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UN's Right to Food Expert Calls
for Hedge Fund Restraints, Notes Madagascar Coup
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
April 6 -- All hedge funds that
trade in food commodities should be required to register, the UN's
expert on
the right to food Olivier De Schutter told the
Press on Monday. Index
derivatives should be prohibited and only "useful trading... hedging
not
speculation" should be allowed, in order to protect the poor and hungry
from the market.
Inner City
Press had asked De Schutter if he or the recent G-20 meeting had made
any
progress on combating food speculation. Video here,
from Minute 15:01. De Schutter replied that while the G-20 outcome did
not reference agricultural commodities, it did call for regulation of
systemic
hedge funds that cannot be allowed to fail. "If we can do it for the
financial markets, we can do it for food producers and consumers," he
said. But it is an open question whether even the largest hedge funds
will be
regulated any time soon.
De
Schutter had mentioned Madagascar and its dealing away of land to
agribusiness
investors. Inner City Press asked if the recent military coup -- which the office
of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would not even call a coup --
had changed the deal with
South Korea's Daewoo Logistics. The deal is now on hold, De Schutter
said,
adding that India also seeks to invest in Madagascar but that situation
is
still too uncertain.
UN's Ban and Italy's Berlusconi at G-20, crises, hedges, coup and
Daewoo not shown
When De
Schutter spoke before the Human Rights Council in Geneva last month,
human
rights activists testified that his mandate would not be complete
without
considering governments which block the delivery of aid and the
presence of aid
workers. They gave the example of Darfur, but might well as have said
northern Sri
Lanka, from which all international aid workers are barred. De Schutter
called
such blocked "a major scandal," and said that in the case of Sudan,
he wrote "to the government, with other special procedures...
requesting
an explanation."
Inner City
Press asked how he navigated his legal mandate with the politics of
Miguel
d'Escoto Brockmann, the President of the UN General Assembly, the Group
of 77
and China of which are generally supportive of Sudan's government.
Video here,
from Minute 27:17. De Schutter
insisted that he has only one guide, the human right to food, and that
politics
don't matter to him. He is, some say, a sharp Schutter. Click for previous coverage in
May
2008 and October
2008.
Footnote: the
PGA's advisor on food and water, to
whom Inner City Press directed a question about criticism of Ban
Ki-moon for
engaging with the pro-corporate CEO Water Mandate, called the Global
Compact's allowance
of the "subordination" of the UN to corporations
"troubling." Video here,
from Minute 21:25. Inner City Press will cover this later in the
week,
ideally after the UN Global Compact has responded to Monday's press
conference.
Watch this site.
Click here
for a new YouTube video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian
deaths
in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City
Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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[at] innercitypress.com
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