The edition number 16 talks about the election in Argentina, the Bolivian Constitutional Assembly, the new British minister, the negotiations between Russia and U.S.A., the situation in Palestine and Timor Lorosae, the Labor Reform of China, and others.


Argentinean electoral campaign
Bolivian Constitutional Assembly
33rd Mercosul Summit in Paraguay
USA – Polls pressure Bush
New British minister takes up the leadership of the country
Conference of Paris discusses situation in Darfur
European Union-Brazil Summit
Founding Congress of Germany’s Left Party
Little progress in Russia-US negotiations
African Union Summit held
Palestine divided
Political dispute resumes in Timor Lorosae
The attempts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula
UN –Brazilian is appointed to head the Department for Disarmament Affairs
UN – Progress report on Millennium Development Goals
UN – Report on the state of the world population in 2007
Labor reform in China

Argentinean electoral campaign

Although President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina stated on several occasions that he would not run for a second term, most analysts still believe that in the last minute he will announce his candidacy, even more so if we consider that his administration has been good and his popularity is on the rise.

After the 2001 crisis that led to the resignation of five presidents and a virtual standstill of economic activity, over the last four years GDP growth has averaged 9% and unemployment dropped from 21% to about 10%.

Nonetheless, on July 1, Senator Cristina Kirchner’s name was announced as the presidential candidate by her faction inside the Justicialist Party (Peronist).

The election is due on October 28 and the electoral process is to begin on July 19, although official candidacy registrations are scheduled to be closed only on September 8.

Both the Senator and Nestor Kirchner have a long political track record whose roots date to the left militancy times. While he occupied the post of governor of the province of Santa Cruz until 2003, Cristina was a senator of the republic.

According to some public opinion polls, Cristina Kirchner would have today between 50 and 60% of the votes for president. To win in the first round a candidate must obtain 45% of total votes or 40%, provided that, in this case, there is a 10-percent difference in relation to the runner-up.

The right, however, is excited after winning the mayoral election for the city of Buenos Aires with the candidacy of Mauricio Macri, who defeated the candidate of the Peronismo supported by Kirchner, Daniel Filmus.

Moreover, two other facts are hampering the government now. The first one is related to a sum of money found in Minister of Economy Felisa Miceli’s office bathroom, without any coherent explanation given regarding its origin and/or destination. The minister was fired and replaced by Miguel Peirano.

The second one is an energy crisis that has produced a shortage of electricity and gas, stemming from the high economic growth of the last years, without equivalent investments in new energy sources at the same speed, and a more severe winter than normal, demanding extra energy to heat Argentinean households.

Several opposition candidates are expected to step forward. The first one comes from the center –Roberto Lavagna, former minister of the economy in the Eduardo Duhalde administration, later confirmed in the post by Kirchner, under whom he served from 2003 to 2005. He is highly regarded for having administered the transition from the crisis to a growth comeback and should have the support of a significant sector of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), of the Duhalde group of Peronistas and possibly of the Argentinean Socialist Party, if the latter does not strike a deal with Kirchner.

Another one is Ricardo Lopes Murphy, who was the minister of the economy of the Fernando de La Rua government for just 8 days. He allied with the Mauricio Macri group and together they founded the right wing Republican Proposal party, which might join forces with former president Menem. Murphy ran for president in 2003, when he obtained around 16% of the votes.

And from the progressive camp comes the candidacy of Elisa Carrió for the Alternative for a Republic of Equals –the ARI.
(Read more).

Bolivian Constitutional Assembly

Bolivia’s delegates to the Constitutional Assembly have decided to postpone the deadline for the conclusion of the proceedings, initially forecast for August 6, to December 14.

One of the reasons for that was a difficulty in building consensus on several issues so that the fewest possible items need be submitted to a referendum. Right wing delegates, backed by demonstrations staged by their cohorts in provinces like Santa Cruz, where the campaign for administrative autonomy is very strong, .have been trying to preserve the conservative character of the present constitution.

Still, at least several infrastructure- and economy-related issues have been settled, particularly the signing of the agreements on natural gas exploration and sales, which have increased the country’s revenues dramatically. Petrobras is among those parties to have signed a deal with the Evo Morales administration.

33rd Mercosul Summit in Paraguay

With the closing of its 33rd Summit on June 29, the Mercosul resolved to adopt measures designed to reduce the asymmetries between its member countries, especially with regard to Uruguay and Paraguay, which have not benefited from the bloc’s current trade flows.

President Lula took to Paraguay a specific proposal to seek to regulate the functioning of the so-called sacoleiros (bag carriers), who purchase products on the Paraguayan side of the border to sell in Brazil. The sacoleiros will be allowed an initial annual amount ranging between R$ 120,000 and R$ 150,000 in purchases, but will have to pay taxes. The intended goal is to allow this commercial activity, upon which so many depend for their livings, to continue without hurting formal commerce and evading taxes.

The other resolutions refer to the creation of a special fund to stimulate small and medium-sized companies, targeting exclusively Paraguay and Uruguay; the approval of new FOCEM-funded projects; the installation of the Mercosul Parliament in Montevideo; the installation of the Mercosul Social Institute in Asunción; breakthroughs in the discussions towards the elimination of asymmetries; the authorization for Paraguay to maintain the current rules of origin until 2022 and the setting of 2009 as the deadline for the elimination of the common external tariff’s double taxation on products imported from outside the bloc.

President Chávez, of Venezuela, did not attend in person and is threatening to withdraw from the bloc. For Venezuela to become a member with full rights, it needs to await ratification by the Congresses of Brazil and Paraguay. Furthermore, Venezuela will have to harmonize its tariffs to the tiers and exceptions of the Mercosul’s common external tariff (CTE), which might eventually turn out to be a problem since Venezuela’s tariffs on some goods are higher than those of the Mercosul CET.

His remarks had great repercussion in the media, but soon afterwards Venezuelan diplomats were quick to reaffirm Venezuela’s interest in joining the bloc as soon as possible. (Read more at: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38328 , http://www.mercosur.org.uy/ and http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38441 ).

USA – Polls pressure Bush

President Bush is increasingly more isolated in his struggle to defend his war policy for Iraq. The White House is readying its first progress report on the war to be submitted to Congress, but Republicans, weary of the war, are concentrating their efforts on protecting programs that are unrelated to terrorism, while Democrats push for legislation to pull out the troops.

A sentiment is rising among Republican legislators that the US strategy is failing, and that Bush should adopt another policy before representatives and senators face their constituencies after the August summer break.

Last July 9, the Senate started considerations on legislation authorizing US$ 649 million in defense expenditures. Senators are to vote the amendment submitted by Carl Levin (D-MI), ordering that the pullout of US troops to begin in November, a redeployment that is to be complete by May 2008. Voting is to take place a few days before the progress report on the war in Iraq –which supposedly brings some good news, such as a drop in violence in Iraq’s western Anbar province– and, most likely, a recommendation for more time to produce definitive results.

The spokesperson for the presidency, Tony Snow, tried to downplay the document’s importance by stating that the additional troops have been on the ground in Iraq for very little time so it would be unrealistic to expect improvements so early.

Republican lawmakers, including most of those pressuring for a new strategy in Iraq, are expected to oppose the Levin bill setting a timeline for US troop pullout. It is also expected, however, that other members of Congress will submit alternative measures, including laws forcing Bush to adopt the recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group, in particular the one setting a withdrawal deadline for April/May 2008.

Thus far, six senators of the Republican Party manifested their support to this alternative, while other senior Republicans stated that the U.S. should begin to withdraw troops.

In the meantime, Bush loyal Republican leaders are scrambling to ensure that the anti-terror programs are held in place, including the detention of suspects in the Guantanamo Bay prison, in Cuba. Notwithstanding, the new defense bill is expected to expand the rights of the detainees in military prisons, and many Democrats are looking to submit bills to shut down operations in the base located in Cuban territory.

With the beginning of debates in the senate, the Democratic Committee launched a TV campaign to pressure the Republican Party on war-related issues. The spots are being aired in many states where GOP legislators run for reelection next year.

The increase in the number of soldiers sent to Iraq, plus the ongoing military operations in Afghanistan, boosted the war effort costs to US$ 12 billion a month, leaving a bill to be footed, only in Iraq, of some half a trillion dollars according to nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, linked to the Library of Congress, which conducts research and analyses for the members of Congress. (Read more).

These figures contradict estimates made by the Pentagon that expenditure with the new troops and the scaling up of operations in Baghdad and in the province of Anbar would only amount to US$ 5.6 billion by late September.

According to data in the annual report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), released in June, U.S. military spendings in 2006 reached US$ 528.7 billion, an amount that accounts for 46% of the world’s military spendings.

With very low approval ratings, as attested by several recent opinion polls, the president received another indicator of his decreasing influence, this time from inside his own party. In the last week of June, the president’s immigration bill was put to vote and rejected by 37 of 49 Republican senators present.

At a recent voting session that exposed the government’s lack of senatorial support, the government was down by 14 votes of the 60 required to pass the bill. After the result, a resigned Bush said that he would turn to other projects, such as reducing fiscal deficit.

The immigration overhaul bill was an old ambition of Bush’s. The bill now being shelved was the fruit of a bipartisan compromise. It provided for, among other measures, strengthening security along the borders and the legalization of around 12 million undocumented immigrants. Still, Bush was unable to overcome the resistance of members of his own party who considered the measures too soft to restrict the entrance of immigrants and criticized the amnesty, seen as a reward to those in the country illegally.

Another priority of the Bush administration was the renewal of the fast track granting the president permission to submit new trade agreements to Congress, which are to be accepted or rejected in full, without the possibility of amendments. The authorization expired on June 29, with the Democratic leadership declaring their opposition to the agreements, now waiting to be voted, with South Korea and Colombia.

If that did not suffice, the Washington Post published on the week of July 24–29 a series of investigative news reports on the role of Dick Cheney in the government, portraying the president as a marionette of his vice-president –something that had already been understood by Washington’s political circles, but whose details had never before been revealed. (Read more).

Cheney’s top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was found guilty of having lied to federal investigators in the case of the leakage of the identity of undercover operative Valerie Plame – wife of Joseph Wilson, the American diplomat who challenged the announcements made by the Bush administration that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction, used to justify the beginning of the military offensive. The trial occurred in June, and Scooter was sentenced to 30 months in prison, eligible to parole only after 2 years and had to pay a fine of US$ 250.000.

On July 2, however, Bush pardoned Libby’s sentence, reinforcing the impression that he continues to be a servant to the vice-president and his neoconservative followers.

The Washington Post series of reports served to further diminish Bush’s credibility. His approval ratings have kept falling and are approaching Richard Nixon’s figures moments before his resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal and his likely impeachment in 1974.

Cheney’s statement that he did not have to follow security rules for government officials regarding confidential information because, as president of the Senate, he was out of the executive branch, added more fuel to the fire.

Actually, Cheney’s ratings have also fallen significantly. Only 28% of respondents interviewed by a CBS News opinion poll approved of his performance, against 35% in early 2006 and 56% in August 2002. (Read more at: http://www.cbsnews.com/, http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/ and http://www.thenation.com/).

The same poll also showed that the president only has a 27-percent approval rating. Bush’s popularity dropped below the 50-percent mark in most polls during the period comprising his reelection in November 2004 and his inauguration for a second term in January 2005. Although the radical opposition of the more rightwing-leaning Republicans may help to explain his lack of popularity, the question of Iraq is still by far the most important factor accounting for his low ratings.

With presidential and partial senatorial elections due in 16 months, Republican legislators are ever more aware that the Bush-Cheney duo poses a risk to their political aspirations. And, as elections get closer, pressure to jump out of the White House bandwagon is likely, in a best case scenario, to mirror the results of the immigration bill voting session.

New British minister takes up the leadership of the country

As predicted, with Tony Blair’s resignation Gordon Brown took over the post of prime minister. Blair’s resignation was being called for by Labour MPs for some time, with pressure against him starting to mount with the party’s defeat in the May 2006 local elections. (See Periscope no. 3)

Assumedly there was a political deal between Blair and Brown over their sharing power when both masterminded the overhaul of the Labour Party toward the center with a view to returning to power in the 1990s, after almost twenty years of Tory government. The problem is that Blair resisted bravely to the deal and the pressure and only acceded now, for the risk of a defeat of Labour in the 2008 parliamentarian elections is huge.

Brown got his prestige for his stewardship of British economic policy, which has been posting good results in growth terms over the past years. However, the challenge of untangling England’s participation in the occupation of Iraq is still ahead of him, opposed as it is by the majority of the population and one of the reasons for Blair’s and his Labour party’s decline in terms of popularity.

The supreme irony at the end of the episode was the appointment by the European Union of Tony Blair as its representative to promote peace in the conflict between Palestine and Israel. (Read more).

Conference of Paris discusses situation in Darfur

On June 25 in the city of Paris, a conference was organized by the new French government to discuss the situation in Darfur. The issue is viewed as a priority on the international agenda of new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, particularly because it strongly affects the stability of Chad and the Central African Republic, two French allies.

Attending the meeting were, besides France, the United States, represented by Condoleezza Rice, the United Nations represented by Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, China, Russia and 13 other countries.

No other deliberations were made except for expressing complete support to the action of the African Union troops in alliance with the UN, totaling a forecast 20,000 soldiers, a proposal finally accepted by the Sudanese government in mid-June. There was only the announcement of an increase in humanitarian aid: US$ 13 million donated by France, and US$ 36 million, by the EU.

The governments of France and the United States initially pressured for sanctions against Sudan in case the joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission was not given permission to act. However, China –Sudan’s biggest oil importer– rejected the adoption of sanctions and even came to declare that it had only been by Chinese pressure that the African country had accepted the peacekeeping mission.

The Sudanese government boycotted the conference, to which it had not been invited, stating that the decision was merely doubling the efforts in course by the African Union and the UN. The African Union also stayed outside, suspicious of the meeting’s purposes and for not having been invited to the preliminary talks, while Chad, which receives thousands of refugees, was not even invited. The absence at the conference of these key actors in the peace process in Darfur prompted analysts to question the legitimacy of the meeting.

The French government affirmed that the conference had the purpose of mobilizing the international community in face of the 4-year-long conflict’s crucial moment and of demonstrating the government’s support to sending African Union and UN peacekeeping troops to the region.

More than 200 thousand people have died in the Darfur region, which is located in western Sudan, and more than 2 million have become refugees, since 2003, when a local rebel group rose in arms against the government, charging Khartoum of decades of negligence toward the region. The Sudanese government denies it, but it is being charged with having sent janjaweed militias to respond to the uprising.

For months, the UN and Western countries pressured Sudan into accepting the plan of receiving the joint AU-UN force in replacement to the 7,000-strong African Union soldiers. In November 2006, the country had accepted the offer, only to refuse it immediately afterward, and once again accept it in June 2007. There were expectations that additional details on the AU-UN force –such as the composition of the troops, their mandate and a timetable for the operation– would be put to discussion in Paris. Concretely, very little headway was made in terms of the proposals.

What has caused concern to several analysts is that the situation in Darfur, simplified in the campaigns in order to mobilize public opinion, will bring solutions that won’t appease the problems in Darfur.

In the opinion of many, instead of insisting in sending intervention troops and forces to the country, the best would be to ensure that the belligerent groups can regroup, reorganize and initiate dialog, as suggested by former president of the Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Rony Brauman.

In the meantime, Bernard Kouchner, one of the MSF founders and presently France’s Foreign Minister, declared that the meeting organized in Paris was not a peacekeeping effort but, rather, a meeting to support the efforts made in the international arena since “humanitarian aid alone is not sufficient”. According to him, the countries involved must make sure that the AU-UN effort will obtain enough funds to accomplish their mission in Sudan.

Still, in spite of the rhetoric, in 2006 France donated US$ 1,263,800 to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), occupying the 18th place in donations, well below several other European countries, a trend upheld in 2007, showing that the political weight given to the Darfur issue by the Sarkozy cabinet has not reverted in concrete actions. (Read more).

European Union-Brazil Summit

Portugal took over the presidency of the European Union on July 2, announcing the holding of a EU-African countries summit to discuss development and immigration policies.

The announcement clarified two of the Portuguese program’s main axes for the period: relations with Africa and the unification of the EU’s immigration policies. In addition, the Portuguese presidency also intends to renew the European Union treaty and strengthen relations with Brazil, now considered a strategic partner by the bloc.

The Brazil-European Summit was held in Lisbon on July 4 in this spirit. The Summit celebrated the strategic partnership between Brazil and the EU, the only one of the BRIC countries (a group comprising Brazil, Russia, India and China) that still did not enjoy special status with the European bloc. The bloc’s other strategic partners are the US, Canada and South Africa.

The Summit was the opportunity for Brazil and the bloc to sign a strategic partnership whose aim it is to strengthen political ties and cooperation in the fields of science and technology, climate change, environment, education and culture.

In the scope of these themes, biofuels and the prospect that the partnership will bring “innovative solutions regarding biofuels”, as stated by President Lula on the occasion.

The EU’s goal is to replace 10% of all the fuel it consumes with renewable biofuels by 2010, opening thus the opportunity for Brazil to increase both its production and exports to Europe.

As Brazil is the world’s largest biofuel producer (around 17 billion liters a year), President Lula was also invited to attend the International Conference on Biofuels, held on July 5 at the European Union’s headquarters in Brussels.

The EU seized the moment to try to reopen negotiations on its trade relations with the Mercosul, interrupted since 2004, in addition to insisting on the possibility of striking a deal at the WTO’s Doha Round, two extremely difficult tasks.

Founding Congress of Germany’s Left Party

The Founding Congress of Die Linke –Germany’s Left Party– was held in Berlin on June 16, 2007 as a result of a merger between the PDS ( the Socialist Democratic Party), whose origins lie in the old Unified Socialist Party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the WASG (Labour and Social Justice­–The Electoral Alternative), basically made up of dissidents of the former SPD (the Social Democratic Party), led by Oscar Lafontaine, who was the minister of the economy in the early days of the Schroeder administration.

The founding congress was preceded the day before day by two other separate congresses by each of the former parties, where their merger and the creation of the new party were approved.

Representatives of seventy leftist parties of the world were present. Against a background of defeat and dismay for the European left and center-left, as observed by most speakers, the surfacing of Die Linke in Germany brings new hope to all of Europe’s leftist sectors.

The main speeches at the Congress were delivered by the two new presidents-elect, Lothar Bisky, ex president of the PDS and Oscar Lafontaine, ex president of the WASG, and by Fausto Bertinotti, president of the European Left Party.

Little progress in Russia-US negotiations

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and George W. Bush, president of the United States, agreed in early July that NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) should be involved in the discussions regarding the US proposal to build an anti-missile shield.

Still, they were unable to reduce their disagreements over Washington’s plan for installing part of the system in Central Europe. The Russian president expanded his previous proposal for cooperation between the two countries in the defense system by asking that NATO and other European countries participate in consultations regarding the project.

In conversations held in the Bush family summer house in Kennebunkport, Maine, the two leaders strongly disagreed over the North-American plans of setting up a radar station in the Czech Republic and a missile-intercepting system in Poland. To Putin, the viable alternative would be to utilize the Russian radar base located in Azerbaijan. He further offered to have Russian radars adapted so as to meet the technical standards required by the Americans or to build a new site for the same purpose in southern Russia, should that be necessary.

The installation of missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic by the United Sates are viewed by the Russian government as an outright insult and a threat to the country, and is even being called by Russian government officials as the “construction of a new Berlin Wall”.

Russia believes that the US plans will bias the military balance of power in Europe, despite the repeated arguments by the American government that the technology targets Iran and would be unable to deter Russian missiles. In June, Putin threatened to redirect Russian missiles to Europe if the United States moved the plan forward, provoking the moment of greatest tension between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

The meeting held at the Bushes summer house and called by the press the “Lobster Summit”, was a stage for the two presidents to exchange kind words, yet yielded very few signs that any progress will be made in any of the tense issues.

In addition to the little headway made in the nuclear issues, there was no mention whatsoever to Kosovo, the Serbian province currently under UN and NATO administration since 1999, whose independence is supported by the US, with Russia as a strong opponent of the plan. The country threatens to veto the independence of Kosovo on the Security Council agenda.

The only concrete measure expected to be produced by the Lobster Summit was the announcement of non-military nuclear cooperation and an agreement towards alternatives to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires in 2009. (Read more at : http://www.nytimes.com/, http://www.voanews.com/, http://www.iht.com/ and http://www.forbes.com/).

African Union Summit held

This was held on July 3-5 in the city of Accra, capital of Ghana. The AU has 53 member states, out of which 30 were represented by their highest leaders.

The most important theme discussed was the prospect for the creation of increased economic, social and political unity among member countries or, in the worst scenario, the creation of a political coordination of sorts among them.

Presidents attending the summit reiterated the importance of the unity as a means to better face foreign pressure and expressed their concern with the European Union’s request to negotiate bilateral free trade agreements in Africa.

In the meantime, outside the meeting’s premises, representatives of more than 150 NGOs called for the approval of an integration policy for the continent that ensures the free circulation of people.

The final declaration proposed that the United States of Africa should be established by 2015, which will represent stronger integration and coordination than today’s union, with more power to settle regional conflicts. (Read more at: http://www.ipsnews.net/ and http://allafrica.com/).

Palestine divided

As we published in previous editions of the Periscope, a series of armed incidents between militants of the Al Fattah and the Hamas in the Gaza Strip ended with the latter group seizing control of the territory, while the Fattah and the president of the Palestinian Authority did the same in the territories on the West Bank.

The constitutional powers had already been somewhat divided between them because the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, belongs to the Al Fattah, while the Hamas has the majority in the Palestinian Parliament and elected Ismail Hanieh as prime minister. There was an attempt mediated by Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to form a coalition government, which failed because both groups maintained their own security forces.

Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the cabinet elected last year by the Palestinian Parliament and appointed a new cabinet coordinated by Salam Fayyad, a former minister of the economy, in a move that was obviously rejected by the Hamas.

The United States, the European Union and Israel in principle stood by Abbas, recognizing his government and releasing Palestine’s overdue resources as a way to strengthen him and send a message to the population that a government more in tune with them would be better. However, so far, no step was taken toward a definitive peace accord, with the devolution of the occupied Arab territories and a return to the 1967 borders, which is something that is not likely to happen any time soon.

The Hamas, in turn, by mediating the release of a British journalist who had been captive of a Palestinian armed group, also demonstrated that the solutions for the problems in the Gaza Strip require its participation and that international forces have to dialog, even if only informally.

Indeed, the situation now is that Abbas and Fayyad have access to funds but “govern” a Palestinian territory occupied by the Israeli armed forces, while the Hamas “governs” a smaller territory without the physical presence of the Israelis, yet without any money and every now and then submitted to bombardments.

The point is that if a solution for Palestine was difficult before, now with their leadership split, it has become even more elusive, for Israel never intended to return the occupied territories on a definitive basis. (Read more at: http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9441660 and http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9413660 ).

Political dispute resumes in Timor Lorosae

On July 7 and 8, parliamentary elections were held in Timor Lorosae. Fourteen parties entered the election, but none of them reached 51% of the votes on its own.

The four parties with the best results were the Timorese National Liberation Front (Fretilin) with 29%, the National Congress for the Reconstruction of East Timor (CNRT), which got 23.5%, the Timorese Social-Democratic Association (ASDT), which obtained 15.8% and the Democratic Party, with 11.4%.

The Fretilin is led by former Prime Minister Mari Al-Katiri and by the runner-up in the 2006 presidential elections, Francisco Guterres “Lu Olo”. The two declared to be ready to accept an invitation by President José Ramos Horta to form the government, even representing the minority, a demand they will not withdraw.

Meanwhile, Xanana Gusmão, the ex-president of the republic and the leader of the CNRT, negotiated a coalition with the ASDT and the Democratic Party that added up to 51% of the parliament’s seats, while also stating his acceptance to take part in the government.

These conflicting positions are due to different interpretations of article 106 of the Timorese constitution, whether the majority mentioned is per party or coalition, even if the latter is formed after the election.

There is an alliance between Ramos Horta and Xanana Gusmão, which leads us to believe that the coalition that was formed should win the contest. However, depending on how this will occur, new conflicts might arise. There is great animosity between Xanana and Al-Katiri, which started at the time of the independence, a situation that was aggravated during the armed incident involving military and police forces last year, which caused some 30 deaths and thousands of refugees, in addition to Al-Katiri’s ousting from the post of prime minister. (Read more in Periscope 14 and at http://www.voanews.com/).

The attempts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula

In early July, it was floated that South Korea is preparing a new round of the Summit of the Two Koreas to be held still this year amid the advances made in the negotiations regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

Former Korean minister Lee Hae-chan stated that a proposal has already been drafted and the South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is studying the points to be included on the agenda of discussions of the two leaders. The first round of the summit happened in June 2000, when South Korea’s President Kim Dae-jung made a historical visit to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

The South Korean president had already made public his willingness to hold the second round of negotiations with North Korea in case the process for the denuclearization of the peninsula advanced.

In the first week of July North Korea announced that the country would stop operating its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon as soon as it receives the first shipment of the 50,000 tons of crude oil from South Korea, as negotiated for the Denuclearization Agreement signed last February by the two Koreas, Russia, the United States, China and Japan, the group known as the Six-Party Talk. (Read more).

The South Korean government announced that the first part of the total promised will be delivered by mid July. The agreement establishes the shipment of up to 1 million tons of oil, by the six countries, in exchange for South Korea to stop operating and shut down the nuclear plants at Yongbyon.

The agreement set April 14 as the deadline for the country to end operations at Yongbyon, but a stalemate with regard to US$ 25 million in North Korean funds frozen at a bank in Macao was holding back negotiations.

The funds in question have been at the center of a dispute between Washington and Pyongyang since 2005, when the US placed the bank in Macao on a black list for laundering North Korean money. Although the US Treasury started procedures to clear the funds in March, bureaucratic obstacles and delays prompted North Korea to withdraw from the negotiations being held at the time in Beijing.

In the last week of June, the funds were finally cleared and transferred to a Russian bank, according to information by South Korea’s Treasury Department. Once the funds were unfrozen, the North Korean government pledged to fulfill its part of the deal.

With that and the arrival of the first shipment of oil, North Korea will allow inspections on the closure of the Yongbyon plants by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The IAEA’s first mission, which was approved in 2002, is to help in the procedures towards the shutting down of the plants and the elimination of the North Korean arsenal, and is only awaiting the North Korean green light to start working. Nine IAEA inspectors are to install cameras in the plants and to seal part of the infrastructure to ensure the deactivation. Two of them should remain for an unspecified length of time in Pyongyang while the Six-Party Talks move forward with the denuclearization of the peninsula.

The North Korean disarmament process, nevertheless, is expected to be long and complex.

After expelling the UN inspectors in 2002, North Korea also withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the instrument behind the IAEA’s mandate. In 2005, the country declared it possessed nuclear weapons, testing them one year later.

The inspection by IAEA is just an ad hoc arrangement and not a complete and regular regime of inspections. This will have to be negotiated further ahead as part of a new safeguards accord, whose aim would be to bring back North Korea to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Analysts see the North Korean decision of giving up on its nuclear program as a survival strategy by the Kim Jong-Il regime. Once this phase is concluded, it seems that the other five parties to the Six-Party Talks intend to maintain him in his post to ensure that the negotiations will keep moving forward.

UN –Brazilian is appointed to head the Department for Disarmament Affairs

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced on July 2 the appointment of Brazilian Ambassador Sérgio de Queiroz Duarte to occupy the post of High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

Duarte will head the Department for Disarmament Affairs, based in New York, and will respond to Ban Ki-Moon directly. According to the Itamaraty, his appointment is a demonstration of Brazil’s commitment to disarmament and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

“The appointment of Ambassador Duarte to the highest position in the ambit of the United Nations System in matters of disarmament and non proliferation attests to his extensive diplomatic experience in addressing such themes in multilateral forums”, the Ministry’s note said.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio de Queiroz Duarte, aged 73, occupied, among others, the post of Ambassador of Brazil to Nicaragua (1986-1991), Canada (1993-1996), China (1996-1999) and his most recent international post was as a permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna, between 1999 and 2002.

The Brazilian ambassador replaces Japanese Nobuaki Tanaka, who had been appointed to the post in April 2006 by former Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Duarte was already involved in the activities of the Department for Disarmament Affairs, in the preparatory session toward the 2010 Conference that will review the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty, held last May in Vienna. A second preparatory session will be held in Geneva in May 2008.

UN – Progress report on Millennium Development Goals

With the approach of a midway deadline between the adoption of the Millennium Goals in 2002 and its limit date in 2015, the UN released on July 2 a progress report.

“The results are, predictably, uneven”, says the study, which points to achievements and shortfalls of the MDGs, primarily focusing on halving poverty and hunger by 2015. Other goals include universal primary education, promotion of gender equality, reduction of child mortality by two-thirds, cuts in maternal mortality by three-quarters, combat the advance of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, assurance of environmental sustainability and a global partnership between the North and the South toward development.

In the introduction to the study, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon points to a lack of significant increase of the ODA (the Official Development Assistance, as is called the humanitarian aid by OECD countries) since 2004, “making it impossible, even for well governed countries, to accomplish the goals”. According to him, the adequate resources need to be made available by the developed countries in a predictable way to make it possible to plan the investments in the sectors comprehended by the MDGs.

In 2005, ODAs hit a record high of US$ 106.8 billion, mainly due to debt relief for Iraq and Nigeria. In 2006, debt relief of these two countries was out of the equation, causing a drop of the total assistance to US$ 104 billion, the equivalent to 0.3% of the combined national income of the developed countries.

According to a UN study, in real terms, humanitarian aid fell 5.1% in 2007, the first fall since 1997. The only five donors who maintained or increased their ODAs to 0.7% of GDP –as set forth by the UN General Assembly 37 years ago– were Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Yet, the study says that 16 of the 22 OECD countries fulfilled their goals for 2006, self-defined in 2002 at the Monterrey Conference. The biggest donor, the United States, disbursed US$ 22.7 billion in 2006, a 20-percent drop in real terms, according to OECD data. The drop is probably the result of the priority the country has given to its offensive in Iraq, an operation that accumulates expenditures in the order of US$ 456 billion.

In spite of the hardships, the poverty reduction goal has shown real advances. The proportion of people living below the poverty line –with less than one dollar a day– fell from 1.25 billion in 1990 to 980 million in 2004. According to the UN, if the trend continues, the goal will be achieved for the world and for most of its regions. There are, however, those who argue that the greater part of this group is comprised of Chinese, benefited by their country’s high growth rates. (Read more).

UN – Report on the state of the world population in 2007

In 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population, 3.3 billion people, will be concentrated in urban areas. For 2030, the forecast is that 5 billion people will be living in cities. These figures call for, especially on the part of developing countries, actions to be planned in order to deal with this future problem since the estimate for 2030 is that 80% of the urban population will be concentrated in cities in these countries. (Read more).

In the annual report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), published last June 27, the organization states that, over the next thirty years, the population of African and Asian cities will double, adding 1.7 billion people, more than the populations of China and the United States together.

“The fate of cities in Africa, Asia and in other regions will shape our common future,” states UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. “We must give up the mentality contrary to urbanization and act now to start a concerted global effort toward helping cities to unleash their potential to foster economic growth and resolve social problems.”

Although mega-cities (more than 10 million inhabitants) will continue to grow, most of the people will live in cities of 500,000 inhabitants or less.

Urbanization — the increase of the urban share with regard to the total population — is inevitable, according to the report, and may be considered a positive outcome. No country in the industrial age managed to achieve significant economic growth without urbanization.

The State of World Population 2007 report claims that, although the majority of the new urban inhabitants are poor, they should be part of the solution. Helping them to meet their housing needs, health care, education and employment, should also help unleash the potential of urban dwellers to promote economic growth.

“The battle for the Millennium Development Goals to halve extreme poverty by 2015 will be won or lost in the cities of the developing world,” Ms. Obaid stated. “This means accepting the rights of poor people to live in cities and working with their creativity to tackle potential problems and generate new solutions”.

According to the report, municipalities and urban planners must prioritize meeting the housing needs of the urban poor. They should offer legal property to plots with basic infrastructure, including water and power supply, and sanitation. People living in poor communities must have access to education and health care and must be stimulated to build their own houses.

Labor reform in China

The Chinese People’s Congress just approved, on June 29, an overhaul of the labor legislation in an attempt to defend the individual rights of those workers more unprotected before their employers as, for instance, immigrant workers.

The legislation in force since the late 1980s and early 1990s establishes mandatory written contracts, specifying determined or undetermined lengths of time, depending on the workers’ demands.

Such contracts should cover those rights regarding wages, working day, rest, vacations, health and safety, and other rights.

Now the law broadened the scope of such rights by instituting a regional minimum wage, contributions-based retirement plans, unemployment insurance, tripartite negotiations and a mechanism for dispute resolution.

The unions of the All-China Trade Union Federation (ACFTU), which formerly only represented workers in state-owned companies, now also have the monopoly of representation of workers in the private sector.

Although still limited, this reform develops workers’ and the trade unions’ organizing drives. (Read more).