My Lords, I join in the thanks that have been expressed to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for securing and introducing this debate. It is good to be able to welcome a joint paper from three government departments. I hope that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will study this in relation to our military exports.
I suspect that the work of producing this paper may have been more important than the document itself. The paper has a wide focus on the whole world, so it can seldom be specific. However, in just one paragraph, 3.5, it mentions that by 2025-that is, in 14 years’ time-2.8 billion people in 48 countries will be facing water shortages. The signs are already obvious. The Aral Sea, for example, is largely dry. The Jordan is reduced to a trickle, while the Dead Sea has receded by several hundred yards. I saw this myself last year. In China, the Yellow River now seldom reaches the sea and some Pacific islands have to rely on imported bottled water. All these examples are mainly caused by human activity.
At the same time, the world’s population is rising steadily and will do so for some years before it is likely to level off. Climate generally seems to be getting more extreme so that some areas have serious and disastrous droughts while others suffer typhoons, hurricanes and floods. The stresses and tensions over resources are likely to get worse.
If one looks at eight of the world’s major rivers, all flow through two states and many traverse three or four. The fresh water in them is crucial for human consumption and for food production, as well as for other uses. In some regions there are already consultative processes for discussing water use and allocation but in others nothing is set up. Already the Euphrates and Tigris are causing much concern. In Turkey, more irrigation and more hydro-electricity are planned. Downstream in Syria and Iraq, some former farmland is turning to desert, whose production cannot be balanced by just increasing irrigation.
The report, rather charmingly, speaks about “investing in upstream prevention”. Will the Government take this both seriously and literally? Will they discuss with the major riparian states the need to establish dialogue and consultation on whole-river strategies for co-operation? Is this something that the Commonwealth could usefully promote among its members, not only in Africa but also, and especially, in the context of détente between India and Pakistan? The report is helpful in setting down what we mean by conflict and suggesting that this becomes problematic only when it turns violent. Some countries, which might otherwise be quite prosperous, such as Colombia, have a tradition of civil war.
The report goes on to mention frozen conflicts. In my experience, in Moldova, Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the conflicts frozen following ceasefires almost always have an external as well as an internal dimension. I suggest that interested external parties should not be called upon to act as mediators. Will the Government concentrate greater effort on resolving frozen conflicts, especially when British NGOs are already involved? This also makes sense because the unresolved conflicts cause poverty and make people migrate, as we have seen, for example, from Armenia, Moldova and Kosovo, the last of which we debated on 15 September.
The report ticks many important boxes, such as the role of women, reducing corruption, justice and law enforcement, or political reform in the Arab states. It speaks of helping to build strong, legitimate institutions able to manage tensions, and it mentions the EU, the OSCE, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States. Of those, nearly all have their own internal weaknesses. They have nevertheless made a start, and regional groups for preventing war and other disasters should be encouraged everywhere.
I conclude by posing a more fundamental question. In Britain, we still have memories of the days of Empire, when our sea-power enabled us to impose our will in most parts of the world. In today’s circumstances, should we not adopt a narrower focus and select those regions where we can best contribute to preventing violence and promoting good government and economic prosperity? Would we not be more effective by concentrating our efforts on, say, south-east Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and perhaps the Horn of Africa? We have historic responsibilities arising from the Middle East but also much local knowledge and expertise. Progress towards resolving the long outstanding issues of Israel and Palestine would be a huge benefit to our interests, not least in reducing the motives for terrorism and in helping the Arab spring to produce worthwhile fruit. Progress, I believe, is likely to depend on work with the many shades of political and public opinion as much as on negotiation between the elites in government in the various countries.
As long as Lord Hylton has put the world right, then it is bound to be right in his own!
The pillars of Globalism and Globalisation are the empires of the first world imperialist states, France, Belgium,Holland Spain, Portugal, Italy, UK, Russia.
The organisation of the world by those states are what now in part responsible for the climatic catastrophes we can observe.
The medical care purveyed by people like Schweitzer and Stanley, and vaccine research, are all part of the imperialist order, and responsible for the huge increase in the world population.
Don’t put it right leave it alone, and avoid imperialist domineering thought. Think together.
AS ISRAEL PREPARES TO ATTACK IRAN’S NUCLEAR RESEARCH SITES – IRAN PREPARES ITS COUNTER-ATTACK AGAINST ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR WEAPON FACILITIES
IRANIAN NUCLEAR RESEARCH SITES
Arak – Heavy water plant
Bushehr – Nuclear power station
Gachin – Uranium mine
Isfahan – Uranium conversion plant
Natanz – Uranium enrichment plant
Parchin – Nuclear facility
Qom – Uranium enrichment plant
ISRAELI NUCLEAR WEAPON FACILITIES
Dimona – Nuclear research center & plutonium production
Kfar Zekharya – Nuclear missile base and bomb storage
Nahal Soreq – Nuclear weapons production
Yodefat – Nuclear weapons assembly
Eilabun – Tactical nuclear weapons storage
RESULT:
Escalating conflict in the Middle East resulting in possible
nuclear war which could well spill over into Europe
ACTION REQUIRED BY INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY:
The UN Security Council to pass an urgent resolution
designating the entire region to include Iran, Israel, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, a NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREE ZONE
@John R D Kidd:
I think you should add to that list, Pakistan and India.
Then we need to concentrate on ‘who’ leads these countries in the pursuit of such weapons? After that, go further back to ‘who’ first decided to build such weapons? As well as ‘who’ used them on the ‘enemy’ as a first strike against mankind?
Don’t you feel the culprit should face a court, set up to put such nations on trial for acts against humanity? Then have sanctions against them for the ‘evil’ they perpetrated throughout the world?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9lwvImJqT0&feature=related
How many bases to deliver ‘nuclear weapons of mass destruction’ do we have across Europe?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2NN_1ihgEs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVwEew5PWLI
The trouble with ‘weapons of mass destruction’ is, once you have them a pull toward trying them out becomes an ‘obsession.’
I don’t have much faith in UN resolutions as experience tells us that those who wish to abide by them do so, and even then sometimes only selectively, and those who don’t wish to abide by them, do not.
I’m getting quite worried about the growing war of words against Iran, suggesting an Israel-Iran conflict is becoming possibly imminent, with Israel possibly counting on President Obama to bail them out again (certainly his accidental-on-purpose caught on open-microphone comments suggest Netanyahu is in constant contact). The U.K. should vigorously say to the U.S.A. and Israel that we want no part of any such war.
And who do you feel is in there doing the negotiations in this Israel/USA/Iran nuclear conflict action talks? Why no other than the traitor Blair, with his cohort in Europe, Baroness Ashton, put in his place because he was unacceptable to the majority.
The big mouth loser Blair, once again had the gall to put his lying face in the frame, with the other cheating hierarchy, at the Cenotaph yesterday. Who lets him in there and why? This man should be in jail.
This woman Ashton is a well paid stooge in Europe who is his beard. It is the fawner to the US Blair who runs the show on Europe’s indulgence to suck us in to a nuclear annihilation of the Iranian people, via Israel.
He is well paid, through the back door, for his efforts. Yet his tactics are out to steal even more money from the British people through his, so called, charities. He is claiming he should have funds from ‘our’ foreign aid slush fund to promote his charitable intentions toward ‘Africa.’ What a really low life this guy is.
Listen to this maniac. He is the man who imported millions of dissenters against a Western lifestyle into our country and now he tells us, we must fear ‘them’ for they are out to destroy us. Which, if you interpret his actions indicates, he intended to destroy us whilst he was in office, as he knew exactly what he was doing when he made those policies to import terror here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXgg_IhsWlc
Her mouth is almost as big as his, but not quite. And this is the woman Britian felt was the ‘right’ person for our nations spokesman in Europe. Why hasn’t this government removed her? She is an embarassment as a diplomatic player on the world stage. She sounds barely literate. More like an East Ender of soap opera fame, with very limited vocabulary. What is our government thinking?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05c4P9sHNkg
I’m sorry Maude has such a low opinion of Baroness Ashton aka Mrs Kellner, a fine family I have known for thirty years or more. She is hard working an conscientious woman, doing work that very few people would want to do.
I am equally sorry about her low opinion of Blair. she could have mentioned the matter to him personally on the guardian blog in the last few days, in which he expressed his commitment to Abrahamic traditions of Jerusalem. I actually admire most his accomplished ecumenism, which in my view was the key to his success in parliament for his party, and also his undoing when it went ballistic with 160 seats majority in 2001.
The war establishment then got to work, which effectively finished his career.
He had no doubt at all that he was in the business of leadership (he told me exactly that on one occasion)…..and led.
@28thHDD:
Then clearly you are not the ordinary man in the street using this blog to reach those in power, are you? You are obviously some kind of inner circle man. And totally out of sync with your fellow man. Blair is hated, whcih is why he has to have £250,000 per year spent by the public on his security. Which he doesn’t deserve. He didn’t care about the security of thise he sent to war, did he?
I thought you knew too much of the inside workings of this machine to be one of the public when I read you previously. This is not to say I don’t like your posts. I do. Because, they will be meaty pieces to bite into, for one thing.
Now, ‘you’ may want to cover for Blair, however, that is erroneous thinking, because, the buck stops with the leader. And no circumstance erradicates a decision you make in such a post. Action taken in the top role is your responsibility when at the helm. He was there because he wanted to be. If he didn’t like the situation he was in, then he should have refused to go along with it. That simple. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Next, Baroness Ashton must be a mate of yours or maybe a relative. No one else could be so blind as to believe she is suitable as a spokesman for the UK in such a role. You cannot be in a job such as this and expect to be seen as credible with a performance like this I added here. My God, did she audition for the part? Because that has to be the next step governments takes in these circumstances. Working hard is something we all do, and are not expecting to be on the world stage as a result of it.
Whether we like it or not, perception is paramount to acceptance. As Joe Kennedy is reported to have said to, Jack, when he was running for President, it’s not what you are that matters, it’s what they think you are.
This woman sends a tragic message of being unprepared, or, unacceptable, as an image for such a powerful position. She makes the ordinary person, like me, cringe with embarrassment. This role is an advertisement for the UK as a world player. Not the local WI chair person. Which is what she comes across as.
And don’t give me that old chestnut of no one else would do it. There are thousands of people who would be exemplary in such a position. So, get off the soap box and think ‘people,.’… Not how will I assist my chum.
And how much is T. Blair paying you to run his PR here? You sound like a stooge of his with that over the top flattery. He was, and still is, a good actor. And that is it.
It was not simply the Iraq war that done for him. It was all the other crap of political correctness, dumbing down of schools, stasi like surveillance, mass immigration, the removal of personal freedoms, poodle like behaviour to the USA. And on and on, ad infinitum.
And as far as answering his self agrandisement on a blog of his own making is concerned. Give me a break, he is a lying cheat and I would never give him the time of day, in any way, that would promote his vanity.
@28thHDD:
Re:Baroness Ashton:
However, that said, I do believe a united defence in Europe, separate and not part of the USA, would be a definite improvement for our country’s future as a ‘peaceful’ nation.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100097493/does-baroness-ashton-think-she%E2%80%99s-general-eisenhower-britain-rejects-the-eu%E2%80%99s-delusional-plan-for-a-permanent-military-hq/
We are not, as this article likes to push, a US state. The political commenter appears hell bent on combining the UK as one horrendous throbbing mass with the White House war machine. War mongering right wing politicos, akin to Fox, of course, are in the same game of promoting conflict, as investment in armoury is the only safe area to place a bet these days.
It is simply unfortunate that Baroness Ashton has been the person to present the policy. If the man/woman we had in that position in Europe was the equivalent of say, Christine Legarde, the likelyhood of acceptance would be easier to produce.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQCmMhwec0I
Though, this could well be why Ms Ashton remains in her post. Not a good idea to have someone who could pursuade reasonably on what their Eurosceptic flank is diametrically opposed to, is it?
The cringe factor would be set aside dramatically should a charismatic speaker or diplomat be in that seat. It also needs someone to present it with a sense of commitment. Which our lady doesn’t have. But, with Blair breathing down her neck, that would be difficult as ‘he’ is likewise committed to war on Iran, just as our heavy right wing cosa nostra are.
Thank you for publicising these factors, upon building a strategy for overseas stability.
Is appears to be inferrable, that this is (but) one part of a single British Strategy (?)
itself already resolved with and under One Overall Global Strategy presumably already cooperatively constructed by the United Nations (?)
Some months ago now Lord Hylton, you asked me about the “friendly Method III for Needs & Affordable-Hows Recognition and Cooperative ‘win-win-win’ Problem Solving” that I had put forward ‘should be very widely established as a first resort whilst there is still time’
(and which I continue to ask be established at all Home levels, and as widely as possible overseas and internationally).
So one wonders whether enough such “top-of-the-slippery-slope” Method III methodology has been established, and whether there is still Time to effectivise i.e. genericly-propagate it ?
And also whether such similarly ‘win-win-win’ but progressively more difficult methodology as Collaborative Conflict Resolution for when much ‘friendliness’ has disappeared and backs have been turned on each other
(the reference was “Every-One Can Win” by the Australian International Conflict Resolution Network’s Cornelius & Faire)
is sufficiently known, practised, and constituted (?)
(The words
“The report is helpful in setting down what we mean by conflict and suggesting that this becomes problematic (ONLY) when it turns violent” –
– i.e. when it was not dealt with in the first resort by a friendly Method III and has been further unresolved by cooperative conflict resolution, then also been failed in the flashing-red-light and sirens stages of the Crisis-Management-Teams, and is at the hot Military Confrontation ‘stage’ –
are deeply consterning,
they make it look as if the best-teams and top-powers for peace-keeping, peace-building, and peace-making are blindly short of an adequate overall Strategy and of subsidiary strategies).
=====================
A propos water-shortages, and the fact that effectively all the possible broad-acres agricultural land around the globe has already been taken-up, what is the percentage-production future for large-scale Hydroponics and suchlike, where even small-ish trickles and reservoirs of fresh water can be captured and re-cycled around intensive horticultural systems, both indoors and outdoors ?
(Certainly it appears clear that the natural and civilisationally-traditional ‘wastage’ of fresh-water into the Sea has to be stopped, run-offs need to be productivedly-checked and channeled , and individual household “dropped catches” need to be patched up so that more water can be vatted or reservoired, doesn’t it ?)
=====================
Cetera paribus, your report is surely very welcome. And your part in the Work looks fit-for-purpose.
Yet surely too many ‘Others’ are behaving like “toads blocking the foungtain”, still needing to very clearly publish what Overall-Purpose, and what Major Secondary Purposes thereunder, are ‘driving’ the construction of Strategy worldwide ?
Would we not be more effective by concentrating our efforts on, say, south-east Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and perhaps the Horn of Africa?
The most positive purpose in the world in the last 50 years has been the development of English as the world’s second language EVERYWHERE.
The outcome of that is indeed the development of ECWAS?Economic Community of West African States. Of those, nearly all have their own internal weaknesses. They have nevertheless made a start, and regional groups for preventing war and other disasters should be encouraged everywhere.
I agree with Lord Hylton that the development of world region groupings is advantageous for the prevention of conflict. they are all based on democracy. They all pay service to
the UN, as did the eco secretariat last week or so.
But is it not curious that the region groups
that get the best sponsorship are the ones which are most convenient to the superpowers?
it may only be curious; it may be only a matter of time, but when that time has arrived, wars to end all wars might be international region against international region, and then where would we be?
Perhaps the 21stC will be the Century of Africa for an orderly development of various regions, subordinate to organisation of the whole continent.
Grant these our prayers……in all faiths, and none.
IRAN JOINS ISRAEL IN CLAIMING NUCLEAR AMBIGUITY
What does it mean? Well, in Israel’s case it’s a uniquely clever contrivance enabling it to build a massive underground arsenal containing between about 250-300 nuclear warheads without having to declare them to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the United Nations.
Iran is somewhat different in that it has, as yet, no nuclear weapons at all and would take at least twenty years to build the nuclear fire-power that Israel already possesses today.
The further difference is that whilst Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and subject to IAEA inspection – Israel is subject to neither. You might well come to the reasonable conclusion that something is not quite balanced in this dangerous situation or, to be blunt, that something smells stronger than a piece of blue cheese – or a charred body – left out in the sun.
If Israel’s Netanyahu is successful in pulling the US into a disproportionate and one-sided nuclear conflict in the Middle East, that would have severe and frightening consequences for world peace and stability.
The answer is for the UN Security Council to proclaim the whole Middle East, including both Iran and Israel, to be a nuclear weapons free zone. ###
________________________________________
It seems that JRD Kidd the only one here who is anti-semitic and pro-Arab-aggression ?
Even Melanie Phillips can think straighter than ‘Jewish-Israel is NUCLEAR-BOMB HUGE whilst poor little Arabic-Iran is only NUCLEAR-FRIENDLY’
It would seem that milesjsd has a vested interest in a secretly armed Israel with enough warheads to lay waste to most of Europe in addition to the Middle East.
As for the epithet of ‘anti-semitic’ – both Melanie Philips and myself are Jewish. She has one opinion and I another.
Mine is that for a tiny state of just 7 million people to hold sway of a world of 7 billion is becoming increasingly surreal day by day. As Netanyahu dictates to Obama and the EU including Britain, we can only watch open-mouthed in amazement and fear as democracy is trampled underfoot.
I fear for my children’s lives in the years to come. You should also fear for yours.
@John RD Kidd:
I don’t think most people can conjure up a vision of what would happen should a nuclear warhead miss its target and land, ‘by mistake,’ close to us. You know, that old euphemnism, friendly fire.
And they have a hugely mistaken idea that the top brass of the Israeli Knesset are akin to your logal bagel shop owner, who you love to see, as he offers you the slice of his best smoked salmon to taste for flavour as you pass.
Israel and its Mossad killing machine are ‘obsessed’ with the notion of colonising the entire areas of Palestine, as they have been convinced by the stories of history, that it is theirs by divine gift. And should that involve dropping a couple of ‘big boys’ on another state that is aiding the ‘enemy’ in any way it can, deserves it.
Reason has gone out of the window as the Jewish vote, although only 6% of Americans are Jewish, is very powerful and can make or break a President. Washington is largely a Jewish community, and Israel is twinned with them. Hence the adherence to the threat the Knesset may pose. They have those warheads to back them up of course, and the threat to us is akin to that of their enemy to them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIHcYLm2d3s
And speculation of Mossad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR5ExGCGeO4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDsW4DyyZvU
And these beautiful children making a plea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmCcTSyowhY
Israel is continually involved in expropriating Palestinian land in contemptuous defiance of the United Nations. The question is not whether the Netanyahu government is an extremist right-wing coalition, which is patently obvious, but exactly what pressure is being applied to the 27 EU states to persuade them to turn a blind eye to this illegal, and therefore criminal, activity: how is that pressure applied, where and by whom?
The EU does not conduct substantial bilateral trade with any other state in the world that continuously violates the will of the UN. What hold does Israel exert over the EU parliament and why is it not challenged by the 500,000 citizens of Europe? That is the question that demands an answer.
”unresolved conflicts cause poverty and make people migrate”:
63+ years of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka have been i. lowering the GDP attributes and human indicators in the Northeast Provinces(homeland of ethnic minorities) of the country and ii. driving nearly a million Tamils out of the country in the last 5-6 decades.
Oppressive regimes wantonly destroy the environment of the oppressed too: the occupation army in the Northeast of Sri Lanka mines sand from the coast in the Northeast and rocks in Jaffna peninsula( with low water-table) recklessly against the regulations of Sri Lankan Environmental Authority.
Promotion of tourism by oppressive regimes in the areas of the oppressed people depriving them of livelihood physical spaces and ignoring nationally and internationally environmental safeguards shouldn’t be accepted by foreign tourists. Tens of thousands of Tamil (and Muslim) IDPs driven out of their coastal villages by thw war have been forced to settle in unlivable spaces and newly cleared forests while their coastal villages are given to Sinhalese fishermen and tourist businesses as the President has set up promotion of a sky-high target of tourist arrivals.
Environmental management, sustainable development, tourism, conflict resolution and climate change must all be put together when decisions are made anywhere and everywhere.