Sudan People's Liberation Army-North rebels (photo: Trevor Snapp - Global Post)

At the same time, however, violence on a much larger scale is hitting Sudan’s “new south”: Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States. Fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) has forced tens of thousands of people to flee to Ethiopia and South Sudan. Nearly as many have been internally displaced and face dire food shortages.

Displacement is a growing problem in the region, and aid groups face immense challenges providing enough emergency food and care to support the displaced population. Bombing and fighting in the area have prevented local families from cultivating their crops, and a poor harvest in November left food stocks even lower than usual. The most insidious problem, however, is the aid blockade imposed by Khartoum.

The government’s refusal to allow international aid agencies (both UN and private) into its territory is putting tens of thousands of lives at risk. Only the Sudanese Red Crescent, seen as neither impartial nor capable of handling the needs of civilians in government and SPLM-N areas, has been allowed to enter the area.

The U.N. and countries including the United States have tried to shift Khartoum and stave off a humanitarian disaster. In recent weeks, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the U.N.’s top humanitarian official both visited Sudan and pressed Omar al-Bashir’s government for greater access. But neither visit was successful in opening Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile to desperately needed assistance.

Khartoum is clearly in bunker mode. Feeling that it was not sufficiently “rewarded” for allowing South Sudan to break away, it is now wary of any incentives the West might offer for opening up these war-torn states. It is also keen to avoid a second Darfur, where Khartoum saw humanitarian assistance as merely a friendly façade for Western meddling. More than that, Bashir’s regime sees the aid blockade in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile as another way to force the SPLM-N to surrender for the sake of suffering civilians.

Given the dire need in these two states and the lack of movement by Sudan, some in the U.S. are now calling for forced access to Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile – whereby food and medical supplies might be flown or trucked into the two areas against Khartoum’s will. Certainly, the need is clear; but leaving aside the prospect of Sudanese military retaliation, the practicalities of such a move are thorny indeed. Dropping aid from the air would be incredibly costly, and it’s unclear how the supplies would be distributed once the aid hits the ground. Meanwhile, the land routes from South Sudan into Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan are either impassible or go through Khartoum-held areas. Ethiopia, another possible entry point, would be wary of provoking Khartoum by cooperating with such a plan.

For the time being, Khartoum’s recklessness and intransigence is certain to push more families from Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile into South Sudan and Ethiopia – adding to the over 100,000 Sudanese refugees already there. Those who can’t flee will face even more danger and deprivation; many will surely die.

As humanitarians, we continue to hope that this time Khartoum will prove its critics wrong; that this time it will welcome assistance and not endanger thousands of lives out of pique. But after years of disappointment, it is hard to expect anything better from Sudan. And the fear is that the most the world can do is prepare for the human tragedy that is about to unfold.

KI-MOON: Let me mention one form of discrimination that has been ignored or even sanctioned by many states for far too long, discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.  This has prompted some governments to treat people as second-class citizens, or even criminals. Confronting this discrimination is a challenge.  But we must live up to the ideals of the Universal Declaration [of Human Rights].

Ki-Moon’s remarks reflect last month’s report from the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission about the importance of decriminalizing homosexuality and protecting LGBT people from discrimination. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also recently called on nations to treat “gay rights as human rights” and end all forms of persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Many African countries with anti-gay laws have rebuffed efforts by the U.S. and Britain to improve their policies, defending the role of religion in their societies and decrying gay rights as a “Western invention.”

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s landmark incursion into Somalia last October and ongoing military operations present some important opportunities and disquieting potential pitfalls for establishing lasting security in a region controlled by the al Qaeda-linked jihadi group al-Shabaab.

The nearly three-month long intervention is the Kenyan army’s first-ever offensive across its borders. The commotion after Kenyan soldiers crossed over into Somalia and, reportedly, then sought approval from the Somalia’s transitional federal government compounded questions about the army’s experience. It also accentuated concerns about upsetting the fragile arrangements that have enabled Kenya to, for the most part, avoid being a target of Shabaab’s deadly attacks.

But beyond the viability of the military campaign to rout a brutal militant group that has employed devastating insurgency tactics against peacekeepers and soldiers more familiar with the terrain, the question of what comes next looms even larger.

“Intervention strategies that plan the war but not the peace will fail,” Somalia expert Ken Menkhaus warned in a policy paper published last Friday by the Enough Project.

“Indifference to or wishful thinking about the crafting of a post-intervention political order guarantees disorder, and can leave both the occupied country and the intervening power worse off than before.”

The stakes of the military operation against Shabaab this time around cannot be overstated. If the current campaign fails to dramatically undercut −− if not wholly defeat−− Shabaab, the situation will be even worse, as a longtime Somalia watcher here remarked to Enough recently: “Shabaab will look invincible.”

The responsibility for coming up with the post-intervention plan lies squarely with Somali leaders and authorities but will require strong diplomatic efforts and coordination by international partners, wrote Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College. In particular, non-Somali actors must press for a governing plan that does not see the potential prizes of the operation against Shabaab −− most significantly, the lucrative and hotly contested port city of Kismayo −− divvied up along clan lines. Menkhaus explained:

The Kenyan government cannot facilitate this kind of Somali dialogue alone −− this requires broader diplomatic engagement by key donor governments from the West, the Islamic world, the United Nations, the African Union, and regional external actors. The details of a governing arrangement need to be hammered out by Somalis, not foreigners, but the general principle of open access is something external actors can and should insist on.

Kenyan officials have expressed a variety of goals for their intervention, but they boil down to the core desire for a friendlier Somali-Kenya border area — a plan long in the works, according to U.S. cables published by Wikileaks about the Kenyan government’s training of soldiers for the operation. To increase the likelihood of success, Menkhaus advises pursuing three key objectives:

(1) creating a buffer zone of peaceful, cooperative communities along the border to temper the militant al-Shabaab factions in their midst;

(2) advocating for a Jubbaland regional state that would at first exclusively
serve the important role of ensuring that local communities are represented in national institutions (in contrast to the administrative role of the Puntland and Somaliland governments); and

(3) brokering an inclusive deal and “cosmopolitan strategy” for the governing of
Kismayo, including establishing an international customs authority at the port to generate revenue for public works projects, support a lean civil service, and set an example for good management of public funds.

“Though there are good reasons to second-guess the Kenyan military intervention, it could produce an unexpected and rare window of opportunity in Kismayo,” Menkhaus wrote. “That opportunity will be missed unless diplomatic initiatives get underway immediately.”

Likewise, failure to plan for post-intervention governance in southern Somalia risks undoing any security gains the various allied forces can produce, rendering the new terrorism risks assumed by tourist-friendly Kenya pointless.

[T]he government’s information minister, Given Lubinda, assured that the country’s leaders would not bow to outside pressure to respect and tolerate homosexuality in the nation. He reminded western nations about the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and Accra Agenda of Action, which guide development aid distribution and do not mention acceptance of same-sex marriage as the basis for offering aid to the poor nations. Rev. Gibson Nyirenda, spokesman for the Pentecostal bishops’ council, urged Zambia to reject any donor aid that comes with conditions.

“For us as a nation, we cannot go in that direction because it is indecent and can erode our morals as society. Let’s remain a Christian nation by ignoring such assistance,” Rev Nyirenda said.

Homosexuality is considered a felony in Zambia, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, although the country’s constitution does include a general non-discrimination clause and few have been prosecuted for the “crime.”

During her landmark speech in Geneva, Clinton specifically addressed the concerns of religions leaders. “For many of us, religious belief and practice is a vital source of meaning and identity, and fundamental to who we are as people,” she said. “And likewise, for most of us, the bonds of love and family that we forge are also vital sources of meaning and identity. And caring for others is an expression of what it means to be fully human. It is because the human experience is universal that human rights are universal and cut across all religions and cultures.”

8. Canada Weather Bomb

On December 8: Hurricane-force winds in a fast-moving “weather bomb” system, including 92 mph gusts, knocked out power for 68,000 people in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Heavy snowfall blanketed north New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, forcing schools to close.

7. Scotland Weather Bomb

December 8: Severe winds of up to 165 mph from another weather bomb battered Scotland and northern England, forcing hundreds of schools to close, destroying a giant wind turbine, and leaving more than 56,000 people without power. “The storm’s winds were so strong as its pressure dropped by 44mb, almost double the qualifying amount for a weather bomb, in the 24 hours to 6am this morning. The winds today were stronger than the 80mph gusts seen when Hurricane Katia hit in September.”

6. Los Angeles Santa Ana Windstorm

November 30: A powerful, late-season Santa Ana windstorm with gale-force gusts “left much of the Los Angeles area strewn with toppled trees and downed power lines on Thursday, slowing rush-hour traffic,” canceling hundreds of flights, and knocking out electricity to over 430,000 residents. “Public schools in Pasadena and 11 other districts in San Gabriel Valley, northeast of Los Angeles, were closed for the day.” Thousands are still without power.

5. Colombia Landslide Kills Family

December 5: “Heavy rains set off a landslide that swept over a home in central Colombia, flattening it and killing seven members of the same family.” “Five women and two young girls died in the disaster, which was caused by heavy rains in the Herveo municipality. The husband of one of the women survived.”

4. Killer Kenya Floods

December 2: “Three children were killed in a landslide as the rains drenching the country continue to wreak havoc. Thousands more have been forced to flee flooded homes.” A total of 14 people have been killed as bridges and roads have been washed away in “some of the heaviest rainfall it has seen in 50 years.” Meanwhile, crippling drought continues in northern Kenya.

3. Record Colombia Floods Cause Bus-Burying Mudslide

On December 8, a Columbia mudslide swallowed a bus, killing six. “One of the victims managed to call for help by cellphone and told relatives she was trapped before she died, said Cesar Uruena, rescue director for the Colombian Red Cross. The five other victims of the accident Wednesday night included a police officer and the bus driver and his young son, Uruena said.” Heavy rains flooded about 3,500 homes south of Bogota, with waters up to 5 feet deep in places. “Up to 10,000 people have been affected by the floods and the cresting of Bogota’s river.” Columbia’s unrelenting rains have caused at least 127 deaths since September.

2. Indonesia Landslide Kills 35

November 30: “Heavy rains triggered the landslide on the island of Nias, burying at least 37 houses.” Thirty-five people were killed. “Heavy rains the past three days had caused the hill to crumble. We are now still trying to pull out trapped victims from the landslide,” district disaster management agency official Robertna Mendeva told AFP on December 1. “It’s difficult as it is still raining very heavily now.”

1. Durban’s Killer Climate-Talk Floods

November 28: Ten people along South Africa’s east coast were killed, 700 houses destroyed, and thousands left homeless following torrential rains that struck the city hosting the international climate talks. The destruction was worst in the shack towns that surround Durban, highlighting the vulnerability of the poor to climate disasters.

This year’s climate devastation has shattered records. There have been 14 billion-dollar climate disasters in the United States alone, causing damages cost at least $53 billion. The floods in Thailand were that nation’s worst “Weather-related catastrophes in Asia have more than tripled over the last 30 years,” Munich Re reports. “In China alone, weather-related disasters have more than quadrupled since 1980.”

Despite the exponentially growing damages fueled by exponentially growing carbon pollution, the world’s top polluters — China and the United States — have insisted that new steps to cut carbon won’t happen before 2020.

As the climate talks unfold in Durban, South Africa, farmers all over the world are feeling the impact of extreme weather exacerbated by a warming planet.

Changing weather patterns, especially rainfall, are having disastrous affects on global crops. Last year in the Caribbean, banana and vegetable crops were hit hard by months of drought followed by torrential rains that resulted in flooding. The story is the same in Southern Africa. Droughts and erratic rainfall in the South African desert are destroying the Redbush tea plant, known by its Afrikaner name Rooibos. In other areas of the world, a range of agricultural products like coffee, chocolate, peanuts, and pumpkins are all being harmed by extreme weather.

But farmers in Africa — a continent that would be worst hit by climate change — are not idly sitting by. Protesting outside the Durban climate talks, members of the Southern African Rural Women’s Assembly are expressing their frustration with international inaction on climate:

“We’ve come to join other rural women farmers from the southern African region,” said Thandiure Chidararume, a member of ActionAid, an international organization that helped bring together this meeting of the Southern African Rural Women’s Assembly. “We have come as one voice from Africa, we are saying no to damning deals, Africa is not for sale, we want this air pollution that is causing climate change to stop now.”

The assembly unites women’s farming and agricultural unions and movements from around the world.

Women from all across Africa, some as far north as Kenya, came out to the rally at a Kawaulu-Natal University in Durban, several kilometers from the downtown convention center where the more subdued, official meetings on climate change are taking place.

The protesters, who also have the support of women’s movements in Latin America, do not believe that government negotiators represent their interests.

They lament the inaction by developed countries, and point to schemes in which biofuel companies or other firms buy land in countries in Africa and Latin America to make money off of trading carbon credits. These land grabs drive people off the land and often don’t reduce carbon emissions. That’s why Mercia Andrews, the director of the South African Trust for Community Outreach and Education, calls the situation “climate apartheid”:

“We have a responsibility, we have to begin to mobilize and we have the power. We have shaken this country before, we brought down apartheid, now is another turn. This is a bigger struggle, a more important struggle and this is a struggle that we must unite around. We must say, ‘No, to climate apartheid, no.’ ”

The concerns are real, said Theresa Marwei, an activist from Zimbabwe.

“I think if we can agree, all the countries that we are here, not to let the air be polluted, because we are having hunger, no water to drink, no gardens, no money to send our children to school because no rain,” she said. “If the rain comes it will be floods, we can’t do anything.”

This group of women representing rural farming interests is just one of many protesting outside the Durban climate talks in an attempt to get negotiators to see the human consequences of their actions.

— Cole Mellino is an intern with the energy team at the Center for American Progress

AP Photo/Chris Gardner

Beware climate change risk from aircon, fridge gases-UN

Soaring use of man-made gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners and fire extinguishers risks speeding up global warming and industry should adopt alternatives, a U.N. report said on Monday.

In the most dire forecast, unless governments and industry act to limit the growth, the annual emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, by 2050 could equate to pumping nearly 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — about a third of mankind’s CO2 emissions now.

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HFCs have been phased in since the 1990s to replace chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which have damaged the Earth’s protective ozone layer and are also very powerful greenhouse gases.

On average, HFCs survive in the atmosphere for 15 years and are about 1,600 times more potent in trapping heat in the air than CO2, underscoring growing alarm about these compounds.

Debate Pits Montana’s Vast Coal Reserves Against Climate Concerns

Several times a day, long trainloads of coal trundle through Missoula to power plants in Washington.

Those routine runs generate lots of electricity for homes and lots of consternation for politicians and scientists concerned about the trade-offs. In the short term, coal’s convenience and low price make it a simple answer to the nation’s energy needs. But its pollution, damage to water supplies and impact on global climate may produce a long-term cost we’re unable to afford.

“Two years ago, the United States was on the verge of adopting a comprehensive climate bill,” said Michael Gerrard, a Columbia Law School climate change expert who visited Missoula last week. “That fell apart, and we now have at best paralysis and at worst an effort to move backward. All this is happening in the face of a stream of new scientific evidence showing the serious worsening of climate problems. And the U.S. is now standing virtually alone in the world among major countries listening to voices that deny the reality of climate change.”

Africa Leads Climate Push as its People Go Hungry

Africa is leading the push for clean energy policy-making as climate change turns millions of its people into “food refugees,” the head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) Achim Steiner said.

“On the African continent, there is sometimes more leadership being shown by countries, by governments, than we see in some of the industrialized nations,” Steiner told Reuters.

“Kenya is currently doubling its energy and electricity generating infrastructure largely using renewables. These are policies that are pioneering, that are innovative,” he said.

Kenya generates most of its energy from hydroelectric dams but water levels have fallen due to recurring drought. It is now investing heavily in geothermal and wind power.

The African Development Bank is financing Africa’s biggest wind farm on the shores of Lake Turkana, one of the windiest places on Earth. The $819-million project aims to produce 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity per year, boosting Kenya’s energy supply by 30 percent.

Toyota and Hyundai are building a fourth geothermal power station in Naivasha, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Nairobi, which will increase geothermal capacity from 115 MW to 395 MW by 2014.

Chevron Takes Full Responsibility for Brazil Oil Spill

U.S. oil company Chevron will fully clean up a spill off Brazil’s coast, George Buck, the CEO of the local subsidiary said on Sunday, taking responsibility for an accident that has become a major test for one of the world’s fastest-growing oil frontiers.

About 18 vessels were supporting well-plugging operations and sheen cleanup, the company said in a later statement, adding that no new oil was being emitted.

Buck said the leak from the undersea well, owned in partnership with Brazil’s state-controlled Petrobras and a Japanese consortium, has been plugged.

“Chevron takes full responsibility for this incident,” Buck told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. “We will share the lessons learned here in the hope that this sort of incident won’t happen again in Brazil or anywhere else in the world.”

The spill, one of the largest to hit Brazil’s growing offshore oil industry has raised questions about its safety and ability to respond to accidents.

Easy loans now a burden for China solar firms

Generous state bank loans to Chinese solar companies, a bone of contention for their Western counterparts, are threatening the financial health of the firms, as they grapple with falling product prices and tumbling demand from their biggest customer, Europe.

The huge funds that flow into China’s solar sector, in which local governments hold stakes, have boosted production in the first half despite fragile demand, depressing product prices and setting off an anti-dumping probe by the United States.

State banks provide easy loans to the sector amid the Chinese government’s push to develop clean energy. Provincial governments that have helped build solar companies are also pressuring banks to continue lending, which may add to the woes of the struggling industry.

The glut of production and swelling inventories of the panels that turn sunlight into electricity have already driven down prices by about 40 percent so far this year. Analysts expect prices to slide by another 10 percent by early next year.

“The longer and larger the Chinese bank lending bubble for solar inflates, the sharper and more unpredictable will the eventual fundamental correction be due to industry consolidation,” Credit Suisse analyst Satya Kumar said.

[HT: JoeMyGod]

Part of [the foreign aid budget] is humanitarian aid around the world. I happen to think it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to borrow money from the Chinese to go give to another country for humanitarian aid. We ought to get the Chinese to take care of the people that are taking that borrowed money today.

Watch it:

What Mitt Romney doesn’t mention is that China already has an active foreign aid policy in Africa. And the aid rarely comes with onerous conditions like anti-corruption measures, government and economic reforms and accountability for how the money is spent. A Council on Foreign Relations report on Chinese efforts to secure access to African oil, says:

International observers say the way China does business—particularly its willingness to pay bribes, as documented by Transparency International, and attach no conditions to aid money—undermines local efforts to increase good governance and international efforts at macroeconomic reform by institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

While western economic aid is frequently criticized for requiring recipients to undergo at times disastrous economic reforms, the Chinese model is aimed toward securing access to natural resources with few strings attached to aid dollars.

A recent Chinese government report on foreign aid in Africa suggests that its aid “falls into the category of south-south cooperation and is mutual help between developing countries,” but critics charge that Chinese aid in Africa has frequently been used to strengthen authoritarian governments and feeds corruption.

After the U.S. abandoned Zaire strongman Mobutu Sese Seko, China stepped in, sending an estimated 1,000 Chinese technicians to work on agriculture and forestry projects in the early 1990s.

And earlier this year, China’s foreign minister pushed for the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe, provided an additional $7.5 million in aid to Robert Mugabe’s government and signed a new bilateral agreement between the two countries.

While Mitt Romney seems to think that encouraging China to take over the U.S.’s humanitarian assistance responsibilities is an easy and cost-free method of cutting the federal budget, he should take a closer look at how U.S. foreign policy interests in Africa might be effected by increasing the influence of Chinese foreign aid.

On Friday, President Obama announced that approximately 100 U.S. troops would travel to Central Africa and begin assisting regional militaries pursuing the apprehension of Joseph Kony and other senior leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Defending his decision in an interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper, Obama spared no adjective in describing the atrocities committed by the LRA:

“But those who are familiar with the Lord’s Resistance Army and their leader, Mr. Kony, know that these are some of the most vicious killers, they terrorize villages, they take children into custody and turn them into child soldiers, they engage in rape and slaughter in villages they go through. They have been a scourge on Uganda and that entire region, Eastern Africa.”

Words barely capture the horrors the LRA has visited upon the people of northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan. Over the years, thousands of children have been abducted in LRA raids, indoctrinated, and exploited, some militarily, some sexually. Human Rights Watch reported in August 2010 that “many children as young as 10 or 11, abducted in Congo, CAR, and Southern Sudan in 2008 and 2009, are now armed with guns and participate in LRA attacks.”

It’s thus no surprise there has been bipartisan support for a more robust U.S. response to the LRA and its atrocities. In May 2010, Congress unanimously passed the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. That bill laid the foundations for President Obama’s recent decision to send U.S. troops to reinforce the efforts of the Ugandan, Congolese, and South Sudanese armies, to finally put an end to the LRA and its use of child soldiers.

However, only a few weeks ago Obama issued a series of waivers that will allow the U.S. to continue providing funding and assistance to countries whose militaries recruit, conscript and use child soldiers. Under U.S. law, military aid to Yemen, Chad, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo should have been suspended due to the child soldiers among their armies’ ranks. Perhaps conveniently, two of those militaries are ones the U.S. will be working with in central Africa.

Worse, this is the second year in a row the U.S. has waived penalties for countries arming and exploiting children as combatants. Last year, the administration granted the same waivers with the intent that continued U.S. assistance and engagement would lead to a reduction in the use of child soldiers among the four militaries. It did not. Yet the same tactic is once again being used to circumvent the law.

President Obama was forceful in his reasoning for potentially putting U.S. troops in harm’s way to end the LRA’s reign of terror, highlighting its abominable use of child soldiers. But elsewhere, the exploitation of child soldiers’ goes unchecked. It won’t take 100 U.S. troops to end the practice in Yemen, Chad, the DRC, or South Sudan. It would simply take following the law and following the President’s own convictions.

In reality, as human rights groups have long documented, the LRA is a murderous “death cult,” best known for descending on villages, “capturing, killing, and abducting hundreds of civilians,” and forcing boys to become child soldiers and girls to become “bush wives.”

Many journalists and human rights advocates — along with an LRA survivor — have responded to Limbaugh, but yesterday he received a rebuke from the Senate floor from someone who called the controversial radio host “my good friend Rush Limbaugh.”

Using Limbaugh’s and his cohorts name, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), said, “some people have mistakenly said that [the LRA's leader] is a Christian, and I want to make sure everyone knows that he was officially disavowed by the Catholic Church in Uganda.” He went on to detail their group’s atrocities.

It’s unusual for any senator to call out an ideological ally by name from the Senate floor, but even more so considering that Inhofe has in the past looked past egregious human rights violations to lend support for Christian leaders. In April, Inhofe defended former Ivory Coast dictator Laurent Gbagbo after other African and international leaders condemned him for taking up arms to retain power after losing the election to a Muslim rival. But the LRA is terrible enough for even Inhofe to reject.

Today, Limabugh responded to Inhofe on his radio show, admitting he was “misinformed” about the LRA. But Limbaugh seemed more bemused about having his name “entered into the Congressional record” than apologetic, giving a hearty laugh about it before quickly moving on to another topic.

Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army

Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, a vicious rebel group originally based in northern Uganda that now operates in the often lawless and ungoverned expanses of eastern Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan. The LRA has a long, sordid history as one of the most brutal guerrilla groups on the planet, and it has abducted thousands of civilians to serve as child soldiers, porters, and concubines. Although Kony, and other senior LRA leaders, have been indicted by the International Criminal Court, they remain at large and continue their ruthless reign of terror.

The deployment of U.S. military advisers is certainly not going to solve the LRA problem but it will make an important contribution. Military solutions can’t suffice when it comes to ending wars, conflicts or other kinds of kinetic operations, but there are instances when certain kinds of military engagement can play a constructive role — especially when combined with other critical elements like enhanced diplomatic engagement, scaled up development, and better intelligence sharing. Indeed, this most recent move by the Obama administration is part of a wider and more comprehensive strategy focusing on the range of action that can be taken — by the U.S. and by our partners to bring the LRA to an end. It is also an indication of a growing global commitment to the goal of civilian protection.

The deployment of these advisers will help fill some remarkable gaps that enable the LRA to continuing committing horrific atrocities in remote areas throughout already difficult terrain. Armed with high-tech communications equipment, U.S. military advisers will be able to keep in regular touch with headquarters and ensure the right intelligence gets into the hands of those who need it most. This will help generate a quicker response to LRA attacks on civilian populations, encourage greater and more effective collaboration between regional militaries, and hold these militaries to a higher civilian protection standard.

The regional militaries involved in LRA operations — primarily Uganda, with some assistance from Congo and South Sudan — suffer from a lack of technical capacity and insufficient resources. If we’re honest, they have also suffered from discipline problems — which makes partnering with them tricky business, a dilemma of which the administration is well aware.

Importantly, the military component is part of a larger and more comprehensive plan — the initial push for which is rooted in the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009, which was signed into law in 2011. Underpinning this strategy, laid out in this 2010 report by White House, is increasing opportunities for civilian protection throughout the region — the very essence of what local communities need and have repeatedly asked for. But other prongs include encouraging and facilitating defections from rank and file LRA, building cell phone towers to enhance communication and information sharing, and providing ongoing humanitarian and development relief to affected areas.

Another missing element needed for a fully successful strategy includes helping to develop more capable and disciplined regional forces that are bolstered by greater intelligence and logistical capacity. Additionally, the U.S. should ramp up its diplomatic efforts to get regional governments and institutions, including the African Union, to cooperate more effectively.

After the LRA abandoned peace talks in 2007, it became obvious that negotiations alone would not end the scourge the rebel group. If we’re going to see the LRA disbanded, the child soldiers go home, and the affected areas return to at least some level of normalcy, the military component is an important part — one part — of a larger strategy. The affected populations of central Africa have suffered far too long; they deserve an opportunity to return to their homes and rebuild their lives. Shouldn’t we employ a full range of options to help them do so?

Half of the world’s cocoa comes from the West African nations of Ivory Coast and Ghana. An expected temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 will render many of the region’s cocoa-producing areas too hot for the plants that bear the fruit from which chocolate is made, says a new study from the Colombia-based International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

“What we are saying is that if we don’t take any action, there won’t be sufficient chocolate around in the future,” said Peter Läderach, the report’s lead author.

“Already we’re seeing the effects of rising temperatures on cocoa crops currently produced in marginal areas, and with climate change these areas are certain to spread,” says Dr. Peter Laderach.

By 2030, there will be a massive decline in optimal cacao-growing regions in West Africa.

The fossil fuel pollution that is heating up the planet also threatens the production of coffee, beer, and wine.

Half of the world’s cocoa supply comes from the West African countries of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. But in the coming decades, climate change could severely limit production in the region — disrupting local farmers and squeezing global chocolate supply.

A new report out from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture finds that between 2030 and 2050, land area suitable for cocoa production will fall dramatically. While rising temperatures and changing rainfall pattern may shift cocoa production to land currently not suitable, the net impact to this $9 billion-per-year industry could be severe.

The news release makes clear that climate change is already having an impact on cocoa crops:

“Many of these farmers use their cocoa trees like ATM machines,” said CIAT’s Dr. Peter Laderach, the report’s lead author. “They pick some pods and sell them to quickly raise cash for school fees or medical expenses. The trees play an absolutely critical role in rural life.

“Already we’re seeing the effects of rising temperatures on cocoa crops currently produced in marginal areas, and with climate change these areas are certain to spread. At a time when global demand for chocolate is rising fast, particularly in China, there is already upward pressure on prices. It’s not inconceivable that this, combined with the impact of climate change, could cause chocolate prices to increase sharply.”

The report predicts that the ideal cocoa growing areas will shift to higher altitudes, to compensate for the higher temperatures. “The problem is that much of West Africa is relatively flat and there is no ‘uphill’. This is a major cause of the potentially drastic decreases in cocoa suitability in the region,” continued Laderach.

In Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa represents 7.5% of GDP; in Ghana, it makes up 3.4% of GDP.

The report, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, calls for increased research into heat and drought resistant crops, and to help transition cocoa farming to new regions that will be suitable for production in the future.

Related Post:

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Earlier this month the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) released survey results indicating that yet another region in Somalia succumbed to official famine. Conditions throughout Somalia are expected to deteriorate even further in the coming months, particularly as the October rains approach. An increased prevalence of diseases like cholera and severe diarrhea means an already weakened population will be further debilitated.

According to the U.N.’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, an estimated 585,000 urban Somalis are projected to be in crisis by December if relief interventions are not scaled up. Worse still, the U.N.’s Food Security Analysis and Nutrition Unit for Somalia has officially announced that 750,000 people are at risk of imminent starvation and death in the coming four months.

These numbers are basically equivalent to every single person in Washington, DC — or almost everyone in San Francisco — facing starvation unless they begin receiving food, water, and medical attention from an outside source now.

In response to the lackluster international effort and the growing urgency, 20 aid organizations recently released a statement calling for an all-inclusive dialogue “to put people’s lives before politics in order to save thousands of lives.” This call for a diplomatic push is vital; the Somali population is on death’s doorstep.

A prime opportunity could present itself later this week as the international contact group for Somalia gathers in Denmark. Ironically, the cornerstone of this meeting is the recently agreed political reform Road Map, not the metastasizing crisis of epic proportions. As international donors, key regional actors, and Somali officials meet in Copenhagen, they will focus on priority tasks for reforming Somalia’s feeble Transitional Federal Government. They are likely to touch tangentially on the urgent humanitarian needs but there seems to be no plan for a robust diplomatic response. Certainly, immediate relief responses need to be linked to a more comprehensive approach if they are to be sustainable. But, crafting (yet another) governance plan for a functional Somali government just doesn’t make a ton of sense when the survival prognosis for much of the population is bleak.

The options to stop the worsening crisis are few and the likelihood of success is slipping away. The restrictions placed on aid groups — by all parties to the conflict — as well as the international donor community are significant impediments to accessing those in need. And while the United States is leading international community contributions with more than $600 million in assistance to the Horn of Africa, the U.N. appeal remains only 63 percent funded. Worse yet, with so many Somalis holding on by a thread, the increased drone attacks in Somalia create a perception problem about U.S. government priorities. Instead of rearranging the patio furniture tomorrow in Copenhagen, the first order of business at tomorrow’s meeting should be the creation of a diplomatic plan focused on enabling the unimpeded delivery of desperately needed aid.

– by Wangari Maathai’s family and members of the Green Belt Movement

Professor Maathai’s departure is untimely and a very great loss to all who knew her — as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model, and heroine; or who admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier, and better place .

Prof. Wangari Muta Maathai started the Green Belt Movement in 1977, working with women to improve their livelihoods by increasing their access to resources like firewood for cooking and clean water. She became a great advocate for better management of natural resources and for sustainability, equity, and justice.

A synopsis of her life and work can be read below.

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940–2011): Nobel Peace Laureate; environmentalist; scientist; parliamentarian; founder of the Green Belt Movement; advocate for social justice, human rights, and democracy; elder; and peacemaker. She lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya.

“Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.”

“You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.”

Wangari Maathai was born in the village of Ihithe, near Nyeri, in the Central Highlands of Kenya on April 1, 1940. At a time when most Kenyan girls were not educated, she went to school at the instigation of her elder brother, Nderitu. Principally taught by Catholic missionary nuns, she graduated from Loreto Girls’ High School in 1959. The following year she was part of the “Kennedy airlift,” a scholarship program of the U.S. government and the Kennedy family that took her to Mount St. Scholastica (now Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences.

In 1966 she earned a master’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh. That year she returned to a newly independent Kenya, and soon after joined the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Nairobi. In 1971 she received a Ph.D., the first woman in east and central Africa to do so. She became the first woman to chair a department at the University and the first to be appointed a professor.

In the 1970s Professor Maathai became active in a number of environmental and humanitarian organizations in Nairobi, including the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). Through her work representing women academics in the NCWK, she spoke to rural women and learned from them about the deteriorating environmental and social conditions affecting poor, rural Kenyans—especially women. The women told her that they lacked firewood for cooking and heating, that clean water was scarce, and nutritious food was limited.

Professor Maathai suggested to them that planting trees might be an answer. The trees would provide wood for cooking, fodder for livestock, and material for fencing; they would protect watersheds and stabilize the soil, improving agriculture. This was the beginning of the Green Belt Movement (GBM), which was formally established in 1977. GBM has since mobilized hundreds of thousands of women and men to plant more than 47 million trees, restoring degraded environments and improving the quality of life for people in poverty.

As GBM’s work expanded, Professor Maathai realized that behind poverty and environmental destruction were deeper issues of disempowerment, bad governance, and a loss of the values that had enabled communities to sustain their land and livelihoods, and what was best in their cultures. The planting of trees became an entry-point for a larger social, economic, and environmental agenda.

In the 1980s and 1990s the Green Belt Movement joined with other pro-democracy advocates to press for an end to the abuses of the dictatorial regime of then Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi. Professor Maathai initiated campaigns that halted the construction of a skyscraper in Uhuru (“Freedom”) Park in downtown Nairobi, and stopped the grabbing of public land in Karura Forest, just north of the city center. She also helped lead a yearlong vigil with the mothers of political prisoners that resulted in freedom for 51 men held by the government.

As a consequence of these and other advocacy efforts, Professor Maathai and GBM staff and colleagues were repeatedly beaten, jailed, harassed, and publicly vilified by the Moi regime. Professor Maathai’s fearlessness and persistence resulted in her becoming one of the best-known and most respected women in Kenya. Internationally, she also gained recognition for her courageous stand for the rights of people and the environment.

Professor Maathai’s commitment to a democratic Kenya never faltered. In December 2002, in the first free-and-fair elections in her country for a generation, she was elected as Member of Parliament for Tetu, a constituency close to where sh egrew up. In 2003 President Mwai Kibaki appointed her Deputy Minister for the Environment in the new government. Professor Maathai brought GBM’s strategy of grassroots empowerment and commitment to participatory, transparent governance to the Ministry of Environment and the management of Tetu’s constituency development fund (CDF). As an MP, she emphasized: reforestation, forest protection, and the restoration of degraded land; education initiatives, including scholarships for those orphaned by HIV/AIDS; and expanded access to voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) as well as improved nutrition for those living with HIV/AIDS.

In the violence that followed the contested 2007 Kenyan elections, Professor Maathai served as a mediator and a critical voice for peace, accountability, and justice. In addition, she and GBM were instrumental in ensuring that the new Kenyan constitution, ratified by a public vote in 2010, included the right of all citizens to a clean and healthy environment, and that the constitution’s drafting was truly consultative.

In 2004 Professor Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work for sustainable development, democracy, and peace—the first African woman and the first environmentalist to receive this honor. In announcing the award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said that Professor Maathai “stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa.” It praised the “holistic approach” of her work and called her “a strong voice speaking for the best forces in Africa to promote peace and good living conditions on that continent.”

In 2006 Professor Maathai co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative with five of her fellow female peace laureates to advocate for justice, equality, and peace worldwide.

In recent years Professor Maathai played an increasingly important role in global efforts to address climate change, specifically by advocating for the protection of indigenous forests and the inclusion of civil society in policy decisions. In 2005 ten Central African governments appointed her the goodwill ambassador for the Congo Basin rainforest and that same year she accepted the position of presiding officer of the African Union’s Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC).

In 2006 Professor Maathai joined with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to launch a campaign to plant a billion trees around the world. Tha tgoal was met in less than a year; the target now stands at 14 billion. In 2007 Professor Maathai became co-chair (with former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin) of the Congo Basin Forest Fund, an initiative of the British and Norwegian governments, and in 2009 she was designated a United Nations messenger of peace by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In 2010, Professor Maathai became a trustee of the Karura Forest Environmental Education Trust. That same year, in partnership with the University of Nairobi, she established the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies (WMI). The WMI will bring together academic research—e.g. in land use, forestry, agriculture, resource-based conflicts, and peace studies—with the Green Belt Movement approach and members of the organization. Through sharing their experiences, academics and those working at the grassroots will learn from and educate each other on the linkages between livelihoods and ecosystems.

Professor Maathai received a number of honors. Those bestowed on her by governments include: the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan, 2009), the Legion D’Honneur (France, 2006), and Elder of the Golden Heart and Elder of the Burning Spear (Kenya, 2004, 2003). Professor Maathai also received awards from many organizations and institutions throughout the world, including: the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights (2007), the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Lifetime Achievement Award (2006), the Sophie Prize (2004), the Goldman Prize (1991), the Right Livelihood Award (1984); and honorary doctorates from Yale University and Morehouse College in the U.S., Ochanomizu University in Japan, and the University of Norway, among others.

Professor Maathai documented her life, work, and perspectives in four books: The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (2003), which charts the organization’s development and methods; Unbowed (2006), her autobiography; The Challenge for Africa (2008), which examines the social, economic, and political bottlenecks that have held back the continent’s development, and provides a manifesto for change; and Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World (2010), which explores the values that underpin the Green Belt Movement and suggests how they can be applied.

Professor Maathai is survived by her three children—Waweru, Wanjira, and Muta, and her granddaughter, Ruth Wangari.

– by Wangari Maathai’s family and members of the Green Belt Movement. Further information on how Prof’s life will be celebrated, where to share memories and condolences, and how to join us to build her legacy for generations to come will be provided shortly.