| | Depleted uranium: are UN agencies accomplices to NATO?
| | By Najib Saab
February 2001
The United Nations organization has always been exploited by superpowers as cover-up for political schemes. While this obvious statement is not news, we have been witnessing another form of abuse, using certain United Nations specialized agencies as accomplices to environmental extermination.
A few weeks ago, NATO's Secretary General Sir George Robertson announced that the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) have both confirmed that there was no proven connection between leukemia and depleted uranium (DU), thus the shells used by NATO in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999, and earlier in Iraq, were not particularly hazardous and did not represent an actual health threat.
| | more... | |
|
|
| | US contempt for international agreements is proving to be an environmental hazard
| | By Najib Saab
January 2001
"Oppressive Superpower is a term that became popular in the 20th century to describe nations that utilize military superiority to impose their political will over weaker peoples. Arabs have been familiar with this terminology ever since the United States' blind support for Israel has had a tragic effect on Palestinian national rights. Throughout history, numerous peoples were crushed by legions of oppressors, whose intoxication by power led them to audacity, aggression and disregard of the basic human rights of others. | | more... | |
|
|
| | Who will turn Hariri's environmental pledge into action?
| | By Najib Saab
December 2000
The heated debate around the political and economic aspects of the Lebanese Government's policy statement, delivered by Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, disregarded the environmental section, which we thought was the most interesting in this policy. It is for the first time in Lebanon that the cabinet's policy includes definitive environmental guiding principles, going beyond slogans and fancy rhetoric. In this policy statement we see a clear perception of what the government promises to accomplish at the environmental level, beginning by calling for an environmental state of emergency, setting priorities, establishing a national agency for environmental research and implementing a system of incentives versus taxation, which effectively supports clean production while punishing polluters. | | more... | |
|
|
| | Syria needs to invest in the environment
| | By Najib Saab
November 2000
The Syrian economy is on the brink of a new era, signified by the government's program to create some 500,000 new job opportunities, which entails encouraging investment and revitalizing management methods in the public sector, along with modernizing industrial and agricultural production processes. The new regulations to support private investment facilitate procedures, at the central government level as well as at the provincial scale, through establishing investment commissions whose job is to study project applications and issue final decisions within 48 hours. | | more... | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 | | | Arab Environment in 10 Years | | | ARAB ENVIRONMENT IN 10 YEARS crowns a decade of the series of annual reports produced by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) on the state of Arab environment. It tracks and analyzes changes focusing on policies and governance, including level of response and engagement in international environmental treaties. It also highlights developments in six selected priority areas, namely water, energy, air, food, green economy and environmental scientific research. |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
