Day: October 6, 2009

Evo Morales at the UN: The cause of the crisis is capitalism

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6 October, 2009 — Bolivia Rising

Statement by H.E. Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, delivered to the United Nations General Assembly last week at UN headquarters in New York City

Thank you to the President of the United Nations General Assembly, greetings fellow presidential brothers, to the distinguished delegation of this global forum, reunited at the United Nations to share problems, concerns and solutions to serve our fellow people of the world.

This morning I listened carefully to the speeches, beginning with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. There exist enormous similarities in expressing problems such as the financial crisis, the environment and the stability of the institution of democracy. There have been many positive suggestions, beginning with the Secretary-General’s humble request for unity between the presidents of the United Nations.

I agree with the importance for governments of the world to unite in order to successfully tend to our peoples demands and resolve these crises. Unity within the United Nations to solve profound economic differences, asymmetries between continents, families and countries is paramount for the equality, dignity and resolution of the demands of our people.

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D’Escoto: “The UN has failed” Part 1

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Outgoing General Assembly prez says most powerful are to blame for UN failure to address war and poverty

As he leaves the office of the President of the UN General Assembly, Father Miguel d’Escoto gave Real News Senior Editor Paul Jay a no holds barred interview on the issues plaguing the United Nations. D’Escoto held the democratization of the UN as a key pillar of his Presidency, but along the way he learned of the various obstacles that keep the General Assembly from becoming an effective body within the UN, and the UN from becoming an effective body within the world. He blames the world’s most powerful states for this ineptitude to act, which has resulted in what he calls the failure of the UN to address the two objectives for which it was founded, the avoidance of war and the eradication of poverty.

Part 2 | Part 3

Produced by Jesse Freeston

Bio
Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann recently finished his term as president of the United Nations General Assembly. His term was notable for numerous attempts to assert the authority of the General Assembly and numerous pronouncements on current events, such as the financial crisis and the Israeli siege and war on Gaza. This was a considerable departure from the highly conservative role that the General Assembly, and in particular the president, had played over recent years.

D’Escoto is an ordained Roman Catholic priest for the Maryknoll congregation, serving in 1970 as an official with the World Council of Churches. As an adherent of liberation theology, he secretly joined Nicaragua’s revolutionary Sandinista independence movement. In 1979, he was appointed foreign minister of the new revolutionary government following the Sandinistas’ overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship. He served as foreign minister under President Daniel Ortega from 1979 until their electoral defeat in 1990. He was one of a group of Latin American priests who were denounced and eventually suspended during the 1980s by the Vatican of Pope John Paul II, after their dedication to liberation theology compelled them to become involved in revolutionary politics.

In 2008, he was selected by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to as their choice to fill the presidency of the General Assembly.

Video: Walled Horizons – Narrated by Roger Waters (Pink Floyd founding member)

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Walled Horizons is narrated by and features Roger Waters (founding member of the rock band Pink Floyd), who visits the Wall in the Palestinian territories and comments on his observations as a musician and a songwriter who has written on walls. The film explores how Palestinians in urban and rural areas have been impacted by the Walls construction since the International Court of Justices Advisory Opinion in 2004, which declared the Wall’s route in the West Bank illegal. Several senior Israeli security officials are interviewed in the film, two of whom were directly responsible for planning the Wall route and who explain the Israeli position for constructing it. The film was made by the United Nations Jerusalem.

Part One

http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Groupvideo.3585255


Part Two

http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Groupvideo.3585261


Arabic: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2at-AIi7gY&feature=related



Arabic: Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI3HXiWhKog&feature=related

______________________________________
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Mac House
P.O.Box 38712
Jerusalem
Tel:++ 972-2-5829962/5853
Fax:++972-2-5825841
email: ochaopt@un.org
www.ochaopt.org



Israel: Manufacturing Right

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For years, Israel dismissed the legal applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the West Bank and Gaza, claiming that they were and are not under occupation but rather “liberated” or at least “disputed” territories. For the most part, this verbal/legal sleight-of-hand did not and has not convinced world civil society. But it joined other strategies, such as the active erasure of the 1949 armistice “green” line by Jewish settlement and infrastructure projects, in obfuscating reality for a sufficient number of Israelis to uphold a sense of public indignation at accusations of illegality.

Almost as old as the occupation itself, the basic strategy of word-washing and mind-tricks has been reused repeatedly by Israel, also assisting its evasion of International Humanitarian Law as well as other international standards and conventions.

The opinion piece below is a vehement, pointed accusation leveled by journalist Gideon Levy against the extensive group of Israeli philosophers, thinkers, lawyers, jurists and leading academics who have, over many years now, readily and faithfully provided the language and concepts for these strategies of evasion. First and foremost among the conscience-clearers, he writes, is Prof. Asa Kasher who is “the one responsible for that toxic ‘IDF spirit’ – which holds that when … protecting soldiers, anything goes”.

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Rich Countries Sabotaging Climate Talks By John Vidal

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5 October, 2009 — Climate and Capitalism

Statement from China and G77 nations at climate talks in Bangkok claims rich nations are rejecting historical responsibilities


Guardian

The US and other developed countries are attempting to ‘fundamentally sabotage’ the Kyoto protocol and all-important international negotiations over its next phase, according to coordinated statements by China and 130 developing countries at UN climate talks in Bangkok today.

As 180 countries started a second week of talks, the developing countries showed their deep frustration at the slow pace of the negotiations on a global climate deal, which are planned to be concluded in two months’ time in Copenhagen.

‘The reason why we are not making progress is the lack of political will by Annex 1 [industrialised] countries. There is a concerted effort to fundamentally sabotage the Kyoto protocol,’ said ambassador Yu Qingtai China’s special representative on climate talks. ‘We now hear statements that would lead to the termination of the protocol. They are introducing new rules, new formats. That’s not the way to conduct negotiations,’ said Yu.

Yu’s was echoed by Lumumba Di-Aping, Sudanese chair of the G77, the UN’s largest intergovernmental organisation of developing states which represents 130 countries at the talks. ‘Feelings are running high in the G77. It is clear now that the rich countries want a deal outside the Kyoto agreement. It would be based on a total rejection of their historical responsibilities. This is an alarming development. The intention of developed countries is clearly to kill the protocol,’ he said.

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