21st Century Vision

Overseeing Relief Operations

With the United Nations health agency warning that up to 5 million people in Southeast Asia are without basic services after Sunday's devastating tsunami, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today chaired a top level emergency meeting to oversee what may turn out to be the largest ever UN relief effort for a natural disaster.

"This is an unprecedented, global catastrophe and it requires an unprecedented, global response," Mr. Annan told a news conference after rushing back to UN Headquarters in New York from an interrupted holiday to convene a session of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) as reports put the death toll at close to 120,000 and still rising, the number of injured at half a million and those displaced at 1 million.

Meanwhile Tony Blair has refused to convene an emergency meeting of the G8 nations arguing that relief should be co-ordinated through the United Nations. That is the right approach and the G8 should give whatever support to the UN that is needed so that co-ordination takes place strategically and on the ground. Reports of the US trying to sidestep the UN should also be resisted. Never has there been a need for an International body like the UN as there is now and all nations should renew their total support and commitment to it.

See UN News Report …

See Blair refuses call to convene G8 summit ..

Children account for one third of tsunami dead

Children are likely to account for more than a third of those killed when massive waves smashed into coastal communities across Asia, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said today.

“Virtually no country has a population with less than a third of its population aged eighteen years or below and in some of the countries up to 50 per cent of the population is young,” she told reporters at the United Nations.

According to UNICEF, children account for a large proportion of casualties because they represent 39 per cent of the overall population in the eight hardest-hit countries. Eyewitness accounts indicate that many children died because they weren’t strong

enough to hold on to fixtures or trees when huge tidal waves swept them off their feet.

“Kids can run but they were least able to withstand the flooding or hold on. So that is one of the reasons children have been particularly affected,” Carol Bellamy said.

UNICEF is accepting contributions to provide for those affected by Sunday’s earthquake and tsunami. You can make your contribution here.

See UNICEF Report

Death Toll May Reach 100,000

The death toll from the south Asian tsunami is likely to surpass 100,000, aid agencies warned yesterday as the first consignments from the biggest relief operation in history began to arrive to help survivors in the devastated region.

The United Nations said at least £1bn in emergency aid was needed after it calculated that the Boxing Day disaster left up to five million people across 11 countries without access to the basic requirements for life - water, food and sanitation.

Other aid agencies said that four days after the earthquake deep under the Indian Ocean, it was clear that the international community must now cope with death on a vast scale.

See full story …

See Annan oversees massive relief effort ..

UN Mobilizes Aid

With deadly diseases now stalking the survivors of the massive South Asian tsunami that has already claimed an estimated 40,000 lives, the United Nations today turned to the urgent task of providing clean drinking water and health care for millions of people and the longer-term need for an early warning system.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned that deadly diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections can be expected from contaminated water sources, and the ambassadors cited food, medicines, water purification equipment, mosquito nets and even body bags among their priority needs.

“The immediate terror associated with the disaster in southern Asia may be dwarfed by the longer term suffering of affected communities where the risk of communicable diseases becomes a real threat,” WHO’s David Nabarro told a press briefing in Geneva, where UN officials scrambled to mobilize contributions to the relief effort at a hastily called meeting at the UN European headquarters.

See UN mobilizes aid ..

See WHO site ..

UN Rushes Aid To South Asia

The United Nations today rushed in more aid to the victims of the devastating tsunami that struck south Asia as it prepared to launch a flash appeal in what relief officials called an unprecedented effort by the world body to forestall the dangers of disease threatening millions of people.

"An enormous relief effort is on its way," UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said, as UN Disaster Assessment Coordination (UNDAC) teams fanned out to the stricken countries and local branches of the world body's various agencies began releasing emergency material.

This tsunami "is not the biggest in recorded history, but the effects may be the biggest ever because many more people live in exposed areas than ever before," he told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York, appealing to donor countries to respond generously to what he called a "tremendous emergency."

See full story

Future For Minorities Is Bleak

The US led coalition of the willing engaged in war in Iraq would have us believe that by their actions, matters are getting better even though they fought the war on false pretences.

However leaders of the ever-dwindling Christian population in Iraq say bombings of their churches and attacks against their communities may force them to take up guns. Two more churches were bombed in Mosul last week, the latest attacks, and some Christians say extremist Muslims are terrorizing them with the intent of ousting them and seizing their houses and belongings

Iraq is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, made up largely of ethnic Assyrians, an ancient people who speak a modern form of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. But as the turmoil increases, hundreds of Christian families are leaving each week for exile in Syria and Turkey.

Some Christians have called for the establishment of a "safe haven" in Iraq's north, where they would be protected by special Iraqi army units. Others are threatening to add a Christian militia to Iraq's already militarised society.

Had the US and UK gone through the UN totally and allowed Hans Blix to complete the work of his inspection, then the chaos that is now Iraq may never have happened. Alas the chaos is now there and many minorities may now suffer in the future.

Road Map Revived?

Tony Blair secured unequivocal endorsements from the Palestinian leadership and Israel yesterday for a US-backed conference that is designed to ensure the Palestinians enforce security and the other crucial measures to revive the moribund but internationally-agreed road map to peace.

Condoleezza Rice, the new US Secretary of State, will lead an international group of ministers who will attend the London conference in early March to mobilise practical, financial and political support for Palestinian reforms and decisive steps to eliminate militant violence.

Tony Blair said that it was important that the legitimate rights of Palestinians for land must be recognised but that terrorism must stop. However, he did not lay great emphasis on what the United Nations has also considered vital to peace in the Middle East – a stop to the building of settlements and the infrastructure that goes with it, the pulling down of Walls built by Israelis causing immense hardship to Palestinian families and the end to targeted assassinations.

If the Israelis refuse to attend the Conference proposed by Tony Blair then maybe these issues will not be addressed but they have to be at some time.

A Very British Coup

The United National Association must be concerned for the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our vision of international relations.  In that light we should perhaps ask ourselves whether we in Britain are currently at a dangerous turning point.  Let us remind ourselves of four recent events –

v On 9^th December the Law Lords found that Home Office immigration officers operating at Prague airport had systematically discriminated on racial grounds against passengers of Roma origin who were seeking to travel to the UK.  They did this, according to the judgment of Lady Hale, because as regards granting leave to enter the UK, ‘they were treating Roma more sceptically than the non-Roma, because they were Roma’

So it appears that Home Office immigration officials abroad have been acting outside the Race Relations Acts, which they must now respect

v On 14^th December the High Court found that where foreign nationals were detained in an overseas prison over which British troops had ‘effective control’ the Human Rights Act applies.  Amongst other things this means that where a death occurs in such custody – as happened last year in the case of an Iraqi hotel receptionist - it must be properly investigated.  The court found the investigation that was carried out to be dilatory, one-sided and lacking independence

It seems then that the principles of human rights reach further than some people imagined.  A ministry of defence official said that they would have to ‘reassess all [their] procedures’

v On 15^th December the home secretary resigned, not because of his private life, but because he had abused his office through directly or by inference giving civil servants to understand that he wished a visa application in which he had a private interest to be given priority. The prime minister said that the home secretary left office with his ‘integrity intact’

v On 16^th December, the Law Lords found that the power under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (ACTSA) which had permitted foreign nationals suspected of ‘terrorist offences’ to be held indefinitely without trial was contrary to the Human Rights Act.  Lord Hoffman remarked that the ‘real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these’

So far the government has refused to release those held in Belmarsh prison under the ATCSA.  The foreign secretary has said that the Law Lords’ ruling was ‘simply wrong’

In a liberal democracy, the legislature makes law, the executive implements it and in disputed cases the judges clarify the meaning of the law.  In Britain at this moment, however, it seems that not content with its stranglehold over the legislature through patronage and a disproportionate system of representation, the executive has effectively ignored the law in fundamental respects and is now preparing to defy the judiciary outright.

My question is therefore:  are we seeing an incipient coup by the executive against the other branches of government?

Roger Hallam

AIDS, India & Intellectual Property Rights

Humanitarian groups fear that the generic anti-AIDS drugs produced in India would cost more, once the country complies to the WTO requirements on product patent regime by January 2005, "critically" hampering the campaign against the spread of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa.

Urging the Indian Government to prioritise the protection of consumers in the country and other developing nations, medical groups like 'Doctors Without Borders' and 'Health Gap' were apprehensive about the fallout of the introduction of product patent system.

"The move will drive up prices and the effects would be felt in sub-Saharan Africa," said Ellen T Hoen of Doctors Without Borders's Essential Medicines Campaign.

"India has to ratify the TRIPS agreement on intellectual property rights by January 2005. It means India will start granting pharmaceutical product patents. Some they have not done since 1970," she claimed.

Fearing that the new patent regime would end competition among drug producers resulting in creating a monopoly, Health Gap's Asia Russell said: "Competition among Indian drug manufacturers had helped in checking prices."

"India has played a critical role in the international effort to increase access to affordable HIV treatment. India is the world's major supplier of generic medicines and this change to its Patent Act means that this source of products could dry up and disappear," she told the 'Voice of America.'

"Companies in India that manufacture anti-retrovirals (AIDS drugs) have shown that generic competition can dramatically reduce the cost," she said.

From Press Trust Of India

Hilary Benn - Question & Answer Session

On Thursday 13 January Hilary Benn MP, the International Development Secretary, will be visiting Southgate for a Question & Answer Session. This meeting has been organised by The Labour Party but because Hilary Benn’s brief is International Development, we thought that members and supporters would be interested. The Meeting will be held at Christ Church in Southgate between 6 and 7.30pm. The session will offer people an opportunity to question the Secretary of State on international development issues. If any of your members would like to attend, they should email [email protected] with their name and address and mentioning that they are UNA members or supporters and they will then be sent an invitation.