The United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, met with reporters to detail the UN Security Council’s unanimously adopted landmark resolution on Tuesday which lists over 60 parties accused of armed conflict including maiming, killing, raping and committing sexual violence against children.

“This is a major step forward in the fight against impunity for crimes against children and a recognition of the reality of conflict today, where girls and boys are increasingly targeted and victimized, killed and raped, as well as recruited into armed groups,” said Coomaraswamy.

The new resolution was sponsored by the UN Ambassador to Mexico , Mr. Claude Heller and allows for the compilation of a “list of shame” to include the killing and maiming of children, as well as horrendous crimes and sexual violence against children in wartime.

Farhan Haq, from the UN Spokesperson’s office briefed reporters on new bomb attacks in Baghdad and the UN’s response.

The UN has expressed grave concern on new civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Fifty nine percent of civilian deaths are attributed to anti-government factions. There are now over 1 million internally displaced persons in Pakistan. Water and hygiene are a great concern and UNICEF is working hard to combat malnutrition and other illness.

 

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By Mariko Lamb – Talk Radio News Service

Major General Scott Gration, a U.S. special envoy to Sudan, discussed a comprehensive strategy for that nation in preparation of UNAMID’s 2011 peace referendum and Sudan’s April 2010 elections.

“We want a country that is governed responsibly, justly, democratically, a country that’s at peace with itself and its neighbors, that’s economically viable, a country that works together with the United States in common interests,” Gration said in an address to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday.

In order to meet these objectives, “we need some space on sanctions,” he said, calling on Congress to help lift sanctions that restrict access to certain Sudanese ports. Such sanctions, he said, block access of trains carrying essential equipment and personnel for health care and education. They “are hindering me from being able to bring development to the south,” he added.

Gration said he believes that by establishing an environment that helps leaders in the north and south of Sudan reach twelve areas of agreement of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the U.S. can help Sudan reach a major milestone on the road to peace. “We created the environment so that the two parties, NCP and SBLN, could make the agreements,” Gration explained.

“It’s getting significantly better, but that doesn’t mean that we need to stop our efforts,” he said.

In addition to lifting sanctions, “we need more people,” Gration said. He recently requested three additional full-time employees from the U.S. State Department of State to assist him in fostering peace in Sudan.

By Mariko Lamb – Talk Radio News Service

Ambassador Susan Rice, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, described challenges facing the UN’s 15 peacekeeping operations in conflict areas around the world as well as the U.S.’s role in facing these challenges in her address to the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday.

Key challenges include the rapid demand of riskier U.N. peacekeeping missions, lack of support and capabilities from member states, and lack of stability and legitimacy of host governments after the departure of U.N. forces.

“It will take concerted action by many actors to meet the difficult challenges facing U.N. peacekeeping. It will also take U.S. leadership,” Rice said.

“Increasing the effectiveness and the efficiency of peacekeeping is one of the Obama administration’s highest priorities at the United Nations,” she said. The U.S. is considering direct contribution to U.N. peacekeeping efforts in the form of military observers, military staff officers, civilian police, and other civilian personnel.

The U.S. share of the U.N.’s peacekeeping costs will amount to an estimated $2.2 billion in 2009.

“It is pragmatism and a clear sense of America’s interests that drives us to support U.N. peacekeeping today,” said Rice, adding that “2.2 billion is a lot of money, but the costs of inaction would likely be far greater, both in blood and treasure.”

World leaders gathered at the Untied Nations this week to attend a General Assembly organized thematic debate on RTP (Responsibility to Protect or “R2P”). R2p is a new  human rights norm set up to address the international community’s failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.  RTP relates to a state’s responsibilities towards its population and to the international community’s responsibility in case a state fails to follow up on investigating and prosecuting a crime.

The debate, held at the Trusteeship Council this week in New York,  was a charged environment from the introduction. Many countries do no agree with the current veto powers of the Security Council and others voiced concern on how an agreed framework could be provided to set up a legal and ethical basis for humanitarian intervention. Direct failures by the United Nations, in a state that was unwilling or unable to prevent or stop genocide, massive killings and other massive human rights violations like Sudan, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo were highlighted.

Supporters of R2P want the establishment of a normative basis for humanitarian intervention while opponents say justifying external breaches of state sovereignty encourages foreign aggression by stronger nations. Some dignitaries accused other participants of “living in a paper world, while they lived in a real world”.

The UN Charter was underscored as the universal standard by which nations should be operating.

Professor Noam Chomsky, said he hoped the UN well but “every use of force, has been justified, even from the worst monsters.”

Participants included Noam Chomsky, Gareth Evans former Foreign Minister of Australia, and Professors Jean Bricmont of Belgium and Ngugi wa Thiong’o from Kenya.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, issued a report early this year on implementing RTP.

A link to the report: http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/publications/core-rtop-documents

 

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The Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, met with the United Nations Secretary-General today to talk in advance about getting an agenda agreement together for the United Nations Climate Change conference scheduled from December 7-18 2009. Many skeptics of the climate change issue project the conference will be a failure. After talks broke down on climate agreements at the G-8 meeting held in Italy earlier this month, Pachauri said while the G-8 mainly committed themselves to the ideas, there seem to be blaring gaps on how the on the ground reductions of greenhouse gases globally will be reduced by 2015-2020.

“We really have very little time,” he said.

Greenhouse gas emissions have increased 70 percent since the 1970’s.

The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. It is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences.

“I believe we have to move on to clean air technologies, the sooner the better.”

Pachauri said the Waxman/Markey HR 2454 American Clean Energy and Security Act bill having gone through the House is a big step forward. The Bill underscores supporting a new renewable electricity standard (RES) that includes wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and marine sources. The goal is to have six percent of electricity coming from these renewables by 2012 and requires twenty percent of electricity to come from renewables by 2020. The bill would put a cap on emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, and would require high-emitting industries to reduce their output to specific targets between now and the middle of the century.

“I believe now the United States Administration is trying to do its best. But whether or not the best is good enough, will depend on if the legislation goes through.”

Pauchari added that impacts of climate change are going to be progressively serious. Actions to mitigate greenhouse gases are also considerably lower. He hoped the Copenhagen conference in December will help the IPCC achieve global political consensus.

“The time has come for the global community to take action. Until two years ago, there was a posture of apathy, I see that shifting, especially in the position of the U.S. Administration” he said.

David Nabarro, UN system-wide coordinator for avian and human influenza briefed reporters on the latest commitments coming from the G-8 meeting last week in Italy.  The Secretary General’s proposal on avian Influenza and food shortage was fully adopted with strong political consensus. The SG’s main objective was to get governments to commit to “express(ing) global solidarity in regards to the H1N1 virus and to provide vaccines as needed to countries affected.”

“We are pleased that food security and vaccine assistance is back and central on the international agenda” Nabarro said.

Global food shortages are affecting billions of people and hardest hit are developing countries in particular in the sub-Saharan African region.

From reducing hunger to investments in agriculture by boosting the development of  500 million small farmers across the world, G-8 leaders intend to allocate all of the over 20 billion pledged to developing countries. The Organization also hopes to build a modern surveillance systems to monitor cases of disease and illness.

When prompted by TRNS on the failure of the G-8 to adopt a clear climate change agenda, Nabarro agreed that rain fall and new seasonal changes will greatly influence the outcome of agricultural development for small farmers and food insecurity as a whole.  He added that a G-8 accountability report has been initiated to ensure a mechanism is in place to hold countries accountable to their pledges.

Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s (World Health Organization) Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment provided an update on the newly named: Pandemic H1N1 09. WHO has reported the virus is contagious, spreading easily from one person to another, and from one country to another. “We are now seeing 137 countries, 98,000 cases and over 440 deaths. The situation has evolved quite rapidly. ”

In June 2009, WHO raised the pandemic level from a phase 5 to a phase 6.  As defined by WHO:

“Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short. Phase 6 is pandemic phase, is characterized by community level (wide) outbreaks.

Fukuda added WHO will be issuing updated surveillance data in the next few days and is calling for changes in the surveillance approach in many affected countries. “Building a global system of effective in-country national indicators has been a major area of WHO’s preparedness activity,” he said. Two new national influenza centers were open today in Cameroon and the Ivory Coast.

In the past few weeks, there have been Tamiflu resistant cases reported in Denmark, Japan and Hong Kong. “We are continually monitoring the situation. We don’t want to see the start of widespread viruses,” Fukuda said.

WHO also reported “many, though not all, severe cases have occurred in people with underlying chronic conditions. Based on limited, preliminary data, conditions most frequently seen include respiratory diseases, notably asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and obesity.”

One third to half of the severe and fatal infections are occurring in previously healthy young and middle-aged people and pregnant women are at increased risk of complications.

For a full audio recording of the press conference go to:

http://terrance.who.int/mediacentre/audio/press_briefings/VPC_07JUL2009_Influenza_A_H1N1.mp3

By Laura Woodhead – Talk Radio News Service

A panel of foreign affairs experts argued Tuesday that France’s re-entry into the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military command is not a “Trojan Horse” plot to undermine the power of NATO. Speaking at the Atlantic Council’s discussion “Going from Oui to fait Accompli: France’s Normalization with NATO” the panel discussed the key role that France will play in bringing together the European Union and the United States within NATO.

Leo Michel, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, says the idea that France’s re-involvement in NATO will allow them to undermine the organization is ridiculous.

“This is a win, win outcome. It is not cover for some a nefarious French plot to hobble NATO.”

“French reintegration is a vote of confidence in the trans-Atlantic community and provides an example to the rest of the Europe of a common effort towards meeting challenges coming at us” explained Jim Townsend, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy.

However, the panel stressed that France’s new role did not mean that the relationship between France and the United States would be “simple and easy.”

” There are some in town that think that the clouds are going to open and rainbows are going to appear and all of a sudden divisions after division of French forces are going to flow into the NATO system…that is just not realistic.” However, Townsend added, “The addition of French strategic thought back into NATO military command…will be a tremendous plus for the alliance.”

By Laura Woodhead – Talk Radio News Service

The Iranian protester’s that are using social networking sites such as Twitter are demonstrating “the empowerment of e-democracy for the first time” according to Ravi Singh, CEO and founder of ElectionMall Inc.

Singh, whose technology company provides, as he describes it, a “one stop shop for political campaigns to generate awareness over the web”, feels that the use of social networking as a tool for political change is a “historic development” that shows the “merger of technology, social media and politics.”

“What we are seeing right now is a phenomenal behavior where people have become educated with these new tools, ” said Singh. He added that this new form of media is “in essence the new weapon for democracy, literally causing an e-revoloution on the ground.”

“A true internet revolution can only happen when we actually see a grassroots participation in those countries, and what we are seeing is a new kind of grassroots which is basically being empowered by the internet.”

Responding to a question regarding the authenticity of some social networking media, Singh acknowledged that this is a concern.

“Content is being questioned because we have no kind of validation…there has to be some kind of third party validation and I think what we will have to do is not ‘best practices’ but some kind of ethical standards on what we will take as true and right in real time”

“I would encourage the founders of Twitter to think of authenticating some of the content that is going on as well as the validity of the profiles. Unfortunately technology companies do not really think about how there applications will change the world” he said.

You can listen to an clip from Talk Radio News Service’s interview with Ravi Singh by clicking the audio link. (0:34)

 

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