While We're On the Subject of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians are once again on people's minds (sort of, briefly) due to Donald Trump's announcement that the US will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  It sort of confirms the idea that if a nightmare drags on for decades, half a century is plenty, we forget what really happened and we're prepared to swallow just about anything.

Most people I know have never read David Hirst's "The Gun and the Olive Branch." (You can get it here, free it seems, in PDF.) It's a long read but in it the veteran Middle East journalist shatters many of the myths we have come to embrace as the accepted narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There's probably no prime minister in Canada, sitting or past, who would want you to read it for it would not cast them in a flattering light.

But if you're not up for that sort of effort, you might to whet your interest with Dr. Shir Havir's account of the origins of this intractable conflict that has seen an entire people held in captivity for a half century, their lands occupied and annexed by a state that persistently flouts international law, a rogue state we proudly proclaim our ally.

John Bolton Slams Uppity World

Rightwing nutjob Stephen Harper, er, John Bolton, has slammed the United Nations and its membership of irrelevant countries, a.k.a. "the world", for having the audacity to grant political recognition to a Palestinian state in a vote that's scheduled for this September.

Bolton says the UN has an "aversion to reality" and accuses it of "trying to create 'political facts on the ground '."

"...it is no surprise that the Middle East, one of our most intractable problems, provokes so much U.N. activity, even though the real-world consequences are so limited.


"The next episode of reality avoidance is the near certainty that, this fall, the General Assembly will vote to recognize a Palestinian state, possibly also declaring that state's borders with Israel to be the 1967 lines (actually, just the Green Line marking the 1949 cease-fire positions). Absent dramatic action by Washington, perhaps 150 or more of the U.N.'s 192 members, including many nominal U.S. allies, will vote in favor.  "

Bolton implies the White House should punish the United Nations for the temerity of the General Assembly, perhaps by withdrawing US funding for the UN.  

Germany Wastes No Time Calling for Security Council Reform

Canada's bid for a Security Council heap had barely hit the trash heap before the somewhat more successful Germans began calling for Security Council reform.  From Deutsche Welle:

 "It is not appropriate that two continents, like Africa and Latin America, do not have permanent seats on the UN Security Council. Asia, too, rightfully views itself as underrepresented," the German foreign minister [Guido Westerwelle] said.

"That is why any reform of the United Nations is not first and foremost about a permanent seat on the Security Council for us, but rather about a better reflection of global distribution of power," Westerwelle emphasized.

reform of the United Nations is a major issue on Germany's agenda. Westerwelle recently met counterparts from Japan, India and Brazil to discuss launching a reform campaign.

The so-called G-4 group has been calling for the addition of six permanent seats to the Council without the power of veto, and a further four non-permanent seats.

"Today's Security Council reflects the world's power architecture after World War II. It should reflect the power structure of today's world," Westerwelle said.

UN Drug Policy - a Total Failure

A European commission report finds that the United Nations drug policy of the past decade has been an utter failure. From The Guardian:

Representatives from governments are split in their efforts to formulate an international drugs policy for the next decade. The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs is due to formulate a strategy over the next two days, but there is widespread disagreement among delegates and a general feeling that an opportunity for a united approach has been lost.
In an article for the Guardian, Mike Trace, chairman of the International Drug Policy Consortium, says: "We're about to see the international community walk up the political and diplomatic path of least resistance. It will do nothing to help the millions of people around the world whose lives are destroyed by drug markets and drug use. And the depressing thing about it is that we can all book our seats for 2019, to go through this charade again."

The director of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime, hardliner Antonio Maria Costa, describes the rise in organized crime as "one of the unintended consequences of drug control". Unintended as in undesired surely but hardly as in unforeseeable. Costa's position on drugs has been about as meaningful as the Bush administration's position on sexual abstinence training in high schools.

Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the global drug policy programme at the Open Society Institute, Warsaw, said: "It is now clear that after months of negotiations, millions of people around the world will continue to suffer needlessly. Thanks to the global 'war on drugs' over the past decade, close to 2 million people living in the former Soviet Union are infected with HIV, half a million US citizens languish in prison for non-violent, drug-related crimes, and billions of dollars are spent on destructive military actions in Colombia while the production of cocaine continues to rise."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/11/un-drug-strategy

West Africa's Food Crisis

It's not so much that there's a shortage of food but, instead, it's a shortage of money to afford it in the face of rapidly rising food prices.

The UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs reports a crisis looming in West Africa.

"Almost all farming in West Africa is rain-fed, meaning farmers experience an intense burst of activity during the June to November rainy season, when they must grow and sell enough food to see them through until the next year.

By June, many of the poorest families in the region have run out of money and food. The period is known as the “hunger gap” or “lean season” and is usually accompanied by quickly accelerating malnutrition rates as families skip meals and in extreme cases rely on wild foods like weeds, leaves and berries and rubbish for sustenance.

For some families, the lean season starts as early as January or February. Even slight shifts in market prices can have a dramatic impact on peoples’ ability to get through the lean season, as all their reserves and credit are already used up.

The hardest hit people are in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad which are among the poorest countries in the world and together form West Africa’s semi-arid Sahel region. The World Food Programme estimates that there are 1.5 million children under five suffering from under-nutrition in those countries."

“Traders are still buying in as much as possible to hold onto it until the price has doubled or more,” said Salif Sow, regional representative of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) food monitoring group. FEWS NET has recorded rising prices at important markets in northern Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Benin.

Sow suggested the increase in maize prices could prove to be the most serious factor for the poorest families.

“Maize is what people usually buy during the lean season because that is what is cheapest. This year maize will still be on the market but it is going to be really expensive,” he said.

UN Slams Harper

Stephen Harper may hope Canadians are dumb enough to believe he's sincere in working for global warming solutions but he's not fooling the folks at the United Nations.

Stevie's been outed. From CanWest:

"Canada has a long history of global leadership on global atmospheric environmental issues, from acid rain to ozone depletion and climate change," said the UN's Human Development Report. "Maintaining this tradition will require tough decisions."

The UN report said Canada could achieve greater reductions in carbon dioxide emissions than the goals set by the government, "but not with current policies."

Afghanistan Backs Iran - What Else Did You Expect?

The National Disgrace is in a tizzy about Afghanistan refusing to support a Canadian resolution before the UN General Assembly censuring Iran for its human rights record.

The Afghani ambassador voted for an Iranian bid to have the resolution thrown out and against the Canadian motion when it finally came up for a vote. Here's the paper's take on Afghanistan's perfidy:

One interpretation of Afghanistan's view is that the government of President Hamid Karzai cares more about its relations with Iran than with Canada, despite Canada's massive commitment to Afghan reconstruction and the cost in Canadian lives.

I wonder if it could have anything to do with the fact that Iran borders Afghanistan? Maybe the Afghanis have figured out that Canada is there today but very well may not be in a year or two. Maybe the Afghans know when it's not best to be pointing fingers at someone else.

Afghanistan - Bigger and Better, Again!

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has just released its 2007 report on the state of Afghanistan's opium industry and - surprise, surprise - it's growing!

According to the UNODC, "..opium is now equivalent to more than half (53%) of the country's licit GDP."

The report notes that the opium price in Afghanistan is about one-tenth of the wholesale or trade price in Europe and a mere one percent of the street price in Europe. It's always those damned middlemen, isn't it?

Of the $4-billion in opium money that actually reaches Afghanistan, barely a quarter of that actually goes to the peasant farmers. "District officials take a percentage through a tax on crops (known as "ushr"). Insurgents and warlords control the business of producing and distributing the drugs. The rest is made by drug traffickers."

Let's face it - opium is the growth industry in Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries on the planet. We've hummed and hawed and debated what to do about it. We've tried this and that and still haven't got the faintest idea of how to tackle the problem.

Maybe if we set aside a billion dollars to compensate the peasant farmers and then began slinging everyone else who gorges at the opium trough into prisons, we'd be able to slowly get it under control. Wait, that won't work. Why not? Because we'd have to start by incarcerating the Afghan government and then the warlords and their militias. Then we'd be fighting everyone in that miserable country.

We're propping up a government that, as it stands today six years after the Taliban were run out, is not worth saving, one that is financially, culturally and tribally integrated with the warlords and the insurgents. We think we're fighting the Taliban but, in reality, we're just nibbling away at the edges of a much-larger organization, none of it any damned good.