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June 9, 2006
Posted 8:38 AM
by Mary
Haya Rashed Al Khalifa 8 June 2006 – The Legal Counsel to the Royal Family of Bahrain, pioneering lawyer Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, has been elected President of the 61st General Assembly session, becoming only the third woman who will hold that post and the first one elected since 1969. ìWhat inspires me is a deep feeling of pain caused by the tragedies all over the world, on both the human and environmental levels,î Ms. Al-Khalifa told the Assembly after her election by acclamation for the session beginning 12 September. On the human level, much suffering has been due to political disputes, wars, terrorism, poverty and malnutrition. On the environmental level, it has been due to pollution, global warming, the depletion of natural resources and the extinction of living species, she said. Welcoming the election, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was ìparticularly pleasedî that a woman would occupy the post. ìI met her yesterday and I found her quite impressive,î he told reporters. ìAll the Member States are determined to work with her and to support her, and I think sheís going to bring a new dimension to the work here.î Ms. Al-Khalifa was one of the first two women admitted to the practice of law in her country. She said she had witnessed several instances where women were harshly treated and their suffering had driven her to find suitable solutions to reduce their pain and uphold the principles of the UN Charter, with its emphasis on respect for human rights. ìThe future of coming generations depends on the way we address contemporary problems,î she said. ìWe should work towards preserving humanitarianism and ensuring that our planet is a safer and more suitable place to live in.î In that regard, it was critical to reach a comprehensive and practical strategy to combat terrorism, one of the greatest contemporary evils. She questioned, however, whether that strategy would be possible without addressing the problems of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and extremism. Ms. Al-Khalifa called for a focus on the importance of education in nurturing future generations and on fostering educational curricula that promoted openness, critical thinking and creativity. She thanked the outgoing president, Jan Eliasson of Sweden, for the great effort he had made towards achieving UN reform and improving international peace and security and human rights. She said she would continue on that path. Mr. Eliasson, who is a senior Swedish diplomat, noted that Ms. Al-Khalifa had held many high-level positions with leading legal organizations, including the International Bar Association. Her distinguished legal roles had been coupled with a prestigious diplomatic assignment from 2000 to 2004 as Bahrainís ambassador to France and permanent delegate to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), he said. Also elected in separate meetings today were several other officers of the Assembly.
June 6, 2006
Posted 7:39 AM
by Mary
UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com/ - 6 June 2006 - "A rule-based international society" may seem a lackluster phrase, but it describes, for those who wish organized life on this planet to survive in a decent form, the most important of all the long-term international objectives mankind can have. That international law has already been formulated to deal with a wide range of human activities is one of the great, if often unappreciated, achievements of the years since World War II. Yet the obstacles to its being effective are enormous. We all know that international law is often challenged by the caprices and diverging interests of national politics and that it still lacks the authority of national law. With a few important exceptions, international law remains unenforceable; when it collides with the sovereign interests or the ambitions of states, it is often ignored or rejected. It is still far from being the respected foundation of a reliable international system. In the first years of the new millennium, and especially after the terrorist attacks of September 11, the development of international law has encountered an unexpected and formidable obstacle—the ideological opposition of the Bush administration, both to vital treaties and to international institutions. This attitude culminated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq without the specific authorization of the UN Security Council, and without allowing UN inspectors to complete their work. Prisoners captured by the US were denied the protection of the Geneva Conventions and were often treated brutally. It is therefore no surprise that the three very different books under review all end by deploring the United States' war for regime change in Iraq and the illegal abuses that have accompanied it.It is ironic that such widespread criticism should be incurred by the US. From the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague, the Covenant of the League of Nations, and the Charter of the United Nations to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and many UN conventions, the US has done more than any other country to develop and strengthen both the concept and the substance of international law. It is nothing less than disastrous that a United States administration should have chosen to show disrespect for the international legal system and weaken it at a time when the challenges facing the planet demand more urgently than ever the discipline of a strong and respected worldwide system of law. Those challenges include globalization at almost every level of human society, the deeply troubling evidence of climate change, and the linked threats of international terrorism and proliferating weapons of mass destruction. It is true that the United States remains broadly committed to the international rules on trade of the World Trade Organization and NAFTA, rules that are important to the United States not least because they protect the rights of US investors and intellectual property rights. see rest of ar article at; maximsnews.com
June 3, 2006
Posted 10:55 PM
by Mary
UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com/ - 3 June 2006 - Many significant disarmament agreements were reached during the Cold War. Why does it seem so impossible now, when the great powers no longer feel threatened by one another? Almost all the talk is about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to states like Iran and North Korea or to terrorists? The foreign ministers and their advisers meet again and again. All are concerned that Iran has enriched some milligrams of uranium to a 4% level and some want to wave the stick immediately as they are convinced that Iran will – a number of years from now – violate the commitment it has made in the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to forego nuclear weapons. It is desirable that the foreign ministers talk about potential Iranian weapons but they do not seem to devote any thoughts to the fact that there are still some 27.000 real nuclear weapons in the US, Russia and other nuclear weapon states and that many of these are on hair trigger alert and might be set off within seconds – deliberately or accidentally. Nor do they seem to realize that the engagement they demonstrate in reducing the nuclear weapon threat appears only moderately impressive so long as they do not take seriously the commitment they have, themselves, made within the framework of the NPT to move toward the reduction and elimination of their nuclear weapons arsenals. The stagnation in global disarmament efforts is only part of the picture. In the US the military authorities want new types of nuclear weapons and in the UK the government is considering the replacement at tremendous cost of one generation of nuclear weapons by another as a means of defense – against whom? And while one army of engineers works to knit the world together through electronics and satellites another army is thinking hard how to destroy the satellites. Preparations are made for war in space. Last year a UN summit of Heads of States and Governments failed to adopt a single recommendation on how to attain further disarmament, to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to more states and to terrorists. For nearly a decade work at the disarmament conference in Geneva have stood still. It is high time for a revival. One can well understand that policy makers in the US – as elsewhere – felt disappointment and concern that the global instruments against nuclear proliferation – the NPT and international inspection – proved insufficient to stop Iraq, North Korea. Libya and – perhaps – Iran on their way to nuclear weapons. Perhaps this should be seen as part of the background to the inclination to use the enormous military potential of the US as a threat or direct means to preventing proliferation. However, after three years of a costly and criticized war in Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction that did not exist perhaps doubts may arise about the military method and a greater readiness may emerge again to try global cooperation to reduce and eventually eliminate weapons of mass destruction? A report with 60 concrete recommendations to the states of the world on what they could do to free themselves from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is now available: www.wmdcommission.org. It has been worked out by an independent international commission and as the chairman of the Commission I have presented the report to the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan and to the public. Apart from proposals for measures to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction to more states and terrorists, the report points to two measures that could turn current concerns about renewed arms races into new hopes for common security. In both cases success would depend upon the US. A US ratification of the comprehensive test ban treaty would in all likelihood lead other states to ratify and bring all such tests to an end, making the development of nuclear weapons more difficult. Leaving the treaty in limbo as has been done since 1996 is to risk new weapons tests. The second measure would be to conclude an internationally verified agreement to cut off the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons purposes. This would close the tap everywhere for more weapons material and would be of special importance if an agreement on nuclear cooperation with the US were to give India access to more uranium than it presently has. It is positive that the US has recently presented a draft cut-off agreement but hard to understand why it does not comprise international inspection. Do the drafters think that the recent record of national intelligence show that international verification is superfluous? HansBlix@MaximsNews.com
Posted 10:32 PM
by Mary
Elina Palm, New York Liaison Officer, United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction; Wojtek Wilk, Desk Officer, Asia and the Pacific Section, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; and Jamie Isbister, International Programmes Director, Caritas Australia, spoke about the humanitarian situation in Indonesia following the recent earthquake, the situation in Timor-Leste, disaster prevention management and more specifically, the Hyogo Framework for Action. Mr. Wilk started by outlining several natural disasters that have happened recently and that continue to threaten several regions around the world. He spoke more specifically about the post-earthquake situation in Indonesia, where more than 6,200 people have been killed and more than 105,000 homes destroyed or damaged by the quake, leaving hundreds of thousands of people displaced. He informed that an OCHA team had been dispatched to Indonesia two days after the earthquake to coordinate the disaster response by UN agencies, NGOs and national actors, and to asses the damage caused and the needs of the population. This was to be compiled into one consolidated approach. Mr. Wilk furthermore explained that OCHA’s response to natural disasters was coordinated from Geneva and response to man-made emergencies from New York. He then moved on to describing the situation in Dili, Timor-Leste, where civil strife left two thirds of the entire population displaced. The importance of immediate assistance in natural disasters was emphasized as compared to man-made disasters, in which the political context in which they appear needed to be understood first.
Posted 11:23 AM
by Mary
Making an Impact in the Battle against HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS is an issue of global concern that affects the lives of men, women, and children in every country and all sectors of society. According to UNAIDS, an estimated 38.6 million people world-wide were living with HIV at the end of 2005. In 2001, leaders from 189 Member States committed to comprehensive, time-bound targets for the delivery of the effective HIV prevention, treatment, and support needed to halt and begin to reverse the global epidemic by 2015 (UNGASS Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS). In the first week of June, world leaders gathered once again at UN Headquarters to review the progress made towards the achievement of these goals in the past five years. While there have been some positive advances, such as favorable trends in the incidence of new infections in a number of countries, there is still a great need for improvements in policy, implementation, and education. Civil society organizations involved in the UNGASS process are voicing concerns that if progress continues to be slow, the goals are in danger of not being met. If the dire statistics are not convincing enough, the energy and sentiments in the air at the UNGASS conference, the many side-events and rallies, and at the Civil Society Coalition meetings, clearly proved that HIV/AIDS is an issue that the world must pay immediate attention to. Civil society organizations play an especially important role in the battle against the epidemic on the ground, and in the conference rooms. In a statement produced during the review conference, civil society defined their involvement with this disease: "After 25 years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we know what it takes to save lives. We know the groups at highest risk for HIV/AIDS. We know what it takes to prevent new HIV infections. We know what's needed to keep people living with HIV/AIDS alive and how much it will cost" Julie Coultas, a youth activist who represented UNA-Canada at the conference described her experience as "both inspiring and disheartening; both encouraging and deeply troubling". The main concerns of civil society that emerged from the dialogues at UNGASS include amendments to the "ABC policy" that promotes abstinence, monogamy, and the use of condoms; the politicizing of HIV/AIDS; and universal access to treatment.
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"War does not determine who is right--only who is left." - Bertrand Russell
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