Bush to prod Merkel on Iran ties

BERLIN - US President George W. Bush swept into Germany Tuesday, looking to prod Chancellor Angela Merkel in whirlwind talks to further cut back Berlin's lucrative ties with Teheran over its suspect nuclear drive.
Bush, who has just seven more months in office, joined his ally and friend for a social dinner that served as an appetizer for a working breakfast, formal meeting, press conference, and lunch on Wednesday before he leaves.
The US president was on what he has called his last trip to Europe, a June 9-16 swing that was to take him on to Italy, the Vatican, France, and Britain, after a first stop in Slovenia for his final US-European Union summit.
White House aides said Bush would ask Merkel for more help with Afghanistan and to tighten sanctions on Iran over its defiance of international demands to freeze sensitive nuclear work that can be a prelude to an atomic weapon.
The US president and European Union leaders meeting in Brdo pri Kranj agreed Tuesday to weigh additional sanctions against Teheran and crack down on Iranian banks -- one of which, Melli Bank, has branches in Hamburg, London and Paris.
German officials said the chancellor would put climate change -- source of hard-fought transatlantic disputes -- front and centre as they meet at Meseberg Palace, an 18th-century Baroque abode turned sumptuous government guest house.
The two leaders were expected to take up a range of other issues, including the Middle East peace process, efforts to cut transatlantic trade barriers, and the July summit of the Group of Eight industrialised countries.
Bush also aimed to highlight the 60th anniversary of the US Marshall Plan to rebuild post-World War Two Europe and the US-led Berlin airlift, a massive aid undertaking in the face of a siege-like Soviet ground blockade of the city.
The emphasis on US generosity with reconstruction funds and leadership against an ideological foe comes as the US president wants Europe to provide more money for Afghanistan and troops to fight in its restive south.
The US leader and the conservative chancellor have enjoyed much warmer ties than Bush had with her predecessor, the Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder, after they famously fell out over the US invasion of Iraq.
In 2006, Bush and Merkel bonded over pickled herring and barbecued boar as he visited the chancellor in her electoral district on Germany's Baltic coast.
Last year she welcomed him back to Germany for a Group of Eight summit in which she won some concessions on climate change -- albeit unbinding pledges on the reduction of dangerous greenhouse gas emissions.
Due to Bush's unpopularity in Germany, Merkel has walked a tightrope between rebuilding ties to Washington and keeping the president at arm's length.
‘She has succeeded at this game between closeness and distance,’ said Alexander Skiba, an expert on transatlantic ties at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
The Iran issue is shaped by Germany's shrinking but still lucrative exports to Iran -- 4.4 billion euros (6.8 billion dollars) in 2005, 4.2 billion in 2006, and 3.6 billion in 2007, according to the German statistics office.
And Washington's European partners -- Britain, France and Germany -- want to gauge Iran's response to a new package of diplomatic and economic incentives to freeze uranium enrichment before taking up new sanctions.
‘We're going to make this offer, and if the Iranian regime denies the Iranian people the benefit of the offer, then we're going to have to turn up the pressure,’ said US national security advisor Stephen Hadley.
‘I think everybody recognizes that,’ he added.

UN says global food aid deliveries reach lowest level in almost 50 years

UNITED NATIONS: Global food aid deliveries have sunk to their lowest levels in nearly five decades, with deliveries of wheat and maize facing the sharpest drops due to the impact of food price rises around the world, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
The WFPâ’s “Food Aid Flows” report, released today, shows that food aid deliveries declined by 15 per cent in 2007, dropping to 5.9 million tons “the lowest level since records began in 1961.
Wheat prices increased by 122 per cent and maize prices by 86 per cent between the years 2000 and 2007, according to the report, meaning that aid agencies had to reduce purchases of these commodities.
The WFP said there was an urgent need to reverse this trend and that immediate action was needed to tackle the negative effects of higher food prices on hunger and malnutrition across the world.
“As a result of higher food prices, vulnerable populations, including children and women in rural and urban areas, are eating less, and eating less well,” the report says. “They are also reducing expenditures on education and health, and possibly selling productive assets to cope with the higher food prices. These consequences are long lasting, sometimes covering a life time.”
The report, “which covers the flow of all international food aid, not just that moved by WFP” also found that as food prices increased on international markets, donor governments sought to purchase more food in developing countries.
The amount of food purchased in the developing world grew to 39 per cent of the overall total in 2007 “a record high that provided an important stimulus to agricultural markets in the developing world, and in an increase in incomes for small scale farmers.
Earlier this year, WFP faced a shortfall in its budget of $755 million caused by food price rises. The funding gap was only covered after extra donations from more than 30 countries, including one of $500 million from Saudi Arabia.

World must tackle globalization without social justice; UN official

UNITED NATIONS: The international community urgently needs to take counter measures to head off globalization without social justice, according to the head of the U.N. International Labour Organization (ILO).
Globalization without social justice is generating growth without enough quality jobs a steady increase in productivity, but not in wages advances in combating extreme poverty, but deepening inequality, Juan Somavia, ILO Director General said Tuesday in his keynote address to the 97th International Labour Conference in Geneva, according to a transcript issued at UN Headquarters in New York.
Somavia said the ILO had a unique opportunity to play a central role in an emerging system of global governance which combined financial stability and investment for development with fair trade and decent work.
Addressing the current financial problems on world markets, he said “We have heard much about the subprime financial crisis. But there is also what I would call a crisis of subprime work substandard and vulnerable jobs without fundamental rights, without basic security, without prospects for mobility and dignity”.
Somavia argued in his speech that the international community needed to build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) a set of anti-poverty targets to be achieved by 2015 by developing a comprehensive social floor to prevent people from falling into destitution and to help them overcome poverty and move up the ladder of opportunity.
“We can significantly expand employment opportunities for the 3 billion people living in poverty,” he said. “We can help move to a jobs-intensive and sustainable growth pattern. We can consolidate respect for rights and dialogue as a productive road to peace,” he added.

New generation of global institutions needed, say Commonwealth leaders

LONDON: Accelerating World Bank, IMF and UN reforms and their effective implementation was a key intention outlined by Commonwealth leaders after talks on the reform of international institutions in London.
At a mini two-day summit , Heads of Government conveyed their intention to redefine the purposes and governance of Bretton Woods institutions. They pledged to work towards a Commonwealth consensus and wider international support for an international conference to achieve these goals.
At a news conference held at the Commonwealth’s headquarters at Marlborough House in London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown identified food shortages, fuel price rises and the credit crunch as key challenges currently facing the global society, which require effective responses from international institutions.
“These problems need global action and a coordinated global response,” said Brown, who chaired the meeting, adding that “we cannot deal with these challenges without reform of these global institutions.”
A proposal for the possibility of an international conference to improve global environmental governance was mentioned in their final statement. This includes the possibility of a new international organisation or reform of existing arrangements.
This mini summit was the first step in implementing the decision of the November 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, at which leaders decided to establish a small representative group from their 53-member association, to undertake lobbying and advocacy for the reform of international institutions.
Bretton Woods refers to the town in New England, America, where an economic conference took place in 1944. The Bretton Woods system of international monetary management, established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world’s major industrial states. It also laid the foundations for the establishment of global institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The meeting focused on practical steps which Commonwealth member states can take to achieve the reform and coherence of global institutions. They looked at international financial institutions, global environmental governance, and the UN system.
In their final statement, leaders said that global institutions must enjoy legitimacy from their member countries and the international community. They must also be responsive, with the interests of all members, especially the smaller and poorer, being taken into account.
The activities and governance of these institutions must be flexible, leaders observed, adding that they must respond to new challenges, national priorities and specific circumstances in countries.
“Institutions must have clear responsibilities and the conduct of their business must be transparent and accountable to the entire membership and the wider public,” Heads of Government stated.
They added that “it is essential that they be effective and capable of addressing today’s global challenges.”
The following leaders were present over the two day mini-summit: President Bharrat Jagdeo (Guyana), President Maumoon Gayoom (Maldives), Prime Minister Dr Navinchandra Ramgoolam (Mauritius), President Mahinda Rajapaksa (Sri Lanka), President Jakaya Kikwete (United Republic of Tanzania), Prime Minister Dr Feleti Sevele (Tonga), Prime Minister Patrick Manning (Trinidad and Tobago), President Yoweri Museveni (Uganda) and Prime Minister Gordon Brown (United Kingdom). Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak represented Malaysia and Vice-President Alhaji Aliu Mahama was the representative of Ghana.

Exhibition of Indo-Pakistan art opens

LONDON : A five-day exhibition of grand art from India and Pakistan titled “Across Boundaries-a Collage” opened at a Central London hotel on Tuesday evening which attracted a large number of connoisseurs of art.
On display were the most select works of some of sub-continent’s most celebrated artists. The exhibition had earlier successful showings in Dubai and Oman.
The exhibition was inaugurated by a leading British fashion designer Ms Zandra Rhodes and featured a selection of canvasses, by Prabha from Bombay, expressionist Jamil Naqsh, Shamshaad Hussein, Akbar Padamsee and the late Ismail Gulgee whose canvases are being sold at a premium.
Showcasing for the first time was the young and talented artist Sarah Ayoub Agha, winner of the New Signature Award in 2007. The Award is an initiative launched by Her Highness Sheikha Manal Bint Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President, Dubai Women Establishment, to identify and recognize emerging talent in the region.
Rhodes showed keen interest in the exhibit and noted the quality of works by the leading artists of the sub-continent which she said was a culturally rich and diverse region.
Commenting on the exhibition, Arif Rahman, Managing Director of Dubai Lifestyle City, said the event is another example of company’s many efforts to promote haute living among the community of which appreciation of fine arts is an integral part.
According to Kanika Subberwal, founder of Art Select, art from the Subcontinent is seen as a vibrant and financially viable market combining both judicious investment and cultural finesse in its ownership.

Speaker chairing the BAC meetimg