REFORM U.N. DESA

How to guide for dummies: Ousting your boss at the United Nations (the sure way)

2012-01-13T03:52:00.001-08:00

OUSTED

All United Nations staffers UNITE !

Does your boss abuse his authority and treats you like a piece of SH*T ?
Does your boss abuse his/her Dept funds by hiring personal friends as consultants without proper selection process?
Does your boss have no consideration of you, unless you become his/her tool and or servant as if it was 1800'?
Does your boss think he/she is a king/queen of the Dept, anyone else is "peasant"?

If all or any of the above applies to you, you can have your boss expelled from the United Nations, very easy:

1. Start a signatory complain campaign - where at least 50% + of staffers of that Dept/Branch should sign in;

2. Deposit your claims/complain with Ethics and Ombudsman, let is seats there for 30 days (chances are you wont hear from them) ;

3. After 30 days, bring your claim to the office of OHRM/BoM the desk responsible for your Dept (Secretariat only);

4. Wait for another 30 days, meanwhile initiate individual complains to the highest hierarchical authority in your Dept (Director, Chief or ASG/USG). This will serve the purpose of filling up the file that will be used against your boss later on;

5. After 90 days mark, start sending complains to the Executive Office of USG of your Dept (Make sure you mark your communication - URGENT);

6. In mean time copy all your boss's files, communications and all financial transactions he/she signed off, which you think were against the UN rules and regulations, including the list of all individual consultants he/she hired without proper selection process, it will be handy when you fight the battle later on;

7. Call for staff meeting and demand from management that your boss be expelled from UN (on above grounds) and just use the phrase: "we are afraid to return to work under him/her leadership", "there is fear of retaliation", etc. United Nations can go against 1 or 2 but cannot afford to go against a larger number of staffers thus the easier way is to get your boss out of the way "FAST".

GOOD LUCK !

United Nations: Abuse of Authority at work place (DESA/DPADM/DMB)

2012-01-11T04:16:00.000-08:00

Following the meetings at UN-DESA's flagship division of DPADM, there seem to be a clear case of abuse of authority happening at DMB.

But as usual with Haiyan Qian traveling to China to celebrate Chinese new year, and many at Executive office of Sha Zukang totally disengaged on the matter, it seems that the Mexican (Roberto Villareal) might have a real chance of getting over this with a Note-to-File. The question is what about those staffers who signed the petition, will there be any retaliation against them? Some now say that they are afraid to even continue to work under him since he "is known for being vindictive". So the question is will Haiyan Qian take action before she departs or will all this matter turn into those usual "clan battles" inside DESA, where abuse of authority becomes part of the "managerial charm"?

This is what UN's rules say about abuse of authority at work place:

Abuse of authority is the improper use of a position of influence, power or authority against another person. This is particularly serious when a person uses his or her influence, power or authority to improperly influence the career or employment conditions of another, including, but not limited to, appointment, assignment, contract renewal, performance evaluation or promotion. Abuse of authority may also include conduct that creates a hostile or offensive work environment which includes, but is not limited to, the use of intimidation, threats, blackmail or coercion. (ST/SGB/2008/5)

CV of Villareal:

Mr. Roberto Villareal joined the Division for Public Administration & Development Management as the new Chief of the Socio-Economic Development Branch (which will now be known as Development Management Branch) on 22 April. His most recent assignment was with the Division of the Regional Competitiveness and Governance of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where he served as its head.
Mr. Villareal has served the Federal Government of Mexico for over 20 years, assuming the responsibilities of high level posts in different ministries and in diverse fields of socio-economic development. He previously served as the Undersecretary for Regional and Urban Development and Head Unit Social and Regional Policy, for the Federal Government of Mexico. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Is Elia Yi Armstrong cleaning up the place at DPADM so she can have a D1 served on a silver-plate?

2012-01-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

On 20th September 2011 we predicted that Elia Yi Armstrong (on her way out from UNDP) would stir-up the waters and get either John-Mary Kauzya or Roberto Villareal out of their jobs.

Since Sept 2011, we confirmed the fact that Roberto Villareal was having major interpersonal problems with the staff at his Development Management Branch (DMB) of DPADM/DESA.

Well...less than 4 months later, our predictions are coming true, in a major investigation involving UN Ombudsman, Office of USG Sha Zukang and DESA's OHRM, there seem to be more than "issues" between staffers at DMB/DPADM.

Some say this is just an "Italian Job" to get the Mexican (Villareal) out, and plain the way to return of Elia Yi Armstrong (who seem to be more friendly with "the Italians"), others say that this is a failure of Haiyan Qian and DESA's management in first place to detect well in advance that Villareal, even at his previous job in Paris had similar inter-staff "issues", thus his appointment at the helm of DMB/DPADM (without a proper selection process) made things worst at DPADM. Another groups say that Villareal is a hardworking guy who detest "lazy employees who seat and do nothing all day", and thus he expresses his frustration with anger towards those who fail to deliver.

Whatever the option or situation might be, Villareal seem to be headed for a major confrontation.

Let's see what will happen.

ONLY AT UN-DESA !

UNDER SHA ZUKANG' MANAGEMENT !

Corruption at the Inter-American Development Bank: The Fox-In-The-Henhouse Syndrome

2011-12-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

by Bea Edwards on December 12, 2011 ( The Whistleblogger / 2010 )

It seems that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is holding an accountability gala (invitation here) this week called "Leveraging Transparency and Integrity as a Condition to Sustainable Development." There will be a transparency carnival conducted by The Institutional Capacity and Finance Sector, and a special star turn by IDB Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno.

The Bank has been working hard on transparency and integrity because it needs a bailout from the US Congress, which has been asking intrusive questions about the IDB's appalling record on aid effectiveness and anti-corruption. Specific Congressional offices have even been prying into the IDB's habit of retaliating against whistleblowers and using internal "oversight" offices to do it. As Representative Charles Dent (R-Pa) put it during a hearing this past spring (minutes 29 – 31):

As you know, these banks need reforms in many areas, but specifically in their internal judicial systems, which are not always as impartial when investigating charges of fraud, corruption and waste by various whistleblowers, and there was an example at the Inter-American Development Bank that, according to the press, immediately dismissed a contract officer in Haiti when that person raised the issue of fraud in the IDB's Haiti reconstruction contracts.

The "integrity" record at the IDB took another turn for the worse this past summer when the Administrative Tribunal handed down an embarrassing ruling in the Fernando Fernandez case. Those industrious enough to skim through the text discovered that Mr. Fernandez helped to award a series of contracts to chapters of PriceWaterhouseCoopers in exchange for a job for his son. In the published ruling, the identity of PwC is concealed, and the favored firm is referred to as XYZ, but trust me – it's PwC.

...[T]he Complainant (Fernandez) was issued a Notice of Investigation by the Ethics Officer alleging that he unduly influenced the Bank's award of a contract in favor of the XYZ, in exchange for a personal favor to the Complainant, the employment by XYZ of the Complainant's son.

If you read further, you'll find that Mr. Fernandez did, in fact, attempt to exchange favored treatment of PwC in IDB contract competitions for his son's new job there.

The Tribunal does conclude that there was misconduct by virtue of the fact that the Complainant took advantage of his post and position of trust as Senior Advisor to the Vice-President for Finance and Administration to procure a job for his son.

The whole situation is even more remarkable when the Complainant's position at the IDB is taken into account. Mr. Fernandez was:

[A] high official and former Deputy Auditor with responsibility for investigating ethics violations.

A remarkably Orwellian feature of the IDB is that a lack of transparency, flagrant misconduct and unethical practices often begin and end with the very departments created to promote accountability and integrity.

As pointed out, in the Fernandez case, Mr. Fernandez himself was a Deputy in the Office of the Executive Auditor.

Similarly, in a case brought to the Administrative Tribunal two years ago, an unnamed Complainant argued that an investigator in the Bank's unfortunately named Office of Institutional Integrity (OII) was biased and incompetent. The Tribunal agreed, and so, with great presence of mind, his superiors transferred him to the Ethics Office! And there he remains.

As it turns out, it's a good thing they have a little extra help over there, because the Ethics Officer in place at the time resigned abruptly after the conclusion of an investigation into her own professional conduct earlier this year.

Meanwhile, as an auditor, Mr. Fernandez was able to contest the Bank's sanctioning of his "wrongdoing," because the practices employed by the investigator in his case, acting on behalf of the Ethics Officer, were so outrageous.

In the end, the Tribunal ordered Mr. Fernandez reinstated, after three years of suspension without pay. Unaddressed in this conflict between this Deputy Auditor and the Bank, however, was the role of PwC itself. As those in the anti-corruption business should be aware, in the United States, under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, it is illegal (if such a term is applicable to anything the IDB does) to either offer or to accept a bribe. In this case, PwC clearly offered Mr. Fernandez a bribe, yet apparently escaped the fallout of the entire caper.

This is not surprising. According to its breathless description of itself, PwC is a model corporate citizen:

At PwC, leadership is at the core of our corporate responsibility strategy. Our programs are guided by one common commitment: to do what is right for our clients, our people, our communities and the environment. We deliver our services as a trusted business advisor by developing our people to be responsible leaders who demonstrate our leadership as good corporate citizens. Whether we're driving a discussion about corporate responsibility in the marketplace or donating our time and skills to local communities, we're continuing our long history of doing business responsibly.

And so, in the aftermath of the Fernandez debacle, PwC simply "reached out" to the IDB to mend fences, so to speak. In an agreement signed by the Bank and PwC, the Argentine affiliate of PwC was barred from applying for Bank contracts for a period of about a month after the Fernandez ruling and PwC US was barred for about a year.

Curiously, given the IDB's commitment to transparency, the agreement debarring PwC was strictly confidential between the parties. In a letter to five high level Bank officials, Executive VP Julie Katzman wrote:

Under the Agreement, the parties thereto, including the Bank, shall not disclose(i) the Agreement (including any terms thereof), (ii) information concerning the discussions that preceded the Agreement, or (iii) other related information concerning PwC US and PwC AE SRL...

So, we asked, what was the agreement between the bribe (the IDB) and the briber (PwC)? In its own transparent way, the IDB released this statement on August 15, 2011:

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) today announces that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) has agreed to contribute US$2 million to establish an IDB-managed fund to support integrity, governance and institution building in Latin America and the IDB. PwC has taken measures to address a past issue of concern. Among such measures include PwC's implementation of a focused internal compliance training program for PwC employees on IDB engagements, and PwC acknowledges its responsibility for ensuring compliance.

Note the delicate phrasing; "a past issue of concern." This particular "issue" involves a bribe, which would be, if it occurred in a jurisdiction where the rule of law applied, a crime.

So what exactly were the terms of the Agreement not to be disclosed, and what transpired in the discussions preceding the signatures on that particular piece of paper? Here's a suggestion: in return for a $2 million fund to support "integrity" and "governance," the IDB's Office of Institutional Integrity would not refer PwC to the US or the Argentine Justice Departments for investigation and possible prosecution.

It's just a guess, but in the absence of transparency, it's a good one. Such a superbly cynical move is completely in character: the IDB will use the funds dubiously extorted from PwC's corrupt actors to train Latin American and Caribbean officials in integrity.

Bea Edwards is Executive Director and International Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.

H.E. Sha Zukang, Head of the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, to address Eye on Earth Summit

2011-12-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, who is also the Secretary-General of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development ("Rio+20") will address the Eye on Earth Summit on 13 December and speak about "The road to Rio: The importance of information networking."

Abu Dhabi, December 8, 2011: His Excellency Sha Zukang, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and the Secretary-General of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, will share his vision regarding "The road to Rio: The importance of information networking" at the Eye on Earth Abu Dhabi 2011 Summit.

"As the world seeks to eradicate poverty, it faces two huge and interlinked challenges: how to reduce the stress the global economy puts on nature and how to put in place solid institutions to shepherd global sustainable development," H.E. Mr. Sha said. A key question will be how to ensure that people and decision-makers everywhere have access to the data and information they will need to chart a sustainable course in the years ahead.

"I am particularly pleased to attend the Eye on Earth Summit, primarily because I consider it the launch of a historic initiative to bring together the public and private networks of experts working to advance environmental and societal information infrastructure as a new foundation for sustainable development."

The Summit will convene world experts to facilitate greater access to environmental and societal information, especially for emerging economies.

To be held December 12-15 under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, the Summit is hosted by Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD), facilitated by Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) and held in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Eye on Earth Abu Dhabi 2011 Summit will convene world leaders and experts in environmental and societal information networking to reach consensus on solutions to greater data accessibility and to encourage stakeholders to collaborate to either strengthen existing data access initiatives or launch new ones. A key goal of the Summit is the environmental and societal data community's adoption of the Eye on Earth Abu Dhabi 2011 Summit Declaration - a document that will provide input to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in June 2012 under the leadership of H.E. Mr. Sha.

H.E. Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, Secretary General of Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi and Eye on Earth Co-Chair, said: "H.E. Mr. Sha's participation in the Eye on Earth Abu Dhabi Summit illustrates the importance the work of the international data and information community has for the sustainability of global development and the alleviation of poverty. Coming twenty years after the first global conference devoted to sustainable development, the decisions that will be taken at the Rio+20 conference guided by H.E. Mr. Sha will be crucial to our common future."

This will be H.E. Sha Zukang's first visit to Abu Dhabi.

Confirmed attendees of the Eye on Earth Abu Dhabi 2011 Summit include UAE leadership, President Bill Clinton, Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dame Jane Morris Goodall, Philippe Costeau, Jr. and Lelei Lelaulu, Chairman, Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific International (FSPI).

An Eye on Earth Exhibition will showcase the latest developments in environmental information and technology.

For more information and speaker biographies, please visit www.eyeonearthsummit.org

-Ends-

About Mr. Sha Zukang
Mr. Sha Zukang is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General heading the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), which is responsible for the follow-up to the major United Nations Summits and Conferences, and services the Second and Third Committees of the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council as well as the vast majority of its functional commissions and expert bodies. He also convenes inter-agency coordinating mechanisms such as the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs.

Mr. Sha also serves as the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, to be convened in Brazil in 2012.

Before joining the United Nations in July 2007, Mr. Sha held a number of posts in the diplomatic service of the People's Republic of China. He has varied experience with multilateral organizations and international conferences. He was Chairman of the Preparatory Committee and Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 11th session from 2003 to 2004, President of the Trade and Development Board, 50th Session of UNCTAD, Chairperson of the Government group of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organization from 2002 to 2003, and member of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament matters from 1994 to 1999. In addition, he has served as president, vice-president, chairperson, coordinator and expert in many international conferences in the field of arms control, trade, intellectual property, social affairs, and telecommunications, among others.

Mr. Sha is a graduate of Nanjing University, China. He is a native of Jiangsu Province and is married, with one son.

About Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD)
The Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) was established in 1996 to preserve Abu Dhabi's natural heritage, protect our future, and raise awareness about environmental issues. EAD is Abu Dhabi's environmental regulator and advises the government on environmental policy. It works to create sustainable communities, and protect and conserve wildlife and natural resources. EAD also works to ensure integrated and sustainable water resources management, to ensure clean air and minimise climate change and its impacts. For more information, visit www.ead.ae

About Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI)
Conceived by the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi and launched by the Abu Dhabi Government in 2002, under the guidance and patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, AGEDI provides user-friendly access to high-quality environmental information, through a variety of information products. While EAD champions AGEDI locally, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) champions it regionally and globally. AGEDI's objectives include; to enhance environmental data collection and assessment, to increase data capacities for local, national, regional, and global environmental decision making, to ensure sustainable development planning is based on quality, timely, useable, and updated data and information, to provide accessibility of data and information to all stakeholders, to enhance national and international mechanisms of information processing and exchange and to enhance national capacities in information handling and communications. For more information, visit www.agedi.ae

About United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and its predecessors have helped countries around the world meet their economic, social and environmental challenges for more than 50 years. DESA's mission - to promote development for all - reflects a fundamental concern for equity and equality in countries large and small, developed and developing. DESA works on issues ranging from poverty reduction, population, gender equality and indigenous rights to macroeconomic policy, development finance, public sector innovation, forest policy, climate change and sustainable development. The Department also supports the effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, a set of time-bound targets, which put the eradication of poverty at the centre of the global partnership for development.

For media enquiries, please contact: Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD), Sobhia Al Masry, Media Specialist, EAD Press Office, Tel: +9712 6934-637, Mobile: +97150 442-5096, Email: pressoffice@ead.ae

Or United Nations Environment Programme, Contact: Mia Turner, UNEP Newsdesk on Tel. +254 20 7625211, Mobile +254 710620495 or E-mail: Mia.Turner@unep.org or unepnewsdesk@unep.org

Or Eye on Earth Summit, Contact: Mustafa Alrawi, M: Communications on Mobile: +97150 657-5945 or E-mail: eyeonearth@mcomgroup.com

How many Iranian Government Officials were trained by UN/UNDP (and other UN Agencies) & Saudi Arabia Says ‘Will Never’ Contribute to $100 Billion UN G

2011-12-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

How many Iranian Government Officials were trained by UN/UNDP (and other UN Agencies) out of Iran, where and who are they?

3,053

Government Officials were trained by UNDP in various disciplines in the last 10 years outside of Iran (since 2002).

But in Iran, UN (or any specialized agency: ie. UNDP, UNOPS) never had a say in selecting the candidates who were trained. All their nomination came from the Iranian Ministry of Foreign affairs after a scrutinized process of validation and how trustful these officials were for the Iranian regime.

Having no way to verify their credentials, UN/UNDP had to take Iranian Government word and include all the "selected" into the list of officials sent abroad to attend international conferences, regional round-tables, or short-medium term training and exchanges in various countries (in the West but also Region).

Today the United Nations, and its operation arm in Iran (UNDP), are very reluctant to make public the names of all Iranian Officials it trained thru out the past 10 years with the World Tax-payers money. Why?

UNDP's Helen Clark brags about the transparency and accountability of UNDP's programmes, how difficult could be to have the following data published:

Individual Name:

Affiliated State Institution:

Purpose of trip:

Country of Destination:

Duration of trip:

This is the UNDP Iran Website. You can all visit and witness the transparency of data UNDP makes available to outsiders on how it conducts business in Iran.

http://undpwatch.blogspot.com

Saudi Arabia Says ‘Will Never’ Contribute to $100 Billion UN Green Fund

Saudi Arabia “will never contribute” to the United Nations’ $100 billion Green Climate Fund, which should be financed by the governments of developed nations, according to the kingdom’s chief climate negotiator.

“Saudi Arabia and other developing countries will never contribute to this Fund as some developed countries are suggesting,” Mohammad al-Sabban said today in an e-mailed response to questions. “It is not acceptable to ask developing countries to contribute to the fund, because and as stated in the Climate Convention, it is the responsibility of the developed countries,” he said referring to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC. “We are very strong on this point along with other developing countries.”

The Green Climate Fund, which was central to agreements reached last year by UN treaty negotiators in Cancun, Mexico, is being discussed at climate talks in Durban, South Africa that began this week. The world’s richest countries pledged to channel $100 billion annually by 2020, part of it through the fund, to help poorer nations reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from energy production and adapt to effects of global warming such as rising sea levels.

Oil Income Loss

Saudi Arabia should be compensated from the fund as climate policies may lead to a loss in oil income to the kingdom, the world’s largest crude exporter, al-Sabban said.

“Those developing countries who are going to be adversely impacted as a result of climate policies should be assisted by the Fund to adapt to such impacts including helping us in achieving economic diversification and reduce our dependency on the exportation of crude oil,” he wrote.

There should be funding to support carbon capture and storage projects in developing countries, in particular fossil fuel exporters such as Saudi Arabia and the UNFCCC should have full authority over the Green Fund rather than the World Bank, al-Sabban said.

“We are fully aware of the economic crisis that the EU and other Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development countries are facing, but that should not lead us to change their commitments,” he said.

www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-11-30/saudi-arabia-says-will-never-contribute-to-100-billion-un-green-fund.html

Deadlock in Durban

Jagdish Bhagwati

... Indeed, the extravagance of these conferences seems to grow, rather than shrink, as their dismal results become more apparent. COP-15 in Copenhagen lasted 12 days, and is estimated to have attracted 15,000 delegates and 5,000 journalists. The carbon emissions created by so many people flying to Denmark was real, while the emissions targets that the conference sought remained beyond reach. That will be true in Durban as well – and on an even greater scale...

Jagdish Bhagwati is Professor of Economics and Law at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.

www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bhagwati19/English

Bloated UNIDO alienates friends: Agency's donors head for the door. & Students Uncover China Nuke Tunnels – Video

2011-12-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

“Sesame Street” went on the air in Afghanistan. How can they have "Sesame Street" in a country that doesn't have streets?

Let this be a warning to nations around the world, engage in a war with us and we will invade your country and provide you with quality children's programming. - Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Students Uncover China Nuke Tunnels – Video

http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/students-uncover-china-nuke-tunnels-27448245.html#crsl=%252Fvideo%252Fworld-15749633%252Fstudents-uncover-china-nuke-tunnels-27448245.html

UN activates Index Number 19653: Aung San Suu Kyi demands expansion of UNDP Programmes in Myanmar – Photo

http://undpwatch.blogspot.com

Tooting our own horn: GenevaLunch editor wins “Unsung hero” award

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – GenevaLunch editor Ellen Wallace was named “Unsung hero” by the British-Swiss Chamber of Commerce at its first Business Awards Wednesday 30 November in Geneva for her work in developing an online news source in English for the Lake Geneva region and Switzerland. GenevaLunch, staffed by volunteers, will soon hit the 3 million pages viewed mark, with 1 million of those in 2011.

http://genevalunch.com/blog/2011/12/01/tooting-our-own-horn-genevalunch-editor-wins-unsung-hero-award

Anglo-German Pullout Casts Shadow Over UNIDO

... The 30-year old organisation's relevance to the present day world, changing priorities and a financial crisis were cited as reasons three weeks ago when Germany said it intend to pull out.

Arguing for a German pull out, Carl-Dieter Spranger, the minister for economic cooperation and development, said UNIDO has no longer any role to play as governments are reducing their own roles in industrial development and allowing the private sector to play to take the lead.

Besides, he also questioned the organisation's willingness to introduce reforms. Spranger said Germany, the second largest donor after Japan at present, would like to withdraw end of next year...

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=99034

U.N. Agency That Deals With ‘Green Energy’ and ‘Green Industry’ Loses Another Major Funder

(CNSNews.com) – A Vienna-based United Nations agency is pondering how to get by without one of its biggest donors, following a recent British government decision to withdraw from an organization which it said was ineffective and poorly run.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/un-agency-deals-green-energy-and-green-industry-loses-another-major-funder

Bloated UNIDO alienates friends: Agency's donors head for the door.

While member states mull how to streamline and prioritize the work of the United Nations, individual countries have forced at least one harshly criticized U.N. agency to undergo a radical reform, possibly putting it out of business.

www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-56785295.html

Syrian Minister of Industry: Sanctions against Syria Will Negatively Affect Syrian Citizens

VIENNA, (SANA) – The Syrian Minister of Industry, Adnan Slakho, on Wednesday said that the sanctions against Syria will negatively affect the interests and the living conditions of the majority of the Syrian workers and citizens.

Speaking at the 14th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in the Austrian capital, Vienna, Slakho said that the Syrian people will foil the conspiracy against their country thanks to their determination, national unity and rallying around President Bashar al-Assad despite all misleading media campaigns and some countries' support of terrorism and armed groups against Syria.

The Minister reviewed the standing cooperation between the UNIDO and Syria, hoping that the next stage will contribute to implementing the economic reform program and developing industry in Syria.

http://sana.sy/eng/22/2011/11/30/385191.htm

The use and effects of payment of allowances when attending meetings, seminars etc.

This has come into focus in recent years, but there is reason to believe that the documentation is limited. It might be interesting to look into this in more detail, deciding whether it is a problem and if so, how big an issue it is. This can be done by mapping the available documentation in the form of a synthesis study, and then possibly conducting a couple of country-specific studies. Chr. Michelsens Institute (CMI) will execute the study.

Timeplan: Final report November 2011

Responsible: Eirik G. jansen

* (170 KB)

www.norad.no/en/evaluation/ongoing-evaluations#372137

How India squanders British aid: We give £1.4bn to a country that has its own space programme. In this damning investigation, the Mail reveals how it's scandalously wasted

... I visited a small maternity clinic in busy Bhopal. It has five beds, although it caters for 250,000 people. The operating theatre on the first floor has a new anaesthesia machine which is still in its plastic cover, the instructions in an unopened manual. The theatre bed is unused. Not one child has been delivered here since it was opened a few years ago...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2068930/How-India-squanders-British-aid-We-1-4bn-country-space-programme-In-damning-investigation-Mail-reveals-scandalously-wasted.html?printingPage=true

Fiat Money in Crisis

The printing press has become politicians' last tool to project the mirage of sustainability and solvency.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203833104577071812874706738.html?

mod=googlenews_wsj

Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable?

Kenneth Rogoff

... Will capitalism be a victim of its own success in producing massive wealth? For now, as fashionable as the topic of capitalism’s demise might be, the possibility seems remote. Nevertheless, as pollution, financial instability, health problems, and inequality continue to grow, and as political systems remain paralyzed, capitalism’s future might not seem so secure in a few decades as it seems now.

Kenneth Rogoff is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the IMF..

www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rogoff87/English

Workers of the Western world

... Milanovic, a World Bank economist who earned his doctorate in his native Yugoslavia, has an intuitively international frame of reference. Both qualities are in evidence in “Global Inequality: From Class to Location, From Proletarians to Migrants,” a working paper released this autumn by the World Bank Development Research Group...

http://blogs.reuters.com/chrystia-freeland/2011/12/02/workers-of-the-western-world/

Do giant oil field discoveries fuel internal armed conflicts?

Do natural resource windfalls, such as those arising from the discovery of giant oil fields, increase the risk of internal armed conflict? This column argues that giant oil field discoveries, which are largely down to chance, significantly increase the incidence of conflict. This is especially so in countries with recent histories of political violence, where locals may have little to gain from such discoveries.

www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7368

UN to Roll out Changes to Senior Team for Next 5-Year Term & Kofi Annan Deputy - The risks of sleepwalking into a war with Iran

2011-12-09T13:48:00.000-08:00

"When you are totally at peace with yourself, nothing can shake you."

# The Truth About NGO's

# Episode 1

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00m1cf7

New Documentary Explores China's Growing Presence in Africa – Video

www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/new-documentary-explores-chinas-growing-presence-in-africa/249091

Clinton tells developing world to be wary of donors eyeing resources

(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged developing nations on Wednesday to be "smart shoppers" on foreign aid, warning that powerful emerging economies such as China may be more interested in exploiting natural resources than promoting real development.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/11/30/development-clinton-idINDEE7AT01S20111130

New DSK Book Tells of His Side of Diallo Affair, Prostitution Ring

In a new book that hit French shelves yesterday, the sex scandals and conspiracy theories behind the downfall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn are dissected. Tracy McNicoll on the book’s most explosive charges.

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/02/new-dsk-book-tells-of-his-side-of-diallo-affair-prostitution-charges.html

Rep. Walsh to UN: No Gun Control Treaties

Representative Joe Walsh (R-IL) has drafted a bill that would block U.S. funding to the United Nations if it seeks to implement gun control measures affecting U.S. citizens. (UN Agenda Link)

Despite victories by gun owners in elections and legislative battles throughout the country in recent years, on the international front gun control is moving quickly.

www.rightsidenews.com/2011120415080/us/homeland-security/rep-walsh-to-un-no-gun-control-treaties.html

UN to Roll out Changes to Senior Team for Next 5-Year Term

... Mr. Ban is currently undertaking a thorough review of his entire team, with the aim of rolling out the changes in a phased manner. It is expected that eight Under-Secretaries-General will leave around the first half of 2012.

They are Muhammad Shaaban, Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly Affairs and Conference Management; Kiyotaka Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information; B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; and Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

Also on the list are Sergio Duarte, High Representative for Disarmament; Cheick Sidi Diarra, Special Adviser for Africa; Abdoulie Janneh, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA); and Ján Kubiš, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE).

The selection process has also begun for five Assistant Secretary-General positions at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)...

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1112/S00062/un-to-roll-out-changes-to-senior-team-for-next-5-year-term.htm

What Africa means to Minnesota businesses

... Kofi Annan, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, and former Vice President Walter Mondale are cochairs of the Law & Democracy Initiative.

In a commentary published last summer ("Now, sustain those moves to democracy," Aug. 13), they explained the important connection between education, the rule of law and a strong business climate:

"The rule of law is equally fundamental for the development of a healthy democracy, good governance and a prosperous economy... [www.booksforafrica.org/law.html]

www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/134938928.html

Local companies shun UN bidding process

OVER the years, companies in Swaziland have failed to participate in the United Nations (UN) International Competitive Bidding Process thus representatives will visit the country so as to create awareness on it.

Swaziland Investment Promotion Authority (SIPA) Chief Executive Officer Phiwayinkhosi Ginindza said the UN office in Uganda voiced this concern at the Global Expo they participated in a few weeks ago.

The expo was organised by the Botswana Export Development and Investment Authority (BEDIA). Ginindza said in a bid to make Swazis aware of the numerous business opportunities at the UN, the office would come to mobilise locals so that they would tap into the agency’s budget.

“All UN members have a right to tender for goods and services of the organ hence the Uganda office will come and create awareness on the opportunities locals might seize there. The UN has two offices for food procurement,” he said...

www.observer.org.sz/index.php?news=33045

CJ rules against Greece in row with Macedonia

The Hague - The International Court of Justice on Monday ruled against Greece in its long-running dispute with Macedonia over the country's use of the name Macedonia, which is also the name of a northern Greek province.

Greece vetoed Macedonia's accession to NATO in 2008 because of the row, violating a 1995 interim agreement between the two nations.

Greece had said it would not block Macedonia's attempt to join international organizations if it used the name Macedonia, which it adopted after it became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991.

The United Nations court ruled 14:2 against Greece, which argues the name Macedonia is a part of its historic legacy.

www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1678971.php/ICJ-rules-against-Greece-in-row-with-Macedonia

CTBTO PSA with Michael Douglas – Video

Oscar-winning actor and producer Michael Douglas is well known for his commitment to nuclear disarmament. Now he has teamed up with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization on a series of austere but powerful TV spots aimed at raising support for the Treaty.

Next War - Iran

The Geopolitics of the times may indicate that the next war is Iran. Although Pakistan being an established nuclear power would logically be higher on the scales of denuking agenda for so called globalists. Still Geopolitical logic dictates otherwise.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/05-12-2011/119836-next_war_iran-0/

'Never Before Has the World Been as Close to War with Iran'

The EU tightened sanctions against Iran Thursday, but stopped short of imposing an oil embargo against the country. Meanwhile, pressure in the US Congress mounts for stricter penalties on Iran. German commentators weigh the options against Iran Friday, concluding that none of them are promising.

www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,801333,00.html

Clinton Moves to Inject New Urgency into Bioweapon Concerns at Geneva Event

WASHINGTON -- In a surprise announcement, a senior State Department official said on Thursday that Hillary Clinton would appear next week at an international conference on biological warfare prevention and preparedness -- an event that even policy wonks had previously grumbled would likely prove dull and inconsequential (see GSN, Aug. 2).

http://gsn.nti.org/siteservices/print_friendly.php?ID=nw_20111202_5065

China feels India's nuclear heat

NEW DELHI: Given the incendiary moniker ''the China killer'' by the more sensationalist press, India's newest nuclear-capable missile will be its most powerful yet - and an unmistakable signal to its neighbours.

Agni V - named after the Hindu god of fire - is due to be tested within three months. It will be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead 5000 kilometres, meaning it can reach not only Beijing and Shanghai but all of northern China.

India's existing arsenal can already reach every corner of Pakistan using earlier models of the Agni delivery system.

http://straightfurrow.farmonline.co.nz/news/world/world/general/china-feels-indias-nuclear-heat/2379918.aspx?storypage=0

The State Department vs. Free Speech

Hillary Clinton chats up the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which demands world-wide bans on criticizing Islam.

... President Obama should put a stop to this nonsense and declare that in free societies all views and religions are subject to contradiction and critique—and the OIC must learn to tolerate that. The alternative is what the late Indonesian Muslim President Abdurrahman Wahid called "a narrow suffocating chamber of dogmatism."

Ms. Shea and Mr. Marshall are senior fellows at the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and authors of "Silenced: How Apostasy & Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide" (Oxford University Press, 2011).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504577005972874755662.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

GAP’s Investigation into World Bank Managing Director Mohieldin Now Available in Arabic

www.whistleblower.org/blog/31-2010/1613-gaps-investigation-into-world-bank-managing-director-mohieldin-now-available-in-arabic

Upgrade Your Life: How to Extend Your Wifi Range – Video

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upgrade-your-life/upgrade-life-extend-wifi-range-214513350.html

Energy Aid Founded by IBM and Practical Action Launches to Provide Universal Energy Access

--New charity dedicated to the global eradication of energy poverty - Supported by Secretary of State for International Development and United Nations Industrial Development Organization. - Strategy includes a global awareness campaign, an Open Knowledge Base and the creation of an investment fund. - UN estimates that 1.3 billion people have no access to electricity and a further 1 billion have limited or unreliable access.

www.marketwatch.com/story/energy-aid-founded-by-ibm-and-practical-action-launches-to-provide-universal-energy-access-2011-12-05

Suffer $250 per barrel crude oil if you harm us: Iran

... "As soon as such an issue is raised seriously the oil price would soar to above $250 a barrel”, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said to the local Daily Sharq...

www.commodityonline.com/news/suffer-$250-per-barrel-crude-oil-if-you-harm-us-iran-44194-3-1.html

Climate right for change to UN voting rules

THE UN climate conference in Durban has been asked to ditch consensus decision-making in favour of a two-thirds majority voting system to speed up the global response to climate change.

The plan is not new, but it has found an active sponsor in Mexico and leading climate change advocates such as former British climate change adviser Nicholas Stern.

Lord Stern told The Times that reaching a legally binding limit on emissions in the next few years would probably mean abandoning the present process, which requires all 192 UN member states to agree.

www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/climate-right-for-change-to-un-voting-rules/story-e6frg6xf-1226212744117

Yet more talks as UN costs spiral

HARGEISA (Somaliladpress) – Somaliland President Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud Siilaanyo met with delegation led by UN special envoy to Somalia Mr. Augustine Mahiga and the meeting was held at the Presidential Palace today. The delegation is currently on a two day trip to Somaliland.

After the closed meeting Mr Mahiga spoke to the press after concluding his meeting with the President. He reported that that they had discussed a range of issues concerning regional security and development.

He acknowledged that Somaliland has clear polices on security. Speaking on this issue, Mr. Mahiga said, “As we know that no country can progress without peace, security and stability and Somaliland achieved to maintain it.” It is believed that the Somaliland President briefed the UN special envoy to Somalia Mr. Mahiga about his five year plan.

No mention was made of the spiralling cost of such continual shuttle diplomacy and seemingly mundane and fruitless talks.

http://somalilandpress.com/yet-more-talks-as-un-costs-spiral-24769

Challenges at the Cutting Edge of Fighting Global Poverty

Jeffrey Sachs

Director, Earth Institute at Columbia University; Author, 'The Price of Civilization'

... In a recent article in the Economist, several wrong claims were made about the project based on an unpublished paper. One claim is that the project is not working since the progress in the Millennium Villages is also occurring in the neighboring villages, albeit at a slower rate. This is a mistaken criticism. The project itself has been encouraging the take-up of a range of interventions (bed nets, fertilizer, high-yield seeds, new diagnostic methods, and so forth) in neighboring villages and at the national scale. In fact, the Millennium Village Project in Kenya directly supported the procurement and distribution of 160 tons of fertilizer and 22 tons of seeds to two of the neighboring "comparison" villages included in this paper. Rather than undercutting the point of the project, progress nearby the Millennium Village sites often helps to prove the point...

www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/global-poverty_b_1127867.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

Yvo de Boer, Ex-U.N. Climate Chief, Says Talks Are Rudderless

DURBAN, South Africa -- Yvo de Boer said he left his job as the U.N.'s top climate official in frustration 18 months ago, believing the process of negotiating a meaningful climate agreement was failing. His opinion hasn't changed.

"I still have the same view of the process that led me to leave the process," he told The Associated Press Sunday. "I'm still deeply concerned about where it's going, or rather where it's not going, about the lack of progress."

www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/04/yvo-de-boer-ex-un-climate-talks_n_1127923.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

Rise of the TIMBIs

Forget the BRICs. The real economies that will shake up the world over the next few decades need a new acronym.

... Future trends still look robust in Brazil and India, but these countries should now be in new company -- a group of dynamic and democratic emerging economies. Let's call them the TIMBIs: Turkey, India, Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia. These countries form more than just a cute acronym. They all share favorable demographics and democracy and are already large economies. Their GDPs combined have already surpassed that of China and will be much faster growing in the coming decades. Their combination of booming labor forces and political openness points to rapid increases in human capital and innovation that will propel these regional powers into global powers in the near future...

www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/02/rise_of_the_timbis

Narrative Science

...Our proprietary artificial intelligence platform produces reports, articles, summaries and more that are automatically created from structured data sources. With amazing speed and quality, narratives are created in multiple formats, including long-form articles, headlines, Tweets and industry reports. Multiple versions of the same story can be created to customize the content for each audience and narratives can be fully tailored to fit a customer’s voice, style and tone.

www.narrativescience.com

Dalai Lama to visit Austria next spring

APA News Service

December 5, 2011

Vienna - The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the Tibetans and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will spend a week in Austria in May 2012, according to the Tibetan Center at Huettenberg in Carinthia in southern Austria.

He would be in the Carinthian capital Klagenfurt from May 18 to 20, where his schedule would include a lecture on "The Art of Happiness". In Salzburg on May 21, he would lecture on "World Peace and Universal Responsibility - Harmony in Multiplicity".

In Vienna on May 25, his theme would be "Ethics and Human Values in Today's Society". There would also be a symposium on Buddhism and science the following day.

It is not yet known whether any Austrian officials will receive the world figure Dalai Lama, and risk angering Austria's number one Asian trading partner China. When he last came to Austria in 2007, he was received by then-chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, which led to a diplomatic freeze between Vienna and Beijing.

A recent survey showed the enormous respect in which the Dalai Lama, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is held among the Austrian population.

Predominantly Catholic Austrians would soonest entrust themselves spiritually to the Dalai Lama, said a "confidence index" by the Austria Press Agency and OGM polling institute.

He was far ahead of Austria's highest Catholic dignitary, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who was in second place, and Pope Benedict XVI who was third. There was least trust in the heads of the Austrian Muslim and Jewish Communities.

The OGM said the Dalai Lama was at the top of the list due to his friendly nature, modest lifestyle, basically liberal attitude, and history as a victim of persecution. People also liked him because of the absence of a church power structure.

www.apa.at

The risks of sleepwalking into a war with Iran

Financial Times

2 December 2011

By David Miliband and Nader Mousavizadeh

David Miliband was British foreign secretary from 2007-10. Nader Mousavizadeh is chief executive of Oxford Analytica and was special assistant to former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan

Iran's challenge to global order has been among the most complex and confounding tasks for international diplomacy since that country's 1979 Islamic revolution. A regime with declining domestic legitimacy has increasingly sought to channel discontent towards foreign enemies , imagined and real, and preserve its hold on power by any means. As surprised and disoriented by the Arab awakening as everyone else over the past year, Tehran has been scrambling to respond to the shifting sands of regional geopolitics, amid intensifying rivalries within the leadership itself.

This is the critical context for the escalation in the nuclear crisis now threatening to replace diplomacy with war as the west's response to the Iranian threat. The recent comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's nuclear programme; public debate in Israel about the wisdom of a military strike, without much pushback from outside the country; private mutterings about the best "window" for such an attack; and now the serious diplomatic consequences of the assault on the British embassy and its staff, are combining to deepen the chasm of distrust to new and dangerous levels.

We subscribe to the view that the price of a nuclear-armed Iran would be very high - unacceptably high. Iran's capacity to destabilise the region would increase considerably. The response from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others would mean the end of the non-proliferation treaty. The chance that nuclear weapons would be used would be much closer.

But that is not an argument for military action now or in 2012. We are not talking about a discrete - or discreet - strike here. Avowed Iranian nuclear facilities are numerous and the regime does not lack for ammunition or targets in return. In addition to its own missile stores, Iran is invested in regional proxy armies, such as Hizbollah. All the war games show that targets as diverse as Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, Israeli and US facilities and the Straits of Hormuz would come into play.

For these reasons we must avoid military action becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. Diplomacy must take the lead in preventing a major war with Iran - for that is what it would be. What is more, the regime faces at least four serious challenges of its own. First, it is clear that sanctions, cyberwar and covert operations have impaired Iran's progress towards a nuclear weapons capability, with most estimates holding that the regime is at least two years away from achieving it. To be clear, no one has made the case such an achievement is imminent.

Second, IAEA inspectors continue to monitor key installations and operations, providing a tripwire presence able to signal any dramatic change in policy or practice by Tehran. It would be disastrous if the fallout from the Iranian storming of the British embassy included the harassment or expulsion of inspectors by the regime.

Third, Iran's strategic influence in the region is waning. Its sole ally in the Arab world, the Syrian regime, is badly weakened and more likely entering an end game. Among the Arab public, Iran's popularity has plummeted since the highs of the 2006 Lebanon war.

Fourth, and too often neglected, are the aspirations of the Iranian people. They have often shown that they do not share the regime's hostility to the world and instead aspire to the same kinds of open government that the youth of the Arab world are reaching for.

At a time like this, diplomatic drive and creativity are needed more than ever. Now is the time to support, directly and indirectly, the pressures on a regime currently fractured on all matters except the nuclear programme. And in this endeavour, war talk weakens our hand - strengthening the most uncompromising forces within Iran and corroding global cohesion in opposition to the programme.

Non-military options have not yet succeeded, but nor have they failed. However, exasperating the diplomatic track growing talk of a military option risks creating a logic all of its own, where the appalling consequences of a military strike are set to one side and a precipitate and unwise move to war becomes acceptable wisdom.

Nature abhors a vacuum and so does international politics. It cannot be filled by nudges and winks about military options. A concerted diplomatic effort on Iran is needed now to prevent the world sleepwalking into another war in the Middle East.

www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/52757f10-1b69-11e1-85f8-00144feabdc0.html

Expelling Iran's diplomats: a dangerous showdown

The real threat to British diplomacy in Iran is not losing an embassy, but being seen as a US proxy

... In the meantime, for all its other difficulties, Iran enjoys a better ally in a US- and UK-liberated Iraq than it ever did in Saddam Hussein's years. These are developments that Saudi Arabia and other Arab neighbours cannot let go indefinitely unchecked. So the region lurches towards instability and possible conflict as the west desperately ups the ante on sanctions, hoping this can break the regime and avert conflict.

It will be no comfort for British diplomats that they will now not be granted front-row seats in Tehran for what follows. And given the real dangers, that is all our loss...

Mark Malloch-Brown is a former foreign officer minister and deputy secretary-general of the UN. He is currently Europe, Middle East and Africa chairman of FTI Consulting.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/30/expelling-iran-diplomats-showdown

The Journalism Foundation launches

The Independent

Monday, 05 December 2011

The Journalism Foundation, a non-for-profit organisation that promotes, develops and sustains free and fair journalism across the world, launched in London today.

Its founding Chief Executive, Simon Kelner, former editor-in-chief of The Independent, said today: “I am delighted to lead this new body, which will show that journalism can be a force for good by supporting initiatives that have a direct and positive effect on people’s lives.”

The Foundation, which was inspired and is backed by the Lebedev family, has a board of Trustees chaired by Evgeny Lebedev, chairman of The Independent and the London Evening Standard. His fellow trustees include Baroness Kennedy, the renowned human rights lawyer, Lord Fowler, former chair of the House of Commons media select committee, and Sir John Tusa, former director general of BBC World Service.

Evgeny Lebedev said: "At a time when, quite rightly, a light is being shone on malpractice in some areas of the British Press, I am delighted to give my backing to an initiative whose purpose is to demonstrate the positive aspects of journalism. Free speech has always been a touchstone issue for me, and an organisation intent on giving people around the world a voice is worthy of widespread support."

The Journalism Foundation is launching with two initiatives to show the scope and range of its work. The Foundation, in partnership with the department of journalism at London’s City University, is establishing the first practical training courses for journalists in Tunisia, teaching local journalists how to report in a free and open society. The second project sees

The Journalism Foundation supporting a grass roots website in an effort to increase interest in local politics in the British town of Stoke-on-Trent. The site, www.pitsnpots.co.uk, was set up in response to a lack of coverage of local council matters, and the Foundation is supporting its development with the aim of bolstering public engagement in the area.

The launch of the Foundation has been acclaimed by figures across the political and cultural landscape. Salman Rushdie said: “ This is an important and valuable – and needed – initiative that aims to uphold and propagate the highest journalistic standards. I wish it the very best.” Jemima Khan said: “A vibrant democracy and a free press go hand in hand. I applaud the work of The Journalism Foundation in trying to strengthen this relationship.” Lord Ashdown said: “There could not be a better time for an organisation like this to be set up to ensure we get the balance right between strengthening what is best in journalism and rejecting what we all now know to be bad.”

Alexander Lebedev said: "I am delighted the Journalism Foundation is launching. For over 20 years I have argued that democracy cannot flourish in countries without a free press. And it is only by championing brave, investigative journalists across the globe that international corruption can be tackled effectively. Now more than ever, we must support journalists who hold the powerful to account – and I am certain this foundation will do that brilliantly.

The Journalism Foundation is seeking new projects to invest in and new partners to help fund those projects. To get involved, go to www.thejournalismfoundation.com or follow @4journalism.

www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/the-journalism-foundation-launches-6272241.html?printService=print

John Kennedy Schlossberg Defends JFK's Legacy in the 'New York Times'

The fallen president's grandson writes an earnest letter to the editor, and possibly launches his own political career

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/john-kennedy-schlossberg-defends-jfks-legacy-in-the-new-york-times/249447/

Can yoga and meditation help bring peace to Afghans?

KABUL (Reuters) - As the Afghan government's Western backers pour in cash, and tens of thousands of foreign soldiers patrol the country, a French human rights activist is trying a new way to break the cycle of violence in Afghanistan: yoga and meditation.

www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/05/us-afghanistan-yoga-idUSTRE7B40MM20111205

New Icelandic volcano eruption could have global impact – Video

Hundreds of metres under one of Iceland's largest glaciers there are signs of a looming volcanic eruption that could be one of the most powerful the country has seen in almost a century.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15995845

Now a law for foreign aid! Ministers want to commit Britain to billions in handouts

* Promise to spend 0.7 per cent of national income

* Dozens of Tory MPs expected to oppose the move

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069343/Foreign-aid-law-plan-Ministers-want-commit-Britain-billions-handouts.html?printingPage=true

Terrorism’s Victims Must Be at Heart of Justice Response

Terrorism’s Victims Must Be at Heart of Criminal Justice Response – UN Guide

New York, Nov 22 2011 - A United Nations policy guide released today offers advice on how to reform and improve criminal justice systems so that they are fairer and more sensitive to the needs of the victims of terrorism and their families.

“Victims matter. Their rights and needs, as well as those of their families, should be at the heart of any criminal justice response,” said Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Yury Fedotov during the report’s launch today at UN Headquarters in New York.

The publication includes advice for policy-makers and criminal justice officials and examples of good practices to support victims of terrorism. Recommended measures include judicial assistance, protection from intimidation and retaliation, material, medical, psychological and social assistance, and access to compensation.

“I hope this marks a positive step forward in our joint efforts to create criminal justice systems that are more responsive to the needs of the innocent,” said Mr. Fedotov.

According to UNODC, victims have long played a secondary and mostly silent role in criminal trials, making it crucial to grant them equal and effective access to justice to ensure the effective prosecution of perpetrators.

Robert Orr, Chair of the UN Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), stressed the importance of helping victims find their public voice to shed light on issues that would otherwise not be addressed.

“The CTITF continues to be committed to elaborating on the compendium of best practices on supporting terrorism victims including media coverage and exploring options for financial and material support for victims.”

The UN has previously taken measures to emphasize the human rights of victims including the adoption of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy five years ago, which the report aims to expand on.

“The present publication builds upon this mandate and is intended to promote effective criminal justice mechanisms to support victims of acts of terrorism at a national level,” said Mr. Fedotov, and reiterated UNODC’s commitment provide assistance to countries on law enforcement, legal and legislative guidance.

Award-winning actress and UNODC Goodwill Ambassador Mira Sorvino was also present at the launch, and spoke passionately about her experiences talking to terrorism victims, while stressing the importance of making their voices heard.

“Making victims the central part of any criminal justice response to terrorism is imperative. Not only must they be encouraged to be a major part of bearing witness in the courtrooms but their care and compensation for what they and those close to them have suffered must be of utmost importance to legal systems around the world.”

For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news

www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1111/S00685/terrorisms-victims-must-be-at-heart-of-justice-response.htm

After the hope of the Arab Spring, the chill of an Arab Winter

By Daniel Byman

One year after a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in an act of defiance that would ignite protests and unseat long-standing dictatorships, a harsh chill is settling over the Arab world. The peaceful demonstrations in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen that were supposed to bring democracy have instead given way to bloodshed and chaos, with the forces of tyranny trying to turn back the clock.

It is too soon to say that the Arab Spring is gone, never to resurface. But the Arab Winter has clearly arrived.

Tunisia, where it all began, recently carried out free elections. But that country — small, ethnically and religiously homogenous, and prosperous — was always a more likely candidate for a successful transition to democracy. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Saudi troops helped orchestrate a crackdown on demonstrators in Bahrain, regime forces gun down protesters in Syria, and Yemen crumbles into civil war, with al-Qaeda running rampant in the countryside. In Libya, we see warlords, Islamists, tribal leaders and would-be democrats vying for power in the post-Gaddafi world. And in Egypt, where the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in February gave us the defining images of the Arab Spring, the military is trying to keep its hands on power.

So what went wrong — and what will an Arab Winter mean for the Middle East, the United States and the rest of the world?

The reason the Middle East has long seemed like infertile soil for democracy is not because Arab peoples do not want to vote or otherwise be free — poll after poll confirms the opposite — but rather because entrenched dictators had long imprisoned or killed dissenters, bought off opponents, undermined civil society, and divided or intimidated their people. And when dictators fall, their means of preserving power do not always fall with them.

In Egypt, the military ushered Mubarak out of office, but stayed in as a supposed caretaker and is reluctant to relinquish power. Now the security forces have again shot people in Tahrir Square. In Yemen and Libya, tribes and other power centers often opposed the old order, but they saw one another as rivals, too. Throughout the region, the police and the judiciary are broken after years of dictatorship, but there is nothing to take their place.

Moreover, the demonstrations that led to the ouster of rulers such as Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali hardly offered a clear governing alternative. Although they embodied a genuine outpouring of popular rage, the protests were largely leaderless and loosely organized, often via social media; there was no African National Congress or Corazon Aquino to take the reins. You cannot govern by flash mob.

And the opposition voices that were organized were not necessarily the most democratic. With the Arab Spring, Islamist forces rose to prominence. In Tunisia, a moderate Islamist party won victory in the October elections, gaining 89 of 217 seats in parliament, dwarfing the 29 seats of its nearest — secular — competitor. In Morocco, where the king has opened the political system somewhat, the Islamist party likewise won a plurality of the vote in the November elections.

Disciplined by years underground, Islamist groups have popular support because of the social services they provide and the repression they suffered. They were allowed to have a role in society but with limited political participation. Now that groups such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are poised to do well in free parliamentary elections, they are unlikely to accept those old bargains with the military junta in Egypt or other old-regime forces elsewhere.

Brotherhood leaders have learned to mouth a commitment to pluralism and tolerance, but it is unclear that they would act on it when in power. More hard-line Islamists are openly skeptical of democracy, seeing it as a means of gaining power and not as a model for governing. Egyptian salafists, who espouse a more puritanical version of Islam, have also entered the political system and are performing unexpectedly well in the elections; their demands for Islamicizing society are extreme and may push the Brotherhood to pursue a more radical agenda when in power.

These domestic forces often deter democracy in subtle ways, but some other reactionary forces are more brazen. In March, Saudi troops drove across the causeway to neighboring Bahrain, backing a brutal crackdown against Shiite protesters. At home and abroad, the Saudis have spent tens of billions to buy off dissent. Riyadh has pushed fellow monarchs in the Arabian Peninsula and in Jordan to stop any revolutionary movements, and the Saudis are offering a haven for dictators down on their luck, such

Obama welcomes ratification of CTBT by his home country Indonesia, vows to follow suit & UN to investigate US voter disenfranchisment

2011-12-09T13:46:00.000-08:00

Mark Twain quotes: 10 favorites on his birthday

... "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."...

www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/430034

Presidents to meet for world conference

6 December 2011

APA News Service

Vienna - International dignitaries including several heads of state will congregate in Vienna at the end of this week for a "World Policy Conference" at the invitation of the French think-tank "Institut Francais des Relations Internationales" (IFRI).

Statements on Monday said the main theme between Friday and Sunday would be a global approach to current problems and international crises.

Among the approximately 150 participants would be EU Council President Herman van Rompuy, Presidents Abdullah Gul (Turkey), Danilo Turk (Slovenia) and Boris Tadic (Serbia), Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. of Constantinople, Austrian president Heinz Fischer, and Amr Moussa, former general secretary of the Arab League, and Egyptian presidential candidate.

Also saying they would come were Kenyan Premier Raila Odinga, Emir of Qatar, Scheich Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, as well as Israel's defence minister und ex-premier Ehud Barak, and Nobel Peace prize laureate and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari.

The 4th World Policy Conference would be in Vienna for the first time. In the Hofburg Palace, topics would range from the Arab Spring, natural catastrophes, the debts crisis in Europe, and democratization in Africa, to the future of the elite groups of nations G-8 and G-20.

Previously, the conference was held once in Evian in France, and twice in Marrakesh in Morocco.

www.worldpolicyconference.com

Too Many Old White Men at COP17, Says One - Video

COP 17 delegate and UK Climate and Health Council co-chair Dr Robin Stott thinks the conference is top-heavy with old white men.

http://allafrica.com/view/resource/main/main/id/00030074.html

UN Constructing Green Schools in Gaza

Self-sufficient buildings will be environmentally sustainable

www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/UN-Constructing-Green-Schools-in-Gaza--135090218.html

NAACP warns black and Hispanic Americans could lose right to vote

Civil rights group petitions UN over 'massive voter suppression' after apparent effort to disenfranchise black and Hispanic people

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/05/civil-rights-naacp-voter-warning

U.N. Envoy: U.S. Isn't Protecting Occupy Protesters' Rights

www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/occupy-wall-street-un-envoy_n_1125860.html

UCSB Professor Says Global Revolt is Underway

A global revolt is underway, according to William I. Robinson, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and it has shifted the whole political landscape in terms of discourse. The only viable solution is a massive redistribution of wealth and power downward towards the poor majority, he writes.

http://news.yahoo.com/ucsb-professor-says-global-revolt-underway-003500228.html

Obama, Clinton praise Indonesia over nuclear treaty

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised Indonesia for ratifying the nuclear test ban treaty CTBT, a move which brought the pact one step closer to coming into force.

http://news.malaysia.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5622815

Official Trailer Film Obama Anak Menteng (Little Obama)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYsNI2uiGt0&feature=related

UN chief urges countries to ratify CTBT

UN chief urges countries to ratify CTBT United Nations: Referring to countries like India, China and Pakistan, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called on nations to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) saying he is counting upon the "engaged leadership" of the remaining countries to bring the treaty into force.

Ban's remarks came as he welcomed Indonesia's ratification of the CTBT, encouraging the remaining countries that have not yet done so to sign and ratify the instrument to advance its entry into force.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/un-chief-urges-countries-to-ratify-ctbt_745681.html

Indonesien ratifizierte Atomteststoppvertrag

USA, China, Indien, Pakistan, der Iran, Nordkorea, Israel, und Ägypten haben Vertrag weiterhin nicht unterzeichnet

http://derstandard.at/1322873062195/36-von-44-Laendern-Indonesien-ratifizierte-Atomteststoppvertrag

Real cost of gas at Afghan bases: $400/gal.

www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-57337390-503543/real-cost-of-gas-at-afghan-bases-$400-gal

Kumi Naidoo: 'I hope sanity will prevail with climate change, just as it did with apartheid'

Greenpeace International's director says the struggle for climate justice is similar to the fight against apartheid

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/06/kumi-naidoo-climate-change-apartheid

Fed Considers Bailout for Eurozone to Quell Crisis

The Federal Reserve, along with the 17 eurozone national central banks, may help provide the International Monetary Fund with funds that could be used to aid debt-ridden states, a German newspaper reported.

Die Welt cited sources close to the negotiations as saying the eurozone central banks could pay at least $134.2 billion into a special fund that could be used for programs for nations struggling to control their debts.

www.newsmax.com/Headline/Fed-euro-zone-crisis/2011/12/06/id/420058

Foreigners want America’s public assets

It seems like foreign governments and corporations are craving U.S. public assets like toll roads, electrical grids and railways. In the case of our largest creditor, the Chinese government, they don’t want any more U.S. Treasuries, but they do want to own the hard assets that comprise our nation’s infrastructure.

http://blogs.reuters.com/muniland/2011/12/05/foreigners-want-americas-public-assets/

Jeffrey Sachs: 'The institutions of Europe are not really functioning' - video

As chaos in the European markets continues, Jeffrey Sachs, a former special adviser to the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, and one of the leading international economic thinkers of his generation, talks to Madeleine Bunting about the eurozone crisis

www.guardian.co.uk/business/video/2011/dec/06/jeffrey-sachs-the-institutions-of-europe-are-not-functioning-video

Why is the west funding Iran's deadly war on drugs?

Iran's counter-narcotics programme results in hundreds of executions each year, yet western powers still support it

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/06/iran-war-on-drugs-executions

African traffickers settling here: UN

African organised-crime groups are setting up shop in Cambodia as a centre for trafficking methamphetamines in Southeast Asia, the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime has said.

In its 2011 report on patterns and trends of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), released on Wednesday, UNODC notes the rapid rise of production and use in Southeast Asia.

www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011120253111/National-news/african-traffickers-settling-here-un.html

The Economic Crisis in the Palestinian Authority

In recent years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has enjoyed economic growth in the West Bank. However, this appears to have been only short-term growth based on foreign aid, and not on private sector activity or investment. Reduced foreign aid sparked an economic crisis in the PA, manifested in liquidity problems and difficulty in paying salaries. The crisis undermined statements by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad regarding the PA's readiness to establish a Palestinian state. The delay in the transfer of PA funds that Israel collects for it could exacerbate the crisis, prompting PA leaders to call for replacing the Paris Agreement, which regulates the economic relationship between Israel and the PA, with another agreement that would lessen the Palestinian economy's dependence on Israel.

www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5888.htm

Journalists Should Be Government Mouthpieces, Chinese Media Leader Says

The new president of China’s largest television network, the state-run organization known CCTV, drew fire over the weekend from Chinese press advocates and others online over comments urging journalists to drop their pretensions of professionalism and submit to being mouthpieces of the government.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/journalists-should-be-government-mouthpieces-chinas-state-tv-president-says/

North Korea making missile able to hit U.S.

Republicans press Pentagon for long-range interceptors

www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/5/north-korea-making-missile-able-to-hit-us

Sunnis and Shiites Head Toward a Showdown in Iraq

With U.S. troops set to leave Baghdad, Sunnis and Shiites race toward a bloody showdown.

www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/12/04/sunnis-and-shiites-head-toward-a-showdown-in-iraq.html

Did We Have Music, Art, and Books before the UN?

And would we have music, art, and books without the UN? The great jazz pianist Herbie Hancock suggests in a Washington Post op-ed that our cultural life would be barren without UNESCO:

www.cato-at-liberty.org/did-we-have-music-art-and-books-before-the-un/

Energy companies have lent more than 50 staff to government departments

Oil and nuclear industries' presence throughout Whitehall exposed by Green MP, who warns of undue influence on policy

www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/05/energy-companies-lend-staff-government

Occupy Foreign Affairs

WASHINGTON, Dec 5, 2011 (IPS) - It's not the topic of George Packer's latest essay that's particularly surprising. Inequality, he writes, is undermining democracy. Progressives have been hammering home this message for years if not decades.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106101

Urban Agriculture

Industrial-Sized Rooftop Farm Planned for Berlin

It is hardly a logical spot for a farm, but three Berliners have earmarked a massive former factory roof for an unusual urban agriculture venture. The sustainable set-up will produce both vegetables and fish for local residents and could be a model for future city farms as the world continues to urbanize.

www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,800376,00.html

Trickle-Down Economics

There’s a free-market solution to the world’s water crisis. Make people pay by the drop.

www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/05/trickle_down_economics

The new philanthropists: Rich with a social conscience

While many rich people are driven to become ever richer, others are discovering the joys of philanthropy and giving their wealth away.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15949480

Zakaria: Don't fear political Islam - yet

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Tom Friedman recently wrote a sharp op-ed on "The Arab Awakening and Israel" in which he quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking before the Knesset in late November. Netanyahu said the Arab awakening was moving the Arab world "backward" and turning into an "Islamic, anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli, undemocratic wave."

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/06/zakaria-dont-fear-political-islam-yet/?hpt=hp_c2

U.N.’s Botched Computer-System helps staff bilk milions via SAP & Trump Says 'Sue OPEC

2011-12-09T13:45:00.000-08:00

Due to the bad economy, the Queen of England’s salary will be frozen for the next four years. In fact, to make ends meet the queen is thinking of having a yard sale. Getting rid of a lot of stuff they don't use anymore, like Canada. - The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Today is International Ninja Day, when people are encouraged to carry toy weapons and wear black masks. And as I found out the hard way, my bank wasn’t celebrating it. - Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Waleed Ahmed, Hult International Business School Student, Attracts Worldwide Acclaim After Inventing a Solar Energy iPhone Case

Gingrich-Mitchell Task Force On UN Reform

... Mandated by Congress in the FY2005 omnibus appropriations bill at the behest of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), the report offers an actionable American agenda for strengthening the United Nations. The full report is available online.

Other report recommendations include:..

www.usip.org/newsroom/news/gingrich-mitchell-task-force-un-reform

U.N.’s Botched Computer-System Overhaul: A Major 'Failure' of Ban Ki-Moon's Management

EXCLUSIVE: A state-of-the-art computer and software system that was touted as the "cornerstone” of a United Nations-wide effort to bring groundbreaking reform to its bloated and stodgy Secretariat is now officially one of the organization’s foremost technological failures.

It is a humiliating black eye for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is identified as the driving force behind the $315 million -- if you believe official figures -- fiasco.

www.foxnews.com/world/2011/12/06/united-nations-failed-computer-system-highlights-bloat-that-defines-secretarys/?test=latestnews

Unesco faces cost of Palestine vote

The United Nations culture agency is dealing with the financial consequences of a political decision taken in October – a funding shortfall of 22 per cent.

On October 31 the United States suspended its financial contribution to Unesco after Palestine was admitted as a full member.

“The situation is difficult, no one can deny it,” Eric Falt vice-director general for external relations and public information at Unesco told swissinfo.ch.

www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/Unesco_faces_cost_of_Palestine_vote_.html?cid=31691444

Trump Says 'Sue OPEC'

In his new book, Time to Get Tough, Donald Trump says it’s time to really get tough with OPEC. Not only does Trump complain about the oil-producing nations’ disregard for America and free markets, he says there is a simple solution: Sue them.

Sounds like a great talking point for a stump speech, but is it realistic? Here’s Trump’s answer:

“Currently, bringing a lawsuit against OPEC is difficult,” he admits, “and it’s been made even more complicated by a 2002 federal court ruling.”

www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47985

Iran blocks U.S. 'virtual embassy' site a day after its launch

The Iranian government filtered and blocked a "virtual embassy" of the United States for Iran on Wednesday, a day after its launch.

The iran.usembassy.gov site was open and accessible on its first day, likely because of a religious holiday in Iran, but was blocked early Wednesday after public organizations resumed work.

www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/iran-blocks-u-s-virtual-embassy-site-a-day-after-its-launch-1.400121

NAACP Taking Complaints About U.S. Voter Laws to United Nations

The NAACP is calling on the United Nations to intervene as it claims state governments are colluding to "block the vote" for minority communities ahead of the 2012 election -- a charge those governments vehemently deny.

The nation's biggest civil rights organization this week released a report that claimed a raft of new voting laws at the state level would disenfranchise minority voters. The report said 14 states passed 25 measures "designed to restrict or limit the ballot access of voters of color."

www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/06/naacp-taking-complaints-about-us-voter-laws-to-united-nations/?test=latestnews

India beats China’s ‘shut-up’ envoy

- Victory in first direct contest in UN

www.telegraphindia.com/1111123/jsp/frontpage/story_14787954.jsp

'Glaciergate' UN scientist repeats warnings of Himalayan melting

The discredited head of the international scientific body on climate change today repeated his claim that the Himalayan glaciers were ‘undoubtedly’ melting.

Speaking at the latest round of UN talks on tackling global warming, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said more research was needed on the state of Himalayan glaciers but there was no doubt they were retreating.

Dr Pachauri – called ‘Patchy’ in scientific circles - found himself embroiled in a row in 2010 over the inclusion in the IPCC's last major report, used to inform international policy on climate change, of incorrect claims that the mountain region's glaciers could melt away by 2035.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2071017/Glaciergate-UN-scientist-repeats-warnings-Himalayan-melting.html?printingPage=true

Stern's Rebuke

Lord Nicholas Stern's views on climate change are stark and controversial

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204346104576638562614095404.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_sections_ukintl

Greenpeace Leader Visits Boardroom, Without Forsaking Social Activism

... “Look, 1.6 billion people have no access to energy and yet live in regions that are blessed with abundant solar, wind, wave and geothermal energy,” he said. “If we can address that problem, we can alleviate poverty, create jobs and move into a green energy future.”...

www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/science/earth/kumi-naidoo-greenpeace-director-forges-a-broader-path-to-activism.html?ref=global-home

South-South Cooperation Complements North-South Cooperation

ROME, Dec 6, 2011 (IPS) - South-South cooperation can play a key role in boosting the economies of developing countries, but it is not going to replace North-South cooperation, says Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, president of the 66th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106114

Early Soviet Propaganda Film, 'Seekers of Happiness,' At New Haven Library

1936 Drama Made To Persuade Jews To Move To Siberia

http://articles.courant.com/2011-12-05/entertainment/hc-alt-seekers-1208-20111205_1_seekers-soviet-jews-new-haven-library

Film addresses the question, ‘Are we really broke?’

Here is a link to a fun new resource that might help you explain why this country is well, basically, broke: or is it?

Physicians for Social Responsibilities (PSR) had the pleasure of working with the team from "The Story of Stuff" in the creation of their new video, "The Story of Broke." In it, Annie Leonard takes complicated issues and presents them in clear and even fun ways that spur action. In this case, she powerfully confronts the emerging myth that we are broke. Instead, as we all know, it is a matter of our priorities.

"We know that our government is currently in the midst of making trillion-dollar decisions on our behalf. These spending decisions will speak to our priorities as a country and impact millions of citizens,” states the introduction on PSR.org. “Annie Leonard's recent ‘The Story of Broke’ describes a system of power and influence that is corrupting our political process and leaving us, in the 99 percent, without real representation. And, yet, in a democracy we have the power to shift this broken system. Join us as we help forge a responsible and healthy future."

www.shorenewstoday.com/snt/news/index.php/politics/18986-film-addresses-the-question-are-we-really-broke.html

U.S. is among developed economies with highest income inequality

Although the gap between the highest and lowest paid is greater in the United States than in most other wealthy countries, income inequality has risen faster in others such as Sweden and Finland, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1206-oecd-income-20111206,0,7728506.story?track=rss

Defiant Assad Denies Ordering Bloody Syrian Crackdown – Video

... His defiant stance was on display in an exclusive interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters who confronted the Syrian dictator in Damascus with stories and evidence of civilians being tortured and killed, some of them children.

"People went from house to house. Children were arrested. I saw those pictures," Walters said to Assad.

"To be frank with you, Barbara, I don't believe you," Assad said...

http://news.yahoo.com/defiant-assad-denies-ordering-bloody-syrian-crackdown-213046054.html

It must be nice being President... Obama to jet off to Hawaii for SEVENTEEN DAY Christmas vacation

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069471/President-Obama-jet-Hawaii-SEVENTEEN-DAY-Christmas-holiday.html?printingPage=true

New York eatery is a farm and restaurant rolled into one (3:03) – Video

www.reuters.com/video/2011/12/06/new-york-eatery-is-a-farm-and-restaurant?videoId=226356794&videoChannel=1004

Germany's neo-Nazi underground

Ten murders blamed on a neo-Nazi underground cell have raised fresh fears about far-right extremism in Germany. BBC Radio One Newsbeat's Sima Kotecha went to investigate.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16056399

After passing test ban, RI asks US to follow

... Ismet Ahmad, a lawmaker from the National Mandate Party (PAN), said that nuclear-armed countries, especially Israel and the US, must follow suit, adding that “Indonesia’s ratification has no significance unless other nuclear states take the same step.”

US President Barack Obama said in May that the US was preparing a push to approve the treaty, arguing that while the US no longer needed to conduct nuclear tests, it needed to stop other countries from conducting tests, according to Reuters...

www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/12/07/after-passing-test-ban-ri-asks-us-follow.html

Clinton Says US Committed To CTBT Ratification

www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1776337

Israel challenges U.N. on Palestinian refugees & U$ ageest to pay 22B to UN Climate Fund

2011-12-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

Ny studie av norsk støtte til handelsrelatert bistand

... : Norway’s Trade Related Assistance through Multilateral Organizations: A Synthesis Study Report 8/2011 – Study.

www.norad.no/no/evaluering/nyhetsarkiv/ny-studie-av-norsk-støtte-til-handelsrelatert-bistand

Travel Snapshots: Austria - CNN

Each week CNN.com will post a Travel Snapshots gallery focusing on a destination or theme. This week, we're looking for photos taken during your trips to gorgeous, scenic Austria. Send us your best shots for an upcoming gallery!

Please upload large, horizontal versions of your photos if possible.

See these iReports on a map »

http://ireport.cnn.com/topics/1310/?hpt=hp_bn13#stories

Diet Secrets of Famous Politicians

Whether for health or looks, some politicians have shed serious pounds

www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/11/11/diet-secrets-of-famous-politicians?s_cid=rss:diet-secrets-of-famous-politicians

Nafissatou Diallo Caught on Tape Reenacting Alleged Sexual Attack by DSK - Video

France buzzed Thursday over the leak of videotapes showing Sofitel workers briefly celebrating after calling police to report an alleged sexual attack by DSK, but the most important video clip may be of the maid herself, who reported the attack.

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/08/nafissatou-diallo-caught-on-tape-re-enacting-alleged-sexual-attack-by-dsk.html

Climate Talks Closer to Agreement on Plan with $100 Billion Aid

Envoys at United Nations talks are near an agreement that would set up a fund channeling a portion of the $100 billion a year in pledged climate aid to developing nations, part of a package to keep a lid on global warming.

www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-09/climate-talks-closer-to-deal-on-100b-aid-plan.html

Kofi Annan: Despite flaws, UN Human Rights Council can bring progress

By admitting its human rights problems, the US helps other nations admit theirs

www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/1208/Kofi-Annan-Despite-flaws-UN-Human-Rights-Council-can-bring-progress

Bush, Blair are war criminals, court says

Washington: A War Crimes Tribunal in Malaysia has found former US President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of war crimes for their roles in the Iraq war, Press TV reports.

The five-panel Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal decided that Bush and Blair committed genocide and crimes against humanity by leading the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a Press TV correspondent reported on Tuesday.

www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?id=186201

TRIBUNAL TO HEAR WAR CRIMES

KUALA LUMPUR, 18 November 2011 – The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (Tribunal) will be hearing war crimes charges against George W Bush (former U.S. President) and Anthony L Blair (former British Prime Minister) from November 19-22, 2011 in Kuala Lumpur. This is the first time that war crimes charges will be heard against these two former heads of state in compliance with due legal process, wherein complaints from war victims had been received, duly investigated and formal charges instituted by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (Commission). - Read More –

www.criminalisewar.org

Israel challenges U.N. on Palestinian refugees

December 8, 2011

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israel questioned the use of the U.N. aid agency created exclusively for Palestinian refugees.

Addressing the United Nations in Geneva, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon argued Thursday against the two-tier system whereby Arabs displaced by the fighting in British Mandatory Palestine around the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, and their descendants, are tended to by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, while other refugees must look collectively to the U.N High Commissioner for Refugees.

Israel has long argued that UNRWA perpetuates the conflict with the Palestinians, who insist on a "right of return" for their refugees to land now in Israel, whereas UNHCR has often worked to resettle its wards.

"While the UNHCR has found durable solutions for tens of millions of refugees, the agency created specifically for the Palestinian context, UNRWA, has found durable solutions for no one," Ayalon said at the conference, according to a transcript circulated by his office.

"This has meant that a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians remains further away. This is morally and politically unacceptable."

Israel says Palestinian refugees should resettle in a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or elsewhere. Israelis also have called on the international community to give consideration to the hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries who were dispossessed during the 1948 war and were mostly taken in by Israel.

www.jta.org/news/article/2011/12/08/3090645/israel-challenges-un-on-palestinian-refugees

Dutch: $1.3 million for oppressed bloggers

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch government has pledged euro1 million ($1.3 million) to help bloggers operating under oppressive regimes.

Speaking at the Freedom Online conference, Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal says the money will be used to "support" the development of backup computer and mobile networks that bloggers can use to disseminate information when a government tries to block the Internet or social media. He says Syria, Iran and Zimbabwe are target countries.

The Netherlands said Friday it has earmarked additional euro5 million in its human rights donations for unspecified online freedom projects.

On Thursday U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened the conference with a call for companies not to sell surveillance tools to authoritarian regimes.

Freedom Online, 8 & 9 December 2011, The Hague

www.minbuza.nl/en/ministry/conference-on-internet-freedom

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jzHxTY7oL1ms9PT-GqkQwZJwGsTQ?docId=d0667e7b8c354c89a6d38c743717699e

Obiang's palace building spree

... The new building plan comes to light several months after Equatorial Guinea inaugurated the $830 million luxury Sipopo resort, which served as the venue for the African Union's 47th Summit in June. Obiang, who is serving as the U.N. president this year, presided over the gathering...

http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/08/obiangs_palace_building_spree

Debating Bolton at the UN

Unsurprisingly, I've received plenty of pushback on yesterday's post regarding John Bolton's tenure at the UN. A very well-informed reader argues that Security Council activity levels and resolutions are a poor indication of Bolton's diplomatic impact and that his true colors emerged in the informal consultations that are the bread-and-butter of UN diplomacy:

http://bosco.foreignpolicy.com

Insight: Ten years on, American business rethinks China dreams

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Few in the United States would recognize Charlene Barshefsky or remember what she did. Not so in China where the former Trade Representative says she is stopped in the streets by ordinary people and thanked.

Her gift to the Chinese people was leading the U.S. delegation that negotiated China's entry to the World Trade Organization in December 2001. The removal of trade barriers heralded unprecedented economic growth for China, vaulting it in a decade to the second largest economy in the world and helping slash its rural poverty rate from 10.2 percent in 2000 to 2.8 percent in 2010.

"The Chinese consider WTO entry the most historic achievement in U.S.-China relations since (U.S. President Richard) Nixon's visit to China," in 1972, Barshefsky said.

http://news.yahoo.com/insight-ten-years-american-business-rethinks-china-dreams-064103909.html

Green technology race outpaces U.N. climate talks

(Reuters) - China has roared to the front of a green technology race that ultimately could do more to save the planet than the endless hours of U.N. negotiations, that year after year have failed to deliver an adequate response to climate change.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/12/09/climate-greenrace-idINDEE7B809P20111209?feedType=RSS&feedName=everything&virtualBrandChannel=11709

A Democratic Chance in a Post-Soviet Holdout

The West can break Russia's monopoly of influence over the unrecognized territory of Transnistria.

On Saturday, voters will decide the president of Transnistria, the unrecognized quasi-state between Moldova and Ukraine that remains one of Eastern Europe's last frozen conflict zones. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Transnistria declared independence from Moldova, its pro-Russian population wary of the new Moldovan republic's geopolitical orientation. A year later, it successfully repelled Moldovan forces during a bloody 1992 civil war. Since then, the region has been ruled by Igor Smirnov, an authoritarian president with close ties to Russia.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577083821204249882.html

UN's Ban Ki-moon in Mogadishu on Somalia visit

UN head Ban Ki-moon is visiting the Somali capital, Mogadishu - the highest-ranking foreign official to go there in years.

He was wearing a bulletproof vest as he was welcomed at the airport by Somalia's prime minister.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16106716

Robert Levinson, Ex-FBI Agent Gone Missing In Iran, Appears As Hostage In Video

www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/09/robert-levinson-hostage-iran_n_1138411.html

Officials Confirm Authenticity of Iranian TV Images Showing Lost U.S. Drone

U.S. officials have confirmed to Fox News that images aired by Iranian state television do in fact show the secret U.S. drone that went down last week in eastern Iran.

"Yep, that's it," one senior official told Fox News. "And it's intact."

www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/08/iranian-tv-airs-purported-images-downed-us-drone/?test=latestnews

UBS advice for a euro collapse: ‘tinned goods, small calibre weapons’

As if there isn’t already enough eurozone doom and gloom floating around these days.

A note from UBS economist Larry Hatheway on Wednesday spells out why he and his colleagues at the bank believe a eurozone collapse would result in an “end of the world” scenario. It makes for some grim reading.

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/12/07/ubs-advice-for-a-euro-collapse-tinned-goods-small-calibre-weapons

U.K. funding think-tank hostile to oil sands

The British government, through its high commission in Ottawa, has given a Canadian environmental think-tank nearly $60,000 for research that included a report advocating a shift away from fossil fuel industries like the Alberta oil sands, money that critics say represents an attempt to intrude into Canada's domestic environmental policy.

www.financialpost.com/related/topics/funding+think+tank+hostile+sands/5834221/story.html

Eyes down for a more revealing insight into economic development

The addled advice often given to low-income countries suggests strategists are overlooking the merits of structural economics

A group of people had just disrupted a baseball game by running naked across the field. After the disturbance, legendary player Yogi Berra was asked whether they were men or women. He replied: "I don't know. They had bags over their heads." That story illustrates what is perhaps the biggest issue in development economics today: the inability of many researchers to look in the right place when searching for answers.

www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/dec/08/revealing-insight-economic-development?intcmp=122

Smartphones, the internet and the smart energy revolution

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16074037

Maurice Strong- the master mind of UNEP, Carbon schemes and corruption at United Nations designs the map for upcoming RIO+20

2011-11-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON IPSNEWS.NET

THE ENVIRONMENT: RIO+20 MUST SPARK REAL ACTION
By Maurice Strong

NOVEMBER 2011, 2011 (IPS) - The progress made since the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference in our understanding of environmental issues and our capacity to address them effectively is impressive. Unfortunately, the lack of sufficient progress in the implementation of the commitments made by governments at the 1992 Earth Summit have left us on a course that is unsustainable and indeed threatens the future of humankind, writes Maurice Strong, Senior Adviser to the Secretary-General of Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

In this article Strong writes the objective of the Rio+20 Conference (4-6 June 2012) is to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress made to date and the gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits, and address new and emerging challenges.

Current economic and political difficulties, however, now pre-empt the attention of governments and the public, undermining the prospects of effective action at Rio+20 to establish the green economy. Rio+20 must produce powerful new momentum towards its realisation at the national, local, and global level. Strong writes that cities are the centres of our civilisation -the principal sources of environmental deterioration but also the principal sources of solutions. The greening of our cities must be at the centre of our efforts.

(*) Maurice Strong is Senior Adviser to the Secretary-General of Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. He was the Secretary-General of the 1992 Earth Summit and the first Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (www.mauricestrong.net). (END)

Sha Zukang of UN-DESA doesn't give a damn about United Nations - he is here only to promote CHINA !

2011-11-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

Click here for story at UN-DPI

UN and China launch joint initiative to promote ecosystem management

Ecosystem management pivotal in securing a green economy

18 November 2011 –

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and China’s academy of sciences today launched a joint programme designed to promote proper management of ecosystems in developing countries, with a special focus on Africa.

The International Ecosystem Management Partnership (IEMP), an initiative of the UNEP and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), will have the core mandate of synthesizing the science of ecosystem management for government decision-makers through monitoring, capacity-building and policy.

With ecosystems increasingly under threat as a result of a growing population, highrates of deforestation and transformation into agricultural and pasturelands, the role of ecosystem management has become more important than ever, according to UNEP.

The future of human civilization and sustainable development depends on sound, healthy and resilient ecosystems. For too long, humanity has ignored this fundamental truth at its own peril

The IEMP, based in China, is UNEP’s first South-South cooperation programme to promote sustainable development through sharing best practices and technology among developing countries.

The scope of the partnership’s work covers both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and its clients will include national governments, intergovernmental bodies and programmes, as well as development agencies and the science community.

Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Secretary General of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), Sha Zukang, stressed the critical role of ecosystems and the challenges of degradation in the context of population growth and increasing inequality.

“Ecosystems are the foundation of human lives and livelihoods,” he said. “The future of human civilization and sustainable development depends on sound, healthy and resilient ecosystems. For too long, humanity has ignored this fundamental truth at its own peril,” Mr. Sha added.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to promoting ecosystem management as a cornerstone of the transition to the green economy in developing countries.

Jian Liu, the IEMP Director, stressed that sustainable management of ecosystems and biodiversity is a critical path to the next civilization, which he called the “ecological civilization,” saying it constituted an integral part of the “fourth industrialization” – the development of the green economy.

News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Deforestation threatens planet, economies and communities, UN chief warns

U.N. Judges Charge Ban Ki-moon with Power Grab, Distortions of Their Rulings

2011-11-12T07:03:00.000-08:00

By George Russell

Published November 11, 2011 | FoxNews.com

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE ON FOX NEWS: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/11/11/un-judges-charge-ban-ki-moon-with-power-grab-distortions-their-rulings/print#ixzz1dVIG0SQU

Little more than two years after United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon inaugurated a new justice system to safeguard employee rights, the judges he appointed to the main tribunal have unanimously charged that the U.N. chief is trying to “undermine the integrity and independence” of their court in a bid to crimp their powers.

The judges, members of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal, also charge him in an open letter to the U.N. General Assembly with offering a “misleading and one-sided” account of their judgments to the Assembly as part of the attempt to get his way. (Ironically enough, the letter was sent to the Assembly as required by protocol by Ban himself, as a document from the Secretary General.)

Ban’s intended changes in how the court operates, they say, “raise serious concerns regarding the respect for the rule of law within the Organization,” give “power without accountability” to a variety of U.N. institutions, remove important avenues of legal recourse for U.N. staffers and could make the exercise of the court’s recently enshrined authority “meaningless.”

A U.N. spokesman told Fox News that the Secretary General has “full respect for the independence of the judges,” and said Ban is simply trying to clarify some unforeseen complications of the U.N. legal appeals process and bolster the independence of other institutions that are supposed to protect employees, especially whistleblowers.

The dispute, couched in dense and arcane legal language, is still wending through the convoluted U.N. legislative process. The General Assembly’s legal committee has already declared that Ban’s changes “should not be taken up at this time” before bouncing the matter over to the powerful 5th, or financial, committee.

“The judges were quite right to object to several of the Secretary General’s proposals, which were ill considered and would have had the result of greatly delaying justice and depriving staff of certain rights to which they are entitled,” says Geoffrey Robertson, a distinguished British jurist and member of the U.N.’s own Internal Justice Council, which, among other things, picks judges for the U.N. Dispute Tribunal.

Robertson added his soothing judgment that “these are minor teething problems in a totally new system, and the lesson is simply that the Secretary General should consult more closely with judges and certainly with the Internal Justice Council before trying to tinker with it.” Overall, he says, the justice system “is working surprisingly well.”

Nonetheless, the muffled judicial push-and-shove is important for several reasons—not least the strong reaction of the independent judges. There are three full-time and two half-time judges attached to the Dispute Tribunal, along with three “ad litem,” or ad hoc judges helping to deal with case overloads. They are deliberately chosen from outside the U.N. system to help break what has been described as the U.N.’s incestuous “culture of impunity” which protected corrupt officials and other abusers of authority while punishing whistleblowers and others who bucked the system.

Moreover, their charges echo similar accusations of interference over the past two years from U.N. oversight bodies that are independent from Ban’s Secretariat, but depend on the Secretary General’s bureaucracy for institutional support. In both cases, Ban’s rationale was embedded in technical issues.

In July, 2010, Inga-Britt Ahlenius, the outgoing head of the U.N.’s watchdog Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which audits the Secretariat and investigates fraud and malfeasance, charged Ban with “undermining” her organization, while blocking for nearly 20 months her choose as head of OIOS’s sensitive Investigations Division. She also said Ban’s Secretariat was “drifting into irrelevance.”

Ban’s reason for rejecting Ahlenius’ choice was linked to his desire to put more women in the U.N. hierarchy.

Click here to read more on that story.

A little more than a year earlier, another watchdog institution, known as the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), charged Ban in its annual report with an “illegal action” in demanding a bigger say in selecting candidates to become the JIU’s powerful executive secretary.

Ban got his way—once again, he said he wanted to promote more women-- and JIU’s independence, at least in terms of its reports, does not appear to have been affected: the unit has since issued a number of documents highly critical of U.N. operations
.
(Among other things, for example, the JIU last July charged that Ban’s choices for top appointments are shrouded in excessive secrecy, and that U.N. member states are kept in the dark about senior vacancies.)

Click here to read more that story.

The Dispute Tribunal judges, however, are mostly upset at changes that Ban wants to make in their rules of procedure. Among other things, Ban wants to suspend the Tribunal’s ability to enforce temporary judgments, known as “interlocutory orders” while they are being appealed to the U.N.’s highest judicial body, the seven-member United Nations Appeals Tribunal.
Click here to see the Judge's letter.

This change, the judges argue, would render the court toothless, especially when the temporary order granted what the judges call “interim relief,” for example when ordering the Secretariat to cease and desist from an action that judged illegal, invalid or retaliatory.

In other cases, where the judges had ordered Ban’s Secretariat or an accuser to produce a document or witness in response to charges of unjust treatment, for example, inability to enforce the order “would allow either party to paralyze the process” and make the court ineffective, the jurists said in their open letter.

For his part, Ban’s office told Fox News in response to a query that when the statutes governing the courts were written, they did not say what should happen when the court issues such an order, and argued that this was because, “it was not envisaged that the Dispute Tribunal would issue interlocutory orders.” Now the judges do so “frequently,” Ban’s office noted, while saying that the U.N. appeals court has struck down some as “unlawful.”

The jurists were also seriously aggrieved that Ban objects to their hearing appeals from some of the U.N.’s independent oversight institutions, including OIOS and the U.N. Ethics Office, which judges, among other things, whether the U.N. has retaliated against whistleblowers. The judges call the actions taken by these institutions against U.N. employees “administrative decisions,” meaning actions that fall under their jurisdiction.

Ban argues that since the institutions are supposedly independent from him, their decisions are not administrative and just not reviewable by the courts. “The exercise of judicial review over the actions of independent entities would have very real trade-offs for the manner in which these entities are able to conduct their functions,” Ban’s office told Fox News in a response about the issue.

Ban’s office argued that knowing they might have to testify in a U.N. court could even have a “chilling effect” on future whistleblowers who wanted to expose wrongdoing at the world body, and it should be up to the U.N. General Assembly to decide whether the courts had jurisdiction.

Click here to view Ban's full report.

Ban’s ostensible concern for whistleblower inhibitions was not perceived the same way by the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a Washington –based organization that protects such organizational dissidents, and was heavily involved in the original design of the U.N.’s whistleblower protection rules.

“We are really concerned about the Secretary General’s proposal,” said Shelly Walden, a GAP specialist who has monitored the U.N. judicial battle. “In the past whistleblowers had no day in court, and no protection.”

“The Secretary General has recently claimed that he aims to promote whistleblowing,” she added, “but his actions don’t meet his words.”

Where both sides in the judicial battle apparently agree, however, is that the Dispute Tribunal and its appeals counterpart are already overburdened. In his report on the issue, Ban pitches for a $1 million increase in the budget for the new system, to about $8.66 million, and add 26 additional support staff.

Whether that is likely to happen in the midst of a global economic crisis and heightened international skepticism about U.N. spending is an issue neither Ban nor the judges can decide.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found on Twitter@GeorgeRussell.

Click here for more stories by George Russell.

Rio Earth Summit postponed after clash with Queen's diamond jubilee

2011-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Rio+20 dates rearranged to avoid jeopardising the attendance of 54 Commonwealth leaders, including David Cameron

Hanna Gersmann
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 November 2011 07.56 EST
Article history
CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE ON GUARDIAN.CO.UK

David Cameron said last month that he would not attend the Rio+20 summit. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Brazil has postponed the biggest environmental summit in 20 years to avoid a clash with the Queen's diamond jubilee.

The Rio+20 summit was scheduled for 4-6 June but has been moved to 20-22 June to avoid jeopardising the attendance of 54 Commonwealth leaders, including David Cameron. But Cameron, who said last month that he would not attend, is still not planning to attend, Downing Street said on Monday, despite his pledge to lead the "greenest government ever".

Instead, the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, will be leading the negotiations, a Downing Street spokesman said.

Though Brazil has not officially confirmed the date change, president Dilma Rousseff indicated at the G20 meeting in Cannes on Friday that the summit would be postponed. Asian governments also asked for the new date following the next G20 summit which is to be held 18-19 June in Mexico. The Guardian understands European governments are already working to the new dates.

Rio+20 will mark 20 years since the original Rio Earth Summit of 1992 and is seen as a chance to renew political commitment for sustainable development and greening the economy. A report by MPs last monthcalled on Cameron to "lead by example" and attend the summit.

Green groups and Labour accused Cameron of failing to show leadership.

Caroline Flint, shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change said: "What a sad turn of events that David Cameron, who would hug a huskie for a press stunt just a few years, has now cold-shouldered the biggest environmental conference for 20 years. Cameron has already shown he is out of touch with the public on energy prices; out of touch on tackling abuse and power of the energy giants; and out of touch on investing in green jobs and growth. Now he is determined to avoid any leadership at all on tackling climate change."

Margaret Ounsley, head of public affairs at WWF-UK, said: "Now it has been confirmed that the Earth summit is being moved specifically to accommodate the Commonwealth heads of government we would hope that the prime minister can find time in his busy schedule to attend the Rio summit. Managing the Earth's resources in a way that ensures that there is something left for future generations is still one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. It would begin to sound like he was making excuses if he were still unable to go." The then prime minister John Major attended the original Rio summit in 1992, despite IRA bombings in London, WWF have noted.

Joan Walley, chairwoman of the environmental audit committee, said: "The Rio+20 Earth summit is a vital chance for world leaders to take action to avert a global environmental crisis. But the financial situation means that minds will be focused elsewhere and there is a danger that business-as-usual may end up carrying the day. The prime minister should lead by example. He could make a big difference by demonstrating his commitment to Rio+20 and letting other world leaders know that he will personally be attending."