International

 UN Initiatives

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2009

Sponsored by The United Nations Development Programme-

(Topic) HDR on migration, “Overcoming Barriers: Human mobility and Development

·         The report concludes that most migration is in fact beneficial, and calls for supporting policies to ease barriers to free movement.

·         Data provided in the HDR indicate that while the magnitude of migration has remained stable at 3 per cent of world’s population since 1960,the direction of movement has changed.

1.      In 1960, the share of migrants in North America and Europe was 19 per cent.

2.      In 2010 it is expected to touch 27 per cent, which perhaps explains the perception.

INDIA CASE

 However, the Indian reality is somewhat different.

·         If we look at remittances to India,

1.      27 per cent flow from Northern America,

2.      12.8 per cent from Europe and

3.       a whopping 58.2 per cent from Asia (51 countries including Gulf countries).

·         Seventy two per cent, or the bulk of emigration from India is to other countries in Asia.

The U.N. Children’s Fund and the WHO REPORT

·         Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO

·         Ann M. Veneman UNICEF Executive Director

The report, titled “Diarrhoea: Why Children Are Still Dying and What Can Be Done,

·         It includes information on the causes of diarrhoea, data on access to means of prevention and treatment, and a seven- point plan to reduce diarrhoea deaths.

·          Despite the existence of inexpensive and efficient means of treatment, diarrhoea kills (second killer) more children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined,

·         Diarrhoea is a common symptom of gastrointestinal infection

1.      However just a handful of organisms are responsible for most acute cases of diarrhoea and one, Rotavirus, is responsible for more than 40 per cent of all diarrhoea-related hospital admissions of children under five.

2.      A new vaccine for Rotavirus has been found to be safe but is still largely unavailable in most developing countries.

Iccrom (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property)

·          Iccrom was established with Unesco’s assistance in 1959.

·         The inter-governmental organisation with 126 member states Main concern conservation of Heritage sites.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

UNIFEM executive director Ines Alberdi

PURPOSE The UNIFEM promotes women’s empowerment and gender equality by focussing on strengthening women’s economic security and rights, ending violence against women, including trafficking, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls, and achieving gender equality in democratic governance.

Programs

·         The global safe city programme, already being implemented in some cities of Latin America and Africa also in Delhi  , entails some simple solutions like special transport facility for women, providing alarms in the public transport system and improving street lighting to give women a sense of security.

·         UNIFEM, also signed an agreement with the Norwegian government for promoting and strengthening women’s participation in local governance and political leadership. The $ 9 million agreement will be implemented in India and some other countries of South Asia for building capacities of the elected women so that their voices are heard in the political spheres.

UNCTAD

UNCTAD’s just-released “World Investment Report 2009: Transnational Corporations, Agricultural Production and Development” reveals some fascinating shifts in the global agricultural sector.

Most striking: twelve of the world’s 25 leading agricultural production (plantation) firms are from developing countries.

·         Sime Darby of Malaysia is largest,

·         As striking, it is much larger than Nos. 2 and 3 — the Dole Food Company and Fresh Del Monte Produce of the United States,

·         India’s Karuturi Global, a rose producer, ranks No. 23.

Developing country firms are also becoming significant M&A players in agricultural production.

 The world’s 25 top agricultural suppliers and privately-owned agri-food businesses are all from developed economies. Further, the leading firms in these verticals are gigantic.

·         Walmart, the world’s largest food retail TNC

·          It is followed by Nestle, the world’s largest food & beverages TNC,.

Inward FDI Flow : China is now the world’s leading agricultural FDI destination, with annual flows of $700 million and $6 billion in inward FDI stock, far ahead of the United States whose inward agricultural FDI stock is just $2.5 billion.

·         In Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia, agriculture draws 10-15 per cent of total national FDI inflows.

·         Multinationals account for 100 per cent of Mozambique’s and Zambia’s cotton production, 75 per cent of Brazil’s poultry production, and 90 per cent of Vietnam’s fresh milk production.

Outward FDI Flow : China, with $1.2 billion in outward agricultural FDI stock in 2007, is now the world’s third largest international agricultural investor after the United States and Canada, and South Korea, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia also figure amongst the global top 20.

·         India — one of the largest global agricultural producers with a strong latent international advantage — is absent from this list.

International

WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency)

World Anti-Doping Agency, which aims to promote a dope free culture in sport.

• It works to implement the World Anti-Doping code in sports.
• It was established on November 10, 1999. at the initiative of the IOC as a Swiss private law foundation,
• Its seat is in Lausanne, Switzerland, and its headquarters are in Montreal, Canada.
• In 2005 UNESCO Convention against Doping in Sport was signed by more than 115 countries, including India,.

U.S. climate monitoring service ie  NOAA Climate Service gets go-ahead

The Obama administration delivered a vote of confidence in climate science by setting up a service to study and report on global warming.

·         It will put scientists and data from the national weather service and various departments of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under one roof in Washington DC.

·         Administration officials described Noaa Climate Services, which will be accessible to the public via its website www.climate.gov, as “one-stop shopping” for business, the public and officials seeking information on climate change.

·         Gary Locke, the commerce secretary who has overall charge of NOAA.

Maldives Cabinet to hold underwater meeting

Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed is to preside over the world’s first underwater Cabinet meeting off the island of Girifushi, about 20 minutes journey from the capital Male, to draw global attention to the pressing issue of climate change.

The Maldives (LOWEST LYING NATION ) comprises 1,192 coral islets that lie on an average just 1.5 metres above sea level.

·         As a country that is threatened most by the rise in sea levels, the Maldives sees itself as the front-line state in the debate on climate change.

·         For Maldives the threat of a warmer sea will translate into higher water levels, through thermal expansion of the ocean and storm surges and could also damage coral, on which the islands depend for fishing and tourism.

350.org. ( an NGO)

·         350.org is calling on political leaders to commit to deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions at Copenhagen.

·         The 350.org campaign will cumulate in a global day of environmental action on October 24.

·         The world’s top climatologists, such as James Hansen of the NASA/Goddard Institute, caution

1.      That atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide must return to the safe threshold of 350 parts per million if catastrophic global warming is to be avoided

2.      Levels currently stand at 385ppm.

Goldstone report
The report authored by South African jurist Richard Goldstone The Goldstone report focuses mainly on alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was mandated by United Nations

Nation recently permitting complete freedom to press a journalist haven—ICELAND

U.K. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court was established by Part 3 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and started work on 1 October 2009.^[1][2]

·         It assumed the judicial functions of the House of Lords, which were exercised by the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (commonly called "Law Lords"),

·         the 12 professional judges appointed as members of the House of Lords to carry its judicial business out.

·         The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the supreme court (court of last resort, highest appellate court) in all matters under English law, Welsh law, Northern Irish law and Scottish civil law (the court has no authority over criminal cases in Scotland, where the High Court of Justiciary remains the supreme criminal court).

·         The Supreme Court also has jurisdiction to determine devolution disputes — cases in which the legal powers of the three devolved governments or laws made by the devolved legislatures are questioned.

·         The Supreme Court sits in the Middlesex Guildhall in Westminster, London,

·          The President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the head of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom..The office is currently held by Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers,

·          the President of the Supreme Court ranks after the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords.

CHINA OVERHAULS ITS LAND LAW

China’s State Council, or Cabinet, has announced a major overhaul of land laws that will slow the process of home demolitions and give home-owners here greater compensation for their land.

·         Law for the first time mandates that the State will have to ensure that home-owners are given market-price compensation for their land.

·         The law also makes it illegal for developers and local governments to use violence or other coercive means .

·         While land acquisitions in China, where the government legally controls all land, are limited, in theory, to projects in the public interest .

MILITTARY OPERATIONS

·         Operations to check piracy on African coast

1.      Operation Ocean Shield, Operation Atlanta , SHADE ,

Operation Ocean Shield

Foreseeing an upsurge in pirate attacks in the coming months, the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation patrolling the Gulf of Aden are bracing themselves for the challenge. Two Standing NATO Maritime Groups will be deployed in rotation in the pirates-infested area for the next two years.

·         The NATO forces will operate in tandem with the European Union Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) and the U.S.-led counter piracy Task Forces 150 and 151.

·         Besides India, which is one of the 17 contact nations for NATO in counter-piracy operations, China, Japan and Russia have deployed their naval ships in the region to ensure safe passage of merchant vessels from their countries.

·         The Indian Navy’s missile frigate Godavari is now deployed on counter-piracy duties.

Operation Atlanta

·         The European Union, on its part, extended deployment of 12 naval ships under Operation Atlanta, launched in August last, till December 2010,

·         Meanwhile, EUNAVFOR has developed a tool, Mercury, using a Web application by which all navies in the region can have real-time communication with one another. The Indian Navy is also using it.

SHADE

·         To coordinate patrolling by individual navies and combined forces as also increase their situational awareness, an initiative, Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE), was kick-started under the aegis of the United States’ Combined Maritime Force (CMF),

ORGANISATION

South Asian Foundation (SAF)

SAF is a secular, non-profit and non political organisation, comprising eight autonomous chapters in the eight countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Mr. Madanjeet Singh founded the South Asian Foundation (SAF) in 2000 as a regional youth movement and it has now grown to have chapters in eight countries. An artist, writer, former diplomat, philanthropist, founder of South Asian Foundation (SAF) and UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador since 2000,

ACTIVITES

• South Asia Foundation has worked to enlarge the scope of its activities in search of common cultural, educational and economic denominators to strengthen cooperative initiatives throughout the South Asian region. 
• The ‘South Asia Foundation Peace Festival 2009,’ which began Amritsar. The 14-day festival which sees plays, film festivals, musical performances has brought together artists from both sides of the border as more than 90 artists from Pakistan have crossed the border for the festival.
• Scholarship scheme for students

Nuclear commission                                                                                                      

The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, a joint initiative by Australia and Japan                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

The body aims to reduce the number of nuclear weapons world-wide and achieve conditions that might permit the ultimate goal — total elimination of nuclear weapons.

It also aims to reinvigorate international efforts on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, in the context of both the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, and beyond.

INITIATED BY                                                                                                                           Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed the commission in June last year. It is co-chaired by the former Foreign Ministers, Gareth Evans (Australia) and Yoriko Kawaguchi (Japan).
STRUCTURE                                                                                                                                

·         The commission also has 13 commissioners, including the former National Security Adviser,BrajeshMishra,

·          AND a 27-member advisory board. The board includes

1.      the former United Nations Special Representative and former foreign Minister of Algeria, Lakhdar Brahimi,

2.      the former United States Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz  and

3.      adviser and research consultant to the commission R. Gen. (Retd.) V.Raghavan.

·         The commission’s previous three regional meetings were held in Moscow, Beijing and Chile. Fourth regional conference at NEW DELHI .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

SUMMITS

The East Asia Summit (EAS),

• The fourth annual meeting of the EAS leaders, which Thailand,.
• 16-state EAS forum.
• the EAS is a leaders-driven forum that can discuss any issue of cooperation or conflict among the 16 participant-countries.
• The ASEAN+3 countries share the EAS seats with India, Australia, and New Zealand as full participant-countries.
• So far, the EAS forum, too, has by and large limited itself to economic and social issues and not the pan-regional or global political challenges

(1) Asia Pacific Community Political initiative of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who assumed office after the EAS met in Singapore in 2007, has proposed an Asia Pacific Community. More recently,

(2) East Asia Community .Political initiative of the new Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has envisioned an East Asia Community.

(3) The ASEAN+3 entity has in its fold all the 10 Southeast Asian countries plus China, Japan, and South Korea. These three are Northeast Asian powers that have long-standing ties with the ASEAN countries.

(4) Summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Singapore later this year