Thursday, 2 July 2009

Newsbriefs

UN Chief Leads Over-sized Delegation on Asian Tour

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is facing growing criticism over his frequent overseas trips, is currently touring Asia with a massive entourage of officials numbering over 20. The over-sized team includes Under-Secretaries-General Lynn Pascoe and Ibrahim Gambari, along with Kim Won-soo and Catherine Bragg- not counting trip coordinators, photographers, appointment secretaries, telecommunications specialists and a phalanx of body guards.

After his three-day tour of Japan (his third visit to the country), Ban will be on a scheduled trip to Myanmar July 3-4. As it moved from one country to another, the team picked up more local UN officials. In Myanmar, Ban is expected to call for the release of all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; the resumption of dialogue between the government and the opposition as part of a national reconciliation process; and the creation of conditions conducive to credible elections in the country. But the lingering question in the corridors of the Secretariat, one UN official said, is how much will all this cost?

Racism on a Sharp Rise in Austria

Pavol Stracansky

VIENNA, Jul 1 (IPS) - Mainstream political parties in Austria must change their approach if a growing anti-immigrant sentiment stoked by far-right politicians is to be curbed, racism watchdogs and political analysts say.

While extremist political parties' popularity is "surging" in the country on the back of anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim campaigns, the ruling centrist People's Party (OVP) and Social Democrat (SPO) parties' approach to immigrants may be little better. "There is a serious problem with political debate on immigration," Sonya Ferker from the ZARA anti-racism organisation in Austria told IPS. "It is entrenching polarisation and producing an 'us and them' view on immigration.

"Politicians across the board present it as a problem of 'they', the immigrants, having to do something in order for immigration to work. But it is not just a case of what 'they' need to do but what Austrians need to do as well. The political parties need to change their debate to include both sides - Austrians, and the immigrants." Official figures show a dramatic rise in racial, anti-immigrant and anti- Semitic crime, with reports of institutionalised racism in the police and judiciary. Recent polls show that large numbers of people believe immigration is linked to a perceived rise in crime.

Figures from the Austrian Interior Ministry show that between 2006 and 2008 reported racist and anti-Semitic crimes rose from 419 to 831 for the year.

The EU's Fundamental Rights Agency reported last week that there was a 79.5 percent rise in racist crimes from 2006 to 2007 - the latest year for which the agency has figures. It reported an 87 percent rise in anti-Semitic crimes over the same period, with a more than 100 percent rise between 2001 and 2007. The agency said the real picture could be worse because of poor collection of data.

Amnesty International issued a report in April saying that Austrian police and the judiciary had done nothing to address institutional racism which was rife within their organisations. It said authorities racially profiled people, and often assumed that ethnic minorities were perpetrators of crime rather than victims.

In a recent survey published in Austrian media, 77 percent of Austrians said they had noticed a rise in crime, and 63 percent of those said the rise was linked to growing immigration. Far-right political parties have seen their popularity rise alongside waves of immigration in the 1980s and especially in the 1990s as a large Turkish immigrant community grew, mainly in Vienna, and people moved from war- torn former Yugoslavia.

Last year saw 110,000 foreign migrants arrive in Austria, according to the state statistics agency Statistik Austria. Austria has a population of a little over 8 million. The far-right Freedom Party (FPO) and the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZO) are currently enjoying massive voter support. Together they won 30 percent of votes in national elections last year, and in last month's European Parliament elections took 17 percent. The FPO's election campaign was virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim, with slogans such as "The West in the Hands of Christianity" used to appeal to voters.

Both the FPO and BZO were led by the controversial right-wing icon Joerg Haider, who was killed in a car crash last October. There was an international outcry and condemnation of Austrian authorities by the rest of the EU when Haider's FPO was included in a coalition government following elections in 1999.

Dictatorships and Double Standards Revisited

Analysis by Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 1 (IPS) - When the Honduran military deposed President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday, in an incident that stirred memories of Cold War military coups in Latin America, it also seems to have caused at least some foreign policy commentators here to revert to positions reminiscent of the Cold War.

While the Organisation of American States (OAS), the U.N. General Assembly, and the U.S. government all condemned Zelaya's detention and forced exile, the coup makers found supporters among neo-conservatives and other right-wing U.S. hawks, who defended the military's action as a justified reaction what they claimed was an unconstitutional power grab by Zelaya.

The hawks' support for the coup, which came as media reports from Honduras described a violent police crackdown against demonstrators and a government-imposed media blackout throughout the country, may have been surprising to many observers. After all, only days before many of the same commentators were fiercely decrying similar scenes coming out of Tehran, and calling for U.S. President Barack Obama to stand up for democracy in Iran against what was frequently described as a coup by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Migrant Miseries Will Trickle Down Worldwide, U.N. Warns

Charlotte Lalanne

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 (IPS) - At least 150 million migrant workers - out of an estimated total of 200 million in the world today - fit the "demographic characteristics of workers who are the most vulnerable" during the current global financial crisis, the U.N. says.

They are vulnerable because they are generally young, under-educated and have little work experience, U.N. Under-Secretary-General Cheick Sidi Diarra explained at a recent U.N. seminar. "Already we have witnessed a negative impact on migrants: job losses, especially in construction, manufacturing, finance, retail and tourism," said Diarra, who is the U.N. High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.

In times of recession, studies have shown that migrants are increasingly exposed to discrimination and xenophobia, as they are "mistakenly perceived as taking jobs and social security benefits from local workers," when they often take low-skilled and undervalued jobs locals are reluctant to accept, Diarra added.

Nobel Laureate 'Abducted' by Israeli Navy

Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Jul 1 (IPS) - Twenty-one international peace activists were seized by Israeli naval frigates in international waters Tuesday as their boat 'The Spirit of Humanity' tried to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The activists, including former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Irish Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire, and nationals from 11 other countries were part of the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) efforts to break Israel's naval and border blockade of Gaza.

The activists were taken to Israel's Ashdod port and from there to detention cells at Ben Gurion international airport in Tel Aviv where they await deportation. "They simply kidnapped the passengers," said FGM founding member Greta Berlin. "I call on the Israeli occupation forces to release our people immediately. It's funny. What are they going to do? Deport us? The last place we wanted to reach was Israel."

U.N. Slams U.S. on Racial Profiling

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 1 (IPS) - Millions of U.S. citizens continue to face discrimination at the hands of police and other law enforcement agencies just because they are not white, although the country's new leader in the White House is himself of African American descent.

"Racial profiling remains a widespread and pervasive problem throughout the U.S," said Chandra Bhatnagar of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), lead author of a new report sent to a U.N. rights body this week. The report submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) describes past U.S. government policies as "a major cause of the disproportionate stopping and searching" of racial minorities by law enforcement agencies.

"Racial profiling is impacting the lives of millions of people in the African American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, Arab and Muslim communities," Bhatnagar, an attorney who specialises in human rights law, added in a statement.

Aussie Attacks Expose Ills Of A Much-Touted Education System

Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY, Jul 1 (IPS) - The modern façade of its cities, cost-effectiveness and its high standards of education make Australia an attractive destination for foreign students. But the recent spate of attacks on Indian students has exposed the many ills afflicting the Australian education system, threatening its lucrative markets.

'As long as you can pay, you are in' has been the driving force that has catapulted education as Australia's third largest export, second only to coal and iron, reaping rich dividends worth A$15.5 billion last year. In 2008, there were 435,263 international students from 200 countries enrolled in Australian educational institutes, led by China and India.

However, there has been scant regard for the aptitude of students applying for admission and almost no checks to regulate the mushrooming growth of private education providers exploiting vulnerable students, largely from Asian countries, seeking foreign exposure.

World Food Programme Cuts DPRK Aid out of Necessity

Shari Nijman

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 -- The World Food Programme (WFP) announced Wednesday it is not meeting its goal of providing food assistance to 6,2 million people in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), due to insufficient funding.

"We simply have not received the funding we need. To reach our goals, it would take about 500 million dollars and we have only received about 75 million dollars," Bettina Leuscher, WFP spokesperson told IPS.