Avaaz: can online campaigning reinvent politics?

The petitioning group Avaaz is polling its 17 million members to redefine its priorities as part of a huge exercise in global democracy. But does its brand of online activism actually work?

Alors que l'ONG d'activisme en ligne Avaaz fête le passage à la nouvelle année 2013 avec 17 millions de membres, le Guardian s'interroge à juste titre sur le phénomène jusqu'à poser la question d'une réinvention de la politique, alors que l'organisation demande à ses adhérents de définir les luttes prioritaires des 365 jours suivants. Véritable succès prêtant forcément le flanc aux critiques : un article complet à l'heure du cyber-activisme.

 Don't ditch Leveson: Avaaz protesters lampoon David Cameron as bound and gagged by Rupert Murdoch, November 2012. Photograph: Pete Riches/Demotix/Corbis

How do you run an organisation with 17 million bosses? Avaaz, the online campaigning giant that has taken action on Palestinian statehood, phone hacking and News International, and the pre-trial detention of Bradley Manning, among much else, is making its annual attempt to find an answer to that question this week.

Avaaz's 2012 campaigns included a petition with nearly 1m signatures calling for universal education in Pakistan after the shooting of 15-year-old schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai. It was delivered by a UN envoy directly to the Pakistani president – who signed it himself. Avaaz also amassed 1.8m signatures for Palestinian statehood, and was part of the internet-wide efforts against new censorship laws in January.

But now, in a bid to decide what to do next, the five-year-old activism organisation is holding what one staffer describes as a "global party conference" to let its members try to set the agenda for the year ahead.

Where ordinarily such an endeavour would involve rounding up a group of people to a desultory out-of-town hotel, this one's virtual: some just chip in through ticking boxes on polls, others engage in lengthy debates on online threads, and some suggest face-to-face action with local groups. Avaaz's 80 staff, dotted around the world, have their own ideas and plans, but in a similar manner to the Occupy or Arab spring movements, claim it is being run from the bottom up.

Suggestions are flooding in. Among hundreds of pages of comments, and tens of thousands of polling responses, numerous priorities are listed: "How can we stop the radical Islamist groups in Syria and stop the Assad's regime at the same time," asks Omar, from Syria. Shanti, from Nepal asks: "Please campaign against the killing of innocent Shias of Pakistan. More than 100 people died in the blast in Quetta two days back." Peter in Australia notes: "The right to secular education for all children is essential for the future of humanity."

Where the Occupy movement has foundered since the dissolution of its camps around the world, and the Arab spring nations have seen mixed fortunes, from the re-emergence of hated laws and elites in Egypt to outright civil war in Syria, the online activism movement is apparently flourishing: Avaaz had six million members two years ago, 10 million in January 2012, and more than 17 million today. Similar groups such as 38 Degrees and Change.org have similarly grown in scale and high-profile actions. But with scale comes challenges: what have the groups actually achieved? Who's really in charge – the paid staff or the diffuse member base? And now governments are starting to take digital democracy seriously – with official petition sites, open policymaking and more – what's the point in the long term?

Avaaz began its annual consultation with half a million emails sent last Thursday, imploring its members – those who have signed previous petitions, or participated in other actions – to answer an extensive poll on what should be done in 2013. The resulting ballot is perhaps one of the biggest exercises in direct democracy ever undertaken: across millions of members, 14 languages, over a hundred countries.

Questions range from what the general priorities should be (at the time of writing, "human rights, torture, genocide, human trafficking" is top, while "food and health" is lowest priority), to specific campaign suggestions, to how seriously Avaaz staffers should take the poll: at present, 86% of members seem happy for the staff to use it just as a guide, while only 6% think it should form a binding mandate.

One of the first people looking at the results as they start to filter in – and someone who helped set up the exercise – is Alice Jay, a campaigns director for Avaaz. She joined the organisation from a career working for the UN and international charities more than four years ago, when the membership count stood at just over one million.

She says the exercise is crucial, and serious. "We're like a sailing boat, not a motor boat," she says. "Whether it's our strategy or our campaigns, it's only as strong as the public wind of ideas that are behind them. So whether we might believe ourselves that A, B or C are great campaigns, we test and poll them, and if the membership isn't in to them, we don't run them. We do really see this as informing the decisions that we will take."

Of course, that is easy to say – but a cynic might note there is a lot that can be done to nudge this kind of exercise in a particular direction: for one, people disillusioned with Avaaz are the least likely to spend time filling out a poll on what it should do, while there is a lot that phrasing of poll questions could do to favour an answer that is perhaps preferred by staff.

Jay has a straightforward counter to such a charge: if Avaaz wasn't doing what its members wanted, it wouldn't survive. But, she notes, members do value a bit of "leadership" from staff. "We're an organisation that's 100% member-funded, through £5 here or £20 there. As such, that our bosses are our members isn't just talk, it's a very real thing," she says.
"What we've found repeatedly is the membership of Avaaz deeply value leadership: they want smart suggestions and ideas for causes they support. User-generated activism often fails, and what we've seen is that a healthy movement values leadership and there is an appreciative relationship between staff as stewards, and members as bosses."

Cash and leadership, in the activism world, can be tricky subjects. Naomi Colvin, an activist who was heavily involved in the Occupy movement and Bradley Manning support network, says she admires what sites such as Avaaz can do, but says they're not nearly as democratic as they might like to think.

"I think Avaaz are probably more internally directed than most similar sites," she says. "I've never really had the impression that Avaaz is that member-driven; the staff have a lot of say in what they're going to do. Being slightly more transparent about how things are chosen is definitely a step in a good direction and can only help in forging a user base that feels involved, but it's never going to be as direct as something like Occupy."

The other snarl-up, Colvin notes, is a tricky one, and stems from a group of conflicted interests. Several governments have now set up direct petition sites with some promised response: if you muster 100,000 signatures in the UK, the backbench committee of parliament will discuss the topic with an eye to setting up a full debate. In the US, 25,000 signatures will merit a response from the White House – whatever the topic (see panel).

This was the goal of a group of NHS campaigners at the height of opposition to Andrew Lansley's reform plans, as they worked to secure enough signatures to hit the 100,000 goal. But campaigners at 38 Degrees had different ideas. "38 Degrees, I think, had some insiderish knowledge, and had decided getting a debate at that point might not be the best action," Colvin recollects. "And that ended up as a real shit storm. People were covering their Facebook wall asking why they weren't supporting the existing petitions. It just doesn't look very good."

These inter-site conflicts are almost inevitable, Colvin muses, because of the grassroots funding: great as it sounds (and often is) to be funded by the people who join your campaigns, it creates a big incentive to get involved with any issue gathering some momentum. The risk is you end up with campaigning groups competing against one another, rather than getting on with changing things.

Regardless of such niggles, Colvin concedes, Avaaz and its like have their place, as she recalls firsthand. "An Avaaz petition at the right time does swing the balance on a lot of issues – this happened with the Manning at Quantico thing at a very critical moment. Although, typically, no one from Avaaz seemed to be in touch with anyone at the campaign, and there were issues with the write-up, a petition getting 500,000 signatures in 48 hours was very important. They have that kind of reach that no one else has."

Protesting at the UN's Barcelona climate change talks in November 2009. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images

Such discussions ignore perhaps the most obvious question for such organisations: do petitions do any good? Are they nearly enough? Or is "clicktivism" – merely clicking a petition, then sitting back and feeling you have made a difference – replacing real interventions? It's a question Avaaz's Alice Jay has very little time for.

"I think the clicktivism debate is just silly. I don't think anyone doubts that iTunes has changed music, or eBay has changed commerce. No one calls that clicktivism," she says. "No one calls Gandhi a 'walkavist', or Rosa Parks a 'sitavist'. The internet is really just the place where this change is happening. Think local, act local, think national, act national, think global, act global – I think that's what Avaaz provides."

Some with experience of the actual operations inside of government, though, have more reservations. Anthony Zacharzewski, a former Whitehall civil servant who is now chief executive of Demsoc, an organisation looking at new ways of running government, has a somewhat damning verdict on the effectiveness of petitions. "They are definitely the junk food of democracy – they make you feel good for the moment but they don't necessarily move things forward," he says. "Like with everything, the easier it is for people in a power position to discredit what you're doing as just the usual suspects, or just people signing a petition, then it will be discredited."

Zacharzewski supports the idea of more interventionist, participatory democracy, but advocates more subtle interventions, online and offline: gathering "juries" of citizens to discuss in detail specific issues, or opening up policy-making beyond traditional lobbies and civil servants. Some are already gaining traction within the Cabinet Office, with trials already under way.

It's also fair to note that Avaaz and its ilk are becoming more sophisticated. Though it did gather more than a million signatures in its campaign for upgrading Palestine's status at the UN, Avaaz had an extra trick: it ran a specific, rapid round of fundraising to fund national opinion polling in three countries on the (then) forthcoming UN vote – a measure designed to show those governments the strength of public support on the issue, but also to help offer some political cover for making such a vote.

Its next plan is to expand its "daily briefing" news site, to combine collected global reporting with calls to action – a shift the staff have been keen to implement for months and which is so far finding favour with members (65% counted it as one of their top three directions for 2013).

If this kind of nimble, sophisticated, issue-based campaigning continues its hold – and, given the current campaigns both for and against gay marriage, India's war on women, drones and surveillance, there's every reason to think it will – it could mark a fundamental change in politics. And in all probability, says Zacharzewski, the losers will be the political parties, as people focus directly on each individual issue they support rather than signing up to the bundle of compromises that makes up a traditional party manifesto.

"I think parties have a huge structural problem," he says. "One of my trustees says the parties are dead and not coming back. I think that's a bit strong, but I think the concept of the party as a vehicle for mass compromise is foundering on the fact that people aren't willing to put up with mass compromise any more.

"The next five or 10 years will show whether government and online politics can reinvent itself in the way that speaks to a networked, personalised, individualised society – because if it can't, we might be in 1765 with the French revolution ahead of us."

Five examples of petition power

Convicted London rioters should loose [sic] all benefits
UK government,
258,628 signatures
The most popular petition to date on the UK's government official site called for anyone convicted of participating in the 2011 riots to lose benefits. A response from the government noted anyone imprisoned wouldn't receive benefits, but nonetheless it sparked a backbench debate on the riots – though, to the fury of some, state benefit sanctions weren't discussed.

'Palestine: the world's next nation'
Avaaz,
1,809,316 signatures
Avaaz far surpassed its goal of more than a million signatures ahead of the UN's meeting on whether to upgrade Palestine's status last year. The petition was one of a variety of tactics deployed by Avaaz in this campaign. While it's impossible to tell whether Avaaz had any direct effect, nations voted 138-9 in favour of the motion.

Stop the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer to the USA
Change.org,
253,710 signatures
This anti-extradition petition against the extradition of Sheffield student Richard O'Dwyer to the US on copyright charges was started by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales as part of a campaign in conjunction with the Guardian. O'Dwyer eventually managed to come to a settlement with prosecutors to avoid extradition and trial, and his family credited mass public support as a help along the way.

'Stop Rupert Murdoch'
Avaaz,
378,212 signatures
This petition came at the peak of the phone hacking scandal, just as it appeared Rupert Murdoch might still secure BSkyB. With 48 hours to go, it called on David Cameron and Nick Clegg to intervene and block the bid. At the 11th hour, Murdoch's News Corporation withdrew its bid – though still remains a significant force in the world's media.
 
'Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016'
White House,
34,435 signatures
The White House's response to this ambitious US stimulus plan has gone viral in the past week – but signatories are likely to be disappointed. The White House notes that, regrettably "construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it." But the peaceniks go even further: "The Administration does not support blowing up planets." Cowards.

Sondage mondial d'Avaaz : https://secure.avaaz.org/fr/2013_global_survey_embed/

Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/15/avaaz-online-campaigning-reinvent-politics

Foreign Aid: Better Evaluation, More Transparency

In the years since 9/11, America's foreign assistance program has played an increasingly important role in our foreign and national security policies. Through our aid and development efforts, we have saved lives, lifted people out of poverty, accelerated economic growth in poor countries and helped stabilize fragile societies.

Besides demonstrating America's enduring commitment to humanitarian needs, our various aid programs play a key role in diplomacy and complement our military efforts. They have helped us build alliances with friendly countries and create new trading partners. They have made us safer: By fighting poverty and disease and rescuing failing states, we combat the despair that can be a seedbed for terrorism, eliminate the ungoverned spaces that can harbor terrorists, and reduce the risk that regional instability will threaten vital U.S. interests.

As the importance of foreign assistance has grown, so has the number of mechanisms to dispense it. In addition to the traditional sources, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, we have new organizations, like the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which targets poor countries with strong democratic institutions, or the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and new programs from established agencies, such as the Agriculture Department and, especially, the Pentagon.

All in all, today more than 24 different agencies play some role in our development and assistance efforts. Policymakers have for some time recognized that we need to bring better strategic guidance and coordination to this system.

In particular, we need a better way to monitor and evaluate these programs to make sure they are working well and fulfilling their policy goals. We need consistent guidelines for success across the different agencies that handle foreign assistance, and a better method for translating lessons learned into improved performance.

A Congressionally-appointed bi-partisan commission found in 2007 "the systems our government uses to evaluate development and humanitarian assistance programs are either in disarray or do not exist." It criticized a too-heavy focus on narrow, technical measures of success -- number of classrooms built, number of books purchased -- rather than success in meeting foreign policy goals -- are more children reading better?
According to the report, "Out of 26,285 impact evaluations that USAID conducted between 1996 and 2005, only 30 measured the impact of the projects."

That's why Sen. Lugar sponsored the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month with unanimous bipartisan support. Under the direction of the president, it would require a uniform system for monitoring and evaluating the many U.S. foreign assistance initiatives.

Further, the Senate legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), requires the administration to set up a public website with detailed information about all our overseas assistance, on a project-by-project, country by country basis, updated regularly.

The measure parallels a bipartisan House bill sponsored by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and co-sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA). Both are backed by a group of charities, non-governmental organizations, private-sector development organizations and foreign policy experts called the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, co-chaired by Mr. Beckmann.

"It is imperative that the United States get the most out of every dollar we spend on foreign assistance," a recent MFAN letter said. "The time has come for the President to issue and oversee a set of common guidelines on monitoring and evaluation... across all agencies."
The administration has acknowledged the need for such steps, but progress has been slow. Only last year did USAID issue a new evaluation policy, and State issued its own separate policy just recently. We need to move faster, and this legislation will support, accelerate and consolidate the work already underway. We should be forthcoming about where precious taxpayer dollars are spent, what goals they are meant to accomplish, and whether those goals are achieved.

This commonsense, bipartisan bill will improve the effectiveness of our development programs, and we urge the Senate and the House to adopt it promptly during the post-election session. 

Important as this is, however, it is only a first step. Ultimately, to make our foreign assistance as effective as possible, we need a strong, independent aid agency, with its own budgeting and policy-making capacity, to lead the strategy, set priorities, and coordinate the activities and programs of all the relevant agencies and departments. We urge the Congress to address this important issue soon after it reconvenes next year.
Sen. Richard Lugar is the Republican leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rev. David Beckmann, a 2010 World Food Prize laureate, is president of Bread for the World and co-chair of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network.

Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-dick-lugar/foreign-aid-better-evaluation_b_1952906.html

Humanitarian exoticism ou Comment les humanitaires trouvent leurs propres explications culturelles face aux problèmes qu'ils rencontrent

This article is about humanitarian exoticism and culturalist convictions: those to which members of NGOs currently adhere. They become apparent when NGO workers, motivated by empathy or the desire to explain certain types of behaviour, attempt to find cultural traits that are characteristic of the environments in which they work, of the patients they treat, of the institutional interlocutors they negotiate with and even of their colleagues. This is not then the scientific culturalism of anthropologists. 

Culturalist theories in disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, history have long been popular. They have also been and still are the subject of heated criticism and controversy. These reflections on "cultural codes" will only be mentioned here insofar as they help us to understand the cultural convictions to which aid workers adhere, especially in Africa - although this is no doubt verifiable on other continents.

In what way and with regard to what type of behaviour do aid workers, especially members of medical NGOS, most often seek a "culturalist explanation"? In my opinion, it is when they wish to explain the pejorative evaluation of a type of behaviour: "poor" adherence to treatment, "late" recourse to consultation of healthcare facilities, "at-risk" behaviour, abuse of authority within the medical hierarchy, corruption, etc. However, we also see some recourse to culturalist explanations to give nuance to certain pejorative evaluations: for example, in the case of theft or various forms of favouritism (or mutual assistance) and preferential treatment (or acts of community solidarity), etc. However, the aim in this case is not to justify tolerance of such behaviour, but simply to attenuate, if possible, the sanctions that it incurs.

A study described in a CRASH-MSF publication offers a clear example of this link between pejorative evaluations of behaviour and the search for a cultural explanation (cf. AIDS a new pandemic leading to new medical and political practices/ Paris, 2011. The study in question concerned AIDS treatment and care on MSF's Homa Bay project in Kenya. In 2010 the project's managers designed a survey for which they engaged an anthropologist, Vanja Kovacic. This survey had a number of objectives, including that of examining aspects of Luo culture (the locally-dominant ethnic group) which appeared to favour the transmission of HIV. Before the survey had even been conducted, its initiators already considered that a number of aspects of Luo culture could favour transmission, such as polygamy, the absence of circumcision and levirate marriage. However, epidemiological demonstrations and empirical observation provided no evidence to support these culturalist arguments, arguments which the Luo elders rejected, moreover, blaming living conditions and the social relations created by modern life. Another problem examined in the study was why patients took so long to consult western-style healthcare facilities. The common assumption among staff was that these patients preferred traditional treatment. The anthropological study revealed that the main reason for the "delay" was not cultural, but due to difficulties in obtaining a diagnosis and appropriate treatment from these healthcare services within a reasonable amount of time: "only half of the patients had been diagnosed by their fourth visit". Yet, the probability of the average patient in this district being infected by HIV when he or she comes for a consultation is enormous as, according to the latest epidemiological survey (2010), one in five adults is HIV-positive. These two examples justify criticism of scientific culturalism for the absolutely peremptory (and sometimes exclusive) explanatory power that it attributes to the symbolic codes characterising the cultural system of an ethnic group, country or even a continent in the case of Africa.

Providing a culturalist explanation for a pejorative evaluation of the behaviour of others has become so frequent that it now constitutes a sort of routine and conformism which is followed by many humanitarian workers in Africa. However, not all forms of interest in the cultural traits of the foreign environment in which NGOs operate should be put down to conformism, and this for two reasons (at least): first of all, because cultural curiosity reflects a desire to go beyond a strictly functional relationship with the operating environment; and secondly, it is a defence (or can be) against the certitudes that commonly surround medical practice, certitudes founded on the universal value of the biomedicine that humanitarian NGOs practice. In the field, this practice of biomedicine is also used as a means of legitimising an NGO's action; the members of its teams feel immune to criticism, safe in the knowledge that they belong to an institution of biomedicine. This membership of a legitimising body can lead to the certainty of superiority. And curiosity with regard to the environment and its culture can act as an antidote. And finally, we could add another form of interest in and curiosity about environments and cultures: anthropological or sociological observation that focuses on a limited context and on the representations and practices of a clearly delimited group. But this approach requires surveys and time, making it incompatible with emergency humanitarian action: so what remains for those who will is a personal sensitivity to and curiosity about the culture of "others" in their daily encounters and exchanges.

Source : http://www.msf-crash.org/en/sur-le-vif/2012/09/19/7002/humanitarian-exoticism/

Syrian War Looms Over UN Meeting of World Leaders

Hovering over this month's annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations is the international community's failure to end the escalating war in Syria that is starting to spill over into a fragile and divided region.

The Syrian conflict has bitterly divided the most powerful members of the Security Council, paralyzing the only U.N. body that can impose global sanctions and authorize military action.

It frustrated former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, who quit his high-profile role as special envoy to the country last month, giving reasons that amounted to scathing criticism of world powers for failing to unite to stop the chaos in the Arab state.

There will be a flurry of meetings on the sidelines of the VIP gathering at the General Assembly that begins Sept. 25, including a ministerial meeting of the Security Council's five veto-wielding members and lots of behind-the-scenes discussions among the more than 130 heads of state and government coming to New York. But frustrated diplomats don't expect any breakthrough on Syria, and outside observers agree.

This "means we're heading into a very dark time in Syria — more violence and a slow grinding conflict that's going to test everyone's limits on non-intervention," Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow and Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday.

"I think it's the elephant in the room in the sense that it's a lightning rod issue," Tabler said. "It's a crisis the U.N. is unable to deal with. And so, basically what happens is that you're going to have a lot of speeches ... but unless you get the Security Council agreeing I don't see anything happening."

Since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, the division among the five powerful permanent council nations has deepened.

The United States, Britain and France have tried unsuccessfully to get the council to put pressure on President Bashar Assad's government to halt the fighting and pull back its heavy weapons.

Russia, Syria's key protector, and China, which is supporting Moscow, are demanding equal pressure on the opposition and say the West's real goal is regime change, which could lead to a takeover of Syria by Islamist radicals. Russia is the major arms supplier to Syria and has a base in Tartus. It is Russia's only naval base outside the former Soviet Union that serves Russian navy ships on missions to the Mediterranean.

Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed resolutions, the latest in July which included the threat of non-military sanctions.

France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said Monday that the Security Council "has never been as paralyzed as it is today since the end of the Cold War."

France is now working with the U.S., Britain, Turkey, Arab friends and the Syrian opposition in its fight against the Assad regime, he said.

"It is essential that we support the democratic opposition in Syria," Araud said. "Some believe it is possible to choose between Assad and the Islamists. We tell them, 'If you keep blocking, you'll get Assad and then the Islamists.'"

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the council's failure to support efforts by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Annan to end the violence is "reprehensible and has only intensified the suffering of the Syrian people. "

"I am not optimistic in the short term that the dynamic in the council is going to change," she said. "However, the United States is not allowing that to block our efforts to speed the day when Assad departs, through sanctions and political and nonlethal support for the opposition."

President Barack Obama has called for Assad to step down, but the United States wants to ensure that whatever government replaces his regime is a democracy that respects the rights of all Syrians, particularly religious minorities and women.

Annan has been replaced with former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi, a highly regarded diplomat and mediator who met Assad in Damascus on Saturday, but gave no indication of a breakthrough.

Many countries are hopeful that Brahimi can get the government and opposition to peace talks, but he has called his mission "nearly impossible."

He has said he is still holding talks with key players and does not have a plan yet.

"I will go to New York for the occasion of the General Assembly, to meet the Security Council and foreign ministers and representatives of countries that have interest, influence or both concerning Syria," Brahimi said.

The Security Council has given its support to Brahimi, but its division is so deep now that members couldn't even agree on a statement last month on the humanitarian crisis. The conflict has left some 3 million Syrians inside and outside the country in need of food and other assistance.

Michael Weiss, research director at the London-based Henry Jackson Society think tank, said no breakthrough is likely at the General Assembly because Russian President Vladimir Putin has done nothing "to repudiate Assad." Also, he added, Obama is reluctant to intervene in the Middle East as he fights for reelection on a record of ending the U.S. military role in Iraq and setting a 2014 deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan.

"All you are going to see for the next six months or longer is this continuing state of civil war," Weiss said. "The rebels may assassinate members of the Assad regime, but until they have parity of weaponry and forces, Damascus will not fall."

The West has hesitated to arm the rebels for fear that costly and lethal equipment could fall into the hands of extremists like al-Qaida, or get lost. The rebels have received weapons delivered via Turkey, Iraq and elsewhere, according to activists and diplomats. Some of the arms, activists say, are purchased with Saudi and Qatari funds.

At the opening of the 67th session of the General Assembly on Tuesday, Ban said "the deteriorating situation in Syria will ... be foremost in our minds" when world leaders gather next week.

The Syrian conflict, which began as a protest against four decades of dictatorship by the Assad family, was spawned by the Arab Spring, the pro-democracy wave of uprisings across the Middle East that began when Tunisians rose up in January 2011 against their longtime dictator.

The changes in the Arab world since then are the theme of a ministerial-level meeting of the Security Council on Sept. 26 on the sidelines of the General Assembly speeches.

Germany U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig, the current Security Council president whose foreign minister will be presiding at that meeting, said "there will be council members who will speak out on Syria." But he said the focus of the meeting will be the emergence of the Arab League as a key player in the Middle East with "a lot more clout."

Supporters of a democratic government in Syria — the "Friends of Syria" — are also scheduled to meet on Sept. 28 at a session chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Their last meeting in Paris in July brought together some 100 nations including the U.S., its European and Arab partners, as well as the fractious Syrian opposition, all looking to turn up the heat to force Assad from power.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said "Syria will be at or near the top of the agenda at most of the key bilateral meetings."

There will also be a meeting of foreign ministers and development ministers "to galvanize support for refugees and those displaced within Syria," he said.

Earlier this month, the United Nations nearly doubled its humanitarian appeal for Syria to $347 million, even though the original appeal for $180 million is only half-funded. The secretary-general has urged donors to increase their contributions.

Another issue certain to make headlines during the General Assembly is the dispute over Iran's nuclear intentions.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who insists his country's nuclear program is peaceful, will address the assembly on Sept. 26. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has accused Iran of trying to build a nuclear arsenal, takes the podium on Sept. 27.

And on that day political directors from the six countries trying to get Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — will meet behind closed doors, possibly followed by a ministerial session.

Source : http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/syrian-war-looms-meeting-world-leaders-17263603?page=3#.UFlaOETm_-k

South Africa's Lonmin miners accept pay rise to end stri

Striking platinum miners at Lonmin's (LONJ.J) (LMI.L) Marikana mine in South Africa accepted a hefty pay rise offer on Tuesday, ending six weeks of violent labor unrest that killed 45 people and rattled Africa's largest economy.

The strikers, grouped on a bare soccer pitch near the mine, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, cheered when they were told that management were offering a 22 percent pay increase, and said they would return to work on Thursday.

"I am happy - and forward with the struggle," said one of the striking miners, Sithembile Sohati.
"It's a huge achievement. No union has achieved a 22 percent increase before," Zolisa Bodlani, a worker representative at Marikana, told Reuters.

At least one analyst expressed concern that the Marikana wage increase could trigger a rash of pay demands across a mining sector already being squeezed by low metals prices and rising labor and electricity costs.

Lonmin confirmed that the deal had been signed in Rustenburg on Tuesday night.
"The agreement includes a signing bonus of 2,000 rand and an average rise in wages of between 11 and 22 percent for all employees falling within the Category 3-8 bargaining units, effective from 1 October 2012," it said in a statement.

In another sign that weeks of trouble in South Africa's platinum belt were ending, the world's biggest platinum producer, Anglo American Platinum (AMSJ.J), said it had resumed operations in the strike-hit Rustenburg area.

The spot platinum price fell 2 percent on the Marikana news to $1,627.49/oz and the rand firmed over 1 percent to 8.166 to the dollar.

The wildcat mining strikes hitting a major sector of the economy had depressed the rand, increased the cost of insuring against default on South African debt and spooked some foreign investors into selling mining shares.

CRITICISM OF ZUMA

The conflict, most notably the police killing of 34 Marikana strikers on August 16, had also ignited criticism that President Jacob Zuma and his ruling African National Congress were neglecting poor workers and siding with wealthy business owners.

Zuma acknowledged that the wildcat industrial action had caught the government and powerful allies such as the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on the hop.

"This incident has been a surprise given the established procedures we have in place," he told reporters in Brussels minutes after news of the settlement.

The deal will see wages raised by up to 22 percent depending on the category of worker but that percentage hike is not across the board, according to the Solidarity trade union of skilled workers which was not on strike but took part in the talks.

The rock drill operators who began the strike will receive an effective 22 percent rise on their total package including allowances which will bring it to just over 11,000 rand per month, Solidarity said.

"The key worry now is that 22 percent wage rises will be seen spreading across the mine industry. That is hardly affordable in an industry with such hefty cost pressures already," said Peter Attard-Montalto, emerging market economist at Nomura International.

Marikana strikers' representative Bodlani said the workers had asked Lonmin management to promise that they would work with unions to reach within two years the 12,500 rand ($1,500) basic monthly salary that the miners had originally demanded.

The company has not yet responded to this. It had previously argued that paying 12,500 rand a month would put thousands of jobs at risk and challenge the viability of the business.

In its statement, Amplats said it considered it was now safe for employees to return to their jobs but acknowledged that "many mining employees are still to return to work".
It said smelting and other processing operations at Rustenburg were already at normal levels.

Amplats suspended operations in the heart of the platinum belt last week when machete-wielding strikers marched on shafts.

ECHOES OF APARTHEID

The Marikana police shootings were the deadliest security incident since the end of white minority rule in 1994 and, for many South Africans, painfully recalled security force massacres of black demonstrators under apartheid.

In all, 45 people died in the Marikana unrest, which spread beyond Lonmin to other platinum firms around Rustenburg and some gold mines.

ANC renegade Julius Malema, who was expelled from the party for indiscipline this year, has used the Marikana unrest to relaunch his political career and stir up opposition against Zuma ahead of an ANC leadership election in December.

Malema was barred by police on Monday from addressing the striking miners at Marikana, but said his campaign to improve workers' pay and conditions would not be cowed by a government crackdown.

"Not even the president can stop me. Not even death can stop me. My ideas are out there. Even if I am no more, people will continue those ideas," he told a news conference.
South Africa is home to 80 percent of all known reserves of platinum and is a major gold producer. The unrest this year has cost the mining industry 4.5 billion rand ($548 million) in lost output, Zuma said on Monday.

An illegal strike by 15,000 workers at the KDC West mine operated by Gold Fields (GFIJ.J), the world's fourth largest bullion producer, continued on Tuesday as its chief executive said the firm would not agree to demands for a minimum wage of 12,500 rand a month.

In a separate development, parliament approved a 5.5 percent pay increase for Zuma on Tuesday, taking his annual remuneration to 2.6 million rand ($315,600) a year.
($1 = 8.2075 South African rand)

Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-safrica-mines-idUSBRE88H0R420120919

Suu Kyi, in U.S. visit, says Myanmar reforms 'first hurdle'

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi warned on Tuesday that reforms in her country had cleared only the "first hurdle" and said she supported an easing of U.S. sanctions as part of a broad partnership with Washington.

The Nobel laureate said the economic sanctions were a useful tool for putting pressure on Myanmar's military government in the past, but now the people need to consolidate democracy without outside help.

"I do support the easing of sanctions, because I think that our people can start taking responsibility for their own destiny," she said at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington on the opening day of a two-week tour of the United States.

"I do not think we should depend on U.S. sanctions to keep up the momentum of our movement to democracy. We have to work at it ourselves and there are very many other ways in which the United States can help us," said Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi did not specify which of the complex web of sanctions that Washington began phasing out this year she wanted removed. State Department officials did not indicate that she had made any formal requests on sanctions during talks on Tuesday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"We are going to do this in a measured way as we see progress, and the secretary did lay out the list (of what more needs to be done)," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters after the meeting.
"We will continue to watch that and make our decisions as we see more progress," she added.

GUARD AGAINST BACKSLIDING

Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for championing democracy in opposition to a military junta that held her under house arrest for years, began her tour with talks with Clinton and a speech hosted by the USIP and the Asia Society.
"We have crossed the first hurdle but there are many more hurdles to cross," she said in the speech, her first public appearance in the United States.

Clinton told the same event Myanmar still "had a lot of work to do."
"Political prisoners remain in detention. Ongoing ethnic and sectarian violence continues to undermine progress toward national reconciliation, stability and lasting peace," she said.
Suu Kyi's followers and the quasi-civilian government needed to work together to heal past wounds and "guard against backsliding because there are forces that would take the country in the wrong direction if given the chance," said Clinton.

She later visited the office of Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-funded broadcaster, and addressed the conflict between ethnic Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas that in June erupted in violence that killed 80 people and displaced thousands.
"Hate and fear are very closely related," Suu Kyi told RFA's Burmese language service in an interview.
"You have to remove the roots of hatred — that is to say you have to address these issues that make people insecure and that make people threatened," RFA quoted her as saying.

Suu Kyi, whose last stay in the United States was in the 1970s as a United Nations employee, will visit the large emigre community from her country in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and make a series of public speeches from New York to California.
Her U.S. tour will coincide with a visit by Thein Sein, Myanmar's reformist president, who heads to New York on September 24 to address the U.N. General Assembly.

GEOPOLITICS AND MYANMAR

Thein Sein, a former junta general, was scheduled to meet U.S. officials on the sidelines of U.N. meetings and his aides said he would try to convey Myanmar's urgent need for the import ban and other American sanctions to be eased.

Suu Kyi's election to parliament in April helped to transform Myanmar's pariah image and convince the West to begin rolling back sanctions after a year of dramatic reforms, including the release of about 700 political prisoners in amnesties between May 2011 and July.
 
The 67-year-old Suu Kyi, striking a professorial tone in her first U.S. speech, said the rapid normalization of U.S.-Myanmar ties over the past 18 months was "particularly illustrative of the dimensions of geopolitics and history."

Many people around the region are asking, she said, whether U.S. engagement with Myanmar - a country of 64 million people that lies between China and India - "was aimed at containing the influence of China in Asia."

She said Myanmar's engagement with the United States did not mean that Myanmar-U.S. ties "in any way can be seen as a hostile threat to China" and that she sought good ties with both countries as well as with India.

BIG TEST IN 2015

Before Suu Kyi arrived in the United States on Monday, Myanmar announced a pardon of more than 500 prisoners in an amnesty that included at least 80 political detainees, according to activists.
The announcement, seen as a step that could strengthen the former military state's growing bonds with Washington, did not make clear if any of the 514 were political prisoners, but two activist groups who monitor dissidents jailed in Myanmar said more than 80 were given presidential pardons.
The U.S. State Department reacted cautiously to news of the amnesty, repeating its call for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners.

John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said he wanted to hear more from Suu Kyi about a looming showdown in the next election in 2015, which will determine whether the generals who have run the country since 1962 will peacefully hand over power to civilians.
"You can be a politician or you can be a human rights activist who speaks frankly, but I don't think you can be both," he said.

"The full and frank assessment of human rights groups is that she's not prepared to play a very critical role with the government, nor does she speak the underlying truth about the political situation - the huge test that's coming up in 2015," added Sifton.

Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-usa-myanmar-suukyi-idUSBRE88H0TF20120918

Russia Demands U.S. End Support of Democracy Groups

Russia has ordered the United States to end its financial support for a wide range of pro-democracy, public health and other civil society programs here, in an aggressive step by the Kremlin to halt what it views as American meddling in its internal affairs. 

Golos, Russia’s only independent election monitoring group, is among the organizations that expect to lose financing from the United States Agency for International Development next month.

The Kremlin’s provocative decision to end two decades of work in post-Soviet Russia by the United States Agency for International Development — with little warning ahead of an Oct. 1 deadline — was announced on Tuesday by the State Department in Washington. The move stands to cut off aid that currently totals about $50 million a year, a relatively small sum but a potentially devastating blow for groups that came to rely on foreign money as domestic controls over politics tightened. 

American officials, who were informed of the decision earlier this month, quickly pledged to maneuver around the Kremlin. The Obama administration last October proposed the creation of a new $50 million fund— essentially an endowment for a private foundation established under Russian law — for Russian civil society groups, and one senior administration official said work on that project would speed up. 

The Kremlin has taken a number of actions in recent months to bring pressure on nongovernmental groups and clamp down on political dissent, including a new law requiring any organization receiving aid from abroad to register with the justice manager as “acting as a foreign agent.” Russia also increased the penalties for libel and slander — a step that seemed intended to intimidate critics of government officials. 

Russia is not alone in its resentment of United States-led democracy building efforts. Those have become a sore point for a number of countries in recent years, including allies like Egypt and Pakistan, which have objected to outside groups telling them how to run their affairs. The aid agency’s cold war history of providing a front for American intelligence agencies is still fresh in the memories of foreign officials, many of whom have never fully dropped their suspicions. 

The abruptness of Russia’s announcements represents a sour new turn in relations between the countries, which have been touch-and-go since Mr. Putin returned to the presidency in May. While Mr. Putin has rebuffed overtures from President Obama for international action on Syria, he has also praised him as “a very honest man” who could possibly conclude a missile defense deal in coming years. 

Mr. Putin also undoubtedly would prefer to deal with the devil he knows rather than the one he does not — the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, whom Mr. Putin has criticized for characterizing Russia as America’s greatest geopolitical foe. 

Reaction was swift in Washington to what was widely perceived as an affront, with Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, urging the White House to condemn the Kremlin. “The Russian government’s decision to end all U.S.A.I.D. activities in the country is an insult to the United States and a finger in the eye of the Obama administration, which has consistently trumpeted the alleged success of its so-called reset policy toward Moscow,” Mr. McCain said in a statement. 

But the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, suggested that if Russia did not want American assistance, the money could be better spent elsewhere. “It’s their sovereign decision to make,” she said. “There are many countries around the world who would like to have more AID funding and help.” 

Mr. Putin, facing large-scale dissent at home for the first time, has said unrest is being stoked by the State Department, working covertly through nonprofit organizations.

Among the groups supported by the money from Washington is Golos, Russia’s only independent election monitoring group, which last winter enlisted thousands of young Russians as poll-station monitors and posted reports of vote-rigging on its Web site.

Grigory A. Melkonyants, the deputy director of Golos, said it would take at least a year to find alternate financing to replace the American grants, if it was even possible. 

“They see us as the source of criticism, and they are trying to halt that source,” Mr. Melkonyants said. “Many people are already scared to talk about the problems that exist today. The press is already frightened. Now they are trying to shut up civil organizations.”

The news filtered through Moscow’s human rights circles, already battered by new sanctions on political activities. 

“What is the list of other countries that have expelled U.S.A.I.D.?” said Yelena A. Panfilova, the head of the Moscow branch of Transparency International. “It’s not about money — we can cope somehow — the problem is about this whole feeling that we have been brought together with Venezuela, Somalia and Belarus.” 

As a practical matter it was unclear how many of the programs could continue without financing or support staff on the ground. The American aid agency employs 13 Americans in its Moscow headquarters, as well as a Russian staff of 60. 

Officials said that the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, informed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of the decision on Sept. 8, when they met in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting.

Formal notice was then sent to Washington, through the American ambassador, Michael A. McFaul, in a memorandum dated Sept. 11, officials said. 

The American-financed programs played a crucial role in helping Russia recover from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and included efforts to build the country’s capital markets and financial system and its mortgage-lending industry. The United States also supported an array of health programs, including efforts to combat tuberculosis and the spread of H.I.V.

But as Russia’s economy was buoyed by oil and gas revenues, the agency swung more than half of its portfolio to democracy and human rights programs, among them prominent critics of government policy. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the programs have cost American taxpayers $2.7 billion, with about one-third of the yearly funding now going to health programs. 

In recent years, however, Russia has bridled at the foreign aid flowing across its borders, in part because it views itself as a world power, a member of the Group of 8, and therefore more appropriately positioned to dole out assistance than to receive it.

Underscoring this view, Russia said on Tuesday that it was forgiving nearly all of North Korea’s accumulated foreign debt, which Russian officials have valued at roughly $11 billion, dating back to the closer relationship between them during the Soviet era. 

The forgiveness step, which has been in the works for many months, would help clear the way for Russia to make new investments in North Korea — a development that runs counter to American-led efforts to economically ostracize the North over its expanding arsenal of nuclear weapons. 

Mr. Melkonyants of Golos said he could not understand why American aid agency’s work rankled the Kremlin so. “Free elections are not an American goal — that is absurd,” he said. “They are a Russian goal.”

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/world/europe/russia-demands-us-end-pro-democracy-work.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www

Le retour d'ACTA par la grande porte ou le Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement

Le TPP "Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement" est la dernière invention US discutée dans le secret et le plus loin possible de tout pouvoir démocratique pour imposer des extensions au niveau de la propriété intellectuelle qui auraient des conséquences sur des domaines allant de la santé à léducation en passant par l'écologie et la liberté d'opinion.

Dénoncé par plusieurs fondations de libertés publiques comme l'electronic frontier foundation dont nous publions l'article aujourd'hui, le traité l'est également par l'ONG d'activisme en ligne mondialement connue AVAAZ.

Vous pouvez signer ici pour refuser l'application de cet ACTA bis :
 http://www.avaaz.org/fr/3_jours_pour_stopper_les_multinationales_etoile_de_la_mort/?fp

What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)?

 

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement. The main problems are two-fold:

(1) IP chapter: Leaked draft texts of the agreement show that the IP chapter would have extensive negative ramifications for users’ freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate.

(2) Lack of transparency: The entire process has shut out multi-stakeholder participation and is shrouded in secrecy.

The nine nations currently negotiating the TPP are the US, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, and Brunei Darussalam. However, Canada and Mexico have also been invited to join the negotiations and it is very likely they will join. The TPP contains a chapter on intellectual property covering copyright, trademarks, patents and perhaps, geographical indications. Since the draft text of the agreement has never been offically released to the public, we know from leaked documents, such as the February 2011 draft US TPP IP Rights Chapter [PDF], that US negotiators are pushing for the adoption of copyright measures far more restrictive than currently required by international treaties, including the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

The TPP Will Rewrite Global Rules on Intellectual Property Enforcement

 

All signatory countries will be required to conform their domestic laws and policies to the provisions of the Agreement. In the US, this is likely to further entrench controversial aspects of US copyright law (such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [DMCA]) and restrict the ability of Congress to engage in domestic law reform to meet the evolving IP needs of American citizens and the innovative technology sector. The recently leaked US-proposed IP chapter also includes provisions that appear to go beyond current US law.

The leaked US IP chapter includes many detailed requirements that are more restrictive than current international standards, and would require significant changes to other countries’ copyright laws. These include obligations for countries to:

• Place Greater Liability on Internet Intermediaries:
  The TPP would force the adoption of the US DMCA Internet intermediaries copyright safe harbor regime in its entirety. For example, this would require Chile to rewrite its forward-looking 2010 copyright law that currently establishes a judicial notice-and-takedown regime, which
  provides greater protection to Internet users’ expression and privacy than the DMCA.

• Regulate Temporary Copies: Treat temporary reproductions of copyrighted works without copyright holders' authorization as copyright infringement. This was discussed but rejected at the intergovernmental diplomatic conference that created two key 1996 international copyright treaties, the WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

• Expand Copyright Terms: Create copyright terms well beyond the internationally agreed period in the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Life + 70 years for works created by individuals, and following the US-Oman Free Trade Agreement, either 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation for corporate owned works (such as Mickey Mouse).

• Enact a "Three-Step Test" Language That Puts Restrictions on Fair Use: The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is putting fair use at risk with restrictive language in the TPP's IP chapter. The US and Australia are both proposing very restrictive text, and Peru is willing to accommodate the bad language. 

• Escalate Protections for Digital Locks: It will also compel signatory nations to enact laws banning circumvention of digital locks (technological protection measures or TPMs) [PDF] that mirror the DMCA and treat violation of the TPM provisions as a separate offense, even when no copyright infringement is involved. This would require countries like New Zealand to completely rewrite its innovative 2008 copyright law, as well as override Australia’s carefully-crafted 2007 TPM regime exclusions for region-coding on movies on DVDs, videogames, and players, and for embedded software in devices that restrict access to goods and services for the device—a thoughtful effort by Australian policy makers to avoid the pitfalls experienced with the US digital locks provisions. In the US, business competitors have used the DMCA to try to block printer cartridge refill services, competing garage door openers, and to lock mobile phones to particular network providers.

• Ban Parallel Importation: Ban parallel importation of genuine goods acquired from other countries without the authorization of copyright owners.

• Adopt Criminal Sanctions: Adopt criminal sanctions for copyright infringement that is done without a commercial motivation, based on the provisions of the 1997 US No Electronic Theft Act.

In short, countries would have to abandon any efforts to learn from the mistakes of the US and its experience with the DMCA over the last 12 years, and adopt many of the most controversial aspects of US copyright law in their entirety. At the same time, the US IP chapter does not export the limitations and exceptions in the US copyright regime like fair use, which have enabled freedom of expression and technological innovation to flourish in the US. It includes only a placeholder for exceptions and limitations. This raises serious concerns about other countries’ sovereignty and the ability of national governments to set laws and policies to meet their domestic priorities.

Non-Transparent and On The Fast Track

 

Despite the broad scope and far-reaching implications of the TPP, negotiations for the agreement have taken place behind closed doors and outside of the checks and balances that operate at traditional multilateral treaty-making organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization.

Like ACTA, the TPP is being negotiated rapidly with little transparency. During the TPP negotiation round in Chile in February 2011, negotiators received strong messages from prominent civil society groups demanding an end to the secrecy that has shielded TPP negotiations from the scrutiny of national lawmakers and the public. Letters addressed to government representatives in Australia, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand and the US emphasized that both the process and effect of the proposed TPP agreement is deeply undemocratic. TPP negotiators apparently discussed the requests for greater public disclosure during the February 2011 negotiations, but took no action.

Why You Should Care

 

TPP raises significant concerns about citizens’ freedom of expression, due process, innovation, the future of the Internet’s global infrastructure, and the right of sovereign nations to develop policies and laws that best meet their domestic priorities. In sum, the TPP puts at risk some of the most fundamental rights that enable access to knowledge for the world’s citizens.

The USTR is pursuing a TPP agreement that will require signatory counties to adopt heightened copyright protection that advances the agenda of the US entertainment and pharmaceutical industries agendas, but omits the flexibilities and exceptions that protect Internet users and technology innovators.

The TPP will affect countries beyond the nine that are currently involved in negotiations. Like ACTA, the TPP Agreement is a plurilateral agreement that will be used to create new heightened global IP enforcement norms. Countries that are not parties to the negotiation will likely be asked to accede to the TPP as a condition of bilateral trade agreements with the US and other TPP members, or evaluated against the TPP's copyright enforcement standards in the annual Special 301 process administered by the USTR.