Foreign Minister, Jorge Taiana will raise Malvinas issue and protests over British oil exploration to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today at 5.30pm (local time).

A resolution is also set to be tabled in the UN General Assembly condemning Britain for allowing the Ocean Guardian oil rig to begin drilling 60 miles north of the islands after Argentina announced new shipping controls.

Desire Petroleum Company, which is operating the rig, has said that the drilling will take about a month. Further exploration is likely by other companies. According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, the arrival of the rig comes despite Argentina’s reiterated warnings to oil companies operating in the islands that they might be “subject to lawsuits in the highest courts over the potential exploration and exploitation of Argentine resources.”

Meanwhile, the British newspaper The Times publishes on today’s edition that although both sides played down the prospect of renewed military conflict, the UK has already taken military precautionary measures.

“A government source told The Times that a submarine had been made available to supplement the routine military presence, although it is not yet in waters off the Falklands. The Ministry of Defence said that HMS York, a frigate, was expected to remain there for the foreseeable future. The Falklands air defences were quietly upgraded late last year with the arrival of four Typhoon jets.”

At the Rio Group summit, held in Cancún, Argentina scored a coup in the war of words when 32 heads of state backed its “legitimate rights in the sovereignty dispute with Great Britain”.

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan President, had used a television address to reiterate his support, bellowing: “Give the Falkland Islands back to Argentina, Queen of England. The time of empires is gone.”

The Times also indicates that “the backing of countries such as Chile and Brazil has concerned British diplomats.”

During the Rio Summit, Brazilian president Inacio Lula da Silva made an out loud counterblast on the Malvinas Issue as he condemned the United Nations Organization (UN) and its Security Council for not recognizing Argentina’s sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands.

“Our attitude is one of solidarity with Argentina,” Lula said, adding the question: “What is the geographical, political and economic explanation for England to be in the Malvinas?”

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said that Britain had broken a UN resolution forbidding unilateral development in disputed waters, and accused Britain of double standards in its pursuit of the islands’ natural resources.

An independent United Nations human rights expert said today there are strong indications that the video of alleged extrajudicial executions by Sri Lankan soldiers that aired last August on British television is authentic, and called for an inquiry into possible war crimes committed during the conflict with Tamil rebels, says Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka.

Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, commissioned three experts in forensic pathology, forensic video analysis, and firearm evidence to examine the video, after concluding that the investigations carried out by the Government had not been thorough or impartial.

A forensic video specialist says footage broadcast by Channel 4 News, appearing to show the summary execution of Tamil Tiger fighters, wasn’t fabricated, as the Sri Lankan government has claimed.

It was a quick and violent end to a long and violent war; 80,000 dead; maybe 20,000 in what was called the No Fire Zone in the last few bloody weeks.

Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians caught up in the final showdown as artillery shells slammed down; both government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam accused of war crimes.

But journalists and independent investigators were denied access to the combat zone, and even after it was all over to eye-witnesses too. But reports still filtered out of unspeakable suffering.

Then, in August, this grim video was obtained by and broadcast by Channel 4 News.

The raw footage, a continuous shot one minute eight seconds long, purported to show the casual execution of eight bound, blindfolded, naked Tamil men by Sri Lankan government soldiers.

Read more here.

Tensions between rich and poor nations at the Copenhagen climate negotiations have boiled to the surface with the leaking of a “secret” draft agreement prepared by the Danish host government and a select “circle of commitment” including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, writes The Australian.

The leaked document rocked the United Nations conference as it settled down to its first full day of talks, with developing countries expressing outrage at its contents, and at the fact that it had been developed behind closed doors by the so-called “friends” of the Danish conference chair, Mr Rudd, UN secretary Ban Ki Moon and leaders from other countries including the UK, Sweden, Mexico.

The Danish Government protested that there was no “secret draft for a new Copenhagen Agreement” but rather “many working papers used for testing various positions”.

Privately negotiators were furious that developing nations had resorted to such a “hostile act” because they were nervous about possible outcomes in a final climate deal.

But despite the hosts’ attempts to hose down the leak, it has ignited tensions that were not expected to spark until the top-level leaders segment of the talks next week.

Despite all the controversy, the draft “Copenhagen Agreement” contains many elements of a strong political deal, although it leaves blank critical emission reduction commitments and the amounts to be paid into new funding for developing countries for final determination.

It includes a commitment to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius and – in brackets to acknowledge it is not yet fully agreed – the proposition that global emissions should peak in 2020.

But developing countries and conservationists were deeply concerned that it did not set a timetable for a final binding agreement, nor specify that such an agreement should be in the form of a legally binding treaty, nor propose a future role for the existing Kyoto Protocol.

Instead it says the deal should lead to a “comprehensive legal framework” by an unspecified date.

Read more here.

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COP15 – an abbreviation of Conferenc e of the Parties – is the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen that is part of the United Nations series of meetings that continues next year in Mexico, and which in recent weeks has played its role as the bad cop.

Copenhagen will not be the venue where world leaders will sit down and bind each other to a global climate agreement.

To put it diplomatically, the signals in recent weeks and months have been both conflicting and contradictory. But the tendency has been clear – Copenhagen is simply playing to the gallery.

The difficult decisions are – yet again – postponed until next year, just as targets that have previously been set, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Kyoto in 1997, have not yet been fulfilled.

The United Nations system has failed as the world’s police officer and as the framework for binding realpolitik and negotiations on a problem that is so urgent for the world.

By driving the rhetoric up to such a piercing level, without being able to back it up with action or new funding, the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Danish Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard have contributed to creating global expectations that they obviously have been unable to honour.

Read more here.

A three-day United Nations summit on world food security opened in Rome today, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warning that on this day alone more than 17,000 children will die of hunger – one every five seconds, 6 million a year – even as the planet has more than enough food for all.

“Today, more than one billion people are hungry,” he told the assembled leaders, calling for immediate action on long-term remedies, a day after he himself fasted for 24 hours in solidarity with all those billion. “It was not easy. But, for too many people, it is a daily reality.”

The leaders unanimously adopted a declaration pledging renewed commitment to eradicate hunger from the face of the earth sustainably and at the earliest date. They agreed to work to reverse the decline in domestic and international funding for agriculture, promote new investment, and proactively face the challenges of climate change to food security.

Mr. Ban laid out a full, comprehensive spectrum of measures to combat a scourge gravely exacerbated by climate change and population growth that will see two billion more mouths to feed in 2050 – 9.1 billion in all – with an overall need to grow 70 per cent more food.

The steps range from immediate needs such as food aid, safety nets and social protection to the longer-term goals achieved through increased investments in agricultural development, including provision of seeds, water supplies and land to ensure higher productivity, better market access, and fairer trade, above all for smallholder farmers, especially women.

Read more here.

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The United Nations has announced plans to temporarily relocate hundreds of its foreign staff operating in Afghanistan, citing security concerns.

Kai Eide, the UN’s Special Representative in Afghanistan, explained the decision in Kabul on Thursday, a week after five UN personnel were killed in a Taliban attack in the capital.

But Eide said the relocation does not mean the UN is withdrawing its operations in the country.

“Let me emphasise in light of media reports this morning, we are not talking about pulling out, and we are not talking about evacuation,” he said.

“We are simply doing what we have to do following the tragic event of last week to look after our workers while ensuring our operation in Afghanistan can continue.”

Aleem Siddique, a UN spokesman, said the move will affect 600 of the world body’s roughly 1,100 international staff.

Read more here.

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As Denmark moves rapidly towards winter, thousands of climate activists from around the world risk having to sleep in the open or becoming squatters when they arrive in the Danish capital for the United Nations Climate Summit in a month’s time.

Climate Justice Action, which is an international activist network for individuals and organisations, expects a total of 15,000 activists to arrive in Copenhagen for the summit. A month before they arrive, however, the group says it still needs to find shelter for 10,000 people.

“We will not urge people to squat – but that is what may happen if we cannot provide visiting guests a place to sleep,” says Climate Justice Action Logistics Spokeswoman Anna Kollerup Nytrup.

“That will be unfortunate as we would rather discuss climate policy than squatting,” she adds.

The Logistics Group has been negotiating with Copenhagen Council for months to have larger premises or halls put at their disposal, but so far no agreement has been reached. One of the major obstacles is approval from the fire authorities.

“It can be no surprise that a lot of people will be coming to town. An alternative climate summit has also been arranged at DGI – but where do they imagine that people are going to live. You can’t ask poor people from the south to put up a tent in the Fælledparken park in minus five degrees,” Nytrup says.

Read more here.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the ship carrying hundreds of tons of weapons believed to have originated in Iran and meant for Hezbollah, which Israel intercepted early Wednesday, constituted a war crime that should be reviewed by United Nations bodies, reports Haaretz.

According to Der Spiegel, late on Tuesday night, special forces belonging to the Israeli navy stopped and searched the German freighter Francop. They found enough munitions to wage a small war: more than 3,000 rockets, hand grenades, armor-piercing ammunition and numerous crates of assault rifle rounds. Had the dangerous cargo not been discovered, it would have been enough for the Lebanon-based Islamist militants from Hezbollah to fight Israel for a month or longer, estimates Israeli navy commander Rani Ben-Yehuda.

“This was a ship carrying a massive amount of weapons which the Iranian regime tried to ship to Syria, and from there to Hezbollah,” the prime minister said during a press conference he convened at the Tel Aviv defense headquarters. “The bulk of the shipment included rockets whose aim is to hurt our citizens and kill as many civilians as possible. This constitutes a war crime.”

“The UN General Assembly should have investigated and condemned this crime and the UN Security Council should have convened a special session to debate this incident,” Netanyahu continued.

“This is a war crime which Iran intends to commit again in the future. The international community should be focusing on this, but instead, the world condemns Israel and the Israel Defense Forces and undermines our right to self defense,” he said, referring to Wednesday’s UN General Assembly debate over the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza last winter.

“It is time that the international community and those states that bear responsibility recognize the reality and refrain from promoting a lie,” Netanyahu went on to say.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah denied that the arms were bound for them.

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Rioting settlers forced a Palestinian family from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah out of their home on Tuesday, after the district court denied the residents’ appeal to remain on the premises, reports Haaretz.

Shortly after the verdict was passed dozens of settlers stormed into the house with hired security guards, and demanded that the family vacate immediately.

A violent riot erupted between the settlers and the neighborhood’s Palestinian residents, and police were called to disbar the protesters.

A legal battle has raged for some 30 years over the ownership of 28 houses in this neighborhood.

The particular house, built 10 years ago by the al-Kurd family, was unoccupied and locked for eight years by court order pending settlement of a land-ownership dispute.

Police kept members of the family back as a dozen Israeli men removed furniture.

“They can go to Syria, Iraq, Jordan. We are six million and they are billions,” said Yehya Gureish, an Arabic-speaking Yemen-born Jew who said his family owned the land and had Ottoman Empire documentation to prove it.

“This land is Israel. We are in Israel. God gave this land to the Jews. The Torah tells us so. You want war? Declare war on God, not on us,” he said.

The home takeover was filmed by an activist from the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement, whose video includes some cursing and a brief scuffle, but no violence.

“I am Jerusalemite, a Palestinian. I didn’t come from all over the world,” said Rifqa al-Kurd, who had the house built 10 years ago for her married daughter.

The Palestinians who currently reside in the area were housed there as refugees by the United Nations after they fled western Jerusalem following the War of Independence in 1948.

This is not the first eviction of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Read more here.

Onias is among the average 110 Zimbabweans deported by Botswana every day, a small fraction of the 100 000 Zimbabweans believed living illegally in the country, according a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Like most of the deportees, he simply can’t afford a passport, which costs $143, slightly less than Zimbabwe’s per capita gross domestic product last year, which was $200.

The UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) runs a centre just inside the Zimbabwean border, where Botswana authorities take the deportees in clean white trucks.

Some have little more than the clothes they’re wearing, but others unload an astonishing cache of plasma televisions, kitchen appliances and overstuffed sacks of clothing — whatever the authorities would allow them to pack.

IOM gives them a meal, medical care if needed, a place to spend the night, and helps them organise transportation to their homes in Zimbabwe. Minors like Onias are given an escort for their trip home, explained Andrew Gethi, who manages the centre.

Botswana’s migration problem is small compared with the estimated 1,2-million Zimbabweans living in South Africa, but has an outsized effect on a nation with only 1,9-million people.

The exiles are among the at least two million Zimbabweans who have fled their country’s daily hardships, forming a lifeline to their families back home.

Read more here.