Media Review Network – Page 1315 – Providing Context and Substance

Rebuilding somalia is the real answer

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Gulf News
Published: November 20, 2008, 23:35

Piracy off the coast of Somalia is finally attracting the interest of the international community. The Arab states bordering the Red Sea met yesterday in Cairo to define a plan of action they can adopt. Nato secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who described piracy yesterday as a "very serious challenge", called for more international action, although he ruled out a land offensive against the pirate bases. American, French, British and Indian naval forces are already active in the region.

Clearly, the short-term solution is for a coordinated international naval force to protect shipping off the Horn of Africa. It should include forces from the major international powers whose ships are being hijacked, as well as from countries from the region who have to bear some responsibility for taking control of their regional problems.

This force would make piracy a lot more difficult and less attractive than it is at present. It could organise convoys, which are more easily protected than individual ships scattered all over the sea. It could put commandos onboard ships so that when small boats appear over the horizon, soldiers are ready to blow them out of the water.

However, the main problem is that the world has ignored the disaster that Somalia has become. The years of terrible civil war have split the state into many small factions, run by warlords and terrorised by their militias. There is no central state, there are no national institutions and commerce has collapsed. The real answer to piracy is to rebuild Somalia, offer the people stability and security, and let them restart their normal lives. That will not be done by the Nato convoys off their coast. It will be done by a determined regional commitment, backed by the United Nations.

Gaza situation desperate and unacceptable

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

GAZA, (PIC)– United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes on Wednesday slammed the continued Israeli closure of the Gaza border-crossings and described the situation as “desperate” and “unacceptable.”

No fuel, humanitarian supplies or commercial commodities were allowed into Gaza on Wednesday, according to the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO).

Mr. Holmes – who is also Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs – told journalists in Geneva that the closure was seen as collective punishment. Half the population of Gaza was under 15 and were being held hostage by the situation.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Tuesday to urge him to facilitate the freer movement of urgently needed humanitarian supplies and of UN personnel into Gaza. Mr. Olmert denounced the continuing rocket fire into Israel from Gaza, although he agreed to look seriously into the urgent matter.

Starting Thursday, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had to suspend cash assistance to some 98,000 of the poorest people in Gaza due to the lack of Israeli shekel bank notes in Gaza banks.

The agency also warned that it is facing “a grave and imminent crisis” and must receive additional pledges in the first quarter of 2009 if it is to continue assisting the 4.6 million people in its five field operations.

UNRWA Commissioner General Karen AbuZayd told donors, host governments and non-governmental organization (NGO) partners that according to present projections its core services will suffer a deficit of more than $87 million by then, leading to an overall shortfall of $160 million when combined with unfunded projects on hold from previous years.

“This will bring UNRWA closer to financial crisis than it has ever been,” she said today at the agency’s annual meeting in Amman, Jordan, which heard updates from the directors for the five field operations – Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.

Obama and the politics of race and religion in america

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By M. SHAHID ALAM

It is perhaps a bit late in the day, nearly two weeks after November 4, to be writing about Barack Obama’s electoral victory. This want of alacrity, however, is intentional.I thought it would be cruel to write any sooner, when whites and blacks alike were so effusively celebrating Obama’s victory. It would be unseemly to strike a discordant note when a clear majority of Americans was savoring this putative post-racial moment in their history.Did this victory signal a shift in America’s racial tectonic plates?

Little shop of horrors

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Mark Perry, Bitter Lemons, November 6, 2008

I once asked one of my Palestinian friends what he thought the United States should do to help the peoples of the Middle East. He was incredulous: “Haven’t you done enough?” In retrospect that pained reply seems the perfect answer to my presumption: I’m from America and I’m here to help.

Sadly, the self-congratulation attendant on Barack Obama’s election has seemingly revived this tradition of selfless altruism. As a former Clinton administration official told me several weeks ago: “We’re going back into the Middle East, but this time we’re going to get it right.” That it did not occur to this official that we aren’t exactly “out” of the Middle East is a testament to American optimism–and amnesia. “Really,” he added, “our capacity for doing good is limitless.”