Check out this new pan-European campaign: “Europe Says No: No to Lisbon, Yes to Democracy” - http://www.europesaysno.org/

As well as explaining in detail why the Treaty is so bad for democracy, there’s also a place to add your comments, and to show your support by signing up to the Facebook group.

Reading through all the comments, you can see how Charlie McCreevy got the idea that 95% of Europeans would have said ‘no’ to the Treaty if only they’d be allowed a say on it…

Serbia will send its nuclear waste for reprocessing and disposal to Russia as part of a new agreement which will pave the way for economic and social development, the head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today.

A senior United Nations official today appealed to the international community to bolster its support to assist 150,000 people uprooted by conflict in Yemen, a humanitarian crisis that he said has largely gone unnoticed and could worsen.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic have joined forces with the support of the United Nations to tackle environmental degradation resulting from rising water levels in lakes near their common border.

More than 50,000 Burundian refugees have now been repatriated from Tanzania, where some of them had been living since fleeing their country in 1972, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury: All about Jews in Bangladesh

I thought you would be interested in this facebook note from a friend in Bangladesh.

Ami Isseroff

 

Today at 5:36pm

Amongst South Asian nations, Jewish population in India is above 15,401 while Jewish population in Bangladesh is 175 which is 0.00011 of the total population of the country. Number of Jews in Pakistan is 200, while there is no official record of any Jewish population in Sri Lanka.

Although the number of Jews in Bangladesh is shown to 175 in various information sites, including Wikipedia, according to Bangladeshi scholars, the real number of Jewish population in Bangladesh is above 3,500, while the Jews in Bangladesh are afraid of disclosing their religious identity fearing persecution of the anti-Semitic people.

According to information, fearing religious persecution, Jews in Bangladesh mostly identify themselves as ‘Jehova’s Witness’, while most of the Jews in the country are in textile related business as well as business in grocerries.

There is special congregassion of Bangladeshi Jews on the occasion of Rosh Hashanah. But, according to Bangladeshi scholar and Head of Dhaka University’s Public Administration Department, Professor Dr. Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah, Pakistani government grabbed the only Jewish synagogue, which was located in Dhaka and the building is now being used as one of the offices of the government of Bangladesh.

Professor Dr. kalimullah demanded immediate returning of the Jewish synagogue to country’s Jewish population as well stop all forms of repression on Jews in Bangladesh.

There was another Jewish humanitarian group active in the then Pakistan with a huge office at Dhaka’s Purana Paltan area [near Central Post Office]. But, that organization was also forced to seize operations by the Pakistani government and that building has also been grabbed by the government, which presently houses one of the offices of the republic.

Persecution of Jews continue in Bangladesh because of spread of religious hatred, mostly by fanatic Muslim clergies, who term the Jews as ‘enemies of Islam’. They encourage elimination of Jewish population from the country. That is why, although there is Jewish population in Bangladesh, none of the official records will presently show about their existence in the country. Jews were prevented from declaring their religious identity both in the National Identity Card as well as Passports issue by Bangladeshi government.

Bangladeshi continues to hold state policy of demonizing Israel and the country maintains total ban on the Jewish state for decades. Travel by any Bangladeshi citizen to Israel is seen as an offense according to Bangladeshi law.

Meanwhile, persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh has been harshly criticized in the world by a number of scholars, although the situation is yet to change.

Eminent Indian writer and journalist M J Akbar speaking as keynote speaker at a seminar titled ‘Meaning of Minority Politics’ organised by Bangladesh Enterprise Institute [BEI] in the city in December 2007, said he was saddened that Bangladesh’s birth principle of ‘language-centred nationhood’ “was incapable of finding a polity.” and said stay true to the country’s founding principles.

“Out of all the countries in the Muslim world, Bangladesh had the greatest opportunity to build a modern Muslim country,” he said, adding that the question of Biharis and the gradual assimilation of Jamaat-e Islami into national politics have to be addressed.

Otherwise the results will be felt long into the future, he added. Akbar disagreed with the dominant view that a minority is a group of people who are demographically outnumbered in a particular area, stressing that the category is based on perceptions. Outlining the history of Bengali Muslims to illustrate his point, he said they were affected the most as a ‘minority’ in the last century that have transformed their history, and in effect their lives.

In Bangladesh, there is no Committee for minorities in the country to identify the issues facing 20 million minorities. In Bangladesh, being a minority means being a victim of oppression, torture and discrimination.

My submission is that the word minority has its own connotation and definition. By ‘minority’ today we mean a disadvantaged group of citizens, who are not the privileged ones, at the top, but the under-privileged at the bottom. [Atlantes Magazine, 29th January 1975]. It was thought that the Liberation of Bangladesh marked the end of a chapter of communal politics, opening up newer possibilities for the Hindus and other ethnic minorities and they would be able to play a more effective role in the political process. Minorities had also thought that Bangladesh would put an end to discrimination against them, and their loyalty to the country would no longer be questioned. But in the present-day Bangladeshi the Hindu’s loyalty to the state is very much questioned. On the other hand, Bangladeshi state policy considers Jews as ‘Enemies’, which is extremely sordid and unacceptable.

I strongly urge the Bangladeshi government to immediately return the Jewish synagogue to the country’s Jewish population as well allow the Jews in the country to live in peace by openly expressing their religious identity. And good news is, despite series of repressions and persecutions both by the government and religious fanatics, Jewish population in Bangladesh presently is increasing for past several years.

In defense of Bangladeshi persecuted Jews

 

Evidence indicates that the dumping of toxic wastes having caused over one dozen deaths and dozens of illnesses in Côte d’Ivoire in 2006, an independent United Nations human rights expert said today.

• Hopes pinned on high-level summit next week• Cash for developing nations ‘a moral responsibility’
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 19.53 BST
The UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, frustrated at the glacial pace of crucial climate change negotiations, is looking to the summit he will host next week to “get world leaders moving” towards a deal that could avert catastrophic global warming.
With time running out before a December meeting in Copenhagen that is designed to seal an international climate change deal, the UN secretary general acknowledged he was looking to the summit of nearly 100 world leaders at the United Nations next Tuesday to break through the distrust between rich and poor countries.
“We are deeply concerned that the negotiation is not making much headway. It is absolutely and crucially important for the leaders to demonstrate their political will, leadership, and to give clear political guidelines to the negotiators. They should be responsible for the future of this entire humanity,” Ban told the Guardian.
Ban, newly returned from a trip to the Arctic, sees action on climate change as his personal legacy as UN chief. He said he hoped the unprecedented size of the climate meeting, the high level of representation and an unconventional format would transform the talks.
“Have you ever seen any such international conference at the level of so many leaders coming at one time and one place? In any summit meeting you have not seen such a highly political, highly motivated meeting. That is where we have to find some political strength.”
However, he admitted that even if the international community did reach a deal at Copenhagen, it might not live up to what scientists say is needed to prevent the worst consequences of global warming. “Science has already made its recommendations,” he said. “Science provides the facts. Then politicians take their choice.”
The UN summit is at the centre of a high-level push – along with a meeting on Thursday of climate change negotiators in Washington and next week’s G20 in Pittsburgh – aimed at unblocking arguably the most contentious issue of the negotiations: financing from the developed world to help poorer countries adopt green technologies and protect their people from the consequences of global warming.
Ban said the funding was a “moral responsibility” for industrialised nations. But countries have balked at the figures set by some developing world leaders.
Amid that stand-off, UN officials, diplomats and Democratic party leaders are saying that the gathering might well be the last chance before Copenhagen to reach an agreement on financing.
However, John Kerry, who chairs the US Senate foreign relations committee and has the tricky task of guiding domestic US climate laws through the Senate, said he was frustrated that the G20 would not be spending more time on climate change.
At the UN summit, Ban is counting on round-table discussions, jointly chaired by leaders of eight rich and eight poor countries, to help break through resentments over how far the rich countries will go to cut their own carbon emissions (which have done the most to cause climate change) and to help poor countries, which stand to lose the most from rising temperatures and sea levels.
There are growing fears that African countries could walk out of the Copenhagen talks. But UN officials said they hoped to get leaders to give up fixed positions that have slowed down the negotiations.
Ban is hoping to give industrialised countries another push with plans for Yukio Hatoyama, Japan’s prime minister, to confirm a promise to cut carbon emissions by 25% by 2020, a significant advance on his predecessor’s offer. UN officials are also hoping for a collective commitment on protecting forests from countries such as Brazil and Papua New Guinea .
Ban acknowledged that the US, while moving ahead on climate change under Barack Obama, still had far to go in dealing with its own carbon emissions.

By STEPHEN POWER and JOSH MITCHELL
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration rolled out details of its strategy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency saying the proposal paves the way for regulating emissions from sources such as power plants.
General Motors Chief Executive Frederick ‘Fritz’ Henderson, center, was among those on hand when President Barack Obama announced new car fuel-efficiency standards at the White House in May.

The proposal requires that new-vehicle fleets average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. The requirements could raise new-vehicle prices by as little as $476 per vehicle in 2012 to as much as $1,091 per vehicle in 2016, according to a Transportation Department analysis. The administration said the new standards would help Americans save an estimated $3,000 over the lifetime of a 2016 model-year car through better gas mileage.
The Obama administration is set to usher in tougher fuel economy standards. WSJ’s Steve Power says after years of resisting the changes, U.S. auto makers are getting on board with the move.
Meanwhile, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in an interview that “we must consider the implications of the Clean Air Act and how it might apply to other sources.” She said it was “certainly a possibility” that the agency could propose emissions regulations covering other sources within the next year.
Business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, strongly oppose using the Clean Air Act to limit carbon-dioxide emissions from businesses, and have warned that such an expansion of the EPA’s regulatory power would be costly and eliminate jobs.
Earlier this year, the agency declared greenhouse-gas emissions a threat to human health and welfare, the legal trigger for regulating them under the federal Clean Air Act. The agency’s declaration was a response to a 2007 ruling by a divided Supreme Court that held that the act authorizes the agency to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from autos if it determines they cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.
Many legal experts say the Clean Air Act doesn’t give the EPA much leeway to pick which sources to regulate. The Obama administration has said it would prefer to tackle climate change through legislation that requires companies to pay for the right to emit greenhouse gases. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said the Senate might delay voting on such legislation until next year, though his spokesman said no decision had been made.
The auto industry earlier this year agreed to support the administration’s proposal to boost new-vehicle fuel efficiency and set greenhouse-gas-emissions rules. In return, the industry will be allowed to abide by one, nationwide standard rather than a patchwork of state rules, which it fears could be more onerous.
A bipartisan proposal introduced in the Senate last month would create a “feebate” system, in which consumers who buy vehicles that get good mileage would be given a subsidy, funded through a fee levied on less fuel-efficient vehicles.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declined to say Tuesday whether the administration would favor a feebate system or other policies targeting consumers.
The proposal was accompanied by an analysis, prepared by the Transportation Department, that said the proposed standards could result in additional traffic fatalities by encouraging auto makers to reduce the weight of their vehicles in ways that compromise safety.
Still, Ms. Jackson said in the interview that “everything we know indicates that it [additional traffic fatalities] is very unlikely,” adding that the DOT is required by law to examine such worst-case scenarios.
Write to Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com and Josh Mitchell at joshua.mitchell@dowjones.com