Sierra Leone: eight men found guilty of war crimes transferred to Rwanda

Eight men found guilty by a United Nations-backed court of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sierra Leone's brutal decade-long civil war have been transferred to Rwanda to serve their sentences.

Ban congratulates US leader for lifting entry restriction based on HIV status

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today congratulated United States President Barack Obama for announcing that travel restrictions for people living with HIV from entering the country will be removed.

Fighting the anti-vaccine brigade - with science

As pandemic flu vaccine is rolled out around the world, expect pseudo-scientific hell to break loose, says Debora MacKenzie

Iran - continuing to play the West

Iran continues to effectively conduct its foreign policy, often at the expense of American foreign policy. In the last few months, the Iranians have virtually halted the West’s efforts to stop its uranium enrichment efforts, have consistently delayed the imposition of sanctions, and in their last horse-trading have succeeded in getting a one-on-one meeting between Iranian and American officials. By having the United States back a plan whereby Iran would export 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium for further processing in Russia and France, Tehran has legitimized its uranium enrichment program.

Once the Iranians achieved that de facto legitimacy, they immediately began the process to renege on the deal. It’s typical of the Iranians - agree, then reconsider and ask for changes to the terms, then agree to talk about the need for more talks. While this diplomatic charade goes on, the centrifuges at Natanz, and soon Qom, continue to spin. When the Iranians talk again, it will be about how much enriched uranium they should consider exporting, not whether or not they should be enriching uranium in the first place. The have in effect gained that right.

The Iranians have been very effective in manipulating the West, and now embarrassing President Obama, whether he knows it or not. For all of the overtures made to Iran by the Obama Administration since it took office in January, there has been virtually no progress. Let’s look at what Iran is doing right now:

- continues to process uranium
- continues to defy the United Nations and Western powers
- continues to strengthen its relationship with Russia and China - which almost certainly takes meaningful international sanctions off the table
- continues to provide money, weapons and training not only to the Shi’a militias in Iraq but now to elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan
- continues to repress any political dissent in the country
- continues to hold three young American hikers for a minor trespassing incident

The Iranians are masters at playing the West. When they agreed to the uranium export proposal, they had no intention of giving up their enriched uranium. Almost immediately after the agreement was made public, “senior Iranian lawmakers” back in Tehran voiced opposition to the idea and countered that they should not export their uranium for further processing, but instead demanded that the West sell them fuel for the research reactor - I called this “Having their (yellow) cake and eating it too.”

The much publicized internal Iranian debate is a sham. There is only one voice that counts in Iran and it belongs to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He will make the decision about what Iran will do despite the support or objection of so-called senior Iranian lawmakers. That debate is for show - the Iranians intend to keep their uranium and continue to demand that the West send them even more. If it wasn’t so serious, it would be almost comical.

In the last blast of rhetoric from the Iranians, they proposed that the United States and Iran continue to expand their one-on-one dialog, a key goal of the regime in Tehran. This ill-advised dialogue only legitimizes the regime and its nuclear ambitions. The Iranians even went so far as to offer to have Americans present at their nuclear facilities. Clever - the presence of Americans at what may become targets of Israeli military strikes complicates planning in Tel Aviv.

In response to the Iranian stalling and demands to purchase uranium, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waffled, saying she would “let this process play out.” She further said that the International Atomic Energy Agency and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany “are all united and showing resolve in responding to the Iranian response and seeking clarifications. We are working to determine exactly what they are willing to do, whether this was an initial response that is an end response or whether it’s the beginning of getting to where we expect them to end up.”

Huh? I thought the Iranians were masters of rhetoric, but Mrs. Clinton has also succeeded in using a lot of words to say nothing. Is she serious? The IAEA is worthless - just take the Iranian issue as an example. The permanent members of the Security Council are united? Has she heard the Russian and Chinese statements opposing sanctions on Iran?

While the President and his Secretary of State “let the process play out,” Iran continues to effectively pursue its foreign policy objectives virtually unhampered by Washington. Does “play out” mean the announcement that they have a nuclear weapon?

Sudan: UN embarks on largest-ever delivery of voter registration materials

The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) are kicking off the largest-ever delivery of materials in the African nation ahead of tomorrow's voter registration exercise.

EU puts €100bn-a-year price on tackling climate change

Leaders agree cost will amount to €100bn a year by 2020, but fail to agree on short-term aid for developing world
Ian Traynor in Brussels
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 October 2009 17.38 GMT
European leaders agreed for the first time today that the price tag for tackling global warming would amount to €100bn (£89bn) a year by 2020, up to half of which would need to come from taxpayers’ money in the developed world.
But mired in wrangling over how to split the European share of the bill among 27 countries and how much Europe collectively should spend, they failed to agree on urgent short-term funding for combating climate change in the developing world.
Five weeks ahead of the Copenhagen conference on a new international treaty on global warming, an EU summit spent two days immersed in number-crunching rows over the costs and who should bear them.
Difficult decisions were shelved because of an east-west dispute pitting the poorer member states against the wealthy western countries, and because leading EU states such as Germany, France and Italy were reluctant to make specific commitments on funding for the developing world before hammering out an agreement with the US, Japan and other rich states.
“Europe is leading the way, making these bold proposals,” said Gordon Brown. “The major decision to come out of this is we’re leading the way on the climate change negotiations.”
The agreements fell well short of what had been sought by the Swedish presidency of the EU, the Danish government hosting the Copenhagen conference, the UK and the European commission.
In the short-term, the leaders agreed that up to €7bn a year was needed from January for three years for “fast-track” funding in the developing world. The EU said only that it would seek to persuade others to share that bill and that Europe would pay its “fair share”.
Some of the east Europeans, led by Poland, which balked at being asked to pay up, are refusing to contribute and Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, admitted that European contributions to the fund would be “voluntary”, meaning they may not be made at all.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was said to have fought strongly to avoid firm funding pledges. She goes to Washington next week, as do other EU leaders, for what could be crucial negotiations with the Obama administration on how to come up with a global fund for the poor countries. The issue of financing climate change measures in the developing world is a possible deal-breaker at Copenhagen.
The Germans were highly critical of the east European reluctance to share the bill, arguing that it was difficult to ask some of the world’s emerging economies to contribute when Europe’s poorer countries were saying no.
“EU leaders speak loud and clear on the global challenges of climate change, but remain tongue-tied when it comes to meeting their own responsibilities,” said Rebecca Harms, leader of the Greens in the European parliament. “EU governments have now acknowledged the need for an annual €100bn towards climate mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, but have once again failed to put a clear figure on the EU’s contribution.”
While the Swedes, Danes and others argued that Europe had to take the lead on climate change and send a strong signal for Copenhagen, the Germans are more skeptical, noting that there are limits to leadership and calling for the other rich countries to step up to the plate.
It is not yet clear on what basis the contributions will be made. The west Europeans want to combine the “polluter pays” principle with ability to pay, meaning that a donor country’s GDP and level of greenhouse gas emissions will determine how much it puts in.
Of the €100bn euros ballpark figure, the Europeans said €22bn-€50bn should be public sector money in annual transfers to the developing world by 2020.
Although the Europeans refused to specify the European share, Merkel said it should be around one-third; the same amount should be supplied by the US, and Germany would foot around 20% of the European bill.
The 22-50 cost range is wide and vague enough for lots of wiggle room. Britain says €50bn is “unaffordable” and €22bn is not enough. It sought a narrower range of €30bn-€40bn.
Rather than detailing specific European pledges, the leaders agreed only to contribute a “fair share” to the global fund and stressed that the offer was “conditional” on agreement with the other main donors.

Merkel: no chance of Kyoto-style agreement at Copenhagen

David Charter and Sam Coates in Brussels

Angela Merkel tried to give the world a wake up call to the glacial progress being made towards a climate deal in Copenhagen yesterday by writing off the chances of achieving a succesor to the Kyoto treaty this year.
Alarmed by the impasse gripping pre-Copenhagen talks, the German Chancellor warned fellow EU leaders that only a broad political framework was now possible from the negotiations due in the Danish capital in December. She said that the chances of a comprehensive treaty had disappeared.
“It is realistic to say that in Copenhagen we will not be able to conclude a treaty but it is important to lay down a political framework which will be the basis of the treaty,” she said at the end of the two-day EU summit in Brussels.
“Copenhagen was supposed to be a post-Kyoto regime. Now we are talking about a political framework and negotiations will drag out longer until we get a treaty.”

Her stark warning carries extra weight because she led German negotiations on the original Kyoto protocol which created the first international targets for cutting harmful emissions.
Mrs Merkel, who is deeply committed to achieving a comprehensive global treaty to succeed Kyoto, will tell President Obama about her fears that the US is doing too little to secure a treaty when she travels to Washington this week.
She also held a private meeting with Gordon Brown yesterday in Brussels at which she told him that much more needed to be done to kickstart the faltering Copenhagen process.
EU leaders decided today to call for a global fund of €100 billion a year to pay developing countries to combat climate change but failed to agree on how much money it was prepared to put into it.
Proposals for the EU to pledge €10 billion a year of public money towards the fund were rejected by former Iron Curtain countries which wanted to know exactly what they were being asked to pay before signing up.
Campaigners welcomed the idea of a global fund but warned that unless the EU gave more of a lead by offering hard cash incentives, it could be impossible to persuade the US and others to join in and reach agreement at climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.
In setting their negotiating position for Copenhagen, EU leaders agreed that €22 to €50 billion a year should come from developed countries to help the poorer nations to go green. Most of the rest would come form carbon trading schemes, they said.
The final deal failed to meet Mr Brown’s ambitions because the Prime Minister had pushed for the EU to name its contribution and called for the range of public funding to be set at €30 to €40 billion a year by 2020, arguing that €22 billion would be too low.
Mr Brown today described the compromise over the EU climate change deal as a “prelude” to successful global talks in Copenhagen. Unlike Mrs Merkel, he remains upbeat about the chances of success in Copenhagen.
“People realise that we are only a few days away from the negotiations in Copenhagen. We were aware that if we did not come together to make progress, the possibility of a deal [in Copenhagen] would be a lot less likely. We can now look forward to a successful outcome.”
The EU is also proposing that the international community find €5 to €7 billion of fast-track funding for the 2010-12 period for the developing world before any Copenhagen agreement comes into force. Again, the EU part of that was not made clear.
“The EU failed to use this opportunity to put its money where its mouth is” said Joris den Blanken, EU climate policy director for Greenpeace.
“But all is not lost: today 27 of the world’s richest nations have backed global funding to tackle climate change in developing countries.
“The Copenhagen train is still running, but the world desperately needs some climate leadership to stop the wheels from jumping off the track. Regardless of whether climate legislation is passed in the US ahead of Copenhagen, president Obama should step up and break the deadlock in negotiations.”

MP Alan Simpson sees red over ‘Big Power’ anti-green agenda

Labour’s energy adviser calls himself a ‘leftover hippy’ but his politics are fresh – an assault on how the civil service and ‘Big Power’ try to derail the fight against climate change
The UK is in the grips of a power cartel that actively hinders the fight against global warming by lobbying for its own narrow commercial interests at the cost of local democracy and the future health of the planet. It’s an argument that off-gridders and anti-capitalist campaigners will be familiar with. It’s not really what you expect to hear from an adviser to the government.
Yet that is the belief of MP Alan Simpson, who occupies a place close to the heart of political power in Britain as energy adviser to the minister at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband.
Simpson made his eye-opening claims at an event organised this week by UK solar company Solar Century to lobby for an increase in the proposed “feed-in tariff” – the amount paid for electricity sold to the grid by households generating green energy through solar panels or wind turbines.
Next April, the government plans to introduce feed-in tariffs of 5p per unit (kilowatt-hour), plus a subsidy of 36.5p per unit generated off-grid in small solar and wind-powered installations. Simpson argued that these levels provide only a 5%-7% return on investment in solar panels, which is not high enough to kick-start the UK solar energy industry. He called for the feed-in tariff to be set at a minimum of 10p, which would provide closer to a 10% return.
He also said we don’t need to look to the Middle East to see the link between energy and politics, because it’s here in our own back yards. Calling for a decentralised power generation system in which individual homes and local areas generate much of the UK’s power, he said:
Current energy policy in the UK is dominated by the vested interests of “Big Power” [the six utility companies that dominate UK electricity generation]. The national grid is monumentally inefficient as an energy system. It was a half-decent idea for the middle of the last century, but 70%-80% of energy put into the grid disappears before you or I even switch the light on. We need not an energy, but a power revolution that takes control from the centre and literally puts power back into the hands of the people.
The UK generated just 6 megawatt peak (MWp) from solar sources last year, compared to Germany’s 1,500 MWp and Spain’s 2,511 MWp. The reasons for the UK’s poor performance, Simpson declared, relate to civil servants’ desire to retain central control, allied with the commercial interests of “Big Power”.
He said civil servants have been trying to water down feed-in tariffs designed to boost the deployment of renewable energy in the UK. He accused them of “delaying” and “frustrating” their introduction. The feed-in tariffs will be available for installations of up to 5Mw, but Simpson revealed that initially the big power companies wanted the tariff to be available only for systems that generated less than 50kw.
Cynics say the reason Simpson can be so outspoken is that as a Labour MP he expects to be voted out of power within a few months. However, the record shows that he has consistently criticised government energy policy. He is certainly one of very few British MPs to put his money where his principles are.
Four years ago, he spent £100,000 on a derelict building in Nottingham’s Lace Market area, and another £200,000 to make it into an eco-home for him and his wife, the novelist Pascale Quiviger. He refurbished the south-facing roof with solar panels that now provide his home with around 75% of its power. Inside is a micro-combined heat and power (CHP) generator, producing electricity at the same time as it heats the house. The internals walls are made from compressed recycled straw and insulated with recycled cardboard tubes.
Simpson’s politics provide a glimpse of the sort of progressive thinking the Labour party could have adopted when it abandoned its traditional socialist approach for Tony Blair’s New Labour in the early 1990s. “I’m a leftover hippy from the 60s,” he told the assembled people in suits. “Here we have an opportunity to influence huge change.” Let’s grasp it.
• Alex Benady is acting editor of Off-Grid.net

EU climate aid: The politicians are the only winners in this deal

The laboured negotiations over the EU’s announcement on climate aid is a taste of what’s to come in Copenhagen

David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 October 2009 16.33 GMT
Gordon Brown called it a significant breakthrough, yet the green groups label it as disappointing and fatally flawed - welcome to the opening exchanges of the world’s attempt to finalise a new global deal on climate change.
Today’s announcement in Brussels on climate aid is a necessary step towards a deal, but also a model of what we can expect as countries gear up for crucial political talks on global warming in Copenhagen in December.
Ahead of the Brussels meeting there were gloomy reports of a split and warnings of a likely crisis, quickly followed by a political huddle and talk of the need to compromise. A few hours of discussion later and his colleagues were able to emerge with handshakes and announce almost what everybody had expected all along. Job done.
As revealed in the Guardian on Tuesday, the EU has announced that poor countries need to receive some €100bn a year by 2020 from the world’s rich nations to help them cope with the likely impact of global warming. Up to half of this will come from taxpayers with the rest coming from the private sector.
The agreement is a model of political negotiation, in that each national leader gets to go home and report victory to their domestic audiences. Brown, the UK prime minister, gets the credit for forcing through an overall figure, while the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, can point out that Europe has not actually committed itself to provide any specific funds, keeping that card up its sleeve. Meanwhile the heads of the member states most reluctant to put their hands in their pockets, such as Poland, have won concessions on what they are expected to pay upfront.
Against this realpolitik, campaign groups are doing what they do best - pressuring their leaders to do more and to ensure the promised money is not pilfered from existing aid budgets.

European Union: Changing climate in Brussels

The Guardian, Saturday 31 October 2009
Il Presidente Blair, it seems, is not to be. Over dinners on Thursday night Europe’s leaders began to look for a less glamorous and less divisive politician to head the European council. Too socialist for the right, too rightwing for the socialists and too tainted with Iraq for everyone, the excitement about Tony Blair was always biggest in Britain, underscoring the point that this country is only ever gripped by European issues when they are given a domestic spin. It happened to the Conservatives, too; their new alliances in the European parliament only catching alight at home when David Miliband led the attack against them.
The murmuring of retreat could be heard in Whitehall yesterday, after a BBC interview with Poland’s chief rabbi. In it he described the target of Mr Miliband’s ire, the Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, as a mainstream leader who was not antisemitic. Tories welcomed that – and the sense that Mr Miliband may have pushed things too hard – but they should not mistake the easing of one line of attack for a general acceptance of their European policy. Too little about it is known – and what is known is too alarming – for anyone to relax at the prospect of a Conservative government dealing with Brussels.
The point is less about extremism than about the party’s refusal to co-operate even with European politicians with whom it ought to agree. Fredrik Reinfeldt, for instance, the centre-right Swedish prime minister whose government is in many ways a testing ground for what might become Cameronism, was photographed yesterday cheering the Brussels agreement on climate aid. The agreement promises the developing world a mix of private and public money to cope with the likely impact of global warming. Whether all the promised billions materialise is open to question. But the deal, which Gordon Brown pushed for, raises the European standard ahead of next month’s Copenhagen summit. If the EU had done nothing this week, an effective global deal on climate change would have been several steps further away.
Though unsatisfactory in its lack of specifics, yesterday’s agreement is exactly the sort of thing modern Conservatives ought to be pleased the EU can do. Instead Tory leaders sound obstructive and, more importantly, are seen by other European leaders as bewilderingly hostile to co-operation and rational institutional change. This intransigence has already had consequences: “London’s loss will be Madrid’s gain,” declared Germany’s right-of-centre Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung thinktank recently when it moved its respected director from Britain in a small but intentional snub aimed at a Conservative party which walked away from partnership with the CDU in the European parliament.
The Tories will not be too shaken by that. But they should be. Abroad, a Cameron government will need friends in Europe in the major countries. At home, a Cameron government that wants to make any headway at all on the things its leader says he cares about – education reform, for instance, or poverty – would be mad to spend its energy instead on picking a fight with the rest of Europe. Whether it does so will depend on how Mr Cameron responds to the final ratification of the Lisbon treaty, which now looks imminent. His line until now, “we will not let matters rest”, will not serve after that. He is unlikely to promise a referendum on a treaty that will already be in operation. But he may promise a battle over other things – what, until Lisbon, was the EU social chapter, for instance, or the European budget when it comes up for review in 2011. Poor relations with other European right-of-centre leaders will not make such things easy to achieve.
If Mr Cameron is bold, he will face down his party on Europe. It would be a defining moment. It should happen soon. He has a choice: lead his country, or lead the opposition. Europe, once again, is make or break for the Tories.