Noam Chomsky on the Economic War on Latin America
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/noam-chomsky-on-the-economic-war-on-latin-america
Chris Spannos speaks with the acclaimed public intellectual about the shift in US policy toward Cuba and what it signals.
In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 28 September...
Australia seeking refugee resettlement deal with #Philippines, say reports
Foreign minister confirms talks with Philippines ‘on people smuggling’ and Australia has reportedly offered funding of $150m over five years
Ils sont impayables ces australiens. Dans la liste des pays selon la densité de population, ils sont 191e sur 193 ! 2 hab au km2 et ils dépenses ds millions de dollars pour faire des accords pour réinstaller les réfugiés dans les pays voisins.
Reçu via la mailing-list de Migeurop:
Résumé en FR : l’Australie en discussion avec les Philippines pour qu’elles accueillent des demandeurs d’asile actuellement retenus dans des îles du Pacifique, annonce le ministre de l’Immigration Peter Dutton. Un plan similaire avec le Cambodge a cafouillé (quatre personnes seulement déplacées depuis l’an dernier). Des discussions sont en cours avec d’autres pays depuis des mois. Il ajoute que la ministre de l’Extérieur Julie Bishop a profité de la dernière AG de l’ONU pour cela. Selon le journal australien qui a rapporté ces dires, cela pourrait coûter au pays plus de 100 millions de dollars US.
Alain
▻http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/australia/australia-migrants-refugees-resettlement-philippines.html
By AUSTIN RAMZY
OCTOBER 9, 2015
Australia is in talks with the Philippinesabout the possibility of that country accepting asylum seekers, currently being held on remote Pacific islands, who had tried to reach Australia by boat, the immigration minister said on Friday.
A similar plan to resettle asylum seekers in Cambodia has faltered, with just four having moved there since the country reached a similar agreement with Australia last year.
╲We have had bilateral discussions with other countries including the Philippines at an official level, at a ministerial level, over a number of months,╡ Peter Dutton, Australiaâ•˙s immigration minister, told reporters. He said the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, had discussed the matter with other officials while at the United Nations General Assembly in New York recently.
Mr. Dutton declined to provide details of the possible plan. The Australian newspaper, which earlier reported newsof the discussions, said it could cost Australia more than 150 million Australian dollars, or $108 million, citing unidentified government officials
Australia Negotiating to Send Refugees to Philippines
Australia is in talks with the Philippines about the possibility of that country’s accepting asylum seekers, currently being held on remote Pacific islands, who had tried to reach Australia by boat, the immigration minister said Friday.
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/australia/australia-migrants-refugees-resettlement-philippines.html?ref=world
Australia looks to Philippines to solve refugee conundrum
BANGKOK, 14 October 2015 (IRIN) - With the failure of its scheme to resettle refugees in Cambodia and growing concerns about its offshore detention centres, the Australian government is hoping the elusive solution to what has become a policy nightmare might be found in the Philippines.
Obama, Putin to meet at a defining moment – Indian Punchline
By M K Bhadrakumar – September 24, 2015
▻http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2015/09/24/obama-putin-to-meet-at-a-defining-moment
The Russian state agency TASS is not given to speculating on the Kremlin leader’s activities. It is a ground rule set by Joseph Stalin when the agency was created in 1925. Therefore, we must accept as ‘breaking news’ the TASS’ Washington dateline report quoting ‘an informed source’ to the effect that a meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and US resident Barack Obama will take place next week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session.
Putin is taking to the podium in New York after a gap of a decade when he addresses the GA session on Monday. This is brilliant news. The time is overdue for the American and Russian leaderships to candidly discuss the issues of international security, especially the fight against the Islamic State and the conflict in Syria. There is good reason to believe that the gap between the US and Russian thinking on Syria is dramatically narrowing.
If, in the process, Obama and Putin agree to explore the new frontiers of a Russian-American reset, that will be a bonus, too. For Obama, most certainly, this fortnight will be incomplete without a meeting with Putin. The conversation with Pope Francis on Wednesday would have reminded Obama what a hopelessly disjointed moral landscape surrounds us all – poignantly symbolized by the dead body of 3-year old Aylan washed ashore unnoticed on a desolate Turkish beach – and, indeed, it has ultimately come to be Obama’s own presidential legacy — and he can’t easily escape from it.
Equally, his summit on Friday with the visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping will alert Obama that Washington can optimally cope with China’s rise only through a far-sighted strategy that provides for the underpinning of a durable, predictable partnership with Moscow in the Asia-Pacific. (By the way, isn’t it a delightful coincidence that TASS let the cat out of the bag on the eve of Xi’s touchdown on the White House lawns?)
(...)
Abbas’ UN speech gives West another chance to pressure Israel - The Palestinian president’s remarks belay an attempt to amend the bad impressions recently made upon his people, yet lack a pointed message about what to do if Abbas’ demands are rejected.
By Amira Hass | Sep. 27, 2014 || Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.617881
The words and phrases selected by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (or his speechwriters) for his United Nations General Assembly speech on Friday made one thing perfectly clear: The Palestinian President has given up on the Israeli public as his audience. Packaged inside words such as “colonialist occupation,” "racism," “a war of genocide” undertaken by Israel, massacres, a nation above the law and so forth, it is easy to overlook the actual content of Abbas’ message, which is the reason he rose to the UNGA podium.
The message, aimed primarily at the West, is this one: The negotiations with Israel, as they have been held until now, are over; forget about the Palestinians returning to them. Forget about the Palestinians continuing to meet and discuss while Israel continues to construct settlements and ignore even the simple commitments it agreed to, such as the release of prisoners. The central headline that emerges from Abbas’ speech is this: The Palestinians will not return to any negotiations that do not take as a starting point the final objective of a Palestinian state to stand alongside Israel, based on the ’67 borders, and a binding timetable for its establishment.
Abbas’ declarations belay an attempt to amend the bad impressions his recent speeches have made upon his people. This time, he used language that reflects the true reality facing Palestinians’, as they perceive it.
Language used by Palestinians who oppose the renewal of negotiations with Israel also found its way into Abbas’ speech; words heard spoken by demonstrators and by non-governmental organizations who participate in international conferences. For example: “We will not agree to be those who are always called to prove their good intentions through forsaking their rights, and to be silent when they are killed and their land stolen from them, and understand the conditions of the other side and the importance of keeping the coalition government from collapsing.”
But make no mistake: Abbas did not use these words out of tactical considerations meant to improve his standing among his people, which has long been diminishing. Abbas truly is fed up of the futile negotiations with Israel, negotiation which have for many years now placed him, his belief in a two-state solution and the Palestinian Authority itself in a ludicrous light.
How great the distance between the Abbas who now extols the achievements of the BDS movement and its work against “Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies” and the Abbas who once expressed his opposition to boycotts directed against Israel (as opposed to those directed against settlement-made products), and several times referred to it as “a neighbor.”
A wide gulf divides the speaker who on Friday said Palestinians “will not forget or forgive and won’t let war criminals go unpunished” and the one who in 2010 blocked the passage of the Goldstone report – which investigated allegations of war crimes committed by Israel and the Palestinians during “Operation Cast Lead” – to the hands of the UN Security Council.
Whoever remembers Abbas, in his office, describing to a group of young Israelis the security coordination with Israel as “holy” will have a difficult time believing that it is the same person who said on Friday that “such destruction as was caused by the recent offensive in Gaza has never been seen before in the modern era.” The security agencies responsible for this destruction are, of course, the same ones the Palestinian Authority are in “holy” contact with.
The speech clearly rebukes Hamas, as well, although implicitly: Abbas frequently mentioned the unbearable destruction and suffering of Gaza, but he implied that his opponent organization did not need to undergo said destruction and suffering to prove the occupation’s existence. He additionally spoke of Palestinian rights to struggle, yet set limits to this struggle: humanity, values, ethics, international law.
In recent weeks, there were some rumors that Abbas planned to announce in his speech that he would dissolve the Palestinian Authority if the Security Council would not accept his proposal to set a three-year schedule to end the occupation. Not only did a Hamas news site (Risala-Net) report this, but Palestinian government officials believed Abbas intended to announce this plan. A senior Fatah official said in the same breath, however, that Abbas could not prepare for an international conference on rebuilding Gaza while threatening the liquidation of the Palestinian Authority, designated as the main contractor in the reconstruction.
And that is exactly what was missing from the speech: A pointed message about what the Palestinians should do if and when Abbas’ demand for a timetable to end the occupation and a new framework for negotiations would be rejected. “This is not Mahmoud Abbas’ way to convey a pointed message,” a senior Fatah official told Haaretz. “He works through creating a sequence.”
This time, he declared a cap of three years, then sent Saeb Erekat and intelligence chief Majdi Faraj to the United States on a fumbling journey to the U.S. government. When it was apparent that Barack Obama would not support setting a deadline to end the occupation, Abbas announced in his speech that he would stick to his demand and continue on this track. When the Security Council vote fails, he will return to the General Assembly. Afterwards, he will intend to sign international treaties (including the Rome Statute), to call for the implementation of the Geneva Convention in the West Bank and Gaza, and to ask for the deployment of an international force. In between every declaration and actions within the UN framework, Abbas creates a respite period. In these intervals, Abbas still gives the Western countries an opportunity to pull themselves together and exert political pressure on Israel.
The spirit of humanity shines bright in #Palestine
▻http://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/spirit-humanity-shines-bright-palestine
By James W. Rawley, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator
Published at Al-Quds newspaper in Arabic on 19 August
Today marks World Humanitarian Day, an annual occasion dedicated by the United Nations General Assembly to raising public awareness of the millions of people who risk their lives in order to provide food, water and other assistance to people in desperate need in conflicts, in natural disasters and other emergencies.
Around the world, violence against humanitarian workers is at an all-time high. The number of aid workers killed, kidnapped and seriously wounded globally has reached the highest number ever recorded. This is simply unacceptable and entirely unjustified. New research shows that in 2013, 155 aid workers were killed, 134 were kidnapped and over 170 were seriously wounded.
The recent conflict in the Gaza Strip has demonstrated, in the most tragic way, the risks that humanitarian workers take every day. In the last six weeks, at least 30 Palestinian colleagues have been killed, including 11 UNRWA personnel, 11 medical staff and eight firefighters - many in the line of duty. Seven technicians were also killed while trying to repair vital water and sanitation infrastructure. Over 70 aid workers have been injured. In addition, 98 UN premises, including schools where displaced Palestinians had sought shelter, and 58 hospitals and clinics were damaged and destroyed in the fighting – some apparently targeted.
One aid worker killed in the line of duty is one too many. Over 30 is intolerable. We must insist on accountability for those killed and injured, for the damage and destruction to schools, hospitals and other humanitarian facilities. This is a vital component of broader efforts to ensure accountability for the lives lost, homes destroyed and damage wrought during this conflict.
The men and women killed were not only our colleagues, they were also fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, trusted friends and good neighbors, all of whom were killed while pursuing the most basic human instinct: to help others in need of assistance. On World Humanitarian Day, we mourn the loss of these colleagues and commemorate their bravery, their compassion, and their commitment to humanity.
One Small Step for Privacy, One Giant Leap Against Surveillance
▻http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/161-politics/52564-one-small-step-for-privacy-one-giant-leap-against-surveillance.h
On December 18, 2013 the 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly unanimously approved a UN privacy resolution entitled “The right to privacy in the digital age.”
The resolution, which was introduced by Brazil and Germany and sponsored by more than 50 member states, is aimed at upholding the right to privacy for everyone at a time when the United States and the United Kingdom have been conducting sweeping mass surveillance on billions of innocent individuals around the world from domestic soil.
January 7, 2014 | Electronic Frontier Foundation
One Small Step for Privacy, One Giant Leap Against Surveillance
The resolution reaffirms a core principle of international human rights law: Individuals should not be denied human rights simply because they live in another country from the one that is surveilling them. Signees hope the resolution will make it harder for the US and its Five Eyes allies to justify their mass surveillance activities by claiming that their human rights obligations stop at their own borders.
UN votes 188-2 (#Israel, US) to condemn #Cuba blockade
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/un-votes-188-2-israel-us-condemn-cuba-blockade
The United Nations General Assembly voted 188-2 Tuesday to condemn America’s five-decade-old #embargo against Cuba. Only the #united_states and Israel opposed the resolution, down from three states last year in an annual vote over the crippling blockade by a giant super power against its tiny Caribbean neighbor. It was the 22nd year in a row that the UN voted in favor of the unenforceable resolution. China, Iran, Latin American and African nations all publicly condemned the United States. (...)
#Saudi_Arabia cancels #UN speech over #syria, #Palestine
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/saudi-arabia-cancels-un-speech-over-syria-palestine
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal attends a meeting with foreign ministers from six Gulf countries to discuss international measures against Syria on September 10, 2013, in Jeddah. (Photo: AFP)
Saudi Arabia’s frustration at international inaction over Syria and the Palestinians led it to cancel its speech at the United Nations General Assembly for the first time ever this week, a diplomatic source said. Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal had been (...)
Netanyahu’s #Iran Policy Falters Under New Reality
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/netanyahu%E2%80%99s-iran-policy-falters-under-new-reality
Israeli Prime Minister #benjamin_netanyahu (L) arrives with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (R) before their meeting during the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly 1 October 2013 at UN headquarters in New York.(Photo: AFP - Stan Honda) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) arrives with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (R) before their meeting during the 68th Session of the United Nations General (...)
#Opinion #Articles #Barack_Obama #Hassan_Rouhani #Israel #UN_General_Assembly #US
Netanyahu threatens unilateral action against #Iran
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/netanyahu-threatens-unilateral-action-against-iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the 68th United Nations General Assembly on October 1, 2013 in New York City. (Photo: AFP)
#Israel's combative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday threatened to attack Iran unilaterally over its controversial nuclear program during an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone,” (...)
Iran’s Rouhani wishes Jews blessed Rosh Hashanah |
The Back Channel
▻http://backchannel.al-monitor.com/index.php/2013/09/6125/irans-rouhani-wishes-jews-blessed-rosh-hashanah
“Not even under the monarchy do we remember such a message,” Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-born scholar who heads the Middle East program at the Woodrow Willson International Center, said of the message.
Rouhani’s well wishes to the Jewish people come as the Iranian mission at the United Nations confirmed to Al-Monitor that he will travel to New York later this month to address the United Nations General Assembly and participate in a disarmament meeting.
Rouhani is scheduled to address the General Assembly on the afternoon of September 24th, the same day that US President Obama will address the body in the morning.
It also comes as Rouhani and Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif have sent multiple messages condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Iran’s ally, while not saying explicitly they believe it was done by the Assad regime, and while urging against U.S.-led action. Foreign Iranian President Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, however, is reported to have accused the Syrian government of gassing its own people at a lecture last week, allegedly recorded on video, even as other reports say his office had denied the comment.
Full text: Abbas speech to UN General Assembly
November 30, 2012 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments
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Maan News Agency | Nov 30, 2012
New York
Nov. 29, 2012
Mr. President of the General Assembly,
Your Excellency Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Palestine comes today to the United Nations General Assembly at a time when it is still tending to its wounds and still burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have fallen victim to the latest Israeli aggression, still searching for remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and peace.
Palestine comes today to the General Assembly because it believes in peace and because its people, as proven in past days, are in desperate need of it.
Palestine comes today to this prestigious international forum, representative and protector of international legitimacy, reaffirming our conviction that the international community now stands before the last chance to save the two-State solution.
Palestine comes to you today at a defining moment regionally and internationally, in order to reaffirm its presence and to try to protect the possibilities and the foundations of a just peace that is deeply hoped for in our region.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and independence. This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government’s adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and towards peace.
This is why we are here today.
I say with great pain and sorrow … there was certainly no one in the world that required that tens of Palestinian children lose their lives in order to reaffirm the above-mentioned facts. There was no need for thousands of deadly raids and tons of explosives for the world to be reminded that there is an occupation that must come to an end and that there are a people that must be liberated. And, there was no need for a new, devastating war in order for us to be aware of the absence of peace.
This is why we are here today.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Palestinian people, who miraculously recovered from the ashes of Al-Nakba of 1948, which was intended to extinguish their being and to expel them in order to uproot and erase their presence, which was rooted in the depths of their land and depths of history. In those dark days, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were torn from their homes and displaced within and outside of their homeland, thrown from their beautiful, embracing, prosperous country to refugee camps in one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern history. In those dark days, our people had looked to the United Nations as a beacon of hope and appealed for ending the injustice and for achieving justice and peace, the realization of our rights, and our people still believe in this and continue to wait.
This is why we are here today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the course of our long national struggle, our people have always strived to ensure harmony and conformity between the goals and means of their struggle and international law and spirit of the era in accordance with prevailing realities and changes. And, our people always have strived not to lose their humanity, their highest, deeply-held moral values and their innovative abilities for survival, steadfastness, creativity and hope, despite the horrors that befell them and continue to befall them today as a consequence of Al-Nakba and its horrors.
Despite the enormity and weight of this task, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the constant leader of their revolution and struggle, has consistently strived to achieve this harmony and conformity.
When the Palestine National Council decided in 1988 to pursue the Palestinian peace initiative and adopted the Declaration of Independence, which was based on resolution 181 (II) (29 November 1947), adopted by your august body, it was in fact undertaking, under the leadership of the late President Yasser Arafat, a historic, difficult and courageous decision that defined the requirements for a historic reconciliation that would turn the page on war, aggression and occupation.
This was not an easy matter. Yet, we had the courage and sense of high responsibility to make the right decision to protect the higher national interests of our people and to confirm our adherence to international legitimacy, and it was a decision which in that same year was welcomed, supported and blessed by this high body that is meeting today.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We have heard and you too have heard specifically over the past months the incessant flood of Israeli threats in response to our peaceful, political and diplomatic endeavor for Palestine to acquire non-member observer status in the United Nations. And, you have surely witnessed how some of these threats have been carried out in a barbaric and horrific manner, just days ago in the Gaza Strip.
We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process. On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.
What permits the Israeli Government to blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the international law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences. This belief, unfortunately, is bolstered by the failure by some to condemn and demand the cessation of its violations and crimes and by positions that equate the victim and the executioner.
The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation.
This is why we are here now.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a State established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the State that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine. We did not come here to add further complications to the peace process, which Israel’s policies have thrown into the intensive care unit; rather we came to launch a final serious attempt to achieve peace. Our endeavor is not aimed at terminating what remains of the negotiations process, which has lost its objective and credibility, but rather aimed at trying to breathe new life into the negotiations and at setting a solid foundation for it based on the terms of reference of the relevant international resolutions in order for the negotiations to succeed.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization, I say: We will not give up, we will not tire, and our determination will not wane and we will continue to strive to achieve a just peace.
However, above all and after all, I affirm that our people will not relinquish their inalienable national rights, as defined by United Nations resolutions. And our people cling to the right to defend themselves against aggression and occupation and they will continue their popular, peaceful resistance and their epic steadfastness, and will continue to build on their land. And, they will end the division and strengthen their national unity. We will accept no less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel, and a solution for the refugee issue on the basis of resolution 194 (III), as per the operative part of the Arab Peace Initiative. I don’t think that is terrorism that we are pursuing in the United Nations.
Yet, we must repeat here once again our warning: the window of opportunity is narrowing and time is quickly running out. The rope of patience is shortening and hope is withering. The innocent lives that have been taken by Israeli bombs – more than 168 martyrs, mostly children and women, including 12 members of one family, the Dalou family, in Gaza – are a painful reminder to the world that this racist, colonial occupation is making the two-State solution and the prospect for realizing peace a very difficult choice, if not impossible.
It is time for action and the moment to move forward.
This is why we are here today.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentleman,
The world is being asked today to answer a specific question that we have offered repeatedly: Is there a surplus people in our region? Tell us. The world must say it. Are we a surplus people, or is there a state which is missing which must be embodied on its land, which is Palestine. The world is being asked to undertake a significant step in the process of rectifying the unprecedented historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people since Al-Nakba of 1948.
Every voice among you supporting our endeavor today is a most valuable voice of courage, and every State that grants support today to Palestine’s request for non-member observer State status is affirming its principled and moral support for freedom and the rights of peoples and international law and peace.
Your support for our endeavor today will send a promising message – to millions of Palestinians on the land of Palestine, in the refugee camps both in the homeland and the Diaspora, and to the prisoners struggling for freedom in Israel’s prisons – that justice is possible and that there is a reason to be hopeful and that the peoples of the world do not accept the continuation of the occupation.
This is why we are here today.
Your support for our endeavor today will give a reason for hope to a people besieged by a racist, colonial occupation. Failure that almost amounts to complicity in Israel’s aggression and in a state of paralysis that some are striving to impose on the international community. Your support, ladies and gentlemen, will confirm to our people that they are not alone and their adherence to international law is never going to be a losing proposition.
In our endeavor today to acquire non-member State status for Palestine in the United Nations, we reaffirm that Palestine will always adhere to and respect the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations and international humanitarian law, uphold equality, guarantee civil liberties, uphold the rule of law, promote democracy and pluralism, and uphold and protect the rights of women. This is what we are pledging today.
As we promised our friends and our brothers and sisters, we will continue to consult with them upon the approval of your esteemed body of our request to upgrade Palestine’s status. We will act responsibly and positively in our next steps, and we will to work to strengthen cooperation with the countries and peoples of the world for the sake of a just peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two States and became the birth certificate for Israel.
Sixty-five years later and on the same day, which your esteemed body has designated as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the General Assembly stands before a moral duty, which it must not hesitate to undertake, and stands before a historic duty, which cannot endure further delay, and before a practical duty to salvage the chances for peace, which is urgent and cannot be postponed.
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The United Nations General Assembly is called upon today to issue the birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine. This is why, in specific, we are here today. It is our hope, ladies and gentlemen, our hope in God and in you.
Thank you, and peace be upon you.
Kofi Annan speaking before United Nations General Assembly - ►http://bit.ly/KeBHKl
Give Women the Seeds and They Can Feed the World - IPS ipsnews.net
Give Women the Seeds and They Can Feed the World
►http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105234
If women farmers were given more tools and resources, the number of hungry people in the world could be slashed by 100 to 150 million.
This was the message conveyed by Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly Thursday to empower rural women for food security and nutrition.
In October, the Committee on World Food Security will meet at WFP headquarters in Rome, followed by the 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) next year, both opportunities to increase the role of rural women in alleviating poverty and hunger.
UN Women and the Coca-Cola company also announced a new partnership this week to break down the barriers faced by women entrepreneurs through programmes on the ground that provide access to skills training and financial services.
Russia, China, Tajikistan (+Uzbekistan) propose UN “code of conduct” for the ’Net
►http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/russia-china-tajikistan-propose-un-code-of-conduct-for-the-net.ars
China, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, then you’ll love the new code of conduct (PDF) introduced at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week.
The proposed code of conduct would be voluntary, but it is clearly aimed at staking out more ground for nation-states when it comes to the Internet. As the document’s preamble states, “policy authority for Internet-related public issues is the sovereign right of States”—not of the IETF, or of ICANN, or of a multistakeholder process that includes business and civil society.
The code demands that countries show respect for “human rights and fundamental freedoms” and pledges support for “combating criminal and terrorist activities that use information and communications technologies, including networks.” States would also pledge not to use Internet tools to “carry out hostile activities or acts of aggression.”
But the document commits its signatories to “curbing the dissemination of information that incites terrorism, secession-ism, or extremism, or that undermines other countries’ political, economic, and social stability, as well as their spiritual and cultural environment.”
