|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 12th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Hillary Clinton for Vice President in 2012? Biden ‘Trade Talk’ Murmur Could Swell.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/11/…
TOM DIEMER
Correspondent, Politics Daily, Washington DC.
Washington’s chattering class, never timid about giving advice to the president of the United States, is floating the idea of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton becoming Barack Obama’s running mate in two years.
———————————————————–
{Who does the chattering? Is this from the Clintonites that want to make sure that President Obama is retained in their grip?
Is it to Obama’s Interest? Will this bring back the young people that are going to stay home on 2010 election day disillutioned with Obama for not having effectively reined in the party for which they would not have voted for, if not their belief that Obama will change it? They see the progress that was made, but do not see the change.
They know that Biden is no Cheney, and that he does not face a Bush – but an Obama. Cheney maneuvered Bush, but Biden even had he been ibterested in real power, could not get this out of Obama like Cheney got it from Bush.
So what the Rush? Yes, bringing in a VP that becomes a Presidential candidate this is extremely important. Cheney messed this up for the Republicans, and we are convinced that Biden has no such intentions vs. Obama and the Democrats. This is half of the issue. Will Obama go out and look for a young new face that next generation will embrace? Will he? – Our comment – SustainabiliTank editor}
———————————————————–
Time magazine, in an item Wednesday on its website, said Obama perhaps should consider the proposition — “dump Biden” would be part of it — as he begins planning for his reelection bid in 2012. “Amid two wars, a stubborn unemployment rate, an oil spill . . . might the White House need a little star power to jump-start what could be a tougher reelection than expected?” writes contributor Dan Fastenberg. “As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton has been striking the same tone as Team No Drama Obama, as opposed to the human gaffe machine.” Hmm, would that be Vice President Joe Biden and his big bleeping deal health care law?
The latest round of - “I-don’t-have-anything-better-to-do-today-speculation” – began earlier this month when former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder wrote in a Politico op-ed piece that Obama should replace Biden with Clinton, in part because she would help win back “middle-class independent voters,” who have drifted away from the president. Working-class voters, says Wilder, have always been “more enamored of Clinton.” The former governor, who is African American, didn’t say it, but “working class” in this context could be code for white voters, a group Hillary ran stronger among than did Obama when they opposed each other – sometimes bitterly — in the 2008 primary campaign. Wilder goes on to make a case against Biden, saying his verbal blunders are not only fodder for late-night comedians but have undermined “what little confidence the public may have in him.”
In a piece for the Washington Post website in June, Sally Quinn wrote that Clinton and Biden, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, should switch jobs. “Really,” she says. Really? Her argument is that Clinton has done “an incredible job” at State and, even in her late 60s, would be a strong candidate for president in 2016, while Biden, who is older, has no intention of seeking the White House.
In the short-term, Obama and Clinton would be a “near-unbeatable team” in 2012, according to Quinn.
A month earlier Politics Daily’s Eleanor Clift beat everyone to the punch by suggesting the same thing. She wrote that “Obama’s loyalty only goes so far,” and if polls show an Obama-Clinton ticket would run stronger in 2012, he “might well have Biden step aside.” Besides, Clift argued, Biden “would be a natural at the State Department.”
But insofar as a 2016 presidential candidacy is concerned, Hillary Clinton has already said her White House aspirations are history. And does it matter that she can arguably offer more service to the American people as secretary of state than as vice president, a job FDR vice president John Nance Garner described as “not worth a bucket of warm spit.” (Actually, the salty Gardner reportedly used a stronger term than spit). Biden, for his part, has emerged as a valuable foreign policy adviser to Obama, a roving ambassador, vigorous partisan campaigner and all-around good guy. Does he talk too much? Sometimes. But that would be just as true at Foggy Bottom as it is in the vice president’s office.
It’s been more than three decades since a president has thrown his vice president overboard. A change at the top can be seen as a sign of disarray, panic even. Dan Quayle, regarded by his critics as a lightweight, survived in 1992 but the Bush-Quayle ticket lost to Clinton-Gore. The last president to make a change was Republican Gerald Ford, who replaced Vice President Nelson Rockefeller with Sen. Bob Dole in 1976 and went on to lose to a peanut farmer from Georgia named Jimmy Carter.
Barack Obama considered Hillary Clinton for vice president in 2008. Ultimately, he decided she was a better fit at the State Department. Good call.
——————————————————————–
And We Say What We Mean – And We Mean What We Say:
DON QUIXOTE
It is the mission of each true knight…
His duty… nay, his privilege!
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the unrightable wrong.
To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try, when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!
This is my Quest to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause!
And I know, if I’ll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars!
————————————————————–
AND YOU KNOW WHAT?
THE WORLD IS READY TODAY TO REWARD THIS KNIGHT AS HE IS THE ONE WHO HAS THE VISION.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Obama Styling, Real World's News, Reporting from Washington DC, The US States
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 12th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Ramadan crescent expected on Tuesday evening
by Arabian Business staff writer
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/594308-ramadan-crescent-expected-on-tuesday
on Saturday, 07 August 2010
CRESCENT COMMITTEE: The committee will meet on Tuesday at the judiciary department headquarters. (Getty Images)
The UAE Minister of Justice, Dr Hadef Jouan Al Dhahiri, will form a panel of experts to confirm the sighting of a crescent moon reported government news agency WAM on Saturday.
The panel will comprise government officials, religious counselors and astronomers and will announce the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan in the UAE.
The committee will meet on Tuesday at the judiciary department headquarters.
Dr. Hadef Jouan Al Dhahiri confirmed that the lunar months verification committee is affiliated with the Abu Dhabi Judiciary Department and that any moon sightings would need to be verified in the central, eastern and western regions of the emirates.
After the committee members agree the sighting an official announcement about the beginning of Ramadan will be made.
Bookmark www.arabianbusiness.com for more news about the holy month of Ramadan.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Arab Asia, Arabized Africa, Cartoons / Photos, Egypt, Future Events, Futurism, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, UAE
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 12th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
We posted the following as an announcement over three months ago. Since then the announced meeting for South East Europe is history and we are convinced that a similar meeting should be held at the UN. The more you tell about climate change the better it will be for our conscience – it is like the Jewish telling on Passover of the going out of Egypt. It just reminds us of the need to leave also areas of contemporary transgressions and of a “land of promise” that we define to ourselves.
It is this sort of “Yes We Can” and “Can Do” that is able to prop up our imagination rather then the mush of global hope of “Seal the Deal” – what we need are the EVIE doers of that article rather then new committees or commissions. That is why we re-post it as a stale information that says more.
We are just back from our New Hampshire trip with all kind of ideas for postings and discovered in our stats that the following article still has readers today – so it is the easiest think for us to bring officially attention again to the article as part of our new series propelled by the New Hampshire fact finding trip.
“Teaching Climate Change and the United Nations System” event – May 17&18, 2010 in Belgrade. It is about Sustainable Development in the South East Europe Region. UN Headquarters will be represented by ASG Ambassador Thomas Stelzer. The car shown by Project EVIE is a Chinese E6.”
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on April 24th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com)
–
http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2010/04…
——————-
So, what about the potential?
This will come up when we get deeper into our visit yesterday, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with Michael Gray, CEO Global Relief. www.GRT.com
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Copenhagen COP15, Futurism, New Hampshire, New York, Policy Lessons from Mad Cow Disease, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, The US States
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 12th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
We found among our REFERRERS a terrific blog and in turn we recommend it to you – our readers:
http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The blogger seems to be:
About Me
- Gail
- New Jersey, United States
- The summation of my motivation for starting this blog can be found at my WWF Witness Profile here: http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/abo…. Beyond that, I post random thoughts and musings from Wit’s End, a little farm I share with a dog, 2 indoor cats and 2 barn cats, a flying squirrel (Whippersnapper), Sun Conure (Bird), African Grey (Simon), a dozen chickens, a pair of peafowl, sundry koi in the pond, and various wildlife visitors, most notoriously among them, a voracious fox.
View my complete profile
First I got worried about trees. They all looked sickly, or even dead – and that’s what led me, much to my detriment, to learn more about climate change than I had dreamed in my worst nightmares could possibly be happening, in my backyard, in the lifetime of myself and my children…and extreme weather, and peak oil, and collapse of the ocean food chain from acidification, and mass extinction, and everything happening much faster than predicted, and, and…See please and think -
- So said Albert Einstein.
- – - – - = – - – - – - – - – - -
“Telling the Truth
If we climate activists don’t tell the truth as well as we know it—which we have been loathe to do because we ourselves are frightened to speak the words—the public will not respond, notwithstanding all our protestations of urgency.
And contrary to current mainstream climate-activist opinion, contrary to all the pointless “focus groups,” contrary to the endless speculation on “correct framing,” the only way to tell the truth is to tell it. All of it, no matter how terrifying it may be.
It is offensive and condescending for activists to assume that people can’t handle the truth without environmentalists finding a way to make it more palatable. The public is concerned, we vaguely know that something is desperately wrong, and we want to know more so we can try to figure out what to do. The response to An Inconvenient Truth, as tame as that film was in retrospect, should have made it clear that we want to know the truth.
And finally, denial requires a great deal of energy, is emotionally exhausting, fraught with conflict and confusion. Pretending we can save our current way of life derails us and sends us in directions that lead us astray. The sooner we embrace the truth, the sooner we can begin the real work.
Let’s just tell it.”
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Copenhagen COP15, Future Events, Futurism, Global Warming issues, Green is Possible, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Obama Styling, Peoples without a UN Seat, Policy Lessons from Mad Cow Disease, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from UNFCCC Meetings, Reporting from Washington DC, The New Climate, The US States, UN Commission on Sustainable Development, Virginia, West Virginia
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 7th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
President Obama was supposed to go to Jakarta, but first postponed, then canceled the trip. Whatever the official explanation – Jakarta responded and was a no-show at the Washington meeting of the large economies (in effect we did raise the question with the US Department of State and on the record – we did not get a satisfactory answer and reported accordingly).
We saw a series of missteps that eventually will have to be corrected. We wrote about that earlier and moved Indonesia into the front page of our website with the understanding that the largest Muslim country that is a democracy with a growing middle class, will eventually live up to its potential of being a world leader. The following article strengthens us in above belief.
We also expect Indonesia to move on issues of Sustainable Development and Climate Change as it stands only to gain by becoming home to clean technologies. Indonesian leaders understand that much of their recent environmental disasters are global warming related – they also can be counted upon in efforts to restrain the forces of aggressive extreme Islam.
———————————————————-
After Years of Inefficiency, Indonesia Emerges as an Economic Model.
Enny Nuraheni/Reuters
After years of being known for inefficiency, corruption and instability, Indonesia is becoming an economic powerhouse in Asia.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Bangkok, Futurism, IBSA, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Obama Styling, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), UN Commission on Sustainable Development
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 6th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
As we posted earlier, From 2-6 August 2010, delegates were meeting in Bonn, Germany, for the eleventh session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC AWG-LCA 11) and the thirteenth session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 13). AWG-LCA 11 will consider the Chair’s revised text circulated in July.
As part of above meeting, at the opening session, the new Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, headquarterd in Bonn, made her maiden speech to the organization.
We have here her own words, the Press release from the Bonn office and the Press release of the UN headquarters in New York.
Our argument is that there is no perfect correlation between these three documents, and we will argue that seemingly the process to undermine the new Executive Secretary has already started. It was such activities, directed seemingly from the New York headquarters that sunk Yvo de Boer, and might be intended to sink now also Christiana Figueres.
What we read in Christiana’s statement is the recognition that the reality is such that the dream-world of the UN revolving around Kyoto was finished and Copenhagen was the start of a new era of attempts to find more realistic ways.
What the two Press releases show is an adherence to the dead world of Kyoto which translates into an adherence to continuation of the 11th – going to 12th year old stagnation. By disallowing interested press from participating at these press conferences, this disinformation becomes norm.
————————————–
The thirteenth session of the AWG-KP and the eleventh session of the AWG-LCA
Bonn, 2 August 2010
Opening speech by Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
Just over 500 years ago, Christopher Columbus set sail for uncharted waters, determined to
change the map of the world. While he was a man of his times with all the faults of his times, he
certainly far exceeded his own expectations.
Like Columbus, we are people of our times with all the constraints of our times and yet we,
too, stand on the threshold of a new world. Whether we succumb to the storms of climate change or
work together to reach the far shore is up to us to decide.
What is at stake here is none other than the long-term, sustainable future of humanity. Thus
as individuals, as governments, as a global community, we must all exceed our own expectations,
simply because nothing less will do.
We know the milestones science has set. We know by when and by how much greenhouse
gas emissions must drop to have a chance of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, devastating
for the most vulnerable and the poorest around the world.
Time is not on our side. Decisions need to be taken, perhaps in an incremental manner,
but most certainly with firm steps and unwavering resolve. We must progress in the full knowledge that we
cannot cross the ocean on a single gust of wind. But, if we don’t raise the sails higher now, we may
never discover a safer, more stable world.
Friends, for 15 years, I worked with you in our shared task of delivering the solutions that governments must offer humanity.
Now, as your Executive Secretary, it is my honour to work for you. It is my priority to
ensure that the secretariat continues to support the negotiations and enhance the implementation of your
decisions with its unflagging commitment, professionalism and integrity.
I approach this task with a deep sense of humility, honouring the achievements of these
negotiations, but also acutely aware of the rapidly rising scale and urgency of what must still be done.
Governments alone can not solve climate change, but only governments, working together, can help the
world pilot the course most effectively.
Like Columbus, citizens, societies and businesses everywhere today need the incentives and the resources
to set off confidently into uncharted waters. It is the prime task of governments to set the sails ever higher,
to help humanity capture the powerful winds of change that are waiting to be released.
Transformations like this are made by grasping the politically possible at every step, by
turning countless, diverse and sometimes conflicting interests to a common purpose.
The governments of the world, represented by you here today, have been steadily building
that common ground since the UNFCCC began; in Rio, Kyoto, Marrakesh, Bali, and yes, Copenhagen.
And this year, in Cancun, the climate negotiations can further the cause of multilateralism.
In Cancun, my friends, you have both the responsibility and the opportunity to take the next essential step:
to turn the politically possible into the politically irreversible.
Five hundred years after Columbus sailed, another man from a very different world has
triumphed over his own long and difficult journey.
Nelson Mandela, very much a man of our times, tells us: “There is no passion to be found
playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. We must use time
wisely, and forever realise that the time is always ripe to do right.”
Friends, the time is ripe. I trust you will do right.
Thank you.
========================================================================
AND HER PRESS OFFICER – THE REPRESENTATIVE OF HEADQUARTER UN DPI – SAID:
UNITED NATIONS
NATIONS UNIES
FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE – Secretariat
CONVENTION – CADRE SUR LES CHANGEMENTS CLIMATIQUES – Secretariat
PRESS RELEASE
UNFCCC Executive Secretary: Governments meeting in Bonn have responsibility to take next essential step in fight against climate change
(Bonn, 2 August 2010) The third round of UN climate change negotiations this year kicked off
on Monday with representatives from 178 governments meeting in Bonn, Germany. The Bonn UN
Climate Change Conference (2 to 6 August) is designed to prepare the outcomes of the UN
Climate Change Conference in Cancun in November and December.
Governments have a responsibility this year to take the next essential step in the battle
against climate change, said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. How
governments achieve the next essential step is up to them. But it is politically possible. In Cancun,
the job of governments is to turn the politically possible into the politically irreversible, she said.
The government delegates will discuss the second iteration of the text to facilitate
negotiations under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the
Convention (AWG-LCA). The negotiating group is tasked to deliver a long-term global solution to
the climate challenge.
The Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto
Protocol (AWG-KP) is also meeting in Bonn in parallel to the AWG-LCA. The focus of this group is
on emissions reduction commitments for the 37 industrialised countries that have ratified the
Kyoto Protocol for the period beyond 2012.
The UN’s top climate change official Christiana Figueres pointed to the opportunity to
capture the promises, pledges and progress that governments have already made, in accountable
and binding ways. According to Ms. Figueres, governments now need to resolve what to do with
their public pledges to cut emissions. All industrialised countries have made public pledges to cut
emissions by 2020 and 38 developing countries have submitted plans to limit their emissions
growth.
“This needs to be captured in internationally agreed form,” the UN’s top climate change official said:
“More stringent actions to reduce emissions cannot be much longer postponed and industrial nations must lead,” she added.
{NO! WE DID NOT FIND THIS IN HER TEXT – THIS IS FALSE FEED TO THE PRESS! SHE AVOIDED SAYING WHAT INDUSTRIAL NATIONS OUGHT TO DO!}
Ms. Figueres pointed out that governments agree to a comprehensive set of ways and means to allow developing countries to take concrete climate action. SHE DID NOT SAY THIS EITHER!!
Mailing Address: CLIMATE CHANGE SECRETARIAT (UNFCCC), P.O. Box 260 124, D-53153 Bonn, Germany
Office Location: Haus Carstanjen, Martin-Luther-King-Strasse 8, D-53175 Bonn, Germany
Media Information Office: (49-228) 815-1005 Fax: (49-228) 815-1999
Email: press at unfccc.int Web: http://unfccc.int
UNFCCC/CCNUCC
This includes adapting to climate change, limiting emissions growth; providing adequate
finance; boosting the use of clean technology; promoting sustainable forestry; and building up
the skills and capacity to do all this.
The new UNFCCC Executive Secretary also noted the urgent need for industrialised
nations to turn their pledges of funding into reality. Last year, these countries promised 30 billion
dollars in fast-track finance for developing country adaptation and mitigation efforts through
2012.
i?Developing nations see the allocation of this money as a critical signal that industrialised
nations are committed to progress in the broader negotiations,i? Christiana Figueres said.
Industrialised countries further pledged to find ways and means to raise 100 billion dollars
a year, by 2020.
i?Governments need to achieve clarity on how institutional arrangements, particularly
financial arrangements, lock into other issues,i? said Christiana Figueres. i?For example, how could
institutional arrangements for financing be linked most effectively to an operational technology
mechanism or action on adaptation?,i? she said.
Ms. Figueres said that countries wanted to see that what they agree with each other is
measured, reported and verified in a transparent and accountable way.
“It’s called in the negotiations and it simply means that countries want to be confident that what they see is what they get,” she said. “Progress here will be a gauge that countries are moving towards common ground,” she said.
Finally, Christiana Figures pointed to the fact that governments agree that pledges need
to be captured in a binding manner but they need to decide how to do it. {YES – SHE DID SAY THAT}
“Governments need to deliver this combination of accountability and binding action so
that civil society and business can be confident that clean, green strategies will be rewarded
globally, as well as locally,” the UNFCCC Executive Secretary said.
The Bonn gathering is being attended by around 3100 participants, including government
delegates, representatives from business and industry, environmental organisations and research
institutions.
The next UNFCCC negotiating session is scheduled to take place from 4 to 9 October in
Tianjin, China, before the UN Climate Change Conference 29 November to 10 December in
Cancun.
About the UNFCCC:
With 194 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto
Protocol has been ratified by 190 of the UNFCCC Parties. Under the Protocol, 37 States,
consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to
a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The
ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
AGAIN – HOW DOES A 192-Member UN COME UP WITH 194 PARTIES – GRANTED THE EU IS NUMBER THE FICTION OF A NUMBER 193?
=====================
AND EVEN MORE DIRECTLY – From the UN Daily NEWS of August 2, 2010 – we have:
NEW UN CLIMATE CHANGE CHIEF RALLIES GOVERNMENTS TO STEP UP ACTION.
With the future of humanity at stake, governments must continue
building common ground to further progress on climate change, the new
United Nations chief on the issue said in the latest round of
international negotiations which kicked off in Bonn today.
“Whether we succumb to the storms of climate change or work together
to reach the far shore is up to us to decide,” Christiana Figueres,
Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), said, invoking the journey made by Christopher Columbus more
than five centuries ago. {OK – NOT EXACT QUOTE BUT THE SPIRIT IS THERE!}
This was her first address to UN climate change talks as head of the
UNFCCC since taking over from Yvo de Boer last month.
“As individuals, as governments, as a global community, we must all
exceed our own expectations, simply because nothing less will do,” Ms.
Figueres told delegates.
Science, she said, has shown when and by how much greenhouse gas
emissions must drop to avert climate change’s worst impacts.
“Time is not on our side,” Ms. Figueres stated. “Decisions need to be
taken, perhaps in an incremental manner, but most certainly with firm
steps and unwavering resolve.”
The week-long talks under way in Bonn are the third round of UN
climate change negotiations so far this year, ahead of the next
conference of parties to the UNFCCC in Cancun in November.
At that gathering in the Mexican city, Ms. Figueres told delegates
today, “you have both the responsibility and the opportunity to take
the next essential step: to turn the politically possible into the
politically irreversible.”
Speaking to reporters, she said that governments can build on progress
made so far in five main areas.
Firstly, the public pledges made by all industrialized countries to
slash emissions by 2020 and the plans put forward by more than one
third of developing nations to limit their emissions growth must be
captured in an internationally-agreed form, she said.
Secondly, governments must forge ahead with efforts to agree on ways
to allow developing countries to take action in areas including
adapting to climate change, limiting emissions growth, providing
adequate finance and enhancing the use of clean energy.
In another key area, “industrialized nations can turn their pledges of
funding into reality,” she said.
Last year, these countries promised to provide $30 billion in
fast-track financing for developing countries to adapt and mitigate
climate change through 2012, with pledges having been made to raise
$100 billion annually by 2020.
“Developing nations see the allocation of this money as a critical
signal that industrialized nations are committed to progress in the
broader negotiations,” Ms. Figueres said.
Further, “countries want to see that what they agree with each other
is measured, reported and verified in a transparent and accountable
way,” she pointed out. “Countries want to be confident that what they
see is what they get.”
Finally, the UNFCCC chief said, while governments agree that pledges
must be captured in a binding manner, “they need to decide how to do
it.”
Governments, she added, “need to deliver this combination of
accountability and binding action so that civil society and business
can be confident that clean, green strategies will be rewarded
globally, as well as locally.”
{The above UN mantra is known – and most probably in some form came up in a Bonn Press Conference, but I could not locate the verbatim of a Bonn Press Conference and had no-one to ask – so all I can say is that I have nothing on this on the UNFCCC/News website,} It continues then with the informative ending:
More than 3,000 people – including government delegates and
representatives of the private sector, environmental groups and
research institutions – are attending the Bonn gathering this week.
The next round of talks is slated to take place in Tianjin, China, in
early October, weeks before the start of the Cancun conference.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Archives, China, Copenhagen COP15, Future Events, Futurism, Germany, Global Warming issues, Mexico, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from UNFCCC Meetings
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 6th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

From Alaska to Argentina in an Electric Sports Car.
Racing Green Endurance hopes to spin the experience into an electric car startup.
http://twitter.com/GreenTechnology
Michael Kanellos: August 3, 2010
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/r…
 Austin, Tex.–They get pulled over quite a bit.
That’s the word from Alex Schey, the project manager of Racing Green Endurance, a group that is driving an electric sports car called the SRZero 16,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina.
“So far, we’ve been stopped by cops 15 times,” he said. “They just want to take pictures.”
The group — which grew out of work conducted by Schey and others at Imperial College London — designed the car to help make consumers aware that electric cars can be both functional and stylish. In addition to posting their own blog and conducting interviews, the drivers are being followed by a team filming a documentary that may air on BBC News in the future. When they finish in a few weeks, the group will then sit down, study the results and attempt to incubate a startup, possibly around the battery management system or the battery pack designed for the car. We met up with them in Austin at NI Week, a conference sponsored by test and measurement giant National Instruments. (NI supplied hardware for the battery management system; Racing Green Endurance created the software.)
“In the past, everyone had these perceived ideas that electric cars were boring and slow and had funny names,” he said.
The SRZero contains a 54 kilowatt-hour lithium ion phosphate battery, which is more than double the size of the battery of the Nissan Leaf and a single kilowatt-hour larger than the battery in the Tesla Roadster, and can drive 350 miles on a charge. They body of the car is a modified Radical SR8, one of the fastest gas-burning cars in the world.
While it can go farther than the Tesla Roadster on a single charge, the maiden version of the SRZero going to Argentina doesn’t accelerate like it, or even like a regular high-end sports car. It takes six to seven seconds to go from zero to 60 miles per hour. But that’s because the group deliberately left out the gearbox. The motor right now connects directly to the wheels. When the group completes the drive, a fixed-gear gearbox will be added that will allow the car to go from zero to 60 in three seconds.
“This smashes the Tesla in terms of range and it will smash the Tesla in acceleration,” he joked.
After Texas, the group will head to Mexico, Guatemala, the Central American chain, Colombia and other South American nations.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Alaska, California, European Union, Green is Possible, Real World's News, Reporting from Washington DC, Texas, The US States, United Kingdom
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 6th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Opinion: It’s a WikiLeaks World, Get Used to It.
by Jim Harper, Director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Special to AOL News
http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/o…
(Aug. 5) – No matter where right or wrong lie in the posting of classified military reports on WikiLeaks.org, one lesson should be clear: This is how it’s going to be. Technology will continue to undercut secrecy — not just in the military, but in all large organizations.
Government and corporate leaders who aren’t ahead of this problem may already have trouble on their hands they don’t know about.
When 90,000 pages of documents chronicling the Afghan war went online last week, their potential effects on military planning and security caused the White House to strongly condemn their posting as “irresponsible.” Differing more than slightly, Salon commentator Glenn Greenwald praised WikiLeaks.org as “one of the most valuable and important organizations in the world.”
While there is universal agreement that over-classification in the U.S. government is a problem, leaking government documents isn’t a good way to fix it. Nevertheless, a pair of related technology trends will continue to push this “fix” in a disorderly way if it’s not solved methodically.
Technology: First, individuals today have tremendous power to collect, transmit and process information. Average people have hand-held computers and phones, huge-capacity flash memory thumb drives, and so on. The tech-savvy have even more powerful information devices, familiarity with encryption, and anonymization tools. We have overcome the natural conditions that made easy-to-censor hand-written letters a minimal threat to “operational security” in World War II.
Culture: Cultural trends are coming into play as well. Military service-members today live in a culture of information sharing that might baffle their senior officers. They expect to be in touch with the outside world during their tours. Their service is long and difficult enough without quarantining them in a communications bubble for protracted periods. Indeed, doing so would undermine military effectiveness by cutting deeply into the morale of young men and women whose stateside lives are “always connected.” This is the generation that knows the value and power of sharing information.
Doubling down on information security is an option, but there are better approaches than to hunker in the secrecy corner.
As Admiral Greer said in Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October”: “The likelihood of a secret being blown is proportional to the square of the number of people who’re in on it.” It’s a converse of Metcalfe’s law, which describes the increase in value of a network as the number of participants grows.
Computer security has wisdom to share with national security and military security — indeed, with any organization that relies too heavily on secrecy: “You’re doing it wrong.” Secrecy should be treated as a weakness, to be avoided whenever possible.
Since at least the Vietnam-era controversy over the accuracy of U.S. government “body counts,” it’s been getting harder to control military information, and the difficulty will only increase. Secrecy is sometimes necessary, and propaganda is a legitimate dimension of war, but as technology and tools of transparency make their way even to remote battlefields, secrecy and propaganda that are at odds with the evidence on the ground will necessarily be less effective.
Organizations of any size should examine what information they have that is not publicly available, and how they would be harmed by its release.
Ultimately, the U.S. military and all organizations, government and corporate, should begin to plan strategy and tactics so that they don’t rely on controlling information — at least not for long after it originates.
Information technology is a strong and growing adversary, and it is better to turn its strengths to one’s advantage than to waste resources trying to fight against it.
————————————————–
Pentagon Wants WikiLeaks to Return Classified War Documents.
by Christopher Weber, aol Correspondent
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/05/…
A week after WikiLeaks dumped 92,000 classified military documents online, the Pentagon is ordering the whistle-blower Web site to give them back.
“The Defense Department demands that WikiLeaks return immediately to the U.S. government all versions of documents obtained directly or indirectly from the Department of Defense databases or records,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters Thursday.
The Pentagon also ordered WikiLeaks to delete all the documents, most of which relate to military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, from its Web site and records, The Associated Press reported.
Morrell didn’t say what efforts, besides asking firmly, the Defense Department might be able to take to ensure WikiLeaks complies. Right now, Morrell said, the Defense Department hopes WikiLeaks will “do the right thing.”
WikiLeaks has not responded to the Pentagon request.
The Web site posted the reports, mostly raw intelligence reports, July 25, 2010.
The White House condemned the document dump and military officials said the posting of the names of Afghans who have helped allied forces could jeopardize their safety.
The site reportedly withheld another 15,000 similar documents, and may publish them as well, the AP said.
“Public disclosure of additional Defense Department classified information can only make the damage worse,” Morrell said.
Wikileaks is a 3-year-old nonprofit founded by Julian Assange that allows anonymous sources to upload private documents so anyone can read them online.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in China, Cuba, European Union, Iran, Israel, Policy Lessons from Mad Cow Disease, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, Russia
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 5th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Oldest university on earth is reborn after 800 years.
Nalanda, an ancient seat of learning destroyed in 1193, will rise again thanks to a Nobel-winning economist.
By Andrew Buncombe
Wednesday, 4 August 2010.
GETTY IMAGES
The ruins of Nalanda, the 2,000-year-old Buddhist University near Rajgir in the northern part of India.
During the six centuries of its storied existence, there was nothing else quite like Nalanda University. Probably the first-ever large educational establishment, the college – in what is now eastern India – even counted the Buddha among its visitors and alumni. At its height, it had 10,000 students, 2,000 staff and strove for both understanding and academic excellence. Today, this much-celebrated centre of Buddhist learning is in ruins.
After a period during which the influence and importance of Buddhism in India declined, the university was sacked in 1193 by a Turkic general, apparently incensed that its library may not have contained a copy of the Koran. The fire is said to have burned and smouldered for several months.
Now this famed establishment of philosophy, mathematics, language and even public health is poised to be revived. A beguiling and ambitious plan to establish an international university with the same overarching vision as Nalanda – and located alongside its physical ruins – has been spearheaded by a team of international experts and leaders, among them the Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen. This week, legislation that will enable the building of the university to proceed is to be placed before the Indian parliament.
“At its peak it offered an enormous number of subjects in the Buddhist tradition, in a similar way that Oxford [offered] in the Christian tradition – Sanskrit, medicine, public health and economics,” Mr Sen said yesterday in Delhi.
“It was destroyed in a war. It was [at] just the same time that Oxford was being established. It has a fairly extraordinary history – Cambridge had not yet been born.” He added, with confidence: “Building will start as soon as the bill passes.”
The plan to resurrect Nalanda – in the state of Bihar – and establish a facility prestigious enough to attract the best students from across Asia and beyond, was apparently first voiced in the 1990s. But the idea received more widespread attention in 2006 when the then Indian president, APJ Abdul Kalam set about establishing an international “mentoring panel”. Members of the panel, chaired by Mr Sen, include Singapore’s foreign minister, George Yeo, historian Sugata Bose, Lord Desai and Chinese academic Wang Banwei.
A key challenge for the group is to raise sufficient funds for the university. It has been estimated that $500m will be required to build the new facility, with a further $500m needed to sufficiently improve the surrounding infrastructure. The group is looking for donations from governments, private individuals and religious groups. The governments of both Singapore and India have apparently already given some financial commitments.
Mr Sen said the new Nalanda project, whose ancestor easily predated both the University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco – founded in 859 AD and considered the world’s oldest, continually-operating university, and Cairo’s Al Azhar University (975 AD), had already attracted widespread attention from prestigious institutions. The universities of Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Paris and Bologna had all been enthusiastic about possible collaboration.
Some commentators believe a crucial impact of the establishment of a new international university in India would be the boost it gave to higher education across Asia. A recent survey of universities by the US News and World Report magazine listed just three Asian institutions – University of Tokyo, University of Hong Kong and Kyoto University – among the world’s top 25.
Writing when plans for Nalanda were first announced, Jeffery Garten, a professor in international business and trade at the Yale School of Management, said in the New York Times: “The new Nalanda should try to recapture the global connectedness of the old one. All of today’s great institutions of higher learning are straining to become more international… but Asian universities are way behind.” He added: “A new Nalanda could set a benchmark for mixing nationalities and culture, for injecting energy into global subject. Nalanda was a Buddhist university but it was remarkably open to many interpretations of that religion. Today, it could… be an institution devoted to global religious reconciliation.”
As Mr Garten pointed out, the new university will have much to live up to. The original, located close to the border with what is now Nepal, was said to have been an architectural masterpiece, featuring 10 temples, a nine-storey library where monks copied books by hand, lakes, parks and student accommodation. Its students came from Korea, Japan, China, Persia, Tibet and Turkey, as well as from across India. The 7th Century Chinese pilgrim, Xuanzang, visited Nalanda and wrote detailed accounts of what he saw, describing how towers, pavilions and temples appeared to “soar above the mists in the sky [so that monks in their rooms] might witness the birth of the winds and clouds”.
Yet the project is not without controversy. Mr Sen was yesterday asked about reports that claimed the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader who has lived for more than 50 years in the Indian town of Dharamsala, had been deliberately omitted from the project to avoid antagonising potential Chinese investors and officials. He replied: “He is heading a religion. Being religiously active may not be the same as [being] appropriate for religious studies.”
The Indian authorities believe the establishment of the college would act as a global reminder of the nation’s history as a centre of learning and culture. Politician Nand Kishore Singh, who sits on the country’s influential federal planning commission and who is also a member of Nalanda’s steering group, said legislation would be placed before the parliament this week. He added: “I think there is strong bi-partisan support.”
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in China, Futurism, India, Real World's News, Tibet, UN Commission on Sustainable Development, United Kingdom
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 5th, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
U.N. Supports Israeli Account of Border Clash.
Mohammed Zaatari/Associated Press
United Nations peacekeepers, right, on their armored vehicle, monitored the area as an Israeli mechanical grabber operated near the border area with Lebanon, in the southern village of Adaisseh, on Wednesday.
By ISABEL KERSHNER
Published: August 4, 2010
JERUSALEM — The United Nations peacekeeping force in South Lebanon, Unifil, said on Wednesday it had concluded that Israeli forces were cutting trees that lay within their own territory before a lethal exchange of fire with Lebanese Army troops on Tuesday, largely vindicating Israel’s account of how the fighting started.
Ali Hashisho/Reuters
United Nations peacekeepers patrolled near a poster of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah near Adaisseh in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.
An Israeli commander, two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist were killed in the border skirmish, the worst clash in the area in four years. But the border region was calm on Wednesday as Israel’s leaders appeared to try to cool the atmosphere. Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, told Israel Radio that the Israeli response to what he called a “provocation” by the Lebanese Army had been “correct” and “measured,” and said there was a need to ensure that a local incident did not turn into a crisis.
Israeli citizens and vacationers in northern Israel were told to carry on as normal, and that there was no need for special precautions. Israeli forces completed their task of pruning brush in the area of the confrontation without incident, according to an Israeli military spokeswoman.
Lebanon had said that the confrontation started after Israeli soldiers crossed into Lebanese territory to cut down a tree. Israel said its forces were clearing brush as part of routine maintenance work in a gap between the so-called Blue Line, the internationally recognized border, and its security fence. Israel said it had coordinated its actions in advance with Unifil.
In a statement on Wednesday, Unifil said its investigators were still on the ground and that inquiries were continuing.
“Unifil established, however, that the trees being cut by the Israeli Army are located south of the Blue Line on the Israeli side,” it said.
Unifil added that in the area in question, the Lebanese government had “some reservations concerning the Blue Line,” which was demarcated by the United Nations when Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2000, “as did the Israeli government at some other locations.”
But both sides committed themselves to respecting the line as identified, Unifil added, saying the United Nations believed “that the Blue Line must be respected in its entirety by all parties.”
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said the announcement “clearly corroborates the Israeli version — that our routine activity was conducted in its entirety south of the frontier, and that the Lebanese Army opened fire without provocation and without any justification whatsoever.”
Lebanon acknowledged on Wednesday that the trees were south of the Blue Line, but maintained that they were in its territory. Lebanon’s information minister, Tarek Mitri, told reporters that his country disputed the demarcation of the Blue Line in that area.
Each side had blamed the other in the hours after the gunfire, trading accusations of violating the United Nations Security Council resolution that underpins the four-year-old cease-fire.
A senior American official in Washington said that the Lebanese military appeared to have been responsible for starting the gunfire.
Israeli military officials insisted that the attack on their forces was premeditated. They pointed to internal tensions in Lebanon and what they said was the growing influence of Hezbollah, the Shiite, Iranian-backed militia, on certain elements within the Lebanese Army.
But Mr. Barak, the Israeli defense minister, said Wednesday that the incident had not been planned by the Lebanese General Staff and that Hezbollah was not a partner to it.
Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and Nada Bakri from Beirut, Lebanon. Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from the United Nations.
————-
(The sad thing is that 4 people lost their lives in that Lebanese over reaction, and the Israeli truth is underlined once more that on the Israeli side it is usually the commander who gets hit – this because he knows he is in the right and tries to calm the situation though not being helped from the other side. That is an old story corroborated just one more time.}
————-
THE UPDATE:
UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
5 August, 2010
UNESCO CHIEF DEPLORES KILLING OF LEBANESE JOURNALIST
The head of the United Nations agency tasked with upholding press freedom today expressed deep concern over the death of Lebanese journalist Assaf Abu Rahal, who was killed during an exchange of gunfire along Lebanon’s border with Israel that also claimed the lives of three other people.
Mr. Rahal worked for the Al-Akhbar newspaper published in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. His colleague Ali Shoaib was wounded in the deadly skirmish between Lebanese and Israeli forces on Tuesday across the so-called Blue Line separating the two countries.
“I am deeply concerned about the circumstances in which Assaf Abu Rahal was killed and his colleague Ali Shoaib injured,” Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said in a statement.
“I call on all parties involved to make every effort to shed light on the causes of this tragic incident, and to make sure it does not happen again by showing more restraint.
“I would further underline that freedom of expression, a fundamental human right, implies the possibility of exercising this right in safety. Armed forces are obligated to respect it,” she added.
According to the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, the two journalists were at a Lebanese army roadblock during Tuesday’s incident.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Israel, Lebanon, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 3rd, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
- AUGUST 3, 2010 – The FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE – AS REPORTED BY UN WIRE OF THE UN FOUNDATION.

- DEFENDING BAN
The U.N.’s Response to Criticism
- FRESH EYES
Canadian to Head U.N. Internal Oversight
http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts…
http://www.smartbrief.com/servlet/encode…
A top former U.N. investigator who was passed over for the top job in the U.N.’s investigations division has filed a grievance before the U.N.’s personnel disputes tribunal accusing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top advisors of discriminating against him because he is an American male, and demanding about $1.4 million in damages and wages, according to the complaint.
Robert Appleton, a former federal prosecutor in the United States who once headed a U.N. task force that probed about 300 cases of potential wrongdoing, claimed that Ban’s refusal to endorse his nomination for the senior U.N. anti-corruption job on two occasions, primarily on the basis of his gender and nationality, “constitutes a discriminatory practice, directly contrary to the Charter of the United Nations.”
The complaint, which was filed Monday in the U.N.’s administrative disputes tribunal, marks a deepening of a political crisis over Ban’s handling of the U.N.’s anti-corruption efforts. It will subject the case to a review by U.N. judges who have frequently clashed with the U.N. leadership over its treatment of staff. Last month, the tribunal awarded $700,000 to a former senior U.N. official who contested the U.N.’s refusal to promote him to a more senior job.
The administrative battle comes more than a week after the U.N.’s outgoing chief of internal oversight, Inga- Britt Ahlenius of Sweden, wrote a sharply worded end-of-assignment report that accused Ban of undercutting her independence and interfering with her effort to hire Appleton. The confidential report, which I reported on first for the Washington Post and Turtle Bay, accused Ban of “deplorable” and “reprehensible” behavior. She also accused Ban of leading the U.N. into an era of “irrelevance” and “decline.”
Today’s filing marks the first time Appleton has weighed in on the matter. Appleton headed the U.N. Procurement Task Force, which conducted a series of aggressive investigations into wrongdoing from 2006 through 2009.
The task force’s probes have resulted in 17 misconduct findings against U.N. staff and triggered several criminal investigations by federal prosecutors.
The task force also cooperated in a federal probe of Vladimir Kuznetzov, a Russian diplomat, who was convicted in 2007 of money laundering in connection with a kickback scheme.
The task force infuriated governments, including Singapore and Russia, whose nationals it targeted. In late 2008, Russia sought unsuccessfully to push for the adoption of a resolution that would have prevented the U.N. from hiring Appleton or any member of a white-collar criminal team.
The task force, which was intended to be temporary, was shut down at the end of 2008, but its expertise was supposed to be preserved in the U.N.’s investigations division.
Martin Nesirky, the U.N.’s chief spokesman, declined to comment on the Appleton case, saying “consistent with our practice, it would be inappropriate to comment on a case pending before the Dispute Tribunal.” A senior U.N. official, who recently briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said that no political pressure had been applied on Ban to block Appleton’s hiring. U.N. officials said the appointment was blocked because Ahlenius had manipulated the recruitment process so that Appleton would get the job.
Angela Kane, the U.N. under secretary-general for management, claimed last month that Ahlenius’s account contained “many inaccuracies, misrepresentations and distortions.” Ahlenius, she noted, “did not comply with established U.N. rules and policies” designed to ensure the integrity of the recruitment process. “The Secretary-General and his team consider these instruments key to building a modern U.N. that strives for excellence and reflects our diverse membership – including true gender balance. Indeed, the Secretary-General has appointed more women to senior positions than ever before in the Organization’s history.”
But another senior U.N. official hinted that there might be other reasons for the U.N.’s decision to reject Appleton, and suggested that he had outlived his usefulness to the United Nations. “There is only one American in the whole wide world who can run the investigations division?” the official said in a recent interview. “I certainly don’t believe that.”
The U.N. Charter states that the “the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.” In practice, U.N. secretaries-general have always relied heavily on key member states to recommend candidates for top posts. Many of the top jobs, including the heads of the departments of peacekeeping and political affairs, are generally reserved for candidates from the United States, Britain and France.
The power struggle between Ban and Ahlenius has its roots in an ambiguous mandate that provided her office with “operational independence” but placed it under the authority of the secretary-general, and makes it dependent on the U.N. secretariat for funding. Ban’s advisors maintain that while Ahlenius had the authority to propose a shortlist of three candidates for the job, Ban had the ultimate authority to pick the winning candidate.
Appleton’s complaint cites administrative instructions that bolster Ahlenius’s claim that she had the sole authority to hire her own top advisors. David Walker, a former U.S. controller general who chairs the U.N.’s Independent Audit Advisory Committee, noted that her “operational independence” provides that “the Under Secretary General for Internal Oversight Services will have authority to appoint all staff members whose appointments are limited to service with the office up to the D-2 level.” Appleton’s post was a D-2 job.
Appleton argues that the U.N. leadership had an obligation under the U.N. Charter and various General Assembly resolutions and staff directives to give him “full and fair consideration” for the job. He cited a 2008 General Assembly resolution saying that employment “should be based on merit, and that no person should be refused employment based upon race or gender or any other impermissible purpose.” But Ban issued a bulletin imposing a rule that he be allowed to appoint senior staff in the investigation’s division in January 2009, after Ahlenius had selected Appleton for the job, according to Ban and Ahlenius.
“There is no such rule that women be considered for every D2 position…it is a singular effort to operate outside the rule of law for their own political purpose and even more incredibly to do so retroactively,” Appleton asserts. The process, according to Appleton’s claim, calls into question Ban’s top advisors’ respect “for the most basic principles of the organization, and the fundamental rule of law. They should be held accountable for these acts.”
Appleton also claims that a senior official in the U.N. Office of Human Resources Management made an “inappropriate attempt” to persuade Ahlenius to consider unqualified candidates for the job, including a U.N. staffer who was married to one of the senior official’s subordinates, implying a conflict of interest. U.N. official’s said that the candidate’s spouse was a personnel officer in the U.N. peacekeeping department, not in the Office of Human Resources, and that there was no conflict of interest.
Appleton writes that the protracted hiring process, which played out over more than two-and-a-half years, has caused him financial hardship and damaged his reputation. “The applicant has been subjected to the embarrassment of having his candidacy discussed by the organizations officials in the public media for a continuous and extended period of time, promoting the false perception that the process was not legitimate or transparent; thereby impugning his own character.”
Please follow me on Twitter @columlynch.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Canada, China, European Union, New York, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, Russia, Singapore, Sweden
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 2nd, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20100801a1.html
Sunday, Aug. 1, 2010
China rapidly boosts investments in JGBs (Japanese Government Bonds.
Officials express concern over motive for expansion.
Kyodo News
China sharply expanded investments in Japanese government bonds in the first months of this year, apparently to increase exposure to stable Japanese vehicles against the backdrop of the European debt crisis, data from the Finance Ministry and other sources showed Saturday.
While welcoming the interest from deep-pocketed China, which sits on rapidly growing foreign currency reserves, Japanese officials remain guarded about the country’s intentions, fearing that the sharp expansion in investments may turn out to be a temporary shift to “safe” instruments.
According to the Finance Ministry, China purchased ¥1.28 trillion more Japanese securities than it sold in the January-May period this year.
The amount — for just less than half a year — already eclipses the record ¥253.8 billion in annual net purchases for the whole of 2005. In May alone, the month for which the latest data are available, its net purchases surpassed ¥735.2 billion, a record high monthly figure.
Most of the money is believed to have been invested in JGBs, with the majority going into short-term instruments maturing in one year or less.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry explained that such investments are a strategy to diversify investment of foreign currency reserves, according to Qin Gang, deputy director general of the ministry’s Information Department.
The State Administration of Foreign Exchange, meanwhile, said the most important principle in investments is “safety.” {Listen US – Listen – and loook also in the way the Yen moves up in value compared to the US dollar! – the editor}
A market participant said investments in JGBs accelerated because they are perceived as one of the safest asset vehicles in the world.
It remains unknown, however, how long the Chinese interest in Japanese debt instruments will continue, given China’s downbeat perception about Japan’s debt repayment capability.
In its first assessment of the sovereign debt of 50 countries issued in July, Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. gave an AA- rating with a “negative” outlook for JGBs.
Observers are also paying attention to see if China can be as stable a supplier of funds as Western economies. China imposes restrictions on investments by its private-sector entities in foreign securities, meaning that the majority of investment flows from China are at the mercy of Beijing’s whim.
China has seen its foreign currency reserves grow sharply as a result of currency market intervention by the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, to stem the Chinese yuan’s gains against the dollar.
As of the end of June, China was sitting on $2.45 trillion worth of reserves, the world’s largest, with an estimated 70 percent or so invested in dollar assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds.
China, however, is thought to have been adjusting its dollar-oriented investment portfolios following the financial crisis in the United States two years ago.
Japan had roughly ¥684 trillion in outstanding government bonds as of March 31, data by the Bank of Japan shows. Of this amount, only 4.6 percent was owned by overseas investors.
The government is planning to step up its efforts to market its bonds overseas, because too much reliance on domestic investors could turn out to be destabilizing.
Whether China will keep investing in Japan, however, remains to be seen.
“If China sees Japan’s fiscal policy is not sustainable, it would not invest in Japan even if it has excess foreign currency reserves,” said Hisashi Yamada, a senior researcher at the Japan Research Institute.
A source at the Finance Ministry also remained alert.
“We need to judge the intention of China’s selling and buying,” the ministry source said.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Archives, China, Real World's News, Reporting from Washington DC
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 2nd, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Eric Ehrmann
Writes on sports and global issues from Brazil. He is a member of PEN.
Posted: April 9, 2010, The Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-ehrma…
Brazil Seeks New Balance in US Relations.
Advertising posters on the sides of Manhattan bus shelters are part of a new campaign to help Americans understand Brazil. And with a new defense agreement and regional issues taking on greater importance Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Journalism Wednesday hosted Brazil Corporate Communications Day. These events couldn’t have come at a better time.
Over the past year China replaced the United States as Brazil’s top trade partner, the World Trade Organization awarded Brazil the right to impose up to $830 million in sanctions in a cotton subsidies dispute and Hillary Clinton’s State Department launched a public diplomacy campaign critical of president Lula’s foreign policy. Against this backdrop, the Pentagon has characterized the new military to-military pact as being “aspirational.”
Brazil, by opting for negotiations rather than maxing out sanctions against a key ally, has projected a balanced, non-confrontational style for government and business to deal with foreign counterparts.
While details remain sketchy, the new defense pact is the first between the two nations since the 1970s and does not currently provide for US bases on Brazilian soil like Washington’s deal with Colombia does. Considering Brazil’s candidacy for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, the arrangement has more to do with shoring up military and security between the hemisphere’s two major democracies than with the commercial deals that free marketeers implore.
Brazil, where the state, not globalist business interests, remains the final arbiter of what’s fair in laissez-faire, is a net creditor nation and plans to stay that way. But with Washington deep in debt spending $7 billion monthly in Iraq and another $5 billion on Obama’s Af-Pak war, the military arrangements are a reminder of the high price sovereign nations pay to support globalism.
Because tight credit markets increase the risk of political instability the value of paper money is now being backed up by strong armies more than strong markets. As a result, the quality of the US brand of democracy as advertised to the world has become more difficult to control and more costly to finance.
In a world without borders Brazil is right next door. But shaping business issues is complicated because, wittingly or unwittingly, globalist media continue to link perceptions about Brazil and its BRIC partners with the pathology of underdevelopment. Promoting economic warfare instead of economic partnerships, some media interests tag Brazil with poor infrastructure and corruption, which promotes reasonable doubt in the minds of analysts and prospective investors.
This, in turn, has spun off a culture of complaint among managers, bureaucrats and commentators who spend considerable time focused on what’s wrong with Brazil and what’s right with the American model of free markets and less government regulation that has been in vogue since the “Reagan revolution” of the 1980s.
After all, these same traits, acted out by US business and political leadership triggered the crisis. In reciprocity, president Lula and others in Brazil have not been shy about going on the record to say that.
One Brazilian success story can be found in the “where’s the beef” department. No matter loud your 24 ounce t-bone fans yell out “don’t mess with Texas”, Brazil has become the world’s largest exporter of beef. Instead of taking Angus feeders to fats like they do in Dalhart, Brazil raises leaner Brahma cattle on open grass ranges. The Brahma breed also helps promote sustainability because it consumes less water than other breeds.
Becoming a key player in the global food chain required long term cooperation between the state, which, constitutionally, maintains the overarching superstructure of social organization, and business, to build infrastructure, develop technology, and invest in human capital.
The United States, meanwhile, under Reagan, the Bush family and now Obama, seems to be abdicating that role. The US social contract is shrinking due to the deemphasis of checks and balances and globalist influencers inside government.
Brazil’s model, often the brunt of critiques from US neoconservatives that the new Brazilian media initiatives seek to overcome, has more in common with the traditional liberal economic principles of Raymond Aron, the French philosopher. Aron emphasized that the health and identity of the nation-state requires a strong central government.
Brazilian citizens maintain a sense of national identity and direct connection with government because in Brazil’s construct of democracy the constitution makes voting mandatory. So while the United States, where in theory everybody is entitled to vote but nobody is required by law to do so, was reeling from hanging chads in Florida and voting machines with no paper trails, Brazil rapidly developed technology to make voting machines more transparent. ProComp, the Brazilian company that developed the improvements, was subsequently acquired by the US voting machine manufacturer, Diebold.
With 200 million citizens spread across 5 million square miles, Brazil is spending $1.4 billion on its 2010 census. About 250,000 census takers are using laptops and PDAs to gather the data according to IBGE, Brazil’s statistical agency. The US, meanwhile, is spending $14 billion and creating jobs for 4 million people and relying mostly on paper to grab the data.
If globalism is indeed the multipolar world the Davos crowd claim it is, then it’s time for those whose unbridled greed propagated the current economic malaise to stop characterizing Brazil and other BRIC nations as less than and start acknowledging them as being equal to some other key G-20 players who are still spinning from the effects of the crisis.
Two big countries. Two big cultures. One big new opportunity to move forward. Perhaps Brazil’s Cardinal Dom Helder Camara summed up the differences best… “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Archives, Brazil, Futurism, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, The ALBA Charge
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 1st, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
“COMMON WEALTH: Economics for a Crowded Planet.”
by Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs
A New York Times Bestseller
Penguin Books, 2008
ISBN 978-1-59420-127-1 (hc.)
ISBN 978-0-14-311487-1 (pbk.)
386 p.
==============================================
The obligatory textbook for any would-be policy maker in the Twenty-first Century.
Don’t elect any one to Congress unless he testifies that he has read this book.
==============================================
We have a crowded planet and there are common challenges – it does not matter where you live.
We all get nourished from a source of common wealth that we must learn to honor as Environmental Sustainability.
We tried to draw a system in our own “Promptbook on Sustainable Development For The World Summit in Johannesburg August 2002,” but Professor Sachs did a much better job then I was able to do and I tip my hat before him.
Professor Sachs, with his knowledge, and with the tremendous resources of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, clearly achieved a much larger scope then we could have attempted – his book is full of data and still readable – even by policy makers that are not economists.
“Lucid, quietly urgent, and relentlessly logical . . . this is Big think with capital B.” says the New York Times Book Reviewer quote on front cover – and he is right.
——————————————————————————-
Let us start from the realization that the 20th Century saw the end of European dominance of global politics and economics and the 21st Century will witness the decline and end of American dominance.
The world is passing to new powers – China, India and Brazil.
Our own estimate is that Europe could have held on for a little longer had the European Union succeeded in creating a real Union – but in the form of the present cloud of competing States it is finished. The US, had it presented a united leadership, it could also have competed for a while longer, but as we heard today, from Senator Kerry on the Fareed Zakaria show, with the ongoing obstructionism in US Senate, we just watch how China has moved from 5% of the global production of solar panels – just two years ago, to the global production in 2010 of 60% of those panels, and this week’s announcement that the US Senate is incapable of gathering 60 votes for a Climate & Energy Bill this year – and hearing just one day after that the Chinese say that they are going to cap carbon emissions – this means that “WE WILL BE RIPPED OUT OF THE MARKET PLACE – WE ARE CUTTING OUR OWN THROAT HERE,” concluded Senator Kerry.
And why does this happen? The established economies grow fat and complacent – the world turns to new ideas from large and hungry Nations that are ready to learn fast and innovate and grow. They push the old mush to the sideways. Can the obfuscating politicians understand this?
——————————————————————————
The mush starts from the refusal to recognize that resources are scarce, there are environmental stresses, and there will be large areas that become eventually uninhabitable leading again to great mass migration, clashes of civilization, warfare and mayhem. The above will be reinforced by the human created climate change, that gets super imposed on the power change to new Mega-Nations of more then a billion people each, and we must note that the world population has risen by 4 billion people in the span of just 60 years since 1950 – the Korea War – that came after what was thought to be the start of a post WWII peace.
For the world to save itself we must recognize the Anthropocene, when human activity became the dominant driver of the natural environment, and look for Global Solutions to Climate Change and Water Needs – to start a new strategy of Economic Development, end poverty traps, and create economic security in this changing Globalized World.
Our leaders must rethink Foreign Policy in the light of Global Goals which Prof. Sachs ends up as defining as “The Power of One.”
He points out that we are not only the subjects of history, carried along by blind forces, but agents of history.
Further, we have to gird ourselves against the unholy trinity of reactionary rhetoric identified by the great development economist Albert Hirschman. He noted that every new idea for constructive change is met with three attacks.
The first is futility: the course of reform cannot work because the problem is unsolvable.
The second is perversity: any attempt at solution will actually make matters worse.
The third is jeopardy: attempting to solve the problem will take attention and resources away from something even more important.
This negativism is a state of mind, not a view based on facts.
Relentless acceptance of the status quo is not acceptable in the face of the challenges we confront.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Africa, Archives, Book reviews, Brazil, China, Copenhagen COP15, European Union, Futurism, Geneva, Global Warming issues, Green is Possible, India, Nairobi, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, The US States, UN Commission on Sustainable Development, Vienna
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 1st, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Hugo Chaves, with rampant inflation in his country and a tanking economy, threatened that if Colombia pursues his friends of the FARC, he will stop exports of oil to the US.
So what? Did he think it over what he said? He exports 44% of Venezuela’s oil to the US which gets just 6% of its imports from Venezuela – this at a time there is plenty of oil in the world market and there will be ample competition to sell to the US.
15% of Venezuela GDP comes from the sales to the US that make up for 25% of its foreign currency in-flow that amounts to $80 million/day. Nothing to sneeze at!
So, will Venezuela tie itself for the long haul to China – the far away market – rather then ponder to the US – the next door buyer?
If he wants to do that – call his bluff now and let him dry on his own words. He just is no armed Ahmedi-nejad less he forgot that – and there is no chance he ever can become one!
1500 FARC rebels are in Venezuela.
——————
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC).

Established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, the FARC is Colombia’s oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped Marxist insurgency. The FARC was governed by a secretariat, led by septuagenarian Manuel Marulanda (a.k.a. “Tirofijo”) and six others, including senior military commander Jorge Briceno (a.k.a. “Mono Jojoy”). In March 2006, Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General of the United States, announced in conjunction with Drug Enforcement Administration and United States Department of Justice officials that the US State Department had placed a $5 million dollar reward on Tirofijo’s head, or for information leading to his capture.[3] But ‘Marulanda’ was never apprehended, and died of a heart attack on March 26, 2008. He was replaced as commander-in-chief by ‘Alfonso Cano‘.
Cano, now chief of FARC said in a video posted this week on an affiliated website. “We are still dedicated to looking for political exits. We hope that the government will reflect, that it won’t deceive the country anymore.”
Cano’s message is his first public reaction to the election of Santos, who as defense minister under President Alvaro UribeRaul Reyes delivered some of the biggest blows against the FARC, including a 2008 air strike in Ecuador that killed Raul Reyes, the guerillas’ No.2 leader.
The FARC is organized along military lines and includes several urban fronts.
In February 2002, the group’s slow-moving peace negotiation process with President Andres Pastrana’s administration was terminated by Bogota following the FARC’s plane hijacking and kidnapping of a Colombian Senator from the aircraft. On 7 August 2002, the FARC launched a large-scale mortar attack on the Presidential Palace where President Alvaro Uribe was being inaugurated. High-level foreign delegations—including the United States—attending the inauguration were not injured, but 21 residents of a poor neighborhood nearby were killed by stray rounds in the attack. President Uribe never forgot this and will pursue them to the last day of his Presidency that ends in 2010. What if he indeed bombs the FARC that hide across the border in Venezuela?
If Chaves reacts as he says – that will be great for alternative energy as well – even with the Republicans howling in US Congress. Will they stand up for Hugo Chaves.
Go Uribe! Go Chaves! GREENS are with both of you!
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Futurism, Global Warming issues, Green is Possible, Obama Styling, Policy Lessons from Mad Cow Disease, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from UNFCCC Meetings, Reporting from Washington DC, The ALBA Charge, UN Commission on Sustainable Development, Venezuela
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 1st, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Fareed Zakaria on CNN/GPS – Sunday August 1, 2010 – suggests that this do very little US Congress – indeed do nothing when it comes to renewing the G.W. Bush Tax Cuts. Letting them lapse decreases the deficit by 30% annually – or $300 Billion/year!
He implores Congress – Please Let the Bush Tax-Cuts Expire this year – do not vote to renew them!
Half of Americans do not pay taxes and though the cuts went for what on paper seems like all – the effect was that the rich got most of the money anyway and rather then return the money to the economy put the money into savings. This is the main reason that led to the major crisis we and most of the world, suffered – because of the US of Bush!
The US expenditures are in Middle Class Programs. If one were to cut these social programs it will lead to further unemployment and misery. The UK under David Cameron is going for cuts in services and further taxation – the US could instead cut all the Bush tax-cuts and increase benefits like unemployment benefits. All what the US has to do is to turn the wheels back to the Clinton Presidency! That is when there was surplus and not galloping debt. Fareed had the graphs to prove his points.
The trick is that when the poor get money they go out and buy things like providing an engine to the economy. What Bush did was to allow further hording of money by the rich, and this took out money from the economy. This is so simple that even former President Bush could have grasped had he only reviewed the policies that the interests put before him.
So, let us repeat – Fareed says that doing nothing now on the Bush tax cuts will do a lot for the Nations Future.
———–
Fareed had also a panel of journalists on the program right – left and center - Ross Douthat, Columnist of the New York Times from the right, also film critic for National Review, he was senior editor of The Atlantic; Chrystia Freeland who is a global editor at large for Reuters and formerly she was U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times; and Hendrik Hertzberg, a senior editor and staff writer of The New Yorker Magazine.
The topic was: WALL STREET vs. OBAMA vs. MAIN STREET.
There was quite a consensus – it is incredible to hear the venom towards Obama on the Hill. After all – he went to Harvard and has credentials – he is just as smart as any of the Wall Street people.
The Obama problem is the fantasy people have about the Presidency. On foreign affairs he gets some leeway, but on the oil spill they wanted him to go and fix it. Then – all is covered by the filibuster.
Obama did already a health care bill, a financial regulation bill, but nothing is seen yet – clearly, the effects will not appear during his first term in office. The economy collapsed just when he came in, so the suffering is under him – the collapse was organized by his predecessor.
Criticism from Ms. Freeland – The White House has not put forward yet a clear vision for the economy.
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Future Events, Futurism, New York, Policy Lessons from Mad Cow Disease, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, The US States, United Kingdom
Discuss this article
###
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 1st, 2010
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)
Clarity on 50% for Energy Crops Scheme Grant applications for Miscanthus planting in spring 2010
16th December 2009
Miscanthus is a genus of about 15 species of perennial grasses native to subtropical and tropical regions of Africa and southern Asia, with one species (M. sinensis) extending north into temperate eastern Asia.
M. giganteus – Main article: Miscanthus giganteus
The sterile hybrid between M. sinensis and M. sacchariflorus, Miscanthus giganteus or “E-grass”, has been trialed as a biofuel in Europe since the early 1980s. It can grow to heights of more than 3.5 m in one growth season. Its dry weight annual yield can reach 25t/ha (10t/acre).[2] It is sometimes called “Elephant Grass” and thus confused with the African grass Pennisetum purpureum, also called “Elephant Grass.”
The rapid growth, low mineral content, and high biomass yield of Miscanthus make it a favorite choice as a biofuel.[3] Miscanthus can be used as input for ethanol production, often outperforming corn and other alternatives in terms of biomass and gallons of ethanol produced.. Additionally, after harvest, it can be burned to produce heat and steam for power turbines. The resulting CO2 emissions are equal to the amount of CO2 that the plant used up from the atmosphere during its growing phase, and thus the process is greenhouse gas-neutral, if one does not consider any fossil fuels that might have been used in planting, fertilizing, or harvesting the crop, or in transporting the biofuel to the point of use. When mixed in a 50%-50% mixture with coal, it can be used in some current coal-burning power plants without modifications.
—-
With world leaders gathered in Copenhagen for the final week of the world climate change talks, {those now famous Copenhagen days of COP 15} attention focused also on who is actually delivering rather than merely promising. In the UK, the most prolific agricultural Biomass Energy crop, Miscanthus, is set to plant another 1,000Ha in… Read More …
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Fresh Miscanthus Rhizomes |
Precision Planting |
Miscanthus Harvesting |
High Density Baling |
Biomass Energy Crop Fuel |
News -
| Bioenergy |
|
| Biofuels |
|
 |
|
| Energy from foodstock |
|
|
| Non-food energy crops |
|
|
| Technology |
|
|
| Concepts |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscanthus
|
|
Permalink |
| Email This Article
Posted in Archives, Copenhagen COP15, Futurism, Green is Possible, IBSA, Real World's News, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from UNFCCC Meetings, UN Commission on Sustainable Development, United Kingdom
Discuss this article
###
|