Eideard

The dangerous task of removing cluster bombs dropped by Israel on Lebanon

A U.S.-led push to regulate, rather than ban, cluster munitions failed Friday after 50 countries objected, following humanitarian campaigners’ claims that anything less than a outright ban would be an unprecedented reversal of human rights law.

While the United States, China and Russia want rules about the manufacture and use of cluster bombs, activists say such regulations would legitimize the munitions, backtracking from the Oslo Convention, an international treaty that seeks a worldwide ban.

“Against all odds it looks like we’re going to have success this evening,” Steve Goose, head of the arms division at Human Rights Watch, told a press conference in Geneva. “How often do you see the U.S., Russia, China, India, Israel and Belarus push for something, and they don’t get it? That has happened largely because of one powerful alliance driving the Oslo partnership.”

Cluster bombs, dropped by air or fired by artillery, scatter hundreds of bomblets across a wide area and can kill and maim civilians long after conflicts end…

Those lining up against the U.S. plan included the International Committee of the Red Cross and the top U.N. officials for human rights, emergency relief and development.

The U.N. agency chiefs said cluster bombs were a particular threat to children, who were attracted by their unusual, toy-like shapes and colors. They said they were extremely concerned at plans to do anything less than ban them…

Activists said the opposition to the U.S. proposal was led by Norway, Mexico and Austria, while 12 signatories to the 2008 Oslo Convention, including Japan, France and Germany, said they were in favor of regulation of cluster bombs under the CCW.

China and Russia, which like the United States are major producers of cluster munitions, were strongly supportive of the U.S. measure.

No surprises in any aspect of the politics on display here. Whether the question is one of allowing torture – or carrying on with the manufacture, deployment and distribution of anti-personnel weapons generally used by the most reactionary regimes on Earth – the United States has supported continuing use.

We accepted all the premises from the Axis we fought against in World War 2. And invented new rationales, more lies for the Cold War and beyond.

Heavier rainfall, fiercer storms and intensifying droughts are likely to strike the world in the coming decades as climate change takes effect, the world’s leading climate scientists said on Friday.

Rising sea levels will increase the vulnerability of coastal areas, and the increase in “extreme weather events” will wipe billions off national economies and destroy lives, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body of the world’s leading climate scientists convened by the United Nations.

Scientists have warned of these effects for years, but yesterday’s report – the “special report on extreme weather” compiled over two years by 220 scientists – is the first comprehensive examination of scientific knowledge on the subject, in an attempt to produce a definitive judgment. The report contained stark warnings for developing countries in particular, which are likely to be worst afflicted in part because of their geography, but also because they are less well prepared for extreme weather in their infrastructure and have less economic resilience than developed nations. But the developed world will not be unscathed – heavier bursts of rainfall, heatwaves and droughts are all likely to take their toll.

Chris Field, co-chair of the IPCC working group that produced the report, said the message was clear – extreme weather events were more likely. “Some important extremes have changed and will change more in the future. There is clear and solid evidence [of this]. We also know much more about the causes of disaster losses.”

He urged governments to take note – many of the economic and human impacts of disasters can be avoided if prompt action is taken: “We are losing way too many lives and economic assets in disasters.”

There is a range of caveats in the report – of course – since scientists by definition don’t care to offer anything more than conservative estimates of results from their studies. Something the average politician or know-nothing, what passes for a 21st Century conservative has little or no comprehension of. Scientists traditionally posit results on honest evaluation and conservative conclusions.

Living in a country where we can’t even convince Congressional conservatives to dedicate effort or funds to repair and maintain our crumbling infrastructure – Americans have nothing but disasters to look forward to. Penny-wise and pound-foolish beancounters combined with the admixture of nutballs and paranoids that constitute America’s right-wing will do everything in their power to deny and defeat any planning for weather extremes.

UNESCO delegates stand and cheer after approving Palestinian membership
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Palestine has become a full member of the UN cultural and educational agency in a move that the United States and other opponents say could harm renewed Middle East peace efforts.

The US had threatened to withhold roughly $80 million in annual funding to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) if it approved Palestinian membership. The United States provides about 22% of Unesco’s funding.

Which is about how the average mafia functions. Extortion doesn’t make for lasting politics.

Huge cheers went up in Unesco after delegates approved the membership by 107 votes to 14 with 52 abstentions. Eighty-one votes were needed for approval in a hall with 173 Unesco member delegations present.

“Long live Palestine!” shouted one delegate, in French, at the unusually tense and dramatic meeting of Unesco’s general conference.

While the vote has large symbolic meaning, the issues of borders of an eventual Palestinian state, security troubles and other disputes that have thwarted Middle East peace for decades remain unresolved.

Palestinian officials are seeking full membership in the United Nations, but that effort is still under examination and the US has said it will veto it unless there is a peace deal with Israel. Given that, the Palestinians separately sought membership at Paris-based Unesco and other UN bodies…

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, last week called Unesco’s deliberation “inexplicable”, saying discussion of Palestinian membership of international organisations could not replace negotiations with Israel as a fast track towards Palestinian independence.

There is no “fast track” towards Palestinian independence if you think that honorable and ethical negotiations will be forthcoming from Israel’s ruling politicians. They hold power from a commitment to manifest destiny and lebensraum.

History and historic decisions aren’t resolved in press releases from the State Department. Especially those offered in support of imperial occupying armies.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
Witness Against Torture outside FBI headquarters

The US is violating UN rules by refusing unmonitored access to the Army private who is accused of passing secret documents to WikiLeaks, the UN’s chief torture investigator has said.

UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez said the US had has broken rules by insisting on monitoring conversations with Private Bradley Manning.

Mr Mendez says he needs unrestricted access to Private Manning to do his job…

After being confined alone in a cell for 23 hours per day in a detention facility in Quantico in the state of Virginia, Private Manning was transferred to Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas in April.

Mr Mendez said the US had told him Mr Manning was being treated better now than when he was in Quantico.

But the UN investigator said the US must allow him to determine whether the conditions at Quantico that Pte Manning experienced amounted to “torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

“For that, it is imperative that I talk to Mr Manning under conditions where I can be assured that he is being absolutely candid,” Mr Mendez said in a statement.

Mr Mendez said that because the US is a “strong supporter of the international human rights system“, the country’s actions “must seek to set the pace in good practices that enhance the role of human rights mechanisms, ensuring and maintaining unfettered access to detainees during enquiries”.

Living up to the standards we help set might actually prove we are a nation of law and justice – instead of the hypocrisy our government so often practices. A history shared by Republicans and Democrats, libertarians and liberals – so different in reality from pieces of paper and campaign slogans.

Photograph: Xan Rice for the Guardian

The freedom suit is tan, single-breasted and has three buttons. It hangs in Charles Mamur’s tent, covered by a black bag to protect it from the dust that blows in from the dirt streets of South Sudan’s capital, Juba.

Mamur bought the suit two years ago for about £50 but he has never worn it. He was keeping it for a special occasion, a time that he had dreamed of since the day nearly 50 years ago when, as a 10-year-old boy, he took up arms against the Arab government in Khartoum in the north.

“I never believed that the moment of freedom would come,” Mamur, 58, said this week, unzipping the bag to show off his suit, as well as the yellow tie and black shoes he picked to go with it. “But I wanted to be well dressed if it did.”

The moment has now arrived. At around noon on Saturday in the swelter of Juba, a besuited Mamur will be among tens of thousands of South Sudanese and foreign dignitaries, including the British foreign secretary, William Hague, and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who will watch as the flag of Sudan is lowered. Then, a giant South Sudan flag, six metres by four metres, will be raised on a 32-metre electronically operated flagpole that was installed this week by Chinese contractors who claim it is the tallest on the continent.

Six years after the end of Africa’s longest-running civil war – and one of its deadliest – its largest country will be officially split in two. The Arab-dominated north under President Omar al-Bashir will remain Sudan, only with much less territory and oil. The ethnically African, non-Muslim south, governed by former rebel Salva Kiir, will become the 193rd country to join the United Nations – the Republic of South Sudan.

RTFA. Long and filled with anecdotes from the history of this struggle for independence.

As a general rule, I rarely support the politics behind secession. This time, I think the joy of self-rule will be worth the political toil that follows the bitter civil war that preceded the founding of the nation of South Sudan.

Hillary applauds passage of the Resolution

In what the U.S. State Department is calling a “historic step,” the U.N. Human Rights Council has passed a resolution…supporting equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.

The resolution, introduced by South Africa, is the first-ever U.N. resolution on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons.

It passed with 23 votes in favor, 19 opposed and three abstentions amid strong criticism of South Africa by some African nations.

Suzanne Nossel, deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations, told CNN, “It really is a key part in setting a new norm that gay rights are human rights and that that has to be accepted globally.”

“It talks about the violence and discrimination that people of LGBT persuasion experience around the world,” she said, “and that those issues … need to be taken seriously. It calls for reporting on what’s going on, where people are being discriminated against, the violence that is taking place, and it really puts the issue squarely on the U.N.’s agenda going forward…”

The State Department lobbied intensively for the resolution [sock it to 'em Hillary], and Nossel said the United States was pleased to see African leadership, from South Africa in particular, as well as strong support from South America, Colombia and Brazil.

The resolution also will commission the first-ever U.N. report on the challenges that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people face around the globe. Nossel said the Obama administration hopes it will “open a broader international discussion on how to best promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons…”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made gay rights a key focus of the State Department’s human rights agenda, expressing her view that “gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.”

Now, she just needs to get her boss on board, maybe a little backbone among fellow Democrats [phew!] and who knows, perhaps a Republican or two will admit that human rights are for all humans.

Still, this is a tremendous step forward given theocracies and the number of states which may as well be that backwards – getting a resolution on civil rights past nations with bigotry as official policy ain’t ever easy. Ask anyone from Texas.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has sternly rebuked the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in an unusually fractious telephone call, according to media reports…

The Israeli prime minister telephoned Merkel on Monday to say he was disappointed that Germany had voted for a UN security council resolution condemning settlements that was vetoed by the US.

According to a German official quoted by Haaretz, Merkel was furious. “How dare you?” she said. “You are the one who has disappointed us. You haven’t made a single step to advance peace…”

The quoted comments reflect growing impatience in Europe with the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian talks and a belief that Israel is stalling or impeding progress. With the exception of the US last Friday’s resolution was backed by all the security council members including Britain, Germany and France.

Despite the resolution being carefully worded to reflect American policy on settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the US wielded its veto for the first time under Barack Obama’s presidency…

Netanyahu told Merkel that he was planning a new initiative to be disclosed in the next few weeks. “I intend to make a new speech about the peace process in the next two to three weeks,” he was quoted as saying.

The only thing Netanyahu is interested in advancing is more rightwing politics in Israel. If he must stretch himself to vent more hot air and lies into the diplomatic ether – so be it. He has plenty of practice.

And he knows he can count on the United States Congress and the White House to back whatever crap lies he utters.

Israeli settlements built on land stolen by force of arms

The United States vetoed Friday a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that while the United States agrees about “the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, we think it unwise for this council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians.”

Excuse me while I get me Wellies. This much bullshit demands rubber boots.

The veto is the first to be used under the Obama administration.

Ambassador Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations, objected to the veto in a statement following the vote.

“The proper message that should have been sent by the Security Council to Israel, the occupying power, is that its contempt of international law and the international community will no longer be tolerated,” he said. “We fear, however, that the message sent today may be one that only encourages further Israeli intransigence and impunity. This must be remedied.”

Israel praised the veto…

I used a major American media source – CNN – so our regular readers outside the United States could have a look at mainstream American media proving why we don’t need an official US news agency. The Voice of America is still out there being the parrot it always has been; but, the point is they’re not needed for internal consumption.

Hardly any significant American news source would offend traditional US foreign policy by being critical of Israel.

The words sounded fitting, if rather standard fare for the United Nations. They were greeted with solemn nods of approval from the international worthies gathered at the Security Council meeting. But as S M Krishna, India’s External Affairs Minister, read his speech from the notes before him, it gradually dawned on his audience, if not the 78-year-old politician, that something was amiss.

“On a more personal note,” Mr Krishna said, “allow me to express my profound satisfaction regarding the happy coincidence of having two … Portuguese-speaking countries here today.”

Mr Krishna said later that he did not think anything was wrong because Brazil currently holds the presidency of the Security Council and his speechwriters were doubtless alluding to that fact.

But Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s envoy to the UN, realised to his horror that the reference to Portuguese-speaking countries was not one that an Indian minister should be making. He was reading the wrong speech.

In fact, the words Mr Krishna had been uttering were those prepared for Luis Amado, the Portuguese minister of foreign affairs…

“You can start again,” Mr Puri said, handing him the correct speech.

Sounds like the US Congress. Depending on the hat worn by whichever pundit blathering on whatever topic, there’s hardly anyone in my world who couldn’t predict exactly what any “leading” politician was about to say.

In only the second elimination of a disease in history, rinderpest — a virus that used to kill cattle and wildlife by the millions — has been declared wiped off the face of the earth.

Rinderpest, which means “cattle plague” in German, does not affect humans, though it belongs to the same virus family as measles. But for millenniums in Asia, Europe and Africa it wiped out cattle, water buffalo, yaks and other animals needed for meat, milk, plowing and cart-pulling.

Its mortality rate is about 80 percent — higher even than smallpox, the only other disease ever eliminated.

The last case was seen in Kenya in 2001. On Thursday, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization announced that it was dropping its field surveillance efforts because it was convinced the disease was gone…

Still to be decided is how much virus to keep frozen in various countries’ laboratories, along with tissue from infected animals and stocks of vaccine, which is made from live virus. Virologists like to have samples handy for research, but public health experts, fearing laboratory accidents or acts of terrorism, usually press to destroy as much as possible. The smallpox virus is officially supposed to exist only in two lab freezers, one in Atlanta and one in Moscow…

In the 1950s, Walter Plowright, a British veterinary pathologist working in Africa, developed a successful vaccine using live, weakened virus produced with the same cell-culture techniques pioneered for polio vaccines.

The global effort to eliminate rinderpest was officially declared in 1994. It relied on the vaccine and on a network of field agents and laboratories that could hunt for and confirm outbreaks…

The last cases of rinderpest were found in the same remote part of the world as the last cases of smallpox — among the pastoralists wandering the arid savannas of Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and northern Kenya.

A significant victory for science and modern medicine, for animal husbandry.

Erratic and occasional dumb-ass death spirals of superstition armed with junk science are no less deadly in cyberspace than they may be in the middle of an unelectrified province.