UN DEATH PENALTY RESOLUTION HAS WIDE EFFECT

Any attempt to measure the effects of the resolution for a universal moratorium against the death penalty approved by the UN General Assembly last December 18 must also take into account the fact that its very passage has created an atmosphere conducive to elimination of the practice, writes Elisabetta Zamparutti, a leader in the Radical Party who prepared the annual report on the Death Penalty in the World for Hands Off Cain. She was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 2008 In this analysis, the author writes that the most significant steps towards abolition have occurred almost exclusively in Africa. However, the delays of the UN vote have also led European countries to go ahead and definitively eliminate the death penalty from their legal codes. This happened in France and Italy, where the death penalty was banned by the 2007 Constitution. But there is an important element of the resolution beyond the call for abolition of the practice: a demand that the death penalty countries furnish information on its implementation to the UN Secretary-General. Ninety-nine percent of the world\'s executions are carried out by totalitarian regimes in many of which, China especially, information relative to capital sentencing and executions is considered a state secret. In all of these countries, the definitive solution involves less a battle to end the death penalty than the fight for democracy, the affirmation of the rule of law, and the promotion of respect for political rights and civil liberties for which transparency is fundamental.

CLIMATE CHANGE: WE NEED A PROACTIVE MEDIA

There is no moderately well-informed person who does not believe that climate change is if not the gravest threat facing humanity at least one of the top two or three. It is therefore worth asking whether the performance of the media in this regard rises to the challenge, writes Mario Lubetkin, Director-General of Inter Press Service (IPS). In this analysis, Lubetkin writes that addressing climate change cannot be achieved without the application of firm and constant pressure by informed and responsible citizens on governments and industry and without pushing for more effective action by civil society. It is inconceivable that the people can play this role without being well-informed, oriented, and stimulated by the media. Although it is correct to recognise that in the last decades the space dedicated to the environment has increased, it is also right to expect the media to improve their coverage by abandoning their attitude of merely passing on information and beginning to work actively to shape the opinion of the public and those in power such that they comply with the objectives set by the international community to address the problem of climate change.

DIVERSITY IN CUBA

Just thirty years ago, being homosexual, in Cuba, could be enough to incur the punishment of interruption of university study or expulsion from a job that involved contact with \'\'the public\'\', writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, Padura writes that today, in sharp contrast, various cities on the island held celebrations in observance of the International Day against Homophobia, a sort of gay pride event that included conferences, transvestite shows, book presentations, films, theatre pieces, as well as the growing commentary on upcoming legal and constitutional changes that will open the still restricted path to sex-change operations and civil union for gay couples and even the possibility of adoption, which is very rare in Cuba even for straight couples. Cuba is undergoing a profound change in its collective thinking that is of transcendent importance to the present and future of the island. Now that diversity has been accepted as the norm, it may be that Cuba\'s social system is moving towards greater social complexity and a more open economic model, towards a range of options for individuals that are freer and more satisfying.

IF WE WANT PEACE, WE ALL HAVE TO BUILD IT

\"If you want peace, prepare for war.\" This perverse maxim, a golden goose for the arms dealers, has been used from the beginning of time by the powerful, who had at their disposal the lives of their vassals. So it was, up until the turbulent but hopeful dawn of the new century and millennium, but no longer, because global awareness has grown and the understanding of reality has deepened, writes Federico Mayor Zaragoza, President of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and ex-Director-General of UNESCO. There is no wartime economy without war, the preparation for war, or pretexts for arming to the teeth. The only force capable of opposing the colossal inertia of this machine is \"the people\", citizen power, a civil society that does not allow itself to be fooled, that only supports leaders who boldly decide to put in action the universal principles so lucidly expressed in the UN Charter\'s Declaration of Human Rights. Politics must be based on generally-accepted ethical principles. Incorporating certain religious values is insufficient and dangerous, as is basing political action on strictly economic criteria, which is evident today. It is thus extremely important that the excuse of a \"clash of civilisations\" be definitively barred from political logic and replaced with citizen involvement and general acceptance of responsibility by all members of society. If we unite our hands and our voices, we can correct the current disastrous course.

BURMA: JUNTA LEADERS POWER-HUNGRY AS PEOPLE STARVE

Rather than lessening the misery wrought by Cyclone Nargis, the Burmese military regime has made things worse. Burma\'s xenophobic military chief continues to hold up issuing visas for UN teams and other foreign aid workers, writes Zin Linn, a former political detainee in Burma and now, in exile, the media and information director of the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma. In this article, Linn writes that because of the unfairness of the May 10 referendum on the new constitution, the political scenario is quickly changing. The people have clearly seen how the junta operates. The regime is attempting to legalise military dictatorship with a sham Constitution and multiparty elections. Further political unrest may be unavoidable due to the military-privileged sham constitution. Burma\'s newer generations learned of the junta\'s inhumane and irresponsible behaviour on the Internet and have made up their mind to overthrow the regime at any cost. Protests are sure to happen before the 2010 elections.

EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT: THE RISKS OF INACTION

(IPS/South Centre) There is much to celebrate in the growth and development of the South in recent years, from the ability of certain Latin American countries to avoid dependence on the North to the growth of the economies of certain Asian countries whose increasing sovereign wealth is now being tapped to bail out distressed banks in the North. While there are signs of growth in Africa too, the continent is worse off than the rest of the South, writes Yash Tandon, Executive Director of the South Centre. In this article, Tandon writes that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not being met, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where at the current rate universal access to a minimum set of social services will only be achieved in 2108, almost a hundred years later than the target date of 2015 set by the MDGs. The risks of not acting are grim. We may witness increasing misallocation of global resources, a growing financialisation of the economy and greater risk of systemic collapse, an increase in what is most accurately described as a recolonisation of Africa by welfare and aid agencies, and increasing migration from the South to the North, and within the South from the poor to the rich countries, as a response to economic distress arising from marginalization and climate change.

THE DEMOCRATIC ILLUSION

Democracy is about people choosing leaders who are accountable to the people. So, what kind of leaders do we choose? In the Western democracies, they are not too impressive, writes Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. Each country has a \"deep culture and deep structure\" that guides it, sedimented in the collective mind and history. The USA, doomed to lead the Good against the Evil, stopped the time machine at the end of World War II with US hegemony at a peak, intent on eliminating all challengers of the status quo. Take China, a subtle deep culture of good in evil and evil in good, but which stopped the time machine millennia ago with China as the Middle Kingdom surrounded by Barbarians. Add Russia\'s deep culture of the sleeping giant with periodic bursts of energy, or India\'s, the cradle and crossroad of civilisations, and we have four pathologies more dangerous than any individual president. Better a crazy head of state of a country that finds its equitable place in the world as one among others than the normal leader of a crazy nation.

EDUCATION UNDER ATTACK – RECLAIMING SCHOOLS AS ZONES OF PEACE

Amongst the many casualties of conflict, education seldom makes the headlines, but students, teachers, administrators, and education officials are also on the front lines of battle, writes Helene-Marie Gosselin, Director of UNESCO, Office to the United Nations. In this article, Gosselin writes that the right to education is a pillar of development. Prosperity and peace can only be achieved if we commit to ending the injustice of denying this right to the millions of children around the world who can\'t go to school, and who will nonetheless have to make their way in the world as adults. UNESCO estimates that about 37 percent of the 72 million children not in school live in conflict-affected areas. There cannot be peace without upholding the right to education, or without ending the vicious cycle of violence in and against our schools. Can we not open doors to the 72 million children not in school, teach peaceful co-existence, and make all our schools a sacred place?

CURRENT CRISIS HIGHLIGHTS FLAWS IN MARKET ECONOMICS, AND GDP

The credibility of the economics profession and its macroeconomic and risk models has been shattered by the Wall Street-led financial meltdown. Many analysts see this crisis as the beginning of the end of market fundamentalism as the driver of globalisation. Coming into focus is also the fact that the US is no longer the world\'s lone superpower. Military force is giving way to the new weapons of choice in today\'s geopolitics: currency and cyber-attacks, writes Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (2007) and other books and co-organiser of the Beyond GDP Conference in Brussels, representing the Club of Rome. In this article, Henderson writes that meanwhile, the long-simmering critiques of money-based GDP/GNP national accounts are coming to a head. Even GDP\'s creator, Simon Kuznets, worried about using GDP as an overall indicator of national progress and well-being, saying that \'the welfare of a nation can scarcely be informed from a measure of national income.\' EU Commissioner of Economic Policy Joaquin Almunia noted that GDP \'cannot distinguish between economic activities that have a negative or positive impact on well-being. In fact, war and natural disasters may register as an increase in GDP.\' GDP started as a World War II measure of war production. There are now many new, better indicators, from the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), the UN\'s Human Development Index (HDI), to the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators that I created with the Calvert Group of socially-responsible mutual funds, the only private sector effort so far. Real wealth and progress can never be quantified in money alone. The economics textbooks are overdue for revision.

BHUTANESE HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS OF THEIR NEW PARLIAMENT

Expectations are high among the people of Bhutan for the new government to deliver on its promises, especially once the new Constitution is adopted in early May when the parliament convenes, writes Francoise Pommaret, Bhutan\'s honourary consul in Paris and director of National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris and advisor to the Institute of Language and Culture Studies (ILCS), Royal University of Bhutan. Despite initial misgivings about their country\'s shift from absolute to constitutional monarchy, citizens are waiting to see if the new government will be able to safeguard Bhutan\'s stability and independence. Foremost among their concerns is for the government of Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley to assure them that corruption will not become as rampant as in other countries in the region. The prime minister\'s Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party won 44 of 47 parliamentary seats in the March 24 elections. The issues facing Bhutan are to be addressed within the framework of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) concept, included in Bhutan\'s Five-Year Development Plan of 2008-2013 and based on the idea that economic and material development alone do not provide happiness to people. Rather, the GNH emphasises environmental preservation, good governance, preservation of religious and moral values, and sustainable development.

JAPAN TAKES PROMINENT ROLE IN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

This year Japan will host two events that will be critical in helping to shape the African agenda: the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), to be held 28-30 May, followed in July by the G8 summit in which the continent\'s issues will figure prominently, writes Sadako Ogata, President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1991-2001). African countries are not content just to grow cocoa or coffee; they want to move on and expand their sciences, information technology expertise, and industries. In today\'s world a country cannot improve its living standard by relying on farming alone but must also produce goods that create new sources of revenue. The May conference will be an opportunity to both review progress and address future challenges. Economically, Africa has enjoyed a robust 5 percent annual growth in recent years, and one of the major targets in 2008 will be to accelerate this expansion, in part by supporting large-scale infrastructure projects like enlarging national, regional, and intercontinental road networks, which will boost agricultural and industrial expansion.

SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: THE ASIAN EXPERIENCE

(IPS/South Center) Over the years South-South Cooperation (SSC) has evolved from merely sharing technical know-how to cooperation for a comprehensive socio-economic transformation, writes Biswajit Nag, Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, India. In this article, Nag writes that in the new millennium SSC seeks to harness the intellectual capital and technological advances accumulated by developing countries to find the southern solutions embedded in people, technology, alliances, and the forces of globalisation. Regional cooperation provides most developing countries with a platform to seek regional solutions for the challenges of globalisation. Though trade and investment are at the core of any regional cooperation, the environment, health, and education have also drawn attention. The Asian experience of regional cooperation is useful because most of the programmes attempt to convince national governments to include the regional agenda to benefit both the country and the region.

NATURE IS NOT MUTE

The world is painting still lifes, forests are dying, the poles are melting, the air is becoming unbreatheable, and the water undrinkable and at the same time Ecuador is debating a new constitution that opens up the possibility for the first time ever of recognising the rights of nature, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of The Open Veins of Latin America, Memories of Fire and Mirrors: An Almost Universal History. It sounds odd, doesn\'t it, that nature could have rights? Yet in 1886 the US Supreme Court extended human rights to private corporations. They were recognised as having the same rights as people, the right to life, free expression, privacy, and all the rest. But there is nothing odd or abnormal about the bill that would include the rights of nature in the new Constitution of Ecuador. This country has suffered repeated devastation over its history. To give just one example, for more than a quarter of a century, until 1992, the Texaco oil company vomited 18,000 gallons of poison into the rivers, land, and the people. Once this gesture of beneficence in the Ecuadorean Amazon was completed, the company, which was born in Texas, was married to Standard Oil. By then Rockefeller\'s Standard Oil had changed its name to Chevron and was being run by Condoleezza Rice.

MAO ZEDONG IS ALIVE AND KICKING IN NEPAL

Mao Zedong is dead in China, but the Great Helmsman is alive and kicking in Nepal. What's more, the Himalayan Maoists have come to power not with the barrel of the gun but has been voted to government, writes Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times newspaper in Kathmandu. When they form the government, possibly with the participation of other parties, the Maoists face immediately the challenge of delivering on their promise of raising living standards. More immediately, they will have to deal with the soaring cost of food. Petroleum prices need to be increased, but the government can't afford subsidies and will not want to antagonise voters right away. The Maoists will want to push through some showcase legislation to prove to the electorate that they are serious about reform. They will want to get started on the controversial process of integrating their army with the national army. The two fought a bruising war, and there is a lot of resistance within the Nepal Army to combining the two forces. The Maoist leadership will have to balance pressure from their former guerrillas with the reluctance to not open up too many fronts right away.

OLYMPICS MEAN TIGHTER SECURITY AT TIBET-INDIA BORDER

With the Beijing Olympics fast approaching, there will likely be a decrease in the flow of refugees entering India from Tibet because of tightened restrictions at the border. Beijing is intent on projecting the image of a united China and has no desire to have Tibetan dissidents leaving the country to tell the world about their countrymen\'s plight in China, writes Dorjee, the director of the Dharamsala\'s Office of the Reception Centres which is in charge of Tibetan refugee arrivals in India. In this article, the author writes that there are a number of reasons Tibetans make this arduous journey to come to Dharamsala. The first is to see and receive the blessings of the Dalai Lama. In addition, they can receive a proper Tibetan education, and monks and nuns are free to practice their faith freely. Tibetans still have to brave the long journey to Dharamsala. They usually plan their escape during wintertime when the borders are not as closely watched because of extreme weather conditions. Some take a bus up to Lhasa, and from there begins the dangerous walk across the Himalayan mountains. The trip lasts anywhere from 15 to 25 days. It takes a while before the refugees are given a permit to stay in Dharamsala because they are also questioned about their backgrounds in order to ascertain that they really are Tibetans and not spies that the Chinese government sent over the border.

THE MISSILE SHIELD AND COLD WAR II

Cold War II started when US President Clinton expanded NATO eastward, up to the border of the old Soviet Union and extended the US-Japan mutual security treaty westward to include Taiwan and South Korea, a clear breach of the Japanese constitution\'s ban on waging war, writes Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. In this article, Galtung writes that the US has 700 bases in 130 countries. The result is the encirclement of the half of humanity, which in response organised the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which has six members (China, Russia, and four Central Asian Muslim republics) and three observers (India, Pakistan and Iran). It looks ominous and ominous it is. Enter a third force: Islam, which was also confronted by the US using 9/11 as rationale. There are no Muslim countries in NATO-AMPO but six in SCO, of which the USA has a problem with Iran. Why? The 1953 CIA-MI6 coup that ousted a legally-elected prime minister and ushered in 25 years of dictatorship. There is a simple way out: apologise for 1953. The cost: the admission that we - USA-UK - can make mistakes. The benefit: an end of Iran-USA problem. Instead, the US made NATO members accept a \"defence\" against \"only\" nuclear-tipped Iranian missiles, to be stationed in the Czech Republic and Poland. Wouldn\'t solving the conflict be better?

MAKING HIGH COMMODITY PRICES HELP THE POOREST NATIONS

Since 2001, the prices of many commodities and other natural resources have soared, providing commodity-dependent developing countries with an opportunity to use the increased revenues to combat poverty and make real economic and social gains, writes Ambassador Ali Mchumo, Managing Director of the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC). However, the author writes in this article, for this to happen adequate policy measures need to be implemented and the international community needs to take swift action to address the challenges that commodity-dependent countries face in the intensely protectionist global environment. Also, adequate financing for small stakeholder farmers remains one of the major development obstacles. When rural financing is available, it tends to be provided to large borrowers, excluding the majority of small producers from the formal credit system. The micro-finance revolution should be expanded to reach rural communities where the need is greatest. If the international community is to meet the agreed international development commitments, including those contained in the Millennium Development Goals, it needs to reverse the current trend in Official Development Assistance (ODA) and allocate more resources to agriculture investments and commodity development.

IMF: WHEN NOTHING IS BETTER THAN SOMETHING (BAD)

On Sunday, the International Monetary Fund called for governments to rise together to face the challenges posed by the ongoing financial turmoil. Unfortunately, most developing countries do not feel the IMF belongs to them, which may adversely affect their willingness to accept Fund leadership, writes Jomo Kwame Sundaram, United Nations Assistant-Secretary-General for Economic Development. The 31 March proposal goes for approval to the Board of Governors at the annual Spring meetings this weekend. A reform of voting shares is long overdue, as the changed global economic landscape has accentuated the gross under-representation of developing countries. At the IMF's inception in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, all countries got basic votes in order to ensure voice and representation even for the smallest economies, while quota votes were allocated roughly in proportion to each country's economic clout. Basic votes made up almost 12 per cent of the total at the outset, rose to 16 per cent at its apex, but have decreased to a meagre 2.2 per cent since, as quota votes have increased in relative weight. Meanwhile, the Fund's membership has more than quadrupled from 44 to 184. If the weight of each country's basic vote had been preserved from the outset, and not been diluted by more than 95 per cent, the total basic votes today would come to about half. Instead, the proposal will treble the basic votes' share of total votes from 2.1 per cent to 5.5 per cent.

ONLY GLOBAL SOLUTIONS CAN TACKLE GLOBAL PROBLEMS

The world, and the West in particular, are passing through a period of transition and profound insecurity which is manifesting itself in every sphere and makes the near future impossible to predict, writes Mario Soares, ex-president and ex-prime minister of Portugal. In this article, Soares writes that the major problems facing the world are still not receiving a global response, which could come only in the form of a major restructuring of the UN and the Security Council. The G8 club of rich nations lacks legitimacy to serve as a pilot for the world. There is, thus, a major vacuum in the world order. The world order is once again multilateral. The American empire as such is on the way to disappearing. Solutions to the problems that the world faces do not depend only on the West (Europe and the US), as was thought at the beginning of this century, but on others as well: the so-called emerging powers -Russia, China, India, and Brazil- as well as Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, and Turkey. The West must understand that it has to negotiate with these countries and participate in the reform of the UN.

KOSOVO REQUIRES A UNITED EUROPE… AND SO DOES EUROPE

In November 2005, the UN Secretary-General, acting on the basis of the conclusions of the Security Council that the situation in Kosovo is no longer sustainable, asked me to lead the political process to determine Kosovo\'s future status, writes Martti Ahtisaari, ex-President of Finland and UN Secretary-General Special Envoy to Kosovo. In this article, the author writes that almost a year after he initially submitted his proposal, it became clear that the Security Council would not pass a new resolution. Therefore, since everybody, even the Russian Federation, agreed that the status quo in Kosovo was not sustainable, a solution outside of the Security Council needed to be found. The result we all know: many important countries, including the US and the majority of the EU, have recognized or committed themselves to recognize Kosovo\'s independence. Kosovo is primarily a European issue and the EU cannot afford to let Kosovo become just another \'frozen conflict\'. Doing nothing was not an option and my Settlement proposal provides an organized methodology for a UN exit and EU takeover. This requires a strong, consistent, and united European position in the coming months if we want Europe and Balkans to be stable.

NEPAL NEARS VOTE ON SHIFT FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY

On April 10, Nepalis will vote in elections that will mark the end of their country\'s 240-year-old monarchy and formally bring Maoist guerrillas into mainstream democratic politics, writes Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times newspaper in Kathmandu. In this article, Dixit writes that the elections represent the last stage of the peace process. The people will vote directly for candidates as well as parties so that the assembly will have members of ethnic and other marginalised groups never represented before in proportion to their population. With voting just around the corner, those who have the most to lose seem to be getting frantic. Absolute monarchists have been carrying out terrorist attacks in an attempt to disrupt polls by provoking communal violence, while radical Maoists, afraid they will do badly in the elections, want to intimidate voters to minimise turnout and so call into question the legitimacy of the result.