How many Christians still believe that what Israel is doing to Christian and Muslim Palestinians is legal, morally correct or even righteous?  If you do, please offer what you think Jesus (pbuh) would say about your response.

A French diplomat, Alain Le Roy, has been appointed by the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, as the world's chief peacekeeper. With UN peace operations facing the most serious crisis since Rwanda and Srebrenica, the timing could not be more critical.

UN peacekeeping is the victim of its own success: Never before in their 60-year history have blue helmets been in such high demand. About 110,000 personnel are deployed in 20 peace operations around the world, more than a six-fold increase from 10 years ago.

However, UN member states have neglected making crucial investments in the support infrastructure for an expanding network of large peace operations with increasingly complex tasks, from protecting civilians to rebuilding defunct institutions in post-conflict states. As a result, the UN apparatus is severely overstretched, exhibiting increasingly serious pathologies ranging from sluggish deployments to shocking sexual abuse scandals.

Worse yet, the Security Council has returned to the ill-fated practice of sending peacekeepers into ever-more hostile environments where there simply no peace to keep.

Recent reports from Darfur, the largest and most expensive UN mission to date, are reminiscent of the news from Bosnia in the weeks before the fall of Srebrenica: UN peacekeepers, facing a logistical and political nightmare, are unable to defend themselves, let alone protect the civilian population. Were further large-scale atrocities to occur under the UN's watch in Darfur, the repercussions would threaten to undermine the entire business of peace operations.

There is a risk of an all-out anti-UN backlash overshadowing the good work UN peacekeepers have done in exceptionally difficult circumstances over the past decade. UN members need to act now and give the new head of peacekeeping the tools and support necessary to pull UN peacekeeping back from the brink.

To accomplish this, member states need to clearly commit to the doctrine that a UN peace operation should only be deployed if there is actually a peace to keep, underwritten by a credible commitment by the major conflict parties to work toward a political solution. If taking the "Responsibility to Protect" seriously in some cases requires military intervention, member states should not rely on the instrument of peacekeeping, which is ill-suited for this task.

Therefore, under present circumstances the UN should not deploy peacekeepers to Somalia or Chad, where the absence of political will among rival parties renders peacekeepers as little more than turquoise targets.

Key member states must also lower expectations on what peacekeepers can realistically achieve in Darfur. They must make it crystal clear to the public that the absence of peace in Darfur is not the fault of UN peacekeepers but a result of the international community's inability to force the conflict parties into a lasting political settlement.

In addition, UN members urgently need to invest in the infrastructure for peace operations worldwide. Resources need to match the grandiose rhetoric and ambitious goals set out in Security Council mandates. This includes seriously enlarging the UN's standby blue helmet capacity - with a clear manpower commitment on the part of the United States, Canada and Europe, not just Asian and African states who currently supply the vast majority of peacekeepers.

It also means expanding the team of rapidly deployable police officers and complementing it with a team of judicial and legal experts who can play a critical role in struggling peace operations worldwide.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

The arrest of Radovan Karadzic on Monday gave badly needed credibility to international war crimes tribunals that have struggled for years to bring fugitives to justice, according to former prosecutors, legal experts and human rights groups. And the arrest bolstered arguments from tribunal officials that patience, multilateral diplomacy and creativity can make the institutions more effective.

“It’s building up piece by piece,” said Martha Minow, a law professor at Harvard and an expert on war crimes trials. “This is building up the legitimacy of these institutions.”

Mr. Karadzic will be the third high-profile figure to be brought before a United Nations-backed tribunal on war crimes charges in the last six years, following in the footsteps of President Charles Taylor of Liberia and the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic. For years, supporters of the tribunals have argued that if leaders were brought to trial the courts could serve as a deterrent.

But Mr. Karadzic, who remained free for nearly 13 years, made a mockery of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which in 1993 became the first such body established by the United Nations.

Although repeatedly seen in public when American and NATO forces entered Bosnia in 1996, he was not arrested, in part out of fear that seizing him could cause a violent backlash against NATO forces.

Instead, the United States and the European Union tried to use economic and diplomatic pressure on Serbia to force his arrest. Until Monday, the policy appeared to be a failure.

At the same time, other war crimes tribunals established by the United Nations came under fire. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was criticized by Rwandans as being hugely expensive, based outside Rwanda and largely detached from the country itself. And the establishment of the International Criminal Court — a permanent tribunal intended to prosecute war crimes globally — was delayed for years by tortuous negotiations and fierce opposition from the Bush administration.

Only last week, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court was criticized for requesting that genocide charges be filed against President Omar al- Bashir of Sudan. Critics warned that the move would complicate peace negotiations for the Darfur region of Sudan and never lead to Mr. Bashir’s arrest, given the international community’s poor track record on arresting fugitives.

After Mr. Karadzic’s s arrest, legal experts said his capture bring subtle new pressure to bear on the Sudanese leader.

Undermining a leader’s or regime’s legitimacy can also serve as leverage.

“The third way is what the world needs,” said one war crimes investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The problem is we are thinking two ways: we accept him or we go to war with him.”

Human rights groups said the arrest of Mr. Karadzic had the potential to significantly bolster the clout of the long-maligned tribunals. Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program, said that Mr. Karadzic had come to “personify impunity.”

“For international justice, this is a very good thing,” he said. “ I think it validates that justice has a long memory and a long reach.”

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

Related articles:
- EU applauds Karadzic arrest as important step for membership
- Serbs hope Karadzic arrest will lead to more
- Arrest of a strongman

The secretary-general will name South African Judge Navanethem Pillay as the next U.N. human rights commissioner as early as today, diplomats and U.N. officials said Thursday.

The daughter of a Tamil bus driver in Durban, she experienced human rights violations firsthand. Pillay earned a law degree at Harvard, but for 28 years during apartheid, she was not allowed to set foot in a judge's chambers as a lawyer because of her South Asian origins. In 1995 she became the first woman of color to become a judge on the High Court.

Pillay, born in 1941, also served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda prosecuting crimes related to that nation's genocide. She presided over landmark cases in international law that established rape as a war crime, convicted a former head of state for atrocities committed during his rule and prosecuted media for inciting genocide. She has served for five years on the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Pillay may not be as outspoken as the current commissioner, Canadian Judge Louise Arbour, who often shamed governments and leaders that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would not criticize by name.

Arbour took the forefront on issues such as the United Nations' opposition to capital punishment when Ban said he supported each state's right to decide whether to use it, and has criticized the United States for skirting international law in its fight against terrorism.

Human Rights advocates wonder whether Pillay will stand up to big powers when they violate human rights, or push her native South Africa on controversial issues, such as human rights violations in neighboring Zimbabwe and elections there that the U.N. has declared illegitimate.

"The challenge for her will be to use the bully pulpit and be a strong advocate for human rights," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. "As a judge, she has no experience with that."

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

Calling climate change "one of the great global challenges of our time," the world's richest nations and emerging powers joined together Wednesday for the first time to commit themselves to pursue long-range cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, but were split on how to achieve that goal.

The declaration grew out of an unprecedented meeting that brought together 16 nations and the European Union - a group dubbed the "major economies" - around the issue of global warning. The 16 are the Group of 8 industrialized nations: the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, Britain and Russia; the Group of 5 emerging economies: China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa; and three other major trading nations: Australia, South Korea and Indonesia.

The session, organized by President George W. Bush, took place here on the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido, where leaders of the Group of 8 wrapped up three days of meetings on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, leaders of the Group of 8 pledged to "move toward a carbon-free society" by cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases in half by 2050. But Group of 5 poorer countries refused to sign onto that goal. They are holding out until rich nations like the United States take more aggressive steps to cut pollution over the next decade.

That fissure prevented the 16 countries from "reaching any meaningful understanding" in the special Wednesday session, said one expert, Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. But an environmental campaigner, Phillip Clapp of the Pew Environmental Group, said the declaration helped set the stage for the next American president to grapple with climate change when the United Nations conducts negotiations on a binding treaty in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009.

"It is good that the developing countries have embraced the principal of a global target that they will participate in," Clapp said. "It would have been better if the United States and the other G-8 countries would have been willing to step up to the plate and make a strong commitment about what they would do over the next 10 years. "

Bush claimed success.

"In order to address climate change, all major economies must be at the table," he said before flying back to Washington. "And that's what took place today."

But the meetings did not produce a long-term emissions goal accepted by all the countries, rich and emerging, which was the goal the Bush administration had sought since announcing the "major economies" effort last year.

For Bush, who is trying to salvage his legacy on climate change late in his administration after years of international pressure to take a more aggressive stance, the back-to-back declarations were still an important step. Bush has long insisted that any international treaty include developing nations like China and India.

"This is an enormous movement for a man who questioned the science on global warming, who was opposed to international treaties and who was opposed to international targets," said Clapp, a frequent critic of the president's policies. "Here he is leading the way trying to get a global target. He's gotten the developing countries to acknowledge there should be a global goal."

Although the meeting put the United States on record for the first time as embracing a specific long-term goal, environmentalists complained that the declaration by the G-8 did not go far enough.

" Major economies meeting turns into major embarrassment meeting for G8," the WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund, said in a statement.

Together, the countries that issued the declaration are responsible for more than 80 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists have said are warming the planet. But there is a dispute between rich and poor nations over how to set targets, and who should bear the brunt of the responsibility.

There is also a dispute over the starting point for the Group of 8 plan to halve emissions by 2050. There was no mention of a baseline in the group's declaration.

Many scientists say cutting emissions in half by 2050 is not enough to combat climate change, and that it would take an 80 percent drop from 2008 levels to limit chances of runaway warming and centuries of rising sea levels. Developing countries agree.

Under a proposal put forth by China, India, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil, developed nations would cut emissions between 25 and 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. David Doniger, an expert on climate change at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, predicted the two sides could come together, but probably not until a new president is in the White House.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

To read the G8 statement on energy security and climate change, please click here.

For more about the G8 Summit in Japan, click here.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is downplaying speculation in the media he may be headed to North Korea for a short visit. Speaking in his native South Korea, the U.N. chief did call on North Korea to improve its human rights, and urged his home country to contribute more to U.N. operations.

Speaking at a Seoul press conference Friday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said North Korea is not on his itinerary on this Asia trip.

Ban said he has expressed a willingness, in principle, to travel to the North but that no concrete plans had been made.

Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, arrived here Thursday for his first visit home since taking the top job at the U.N. more than a year ago.

Ban said he is concerned about human rights in the North.

"North Korea should also take necessary measures to improve the human rights situation ... there are still many areas in the world whose human rights are not properly protected and promoted, and even abused. This is a very undesirable and unacceptable situation."

Earlier in the day, Ban told South Korean lawmakers he feels "ashamed" at the relatively low amount of aid and peacekeeping personnel South Korea contributes to U.N. operations.

A U.S.-led United Nations coalition repelled North Korean and Chinese forces to the current North-South border after North Korea invaded the South in 1950. The United Nations is still active in monitoring the armistice along that border.

Still, Ban says South Korea is at the bottom among rich nations in providing funds for less developed countries, and calls upon the South to "repay its debt" to the international community.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

Prior to attending the Group of Eight Summit meeting in Toyako, Japan, next week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is calling upon the G8 leaders to address three main challenges the world is now facing: climate change, the food crisis, and progress on the Millennium Development Goals.

Ban’s concerned were highlighted in a recent letter addressed to the eight leaders, asking for their support and scaled up efforts to find sustainable solutions and plans of action.

The United Nations has reached “a critical juncture” in the implementation of its development agenda, the Secretary-General said earlier this week in a message to the opening of the annual high-level segment of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Soaring oil and food prices, turmoil in the financial markets, inequality and climate change are all threatening to strike hardest at the world’s poorest people.

In his letter to the G8, Ban warns that, if we do not act decisively on resolving the food crisis, an additional 100 million people may fall below the poverty line worldwide. He recommends an increase in the proportion of Official Development Assistance that goes to agricultural production and rural development, from the current level of 3 percent to a new level of 10 percent, without diverting funds from existing education or health budgets.

On climate change, the Secretary-General says that we must arrive at a shared vision of what a new climate change agreement will look like, addressing all the building blocks agreed upon in Bali.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, known as IPCC, provided the science; the Stern Report, the economics; the UN High-Level Event on Climate Change, the political leadership; Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, the public awareness,” Ban said earlier this week, at the beginning of his official trip to Japan. “Taken together, all these contributed to rising momentum and achieving a significant breakthrough in the global response. This came in the Bali Roadmap agreed last December, which launched a new negotiations process to design a comprehensive post-2012 framework.”

“The race is under way to develop and provide needed solutions, such as clean technology, renewable energy, efficient products and processes, and sustainable goods and services,” the Secretary-General told Japanese political and business leaders in Tokyo. “I have no doubt that the Japanese companies will play a leadership role in this new era of responsible and sustainable business.”

Ban arrived in Japan on Saturday at the start of a two-week, three-nation East Asian tour which will also take him to China, the Republic of Korea and then back to Japan to attend the summit of Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized countries on the northern island of Hokkaido.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Alain Le Roy of France as the new head of United Nations peacekeeping, tasked with overseeing almost 110,000 personnel serving in 20 peace operations around the world. Mr. Le Roy, 55, will replace Jean-Marie Guéhenno of France, who has held the post since October 2000.

“The Secretary-General is grateful for Mr. Guéhenno’s dedicated service to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations [DPKO] and for his important contribution to the achievement of its goals,” UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters. “He recalled the strong sense of commitment and professionalism shown consistently by Mr. Guéhenno to the fulfilment of his responsibilities.”

As the new Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Mr. Le Roy brings to the job an extensive experience in public administration, management and international affairs, both at the political level and in the field.

After serving in the private sector as a petroleum engineer, he joined the public service as Sous-préfet, then as Counsellor at the Cour des comptes (French Audit Office). He is currently Conseiller Maître à la Cour des comptes and has served since September last year as Ambassador in charge of the Union for the Mediterranean Initiative – a proposed community of European Union member States and countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea which is set to be established next month.

He has previously served the world body as Deputy to the UN Special Coordinator for Sarajevo and Director of Operations for the restoration of essential public services. He also went on missions for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Mauritania and was appointed UN Regional Administrator in Kosovo (West Region).

After having been National Coordinator for the Stability Pact for South-east Europe in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was appointed EU Special Representative in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. He was subsequently appointed Assistant Secretary for Economic and Financial Affairs in the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, before serving as the French Ambassador to Madagascar.

Mr. Le Roy holds a degree in Engineering from the Ecole nationale supérieure des Mines de Paris; and a DEA (Master of Advanced Studies) in Economics from Paris I. He also completed the program for senior managers in government at the Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

For 16 months, Russia and the West have been a bit eyeball-to-eyeball in the United Nations Security Council over the status of Kosovo. But to borrow Dean Rusk's famous phrase during the 1963 Cuban missile crisis, it appears that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has just blinked.

Mr. Ban's concession on Friday appeared to brush aside Russia's objections and clear the way to end the nine-year "UNMIK" mission in Kosovo. Last week, Pristina authorities inked a milestone constitution, following a February declaration of independence.

For much of the past nine years, Kosovars described themselves as bystanders in their own fate; the future of this gritty city was controlled by Moscow, Washington, Brussels, and New York. A UN departure may begin to change that.

"Ban Ki Moon has clearly moved closer to the position of those states that recognize Kosovo, but from the Serb position, they've got what they wanted," says James Lyon of the International Crisis Group in Belgrade. "They have de facto taken Kosovo north of the Ibar River."

To be sure, Serbs strongly contest Kosovo. On Friday, a parliament of Kosovo Serbs will meet, backed directly by Belgrade. The body, considered illegal by Western officials, will coordinate Serb agencies, police, security, and even Ministry of Defense offices. It remains an open question whether the European Union can enter the largest enclave, Mitrovica.

"What will not be helpful is to push this problem off," says a senior Western diplomat affiliated with an international agency. "We don't want Kosovo as an international ward for years to come…. Drift contributes not just to instability in Kosovo. It contributes to Serb instability, [which is] the problem in the region."

Kosovo is a "second tier" priority for the United States and the West at a time of an Iran-Israel crisis, the Iraq war, and Afghanistan. Yet the dispute pits key principles in international affairs – state sovereignty against the relatively new concept of self-determination for the Kosovars. It is seen as a test of whether the Balkans can integrate into Europe – or are destined to devolve into nationalistic groups.

On Friday at a special Security Council meeting, Ban described the Kosovo problem as the most difficult of his diplomatic career.

Lacking Security Council authority, the question of the UN in Kosovo had come down to Ban's authority as an arbiter, with Moscow saying he couldn't pull the UN out of the country without the Security Council, and most Western diplomats saying he could. Ban said Kosovo's newly declared independence created "profound new realities" on the ground. "It is ... the view of the United Nations that [a reconfiguration] constitutes the best possible way in order to manage the situation in Kosovo.…"

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a June 19 speech that Russia's internal developments have been a contributing factor, despite cooperation in many key areas. "[T]here is some disappointment that we have not been able to move closer to the common values with Russia that one would have thought possible in 2000," Ms. Rice said. "In fact, it is the internal development of Russia away from a more democratic course that has been, in some ways, the hardest part of managing the relationship."

Yet in a fateful miscalculation, diplomats admit Moscow never agreed to vote affirmatively in the Security Council – bringing confusion and bickering among allies. Moscow's diplomatic maneuvering has cost little; the West, in comparison, has spent billions.

"You don't have a Security Council resolution, so you have the Spanish and Greeks opposing progress. You don't have Serbia isolated," said a Western diplomat, one of several interviewed off the record in Pristina. "We've got a customs house burned down in February by the Serbs that no one at NATO has asked to rebuild."

Lacking Security Council approval, the complications faced by the Kosovars has strained its capability, talent, and preparedness.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

This resolution is late but it is welcome and necessary. According to Dutch General Patrick Cammaert, who used to command UN missions in Ethiopia and Erythrea, it is more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in war situations. Systematic sexual violence as war strategy has been well established and documented in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Liberia, Darfur and the DRC. In this last country, a recent study showed that over 2000 women surveyed, 75% had been raped during the civil war.

According to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, violence against women has reached "pandemic proportions" in some societies in transition from civil war to peace. The Secretary General is also tasked with preparing an action plan  to collect information regarding sexual violence in current conflicts and transmit that information to the Security Council.

So, why was there even a debate on this? According to the BBC,

"China, Russia, Indonesia and Vietnam had all expressed reservations during the negotiations, asking whether rape was really a matter for the security council."

As usual with the UN, the question will be whether the resolution will go beyond words and how it will be implemented. Indeed, the resolution imposes a lot of constraints on the states themselves to protect women and girls. But at least, there is recognition of the changing nature of armed conflicts where, according to the UN News Center,

"Council members said women and girls are consistently targeted during conflicts "as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group."

The effect is to also prolong or deepen conflicts and to exacerbate already dire security and humanitarian conditions, particularly when the perpetrators of violent crimes against women go unpunished for their actions."

Go on over and check it out - lots of info there.

It remains to be seen whether this resolution is simply better than absolutely nothing, which we've had up till now.  Perhaps it means more money to surveil and assist.  Perhaps it means that the Sec Gen will intervene himself from time to time.  But given the fact that the world has been happy to sit back and watch the genocides in Darfur and Rwanda with only a little hand wringing to show that they care, my scepticism will remain intact for the time being.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has warned that a military strike on Iran to prevent it developing atomic weapons would turn the region into a "fireball". Mohamed ElBaradei said unilateral military action, which has not been ruled out by Israel or the US, would push the Islamic republic into a "crash course" of developing nuclear weapons and threatened to resign if an attack took place.

"What I see in Iran today is a current, grave and urgent danger," said Mr ElBaradei. "If a military strike is carried out against Iran at this time ... it would make me unable to continue my work."

"A military strike, in my opinion, would be worse than anything," the International Atomic Energy Agency director general said. "It would turn the region into a fireball."

He said any attack would only make the Islamic Republic more determined in its confrontation with the West over its nuclear programme.

"If you do a military strike, it will mean that Iran, if it is not already making nuclear weapons, will launch a crash course to build nuclear weapons with the blessing of all Iranians, even those in the West."

Sources at the Pentagon and other US government agencies have confirmed that Israel recently carried out a full rehearsal of an air assault on Iran's nuclear sites. The exercise, was said to have involved as many as 100 warplanes and its target in the eastern Mediterranean was 900 miles from Israel, roughly the same distance as Iran's nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz.

A Pentagon official said that it was designed by Israel as a clear signal of the seriousness of its intentions towards Iran. "They wanted us to know, they wanted the Europeans to know, and they wanted the Iranians to know," said the official.

The exercise, in the first week of June, came as President George W Bush and Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, both said in public that a nuclear Iran was "unacceptable". Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East and has twice acted by itself to stop its regional enemies developing a nuclear capability, in Syria last year and Iraq in the 1980s.

Facing so much domestic political opposition over his policies in Iraq, President Bush will be unlikely to cobble together the necessary backing for a US-led attack on Iran. However, an Israeli-led attack would not need domestic American support.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

You teach the poor farmers how to handle their crops, but at the same time think about the millions of tons of food the first world eats! This is outrageous! If we cut down our food portions by just a little bit, we'd have enough food to feed the poor. Look at the crazy obesity rates around the modern world now. I repeat, WE DO NOT NEED TO PRODUCE MORE FOOD!

Disappointed with Mr. Ban. I thought he'd offer better solutions.

UN chief raises spectre of a billion starving people

Ban calls for bold measures, with 50% rise in food output by 2030

ROME - NEARLY one billion people could go hungry if the world does not act now to resolve the current food crisis.

'The world needs to produce more food,' United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon told world leaders at the opening of a summit on the crisis here yesterday.

To head off mass starvation, he said food output must increase 50 per cent by 2030.

Lambasting 'trade and taxation policies that distort markets', he called for trade barriers to be lowered and export bans removed immediately.

Food prices have doubled in three years, according to the World Bank. Aid agencies say Japan and China have contributed to high rice prices by controlling their stocks.

'Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made,' Mr Ban said.

The Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is hosting the three-day summit to try to solve the short- term emergency of increased hunger caused by soaring prices. Already, an estimated 100 million people are being pushed into hunger.

'We have a historic opportunity to revitalise agriculture,' Mr Ban told some 50 heads of state and government.

'I call on you to take bold and urgent steps to address the root causes of this global food crisis.'

The summit will set the tone on food aid and subsidies for the Group of Eight summit in Japan next month and what is regarded as the concluding stages of the stalled talks under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) aimed at reducing trade distortions.

With food prices at a 30-year high, he warned that while the world must 'respond immediately', it must also put the long-term focus on 'improving food security'.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda urged fellow world leaders to release excess stockpiles of food to ease shortages in poorer countries, offering more than 300,000 tonnes of imported rice held by Japan.

Mr Ban said a UN task force he set up to deal with the crisis is recommending the nations 'improve vulnerable people's access to food and take immediate steps to increase food availability in their communities'.

That means increasing food aid, supplying small farmers with seed and fertiliser in time for this year's planting seasons, and cutting trade restrictions to help the free flow of agricultural goods.

While pressures on the world's food supply are serious, they should not be exaggerated, the coordinator of the UN task force John Holmes said on the sidelines of the summit.

'We are not trying to say that millions of people are going to starve to death tomorrow...,' he said.

'We do need to act quickly both to meet these immediate needs and to start the longer-term process of re-investing in agriculture.'

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Seeks special status for Kodagu on a par with Jammu and Kashmir

CNC secretary-general N.U. Nachappa told presspersons here on Saturday that the CNC would also stage a satyagraha on Mahatma Gandhi Road in Bangalore to press for its demands.

Mr. Nachappa said the CNC would urge the Government to consider its demands.

The first was to take steps to create a Codava Autonomous Region (CAR) on the lines of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. Forty-five ‘nads’ (groups of villages) inhabited by Kodavas in Kodagu in the past should be merged to carve out the CAR, he said.

Land rights

In view of the traditional land rights enjoyed by Kodavas, he said Central legislation should be enacted to protect their rights, including ‘jamma’, a form of land tenure. One of the demands of the CNC, Mr. Nachappa said, was that special status be accorded to Kodagu, similar to that of Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern States.

Reservations

Kodavas should be considered a minority tribal community for the purpose of extending reservation in all spheres. Buduru Srinivasulu, a member of the National Tribal Commission, had recommended minority tribal status for the Kodavas after his visit to Kodagu some time ago. The State Government should view this seriously, he said.

Including the Kodava language in the VIII Schedule of the Constitution and its introduction in all fields was on CNC’s list of demands. Mr. Nachappa urged the Government to allot land at what he called the ‘Kodava Kund’, near Napoklu, to establish a Kodava university. [The Hindu]

Also check out: www.kodava.org for more info on Kodavas

Actor George Clooney is commemorating Thursday's 60th anniversary of U.N. peacekeeping with a public service announcement praising the soldiers who wear the U.N.'s distinctive blue helmets for risking their lives for peace.

Clooney was named a U.N. Messenger of Peace in January by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with a special focus on U.N. peacekeeping. He has been actively campaigning to end the five-year conflict in Darfur and traveled with the U.N. soon after his appointment to visit peacekeepers in Sudan.

In the spot entitled "Peace is Not...," Clooney reminds viewers that some 100,000 U.N. peacekeepers protect civilians, oversee elections and disarm ex-combatants to ensure peace in many dangerous and politically volatile regions from Congo and Liberia to Haiti and Lebanon.

"We owe all of the United Nations peacekeepers a debt of gratitude for the dangerous work they do to ensure that peace is preserved, civilians are protected, and elections are respected," Clooney said in the announcement.

"These brave men and women go to places where few others will and risk their lives for peace. I am proud to continue my work with the U.N. to remind those in the United States and around the world that peace is not easy, and like war, must be waged," he said.

To read the entire article, please click here.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon met Friday with the inflexible leader of Myanmar's ruling junta, hoping to persuade him into allowing full international access to 2.5 million cyclone survivors.

Ban arrived at the remote capital of Naypyitaw after a flight from Yangon, 250 miles to the south. He witnessed some of the cyclone's devastation during a carefully choreographed tour Thursday.

The contents of the talks between the U.N. chief and the most powerful man in the country, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, were not immediately known.

Highest on Ban's agenda was urging Than Shwe — who had earlier refused to take his calls from New York — to allow an unimpeded influx of foreign aid and experts to reach survivors. Most are women and children at growing risk of starvation, disease and exposure to monsoon rains.

By the military government's count, some 78,000 people were killed by the May 2-3 Cyclone Nargis and another 56,000 are unaccounted for.

Pro-democracy activists had urged Ban to also bring up the fate of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose latest period of detention expires Monday. A string of U.N. envoys have in the past failed to spring the democracy icon from house arrest, confronting a junta that has proved virtually impervious to outside pressure.

The 76-year-old Than Shwe — reclusive, superstitious and known as "the bulldog" for his stubbornness — has held virtually unassailable power since 1992.

As Ban's visit proceeded, the regime appeared to ease some of its restrictions on foreigners.

France-based Doctors Without Borders said it now had some foreign staffers working in four areas of the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta, which had previously been virtually off limits to non-Myanmar relief workers.

A second French cargo plane loaded with 40 tons of relief supplies was due to land Friday in Yangon, while Canada said it would lend its biggest military aircraft, a C-17 cargo lifter, to deliver U.N. World Food Program helicopters to Myanmar.

The regime had earlier allowed the U.N. agency to bring in 10 helicopters to fly emergency aid to stranded victims.

Ban's firsthand look at the devastation wrought by the storm left the secretary-general shaken Thursday, even though the areas to which he was taken were far from the worst-hit.

"I'm very upset by what I've seen," Ban told reporters after a walk through a makeshift relief camp where 500 people huddled in blue tents at Kyondah village in Dedaye township, about 45 miles southwest of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city.

Myanmar's military regime has been eager to show it has the relief effort under control despite spurning the help of foreign disaster experts and has trotted out officials to give statistics-laden lectures to make the point.

But the U.N. says up to 2.5 million cyclone survivors face hunger, homelessness and potential outbreaks of deadly diseases, especially in the lower-lying areas of the Irrawaddy delta close to the sea. It estimates that aid has reached only about 25 percent of them.

The places Ban visited — the Kyondah Relief Camp and the town of Mawlamyinegyun, an aid distribution point — seemed well-organized.

But the destruction in the areas around them was relatively mild compared to that farther southwest in the townships of Labutta and Bogalay. Officials gave no explanation of why Ban was not taken to those areas, where the preponderance of dead and missing are reported.

To read the article in full, please click here.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has this afternoon announced the appointment of Mr Bekele Geleta as its new Secretary General. Mr Geleta will replace the current Secretary General, Mr Markku Niskala, who is retiring after a long and successful Red Cross Red Crescent career.

The new head of the world's largest humanitarian organization is a former Ethiopian political prisoner who made a new life for himself in Ottawa after arriving as a refugee in 1992.

 “It is my pleasure to inform you that today, 21 May 2008, during its 17th session, the Governing Board of the IFRC appointed Mr Bekele Geleta as the new Secretary General,” said Juan Manuel Suàrez del Toro, president of the IFRC, in a letter to all Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, and to all IFRC delegations and staff.

Mr Geleta was born in Ethiopia on 1 July 1944 and has a Masters degree in economics from Leeds University in the United Kingdom.

He has worked as general manager of the Franco-Ethiopian Railway Company, as urban development officer for Irish Concern International, and as a programme manager for Kenya and Somalia for Care Canada. He was Ethiopia’s ambassador to Japan, and its vice-minister of transport and communications.

From 1984 to 1988, during one of the most challenging times in recent African history, he served as Secretary General of the Ethiopian Red Cross. From 1996 to 2007, Mr Geleta was head of the Africa department at the IFRC secretariat in Geneva, deputy head of the IFRC’s delegation to the United Nations in New York and head of the IFRC’s regional delegation in Bangkok, Thailand.

His appointment came while he was General Manager of International Operations for the Canadian Red Cross at its headquarters in Ottawa.

“I wish the new Secretary General of the IFRC success in his new position,” said Mr Suàrez Del Toro.

“I also want to express my thanks and appreciation for the solid work done by Markku Niskala, now Secretary General Emeritus, for his commitment and leadership in guiding the IFRC secretariat through some of the most challenging times in humanitarian history.”

 Also read his interview with Tadias.

Source

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to arrive in Myanmar on Thursday to visit the areas that have been most affected by Cyclone Nargis, which swept through Myanmar early this month, and also to meet with senior Government officials.

Mr. Ban’s objective is to reinforce the ongoing aid operation to see how the international relief and rehabilitation effort can be scaled up, and to work with Myanmar authorities to significantly increase the amount of aid flowing through Yangon to the Irrawaddy delta, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters. Up to 2.4 million people have been affected by the disaster and more than 130,000 are listed as dead or missing.

Mr. Ban also today released a joint statement with the Chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announcing that an international conference will be held in Yangon on Sunday to raise money from donors for the crisis.

The statement said the conference will seek international support and financial assistance “to meet the most urgent challenges, as well as the longer-term recovery efforts.” Mr. Ban and the Chair of ASEAN called on the international community to “rise to the occasion and translate their solidarity and sympathy into concrete commitments to help the people of Myanmar emerge from the tragedy and rebuild their lives.”

Meanwhile, the UN’s top relief official today visited three cyclone-affected areas, including the town of Labutta in the delta, with the full cooperation from the Myanmar authorities. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes also met with the UN humanitarian country team and with the Myanmar Red Cross and plans to hold talks with Government officials tomorrow.

UN agencies in Myanmar report that they are making progress in reaching victims of the cyclone, but that the operation still needs to be ramped up.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said that the official toll of dead and missing now exceeds 132,000, with more than 19,000 injured. Speaking at a press conference in Bangkok, spokesperson Maureen Birmingham said that assessments of the health needs of townships was continuing. She cited Ngaputaw township as one specific example.

WHO found that the most common conditions reported there after the cyclone were injuries, followed by acute respiratory infections, gastroenteritis, dysentery and malaria. Some 46 per cent of the population of the township has been affected by the cyclone and 49 per cent of houses suffered some damage.

WHO and its partners have procured more than 350 tons of medical supplies and equipment for the cyclone-affected area. These include 3 million water purification sachets, 90,000 water containers, more than 50,000 insecticide treated mosquito nets, shelter equipment and emergency health kits.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has dispatched enough food to feed over 250,000 people with a first ration of rice – enough to last for two weeks – as well as high-energy biscuits and beans. Most supplies were purchased by the agency within Myanmar itself. WFP is using air transport as well as boats, barges and tugs to distribute aid.

WFP spokesperson Marcus Prior said that this was still insufficient and too slow. He said that aid workers were coming across settlements that have received little if any assistance so far.

Amanda Pitt, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that the current estimate for people who had been displaced was around 150,000. She said they are staying in 120 official or spontaneous settlements.

The UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has deployed 100 satellite terminals to facilitate in-country coordination of the humanitarian effort.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced that he will lead a high-powered task force to coordinate the efforts of the United Nations system in addressing the global crisis arising from the surge in food prices.

The Task Force on the Global Food Crisis will bring together the heads of UN agencies, funds and programmes and the Bretton Woods institutions, as well as experts within the UN and leading authorities from the international community.

The group will have two coordinators – Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes in New York and Senior UN System Influenza Coordinator David Nabarro in Geneva – and expects to meet in the first week of May.

The announcement came after a two-day meeting of the Chief Executive Board (CEB) – which brings together 27 heads of UN agencies, funds and programmes – chaired by the Secretary-General in the Swiss city of Bern.

In a press communiqué issued following the meeting, the CEB called on the international community to urgently provide the $755 million in emergency funds needed for the UN to feed millions of hungry people worldwide, as the first of a series of concrete measures to be taken.

“We see mounting hunger and increasing evidence of malnutrition which has severely strained the capacities of humanitarian agencies to meet humanitarian needs, especially as promised funding has not yet materialized,” Mr. Ban told a news conference in Bern.

He warned that “without full funding of these emergency requirements, we risk again the spectre of widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale.”

Protests and riots have broken out in some countries over the rising cost of many basic foods, such as rice, wheat and corn. Mr. Ban noted that escalating energy prices, lack of investment in agriculture, increasing demand, trade distortion subsidies and recurrent bad weather are among the reasons for the surge in prices.

The food crisis “threatens to undo all our good work,” Mr. Ban noted later in the day in a lecture delivered in Geneva, the first of a series organized by the UN office there and the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

“If not managed properly, it could touch off a cascade of related crises – affecting trade, economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world,” he said.

In addition to the immediate priority of feeding the hungry, Mr. Ban emphasized the need to “ensure food for tomorrow,” by giving small farmers the support they need to assure their next harvest.

UN agencies are already taking concrete measures to address the crisis. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has proposed an emergency initiative to provide low-income countries with the seeds and inputs to boost production and is calling for $1.7 billion in funding.

In addition, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is making available an additional $200 million to poor farmers in the most affected countries to boost food production.

“I am confident that we can deal with the global food crisis. We have the resources. We have the knowledge. We know what to do. We should therefore consider this not only as a problem but also as an opportunity,” the Secretary-General added, as he called on world leaders to attend the High-Level Conference on Food Security, to be held in Rome from 3 to 5 June.

Past U.N. stories on this issue:
Soaring food prices jeopardizing UN's ability to feed the world's hungry

If you're answer is Mr. Moon... Well, you're wrong!

After more than a year in office, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is still struggling for name recognition, according to a recent memo by his Chief of Cabinet, Vijay Nambiar. Too many, even within UN circles, are still not sure about his name or how to address him.

The Independent reports that Nambiar has recently sent a memo to staff worldwide dealing with "the question of ensuring clarity and accuracy in the recognition of his name;" a matter of “some delicacy,” as for Nambiar’s words.

“This is not an unusual problem, but it remains a matter of some frustration, that despite the passage of a year and some months, there still remains some confusion on this score,” the memo, sent on March 31, reads. “Many world leaders, some of who are well acquainted with the secretary general, still use his first name mistakenly as his surname and address him wrongly as Mr Ki-moon or Mr Moon.”

"I am sending this clarification to all of you to help avoid confusion and possible embarrassment both to the secretary general and to his various interlocutors,” he says. “I would request that you disseminate this appropriately and discreetly among staff and public authorities and institutions informally.”

A similar memo was sent to staff worldwide at the beginning of last year, when he took office from Kofi Annan. Repetita iuvant, as the ancient Romans use to say!

Cela restera probablement un agréable souvenir pour le diplomate coréen, et définitivement un bon souvenir pour toutes les personnes présentes. Moi, y compris !

***

Before leaving Côte d'Ivoire, after two days in Abidjan, mister Ban gave a thirty minute press conference to the local media. Afterwards, the Secretary General offered to pose for a couple of pictures with the flattered local journalists. The joyful mob of newsmaker would swiftly take over the UN chief.

Certainly a good memory for the top diplomat.

Definitely a good memory for all those present, including for myself !

***

Je n'étais pas au premier rang, néanmoins, j'étais présent pour capturer l'atmosphère. Voici quelques photos prises à l'occasion. Comme vous le devinez, j'étais assis juste derrière deux observateurs militaires chinois.

***

My bosse's bosse's bosse's name is Ban Ki-Moon. He is the Secretary General of the United Nations. He was in Abidjan on 23 and 24 April 2008. On the occasion, he spent almost 40 minutes with UNOCI staff which was a great honour for all of us.

I was not on the first row, but I nonetheless managed to capture the atmosphere of the moment. Here are a few pictures taken on the occasion. As you might guess I was sitting just behind two Chinese military observers.

***

Le huitième Secrétaire Général des Nations Unies, Ban Ki-Moon

Since last autumn, “food security” has moved from an issue many in the world never or hardly ever thought about to become the number one issue in life.

Food security involves having and sustaining the supply of proper food sources for entire nations and populations.

If there is any doubt that food security is a big issue, here is something of a recap of recent related news:

--The government of the Philippines said on Sunday that food security would be the number one topic in the legislative session starting Monday. The Philippines is a huge rice consumer and almost all of that rice is imported. Unfortunately, almost all of the rice supplies to the Philippines have been restricted or stopped. The result has been unrest in the streets of Manila and throughout the Philippines. Can you imagine arresting people who refuse to stop their protests because they are hungry?

--Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest rice exporter, said it would cut exports by 22% this year, following similar moves by India and Egypt. Vietnam’s inflation hit an estimated 16.4 percent in the first quarter, the highest rate in 13 years, according to government figures. Food prices were a main component of the increase, rising 21.5 percent in the January-March period compared with the same months last year.

--Egypt last week said that an advisor to the Commerce Minister announced a cutback in rice exports. “We have taken this decision to provide for the needs of the local market,” Sayyed Abul Komsan, advisor to Commerce Minister Mohammed Rashid, said. Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered the army to start baking bread after deadly riots broke out in lines of people waiting for food.

--China this week is doubling taxes on fertilizer exports to ensure supplies for domestic farmers. China also announced that it will review land use issues nation wide. China’s government now says too much land has been turned over to industrialization and the nation of 1.3 billion people can no longer adequately feed itself without changes in policy and land use.

--Malaysia’s government said Saturday it would spend four billion ringgit (1.3 billion dollars) to increase food production and tackle price hikes as the country faces spiraling global oil and food costs.

--Last month the cost of food in Cambodia rose 24%. At this rate, the cost of food will almost double every four months. Yet pay is not rising at all: especially among the poor. Cambodia’s rural poor, who make up over 80 percent of the population, are particularly at risk from inflation.

--Cuba warned the World Trade Organization on Friday that the food security of developing countries is endangered for a variety of reasons, among them the rising cost of fuel.--Oil-rich Libya is discussing a deal to essentially rent a chunk of land-rich Ukraine on which it can grow its own wheat.

--Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was forced to step down last week because of violence linked to higher food costs, and U.N. and World Bank officials warn that more unrest is likely.

--France, sparked in part by unrest in Haiti, released $100 million (USD) in food aid to poorer nations.

--France’s action followed a release of $200 million in food aid by President Bush exactly one week ago today.

“A lot of countries are in trouble right now,” said Lester Brown, veteran environmentalist and president of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute. “We’re seeing various efforts made by countries to ensure they have the food inputs they need.”

On Sunday United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "The problem of global food prices could mean seven lost years … for the Millennium Development Goals.  We risk being set back to square one.”

While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton pick at each other without much addressing American issues, in the rest of the world the big issue is quickly becoming: How will we feed ourselves?