Israel struggles to adapt to a changing picture of Iran.
By Philip Stephens
The Financial Times July 2 2009

No one watches events in Iran more closely than Israel. Tehran has long been the abiding preoccupation, some would say obsession of political discourse in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Now the story line has changed.

At first glance the violent repression deployed by Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad’s regime in the wake of last month’s presidential election has been grist to the mill. The images of beaten and bloodied demonstrators have described vividly to a global audience Israel’s long-held view of the Iranian theocracy. Yet the implications do not all run in the same direction. The apparent fixing of the poll result and the subsequent crushing of dissent has also made the case for more rather than less engagement by the west.

Before one or two of my regular correspondents of a neo-conservative leaning accuse me of going soft on an authoritarian Islamist regime with nuclear ambitions, I should say that this point was made to me this week in Tel Aviv by a shrewd member of the Israeli diplomatic establishment and sometime adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – no friend of the ayatollahs, in other words.

The reaction of western governments to Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s determination to remain in power suggests a different course. The Group of Eight rich nations has issued a strong – by diplomatic standards – denunciation of violence against demonstrators. I am sure I was not alone in seeing a certain irony in Russia’s signature on a document affirming individual liberties. That aside, the condemnations of the suppression of peaceful protest – including those of the European Union and the US administration – were surely right in their rejection of Tehran’s flimsy efforts to blame the west for the flowering of Iranian democracy.

Mir-Hossein Moussavi, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s opponent, was not offering the radical departure in Iranian politics that some Republicans in Washington have chosen to imagine. The presidential contest was a power struggle within Iran’s revolutionary family.

That said, the popular reaction to the apparent vote-rigging has indeed changed the game. The authority of the regime has suffered irrecoverable damage. Few of those who took to the streets will believe that it was all an American, or even more unlikely, a British plot.

This observation was offered to me by another Israeli. Isaac Herzog, the Labour minister for welfare and social services in the government coalition, recalled the occasions when his famous father visited the Shah’s Iran during the 1960s. Chaim Herzog would report back that the Shah was living on borrowed time: the ruler had grown too distant from the ruled.

The same can now be said of the gulf between Mr Ahmadi-Nejad and Iran’s youthful middle classes, although, as with the Shah, the end may be some time in coming.

The earlier point made by the Israeli diplomat was that Iran was no longer the country the west had thought, or wanted to think, it was. The post-election scenes on the streets of Iranian cities would surely strengthen those who argued that the way to encourage Iran’s return to the international community was through engagement – by embracing the ambitions of the protesters rather than shutting them out along with the regime. No one could pretend that Iran was the monolith that is North Korea.

As for suggestions that Israel is ready to bomb Iran to prevent Mr Ahmadi-Nejad from getting his hands on nuclear weapons, the issue was now more complicated. “How do you bomb Neda?” the diplomat said, in a reference to Neda Salehi Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose death on the streets of Tehran has become a symbol of the regime’s repression.

Mr Netanyahu would doubtless dispute this analysis, but the Israeli prime minister’s views no longer carry weight. Until my discussions this week with Israeli politicians and scholars from across the political spectrum I had not realised quite how comprehensively he had wrecked his own foreign policy.

If Mr Netanyahu had started out with a single strategic objective it was to engage Barack’s Obama’s administration in a joint project to put an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. As an academic sympathetic to the prime minister’s predicament put it, he wanted above all from Washington “a credible policy on Iran”.

No matter that no one quite knew what such a policy would have amounted to; focusing on Iran would have allowed the prime minister to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the back-burner and sidestep international pressure to accept a two-state solution.

That was the plan. And what has happened? Mr Obama upturned the argument: a deal between Israel and the Palestinians was promoted in Washington as part of the broad regional initiative necessary to deal properly with Iran. Worse, from Mr Netanyahu’s perspective, Israeli-US relations have been reduced to an increasingly bitter argument about his refusal to halt settlement building on the West Bank.

As for Iran, the US president has indeed stepped back from immediate engagement. Doubtless he has been influenced by those who argue that restoring relations with Tehran would “legitimise” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad. Much the same argument was heard a few decades ago about détente with the Soviet Union.

But Mr Obama’s options remain open, as do those of European leaders. They should listen carefully to the voices in Iran who want the country to join the modern world.

Before visiting Israel I heard a prominent, Tehran-based academic put the case well. The policy of isolating Iran, he said, played into the hands of the regime by allowing it to demonise the US and its allies and forestall, in the name of national security, the opening up of society.

Breaking into this vicious circle will not be easy. It will require from Mr Obama a willingness to expend more political capital in explaining that diplomacy is not a synonym for defeatism. Engagement may well fail to persuade Iran to give up its quest for full mastery of the nuclear cycle – an ambition, incidentally, that the ayatollahs inherited from the Shah. It might just persuade Tehran not to build a bomb. In any event, the alternatives are all worse – unless, of course, Mr Obama feels he should take some foreign policy advice from Mr Netanyahu.

 philip.stephens at ft.com

we posted about the event at http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2009/06…

now we get further details at  http://www.economist.com/daily/news/disp…

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Greenland - Feeling free
Jul 1st 2009
From Economist.com

Day one
GIVEN the choice of subsisting on seal or whale I would plump for the former, without enthusiasm. A mouthful of seal flesh has little to recommend it, unless you are drawn to a slippery, dark, lamb-like meat that tastes as if it had been left to stew in a dirty aquarium. But neither is whale tempting: chewing its skin is like gnawing a strip of leather soaked in cod-liver oil. In either case, at least on the first encounter, a diner is likely to experience a faint sense of nausea. If you must have whale, cetacean biltong (whale jerky) is more palatable than the fresh stuff.

AFP

Hooray for two tonnes of flesh
Most Greenlanders, however, relish both meats when the chance arises. A recent weekend in Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, saw a triple excuse to indulge. The summer solstice, which serves as the national day, coincided both with the replacement after 30 years of a much-disliked government and with celebrations for throwing off (sort of) three centuries of Denmark’s colonial yoke. As a result, Nuuk was in festive mood. The pretty red-and-white Greenlandic flag fluttered from every bus, official building and school-child’s hand. The town was criss-crossed by processions of men in white anoraks and jovial women in coloured beads and embroidered seal-skin outfits. Visiting dignitaries enthusiastically ripped veils from new pieces of public art: in one square revealing a statue of seals at play, while above the town beach appeared three slabs of concrete holding aloft a ball of stone.

Over a breakfast of herring and salmon in the town’s main hotel one could bump into a visiting bishop from Copenhagen bedecked in medallions; Iceland’s affable president; or one of a wide array of Danish royals. We outsiders then took turns trooping through the town’s fish market, gawping at mounds of halibut and at the bloody work of a sealmonger who obligingly butchered a carcass. On the streets the mood was restrained and good-natured, only rising to a murmur of excitement when the official distribution of whale-meat began.

The local government had claimed special dispensation to harpoon two rare Greenlandic whales. One of the pair, it was widely said, had turned out to be 200 years old, although I do not understand just how one determines such a fact: perhaps it is like counting the rings of a felled tree. Officials then handed out two tonnes of the flesh to the 56,000 or so residents of this massive territory. In Nuuk that was a simple matter: whale munchers crowded a sports hall for lunch, then strolled home with meat in bulging plastic bags. But the rest of Greenland is sparsely populated. There are tiny settlements (the smallest has a single inhabitant, a middle-aged man who refuses to move to the nearest town) and small towns spread far north of the Arctic circle and along Greenland’s remote and icy eastern coast. Delivering whale, on time, to the scattered masses looked like an immense bureaucratic task. Local television news reported it was only possible thanks to the many small, red propeller-planes of Air Greenland.

The survival of so many small settlements across the vast country is made possible by the largesse of the Greenland state, which in turn relies on billions of kroner doled out by distant Denmark. That Denmark spends the equivalent of more than $11,000 per Greenlander, each year, might explain why the locals, though delighted to be claiming more powers of self-government, are not yet rushing for complete independence. One afternoon in Nuuk, at a kaffemik, a sort of family party that involves drinking coffee, wine and beer—in this case to celebrate the school graduation of a daughter—guests said that they were thrilled by their new government. But they were also adamant that Greenland could not yet afford full independence. “Not now, it’s good as it is for now,” explained one woman. A visiting Danish journalist said wryly, while sipping a bâja pilluarit (celebration beer), “psychologically, the state is my father, you know?”

And yet people feel great pride at Greenland’s taking on more control: over police and the courts, over local government and the schools and dozens more things. Greenlandic is to become an official language, and the nation feels it is making itself noticed on the world stage. “It’s our land, our language. We have to do it ourselves, not rely on others doing it,” explains a woman in national dress wearing white seal boots and trousers. Despite their love of traditions, Greenlanders are under no illusion that they will return to a past of surviving on what they hunt. The celebrations and the food of old will come and go, but nobody will be asked to subsist on seal or whale.

Day two
YOUNG voters, especially left-leaning ones, are keen on Greenland’s new prime minister, Kuupik Kleist: they swept him to power in June. The folk of Nuuk explain how happy they are to see the new government (and to see the back of the old one), by saying that “Kuupik is our Obama”. At a rock concert in a sports hall on mid-summer eve, as sleet and snowfall and the midnight sky hangs grey, his appearances draws cheers from the crowd. He gives a short speech from the stage and the audience pauses, expectant. Will he burst into song? Rumours have spread that he will belt out something, perhaps an independence anthem. Instead he waves and is gone.

Adam Roberts

A traditional singer, banging on in the traditional way
For older Greenlanders, at least, it is a disappointing moment. Fifteen years ago Mr Kleist was best known as the lead singer of a local band, whose album “Samma Samma” proved a hit in part because he sang in Greenlandic, not Danish. “He has a voice like Leonard Cohen,” claims my Greenlandic guide, and others too. Having since listened to the album, I can report that his voice is far less miserable than Mr Cohen’s.

So Greenland has a singing prime minister. Mr Kleist is not the only musical politician: one could pull together a decent band with Bill Clinton on sax, Tony Blair on guitar, Madagascar’s young DJ-turned-coup-plotter-turned-president mixing the music backstage and Kim Jong Il on the tambourine. But Mr Kleist is distinct in this way: he leads a tiny country obsessed with producing music, in which music and politics are now swirling together in a heady mix.

At the weekend I spend a couple of hours at Greenland’s main recording studio, Atlantic Music, with its owner, Ejvind Elsner, a large and jovial man who has been producing local bands for two decades. He believes that young musicians are now changing the politics of his country. Before the recent election, opposition parties helped to fund a controversial new album by a band, Liima Inui, which provoked the ire of the old government. “Republik” helped to express public anger with politicians who had been caught fiddling their expenses, and to whip up calls for self-rule.

Mr Elsner claims that he had calls from officials who threatened to close his business, or at least to block access to radio and television, unless the album was scrapped. “You’ll be finished,” warned a leading figure of the old ruling party. Most offensive, apparently, was the idea of promoting “Republik” while the Danish queen visited. Instead the album has become a theme for the celebrations of self-governance Liima Inui, an impressively large group, headlined the main rock concert on the night of the self-governance celebrations.

Perhaps because of those long, dark winters, with so little else to do, Greenlanders have developed a wide variety of music, relative to their small population. The Danes introduced oompah bands, much intoning of hymns and a rural Nordic folk habit of singing jolly stories to each other. But Greenlandic customs are more entertaining. Traditions such as throat warbling (when two young women, typically, stand nose-to-nose and produce a disconcerting wail) and singing along as a seal-skin drum is tapped with a stick, are merging with new forms of Greenlandic pop, rock and hip-hop.

Mr Elsner sees a distinct a Greenlandic sound growing up, perhaps to rival successful recent Nordic musical exports from Iceland (Bjork, for example) and Norway (Røyksopp). More important, the musicians could play a powerful social role at home. “In future the music will mean a lot more for the people. We used to sing about love; now it is about politics, nature, social problems. People are not great at talking to each other, but they can have a say with music. We have to use the music to overcome our problems.”

Local rappers are most explicit in taking on Greenland’s social difficulties, singing about suicide, sexual abuse and corrupt politicians. There are other serious problems to address: alcoholism has long plagued much of northern Europe, so the governments of Nordic countries have used high taxes and restricted sales to limit binge drinking. The indigenous people of Greenland, the Inuit, are particularly vulnerable to alcohol, but many of the local Danes are equally heavy drinkers. In a society where many rely on funds doled out from Denmark, alcohol is one way to pass the time. But this weekend is not a notably drunken affair. Visiting a couple of Nuuk’s smoky bars nothing more rowdy or aggressive is on show than one might find in London on a Friday evening.

Self-selection process for private sector observers to the Climate Investment Funds
from Barbara Black to Climate

SELF-SELECTION PROCESS FOR PRIVATE SECTOR OBSERVERS TO THE CLIMATE INVESTMENT FUNDS.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is designing and facilitating the self selection process for private sector observers to two Climate Investment Fund (CIF) committees : Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and Strategic Climate Fund (SCF); and one subcommittee of the SCF, the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR).

The self-selection process is directed to business associations to ensure that the business community is represented and participates in the meetings based on the  guidelines for inviting representatives of civil society to observe meetings. Five business associations attended the last CIF meetings in May, following an interim selection process for temporary observer seats. They provided a detailed summary of the meetings and useful feedback for the self selection process.

Self-selection process for private sector observers to the Climate Investment Funds

To ensure transparency in the design and implementation of the self-selection process, an Advisory Board has been created. The Advisory Board  is comprised of five recognized energy and climate change experts, who have been selected through consultations with the private sector, a broad range of stakeholders, the CIF Administrative Unit and the accredited UNFCCC business and industry NGOs. The Advisory Board has prepared the attached terms of reference and guidelines for the selection of observers for the CTF, SCF and PPCR.

If your organization wishes to participate in this selection process and believes it complies with the criteria outlined in the terms of reference of one of the fund committees/subcommittee, please complete and return the application form to  climate at wbcsd.org before 25 July 2009.

Self-selection process timeline
•   April – May 2009: The WBCSD launched the self-selection process. Temporary representatives were selected to attend the May meetings on behalf of the private sector.
•   1-12 June 2009: The WBCSD identified and invited a small group of recognized experts to join the Advisory Board
•   12-30 June 2009: Advisory Board prepares the guidelines and criteria for the self-selection process of two seats for the CTF, SCF and PPCR.
•   1-25 July 2009: Call for Application window
•   26-30 July: The WBCSD assists the Advisory Board by providing a candidate matrix using the defined criteria.
•   30 July - 10 August 2009: The Advisory Board selects the two Observer seats.
•   11 August 2009: The WBCSD communicates the decision of the Board to the CIF Administrative Unit and the applicants.
•   End October 2009 – Next CIF meetings

The design and facilitation of the self-selection process for the Permanent Observer Seats has been done in consultation with those undertaking the Civil Society self-selection process and the CIF Administrative Unit to ensure a transparent and fair process and continuity of criteria, timelines and processes.

WBCSD will post the relevant documents for the self selection process on www.wbcsd.org so please check for updates. Please contact WBCSD ( climate at wbcsd.org) with any questions or comments.

María Mendiluce
Energy Manager, Energy & Climate

World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
4, chemin de Conches  l  1231 Conches – Geneva  l  Switzerland
T: +41 (0)22 839 31 36  l  F: +41 (0)22 839 31 31 l  M: +41(0)78 713 04 42

E:  mendiluce at wbcsd.org  l  W: www.wbcsd.org

 http://www.bechollashon.org/resources/ne…

Francesca Biller-Safran

Japanese-Jew Doesn’t “Oy Veh” So Much Since Obama.

By Francesca Biller-Safran
Huffington Post
Published: June 4, 2009

As a Japanese-Jew, I have historically used self deprecating humor at my own expense as a way to explain and defend to others who I was and to feel accepted.

My cultural confusion can be summed up in this anonymous quote, “There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?”

Until recently I believed “everything” was my fault.

And I would certainly be the last person I would ever want to visit, with all of my kvetching to anyone kind enough to listen. “Oy Veh,” I would lament. “No one accepts me; I am neither a truly Japanese or Jewish soul, so I will just sit here alone in the dark, eating a knish in my kimono.”

But gratefully, since Obama has become president, not only do I feel more comfortable as the multiracial shikseh that I am, but engage in thoughtful conversations about my heritage and background, without jokes, defense or much self-deprecation.

I only hope that I conduct myself with an ounce of the class, genus and moral fortitude the president has displayed when continually questioned about his cultural identity.

In his keynote 2004 speech to the Democratic Convention, Obama said, “In a sense I have no choice but to believe in this vision of America. As a child of a black man and a white woman, someone who was born in the racial melting pot of Hawaii, I’ve never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race, or measuring my worth on the basis of race.”

I too was born in Hawaii and attended University High School in Hawaii a few years before Obama just a couple miles from his school, Punahoe High, whose students I shared long bus rides with from remote areas in order to get a good education; a value that my parents, like his, believed was invaluable.

Like my mother and father, Obama’s parents are from two different cultures, yet he never feels the need to defend or justify his background, rather, he consistently responds to questions and assumptions with dignity and forethought.

When asked during the presidential campaign what he considered his ethnicity to be, Obama answered simply that he is an American from two equally rich and diverse cultures.

In a 2004 speech, Obama said, “My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential.”

As a blend of cultures with a Jewish-Russian, Irish father and Japanese-Hawaiian mother, I too have faced continual questions as to what I considered my race, people, culture and ethnicity to be.

I was given several names, including three middle names, all five on my birth certificate. One is named after my Jewish great grandmother, Beatrice, the other a Japanese name, Yukari, and the third, Caitlin, named after the wife of my father’s favorite poet, Dylan Thomas. My first name is named after a man — the Italian Renaissance painter, Piero Della Francesca, with his last name chosen for my first.

Who was I, where did I come from, was I merely a mistake, an experiment, and how I might actually exist as a identifiable human — have been relentless questions that have sewn experiences throughout my culturally odd and unasked for politically patch-worked life.

This sentiment from an anonymous quote defines the neurotic dichotomy of my life, “To find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.”

One searing memory I experienced involves a boy who told me on the schoolyard there was no such thing as a Japanese-Jewish person. Afterwards, I ran all the way home from this boy with the piercing blue eyes and looked into the mirror wondering if I really didn’t exist at all; at least in any real identifiable sense that mattered.

This was just one comment amongst countless surreal exclamations that secured my stalwart allegiance to defining myself as a person from different cultures, but never defined by them.

In his keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention, Obama said, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.”

I can assume the President Obama has heard countless comments denying his existence as a fortified American as well, but was intrepid enough to remain an honorable candidate despite cultural ignorance on the part of others.

This is the essential definition for any strong person; the ability, will and might to face oppression and hatred and march forward anyway.

No one thought it was truly possible that a man who was Black may become president yet, no one. Some hoped, some feared, some dreamed, and many imagined a courageous, ambitious reality, but not one of us truly believed with full breadth that this young country was ready to make such a fearless and autonomous leap for the betterment of us and for the world.

Like Obama’s parents, the marriage of my parents confounded some, upset others and was dismissed by the rest.

My father was raised in Los Angeles and then attended The University of Hawaii not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He came back with an education and a wife, who was a second-generation Japanese-American known as the Nisei generation, who grew up as a farmer on the coffee plantations of Kona, Hawaii.

My Japanese-American uncles were part of the 442nd Infantry, also known as The Purple Heart Battalion, the most highly decorated fighter pilots in United States History. This includes some 4,000 Bronze stars and nearly 9,500 Purple Hearts.

In this period, many Japanese-Americans were interned throughout the U.S, with land taken away, families torn apart and lives devastated, not unlike Jewish family members of my husband’s during the Second World War with more tragic results.

A lot of anti-Japanese sentiment existed at this time, and yet my parents married, with whispers heard loudly as shouts and bombs from some family, while others chose to keep quiet with disdain; perhaps even more devastating.

Martin Luther King said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

My parents had four children during the 1950’s and 60’s, and thankfully we were raised in Southern California, a region more liberal and tolerant of interracial marriage than many other parts of the country.

A visceral account of the confused cultural identity I experienced in a Japanese-Jewish household can be summed up in the following quotes, the first from a Japanese emperor, “Generally speaking, the way of the warrior is the resolute acceptance of death,” and the second from Woody Allen, “It’s not that I’m afraid to die; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

At least as a writer, my life experiences give me more material to work with than my mother’s hundreds of antique kimonos combined with all the chuppah’s this side of Golden Gate Bridge.

A perfect example of conflicting philosophies learned during childhood includes Buddha’s lesson that “Life as we know it ultimately leads to suffering,” while we were told simultaneously that although Jesus was indeed a suffering member of our tribe, we should never actually worship him.

But nevertheless, I have made it, I have arrived, and I am as they say in Yiddish, I’m “Nisht geferlech,” which basically means “Not so shabby.”

Surely President Obama must realize this profound effect he has had on a nation who soldiers so many different religions, races and cultures while speaking in native tongues more freely understood now at least now in spirit, if not yet comprehended in each syllable, syntax or inflection.

And because we now have a president with a different story than president’s past, who holds his head high with his own proud blend of integral cultural being, each language and culture that is different is now more highly revered, as is each person’s individual journey.

Each story sheds an even broader and brighter light on a nation that not only endures, but empowers; not only inspires but includes, and not only validates, but values each lesson, paragraph and infinitesimal anecdote that boasts the value of us all.

This is now an axiomatic concept for the country, one that is only beginning to change America’s story and each person willing to tell their cultural rhythms on their own.

For this one Japanese-Jewish woman who always thought she was strange; even once given the title of “Shikseh Princess” at a Bar Mitzvah by some nice Jewish boys, my story has now changed for the better and interestingly enough, still interesting all the same.

Finally I can stop commiserating with Woody Allen when he said, “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” Except those rare moments when I begin to doubt the integrity and veracity of my own personal story that is just as valuable as anyone else’s.

In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote, “This is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think; write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door.”

The doors for us all now open with greater ease and determination, and the answers and questions we hear on the other sides of each door are purely reflective of a nation that is now more unified in its diversity, and more open to discussion, depth, profundity and inclusion.

Originally published here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/francesca-…

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 http://bechollashon.org/resources/newsle…

Judge Sotomayor, a mythic ‘Hispanic’

The supposedly racial term was pushed by Nixon to lump distinct Spanish-speaking groups into one voting bloc. There’s no such thing, and the judge should be appointed on her merits.

By Jonathan Zimmerman
LA Times
Published: June 12, 2009

Here’s a good argument for putting Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court: She’s knowledgeable, respected and deeply experienced. As a federal judge for nearly two decades, she’s heard thousands of cases and written hundreds of opinions.

And here’s a lousy argument for confirming Sotomayor: She would be the first “Hispanic” on the court.

I put the term in quotation marks because it’s a recent invention, dating to the 1970s and ’80s. Before then, when Sotomayor was growing up with her Puerto Rican family in New York City, she was not Hispanic.

And words make a difference. As many commentators have reminded us since President Obama nominated Sotomayor, judges are inevitably shaped by their life experiences. But these experiences are themselves shaped — and, sometimes, distorted — by the terms that we use to describe them.

How did Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, Panamanians, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans all become Hispanic?

Amid the African American civil rights struggle of the 1960s, many of these groups joined hands to demand voting rights, bilingual education and social services. Here they received a big assist from an unlikely source: Richard Nixon. Eager to bring Mexicans and other Latino immigrants into the Republican fold, Nixon also saw them as a potential bulwark against black political aspirations.

“All Spanish-speaking Americans share certain characteristics — a strong family structure, deep ties to the church, which makes them open to an appeal from us,” wrote one GOP campaign strategist on the eve of Nixon’s 1972 presidential reelection bid. “The Democratic Party is under suspicion for favoring politically potent blacks at the expense of the needs of Spanish-speaking people.”

So Nixon threw his weight behind bilingual education, which has since become a bête noire for the GOP. He also ordered the Census Bureau to add a query on its 1970 form asking whether respondents were “Hispanic,” hoping to further solidify this new voting bloc.

Census Bureau officials balked, noting — correctly — that the term lacked scientific and historical precision. They also worried that respondents wouldn’t recognize it. So the most commonly used census form in 1970 asked respondents if they were of “Spanish” origin, not whether they were Hispanic.

All that would change in 1977, when the Office of Management and Budget instructed federal agencies to classify Americans as one of four races — white, black, American Indian/Alaskan Native or Asian/Pacific Islander — and also to distinguish between two ethnic categories, “of Hispanic origin” and “not of Hispanic origin.” Since then, the census has asked people their race and whether they’re Hispanic, which is not listed as a “race” per se.

Increasingly, however, Americans thought of it as such. Government agencies used “Hispanic” alongside “Asian” and “black,” making Hispanic into a de facto racial category. Businesses and educational institutions counted Hispanics — or, sometimes, “Latinos” — as a race in diversity and affirmative action reports.

Not surprisingly, then, Hispanics became more likely over time to identify themselves as a separate race too. In the mid-1990s, 60% of the respondents to a study of more than 5,000 Latin American immigrants self-identified as “white,” for example, but only 20% of their children did so.

That’s an unprecedented development, as the United States had continuously absorbed people formerly identified in the census as from nonwhite races into the white majority. Jews, Italians and Slavs were all once classified as separate races; now, they’re white. But Hispanics are moving in the opposite direction — from white to nonwhite. In our minds, at least, they’ve become a minority race.

The language of race is a unifying one, blinding us to the irreducible diversity that a single category can contain. Consider Sotomayor’s now infamous comment that a “wise Latina woman” would render a better judicial decision than a white male. While GOP antagonists accused Sotomayor of reverse racism and Democrats rushed to her defense, nobody pointed out that wise Latina women come in all shapes, sizes and ideologies. Would a wise Cuban woman in South Florida see eye-to-eye with a wise Mexican woman in San Diego, or with a wise Salvadoran woman in Washington, D.C.? Probably not.

Even worse, the idea of race tricks us into seeing “Hispanic” as a biological category rather than a cultural one. I frequently do an exercise with my students, asking them how a scientist would identify their race. The most common reply is also the most troubling one: via a blood test. In fact, that would tell you the opposite: We all come from the same ancestor, in East Africa, and we’re all mongrels. The blood test does not identify your “race,” which primarily exists only in our minds.

As a child, Sotomayor was probably classified as white; now she’s Hispanic. But her DNA is the same. The only thing that has changed is the way we look at her. Belying every shard of evidence, we continue to believe that races are different under the skin.

So let’s hope that the Senate confirms Sotomayor, one of the most qualified nominees in the history of the Supreme Court. Then let’s welcome her as the first person of Puerto Rican descent on the court, not as the first “Hispanic.”

If you think the words don’t matter, you haven’t been listening.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University and is the author of the just-published “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”

Originally published here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-o…

Musicians from Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Norway, and the United States, joined together to promote Middle East peace.

Itamar Eichner in Yedioth Ahronoth, June 29, 2009.

 http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/blog/mu…

In a pastoral farm near Oslo, capital of Norway-far from the eyes of the media-a group of Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian musicians gathered this past week, and tried to make music together for the sake of peace.

Behind this initiative stands a Norwegian peace activist.  He invited musicians from the region for a joint 10-day workshop.  Participants from Israel included Kobi Oz, Aya Korem, Ohad Hitman and Mika Sadeh.

Three musicians came from the Palestinian Authority, and four arrived from Jordan.  They were joined by Norwegian and American musicians.

For 10 days, the musicians wrote songs together.  The Israelis learned to sing in Arabic, the Palestinians and Jordanians learned to sing in Hebrew.  They are slated to present the result on Saturday night [June 27] in a concert to be held in Oslo with the participation of about 1,000 people.

“Peace in the Middle East is important to us, and we think that musicians in the region have a great responsibility to promote peace.  After all, young people listen much more to musicians than to politicians,” he added.

For background, see article

1. EUROPE: Decolonising the Arctic
2. Nearly independent day 
3. Greenland gives Denmark the cold shoulder. But would it ever be viable as a country?
4. Jun 20th 2009 Web only
6. BRITAIN: Tax havens under pressure
7. Whiter than white 
8. Britain’s offshore financial centres race for respectability
9. Jun 18th 2009

Climate change divides the Alps down the middle
Global warming is already causing flooding in the north and water shortages in south, report says

The dramatic effect of climate change on the Alps comes into focus as never before this week with the publication of a major report which reveals that the mountain range is rapidly dividing into two contrasting climatic zones, each posing new problems.

By Michael Day in Milan
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Michael McCarthy: Don’t be fooled by this winter’s powder. The Alpine snow line is already in retreat
The Convention on the Protection of the Alps is a statutory EU body set up in 1991 and its magisterial second report, published tomorrow, which has been seen by The Independent, reveals that the northern ranges of the Alps are suffering ever more serious flooding while the parched southern mountains see less and less snow.

According to the report, precipitation in the south-east of the region has fallen nearly 10 per cent in the past 100 years while rain and snowfall in the north-west ranges has increased by the same amount over this time.

“Predictions that the European climate is dividing into two are becoming all too real,” said Marco Onida, secretary general of the Convention, who will present the report at the organisation’s headquarters in Bolzano, Italy, tomorrow, in the presence of EU officials and national representatives. “The result will be havoc for the Alps and the communities and wildlife that rely on area.”

Changing patterns of rain and snowfall, shrinking glaciers and rising temperatures will affect not only the mountains but also the communities which rely on their resources, the report warns. Already some Alpine villages in the north of the range face flooding, while areas further south are seeing tourist and other trades increasingly threatened. Some areas have already suffered water shortages.

The Alps’ most famous high peaks, Mont Blanc, The Matterhorn and Monte Rosa mark part of the dividing line between the increasingly wet north of the region and Italy and Slovenia in the dryer south.

North of the dividing line, flooding and mud slides are becoming a common threat in some Alpine communities. In the south, some of the Europe’s most celebrated Alpine beauty spots, including Italy’s Dolomites are under threat, although some micro-climates mean the dividing line does not following a rigid north-south line.

As a result of these changes, only one Alpine river – Italy’s 178-mile-long Tagliamento in the north-east of the country – has not suffered drastic modifications, the reports says. And even the Tagliamento may not be safe: the wildlife charity WWF has warned that even this, the Alps’ last river system, is threatened by water abstraction in the upper Tagliamento valley, organic pollution, and gravel exploitation.

The situation across the Alps is made worse, the Convention report says, by the increasing demand for artificial snow created during the winter months by snow machines working on the ski slopes. This is needed to sustain the winter sports industry which is an economic mainstay of the slopes, but places a further heavy burden on water and energy supplies which are already under great stress.

“The Alps are the water tower of Europe,” Dr Onida told The Independent, “But increasingly much of the water is not reaching the places downstream where it is needed, for ecosystems, agriculture and energy production.”

Around 16 million people in eight countries, from France in the west to Hungary in the east, live in the arc of Europe’s biggest mountain range. Rain and snow from its mountains provide the Danube, Rhine, Rhone and Po rivers with up to 80 per cent of their water.

Representatives from all eight Alpine countries – France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein, Slovenia and Hungary – together with the European Union – signed up to the Alpine Convention in 1991.

The report warns not only that the destruction of the Alps is accelerating, but that disruption to water supplies will be felt much further afield than originally thought.

Glacier shrinkage earlier this year led the Italian and Swiss governments to propose the first changes in the border line between the two countries in more than a century.

Dr Onida said there was “a battle between agriculture and tourism for control over water supplies” owing to the increasingly intensive exploitation of the slopes.

Climate change is also driving Alpine species further up the mountains while exotic species including palms get a foothold lower down.

The Carbon Footprint of Nations: Wealth and Responsibility.

High wealth implies high emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, a new analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a nation’s consumption shows. In the paper ”Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global Trade-Linked Analysis”, Edgar Hertwich and Glen Peters investigate the carbon footprint for food, shelter, clothing, construction, mobility, the consumption of manufactured goods, services, and trade across 73 nations and 14 aggregate regions. The paper has been released by Environmental Science & Technology , the top-ranked environmental science journal published by the American Chemical Society, on 15 June 2009.

1. The paper presents the first carbon footprint analysis of the most important economies of the world accounting for greenhouse gas emissions caused by the production of internationally traded goods. A nation is made responsible for the carbon footprint of its imports, but not for its exports. The base year is 2001.

2. The analysis shows that the highest carbon footprint occurs in rich countries in Europe (Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands), North America (the U.S. and Canada) and Asia-Pacific (e.g., Australia). The carbon footprints of most of these countries are higher than the territorial emissions because the carbon footprint of imports is larger than that of exports.

3. There is a strong dependence of CO2 emissions on wealth. With a doubling of per-capita expenditure, the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial processes increase by 81%. The emissions of other greenhouse gases, primarily methane and nitrous oxides, increases less strongly with wealth - only 32%, because they are mostly associated with food production.

4. The paper shows that the greenhouse gas emissions associated with mobility and manufactured goods increase most strongly with increasing wealth. With continued economic growth, mitigation measures directed at these areas of demand will become more important.

5. Food production is the most important cause of greenhouse gas emissions in poor countries, followed by household energy use - mostly for food preparation, hot water and heating.

6. Only extremely few, poor countries such as Bangladesh, Malawi and Mozambique have carbon footprints near the 1 ton per capita required for all nations by 2050 in order to limit global warming to 2oC. For most countries, the carbon footprint of food alone is around 1 ton per capita.

7. National-level results, including the importance of consumption categories and the carbon footprints of imports and exports can be found at www.carbonfootprintofnations.com

The Journal paper can be found at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es80…. Those of who do not have subscription access, a limited number of free preprints can be accessed here
 http://pubs.acs.org/articlesonrequest/AO…

Dr. Edgar Hertwich is Professor of Energy and Process Engineering and Director of the Industrial Ecology Programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. He is currently a Visiting Professor at ETH Zürich. Dr. Glen Peters is a Senior Scientist at the Centre of International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo (CICERO).
Edgar HERTWICH, PhD
Director, Industrial Ecology Programme
Professor, Department of Energy and Process Engineering
Norwegian University of Science & Technology

Visiting Professor, ETH Zurich(until July 2009)
Institute of Environmental Engineering
www.ntnu.no/indecol

The issue is really not the backing of Moussavi - it is the fact that the young want to be part of the world and know that the 21st century has things to offer them that their country’s leadership tries to take away from them. They really want freedom and if given the chance could provide for Iran the needed new leadership.

Earlier Monday, Ayatollah Khamenei stepped in to try to calm a growing backlash, forcing him into a public role he generally seeks to avoid as the country’s top religious authority. Under Iran’s dual system of government, with civil and religious institutions, the supreme leader can usually operate in the shadows while elected officials serve as the public face of governance and policy.

He called for the Guardian Council to conduct an inquiry into the opposition’s claims that the election was rigged and then had that announcement repeated every 15 minutes on Iranian state radio throughout the day. It was a rare reversal.

On Sunday he met with Mr. Moussavi, a moderate, to listen to his concerns. And on Monday, he promised the inquiry into the results.

Nevertheless, his announcement could not calm the anger of the people. There was so much distrust that some people said they believed the leader was just trying to buy time and to calm the crowds, rather than attempting to really investigate the outcome.

“These people are not seeking a revolution,” said Ali Reza, a young actor in a brown T-shirt who stood for a moment watching on the rally’s sidelines. “We don’t want this regime to fall. We want our votes to be counted, because we want reforms, we want kindness, we want friendship with the world.”

Mr. Moussavi, who had called for the rally on Sunday but never received official permission for it, joined the crowd, as did Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former president. But the crowd was so vast, and communications had been so sporadic — the authorities have cut off phone and text-messaging services repeatedly in recent days — that many marchers seemed unaware they were there.

“We don’t really have a leader,” said Mahdiye, a 20-year-old student, who like many protesters declined to give a last name because of fears of repercussions. “Moussavi wants to do something, but they won’t let him. It is dangerous for him, and we don’t want to lose him. We don’t know how far this will go” - report the New York Times correspondents.

It was too soon to tell whether Ayatollah Khamenei’s decision to launch an inquiry, or the government’s decision to let the silent rally proceed, would change the election results. Many in the crowd said they believed that officials expected the protests to dissipate, as smaller protest movements did in 1999 and 2003.

“People feel really insulted, and nothing is worse than that,” said Azi, a 48-year-old woman in a yellow headscarf who participated in the massive rally on Monday. “We won’t let the regime buy time, we will hold another march tomorrow.”

At nightfall, large numbers of people in Tehran took to their roofs for a second night, chanting “God is great!” and “Death to the dictator!” in neighborhoods across the city. The Associated Press, quoting residents, also reported that shooting was also heard in three districts of wealthy northern Tehran.

In Moscow, meanwhile, an official at the Iranian Embassy said that Mr. Ahmadinejad had delayed a visit to Russia that was to have started Monday. The meeting, in Yekaterinburg, is of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia, China and four Central Asian countries. Reuters reported that he arrived on Tuesday.

————

Democracy could still win in Iran.
By Gideon Rachman
The Financial Times, June 15 2009.

Thirty years after the Iranian revolution, could we be witnessing an Iranian counter-revolution? In the short term, events in Iran are depressing and alarming – a stolen election, violence in the streets, repression. In the long term, the weekend has provided heartening evidence that Iran, and the Middle East in general, need not be immune to the great wave of democratisation that has swept the world since the late 1970s.

Of course, there are those who think that – despite the turmoil in Tehran – President Mahmoud Ahamdi-Nejad may actually have won the election. Their line of argument is that western journalists and middle-class Iranians have been deceived by focusing too much on opinion in the capital city and amongst the educated elite. Iran might be like Thailand – a country that has recently been through political turmoil because the urban middle-classes are regularly out-voted by the rural poor.

These arguments are unconvincing. The Iranian election bears all the hallmarks of a stolen vote. The official count has Mr Ahmadi-Nejad winning even in the home town of Mir-Hossein Moussavi, his main challenger. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad is said to have won even in Azeri-speaking constituencies, despite the fact that Mr Moussavi comes from an Azeri background. The official tally gave Mr Ahmadi-Nejad 63 per cent of the vote, which is way out of line with most pre-election predictions. The Iranian regime has reacted to popular protests with all the instincts of a dictatorship – beating up protesters, locking up opponents, shutting down text messaging services and internet sites.

In retrospect, the Iranian revolution of 1979 replaced one despotic regime with another – and so cut the country off from the democratising forces that were just beginning to make themselves felt throughout much of the rest of the world.

 It used to be said that Iran was a rare example of a semi-democracy in the Middle East. But the weekend elections have ripped away the country’s democratic veil.

In recent years, the global democratic revolution has threatened to run out of steam. Russia has slipped backwards towards authoritarianism and China has made the case for a new form of enlightened one-party rule. The chaos that followed the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan has threatened to discredit the whole case for democratisation.

Some conservative realists have argued that it is, in any case, a mistake to promote democracy in the Middle East, since Islamists are liable to win power and impose illiberal regimes. The joke has been that it would be “one man, one vote, one time”. The best response to this has always been that Islamism is only likely to lose its popular allure when Muslim fundamentalists are allowed to govern – and prove themselves to be incompetent, oppressive and corrupt.

That cycle is now playing itself out in Iran. Even if Mr Ahmadi-Nejad and his cohorts succeed in clinging on to power, their claim to represent a popular Islamic revolution is now in shreds.

***

In the meantime, how should the outside world react to Iran’s stolen election? The Obama administration has already been criticised for what some conservatives regard as an excessively mild and cautious response to events in Iran.

But heavy-handed intervention by the west would be mistaken at this stage. The Iranian regime has three possible sources of domestic legitimacy: popular support, economic success or an external threat. The economy is doing badly and the stolen election has wrecked the idea that this is a government that rests on a broad popular mandate.

That leaves the possibility that the regime will use the bogeyman of foreign intervention to rally patriotic support and to crack down even harder on the opposition. There is a history of western meddling in Iranian politics – for example the US-backed coup of 1953, acknowledged by President Barack Obama in his recent speech in Cairo. So an appeal by the regime to rally all patriotic Iranians against foreign intervention might resonate.

The crucial lesson of the long wave of democratisation that has rolled round the world since 1979 is that democratic revolutions ultimately succeed for almost entirely domestic reasons. Occasionally, outsiders can influence events. The Russian decision not to intervene in 1989 was obviously crucial to the success of the democratic revolutions in central Europe. America’s decision to spirit away Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 clinched the “people power” revolution in the Philippines.

But these were client regimes. In most cases, democratic revolutions have been driven overwhelmingly by “people power” at home – usually followed by a loss of nerve or cracks in the ruling regime. This might yet happen in Iran.

It is still possible that the country will have a successful “Green” revolution to match the Orange and Rose revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia. But the sad truth is that all the outside world can do, for the moment, is offer rhetorical support for Iranian democrats, watch, wait and hope.

 gideon.rachman at ft.com

June 14, 2009 - the Puerto Ricans in New York had a proud parade, in Iran we saw the Ahmedi-Nejad goons, and at the Bar Ilan University Netanyahu did hide under a capota. This in a day’s TV harvest.

Sunday, June 14, 2009 was a day of pride to Puerto Ricans who paraded in New York after the fact that one of their ladies of the people was nominated to the Supreme Court of the USA, but it was also a day of some tension to the rest of us who were watching a potential Ahmedi-Nejad and Netanyahu media fight. Now that was a total fizzle - Ahmedi-Nejad was the victor hands down. He shrugged off the whole world while Nethanyahu managed to hide under the Bar Ilan “capota.”

We watched on CNN the full Iran program that was there for the whole world to see - Iran’s Ahmedi-Nejad with all his wisdom and warts. Whatever he may be - we do not forget that he has a capable nation behind him and they know now how to tie together an atom bomb. We also saw that their young people are restless, and want more say in the way their country is run. The Supreme Leader has hand picked four competitors to become Prime Minister - so we know that there is indeed no great difference between them. Some TV pundit in the US said today that they range in US terms from Duke to Dole. So, no great importance in practical turns for who wins.

But that was not the issue. What we saw is that the young generation preferred a new generation of the Revolution, even though embodied by someone that he himself had previously worked with the leaders of the Revolution - that was the Moussavi candidacy. They preferred him over the first generation of the Revolution, that is represented by the people who surround Ahmedi-Nejad, even though he himself was previously only the Mayor of Tehran. Why that preference? Simply - that would have meant change - at least some change - even if that change is still within the system. Not having been granted this minimal change, the day is near that they will want real change, and this may be good for the world or who knows if this is the case indeed?

Moussavi campaigned with his wife at his side, this was a novelty - a la Obama or Clinton - and the women came to vote for him because of her. With half of the population women, the declared 85% that voted, so 40% should have been just the part of the female voters in the Moussavi bag - but Ahmedi-Nejad’s police gave a final reading to the  Abadgaran candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi 13,216,411 votes or 33.75% and to Independent Reformist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 24,527,516 votes or 62.63%.

This just does not seem right - further, the Iranian officials knew to release the results already after 2 hours from the end of the election - as they said after having counted just one fifth of the votes - and you know what? They seemed to have hit quite close with the suggested 2/3 for Ahmedi-Nejad and 1/3 for Moussavi - a 2:1 win that did not seemingly take in consideration areas were Moussavi had a clear advantage - like in his home town in the Azeri part of Iran. According to the official figures he lost even there - and at the same split? Does not seem right. In short - it was there for the whole world to see that the governing Iranian machine cheated all the way!  So, not enough that the Iranian economy is in shambles, and the standing of Iran in the world is in the pits - now Iran will have on its hands a younger generation that has seen that it was had by the religious leaders. Is internal unrest in a faltering Iran, that plays at the big nuclear casino table, to anyone’s interest?

Now I turned the TV monitor to this morning’s press conference in Tehran. And what did we see? A one man cross between Hitler and Goebels trying to smile his way in the face of the world - and talk to the nitwits that mistake life for a game of soccer.

We saw an imaginary two line of questions - the one line from what he called the Press, that were the government paid folks of Iran - giving him their congratulations, one even his adoration, then throwing a soft-ball - the other line of people with questions - what he called the “Private Media” that was the International Press were The Independent, The Economist, and Our Christiane Amanpour of CNN, did shine like the sun. This second group had real questions and Ms. Amanpour, herself born in iran, simply did not let him get away with the movement of the feather boa - she should get the good journalist of the year award or something like it. The questions came in alternating sequence - one from an iranian official press person and one from the “Private” people - privates like in BBC.

The Iranians also watched that program - not just the outside world - and they know for sure that the world is ready to point a finger, but it is now for them to clench their fists. So, where does this take us when we realize that Iran has enough baton swirling goons, in civil close, to enhance any fighting force sanctioned by the Ayatollahs, in Iran and outside?

—————-

After I saw the above, and watched the Puerto Ricans, I waited to open at 1PM the website that advertised a video where I could see the Nethanyahu long awaited answer to the Obama Cairo University speech to the Muslim World.
We have written about this new speech, its location at the religious Bar Ilan University, wondered why there and speculated what he will say. We understood his dilemmas and wished him well.

Well? We know he is US educated, speaks a good English and expected him to speak in English to the world. We knew he is under pressure and needs friends that need arguments - why he will or will not accept the advice that President Obama was giving him.

We knew that Mr. Netanyahu was looking eastwards to Iran, and having watched Ahmedi-Nejad we thought that this super-goon gave him now material to be able to avoid giving straight answers to Obama. We did not like this because we think that Israel and the World should take advantage of the Obama interest to push the various Middle East fractions to some sort of an understanding that could actually benefit them all. We have our collection of papers on the subject and I will mention here the Jacob Stein article in The Jewish Sentinel (New York) of June 16-22, 2006 - “Israel at 58 - Time for Borders and Sovereignty.” Now Israel is 62 and there are no borders yet and as such - indeed - what is the meaning of “Sovereignty?” If you have no borders you are by definition in a continuous state of war - is it not so?

We loved President Obama’s recognition of the fact that the US was responsible for the start of the Iranian disaster - back then when the US CIA removed the Mosadegh government. We know that President Obama understands that previous US Presidents imposed addiction to cheap Mideast oil upon the US economy - this is something like what the British did when they brought cocaine addiction to China. OK - I know that some will cringe at reading this - but then this is what the Middle East had to live with for more then the second half of last century. We believe President Obama wants to move away from oil, and could work with the local governments to help them develop alternatives to their own addiction to the oil money. He promised that the US will get out of Iraq and its oil wells and pockets. Israel has here a tremendous potential scientifically - and potential political interest. would Netanyahu pick up something here and put in his speech? Look - Iran and his nuclear programs are oil based, and its economy is broken - now its Prime Minister, forget his obsession with the Holocaust, but he personally showed on TV the real goon he is. Will Netanyahu pull out some honey from this bee-hive for his speech?

Also, today’s New York Times had the Clifford J. Levy article written in Moscow - “Mideast in Flux - An Israeli Cozies Up To Moscow” that tells about Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a previously Soviet citizen, who is now a friendly guest in Putin’s court. Russia has serious interests in Iran, it cannot be bypassed in the whole rest of the region east of Suez either - can Nethanyahu take an initiative, with Lieberman’s help, of enlarging on the US-Israel-Iran triangle by suggesting how the Russians who want to become accepted suppliers of arms to a Palestinian government, could be pulled in to his larger concept of regional peace? Was Netanyahu going to provide some new ideas for international consideration?

So what does Netanyahu do instead? He decides to speak in Hebrew from the pulpit of the modest size hall at the BESA Center. TV coverage - zilch! Don’t worry, Obama has his own translators - the one that I heard, on the two minutes that FOX allowed his voice, was not so hot. But then, if I were Obama, I would just have the third secretary of the US Embassy fax in his printed release from the official Israeli Ministry of Information - or whatever this is called in Israel. The content of the speech was anyway sent to him beforehand, and the real target of that speech was not the US and was not the World - Islamic or not - but right there the right wing members of the Netanyahu governing coalition - the choir in the room that had to be kept in line so they do not rebel.

The following website, advertised by Israeli sources, which we also posted on our web - did not work -  http://www.biu.ac.il/live/
and let me state flatly here that I did not take kind to having been mislead and having thus mislead others. When I write these lines after 7 PM New York Times, that is full five hours after the speech, there is no video released yet to the internet from that speech.

Fox News, that is their Channel #44 in Manhattan, said that they will show the speech when it starts. The speech was delayed and started 5 minutes late but their whole coverage amounted to less then 5 minutes - first by cutting out after two minutes what Mr. Netanyahu was saying and replacing it with their own pundits’ words, then they also cut off the picture altogether. We decided that they really did not feel it important enough to let the translation lose valuable commercial TV time. Nevertheless, the few minutes were enough to show the “wild west” atmosphere in the room - I must have seen some of those that represented the settlers in the shown frames.

The regular FOX channel - #5 - had a completely different program

CNN is not represented in Israel for over a year, this because of disagreements on the way they covered the last two wars, so the 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM time slot that belongs to the excellent Farid Zakaria GPS program, and that is repeated anyway 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM was untouched - there was a lot about Iran and the Middle East - very good material - but about Netanyahu all they said was that he will speak that day and answer President Obama’s speech in Cairo.

Two Jewish programs went on that time - on channel #51 and on channel #67 - but they did not consider seemingly replacing those programs with Mr. Netanyahu’s presentation.

I was thus left without contact to the speech until information started to trickle in.

from: CNN Breaking News <BreakingNews@mail.cnn.com>

 textbreakingnews at ema3lsv06.turner.com

Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 1:47 PM

——- Israeli prime minister says Israel would agree to a peace agreement with a “demilitarized Palestinian state.”

and then the first real information we got was from the Jewish www.sanfranciscosentinel.com and it amounts (after reorganization) to:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his address by saying that he had formed his new government earlier this year with three major challenges facing Israel: the economic crisis, the Iranian threat, and the Middle East peace process.

He stressed that the greatest threat to the world today was the link between Islamist extremism and nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu, who until now had not endorsed U.S. President Barack Obama’s goal of Palestinian statehood, used this policy speech as an opportunity to reverse course and try to narrow a rare rift between Israel and its closest ally.

The address at Bar Ilan was much anticipated in the wake of the Obama administration’s insistence that Israel impose a complete freeze on settlement construction and recognize the two-state solution.

During the speech, Netanyahu vowed that Israel would not build any new settlements and would refrain from expanding existing Israeli communities in the West Bank. Still, he said the government must be allowed to accommodate natural growth in these settlements. Netanyahu has until now been adamant that a settlement freeze is unfeasible and that he would concentrate on strengthening the Palestinian economy, rather than agreeing to their statehood.

The Prime Minister called on Palestinian leaders to restart Middle East peace negotiations without preconditions: “I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority - Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions,” he said. “Israel is committed to international agreements and expects all the other parties to fulfill their obligations as well.”

In an apparent reversal of Israeli policy, Netanyahu also declared that he was prepared to see the creation of a Palestinian state, so long as the international community can guarantee that it not have any military capabilities. Israel cannot agree to a Palestinian state unless it gets guarantees it is demilitarized,” Netanyahu said. He also said that Jerusalem must remain the unified capital of Israel.

The prime minister said he was prepared to meet with the leaders of neighboring Arab countries at any time, to promote regional peace and to gain their contribution to the Palestinian economy.

Netanyahu reiterated that Israel has no desire to control the Palestinian people, and declared that both nations should be able to live side by side in peace.

“We want both Israeli and Palestinian children to live without war,” Netanyahu said, but added: “We must ask ourselves - why has peace not yet arrived after 60 years?”

Israel would not accept any situation in which it was forced to exist beside a terrorist state. Every withdrawal from settlement territories would contribute to such terror, said Netanyahu.

The prime minister also said that Palestinians must accept Israel as a Jewish state, and cited the root of the regional conflict to “even moderate” Palestinian elements’ refusal to do so.

“When Palestinians are ready to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, we will be ready for a true final settlement,” the prime minister said.

He emphasized that the Jewish people have been linked to the land of Israel for over 3,000 years and ruled out the option of granting Palestinians refugees the right to settle within Israeli borders.

Netanyahu said that Israel would not negotiate with terrorist who wish to destroy it, and said that Palestinians must choose between path of peace and Hamas.

——————-

If we use already material from the San Francisco Sentinel - then let me also include their pre-speech info that came from Jerusalem and remember please that this was before the Ahmedi-Nejad press conference but after the results of the elections in Iran gave already been announced by the Ahmedi-Nejad machine:

from HOWARD SCHNEIDER   http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=3…

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivers a major foreign policy address Sunday, the setting will be part of the message: He will speak at Bar-Ilan University, which was founded in 1955 to unite secular learning with religious Zionism. Advisers to Netanyahu and Israeli political analysts say the speech will be a response to President Obama’s address to Muslims this month at Cairo University. Netanyahu, they say, wants to inject a Zionist “narrative” into a discussion that he believes was tilted in Obama’s speech toward the Arab version of events.

While Netanyahu’s remarks are expected to range across issues, including Obama’s demand for a freeze on Jewish settlements and the U.S. president’s call for the establishment of a Palestinian state, they will center on Netanyahu’s assertion that Arabs must recognize Israel as a state for the peace process to succeed.

The point is not a condition for the start of peace talks with the Palestinians or other Arab nations, Netanyahu’s advisers have said. But just as Israel is being asked to acknowledge the Palestinian identity of a neighboring country under the “two-state solution” advocated by Obama and European leaders, Netanyahu believes that an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict requires a similar acknowledgment from the other side, they say.

“They need to cross the Rubicon of a Jewish state,” said a Netanyahu adviser involved in preparing the speech. “That will be necessary for an agreement, because then you know the conflict is over.”

The run-up to Netanyahu’s speech has been dominated by debate in the media and in political circles about how he will address Obama’s call for a settlement freeze and whether he will endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu and his governing coalition oppose both ideas, and they say that security concerns still make creation of a Palestinian state and a withdrawal from the West Bank too risky. That argument is likely to be bolstered by the reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose support of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and pursuit of nuclear technology are considered among Israel’s chief threats.

——————

Then arrived The Washington Post with an exotic picture sub-noted: An Ultra Orthodox Jewish man walks past posters,  hung by an extremist right wing group,  depicting US President Barack Obama wearing a traditional Arab headdress,  in Jerusalem,  Sunday,  June 14,  2009. Senior aides say they don’t expect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to explicitly endorse Palestinian statehood when he delivers an anxiously awaited policy speech Sunday night,  a stance that would preserve an uncomfortable impasse with the United States. T (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner), (Sebastian Scheiner - AP)

Netanyahu accepts limited Palestinian state.

The Associated Press, Sunday, June 14, 2009; 2:38 PM

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday called for creation of a limited Palestinian state for the first time, saying it would have to be disarmed.

Netanyahu made the call during a major policy speech about his Mideast peacemaking intentions.

“In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel,” he said.

“If we get this guarantee for demilitarization and necessary security arrangements for Israel, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be willing in a real peace agreement to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state,” he said.

Up to now Netanyahu has resisted endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a Mideast peace settlement, drawing intense pressure from the administration of President Barack Obama.

Netanyahu also said the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and he declared that the solution of the Palestinian refugee problem must be “outside Israel.”

Palestinians claim that refugees from the 1948-49 war that followed Israel’s creation and their millions of descendants have the right to reclaim their original homes.

“I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions,” he said. “Israel is committed to international agreements and expects all the other parties to fulfill their obligations as well.”

Netanyahu also called for Arab leaders to meet him and contribute to Palestinian economic development.

——————-

eventually, the Israeli HAARETZ came up with the full talk
Last update - 23:41 14/06/2009

I picked up for direct posting two excerpts from the text of Netanyahu’s foreign policy speech at Bar Ilan
as released at 23:41 Israel time  - 7:00 or 4:41 PM New York Time.

for the full article please see:  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1092…

Whoever thinks that the continued hostility to Israel is a result of our forces in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is confusing cause and effect. The attacks on us began in the 1920s, became an overall attack in 1948 when the state was declared, continued in the 1950s with the fedaayyin attacks, and reached their climax in 1967 on the eve of the Six-Day War, with the attempt to strangle Israel. All this happened nearly 50 years before a single Israeli soldier went into Judea and Samaria.

To our joy, Egypt and Jordan left this circle of hostility. They signed peace agreements with us which ended their hostility to Israel. It brought about peace.

To our deep regret, this is not happening with the Palestinians. The closer we get to a peace agreement with them, the more they are distancing themselves from peace. They raise new demands. They are not showing us that they want to end the conflict.

A great many people are telling us that withdrawal is the key to peace with the Palestinians. But the fact is that all our withdrawals were met by huge waves of suicide bombers.

We tried withdrawal by agreement, withdrawal without an agreement, we tried partial withdrawal and full withdrawal. In 2000, and once again last year, the government of Israel, based on good will, tried a nearly complete withdrawal, in exchange for the end of the conflict, and were twice refused.

We withdrew from the Gaza Strip to the last centimeter, we uprooted dozens of settlements and turned thousands of Israelis out of their homes. In exchange, what we received were missiles raining down on our cities, our towns and our children. The argument that withdrawal would bring peace closer did not stand up to the test of reality.

With Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north, they keep on saying that they want to ‘liberate’ Ashkelon in the south and Haifa and Tiberias.
Even the moderates among the Palestinians are not ready to say the most simplest things: The State of Israel is the national homeland of the Jewish People and will remain so. (Applause)

———

The connection of the Jewish People to the Land has been in existence for more than 3,500 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked, our forefathers David, Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah ? this is not a foreign land, this is the Land of our Forefathers. (Applause)

The right of the Jewish People to a state in the Land of Israel does not arise from the series of disasters that befell the Jewish People over 2,000 years — persecutions, expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, murders, which reached its climax in the Holocaust, an unprecedented tragedy in the history of nations. There are those who say that without the Holocaust the State would not have been established, but I say that if the State of Israel had been established in time, the Holocaust would not have taken place. (Applause) The tragedies that arose from the Jewish People?s helplessness show very sharply that we need a protective state.
The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People. (Applause)

As the first PM David Ben Gurion in the declaration of the State, the State of Israel was established here in Eretz Israel, where the People of Israel created the Book of Books, and gave it to the world.

But, friends, we must state the whole truth here. The truth is that in the area of our homeland, in the heart of our Jewish Homeland, now lives a large population of Palestinians. We do not want to rule over them. We do not want to run their lives. We do not want to force our flag and our culture on them. In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbor?s security and existence.

These two facts ? our link to the Land of Israel, and the Palestinian population who live here, have created deep disagreements within Israeli society. But the truth is that we have much more unity than disagreement.

I came here tonight to talk about the agreement and security that are broad consensus within Israeli society. This is what guides our policy. This policy must take into account the international situation. We have to recognize international agreements but also principles important to the State of Israel. I spoke tonight about the first principle - recognition. Palestinians must truly recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is demilitarization. Any area in Palestinian hands has to be demilitarization, with solid security measures. Without this condition, there is a real fear that there will be an armed Palestinian state which will become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza. We do not want missiles on Petah Tikva, or Grads on the Ben-Gurion international airport. We want peace. (Applause)
And, to ensure peace we don?t want them to bring in missiles or rockets or have an army, or control of airspace, or make treaties with countries like Iran, or Hizbullah. There is broad agreement on this in Israel. We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarized. This is crucial to the existence of Israel ? we must provide for our security needs.

—————

To summarize - Israel lost a tremendous opportunity to publicize its cause - right there on the day that Ahmedi-Nejad showed up in his nakedness, but Israel blew it.

Our question to Nethanyahu is - Why talk to one wing of the Israeli government when you can get the whole world to listen to you. Why talk in Hebrew from the jewish religious Bar Ilan University small hall, when you could actually have spoken from some historic hall of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem - the University that was built as part of the reconstruction of Jewish sovereignty in its homeland - and speak in your good English so the world does understand what you are saying?

Yes, we know that Bar Ilan University is home of the Begin-Sadat Center for Peace, but The Hebrew University has The Truman Institute on its campus that has done much to bring Israel closer to Africa and other developing regions in the world. Why talk about Jerusalem from Ramat Gan and not from the real place were your justification of your States existence comes from?

Then, why not take advantage of what goes on in Iran of today. Would not - right now - just with the young people in Tehran in upheaval - be in place to remind the young Iranians of Cyrus and the days the Jews and the Persians actually did have good relations - that the Jews are part of the history of the region - and that Ahmedi-Nejad’s diatribes are total rubbish?

Seemingly Israel has to get greater internal consensus, to include its intellectuals, and in addition to the useless 30 Ministries that were established by the ruling coalition - establish also a Ministry for Future Generations to serve as Think Tank and Ministry of Intelligent Information to the outside world.

————————————————————————————————–

UPDATED with SAN FRANCISCO SENTINEL
MONDAY MORNING EDITION
June 15 2009

EGYPT SAYS NO ARAB COUNTRY WOULD ACCEPT NETANYAHU APPROACH:
Hosni Mubarak  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak blasted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech
on Sunday saying “Netanyahu’s demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish
state is ruining the chance for peace,” Egyptian news agencies reported on Monday.
Mubarak further added that “not Egypt, nor any other Arab country would support
Netanyahu’s approach.”
Continue Reading:  EGYPT SAYS NO ARAB COUNTRY WOULD ACCEPT NETANYAHU APPROACH  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]

PALESTINIANS REJECT TERMS OF NETANYAHU ADDRESS  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]–

——

IRAN SUPREME LEADER REVERSES POSITION, ORDERS ELECTION INVESTIGATION - MOUSAVI SET
TO APPEAR AT BANNED RALLY  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]

FIVE REASONS TO SUSPECT IRAN’S ELECTION RESULTS  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]

IRAN REJECTS PRO-MOUSAVI RALLY - COMMUNICATIONS DISRUPTED  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]
MOUSAVI SUPPORTERS PLAN RALLY IN TEHRAN MONDAY  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]

——

REACTIONS TO NETANYAHU KEYNOTE SPEECH  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]

NETANYAHU SPEECH RECEIVES HARSH RESPONSE FROM ISRAELI RIGHTIST PARTY SPOKESMAN  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]

THE NETANYAHU SPEECH - START PEACE TALKS IMMEDIATELY - ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER WILLING
TO MEET ANY ARAB LEADER, EVEN IN RIYADH  http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102611203798&a…]

———————

and from truthout.org
Steve Weissman | Israel Offers a State and a Half.
<A href=”http://www.truthout.org/061509J”>http://www.truthout.org/061509J</A>
Steve Weissman, Truthout: “Could Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu become the Richard Nixon of the Middle East, as Barack Obama invited him to do? Could he break with his hard-line past and reach out to the Palestinians the way Nixon did with the Chinese? Or will he pay lip service to peace even as he does everything he can to keep the Palestinians from ever getting a viable state of their own?”

Top Ayatollah Calls for Investigation of Iran’s Election.
<A href=”http://www.truthout.org/061509L”>http://www.truthout.org/061509L</A>
Ian Black and Matthew Weaver, The Guardian UK: “Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered an investigation into claims of vote-rigging and fraud in last week’s presidential election, Iranian state TV reported today. The report said Khamenei had told the guardian council, the clerical body that oversees elections, to examine the pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s claims of widespread rigging in Friday’s poll.”

———————

The analysisis in the June 15th Economist ends with:

“Western diplomats express disappointment with the opposition’s failure to unseat Mr Ahmadinejad, but not because they expected any of his challengers to make dramatic policy turns. Iran’s foreign relations, including such important issues as the nuclear file, fall largely within the remit of the Supreme Leader, rather than the presidency. But a fresh face, and a change in style, would have made it easier for other countries to engage with Iran. Seeking to think positively, one diplomat suggested that Mr Ahmadinejad’s return to office would at least eliminate a lengthy transition between administrations. The president’s undisputed conservative credentials might also make him better able to rally backing for any future concessions on the vexed question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”  Let us pray that the pragmatic people are right, and that a chastised Ahmadi-Nejad might be willing to stop spitting fire.

             Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University.

Revisioning Human-Earth Relations

 http://fore.research.yale.edu/index.html

The Forum on Religion and Ecology is the largest international multireligious project of its kind. With its conferences, publications, and website it is engaged in exploring religious worldviews, texts, and ethics in order to broaden understanding of the complex nature of current environmental concerns.

The Forum recognizes that religions need to be in dialogue with other disciplines (e.g., science, ethics, economics, education, public policy, gender) in seeking comprehensive solutions to both global and local environmental problems.

Forum Coordinators:
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, Yale University

Forum Administrative Assistant:
Tara C. Maguire Knopick, Yale University

Forum Web Content Managers and Newsletter Editors:
Sam Mickey and Elizabeth McAnally, California Institute of Integral Studies

With thanks to Anne Custer for the original development of the Forum Web site, and Ann Keeler Evans and Donna Rosenberg for their administrative work with the Forum.

————-

Summer Solstice Celebration with Paul Winter & Friends

Dear Forum community,

We want to inform you about the Summer Solstice Celebration with Paul Winter & Friends on Saturday, June 20, 2009. The two-hour concert will begin at 4:30 a.m. and will be held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (1047 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY).

Paul Winter will be joined by an array of outstanding musicians from different musical backgrounds for a festival of the Earth’s music as we greet the summer and one of the longest days of the year. The Summer Solstice Celebration is a sublime experience; the first rays of sunlight filter through the Cathedral’s stained glass above the High Altar as guest artists and members of the Paul Winter Consort perform in different parts of the Cathedral. The musicians meet at the stage in the Great Crossing as morning overtakes night and we welcome the day.

This celebration will be dedicated to Thomas Berry.

For more information, including free music downloads, visit: http://solsticeconcert.com/

Tickets are now on sale at: https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/729160…

Warmly,
The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale
 http://www.yale.edu/religionandecology

EU turns blind eye to corruption in eastern gas trade
Andrew Rettman, The EUobserver, June 6, 2006

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU is sending a “fact-finding” mission to Ukraine to see if its financial troubles could lead to a new gas crisis. But it is wary of tackling deeper problems of politics and corruption in the eastern gas trade, which also threaten EU energy security. The team of senior European Commission officials will travel to Kiev “in the coming days” and produce a report in time for a regular summit of EU leaders in Brussels on 18 June.


The move comes after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine is unable to pay for Russian gas and will probably start stealing EU-bound transit volumes, unless the EU loans it billions of euros.

Ukraine’s state-owned gas distributor, Naftogaz, has poor cashflow and often avoids public audits. But Ukraine sees the Putin statements as part of a propaganda war to damage its reputation and increase political support for new Russian pipelines bypassing the country. The dispute over Naftogaz’ reliability is just one aspect of a major shake-up in the Russia-Ukraine gas business.

Mr Putin and Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are at the same time trying to strong-arm Ukraine gas tycoon Dmitry Firtash, in developments which highlight the links between politics, gas and organised crime in the region.

A Putin-Tymoshenko deal in January ended the role of RosUkrEnergo (RUE), in which Mr Firtash controls a 50 percent stake, in selling Turkmenistan gas to Ukraine. Naftogaz in March also seized €3 billion of RUE gas stocks.

A little-known, Swiss-based firm called RosGas in May took ownership of Mr Firtash’s Hungarian gas supply company, Emfesz, in a transaction that Mr Firtash has called “illegal” and is fighting in the Swiss courts. It is unclear who owns RosGas. But Emfesz has said it belongs to the Putin-controlled Russian firm Gazprom.

The events have already affected European interests. RUE’s problems have seen it cut deliveries to EU states Poland and Hungary. The Emfesz takeover means 20 percent of Hungary’s gas supply is now in unknown hands.

The Putin-Tymoshenko attack on Mr Firtash could be designed to hurt Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, and reformist presidential candidate, Arsenyi Yatsenyuk. Mr Firtash is widely reported to have given financial support to Mr Yushchenko. The Firtash-linked TV station, Inter, has given Mr Yatsenyuk lots of good publicity.

“People can see that Firtash is a dead fish, so they are taking little bites out of him,” one Brussels-based diplomat said on the Emfesz takeover.

See no evil, hear no evil

Mr Firtash, who denies having any business relations with Mr Mogilevich or paying Mr Yushchenko, is trying to engage EU support.

One of Mr Firtash’s employees, Robert Shetler-Jones, last year donated around €57,000 to the British Conservative party.

Mr Firtash’s small, Brussels-based public affairs firm, Macmillan, compares him to “Mazeppa” - a seventeenth century Ukrainian patriot betrayed by a fellow nobleman and forced to flee the country, leading to decades of domination by Russia.

A middleman claiming to represent Mr Firtash has also approached the Brussels offices of two large international PR firms in recent weeks.

The European Commission has so far turned a deaf ear. In March, EU officials said they were “closely monitoring” Naftogaz’ seizure of RUE’s gas - “closely monitoring” is a typical commission “holding statement” when it does not have a real position.

The June fact-finding mission will not ask questions about Emfesz.

“From our point of view, the takeover of Emfesz has to be done in full respect of internal market rules. If there is any suspicion this is not the case, there should be a notification by one of the parties. At this stage we have not received any such notification,” a commission spokesman said.

———–

Concrete steps:

“The European Commission has failed to recognise the danger these companies [RUE, RosGas or other alleged Gazprom offshoots] present to the energy security of the EU and has not made any attempt to convince member states to investigate the role these companies play in the supply chain,” Jamestown’s Mr Kupchinsky s

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

——–

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

 STOPPING GLOBAL WARMING.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

———- +++++++ ———

AID ALTERNATIVES FOR UNDEVELOPED COUNTRIES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

im Namen des Österreichischen Instituts für Internationale Politik - oiip
möchte ich Sie gern auf nachstehende Veranstaltung des
Bundesministeriums für europäische und internationale Angelegenheiten hinweisen:

EUROPAKONGRESS:

Geteilt / Geeint. 1989 - 2009: Aufbruch in ein neues Europa
Der Historische Umbruch 1989 - Vom Kalten Krieg zum neuen Europa

Vor zwanzig Jahren gelang es den Menschen in Mittel- und Osteuropa, die Teilung ihres Kontinents zu überwinden.
Das Bundesministerium für europäische und internationale Angelegenheiten möchte anlässlich des zwanzigjährigen
Jubiläums des Falls des Eisernen Vorhangs gemeinsam mit Österreichs mittel- und osteuropäischen Nachbarn
Zukunftsperspektiven und Herausforderungen für unsere Region aufzeigen.

Das Außenministerium veranstaltet daher am 28. und 29. Mai 2009 eine zweitägige internationale Konferenz in der
Wiener Hofburg mit dem Titel “Geteilt | Geeint. 1989 - 2009: Aufbruch in ein neues Europa”. Prominente Zeitzeugen,
hochrangige Politiker von heute und damals, Historiker, Künstler, Wirtschaftstreibende, Vertreter der jungen Generation
und viele mehr diskutieren die Bedeutung des Jahres 1989 für die Gegenwart und beleuchten die neuen
Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten des vereinten Europa.

Wir freuen uns auf Ihr Kommen!

Datum:

28./29. Mai 2009

Ort:

Hofburg Kongress Zentrum

Redoutensäle (Zugang Josefsplatz), 1010 Wien

Hier finden Sie das Konferenzprogramm

Anmeldung ausschließlich über das Registrierungsformular

Bundesministerium für europäische

und internationale Angelegenheiten

Kulturpolitische Sektion

Minoritenplatz 8, A-1014 Wien

Tel.: +43 (0)501150-3548

Fax: +43 (0)501159-250

Email:  sektionv at bmeia.gv.at

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Maga Daniela Härtl
oiip - Österreichisches Institut für Internationale Politik
Operngasse 20 B
A-1040 Wien
Tel. +43(0)1/581 11 06*11
Fax. +43(0)1/581 11 06*10
Email:  haertl at oiip.at
——————

Website: http://www.oiip.at

Hinweis: Wir freuen uns, am 15./16. Juni das 30-jährige Jubiläum des oiip mit einem Festakt und einem Symposium zum Thema
“European Security in a Changing World” in der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften feiern zu können.
Hier finden Sie das vorläufige Programm.

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

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

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

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

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

——

Thinking about Netanyahu - please note the following article:

Israel’s Fears, Amalek’s Arsenal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

nbsp;http://www.honestreporting.com/

COMMUNIQUE: 14 May 2009

Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,

Pope Benedict’s visit to Israel this week has increased media attention on the plight of Christians in the Middle East and their declining numbers. But while the visit should serve as an opportunity for an honest look at Christian flight, one reporter blamed Israel and the West instead.

In a Time Magazine article describing Christian apprehensions over Pope Benedict’s visit, Time magazine’s Andrew Lee Butters calls the presence of Christians in the region “a reminder of the multi-sectarian and tolerant history of Arab and Islamic culture.” However, this tolerance is threatened, he writes, “from the rise of religious extremism.”

At this point, one would assume Butters would delve into largely overlooked issues such as

1) the persecution of Christians in the PA and Gaza,
2) creeping fundamentalism,
3) the intimidation of Christian media
4) forced conversions
5) Christians frozen out of the Palestinian national dialogue.

But instead, Butters points his finger in the opposite direction: “Clash-of-civilizations pundits and Western leaders like the Pope often ignore how the West helped spark such intolerance, especially through its one-sided support of Israel.” 

Butters would be hard pressed to prove that Europe has been “one-sided” in its support for Israel. More importantly, however, Butters’ statement implies that Muslims are not responsible for their actions because the West backs Israel’s right to exist in peace with its neighbors. In fact, Butters goes even further, calling Israel’s creation “a disaster for Christians in the Middle East.”

Many of the Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948 — never to be allowed back — were Christians. The flood of Palestinian refugees into Lebanon helped spark a civil war between Muslims and Christians there. And the ongoing occupation of the West Bank is strangling the life out of those Christian communities that are left.

Blaming Israel for the civil war in Lebanon ignores the complex political arrangements in Lebanon at the time and the destabilizing effect of the PLO inside Lebanon’s borders. He also neglects to mention what might be strangling the life out of the 2,000 Christians living in Gaza. But Butters doesn’t stop there. He also holds Israel responsible for Muslim abuses of Christians in Egypt:

The ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has also helped fuel the rise of Islamic extremism, especially in countries that have unpopular peace agreements with Israel. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition to the American-backed Mubarak dictatorship, waged a small-scale terror campaign against both the government and the country’s Coptic Christians during the 1990s.

According to Butters, therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t ultimately responsible for “small-scale terror” against the Christians it carries out. It’s really Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories that is behind it all.

The BBC’s Tim Franks also covered the decline of Arab Christians in Bethlehem. In his article, Franks quoted several Palestinians who claim that Christians are leaving the city because of Israel’s security barrier. However, Franks also acknowledges that there could be another reason for the exodus.

Privately, some Christians in Bethlehem say another factor sometimes motivates their decision to leave - concern about the rise of radical Islam - but they are unwilling to put such views on the record.

Indeed, Frank’s admission is consistent with finding from Justus Reid Weiner, who has researched the plight of Christians in the Palestinian territories extensively. According to Weiner, Arab Christians rarely speak about their situation in public:

The human rights crimes against the Christian Arabs in the disputed territories are committed by Muslims. Yet many Palestinian Christian leaders accuse Israel of these crimes rather than the actual perpetrators. This motif has been adopted by a variety of Christian leaders in the Western world. Others who are aware of the human rights crimes choose to remain silent about them.

The media has on obligation to report the truth. Insist that reporters tell the whole story when they cover the plight of Christians in the Middle East.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more information, contact:

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

At UNEP:

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

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

***********************************
Jim Sniffen
Programme Officer
UN Environment Programme
New York
tel: +1-212-963-8094/8210
 info at nyo.unep.org
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Israel threatens to end EU diplomatic role
ANDREW WILLIS, April, 30 2009.

Israel is deeply unhappy with comments made by EU officials regarding its government and the Palestinian peace process and has threatened to end the bloc’s mediation role in the region.

“Israel is asking Europe to lower the tone and conduct a discreet dialogue,” deputy director for Europe at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Rafi Barak, told European ambassadors in Israel this week reports Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.

“However, if these declarations continue, Europe will not be able to be part of the diplomatic process, and both sides will lose,” he said.

EU external affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner is causing the Israeli government particular concern after the EU froze plans to upgrade the bloc’s ties with the country at the beginning of the year.

Talks to upgrade the current association agreement that defines relations between the EU and Israel began in December 2008, but were suspended in January over Israel’s 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip that killed over 1,400 Palestinians.

Last Thursday, Ms Ferrero-Waldner told journalists in Brussels that the upgrade in bilateral ties would continue to be postponed until the “new Israeli government shows a clear commitment to pursue peace negotiations with the Palestinians.”

But Mr Barak said it was unclear what gave Ms Ferrero-Waldner the authority to make the statement on delaying closer ties as EU member state governments had not made a formal decision on the matter.

“We want the European Union to be a partner [in the diplomatic process], but it is important to hold a mature and discreet dialogue and not to resort to public declarations,” Barak told the European ambassadors in a series of telephone conversations.

The Israeli military recently conducted an internal investigation into claims of human rights abuses during the short war and concluded it had not broken international law, although human rights organisations were quick to point out flaws in the investigation.

Brussels has campaigned for a two-state solution to the decades-old problem and opposes continued Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank.

———-

Tensions at home

While EU member states have not always shared a unified position on the Israeli-Palestine question, recently it appears differences in opinion have opened up between the EU institutions.

Speaking to journalists after a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg acknowledged that there were conflicting opinions between the Czech EU presidency and the European Commission.

But he said the situation had “escalated quite unnecessarily”, referring to a recent spat between outgoing Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and Ms Ferrero-Waldner.

Mr Topolanek recently said that comments made by Ms Ferrero-Waldner stating EU relations with Israel would only improve if Israel promised to continue peace talks as an example of the “European Commission’s arrogance”, reports the Prague Daily Monitor.

“Yes, the talks on the action plan [with Israel] have been stalled, but the decision is up to the Council. She overstepped her powers,” said Mr Topolanek.

———-

Press Articles

• Haaretz
• Prague Daily Monitor

Arctic Council rejects EU’s observer application.

 writes LEIGH PHILLIPS, The EUobserver, April 30, 2009, from BRUSSELS:  The Arctic Council on Wednesday (29 April) put on hold the European Union’s application to gain permanent observer status with the council as a result of Brussels’ expected approval of a ban on seal products. “Canada, the world’s largest sealing nation, convinced the council to push back consideration of the EU’s application, furious that Brussels is moving ahead with the ban despite its insistence that the seal hunt is sustainable and not cruel to the animals.”

Gaining permanent observer status with the council had been a key element of the EU’s new Arctic strategy, announced last November.

The Arctic Council ministerial meeting’s final declaration from Tromso, Norway, said that it had “decided to continue discussing the role of observers in the Arctic Council.”

But as the next full ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council is not due until 2011, the council has in effect turned the EU’s application down for the time being.

“Canada doesn’t feel that the European Union, at this stage, has the required sensitivity to be able to acknowledge the Arctic Council, as well as its membership, and so therefore I’m opposed to it,” Canadian foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation after the meeting.

“I see no reason why they should be … a permanent observer on the Arctic Council.”

Ottawa maintains that seals are not endangered and that the domestic legal requirements for sealing are stricter than those covering European slaughterhouses.

Canadian indigenous groups say that the EU ban would hurt their livelihoods. Despite an exception for traditional indigenous sealing in the ban, which is due to be voted on by the European Parliament in early May, the Inuit say that the ban would still result in a collapse in markets for seal products.

Ahead of the meeting, Eva Aariak, the premier of Nunavut, Canada’s majority Inuit territory, said: “The Arctic Council… was formed to promote co-operation and co-ordination and interaction in regards to member states in the Arctic. What [the] European Union is trying to do is not those.”

Denmark, one of the Arctic Council’s eight member states, is strongly opposed to the EU’s plans and has excused itself from its common position on the matter. Sealing continues as a traditional activity in Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark but not of the EU.

Norway and Canada are both considering taking the EU to the World Trade Organisation over its seal product ban should it be passed.

Nevertheless, the decision to exclude the EU from the council remains awkward for Oslo, which favoured EU accession as a permanent observer, and frustrating for Brussels.

“Norway shares that view [on the seal ban] with Canada. But for Norway, that’s yet another reason to invite the observers in,” said Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, reports AFP.

————-

Norway, which is not a member of the EU bloc, has territorial access to Arctic oil and gas whereas the EU does not and thus the Nordic country is viewed by the bloc as key to its energy security. It is estimated that a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas lies under the Arctic seabed and Europe’s other traditional sources of fossil fuel energy, Russia and the Middle East, remain highly politically unreliable.

————

Beyond Norway, Denmark and Canada, the Arctic Council also included Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Russia as full members.

Six indigenous groups from around the Arctic, including the Inuit, the Gwich’in, the Aleut and the Saami, sit as permanent observers.

———-

China, Italy, the EU and South Korea had also applied as permanent observers and were also turned down for now, alongside the EU.

———-

The EU may yet get another chance, however. Due to the increased activity and interest in the Arctic, the Tromso meeting decided that the Arctic Council from now on will meet at political level once a year.

———-

Separately, the council agreed to negotiate an international instrument on cooperation on search and rescue. As maritime activities in the Arctic increase, there will be increasing need for Arctic search and rescue services.

The council also urged the International Maritime Organisation to urgently develop new guidelines for ships operating in Arctic waters, as well as mandatory regulations on safety and environmental protection.

———

Guidelines on oil and gas exploration and a taskforce on how to reduce non-CO2 drivers of climate change such as methane, which play a prominent role in Arctic climate change, were also established.