Zimbabwe launches landmark plan to reduce impact of H1N1 - UN

Zimbabwe has become the first country to launch a landmark plan, known as the “Call to Action,” outlining key steps to reduce the threat posed by the H1N1 flu pandemic, the United Nations health agency has announced.

HIV outpaces provision of anti-AIDS drugs

New figures show many more people have been getting infected with HIV - but more are getting treatment too

Did Samoa quake trigger Indonesia disaster?

The magnitude-8.0 earthquake that struck the Samoan islands on Tuesday happened just 15 hours before the magnitude 7.6 earthquake off Padang, Sumatra’s largest city - but it might be a coincidence

simple but effective

This one is a particular favourite…

Eyeless in Gaza: Obama’s Palestine Flop

Eyeless in Gaza: Obama’s Palestine Flop

Michael Brenner
Senior Fellow, the Center for Transatlantic Relations
Posted: September 30, 2009 01:29 PM

Obama’s peace initiative on Palestine suffered a stunning, perhaps fatal, blow last week. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu rejected out of hand any freeze on the West Bank settlements which the White House had pressed as a necessary first step toward serious negotiations. The Obama plan is now stillborn, never having drawn a hopeful breath. This latest setback for the administration’s foreign policy team, and for Obama himself, was masked by last week’s other headline stories — Iran, Afghanistan, the G - 20. Its dismaying implications will be at least as great.

The genesis of this latest diplomatic defeat deserves close examination. For it exposes the defects in the president’s statecraft.

The White House’s approach to the combustible Palestinian issue was predicated on four assumptions. Each is fallacious. The key assumption was belief in the president’s ability to wrest from the Israeli leadership concessions of sufficient importance and scope as to lay the foundations for a durable settlement — that is one. Obama at first seemed prepared to invest considerable political capital and personal prestige in the effort. In fact, as we now know, he backed away from doing that — preferring the course of least resistance.

Success, as he saw it, would require making his demands on the Israelis credible — that was two. Credibility, in turn, meant neutralizing the powerful Israeli lobby and its supporters in Congress — that was three. Ross’ involvement, along with that of Rahm Emanuel, became a crucial political shock absorber for the White House. Another critical assumption concerned the Palestinians. It was the conviction that the commitments extracted from Netanyahu et al would prove adequate to win their acceptance by Abbas and Fatah — that is four.

All these suppositions are illusory. The first already has proven false. The current Israeli government is even more resistant to proposals for a viable two state solution than its recalcitrant predecessors. It may bend but not break unless Obama threatens a rupture of Washington’s all purpose commitment to the Jewish state.

There is nothing in his performance to date that suggests he has either the necessary conviction or courage to do that. On issue after issue, he has shown a strong reluctance to challenge established thinking and to confront powerful interests. Just the opposite. Retreat from positions boldly declared has become the hallmark of his administration. At times, the retreat follows brief skirmishes.

At other times, it is preemptive — prompted by skirmishes in the president’s own mind. This is the singular Obama style evident on major domestic issues. The process begins with a firm statement of the problem, a clarion call for action, and a pledge to force change. Then, there is the period of eerie calm — no plan is unveiled, no strategy executed beyond entreaties that the protagonists act in the reasonable manner the president has outlined.

Obama makes brief public appearances punctuated by further proclamations of the imperative to act, still without any specifics or sustained effort. Whatever comes out of this muddle is declared historic and promising. In this case, so blunt and public was Netanyahu’s rejection of the American proposal to do something on the key settlement issue that such a declaration is impossible. In the same vein, though, Obama rushed to say that the settlement matter is not so important after all, just a piece of a complex problem. Just as the “public option” was redefined as “just a sliver” of the overall package.

There is no virtue in this approach. It is classic avoidance behavior. Vintage Obama, as we have come to recognize it. He is a man of personal audacity, but little courage; one of that rare breed who say everything with strong conviction, but whose conviction is only genuine at the moment he speaks.

What does this mean for a possible initiative on Palestine? Several consequences jump to mind. First, the goal will be stated in general terms so as not to set a clear marker of success. Second, Obama is likely to overestimate his personal powers of persuasion as reinforced by the might and authority of the United States. That is to say, he will expect to bring the parties into line with only slight resort to coercion.

Accordingly, his instinctive avoidance of head-on confrontations will leave him unprepared, psychologically and politically, for the requisite arm twisting with its inescapable political reaction from the Israeli lobby at home. Third, the expectation that the Ross/Emanuel tandem can protect his flank will prove ill-founded — even if the two of them do genuinely share his commitment and interest in a settlement.

Fourth, he is likely to underestimate what terms and conditions will be acceptable to the Palestinians. There is no sign that he or his advisors appreciate how constrained Abbas is by the reality of Hamas’ popularity eclipsing that of Fatah. They may well be under the further illusion that the Hamas issue can be finessed by extracting from the Israelis such generous concessions that Hamas will have no choice but to go along with an outlined accord that meets with an overwhelmingly favorable response on the part of all Palestinians.

The ultimate outcome looks to be failure. There is a real possibility of it ending in a further tragedy for all parties embroiled in the conflict. In either eventuality, the ripple effects will spread widely across the region to the detriment of America’s other parlous engagements. The one thing that we can say with some certainty is that the White House will declare any result, short of a return to widespread violence, to be a breakthrough and will call on all parties to keep a positive attitude — going forward.

Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/eyeless-in-gaza-obamas-pa_b_304615.html?view=print

Egyptian book burning culture Czar vows to crush Israeli culture

Piracy, cyber-crime and climate change – bringing NATO and insurance together

At first glance, NATO and Lloyd’s of London might seem like strange bedfellows.

By Lord Levene and Anders Fogh RasmussenPublished: 10:31PM BST 30 Sep 2009
Maybe at second glance as well. But both are in the business of anticipating and managing risk: Lloyd’s for the businesses and individuals that it insures across the globe and NATO for its 28 member states.
We share a common goal – to adopt a fresh approach to managing risk and three risks in particular: cyber-security, piracy and climate change. These are not entirely new problems. What is new is the scale and the cost.
Dependence on technology has always meant assuming risk – look what happens to a city during a blackout. The reach and penetration of information technology into every aspect of our lives means that when the system goes down, the costs are enormous: for companies that can’t operate; for governments that can’t provide basic services, including security; for ordinary people who can’t take money out of the bank. And if anyone thinks this is scare-mongering, they should look at what happened in Estonia in 2007, when it came under a sustained cyber-attack.
Piracy is something most people associate with history books and Hollywood movies. But it is a real and growing problem. Today, we depend on international shipping much more than we ever did; 80pc of the world’s goods move over the seas. One fifth of that passes through the Gulf of Aden, and is at risk every day from pirates.
Today, four ships are being held hostage and 79 people are being held for ransom. The number of attacks has increased by just under a third in the first half of this year alone. All of this has cost businesses and insurers hundreds of millions of dollars so far, and forced countries from around the world to deploy their navies to the area.
Climate change is, of course, the biggest risk of all. Humans have always fought over resources and land. But now we are seeing those pressures on a bigger scale, and at a faster pace, than ever before, as ice caps melt, sea levels rise and populations move. Scarcity of natural resources is set to be a growing security problem.
We believe that the time has come for us to move past analysis and protracted debate. The problems are clear. What we need are solutions. These risks can be managed – but to do so effectively we will need to change the way we have operated until now.
First and foremost, we believe that the time has come for a much more open and more systematic collaboration between government and business when it comes to managing risk. Piracy, cyber-security and climate change have business and political origins – tackling them effectively will mean a partnership between business and government. We have already made a start: industry leaders, including those from Lloyd’s, have been involved in the current process to develop NATO’s new guiding charter, the Strategic Concept; indeed, the vice-chair of the group is the former chief executive of Shell, Jeroen van der Veer.
Second, we need to invest much more in research and in planning. Experts in industry and in government tend to be better at analysing past patterns than predicting future trends. This needs to change. We must be prepared to think the unthinkable. Lloyd’s developed its 360 Risk Insight programme and its Realistic Disaster Scenarios, and NATO its Multiple Futures project, precisely to lift our eyes from the present and scan the horizon for what might be looming.
Third, we need to invest in mitigating risks. From an industry point of view, risk management needs to find its rightful place in the boardroom and businesses need to manage much more effectively the risks that face them. Insurance cannot be seen as a substitute for effective risk management. It can, of course, be part of a businesses approach but if people want to build a home or factory on a fault line, or a flood plain, insurance is likely to cost them more. If they adapt their property to mitigate the danger, then this is likely to be reflected in the cost of insurance cover.
For their part, governments need to do some contingency planning as well; including focusing intelligence assessments on climate change, tasking military planners to incorporate it into their planning as well, and reinforcing all the facilities at risk from storms and floods. They also need to step up their cyber-defences, as NATO has done in creating a deployable cyber-defence capability that can help its members if they come under attack.
Our long-term strategy must be to tackle the causes of these risks – whether it is reducing CO2 emissions, or addressing instability in Somalia – but, for climate change, at least, we have to accept that some of the effects are now irreversible.
We cannot, for the foreseeable future, stop the earth from getting warmer, or eliminate the root causes of piracy, or stop cyber-criminals from launching their botnets and malware. But we can minimise their effects – for industry, and for ordinary people. And the recipe is clear: better planning, wiser investment and stronger collaboration between business and government.
Lord Levene of Portsoken is chairman of Lloyd’s of London and Anders Fogh Rasmussen is Secretary General of NATO.

By 2050, 25m more children will go hungry as climate change leads to food crisis

• Report says food shortages will hit developing world• Global warming set to bring back malnutrition
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
The Guardian, Wednesday 30 September 2009
Twenty-five million more children will go hungry by the middle of this century as climate change leads to food shortages and soaring prices for staples such as rice, wheat, maize and soya beans, a report says today.
If global warming goes unchecked, all regions of the world will be affected, but the most vulnerable – south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa – will be hit hardest by failing crop yields, according to the report, prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
The children of 2050 will have fewer calories to eat than those in 2000, the report says, and the effect would be to wipe out decades of progress in reducing child malnutrition.

The grim scenario is the first to gauge the effects of climate change on the world’s food supply by combining climate and agricultural models.
Spikes in grain prices last year led to rioting and unrest across the developing world, from Haiti to Thailand. Leaders at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last week committed $2bn (£1.25bn) to food security, and the United Nations is set to hold a summit on food security in November, its second since last year’s riots.
But the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is pressing the World Bank and other institutions to do more. He said the industrialised world needs to step up investment in seed research and to offer more affordable crop insurance to the small farmers in developing countries. Though prices have stabilised, the world’s food system is still in crisis, he said at the weekend.
“Ever more people are denied food because prices are stubbornly high, because purchasing power has fallen due to the economic crisis, or because rains have failed and reserve stocks of grain have been eaten,” he said.
Even without global warming, rising populations meant the world was headed for food shortages and food price rises.
“The food price crisis of last year really was a wake-up call to a lot of people that we are going to have 50% more people on the surface of the Earth by 2050,” said Gerald Nelson, the lead author of the report. “Meeting those demands for food coming out of population growth is going to be a huge challenge – even without climate change.”
After several years in which development aid has been diverted away from rural areas, the report called for $7bn a year for crop research, and investment in irrigation and rural infrastructure to help farmers adjust to a warming climate. “Continuing the business-as-usual approach will almost certainly guarantee disastrous consequences,” said Nelson.
The G20 industrialised nations last week began discussing how to invest some $20bn pledged for food security earlier this year.
Some regions of the world outlined in the report are already showing signs of vulnerability because of changing rainfall patterns and drought linked to climate change. Oxfam yesterday launched a $152m appeal on behalf of 23 million people hit by a severe drought and spiralling food prices in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda. The charity called it the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa for a decade, and said many people in the region were suffering from malnutrition.
But southern Asia, which made great advances in agricultural production during the 20th century, was also singled out in the IFPRI report for being particularly at risk of food shortages. Some countries, such as Canada and Russia, will experience longer growing seasons because of climate change, but other factors – such as poor soil – mean that will not necessarily be translated into higher food production.
The report was prepared for negotiators currently trying to reach a global deal to fight climate change at the latest round of UN talks in Bangkok. It used climate models prepared by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia to arrive at estimates of how changes in growing seasons and rainfall patterns would affect farming in the developing world and elsewhere.
Without an ambitious injection of funds and new technology, wheat yields could fall by more than 30% in developing countries, setting off a catastrophic rise in prices. Wheat prices, with unmitigated climate change, could rise by 170%-194% by the middle of this century, the report said. Rice prices are projected to rise by 121% – and almost all of the increase will have to be passed on to the consumer, Nelson said.
The report did not take into account all the expected impacts of climate change – such as the loss of farmland due to rising sea levels, a rise in the number of insects and in plant disease, or changes in glacial melt. All these factors could increase the damage of climate change to agriculture.
Others who have examined the effects of climate change on agriculture have warned of the potential for conflict. In a new book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilising to Save Civilisation, published today, Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, warns that sharp declines in world harvests due to climate change could threaten the world order.
“I am convinced that food is indeed the weak link,” he said.
Brown saw Asia as the epicentre of the crisis, with the latest science warning of a sea level rise of up to six feet by 2100. With even a 3ft rise, Bangladesh could lose half of its rice land to rising seas; Vietnam, the world’s second largest producer of rice, could also see much of the Mekong Delta under water.
Wheat and rice production would also fall because of acute water shortages, caused by past over-pumping and the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, which currently store water that supplies the region’s main rivers: the Indus, Ganges, and Yangtse.
Brown said: “The potential loss of these mountain glaciers in the Himalayas is the most massive projected threat to food security ever seen” .
Global shortfall
People in both the developing and developed worlds will have less to eat by 2050 if climate change is not seriously addressed, though the shortfall will be relatively slight in richer countries. Prices rises and shortages of food will drive down the average calories available:
• The calories available for each person in industrialised nations will fall from 3,450 in 2000 to about 3,200.
• In developing countries overall, the average will fall from 2,696 to 2,410 calories.
• In sub-Saharan Africa, people will on average have only 1,924 calories a day, compared with 2,316 in 2000.

Interior Department to Approve Seven Renewable-Energy Projects

By IAN TALLEY
WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior expects to approve seven major, renewable-energy transmission projects on western federal lands by the end of next year, part of the administration’s effort to step up use of wind and solar power.
Finding sites for new grid infrastructure has been a major obstacle to the Obama administration’s plans to expand renewable-energy production. Many people and local governments oppose placing transmission projects, which help channel electricity generated by renewable-energy sources to consumers, in their backyards, citing environmental, safety and other concerns.
The Interior Department is accelerating the construction of transmission projects on federal lands in an effort to streamline the permitting process, through there are still state, local and other federal regulatory hurdles that companies have to overcome.
“For too long, our nation’s electric-transmission policy has been disjointed, fragmented and frankly a low priority across federal agencies,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at a transmission conference on Wednesday.
The projects range from 150 kilovolt to 500 kilovolt lines in Idaho, California and Nevada, including the Barren Ridge, Devers Palo Verde, Hooper Springs, Hemingway Butte, Palisafes-Goshen, and Southwest Intertie projects.
Mr. Salazar said he anticipated the projects – among 30 applications the Bureau of Land Management is processing — to get permits before the end of next year.
He said a cabinet-level working group on transmission would “very soon” make recommendations for a national, coordinated transmission policy. The group is represented by the Interior, Energy, and Agriculture departments and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Write to Ian Talley at ian.talley@dowjones.com

More green investment, less spending on polluting practices

Green space, health and economic development are proved to be linked – this is where the money should be spent
John Vidal
The Guardian, Wednesday 30 September 2009

Switching public spending from “grey” projects such as roads and airports, to “green” schemes such as parks, tree planting and allotments, would not just save the government billions of pounds, improve health, and cut climate emissions, but it would create jobs and make British cities more attractive.
The analysis comes from two groups of government advisers, Natural England and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and is supported by evidence from other countries. It shows that where cuts are made in those areas that add to pollution, waste and ill health, and money is invested instead in projects that save energy, improve health and reduce waste, the benefits are seen quickly.
For instance, the £10.2bn budgeted by central government for road building in Britain this year will increase traffic and emissions and leave the public purse to clean up the pollution and waste. Just half of that money would pay for a new park in every local authority. Equally, the £1.28bn set aside for widening the M25 by a single lane would benefit drivers by perhaps a few seconds a journey, but it would buy and maintain more than 3m new street trees.
Councils have bid more than £4bn this year for local road schemes, most of which will have marginal social benefits. That money could be invested in commuity gardens and urban farming, which have been shown to improve health and encourage exercise.
There is now a proven relationship between green space, health and economic development. Yet local authorities spend less than £20 a year per person on trees, parks, gardens, allotments, woodlands, rivers and waterways, which together provide clean air and water and enrich their citizens’ quality of life.
The NHS is responsible for more than 18m tonnes of CO2 a year. If it invests in energy saving, it will not just save itself great sums in future as costs inevitably rise, it will help to avoid a catastrophe as diseases spread further and droughts, floods and heatwaves increase. Every year that addressing climate change is delayed, the public costs rise.
Government figures show that road traffic has increased 25% in the past 15 years, at the same time as obesity and public health costs have soared. Research also shows that where people have direct contact with the environment via animals, plants or landscapes, they more likely to be mentally and physically healthy. Hospital patients with views of trees rather than of brick walls stay in hospitals for far less time.
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