WSSD.INFO NEWS
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WSSD Info. News ISSUE # 95-16 August 2002
Compiled by Richard Sherman Edited by Kimo Goree Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) Distributed exclusively to the 2002SUMMIT-L list by IISD Reporting Services For more information on the WSSD, visit IISD's Linkages Portal at http://wssd.info Editor's note: Welcome to the ninth issue of WSSD.Info News, compiled by Richard Sherman. We hope to provide this service on at least a fortnightly basis from now through the Summit. If you should come across a news article or have a submission for the next issue, please send it directly to Richard. WSSD.Info News is an exclusive publication of IISD for the 2002SUMMIT-L list and should not be reposted or republished to other lists/websites without the permission of IISD (you can write Kimo for permission.) If you have been forwarded this issue and would like to subscribe to 2002SUMMIT-L, please visit http://iisd.ca/scripts/lyris.pl?join=2002summit-l. Funding for the production of WSSD.Info News (part of the IISD Reporting Services annual program) has been provided by The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government of Canada (through CIDA), the United States (through USAID), the Swiss Agency for Environment, Forests and Landscape (SAEFL), the United Kingdom (through the Department for International Development - DFID), the European Commission (DG-ENV), the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Government of Germany (through German Federal Ministry of Environment - BMU, and the German Federal Ministry of Development Cooperation - BMZ). General Support for the Bulletin during 2002 is provided by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Environment of Finland, the Government of Australia, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of New Zealand, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Environment of Norway, Swan International, and the Japanese Ministry of Environment (through the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies – IGES). If you like WSSD.Info News, please thank them for their support. GENERAL NEWS
OPINIONS
100. CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPMENT Learning to manage urban sprawl (International Herald Tribune 12 August 2002) 101. STEERING ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES BACK ON THE POLITICAL AGENDA (DW World 8 August 2002)
GENERAL NEWS 1. EARTH SUMMIT TO SPUR UKRAINE TO ACTION The Moscow Times 16 August 2002 Internet: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2002/08/16/014.html KIEV -- Chernobyl, rusting industrial relics of the Soviet era, heavy pollution and mountains of waste -- Ukraine has one of the world's bleakest environmental landscapes. But Environment Minister Serhiy Kurykin said Thursday he hoped the Johannesburg Earth Summit later this month would bring changes by helping Ukraine fight widespread public indifference toward environmental issues. "Ecological problems in Ukraine are very serious. We inherited from the Soviet Union piles of industrial waste and ecologically dangerous companies. We also inherited a negligent attitude toward nature," Kurykin said. "But I hope the summit will give a powerful boost for a better understanding of ecological problems at the national level and more active practical steps. Currently, Ukraine is doing less than it could and must do." President Leonid Kuchma plans to attend the United Nations summit on the environment and development. One of the worst problems is radioactive contamination after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in 1986, the world's worst civil nuclear accident. Ukraine closed the Chernobyl plant in December 2000. But the surrounding land remains contaminated, Kurykin said. Ukraine's government announced Thursday that it will increase funding by more than $80 million annually over the next three years to alleviate the human consequences of Chernobyl, The Associated Press reported. Total funding for the program is expected to reach $657 million by 2006, up from $400 million, the level reached this year, said Vasyl Lutsko, state secretary of the Emergency Situations Ministry, AP reported citing Interfax. Kurykin said the country had made some progress in tackling the issues of air pollution and safely securing dumps of chemicals across the country. But a lot remains to be done as the country's environmental problems rarely receive proper funding. "Ecological problems are not local, they are global. We should coordinate efforts and I hope for a positive outcome from the summit and a massive impulse for action in Ukraine and other countries," Kurykin said.
2. ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP CALLS FOR CORPORATE GLOBAL RULES SABC News 16 August 2002 Internet: http://www.sabcnews.co.za/world/summit/0,1009,40899,00.html The environmental group, Friends of the Earth, today called on world leaders meeting at the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg, to introduce global rules for business. "Some corporations continue to abuse the rights of people, destroy the livelihoods of communities, and pollute water and forest resources for future generations," according to a report released by Friends of the Earth. In the report, the environmental group mentions the mining giant, Rio Tinto that is prospecting for gold in the Poboya protected forest in Indonesia, despite opposition from local people. South Africa's chemical company Sasol has also come under fire. "Sasol has been influential in pushing for voluntary environmental agreements, rather than legally enforceable standards that the local community could use to hold them liable." Friends of the Earth said the call for global rules had so-far been met with "little enthusiasm" from Western governments. It had received the backing of many developing countries, though, the organisation said. "The evidence in this report highlights the real damage companies are doing to people and to our environment," Tony Juniper, the vice-chairperson of Friends of the Earth International said. "Despite big companies' green public relations efforts, it illustrates how, for many companies, sustainable development means business as usual. "Without global rules to check this behaviour, the environment is not going to figure on the corporate bottom line and it would be naive to expect otherwise."- Sapa
3. DEVELOPMENT WORKERS GATHER AHEAD OF S. AFRICA SUMMIT The Jordan Times 16 August 2002 Internet: http://www.jordantimes.com/Fri/homenews/homenews7.htm AMMAN - Twenty-six Arab and foreign experts are here for a leadership course in exchanging views on development issues ahead of the upcoming World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg. Those taking part are expected to define and comprehend the challenges facing leadership in order to gain a better understanding of the obstacles to be presented at the Johannesburg conference, said Eve Thompson, director of the United Nations University Leadership Academy, which organised the event. The development workers began sessions Aug. 14 and will travel to Johannesburg for the WSSD conference from Aug. 28-Sept. 4. Those participating in the conference here come from 22 countries including Canada, Oman, Germany, Spain and India. Nidal Hussein, an environmental director in Zarqa Municipality and a Jordanian participant, said he is meeting "experts from different countries and exchanging experiences on environmental issues. Later we get the chance to see the real thing in Johannesburg," he told The Jordan Times. A follow up to the 1992 Rio "Earth Summit" and subsequent international summits, the Johannesburg gathering will call upon countries to implement the comprehensive plan for sustainable development of Agenda 21, a resolution adopted at the Rio summit. Each country is expected to present the South African summit a national plan of its sustainable development achievements over the past 10 years, including the challenges the implementation process faces and future goals. According to Elizabeth Dowdswell, the former executive director of the UN Environment Programme, who directed the first session, many experts are refraining from taking part in the WSSD, believing it would be a "marathon of talking" with 60,000 people participating. "We, however, cannot risk not to go. It will be a chance to hear each country's success story case by case so we can build on them and make a change in our own countries," she said. "The Johannesburg summit should call for the implementation of existing plans, rather than coming up with new policies," said another participant, Zeenat Adam, a Middle East specialist from South Africa working as foreign service officer in the department of foreign affairs. Sessions began on Wednesday, and the academy hopes participants will "learn about leadership directly from leaders." In a country like Jordan where natural resources are scarce, humans are the only assets, said Minister of Higher Education & Scientific Research Walid Maani. Briefing the participants on the education sector in the Kingdom, Maani said local university programmes have adopted international standards and the flavour of a multiethnic society to them. "We try to bring people together," said Maani, referring to a 15 per cent rate of non-Jordanians at private and public universities.
4. JAPAN PM SET TO ANNOUNCE AFRICA AID PACKAGE The Namibian 16 August 2002 Internet: http://www.namibian.com.na/2002/august/africa/027B70E7A1.html TOKYO, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is set to pledge fresh aid to southern Africa in response to urgent United Nations warnings that a humanitarian crisis is looming in the region due to chronic food shortages. Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said on Friday that Koizumi would announce $30 million in emergency food aid at the U.N.'s "Earth Summit" in Johannesburg opening on August 26. An official on the Foreign Ministry's Africa desk said the content of the package had yet to be decided. "We're still looking at exactly how the contribution will be made and whether food aid will be included. I think there will be an announcement before the prime minister goes to Johannesburg," he said. About 100 heads of state are expected to attend the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development from August 26 to September 4, along with some 40,000 delegates and media representatives. A severe food crisis threatens 13 million people in the six countries in the region -- with Malawi and Zimbabwe the worst hit. The U.N. has appealed for a million tonnes of food. Japan is the world's second-biggest aid donor after the United States, but the budget has been shrinking under pressure from its ailing economy. Nampa-Reuters
5. TEN YEARS ON, THE RIO "CIRCUS" HEADS FOR SOUTH AFRICA ENN 16 August 2002 Internet: http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/08/08152002/reu_48156.asp LONDON - Jane Fonda, the actress, was there. So was Pele, the footballer. A relatively obscure U.S. senator called Al Gore swung into town and looked impressed at a symbolic "Tree of Life." John Denver sang for a spiritual parliament. Hollywood star Shirley MacLaine meditated with the Dalai Lama. Amazon Indians, Greenpeace activists, and the Beach Boys rubbed shoulders near the legendary Copacabana Beach. Ten years ago, the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro teemed with politicians, celebrities, and environmentalists as the United Nations hosted what was at the time its largest meeting, the Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit. One hundred and eight heads of state and government, supported by delegations from 172 countries, made speeches and negotiated in a conference center out of town on treaties to save the world. Buzzwords like sustainable development, chlorofluorocarbons, biodiversity, and NGO bounced around the halls, where an army of journalists tried to make sense of them. The NGOs, or nongovernmental organizations, lobbied in their hundreds, adding to the blizzard of position papers, speeches, and statements. Some miles away, on the Rio beachfront, thousands of Green activists gathered at an environmental fair, a rainbow of posters and T-shirts that was part '60s hippie love-in and part anti- globalization rally. In the shadow of Corcovado's towering figure of Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf's massive outcrop, activists demanded protection for rain forests and endangered species, an end to fossil fuels and the nuclear industry, and the general scaling back of the ravages of capitalism. One U.S. official described the whole event as "a circus." It was not meant as a compliment. JOHANNESBURG BOUND Ten years on, and the Earth Summit - this time called the World Summit on Sustainable Development - moves to South Africa, where it will open in Johannesburg on Aug. 26. The issues will be water and sanitation, energy, agricultural productivity and food security, biodiversity and ecosystem management, and health. All will be wrapped under the rubric of sustainable development - or, roughly, how to manage global economic growth without environmental loss. A decade ago, the leaders also had far-reaching plans. They agreed to treaties to combat climate change and to protect plants and animals, the rich said they would help the poor develop, and they all adopted a huge blueprint to guide themselves through it. But there are few today who would argue that the promises of Rio have been met. "There was really quite a buzz at Rio," said Tony Carritt, who attended the summit as a reporter and is now media relations manager for the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen. "There was a feeling that things would actually happen. Then as soon as Rio was over the momentum went out of it." Most, if not all, of the major issues facing the Earth Summit - pollution, environmental destruction, poverty - are still around. Indeed, many of the clashes between competing interests that dominated Rio are expected to be on display once again. The U.S. official's comments about a "circus" in 1992, for example, reflected Washington's dismay at hearing a drumbeat of demands that the rich West share its wealth with the poor and adopt policies that it did not necessarily see as being in its interests. Then-President George Bush refused to sign the Earth Summit's biodiversity treaty, fearing it would hurt U.S. pharmaceutical interests, and generally found himself cast in the role of Rio party-pooper. A decade later, his son, President George W. Bush, may not even attend and has been lambasted for pulling out of the Kyoto agreement, a follow-on pact from Rio's treaty on climate change. HIGH PROFILE Veterans of Rio say, however, that the Earth Summit did have one huge effect: It put many issues that only environmentalists seemed to care about on the world agenda. "Rio changed a lot in terms of attitude," said Nitin Desai, U.N. undersecretary general, who is organizing the Johannesburg summit. "Today one does not have to argue the case for integrating environment and development." The issue of sharing the wealth between developing and developed countries - a key dispute at Rio - has come to dominate most global summits and international negotiations. It was most clearly on display last year in Qatar, when the World Trade Organization met to negotiate the launch of a new trade round. "Rio was in some senses a 'first one,'" said Desai, who expects tens of thousands of nongovernmental activists to show up in South Africa to fight their causes on the sidelines of the official meeting. "One of the things that has changed is that summits are not seen just as summits of government, but of stakeholders," he said. Global warming, the ozone layer, rain forest destruction, the spread of deserts, and the effect of poverty on the environment are all now common subject for debate, 10 years after Rio. "A lot of things that were considered screamer environmentalist are now accepted as part of the economic reality," said Abby Spring, who was press officer for the U.S. arm of the World Wide Fund for Nature at the Earth Summit. It was not always so. Spring recalled the reaction before Rio when she tried to get journalists interested in the now widely accepted concept that pollution was changing the climate. "Reporters would hang up on you and think it was a joke," she said.
6. 'WE'LL TAKE SANDTON' Mail & Guardian 16 August 2002 Internet: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?o=7347 The anti-globalisation lobby fired the first public salvo in its war on the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) at a series of demonstrations on Thursday -- and warned it was mobilising for a frontal assault. Hundreds of township activists converged on Johannesburg's Jeppe Regional Court to support comrades charged with public violence in April at the home of the city's mayor, Amos Masondo. Solidarity protests were organised in London, New York, Washington DC, Toronto and Paris. While the catalyst in Johannesburg was the trial of the "Kensington 87", the rhetoric was anti-summit. "The WSSD is a gathering of the rich and powerful; it is a gathering of the hypocrites; it is a gathering of the exploiters... We'll take Sandton," one protest leader, Trevor Ngwane, said. Sandton is the main venue for the WSSD, starting August 26. Thursday's events indicate South Africa can expect the same vocal, and sometimes violent, protest that has accompanied major global gatherings since the 1999 Seattle summit of the World Trade Organisation. Ngwane, a former city councillor expelled from the African National Congress for his anti-privatisation stance, and 86 more Soweto residents were arrested in April when they marched on Masondo's home in Kensington, Johannesburg, demanding an end to electricity and water cut-offs. That protest, led by the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee that is chaired by Ngwane, turned violent as Masondo's bodyguard fired into the crowd, reportedly wounding three. The trial, due to have started on Thursday, was postponed to October 23 after the defence argued it had received the prosecution docket too late to prepare. But outside the court building up to 500 protestors under banners of, among others, the Anti-Privatisation Forum and Ngwane's crisis committee, faced lines of police armed with shotguns and shields. There were no violent incidents. Both organisations belong to a loose alliance of South African groups that mobilise around issues such as access to water, electricity and land, as well as environmental activists. They see their often-localised protests as part of a larger struggle against the ills of globalisation. Anti-globalisation groups tend to blame multinational corporations, with the governments of the industrialised West and agencies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation, for problems that beset both the world's poor and the environment. The Sunday Independent reported at the weekend that the National Intelligence Agency was "particularly concerned about the plans of" the Landless People's Movement and had been questioning its leaders. The Landless People's Movement is part of the same alliance. All these groups are planning to march on Sandton on August 31, and are also organising what they have called a "festival of resistance to visiting heads of state" on September 2. Ngwane told protestors: "We want it to be the biggest march in South Africa under the new regime ... since Thabo Mbeki took over." A number of speakers attacked Mbeki and his government for policies including the privatisation of basic services and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad). Ngwane said while the WSSD ostensibly promised to alleviate poverty through sustainable development, "the very same country that is hosting it is evicting people from houses, cutting electricity. In fact they're doing exactly the opposite." Dennis Brutus, a veteran anti-apartheid campaigner and political prisoner now prominent in the international anti-globalisation movement, called the WSSD "a summit designed to increase hunger [and] hardship". At the time of going to press the outcome of the protests abroad, which were to be convened outside South African embassies and consulates late on Thursday, was not known. A London organisation helping to organise these protests, Globalise Resistance, said on its website: "Disconnections, evictions and the seizure of property, often carried out at gunpoint, are being spontaneously resisted all over [South Africa]. As resistance becomes progressively more organised with strong local, national and international networks forming ... more repression is anticipated." Meanwhile groups not necessarily part of the anti-globalisation lobby but with radical agendas of their own are also converging on Johannesburg. Environmental activist group Greenpeace has set up an office in Sandton and is considering its options for protest. Greenpeace has expressed serious reservations about the summit agenda. "The failure to include concrete targets and timetables for action on sustainable development defeats the entire purpose of the Summit," Greenpeace political director Remi Parmentier said in an earlier statement. This week Greenpeace spokesperson Sara Holden would not be drawn on protest plans, reportedly saying: "I would like to give you some idea of what we have planned but I will not do so." The police, assisted by the defence force, metro police and, according to an earlier police statement, "other relevant security agencies", are preparing to counter any attempt at disruption. The police statement said: "Our information gathering is intelligence-driven and we are geared to deal with any crisis should one arise ... Stop and search operations as well as roadblocks are determined by tactical intelligence daily. The vacation leave of South African Police Service members has been cancelled for the period of the summit." In addition, a no-go zone will be demarcated around the summit venue in Sandton. The statement says only approved marches will be allowed, and only along a pre-determined 1,8km route. "The police are present to ensure the safety of demonstrators, citizens and property. Should an illegal gathering or march take place, the security forces will take the necessary action."
7. PM TO MAKE SPEECH AT SUMMIT Daily Star 16 August 2002 Internet: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/16_08_02/art5.asp Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is to deliver an address on behalf of Lebanon during the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, which is due to open in Johannesburg on Aug. 26. Hariri, whose address has been set for Sept. 2, is expected to speak about the impact of consumption and production trends on poverty, natural resources, agriculture, globalization, governance, health, education and the environment. An informed source called for not underestimating the importance of the nine-day meet, which has been dubbed the "Earth Summit" and is expected to be attended by most of the heads of the 189 member states of the United Nations. This summit, which is held once every ten years, was held the last time in Rio de Janeiro. Kesrouan MP Fares Boueiz, who was then serving as foreign minister, represented Lebanon at the 1992 meeting. A political source said that although many of the issues to be discussed at the summit were not political in nature, their implications are. Lebanon's attendance comes as it is hoping to benefit from financial assistance from the world's industrialized countries. The source said that Hariri is expected to make the most out of his trip by holding talks with several heads of state, including French President Jacques Chirac on the likelihood of holding the "Paris II" conference of donor states willing to help Lebanon overcome financial strife.
8. GREENS DON'T NEED THE US The Guardian 16 August 2002 Internet: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldsummit2002/story/0,12264,775542,00.html There is no pleasing some people. The organisers of the Johannesburg summit on the environment bent over backwards to persuade George Bush to accept their invitation. As the most accommodating hosts, they even changed the date to suit him, bringing it forward to avoid a clash with the anniversary of September 11. But still it was not enough. Yesterday came the clearest signal yet that the US president, leader of the world's sole superpower and the planet's greatest single polluter, will snub the UN and the 65,000 delegates to this month's world summit on sustainable development by failing to show up. He received congratulations on that from a clutch of US arch-conservatives, praising him for having the good sense to stay away. It is not official yet, but it seems Colin Powell will go in his place - confirmation, if it were needed, of the secretary of state's status as the human figleaf of the Bush administration, dispatched whenever Washington needs to put on its moderate, inclusive or "listening" face. It all amounts to a clearer two-fingered salute than even the first Bush administration managed. Ten years ago Bush Sr dithered and delayed before finally showing up at the earth summit for a few hours. But now Bush Jr has decided to listen to those rightists who believed his dad made a mistake by flying down to Rio, giving in to the long-haired, granola-munching whiners of the environmental lobby. "Why would you want to go to a party when they want to throw pies at you?" asked Fred L Smith Jr of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, first to praise the prez. "The fortunate thing is, when 40,000 goofies get together not much happens." That may be a crude summary of US attitudes but, coupled with the presidential absence, it suggests Johannesburg will provide the biggest demonstration yet of the new American disregard for the rest of the world. The summit will give eloquent expression to the Bush doctrine of go-it-alone unilateralism, in which America pursues its own interests first - with an avowed aversion to any multilateral efforts to make the world a better place. There has been other evidence, such as Washington's refusal to sign up for the international criminal court. But just as Bush's tear-up of the Kyoto protocol shocked the world into realising the depth of the new administration's contempt for multilateralism, so the Johannesburg stayaway will reveal again the unilateralist heart of Republican thinking, confirming the coalition-building that followed September 11 was the exception, not the rule. This poses a great danger for those who want to see results from South Africa. At a presummit meeting last month, European diplomats spoke openly of their fears that the US was bent on undermining the global get-together, replacing binding targets and timetables with mere "voluntary initiatives". Washington has also sought to have trade, aid and debt relief taken off the Johannesburg agenda - which would not leave much to talk about. The summiteers are left wondering how they can hope to achieve anything if the world's sole superpower is at best barely engaged and, at worst, outright hostile? And this poses a wider challenge: for what can the nations of the world do in any sphere if the US refuses to play the international game? They could try to battle on regardless, as they did at Bonn last year when they renewed the Kyoto protocol despite the US boycott. That is what influential US economist Jeffrey Sachs advocates. Ignore "Washington's arrogant disregard", he says. But that kind of effort takes leadership. Most environmentalists can see only one candidate: the European Union. "This is as much a test of the EU as it is about America," says Kevin Watkins, senior policy adviser at Oxfam. "Is the EU capable of showing leadership?" The US has left a vacuum and the EU alone has the capacity to fill it. Put together, EU nations have far greater voting strength on the World Bank and the IMF than the US (and more than Africa, Latin America and South Asia combined). It has the muscle if it wants to use it. But so far Europe has not dared act as a coherent power bloc. And nor, says Watkins, has it set an example. With the honourable exception of Britain, the leading EU states have cut, not increased, their aid to poor countries and have not made good on their promise to help fund education in the poorest nations. So the easy posture later this month will be to denounce the Americans for staying away from Johannesburg. A better move might be to ask whether the Europeans did enough while they were there.
9. FAMINE-THREATENED AFRICA SHIES AWAY FROM GENETICALLY MODIFIED RELIEF FOOD The Namibian 15 August 2002 Internet: http://www.namibian.com.na/2002/august/africa/027ADC2041.html CAPE TOWN, Aug 15 (AFP) - Half the countries facing famine in southern Africa are stalling food aid from the United States fearing that genetically modified (GM) maize may cause health problems and harm their exports, but the United Nations is warning they are putting the hungry at greater risk. Judith Lewis, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) director for southern and eastern Africa, said Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe had raised concerns about receiving shipments of yellow corn, which forms the bulk of aid supplies sent by the United States. The loudest protests have come from Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, who was quoted on international television as saying: "It is necessary to examine the maize before we give it to our people... we will rather starve than get something toxic." Lewis said that most of the seven countries threatened with famine -- Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe -- had in recent years received US-grown corn to make up for food shortfalls but that the safety objections surfaced only recently. "The debate has suddenly cropped up. The countries are asking whether there is a health risk, and they also fear that the maize could be planted and cause cross pollination of their crops or influence meat if it is eaten by their livestock," she told Nampa-AFP from Johannesburg. At a meeting on Monday, Zambian Agriculture Minister Mundia Sikatana accused international donors of having deceived the country for years. He gave no indication of whether the government would accept a shipment of 23,500 tonnes of relief corn from the United States which Lusaka-based US officials said was due to arrive at the end of August. Zimbabwe, which is home to half the region's people threatened with famine and has seen its food production plummet because of President Robert Mugabe's turbulent land reform programme, in May failed to accept a consigment of relief corn from the US and the grain was sent elsewhere, Lewis said. A second shipment of 15,500 tonnes of US corn arrived in the South African port of Durban at the beginning of August but has not been sent on to Zimbabwe as, WFP officials say, "it is not a done deal". "We received an import permit but the grain is still sitting in Durban, in a silo. Why? We do not know for sure," South Africa's registrar for genetically modified produce, Shadrack Moephuli told Nampa-AFP on Tuesday. Lewis said Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia had asked whether grain would be milled to prevent it from sprouting in the soil, or transferred in sealed containers, and whether the agency would mount a "vigorous campaign" warning recipients not to plant the grain. Swaziland, Lesotho and Malawi have accepted GM shipments without any conditions. The United States, which is expected to supply half of the million tonnes of food the WFP has called for and has so far sent 165,000 tonnes of corn, refuses to mill the grain, and the WFP says it does not have the cash to do it. The UN World Health Organisation has certified the US corn as safe. Jason Lott, a research fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said milling would shorten the shelf life of maize and prevent it being stored for coming months, when the real famine is expected to hit. "This is a mixture of ignorance and malice on behalf of African leaders. The grain is safe but they are shifting the political agenda from the problems they have created to problems pushed on them by the UN and the US. Zimbabwe won't blame the famine on the farm crisis," Lott said. A European Commission official in Brussels told Nampa-AFP the concerns were groundless as any crop contamination that could occur from the relief supplies was likely to be too small to matter. "Unless you grow a GM crop it is highly unlikely that traces of GM would be significant. And the EU has no requirement on labelling livestock fed on GM feed," he said. Lewis said the WFP hoped that South African President Thabo Mbeki, who will host the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development this month, would "play a mediating role" in resolving the matter. "The dilemma is that we have food available and people who need it. We have to resolve this and get the food to the people," she said. The agency has termed the threat of starvation in southern Africa the world's worst humanitarian crisis at the moment, saying seven million people need emergency food now, with that figure expected to rise to around 13 million by the end of the year.
10. ESKIMOS DYING TO GET TO SOUTH AFRICA Independent Online 15 August 2002 Internet: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=14&art_id=qw1029382922479B263&set_id=1 Montreal - Arctic Inuit will lobby nations at the Johannesburg Earth Summit to ratify the Stockholm Convention to eliminate the "dirty dozen" pollutants that are poisoning many of them, their leaders said Wednesday. The general assembly of the Inuit from around the Arctic - Russia, Canada, Greenland and Alaska - met in Kuujjuaq, Quebec to discuss the effects of these pollutants on their health. The Inuit are especially endangered by these chemicals, which do not break down as quickly in the cold temperatures and poison the marine mammals they eat. The Inuit are concerned about the small number of signatory nations to the Stockholm Convention, and one of their representatives, Canadian Sheila Watt-Cloutier, will make the case for the Inuit at the Earth Summit. The Inuit praised Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland for signing the convention. Global climate change is another matter of great concern since reports of several communities confirm scientific studies that the permafrost is beginning to thaw. The dozen Persistent Organic Pollutants contaminate air, ground, rivers and seas, transported by atmospheric and ocean currents. They then are introduced into the food chain and can cause cancer in both humans and animals, as well as anomalies in reproductive organs and damage to nervous and immune systems. The highest concentrations of these substances have been discovered in the mother's milk of Inuits, scientists have found. - Sapa-AFP
11. BUSH UNLIKELY TO ATTEND EARTH SUMMIT The Guardian 15 August 2002 Internet: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-1948075,00.html WASHINGTON (AP) - Conservative activists are praising President Bush's apparent decision to send Secretary of State Colin Powell to a U.N. conference on global ecology rather than attending the once-a-decade summit himself as his father did in 1992. With the summit little more than two weeks away, there are no plans for Bush to go the conference, which conservatives have taken as a sign he will not attend. ``We applaud your decision not to attend the summit in person,'' said an Aug. 2 letter to Bush from Fred L. Smith Jr., president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and 30 other conservative activists who support Bush. The letter warns of likely widespread anti-U.S. sentiment among the participants at the World Summit on Sustainable Development being held Aug. 26 through Sept. 4 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Other signers include Paul M. Weyrich of Coalitions for America, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and David A. Keene of the American Conservative Union. ``Your presence would only help to publicize and make more credible their various anti-freedom, anti-people, anti-globalization and anti-Western agendas,'' they wrote Bush. ``We also strongly support your opposition to signing new international environmental treaties or creating new international environmental organizations at the Johannesburg summit.'' The White House has been silent so far about who will lead the U.S. delegation to the summit. Administration officials say an announcement will come soon, but Powell is expected to attend. This is the fourth summit in four decades where world leaders and environmentalists have gathered to address the environmental costs of feeding, clothing and housing the Earth's growing population. For environmentalists, the series of talks reached a height in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, then the president, was among 110 world leaders who agreed to tackle problems in forestry, biodiversity and climate change. The conservatives say those talks were a mistake for the elder Bush, one that his son is now wise to avoid. ``Why would you go to a party when they want to throw pies at you?'' Smith said in an interview. ``The fortunate thing is when 40,000 goofies get together, not much happens.'' In 1972 at Stockholm and in 1982 at Nairobi, each of the U.S. delegations was led by the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The current chairman, James Connaughton, has not said whether he will attend. More than 100 world leaders - either the head of state or a minister-level representative - have announced they will be at the summit. Many among them share a deep concern about the state of the world's ecological systems, and some have said they also worry about a lack of leadership and lackluster U.S. support for global approaches. Summit leaders say they will try to solidify commitments made over the past year to open markets to developing countries and increase financing to them. They also cite challenges such as 2 billion people living on $2 or less a day, more burning of fossil fuels blamed for climate change and damage to a quarter of the world's coral reefs. Connaughton said whoever represents the United States will emphasize both the U.S. commitment to creating lasting partnerships and also the idea that each nation bears responsibility for its own development. ``It doesn't mean they go it alone. But each nation has to take that task onto itself to look at sustainability,'' he said recently. Some environmental leaders view this year's summit as a last, best chance to convert high hopes into deeds. ``There is a real sense of urgency,'' U.N. Undersecretary-General Nitin Desai, who will chair the summit, told reporters this week. ``In many cases we are talking about slipping back.'' In the weeks leading up to the summit, Desai has campaigned to sow seeds of hope while also warning that disappointment will only confirm widespread pessimism about the world's ability to deal with what he says is a growing crisis. ``We will be endangering all of the things we have achieved and we will not have another chance,'' he told summit leaders at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington earlier this month. ``There is no major global event planned beyond Johannesburg which allow us to retrieve lost ground. This is it.'' Gus Speth, dean of Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, said world leaders are running out of time because the world economy is projected to double in size every 25 years. ``We have squandered more than 20 years on these global-scale issues and this period we're in is truly our last chance to get it right,'' Speth said. The uncertainty about U.S. participation reflects deeper questions in the environmental community about Bush's approach to global challenges in the wake of his rejection last year of the Kyoto climate treaty. ``People around the world are seriously concerned that the Bush administration is undermining the World Summit instead of working with other countries to benefit everyone,'' Sierra Club director Michael Dorsey said.
12. UN UNDER PRESSURE TO SECURE RATIFICATION OF KYOTO PROTOCOL Bangkok Post 15 August 2002 Internet: http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/15Aug2002_news13.html Environmentalists from around Asia have urged the United Nations to press the world's major industrialised countries into ratifying the Kyoto Protocol at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which will be held later this month in Johannesburg. Gathering in New Delhi for a two-day seminar sponsored by the UN Environment Programme and the India-based Tata Energy Research Institute, the environmentalists criticised the world's largest producers of greenhouse gasses _ Australia, Austria, Canada, Russia and the United States _ for failing to cut emissions. ``A rise in natural disasters, such as flash floods and landslides in Nepal, has lead to scepticism about the role of industrialised countries in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change and global warming,'' said Yubaraj Ghimire, a journalist from Nepal. Indian Power Minister Suresh Prabhu said industrialised countries did not work hard enough toward tackling global warming. Mohan Munasinghe, an energy adviser to the government of Sri Lanka, said many developing countries had joined the Kyoto Protocol in good faith, adding it was unacceptable that heavy polluters were ignoring the issue. ``Developed countries must set a good example by taking responsibility for the pollution they create, he said. ``Developing countries will bear similar burdens in the future.'' Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialised countries were required to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by 5.2% of 1990 levels. To carry any weight, the agreement required ratification from 55 countries, the emissions of which represented 55% of the world's total. The US and Russia, which account for 36% and 17.4% of global emissions respectively, refused to ratify the pact through fear it would halt industrial and economic growth. The National Environment Board agreed this month to ratify the protocol, which it adopted in 1997. However, environmentalists have urged cabinet to delay ratification, saying parliament should also be consulted as the agreement could have a nationwide impact. Mr Mohan said the United Nations should urgently address issues regarding climate change and conflicts over the Kyoto Protocol, saying several countries were being hampered in their moves toward sustainable development
13. ESCWA URGES ARABS TO UNITE FOR JOHANNESBURG SUMMIT Daily Star 15 August 2002 Internet: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/15_08_02/art18.asp Arabs should show "immense" solidarity during the World Summit for Social Development to face the challenge presented by powerful new fronts, an Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) official said Wednesday. Hosny Khordagui, ESCWA's regional advisor on the environment, was speaking after a media briefing at UN House in Beirut on preparatory activities for the summit, to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 4. "Arab countries should get together. They should be more supportive of each other in Johannesburg to face a new challenge, that of newly formed and strong blocs and coalitions," Khordagui told The Daily Star, in reference to alliances among mainly industrialized countries, with the European Union on one hand and the United States, Australia and Canada on the other. Khordagui, representatives of nongovernmental organizations and all other stakeholders profess to have a clear picture of events in the upcoming summit after attending the last preparatory meeting, which took place in June in Bali, where negotiations among 173 countries should have led to a final text. But those attending in Bali witnessed a fierce power struggle among three main poles the European Union, a group chaired by the United States and the Group of 77, which is an alliance of developing countries. Each coalition was negotiating in its own interest rather than trying to serve global concerns. The Bali negotiations almost collapsed due to disagreement among the three poles over major sustainable development issues such as climate change and replenishing funds for developing countries. "Seventy-five percent of the text was produced in Bali and 25 percent was left for negotiations in Johannesburg, but this 25 percent comprises the most difficult and critical issues," Khordagui said. "We should not expect a bed of roses." According to Khordagui, the 13 Arab countries that belong to ESCWA need to be strong and unified to direct the attention of world leaders in Johannesburg to their priorities, which are mainly peace and security, scarcity of water and poverty. "It should be firmly stated that the lack of peace and security has hindered development in the region," he said. "Our reports show clearly that money intended for development went toward weapons purchasing. "And we should expect that industrialized countries will try to omit talking about peace and security by saying they are political issues with nothing to do with development." According to Khordagui, Arab countries should understand the need to establish regional partnerships or they will be left "on their own." Industrialized countries, he said, seem determined to change a course adopted at the Rio summit 10 years earlier consisting of forming international partnerships and dispersing assistance intended to achieve sustainable development, a compulsory matter. The new approach, which will most likely be adopted in Johannesburg, is a "type two partnership," which basically turns international cooperation and assistance into a voluntary exercise. "The West is pushing for type two partnerships, and this has the disadvantage of allowing countries to select, based on their own judgements, the states they want to work with," Khordagui said. "This has the danger of leaving several countries out of development." "From here stems the need for a regional strategy of sustainable development, the formulation of new mechanisms of cooperation and the strengthening of our own institutions." In preparation for the summit, also known as Rio+10, ESCWA produced 18 reports on sustainable development. ESCWA also issued a report showing that over the past decade in the Arab world, medical and educational services improved, the fertility rate decreased, women were empowered and environmental awareness increased.
14. SOMBRE OUTLOOK FOR JO'BURG SUMMIT Mail & Guardian 15 August 2002 Internet: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?a=13&o=7234 The biggest attempt to tackle the Earth's worsening environment problems and help the planet's poorest gets underway in less than two weeks, but already the prospect of failure hangs over the Johannesburg summit. Wrangling over textual nuances, squabbling over financial commitments and a doctrinal row between Europe and Washington could hollow out the the summit, transforming the second Earth Summit into a ludicrous exercise in hot air. "Johannesburg should be the opportunity for a decisive change of direction," says Crispin Tickell, director of the Green College Centre for Environmental Policy and Understanding at Oxford University. "(But) so far the progress has been unsatisfactory, and the prospects... do not look good." Between 40 000 and 60 000 people are scheduled to attend the August 26-September 4 meeting, whose last three days will climax with a summit of heads of state or government. The gathering is a 10-year followup to the fabled Earth Summit on sustainable development at Rio de Janeiro. Trumpeted as mankind's new dawn, the Rio Summit gave birth to an array of agreements on staving off climate change, preserving biodiversity and curbing pollutant chemicals that linger in the environment for decades. A decade down the track, none of these accords has been implemented. And the most important of them -- the Kyoto Protocol on global warming -- has been almost gutted by the astonishingly complex rulebook that took almost four years to negotiate. It has also been snubbed by the United States, the worst carbon polluter of all. Agenda 21, the "action programme" of 2 500 proposals on sustainable development set down in Rio, has been a bible that has gathered dust on bureaucrats' shelves. In the meantime, a mountain of evidence, from UN agencies, scientists and credible environment groups, highlights the effects of man's parasitic use of the Earth. The charges range from species extinction, soil erosion by intensive farming and water depletion to overfishing, rampant destruction of tropical forests, worsening air and sea pollution and urban sprawl. "Humans are as qualified to be stewards (of the Earth) as goats are to be gardeners," says the conservation pioneer James Lovelock. Johannesburg will seek to put Agenda 21 back on track and also push ahead with another lofty goal, set down at the UN's Millennium Summit, to halve the number of poor and hungry by 2015 and boost access to clean water and power. How to achieve this is of course the big problem, for the New Age generosity that prevailed in Rio has melted like an alpine glacier faced with atmospheric warming. "At discussions on global finance and the economy, the environment is still treated as an unwelcome guest," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said last month. US President George Bush's administration is opposing all attempts for anything other than voluntary, rather than binding, summit text on matters s |