The suggestion of Mr. Marthinus van Schalkwyk presents some very interesting dilemmas:

- first, it proposes an African for the position and we believe this is a bit like putting the carriage before the horse. Indeed, we say all the time that Africa is suffering because of the sins of others, so Africa and the Island States have most reasons to see a Climate  agreement become reality, but then it is not the sufferers, but the sinners, that will have to sign up to an enforceable  agreement, and those are mainly China and the US. Here indeed South Africa is one of the additional three IBSA states that participated in the formulation of the Copenhagen notice. If one where to try to pick a lead country from among the IBSA – we suggested it be Brazil as it would have the least conflicts of interest from among the three.

- then, the appointment of Mr. van Schalwyk, a South African, would also mean that there will be the third Dutch person on that job in a row, albeit, this Dutchman comes from South Africa and not from the Netherlands, but nevertheless the subject will come up.

- also, as we know the 2010 meeting of the UNFCCC, or COP 16, will be held in Mexico, while the following one, the 2011 COP 17 is intended for South Africa. An appointment of a South African to head the UNFCCC at this time would mean that the Mexico meeting that is limping anyway – as we just posted an hour ago – will become completely useless. Some, like the Latin American States, will find this objectionable. This one point leaves us perplexed if we sense that Cancun is just one more UN ritual led so that it has beforehand no chance to succeed – who knows – maybe the appointment of Mr. van Schlkwyk could actually result in annulment of a UN scheduled event. That could then be the first emissions saving UN led activity.

- the last point has to do with the backing of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe from South Africa in the leadership of The UN Commission on Sustainable Development. The facts are that the CSD was destroyed because of that backing by South Africa, and the CSD is needed if one wants to find a base for climate activities at the UN. That past experience might have left, and who knows, perhapse still creates, a sour taste when looking at South Africa’s place in UN leadership. Will we do away also with the CSD and base climate on the Committee of 19 Wise Men that the UN Secretary-General just established?

Without taking a stand on the candidate himself, nevertheless the first three points we raised will probably have to be weighed against the attributes that might be proposed when other names become available.

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

from: BuaNews (Tshwane)
South Africa: Zuma Nominates Van Schalkwyk for Top UN Job.

8 March 2010, Pretoria — President Jacob Zuma has nominated Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk for the post of the United Nations’ new climate chief.

Van Schalkwyk has been tipped as a strong contender to take over from Yvo De Boer who headed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). De Boer announced his resignation last month.

“The South African government will consequently forward the name of Minister Van Schalkwyk to the Secretary General for his further consideration,” the Presidency said on Monday.

Zuma and the minister met on Sunday to discuss this issue as well as South Africa’s global positioning, the Presidency said.

“The final decision on the appointment rests with the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr Ban Ki Moon.”

Van Schalkwyk was deeply involved in climate change issues during his tenure as minister of environmental affairs and tourism.

He built a strong profile for himself during the UN climate treaty negotiations leading up to the Copenhagen summit late last year.

“During this period he commanded significant respect across the developing-developed country divide. This will stand him in good stead in this critical phase of driving the global climate change negotiations to conclusion,” said the Presidency.

Given that South Africa will also be hosting and presiding over the climate change negotiations next year, the Presidency said it would be an “honour for the country to have one of its own to head up this very important UN institution”.

If appointed, Van Schalkwyk will oversee one of the most important treaties of the 21st century – the 2012 treaty on climate change. The treaty is aimed at mitigating the causes and effects of climate change and shape the way countries power their economies.

——————-
And from NASTASYA TAY (AP):  South African minister is nominated for UN post.

JOHANNESBURG — The South African president’s office announced the nomination of its tourism minister for the United Nations’ top climate post on Monday.

The office said in a press release that Marthinus van Schalkwyk is a candidate to direct the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The current leader of the post, Yvo de Boer, announced his resignation in February and will step down July 1.
Van Schalkwyk was South Africa’s former minister for environmental affairs and tourism and is well-regarded in climate change circles. He has a reputation as an effective bridge-builder in a process that often pits developing against industrially advanced countries.

“We are pleased to know Minister Van Schalkwyk is being considered and would be very confident that he would be equal to the task of replacing Mr. de Boer,” said Themba Linden, Political Advisor at Greenpeace Africa. “By all accounts, he has an excellent standing as a negotiator, and has earned a great deal of respect for being very engaged and informed.”

Van Schalkwyk’s chances of being appointed are bolstered by the high likelihood that South Africa will host the U.N.’s climate change negotiations in 2011.

South Africa along with the U.S., India, Brazil and China drafted the climate change agreement reached in Denmark in December. The compromise calls for reducing emissions to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 C (3.6 F) above preindustrial levels. The nonbinding agreement also calls on rich nations to spend billions to help poor nations deal with drought and other impacts of climate change, and to develop clean energy.

Even though it helped draft the accord, South Africa joined a chorus of critics, expressing disappointment at not reaching a legally binding climate change agreement.

—————–
 http://www.businessgreen.com/business-gr…

Could it be that his oponent will be an Indian backed by China? The guesing game may just go wild from now on:

There have also been reports in India that environment minister Jairam Ramesh has nominated Indian environment secretary Vijai Sharma for the role, and his nomination is believed to be supported by China.

However, an Indian or Chinese nomination is likely to be opposed by the US and EU, which remain angry at both country’s negotiating tactics during the final days of the Copenhagen Summit.

As such, Van Schalkwyk is likely to be regarded as a potential conciliatory candidate, securing the support of the many Africa countries that will be most directly affected by climate change and providing a potential link between the US and Europe and the so-called BASIC group of emerging economies, of which South Africa is a member alongside Brazil, India and China.

His nomination chances will be further bolstered by the likelihood that South Africa will host next year’s main UN climate change summit where diplomats still hope an international treaty agreed later this year in Mexico can be formally adopted.

EU Climate Chief delivers Treaty blow.

by Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent
8th March 2010
 http://crazationsice.blogspot.com/2010/0…

The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year’s Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global settlement.

Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who masterminded the summit of world leaders on global warming last year and is now the European commissioner for climate change, told the Financial Times negotiations were not progressing fast enough for a treaty to be signed soon.

She also gave warning that pushing too hard for a treaty this year could be counterproductive.

“To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult,” she said. “Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen . . . but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty.”

Her pessimism echoed that of the outgoing United Nations climate change chief, Yvo de Boer. He told the FT as he resigned last month after four years of seeking an agreement that he could not see a treaty being signed this year.

The admission also comes against the backdrop of a resurgence of climate change scepticism, fuelled by a series of mistakes made by scientists that have encouraged many politicians to oppose emissions regulation.

Governments had been hoping to forge a final treaty at a global conference this December in Mexico, after failing to do so in Copenhagen.

However, Ms Hedegaard said this was more likely to happen at a follow-up meeting next year in South Africa.

That would still allow governments to meet their self-imposed deadline of forging a new agreement before the end of 2012, when the current provisions of the world’s only existing treaty on greenhouse gas emissions, the 1997 Kyoto protocol, expire.

Ms Hedegaard robustly defended the Copenhagen summit, which attracted loud criticism, especially for the chaotic way in which it finished.

She said that calling world leaders to the long-running negotiations had ensured rapid progress towards the end, when for the first time developed and developing countries mutually agreed limits on their emissions.

But she said there would not be another Copenhagen-style summit. “You can do such a thing one time,” she said.

The price of failure, if diplomats attempted to force an agreement this year, was too high, Ms Hedegaard said.

“People would say let’s skip that idea, let’s skip the UN thing,” she said.

She also defended climate scientists, saying the handful of flaws in the 2007 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the e-mails in which scientists talked of concealing data did not affect the large body of scientific evidence amassed over decades.

The UN climate talks have been going on since 1992, when world governments signed the first legally binding treaty aimed at avoiding dangerous levels of climate change. The Kyoto protocol failed because it did not impose obligations on developing countries and was rejected by the US.

——————-

Connie Hedegaard: Statement of CONNIE HEDEGAARD, European Commissioner for Climate Action, on the creation of the Directorate-General CLIMATE “The DG CLIMATE has been created …
ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/hedegaard/index_en.htm

from: Americas Society <communications@as-coa.org> date: Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:19 PM subject: The Ford Foundation Awards Americas Society Grant to Promote Social Inclusion in the Western Hemisphere

New York, March 9, 2010—Americas Society is honored to announce the Ford Foundation’s generous award of a one-year grant of $132,700 for Americas Society’s program to promote research, policy debate, and policy change on social inclusion.

The Americas Society’s Social Inclusion Program aims to strengthen the economic and political representation of previously marginalized groups, coordinate new research on expanding access to markets and social services, and highlight how government and business can address the systemic problem of social exclusion throughout the Western Hemisphere.

“Drawing on new research and our unique partnerships with local and international business, our goal is to foster public/private partnerships to increase market access, support the integration of workers and influence public policy to reduce social, economic and political exclusion throughout the Americas,” says Christopher Sabatini, Senior Director of Policy for Americas Society and Editor-in-Chief of Americas Quarterly.

Through the AS’s policy journal, Americas Quarterly and the Americas Society website (www.as-coa.org), the program will also highlight Ford Foundation initiatives that advance social inclusion in the region and will aggregate research to provide a comparative regional perspective on topics such as land rights, access to public services, crime and insecurity, human rights, market access, and political representation.

“We are deeply grateful to the Ford Foundation for its generous support and look forward to expanding our activities to promote greater social inclusion in the Americas,” says Americas Society President and CEO Susan Segal.

For further information about the Americas Society’s work on social inclusion, please contact Americas Society Communications Manager Alex Andrews at aandrews@as-coa.org or (212) 277-8384.

The U.N. Men’s Club

Why are women being left out of climate decision-making?

Freedom for Sale: Why the World Is Trading Democracy for Security

Location:	OSI-New York
Event Date:	March 18, 2010
Event Time:	6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Speakers:	John Kampfner, Corey Robin, Joel Simon

E i n l a d u n g EARTHDAY 2010

am Samstag, 20. März

• 18:00 Treffpunkt Gate 1, UNO – Vienna International Center (2 Sicherheitskontrollen, bitte rechtzeitig kommen)
• 18.20 Friedenszeremonie bei der japanischen Glocke (18:32 Läuten der Glocke)
• 19.00 Ende der Zeremonie und Verlassen des UN Geländes; optionales gemeinsames Abendessen.

Die Idee, einen Tag der Erde zu feiern, hat in vielen Teilen der Welt in den siebziger Jahren die Umweltbewegungen zusammengeführt. Ursprünglich sollte aber mit dem „Tag der Erde“ – der nun schon 15 mal bei den Vereinten Nationen in Wien begangen wird – noch viel mehr erreicht werden. Der Gründer des Earth Days, JohnMcConnell, hat diesen Tag vor 41 Jahren auch als interkulturellen Feiertag der “Bürger der Erde” verstanden, der den Anspruch jedes einzelnen Menschen auf Mitgestaltung und Teilhabe in Frieden und Gewaltfreiheit ausdrückt. Der verstorbene Auslandsösterreicher Hans Janitschek hat sich erfolgreich dafür eingesetzt dass diese Tradition, von Generalsekretär U Thant in New York begonnen, auch in Wien beachtet wird, wie klein auch immer.
Als traditionell rund um den Globus alle Kulturen verbindendes Ereignis gibt die Tag- und Nachtgleiche zum Frühjahrsbeginn den einfachsten denkbaren Anlass, an diese Verbundenheit aller Kulturen und Menschen mit ihrer Lebensbasis: „Mutter Erde” zu erinnern und Handeln in globaler Verantwortung als “Treuhänder der Erde” zu fördern und zu nähren. Das Läuten der Friedensglocke ist ein hörbares Zeichen für das Gefühl dieser Verbundenheit und des kreativen Neubeginns, das von diesem Tag ausgeht.

Anmeldung ist wegen des Eincheckens in den Sicherheitsbereich bis 16. März erforderlich: phaider@chello.at

Mit herzlichen Grüßen

Mag. Franz Nahrada, UN Liaison – Earth Society Foundation in Vienna

Peter Haider, UN Liaison – Universal Peace Federation

A ground pass is required to enter Vienna International Centre (VIC). If you do not have a permanent pass, please mail your name to phaider@chello.at not later than March 16th. A list of participants will then be at the main gate of the VIC and upon showing a personal document you will be issued a ground pass.

Recipients of this invitation who would like to attend the meeting are requested to present this invitation and their identity document at Gate 1 of the VIC.

The VIC, 1220 Wien, Wagramerstrasse 5, is best reached by U 1 (Kaisermühlen)

IPI to Hold 60th Anniversary World Congress in Vienna and Bratislava

Thinking the Unthinkable: Are We Losing the News?

The International Press Institute (IPI) will hold its annual World Congress in Vienna, Austria, and Bratislava, Slovakia, from 11-14 September 2010, the organisation today officially announced.

The 2010 World Congress will mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of IPI, and the organisation will celebrate 60 years of defending press freedom in a series of events, culminating in the World Congress in the “twin cities” of Vienna and Bratislava. Under the overall theme, “Thinking the Unthinkable: Are We Losing the News? (Media Freedom in the New Media Landscape),” the three-day conference will focus attention on the state of the news media itself, providing new business models and solutions for the media, and the unique opportunity to meet and interact with major players from both traditional and new media outlets.

The Congress will also look at the new ways of delivering information and how new technologies are proving to be a powerful ally of freedom of opinion and expression.

“The new information platforms are having an enormous impact not only on mainstream journalism, but also on press freedom in countries where authoritarian regimes seek to curtail freedom of opinion and expression,” said IPI Director David Dadge.

At a special Gala Dinner and Ceremony, to be held at Vienna City Hall, IPI will honour “60 World Press Freedom Heroes” to commemorate the 60 years of its existence. IPI’s Press Freedom Heroes are individuals who have made a significant contribution to the defence and promotion of press freedom, especially – but not only – if this involved acts of resistance or bravery under hardship conditions. “We will pay tribute to these brave men and women, who displayed the utmost courage in defending press freedom in their country or region,” said Dadge. “Many of them paid the ultimate price, murdered for what they wrote or said.” IPI intends to invite all surviving Heroes to the ceremony in Vienna.

For the first time, IPI will also hold – parallel to the Congress – a “New Media & High-Tech Innovations Exhibition”, showcasing the latest in new media technologies and information platforms.

The Congress programme features a roster of world-class speakers, including Alex Jones, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government; Jeff Howe, contributing editor at Wired Magazine and author of the best-selling book, “Crowdsourcing”; Jim VandeHei, co-founder and executive editor of the influential Politico website; Martin Figueiredo, publisher and editor-in-chief of i Daily in Portugal; Guy Black, executive director of the Telegraph Media Group in the United Kingdom; Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, editor-in-chief of Der Standard in Austria; Sarah Montague, presenter, BBC, London, and many more. The event is expected to draw over 400 participants and their guests from around the world.

Confirmed partners for the Congress are: Google; OMV; Samsung; Telekom Austria Group; City of Vienna; Twin City Liner; and Austrian Airlines, as official carrier.

IPI’s media partners for the Congress are: ORF; Der Standard & APA.

Fiancé of Neda, Iran’s Slain ‘Angel of Freedom,’ Heading to Geneva Rights Summit.

02 March 2010

Fiancé of Neda, Iran’s Slain ‘Angel of Freedom,’ Heading to Geneva Rights Summit – Caspian Makan to protest Iranian government brutality.

GENEVA, March 2, 2010 – One day after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the UN in Geneva that President Ahmadinejad’s June election was “an exemplary exhibition of democracy and freedom,” Caspian Makan, the fiancé of slain Iranian icon Neda Agha Soltan, announced today that he will join other world-famous dissidents as a speaker at next Monday’s Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy, co-organized by UN Watch, Freedom House, Ibuka and more than 20 other human rights NGOs.

Images of Neda’s bloody killing in June at the hand of the Basij paramilitary force turned an international spotlight on the brutality of the Iranian government crackdown against peaceful protesters.

The Tehran regime banned prayers for Neda in the country’s mosques, arresting anyone who held a vigil for her. Mr. Makan was then arrested and detained at Evin Prison in Tehran. He was beaten and pressured to sign a false confession.

Since his release, Mr. Makan has been an outspoken dissident for freedom in Iran, spreading Neda’s story and message around the world.

The Geneva conference is organized by a global civil society coalition of 25 human rights groups, including Burmese, Tibetan and Zimbabwean organizations (see list below), with support from the Canton of Geneva.

The two-day schedule features more than 20 action-oriented presentations and skills-building workshops, with the objective of advancing internet freedom, the struggle of dissidents against state repression, and reform of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council.

Speakers will include former political prisoners from around the world, including Rebiya Kadeer, champion of China’s Uighur minority and Nobel Peace Prize nominee; Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, Cuban dissident; Bo Kyi, Burmese dissident, winner of the 2008 Human Rights Watch Award; Donghyuk Shin, survivor of North Korean prison camps; and Phuntsok Nyidron, the Buddhist nun from Tibet who served 15 years in jail for recording songs of freedom.

The Geneva Summit will also feature eminent governmental and intergovernmental advocates for human rights, including Massouda Jalal, the former Afghan Minister of Women Affairs and first female presidential candidate; MP Irwin Cotler, Canadian human rights hero and former counsel to Nelson Mandela; Italian MP Matteo Mecacci, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Rapporteur for democracy and human rights; and Jan Pronk, former Special Representative in Sudan of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Last year’s summit, covered by CNN, AP, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal, brought together former political prisoners Saad Eddin Ibrahim of Egypt, Ahmad Batebi of Iran, José Gabriel Ramón Castillo of Cuba and Soe Aung of Burma, along with many other well-known rights activists and scholars. (See videos at http://genevasummit.org/videos.)

Admission to the March 8-9, 2010 conference is free, and the public and media are invited to attend. For accreditation, program and schedule information, please visit http://genevasummit.org/.

Visit the site during the conference to follow the live webcast, blog and Twitter feed.

Global Civil Society Coalition

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma

Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina (CADAL)

Darfur Peace and Development Center

Directorio Democratico Cubano

Fondation Genereuse Development

Freedom House

Freedom Now

Genocide Watch

Global Zimbabwe Forum

Human Rights Activists in Iran

Human Rights Without Frontiers Int’l

IBUKA

Ingénieurs du monde

Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children

International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY)

International Campaign to End Genocide

International Association of Genocide Scholars

Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme

LiNK

Respekt Institut

Stop Child Executions

Tibetan Women’s Association

UN Watch

Zimbabwe Advocacy Office

###

from:    HRW Press <hrwpress@hrw.org>
date:     Tue, Mar 2, 2010
subject:    Saudi Arabia: Free Woman Who Sought Court Aid
(Beirut, March 2, 2010) – Saudi Arabia’s authorities should quash the January, 2010, verdict of a court that sentenced a woman to 300 lashes and one and a half years in prison for filing harassment complaints without the required accompaniment by a male guardian, and release her from jail, Human Rights Watch said today.

Sawsan Salim was sentenced on charges of making “spurious complaints” against government officials and for “appearing … without a male guardian” in court. The verdict reflects the discriminatory system of male guardianship in Saudi Arabia, in which women are prohibited from many acts without the presence of a male guardian.

“In Saudi Arabia, being a woman going about her legitimate business without a man’s protection is apparently a crime,” said Nadya Khalife, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to free Sawsan Salim and keep its promise to end this discriminatory system.”

In June 2009, during a review of the country’s human rights record, Saudi Arabia accepted a recommendation by the United Nations Human Rights Council to abolish the legal guardianship system. However, the government has taken no steps to carry out its promise.

Under the system, those designated as “male guardians” conduct business on behalf of their female charges regardless of whether the female is an adult or a minor. Women who wish to travel, seek certain types of medical care, work, and conduct everyday business, for example, must still obtain the consent of their male guardians – who could be a husband, father, brother, or even a son who is a minor.

The case stems from 2004 when a court in Rass, in Saudi Arabia’s northern Qasim region, jailed Salim’s husband, Salih al-Thawwab, in January for failing to pay debts arising from a disputed inheritance. International human rights law prohibits the imprisonment of persons solely for their failure to fulfill contractual obligations, such as paying debts. The Rass court later released al-Thawwab after he claimed bankruptcy.

While her husband was in prison in 2004, Salim sought the help of a local judge, Habib Abdullah al-Asqa of the Buraida court, to gain her husband’s release. In a letter Salim addressed to King Abdullah bin Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud, she said that al-Asqa told her: “I’m better than [your husband]. He has nothing,” and offered to divorce her from al-Thawwab. Salim also said that after al-Thawwab’s release, al-Asqa told her “I will give [your husband] three months to pay his debt and if he doesn’t, I will return him to jail because you refused my offer to divorce him.”

Salim’s lawyer, Mikhlif Dahham al-Shammari, said that al-Asqa continued to harass her and to give her a difficult time with her business affairs. She complained in writing to the interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud, about what she saw as the judge’s inappropriate behavior.

Al-Shammari said that Salim was also harassed by other Rass officials. He said that on numerous occasions prior to February 2008, the Rass police manager, Salih Sulaiman al-Khalifa; the Rass passport office manager, Abd al-‘Aziz Abdullah al-Khalifa; and Governor Khalid al-‘Assaf, chided Salim for not being accompanied by a male guardian during her visits to their offices. At the time, she had disagreements with her husband and did not wish for him to act as her guardian.

Al-Shammari said the Rass officials disregarded her explanation that as a naturalized Saudi citizen of Sudanese origin, she had no male family members in the kingdom who could act as her guardian.

On February 14, 2008, Salim again wrote to Prince Nayef about the way public officials had allegedly mistreated her on the grounds that she addressed them without a male guardian. Sulaiman al-Mahwis, a retired judge at the Rass court, helped her prepare and submit her complaint.

In response, on February 25, Salim received a summons to meet with the court investigator, Judge Salman Muhammad al-Nushwan. She went to court, but asked if she could come back the next day because she did not have all of her documents with her. Al-Nushwan refused this request, taking notes. When Salim asked to see what he was writing, al-Nushwan also refused, and when she tried to take the paper, it tore. Al-Nushwan then angrily ordered her to leave the courthouse, Salim said in the letter to King Abdullah.

On April 8, 2008, she wrote a letter to King Abdullah bin Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud, complaining about her encounter with al-Asqa in 2004, her subsequent harassment at the hands of local officials, and her encounter with al-Nushwan.

Judges al-Nushwan and al-Asqa then filed a criminal complaint against Salim, accusing her of making 118 spurious complaints during 2007 (1428 hijri, the Islamic calendar) against government officials and of appearing before government offices without a male guardian. They also filed a complaint against the retired judge who “she went to for help in writing these complaints,” according to the charge sheet.

The complaint went to the president of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, Salih Muhammad al-Luhaidan. The Supreme Council of the Judiciary appointed two Buraida court judges, al-Asqa and Ibrahim Abdullah, to try the case in the Rass court, despite the fact that al-Asqa was one of the plaintiffs.

The trial opened on December 27, 2009. Retired Judge al-Mahwis was listed as a co-defendant. The prosecutor claimed he “incited” against the “shaikhs [judges] of Rass court” because he had been fired as a judge there, although he is listed as a “retired” judge.
During the trial that day, Salim argued with the judges outside the courtroom, prompting the police to take her into custody. She is being held, together with her infant child, at Buraida central prison, 60 kilometers from her home in Rass. On January 25, 2010, she was found guilty of “making spurious complaints against government officials” and “visiting government offices without a male guardian.” The court sentenced her to one year in prison and 300 lashes. The prosecutor had asked the authorities to strip her of her acquired Saudi nationality and to deport her.

Al-Mahwis was found guilty of charges of helping to write “spurious complaints” and sentenced to 120 lashes and ten months in prison, al-Shammari said. Al-Sahmmari has written to King Abdullah to seek a pardon for Salim and al-Mahwis.

“Seeking justice is a risky business in Saudi Arabia,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior researcher with Human Rights Watch. “Even retired judges can be sentenced to lashes for helping others access the courts.”

Saudi Arabia has no penal code that sets out a catalogue of actions deemed criminal and that defines them. Judges have wide discretion to treat any act they deem inappropriate as a crime and to sentence the perpetrator to any punishment they see fit.

Human Rights Watch said that the verdict against Salim is based on the discriminatory system of guardianship, the verdict against al-Mahwis is on the basis of his assistance to her, and that both verdicts should be quashed. The sentences of prison time and lashes should be cancelled, and both prisoners should immediately be freed, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch opposes corporal punishment in all circumstances as cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Saudi Arabia, please visit:
 http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-afric…

For more information, please contact:
In Beirut, Nadya Khalife: +961-71-151-766 (mobile); or  khalifn at hrw.org
In Munich, Christoph Wilcke (English, Arabic): +89-13-626-193; or  wilckec at hrw.org

Building on the success of Kyoto’s market mechanisms.
by John Kilani, Director of the Sustainable Development Mechanisms programme in the UNFCCC secretariat, Bonn, Germany. In the UNFCCC Newsletter of March 2010 – The first UNFCCC Newsletter since Copenhagen.
Parties are still taking stock of the outcome in Copenhagen, but what Parties have said so far, together with the success of the mechanisms themselves, suggests an expanded role for market-based approaches in the international response to climate change. In-Focus spoke with the UNFCCC secretariat’s John Kilani to get his views on where the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) stand post Copenhagen.

Has the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism met the goal for which it was designed?
Yes. There are now more than 2050 registered CDM projects in 62 countries – everything from community electrification, to landfill gas capture, to industrial chemical projects, destroying extremely potent greenhouse gases. Of these projects, more than a third transfer climate-friendly technologies to developing countries.

We’ve just concluded the second year of a five-year commitment period and already more than 367 million certified emission reductions have been issued to some 640 projects. That’s equivalent to 367 million tonnes of CO2.

A question asked by stakeholders for the past several years, perhaps since CDM began, is “What will happen to CDM at the end of the first commitment period?”

Stakeholders are right to ask that question. The carbon market and the project-based mechanisms – the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation – exist because of a political decision by Parties to reduce emissions. Stakeholders are looking for signs that the market will continue when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012. They are finding those signs in various places.

To name a few, they see that the European Emissions Trading Scheme is open-ended, that it will exist beyond 2012; they see the growing interest in market-based approaches elsewhere; they see continuing, strong interest in the mechanisms in developed and developing countries alike; and then there is the commitment, even pressure, from the private sector, together with the strong interest in voluntary offset schemes. And, most significantly, people see climate change as a critical issue that will not go away without concerted, sustained, long-term action.

Since Copenhagen, some 102 Parties have confirmed their intentions to take action on climate change, some in very detailed, specific terms. These countries account for over 80% of global, energy-related CO2 emissions.

The other project-based mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, Joint Implementation, has been lagging behind the CDM. Will 2010 be the year that JI takes off?

Parties gave CDM a so-called “quick start”, so it’s true that CDM is much farther along in terms of number of projects. However, there are signs that JI is catching on. There are now 17 projects in three countries eligible to earn emission reduction units under so-called JI Track 2, those projects vetted by the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee. Many dozens more are ready to go, and are awaiting the official go-ahead from countries. Although it’s difficult to predict whether this year will be the break-out year for JI, the signals since Copenhagen have been positive.

Joint Implementation is a useful, unique tool for incentivizing investment in areas of an economy where otherwise there would be little or no incentive. Once countries see the value of the tool, and decide the best way to make use of the tool, I think we will see a vast increase in JI activity. Our challenge then will be to handle the volume of projects. But that would be a good problem to have.

Copenhagen concluded with Parties taking note of an accord calling for the limiting of temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius and calling for tens of billions of dollars to be directed at the climate change challenge. What does the Copenhagen outcome mean for the mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol?

The Copenhagen Accord doesn’t speak directly to the mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol, but it does refer to various approaches, including opportunities to use markets, to enhance cost-effectiveness and promote mitigation actions. It says that developing countries, especially those with low emitting economies, should be provided incentives to continue to develop on a low emission pathway.

This supports what Parties have said previously. They have explicitly endorsed the continuation of market mechanisms to mitigate climate change and generate funds for adaptation to climate change.

In the broader sense, the Accord addresses the essential elements of an international response to climate change. Parties have noted the importance of limiting global warming, and they have noted the large sums that will be needed to address climate change. These two elements are linked fundamentally to the carbon market and the project-based mechanisms.

The carbon market and the mechanisms exist because Parties made a commitment to reduce emissions, thus giving the right to emit a value, and because Parties saw the benefits of using market-based approaches to, among other things, mobilize the vast sums necessary to address climate change.

Aside from the Copenhagen Accord, Parties in Copenhagen did take important decisions on the mechanisms which provide further guidance to the CDM Executive Board and the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee. The decision relating to the CDM contains specific mandates on how to improve the mechanism.

You mention that Parties took a decision in Copenhagen relating to the Clean Development Mechanism. What are the key features of that decision?

The biggest single element of that decision grants the CDM Executive Board, the body that oversees the mechanism, the flexibility to make changes to the CDM’s registration and issuance procedures. In other words, the Board can take a hard look at all of the procedures and related timelines and make any improvements that they see fit, based on the experience gained in implementing the mechanism to date. This could greatly quicken the process for stakeholders.

The Parties have also allowed for the allocation of financial resources to assist in the development of projects in countries with fewer than 10 projects. This could help extend and expand the benefits of the CDM.

Several other elements of the decision respond directly to requests made by stakeholders, such as the establishment of procedures for stakeholders to appeal decisions, and enhanced support to Designated National Authorities in the form of training and information sharing.

It’s important to note that virtually all of the requests made by Parties in their decision taken in Copenhagen were recommended by the CDM Executive Board. The CDM is continually evolving and improving, based on experience. The Copenhagen decision was a continuation of that process of evolution and improvement.

Where do you see the mechanisms in 10 years?

I see growing awareness about climate change and growing action to address it. Action to mitigate climate change, and address its effects, will require resources, it will require participation by the private sector, and it will take a global response. For these reasons I see a growing role for carbon markets and market-based mechanisms like the CDM and JI. Parties have said virtually the same thing, so my prediction is really a restatement of what Parties have said on the subject. The market mechanisms will continue to scale up, evolve and improve.

HRW Press – HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AT THE UN.

Egypt: Student Wrote About Corruption in Military Academy and was put before Military Court Trial.

(New York, March 1, 2010) – The Egyptian authorities should drop all charges against Ahmad Mostafa, a 20-year-old engineering student charged with writing about corruption in the military academy on his blog, Human Rights Watch said today.  Security officials are prosecuting Mostafa before a military court in a trial that began March 1, 2010.

“The government should not be prosecuting Mostafa at all, much less before a military court, with no possibility of appeal,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.  “Instead of looking into his accusations, the government is trying to silence him.”

Writing that exposes corruption is protected under Egypt’s international obligations, Human Rights Watch said. Article 9 of the African Convention on Human and People’s Rights, and article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both ratified by Egypt, require Egypt to protect freedom of expression.

Mostafa, a student at Kafr El Sheikh University, in northern Egypt, is a member of “April 6,” a political activist youth group, and has a blog called “Maza Asabuki Ya Watan” (What is Ailing You, My Country?). On February 15, 2009, his post, “Scandal in the Military Academy,” contended that a teacher whose son was forced to leave the Military Academy later discovered that this was to make room for the son of an influential individual who would make financial contributions to the academy.

Military intelligence officers arrested Mostafa on February 25, 2010, while he was on his way to the Faculty of Engineering at Kafr El Sheikh University, and the prosecutor ordered his detention pending trial, based on a Military Academy complaint about the 2009 posting.

Gamal Eid, director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, told Human Rights Watch that military intelligence officers questioned Mostafa on January 17 about his blogging, demanded his password, and then changed his password to keep him from accessing the blog before releasing him that same day. The blog post appears to have come to their attention after Mostafa discussed plans to hold a demonstration during a January visit by President Hosni Mubarak to Kafr el Sheikh with other April 6 members.

The prosecutor concluded the investigation on February 28 and referred the case to the military court in Nasr City, Cairo.   The trial began March 1. At the first session, the judge agreed to defense lawyers’ request for an adjournment to study the court documents, but only by one day.

The prosecutor charged Mostafa under Law 113 of 1956 and the Penal Code which prohibit “the publication of information considered a secret of the armed forces, spreading false information with the goal of causing harm and insulting officials responsible for admission of students into the military academy.” The only evidence presented is the post on Mustafa’s blog.

Defense lawyers from the Arab Network for Human Rights Information and the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression told Human Rights Watch that the judge only allowed them a brief review of the court file and refused to allow them to see a memo regarding the case from the military academy or to take any notes.

Egypt has arrested and detained other bloggers for acts protected by freedom of expression.  Kareem Amer, whose real name is `Abd al-Karim Nabil Suleiman, has been in Borg El Arab prison, in Alexandria, since November 7, 2006, for writing about sectarian tensions in Alexandria and criticizing President Mubarak and the Al-Azhar religious institution on his blog. On February 22, 2007, a court sentenced him to four years in prison for “insulting the president,” “spreading information disruptive of public order,” and “incitement to hate Muslims.”

Hany Nazeer, another blogger, is being detained without charge in Borg El Arab prison, under the country’s emergency law. State Security officers arrested him at his home in Naga Hammadi, Qena, on October 3, 2008, after he expressed opinions critical of Christianity and Islam on his blog. Mostafa Hanafy, vice president of the Egyptian Council of State and a member of the Egyptian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council, told the human rights body  on February 17 that the Egyptian government had “made a commitment before parliament to use the emergency law only for terrorism and drug-related crimes and it has only implemented the rules of the emergency law in these cases.”

Musad Abul Fagr, a novelist and rights defender who had been outspokenly critical of violation of the rights of Sinai Bedouin, remains in prison under an emergency law order despite several court orders for his release. On July 17, prison officials transferred him to Borg El Arab prison under the 13th emergency law order extending his detention.

Human Rights Watch strongly opposes any trials of civilians before military courts, whose proceedings do not protect due process rights. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, has said that military courts “should not, in any circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians.” The Human Rights Committee, the expert body that monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), expressed concern in 2002 that Egypt’s “military courts and state security courts have jurisdiction to try civilians accused of terrorism although there are no guarantees of those courts’ independence and their decisions are not subject to appeal before a higher court,” as required by the ICCPR.

In a 2009 report following his visit to Egypt, Martin Scheinin, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, reiterated that “the trial of civilian terrorist suspects in military and Emergency Supreme State Security Courts raises concerns about the impartial and independent administration of justice and furthermore does not comply with the right to have a conviction and sentence fully reviewed by a higher court.”

During the review of Egypt’s record by the UN Human Rights Council, several countries recommended that Egypt stop detaining bloggers under the emergency law and stop trying civilians before military courts. Hanafy, the Egyptian delegation member, told the Council on February 17 that “there are very few cases of [civilians tried before military courts]; the decision [to refer a civilian to a military court] is an administrative one that can be appealed against in all cases.”

“The Egyptian government says one thing in Geneva and then immediately makes a mockery of the Human Rights Council’s review process,” Stork said. “No civilian should be tried before a military court, and no government that claims to respect human rights should be prosecuting someone solely for writing about corruption.”

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Egypt, please visit:
 http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-afric…

For more information please contact:
In Cairo, Heba Morayef (English, Arabic, French): +201-2381-0319; or  morayeh at hrw.org
In Washington, DC, Joe Stork (English): +1-202-612-4327; or +1-202-299-4925 (mobile)

from:    Cecilia Serin <cserin@bhforum.org>
date:     Mon, Mar 1, 2010
subject:    Workshop on First Steps after Copenhagen: The Private Sector’s Role in Dealing with Climate Change

Following the December 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the Business Humanitarian Forum (BHF) is organizing jointly with the International Chamber of Commerce Switzerland (ICC), the UN-mandated University for Peace (UPEACE), and the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) a workshop on :

First Steps after Copenhagen: The Private Sector’s Role in Dealing with Climate Change, on March 23 at the BHF in Geneva and on March 25 at economiesuisse in Zurich.

The workshop is intended to showcase the role which the private sector can and should have in dealing with climate change both in terms of the post-Copenhagen process and policy framework but also in terms of its ability to address challenges and lead the way toward a low-carbon economy.

The workshop will consist of four main sessions and starts with an overview of the Copenhagen agreement and finance issues and what implications the latter have for business. The second session will provide different perspectives on the private sector’s role in the ongoing process to reach a more wide-ranging international accord.

The next session will give attendees an insightful perspective on the various steps which the private sector can undertake to help the transition to a low-carbon economy and end with a presentation on the respective technological changes we can expect in the not so distant future.

The final session will feature presentations of climate change related business leadership as well as challenges from climate change adaptation and mitigation.

While this workshop is mostly geared toward businesses, which will also receive invitations via the ICC, we also encourage participation by a few key international organizations, NGOs and academics, in consonance with the BHF mandate.

Enclosed you will find agenda for both the events in Geneva and Zurich. For the registration form please email  bhforum.org

We invite you to send the completed registration form to the BHF (+ 41 22 795 18 09) or to the ICC (+ 41 44 421 34 88) at your earliest convenience and no later than March 15.

Best regards,
Roberto Dotta

Deputy Director
The Business Humanitarian Forum
Maison Internationale de l’Environnement II
7-9 Chemin de Balexert
1219, Châteleine, Geneva, Switzerland
Tel:  +41 (0) 22 795 1808
Fax:  +41 (0) 22 795 1809
Email:  rdotta at bhforum.org
Website: http://www.bhforum.org

The Programs:

THE PROGRESS OF THE CURSE OF OIL ON AFRICA – NOW YOU CAN LOOK AT http://www.BEAINTERNATIONAL.ORG and wonder who is behind this Nairobi established headquarters of something going back to 2005 – A Bureau of Environmental Analysis in Africa that will attempt to sell CDM from the production of OIL ?!

Enhanced relations with African contacts, increased awareness and capacity for handling CDM projects in Africa and donor community, and the identification of potential projects for investment and technology transfer.

Development of a CDM policy. In this area, African governments take a strong interest in the negotiations with the private sector to be able to generate benefits through reduced emissions and enhanced sustainable development. As Africa is developing an infrastructure within overnments to handle CDM projects and, most importantly, developing a host country approval process. Once the international CDM rules, and African own rules, are in place, Africa would approve the projects as long as they meet the CDM rules and are on the development priority project list. The priorities are determined by African governments in accordance with their development plans.

Industry related. Field visits of upstream facilities (production and extraction of Oil, Gas and minerals) and downstream (refineries, marketing, regulatory frameworks) are documented with interests in environmental matters. Most African industries have limited awareness of CDM, but strong interest in projects to improve air and water quality. Some African governments have established emission standards, and there is to some extent a limited monitoring and reporting framework of some emissions.

In context of CDM project opportunities, companies present lists of specific projects that they propose as potential CDM projects, and other groups are planning to develop as additional projects. As the roles of governments and industry in implementing and funding CDM projects are not yet clear in Africa, and there appears to be an expectation that donor governments will fund projects, BEA International will continuously work with both.

Olympics Should Be About the Athletes.
Say Something  2/28/2010 – By Kevin Blackistone

Kevin Blackistone is a national columnist for FanHouse – an aol blog.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — In spring, the Olympic Village that was a temporary home to athletes will begin undergoing a conversion into an affordable housing community for at least 16,000 people, replete with child care centers, a school and green space.

The Olympic Oval in suburban Richmond that hosted speed skating will start to be renovated into a city recreation center, with two ice rinks, eight basketball courts, an indoor running track and an infield for more sports.

And in the tiny ski resort of Whistler, where the 2010 Olympic skiing and sliding events were held, Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed will look to follow through on his promise to erect a permanent memorial to Nodar Kumaritashvili, forever known as the Georgian luger who was killed on the eve of the opening of the Vancouver Winter Games.

Tragedy, unfortunately, will be as much a part of the legacy of the 2010 Winter Games as anything else. There can’t be any denying it, and there shouldn’t be.

What happened here to Kumaritashvili should be the starkest reminder to those who run our world’s biennial global games — Jacques Rogge and the International Olympic Committee — that it is the athlete who is the gathering’s most-precious resource and not the capital their exploits can mine.

All one had to do Sunday, as these Games closed, was witness the celebration clogging downtown Vancouver streets to realize there was no amount of money that could have produced as much happiness among Canadians as the gold-medal victory of their men’s hockey team over the United States.

The Olympic movement should not go forth to London in 2012 and Sochi in 2014 as it did in Vancouver, squashing the expression of those who’ve sacrificed so much to climb a stage so high and bright. It is time for the Games’ organizers to embrace those for whom they organize, like Vancouver did all of us who visited the past two weeks, rather than shun and shush them.

The Olympics are like any sports; most of us watch the Games to see what the athletes are going to do rather than to see what imprint on the competitions the officials are going to leave.

But the organizers of these Olympics that closed Sunday night refused to heed the warnings of the lugers, bobsledders and skeleton racers who upon finally getting a chance to train on the slide reported it was far more dangerous than it needed to be.

“It’s not the IOC pushing the boundaries,” Rogge said at a news conference before Sunday’s closing ceremony. “The boundaries are pushed mostly by the ambition of the athletes themselves, and we have at times to protect them from their own risk-taking.

VANCOUVER, BC – FEBRUARY 28: The Olympic flame burns in the cauldron during the Closing Ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at BC Place on February 28, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Closing Ceremony Photos

VANCOUVER, BC – FEBRUARY 28: Flag bearers display the competing nations flags during the Closing Ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at BC Place on February 28, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

“We have a moral responsibility in making sure that the Games are as safe as possible. We will never be able to eliminate all risks, and athletes who are engaged in competition are taking these risks also, but they must be sure we have taken the measures to diminish the risks.”

By the time they took such steps at the slide, however, it was too late.

Rogge and his officers seemed more interested in lassoing the natural exuberance of the Games’ athletes rather than the irrational exuberance of architects who made the slide deadly instead of simply daring. For example, when Canada’s gold medal-winning women’s hockey team, which also beat its U.S. counterpart, celebrated on the ice with champagne, beer and cigars — just like men might do — Rogge’s office frowned and threatened to investigate what it perceived as tawdry behavior.

The Olympics need to get back to championing athletes rather than combating them, unless, of course, they are drug cheats. (One men’s and one women’s hockey player in Vancouver tested positive, but weren’t banned, for illegal substances found in common cold remedies. That was it on the drug front. The athletes looked to be living up to their fair-play responsibility.)

The IOC could steal one page from how to celebrate its athletes in the future from the Vancouver Organizing Committee, which, along with the family of a man now deceased named Terry Fox, created an award in Fox’s name. It was to highlight athletes who embodied Fox’s spirit. He lost a leg to cancer as a young man and set out to run across Canada in 1980 to raise funds for cancer research.

It is time for the Olympics to be returned to the athletes.

from:     sniakan at worldbank.org

date:    Thu, Feb 25, 2010
subject:    World Bank participates in the Africa Carbon Forum

Africa Carbon Forum – March 3-5, Nairobi, Kenya

The World Bank Group is pleased to support the Africa Carbon Forum taking place in Gigiri, right outside Nairobi on March 3-5. Bank staff will be participating in a number of plenary sessions as well as side events.
Furthermore, a press conference will be held on March 3, briefing media on the recently registered Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project. The press conference will take place at 1pm in the UNEP Press Room (Lower Library) in Gigiri – that is the location of the UNEP headqarters near Nairobi. Transportation from downtown Nairobi will be provided.

The Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project is located in Ethiopia and is Africa’s first large-scale forestry project under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It was recently registered under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The project, developed by World Vision, brings both economic and social benefits to poor communities in Ethiopia as well as environmental benefits, cutting an estimated 880,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 30 years. The future sales of carbon credits will bring more than US$700,000 to the local communities over ten years.

At the press conference, the National Director of World Vision Ethiopia, Mrs. Tenagne Lemma, will present the project together with Ms. Ellysar Baroudy, the manager of the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund, which is purchasing a share of the carbon credits generated by this project.

For more information, please contact sniakan@worldbank.org by email.

For more information on the World Bank BioCarbon Fund, please see: http://wbcarbonfinance.org/Router.cfm?Pa…

For more information on World Vision, please see: http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf

For more information on and registration for the Africa Carbon Forum, please see their website: http://www.africacarbonforum.com/2009/en…. Registration is free.

_______________________________________________
Isabel Hagbrink
Senior Communications Officer
Carbon Finance Unit
Environment Department, The World Bank Group
1818 H Street, NW, Washington D.C. 20433

Tel : 202 458 0422 Fax : 202 522 7432
email :  ihagbrink at worldbank.org
Web : www.CarbonFinance.org (See attached file: Africa Carbon Forum Events Booklet external.pdf)

Poverty Predicts Quake Damage Better Than Richter Scale

Emily Schmall
 “It’s not as much the earthquake that kills, it’s the poverty that kills,” said Colin Stark, a geomorphologist and researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who is studying the aftermath of a 1999 earthquake in Taiwan to predict the probability of landslides in Haiti.

Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010, Kyodo News of Japan:

Six-party talks up to North: Bosworth.

U.S. special envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth said Saturday in Tokyo he hopes to see “fairly soon” the resumption of the stalled six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs, but added whether that is realized depends on the North.

“Five of the six parties are prepared to move very quickly. And we would hope that the sixth, that is to say the DPRK, will also decide to move ahead very quickly,” Bosworth told reporters, referring to North Korea by its official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

But the U.S. point man for North Korea policy also said, “In the end, of course, the decision as to whether they are going to come back and when, it is up to the DPRK.”

While admitting that there is no agreement yet on when to resume the multilateral talks involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, Bosworth said, “I hope that, in the not too distant future, but fairly soon, we will see a resumption of the talks.”

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

UN-North Korea talks hint at a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula
Source: Global Times ,  February 21 2010
By Ronda Hauben also of www.taz.de/blogs/netizenblog

This June 25 marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. Only an armistice and a temporary agreement, not a peace treaty, are in place to help prevent a renewed outbreak of hostilities.

A four-person delegation from the office of the UN Secretary-General which included B. Lynn Pascoe and Kim Won-soo recently returned to the UN after their visit to North Korea, between February 9 and 12, 2010.

This was the first delegation to establish official relations between North Korea and the UN Secretariat since Maurice Strong acted as an envoy of Kofi Annan to North Korea in 2004.

At the press conference at the UN, held on the return of the UN delegation, only minimal information was provided about the issues that North Korea raised.

In his brief presentation, Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, mentioned some of the issues discussed, including a statement that there had been back-and-forth talks about a peace treaty.

Pascoe said, however, that he was not going to get into details. A little later in the press conference, a question was asked about what issues North Korea had brought up. Pascoe’s response included that North Korea did talk about a peace treaty and why they saw it as an important way to build trust.

Much of the press conference, focused on questions about North Korea returning to the Six-Party Talks.

A purpose of the UN secretariat trip was to convey messages from other parties of the Six-Party Talks to North Korea, and to convey the Secretary- General’s view that talks need to begin without preconditions.

At the end of WWII, Korea was artificially divided into two separate entities: the Republic of Korea in the south, or South Korea, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north, or North Korea. This division was initially regarded as temporary. Instead, it was maintained and reinforced by various actions of the UN. Then during the Korean War, the United Nations flag and name were used.

North Korea sees the need for a peace treaty to help calm the tension that exists because currently there is only the temporary armistice agreement.

North Korea proposes that three parties to the armistice, the US (for the UN command), North Korea, and China (the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army) to negotiate for the peace treaty. It also proposes to include South Korea.

This is proposed as the means to build confidence among these four parties so as to be able to return to the Six- Party Talks with experience to make possible reaching an agreement on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The actual denuclearization will be a task that will involve both North Korea giving up its nuclear weapon capability and South Korea giving up the protection that the US offers it by including it under the US’s nuclear umbrella.

The press conference at the UN, however, didn’t discuss the issue of the peace treaty or the need to consider the denuclearization of both nations on the Korean Peninsula.

Instead, the majority of questions concerned whether North Korea would return to the Six-Party Talks.

North Korea has criticized the talks as not helpful to solving the disputes that continue to breed hostility in the region. Recent talks have focused on removing the nuclear capability of North Korea, rather than similarly considering North Korea’s claim that it needs its nuclear capability as a security measure as long as hostile actions continue by other members of the Six-Party process.

In previous talks between North Korea and the US, one of the negotiators explained the most difficult part of the negotiations was determining how to phrase the issue of the talks so that it recognized the interests of different parties to the controversy. He said that North Korea made the reasonable request that the issue be phrased in a way satisfactory to both North Korea and the US.

One would expect a similar problem will need to be solved to facilitate discussion among the parties to the Six-Party Talks, or to facilitate negotiations toward a peace treaty to end the Korean War.

After the press conference, Kim Won-soo, Deputy Chef de Cabinet of the UN, said the dispute over how to get back to negotiations could be seen as a difference over what sequencing was acceptable.

What order of actions would the parties agree to with regard to discussing a peace treaty, ending the UN sanctions, or returning to the Six-Party Talks process, could be considered an issue to be discussed, rather than phrasing the problem in terms favorable to one side or the other. This is the basis for further discussion and negotiation among North Korea and the other countries.

The UN is technically still at war with North Korea. These current developments raise the question of whether Ban Ki-moon is willing to use the good offices of his position as Secretary-General to offer what help he can to facilitate a peace treaty to end the Korean War.

Even this first step of an official visit by the four-member UN Secretariat delegation and the mere mention that the North Korea referred to the desire for a peace treaty can be seen as a step forward.

The Secretary-General is endeavoring to help solve the stalemate among the parties regarding the continuing tension on the Korean Peninsula.

————–
The author is an award-winning US journalist covering the United Nations.  netizenblog at gmail.com
 http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/commentary…

————–

Global Times appears in English and originates from Beijing.

Contact the Global Times (GT) newspaper:
Add.  7/F Topnew Tower, 15 Guanghua Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, CHINA PC:100026
Tel.+86-10-52937565
Fax.+86-10-52937584
Email:  editor at globaltimes.com.cn

Uri Avnery

27.2.10

White Lie

THIS COMING Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Israel will consider an application by a group of Israeli citizens to compel the Interior Ministry to register them as belonging to the “Israeli nation”.

Odd? Indeed.

The Israeli Interior Ministry recognizes 126 nations, but not the Israeli nation. An Israeli citizen can be registered as belonging to the Assyrian, the Tatar or the Circassian nation. But the Israeli nation? Sorry, no such thing.
According to the official doctrine, the State of Israel cannot recognize an “Israeli” nation because it is the state of the “Jewish” nation. In other words, it belongs to the Jews of Brooklyn, Budapest and Buenos Aires, even though these consider themselves as belonging to the American, Hungarian or Argentine nations.
Messy? Indeed.

THIS MESS started 113 years ago, when the Viennese Journalist Theodor Herzl wrote his book “The State of the Jews”. (That’s the true translation. The generally used name “The Jewish State” is false and means something else.) For this purpose he had to perform an acrobatic exercise. One can say that he used a white lie.

Modern Zionism was born as a direct response to modern anti-Semitism. Not by accident, the term “Zionismus” came into being some 20 years after the term “Antisemitismus” was invented in Germany. They are twins.
In Europe and the Americas another modern term was flourishing: Nationalism. Peoples which had been living together for centuries under dynasties of Emperors and Kings wanted to belong to nation-states of their own. In Argentina, the USA, France and other countries, “national” revolutions took place. The idea infected almost all peoples, big, small and tiny, from Peru to Lithuania, from Colombia to Serbia. They felt a need to belong to the place and the people where they lived and died.

All these national movements were necessarily anti-Semitic, some more, some less, because the very existence of the Jewish Diaspora ran counter to their basic perceptions. A Diaspora without a homeland, dispersed over dozens of countries, could not be reconciled with the idea of a homeland-rooted nation seeking uniformity.
Herzl understood that the new reality was inherently dangerous for the Jews. In the beginning he cherished the idea of complete assimilation: all the Jews would be baptized and disappear in the new nations. As a professional writer for the theater, he even devised the scenario: all Viennese Jews would march together to St. Stephen’s cathedral and be baptized en masse.

When he realized that this scenario was a bit far-fetched, Herzl passed from the idea of individual assimilation to what may be called collective assimilation: if there is no place for the Jews in the new nations, then they should define themselves as a nation like all the others, rooted in a homeland of their own and living in a state of their own. This idea was called Zionism.

BUT THERE was a problem: a Jewish nation did not exist. The Jews were not a nation but a religious-ethnic community.

A nation exists on one level of human society, a religious-ethnic community on another. A “nation” is an entity living together in one country with a common political will. A “community” is a religious entity based on a common faith, which can live in different countries. A German, for example, can be Catholic or Protestant; a Catholic can be German or French.
These two types of entity have two different means of survival, much as different species in nature. When a lion is in danger, it fights, it attacks. For that purpose, nature has equipped it with teeth and claws. When a gazelle is in danger, it runs. Nature has given it quick legs. Every method is good, if it is effective. (If it were not effective, the species would not have survived to this day.)

When a nation is in danger, it stands and fights. When a religious community is in danger, it moves elsewhere. The Jews, more than any others, have perfected the art of escape. Even after the horrors of the Holocaust, the Jewish Diaspora has survived and now, two generations later, it is again flourishing.

IN ORDER to invent a Jewish nation, Herzl had to ignore this difference. He pretended that the Jewish ethnic-religious community was also a Jewish nation. In other words: contrary to all other peoples, the Jews were both a nation and a religious community; as far as Jews were concerned, the two were the same. The nation was a religion, the religion was a nation.

This was the “white lie”. There was no other way: without it, Zionism could not have come into being. The new movement took the Star of David from the synagogue, the candlestick from the Temple, the blue-and-white flag from the prayer shawl. The holy land became a homeland. Zionism filled the religious symbols with secular, national content.
The first to detect the falsification were the Orthodox Rabbis. Almost all of them damned Herzl and his Zionism in no uncertain terms. The most extreme was the Rabbi of Lubavitch, who accused Herzl of destroying Judaism. The Jews, he wrote, are united by their adherence to God’s commandments. Doctor Herzl wants to supplant this God-given bond with secular nationalism.

When Herzl originated the Zionist idea, he did not intend to found the “State of the Jews” in Palestine, but in Argentina. Even when writing his book, he devoted to the country only a few lines, under the headline “Palestine or Argentina?” However, the movement he created compelled him to divert his endeavors to the Land of Israel, and so the state came into being here.
When the State of Israel was founded and the Zionist dream realized, there was no further need for the “white lie”. After the building was finished, the scaffolding should have been removed. A real Israeli nation had come into being, there was no further need for an imaginary one.

THESE DAYS Israel’s largest newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, is running a TV ad showing selected past issues. The day the State of Israel was founded, the giant headline announced: “Hebrew State!”

“Hebrew”, not “Jewish”. And not by accident: at that time, the term “Jewish state” sounded decidedly strange. In the preceding years, people in this country had got used to making a clear distinction between “Jewish” and “Hebrew”, between matters that belonged to the Diaspora and those belonging to this country: Jewish Diaspora, Jewish language (Yiddish), Jewish Stetl, Jewish religion, Jewish tradition – but Hebrew language, Hebrew agriculture, Hebrew industries, Hebrew underground organizations, Hebrew policemen.

If so, why do the words “Jewish state” appear in our Declaration of Independence? There was a simple reason for that: the UN had adopted a resolution to partition the country between an “Arab state” and a “Jewish state”. That was the legal basis of the new state. The declaration, which was drafted in haste, said therefore that we were establishing “the Jewish state (according to the UN resolution), namely the State of Israel”.

The building was finished, but the scaffolding was not taken down. On the contrary: it became the most important part of the building and dominates its facade.

LIKE MOST of us at the time, David Ben-Gurion believed that Zionism had supplanted religion and that religion had become redundant. He was quite sure that it would shrivel and disappear by itself in the new secular state. He decided that we could afford to dispense with the military service of Yeshiva bochers (Talmud school students), believing that their number would dwindle from a few hundred to almost none. The same thought caused him to allow religious schools to continue in existence. Like Herzl, who promised to “keep our Rabbis in the synagogues and our army officers in the barracks”, Ben-Gurion was certain that the state would be entirely secular.

When Herzl wrote of the “state of the Jews” he did not dream that the Jewish Diaspora would continue to exist. In his view, only the citizens of the new state would henceforth be called “Jews”, all other Jews in the world would assimilate in their various nations and disappear from view.

BUT THE “white lie” of Herzl had results he did not dream of, as did the compromises of Ben-Gurion. Religion did not wither away in Israel, but on the contrary: it is gaining control of the state. The government of Israel does not speak of the nation-state of the Israelis who live here, but of the “nation-state of the Jews” – a state that belongs to the Jews all over the world, most of whom belong to other nations.

The religious schools are eating up the general education system and are going to overpower it, if we don’t become aware of the danger and assert our Israeli essence. Voting rights are about to be accorded to Israelis residing abroad, and this is a step towards giving the vote to all Jews around the world. And, most important: the ugly weeds growing in the national-religious field – the fanatical settlers – are pushing the state in a direction that may lead to its destruction.

TO SAFEGUARD the future of Israel one has to start by removing the scaffolding from the building. In other words: burying the “white lie” of religion-equals-nation. The Israeli nation has to be recognized as the basis of the state.
If this principle is accepted, what will the future shape of Israel – within the Green Line – be like?
There are two possible models, and many variations between them.

Model A: the multi-national one. Almost all the citizens of Israel belong to one of two nations: the majority belongs to the Hebrew nation and a minority to the Palestinian-Arab nation. Each nation will enjoy autonomy in certain areas, such as culture, education and religion. Autonomy will not be territorial, but cultural (as Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky proposed a hundred years ago for Czarist Russia). All will be united by Israeli citizenship and loyalty to the state. The inbuilt discrimination of the Arab minority will become a thing of the past, as well as the “demographic demon”.

Model B: the American one. The American nation is composed of all US citizens, and all US citizens constitute the American nation. An immigrant from Jamaica who acquires US citizenship automatically becomes a member of the American nation, an heir to George Washington and Abe Lincoln. All learn at school the same core program and the same history.

Which of the two models is preferable? In my view, Model B is much better. But it would depend on a dialogue between the Hebrew majority and the Arab minority. In the end, the Arab citizens will have to decide whether they prefer the status of equal partners in a general Israeli nation, or the status of a recognized, autonomous national minority in a state that acknowledges and cherishes their separate culture, side by side with the culture of the majority.

In four days, the Supreme Court will decide whether it is prepared to take the first step in this historic march.