Côte d’Ivoire: Security Council extend sanctions for another year

The Security Council today extended the sanctions imposed on Côte d’Ivoire, warning that the situation in the divided West African nation continues to pose a threat to international peace and security for the region.

It’s not too late

EU leaders are already running into problems with the ambiguity of the Lisbon Treaty, as they battle it out over whether or not the post should be, as David Cameron put it, “all-singing, all dancing” (Tony Blair), or more low-key and more akin to the kind of role the rotating EU President currently plays (Juncker, Balkenende).

Either way, the EU President will have no democratic mandate whatsoever, so anything other than a low-key role coordinating the EU agenda and similar to the current role of the rotating EU President is essentially a power grab.

The new EU President will earn roughly the same basic salary as the democratically-elected President of the United States, who has the support of 70 million people. The EU President, meanwhile, will have been appointed by a handful of leaders meeting behind closed doors in Brussels, with no input at all from national parliaments, let alone the people.

It is absurd, and a perfect illustration of how out of touch and anti-democratic the EU has become. The President will be appointed by a qualified majority vote in the Council (potentially as few as 18 people) so no country has a veto.

The people pulling the strings in the corridors of Brussels are amazingly arrogant about this fact. A couple of weeks ago an unnamed senior French diplomat pointed out that although most people in Europe will be against the idea of Blair for EU President, because of his position on the Iraq war, that makes no difference at all, because “only public opinion is concerned about this, not the 27 Heads of State and Government that will vote him in”.

The current system of rotating EU Presidencies, which Lisbon replaces, is not ideal, but at least it means that prime ministers and presidents who have a current, democratic mandate to rule get to set the agenda in Europe for six months at a time. Appointing an ex-PM or President like Tony Blair will move the EU even further away from the people, as it is likely that whoever it is will have fallen from grace in his or her own country. He is yesterday’s news.

In what other region in the world does an ex-leader get to represent millions of people on the world stage, rubbing shoulders with Barak Obama? This is a huge step backwards for democracy, and the more powerful and grandiose the role, the further the EU will move away from the people.

In some ways, it would be good if Tony Blair was appointed EU President, because it would bring home to many people exactly what the Lisbon Treaty means. It would be the first tangible consequence of the Treaty. For years, people have struggled to understand why they should care about the Treaty, and what it will mean in practice. The Lib Dems, for instance, would hate to see Tony back in power and yet they strongly pushed for this role to be created by supporting the Treaty and conspiring to deny ordinary people a say. Lib Dem delegates at this year’s conference backed a motion saying Blair should not become EU President – but they really should have thought of that much earlier.

In yesterday’s Evening Standard Ann McElvoy made a good point about the paradox of giving Blair, the man who divided Europe so deeply over foreign policy, the role of trying to craft a united foreign policy. But she also questioned whether a small nation would have the clout. This dilemma, which EU leaders are now having to confront, exactly represents the problem with the Treaty and the mistaken idea that you can create consensus where none exists by attempting to shoehorn countries through the creation of new institutions.

The Lisbon Treaty is deliberately vague about what he or she will do. The job title is one of many ‘unanswered’ questions about the Treaty, which meant MPs were essentially signing a blank cheque when they agreed to the Treaty last year. It will depend to a certain extent on the job title of the EU Foreign Minister (another unanswered question), and of course the person who takes the job first. To a great extent, the furore over Blair in the media is futile, since ordinary people have absolutely no say at all in who will take this job or what it will look like. By signing the Treaty, we have already handed that power irrevocably to the European Council (unless of course the Czechs now scupper the Treaty).

However, it’s clear that right from the beginning, Tony Blair wanted this role to be a powerful, symbolic and international one. During negotiations on the original EU Constitution back in 2002-2003, Peter Hain, acting on behalf of the UK Government, tried to amend the text so that the EU President would have responsibility for the general “external representation of the Union”.

Article 15 of the Lisbon Treaty says: “The President of the European Council shall, at his or her level and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy, without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.”

However, Peter Hain tried to change it to simply read: “The President of the European Council shall in that capacity ensure, at his level, the external representation of the Union, without prejudice to the responsibilities of the President of the Commission and the Minister for Foreign Affairs.” (See here for how Peter Hain tried to cross out the words “on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy” http://european-convention.eu.int/Docs/Treaty/pdf/41699/41699_Art%2021%20Hain%20EN.pdf )

Surely this is a good climate in which to scrap the whole idea. After all, it’s not too late.

Open Europe will be supporting a demo tomorrow morning between 10am and 12pm at the Rondpont Schuman in Brussels, just outside the Council, in support of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who is still holding out against the Treaty.

Come grab your Czech flag and join us!

FRELIMO Expected to Win Elections in Mozambique

Mozambique ruling party expected to cement its rule

MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE Oct 29 2009 07:41

Voting ended on Wednesday in Mozambique’s fourth democratic election, with the ruling party set to cement its 34-year rule over an opposition weakened by a recent split and a series of ballot-box losses.

Election officials and international observers said early reports indicated the vote had gone smoothly.

“No incidents have been reported so far,” said Lucas Jose, spokesperson for the election administration authority.

The elections opened with long queues snaking around the school buildings used as polling stations, as voters waited patiently for their turn, then proudly brandished their inked fingers after casting their vote.

By the time polls closed at 4pm GMT, after 11 hours of voting, queues had grown shorter but stations remained open to serve voters who were waiting in lines by closing time, said Jose.

Initial estimates of voter turnout ranged from 30% to 35% by the European Union observer team to more than 50% by the regional Southern African Development Community.

Many at the polls expressed pride in their country’s 15-year-old democracy.

“I lived under colonialism. I lived under the single-party system. I have lived through a lot of things. It was definitely worth it to bring democracy here,” said 71-year-old Amelia Bila after casting her vote.

Seventeen parties and two coalitions are competing for nearly 10-million votes in polls tipped to sweep President Armando Guebuza and his Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo) back into power.

Guebuza, a millionaire businessman who is seeking a second and final term, was among the first people to vote shortly after 5am GMT.

“I call on all Mozambicans to participate on this important day for our republic and to do it in a spirit of celebration,” Guebuza told reporters after voting in central Maputo.

Opposition ballots are likely to be divided between the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) and its breakaway Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), paving the way for Frelimo to cement its rule since independence from Portugal in 1975.

The presidential race pits Guebuza against Renamo’s Afonso Dhlakama, a fourth-time presidential hopeful, and MDM founder Daviz Simango.

“I have confidence in the people. In the north, south and centre people want good government,” said Dhlakama after voting.

Dhlakama has alleged voter fraud in the past elections and criticised what he calls a flawed democracy.

“The one who wins the elections should be declared the winner. We do not want to have a repeat of election disputes which happen in other countries,” Dhlakama told reporters.

In the parliamentary race, Frelimo seeks to defend its 160 seats in Mozambique’s 250-seat Assembly of the Republic.

The emergence of the MDM has raised the possibility of a third party winning seats in Parliament for the first time since 1994, when Mozambique held its first democratic elections.

The elections were part of a peace agreement that ended a 16-year civil war between Renamo and Frelimo’s Marxist-Leninist regime.

But the MDM is running in just four of Mozambique’s 13 parliamentary districts, the result of a controversial decision by the national elections commission to exclude it and 13 smaller parties on the grounds of incomplete candidate registration documents.

Only Frelimo and Renamo were approved to run in every district. — Sapa-AFP

Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-10-29-mozambique-ruling-party-expected-to-cement-its-rule

UN finds more rockets aimed at Israel from southern Lebanon

A day after Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged maximum restraint by all sides, United Nations peacekeepers today found four more rockets, three of them set to be fired, in an area of southern Lebanon from which a missile zoomed into Israel on Monday.

General Assembly again calls for lifting of United States embargo against Cuba

The General Assembly has voted for the 18th consecutive year to condemn the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba for the past half century and called for it to be lifted.

UN reparations panel for Kuwait invasion pays out $610 million

The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), which settles the damage claims of those who suffered losses due to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, today made $610 million available to 10 successful claimants.

Assassination attempt on President is attack on all Somalis, UN says

Two recent attempts to kill Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed are assassination attacks on all Somalis, the top United Nations official for the strife-torn country said today.

Blair whispers overshadow climate change agenda

David Charter: Analysis

Tony Blair is the elephant in the room at this summit. But frankly he is not the real reason that European leaders are gathering in Brussels today.
Inevitably, the chatter in the corridors and the questions at press conferences will be about the EU presidency, but 95 per cent of the formal agenda is focused on other things. The EU’s credibility is on the line over climate change; Gordon Brown is pushing for a new declaration on the economy and jobs; a solution has to be found to persuade the Czech President to sign the Lisbon treaty; and the the EU’s proposed new diplomatic service will be discussed.
This is the last chance for the 27 leaders to agree how much money they are prepared to give to help to reach agreement at the global climate change conference in Copenhagen next month. Despite the insistence of Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands, many EU countries are against plans to fund developing nations to cut their emissions.
As with the appointment of Mr Blair, all eyes are on Angela Merkel, of Germany, who has resisted the call for Europe to spell out its part of an international package of up to €100 billion a year.

Gordon Brown has suggested that the EU should pay €10 billion a year from 2020 to help poorer countries to go green and has said that Britain would pay €1 billion. But the Germans view any commitment of figures as bad tactics before the tough negotiations expected in Copenhagen.
A group of nine former Iron Curtain countries led by Poland are also blocking the move, demanding to know exactly how much it will cost each nation before they sign up. Green campaigners believe that failure to agree a funding plan for Copenhagen backed by hard cash could be a mortal blow to the talks, which are aimed at setting emissions cuts across the world.
The leaders must also agree on a concession for President Klaus of the Czech Republic to persuade him to sign the Lisbon treaty, which has been ratified in all the other countries. They are likely to meet his demand for an opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, similar to those granted to Britain and Poland.
Besides the possible choice of Mr Blair for president, the EU leaders also have to consider the appointment of a new EU foreign minister. The two posts will be assessed as a pair because they must be able to work together and should also come from different political backgrounds so that one party does not monopolise the top jobs in the EU.
Candidates for the foreign minister include Carl Bildt, the Foreign Minister of Sweden, Olli Rehn, the Finnish EU Enlargement Commissioner, and two former foreign ministers: Ursula Plassnik of Austria and Dora Bakoyannis of Greece. The list of contenders seems lightweight and has led to speculation that David Miliband could be asked to take the job if Mr Blair is rejected for president. Mr Miliband has denied that he is interested in it.
EU leaders will hear a progress report on the creation of a diplomatic corps to work under their new foreign minister — the European External Action Service, which is already being referred to as a foreign office for the EU.
While all eyes have been on Tony Blair, the EU’s ambitions for a diplomatic service to boost its presence in countries around the world could be the most far-reaching result of this summit.

West Texas Town Recasts Itself as Wind-Power Hub

By ANGEL GONZALEZ
ROSCOE, Texas — The dust has barely settled since this month’s completion of the world’s largest wind farm here, but the shoots of a “green” economy are already emerging among the cotton fields that have long been the staple of this West Texas rural community.
Wind-energy-service companies now sit on the same street as the old grocery store, and so does the headquarters warehouse of E.On Climate & Renewables, a unit of Germany-based E.On AG that owns the Roscoe wind farm. The project has 627 turbines — one for every two inhabitants of Roscoe — and employs about 70 technicians, including contractors and staffers. It has enough capacity to power 230,000 homes, most of them in the more populated eastern parts of the state.
“It’s helped the city kind of reinvent itself,” said city manager Cody Thompson, who on a recent day was putting the finishing touches on the third annual West Texas Wind Harvest Festival, a local celebration featuring live music from high-school bands and helicopter tours of the 100,000-acre project.
Roscoe is in Nolan County, which has about 17,000 people and nearly 10% of U.S. wind-power-generating capacity — built at breakneck speed over the past decade. The financial crisis and bottlenecks in transmission capacity have slowed the proliferation of wind turbines, but the area has become a powerhouse for an emerging technology that advocates say would help reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases.
Greg Wortham, the mayor of Sweetwater — the county seat and economic hub — said wind-power development in the region could be a model for revitalizing rural America, if the windy Great Plains are linked to the power-hungry East and West coasts. Already, local businesses and construction crews that cut their teeth in this area’s pioneering wind farms are working in emerging wind-power hubs like Iowa.
Mr. Wortham said 20% of Nolan County’s jobs are related to the wind-development rush here — as many as those in oil and gas. He said many of these new jobs come with a base pay of about $50,000, nearly double the average per-job wage in 2007. In September, the county’s unemployment rate was 6.4% — lower than Texas’s 8.3%. More than a decade ago, unemployment in the county was well above the state’s rate.
“This is the microcosm of what’s going to happen,” Mr. Wortham said.
The area around Sweetwater, which is best known for its annual Rattlesnake Roundup festival, attracted wind developers because of its open spaces, constant winds and the availability of enough transmission capacity to get the power to Dallas-Fort Worth, some 200 miles away. Now there is congestion in that capacity — meaning construction jobs have dipped — but once more transmission lines are built here and across the country, other centers could emerge. “There’s huge unexploited potential” in the U.S., said Kenneth Westrick, chief executive of 3Tier, a renewable-energy forecasting company.
At the peak of its building, the Roscoe wind project employed 600 people, said Patrick Woodson, chief development officer for E.On Climate & Renewables. Now the project employs about 10 permanent staffers. The company also employs about 60 contractors who perform maintenance on turbines made by Siemens AG, Mitsubishi Corp. and General Electric Co.’s energy unit.
Not everyone is sold on the wind-power idea. Susan Combs, Texas’s state comptroller, said clean-technology jobs will replace a small fraction of the jobs she believes will be lost if Congress passes a climate-change bill penalizing refineries for emitting carbon. “I don’t know where the new jobs are going to come from,” said Ms. Combs, a Republican. “They’re not going to come from wind.”
Then there are the people who just don’t like the turbines’ aesthetics. “Some call wind energy eye pollution: They don’t like the looks of it,” said Ken Becker, executive director of the Sweetwater Enterprise for Economic Development. But Mr. Becker added that the industry’s development has made the area’s tax base expand to $2.3 billion from $500 million in 1998.
To monitor and service the hundreds of GE turbines in the vicinity, GE set up its first U.S. wind-energy service center at a former Coca-Cola distribution plant. The center employs about 120 technicians, many of them former utility workers, mechanics and even firefighters, said Tracy Chapman, the center’s lead operations manager. Some were retired military from nearby bases looking for a new start — “a very well paying start,” Ms. Chapman said.
Royalties from turbines also are making some landowners wax poetic. Maz Webb a local grocer and rancher, has allowed California-based Third Planet Windpower to install a single turbine on her land.
“I love my turbine,” she said. “We only have one, but it’s the prettiest one out there.”
Write to Angel Gonzalez at angel.gonzalez@dowjones.com

Let’s work together

Government and industry need to work more closely towards developing solutions
DAVID BINNING

As the true scale of energy and environmental challenges becomes clearer, there is a growing realisation of the need for government and industry to work more closely towards developing solutions.
One sturdy bridge between government and industry in the UK, the Technology Strategy Board, has sustainable energy and low carbon as one of its key remits.
Both the board and the Carbon Trust are working with numerous private entities to develop solutions for energy and the environment, focusing particularly on wind and tidal technologies.
A recently formed Public Private Partnership, the Energy Technologies Institute, is focusing on the big players, working with the likes of Shell, BP, E.ON, EDF, Rolls-Royce and Caterpillar, with the aim of producing commercial solutions to energy and environmental problems.
Next January the Technology Strategy Board will run a competition to find the best marine turbine designs in Britain. David Bolt, the board’s director of innovation programmes, said competitions had proved an effective way of connecting innovative Britons with government money to develop their ideas.
A separate competition resulted in the board forming partnerships with the likes of Nissan, Jaguar, Mitsubishi, Lotus, BMW and Peugeot to advance the development of electric cars in the UK.
These activities all fall under the board’s Integrated Delivery Programme, a £200 million investment scheme jointly funded by government and business and designed to accelerate the introduction of low-carbon vehicles on to Britain’s roads.
Oxford Yasa Motors, an Oxford University spin-off, is working to develop ultra-lightweight electric motors for cars. A project of the university’s commercialisation unit Isis Innovation, Yasa recently secured £1.45 million in private equity funding as well as securing £1.89 million from the Technology Strategy Board.
Of course, the financial commitment was contingent on Yasa competing for the money and demonstrating its worthiness, an approach that Bolt said was delivering real results.
“If we give you half the money we need to know what is going to happen bigger or faster — which applications demonstrate through a small business plan.”