Posts tagged un

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon wants the Security Council to be united when it deliberates a draft resolution calling on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to quit.

The Arab League, backed by the United States, France and Britain will ask the council to adopt the resolution at UN talks in New York.

“I sincerely hope the Security Council will be united and speak in a coherent manner reflecting the wishes of the international community,” Mr Ban told reporters in the Jordanian capital.

“This is crucially important.”

Russia, one of Syria’s few allies, has objected to the resolution on the grounds it could pave the way for military intervention in Syria.

China, which like Russia has a veto in the council, also has reservations about the draft. Russia and China vetoed a European-drafted resolution in October that condemned Syria and threatened it with sanctions.

“It is more urgent than ever to put an end to this bloodshed and violence, to start a credible political solution that addresses the legitimate aspiration of the Syrian people and to protect their fundamental freedoms,” Mr Ban said.

“I don’t think we can go on like this.”

French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero says France is still hopeful a breakthrough is possible.

“We hope with this dramatic violence on the ground, and the commitment of the Arab League, some members of the UN Security Council will finally change their mind, will realise that the time has come to take its responsibility and will allow the Security Council to move on this issue,” he said.

Russian veto

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov says Russia will not support anything which is imposed on Syrians.

“It is up to the Syrians themselves to decide how to run the country, how to introduce the reforms, what kind reforms, without any outside interference,” he told the ABC’s Lateline in an exclusive interview with Emma Alberici.

“Yes, we condemn strongly the use of force by government forces against civilians, but we can condemn in the same strong way the activities of the armed extremist groups who attack government positions.”

Mr Lavrov denied that Russia is a friend of Assad’s, but he says a “second Libya” would be a disaster.

“We’re not a friend, we’re not an ally of president Assad. We never said that president Assad remaining in power is the solution to the crisis,” he said.

“But if there is no dialogue, then the question means only one thing, that you want a second Libya, and this will be a disaster for the Arab world and for world politics.

“The people who are obsessed with removing regimes in the region, they should be really thinking about the broader picture.

“I’m afraid that if this vigour to change regimes persists, we are going to witness a very bad situation - much, much, much broader than just Syria, Libya, Egypt or any other single country.

“We don’t want to make this easy. We’re going to prevent this type of development.”

On the ground in Syria, opposition forces have called for a “day of mourning and anger” after almost 100 people, including 55 civilians, died in the latest violence in Homs.

The government says it has eliminated resistance by rebels on the edge of Damascus after three days of fighting.

The opposition says it has pulled back from the capital for strategic reasons and will launch guerrilla attacks.

One activist says government troops have been moving through several Damascus suburbs, making hundreds of arrests and looting houses.

ABC/wires

(Source: abc.net.au)

The UN’s chief nuclear inspector arrived in Iran on Sunday on a mission to clear up “outstanding substantive issues” on Tehran’s atomic program, and called for dialogue with the Islamic state.

Before departing from Vienna airport, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief inspector Herman Nackaerts told reporters that talks were long overdue.

“We are trying to resolve all the outstanding issues with Iran,” he said.

“In particular we hope that Iran will engage with us on the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. We are looking forward to the start of a dialogue, a dialogue that is overdue since very long.”

Mr Nackaerts is leading a six-person IAEA team due to meet Iranian officials from later on Sunday until Tuesday. The delegation touched down in Tehran early on Sunday morning, the official news agency IRNA reported.

The team also includes IAEA number two Rafael Grossi, an Argentine, and the watchdog’s senior legal official Peri Lynne Johnson, a US citizen, according to diplomats.

Mr Nackaerts, who is Belgian, declined to comment on who he would meet during the trip, which is aimed at clearing up what the IAEA called “outstanding substantive issues” on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Expectations are low, with the delegation not expected to be given access to any sites mentioned in a damning IAEA report in November that raised suspicions Iran had done work developing nuclear weapons.

IRNA quoted Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, in Addis Ababa for an African Union meeting, as saying he was “optimistic” about the delegation’s visit.

“We have always had a broad and close cooperation with the agency and we have always maintained transparency as one of our principles working with the agency,” he said.

The agency added that the team would probably visit the Fordo enrichment site south of the capital Tehran.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran had begun enriching uranium to 20 per cent purity deep inside a mountain bunker at Fordo, taking it significantly closer to the 90 per cent mark needed for a nuclear bomb.

With Iran repeatedly denying it wants nuclear weapons and dismissing the IAEA report as baseless, the watchdog’s chief Yukiya Amano on Friday urged the Islamic republic to show “substantial cooperation” during the visit.

The report, which has led to a substantial increase in pressure on Iran from the United States, the European Union and others, detailed a string of areas in which it said Iranian activities were highly suspicious.

Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has insisted that Tehran is not dodging negotiations and was ready to sit down with world powers Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany for talks.

AFP

(Source: abc.net.au)

The Palestinian flag has been raised for the first time above a UN agency, in a diplomatic victory won despite stiff resistance from the US and Israel.

President Mahmoud Abbas symbolically hoisted the flag at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO to celebrate the Palestinians’ admission in October as a full member of the organisation.

Around 50 diplomatic guests watched as he lifted the flag to the Palestinian national anthem and said he hoped UNESCO’s move was the beginning of international recognition for Palestine.

The Palestinian national anthem played as a morning of biting wind and rain gave way to a burst of sunshine.

“It is moving to see our flag raised and for it to be flying in this beautiful city of Paris among all the other states. This bodes well for Palestine becoming a member of other international institutions,” Mr Abbas said.

“We hope we will have one independent state in the future that will live side by side with Israel.”

UNESCO said the flag-hoisting was a symbolic ceremony “to mark Palestine’s admission to the organisation” that takes place each time a new member joins.

The UNESCO vote was a diplomatic victory for Mr Abbas, who in the absence of peace talks with the Jewish state has pushed for recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations, a move opposed by Israel and the US.

In a move that has split the UN Security Council, Mr Abbas is pressing for statehood for Palestinians without waiting any longer for a breakthrough in negotiations with Israel on a peace treaty to end the 63-year-old Middle East conflict.

Israel and its main ally the US insist that only a peace treaty can establish a universally recognised Palestinian state. But the Palestinians say they have been patient through 20 years of futile talks.

Talks collapsed more than a year ago over continued Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel after a 1967 war in a move not recognised internationally.

Mr Abbas applied on September 23 for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, to have full membership of the UN, which currently considers Palestine an observer “entity” only.

Since the UNESCO vote in October, Israel has pressed ahead with new settlements. The Palestinians have refused repeated Israeli calls to renew peace talks unless Israel stops building settlements on land they want for a state.

Envoys of the so-called Quartet of the European Union, US, Russia and the UN will travel to Jerusalem on Wednesday to try to break the deadlock.

Mr Abbas, who still wants a UN Security Council vote on a resolution for a Palestinian state even though it is destined to fail because of a US veto, was also scheduled to meet French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mr Sarkozy has called for Mr Abbas to take an alternative route by asking the UN General Assembly to upgrade Palestine’s UN status to just short of full membership.

Reuters

(Source: abc.net.au)

Researchers in the Netherlands studying bird flu or avian influenza (H5N1) have reportedly developed a strain of the virus that’s just as lethal as the original virus.

According to the New Scientist magazine, research on the bird flu virus has resulted in the highly contagious strain that has some scientists worried about the possible development of a bioweapon.

Media reports say the US biosecurity committee is deciding whether the crucial research is too dangerous to publish since it might allow the H5N1 to cause a lethal human pandemic.

The research was initially submitted to the journal Science, but has now been passed to the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB).

“The benefits of publishing this work do not outweigh the dangers of showing others how to replicate it,” Thomas Ingelsby of the Center for Biosecurity was quoted as saying.

According to the US Department of Health & Human Services, the H5N1 kills more than half the people it infects, but cannot be readily passed from person to person.

It has so far infected more than 500 people in more than a dozen countries.

“The potential for escape of that virus is staggering,” says D A Henderson of the Center for Biosecurity.

“A catastrophe would result” if a highly contagious virus with a 50 per cent kill rate got loose.

The NSABB does not have the power to prevent publication of scientific findings, but it can request that journals not publish certain studies.

(Source: Yahoo!)

A United Nations report has accused Syrian government forces of committing crimes against humanity.

The UN commission of inquiry interviewed more than 200 victims, witnesses and defectors.

It concluded Syrian military and security forces had committed crimes including murder, torture and rape.

The UN has called on president Bashar al-Assad to halt “gross violations of human rights”, release prisoners rounded up in mass arrests, and grant access to media, aid workers and human rights monitors.

“The commission believes that orders to shoot and otherwise mistreat civilians originated from policies and directives issued at the highest levels of the armed forces and the government,” the panel said in its report.

“The commission has also concluded that the widespread and systematic violations of human rights in Syria could not have happened without the consent of the highest-ranking state officials.”

The report came as state television showed Syrians rallying against unprecedented economic sanctions imposed by the Arab League.

Mr Assad’s military crackdown is now in its ninth month and the UN says it has claimed the lives of 3,500 people.

The United States and the European Union have also called on the Syrian government “to end violence immediately” in a joint statement issued after White House talks.

“We call on the Syrian government to end violence immediately, permit the immediate entry of human rights observers and international journalists, and allow for a peaceful and democratic transition,” the statement said.

Meanwhile Damascus lashed out at the Arab League for ignoring “terrorists” on Syrian territory in its decision to impose crippling sanctions, which it said marked a declaration of “economic war.”

“Arab sanctions are a declaration of economic war on Syria,” Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said at a news conference during which gruesome video footage was shown of what was described as a “mass grave of security force martyrs” discovered by the authorities.

“I apologise for these horrific images, but at the same time I offer them to the Arab League ministerial committee members who still continue to refuse the presence of these armed groups,” he said.

“The Arabs don’t want to admit the presence in Syria of groups of armed terrorists who are committing these crimes, abductions and attacks on public places,” he said after tens of thousands of regime supporters rallied against the pan-Arab bloc.

Mr Muallem told reporters that his government had opened all avenues in talks with the Arab League to end bloodshed in his country, but said that “they have closed all these windows” of opportunity.

The Arab League voted on Sunday to slap sweeping sanctions against the regime over its crackdown on protests - the first time the bloc has enforced punitive measures of such magnitude on one of its own members.

The sanctions include an immediate ban on transactions with the Damascus government and central bank and a freeze on Syrian government assets in Arab countries.

They also bar Syrian officials from visiting any Arab country and call for a suspension of all flights to Arab states to be implemented on a date to be fixed at a meeting next week.

An Arab League official in Cairo said later on Monday that its chief Nabil al-Arabi offered to “review all measures” against Syria if it agreed to a plan to send in observers.

ABC/AFP

(Source: abc.net.au)

(Source: tehrantimes.com)

Israel has reportedly ordered its military to prepare for a ground operation in Gaza.

The order comes one day after Palestine was granted membership to the United Nation’s cultural body UNESCO, angering Israel and the US, who said the move threatened peace talks.

Israeli warplanes have launched a series of strikes in Gaza since Saturday, killing at least 11 Palestinians suspected of involvement in launching dozens of rockets and mortars into Israel.

For days an Israeli drone has been flying above Gaza, searching for more rocket launchers.

Now a military official says the government has authorised the army to take all necessary steps to stop the rocket fire, including a ground operation.

The decision stops short of ordering tanks to roll into Gaza.

Efforts to broker a lasting ceasefire have so far failed.

Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for the accelerated construction of 2,000 housing units in areas in the West Bank and around Jerusalem, an official statement said on Tuesday.

The statement came after Mr Netanyahu called a special cabinet session to discuss the Palestinians’ membership of UNESCO.

Photo: Palestinians mourn outside the al-Najar hospital in Rafah after their friend was killed in an air raid at the weekend. (AFP: Said Khatib )

A senior government official said after the meeting the cabinet had also decided to halt money transfers to the Palestinian Authority as a temporary measure until a final decision was made.

Israel routinely transfers funds it collects from customs and other levies on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

“You can’t demand from the Israeli public to continue to show restraint when the Palestinian leadership continues to slam the door in their face,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The statement said the new building will be in “areas that in any future arrangement will remain in Israel’s hands”.

The official said 1,650 of the new tenders are for units in eastern parts of Jerusalem, and the rest are for Efrat and Maale Adumim, Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In the absence of peace talks, which collapsed about a year ago in a dispute over settlement building, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has been seeking statehood recognition from the United Nations.

The Palestinians are looking to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem - land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East War.

ABC/Reuters

(Editor’s Note: the Australian Broadcasting Commission aka the ABC is the down under version of the BBC. In this article, they go so far as to cite the pro NWO think tank, the Club Of Rome, in an attempt to validate their fear mongering claims about the dangers of a growing world population.)

“Back in 1972 the Club of Rome produced an amazing report called Limits to Growth and they said the time had come when we’ve got to realise that all our non-renewable resources and all our fuel resources were non renewable and there were limits to growth and we better start facing up to them.”

7 challenges for 7 billion

This week the world’s population ticked over to 7 billion. By 2050 that number is expected to grow to 9 billion.

From water shortages to rising sea levels, experts from the University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne paint a grim future for life on Earth.

They forecast dramatic changes unless significant steps are taken to curb population growth.

Here seven academics outline seven challenges they say a population of 7 billion must confront.

Is it all doom and gloom as they suggest, or do we have a brighter future?

Climate

Australia is one of the most affluent and also the most effluent nations on Earth. In terms of affluence, Australia is a place where everyone would like to be, but in terms of the damage that we are doing to the environment - although we are only a very small country - my golly, on a per capita basis our emissions are an example for the rest of the world not to follow.

What we’re putting into the atmosphere really constitutes an unprecedented experiment with our planet that is going to lead to changes that haven’t been seen in millions of years. As the whole world warms up, a lot of places are going to become not very pleasant to live in. There will be much hotter temperatures, summer-time heat stress, likely drying of most of the continent, and rising sea levels, which will become a problem because most of us live near the coast.

Water

Access to fresh water in Australia, the driest inhabited continent, is incredibly difficult. We’re seeing the impacts of overuse of water resources, particularly in places like the Murray-Darling Basin, and that sort of pressure is only going to increase as Australia’s population increases but also obviously as the world population increases.

Water is probably going to be the first real threat that we bump into. Does the Murray-Darling Basin survive? That’s a big question mark still that I don’t think has been adequately addressed. Agriculture, which is the main consumer of water, may have to change its whole structure.

Energy

We have to find less polluting sources of energy and we’ve also got to be much more careful in the way that we make use of the remaining non-renewable fossil fuels we’ve got. So rather than raping our resources to fund the immediate economic demands of India and China, if we hang on to them for a little bit, as everyone else’s supplies run out, they’d get more and more valuable in time.

Our sunshine alone is enough to power all the energy demands of our country as it is at the moment and well into the future. So even just with the sunshine supply, I can’t imagine that we are ever going to have a problem of running our own country from our own renewable energy resources.

Economy

Back in 1972 the Club of Rome produced an amazing report called Limits to Growth and they said the time had come when we’ve got to realise that all our non-renewable resources and all our fuel resources were non renewable and there were limits to growth and we better start facing up to them.

A lot of people in a continent as large as ours but as dry as ours with limited resources means more people wanting to get access to these resources. A simple way to approach this is more competition law, making sure large suppliers do not put pressure on the market to let other people out. It means that price fixing, collusion, corporate governance, banking and finance and property law and the way we deal with real estate will change over time.

Ageing population

All countries in the world will face the challenge of population ageing - it’s happening everywhere. In Australia though, we are fortunate because many countries are older than we are. Relative to countries like Germany, Japan or Italy, Australia is a teenager.

We’ve got some major health problems for the future but we’ve never been in a stronger state with our medical services to actually attack these diseases of old age. We won’t overcome all of them, but in developed countries we can certainly look after the elderly. The problem is that the population of the world is growing fastest in the world’s developing countries. How can we cope with a double or a trebling of the population of some countries in Africa within the next 40 years when they’re already dirt poor and only just getting enough food to live on?

Birth control

We need to feminise the world and look first and foremost at the interests of women because they’re the ones that are going to decide our future and it is their determination to limit the size of their families which will be the saviour of the world.

ake the oral contraceptive pill, you pay about $30 to $35 for a one-month supply of pills - that is over $1 a pill. The actual cost of making them, you could make one pill for a cent. So there is a hundred-fold mark up by the pharmaceutical companies on the oral contraceptive pills.

Food security

The challenge of Australia to meet the food needs of its ever-growing population is enormous. The idea to dam northern Australia to increase food production is probably not the best strategy. I think it would be far quicker and far more efficient to develop what Australian cities are already doing at very local levels, which is urban food production.

I love the old biblical statement from Isiah - ‘all flesh is grass’. That’s actually a brilliant statement because it summarises the basic truth that we are only here on Earth because we can trap the energy in sunlight and turn it into something of use to us. And the best way of trapping the energy of sunlight, virtually the only way we’ve got, is to use chlorophyll - the green stuff in plants - to turn the solar energy into a plant which we can eat or harvest and do what we like with. So ultimately our future depends on the ability of the Earth to trap that solar energy, and for a plant to grow, it needs water.

ABC News

(Editor’s note: Originally it was strongly implied that Gaddafi was killed as a result of an attack from French and US air strikes. Then the story changed to say that he was killed in a “crossfire” during fighting between rebels and Gaddafi loyalists. More recently a Libyan rebel came forth and claimed responsibility, and now, apparently the new Libyan governemnt doesn’t know who killed Gaddafi. Watch this space.)

Libya to try Gaddafi’s killers

Photo: Libyans file past the body of Moamar Gaddafi (r) inside a storage freezer in Misrata (Reuters: Thaier al-Sudani )

Libya’s new leaders have vowed to bring Moamar Gaddafi’s killers to justice, in a sharp break from their previous insistence he was caught in crossfire with his own loyalists.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council unanimously voted to end the mandate for international military action in Libya, ending another chapter in the war against Gaddafi’s toppled regime.

“With regards to Gaddafi, we do not wait for anybody to tell us,” Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), told a news conference in Benghazi.

“We had already launched an investigation. We have issued a code of ethics in [the] handling of prisoners of war. There were some violations by those who are unfortunately described as revolutionaries. I am sure that was an individual act and not an act of revolutionaries or the national army,” the top interim official said.

“We had issued a statement saying that any violations of human rights will be investigated by the NTC. Whoever is responsible for that (Gaddafi’s killing) will be judged and given a fair trial.”

Mr Ghoga, who spoke in Arabic and whose remarks were translated by an official interpreter, was responding to specific questions about Gaddafi’s death and potential abuses.

Until now, the NTC had adamantly claimed Gaddafi was killed in crossfire after he was captured in Sirte, his hometown and final bastion.

Disquiet has grown internationally over how the former dictator met his end, after NTC fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding following NATO air strikes on the convoy in which he had been trying to flee his falling hometown.

Mobile phone videos show him still alive at that point.

Subsequent footage shows a now-bloodied but walking Gaddafi being hustled through a frenzied crowd, before he disappears in the crush and the crackle of gunfire can be heard.

In New York, meanwhile, a Security Council resolution ordered the end of the authorisation for a no-fly zone and action to protect civilians from 11:59pm Libyan time on October 31.

Security Council Resolution 2016 also eased an international arms embargo, freezes on the assets of the Libyan National Oil Corp, and virtually all restrictions on the central bank and other key institutions.

It also ended the ban on international flights by Libyan registered planes.

NATO’s decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, is to meet in Brussels later today to formally declare an end to its seven-month air war.

AFP

(Source: abc.net.au)

Edited and Translated by People’s Daily Online

The U.S. State Department recently withdrew its ambassador in Syria Robert Ford because of serious concerns about his personal safety.

It seems that the recent changes of situations are proving that Syria will be the next Libya. Since Qaddafi was killed, the contradictions between the Untied States and Syria have been intensifying. Both countries have withdrawn their ambassadors. As the U.S. ambassador in Syria was being withdrawn, the severity of United Sates’ accusations against Syria is also escalating. John McCain, a senator of the Republican Party of the United States, said that Syria is a focal point of the United States’ attention and the military operation is an option for the United States.

According to the current situations faced by Syria, including the sanctions and intimidations from the United States, United Kingdom, France and other countries and the prepared Syrian rebels, it seems that Bashar al-Assad will be the next Qaddafi.

Though it may not have the same natural resources as Libya, Syria is important for its strategic geographic position. If the West launches a war in Syria, it probably will have to pay a price that is much higher than the price it had paid for the Libyan War. The war probably will even turn into a blasting fuse and lead the entire Middle East to an irremediable chaos. Therefore, it is a gamble for the West to launch a war in Syria, and it is uncertain that whether the West will win or not.

Some media agencies and experts said that the losses were greater than gains in the Libya war. Particularly, the serious injury and death of the long-term mighty leader Muammar Qaddafi have enabled some countries to see through many things. Syrian President Bashar Assad has perhaps been very impressed with Qaddafi’s suffering just before and after his death. The miserable end of Qaddafi will only make Assad tougher.

The death tolls in the Libya war have reached at least 30,000. If a war takes place in Syria, Assad, who is clearly aware of the consequences of failure, will perhaps take lessons from Qaddafi and try all means to fight the opposition. Such a mindset would likely result in a higher number of deaths and injuries related to the Syria war.

Syria has a far stronger military than Libya. Syria’s military is the strongest in the Arab world. If Assad resolves to fight to the end, the Syria war will be crueler than the Libya war, with more deaths and a longer duration.

At the same time, al-Assad may make the desperate move of attacking Israel. According to a report by the Israel-based Jerusalem Post in July, the Israeli intelligence agency found that the Syrian military were conducting unusual troop movements in the border areas and might launch long-range ballistic missiles toward Israel. Israel said that Syria might want to distract domestic and international attention by fighting a war with Israel.

Therefore, if Western powers launch a war against Syria, al-Assad may fire missiles into Israel, which will plunge the entire Middle East into even greater chaos. Not long ago, al-Assad said during a meeting with the Turkish foreign minister that he would shower Israel with missiles if NATO or the United States attacked Syria.

If a war in Syria occurs, blood, violence, and chaos will again become key buzzwords in the Middle East and North Africa. Under current circumstances, a Syrian war would cost Western powers dearly, and it would be an unwise move and a risky gamble to launch such a war.

(Source: english.peopledaily.com.cn)