Friday, September 11, 2009

Zimbabwe sanctions dominate S.Africa-EU summit

by Fran Blandy Fran Blandy – 1 hr 1 min ago

KLEINMOND, South Africa (AFP) – South Africa lobbied the European Union to drop sanctions against its troubled neighbour Zimbabwe Friday on the eve of a landmark trip to Harare by a delegation from Brussels.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the EU presidency, began talks Friday with South African President Jacob Zuma which are also to focus on efforts to increase flourishing trade.

But the summit was in danger of being overshadowed by differences over Zimbabwe, with South Africa determined to push for an end to sanctions even though Reinfeldt has insisted the EU is not ready to lift them.

Zuma and other leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) called this week for an end to the sanctions against veteran President Robert Mugabe, and he made clear that he will push the same demand with Reinfeldt.

"We are saying both of us understand where SADC comes from and where the EU comes from. But we are saying precisely because of that we need to engage so we can try and persuade the EU to lift sanctions," Zuma said on Thursday.

An EU delegation is to visit Zimbabwe this weekend, six months after the signing of a unity accord between Mugabe and his long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai who was appointed prime minister under the agreement.

"Hopefully that will give us an on the spot description and possibility to learn more about the actual situation in Zimbabwe and we welcome that very much," Reinfeldt said during opening remarks at Friday's summit.

The Swedish premier has however said the visit is not in preparation to lift sanctions, maintaining that the measures will be kept in place.

"I want to be clear: the EU is not prepared (for) lifting the restrictions we have on Zimbabwe," he said at a public address in Johannesburg Thursday.

"It is not the restrictions that are creating problems in Zimbabwe, it is the mismanagement ... not respecting of human rights."

Britain and other EU countries imposed a travel ban and freeze on bank accounts belonging to Mugabe and his inner circle, over claims that he rigged a 2002 election and allegations of rights abuses.

But African nations insist progress has been made with the signing of the unity accord which was negotiated by South Africa after disputed elections last year.

Mugabe has blamed the sanctions for his country's problems, including a crippling economic crisis which saw Zimbabwe lumbered with the world's highest rate of inflation before it abandoned the local currency.

Although the unity government has brought a degree of stability, Tsvangirai's party says its members still face persecution.

Zuma argues that an end to the sanctions will help stabilise events in Harare.

"Once you have got sanctions there are things you cannot do in Zimbabwe, but if the sanctions are not there you give more scope for that agreement to be implemented. That is the point we are making."

Aid commissioner Karel de Gucht will lead the highest-level EU mission to Zimbabwe in seven years, to meet Mugabe and Tsvangirai on Saturday and Sunday.

Government officials in Harare said in the state-run Herald newspaper Friday that they expected the EU not only to end the sanctions but apologise for their imposition in the first place.

"There can be no ties where one nation is treated as inferior. It is not in our national interest to allow foreigners to dictate to us how we should govern ourselves," an information ministry official said.

Other African hotspots like Sudan and Somalia will also feature at Friday's talks along with issues of climate change.

The EU is South Africa's biggest trade and development partner, accounting for 80 percent of foreign direct investment in the country which is the EU's biggest export region.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090911/wl_afp/safricaeusummitdiplomacy_20090911121853;_ylt=Ah4yvEai4X5O4gEGO_JsQgIV6w8F;_ylu=X3oDMTE2ZXFmcmFrBHBvcwMyBHNlYwN5bi1yLWItbGVmdARzbGsDZXYtemltYmFid2Vz

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Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Obama to seal US-UN relationship

Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council.

The topic for the summit-level session of the council on September 24 is nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament – one of several global challenges that the US now wants to see addressed at a multinational level.

“The council has a very important role to play in preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and it’s the world’s principal body for dealing with global security cooperation,” Susan Rice, US envoy to the UN, said last week.

Her remarks were the latest by the Obama administration to emphasise a shift from the strategy of the previous Bush administration, sometimes criticised by its UN partners for seeking to use the world body principally to endorse its own unilateral policies. The US currently holds the month-long rotating presidency of the Security Council.

Mr Obama will join other heads of government in New York during the week of the nuclear summit for the opening of the 64th session of the UN General Assembly. The annual meeting of world leaders is this year raising expectations on a number of fronts.

UN officials hope a climate change debate on September 22 will give fresh impetus to the search for a global climate deal at Copenhagen in December. There are also hopes a possible meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, that Mr Obama would host, could lead to a breakthrough about a timetable for Middle East peace.

Heads of state are also likely to consider how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Mr Obama gave Tehran a September deadline to reply to his offer of negotiations. Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad will attend the General Assembly “to encourage Iranian views in managing the world,” an aide said.

US officials are concerned Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi might try to steal the limelight during his first visit to New York. A public outcry at the Libyan leader’s visit after he last month welcomed home Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the freed Lockerbie bomber, has already stymied his plans to pitch his tent in Central Park.

“How President Gaddafi chooses to comport himself, when he attends the General Assembly and the Security Council in New York, has the potential either to further aggravate those feelings and emotions or not,” Ms Rice said.

The State Department has not ruled out the possibility that Mr Obama and Colonel Gaddafi would cross paths. They are both due to address the General Assembly on the same day, and the Libyan leader, whose country is a temporary member of the Security Council, is entitled to attend the nuclear summit session that Mr Obama will chair.

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By Harvey Morris at the United Nations

Published: September 8 2009 19:59 | Last updated: September 8 2009 19:59

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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

UFO 'filmed for 40 minutes' as Chinese scientists prepare to study footage for a year in hopes of proving we are not alone Mail Online

UFO 'filmed for 40 minutes' by Chinese scientists during solar eclipse

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 12:25 PM on 07th September 2009

Could this finally be it - 40 minutes of undisputed proof that we are not alone?

Scientists at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, China believe it is a real possibility that this footage of an unidentified flying object is the evidence we have all been waiting for.

They have confirmed 40 minutes of footage of the object was captured during this summer's solar eclipse - and that research has already started on a year-long investigation to find out what it is.

Is it what we think it might be? A still image taken during the sighting of what appears to be a UFO that appeared over China during the July 22 solar eclipse

Enlarge

The cigar-shaped object that was captured during the solar eclipse

And the scientists were not the only ones to capture the walnut-shaped object on camera.

The clear, daylight sighting occurred over Deqing in Guandong Province. Dozens of students claimed to have seen the object sailing through the air during a rooftop observation of the July 22 solar eclipse.

At least nine of the students photographed it, producing such incredible images as those here.

The UFO was also seen to change colour and shape, with the students claiming it initially appeared to be a glowing blue colour, but later darkened.

Watch a Chinese news report on the sightings, including images of the object, here:

Yesterday Chinese media outlet Sina.com reported that the Purple Mountain Observatory and Chinese Academy of Sciences claimed:

'China had discovered near the sun, by observation staff, an unidentified object. Its physical nature remains to be further studied.

'Currently manpower is being organised to deal with this data, complete the data analysis and reveal the scientific results. This will take at least one year's time to finalise.

'Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences Fellow Ji Hai-sheng said at present it is impossible to speculate what the unidentified object is.

'However research has started.'

The UFO world is already waiting with bated breath for the results to come in.

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Monday, September 7, 2009

On health debate, Moyers urges Obama ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy’

BILL MOYERS: The editors of THE ECONOMIST magazine say America's health care debate has become a touch delirious, with people accusing each other of being evil-mongers, dealers in death, and un-American.

Well, that's charitable.

I would say it's more deranged than delirious, and definitely not un-American.

Those crackpots on the right praying for Obama to die and be sent to hell — they're the warp and woof of home-grown nuttiness. So is the creature from the Second Amendment who showed up at the President's rally armed to the teeth. He's certainly one of us. Red, white, and blue kooks are as American as apple pie and conspiracy theories.

Bill Maher asked me on his show last week if America is still a great nation. I should've said it's the greatest show on earth. Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we're the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con-men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today's talk radio.

Speaking of which: we've posted on our website an essay by the media scholar Henry Giroux. He describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a "culture of cruelty" increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence toward any political figure who believes health care reform is the most vital of safety nets, especially now that the central issue of life and politics is no longer about working to get ahead, but struggling simply to survive.

So here we are, wallowing in our dysfunction. Governed — if you listen to the rabble rousers — by a black nationalist from Kenya smuggled into the United States to kill Sarah Palin's baby. And yes, I could almost buy their belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, only I think he shipped them to Washington, where they've been recycled as lobbyists and trained in the alchemy of money laundering, which turns an old-fashioned bribe into a First Amendment right.

Only in a fantasy capital like Washington could Sunday morning talk shows become the high church of conventional wisdom, with partisan shills treated as holy men whose gospel of prosperity always seems to boil down to lower taxes for the rich.

Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him..

No one's ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying "pretty please" to the guys trying to cut your throat.

Let's get on with it, Mr. President. We're up the proverbial creek with spaghetti as our paddle. This health care thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution — the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as General Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory "Made in the USA." We could have said to the world, "Look what we did!" And we could have turned to each other and said, "thank you."

As it is, we're about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

As we speak, Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, has been fined a record $2.3 billion dollars as a civil and criminal — yes, that's criminal, as in fraud — penalty for promoting prescription drugs with the subtlety of the Russian mafia. It's the fourth time in a decade Pfizer's been called on the carpet — and these are the people into whose tender mercies Congress and the White House would deliver us?

Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want.. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company's share price and profits..

Here's a suggestion, Mr. President: ask Josh Marshall to draft your speech. Josh is the founder of the website talkingpointsmemo.com. He's a journalist and historian, not a politician. He doesn't split things down the middle and call it a victory for the masses. He's offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan; one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you're 65? Check it out, Mr. President.

This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.

That's it for the Journal. I'm Bill Moyers. See you next time.