March 05, 2013

Israel introduces “Palestinian Only” Bus Lines

March 05, 2013/ Alex Hamasaki

Alex Hamasaki, Student InternLast Modified: 20:10 p.m. EDT, 5 March 2013

WEST BANK, Israel - The Israeli government announced today that it is introducing two segregated bus line in the occupied West Bank.

Aljazeera reports that the Transport Ministry in Israel called this move “an improvement in service.” The Transport Ministry also said that the new bus lines would “improve public transport services for Palestinian workers entering Israel,” and save Palestinians from being charged “exorbitant prices” by pirate buses.

The ministry claims, according to Haaretz, that “the new lines will lessen the burden that has formed on buses as a result of the increase in numbers of working permits provided to Palestinians,” and that the buses will “contribute to the improvement of services, for the betterment of Israelis and Palestinians as ones.”

For any of those unfamiliar with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the Israelis and Palestinians are currently engaged in a conflict over land rights. The “start date” of the conflict is argued heavily among scholars.

Both groups have historical, cultural, and religious claims upon the land the Arabs and Jews are fighting over. The following is an abbreviated history of the recent Israeli/Palestinian conflict; however, in the interest of expediency several major events have been omitted.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 by British Foreign Secretary Aruther James Balfour in a letter to the Zionist Federation’s President Lord Rothschild, declared that British would “view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national Jewish peoples.” There have been several other papers and agreements that altered British support of the Jewish peoples, such as the White Papers of 1922 by Winston Churchill. Eventually, British handed the problem of Israel/Palestine to the United Nations (UN) in 1947.

The UN implemented a plan to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into two separate states with “a special international regime for the city of Jerusalem.” Through the Camp David Accords, Israel agreed to give Palestinians more autonomy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Currently, Palestinians mostly occupy the West Bank and the Gaza strip, while Israelis occupy the rest of the territory. However, throughout the entire country, there are communities of Jews and Palestinians littered throughout the territory.

Both groups are currently vying for international sympathy in order to justify their claims toward the entire territory of the current Israel/Palestine. This recent event currently sways some sympathy toward the plight of the Palestinians.

According to the Guardian, the buses will run from the Eyal checkpoint by Qalqiliya across the border of the West Bank toward Tel Aviv. For passengers who have been granted permits by the army to enter Israel, they can only enter during the day to work. Further, Police spokesman Micky Rosenfield said that Palestinians returning to the West Bank would be searched for stolen property.

Although, Palestinian/Israeli relations are extremely complex and heavily influenced by regional and religious dynamics, this newly implemented plan to segregate Palestinian passengers is eerily reminiscent of Jim Crow laws.

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African Americans. The separation in practice led to conditions for African Americans that tended to be inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages. De jure segregation mainly applied to the Southern United States.

Human rights groups are fearful that Israeli police at the checkpoints in the West Bank will remove Palestinian passengers from the regular, non-segregated bus lines and order them to use the segregated bus lines, which could potentially inflame an already marginalized population. This newest legislation is incendiary at best, and racist at worst.

It remains to be seen if this suppression will spur passive resistance such as demonstrated by Rosa Parks, who in 1955 refused to sit in the 'Blacks Only' section of the bus. Her resistance and subsequent arrest led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and was a pivotal moment in the American Civil Rights Movement.

Though not a one-to-one comparison, nothing good can come from segregating people.

Follow Alex Hamasaki on Twitter

Twitter: @nahmias_report Student Intern: @aghamasaki

Sources: Haaretz, Aljazeera, Inquisitr, Wikipedia

March 04, 2013

United Nations Accused of Cholera Outbreak Coverup

March 04, 2013/ Alex Hamasaki

Alex Hamasaki, Student InternLast Modified: 23:41 p.m. EDT, 4 March 2013

On March 1, 2013, Aljazeera reported that the United Nations (UN) was accused of covering up the 2008 cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe. The UN dispute tribunal in Nairobi, Kenya, found that the UN did not inform the Robert Mugabe government of the potential for a cholera outbreak.

Aljazeera further reported that George Tadonki, the then head of the UN humanitarian office in Zimbabwe, warned his superiors of the potential outbreak, but no actions were taken.

Tadonki claims that he was fired in January 2009 in part because he “sounded the alarm about the cholera crisis.” Supposedly, the UN did not want to upset the government of Robert Mugabe, therefore did not warn the government of the upcoming outbreak. Tadonki pursued the issue, and the UN dispute tribunal in Nairobi ruled that he was unjustifiably removed from his job.

The UN dispute tribunal concluded that there should be disciplinary action taken against four senior UN officials, including the former humanitarian chief of the UN, John Holmes. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told Aljazeera that they intend to appeal the judgment.

Upon reading reports of this incident, I embarked on an effort to verify the Aljazeera news report. I was unable to located independent verification of Tadonki's assertions on any news sources. This seemed inconsistent and smacked of a coverup given the magnitude of this story both in terms of the adverse health impact, as well as the political ramifications of an organization as high-profile as the UN failure to live up to one of its core tenets.

I finally found the original report, Tadonki v. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Case number NDT/NBI/2009/36, on the United Nations Dispute Tribunal website. Published on February 26, 2013, the report suggested that the failure of the UNCHA to renew Tadonki’s contract was “unlawful,” and that the UNCHA ignored humanitarian values in their dealings with Tadonki. Further, the UN report said on page 304 of their report, the Applicant being Tadonki:

308. Even ASG [Assistant Secretary-General] Bragg had testified that there were problems with the RC/HC and Mr. Mukhtar and that the UNCT was weak so that by January 2009 deaths from cholera had reached the thousands. In spite of this, the Tribunal finds that whenever something went wrong in Zimbabwe at the material time, the blame was laid at the door of the Applicant. It appeared that while he achieved some positive results no credit was given to him. In fact, ASG Bragg told the Tribunal that the achievements made by the Applicant in Zimbabwe were nothing extraordinary because it was his job. Management listened to rumours from all quarters instead of objectively assessing the situation and the performance of the Applicant.

1 2 Next Page »

Published: 4 March 2013 (Page 2 of 2)

309. The matter of the Applicant’s said interpersonal relationships with some of those in the humanitarian community in Zimbabwe at the material time and the criticisms of him by these people or groups constituted the singular issue that informed his removal by OCHA. The critical question is: what was the Applicant doing wrong? Principal among his wrongdoing is that by the time he had spent one month in the country, he had published an early warning ˗ suggesting that the UNCT, which had been operating before he came on the scene was ill prepared for an impending humanitarian crisis. In spite of the fact that no one could successfully counter his prediction, he appeared to have stepped on some big toes by stating the obvious. Thus the Applicant, a new-comer, had attempted to upset the applecart in a situation where, clearly, humanitarian considerations only played second fiddle to political issues.

There are several inconsistencies in the initial two paragraphs alone. First of all, this is unlike any UN report I’ve ever read. As a previous member of Model UN, we read several UN reports, none of which were this informal.

Second, the tribunal in Nairobi claims, “whenever something went wrong in Zimbabwe at the material time, the blame was laid at the door of the Applicant.” Ignoring informalities, the suggestion that “whenever something went wrong” is extremely ambiguous, and the tribunal could hence claim that the UN blamed Tandonki for anything including actions he had no control over.

Third, the report leaves me unclear to why the UN didn’t want to upset the corrupt government of Mugabe. Mugabe is responsible for a multitude of human rights violations during the time that Mr. Tandoki was stationed there. If the UN was attempting to cover up the outbreak, then we have an example of a serious violation of human rights.

This an ultimate lack of transparency for the UN, which was established in part to encourage transparency. Further, this suggests that the UN is in collusion with Mugabe. One can speculate that the UN nations did not want to upset Mugabe because they wanted to remain in Zimbabwe to continue humanitarian operations. Hence, attempting to move Tadonki to the OCHA Regional Office in Johannesburg to take the position of Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer in order to cover up the cholera outbreak. Further, if the UN was ill prepared as this report suggested, then what exactly is our money doing?

This leaves me at another set of problems. Was the government of Kenya involved in the tribunal’s decision to find the UN guilty of covering up a cholera outbreak? Kenya and Zimbabwe have a long history of conflict, and further considering the strangely informal wording of the report, I am left suspicious. Further, I was unable to find any concrete information about the Nairobi dispute tribunal itself.

Perhaps this is just the tale of the disgruntled employee. Angry that the OCHA was not going to renew his contract, Tadonki made up the tale that the UN was covering up the cholera outbreak. When the tribunal in Kenya caught wind of this story, Kenya was eager to find a reason to prosecute their long-term enemy, and thus produced this report.

Ultimately, I am unable to ascertain what really happened in Zimbabwe in 2008. Is the UN caught up in a conspiracy of colluding with a corrupt government to cover up a cholera outbreak warning? Is Tadonki just upset that he got fired, and Kenya wanted to find a chance to stick it to their enemy? These are all questions that should have been asked in advance of publicizing this story, but regardless of the internal machinations of this organization, the internecine intrigue between Kenya and Zimbabwe, the ultimate victims are the Zimbabwean people who continue to suffer from lack of access to basic necessities such as clean water.

Follow Alex Hamasaki on Twitter

Twitter: @nahmias_report Student Intern: @aghamasaki

Return to Page 1 »

Sources: Aljazeera; Tadonki v. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Case number NDT/NBI/2009/36

UN accused of cover up Zimbabwe cholera (aljazeera.com)
UN accused of cover up of Zimbabwe cholera (crofsblogs.typepad.com)
U.N. Says it Will Not Pay Compensation for Haiti's Cholera Victims (world.time.com)

May 01, 2012

BP Oil Spill Creates Mutant Fish

May 01, 2012/ Ayanna Nahmias

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 13:55 PM EDT, 1 May 2012

LOUISIANA, United States - On the second anniversary of the massive British Petroleum (BP) Gulf of Mexico oil spill, very little if any information has percolated through the American media about the ongoing impact of this disaster.

As a consequence of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, BP now holds the dubious honor of polluting the environment with the world's largest oil spill in history.

By comparison it dwarfs the Alaskan oil spill which occurred in "Prince William Sound, on 24 March 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to 119,000 m3) of crude oil." (Source: Wikipedia)

According to Pamela A. Miller, the carnage was absolutely devastating and 13 years later, though Prince William Sound may look idyllic to the causal observer, it belies the fundamental environmental problems that remain in the wake of the disaster. Four years ago in a technical background paper she authored for the Alaska Wilderness League, she wrote:

"If you look beneath the surface, oil continues to contaminate beaches, national parks, and designated wilderness. In fact, the Office of Technology Assessment estimated beach cleanup and oil skinning only recovered 3-4% of the Exxon Valdez oil and studies by government scientists estimated that only 14% of the oil was removed during cleanup operations.

(Source: Alaska Oil Spill Commission. 1990. Spill: the wreck of the Exxon Valdez. Executive Summary, p. 11. Spies, R.B., S.D. Rice, D.A. Wolfe, and B.A. Wright. 1996. The effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on the Alaskan coastal environment. American Fisheries Society Symposium 18: 1-16; at p.4.)

Despite protestations from environmental groups, like Greenpeace and others, the US environmental regulatory agencies and BP have denied any corollary between the deformities which have been identified in Gulf Coast fish and the oil spill or the dispersants used to contain it.

It is ludicrous for BP to assert that they have cleaned up or remediated the effects of "4.9 million barrels (780,000 m3) of crude oil roughly calculated as 53,000 barrels per day (8,400 m3/d)" on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, when it took twice that long to clean up just 15% of that amount (750,000 barrels) from the Alaskan Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The video below provides shocking footage of the physical abnormalities which have developed in the fish populations of the region and further information about these finding can be read in an extensive article on Aljazeera, originally published on 20 April 2012.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boM7tFVZ1A0&feature=related]

Follow Nahmias Cipher Report on Twitter

Twitter: @nahmias_report Editor: @ayannanahmias