A young boy stands near mangroves planted near his home in the village of Entale in Sri Lanka’s northwest Puttalam District. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 2017 (IPS)

Children growing up in the Seychelles think of the ocean as their backyard, says Ronald Jean Jumeau, Seychelles’ ambassador for climate change.

“Our ocean is the first and eternal playground of our children, they don’t go to parks they go to the ocean, they go to the beach, they go to the coral reefs, and all that is just collapsing around them,” Jumeau told IPS.

The tiny country off the East Coast of Africa is one of 39 UN member states known as small island states, or as Jumeau likes to call them: “large ocean states.”

Ambassadors and delegations from these 39 countries often speak at UN headquarters in New York steadfastly sounding the alarm about the changes to the world’s environment they are witnessing first hand. Jumeau sees these island states as sentinels or guardians of the oceans. He prefers these names to being called the canary in the gold mine because, he says: “the canaries usually end up dead.”

Yet while much is known about the threats rising oceans pose to the world’s small island states, much less is known about how these large ocean states help defend everyone against the worst impacts of climate change by storing “blue carbon.”

“We are not emitting that much carbon dioxide but we are taking everyone else’s carbon dioxide into our oceans,” says Jumeau.

Despite decades of research, the blue carbon value of oceans and coastal regions is only beginning to be fully appreciated for its importance in the fight against climate change.

“There’s proof that mangroves, seas salt marshes and sea grasses absorb more carbon (per acre) than forests, so if you’re saying then to people ‘don’t cut trees’ than we should also be saying ‘don’t cut the underwater forests’,” says Jumeau.

This is just one of the reasons why the Seychelles has banned the clearing of mangroves. The temptation to fill in mangrove forests is high, especially for a nation with so little land, but Jumeau says there are many benefits to sustaining them.

As well as absorbing carbon, mangroves guard against erosion and protect coral reefs. They also provide nurseries for fish.

Its not just coastal forests that take carbon out of the atmosphere. Oceans themselves also absorb carbon, although according to NASA their role is more like inhaling and exhaling.

The Seychelles, whose total ocean territory is 3000 times larger than its islands, is also thinking about how it can protect the ocean so it can continue to perform this vital function.

The nation plans to designate specific navigation zones within its territories to allow other parts of the ocean a chance to recover from the strains associated with shipping.

The navigation zones will “relieve the pressure on the ocean by strengthening the resilience of the oceans to absorb more carbon dioxide and ocean acidification,” says Jumeau. He acknowledges the plan will only work if all countries do the same but says you have to start somewhere.

Fortunately other countries are also, finally, beginning to recognise the importance of protecting the world’s oceans.

Isabella Lövin, Sweden’s deputy prime minister and climate minister told IPS that the world is going “in the totally wrong direction,” when it comes to achieving the goal of sustainable oceans and life below water.

“If you look at the trends right now, you see more and more overfishing, we are seeing more and more pollution, plastic litter coming into our oceans, and we’re also seeing all the stress that the ocean is under due to climate change, acidification of the water, but also the warming and sea level rises.

“All of this is putting a tremendous, tremendous pressure on our oceans,” said Lövin.

Together with Fiji, Sweden is convening a major UN Ocean Conference in June this year.

The conference aims to bring together not only governments but also the private sector and non-governmental organisations to create a more coordinated approach to sustaining oceans. It will look at the key role that oceans play in climate change but also other issues such as the alarming prospect that there will be more plastic in our seas than fish by the year 2050.

“There’s 3 billion people around the world that are primarily dependent on marine resources for their survival and so they depend on what the ocean can produce, so it’s about food security, it’s also about livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people that depend on small scale fisheries mostly in developing countries,” said Lövin.

Lövin also noted that rich countries need to work together with developing countries to address these issues, because the demand for fish in rich countries has put a strain on the global fish stocks that developing countries rely on.

“Rich countries … have been over-fishing with industrial methods for decades and now when they European oceans are being emptied more or less we have depleted our resources and then we import and we fish (over long distances in) developing countries’ waters.”

“We need to make sure that fish as a resource is conserved and protected for future generations.”

Excerpt:

UN Secretary-General Anto—nio Guterres with Olof Skoog of Sweden, President of the UN Security Council for the month of January Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas.

By Andy Hazel and Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 6 2017 (IPS)

Five of the UN Security Council’s 15 seats were filled by new members this week, but a bigger shift in the council is expected later this month under the new US administration.

Sweden, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and Italy replaced outgoing non-permanent members Spain, Malaysia, New Zealand, Angola and Venezuela.

They will join the other five non-permanent members – Japan, Egypt, Senegal, Ukraine and Uruguay – as well as the five permanent members of the council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The council’s five permanent members are considered to be the most powerful, since they hold the ability to veto any vote they disagree with.

This is why the change in the United States administration may signal a greater political shift in the council than the rotation of non-permanent members.

The possible change was foreshadowed by President-elect Trump in December following a controversial vote on Israeli settlements.

The United States took the surprise decision to abstain from the vote condemning Israeli settlements in the disputed territory of the West Bank, rather than using its veto power.

“As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th,” Trump tweeted shortly after the vote took place.

US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power – a member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet – defended the abstention saying, “Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 undermines Israel’s security, harms the viability of a negotiated two-state outcome, and erodes prospects for peace and stability in the region.”

Power is expected to be replaced by Trump’s pick for the council, Nikki Haley, the current Governor of South Carolina, after Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

However Sweden’s Ambassador to the UN, Olof Skoog downplayed the political implications of the change in US administration for the Security Council.

“I haven’t spoken with anyone from the administration of the President-elect, but I expect that when they come to look at the work we’re doing they’ll see it is in the interests of the United States,” Skoog told journalists on Tuesday.

With January bringing a new US president, a changed Security Council and a new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Skoog said that he hoped to harness this “spirit of newness” to spur momentum into the Council’s work.

However Skoog said he was not expecting particular challenges to the Security Council’s work to come from the incoming US administration, with whom he said he looked forward to collaborating.

Skoog described Power as a strong voice with whom he shares many views. He said he also had a working relationship with Haley, but would not be drawn on possible changes regarding Israeli-Palestinian policy within the council.

Sweden has officially recognised the state of Palestine, putting it at odds with Trump’s pro-Israel stance.

Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said that he hoped Italy could bring the Israel-Palestine conflict “to the forefront of the United Nations’ agenda,” during their month as president in November. Migration from the Middle East and Syria are also expected to be among the issues Italy will prioritise. Italy will be represented by Ambassador Sebastiano Card.

In a new and unusual step, Italy will share its security council seat with the Netherlands due to an impasse vote in the UN General Assembly for the final European seat. Italy will sit on the council in 2016 and the Netherlands in 2017. Gentiloni described the move as “a message of unity between European countries.”

2016 will be the first time that Kazakhstan will sit on the Security Council. The Central Asian country – which is keen to be seen as a major international power – will be represented by the ex-Ambassador to the United States Mr Kairat Umarov.

Kazakhstan – a part of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone – may also bring a different perspective to Security Council discussions on nuclear non-proliferation. President-elect Trump’s comments on nuclear weapons have signalled that this may be an area high on the UN’s agenda in 2017.

Succeeding Venezuela as the Latin American representative, and holding a seat on the Council for the first time since 1979, is Bolivia. The plurinational state is represented by the Sacha Llorenti, a published author who spent two years at the President of Bolivia’s Permanent Assembly for Human Rights and was a minister in the government of Evo Morales.

Llorenti resigned from the ministry in 2011 following a violent police response to protesters marching against the building of a road through the Amazon rainforest. This was not the first time Llorenti was involved in clashes between indigenous populations and infrastructure.

Ethiopia replaces Angola and joins Senegal as an African representative on the Council. Ethiopia has become a major contributor of over 8,000 troops to UN peacekeeping operations. However in 2016, Ethiopia faced political instability within its own borders amid crackdowns on protestors.

In its first month on the council, Sweden has also taken up the rotating position of President. Skoog told press on Tuesday that the council’s priorities for January would include Syria, South Sudan and the Congo.

Skoog also highlighted massive population displacement, diminishing resources and rise of Boko Haram in Lake Chad region as detailed by Oxfam in a report entitled Lake Chad’s Unseen Crisis, which draws parallels between climate change, terrorism and national security.

Emma Watson, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 2016 (IPS)

Achieving gender equality has long been one of the United Nations’ top priorities yet the word feminism has only recently begun to find its way into speeches at UN headquarters.

Croatia’s Vesna Pusic, one of 12 candidates for the post of UN Secretary-General, explained why she thought her feminism made her suitable for the UN’s top job, during a globally televised debate, on 12 July.

“I happen to be a woman, I don’t think this is enough, I happen to be a feminist and I think this is (important),” Pusic said, to applause from the diplomats and UN staff filling the UN General Assembly hall.

Pusic joins other high profile feminists at the UN including British actor Emma Watson, whose September 2014 speech about her own feminism gained worldwide media attention.

More recently, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told UN Women’s Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at a UN meeting in March 2016 that there shouldn’t be such a big reaction every time he uses the word feminist.

“For me, it’s just really obvious. We should be standing up for women’s rights and trying to create more equal societies,” he said.

Perhaps more significant though than these speeches is Sweden’s recent election to the UN Security Council on a feminist foreign policy platform.

Sweden will join the 15-member council for two years in January 2017, the same month that the new Secretary-General will take office. There are hopes that the UN’s ninth Secretary-General, will be the first woman to lead the organisation, with women making up half of the 12 candidates currently under consideration.

“There could be a lot of elements coming together to finally create some momentum for progress,” Jessica Neuwirth, one of the founders and Honorary President of Equality Now told IPS.

Even the number of female candidates running represents a change for the UN, Natalie Samarasinghe, Executive Director of the United Nations Association UK told IPS.

“Not only has no woman ever held the UN’s top job, but just three of 31 formal candidates in previous appointments have been female.”

The push to select a female Secretary-General has seen all candidates, both male and female, eager to show their commitment to gender equality.

Whoever is selected will be continuing on work already started by current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said Neuwirth, who believes that Ban has shown a commitment to gender equality at the UN, even if he may not use the word feminist to describe himself.

“I’m not a person who really lives or dies on the words, I think what people do is really much more important than what they call themselves,” said Neuwirth, who is the director of Donor Direct Action, founded to raise funds for frontline women’s groups.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard (Ban) use the word feminist, definitely not to describe himself,” she added. “On the other hand as somebody who had the privilege of working at the UN during his tenure I did see first hand the efforts he made to increase the representation of women at the UN at the highest levels, he made a very conscious effort to increase those numbers.”

“It’s still not 50:50 and it’s even slid backwards which is disappointing, but he showed that one person can make a big difference.”

Samarasinghe also noted that even if the word feminist is not explicitly used at the UN, its meaning is reflected in the UN’s many objectives for achieving gender equality.

“Feminism is about women and men having equal opportunities and rights – something reaffirmed countless times in UN documents, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights onwards.”

However Samarasinghe noted that the word feminist remains controversial. The UN’s 193 member states include many countries which lag far behind outliers such as Sweden and Canada on gender equality.

“Being a feminist is a complete no-brainer. It’s like having to explain to people that you’re not racist. But clearly the word is still controversial so we have to keep using it until people get it,” she said.

Emma Watson noted in her high profile UN speech, that the word feminist is not as easy to use as it should be.

“I decided that I was a feminist, and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists.”

“Apparently, I’m among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, and anti-men. Unattractive, even,” said Watson.

In late 2015, some media reported that Watson had said she had been advised not to use the word feminist in her speech.

Neuwirth who was present when Watson made her speech told IPS that Watson’s choice of words ultimately had a strong impact.

“That was an incredible event, I mean the level of emotion in that room was so high it was kind of shocking to me.”

“There were so many diplomats there, which was a good thing, and it was just really a powerful speech that she made, and it moved them, you could just see visibly that it moved them,” said Neuwirth.

However since Watson’s speech, progress on gender equality at the UN has not always been easy.

Media organisation PassBlue, which monitors gender equality at the UN, has noted that the number of women appointed to senior UN positions has been slipping.

When Sweden takes up its position on the Security Council, it will have big strides to make on both improving women’s representation in decision making positions at the UN and enacting policies which promote gender equality more broadly.

In fact, it is anticipated that all 15 permanent representatives on the UN Security Council in 2017 will be men, unless the United States chooses a woman to replace Samantha Power, who is expected to leave her post by the end of 2016.

Sweden hopes to use its seat on the Security Council to increase women’s involvement in negotiating and mediating peace agreements, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said at a media briefing hosted by Donor Direct Action on 30 June.

Neuwirth welcomed Wallstrom’s comments, noting that in Syria, for example, women continue to be shut out of peace negotiations.

Syrian women “are trying to play a meaningful role in the negotiations over Syria, which are totally a mess,” she said, “yet these women really just are struggling so hard to get even inside a corridor let alone to the table.”

“Why wouldn’t they just give these women a little more of a chance to see if they could do better, because it would be hard to do worse?”

Italy and the Netherlands have taken the unusual step of splitting the term of a UN Security Council seat. UN Photo/JC McIlwaine.

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 2016 (IPS)

Bolivia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and Sweden were elected on Tuesday to serve on the UN Security Council (UNSC) as non-permanent members, while Italy and Netherlands have split the remaining contested seat.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) met to choose five new non-permanent members who will serve a two-year term starting January 2017 alongside the 15-member council.

As the UN’s most powerful body, the UNSC is responsible for international peace and security matters from imposing sanctions to brokering peace deals to overseeing the world’s 16 peacekeeping missions.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom expressed how “happy” and “proud” Sweden is to be joining the UN’s top decision-making body.

“We will do now what we promised to do,” she told press. Among its priorities, Sweden has pledged to focus on conflict prevention and resolution.

“With 40 conflict and 11 full-blown wars, it is a very very worrisome world that we have to take into account,” Wallstrom stated.

Despite its location in Northern Europe,  Sweden has not been untouched by recent conflicts, including the ongoing civil war in Syria. With a population of 9.5 million, the Scandinavian country took in over 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015. The government has since imposed tougher restrictions on asylum seekers including a decrease in permanent residence permits and limited family reunification authorisations.

Ethiopia has also highlighted its position in promoting regional and continental peace and security. The country is the largest contributor of UN peacekeepers and is actively involved in mediating conflicts in Africa, most recently in South Sudan. It has also long struggled with its own clashes, including a crackdown on political dissent.

The Sub-Saharan African country has also promised to work towards UNSC reforms.

During the 70^th Session of the UNGA in September 2015, Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn remarked that he was “proud” that Ethiopia is one of the UN’s founding members, but stressed the need to reform and establish a permanent seat for Africa in the council.

“Comprehensive reform of the United Nations system, particularly that of the Security Council, is indeed imperative to reflect current geo-political realities and to make the UN more broadly representative, legitimate and effective,” he told delegates.

“We seize this occasion to, once again, echo Africa’s call to be fully represented in all the decision-making organs of the UN, particularly in the Security Council,” Dessalegn continued.

Ethiopia has been a non-permanent member of the UNSC on two previous occasions, in 1967/1968 and 1989/1990.

It will also be the third time that Bolivia will have a non-permanent SC seat. Bolivia campaigned unopposed with the backing of Latin American and Caribbean countries.

“Bolivia is a country that has basic principles…one of those principles is, without a doubt, anti-imperialism,” the Bolivian delegation said following their election, adding that they will continue implementing these principles as a member of the UNSC.

Since the election of Evo Morales, its first indigenous leader, the South American country has largely focused on social reforms and indigenous rights. Most recently, Morales has been reportedly implicated in a political scandal that is threatening journalists and press freedom.

Kazakhstan became the first Central Asian country to be a member of the UNSC after beating Thailand for the seat.

Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov said that he was “very happy” and their selection was a “privilege.” He also reiterated the country’s priority focus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan relinquished its nuclear weapons and has been actively advocating for non-proliferation around the world.

“We have a lot to offer to the world and we believe that it is time to attract attention to the need of development in our part of the world,” Idrissov stated.

However, Human Rights Watch has scrutinized the Central Asian nation’s human rights record, including restrictions on freedom of expression.

Netherlands and Italy were up for the last Western European seat on the UNSC, but after four rounds of voting, they were deadlocked with each country receiving 95 votes while needing 127 to win.

Following deliberations, Italian and Dutch foreign ministers announced that they would split the seat, with Italy in the UNSC in 2017 and the Netherlands in 2018.

Since May, the six countries have been campaigning for council seats by participating in the first-ever election debates in the UN’s 70-year history.

The debates were a part of a new effort to increase transparency in the institution.

The new non-permanent members will work alongside the five veto-wielding permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Following their controversial exit from the European Union, known as “Brexit”, the UK may face an uncertain future in the UNSC as the prospects of Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK loom.

By Jan Lundius
Helsinki, Jan 11 2016 (IPS)

The year 2015 was a sad one for journalists around the world, with approximately 60 journalists killed, more than 200 imprisoned and more than 400 exiled.

In many countries, people speaking up against abuse and violations have a rational fear for their lives and wellbeing. To address this issue, UNESCO and the Government of Finland will co-host a conference on journalists´ safety the week of International Press Freedom Day, 3 May 2016.

The choice of Finland to organize such an event is no mere coincidence. When Reporters Without Borders presented its World Press Freedom Index for 2015, Finland topped the list for the fifth year in a row. And Finland´s government has taken its commitment further by making transparency and information an institutional concern, for example by making broadband access a legal right and easing the way for citizens to participate in the legislative process through online means.

Is freedom of speech determined by culture? And, if so, did cultural forces help mold the Finnish government´s liberal attitude toward press freedom?
Often when rulers silence the media they do it in the name of security or preserving national culture or unity. So is freedom of speech determined by culture? And, if so, did cultural forces help mold the Finnish government´s liberal attitude toward press freedom?

Until 1809, Finland was part of Sweden, a country that in 1766 was the first nation in the world to abolish censorship and guarantee freedom of the press. But after subsequent conquest by the Russian Empire, growing Russian patriotism demanded a closer integration of Finland and, by the end of the 19th century, harsh censorship of the press was introduced. This and other measures, including Russian promotion of the Finnish language as a way to sever the country’s longstanding cultural ties with Sweden, fueled an already growing Finnish nationalism.

When the Russian tsar abdicated in 1917, the Finnish legislature declared independence, leading to a civil war between the country’s “Reds”, led by Social Democrats, and “Whites”, led by the conservatives in the Senate. Thirty-six thousand out of a population of 3 million died. The Reds executed 1,650 civilians, while the triumphant Whites executed approximately 9,000. The war resulted in an official ban on Communism, censorship of the socialist press and an increasing integration to the Western world economy. The new constitution established that the country would be bi-lingual, with both Finnish and Swedish taught in schools and at universities.

During World War II, harsh press censorship was introduced – this time by the Finnish government itself – as the country fought two wars against the Soviet Union and the subsequently fought to drive out its former German allies in those conflicts.

The development of the current Finnish freedom of speech probably has to be considered in relation to this arduous history, particularly the difficult aftermath of the wars with the Soviet Union and, through all of it, the Finnish people´s struggle to maintain their freedom and unique character as a nation.

Today, Finland has a lively press and a thriving culture production in both languages, even if Finnish people with Swedish as a mother tongue constitute only about 5 per cent of a population of 5.4 million. Even in the Internet Age, Finns remain avid newspaper readers, ranking first in the EU with almost 500 copies sold per day per 1, 000 inhabitants, surpassed only by Japan and Norway.

During the Cold War years, Finland’s efforts to cope with is proximity to Soviet Russia had grave repercussions on freedom of speech in the country. Due to Soviet pressure, some books were withdrawn from public libraries and Finnish publishers avoided literature that could cause Soviet displeasure. For example, the Finnish translation of Solzhenitsyn´s The Gulag Archipelago was published in Sweden. On several occasions, Moscow restricted Finnish politics and vetoed its participation in the Marshall Plan.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to Finland’s expanded participation in Western political and economic structures. Finland joined the EU in 1994 and the euro was introduced in 1999. Restrictions on the media were relaxed and today, probably in reaction to its previous experiences with censorship, Finland is widely recognized having the most extensive press freedom of any country.

However, the rise of anti-immigrant political sentiment, as evidenced by the rise of the Finns´ Party, has cast a pall over popular media. Now the country’s second largest party after success in this year’s elections, the Finns´ Party combines left-wing economic policies with conservative social values, as well as a heavy dose of xenophobia, euro scepticism and Islamophobia, leading it to attract nationalistic fringe groups that are vociferous in public media.

One example is the group Suomen Sisu, which has an openly crude racial approach, disguised as “ethnopluralism,” an ideology stating that ethnic groups have to be kept separated and that Swedish speaking Finns’ influence on politics and culture has to be limited and that immigration has to be radically restricted, or even halted completely.

Finland´s most popular web site Homma is spreading this message, which also accuses Finnish media of being left-leaning and eroding Finnish national pride. The Finns’ Party´s leader, Timo Soini, is currently the country´s foreign minister and vice prime minister. While the party occasionally reacts harshly to criticism in media it states that it honors freedom of the press. Even when Soini was recently was attacked by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, he stated that it was quite OK since it was an expression of the press freedom.

Nevertheless, with Finland now scheduled to host an international conference on press freedom, we should be watchful of the dangers to free expression that lurk in uninhibited nationalism and xenophobia. Nordic people often take their excellent record in human rights for granted and, in so doing, dismiss these dangers. Let’s hope that the May conference will serve as a reminder to us all that freedom of the press and of expression is something that has to be jealously guarded and vigorously protected through thick and thin.

(End)

Excerpt:

The one-day summit on ‘Global Leadership in the Arctic – Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (GLACIER) held in Anchorage, Alaska on Aug. 31 failed to make commitments to serious action to fight the negative impacts of global warming. Credit: Leehi Yona/IPS

By Leehi Yona
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sep 1 2015 (IPS)

After a one-day summit in the U.S. Arctic’s biggest city, leaders from the world’s northern countries acknowledged that climate change is seriously disrupting the Arctic ecosystem, yet left without committing themselves to serious action to fight the negative impacts of global warming.

The Aug. 31 summit on ‘Global Leadership in the Arctic – Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement, and Resilience (GLACIER)’, was organised by the U.S. State Department and attended by dignitaries from 20 countries, including the eight Arctic nations – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and United States.

Political leaders like U.S. President Barack Obama, who urged Arctic nations to take bolder action as the summit ended, came out with strong words, but stakeholders from civil society and scientific groups said the outcome came short of the tangible action needed.“This statement (from the one-day GLACIER Arctic summit] unfortunately fails to fully acknowledge one of the grave threats to the Arctic and to the planet – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels” – Ellie Johnston, World Climate Project Manager at Climate Interactive

The summit attracted the attention of environmental and indigenous groups, which criticised Obama’s reputation as a climate leader in the face of allowing offshore oil drilling in the Arctic.

Numerous protests and acts of non-violent civil disobedience in recent months have attempted to block oil company Shell from drilling; the company is currently active off the Alaskan coast.

“The recent approval of Shell’s Arctic oil drilling plans is a prime example of the disparity between President Obama’s strong rhetoric and increasing action on climate change and his administration’s fossil fuel extraction policies,” said David Turnbull, Campaigns Director for Oil Change International.

All participating countries signed a joint statement on climate change and its impact on the Arctic, after the initial reluctance of Canada and Russia, which eventually added their names.

“We take seriously warnings by scientists: temperatures in the Arctic are increasing at more than twice the average global rate,” the statement read, before going on to describe the wide range of impacts felt by Arctic communities’ landscapes, culture and well-being.

“As change continues at an unprecedented rate in the Arctic – increasing the stresses on communities and ecosystems in already harsh environments – we are committed more than ever to protecting both terrestrial and marine areas in this unique region, and our shared planet, for generations to come.”

However, the statement lacked concrete commitments, even on crucial topics like fossil fuel exploration in the Arctic, leaving climate experts with the feeling that it could have been more ambitious or have offered more specific, tangible commitments on the part of countries.

“I appreciate the rhetoric and depth of acknowledgement of the climate crisis,” the World Climate Project Manager at Climate Interactive, Ellie Johnston, told IPS. “Yet this statement unfortunately fails to fully acknowledge one of the grave threats to the Arctic and to the planet – the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.”

“This is particularly relevant as nations and companies jockey for access to drilling in our historically icy Arctic seas which have now become more accessible because of warming,” she said. “Drilling for fossil fuels leads to more warming, which leads to more drilling. This is one feedback loop we can stop.”

Oil and gas companies were encouraged – but not required –to voluntarily take on more stringent policies and join the Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership, an initiative to help companies reduce their emissions of methane and other short-lived climate pollutants.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry addressed participants – members from indigenous communities, government representatives, scientists, and non-governmental organizations – at the opening of the summit. “The Arctic is in many ways a thermostat,” he said. “We already see [it] having a profound impact on the rest of the planet.”

Kerry also attempted to drum up action ahead of the COP21 United Nations climate change negotiations in Paris this December, urging governments to “try to come up with a truly ambitious and truly global climate agreement.”

He added that the Paris conference “is not the end of the road […] Our hope is that everyone can leave this conference today with a heightened sense of urgency and a better understanding of our collective responsibility to do everything we can to deal with the harmful impacts of climate change.”

In a closing address to summit participants, President Obama repeatedly said “we are not doing enough.” He outlined the stark impacts of a future with business-as-usual climate change: thawing permafrost, forest fires and dangerous feedback loops. “We will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair … any leader willing to take a gamble on a future like that is not fit to lead,” he stated.

However, neither Kerry nor Obama acknowledged, as many environmental groups have pointed out, that the United States’ current greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitment falls nearly halfway short of what the country must do in order to stay within the Paris conference goal of a 2^oC warming limit.

While participants emphasised engagement from affected communities, the summit itself did not manifest engagement with those communities: less than one-third of the panellists and presenters were either indigenous or female, and only one woman of colour was present.

“It would have been nice to hear more from indigenous women or women of colour,” Princess Daazrhaii, member of the Gwich’in Nation and strong advocate for the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, told IPS. “The Arctic is more diverse than what I felt like was represented at the conference.”

“As life-givers and as mothers, many of us nurse our children. We know for a fact that women in the Arctic are more susceptible to the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are bound to the air we breathe. Violence against women is another issue that I feel gets exacerbated when there are threats to our ecosystem.”

All individuals talked to appreciated the conference’s emphasis on climate change as a significant problem, yet all of them also expressed a desire for the United States – and governments around the world – to do more.

“[Climate change] is what brings human beings together,” Daazrhaii said. “We’re all in this together. And we have to work on this together.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

Excerpt:

Vattenfall’s lignite-fired power plant in Jaenschwalde, Germany, is Europe’s fourth biggest CO2 emitter. Credit: ©Paul Langrock/Zenit/Greenpeace

By Hanna Leghammar
STOCKHOLM, Apr 30 2015 (IPS)

The Swedish government is in the process of pondering an important decision — whether to sell the vast lignite reserves of the state-owned Vattenfall energy giant or ensure that they stay in the ground. The decision will define Sweden’s commitment to tackling climate change.

Just a few days ago, on Apr. 27, Vattenfall stockholders gathered for their Annual General Meeting where the issue of selling the company was high on the agenda, according to Swedish radio station Ekot.“States have a responsibility to start leaving their fossil fuel reserves in the ground. What people all over Sweden and Europe are demanding is not only an end to expansion, but also the action of leaving them untouched” – Annika Jacobson, Greenpeace Sweden

“We are in the middle of a process to sell,” Vattenfall’s executive director Magnus Hall, who hopes to reach a deal already this year, was reported as saying. According to Hall, the Swedish government has given a clear mandate and support to Vattenfall in its plan to sell its ‘dirty’ operations.

‘Vattenfall’ translates into ‘waterfall’ and the company’s logo is an image of a sun and beautiful waves. While it plays on this imagery to build its brand, Vattenfall is emitting huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere every day.

The company’s lignite mines and power plants in Germany – including the Jänschwalde coal power plant which is Europe’s fourth biggest CO2 emitter – are responsible for twice the amount of Sweden’s total annual carbon emissions.

The Swedish government is committed to keeping the rise in global temperature below 2℃ which, at global level, requires leaving 82 percent of fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Through Vattenfall, the Swedish state is the owner of more than one billion tonnes of carbon.

Now is the time for Sweden to assume responsibility and ensure that emissions from these unburnable reserves are never released.

Over recent years, Sweden’s actions have shown that it has the potential to play a leading role in transforming our economies to power the renewable future we need. But Vattenfall’s conduct – clinging on to an outdated business model – taints this picture.

Aerial view of Vattenfall’s brown coal (lignite) open pit mine in Jaenschwalde, Germany. Credit: ©Greenpeace/J Henry Fair

When Germany decided to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Vattenfall faced a major loss of potential profits and sued the German state. The company’s coal operations across Europe are also taking a financial hit as the coal industry worldwide has entered a huge slump. More than half of Vattenfall’s coal power stations are old and particularly polluting.

In the run-up to the Swedish general elections last year, the parties that now make up Sweden’s ruling coalition committed themselves to stop the lignite expansion of Vattenfall, thanks to pressure from Greenpeace and Swedish environmental groups.

“States have a responsibility to start leaving their fossil fuel reserves in the ground,” says Annika Jacobson from Greenpeace Sweden, who has just launched a Europe-wide petition to that effect with partners at 350.org and Skiftet [Democracy in Motion]. “What people all over Sweden and Europe are demanding is not only an end to expansion, but also the action of leaving them untouched.”

In this crucial year for climate action – with the next U.N. Climate Change Conference scheduled in Paris in December – Sweden has the opportunity to raise its head and translate ambition into action by stranding its dirty coal assets.

Not selling Vattenfall and focusing on achieving a just transition to renewable energy would be a bold and unprecedented move by a nation state which has built up its own wealth and climate resilience on a fossil-fuelled economy. This would pose a challenge to other states, considering the impending deflation of the carbon bubble.

If, as Ekot reported, Vattenfall is about to be sold, this would be flying in the face of the overwhelming majority of Swedish people who want strong climate leadership from their government, giving the country the opportunity to act on its moral responsibility to keep fossil fuels underground.

A majority of Germans also want coal to be phased out – and there is fierce resistance to Vattenfall’s lignite mining and power plants in Germany’s Lusatia region.

“The earlier promise by Sweden not to expand lignite mining in Lusatia has given hope to a community of around 3,500 people that faced forced relocations as their villages stood to be destroyed,” says Falk Hermenau, a grassroots activist from Cottbus, the largest town in the region.

“By committing now to keep its coal in the ground, Sweden has the opportunity to be a driving force for a coal phase out in Germany and inject new momentum for climate action across the world,” he argues

The rapidly growing movement against fossil fuel extraction and climate disruption – and a steady flow of news reports indicating the end of the fossil fuel era – have injected a momentum that can change the dynamics in the months before the U.N. climate talks in December.

Any meaningful deal in Paris will need to require all nations to leave fossil fuel reserves in the ground – and people from all over the world are demanding this kind of leadership. Sweden can and must lead the way by committing itself not to sell Vattenfall’s lignite operations and rather #keepitintheground.

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

In the face of the growing number of crises taking place at the same time worldwide, humanitarian aid organisations – many of which have already reached their financial and logistic limits – are in desperate need of global coordination.

“We feel like we’ve hit the wall,” is how U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Kyung-Wha Kang has described the dramatic situation.

This situation was the subject of the 3rd Vienna Humanitarian Congress held last week in the Austrian capital under the slogan ‘Humanitarian Aid Under Fire’.Humanitarian organisations are rethinking their strategies, especially in Syria and Iraq, and trying to include all stakeholders in a dialogue to obtain access to the people in need – Kyung-Wha Kang, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs

Opening the congress, Annelies Vilim, Director of Global Responsibility, the Austrian platform for development and humanitarian aid, told participants: “Humanitarian aid is not an act of charity. It is a human right.“

In a world in which trouble spots and wars are on the rise, the question of how aid operations are carried out most successfully to meet the necessities of recipients is becoming increasingly relevant and, noted Vilim, at this moment millions of people are in desperate need of humanitarian aid.

Among others, the goal of the congress was to make humanitarian work more visible in these difficult times and to commit decision makers at all levels to value the importance of humanitarian assistance and cooperation.

Unfortunately, sufficient funding and clear structures are lacking and already inadequate contributions are under constant threats of budget cuts.

Host country Austria itself, for example, is no exception – an OECD study has shown that state spending in 2013 was only 1.3 euro per capita, 20 times less than the amount a country of similar wealth such as Sweden was paying.

“The world is facing drastic transformations and politics are not keeping up,” complained Yves Daccord, Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

To address those challenges, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has launched an initiative, managed by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to hold the first World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey.

It will bring together governments, humanitarian organisations, people affected by humanitarian crises and new partners, including from the private sector, to draw up solutions and set an agenda for the future of humanitarian action.

Logo of the 3rd Vienna Humanitarian Congress. In the face of the growing number of crises taking place at the same time worldwide, humanitarian aid organisations are in desperate need of global coordination.

One issue that is certain to be on the agenda is the safety of aid workers. With 1.5 billion people living in conflict-affected areas, “we will unfortunately have to face more stories in the media about aid workers killed in the line of duty, of atrocities committed against innocent civilians,” said Kang.

In 2013 alone, 474 humanitarian workers were attacked, injured or abducted and 155 lost their lives.

Due to the difficult circumstances, Kang explained that humanitarian organisations are rethinking their strategies, especially in Syria and Iraq, and trying to include all stakeholders in a dialogue to obtain access to the people in need.

Controversially, this also means that for the sake of civilians, parties that are considered “terroristic” should also be involved in the process. Humanitarian actors legitimate this by upholding the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and non-discrimination in regard to beneficiaries, and independence.

It is estimated that today over 30 armed conflicts are taking place worldwide, 16 of which are considered as wars with more than 1,000 victims each year. According to the United Nations, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan and the Central African Republic are ranked at the highest level of emergency.

The Central African Republic occupied some of the limelight at the Vienna congress in a panel discussion on humanitarian space and life and work in war. Two of the country’s religious leaders – Archbishop Dieudonne Nzapalainga and Imam Layama Oumar Kobine – spoke out about their fight for peace and disarmament.

Both argued that the civil war in their country was not a religious war. “Neither the Bible nor the Koran say that people should kill,” said Nzapalainga, explaining that five days after the beginning of the crisis in December 2012, religious leaders had come together to work collectively on an interreligious platform.

The problem, said the religious leaders, is that 75 percent of the country’s population is illiterate and therefore open to exploitation and recruitment by militant groups. This affects young people in particular and, because the state and government have ceased to exist, it is humanitarian workers who often fulfil the duties of the authorities.

Karoline Kleijer, Emergency Coordinator of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), described her experience of how life has become incredibly difficult for humanitarian workers in the country.

She described how shortly after arriving in the country in April 2014, armed forces entered a meeting of MSF staff and local community leaders that she was attending, opened fire and killed 20 people, including three MSF workers.

The incident had a huge impact on the organisation, she said, but despite all the difficulties “it did not stop us from working in the country. Since then, we have performed more than 10,000 operations and treated more than 300,000 people for malaria. We have delivered more than 15,000 babies and we have been continuing activities up to today.”

Although the principle that civilians have to be protected in armed conflicts and war and have a right to humanitarian assistance is embedded in the Geneva Convention, humanitarian workers have to take great risks to obtain access to the population in distress and, contrary to their neutrality, are becoming targets themselves.

“We hope that humanitarian workers will continue to take those risks, because we continue to take those risks in order to help the population in need,” said Nzapalainga.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Julian Assange in one of his rare public appearances in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been in hiding since June 2012. Credit: Creative Commons

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jan 30 2015 (IPS)

There is a window of hope, thanks to a U.N. human rights body, for a solution to the diplomatic asylum of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London for the past two and a half years.

Authorities in Sweden, which is seeking the Australian journalist’s extradition to face allegations of sexual assault, admitted there is a possibility that measures could be taken to jumpstart the stalled legal proceedings against Assange.

The head of Assange’s legal defence team, former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, told IPS that in relation to this case “we have expressed satisfaction that the Swedish state“ has accepted the proposals of several countries.

The prominent Spanish lawyer and international jurist was referring to proposals set forth by Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Slovakia and Uruguay.

The final report by the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), adopted Thursday Jan. 28 in Geneva, Switzerland, contains indications that a possible understanding among the different countries concerned might be on the horizon.

The UPR is a mechanism of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to examine the human rights performance of all U.N. member states.

The situation of Assange, a journalist, computer programmer and activist born in Australia in 1971, was introduced in Sweden’s UPR by Ecuador, the country that granted him diplomatic asylum in its embassy in London, and by several European and Latin American nations.

The head of the Swedish delegation to the UPR, Annika Söder, state secretary for political affairs at Sweden’s foreign ministry, told IPS that “This is a very complex matter in which the government can only do a few things.”

Söder said that in Sweden, Assange is “suspected of crimes, rape, sexual molestation in accordance with Swedish law. And that’s why the prosecutor in Sweden wants to conduct the primary investigation.

“We are aware of Mr. Assange’s being in the embassy of Ecuador and we hope that there will be ways to deal with the legal process in one way or the other. But it is up to the legal authorities to respond,” she said.

Assange’s legal defence team complains that Sweden’s public prosecutor’s office is delaying the legal proceedings and refuses to question him by telephone, email, video link or in writing.

Garzón noted that parallel to the lack of action by the Swedish prosecutor’s office, there is a secret U.S. legal process against Assange and other members of Wikileaks, the organisation he created in 2006.

“The origin of the U.S. legal proceedings against Assange was the mass publication by Wikileaks of documents, in many cases sensitive ones, which affected the United States,” said Garzón.

Wikileaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and other classified U.S. documents revealed practices by Washington that put it in an awkward position with other governments.

Assange sought refuge in the embassy after exhausting options in British courts to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning related to allegations of rape and sexual molestation, of which he says he is innocent. He has not been charged with a crime in Sweden and is worried that if he is extradited to that country he will be sent to the United States, where he is under investigation for releasing secret government documents.

If the legal process in Sweden begins to move forward, there would be a possibility for him to be able to leave the Ecuadorean embassy, where he took refuge on Jun. 19, 2012, and give up the diplomatic asylum he was granted by the government of Rafael Correa on Aug. 16, 2012.

In the UPR report, Sweden promised to examine recommendations made by other countries and to provide a response before the next U.N. Human Rights Council session, which starts Jun. 15.

Garzón has urged the Swedish government to specify a timeframe for the legal action against Assange, as the delegation from Ecuador recommended in the UPR.

“The Human Rights Committee, another specialised U.N. body, stipulates that precise timeframes must be established for putting a detained person at the disposal of a judge,” he pointed out.

Söder told IPS that Sweden’s legal system does not set any deadline for the prosecutor to complete the pretrial examination phase, as reflected in the Assange case.

Garzón is also asking Sweden to introduce, as soon as possible, “measures to ensure that the legal proceedings are carried out in accordance with standards that guarantee the rights of individuals, concretely the right to effective judicial recourse and legal proceedings without undue delays.”

He also called for the adoption of administrative and judicial measures to make investigations before the courts more effective. With respect to this, he mentioned “the practice of measures of inquiry abroad, in line with international cooperation mechanisms.”

In addition, the international jurist demanded measures to ensure that people deprived of their freedom are provided with legal guarantees in accordance with international standards.

The Swedish delegation agreed to study a recommendation by Argentina to “take concrete measures to ensure that guarantees of non-extradition will be given to any person under the control of the Swedish authorities while they are considered refugees by a third country,” in this case Ecuador.

These should include legislative measures, if necessary.

This is important because Assange is facing the threat that the Swedish or British authorities could accept an extradition request from the United States for charges of espionage, which carry heavy penalties.

In his comments to IPS, Garzón said he was “disappointed” that the Swedish state has not accepted one of Ecuador’s recommendations.

He was referring to the request that Sweden streamline international cooperation mechanisms on the part of the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office in order to ensure the right to effective legal remedy, specifically in cases where the person is protected by the decision to grant asylum or refuge.

It was stressed in the UPR that the right to asylum or refuge is considered a fundamental right, and must be respected and taken into account, making it compatible with the right to legal defence.

The director-general of legal affairs in Sweden’s foreign ministry, Anders Rönquist, argued that there is no international convention on diplomatic asylum.

The only one referring to that issue is the inter-American convention, he said, adding that the International Court of Justice in The Hague does not require recognition of diplomatic asylum.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Dec 13 2014 (IPS)

The Swedish Social Democrat government, which took office only two months ago, has just resigned. The far-right anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats sided with the four-party centre-right opposition alliance, and new elections will be held in March next year.

In Europe, Sweden has been the symbol of civic-mindedness and democracy – the place where those escaping dictatorship and hunger could find refuge; the country without corruption, where social justice was a national value.

Roberto Savio

However, in just a short period, the Sweden Democrat xenophobic party, which wants to close the country to foreigners and is now the third-largest party in parliament, was able to topple the government on Dec. 3.

Similar parties exist in the other Nordic countries – Finland, Norway and Denmark – where they have been similarly able to take a decisive role in national politics. The myth of northern Europe, the modern and progressive Nordic Europe, has vanished.

A few days later, in Dresden (the Florence of Germany) in Saxony, thousands of demonstrators marched to the cry ”Wir sind das Volk” [“We are the people”] – the same battle cry used in protests against the Communist regime in then East Germany 25 years ago, only this time the protest was against immigrants.

A previously unknown activist, 41-year-old Lutz Bachmann, has set up the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, and in seven weeks has been able to rally thousands of people. The local paper, the Sachsische Zeitung, has reported that Bachman has several criminal convictions for burglary, dealing with cocaine and driving without a licence or while drunk.“The fact that without immigrants Europe would grind to a halt and be unable to compete internationally is not matter for a campaign that appeals to politicians. On the contrary, they are flying the flag of defending Europe from a dangerous influx of immigrants”

Such details were irrelevant to the demonstrators. They “miss their country”, demand “protection of the Homeland” and applaud Bachmann’s call for a “clean and pure Germany”.

In Saxony, foreign immigrants account for only two percent of the population, and only a small fraction of those are Muslim. But the announcement that facilities would be opened for some 2,000 refugees from Syria, was the trigger in this town of 530.000 inhabitants. In the last state legislative elections, a new populist party, the Alternative for Germany, took almost 10 percent of the vote.

A similar irrational fear is gripping many European countries.

Italy, for example, now has two major parties (the Northern League and the Five Star Movement), which together account for around 35 percent of the vote, with xenophobic tones, and another major party, Forza Italia (literally Forward Italy) led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is flirting with an anti-European policy. The three more or less openly advocate withdrawal from the Euro.

At the same time, in 2013, only 514.308 children were born (including those of immigrants), 20.000 less than the year before. Between 2001 and 2011, according to ISTAT, the national statistical institute, the number of families formed by one person increased by 41.3 percent, while those with children fell by five percent. Of those with children, 47.5 percent had one child, 41.9 percent two and only 10.6 percent three or more.

If, as is conventionally held, the demographic replacement rate is 2.1, this means that the Italian population, like everywhere in Europe, is on a steep decline.

Of course, having child today is not an easy choice. To put it simply: in 2009, Italy had a budget of 2.5 billion euro for social interventions and, four years later, only one-third of that; in 2009, Italy’s Family Policies Fund stood at 186.5 million euro and is now less than 21 million. No wonder then that 60 percent of the population lives in fear of becoming poor.

The number of NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) rose from 1.8 million in 2007 to 2.5 million in 2013. And while Italy’s young people are being humiliated, its senior citizens are being mistreated – 41.3 percent of pensions are less than 1,000 euro per month.

By the way, 83,000 Italians expatriated in 2013, and the number of young people with a university degree that went to the United Kingdom, for example, was just over 3,000 – but in the same year, 44,000 foreigners also left Italy and while Italy received nearly 355,000 immigrants in 2011, two years later the number was just 280,000. And yet the campaign of xenophobia in Italy has it that there is a dramatic increase in immigrants.

This social decline is happening at different speeds and in different proportions all over Europe. In Germany, the core country, 25 percent of the population fall into the so-called “Hartz IV” category – under the Hartz Committee reform of the German labour market introduced by then Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder – and have to survive on the bare minimum of benefits.

This social decline is being accompanied by an unprecedented increase in social inequality. Two French economists, François Bourguignon and Christian Morrisson, published a study In 2002 on inequality among world citizens, starting from the 19^th century, using the Gini index of inequality (where absolute equality = 0). In 1820, the index stood at 50, had risen to 60 in 1910, 64 in 1950, 66 in 1992 and 70 ten years later.

Today the ratio between a minimum wage and a top salary is very simple – the small guy must work 80 years to earn what the big guy earns in a year!

According to a number of sociologists, ‘catching up’ (or the so-called ‘demonstration effect’), is one underlying reason for corruption. It is no accident that the south of Europe has much more corruption than the north (but the Protestant Ethic must also play a role).

In just a few months, the former prime minister of Portugal, José Socrates, has been jailed, former president Nicolas Sarkozy has returned to politics in France to try to escape several accusations and Spaniards are riveted by the revelation of giant webs of corruption that the government is now trying to stymie by changing the judge in charge of the prosecution.

Meanwhile, Romans have awakened to find out that a criminal organisation has been controlling the town council and the administration, and this coming on the heels of a similar discovery in Milan, where individuals who had been already convicted of corruption got back into business and did more of the same in the public works for next year’s Expo.

It is no wonder that, as in every crisis, in a climate fear and uncertainty, there is a need for a scapegoat. The fact that without immigrants Europe would grind to a halt and be unable to compete internationally is not matter for a campaign that appeals to politicians. On the contrary, they are flying the flag of defending Europe from a dangerous influx of immigrants.

This all shows that Europe has lost its compass – and there is nothing on the horizon indicating that it can be recovered soon.

Who is going to provide an answer to Europe’s anguish when those in power escape from reality and look for scapegoats? (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Jan Oberg
LUND, Sweden, May 6 2014 (Columnist Service)

Over the last 25-30 years Sweden’s military, security and foreign policy elites have changed Sweden’s policy 180 degrees.

These fundamental changes were initiated by the Social Democratic government under Prime Minister Goran Persson (1996–2006) and have been carried out with virtually no public debate.

The rapprochement with interventionism, militarism and the U.S./NATO in all fields has been planned, incremental, furtive and dishonest; in short, unworthy of a democracy.

These elites are more loyal to Brussels and Washington than to the Swedes.

If your image of Sweden is that of a progressive, innovative and peace-promoting country with a global mindset, an advocate of international law, it is – sad to say – outdated.

Sweden is no longer neutral and it is only formally non-aligned; there is no closer ally than the U.S./NATO, although it is not a NATO member. It has stopped developing policies of its own and basically positions itself in the European Union and NATO framework. It no longer produces important new thinking – the last was Olof Palme’s Commission on Common Security (1982).

Jan Oberg

It has no disarmament ambassador and does not consider the United Nations important; there is not a single Swede among the U.N. Blue Helmets.

Nuclear abolition is far down on the agenda, problematic as a NATO-aspiring country. But one thing has not changed: Sweden remains the world’s largest arms exporter per capita.

Sweden no longer contributes to the protection of smaller states through a commitment to international law. Its elite wholeheartedly supported the bombing of Serbia/Kosovo. It thought – also under Social Democratic leadership – that the mass-killing sanctions on Iraq and the occupation were appropriate.

Sweden supported the destruction of Libya – participating with its planes there, although it only carried out reconnaissance, not bombing, missions.

Sweden did not support the planned war on Syria but also did not voice any audible criticism of the West’s support of only the militant opposition, including Al-Qaeda affiliates.

Sweden’s foreign minister Carl Bildt operates mainly as an eminently well-informed international affairs traveler and blogger who doesn’t seem to want to waste too much of his precious time on being a minister. And when he does, he isn’t known for consulting many people around him.

Here follow a few recent events/news which further emphasise the deplorable path Sweden – the elites rather than the people – have decided to follow.

1. Sweden’s security political elite has lately been considering broader alliances with NATO and the EU. How enigmatic! After having been neutral and non-aligned during tough confrontations and tension in the Cold War years, Sweden now needs to join NATO when there is no single analysis anywhere indicating that it is likely that Sweden will be faced with a threat in the foreseeable future.

While the intelligent security and defence discourse is now about human security, the environment and high-tech challenges, Sweden’s elites talk about defence as weapons only.

This is dangerous ”group think” steered by bureaucratic vested interests and paid for by taxpayers who are de facto threatened more by these interests than by Russian President Vladimir Putin. A reality check would lead to a reality shock.

2. Swedish planes shall now, in the light of a conveniently hysterical interpretation of the crisis in Ukraine, equip its planes with cruise missiles.

The security priesthood of the country consists of a handful of researchers on military affairs at huge, well-financed state institutes in close contact with politicians and the military with whom military-loyal journalists have close bonds.

The country that once did something for a better world has joined the militarist world. At a time when both NATO and the U.S. are getting weaker, Sweden’s elites plan to put all Sweden’s eggs in that basket.

It has no policy vis–à–vis, say, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries or any vision of the world in 20 years to navigate towards. It has no ideals, values or commitments, only a ”follow-the-U.S./NATO and EU” flock mentality.

3. The U.S. ambassador to Sweden, Mark Brzezinski, recently told Sweden to join NATO, otherwise it won’t get any help in the event of an attack – in short, blackmailing disguised as deep concern and generous offer to bring (conditional) help. This was revealed by the conservative Swedish daily, Svenska Dagbladet.

The message is based on “fearology2 – because everybody knows that should Russia attack anyone, Sweden would not be the first target and it would be in the interest of NATO to control Swedish territory before any spreading of Russian forces from somewhere else to the Nordic area.

In short, NATO’s interest in Sweden is much greater than Sweden’s in NATO. Whatever one may think of these fantasies, they are just that: No one has thought up a credible scenario for how Sweden would be invaded by Russia and remain defenceless.

But this is the military-fundamentalist propaganda the Swedes are the target of these years: We must join NATO because we have such a weak defence that we can’t defend ourselves!

The liberal party’s defence policy spokesman, Allan Widman, recently stated this in a manner indicative of the low intellectual level of defence discussions here: ”I can only state the fact that Russia has about 140 million people and Sweden nine million. We won’t be able to manage serious challenges from outside on our own…”

Now, if the Swedish military can’t provide any protection for the nine million Swedes with a budget of eight billion dollars (among the 10 percent highest per capita in the world) at its disposal, it’s time to ask how inefficient and cost-maximising it can be without its leadership being fired.

4. Just this week it was decided that AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System), planes can pass through Swedish airspace in connection with NATO’s Ukraine crisis missions.

5. Sweden (like Finland) is discussing how to receive military aid, including troops, from NATO. This goes beyond what NATO members Denmark, Norway and Iceland have ever accepted. And Sweden is not a NATO member!

This must not be Sweden’s future.
(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Fredrik S. Heffermehl
OSLO, Dec 9 2013 (Columnist Service)

A March 2012 decision by the Swedish authority supervising foundations is a ticking box of dynamite under the Nobel Peace Prize. Even presented in an official, open document, the decision has not reached the general public and become the news story it actually is.

The order implies that the decision to award the 2013 Nobel to the bureaucrats enforcing the ban on chemical weapons, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), is illegal.

It is true, as the citation of OPCW mentions, that disarmament was important to Alfred Nobel. But why is it the secretive committee’s best-kept secret that Nobel´s will included a recipe for a weapons-free world?

Nobel did not believe in civilising war, reducing a weapon here and an army there; he was quite specific when, in his 1895 will, he described a prize for “the champions of peace” seeking to abolish all weapons in all nations, as an alternative to militarism and military forces. With terms like the “brotherhood of [disarmed] nations,” he used language that anyone familiar with the history of the peace movement will recognise.

Fredrik S. Heffermehl

Even though its secretary is a historian, the Norwegian Nobel Committee chooses to ignore that the kind of recipients Nobel had in mind were the Austrian baroness Bertha von Suttner, author of the bestseller “Lay Down Your Arms”, and her political friends.

In the last years of his life Nobel joined Suttner´s Society of Friends of Peace and gave substantial financial support to this Austrian society and the (still existing) International Peace Bureau, and – very important to understanding his purpose in setting up a peace prize – promised Suttner to “do something great” for her movement.

My book, “The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted”, (available in English, Chinese, Finnish, Swedish and Spanish) contains solid documentation of Nobel´s actual intentions, and shows that the Norwegian Parliament has misused the task Nobel entrusted to it: to appoint a five-member committee of persons devoted to Nobel´s peace plan.

For years, Norwegian politicians have used the prize to pursue their own ideas and purposes. Last year´s prize that went to the European Union, the 2009 prize for U.S. President Barack Obama, the 2010 prize for Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, the 2011 prize for Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – almost all of the prizes awarded in the last two decades have failed to respect Nobel´s will.

Instead of appointing a committee dedicated to the peace ideas described in the will Parliament is, with few exceptions, using the coveted seats as a bonus to reward retired parliamentarians. In Norway attitudes have shifted away from Nobel’s aims. Politicians strongly loyal to the U.S. and NATO are obviously unsuited to manage a prize for peace by disarmament, and the members ought to resign.

After six years I have to state that my conclusions are indisputable – and they have not in fact been disputed. But it is of little consequence. Norwegian politicians behave as if they were above the law and feel confident that the courts, as well as public authorities and the media, will let them get away with their mischief.

This is clearly illustrated by the fate of a complaint I lodged with the Swedish authority that supervises foundations. The Norwegian politicians did not like the idea of being scrutinised and told the Swedish authorities to back off, since “the Nobel Committee is independent and shall take orders from no one.”

The Swedish authority responded that this view was clearly incorrect, and in its order placed the Norwegian peace prize committee under Swedish control. It further expected the Swedish Nobel Foundation to supervise in order to ensure that its Norwegian subsidiary complied with the will. A sensational decision, in my view, that so far has not received any public attention.

My research makes it clear that the Norwegian awarders have never spent much time brooding over what Nobel must have intended. The description of the mandate in the will has been entirely forgotten. The secrets of the private diaries of Gunnar Jahn, a former committee chair (serving from 1942 to 1966), a unique and most revealing crack in the tight secrecy surrounding the committee´s work, confirm this.

Entries in the diaries, published for the first time in my book, show that all of Jahn´s attempts to remind the committee of Nobel and of the purpose of the prize fell flat, and that, despite a couple of threats to resign, Jahn put up with this for 24 years.

A 2001 article by the powerful committee secretary, Geir Lundestad, confirms that the committee feels full freedom to develop its own prize and even make its own definition of “peace” – obviously unaware of the legal obligation to check Nobel´s own description of who should be recipients of his prize!

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has many opportunities that permit unopposed dissemination of a falsified version of Nobel´s visionary prize. When challenged to debate the purpose in public, in the media, they do not respond or they refuse to offer honest arguments; it is either silence or nonsense.

One can only conclude that the Norwegian awarders (Parliament and the Nobel Committee) are adamantly unwilling to respect the law and Nobel´s intentions.

This experience affects my impression of Scandinavian democracy, of its media, public debate, and the integrity of our public authorities and the rule of law. It is a paradox of sorts that these are the very values that the Nobel Committee chair, Thorbjørn Jagland, has the primary responsibility for promoting in Europe as the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.

The Norwegian government, always happy with the misuse of Nobel´s prize, is now seeking a new term for Jagland in the Council of Europe. When approached in the campaign for reelection, member countries should ask Jagland two vital questions.

First, does he acknowledge that by law a will is a binding legal instrument?

Second, what does he think about Nobel and does he understand that he intended his prize to support a new system of international relations, one without national armies?

They are not likely to hear expressions of regret. Whether Jagland continues to refuse to respond, or gives untrue answers, the member countries should draw their own conclusions.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

Syrian refugee children learn to survive at a camp in north Lebanon. Credit: Zak Brophy/IPS

By António Guterres and Anders Danielsson
GENEVA/STOCKHOLM, Dec 6 2013 (IPS)

The terrible bloodshed in Syria has been going on for over two and a half years. It has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, with more than half of Syria’s pre-war population now needing humanitarian assistance for their survival.

Nearly 2.3 million Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries, including over 1.1 million under the age of 18. The suffering caused by the conflict is particularly devastating for these children – they experience trauma and isolation, over half of them are missing out on schooling, and far too many are forced to work to help feed their families.As this cruel conflict drags on, future generations will look back at today and judge those who had the means to alleviate the human suffering.

Syria risks losing an entire generation – and with it, its future, as today’s children are the ones who could rebuild their country when peace finally sets in.

What is unfolding on Europe’s doorstep today is not only a humanitarian crisis unparalleled in recent history. The impact of the enormous refugee influx on host countries in the Middle East is also fuelling fundamental, structural problems in an already fragile region. The crisis in Syria threatens peace and stability far beyond the country’s borders: a threat that can no longer be downplayed.

This is why we are joining our voices today to urge the international community to recognise and act upon the pressing need to step up international solidarity in response to the refugee crisis.

For European Union member states, this means concretely to focus less on protecting borders and more on protecting people, and to turn into action their commitments for more solidarity and burden-sharing with the countries in the Middle East that host the vast majority of Syrian refugees.

Sweden has granted protection to the largest number of Syrians outside the Middle East – over 20,000 since the beginning of the conflict, including asylum seekers and refugees resettled from countries in the region. Under Sweden’s chairmanship, a number of resettlement countries have formed a Contact Group with UNHCR to promote international resettlement as well as other forms of admission for up to 30,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2014.

Already earlier this year, Germany set an important example by offering humanitarian admission to 5,000 Syrian refugees who had fled to Lebanon.

In addition to resettlement, European countries must show more solidarity with Syrians who arrive in the EU, for example through swifter access to effective asylum procedures and, in many cases, better reception conditions.

In September 2013, Sweden marked an important milestone by becoming the first EU member state to grant all Syrian refugees permanent residence. As the world begins to realise that the conflict in Syria is unlikely to be resolved in the short term, more countries have to provide refugees with permanent residency. This would allow them to rebuild a life without a return date looming. It also facilitates integration and family reunification for Syrians in in the host country.

More countries must now follow suit and come forward with protection schemes similar to those of Sweden and Germany. Far too many people fleeing Syria have already lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, such as in the recent shipwrecks off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Many others are abused by smugglers as they attempt to enter Europe through remote land borders.

There is something fundamentally wrong in a world where people who are desperately seeking protection from violence and conflict are forced to take such perilous journeys. Providing them with alternative ways of accessing safety, such as family reunification, resettlement, and better reception and asylum conditions, will help to reduce the number of people putting their lives at risk and resorting to smugglers and other irregular means of entry.

Showing solidarity or doing nothing are not options to be debated. As this cruel conflict drags on, future generations will look back at today and judge those who had the means to alleviate the human suffering by their determination to put these means to use. Europe – all of Europe – must do better in this.

António Guterres is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Anders Danielsson is General Director at the Swedish Migration Board.

Newly released documents appear to make a connection between executives from a Swedish company accused of bribing its way into Uzbekistan’s telecoms market and Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the country’s strongman, Islam Karimov.

Two separate bribery and money-laundering probes have been ongoing in Sweden and Switzerland since last fall. Executives at the company under investigation, TeliaSonera, a Swedish-Finnish venture, insist they have “zero tolerance against corruption” and have repeatedly denied making bribes, as well as having any knowledge of dealings with Karimov or his family members.

But evidence recently submitted to a Swedish court by prosecutors appears to undermine these claims.

The Swedish graft probe was sparked by an investigative report aired last fall by broadcaster SVT. The documentation includes e-mails from company executives stating that they believed their negotiating partner to be an intermediary of Gulnara Karimova, a flamboyant and controversial figure once described in a Wikileaked U.S. diplomatic cable as the “single most hated person” in Uzbekistan.

TeliaSonera is standing its ground. In a Jan. 8 statement, it reiterated that its innocence will be proven and “the ongoing investigations will clarify that we have not bribed anyone, or participated in money laundering.”

The TeliaSonera probe is focusing on events in 2007, the year when the company is suspected of making improper payments in order to gain access to Uzbekistan’s cell phone market via the acquisition of a stake in the company that became Ucell.

Specifically, TeliaSonera is alleged to have made shady payments of around 333 million dollars to what the broadcaster SVT described as “a small, one-woman company in a tax haven” – Takilant Limited, run out of Gibraltar by an Uzbek national – Gayane Avakyan, a woman who has been photographed in public in Karimova’s company and who is believed to be an associate of the president’s daughter.

Among the emails that are drawing scrutiny are exchanges between company representatives and Bekhzod Akhmedov, described by a TeliaSonera executive at the time as Karimova’s intermediary. In them, Akhmedov talks TeliaSonera representatives through the details of the agreement that would shortly secure its entry into Uzbekistan’s mobile phone market.

In another e-mail, dated March 2007, Serkan Elden, then CEO of TeliaSonera subsidiary Fintur Holdings (he was later dismissed) believed he was dealing with the president’s daughter’s intermediary, referring to Akhmedov as “the telecom representative of Gulnara Karimova”. Keen to forge links with the ruling family, Elden added that “Lola Karimova, the No. 2 daughter, (i.e. President Karimov’s younger daughter), is willing to meet with us.”

That e-mail was sent to an “S Escudero” (addressed by Elden as “Stan”), who responded that he had sounded out Uzbek diplomats in Washington about TeliaSonera’s ambitions, and Tashkent “views our application favorably”.

The addressee’s identity has yet to be confirmed, but the recipient appears to have the same or strikingly similar name as Stanley Escudero, a retired American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan in the 1990s, and later became a consultant in the Central Asian and Caucasus regions.

Karimova is known for her extensive financial interests, prompting a description of her as a “robber baron” in another Wikileaked cable. In addition to reported involvement in business ventures, she pursues multiple other professional activities, from fashion designer and pop diva to diplomat, serving as Uzbekistan’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

Karimova has not publicly commented on the corruption investigation, nor responded to numerous requests for comment submitted by EurasiaNet.org. Requests for comment sent to the e-mail addresses indicated in the documents for Escudero, Elden and Akhmedov received no response. Avakyan could not be reached for comment.

The documents submitted to the Swedish court also show that the Uzbek government agency that issued licenses and phone numbers to TeliaSonera has denied any wrongdoing, and Tashkent has protested to the Swedish government over the conduct of the investigation and media coverage.

TeliaSonera has acknowledged knowing that Akhmedov, the middleman, was head of a rival telecoms firm that was once owned by Gulnara Karimova, O’zdunrobita. She sold it to Russian telecoms giant MTS, which last year became embroiled in a major dispute with Tashkent in another scandal on Uzbekistan’s telecoms market also featuring Akhmedov, whom Tashkent accused of corruption before seizing MTS’s assets in Uzbekistan (a decision since overturned).

That case – which remains unresolved – sparked separate and still ongoing money laundering investigation in Switzerland against four Uzbek nationals including Akhmedov, Avakyan and two other associates of Gulnara Karimova.

TeliaSonera is also acknowledging “much speculation and rumors” over whether Avakyan and Takilant were serving as fronts for other interests. “Various rumors around who could be part of this group circulated, including Gulnara Karimova,” TeliaSonera’s Jan. 8 statement said, but in the due diligence process “we could not identify any other beneficiaries than Gayane Avakyan.”

Editor’s note: Joanna Lillis is a freelance writer who specialises in Central Asia.

This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

Large rich nations are falling short in their commitments to global aid and its effectiveness. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Sarah McHaney
WASHINGTON, Oct 16 2012 (IPS)

The United States is lagging far behind other developed countries in its policies aimed at improving global prosperity, according to new research.

The tenth annual Commitment to Development Index (CDI) was released this week by the Washington-based think tank Centre for Global Development (CGD). The report ranked the efforts of 27 developed countries to support developing countries.

As in previous years, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands vied for the top spots. This year the United Kingdom, in ninth place, was the sole country from the wealthy Group of Seven (G7) bloc to make the top 10, while the United States ranked nineteenth.

Unlike most rankings of its kind, the CDI does not focus primarily on the quantity of foreign aid each country gives per year. Rather, it takes into account seven different components of development and averages a country’s score in each area. It also focuses on the scope of the integration of a country’s policies.

“All nations are linked in many ways, not just through aid – many policies in wealthy nations affect people all around the world,” David Roodman, a senior fellow at CGD and the chief architect of the CDI, explained in an interview last week.

Comprising each of the index’s seven components, such as quantity and quality of foreign aid, or migration and environmental policies, are multiple factors that contribute to a country’s overall score. In the category of foreign aid, for example, the index looks at what percentage of a country’s gross domestic product is given away, and whether the money is “tied” to certain conditions, goes to corrupt governments, or is given in the form of loans.

After scaling the scores to an average of 5.0, researchers found Denmark to have the highest score in 2012 (7.0), while South Korea had the lowest (2.7).

The United States scores above average on only two of the seven components, and with a score of 4.8 it ranks behind all major industrialised nations except Italy and Japan. Meanwhile, Nordic countries repeatedly stand at the top of the list, for several reasons.

“Superficially it’s about foreign aid; each of these countries gives a large amount of foreign aid for the size of their economy, about 1 percent of GDP,” Roodman said of the Nordic countries. “They are also pretty good with environmental policy, doing more than most countries to reduce the use of fossil fuels.”

Citizens of these countries, Roodman explained, tend to trust more in their government and in how taxes are spent, a sentiment that could potentially allow government officials to feel more comfortable making significant commitments to developing countries.

Owen Barder, a senior fellow at CGD and director for Europe, offered a broader explanation for Nordic countries’ top rankings. In an interview last week, Barder said, “These smaller nations are forced to have an international outlook because of their size. I think this results in a sense of national pride in the role these countries play in international peace and environment negotiations.”

Barder regarded the CDI as an opportunity to evaluate how Europe as a whole scored in individual components and to begin a continent-wide conversation on how improvements can be made.

Not all countries look favourably on the CDI’s metrics. Japan, which is consistently ranked at or near the index’s bottom, responded to the 2006 CDI by criticising its method.

“By using its own method to measure aid effectiveness of each donor and publishing its results…the [CDI] has various problems and has not evaluated fairly developed countries’ policies for international development,” Japan’s ministry of foreign affairs wrote.

Japan received a low score in trade partly because of its high import barriers, especially on rice. Yet the Japanese government has argued that only the negative impact of its trade tariffs were considered, not the positive agricultural subsidies it also provides.

“The CDI does not reflect the fact that major developed countries…take development challenges by making maximum use of their comparative advantages and by complementing one another through aid coordination,” the ministry stated. (Roodman’s response can be found here).

Indeed, the CDI does have some structural flaws. The countries currently listed on the index are all democracies, for instance. These countries “preach concern for human life and dignity within their own borders”, the index’s overseers have written, noting that the CDI “looks at whether rich countries’ actions match their words”.

Yet in the past decade a host of “middle income” countries – China, India, Brazil – have emerged as global economic leaders.

“I don’t think changes in the world mean that Japan or the U.S. are any less obliged to contribute to the prosperity of developing countries,” Roodman said. He added that he is considering broadening the index to a group of countries similar to the Group of 20 (G20) to include rich developing countries that still have a large amount of poverty within their borders.

Incorporating such countries would require the index to be built on a paradigm different from its current “rich world, poor world” model.

The CDI has seen slight improvements in industrialised countries over the past ten years. Nevertheless, as Roodman pointed out, “The richest largest nations are still falling short of their potential.”

Three Crowns Rural School in South Africa is a leader in recycling, turning various waste into gas and fertiliser, and recycling its water. Above, the bio-digester. Credit: David Oldfield/IPS

By Thalif Deen
STOCKHOLM, Aug 29 2012 (IPS)

When the international community was struggling to ward off a potential decline in development aid in early 2000, it came up with a novel idea: a proposal for “new and innovative sources of financing”, including a tax on airline tickets and a levy on foreign exchange transactions.

The funding, mostly from the tax alone, first proposed at the 2002 U.N. conference on Financing for Development, has already generated over 11.7 billion dollars, according to the World Bank.

And now, the Swedish government has come up with a variation of that proposal: a new finance instrument called Water Innovation Challenge Fund (WICF) whose primary objective is to capture, promote and implement “innovative ideas and new technologies”  in water resource efficiency.

The proposal, announced at the international water conference in Stockholm this week, comes at a time when the United Nations has repeatedly warned of an impending water crisis in the next two or three decades.

Or as Alain Vidal, director of the Challenge Programme for Water and Food (CPWF), describes as “a perfect storm”  – food shortages, water scarcities and insufficient energy resources – collectively destined to hit the world by 2030.

Addressing delegates here, the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation Gunilla Carlsson said the new fund is also about finding new ways to sustainably intensify the use of water, land and energy in production to achieve equitable social, economic and environmentally sound development.

“Simply put, we need to create more with less. This to me is innovation at its best,” she said, pointing out that in a finite biosphere, achieving such a combination will require new thinking.

Asked for his expert advice, Dr. Colin Chartres, the director-general of the Colombo-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI), told IPS: “I am highly supportive of the Swedish minister’s proposal.”

“The more we can do to foster and encourage innovation in the water sector, the better,” said Dr. Chartres, the 2012 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate.

He added, “We can’t have water without using energy, and we can’t have energy without using water, and that an increased understanding of the water energy nexus, coupled with efficiency innovation in both sectors, is vital.”

Elaborating on her proposal, Carlsson said innovations have historically changed the lives of millions of people for the better. “Just think of vaccines, improved grain varieties and, more recently, the impact of mobile phones,” she pointed out.

The less well-known innovations are often found in the poorer countries, among large numbers of people surviving on very low incomes but who are very resilient and often creative entrepreneurs, she added.

“These innovations are often about crafting business solutions that are relevant to poor people and about making them available to the many. Low-cost mobile financial services and insurances are among the more recent ideas”.

Carlsson also said innovations have provided many new employment opportunities across Africa. Small affordable packages of improved seeds or fertilisers have reduced the barriers of upfront costs for poor farmers.

Some of the most important growth markets today are African and Asian. Increasingly, business is looking for innovative models building on local ideas and demand, rather than adapting products and distribution processes that were conceived for U.S. or European markets, she noted.

“If we can find similar innovations and scale up in a sustainable manner, the lives of millions of people, if not hundreds of millions, could improve,” Carlsson added.

The Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has been a leading proponent of innovative ideas relating to smallholder agriculture and rural development.

In a statement released here, IFAD says it supports practices that help poor farmers in developing countries to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their water use.

In Brazil, grey water filtration recycles washing water for agriculture, and integrated rice and fish production in South East Asia allows farmers to optimise water productivity.

In Madagascar, old flip-flop sandals were collected by otherwise unemployed people and used to make parts for micro-irrigation equipment.

Besides aiding irrigation, says IFAD, this activity promoted recycling and created jobs for street workers who collect old sandals and for the small businesses that produce the irrigation parts.

Carlsson said that “now more than ever, we need to encourage new thinking in our development assistance” and “reflect on lessons learned and find out whether and what we can do better”.

And one of the most important lessons has to do with partnerships. “It is clear to us that no one single actor can solve development challenges,” she added.

Perhaps two of the time-honoured technologies are wastewater treatment and desalination of sea water.

Asked about its potential, Dr Chartres told IPS:  “Given the cost of desalination and the large requirements for water and agriculture, I don’t see it as a current option, except in a few small niche environments.” But recycling, he said, was a different matter.

“Recycled water can be treated for purpose and it is an excellent way of using urban waste and nutrients,” he said.

And IWMI, which he heads, is currently working on the development business models to encourage more use of recycled waste water.

Meanwhile, Sweden prides itself as a country which inaugurated its first water treatment plant about 150 years ago. Gosta Lindh, managing director of Stockholm Vatten, says his company stands on the foundation that were laid more than a century and half ago.

In Stockholm, food waste and fat are basic raw materials for producing biogas. And inner city buses, garbage trucks and nearly 10,000 passenger cars and taxis are run on biogas.

“We are proud to be able to supply clean and fresh water to an ever-expanding Stockholm. We also take care of waste water and residual products in the most efficient way and reintroduce them to the cycle,” says Vatten.

And in Stockholm, he boasted, “we are proud to say we have world-class water.”

Two months after he sought refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy, WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange was formally granted asylum by Quito on Thursday.

Julian Assange. Credit: Espen Moe/CC BY 2.0

But with Sweden and the United States pursuing him for potential criminal charges, Assange is unlikely to make his way out of the U.K., which has threatened to break in to the embassy to arrest him.

Assange has been avoiding extradition to Sweden for months, where he is to be questioned over sex assault claims, a mere “attempt to get (him) into a jurisdiction which will then make it easier to extradite (him) to the U.S.,” he told the Sun in December.

The Ecuadorean government said that the decision was taken after the UK, Sweden and the U.S. refused to guarantee that once extradited to Sweden, Assange would not be sent to Washington to face additional charges.

The three countries “would not provide any guarantees that he would not be sent to the U.S. to be tried for political crimes,” Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) told IPS.

“So (Ecuador) had no choice under international law but to grant him asylum,” Weisbrot said.

“We believe (Assange’s) fears are legitimate and that he could face political persecution if the measures are not taken,” Ricardo Patino, Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs, said Thursday at a press conference in Quito.

The famous hacker, once called a “hi-tech terrorist” by the Barack Obama administration, fears that he would then face other charges for having leaked top-secret information, including 400,000 documents about the Iraq war and U.S. torture of detainees.

He has thus far found refuge in the premises of the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been sleeping on an air mattress since June. If he sets foot outside of the building, he will be arrested by the British police, sent to Sweden, and possibly the United States.

Thursday, applause from many of Assange’s supporters could be heard outside of the embassy as news came that Ecuador had granted diplomatic asylum to their Australian refugee.

“I am grateful to the Ecuadorean people, President Rafael Correa and his government. It was not Britain or my home country, Australia, that stood up to protect me from persecution, but a courageous, independent Latin American nation,” Assange wrote on WikiLeaks before posting “Gracias a Ecuador y ustedes” (Thanks to Ecuador and to you) on his Twitter.

If extradited to Washington, the famous whistleblower would likely face heavy charges.

“Assange would risk the severest penalties – life imprisonment or even the death penalty – if he were tried in the U.S.,” Reporters Without Borders’ Delphine Halgand told IPS.

“The resources deployed by the U.S. authorities to track down WikiLeaks activists and supporters and obtain their personal data can only reinforce these concerns,” she said.

But while the announcement of asylum came as good news for Assange and his numerous supporters, it did not change his situation in any way, with the U.K. police now surrounding the embassy in a “menacing show of force”, according to WikiLeaks.

Should Assange attempt to leave his safe haven, he would be arrested before reaching the airport.

“We will not allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the U.K., nor is there any legal basis for us to do so,” the British foreign secretary said in a statement released Thursday.

“The U.K. does not accept the principle of diplomatic asylum,” the statement read.

London had previously threatened to enter the Ecuadorean embassy to arrest Assange. However, such a move would blatantly infringe on the inviolability of diplomatic premises as defined under the Vienna Convention, according to Michael Ratner, a legal adviser to WikiLeaks.

“The fact that the British – and I was as shocked as anybody – said yesterday that they might invade the embassy to get their hands on Julian Assange is an incredible violation of international law that is unheard of,” he told Democracy Now.

“I mean, think about the Chinese going into the U.S. embassy to get Chen out in China… This is unheard of in law, it’s unheard of in diplomacy, and it’s an outrageous and egregious undermining of the right of a country to give asylum,” Ratner added.

Other legal experts doubt the UK would actually follow through on such threats.

“(The UK) mentioned revoking diplomatic status for the embassy… Too legally risky in my view,” Carl Gardner, a former lawyer for the British government, told IPS.

If he still refuses to surrender, Assange has two options – holing up in his hideout or trying to reach an airport via an embassy vehicle, which would very likely lead to his arrest.

“I’d be tempted to advise him to go to Sweden and defend himself if there’s a trial. I think that’s inevitable in the end. I don’t think I could offer him any hope of a way out,” Gardner told IPS.

But Gardner adds, wryly, that there’s yet another possibility: “Ecuador could name Assange its representative to the United Nations. That would make him immune from arrest while traveling to U.N. meetings around the world.”