all these before the background of people jumping to death from windows of their to-be-repossessed apartments, of soup kitchens, of soaring unemployment rates (especially, and even more tragically, of the young), and of the horrifying increase in poverty rates in many of these and other countries.

It does seem, that in spite of these politicians’ lamentoes, that European citizens are no longer accepting the crisis resolution policies imposed on them by politicians – at the bidding of financial markets. Yes, Mario Monti, the unelected and now defeated prime minister, managed to calm “market fears”, yes, Mario Draghi, the ECB president, managed to do the same – and more – by last fall promising to “do everything necessary” to enable European states’ return to the financial markets, yes, some of the Southern states (plus Ireland) were able during the past months to place bond auctions at “sustainable” yields (i.e. below the benchmark of 6%). But the concomitant “aid programs” by the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, the dreaded “troika” are what the restive populations are no longer willing to swallow. Since governments took over bank debt, the citizens have been called upon to foot the bill, by having their taxes increased, government expenditures, especially social expenditures, cut and losing their jobs as a result of the persistent recession which these programs (and the similar, if less stringent “debt brake” conditions imposed on all EU countries. There is already talk about a “lost decade” for Europe.

With all this austerity (which is portrayed as without alternative) it is completely unclear where future growth should come from even after this decade. The mainstream recipe that balanced budgets (and their corresponding structural reforms) guarantee growth has been proven false, not only in theory, but also in empirical practice. If the second largest economic block in the world (with about 18 trillion $ in GDP, about one fourth of the world economy) reduces public sector demand in addition to falling demand in the private sector, this affects the whole world. This is different from the frequently cited more recent cases, where one individual country managed to export its way out of recession, when all other countries were growing and thus increasing their demand.

In this situation, the EU parliament has achieved a spectacular success, by agreeing (also with EU Finance Ministers) to limit bankers’ bonus payments to 100% of base salary (in exceptional cases to 200%). This is part of a hard-fought package setting new rules for European banks’ equity and liquidity requirements. There are widespread “populism” cries by especially English bankers, but also their colleagues around Europe that this would drive out banking from Europe, that this is a Continental coup to transfer banking business from London to Paris or Frankfurt (??), that this is “unfair”. The more sanguine bankers say (see eg. Financial Times March 2, 2013) that this just means that their base salary will have to be doubled as a consequence. Tory MPs are fuming and using this as an additional argument that the UK should leave the EU as soon as possible. Of course, they do not mention the fact that it was their leader, David Cameron, who pulled the Tories out of the European Peoples’ Party group, which – in the form of the Austrian Othmar Karas – was leading the negotiations of the European Parliament with the Finance Ministers. They also forget to mention that banking lobbies (led by the English) have delayed and watered down the other parts of the Banking package to be concluded.

The Greek and Italian elections, the street protests, the events in many other European countries should lead to a realization by the EU policy makers, both in the Central Bank, in the Commission and in the Council, that it is not just “clowns” (@ Peer Steinbruck, the Social Democratic candidate for the German premiership) who say “no more” to this oppressive economic policy recipe, but it is large parts of the European populations who have not only lost confidence that these recipes will work, but actively are against them – because they see that as in the Great Depression of the late 1920s – they lead to impoverishment and political disaster. Politicians should listen more closely to their populations, and less to the financial sector lobbyists, who have caused this crisis and refuse to play their part in shouldering their part of the burden. It was the lobbyists’ close connection to the politicians who made banking debts into government debt, it was their whisperings which had told politicians fairy tales about the financial markets being the most efficient markets in the world, thus self-regulation and “light-touch” regulation was all that was needed.

What are the alternatives?

The primary policy objective should not be to “return countries to financial markets’ access”, but to have indebted states return to a sustainable economic and social policy path which improves the welfare of their populations. To this end, government debt financing should be taken away from financial markets and turned over to a publicly accountable public institutions (the ECB or the ESM with a banking licence).

As far as bank debt is concerned, a European plan must be developed with a medium-term view of how the European Financial sector should look like in 10-20 years. This would counter-act the present “re-nationalization” trends where every country attempts to save its banks (frequently at the expense of others) at high costs to the taxpayers. Some banks will need to be closed, others restructured, and effective regulation set up. It is clear that (some) debts will need to be repaid, but much of bank debt should be paid by bank owners and their bondholders, not by taxpayers. For highly indebted bank sectors, a European bank resolution fund could take over some of the debt.

It is true that a number of “problem countries” in the EU have pursued wrong policies in the past, e.g. waste of public (EU and national) funds, neglect of innovation and R&D policies, high military expenditures, neglect of industrial policies, neglect of modern education systems, neglect of building up sustainable energy systems (both on the supply and demand side), and many more. Each country needs to develop a positive vision of where it wants to stand in 10 years’ time, and then select the appropriate instruments, and convince its EU partners of its way.
The major political task will be to convince the populations that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that some sacrifices are necessary, but that these will be distributed equitably, that there are positive prospects for this and the next generation, that the social system will cushion the inevitable burdens. To generate the confidence that “we are all in this together” will not be credible, if voiced by those politicians who have gotten us (knowingly or unknowingly) into the present mess. This is the task for new, and credible politicians who not only know what possible alternatives are, but can also muster enough support, both political and technical, from the populations who voted for them. This may and will require new communication methods – as they have been employed during the recent elections.

At a European level, a new more comprehensive economic policy umbrella must be opened. The nearly exclusive attention to budget consolidation was geared to placating the financial markets – who also are getting cold feet seeing what “their” policies do to growth (see the most recent downgrade of the UK). It must throw off the yoke of financial market dictate and turn itself to strengthening the European model, with a view to balance social, economic and environmental requirements for the future.

European civil society is growing together. Public institutions, like the labor movement, are not. In the face of the crisis, labor unions are re-nationalizing, attempting to save jobs for their own members at the expense of their foreign colleagues. They should learn from the business lobby, which has been much more successful in convincing European and national policy makers of their own interests.

What are the prospects for United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon’s second term?
How will Korea exercise its two-year term on the UN Security Council?
And what of the new Global Green Fund, founded within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be based in Korea’s Songdo/Incheon?

Michèle Griffin of UN Policy Planning,
ROK Deputy Permanent Representative, Ambassador Shin Dong-ik,
and UNSG Climate Change Support Team’s Frank Schroeder
address each of these areas in this special seasonal kick-off Studio Korea session.

The United Nations and Korean Leadership

with

Michèle Griffin
Policy Planning Unit Director, United Nations

Frank Schroeder
Senior Advisor, Climate Change Support Team, Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Ambassador Shin Dong-ik
ROK Deputy Permanent Representative, United Nations

Moderated by Dr. Stephen Noerper
Senior Vice President, The Korea Society

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

We learned the following:

THE UN SECRETARY GENERAL HOLDS 5 TOPICS AS MOST IMPORTANT FOR THE TIME OF HIS SECOND TERM IN OFFICE –

(1) Sustainable Development and Climate Change. . . . This Because We Are Increasingly Aware of the Limits For the Global Natural Resources.

(2) More Preventively Minded. . . .  This by Building Up the Resilience of the Fragile Countries i.e. Natural Disasters and Conflicts – like Mali and Somalia. Think Long Term and Push Politicians.

(3) The Peace and Security Agenda. . . . Mali, Syria, DPRK. We Must Do More for the Cases we Failed to Prevent. The UN is just One of Many Actors
i.e. The African Union.

(4) Transitions towards Democracy at Large. Democracy Like the Start of the Arab Spring. Economy Like in Myanmar.

(5) Promoting The Participation of Women and Promoting the Opposition to Violence Against Women. Bring in the Voice of Young People.

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

Michele Griffin, of UN Policy Planing in the Secretariat, stressed that Korea brings in something of a MIDDLE POWER. It is not one of the BRICS but it is well ahead of Developing Countries.

In this context it is important to realize that the World is changing and shifting away from the Western Countries to some of the Middle Powers, and we need to have a greater number of such actors. These Middle Powers can start thinking now of the UN as their UN, said Michele Griffin.

She added that Migration, Climate Change, are problems that were brought up by the West, and in order to tackle them the West needs the Middle Powers on-board. We figure on our Website that besides Korea, to this group belong now Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico.

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

Ambassador Shin Dong-ik, Deputy Permanent Representative of Korea to the UN reminded us that Korea will chair the UN Security Council during the month of February 2013, and will have in its turn a second month of chairmanship later on.

He also reminded us that the Republic of Korea joined the UN only in 1991 – that was when both Koreas were accepted in one agreed upon move.

He stressed that his country does not want to be held hostage to this sort of balanced steps involving North Korea. Korea is one of 5 members of the Council that signed the Syrian document. This means Korea wants to go global and it includes an aspiration for nuclear disarmament.

At the UN Security Council – most of the agenda – over 70% – involves Africa.

He repeated that Sustainable Development and UN Women are issues very close to the UNSG and to the Republic of Korea as well. Korea was for Human Rights in Myanmar and for Women Rights.

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

Frank Schroeder of the Climate Change support team in the UN Secretariat, addressed the topic of Green Climate Fund established recently in Inchon, and intent in mobilizing $100 Billion by 2020 to be used in creating the momentum on Climate Change. It is not fully operationalized yet. When Korea became host to the plenary, by consensus, Korea’s argument was that CC is not only a challenge, but also rather an opportunity to create growth.
Korea has become a key player on technology. Incheon is a very special place – a city of the future – wired for advanced technologies.

Korea was a bridge between the Developed & Developing World. The Fund’s Board will have ti create a business model and decide on the role of the private sector.

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

On January 22nd 2013, the UN Secretary General addressed the General Assembly – spoke about the achievements in 2012 and his hopes for 2013.
He mentioned the eight priorities the UNGA has set for the UN: Sustainable Development, Peace and Security, Human Rights, Humanitarian Assistance, Disarmament, Justice, the Develpment of Africa, Drug Control, Crime Prevention, and Combating Terrorism.

He followed up by saying that his hope is that “we can stop moving from crisis to crisis, from symptom to sympton, and instead address the underlying causes and inter-relationships, and recognize the flaws in many of our approaches.” He called on removal of the “Tyranny of the Status Quo” that constitutes “the brake on our common progress.”

The UNSG declared the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development as an important step forward. That was followed by the December meeting in Doha that he said put climate change negotiations back on track. We wonder about that but hope that he can hold to his promise to engage world leaders individually and collectively next year to mobilize political will for a robust, global and legally binding climate change instrument by 2015.

With the UNSG and President Obama singing from the same page on the issue of Climate Change, we thus hope that finally something can be achieved in the future, though we are skeptical about saying that much has been achieved to-date.

Following a track on the post-2015 development agenda, and a new phase in the MDGs with SDGs becoming the new actualization of efforts for progress, constitutes already a program that has promise. The Open Working Group tasked January 22nd by the UNGA, with advancing action towards implementing a Rio+20 recommendation to develop a set of sustainable development goals, is the first UN move since the June 2012 Rio Conference in the direction of “THE FUTURE WE WANT.”

Above agenda and a list of SDGs could then be the input to the Panel of Eminent People established by the Rio+20 review that looks at the creation of a new UN structure to take the place of the Commission for Sustainable Development – the outgoing UN CSD – and as we feel – the way to a recommendation for implementation of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) concept for true sustainability. It would be a pity if all that intense work by the Brazilian diplomats in 2012, in the run-up to the Rio meeting, will be allowed to go to waste.

New York, 12 January 2013 – Remarks at Park East Synagogue Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of The Holocaust.

Rabbi Schneier,
President Hochberg,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Shabat Shalom.  Salaam.  Peace to you all.

It is a great honour to be with you once again.

Thank you, Rabbi Schneier, for your gracious introduction.  I hope every day to live up to your high praise and expectations.

On this day when we remember the victims of the Holocaust, let me pay special tribute to the survivors who have joined us.

Rabbi Schneier knows fully their pain and suffering, for he too is a survivor.

For most of us it is hard to imagine the anguish of knowing that you and your loved ones have been singled out to die because of your faith, your culture or your race.

Yet, this is the stark truth.

In the Second World War, Jews, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, communists, the mentally ill – anyone who did not conform to Hitler’s perverted ideology of Aryan perfection – were systematically persecuted, rounded up and transported to death camps.

Some were murdered immediately; others cruelly worked to death.

Such an operation takes extensive organization.  It takes many people – from leaders to ordinary citizens – to participate, cooperate or simply turn a blind eye.

This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of genocide – and the reason why we must be ever vigilant.

The language of hatred is corrosive and contagious.  Its moral corruption can eat into hearts and minds in even the most progressive or sophisticated societies.

The more often you hear that your neighbour is vile, subhuman, not worthy of the rights that you take for granted, the greater the chance of such beliefs taking root.

That is why I spoke so frankly and forcefully last year in Tehran about Holocaust denial.

It is why Rabbi Schneier and I and so many others are so committed to the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.

Neither anti-Semitism nor Islamophobia nor other such forms of bias have a place in the 21st century world we are trying to build.

This is also why I worry about the continued stalemate in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

We now have a whole generation of young people on both sides who risk growing up with a demonized, dehumanized – and utterly false – concept of their neighbours.

They need to be educated to co-exist peacefully with their neighbours.

The only way to build peace is to build bridges and break down walls.

Doing so will take courage, but it must be done.

This year, the United Nations has chosen “the courage to care” as the theme of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

We are honouring those who risked their lives and their families to save Jews and other victims of persecution from almost certain death.

Some, like Raoul Wallenberg, are household names.

But most are unsung heroes — brave men and women from all walks of life, and many nations.

Teenagers and parents, parliamentarians and priests, journalists and diplomats — all had the courage to care.

Their example is as relevant today as ever – which is why the United Nations has produced an education kit for teachers to tell their story.

In a world where extremist acts of violence and hatred capture the headlines on an almost daily basis, we need to take inspiration from these ordinary people who took extraordinary steps to defend human dignity.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Last year I visited Srebrenica, the site of the worst act of genocide in Europe since the Holocaust.

I visited the graves and wept with the mothers of the slain.

It is not an easy place for a United Nations Secretary-General to visit.

The United Nations – the international community – failed to protect thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys from slaughter.

The shadow of Srebrenica has joined that of Rwanda, Cambodia, the Holocaust.

Each time we hear “never again”.

But can we truly say we have learned the lessons of these tragedies?

As an international community, do we have the courage to care – and the resolve to act?

In 2005 the United Nations General Assembly – at the level of Heads of State and Governments — adopted the responsibility to protect.

It is a landmark concept.  It puts the obligation firmly on States to protect their populations from genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or ethnic cleansing.

And in the face of these crimes and violations there is a corresponding duty of the international community to act.

The responsibility to protect applies everywhere and all the time.  It has been implemented with success in a number of places, including in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire.

But today it faces a great test in Syria.

More than 60,000 people have now died in a conflict whose seeds lie in the peaceful demand of people for greater freedom.

We have seen a government brutally and mercilessly oppress dissent and fan the flames of a civil war that threatens to bring instability to a whole region.

I have repeatedly called for unity from the Security Council to decisively address this tragedy.

So too has the General Assembly – by an overwhelming majority.

Each day brings more suffering.

I met some of the refugees last month, in camps in Jordan and Turkey.

I talked to families who had fled with just what they could carry; children whose future has been thrown into uncertainty.

They told me that all they wanted was to go home and live in safety and security.

Today’s theme challenges us: do we have the courage to care?

I am deeply concerned about the situation in Syria not simply because of the terrible suffering, but because of what may come next.

Each day’s delay in resolving the crisis raises the spectre of the violence spreading along religious and ethnic lines.

Each day’s delay sees new atrocities by both sides.  It is essential that all perpetrators of international crimes understand that they will be held to account.

There will be no amnesties for those most responsible.

The old era of impunity is ending.  In its place, slowly but surely, we are building a new age of accountability.

But the important thing is to end the violence in Syria – now – and begin the process of transition.

Too much blood has been shed.  It is time for reconciliation.

There is a proverb that says: if you want revenge you should dig two graves.

Syria will need many men and women of courage who will reject revenge and embrace peace.

People like Rabbi Schneier.

He too visited Srebrenica last year.

He spoke in solidarity — as only someone who has shared indescribable suffering can.

And this is what he said:

“As a survivor I neither turned against man or God.  Instead, in memory of my family and the many millions exterminated like them, I devoted my life to help build bridges between all of God’s children in pursuit of peace and justice.”  End of quote.

Such forgiveness takes courage – the courage to see what is right and to do it.

Whatever one’s faith, this is our duty – as individuals, as communities and as nations.

We have a responsibility to protect.

We must have the courage to care.

Thank you.

Take for instance the problem called Syria that after 60,000 people killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced, during 2011-2012 continuing now in the same way -  or a two years of disaster – still does not move the UN Security Council seat-holders to find a way to control the centripetal forces in that Member State.

Arriving to Davos on Thursday  morning – to the World Economic Forum – first action of Mr. Ban Ki-moon took was to deliver a special address focusing on Syria and the African Sahel region. The address was noticed by governments, business, and civil society. A unity must be found that allows meaningful action and humanitarian and political efforts must be given security cover. He met the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in this context. He also spoke at a meeting on water resources and connected the events in the North Africa – Middle East MENA States to active effects of drought and Climate Change and people migration that spill over to neighboring States that also suffer from environmental degradation.

On the one end of this arc of destruction – by fighting people and by disaster creating activities elsewhere – Mr. Ban Ki-moon met with the Prime Minister of Lebanon – H.E. Mr. Najib Milkati, and a large group of US Members of Congress from the Republican Party – Messrs. Eric Cantor (Virginia), Jeff Fortenberry (Nebraska), Mario Diaz-Balart (Florida), Darrell Issa (Californis), and Ms Kay Granger (Texas). With this unusual group questions of Human Rights and UN reform were as important as the Middle East Peace Process between Israel and its neighbors, as the unrest in the Sahel region on the other side of the MENA arc of destruction and its neighbors of the Horn of Africa, Central Africa, and West Africa.

Regarding Mali, Mr. Ban warned that the crisis is deepening with repeated reports of sexual violence, child soldiers, and reprisals by the Malian army against Tuareg and Arab populations. The African story repeats itself now also in the Western part of the Sahel. A toxic mix of poverty, extreme climatic conditions, weak institutions, drug smuggling, and the easy availability of weapons, is causing now also in this rather new region the dangerous insecurity we know from the other parts of MENA and its neighboring States.

The UNSG came to Davos in order to tell to whoever will listen that the problems of Mali engulf  18 million people of the Sahel, and if we want to address the problems – the whole set of problems will have to be addressed.  Ditto when looking at Darfur and the region stretching into the Horn of Africa.

Mr. Ban took a look also at Egypt and Bahrain and expressed his wishes that these two States do not regress into difficult situations as well.

Regarding Mr. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq misadventure into Kuwait, the UN panel allocated from Iraq funds the equivalent of $1.3 billion as reparations to Kuwait.

While the UNSG was making these presentations to leaders, academics, and business tycoons in Davos, his Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Mr.Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal presented the Ban Ki-moon video address to the 2013 International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, in the UN General Assembly Hall at the New York City Headquarters of the UN. This year’s Memorial Ceremony was held under the secondary title: “THE COURAGE TO CARE.”

The Holocaust, though a very special event without anything in human history to compare it with, according to Mr. Jan Karski, one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by the Jerusalem Yad Vashem, for his efforts to inform the World of the extermination of the Jews activities of the Nazis of the German Reich, ought nevertheless be remembered when watching crimes performed in full TV light before our eyes and right in front of us.

Jan Karski was awarded posthumously, by President Obama in 2012, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. and the UN lobby has now an exhibit on display about him as his book “Story of a Secret State” was released this year with details of US inaction while he provided information of what was going on in Europe during WWII. He started out as a Polish Nationalist, but even though faced with the dismemberment of the Polish State – he recognized that what was happening to the Jews was immensely worse.

The US Lobby is displaying as well material about the Holocaust, the extermination machine and the Righteous people who even by saving the life of just one Jew – got themselves the right to be considered as if they saved the whole world. Considering that the UN is ever so often visited by Holocaust deniers, and the UN continuously watching crimes being committed by member States – the event at Headquarters was at least just as important, if not more, as what the UNSG was trying to achieve in Davos.

We bring thus the text of the UNSG video presentation to those assembled at the UN General Assembly Hall on Friday, January 25, 2013.

———————

25 January 2013

Secretary-General, in Memorial Message for Holocaust Victims Day, Hails‘Unsung Heroes’ Who Risked All to Help Targets of Persecution.

The original title was:

VIDEO MESSAGE ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COMMEMORATION IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST.

Airing 25 January 2013

It is a great pleasure to greet all the good friends of the United Nations who have gathered for this observance of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. I welcome in particular the Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans who have joined this solemn ceremony.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Courage is a rare and precious commodity.  Today, we celebrate those who had the courage to care.  Throughout the Second World War, Jews, Roma and Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war and others who failed to conform to Hitler’s perverted ideology of Aryan perfection were systematically murdered in death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau.

But some were able to avoid the slaughter.  They escaped because a few brave souls risked their lives and their families to rescue Jews and other victims of persecution from almost certain death.  Some sheltered the intended victims in their homes; others helped families to obtain safe passage.

Some of the accounts of the rescuers have achieved iconic prominence.  But many are known only to those whose lives were saved.  This year’s observance is meant to give those unsung heroes the regard they deserve.  I thank the Righteous among the Nations Programme at Yad Vashem, which is celebrating its fiftieth year, for identifying and rewarding them.  The Holocaust and the United Nations programme has produced an education package on the rescuers that will be used in classrooms around the world.

I also congratulate another crucial partner, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, on its twentieth anniversary.  Its theme of “Never Again:  What You Do Matters” resonates deeply.

Acts of genocide illustrate the depths of evil to which individuals and whole societies can descend.  But the examples of the brave men and women we celebrate today also demonstrate the capacity of humankind for remarkable good, even during the darkest of days.

On this International Day, let us remember all the innocent people who lost their lives during the Holocaust.  And let us be inspired by those who had the courage to care — the ordinary people who took extraordinary steps to defend human dignity.  Their example is as relevant today as ever.

In a world where extremist acts of violence and hatred capture the headlines on an almost daily basis, we must remain ever vigilant.  Let us all have the courage to care, so we can build a safer, better world today.

EQUUS

Equus        the 1993 Longman edition

Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist  who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses.

Shaffer was inspired to write Equus when he heard of a crime involving a 17-year-old who blinded six horses in a small town near Suffolk, England. He set out to construct a fictional account of what might have caused the incident, without knowing any of the details of the crime. The play’s action is something of a detective story, involving the attempts of the child psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Dysart, to understand the cause of the boy’s actions while wrestling with his own sense of purpose.

The stage show ran in London between 1973 and 1975: later came the Broadway productions that starred Anthony Hopkins as Dysart, (later played by Richard Burton and Anthony Perkins) and from the London production, Peter Firth as Alan.

However, numerous other issues inform the narrative. Most important are religious and ritual sacrifice themes, and the manner in which character Alan Strang constructs a personal theology involving the horses and the supreme godhead, “Equus”. Alan sees the horses as representative of God and confuses his adoration of his “God” with sexual attraction. Also important is Shaffer’s examination of the conflict between personal values and satisfaction and societal mores, expectations and institutions. In reference to the play’s classical structure, themes and characterization, Shaffer has discussed the conflict between Apollonian and Dionysian values and systems in human life.

What must cross everyone’s mind today is the idea that some great playwright is already working on the Sandy Hook Elementary School’s anti-hero Adam Lanza story.

Equus is the zoologist’s name for a horse and the modern domesticated horse is equus caballus. It is assumed that the first domesticated horses were in what is today Kazakhstan.

White horses have had a special place in ancient history-according to Herodotus, they were held as sacred animals in the Achaemenid court of Xerxes the Great (485-465 BC).

White horses are associated with the Pegasus myth, the unicorn in the Babylonian myth of Gilgamesh, Arabian horses, Lipizzaner stallions, Shetland ponies, and Icelandic pony populations.

The partnership between horse and master in antiquity rested on many factors; perhaps the most important was that the horse provided man with his quickest means of overland movement.

When Athenian society was first organized for political reasons into three classes according to birth and wealth, the horse-owners or cavalrymen (hippeis) occupied the top rung of society. After Solon’s constitutional reforms in 592/91 BC, they were moved to the second of five classes which were by then determined solely on the basis of wealth. The social preeminence of horse owners continued, however, to be reflected over and over again in scenes on Attic vases showing Athenian men with their horses engaged in hunting, riding in the countryside, and other leisure time activities.

In Rome -  A Knight (Latin eques): title of members of the elite of the Roman republic – they owned an equus.  Under the empire, they were ‘second tier’, after the senators.

In ancient Roman religion, the October Horse (Latin Equus October) was an animal sacrifice to Mars carried out on October 15, coinciding with the end of the agricultural and military campaigning season. The rite took place during one of three horse-racing festivals held in honor of Mars, the others being the two Equirria on February 27 and March 14.

Two-horse chariot races (bigae) were held in the Campus Martius, the area of Rome named for Mars, after which the right-hand horse of the winning team was transfixed by a spear, then sacrificed. The horse’s head (caput) and tail (cauda) were cut off and used separately in the two subsequent parts of the ceremonies: two neighborhoods staged a fight for the right to display the head, and the still-bleeding cauda was carried to the Regia to sprinkle on the sacred hearth of Rome.

Ancient references to the Equus October are scattered over more than six centuries: the earliest is that of Timaeus (3rd century BC), who linked the sacrifice to the Trojan Horse and the Romans’ claim to Trojan descent, with the latest in the Calendar of Philocalus (354 AD), where it is noted as still occurring, even as Christianity was becoming the dominant religion of the Empire. Most scholars see an Etruscan influence on the early formation of the ceremonies.

The October Horse is the only instance of horse sacrifice in Roman religion; the Romans typically sacrificed animals that were a normal part of their diet. The unusual ritual of the October Horse has thus been analyzed at times in light of other Indo-European forms of horse sacrifice, such as the Vedic ashvamedha and the Irish ritual described by Giraldus Cambrensis, both of which have to do with kingship. Although the ritual battle for possession of the head may preserve an element from the early period when Rome was ruled by kings, the October Horse’s collocation of agriculture and war is characteristic of the Republic. The sacred topography of the rite and the role of Mars in other equestrian festivals also suggest aspects of initiation and rebirth ritual. The complex or even contradictory aspects of the October Horse probably result from overlays of traditions accumulated over time.

The Trojan Horse

Laocoon spearing the Trojan Horse (Codex Vaticanus lat. 2761)

Timaeus (3rd century BC) attempted to explain the ritual of the October Horse in connection with the Trojan Horse – an attempt mostly regarded by ancient and modern scholars as “hardly convincing.” As recorded by Polybius (2nd century BC),

he tells us that the Romans still commemorate the disaster at Troy by shooting (?????????????, “to spear down”) on a certain day a war-horse before the city in the Campus Martius, because the capture of Troy was due to the wooden horse — a most childish statement. For at that rate we should have to say that all barbarian tribes were descendants of the Trojans, since nearly all of them, or at least the majority, when they are entering on a war or on the eve of a decisive battle sacrifice a horse, divining the issue from the manner in which it falls. Timaeus in dealing with the foolish practice seems to me to exhibit not only ignorance but pedantry in supposing that in sacrificing a horse they do so because Troy was said to have been taken by means of a horse.

Plutarch (d. 120 AD) also offers a Trojan origin as a possibility, noting that the Romans claimed to have descended from the Trojans and would want to punish the horse that betrayed the city. Festus said that this was a common belief, but rejects it on the same grounds as Polybius.

Walter Burkert has suggested that while the October Horse cannot be taken as a sacrificial reenactment against the Trojan Horse, there may be some shared ritualistic origin, since the success of the Trojan Horse depended on its being taken as a votive offering or dedication for a deity. For instance, the spear that the Trojan priest Laocoön drives into the side of the wooden horse is paralleled by the spear used by the officiating priest at the October sacrifice. The Romans did hold ritual equestrian games that commemorated their claim to Trojan origins; see Lusus Troiae.

———————————————————–

WE WENT HERE AT LENGTH TO FIGURE OUT THE IMPORTANCE OF EQUUS IN GRECO-ROMAN CULTURE BECAUSE WE HEARD FROM THE SOUTH KOREAN TEAM THAT PRESENTED EQUUS TO THE UN SECRETARY GENERAL THAT  THE CAR IS CALLED EQUUS AFTER THE VICTORIOUS HORSE OF THE WARRIOR OF OLD. IN HIS RESPONSE THE UNSG THANKED AMBASSADOR KIM SOO AND CHAIRMAN Chung Mong-koo MENTIONING THE RESPONSIBLE MEASURES AND SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES UNDER THE GLOBAL COMPACT.

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Also, to fill out the picture – we have here extracts from the Inner City Press reporting by Matthew Russell Lee – one of the very few journalists present.

His title:  As UN Ban Given Hyundai & Champagne by South Korea, Ad & Legal Qs

UNITED NATIONS, December 17, 2012 — UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accepted an armored Hyundai sedan from South Korea’s Ambassador Kim Sook on Monday afternoon, along with a glass of champagne.

Ambassador Kim Sook said the car had taken one year to customize, and is named Equus, which he translated as “horse of victorious general” — in this case, Secretary General. Photo here.

South Korea joins the UN Security Council next month; when Inner City Press asked Ambassador Kim Sook last week if he spoke in the closed door meeting on North Korea’s launch, he memorably quipped that until January 1, “I have no mouth.”

The car had a red bow on the hood, like in television commercials. Ban gave an engraved dish to a Hyundai executive.

Staff members contacted Inner City Press to ask about the legality. “We’re told by Ban’s office we can’t accept even a bottle of wine from our Missions,” one complained. “And he takes a car?”

In attendance was Ban’s top lawyer Patricia O’Brien, whom Inner City Press has repeatedly asked to hold a press conference and answer questions. But Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky, also in attendance, most recently said no, that is highly unlikely.

The champagne, at a car ceremony, seemed to Inner City Press a false note, not in the spirit of Don’t Drink and Drive messaging. Photo here.

Some might call this a cheap shot. Others might wonder why the UN chose to publicize this handover. Hyundai’s and South Korea’s motives would be easier to grasp.

While there was no informational hand-out at the event, held in a tent in front of the UN’s North Lawn building, putting the best face on it once imagines that it is a gift to the UN, which should stay with the UN when Ban Ki-moon moves on. But staff remain confused, expressing anger to Inner City Press.

More generally, this may represent a new low in the corporatization of the UN.

How will the video footage, including Ban Ki-moon praising the Hyundai “family,” be used? Are there any restrictions?

But whatever – this was a good day for Mr. Ban Ki-moon and his beloved UN as it also provided a move upwards:

Also parts from Matthew Russell Lee – As UN Re-opens 38th Floor, Banning Press & Elections Allowed by UNCA
www.innercitypress.com/unca2banpress121612.html

UNITED NATIONS -  With UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon moving back into the 38th floor office in the glass skyscraper on December 17, 2012 the lack of focus on access and even space for the press has become clear.

Under the UN’s Capital Master Plan, Ban moved to the temporary North Lawn building, and the press corps was moved into smaller space in cubicles above the Dag Hammarskjold Library.

As Inner City Press exclusively reported, and opposed, the UN had installed monitoring cameras over reporters’ cubicles. (These were then taken down.)

There have been other Capital Master Plan issues, ranging from Hurricane Sandy back to “fixed” but broken elevators to undrinkable water. But that’s another story, or 40 stories.

Now as Ban moves back to the 38th floor, the press corps will remain in the cubicles over the library at least until February.

And after a December 10 meeting, not announced in advance to other reporters and even not to all UN Correspondents Association members in the Executive Committee, between a handful of UNCA insiders and the UN, it emerged later (only to UNCA members) that media space will be reduced by more than forty percent.

To the insiders, this seems not to matter. Reuters, for example, is sure to get it own enclosed office, as is Agence France-Presse.

Both of these, along with Voice of America, urged in 2012 the UN to dis-accredit investigative and critical press. See VOA letter to the UN, here.

Now they prepare a $250 a plate reception with Ban Ki-moon on December 19th, giving prizes to their own Executive Committee members and  an award to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Even just on space, while it might be one thing for Western wire services to be guaranteed the largest offices and other privileges, why should their personnel who rarely report on the UN have easier “Resident” access than developing world journalists who have covered the UN for years?

Then, are there not media present at the UN that do not get recognition from the UN DPI under a pretext that they are merely Social Media or are closely related to NGOs? That at a time the UN waxes about its openness to Civil Society? Will the UN note that it is these new media that are the real media of the 21st century?

On December 7, 2012, to combat all this and to push for UN Under Secretaries-General like Ban’s lawyer Patricia O’Brien and Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous to have to hold briefings and answer questions, the Free UN Coalition for Access or FUNCA was launched.

The complaints are real and merit attention. We clearly will follow this to much more detail and we understand that quite a few people at the UN are following these developments closely as well. It seems that the newly created FUNCA is destined to become the alternate information distribution pipeline from matters of the UN.

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

A Complete Inner City Press Additional Posting of today that seems to point out that there is a Spring awakening at the UN information pipelines.
It seems like some investigative reporters have called for more information release by the UN and availability of its employees for Q&A sessions.

At UN, Return to 38th Floor Presented as Almost Religious, Media Silence.

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 17 — It was an almost religious experience, or treated like one, when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon moved back into the 38th floor of The Organization’s skyscraper Monday morning. Video here and below.

Inner City Press and a dozen other media arrived at 8 am and waited, first in the checker board floored lobby then up in the renovated 38th floor. There, wood paneled walls were now white, and the conference table had retractable microphones. All this for $2 billion and counting. Photo here.

Workmen wiped the doorknobs clean; UN cameramen set up. Finally at 8:45 am Ban Ki-moon and his team came in. Photo here.

There was chief of staff Susana Malcorra, a hard worker recently seen defending the blacking out of portions of Ban’s second report on the UN’s actions and inaction in Sri Lanka while 40,000 people were killed in 2009.

Malcorra also met with the M23 rebels in Eastern Congo, a region Ban’s chief of Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous refuses to answer Press questions about, video here.

There was Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson, a long time humanitarian now in charge of Ban’s third study of failure in Sri Lanka, due in the second quarter of 2013.

There was chief of management Yukio Takasu, who sources tell Inner City Press stopped the naming of a technical expert to the Chief Information Technology Officer post in favor of “a politician,” after member states’ outrage at the UN’s failure to even e-mail them during Hurricane Sandy.

In his office-opening remarks, Ban said all the right things: he thanked Barack Obama and Michael Bloomberg and other member states; he thanked the recipient of the $2 billion dollars, Skanska. (Afterward some reporters asked if he hadn’t called them Skanka, and what it might mean.)

No questions were taken, in the conference room or when Ban Occupied his big new desk. (Photo here; old office shown in this Inner City Press video, also embedded below.)

One might have asked, was it worth $2 billion and the suspension if not snuffing out of the UN’s culture? What lessons have been learned, and what changes will be made, after Hurricane Sandy?

But in the past year, the UN press corps has in a sense been reduced to repeating UN statements, and covering outside events like Sandy and the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

Meanwhile the UN Correspondents Association executive committee, after spending a year trying to expel the investigative Press and allowing the UN to reduce media space by over 40%, now intends to violate its own Constitution and not hold elections in 2012, and not leave office as required on December 31, 2012.

Ban, through his spokesman Martin Nesirky, has been asked about this.

Ban will hold his end of the year press conference on December 19. If the past is any kind, Nesirky will give the first question automatically to the UNCA executive committee. He and therefore Ban have been asked about this as well.

But since later on December 19 he will celebrate UNCA and their awardee Arnold Schwarzenegger, it may seem easier just to go along. It usually does.

On December 7, to combat all this and to push for UN Under Secretaries-General like Ban’s lawyer Patricia O’Brien and Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous to have to hold briefings and answer questions, the Free UN Coalition for Access or FUNCA was launched. Watch that site.

Ladsous has refused to answer questions for example about working with units of the Congolese Army accused of rape in Minova, video here, and of UN Peacekeeping’s dealings with General Shavendra Silva of the Sri Lankan Army, depicted by a UN report as engaged in war crimes.

Silva was sponsored by the UNCA Executive Committee to deny these charges inside the UN Dag Hammarskhold Library Auditorium, click here for fall-out.

On December 14, the UNCA Executive Committee announced that it was putting off the elections that its own Constitution requires it to hold by December 15, before leaving office and power on December 31.

Here’s from UNCA’s Constitution, Article 3, Section 3:

“The members of the Executive Committee shall assume their duties on the first day of January following the election and shall hold office until the last day of December of the year. Elections of the Executive committee shall be held between November 15 and December 15.”

Despite this, they say they intend to hold over. But legally, they have no powers, including to run elections, after December 31.

The question has been put to UNCA’s president, who has not provided any answer, as also happened when the evidence of the dis-acceditation push by three Executive Committee members and UNCA itself was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (a version of which FUNCA asks the UN to adopt.)

Will this blatant UNConstitutional violation of election rules be brought up on or before December 19 by Ban Ki-moon or UN Ambassadors, particularly those like France which talk so much about democracy in other countries like Cote d’Ivoire, before they party with UNCA?

Earlier on December 19, Ban has scheduled his “end of the year” press conference. At such events, his spokesman tightly controls questions, and until now has always given the first question to UNCA. Should that continue on December 19? Can it? The questions have been raised to the UN.

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

The EQUUS Advertisement campaign:

FIRST Posted on October 13th it was like:

For SC Seat Cambodia Rep Contrasts “Rich” South Korea of Ban Ki-moon and Idealistic Bhutan.

By Matthew Russell Lee, an Exclusive of Inner City Press.

UNITED NATIONS, October 11, updated — In the race for one UN Security Council seat among South Korea, Cambodia and Bhutan many assume that Seoul’s financial pledges and having Ban Ki-moon already in place as Secretary General guarantees that country victory.

On Thursday morning in front of the General Assembly as Inner City Press covered the other race — Australia, Finland and Luxembourg — a Cambodian duo sat on a couch behind the stakeout campaigning. There was a small wooden box on the table in front of their couch.

They summoned over an African Permanent Representative and met with him for some time. Then they summoned over Inner City Press.

“Who do you think will win?” was the question. Inner City Press related what it has heard, that despite Bhutan’s “cute” campaign around the theme of Happiness, South Korea was campaigning in the same way they did to get Ban Ki-moon elected Secretary General.

The lead Cambodia campaigner, who gave Inner City Press his business card and said it was fine to report on the meeting, said that Ban as Secretary General should count AGAINST South Korea.

“It’s too much,” he said. “I’m hearing about the Koreanization of the UN.” He paused. “Some day we’ll come here and it will be nothing but Samsung.”

“This should not just be about money,” he said. “It should be about values”…

Inner City Press asked about the spats between Cambodia and the UN, particularly its human rights office in the country. He smiled and said, the UN is free to be in our country, and we are free to comment, that is democracy.

He called Bhutan’s Happiness campaign “idealistic,” contrasting it with real world concerns like peacekeeping. He snarked that India, which is supporting Bhutan, just wanted allies on the Security Council as it leaves in December.

Inner City Press asked about the border dispute with Thailand; he said that would be no problem. [There was a reference to another candidate's dispute, and a later granted request to remove.]

It would be good to have more public campaigning and even debating for these Security Council seat, and other UN posts. This reporting is in that spirit.

The Cambodia campaigner, we will then report, was and is Hor Nam Bora, whose job outside New York is listed on his business card as the country’s London-based Ambassador to UK, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden. After first publication he noted he’s also Special Envoy of the Prime Minister and Ambassador to Ethiopia and to the African Union.

Covering that many countries is indicative of Cambodia’s lower budget than South Korea. But, he argued, people want smaller or poorer states to be on the Security Council. He said the meeting could and even should be reported on. He said, “Help us.” Does this?

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

We think Bhutan and Australia are the best choices the body of the UN could make if the intent were to bring in fresh ideas to the Security Council.

September 10, 2012 – TODAY’S TOP STORIES of the JAPAN TIMES online:
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[NATIONAL NEWS]
Noda speaks with China, South Korea leaders, seeks to view disputes from ‘broad viewpoints’
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday that Tokyo wants to handle rising tensions between the two countries over the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea “from broad viewpoints.”
[MORE] ->
www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120910a1.html

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Clinton says U.S. will do what it can to calm East Asia territorial rows
www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120910a6.html

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Putin expresses desire to settle all pending issues with Japan
www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120910a7.html

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Japan seeks to resume talks with North Korea soon
www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120910a8.html

[NATIONAL NEWS]
New energy policy postponed amid lack of consensus
www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120910a9.html

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tens of thousands converge in Okinawa to protest Osprey deployment
Tens of thousands of people gathered for a rally in Okinawa on Sunday to protest against the planned deployment of U.S. Ospreys in the prefecture in the face of a series of problems involving the tilt-rotor military aircraft.
[MORE] ->
www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120910a2.html

LATEST OP-ED STORIES:

Tokyo-Seoul: enough is enough!

By RALPH COSSA

The political leadership in Tokyo and Seoul apparently has never learned a cardinal rule of diplomacy: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

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Will ASEAN step up to try to bridge Japan-China rift?

By PAVIN CHACHAVALPONGPUN

ASEAN has assiduously sought to assuage tensions between Japan and China by giving both more room to maneuver so that each feels less victimized.

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Nationalists making waves in Japan-China ties

By FRANK CHING

Although Japan and China re-established diplomatic ties 40 years ago, their territorial dispute over uninhabited islets has left them loath to celebrate.

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AND FROM CHINA DAILY:

IBS 2012 – The 15-th International Biotechnology Symposium and Exhibition – Sunday, 16 September 2012 - Friday, 21 September 2012.  http://www.ibs2012.org/

IBS 2012 aims at gathering actors of diverse fields of biotechnology around the theme  ”Innovative Biotechnology for Green World and Beyond” –   in the 21st century.
The IBS2012 meeting will take place in Daegu (Korea) in September 2012, bringing together actors in sciences, engineering, business and government.

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www.http://ibs2014.org/

First Chinese ship crosses Arctic Ocean amid record melt.

A general view shows Chinese ice breaker ship ”Xuelong”, also called ”Snow Dragon”, docking at Tianjin November 3, 2011.
Photo: China Daily

An icebreaker has become the first ship from China to cross the Arctic Ocean, underscoring Beijing’s growing interest in a remote region where a record thaw caused by climate change may open new trade routes.

The voyage highlights how China, the world’s no.2 economy, is extending its reach to the Arctic which is rich in oil and gas and is a potential commercial shipping route between the north Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, arrived in Iceland this week after sailing the Northern Route along the coast of Russia.

Expedition leader Huigen Yang, head of the Polar Research Institute of China, said he had expected a lot more ice along the route at this time of year than the vessel encountered.

“To our astonishment … most part of the Northern Sea Route is open,” he told Reuters TV. The icebreaker would return to China by a route closer to the North Pole.

He said that Beijing was interested in the “monumental change” in the polar environment caused by global warming.

Sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean is on track to beat a record low set in 2007, making the region more accessible but threatening the hunting lifestyles of indigenous peoples and wildlife such as polar bears and seals.

The thaw is slowly opening up the Arctic as a short-cut route – the German-based Beluga Group, for instance, sent a cargo vessel north from Korea to Rotterdam in 2009.

RECORD THAW

“The (Chinese) journey indicates a growing interest in the melting of the ice in the northern regions and how climate change is affecting the globe and the future of all nations,” the office of Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said.

Arctic sea ice extent on August 13 fell to 5.09 million square km (1.97 million square miles) – an area smaller than Brazil, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Sea ice reaches its smallest in September before expanding again as winter approaches. China has overtaken the United States as the top greenhouse gas emitter, mainly from burning fossil fuels, ahead of the European Union, India and Russia.

“China’s interest is a mix of business, science and geo-politics,” said Jan Gunnar Winther, director of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

For countries outside the region like China, there may be more opportunities to supply equipment to aid drilling, he said. South Korea’s Hyundai, for instance, is building a floating production unit for the Goliat oilfield in Norway’s Barents Sea.

Winther said that research into climate change in the Arctic was also relevant to China’s understanding of weather patterns that could affect its farmers.

China has applied to become an observer at the Arctic Council, made up of the United States, Russia, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

“The application will be handled in May next year,” said Nina Buvang Vaaja, head of the Arctic Council Secretariat.

Other applicants seeking to join the Council, which oversees management of the region, are Japan, South Korea, the European Union Commission and Italy. Germany, Britain, France, Poland, Spain and the Netherlands are already observers.

Date: 18-Aug-2012 - Reporting By Alister Doyle – Reuters.

Olympic Ideal Takes Beating in Badminton.

It is not strange at all what happened, people will tend to take advantage of bad rules – it is the best (or the richest in Romney’s case) that can take advantage of bad rules – it seems that the rules were skewed in their favor in the first place.

From material on the New York Times website –  August 1, 2012:

On Tuesday night at the London Games, some of the world’s best badminton players hit some of the sport’s worst shots. Sad serves into the net. Returns that sailed far wide. Howls from the crowd were loud and instant, and the calls for investigation immediate.

On Wednesday, four women’s doubles teams — two from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia — were disqualified. But the circumstances were complicated by the fact that the rules of the sport seemed to give the athletes an incentive to lose.

The eight players were found to have tried to lose their matches intentionally, apparently because they had determined that a loss would allow them to play a weaker opponent in the next round.

Badminton officials introduced a preliminary round at the Olympics this year so that each team could play at least three times and not risk traveling thousands of miles only to be eliminated in the first match. But athletes and coaches have always looked for any available advantage, including throwing a match to save energy or to face an easier opponent in the next round.

There was nothing subtle about how the four teams of players — all of whom had already qualified for the quarterfinals — performed Tuesday night. They repeatedly served into the net and hit shots well out of bounds. During one match, a Danish umpire took the drastic step of flashing a black card to warn the players that they could be thrown out.

The disqualifications threw the tournament into turmoil and prompted protests and calls for rule changes. Indonesia appealed the decision and then withdrew the appeal, while the South Koreans had their appeal denied after officials reviewed the matches, interviewed the umpires and spoke to the players.

The eight disciplined players, who were found to have not tried their best and to have conducted themselves “in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport,” had been scheduled to play Wednesday. After their sudden exits, they were replaced by women’s doubles teams from Australia, Canada, Russia and South Africa. No coaches or teams were penalized.

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Though rare, examples exist for cases in which a quirk of a sport’s rules or competition format has given an athlete or team an incentive to lose — or at least not try hard.

In a World Cup soccer match in 1982, West Germany and Austria appeared to stop trying after West Germany took a 1-0 lead early in the game. Both teams knew that such a result would allow them to advance. That prompted soccer officials to mandate that the final games in a round-robin group-play format must all be played at the same time so teams could not know the outcome of other important matches.

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The charges of match throwing have been biting, with teams from Western nations taking aim at their Asian counterparts, especially the Chinese.

Niels Nygaard, the president of the national Olympic committee in Denmark, which has some of the best badminton players in Europe, applauded the world federation’s decision and blamed the coaches, not the players, for the persistent match throwing.

“For me, it’s really a matter of principle whether things are done in a correct way,” Nygaard said after the announcement.

Still, the tactic of purposely losing has an inner logic that has been used in other sports like soccer and baseball.

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When Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang from China lost to the South Koreans Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na on Tuesday, they were trying to avoid playing the world’s second-ranked women’s pair of Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei, from China. Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung of South Korea and Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii of Indonesia also tried to steer clear of high-level foes in the quarterfinals.

The Chinese did not appeal their suspension and defended their approach. “We would try hard in every match if they were elimination games,” Yu said. “Because they are group stage, that’s why we are conserving energy.”

Lin Dan, the top-ranked men’s singles player, stood by his Chinese teammates and blamed the federation for not anticipating that this strategy might be used. “Think in the U.K.: would your football team want to meet Spain in the first round?” he asked after winning a match on Wednesday. “Athletes think for themselves and would have their best interests at heart.”

“It’s perfectly legal but morally indefensible,” said John MacGloughlin, a Briton who has played club-level badminton for 30 years and paid almost $50 to attend Wednesday’s afternoon session. “At that level, you don’t do that.”

This being Britain, where a bet can be laid on practically any event, the question of whether the match was thrown for profit is reasonable. Kate Miller, a spokesman for William Hill, one of Britain’s largest betting companies, said her 200-person trading team did not spot any irregularities surrounding the match.

And badminton was not the only sport in which teams trotted through a preliminary-round game. On Tuesday, in Cardiff, Wales, the Japanese women’s soccer team, the 2011 World Cup champion, played to a scoreless tie against a much weaker South African side.

The tie, as opposed to a win, meant that the Japanese, who had already qualified for the knockout round, avoided having to travel to Glasgow to play France in the quarterfinals. Instead, they will remain in Cardiff and play Brazil.

Afterward, Norio Sasaki, Japan’s coach, said he put in substitutes and told them to keep possession of the ball. The players, he said, “were on the same page as me.”

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And back to peole like Mitt Romney, please see the latest “CHECK THE LAW” successful event in Washington:

The House and Senate voted to close a loophole in an insider trading law that could have allowed lawmakers’ family members to profit from inside information.   CNN uncovered and reported on the loophole last month.

The STOCK Act, one of the rare bipartisan bills passed this year, was signed by President Barack Obama in April.

Someone sneaked into law “the possibility to cheat by law” by telling your wife to buy stocks based on your inside information – how neat indeed!

Address at Rio Earth Summit of 1992.

Airline CO2 Friction Is Hint Of New Climate Politics.

Date: 22-Mar-12

Author: Gerard Wynn – (The author is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.)

Threats of retaliation by China and India against a European Union plan to charge airlines for their carbon emissions is misplaced, given their weak legal case and a drift towards more such unilateral climate action.

Countries in Durban at the end of last year topped off years of lumbering U.N. talks by agreeing that a new climate protocol should come into force by 2020, with more vagueness about exactly what that should be, leaving a vacuum in national action in the meantime.

That slow rate of progress underscores how multilateral climate action has faded over the past decade.

It also underlines why it would be madness to expect the U.N. body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), to galvanize global action to curb carbon emissions from passenger jets, as countries asked them to do 15 years ago.

It also explains why the European Union has grasped unilateral action to curb rapidly rising carbon emissions from aviation, and makes a nonsense of the central argument advanced by China, India, Russia and the United States, that ICAO should be given more time.

The broader failure of U.N. climate talks only makes such unilateral action more likely, if other countries – possibly including Australia, Japan, South Korea and Mexico – join the European Union in choosing to take firmer carbon curbs than those agreed internationally (if any). {We would suggest that President Obama could also join the EU, by EPA Presidential ruling, making the US part of this pro-action move.}

In that sense, the airline dispute is an experiment in an alternative climate politics.

The possible alternative to an international climate protocol is a forging of emissions curbs by willing countries, which in turn take punitive, border action against the rest, to protect their own industry.

AVIATION

In the first case of such border action on carbon emissions, the European Union has walked into a minefield with its determination to charge for carbon emissions on flights beyond its borders.

Yet threats of retaliation underscore the weak legal case of opposed countries.

Chinese authorities have suggested delaying orders for European Airbus passenger jets, according to Airbus itself, the most serious escalation so far if carried through.

The air is also thick with talk of trade war, a posturing out of proportion to the impact of the EU scheme on flight ticket prices or airline profits.

India is poised to urge its airlines to boycott the European Union’s carbon charge scheme, a senior Indian government official said.

The spat hinges on the EU’s legal case for taking unilateral action, and the technical detail of counting emissions beyond its airspace.

From January this year the EU entered aviation into its emissions trading scheme, where polluters have to buy permits for their CO2 emissions above a certain quota which they get free.

That includes emissions from the entire flights of non-EU carriers landing in or departing from Europe.

The bloc wants to curb the climate impact of rising emissions from aviation but protect its own carriers from unfair competition by requiring carbon emissions permits of everyone.

LEGAL

The EU will almost certainly stand firm and foreign carriers will pay up. The main prospect for compromise would be for the EU to relent and not count emissions outside its airspace, which at present seems unlikely.

The EU says it must include all emissions on a flight because it’s impractical to measure those only from the moment a plane enters European airspace. And that would also dilute the environmental purpose of the scheme since a large part of emissions are on take-off.

Regarding the notion that its charges are a tax on jet fuel (not allowed under the 1944 Chicago Convention on aviation), it says emissions permits are not the same thing because an airline can avoid paying at all if it undercuts its free quota by becoming more efficient.

On both these counts the bloc won a landmark case at the European Court of Justice in a judgment favoring Brussels against U.S. carriers last December.

The bloc of countries most wedded to a multilateral approach at the United Nations, the European Union, now feels compelled to use unilateral action.

The present spat could be a sign of things to come in climate politics, where progressive countries unite from the bottom up, at least until an over-arching treaty comes into force at the end of the decade.

IHT Editorial –  FRIDAY THE 13th of January, 2012:    Back to the Robber Barons

The Supreme Court did enough damage by freeing corporations to make unlimited donations to independent groups. Now Republicans want to lift the ban on direct donations to candidates?

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OP-ED COLUMNIST

America Isn’t a Corporation - By PAUL KRUGMAN

What’s with the notion that this country needs a successful businessman as president? Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits.

• Columnist Page | Blog

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The C.E.O. in Politics - By DAVID BROOKS

Does Mitt Romney’s success in business tell us anything about whether he would be a successful president?

• Columnist Page | Blog

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Friday, January 13, 2012

Charles Krauthammer –   Paul’s achievement –   Bringing his cause in from the fringe. —————————— Michael Gerson –  Gingrich’s party of one –  He’s the Al Gore of the GOP. —————————- Ruth Marcus –   Battle for America’s soul –  GOP aims to shred the social safety net. ————————– David Ignatius –  Defusing a crisis with Iran –  Talk to the regime — quietly. ———————— Robert J. Samuelson –    Romney’s private equity -  Will his business background help? ———————- Howard P. “Buck” McKeon –  A blow to our military - Smaller isn’t necessarily smarter. ———————— James Dobbins –   Negotiating peace in Afghanistan - It’s not a quick or easy way out.

A Russian tanker is slogging through sea ice behind a Coast Guard icebreaker, trying to bring 1.3 million gallons of emergency gasoline and diesel to remote Alaska.

January 10, 2012
	The New York Times The Renda and the Healy are about 140 miles south of Nome. Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Lally/U.S. Coast Guard, via Associated Press The Healy, left, a Coast Guard icebreaker, carves a path in the frozen Bering Sea for the Renda, a Russian tanker carrying 1.3 million gallons of emergency gasoline and diesel for Alaska. Shipping delays and a major storm prevented Nome’s winter supply of fuel from arriving in early fall.

A New Race of Mercy to Nome, This Time Without Sled Dogs.

By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published via New York Times on-line January 9, 2012.

www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/us/icebreaker-slowly-carves-path-for-tanker-to-bring-emergency-fuel-to-alaska.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

NOME, Alaska — In the winter of 1925, long after this Gold Rush boomtown on the Bering Sea had gone bust, diphtheria swept through its population of 1,400. Medicine ran dangerously low, and there was no easy way to get more. No roads led here, flight was ruled out and Norton Sound was frozen solid.