Israel uses Hitler picture to sell its settlement expansion 
GETTY IMAGES As the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the outbreak of the Second World War, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni was a powerful Nazi sympathiser - and an assassination target for the Allies.   By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
  Saturday, 25 July 2009Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, has triggered fresh controversy by urging diplomats abroad to use a 1941 photograph of a Palestinian religious leader meeting Hitler to counter protests against a planned Jewish settlement in Arab East Jerusalem. The hard right Mr Lieberman ordered the circulation to Israeli embassies of copies of the notorious wartime photograph of Hitler meeting the then Mufti of Jerusalem, an overt sympathiser with the Nazis who helped them raise an SS division in Bosnia. The move has alarmed some experienced Israeli diplomats who believe it will be counterproductive. It came after the US State Department expressed its disapproval to Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, over plans to build at least 20 apartments for Jewish settlers at the site of the old Shepherd's Hotel building in the inner East Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarrah. The building was once used as a headquarters of the Mufti, a member of the one of the most prominent Palestinian families in Jerusalem. The Palestinian nationalist Faisal al-Husseini, grand nephew of the Mufti, was a frequent interlocutor and strong advocate of peace moves with Israel in his later years until his death in 2001. Related articles More Middle East News The plans for the Shepherd's Hotel site have highlighted a continuing rift between much of the international community and Israel over the latter's continued settlement building in East Jerusalem. The site was bought in the 1980s by a company controlled by Irving Moskowitz, a major benefactor of of right wing settler groups. While the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is deep in negotiations with US officials over the settlement freeze in the West Bank being demanded by President Obama, he made it clear this week he will not be deterred from sanctioning continued building for Jews in East Jerusalem. Israel's sovereignty over the whole of the city "cannot be challenged", he said. Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem – unlike the West Bank which it did not seek to annex – after the 1967 Six-Day War and officially regards the city as the undivided capital of Israel. But most Western governments do not recognise the annexation and back the Palestinians' call for East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state. One Israeli official in Jerusalem said of Mr Lieberman's move: "If the issue here is sovereignty over Jerusalem then passing on a historical photograph like this completely misses the point... It has nothing to do with it." The Foreign Ministry confined itself to repeating Mr Lieberman's explanation that the photograph had been sent out so that "the facts are known". George Mitchell, President Obama's…

   Facebook becoming big friend of small businesses "Sprinkles is among a growing number of mom-and-pop businesses taking advantage of a relatively new program on Facebook, one that allows them to claim their name, become visible even to folks who aren't on the site, and stay in close contact with their customers. The business, in effect, can act like any other person on Facebook, posting status updates and seeing what its fans are doing."   

  Obama did consider Hillary as VP but Bill Clinton's presence quashed it, Obama ex-aide says Yes, it's holiday book-buying time in the publishing industry. But before we get to Sarah Palin's rogue book in two weeks, we have David Plouffe's audacious book.You'll remember him as campaign manager for that also audacious Illinois guy who creamed the Palin-McCain Republican ticket last year, talking about change to believe in and transparency.Tempting little out-of-context pieces of the Plouffe book, "The Audacity to Win," are beginning to leak out (well, actually, in the book business, they're pumped out by promoters).Plouffe says he and David Axelrod, now an Obama White House advisor, were surprised how seriously their boss considered Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate over the old Senate guy from Delaware he eventually chose just before the Democratic National Convention in late August.Plouffe reportedly says Obama insisted her name be on the initial list after the Democratic primaries were settled in early June and kept it there into early August. But, Plouffe writes, Obama then said to him, "I think Bill may be too big a complication. If I picked her, my concern is that there would be more than two of us in the relationship." Our concern is that this sounds rather stilted for real campaign chatter. But such a thought was also a prominent theme in media speculation at the time: Could the two recent competitors operate together with the ex-prez always in the background?Judging by the energy and verve the former first lady shows in the State Department job she eventually got, talking politely and firmly to folks all around the world on behalf of the United States and Obama, things worked out pretty well this way.Come to think of it, though, Plouffe's account conflicts starkly with the latest version that ultimate choice Joe Biden told just the other day, as The Ticket reported here. At a Democratic dinner in Pennsylvania 10 days ago, Biden said he initially turned down Obama's VP offer. But, Biden recounted, the persistent future president asked him again two months later and Biden finally acquiesced after eliciting a promise that Obama really meant real change. That version, however, would put Obama's alleged opening offer to Biden somewhere around mid- or late June, when Plouffe has Clinton's name on a longer list with others. Unless somebody is misremembering ...-- Andrew Malcolm    

  Climate change will lead to civil wars in Africa.By Tom Chivers
Published: 3:21PM GMT 25 Nov 2009Comments 16 | Comment on this articleCivil wars in Congo have killed 5.4 million people in 10 years. Climate change could make future conflict more likely, say scientists Photo: AFP/GETTY  A rise of as little as 1C could make civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa more than 50 per cent more likely, according to the study. Marshall Burke, a University of California economist and the study's lead author, said: "Our study finds that climate change could increase the risk of African civil war by over 50 percent in 2030 relative to 1990, with huge potential costs to human livelihoods." Small changes to temperature will affect crop growth, and most of sub-Saharan Africa’s poor rely on agriculture for their livelihood. Edward Miguel, professor of economics at UC Berkeley, said: "When temperatures rise, the livelihoods of many in Africa suffer greatly, and the disadvantaged become more likely to take up arms." The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is the first hard evidence linking global warming to fighting. It is based on data from 20 global warming models and a historical examination of the links between climate and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The researchers found that, between 1980 and 2002, civil wars were much more likely in warmer years. In years that were one degree above average, the risk of conflict rose by nearly 50 per cent. The study’s co-author, earth scientist David Lobell, said: "On average, the models suggest that temperatures over the African continent will increase by a little over one degree Celsius by 2030. "Given the strong historical relationship between temperature rise and conflict, this expected future rise in temperature is enough to cause big increases in the likelihood of conflict.” The study suggested that a one-degree rise could translate to a 55 per cent risk increase by 2030, which in turn would lead to 390,000 deaths in combat, assuming future wars are as deadly as recent ones. The researchers have urged governments in Africa and worldwide to hasten and expand policies to help the continent adapt to the effects of climate change. Mr Burke said: "Our findings provide strong impetus to ramp up investments in African adaptation to climate change by such steps as developing crop varieties less sensitive to extreme heat and promoting insurance plans to help protect farmers from adverse effects of the hotter climate. "If the sub-Saharan climate continues to warm and little is done to help its countries better adapt to high temperatures, the human costs are likely to be staggering." Millions of people have died in Africa in civil wars in the last decade, including more than 5.4 million in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone.

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