RESTORING ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE UNITED NATIONS

For the first time in its six decades of existence, the United Nations\' internal system of administrative justice has been significantly reformed, writes Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, a member of the Redesign Panel on the United Nations System of Administration of Justice. The author writes that in the new system, independent judges with legal training and real judicial powers will review and issue decisions that are binding even on the Secretary-General, who was previously considered essentially above UN administrative law. Justice - including alternative methods of dispute resolution such as mediation -- will be accessible not just for UN staff in New York, Geneva, and Vienna, but also personnel in far-flung field outposts. There is still some distance to travel before the new system formally comes into effect in early 2009. But perhaps the innovative reforms will ultimately help create the culture of accountability in the UN that is so necessary if the organisation is to attract stronger political support. In addition, without this kind of reform, it might be impossible to achieve others - including restructuring the Security Council in a manner that reflects the realities of the 21st century rather than those of 1945.

THE DANGERS OF GOOD INTENTIONS

Respect for the ways that other peoples think is an important issue and vital to designing strategies of communication. For it to be effective, the language, symbols, and logic of a message must be aligned with the world vision, beliefs, attitudes, and practices of the population you are trying to communicate with, writes Leticia Artiles, a Cuban anthropologist and co-ordinator of the Latin American Network of Gender and Collective Health of the Latin American Association of Social Medicine. In this article, the author writes that approaches to communication of western organisations trying to reach non-western cultures are still based on the concepts, designs, and advancement of particular groups and fail to include the \'\'real\'\' thinking of the \'\'other\'\' that they are trying to affect. Programmes that do not consider context, location, and gender relations will always miss their target. In this \'\'global\'\' world where the market and consumption cuts across everything, where foundations and financial organisations put together the funding for intercultural projects to improve the conditions and quality of life of these groups, we should remember that \'\'the road to hell is paved with good intentions\'\'.

BEYOND GDP: MEASURING REAL NATIONAL PROGRESS

Will the 27 nations of the EU be the first to adopt a new GDP that can integrate all the factors that comprise our quality of life? asks Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy and other books, co-creator of the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators with the Calvert Group and member of the Organizing Committee for the \'\'Beyond GDP\'\' conference in the European Parliament, November 19-20 in Brussels. In this article, Henderson writes that GDP ignores all non money- measured aspects of national progress and even tacitly encourages bad behaviour. For example, since ecological assets like forests and ocean fish stocks are not valued in GDP, a country could chop down its forests and record the sale of the wood as an addition to GDP with no losses recorded anywhere. Similarly, GDP treats education as a cost, instead of the basic investment societies make in developing educated, productive citizens. GDP still sets at zero the value of vital ecological assets: clean air, water and biodiversity, as well as the value of healthy, productive citizens and their unpaid work (raising children, maintaining households, caring for the sick and elderly, serving as volunteers, etc.) which accounts for some 50 percent of all production, even in industrial societies.

Malaria Winning in Chocó

Malaria has taken hold in the Colombian department of Chocó and across almost the entire country, which will not meet the international goal of halving the disease by 2010.

The Fight to Put Forestry Law in Action

Who will draw up the standards for the recently passed Honduran forestry law and how it will be done are key questions for the fate of the country's forests, say environmentalists.

Ecobreves – MEXICO: Environmental Observatory by Year's End

Lawyers hired by non-governmental organizations will begin in December to keep a close eye on Mexico's environmental authorities to stop any irregular activity.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Ethanol Bus Rolls in Sao Paulo

In December, Sao Paulo will put in circulation the first bus run exclusively on ethanol, for a one-year test run.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Colombia Supports Biodiesel Production

The Colombian government is opening a biodiesel processing plant in the northern Honduran region of Sinaloa, Honduran Deputy Agriculture Minister Nehemías Martínez told Tierramérica.

Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Government to Shut Down Dump

After five days of protests outside the Punta Lara dump, south of La Plata, the Argentine government promised on Oct. 23 to comply in December with the judicial mandate to close the facility.

THE RISE OF CUBAN CIVIL SOCIETY

It is almost impossible to understand Cuba without examining the dynamics of Cuban civil society, writes Rafael Hernandez, a political analyst, editor of the journal Temas, and researcher at the Juan Marinello Institute in Havana. His latest book is The History of Havana. In this article, the author writes that in the early 1990s the island was struck by a perfect storm of accumulated domestic problems, the collapse of the socialist bloc, and reform. This created a whole new constellation of problems that rose from the bottom of Cuban society. The new situation unleashed an array individual and family strategies -- self-employment, economic emigration, remittances from abroad from family members, the search for employment in the dollar sector-- which competed with the established collective approaches. Although there was no movement beyond the centralised system, the crisis did spur the use of more decentralised mechanisms which in turn reactivated the community. The neighbourhood and its social and family networks, formal and informal organisations, and religious associations helped to repair housing, care for elderly pensioners, preserve hygiene, and provide scarce medication, accessible food, and spiritual support. In the vortex of this storm, Cuban civil society appeared in a new light.

GLOBALISATION: NEW CHALLENGES OF AN ANCIENT PHENOMENON

It is a commonplace today to say that the policies of President Bush have resulted in total disaster both domestically and abroad. This is the opinion not only outside of the country but also of a sizeable majority of Americans as well, writes Mario Soares, former President and former Prime Minister of Portugal. In this analysis, Soares writes that meanwhile, the planet is in the grips of accelerating change. The nine emerging countries, in particular the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) represent uncontrollable forces in the context of the international order, which rapidly shifted from bi-polar to uni-polar and is now on the way to a multi-polar arrangement. This is the reality that the West must now accept if it wants to contribute to the establishment of a new global order. To achieve this, there must first be a restructuring of the UN to make it more democratic and more capable of intervening to address the major challenges facing humanity: addressing threats to the health of the planet, the eradication of poverty, fighting organised crime at the global level, regulating and guiding globalisation, and in general bringing about a system marked by greater justice, equality, and solidarity such that the future is more human and less fraught with conflict.

Ecobreves – CHILE: Call to Cut Calories in Flavored Milks

The Chilean consumer group ODECU is urging companies that make flavored milks to reduce the calories of those products, and pushing for a law requiring labeling foods with the colors of a traffic light.

Ecobreves – CUBA: Insufficient Showers

- The persistent and in some cases torrential rains that thrashed Cuba's eastern provinces in recent weeks do not mean an end to the drought there or other regions of the country -- thought they did benefit agriculture.

Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: African Snail Attacks Local Flora

The giant African land snail (Achatina fulica), first found in Venezuela a decade ago, is devouring leaves and fruits in gardens and small farm plots in Aragua, in the north, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Venezuelan Diamonds Under the Microscope

In November, the Venezuelan government will report to an intergovernmental entity about the controls used to regulate diamond mining.

“We Must Seek Alternatives to the Aysén Dams”

The government should hire consultants to audit the dams and environmental projects, says Chilean Fernando Avila, expert in corporate environmental responsibility.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Farm Prices Push Deforestation

The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon slowed nearly 50 percent in the last three years, but that trend has been reversed according to a new report.

WHY A WTO DEAL MATTERS

The Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations are in much the same place that they were last fall. The central issues keeping the talks at a stalemate continue to be the lowering of agricultural subsidies by developed countries and the reduction of industrial tariffs by developing countries. This type of headline we have read during each of the last few years, and some observers argue that multilateral trade negotiation are not that important after all. World trade is growing anyway, economic growth is strong and tariffs on industrial goods in the developed world are already fairly low, writes Mats Hellström, former Minister of Trade and Agriculture of Sweden But the Doha Round does matter - for two reasons. First; when the rules are not adapted to new circumstances, protectionism takes new forms. In particular subsidies harmful to consumers and taxpayers proliferate and expand to new fields. Second, there is an even stronger reason for wishing the Doha Round to succeed. Since the mid-nineties there has been a dramatic change in the structure of world trade. All through modern times before that, the bulk of trade has flowed to and from and between North America and Europe. Africa, Latin America and Asia have been peripheries in this sense. Totally new is, that there is now a critical mass for South-South and East-East trade.

POLITICAL LANDSCAPE OF ARGENTINA ABOUT TO CHANGE

If Argentina\'s October 28 presidential elections come off the way the polls indicate, the political reality of the country as of 2008 will be sharply different from what we see in the current campaigns, writes Horacio Verbitsky, Argentine journalist and writer, president of the Centre for Social and Legal Studies (CELS), and author of Robo para la corona, El vuelo, and other books. In this analysis, Verbitsky writes that Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK), as president, and right-wing Mauricio Macri, as opposition leader, will emerge as the defining poles of the political system, while three of the other current candidates -Roberto Lavagna, Elisa Carrio, and Ricardo Lopez Murphy- will fade from the scene. The historical radical and justicialist parties will give way to the PRO of Macri and the Victory Front, which supports current president Nestor Kirchner and is backing CFK, his wife, in the election. Polls show CFK winning with 39 to 55 percent of the votes, leading the runner up by no less than thirty points. Macri was elected governor of the Federal Capital on June 24 with a 61 percent majority. After this overwhelming victory, he ignored pressure to run in this election but did not hide the fact he is preparing to run in 2011. He is the big missing factor in this campaign, but after the elections he will emerge as the primary non-Kirchnerian political figure. The system imagined by the government with a centre-left force opposed to a centre-right seems about to come into existence as none of the political leaders of the last quarter-century are still viable.

Ecobreves – HONDURAS: Pact for Olancho Forest

Timber businesses and environmental groups in the northeastern Honduran department (province) of Olancho announced Oct. 8 that they had agreed on a pact for forestry management, under military supervision, of the Telica River Basin.

Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Banana Pest Genome Deciphered

The Brazilian agricultural research agency EMBRAPA completed, along with U.S., French, Dutch and Mexican institutions, the sequencing of the 11,000 genes of the fungus that causes black sigatoka, which plagues banana plantations around the world.