Stamp out Terrorism

It is not as easy at it looks.
Photo Copyright:The Quiet Busker.

Dual Power in Nepal

Maoists to declare autonomous states

Baburam Bhattarai

KATHMANDU, NOV 26 - The UCPN (Maoist) on Thursday decided to declare 13 ethnic and region-based autonomous provinces from Dec. 11-18.

Maoist Vice Chairman Baburam Bhattarai, who heads the party’s United National People’s Movement, announced the decision on Thursday evening after a meeting of the party’s central office bearers and regional and ethnic fronts.

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Phil Hall: The Taleban are a drug cartel disguised as an Islamist movement

Truly the Taleban could have arranged as many bombings and terrorists acts as they liked in the UK. There are many Pashtun young men and women in cities in the UK who still have large extended families back in Afghanistan and who could be forced into doing something they should not. But guess what. So far there have been no attacks by Afghans on British soil. Why? It is a mystery.

News comes from Afghanistan and the recent UN report that the Taleban and the drug trade are intertwined and that now the Taleban, who are mainly Pashtun, are officially in command of an international drug cartel. 

News comes from Afghanistan that Taleban drug lords go to Dubai to live high on the hog and gamble and sleep with women and luxuriate in all the that the freedom to consume has to offer, while their footsoldiers, peasant fighters, are deluded and told that they are fighting a patriotic religious war. 

And though they are told they are fighting a religious war what really matters to them in trhe end, according to captured Taleban fighters, is, we hear, that Taleban footsoldiers are paid $400 to $500 a month. A substantial part of what these footsoldiers do is protect the drugs and arms trade. 

Now ask yourself this question. What would those poor peasants live on if they didn't get paid drug money from the Taleban cartels? They would have to scratch a poor living from the blasted soil. What could earn them an equivalent income to drugs and arms? Nothing. Not even the "saffron" that US intelligence has put forward in a half baked attempt at implanting a substitute crop.

Increasingly, what the US and British troops are facing in Afghanistan is a war against a drig cartel that hides behind a a fundamentalsit Islamic ideology, just as in the end, Sendero Luminoso was a drug cartel that hid behind Maoism. 

The real cause of the problem is not an ideological insurgency now, but it is a fight against a mafia, an expanding and powerful international drug cartel.

Look at Mexico's war against the drug cartels. Britain and the US and other western countries are disparaging about the Mexican governments possibility for success. According to them the Mexican government is being unrealistic and too heavy handed in its fight against the narcos in Mexico. But is that not exactly what NATO faces Afghanistan, with the additional, but increasingly flimsy ideological trappings.

The reason why a fight against a cartel is very hard to win is because, naturally,  the Livelihood of millions of Afghans is at stake. Remove the drug trade and you impoverish not only the Pashtuns, but everyone who benefits from the trade indirectly. Money will cease to circulate through what is already the shambles of an economy. The reason why you can't win a war against the cartels is that if you win, you consign people to abject poverty. 

This is the reason why all Obama's drones and all Obama's men will never put Afghanistan's state together again.

What has been very interesting has been the criticism of the Karzai government for corruption. Corruption itself is a bad word, but in this instance, corruption has become an embarrassing euphemism for narco-politics.

Yes, it is true that the Taleban cartel have diversified to some extent. They are also running guns from north to south in addition to the drugs they run from south to north. They are involved in other criminal activities as well. But primarily they are a drug cartel. 

Logically, if the Taleban really were out and out extremists with a desire to do damage and provoke an even bigger  "clash of civillisations" they could have done so easily. They could have damaged London and many other British, European and American cities.   But they haven't.

A territorial army man, 6 foot 6, a man of great moral fibre, got back a few months ago from Afghan where he was training the Afghan police. (There but for the Grace of God). He is going out with one of my neices. In fact, he was very reluctant to talk. But what I read into what he was saying is that drug taking in the British army and other armies, and especially in the US army, is an increasingly serious problem in Afghan at the moment. 

For a lot of bored soldiers, there is nothing much to do there except take drugs. The British, American and European way of life doesn't stigmatise drug taking really, and so, apparently, some of the squaddies are at it.

But there is another problem that will make the war agaisnt the Taleban almost unwinnable and that is the problem faced by any force that fights against a mafia. Omerta, yes, but in addition to omerta, the propensity to corruption in the occupying forces themselves. 

This is the way it is in Mexico. The closer you are to the fight against the Cartels, the more offers you get that you really can't refuse.

If we take the view that the conflict in Afghanistan is becoming, increasingly, a conflict against the Pashtun, Taleban drug cartels posing as Muslim fundementalists or using Muslim fundamentalism, then we need to reframe the way we see western countries should view Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is a dirt poor and broken country. The only way to get rid of the Taleban cartel is not by attacking them with guns, tanks, drones and planes: People will always risk death to feed their families. 

Only when Afghanistan has an infrastructure, when it has developed enough to be able to generate alternative sources of income will the problem begin to fade. We don't face the real possibility of terrorist attacks from the Taleban, we simply face the prospect of a glut in the heroin market.

Boycott the USA at Copenhagen

Anandi Sharan has supplied a list of people to petition. If you have read her previous blog then the essence of it goes like this:

"Boycott America's ineffectual measures at Copenhagen: The way to do this is to rush through, for purely procedural reasons, a meaningless 1 page document at the main Conference of the Parties – the CoP15, and then move on to the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol – the CoP/MoP5. 

"We must write to our leaders and tell them to finish the CoP15 in one day flat, and avoid American filibustering, thereby freeing up the next ten days of negotiations for the CoP/MoP5 - the forum that can deliver real results."

I trust Anandi's judgement utterly. She is one of the most perceptive people I know, if not the most perceptive person - a true Cassandra. Anandi was working against climate change and relating it to poverty alleviation in the 90s when everyone else was still talking about El Nino and the hole in the ozone layer. She has won international prizes in the fight against climate change and we should listen to her.

See her blog below for the full explanation of what we can do to help fight climate change.

People to Petition:

European Community Artur Runge Metzger artur.runge-metzger@ec.europa.eu

Russia Alexander Bedritsky bedr@mecom.ru

Japan Kenichi Kobayashi climate.focal.point@mofa.jp

Guinea Bissau Alexandre Cabral tucabral2@yahoo.com.br

Malaysia Shahril Faizal Abdul Jani faizal@nre.gov.my

Algeria Kamel Djemouai kdjemouai@yahoo.fr

Amjad Abdulla abdulla.amjad@gmail.com

Angola Lucas Marcolino Miranda lcs_miranda@yahoo.com

Antigua John Ashe jashe@abgov.org

Argentina Nazareno Castillo Marin ncastillo@ambiente.gov.ar

Armenia Aram Gabrielyan aram@nature.am

Azerbaijan Isa Aliyev aliyev@iglim.baku.az

Bahamas Philip Weech philipweech@bahamas.gov.bs

Barbados Lionel Weekes becklesp@gob.bb

Belize Carlos Fuller cfuller@btl.net

Benin Ibila Djibril idjibril@yahoo.fr

Benjamin Karmorh Jr benkamorh@yahoo.com

Bhutan Tshering Tashi ttashi@nec.gov.bt

Bolivia Juan Pablo Ramos Morales jprbol@gmail.com

Botswana Phetolo Phage pphage@gov.bw

Brazil Leandro Waldvogel leandro.mre@gmail.com

Burkina Faso Bobodo Blaise Sawadogo bbobodo@yahoo.fr

Burundi Odette Kayites okayitesi125@yahoo.fr

Cambodia Mok Mareth cceap@online.com.kh

Cameroun Joseph Armathé Amougou joearmathe@yahoo.fr

Central African Republic Aline Malibangar malibangaraline@hotmail.fr

Chad Moussa Tchitchaou moussatchit@yahoo.fr

China Qingtai Yu tfs5@mfa.gov.cn

Colombia Adriana Mejia Hernández pmdirect@minrelext.gov.co

Comoros Hachime Abdérémane hachimea@yahoo.fr

Congo Pierre Oyo ninonoyo@yahoo.fr

Cook Islands MoFA secfa@foraffairs.gov.ck

Costa Rica William Alpízar Zúñiga walpizar@imn.ac.cr

Cote D’Ivoire Kadio Ahossane kahossane@yahoo.com

Cuba Jorge Luis Fernández Chamero chamero@citma.cu

Cyprus Nicos Georgiades ngeorgiades@environment.moa.gov.cy

Democratic Republic of the Congo Aimé Mbuyi Kalombo mbuyikalombo@gmail.com

Djibouti M Elmi Obsieh Waiss adouale@yahoo.fr

Dominica Lloyd Pascal mykuch3@yahoo.com

Dominican Republic Ernesto Reyna Alcantara sga@medioambiente.gov.do

Ecuador Luis Edmundo Cáceres Silva lcaceres@ambiente.gov.ec

Ecuatorial Guinea Deogracias Ikaka Nzamio ikakanzamio@yahoo.fr

Egypt El-Sayed Sabry Mansour Nasr drnasr5@hotmail.com

El Salvador Ana Cecilia Carranza Choto ccarranza@marn.gob.sv

Eritrea Mogos Woldeyohannes Bairu depenvdg@eol.com.er

Ethiopia Kidane Asefa kidaneasefa@gmail.com

Evans Davie Njewa njewae@yahoo.com

Micronesia Andrew Yatilman andrewy@mail.fm

Fiji Cama Tuiloma camatuiloma@connect.com.fj

FYRMacedonia Teodora Obradovik-Grncarovska t.grncarovska@moepp.gov.mk

Gambia Pa Ousman Jarju pajarju@yahoo.co.uk

Georgia Grigol Lazriev lazriev@caucasus.net

Ghana William Kojo Agyemang-Bonsu wkabonsu@gmail.com

Grenada Jocelyn Paul jfplyn@yahoo.com

Guyana Gitanjali Chandarpal gitanjalic81@yahoo.com

Guinea Joseph Sylla joesylla2002@yahoo.fr

Haiti Moise Fils Jean-Pierre moisejp8@hotmail.com

Hussein Ahmad Suleiman Badarin honida99@yahoo.com

India Rajani Ranjan Rashmi rr.rashmi@nic.in

Indonesia Agus Purnomo agus.purnomo@cbn.net.id

Iran Mahmoud Babaei m.babaei@mfa.gov.ir

Jamaica Sylvia McGill wxservice.dir@cwjamaica.com

Jordan Faris Mohamad Al-Junaidi faljunidi@yahoo.com

Kanat Baigarin kbaigarin@climate.kz

Kazakhstan Bulat Bekniyazov info@climate.kz

Kenya Suzanne Tapapul Lekoyiet slekoyiet@nema.go.ke

Kuwait Ali Abbas Haider d.g@epa.org.kw

Kyrgystan Arstanbek Davletkeldiev min-eco@elcat.kg

Lao Khampadith Khammounheuang khampadith@gmail.com

Lebanon Youssef Naddaf y.naddaf@moe.gov.lb

Lesotho Bruno T. Sekoli bsekoli@hotmail.com

Lian Kok Fei drlian@nre.gov.my

Liberia Ben Turtur Donnie benturturdonnie@yahoo.com

Libya Abdulhakim El-Waer aelwaer@environment.org.ly

Madagaskar Michel Omer Laivao laivao2002@yahoo.fr

Malawai Aloysius M. Kamperewera kamphatso@gmail.com

Maldives Mohamed Aslam mohamed.aslam@mhte.gov.mv

Mali Mama Konaté konatmama29@gmail.com

Malta Marie Briguglio marie.briguglio@mepa.org.mt

Marilia Telma António Manjate telmanjate@yahoo.com.br

Marshall islands MOFA mofapol@ntamar.net

Masao Nakayama fsmun@fsmgov.org

Mauritania Sidi Mohamed Ould Sidibola Ould Wafi wafi@environnement.gov.mr

Mauritius Sateeaved Seebaluck sseebaluck@mail.gov.mu

Mexico María del Socorro Flores Liera focalpointmexico@sre.gob.mx

Mirza Castro mosiris_castro@yahoo.com

Mohamed Shareef mohamed.shareef@mhte.gov.mv

Mongolia Ts. Banzragch uts_banzai@yahoo.com

Montenegro Biljana Djurovic biljanadjurovic@yahoo.com

Morocco Mohamed Nbou nboudrm@yahoo.com

Mozambique Luciano de Castro l.castro@micoa.gov.mz

Namibia Teofilus Mutangeni Nghitila tnghitila@yahoo.com

Nepal Purushottam Ghimire purughimire@yahoo.com

Nicaragua Martha Elena Ruiz de Rodrigue mruiz@marena.gob.ni

Niger Saley Hassane hassanesaley@hotmail.com

Nigeria Helen Esuene piccdm@yahoo.com

Niue Sionetasi Pulehetoa sionetasi.pulehetoa@mail.gov.nu

Oman Zuhaira Ali Dawood zuhaira39@hotmail.com

Omar Ramírez Tejada o.ramirez@cambioclimatico.gob.do
Pakistan Jawed Ali Khan jawedalikhan@hotmail.com
Palau Ngedikes Olai Uludong Polloi opolloi@gmail.com
Panama Eduardo Enrique Reyes Guerrero e.reyes@anam.gob.pa
Paraguay Lilian Portillo lilianportillopy@gmail.com
Peru Vanessa Vereau Ladd vvereau@minam.gob.pe
Philippines UNIO unio.dfa@gmail.com
Qatar Abdulhadi Nasser Al-Marri anmarri@moe.gov.qa
Rep of Korea Byung-Seok Yoo bsyoo72@gmail.com
Rep of Moldova Valeriu Cazac valeriucazac@hotmail.com
Rickardo Ward wardr@gob.bb
Rwanda Dusabeyezu Sébastien dusabeseba@yahoo.fr
Saint Kitts June Hughes <ccodoe@sisterisles.kn
Saint Vincent Edmund Jackson <edmund_jackson2000@yahoo.com
Samoa Aiono Mose Pouvi Sua <mfat@mfat.gov.ws
Sao Tome Adérito Manuel Fernandes Santana <aderitosantana@hotmail.com
Senegal Cheikh Ndiaye Sylla denv@orange.sn
Seychelles Will Agricole w.agricole@pps.gov.sc
Shulamit Nezer shulin@sviva.gov.il
Sierra Leone Denis Sombi Lansana denislansana@yahoo.com
Solomon Islands Rence Sore psmecm@pmc.gov.sb
South Africa Judith Combrink jcombrink@deat.gov.za
Sri Lanka Senarath Mudalige Don Peter Anura Jayatilake eeconga@yahoo.com
Sudan Saadeldin Ibrahim Mohammed Izzeldin hcenr2005@yahoo.com
Suriname Joyce Amarello-Williams arbeid@sr.net
Swaziland Emmanuel Dumisani Dlamini ed_dlamini@yahoo.com
Syria Haitham Nashawati hnashawati1@yahoo.com
Tajikistan Begmurod Mahmadaliev office@meteo.tj
Thailand ONEP thai_ccc@onep.go.th
Theophile Chabi Worou theo_worou@yahoo.fr
Timor Leste Adao Soares Barbosa adaosoaresbarbosa@yahoo.com
Togo Komi Tomyeba kotomyeba@yahoo.fr
Tonga Asipeli Palaki a_palaki@yahoo.com
Tunisia Imed Fadhel i.fadhel@yahoo.fr
Uganda Philip Gwage pgwage@gmail.com
Uruguay Luis Alberto Santos Michetti lusa19@yahoo.com
Uzbekistan Victor Chub uzhymet@meteo.uz
Venezuela Ilenia Medina unidadmedioambiente@gmail.com
Victor Ayodeji Fodeke vicfodeke@gmail.com
Vietnam Nguyen Khac Hieu nkhieu@monre.gov.vn
Vincent Kasulu Seya Makonga kaseyamak@yahoo.fr
Wei Su suwei@ndrc.gov.cn
Yadir Salazar Mejía yadir.salazar@cancilleria.gov.co
Yemen Anwar Abdulaziz Noaman anwar.noaman@gmail.com
Zambia Kenneth Dalison Nkowani kapalakonje2@yahoo.com
Zimbabwe Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe mmukahanana58@yahoo.com

Andy Hall looks beyond appearances.

These guys are the real deal

A couple of months ago, I did a story that reminds me of why I got into photography in the first place....(editorial photography is getting increasingly difficult to maintain as a career - its fast becoming the preserve of the "gentleman" photographer).

A little-known band called Staff Benda Bilili from Kinshasa were making waves in the international music scene, having just won a big music prize.

So what, you might think, but this group of people have a different story to most "rock n roll" bands...they come from the most deprived areas in one of the most deprived, war-torn pats of the world, and if that wasn't hard-core enough, the core members are disabled from polio, that means they can only get about in wheelchairs or crutches.

Only a little while ago they were living on the streets or more specifically, in the grounds of Kinshasa Zoo, living on their wits and talent.

Staff Benda Bilili - which means "look beyond appearances" in the Lingala language, are the funkiest band you will hear, often sliding out of their wheelchairs to breakdance or body popping on their crutches.

The Drummer works an intricate beat on a plastic beer crate,and a nineteen year-old plucks on his home-made string instrument consisting of a piece of wire strung tightly from an old can, dropping to the floor, playing it like Jimi Hendrix would... and during their raucause, hypnotic gigs in the dusty bars of backstreet Kinshasa, the small crowd lap it up.

Whilst most bands have stylists and teams of marketing men behind them, trying to foster reputations of rebelliousness, and globe-trotting, hard-core lifesyles; these guys, mostly in their thirties and forties, do it for real.

Theyr'e not phased or particularily impressed by their new-found fame, and think nothing of touring Europe, (which they are doing right now), America and Japan - a world away from the squalor of back home. They have an energy, and a devil-may-care way thats amazing and totally different to this day and age of corporate ambition.

Copyright of Andy Hall, Getty Images. Do not reproduce without permission.

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Chilling No. 2

Anandi Sharan: Prospects for the Copenhagen Conference – Just 12 days to go

By Anandi Sharan

New technology interventions to create and reinforce sustainable systems, new ownership patterns to make community ownership of natural resources legally enforceable, natural resource conservation done by communities overruling government and oligopolies, equal rights for all species…. It was never going to be easy to deliver on the Rio earth summit treaties.

The climate convention was especially treacherous, because no one wanted it in the first place: we wanted an energy convention which would create national quotas of fossil fuel use, not a climate convention where we had nothing to say at all because WE DID NOT CAUSE THE PROBLEM. But that would have meant …well, equity, and that has been the sticking point all along.

The only way the UNFCCC process has been kept going for 18 years has been by nearly succumbing and then at the last minute always sidelining the USA. And indeed this is going to be the determining factor in Copenhagen too. The USA forced us all to adopt a Bali Action Plan (BAP) in 2007 which was, according to America, a plan for laying down targets and time tables for everyone.

This was an interpretation of the BAP which no one else – except perhaps Canada – went along with though, because enshrined in the text of the Convention agreed 15 years previously is the principle of “common and differentiated responsibility”, i.e. equity. Annex 1 countries, including the USA, are supposed under the Convention to reduce emissions, but developing countries are supposed to reduce emissions only provided the Annex 1countries pay us.

Today we are hostage to American senators who are in the pay of – well, of the companies and institutions that defend the American Way of Life. Democracy in America is not suited to the politics of the twenty first century, but sadly Obama has not acted on this simple truth which he no doubt knows himself too. He could have decided to forget about Congress and put through new rules under the American Clean Air Act, bolstered by the endangerment finding of the courts that greenhouse gases are damaging to human health.

But he did not, boasting in deeds if not words that he would have enough political charisma to push through an Act, and that rules are cowardly whilst Acts are glorious. Now he has neither, and is revealed as a miserable coward.

The campaign in the next 12 days has to be to write to Prime Ministers, Presidents and Kings and Queens attending the fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention at Copenhagen – the CoP15 and CoP/MoP5 - , asking them to boycott America. The way to do this is to rush through for purely procedural reasons a meaningless 1 page document at the main Conference of the Parties – the CoP15, and then move on to the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol – the CoP/MoP5.

All the signatories of the Kyoto Protocol want to continue with its arrangements and want a second commitment period with legally binding arrangements. The Kyoto Protocol is a decent enough set of rules for ensuring polluters reduce emissions and act on their financial commitments to us by paying us to switch to renewable energy. The deeper the QELROs accepted by the developed countries - the quantified emissions limitation and reduction obligations, the greater the incentive to buy carbon credits from us, the block of G77China who DID NOT CAUSE THE PROBLEM, but are willing to do as much as possible about it provided we are paid to do it. Buying carbon credits is the financial mechanism we need. In an ideal world the rich would thus say, right, we cut by 200 % against 1990 levels by 2020. and

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The campaign in the next 12 days has to be to write to Prime Ministers, Presidents and Kings and Queens ... asking them to boycott America.

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This means they cut 100% at home, and another 100% by paying us to install renewable energy systems in the billions so that everyone is the world has clean electricity and no one needs to use coal or non-renewable biomass anymore. In this way we would have an energy convention of sorts after all and climate change may just be slowed down or even reversed. But at the moment it is unlikely we can all agree on 200% cuts for Annex 1 countries against 1990 by 2020 at the CoP/MoP5. But Annex 1 could just agree to let’s say 90% cuts by 2020 - 45% to be done as domestic cuts and 45% to be achieved by paying us to do CDM projects.

The point is, the EU-27, and most of the other Annex 1 countries except the USA, and of course G77 and China, have experience of cooperating and want to go on with the Kyoto Protocol - except Canada - having had five years of the Kyoto Protocol arrangements, and having learnt a lot together. America is unwilling to catch up, unwilling to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and unwilling to make deep cuts – Obama is going to commit to 4% cuts against 1990 levels by 2020, thus dragging down other developed countries on what China calls “a race to the bottom” – but only nearly.

We must write to our leaders and tell them to finish the CoP15 in one day flat, and avoid American filibustering, thereby freeing up the next ten days of negotiations for the CoP/MoP5 - the forum that can deliver real results.

P.S. Stavros Dimas, the environment commissioner of the European Union, called on the trade bloc on Monday to pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent from 1990 levels to demonstrate leadership. 45% domestically and 45% through CDM would be better. We are on track to use up the entire 1000 Gt CO2e budget for this century before the next commitment period ends in 2020 unless we cut emissions by 8% annually globally.