FAO publishes Russian Forest Sector Outlook study until 2030

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Rome: The forest sector in the Russian Federation needs to be modernized using innovations and breakthrough technologies to maximize its potential as a global mitigator of climate change and an important source of timber, according to a new study presented today by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of the Russian Federation. 

Sprawling from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, Russia has more than a fifth of the world's forests, which makes it the largest forest country in the world. However, the considerable potential of Russian forests is underutilized and Russia's share of the global trade in forest products is less than four percent. Lack of governance, outdated equipment and underfinancing are among major factors that impede the development of the Russian forest sector, according to the report. 

The Russian Forest Sector Outlook Study to 2030 urges immediate action on modernizing the Russian forest sector, increasing its investment attractiveness, stimulating domestic demand for forest products such as wooden housing and furniture, addressing the illegal logging issues and reforming forest public institutions and legislation. 

"The study broadens our knowledge about the huge opportunities and possible development potential of the Russian Federation's forest sector," said FAO Assistant Director-General for Forestry Eduardo Rojas-Briales. "Modernizing Russia's forests will have a positive impact on social, economic and environmental conditions in the Russian Federation and will contribute to the development of world forestry, forest industry, wood trade and the environment."

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WSJ: Obama's U.N. Friends

The Obama Administration has based its global security strategy around the United Nations, and these days that faith isn't turning out too well. Russia and China have blocked any "collective security" action in Syria, and now U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to lend his prestige, such as it is, to Iran.

Despite public requests from the U.S. and what press reports say was a personal plea from Israel ...

Click here to read this in full at Wall Street Journal

Anoid by UNDP's failures to "deliver" in North Korea - Obama Administration wants UNDP's TUMEN River project turned into a Bank (North Asian Development Bank)

Northeast Asian Development Bank revisited

Click here to read this on KoreaTimes




By Ahn Choong-yong,
Foreign Investment Ombudsman

A high note at the International Track II Meeting for Northeast Cooperation I recently attended in Tokyo was a shared enthusiasm for Northeast Asian development and necessary funding architecture. I was privileged to serve as one of the speakers from six nations _ China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Mongolia and the U.S. ― and we shared the view that Northeast Asian countries could develop a peaceful and prosperous community once properly linked through harmonized intra-regional infrastructures.

Geographically speaking, Northeast Asia encompasses China, Japan, South and North Koreas, the Russian Far East and Mongolia. In 1992, American political scientist Robert A. Scalapino called the region an extended “natural economic territory,” emphasizing sub-regional connectivity in the Tumen River Basin area – an area directly and indirectly bordered by the nations – to exploit its growth potential. Though politically separated by borders, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) three decades ago conceived the Tumen River Development Area, calling for cross-border connectivity to realize their intra-regional complementarity and the growth momentum inherent in truly diverse factor endowments. Despite rounds of UNDP meetings attended by key regional stakeholders, the long-heralded UNDP project has yet to materialize due to political and historical legacies.

Recently, the Asian Development Bank forecasted that key SOC projects to deepen essential connectivity in Asia may require about $8.3 trillion by 2020. Given the development potential and funding requirements in Northeast Asia, the creation of a Northeast Asian Development Bank, as observed in the African and Inter-American Development Bank, has long been proposed by experts in the region while the Asian Development Bank may concentrate on funding large-scale infrastructure projects for Southwest Asian nations. An ASEAN infrastructure fund has already been established to finance a number of its development projects.

Rapidly rising China, with its 1.3 billion consumers, has become an important pillar of the world economy. Recently, China revealed an ambitious Changchun-Jilin development corridor to enhance its link with the East Sea route. Eastern Siberia has the world’s largest deposits of natural gas and other mineral resources. President Vladimir Putin of Russia, which is preparing to host its first APEC summit in September, recently emphasized Eastern Siberian development through his “look east policy” along with Russia’s recent accession to the World Trade Organization. As for Japan and Korea, though technologically advanced and capable of supplying significant amount of capital, they are still heavily dependent on imported energy from the Middle East and have been looking for alternative energy supply sources.

Despite the great potential for common prosperity, Northeast Asia has the bane of North Korea’s isolationism and ongoing nuclear ambitions. If North Korea were to peacefully transition toward an open-door regime, Northeast Asia could grow into a genuine and natural economic territory by enhancing cross-border connectivity through railways, gas pipelines, roads and seaports across the Korean Peninsula, the northeastern three provinces of China, the Russian Far East, northern Japan and Mongolia to diversify energy supply sources beyond the Middle East and reduce transport costs.

The possibilities for enhancing SOC connectivity in Northeast Asia are many. To lay out one concrete example, the regional supply and demand equation for natural gas could be further stabilized by extending the East Siberian gas pipeline to the Korean Peninsula, China and Japan. If North Korea were to join this venture, the regional gas supply system would be more robust and stable. Perhaps the gas pipeline passing through North Korean territory could be constructed by a multinational equity fund, for which Russia might serve as the largest shareholder and possess the managerial right while allowing North Korea to collect transmission fees and gas for their own use.

If we could establish multilateral funding architecture in the form of a regional development bank and construct a “cross-border investment community,” Northeast Asia could be transformed from a region with a Cold War legacy to a new growth pillar of the world.

The writer is also a distinguished professor at Chung-Ang University.

InnerCityPress: On Syria, of Kofi & "Mission Impossible," Double Pensions & Boutros, Baker

By Matthew Russell Lee

Click here for this on @InnerCityPress

UNITED NATIONS, February 24 -- Around the UN in New York the day after former Secretary General Kofi Annan was appointed joint Arab League - UN special envoy to Syria, diplomats and staff were abuzz about other candidates considered, and what the naming of "Kofi" meant.

Sources told Inner City Press that the other candidates considered included not only Finland's Martti Ahtisaari, who garnered Russian opposition for his Ahtisaari plan for Kosovo independence from Serbia, but another former UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, vetoed by the US for a second time.

An American, James Baker, was in the mix, as was Algerian former prime minister Mawloud Hamrouch and Kuwaiti former foreign minister Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah.

Annan was selected. Inner City Press asked his former chief of communications Edward Mortimer, who replied, "I salute Kofi for his courage in undertaking what looks like the ultimate 'mission impossible.'"

Another long time UN source told Inner City Press that this work might be a way of "making Kofi pay for his two pensions," referring to his double dipping of pensions as former UN staffer and then Secretary General. Inner City Press has asked Ban Ki-moon's top two spokesmen about this, and how Annan's mission will be funded, after for an answer before noon. Watch this site.

Russia, China and G77: Ban Ki Moon should be fired over Egypt statement

BAN KI MOON PICKS THE WRONG "DICTATOR" TO SHOUT AT

G77 WANTS HIM OUT

Ban Ki Moon statements, which were echoing those of Barack Obama to have Mubarak leave office "now" rather than later, didn't resonate well with China, Russia and G77.

Both members of Security Council, with veto power over Ban's second term in office, were quite surprised as to how could Ban Ki moon make such a claim on Egypt, while as per UN standards Egypt was an " internal affairs that should be resolved by the people of Egypt".

The Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters Friday at UN HQs that "these are extremely delicate internal matters that should be left to the sovereign states". "The UN should be dealing with its many tasks, which should not include poking fingers in the eyes of political leaders."

The same Chinese and Russian sentiment had also the Egyptian Ambassador at the UN who has logged twice a complain on Ban's statement with the his Chief of Staff Nambiar. "He has to understand what is the reality on the ground before he speaks", Egypt Ambassador said of Ban. "if you look at his statements, you will see that they are just like what some countries are saying, and that is not what we expect from him. I will discuss it with him. I need to understand where all this is coming from."

Russia Accuses UNDP of Funding Georgian President - Lavrov says: UNDP is out of control

By BENNY AVNI, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 30, 2008

UNITED NATIONS — Russia's confrontation with the West is escalating, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accusing the U.N. Development Program of collaborating with the financierGeorge Soros to fund Mikheil Saakashvili's rise to the Georgian presidency.

Rick Gershon/Getty

President Saakashvili of Georgia shakes hands with U.N. Secretary-General Ban at the United Nations on September 24.

Russia has long accused Mr. Soros of financing the 2003 Rose Revolution, and Mr. Saakashvili in particular. Yesterday, Mr. Lavrov called for an examination of the ties between Mr. Soros and the UNDP. "At the time, George Soros was sponsoring members of the Georgian government," Mr. Lavrov told reporters, adding that UNDP "funds and finances" were also used to support Georgian officials.

"We should clearly check and establish clear rules for controlling the spending by international organizations," he said. "We should not allow that such organizations be privatized."

The Columbia University-educated Mr. Saakashvili swept into power in a January 2004 election that resulted from the Rose Revolution, ousting a Russian ally, Eduard Shevardnadze, as president.

Russia's war with Georgia over the independence claims of two breakaway Georgian regions, which began in early August, has ratcheted up tensions between America and Russia. Also, Prime Minster Putin reportedly has declined for weeks to take calls from Secretary-General Ban, whose statements on Georgia were seen in Moscow as one-sided.

American officials have raised questions about the relationship between Mr. Soros's Open Society Institute and the UNDP in the past. And as The New York Sun first reported in June 2006, a former UNDP administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, rented a house adjacent to Mr. Soros's estate in Katonah, N.Y., paying the financier what real estate agents in the area characterized as below market rate rent.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Mr. Soros's OSI has concentrated much of its pro-democracy activities in former Soviet republics striving to break with their totalitarian past, with local leaders and their nationalist supporters pledging to sever ties with Moscow.

Information about the UNDP's activities in Georgia is available to all the members of the agency's board, including Russia, a spokesman for the agency, Stéphane Dujarric, told the Sun yesterday. Launched in January 2004, the program in Georgia included "salary top-ups for leading officials," he said, and was designed "to enable the government to recruit the staff it needed, and also to help remove incentives for corruption."

The Georgian president, prime minister, and speaker of the Parliament received monthly salary supplements of $1,500 each; ministers received $1,200 a month, and deputy ministers $700, Mr. Dujarric said.

The program was funded initially by Mr. Soros's OSI, which gave $1 million, while the UNDP gave $500,000. A Swedish government agency later added another $1 million. An "exit strategy" was built into the program, Mr. Dujarric said, and the Georgian government assumed responsibility for the salaries after three years.

Mr. Lavrov's contention that the UNDP must avoid being "privatized" came at the end of a week in which Russia significantly sharpened its rhetoric against America.

At a press conference yesterday and in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday, Mr. Lavrov repeatedly denounced Washington's disruption of the existing world order by invading Iraq. "The solidarity of the international community fostered on the wave of struggle against terrorism turned out to be somehow privatized," he said in his assembly speech, referring to the Iraq invasion.

Separately, Mr. Lavrov declined yesterday to provide new details about his country's resumption of military cooperation with Syria, amid reports that the Russian navy sent several ships to the Mediterranean port of Tartus. "This cooperation is conducted in the framework of the international law and does not endanger anyone's security," Mr. Lavrov said.