"May 1, 2009"
http://www.spaceweather.com/
"Daily Sun: 01 May 09 Sunspot number: 0"
"Far side of the Sun: This holographic image reveals no large sunspots on
the far side of the sun."
"Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet"

The face of the Sun is without blemish:
http://mdisas.nascom.nasa.gov/gif_he...t_igram_fd.gif

Please visit:
http://blog.nj.com/southjersey_impac...SolarCycle.jpg

The right panel shows the face of the Sun as it looked on a good day during
the late Modern Warm Period. Sunspots are the apparent size of craters on
the moon. The left panel shows a Sun as it appears today. Please write to Al
Gore so that Al knows that the Sun is not living up to his religious
expectations. Al Gore is a divinity school dropout. George Carlin had a
better grasp of the true nature of God's creation, than does Al Gore.

Please visit:
http://www.co-intelligence.org/newsl...es/sun-etc.jpg
which shows the relative sizes of the Sun and planets. Compared to the Sun,
Jupiter is the size of a pea, earth is the size of a grain of sand.

The UN Racism Conference: Halls of Shame and Fame
Clive Baldwin | May 1, 2009

Editor: John Feffer


Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org


Now that the recent UN conference on racism is over, it's time to look at
what really happened behind the bluster. Some countries that engaged in
serious and constructive negotiation came out with their reputations
enhanced. Those that postured at the expense of racism's victims, however,
emerged looking foolish or worse.

We didn't end world racism in Geneva. But it's important to understand the
significance of the meeting. It was the first global meeting on racism since
2001, with the bitter divisions that had emerged both then and since. It
took place during a determined push by some states to turn human rights on
its head and prohibit the "defamation of religions," thus giving religions
certain "rights" against individuals.

There was a concerted, global campaign to make this conference fail. This
campaign had mixed motives, but some opponents simply decided years ago that
the conference would be a "hatefest." A few months ago, senior UN officials
were telling me they had never seen anything like the sustained attack on
the conference. The campaign particularly targeted Western countries with
the aim of making them stay away. The officials said a failure and boycott
would set back the UN's work against racism by decades and do great damage
to its broader human rights work.

Two states that should be particularly condemned are Canada and the
Netherlands. Canada started a boycott long before anyone knew what the
conference would actually be about. The Netherlands adopted a particularly
destructive approach, creating new problems every time an agreement was
near.


The Conference Itself


By highlighting the speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the first day, the
campaigners against the conference portrayed it as the predicted "hatefest."
In fact, those of us who sat through the whole conference found it far from
being so. The Iranian president’s speech was an isolated incident. The many
speeches that followed were far more typical — worthy, perhaps even dull,
but not hateful. That in itself may be a success.

In fact, though, the conference achieved much more.

A few months ago, agreement on a conference document looked impossible. The
division between north and south that can so often bedevil the UN was
wrecking the drafting. By December, finger-pointing over the expected
failure of the conference had begun.

But then a minor miracle happened. Led by a Russian facilitator, states from
across the world sat down and talked, and eventually agreed to a document
that makes clear commitments to address racism. They replaced language about
defamation of religion with a strong call for freedom of expression. No one
state is singled out for criticism. States have agreed to do much more to
protect migrants, so often the victims of racism. After months of
discussion, and one week before the conference began, 140 states essentially
agreed to the conference document.

The text isn't perfect. Caste discrimination, which affects at least 270
million people around the world, isn't mentioned. But the fact that there
was agreement on a relatively good document is much better than had seemed
possible in January. Credit is due first to Yuri Boichenko, the Russian
facilitator, who took over the drafting and negotiating of the text when all
seemed lost, and managed to bring nearly everyone together. Second, the UN
High Commission on Human Rights, Navi Pillay, and her staff, played a key
role in making the conference a success, despite having been advised to stay
well clear of a potential disaster.

Norway also deserves much credit, not only for playing a key role in
ensuring agreement on a good document but also for sending to the conference
its foreign minister, who was able to respond immediately to Ahmadinejad’s
speech and keep the conference on course. Other states that emerged with
their reputations enhanced include Britain and France, which remained
engaged despite much pressure at home to withdraw, and those Islamic, Latin
American, and African countries, particularly Egypt and Pakistan, whose work
was critical in ensuring a compromise.



The Hall of Shame


But there should also be a hall of shame. Apart from Canada and the
Netherlands, high on the list would be Ahmadinejad, though his speech did
nothing to change Iran's defeat the following day on the declaration itself.

The 10 boycotting states all had a negative impact. The Obama administration
looked like its predecessor by shouting its demands from Washington.
Although it acknowledged major progress on the text, it still said it
wouldn't even participate in negotiations until all of its demands were
met — an approach to diplomacy that everyone had hoped not to see from
Obama. The European mini-boycott started by the Dutch made the no-shows look
especially foolish, considering the Europeans got everything they wanted.
Germany found itself boycotting a UN conference for the first time,
apparently due only to its forthcoming election. It tried to explain that it
wasn't boycotting but "observing" and supported the declaration by "staying
silent."

Europe's hall of shame was completed by the Czech Republic, which holds the
EU presidency and is supposed to provide leadership, and Poland and Italy.
The other boycotters were Israel, Australia, and New Zealand.

The main result of the boycotters' grandstanding was to ensure that much
time was wasted on damage control rather than addressing the needs of
victims of racism. The 10, each with a domestic racism problem, should take
a good look at how they ended up abandoning victims of racism around the
world for what, in many cases, seems to be domestic political reasons. They
should at least publicly support the declaration that most of them say
privately they agree with.

As the sound and fury fades away, it's important to move forward and to
listen to the victims of racism, not those who were determined the
conference should fail. The declaration will remain simply a piece of paper
unless put into action. The states need to be held to what they have agreed,
and to address what was left out.

We need to make sure that the ringing endorsement of freedom of expression
ends the futile discussions about defamation of religion and allows us to
focus on how to protect people from harm. States need to be held to the
commitments they have made to protect the rights of migrants, including
children and domestic workers. And it's high time to start taking action
about caste discrimination. Finally, the Obama administration should take a
long and calm look at the declaration, and, if it wants to be taken
seriously in the fight against racism, express its support.


Clive Baldwin is senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch and a
contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. He attended the recent Durban Review
Conference in Geneva.