HANDOVER CEREMONY OF THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE GROUP OF 77

HANDOVER CEREMONY OF THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE GROUP OF 77
Friday, 23 January 2009
10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Trusteeship Council Chamber

Agenda

Opening of the ceremony. Address by His Excellency Dr. John W. Ashe, Permanent Representative of Antigua and Barbuda to the United Nations, on behalf of The Honourable Winston Baldwin Spencer, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Antigua and Barbuda, Chair of the Group of 77 for 2008. Ceremonial handover of the Chairmanship of the Group of 77. Address by His Excellency Dr. Altigani Salih Fidail, Minister of International Cooperation of the Republic of the Sudan, Chair of the Group of 77 for 2009. Statement by His Excellency Mr. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, President of the General Assembly. Statement by His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Statement by His Excellency Mr. Ad Melkert, Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Statement by His Excellency Mr. Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations. Other statements. Closure of the ceremony.

Cheesy Posts

The other day I was checking my weblog archive and I came across very cheesy posts , well at least I feel happy that during the last 5 years of weblogging and websiting I have progressed and at least I try not to post anything cheesy :)

Avishan Bodjnoud-New York

Visit with Mr.Ban ki Moon

Climate talks 'on brink' of deal

The UN climate summit in Bali is "on the brink" of a deal, according to the UN's senior climate official, as talks look set to extend into an extra day.
The EU has been pressing for a final text committing industrialised nations to specified emissions cuts, but the US, Canada and Japan are opposed.
Some developing countries said they were being pressurised to accept cuts in their own emissions.
Agreement has been reached on other issues such as slowing deforestation.
The climate in the conference is good, and we will have success in the end
Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's Environment Minister
Q and A: Bali summitUN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was returning to the talks from East Timor to assist negotiators.
Speaking in the East Timorese capital Dili, Mr Ban said: "I will go back to Bali tomorrow [Saturday] morning again to meet with the delegations... and engage myself in continuing further negotiations."
But Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), hinted Mr Ban's intervention might not be needed.
"(We are) on the brink of agreement, I think," he said.
"Absolutely not deadlocked; people are working very hard to resolve outstanding issues."
Bumpy roadmap
The key aim of the summit is to set negotiations in train that will eventually lead to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Its targets for reducing emissions expire in 2012.
EU negotiators want this "Bali roadmap" to contain a commitment that industrialised nations will cut their emissions by 25-40% compared to 1990 levels by 2020.
The US and its allies prefer a voluntary, non-binding approach.
The Indonesian hosts have been trying to bridge the gulf between the two sides with a text that excluded firm numerical targets for 2020, but did contain acceptances that greenhouse gas emissions need to be stabilised by the end of the next decade and that rich nations should play the major part in the effort.

Planet Bali's parallel worldsNeither EU nor US has accepted the text; but as talks continued beyond the scheduled close, delegates from both blocs said agreement was possible.
"I think the situation is good, and the climate in the climate conference is good, and we will have success in the end," Germany's Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters.
The chief US negotiator Harlan Watson told the AFP news agency: "I'm always optimistic. I think we will have an agreement."
Both the European and US/Canada blocs have suggested over the last two weeks that at some point, developing countries would need to look at limiting their carbon emissions.
Some developing country delegates complained they had been put under "strong pressure" to curb their emissions, according to Munir Akram, UN ambassador for Pakistan who chairs the G-77 bloc of nations.
"The developing countries so far have successfully resisted the kinds of pressures and even threats which we have faced to undertake commitments," he said.
Mr Munir hinted that "threats" had come in the form of trade sanctions .
'Good climate'
Away from the issue of emissions cuts, provisional agreement was reached on several ingredients of the Bali roadmap, including paying poorer countries to protect their forests.
This is widely acknowledged as the cheapest single way of curbing climate change, and brings benefits in other environmental areas such as biodiversity and fresh water conservation.
The Bush administration is well out of step with the American population, and increasingly out of step with US business
Chris Miller, Greenpeace
Send us your commentsDelegates agreed on a framework that could allow richer nations and companies to earn "carbon credits" by paying for forest protection in developing countries.
"We need to find a new mechanism that values standing forests," said Andrew Mitchell, executive director of the Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of research institutions.
"Ultimately, if this does its job, (deforestation) goes down to nothing."
Mr Mitchell said the only feasible source of sufficient funds was a global carbon market.
But many economists believe mandatory emissions targets are needed to create a meaningful global market.
'Out of step'
Environmental groups sought to maintain pressure on the US as the talks overran their scheduled end.
"The Bush administration is well out of step with the American population, and increasingly out of step with US business," Chris Miller of Greenpeace told BBC News.
"It's our hope that Europe, developing countries, China and the G-77 stay strong and keep up the pressure on the Bush administration."

'No more coal' plea to BrownThe US is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, and most parties recognise that climate change talks without it would be meaningless.
Meanwhile, a leading US climate scientist told the BBC he was writing to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel asking them to block construction of coal-fired power stations.
James Hansen says that Britain's early industrialisation means it has probably produced more greenhouse gases than any other nation.

My Assignemnts in United Nations (NY)

Please go to www.avishan.com/news and read about my life in New York .

Scenario Planning (My thesis)

These days I am busy working on my thesis ,that's about Scenario planning ...

What is Scenario PlanningBefore defining scenario planning, it is necessary to give definition of scenario to make a better understanding of the term. According to Lynch (2003, p. 93-94), scenario are detailed and plausible views of how the business environment of an organization might develop in the future based on grouping of important environment influences and drivers of change about which there is a high level of uncertainty. For example, pub industry in the UK has changed during the past decade. Started from non-smoking area and now the pubs are facing new regulation in which pubs and nightclubs have to turn themselves into non-smoking pubs by 2008. Obviously, it is not possible to forecast precisely over the period of 10 years time that the government will write this regulation. However, pubs can imagine this happening if they look at the non-smoking area policy. Accordingly, it is a need for a pub industry to view business environment of five years or more. Scenario planning does not make an effort to predict or forecast the unpredictable future business environment. Therefore, it considers multiple and equally plausible futures (Ringland 2003, p. 22-28). For instance, Wetherspoon starts adopting the new regulation of pub policy by turning some of its outlets into non-smoking free-house. Wetherspoon’ scenario planning may see that non-smoking policy will make a decrease in numbers of customers as most of customers are smokers, so it might be better for them to adopt pioneer strategy by starting the policy before competitors. Scenarios planners also have to observe and monitors the changes till year of policy. If their idea is proven right by 2008, scenario planners build two options to solve the problems. The first option is to produce nicotine-contained drink and another alternative is to build the smoking room in Wetherspoon’ outlets. A scenario planning consists of developing possible representations of a firm’s potential future that make different assumptions about forces driving the market and include different uncertainties (Kotler 2003, p. 69-70). Both private and public organizations face the business environment, which is diversity. Companies have to be prepared to cope with these changes. Marketers must be able to see future plausible changes in the business environment. They may consider a question such as ‘What will we do if it happen?’ Marketers have to adopt one scenario as the most possible and observe as the time passes to confirm and disconfirm such scenario. By viewing the possible future scenarios, companies will be able to develop business strategies (Kippenberger 1999, p. 32-33). Take the recent UK airport bomb plot 10/8 as an example. The new security at the airport is stricter. The new security affects the operation of low-cost carrier as they rely on flight frequency and extra charge of luggage restriction. With the new rule, they have to permit customers to exceed 20 kilograms restriction as passengers are allowed only necessary items on board. The extra security causes delay of scheduled flights. Low-cost airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair have to ask themselves ‘What will they do if the BAA does not remove the tough security?’ For instance, the scenario planners of Low-cost airline may develop new luggage restriction rule by increasing 20 kilograms to 30 kilograms instead. They can also charge £5-£10 extra money back guarantee for the on time performance instead of increasing the price to put burden on passengers. .....

Europe this Summer

Summer 2007 in Europe

Bon Voyage!

An Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur took off Monday on a Russian rocket bound for the international space station, achieving her dream of becoming the the world's first paying female space tourist.

Bon Voyage!