Technology and Innovation Headline Social Good Summit (NEWS BRIEF)

By Themrise Khan in New York

(HN, September 19, 2011) - "Early to bed, early to rise, have a good time and advertise."

This was one of the many sound bytes media mogul and billionaire extraordinaire Ted Turner gave out at the opening of the Social Good Summit in New York today.

Organized by the 92Y, Mashable and the UN Foundation, the Summit brings together a range of social entrepreneurs and social media activists, for quite literally, the social good.

The summit runs parallel all week with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.

The initial focus was heavy on technology and a wired world for “doing good”. From education, to clean water to maternal health, the key message was that technology, new media and the youth, are a lethal contribution to rid the world of poverty.

But using social media for global good has its pitfalls, as Ted Turner openly declared that the print media was “gone”. For someone whose business is the broadcast media, that’s quite a declaration. But whether one downloads the Economist on an iPad as Mr. Turner regularly does, or manages an online site to provide young graduates with jobs in the non-profit sector as idealist.com does, its hard to say whether the speed of the social media can keep pace with the speed of natural and man-made disasters.

This is why Turner had strong words to say about cuts in military spending to redirect towards more local causes at home, like alternative clean energy, a cause close to his heart. As Chairman of the UN Foundation, Turner would also like to see an end to nuclear arms and a reduction by 10% in global military budgets, every year for ten years.

For someone whose business has been the media all his life, the fact that the CNN giant thinks the US media focuses too much on itself and not enough on the rest of the world, is something many of us would like to admit, but are perhaps a tad bit fearful of doing.

But most of the initiatives showcased today, were far from being focused on the US.

From the One Laptop One Child Initiative which has 3 million child users globally, to USAID’s initiatives of using text messages to inform global programmes with real life statistics, to providing maternal healthcare for women in developing countries, it’s the rest of the world that social media for social good is trying to change.

But despite the tweeting, blogging and online fundraising that has spurred a new generation of “do-gooders”, there is still a lot to be done and done properly, as philanthropist Howard Buffet, grandson of another billionaire mogul, surprisingly candid views on the failure of corporate and non-profit philanthropy around the world showed.

But the Summit has tried to begin on a very optimistic note in dark times.

With world leaders congregating in New York this week to debate some very controversial issues, one hopes the optimism rubs off the right way.

The Whistleblower: UN Peacekeepers, Sex Trafficking and Stonewalling (EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW)

Rachel Weisz as Kathy in The Whistleblower. CREDIT: Sophie Giraud/Samuel Goldwin Films(HN, September 19, 2011) - As the annual opening of the UN General Assembly kicks off in New York this week, much of the discussions will undoubtedly centre around the behaviour of UN Peacekeepers in more than 20 countries.

The shocking involvement of a group of Peacekeepers sex-trafficking in Bosnia and the subsequent stonewalling by the UN and a contractor was brought into sharp focus this year in Canadian-German co-produced film, The Whistleblower.

The film is based on the experiences of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska police officer who served as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia and outed the U.N. for covering up a sex scandal. Directed by Larysa Kondracki, it stars Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci, and Vanessa Redgrave.

HUMNEWS' Michael Bociurkiw spoke with director Larysa Kondracki about the film and the reaction from various quarters.

HUMNEWS: Larysa, please tell us abou the early days of the film... was is difficult to reaise money for movie?

Larysa Kondracki: Well not really. Once I found Kathy's story and this idea I wrote to the Ukrainian community. In three weeks we actually managed to raise $30,000. Then we based ourselves in Ireland - Kathy was based in Amsterdam - and we travelled to Vienna, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. We spent six months travelling and writing the whole time.

What the ended up happening was that the film was bought by a studio and stayed there for two years; went though a turn-around then went to another studio. It's not that we had trouble raising money it was developing it within the studio system.

Then Canada changed its rules about how it funded films. It used to be that Canada would only fund projects that had to do with Canadian content. But because this had to do with Americans and the outsourcing of peackeeping forces, we just couldn't change it. Once Canada changed the rules we went there and we were shooting within nine months.

It's more of a case that the story is so big it took a long time - there was never not interest in it - it was just a matter of convincing people to actually pull the trigger, and in the meantime, to focus on a very, very, very big story and make it digestible in the context of a film.

HN: It seems the bulk of the film was made in Romania, how did that come about?

LK: It came down to practicalities. It's wonderful that Sarajevo has been re-built since the war. But we couldn't shoot there and not to mention that Bosnia has absolutely no film infrastructure. We were on a very limited budget, so you'd have to bring in all your equipment, all your crews, build sound stages. You'd have to be basically building a studio.

In Romania, however, people had been investing in studios over the last 25 to 30 years, so you have a lot of movies made there now like UnderWorld or bigger sort of genre films that shoot over there. So they have trained crews, big sound stages. And on top of that it looks like Eastern Europe because it is Eastern Europe!

Finally it was a Canadian-German co-production so we had to shoot in a country that was in the European Union. We had to use actors from there, we couldn't use Americans. Rachel (Weisz) is British, Vanessa (Redgrave) also is British.We tried to find Ukrainian actors but it is very hard as they are not part of the EU, and in the end it comes down to financing. Same with the Bosnians - I managed to get an exemption for one - for the man Bosnian bad guy.

 Fortunately and unfortunately it's fantastic that these structures and co-production treaties exist outside of the US because it's a fantastic way to make films but you are tied to certain treaty rules.

So in the end it was down to Romania or Hungary, and Romania is cheaper. Another practical 

consideration was that we did have to shoot in two types of locations - one was interior UN and the other was out in the mountains and field. In Hungary the distance between the two was over an hour but in Romania they had a studio built that was near the two.

HN: How about the Ukrainians portrayed in the film - where did you find them? 

LK: They aren't Ukrainains. Two are Romanian - the aunt and the main girl, Raya, -they had to learn Ukrainian. We had a Ukrainian coach on set. And then the mother and the friend are from Germany.

HN: In the early stages of writing did you eveer imagine you'd get such a big names and Rachel Weisz and Vanessa Redgrave?

LK:  In a way you make the film that you want to make...I was picturing Kathy when we were writing and we knew the person, so you weren't really writing for an actress. At that time films like Boys Don't Cry, Monster, and Being John Malkovich - those are all first-time films so it was a really exciting times and it felt really possible to make films...I was confident we would get someone good, as long as we wrote a good script and we were very determined.

Director Larysa Kondracki on the set of The Whistleblower

HN: There are some very shocking and graphic parts in the movie. Was it intentional, to put across that this really does happen in real life?

LK: We actually toned down what actually happens. This is When Harry Met Sally compared to what actually happens.

The idea, for example, that  it is just something that is relegated to the mountains is absolutely untrue. The coffee shop down the street had a bed upstairs. These guys were walking around everywhere with girls - even in the UN headquarters. They actually own these girls outright. One came up to Kathy when one of the girls he had purchased had ran away and he asked for her help!

So we had to chose one or two moments which really outlined the graveness of this depravity and really how awful it is. I think there is no point taking on this subject if you are not going to really explore it and show it properly. I don't think it really has been done that way in mainstream entertainment.

HN: In researching and writing the film, you must have spoken to many victims of trafficking. Did you find that what happened to you also happened in the movie? Where they were very reluctant to speak for fear of reprisals later on?

 LK: Oh sure, absolutely. And access to them was very, very rare. And the ones we did speak to were more than not ones that this had happened to a while ago and were just coming through and were happy to talk about it. I mean you don't just pop into an underground shelter and say 'I need to talk to you for a movie." There were arranged discussions and dealt with very sensitively.

HN: I suppose one of the more depressing parts of the movie is at the end, when you read the headlines and get the impression that so little has changed for the good. So have you seen any change in the source countries - for example in Ukraine - where you hear border guards are going to get better training to help stop this kind of trafficking?

LK: There was a big awareness campaign that went out in Ukraine. It used to be much easier to dupe these girls. I think people are much more aware now. It doesnt mean the crime changes, they just find different source countries.

HN: So far are you pleased with how the UN has reacted to your film and its message?

LK: Well the film only came out five weeks ago. At first they tried to deny it, and they said that Kathy was removed for falsifying time sheet information. And that was the response we were getting from as little as a few days before (the leaked memo). They were absolutely not even going to acknowledge the film.

So I wrote a kind of heated letter back and I got a response and I think that's because of all the media coverage. People picked this up so it put a lot of pressure on them. Just the fact that they are acknowledging the film and hosting a screening and it's only been fine weeks. I plan to continue being a pest and I hope the media continues to cover it. At the end of the day the only way you are going to really see any change when people are embarrassed enough that they feel they have to do 

something about it.

To be fair, as much as it is the UN's problem, it is also the problem of member states and I have not heard a thing from the US State Department - the ones that ultimately fired Kathay and employed these private militaries.

Kondracki was born in Toronto and studied English and theater at McGill University. She received an M.F.A. in film direction from Columbia University and directed the short film VIKO (2008) which played mainly at film festivals to widespread acclaim. The Whistleblower is her first feature directorial film. She is a Canadian of Ukrainian origin.

Outsourcing to private security contractors threatens rights, UN panel warns (REPORT)

Faiza Patel, Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries. CREDIT: UN(HN, September 17, 2011) A UN watchdog group is calling for greater regulation of mercenaries and private military and security companies by both host and contributor countries to ensure respect for human rights and accountability for any abuses committed.

“Outsourcing security creates risks for human rights,” panel Chair-Rapporteur and Pakistani lawyer Faiza Patel told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in presenting reports on Iraq, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea.

The three countries present different aspects of the problem, with Iraq a major theatre of operations by private military and security companies; South Africa a major source of people with extensive military skills and experience unwilling or unable to find jobs since the end of apartheid in 1994; and Equatorial Guinea the scene of a 2004 coup attempt involving mercenaries.

Aside from Patel, the panel included experts from Chile, Spain, Poland and South Africa.

The panel noted in its report on Iraq that incidents involving private military and security companies there had dropped since the killing of 17 civilians and wounding of 20 others in Nissour Square in Baghdad by employees of the United States security company Blackwater in 2007.

But it added that Iraq continues to grapple with the grant of legal immunity extended to private security contractors by US authorities after the 2003 invasion, preventing prosecutions in Iraqi courts while the case against the alleged perpetrators is still pending in US courts.

“The Working Group is deeply concerned about the lack of accountability for violations committed between 2003 and 2009 and recalls that the victims of such violations and their families are still waiting for justice,” the report said, calling on Iraq to clarify urgently whether a provision it signed with the US in 2009 removing immunity of some private foreign security contractors covers all contractors employed by the US Government and is applied in Iraqi courts.

(Blackwater no longer works in Iraq, but other private contractors continue to protect the U.S. Defense Department and private companies).

On South Africa the panel noted that legislation passed in 1998 has not had a significant impact on the private military and security industry, and new laws adopted after the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea, in which several South African mercenaries were involved are not yet in force.

“While such legislation seeks to address some of the problems encountered previously, it remains to be seen whether the new legislation will effectively regulate the provision of security services in areas of armed conflict,” it said, calling for accountability mechanisms for private military and security companies at the domestic level as well as effective remedies for potential victims of human rights violations involving such companies.

The report on Equatorial Guinea noted that the 2004 coup attempt was the most widely reported incident clearly involving mercenaries, some of them employees or former employees of private military and security companies from several countries, illustrating “possible close and disturbing links” between mercenaries and such companies.

The panel used harsh wording when referring to the administration of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who took power in 1979 by ousting a predecessor who had ruled for 11 years.

This makes the monitoring of such links all the more necessary, it said, calling on the Government to adopt laws to regulate the activities of such companies and their employees.

Turning to an armed attack on the presidential palace in Malabo, the capital, by alleged mercenaries in 2009, the panel regretted the authorities’ lack of transparency and lack of cooperation extended during its visit to the country.

“The Working Group urges the Government to provide explanations as to how the four men on trial for their alleged involvement in the attack were brought back from Benin to Equatorial Guinea,” it said, strongly condemning their execution after a summary trial “that severely lacked due process and was carried out so promptly as to deny the four men all possibility of appeal.”

It urged the Government to make available to the public full information on all judgments rendered in the criminal cases relating to the attack.

“Since all mercenaries should be held accountable for their actions, the Working Group recommends that anyone who is accused of involvement in a mercenary-related incident be tried by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal and in compliance with international human rights standards,” the report concluded.

“The Working Group also recommends that anyone accused of involvement in a mercenary-related incident be treated in accordance with international human rights standards, in particular the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

- UN News Service, HUMNEWS staff

Should Credit Rating Agencies be Publicly Controlled? (PERSPECTIVE)

By Saliem Fakir

(HN, September 15, 2011) - Credit rating is a weighty obligation. Credit rating agencies (CRAs) can either boost a country’s fortunes or bring it down.

CRAs are privately owned agencies that specialize in investigating the credit worthiness (ability to pay back) of governments and companies. CRAs assign credit ratings for issuers of debt-like securities (such as, bonds in the case of governments) that can be traded.

The record of CRAs, though, has been mixed and has been scrutinized for some time now.

In 2003, the Financial Policy Forum, an America non-profit that monitors disruptions and inefficiencies in financial markets, published a special policy report, which argued that CRAs systematically failed to anticipate currency crises from 1979-1999. Most sovereign debt defaults are associated with currency crises. The same report showed that rating agencies tend to be reactive, especially for emerging markets.

People have been losing even more faith in CRAs since the 2008 financial crisis. CRA’s stand accused of “being asleep at the switch” in the run up to the sub prime mortgage bubble that caused the crisis. CRAs vouched for companies, loans and financial instruments that turned out to be awash with toxic debt. For example, Lehman Brothers was given a “triple A” rating shortly before it went bankrupt. 

Disturbingly, some CRAs also helped their clients, especially investment banks, design the instruments that brought about the financial crisis. Yet, rating agencies are still allowed to “play god” when it comes to determining the future of entire nations and their people.

A downgrade for a country means that it has to borrow money at higher costs or investors will simply lose confidence in the country being a safe-haven for their investments.

The United States of America (US) had first-hand experience of this conundrum recently when Standard & Poor’s (S&P), one of the biggest CRAs, unceremoniously downgraded its credit worthiness. The effect of such an opinion was to lower the value of the US dollar and increase its borrowing costs. The downgrading would cost the US roughly US$75bn extra in interest charges and potentially 600,000 jobs.

At the time of its downgrading, the US government contested S&P’s rating; quickly pointing out that the agency had made an accounting era of US$2.4 trillion. Whether it was true or not, the US learnt a bitter lesson from the very medicine it has applied to others in the past.

The US is not alone in its struggle with CRAs.

Debt-ridden European countries such as Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (the PIIGS) also didn’t take favourably to the evaluations of CRAs following the Greek crisis. German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, was so enraged that he called for the “smashing” of CRA oligopolies.

Economists are also climbing in.

Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate and economist, in a June 2011 issue of the Guardian newspaper, specifically noted that international financial institutions and CRAs “lord it freely” over democratically elected governments and unilaterally command them. Richard Koo, a prominent economist based in Japan, was even more scathing, arguing that CRAs are “poised to destroy the global economy once again.”

For example, when it comes to fiscal policies during times of recession where governments are in a quandary as to what to do, CRAs have preferred fiscal austerity as opposed to fiscal stimulation.

Argentina is a good example of a country that adhered to International Monetary Fund (IMF) and CRA formulas for austerity, only to find their advice disastrous. After a decade of hopeless IMF policies, Argentina was forced to forsake their ‘wisdom’ and took matters into her own hands. Argentina defaulted, devalued its currency and took the route of increasing its deficit spend, rather than continue with the IMF’s recipe for austerity.

Argentina proved to the world how the IMF and CRAs’ approach was so wrong. Following its own unilateral interventions, the Argentinean economy was able to grow and the country was also able to pay its debt between the periods 2002-2009. This would not have happened if it stuck to the IMF/CRA model of rescue.

Presently, a slow war is brewing. Those who have long had the power to bring unaccountable private agencies to book are now wanting to either reform or do away with private CRAs because their own economies are being affected by the opinions of these agencies.

In the past when developing countries complained to these very same developed economies about the unfairness and one-sidedness of CRAs, their chorus of complaints was met with deaf ears.

Now the tables have been turned and the menace of CRAs has come to bite the very hands that had for so long fed them. All of this smacks of belated hypocrisy.

How did CRAs become so powerful? Since the early 1970s, deregulation of the sector has ensured that moral hazards prevail unchecked.

The US, in particular, passed legislation in 1975, which allowed for the creation of the Nationally Recognised Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO). Such accreditation effectively increased the barrier to entry for smaller firms and led to the consolidation of the industry by the big three.

According to a 2009 paper by Pragyan Deb and Gareth Murphy of the London School of Economics, of the top three global CRAs, S & P and Moody’s control 80% of the market. Fitch, the third biggest rating agency, lags far behind with approximately 15% of market share. All of the top three agencies are based in the US and dominate the global financial markets with their advisories.

Any attempt at reform is being met with heavy lobbying from the agencies themselves. In effect, increasing concentration only furthered the moral hazard of ‘notching’ and risky behaviour. Notching itself was used to bend client’s ears where CRAs would inflate ratings if you behaved well or downgraded you if you showed signs of dissension.

Conflicts of interest arose because of the way in which revenues were generated after the deregulation of CRAs.

CRAs switched from the old system of the investor-pay model to an issuer-pay model. In an investor-pay model, the investor subscribes for a rating and in an issuer-pay model; the issuer pays for the cost of the rating.

If an issuer wants a rating they pay a fee, otherwise rating agencies use publicly available information.

Evidence compiled over the years shows that this switch of source of revenue for rating agencies tended to also result in large issuers getting far more favourable ratings than before – the ‘notching’ effect coming into play.

So what is it that can be done?

In the short-term, given how embedded and dependent we are on CRAs, tighter governance rules and transparency should be demanded from CRAs.

One of these would involve disclosures of who they are providing services to in order to ensure that there is no conflict of interest.

There are also calls for CRAs to be regulated through some sort of international regime.

In the US, during the financial crisis hearings, regulators and investors called on CRAs to be held legally responsible for the advice they give and to be subjected to a fine if they are found to be negligent. This may prove easier said than done because it requires strong regulatory expertise and the capacity to police.

Others recommended breaking the oligopoly of the CRAs by removing barriers to entry in the sector so as to allow greater competition. However, just this one solution on its own may lead to other problems. Too many players in a market may just encourage other sorts of perverse behaviour like ‘rate-shopping’, as borrowers seek a second or third opinion until they find the most favourable rating.

There are also proposals to limit CRAs’ revenue sources to an investor-pay model and have the rest of the revenue subsidised by the state – and in so doing, increase public control and supervision of CRAs.

Asian countries, which will see the biggest growth in financial needs and investment, are considering a regional credit agency model that is publicly controlled.

China is already experimenting with its own CRA, the Dagong Global Credit Rating Agency, which may in the future play an Asia-wide role. The promising thing about the Chinese CRA is that it adopts a completely different approach for assessing a company or country’s risk. In a recent evaluation of 50 countries, Dagong’s assessments were diametrically opposite to how existing CRAs rated the risk profile of some developed economies. For instance, it rated South Africa stable and the US, riskier.

The Chinese model looks at institutional strength and long-term wealth creation potential rather than wealth and the debt burden in the present. Its key measure is how a country will be able to turn a disadvantage into an advantage and differs with other CRAs where disadvantage is simply a disadvantage.

South Africa, which is part of the emerging markets’ group, BRICS, and other global groupings like the G20, should raise the flag on the issue of CRAs. Clearly, reform is not working and what is needed is a radical overhaul in the way that ratings are done. South Africa should push for global regulation of CRAs.

What we need is robust assessments with a greater deal of public accountability for how these decisions are made. Publicly held and managed CRAs may be the way to go.

Fakir is an independent writer based in Cape Town. This article first appeared on the website of the South African Civil Society Information Service - SACSIS.

Poor Response Worsens Pakistan Flood Crises (BLOG/REPORT)

By Kamal Hyder

People in Sindh and elsewhere in Pakistan face floods again (photo credit: UN) It pours and pours.

There has been no let-up in the torrents across the Badin district - a land that receives less than 60 mm of rain in a year has now seen over 300 mm in just of 48 hours.

But it was a crisis already in the making because of record rains in the country’s southern province of Sind which received an incredible 1,000 mm of rain in less than three weeks and the deluge still continues pounding several districts in the area.

The problem has been exacerbated because the Left Bank Overflow Drain or LBOD has not been working at its optimum. The drain, with a usual capacity to withstand up to 6,000 cusecs of water flow, and sends overflow to the Arabian Sea has been the victim of poor planning and design as well as excessive government corruption has had its capability reduced to around 4,000 cusecs.

Since Badin and many parts of Sind are prone to waterlogging, the land was not able to absorb the excessive rainfall and as such put a severe strain on the LOBD canal and caused major breaches in the poorly maintained embankments.

The other factor that complicated the situation was the drought-like conditions experienced in July; leading the government to flood its canals to help overcome the dry spell. The canals were in full flow when the unexpected wet spell struck - the worst in over 300 hundred years of recorded history

According to many locals the it is the worst flood they have seen in living memory. 

As we arrived in Badin the situation was already at crisis point and tens of thousands were on the move as the raging waters destroyed over 9,000 villages and destroyed over 2.5 million bales of cotton just weeks before the harvest.

But the real worry was the fact that large towns were cut-off by the flood.

Faulty foresight

One local who lost everything says the wealthy went off to Karachi and Hyderabad but the poor headed for the dunes of the Thar Desert to find a safe haven. With their farmland destroyed and wheat stocks under water these desperate people have been waiting since the end of Ramadan to be rescued.

However despite the fact the country experienced the worst flood since independence last year and  displaced 20 million people - the country was not only poorly equipped to deal with the crisis a testament to the pathetic shape but also equally oblivious to the plight of millions of people in Sindh.

While the people were desperately trying to save their lives by clinging to the elevated embankments of the roads the local television stations were all telecasting a press conference of a political leader living in self-imposed exile in London.

For days the Pakistani media showed nothing else but the political bickering amongst various parties.

An old woman came up to me and said “why have you come here, to give us food or water. And where are the so called leaders who have forsaken us to such a plight?”

The only help these people had was from the Jamaat ud Dawaa, an aid organisation, who not only brought in their volunteers with boats and food rations to cook fresh meals and to help evacuate people from the flood and to send in their doctors to help out.

But even they admitted they could not meet the dire needs of a people afflicted by a catastrophe.

If anyone had any doubts that the ruling government was totally incompetent they only had to visit the calamity zone and ask the people who have lost everything and were now living under tarpaulins and thin plastic sheets propped up on twigs and branches.

Be grateful

Pakistan's prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani congratulated his provincial and federal teams on doing a splendid job but on the ground they did nothing at all and if they did try to fool the world - then they failed.

As my team and I left Badin, we stopped at a roadside school now a makeshift camp for those running away from the flood. The school was under several feet of dark brown water.

Our fixer asked the man appointed as the head of relief camp about the toilet facilities; he said the people could relieve themselves in the water!

A father holding his child asked me to have a look inside. For a moment I thought why am I doing this but when I looked into the eyes of the children and saw their innocent smiles I followed the children and their dad into waist-high muck to see the fetid conditions they were living under.

The stench of sewage and human waste was unbearable. 

The proud family of 8 children and their parents spent their nights in a room full of the dirty water. They told me to tell the world what they were going through. There were hundreds more in the same compound including pregnant women and sick children

As I walked back through the filth I saw a government-appointed caretaker sitting on a chair outside the compound in spotless light blue clothes, while the women sat on the ground.

He told me they have a roof over their heads and shouldn’t be complaining and I turned around to tell him “I would not even put my dog in such a place!”

Originally published by Al Jazeera under Creative Commons Licensing 

Late Monsoon Rains Pound Pakistan; Millions Affected (NEWS BRIEF)

A year after the devastating floods in Pakistan, families are trying to rebuild their lives, homes and livelihoods. CREDIT: UN(HN, September 13, 2011) - Just a few weeks after the commemoration of the one year anniversary of the worst floods in Pakistan's history, the South Asian country is again bracing itself for another humanitarian disaster from late and heavy monsoon rains.

The percipitation began a month ago and have to date affected some 5.3 million people, according to government estimates. 

An estimated 279,300 displaced people are now living at some relief sites, including public buildings and other temporary settlements.

Over a million homes have been destroyed or damaged, 4.2 million acres of agricultural land has been inundated and over 200 people have died, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

The latest floods come as the country is still recovering from the worst floods in its history just a year ago in which 20 million people lost their homes. So far 200 deaths have been recorded, and UN aid agencies are stepping up their response.

Heavy rains resumed at the weekend and are forecast to continue through the next three days, affecting districts including Badin, Mirpur Khas, Tharparkar, Umar Kot, Thatta, Hyderabad, Shaheed Benazirabad, Dadu and Larkana, as well as Karachi and eastern parts of Balochistan.

Karachi, the country's commercial capital and largest city with more than 13 million people, has endured several times the normal rainfall for September. A HUMNEWS correspondent said her family in Karachi is suffering the effects of "a total shut-down and washout."

According to GEO News, all schools, colleges and universities are closed in Karachi; one Internet consultant said his area has been without power for 12 hours.

"The rains are showing no sign of abating and this disaster is still evolving. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people already need emergency shelter and, as in 2010, the inaccessibility of flooded areas is going to be our biggest challenge," says Arshad Rashid, an official with the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM).

- HUMNEWS staff, UN

African Wins Miss Universe 2011 Title (NEWS BRIEF)

Miss Universe 2011, Leila Lopes of Angola CREDIT: Leila Lopes(HN, September 13, 2011 - UPDATED 1940GMT WITH MISS UKRAINE CONTROVERSY) - In a stunning boost to Africa, Miss Angola, Leila Lopes, was crowned Miss Universe 2011 in Brazil Monday.

Lopes beat out 88 other competitors in São Paulo to win the title during the 60th anniversary of the world's biggest beauty pageant. The business management student replaces the 2010 winner, Ximena Navarrete of Mexico.

Lopes was born in Benguela, Angola, the daughter of Cape Verdean immigrants. She was recently crowned “Queen of Angolan beauty" in the United Kingdom, where she has been undertaking her studies.

It would appear that Lopes wooed the Miss Universe judges - which included American journalist Connie Chung, supermodel Isabeli Fontana and Indy race car driver Helio Castroneves - with her savvy answer to a question about what physical change she would wish for.

"Thank God I'm very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn't change a thing," Lopes said. "I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principals from my family and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life."

The first runner-up was Olesia Stefanko (Олеся Стефанко), 23, of Ukraine, followed by Priscila Machado of Brazil. The third was Miss Philippines and the fourth Miss China.

(Separately, a petition to revoke Miss Ukraine Universe's title began circulating on social networking sites Tuesday, on the basis that Stefanko allegedly spoke Russian - and not Ukrainian, the official language of Ukraine. It said petition participants are "appalled and disgusted" that Stefanko "represented our people and our homeland in a language that not only is not ours, but the language of our former oppressors.")

First runner-up, Miss Ukraine Universe Olesia Stefanko. The law student has been criticized for allegedly replying to questions in Russian, and not Ukrainian. CREDIT: O. Stefanko(Stefanko comes from western Ukraine, but is studying public prosecutor and investigation law in the mostly-Russian speaking city of Odesa).

As the results were announced, social media sites exploded with emotional comments from Africans. "I'm proud to be an African," tweeted Musuline.

Lopes of Angola, a former Portuguese colony, is only the second African to win the title. In 1992 Michelle McClean, who now resides in South Africa, became Miss Universe.

In a phone interview, Mariama Mounir Petrolawicz, a West African from Guinea and the founder of There Is No Limit Foundation, said she was extremely proud of the win.

"By the time I tuned in I saw that she was the only African girl representing, and I thought she would never make it," Petrolawicz said.

Asked how Africans would react, she said: "This will be one of the biggest gifts we can ever have...we are so proud...she will be such an inspiration. We feels as one tonight."

Miss Lopes is only the second African to win the Miss Universe title, and only the second national from Angola to reach the rank of Top Ten finalists.

In 2001, Agbani Darego of Nigeria was crowned Miss World.

On social media sites, many Filipinos expressed profound disappointment that their compatriot, Shamcey Supsup, did not win the Number One spot - especially after answering her question in flawless English.

This years Miss Universe was hosted by NBC "Today" anchor Natalie Morales and the Bravo network's Andy Cohen, and is co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC.

- HUM News staff

Behind the Scenes at Guantanamo (BLOG/REPORT)

By Monica Villamizar

“This is the war that has marked our generation," the commander of the Guantanamo Base said as he spoke to dozens of soldiers ahead of a commemorative run to honour military members killed in the past 10 years since 9/11.

Some soldiers had pictures of the victims taped to their running shirts. The military base in Cuba, like other bases overseas, was on an increased security alert - on the second degree level.

Down the road from the base is one of the most notorious prison complex in the world, still populated by the prisoners of the war on terror. Kahlid Sheik Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the twin towers’ attack and his 4 alleged co-conspirators are still awaiting trial here, locked up in a camp that no one is allowed to talk about, much less visit.

As me and cameraman Snorre Wik prepare to film a presentation inside one of the camps that can be filmed, under strict very strict regulations, the military minder accompanying us corrects me (he was listening to my on camera presentation). "They are not prisoners, they are detainees," he asserts in military tone.

I think to myself that Guantanamo must be one of the very few places in the world where someone can be “detained” for nearly 10 years. Is that not the equivalent of being a prisoner?

The minder is technically right, these 171 men under indefinite arrest are not your average prisoner, they are labeled “alien unlawful enemy combatants”, and this label is not gratuitous. It means, among other things, that when captured on the “battlefield” of the war on terror, the International Geneva Conventions do not apply.

“Prisoners of war” have access to lawyers, protection against torture, and special treatment if they are children. It also means that even today some of their rights will continue to be violated. We are told that today only 36 “detainees” can begin a process of going to court for the first time, to hear why they have been in Guantanamo, and hear the charges, ten years later.

President Obama promised to close down the camps 2 and a half years ago, but in a turn of events created a legal framework to keep the prison to continue working for a long while to come. The “detainees” conditions have largely improved since 9/11 and the military is always sure of showing members of the media the privileges of Guantanamo prison.

There are 4 doctors for 171 detainees, they can rent books, video call with their relatives, go to school and talk to each other (in the medium security facilities).

We are not told however, that in nearly 10 years, 6 have committed suicide, dozens have gone on hunger strikes and dozens more now show signs of dementia.

During countless military hearings that I attended I remember hearing accounts of bounty hunter’s buying prisoners for US military. It appears that some in Guantanamo had not even heard of al-Qaeda before landing in the Caribbean island.

Admiral Woods tells me that “these detainees are enemy combatants picked up in the war against terrorism, and the world is safer because of that”.

But it doesn't take knowledge of top secret material collected from interrogations on base to be able to make a case against Guantanamo, not only in legal terms, but in terms of an intelligence gathering project. 7 out of 10 detainees who were here in the past decade were released without the United States being able to prove they belonged to al-Qaeda.

Most of the men, according to Wikileaks, had either no connection to al-Qaeda at all or were far from the top echelons of the terrorist organization.

In fact, only 14 out of 779 people who have been through here seem to have been “big fish” within al-Qaeda, or operatives who knew the workings of the network and its plans.

Basically, in ten years, all the information extracted from Guantanamo has not led to the capture of the top al-Qaeda commanders. The Osama Bin Laden raid was possible thanks to a lead provided by the Pakistani intelligence agency, miles away from Cuba.

Originally published by Al Jazeera under Creative Commons Licensing 

Horn of Africa Drought Case Load Jumps to Over 13 Million People (NEWS BRIEF)

Somali refugee children at the registration centre in Dolo Ado, southern Ethiopia. CREDIT: WFP/Natasha Scripture(HN, September 10, 2011) - As the drought in the Horn of Africa spreads, the number of people affected has jumped to 13.3 million people, including more than 840,000 refugees.

The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance was previously pegged by the UN at 12.4 million in four countries, Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told a media briefing in Geneva monitored by HUMNEWS.

She said that boosting the numbers is the conflict in the Blue Nile State of eastern Sudan, which has displaced close to 20,000 Sudanese refugees into Ethiopia in early September. Humanitarian agencies are currently allocating some of their resources and personnel to this new emergency.

In Djibouti, increasing food prices are having an increasingly serious impact on the country, Byrs said. The country imports 95 per cent of its food, and about 146,000 people are in need of food assistance in the north-western regions of the country.

To be sure, the drought and food crisis has caused massive displacement in the worst-hit country - Somalia. UNHCR estimates that more than 917,000 Somalis now live as refugees in the four neighbouring countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen. Approximately one in every three was forced to flee this year alone. Altogether, more than 1.4 million Somalis were displaced within the country. This makes a third of Somalia's estimated 7.5 million people displaced.

Analysts blame the convergence of civil unrest, climate chance and rising food prices as the cause of the ongoing crisis.

Despite heavy media coverage of the crisis, the UN's Horn of Africa Appeal is still in need of substantial funding. Byrs said it is 63 per cent funded with $1.56 billion received out of the $2.5 billion requested. 

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said since the beginning of July, the UN agency has assisted some 7.4 million people and that it is ramping up to reach more than 9.6 million people over the coming weeks. In Somalia, WFP is focusing its efforts over the next months on providing badly needed food assistance to 1.9 million people in areas to which WFP had access. So far the organization had assisted close to 1 million people. 

WFP has received $385 million in announced contributions, its budget shortfall for the Horn of Africa appeal for the next six months is US$215 million.

- UN, HUMNEWS staff

Will Gadaffi's Overseas Land Grabs Hold? (NEWS BRIEF)

A man in Bujumbura holds up a map of Africa. Several African countries have been victimized by lopsided land grabs by countries such as Libya. CREDIT: M Bociurkiw/HUMNEWS(HN, September 8, 2011) - Millions of dollars worth of Libyan land purchases from Ukraine to Mali are up in the air now that the Government of Colonel Gadaffi has crumbled.

Importing food is essential for Libya - almost all its food needs, including wheat and flour, is brought in to feed its 5.3 million people.

In May 2008, during a state visit to Kyiv, Gadaffi gave Ukraine an oil and gas contract in exchange for 247.000 ha of Ukrainian land to produce its own food.

A few years ago, according to Michael Muleba, Executive Director, Farmer Organisation Support Programme, Libya acquired control of 100.000 ha in the office du Niger, Mali’s main rice producing area. As part of the deal, Libya agreed to improve local infrastructure including enlarging canal and improving a road. But when it came to awarding these contracts and to finding a supplier of rice seeds, local firms were snubbed in favor of Chinese and Libyan ones.

Aside from Libya, Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea that have sought farmland abroad to guarantee food supplies and cut dependence on imports.

Africa is a prime target for foreign land grabs. Muleda describes various ways including: land purchases, long term leases, and large investments in existing farms as well as barter-type principles. The collective GRAIN argues that while African governments proclaim their commitments to food self-sufficiency, behind the backs of their people they are signing an alarming number of deals with foreign investors that give these investors control over their countries’ most important agricultural lands, including rice lands.

However, now that Gadaffi is gone, there is speculation that some of the deals may not stand up.

Even the Ukraine deal ran into trouble shortly after it was negotiated by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is now being prosecuted for alleged corruption. After a visit to Tripoli in 2009 she defended the deal, saying "Libya is a bridge to African countries. Africa can be a great consumer of Ukrainian grain and food. We worked out a draft agreement which is to be signed."

- HUMNEWS staff

Reinventing Africa as a Country (PERSPECTIVE)

PHOTO CREDIT: Roland Urbanek via Flickr/CreativeCommonsLicenseBy Liepollo Pheko

Africa is again becoming a “country” in the popular discourse of Western media intent on rebranding the entire continent as the eternal basket case.

Despite North Africa’s Arab Spring (which has inspired a global movement against corrupt and undemocratic leadership) and the birth of Africa’s 54th state, Southern Sudan (the result of the Sudanese people’s will expressed via a referendum), the idea of Africa as an uninterrupted landscape of human suffering and political failure remains steadfast in Western media discourse.

This perspective is anchored in the tried and tested method of presenting this vast, diverse and in many instances breathtakingly beautiful continent paradoxically, as a homogenous mass of starving people stranded on barren lands under the yoke of despotic leadership and deadly diseases…Thus also implying that Western intervention is necessary and even noble.

One need just recall Hollywood’s cinematic forays into Africa. Hollywood presents a clichéd view of Africa as the hot and humid continent that’s a breeding ground for corruption, teeming with despotic leaders and malfunctioning governments. Of course, the longsuffering victims of this merciless continent are always ready for rescue by noble white protagonists who parachute in to save the day. Think Blood Diamonds, The Interpreter, Fair Game and the Bang Bang Club.

Branding Africa as the basket case of the world is nothing new, but the timing of this particular wave bears careful scrutiny together with the West’s geo-political, military and economic interests.

A CNN programme last weekend dedicated thirty minutes to American journalists’ anguish about “Africa’s plight,” replete with classic ‘Brand Africa’ imagery of war and hunger. There wasn’t a trace of strong African voices to counter the victimhood on display and certainly no mention of the mess left by America in Somalia twenty years ago. At exactly the same time, a local news channel was providing a vibrant account of the sterling work of the South African Humanitarian agency “Gift of the Givers” in Somalia, as told, designed and led by Africans. It was a challenging situation, but nowhere near helpless.

Having weathered America’s recession better than many other regions, its ironic that the picture of “Africa the scar” re-emerges at a time when most African economies are growing faster than at any time since the days of Structural Adjustment and more consistently than anywhere else in the world. Many countries, including South Africa, Nigeria and Angola have also made noteworthy investments in infrastructure.

Africa is possibly one of the best places to be on the planet. Yet it is presented as dependent and despondent in order to justify and rationalise the incursions on our sovereignty and resources.

The rebranding also comes at a time when European economies are faltering and when their citizens’ anger requires aggressive penetration into external markets to rehabilitate failed European governments and force open new market opportunities, including in Africa. Where Europe’s Economic Partnership Agreements may have failed, propaganda and some bombs may just do the trick.

The newly installed Transnational National Council [TNC] in Libya is an intriguing assemblage. Some reports suggest very few Libyans can even name the leadership of the TNC much less its mandate or vision for Libya. In typical form, the recent meeting in Paris, where global leaders decided upon Libya’s future, was covered by a CNN journalist who asked whether it was of any significance that South Africa chose to stay away from the meeting. An American analyst replied that the absence of a few Africans is unimportant since countries like Russia, the US, the UK, Algeria, China and Germany were there to shape Libya’s future.

Shortly after, Al Jazeera reported the unashamed jostling at the Paris meeting for lucrative tenders to “rebuild” Libya. It couldn’t have looked more like the Berlin Conference of the 1800’s that carved Africa up, entrenched the colonialist agenda and dislocated the continent from determining its own destiny.

Already multinationals and finance institutions such as the World Bank are lining up to do business with both Egypt and Libya. And while western leaders throw money at the transitional leaders of these emerging democracies, Egyptian civil society is rightly questioning the motives of Western countries that less than a year ago were happy to prop up both Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi. Kinda Mohamadieh, of the Arab NGO Network for Development warns that transitional governments are not appropriate vehicles for long-term economic adjustments and could be consigning their successors to harsh neo-liberal policies that cannot be easily escaped.

Moreover, a military foothold in Africa is a long-term strategy of the US. Having observed the result of military invasions across Central and Latin America as well as the geo-military chaos in the Middle East, African countries rightly refused to host the much-reviled Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2008. AFRICOM was rejected by every African country except Liberia, but seems likely to be back on the agenda as imperialist mayhem is once again sowed in an effort to force the African continent into hosting the American military presence. The attempt to import the chaos of the Middle East into Africa is just the justification needed to prop up ‘Brand Africa’ as the hapless victim and to start making moves on Somalia, Sudan and the Great Lakes region.

While claiming that it wants to reduce its military influence abroad, the US unconvincingly asserts that AFRICOM will support “leadership and peace building.” But when AFRICOM first emerged on the scene, Theresa Whelan, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for African Affairs was far more candid about America’s true intentions. “Natural resources represent Africa’s current and future wealth, but in a fair market environment, many benefit,” she said.

The recent invasion of Libya and the NATO inspired regime change is playing itself out as a clear and tragic replica of the fall of Iraq. The architecture of Iraq’s fall was built around myths and half-truths. Just as the “War on Terror” was the excuse the US needed to wreak havoc on civilians in Iraq under the cloak of “liberating” them from a despotic leader, so too has “freeing” Libyans provided a tenuous but determined foothold for the exploitation of the country’s oil wealth.

It seems inevitable that after Libya, the unholy Western alliance will pursue Algeria, with its huge energy resources and cash reserves. Again, imperial media mythology ignores patently self-interested motives for invading sovereign states and subverting African led processes. Instead, Western media propagate the myths of the “official” storyline, which in Libya’s case included the bizarre claim that Gaddafi’s soldiers were Viagra drugged to perpetrate mass rape. With no evidence other than an unverifiable, fuzzy cell phone video, Hillary Clinton and Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, peddled this lie even while Amnesty International reported that they had found no such evidence.

Manufacturing illegitimate wars in Africa to galvanise Western economies that are still in depression can only accelerate Western decline. Foreign invasion and war mongering are expensive and neo-imperialism has left Western countries practically bankrupt. America alone has a debt of $US14,000 trillion, while France, Great Britain and Italy each have enormous public deficits compared to less than US$400 billion in public debt for 46 of the 54 African countries combined.

While Western media houses continue their complicity in promoting ‘anti history’, the African continent as opposed to “Africa, the basket case” is ascending.

Cameroonian, Jean-Paul Pougala, sums it up perfectly in an article on why the West went after Gaddafi when he writes, “As the American economist Adam Smith predicted in 1865 when he publicly backed Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery, ‘the economy of any country which relies on the slavery of blacks is destined to descend into hell the day those countries awaken’.”

Pheko is Executive Director at NGO/think-tank, the Trade Collective and is Africa co-convener of the World Dignity Forum. This article is republished with permission from the South Africa Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS).

Lost on the way to Dohagram Angorpota (REPORT)

By Nicolas Haque

In the northern districts where Bangladesh meets India, there are no street signs to tell you where you are. 

So after hours of driving down narrow roads flanked by verdant green paddy fields, my cameraman and I had to admit we were lost. 

Thankfully, we spotted a fire station where a jovial fire chief greeted us. We asked him for directions to Dohagram Angorpota, a Bangladeshi enclave inside Indian Territory. 

He told us that he knew exactly where it was because it is an area he has been assigned to cover - at least during the day.

“If there is a blaze during the day my men can be there in no time at all, but if there is a fire after six o'clock in the evening, the people there have to handle it on their own," he said, as he twirled his perfectly parted moustache.    

Indian border guards control the access points to this Bangladeshi village inside the Indian Territory. 

At night they close off the parameters of the area, effectively locking thousands of people inside their community and sealing it off from outsiders.  

There are 55 such enclaves in India and 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh. 

The enclaves were created hundreds of years ago when the region was one territory. Landlords and kings would play a game called pasha in which they bet parcels of their land. 

A recent head count organised by the two countries revealed that 51,000 people live in these no man's lands.

Last July, enclave inhabitants on both sides were asked to choose which country they wanted to belong to. It turned out that feelings of national allegiance went hand-in-hand with religious beliefs. 

The people of Dohogram Angorpota said they would prefer to be Bangladeshi. Most in this enclave are Muslim and feel closer to Bangladesh, a Muslim majority country. 

Similarly, residents of the Indian enclaves inside of Bangladesh are overwhelmingly Hindu and they seek allegiance to India. 

Rezaul Rahman, the headmaster of Dohogram primary school, says: "There is no religious tension, just closer affinities." 

At his school, pupils already consider themselves Bangladeshi. 

They start each day by singing the Bangladeshi national anthem together and they follow a Bangladeshi curriculum, even though students at all the schools around them follow the Indian system. 

Authorities from Bangladesh have officially asked India to grant it 24-hour access to Dohogram Angorpota. 

People here have set their hopes high for the outcome of the Indian Prime Minister Mamohan Singh’s two-day visit to Bangladesh, which begins on Tuesday. 

One of the most important issues under discussion during the visit is the signing of an agreement that formally recognises each other's enclaves.

Shortly after Bangladeshi independence in 1975, Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Muja and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came to an agreement over these parcels of land. 

But Sheikh Muja was assassinated before the agreement was signed. 

His daughter, Sheikh Hasina is now the country’s prime minister and she is determined to finalise the agreements made by her father.  

For people living in enclaves, the agreement means the formal recognition of a national identity which continues to be strong. 

The people I met in Dohagram Angorpota have been yearning for this sense of belonging and for the recognition of a nation they desire to belong to.

Originally published by Al Jazeera under Creative Commons Licensing 

UN Backers Blast Draconian US Bill to Reduce UN Budget (REPORT)

Palestinian youths in a refugee camp. Proposed cuts would severely curtail aid to millions of refugees in the Palestinian Territory and three countries. CREDIT: Nora Stribrna(HN, UPDATED September 6, 2011 0637GMT) - Supporters of the United Nations are lashing out at proposed US legislation that would slash Washington's support to the world body, threaten crucial overseas programmes and peacekeeping operations, and possibly strangle UN support to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and three countries.

The bill, proposed by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and known as H.R. 2829, threatens funding to the UN from the US, which accounts for 22 percent of the world body's budget.

The bill by Ros-Lehtinen, who is also the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, proposes that countries be allowed to decide how much to pay and which programs they will support, rather than the current arrangement of assessing payments based on a formula.

Moreover, the bill, if passed, would end funding for Palestinian refugees, limit use of U.S. funds to only purposes outlined by Congress and put a hold on creating or expanding peacekeeping operations until management changes are made. Support to the controversial UN Human Rights Council (HRC) would also be cut under the bill.

“We need a UN which will advance the noble goals for which it was founded,” Ros-Lehtinen of Florida said in a statement. “The current UN continues to be plagued by scandal, mismanagement and inaction, and its agenda is frequently hijacked by rogue regimes which protect each other while targeting free democracies like the U.S. and Israel.”

Critics say the bill does nothing to promote reform, transparency and accountability at the UN.

UN police working alongside counterparts in Haiti. CREDIT: UN"This legislation does not bring us any closer to achieving those laudable goals.  H.R 2829 would not only undermine real progress toward reform at the United Nations, but would also return the U.S. to an era of debt and ineffective leadership," said a statement by the Better World Campaign, a non-profit backed by billionaire philanthropist Ted Turner that works on bettering relations between the US and the US.

“We believe in UN reform,” she said. “We just don’t think this is the right way to go about it.”

The U.S. pays 22 percent of the UN’s regular operations budget and is assessed 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. U.S. payments totaled $3.35 billion in 2010, of which $2.67 billion was dedicated to the 16 peacekeeping operations worldwide, from South Sudan and Ivory Coast to Haiti.

As of July 2011, the UN peackeeping force consisted of almost 120,000 military, police and civilian personnel from 114 countries.

In recent times, the behaviour of UN peacekeepers has stirred controversy. The UN has confirmed that an investigation has been launched into alleged sexual exploitation and abuse involving Uruguayan UN peacekeepers in Haiti.

The bill already has 57 co-sponsors - all Republicans - and could obtain widespread support in a Republican-controlled House. However, opposition is already being generated in the Senate and it is highly unlikely to get support from President Barack Obama.

“We oppose this legislation,” said Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman. She said the measure would cut by half U.S. funding for the U.N and “dangerously weaken the UN.”

A Palestinian girl at a refugee camp. Many young Palestinians know of no other life than growing up in a camp. CREDIT: Nora Stribrna“We believe in UN reform,” she said. “We just don’t think this is the right way to go about it.”

Aside from budget support, the US already has significant political influence over key UN agencies: it regularly selects appointees for the head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

Ending funding for Palestinian refugees - about 5 million of whom are living under UN-run camps in the Palestinian Territory, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon - would likely put the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) out of business.

It could also seriously damage relationships with Arab states that have recently been transformed in the "Arab Spring."

The bill is gaining momentum as as the UN General Assembly prepares to vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood regardless of the outcome of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

Better World and others say most Americans support the world body - pointing to recent bi-partisan research that found the UN is considered as an important global forum and organization that is still needed today, and the majority of Americans believe the United States should be actively engaged at the United Nations. The survey also showed that Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike support paying UN and UN peacekeeping dues on time and in full. 

- Agencies, HUMNEWS staff. Special thanks to Nora Stribrna for photography.

Migrants Terrified in Nearly-Liberated Tripoli (NEWS BRIEF)

Migrants fleeing Libya several months ago. CREDIT: UN(HN, September 3, 2011) - As rebel groups fight to liberate Tripoli, the UN and other aid agencies are receiving an increasing number of reports of migrants in need of assistance and protection.

Individual migrants say they are scared to leave their homes for fear of being arrested or killed, claiming that even documented migrants are afraid to go out and find food and water because others have done so and have not returned home. 

Part of the problem may be that some migrants are being mistaken as mercenaries employed by Libya's former leader Moammar Gadhafi - many of whom are from other African nations.

“Sub-Saharan Africans, they are either perceived to have been mercenaries or associated with mercenaries. So that is a possible reason for why they would be targeted. I’m not sure. I cannot really say that this is the case for every single story that we have heard.  But certainly it is a factor,” IOM spokesperson Jemini Pandya said at a news briefing in Geneva monitored by HUMNEWS.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), despite a slow improvement of the situation in Tripoli where there is limited access to food, potable water and fuel, the security situation nevertheless remains potentially volatile. 

Although there are no reliable figures on the existing migrant population in Tripoli and from growing number of anecdotal reports, it is clear there are a high number of very vulnerable migrants in the city. Other organizations are also alerting IOM to migrant groups they have come across and who are in need of help. 

Most of the migrants are from African countries such as Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Ghana, Niger, Mali and Ethiopia. A maid employed by one of Gadhafi's sons and tortured almost beyond recognition is Ethiopian.

Most migrants are deliberately not congregating in large numbers to avoid being conspicuous or targeted. Access to Sub-Saharan migrants is still being hampered by security issues and individually-constructed check-points or because the migrants are afraid to meet.

While many of the migrants want IOM to help them leave Libya, others don't. Among them are a group of 800 Sub-Saharan Africans stranded at a fishing port who are either too scared to return to their home countries and want asylum or who have no prospect of a livelihood upon returning. 

The significant increase in food prices and either limited or no access to funds to buy what is available means there are ever-growing numbers of migrants in need of humanitarian assistance. 

"Access to food is clearly a major issue for migrants in Tripoli. The first group of migrants IOM evacuated from Tripoli last week were really hungry. As a result we increased our food supplies on subsequent evacuations," says IOM Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Pasquale Lupoli.

Meanwhile, IOM staff in Tripoli are continuing to work to access vulnerable migrants. For those who want to leave Libya, the Organization is now working on an evacuation operation by road. 

Nearly 1,600 migrants and vulnerable Libyans have been evacuated by IOM by boat from Tripoli so far.

- IOM, HUMNEWS staff

Magnitude of Social Exclusion Higher in Areas Hit by Environmental Disasters (REPORT)

An elderly Ukrainian woman photographed near Chernobyl by Olena Serbyn-Sullivan. Credit: M. Bociurkiw/HUMNEWS (HN, September 1, 2011) - The magnitude of social exclusion is 15 percent higher in areas affected by environmental disaster than in areas where such disasters have not occurred, according to a new study.

The Social Exclusion Survey, produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), finds that, from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to the depletion of the Aral Sea, these events have an impact on the social fabric of the affected communities.

The report found the impact is significant and disproportionately felt by young people.

Addressing which type of exclusion is more prominent, the report found that in areas with environmental damage, it is economic exclusion that accounts for the biggest share (38 percent) of the social exclusion index, as opposed to exclusion from social services in non-affected areas.  One way to interpret this is that environmental disasters hit the economy by disrupting production linkages and forcing qualified workers to migrate. Investments are also likely to decline.

An interesting finding from the survey is that environmental disasters might also have unexpected positive externalities. Exclusion from participation in civic and social life contributes least to social exclusion in affected areas. This might seem counter intuitive but, as the recent case of the tsunami in Japan has shown, environmental disasters encourage people to rely on informal networks and community action. 

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 was the most severe in the history of the nuclear power industry, causing a huge release of radionuclides over large areas of Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Today in the affected region, many people still complain of health problems and the disaster is linked, in part, to the mistrust in government in Ukraine.

The Aral Sea was once the fourth biggest inland sea in the world, but widespread mismanagement of resources that started in the sixties caused water levels to drop to alarmingly low levels. The sea is literally dying.

- UNDP, HUMNEWS staff