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Heated Climate Change Debates rage on after Climate Action Summit at UNGA

By Sarah Abed | September 26, 2019

The 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is in full swing in New York this week with discussions and debates ranging from climate change to trade deals and the growing tensions in the Middle East.

A few days prior to the UNGA however, there was a climate strike on September 20th. Participation took place in dozens of cities around the world with the largest being in New York and led by Greta Thunberg a Swedish youth climate activist who began the “Fridays for the Future” movement last year.

On Monday, the UNGA was mostly focused on the Climate Action Summit and for the first time high-level meetings and discussions about Universal Health Care (UHC) were covered in what is considered to be the most significant political meeting on UHC thus far.

The Climate Action Summit was hosted by Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres who started his speech by saying that nature is angry and we fool ourselves if we think we can fool nature because nature always strikes back and around the world nature is striking back with fury. Young adults and children demanded a response for climate change. A few took the stage including Greta Thunberg who started her first climate strike a year ago. When asked her message to world leaders she passionately began with “my message is we’ll be watching you”… she said we are in the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and economic growth, how dare you”.

Mr. Guterres gave a sense of urgency that we are in a race against time and must do everything in our power to stop the climate from warming before it stops us.

After the Climate Action Summit scientists and researchers have new data to study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The United Nations Environmental Program delegation was in NY for the UNGA and highlighted how governments, citizens, and civil society can take productive action when it comes to the environment, climate and sustainable development goals. UNEP highlights and updates are outlined on their site.

Philipino representatives delivered a statement on behalf of their country on Monday, during a meeting on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) stating that President Rodrigo Duterte passed a UHC law earlier this year that provides free basic services to all.

The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi said that his nation will be spending $50 billion on water conservation in the new few years, signaling the high importance of water management and he also pledged to more than double India’s non-fossil fuel target to 400 gigawatts.

President Trump stated on Tuesday, that he is “ready, willing and able” to mediate the “complex” Kashmir issue if both Pakistan and India wanted him to get involved.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, a Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) took place.

Also on Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke about global injustice and highlighted a number of problems which threaten global peace and security saying, “The international community is losing the ability to find lasting solutions to challenges such as terrorism, hunger, misery, climate change” he criticized world powers for failing to take appropriate action to deal with crises around the globe. He also called for world leaders to support his plan for a safe zone to be established in Syria, he said that if the “peace corridor” is extended to the Deir El-Zor-Raqqa area that 3 million Syrian refuges can safely return home.

During his speech President Erdogan held up four maps illustrating Israel’s disregard for borders and its gradual occupation of Palestinian land. He also held up a map showing the safezone he wants to establish in Syria on his southern border. Erdogan likened the suffering of the people of Gaza to that of the holocaust.

President Erdogan also called on UN members to help support Turkey’s efforts to ensure security in Syria’s Idlib. He has mentioned previously that with or without the US’s support he will establish a safe zone on his southern borders to push back US-sponsored and backed Kurdish militias and help Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey return home.

US President Donald Trump led the Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom and introduced initiatives to end religious persecution on Tuesday, as well. During his press conference on Wednesday he proudly proclaimed that he is the first to lead a global call on this matter.

The launch of Hello Global Goals Collaboration took place on Tuesday with Japanese character Hello Kitty in the SDG Media Zone which has been a main feature of the UNGA high-level week conference since 2016. The SDG Media Zone brings together UN Member states, content creators, activists, influencers, media partners and highlights actions and solutions in support of Sustainable Development Goals. The SDG Media Zone offers impactful in-depth interviews, Ted-style talks, panel discussion and advances the 2030 Agenda, using impactful, dynamic, and in-depth conversations with decision makers, etc. Its events are live streamed on UN WebTV and focused on the main themes of the week including climate change, universal healthcare, financing for development and small island developing states.

On Thursday, a dialogue on Financing for Development (FFD) and a meeting on the elimination of nuclear weapons is taking place.

On Friday, the UNGA is holding a meeting to review progress made in addressing the priorities of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) through the implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway.

All of this relates to the 2030 UN Agenda, which is a plan of action for people, the planet, and prosperity and is supposedly meant to strength universal peace in larger freedom, however some think this plan has a sinister underlying agenda and should be looked into further.

Sarah Abed is a political analyst with BRICS.

September 26, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

US refusal to issue visas to Russian UN General Assembly delegates is ‘political move’ – senator

RT | September 24, 2019

The chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s international affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachyov, has described the US’ refusal to issue entry visas to a number of Russian delegates to the UN General Assembly session as a political decision.

“The US deliberately took a move to delay the issuance of visas. This is obviously a political, not a technical decision,” he was quoted as saying. The Russian delegation had asked for visas 55 days ago, the senator noted. “Such actions by the American side require a ‘painful’ response from Russia,” Kosachyov told reporters.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier that the US has broken international rules by failing to issue visas to Russian senators, adding that a tough response from both Moscow and the United Nations is needed.

September 24, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 2 Comments

Syrian government & opposition finally form constitutional committee, seen as cornerstone of peaceful resolution to 9yo war

RT | September 23, 2019

A committee that will write a new constitution for Syria, a key part of the political transition in a war-torn country, has finally been formed with the United Nations’ backing, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced.

The body will convene within weeks for the first time, Guterres told reporters on the sidelines of a UN climate summit in New York. He thanked Russia, Iran, and Turkey, the three countries that have been pushing for years to see the creation of the committee as part of the so-called Astana process.

Geir Pedersen, the UN’s Special Envoy for Syria, said the breakthrough came on Monday following meetings with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and Naser al-Hariri, who represents the opposition’s Syrian Negotiations Committee.

The constitutional committee is expected to agree on Syria’s new basic law, which will hopefully secure its future as a nation respecting the religious, political, and ethnic differences of the many groups living there.

The 150-seat body will have equal representation from the Syrian government, the opposition, and civil groups. It will be based in Geneva under UN auspices.

September 23, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Peace vs. Climate

By Peter Koenig | The Saker Blog | September 23, 2019

Today, Monday 23 September, the UN in New York is hosting a special meeting on Climate Change. There were massive predominantly youth demonstrations of tens of thousands around the globe, many of them in New York, one of them led by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish 16-year-old climate activist, who is sponsored mostly by Soros and his clan to travel around the world and address world leaders to act on climate chance – preventing climate change, stop climate change. Others with the same objective, called “Friday’s for the Future”, originated in Germany, students striking every Friday – meaning literally not going to school, on behalf of stopping climate change.

The worldwide spill-over is apparently enormous. On Saturday some youth groups met with UN Secretary General, António Guterres, telling him that Climate Change is the world’s political issue number ONE. Mr. Guterres did not contradict, yes, it was a key problem and had to be addressed and world leaders needed to commit to take actions. The UN General assembly will further dedicate part of its program to Climate Change.

Wait a minute – Climate Change number ONE? – How about PEACE? – Nobody thought about that? Not even Guterres, whose mandate it is to lead the world body towards conflict solutions that bring PEACE – this is the very mandate that the UN has been founded on. Not climate, but PEACE.

Have these western kids, mostly from elite ranks, been brainwashed to the extent that they do not realize that the world has other priorities, namely stop the indiscriminate killing, by never ending US-launched and instigated wars around the globe?

Do they not realize that their brothers and sisters in Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and in many more places of conflict and extreme poverty, are being killed left and right by the US-NATO killing machine, by famine, by war-related diseases, and by US vassal states, the very nations from where they, the rich kids, come to protest against climate change, but NOT against war? When do they wake up to reality? Maybe never, or when it’s too late – when even they are being bombed by the never-ending neoliberal greed-driven wars.

Do they know that these wars and conflicts, carried out directly or through proxies by US-NATO forces have killed between 20 and 25 million people since WWII alone, and between 12 and 15 million since 9/11? – Isn’t stopping this killing more important than vouching for a cause that arrogant human kind cannot stop – simply because climate change has been part of nature of the last 4 billion years of Mother Earth’s existence.

But it’s typical for mankind’s arrogance to believe and especially make believe to the masses that we, they, have the power to influence Mother Earth’s climate, and those who say Mother Earth, say Universe, because all is connected, and if we want to look very close we have to look at our sun which has enormous influence on our climate, much more than we want to admit; our sun, the source of life on earth together with water resources – that’s what we have to protect – and work for PEACE.

Screaming and hollering for something where mankind is important to do anything about is a waste of energy, but also a deviation from the real issue: How to stop war and achieve world PEACE. And even if we could influence climate, let’s just assume for a moment we could change the course of climate – do you, Greta and the Friday kids – and perhaps you too, Mr. Guterres – know that these wars that kill millions of people, are the largest Co2 / greenhouse gas producers by far – and this is pointing the finger straight to the US – NATO military complex – more than half! – And do you know, that up to now, none of the climate conferences – of these international glamour events, where politicians talk, promise but never follow their promises – that the military / war-caused Co2 pollution is never allowed to be addressed in these conferences? – So, what good do they do?

Do you also know, that the half a dozen or so huge climate conferences that cost a fortune for zilch, have brought absolutely no change to climate whatsoever? – First, because they can’t, since we are not the masters over Mother Earth – thank god! And second, because the politicians, especially in the western world, those that we call our leaders, are in bed with the corporate and finance key polluters? They are bought by them, the huge profit-making industries; profits they would not be able to make without the almost indiscriminate use of hydrocarbons. Our politicians, “leaders” (sic) would never even dare talking seriously about legislation that would prevent them from contaminating our atmosphere with greenhouse gases. No. Never. Not in the turbo-capitalist private sector dominated west.

At every one of these conferences Armageddon is being painted on the wall – in 5 years, 10 years, in 30 years in the best of cases – well, more than 20 years have passed since the first UN-sponsored Conference on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 – and we are still ticking, still propagating the same slogans – still spreading he same fear mongering – temps will rise by 3 degrees, by 5 degrees, but they are allowed only to rise by 2.5 degrees C – says WE, the masters of the universe. WOW! – Doesn’t that sound a bit arrogant, when you think about it?

But, in case you didn’t know, dear Greta crowd and Friday kids, and you Mr. Guterres too, PEACE is more important, frankly, than climate change. PEACE is and ought to be number ONE of our political agenda, of the UN agenda. Climate will happen with or without us; yes, it changes, it changes all the time. But get this, we humans, can’t stop it from changing. What this climate hype does, is allow and prompti a plethora of new taxes, polluter taxes to be collected from the common people, from you and me.

Corporations will be exempt from them. This means shuffling again trillions of dollars up the ladder from the poor to the rich, as always happens when the corporate finance dominated west wants to milk some more accumulated social capital from the working class to the upper echelons. – and climate is an excellent tool for it. Mr. Soros, you got it once again right. But you, Mr. Guterres, have been elected to lead the world through the UN system to PEACE, not to stop the climate from changing.

Trillions are being collected; they will end up in the banks, will become yet another derivative to be blown into a balloon that is predestined to burst one day – and the system collapses again. We know about these bubbles – but keep creating new ones. Does anybody dare to ask, or want to know what will be done with these newly collected trillions? How are they going to be applied to stop the climate from changing?

Nobody really cares. Once we guilt-driven Judeo-Christians have paid our dues, our conscience goes to rest – and we sleep well again, while nothing changes. Not climate change, nothing.

There may be better ideas, Mr. Guterres, if you want to do something for PEACE and for the environment, why not a special conference on banning plastic, the production of useless plastic – plastic as in plastic bottles – billions being used per day and less than 5% are recycled, the rest ends up in the sea, in stomachs of fish and birds, – in our own bodies in the form of microplastic. Stop plastic for packaging food and all sorts of consumables – packaged in plastic – unnecessarily so. Why? Because you would have to convert a whole plastic packaging industry, bottling industry – and you would have to convince the Nestlés and Coca Colas of this world to change their concept – perhaps going as far as abandoning their chief business, selling water in bottles. In addition to the use of plastic bottles, this has become, as we know, in many countries, including in the USA a socioenvironmental calamity.

You, Mr. Guterres, could request the western world to stop wasting 30% or more of our food. Yes, wasting, as in throwing it away, even though it would be perfectly fine to be used, But throwing it away brings more profit. – You could also launch a motion to prohibit all speculation with food stuff, grains – which would make food more affordable and could prevent many famines. Saving food for redistribution to those that need it, might – would – also contribute to peace.

How about this kind of an approach – an approach towards Peace and a protected environment. This would be something extraordinary – youth for PEACE and youth for a better distribution of food, and youth for a serious protection of our environment. Mr. Soros and his allies may not like it, because demonstrating against Climate Change, making a publicity hype of Climate Change – is clearly a deviation from ongoing wars that kill – millions and millions – in the name of profit and dominance – and eventually hegemony over the world’s resources and people.

Kids, ask the UN for achievable goals – for PEACE. It’s not easy, but it’s a worthwhile goal which we, mankind with a conscience are able to achieve.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.  Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

September 23, 2019 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | 8 Comments

UN slams US and allied forces for war crimes & civilian targeting in Syria

RT | September 13, 2019

The UN Commission of Inquiry slammed war crimes committed against civilians in Syria by US and allied forces, in a new report that describes how nine years of war has left some parts of the nation “near complete destruction.”

Civilians continue to “bear the brunt of hostilities” at the hands of all parties in the conflict, declares the report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, published on Wednesday. However, it singles out the US-led international coalition for repeated and indiscriminate targeting of non-combatants.

“International coalition forces failed to employ the necessary precautions to discriminate adequately between military objectives and civilians,” the report states, warning that “launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases where such attacks are conducted recklessly.”

US and allied forces are blamed for “widespread destruction of towns and villages in [Deir ez-Zor] Governorate” and the resulting displacement of thousands, many of whom ended up in the notorious Al-Hol camp, where disease and abysmal conditions reign.

In addition to failing to take precautions to minimize harm to civilians, the report cites the “dire humanitarian conditions” suffered by populations caught between the “widespread corruption, extortion, lack of services and security, and abuse of power” by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the remnants of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist group, as well as other groups like the Levant Liberation Organization (also known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Al-Qaeda affiliate), which it accuses of deliberately terrorizing populations living under Syrian government control.

While Syrian government forces are also criticized for their choice of targets, accused of attacking medical facilities and other protected civilian infrastructure in Idlib, and failing to respect a demilitarized zone drawn up with Russia and Turkey, the US remains an uninvited guest in Syria, adding insult to the injuries inflicted by its military.

Another UN body, the Human Rights Commission, released a report last week eviscerating the US, UK, and France for their part in the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where a Saudi Arabia-led coalition has been fighting local forces since 2015. The UN HRC declared that aiding and abetting a war crime – by selling weapons a nation knows will be used in the commission of atrocities – is also a war crime.

September 13, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

New U.N. Report Highlights Human Rights Violations and Abuses in Yemen since 2014

By Sarah Abed | September 5, 2019

The second largest sovereign state in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, has been ravaged by war, deliberate starvation, and cholera for over four years. A 274 page U.N. report released on Tuesday, highlights the human rights situation including violations and abuses since September 2014.

According to the report, which took two years to complete, the United States, France, and Britain may be complicit in war crimes for their involvement in the war in Yemen by not only supplying the weapons being used by the Saudi and United Arab Emirate coalitions, but also providing them with intelligence and logistics support.

The report details the findings of the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen. It was submitted as a supplement to A/HR/42/17. U.N. investigators are recommending that all states impose a ban on arms transfers to the warring parties in order to prevent them from being used to commit serious violations and war crimes.

“It is clear that the continued supply of weapons to parties to the conflict is perpetuating the conflict and prolonging the suffering of the Yemeni people,” Melissa Parke, an expert on the independent U.N. panel, told a news conference. Parke continued, “That is why we are urging member states to no longer supply weapons to parties to the conflict.”

The report states, “The Group of Experts reiterates that steps required to address the human rights and international law violations in Yemen have been continually discussed, and there can no longer be any excuses made for failure to take meaningful steps to address them. The best way to protect the Yemeni population is to stop the fighting by reaching a political settlement which includes measures for accountability.”

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are two of the largest purchasers of U.S. British and French weapons. These weapons are being used to fight against the homegrown Houthi movement which controls Yemen’s capital. The report states, “The legality of arms transfers by France, the United Kingdom, the United States and other States remains questionable, and is the subject of various domestic court proceedings.”

According to the U.N. report, Saudi and UAE coalitions are killing civilians in air strikes, and deliberately denying them food. The report put blame on all sides of the conflict, saying that no one has clean hands.

Kamel Jendoubi, chairperson of the Group of Experts on Yemen a creation of the U.N. Human Rights Council stated, “Five years into the conflict, violations against Yemeni civilians continue unabated, with total disregard for the plight of the people and a lack of international action to hold parties to the conflict accountable.” He also stated “This endemic impunity—for violations and abuses by all parties to the conflict—cannot be tolerated anymore.” Jendoubi concluded, “Impartial and independent inquiries must be empowered to hold accountable those who disrespect the rights of the Yemeni people. The international community must stop turning a blind eye to these violations and the intolerable humanitarian situation.”

Allegations of torture, rape, and murder of suspected political opponents detained in secret facilities by Emirati and affiliated forces have been received by the U.N. panel.

A secret list was sent by an independent panel to U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, identifying “individuals who may be responsible for international crimes” the U.N. report states.

In the appendix, was a separate list identifying more than 160 “main actors” among Saudi, Emirati and Yemeni government and Houthi officials.

Concerns have been raised as to the impartiality and legitimacy of a Joint Incidents Assessment Team set up by Saudi Arabia to review alleged coalition violations, after it failed to hold anyone accountable for air strikes that killed civilians.

The U.N. report comes just a few days after a recent airstrike by the Saudi-led military coalition on a detention center in Yemen on Sunday, killed more than 100 people. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the attack may have amounted to a war crime. The coalition said it was targeting a drones and missiles facility but instead they leveled a building being used as a prison, in the city of Dhamar.

“The location that was hit has been visited by ICRC before,” Franz Rauchenstein, its head of delegation for Yemen, told AFP from Dhamar. “It’s a college building that has been empty and has been used as a detention facility for a while.” Rauchenstein continued, “What is most disturbing is that (the attack was) on a prison. To hit such a building is shocking and saddening – prisoners are protected by international law.” The remaining forty survivors are being treated in hospitals in the city south of the capital Sanaa for their injuries.

Last Thursday, airstrikes hit Yemeni government forces heading to Aden a southern port city, to fight UAE backed separatists. At least 30 troops were killed according to a government commander. The UAE has been known to arm and train separatist militias in southern Yemen. For weeks now, a rift between Saudi and UAE proxies has further complicated matters and civilians are paying the price.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers launched a new effort to end the U.S. government’s involvement in the Saudi-led assault on Yemen, shortly after the latest attacks. Lawmakers are also calling on the Senate to not remove an amendment to the annual defense policy legislation which would prohibit the U.S. from cooperating with Saudi airstrikes. Sanders stated, “We must use Congress’s power of the purse to block every nickel of taxpayer money from going to assist the Saudi dictatorship as it bombs and starves civilians in Yemen.”

Unfortunately, even with the release of this new U.N. report, the likelihood that nations perpetrating war crimes against innocent Yemeni civilians will be held accountable is highly unlikely.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and analyst.

September 5, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

UN calls out US, UK & France for complicity in Yemen war crimes

RT | September 4, 2019

The UN Human Rights Council slammed the US, UK and France for their complicity in alleged war crimes in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition, warning that abetting such crimes by selling arms or other aid is also illegal.

“States that knowingly aid or assist parties to the conflict in Yemen in the commission of violations would be responsible for complicity in the relevant international humanitarian law violations,” the UNHRC’s Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen declared in a lengthy report published on Tuesday.

“With the number of public reports alleging and often establishing serious violations of international humanitarian law no State can claim not to be aware of such violations being perpetrated in Yemen.”

The 274-page report enumerated possible war crimes committed by both sides in the conflict, including airstrikes and shelling, landmines, “siege-like tactics,” attacks on hospitals and other vital infrastructure, arbitrary arrests and executions, torture, and forced conscription of children into combat. The writers claimed to have forwarded the names of top military and political individuals from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and the Houthi movement to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for further investigation and possible prosecution.

The UK and France fall under special scrutiny as signatories to the Arms Trade Treaty, which bars the sale of weapons if a country believes they will be used to commit “mass atrocities.” However, even non-parties to the ATT may face “criminal responsibility for aiding and abetting war crimes” since after five years of fighting “there can no longer be any excuses made for failure to take meaningful steps to address” the humanitarian crisis and international law violations taking place in Yemen.

The UK Court of Appeal ruled in June that the government had “made no attempt” to determine whether Saudi Arabia was using its weapons to violate international law, and while Secretary of State Liam Fox said he would suspend licenses for export to the Saudi coalition, the Department for International Trade said it would appeal the ruling. A rare bipartisan-supported bill to end weapons sales to Saudi Arabia by the US was vetoed in July by President Donald Trump, who complained it would “weaken America’s global competitiveness” and damage relationships with allies. And the French government hid the arms sales from its people entirely, then threatened the journalists who exposed the sales with arrest for publishing confidential information.

The UNHRC report also provided an update on the shocking scale of the humanitarian crisis, revealing that nearly a quarter of the Yemeni population was malnourished at the start of 2019, according to the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, with 230 of 333 districts at risk of famine and 24.1 million people in need of assistance merely to survive.

Also on rt.com:

‘Comical & tragic’ when US officials say arms sales to Saudis are about ‘exporting human rights’

September 4, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

US, Turkey must end illegal military presence on Syria soil: Damascus envoy to UN

Press TV – August 21, 2019

Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar al-Ja’afari has called on the United States and Turkey to end their “illegal military presence” in the Arab country and crimes against civilians.

Speaking at a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session on Middle East peace and security challenges in New York on Tuesday, Ja’afari urged Washington and Ankara to respect the UN Charter’s principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and refrain from using force against them.

“The United States and its allies, including the Turkish occupation forces, must be obliged to end their illegal military presence on Syrian territory and to stop their aggressive practices in support of terrorism and their crimes against Syrians, civilian installations and infrastructure,” he said.

He also criticized Turkey for sending a military convoy carrying ammunition into Syria’s Idlib Province in support of the militants holed up in the embattled region.

The Syrian envoy further highlighted the need for the world body to stay focused on the real root causes of the Middle East conflict, including occupation, acts of aggression and destructive interventions in countries’ domestic affairs — such as those aimed at overthrowing governments by force, investing in terrorism and fabricating crises.

“Success in dealing with the challenges facing the region requires upholding the principles of international law and the provisions of the UN Charter and stopping attempts to distort and manipulate its provisions,” he said.

Ja’afari also described Israel’s occupation of Arab territories as the main reason for the crisis in the region.

“The main cause of the conflicts in the Middle East and the inability to achieve peace and stability has been and continues to be the Israeli occupation of Arab territories, including the occupied Syrian Golan,” he said.

Ja’afari further expressed concerns about Israel’s accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, saying the regime should join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) without delay and subject its facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s safeguards regime.

August 21, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 3 Comments

UNRWA Accusations: (Im)Perfect Timing

Photograph Source: diario fotográfico ‘desde Palestina – CC BY-SA 3.0
By Daniel Warner | CounterPunch | August 8, 2019

A damaging internal report has cast a dark shadow over the ethical behavior of top officials of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). As disclosed by Al Jazeera and AFP, the report cites “credible and corroborated reports” that members of an “inner circle” at the top of UNRWA, including Swiss Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl, have engaged in “sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent, and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives.” The report was sent to UN Secretary-General António Guterres in December.

As one would expect, reactions have been immediate. The Swiss Foreign Ministry has announced that it has “decided to temporarily stop payments to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).” Already in 2018, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis publicly criticized the role of UNRWA, saying it would be impossible to make peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority because “For as long as Palestinians live in refugee camps, they want to return to their homeland,” he said. “For a long time the UNRWA was the solution to this problem, but today it has become part of the problem. It supplies the ammunition to continue the conflict. By supporting the UNRWA, we keep the conflict alive. It’s a perverse logic,” Cassis stated.

The Jewish News Syndicate trumpeted over the scandal: “Revelations of rampant wrongdoing in the corridors of the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) couldn’t have shamed a more worthy organization. Though normally it’s not nice to gloat over the misfortunes of others, the schadenfreude elicited by the news of inappropriate behavior going on behind the walls of this particularly vile organization was warranted.” An Israeli journalist, Ruthie Blum, tried to put another nail in the agency’s coffin: “Nothing short of shutting down UNRWA will be satisfactory since its very existence is a criminal scam…. In the meantime, let us take some comfort in the agency’s well-earned public humiliation.”

“UNRWA is currently running on fumes,” charged U.S. special envoy Jason Greenblatt at the UN Security Council in late May. “It is time to face the reality that the UNRWA model has failed,” he said. “Palestinians in refugee camps were not given the opportunity to build any future; they were misled and used as political pawns,” he added. The United States ended all funding for UNRWA in 2018. “The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation,” the State Department said at the time.

The schism between humanitarianism and politics is not as wide as most believe. Organizations like UNRWA walk a very thin line between assisting all in need and taking sides in conflicts. In response to the current story, UNRWA responded that it “is probably among the most scrutinized U.N. agencies in view of the nature of the conflict and complex and politicized environment it is working in.”

UNRWA was created in 1949 to deal with Palestinians who were displaced during the 1948 war at the creation of the state of Israel. It was established by General Assembly resolution 302 (IV), with the initial mandate to provide “direct relief and works programmes” to Palestine refugees, in order to “prevent conditions of starvation and distress… and to further conditions of peace and stability”. Today, it provides education, health care and social services to more than 5 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Since 2018, with the U.S. withdrawal, it has been in a financial crisis.

While the ethics report deals only with the internal workings of the organization, there is no question that one cannot separate the political from the ethical here. Why are questions being raised now about ethical issues within UNRWA? With continuing tensions between Palestinian authorities and Israel and the Trump administration peace plan still incubating, the report is a cold shower for any hopes of ameliorating the lives of millions of displaced Palestinians. Generations of Palestinians have been stuck in camps, with UNRWA doing all that’s been possible to alleviate their suffering.

Is the report part of a larger strategy? By publicly criticizing UNRWA now, is it hoped that Palestinians will be forced to sign an agreement that will have no promise for the right to return? When the U.S. stopped funding UNRWA, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority suggested it was “using humanitarian aid to blackmail and pressure the Palestinian leadership to submit to the empty plan known as ‘the deal of the century.” Are the latest revelations part of that strategy?

Any serious abuses within UNRWA should be scrutinized and punished. That should go without saying. And organizations like UNRWA, given the sensitivity of their activities, should be especially careful about their actions. That also should go without saying. But the timing of the current revelations certainly come at an opportune moment for those who want to pressure the Palestinians into a peace deal. And what about all the refugees who depend on UNRWA for basic services? Are they once again being forgotten as they have been for 70 years?

August 8, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Palestine’s UN Delegation Criticizes Secretary-General for Not Including Israel on ‘List of Shame’

By Ali Salam | IMEMC | August 4, 2019

To the dismay of Palestine’s delegation to the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres did not include Israel in his new “list of shame”, which includes states committing grave violations against children, despite the figures and statistics in the report about serious violation of rights of children in Palestine, said Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s permanent representative to the UN.

The UN Security Council held in New York yesterday an open debate on the annual UN report on situation of children in times of conflict, which Guterres released on Wednesday.

According to the report, the number of Palestinian children killed or injured reached its highest level in 2018 since 2014. It said 59 were killed in 2018, 56 of them by the Israelis army, nearly a four-fold increase over 2017. In the West Bank, Israeli forces injured 1,398 children in 2018, while in Gaza they injured 1,335 children. The Injuries included permanent disabilities and limb amputations.

It also said 203 children are held in Israeli prisons, most of them in administrative detention, without charge or trial. By the end of December 2018, 87 children were sentenced to serve time in Israeli prisons for resisting the occupation, said the report, and these children are subjected to harsh conditions of detention and ill-treatment.

“The UN secretary-general should include Israel in the ‘list of shame’ and add it to the countries that commit horrendous acts, especially against children,” said Mansour before the start of the session.

He said that not including Israel on the list undercuts efforts to put an end to criminal violations against children around the world and questions the credibility of the list while making it open for criticism and endangers the lives of Palestinian children due to the lack of any kind of accountability to Israel.

Gutierrez instructed his personal representative, Virginia Gamba, to visit the region and occupied Palestine to further investigate what came in the report regarding the injuries and maiming of Palestinian children.

The Palestinian delegation called on Guterres to take into account that the Israeli violations in Palestine were caused by the military occupation, which should be mentioned in the section on Palestine in the report, and to make sure that Israeli practices amount to collective punishment, particularly the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2006.

They also said that since 2000, Israel, the occupying Power, had arrested 10,000 Palestinian children.

“We call on the international community to save an entire generation. The difficult circumstances, humiliation, panic and trauma caused by the detention of the Palestinian child are impeding society and aim at weakening it,” said the delegation.

It attributed Israel’s persistence in its inhuman practices to its enjoyment of international impunity, which protects it from sanctions and accountability.

Human Rights Watch has also criticized the UN secretary-general for not including Israel in the list.

“The UN secretary-general simply refuses to hold to account all warring parties that have inflicted tremendous suffering on children,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “By listing selected violators but not others, Secretary-General Guterres is ignoring the UN’s own evidence and undermining efforts to protect children in conflict.”

Guterres failed to list the Israeli army in the new report as responsible for grave violations against children, including killing and maiming, despite considerable evidence of violations by these parties, said HRW in a press release issued last week.

“Previous reports have also found the Israel Defense Forces responsible for killing and maiming Palestinian children, but the secretary-general has yet to include the Israeli forces in his list of abusers,” it said.

August 4, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

World should cut ties with Israel to deter its new settlements – UN human rights rapporteur

Given international complicity, is cutting ties with Israel possible?

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | July 12, 2019

UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk has suggested that the international community should consider cutting ties with Israel if it goes ahead with further colonial settlement expansion and annexation, according to a report by Al Jazeera. Non-binding requests or suggestions from the UN, however, are unlikely to go beyond rhetoric, given the international community’s political investment in Israel and complicity in the colonial occupation itself.

Had Israel been a country marked for foreign intervention, the international community would have no qualms about implementing Lynk’s suggestions. However, the persistent, non-binding nature of UN recommendations will only serve to create further ambiguous discourse when it comes to Israel and human rights violations.

“The international community has to look at the available menu of countermeasures that is commonly used to a wide range of countries involving gross human rights violations and has to decide what are the appropriate ones to consider to use with respect to Israel,” Lynk told Al Jazeera. Yet the UN is failing repeatedly to consider Israeli colonialism as a “gross human rights violation”. Indeed, the international organisation has served as a platform for Israeli ventures, especially since the state has started to market itself to African countries with regard to sustainable development and agriculture practices. The UN has perpetually excused Israel’s massacres and adopted the colonial entity’s purported security and “self-defence” narrative. In fact, like other entities, the UN has singled out settlement expansion as the only violation worth speaking about.

This begs the question, is the UN seeking out safe measures when it decides to push forward, at least in discourse, the need for punitive measures when it comes to Israel?

Settlement expansion in UN narratives is completely dissociated from the 1948 Nakba and the ongoing colonisation of Palestinian land. It is a subject which enjoys international consensus and which focuses strictly on buildings rather than the ideology and political context behind their construction. When the international community speaks about settlement expansion, it does not draw attention to the resultant Palestinian dispossession, nor does it bring into question the fate of Palestinians and how the right of return for the Palestinian people must be revised to cater for a perpetual, intentional, forced displacement.

Lynk’s argument that Israel’s military occupation will become further entrenched if there is no international economic pressure is not completely accurate. Having positioned and marketed itself to developing countries, Israel has sought to expand its economic possibilities globally. It has prepared itself for possibilities which might see it fall out of favour by extending its reach to countries rich in natural resources. Meanwhile, diplomatically and politically, Israel has gained enough ground to assure itself of minimum repercussions if a hypothetical fallout does occur, which is, by the way, unlikely in any meaningful sense.

Lynk has also suggested the possibility of suspending Israel’s UN membership. This move would be instrumental in implementing the first divide between the international community and the self-styled “Jewish state”. However, Israel is also the UN’s lasting colonial project. As a facilitator of colonialism, it is not in a position to set the rules that penalise Israel. Of course, the Israelis know this. They also know that the UN is much more likely to take measures which restrict Palestinians’ political demands in order to continue its two-state diplomacy. The global level of conspiracy, once again, provides Israel with its greatest level of impunity.

July 12, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment

Iran Says 4 Kidnapped Diplomats in Occupied Palestine, Calls on ICRC to Form Fact-Finding Committee

Al-Manar | July 5, 2019

Iran on Friday said that the four diplomats kidnapped in northern Lebanon in 1982 are in occupied Palestine, calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross to form a fact-finding committee.

Iranian foreign ministry released on Friday a statement marking the 37th anniversary of the abduction of the four diplomats.

“As it has been mentioned over the past years, evidence indicates that the diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon have been handed over to the occupying forces of the Zionist regime and subsequently transferred to the occupied territories and now, are held in prisons of this illegitimate regime,” the statement said.

“Accordingly, and given the occupation of Lebanon at that time by the Zionist regime with the full support of the US, the Islamic Republic of Iran believes that the political and legal responsibility for the abduction and this terrorist action lies with the Zionist regime and its supporters,” the foreign ministry noted.

On July 4, 1982, the four Iranian diplomats were kidnapped by a group of Israeli-backed gunmen at an inspection post in northern Lebanon.

In September 2008, the Lebanese government sent a letter to the then UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, in which Beirut confirmed the abduction of the Iranian diplomats in the Lebanese territory and called for UN action to pursue the case.

The Zionist entity has claimed that the Iranian diplomats were abducted by a Lebanese militant group and killed shortly after their abduction.

July 5, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment

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