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September 26, 2005
Posted 6:20 PM
by Mary
SIGNATORIES TO UN-BACKED TEST BAN VOW TO 'SPARE NO EFFORT' TO BRING IT INTO FORCE New York, Sep 23 2005 3:00PM With eleven crucial States still not aboard the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, signatories to it agreed at United Nations Headquarters today to spare no effort and use all avenues to get those countries to sign and ratify the treaty, allowing it to come into force. In the declaration concluding the fourth Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which began at on 21 September, the parties also reiterated that the cessation of all nuclear weapon tests was a meaningful step in the effort to achieve nuclear disarmament. The 1996 treaty, which seeks to ban all nuclear tests for all time, has so far been signed by 176 countries and ratified by 125 States. However, of the 44 countries whose ratification is essential for the treaty to go into force, 11 States have still not ratified, including China and the United States, as well as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, Indonesia, Iran, Viet Nam, and Colombia. Of those eleven countries only China, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia and Israel attended and spoke at the conference, said Australian Ambassador Deborah Stokes, President of the CTBT Article XIV Conference. “[The conference was still] very successful in terms of demonstrating the very wide political commitment to this treaty and that was demonstrated, very, very clearly,” she added. However, citing heightened global anxiety over weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, Secretary-General Kofi Annan Wednesday expressed alarm that countries whose ratification is essential for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) to enter into force had still not acted. “The longer entry into force of the treaty is delayed, the greater the risk that someone, somewhere, will test nuclear weapons. That would be a major setback for the cause of non-proliferation and disarmament,” he added.
September 21, 2005
Posted 11:15 PM
by Mary
Published on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 by Inter Press Service UN Human Rights Body to Scrutinize U.S. Abuses by Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Human Rights Committee, scheduled to meet in Geneva next month, has written to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) calling for any available evidence of human rights abuses by the United States -- particularly in the aftermath of its global war on terrorism. The 18-member committee, comprising of independent human rights experts, will take up "issues of specific concerns relating to the effect of measures taken (by the administration of President George W. Bush) in the fight against terrorism following the events of 11 September 2001," the day the United States was subject to terrorist attacks. The primary focus will be "on the implications of the USA Patriot Act on nationals and non-nationals, as well as problems relating to the legal status and treatment of persons detained in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and other places of detention outside the USA." The U.S. Congress adopted the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 in order to provide "appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism." But virtually all human rights organizations, both domestic and international, have criticized the Act as seriously threatening civil liberties and freedoms in the United States. "The USA Patriot Act was destined to foster abuses, as it weakened the system of checks and balances on law enforcement while setting aside due process safeguards under the law," says Jumana Musa, advocacy director at Amnesty International USA. Alarmingly, Musa added, the Patriot Act has inspired a proliferation of copycat laws worldwide, prompting abuses that the United States has officially pledged to counter. "The boast that the United States is now the world's only superpower has a grim undertow in the area of human rights; no one can tell Washington what to do or not do, no matter how egregious its cruelties," says Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy. "Most governments deserve to be censured by a human rights committee. The United States, far from being an exception, is among the most culpable -- in particular because of its large-scale foreign policy efforts pursued under the rubric of a 'war on terrorism' over the last four years," Solomon told IPS. The rhetorical use of "human rights" as a political football has mired its transcendent importance in the muck of self-serving hypocrisies based on the tacit precept that might makes right, he added. "The character of the Bush administration is such that the U.S. delegation to the United Nations will -- in practice -- indignantly refuse to recognize a single standard of human rights whenever such a standard would put the U.S. record in a negative light," said Solomon, author of the recently-released book 'War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.' The U.S.-based Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute at the University of California in Berkeley has detailed some 180 alleged human rights violations by the United States, including 11 types of violations of individual rights and 19 types of violations of government duties. These violations include enforcement of the Patriot Act, and also allegations of killings, torture, detentions and other "inhuman treatment" in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Last July, the Berkeley City Council submitted to the Human Rights Committee a report prepared by the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, titled "Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11". In June, four independent experts of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights expressed "deep regrets" that "the Government of the United States has still not invited us to visit those persons arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Guantanamo Bay naval base". The Bush administration has also turned down a similar request from the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and a joint request by the U.N. Special Rapporteurs on torture and health. "Such requests were based on information, from reliable sources, of serious allegations of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, arbitrary detention, violations of their right to health and their due process rights," the four experts said in a statement released in June. They also said that many of the allegations have come to light through declassified government documents. "The purpose of the visit would be to examine objectively the allegations first-hand and ascertain whether international human rights standards that are applicable in these particular circumstances are being upheld with respect to those detained persons," the experts added. When the Human Rights Committee meets in Geneva from Oct. 17 to Nov. 3, it is expected to discuss the submissions made by the Bush administration. These submissions include Washington's periodic reports on how it has helped enforce the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The committee was established to specifically monitor the implementation of the Covenant and the Protocols to the Covenant in the territory of States parties. The committee convenes three times a year for sessions of three weeks' duration. Under article 40 of the Covenant, States parties must submit reports every five years on the measures they have adopted which give effect to the rights recognized in the Covenant and on the progress made in the enjoyment of those rights. The United States will be appearing before the committee for the first time in the post-Sep. 11 period. Although only members of the committee and representatives of the relevant state party may take part in the dialogue, NGOs are encouraged to submit written information or reports to the committee. Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy pointed out that for a long time, officials in Washington have been dismissive of the human rights pretensions of regimes that clearly are human rights violators, while much of what Washington does to violate human rights is "coated with a veneer of righteousness". A multi-track monologue discourse from Washington -- in tandem with tremendous economic, political, diplomatic and military power -- can be bought to bear on the United Nations, he said. "A superpower that is striving to remake the 60-year-old world body in its own image can hardly be expected to submit to institutional scrutiny of its actual human rights record. The self-designated role of Uncle Sam at the United Nations is to preach and teach without reflecting or learning," he argued. A harsh truth is that a pronounced form of jingoism is at the core of the Bush administrations approach to the United Nations, Solomon added. "Human rights violations come in many shapes, styles and sizes. The United States, like many other countries, has a government well-practiced at dodging accountability and proclaiming its own virtues," he said. "But the U.S. Record, as assessed by independent organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is reprehensible," Solomon noted.
September 18, 2005
Posted 5:56 PM
by Mary
UN summit agrees reform document World leaders have signed a deal on reforming the UN, though critics say it is much weaker than first envisaged. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan hailed a protocol obliging intervention in cases of genocide, and reaffirmation of goals to tackle poverty. But others said progress at the three-day summit in New York fell short of the reforms that were necessary. Canada, Venezuela and Indonesia were among the critics, while Cuba called the summit "an unforgivable sham". The meeting, which wrapped up on Friday, marked the United Nations' 60th anniversary and was the largest-ever gathering of world leaders, bringing together more than 150 heads of state and government. We should not think that the UN can solve all the world's problems, nor that it should attempt to do so John Howard Australian Prime Minister It was touted as an opportunity to reshape the world body for the challenges of the 21st Century. The 35-page final document establishes a new Peacebuilding Commission to help countries make the transition from war to peace, and agrees there is an international responsibility to protect people from genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. 'Disappointment' It sets up a new Human Rights Council, and condemns terrorism "in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes" - though the summit failed to settle on a definition of terrorism. Correspondents say disagreements have meant some of the anticipated advances have been dropped or watered down. REFORM PACKAGE No international definition of terrorism Plans to reform Human Rights Commission deferred to General Assembly Commitment to break down trade barriers weakened Creation of peace-building commission to help nations emerging from war agreed Obligation to intervene when civilians face genocide and war crimes agreed Development section backing Millennium goals to tackle world poverty Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader. There was no agreement on a strategy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons - a failure Mr Annan called a "real disgrace". South African President Thabo Mbeki criticised "rich and powerful nations" for allegedly blocking attempts to widen the Security Council to include more developing nations. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin signalled "profound disappointment" that the Human Rights Council was not more powerful. Australian Prime Minister John Howard recognised that terrorism was widely discussed and was "a grim but inescapable fact", but he said the UN had failed to meet the threat. However, one of the UN's most vocal critics, US ambassador John Bolton praised the document as "an important step in a long process of UN reform". "We cannot allow the reform effort to be derailed or run out of steam," he added. Many of the issues that were ignored at the summit will be brought up at the annual UN General Assembly, which begins on Saturday, when a speech by Iran's new President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will be closely watched for a statement on his country's nuclear policy. BBCNEWSPublished: 2005/09/17 01:53:56 GMT
September 15, 2005
Posted 4:23 PM
by Mary
Dear Friends and Colleagues, Please find herewith enclosed the address from which you can download the Outcome Document for the World Summit 2005 currently underway in New York. Negotiations on the Outcome Document by Member States were completed just before the opening of the World Summit. You can also consult the NGLS web page www.un-ngls.org/UN-summit covering the UN Summit to find links to the official summit website offering documents, speeches, photos and webcasts. You will also find the latest NGO and Civil Society documents relating to the Summit. The Outcome Document can be accessed directly from the following address: http://www.un-ngls.org/un-summit-DOD.doc Best regards, UN-NGLS
September 14, 2005
Posted 10:14 PM
by Mary
On Tuesday, September 13 the Summit Declaration was finally approved. I have pasted the text on the Responsibility to Protect below. You may access the entire document at www.reformtheun.org . It can also be found at www.responsibilitytoprotect.org . We are pleased that the General Assembly has unanimously affirmed that both national governments and the international community have a responsibility to protect civilians from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It is a positive development, insofar as we now have a mechanism to hold governments accountable to protecting their citizens. The inclusion of a responsibility to prevent is very important. We also view the endorsement of the mandate of the Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide. However, as we do with many aspects of the document, we believe that the R2P section could have been stronger. In para 139 of the declaration, the U.S championed and succeeded in inserting the phrase “we are prepared to take collective action” (emphasis added). R2PCS firmly believes that we must hold governments to a high standard of consistent reaction to crises and not allow this weakened language to be used by governments to selectively respond to large-scale losses of life. An important paragraph dealing with the Security Council veto was deleted from the final declaration. This paragraph asked the permanent five members of the Security Council to refrain from using the veto in cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. While this provision received widespread support from the European Union and Latin America, it was removed as a result of pressure from the United States, Russia and China (who hold veto power). We are also disappointed that the endorsement of the Secretary-General’s Plan of Action on the Prevention of Genocide was deleted. The US insisted on its removal due to the reference to the International Criminal Court. Despite its shortcomings, the endorsement of R2P is a great achievement for the Summit, and must be implemented. We must work to advance these principles, and emphasize the national and international obligations set forth in the Declaration. We encourage civil society organizations to hold their governments accountable to these commitments that they have made, and work to achieve widespread understanding of the R2P principles and the obligations they entail. WFM plans to continue advocating for stronger implementation of these principles, at the international, regional and national levels. Directly below is the R2P text. Below that, you will find WFM’s press release regarding the genocide prevention in the Declaration. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity 138. Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of 'such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and should support the United Nations to establish an early warning capability. 139. The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapter VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the UN Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case by case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to help states build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assist those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out. 140. We fully support the mission of the UN Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide. Press Release Summit Declaration: A Step Forward on Preventing and Ending Genocide Though filled with missed opportunities and great failures, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously approved a declaration on UN reform that includes the international community’s “responsibility… to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” when individual states “manifestly fail” to protect their own populations from these grave threats. “By affirming a shared responsibility to protect populations from genocide, the international community has taken an historic step toward realizing the promise of ‘never again.’ There are no more excuses for governments to stand idly by in the face of another Darfur or Rwanda. Now, commitments on paper must be realized in action,” said William Pace, Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy. This clear affirmation of a shared responsibility to protect isolates any government that commits atrocities against its own people and confers political legitimacy on those governments that wish to take appropriate collective action to protect populations from such atrocities, wherever they may occur. Yesterday, individuals and governments failed the citizens of the world by blocking other historic advances on such issues as the establishment of a strong Human Rights Council, a new Peacebuilding Commission, and ending extreme poverty and impunity for the worst human rights violators. In doing so, they also failed to equip the international community with the means to realize its responsibilities. People who live under threat of genocide from their own governments, state-sponsored actors or other non-state actors now have a new tool to battle the often deadly indifference and paralysis of the international community. This declaration ensures that governments will be held accountable for their actions, and inaction, both at home and abroad in the face of genocide and other grave crises. For further information please contact: Nicole Deller, Project Advisor Tel: +1 212 599 1320 ext. 28 WFM-IGP 708 Third Avenue, 24th Floor New York, NY 10017 212-599-2542 x32 edman@wfm.org www.responsibilitytoprotect.org
September 13, 2005
Posted 10:55 PM
by Mary
Redeeming The United Nations Redeeming The United Nations Shashi Tharoor September 12, 2005 Shashi Tharoor is an undersecretary general of the United Nations and author of many books, most recently Bookless in Baghdad: And Other Writings about Reading. For a United Nations official to discuss reform of the international system is rather like an Englishman talking about the weather: It is a staple of daily conversation, but it always seems that real change remains just over the horizon. On Wednesday, 166 heads of state and government will gather in New York for a summit that we hope will take the reform process a major step forward. Ambassadors in New York are now working day and night to hammer out the details of the current reform proposals. But whatever they manage to agree upon, as a long-time U.N. official I am conscious of how much the United Nations has already changed since I joined 27 years ago. If I had suggested to my superiors at that time that the U.N. would one day observe and even run elections in sovereign states, conduct intrusive inspections for weapons of mass destruction, impose comprehensive sanctions on the entire import-export trade of a member state, or set up international criminal tribunals and coerce governments into handing over their citizens to be tried by foreigners under international law, they would have told me that I did not understand what the U.N. was all about. Yet the U.N. has done all of these things, and more, during the last two decades. It has administered territory, conducted huge multi-dimensional peacekeeping operations with nearly 80,000 soldiers in the field, and deployed human rights monitors to report on the behavior of sovereign governments. In short, the U.N. has been a highly adaptable institution, one that has evolved in response to changing times. Today’s reform imperatives can be traced to international divisions over the Iraq war. In the summer of 2003, a poll conducted by the Pew Organization in 20 countries revealed that the U.N.’s standing had declined in all of them. The U.N.’s reputation suffered in the United States because it did not support the Bush administration on the war—and in the 19 other countries because it was unable to prevent the war. We got hit from both sides of the debate and disappointed both sets of expectations. Some famous and rather powerful voices began to speak of the U.N.’s irrelevance. It was at the peak of this unprecedentedly intense scrutiny that Secretary General Kofi Annan seized the moment. In an historic speech to the General Assembly, he said that we could either continue with business as usual, potentially leading to disaster, or we could review the entire post-1945 architecture of the international system and construct a more effective structure of global governance. Annan named a high-level panel of eminent persons to look into issues of peace and security, while a parallel group of economists, led by Jeffrey Sachs, studied what was needed to fulfill the development commitments made by world leaders at the Millennium Summit in 2000. In March, Annan synthesized their key recommendations in a report entitled In Larger Freedom . The title comes from the preamble to the U.N. charter, which speaks of striving “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” By that magnificent phrase, the U.N.’s founders meant that human rights, development, and security are mutually interdependent. Of course, the U.N. often falls short of its noble aspirations, since it reflects the realities of world politics even while seeking to transcend them. At its best and at its worst, the U.N. is a mirror of our world: It reflects our differences and our convergences, our hopes and aspirations and our limitations and failures. But the cause of political freedom has been making headway. When I joined the U.N., it was almost unthinkable for the organization to take sides between democracy and dictatorship, or to seek to intervene in members’ internal affairs. Even on the meaning of human rights there was no universal agreement, with some states regarding them as a tool of Western neoimperialism. Today, by contrast, the U.N. does more than any other single organization to promote and strengthen democratic institutions and practices around the world. In the past year alone, it has organized or assisted in elections in over 20 countries—often at decisive moments in their history—including Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq and Burundi. The U.N. is setting up a Democracy Fund to increase assistance for building democracy, and we have proposed establishing a Peace-Building Commission to help countries move from war to durable peace. Annan is also pressing for a more effective and credible international machinery for defending human rights. As we face the new challenges of our time, let us not forget the old ones, especially the persistent horror of underdevelopment. The combination of poverty, drought, famine and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa threatens more human lives than terrorism or tsunamis ever did. This summit must reaffirm the Millennium Development Goals and recommit the world to achieving these targets by 2015. There is no longer any excuse for leaving well over a billion people in abject misery. As Mahatma Gandhi put it, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” The U.N. is no exception. To change the world, we must change too. The U.N. can be a much more effective instrument if its member states in the General Assembly and the Security Council are better organized and give clearer directives to us in the Secretariat—along with the flexibility to carry them out—and then hold us clearly accountable. This week’s summit will be the largest single gathering of world leaders in human history. If world leaders rise to their responsibilities, the rebirth and renewal of the United Nations will be at hand. With its renewal, we will also renew our hope for a fairer and safer world. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2005.
September 12, 2005
Posted 2:57 PM
by Mary
From the 58th Annual DPI/NGO confernce 10 September, 2005 "We, the hundreds of NGOs meeting at the UN today, urge, at this crucial time in the world's need for security, peace, and development, that you embrace the larger vision of the UN benefit all the people of the world. We urge you to yield narrow interests, and to comprise with each other, for real change expressed in concrete terms in the 2005 World Summit Outcomes Document. http://www.un.org/ga/president/59/draft_outcome.htm Please do not squander this important opportunity."
September 10, 2005
Posted 9:40 PM
by Mary
Gutting the World Summit: Bush Betrays Poor Women Again by Yifat Susskind This week's United Nations World Summit-originally intended to assess governments' progress on pledges to reduce poverty and promote development by 2015-is in danger of being derailed by the United States. The meeting itself is proceeding with much fanfare, but the US is working to ensure that its outcome will do little to alleviate the suffering and human rights violations experienced by the world's poorest people-most of them women and their children. Two weeks before the Summit, John Bolton-recently appointed by Bush to the post of UN Ambassador despite his notorious hostility to the UN-put forward his own draft of the outcome document for the Summit. Bolton made a whopping 750 changes to the UN draft of the document, which has been under negotiation for more than six months. His revisions block potential progress on issues that are critical to everyone in the world, including development, nuclear disarmament, and global warming. Bolton even deleted all mention of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)-the internationally agreed-upon framework for reducing poverty -even though evaluating the MDGs was supposed to be the main purpose of the Summit. To most of the world, Bolton's obstructionism looks more like bullying than negotiating. It's a tactic that we've seen before from the Bush Administration: barge in at the final hour of negotiations, demand drastic changes, and then gradually relent, but only to the point that you were willing to accept all along. That way, the outcome document will reflect your demands (and the New York Times will describe your machinations as "compromise"). This is the Bush Administration's idea of multilateralism, and it benefits the Administration by lowering the bar on human rights commitments, especially those that threaten to restrain profit-making in favor of protecting the world's poor. In fact, the bar was pretty low to begin with. The proposed formula for achieving the MDGs (their "targets" and "indicators") downplays governments' human rights obligations, and paradoxically, touts economic policies that benefit the rich as a way to achieve development for the poor. For more than 30 years, studies by academics, development practitioners, and international agencies have shown that safeguarding women's human rights facilitates key objectives of the MDGs, including enhancing child health, improving nutrition and food security, lowering rates of HIV infection, and boosting incomes. Yet the MDGs fail to even mention sexual and reproductive rights, women's labor and property rights, or one of the most fundamental obstacles to ensuring these rights, namely, violence against women. The glaring absence of these issues reflects demands made by the US (along with other fundamentalist and right-wing governments) in earlier negotiations over the MDGs. Instead of promoting human rights, the MDGs rely on the very economic policies that have reduced public spending on water, healthcare, and education in poor countries, thereby exacerbating poverty and inequality. Women-who have had to step in to provide these services at the household level-have been hardest hit. In fact, in nearly every country where these policies have been implemented, women's workloads have increased drastically, while rates of female school enrollment, food intake, and life expectancy have fallen. Despite the serious weaknesses of the MDGs, MADRE - like many of our sister organizations around the world - maintained that the goals had the potential to create opportunities for advancing the rights of poor women and their families. But that potential depended on women's priorities being reflected in national strategies for achieving the MDGs-and on a genuine commitment to the MDGs from the United States. Now that women's organizations, along with all non-governmental groups, have been shut out of the World Summit, it's left to UN Member States to ensure that the summit's outcome document can lead to policy changes that will benefit the world's poor. That will require standing up to the blustery demands of the United States and insisting that human rights, not neoliberal economics, guides the process of realizing the MDGs as a minimum standard for development. Yifat Susskind, MADRE's Associate Director, was born and raised in Israel and was active in the Israeli women's peace movement for several years. Before joining MADRE, she directed a project at a joint Israeli-Palestinian human rights organization in Jerusalem. She can be reached at madre@madre.org
Posted 9:35 PM
by Mary
ublished on Thursday, September 8, 2005 by the lndependent/UK UN Hits Back at US in Report Saying Parts of America are as Poor as Third World by Paul Vallely Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality. Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare. The document constitutes a stinging attack on US policies at home and abroad in a fightback against moves by Washington to undermine next week's UN 60th anniversary conference which will be the biggest gathering of world leaders in history. The annual Human Development Report normally concerns itself with the Third World, but the 2005 edition scrutinizes inequalities in health provision inside the US as part of a survey of how inequality worldwide is retarding the eradication of poverty. It reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years - and is now the same as Malaysia. America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday. The report is bound to incense the Bush administration as it provides ammunition for critics who have claimed that the fiasco following Hurricane Katrina shows that Washington does not care about poor black Americans. But the 370-page document is critical of American policies towards poverty abroad as well as at home. And, in unusually outspoken language, it accuses the US of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security". "There is an urgent need to develop a collective security framework that goes beyond military responses to terrorism," it continues. " Poverty and social breakdown are core components of the global security threat." The document, which was written by Kevin Watkins, the former head of research at Oxfam, will be seen as round two in the battle between the UN and the US, which regards the world body as an unnecessary constraint on its strategic interests and actions. Last month John Bolton, the new US ambassador to the UN, submitted 750 amendments to the draft declaration for next week's summit to strengthen the UN and review progress towards its Millennium Development Goals to halve world poverty by 2015. The report launched yesterday is a clear challenge to Washington. The Bush administration wants to replace multilateral solutions to international problems with a world order in which the US does as it likes on a bilateral basis. "This is the UN coming out all guns firing," said one UN insider. "It means that, even if we have a lame duck secretary general after the Volcker report (on the oil-for-food scandal), the rest of the organization is not going to accept the US bilateralist agenda." The clash on world poverty centers on the US policy of promoting growth and trade liberalization on the assumption that this will trickle down to the poor. But this will not stop children dying, the UN says. Growth alone will not reduce poverty so long as the poor are denied full access to health, education and other social provision. Among the world's poor, infant mortality is falling at less than half of the world average. To tackle that means tackling inequality - a message towards which John Bolton and his fellow US neocons are deeply hostile.
Posted 9:28 PM
by Mary
World summit on UN's future heads for chaos UK leads last minute effort to rein in US objections Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Saturday September 10, 2005 The Guardian The British government is mounting a huge diplomatic effort this weekend to prevent the biggest-ever summit of world leaders, designed to tackle poverty and overhaul the United Nations, ending in chaos. The Guardian has learned that Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, has made a personal plea to his American counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, for the US to withdraw opposition to plans for wholesale reform of the UN. He has asked Ms Rice to rein in John Bolton, the US ambassador to the world body. Article continues Mr Bolton has thrown the reform negotiations into disarray by demanding a catalogue of late changes to a 40-page draft document which is due to go before the summit in New York on Wednesday. Mr Bolton, one of the US administration hawks, became ambassador last month only after a long confrontation with the US senate, mainly caused by his ideological dislike of the UN. The foreign secretary is planning to make calls to fellow ministers around the world over the weekend. Mr Straw spoke to Ms Rice in a three-way conference call last Tuesday organised by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, to try to break the deadlock. Mr Annan has been weakened by the criticisms voiced this week by an inquiry into the UN's running of the Iraq oil-for-food programme and needs a successful summit to avoid renewed calls for his resignation. The British government, in a rare divergence from the US, is fully behind Mr Annan's reforms and fears the summit will fail to build on the agreements on aid reached at the G8 summit at Gleneagles. Aid agencies and other international groups monitoring the talks expressed fears yesterday that ambitious goals on aid, protection of civilians and curbs on the arms trade will be lost. Nicola Reindrop, head of the New York office of Oxfam International, said: "Negotiations are on the verge of collapse." A representative of another group, at a lunch with Mr Annan on Thursday, described the negotiations as "imploding". Ambassadors at the 191-member UN remained divided last night, three days after the deadline for completion of the draft document had passed. Talks will continue over the weekend. Monday has been set as the new deadline. The summit, to which 175 world leaders have accepted invitations and which has been in the planning for more than a year, is billed as making the UN fit for the 21st century. The three-day summit begins on Wednesday, with each leader allocated five minutes at the podium, a minimum of 14 hours of speeches. But the real diplomacy will take place behind the scenes. The summit document is due to be unveiled next Friday. Proposals include: · meeting the millennium development goals that would halve poverty by 2015 and make sure everyone has access to primary education; · setting up a peace-building commission to help with post-conflict reconstruction; · creating a human rights council; · introducing a responsibility to protect citizens from genocide, much tougher than existing international obligations; · imposing curbs on the arms trade; · reforming the UN bureaucracy, particularly after the oil-for-food scandal; · defining "terrorism". But there are still more than 200 points of disagreement in the document. Although the US has emerged as the leading opponent of the reform package, objections have also been lodged by some governments from the Non-Aligned Movement, which represents much of the developing world. Ricardo Alarcon, speaker of the Cuban parliament, whose hopes of attending the summit along with President Fidel Castro were dashed when he was denied a visa by the US, said in Havana the summit "has been totally devalued, its original purpose kidnapped". Although there has been little movement over the last few days, the mood in New York among diplomats was marginally more optimistic yesterday. Mr Bolton has so far made only one significant concession, dropping his demand for the term "millennium development goals" to be deleted. But Mr Bolton said the US will not renew a promise to pay 0.7% of gross domestic product towards aid, regarded as necessary for meeting the millennium development goals. Controls on arms is likely to be dropped. But agreement is almost certain on creation of the human rights council. A deal could be reached on the peace-building commission, in spite of disagreements over who should run it. There is a divide over the definition of terrorism, with pro-Palestinian states objecting that the proposed terminology be amended to exclude Palestinian fighters. The most significant reform, expansion of the 15-member security council to about 25 members, has been shelved until at least December.
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"War does not determine who is right--only who is left." - Bertrand Russell
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