USAID Completes Oil Spill Cleanup
March 17, 2009
BEIRUT, LEBANON -- The United States Agency for International Development has completed the cleanup of forty-three locations along a sixty kilometer stretch of the northern seashore from Tabarja to Enfeh. The devastation and subsequent clean-up followed the July 2006 conflict with Israel. Clean-up sites were selected in close coordination with the Lebanese Ministry of Environment. This program was part of a $230 million package provided to Lebanon from the U.S. to support humanitarian, reconstruction and security assistance following the conflict.
The $5.8 million cleanup project employed more than 220 local laborers, many of whom were fisherman who lost their livelihoods and boats, to support the cleanup using local machinery, equipment, caterers, and transporters. More than 100 fishermen’s boats were rapidly cleaned at the Byblos Port Jetty, allowing the fishermen to resume fishing quickly so they could generate income for their families. Following the cleanup, several tourist areas, marinas, hotels and beach resorts were able to resume their normal activities.
USAID’s program implementers collected approximately 1,300 cubic meters of oil-contaminated waste and more than 2,000 cubic meters of oil-contaminated sand from all locations. The Lebanese Ministry of Environment coordinated the removal of the contaminated sand from an interim storage location in Byblos to a designated area in Beirut.
USAID has worked in Lebanon since 1951 and implemented development projects to benefit Lebanese citizens. With funds from the American people, USAID creates jobs, invests in youth and protects the environment. USAID’s work reflects the strong friendship between the Lebanese and American people.
Showing posts with label humanitarian action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanitarian action. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
WaPo: Burma's bullies are always ready with fresh examples of ruthlessness. U.S. engagement must be conditional
Burma's Bullies. WaPo Editorial
They're always ready with fresh examples of ruthlessness. U.S. engagement must be conditional.
WaPo, Sunday, March 15, 2009; A18
THE CRUELEST dictatorships, like the most ruthless criminal gangs, always have understood that the most effective way to deter opposition is to go after the innocent loved ones of potential enemies. Thus it was not enough for Gen. Than Shwe and his junta in the Southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar) to sentence the Buddhist monk U Gambira to prison for 68 years last fall. It was learned last week that his brother, his brother-in-law and four cousins have been sentenced to five years in Burma's gloomy prisons. We hope that this small piece of data is fed into the review of U.S. policy on Burma that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised.
U Gambira, 28 at the time, was a leader of the nonviolent protests that broke out in Burma in September 2007. Thousands of Burmese followed him and other monks in peaceful protest against one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, despite understanding the possible consequences. U Gambira himself, in an op-ed published in The Post on Nov. 4, 2007 -- the day, as it happened, of his arrest after weeks on the run -- said that he understood the risks he was taking. "It matters little if my life or the lives of colleagues should be sacrificed on this journey," he wrote. "Others will fill our sandals, and more will join and follow." We can only guess whether he understood that even his uninvolved relatives would be victimized.
The United States has been frustrated in its efforts to promote democratization in Burma, a nation of about 50 million, so Ms. Clinton's policy review is well timed. No doubt her team will talk to academics and humanitarian aid workers who favor more engagement with the regime and the country. (Those who tout Burma's recent cooperation with relief agencies might, however, want to take note of another prison sentence handed down last week: 17 years to Min Thein Tun, who was arrested last July for distributing relief supplies to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawaddy delta.) They should talk with officials in neighboring countries, who have been pursuing a policy of engagement for years; in addition to its impact on the wealth of the regime and its trading partners in countries such as Thailand and Singapore, U.S. officials might ask, what effect has this policy had?
It may be that the U.S. review can lead to smarter and more targeted sanctions, with better coordination among allies and neighbors. Certainly, we hope that Ms. Clinton will make clear to Burma's government that the United States could never ease sanctions without first conducting full and free consultations with Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's rightful ruler. Aung San Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won an election in 1990, but the junta ignored the results and has kept her isolated and under house arrest for most of the time since. Her release, and that of thousands of other political prisoners -- and their families -- remains essential.
They're always ready with fresh examples of ruthlessness. U.S. engagement must be conditional.
WaPo, Sunday, March 15, 2009; A18
THE CRUELEST dictatorships, like the most ruthless criminal gangs, always have understood that the most effective way to deter opposition is to go after the innocent loved ones of potential enemies. Thus it was not enough for Gen. Than Shwe and his junta in the Southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar) to sentence the Buddhist monk U Gambira to prison for 68 years last fall. It was learned last week that his brother, his brother-in-law and four cousins have been sentenced to five years in Burma's gloomy prisons. We hope that this small piece of data is fed into the review of U.S. policy on Burma that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised.
U Gambira, 28 at the time, was a leader of the nonviolent protests that broke out in Burma in September 2007. Thousands of Burmese followed him and other monks in peaceful protest against one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, despite understanding the possible consequences. U Gambira himself, in an op-ed published in The Post on Nov. 4, 2007 -- the day, as it happened, of his arrest after weeks on the run -- said that he understood the risks he was taking. "It matters little if my life or the lives of colleagues should be sacrificed on this journey," he wrote. "Others will fill our sandals, and more will join and follow." We can only guess whether he understood that even his uninvolved relatives would be victimized.
The United States has been frustrated in its efforts to promote democratization in Burma, a nation of about 50 million, so Ms. Clinton's policy review is well timed. No doubt her team will talk to academics and humanitarian aid workers who favor more engagement with the regime and the country. (Those who tout Burma's recent cooperation with relief agencies might, however, want to take note of another prison sentence handed down last week: 17 years to Min Thein Tun, who was arrested last July for distributing relief supplies to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in the Irrawaddy delta.) They should talk with officials in neighboring countries, who have been pursuing a policy of engagement for years; in addition to its impact on the wealth of the regime and its trading partners in countries such as Thailand and Singapore, U.S. officials might ask, what effect has this policy had?
It may be that the U.S. review can lead to smarter and more targeted sanctions, with better coordination among allies and neighbors. Certainly, we hope that Ms. Clinton will make clear to Burma's government that the United States could never ease sanctions without first conducting full and free consultations with Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's rightful ruler. Aung San Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won an election in 1990, but the junta ignored the results and has kept her isolated and under house arrest for most of the time since. Her release, and that of thousands of other political prisoners -- and their families -- remains essential.
Friday, March 13, 2009
US Launches Cancer Early Detection Program in Georgia
USAID Launches Cancer Early Detection Program in Georgia
USAID, March 12, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching a unique partnership to reduce illnesses and deaths caused by cervical and breast cancers in the country of Georgia. The program, called "Survive" includes numerous USAID partners, including the U.S. Embassy in Georgia, the JSI Research and Training Institute, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the Georgian Pharmaceutical Company, International Women's Association, the Georgian insurance company IRAO, HSBC Bank, and BP Georgia.
"Survive's focus on women's right to health, right to quality care and freedom from stigma fits perfectly with the timing of International Women's Day," said Ken Yamashita, Acting Administrator for the Europe and Eurasia Bureau. "This partnership values women as productive contributors to society and the economy and targets some of their primary health problems."
The incidence of cervical and breast cancers, a major cause of illness and death among adult Georgian women, has risen dramatically over the last decade. Cervical cancer has one of the greatest potentials for early detection and cure, however in Georgia there is a two-fold increase in untreated cases detected in late stages of the disease. Similar statistics exist for breast cancer. Although there are almost twice as many detected cases in North America as in Georgia, only one fifth of these cases are fatal compared to nearly half in Georgia. The disproportionate mortality risk for Georgian women is attributable, in large part, to delayed detection of the disease.
As a result of this unique partnership of NGOs, businesses, foundations and government entities, primary health care providers will take on a key role in educating clients and the public about cervical and breast cancers. Additionally, Georgian women will be empowered to seek out screening and to adopt pro-active health seeking behaviors about risk factors, symptoms and the benefits of early detection.
USAID, March 12, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching a unique partnership to reduce illnesses and deaths caused by cervical and breast cancers in the country of Georgia. The program, called "Survive" includes numerous USAID partners, including the U.S. Embassy in Georgia, the JSI Research and Training Institute, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the Georgian Pharmaceutical Company, International Women's Association, the Georgian insurance company IRAO, HSBC Bank, and BP Georgia.
"Survive's focus on women's right to health, right to quality care and freedom from stigma fits perfectly with the timing of International Women's Day," said Ken Yamashita, Acting Administrator for the Europe and Eurasia Bureau. "This partnership values women as productive contributors to society and the economy and targets some of their primary health problems."
The incidence of cervical and breast cancers, a major cause of illness and death among adult Georgian women, has risen dramatically over the last decade. Cervical cancer has one of the greatest potentials for early detection and cure, however in Georgia there is a two-fold increase in untreated cases detected in late stages of the disease. Similar statistics exist for breast cancer. Although there are almost twice as many detected cases in North America as in Georgia, only one fifth of these cases are fatal compared to nearly half in Georgia. The disproportionate mortality risk for Georgian women is attributable, in large part, to delayed detection of the disease.
As a result of this unique partnership of NGOs, businesses, foundations and government entities, primary health care providers will take on a key role in educating clients and the public about cervical and breast cancers. Additionally, Georgian women will be empowered to seek out screening and to adopt pro-active health seeking behaviors about risk factors, symptoms and the benefits of early detection.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Are the Chinese people alone now? On Chas Freeman, Commerce Nominee Locke and State Sec Clinton
The Administration Kowtows, by Ethan Gutmann
Are the Chinese people alone now?
The Weekly Standard, Mar 16, 2009, Volume 014, Issue 25
Over the last three weeks, the Obama administration has sent three clear signals to the Chinese leadership.
First came the news that Chas Freeman would chair the National Intelligence Council. The former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and an adviser to CNOOC (the state-owned Chinese oil company), Freeman clearly fits the Chinese Communist party's idea of a four-year plan for American intelligence oversight. Just note Freeman's curious 2006 statement about the Tiananmen massacre. It is unacceptable "for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be." That particular trope was originally laid down by Henry Kissinger, and it's considered safe for public use. Freeman, though, took the argument to its logical conclusion, condemning the "ill-conceived restraint" and "overly cautious behavior" of the party leadership.
It's not hard to predict what line the intelligence community will take on China's military buildup (or another Tiananmen) under Freeman's leadership.
The Chinese will score their number two victory with Gary Locke, former governor of Washington, becoming our new commerce secretary. Locke's been a very--very!--good Friend of China: making public displays of affection for the party's brilliant stewardship, carrying a torch for China in the Beijing Olympics relay, and easily straddling his public and private interests to make a deal. Locke has paraded his guanxi--his connections--and, indeed, his numerous meetings with Hu Jintao are real. As are the campaign funds he got in the 1990s through Buddhist temple fundraisers, Chinese cut-outs, and confessed felon John Huang. This may have knocked Locke out of contention for a spot on the Gore 2000 ticket, but apparently it was of little interest to Obama's third-time-lucky vetting staff in 2009.
To complete the hat trick, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a seemingly offhand comment on the eve of her recent trip to Beijing. Discussion of Taiwan, Tibet, and human rights would be "on the agenda," she said. But "We pretty much know what they are going to say." Some commentators have labored to present those words as refreshingly plainspoken. Bringing up human rights to the Chinese government is just an empty ritual the argument goes, and America has larger interests at the moment--China's purchase of treasury bonds, a "partnership" on green technologies--which speak to a much broader, "global" definition of human rights.
But rituals, and the spirit in which they are carried out, matter very much to the Chinese leadership. Chinese citizens, particularly those who dissent, pay close attention as well. Even if Clinton has tired of Chinese human rights (in the old-fashioned definition, where people are tortured to death and so on), the act of unilaterally agreeing to ignore an actual source of tension between our two societies represents a notable change in U.S. policy. The repercussions will extend far into Taiwan, China, and America.
Taiwan, in particular, faces trouble. China's internal crisis of collapsing exports and exploding unemployment would squelch any tendency toward foreign adventurism in most societies. But the Chinese government remains perfectly willing to go to war if they can unify the population and extend the party's control. Its objectives are clear. It wants to prevent Taiwan from being becoming the locus of the Chinese diaspora's resistance. The Chinese reward Taiwanese single-party rule with economic favors to prevent any onset of the democracy cancer when Taiwan is absorbed into the Chinese bloodstream. The current Taiwanese leadership is playing into the scenario by expanding economic contacts, attempting to wring the last Renminbi from the mainland, while intently working over their discredited opposition party to the last man.
As the first viable Chinese democracy in history drifts into genuine peril, it cannot rely on the U.S. president who appears to dislike even using the D-word and needs Chinese cash for his own internal adventurism. The Chinese have an estimated $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.
On the mainland, the Obama administration is giving the party a free hand exactly when they need it. The party must keep disparate forces--labor groups, Falun Gong, Christians, democracy advocates--isolated from one another. The tool is surveillance--using the Internet, phones, indeed, any electronic device that can track humans. (Many of these technologies originally came from American companies.) Once dissenters are arrested, the party needs to squelch any legal defense. Dissident lawyer Gao Zhisheng, freshly out of detention after severe torture, recently disappeared again.
Organ harvesting--particularly if the liver, kidneys, and corneas are surgically removed while a prisoner is alive--creates a foreign currency stream for the military. For the Chinese state it also solves a problem: Approximately 100,000 incarcerated Falun Gong, and an unspecified number of Eastern Lightning (Christians) will not give up their beliefs. Release is impossible; they are dangerous enemies of the state. In the marriage of the New China's capitalism and the party's unchanging authoritarianism, organ harvesting has become a profitable form of barbarism.
The last time an administration gave such an explicit green light to the Chinese leadership was three weeks after the Tiananmen Square massacre. George H.W. Bush sent National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger to Beijing to reassure the Chinese. Again, the message was that human rights and democracy didn't really matter, only business, only partnership. (That Scowcroft had to deliver it in secret, though, is another sign of how far things have deteriorated.) When this became public some months later, many conservatives broke ranks and some liberals joined them in creating a firestorm of criticism for the administration's policy.
And today? Nancy Pelosi cut her teeth on China human rights, but she won't break ranks without sustained pressure. Amnesty International has made some noises about Clinton's comments. To a lesser extent, so have Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, and Human Rights Watch. But it's not nearly enough. And where are the AFL-CIO, the academy, and the sweatshop coalitions?
Human rights in China. Democracy in China. These are things that the Obama administration wants nothing to do with. Are the Chinese people on their own now?
Ethan Gutmann, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is completing a book on the conflict between the Chinese state and Falun Gong.
Are the Chinese people alone now?
The Weekly Standard, Mar 16, 2009, Volume 014, Issue 25
Over the last three weeks, the Obama administration has sent three clear signals to the Chinese leadership.
First came the news that Chas Freeman would chair the National Intelligence Council. The former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and an adviser to CNOOC (the state-owned Chinese oil company), Freeman clearly fits the Chinese Communist party's idea of a four-year plan for American intelligence oversight. Just note Freeman's curious 2006 statement about the Tiananmen massacre. It is unacceptable "for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be." That particular trope was originally laid down by Henry Kissinger, and it's considered safe for public use. Freeman, though, took the argument to its logical conclusion, condemning the "ill-conceived restraint" and "overly cautious behavior" of the party leadership.
I thus share the hope of the majority in China that no Chinese government will
repeat the mistakes of Zhao Ziyang's dilatory tactics of appeasement in dealing
with domestic protesters in China.
It's not hard to predict what line the intelligence community will take on China's military buildup (or another Tiananmen) under Freeman's leadership.
The Chinese will score their number two victory with Gary Locke, former governor of Washington, becoming our new commerce secretary. Locke's been a very--very!--good Friend of China: making public displays of affection for the party's brilliant stewardship, carrying a torch for China in the Beijing Olympics relay, and easily straddling his public and private interests to make a deal. Locke has paraded his guanxi--his connections--and, indeed, his numerous meetings with Hu Jintao are real. As are the campaign funds he got in the 1990s through Buddhist temple fundraisers, Chinese cut-outs, and confessed felon John Huang. This may have knocked Locke out of contention for a spot on the Gore 2000 ticket, but apparently it was of little interest to Obama's third-time-lucky vetting staff in 2009.
To complete the hat trick, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a seemingly offhand comment on the eve of her recent trip to Beijing. Discussion of Taiwan, Tibet, and human rights would be "on the agenda," she said. But "We pretty much know what they are going to say." Some commentators have labored to present those words as refreshingly plainspoken. Bringing up human rights to the Chinese government is just an empty ritual the argument goes, and America has larger interests at the moment--China's purchase of treasury bonds, a "partnership" on green technologies--which speak to a much broader, "global" definition of human rights.
But rituals, and the spirit in which they are carried out, matter very much to the Chinese leadership. Chinese citizens, particularly those who dissent, pay close attention as well. Even if Clinton has tired of Chinese human rights (in the old-fashioned definition, where people are tortured to death and so on), the act of unilaterally agreeing to ignore an actual source of tension between our two societies represents a notable change in U.S. policy. The repercussions will extend far into Taiwan, China, and America.
Taiwan, in particular, faces trouble. China's internal crisis of collapsing exports and exploding unemployment would squelch any tendency toward foreign adventurism in most societies. But the Chinese government remains perfectly willing to go to war if they can unify the population and extend the party's control. Its objectives are clear. It wants to prevent Taiwan from being becoming the locus of the Chinese diaspora's resistance. The Chinese reward Taiwanese single-party rule with economic favors to prevent any onset of the democracy cancer when Taiwan is absorbed into the Chinese bloodstream. The current Taiwanese leadership is playing into the scenario by expanding economic contacts, attempting to wring the last Renminbi from the mainland, while intently working over their discredited opposition party to the last man.
As the first viable Chinese democracy in history drifts into genuine peril, it cannot rely on the U.S. president who appears to dislike even using the D-word and needs Chinese cash for his own internal adventurism. The Chinese have an estimated $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.
On the mainland, the Obama administration is giving the party a free hand exactly when they need it. The party must keep disparate forces--labor groups, Falun Gong, Christians, democracy advocates--isolated from one another. The tool is surveillance--using the Internet, phones, indeed, any electronic device that can track humans. (Many of these technologies originally came from American companies.) Once dissenters are arrested, the party needs to squelch any legal defense. Dissident lawyer Gao Zhisheng, freshly out of detention after severe torture, recently disappeared again.
Organ harvesting--particularly if the liver, kidneys, and corneas are surgically removed while a prisoner is alive--creates a foreign currency stream for the military. For the Chinese state it also solves a problem: Approximately 100,000 incarcerated Falun Gong, and an unspecified number of Eastern Lightning (Christians) will not give up their beliefs. Release is impossible; they are dangerous enemies of the state. In the marriage of the New China's capitalism and the party's unchanging authoritarianism, organ harvesting has become a profitable form of barbarism.
The last time an administration gave such an explicit green light to the Chinese leadership was three weeks after the Tiananmen Square massacre. George H.W. Bush sent National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger to Beijing to reassure the Chinese. Again, the message was that human rights and democracy didn't really matter, only business, only partnership. (That Scowcroft had to deliver it in secret, though, is another sign of how far things have deteriorated.) When this became public some months later, many conservatives broke ranks and some liberals joined them in creating a firestorm of criticism for the administration's policy.
And today? Nancy Pelosi cut her teeth on China human rights, but she won't break ranks without sustained pressure. Amnesty International has made some noises about Clinton's comments. To a lesser extent, so have Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, and Human Rights Watch. But it's not nearly enough. And where are the AFL-CIO, the academy, and the sweatshop coalitions?
Human rights in China. Democracy in China. These are things that the Obama administration wants nothing to do with. Are the Chinese people on their own now?
Ethan Gutmann, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is completing a book on the conflict between the Chinese state and Falun Gong.
US and Honduras Extend Agreement to Protect Archaeological Heritage of Honduras
United States and Honduras Extend Agreement to Protect Archaeological Heritage of Honduras
US State Dept, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC, March 11, 2009
The U.S. Department of State is pleased to announce the extension of the “Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Honduras Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological Materials from the Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras.” Ambassador Hugo Llorens, representing the Government of the United States, and Minister of Culture, Arts, and Sports Dr. Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, representing the Government of Honduras, exchanged diplomatic notes in a ceremony in Tegucigalpa on March 3, 2009, to extend the agreement.
Effective March 12, 2009, this extension represents a continuation of cooperation that began in 2004 when the United States implemented import restrictions to stem the problem of pillage of Honduras’ rich pre-Columbian heritage and the illicit trafficking in such material. Recognizing that this heritage is in jeopardy from pillage, the agreement enables the imposition of import restrictions on certain categories of archaeological material ranging in date from approximately 1200 B.C. to approximately 1500 A.D., including objects made of ceramic, metal, stone, shell, and animal bone. The agreement also calls upon both governments to encourage academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and other private entities to cooperate in the exchange of knowledge and information about the cultural patrimony of Honduras, and to collaborate in its preservation and protection.
This U.S. action is in response to a request made by the Government of Honduras under Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the extension is consistent with a recommendation made by the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to the Department of State. By extending this agreement, the United States demonstrates its continued respect for the cultural heritage of Honduras and decries the global pillage that results in illicit trade in cultural objects and the irretrievable loss of information about human history.
The Department of Homeland Security published a Designated List of restricted categories of objects in the Federal Register on March 16, 2004. The extension of the restriction was published in the Federal Register on March 11, 2009. The restricted objects may enter the United States if accompanied with an export permit issued by the government of Honduras or documentation verifying its provenance prior to 2004 and if no other applicable U.S. laws are violated. The Designated List and information about the agreement can be found at http://exchanges.state.gov/chc.html.
PRN: 2009/205
US State Dept, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC, March 11, 2009
The U.S. Department of State is pleased to announce the extension of the “Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Honduras Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological Materials from the Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras.” Ambassador Hugo Llorens, representing the Government of the United States, and Minister of Culture, Arts, and Sports Dr. Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, representing the Government of Honduras, exchanged diplomatic notes in a ceremony in Tegucigalpa on March 3, 2009, to extend the agreement.
Effective March 12, 2009, this extension represents a continuation of cooperation that began in 2004 when the United States implemented import restrictions to stem the problem of pillage of Honduras’ rich pre-Columbian heritage and the illicit trafficking in such material. Recognizing that this heritage is in jeopardy from pillage, the agreement enables the imposition of import restrictions on certain categories of archaeological material ranging in date from approximately 1200 B.C. to approximately 1500 A.D., including objects made of ceramic, metal, stone, shell, and animal bone. The agreement also calls upon both governments to encourage academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and other private entities to cooperate in the exchange of knowledge and information about the cultural patrimony of Honduras, and to collaborate in its preservation and protection.
This U.S. action is in response to a request made by the Government of Honduras under Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the extension is consistent with a recommendation made by the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to the Department of State. By extending this agreement, the United States demonstrates its continued respect for the cultural heritage of Honduras and decries the global pillage that results in illicit trade in cultural objects and the irretrievable loss of information about human history.
The Department of Homeland Security published a Designated List of restricted categories of objects in the Federal Register on March 16, 2004. The extension of the restriction was published in the Federal Register on March 11, 2009. The restricted objects may enter the United States if accompanied with an export permit issued by the government of Honduras or documentation verifying its provenance prior to 2004 and if no other applicable U.S. laws are violated. The Designated List and information about the agreement can be found at http://exchanges.state.gov/chc.html.
PRN: 2009/205
USAID and IOM Announce HIV Prevention and Care for Farm Workers
USAID and IOM Announce HIV Prevention and Care for Farm Workers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 10, 2009
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA - MARCH 10, 2009 - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Southern Africa launched a new program to reduce HIV vulnerability of farm workers in South Africa's Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces.
The three-year, $5.1 million project is funded by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and administered by USAID. A recent release study by the IOM, identified high levels of unsafe sexual behaviour among farm workers - including extremely low condom use in casual sex and high levels of multiple, concurrent sexual partners. This report guided the development of an HIV prevention outreach effort to reach the high risk farm worker population.
The project will be known as "Ripfumelo," which means "believe" in xiTsonga. It will target 20,000 seasonal, temporary, and permanent farm workers in South Africa, including documented and undocumented migrant workers through increasing the technical capacity of its implementing partners: Agri-IQ, CHOiCE and the Hoedspruit Training Trust. This increased capacity will lead to the provision of sustainable HIV prevention and care services to farm workers.
"One prevention program doesn't fit all people's needs. Farm workers face higher risks of getting and spreading HIV than many other groups. Our prevention efforts tackle their vulnerabilities, including alcohol abuse, that arise from many factors related to poverty and the transitional lifestyle of migrant workers," said USAID Southern Africa Director Dr. Carleene Dei.
The project will develop a network of stakeholders working specifically on HIV-related issues to reduce the high incidence and impact of AIDS on farm workers, their families and their communities. Partnerships are encouraged among local, provincial, and national government agencies, as well as between public/private entities.
Julia Hill-Mlati, IOM regional project manager, reports, "HIV prevention efforts often focus purely on medical issues and fail to consider interrelated factors that affect people's vulnerability to the AIDS virus. This reason prompts our USAID Ripfumelo project to address the contextual issues such as workplace policies, improving life skills, financial literacy and promoting healthy recreational activities."
Ripfumelo intervention activities include:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 10, 2009
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA - MARCH 10, 2009 - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Southern Africa launched a new program to reduce HIV vulnerability of farm workers in South Africa's Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces.
The three-year, $5.1 million project is funded by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and administered by USAID. A recent release study by the IOM, identified high levels of unsafe sexual behaviour among farm workers - including extremely low condom use in casual sex and high levels of multiple, concurrent sexual partners. This report guided the development of an HIV prevention outreach effort to reach the high risk farm worker population.
The project will be known as "Ripfumelo," which means "believe" in xiTsonga. It will target 20,000 seasonal, temporary, and permanent farm workers in South Africa, including documented and undocumented migrant workers through increasing the technical capacity of its implementing partners: Agri-IQ, CHOiCE and the Hoedspruit Training Trust. This increased capacity will lead to the provision of sustainable HIV prevention and care services to farm workers.
"One prevention program doesn't fit all people's needs. Farm workers face higher risks of getting and spreading HIV than many other groups. Our prevention efforts tackle their vulnerabilities, including alcohol abuse, that arise from many factors related to poverty and the transitional lifestyle of migrant workers," said USAID Southern Africa Director Dr. Carleene Dei.
The project will develop a network of stakeholders working specifically on HIV-related issues to reduce the high incidence and impact of AIDS on farm workers, their families and their communities. Partnerships are encouraged among local, provincial, and national government agencies, as well as between public/private entities.
Julia Hill-Mlati, IOM regional project manager, reports, "HIV prevention efforts often focus purely on medical issues and fail to consider interrelated factors that affect people's vulnerability to the AIDS virus. This reason prompts our USAID Ripfumelo project to address the contextual issues such as workplace policies, improving life skills, financial literacy and promoting healthy recreational activities."
Ripfumelo intervention activities include:
- Tackling discriminatory gender dynamics and prejudices through the training of male role models as gender advocates.
- Promoting peer-led education and referrals to relevant services and support.
- Facilitating access to health services, including prevention, counselling and testing, home-based care and treatment.
- Integrating locally tailored Social and Behavioural Change Communication programs that are developed and disseminated by local Change Agents.
- Developing and implementing interventions that address some of the contextual factors that impact on HIV vulnerability, such as improving life skills, financial literacy and promoting recreational activities.
- Creating a conducive environment by strengthening workplace policies and programs.
US Approves Almost $1 Billion for UN-Backed Fund Against Killer Diseases
US Approves Almost $1 Billion for UN-Backed Fund Against Killer Diseases
UN, New York, Mar 11 2009 2:10PM
The United Nations-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today welcomed an announcement by the United States Congress that it will donate $900 million to its cause for this year.
This latest pledge from the US is its highest ever to the Fund and is $60 million more than its donation for 2008, taking the country’s total contribution to more than $4.4 billion.
“The United States is a leader in the fight against infectious diseases,” said Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund.
“It sends a strong signal of the importance of this fight that the US Congress continues to increase funding for global health at a time of economic crisis. It underscores the need to maintain the progress and continue to invest in people’s health globally,” he added.
The Global Fund works closely with US initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS and malaria throughout the world, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI).
The US is the Fund’s largest single donor, although European Union member States together contribute more than half of the Global Fund’s resources. The Global Fund has received contributions from a total of 50 donor countries to date, in addition to a number of private foundations, corporations and individuals.
Mar 11 2009 2:10PM
UN, New York, Mar 11 2009 2:10PM
The United Nations-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today welcomed an announcement by the United States Congress that it will donate $900 million to its cause for this year.
This latest pledge from the US is its highest ever to the Fund and is $60 million more than its donation for 2008, taking the country’s total contribution to more than $4.4 billion.
“The United States is a leader in the fight against infectious diseases,” said Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund.
“It sends a strong signal of the importance of this fight that the US Congress continues to increase funding for global health at a time of economic crisis. It underscores the need to maintain the progress and continue to invest in people’s health globally,” he added.
The Global Fund works closely with US initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS and malaria throughout the world, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI).
The US is the Fund’s largest single donor, although European Union member States together contribute more than half of the Global Fund’s resources. The Global Fund has received contributions from a total of 50 donor countries to date, in addition to a number of private foundations, corporations and individuals.
Mar 11 2009 2:10PM
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Gaza Aid Package: Time to Rethink U.S. Foreign Assistance to the Palestinians
The Gaza Aid Package: Time to Rethink U.S. Foreign Assistance to the Palestinians. By James Phillips
Heritage, March 9, 2009
WebMemo #2333
Full article w/references here
The Obama Administration has announced a huge aid package of $900 million to help ease the humanitarian plight of Palestinians in Gaza and to shore up the bankrupt Palestinian Authority (PA). This surge of soft power is aimed at strengthening Palestinian moderates and helping to clear the way for revived Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But as long as Hamas remains free to rain rockets down on Israel, these ambitions remain little more than wishful thinking.
Since the 1993 Oslo peace accords, the U.S. has showered $2.2 billion in bilateral aid on the Palestinians, in addition to more than $3.4 billion for humanitarian aid funneled to the Palestinians through dysfunctional U.N. organizations since 1950. This aid has:
Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the Obama Administration's pledge of $900 million in aid at an international donors conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The aid package includes $300 million for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, $200 million in budget support for the PA, and $400 million to support the PA's Palestinian Reform and Development Plan in the West Bank.
The Obama Administration maintains that this massive aid package will not end up in the pockets of Hamas and other terrorist groups. It plans to funnel assistance through the PA, NGOs, and U.N. agencies. But the PA remains a weak and problematic institution hobbled by corruption, despite recent reforms. And U.N. agencies often have their own agenda as well as an anti-American and anti-Israeli tilt.
The largest U.N. body involved with facilitating aid to the Palestinians is the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), a notoriously opaque and dysfunctional institution that has been infiltrated by Hamas supporters and other Palestinian radicals.[1]Even though it receives over a third of a billion dollars in international funding every year, and despite recurrent reports of inefficiency and corruption, UNRWA is not externally or publicly audited. Such lack of accountability is particularly troubling for an organization that has been chronically dogged by controversy.
There are numerous reports documenting that UNRWA has been infiltrated by Hamas terrorists. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), at least 16 UNRWA staff had been detained by Israeli authorities for security-related crimes, and three had been convicted in military courts of terrorism-related activities.[2]UNRWA's leadership has admitted in the past that Hamas, which the U.S. government has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, has been able to infiltrate the U.N. agency. Peter Hansen, then-commissioner-general of UNRWA, sparked a political storm in 2004 when he remarked in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that "I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas, as a political organization, does not mean that every member is a militant, and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another."[3]
Specific examples of radicals working for UNRWA are readily available. For instance, Said Sayyam, the Hamas minister of interior, worked as a teacher at UNRWA schools in Gaza, while the headmaster of another UNRWA school, Awas al-Qiq, was the leader of a cell that build rockets for the Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Several other UNRWA employees left their jobs to run in the 2006 Palestinian elections as Hamas candidates. Despite the fact that the United States is the biggest single donor to UNRWA, that agency continues to resist reform and refuses external audits of its operations. Incredibly, the UNRWA Web site that includes information on its "Special Gaza Appeal" instructs donors to send money through the Commercial Bank of Syria, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for money laundering and suspected involvement in moving money to terrorist groups.[4] Clearly, the UNRWA bureaucracy takes an extremely lax attitude on fighting terrorism and should not be trusted to handle aid provided by the U.S. government.
No Taxpayer Subsidies for Terrorist Groups
Given the penetration of UNRWA and other NGOs by terrorist groups, the United States must be absolutely sure that its aid does not end up being diverted. Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) has warned that "to route $900 million to this area, and let's say that Hamas was only able to steal 10 percent of that, we would still become Hamas's second-largest funder after Iran."[5]
Congress needs to scrutinize the Obama Administration's aid plans to make sure that there is absolutely no chance that funds provided by American taxpayers end up being pocketed by members of terrorist groups--a development that would violate section 301c of the Foreign Assistance Act. The Senate should pull funding for UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority from the $410 billion spending bill currently before Congress. And both houses of Congress should hold hearings and exercise their oversight powers to make sure that future aid to the Palestinians is dispensed on a more modest scale via closely vetted NGOs, not through corrupted U.N. bodies operating at cross-purposes with U.S. foreign policy goals.
James Phillips is Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
Heritage, March 9, 2009
WebMemo #2333
Full article w/references here
The Obama Administration has announced a huge aid package of $900 million to help ease the humanitarian plight of Palestinians in Gaza and to shore up the bankrupt Palestinian Authority (PA). This surge of soft power is aimed at strengthening Palestinian moderates and helping to clear the way for revived Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But as long as Hamas remains free to rain rockets down on Israel, these ambitions remain little more than wishful thinking.
Since the 1993 Oslo peace accords, the U.S. has showered $2.2 billion in bilateral aid on the Palestinians, in addition to more than $3.4 billion for humanitarian aid funneled to the Palestinians through dysfunctional U.N. organizations since 1950. This aid has:
- Subsidized the welfare of Palestinian refugees;
- Contributed to a culture of victimization and shrill anti-Israeli and anti-Western radicalism; and
- Freed up some Palestinian groups to focus on destroying Israel rather than on providing for and advancing the long-term interests of the Palestinian people.
- Significantly reduce these overly ambitious aid goals;
- Halt the funding of U.N. agencies that do not adequately screen their workers for terrorist connections or permit external audits; and
- Tighten restrictions on the disbursement of aid to ensure that the aid will not be diverted for hostile purposes.
Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the Obama Administration's pledge of $900 million in aid at an international donors conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The aid package includes $300 million for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, $200 million in budget support for the PA, and $400 million to support the PA's Palestinian Reform and Development Plan in the West Bank.
The Obama Administration maintains that this massive aid package will not end up in the pockets of Hamas and other terrorist groups. It plans to funnel assistance through the PA, NGOs, and U.N. agencies. But the PA remains a weak and problematic institution hobbled by corruption, despite recent reforms. And U.N. agencies often have their own agenda as well as an anti-American and anti-Israeli tilt.
The largest U.N. body involved with facilitating aid to the Palestinians is the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), a notoriously opaque and dysfunctional institution that has been infiltrated by Hamas supporters and other Palestinian radicals.[1]Even though it receives over a third of a billion dollars in international funding every year, and despite recurrent reports of inefficiency and corruption, UNRWA is not externally or publicly audited. Such lack of accountability is particularly troubling for an organization that has been chronically dogged by controversy.
There are numerous reports documenting that UNRWA has been infiltrated by Hamas terrorists. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), at least 16 UNRWA staff had been detained by Israeli authorities for security-related crimes, and three had been convicted in military courts of terrorism-related activities.[2]UNRWA's leadership has admitted in the past that Hamas, which the U.S. government has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, has been able to infiltrate the U.N. agency. Peter Hansen, then-commissioner-general of UNRWA, sparked a political storm in 2004 when he remarked in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that "I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas, as a political organization, does not mean that every member is a militant, and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another."[3]
Specific examples of radicals working for UNRWA are readily available. For instance, Said Sayyam, the Hamas minister of interior, worked as a teacher at UNRWA schools in Gaza, while the headmaster of another UNRWA school, Awas al-Qiq, was the leader of a cell that build rockets for the Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Several other UNRWA employees left their jobs to run in the 2006 Palestinian elections as Hamas candidates. Despite the fact that the United States is the biggest single donor to UNRWA, that agency continues to resist reform and refuses external audits of its operations. Incredibly, the UNRWA Web site that includes information on its "Special Gaza Appeal" instructs donors to send money through the Commercial Bank of Syria, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for money laundering and suspected involvement in moving money to terrorist groups.[4] Clearly, the UNRWA bureaucracy takes an extremely lax attitude on fighting terrorism and should not be trusted to handle aid provided by the U.S. government.
No Taxpayer Subsidies for Terrorist Groups
Given the penetration of UNRWA and other NGOs by terrorist groups, the United States must be absolutely sure that its aid does not end up being diverted. Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) has warned that "to route $900 million to this area, and let's say that Hamas was only able to steal 10 percent of that, we would still become Hamas's second-largest funder after Iran."[5]
Congress needs to scrutinize the Obama Administration's aid plans to make sure that there is absolutely no chance that funds provided by American taxpayers end up being pocketed by members of terrorist groups--a development that would violate section 301c of the Foreign Assistance Act. The Senate should pull funding for UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority from the $410 billion spending bill currently before Congress. And both houses of Congress should hold hearings and exercise their oversight powers to make sure that future aid to the Palestinians is dispensed on a more modest scale via closely vetted NGOs, not through corrupted U.N. bodies operating at cross-purposes with U.S. foreign policy goals.
James Phillips is Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
WaPo: State Sec Clinton undercuts own human rights reporting
Some Friends. WaPo Editorial
Hillary Rodham Clinton undercuts the State Department's own human rights reporting.
WaPo, Tuesday, March 10, 2009; A12
SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to devalue and undermine the U.S. diplomatic tradition of human rights advocacy. On her first foreign trip, to Asia, she was dismissive about raising human rights concerns with China's communist government, saying "those issues can't interfere" with economic, security or environmental matters. In last week's visit to the Middle East and Europe, she undercut the State Department's own reporting regarding two problematic American allies: Egypt and Turkey.
According to State's latest report on Egypt, issued Feb. 25, "the government's respect for human rights remained poor" during 2008 "and serious abuses continued in many areas." It cited torture by security forces and a decline in freedom of the press, association and religion. Ms. Clinton was asked about those conclusions during an interview she gave to the al-Arabiya satellite network in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Her reply contained no expression of concern about the deteriorating situation. "We issue these reports on every country," she said. "We hope that it will be taken in the spirit in which it is offered, that we all have room for improvement."
Ms. Clinton was then asked whether there would be any connection between the report and a prospective invitation to President Hosni Mubarak to visit Washington. "It is not in any way connected," she replied, adding: "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States." Ms. Clinton's words will be treasured by al-Qaeda recruiters and anti-American propagandists throughout the Middle East. She appears oblivious to how offensive such statements are to the millions of Egyptians who loathe Mr. Mubarak's oppressive government and blame the United States for propping it up.
The new secretary of state delivered a similar shock in Turkey to liberal supporters of press freedom, now under siege by the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to the State Department report, "senior government officials, including Prime Minister Erdogan, made statements during the year strongly criticizing the press and media business figures, particularly following the publishing of reports on alleged corruption . . . connected to the ruling party." That was an understatement: In fact, Mr. Erdogan's government has mounted an ugly campaign against one of Turkey's largest media conglomerates, presenting it with a $500 million tax bill in a maneuver that has been compared to Russia's treatment of independent media.
Ms. Clinton was asked by a Turkish journalist what she told Mr. Erdogan when he complained about the State Department report. She answered: "Well, my reaction was that we put out this report every year, and I fully understand . . . no politician ever likes the press criticizing them." "Overall," she concluded, "we think that Turkey has made tremendous progress in freedom of speech and freedom of religion and human rights, and we're proud of that."
In fact, as the State Department has documented, Turkey is retreating on freedom of speech. In Egypt, the human rights situation also is getting worse rather than better. By minimizing those facts, Ms. Clinton is doing a disservice to her own department -- and sending a message to rulers around the world that their abuses won't be taken seriously by this U.S. administration.
Hillary Rodham Clinton undercuts the State Department's own human rights reporting.
WaPo, Tuesday, March 10, 2009; A12
SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to devalue and undermine the U.S. diplomatic tradition of human rights advocacy. On her first foreign trip, to Asia, she was dismissive about raising human rights concerns with China's communist government, saying "those issues can't interfere" with economic, security or environmental matters. In last week's visit to the Middle East and Europe, she undercut the State Department's own reporting regarding two problematic American allies: Egypt and Turkey.
According to State's latest report on Egypt, issued Feb. 25, "the government's respect for human rights remained poor" during 2008 "and serious abuses continued in many areas." It cited torture by security forces and a decline in freedom of the press, association and religion. Ms. Clinton was asked about those conclusions during an interview she gave to the al-Arabiya satellite network in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Her reply contained no expression of concern about the deteriorating situation. "We issue these reports on every country," she said. "We hope that it will be taken in the spirit in which it is offered, that we all have room for improvement."
Ms. Clinton was then asked whether there would be any connection between the report and a prospective invitation to President Hosni Mubarak to visit Washington. "It is not in any way connected," she replied, adding: "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States." Ms. Clinton's words will be treasured by al-Qaeda recruiters and anti-American propagandists throughout the Middle East. She appears oblivious to how offensive such statements are to the millions of Egyptians who loathe Mr. Mubarak's oppressive government and blame the United States for propping it up.
The new secretary of state delivered a similar shock in Turkey to liberal supporters of press freedom, now under siege by the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to the State Department report, "senior government officials, including Prime Minister Erdogan, made statements during the year strongly criticizing the press and media business figures, particularly following the publishing of reports on alleged corruption . . . connected to the ruling party." That was an understatement: In fact, Mr. Erdogan's government has mounted an ugly campaign against one of Turkey's largest media conglomerates, presenting it with a $500 million tax bill in a maneuver that has been compared to Russia's treatment of independent media.
Ms. Clinton was asked by a Turkish journalist what she told Mr. Erdogan when he complained about the State Department report. She answered: "Well, my reaction was that we put out this report every year, and I fully understand . . . no politician ever likes the press criticizing them." "Overall," she concluded, "we think that Turkey has made tremendous progress in freedom of speech and freedom of religion and human rights, and we're proud of that."
In fact, as the State Department has documented, Turkey is retreating on freedom of speech. In Egypt, the human rights situation also is getting worse rather than better. By minimizing those facts, Ms. Clinton is doing a disservice to her own department -- and sending a message to rulers around the world that their abuses won't be taken seriously by this U.S. administration.
Monday, March 9, 2009
State Sec Clinton to Announce this Year's International Women of Courage Awards
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Announce the International Women of Courage Awards
Bureau of Public AffairsOffice of the Spokesman
Washington, DC, March 9, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce this year’s recipients of the Secretary of State’s Award for International Women of Courage. The awards ceremony will take place on March 11 at 4 p.m. in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the U.S. Department of State.
The annual Award for International Women of Courage recognizes women around the globe who have shown exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for human rights and women’s equality. This is the only Department of State award that pays tribute to outstanding women leaders worldwide. This year, the Secretary of State will pay tribute to honorees representing Afghanistan, Guatemala, Iraq, Malaysia, Niger, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
The Awards Ceremony will be pool press coverage for cameras and open for writers and still photographers.
Final access time for writers and stills: 3:30 p.m. from the 23rd Street entrance.
Media representatives may attend this event upon presentation of one of the following: (1) A U.S. Government-issued identification card (Department of State, White House, Congress, Department of Defense or Foreign Press Center), (2) a media-issued photo identification card, or (3) a letter from their employer on letterhead verifying their employment as a journalist, accompanied by an official photo identification card (driver's license, passport). Press should allow adequate time to process through security and to be in the briefing room 10 minutes prior to the briefing.
PRN: 196
Bureau of Public AffairsOffice of the Spokesman
Washington, DC, March 9, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce this year’s recipients of the Secretary of State’s Award for International Women of Courage. The awards ceremony will take place on March 11 at 4 p.m. in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the U.S. Department of State.
The annual Award for International Women of Courage recognizes women around the globe who have shown exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for human rights and women’s equality. This is the only Department of State award that pays tribute to outstanding women leaders worldwide. This year, the Secretary of State will pay tribute to honorees representing Afghanistan, Guatemala, Iraq, Malaysia, Niger, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
The Awards Ceremony will be pool press coverage for cameras and open for writers and still photographers.
Final access time for writers and stills: 3:30 p.m. from the 23rd Street entrance.
Media representatives may attend this event upon presentation of one of the following: (1) A U.S. Government-issued identification card (Department of State, White House, Congress, Department of Defense or Foreign Press Center), (2) a media-issued photo identification card, or (3) a letter from their employer on letterhead verifying their employment as a journalist, accompanied by an official photo identification card (driver's license, passport). Press should allow adequate time to process through security and to be in the briefing room 10 minutes prior to the briefing.
PRN: 196
The International Criminal Court's attempt to bring Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to justice backfires
Sudan's Day in Court, by Joseph Loconte
The International Criminal Court's attempt to bring Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to justice backfires.
The Weekly Standard, Mar 06, 2009 12:00:00 AM
Brushing aside warnings of retaliations against vulnerable refugees, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant this week for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for atrocities committed in Darfur. A three-judge panel charged Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing "an essential role" in the murder, rape, torture, and displacement of thousands of civilians. Although it is important that an international body has moved against the Sudanese leader--a radical Islamist who has waged war against Christians in the south and Muslims who resist his rule in the north--the court's action is fraught with problems. Already it has exposed the moral liabilities of an international tribunal that lacks any means of enforcement.
For eight months European leaders have pushed for the arrest warrant against the Sudanese president, the first aimed at a sitting head of state. The Economist magazine called it "a pretty clear victory for international human-rights activists." Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said the decision "has made Omar al-Bashir a wanted man." Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times and Pulitzer-prize winner for his commentary on Sudan, saw the ruling as a "step toward accountability and deterrence." Fouad Hikmat of the International Crisis Group expected the court's action to prod the government "to engage the international community a bit more."
ICC enthusiasts should put away the champagne for now. Within minutes of the court's announcement, thousands gathered in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to denounce the decision. "We are telling the colonialists we are not succumbing," Bashir said. "We are not submitting. We will not kneel." Within hours, Bashir met with leaders of several humanitarian groups and ordered them to leave the country. Organizations such as Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders--which provide food and medical care for thousands of refugees in Darfur--are apparently being forced out of the region.
As aid workers explain, the Sudanese government despises international relief agencies operating in Darfur. Aid agencies have performed heroic work in keeping alive the very people Bashir and his janjaweed militias have tried to exterminate. Some groups have offered evidence of government-backed raids on refugee camps, embarrassing the regime. Equally important, the physical presence of aid workers has helped discourage attacks on civilians from government forces. "One of the humanitarian services we provide is protection through pressure," a relief worker told me. "That pressure through presence is suddenly gone, and there will be a lot of people vulnerable to attack."
Quite a lot, in fact. Since the civil war erupted in 2003, at least 300,000 people have died and about 2.7 million have been displaced. They live as internal refugees or in camps in Chad and the Central African Republic. They struggle to survive with inadequate sanitation, health care, and food. Women and young girls are often the victims of sexual assault. Humanitarian convoys already face attacks from soldiers, militias, bandits, and rebels. If relief organizations are kicked out of the area, thousands of civilian deaths could follow.
This is what political theorists mean by moral hazard: When a political decision, however just in intent, carries consequences that threaten to frustrate justice and further endanger innocent lives. Some diplomats and relief workers--let's call them moral realists--warned against the ICC's ruling for months. They predicted that Bashir would use the decision as a political rallying cry. They expected the government to expel aid organizations.
It appears that the realists were right. Utopian hopes in the irrepressible power of international edicts are colliding with stubborn facts on the ground. The court has no way to enforce its decisions, no police or military to arrest the accused. The Sudanese government has vowed to ignore the warrant. Although 108 countries are parties to the 2002 Rome Statute that established the court--the United States is not a signatory--many have little interest in apprehending Bashir if he were to set foot on their soil. African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, unable to offer much protection to refugees, have no authority to arrest the president. The international community shows no stomach for military action, such as protecting the "no fly" zones over refugee camps that are being bombed by Sudanese planes.
The upshot is that the International Criminal Court has handed the Sudanese dictator a means to strengthen his reign of terror. As an aid worker told me: "It has created an opportunity for him to pound Darfur and to punish his opponents." Even U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, an ICC supporter, criticized the court's ruling as "a serious setback to lifesaving operations in Darfur." Critics fear that it also could disrupt the fragile peace agreement reached between the north and south in 2005.
What does this mean for the credibility of the International Criminal Court? Liberals remain obsessed with the United Nations and other international institutions as the sole repositories of moral authority. We are told that democratic governments--especially the United States, whose "international image" suffered under George W. Bush--lack the standing to challenge even the worst despots. The Washington Post's Colum Lynch summed up this attitude nicely, if unconsciously, in an interview on PBS's Newshour. He was asked whether the United States could press for Bashir's arrest: "It doesn't have the moral high ground to do that," he said, "because it's not a member of the court."
Allow the words to linger: It doesn't have the moral high ground because it's not a member of the court. Here is a presumption posing as an argument. Why should the International Criminal Court, a creature of the diplomatic delusions of European elites, represent the summit of moral wisdom on the world stage? Its judges are not subject to democratic checks and balances. It has yet to secure a successful prosecution. Even the court's supporters admit it has weak oversight provisions. Given its status as a U.N. body, the ICC risks being politicized and turned into a megaphone to excoriate U.S. foreign policy--the fate of the now discredited U.N. Human Rights Council.
There may be ways to prevent these unhappy outcomes for the ICC, but it's worth asking why there isn't an African solution to an African problem, especially the problem of genocide. This latest crisis in Sudan is also a religious crisis--a spiritual struggle within Islam. Most of the news reports this week somehow failed to mention it, but near the center of Sudan's heart of darkness is a violent strain of Islamist ideology. The conflict in Sudan is extremely complex, of course, involving a toxic mix of ethnic, tribal, racial, religious and economic motives. Rebel groups, mostly non-Arab, have felt marginalized from the nation's economic resources. Abuses against civilians have been committed by virtually all sides.
Yet there is little debate that the ideology of the Khartoum government--an Arab regime devoted to the violent imposition of Islamic law--has been a driving force behind the atrocities. It is not only the government that must be confronted, but its political theology.
It is not yet clear that the Obama administration, still finding its foreign policy footing, is prepared for this challenge. When asked at a press conference this week whether the United States would arrest Bashir if he entered the country (to attend a meeting at the United Nations, for example), State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid dodged the question. "Let's ask the lawyers to get us an answer on this so we are not speculating." So much for moral clarity. It will require better answers than that if, as the administration claims, the promotion of human rights is to be "central" to U.S. foreign policy. "I am looking for results," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a State Department event last month. "I am looking for changes that actually improve the lives of the greatest number of people."
If saving and improving lives is the goal in Sudan, then the Obama administration will need to look beyond the International Criminal Court, and look quickly.
Joseph Loconte is a senior research fellow at the King's College in New York City and a frequent contributor to the THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.
The International Criminal Court's attempt to bring Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to justice backfires.
The Weekly Standard, Mar 06, 2009 12:00:00 AM
Brushing aside warnings of retaliations against vulnerable refugees, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant this week for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for atrocities committed in Darfur. A three-judge panel charged Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity for playing "an essential role" in the murder, rape, torture, and displacement of thousands of civilians. Although it is important that an international body has moved against the Sudanese leader--a radical Islamist who has waged war against Christians in the south and Muslims who resist his rule in the north--the court's action is fraught with problems. Already it has exposed the moral liabilities of an international tribunal that lacks any means of enforcement.
For eight months European leaders have pushed for the arrest warrant against the Sudanese president, the first aimed at a sitting head of state. The Economist magazine called it "a pretty clear victory for international human-rights activists." Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said the decision "has made Omar al-Bashir a wanted man." Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times and Pulitzer-prize winner for his commentary on Sudan, saw the ruling as a "step toward accountability and deterrence." Fouad Hikmat of the International Crisis Group expected the court's action to prod the government "to engage the international community a bit more."
ICC enthusiasts should put away the champagne for now. Within minutes of the court's announcement, thousands gathered in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to denounce the decision. "We are telling the colonialists we are not succumbing," Bashir said. "We are not submitting. We will not kneel." Within hours, Bashir met with leaders of several humanitarian groups and ordered them to leave the country. Organizations such as Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders--which provide food and medical care for thousands of refugees in Darfur--are apparently being forced out of the region.
As aid workers explain, the Sudanese government despises international relief agencies operating in Darfur. Aid agencies have performed heroic work in keeping alive the very people Bashir and his janjaweed militias have tried to exterminate. Some groups have offered evidence of government-backed raids on refugee camps, embarrassing the regime. Equally important, the physical presence of aid workers has helped discourage attacks on civilians from government forces. "One of the humanitarian services we provide is protection through pressure," a relief worker told me. "That pressure through presence is suddenly gone, and there will be a lot of people vulnerable to attack."
Quite a lot, in fact. Since the civil war erupted in 2003, at least 300,000 people have died and about 2.7 million have been displaced. They live as internal refugees or in camps in Chad and the Central African Republic. They struggle to survive with inadequate sanitation, health care, and food. Women and young girls are often the victims of sexual assault. Humanitarian convoys already face attacks from soldiers, militias, bandits, and rebels. If relief organizations are kicked out of the area, thousands of civilian deaths could follow.
This is what political theorists mean by moral hazard: When a political decision, however just in intent, carries consequences that threaten to frustrate justice and further endanger innocent lives. Some diplomats and relief workers--let's call them moral realists--warned against the ICC's ruling for months. They predicted that Bashir would use the decision as a political rallying cry. They expected the government to expel aid organizations.
It appears that the realists were right. Utopian hopes in the irrepressible power of international edicts are colliding with stubborn facts on the ground. The court has no way to enforce its decisions, no police or military to arrest the accused. The Sudanese government has vowed to ignore the warrant. Although 108 countries are parties to the 2002 Rome Statute that established the court--the United States is not a signatory--many have little interest in apprehending Bashir if he were to set foot on their soil. African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, unable to offer much protection to refugees, have no authority to arrest the president. The international community shows no stomach for military action, such as protecting the "no fly" zones over refugee camps that are being bombed by Sudanese planes.
The upshot is that the International Criminal Court has handed the Sudanese dictator a means to strengthen his reign of terror. As an aid worker told me: "It has created an opportunity for him to pound Darfur and to punish his opponents." Even U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, an ICC supporter, criticized the court's ruling as "a serious setback to lifesaving operations in Darfur." Critics fear that it also could disrupt the fragile peace agreement reached between the north and south in 2005.
What does this mean for the credibility of the International Criminal Court? Liberals remain obsessed with the United Nations and other international institutions as the sole repositories of moral authority. We are told that democratic governments--especially the United States, whose "international image" suffered under George W. Bush--lack the standing to challenge even the worst despots. The Washington Post's Colum Lynch summed up this attitude nicely, if unconsciously, in an interview on PBS's Newshour. He was asked whether the United States could press for Bashir's arrest: "It doesn't have the moral high ground to do that," he said, "because it's not a member of the court."
Allow the words to linger: It doesn't have the moral high ground because it's not a member of the court. Here is a presumption posing as an argument. Why should the International Criminal Court, a creature of the diplomatic delusions of European elites, represent the summit of moral wisdom on the world stage? Its judges are not subject to democratic checks and balances. It has yet to secure a successful prosecution. Even the court's supporters admit it has weak oversight provisions. Given its status as a U.N. body, the ICC risks being politicized and turned into a megaphone to excoriate U.S. foreign policy--the fate of the now discredited U.N. Human Rights Council.
There may be ways to prevent these unhappy outcomes for the ICC, but it's worth asking why there isn't an African solution to an African problem, especially the problem of genocide. This latest crisis in Sudan is also a religious crisis--a spiritual struggle within Islam. Most of the news reports this week somehow failed to mention it, but near the center of Sudan's heart of darkness is a violent strain of Islamist ideology. The conflict in Sudan is extremely complex, of course, involving a toxic mix of ethnic, tribal, racial, religious and economic motives. Rebel groups, mostly non-Arab, have felt marginalized from the nation's economic resources. Abuses against civilians have been committed by virtually all sides.
Yet there is little debate that the ideology of the Khartoum government--an Arab regime devoted to the violent imposition of Islamic law--has been a driving force behind the atrocities. It is not only the government that must be confronted, but its political theology.
It is not yet clear that the Obama administration, still finding its foreign policy footing, is prepared for this challenge. When asked at a press conference this week whether the United States would arrest Bashir if he entered the country (to attend a meeting at the United Nations, for example), State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid dodged the question. "Let's ask the lawyers to get us an answer on this so we are not speculating." So much for moral clarity. It will require better answers than that if, as the administration claims, the promotion of human rights is to be "central" to U.S. foreign policy. "I am looking for results," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a State Department event last month. "I am looking for changes that actually improve the lives of the greatest number of people."
If saving and improving lives is the goal in Sudan, then the Obama administration will need to look beyond the International Criminal Court, and look quickly.
Joseph Loconte is a senior research fellow at the King's College in New York City and a frequent contributor to the THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Outsourcing Peacekeeping
Outsourcing Peacekeeping, by David Isenberg
Cato, Feb 27, 2009
Is the world ready to let private military and security contractors participate in U.N. peace operations? When I ask this, I'm not talking about Hollywood celebrities calling for the firm formerly known as Blackwater to work in Darfur.
In one respect, this is a trick question as contractors have been and are involved in such operations.
In the 1990s Defense Systems Ltd. provided security for the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Lifeguard protected World Vision's operations in Sierra Leone. The U.N. World Food Program employed Hart Security. In East Timor, DynCorp provided logistics for the United Nations while KwaZulu Natal Security and Empower Loss Control Services provided local intelligence. In addition, demining has been contracted out to PMCs like ArmorGroup and Ronco (both bought up by Group 4 Securicor) as well as Saracen in virtually all recent U.N. operations, and DynCorp is one of three main preselected contractors for the U.S. State Department's mine-action programs.
The U.N. Security Council routinely turns to the commercial sector for the outsourcing of police, such as the International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The U.S.-funded Pacific Architects and Engineers along with International Charter Inc. of Oregon provided logistical support to the 1999 Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group missions to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Indeed, if one looks at the Feb. 24 U.N. list of registered vendors, one finds such firms as Aegis Defense Services Ltd., DynCorp International, Hart Security, Ronco, and Steele North America, to name a few.
But beyond that, the subject of contractors being used as soldiers in peace operations, and not just providing support, is getting increasingly serious consideration. Remember that at the height of the Rwanda crisis, the Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Kofi Annan became so desperate for troops that he even considered hiring DSL to stop the genocide. Not one of 19 states then participating in the U.N. Standby Arrangements System chose to contribute military forces. Ultimately, Annan did not hire a private firm, saying, "The world may not be ready to privatize peace."
While the world still may not be willing to privatize peace, given that the word means not just transferring a capability to the private sector but giving it up entirely, many seem willing to subcontract it out.
Increasingly, military professionals seem to think that the idea is viable.
In a 2005 paper published by the Canadian Forces College, Lt. Col. Daniel Lachance wrote, "The United Nations needs experienced soldiers to fulfill an ever-growing demand for peacekeeping troops but is rarely able to get states to commit to urgent missions. One possible solution is to hire a PMC as a U.N. (Rapid Reaction Force) to stabilize the situation until professional peacekeepers can be deployed. The private military industry is ready and capable for such an assignment as witnessed by the wealth of experience that has been gathered by PMCs in support of U.N. missions."
Consider that one traditional big problem for a U.N. peace operation is merely getting the Security Council to authorize one. Rare is the day when the council is prepared to live up to its role as the final arbiter for international peace and security challenges.
The United Nations needs to radically change the way it does such operations. Many alternatives have been suggested, but one would be to provide the United Nations with its own RRF to enforce its own resolutions. This is hardly new. In 1992, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali introduced a report titled "An Agenda for Peace." A key recommendation was the call for the creation of a U.N. standby military force.
Another Canadian Forces College paper, written by Cmdr. Darren Garnier and published in 2006, said that as "PMCs are considered for Standing RRF providers, they would require a level of accountability necessitating strict U.N. oversight on recruiting, training and leadership standards."
He also notes that the concept of the private sector profiting from peace operations has the potential to radically transform the very nature of peace operations, opening up all sorts of new options. For the United Nations to leverage the potential of an agile and flexible PMC option, the organization must evolve from the institution it is today into something more representative of the dramatic realignment within the international power structure of states.
The benefit of that, while it would send neoconservatives into hysterics, would be to move the United States away from its current role as international policeman, thereby permitting a more cohesive and coordinated U.N. response to addressing security concerns.
Last year, in the Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Malcolm Patterson wrote that contract forces appear constitutionally feasible within the prerogatives the Security Council may choose to exercise in Chapter VII of its charter.
As Article 29 of the charter allows for the creation of subsidiary bodies for the performance of Security Council functions, this would allow for the formation of a contractor directorate. This would have two main responsibilities. The first would be assessment of tenderers. Successful applicants would be graded through a certification system that would accredit those holding competencies required to carry out a wide spectrum of peacekeeping and intervention deployments. Contractor companies would bid on fixed-term contracts for which they would periodically retender to the contractor directorate in open competition.
The second responsibility would be the administration of a criminal-justice apparatus. While states have always been reluctant to allow other authorities to exercise criminal jurisdiction over their troops, the better militaries have created standards of process and substantive law that could be adapted to deliver encouraging results in the contractor context.
Corporate forces would, after all, face many comparable scenarios, although the trial of a civilian (rather than military) contractor within a court having military characteristics will arouse criticisms. But given that the United States has starting using the Uniform Code of Military Justice to investigate and prosecute contractors accused of crimes, it is at least feasible.
Furthermore, contractors deployed in any future U.N. operations could be subject to status-of-forces agreements, just as the United States has done in the one it negotiated with Iraq.
Cato, Feb 27, 2009
Is the world ready to let private military and security contractors participate in U.N. peace operations? When I ask this, I'm not talking about Hollywood celebrities calling for the firm formerly known as Blackwater to work in Darfur.
In one respect, this is a trick question as contractors have been and are involved in such operations.
In the 1990s Defense Systems Ltd. provided security for the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Lifeguard protected World Vision's operations in Sierra Leone. The U.N. World Food Program employed Hart Security. In East Timor, DynCorp provided logistics for the United Nations while KwaZulu Natal Security and Empower Loss Control Services provided local intelligence. In addition, demining has been contracted out to PMCs like ArmorGroup and Ronco (both bought up by Group 4 Securicor) as well as Saracen in virtually all recent U.N. operations, and DynCorp is one of three main preselected contractors for the U.S. State Department's mine-action programs.
The U.N. Security Council routinely turns to the commercial sector for the outsourcing of police, such as the International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The U.S.-funded Pacific Architects and Engineers along with International Charter Inc. of Oregon provided logistical support to the 1999 Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group missions to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Indeed, if one looks at the Feb. 24 U.N. list of registered vendors, one finds such firms as Aegis Defense Services Ltd., DynCorp International, Hart Security, Ronco, and Steele North America, to name a few.
But beyond that, the subject of contractors being used as soldiers in peace operations, and not just providing support, is getting increasingly serious consideration. Remember that at the height of the Rwanda crisis, the Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Kofi Annan became so desperate for troops that he even considered hiring DSL to stop the genocide. Not one of 19 states then participating in the U.N. Standby Arrangements System chose to contribute military forces. Ultimately, Annan did not hire a private firm, saying, "The world may not be ready to privatize peace."
While the world still may not be willing to privatize peace, given that the word means not just transferring a capability to the private sector but giving it up entirely, many seem willing to subcontract it out.
Increasingly, military professionals seem to think that the idea is viable.
In a 2005 paper published by the Canadian Forces College, Lt. Col. Daniel Lachance wrote, "The United Nations needs experienced soldiers to fulfill an ever-growing demand for peacekeeping troops but is rarely able to get states to commit to urgent missions. One possible solution is to hire a PMC as a U.N. (Rapid Reaction Force) to stabilize the situation until professional peacekeepers can be deployed. The private military industry is ready and capable for such an assignment as witnessed by the wealth of experience that has been gathered by PMCs in support of U.N. missions."
Consider that one traditional big problem for a U.N. peace operation is merely getting the Security Council to authorize one. Rare is the day when the council is prepared to live up to its role as the final arbiter for international peace and security challenges.
The United Nations needs to radically change the way it does such operations. Many alternatives have been suggested, but one would be to provide the United Nations with its own RRF to enforce its own resolutions. This is hardly new. In 1992, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali introduced a report titled "An Agenda for Peace." A key recommendation was the call for the creation of a U.N. standby military force.
Another Canadian Forces College paper, written by Cmdr. Darren Garnier and published in 2006, said that as "PMCs are considered for Standing RRF providers, they would require a level of accountability necessitating strict U.N. oversight on recruiting, training and leadership standards."
He also notes that the concept of the private sector profiting from peace operations has the potential to radically transform the very nature of peace operations, opening up all sorts of new options. For the United Nations to leverage the potential of an agile and flexible PMC option, the organization must evolve from the institution it is today into something more representative of the dramatic realignment within the international power structure of states.
The benefit of that, while it would send neoconservatives into hysterics, would be to move the United States away from its current role as international policeman, thereby permitting a more cohesive and coordinated U.N. response to addressing security concerns.
Last year, in the Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Malcolm Patterson wrote that contract forces appear constitutionally feasible within the prerogatives the Security Council may choose to exercise in Chapter VII of its charter.
As Article 29 of the charter allows for the creation of subsidiary bodies for the performance of Security Council functions, this would allow for the formation of a contractor directorate. This would have two main responsibilities. The first would be assessment of tenderers. Successful applicants would be graded through a certification system that would accredit those holding competencies required to carry out a wide spectrum of peacekeeping and intervention deployments. Contractor companies would bid on fixed-term contracts for which they would periodically retender to the contractor directorate in open competition.
The second responsibility would be the administration of a criminal-justice apparatus. While states have always been reluctant to allow other authorities to exercise criminal jurisdiction over their troops, the better militaries have created standards of process and substantive law that could be adapted to deliver encouraging results in the contractor context.
Corporate forces would, after all, face many comparable scenarios, although the trial of a civilian (rather than military) contractor within a court having military characteristics will arouse criticisms. But given that the United States has starting using the Uniform Code of Military Justice to investigate and prosecute contractors accused of crimes, it is at least feasible.
Furthermore, contractors deployed in any future U.N. operations could be subject to status-of-forces agreements, just as the United States has done in the one it negotiated with Iraq.
WaPo: war crimes charges are unlikely to shake the dictator's hold on power and might lead to a worsening of the situation in Sudan
Hold the Handcuffs. WaPo Editorial
Will an international arrest warrant for Sudan's president help the people of Darfur?
TWP, Thursday, March 5, 2009; Page A18
THE ISSUING of an arrest warrant yesterday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court prompted a predictable blizzard of celebratory statements from human rights groups and other Western advocates for the war-torn region of Darfur. What is interesting is that many of those same groups acknowledged that the war crimes charges are unlikely to shake the dictator's hold on power and might lead to a worsening of the situation in Sudan.
"The more likely outcome is that [Mr. Bashir] will remain in power with no prospect of ending up before the ICC anytime soon," said the International Crisis Group, adding that the regime might react by attacking U.N. relief personnel or refugee camps in Darfur, declaring a state of emergency or cracking down on its political opposition. Physicians for Human Rights anticipates "a likely spike in violent attacks."
It is easy to feel some moral satisfaction when one of the world's most brutal rulers is designated a fugitive from justice. Perhaps the warrant will send a shiver down the spine of Syria's Bashar al-Assad or Burma's Than Shwe. The ICC itself could use a morale boost: Six years after its creation, it has yet to convict a single war criminal and has put only one on trial. But it is hard to imagine much cheer in the camps of Darfur, where a U.N. peacekeeping force has failed to muster adequate troops or even helicopters and has not been able to provide security; or in southern Sudan, where a fragile peace between the Bashir regime and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement is at the point of collapse.
Some advocates appear to hope that the arrest warrant will spur Western governments to make a larger commitment to ending the violence in Sudan -- by supplying troops or helicopters, seeking new U.N. sanctions against the regime, or setting up a no-fly zone over Darfur. A review is underway in the Obama administration, and a special envoy probably will be named. But the factors that deterred President Bush from intervening in Darfur haven't much changed. China is ready to block any forceful action by the Security Council, while Western armies are stretched thin by deployments elsewhere.
So the best use of the ICC warrant may be as a bargaining chip with Mr. Bashir and his Chinese and Arab allies. The court's treaty allows for the Security Council to suspend a prosecution for a renewable one-year-period; Beijing and the Arab League will press for that step. That gives the Obama administration an opportunity to set a price. That price should be Mr. Bashir's exclusion from a presidential election scheduled for this year, the completion of a peace settlement with the principal Darfuri rebel groups and the full implementation of the peace accord in southern Sudan. With Sudan's oil revenue plummeting, Mr. Bashir and his party just might find that such an accommodation is in their interest. If they choose instead to respond to the arrest warrant with another wave of violence, Western governments will have to find means to respond.
Will an international arrest warrant for Sudan's president help the people of Darfur?
TWP, Thursday, March 5, 2009; Page A18
THE ISSUING of an arrest warrant yesterday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court prompted a predictable blizzard of celebratory statements from human rights groups and other Western advocates for the war-torn region of Darfur. What is interesting is that many of those same groups acknowledged that the war crimes charges are unlikely to shake the dictator's hold on power and might lead to a worsening of the situation in Sudan.
"The more likely outcome is that [Mr. Bashir] will remain in power with no prospect of ending up before the ICC anytime soon," said the International Crisis Group, adding that the regime might react by attacking U.N. relief personnel or refugee camps in Darfur, declaring a state of emergency or cracking down on its political opposition. Physicians for Human Rights anticipates "a likely spike in violent attacks."
It is easy to feel some moral satisfaction when one of the world's most brutal rulers is designated a fugitive from justice. Perhaps the warrant will send a shiver down the spine of Syria's Bashar al-Assad or Burma's Than Shwe. The ICC itself could use a morale boost: Six years after its creation, it has yet to convict a single war criminal and has put only one on trial. But it is hard to imagine much cheer in the camps of Darfur, where a U.N. peacekeeping force has failed to muster adequate troops or even helicopters and has not been able to provide security; or in southern Sudan, where a fragile peace between the Bashir regime and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement is at the point of collapse.
Some advocates appear to hope that the arrest warrant will spur Western governments to make a larger commitment to ending the violence in Sudan -- by supplying troops or helicopters, seeking new U.N. sanctions against the regime, or setting up a no-fly zone over Darfur. A review is underway in the Obama administration, and a special envoy probably will be named. But the factors that deterred President Bush from intervening in Darfur haven't much changed. China is ready to block any forceful action by the Security Council, while Western armies are stretched thin by deployments elsewhere.
So the best use of the ICC warrant may be as a bargaining chip with Mr. Bashir and his Chinese and Arab allies. The court's treaty allows for the Security Council to suspend a prosecution for a renewable one-year-period; Beijing and the Arab League will press for that step. That gives the Obama administration an opportunity to set a price. That price should be Mr. Bashir's exclusion from a presidential election scheduled for this year, the completion of a peace settlement with the principal Darfuri rebel groups and the full implementation of the peace accord in southern Sudan. With Sudan's oil revenue plummeting, Mr. Bashir and his party just might find that such an accommodation is in their interest. If they choose instead to respond to the arrest warrant with another wave of violence, Western governments will have to find means to respond.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
USAID Blindness Program Assists One Million Children
USAID Blindness Program Assists One Million Children
USAID, March 4, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In the past year, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Child Blindness Program assisted over one million people through eye health education, comprehensive vision screening, refractive error correction, sight-restoring surgery, and education for blind children.
USAID has supported programs to reduce childhood blindness since 1991. This year, 31 projects reached over one million people in 23 countries. Together, these projects screened 950,000 children and 61,000 adults-many of whom are teachers in school-based eye health programs. In countries like Niger, India, Nepal and Tanzania, USAID grantees are expanding access to eye care and improving vision for thousands in hard-to-reach communities.
There are 17 million children in the world with low vision or blurred eye sight. Children with inadequate vision often drop out of school when they cannot see the blackboard or letters in a book, and suffer the lifelong consequences of low education. The majority of these children experience refractive errors that can be corrected with glasses. This year, USAID supported programs in 10 countries that have distributed over 11,000 pairs of eyeglasses to children.
USAID Global Health Bureau Deputy Assistant Administrator Gloria Steele highlights the role of USAID's partners: "From supporting global leaders in eye care like Aravind Eye Care System in India to community-based screening programs like that of Seva Foundation in Nepal, USAID and our partners are leading the way in expanding access to social and educational opportunities for children with vision impairments in the developing world."
One of USAID's grantees, VisionSpring, is innovating approaches to delivering eye glasses to people with refractive error. VisionSpring trains vision entrepreneurs to screen adults and children and sell a variety of lost-cost glasses. In addition to providing access to eye care in rural Indian communities, these vision entrepreneurs are earning income and are better able to support their own families. Rama Devi, a vision entrepreneur in Mahbubnagar, used to sell her handiwork for around $44 a month-barely enough to care for her husband and two children. She joined VisionSpring's program in 2006, and now earns over $100 every month selling reading glasses.
Some children require more intensive care, and now have affordable access to hospital services through USAID's Child Blindness Program. With high-quality surgical and post-operative care, USAID grantees restored sight to 921 children in 10 countries this year.
Nine-year-old Ashis Tamang was one of these children. Unable to see out of his right eye due a cataract, he was at high risk for dropping out of school when Seva Foundation, funded by USAID, conducted a screening program at his school in Chitwan, Nepal. Seva immediately referred Ashis to Bharatphur Eye Hospital, where he underwent cataract surgery. After surgery, with perfect vision in his right eye, he told Seva that he stood first in his class, and wants to try to get even better scores.
For the five million children who are blind, mobility and educational training can create a lifetime of opportunities. Kean, who is 6 years old from the Philippines, lost his sight shortly after birth, and was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 after he failed to develop verbal skills. Kean is now receiving therapy services at Resources for the Blind in the Philippines, a Perkins School for the Blind partner supported by USAID since 2006. For the first time in his life, he is able to talk and play with other children. Overjoyed with his progress, Kean's mother has enrolled him in elementary school.
In many countries, blind children are neglected and never receive opportunities to engage in society or education systems. With the help of USAID, grantees like Perkins are putting these systems within reach, so more children like Kean can live full and productive lives.
For more information about USAID and its child survival programs, visit http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/.
USAID, March 4, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In the past year, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Child Blindness Program assisted over one million people through eye health education, comprehensive vision screening, refractive error correction, sight-restoring surgery, and education for blind children.
USAID has supported programs to reduce childhood blindness since 1991. This year, 31 projects reached over one million people in 23 countries. Together, these projects screened 950,000 children and 61,000 adults-many of whom are teachers in school-based eye health programs. In countries like Niger, India, Nepal and Tanzania, USAID grantees are expanding access to eye care and improving vision for thousands in hard-to-reach communities.
There are 17 million children in the world with low vision or blurred eye sight. Children with inadequate vision often drop out of school when they cannot see the blackboard or letters in a book, and suffer the lifelong consequences of low education. The majority of these children experience refractive errors that can be corrected with glasses. This year, USAID supported programs in 10 countries that have distributed over 11,000 pairs of eyeglasses to children.
USAID Global Health Bureau Deputy Assistant Administrator Gloria Steele highlights the role of USAID's partners: "From supporting global leaders in eye care like Aravind Eye Care System in India to community-based screening programs like that of Seva Foundation in Nepal, USAID and our partners are leading the way in expanding access to social and educational opportunities for children with vision impairments in the developing world."
One of USAID's grantees, VisionSpring, is innovating approaches to delivering eye glasses to people with refractive error. VisionSpring trains vision entrepreneurs to screen adults and children and sell a variety of lost-cost glasses. In addition to providing access to eye care in rural Indian communities, these vision entrepreneurs are earning income and are better able to support their own families. Rama Devi, a vision entrepreneur in Mahbubnagar, used to sell her handiwork for around $44 a month-barely enough to care for her husband and two children. She joined VisionSpring's program in 2006, and now earns over $100 every month selling reading glasses.
Some children require more intensive care, and now have affordable access to hospital services through USAID's Child Blindness Program. With high-quality surgical and post-operative care, USAID grantees restored sight to 921 children in 10 countries this year.
Nine-year-old Ashis Tamang was one of these children. Unable to see out of his right eye due a cataract, he was at high risk for dropping out of school when Seva Foundation, funded by USAID, conducted a screening program at his school in Chitwan, Nepal. Seva immediately referred Ashis to Bharatphur Eye Hospital, where he underwent cataract surgery. After surgery, with perfect vision in his right eye, he told Seva that he stood first in his class, and wants to try to get even better scores.
For the five million children who are blind, mobility and educational training can create a lifetime of opportunities. Kean, who is 6 years old from the Philippines, lost his sight shortly after birth, and was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 after he failed to develop verbal skills. Kean is now receiving therapy services at Resources for the Blind in the Philippines, a Perkins School for the Blind partner supported by USAID since 2006. For the first time in his life, he is able to talk and play with other children. Overjoyed with his progress, Kean's mother has enrolled him in elementary school.
In many countries, blind children are neglected and never receive opportunities to engage in society or education systems. With the help of USAID, grantees like Perkins are putting these systems within reach, so more children like Kean can live full and productive lives.
For more information about USAID and its child survival programs, visit http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/.
U.S., International Tsunami Efforts Continue in Indian Ocean
U.S., International Tsunami Efforts Continue in Indian Ocean. By Cheryl Pellerin
Despite difficulty of creating early warning centers, progress is being made
america.gov, Feb 27, 2009
Washington — Four years after the deadliest tsunami in recorded history took the lives of 227,898 people and displaced 1.7 million, the coastal nations of the Indian Ocean, with help from the United States and other countries, have created a small margin of safety for themselves against a future onslaught by the sea.
The tragedy mobilized international experts and funding for a years-long effort to bolster and, in some cases, create a regional capacity to monitor lands and waters, analyze seismic and tidal data, warn populations about tsunami-producing earthquakes, and establish standard procedures for quickly moving people out of harm’s way.
Initial efforts targeted the eastern Indian Ocean, where parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India bore the brunt of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami.
More recent efforts — by representatives of the International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC), the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) — have focused on early warning and preparedness activities in the island nation of Mauritius and the Republic of Mozambique in the western Indian Ocean.
SAVING LIVES
The day after Christmas in 2004, below an underwater canyon called the Sunda Trench that lies offshore of the Indonesia archipelago, one massive tectonic plate explosively displaced another, producing a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami that affected 14 countries in South Asia and East Africa.
Lives could have been saved if each nation had had an end-to-end early warning system that included hazard warnings and preparedness, ocean observations, data management, forecasting and warning dissemination.
But on December 26, 2004, such a system existed only in the Pacific Ocean, where most of the world’s tsunamis occur. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawaii, part of NOAA’s National Weather Service, was established in 1949 to provide warnings about tsunamis and other hazards.
In 1968 the center became the operational headquarters of the IOC’s Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning System. Today the PTWC is an interim warning center for the Indian Ocean — in cooperation with the Japan Meteorological Agency — until warning systems there are complete.
In 2005, IOC took the lead in coordinating international activities to establish a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System Program supported the IOC through a three-year, $16.6 million, multi-agency effort that has led to significant improvements in early warning capability in the region.
MARGIN OF SAFETY
U.S. contributions to the Indian Ocean’s regional warning system have involved upgrading the seismic network, deploying two deep-ocean tsunami-detection buoys called tsunameters (one each in Thailand and Indonesia), increasing the capacity in five countries to analyze data and issue warnings, and improving local community preparedness.
In the region, David McKinnie, NOAA’s international tsunami coordinator, told America.gov, “We’ve gone from no country with a national warning center to many countries with the ability to issue national warnings.”
The U.S. program also:
• Supplied capacity-building, technical support and training for national warning center operations, emergency communications and rapid alert systems in four countries.
• Installed, deployed or upgraded 18 national tsunami-detection and communication system components and built capacity in earthquake detection, hazard mapping and warning processes.
• Trained 195 government agencies, included 399 communities in national alert systems, and provided community-level preparedness training for more than 20,000 people.
• Upgraded or installed six coastal sea-level observation stations and five seismic stations, and upgraded connections to the global telecommunications system and trained users in Sri Lanka and the Maldives in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization.
“Given the difficulty of establishing a set of regional and national tsunami warning centers to deploy new networks of instruments and take on the challenge of last-mile communications and local preparedness — given the enormity of that challenge, progress has been satisfactory,” McKinney said.
“There’s much more to be done,” he added, “just as there’s much more to be done in the United States.”
MAURITIUS AND MOZAMBIQUE
Countries on the western side of the Indian Ocean were less damaged by the 2004 tsunami but still face risks from earthquakes and tsunamis. In February 2006, for example, a 7.0 magnitude struck 215 kilometers (133 miles) southwest of Beira, Mozambique, killing four people and injuring 27.
To address this need, the U.S. State Department funded an effort in 2007 to upgrade earthquake and tsunami warning systems in Mauritius and Mozambique. Involved in the work were experts from the Hawaii-based ITIC, established in 1965 by the IOC; NOAA’s National Weather Service; IOC and USGS.
“Our effort in Mauritius was to try to identify where they needed the most help,” ITIC Director Laura Kong told America.gov.
In the small island nation, the meteorological service doubles as the tsunami warning center. ITIC provided software and training in earthquake monitoring and seismology. During a visit in April, Paul Whitmore, director of NOAA’s Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, installed EarlyBird, a tsunami monitoring system used at his center.
In the nation of Mozambique — which has a meteorological service, a geological survey, a small seismology network and a water-level agency — Kong and her partners installed two pieces of earthquake-monitoring software and a sea-level-monitoring software called Tide Tool.
“Mozambique is more susceptible to tsunamis, and the good news is they’re building the capacity,” USGS research seismologist Walter Mooney told America.gov. “They’re installing six [seismic] stations and trying to put them on radio transmission so they all get broadcast back to the central office in real time.”
ITIC and NOAA have given both countries a range of printed tsunami-preparedness material that the countries can translate and use for training and to increase community awareness.
More information about the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is available at the NOAA Web site.
More information about UNESCO/IOC global tsunami warning system coordination is available at the organization’s Web site.
An animation of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is available at the Web site of Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology.
Despite difficulty of creating early warning centers, progress is being made
america.gov, Feb 27, 2009
Washington — Four years after the deadliest tsunami in recorded history took the lives of 227,898 people and displaced 1.7 million, the coastal nations of the Indian Ocean, with help from the United States and other countries, have created a small margin of safety for themselves against a future onslaught by the sea.
The tragedy mobilized international experts and funding for a years-long effort to bolster and, in some cases, create a regional capacity to monitor lands and waters, analyze seismic and tidal data, warn populations about tsunami-producing earthquakes, and establish standard procedures for quickly moving people out of harm’s way.
Initial efforts targeted the eastern Indian Ocean, where parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India bore the brunt of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami.
More recent efforts — by representatives of the International Tsunami Information Center (ITIC), the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) — have focused on early warning and preparedness activities in the island nation of Mauritius and the Republic of Mozambique in the western Indian Ocean.
SAVING LIVES
The day after Christmas in 2004, below an underwater canyon called the Sunda Trench that lies offshore of the Indonesia archipelago, one massive tectonic plate explosively displaced another, producing a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami that affected 14 countries in South Asia and East Africa.
Lives could have been saved if each nation had had an end-to-end early warning system that included hazard warnings and preparedness, ocean observations, data management, forecasting and warning dissemination.
But on December 26, 2004, such a system existed only in the Pacific Ocean, where most of the world’s tsunamis occur. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawaii, part of NOAA’s National Weather Service, was established in 1949 to provide warnings about tsunamis and other hazards.
In 1968 the center became the operational headquarters of the IOC’s Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning System. Today the PTWC is an interim warning center for the Indian Ocean — in cooperation with the Japan Meteorological Agency — until warning systems there are complete.
In 2005, IOC took the lead in coordinating international activities to establish a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System Program supported the IOC through a three-year, $16.6 million, multi-agency effort that has led to significant improvements in early warning capability in the region.
MARGIN OF SAFETY
U.S. contributions to the Indian Ocean’s regional warning system have involved upgrading the seismic network, deploying two deep-ocean tsunami-detection buoys called tsunameters (one each in Thailand and Indonesia), increasing the capacity in five countries to analyze data and issue warnings, and improving local community preparedness.
In the region, David McKinnie, NOAA’s international tsunami coordinator, told America.gov, “We’ve gone from no country with a national warning center to many countries with the ability to issue national warnings.”
The U.S. program also:
• Supplied capacity-building, technical support and training for national warning center operations, emergency communications and rapid alert systems in four countries.
• Installed, deployed or upgraded 18 national tsunami-detection and communication system components and built capacity in earthquake detection, hazard mapping and warning processes.
• Trained 195 government agencies, included 399 communities in national alert systems, and provided community-level preparedness training for more than 20,000 people.
• Upgraded or installed six coastal sea-level observation stations and five seismic stations, and upgraded connections to the global telecommunications system and trained users in Sri Lanka and the Maldives in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization.
“Given the difficulty of establishing a set of regional and national tsunami warning centers to deploy new networks of instruments and take on the challenge of last-mile communications and local preparedness — given the enormity of that challenge, progress has been satisfactory,” McKinney said.
“There’s much more to be done,” he added, “just as there’s much more to be done in the United States.”
MAURITIUS AND MOZAMBIQUE
Countries on the western side of the Indian Ocean were less damaged by the 2004 tsunami but still face risks from earthquakes and tsunamis. In February 2006, for example, a 7.0 magnitude struck 215 kilometers (133 miles) southwest of Beira, Mozambique, killing four people and injuring 27.
To address this need, the U.S. State Department funded an effort in 2007 to upgrade earthquake and tsunami warning systems in Mauritius and Mozambique. Involved in the work were experts from the Hawaii-based ITIC, established in 1965 by the IOC; NOAA’s National Weather Service; IOC and USGS.
“Our effort in Mauritius was to try to identify where they needed the most help,” ITIC Director Laura Kong told America.gov.
In the small island nation, the meteorological service doubles as the tsunami warning center. ITIC provided software and training in earthquake monitoring and seismology. During a visit in April, Paul Whitmore, director of NOAA’s Alaska Tsunami Warning Center, installed EarlyBird, a tsunami monitoring system used at his center.
In the nation of Mozambique — which has a meteorological service, a geological survey, a small seismology network and a water-level agency — Kong and her partners installed two pieces of earthquake-monitoring software and a sea-level-monitoring software called Tide Tool.
“Mozambique is more susceptible to tsunamis, and the good news is they’re building the capacity,” USGS research seismologist Walter Mooney told America.gov. “They’re installing six [seismic] stations and trying to put them on radio transmission so they all get broadcast back to the central office in real time.”
ITIC and NOAA have given both countries a range of printed tsunami-preparedness material that the countries can translate and use for training and to increase community awareness.
More information about the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is available at the NOAA Web site.
More information about UNESCO/IOC global tsunami warning system coordination is available at the organization’s Web site.
An animation of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is available at the Web site of Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology.
United States and United Nations Sanctions on Top Leaders of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda
United States and United Nations Sanctions on Top Leaders of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, by Gordon Duguid, Acting Deputy Department Spokesman, Office of the Spokesman, US State Dept
Washington, DC, March 3, 2009
Today, March 3, the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) designated four leaders of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Those designated by the Committee are subject to an asset freeze and travel ban. The individuals designated include: Callixte Mbarushimana, Stansislas Nzeyimana, Pacifique Ntawunguka, and Leopold Mujyambere.
The United States also domestically designated these individuals pursuant to Executive Order 13413, which targets certain persons contributing to conflict in the DRC. As a result, these men’s assets under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them.
The FDLR (an armed group of ex-Rwandese Armed Forces, Interahamwe, and other Hutu extremists including those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide) has continued to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in the DRC, significantly contributing to the instability and insecurity of the Great Lakes region. We support the governments of the DRC and Rwanda in their efforts to end the FDLR threat; we urge the FDLR to respect humanitarian law, protect civilians and undergo peaceful disarmament and demobilization; and we encourage rank-and-file FDLR members to voluntarily disarm and repatriate to Rwanda.
We encourage all UN Member States to continue to identify and bring to the attention of the DRC Sanctions Committee individuals and entities who meet the designation criteria in paragraph 4 of UN Security Council resolution 1857 (2008).
PRN: 2009/185
Washington, DC, March 3, 2009
Today, March 3, the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) designated four leaders of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Those designated by the Committee are subject to an asset freeze and travel ban. The individuals designated include: Callixte Mbarushimana, Stansislas Nzeyimana, Pacifique Ntawunguka, and Leopold Mujyambere.
The United States also domestically designated these individuals pursuant to Executive Order 13413, which targets certain persons contributing to conflict in the DRC. As a result, these men’s assets under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them.
The FDLR (an armed group of ex-Rwandese Armed Forces, Interahamwe, and other Hutu extremists including those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide) has continued to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in the DRC, significantly contributing to the instability and insecurity of the Great Lakes region. We support the governments of the DRC and Rwanda in their efforts to end the FDLR threat; we urge the FDLR to respect humanitarian law, protect civilians and undergo peaceful disarmament and demobilization; and we encourage rank-and-file FDLR members to voluntarily disarm and repatriate to Rwanda.
We encourage all UN Member States to continue to identify and bring to the attention of the DRC Sanctions Committee individuals and entities who meet the designation criteria in paragraph 4 of UN Security Council resolution 1857 (2008).
PRN: 2009/185
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Yemen Parliamentary Elections Postponement
Yemen Parliamentary Elections Postponement, by Gordon Duguid, Acting Deputy Department Spokesman, Office of the Spokesman, US State Dept, Bureau of Public Affairs
Washington, DC, March 3, 2009
The United States views with deep concern and disappointment the decision by Yemen’s ruling and opposition parties to postpone the April 2009 Parliamentary elections for two years. It is difficult to see how a delay of this duration serves the interests of the Yemeni people or the cause of Yemeni democracy. We sincerely hope that the political leadership of Yemen uses this period to cooperate in earnest to reach a consensus on the procedures for the elections that are consistent with the recommendations made by international elections observers in 2006. All parties share the responsibility to ensure that the people of Yemen have the opportunity to choose their representatives in a timely and transparent manner. The United States stands ready to assist in this process.
PRN: 184
Washington, DC, March 3, 2009
The United States views with deep concern and disappointment the decision by Yemen’s ruling and opposition parties to postpone the April 2009 Parliamentary elections for two years. It is difficult to see how a delay of this duration serves the interests of the Yemeni people or the cause of Yemeni democracy. We sincerely hope that the political leadership of Yemen uses this period to cooperate in earnest to reach a consensus on the procedures for the elections that are consistent with the recommendations made by international elections observers in 2006. All parties share the responsibility to ensure that the people of Yemen have the opportunity to choose their representatives in a timely and transparent manner. The United States stands ready to assist in this process.
PRN: 184
Thursday, February 26, 2009
US Agency and Coca-Cola Partner to Bring Clean Water to Mozambique
USAID and Coca-Cola Partner to Bring Clean Water to Mozambique
USAID, February 25, 2009
CHIMOIO, MOZAMBIQUE - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Coca-Cola have formed a global alliance - the Water and Development Alliance (WADA) - to provide clean, potable water to Mozambique's sixth largest urban region, Chimoio. This alliance brings together funding commitments from all partners totaling about $1.79 million, of which $500,000 comes from USAID.
Currently, 10-15 percent of Chimoio's 250,000 residents are served by an inconsistent and inadequately treated water supply that poses serious public health risks and hampers industrial and commercial growth. WADA and its partners will supply running water to about 25,000 people, 12 schools, one provincial hospital, one secondary health facility, and local industrial and commercial users. This project will also improve the health of Chimoio residents, and increase economic activity and employment.
Coca-Cola is a long standing global USAID partner, but this is Mozambique's first partnership with the global beverage company. "We are looking forward to a long and productive relationship with the possibility of taking this partnership to other provinces where USAID and Coca Cola operate and have common goals," said Todd Amani, USAID Mission Director in Mozambique.
Funds provided by the alliance will be used to rehabilitate the TextAfrica Water Treatment Plant, part of a dilapidated former textile factory located on the outskirts of Chimoio. The project will rehabilitate several parts of the system - including pipes and pumping stations - to improve water delivery management and develop cost-recovery polices to ensure that the plant is sustainable once the work has been completed.
Other projects will focus on 14 boreholes throughout the city. In addition, workers will extend a secondary water distribution network to Bairro 4 - a neighborhood indentified by the municipal and community leaders as most in need of an improved water supply system. In addition, six new small water systems will be installed in neighborhoods throughout Chimoio City to provide enough water for present and future needs.
For more information about USAID and its programs in Mozambique, visit: http://www.usaid.gov/.
USAID, February 25, 2009
CHIMOIO, MOZAMBIQUE - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Coca-Cola have formed a global alliance - the Water and Development Alliance (WADA) - to provide clean, potable water to Mozambique's sixth largest urban region, Chimoio. This alliance brings together funding commitments from all partners totaling about $1.79 million, of which $500,000 comes from USAID.
Currently, 10-15 percent of Chimoio's 250,000 residents are served by an inconsistent and inadequately treated water supply that poses serious public health risks and hampers industrial and commercial growth. WADA and its partners will supply running water to about 25,000 people, 12 schools, one provincial hospital, one secondary health facility, and local industrial and commercial users. This project will also improve the health of Chimoio residents, and increase economic activity and employment.
Coca-Cola is a long standing global USAID partner, but this is Mozambique's first partnership with the global beverage company. "We are looking forward to a long and productive relationship with the possibility of taking this partnership to other provinces where USAID and Coca Cola operate and have common goals," said Todd Amani, USAID Mission Director in Mozambique.
Funds provided by the alliance will be used to rehabilitate the TextAfrica Water Treatment Plant, part of a dilapidated former textile factory located on the outskirts of Chimoio. The project will rehabilitate several parts of the system - including pipes and pumping stations - to improve water delivery management and develop cost-recovery polices to ensure that the plant is sustainable once the work has been completed.
Other projects will focus on 14 boreholes throughout the city. In addition, workers will extend a secondary water distribution network to Bairro 4 - a neighborhood indentified by the municipal and community leaders as most in need of an improved water supply system. In addition, six new small water systems will be installed in neighborhoods throughout Chimoio City to provide enough water for present and future needs.
For more information about USAID and its programs in Mozambique, visit: http://www.usaid.gov/.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
USAID Opens Shawakeh Fish Market to Attract Businesses, Restore Stability
USAID Opens Shawakeh Fish Market to Attract Businesses, Restore Stability
USAID, February 20, 2009
BAGHDAD, IRAQ - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in partnership with the Karkh District Council, neighborhood councils, and the U.S. military, opened the Al Shawakeh Fish Market today to stimulate employment and business opportunities in the community. In his remarks at the opening, USAID Deputy Mission Director Thomas R. Delaney said, "The revival of this market shows how committed the Iraqis are in seeing their economy-and people-recover and grow." He also said he hoped that the market will be seen as a center of community pride and prosperity.
USAID began rebuilding the fish market in early 2008 through the Community Stabilization Program (CSP) after repeated insurgent-lead attacks. The goal of CSP is to help create an environment for stability and establish the necessary conditions for long-term development to take hold in violence-affected areas. USAID's market revitalization efforts include rebuilding damaged shops and surrounding streets and sidewalks. The project created immediate short-term jobs for unemployed laborers.
USAID's partner, International Relief and Development (IRD), met with vendors, the local community and the district and neighborhood councilmen to seek their input on the layout and design of the market. Iraqi representatives of IRD worked closely with the embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team, the U.S. Military, and the Karkh community to complete the $227,489 USAID-funded project.
Twelve local construction workers fixed the inner-yard of the market, constructed new stalls, and upgraded the water, sewer and electrical networks. The new market has a cold-storage facility, trash dumpsters, and more space for loading and unloading of produce, fish, and meats. The market comprises 40 small, family-owned restaurants, fish and vegetable markets, book kiosks and shops.Since 2003, USAID has invested more than $6 billion on programs designed to stabilize communities; foster economic and agricultural growth; and build the capacity of the national, local, and provincial governments to respond to the needs of the Iraqi people.
USAID, February 20, 2009
BAGHDAD, IRAQ - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in partnership with the Karkh District Council, neighborhood councils, and the U.S. military, opened the Al Shawakeh Fish Market today to stimulate employment and business opportunities in the community. In his remarks at the opening, USAID Deputy Mission Director Thomas R. Delaney said, "The revival of this market shows how committed the Iraqis are in seeing their economy-and people-recover and grow." He also said he hoped that the market will be seen as a center of community pride and prosperity.
USAID began rebuilding the fish market in early 2008 through the Community Stabilization Program (CSP) after repeated insurgent-lead attacks. The goal of CSP is to help create an environment for stability and establish the necessary conditions for long-term development to take hold in violence-affected areas. USAID's market revitalization efforts include rebuilding damaged shops and surrounding streets and sidewalks. The project created immediate short-term jobs for unemployed laborers.
USAID's partner, International Relief and Development (IRD), met with vendors, the local community and the district and neighborhood councilmen to seek their input on the layout and design of the market. Iraqi representatives of IRD worked closely with the embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team, the U.S. Military, and the Karkh community to complete the $227,489 USAID-funded project.
Twelve local construction workers fixed the inner-yard of the market, constructed new stalls, and upgraded the water, sewer and electrical networks. The new market has a cold-storage facility, trash dumpsters, and more space for loading and unloading of produce, fish, and meats. The market comprises 40 small, family-owned restaurants, fish and vegetable markets, book kiosks and shops.Since 2003, USAID has invested more than $6 billion on programs designed to stabilize communities; foster economic and agricultural growth; and build the capacity of the national, local, and provincial governments to respond to the needs of the Iraqi people.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
India Gov't: Climate Billions an Entitlement, not Aid
India: Climate Billions an Entitlement. By Chris Horner
Planet Gore/NRO, Tuesday, February 17, 2009
I recall being in the room at the Hague in November 2000, when then-French president Jacques Chirac’s opening remarks praised the Kyoto Protocol as “the first component of an authentic global governance" (and I remember my editor with UPI, for whom I was writing from the talks, berating me and refusing to run my piece reporting this as hysterically making up something no one would ever say . . . )
I even more clearly recall Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R., Wisc.) holding an impromptu press availability afterward in the hallway outside the media cubes, instructing European reporters that if there is a better way of making sure that the U.S. stays out of any such pact than praising it as “global governance,” he doesn’t know what it is. (I also remember one of the Brit reporters, from the Guardian I believe, snapping back “Bollocks! Bollocks!” at the congressman.)
With Chirac’s departure to other pastimes such as being “mauled by his own ‘clinically depressed’ pet dog,” I think we may have found that better way to keep the U.S. out of such absurdity.
Sitting down? Good. Here’s a Climate Wire story’s headline and opening today:
Yeaahhh.
Planet Gore/NRO, Tuesday, February 17, 2009
I recall being in the room at the Hague in November 2000, when then-French president Jacques Chirac’s opening remarks praised the Kyoto Protocol as “the first component of an authentic global governance" (and I remember my editor with UPI, for whom I was writing from the talks, berating me and refusing to run my piece reporting this as hysterically making up something no one would ever say . . . )
I even more clearly recall Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R., Wisc.) holding an impromptu press availability afterward in the hallway outside the media cubes, instructing European reporters that if there is a better way of making sure that the U.S. stays out of any such pact than praising it as “global governance,” he doesn’t know what it is. (I also remember one of the Brit reporters, from the Guardian I believe, snapping back “Bollocks! Bollocks!” at the congressman.)
With Chirac’s departure to other pastimes such as being “mauled by his own ‘clinically depressed’ pet dog,” I think we may have found that better way to keep the U.S. out of such absurdity.
Sitting down? Good. Here’s a Climate Wire story’s headline and opening today:
Climate funding is entitlement, not aid, India says
The West owes billions of dollars to developing nations in order compensate
for climate change, India's government says.
In a submission to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the
Indian government warns rich countries against defining funding for adaptation
or sustainable development in vulnerable nations as traditional development aid.
Rather, it says, it is an "entitlement" for poor countries whose development
will be further set back by global warming.
"There is a tendency to equate such resources to foreign 'aid' or Overseas
Development Assistance," the government wrote, adding that financing should not
be left up to the legislatures in wealthy nations, nor should it be in the form
of loans.
"The providers of finance cannot be discretionary 'donors,' but must be
legally obligated 'assessees,'" the document says.
Yeaahhh.
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