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Views On The News: Syria
In this new programme, a group of volunteers reflect on the conflict in Syria. Focussing on the arguments for and against Western intervention, blogger and commentator on the Middle East Karl Sharro answers critical questions with great insight. As the demand that ‘something must be done’ intensifies, Karl provides us with the understanding and principles needed to keep a cool head and examine what’s really going on.In this new programme, a group of volunteers reflect on the conflict in Syria.... more-
- worldwrite
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- 1 month ago
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The new geopolitics of climate change and conflict
Climate change, largely abstract in the United States, is already shaping conflicts around the world – and not for the better.
Energy security and climate change present massive threats to global security, military planners say, with connections and consequences spanning the world.
Some scientists have linked the Arab Spring uprisings to high food prices caused by the failed Russian wheat crop in 2010, a result of an unparalleled heat wave. The predicted effects of climate change are also expected to hit developing nations particularly hard, raising the importance of supporting humanitarian response efforts and infrastructure improvements.
"There are going to be Darfur's all over the place."
- Bob Corell, Global Environment & Technology Foundation
Here's a look at several geopolitical hotspots that will likely bear the unpredictable and dangerous consequences of climate change and current energy policies.
By Joshua Zaffos
More at the linkClimate change, largely abstract in the United States, is already shaping conflicts... more-
- JanforGore
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Conflitti: l'importanza di sentirsi ascoltati
Parlare, essere ascoltati, aiuta a prevenire i conflitti-
- Psicolinea
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- 2 months ago
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Why can't we just tell Afghanistan, 'Hey, we tried! See ya'?
With the news that two senior American officers have been murdered while inside an official Afghanistan government office building by someone who was able to do it and just walk away tells us something about this conflict.
It’s been more than 10 years since America and its allies threw the Taliban out of power. We screwed up by taking our eyes off the ball so we could whip up a phony war in Iraq. This allowed bin Laden to relocate to Pakistan. This allowed the Taliban to regroup and retake much of the country. Before President Obama came into office and we started taking Afghanistan seriously again, the disregard President Bush showed for clearing out the viper’s nest of Taliban and their supporters will go down in the history books as one of the biggest failures of a long list of failures for which his woebegotten administration will be forever stained.
http://deepbrainmedia.com/why-cant-we-just-tell-afghanistan-hey-we-tried-see-ya/With the news that two senior American officers have been murdered while inside an... more-
- DeepBrainMedia
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- 3 months ago
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al-Qaeda is a creature of US and British intelligence
The planned neo-colonial takeover of the Middle East is gearing up. As the heat rises, the West finds it increasingly difficult to proceed with its grab for dominance and maintain a brave face, says political analyst Adrian Salbuchi.
Things are happening very fast in the Middle East. Tensions are mounting, threats are being made, and strange assassinations are taking place… Even stranger diplomatic, political, global media, military and economic strings are being pulled; sometimes so quickly, that they’re getting tangled! The atmosphere is becoming very rarefied indeed! A bit of historical perspective might even lead you to think we’re re-living August 1939: the last days before World War II.
But what is really happening over there and why? Well, to begin with, we witnessed twenty years during which the US, UK, France, other NATO members, and Israel have variously attacked, bombed and overrun Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Palestine almost constantly and unimpaired.
Millions of Muslims have died as a consequence of these aggressions which have been based either on flagrant lies like Iraq’s non-existent WMDs, or Iran’s alleged A-Bomb program. Blatant double-standards make the media systematically ignore Israeli ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Last year we saw a fabricated and engineered social turmoil throughout the region – dubbed the “Arab Spring.”
There is consistent misrepresentation of the true nature of the Middle East conflict, the true goals of its wide assortment of players, and the true root causes of all the violence and turmoil. But now the Western powers are finally confronted with two tough cookies to crack: Syria and Iran. In these conflicts their masks are starting to fall. And when masks suddenly fall, many are caught off-guard showing their real faces.
For example, how will the Western powers now explain to the world that the so-called “Free Syrian Army” – clearly trained, supported, financed and armed by the Western powers’ covert agencies – now counts on the support of Al-Qaeda, of all people! On 15th February, Al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on “all Muslims from Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon” to come to the aide of the “Syrian rebels.”
Well, what a surprise! Wasn’t Al-Qaeda supposed to be leading “international terrorism” against the US, UK, France and Israel? Now, as James Clapper the US Director of National Intelligence told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on February 16, we learn Al-Qaeda is working with a common purpose alongside the US and UK in Syria!
Strange bed fellows you say? I don’t think so…
Lucid observers have known all along that al-Qaeda is a creature of US and British intelligence. Take it from Robin Cook, who was leader of the UK House of Commons & Lord President of the Council in Tony Blair’s cabinet in 2003, but preferred to resign in March of that year rather than support Tony Blair’s poodle-like policy of following Baby Bush to war against Iraq.
He said in an article in the Guardian newspaper on July 8, 2005 that “Bin Laden was… a product of a monumental miscalculation by Western security agencies. Throughout the 80’s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of Mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”
Al-Qaeda’s promotion from sworn enemy to an awkward but useful ally came in a moment. The Taliban is now no longer the ultimate evil in Afghanistan, but a party to be negotiated with ahead of the US pullout. Things the Western media told us hold true get distorted and mutate into their opposite. Think: how many of today’s other “unquestionable truths” are built on sand of deceit and misconceptions?
For years on end now the US, UK and Israel have threatened Iran with unilateral military attack over a non-existent nuclear threat. However, they look the other way at Israel’s own action-ready nuclear bombs; the Israelis never even bothered to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty!
Iran’s the threat in the Middle East, you bet! Even though Iran has never attacked nor invaded any of its neighbors in over a century.
But it threatens to “erase Israel from the map”, one would say. It’s another West-falsified “fact”. What President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for in his October 26, 2005 speech quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, was for the need that the “regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.
A very different story indeed! Tehran hardly has a monopoly for calling for a regime change in foreign nations. And Washington, London and Tel Aviv are much more vocal in such exercises.
So it all depends on how you report things, and why there are certain things the West prefers not to report. Clearly, Middle East is a complicated geopolitical chessboard, and we must be very sharp and alert to understand what’s really going on.
Keep one thing in mind, though: Americans invented and play poker, which is a game of deceit and lies. The Sassanid Persians from whom today’s Iranians descend invented chess in the 7th Century, which is a game of strategy and intelligence…
http://rt.com/news/iran-syria-west-policy-697/The planned neo-colonial takeover of the Middle East is gearing up. As the heat rises,... more-
- MotherForTruth
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Guns & Glory in Syria: Al-Qaeda, US recipe for disaster
The US spy chief has told the Congress President Bashar Al-Assad is fighting against Al-Qaeda of Iraq. James Clapper is the first top US official to acknowledge US might indirectly support insurgents.
Since December there have been Bombings in Damascus and Aleppo that "had all the earmarks of an Al-Qaeda like attack," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
He added that Syrian opposition groups, fighting against the existing regime of President al-Assad may have been infiltrated by Al-Qaida. “However likely without their knowledge”, he said.
Clapper said the lack of a unified opposition group could leave a power vacuum that extremists could fill if the Syrian government falls, a potential development he called "troubling."
His comments confirmed earlier reports that US officials suspected Al-Qaeda's hand in the bombings last week which left dozens dead.
The leader of Al-Qaeda has voiced his support for the Syrian uprising. In an eight-minute video posted on Sunday on a jihadist website, Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan to aid the Syrian rebels.
However the US and its allies continue to hold on to a one-sided stance.
On Thursday, the UN General Assembly called on Syrian President Assad to step down.
The anti-Syrian government resolution addressed only one side of the conflict failing to condemn the opposition for their part of the violence as it does condemn the government. Washington and mainstream media insist the Syrian government is fighting against peaceful protesters.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recently called for "friends of democratic Syria" to unite against the regime. And to convene on February 24th to work out ways to further squeeze the Assad regime and bring Syrian opposition groups inside and outside the country together.
While the White House calls mostly for political and humanitarian support, some of the US politicians propose the direct arming of the opposition.
Republican Senator John McCain has openly called for the supply of guns to Syrian insurgents, urging the White House to take action.
“We should start considering all options, including arming the opposition. The blood-letting has got to stop," he said following Syria’s withdrawal of its diplomatic mission to Washington.
Given the disclosed information, the US Intelligence Chief was more cautious about the possible actions in the region.
He expected Al-Qaeda's role, rifts within rebel ranks, and the presence of chemical weapons would "affect any discussion [[about]] coming to some assistance" in support of the opposition.
“Arming the opposition in Syria – it has been happening all the time. Upgrading the armament of the rebels is going to lead to ten times the number of people killed. What these people need to realize that there is a large proportion of the people in Syria, of Syrians basically, who do not want the central government to collapse,” Ammar Waqqaf, a member of the Syrian Social Club, a pro-government group supporting reform, told RT.
Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition hasn’t missed a chance to call for international support, stressing the urgent need for military aid.
There are suspicions the US may already be supplying weapons to the opposition through its Arab allies. And with Al-Qaeda now present in the region, this could mean indirect supply of arms to a long-fought enemy in the War on Terror.
http://rt.com/news/syria-opposition-al-qaeda-us-567/The US spy chief has told the Congress President Bashar Al-Assad is fighting against... more-
- MotherForTruth
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Who Does War Help?
http://youtu.be/C2uAmQfyxtI
Reading the headlines today, particularly about Iran's firing a cruise missile and threatening the U.S., I thought about how conflict arises and what happens after that.
Every work day I am expected to behave as an adult. If someone offends me or hurts my feelings, I am not free to react without reflection. It is my responsibility as an adult to consider the other person's motivations, along with the context of our interaction, and then act with maturity to ensure that we might continue to work together without conflict.
If conflict seems to be inevitable, it is my responsibility to talk with the other person to find the source of our differences and then make sincere efforts to reconcile those differences. If conflict continues, I must report the situation to my supervisor, who is charged with settling such matters so that our organization might go forward without disruption.
On the world's political stage, however, a different standard seems to apply. When one nation is offended or feels its interests have been violated by another, that nation often threatens war. This is why the United Nations was organized in the 1940s- to serve as a supervisor in matters where nations may be in conflict. Many people felt that the U.N. was a way to bring adult behavior into the geopolitical arena, and for a while there was hope that war could be abolished.
Since the 1940s, millions have died in conflicts that the U.N. was unable or unwilling to resolve, and many believe that the U.N. is a toothless organization which is a waste of time and money.
It is clear, then, that if we wish to stop war, we must individually resolve to turn away from the ideas and behaviors that lead to war: greed, fear, fanaticism, intolerance, and nationalism. If we do not resolve to so so, we will end our lives in a world where threats, fear, and destruction rule. Our world will slowly but inevitably be consumed in the fires we have ignited, and the opportunity for a life which includes learning, propsperity, and love will vanish. Inside the fireball of war, our souls and bodies will transform into heat and light which consumes our world and then vanishes into the silence which stretches into infinity around our planet. How will that serve anyone's interests?
Photo Attribution (All photos obtained via Creative Commons with attribution license):
Cruise Missile:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattie_shoes/4471192090/
U.N. Headquarters:
http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-3782297615
Gun Training:
http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-5497066531
Nuclear Fireball:
http://www.arteyfotografia.com.ar/2287/fotos/20810/
Earth:
http://www.soil-net.com/album/Places_Objects/slides/Globe%20Planet%20Earth%20NASA.htmlhttp://youtu.be/C2uAmQfyxtI Reading the headlines today, particularly about... more-
- Progresshiv
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- 5 months ago
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Third Day of Violence Rocks Cairo | Demotix.com
Egyptian anti-government activists clashed with security forces in a third day of street battles in the capital as protesters demanded that the country's military rulers hand power immediately to a civilian administration. Egypt. 18th December 2011Egyptian anti-government activists clashed with security forces in a third day of... more-
- jeffreybright
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Occupy Cabinet clashes continue in Cairo | Demotix.com
Occupy Cabinet clashes continue in Cairo
Clashes continue between military and protesters for a second day at the Occupy Cabinet demonstration. Cairo, Egypt, 17th December 2011Occupy Cabinet clashes continue in Cairo Clashes continue between military and... more-
- jeffreybright
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A Word Or Two From Erich Fromm About Conflict Resolution - 1971
Words for insane times.-
- Gordonskene
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- 6 months ago
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Climate-driven migration challenge underestimated
The challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as millions of people will either move into or be trapped in areas of risk by 2060, rather than migrating away, a British government report showed on Thursday.
The report, by the government-backed Foresight Program, examined the likely movement of people both within and between countries to 2060. It found the greatest risks will be borne by people who are unable or unwilling to relocate.
Those risks may also be made worse by policies which seek to prevent migration.
"We have assumed mass migration away from affected areas, but millions of people will also migrate into vulnerable areas and there will also be those who cannot migrate out," John Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the British government, told reporters.
"They pose different challenges to the international community," he added.
The United Nations estimates there were 210 million international migrants in 2010. A further 740 million were internal migrants in 2009.
An average 25 million people a year have been displaced due to weather-related events since 2008, which will likely rise as such events become more extreme and frequent, Beddington said.
The report estimates there will be between 154 and 179 million people living in rural coastal floodplains by 2060 who will be unable to move away due to poverty.
These trapped communities will need to be made more resilient to environmental events.
Up to 192 million people will also move into urban coastal floodplains in Africa and Asia by 2060 in search of work and a better economic situation.
This kind of migration could be beneficial by opening up new sources of income which help people become stronger and more resilient, enabling households to stay in a place for longer, the report said.
Migration should be considered when funds are being allocated at U.N. climate talks in November in Durban, South Africa, the report said.
The cost of doing nothing will be higher than the cost of measures to tackle migration, especially if they reduce the likelihood of displacement, it added.
"I would hope to see initiatives on migration, forestry and agriculture to follow the Durban meeting," said Beddington, adding that he does not expect a universally binding emissions reduction agreement to emerge this year.
More at the linkThe challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as... more-
- JanforGore
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- 7 months ago
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‘We do not challenge legitimacy of Israel’ - Abbas
President Mahmoud Abbas has exclusively told RT that he cannot understand why the Palestinian bid for full UN membership and peace negotiations with Israel should not happen in parallel.
The Palestinian president is well aware of American and Israeli accusations of acting unilaterally in making a bid for Palestinian statehood at the UN, but, he says, Palestinians have been waiting in vain since 1947, when UN Resolution 181 on separate states of Israel and Palestine was adopted. Yet while the state of Israel was created, the Palestinian one has existed on paper only.
Abbas insisted that it was not the existence or legitimacy of Israel that was being questioned, but the legitimacy of the occupation of Palestinian territories and ongoing Israeli settlement activities that are the stumbling blocks.
http://rt.com/news/abbas-palestinian-statehood-israel-901/President Mahmoud Abbas has exclusively told RT that he cannot understand why the... more-
- MotherForTruth
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- 8 months ago
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Climate change: "last straw" pushes millions from their homes
With political will to dramatically cut the world's greenhouse gas emissions failing to materialise, a multi-pronged approach is needed to protect the millions of people who are being displaced as a result of environmental factors driven largely by climate change, experts say.
"Climate change is looming as a potentially very serious and underappreciated complicating factor when it comes to international displacement," said Erika Feller, the assistant high commissioner for protection in the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
More is needed from the international community to address this challenge "in a coordinated and pragmatic manner", she told IPS.
Of paramount importance is that national authorities play a central role in developing appropriate responses to both the internal and external dimensions of climate-related displacement, while affected persons and communities must be made fully aware of their rights and given opportunities to participate in decision-making, Feller said.
"Decisions about where, when and how to relocate communities, for example, must be made in consultation with the affected populations and be sensitive to cultural and ethnic identities and boundaries to avoid possible tensions and conflicts," she added.
Last to Pollute, First to Suffer the Consequences
That the poor are always hardest-hit by natural disasters is a fact recently underlined by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Report 2010, which says that these nations "will be disproportionally affected by changing climatic conditions".
This despite the fact that LDCs account for less than one percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for heating up the atmosphere and altering rainfall and weather patterns.
The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in these regions are five times higher now (519 events in 2000-2010) than during the 1970s (116). In the last decade, about 40 percent of all casualties related to natural disasters were found in the poorest countries of the world, the report says.
Climate change affects LDCs in different ways. While Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are facing droughts and floods, some Asian LDCs, together with Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific, are at risk particularly from rising sea levels and storms.
The 2009 "Human Impact Report - Climate Change" by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum estimated that 2.8 billion people are living in areas prone to one or more of the physical manifestations of climate change.
"The global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but different responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions," declared the Istanbul Programme of Action agreed to at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) in Turkey in May and which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly.
The list of necessary actions outlined in the programme, especially by so-called development partners, hinge on an urgent demand for promised financial and technical support – which critics say the world's richest countries, and those most culpable for climate change, have been dragging their feet on.
Staying close to home
The overwhelming majority of people who are displaced by environmental factors become internally displaced persons (IDPs) within their own countries. Just a fraction will likely cross international borders, said Michele Klein-Solomon, director of the Migration Policy, Research and Communications Department at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
"[The latter group tends to move] from countries in the South, in the developing world, to other countries in the 'less emitting world', and it is also not likely to be the most vulnerable who move," she explained.
More frequent and severe floods, storms, landslides or land degradation, droughts and water shortages – so called slow-onset natural and human-made disasters – can all be triggers for migration.
Those most in need of protection tend to lack sufficient resources to adapt to the new living conditions, and that can include an inability to move away or migrate to other countries.
Speaking at a conference at Columbia Law School in May on migration and climate change, Klein-Solomon stressed that it was important to grasp these facts to counter "the overwhelming fears of the developed world being awash with people who are coming into their countries, taking jobs and burdening social security mechanisms".
Even under worst case scenarios, in which some 250 million people could be displaced due to climate change over the next 25 to 30 years, it still would be "a tiny portion of the world's population", she said.
"We are really not talking about enormous numbers relative to global populations and we are not talking about hordes of people flooding into the Western, industrialised, developed countries. We do not need further repressive legislation and xenophobic debates as a result of this discussion," she added.
Few legal protections
Rapid-onset disasters attract far more attention from the media, policymakers and researchers than gradual environmental changes – such as the human consequences of rising sea levels, soil salination, deforestation and desertification.
Precise estimates on climate-induced migration are hard to come by. However, recent events such as last year's nationwide flooding in Pakistan, severe mudslides following heavy rainfall in Brazil and Colombia this spring, and the ongoing humanitarian disaster in drought-hit Somalia show that millions of people are already being driven from their homes and property due to extreme weather patterns.
International protection strategies are often marked by a humanitarian focus on "the immediate need of the person without necessarily looking at the causes of the phenomenon nor to a response in a longer term," said Paola Pace, acting head of the International Migration Law Unit at IOM's International Cooperation and Partnerships Department.
When emergencies occur, immediate funding is provided which lasts about three to six months, but for the subsequent "recuperation phase" it is very difficult to find donor support. This wastes the knowledge acquired in the initial months and squanders an opportunity to "really tackle the causes that brought about that emergency", Pace stressed in an interview with IPS.
The lack of a long-term strategy is a major problem for those seeking to protect and support affected populations. A better approach would go beyond basic needs – food, water, shelter – to address trauma and stress-induced illnesses, and provide opportunities for sustainable development in a new environment, she said.
The climate-displaced also face an uncertain legal situation. Neither international humanitarian law nor international refugee law has a legal definition for this group, making it difficult to hold governments responsible for their wellbeing.
Often, there are multiple, complex, interconnected factors at work, from extreme weather events to land degradation or sea-level rise, and identifying the exact culprit is impossible.
"[I]t is a bit like the straw that broke the camel's back," said Jane McAdam, an expert on refugees and international migration law at the University of New South Wales.
"Climate change is never the only reason why people move, there are always other factors like underlying socioeconomic conditions, for example," she told IPS.
Finding appropriate legal and policy responses requires a combination of strategies, "rather than an either/or approach", she said.
More at the linkWith political will to dramatically cut the world's greenhouse gas emissions... more-
- JanforGore
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- 10 months ago
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Can water end the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Around three weeks ago on a late Tuesday morning, Israeli soldiers armed with a truck and a digger entered the Palestinian village of Amniyr and destroyed nine water tanks. One week later, Israeli forces demolished water wells and water pumps in the villages of Al-Nasaryah, Al-Akrabanyah and Beit Hassan in the Jordan Valley. In Bethlehem, a severe water shortage have led to riots in refugee camps and forced hoteliers to pay over the odds for water just to stop tourists from leaving.
Palestinians insist that the Israeli occupation means that they are consistently denied their water rights which is why they have to live on 50 litres of water a day while Israeli settlers enjoy the luxury of 280 litres. Clearly, water is at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but commentators are now insisting that shared water problems could help motivate joint action and better co-operation between both sides, which could in turn help end the conflict.
"It's a shame that water is being used as a form of collective punishment when it could be used to build trust and to help each side recognise that the other is a human being with water rights," says Nader Al-Khateeb, the Palestinian director of the environmental NGO Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME).
"We should be using water as a tool for peace and to bridge the gap of confidence in the region - not to create a water crisis," he adds. As part of his work with FoEME - which also operates in Israel and Jordan - Al-Khateeb says he has already witnessed the success of co-operative water projects. Over the past ten years, the FoEME "Good Water Neighbors" initiative has brought together 29 cross-border communities to encourage them to work together to resolve shared water problems.
According to Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli director of FoEME, the project has managed to leverage around $120 million in investments to help build sewerage plants and replace old and leaky water pipes. Most of this aid, which has come through agencies such as USAID, World Bank, the EU and other foreign governments, has gone to the occupied Palestinian territories. "There are mutual benefits to be had through co-operative work which identifies common interests and we've seen physical improvements on the ground. Nothing speaks louder than the investment of $120m," said Bromberg.
Co-operative work on water issues has also been able to tackle wider political aspects of the Israeli occupation. Bromberg recalls the case of the Palestinian village of Wadi Fuqin and Israeli community of Tzur Hassadeh who worked together to tackle water issues in 2010 but also came together to stop the separation wall from being built between their communities. "Till this day that wall hasn't been built which shows that working together on water can build real trust between individuals and presents a model where everyone benefits."
International backing
It's not just locally based environmental groups that think that water may be the solution to the Middle East's problems. This year a report titled "Blue Peace: Rethinking Middle East Water" was released by the Strategic Foresight Group and concluded that water could be a useful "instrument of peace and co-operation" in the region. Funded by Swiss and Swedish governments, the report promoted the concept of a "Blue Peace" which states that, if countries work together to protect water and the environment, this could secure peace in their own countries as well as the region.
Ambika Vishwanath, the principal researcher of the report says that we must move on from the focus on land in the Israel-Palestine conflict. "History shows that using land as a means to achieve peace and co-operation has not worked and therefore it's only prudent that we try to achieve the same through water. New avenues are worth attempting ... if not the problem is only likely to worsen."
More at the linkAround three weeks ago on a late Tuesday morning, Israeli soldiers armed with a truck... more-
- JanforGore
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- 10 months ago
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Gaddafi`s troops fight among themselves, showing the tension they are under
Gaddafi`s troops fight among themselves, showing the tension they are under-
- FreePressTV
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- 12 months ago
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Island nations looking to maintain sovereignty if lands become uninhabitable due to sea level rise
Global sea level rise has put a handful of nations at risk of extinction -- small island states in the Pacific and Indian oceans. But this week, a collection of international lawyers and politicians have begun work to ensure that doesn't happen.
They can't prevent what many scientists see as the physical inevitability: a rise in ocean levels of 1 to 2 meters (3 to 6 feet) by 2100, even if all greenhouse gas emitting into the atmosphere were to cease tomorrow. Rather, they are exploring ways to use existing formal and informal rules that would allow many nations to continue as legal entities entitled to ocean fishing and mineral exploration rights, even if their entire populations were forced to relocate elsewhere.
The tiny nations of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and more are among those at most risk in the Pacific. These atoll nations are among the lowest-lying in the world, and should their archipelagos not completely submerge, it's likely that rising sea levels and extreme saltwater flooding will permanently damage freshwater supplies and destroy agriculture, making them uninhabitable. The Maldives and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean face the same risks.
But at a three-day discussion on their legal options at Columbia University, wrapping up today, scholars are pointing out ways that these states can still maintain an identity and international legal authority, even as they lose all their habitable territory.
"It's important to maintain a government that can defend its interests in the international arena," advised international law expert Jenny Grote Stoutenburg of the University of California, Berkeley.
Creating a new field of law
Conceived last year by the government of the Marshall Islands, this week's three-day seminar on "Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate" is the first to gather experts together to develop a formal body of knowledge that can guide the most vulnerable nations, should their worst fears become reality.
Hosted by Columbia Law School, the event drew hundreds of international law experts, maritime lawyers, government officials and diplomats from distant island states and representatives from the United States, Australia, South Korea and more. The United Nations has yet to take up the sensitive topic, but the large number of U.N. officials participating in the talks suggested that the world body eventually will.
"There's been a certain amount of academic discourse on some of these issues, and certainly at the U.N. climate negotiations there is some talk of them, but the General Assembly hasn't taken any action on these questions," noted Michael Gerrard, head of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
The questions are serious ones, and at the same time intellectually interesting.
What happens to the people forced to relocate, and what is their citizenship status? Do their governments survive, and if so, do they retain their full seats at the United Nations, even though they have no habitable land to control? And do they still control the fisheries and mineral rights to the surrounding seas they now enjoy, or do those become international waters?
Nations have disappeared before. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the governments of both Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic were dissolved, and both states instantly lost their U.N. memberships. Those were special cases, but they were highlighted here as examples of how a country could simply cease to exist should it fail to keep up any of the trappings of a state, let alone lose all or most of its landmass.
Some in attendance argued that they shouldn't be discussing these issues at all, and instead should focus attention on obtaining new binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments from the world's largest emitters.
But between the hand-wringing, vulnerable nations did get some valuable advice that could help them remain U.N. member states, with legal defined ocean territories and allotted resource exploitation rights, all while they maintain sovereign government status.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/05/25/25climatewire-island-nations-may-keep-some-sovereignty-if-63590.htmlGlobal sea level rise has put a handful of nations at risk of extinction -- small... more-
- JanforGore
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Climate change bringing infection, hunger and illness
Climate change threatens far more than our environment. It's already led to the spread of infectious diseases and respiratory ailments across the globe and contributed to thousands of deaths through heat waves and other extreme weather events. It's even fueled recent revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.
That's according to Dan Ferber and Dr. Paul Epstein, the authors of a new book, Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It (University of California Press, April 2011).
The health of all humans is directly tied to how we, as communities, nations, and a global population, respond to the growing climate threat, says Ferber, a science journalist and Epstein, Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
Ferber and Epstein spoke with Reuters Health Thursday about how malaria, Lyme disease, and cholera, as well as food shortages and malnutrition, are all becoming increased risks with steadily rising temperatures. (See the live blog from the discussion here: bit.ly/lJnshE)
While getting out of the corner humanity has backed itself into will take a worldwide effort, they say that effort may be led by a surprising player: industry.
"Changing finance is a critical part of ... rewriting the rules" on climate management, Epstein said.
For the financial industry, there's a lot at stake, Epstein continued.
"With the uptake in extreme events -- particularly as it's affecting food security globally and food prices -- we're going to see a renewed interest on the part of the investors and insurers in the stability of society," he said. Already, "the financial industry has at times in the last several decades been acutely aware of the dangers and risks of climate change."
MANY THREATS, ONE CAUSE
Climate change is hitting human health -- and political and social stability -- from all sides, Epstein and Ferber said. On a daily basis many of those impacts are hidden from view -- until you take a step back.
Even slight increases in temperature -- a couple of degrees -- can broaden the habitat of pests that cause infectious diseases, from malaria in Kenya to Lyme disease in Maine, they said.
And the claim that regions saturated with infectious disease will just shift, rather than expand, isn't helpful because it misses other key points, Epstein said.
For example, in parts of Honduras it's gotten too hot for malaria-carrying mosquitoes to thrive. "But it's been so dry and hot that the people have moved as well, and they've moved into the northern area, into the forest, where there's plenty of malaria," he explained.
Pests also target wildlife, wiping out forests and increasing the risk of fires, such as in the Rockies and Cascades, where it used to be too cool for those pests to venture to high altitudes.
Another result of a changing climate: heat and carbon dioxide magnify the effects of asthma and allergies, particularly in cities where more and more children are developing respiratory problems.
And a combination of heat waves -- such as the one that killed thousands of Russians last summer -- and droughts not only causes immediate local health crises but also threatens global public health by destroying crops and driving up food prices, the authors said.
Food availability may be the most pressing issue of all.
"Our food, our air, our water, these are the issues that really underlie our public health," Epstein said. "These are the life support systems. These are the ones that ultimately are most critical and most sensitive to climate instability."
An unstable climate, Epstein explained, is directly linked to social and political unrest. "I think we're looking at increasing damages and social disruption from the climate instability and extremes," he said. "The earth itself can go to a new equilibrium, but we need to back off. We're pushing it hard
cont.Climate change threatens far more than our environment. It's already led to the... more-
- JanforGore
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Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace
With all the unpredictable events occurring now in the Middle East, some would say that there is a ripeness for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that should be taken advantage of. Still, Israel must meet its critical security needs in order for any peace agreement to be viable. Read more at www.jcpa.org.With all the unpredictable events occurring now in the Middle East, some would say... more-
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Jos violence: 'Everyone lives in fear of his neighbour'
Reverend Noah Maikano shows me what remains of the house he spent most of his adult life building in the central Nigerian Plateau state. It has been burnt for a third time.
Plateau, at the crossroads between Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north and the largely Christian south, was once celebrated as "The Home of Peace and Tourism".
Now it is home to neither. The state capital, Jos, is stuck in a cycle of sectarian violence stretching back more than a decade.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12985289Reverend Noah Maikano shows me what remains of the house he spent most of his adult... more-
- littlwarrior
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Sudan accuses Israel of attack near port city
(Reuters) - Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Wednesday accused Israel of carrying out an attack on Tuesday near Port Sudan that killed two people and said Khartoum reserved the right to react to the aggression.
"This is absolutely an Israeli attack," he told reporters.
He said Israel undertook the attack in order (to) scupper Sudan's chances of being removed from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
One of the two people killed in the strike was a Sudanese citizen who had no ties to Islamists or the government, he said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the accusation.
Sudanese officials have offered different versions on how the strike was carried out. Police say a missile struck the car near the port city, but a state government official blamed a bombing by a foreign aircraft that flew in from the Red Sea.
Sudanese officials in 2009 said unknown aircraft had killed scores in a strike on a convoy of suspected arms smugglers on a remote road in the east, which some reports said may have been carried out by Israel to stop weapons bound for Gaza.
Sudan is on a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, but Washington this year initiated the process to remove it from that list after a peaceful January referendum in which the country's south voted to secede.
(Reporting by Deepa Babington and Khaled Abdelaziz; Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/9149250/sudan-accuses-israel-of-attack-near-port-city/(Reuters) - Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Wednesday accused Israel of... more-
- Schnookums
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