http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/11/15…

Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010 in THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT.

The Miami Herald’s Andres Oppenheimer shares his opinion on Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva’s consideration to run for secretary general of the UN.

BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
 AOPPENHEIMER at MIAMIHERALD.COM
A short news item in Brazil’s news magazine Veja this week suggested that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is considering running for United Nations secretary general after he leaves office at the end of this year. If true, that would explain a lot of things.

Until now, the conventional wisdom was that Brazil’s recent foreign policy of open support to the world’s most ruthless dictatorships – IRAN – is tied to the country’s emergence as a new power in the world economy, and its desire to flex its muscle as a new — and fiercely independent — player in international affairs.

That’s probably true. But the Veja report — stating that Lula “has been sounded out by more than one person to be a candidate for U.N. Secretary General in 2011” — is adding a new element to the puzzle of what’s behind Brazil’s foreign policy. The Brazilian government says it will not comment on the magazine’s report.

Diego Arria, a former chairman of the U.N. Security Council, told me that “Lula would be a very strong candidate because of Brazil’s weight as an increasingly independent power, and because of his international prestige.” He added that Lula may be catering to an anti-U.S. climate at the United Nations “to position himself as a strong candidate for Secretary General.”

In recent days, Lula has made some shocking statements that are hard to understand coming from a former union leader who opposed military dictatorships. In an interview with The Associated Press, he compared Cuba’s peaceful oppositionists who are waging hunger strikes with “bandits.”

Lula, who recently visited Cuba and posed smiling with that country’s military dictator Gen. Raúl Castro shortly after political prisoner Orlando Zapata died from a hunger strike, said that hunger strikes should not be used “as a pretext” to defend human rights. Lula added, “Imagine if all bandits who are imprisoned in Sao Paulo went on a hunger strike and demanded freedom.”

Days earlier, Lula had reiterated his decision to visit Iran in May, despite international efforts to impose sanctions on that country amid growing evidence that its regime is building nuclear weapons in defiance of international rules.

Does Lula have a chance of becoming U.N. Secretary General? Most diplomats say current Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, a South Korean diplomat whose term expires Dec. 31, 2011, is expected to run for reelection. Most of the recent U.N. chiefs serve two consecutive terms.

“Lula’s name would be an honor to Latin America, but it’s a tradition for Secretary Generals to run for reelection, and I don’t see a reason why Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would not go for a second term,” Chile’s U.N. Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz told me.

Others noted that, if for some reason Ban decided not to run, Asian countries may want to have one of their own diplomats at the job for another five years, in keeping with the tradition that each region gets a two-term mandate. And many point out that Lula doesn’t speak English or French, a major obstacle for a candidate to the top U.N. job.

My Opinion: Most likely, Ban will get a second term, even if many countries would want a higher-profile U.N. chief. Lula is more likely to be offered the job of head of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, whose current director Jacques Diouf of Senegal has been on the job since 1994 and is on his way out.

Lula would be a perfect candidate for that position because of his successful “Bolsa Familia” anti-hunger program in Brazil and the international recognition it has given him. In addition, the FAO has never had a Latin American chief.

Granted, Lula may find that job too small, but — considering his awful human rights stands — it would be the perfect place for him.

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Matthew Russell Lee of The Inner City Press at the UN points out another interesting angle that might explain the Munoz position:

“Meanwhile, press in Latin America and even Chilean Ambassador to the UN Munoz have been speaking of Brazil’s Lula as a possible UN Secretary General in 2012. While many in the UN might wish that this would happen, it is considered impolitic for Munoz, currently seeking an Assistant Secretary General post from Ban Ki-moon, to talk up a competing Lula candidacy.

Others say “ah ha” about the Lula story, thinking this might explain Lula’s schmoozing with Iran and other non favored regimes. What’s next, Lula praising Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa and his blood bath on the beach? Pro Rajapaksa Sri Lankans are expected to demonstrate Friday at noon in front of the UN, echoing the Non Aligned Movements letter claiming that the UN has no human rights mandate.”

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Interesting stuff – the Miami Cubans might not like the idea so they try to preemt the trial baloon that was lauched by the Brazilian Veja – and then, if there is a change at the UN in 2012, it can be assumed that the Asians will claim a repeat of what happened when the US has helped ease out Egyptian Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was elected as an African, and brought in then Kofi Annan for a full two terms for Africa. If the UN decides that the MENA group – North Africa and Arab Asia – is indeed a separate region – so above example is not precedent – then there would be no opposition to a prominent Latin American to get the nod. The former East European UN region has pretty much dissolved, so the new MENA or OIC structure will be able to put forward its candidate in due time.

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Also, what will be the Obama Administration’s position?

For one thing, the March 21, 2010 trip of the US President to Indonesia and Australia might produce a US backing for an Indonesian to head the UNFCCC – the present opening for Dirctor General under the Climate Change Convention. As of now, the countries that have voiced they will put forward their candidates are South Africa, India, and Indonesia. Brazil has not done so – and above information may indeed allow for this more complicated play with Lula getting in the New York picture later.

Dr. James McGann comes to the UN to talk before a UNU Current Affairs
Series session about the “World Rankings of Think-Tanks.” These are institutions that can be of tremendous help to policy makers.

Thursday, January 21, 2010, we learned at the UN about the way how at
the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. James McGann, as part of the Think
Tanks and Civil Societies Program, he serves as its Director, he
looks, as a Policy Research objective, at The Global – “Go-To Think
Tanks” concept. He is also the Assistant Director of the International
Relations Program at the U of Penn. He runs his own consulting firm
and was advisor to the World Bank, the UN, USAID, and various
foundations the likes of Soros, Hewlett and Gates Foundations, and
other Philanthropic Institutions, and Foreign Governments, on the roles
of NGOs. Public Policy, Civil Society, Charities and Academic issues.

He categorized the Global Think-Tanks, and came up with lists of
ranking for these institutions. Dr. McGann is also a senior fellow at
the Foreign Policy Research Institution (FPRI), and as he wrote in a
FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE article – “Think-Tanks are also called
governments in waiting.

They are needed by leaders around the world to provide independent
analysis, help set policy agendas, and bridge the gap between academia
and policy-making” – and we must add that the UN is in very serious
need to have such an institution on its campus – so the leaders can
breathe a little easier in their decision making process when
attempting to find that golden path in between the various oppressive
pointers, they get daily, from the Member States’ delegates.

McGann has gone over 6500 think-tanks from around the globe in his
present study. This study ranks them, and provides an insider’s
guide that will appear this year in book form, to be released by
Routledge Global Institutions Series. He gave us sort of a pre-print
of that study.

His work is sort of an Input – Output report but he said -”we want the impact measures – not just output measures. We want independent Think-Tanks that challenge conventional wisdom – he said. He received nominations from NGO’s but to be on the list he required to get also support for the nomination from other sources. He mentioned two and two in order to get on the list. The US has a separate listing because they are more in numbers and are better funded, he said.

The Top Top Think Tanks of the United States are:

1. Brookings Institution

2. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

3. Council on Foreign Relations

4. RAND Corporation

5. Heritage Foundation

6. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

7. Cato Institute

8. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

9. American Enterprise Institute

10. Hoover Institution

11. Peterson Institute for International Economics

12. Freedom House

13. Aepen Institute

14. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

15. German Marshall Fund

16. United States Institute for Peace

17. Center for American Progress

18. Open Society Institute (OSI)

19. Center for Global Development

20. Center for Transatlantic Relations SAIS Johns Hopkins

21. Human Rights Watch

22. Urban Institute

23. Pew Center on Global Climate Change

24. Stimson Center (FNA Henry Stimson Center)

25. World Bank Research Department

26. Harvard Center for International Development

27. Carter Center

28. East West Institute

29.Manhattan Institute

30. Atlantic Council

31. International Crisis Group

32. Hudson Institute

33. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

34. World Resources Institute

35. Center for New American Security

36. Resources for the Future (RFF)

37. Baker Institute for Public Policy

38. Competitive Enterprise Institute

39. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

40. TED

41. World Watch Institute.

42. Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

43. Reason Foundation

44. United States War College

45. Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

46. Economic Policy Institute

47. Mercatus Center

48. Acton Institute

49. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies

50. The Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Our comments: Looking at that list and Having worked with two of the Institutions on that list, with our experience in the United States, it becomes obvious that in order to be high on the list – the institution better be headquartered in Washington DC close to the seats of power. Further, it is funded by industry and business lobbies, and in effect becomes a lobby themselves by arranging for conferences that are tilted in the sponsors direction. If that makes them also part of the tilt to right and conservatism in American politics it might just be coincidental – but nevertheless it is a clear result from the need for permanent financing. Academic institutions are not prominent on that list, and this is thus also a coincidental result of the way the institutions are financed. The fact that Brookings is number one is the exception that proves the rule in the sense that it is a well centered institution receiving backing so that it is not all on the Republican side. The fact that The Earth Institute is at the bottom of that list, and most other academic institutes did not make it at all – just is another proof of our observation. Having said the above, we nevertheless agree – that in terms of actual results with Washington decision makers – the rankings seem to us to be correct. Our comment is nevertheless standing – even Think Tanks cannot be viewed as completely stand-alone truly investigative bodies because money rules in Washington.

Further, Having worked in the 70s with Mr. Hermann Kahn of the Croton-on-the-Hudson based Hudson Institute, I know first hand how that institution was instrumental in helping formulate US only Energy Policy ever – the creation of the Synfuels Corporation. Granted that in those days the interest of US Energy Independence were coal oriented – coal liquids and coal gases – never the less we introduced also oil shales and biofuels because we thought they should be parts of the policy package.  After the passing away of Mr. Kahn and the lackluster General Haig Hudson leadership, that Institution was moved to Indianapolis with a Washington office and lost much of its Washington influence.

Later, in the 80s, with Washington DC based CSIS – an institution whose energy studies are heavily influenced by the oil industry – nevertheless a second group under Mr. Charly Ebinger was established so we could look at non petroleum fuels and work with the US Department of Defense when the doors at US Department of Energy were closed to non-petroleum energy. Thanks to the imprint CSIS had on Washington, the results of our studies became also policy implemented in Washington and both those two experiences convinced me that with all the funding straight jackets Think-Tanks can nevertheless do somehow solid work.

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Mr. McGann remarked that 5 to 7 years ago he started to get questions about what are the leading global Think-Tanks and how does a National Think-Tank transform into a Global Think-Tank? The challenge for the new millennium is how to harness this new breed og GLOBAL THINK-TANKS – knowledge-based, policy oriented to serve governments, IGOS, and Civil Society by generating Policy-Oriented Research, Analysis, and Advice. I could not but think that this is really why he was spending his time with us at the UN as a guest of the UNU which is indeed the only in-house institution at the UN that has the potential to become a UN Think-Tank if the UN Secretary General would only call upon them for advice – and tell the rest of the UN to do the same!

But clearly – I am jumping the gun ar this moment.

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In his process leading eventually to listings ofbest GLOBAL Think-Tanks, the McGann team first prepared regional listings outside the US. (Tables #2 – #

These include the following tables – all based on Table #1 – an alphabetically arranged list of 392 Leading Think-Tanks In The World.

Those were base on the global total of Think-Tanks where the 25 countries with most Think-Tanks are:

1. the US         1815

2. China           428

3. UK                285

4. India             261

5. Germany      190

6. France          168

7.  Argentina    132

8. Russia           109

9. Japan            108

10. Canada          97

11.Italy                 88

12. South Africa 84

13. Sweden          74

14. Switzerland  71

15. Netherlands  57

16. Mexico            55

17. Romania         54

18. Israel               52

19. Taiwan            52

20. Belgium          51

21. Bolivia             51

22. Spain              50

23.Brazil               48

24. Ukraine          45

25. Poland            41

and this dwindles down until the number zero is attributed to 23 counties – among those to Monaco, Myanmar(Burma), Oman, Turkmenistan – the remaining mainly SIDS or other small states. Many other have just one single Thin-Tank

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Table # 6 provides the list of top 25 Mexico and Canada Think-Tanks with Mexico taking spots 4, 12, 14, 21, 22, 25.

Table # 7 provides the list for top 40 Think-Tanks in Latin America and the Caribbean region.

Table #8 provides the list for top 25 Think-Tanks for the Middle East – North Africa region and includes with the Arab States (a total of 11 listings), also the Caucasus (1 listing), Turkey (3 listings) and Israel (10 listings).

Table # 9 provides the list of the top 25 Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tables # 10 and #11 provide the lists for top 40 Western  and 40 top Central and Eastern European Think-Tanks with the dividing line going strangely along the former East – West political divide that bunches strangely Hungary with Russia still in one list while France, Germany, the UK and other Western States are in #10.   is this a look backwards or a look forwards?

Table # 12 provides the list for 40 Non-Arab Asian Think-Tanks that includes Australia.

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Having done the above – Dr. McGann proceeds to pick on specific Thin-Tank topics of research and gets now down to the real usefulness for helping solve Global issues.

His Tables # 13 provides for the 10 top International Development Thinking Institutions.

# 14      “                         10 “     Health Policy Think Tanks.

# 15      “                         10 “      Environmental           “

# 16      ”                         10 “      Security and International Affairs Think Tanks

# 17     “                         10 “      Domestic Economic Policy Think Tanks: US (8),  Canada (1) and Germany (1).

# 18     ”                        10 ”        International Economic Policy Think Tanks.

#19                                10 “        Social Policy                                     “

#20                               10 “        Science and Technology                “

The comment that begs to be brought up at this point is that tables #13 – # 19 are pure US, Sweden, UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, Switzerland – with an obvious very great majority for US Think-Tanks – the few others are from classic OECD countries. Literally the only exception is in Table #20 where The Energy and Resources Institute of India has place number 9 on the list. Jarringly is the absence of China, Brazil, Argentina, Russia – any Latin American or African institution. I am sure there must have been possible even a token mention of someone besides that one Indian organization – at least in table #17 – I know at least in Brazil of institutions that help plan domestic policy! Sorry – these listings might cause difficulties if the UNU would attempt to go only by these tables – granted that we understand that the tables are based on evidence of success – but nevertheless – even China, Brazil and Russia have had some success stories the world needs to look at.

Having said above we look now at the remaining “Special Categories” Tables – #21  and#23 at the Most Innovative Policy – Outstanding Washington Think Tanks – The Brookings Institute and The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, USA organizations – we hope that when doing their work they outreach to obtain input from overseas. We do not believe that CATO and The American Enterprise Institute, also on those lists, are in the habit of doing so. The only non Washingtonian on those two Tables is Breugel from Belgium and we testify of having no idea what that institution does.

Table # 22 is nevertheless a ray of hope. It is titled: BEST NEW THINK TANK (established in the last three-five years).

The listings are:

1. European Council on Foreign relations, Belgium

2. Center for American Progress, USA

3. Bruegel, Belgium

4. Center for New American Security, USA

5. Carnegie Middle East Center, Lebanon

As I know and appreciate all the others, I had to look up “Bruegel” and at – /www.euractiv.com/en/pa/bruegel-newest-addition-think-tank-landscape-brussels/article-134327 I found:

BRUEGEL: newest addition to think tank landscape in Brussels.
Wed, 2005-01-19

A new EU think tank called the ‘Brussels European and Global Economic Laboratory’ (BRUEGEL) has been launched by former commissioner Mario Monti and French economist Pisani-Ferry in Brussels.

According to the Notre Europe report, EU think tanks have not yet “fully found their place in European policy-making: the value they add is not perceived clearly, they are seen as moderately useful, and even sometimes elitist. Overall, they are believed to have a limited impact on policies and public opinion. Some of the more established thinks tanks in Brussels include the Centre for European Policy Studies  (CEPS), the European Policy Centre  (EPC) and Friends of Europe. In recent times many new think thanks have been set up. A number of these work outside Brussels [several of them being  EurActiv content partners or occasional contributors].

So, here we are – there is a clear need for good think-tanks to help navigate the governing process. In the UN case, it will be needed to have a globally oriented super think-tank that can digest and combine the best ideas from the older well established and successful think-tanks we are familiar with today, it better be non-ideological and not-vindictive -  and form the real globally oriented think-tank the world of tomorrow needs desperately. The issue is not how to redress the evils of yester-years – but how to alleviate today’s suffering and how to avoid tomorrow’s suffering in most ethical and just ways possible.

—————

The Q&A:

Q from the audience – from a UN Foundation man: What are the leading TT in China and India? and in the Francophone World?  Further – what about the Qatar Foundation and in Africa apart from South Africa?

Q: What about The council on Foreign Relations filled with members of former Administrations? To whom are they accountable?

Q: Climate Change, Sustainability, Human Rights – How do you judge quality?

Answer from Dr. McGann: I explore the question of Think-Tanks in sectors in various parts of the world. He expects to come out with a book on the BRICS.

A Security & International Affairs TT. Here he works with the Hewlett and Gates Foundations looking into Africa.

I do not look into the OECD region but into the other regions of the world. The look into East Africa specifically rather then the global.

He did a major study on India that is circulated now in India – a highly centralized major democracy – a colonial and later Russian history related to India. Studies can be diminished by government funding.

China and the Google problem – not a very positive view in your face. The nature of analysis gets constrained. There are very few really independent Think-Tanks.

In funding – the US is the most highly diverse. He tracks the budgets in the US since 1983. They grow in very diverse strides in he US. The new EU model involves Government and international donors.

————–

second round of Questions:

Q: from a consultant on diversity

Q: from a Kazakh Foundation

Q: About development in Africa and access to Think-Tanks.

Answers from Dr. McGann: He watched Africa to look for ranges that do not favor Think-Tanks. Hard to bridge the gap between academics and policy. Most policy matters don’t read … The Dough Hammarskjold Foundation has many CEOs donating to high level research – some for universities – he said there will be policy tsunamis – it will be possible to pick up global trends to identify them before they get to a critical mass. In the donor community there is focus on high impact of funding to get to find ideas  – but “do tanks.”

From sergeberdugo@yahoo.fr

The Statement by Morocco Itinerant Ambassador Serge Berdugo, a Jew of prominent standing in Morocco, to the UN International Holocaust 2010 Commemoration. The Importance of the Panel was more then anything else – towards the Islamic World of today.

January 28, 2010

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my privilege to be part of this ceremony on the history of the Jewish Community of Morocco during the Second World War and to tell you how the European policy on Holocaust impacted the lives of this community. This presentation will illustrate and I quote His Majesty Mohammed VI: “tell the rest of the world how Arab and Islamic countries, such as mine, resisted Nazism and said “No” to the barbarity of the Nazis and to the villainous laws of the Vichy government”.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

First, let me remind you that in 1939 Morocco was under the French and Spanish protectorate.

Following the defeat of France and the coming into power of the Vichy Government, the Jews were faced with a systematic ideological anti-Semitism that led to the implementation of the Vichy anti Jewish legislation in Morocco.
On October 31st 1941, the King was compelled to enact legislation called the statute of Jews but not without obtaining major concessions to limit the scope and the impact of such measures as applied in France.
The first concession was related to the very notion of “Jew”. In Morocco, the Jews would be identified by the practice of the Jewish religion and not with reference to race or affiliation as referred to in Nazis ideology. “A Jew is a person who practices the Jewish religion”.

According to the second concession, bans and quotas were not applied to the Jewish religious institutions. This concession allowed Jewish institutions including schools to function properly and to receive 80% of their funding from the State budget.

Furthermore, business and handicrafts activities remained open to Jews.
The implementation of the Jews’ Laws by Moroccan authorities was another major concession granted to the King. This allowed the King to monitor and delay as much as possible, the implementation of these laws.

These concessions obtained by the King had considerable and practical implications on the daily life of the great majority of the Jews: the 90% that maintained a traditional way of living in Mellah and enjoyed a lifestyle similar to that of their Muslim neighbors.

The anti Jewish laws had only a little impact on them. They continued to practice their religion and do business. Their children received a Jewish and secular education of good quality.

Nevertheless, the minority of Jews, who embraced modernity and the European lifestyle, suffered all types of discrimination, humiliation and exactions.   They were forced to live in overpopulated Mellah.

They were excluded from the civil service, from the private sector (no more than 2% of Jewish doctors and lawyers) and from French schools (a maximum of 10% of Jewish students in high schools and 3% in universities).
Finally, the real estates of all the Jews had to be identified and listed.

From 1940 to 1943, the life of the Jews was certainly difficult and precarious but not more than that of the Muslims, who were themselves victims of discrimination by the Europeans.

Discrimination against Jews as well as Muslims included access to swimming pools, public places, theaters and stadiums.

During this enduring period, no major tension existed between the Jews and Muslims. In fact, the war had a little impact on the relationship between the two communities.

The opposite was true of relations with the European which were enterable to the extent that the Jews lived in a permanent fear to be humiliated and sometimes beaten by European mobs.

This violence reached its climax with the French fascist group “S.O.C.” which planned a pogrom targeting Jews in Casablanca on November 15th, 1942. In these circumstances, the Jews could not rely on the French police to protect them.

Fortunately, on November 8th, 1942, the landing of American forces in Casablanca prevented the implantation of such hideous action.
Nevertheless, it took more than one year to revoke the “Jews statute”.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It was thanks to the courage and fairness of the young Moroccan Sultan that the discriminatory laws targeting those whom the King referred to as “his loyal Jewish subjects”, were never applied in an integral and uniform way.
Since the inception of the discriminatory laws, the Sultan consistently emphasized to his Jewish subjects that his door will always be open and that he will remain in a listening mood to their claims and complaints.
To illustrate this commitment, let me recall the testimony of my father Joseph BERDUGO, than President of the Jewish Committee of Meknes on the Census law of the Jewish assets that the French authorities intended to implement and which were viewed by the Jewish Community as a prelude to expropriation of their properties (as in France).

Indeed the Presidents of the 4 most important Jewish communities were taken secretly in a covered small van, walking then through the kitchens and the offices, to be received thereafter by the Monarch in his Apartment without any Protocol present.

The King said ‘I know your fears but I ask you to assure my Jewish subjects of my constant and full protection. Let them know that nothing will affect them that it did not affect first my family and myself’.

Informed that the French requested an inventory of the Jewish assets, while the law concerned only the real estate, the Sultan gave then his instructions to slow down the census and abstain from transmitting the files to the French authorities.

Following the landing of the US in November, 1942, and upon a request by the Sultan, my father was an eyewitness of the destruction of all the documents related to the census.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Beyond all these clear statements and positions, in favour of his Jewish subjects, the King of Morocco undertook courageous actions. He took brave initiatives that the recent disclosures of French and British archives illustrate eloquently.

Let me quote from a confidential report drawn in 1985 from the French MFA archives:
“Dissidence, 24 May 1941 – Telegram AF1 Change of Attitude of the Sultan of Morocco toward the French authorities, by René Touraine.

Credible sources informed us that the relations between the Sultan of Morocco and the French authorities became much tenser the day the Residence put into application the decree on the “measures” against the Jews despite the strict opposition of the Sultan. The Sultan refused to make differences amongst his loyal people and he was offended to see that his authority was overtaken by the French authorities. The Sultan waited for his crowning anniversary and publicly announced that he forbade the measures against the Jews. On this occasion, the Sultan generally offered a banquet attended by the French representatives and eminent Moroccan personalities. For the first time, the Sultan invited to the banquet the representatives of the Jewish community who sat next to the French officials. He declared to the French officials, who were surprised by the presence of Jews at this meeting: “I absolutely do not agree with the new anti-Semitic laws and I refuse to associate myself with a measure I disagree with; I reiterate as I did in the past that the Jews are under my protection and I reject any distinction that should be made amongst my people”. End of quote.

This sensational statement has been widely circulated among the French and Moroccan population”.
Obviously, in order to protect the subjects of Jewish confession, the Sultan took considerable risks in challenging the authority of the French Protectorate, which ended up discharging and exiling the king and His family in 1953.
Since then we understand why the Moroccan Jews venerate Mohammed V as the righteous among nations who saved them from the Shoa.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

In assuming his spiritual role as “Commander of the faithful”, the King of Morocco, as descendant of the Prophet, is bound to protect Jews as much as he does Muslims.

The Sultan guarantees the security and the safety of the three components of the Kingdom: Arab, Berber and Jew, who for centuries lived in Morocco in harmony and brotherhood.

Today, “His Majesty the King Mohammed VI reiterated ‘His religious, historical and constitutional responsibility in the preservation of the persons, the rights and the sacred values of His subjects of Jewish confession”.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We cannot address the issue of Holocaust in North Africa without referring to ‘forced labor camps’; these real ‘concentration camps’ created by Vichy to receive Gaullist, socialist, and communist opponents, Germans anti-Nazis, Spanish Republicans, Jewish refugees of Central Europe, Gypsies and even Muslim resistants.

These camps were under the total control of the French Army.

The prisoners who were at the mercy of their European Guardians experienced horrible conditions of detention. The 2000 Jews detainees representing 30% of the overall number of prisoners kept in over 30 camps. The camp of Berguent received exclusively 400 Jewish prisoners.

According to testimonies made by former prisoners in these camps, collected by British Foreign Office.

‘The only signs of humanity came from Muslim guards who took risks to relieve our sufferings’.

I draw your attention to the fact that as long as Moroccan Jews were enjoying the protection of the Sultan, no one was in custody in any of these camps.

This dramatic episode of the war was forgotten rather than hidden.
The existence of Camps in North Africa was revisited in 2007, in Robert Satloff’s book entitled: ‘Among the Righteous’.

Since the publication of this book, which tackles the Holocaust in the Arab countries, the Moroccan media published long surveys and articles on this ‘Forgotten story’, thus demonstrating that in an Arab and Muslim country, such as Morocco, one could speak about the Holocaust without taboos or any temptations of delayed .

This attitude of the Moroccan populations is in perfect symbiosis with the message of support addressed by King Mohammed VI to the ‘Aladin Project on the Holocaust’.

In this message read by the Moroccan Minister of Religious Affairs in UNESCO in March 2009, the Monarch stated:

‘My reading and that of my people are not one of amnesia. Our reading is the one of a memorial wound which we recorded in one of the most painful chapters in the Pantheon of the World history’.

The King invited also the participants: ‘to think differently about one of the most tragic and the most terrible stigmas of the Contemporary History, while nobody can pretend to make a total reading of the Holocaust, that is irrefragable and without concession nor dishonest compromise’.
In this perspective, Morocco cooperated with several NGO’s, to undertake exhaustive studies on the Holocaust in Morocco.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

One has to draw one lesson it is the importance of a Head of State in setting the tone for recognition, respect and treatment of minority faiths within its territory.

We can only hope that other Heads of State, seeking the enduring affections of their people, will come to realize that the way forward lies not in fanning the expedient fires of the moment, but in setting, as the King of Morocco does, a tone for tolerance and peaceful coexistence that will endure forever.

In conclusion, I would like to stress that although life for the Jews in Morocco was not always one of “wine and roses”, it was better than what other Jews experienced in most parts of the world, particularly in Europe.
Thank you for your attention.

Haiti revival after quake could take generations says UN chief: Bleak outlook for decades to come and fears of health calamity when rainy season starts in May.

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent, and Tom Phillips in Port-au-Prince
guardian.co.uk,     Friday 29 January 2010

Rebuilding Haiti will take generations because the earthquake-shattered country was starting from “below zero” and logistics remained a “nightmare”, the United Nations warned today.

The bleak long-term assessment came as basic medical supplies in Port-au-Prince ran dangerously low and concerns grew of a public health calamity with the onset of the rainy season.

Several hospitals and clinics reported shortages of painkillers and antibiotics for patients with fractures, amputated limbs and infections. Relief agencies said there was also an urgent need for tents.

Edmond Mulet, acting head of the UN mission in Haiti, warned that emergency relief efforts were the start of a commitment that would be much longer than the international community might realise. “I think this is going to take many more decades … this is an enormous backwards step in Haiti’s development,” he told the BBC. “We will not have to start from zero but from below zero.”

Foreign governments this week pledged to back a decade-long rebuilding effort but that timescale could need revising at a donor conference in the coming months.

The US military signalled plans to start transferring authority to the state and aid agencies within three to six months.

The magnitude-seven quake on 12 January caused the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people, left 1.5 million homeless and 3 million in need of aid. It destroyed much of Haiti’s infrastructure.

Some 200,000 heavy-duty tents have been ordered to cope with the rainy season, which typically begins in May, and the hurricane season soon after. Only about a 10th of that number of tents has reached Haiti. Salvage crews have started clearing rubble in Port-au-Prince but with ­three-quarters of the buildings mostly demolished the task is immense. There are plans for “tent cities” outside the capital and suggestions the city could be moved to a site less vulnerable to quakes.

Some relatively unscathed neighbourhoods show a semblance of normality: markets, shops and banks were working today and schools were due to open on Monday. Water, food and medicine is reaching more of the improvised camps.

Mullet, who is also the UN’s assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, said coordination between Haitian police and UN troops was improving aid delivery but relief logistics remained a “nightmare”.

That was apparent in hospitals where doctors and nurses complained of scarce medical supplies as they struggled to treat 200,000 survivors in need of post-surgery medical care as well as an unaccounted number with untreated injuries.

Nancy Fleurancois, a volunteer doctor at Jacmel, told a visiting UN official her team desperately needed antibiotics and surgical supplies. “You see people come here and they are at death’s door,” she said. “More help is needed.”

Kathleen Sejour, a hospital administrator, told AP: “Malaria is becoming a big problem and we don’t have enough anti-malaria drugs. Most of the kids right now have it. We had a good supply but we can’t keep up.”

Large amounts of aid have reached Haiti but the need is so vast, and the infrastructure so ruined, many survivors have been left to cope on their own. The maternal mortality rate was expected to jump.

Unicef said the disaster was likely to have separated thousands of children from their parents or guardians, and the agency repeated warnings about the threat of child traffickers.

Bo Viktor Nylund, Unicef’s senior children protection adviser, said hospitals had been alerted. “We are informing all hospitals that they should not discharge unaccompanied children without getting in touch with us or the government.”

In Port-a-Prince, Solveig Routier, a Canadian child protection specialist from Plan International, said that her group had received reliable reports of at least 15 cases of children being snatched from hospitals.

Aid groups estimate that there were 300,000 orphaned children here even before the recent disaster, and the devastation of Port-au-Prince means things have now become much worse.

Following the earthquake dozens of children were taken to the Sunshine House, a cramped concrete social centre in Pétionville which is home to 44 orphaned or abandoned children.

Sultane Ganthier, the orphanage’s 77-year-old director, said she had had to turn away children for lack of space. “Many people have asked us to take children [since the quake]. But we can’t do it. I can’t handle it,” she said.

WORLD – France Moves Toward Ban on Full-Face Veils.

Dana Kennedy
AOL News, Nice, France, Jan. 26, 2010

French lawmakers said Tuesday they want to ban Muslim women from veiling their faces in public facilities, a plan applauded by some French Muslim women but criticized by Muslim leaders, who said it could provoke Islamic extremists in France and abroad.

A parliamentary panel convened six months ago by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday issued a much-anticipated, 200-page report recommending that women be banned from wearing the full-face veil in public office buildings, schools, hospitals and while using mass transit. The full-face veil is viewed by many in France as a sign of extremism and a threat to gender equality and secularism.

Sarkozy began the debate in June when he said that the full-face veil was “not welcome” in France, currently home to more than 5 million Muslims, the largest such population in Europe. At present, fewer than 2,000 Muslim women wear the full-face veil in France, according to Interior Ministry statistics.

Photo by Christophe Ena, AP – “Faiza Silmi, 32, a woman of Moroccan origin living in France, could face sanctions if the country proceeds with its plans to ban full veils and burqas in public.”

Lawmaker André Gerin, the president of the 32-person, multiparty parliamentary panel, has called the full-face veil in France “the visible part of the iceberg” and warned that “behind the iceberg is a black tide of fundamentalism.”

A group called Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives), which represents French women of North African origin, agrees. On Monday night in Paris, members demonstrated in support of the burqa ban by donning full veils and maintaining silence to indicate suppression.

“We must say no to the burqa,” said Sihem Habchi, the group’s president. “Women’s rights are not merely a matter of a few inches of fabric, but the burqa is a symbol of oppression against women.”

But some members of the Muslim establishment in France say Sarkozy has pushed for the burqa ban because it’s an attention-getting move designed to win over women voters and the left.

Mohammed Moussaoui, leader of the government-sponsored Muslim Religion Council, has said that while Islam does not require women to wear full-face veils, banning them would “stigmatize” Muslim women, as he claims they were by a 2004 law forbidding headscarves and other expressions of religious allegiance in French public schools.

“It’s a false debate,” said Mohamed Iboudaaten, a regional president of the Muslim Religion Council, said Tuesday. “It’s a political strategy by Sarkozy. The full-face veil is not an issue in France.”

But Iboudaaten warned that the panel’s report could cause trouble. “It’s not good because it will provoke Muslims not only here in France but in the world,” he said.

Hassen Chalghoumi, a controversial imam who supports the burka ban, claimed that about 80 men burst into his mosque in the Paris suburb of Drancy on Monday night. He contended that some of them grabbed a microphone and told the 200 worshippers inside the mosque that he was a “nonbeliever” and an “apostate” and threatened to “liquidate” him. The incident could not be independently confirmed.

The panel’s recommendation for the ban will not lead immediately to a new law. Any action on the report would not come before March regional elections and may first take the form of a resolution simply denouncing the veil.

Disaster in Haiti – French Minister Criticizes US Over Haiti Aid.

PARIS (Jan. 18) AP – The United Nations must investigate and clarify the dominant U.S. role in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a French minister said Monday, claiming that international aid efforts were about helping Haiti, not “occupying” it.

U.S. forces last week turned back a French aid plane carrying a field hospital from the damaged, congested airport in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, prompting a complaint from French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet. The plane landed safely the following day.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned governments and aid groups not to squabble as they try to get their aid into Haiti.

“People always want it to be their plane … that lands,” Kouchner said Monday. “(But) what’s important is the fate of the Haitians.”

But Joyandet persisted.

“This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti,” Joyandet, in Brussels for an EU meeting on Haiti, said on French radio.

In another weekend incident, 250 Americans were flown to New Jersey’s McGuire Air Force Base on three military planes from Haiti. U.S. forces initially blocked French and Canadians nationals from boarding the planes, but the cordon was lifted after protests from French and Canadian officials.

The U.S. military controls the Port-au-Prince airport where only one runway is functioning and has been effectively running aid operations. However, the United Nations is taking the lead in the critical task of coordinating aid.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday the U.S. government had no intention of taking power from Haitian officials. “We are working to back them up, but not to supplant them,” she said.

Joyandet said he expects a U.N. decision on how governments should work together in Haiti and that he hopes “things will be clarified concerning the role of the United States.”

Other French officials sought to calm diplomatic tensions over aid. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero insisted the plane incidents were “minor problems” to be expected during such a difficult relief mission and said that Kouchner and Clinton have been working since the quake on coordinating help.

Both nations have occupied Haiti in the past.

France occupied Haiti for more than 100 years, from 1697 to independence in 1804 after the world’s first successful slave uprising. More recently, U.S. Marines occupied the country from 1915 to 1934 to quiet political turmoil.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he intends to travel to Haiti “in the weeks to come,” though no date has been set. Former Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has cautioned that Sarkozy shouldn’t go too soon because it could divert attention from aid efforts.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said, “Clearly it can be a problem if every leader in the world wants to turn up. It will inevitably cause problems, particularly for the leadership of these operations, although not, of course, for the humanitarian workers on the ground.

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MORE TOP NEWS
AP

Haiti chaos hampers aid delivery; death toll rises.
6 minutes ago
Haitians fleeing capital in search of food, safety.
6 minutes ago

UNITAR Receives Grant in Support of C3D+ Project.

7 January 2009: The UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) has received a EUR 300,000 grant from the Austrian Development Agency to support one of its climate change projects.

The “Capacity Development for Adaptation to Climate Change and GHG Mitigation” (C3D+) project is an 8 million Euro project that aims to improve the ability of developing countries to address climate change by developing adaptation measures and planning mitigation strategies.

The project brings together Regional Centers of excellence in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean, to form a network that pools and shares expertise to develop tools and learning materials, and is expected to benefit at least 3000 persons mainly in developing countries.

The partners of the C3D+ project are the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the International Institute of Sustainable Development

ON THIS DAY – On Dec. 21, 1988, a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pan Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people; now, 21 years later, remembering what addiction to oil can do to us, the New York Times starts to discern a path to a better future for the planet.

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL OF December 21, 2009
Copenhagen, and Beyond.

The global climate negotiations in Copenhagen produced neither a grand success nor the complete meltdown that seemed almost certain as late as Friday afternoon. Despite two years of advance work, the meeting failed to convert a rare gathering of world leaders into an ambitious, legally binding action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It produced instead a softer interim accord that, at least in principle, would curb greenhouses gases, provide ways to verify countries’ emissions, save rain forests, shield vulnerable nations from the impacts of climate change, and share the costs.

The hard work has only begun, in Washington and elsewhere. But Copenhagen’s achievements are not trivial, given the complexity of the issue and the differences among rich and poor countries. President Obama deserves much of the credit. He arrived as the talks were collapsing, spent 13 hours in nonstop negotiations and played hardball with the Chinese. With time running out — and with the help of China, India, Brazil and South Africa — he forged an agreement that all but a handful of the 193 nations on hand accepted.

Mr. Obama aside, there were two keys to the deal. One was a dramatic offer of $100 billion in aid from the industrialized nations to poorer countries to help them move to less-polluting sources of energy and to deal with drought and other consequences of warming. The offer had an instant soothing effect on many poorer nations that had been threatening to walk out all week.

The other was China’s willingness to submit to a verification system under which all countries would agree to report on their actions and — assuming details could be worked out — open their books to inspection. Transparency is a huge issue in Congress, and Mr. Obama made clear in his opening remarks on Friday that he would not agree to a deal unless China gave ground.

An enormous amount of work lies ahead, both for the president and for the other signatories to what is now being called the Copenhagen Accord. In order to deliver on his promises to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and provide a chunk of that $100 billion in aid, Mr. Obama must persuade the Senate to approve a cap-and-trade bill — a huge task.

Meanwhile, there can be no letup by the rest of the world’s negotiators, no matter how tired and beat up they may be. These talks have been so chaotic and contentious that some people believe the United Nations machinery has outlived its usefulness, and real progress will henceforth be made in smaller gatherings of the big players.

There may be some truth to this, but at the moment it is hard to see how many of the arrangements agreed to in principle at Copenhagen — the verification system, for instance — can be made to work without detailed agreements. There must also be some mechanism that holds all countries responsible for doing everything they can to tackle climate change. As it is, the pledges now on the table, from both rich and poor countries, are nowhere near enough to keep atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide from rising above dangerous levels.

But for the moment it is worth savoring the steps forward. China is now a player in the effort to combat climate change in a way it has never been, putting measurable emissions reductions targets on the table and accepting verification. And the United States is very much back in the game too. After eight years of playing the spoiler, it is now a leader with a president who seems to embrace the role.

NEW YORK TIMES RECENT FURTHER ARTICLES ABOUT THE UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Mixed Bag for Obama on Climate Change Deal Amid the Recession

By JOHN HARWOOD

A victory for President Obama in Copenhagen will not necessarily help his popularity at home.

December 21, 2009

MORE ON THE UNFCCC AND: FOREIGN AID, GLOBAL WARMING, UNITED STATES ECONOMY, GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, PELOSI, NANCY, OBAMA, BARACK, KERRY, JOHN

An Air of Frustration for Europe at Climate Talks

By JAMES KANTER

Caught off guard by the Copenhagen accord, European leaders felt pressure to back it even though they thought it did not go far enough and had a process in which they had little influence.

December 21, 2009

MORE ON THE UNFCCC AND: GLOBAL WARMING, COPENHAGEN (DENMARK),EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Copenhagen’s One Real Accomplishment: Getting Some Money Flowing

By JAMES KANTER

The accord in Copenhagen was “a big step forward” after previous talks offered no financial support mechanisms, Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary general, said.

December 21, 2009

MORE ON THE UNFCCC AND: GLOBAL WARMING, ENERGY AND POWER,COPENHAGEN (DENMARK)

Compromising on 2 Issues, Obama Gets Partial Wins

By PETER BAKER

From Copenhagen to Capitol Hill, the president determined the outer limits of what he could accomplish on climate change and health care and decided that was enough, for now.

December 20, 2009

MORE ON THE UNFCCC AND: GLOBAL WARMING, HEALTH INSURANCE AND MANAGED CARE, REFORM AND REORGANIZATION, OBAMA, BARACK

A Grudging Accord in Climate Talks

By ANDREW C. REVKIN and JOHN M. BRODER

After delays, theatrics and deal-making, climate talks ended with an agreement to “take note” of a pact shaped by five nations.

December 20, 2009

MORE ON THE UNFCCC AND: GLOBAL WARMING, TREATIES

• Science and Politics of Climate Change
• Who’s at the Climate Talks, and What Do They Seek?
• Climate Change Conversations

U.N. Climate Talks ‘Take Note’ of Accord Backed by U.S.

By ANDREW C. REVKIN and JOHN M. BRODER

The agreement left open the question of whether the accord would gain the full support of the countries involved in the talks on limiting the risks of climate change.

December 20, 2009

MORE ON THE UNFCCC AND: COPENHAGEN (DENMARK)

• Science and Politics of Climate Change
• Who’s at the Climate Talks, and What Do They Seek?
• Climate Change Conversations

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Off to the Races

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

A competitive Earth Race led by America can be a more self-sustaining way to reduce carbon emissions than a festival of nonbinding commitments at a U.N. conference.

December 20, 2009

MORE ON THE UNFCCC AND: GLOBAL WARMING, GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, UNITED STATES, UNITED NATIONS

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Updated Dec. 18, 2009

Representatives of 192 nations gathered in Copenhagen to seek a consensus on an international strategy for fighting global warming, in a series of meetings between Dec. 7 and Dec. 18, 2009.

Leaders concluded a climate change deal the Obama administration called “meaningful” but which fell short of even the modest expectations for the summit. The maneuvering that characterized the final week of the talks was a sign of their seriousness; never before have global leaders come so close to a significant agreement to reduce the greenhouse gases linked to warming the planet.

President Obama injected himself into a multilayered negotiation that was far more chaotic and contentious than anticipated – frozen by longstanding divisions between rich and poor nations and a legacy of mistrust of the United States, which has long refused to accept any binding limits on its greenhouse gas emissions.

The accord drops what had been the expected goal of concluding a binding international treaty by the end of 2010, which leaves the implementation of its provisions uncertain. It is likely to undergo many months, perhaps years, of additional negotiation before it emerges in any internationally enforceable form.

Read More…

Finally a second shoe comes of at the UN Department of Public Information that services the Ban Ki-moon UN Administration. After the replacement of the officer in charge of Media Accreditation, now also a new Spokesperson.

November 30, 2009 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is getting a new Spokesperson – a real professional – Martin Nesirky – that will hail from Vienna where he was not just spokesman for over three years at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) but was also Head of Press and Public Information.

Nesirky will replace Michele Montas of Haiti who served since the beginning of the term of Mr. Ban Ki-moon, January 1, 2007, till now, November 30, 2009, thus leaving one month ahead of the end of a three years contract. Ms. Montas is retiring from the UN.

Mr. Nesirky came to OSCE from Reuters where he served over two decades as an international correspondent and editor. He covered issues the like of  the fall of the  Berlin Wall, events in the Balkans, and nuclear non-proliferation issues. Further, he had a stint as the Moscow Bureau Chief of Reuters with responsibility for coverage of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and as senior editor in London handling political stories, including the Middle East and Africa. He has been posted in Berlin, The Hague, and Seoul, though it is not known if he also speaks Korean, the language of the current UN Secretary- General – the subject of a question from one of the correspondents that remained unanswered.

More recently Mr. Nesirky in his Spokesman capacity at OSCE was instrumental in navigating the Russia backed OSCE Chairmanship for Kazakhstan for 2010. At the UN he may find his personal talents helpful in creating a new persona for the UN Secretary-General whose popularity with parts of the UN have hit a low, at a time that his reelection for a second term will be put on the table.

Ms. Montas whom he replaces had none of such credentials. Prior to her appointment, Montas headed the French unit of UN Radio. From 2003 to 2004, she served as the Spokesperson for UN General Assembly President Julian Robert Hunte, of Saint Lucia, soon after she fled to New York from Haiti. In Haiti, she and her husband were also radio journalists and activists. Her husband was killed in Haiti, and she escaped to New York. We can vouch that in her first several months in the job Mr. Ban Ki-moon set her up, she had no understanding or patience for subjects of climate change – not even when the subject was raised in connection to killings going on in Africa, or the dangers to Small Island Member States of the UN. Not even in matters of the Middle East – she seemed as a fish out of water and effectively harming  positions that the SG might have been more forthcoming. In press conferences of the SG she allowed only questions that she thought he would be interested in while guarding him from such questions as climate change.

The real question is now if Mr. Martin Nesirky will find it acceptable to fit in her shoes and submit to further layers of UN functionaries in a UN Department of Public Information where the Director of News and Media Division is Mr. Ahmad Fawzi who acts as a factotum on Press Accreditation and also whenever there is the need to talk to the press upon fighting in the Middle East. We feel that Mr. Nesirky may be inclined to become his own man in those areas while serving the needs of the Secretary-General.

The announcement about the new Spokesperson was made by Mr. Farhan Haq, of Pakistan, an Associated Spokesperson, third in the ranking below Mr. Nesirky (The second ranking Spokesperson is the Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe of Japan). Farhan started the announcement by saying: “And finally, a message that you’ve been waiting for some time. The Secretary-General today has named Martin Nesirky of the United Kingdom as the new Spokesperson for the Secretary-General,” but when asked by a correspondent if there will be in parallel an appointment for a position called Strategic Communications, he also gave no answer and showed impatience by mentioning that “our guests are here.”

Another correspondent asked nevertheless about the Small Pacific Developing Island States that called upon the Security Council to take up the issue of climate change “as a matter of security, because they say that their islands, their countries, could potentially disappear together for the first time in history, and they’re looking for the Council to develop enforceable emission targets. What does the SG think of this call to the SC to take up the Climate Change issue?”

The anemic answer was: “As you know, the SG has been encouraging all of the relevant bodies to deal with climate change and its effects across a variety of fields.At this stage, however, what the SG is concerned with is making sure that Member states and leaders at the highest level will come to Copenhagen to deal precisely with all of the challenges of climate change and seal a deal that can help resolve all the various problems that member States face.” That was quite a lame answer from the source of “Hopenhagen” and a clear show why finally the UN deserves a professional Spokesperson it was denied during the first three years of the Ban Ki-moon Administration of the UN.

The Correspondent continued with his insistence for an answer:
“There is nothing about the council taking up this matter?”

Final answer from the Associate Spokesperson: “It’s always up to the Security Council which matters it chooses to take up under rubric of peace and security issues.”

From our point of view, will Mr. Martin Nersirky accompany Mr. Ban Ki-moon to Copenhagen, or will it be Marie Okabe?

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N.B. - to be fair to Michele Montas -
Montas was one of the producers of Jonathan Demme’s documentary, The Agronomist, which depicted the life and death of her husband Jean Dominique and his career at Radio Haiti-Inter, the radio station that he founded. She was also involved with MINUTASH – the UN mission to Haiti. Montas worked  as a journalist at that Radio-station and has been  a human rights activist in Haiti and later a consistent international lecturer on Haiti – but the subject matter of the UN extends beyond Haiti and the Aristide government interests. We do not imply that Montas was a negative person as such, only that she was not the right person for her job which allowed Mr. Ahmad Fawzi of Egypt to take over some of the responsibilitires that were hers, and the Under Secretary-General for the UN DPI, Mr. Kyotaka Akasaka, another strange appointment in the Ban Ki-moon cabinet, could really not care less.

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P.S. – On November 23, 2009 Martin Nesirky met the media correspondents to the UN and said:

A couple of things I just wanted to mention.  First of all, I’m really looking forward to working with all of you; getting to know you.  This is a huge challenge, of course, and I’m very keen to try to get to know you so I can help you the best that I can.  That’s the first thing.

The second thing is that, needless to say, I do read what’s being written.  And I think there are a couple of things I’d like to make absolutely clear and very straight at the beginning.  My language skills: I speak German, I speak Russian, I speak English after a fashion, I speak a little bit of Korean and an even smaller amount of French.  I realize that it’s very, very important to be able to speak French. I’m going to be doing as the Secretary-General has done, which is to take extra French classes to improve on that. And that’s really all I wanted to say on that matter.

The other is that I really believe that coming from outside the UN has advantages and disadvantages.  You will have to bear with me as I get to know the system that you, many of you, know far better than I probably will ever do.  But I am very keen to work with you so that you can help me to help you to have the stories that you need to write.

Also, it seems that the UN expects Mr. Nesirky to start his work at the UN on only December 7th, which is coincidentally the day the Copenhagen Conference opens officially, does it mean that he will be there, or it means that Marie Okabe will be there and he will be in New York? We shall see!

The UN University Is Becoming The Institution of Research it Was Intended to Be:
It Deals Now With Subjects Like The Possible Updating of the UN Security Council; Other Effective Governing Tools; The Concept of Ethics in Adam Smith in the light of the Present Global Crises; or the Prospect of International Mediation of Conflicts.

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The UN University – UNU -  is one of the smaller United Nations organizations, and is reliant on voluntary contributions. UNU receives no funds from the regular UN budget. Headquartered in Tokyo it is obviously supported by the Japanese government. Further funding comes from other government, agencies, international organizations, foundations, and private companies.

UNU is dedicated to the generation and transfer of knowledge, and the strengthening of individual and institutional capacities in furtherance of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

The mission of UNU is to contribute, through research and capacity building, to efforts to resolve the pressing global problems that are a concern of the United Nations, its Peoples and Member States.

In fulfilling this mission, UNU fosters intellectual cooperation among scholars, scientists, and practitioners worldwide — especially those in the developing world — and functions as:

an international community of scholars;
a bridge between the United Nations and the international academic community;
a think-tank for the United Nations system;
a builder of capacity, particularly in developing countries; and
a platform for dialogue and new and creative ideas.
Since its modest beginnings in September 1975, UNU has grown and matured into a decentralized, global network comprising UNU Centre in Tokyo, a worldwide network of 13 UNU Research and Training Centres/Programmes (UNU RTC/Ps), and liaison offices at United Nations headquarters (New York) and UNESCO headquarters (Paris).

UNU Press publishes numerous books each year and cooperates in the production of five journals. The UNU Office of Communication oversees production of the Work in Progress and UNU Updatenewsletters and UNU Annual Report, and assists the academic units the preparation of their public information materials and other communications.

UNU has 15 Research and Training Centres/Programmes spanning many critical issues facing humanity today.

The ‘programme space’ within which UNU operates is defined by three variables:

the major processes that are profoundly changing our world
the actors that are effecting these changes
and the topics and themes most relevant to UNU’s mission
Within this programme space, our activities are clustered into two broad programme areas — Peace and Governance, and Environment and Development — and further focused within five thematic areas: Peace and Security; Good Governance; Development and Poverty Reduction; Environment and Sustainability; and Science, Technology and Society.

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FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW – UNU IS THE ONLY THINK TANK IN THE UN SYSTEM AND ITS MAIN INTEREST IS IN:

HUMAN SECURITY, PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT. THE LATER IS OBVIOUSLY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND THE RELATED ISSUES OF RENEWABLE ENERGY AND THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

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Associated Institutions of the UNU:

Supplementing the work of UNU’s 15 centers are institutions of academic excellence that have been designated by the University Council as UNU Associated Institutions.

Federal University of Mato Grosso, Pantanal Regional Environmental Programme, Mato Grosso, Brazil;

Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, International Environmental Research Center, Gwangju, Republic of Korea;

Griffith University. Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law, Queensland, Australia;

Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, India;

GRID-Arendal, Global Virtual University, Arendal, Norway;

University of Bonn, Center for Development Research, Bonn, Germany;

Tufts University, Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Boston, USA;

Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand;

Global Fire Monitoring Center, Freiburg, Germany;

International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, Enschede, the Netherlands;

University of Madras, Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Chennai, India;

National Food Research Institute, Ibaraki, Japan;

University of Ulster, INCORE (International Conflict Research), Northern Ireland;

Cornell University, UNU Food and Nutrition Programme for Human and Social Development, Ithaca, NY, USA;

University of Chile, Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology, Santiago, Chile;

Mahidol University, Institute of Nutrition, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand;

National Institute of Public Health, Mexico, Nutrition and Health Research Center, Cuervavaca, Mexico;

Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population, National Nutrition Institute, Cairo, Egypt;

Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institution for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai, PRC;

University of Nairobi, Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya;

Gansu Natural Energy Research Institute, Gansu Natural Energy Research Institute / UNIDO International Solar Energy Center for Technology Promotion and Transfer (ISEC-GNERI), Gansu, PRC.

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Liaison Offices

UNU Office in New York

As part of its mandate to serve the United Nations University, UNU-ONY has a multifaceted mandate with an overarching mission to showcase and make UNU’s Research and Programmes (RTCP) available to the UN Secretariat, UN Permanent Missions, NGOs, academics and civil society.

Dr. Jean-Marc Coicaud
2 United Nations Plaza, Room DC2-2060, New York, N.Y. 10017 U.S.A.
Tel: (1-212) 963-6387; Fax: (1-212) 371-9454
E-mail:  unuona at ony.unu.edu   -  www.ony.unu.edu

UNU Liaison Office at UNESCO, Paris

Luk Van Langenhoven
Representative, United Nations University Office at UNESCO
c/o UNESCO Bureau 7B 4.06, 1, rue Miollis, 75732 Paris Cedex 15, France.
Tel: (33-1) 45.68.46.42 Fax: (33-1) 40.65.91.86
E-mail:  unuoe at unesco.org

Headquarters: United Nations University Centre
5–53–70 Jingumae,
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8925
Japan

Tel: +81–(0)3–5467–1212 • Fax: +81–(0)3–3499–2828 • E-mail:  mbox at unu.edu
Webmaster:  webmaster at hq.unu.edu

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WE WRITE ABOUT THE UNU AT THIS TIME AS WE REALIZED THAT THE UNU IS TAKING ITS ROLE AS UN THINK TANK VERY SERIOUSLY AND THIS MONTH HAS HAD SEVERAL PRESENTATION S AT THE UN HEADQUARTERS SPONSORED BY ITS NEW YORK LIAISON OFFICE. THESE PRESENTATIONS, OPEN TO ALL WITH INTEREST IN THE FUTURE OF THE UN, CLEARLY MAY HELP FINDING SOLUTIONS TO SOME OF THE UN PROBLEMS AT A TIME THE UN HAS REACHED ALL-TIME LOWS IN THE WAY IT IS PERCEIVED IN THE WORLD.  I saw at those presentations members of Missions to the UN, NGOs and plain interested outsiders, but very little participation from among the in-house accredited Press. This worries me as it can be seen as a sign that the Media that keeps criticizing the UN does not make an effort to look at ways that may improve the working of the UN.

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Monday, October 26, 2009 UNU tackled the topic: “SECURITY COUNCIL REFORM” led by the presenter Dr. Joseph Schwartzenberg, an academic from Brooklyn, who is now with the University of Minnesota, who devised a mathematical formula for a weighted voting system at the UN. His ideas were published in a book titled accordingly – “REVITALIZING THE UNITED NATIONS: REFORM THROUGH WEIGHTED VOTING.” He wrote this in 2004 while President of the Minnesota Chapter of Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS), formerly the World Federalist Association (WFM). Among the organizations that backed this project were also the Center for UN Reform Education (CURE), and the Canada based Academic Council on the United Nations (ACUNS), as well as the CGS and the WFM.

Professionally, Professor Schwartzenberg is a Cartographer of South East Asia, and he was also the author of books about the Indian subcontinent ranging from Geography to the caste system and to an effort at Peace-making in Kashmir.

The specific in The Schwartzenberg system is a regional formula for a 12 Member Security Council based on the equation that evaluates the Weighted Voting power of a Region as one third of the total Population percentage of the world population defined as “P” plus one third of the region’s financial Contribution to the UN budget which obviously is a function of its share as measured by its total GNP – this is defined as “C” and plus a constant which is based on the present size of the UN membership – that is 192 and is intended to give equal status to all States – this last factor is defined as “M” and is dependent on the number of States that are members of the region – each State having an 0.52% value as in 1/192 – but when it comes to the formula – the constant used by Dr. Schwartzenberg is 8.33% which is 1/12 as per the 12 regions.

We get thus  WV = (P + C + M) / 3

These numbers Range then from a 16.19 for Europe to 4,27 for the Westminster League which covers Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The US gets 14.32 and China gets 11.09.

Those in between include:India (8.95); (Japan 8.03); Latin America (7.77) includes the Caribbean; East Asia (7.46) includes the Pacific Island States, the Koreas, and Mongolia; Africa (6.56) Subsahara, West Asia (6.04) includes Turkey, Iran, and Central Asia; Arab League (4.96) that includes the MENA States; Russia (4.38) including Belarus and the Ukraine.

The presentation was followed with a lively discussion at which participated quite a few members of the Missions.

Professor Schwartzenberg answered many questions by the fact that these groups or Regions can change like for instance if Turkey or the Ukraine join the EU. He also insisted that nobody gets the Veto right as the weighted vote gives Europe, the US and China the high level of power and India, Japan and a Brazil led Latin America have strong power also.

I expressed my questions regarding the fact that the Small Independent Island States in the Pacific, being led by New Zealand, might prefer being part of the Westminster League group rather then East Asia. Professor Schwartzenberg agreed and said that the former British Colonies in the Pacific and in the Caribbean, with Parliamentary government systems in place may indeed opt to move and he does not object to this. He had a more negative position to my suggestion that a 10% WV or even an 11% figure should be entitled to a RIGHT OF VETO POWER. My suggestion came in effect in the steps of a remark he made that Russia should never have been recognized as the inheritor of the USSR original veto power of the charter. This is clearly a correct observation that puts the Security Council in question as nothing but a diplomatic arrangement that is far from the original charter agreement. Imagine Scotland and Wales leaving the UK – will then England hold on to the Veto power? Will the proliferation of the number of States resulting from break-up of empires result in enhanced power by numbers? Will the break-up of Nigeria result in the infusion of 38 mini-states to the UN? This last thought has special value in the light of Africa asking for a permanent membership for Nigeria – so the idea is not far fetched.

My suggestion of 10 or 11 in the Schwartzenberg scheme to be the the veto cut off point has also the added value that it removes the mistaken veto that the UN body has allowed to Russia, and it forces the EU to finally proceed in its unification procedures. It further sets an attainable goal for a solidified India and in the mean-time it makes it more acceptable for the US, China and the EU to accept the Schwartzenberg proposal.

I strongly feel that having such a discussion at UNU gives this UN member something to be proud off. Further I must say that I am partial to this UNU effort because of my old activities within think-tanks, and the fact that the same CURE, that backed the Schwartzenberg proposal, also backed my own “Promptbook on Sustainable Development” which can be seen on this website – that was before the Johannesburg Summit of 2001.

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Monday, October 19, 2009, UNU hosted a Panel that was Initiated by the Government of Catalonia, an Autonomous Region In Spain.

The Topic: “DECENTRALIZED GOVERNMENTS AND THE NEW MULTILATERALISM.”

The Catalans came in full force and there were a sprinkle of Basques and Flemish officials in the room as well. It was a three hour long event. The point was that autonomous well-to-do regions in Europe that would like to achieve their independence within an EU context, and probably will eventually be able to do so, have started to institute their own foreign aid programs as a first step towards getting the international recognition even before they are released by their own UN member National governments.  n the other hand, what about areas that are under very different regimes then Europe? What about the ethnic regions of China? Or even less controversial areas in Africa or Latin America? What about Chechnya and other regions in Russia? The Catalan success story just highlights the darker corners of the UN system. But then, when it comes to break-away parts of a UN member state even a country like Belgium is not rational about its comport, The Flemish Gentleman, whom I asked why do his people fight for keeping Brussels as their wished-for capital, while dividing the country into three, rather then two parts would be easier and would be much more in the interest of all involved. In such a case Brussels could become the Federal District of a Federalized European Union. He said – NEVER.

We had there the president, Vice president, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, the Director General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid of Catalonia. There was also a speaker for the North Atlantic Autonomous Region of Nicaragua whose region is aided by the Catalans. There was a participant for the Spanish Government, and towards the end and the eating of the great sandwiches, came also the Spanish Ambassador to the UN.

There were also representatives of various humanitarian UN affiliates and of the UN proper. The argument was made that a region-to-region foreign aid relationship is more efficient then when central governments are involved. Further, today many other non-central government organizations can act very efficiently, or those NGOs or even corporate interests when bent to do good.

I just glanced over the event, but in reality there was much that was put forward. There was talk of the Cardozo report that involved civil society in the works of the UN.

Non-centralized government is somewhere closer to civil society – this specially when the talk is about a G2, 7, 18, 20, 22 or whatever figure will evolve. There must be place for Parliaments, cities, Mayors, local authorities and Regions inside States and in between States. The 21st century strategy will deal with Global Public Goods and the renewal of multilateralism on a different scale. We go to more globalization of the problems and this will require a more down to earth approach to the solutions.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009, UNU hosted the new Turkish Ambassador to the UN, Ertugrul Apakan whose topic was: “CONFLICT AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIATION: A TURKISH PERSPECTIVE.”

Though only two months in New York, Ambassador Apakan has in the past held positions that got him directly involved in the Turkish – Greek controversies over Cyprus, and his position in New York seemingly comes about Turkey’s efforts to be the Middle East mediator.

Turkey sees itself part of the region that stretches from Afghanistan to the caucasus and from the Middle East to the Balkan that includes the main areas of conflict in the world. Having friendly relations with Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Turkey has viable peace in mind as its objective – that calls for mediation.

To have a peace agreement one must have a viable plan – without such a plan agreements fall apart he said. The Turkish approach is to respect the value system of all partners. The Ambassador thinks that in the Middle East the situation is ripe for mediation – provided the parties agree to have mediation. Asked what is most important in mediation – his answer was to be a good listener.

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Friday, October 23, 2009, UNU hosted Professor Charles Sampford, Director of the Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law, which is a joint UNU and Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. 2002-2004 he was a member of a task force on responding to threats to democracy chaired by Mme. Madeleine Albright, and 2006 he was the convener of the first World Ethics Forum in Oxford.

The presentation looked at the present global financial crisis as the result of multiple and reinforcing governance failures – financial intermediaries abused the powers entrusted to them. His main point was that they completely misrepresented what ADAM SMITH was saying by using their quotes only from his “Wealth of Nations,” and completely leaving out of their sites his other book – “THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS.” The presentation in New York was in effect a celebration of 250th Anniversary of its publication.

The topic: “ADAM SMITH’S LOST LEGACY: ETHICS IN FINANCIAL REGULATION.”

In 1533 Peter Stuyvesant built a brick wall to keep out the Barbarians and in 1961 East Germany built a wall to keep out the capitalists. These walls came down. The Social Democrats thought they can leave space for democracy when dealing with capitalism. The quote says nevertheless that it is not from the butcher, backer and brewer that we expect our dinner – but it is rather from their self interest. But watch out – self interest can put food on our table and drop the bomb over Nagasaki.

Adam Smith allowed that for tackling a problem it suffice to go back to Confucius, Jesus and Moses, but we know now that further elements are needed – there was no ethics yet in his days.

When joint stock holdings were created – that is when it became clear that capital gathering unions can do better then the individual. Further, groups like NGOs work for more then just the self-interest.

Corruption is abuse in the name of self interest so we cannot go back to The Wealth of Nations ideas of Adam Smith. Economists say now we need Incentives and Disincentives. Institutions are all about interests and incentives alone. Disincentives may help bring about change.

Corruption and climate change are areas we cannot leave to Adam Smith alone these days! We must find solutions that are large – but they have to include his ideas also.

There is serious problem when a theory becomes ideology. also we have to define scales like global, local, regional. corporate…governments – the same for financial area problems – global, regulatory, financial regulatory, corporate, government, …

The artificial financial instruments that were created – where do we get the balance between regulation and freedom in financial instruments? with the Market and Democracy distinction – how does one give legitimacy to the market?

Of course – one person one vote is not the same as one dollar one vote – we must decide which way we go, but we must remember that ethics is how we claim to serve the community.

Smith does not speak of the law – but in his second book he stresses ethics & Justice.

There is promotion and economic rewards, but when you get your first loaf of bread you are happy – when you get the third it does matter much less.

HOLLYWOOD BACKS UN CAMPAIGN IN PUSH FOR WORLD LEADERS TO SIGN CLIMATE CHANGE PACT

A major Hollywood actor and director take starring roles in a United Nations public service announcement campaign launched today, aimed at compelling world leaders to “seal the deal” on a greenhouse gas emissions treaty at a climate change conference later this year.

Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, co-writer of the apocalyptic science-fiction blockbuster film – “The Day After Tomorrow” – which depicts catastrophic effects of global warming, the series of videos urge viewers to sign the online Climate Petition .

The announcements were shot in six locations across four continents and feature Don Cheadle, the star of Hotel Rwanda, a film based on the true story of a man who saved hundreds of lives during the 1994 genocide in the African country.

“The series is aimed at promoting public awareness and catalyzing action at the highest and humblest level to boost the prospects for a wide-ranging and transformative agreement at a crucial UN climate convention meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark in less than 80 days,” said UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner.

The conference in December brings together world leaders in a bid to agree an ambitious and far-reaching successor pact to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty setting greenhouse gas emission limits.

Also included in the announcements is world class violinist and UN Messenger of Peace Midori Goto, who said she was happy to lend her voice to those concerned about climate change.

Ms. Goto spotlighted the newly-appointed Prime Minister of Japan’ commitment to make substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

“We can act together to bring meaningful changes to our lives and to our environment,” she said. “Let’s sign the climate petition and let our voices be heard.”

Other videos in the series – released at the start of Global Climate Week, 21 to 25 September – are presented by President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives; Nobel Laureate for Peace Wangari Maathai; Animal Planet presenter and environmentalist Phillipe Cousteau; and wildlife film maker Saba Douglas-Hamilton.

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VOTING FOR NEXT CHIEF OF UNESCO MOVES INTO THIRD ROUND

A third round of voting will be held tomorrow to try to select the next Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) after none of the nine candidates for the post were able to obtain a majority of ballots in the first two rounds.

The third round is scheduled to start about 3:30 p.m. tomorrow in Paris, where UNESCO’s Executive Board is conducting its latest session, the agency said on its website.

Earlier this week the 58-member Executive Board interviewed all nine candidates and then discussed those interviews in a private meeting. Voting is by secret ballot and a winner is chosen by a simple majority of the board. The first round was held yesterday and the second round was conducted this evening, but neither round produced a winner.

The nine candidates are comprised of five men and four women. They include Lithuania’s Ambassador to UNESCO, Ina Marciulionyte; Bulgarian former foreign minister Irina Gueorguieva Bokova; Ivonne Juez de A. Baki of Ecuador; and European Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner (Austria).

The other candidates are: Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny; Tanzania’s Sospeter Mwijarubi Muhongo; Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Vladimirovich Yakovenko; Algeria’s Mohammed Bedjaoui; and Assistant Director-General of UNESCO’s Africa department, Nouréini Tidjani-Serpos of Benin. The person chosen by the board will serve a four-year term. The term of Koïchiro Matsuura, the current Director-General, ends this November. Having served two terms, he is not eligible for another stint.

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FUNDING SHORTAGE MAY FORCE UN AGENCY TO REDUCE FOOD AID TO KENYANS

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today that a shortage of donations will soon force it to reduce monthly rations to millions of Kenyans in need of urgent assistance due to a combination of drought and high food prices.

“The funding shortfall is so severe that we will have to start reducing the size of rations early next month – the hardship people are facing is going from bad to worse,” WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a statement.

WFP is currently distributing 2.6 million drought-affected Kenyans with food aid and hopes to increase that number by 1.2 million.

In parts of central Kenya, 50 per cent of shallow wells, boreholes and other water sources have dried up, and people walk up to 30 kilometres in search of water, according to the agency.

“Drought has left farmers with empty fields and the carcasses of dead cattle litter the land in some of the worst affected areas,” said Ms. Sheeran.

“Malnutrition rates are rising beyond emergency levels. And staple food prices – 100 per cent above normal – are beyond the reach of the hungriest people who are trying to feed their families.”

The agency said it has only received 8 per cent – $24 million – of the $301 million needed to feed 3.8 million people over the next six months.

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MORE MUST BE DONE TO REFORM GLOBAL FOOD SYSTEM TO FIGHT CRISIS, SAYS UN EXPERT

Investing in agriculture alone will not solve the food crisis, a United Nations independent expert said today, calling for stepped-up political will to address structural flaws in global food production, which is at the crux of the current emergency.

“The right to food is not the right to be fed,” Olivier De Schutter told reporters today in Geneva after briefing the Human Rights Council. “It is the right to access the means to produce food or to obtain an income that enables the purchase of adequate food.”

World leaders pledged $20 billion in agriculture in poor countries in July at the meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) industrialized countries in L’Aquila, Italy, but he called for a more ambitious policy.

“For one billion hungry people to escape poverty, the initiative announced at L’Aquila can only be a first step,” said Mr. De Schutter, who serves as the Special Rapporteur on the right to food. “It cannot be the last.”

Increased investment in agriculture is only a slice of the solution, he noted, calling for action to stabilize international food markets, which could face further disruption due to climate change.

Small farmers, he said, need access to land, credit, storage sites and support for cooperatives, among others, with measures necessary to alleviate hunger and malnutrition and boost the resilience of the most vulnerable people.

“As in the case of the financial system, it is the responsibility of policy-makers to take the decisions needed to ensure real change,” the expert stressed. “Political will is needed to tackle structural flaws in the global food system.”

Earlier this week, the head of the UN World Food Programme issued an urgent plea to ensure that those hardest hit by the financial crisis – considered by many to have started one year ago this week – are not forgotten.

There are more hungry people in the world and less food aid than ever before, while the flow of food aid is at its lowest in two decades, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a statement.

“For the world’s most vulnerable, the perfect storm is hitting with a vengeance,” she said.

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NO END IN SIGHT TO ECONOMIC CRISIS FOR HARD-HIT DEVELOPING WORLD – UN REPORT

The global economic crisis continues to push millions of the world’s most vulnerable people into poverty, hunger and early death, a new United Nations report warns, stressing that “green shoots” of recovery are not being felt by the poor in the developing world.

Estimates suggest that the worldwide recession has pushed 100 million more people below the poverty line and 61 million people have been added to the number of jobless over the last two years, according to the report.

“The ‘near poor’ are becoming the ‘new poor,’” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told reporters in New York at the launch of the Voices of the Vulnerable: the Economic Crisis from the Ground Up report.

“Workers in both the formal and informal sectors are being badly hit, particularly in manufacturing, commerce and construction,” said Ms. Migiro, before quoting one construction worker who said that the “monster” economic crisis is “devouring the poor.”

She added that migrants are finding their situation increasingly precarious, with forecasts predicting that remittances to developing countries will be reduced by over seven per cent this year.

“Youth unemployment is dramatically increasing,” Ms. Migiro stressed. “The number of unemployed youth has increased by as many as 18.2 million over the last year.”

In addition, the report – part of a new UN initiative to monitor and draw attention to emerging crises – notes that an increase of 100 million people suffer from hunger and infant mortality rates are set to rise by an additional 200,000 to 400,000 deaths each year from now to 2015, if the crisis persists.

“Many of the poor and vulnerable are running out of coping strategies,” said Ms. Migiro. “They are being exhausted by crisis after crisis,” including the global food and fuel price hike crises that struck last year, on top of local floods, droughts and conflicts.

The crises may have long-term consequences, with tens of millions of children suffering from cognitive and physical injury caused by malnutrition as a result of the food and economic crises.

Ms. Migiro warned that the spread of the H1N1 influenza pandemic to countries already devastated by the economic crisis, or the onset of new natural disasters, are among the last straws that may “break the back of overstretched populations and governments.”

The report is part of larger UN initiative called the Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert System (GIVAS), developed to provide early, real-time data to the international community on how external shocks, such as the economic crisis, are affecting the welfare of the vulnerable and poor.

The Secretary-General is slated to present the report to the annual high-level debate at the General Assembly in New York next week, which takes place ahead of the summit in Pittsburgh, United States, for the Group of 20 (G20) leading economic nations.

Both forums will address the impact of the ongoing economic crisis, with the report underscoring the need to protect not only the poor and vulnerable but also the increasing number of middle class families slipping into poverty.

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BAN PRESSES G20 LEADERS TO MAINTAIN COMMITMENT TO HELP WORLD’S MOST VULNERABLE

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has written to the leaders of the so-called Group of 20 (G20) industrialized nations to cement their commitment to help the world’s most vulnerable who are bearing the brunt of the global economic turmoil.

In his letter to the leaders ahead of their gathering next week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States, Mr. Ban exhorted them to deliver on the $1.1 trillion pledge – especially the $50 million earmarked for the poorest nations – made in London earlier this year

He also called on them to honour their official development assistance (ODA) commitments made in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005, of $155 billion by next year, with over one-third of that allotted for Africa.

Action must be accelerated to achieve the eight anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said the letter. While strides have been made in areas where global investments have been scaled up, including AIDS and tuberculosis, progress is lagging in education, maternal health, smallholder agriculture and basic infrastructure.

The Secretary-General also urged progress on the fight against climate change through the setting up of a fair financing mechanism to provide $250 billion annually by 2020, in addition to ODA.

Investment in green technologies is vital in pulling the world out of the economic crisis, he stressed, as is governance to manage this new finance stream which must be directed to adaptation and mitigations at the national level.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, the Secretary-General said that despite talk of recovery from the international financial crisis which has marked its first anniversary, “we are still not out of the deep woods – and this crisis is layered upon the food crisis and the pandemic crisis.”

With over 100 million people expected to drop below the poverty line this year, he emphasized that we “simply must amplify the voices of the vulnerable and ensure that the world follows up on its pledges.”

In Pittsburgh, Mr. Ban will update the G20 leaders on the UN’s new Global Impact and Vulnerability System (GIVAS), which will deliver real-time data on the impacts of the economic turmoil on the world’s poor.

“To make the right policy responses, we must know, in real time, what is happening on the ground,” he said.

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UPCOMING MEETINGS CAN RALLY SUPPORT FOR UN-BACKED NUCLEAR TREATY, SAYS OFFICIAL

A set of meetings to be held next week at United Nations Headquarters could have a significant impact on efforts to bring the treaty banning nuclear testing worldwide into force, a senior official leading those efforts said today.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has been signed by 181 countries and ratified by 149. However, it needs to be ratified by nine others – China, Egypt, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States – before it can enter into force.

Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the CTBT Organization (CTBTO), highlighted the conference to promote the treaty and its entry into force, which will take place on 24 and 25 September in New York.

In addition, US President Barack Obama is scheduled to chair a meeting of the Security Council on 24 September focusing on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including the CTBT.

Mr. Tóth welcomed what he described as a “stronger interest” by the US on these matters. “I see an attention which is underpinning the preparations for the ratification discussion in the [US] Senate.”

He also noted that the National Academy of Sciences was requested to prepare a study which will provide the necessary information to the Senate and to those who will have to review the ratification.

There is also movement from other quarters, he added, including an indication by Indonesia that it will ratify the treaty. All in all, he said he is “very much optimistic” about the political momentum that has been building over the past two and a half years.

“The climate is much better now,” said Mr. Tóth. “We have sunny political weather.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also highlighted the “crucial window of opportunity” currently available regarding nuclear disarmament.

“More leaders are speaking out. The wind is at our back,” he said yesterday at his monthly news conference. “With a strong push by the right leaders, we can bring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty into force.”

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NEW GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT CALLS FOR STRENGTHENING OF 192-MEMBER BODY

The new General Assembly President, Ali Treki of Libya, today reiterated his call for the revitalization of the 192-member body, saying its decisions should be respected. At present only the decisions of the 15-member Security Council are binding.

“The majority of countries are in favour asserting the authority of the General Assembly, which represents the world as a whole,” he told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York.

Dr. Treki made a similar call for UN reform when he opened the Assembly’s 64th session on Tuesday, and he reiterated today the need to enlarge the Security Council to give it greater world representation.

Asked about his priorities, Dr. Treki cited a long list, beginning with the strengthening of international peace and security, disarmament, human rights, the environment, and climate change.

He also included combating extreme poverty; infectious diseases such as AIDS; achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aim to slash a host of social ills by 2015; the economic, financial, food and energy crises; and the question of Palestine.

In addition, Dr. Treki called for greater investment in Africa, which he described as “a very rich continent. It doesn’t need really money, men and help but it needs investment.”

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Bolivian hillside village in Los Yungas, in the tropical Andes. Credit:Diana Cariboni/IPS

ENVIRONMENT-SOUTH AMERICA: Mapping the Riches of the Tropical Andes
By Humberto Márquez*

 
CARACAS, Aug 8 (Tierramérica) – The Ecosystems Map of the Northern and Central Andes could serve as a guide for environmental conservation of this South American area covering 1.5 million square kilometres and holding the world’s highest concentration of biodiversity.

The tropical Andes, the stretch of the mountain range that includes the Central Andes (Bolivia and Peru) and Northern Andes (Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela), were dubbed the “global epicentre of biodiversity” by British ecologist Norman Myers. 

The zone holds 45,000 types of plants (20,000 of which are endemic) and 3,400 vertebrate animal species (more than 1,500 of which are endemic) on just one percent of the planet’s land surface, according to figures from Conservation International. 

These riches “are distributed among 133 specific ecosystems that we have inventoried for our map of areas at more than 500 metres of altitude, of which 77 are in Peru, 69 in Bolivia, 31 in Ecuador, 22 in Colombia and 21 in Venezuela,” environmentalist Eulogio Chacón-Moreno, head of the project in Venezuela, told Tierramérica. 

The map, initially presented in April, was conceived as a tool to “identify gaps and priorities for conservation in the national agencies for protected areas, and to develop a set of indicators that allows us to assess the state of conservation of the Andean ecosystems,” said Chacón-Moreno. 

Such is the case of the “páramos”, treeless high plateaus “with a high percentage of endemic species, unique diversity for the way the species interrelate, and a highly important source of freshwater,” Vanessa Cartaya, of the regional Andean Páramo Project, sponsored by the Global Environment Facility, told Tierramérica. 

Cartaya underscored that the intensification of land use, expansion of the agricultural frontier, growing urbanisation and increased demand for potable water, as well as climate change, “affect the páramos to a great extent, making it essential to determine which areas are the priority for action.” 

The páramos are situated between 3,000 and 4,500 metres above sea level in the Northern and Central Andes, with temperature, humidity, sunshine, rain and wind factors that make them quite different from the lower altitude tropics that surround them. 

The high altitude flower known in Spanish as “frailejón” (Espeletia neriifolia) is emblematic of this ecosystem. 

“The páramo functions like a sponge, absorbing rainwater before filtering and releasing it” into other ecosystems, states the text that accompanies the map. The mountaintops hold remnants of glaciers and lakes that feed streams and springs. 

The project was based on studies and maps available from national institutes, standardising their data. Some of the maps used are: the Vegetation Map of Bolivia, Map of Ecosystems of the Colombian Andes, Map of Ecuador’s Continental Ecological Systems, Forest Map of Peru, and the Map of Ecological Units of Mérida, Venezuela. 

Plans are in the works to publish an atlas in 2010, with a preliminary version already available on the Internet. 

The mapping effort is a contribution to the Environmental Agenda of the Andean Community trade bloc (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) as a guide to design and coordinate policies among the national environmental agencies, focusing on three themes: biodiversity, climate change and water resources. 

Backing the project are the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, Spain’s Ministry of the Environment, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The work has been coordinated by NatureServe, a non-profit conservation organisation, and the Consortium for Sustainable Development of the Andean Eco-Region. 

Chacón-Moreno said the mapping will pave the way for studies “to identify ecosystems with more intense dynamics and patterns of fragmentation, which will serve as input to guide conservation policies.” 

Furthermore, experts will be able to “assess the vulnerability of Andean ecosystems through vegetation distribution models in scenarios of climate change and land-use change,” he added. 

For example, the Institute of Environmental and Ecological Sciences at the Venezuelan University of the Andes, led by Chacón-Moreno, has studied the spread of the mountainous cloud forest to the heights of the páramos in the highest sierras of southwest Venezuela, with records from 1952 to 1999 “showing how the páramo area has been reduced with the passing of the decades.” 

“The changes in vegetation cover demonstrate the effects of climate anomalies. In this respect, the map and the studies that support it allow the study across an entire region using a single standardised system of classification,” said the expert. 

A database will be a “planning tool that contains information about biodiversity,” communities and ecosystems, according to Chacón-Moreno. 

Of the 133 ecosystems identified, the most extensive is the High Andean Wet Scrubland (Puna Húmeda), covering nearly 10 million hectares in Peru and Bolivia, just 6.8 percent of which is officially protected. 

“Human use has greatly influenced the structure of these landscapes, subjected over the centuries to tree cutting and cyclical burns, so criteria need to be developed to better evaluate the natural landscapes,” which would lead to better understanding of the conservation of the Central Andes ecosystems, says the report that accompanies the map. 

The Tropical Andes run 4,000 km north-south. Few mountaintops are lower than 2,000 metres in altitude, and most of the landscape is steep inclines, deep gullies, vast valley floors, and sharp peaks. 

In the Central Andes, a vast “altiplano” or high plain is formed at more than 3,500 metres above sea level in southern Peru and western Bolivia. 

The altiplano’s towns and villages are home to more than 40 million people who rely heavily on the natural goods and services of the Andean ecosystems, including grains, fruit and vegetables produced in the area. 

“The map has also been proposed as an information and education tool for communities about the potential of their surroundings and the importance of preserving it, in order to obtain clean water and sustenance, as well as enjoying the beauty of the landscape,” said Cartaya. 

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.) 

IPI to Hold International Conference on Terrorism, Media and the Law

VIENNA. August 5, 2009 - The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network for a free media, and the Salzburg-based Center for International Legal Studies (CILS), announce the international conference, “The War on Words – Terrorism, Media and the Law,” to be held in Vienna, Austria, from 5-6 October 2009.

The two-day conference will bring together leading journalists, lawyers, human rights advocates, and security and counter-terrorism experts from Europe, North America, Asia and Africa to discuss the impact of the fight against terrorism on civil liberties, in particular freedom of expression and press freedom.

Panel sessions will focus on government efforts to broaden their law enforcement powers in the name of security, the watchdog role of the media, and the relationship between freedom of expression and religious tolerance.

“This conference will provide a welcome forum to discuss the complexities of the fight against terrorism and the effects on media freedom,” said conference coordinator Michael Kudlak. “Have attempts by Western governments to broaden their law enforcement powers in the name of security curtailed civil liberties and muzzled the media? Have they set a negative example for autocratic regimes to emulate? Do anti-terror measures affect the ability of the media to carry out its watchdog role?”

Sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), among others, the conference will be held at the prestigious Diplomatic Academy of Vienna.

For further information, or to register, visit the conference webpage: www.freemedia.at/waronwords

or contact:
Michael Kudlak
Senior Conference Coordinator
Tel: +43 1 – 512 90 11
Cell: + 43-676-425 90 14
E-mail:  mkudlak at freemedia.at
www.freemedia.at

# # #

IPI: The Global Network for a Free Media

The International Press Institute is dedicated to the furtherance and safeguarding of press freedom, the protection of freedom of opinion and expression, the promotion of the free flow of news and information, and the improvement of the practices of journalism.

The following are the top 28 finalists in the Official 2009 New 7 Wonders of Nature competition – nominated from among hundreds of sites around the world that have been proposed.

What Does Climate Change Do to Our Heads?        

by Sanjay Khanna
14 May 2009, CultureChange.org
A small yet growing body of evidence suggests that how people think and feel is being influenced strongly by ecosystem transformation related to climate change and industry-related displacement from the land. These powerful stressors are occurring more frequently around the world.

A case in point: When researchers from the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health at the University of Newcastle in Australia conducted interviews in drought-affected communities in New South Wales in 2005, the responses suggested some of their subjects may have been suffering from a recently described psychological condition called solastalgia (pronounced so-la-stal-juh).

Solastalgia describes a palpable sense of dislocation and loss that people feel when they perceive changes to their local environment as harmful. It’s a neologism that Glenn Albrecht, an environmental philosopher at the University of Newcastle’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences, created in 2003.

Albrecht’s work among communities distraught by black-coal strip mining in New South Wales’ Upper Hunter Region convinced him that the English language needed a new term to connect the experience of ecosystem loss to mental health concerns.

“The sense of a home landscape being violated [by strip mining-related environmental damage] seemed to have disturbed the region’s social ecology so much that the psychic or mental health of many people living in the zone of high impact was being affected,” he says.

Albrecht’s stunning insight? That there might be a wide variety of shifts in the health of an ecosystem—from subtle landscape changes related to global warming to desolate wastelands created by large-scale strip mining—that diminish people’s mental health.

In Eastern Australian communities, where the toll of a six-year-long drought has been devastating, interviews with farmers provided additional momentum for the solastalgia concept.

In one such interview, a female farmer poignantly described the loss of her garden oasis. “Our gardens have had to die,” she said, “because our house dam has been dry…. So it’s very depressing for a woman because a garden is an oasis out here with this dust…you know, to come home to a nice green lawn is just… that’s all gone, so you’ve got dust at your back door.”

While persistent drought and open-pit coal mining may be extreme cases, if the environmental degradation of the past hundred years is any indication, our contemporary lifestyles, built on a dwindling resource base, have failed to acknowledge how much the mental health of people and ecosystems is interrelated.

This may imply that the unrelenting media focus on weather-related and economic aspects of climate change does not adequately take into consideration the challenge of mitigating the psychological impact of global warming. How might we feel when the heat is relentless and our surrounding environment changes irrevocably? How might our mental health be affected?

In a recent Wired magazine article on Albrecht and the concept of solastalgia, Global Mourning: How the next victim of climate change will be our minds, writer Clive Thompson sensitively characterized as “global mourning” the potential impact of overwhelming environmental transformation caused by climate change. Thompson cogently summed up Albrecht’s view of what solastalgia might look like were it to become an epidemic of emotional and psychic instability causally linked to changing climates and ecosystems.

Albrecht also emphasizes that feelings of melancholia and homesickness have previously been recorded among Aboriginal peoples in the Americas and Australia who were forcibly moved from their home territories by U.S., Canadian and Australian governments in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Sanjay Khanna: You speak of psychoterratic and somaterratic illnesses. What are they?

Glenn Albrecht: Psychoterratic illness involves the psyche or mind and terra or earth. So a psychoterratic illness would be an earth-related mental illness, where both nostalgia and solastalgia are examples of people being made “mentally ill” by the severing of “healthy” links between themselves and their home or territory.

Somaterratic illness, on the other hand, involves soma or the body and relates to damage done to the human body, its physiology and/or genetics, as a result of the loss of ecosystem health by, for example, toxic pollution in any given area of land.

SK: You note on your blog that there are antecedents to solastalgia.

GA: Yes, David Rapport, a past professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, is a pioneer in the study of the health of natural ecosystems and their relationship with humans. In the 1970s, he described “ecosystem distress syndrome,” which was what happened when an ecosystem couldn’t restore its balance after an external disturbance.

Once I fully appreciated this concept, I realized there must be a human equivalent to ecosystem distress syndrome, that is, a home environment so profoundly disturbed that it affected the balance of well being or the mental health of people within their social ecology.

The interviews of affected people I conducted along with Nick Higginbotham and Linda Connor in strip-mined areas of the Upper Hunter Valley showed that people’s sense of place was being violated and that this was profoundly disturbing them. Their home environment was being desolated and it seemed to us that the vital link between ecosystem health and human health, both physical and mental, was being severed.

SK: Can you tell us a little bit more about the origins of solastalgia?

GA: Solastalgia’s Latin roots combine three ideas: The solace that one’s environment provides, the desolation caused by that environment’s degradation and the pain or distress that occurs inside a person as a result.

Solastalgia brings into English a much-needed word that links a mental state to a state of the biophysical environment. The need for new concepts in the face of what is happening under climate change has seen other cultures develop new terms that have affinities with solastalgia.

The Inuit, for example, have a new word, uggianaqtuq (pronounced OOG-gi-a-nak-took), which relates to climate change and has connotations of the weather as a once reliable and trusted friend that is now acting strangely or unpredictably. And the Portuguese use the word saudade to describe a feeling one has for a loved one who is absent or has disappeared. The upshot is that under the pressure of climate change, your preferred climate and ecosystem might well be thought of as a lover gone missing or turned bad.

SK: How might your research impact on psychiatry and the diagnosis of psychoterratic illnesses such as solastalgia?

GA: Alongside five other researchers, our four-person team co-wrote a summary of our research on the mental health impacts of mining and drought for psychological and psychiatric professionals. The paper, Solastalgia: the distress caused by climate change, was published in Australasian Psychiatry, a publication of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, in November 2007.

Our team has mused that people badly affected by solastalgia would benefit from a set of professionally developed diagnostic tools so that solastalgia could be listed as a condition that required diagnosis and professional attention.

We’re happy for other people to take that challenge up and there are some academic psychiatrists who are interested in exploring these ideas further. However, given that key aspects of solastalgia are existential, the traditions of environmental philosophy and medical psychiatry may not come together so harmoniously. The melancholia of solastalgia is not the same as clinical depression, but it may well be a precursor to serious psychic disturbance.

That said, it’s worth remembering that up until the mid-twentieth century, the medical profession viewed nostalgia as a diagnosable psycho-physiological illness in which, for example, soldiers fighting in foreign lands became so homesick and melancholic it could kill them.

Today psychiatrists would see the condition of rapid and unwelcome severing from home as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an outcome of an acute stressor such as warfare or a Hurricane Katrina.

Solastalgia on the other hand is most often the result of chronic environmental stress; it is the lived experience of gradually losing the solace a once stable home environment provided. It is therefore appropriate to diagnose solastalgia in the face of slow and insidious forces such as climate change or mining.

SK: Would you tell us a little bit about the transdisciplinary team that you participate on?

GA: Nick Higginbotham, a social psychologist colleague who specializes in epidemiology and health matters, is working to gather empirical data for our solastalgia research. He has developed a much-needed environmental distress scale (EDS) that teases out the specific environmental components of distress from all the other things that go on in a person’s life. We will be using this scale in the new AUS$430K grant the team has received from the Australian Research Council to extend our earlier work by addressing “the lived experience (ethnography) of climate change” among people in the Hunter Valley.

Linda Connor, an ethnographer and social and medical anthropologist, handles the ethnography or cultural experience of all this. So collectively we have empirical (Higginbotham), cultural (Connor) and philosophical (me) interpretations of health and climate change. Finally, Sonia Freeman, our research assistant, has co-authored a number of papers.

SK: What implications might the recent apology by Kevin Rudd, the new Prime Minister of Australia, to the “stolen generations” of Australian Aborigines have in relation to solastalgia?

GA: The apology by Kevin Rudd to the stolen generations is about seeking forgiveness for the government-sanctioned taking of Indigenous children from their families and from their home territories (their “country”) from 1909 until 1969. There have been profound mental and physical health impacts from this process and many of the remaining stolen generations are now ageing but with a 17-year shorter life expectancy on average than non-indigenous Australians. Those who are alive today may be experiencing genuine nostalgia for a once-sustainable past and solastalgia within contemporary pathological and depressed home environments.

SK: Do you see a relationship between the conquest of Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia, the state of environmental degradation and the experience of loss that we are seeing today? If so, what is that relationship from your perspective and research?

GA: The answer is, yes, there is a relationship between the two colonial cultures: the two continents were colonized only by the systematic dispossession of complex and formerly sustainable Indigenous societies.

Traditional Indigenous cultures in the Americas and Australasia displayed a profound appreciation of the relationship between human and ecosystem health, something global culture is trying to rediscover under the label of sustainability.

Remnant aboriginal cultures are still being pushed aside by the dominant global model of economic growth and progress. Even today, their chronic health problems are likely related to social and political issues that are connected to ongoing dispossession.

I’ve had recent firsthand experience of the lives of Indigenous people leading semi-traditional lives in Northern Australia to see the importance of the connections between human health and ecosystem health. In Arnhem Land, Aborigines who live on what are called “outstations” have been able to maintain much stronger and healthier links to their traditional land. Their physical and mental health status is, as a consequence, much better than those whose links to their own land have been severed and who now live in crowded, dysfunctional communities.

SK: Some of the solastalgia symptoms you describe are similar to the loss of cultural identity, including the loss of language and ancestral memory. Loss of place seems an extension of this new global experience of weakened cultural identities and Earth-based ethical moorings.

GA: I have written on this topic in a professional academic journal and expressed the idea of having an Earth-based ethical framework that could contribute to maximizing the creative potential of human cultural and technological complexity and diversity without destroying the foundational complexity and diversity of natural systems in the process.

Our history shows that some people and cultures have a tendency to create pathological ways of thinking, but if we want to support a life-affirming ethic in the twenty-first century, we are in need of reform and change.

SK: In the context of accelerating environmental change, what would you say to young people about the planet they are inheriting? What does sustainability mean in the context of the overwhelming pace of environmental and economic change that we’re seeing today?

GA: This is a tough one because the children of today face the double whammy of the escalating pace and scale of changes under the global forces of development and those of climate chaos. I’ve suggested to my own teenagers that what is happening is unacceptable ethically and practically and they should be in a state of advanced revolt about the whole deal.

From my perspective, supporting and maintaining the status quo is no longer a reasonable response to these big picture issues. At every point, we must challenge and refute this kind of thinking in a society that is clearly on a non-sustainable pathway.

Unfortunately, the lot in life of the youth today is to undo much of what has been done in the name of growth and progress in the last two hundred years. However, this does not mean a return to the past: As Herman Daly (the ecological economist) once said, you can have an economy that develops without growing.

On a personal level, I’m an optimistic, energetic philosopher and I believe that we must get our values more life orientated. I’m not willing to give up on encouraging change towards sustainability even in the face of what look like overwhelming negative forces.

The four-year grant recently awarded to our team will allow us to study the lived experience of climate change at a regional level. We’re happy that we’ll be able to start contributing data on how climate change is shifting culture, values and attitudes.

The next four years are critical. As a member of a research team, I believe that we’re right at the leading edge of change research and we are very committed to supporting the network of ecological and social relationships that promote human health. There’s hope in recognizing solastalgia and defeating it by creating ways to reconnect with our local environment and communities.

###

Sanjay Khanna is a writer and foresight researcher based in Vancouver, Canada. He can be reached at sk AT khannaresearch DOT com. His blog is at www.realisticsanctuary.com. More articles are available at www.huffingtonpost.com

from: Luis Gutierrez <luisgutierrez@peoplepc.com>

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

INTRODUCTION TO CONSULTATION FORM VERSION 1.5

This consultation on education for sustainable development (ESD) is sponsored by the PelicanWeb Journal of Sustainable Development (formerly the Journal of Solidarity, Sustainability, and Nonviolence).   UNESCO has defined eight key areas that should be covered in education for sustainable development: gender equality, health care, environmental stewardship, rural development, cultural diversity, peace & security, sustainable urbanization, and sustainable consumption.

The objective of this consultation is to gather requirements for ESD.   These requirements must be articulated as issues or problem areas that are to be considered and discussed in ESD programs.   It should be made clear that the objective of this consultation is not to arrive at practical solutions (let alone “the” solution) to any of the complex issues related to sustainable development. However, a good inventory and taxonomy of relevant issues might be useful.

Needless to say, UNESCO is not responsible for any misconceptions that the questions might contain. Same applies to the answers to be entered, collected, and analyzed. Hopefully, this exercise will lead to some useful insights and perhaps even some recommendations about education for sustainable development, but there is no presumption that such results will be useful to UNESCO or any other institution.

The consultation form can be completed in one hour or so. Answer each of the questions to the best of your knowledge. All of your responses will remain anonymous.   Complete the survey and press the submit button at the end.   When you press submit, your answers are added to the survey spreadsheet.   A summary of the findings will be made available to participants who provide contact information.

Version 1.5 is a major revision based on feedback received from Version 0 and Version 1.   For more information:

PelicanWeb Journal of Sustainable Development, Volume 5, Number 6, June 2009
 http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv05n06…

Version 1.5 again includes 5 questions for each UNESCO key area, for a total of 40 questions.   In each group of 5, the first question is a “relevance ranking” of the UNESCO key area, where “relevance” means “relevance for sustainable development.”   The second question requires selecting one root cause from a list but allows the participant to enter another root cause.   The format of the third, fourth, and fifth questions is “select all the options that apply and/or enter an additional option.”

Thank you for your patience and participation.

Luis T. Gutierrez, Ph.D.
Editor, E-Journal of Solidarity, Sustainability, and Nonviolence
 http://pelicanweb.org/

This is a monthly, free subscription, open access e-journal.

Wall Street Journal – OPINION – May 1, 2009.

Why Jane Fonda Is Banned in Beirut
Anti-Semitism leads to startling censorship in Lebanon.

By WILLIAM MARLING from Beirut

A professor at the American University here recently ordered copies of “The Diary of Anne Frank” for his classes, only to learn that the book is banned. Inquiring further, he discovered a long list of prohibited books, films and music.

This is perplexing — and deeply ironic — because Beirut has been named UNESCO’s 2009 “World Book Capital City.” Just last week “World Book and Copyright Day” was kicked off with a variety of readings and exhibits that honor “conformity to the principles of freedom of expression [and] freedom to publish,” as stated by the UNESCO Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the UNESCO’s “Florence Agreement.” The catch is that Lebanon has not signed the Florence Agreement, which focuses on the free circulation of print and audio-visual material.

Even a partial list of books banned in Lebanon gives pause: William Styron’s “Sophie’s Choice”; Thomas Keneally’s “Schindler’s List”; Thomas Friedman’s “From Beirut to Jerusalem”; books by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer. In fact, all books that portray Jews, Israel or Zionism favorably are banned.

Writers in Arabic are not exempt. Abdo Wazen’s “The Garden of the Senses” and Layla Baalbaki’s “Hana’s Voyage to the Moon” were taken to court. Syria’s Sadiq Jalal al-Azm was prosecuted for his “Critique of Religious Thinking.”

Censorship is carried out by the Sûreté General, which combines the functions of the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security. It does not post a list of banned works, much less answer questions. However a major book importer, in an email, provided a list of banned films and the reasons given by the Sûreté. Here are some: “A Voice From Heaven” (verses of Koran recited during dance scenes); “Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” (homosexuality); “Barfly” ( blacklisted company Canon); and “Daniel Deronda” (shot in Israel).

All of Jane Fonda’s films are banned, since she visited Israel in 1982 to court votes for Tom Hayden’s Senate run. “Torn Curtain” is banned: Paul Newman starred in “Exodus.” And the television series “The Nanny” is banned because of Fran Drescher.

According to Beirut newspaper L’Orient, any one of the recognized religions (a system known as “confessionalism”) can ask the Sûreté to ban any book unilaterally. The Muslim Dar al-Fatwa and the Catholic Information Center are the most active and effective. (The latter got Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” banned.) Even works by self-proclaimed Islamists such as Assadeq al-Nayhoum’s “Islam Held Hostage,” have been banned, and issued only when re-edited in sympathetic editions (in Syria).

Censorship is a problem throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Though a signatory of the Florence Agreement, the Academy of Islamic Research in Egypt, through its censorship board al-Azhar, decides what may not be printed: Nobel Prize winner Naghib Mahfouz’s “Awlad Haratina” (The Sons of the Medina) was found sacrilegious and only printed in bowdlerized form in Egypt in 2006. Saudi Arabia sponsors international book fairs in Riyadh, but Katia Ghosn reported in L’Orient that it sends undercover agents into book stores regularly.

Works that could stimulate dialogue in Lebanon are perfunctorily banned. “Waltz with Bashir,” an Israeli film of 2008, is banned — even though it alleges that Ariel Sharon was complicit in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. According to the Web site Monstersandcritics, however, “Waltz with Bashir” became an instant classic in the very Palestinian camps it depicts, because it is the only history the younger generation has. But how did those copies get there?

The answer is also embarrassing. Just as it ignores freedom of circulation, Lebanon also ignores international copyright laws. Books of all types are routinely photocopied for use in high schools and universities. As for DVDs, you have only to mention a title and a pirated copy appears. “Slumdog Millionaire” was available in video shops before it opened in the U.S.

Mr. Marling is a visiting professor of American Studies at the American University of Beirut and professor of English at Case Western Reserve University.