Obama’s speech disappoints and fuels frustration

COPENHAGEN (AP) US President Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit on Friday saying he was convinced the world could act "boldly and decisively" on climate change.

But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embrace bold measures, after world leaders had been working desperately against the clock to try to paper over an agreement to prevent two years of wasted effort — and a 10-day meeting — from ending in total collapse.

Obama, who had been skittish about coming to Copenhagen at all unless it could be cast as a foreign policy success, looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders.

He offered no further commitments on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries beyond Hillary Clinton’s announcement yesterday that America would support a $100bn global fund to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

He did not even press the Senate to move ahead on climate change legislation, which environmental organisations have been urging for months.

The president did say America would follow through on his administration’s clean energy agenda, and that it would live up to its pledges to the international community.

"We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say," Obama said.

But in the absence of any evidence of that commitment the words rang hollow and there was a palpable sense of disappointment in the audience.

Instead, he warned African states and low island nations who have been resisting what they see as a weak agreement that the later alternative — no agreement — was far worse.

"We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years. But here is the bottom line: we can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, and continue to refine it and build upon its foundation," he said.

"Or we can again choose delay, falling back into the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years. And we will be back having the same stale arguments month after month, year after year – all while the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible."

He also took a dig at China, drawing attention to its status as the world’s biggest emitter and reinforcing America’s hardline on the issue of accountability for greenhouse gas emissions.

The lacklustre speech proved a huge frustration to a summit that had been looking to Obama to use his stature on the world stage – and his special following among African leaders – to try to come to an ambitious deal.

The president was drawn into the chaos within minutes of his arrival at Copenhagen, ditching his schedule to take part in a meeting of major industrialised and rapidly emerging economies.

Responding to Obama’s speech, a British official said: "Gordon Brown is committed to doing all he can and will stay until the very last minute to secure a deal... but others also need to show the same level of commitment. The prospects of a deal are not great."

Tim Jones, a spokesman for the World Development Movement, said: "The president said he came to act, but showed little evidence of doing so. He showed no awareness of the inequality and injustice of climate change. If America has really made its choice, it is a choice that condemns hundreds of millions of people to climate change disaster."

Friends of the Earth said in a statement, "Obama has deeply disappointed not only those listening to his speech at the UN talks, he has disappointed the whole world."

The World Wildlife Fund said Obama had let down the international community by failing to commit to pushing for action in Congress: "The only way the world can be sure the US is standing behind its commitments is for the president to clearly state that climate change will be his next top legislative priority."

The extent of crisis in the talks has taken leaders by surprise. The Brazilian leader, Lula da Silva, told the conference that the all-night negotiating sessions took him back to his days as a trade union leader negotiating with his bosses.

THE UNSEEN INJUSTICE IN WORLD TRADE

(Editorial of Daily Mirror 2009-12-19)

Just a few of us remember the historic Non Aligned Conference also called the Bandung Conference held in April 1955 - historic since it was the first time in the history of the world that leaders of Asian and African peoples met together in one of their own countries for a dialogue on matters of common concern.  The conference was the precursor of the non aligned movement. It was largely the initiative of President Sukarno of Indonesia and was co-sponsored by Burma (now Myanmar) Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) India and Pakistan.Perhaps the most important paragraph in the Final Communiqué of the Bandung Conference was a call for collective action to stabilize the international prices of primary commodities. Unfortunately subsequent international arrangements to do so have been scuttled by developed countries. The economy of almost all developing countries depend on the export of commodities such as rubber, sugar, tea, cocoa, coffee and coconut. In the decades following the Bandung Conference, the need to resolve the low prices, the volatility in prices and demand for commodities was a major part of international economic discussions and initiatives. A major part of the work of UNCTAD in its first two decades focused on hosting negotiations between commodity producing and consuming countries giving rise to several producer-consumer commodity agreements and the establishment of a Common Fund for commodities.  However in the 1980s major developed countries, led by the United States and United Kingdom decided that these commodity agreements clashed with their new free market philosophy and withdrew their interest and support for these agreements.  By the end of the 1980s, the organization running these arrangements were unable to carry out their most important functions relating to the purchase and maintenance of stocks and the management of prices which were to remain within an agreed band.  In December 2002 the United Nations General Assembly called on UNCTAD to convene a group of independent eminent persons to examine and report on commodity issues.  The report presented to the UN Assembly in October 2003 came up with several proposals including the following: Developing countries are the victims of subsidy policies in the developed countries which harm producers of many agricultural commodities who are facing unfair competition from developed country farmers. The report called for the speedy resumption of negotiations leading to agricultural liberalization in the North.Unfortunately up till today the negotiations are deadlocked in the World Trade Organization (WTO). There was no comprehensive and systematic consultative framework to share information and use expertise among key actors in reviewing the commodity situation. Efforts of all interested stakeholders should, therefore be put together and focus on breaking the cycle of poverty in which commodity producers are locked. Therefore UNCTAD adopted a decision to establish an international task force on commodities. Compared to the enormous work done by UNCTAD in the 1960s to 1980s when initiatives to attain fair prices for commodities and maintain commodity agreements, the agenda for the international task force was mild and limited. However the decision to setup the task force was a major step forward given the absence of a venue or mechanism in the international system to discuss the problem, let alone address it.  But like several other international initiatives to promote the economic and commercial development of the Third World and reduce poverty, the task force has been largely ignored by the developed countries and the international community.  The “inequal exchange,” described at the Bandung Conference in 1955 continues today with developing countries having to sell their commodities at low prices to the World Market whilest having to import manufactured goods at high prices with declining terms of trade.

Live coverage of nomination day by Sri Lanka public media bias and partisan to Rajapakse , election monitors say

(December 18, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Amidst Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse's blatant illegal misuse of public property in his run to elect for the second term, one of the major election monitoring movement has written to the Election Commissioner regarding the bias and partisan live telecast of the nomination day by the public television channels. The television channel did not give equal importance to all candidates and gave an unethical prominence to the President Mahinda Rajapakse.


The content of the letter is as follows:
 
In Relation to the Live Telecast of Nomination Day for the 2010 Presidential Election
 
The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) would like to strongly protest against the biased and partisan nature of the Nomination Day Live Telecast for the 2010 Presidential Election shown today the 17th of December 2010.
 
The access and rights to telecast this important national occasion had only been granted to the State owned Rupavahini Channel. They have used this honorable occasion in a very biased and partisan manner currently.
 
Although every Presidential Candidate should get an equal amount of importance during the Live Telecast of the Presidential Nomination Event only ONE candidate was given importance. Not displaying the names of some candidates and their picture next to their name while displaying the name and picture of select candidates was a glaring obvious example of this biased and partisan conduct.
 
Furthermore, during the live telecast television presenters repeatedly mentioned the campaign slogan of one particular candidate. This biased and partisan reporting goes beyond the accepted norms and ethics of unbiased media reporting.
 
CaFFE observes that the situation was made into a totally partisan scenario and this situation arose because the rights to the live telecast were given to only one television channel. It is essential that Election Department take responsible charge of the situation and ensures that no single candidate gets an irregularly high amount of media time in the future Presidential Election period.
 
The situation has arisen again in which the requirement for a Competent Authority for State Media has once again been created by the partisan approach adopted the National State Television Channel of Sri Lanka when telecasting the nationally important nomination day. CaFFE would like to request you to look into this matter urgently.
 

Why do Sri Lankan presidential candidates go back to history to launch their campaigns?

(December 17, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Today the nominations are closed for the January 25 presidential of Sri Lanka. Both the government and the major opposition will have their inaugural rallies tomorrow.

President Mahinda Rajapakse's first propaganda rally is held in Anuradhapura while major opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka will climb the hill to address his inaugural rally held in Kandy.

The two venues chosen by these two candidates to launch their campaigns officially has connotations linked to the past.

Anuradhapura is an ancient capital of a kingdom that ended at the beginning of the second millennium around 1000 AD. Later the colonial archaeologists and the historians unearthed the glorious city in late 19th century until what times it was covered by thick jungle.However, as Sinhala nationalism was formed in the modern times with its primary focus to the Sinhala dominance in the post-colonial state, Anuradhapura was chosen as the ideal capital of the Sinhala polity.

Kandy is the capital of the last Sinhala kingdom that fell to the English colonials in 1815 basically due to internal mutiny.

Both cities are equally significant for the Buddhists. Buddhism is the majority religion of the island. Sri Maha Bodhiya, a tree believed to hail from the ancient tree that provided shade to Lord Buddha to attain enlightenment is in Anuradhapura.

The sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha, a symbol of kingship is in Kandy.

Another significance is that the Tamil nationalist rebels have attacked both these cities and killed people.

What do you think about the historical ramifications of selection of these two cities by the two major candidates for the launch of their campaigns instead of Colombo, the natural nerve center of politics.

Cleaners 'worth more to society' than bankers - study

By Martin Shankleman, Employment correspondent, BBC News

Hospital cleaners play a vital role, the study found

Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests.
The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid.
It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy.
They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to "create stress".
The study says they are responsible for campaigns which create dissatisfaction and misery, and encourage over-consumption.

Waste workers promote recycling, researchers note

And tax accountants damage the country by devising schemes to cut the amount of money available to the government, the research suggests.
By contrast, child minders and waste recyclers are also doing jobs that create net wealth to the country.
The Foundation has used a new form of job evaluation to calculate the total contribution various jobs make to society, including for the first time the impact on communities and environment.
Eilis Lawlor, spokeswoman for the New Economics Foundation, said: "Pay levels often don't reflect the true value that is being created. As a society, we need a pay structure which rewards those jobs that create most societal benefit rather than those that generate profits at the expense of society and the environment".

Tax accountants are said to destroy £47 in value for every £1 generated

She said the aim of the research was not to target individuals in highly paid jobs, or suggest people in low paid jobs should earn more.
"The point we are making is more fundamental - that there should be a relationship between what we are paid and the value our work generates for society. We've found a way to calculate that," she said.
A total of six different jobs were analysed to assess their overall value. These are the study's main findings:

• The elite banker

"Rather than being wealth creators bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse
Paid between £500,000 and £80m a year, leading bankers destroy £7 of value for every pound they generate".

• Childcare workers

"Both for families and society as a whole, looking after children could not be more important. As well as providing a valuable service for families, they release earnings potential by allowing parents to continue working. For every pound they are paid they generate up to £9.50 worth of benefits to society."

• Hospital cleaners

"Play a vital role in the workings of healthcare facilities. They not only clean hospitals and maintain hygiene standards but also contribute to wider health outcomes. For every pound paid, over £10 in social value is created."

• Advertising executives

The industry "encourages high spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12m top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate".

• Tax accountants

"Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate."

• Waste recycling workers

"Do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced. There is also a value in reusing goods. For every pound of value spent on wages, £12 of value is generated for society."
The research also makes a variety of policy recommendations to align pay more closely with the value of work.
These include establishing a high pay commission, building social and environmental value into prices, and introducing more progressive taxation.

Expert with ties to FBI and Vancouver Police authenticates “Sri Lanka War Crimes”-Channel 4 Video

Rhys Blakely in Mumbai

Video footage that appears to show Sri Lankan troops committing war crimes by summarily executing captured Tamil Tiger fighters on the battlefield was not fabricated, as claimed by the Sri Lankan Government, an investigation by The Times has found.

The findings come after General Sarath Fonseka, the former head of the army, alleged that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the Defence Minister, had ordered that surrendering Tiger leaders be killed rather than taken prisoner in the final days of the brutal 26-year civil war that ended in May.

The claims, vehemently denied by the Government, added to a lengthy list of war crimes allegations against it.
The video of the alleged battlefield executions, which was aired on Channel 4 in August, shows a naked man, bound and blindfolded, being made to kneel.

Another man, dressed in what appears to be Sri Lankan army uniform, approaches from behind and shoots him in the head at point-blank range. “It’s like he jumped,” the executor laughs. The camera then pans to show eight similarly bound corpses.

It is impossible to confirm when and where the filming occurred or the identities of the men shown. Pro-Tamil groups alleged that the video was filmed by troops on a mobile phone in January, when they overran the Tiger stronghold of Kilinochchi in the north of the country. Those claims were denied by government officials, who said they had “established beyond doubt” that the footage was fake.

An analysis for The Times by Grant Fredericks, an independent forensic video specialist who is also an instructor at the FBI National Academy, suggests otherwise. He found no evidence of digital manipulation, editing or any other special effects. However, subtle details consistent with a real shooting, such as a discharge of gas from the barrel of the weapon used, were visible.

“This level of subtle detail cannot be virtually reproduced. This is clearly an original recording,” said Mr Fredericks, who was previously the head of the Vancouver police forensic video unit in Canada.
There was also strong evidence to rule out the use of actors. “Even if the weapons fired blanks, the barrel is so close to the head of the ‘actors’ that the gas discharge alone leaves the weapon with such force it would likely cause serious injury or death,” Mr Fredericks said.

The reactions of those executed was consistent with reality, he added. “The victims do not lunge forward . . . [they] fall backward in a very realistic reaction, unlike what is normally depicted in the movies.”

In Mr Fredericks’s opinion “the injury to the head of the second victim and the oozing liquid from that injury cannot be reproduced realistically without editing cuts, camera angle changes and special effects. No [errors] exist anywhere in any of the images that support a technical fabrication of the events depicted,” he said.

The Sri Lankan Government said in a statement in September that the footage was “done with a sophisticated video camera, dubbed to give the gunshot effect and transferred to a mobile phone.”

Mr Fredericks’s research showed that code embedded in the footage appeared to match with software used in Nokia mobile phones.” He said: “The recording is completely consistent with a cell phone video recording and there are no signs of editing or alterations.”

The strong evidence that the footage does show real executions could reinforce international calls for an independent war crimes investigation — something that the Sri Lanka Government has resisted. A Sri Lankan army spokesman requested that a copy of Mr Fredericks’s report be sent to him yesterday, but did not reply when it was.

Mr Fonseka, who resigned from the army last month after being sidelined, is campaigning to unseat President Rajapaksa, the Defence Minister’s brother, at elections next month. [courtesy: Times.UK]

Gen. Fonseka does a volte-face over charges against Army

by B.Muralidhar Reddy

Less than 24 hours after his sensational statement that Sri Lanka Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa had instructed a ground commander in the battle zone during the last phase of the Eelam War IV (May 16 to May 19) to shoot all LTTE leaders that had come out waving a white flag with the intention of surrendering to the military, the retired General and contender for the January 26 presidential poll, Sarath Fonseka did a volte-face.

At a hastily convened news conference on Monday afternoon, the former Army Chief said he is responsible for all the actions of the security forces commanders and forces on the ground throughout the war against the LTTE and no field commander acted in violation of any international law.

The retraction of Gen. (retd) Fonseka came after the government not only categorically denied the charges levelled by the commander turned politician as ‘motivated’, but also said that it was examining the contents of the interview for possible legal action. According to a senior government functionary, the statement, made in the course of an interview for an English weekly, has been referred to the Attorney General for his legal opinion.

True import of comment

Media Secretary to the former Army Chief, Ajit, told The Hindu, “At the hurriedly convened press briefing, the General explained the true import of his comment in his response to a question on the sequence of events during the last days of the war and talked about how senior functionaries in the government are hurling cooked up allegations against him by misinterpreting a media statement made by him.”

Political circles here believe that Gen. (retd) Fonseka chose to distance himself from the controversial statement in the course of the interview after senior opposition leaders pointed out to him that it would not only deprive him of the plank of ‘sole hero’ of the war against the LTTE, but would also be self-inflicting, as he cannot disassociate himself from the actions of the military he led.

The controversy triggered by the remarks of the retired General in the interview and the response of the government has left many in the island nation worried about the dangers of further politicisation of the military and the already divided polarisation of the ethnic communities.

Dominant sentiment in English daily

The dominant sentiment was captured by the English daily, Island in its editorial titled ‘An attempt at hara-kiri’. “There is a high octane performance on the part of government propagandists and their Opposition counterparts engaged in a ruthless mud-slinging contest. The government used to boast that it had ensured there were no irregularities in military purchases unlike in the past. But now, we are being told that while Fonseka was the army commander, his son-in-law was involved in some questionable business deals with the army.

“In the aftermath of Prabhakaran’s death, Fonseka pooh-poohed allegations of war crimes against the army. When asked, at the inaugural press conference after entering politics, to comment on moves being made in some quarters to press war crime charges against the Sri Lankan military, Fonseka said those who wanted to do so had to make specific charges with times, dates, locations, etc mentioned –– the implication being that the allegations levelled against Sri Lanka were baseless. He has also claimed on more than one occasion that he personally handled the successful ground operations which decapitated the LTTE.

“Now, we have Fonseka saying he has information that Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa ordered a ground commander to kill the LTTE leaders who tried to surrender (The Sunday Leader, Dec. 13, 2009). As much as the government's allegations against Fonseka and his son-in-law are tantamount to a self-indictment, Fonseka's charge against Gotabhaya has seriously affected his own credibility, in that, he contradicts his much advertised claim that he alone commanded the victorious army. If Fonseka says that his ground commanders who steered the army to victory took orders from someone else, how could he justify his attempt to promote himself in politics as the man who won the war and seek the executive presidency in return, as it were?,” the paper asked.

Low note

With December 17 set as the D-day for filing of nomination papers to a keenly watched contest between the major opposition parties’ candidate retired General Sarath Fonseka and the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa, charges and counter-charges were anticipated but no one had expected the campaign to hit such a low note at this early a stage.

Several senior opposition leaders are privately discussing the possible adverse repercussions of the controversial interview of the retired General and consulting among themselves on ways and means to limit the damage. The retired General, who, during the day, filed three separate Fundamental Rights petitions before the Supreme Court seeking fair coverage for his campaign by the government media, is hosting a get together to select group of journalists later on Monday evening.

In the The Sunday Leader, General Fonseka has contended that he had no information communicated to him in the final days of the war that three key LTTE leaders had opted to surrender to the military.

“Fonseka charged that communications were instead confined between the LTTE leaders, Norway, various foreign parties, Basil Rajapaksa, Member of Parliament and the powerful senior adviser to the President, and such information was never conveyed to him as he supervised the final stages of the war,” the weekly reported.

The three LTTE leaders he is referring to are Balasingham Nadeshan, a former police constable of Sri Lanka police and the political head of the LTTE. Seevaratnam Pulidevan the head of the “LTTE peace secretariat” and Ramesh, a senior special commander of the military wing.

Fonseka told the weekly that he later learnt about what exactly had taken place as a result of journalists who had been embedded at the time with forces in the battle field.

Predictably the government hit back at the retired General. At a special news conference, Human Rights and Disaster Management Minister, Mahinda Samarasingha had said, “The interview of the retired General is a great betrayal of the nation, people of Sri Lanka and his former colleagues. Since the end of the Eelam War IV in the fourth week of May, there have been so many attempts by so many quarters to defame the security forces of Sri Lanka on charges of human rights violations but the simple truth is up to now no one has been able to prove anything.”

Contradicting himself

Mr. Samarasinghe maintained that the charges made by Gen. (retd) Fonseka are a contradiction of his own statement on July 10 at a function where he was facilitated for successfully leading the forces to militarily defeat the LTTE. He said that the contents of the speech have not only been reported by the local and international media but found a place in the 68-page U.S. State Department report of October 22 to the Congress on the war between the security forces and the LTTE.

The U.S. State Department report says, “July 10 – A media outlet reported on July 18 that at a celebratory event in Ambalangoda, Army Chief General Sarath Fonseka stated that the military had to overlook the traditional rules of war and even kill LTTE rebels who came to surrender carrying white flags during the war against the LTTE.”

Quoting from the media reports on the July 10 speech made by the then Army Chief, the Minister said that Fonseka at the function had gone to the extent of saying that he was under tremendous pressure from several quarters to order the ground troops not to shoot at the LTTE cadres and had taken the position that soldiers in the battle field who have staked their lives are the best judges to decide on such matters.

“It is instructive for every one to remember that Sri Lanka has emerged after 30 years of protracted war and there are forces still out there working for destabilitation of the island nation. We are sad and disappointed that Gen. (retd) Fonseka is wittingly or unwittingly working on their script,” the Minister said. - coutesy: The Hindu -