The United States and a small group of other nuclear-armed nations are apparently coming under increasing pressure to accept the international community’s resolve to legally ban nuclear testing without delay.

“The elimination of nuclear weapons is the ultimate guarantee that they will never be used, and the best non-proliferation mechanism,” Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, told delegates at a high-level ministerial meeting held here Thursday in support of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Teaty (CTBT).

The Swedish minister, who was joined by his counterparts from Australia, the Netherlands, Indonesia, Japan, Finland, Canada and other nations, added: “Ending nuclear testing is a critical step toward nuclear disarmament.”

The treaty prohibits “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion” anywhere in the world. Opened for signature in September 1996, the treaty has been signed by 183 nations and ratified by 157. However, it cannot be enforced without ratification by 44 countries that had nuclear power or research reactors when the CTBT was negotiated.

Most of those nations have ratified the treaty, but the United States, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Iran, and Egypt remain unwilling to do so. In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama declared his intention to seek Senate reconsideration of the treaty. The administration has given no firm timeframe for action.

In order to verify compliance with its provisions, the treaty establishes a global network of monitoring facilities and allows for on-site inspections of suspicious events. The overall accord contains a preamble, 17 treaty articles, two annexes, and a protocol for verification procedures.

In their joint statement, the foreign ministers urged countries that have not signed and or ratified the treaty not to cause further delay in the implementation process. The CTBTO Executive Secretary Tibor Tóth provided the historical context to the meeting against the background of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“Fifty years ago, nearly to the day, the Soviet Union and the United States brought the world to the edges of the abyss. However, as the tensions had reached the boiling point in Washington, Moscow, and countless other world capitals, a moment of clarity arose in realisation of the need to diminish the occurrence of such threats,” he said.

In the midst of the crisis, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev proposed to U.S. President John F. Kennedy a resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis in a “‘parallel fashion’ with the cessation of nuclear tests. This was an opportunity, he said, to ‘present humanity with a fine gift,” Tóth said. “It was clear then as it is today, that nuclear testing poisons the natural and political environment.”

For his part, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told nations that are outside the fold of the test ban treaty, “You are failing to live up to your responsibility as a member of the international community.”

At the meeting, Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Rhodes, author of the play “Reykjavik”, described the risk of nuclear extinction as human-made and said that a human-made solution could be found, as the Reykjavik summit had demonstrated in 1986.

Recalling that In Reykjavik, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev had come close to an agreement to abolish their nuclear arsenals, Rhodes said, “A nuclear-weapon free world is not a utopian dream.”

During his encounter with the Japanese media at the sidelines of the General Assembly meeting, the Japanese foreign minister stressed the need for an accelerated monitoring system. His is the only nation which actually faced massive destruction of life as a result of nuclear bombing by the United States in 1945.

While both Iran and North Korea came under scathing criticism for their nuclear-related activities, no one spoke about Israel, India and Pakistan, three nations that possess hundreds of nuclear weapons and have shown no intent to join the CTBT.

Nor was there any discussion of reports that the U.S. is engaged in modernising its nuclear weapons.

Records show that in the five decades before the CTBT, over 2,000 nuclear tests shook and irradiated the Earth. The post-CTBT world saw only a handful of nuclear tests: those by India and Pakistan in 1998 and North Korea in 2006 and 2009.

The treaty bans all nuclear explosions by everyone, everywhere: on the Earth’s surface, in the atmosphere, in outer space, underwater and underground. In particular, it stresses the need for the continued reduction of nuclear weapons worldwide with the ultimate goal of their elimination.

The preamble recognises that a CTBT will constitute an effective measure of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation by “constraining the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and ending the development of advanced new types of nuclear weapons.” It further recognises that a test ban will constitute “a meaningful step in the realization of a systematic process to achieve nuclear disarmament.”

Under Article VII, each state-party has the right to propose amendments to the treaty after its entry into force. Any proposed amendment requires the approval of a simple majority of states-parties at an amendment conference with no party casting a negative vote.

Asked for their views on the amendment process relating to the so-called “peaceful nuclear explosions”, the foreign ministers from Australia, Japan, and Indonesia seemed to have no answer. They all looked each other and kept silent.

The Australian foreign minister, Bob Carr, however, later told IPS that he would “check into it”.

According to CTBTO preparatory commission, under Article VIII, a conference will be held 10 years after the treaty’s entry into force to review the implementation of its provisions, including the preamble. At this review conference, any state-party may request that the issue of so-called “peaceful nuclear explosions” (PNEs) be put on the agenda.

However, the CTBTO’s presumes that PNEs remain prohibited unless “certain virtually insurmountable obstacles are overcome. First, the review conference must decide without objection that PNEs may be permitted, and then an amendment to the treaty must also be approved.”

The CTBTO explains that such an amendment must also “demonstrate that no military benefits would result from such explosions. This double hurdle makes it extremely unlikely that peaceful nuclear explosions would ever be permitted under the treaty.”

According to the CTBTO, from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union and the United States in particular pursued the notion of “Peaceful Nuclear Explosions” (PNE’s) “for economic reasons, with mixed results”.

Of the nearly 2,050 nuclear explosions detonated in the world between 1945 and 1996, over 150 or approximately seven percent were for peaceful purposes.

Experts say PNE’s are qualitatively no different from weapons tests in terms of their adverse effects on health and the environment. Also the explosive device itself has the same technical characteristics.

Demonstrators rallied in front of Wall Street and several other parts of New York City, amid calls for an end to what some describe as “corporate socialism". Credit: Haider Rizvi

By Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK, Sep 18 2012 (IPS)

Amid a heavy police presence, thousands of anti-capitalist activists in marked the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement against the U.S. political and economic system, which they say favours billionaires at the expense of the middle and working class.

From dawn to dusk, the demonstrators rallied in front of Wall Street and several other parts of New York City, amid calls for an end to what some describe as “corporate socialism”.

“The government in this country should be run by the people,” said Kenneth Manteau, an activist from Connecticut who said he was going to spend the night in front of Wall Street to register his protest against corporate greed.

Joblessness at officially at 8.1 percent in the United States, although some analysts say the number is far higher, perhaps closer to 16 percent, since it only includes people who are still actively looking for work. Last week, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits jumped to the highest level in two months, to 382,000.

“I have no job, no healthcare, no apartment, and my girlfriend has left me too,” Manteau told IPS, adding that he is living on donations from his friends who share his world outlook.

Asked why the turnout for the anti-Wall Street demonstration was relatively low compared to last year, he said, “You know, people have to work every day. They are also afraid of being arrested and roughed up by cops. There are so many homes in this city, but tens of thousands of people have nowhere to get some sleep.”

A person standing next to him held a banner inscribed with the slogan: “Obama 2012: Abolish Serfdom.”

“What do you think about it?” IPS asked a janitor cleaning the street. “I want to be part of this protest,” he replied. “But what can I do? They pay me seven dollars and 25 cents an hour. What can I say?”

A few feet away, another protester, Mavni Halasa, 35, posed in front of photojournalists. She wore fake dollar bills plastered to her body.

“I call myself a marvelous mistress of bank reforms,” she said. “No more exploitation. There should be banking regulation.”

In front of the barricades surrounding Wall Street, the protesters represented a wide spectrum of professional and cultural backgrounds. Amongst them were lawyers, doctors, nurses, construction workers, professors, musicians and poets. However, the majority appeared to be young people from colleges and universities.

“A huge number of university graduates, overwhelmed by the enormous debts they have been forced to assume to pay the cost of their education, face decades of future enslavement to pay off these debts, making it impossible for many of these college and university graduates to even consider raising children, as they will lack the financial resources to support a family,” said Carla Stea, a seasoned journalist who covers the United Nations.

In her view, “the Occupy Wall Street heroes are protesting their own destitution which will inevitably damage the entire American society. The one percent are intellectual zombies, dedicated to accumulating profits, and depleting the very substance of American society.

“All student debts should be abolished, and the government should assume the responsibility for paying these student debts, and for paying mortgages, instead of investing in the military. A country of ignorant and homeless citizens is a destroyed country, and a country to be ashamed of. Military victories are meaningless. An educated, healthy middle class is cause for pride,” she said.

According to the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, New York State rebates 15 billion dollars annually in stock transfer taxes to Wall Street. This potential revenue to the state is lost in the hands of the richest one percent of New York’s population, whose share is currently 44 percent of total New York State income.

Many protesters held banners and placards highlighting the plight of college students who have struggled to keep pace with rising tuition rates, and the 11 million undocumented immigrants who work long hours to keep their heads above water.

Estimates from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau put the country’s outstanding student loan debt at between 902 billion and one trillion dollars.

“This young generation of educated Americans, just emerging from college or graduate schools, will be unable to assume the financial responsibility of raising children because of the massive debts they owe, (and) the already deteriorated intellectual and cultural fabric of this country will be worsened further,” said Stea.

Most U.S. television stations and newspapers covered the protests against corporate influence in Washington in a way that suggested most protesters were indulging in activities that are against so-called “American values”.

“Here we go again,” was the banner headline in the Metro daily, for example. The Wall Street Journal headline said, “Arrests Mark Protesters’ Return to NY,” but didn’t bother to explain at length, except for some quotes suggesting that there was infighting among the activist groups.

Police officals said about 146 were people were arrested in New York.

The paper concluded the story by stating that a protester said he was not planning on attending Monday’s protests because, “I have to earn a living.”

Even as U.S. crops wither, Mexico is also facing its worst drought in seven decades. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 2012 (IPS)

Food rights activists from around the world will descend on the coastal U.S. state of Florida next week to protest homelessness and hunger facing millions of people in the United States and across the globe.

The Aug. 20-26 protests in Tampa were organised to draw attention to the Republican Party’s aggressive stance on tax cuts for the rich and reductions in the social safety net for poor and working families.

The Republicans hold their national convention in Tampa on Aug. 17 to formally anoint Mitt Romney as the party’s candidate for the presidential election in November.

“I have seen people who did not eat for five days. This is happening in the world’s wealthiest country,” Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs and an organiser of next week’s protests, told IPS.

More than 46 million U.S. citizens currently rely on the federally-funded food stamp programme to help meet their nutritional needs – more than one in seven people. The average benefits amount to about 143 dollars a month, even as food prices continue to rise.

“What’s going on with the poor here and abroad is economic manipulation,” said McHenry. “Access to food is a right, not a privilege, but our leaders don’t recognise that. That is why there are so many people in jails because they are poor.”

The United States leads the world in incarceration rates, with more than two million people living behind bars.

The Barack Obama administration intends to cut food stamps funding by about two percent, or 1.6 billion dollars, a year. Besides attacks on health-care, the Republicans are seeking much greater cuts to the programme, whose funding in 2011 was 78 million dollars.

Beyond the U.S., millions across the world are mired in chronic conditions of hunger and starvation. According to the UN, nearly one billion people suffer from food insecurity, a vast majority of them rural poor.

Food price hikes, rising unemployment and variety of other factors are all contributing to the worsening scenario, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Last week, the FAO said that food prices had gone up in July up by six percent compared to the previous month. Grains and sugar were the main drivers of the increase.

Commenting on the FAO report, Colin Roche of Oxfam International told IPS, “This is not some monthly wake-up call. It’s the same global alarm that has been screaming at us since 2008.

“These new figures prove that the world’s food system cannot cope on crumbling foundations,” he said, adding that urgent actions must be taken by government, particularly the most advanced economies in the G20.

While attention is focused on a severe drought in the United States cornbelt, Roche believes that the problem has much deeper roots. Climate change, for example, is impacting harvests around the world.

Since the global economic recession began in 2008, many independent development experts and economists have held that the problem of hunger is not going to go away unless policymakers take the issue of economic inequality seriously.

“Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity (of food),” argues Eric Holt-Gimenez, executive director of the U.S.-based Institute for Food and Development Policy and the main author of a new book titled “Food Rebellion: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice.”

Gimenez describes the failure of the U.S. corn harvests as a disaster for the world’s poor. “(This is) not because the poor eat our corn. They don’t eat corn-fed livestock from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) either, nor do they fill up at the pump with ethanol-blended gasoline.”

But they will nonetheless “suffer the third global food disaster in four years because the price of corn will push up the price of other food commodities, like wheat, soybeans and rice. This will push up food prices overall.

“If the 2008 and 2011 food price crises are any guide,” he says, “the global effects of the U.S. drought are fairly predictable.” He thinks that the bump in commodity prices will send a market signal for speculative investment, pushing the price of grain up even further.

“The countries with good harvests – or reserves – will use them to avoid buying grain on the global market and will institute export bans,” he said.

But those countries with fragile regimes, in his analysis, will be challenged to keep food prices below the “riot” thresholds. “(They) will direct food primarily to the cities, and the highest prices will be in the countryside, where the rural poor will not be able to afford to buy food.”

In 2008, soaring food prices unleashed a wave of violent unrest in some 40 countries.

On efforts to tackle food insecurity, Oxfam’s Roche described the FAO report as the “ECG of a very sick patient” and suggested that the U.S. and the European Union must start dumping their “crazy” subsidy programmes that turn 40 percent of corn into fuel for cars and tracks.

“The G20 has the tools to tackle causes of spiking, volatile food prices and food insecurity today and into the future,” said Roche, adding that “they must reverse decades of under-investment into small-holder agriculture.”

Will the leaders of rich countries heed such advice?

Gimenez doesn’t think so.

“Neither will they do anything to address the root causes of hunger: the global concentration of market power, political decision, land, water, seeds, resources and our rapidly eroding agro-biodiversity in the hands of a few dozen agri-foods monopolies with absolutely no accountability to anyone except stockholders,” he said.

Agriculture, in his analysis, will not be removed from the World Trade Organisation, and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund will not allow poor countries to protect their agricultural sectors from the volatility of the world market.

“Chicago and Wall Street are not going to be restricted from speculating by any reinstatement of financial regulations. Grain monopolies will not be prevented from hoarding,” he predicted. “None of the immediate causes of hunger will be addressed.”

For his part, Food Not Bombs’ McHenry said his organisation planned to hold a series of protests around the world and that activists would also stage a sit-in at the Democratic Party convention to be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, early next month.

As U.N.-led talks on disarmament resume in Geneva Monday, calls are growing for nuclear-armed nations to cut spending on their stockpiles and instead divert resources to development.

Minuteman III test launch, 1994. The United States accounts for three-fifths of global spending on nuclear stockpiles. Credit: U.S. Department of Defence/public domain

“The amount still being spent on nuclear arms makes no sense, just as continued reliance on the weapons themselves makes no sense,” David Kreiger, president of the U.S.-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, told IPS.

His remarks alluded to the fact that nine out of 193 U.N. member states continue to increase budgetary allocations for the maintenance and modernisation of nuclear weapons, despite promises to reduce their stockpiles.

Last year, the nuclear states spent around 105 billion dollars on their arsenals, according to independent estimates. The share of the United States alone was 61 billion dollars.

According to a recent study by Global Zero, a U.S.-based disarmament advocacy group, in 2011, Russia spent 14.9 billion dollars; China 7.6 billion; France 6.0 billion; and Britain 5.5 billion dollars on nuclear weapons.

For their part, the four de-facto nuclear powers also demonstrated a similar pattern of behaviour with increased expenditures on nuclear weapons. India spent 4.9 billion, Pakistan 2.2 billion, Israel 1.9 billion and North Korea 0.7 billion dollars.

This cost calculation by Globe Zero refers only to researching, developing, procuring, testing, operating, maintaining, and upgrading the nuclear arsenal, not many other related activities. Global predicts the expenditures will most likely be the same this year.

That despite the fact that most governments continue to face financial constraints caused by the prolonged economic downturn and seem inclined to introduce further cuts in social services.

Considering that millions of people across the world suffer from hunger, disease and homelessness, Kreiger calls this trend to boost spending on nukes “obscene”.

“Nuclear weapons absorb resources that could be used instead to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” he said.

U.N. experts say they want to raise over 400 billion dollars annually for development. But that amount is becoming increasingly hard to secure because most leading donor nations are not fulfilling their commitments.

According to the U.N., there is a shortfall of 167 billion dollars in Official Development Assistance, which is making it hard for developing countries to achieve all the MDGs by the deadline of 2015. That shortfall can be easily overcome by introducing drastic cuts in the cost of nuclear weapons maintenance and modernisation, according to peace activists.

“The nuclear-armed nations are spending around 300 million every day on their nuclear forces,” said Tim Wright of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in a statement. “Obviously, there is a better way to spend this money than on weapons that threaten us all.”

Currently, the nuclear states are estimated to posses about 19,500 nuclear weapons, according to Critical Will, a non-governmental organisation that works with the U.N. closely on matters related to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

Despite the new START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) treaty signed in 2010, both the United States and Russia continue to update their existing arsenals. So is the case with Britain, France and China, as well as the four other de-facto nuclear powers.

While the five declared nuclear powers’ spending records are hard to pin down due to lack of transparency in certain areas, researchers say it is much harder to find accurate data with regard to nuclear weapons’ spending in de facto nuclear countries.

In the case of Pakistan, for example, which remains outside the fold of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there is no public accountability regarding the cost of nuclear weapons. It’s a state secret.

“I don’t know,” replied a Pakistani diplomat recently, in response to a question about the cost of his country’s nuclear programme. “Why don’t you talk to the U.S. diplomats and others? Are they telling their people how much money they are spending?”

His answer implied that figures made public by the declared nuclear states are not authentic either. But peace activists from the region counter this argument.

“All nuclear armed states launched their weapons programmes without the knowledge of their own people. This secrecy about what goes on inside nuclear programmes and how much they cost in public funds is an attempt to escape accountability,” said Zia Mian, who directs a project on peace and security at Princeton University.

“The first victims of the nuclear programmes are the people they are supposed to protect,” he told IPS, citing recent data which shows that Pakistan spends one percent of its GNP on health and education.

About half of the country’s population cannot read or write.

Kreiger said the failure of the leaders of the nuclear weapons states “to rid the world of these weapons displays nothing less than cruel indifference to those who suffer, while at the same time assuring that their own citizens remain targets of nuclear weapons.”

The U.N. disarmament conference will conclude on Sep. 14. The 65-member body, which reports to the U.N. General Assembly annually, sets its own agenda and works by consensus.

In the past, the conference has negotiated some major international agreements, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

What if billionaires the world over are asked to shell out at least one percent of their wealth as an international tax for development?

The question arises in a new U.N. survey, which bemoans the fact that many donor nations continue to shy away from fulfilling their pledge to finance development goals by providing 0.7 percent of their Gross National Product (GNP).

“It is time to look for other ways to find resources to finance development needs and address growing global challenges, such as combating climate change,” said Rob Vos, the lead author of the report, entitled “World Economic and Social Survey 2012: In Search of New Development Finance.”

In their analysis, Vos and his colleagues suggest that a one percent tax on one billion dollars holding could help gain better results in regard to financing for internationally agreed development initiatives.

Currently, there are at least 1,225 billionaires in the world from 58 countries, according to Forbes magazine. The U.S. alone is home to more than 400.

The global survey says there is an urgent need to find new sources of support for development because many donor countries have failed to keep their promises, a situation worsened by the prolonged economic recession.

According to the U.N., there is a shortfall of 167 billion dollars in terms of Official Development Assistance, which is making it difficult for various agencies involved in achieving development goals aimed at fighting poverty, deadly diseases and climate change.

Thus, in addition to an international tax, the U.N. is proposing several other ways to tap resources that could strengthen international actions for sustainable development, such as taxes on carbon emissions, air traffic, and financial and currency transactions.

The U.N. says it wants to raise more than 400 billion dollars annually for development and global challenges such as fighting climate change. But that is an amount that is becoming increasingly hard to secure from governments.

U.N. studies show that a large number of developing countries remain far behind in terms of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, mainly because they lack financial resources and assistance from the donor nations.

Researchers say they have witnessed some success in regard to global health programmes aimed at providing immunisations, AIDS and tuberculosis treatments to millions of people in the developing world, but add that such initiatives hardly yielded any additional funding on top of traditional development assistance.

“Donor countries have fallen well short of their aid commitments and development assistance declined last year because of budget cuts, increasing the shortfall,” said Vos, adding that donors “must meet their commitments”.

Experts who carried out the survey see potential to raise over 400 billion every year by taxing carbon dioxide emissions in developed countries: a 25 dollar tax per tonne would raise an estimated 250 billion dollars per year, collected by national authorities, but earmarked for international cooperation.

The survey also recommends a tiny currency transaction tax of one half of a “basis point” (0.005 per cent) on all trading in four major currencies (the dollar, euro, yen and pound sterling), which could yield an estimated 40 billion per year for international cooperation, among other measures.

Such taxes also make “economic sense” as they help stimulate green growth and mitigate financial market instability, Vos said.

In his view, such new financing mechanisms will help donor countries overcome “their record of broken promises to their own benefit the world at large.”

“The survey provides important suggestions to generate solid financial underpinnings for the actions to be undertaken in follow up to the agreement reached at the recent United Nations Rio+20 Conference to achieve global sustainable development,” said Sha Zukang, under-secretary-general of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The survey points out that the design of appropriate governance and allocation mechanisms is crucial for innovative financing to ultimately meet development needs and contribute to financing the post-2015 development agenda.

In recent years, a number of mechanisms have been developed under the rubric of innovative development finance, mostly in the field of health. The survey confirms that these mechanisms helped improve aid effectiveness and contributed to the financing of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

However, according to researchers, the funds channeled through these programmes have mainly come from existing aid budgets, rather than generating additional resources. Overall, a total of 5.8 billion dollars has been channeled through these innovative mechanisms since 2006, but only a few hundred million dollars can be counted as additional to existing aid.

There is an urgent need for additional resources, and proposing an international tax for development is one of those, they said.

But whether the “billionaire’s tax” is feasible remains an open question. “We made this suggestion (but) technically it’s very difficult,” Vos told IPS.

Victims of the massacre at Houla. Credit: Freedom House 2/CC By 2.0

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 1 2012 (IPS)

The United States and its Western allies appear increasingly inclined to push for regime change in Syria, although the latest round of diplomatic talks at the U.N. Security Council Wednesday suggest that it remains a distant possibility.

Both Russia and China, the two leading members of the Shanghai Cooperation Pact, a growing military alliance in Asia, have made it clear that they do not wish Syria to become another Libya.

“The opposition groups are taking opportunities for killings,” said Russian ambassador Vladimir Churkin, alluding to the mass slaughter of civilians in the Syrian town of Houla last weekend.

The United States, Britain and 11 other nations jointly expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats following the May 25 killings of more than 100 people, including dozens of children, which the U.N. and witnesses say were likely perpetrated by pro-government militias known as Shabiha.

In contrast, the Russian envoy asserted Wednesday that all the parties involved in the Syrian conflict were responsible for the incident and said that they must resolve their differences by peaceful means.

Churkin seemed supportive of the Syrian government’s contention that Al-Qaeda and other extremist elements were being armed by outside forces, but did not give details.

“I don’t know,” he told IPS in response to a question the sources of funding and weapons to the Syrian opposition.

Syrian ambassador Dr. Bashar Ja’afar, however, reiterated that weapons were coming from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the closest U.S. allies in the region and major suppliers of oil to the West.

On Wednesday, following the Security Council meeting, U.S. ambassador Susan Rice hinted that Washington and its European allies might take action “outside” the fold of the U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for peaceful settlement of the Syrian conflict.

The plan put forth by Annan, a former U.N. secretary general, calls for an end to the violence, access for humanitarian agencies to provide relief, the release of detainees, the start of political dialogue, and access for the media.

Talking to reporters after the closed-door meeting, Rice acknowledged that there were “serious differences” on the question of possible sanctions against the Syrian government in the Security Council.

“We need to explore with Russia and others about what other steps can be taken,” she said. “We will continue negotiations in the next few days.”

Some long-time observers of political conflicts in the Middle East see a certain degree of ambivalence in the West’s posture toward Damascus.

“I think the U.S. and its Western allies are desperate to figure out a strategy in Syria, and they don’t have one,” Phyllis Bennis, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think-tank in Washington, told IPS. “Athough regime change is clearly on their wish list now, it wasn’t until pretty recently.

“Syria, despite its anti-imperialist rhetoric, was pretty useful for Israel. (It) kept the Golan Heights quiet. (It kept) the Israeli border relatively peaceful,” although it was “a bit troublesome hosting/supporting Hamas and Hezbollah”, she added.

“The recent massacre in Houla meant they had to figure out an immediate response, and this was about all they could think of that wouldn’t make everything worse. It’s a disaster on all fronts.”

The Golan Heights of Syria were occupied by Israel during the 1967 war with Egypt and other Arab nations. Since then, Syria has continued to support not only the Palestinians, but also democratic struggles in several countries in the so-called Islamic world.

In addition to Russia, Syria has close ties with Iran and Lebanon’s Shia leadership, as well as with the militant Palestinian groups, which has become a constant source of irritation for the West and Israel.

On Wednesday, U.N. observers reported that 13 more bodies were discovered in eastern Syria. All the victims had their hands tied behind their backs and some appear to have been shot in the head from a short distance.

The U.N. estimates that more than 9,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and tens of thousands displaced since the opposition campaign against President Bashar al-Assad began some 15 months ago.

The massacre in Houla will be the subject of a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday.

“It’s important that the truth, the facts be established in a way that nobody can challenge,” Annan’s deputy, Jean-Marie Guehenno, said in a statement. “That is essential.”

“The government of Syria needs to take steps to convince, I would say, not only the international community but more importantly the Syrian people that it is ready for a new course,” he said.

As chief mediator of the conflict, Annan is due to attend the Arab League meeting on Jun. 2 in Doha on the Syrian situation.

The Russians say they want to see Annan’s plan implemented effectively and that any move by the West to oust the government by force would be unacceptable.

The U.N. Security Council president’s statement concerning the killings in Houla “is a strong enough signal to the Syrian parties and is a sufficient reaction,” Churkin told Interfax news agency earlier this week.

Any new measures to affect the situation, he said, “would be premature for the Security Council”.

China is siding with Russia regarding the Syrian conflict. On Wednesday, the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Liu Weimin, confirmed that Beijing would oppose any foreign military intervention into Syrian affairs.

France, the former occupying power in Syria, appears to be taking a middle path. In a recent statement, the French president noted that “another solution” is preferable. He called for more sanctions to be imposed on the Syrian government.

On Wednesday, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, who faces a general election in November, added new sanctions on a Syrian bank to increase the pressure on the Assad government.

“Elections do affect these things,” James Paul of the Global Policy Forum, which tracks international politics at the U.N., told IPS. “It’s a way of saying they have no rights. It’s part of a propaganda campaign.”

Paul, who is critical of the regime in Syria, described the Syrian situation as a “conundrum”.

“The regime in Damascus has more support internally,” he said. “It’s a very complicated issue.”

In his view, much of the media reporting on Syria is “basically Western propaganda, which does everything to prevent focus on Palestine.

“The press has brought this campaign to turn Assad into Hitler of the month, but it has failed.”

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2012 (IPS)

Leaders of the world’s 370 million indigenous people are urging governments not only to replace laws that violate the natives’ rights to protect their lands, resources and culture but also to introduce legislation that protects their rights.

At the 11th session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which began here on Monday, these leaders took leading global powers to task for using old but still existing laws as a weapon to justify the exploitation and abuse of indigenous communities.

“(We) have the right to redress for past conquests,” said Tonya Frichner, a Native American activist and lawyer who has also been a member of the Permanent Forum. “This is enshrined in the (United Nations) Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.”

The Declaration was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2007. According to Article 3 of the historic declaration, indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. Article 28 protects their right to redress for past conquests while Article 37 explains the right to agreements.

Established by the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 2000, the forum is comprised of 16 independent experts who provide advice and recommendations on indigenous issues to the U.N. system.

A long history of oppression

Indigenous leaders hold that the laws of settler governments that target indigenous populations emanate from the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery”, an issue that has become focal point of discussions at this year’s forum meeting.

Frichner said the legal systems based on the doctrine of discovery began in the 1500s with Christian Western Europe deciding that people who are Christian have the right to claim land inhabited by non- Christians

“This doctrine is the juridical foundation for the domination of indigenous people. It’s the moral foundation for domination,” she added. “Domination is exhausting not only for those who are dominated, but for those who dominate,” laying foundations for racism and sexism.

In interviews with IPS, several participants appeared particularly concerned about the ongoing exploitation of natural resources buried in and around native territories worldwide and state authorities’ open support for the logging and mining corporations that are taking these resources.

“520 years and the doctrine of discovery is alive and well,” said Marlon Santi, who travelled all the way from the Amazon in Ecuador. “This is about extremism, genocide, land grab(bing) and even slavery. All of this is happening in the name of (the) Christian God and development.”

“The oil company, Chevron, has polluted our river. Phillips has invaded our territories. Amazon is the lifeline and the mother of our people,” he said. “In our region, nothing much has changed. The present government is as bad as the previous one.”

Santi, who faces sabotage and terrorism charges for leading resistance against the incursions of big oil and coal corporations, said the Ecuador government gave four million hectares of indigenous lands to foreign companies this year – without obtaining informed consent from the native communities.

Some participants also worried that if the wider acceptance of the doctrine of discovery was not challenged effectively, the progress that the global indigenous rights movement has made over the past two decades would come to a halt.

Saving culture

“Through the continued use of non-indigenous languages, terminology and perspective in describing the doctrine of discovery, we may inadvertently encourage the reproduction of such perspectives amongst our own peoples,” said activist Arthur Manuel from Canada.

“It’s a multifaceted concept. It’s a legal fiction. It promotes exclusion, racism, discrimination and alienation from decision-making processes and invisibility within the same institutions,” he observed.

It has been observed in past U.N. meetings that language barriers often caused frustration among activists hailing from indigenous territories. At these meetings, the discussion takes place in English and French, which are often laden with a heavy dose of legal jargon and technical terms alien to the indigenous participants..

“Indigenous legal and judicial systems exist today. Our knowledge systems exist today. Indigenous languages continue to be spoken,” said Manuel. “We will continue to assert our rights as described in the U.N. Declaration and in our own indigenous laws.”

Since discussions at the U.N. forums are almost completely dominated by the non-indigenous government representatives, the Global Caucus of indigenous peoples recommended that a seat in the General Assembly be established for the indigenous peoples. In an interview, former chair of the forum, Mirna Cunningham, forcefully defended the indigenous peoples’ call for governments to bring about legislative reforms that protect and respect indigenous peoples’ economic, social, political and cultural rights.

“[We] are trying not only to challenge the conventional model of development, but also to make people understand that if they listen to our point of view on development, they can also change the situation globally and locally.”

Of all the U.N. member states, only Bolivia and Cunningham’s country of Nicaragua have incorporated the principles enshrined in the declaration of the indigenous peoples’ rights into their national laws.

The discussion on this will continue until end of the meeting on May 18.

A May Day march in the midwestern city of Minneapolis. Credit: Fibonacci Blue/CC By 2.0

By Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK, May 1 2012 (IPS)

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets here and around the United States Tuesday calling for an end to what they described as the mounting and corrosive influence of money in politics.

“Why let over 18 million homes stand empty when there are three million people without homes?” asked Pham Binh, an activist affiliated with the umbrella anti-capitalist grouping known as Occupy Wall Street (OWS), referring to the mass foreclosures that have swept the country since the financial meltdown began four years ago.

For example, between 2007 and 2009, the profits earned by Wall Street firms increased by 720 percent, while during that same period, U.S. citizens’ home equity was slashed by 35 percent.

On May Day, organisers from a wide array of labour, student and OWS affiliates called a mass march to Wall Street, where many multi- billion-dollar firms operate and influence the U.S. government’s decision-making process though their lobbyists.

At the rally, speaker after speaker raised questions about the lavish spending on U.S. military interventions abroad and drastic cuts in budget expenditures on health and education at home, and the failure to create jobs and alleviate poverty.

“They talk about economic recession,” said Charles Twist, a protester in the crowd. “It’s a manufactured crisis. The postal service says it’s a financial crisis. That’s a lie. They have 75 billion dollars in overpayment for retirees’ health benefits.”

Twist, who has served the U.S. Postal Service for more than a decade, added: “They have all this money, and yet they want to privatise. Basically, there is this one percent of the population at Wall Street who are behind it.

“If the Postal Service was privatised, thousands of communities would be affected all across America. As a postal worker, I know how many people send packages to Ghana, Chile, and Dominican Republic, you name it,” he said.

Sanding next to him in the crowd, Kendall Jackson, who works as a housing rights activist, noted that more than 40,000 New Yorkers are forced to take refuge in so-called homeless shelters. “Why?” he asked, adding, “There are 16,000 among them who are children.”

“The one percent on Wall Street is not only making thousands of us poor and homeless, but also destroying the future of our children,” she said.

“Look at that ugly high-rise,” Jackson said, pointing to a Bank of America branch. “A few years ago, it was a small fabric store.”

According to the Department of Economics at the University of Berkeley, California, New York State rebates 15 billion dollars annually in stock transfer taxes to Wall Street. This potential revenue to the state is lost in the hands of the richest one percent of New York’s population, whose income share is currently 44 percent of total New York State income.

Many protesters held banners and placards highlighting the plight of college students who have struggled to keep pace with rising tuition rates, and the 11 million undocumented immigrants who work long hours to keep their heads above water.

Yoko Liriano, a psychology student at the City University of New York, said she wondered if she would ever be able to complete her studies because she has to work more than 32 hours a week just to pay her tuition.

“I work for six days a week. In addition to pay my rent, I have to pay 700 dollars a month. Just think about it. The U.S. government pays 30 million dollars to the Philippines in military aid. What is that?”

Like Liriano, Dinae Anderson, a high school student in Manhattan, expressed similar concerns about the government’s indifference to the need for investing in education. “It’s becoming really hard to live and work as a student. We have to keep on this struggle.”

At the rally, one college student held a placard reading “F—k your unpaid internship,” a slogan expressing the frustration of millions of unemployed college graduates whose professional skills are often used by employers to make profits but are never paid.

Before the march towards Wall Street, many speakers from immigrant communities voiced their concerns about deportations and lack of labour protections.

“We are all under attack as workers. We are exploited, underpaid and abused. We will march for all people who are oppressed,” said Patricia Francois, a Caribbean domestic worker who has marched on May Day for the last five years.

Since last year, when OWS started a series of protests in New York, hundreds of activists have been arrested and manhandled by police. No incidents took place till the time of filing this report, although the city deployed a heavy contingent of police, including helicopter surveillance of demonstrators.

According to one native New Yorker, this was the largest turnout for May Day he had seen in decades. “We said, no work, no school, no buying. Well, that didn’t (entirely) happen, but look how many thousands of people are here.”

“It’s a good beginning to challenge the one percent who rules,” he said.

Every year on May 1, workers all over the world are officially allowed to take a day off. Many take part in trade union rallies to express their solidarity with the industrial workers killed by Chicago police in 1886 while demanding shorter working hours.

But not in the United States, where the tragic incident took place a more than a century ago.

Excerpt:

Which is more important in human life: money or happiness? Can money buy happiness? According to the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan, the time has come for the world to pay closer attention to this age-old question.

For decades, the Kingdom of Bhutan has used the concept of "gross national happiness" to guide its development. Credit: Jean-Marie Hullot/ CC by 2.0

Thinley said he wants the international community to realise that a paradigm shift in addressing the issue of sustainability in both the environment and global development is urgently needed.

The prime minister explained that in his country, “gross national happiness” is a development paradigm that has guided its development for several decades. He said hoped the world community would embrace that model.

The phrase “gross national happiness” was first coined in 1971 by the fourth king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who declared, “Gross national happiness (GNH) is more important than gross domestic product.”

That concept implies that sustainable development should not depend solely on economic aspects of wellbeing as it addresses the notion of progress.

Since then, the idea of GNH has influenced Bhutan’s economic and social policy and also captured the imagination of others far beyond its borders. According to Bhutanese officials, their country has created a system of measurement that would not only be useful for policymaking but would also create policy incentives for the government, non-governmental organisations and businesses to increase GNH.

The GNH index incorporates traditional areas of socio-economic concern, such as living standards, health and education, as well as less traditional aspects of culture and psychological wellbeing.

“It is a holistic reflection of the general wellbeing of the Bhutanese population rather than a subjective psychological ranking of ‘happiness’ alone,” said Thinley.

Bhutan has developed nine domains – psychological wellbeing, health, education, time use, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards – that help measure GNH.

So what kind of results does the GNH index give?

According to the 2010 GNH index, 41 percent of Bhutanese qualified as “happy”. The remaining 59 percent ranged from “narrowly happy” to “unhappy”, with 47.8 of the totally population characterised as “narrowly happy”. Happy people have sufficiency in six out of the nine domains.

“Deeply happy” people – about eight percent – enjoyed sufficiency in seven or more of the nine domains, officials said.

A measure of gross national happiness might be presumed to comprise a single psychological question on happiness such as, “Taking all things together, would you say you are: very happy, rather happy, not very happy, or not at all happy?”

Bhutanese officials debunked this myth, however. “The objectives of Bhutan, and the Buddhist understandings of happiness, are much broader than those that are referred to as ‘happiness’ in the Western literature,” they said in a press note.

In 2011, the U.N. unanimously adopted a General Assembly resolution, introduced by Bhutan with support from 68 member states, calling for a “holistic approach to development” aimed at promoting sustainable happiness and wellbeing.

This week, the high-level meeting on “Happiness and Wellbeing” brought together world leaders, development experts and civil society representatives to develop a new economic paradigm based on sustainability and wellbeing.

“It’s imperative that we build a new, creative guiding vision for sustainability and our future,” said Nasir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, president of the General Assembly. “That will bring a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said gross domestic product (GDP) has long been “a yard stick by which economies and politicians have been measured. Yet it fails to take into account the social and environmental costs of so-called progress.”

Gross national product, or GNP, is often contrasted with Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While GNP measures the output generated by a country’s enterprises (whether physically located domestically or abroad) GDP measures the total output produced within a country’s borders – whether produced by that country’s own firms or not, according to the government of Bhutan.

When a country’s capital or labour resources are employed outside its borders, or when a foreign firm is operating in its territory, GDP and GNP can produce different amounts of total output. In 2009, for instance, the United States estimated its GDP at 14.119 trillion dollars, and its GNP at 14.265 trillion.

Reflecting on the fact that the Himalayan kingdom introduced the new ways of looking at national prosperity, Vandana Shiva, a leading human rights and environmental activist from India, told IPS, “It’s an important event. It cannot be ignored.”

Her compatriot Asghar Ali Engineer added, “What happiness we are talking about here? If we are talking about happiness of all human beings, we must change this (global) economic system.”

So long as patterns of consumption continue, he said, “I don’t think that millions of people around the world will be happy.”

“We should not be deprived of happiness. We have oceans of tears in this world. This model of development is not sustainable,” added Alexander Likhotal from Russia.

The chairperson of the meeting on happiness, Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, urged the U.N. to provide a platform for success stories about how to measure global advancement in sustainable development.

The prime minister of Bhutan told IPS that he attend a U.N. summit on sustainable development, commonly called the Rio+20 summit, in Rio de Janeiro in June. There, he said, he would urge policymakers to consider Bhutan’s idea about happiness.

“That will be a historic moment,” he told IPS. “I will make a request to the Secretariat to adopt a holistic approach towards development. I hope the U.N. will adopt this new paradigm.”

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 26 2012 (IPS)

World leaders may face an unexpected challenge come June, when a major global summit on sustainable development will be held in Brazil. Unlike during previous summits, these leaders might have trouble making promises they are unable to keep.

Desertification is only one of climate change's many damaging consequences. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

“We are really tired of declarations,” Antonio Herman Benjamin, judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil, told an international gathering of legal experts here Monday. Despite some progress made since the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, most governments have failed to fulfil their obligations.

As a result, the court has launched a new initiative to promote role of law in advancing sustainable development. It is known as the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Stability.

The Congress’s scores of members from around the world include senior judges, prosecutors, legal scholars, auditors and development experts. They plan to focus on the problems and obstacles that hinder the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements.

Organisers said the World Congress intends to lead to the formulation and presentation of key guiding principles for strengthening the role of environmental law in achieving sustainability through the outcomes of this year’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, commonly referred to as Rio+20, and beyond.

Among the measures that are likely to be discussed are the roles of courts and evolving environmental jurisprudence.

Limited progress

Reflecting on the slow progress on meeting sustainable development goals, Benjamin explained that in many cases, environmental policies are formulated in a way that lacks requirements for guidance on implementation.

“Laws do not mean anything when they are not effectively implemented,” he said. “We need to close the gap between legal scholarship, parliaments and judges, because what is written can be ignored.”

Despite the numerous agreements that have been negotiated since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the human environment and the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, experts noted that “only limited” progress has made towards achieving sustainable development goals.

Only a few multilateral agreements, such as the Montreal Protocol on the Protection of the Ozone Layer, which has precipitated a 98 percent drop in the consumption of ozone depleting substances, have produced meaningful results.

“The Montreal Protocol is a prime example of what can be achieved when countries work together effectively on agreed legal frameworks,” said Amina Mohamed, deputy executive director of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Congress, according to Mohamed, would focus on the actions needed from legal practitioners to overcome challenges and promote the transition to a low-carbon, efficient and socially inclusive green economy founded on the rule of law.

In recent days, discussions at the United Nations about what needs to be done at the Rio Conference have indicated that many civil society groups and development activists remain as frustrated and disappointed with governments’ roles as they were before.

An ever-worsening crisis

“I think the Rio+20 process risks being undermined by vested interests and powerful governments,” said Michael Dorsey, professor of global environmental policy at Dartmouth College, who has attended scores of international meetings on development and environment since the 1992 Earth Summit.

The ecological crisis – from resource depletion to pollution, loss of biodiversity and an unfolding climate crisis – has worsened since 1992. Marginalisation and exclusion are on the rise as well, he told IPS, although some countries have made progress in the social dimension.

In major agreements such as the Rio conventions, sustainable development is considered to require fundamental shifts in three areas: climate change, biodiversity and land degradation, he added. “The Rio+20 institutional framework needs to facilitate the interface and integration of the three pillars.”

As the host of Rio+20, the Brazilian government, along with members of the country’s judiciary and auditing community, is supporting the Congress’s initiative.

This year, the Congress will convene from June 1 to June 3, on the eve of Rio+20. The outcome document from the Congress will be presented at the summit.

The event will be co-hosted by the Association of Magistrates of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Its partners include the Organisation of American States, South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, Interpol, World Bank, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 1 2011 (IPS)

The United Nations appears poised to play a major role in Libya in the coming days and months. It remains unclear, however, if the world body will be able to restore peace and democracy in that conflict-ridden oil-rich country, independent analysts and diplomats say.

“The people are suffering. We feel their pain,” said Li Baodong, China’s ambassador to the U.N., in response to a question from IPS about the continuing North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) air strikes in Libya and a proposed U.N. plan to send military advisers there.

The NATO mandate is due to expire at the end of September, and it is expected that the U.N. Security Council will approve a new resolution to give the world body the lead international role in rebuilding Libya after nearly seven months of fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Col. Muammar Gaddafi.

A document obtained by Inner City Press, a web-based news site that covers the U.N., suggests that about 200 military observers and 190 U.N. police might be deployed in Libya in the coming days.

U.N. officials told IPS that there was no final determination yet on the U.N. role. “(There are) adjustments being made,” said Farhan Haq, the acting spokesman for Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

Both China and Russia have consistently held that the Libyan conflict should be resolved by peaceful dialogue, and that military intervention would not be productive in maintaining peace and stability in that country.

“There should be an end to that fight as soon as possible,” Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the U.N., told reporters this week after coming out of the Security Council talks on the future of Libya.

But Ban and Western powers continue to reject that argument and remain determined to support the opposition forces in Libya, despite the fact that rights groups have cited violations of human rights by both sides in the conflict.

Rebels gained control of key areas of the country last week, and have issued an ultimatum to Gaddafi to surrender or face an all-out military assault on the stronghold of Sirte.

On Tuesday, Ban said he was “encouraged by events on the ground” and told the Security Council, “I think we can now hope for a quick conclusion to the conflict and an end to the suffering of Libyan people.”

Critics say Ban is ignoring non-Western nations’ concerns about the Libyan situation and siding with the most powerful Western nations who dominate the decision-making process at the Security Council and have their eye on Libya’s oil wealth.

“This was a call for protection of civilians,” said James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, a think tank in New York, of U.N. resolution 1973 adopted in March that formed the legal basis for military intervention in the civil war, demanding “an immediate ceasefire” and authorising the international community to establish a no-fly zone and to use all means necessary short of foreign occupation to protect civilians.

“It’s sad. It’s not a genuine response. It’s a moment of frenzy created somewhere else,” Paul said, reflecting on the role the U.N. and NATO are playing in Libya. “Do we really see any responsible government coming to power in Libya? We don’t know.”

Paul, who has spent several decades monitoring U.N. policy around the world, holds that the opposition leadership in Libya, known as the National Transitional Council, should not be blindly supported by the United Nations.

“This reveals how morally weak is this leadership in Libya,” he said, alluding to the fact that the Western-backed opposition in Libya characterised it as an “act of aggression” that the Algerian government gave safe haven to Gaddafi’s pregnant daughter earlier this week.

Asked about Ban’s take on this matter, his spokesperson told IPS: “We don’t have any comments.”

The U.N. chief is due to hold a meeting with Libyan opposition leaders in Paris Thursday, which will be chaired by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

On Aug. 25, the U.N. Sanctions Committee released 1.5 billion dollars in Libyan assets held in U.S. banks, which Washington was earmarking for the rebels in Libya.

Meanwhile, rights groups observing the conflict say that abuses are occurring on both sides.

People suspected of having fought for Colonel Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi, in particular black Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans, are at high risk of abuse by anti-Gaddafi forces, Amnesty International said in an Aug. 30 report.

A delegation in the country visiting the Central Tripoli Hospital witnessed three opposition fighters dragging a black patient from the western town of Tawargha from his bed and detaining him.

The delegation also witnessed a group of rebels beating a man outside the hospital. The man, in distress, was reportedly shouting “I am not a fifth columnist,” as Gaddafi loyalists are known.

“Within an hour, Amnesty International witnessed one man being hit and one dragged out of his hospital bed to an unknown fate,” said Claudio Cordone, senior director at Amnesty.

“We have to fear for what may be happening to detainees out of the sight of independent observers,” he added.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 24 2011 (IPS)

“We have been living here for thousands of years. Unfortunately, we are the original people of this land, but we get no respect,” says Vivian Milligan, in a tone filled with sarcastic laughter.

Milligan, who belongs to the Native American tribe of Lenape people in the state of New Jersey, is leading a statewide campaign against one of the world’s most powerful multinational companies – the Ford Motor Company.

Her campaign, which has been supported by an array of rights and environmental organisations, seeks environmental justice from the federal and state authorities, amid calls for Ford to not take control of a site called ‘Peters Mine Pit’ in the area of Ringwood State Park.

Ford reportedly plans to re-establish ownership of the Peters Mine Pit, comprising about five acres of Ringwood State Park, a site where it dumped paint sludge and other toxic waste from its nearby manufacturing plant in the 1960s and 1970s.

For its part, Ford, which sold Peters Mine Pit to the state, says it has no intention to dump any more toxic waste.

Environmental activists in New Jersey say they doubt if Ford would ever take any concrete measures to clean up the site if it established ownership rights.

“Ford must pay for the clean up,” Robert Spiegel, executive director of the Edison Wetlands Association, an environmental group supporting the cause of indigenous people in the area and critical of the Ford Company’s environmental behaviour, told IPS.

The huge debris of waste piled up over the years by Ford have had a devastating impact on the indigenous population as well as thousands of others living near the Ringwood Park, say environmental activists and public health specialists.

“They (Ford) have caused too many deaths, diseases and suffering for the people living close to the Ringwood area. They must apologise and clean up the toxic waste,” said Spiegel.

Tens of thousands of people in the area have expressed their support for Milligan, Spiegel, and other activists who are calling for the federal and state authorities to reject Ford’s applications to repossess the Peter’s Mine Pit area.

By the end of last week, more than 65,000 people endorsed the call for both the federal and state environmental authorities to reject Ford’s plan to retake the area.

Activists claim that the waste dumped around Ringwood contains high level of arsenic lead, benzene and other contaminants. Benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, is present in ground water samples and in a mine airshaft, where readings are 30 times above safety standards.

Spiegel said he feared that Ford would try to continue using the site as a toxic dump for its poisonous sludge and drums of leaking chemicals. The area is dotted with former iron mines that once provided the iron used in the construction of the Capitol Dome and the George Washington Bridge.

Recent testing shows that these abandoned mines are leaking, and that the witches brew of toxic sludge and benzene could potentially impact the water supply for over 1 to 2 million people in this watershed, Spiegel said.

In January 2006, residents of the area who were affected by the toxic waste took their case to the court. Their lawsuit was settled in 2010, with compensation amounting to a few thousand dollars each.

Spiegel and other activists say Ford has been “secretly lobbying behind closed doors” and fear that its attempt to retake the dumping site might be successful. “We know they have a big reach in Washington,” Spiegel said of Ford. “We have been pushing for justice for seven years. They are influential and powerful.”

Though appreciative of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision to have a meeting with the native leaders and activists, Milligan doesn’t seem sure if the government would decide something to be in favour of her people’s right to live in a healthy environment.

Meanwhile, activists trying to save the native people’s residential sites and the Ringwood Park look to the international community for help, because many Member States, including the United States, have signed on to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.

The historic declaration recognises that the indigenous people of the world have a right to own their lands and resources and that their knowledge in efforts to cope with environmental dangers plays a significant role.

Like hundreds of other private businesses from all over the world, Ford joined the U.N. Global Compact in 2008 and said that it would adhere to the principles of human and labour rights, as well as environmental protection.

In response to IPS questions about the dispute, Ford spokesman Jon Holt, referred to the company’s official statement that is available on its website. He did not explain why Ford was really interested in retaking the disputed land.

On its website, Ford says it is working closely with the Federal and state environmental authorities and that it has voluntarily completed the excavation and disposal of paint sludge from many of the areas indentified during a comprehensive site survey.

The motor company admits that it wants to “re-gain ownership of the small part of land” near the Peters Mine. “By re-acquiring this approximately five acres of land, Ford will be able to more effectively implement the remediation plan for the site and reduce the administrative burden on the Parks department that would be associated with any ongoing maintenance of the property.”

Critics wonder if Ford will take its promise seriously – with regard to the Ringwood Park toxic waste clean up.

“They don’t care about people,” said Milligan of Ford. “But let’s see,” Spiegel said.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 2011 (IPS)

The United States is likely to maintain and sustain its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons for many years to come, even though President Barack Obama has repeatedly stressed that he stands for nuclear disarmament and global peace, non-proliferation experts believe.

“President Obama is very assertive. But it’s not clear how much [more] assertive he chooses to be,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a policy think tank based in Washington that monitors U.S. nuclear policy on ethical grounds.

In an analytical report prepared for FAS last week, Kristensen and his colleague, Robert Norris, warned that President Obama might fail to implement his agenda on nuclear disarmament due to lack of cooperation by the civil and military bureaucracy in Washington.

“There is concern over whether Obama’s goals can be realised within the enduring bureaucracies that have a stake in the status quo,” Kristensen wrote in the FAS report.

Both Kristensen and Norris think that a “radical break” is needed to set the United States on a new path capable of realising deep cuts in and the possible elimination of nuclear weapons. That break, they argue, must include abandonment of the concept of “counterforce”, the ruling paradigm that focuses on eliminating an enemy’s nuclear weapons, infrastructure and war-making abilities.

Currently, the United States and Russia are the world’s largest nuclear weapons states. They possess 93 percent of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank that tracks weapon production and exports worldwide.

In addition, China has 400 warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain 200 each. India is believed to have more than 80 and Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons. The newest member of the nuclear club, North Korea, has no more than 10 “small” nuclear weapons, according to the institute’s estimates.

Many critics see the United States as the most irresponsible member of the nuclear club, for not only failing in its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but also going to great lengths to derail the international discourse on nuclear disarmament in the past.

The Ronald Reagan administration (1981-89), for example, looked the other way when Pakistan was developing its illegal nuclear programme in the 1980s. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration (2001- 2009) decided to make a nuclear trade deal with India that remains outside the fold of the NPT.

The Obama administration has signed a new strategic arms treaty with Russia, but it allows the United States to keep at least 3,500 nuclear weapons in its arsenal even after 2020. That, as proponents of disarmament noted at the time, was a step in the right direction, but not enough.

According to FAS researchers, the more general policy concepts are currently travelling through the various departments, offices and bureaucracies in Washington, and will then be translated into highly detailed and “carefully orchestrated strike plans that instruct the war fighter how and when to attack a specific target”.

The result, according to Kristensen and Norris, is “a fully articulated war plan”.

The FAS report points out that the implementation of Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review is now taking place at various levels, but that remains out of public view. “It has potentially enormous implementations, depending on the outcome,” the report says.

Obama’s agenda on disarmament has five key objectives, which include prevention of nuclear proliferation and terrorism; reduction of the role of nuclear weapons; maintenance of strategic deterrence; strengthening of regional alliances; and sustaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal.

To advance his goals, Obama should issue a Presidential Policy Directive that explains a new nuclear deterrence plan focused on destroying essential enemy infrastructure, Kristensen said.

“The president’s guidance is very generic. It has some basic principles,” Kristensen told IPS. “It’s up to the military to interpret it. Also, there are [several] other actors whose mind-set [is shaped] by the days of the Cold War. It’s very hard to change their mind-set.”

Reflecting on the FAS analysis, David Krieger, a long-time peace activist and executive director of the Nuclear Age peace Foundation, told IPS that “minimum deterrence would be a significant step forward, if it meant reducing the number of nuclear weapons in our arsenal to 20 to 30 weapons.”

On maintaining minimal deterrence, he thinks that moving away from counterforce targeting could be useful, but it is far from sufficient. In his view, it may somewhat reduce the magnitude of the disaster of using nuclear weapons, but it still maintains reliance on nuclear deterrence, a theory that could fail.

“It is deeply immoral and cannot be relied upon for security,” said Krieger. “Such a move away from counterforce targeting should be accompanied by a firm commitment to a policy of ‘No First Use’ of nuclear weapons, to de-alerting the U.S. nuclear arsenal and to the initiation of good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.”

The draft memo the FAS authors prepared for Obama refers to Article VI of the NPT, which calls for “the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons”.

“Actually, Article VI calls for pursuing good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament,” Krieger said. “The U.S. has viewed it as ‘eventual’, which may be code for ‘never’.”

“President Obama’s commitment to nuclear modernisation continues the nuclear arms race, albeit at a lower level, and his commitment to nuclear weapons elimination appears to be only in the distant future, not in my lifetime,” he said.

For his part, Kristensen stresses that the total abolition of nuclear weapons demands a collaborative international effort. “The word ‘deterrence’ means different things to different people. None of the nuclear powers are expected to go to zero alone.”

“While we talk about disarmament, other nuclear countries have to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security,” he added, “otherwise, we are not going to get anywhere. It’s probably the only and last chance to really influence the U.S. nuclear policy.”

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2011 (IPS)

“Water is life. Water is humanity. How could it be part of the private business?” asked Bolivian President Evo Morales Wednesday, stressing the social and economic consequences of the growing trend of private ownership over water supply and delivery systems in many parts of the world.

Morales, the first-ever indigenous president of Bolivia and an outspoken advocate of the rights of “Mother Earth”, also criticised capitalist countries of the North for failing to adopt a rights-based approach towards the problems of global warming and the rapid loss of plant and animal species.

“If we don’t respect the rights of Mother Earth, we cannot respect human rights,” he told a news conference at U.N. headquarters before heading to the U.N. General Assembly where he addressed a meeting on water and sanitation.

More than two billion people across the world have no access to sanitation facilities and clean water. Numerous U.N. studies have shown a strong link between deadly diseases and the lack of access to clean water in many countries of the South.

Research shows that inadequate access to clean and safe drinking water remains a major obstacle for the success of international initiatives on sustainable economic and social development in financially impoverished regions of the world.

The international community has pledged to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015, a target that is unlikely to be met on time.

“Progress is on track,” said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, but warned diplomats at the General Assembly gathering that the world “will miss the water and sanitation target”.

“It is not acceptable that poor slum-dwellers pay five or even 10 times as much for their water as wealthy residents of the same areas of the same cities,” he said. However, in the same breath, Ban added: “Let us be clear: a right to water and sanitation does not mean that water should be free.”

Morales’s stance on this issue reflected a completely different worldview.

“Without water, there can be no food, no life,” he said, challenging the notion that water management by private corporations will accelerate the process of development. “Competition of any sort cannot resolve the issue of poverty.”

The first-ever indigenous president of Bolivia, who is well-known for his outspokenness and socialist views, said his government had already expelled some multinational companies that were seeking privatisation of water in his country.

“Water is a basic public need that must not be managed by private interests, and that it should be available to all the people,” he said, a view endorsed by a number of diplomats from the developing countries who spoke at the General Assembly meeting.

“Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is a pre-condition to eradicate poverty,” said Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, the Brazilian envoy to the U.N. “The right to safe water and sanitation [is] intrinsically connected to the right to life, to physical integrity, to health, to food, and adequate housing.”

The U.S. delegate also supported the view that access to water is a universal human right, but shied away from discussing the role of the private sector in the supply and distribution of drinking water. “The U.S. is committed to solving the world’s water problems,” he said.

According to Food and water Watch, a non-governmental organisation- based in Washington, many women and children in rural areas in developing countries spend hours each day walking kilometres to collect water from unprotected sources such as open wells, muddy dugouts or streams.

In urban areas, they collect it from polluted waterways or pay high prices to buy it from vendors who obtain it from dubious sources. The water is often dirty and unsafe, but they have no alternative.

Carrying the heavy water containers back home is an exhausting task, which takes up valuable time and energy, according to the group. It often prevents women from doing vital domestic or income-generating work and stops children from going to school.

“Water is a human right. We believe that corporations cannot provide better service to consumers,” said Kate Fried of the Water and Food Watch in support of Morales’s views. “Water service can be provided more effectively by public-public partnership.”

Water Aid, another non-profit organization, says the total global investments in water and sanitation would need to double for the Millennium Development Goals’ target of halving the proportion of people living without water and sanitation by 2015 to be met.

Asked by IPS if his views on the right to water are getting support from the richest countries, Morales said that Spain was the only country from the European Union that was in alliance with Bolivia on this subject.

“There should be no one without access to water,” he quoted Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, as saying.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 2011 (IPS)

Some 13 million people across Europe, Russia, and other parts of the world remain largely dependent on Afghanistan’s poppy production to fuel their addiction to heroin, according to a new U.N. report on global use of illicit drugs.

“Yes, Afghanistan is on top of the list,” Thomas Pietschmann, a researcher at the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told IPS.

Last year, more than 210 million people around the world used illegal substances such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis, as well as prescription opioid drugs and new synthetic drugs, the report said. But while global markets for cocaine, heroin and cannabis declined or remained stable, the production and abuse of prescription drugs rose.

“The gains we have witnessed in the traditional drugs markets are being offset by a fashion for synthetic ‘designer drugs’ mimicking illegal substances,” said UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov.

On Thursday, Pietschmann and colleagues launched the latest annual U.N. report on drugs and crime, which notes that Afghanistan remains the leading supplier of heroin in the world market for narcotic drugs.

The 313-page report points out that although there was sharp decline in opium production and a “modest” reduction in coca cultivation, the amount of heroin and cocaine produced and sold last year was still “significant”.

The report’s authors say the area under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan may have “remained stable” in 2011, but add that this trend was unlikely to continue.

Afghanistan continues to be the world’s major supplier of heroin, despite actions taken by the Western-backed government in Kabul to crack down on the production of poppy and a blight that wiped out much of the opium harvest there.

In response to an IPS question about how the world community can assist poppy growers in Afghanistan to transition to other means of livelihood, Fedotov suggested the government in Kabul needed to take drastic steps.

“[There is] the lack of rule of law and corruption,” he said, adding that these two major factors were chiefly responsible for continuing growth of poppy crops in Afghanistan.

Experts say that in addition to the illicit cultivation, manufacturing and export of heroin, Afghanistan faces the problem of drug abuse at the domestic level.

A recent nationwide survey found that there were at least one million drug addicts in that war-torn Central Asian country. Those statistics also include some 60,000 children under the age of 15.

Fedotov noted that much of the poppy crop in Afghanistan is being produced on private lands owned and controlled by feudal landlords who exercise full control over poor peasants’ work-life.

About the use and production of cocaine, the report’s authors said they noted that the use of cocaine produced in South American countries declined last year and that drug cartels were losing profits.

Although the U.S. cocaine market has witnessed massive declines in recent years, the report said, it continues to be largest cocaine market, with an estimated consumption of 157 tonnes of cocaine in 2009.

When asked about the calls by some rights groups in the United States and Europe to legalise drugs like cocaine and heroin, whose users often face lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent crimes, both officials from the U.N. drug office were tight-lipped.

Fedotov said, however, that it was “up to the [U.N.] member states to decide”.

Shortly before the launch of the study, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a select gathering in New York that drug trafficking had transformed in recent years into a “major threat” to the “security and health of people and regions”.

In his view, the 61 billion-dollar annual market for Afghan opiates was funding “insurgency, international terrorism, and wider destabilisation”.

In West Africa, he said, the 85-billion-dollar global cocaine trade was exacerbating addiction and money laundering, while fueling political instability and threats to security.

“Every one billion dollars of pure cocaine trafficked through West Africa earns more than 10 times as much when sold on the streets on Europe,” he added in a statement.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 15 2011 (IPS)

Like Russia, China, India and Brazil, the African nations seem to be getting increasingly wary of the consequences of the Western powers’ military strikes in Libya – the oil rich North African country currently embroiled in violent political upheaval.

“[We are] deeply concerned at the dangerous precedent being set by one-sided interpretations of the resolutions on Libya,” an African Union (AU) representative told the U.N. Security Council Wednesday.

He was referring to U.N. resolutions 1970 and 1973 that Western powers have used to justify military actions against the Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi for the past three months – since the opposition in that country began mass protests against Gaddafi’s government.

“We cannot simply be spectators to calamities that befall us,” Hamady Ould Hamady, Mauritania’s minister of foreign affairs said on behalf of the 53-member AU.

Hamady held that Africa’s role in addressing the Libyan situation was required by the U.N. Charter, which, he implied, is largely being ignored by the major powers involved in the Libyan conflict.

It is a matter of “surprise and disappointment” for the AU’s position on Libya to be “marginalised” Hamady told the 15-member Council, whose decision-making process is largely determined by the will of the five veto-wielding members – namely, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China.

Since NATO started bombing the Libyan government’s compounds in support of the opposition, Russia, China, India, Brazil and, most recently, South Africa, have raised objections and called for NATO to halt its actions.

Russia, China, and many others are against any Security Council attempts to punish or condemn Syria, as well – which, like Libya is going through an acute political crisis, with the opposition enjoying support of Western governments and the international media.

Britain and France are currently pushing a draft resolution on Syria. But both Russia and China have refused to even take part in the consultations. They hold that any U.N. move against Syria would be interference into that country’s internal affairs.

“This intervention was not something plotted out well in advance, planned for, like the U.S. invasion of Iraq – the opposite is the case,” Abdallah Schleifer, emeritus professor of global affairs at the American University of Cairo told IPS. “[U.S. President Barack] Obama and to a less but similar degree, even [French President Nicolas] Sarkosy was dragged into this intervention rather than plotting it.”

The U.S.-NATO action in Libya may not however continue for much longer, considering the fact that there is growing opposition within the U.S. Congress against the country’s involvement in the conflict.

For example, House Speaker John Boehner – Obama’s top Republican critic – warned Tuesday that the president might be in violation of his executive powers unless he gets lawmakers’ explicit approval for the Libya operation.

Russia says any decision concerning the events in the Middle East and North Africa should be based on the principles of national reconciliation and consent, plus a responsible and strategic approach.

“We believe that diplomacy should be aimed at resolving problems politically, but not by creating conditions for more armed conflicts,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Oslo last week.

Observers say Western attempts to gather support for the proposed new resolution on Syria are failing because the Russians and the Chinese have learnt a hard lesson from the past.

For the U.S. and its allies, a phrase in the existing Libya resolution such as “all necessary means” translates into initiating direct military action, although other countries understand it in a different way, said a diplomat who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity.

Still, Washington, London and Paris seem willing to continue their military adventure in Libya, and possibly take similar measures in Syria, as well, the diplomat said.

So, what is going to happen?

“I think it’s fairly obvious,” Schleifer told IPS. “The U.S. had come to terms with Gaddafi. [It was] getting access to his oil and had taken Libya off the terrorist state list. Nevertheless, the Russians remained Gaddafi’s main source for arms, and Syria, with close ties to Russia also remained a thorn in the side of U.S. Middle East policy – what there is of it, even if Syria was helpful to the U.S. in the counter-terrorism campaign against Al Qaeda.”

It wasn’t states “that took the leading position on intervention on behalf of the insurgents – it was France and the impact of global TV coverage of the Libyan conflict upon the American public,” Schleifer said.

Yet, Wednesday at U.N. headquarters in New York, Hamady speaking on behalf of the AU, told the Security Council that “the time is over to articulate a solution together to protect civilian populations and democratic transformation of Libya.”

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 6 2011 (IPS)

A Pentagon plan to step up spending on nuclear weaponry would severely undermine global efforts geared towards disarmament, warn independent analysts on U.S. nuclear policy.

“This is in direct conflict with the commitment to nuclear disarmament,” said David Krieger, president of the U.S.-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, regarding the U.S. military’s request for increased funding for nuclear weapons maintenance.

The U.S. military reportedly wants Congress to approve 213 billion dollars for the “modernisation” of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems over the next 10 years. That is in addition to average annual spending of 54 billion dollars on nuclear maintenance.

Analysts say much of the increased funding is likely to be spent on new drones, submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and facilities to build a new generation of nuclear weapons.

Congress is currently debating cuts in the forthcoming budget. At the moment, there is no indication that the majority of lawmakers and the Barack Obama administration intend to question the rationale behind the development of new nuclear weapon systems.

Since taking charge of the White House in January 2009, Obama has given speeches championing the cause of global nuclear disarmament, but like his predecessors, has shied away from setting a deadline for complete abolition of nuclear weapons in his country and abroad.

“He has said nice things about nuclear disarmament,” Krieger told IPS. “But, apparently, he has agreed to spend over 200 billion dollars on nuclear weapons modernisation.”

Krieger noted that the so-called “new” nuclear weapons programme also includes nuke-carrying drones.

“It’s a long-distance killing,” said Krieger. “Drones with nuclear weapons are inappropriate. That’s an invitation to nuclear chaos,” he added, expressing concerns that other states suspected of having or developing nuclear weapons programmes would be more defiant in the coming years.

For more than a decade, the U.S. nuclear policy establishment has cracked down on Iran and North Korea, the first for allegedly trying to develop nuclear weapons and the second for its avowed nuclear programme, but has not given a clear signal about when it would be ready to destroy its own huge nuclear arsenal.

Krieger’s foundation, which is part of the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI), an umbrella group of eight major international disarmament organisations, is currently involved in lobbying efforts to speed up the U.N.-led process towards nuclear non-proliferation and complete disarmament.

The MPI stands for a “verifiable, irreversible and enforceable legal ban on nuclear weapons” and wants urgent action on U.N. chief Ban Ki- moon’s five-point proposal for nuclear disarmament, which calls for the development of “mutually reinforcing” framework agreements or a nuclear weapons convention.

“The overwhelming desire of governments and people for the abolition of nuclear weapons requires practical action,” MPI chairman Richard Butler said in a statement sent to IPS last week. “Nuclear weapons’ continued existence threatens all and poses unacceptable risks.”

The MPI is lobbying world diplomats for their support to implement Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in which the nuclear states commit themselves to the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Last week, Butler, a veteran Australian diplomat who has served the U.N. as nuclear weapons inspector, presented a brief to the governments at the U.N. as part of MPI’s ongoing project to ensure implementation of agreements under the NPT.

While he was preparing to have talks with fellow diplomats at the U.N. headquarters in New York on disarmament actions last week, MPI founder Senator Douglas Roche of Canada embarked on a world tour for the same reason.

Before his departure to Europe, Russia, China and India, Roche, who has been nominated for Nobel Prize, noted in a statement that landmines and cluster munitions had been banned by treaty “once people realised the humanitarian consequences of their continued use.”

He went on: “There is now similar realisation of the threat to humanity, not just if nuclear weapons are used, but by the threat of use, their possession and their proliferation.”

For his part, Krieger admires his Canadian counterpart’s efforts for nuclear disarmament and peace, but, at the same time, he is wary of the consequences of actions that the U.S. Congress and the administration might take in the coming days.

“It’s a huge problem for the U.S. to continue seeking domination in the world,” he told IPS. In his view, the policymakers in Washington must realise that the security of the U.S. does not lie in increasing the military budget, but in cutting it substantially.

“The increase [in spending] on nuclear weapons would send a message to the world is that the U.S. is not serious about nuclear disarmament,” he concluded.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, May 21 2011 (IPS)

Nations must pay more than lip service to the idea of indigenous rights if they hope to seriously address problems like species loss and climate change, say delegates at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, a U.N. body created to safeguard the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous people.

“They present very good studies and information, but not for us,” said Marcos Terena, a prominent leader of the Brazil’s indigenous people, about the officials running U.N. projects on environment and development across the world.

“They talk to Sao Paulo, New York, and the World Bank, not us,” he told IPS at the 10th session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.

Reflecting upon how the U.N. and its member states are tackling indigenous issues, he added: “Their ideas are all about how much they want from the rivers and how much they want from the air.”

“For us,” said Terena, “that has no money value. All the people must have the right to water and the air.”

In his view, the transition to a so-called “green economy” will not work as long as humanity doesn’t respect the rights of Mother Earth.

“The meanings of green economy are different to us than that which comes from the white man,” he said.

Several other delegates to the forum, which concludes May 27, expressed similar views.

Amongst them, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, who led the U.N. Forum on Indigenous Issues for five years, noted that most governments still lacked the political will to enforce indigenous people’s rights.

“They are still resisting the indigenous movements,” she told IPS. “But they should understand it is in their own self-interest to support native peoples’ rights.”

In her opinion, “it’s time for the former colonial powers to learn from the indigenous people because they live in closeness with nature and abide by the laws of nature.”

Indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge has been widely acknowledged as vital to conservation and efforts to fight climate change.

“Nature conservation is at the heart of the cultures and values of traditional societies,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, which recognises the significance of traditional knowledge and calls for actions to promote it.

But are the states that have signed on to the treaties on climate change and biodiversity taking measures to promote indigenous knowledge? The answer from artists, healers, and musicians from different parts of the world who participated in the Forum is a resounding, ‘No.’

U.N. researchers note that one-third of the world’s 370 million indigenous people are condemned to live in poverty in as many as 70 countries around the world. World Bank estimates put their share of global poverty at 60 percent.

Since 2007, when the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, there have been a flurry of complaints by native communities around the world about abuses of their rights by state authorities as well as private firms.

In many cases, indigenous activists also faced abusive treatment at the hands of law-enforcement agencies while resisting illegal occupation of their lands by companies doing business in mining, logging and oil exploration.

“While progress has been made in recognising indigenous rights at the international level, the standards maintained in the declaration still remain the biggest challenge,” said Dalee Sambo Dorough, a forum member from the United States.

In reflecting upon the U.N. efforts to enhance the understanding between indigenous communities and the outside world to fight climate change and reverse the loss of biological diversity, Terena said his people didn’t think it was working in a meaningful way.

“I hope the U.N. will understand and listen to the indigenous people, and not only produce papers,” he said about the U.N. Environmental Programme-led session at the forum meeting. “The paper is no good. It is bureaucracy. It is no good for the indigenous men, women and children. I hope the U.N. in the future would understand the voice of Mother Earth.”

The 10th session of the Forum will conclude by the end of next week.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 2011 (IPS)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) appears poised to issue arrest warrants for three yet unnamed high-level members of the Libyan government for committing alleged crimes against humanity during the past two months of political turmoil that has taken thousands of lives.

“I don’t care about political colours,” Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Hague, Netherlands-based ICC prosecutor, told IPS after a press conference here, in response to a question about whether or not he would also consider investigating Libya’s opposition figures.

On Wednesday, Ocampo briefed the 15-member U.N. Security Council. His report indicated that the alleged war crimes committed “include the use of imprecise weaponry such as cluster munitions, multiple rocket launchers and mortars and other forms of heavy weaponry, in crowded urban areas, in particular Misurata”.

“The evidence shows that events in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia prompted Libyan security forces to begin preparations for the possibility of demonstrations in Libya. As early as January, mercenaries were being hired and brought into Libya,” Ocampo told the Council.

He did not elaborate on where the so-called “mercenaries” came from, although they have been widely reported to be African.

In his briefing to the Council, Ocampo acknowledged that U.N.- authorised military action by NATO to enforce a no-fly zone also “led to civilian casualties in Libya”, and added that the ongoing violence in that country could “only be halted through an immediate ceasefire and political settlement”.

Ocampo said he was looking into the U.N. inquiry commission report on the alleged crimes against humanity that is expected to be completed by the end of this month before he asks judges in The Hague to issue arrest warrants.

A U.N. Security Council resolution empowers the ICC prosecutor to investigate and prosecute those in Libya responsible for committing crimes that under the rules of the ICC could be perceived as war crimes.

The ICC prosecutor did not say whether he would ask the court for an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who has been asking NATO forces for the past few days to engage in a dialogue to resolve Libya’s political crisis.

Media reports suggest that neither Washington nor its European allies are in the mood to heed that call.

“The specter of ICC prosecution is serious and imminent and should again warn those around Gaddafi about the perils of continuing to tie their fate to his,” Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told the Security Council Wednesday.

The United States has yet to endorse the treaty that created the International Criminal Court.

China, also a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, holds a different position on the question of the Libyan situation.

“[We are] not in favour of any arbitrary interpretation of Security Council’s resolutions nor any actions that go beyond the Council’s mandate concerning Libya,” said Li Baodong, the Chinese permanent representative to the U.N., after Ocampo’s briefing. “We hope that the ICC will fully consider the need of properly solving the Libyan crisis when implementing Resolution 1970.”

The Chinese diplomat said the international community should “respect the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Libya” and added that “the internal affairs and the future of Libya should be left to Libyan people.”

Like the United States and Russia, among the five permanent members of the 15-member Security Council, China has not endorsed the endorsed the U.N. treaty establishing the ICC.

In response to a question from IPS about the ICC role in Libya, Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said the investigation into human rights violations and war crimes in Libya should not merely be focused on the government but the opposition as well.

“The ICC should be investigating alleged crimes committed by all parties,” he told IPS.

Others are more sceptical of the prosecution campaign.

Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, recently told IPS it was obvious the killings of civilians in Libya constitute “war crimes”.

Killing protestors may well be a crime against humanity and subject to ICC jurisdiction upon a referral by the U.N. Security Council, he pointed out.

“It is appalling. Unfortunately, the Security Council and particularly the United States have little credibility to focus their wrath on Libya,” said Ratner.

The Security Council, in large part, has lost its credibility because of the U.S. refusal to make such a referral when the Israelis slaughtered Palestinians in Gaza, he added.

“Why Libya now and not Israel in 2009?” asked Ratner.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 30 2011 (IPS)

Is coca a dangerous drug that should be tightly regulated, or an essential part of Andean indigenous people’s cultural and medicinal heritage? Or perhaps both?

In the coming months, diplomats at the U.N. body will face the thorny issue of how to address the production and use of coca plants in the Andes region of South America.

The United States and some of its European allies contend that coca leaf is a narcotic substance and that its production must be banned in accordance with the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

The Bolivian government strongly disagrees, and for the past two years has been calling for an amendment to article 49 of the U.N. anti-narcotics treaty that considers coca production unlawful.

In a bid to convince the international community to legalise the use and production of coca in the Andes, President Evo Morales has repeatedly stressed that, “Coca is not cocaine.”

Coca leaf-chewing by indigenous communities in the Andes is a centuries-old tradition. The native communities consider it a vital source of energy, nutrition and social unity.

Officials in northern Europe and the United States are opposed to Morales’ call to declare coca leaf a non-narcotic crop because the use and abuse of cocaine is pervasive in their countries.

Experts say accurate figures on the numbers of cocaine users in the United States are hard to come by, but estimate the number of addicts at between three and four million.

According to Michael’s House, a nationally recognised treatment center, the United States is the top user of cocaine in the world.

Medical research shows that cocaine, a refined, concentrated form of coca extract mixed with certain chemicals, causes hyperactivity and euphoria, but in high doses can lead to paranoia, delusions and addiction.

For decades, the U.S. has sought to extend its war on drugs to the Andean nations that grow coca, but with little impact on the flow of the drug to the United States.

A recent report by the International Narcotics Control Board noted that, worldwide, in many cases corrupt law enforcement officials work in collusion with the smugglers, and the U.S. is no exception.

Bolivia says it is taking effective actions against the illicit cocaine trade and adheres to INCB rules, but the U.S. continues to oppose La Paz’s assertion that coca chewing be considered legal.

“The position of the U.S. government is not to support the proposed amendment based on the importance of maintaining the integrity of the 1961 Convention,” the U.S. mission to the U.N. said in a recent statement.

Independent experts note that the U.S. itself has sought amendments to the anti-narcotics treaty in the past.

Martin Jelsma of the Transnational Institute, which conducts research on global social movements and their struggle for economic, social and environmental justice, thinks the ban on coca chewing is “a violation of indigenous peoples’ rights and that it is in contravention of several other treaties and declarations”.

The U.N. biological diversity treaty and the declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, for example, fully recognise the right of native peoples to practice their cultural values and belief systems.

In a report released earlier this year, the INCB, which is obligated to implement the anti-narcotics treaty, criticised Bolivia for not doing enough to curtail coca leaf production and curb the use of cocaine.

“The board remains concerned about the continuous increase in both the reported total area under coca bush cultivation and the expected… leaf production since 2005,” the report said.

For the Bolivians, such an assessment is nothing but a reflection of Euro-centric thinking about coca.

“[It’s] part of a colonial mindset,” Pablo Salon, the Bolivian ambassador to the U.N., told IPS in response to a question about why the U.S. and the some European governments were opposed to coca chewing.

Despite opposition from the U.S. and certain European nations, Bolivia has managed to get support from the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement, as well as Japan and Spain, to amend the treaty.

Diplomats and U.N. officials told IPS that the rules to amend the treaty require that parties to the treaty hold an international conference, which has not been scheduled as yet.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 2011 (IPS)

Despite massive support from the international community, the Palestinian quest for recognition as an independent and sovereign nation is unlikely to materialise soon, say political observers and diplomats here.

“That is not going to happen,” an African diplomat who has spent more than a decade at the U.N. as an ambassador told IPS. “Yes, the Palestinians have huge support in the General Assembly, but for the recognition as a new member state they need approval from the Security Council.”

Recent diplomatic efforts by the Palestinians won the support of as many as 140 countries out of 192 General Assembly members. But, that is not enough to establish statehood because U.N. rules require the backing of the powerful 15-member Security Council as well.

“More than 90 percent of the member states are in support of the proposal to adopt a resolution in September that would call for Palestinian statehood,” a senior U.N. official who has worked for the world body for more than two decades, told IPS.

Membership to the organisation can only be granted by the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Security Council. “Recognition of a new state or government is an act only states and governments may grant or withhold,” according to a spokesperson for the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “It generally implies readiness to assume diplomatic relations.”

Recent statements from Washington on the Israeli-Palestine conflict suggest it is highly unlikely that the U.S., a staunch ally of Israel, would endorse a resolution on the establishment of the Palestinian state. The U.S. is one of the five veto-wielding members on the Security Council.

During her speech at the Security Council meeting Thursday, Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., made it clear that U.S. support for Israel would remain unconditional, and implicitly suggested that there would be no support for any U.N.-based initiative to recognise a Palestinian state.

“We are deeply concerned by the escalation of rocket and mortar fire from Gaza into southern Israel,” Rice said. “We are particularly disturbed by reports indicating the increased use of advanced weaponry, including rockets, in attacks against Israeli civilians.”

After reading a few words in support of a two-state solution and expressing concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Rice spent much of her speech defending Israel’s position – with harsh criticism of an alleged Iranian supply of weapons to the Palestinians.

Rice also criticised non-governmental organisations’ initiatives to supply humanitarian goods to Palestinians in Gaza, and said that there was “no justification” for them to do so – an argument that has been raised by the Israeli establishment and its allies in the U.S.

While addressing the Security Council meeting, Meron Reuben, the Israeli envoy to the U.N., reiterated Israel’s concern about rocket attacks by Palestinian militants and suggested that the recognition of Palestine as an independent state would not happen without the consent of Israel.

“It cannot be imposed from the outside,” Reuben told the Security Council, hinting at diplomatic efforts to pass a General Assembly resolution endorsing the state of Palestine as new member of the U.N.

He suggested that in order to resolve the conflict, Israel would like to have “direct talks” with the Palestinians. “We need solution, not resolution,” he told the Council, implying that any resolution in support of the recognition of an independent Palestinian state would not be acceptable.

As of March this year, more than 100 states had recognised the state of Palestine. According to a U.N. Security Council report issued Apr. 19, several European countries, including most recently Britain, have upgraded Palestinian diplomatic status.

While briefing the Council Thursday on the situation in the Middle East, Lynn Pascoe, the U.N. chief for political affairs, said he recognised the Palestinians’ achievements of institution-building and stressed that bold and decisive steps were needed to resolve the decades-old conflict.

Pascoe has been severely criticised by the Israel lobby in the U.S. for his independent judgments and remarks about the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. In his briefing, he noted that both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had reported “strong progress in institution-building” in Palestine.

In his view, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is “above the threshold for a functioning state”, but, at the same time, he says that the international community must be aware that “admirable achievements” by the PA are limited to certain parts of the occupied Palestine territory, and do not apply to all areas.

Pascoe said the international community “is rightly concerned” at the protracted peace process, and said that the resumption of Israeli- Palestinian peace negotiations was “urgent”.

U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq told IPS that the secretary-general was fully aware of what was happening in the region and that the Quartet meeting on the peace process was likely to take place soon. The Quartet includes the U.S., U.N., European Union and Russia.

In his speech, Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour urged the Security Council members to rein in Israel for its aggressive actions against the Palestinians, and said that the body must “apply to Israel the same legal and moral yardstick applied to all other issues on the global agenda”.

Over the past several decades, both the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly have passed numerous resolutions that Israel continues to defy – mainly due to strong backing from the U.S.

“The council cannot surrender in the face of continued Israeli defiance,” said Mansour. “It must be unwavering in calls for respect of law and its own resolutions, and act with conviction to compel Israel, the occupying power, to cease its obstruction of peace and stability in our region.”

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 2011 (IPS)

Willing or not, the handful of nations armed with nuclear bombs will likely find it ever more difficult in the next few years to reject growing international opinion in support of complete abolition of nuclear weapons, anti-nukes activists and politicians say.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, the international group Mayors for Peace presented a stack of more than one million signatures from people across the world demanding an end to the nuclear threat.

“This movement brings together mayors and other…like minded citizens and peace groups,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki- moon said at the exhibit’s launch Thursday. “They all understand that nuclear weapons make us less safe, not more.”

Mayors for Peace, which is active in more than 4,500 cities in 150 countries, has been working with the U.N. since 1991.

Flanked by international peace activists and some of the survivors of the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Ban called for swift action on nuclear disarmament, an issue that has languished for many years.

“For decades, citizens banded together to campaign against specific weapons, and categories of weapons have succeeded in moving their governments to act,” he said. “The landmine ban is a shining example. Now we need progress on the nuclear front.”

Ban pointed to major events planned for the next year, including the second nuclear security summit and an international meeting on the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

The event featuring over a million signatures took place at the U.N. just a day after a declaration was released by the Simons Foundation and the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and endorsed by eminent experts in international law and diplomacy.

According to the Vancouver Declaration, nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction and “incompatible” with international humanitarian law, which clearly defines what is universally prohibited in warfare.

Considering the level of heat and radiation that nuclear weapons release, experts say their possession inherently violates international law forbidding the infliction of indiscriminate and disproportionate harm on civilians.

Entitled “Law’s Imperative for the Urgent Achievement of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World,” the declaration calls for governments to swiftly commence and conclude negotiations on the global prohibition and elimination of these weapons.

Citing the 1996 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, the declaration’s signers argue that, “It cannot be lawful to continue indefinitely to possess weapons which are unlawful to use or threaten to use, are already banned for most states, and are subject to an obligation of elimination.”

The essence of the 1970 landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was that countries that did not possess nuclear weapons agreed not to acquire them, and states that did possess them agreed to “good faith” negotiations to destroy them.

The United States and Russia are the world’s largest nuclear weapon states. They possess 93 percent of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Sweden-based think tank that tracks weapons production and exports worldwide.

Among others, China has 400 warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain about 200 each. India is believed to have more than 80 and Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons.

However, many critics see the United States as the most irresponsible member of the nuclear club, for not only failing in its NPT obligations, but also going to great lengths to block, and even derail, the international discourse on nuclear disarmament in the past.

The Ronald Reagan administration (1981-89), for example, looked the other way when Pakistan was developing its illegal nuclear programme in the 1980s. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration (2001-09) decided to make a nuclear trade deal with India that remains outside the fold of the NPT.

The Barack Obama administration recently signed a new strategic arms treaty with Russia, but it allows the United States to keep at least 3,500 nuclear weapons in its arsenal even after 2020.

That, as proponents of disarmaments noted at the time, was a step in the positive direction, but not enough.

John Burroughs of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy believes the U.S. could take the lead on disarmament by reducing its stockpiles to “much lower levels” without undermining its own capability to respond to a nuclear attack.

However, as he witnessed Thursday’s permanent installation of over a million signatures in support of the complete abolition of nuclear weapons, he agreed with those who think that the peace movement is now moving forward faster than ever before.

“I think over the past few years, there has been change in the elite opinion as well as the general public,” he told IPS. “There’s a dynamic in the peace movement. [The petitions] will help crystallise that.”

In her comments on the declaration, Dr. Jennifer Simons, president of the Simons Foundation, said she hoped that in the debate about “the road to zero, [it] will serve to underline the essential element – the inhumanity and illegality of nuclear weapons – and hasten their elimination.”

“The possession of nuclear weapons should be an international crime,” she added.

Excerpt:

The United States is facing international scrutiny for its apparent failure to prosecute criminals who enter indigenous territories to prey on Native women and girls.

Between 60 and 80 percent of violent victimisation of Native American women is perpetrated by non-Natives, says a U.N. expert on legal matters related to women’s rights violations worldwide.

Rashida Manjoo, the U.N. special rapporteur on violence against women, notes that in the U.S., indigenous women are much more vulnerable to abuses than any other ethnic group in the country.

Manjoo, who met a number of officials and rights activists in her investigation of the situation of women in the United States, cited data showing that one in three Native women is raped during her lifetime.

In most cases, the rapists go free because the tribal elders have limited power to prosecute those who commit crimes on their territory. Native people say it is very hard for them to get help from the U.S. authorities.

“Since 1978 our tribal government, like all Indian nations, has been stripped of the authority to prosecute rapists and abusers that are non-Indians,” says Terri Henry, councilwoman for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

In 1838, when the European colonisers forced Cherokees to leave their homelands in the South, thousands of natives died on their way to Oklahoma due to lack of food, clothing and shelter.

“Like all other federal statutes and policies towards Indians, the Removal Act legalised the deaths of thousands of Cherokee children, women and men,” explains Henry, who met Manjoo last month.

Henry, who is also a member of the Indian Law Resource Center, says there will be no end to violence against Native women until U.S. authorities “remove the legal barrier that ties the hands of tribal governments”.

The tribal courts can only impose a sentence of one to three years. Whilethe crime of rape in North Carolina, for example, carries a maximum penalty of 40 years, she says, “So for most tribal victims, a three-year sentence is a far cry from equal justice before the law.”

In January, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the formation of a new task force to protect Native women from violence and abuse.

“We know too well that tribal communities face unique law enforcement challenges and are struggling to reverse unacceptable rates of violence against women and children,” Holder said.

“The task force has been a priority for me since my visit with tribal leaders last year,” he added. “It is a critical step in our work to improve public safety and strengthen coordination and collaboration concerning prosecution strategies with tribal communities.”

The 13-member task force is directed to produce a trial practice manual on the federal prosecution of crimes against women in Indian territories, and includes the U.S. attorney for Nebraska and assistant U.S. attorneys from five other western U.S. states, as well as judges, prosecutors and attorneys from several Indian nations.

The Barack Obama administration also recently endorsed the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a move that was welcomed by the leaders of world’s 370 million indigenous peoples.

The historic U.N. declaration, which was rejected by the George W. Bush administration, recognises that indigenous peoples all over the world have the right to control their lands and practice their traditional belief systems.

“The Declaration can be used as a basis for making demands that the federal government fulfill its responsibilities to tribes and carry out its obligations to promote and respect the human rights of Indian nations and tribes,” said Robert T. Coulter, executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center.

He thinks “it’s time for the U.S. Congress to examine [its] human rights obligations to American Indians and to assess whether existing laws and policies adequately respect the rights established in international law.”

During her two-week visit to the Indian territories and elsewhere in the United States, the U.N. special rapporteur also emphasised that racism and poverty remain deep-rooted problems. Of the more than one million women currently under the supervision of the criminal justice system, for example, black and Latino women represent 46 percent. And the vast majority of them have committed non-violent offences.

Manjoo is due to submit her report to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in the next three months.

Meanwhile, Henry describes indigenous women’s situation in the United States as “a human rights crisis”.

“We are glad that the rest of the world is beginning to take notice,” she said.

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 2011 (IPS)

At just 13 years old, Felix Finkbeiner may be one of the youngest participants in the two-week U.N. Forum on Forests, but he already has years of environmental activism under his belt.

And he’s armed with a business card: “Stop Talking, Start Planting – Felix Finkbeiner, Climate Justice Administrator, UNEP (the U.N. Environment Programme) Junior Board 2008-2010 Children Council.”

The teenaged environmental celebrity from Germany has motivated thousands of children around the world to take part in global initiatives against deforestation.

“We will plant more trees. We will fight for our future,” Finkbreiner told IPS after the launch of the Year of Biodiversity of Forests 2011 Monday. He has coauthored a book, “Tree for Tree – We children save the world now” is now engaged in efforts to involve one million kids to plant new trees by 2020.

The Forum, which is the only global body for comprehensive deliberations on international forest policy, is focusing on issues related to forest use, land tenure, the role of native communities and other social and cultural aspects of forests.

Before attending the current session, Finkbeiner participated in several international gatherings where he delivered speeches explaining why students should be concerned about deforestation, considered one of the major factors responsible for climatic changes and rapid loss of species.

Finkbreiner first became active in the environmental movement at the age of seven, inspired by giants like Noble Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai.

Maathai, who founded Green Belt tree-planting movement in Kenya, was also present at the launch of the Forest Year 2011 in New York. At a news conference earlier this week, she noted that the values of forests and its services to human-kind were often “taken for granted”.

“[They are] seen as resources that are unlimited,” Maathai said. “But we all know now that we are facing situations where these forests are disappearing.”

Forests cover about 31 percent of the world’s total land area. More than half of that area is located in just five countries: Brazil, China, Canada, Russia, and the United States. Forest biodiversity provides over 5,000 commercial products, including food, medicines, and clothing.

Experts on biological diversity and climate change say the rate of deforestation has slowed somewhat over the past decade, yet each year about 13 million hectares of the world’s forests – an area the size of Greece or Nicaragua – are lost or degraded, with disastrous effects on the lives indigenous peoples.

In a report released this week, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation says the forest industry is “responding” to numerous environmental and social concerns by improving sustainability of resource use. But environmental groups that work closely with the forest- dependent communities’ dispute that assertion.

“Industrial resource extraction is posing grave threats to the survival of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin,” said a statement by the California-based Amazon Watch group a day after the launch of the Forest Year 2011. “There are serious moral, legal and financial reasons for corporations to stem the tide of abuse and respect indigenous peoples’ rights.”

Numerous studies suggest that at the current rate of deforestation, nearly half of the Amazon could be lost or severely degraded by 2020 if commercial interests continued to exploit the region in violation of international rules requiring that they must obtain “prior and informed consent” of the indigenous peoples.

“The oil industry, for one, is in its infancy when it comes to developing and implementing policies to respect indigenous rights,” said Amazon Watch’s Mitch Anderson. “Although some companies, such as Talisman Energy, are taking cautious steps forward, other companies, such as Chevron, appear to be burying their heads in the sand.”

The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest and most bio- diverse tropical region in the world and is considered home to one-third of the Earth’s plant and animal species. About 400 distinct indigenous peoples depend on the rainforest.

Released Tuesday, a new Amazon Watch report, entitled “The Right to Decide: The Importance of Respecting Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)”, says that respecting indigenous peoples’ rights “is not just a moral imperative, but also a business necessity” for corporations to avoid financial risk, reputational damage, divestment campaigns and operational delays due to social unrest.

Ahmed Djoghlaf, chief of the U.N. biodiversity treaty secretariat, agrees that initiatives to protect forests cannot be carried out effectively without protecting the rights of their “custodians”, by which he means the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples.

He is calling on U.N. member states to sign the Nagoya protocol to the biological diversity treaty on “access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilisation.” He thinks the implementation of the protocol is a must for efforts to save forests.

Though appreciative of U.N. initiatives to protect the world’s forests and their inhabitants’ rights, indigenous activists remain sceptical about the prospects of any effective implementation of international treaties.

“The problem is they do not understand,” said Kai Landow, a native activist from Hawaii, of governments and businesses that violate native peoples’ rights. “There is a huge disconnect,” he told IPS. “They don’t understand that everybody could enjoy those treasures, including them.”

“You can live in New York City, but you cannot be unaffected by the reality that exists in some remote place thousands of miles away,” he added, alluding to the loss of forests and rapid destruction of the cultures of ancient peoples who have been living there for thousands of years.

For his part, Djoghlaf sees the U.N. biological diversity treaty as the “daughter of Rio who has now grown up” – a reference to the landmark 1992 treaty on environment and development.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21 2011 (IPS)

“We are a peaceful people. We don’t like war. We don’t want police and military on our land,” said Erity Teave, an indigenous activist from the Chilean-administered Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean.

With tears welling up in her eyes, but still trying to manage a graceful smile, she asked: “Do you think the U.N. can do something to protect my people?”

Teave, an indigenous activist who is currently visiting the United States, told IPS that her people were looking for urgent international action to protect them from what she described as “terrorism” by the authorities in Santiago.

“Our land is our mother,” she said in a brief encounter before heading to a meeting of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues earlier this month. “We call our land ‘Kainga,’ which means womb. We don’t believe in buying or selling it.”

Established in 2000 by the U.N. Economic and Social Council, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is an advisory body, with a mandate to discuss indigenous peoples’ issues related to social development, culture, the environment, education, and human rights.

Worldwide, there are about 370 million indigenous people whose right to exercise sovereignty over their lands and protect their ways of life is no longer a question that the vast majority of U.N. member states consider controversial.

In 2007, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution endorsing the historic Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that native peoples anywhere in the world have the right to protect their lands, resources, and culture.

The U.N. treaty on biological diversity also recognises the rights of the indigenous peoples to protect their lands and belief systems. It recognises that indigenous knowledge is an important tool in global efforts aimed at reversing the loss of species.

Indigenous peoples’ knowledge about how to preserve plant and animals species cannot be ignored because they are the “custodians of nature”, according to Ahmed Djoghlaf, the chief of the Secretariat of the U.N. treaty on biological diversity. “They know…they live in close proximity to nature.”

But despite such international resolutions to protect indigenous peoples’ rights, there appears to be a degree of callousness on the part of the international community towards the people of Easter Island and indigenous communities in many parts of the world.

Easter Island, which was annexed by Chile in 1888, is one of UNESCO’s world heritage sites. Located about 2,000 miles from the Chile in the Pacific Ocean, it is the most isolated island on the planet.

Published reports suggest that more than 20 people were injured as a result of excessive use of force by the Chilean police in early December when the natives protested against what they described as “illegal” occupation of their lands by Chileans.

Pictures and videos placed on YouTube’s website show dozens of native men and women soaked in blood as a result of excessive use of force by the Chilean police.

Witnesses say the police fired pellets on native Rapa Nui people who had managed to repossess some of the buildings last year. Rapa Nui people assert that the buildings belonged to their elders and were taken by outsiders illegally.

The island, with a population of about 4,000, is a major tourist attraction due to its giant carved stone heads, known as Moais. The natives are protesting against the Chilean plans to increase immigration and tourism.

A leading international rights advocacy group described the current tension between the natives and Chilean security forces as “unprecedented” and “of a very serious nature” at the Hanga Roa Hotel on Easter Island.

The group said in a statement sent to IPS that a strong police contingent, under the orders of the attorney general, have surrounded the premises and are blocking anyone from leaving or entering. This started on Jan. 13.

In a statement, Oscar Vargas, a former prosecutor on the island, and an attorney for the Hitorangi clan, said: “This is a forced fast, as a result of an order made without authority.”

According to Vargas, the alleged offences are non-violent and under Chilean law are punishable only by a fine. “In this case,” he said, “by the virtue of the law of Easter Island, the natural owners of the dispute land cannot be charged.”

Marisol Hito, a spokeswoman for the Hitorangi clan, made an urgent appeal to the international community this week to pressure the Chilean government to stop abuses against the people of Rapa Nui.

Repeated attempts by IPS to interview officials at the Chilean mission to the U.N. were not successful. One diplomat called back, but refused to comment on the subject.

Like many other member states, Chile is signatory to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.

A U.N. staff member at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues told IPS that he was not authorised to speak to the press.

However, in a recent statement, the U.N. Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya, said he was gravely concerned about the actions of the Chilean security forces and urged Santiago to make every effort to conduct a dialogue in good faith with the representatives of the Rapa Nui people.

For her part, Teave said her people on the island were not going to give up on their right to be independent from the Chilean domination and control and that she and other leaders would approach the U.N. rights bodies.

“We want to have our own government. That is our right. We have our own laws,” she said. “They (the Chilean government) don’t understand our needs.”

She and other Easter Islanders said they were planning to take their case to the Geneva-based U.N. Committee against Racial Discrimination (CERD).

The CERD is responsible for monitoring global compliance with the 1969 Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, an international treaty that has been ratified by an overwhelming majority of the U.N. member states.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 12 2011 (IPS)

In October 2001, the United Nations Security Council endorsed a resolution recognising that women’s participation is essential to sustain efforts for peace in the world. But did the international body ever ask world’s women leaders to take part in the decision-making process?

Activists associated with a global coalition of women’s right activists say the answer is “no”.

“You cannot do anything [about peace-building] if women are not engaged in the decision-making process,” said Mavic Cabrera-Balleza of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, an umbrella organisation of over 80 rights groups across the world.

“If any policy is to be effectively implemented, you need to consult with women’s representatives,” she told IPS, after the group sent a letter to the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other senior U.N. officials, as well as the member nations of the Security Council.

The letter was dated Jan. 7 and released to the media on Tuesday.

Its signers raised critical questions about the lack of women’s participation in the Council’s decision-making processes on issues related to international peace and security and called for the world body’s principle organ to match its words with deeds.

The Security Council resolution on women’s role in peace- building, known as UNSCR 1325, envisages participation of women at all levels of decision-making.

In its letter, the global coalition of women’s organisations welcomed the establishment of the new U.N. Women agency, but observed that the process of the recent adoption of the Council resolution 1960 was fraught with shortcomings.

“It speaks only of women as victims of sexual abuse during violent conflict and does not mention that if women were recognised as participants in decision-making, they would be less vulnerable to attack,” said the letter’s signers.

“If governments would involve more women and worked harder to prevent wars there would be less sexual violence,” they said. “If small arms were regulated and reduced by involving women in the decision-making, there would be less sexual violence.”

The coalition says if the U.N. leadership and its member states involved women “more systematically” in conflict prevention and resolution, “there would be a marked improvement in peace and security for everyone.”

The letter said that there was no crime “worst for women or men than rape, the trauma for which remains for a lifetime”. It further says that rape will be reduced in war time “only when greater efforts are made to prevent the violence, when more women are participating in decision-making.”

Cabrera-Balleza said it is “sad” that there are only three women in the Security Council. “That reflects institutional and structural imbalance,” she told IPS, referring to the gender inequality in the Council.

Currently, the three women ambassadors who are engaged in discussing on the international issues of peace and security come from the United States, Brazil and Nigeria. The other 12 diplomats on the Council are men.

In Belleza’s view, it is due to a lack of political will that women are not able to have their say in the international action and decision making on matters of war and peace.

“There is a lot of talk and no walk,” she said. “The member states must be required to report on [gender balance in matters relating to peace and security].”

When asked by IPS about the letter from women’s organisations, the spokesperson for the secretary-general, Martin Nesirky, said he would respond later after reviewing its contents.

The Security Council’s December 2010 resolution on women’s role in peace-building asks the U.N. chief to establish monitoring, analysis and reporting arrangements on conflict- related sexual violence, including rape in situations of armed conflict.

It also “encourages” the secretary-general to “engage” with the U.N. actors, national institutions, civil society organisations, healthcare service providers and women groups to exchange data collection and analysis of incident, trends, and patterns of rape in conflict situations.

But is that really being translated into action?

The Global Network of Women Peacebuilders thinks otherwise.

“If the U.N. member states, particularly those represented in the Security Council, are serious about their commitments to women’s equality and to stop rape and violence, they … would individually and collectively ensure to women their full participation in decision-making,” said Balleza.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 6 2011 (IPS)

Calls are growing for a swift international response to the situation in the Middle East, as Israel continues to build new settlements in Palestinian territories with increased military actions against civilians.

However, there is no sign that the 15-member Security Council intends to take any immediate measures to rejuvenate the stalled peace process led by the U.N., the United States, the European Union and Russia.

“I don’t want to prejudge anything at this moment,” Ivan Barbalić, president of the Security Council for this month, told IPS in response to a question about whether or not the Council would soon be holding a meeting to discuss the Middle East situation.

Last week, the Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour sent a letter to U.S. ambassador Susan Rice, who was then president of the Security Council, in which he described the current situation in Palestine as “grave” and said it required “urgent attention and serious action” by the international community, including the Security Council.

The letter, which was also sent to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the president of the General Assembly, mentioned in detail the Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Mansour said the situation in and around Occupied East Jerusalem was “most severe”.

Mansour said this was being done “for the direct purpose of altering the demographic composition, character and legal status of its Palestinian inhabitants through forced evictions, home demolitions, revocation of residency rights, and other measures in flagrant violations of international and the past Security Council resolutions.”

The Palestinians have also been circulating a draft resolution that would declare Israel’s settlement building in East Jerusalem to be illegal.

The top Palestinian leadership holds that any attempt to restart the peace process would be futile unless the world community agrees to bind Israel through a Security Council resolution to freeze its illegal settlement activities in the West Bank and other Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.

On Wednesday, as Israeli troops killed two more Palestinians near the Gaza border, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat reiterated his position that the parties involved in the peace process – the Quartet comprising the U.N., U.S., Russia and the European Union – must take firm decisions.

For their part, the Israelis are insisting that instead of involving the international community for a negotiated peace, they would rather hold direct talks, a condition that is highly unlikely to be accepted by the Palestinian leadership which is more focused on gaining wider international support for the legitimacy of their struggle.

The Palestinians enjoy overwhelming diplomatic support in the 192-member U.N. General Assembly. The scene in the Security Council chamber is somewhat different, where over the years, the U.S. has repeatedly blocked resolutions that were either in support of the Palestinians or against Israel.

Sources told IPS that last week the chief Palestinian diplomat had met Ambassador Rice, but failed to get a clear response for a possible Security Council resolution to halt Israeli settlements. “It’s very clear that at the moment the U.S. is not ready for any Council resolution on a settlement freeze,” said a diplomat who did not want to be named.

However, it may not be so easy for the U.S. to continue its unconditional support for Israel. Pressure for change in the U.S. policy on Israel appears to be growing, despite the fact that the so-called Israel lobby is still far more powerful in the U.S. than any other interest group.

Last month, for example, Human Rights Watch called for Washington to stop giving aid to Israel in an amount equivalent to the costs of its spending in support of settlements, and to monitor contributions to Israel from tax-exempt U.S. organisations that violate international law.

Aware that the U.S. is Israel’s largest weapons supplier, Amnesty International has called for an arms embargo on Israel. Considering the wider support for the Palestinians on the international level, the noted U.S. intellectual and political analyst Noam Chomsky thinks that a shift in U.S. policy on Israel may not be impossible.

But “to break the logjam,” he writes in a recent article run by the New York Times Syndicate, “it will be necessary to dismantle the reigning illusion that the U.S. is an ‘honest broker’ desperately seeking to reconcile recalcitrant adversaries, and to recognize that serious negotiations would be between the U.S.-Israel and the rest of the world.”

In his view, “If U.S. power centers can be compelled by popular opinion to abandon decades-old rejectionism, many prospects that seem remote might become suddenly possible.”

At the U.N., when IPS asked about the secretary-general’s response to the letter, spokesman Martin Nesirky said: “The SG pays close attention to what is happening in the Middle East. This particular topic was taken to the Security Council. Now it’s up to the Council [to take action].”

Nesirky said Ban spoke to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton Thursday. Ashton, who met Israeli officials Wednesday, said she would push for “urgent progress” in the peace process during her visit.

White House envoy Dennis Ross is also in Jerusalem for two days of closed-door talks with Israeli leaders.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 2010 (IPS)

The U.S. move to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan may be seen in Washington as the only effective and viable strategy to stabilise the country, but not everyone in the diplomatic community here at U.N. headquarters agrees.

“I am not an expert on military matters. [But] the solution to the Afghan situation is not the military one,” Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, told IPS in response to a question about whether an increased U.S. military presence would be helpful in bringing peace.

De Mistura, a long-serving Swedish diplomat, briefed the U.N. Security Council Wednesday about the situation in Afghanistan. He stressed the need for a political solution, and said avoiding civilian casualties was a “must” to make international efforts for peace and development a success.

His take on the military aspect of the conflict’s resolution also resonated in the speeches of several diplomats who took part in the discussions. Speaker after speaker emphasised that political dialogue, national reconciliation and development initiatives were the key.

“Success doesn’t depend on military operations,” Mexican ambassador Claude Heller told the Council. In his view, the situation in Afghanistan demands intense efforts for development and increased efforts to protect the lives of civilians who are falling victim to armed attacks from both sides.

Diplomats from France, Brazil, Iran and several other countries noted that as a result of the prolonged military conflict, more and more civilians were suffering and said that effective measures must be taken to facilitate the transition of power to Afghan authorities due to take place in 2014.

At a NATO summit held in Lisbon in November, it was agreed that security would be handed over to Afghan authorities by that date, and that before and during the transition process the world community would intensify its efforts to help Afghanistan rebuild itself from the ruins of war.

“Afghanistan needs the sustained support of the international community,” said Wang Min, the Chinese deputy ambassador to the U.N., reflecting on the transition process. But the initiatives for peace, reconciliation and development must be “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned”, he added.

Many diplomats agreed that in addition to international support, Afghanistan needed to reach out to its neighbours to improve its economic and social conditions, which have fast deteriorated due to the armed conflict.

One of Afghanistan’s neighbours, Iran, said it fully supported the idea of regional cooperation for the country’s reconstruction, but added that the prolonged military presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan was making it hard for its neighbours to take effective measures for peacemaking.

“Nine years have passed since American and NATO forces entered Afghanistan. The main justification of the military incursion was eliminating the threat of terrorism,” said Iranian envoy Eshagh Alehabib. “However, it is very hard to assess the achievement so far and the prospect for the future.”

Alehabib noted that, “even [in] the newly unveiled Military Strategy Review, the U.S. government casts some doubts on the attainment of [its] desired goals.”

Referring to the growing civilian casualties, he asked whether “we could [more accurately] call this situation an achievement for the military forces”.

“Putting the lives of innocent people at the mercy of drone attacks, yes – prima facie, there has been some achievement,” he noted.

U.S. envoy Rosemary DiCarlo defended Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan. “We have broadly arrested the Taliban’s momentum,” she said. “[But those gains] are still fragile.”

She told the Council members that Afghan forces would take full responsibility for security by 2014. However, she made it clear that the transition process would be gradual. “It’s a transition strategy, not an exit strategy,” DiCarlo said.

Since October 2001 when the U.S. launched military operations in Afghanistan, nearly 20,000 Afghans have been killed and about half a million wounded, according to iCasualties.org, an independent group formerly known as Iraq Body Count.

For its part, the U.S.-led coalition forces have lost 2,100 soldiers as a result of armed attacks by Taliban fighters in the nine years of war that shows no sign of an imminent end, according to analysts.

Last week, the Red Cross International issued a statement from Kabul warning that there were likely to be more civilian casualties in 2011.

“We are growing increasingly concerned about the conflict. It’s spreading and intensifying and we’re [likely] to see another year of conflict with dramatic consequences for civilians,” Reto Stocker, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office in Afghanistan, said on Dec. 15.

Civilian deaths and injuries resulting from the conflict have continued to rise over the past two years and civilian communities have been forced to take sides in the war, the organisation said.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 17 2010 (IPS)

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reiterated his concern Thursday at the escalating violence in Cote d’Ivoire, where as many as 20 people were reportedly killed in clashes between security forces and opposition activists.

“[Ban] is deeply concerned about the continuing political stalemate,” said spokesperson Farhan Haq. He called the violence a “worrying turn”.

In his statement, Ban called upon the incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo, who has been backed by the country’s security forces, to accept defeat and step down so that his opponent, Alassane Ouattara, who was declared the winner in last month’s elections, can assume office.

Gbagbo, a 65-year-old former history teacher from southern Cote d’Ivoire, has been in power since 2000. Ouattara, a 68- year-old economist, is backed by the former rebels in the north of the country, and enjoys the support of Western powers and the United Nations.

A Christian, Gbagbo is considered to be a staunch nationalist. Cote d’Ivoire gained its independence in 1960. In 2002, an armed rebellion broke out in the Muslim- dominated north, which Ouattara represents.

The U.N. has 10,000 troops in Cote d’Ivoire. Some of them are currently guarding Ouattara and his supporters from the security forces. It has been reported that at one point Gbagbo indicated his willingness to form a coalition government, but the U.N. disagreed.

In response to a question about the possible formation of a coalition government, Haq told IPS that that offer was “not acceptable” because [Ouattara] “won the majority” of votes.

The current strife in Cote d’Ivoire began after the run-off election last month, when the electoral commission declared Ouattara the winner with 54.1 percent, compared to Gbagbo’s 45.9 percent.

“The former colonial powers are trying to handle this situation in an undiplomatic manner,” said a diplomatic source who did not want to be named. “They are not doing the right thing. It’s a resource-rich country. That is why they don’t want unity among its people.”

Cote d’Ivoire is the world’s largest exporter of cocoa. It also exports coffee, petroleum, cotton, bananas, pineapples, palm oil and fish.

Haq told IPS that Ban’s special representative in Cote d’Ivoire has increased his efforts to prevent further violence. “The secretary-general is in touch with him,” he said.

In an earlier statement, the U.N. moved towards imposing sanctions on any parties obstructing the peace process in Cote d’Ivoire. The U.N. has also set up a monitoring committee to record all incidents, behaviour, actions and decisions that block the peace process.

“The committee will propose concrete measures to be taken, including the imposition of immediate targeted sanctions,” Simon Munzu, the head of UNOCI’s Human Rights Division and chair of the Committee, told a news conference in Cote d’Ivoire.

Last month’s elections were meant to be the culmination of these efforts, but the poll generated a new crisis when the Constitutional Council threw out the decision of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) proclaiming Ouattara the victor, citing irregularities in his northern base, and awarded the election to Gbagbo.

The U.N. Security Council, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU), as well as many individual countries, have all recognised Ouattara as the rightful victor of the Nov. 28 run-off.

On Wednesday, the Security Council reiterated its readiness “to impose targeted measures against persons who attempt to threaten the peace process, obstruct the work of UNOCI and other international actors, or commit serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.”

“See, to them sanctions is the solution, not the unity of the people,” said the African diplomatic source who did not want to be named. “You know sanctions don’t work, but those big Western powers that control the Council are all in favour of sanctions. They don’t want Ivoirians to be truly independent.”

Meanwhile, as violence continues in Cote d’Ivoire, rights groups deplored Thursday’s incidents and voiced their protest against the authorities’ crackdown on the demonstration in support of Ouattara. In a statement, Amnesty International said it was “appalled” by the “unjustified” use of force.

Amnesty said nine, not three people were killed in the shooting by security forces, according to witnesses. BBC has since reported that at least 20 people were killed.

On Tuesday, Ouattara called for mass street protests to seize state radio and government buildings, which are held by officials loyal to Gbagbo.

“Every effort must be made to prevent an escalation of violence. There is a very real threat that many more lives will be lost if the security forces continue to shoot at protesters indiscriminately,” said Amnesty International’s Salvatore Saguès.

“Côte d’Ivoire has never been so close to a resumption of civil war. Every effort must be done to prevent further escalation of violence that could have a huge impact on the country and on the whole sub-region pushing thousands of people to flee the country,” he said.

According to the French media, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Louis Moreno Ocampo, had earlier indicated that he would prosecute those responsible if deadly violence broke out in Cote d’Ivoire after its disputed election.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 30 2010 (IPS)

Who is responsible for stalling reform of the U.N. Security Council? The exclusive club of five nuclear-armed industrialised countries, or those from the developing world who have little say in decision-making on issues of international peace and security?

The U.N. Secretariat building in New York gets a facelift, even as the future of more profound institutional changes remains uncertain. Credit: Haider Rizvi/IPS

“This is not going to happen in my lifetime,” said an Asian diplomat about the long-awaited reforms. Standing next to him at an art exhibition, a European envoy told IPS, “The ambassador is right. This process will take a long time.”

The two ambassadors told IPS they wanted to see speedy action towards reforms, even though their countries had no interest in gaining a permanent seat on the Council when and if its membership is extended to others.

Like the vast majority of delegates who took part in recent U.N. discussions on reforms, they seem to think that the Council has lost its credibility as the guardian of world peace and security because it is not functioning as a representative and democratic institution.

Since the world body’s 192-member General Assembly initiated a debate on the future shape and size of the Council more than a decade ago, some powerful nations from both the global South and the North have repeatedly argued that it was their right to be permanent members.

Currently, the 15-member Council is composed of five permanent and 10 rotating members who are elected every two years. The five permanent members (P5) are the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China. Not only do they hold veto power, but also possess thousands of nuclear weapons.

The major contenders for permanent seats from the industrialised world, such as Germany and Japan, say they deserve to be part of the world body’s most powerful organ because they are leading donors.

The emerging powers from the developing world like India, Brazil and South Africa, among others, present their case on different grounds. Their arguments for permanent seats are largely based on population, share of the global economy, and regional representation.

Critics say the Council, established in 1945, does not reflect the realities of today’s world, which demand democracy, transparency and equality among U.N. member states. For example, there is not a single permanent member representing Africa or Latin America. From Asia, the only developing country that represents that continent is China, not India.

Considering India’s population, which is estimated to be more than one billion, and its growing economic power, U.S. President Barack Obama recently said he would support that nation’s candidacy for the permanent membership. His statement proved to be a catalyst in intensifying the call for reforms, but added nothing to finding an effective way to achieve this goal.

Despite their unanimous view that restructuring the Council is a must, developing nations remain divided in their views on how large the Council should be and who deserves to be part of the permanent membership when and if it is actually expanded.

For example, Pakistan objects to India’s candidacy, China does not want Japan to be a permanent member, Italy opposes Germany, and Mexico and Colombia have no sympathy for Brazil. Some smaller nations, such as Cuba, denounce the veto power on principle, and call for either the new permanent members from the developing world to be endowed with it or for no member to have it at all.

Like the Asian ambassador who did not want to be named, James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, who has been keeping a keen eye on U.N.-related issues for years, thinks that possible expansion of permanent membership of the Council would complicate issues of peace and security rather than solving them in an effective manner.

“More permanent membership will not be effective, because more states [in the Council] will block action to serve their own interests,” he told IPS, citing India’s example as being a country that has half a million troops stationed in Kashmir, a Himalayan territory that has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan and sparked three wars in the past half century.

Paul seems to agree with those who think that perhaps adding more permanent members from the developing world could make the Council more effective – but only if the P5 are stripped of their status as veto-holding powers. At the same time, he believes that developing countries will only get permanent membership with the support of the P5 if they abandon their claim on veto power.

“It’s an exclusive club,” said Paul about the P5. “They don’t want any more members in the club. There can be an agreement [with major developing countries], but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”

The reform process requires not only the approval of the P5, but also the support of two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly. In the case of the United States, two-thirds of the Congress also must vote for such a measure to endorse the U.S. position on reforms.

So how then is the Security Council going to evolve?

“This is a sensitive issue,” Afghan ambassador Zahir Tanin, who has been re-elected as chair of the U.N. talks on Security Council reform, told IPS. “We are trying to bring all the stakeholders together. This process might look slow from the outside, but I clearly see some progress.”

In his view, despite all the complications, the discussion on reforms is moving ahead, albeit very slowly. “Now we have a draft text for negotiations. It’s not everything, but for the first time it’s there,” he said. “It’s easy to be pessimistic.”

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 10 2010 (IPS)

Disappointed with the outcome of the most recent informal talks with Morocco, the pro-independence leaders of Western Sahara are calling for the U.N. to take action against what they describe as Rabat’s “unprovoked military aggression” against their people.

“It’s necessary for the Security Council to protect innocent civilians and set up an inquiry commission,” the pro- independence Polisario Front leader, Khadad Mhamed, told IPS at the end of the third round of inconclusive talks with the Moroccan delegation held in a small town near New York.

The informal talks on the future of Western Sahara began last Sunday amid reports of deadly clashes between the Moroccan security forces and Saharan protesters which left several people dead and hundreds of injured on both sides.

At least 11 Saharans lost their lives as a result of Moroccan crackdown on a peaceful rally early this week, according to Polisario Front. The Moroccan government says six members of its security forces also died in the action.

“We are concerned about the violence,” said Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary-General, who added in response to a question that the Security Council would not take any action unless there was “accurate information” about the incidents of violence in Western Sahara. “They are waiting,” he said.

The Polisario leaders who took part in the U.N.-mediated informal negotiations accused Morocco of using its muscle against peaceful demonstrators with the aim of diverting the international community’s attention from the real issue, which is the independence of Western Sahara.

“It’s a very clear message from Morocco. They killed our people. They are telling us: We don’t care about you. We will do what is in our interests,” said Mhamed, reflecting on the mood of Moroccan delegates at the talks mediated by Christopher Ross, the U.N. special envoy for the Western Sahara.

According to Mhamed, there were two main proposals on the negotiating table. One of those was about the right of self- determination. The other focused on the question of a possible referendum that could decide whether a majority of the people in the disputed territory wanted independence or integration.

Western Sahara is the last decolonisation case in Africa, and has been on the U.N. list of Non-Self Governing territories since 1963 when it was under Spanish colonial rule. Saharans lost much of their territory as a result of the Moroccan invasion in 1976.

Saharans argue that the Moroccan occupation is in violation of numerous U.N. resolutions as well as the 1975 ruling of the International Court of Justice that affirmed their right to self-determination.

Following the court’s decision, Spain was due to organise a referendum, but failed to do so as Morocco deployed its army in Western Sahara. In response, the Saharans established a resistance group known as Polisario in 1976. In 1991, the U.N. Security Council devised a plan to end fighting between the two sides and a free and fair referendum on self- determination in which Saharans would choose between independence and integration. The plan never worked.

There are more than 100,000 Saharans who are currently living in refugee camps in Algeria. U.N. officials responsible for monitoring human rights violations acknowledge in their reports that the question of human rights abuses is derived from the fact that the right to self-determination of the people of Western Sahara has not been accepted.

At the end of the talks, the Moroccan Foreign Minister Taib Fassi Fihri, said his country was “ready and open to these negotiations”, but dismissed calls in support of a referendum that would give multiple options to Saharans, including independence from Moroccan rule.

The Moroccan foreign minister dubbed Polisario’s quest for independence as “outdated”, and said that self-determination does not necessarily go through this mechanism which is rarely used in practice. He reiterated Moroccan position that the solution to settle the issue of Western Sahara requires “compromise and realism”.

For their part, the Polisario Front leaders held that they would never compromise on their demand for independence, although they had no objection to a referendum in which people could be asked whether they wanted an autonomous status in Morocco or complete independence. “We are ready to accept all Moroccan interests. We are open-minded. Ours is a very democratic position,” said Mhamed.

Both sides expressed their confidence in the mediator’s efforts to bring them to the negotiating table and agreed to hold two more rounds of talks in December and January 2011. “Ross tried to push for the negotiations to next level, but the problem lies with the Security Council and the secretary-general,” said Mhamed. “So far, there is not a single word from the Security Council or the secretary- general on this issue.”

In the past, Saharan leaders repeatedly pointed to France as one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council that backs Morocco’s claim over Western Sahara, and that exerted its influence on the Council members who enjoy veto power.

Mhamed said the Moroccans were unwilling to leave Western Sahara because it was extremely rich with natural resources, such as phosphate, uranium, gold, and diamond.

“It’s all about minerals,” he said. “They are our neighbours. We will not ask them for any compensation. But we will not compromise on independence.”

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 19 2010 (IPS)

The United Nations’ role in rebuilding Haiti is again being questioned days after peacekeepers clashed with a group of activists protesting the renewal of the 12,000-member U.N. military and police force near the Haitian capital of Port-au- Prince.

Reports from Haiti suggest that most of the demonstrators had come from the post-earthquake camps that still dominate the capital. They raised anti-U.N. slogans at the Oct. 15 rally. Despite being peaceful, many of them were reportedly roughed up by both the U.N. and the Haitian police.

“The U.N. should prioritise helping people in Haiti,” said Dan Beeton of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Its peacekeeping mission should work with Internally Displaced People (IDP) and others and aid them in rebuilding their communities.”

The protest in Port-au-Prince was organised by a group of democracy activists in opposition to a Security Council resolution last Thursday that renewed the U.N. Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, also known as MINUSTAH.

The U.N. mission in Haiti has been in place since the 2004 ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which was backed by the previous U.S. administration led by President George W. Bush.

Eyewitnesses say Haitian police used rifle butts to beat demonstrators and journalists, including some foreign correspondents. One report said a policeman smashed his rifle into the mouth of a demonstrator from the Kanarin camp, knocking out his front teeth.

A statement from the legal aid group Bureau des Avocats Internationaux criticised the U.N. role and said money is being “wasted on the mission”, which it called “ineffective”. The group said protesters want “real assistance, not the renewal of … an occupying military force”.

The U.N. has allocated about $380 million for the mission this year.

In July 2005, U.N. soldiers in Haiti also operated in aggressive manner against democracy activists, dubbing them “gangsters”, especially those who represented the poor and downtrodden. In that incident, U.N. troops used helicopters, tanks, machine guns and tear gas against peaceful residents.

The recent use of force against civilians occurred as Haitians are preparing to go to polls to elect a new government next month. Observers say many people in Haiti are sceptical about the interim government’s posture on neutrality because 28 political parties have been excluded from the contest, notably the highly popular Lavalas party of former president Aristide, currently in exile in South Africa.

The U.N. Security Council resolution passed last week called on the Haitian government to ensure “credible and legitimate presidential elections”, which are due on Nov. 28. It also calls on Haitian authorities to take necessary steps to improve judicial system and address the issue of prolonged detentions.

Observers say the way the U.N. cooperates with the Haitian police often results in aggressive acts against opposition activists.

The U.N. peacekeeping force is not doing what it is supposed to do, said Beeton, noting that the peacekeeping force is mandated “to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence”, and “support …Haitian human rights institutions and groups in their efforts to promote and protect human rights; and to monitor and report on the human rights situation in the country.”

Many people in Haiti think the U.N. peacekeeping mission is an occupying force “costing millions but doing little to ensure the security of the general population,” he said.

Asked about the U.N. troops’ clashes with Haitian activists, U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq told IPS, “We stand by the right of the people to peacefully protest.” Pressed to explain why in the past, and as recently as last Friday, the U.N. peacekeepers reportedly cracked down violently against civilians, he said that, “Peacekeepers are trained to handle the situation in a peaceful manner.”

To Beeton, that is not true. “The U.N. should actually protect people’s human rights instead of violating them, as happened on Oct. 15. It should start prioritising prevention of rape and gender-based violence in the IDP camps,” he said.

Meanwhile, a group of U.S. lawmakers have also voiced concern about the Barack Obama administration’s vague policy towards Haiti.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 45 members of Congress questioned the credibility of the upcoming elections, particularly in light of the exclusion of more than a dozen parties, which they said “will undermine both Haitians’ right to vote and the resulting government’s ability to govern”.

“We call on you to make a clear statement that elections must include all eligible political parties and ready access to voting for all Haitians, including the displaced. The United States government should also state unequivocally that it will not provide funding for elections that do not meet these minimum, basic democratic requirements,” the letter said.

It stressed that Haiti needed a strong, representative government in the wake of January’s disaster which left a million and a half people homeless and more than 200,000 dead.

Beeton says he feels no less troubled by the current administration’s policy towards Haiti than what had happened in 2004, when Aristide was deposed in a coup.

“Why is the U.S. funding these elections when they are so clearly deeply flawed?” he asked. “Voting access looks to be a major hurdle which neither the Haitian government nor the international community seems ready to address.”

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 11 2010 (IPS)

For more than two decades, he has served world leaders and diplomats who wined and dined here at United Nations headquarters in New York. Today, he is unsure how much longer he will be able to put food on his own table at home.

“We have been working here for so many years, but now they want to kick us out. This is not fair. We have families,” said Syed Hussain, 54, who hails from Bangladesh and has worked at the delegates’ dining room since 1988.

Hussain and his colleagues told IPS that all of them – nearly 100 – were worried about losing their jobs because Aramark, the private food company they work for, has decided to close down its operations at U.N. headquarters.

In May 2009, Aramark sent a letter to its employees indicating that it would no longer need their services after Aug. 10, 2010 when the U.N. started implementing its Capital Master Plan (CMP) to renovate the secretariat building, a landmark structure in midtown Manhattan, which was built between 1950 and 1952. It now appears that the workers will be laid off by the end of October.

The U.N. complex sits on more than 17 acres and includes six buildings totaling about 2.6 million square feet. The renovation work is due to be completed by 2013. Since last December, when the renovation started, some 6,000 UN employees have been relocated to other buildings.

The relocation has not only caused job losses for long-time workers like Hussain, but also made it hard for the staff and delegates to mingle with each other to exchange ideas about world affairs at lunch or dinner tables at a common and convenient place.

“It’s no longer the United Nations. It’s the dis-United Nations,” remarked journalist Dogan Uluc. “It takes me more than 15 minutes from my office to walk all the way to a conference room in the new building. This is ridiculous. It’s lousy planning.”

Some critics have argued that the renovation is being used as a pretext to curb media access to delegates and Security Council members, and is also a veritable smokescreen to tighten restrictions on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) accredited to the world body.

In a hard-hitting letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in April, the NGO Working Group on U.N. Access complained that “the temporary arrangements, as part of the Capital Master Plan, are creating additional access problems and significantly reducing space for NGO participation.”

In contrast, the plight of contract workers at the U.N., like those in the cafeteria, has been largely unnoticed.

Asked to explain why the architects of the so-called Capital Master Plan failed to take into consideration the negative impact on the professional and personal lives of the people who work at the U.N. compound, a CMP official referred IPS to Central Management Services (CMS), which signed the contract with Aramark. CMS officials did not respond to requests for comment on the loss of jobs for the delegates’ dining room workers.

Jolio Mayata, who has worked there for more than 10 years, is worried. “The management is closing it down because they think they would lose business. But something must be done about it. For so many years, it has never been closed, not even during 9/11,” he said.

Mir Wazid, a shop steward, added: “They (Aramark) say they are going to lose the business. Everybody is out of a job these days. If we are out of job, there will be no health insurance for us. The U.N. talks about human rights. Where are our human rights in this place?”

Manowar Khan, who has been working at the delegates’ dining room since 1988, expressed similar concerns about U.N. officials’ seeming inability to persuade Aramark to provide job security to its employees.

“The U.N. donates money all over the world, but here nobody cares for us. If they can’t solve this internal problem, how can they claim to be solving the world’s problems? The Fifth committee must take stern action to save our jobs. After all, we have served its members for so long,” he said.

The Fifth Committee of the U.N. General Assembly is responsible for the world body’s administration and budgetary matters.

Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said U.N. officials fully support the rights of the dining room staff. “It’s Aramark which makes decisions [about hiring and firing]. We don’t. But we are trying to tell them that they should keep their staff,” he said.

Like Haq, an official of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which is part of the U.N. system, expressed sympathy for the workers, but requested that his name not be used.

“We hope the catering company would follow the ILO rules,” he said in response to a question about whether or not the ILO rules apply to workers who serve U.N. staff members and diplomats. “We would like to see the contracts between the U.N. and the catering company to be honoured.”

When approached by this correspondent, the company’s general manager, Ron Beck, first agreed to an interview in person, but later backtracked, saying: “I am not allowed to speak to you.”

However, he confirmed that his company was ready to lay off its workers by the end of this month.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK, Sep 16 2010 (IPS)

Many of those who have lost their jobs and homes in the United States due to the lingering economic recession are ending up in jail, according to a new study released by an independent think tank Thursday.

There is a strong link between poverty and incarceration in the United states, according to the report, “Money Well Spent: How positive social investments will reduce incarceration rates”, by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI).

The report’s findings on the relationship between poverty and the justice system suggests that more and more people from poor and low-income communities are being arrested and jailed, even though nationwide, crime rates have fallen.

“What we have seen in this research is that there is less focus on safety for the poor and more on policing and arrests,” Tracy Velázquez, executive director of the Washington-based JPI, told IPS.

The report notes that as prison populations have grown, so too have racial disparities in the justice system.

“This is especially evident in arrest and incarceration patterns for drug offences,” said Sarah Lyons, National Emerson Hunger Fellow and primary author of the report, who added that without adequate funding for social services, it is less likely that people will be able to succeed and avoid contact with the justice system.

Despite comparable usage of illicit drugs, in 2008, African Americans, who make up 12.2 percent of the general population, comprised 44 percent of those incarcerated for drug offences, according to the report.

Researchers say that disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in communities of colour destabilises families and communities and decreases the likelihood of positive outcomes for children and other family members left behind.

Due to the prolonged economic meltdown, many states are now making drastic cuts in funding for social services – such as health, education, and public housing – but not on policing and prison improvement and expansion.

There are nearly two million people behind bars in the U.S., most poor whites and people of colour, making the United States the number one country in the world in terms of the imprisonment rate.

The report notes that about 16 percent of incarcerated people also experienced homelessness before being arrested.

“Most of these people are significantly more likely to have both a mental illness and a substance addiction, which frequently go untreated,” said Nastassia Walsh of JPI. She said that states with higher high school graduation rates and college enrollment have lower crime rates than those with lower educational attainment levels.

The JPI study points out that the stress of living in poverty is a “risk factor” for experiencing mental health problems, and that many people who want treatment can’t afford it.

“More than 50 percent people in prisons are suffering from mental illness of some kind,” said Walsh, who holds that increased investment in mental health and substance abuse treatment can improve public safety and reduce criminal justice involvement.

According to the study’s findings, investments in job training and employment have been associated with heightened public safety. Youth who are employed are more likely to avoid justice involvement. In addition, people who are incarcerated are more likely to report having had extended periods of unemployment and lower wages than people in the general population.

“It’s time for our elected officials to realise that creating safe, healthy communities is a better investment in our country’s future than more prison beds,” stated Velázquez. “Low-income communities and people of colour are bearing the brunt of this recession, as well as of our policies that have led to mass incarceration.”

“By shifting our priorities, we can reduce these disproportionate impacts and make a real difference, especially for our country’s children and families,” she said.

More funding for affordable housing, education and employment could help turn around the lives of people struggling with homelessness, including children and youth, who are particularly affected by lack of housing, the report says.

‘It’s a question of where we choose to spend our money,” said Velázquez. “Until we quit funneling tax dollars into prisons and policing practices that sweep large numbers of people into the system — many of whom pose little risk to public safety — we should not be surprised to see incarceration rates continue to climb.”

Last year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed similar concerns about the lack of progress to end racial discrimination in the U.S. criminal justice system and urged Washington to take practical actions to end unjust police actions against the poor and minorities.

The international body documented a number of cases that showed that police officials in many cities were not only engaged in acts that violated the U.S. constitution, but also the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

The report’s authors urged the U.S. government to take actions to comply with that international human rights treaty.

Excerpt:

By Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK, Sep 12 2010 (IPS)

If you think that most citizens of the United States are racist or anti-Muslim, perhaps you have been relying too much on television news , especially the shows produced by the private networks in the United States.

Women rally in support of Park51, which describes itself as a "nonsectarian community, cultural and interfaith spiritual center". Credit: Greg Butterfield/IPS

Among them were Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, atheists, communists, anarchists, and, of course, Muslim men and women, who marched in the streets near the site where the World Trade Centre towers once stood.

“You see, this is New York. You saw that demonstration, and you saw this one too,” said Saeed Shabazz, a long-time observer of U.S. domestic politics who covers the United Nations for the Final Call weekly newspaper. He was referring to a second, nearby gathering Saturday opposing the widely-publicised plan to build an Islamic community centre, known as Park51, near the fallen World Trade Centre towers site.

“That rally is nothing compared to this one, I mean in terms of numbers,” Shabazz said.

Those who opposed Park51 – arguing that the location of the centre showed insensitivity – came out in the hundreds. The New Yorkers who supported Park51, following a call by the International Action Center that was joined by scores of groups, turned out in the thousands.

The police kept the rallies at a distance, but failed to prevent participants from shouting at each other, with people on both sides arguing loudly in favour of and against the centre.

“No mosque here. No mosque here,” chanted the latter crowd, an overwhelming majority of them white.

A few blocks away, demonstrators of all ethnic and religious backgrounds chanted slogans against racism.

“We want jobs and justice in this country, not racism and war,” said Ibrahim, who is in his 20s. “The real way to end war in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere demands nothing but peace.”

But for 52-year-old Samantha, who is not originally from New York, that line of reasoning is unacceptable. “If the powers behind this centre want to build a mosque, they should move somewhere else,” she said. Asked if she had lost any family member during 9/11 attacks, she said “no”.

In Shabazz’s view, the movement against the centre is a sign that fomenting racism and fear is still a strategy of the political elites in the United States.

The centre has been opposed by conservative Republicans such as Sarah Palin, Rick Lazio, and Newt Gingrich, who had agreed to speak at Saturday’s anti-Park51 rally but later pulled out.

“This is definitely related to the upcoming election campaign,” Shabazz said, referring to the Republicans’ bid to win back the House of Representatives and the Senate, which they lost to the Democrats in the 2008 elections.

Among others, the anti-Park51 rally was addressed by the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and far-right Republican leader John Bolton, and Geert Wilders, a conservative politician from the Netherlands who believes that Islam is comparable with fascism.

The demonstrations took place amid reports that a Florida pastor, Terry Jones, might or might not carry out his plan to burn copies of Quran, the holy book of Muslims, whose faith is embraced by more than 1.5 billion people across the world.

For their part, both U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned Jones’s threat to burn the Quran. The U.N. said such an act would be “abhorrent”. Under tremendous pressure from the U.S. government, the pastor indicated Friday that he would not burn the holy book.

The U.N. has been hesitant, however, to wade into the fray over the community centre, although the world body has long championed building bridges among different faiths and religions.

“It’s a local issue,” Marc Scheuer of the U.N. Alliance of Civilisations told IPS at the first anti-community centre rally last week. “We cannot dictate what the practical outcome should be.”

He said the U.N. is not part of this controversy, but added, “This debate should not be abused.”

The Alliance was formed by the former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to explore the roots of polarisation between societies and cultures, and to recommend a practical programme of action to address this issue.

Under the Obama administration, as a member state of the U.N., the U.S. has become part of the Alliance.

Scheuer said religious leaders should come together to reduce tensions and suggest alternative solutions and urged the media to introduce “what we call the third voice in a polarised debate”.

But some watchdog groups argue that to a large extent the media itself is to blame for growing inter-faith hostility in the United States and beyond its borders.

“It’s largely a media story,” said Steve Randall, a senior researcher at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a media watchdog in New York, about the lingering controversy over Park51.

“Watch the CNN and Fox [TV],” he said. “There is anti-Arab Islamophobia in the U.S. media.”

Does it have something to do with the upcoming election? “Absolutely,” he replied. “That is why they are adopting the language of hatred.”

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