South America Gears Up for El Niño

By Delisa Morris

Desk Reporter, South America

El Niño, a weather phenomenon, is probably going to occur in the third quarter of 2014.  Which means that we should be seeing El Niño like temperatures within the next few weeks.  During El Niño the weather is characterized as oddly warm ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific.

A car stuck on a flooded street, Photo courtesy of Lamont-Dougherty Earth Observatory

 

The phenomenon starts as a body of warm water developing  in the central and eastern Pacific ocean.  The water then flows toward the western coast of South America.  This sets off several weather changes globally.

El Niño weather only recurs at two- to seven-year intervals.  The effects of which have a major impact on the climate around the world, including heavy rainfall and droughts.

Places in the world become dryer than normal conditions due to El Niño’s drought effects, or more floods occur due to the heavy rainfall.  El Niño also affects the temperature, normal temperatures are either colder or hotter than normal during El Niño weather.  The weather changes mostly increase global temperatures on top of man-made global warming.

The socio-economic impacts during El Niño can be extremely detrimental to the affected area.  During the last El Niño from 2009 until 2010, the hottest year on record, in northern Brazil the conditions were drier than normal while across tropical South America conditions were wetter than normal conditions.  South America usually is most impacted by widespread flooding, though there is also an increased chance of landslides.

During El Niño agriculture, infrastructure, housing, and health, such as outbreaks of cholera and other water-borne diseases, are vastly affected.  There will also be a shift in nutrient-rich ocean currents that lure fish, which could lead to a rise in the prices of food.

The unpredictable weather wreaks havoc on farmers and other agricultural markets.

Many international organizations are jump-starting El Niño preparedness warnings to mitigate the extreme weather’s impact.  For example, World Food Program has begun storing food in areas that may be difficult to reach in extreme weather conditions.

According to Moody’s Investors Service, governments and banks in South America are in better financial shape to deal with the costs of this year’s El Niño than in the past.

The Pacific ocean has already began to warm to weak El Niño temperatures, the weather is not expected to dissipate until early months of 2015.

La Niña is the name for when the El Niño phenomenon is ending, and temperatures start to return to normal.  Scientists say that while the two extreme weather patterns are not caused by global warming, their frequency and intensity are vastly affected by greenhouse gasses.

For more information, please see:

Business Insider – Prepare for El Nino – July 1, 2014

Time – El Nino Increasingly Likely, United Nations Weather Agency Warns – June 26, 2014

VOA news – El Nino Likely to Trigger Extreme Climate Events – June 26, 2014

The Wall Street Journal – South America Better Positioned Financially for El Nino, Moody’s Says – July 1, 2014

Indonesia’s Problem of Growing Religious Intolerance

by Max Bartels 

Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania Desk 

 

Jakarta, Indonesia

Indonesia has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world; there is now a popular push in the country for religious uniformity among Muslims and a growing intolerance of other religious and even other splinter sects of the Muslim religion. There have now been 264 incidents of religious violence in Indonesia as of 2012 with many more occurring in the past 2 years.

Protesters in Indonesia protest against the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in the capital Jakarta.
(Photo Curtesy of asianews.it)

Most recently the Indonesian Ahmadiyya sect of Islam has come under attack from Islamists. In the past there have been many violent attacks of the Ahmadiyya communities of Indonesia from mobs and protesters resulting in many deaths. However, the recent problem stems from the Indonesian government who has been slowly restricting the rights of the Ahmadiyya communities. The government has been shutting down Ahmadiyya mosques all over the country citing the need to maintain religious uniformity as the justification for the intrusion.

There has been a growing trend of support form Middle Eastern countries in Indonesia. Countries like Saudi Arabia flow money into religious institutions and schools in Indonesia in an attempt to increase the Islamist sentiment. The current president of Indonesia while not an Islamist himself has appointed many to his council. With support in the government the radical Islamists have had freedom in their acts of repression and the government has passed many decrees against religious minorities and allowed radicals to act violently without repercussion. These decrees have included mandating that every citizen have an identity card, which indicates their religion; these cards have been a source of discrimination for religious minorities.

In the past Indonesia has been proactive about curbing terrorism in the country. The concern for Australia and other western nations is that the growing domestic religious intolerance will lead to intolerance aimed abroad. Indonesia in the past has always prided itself on maintaining a large peaceful Muslim population with little to no radicalization. This increase in violence could bring in or develop radical Islamist and terrorist groups.

It an election year in Indonesia and there and there will be a new government to step in and change the current downward spiral of religious intolerance. Both candidates for the presidency have come out in support of religious tolerance. They realize that without improving conditions for religious minorities in the country that they lose the support of the international community. Both candidates have said that they plan to eliminate regulations and decrees that repress religious minorities and increase education and social welfare in order to tackle the problem.

For more information, please see:

UCA News — Indonesian Election Candidates Promise Religious Tolerance — 19 June 2014

Amnesty International — Arbitrary Closure of Ahmadiyya Highlights Religious Repression — 27 June 2014

The Guardian — Indonesia’s Growing Religious Intolerance has to be Addressed — 5 February 2014

The Wall Street Journal — Indonesia’a Religious Tolerance Problem — 24 February 2014

Interpol has Re-opened the Browder Red Notice Case on the Back of Magnitsky’s Posthumous Trial

 

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

 

 

3 July 2014 – Documents recently received from Interpol show that the Russian government has successfully convinced Interpol’s Commission for Control of Files to re-open their consideration to issue an Interpol Red Notice for Bill Browder, by submitting Mr Browder’s conviction in absentia in Russia, where he was a co-defendant with the deceased Sergei Magnitsky in the first ever posthumous trial in Russian history.

 

Two previous Russian attempts to get a Red Notice issued for Mr Browder failed because Interpol deemed those attempts were politically motivated and violated Interpol’s constitution. Shortly after Interpol’s first rejection of Russia’s request for Browder, Interpol’s General Secretary wrote an editorial for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, citing Mr Browder’s case as the example for why reforms are not needed at Interpol (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10082582/Interpol-makes-the-world-a-safer-place.html).

 

Strangely, Interpol has now decided to reopen the case based on the Magnitsky posthumous trial. Interpol’s Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files said that it plans to re-examine the Russian submission in relation to Mr Browder at its next session in October 2014.

 

“It would be a true signal of the need for reform of Interpol if a Red Notice were issued on the basis of the first posthumous trial in Europe since Pope Formosus in 897,” said a Hermitage Capital representative.

 

In July 2013, Sergei Magnitsky was convicted of tax evasion three years after he was murdered in Russian state custody, in the first ever posthumous trial in Russian history. Bill Browder was convicted as his co-defendant in the second ever trial in absentia against a Westerner. The trial was deemed to be politically motivated and illegitimate by the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and numerous international human rights organisations.

 

The convictions have since been upheld by the Moscow City court in January this year, in the absence of lawyers for Mr Browder and Mr Magnitsky. Instead, they were represented by unknown lawyers appointed by the Russian government.

 

In addition to presenting Interpol with the convictions from that trial as “new evidence,” the Russian authorities presented a “fresh” arrest warrant for Mr Browder, issued in March this year on the basis of the posthumous trial. The arrest warrant was signed by Moscow judge Elena Stashina, who is sanctioned by the U.S. Government for her role in the false detention of Sergei Magnitsky. Four days before Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in police custody, Judge Stashina prolonged his detention and denied Magnitsky’s medical care requests.

 

Judge Igor Alisov, who issued the posthumous conviction, was also placed on the U.S. Government’s sanctions list under the ‘U.S. Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act,’ for his role in concealing the liability of officials involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s death.

 

The documents used in the posthumous trial were fabricated by Russian Interior Ministry officers, including officers Artem Kuznetsov and Oleg Silchenko, also involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s false arrest and detention, and who are also sanctioned by the U.S. Government, which prohibits U.S. persons from any dealings with them.

 

African Leaders Vote to Give Themselves Impunity from War Crimes Prosecutions

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Managing Editor

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea – In a move Amnesty International called “a backward step in the fight against impunity and a betrayal of victims of serious violations of human rights.” African leaders voted to grant themselves and their allies’ immunity from prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide at the new .

 

During an African Union Summit in Equatorial Guinea African leaders voted to expand the scope of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, to include such crimes as crimes against humanity and genocide; however these leaders also voted to grant themselves immunity by preventing the court from having the ability to prosecute sitting heads of state and their allies for these crimes. (Photo Courtesy of Al Jazeera America)

The vote came Friday at an African Union summit in Equatorial Guinea. Journalists were excluded from the summit, Amnesty International said. News of the vote was communicated in a statement Monday night about the outcomes of the Summit. A paragraph of the statement listed the legal instruments agreed to at the meeting included the “Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.” The amendment bars the court from prosecuting sitting African leaders as well as “senior officials.”

The court was formally created by the African Union six years ago. However, it is not yet operational nor is it clear when it will be. Last week leaders at the African Union summit also voted to expan the courts scope by moving to expand the court from its intial mandate as a civil tribuman to a criminal court with the authority to hear cases dealing with the most serious crimes including crimes agasint humanity, genocide and piracy.

Forty-two African and international civil society and rights groups had objected to the amendment, arguing in an open letter before the summit that giving impunity to these leaders violates both international and domestic laws as well as the constitution of the African Union.

Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s Africa Director for Research and Advocacy, addressed the amendment saying that, “At a time when the African continent is struggling to ensure there is accountability for serious human rights violations and abuses, it is impossible to justify this decision which undermines the integrity of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, even before it becomes operational.”

Some critics argue the newly expanded African Court of Justice and Human Rights is an attempt to limit the scope of the International Criminal Court in Africa. However, According to Amnesty International the African Union’s decision to grant immunity to African leaders at the African Court of Justice and Human Rights will not affect the International Criminal Court’s right to investigate sitting heads of state and government. The I.C.C. has indicted two sitting presidents; Omar Hassan al-Bashir of The Sudan and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya. Bashir and others have attempted to argue that the court is a neocolonial weapon designed to punish Africans. However, the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, who is from the Gambia, has said the claim that the court has an anti-African bias is “one of the biggest misperceptions about the court.”

For more information please see:

Al Jazeera America – African Leaders Vote To Give Themselves Immunity from War Crimes – 1 June 2014

Standard Digital – African Union Gives Presidents Immunity from War Crimes – 1 June 2014

The New York Times – African Leaders Grant Themselves Immunity in Proposed Court – 1 June 2014

Al Jazeera America – Does The ICC Have An Africa Problem? – 7 February 2014

ICC Press Release: Resignation of ICC Judge Hans-Peter Kaul

 

We regret to announce that Judge Hans-Peter Kaul has resigned from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for health reasons. His resignation will take effect on 1 July 2014. Judge Kaul’s full term at the ICC would have ended on 11 March 2015.

The President of the ICC, Judge Sang-Hyun Song, expressed deep regret over Judge Kaul’s departure from the Court and the circumstances which necessitated his resignation. “I thank Judge Hans-Peter Kaul wholeheartedly for his dedicated service to the Court and his pioneering role in the ICC’s development, even before the Court was established”, President Song stated. “I worked closely with Judge Kaul, particularly when we were first sworn in together in 2003 and when he served with me in the Presidency as Second Vice-President from 2009 to 2012. I have enormous respect for his deeply humanist personality and his substantial contributions to international justice, which will continue to guide the Court in the future.”

A German national, Judge Kaul has served as an ICC Judge for 11 years. In the first elections of ICC judges in February 2003, he was elected by the States Parties to the Rome Statute for a three-year term and assumed his duty on 11 March 2003. He was re-elected in 2006 for a further term of nine years.

Judge Kaul was a member of the ICC’s Pre-Trial Division, serving as the Division’s President from 2004 to 2009, as well as from 8 April 2014 until his resignation. He contributed to important decisions in proceedings regarding situations in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur (Sudan), the Central African Republic, Kenya, Libya and Côte d’Ivoire and related cases.

Judge Kaul also served for several years on various committees related to the Permanent Premises: he was chairman of the Inter-Organ Committee on the Permanent Premises (2003-2008), the senior representative of the Court in the Jury of the International Architectural Design Competition, and contributed to the work of the Oversight Committee of States Parties, playing an important pioneering role in the process which eventually led to the planning and construction of the ICC’s future permanent home.

From 1996 to 2003, Hans-Peter Kaul served as chief negotiator and head of the German delegation during the process leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Court.