June 17, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
From the lies, fraud, and violations of the law that were used in the election, the question of “where is my vote” was born, and you the people, with utmost clarity and without any ambiguity, shouted this question powerfully in a historic, peaceful march on Khordad 25, 1389 [June 15, 2009]. Except for those made blind and deaf by their superstitions and greed, everyone at the national and international levels heard you. But what was the response [of the ruling elite]? Was it anything other than murder and imprisonment, putting chains on the bare feet of the jailed and attacking the university dormitories?
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April 13, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
[T]oday is an opportunity — not simply to talk, but to act. Not simply to make pledges, but to make real progress on the security of our people. All this, in turn, requires something else, which is something more fundamental. It will require a new mindset — that we summon the will, as nations and as partners, to do what this moment in history demands. I believe strongly that the problems of the 21st century cannot be solved by any one nation acting in isolation. They must be solved by all of us coming together.
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January 5, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, there is controversy over the nature and extent of his accomplishments, and even some allies and supporters appear to have forgotten the atmosphere of multidirectional crisis in which Obama took office. What’s more, the steady decline in Obama’s approval ratings appears to follow very closely a shift in media reporting away from reporting facts and back to the hyper-commentary style of the run-up to the Iraq war, an atmosphere in which conservative political propaganda fares better than the facts of deliberative action.
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December 21, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
(1) [W]e shall, recognizing the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius, on the basis ofequity and in the context of sustainable development, enhance our long-term cooperative action to combat climate change. … (2) We agree that deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science, and as documented by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report with a view to reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius … (10) We decide that the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund shall be established as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the Convention to support projects, programme, policies and other activities in developing countries related to mitigation including REDD-plus, adaptation, capacity-building, technology development and transfer….
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December 19, 2009 :: Eva Scherson :: One Comment
After two weeks of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations, US president Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen to marshal all his diplomatic skills in brokering the beginnings of a viable framework for global carbon emissions reductions. Late Friday, it was announced that five nations —the United States, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa— had carved out a deal that would, for the first time, bring all the world’s major economies into the same camp on efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
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December 19, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Philippines looks upon these negotiations in Copenhagen with a critical sense of urgency. The average world per capita CO2 equivalent emission is 6 tons and must be brought down to 3 tons to stabilize at 450 ppm in 2050. The Philippines is already doing better than that. Our emissions are only 1.6 tons per capita and we are committed to further deviate from our business-as-usual growth path.
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December 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
When Pres. Obama and Pres. Medvedev meet, their agenda will reach beyond carbon emissions and climate change negotiations, however.They are expected to discuss ongoing negotiations on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. US and Russian negotiations have been meeting in Geneva, holding talks described as “intense”, in the interests of mutual nuclear disarmament. The plan will be a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (StART 2), aimed at moving the world closer to Pres. Obama’s vision of “a world without nuclear weapons”.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
When US president Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen, there was no global agreement on how to address climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, and talks were described as being “in a state of chaos”. His morning schedule of face to face meetings was reorganized so he could attend an emergency conference of key leaders. Talks were scheduled to continue through the weekend, and yet before midnight, agreement had been reached.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Gordon Brown plans “plan b” 2nd round of talks if Copenhagen conference fails to achieve global pact. The plan would call for a smaller number of nations to meet to agree to concrete steps to curb emissions and move their contribution to the world economy toward a green energy future.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Good morning. It’s an honor to for me to join this distinguished group of leaders from nations around the world. We come together here in Copenhagen because climate change poses a grave and growing danger to our people. You would not be here unless you —like me— were convinced that this danger is real. This is not fiction, this is science. Unchecked, climate change will pose unacceptable risks to our security, our economies, and our planet. That much we know.
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December 18, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The furious negotiations of the final days of the Copenhagen conference on climate change has produced another draft of a potential Copenhagen Accord, which would drop the 2010 deadline for establishing a binding global treaty, but would keep the absolute upper limit of an eventual 2ºC global average temperature rise above pre-industrial levels.
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December 18, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: One Comment
The United States is pledging to “take the lead” on a global fund of $100 billion over ten years, designed to help developing nations transition to a zero-combustion energy economy and fend off the already mounting ravages of climate destabilization. The offer was announced yesterday by Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and was intended in part to put added pressure on China to agree to a binding climate deal with emissions reduction verification processes built in.
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December 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Copenhagen climate conference is intended to round out two weeks of global negotiations with an agreement of some sort aimed at securing major progress on carbon emissions limits. It remains uncertain whether an agreement will be reached, so Pres. Obama’s trip is being treated as a “high-stakes gamble” in the US media. In fact, Obama will be one of 115 heads of government in attendance, and the White House’s statement that while his attendance cannot guarantee agreement, a decision not to could scuttle negotiations, seems the most level-headed.
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December 10, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America’s interests — nor the world’s — are served by the denial of human aspirations.
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December 7, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change opened today, with 192 nations in attendance, making it the most significant event ever staged to bring governments together to fashion a global response to climate destabilization. 15,000 participants representing governments and the fields of science, economics and public policy research, are gathered to try to reach agreement on the first true global protocol for curbing emissions and countering the threat of comprehensive climate destabilization.
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November 20, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Despite months, even years, of speculation the job would go to the former 2.5-term British prime minister, Tony Blair, the European Union has named Belgium’s new multilingual, largely unknown Flemish prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, its first full-time president. Van Rompuy’s role will be daunting and complex, as he will be the public face of a 27-nation bloc whose “unity” sometimes seems more a matter of legal technicality than of fact.
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October 28, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The European Union is expected to soon establish a full-term presidency for the European Council of heads of state, separating that post from the presidency of the Council of the European Union, replacing the current six-month rotation between member states, once the Czech president, Vačlav Klaus, signs the Lisbon Treaty. The change will mark a major transition for the multinational bloc, which has been gradually building up a stronger common government since the founding of the European Economic Community after World War II.
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September 26, 2009 :: Mirya Dunaeva :: Comments Off
The government of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has been hard to characterize, seeming one day to be a mouthpiece for the bellicose policies of his predecessor, now PM, Vladimir Putin, and another day to be the first Russian leader ever to express interest in a uniform standard of global governance and cooperation, rooted in democratic principles. Now, Mr. Medvedev’s political stock has gained, as ongoing nuclear negotiations with the US, at Pres. Obama’s urging, have resulted in a unanimous Security Council counter-proliferation vote.
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September 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Queen Noor, of Jordan, spoke last night to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell about the growing movement among world leaders to rid the world of nuclear weapons. She said a major sign of hope is the support expressed by Presidents Obama (US), Medvedev (Russia) and Hu (China), for a global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether. Today, Pres. Obama achieved an historic Security Council resolution to reduce the global nuclear threat.
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September 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The UN General Assembly, which brings together every head of government in the world, to offer their country’s position on issues, their country’s demands regarding trade and conflict negotiations, their country’s hopes for a more harmonious world, this year truly grapples with issues of global consensus. Economic recovery, for many parts of the world, will require an unprecedented expansion of women’s rights and sustained attention to responsible environmental stewardship.
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July 29, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Para lograr la reconciliación y fortalecer la democracia, conformaremos un Gobierno de Unidad y Reconciliación Nacional, integrado por representantes de los diversos partidos políticos, reconocidos por su capacidad, honorabilidad, idoneidad y voluntad para dialogar, quienes ocuparán las distintas Secretarías y Subsecretarías de Estado, de conformidad con el artículo 246 y siguientes de la Constitución de la República de Honduras.
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June 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Chinese rights activist Liu Xiaobo has been detained on charges of “inciting subversion of state power”. Liu was jailed for 2 years following the TIananmen Square protests in 1989 that ended with a massacre of unarmed protesters. He was one of the co-authors of Charter 08, a petition calling for the diversification of China’s one-party system. Human Rights Watch and other watchdog organizations have strongly condemned his arrest.
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June 16, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 29 Comments
Supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi allege the official results are electoral fraud, and accuse Pres. Ahmedinejad of an effective “coup d’état”. Such language has led some to believe the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i has been pressured by other political heavyweights to acknowledge that wrongdoing may have occurred.
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June 5, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
With nearly 1 in 10 Europeans officially on unemployment, and the dream of EU integration causing “growing pains” for many nations involved, parties of the extreme right-wing are expected to gain ground in the European Parliament. Parties openly opposed to EU integration or who favor the abolishment of the European Parliament as such, have already had strong showings in the UK and the Netherlands.
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April 30, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: Comments Off
Nobel-prize-winning Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi has joined the defense team representing Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi. She says Saberi was convicted in a trial that took place in violation of Iran’s own laws governing due process. She urged Saberi should have access to her lawyers and that evidence should be reviewed in open hearings.
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April 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón is now reported to be opening a preliminary investigation to the acts involved in creating the Guantánamo Bay prison camp where the Bush administration held hundreds of alleged terror suspects without charge for up to 7 years. The investigation will target “any of those that executed and/or designed a systematic plan of torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of the prisoners [at Guantánamo] that were under their custody”.
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April 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The UN rapporteur on torture responded to the announcement by US pres. Barack Obama that CIA agents who engaged in practices the Justice Dept. had authorized as legal would not be prosecuted by saying that such an amnesty would violate US treaty obligations under international law. Manfred Nowak told the Austrian newspaper Der Standard that any acts of torture must be investigated and those involved prosecuted.
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April 17, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Justice Dept. of Pres. Barack Obama yesterday released a series of memos, reported as ‘only lightly redacted’ (for security purposes), detailing the advice the Department gave the Bush White House concerning the legality of harsh interrogation techniques proposed for use by the CIA. Pres. Obama sought to preclude a political firestorm by pledging not to prosecute CIA agents who may have implemented the techniques, if they had been advised the techniques were legal, but no such immunity was offered to administration officials who may be liable for having deliberately misinterpreted existing law or authorized illegal techniques.
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April 8, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
President Barack Obama, during a speech in Prague, announced his intention to embark upon the framing of a new global effort to eliminate all of the world’s nuclear weapons, admitting the goal may not be achieved for decades. The US president told his audience that the deadliest weapons known to humanity must be considered contrary to peace and stability by all humankind, and should be responsibly phased out by those powers that have them.
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April 5, 2009 :: staff :: 4 Comments
When I was born, the world was divided, and our nations were faced with very different circumstances. Few people would have predicted that someone like me would one day become the President of the United States. (Applause.) Few people would have predicted that an American President would one day be permitted to speak to an audience like this in Prague. (Applause.) Few would have imagined that the Czech Republic would become a free nation, a member of NATO, a leader of a united Europe. Those ideas would have been dismissed as dreams.
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March 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Pacific Islands region is comprised of 22 nations, with a combined population of roughly 9 million, more than half of which live in Papua New Guinea. The island nations present a range of complex and unique issues for development and gender-equality efforts, including entrenched social attitudes that limit women’s ability to pursue education and career performance equal to those available to men, benefitting women’s autonomy and society broadly.
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December 10, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), one of the United Nations’ founding charters, today marked 60 years since its official adoption. Promising the most sweeping raft of protections for human beings around the world, the document has long been controversial, as the major powers have each been accused of selectively enforcing the document’s provisions, according to their own governments’ ideologies or convenience.
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October 31, 2008 :: staff :: One Comment
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
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October 31, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
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