Posts Tagged ‘General Assembly’
Fukushima’s final emergency
Art to honour the Fukushima 50. Illustration by ‘tiger-never-die’ at deviantart.com
After 29 months of grave nuclear threat, all that matters now is for the world’s experts on radiation and decontamination to join forces and help fix the deadly poison streaming silently out of Fukushima. Because Japan’s political class has betrayed its people and lied to the world.
The world’s nuclear industry, the agencies of the principal nuclear powers, the reactor manufacturers and their lobbyists and financiers must cease their talk and stand aside, for they have been dealers of slow death. Now it is time for every reactor in the world – every single last nightmare nuclear pile – to begin shutting down.
This is a matter serious enough for the UN General Assembly to call an extraordinary and emergency session, and for the agenda to have two items only: (1) the immediate containment of the poison spewing out of the crippled reactors in Fukushima must be an international undertaking, (2) the safe, total and irrevocable decommissioning of all the world’s nuclear reactors must begin at once.
There is no other way. The events August 2013 alone tell us why:
Technicians work to address leaks from a tank storing highly radioactive water at the wrekced Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Aug. 20. Photo: The Asahi Shimbun/Hiroshi Kawai
August 23, 2013 – More tanks at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant site may have leaks as Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator, said on August 22 that high radiation levels were detected near a second section of storage tanks.
August 21, 2013 – Japan’s nuclear authority said on August 21 that a radioactive water leak at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant represents a “serious incident” under an international scale, the latest blow in the struggle against contaminated water accumulating at the site.
August 19, 2013 – The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant said on August 19 that two workers were found to be contaminated with radioactive particles, the second such incident in a week involving staff outside the site’s main operations centre.
August 14, 2013 – The Nuclear Regulation Authority, Japan’s nuclear regulator, officially approved a plan that lays out in detail everything from the broad road map that Fukushima Daiichi operator Tokyo Electric Power Company is following to clean up and dismantle the crippled plant.
Clean up and dismantle – but even the tiniest mistake during an operation to extract over 1,300 fuel rods at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan could lead to a series of cascading failures with an apocalyptic outcome, fallout researcher Christina Consolo told the news website RT.
Fukushima operator TEPCO wants to extract 400 tons worth of spent fuel rods stored in a pool at the plant’s damaged Reactor No. 4. The removal would have to be done manually from the top store of the damaged building in the radiation-contaminated environment.
Radioactive water contamination graphic by Asahi Shimbun
In the worst-case scenario, a mishandled rod may go critical, resulting in an above-ground meltdown releasing radioactive fallout with no way to stop it, said Consolo. But leaving the things as they are is not an option, because statistical risk of a similarly bad outcome increases every day, she said. Indeed, renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku stated in an interview a few weeks after the initial accident that “TEPCO is literally hanging on by their fingernails.” They still are, and always have been.
As Safecast’s blog has explained in educative detail, it is unclear whether the Japanese government has a clear plan for decontaminating Fukushima Prefecture. The questions raised are worrying indeed: “Are the aims they’ve stated really feasible? Is anyone really able to keep track of the changing standards and guidelines?” And that is why the Asahi Shimbun published a series of reports about changes in government decontamination plans, such as ‘Government secretly backtracks on Fukushima decontamination goal’. This is a situation tailor-made for abuse, and in January 2013, the Asahi Shimbun published a series of exposes detailing sloppy work practices and fraud, titled ‘Crooked Cleanup’.
The United Nations sushi-sundae food aid dodge
The United Nations has shown no spine at all in endorsing the rather childish and distracting new tactic adopted by its own agency, the World Food Programme.
Pointless, ill-advised, juvenile, misleading and an insult to the intelligence of those who want to help solve the hunger problem.
The WFP has launched a website called WeFeedBack which is based on appealing to internet users to “share” their favourite meals by making equivalent donations of what these meals cost to WFP, so that children can be fed by the food aid agency.
The UN News Service, which reflects the outlook of those in the UN who dream up and carry out programmes, makes a great deal out of the “social media platform” aspect of the gimmicky effort.
“In the developed world, life puts tasty food on our plates all the time. French sausage, avocado or chocolate cake – we all have our favorites,” explains the WeFeedBack website.
“If we take just one of these things and give it back, or feed it back, we can help change the lives of hungry school children around the world. WeFeedback brings together individuals like you to do just that. It’s fun, it’s social and it makes a lasting difference.”
This is the sort of thinking that only the fossilised and increasingly insolvent global food aid industry can now resort to. Late last year, in 2010, the World Food Programme had complained about donors not giving it enough money to buy wheat and rice for distribution in regions it regularly supplies.
Instead of agreement at the UN General Assembly that this is state of affairs that cannot be tolerated, the WFP has obviously been left to fend for itself and find innovative ways to raise the money to buy foodgrain. This approach is no more useful than the money spent on the so-called high-profile “ambassadors” (pop singers, footballers, etc) UN agencies seem all to want, which are no more than tawdry public relations manipulation to advertise to the world that its agencies exist.
By turning individual food consumption into a social media sport, the World Food Programme has trivialised its own work.
The UN lost no time in getting the Security Council to come up with an invalid, unrepresentative, illegal and morally reprehensible resolution on setting up a “no fly zone” in Libyan air space, but the UN cannot convene even its committee assigned for the job to meet in between the 65th and 66th sessions of the General Assembly to tackle the question of chronic hunger and the need for continued food aid.
The 65th session of the General Assembly took place last September. There is however a Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee which ought to have paid more attention to this problem. The UN itself says: “Year after year, the General Assembly allocates to its Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee, commonly referred to as the “Third Committee”, agenda items relating to a range of social, humanitarian affairs and human rights issues that affect people all over the world.” It seems to have missed this issue – the feeding of those blighted by globalisation.
The WeFeedBack website and its juvenile appeal to those in the world who have both plentiful food to eat and an internet connection is ludicrous. “So far, one of the most popular ‘Feedback’ items is birthday cake, but participants have also fed back glasses of wine, cappuccinos and Mexican burritos,” says the UN News Service report, as if this is no more than a weekend festival.
In its misjudged attempt to appeal to the socially connected online population, which by default is the youth, primarily of the Northern countries, the UN and the WFP have said not a word about the reason for the conditions they are hoping these servings of sushi, sundaes and pizza will address. The UN agencies must practice honesty and openness with its member states as the only way towards genuine social justice, and waste neither scarce money nor the goodwill of well-meaning folk willing to help a greater cause.
Is the resolution on Libya legal under international law?
Is the UN Security Council decision concerning the Libya ‘no fly zone’ in alignment with the Charter it is governed by?
A brief examination of this and related questions concerning the UN Security Council decision:
Under the United Nations Charter, the functions and powers of the Security Council are:
* to maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations;
* to investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction;
* to recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of settlement;
* to formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments;
* to determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and to recommend what action should be taken;
* to call on Members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression;
* to take military action against an aggressor;
* to recommend the admission of new Members;
* to exercise the trusteeship functions of the United Nations in “strategic areas”;
* to recommend to the General Assembly the appointment of the Secretary-General and, together with the Assembly, to elect the Judges of the International Court of Justice.
When adopting resolution 1973(2011) did the Security Council members exhaust all the steps listed under their functions and powers, before the step “to take military action”?
How does authorizing the enforcement of a ‘no fly zone’ by military means “maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations”? What investigation of a dispute in Libya or the situation in Libya was done by the UN Security Council in the weeks before 2011 March 17? Did the UNSC recommend dispute resolutions or settlement methods prior to 2011 March 17 – if so what were they and who were they reported to? Did the UNSC call on UN Members to apply “measures not involving the use of force” such as economic sanctions? If the UNSC members did none of the above – where are their reports to the UN General Assembly and to their national governments? – why did they move directly to taking military action?
This what was done on 2011 March 17:
Adopting resolution 1973 (2011) by a vote of 10 in favour to none against, with 5 abstentions…
Who are the members of the UN Security Council?
The Council is composed of five permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. There are ten (10) non-permanent members (with year of term’s end): Bosnia and Herzegovina (2011), Germany (2012), Portugal (2012), Brazil (2011), India (2012), South Africa (2012), Colombia (2012), Lebanon (2011), Gabon (2011), Nigeria (2011).
How did they vote on the Libya ‘no fly zone’ resolution?
The five abstentions were Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russian Federation – that is, two permanent members of the Security Council abstained.
Why did these members abstain?
[This text is from the UN press release] “The representative of the United States said that today, the Council had responded to the Libyan peoples’ cry for help. The Council’s purpose was clear: to protect Libyan civilians. The Security Council had authorized the use of force, including enforcement of a no-fly zone, to protect civilians and civilian areas targeted by Colonel Muammar Al-Qadhafi, his allied forces and mercenaries.”
“The representatives of China and the Russian Federation, explaining their abstentions, prioritized peaceful means of resolving the conflict and said that many questions had not been answered in regard to provisions of the resolution, including, as the Russian representative put it, how and by whom the measures would be enforced and what the limits of the engagement would be. He said the resolution included a sorely needed ceasefire, which he had called for earlier. China had not blocked the action with a negative vote in consideration of the wishes of the Arab League and the African Union, its representative said.”
“The delegations of India, Germany and Brazil, having also abstained, equally stressed the need for peaceful resolution of the conflict and warned against unintended consequences of armed intervention.”
With reference to the US representative’s explanation, what exactly was the “cry for help”, who voiced it, how is it representative of the people of Libya, and in what way did this “cry for help” reach the UN General Assembly?
The General Assembly is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the United Nations. Comprising all 192 Members of the United Nations,
The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is a member of the UN General Assembly and was admitted on 14-12-1955.
How do Members of the UNSC vote?
This is covered in Chapter VII of the UN Charter
[Rule 40] Voting in the Security Council shall be in accordance with the relevant Articles of the Charter and of the Statute of the International Court of Justice
What does the UN Charter say about the Security Council?
This is covered in Chapter V of the Charter. The composition of the Council is covered by Article 23, which also says: “…due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security …”
The functions and powers of the Security Council are covered in Article 24 of the Charter which also says: “In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security…”
What is the significance of the 10 votes for the Libya resolution?
Voting is covered in Article 27 of the UN Charter:
“1. Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote.
2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members.”
This brief background raises questions that must be asked by the representative of the Government of India in the UN. Most important, the UN Charter insists first on the maintenance of international peace and security. This principle has been ignored by the 10 members who voted for the resolution. The functions and powers of the UNSC place military action as following several others – resolution, settlement, economic. The 10 members who voted have violated the procedure. All 15 members have not explained why other measures – including an objective analysis (see India’s member’s explanation in Annex) – were not followed up by them before agreeing to take up the Libya resolution 1973(2011).
Referencess:
Security Council Approves ‘No-Fly Zone’ over Libya, Authorizing ‘All Necessary Measures’ to Protect Civilians, by Vote of 10 in Favour with 5 Abstentions (2011 March 17)
Annexure:
India’s Explanation of Vote after the vote on Libyan Resolution in the UN Security Council delivered by Ambassador Manjeev Singh Puri, Deputy Permanent Representative, on 17 March 2011
1. India has been following with serious concern the developments in Libya, which have led to loss of numerous lives and injuries to many more. We are very concerned with the welfare of the civilian population and foreigners in Libya. We deplore the use of force, which is totally unacceptable, and must not be resorted to.
2. The UN Secretary-General has appointed a Special Envoy, who has just visited Libya. We support his appointment and welcome his mission. We have not had the benefit of his report or even a report from the Secretariat on his assessment as yet. This would have given us an objective analysis of the situation on ground. The African Union is also sending a High Level Panel to Libya to make serious efforts for a peaceful end to the crisis there. We must stress the importance of political efforts, including those of the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, to address the situation.
3. The resolution that the Council has adopted today authorizes far reaching measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter with relatively little credible information on the situation on the ground in Libya. We also do not have clarity about details of enforcement measures, including who and with what assets will participate and how these measures will be exactly carried out. It is, of course, very important that there is full respect for sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Libya.
4. Mr President, the financial measures that are proposed in the resolution could impact, directly or through indirect routes, ongoing trade and investment activities of a number of member-states thereby adversely affecting the economic interests of the Libyan people and others dependent on these trade and economic ties. Moreover, we had to ensure that the measures will mitigate and not exacerbate an already difficult situation for the people of Libya. Clarity in the resolution on any spill-over affects of these measures would have been very important.
5. Mr President, we have abstained on the resolution in view of the above. I would like to re-emphasize that India continues to be gravely concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Libya and calls on the Libyan authorities to cease fire, protect the civilian population and address the legitimate demands of the Libyan people.
I thank you.
