Sunday Roundup - September 28, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today we look at the US airstrikes in Syria, the UN climate change summit, Ukraine, South Sudan, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and Derek Jeter.

US Airstrikes
This past week, the United States expanded its role in the Middle East war by conducting airstrikes inside Syria - targeting Khorasan, a previously obscure group, as well as Islamic State. Democracy Now! spoke with Patrick Cockburn, the Middle East correspondent for The Independent, on September 24.  Asked to explain why we are suddenly hearing about Khorasan, who have been painted as an offshoot of al-Qaeda with designs on US targets, Cockburn replied, "One’s a little suspicious that the administration, those who are carrying out the bombing, may want to say to its audience in America that here are people we’re attacking who are about to attack you in the homeland, which ISIS didn’t show much sign of doing. So that might be one reason why this obscure group is suddenly given such publicity."  The situation is chaotic - groups on both sides of the ongoing Syrian Civil War are now fighting ISIS - and the risk of civilian casualties is rising as the airstrikes hit targets near the Turkish border, close to an area where tens of thousands of Kurds have fled to escape from militants tied to the Islamic State group.  Without a truce in Syrian Civil War, U.S.-led strikes threaten more chaos for the world’s worst crisis.  Meanwhile Dan Roberts, writing in The Guardian on September 23, notes that US lawyers are tying themselves up in legal knots justifying the airstrikes in Syria.  The US...argued [to the UN] that there was legal right to pursue Isis inside Syria due to the weakness of that country’s government – a regime the US has been actively urging be undermined by rebel groups for much of the past two years....The legal circumlocutions to avoid requesting a UN security council resolution match similar efforts to avoid requesting specific legal authority from Congress.  Fearing that US politicians up for re-election in November may balk at voting for a third military attack on Iraq and being sucked into a Syrian quagmire, the White House has avoided seeking a fresh authorisation of the use of military force, preferring to rely on early authorisations against al-Qaida granted after the 11 September 2001 attacks.  

UN Climate Change Summit
In advance of the UN Climate Change Summit, marches were held worldwide to demand action on global warming.  ecowatch.com reported on September 21: Today in New York City more than 300,000 people attended what is now known as the largest climate action in world history.  The march in New York City was by far the largest of the 2,808 People’s Climate rallies that took place today in 166 countries from around the world. From the crowded streets of New Delhi to Melbourne to Johannesburg, hundreds of thousands of people took part in the weekend’s global events.  

From RTCC website
Note: COP20 is held in December, 2014

The Summit itself featured speeches and commitments to action.  Perhaps the most encouraging announcement was that of China's Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli  who went a step further than China has ever gone before in announcing that the country's emissions of manmade greenhouse gases would peak "as early as possible."  China, with its 1.3 billion people and heavy reliance on coal is the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide.  Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission, told reporters that "weather extremes have greatly affected the Chinese people." Xie said weather extremes have cost China more than 200 billion Renminbi [about $32 billion] per year. “The losses are extensive in China," Xie said, noting that climate impacts extend to "water, land and people." These impacts, along with China's staggering air pollution problem, are forcing China to take action both on climate mitigation...and adaptation. Perhaps the most disappointing item was the sorry state of the Green Climate Fund. The Green Climate Fund came out of the December 2009 Copenhagen Conference. Industrialized nations promised to provide financial assistance to developing countries to ease their transition off fossil fuels, and combat climate change impacts....On Tuesday, a total of about $1.3 billion in new pledges were announced from Denmark, France, South Korea, Norway, Mexico and three smaller nations. The lack of a U.S. financial commitment on Tuesday was noteworthy....“The pledges announced here still leave the fund with less than a sixth of the total developed countries should commit,” Tim Gore, head of climate policy for aid group Oxfam, said in a statement. "All eyes are now on those yet to stump up, including the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand, and on the devil in the detail of those pledges made today."  [Mashable, September 24]

Ukraine
The ceasefire in the Ukraine is holding but The Moscow Times reminded us of the human costs of the war.  After fleeing to Russia from Ukraine's conflict-torn east, nearly 390,000 people have formally registered as refugees, Russian children's ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said late Wednesday.  More than a quarter of the refugees — about 100,000 of them — are children...In total, some 870,000 residents of eastern Ukraine are currently in Russia,...However, the majority of those have not formally sought refugee status...The total casualty count, including civilians and combatants, stood at 3,500 in eastern Ukraine's rebel-held Donbass region. [The Moscow Times, September 25]

Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Parliament voted to grant additional autonomy to provinces of eastern Ukraine ("the Donbass").  On September 16, The Guardian reported on the legislation, which include, among other provisions:
• The rebel-held Luhansk and Donetsk regions will be granted a "special status" giving them broader autonomy for a three-year period...
• Use of the Russian language to be allowed in state institutions....
• The legislation also promises to help restore damaged infrastructure and to provide social and economic assistance to particularly hard-hit areas....
• Another bill on amnesty protects from criminal prosecution "participants of events in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions" 

South Sudan

The civil war in South Sudan continues.  The country has teetered for months on the brink of a man-made famine.  The Guardian's Andrew Greene reports on the agencies battling to stave off starvation in South Sudan’s civil war sanctuaries.  Jean-Louis de Brouwer, a senior European commission official, says that while the worst appears to have been averted for the time being, 3.5 million people still face severe food shortages.  Delivering aid to the stricken region is difficult - especially during the rainy season (April-November).  Over the past six months, the World Food Programme and UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) has turned to a rapid response mechanism (RRM). When the combatants allow, the agencies fly teams of experts by helicopter into remote areas to gauge food and health needs. Local leaders rally communities to come and register. While people sign up for food rations, health workers are on standby to put measuring tapes around children’s arms and quickly assess whether they are malnourished.  At the end of the registration, after health workers have started underweight children on a course of treatment and injected vaccines, there is a massive distribution of sorghum, lentils, salt and oil. Children who are under five years old also receive a heavily fortified porridge.  There have been 23 completed RRMs so far, reaching more than 460,000 people, according to Unicef.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
The Guardian reported on Thursday of the breakthrough agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that would turn over the civil administration of Gaza immediately to officials of a Palestinian unity government led by President Mahmoud Abbas.  The agreement, negotiated in Cairo, is designed to ease the long blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt and open the way to reconstruction of the war-ravaged coastal entity. A recent Palestinian Authority study estimated the cost of reconstruction in Gaza following this summer’s 50-day conflict with Israel at $7.8bn (£4.8bn). Palestinian officials said the agreement would allow the Palestinian Authority to take control over the border crossings of the Gaza Strip, including the crucial Rafah crossing into Egypt.

From the antiwar.com website

Palestinians have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. The occupation is currently the longest anywhere in the world and the only one in which the occupying power controls the entire homeland of another people.  The Guardian reported Friday on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' UN speech calling on the Security Council to support a resolution setting a clear deadline for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories....Abbas declared the American-backed Israel-Palestinian peace process which has dragged on for two decades dead, saying it was “impossible to return to negotiations...that failed to deal with the substance of the matter and the fundamental question. There is neither credibility nor seriousness in negotiations in which Israel predetermines the results via its settlement activities and the occupation’s brutality.  There is no meaning or value in negotiations for which the agreed objective is not ending the Israeli occupation and achieving the independence of the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital on the entire Palestinian territory occupied in the 1967 war.  And, there is no value in negotiations which are not linked to a firm timetable for the implementation of this goal.”...[Abbas] also accused Israel of “war crimes carried out before the eyes of the world” during the recent 50-day Gaza war that ended in a ceasefire on 26 August...“We will not forget and we will not forgive, and we will not allow war criminals to escape punishment,” Abbas declared. Palestinian officials were expected to start working with members of the security council to seek backing for a resolution setting a time frame for the ending of what he called the “racist and colonial” occupation – a resolution certain to be opposed by the US....[ If he is faced with a veto of the resolution by the United States,] Palestinian sources say Abbas will accelerate moves to join UN and international bodies, including accession to the international criminal court.  

Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter after his game-winning hit
Photo by Corey Sipkin/Daily News/Published 9/26/14

Had one presented Hollywood with the story of Derek Jeter's final game at Yankee Stadium, the script would have been rejected.  Too implausible for today's movie audiences...no one would believe it.   The all-time baseball great said goodbye to his hometown fans with a flourish that those present will remember for the rest of their lives.  To start with, the game was in danger of being cancelled because of the rain showers soaking the metropolitan area all day.  The skies cleared a bit and, fifteen minutes before game time, a rainbow appeared over the stadium,  The game began.  Jeter knocked in 3 runs for the Yankees - one with a double in the first inning, one on a misplayed fielder's choice that put the Yankees ahead in the 7th, and then the game winner in the bottom of the ninth.  His appearance at the plate in the ninth was totally unexpected.  After all, the Yankees were up by 3 runs going into the top of the ninth and their ace closer was set to mow down the Oriole batters to preserve the victory, right?  Not. Baltimore scored 3 runs on two homers to tie the game.  In the bottom of the ninth with the Yankees at bat...a single, a pinch runner, a sacrifice bunt and there was a man in scoring position with Derek Jeter coming to the plate. On the first pitch, Jeter, as he had so often, lined a single to right.  The runner raced around third and beat the throw to the plate.  From the ESPN New York's blog: The walk-off single...caused Yankee Stadium to explode the way it had when Jeter and Yankees teams from a previous era were winning championships seemingly every year. Jeter was mobbed on the field after the game by current teammates as well as former ones, including Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez and former manager Joe Torre.  The only place where Jeter lost tonight was in a battle with his emotions. As the crowd chanted his name and gave him a thunderous, spontaneous standing ovation in the eighth inning -- prompting him to tip his cap around the ballpark -- the normally stoic Jeter was clearly struggling to maintain his composure. 

There are quite a few "most memorable moments" slideshows and videos out there.  Here's a link to one of the best: The Top 10 most iconic GIFs of Derek Jeter's brilliant career [SB Nation, Sep 25]