UN Report: Sex Exploitations in Haiti

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In June of 2004, the United Nations created a Stabilization Mission in Haiti. This was due in part to the armed conflict when Bertrand Aristide departed the country.

In January of 2010, a devastating earthquake struck and an estimated death rate as pegged at 220,000. The UN deployed 96 peacekeepers.

What came next is disgusting.

UN: Sex exploitation by peacekeepers strongly underreported

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Members of a U.N. peacekeeping mission engaged in “transactional sex” with more than 225 Haitian women who said they needed to do so to obtain things like food and medication, a sign that sexual exploitation remains significantly underreported in such missions, according to a new report obtained by The Associated Press.

 

The draft by the Office of Internal Oversight Services looks at the way U.N. peacekeeping, which has about 125,000 people in some of the world’s most troubled areas, deals with the persistent problem of sexual abuse and exploitation.

The report, expected to be released this month, says major challenges remain a decade after a groundbreaking U.N. report first tackled the issue.

Among its findings: About a third of alleged sexual abuse involves minors under 18. Assistance to victims is “severely deficient.” The average investigation by OIOS, which says it prioritizes cases involving minors or rape, takes more than a year.

And widespread confusion remains on the ground about consensual sex and exploitation. To help demonstrate that, investigators headed to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

A year ago, the report says, investigators interviewed 231 people in Haiti who said they’d had transactional sexual relationships with U.N. peacekeepers. “For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby care items, medication and household items were frequently cited as the ‘triggering need,'” the report says. Urban and suburban women received “church shoes,’ cell phones, laptops and perfume, as well as money.

“In cases of non-payment, some women withheld the badges of peacekeepers and threatened to reveal their infidelity via social media,” the report says. “Only seven interviewees knew about the United Nations policy prohibiting sexual exploitation and abuse.” None knew about the mission’s hotline to report it.

Each of those instances of transactional sex, the report says, would be considered prohibited conduct, “thus demonstrating significant underreporting.” It was not clear how many peacekeepers were involved.

For all of last year, the total number of allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation against members of all U.N. peacekeeping missions was 51, down from 66 the year before, according to the secretary-general’s latest annual report on the issue.

The draft report doesn’t say over what time frame the “transactional sex” in Haiti occurred. The peacekeeping mission there was first authorized in 2004 and, as of the end of March, had more than 7,000 uniformed troops. It is one of four peacekeeping missions that have accounted for the most allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation in recent years, along with those in Congo, Liberia and South Sudan.

One of the U.N. staffers who produced the report would not comment Tuesday, saying it was better to wait until it was released publicly. A spokesman for the peacekeeping office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.N. doesn’t have a standing army and relies on troops contributed by member states. The states are responsible for investigating alleged misconduct by their troops, though the U.N. can step in if there’s no action.

In their response to the report’s findings, which is included in the draft, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous and field support chief Atul Khare point out that while the number of peacekeepers has increased dramatically over the past decade, the number of allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation have gone down.

The U.N. prohibits “exchange of money, employment, goods or services for sex,” and it strongly discourages sexual relationships between U.N. staff and people who receive their assistance, saying they are “based on inherently unequal power dynamics” and undermine the world body’s credibility.

But that has led to some confusion on the ground, the new report says, with some members of peacekeeping missions seeing that guidance as a ban on all sexual relationships with local people. The report says the guidelines need to be clarified.

“Staff with long mission experience states that was a ‘general view that people should have romantic rights’ and raised the issue of sexuality as a human right,” the report says.

Let the investigation begin:

The U.N. has been shaken by revelations that a year after staffers first heard children’s accounts of sexual abuse by French soldiers supporting a U.N. peacekeeping mission, no one has been punished. Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday ordered an external inquiry into how that was handled. French authorities last month opened a formal judicial inquiry into the allegations.

Ban raised the earlier allegations Thursday with Gen. Pierre de Villiers, France’s chief of defense staff, in a meeting that Ban’s spokesman said France had requested. Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told The Associated Press that Ban brought up the issue during a wider conversation about peacekeeping operations and told the general that he hopes “the French investigation will be completed as soon as possible.”

 

General Flynn on Iran and 450 to Al-Taqaddum Air Base

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The original request for additional U.S. troops to Iraq was 1000, yet the White House authorized 450 for purposes of intelligence gathering and training as well as some ground surveillance.

al Taqaddum is 74 kilometers from Baghdad and the ultimate mission is to retake Ramadi and Fallujah. This was a Marine base comprised of The airfield is served by two runways 13,000 and 12,000 feet (3,700 m) long. that was eventually turned over to the Iraqi military in 2009.

Meanwhile, today, June 10, 2015, General Flynn gave testimony before the Joint Foreign Affairs and HASC Subcommittees on Iran’s hegemony in the region.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency until August 2014
He testified Wednesday in a congressional hearing that the administration doesn’t have ‘a permanent fix but merely a placeholder’ for the Iran crisis
Flynn said the notion that the U.S. can ‘snap back’ sanctions on Tehran if it breaks an agreement is ‘fiction’
Warned that ‘Iran’s nuclear program has significant – and not fully disclosed – military dimensions’
Obama administration has less than three weeks to finalize a nuclear agreement that would pare back Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon.

His full written presentation is found here. In part however, his situation report is not only chilling but demonstrates what the future predictions include.

Wishful Thinking:

In lengthy written remarks, Flynn asserted that Iran has “every intention” of building a nuclear weapon, and their desire to destroy Israel is “very real.”

“Iran has not once (not once) contributed to the greater good of the security of the region,” he said in his remarks, noting their fighters “killed or maimed thousands of Americans and Iraqis” in Iraq.

The administration is working alongside five other world powers to try and strike a nuclear deal – which would aim to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief – by the end of the month. But Flynn said Iran already has made it clear they will put limits on inspections, making for “incomplete verification.” Plus he said it’s “unreasonable” to believe international sanctions could be resumed once lifted.

He also echoed concerns of some other analysts in saying the “perceived acceptance” of Iran’s program will likely “touch off a dangerous domino effect in the region” as Saudi Arabia and other nations seek nuclear capability.

As for the rising threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Flynn voiced concern that the U.S. is not keeping up with the crisis. He said there is “absolutely no end in sight,” and “no clear U.S. policy” for dealing with it.

 

The Carnage and Weapons in Sudan, UN Ignores

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If there is an historical failure by the United Nations, it is Sudan. The global body publishes a report demonstrating the destruction. It is not a new condition, so one must ask where was Susan Rice when she was the UN ambassador? Where was Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State and where is now John Kerry? How about the White House who is so concerned with human rights? Or, is the matter of rogue nations need weapons and Sudan is the source?

Syrian rebels, frustrated by the West’s reluctance to provide arms, have found a supplier in an unlikely source: Sudan, a country that has been under international arms embargoes and maintains close ties with a stalwart backer of the Syrian government, Iran.

In deals that have not been publicly acknowledged, Western officials and Syrian rebels say, Sudan’s government sold Sudanese- and Chinese-made arms to Qatar, which arranged delivery through Turkey to the rebels.

The shipments included antiaircraft missiles and newly manufactured small-arms cartridges, which were seen on the battlefield in Syria — all of which have helped the rebels combat the Syrian government’s better-armed forces and loyalist militias.

Emerging evidence that Sudan has fed the secret arms pipeline to rebels adds to a growing body of knowledge about where the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is getting its military equipment, often paid for by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia or other sympathetic donors.

Map of the Day: Hungry and Displaced in South Sudan

This map, from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, succinctly shows the number people displaced by fighting in South Sudan and where they have fled.

Screen Shot 2015-06-10 at 10.20.32 AM

There is a deeper story to this map.

Over the last four weeks, fighting has intensified in South Sudan. Over 100,000 people have been displaced in this newest round of fighting. The prospect of mass starvation is very real. The International Committee for the Red Cross warned today that unless “urgent action” is taken, thousands of people may soon starve.

What is that ‘urgent action?’ Mostly, it’s securing more funding for the humanitarian relief effort. The ICRC needs an additional $23 million to provide food aid and help subsistence farmers make it through the lean season while also providing them seeds for the next planting season.

That money, though, is simply not materializing. Yesterday, UNICEF warned that it would have to shut down most of its operations in South Sudan by the end of the month because they are running out of money.  

The acute needs of children in Sudan are huge and go far beyond the impact of the South Sudan crisis. More than 3.2 million children require humanitarian assistance. To date UNICEF in Sudan has received generous support from a wide range of donors. Unfortunately, the funding received covers only 16% of the 117 million USD required. By the end of June, UNICEF will no longer have funding available to support children affected by the war in South Sudan.

UNICEF and ICRC’s funding difficulties in South Sudan are symptomatic of a larger problem facing the international community. The world’s humanitarian system is on the brink of collapse right now, with several ongoing complex emergencies stretching donors and relief agencies thin.  Between Iraq, Syria, Nepal, CAR and Mali these emergencies are essentially competing for the same donor dollars and donors have so far been unable or unwilling to fully fund the relief operations of each of these emergencies. Unless donors step up in a big way, it would seem that relief operations in South Sudan may be the next to fall.

The war no one is fighting or winning. An highly researched 4 part series is found here.

An in-depth timeline for Sudan is found here, but since 2012:

2012 June – Week-long student protests in Khartoum against austerity measures spread from to the wider public after the government cuts fuel and other subsidies in response to the drop in oil revenue after the independence of South Sudan.

2012 August – Some 655,000 have been displaced or severely affected by fighting between the army and rebels in states bordering on South Sudan, the UN reports.

Sudan and South Sudan strike a last-minute deal on the South’s export of oil via Sudan’s pipelines.

2012 September – The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan agree on plans for a demilitarised buffer zone and resuming oil sales after days of talks in Ethiopia, but fail to resolve border issues, including Abyei.

Clashes with rebels in Darfur and South Kordofan region.

2012 October – Explosions destroy an arms factory in Khartoum. Sudan accuses Israel of the attack on what is believed to be an Iranian-run plant making weapons for Hamas in Gaza. Israel declines to comment.

2013 March – Sudan and South Sudan agree to resume pumping oil, ending a shutdown caused by a dispute over fees more than a year ago, and to withdraw troops from their borders to create a demilitarised zone.

2013 September – Wave of demonstrations across the country over the government’s decision to cut fuel subsidies. Scores of people die in clashes with police.

Ruling party splits

2013 October – Dissident members of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) announce plans for a breakaway party aimed at reaching out to secularists and leftists, in what is seen as the most serious split in the elite since Hassan al-Turabi went into opposition in 1999.

2013 December – President Bashir drops long-time ally and first vice president Ali Osman Taha from the cabinet in a major shake-up.

2014 May – A court in Khartoum prompts an international outcry by sentencing a pregnant woman born to a Muslim father but raised as a Christian to death for apostasy after failing to recant her Christianity.

2014 December – The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court halts investigations into war crimes in Darfur for lack of support from the UN Security Council.

2015 April – President Bashir is re-elected for another five year term. He wins nearly 95 percent of the vote in a poll marked by low turnout and boycotted by most opposition parties.

 

Obamacare = O’boondoggle

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Everything has a consequence and there are many attached to Obamacare, many not in the mainstream knowledge base. Jobs and innovation in the United States is the latest victim of the law. The Supreme Court will decide the fate of the law under the King vs. Burwell case at the end of the month. A description of the case is found here. There are some key facts on the case that need to be known as noted here. Additional destructive consequences still loom in the future.

ObamaCare’s Anti-Innovation Effect

by Scott W. Atlas

Of the many unintended consequences of the Affordable Care Act, perhaps the least noticed is its threat to innovation. Although most discussions center on the law’s more immediate effects on hiring, insurance rates and access to doctors and care, attention should also be paid to its impact on U.S. research and development and health-care technology.

The overwhelming majority of the world’s health-care innovation occurs in the U.S. This includes ground-breaking drug treatments, surgical procedures, medical devices, patents, diagnostics and much more. Most of the funding for that innovation—about 71% of U.S. R&D investment—comes from private industry. A recent R&D Magazine survey of industry leaders in 63 countries ranked the U.S. No. 1 in the world for health-care innovation.

But that environment is changing. According to R&D Magazine and the research firm Battelle, growth of R&D spending in the U.S. from 2012 to 2014 averaged just 2.1%, down from an average of 6% over the previous 15 years. In that same 15-year period, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, India and the European Union saw faster R&D spending growth than the U.S. China’s grew on average 22% per year.

The recent slowdown in R&D spending in the U.S. is in part caused by weak economic growth since the 2008 financial crisis. But the economy’s weakness itself has been exacerbated by the negative impact of new taxes and regulations under ObamaCare. According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the new health-care law will levy more than $500 billion in new taxes over its first 10 years to help pay for insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion. These new taxes include significant levies on key health-care industries, such as manufacturers of medical devices and drugs, and their investors.

As a result, small and large U.S. health-care technology companies are moving R&D centers and jobs overseas. The CEO of one of the largest health-care companies in America recently told me that the device tax his company paid last year exceeded his company’s entire R&D budget. Already a long list of companies—including Boston Scientific , Stryker and Cook Medical—have announced job cuts and plans to open new centers for R&D, manufacturing and clinical trials overseas.

The bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration are also hindering medical-technology and drug development. According to a 2010 survey of more than 200 medical-device companies by medical professor and entrepreneur Josh Makower and his colleagues at Stanford University, delays of approvals for new medical devices are now far longer in the U.S. than in many other developed countries. In the European Union—not exactly known for cutting through red tape—it takes on average seven months to gain approval for low- to moderate-risk devices. In the U.S., FDA approval for similar devices takes on average 31 months.

The 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers Medical Technology Innovation Scorecard found that “the gap between innovation leaders and emerging economies is rapidly narrowing.” And that “although the United States will hold its lead, the country will continue to lose ground during the next decade.” It goes on to say that “China, India, and Brazil will experience the strongest gains during the next 10 years.”

Since the signing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, private-equity investment in new U.S. health-care startups has also diminished. Annual capital investment has decreased to $41 billion in 2013 from $61 billion in 2011, according to quarterly reports by the accounting and audit firm McGladrey LLP. Similarly, the Silicon Valley-based law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati reported in its semiannual Life Sciences Reports decreases from the first half of 2010 through the second half of 2013 in deal closings and capital raised for startups in biopharmaceuticals, medical devices and equipment, and diagnostics, with only a slight uptick in health-information systems investment.

Meanwhile, many of the best and brightest who come to the U.S. to study science, technology, engineering and math—the STEM subjects that are so crucial to innovation—are choosing to return to their home countries upon graduation. In 2008, a survey conducted by Vivek Wadhwa and his team of researchers at Duke, Harvard and the University of California found that only 6% of Indian, 10% of Chinese and 15% of European students expected to make America their permanent home. Much of this is Congress’s fault. Lawmakers have been slow to increase limits on H-1B visas for high-skill foreign workers. Pressure has been brought to bear on Congress to take action, but it may be too late for an increase in the visas to have much effect in health care, given the decline in R&D spending that would make use of their talents.

What can be done to reverse these damaging trends? First, strip back the heavy tax burdens that currently inhibit innovation, starting with repealing the Affordable Care Act’s $29 billion medical-device excise tax and the $80 billion tax on brand-name drugs. Change the tax code to add incentives for investment in early-stage medical technology and life-science companies, as well as for philanthropic gifts to academic institutions that promote tech entrepreneurs.

And finally, simplify processes for new device and drug approvals, so that the FDA becomes a favorable rather than an obstructionist environment for these life-saving and cost-saving discoveries. It’s a tall order, especially in today’s Washington. But America’s health—and wealth—depend on it.

*** Obama’s ‘King v. Burwell’ Speech Displayed The Very Ideological Fervor That Led Him To Break The Law

In a case called King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether it agrees with two lower courts that President Obama is breaking the law by subjecting 57 million employers and individuals to illegal taxes, and spending the illegal proceeds to hide the cost of HealthCare.gov coverage from 6.5 million enrollees. Today the president delivered a speech designed to cow the Supremes into turning a blind eye to the law. Instead, he offered what for some is the missing piece of the King v. Burwell puzzle. He displayed the very ideological fervor that leads powerful people to break the rules.

“We have an obligation to put ourselves in our neighbor’s shoes, and to see the common humanity in each other,” the president said. Yet the president of the United States has an even more important obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”  It’s right there in Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which President Obama swore to uphold. King v. Burwell is about his failure to meet that obligation.

 

Putin’s Plan for a Military Artic Region

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Despite sanctions against Russia, the Artic is still at risk. The recent G-7 meeting brought more solidarity agreement of sanctions on Russia but only due to Putin’s hostilities against Ukraine and in violation on the Minsk Agreement. The full text of the agreement is here in English. No conversations have taken place with regard to Putin’s operations in the Artic.

Going back to 2103, Putin not only announced his aggressions for the Artic region, he is intensifying operations while there is no mission to stop his objectives. Two years later, he is succeeding.

Russia has been building new ships and preparing to deploy troops along its northern border as melting Arctic ice will make it possible for more commercial traffic to transit the so called Northern Sea route. There is also the potential for large mineral deposits in the region.

“There are plans to create a group of troops and forces to ensure military security and protection of the Russian Federation’s national interests in the Arctic in 2014,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the same meeting.

Putin’s declaration highlights several military moves the Russians have made in relation to the Arctic in the last few years.

Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s Security Council, announced in mid-2012 it would create ten naval bases along its northern coast. In May, Russia announced it would be constructing up to four new ships for duty in the Arctic.

Putin’s remarks follow Canada’s plan to claim Arctic territories — including the North Pole — as sovereign Canadian territory, the country’s foreign minister announced on Monday.

“We are determined to ensure that all Canadians benefit from the tremendous resources that are to be found in Canada’s far north,” John Baird said, according to an Associated Press report.

Last week, Canada made preliminary claims to some Arctic regions and plans to make more.

Russia, of all the eight members of the Arctic Council, has the most naval assets to patrol the surface of the Arctic.

Russia has more than 37 government icebreakers compared to Canada’s six and America’s five, according to a July review from the U.S. Coast Guard.

However Canada is currently constructing a new surface naval force, complete with a collection of ships that would be designed to operate in cold climates.

Under the sea, the U.S. nuclear submarine force remains as the dominant power in the region.

Russia is interested in the Arctic for a number of reasons, though natural resources and pure geopolitical imperatives are the major driving forces behind Moscow’s thinking. The Arctic contains an estimated 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil reserves, regarded by Moscow as important sources of foreign investment that are critical to the country’s economic development. The Northern Sea Route from East Asia to Europe via the Arctic Ocean provides another economic opportunity for developing infrastructure in northern Russia.

Militarizing the Arctic will be a key imperative for the Russian military throughout 2015 and beyond — alongside modernization in general and bolstering forces in Crimea and the Kaliningrad exclave. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Soviet-era bases in the Arctic are being reactivated in response to NATO’s renewed interest in the region.

The airstrip on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya is being renovated to accommodate modern and next generation fighter aircraft in addition to advanced S400 air defense systems. Part of the Northern Fleet will also be based on the island chain, which is ideally positioned for operations in the Arctic region. The Northern Fleet represents two-thirds of the entire Russian Navy, which is the only navy in the world to operate nuclear-powered icebreaker ships. Great detail can be read here.