Beautiful photo by UN staff member Bo Li looking from Queens across the East River as the UNHQ/NY goes dark for Earth Hour on 31 March 2012:
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Filed under: Environment, United Nations
American-Palestinian businessman Sam Bahour, living in Ramallah, writes in Haaretz today another version of his recent analysis criticizing “feel-good plans” to solve the Middle East morass by providing jobs (primarily factory assembly-line jobs) to Palestinians in the West Bank to invest them into salaries, pensions (and, ultimately, even mortagages — something previously unheard-of in Palestinian [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Environment, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
The Jerusalem Post reported today (Thursday) that “A day after the release of the scathing Goldstone Commission report that accused Israel of war crimes, Jerusalem on Wednesday revealed its defensive strategy: convince the world’s democracies the report handcuffs them in their fight against terrorism, and keep discussion of the document confined to the Human Rights [...]
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Filed under: Environment, Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, International Tribunals, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions
The children just rang my doorbell. My neighbors are all outside, because they’ve heard somewhere, somehow, that we should all be taking precautions and not staying indoors after the earthquake that shook Crete several hours ago, and was felt along the Mediterranean coast of Israel (and of course Gaza as well). I wonder where they [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Environment, Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine & Palestinians
This article appeared in Haaretz about the pleasures of baladi [or, authentic home grown from the countryside] vegetables from a Palestinian West Bank village near Bethlehem. Of note: the vegetables have to be smuggled past checkpoints to get to Jerusalem. Sometimes, they are confiscated. Without further comment, here is an excerpt from the Haaretz story: [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Environment, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
From space.com, we learn that at sunset tonight, where ever we are on the planet, we will see the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. “A full moon rises right around sunset, no matter where you are. That’s because of the celestial mechanics that produce a full moon: The moon and the sun [...]
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Filed under: Environment
Haaretz reported Friday, with some surprise, that Gaza sewage has been pumped straight into the Mediterranean since last January, when the Gaza power plant last had to shut down for lack of fuel, and it was feared that sudden electricity outages could cause catastrophic sewage flooding in Gaza that might even threaten human life (as [...]
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Filed under: Environment, Gaza, International Law, Israel, Law of the Sea Convention, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions
So, the U.S. got out of the way, and joined a consensus resolution at the Climate Change Conference in Bali that calls for two years of negotiations on something to replace the emissions reductions targets contained in the 1997 Kyodo Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The consensus resolution, which the U.S. [...]
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Filed under: Environment, US in UN
Claudia Rosett writes: “On Bali, the UN climatocrats are off and running with their Dec. 3-14 climate conference, under hardship conditions including the requirement that all catering for side events must be ordered at least 48 hours in advance. Further rigors, according to a report from China’s Xinhua News Agency, include the demand that all [...]
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Filed under: Environment, United Nations
The three major news agencies have all covered the just-released “synthesis” report on climate change following the close of the IPCC meeting in Valencia, Spain today. The”synthesis” report will be discussed by some 10,0000 delegates who are expected to participate in the Bali meeting of the UN Conference on Climate Change starting in just over [...]
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Filed under: BAN Ki-Moon, Environment, United Nations