Former Dutch Prime Minister Rudd Lubbers dies

Deutsche Welle, 14 February 2018

Ruud Lubbers, the Netherlands' longest serving prime minister, has died aged 78. Lubbers also headed the UN refugee agency on a symbolic $1 salary, and, in 1991, hosted the EU's formative Maastricht summit.

Former Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers in B/W (picture alliance/ANP/V. Kuypers)

Lubbers, a conservative who argued for "more markets, less government" and a closer European Union, passed away on Wednesday in his home city of Rotterdam, the Dutch government announced. No cause of death was given.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Netherlands had "lost a statesman with huge stature" and went on to praise Lubbers for his commitment to Europe and as a "world citizen" who was "intelligent and wise."

"He knew how to find a solution to every problem," Rutte added.

Lubbers, a Christian Democrat from a Rotterdam engineering and machinery family, who studied economics and then headed an employers' federation, formed his first government in 1982 with the liberal VVD party, on a pledge to cut back the Dutch welfare state.

His slogan "more markets, less government" prompted conflict with trade unions but earned him a reputation for the "Dutch model" of spurring the economy to create more jobs.

Key role at Maastricht

In his third consecutive term, he formed a grand coalition with center-left Social Democrats in 1989, and played a key role in late 1991 when the Netherlands hosted an EU summit that formulated the bloc's Maastricht Treaty focused on political integration.

The accord, signed in early 1992, also laid the groundwork for the shared euro currency.

When he stepped down in the Dutch election year 1994, he had become the Netherland's longest-serving prime minister.

His 12 years in office had included his persuading parliament to accept the deployment of NATO European missiles in the Netherlands and ambitious conservation projects across the densely populated low-lying nation.

WWF and then UNHCR

After stints in academia, bids for top jobs at the European Commission and NATO, and criticism of Germany's then-chancellor, Helmut Kohl, Lubbers went on to serve as president of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in 2000, before becoming the head of the UNHCR refugee agency in 2001.

Bombing of Afghanistan wrong

A month after the 9/11 airline hijacker attacks on New York and Washington, Ludders rejected US bombardment of largely Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

He told Germany's Die Zeit newspaper in October 2001 that less US military action, not more, combined with aid agency assistance, would minimize the "danger of a conflagration."

As UNHCR commissioner he had urged the United States: "no revenge, no disproportionate reprisal attacks that will inevitably cause larger refugee flows and human suffering."

Resignation

His UNHCR post was extended in 2003 but in 2005 he was forced to step down over sexual harassment allegations, which he rejected as defamatory.

In latter years, when the Netherlands had difficulties forming coalition governments, Queen Beatrix reportedly called in Lubbers as adviser and intermediary.

Dutch broadcaster NOS said Lubbers had long suffered from an unspecified illness.

ipj/kms (AFP, AP, Reuters, Munzinger-Archive)

France crushes huge illegal ivory haul

Google – AFP, Mariette Le Roux and Celine Serrat (AFP), 6 February 2014

French Ecology Minister Philippe Martin (L) and French ecologist Nicolas Hulot pose

 with a defense as three tonnes of illegal ivory are displayed on February 6, 2014 in

front of the Eiffel tower in Paris (AFP, Bertrand Guay)

Paris — France fired the latest volley Thursday in the world's uphill battle against African elephant poaching, crushing three tonnes of illegal ivory in a ceremony at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

The contraband, with an estimated street value of one million euros ($1.4 million), was fed into a giant crushing machine and ground into tiny fragments to be carted off and incinerated.

It was the first major crushing ceremony of ivory in Europe since a global ivory ban was imposed in 1989.

"With this destruction today... France is sending an unequivocal message to poachers, traffickers and consumers of illicit wildlife products," said French Environment Minister Philippe Martin who attended the event.

"We are resolved to continue the fight against trafficking, and to remove any temptation to recover the seized ivory" for the contraband market.

Africa's elephants are being massacred in droves in a bid to meet surging demand for ivory from the growing economies of Asia, particularly China and Thailand.

Some 22,000 African elephants were killed illegally in 2012, according to a report last year by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which warned of "local extinctions if the present killing rates continue".

The African elephant population is presently estimated at some 500,000 individuals -- about half the 1980 total.

Environmentalists say destroying confiscated ivory is the only way of ensuring that the contraband is permanently removed from the market.

France destroys stocks of seized ivory (AFP, S. Ramis /

A. Bommenel, abm/jfs)

"There are several cases of seized ivory being 'lost' from stockpiles, ie stolen, then re-entering illegal trade," wildlife crime specialist Wendy Elliott of green group WWF told AFP by email.

French environmental group Robin des Bois, or "Robin Hood", estimates that France has seized some 17 tonnes of the commodity from smugglers.

The ban has since been partially overturned to allow limited legal sales -- a move that many conservationists claim has boosted black-market demand.

Most of France's stash has been held in museums or the storerooms of police and judicial agencies.

The destroyed stockpile consisted of 2.3 tonnes or 698 individual tusks, both unadorned and engraved, as well as 15,357 ivory ornaments including bracelets, necklaces and sculptures.

Call for EU action

Martin said his country was the first in Europe since the 1989 ban to destroy seized ivory in such a public gesture, adding he expected other nations will follow suit.

"We hope that this new approach of systematically destroying seized ivory will be extended to rhino horn and other illegal animal products," said Robin des Bois president Jacky Bonnemains.

"We call upon the rest of the European Union to do the same."

Three tonnes of illegal ivory are displayed on February 6, 2014 in front of

the Eiffel tower in Paris (AFP, Bertrand Guay)

France became the latest country to destroy confiscated ivory after China, which crushed a six-tonne pile in January, and the destruction of a similar stockpile by the United States last November.

The Philippines destroyed five tonnes of tusks in June last year, Gabon destroyed 4.8 tonnes in 2012 and Kenya set fire to a pile of similar weight in 2011. Last month, Hong Kong said it would incinerate 28 tonnes within the next two years.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said such projects should only be undertaken after a full and independent audit of the stock so that none gets "lost" in the process, and finds its way back onto the market.

Environmentalists stress that illicit ivory eradication on its own will not stop the elephant massacre.

Consumers must be made aware of the destruction they were causing, said Stephane Ringuet, an expert with Traffic, a wildlife monitoring group.

"The source of the problem is in Asia, where we are seeing a disproportionate increase in demand for ivory," he told AFP.

Between 1989 and 2011, the biggest hauls of illegal ivory were in China, with more than 33,000 tonnes, according to Traffic, and 17,000 tonnes in Hong Kong.

Related Articles:

UN Security Council declares war on ivory poachers, traffickers

African and Asian states vow to crack down on illegal ivory trade

Chinese ivory smuggler gets record sentence after Kenya trial

Court blocks Swedish wolf hunt

Google – AFP, Tom Sullivan (AFP), 15 January 2014

A wolfdog stands among Swedish protestors readying 20 coffins, one for each

 wolf killed during recently sanctioned hunt, for a protest funeral procession in

central Stockholm on February 6, 2011 (AFP/File, Jonathan Nackstrand)

Stockholm — Plans to hold licensed wolf hunts in Sweden were blocked by a Stockholm court Wednesday following an appeal by environmental groups.

The controversial hunts, wich sought to cull 30 wolves in central Sweden in early February, were part of a new government wildlife policy to reduce wolf numbers.

Responding to an appeal from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SNCC), WWF Sweden and the Swedish Carnivore Association, the Administrative Court declared the hunts "temporarily suspended," citing claims that they violate EU conservation laws.

Environmentalists welcomed the ruling and said they were preparing to submit further evidence ahead of a January 30 deadline for a full court case on the legality of the hunts.

"We are very satisfied with the court's decision," SSNC chairman Mikael Karlsson told the Swedish news agency TT.

"We expected this to happen because the decision to stop last year's hunt is still under legal consideration."

In February 2013 the same court stopped a hunt aimed at culling 16 inbred wolves, ruling that hunts were not the right method for managing wolf populations.

But since then the government has argued that the wolf population has grown and that licensed hunts are needed to protect livestock, reduce inbreeding and increase public support for maintaining wolves in the wild.

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which ordered the hunt, said it was discussing how to respond to the ruling.

"We think that wolf hunts are an important part of wildlife management and that it's important that they can be held," Gunilla Skotnicka of the EPA told TT.

The Swedish Hunters Association issued a statement calling the decision a "catastrophe for people who live and work in areas with many wolves" and said they may consider an appeal.

Sweden's new wildlife management policy, unveiled last month, allows for wolf numbers to be cut by about a half from their current level of 350 to 400 through licensed hunts.

Scotland toasts new whisky-powered bioenergy plant

Up to 9,000 homes to be powered with energy produced by burning waste matter from the whisky-making process

guardian.co.uk, Kirsty Scott,  Wednesday 4 May 2011

Scottish distilleries will power 9,000 homes with electricity and heat from
bioenergy plants using waste matter from the industry.(Photograph: Murdo Macleod)

It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland's best-known distilleries.

Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production.

Vast amounts of "draff", the spent grains used in the distilling process, and pot ale, a residue from the copper stills, are produced by the whisky industry each year and are usually transported off-site. The Rothes project, a joint venture between Helius Energy and the Combination of Rothes Distillers (CoRD) will burn the draff with woodchips to generate enough electricity to supply 9,000 homes. It will be supplied by Aalborg Energie Technick, a danish engineering company. The pot ale will be made into a concentrated organic fertiliser and an animal feed for use by local farmers.

Environmentalists have expressed concern that some of the wood used in the process may not be locally sourced, but say the 7.2MW project – the equivalent output of two large wind turbines - is a good scale and a valuable addition to Scotland's renewables industry. Green energy has been a key issue in the run-up to Thursday's Holyrood elections. The SNP leader, Alex Salmond, has pledged to produce 100% of Scotland's electricity through renewable energy by 2020, a claim dismissed as "fantasy" by Labour.

The £50m Rothes project is the latest bioenergy venture from the Scotch whisky industry, but it is believed to be the first to provide electricity for public use. A bioenergy plant at Scotland's largest distillery in Fife is close to completion. The project by Diageo will provide 98% of the thermal steam and 80% of the electrical power used at the Cameronbridge distillery. And last year, scientists at Napier University announced they had developed a method of producing biofuel from the by-products of the whisky distilling process which could power cars and even aircraft. The new fuel, they said, could be available at petrol pumps within a few years.

Of Scotland's 100 whisky distilleries, 50 are based in Speyside, and Frank Burns, general manager of CoRD, said it was an ideal location for the new bioenergy plant which will be built on an existing industrial site.

"It is very well supported in the local community. Up here in Rothes and in Speyside in general we have a lot of strong links," he said. "We had zero objections at the planning stage and we have done a lot of work within the community on the progress of the project."

Waste products from around 16 of the area's 50 distilleries will be used at the site, including well-known brands such as Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Macallan, and Famous Grouse. None will come from further than 25 miles away.

Burns acknowledged, however, that some of the wood for the process may not be locally sourced. "Some of it will be local and some of it will be shipped in," he said. "It is down to the supplier. They may source it locally." Most of the fuel, he added, will be comprised of the draff.

Sam Gardner, climate policy officer for WWF Scotland, said:

"From the information we have, the project looks to be a very welcome addition to Scotland's renewable industry. It is using waste products from our whisky industry which is eminently sensible thing to do, and is producing heat both for whisky production and for the local community. We would want to see assurances, however, that the biomass was sustainably sourced."