body,labels
" A top UN official suggested a 2020 greenhouse gas goal for developing nations on Thursday as part of a new UN climate pact as China and the United States sought common ground to fight global warming. Many nations expressed worries about a lack of urgency in the negotiations, less than two months before 190 nations are meant to agree a new UN pact in Copenhagen to succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol. In New Delhi, Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, suggested that poor nations could slow the projected growth of their emissions by 15 percent by 2020 to help ensure an agreement. A dispute about sharing out the burden of curbs on greenhouse gases between rich and poor nations is one of the main stumbling blocks. De Boer said a ""balanced agreement"" was needed to overcome ""mistrust and suspicion"". The UN climate panel in 2007 said rich nations would have to cut their emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 below 1990 levels to limit temperature rises to 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) and avoid the worst of heatwaves, floods, and rising seas. It said developing nations should show a ""substantial deviation"" below the projected growth of emissions -- but did not set a figure. ""If industrialised countries are reducing by 25-40 percent by 2020 then I think you would also by 2020 perhaps need to see something in the order of a 15 percent deviation below business as usual in developing countries,"" de Boer said. EU DEMANDS The European Union wants developing nations to curb growth by 15-30 percent by 2020. Developing nations have long objected that offers of cuts by the rich so far fall well short of 25 percent. In Beijing, China and the United States, the top greenhouse gas emitters, spoke of willingness to cooperate. ""We should be aware of the severity and urgency of coping with climate change, and we should also seize this precious development opportunity,"" Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang told a summit of academics, businessmen and officials. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a video address: ""As always, we are more likely to succeed when we work together."" ""As the world's two largest emitters of carbon, the United States and China have a responsibility to lead the world in developing and adopting clean technologies, and as two of the world's largest economies our nations have the power to build a thriving global marketplace for these technologies,"" she said. Developing nations want billions of dollars in aid and technology to help them shift to renewable energies and forego the cheap fossil fuels that helped the developed world get rich since the Industrial Revolution. In London, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband also said the talks needed more urgency to prevent a ""human emergency"" affecting hundreds of millions of people. ""For too many people, not just in our own country but around the world, the penny hasn't yet dropped ... that this climate change challenge is real and is happening now,"" he said. ""There isn't yet that sense of urgency and drive and animation about the Copenhagen conference."" Climate change will deepen Middle East tensions, trigger wars over water and food and lead to unprecedented migration unless action is taken now to curb global warming, he said. On the business front, General Electric Co said a deal freeing up trade in environmental goods and services was urgently needed. GE's senior counsel for intellectual property and trade, Thaddeus Burns, said the deal should be negotiated separately from the Doha round of talks to open up world trade. The Doha talks are in their eighth year with no sign of a breakthrough. The WWF environmental group cautioned that a lack of political nerve could mean climate deadlock in Copenhagen to echo Doha. ""The world doesn't want Copenhagen to come to mean another Doha,"" said Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF's Global Climate Initiative.",0
"German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the flooding that has devastated parts of Europe as ""terrifying"" on Sunday after the death toll across the region rose to 188 and a district of Bavaria was battered by the extreme weather. Merkel promised swift financial aid after visiting one of the areas worst affected by the record rainfall and floods that have killed at least 157 in Germany alone in recent days, in the country's worst natural disaster in almost six decades. She also said governments would have to get better and faster in their efforts to tackle the impact of climate change only days after Europe outlined a package of steps towards ""net zero"" emissions by the middle of the century. ""It is terrifying,"" she told residents of the small town of Adenau in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. ""The German language can barely describe the devastation that's taken place."" As efforts continued to track down missing people, the devastation continued on Sunday when a district of Bavaria, southern Germany, was hit by flash floods that killed at least one person. Roads were turned into rivers, some vehicles were swept away and swathes of land buried under thick mud in Berchtesgadener Land. Hundreds of rescue workers were searching for survivors in the district, which borders Austria. ""We were not prepared for this,"" said Berchtesgadener Land district administrator Bernhard Kern, adding that the situation had deteriorated ""drastically"" late on Saturday, leaving little time for emergency services to act. About 110 people have been killed in the worst-hit Ahrweiler district south of Cologne. More bodies are expected to be found there as the flood waters recede, police say. The European floods, which began on Wednesday, have mainly hit the German states of Rhineland Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia as well as parts of Belgium. Entire communities have been cut off, without power or communications. In North Rhine-Westphalia at least 46 people have died. The death toll in Belgium climbed to 31 on Sunday. AID UP, POWER DOWN The scale of the floods mean they could shake up Germany's general election in September next year. North Rhine-Westphalia state premier Armin Laschet, the CDU party's candidate to replace Merkel, apologised for laughing in the background while German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke to media after visiting the devastated town of Erftstadt. 
 
 Mud covers the floor at a butchers' store following heavy rainfalls in Dernau, Germany, July 17, 2021. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay 

The German government will be readying more than 300 million euros ($354 million) in immediate relief and billions of euros to fix collapsed houses, streets and bridges, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag.  Mud covers the floor at a butchers' store following heavy rainfalls in Dernau, Germany, July 17, 2021. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay  ""There is huge damage and that much is clear: those who lost their businesses, their houses, cannot stem the losses alone."" There could also be a 10,000 euro short-term payment for businesses affected by the impact of the floods as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told the paper. Scientists, who have long said that climate change will lead to heavier downpours, said it would still take several weeks to determine its role in these relentless rainfalls. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said the link with climate change was clear. In Belgium, which will hold a national day of mourning on Tuesday, 163 people are still missing or unreachable. The crisis centre said water levels were falling and a huge clean-up operation was underway. The military was sent in to the eastern town of Pepinster, where a dozen buildings have collapsed, to search for any further victims. About 37,0000 households were without electricity and Belgian authorities said the supply of clean drinking water was also a major concern. BRIDGES BATTERED Emergency services officials in the Netherlands said the situation had somewhat stabilised in the southern part of Limburg province, where tens of thousands were evacuated in recent days, although the northern part was still on high alert. ""In the north they are tensely monitoring the dykes and whether they will hold,"" Jos Teeuwen of the regional water authority told a press conference on Sunday. In southern Limburg, authorities are still concerned about the safety of traffic infrastructure such as roads and bridges battered by the high water. The Netherlands has so far only reported property damage from the flooding and no dead or missing people. In Hallein, an Austrian town near Salzburg, powerful flood waters tore through the town centre on Saturday evening as the Kothbach river burst its banks, but no injuries were reported. Many areas of Salzburg province and neighbouring provinces remain on alert, with rains set to continue on Sunday. Western Tyrol province reported that water levels in some areas were at highs not seen for more than 30 years. Parts of Switzerland remained on flood alert, though the threat posed by some of the most at-risk bodies of water like Lake Lucerne and Bern's Aare river has eased.",0
"Even as the justices weigh the case of the Mississippi law barring most abortions after 15 weeks, the political clash is already intensifying, with Democrats warning supporters that the court is poised to reverse access to abortion 50 years after it was recognised as a constitutional right. “What is fundamentally at stake is that every woman in our country should be able to make her own health care decisions and chart her own destiny and have the full independence to do that,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., who is seeking reelection in a race with significant implications for control of the Senate. As the court heard arguments in the Mississippi case on Wednesday, it appeared that the six conservative justices were likely to uphold the state’s law despite the precedent set in 1973 by Roe, which held that states could not bar abortion before fetal viability, now judged to be around 22 to 24 weeks. Several of the justices suggested that they were willing to go another step and overturn Roe entirely, leaving states free to impose whatever bans or restrictions they choose. The court is likely to release its decision in the case at the end of its term in June or early July, just as campaigning in the midterms is getting into full swing. While the subject of abortion and the Supreme Court has traditionally been seen as more of an energising issue for Republican and evangelical voters, Democrats say that situation could be reversed should the court undermine Roe, raising the possibility that abortion could be banned or severely limited in many states. That outcome, Democrats said, would transform the long fight over abortion rights from theory to reality and give new resonance to their arguments that a Democratic Congress is needed to protect access to the procedure and seat judges who are not hostile to abortion rights. “There is no question that should the decision be one that would overturn Roe v. Wade, it will certainly motivate our base,” said Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Quite frankly, we know that a majority of the people in this country continue to believe it should be the law of the land.” “It will be an incredibly powerful issue,” Peters said. Republicans see advantages as well, saying it will validate their decadeslong push to limit if not outlaw abortion and show that they should not back away from their efforts when they are succeeding. “Today is our day,” Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No 2 House Republican, told abortion opponents outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday. “This is what we’ve been working for.” Aware that a decision undermining abortion access has political risks for them as well, Republicans say the fight will be just part of their 2022 message as they seek to tie Democrats to inflation, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and other subjects where they see a greater edge. “There’s a lot of issues out there,” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, suggesting the significance of abortion will vary from state to state. “Everybody’s going to take a position.” But it was quickly clear that some Republicans would embrace the drive against Roe. “I’m pro-life. I’m anti-Roe v. Wade,” Sen. John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican who is seeking a second term next year, said in a fundraising appeal sent hours after the court debate. “There is not much else I can say other than that.” In addition to the congressional elections, how the justices dispose of the case holds potentially grave implications for the court itself. The stature and credibility of the court were prominent subtexts of Wednesday’s arguments, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointedly asking how the court would “survive the stench” of overturning Roe in what many would see as a blatantly political act. After Senate Republicans in 2016 blocked President Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy with almost a year left in his term, progressives began calling for adding seats to the court or setting term limits on the now-lifetime appointments to offset what they saw as an unfair advantage seized by Republicans. Then, when Republicans seated Justice Amy Coney Barrett just days before the 2020 election, those calls intensified. However, President Joe Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been lukewarm to the idea of tinkering with the court, and a commission he formed to study the idea is not expected to embrace significant changes. But demands for expanding the court or instituting other changes are likely to be reignited if the justices reverse what much of the country sees as an important precedent after hardball politics played a major role in constituting the court’s conservative membership. “This push will go into hyperdrive if the court upholds Mississippi’s ban, let alone overturns Roe outright,” predicted Brian Fallon, the executive director of the progressive group Demand Justice. Given Biden’s struggles and the tradition of voters turning on the party that controls the White House in midterm elections, Democrats see the abortion fight as a potential way to attract the suburban voters — particularly women — who helped elect Biden and Democratic majorities in 2020 but moved away from Democrats in elections this year. “We’re talking about rolling back the clock on health care for women 50 years,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, a member of the Democratic leadership. “Obviously a whole generation of women have been able to get the health care they need and make their own reproductive choices, and I think you’ll be shocked to fully see what this means.” Anticipating an adverse Supreme Court ruling, House Democrats this year passed on a party-line vote a bill that would incorporate Roe into federal law. The Senate is expected to vote on it at some point to put Republicans on the record, but it has no chance of passage since it will be blocked by a Republican filibuster. Party strategists say the abortion issue has already demonstrated salience in Nevada, another key race in the battle for Senate control. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who is seeking reelection, is a strong proponent of abortion rights, while a leading Republican opponent, Adam Laxalt, opposes abortion rights and as attorney general joined efforts to limit the procedure. In New Hampshire, a state with a history of strongly favouring abortion rights, Hassan and fellow Democrats have repeatedly criticised state Republicans for cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood and instituting new abortion restrictions such as mandatory ultrasounds for those seeking to terminate a pregnancy. Despite the decision by Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, not to challenge her next November, Hassan is still likely to face difficult opposition given the political climate. She vowed in a statement on Wednesday that she “will not be shy about contrasting my record of protecting reproductive rights with their support for policies that take away women’s liberty.” Her Democratic state colleague, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, told reporters this week before the court hearing that “we cannot allow Republican lawmakers to turn back the clock on women’s reproductive health and rights, which is precisely what the Mississippi case seeks to do.” “It is time to sound the alarm,” Shaheen said. © 2021 The New York Times Company",2
"The decree,
which entered into force immediately, said charter flights from Russia to
Turkey would be banned, that tour firms would be told not to sell any holidays
there, and that unspecified Turkish imports would be outlawed, and Turkish
firms and nationals have their economic activities halted or curbed. ""The
circumstances are unprecedented. The gauntlet thrown down to Russia is
unprecedented. So naturally the reaction is in line with this threat,""
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said hours before the decree was published. A senior
Turkish official told Reuters the sanctions would only worsen the standoff
between Moscow and Ankara. But aides to
Putin say he is incandescent that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has yet to
apologise for the Nov 24 incident near the Syrian-Turkish border in which one
Russian pilot was killed along with a Russian marine who tried to rescue the
crew of the downed SU-24 jet. Senior
Russian officials have called the episode, one of the most serious publicly
acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a
century, a pre-planned provocation. Erdogan has
been equally robust. He has said Turkey will not apologise for downing the jet,
saying Ankara was fully within its rights to defend its air space. On Saturday,
he appeared to soften his rhetoric a little, saying the episode had saddened
him. Putin's
spokesman suggested the Russian leader was ready for a long standoff however,
saying he was ""fully mobilised"" to tackle what he regarded as an
unprecedented threat from Turkey. National
security The decree,
posted on the Kremlin's website, spoke of the need to protect Russia's national
security and Russian citizens ""from criminal and other illegal
activities"". In it, Putin
ordered the government to prepare a list of goods, firms and jobs that would be
affected. Some of the measures announced have already been informally
introduced. The
government is expected to publish the list of banned imports on Monday,
Interfax news agency reported, citing a government source. The list is
likely to include food and some other products, a second government source
said. Turkey
mainly sells food, agricultural products and textiles to Moscow and is also one
of the most popular holiday destinations for Russians. Peskov,
Putin's spokesman, said he thought up to 200,000 Turkish citizens could be on
Russian soil. Putin signed
the decree days before a climate change summit in Paris. Erdogan said earlier
on Saturday it could be a chance to repair relations with Moscow. ""Confrontation
will not bring anyone happiness. As much as Russia is important for Turkey,
Turkey is important for Russia,"" Erdogan said in a televised speech in the
western city of Baliksehir. Peskov said
Putin was aware of a Turkish request for him to meet Erdogan on the sidelines
of the Paris conference but gave no indication of whether such a meeting would
take place. He called
the behaviour of the Turkish air force ""absolute madness"" and said
Ankara's subsequent handling of the crisis had reminded him of the ""theatre
of the absurd"". ""Nobody
has the right to traitorously shoot down a Russian plane from behind,""
Peskov told Russia's ""News on Saturday"" TV programme, calling Turkish
evidence purporting to show the Russian jet had violated Turkish air space
""cartoons"". Turkey's
foreign ministry advised people on Saturday to postpone all non-urgent travel
to Russia. Peskov,
according to the TASS news agency, also spoke on Saturday of how Erdogan's son
had a ""certain interest"" in the oil industry. Putin has
said oil from Syrian territory controlled by Islamic State militants is finding
its way to Turkey. Erdogan has
spoken of slander and asked anyone making such accusations to back up their
words with evidence.",0
" If Vivaldi were writing 'The Four Seasons' today, he might want to make 'Spring' longer since it is coming earlier in Italy and may portend trouble for farmers. A new study has found that spring is arriving two weeks ahead of time and many plants are flowering 10 to 20 days earlier than usual, possibly due to global warming. The report is a warning for Italy's farmers who fear that early germination or fruiting will put their crops at greater risk of frost and that droughts may become a regular problem. ""It's obvious to everyone that the climate is changing,"" said Franco Bruno, a botanist from Rome's Sapienza University, who conducted the research. He said the findings were in line with longer-term studies of trees which showed Italy's environment is warming. The study, 'Map of Spring', commissioned by the Italian government, looked at nine species of trees and flowers to see when they bloom, fruit and produce and shed leaves. Although the study has only been running for the last two years, the scientists behind it, and Italian policy makers, said it was in line with other evidence that the country was already warming, probably due to global climate change. ""We're not climatologists, but we have observed at least five structural effects,"" said Stefano Masini, of Italian farmers' organisation Coldiretti. In addition to the early sprouting of cereals, farmers were experiencing greater soil erosion due to warmer, drier weather and vegetable crops like fava beans and asparagus, which usually go to market in May, were already on sale in March, he said. Prime Minister Romano Prodi has warned farmers to prepare for drought this year after the warm and dry winter. Worldwide, climate change could cause severe food and water shortages for millions of people by 2100, according a draft United Nations report due for release next month.",0
" The Nobel Peace Prize panel on Thursday defended its award to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo as based on ""universal values,"" rejecting Beijing's accusation that it is trying force Western ideas on China. China maintained its combative tone on the eve of the prize ceremony in Oslo, and announced the award of its own ""Confucius Peace Prize"" to former Taiwan vice-president Lien Chan, though his office said he was unaware of the award. China jailed Liu last Christmas Day for 11 years for subversion of state power and for being the lead author of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for democratic reform in the one-party state. Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told a news conference the award of the prize to Liu was not a protest. ""It is a signal to China that it would be very important for China's future to combine economic development with political reforms and support for those in China fighting for basic human rights,"" he said. ""This prize conveys the understanding that these are universal rights and universal values, they are not Western standards,"" he added. His comments were unlikely to placate Beijing, where Communist Party ideologists consider ""universal values"" to be codewords for Western liberalization. CHINA ATTACKS U.S. CONGRESS Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu criticized the U.S. House of Representatives for calling on China to release Liu and his wife Liu Xia, who is under house arrest. Jiang told a regular news briefing any attempts to pressure or ""deter China from its development"" would not succeed. ""China urges the relevant U.S. lawmakers to stop the wrong words and activity on the Liu Xiaobo issue and to change their arrogant and rude attitude,"" Jiang said. ""They should show respect to the Chinese people and China's legal sovereignty."" ""The U.S. Congress' so-called resolution distorts the truth, it is widely meddling in China's internal affairs,"" she said. ""Liu Xiaobo was not convicted because of his remarks,"" she said. ""Liu wrote and published inflammatory articles on the Internet, organizing and persuading others to sign it, to stir up and overthrow China's political authority and social system. ""Liu's problem is that he has gone beyond general criticism; it was an act that jeopardized society,"" Jiang said. China's crackdown on dissidents, rights activists and friends and family of Liu has continued. Police barred lawyers, scholars and NGO representatives from attending a seminar on the rule of law at the European Union's embassy in Beijing, the EU's ambassador to China said. ""It is a pity and in fact it is a shame,"" Serge Abou said. China has flexed its economic muscle in drumming up support for a boycott of the Oslo award ceremony for Liu on Friday. Most of the 18 or 19 states joining the boycott have strong commercial ties with China or share its hostility toward Western human rights pressure. China said the ""vast majority"" of nations would boycott the ceremony. The Norwegian award committee says two-thirds of those invited would attend. ""WESTERN CRUSADE"" The Chinese delegation to UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, has refused to meet Oslo's team, led by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Environment Minister Erik Solheim. ""There is no doubt that China sees the Peace Prize as a part of a Western crusade against their form of government,"" Solheim was quoted as saying. Chinese state-run media accused the West of ""launching a new round of China-bashing."" A number of countries and international human rights organizations have criticized Beijing for its sweeping crackdown on dissent ahead of the Oslo ceremony, preventing Liu's friends and family from attending. ""The Chinese government should be celebrating this global recognition of a Chinese writer and activist,"" said Salil Shetty, secretary general of rights group Amnesty International. ""Instead, the government's very public tantrum has generated even more critical attention inside and outside China -- and, ironically, emphasized the significance of Liu Xiaobo's message of respect for human rights,"" Shetty said. Beijing has briefly blacked out BBC and CNN reports on Liu and his supporters over the past few days, though foreign news channels are generally only available in upmarket hotels and apartment buildings mostly inhabited by foreigners.",0
"The funding would help achieve a global goal set more than a decade ago of $100 billion per year to support climate action in vulnerable countries by 2020. ""The best part is, making these ambitious investments isn't just good climate policy, it's a chance for each of our countries to invest in ourselves and our own future,"" Biden told the annual gathering of world leaders. Biden made the commitment less than six weeks before the Oct 31-Nov 12 COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Core elements of his climate change agenda remain tied to the fate of infrastructure and budget legislation under intense negotiation in Congress, raising the risk that he could arrive at the summit empty handed. The host of the conference, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said that meeting the climate finance target is key to building trust between developing and developed nations ahead of new negotiations since developed countries have failed to mobilize the $100 billion per year pledge by the original goal year of 2020. Developing countries have been urging industrialized nations to offer financial assistance to help them both rapidly adopt clean energy technologies enabling them to avoid the use of fossil fuels and bolster their defenses against the impacts of climate change from sea level rise to extreme heat. Some environmental groups welcomed the new pledge as a much needed boost for the Paris climate agreement ahead of November's summit in Scotland but others were less impressed by Biden's speech, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. ""President Biden’s commitment to scaling up international climate finance to $11.4 billion per year by 2024 is a welcome and much-needed sign that the United States is finally taking its global climate responsibilities seriously,"" said Rachel Cleetus, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. But as the world's second biggest greenhouse gas emitter, other campaigners said the pledge still falls short. ""The US is still woefully short of what it owes and this needs to be increased urgently,"" said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa. Thunberg criticised climate speeches and pledges at the UN as hollow. ""It’s quite easy to understand why the world’s top emitters of CO2 and the biggest producers of fossil fuels want to make it seem like they’re taking sufficient climate action with fancy speeches. The fact that they still get away with it is another matter,"" Thunberg wrote on Twitter. Johnson and European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen called out the United states on Monday for lagging behind on delivering its share. An analysis by the World Resources Institute shows that even with the US increasing its climate aid commitment to $11.4 billion by 2024, it pales in comparison to the $24.5 billion that the EU spent on climate aid in 2019. Another report released last week - ahead of the Biden announcement - by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said that overall, rich countries fell short of the $100 billion goal, contributing just $79.6 billion in 2019.",0
" A few weeks ago, a leading opposition activist sat down in a downtown Khartoum office to talk to a journalist. The young man immediately removed the battery from his cellphone. ""It's so they can't trace you,"" he said, placing the battery and the phone on the table. ""Any one of the security agencies spread throughout the country can arrest you."" Despite that danger, the activist, from an underground group called ""Change Now,"" said he was convinced Sudan is on the brink of its own Arab Spring uprising. Hard times and growing frustration with the two-decades-old government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir have sparked small protests in Khartoum and other university cities in the Arab-African state. The demonstrations are still tiny compared with those that shook Egypt and Libya. Sometimes about 30 people show up, hold banners denouncing the government for a couple of minutes, and then melt away before security agents arrive. But the demonstrations have become more frequent in the past few months and the question is, could they lead to something bigger? The main economic challenge is plain. When South Sudan seceded from the north last year, Khartoum lost about three-quarters of its oil, the main source of state revenues and hard currency. The Sudanese pound has slumped by as much as 70 percent below the official rate. Annual inflation is at 18 percent as the cost of food imports has shot up. Wars against insurgencies in different parts of the still-vast country have also soaked up government funds. In 1985, protests against food inflation toppled President Jaafar Nimeiri in some 10 days. But the government in Khartoum today says the economy is not nearly as bad as it was in the 1980s, when people had to queue for days to get rationed petrol or food. Sudan, it says, will not follow Egypt or Tunisia. Rabie Abdelati, a senior official in the information ministry and Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP), said that the economy was much better than in 1989 when Bashir came to power. ""The situation at that time was very terrible,"" he said. ""The government has the ability to overcome all obstacles."" A relaxed-looking Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, spoke on state television for almost two hours last week to assure the population that the economic situation was under control. ""We have a 3-year economic program (but) this year will be the most difficult,"" the president said. ""IT WAS LIKE ANGER ERUPTED"" On the surface, life in the capital looks normal. Construction cranes loom on the banks of the Nile, working on new buildings and roads. The city bustles with foreign workers, maids and hotel staff. But there are sporadic signs that public anger is rising. In the last week of December, authorities temporarily closed the University of Khartoum after villagers displaced by a huge hydro-electric dam staged a protest, inspiring a week of some of the biggest student demonstrations in years. Weeks later, the spray-painted graffiti calling for ""revolution"" still covered a few walls near the university. ""Most people didn't care about the first demonstration as we were all in exams mode,"" said a female computer technology student who took part. But when police came to the dormitories one night to detain some students, ""it turned into a protest not just against the dam but against poverty, inflation and the bad situation for students,"" said the woman, playing with her blue head scarf. ""It was like anger erupted,"" she added. ""Now they want to punish us by closing the university, but it will make things worse. We don't get jobs after graduation. Life is so expensive, people are very angry."" Abdelati, the information ministry official, said the protests were small and the university would reopen shortly. OIL AND CONFLICTS Sitting in front of a small metal workshop in downtown Khartoum, Sudanese construction worker Fateh Totu takes his time to recall when he last worked for longer than a week. At the moment he gets jobs for a couple of days, with sometimes a week in between. ""Three, four years ago life was much better. The country was in good shape. Construction work was good,"" Totu said, drawing nods from fellow workers sitting on small plastic chairs along a dusty road. South Sudan's independence deprived Sudan - a country of 32 million people - of around 350,000 barrels per day (bpd) of the roughly 500,000 it pumped. Since then, oil exports, which made up 90 percent of Sudan's total exports, have fallen to zero. The remaining output in the north of around 115,000 bpd serves only domestic consumption. Industry insiders doubt significant new reserves will be found. But Azhari Abdallah, a senior oil official, said production would rise this year to 180,000 bpd, helped by more efficient technology and recovery rates. Other officials are less optimistic. Central bank governor Mohamed Kheir al-Zubeir has asked fellow Arab countries to deposit $4 billion (2 billion pounds) with the central bank and commercial lenders to stabilise the economy. Finance Minister Ali Mahmoud said in September Sudan might need $1.5 billion in foreign aid annually. ""The state spends a vast proportion of available resources on the security services. With three conflicts ongoing, the military's claim on the national treasury is only growing,"" said Aly Verjee, an analyst at the Rift Valley Institute. ""While some austerity measures have been implemented, there is a general unwillingness in the government to take any step that might lead to popular discontent."" Landlocked South Sudan must pump its oil through Sudan to the Red Sea. Northern officials hope the transit fees they charges will help. But a deal has been elusive - oil analysts say Khartoum has demanded a transit fee more than 10 times the international standard - and the breakaway state has so far refused to pay. Khartoum has seized oil awaiting shipment to compensate for what it argues are unpaid fees. Industry sources say the north has sold at least one shipment of southern oil. In protest, South Sudan has shut down production. OUTLOOK: ""STABLE"" How to find new revenues? Khartoum expects to have exported $3 billion of gold in 2011 plus another $1 billion of other minerals. Mining workers say the real figures are less than a third of that. ""Only 7 of the 70 projected tonnes of gold output for 2011 come from regular mines,"" said a foreign mining executive who declined to be named. ""The rest is produced by gold seekers whose output is very hard to verify, and often ends up being smuggled abroad."" The government predicts 2 percent growth in 2012 but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) thinks the economy will contract. A senior Sudanese analyst with ties to the government says food inflation is much higher than the official figure. Prices for meat, sugar, vegetable oil and other staples are doubling every year, according to the analyst, who asked not to be named. Customs officials at Khartoum airport now search almost every piece of luggage brought into the country, hoping to find a laptop or other electric device on which they can charge duties. Khartoum had long known the South would secede, but did little to diversify its economy away from oil, bankers say. Just days after South Sudan became independent last July, Sudan's parliament, which is controlled by Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP), passed a budget predicting stable oil revenues. ""They just thought it would continue like that,"" said a senior banker in Khartoum who declined to be named. ""That's why I doubt they now have a plan to turn the economy around."" Harry Verhoeven, a researcher at the University of Oxford who has studied Sudan extensively, said Khartoum had used its oil revenues for large, expensive projects such as the Merowe dam that sparked December's protest. ISOLATED Since the united States imposed a trade embargo on Sudan in 1997, most Western firms have shunned the country. The ongoing domestic insurgencies and the International Criminal Court's indictment of Bashir mean that's unlikely to end any time soon. That leaves Khartoum reliant on China, its biggest trading partner, and Gulf Arab states. But no substantial aid or loans have been announced yet apart from small development programs. At an Arab investment conference in December, prominent Saudi businessman Sheikh Saleh Kamal slammed Sudan's taxation, investment, land and work laws. ""I said it already in the '90s but I repeat it again since nothing has changed,"" said Kamal, head of Islamic lender Al-Baraka Banking Group and the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry. ""The investment climate in Sudan does not help to attract any investments."" MIXED MESSAGES Despite the growing problems, organising protests isn't easy. Power cuts, unreliable cell phone networks and low internet usage make it hard to mobilise people through Facebook or Twitter as happened in Egypt. Activists are trying to link up with groups such as the people displaced by the Merowe dam, or poor farmers. Many are frustrated with the inconsistent and ineffectual opposition parties, most of which are run by former rulers in their 70s. Activists say the main opposition party, the Umma Party, is unwilling to call for mass protests. The party's veteran chairman Sadeq al-Mahdi recently said he wanted the president to go. But his son just became a presidential assistant in Bashir's office. The leaders of another big opposition party have decided to join the government. For the female computer technology student, the only way is out. ""I'm just tired of Sudanese politics. I think there will be a revolution, but nothing will change. We will have the same people,"" she said. ""I just want to leave Sudan. I don't see any job prospects here. I think 90 percent of students want to leave Sudan.""",1
"""Know Your Rights and Claim Them"" - written with human rights lawyer Geraldine Van Bueren, one of the original drafters of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - aims to equip kids with the knowledge to safely challenge injustices. ""So many children are in harm's way across the world and we're simply not doing enough,"" Jolie told Reuters in an interview. ""These are their rights, decided years ago based on what would make them healthy, balanced, safe and stable adults."" Jolie, special envoy for UN refugee agency UNHCR, said she hoped the book would also remind governments of their commitment to the global treaty enshrining children's civil, social, political and economic rights. ""We spent a lot of time blocking those rights, so this book is to help the kids have a tool book to say 'these are your rights, these are things you need to question to see how far you, depending on your country and circumstance, are from accessing those rights, what are your obstacles, others that came before you and fought, ways you can fight'. So it's a handbook to fight back."" The mother-of-six said she put up the UN convention in her home for her children, but was surprised to learn her own country, the United States, has not ratified it. ""That infuriated me and made me start to question what does that mean? So for each country, what is this idea of, you have the right to an education ... but then why is it so many children are out of school? Why is it the girls in Afghanistan are being harmed if they go?"" she said. HOW TO BE AN ACTIVIST The book addresses identity, justice, education and protection from harm, among other issues. It provides guidance on becoming an activist, being safe and a glossary of terms and organisations. ""Through the book, you have to find your own path forward, because we are very concerned about the safety of children. We don't want children just running around screaming for their rights and putting themselves in danger,"" Jolie said. The book is peppered with examples of powerful young voices from around the world, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, climate activist Greta Thunberg and 15-year-old Palestinian journalist Janna Jihad. ""I was trying to ... show the world what Palestinian children face on a daily basis,"" Jihad, who lives in the village of Nabi Salih, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told Jolie and other young activists in a video call, attended by Reuters, where they discussed their campaign work. ""It's really important to band together with other young people ... that's the way we will ever be able ... to make change,"" added London-based Christina Adane, 17, who campaigns for a healthier food system. The book is out in Britain on Thursday and for pre-order in other countries, with the aim of worldwide publication. ""We're going to find that some adults in some countries are going to block the book and the children will find it so I think that's how it's going to reach more children,"" Jolie said. ""The children will make each other aware of it and they might even be a part of translating it and getting it to each other.""",2
"Each weekday Raden Roro Hendarti rides her three wheeler with books stacked up at the back for children in Muntang village to exchange for plastic cups, bags and other waste that she carries back. She told Reuters she is helping inculcate reading in the kids as well make them aware of the environment. As soon as she shows up, little children, many accompanied by their mothers, surround her ""Trash Library"" and clamour for the books. They are all carrying trash bags and Raden's three-wheeler quickly fills up with them as the books fly out. She's happy the kids are going to spend less time on online games as a result. ""Let us build a culture of literacy from young age to mitigate the harm of the online world,"" Raden said. ""We should also take care of our waste in order to fight climate change and to save the earth from trash,"" Raden said. 
 
 

She collects about 100 kg (220 lbs) of waste each week, which is then sorted out by her colleagues and sent for recycling or sold. She has a stock of 6,000 books to lend and wants to take the mobile service to neighbouring areas as well.   Kevin Alamsyah, an avid 11-year-old reader, scours for waste lying in the village. ""When there is too much trash, our environment will become dirty and it's not healthy. That's why I look for trash to borrow a book,"" he says. Jiah Palupi, the head of the main public library in the area, said Raden's work complemented their efforts to combat online gaming addiction among the youth and promote reading. The literacy rate for above-15-year-olds in Indonesia is around 96 percent, but a September report by the World Bank warned that the pandemic will leave more than 80% of 15-year-olds below the minimum reading proficiency level identified by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.",2
"BEIJING, Sun Apr 19, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The global financial crisis is unlikely to deter growing long-term demand for new nuclear power plants, international atomic agency officials said on Sunday, ahead of a conference to discuss the future of atomic power. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials and national and international energy representatives are gathering in Beijing to discuss prospects for atomic power during a global slowdown, climate change and energy worries, and tensions over the nuclear programmes of North Korea and Iran. Thierry Dujardin, a deputy director of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency, said that although the financial crisis was making it more difficult to fund some proposed nuclear power plants, longer-term worries about energy security and global warming were likely to buffer the impact of the crisis on the sector. ""In the short term, it's obvious that it will be more difficult to find the funding for new investments, heavy investment, in energy infrastructure, such as nuclear power plants,"" Dujardin told a news conference. ""There is a chance that nuclear energy as such will not be so strongly impacted by the current economic crisis, because the need for energy will be there."" Dong Batong, of the China's atomic energy industry association, said his country was committed to dramatically expanding nuclear power, despite the slowdown in growth. ""We've made nuclear power an important measure for stimulating domestic [economic] demand,"" Dong told the news conference, noting that dozens of new nuclear units are being built or planned across the country. Nuclear power provides 14 percent of global electricity supplies, according to the Vienna-based IAEA, and that proportion is set to grow as nations seek to contain fuel bills and the greenhouse gas emissions dangerously warming the planet. Much of the expected expansion is in Asia. As of the end of August 2008, China topped the list of countries with nuclear power plants under construction, with 5,220 megawatts (MW), followed by India at 2,910 MW and South Korea at 2,880 MW, according to the International Energy Agency. But the ambitious plans for nuclear power growth across the developing world also risk straining safety standards and safeguards against weapons proliferation. Yuri Sokolov, deputy director-general of the IAEA, said governments looking to expand nuclear energy had to ensure regulators were backed by effective legislation and properly trained staff. But even North Korea, facing international censure for recently launching a long-range rocket and abandoning nuclear disarmament talks, has the right to nuclear power stations, said Sokolov. ""Each country is entitled to have a civilian nuclear programme,"" he said, calling North Korea a ""difficult situation."" ""If it's ready to cooperate with the international community, I think that the international community will be able to provide the support for civil nuclear power development in North Korea."" North Korea renounced its membership of the IAEA years ago, and last week expelled IAEA officials who had been invited back to monitor a shuttered nuclear complex that Pyongyang has said it will restart. The director-general of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, will give an opening speech to the nuclear energy meeting on Monday.",0
" President George W Bush announced new US sanctions against Myanmar on Tuesday as world leaders at the UN General Assembly focused on rising protests against military rule in the southeast Asian state. Urging all nations to ""help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom,"" Bush imposed financial sanctions and widened a visa ban on members of the military junta. His call came hours after 10,000 Buddhist monks again defied the ruling generals by marching through Yangon chanting ""democracy, democracy"" in the biggest challenge for two decades. ""Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma where a military junta has imposed a 19-year reign of fear,"" the US leader told the world body in his annual speech. Myanmar was formerly called Burma and its capital Rangoon. ""The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers,"" Bush said. The Myanmar protests temporarily pushed concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions and the fight against climate change down the agenda at the United Nations, as well as conflicts in Darfur, Iraq and the Middle East. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the assembled kings, presidents and prime ministers the world was closely watching developments in Myanmar. ""We again urge the authorities in Myanmar to exercise utmost restraint, to engage without delay in dialogue with all the relevant parties to the national reconciliation process on the issues of concern to the people of Myanmar,"" Ban told the assembly after private talks with Bush. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the European Union to tighten sanctions against the Myanmar government and wrote to Ban calling for ""concerted international action to discourage violence"" against the pro-democracy demonstrators. Meeting on the sidelines of the UN session, EU foreign ministers expressed solidarity in a statement with the people of Myanmar and ""admiration for the courageous monks, nuns and other citizens who are exercising their rights of peaceful demonstration"" but made no mention of sanctions. Bush was one of the first speakers on a list that included Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad later on Tuesday, the second time the bitter foes have dueled at a distance from the UN rostrum without meeting each other. Despite the United States leading efforts for more UN sanctions against Tehran to curtail its nuclear program, Bush made only a passing reference to Iran in his speech, attacking its human rights record without mentioning the nuclear issue. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the fact that Bush only touched on Iran did not mean U.S. concerns about Tehran's suspected drive to develop nuclear weapons have diminished. ""We talk about Iran constantly,"" she said. ""We're talking about it with our partners to press on those U.N. Security Council resolutions."" Ahmadinejad's blitz of speaking engagements and media interviews captured much of the spotlight from other leaders in New York for the General Assembly. He insisted Iran's nuclear program was purely for peaceful purposes . The United States accuses Iran of supporting terrorism and arming insurgents in Iraq. Washington is pushing for a third UN sanctions resolution over Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, but faces opposition from China and Russia. Ban and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also focused in their speeches on the fight against climate change, a day after a UN conference on the issue which Bush skipped. Lula said Brazil would step up production of biofuels to help protect the environment and assure food production. Ban called for ""action, action, action"" to combat global warming. Bush, who has rejected binding curbs on greenhouse gas emissions blamed for heating the planet, barely mentioned the issue in his speech.",0
"Natalie Gulsrud scoffs at these details. It is nearing 4 pm, darkness already bringing finality to this bleak November afternoon. She has to go to the child care centre to pick up her 5-year-old son — “5 and a half,” he quickly corrects, later. She has to stop for groceries and then head home for dinner. Like tens of thousands of other people in Denmark’s elegant yet frequently dank capital, she pedals her way through her daily rounds, relying on the world’s most advanced and widely used network of bicycle lanes. She does not own a car. She does not want a car. She settles her bag into the front compartment of her cargo bike — a three-wheeled contraption built for hauling children and groceries that is something like the sport utility vehicle of local family transportation. She climbs aboard the saddle, gathers her overcoat around her and leans into the uncompromising wind. “People here say there’s no such thing as bad weather,” said Gulsrud, 39. “Only bad clothing.” On the other side of the Atlantic, New York has just proclaimed intentions to spend $1.7 billion to greatly expand the city’s now-convoluted and treacherous patchwork of bicycle lanes. Local leaders speak of dismantling car culture and replacing it with a wholesome dependence on human-powered vehicles. The mission is draped in high-minded goals — addressing climate change, unclogging traffic and promoting exercise. Copenhagen’s legendary bicycle setup has been propelled by all of these aspirations, but the critical element is the simplest: People here eagerly use their bicycles — in any weather, carrying the young, the infirm, the elderly and the dead — because it is typically the easiest way to get around. “It’s A to B-ism,” said Mikael Colville-Andersen, a raffish bicycle evangelist who preaches the gospel of Copenhagen to other cities. “It’s the fastest way from point to point.” The bicycle is liberation from municipal buses and their frequent stops. The bicycle spares people from having to worry about where to park cars. The bicycle puts people in control of when they leave and when they arrive. “Some people ride their bikes to the hospital to give birth,” said Gulsrud, who is herself pregnant with her second child. “I’m not going to do that.” A former neighbour of Gulsrud’s operates a bicycle mortuary service, pedaling the departed to their final destinations in caskets. Mail carriers use bicycles to deliver parcels. People use bicycles to go to the airport, sometimes pushing wheeled suitcases alongside them while they roll. Some 49% of all journeys to school and work occur by bicycle, according to the city, up from 36% a decade ago. When the municipal government recently surveyed Copenhagen’s bikers on what inspires them to bike, 55% said it was more convenient than the alternatives. Only 16% cited environmental benefits. “It’s not in the morning, when you’re late for work, that you want to save the planet,” said Marie Kastrup, who heads the city’s bicycle program. On weekday mornings, some 42,000 people traverse the Queen Louise’s bridge in central Copenhagen, bringing residents from fashionable neighbourhoods in the north into the city’s medieval centre. On a recent soggy Monday, a woman in high heels and a trench coat pedaled a cargo bike decked out like a city taxi, her three toddlers in the front compartment. A plumber traversed the traffic in a cargo bike, his tools stashed in the compartment. Bicycles vastly outnumber cars. Most of the bicycles were old-school upright varieties distinguished by their utility and lack of appeal to thieves, whose ubiquity is a gnawing source of worry among the pedaling class. But on the opposite side of the thoroughfare, in a shopfront done up like a Parisian boutique, a retailer, Larry vs Harry, displayed its sleek, shiny two-wheeled cargo bike, The Bullitt, which sells for as much as 43,450 Danish kroner (about $6,500). Three models are parked in the front window, green, yellow and red, glinting like Ferraris. Nearby at Nihola, a cargo bike brand that is more like the Toyota of the pedaling scene, a showroom displays compartments big enough to fit four children. One can carry a wheelchair. Front doors swing open, allowing toddlers and dogs to climb in. Copenhagen’s status as a global exemplar of bicycle culture owes to the accommodating flatness of the terrain and the lack of a Danish auto industry, which might have hijacked the policy levers. Trouble also played a role. The global oil shock of the 1970s lifted the price of gasoline, making driving exorbitantly costly. A dismal economy in the 1980s brought the city to the brink of bankruptcy, depriving it of financing to build roads, and making bicycle lanes an appealingly thrifty alternative. The city focused on making biking safe and comfortable, setting lanes apart from cars on every street. As biking captured mass interest, improving the infrastructure became good politics. When it snows in Copenhagen, bike lanes are typically plowed first. This was the situation that drew Gulsrud to Copenhagen from her native United States. Raised in the Pacific Northwest, she was pursuing graduate studies in public policy and working to promote bicycle commuting in Seattle when she opted for a semester in Copenhagen in 2009. She fell hard for the city, transferred her studies here and now teaches natural resources management at the University of Copenhagen. She and her husband, Kasper Rasmussen, his 9-year-old daughter, Pixie, and their son Pascal, live in a sixth-story walk-up apartment in Vesterbro, a former warren of leatherworks shops that has rapidly gentrified, yielding peculiar contrasts. Prostitutes trawl for customers at night, walking past shops that sell Tibetan mandala paintings, organic produce and essential oils. “The other day, I heard people talking about whether their dogs were vegan,” Gulsrud said. She picked up Pascal in the handsome yet fading villa that is his child care center. He balked at putting on his coat despite the chill. She strapped him into a harness inside her compartment as he pulled on his helmet. She zipped shut a clear plastic cover, shielding him from the weather. Then she rode through puddles to the grocery store, where she scanned dozens of bicycles lining the sidewalk until she found a spot big enough to accommodate hers. Emerging from the market, she deposited her groceries — kale, milk, Greek yogurt — into the compartment in front of Pascal and rode a few blocks to her apartment. She pulled open the gate and wheeled into the courtyard. The walls there were lined with bicycles — the cargo bike her neighbor, a medical student, uses to transport her three children, including her 6-month-old in a bassinet; her husband’s cargo bike, which includes an electric engine to help with hills; and standard bicycles used by the Pakistani immigrant family upstairs, by the Argentine Brazilian couple and their two small children, and by her neighbor from Sweden and her wife and their two children. Not long ago, modernity felt bound for something like the Jetsons, with families zipping around via jet packs. But maybe this is the future, a resumption of the past, upgraded by contemporary design. “The infrastructure is there and it’s safe,” Rasmussen said as he prepared a comforting dinner of squash soup and home-baked sourdough bread. “Why wouldn’t you bike? It’s stupid not to bike.” c.2019 The New York Times Company",0
"The Warsaw meeting, which had been due to end on Friday, was meant to lay the groundwork for creating the first climate accord to be applicable to all nations by 2015, which would come into force after 2020.However the only concrete measure to have emerged was an agreement on new rules to protect tropical forests, which soak up carbon dioxide as they grow.Nearly 200 countries assembled at the UN conference have stumbled over three major issues over the past two weeks: the level of emissions cuts, climate finance and a ""mechanism"" to help poor countries deal with loss and damage from global warming.""Climate change talks are still on knife edge after a long night. A few countries (are) insisting on looking backwards. Could be a long day,"" British Energy and Climate Change Minister Edward Davey said on Twitter.Developed nations, which promised in 2009 to raise climate aid to $100 billion a year after 2020 from $10 billion a year in the period 2010-12, were resisting calls by the developing world to set targets for 2013-19.A draft text merely urged developed nations, which have been more focused on spurring economic growth than on fixing climate change, to set ""increasing levels"" of aid.It also suggested they report every two years on their approaches to stepping up finance levels to $100 billion.A group of developing countries and China were in favour of an amendment to the text that ""at least $70 billion"" a year of climate finance is committed from 2016.
 
 

   OvertimeThe talks have also proposed a new ""Warsaw Mechanism"" which would provide expertise, and possibly aid, to help developing nations cope with loss and damage from extreme events such as heat waves, droughts and floods, and creeping threats such as rising sea levels and desertification.Developing nations have insisted on a ""mechanism"" - to show it was separate from existing structures - even though rich countries say that it will not get new funds beyond the planned $100 billion a year from 2020.Many delegates also said they wanted a clearer understanding of when nations will publish their plans for long-term cuts in greenhouse gases in the run-up to a summit in Paris in 2015.A text on Saturday said that all nations should ""initiate or intensify"" their domestic preparations for ""intended nationally determined commitments"" and have them ready by the end of the first quarter of 2015, if they could.The United States is among those advocating pledges be made by the end of the first quarter of 2015. The European Union is among countries which want pledges in 2014.""It's not everything we wanted, but we know there are some issues we cannot solve here,"" Pete Betts, lead negotiator for the European Union, told delegates.Meanwhile, many developing nations want to see more urgency. Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, which has killed over 5,000 people, has put the spotlight on extreme weather.In September, a UN panel of scientists raised the probability that most climate change since 1950 is man-made to at least 95 percent, from 90 in a previous assessment in 2007.It also said that ""sustained and substantial"" cuts in greenhouse gases were needed to achieve a UN goal of limiting warming to manageable levels.""We have compromised on many issues, but there is a limit for compromise by the most vulnerable countries of this planet,"" said Nepal's Prakash Mathema, chair of the group of least developed countries.",0
"For one thing, after a decade of disengagement with Narendra Modi, Washington is eager to make a fresh start. The US is sending three cabinet secretaries to India in quick succession - Kerry (State), Penny Pritzker (Commerce), and Chuck Hagel (Defence) - and Washington is preparing to host Modi himself in September. From the US perspective, Modi’s government offers a welcome respite from years of perceived strategic and economic drift under UPA-2.But Kerry’s visit is also very well timed:First, the NDA government has been in office for nearly two months. Modi has met Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, among others, so it is high time for cabinet-level US engagement.Second, as Kerry himself argued in a speech this week, relations with strategically important countries cannot be shunted to the sidelines by crises. For over a decade, India has been among the small group of countries vital to American strategy. And the US has a strong stake in continued Indian reform and success-especially as they contribute to global growth, promote market-based economic policies, help secure the global commons, and maintain a mutually favourable balance of power in Asia.Third, Kerry and others, including Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, just attended the US-China strategic and economic dialogue in Beijing. Continued absence from New Delhi at the cabinet level would invite unflattering comparisons between US approaches to China and India.The two sides’ first challenge is to find new ways of working effectively. Modi, unlike UPA-2, has designed an administration with a strengthened executive and an activist Office of the Prime Minister. In such a set-up, there are inherent limits to reliance on ritualized Strategic Dialogue between foreign ministries.The two sides should relook existing structures, reinvigorating trade, defence, and CEO forums. But they also need new lines of coordination that reflect the emerging institutional and political set-up in New Delhi.Kerry is attending a Strategic Dialogue (capitalized “S” and “D”) that has been a calendar-driven exercise. What the two countries need is a “real” strategic dialogue (lower case “s” and “d”), built upon a less ritualized but more powerful set of first principles: strengthened coordination, no surprises on core security equities, sensitivity to each other’s domestic constraints, and frequent not ritualized contact at the highest levels.The most immediate need is to strengthen trust after a rough patch.From India’s perspective, the causes of these frictions include US trade cases, the Khobragade debacle, and inadequate US attention to India’s security concerns, especially in India’s neighborhood.From the US perspective such concerns have centered on the scope and pace of Indian economic reforms. These have badly tainted market sentiment and soured US firms on India. Retroactive taxes and the nuclear liability bill have compounded these negative sentiments.Viewed through this prism, the current US-India standoff at the WTO is badly timed.The US side will listen closely to India’s economic priorities. Hopefully, it will bring a few ideas-for example, technology releases, defence licenses, and co-production. Washington needs to avoid hectoring about India’s investment climate. Instead, it should inject something tangible into the mix, especially since Beijing and Tokyo, among others, offer India project finance vehicles the US lacks.But the biggest challenges are structural, and long-term in nature.First, economic constraints have hindered strategic coordination, especially in East Asia.The US and India share a powerful interest in assuring a favourable balance of power. Much binds them, not least shared regional maritime and energy interests. But lofty strategic ambitions require strengthened economic, not just security, content in relations with regional states, and with one another in the East Asian context.So it is hardly ideal that Washington and New Delhi are pursuing separate, and competitive, regional trade agreements: Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).Meanwhile, US economic weight in Asia is increasing absolutely but declining in relative terms. From 2000 to 2009, China’s share of ASEAN trade increased threefold, surpassing the US share, which declined by a third in the same period. The US wants to leverage TPP to restore its leadership but there is zero prospect of a TPP this year and the Administration has no stomach to pursue needed Trade Promotion Authority with Congress.India’s challenge is greater. Trade plays a growing role in its economy but scale remains a handicap. In 2012, 11.7 percent of ASEAN trade was with China, just 2.9 percent with India. And that is no coincidence: the backbone of East Asian economies remains integrated supply and production chains from which India is largely absent. With rising labour costs in China, the geography of Asian manufacturing will shift, so India has an opportunity to align its national manufacturing policies with strategic imperatives to the east.At the same time, the US and India need new bilateral economic vehicles. Vice President Biden has called for an increase in trade from $100 to $500 billion-a number analogous to US-China trade. But that is hard to fathom: India lacks China’s manufacturing base, its integration into regional and global supply chains, its comparative openness to foreign investment at a comparable stage of development, and its hard infrastructure.Instead of pithy slogans, the two sides need better aligned agendas, especially on opportunities for cross-border investment, manufacturing, infrastructure, and gasification and energy opportunities.For Americans, the most pressing need is for growth-conducive reforms and investor friendly tax and sectoral policies in India. The Arun Jaitley budget offered hope but less than many in the US had wished for.One step would be a bilateral investment treaty. Indian firms would benefit from investor protections in the US. US firms would welcome relevant legal changes and safeguards in India. Both countries would benefit from the treaty’s independent arbitration process.In fact, investment is, at this point, more important than trade. It is a vote of confidence in the other country’s economy, and meshes well with current needs on each side.Above all, the two sides need to continue their difficult quest for strategic consensus. Enhanced intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation offer one opportunity. So do defence co-production and weapons sales because they increase the potential for interoperability.But a positive security agenda is needed, especially in Asia, through new initiatives across a series of baskets: energy, seaborne trade, finance, the global commons, and regional architecture.The two sides will need to manage differences of tone and substance on strategic issues of concern, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China.Take China: The fact is, India views Beijing’s role in South Asia with far greater alarm than does Washington, and this is unlikely to change soon. The US will lean toward India, but seek to avoid becoming caught between New Delhi and Beijing.Many in India continue to fear a US-China condominium on issues of importance to New Delhi. This fear has receded as US-China relations have deteriorated since 2010, yet India remains sensitive about perceived inattention to its equities. And this concern is even more pronounced in Afghanistan and Pakistan, amid US withdrawal and policy turbulence.The US and India can do (much) better. Kerry’s visit is a start. Modi’s September visit will be pivotal.",1
"- on 33.8 percent, down from 35.2 percent in 2005, and their second-worst result in the post-war era. But the FDP compensated for those losses, surging to 14.5 percent, its best score ever, and putting the centre-right partners over the top. The SPD, which has been in government for over a decade, was the big loser in the election and will join the environmentalist Greens and Left party in opposition after plummeting more than 11 points to 23.1 percent, the party's worst result since the war. Merkel's SPD challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who served as her foreign minister for the past four years, called it a ""bitter defeat"". Projections showed the Greens on 10.1 percent and the Left on 12.5 percent. MARKETS COULD GET BOOST Markets, who had feared a second grand coalition would lead to policy gridlock, could take cheer on Monday from the result, which gives the conservatives and FDP a narrow but solid majority in parliament. ""For financial markets this will be a positive,"" said Klaus Wiener of Generali Investments. ""There will be more regulation, we've seen this come out of the G20 meeting as well, but only as much regulation as will be necessary."" The next government faces major economic challenges. It will have to get a surging budget deficit under control, cope with rising unemployment and ward off a credit crunch as fragile banks rein in lending. Together with the FDP, Merkel is expected to look for opportunities to reduce taxes, sell off state holdings in companies like rail operator Deutsche Bahn, and reverse an SPD-orchestrated phase-out of Germany's nuclear power plants. Merkel's conservatives said before the vote they would pursue 15 billion euros in tax cuts if elected but refused to put a timeframe on their plans given the dire state of public finances. The FDP wants to move quickly and favours a much larger 35 billion euros in cuts. Merkel, Germany's first woman chancellor, ran a cautious campaign that steered clear of the bold economic reform plans she advocated before the 2005 vote. While governing with the SPD over the past four years, she has shifted leftwards, adopting traditional leftist themes like climate change and family policy which could put her at odds with the FDP.",0
"Under the plan, put forward in July and approved by Japan's cabinet on Friday, renewables should account for 36-38 percent of power supplies in 2030, double 2019's level and well above its previous 2030 target for 22-24 percent. In April, Japan raised its 2030 target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 46 percent from 26 percent on 2013 levels, responding to pressure from the United States as world leaders met for a climate summit hosted by US President Joe Biden. G20 leaders meet in Glasgow this month to discuss emissions cuts scientists say are needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The latest policy comes with no significant changes from the draft released in July, despite 6,400 public comments including criticism for its coal and nuclear policy. In green energy, Japan will aim for 14-16 percent to come from solar, 5 percent from wind, 1 percent from geothermal, 11 percent from hydropower and 5 percent from biomass. But Japan's nuclear target was left unchanged at 20-22 percent, despite the country struggling to return the industry to its former central role after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. To meet the target about 30 reactors will need to restart, from only eight reactors operating now. The country had 54 operable reactors previously.  Experts say the nuclear target will difficult to achieve in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, which led to a big shift in public opinion away from the energy source. ""The 2050 target and the 2030 goal to cut emissions by 46 percent are the right decisions as they finally brought Japan up to global standards,"" said Takeo Kikkawa, vice president of International University of Japan. ""But Japan will likely miss the 2030 target as renewables could only reach 30 percent due to a lack of suitable solar sites and nuclear power could rise only up to 15 percent with about 20 reactors running,"" said Kikukawa, also an adviser to the government on energy policy. The use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, will be reduced to 19 percent from a previous target of 26 percent, while liquefied natural gas, or LNG will be lowered to 20 percent from 27 percent and oil will be cut to 2 percent from 3 percent. Newer fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia will account for about 1 percent of the electricity mix by 2030. ""Japan could achieve its 2050 goal as ammonia and hydrogen are expected to become carbon-free fuels for thermal power and Japan's ultimate weapon on the road to carbon neutrality,"" Kikukawa said. The government revises its basic energy plan once every three to four years.",0
"Government scientists who used helicopters and small planes
to survey 750 separate reefs across hundreds of miles last week found severe
bleaching among 60% of the corals. Bleaching events have now occurred in four of the past seven
years, with 2022 offering a disturbing first — a mass bleaching in a year of La
Niña, when more rain and cooler temperatures were supposed to provide a moment
of respite for sensitive corals to recover. “We’re seeing that coral reefs can’t cope with the current
rate of warming and the frequency of climate change,” said Neal Cantin, a coral
biologist who led one of the teams observing the state of the reef. “We need to
slow down that warming rate as fast as possible.” Coral bleaching is often called a climate change warning
system, a canary in the coal mine of a struggling earth. It indicates that
corals are under intense stress from the waters around them, which have been
growing steadily warmer. Last year, scientists recorded the hottest year on
record for the world’s oceans — for the sixth year in a row. First, the stress shows up on coral reefs in bright, almost
neon colours as coral, which is an animal, expels the algae that lives inside
it and provides the coral with food. The corals go on to turn white as bone but
can still recover if temperatures cool for a long enough period. Scientists report, however, that has become increasingly
rare. From 2009 to 2019, a study from last year found 14% of the world’s coal
reefs were lost. Along the 1,500 miles of the Great Barrier Reef — a stunning
ecosystem that can be seen from space — there are still large, healthy sections
of coral, with sharks, turtles, rays and fish the colour of crayons. But all along the natural wonder, there are also signs of
damage. The blocks of underwater graveyards, with grey fields of brittle, dead
coral covered in wisps of ugly algae, have been growing with each mass bleaching
since the first one occurred in 1998. In Australia, that decline has become increasingly
politicised. The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, which has done
little to cut the country’s fossil fuel reliance or exports, has repeatedly
pushed the United Nations to defy its own scientific advice and keep the reef
from being placed on a list of endangered world heritage sites. Instead of aggressively pursuing emissions cuts, Australia
has thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at long-shot projects that aim to
help the reef by cleaning up agricultural runoff, killing invasive species or
finding and cultivating the most heat-resistant species of coral. Climate protests across the country have also been
intensifying, some led by children, others by activists who have tried to block
trains and traffic. UN scientists are now in Australia checking the status of
the reef. Cantin said he met with them Friday afternoon and explained what the
surveys had found. The image of the reef (and Australia’s stewardship of it)
stands to be severely tarnished if the UN suggests it is slowly moving toward
extinction. But the damage to the world’s reefs go far beyond threats to
tourism or a country’s reputation. While coral reefs cover a tiny fraction of the ocean floor,
they collectively support an estimated $2.7 trillion per year in goods and
services worldwide, according to a recent report from the International Coral
Reef Initiative. Their fish supply food to hundreds of millions of people
worldwide, and in Australia and elsewhere, they provide protection from the
severe storms that are also becoming more common with climate change. Cantin said he was especially disappointed by the spatial
footprint of this year’s bleaching damage. Reefs closer to the shore
experienced the most extreme bleaching, but he said the bleaching seemed to
cover an area wider than back-to-back outbreaks in 2016 and 2017. He said it was the product of a summer that started early. “In December we were already warmer than the historical
February summer maximums,” he said. There was a cooling period in February, he
added, but then the last two weeks of this month saw little rain and continued
heat. “With the frequency of big stressful summers, we’ve been on
bleaching watch almost every year,” he said. “We’re in concerning times.” ©2022 The New York Times Company",0
"Biden unveiled the goal to cut emissions by 50%-52% from 2005 levels at the start of a two-day climate summit kicked off on Earth Day and attended virtually by leaders of 40 countries including big emitters China, India and Russia. The United States, the world's second-leading emitter after China, seeks to reclaim global leadership in the fight against global warming after former President Donald Trump withdrew the country from international efforts to cut emissions. ""This is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis,"" Biden, a Democrat, said at the White House. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the new US goal ""game changing"" as two other countries made new pledges. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who visited Biden at the White House this month, raised Japan's target for cutting emissions to 46% by 2030, up from 26%. Environmentalists wanted a pledge of at least 50% while Japan's powerful business lobby has pushed for national policies that favor coal. Canada's Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, raised his country's goal to a cut of 40%-45% by 2030 below 2005 levels, up from 30%. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro announced his most ambitious environmental goal yet, saying the country would reach emissions neutrality by 2050, 10 years earlier than the previous goal.  
To all the states, cities, tribal nations, businesses, and organizations that stepped up the past four years to lead on tackling climate change: thank you.  Today we announced a new national target and from here on out, you’ll have a partner in me and my Administration.— President Biden (@POTUS) April 23, 2021 

  To all the states, cities, tribal nations, businesses, and organizations that stepped up the past four years to lead on tackling climate change: thank you.  Today we announced a new national target and from here on out, you’ll have a partner in me and my Administration. Greenpeace UK’s head of climate, Kate Blagojevic, said the summit had more targets than an archery competition. ""Targets, on their own, won’t lead to emissions cuts,"" she said. ""That takes real policy and money. And that’s where the whole world is still way off course."" PUTIN SAYS PROBLEMS GO WAY BACK Most of the countries did not offer new emissions goals. Chinese President Xi Jinping said China expects its carbon emissions to peak before 2030 and the country will achieve net zero emissions by 2060. Xi said China will gradually reduce its coal use from 2025 to 2030. China, a leader in producing technology for renewable energy like solar panels, burns large amounts of coal for electricity generation. Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed giving preferential treatment for foreign investment in clean energy projects, but also made an apparent reference to the United States being historically the world's top greenhouse gas polluter. ""It is no secret that the conditions that facilitated global warming and associated problems go way back,"" Putin said.  
Thank you @POTUS @JoeBiden for convening the #LeadersClimateSummit Europe will be the 1st climate neutral continent. But it does not want to be the only one.Let's all commit to ambitious emission reductions by 2030, on the way to net-zero by 2050.  https://t.co/xi1gk6icfv— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) April 22, 2021 

  Thank you @POTUS @JoeBiden for convening the #LeadersClimateSummit Europe will be the 1st climate neutral continent. But it does not want to be the only one.Let's all commit to ambitious emission reductions by 2030, on the way to net-zero by 2050.  https://t.co/xi1gk6icfv The US climate goal marks a milestone in Biden's broader plan to decarbonise the US economy entirely by 2050 - an agenda he says can create millions of good-paying jobs but which many Republicans say will damage the economy. The US emissions cuts are expected to come from power plants, automobiles, and other sectors across the economy. Sector-specific goals will be laid out later this year. The new US target nearly doubles former President Barack Obama's pledge of an emissions cut of 26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. CEMENTING CREDIBILITY How Washington intends to reach its climate goals will be crucial to cementing US credibility on global warming, amid international concerns that America's commitment to a clean energy economy can shift drastically from one administration to the next. Biden's recently introduced $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan contains numerous measures that could deliver some of the emissions cuts needed this decade, including a clean energy standard to achieve net zero emissions in the power sector by 2035 and moves to electrify the vehicle fleet. But the measures need to be passed by Congress before becoming reality. The American Petroleum Institute, the top US oil and gas lobbying group, cautiously welcomed Biden's pledge but said it must come with policies including a price on carbon, which is a tough sell among some lawmakers. 'THE US IS BACK' The summit is the first in a string of meetings of world leaders - including the G7 and G20 - ahead of annual UN climate talks in November in Scotland. That serves as the deadline for nearly 200 countries to update their climate pledges under the Paris agreement, an international accord set in 2015. Leaders of small island nations vulnerable to rising seas, like Antigua and Barbuda and the Marshall Islands, also spoke at the summit. World leaders aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a threshold scientists say can prevent the worst impacts of climate change. A Biden administration official said with the new US target, enhanced commitments from Japan and Canada, and prior targets from the European Union and Britain, countries accounting for more than half the world's economy were now committed to reductions to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal. European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed delight that the United States was back in the climate fight. ""The importance of this day in my judgment is the world came together,"" Biden's climate envoy John Kerry told reporters at the White House.",0
" The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Democrat Al Gore on Friday increases pressure on him to launch a late bid for the US presidency, but advisers say he is showing no signs of interest in the 2008 race. Gore, the former vice president who lost a Florida vote recount battle in the 2000 election to George W Bush, has attracted growing support in recent days from thousands of Democratic activists who want him to enter the race. An organization called draftgore.com is one of several trying to persuade Gore to run. The group ran a full-page ad in The New York Times on Wednesday described as ""an open letter to Al Gore."" ""Many good and caring candidates are contending for the Democratic nomination,"" the ad said. ""But none of them has the combination of experience, vision, standing in the world, and political courage that you would bring to the job."" The attention represents how far Gore has taken his quest to call global attention to concerns about climate change with the movie that won him an Oscar, ""An Inconvenient Truth."" San Francisco-based Current TV, Gore's television network, won an Emmy award last month for outstanding achievement in interactive television service. After losing the Supreme Court case that cost him the White House, Gore from all accounts had a difficult time getting over the closest presidential election in U.S. history. He escaped to Europe for a time, and, puzzlingly, grew a beard. Once considered a wooden speaker, he now is a pop culture icon, and happily engaged in a life that includes many speaking engagements about climate change, positions on corporate boards and much travel. 'LIGHT BULBS, NOT POLITICS' At a time when the United States is preoccupied with the most wide-open presidential race in more than 50 years, former aides like Julia Payne say he does not talk much about politics, recalling that she saw him at the wedding in Nashville of a former staffer. ""The last time I talked with the Vice President, we talked light bulbs, not politics,"" she said. Long-time adviser Carter Eskew said he talks to Gore about once a week. ""I don't think he's going to run,"" said Eskew. ""He has said technically he hasn't ruled it out. But I can tell you he's making no moves and no sounds to indicate to me that he's going to run."" Gore's spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider, was more definitive. ""He has no intentions of running for president in 2008,"" she said recently from Nashville, where Gore lives. But that is not stopping the draft Gore movement. Peter Ryder is an activist in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, trying to persuade Gore to run. His group, Algore.org, is planning a Nov. 11 concert to raise money for the effort. He said none of the other Democrats running in the race for the November 2008 election have the complete package like Gore. ""I think we need more than just a good president. I think we need someone with the potential for greatness. Al Gore, his rational approach to issues and problems, and obviously his work on global warming, made my decision to support him,"" Ryder said. A West Virginia activist, Jim Tate, agreed. He said he was concerned that the current Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, could be defeated by the Republican nominee because ""she carries a lot of baggage with her."" He said he also believes Gore is the person who can ""do the most for our country, and bring back foreign policy. We have no foreign policy.""",0
"The ragpicker of Brooklyn sews in the back, behind a makeshift wall sprouting a riot of scraps. Under the pattern-cutting table there are bins of scraps of scraps, sorted by color (red and yellow and blue and black), and on one wall are shelves of Mason jars containing gumball-size scraps of scraps of scraps; up front are clothing rails and a dressing room canopied by a lavish waterfall of castoff cuttings that flows down onto the floor like a Gaudí sandcastle. The ragpicker of Brooklyn, whose name is Daniel Silverstein and whose nom de style is Zero Waste Daniel, looks like a fashion kid, which he is (or was). He is 30 and tends to dress all in black, with a black knit cap on his head; went to the Fashion Institute of Technology; interned at Carolina Herrera; and even was on a fashion reality TV show. And the ragpicker of Brooklyn would rather not be called that at all. “I prefer to think of it as Rumpelstiltskin, spinning straw into gold,” Silverstein said one day in early November. He was on West 35th Street, in the garment district, with his partner and husband, Mario DeMarco (also all in black). They were hauling home sacks of cuttings from their own production run at HD Fashion, which also makes clothes for Rag & Bone and Donna Karan’s Urban Zen line. Silverstein’s straw is more formally known as pre-consumer, postproduction waste, which is a fancy way of saying he works with the fabrics that other designers and costume departments and factories would normally throw out. His gold is streetwear: sweatshirts, pants, T-shirts and the occasional anorak, collaged together from rolls of old fabric, mostly black and gray, often containing brightly colored geometric patchwork inserts of smaller, brighter bits, like an exclamation point or an Easter egg. Those patchwork inserts have been put together from the castoffs of the bigger pieces, and then the castoffs from the inserts are saved and pieced together into mosaic appliqués (the hands from the Sistine Chapel and Earth as seen from above, for example). The appliqués can be custom-made and attached to any piece. Leftovers, all the way. As fashion comes to grips with its own culpability in the climate crisis, the concept of upcycling — whether remaking old clothes, reengineering used fabric or simply using what would otherwise be tossed into landfill — has begun to trickle out to many layers of the fashion world. That includes the high end — via the work of designers like Marine Serre, Emily Bode and Gabriela Hearst as well as brands like Hermès — and the outdoor space, with the Patagonia Worn Wear and Recrafted programs (to name a few). And yet, because there are few economies of scale and even fewer production systems, such clothing remains for many designers an experiment rather than a strategy, and for many consumers, a luxury rather than a choice. Silverstein, whose clothes range from $25 for a patch to $595 for an anorak made from what was a New York City Sanitation Department tent and who works only with fabric that would otherwise be thrown away, is one of several new designers trying to change that. How he got there, with lots of false starts and belly flops, is perhaps as representative as anything of the way fashion may be stumbling toward its future. We make too much, and we buy too much, but that doesn’t have to mean we waste too much. Welcome to the growing world of trashion. Saved by the Dumpster “I came to New York for that fashion dream — what I’d been watching on TV,” Silverstein said a few weeks before his garment district scrap-saving trip. “I wanted that life so badly.” He was sitting in the back of what he calls his “make/shop,” which he and DeMarco renovated in 2017 using materials from Big Reuse, a Brooklyn nonprofit. The make/shop has three sewing machines but no garbage can. Silverstein was born in Pennsylvania, and when he was 10, his parents moved to New Jersey so their fashion-aware son could be closer to New York. Silverstein’s father owned a swimming pool and hot tub supply company, and his mother worked part-time in the business. (She is also a therapist.) As a family, they did some recycling but were not particularly attuned to the environment. Silverstein always knew he wanted to be a designer. When he was 4, he started making clothes for his sister’s Barbies out of tissue paper and tinfoil. By the time he was 14, he was taking weekend classes at FIT and making his friends’ prom dresses. His Damascene moment was more like a series of cold-water splashes. For a senior-year competition for the Clinton Global Initiative, he designed a pair of sustainable jeans, which became his first zero-waste pattern. He didn’t win, but his teacher told him to hold onto the idea. “‘You have something there,’” he recalled the teacher saying. After graduating, he found himself working as a temp at Victoria’s Secret making knitwear. He would scroll through style.com looking at recent runway shows, find a sweater he liked, then create a technical design packet for a similar style for Victoria’s Secret. One of the patterns involved an asymmetric cut with a long triangular piece in front. Because of the irregular shape, the fabric “had an insanely poor yield,” Silverstein said, meaning that only a portion of every yard was used for the garment; almost half was waste. He did the math and realised, he said, “that if this is yielding only 47% per each sweater, and we are cutting 10,000 sweaters, then we are knitting, milling, dying and finishing 5,000 yards of fabric just to throw out.” The next day, he said, he left Victoria’s Secret to focus on a business he and a friend had started based on his zero-waste patterns. They were making classic ready-to-wear — cocktail dresses and suits and such — but with no waste left on the cutting-room floor. One of their first customers was Jennifer Hudson, who wore a turquoise dress that ended up in the pages of Us Weekly. Stores like Fred Segal in Los Angeles and e-tail sites like Master & Muse picked up the line, which was called 100% (for the amount of fabric used), and Silverstein spent a season on “Fashion Star,” ending his tenure as second runner-up. Still, the economics of fashion, in which stores pay after delivery, were working against him. In 2015, after American Apparel — which had bought Oak NYC, a store that was known for its edgy choices and was one of his wholesale accounts — declared bankruptcy, he was left with $30,000 worth of unpaid orders. He decided to quit. Silverstein got a part-time job helping students get their art portfolios together and, he said, “lay on the couch for a while.” Finally he boxed up his studio and threw all of his leftover fabric in a garbage bag. He was set to haul it to a dumpster, only to have the bag break, spilling its contents onto the floor. “I thought, ‘I can’t throw this out; it’s the antithesis of my mission,’” he said. “So I took the afternoon and made myself a shirt and put it on my Instagram. I had maybe 2,000 followers, and probably the most likes I had ever gotten was 95. I posted this dumb selfie of a shirt I’d made out of my own trash because I was too poor to go shopping, and it instantly got 200 likes. It was the most popular thing I’d ever done.” It occurred to him this may be a better way to go. He made “a bunch of scrappy shirts” and became Zero Waste Daniel, his Instagram name (which he had chosen because Daniel Silverstein was already taken). He rented a booth at a flea market and sold them all. Johnny Wujek, Katy Perry’s stylist, bought one. Chris Anderson — a mentor who ran Dress for Success in Morris County, New Jersey, where Silverstein had interned during high school — said she would back him. His father put in some money, too, as did Tuomo Tiisala, a professor at New York University who saw his work at a market. Silverstein got a small space at Manufacture New York, a group incubator in the Sunset Park neighborhood (it disbanded after a year), and made a deal with a factory that supplied the Marshalls chain to pick up its scraps. Fabric dumping, although less discussed than the clothes consumers throw out, is just as much a byproduct of fashion production and just as culpable in the landfill crisis. Reverse Resources, a group that has created an online marketplace to connect factories and designers who want to reuse their scraps, released a study in 2016 that estimated that the garment industry creates almost enough leftover textile per year to cover the entire republic of Estonia with waste. That was a best-case scenario. Worst case would be enough to cover North Korea. At that stage, Silverstein was mostly making sweatshirts, piecing them together by hand, but, he said, “people started making little videos about my work and putting up posts, and I started getting more orders than I could keep up with.” In 2017, he met DeMarco, who worked in hospitality. This year he joined the business full-time. In many ways, social media has also been their door to a customer base. Just as it creates pressure to buy new stuff, it can create pressure to buy new old stuff. Message vs Money “My freshman year at FIT, one of my teachers said there are good designers and there are great designers,” Silverstein said. “Good designers have careers and see their stuff in stores, and great designers change the way people dress. And, perhaps, think about dress.” He was driving a small U-Haul truck. He had spent the morning with DeMarco in FabScrap, a concrete loft in the erstwhile Army Terminal complex in Sunset Park filled with trash bags and storage boxes bulging at the seams with fabric waste. They were on the hunt for 400 or so yards of random black remnants with some stretch. Silverstein doesn’t ragpick in the 19th-century way (the way that gave birth to the term), sifting through garbage on the streets. He picks through giant boxes and metal shelves of castoff fabric rolls and then sews his finds together to make new rolls. He doesn’t really have seasons or shows by a traditional definition, although he flirts with the idea. In 2018, the 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge invited him to do a show for New York Fashion Week, and instead of a runway, he decided to do a one-man stand-up routine called “Sustainable Fashion Is Hilarious,” which was more about concept than clothes. The hotel sold tickets online, and all of the proceeds went to Fashion Revolution, a nonprofit that advocates industry reform. In September, he did the same at the Ace Hotel in Manhattan. Silverstein is planning a performance for February at Arcadia Earth, the climate installation museum in downtown New York, which also sells some of his work. Last year the Sanitation Department came calling. It had done a collaboration with designer Heron Preston and was looking for another partner. While Preston saw the opportunity as a way to elevate the role of the sanitation worker in a one-off show, Silverstein saw it as a great partnership for raw material. The department’s dead-stock T-shirts, tents and tablecloths have proved something of a treasure trove for him. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Silverstein was one of the star companies in an American Express showcase on Small Business Saturday. He is also teaming up with a former mentor at Swimwear Anywhere for a line of bathing suits made in Taiwan, which will be his first foray into offshore production. (The scraps will be sent back along with the trunks and one-pieces, which are made from recycled ocean fishing nets.) Recently Lin-Manuel Miranda wore a Zero Waste Daniel sweatshirt at an Amex event. Drag queen Pattie Gonia wore a long mosaic gown based on Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” at the Tony Awards in June and made Vogue’s best-dressed slideshow, albeit without identification. The company has been profitable for a year, Silverstein said, and ships across the United States as well as to Canada, Britain, Brazil and Germany. Now Silverstein is at another turning point. Does he get bigger? Does he train other ragpickers to do what he does? Does he open another outlet? Does he really get in the game? He is not sure. “I can’t clothe the world, and maybe the world doesn’t need me to,” he said. Maybe the drive to clothe the world is part of what created the problem he is now trying to solve in the first place. “When I think about what I want in terms of brand recognition, I would love to see this brand as a household name. But I think that’s very different than dollars. And I don’t want to be any bigger than I can guarantee it’s a zero-waste product or that I feel happy.” He was gathering pieces for a Freddie Mercury mosaic. “Right now,” he said, surveying his mountain of scraps, “I am so happy.” © 2019 New York Times News Service",0
" Western leaders called on Wednesday for expanded sanctions against Iran over a UN watchdog report that it has worked to design atom bombs, but veto-wielder Russia indicated it would block new measures at the UN Security Council. The report laid bare a trove of intelligence suggesting Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, including accusations of work on atom bomb triggers and computer-simulated detonations. France said it would summon the Security Council. Britain said the standoff was entering a more dangerous phase and the risk of conflict would increase if Iran does not negotiate. The Security Council has already imposed four rounds of sanctions on Tehran since 2006 over its nuclear programme, which Western countries suspect is being used to develop weapons but Iran says is purely peaceful. There has been concern that if world powers cannot close ranks on isolating Iran to nudge it into serious talks, then Israel -- which feels endangered by Tehran's nuclear programme -- will attack it, precipitating a Middle East conflict. ""Convening of the UN Security Council is called for,"" French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told RFI radio. Pressure must be intensified, he said, after years of Iranian defiance of UN resolutions demanding it halt uranium enrichment, which can yield nuclear fuel for power stations or weapons. ""If Iran refuses to conform to the demands of the international community and refuses any serious cooperation, we stand ready to adopt, with other willing countries, sanctions on an unprecedented scale,"" Juppe said. But Moscow made its opposition to new sanctions clear. ""Any additional sanctions against Iran will be seen in the international community as an instrument for regime change in Iran. That approach is unacceptable to us, and the Russian side does not intend to consider such proposals,"" Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the Interfax news agency. Russia, which has significant trade ties with Iran and built its first nuclear power station, has called for a phased process under which existing sanctions would be eased in return for actions by Tehran to dispel international concerns. But in talks between Iran and big powers that would be needed to achieve that goal, the sides have been unable to agree even on an agenda. The last round petered out in January. Still, Russia's Security Council, in a statement on Wednesday after a meeting with a senior Iranian security official, said Moscow re-emphasised the need to find a mutually acceptable solutions via negotiations. Russia accepts that the West has legitimate concerns about Iran's nuclear programme but sees no clear evidence that Tehran is trying to develop nuclear warheads. Israel urged the international community to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. ""The significance of the (IAEA) report is that the international community must bring about the cessation of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, which endanger the peace of the world and of the Middle East,"" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement. IRAN ATTACKS AGENCY Iran has repeatedly insisted it wants nuclear energy only for electricity. On Wednesday it vowed no retreat from programme following the U.N. watchdog report, which used Western intelligence information that Tehran calls forgeries. ""You should know that this nation will not pull back even a needle's width from the path it is on,"" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech carried live on state TV. ""Why do you damage the agency's dignity because of America's invalid claims?"" he said, apparently addressing IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano. Russia's Foreign Ministry said: ""According to our initial evaluations, there is no fundamentally new information in the report ... We are talking about a compilation of known facts, given a politicised tone."" It said interpretations of the report brought to mind the use of faulty intelligence to seek support for the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In addition to UN sanctions that commit all countries, the United States and European Union have imposed extra sanctions of their own. A US official said that because of Russian and Chinese opposition, chances were slim for another UN Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran. Washington might extend sanctions against Iranian commercial banks or front companies but is unlikely to go after its oil and gas industry or central bank, the clearing house for Iran's energy trade, for now. ""The reality is that without being able to put additional sanctions into these key areas, we are not going to have much more of an impact than we are already having,"" the US official said. A Western diplomatic source in Europe said there would be an effort to revive dialogue with Iran. ""What we are trying to do is avoid the (nuclear) bomb and bombing strikes,"" he said. But he saw no window for more Security Council action. ""You know the climate at the Council. We are in a complex situation in the post-Libya era and we are experiencing it with Syria so with regard to Iran, (such) things would not be possible."" A rise in tension over Iran could boost oil prices, although quotes on Wednesday for Brent crude fell by up to $2.64 and US crude by $1.67 to stand at $113 and $95.13 a barrel respectively by 1540 GMT because of Italy's debt worries that are dampening the global growth outlook. ""Now, with the more conclusive reports that Iran might be pursuing a nuclear warhead and the increased risk that there may be an attack on those facilities which would likely disrupt their oil exports, there may be growing concerns that there may be an oil price spike on the back of such an event,"" said Nicholas Brooks, head of research at ETF Securities. British Foreign Minister William Hague, in remarks that provided some support to the oil market, spoke about measures that could still be imposed on Iran and a riskier period ahead. ""We are looking at additional measures against the Iranian financial sector, the oil and gas sector, and the designation (on a sanctions list) of further entities and individuals involved with their nuclear programme,"" Hague told parliament. ""We are entering a more dangerous phase. The longer Iran goes on pursuing a nuclear weapons programme without responding adequately to calls for negotiations from the rest of us, the greater the risk of a conflict as a result."" Hague added that Iran's nuclear programme increased the likelihood that other Middle East states would pursue weapons. CHINA CAUTIOUS Russia and China have signed up to limited UN sanctions but have rebuffed Western proposals for measures that could seriously curtail energy and trade ties with Iran. Iran is the third largest supplier of crude oil to China, and overall bilateral trade between the two grew by 58 percent in the first nine months of 2011, according to Beijing data. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was studying the IAEA report and repeated a call to resolve the row through talks. In a commentary, China's official Xinhua news agency said the UN watchdog still ""lacks a smoking gun"". ""There are no witnesses or physical evidence to prove that Iran is making nuclear weapons,"" it said. ""In dealing with the Iran nuclear issue, it is extremely dangerous to rely on suspicions, and the destructive consequences of any armed action would endure for a long time."" Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, has said all options are on the table, including a military one, to halt an Iranian nuclear fuel production drive that is now being transferred to an underground mountain bunker better protected from possible air strikes.",2
"He urged the global community, especially the South Asian countries, to do more to ensure their quick return to Myanmar. “You all know that we have given shelter to 1.1 million forcefully displaced Rohingyas from Myanmar in our land in Cox’s Bazar. It is in an extremely vulnerable location. Their presence makes it more vulnerable,” he said. The minister was speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the 15th Meeting of the Governing Council of the South Asia Co-Operative Environment Programme (SACEP) on Wednesday in Dhaka. SACEP is an inter-governmental organisation, established in 1982 by the governments of South Asia to promote and support protection, management and enhancement of the environment in the region. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the member countries. The foreign minister, highlighting the Rohingya crisis, said it is an issue “solely between Myanmar and its own people -- the Rohingyas”. “They themselves have to resolve it. A voluntary return of the Rohingyas to their homes in Rakhine state in safety, security and dignity is the only solution to the crisis,” he said. Momen also underscored Bangladesh’s 'well evidenced' and 'well documented' susceptibility to the impacts of climate change. “Despite being a developing country, we spend over 1 percent of our GDP on combating climate change,” he said. “We are pursuing a low carbon development path with an increasing emphasis on renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy conservation.”",1
" A global economic downturn caused by the financial crisis is the biggest threat to world security because it will make many hundreds of millions of people poorer and more resentful, a think-tank report said on Thursday. Job losses and collapsing markets will increase poverty, ill-health and malnutrition in developing countries without effective welfare systems, the Oxford Research Group (ORG) says in its annual security assessment. This is likely to fuel bitterness and lead to the rise of radical and violent social movements, which will be controlled by the use of force, it says. Early indicators include social unrest in China and India's intensifying Maoist rebellion. ""We are facing the deepest economic crisis for two generations,"" said author Paul Rogers, ORG consultant and professor at the University of Bradford. ""We can either respond as a global community or as a narrow group of rich and powerful countries."" The report says wealthy states have so far concentrated on measures to improve financial cooperation, which have little relevance to poorer countries. ""Instead, the opportunity should be taken to introduce fundamental economic reforms which reverse the wealth-poverty divisions that have got so much worse in the past three decades,"" Rogers said. Other major factors making the world less secure are climate change, competition over energy resources and the tendency of powerful elites to maintain security often by military force, the report says. Avoiding a more divided global system requires a commitment to ""emancipation and social justice"", including fair trade, debt cancellation, a radical cut in carbon emissions and investment in renewable energy resources, ORG says. The will to implement these policies could be weakened by tight government finances over the next several years. But if wealthy countries do decide to put more emphasis on helping the world's poor people and tackling climate change, the coming year could be a tipping point towards greater global stability, according to the report. ""The choice we make in the next few months will do much to decide whether the world becomes more or less peaceful over the next ten years,"" Rogers said. On Iraq, the report says an increased pace of U.S. troop withdrawals next year under U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and greater regional engagement by Washington could be positive trends. But the Obama administration may reinforce U.S. military commitments in Afghanistan, which is likely to lead to an intensified war, it says.",3
"China, the world's biggest source of
climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, has been under pressure to
""enhance ambition"" and take more drastic action to tackle global
warming. But amid mounting economic challenges, China
is worried about the risk to jobs and growth, especially as it prepares to hold
a key Communist Party conclave that is expected to extend Xi's rule. Xi told senior Communist Party leaders in a
speech published late on Monday that China needed to ""overcome the notion
of rapid success"" and proceed gradually. ""Reducing emissions is not about reducing
productivity, and it is not about not emitting at all,"" Xi was quoted by
state news agency Xinhua as saying. ""We must stick to the overall planning
and ensure energy security, industrial supply chain security and food security
at the same time as cutting carbon emissions,"" he said. Since a national economic work meeting held at
the end of last year, Chinese policymakers have repeatedly stressed that the
country would ""prioritise stability"" in 2022.  The approach has already started to feed into
policy making, with Zhang Bo, Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Ecology and
Environment, telling reporters earlier this week that the country would not
impose strict water quality targets on local governments, and would instead
encourage them to ""consolidate"" previous gains. With energy supplies still a major concern
after a wave of shortages hit manufacturers last year, Xi also told Party
leaders that ""the gradual withdrawal of traditional energy must be based
on the safe and reliable replacement by new energy."" China has promised to accelerate the shift to
renewables, but will only start to reduce coal consumption - a major source of
CO2 - after 2025. China's state planning agency also said in
December that it will loosen blanket restrictions on energy consumption in
order to ensure environmental targets do not erode growth.",0
" At risk from surging storm waves and floods, Alaska's coastal villagers are dealing with the immediate consequences of climate change -- threats to their health, safety and even their ancestors' graves. The rapid erosion of the state's coastline is blamed on the scarcity of sea ice and thawing of permafrost. Without solid ice to shield the land, and without hard-frozen conditions to keep it held fast, encroaching waves and floods easily carve large chunks from shorelines or riverbanks. ""People are dying and getting injured as a result of trying to engage in traditional activities in much-changing conditions,"" said Deborah Williams, a former Interior Department official who heads an Alaska organization focused on climate change. Alaska is heating up more dramatically than other regions because increases in temperature are accelerated in the far north, according to climate scientists. That is largely because of a self-reinforcing warming cycle: the melt of white snow and disappearance of white ice exposes more dark land and water, which in turn absorb more solar radiation, which in turn causes more melting. In Newtok, a village on Alaska's western coast, floods routinely spread human waste from portable toilets -- a necessity due to the lack of running water -- across the community. Village administrator Stanley Tom links the sewage spread to a rise in infants being hospitalized for upper-respiratory infections like pneumonia over a 10-year period. In the villages along northwest Alaska's Norton Sound, fall storms are bringing floods that turn land-based communities into islands. Shaktoolik, a Bering Sea village that is one of the last checkpoints in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, becomes an island during heavy storms due to erosion that has erased much of the land link to the rest of the Seward Peninsula. ""They have no option to leave the community in the event of a storm,"" said Steve Ivanoff, tribal administrator of nearby Unalakleet, who says the increased intensity of flooding is also a problem in his village. Residents in Unalakleet are starting to relocate their homes to the inland hills, away from the traditional coastal community, he said. DISAPPEARING GRAVES The rapid erosion is also affecting the dead. In Barrow, the northernmost community in North America, a project is under way to move human remains from millennium-old grave sites that were undisturbed until erosion started biting off chunks of shoreline lined with graves. So far, the ancient remains of about 50 people have been excavated, said Anne Jensen, the archeologist in charge of the project. The goal is to rebury the remains in Barrow's modern cemetery. The environmental changes also make travel treacherous. ""Every winter there is the issue of village residents, especially hunters, who try to cross a river at a time it's traditionally been safe, but now it isn't,"" said James Berner, community health services director for the Anchorage-based Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. A young hunter died earlier this year after falling into thin ice in Shishmaref, an eroding Inupiat Eskimo village often characterized as the place experiencing the most dramatic effects of climate change. It was the first such death in decades, according to local officials. In some cases, the long-term solution is to move entire villages, projects that are anticipated to cost at least $100 million per community. Newtok, one of three Alaska villages with detailed relocation plans, has already moved a few of its 62 houses to a new site called ""Mertarvik,"" which translates to ""getting water from the spring"" in the Yupik Eskimo language.",0
"An analysis of the flooding, which killed
more than 400 people in Durban and surrounding areas in the eastern part of the
country, found that the intense two-day storm that caused it had a 1 in 20
chance of occurring in any given year. If the world had not warmed as a result
of human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases, the study found, the chances
would have been half that, 1 in 40. The study, by a loose-knit group of climate
scientists, meteorologists and disaster experts called World Weather
Attribution, is the latest in a string of analyses showing that the damaging
effects of global warming, once considered a future problem, have already
arrived. And extreme events like this one are expected to increase as warming
continues. “We need to drastically reduce greenhouse
gas emissions and adapt to a new reality where floods and heat waves are more
intense and damaging,” one of the study’s authors, Izidine Pinto, a climate
scientist at the University of Cape Town, said in a statement issued by World
Weather Attribution. The flooding and related mudslides caused
more than $1.5 billion in damage and were “the biggest tragedy that we have
ever seen,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said at the time. Bridges and roads were
destroyed, and thousands of homes, many of them in makeshift settlements, were
swept away or damaged. The disaster led to sharp criticism of the
government for not fulfilling pledges to improve infrastructure to handle heavy
downpours and to tackle a long-standing housing crisis. World Weather Attribution conducts its
analyses within days or weeks of an event, while it is still fresh in the
public’s mind. This one looked at the two-day storm that hit eastern South
Africa beginning April 11 and produced rainfall totals of nearly 14 inches in
some areas, half or more of the area’s annual total. The work has yet to be
peer-reviewed or published, but it uses methods that have been reviewed
previously. This includes using observational data and
two sets of computer simulations, one that models the world as it is, about 2
degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) warmer than it was before widespread
emissions began in the late 19th century, and a hypothetical world in which
global warming never happened. The finding that the likelihood of such an
extreme rainstorm has increased with global warming is consistent with many
other studies of individual events and broader trends. A major reason for the
increase is that as the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture. The study noted that from a meteorological
perspective, a storm that has a 1 in 20 chance of occurring in any given year,
while not common, is hardly a rare event. So the researchers looked at other
factors that could have contributed to the disaster’s high toll in deaths and
damage. Among these, they wrote, were legacies of
policies instituted during the apartheid era. In 1958, for example, the Durban
City Council adopted a measure that forced nonwhites into less desirable and,
in many cases, more flood-prone, areas. The researchers also cited the rise of
makeshift settlements as a result of rapid urban growth and a lack of
affordable housing. About 22% of Durban’s population, or 800,000 people, live
in such settlements, which usually lack services and proper infrastructure. In
the April flooding, the study noted, about 4,000 of the 13,500 houses that were
damaged or destroyed were along riverbanks in these types of settlements, and
most of the deaths were in these areas as well. “Again we are seeing how climate change
disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable people,” said Friederike Otto, a
founder of World Weather Attribution and a climate scientist at Imperial
College London.   ©2022 The New York Times Company",0
"Kujur, a member of the Oraon ethnic minority in Naogaon district, lost her job and now struggles to support her family. Many local people like her who do not own land used to earn 200 taka ($2.36) a day labouring in the rice fields. ""But, in recent years, the landlords are transforming their paddy fields into mango gardens, making us workless,"" she said. In the Barind region of northwestern Bangladesh, rice has long been the sole source of income for the landless Oraon, who traditionally make a living as farm labourers or sharecroppers. But frequent droughts, poor precipitation and increasing temperatures in the region - which environmental experts link to climate change - have made growing the thirsty crop tougher. Mango trees can be cultivated with fewer people, they say, and use up to 80% less water than growing rice. As rice harvesting season approaches, there are no longer enough jobs for all the Oraon living in Naogaon, Kujur said. Like many others in the area, her eldest son has left their village for six months to find work in another district. ""The male members of our families are compelled to migrate for work, so we have to stay home alone, which makes our lives difficult,"" said the 45-year-old mother of three. Tajul Islam, a farm owner in Porsha sub-district, has replaced his 5 hectares (12 acres) of rice with four mango orchards. Amid drier weather and higher temperatures, rice farming was losing him too much money, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. ""We know shifting to mango farming from paddy (rice) cuts off work for ethnic people, but we prefer mango farming as it requires less labour,"" Islam said. 'NO RAIN, NO CROP' The Oraon people were brought from India to Bangladesh by the British colonial government to construct railways in Bengal. They and other ethnic minority groups in Naogaon make up about 7% of the district's more than 2.5 million residents, official data shows, although local charities and minority rights groups say the real figure is higher. Water scarcity is a common problem for ethnic minorities in Barind, known as ""plain-land people"", a moniker distinguishing them from other groups in Bangladesh's hilly areas. The region is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, according to a February study by environmental engineers at Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University in Dinajpur and Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology. Temperature extremes in the region have increased, while annual rainfall has decreased, leading to a reduction in water availability, they found. In Naogaon's Porsha sub-district, the entire ethnic minority population of about 15,000 is affected by water shortages, according to local non-profit Barendrabhumi Samaj Unnayan Sangstha (BSDO), which works with those communities. Barind's ponds, lakes and canals are severely depleted, while groundwater is also disappearing rapidly, noted BSDO programme coordinator Ataur Rahman. In the dry season, groundwater levels drop so low that even tube wells as deep as 200 feet (60 metres) do not reach water, he noted. The monsoon used to bring enough rain to sustain the area's paddy fields until harvest, but that is no longer the case, say locals and environmental experts. A study last year from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) showed average rainfall in July 2014 - the middle of the monsoon season - in the three driest Barind districts, including Naogaon, had dropped to just over 220 mm (8 inches), about a third of its level in July 2005. Sukur Oraon, a 50-year-old ethnic minority sharecropper in Naogaon, said last year his rice harvest was only a quarter of usual levels as his paddy fields dried up due to lack of rain - and half his crop goes to the owners of the land he works. ""We have planted it this year too, but I do not know whether we will be able to harvest it,"" he lamented. ""No rain, no crop."" WATER AND HEALTH The authorities and development groups are working to combat water shortages in Naogaon district. In 2014, the Department of Public Health Engineering installed 400 deep tube wells, each providing an average of 50 households with safe drinking water. And two years ago, UNDP set up five water-harvesting plants under a pilot project, serving 25 households in total. But those measures are not enough to meet water demand in drought-prone areas and often do not benefit ethnic communities with less education and fewer resources, said BSDO's Rahman. While struggling with water shortages and job losses, the Oraon also face health problems due to a changing climate. Locals say the aquatic animals that make up the bulk of their diet are dying off as the area's lakes and canals dry up. ""In the past, we (ate) eels, fish, crabs, turtles and snails, which were abundant here, to meet our nutritional demand. But those have disappeared for lack of rainfall,"" said Parbati Akkata, a 35-year-old Oraon woman living in Naogaon. As a result, about 80% of Oraon women and children suffer form malnutrition, noted UNDP climate-change specialist Mamunur Rashid. He believes authorities should help ethnic people find alternative incomes, such as selling fertiliser or handicrafts. The government could also set up mango-processing plants in Barind to create job opportunities, he added. ""If they could be educated and trained properly, the ethnic people would be able to enter the national job market,"" he said. Sirajul Islam, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension for Naogaon, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation his department was still seeking solutions to the lack of work for ethnic communities in Barind. Landowners, meanwhile, continue to give up rice for mangoes. In fiscal year 2013-2014, mango was cultivated on about 9,150 hectares (22,600 acres) in Naogaon - by 2018-2019, that figure had more than doubled, Islam said. As she waits for work, Kujur can only lament how water scarcity has made her life harder. ""From our livelihoods to our food habits, even our tradition and culture - nowadays poor rainfall takes a heavy toll on us,"" she said.",0
"The proposal, the second climate resolution to be brought before shareholders of a major Japanese company, was supported by shareholders, including Legal & General Asset Management. ""Resolution No 5 was rejected,"" a Sumitomo spokesperson told Reuters by email, referring to the proposal's number in the order of business at the meeting. A breakdown of voting was not immediately available. Sumitomo's board in May had recommended voting against the proposal. Activist investors are increasingly turning their attention to Japanese companies, using resolutions that have been employed in Europe and the United States to push companies and banks away from investing in, or financing, fossil fuels like coal, which still has strong support in Japan. The proposal was ""essential for investors to correctly assess the transition risk and ambition level of the company, when it comes to addressing climate change,"" Eric Christian Pedersen, head of responsible investments at Danish fund manager Nordea Asset Management, told Reuters by email. The 2015 Paris Agreement requires countries to curb emissions enough to keep temperature rises to within 1.5-2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels to avert the worst effects of climate change. Sumitomo is involved in two controversial coal power projects in Southeast Asia, the Van Phong 1 station in Vietnam and the Matarbari plant in Bangladesh, countries that have fast growing energy needs. Sumitomo recently announced it would aim for carbon neutrality by 2050. ""While we acknowledge the company's net zero commitment for 2050 and recent policy updates, we do not believe these are sufficiently aligned to limit global warming to 1.5C,"" Sachi Suzuki, senior engager at EOS at Federated Hermes, told Reuters by email. This is ""particularly because its policy for coal power generation allows various exceptions and would not affect the plants already under construction,"" Suzuki said. EOS at Federated Hermes has $1.5 trillion in assets under advice. A similar proposal was put before shareholders of Mizuho Financial Group last year and defeated by a margin of around 65 percent-35 percent, the bank said at the time.",0
" Indian art might be just the solution for investors seeking a safe haven at a turbulent time. Take a vivid landscape by avant-garde artist Francis Newton Souza hanging on a wall in Indian art dealer Ashish Anand's New Delhi gallery. With a price tag of $400,000, the painting might not seem like a bargain but Abnand says it will probably be worth $2 million within the next two years. Art dealers and experts say the Indian art market is still undervalued and there is money to be made in local art for those with the means to pay the six figure prices that works by some of India's leading artists fetch at auctions. ""I think Indian art is a one-way bet in the long term. That's why I will allocate money to it,"" said Philip Hoffman who runs the Fine Art Fund based in London. ""If you look 50 years down the line, what you pay now is peanuts compared to what you will have to pay for the great Indian artists,"" he told Reuters at an Indian art summit in New Delhi in August. The prices of Indian art have gone up considerably but not at the levels of Chinese art, which has seen prices soar due to enormous interest at home and abroad. Dealers believe Indian works have plenty of room to appreciate, especially as South Asian art begins to draw a Western audience. ""The growth potential is huge,"" said Hugo Weihe, Christie's international director of Asian Art. ""The Indian art market is particularly strong within India and that's different from the Chinese contemporary. You have that component plus we are now reaching out to an international component every season."" Often depicting vivid and colourful scenes of Indian life and culture, Indian art has long been popular among wealthy Indians, whose ranks are growing rapidly in a booming economy. Yet until recently Western collectors had not taken much interest in classical and contemporary Indian artists. That is starting to change. Weihe predicts that sales of Indian art at Christie's auctions might reach $30 million this year, compared with $680,000 in 2000. SKYROCKETING VALUATIONS Asia's art scene has blossomed in the past five years driven by the continent's rapid economic growth. Valuations have skyrocketed as Asian art has become an investment for speculators and a symbol of affluence for a growing pool of local collectors. The record for a contemporary Indian art work was set in June when Francis Newton Souza's piece 'Birth' was sold for $1.3 million pounds ($2.3 million). The figure was, nevertheless, significantly lower than the $9.7 million record price for Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi's piece 'Mask Series 1996 No. 6' sold at an auction in Hong Kong in May. Works by famous Indian artists such as Maqbool Fida Husain and Syed Haider Raza currently go under the hammer for anywhere from $200,000 to $1 million. Yet industry players expect prices to shoot up to between $5 million to $10 million in the next few years. Neville Tuli, a manager of a $400 million art fund in India, believes that Indian art will appreciate by between 18 to 25 percent per year in a climate in which art is increasingly seen as a secure investment. ""Financial institutions and their HNIs (high net worth individuals) are recognising the inherent stability in the art object as a capital asset,"" said Neville Tuli, a manager of a $400 million art fund in India. ""Hence given its low correlation to economic circumstances and other related factors, the proportion of art within the alternative asset allocation is increasing significantly,"" he added. HOT MONEY CANVASES ART But as with all investments, there are risks. The Indian market is vastly different from the Western art markets because in India, art is viewed more as a financial investment rather than a collectors item, art fund managers said. ""It has gone up 200 times in five years,"" said Hoffman, of the London-based Fine Art Fund, adding that the Indian market consisted of 70 percent speculators and 30 percent collectors. This trend of rapid buying and selling, makes it difficult to predict long term value. ""Let's say you've got a Gupta,"" Hoffman said, referring to Subodh Gupta, one of India's hot new artists whose pieces sell for between $800,000 to $1 million. ""It's a financial commodity like a stock,"" Hoffman said. ""You need the Bill Gates of this world to say I want a Gupta and I don't give a damn how much it cost. It's going into my collection and it's not for sale,"" he added, saying a growing pool of collectors will give the market stability. Art experts would like to see more people like Kusam Sani, a wealthy fashion consultant based in Delhi, who is one of the few art collectors who keeps the art they buy. ""I have a 40 foot dining room and it's covered with work, but I can't buy anymore because I've got no more space,"" said Sani, who has been collecting paintings since she was a teenager. Greater government investment in art infrastructure and museums will give the market stability in the long term, experts said, although they noted that so far the Indian government has shown little political will to support such projects. There are also bureaucratic hurdles such as permits to export works of art and requirements to register antiques with government bodies that turn acquisitions of Indian art into a headache for dealers and collectors abroad. But despite the market's shortcomings, art dealers, Weihe and Hoffman are bullish on Indian art. ""The Indian market will mature when the real collector base is grown up and put the money is put to one side,"" Hoffman said. ""In the long run, all these artists are going to be global, they just happen to be local at the moment."" ",1
"The US special presidential envoy for climate met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday to officially invite her to the Leaders’ Summit on Climate called by Biden. Prior to his meeting with Hasina, the US special envoy met Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen at the state guesthouse Padma in the afternoon, which was followed by a joint news briefing. “We are excited in the United States about the prospect of moving to this cleaner energy, this new future that protects our world for our children, grandchildren and future generation as we live up to our global responsibility to lead and do what young people around the world are asking us to do – which is to behave like adults and get the job done,” Kerry said at the briefing.                    Conveying Biden’s greetings on Bangladesh’s 50th anniversary, Kerry noted that he had visited the country as secretary of state. He also mentioned that the US has returned under Biden’s leadership to the Paris Agreement. “Paris was the beginning. We always knew we were gonna have to measure where we were,” he said. Kerry regretted that the previous president, Donald Trump, pulled out of the Paris Agreement. “But while he did that, governors and mayors stayed in that agreement. And we have continued to work,” he said. “And now that we have President Biden back who is deeply committed to his decision, I believe we can make unparalleled progress on a global basis,” he added. The day after taking office, Biden brought the US back to the Paris Agreement, which Donald Trump withdrew from four years ago. Subsequently, Kerry, who signed the Paris Agreement on behalf of the US in 2015, was given a new role as special climate envoy to Biden. “No one country can solve the problem of the climate crisis and no country doubts there is a crisis,” the special envoy remarked. The world has experienced the hottest day in human history this year, the hottest week, the hottest month, the hottest year and the hottest decade. “The decade before that was the second hottest. The decade before that was the third hottest. And we see the damages all across the world of choices the human beings are making. Damages from virus, floods, droughts, ice melding, sea level rising, from food and production interrupted, from the ability of the people the way they live. “Migration is already happening because of climate change. So we know from the scientists that we all must take action,” he said. Kerry said the US dealt with the challenge of helping to bring technology to the places that don’t have it but need it. “Equally importantly we are delighted that we have the ability to work together now and tensely going forward in order to bring technology, research, development, finance to the table to do what we know we must do,” he said. Before Bangladesh, Kerry visited the United Arab Emirates and India. Both countries have pledged to raise ambition in tackling the effects of climate change and try to do more to address this crisis, he said. 
 
 Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and his wife Selina Momen receive US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry in Dhaka on Friday, Apr 9, 2021. US Ambassador Earl Miller joins them at the airport. 

They also agreed to work in partnership “with us to accelerate the transition between the energy future”, according to him.  Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and his wife Selina Momen receive US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry in Dhaka on Friday, Apr 9, 2021. US Ambassador Earl Miller joins them at the airport.  “Now please do not make mistake, this does not require sacrifice. This does not require a lesser quality of life. It is a better quality of life with cleaner air, less disease, less cancer. “With the ability to create tens of millions of jobs, in the deployment of these technologies in the creation of this new energy future,” he said. President Biden understands this and so he has put $2 trillion on a growth plan in front of the US which will have the country go to zero carbon in its power sector by 2035 and deploy 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, Kerry said. Kerry’s visit is significant for Bangladesh because Biden’s call for a global conference for climate change comes at a time when Bangladesh leads the Climate Vulnerable Forum or CVF, the forum for countries at risk in the change. The foreign ministry said Momen sought from Kerry US support for increasing global climate ambition and commitment to accelerate implementation of the Paris Agreement, hoping that under the leadership of the US, the developed countries would come forward with ambitious actions to limit the global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. In the meeting, Momen highlighted Bangladesh’s low carbon development path with increasing emphasis on renewable energy and energy efficiency and underlined Bangladesh government’s key initiatives including Climate Change Trust Fund, National Solar Energy Roadmap, National Adaptation Programme of Action, and Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan to achieve low-carbon economic growth. While discussing about the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow in November this year, the foreign minister reiterated the significance of the promised international financial flow at and beyond $100 billion annually to support sustainable development and energy transformations of the developing economies. He stressed that the funding should be distributed at 50:50 ratio between mitigation and adaptation. Kerry departed Bangladesh in the evening after the one-day visit. He also met Environment Minister Md Shahab Uddin and Special Envoy of the Vulnerable Forum Presidency Abul Kalam Azad.",1
" The Nobel Peace Prize has occasionally affected world events, but it is more of a microphone to broadcast the views of the winner than a magic wand to change things, a senior Nobel official said. Geir Lundestad, head of the Nobel Institute in Oslo and secretary to the Norwegian committee that selects the laureates, said the peace prize could open many doors, but it only rarely enabled the winners to change the world. ""The prize is primarily a high honour,"" Lundestad told reporters during a recent visit to the Institute. ""It also acts as a loudspeaker and a microphone for the lesser-known laureates."" ""It can obviously not produce peace. It is no magic wand -- that goes without saying,"" he said. Former US Vice President Al Gore will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in the Norwegian capital on Monday with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Announced in October, the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.55 million) award went to them for spreading public awareness and furthering the science of climate change. Gore and IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri will receive the prize while governments are convened at a UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, to try to launch negotiations for a treaty to succeed the Kyoto protocol curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Gore said upon arriving in Oslo on Friday, that if the prize helped further those talks, it would be a good thing. The peace prize has sometimes offered protection to the winners against their countries' rulers, as noted by the 1983 laureate Lech Walesa of Poland and the Soviet dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov who got the prize in 1975. ""It also opens virtually all doors,"" Lundestad said, citing the example of South African Bishop Desmond Tutu who was invited to Ronald Reagan's White House to delivery his message about the evils of apartheid only after he won the prize in 1984. ""And very occasionally, but only very occasionally, it can influence politics on the ground,"" Lundestad said. Perhaps the best example, he said, was the 1996 prize to Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos Horta. The prize-winners themselves said the award was influential in helping East Timor break away from Indonesia in 1999 and gain independence in 2002. Before winning the prize, Ramos Horta travelled the world seeking support, but no one wanted to see him or finance his movement, so he slept in railway stations, Lundestad said. Lundestad said East Timor gained independence mainly because of economic, social and political collapse in Indonesia at the end of the 1990s. ""But the prize certainly contributed. The world certainly cared about what was happening on that tiny half of that tiny island,"" he said.",0
"“I can’t tell,” one said. “I really don’t know,” another replied. “More likely ‘Mein Kampf,’” a third guessed. All extracts were, in fact, from Höcke’s book, describing, for example, a “longing of the German people for a historical figure who will heal the wounds in the Volk, overcome division and bring back order.” Höcke, a history teacher turned far-right ideologue, runs the Alternative for Germany in the state of Thuringia, where the party is set to double its share of the vote to more than 20% in elections on Sunday, further cementing its position as a leading political force in the former Communist East. Thuringia may be one of the smallest states in Germany, but Höcke’s national notoriety and unapologetically provocative language, packed with echoes from the 1930s, have given the poll an outsize importance. How the Alternative for Germany, known by its German abbreviation AfD, fares in Thuringia will also help determine the sway that Höcke and his ideology will hold in the party — and its future direction, analysts say. “These elections matter symbolically,” said Matthias Quent, an expert and author on far-right extremism and director of an institute that studies democracy and civil society in Thuringia. “Höcke’s extremist wing has been gaining influence inside the party from its eastern base.” Nationwide, the AfD may be flatlining, Quent said. But, he added, “it is radicalising.” In the six years since the AfD was founded as a national-conservative, free-market protest party against the Greek bailout and the euro, it has sharply shifted to the right. A noisy nationalism and anti-immigrant stance now define its brand. The party seized on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome over a million migrants to Germany in 2015, actively fanning fears of Islamisation and migrant crime. Two years later, the AfD became the first far-right party to enter Parliament since World War II. By now, it sits in every state legislature in the country. Yet the AfD itself is deeply split. In one camp are disillusioned conservatives, often former members of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, who feel alienated by what they perceive as a shift to the left of their old party on issues like migration, same-sex marriage and climate change. In the other are hard-line nationalists like Höcke, who use language laced with ethnic hatred and close ranks with neo-Nazis during street protests. The ideological split is also a geographic one: The far right is more moderate in western Germany — but also less successful, trailing far behind Merkel’s conservatives and garnering less than half the support of the resurgent liberal Greens. In the former East, meanwhile, it has become a broad-based political force embedded at the grassroots level. “East Germany has become a refuge for the far right, a place where you can gather your strength, logistically and mentally,” Quent said. In the AfD’s narrative, the east is avant-garde. The west, liberal and multicultural, is already lost, he said. “The east is where Germany is still Germany and where men are still men,” Quent said. This is where Höcke has his power base. Himself a westerner, he runs a movement inside the AfD known as the Flügel, or Wing, which has become increasingly influential in the party. Since January, the Wing has been under observation by the domestic intelligence agency, which says there were “indications” that it is “an extremist organisation.” Thomas Haldenwang, the agency’s chief, has described Höcke as the “linchpin” of the movement, and warned this month that his concerns had only grown in recent months. “The Wing is becoming more and more extremist,” Haldenwang told Der Spiegel. But that assessment has not harmed the AfD’s fortunes in the east, where many leading candidates who won seats in local and regional bodies in recent months belong to the Wing. At the annual meeting of the Wing in the Kyffhäuser hills in Höcke’s constituency, he maintains a cult status, with Höcke mugs and Höcke T-shirts, among the many paraphernalia. Traditional parties have not even bothered to put up campaign posters here before the election on Sunday, so entrenched has the Wing become. Höcke has never been coy about his views. In 2017, at a rally in Dresden, he questioned the guiding precept of modern Germany — the country’s culpability in World War II and the Holocaust — calling on Germans to make a “180 degree” turn in the way they viewed their history. Germans were “the only people in the world to plant a monument of shame in the heart of their capital,” he said, referring to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Höcke has used metaphors reminiscent of Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist, saying that Germans need to be wolves rather than sheep. He uses terminology and concepts once used by Hitler himself, including racial suicide, a “decaying state’’ and “cultural Bolshevism.” Followers of Höcke’s Wing routinely call mainstream news media the “lying press,” another Nazi term, while Höcke himself has on occasion threatened critical journalists personally. After being shown the clips of AfD lawmakers unable to distinguish between his words and those of Hitler, Höcke stormed out of an interview with the public broadcaster ZDF — but not until promising the interviewer “massive consequences.” “Maybe I will one day be an interesting political personality in this country, who knows,” Höcke said. In his book, “Never Into the Same River Twice,” he openly advocates bringing down Germany’s postwar liberal order. “A few small corrections and little reforms won’t do, but German absolutism will be the guarantee that we will tackle this thoroughly and fundamentally,” he writes at one point. “Human harshness and unpleasant scenes won’t always be possible to avoid,” he went on, explaining the need for what he calls “temperate brutality.” Experts like Quent call Höcke’s ideology “pre-fascist.” “His book reads like a 21st-century ‘Mein Kampf,’” Quent said. The danger, said Quent, was not so much that the AfD would take power in one of Germany’s states or even join a coalition. By radicalising, he said, that prospect was, in fact, receding further. The real risk, Quent said, was that persistent verbal transgressions would normalise violent and racist language, push mainstream conservatives to the right and over time create an atmosphere in which the bar to real violence was lowered ever further. Since the AfD has come onto the scene, Germany has experienced an increase in far-right violence. Last year, far-right riots on the streets of the eastern city of Chemnitz saw neo-Nazis chase foreigners and AfD lawmakers march side by side with far-right extremists. In June this year, a regional politician who had defended Merkel's refugee policy was shot dead by a former neo-Nazi, and this month a far-right extremist attacked a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle, leaving two dead. “Especially personalities such as Mr. Höcke from Thuringia stoke anti-Semitism through the way they make political arguments,” said Markus Söder, the conservative governor of Bavaria. “They support such perpetrators. That cannot be accepted.” He called for the AfD to cut ties with Höcke. It has resisted those calls before. Many believe that Höcke’s movement has already won the civil war inside the AfD. Even his critics in the party now appear to tolerate the Wing in light of its successes in the east, even if that risks costing votes in the west, said Hajo Funke, a professor at the Free University of Berlin who studies right-wing extremism. “There is no effective strategy of resistance against Höcke,” Funke said. At an AfD rally in the small eastern town of Sömmerda this past week, Höcke addressed a crowd of about 100 seated at long wooden picnic tables, vowing to “set democracy straight.” Germans no longer felt free to speak their mind, he said. At the back of the crowd, men wearing blue AfD vests demanded that the police ban two women from “disrupting” the crowd with stickers they had pasted to their sweatshirts. The police refused, saying the women were merely exercising their freedom of speech. Their stickers read, “No Place for Nazis.” © 2019 New York Times News Service",0
" Noah's Ark, built to save humanity and the animal kingdom in the face of a great flood, is being reconstructed in model form on Mount Ararat as a warning to mankind to act now to prevent global warming. Environmental activists are behind the initiative in the lush green foothills of the snow-capped mountain in eastern Turkey, where the Bible says the vessel came to rest after a flood had wiped out corrupt humanity. Volunteers are racing to complete the wooden vessel under bright sunshine by end-May, to coincide with a summit of leading countries next month in Germany where climate change will be high on the agenda. ""This is directed mainly at the politicians of this earth, to world leaders who are primarily responsible for the climate catastrophe which is taking place and for the solution,"" said Wolfgang Sadik, campaign leader for Greenpeace, which is behind the project. ""The aim is to put on Mount Ararat a memorial, a warning sign that also gives hope, to shake up the world and to say that if we don't react now it is too late,"" he said, as carpenters hammered away at the Ark's bow at an altitude of 2,400 metres. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned carbon dioxide emissions should at least be halved by 2050 to avoid climate changes which the European Union says would be dangerous. Rising seas are a central concern of climate change. The UN climate panel says seas are set to rise 18-59 cms this century, up from 17 cms in the 20th century. But there are deep divisions on ways to tackle the threat. Germany wants G8 countries at next month's meeting to agree to the IPCC target and promote carbon trading as a way to penalise greenhouse gas emissions. But US chief climate negotiator Harlan Watson said last week the United States will continue to reject emissions targets or cap-and-trade schemes, and will fight climate change by funding clean energy technologies. 
PUNISHMENT In the Biblical Noah's Ark story -- well-known to Jews, Christians and Muslims -- God decides to punish humanity's sins by destroying life on Earth with a flood. He chooses righteous Noah to preserve life by saving his family and pairs of all the world's animals -- which board the boat two by two. Such a menagerie would strain the model Ark, which at just 10 metres long and four metres high would barely house Noah's family. The Bible says the original ark was 300 cubits (about 140 metres) long -- longer than a soccer pitch. The model will even be a tight fit for climbers if, as planned, it ultimately becomes a mountain hut. Timber for the boat was hauled by horse up the mountain last week and the volunteers face logistical problems working at high altitude in a remote place. They are also working against the clock for a May 31 ceremony, when doves will be released from the boat and an appeal made to world leaders to counter global warming: Noah sent a dove out from the Ark to see if the flood had subsided. ""A boatbuilding master said they would not have the courage to do this given the short period of time,"" said German carpenter Rainer Brumshagen. ""But I had the feeling that it could work."" ""It all feels very good with the energy people are bringing here, uniting those from different countries to work together."" The political wrangling feels a world away from the idyllic slopes of Mount Ararat, where shepherds graze their sheep and swallows circle the brightly coloured tents of the two dozen activists involved in the Greenpeace project. ""But"", one of Brumshagen's carpenter colleagues said of the model Ark, ""I am not so sure that it will float.""",0
"Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque proposed to host the workshop at the second half of this year at the 17th session of the BIMSTEC Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) held on Tuesday in Kathmandu. He was leading a six-member Bangladesh delegation at the meeting which was held after nearly three years, the foreign ministry said in a statement. The foreign secretary also proposed to host a range of BIMSTEC programmes this year which include international conference on blue economy, trade negotiation committee meeting, workshop on climate change, meeting of the ministers of culture, and tourism ministers’ roundtable. He stressed “revitalising the activities of BIMSTEC and to have strong collaboration and meaningful cooperation among the member states, especially on the four areas of cooperation in climate change, technology, counter terrorism and transnational crime and trade and investment”. Born in 1997, the seven-member grouping of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand connects South Asia with the Southeast Asia, and serves as a platform for inter-regional cooperation between SAARC and ASEAN members. Bangladesh hosts the headquarters in Dhaka. It is now being seen as an alternative to SAARC by some think-tanks following India-Pakistan tension that resulted in the postponement of this year’s summit in Islamabad. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted BIMSTEC leaders at an outreach meet in Goa last year during the BRICS summit. The grouping is now promoting 14 priority sectors of development and common concerns. Those include trade and investment, technology, energy, transport and communication, tourism, fisheries, agriculture, cultural cooperation, environment and disaster management, public health, people-to-people contact, poverty alleviation, counter-terrorism and transnational crimes, and climate change. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are aimed at eradicating poverty by 2O3O. The foreign secretary also urged the member states to conclude the BIMSTEC Free Trade Area (FTA) negotiations “as early as possible”. Nepalese Foreign Secretary Shankar Das Bairagi, as the current chair, chaired this foreign secretary level meeting.",1
" The world faces a daunting task to agree a new deal by the end of 2009 to slow climate change, the United Nations said on Friday as 170-country talks ended with recriminations about scant progress. Developing nations at the June 2-13 meeting accused the rich of dragging their feet in setting new cuts of greenhouse gases and failing to offer enough ideas for sharing new technology or for aiding the poor to adapt to the impacts of climate change. ""The road ahead of us is daunting,"" Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said of a U.N. timetable meant to end with a climate deal in Copenhagen in December 2009 to widen and toughen the existing Kyoto Protocol. Still, he said there was progress in Bonn partly because nations had a better understanding of what should go into the hugely complex treaty meant to slow desertification, heatwaves, floods, rising seas and more powerful storms. ""It is crucial that the next stage of meetings produce concrete negotiating texts,"" he said. Bonn was the second session in a two-year push for a deal after starting in Bangkok in March. The next will be in Accra, Ghana, in August. Others were more sceptical. ""It could well be said that we have been beating around the bush,"" said India's Chandrashekhar Dasgupta. He said there was a ""deafening silence"" from almost all rich nations on ways to make new cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions. ""The pace was slow and difficult,"" said Harald Dovland, a Norwegian official chairing a group looking at future cuts by the 37 rich nations who have agreed to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 under the Protocol. NEW SPIRIT He said a ""new spirit"" of cooperation was needed. Many countries are looking to the U.S. presidential election for impetus. President George W. Bush rejected Kyoto, calling it too costly, but both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have promised to do more to cap emissions. De Boer said there were no signs that rich nations were getting alarmed by the possible costs. ""Short-term financial crises, food prices are not affecting this process in a negative way,"" he said. High oil prices added to the arguments for conserving energy and shifting to renewable power such as wind or solar power. Environmentalists accused the United States, Canada and Australia of doing most to slow the talks. They gave praise to initiatives by countries including China, Brazil, Switzerland and Norway. ""The agenda has never been bigger, progress has never been slower,"" said Bill Hare of Greenpeace. He said there was a risk of failure unless major developed nations stopped what he called ""unconstructive tactics, nit-picking and roadblocks."" De Boer said it was too early for gloom. ""It's a little early days when we are in the first mile of the marathon to say we're not going to reach the finishing line,"" he said. Among delays, the talks put off consideration of allowing capture and burial of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, to qualify for credits under a mechanism promoting cuts in greenhouse gases in poor nations. ""The unfortunate reality of the situation is that we are not making progress,"" said Aysar Tayeb of Saudi Arabia of the proposal to expand the Clean Development Mechanism.",0
"A VVIP flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines arrived at Shahjalal International Airport sometime after Tuesday midnight. It left Madrid–Torrejón Airport in the Spanish capital in the morning local time. Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the World Tourism Organization Hassan Mahmood Khandker saw her off. After travelling to Madrid on Sunday, she renewed her pledge to continue the ongoing drive against terrorism, militancy, drugs and corruption in a meeting with the expatriate Bangladeshis there. On Monday, speaking as the leader of one of the most vulnerable nations at the COP25, she called for action to stave off climate threats to create a world liveable for the future generation. She also said the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis was aggravating the challenge faced by Bangladesh to tackle the imminent threat of climate change. She urged the international community to step up efforts to resolve the humanitarian crisis by repatriating them to their homeland Myanmar. Hasina accepted Marshall Islands' President Hilda Heine's proposal to lead the Climate Vulnerable Forum or CVF in 2020. She sought the Netherlands’ help to send back the Rohingya refugees in a meeting with her Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte in Madrid. European Parliament President David-Maria Sassoli met Hasina later and assured her of continuing cooperation to tackle the effects of climate change. She paid a courtesy call on Spanish President Pedro Sánchez on Monday afternoon before joining a reception hosted by King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano at the royal palace. The COP25 will continue until Dec 13.",1
"Deborah Zabarenko
Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - A breakthrough deal forged by delegates from 190 countries has revived world efforts to fight global warming and may help push the debate to the front and center of the U.S. political debate. The United States joined the deal reached on the Indonesian island of Bali in a dramatic U-turn. But significantly, the accord sets late 2009 as the target for a climate treaty, months after U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office. Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who heads the Senate's environment committee, noted the Bush administration's lonely position after the Bali deal was reached on Saturday. ""In Bali, the president tried to treat the world the way he treats Congress -- 'my way or the highway,'"" Boxer said in a statement. ""The difference is that in Congress he has supporters but in Bali he had no supporters."" The debate is largely over for the American public, according to Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. Americans view climate change as the world's top environmental problem, although few followed the Bali debate. Americans are relying on policymakers, including the next president, to tackle climate change, Bowman said. ""I don't think the public has a clue about what to do next,"" she said. U.S. policymakers predict there will be no law on climate change under a reluctant Bush but presidential hopefuls -- including those from his own Republican Party -- already are laying the groundwork for his exit in January 2009. They have been bolstered in no small part by independent actions taken in Congress and states across the country. While the Bali talks were raging, contenders for the U.S. Republican nomination were asked their positions on the world's changing climate at a debate last week in Iowa, which will have the first state contest leading up to the November 2008 election. The United States was alone among major industrialized nations to reject the Kyoto Protocol agreement to curb global warming emissions. The Bali ""road map"" aims to find a successor that brings in fast-growing countries like China and India. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino called parts of the Bali deal ""quite positive"" but said negotiators must emphasize the role of developing countries that are big polluters. The Bush administration has opposed specific targets to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide -- spewed by coal-fired power plants and petroleum-fueled vehicles -- arguing that this would hurt the U.S. economy. The Bush team has been increasingly isolated on the climate issue, even in the United States, where some of the country's largest businesses, including the Big Three automakers and regional electric companies, have been pushing for a system to cap and trade credits for greenhouse emissions. CANDIDATES AND CONGRESS Meanwhile, the presidential hopefuls have chimed in with Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama joining Republican frontrunners Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney in insisting it was an issue to be faced. ""Climate change is real,"" said both Giuliani and Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain, another Republican hopeful. The administration also has come under pressure from other parts of the government and country: -- The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed a Republican-sponsored bill that aims to curb climate change, and sent it to the full Senate for debate next year; -- The Senate passed an energy bill that cuts U.S. oil use, curbs emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide and boosts fuel efficiency, and Bush indicated he would sign it; -- A federal court upheld a California law that requires curbs in greenhouse gas emissions by cars and trucks that are tougher than U.S. standards, rejecting an argument by vehicle makers that federal law should apply; -- A panel of U.S. state governors called for more alternative fuels and clean vehicles, and urged other governors to act ""to solve America's energy challenges.""",0
"A Bangladesh Biman flight carrying her took-off from the Shahjalal International Airport around 10 am. Sheikh Hasina will participate of at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) on Oct 16-17 in the Italian city of Milan. Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali told a briefing on Tuesday that the prime minister would address the summit on Thursday (Oct 16). She will highlight Bangladesh's position on different important issues like climate change, millennium development goals (MDGs), disaster-risk management and connectivity between Asia and Europe, he added. Talking of Bangladesh’s progress in economic and social spheres, the minister said: “The summit will give importance to our prime minister’s position.” Besides attending the summit, Hasina will have bilateral meetings with the heads of the governments of Italy, the Netherlands, Greece, and Sweden, and hold discussions with chiefs of the European Commission and European Council. The foreign minister said ASEM had 51 members at present, while Croatia and Kazakhstan had applied for membership. He said 50 people were in the PM’s entourage. Hasina is also scheduled to attend a reception to be given to her by expatriate Bangladeshis in Italy.",1
" Morocco's Justice and Development Party (PJD) claimed victory on Saturday in a parliamentary election that should produce a stronger government after King Mohammed ceded some powers to prevent any spillover from Arab Spring uprisings. The PJD, which finds its support largely among Morocco's poor, would be the second moderate Islamist party to lead a North African government since the start of the region's Arab Spring uprisings, following Tunisia. But the party, which hopes to push Islamic finance but vows to steer clear of imposing a strict moral code on society, will have to join forces with others to form a government. ""Based on reports filed by our representatives at polling stations throughout the country, we are the winners. We won Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier, Kenitra, Sale, Beni Mellal and Sidi Ifni to cite just a few,"" Lahcen Daodi, second in command of the moderate Islamist party, told Reuters. ""Our party has won the highest number of seats,"" he said. Government officials could not immediately confirm the party's assertion. The king revived a reform process this year hoping to sap the momentum out of a protest movement and avoid the violence-ridden revolts in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria. He has handed over more powers to the government, although he retains the final say on the economy, security and religion. Some 13.6 million Moroccans out of a population of about 33 million were registered to vote in the country's ninth election since independence from France in 1956. Voter turnout stood at 45 percent, Interior Minister Taib Cherkaoui said, up from a record low in 2007 when only 37 percent of 15.5 million registered voters turned out. The ministry has not accounted for the change in registered voters. The polls ""took place under normal conditions and a under a climate of mobilisation marked by fair competition and respect of electoral laws,"" Cherkaoui told reporters. The first results will be issued later on Saturday, the minister added. In contrast to previous elections, Friday's vote was expected to be a closely-run contest between PJD and a new coalition of liberals with close ties to the royal palace. But Mustapha Al Khalfi, a member of PJD's politburo, sounded a note of caution among the cries of victory. ""We have to wait for the final results because there was a lot of fraud, so we hope that it will not cost us what should be a resounding victory for our party,"" he said. Lahcen Haddad, a prominent member of the so-called Alliance for Democracy, declined to comment. Driss Yazami, who heads the official National Council for Human Rights, told the private Aswat radio that observers had recorded violations, including some potential voters being given food. ""It did not reach a scale that can affect the overall course of the polls,"" Yazami said. BOYCOTTED POLLS? The king will pick the next prime minister from the party that wins the biggest number of seats. But whichever party or bloc comes first is unlikely to be able to form a government on its own. PJD has said it aims to obtain a majority by joining forces with three parties in the current governing coalition, including the left-wing Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) and the nationalist Istiqlal of Prime Minister Abbas Al Fassi. Economists are keen to see the polls leading to the creation of a cohesive government that would be able to narrow a growing budget deficit, cut a 30-percent-plus youth unemployment rate and address the needs of 8.5 million destitute Moroccans. Since becoming king in 1999, King Mohammed won international praise for his efforts to repair a dark legacy of human right abuses under the 38-year rule of his late father King Hassan. But his reform drive lost momentum over the last few years. There remains a vocal minority who say his revived reforms are not enough. Thousands of people joined protests in several cities last weekend to back calls for a boycott of the election. ""Today marked a victory for the boycott,"" said Najib Chawki, an activist with the February 20 Movement, which has been leading protests since February to demand a British- or Spanish-style monarchy and an end to corruption. ""Only 6 million out of 21 million Moroccans eligible to vote took part in the polls. This sends a strong signal to authorities that Moroccans are not buying the proposed reforms. We will not give up until our demands are met,"" Chawki said. The movement plans new nationwide protests on December 4.",2
"The US Embassy’s warning that Americans should stay away from the airport added a new level of uncertainty to the volatile situation — which includes reports of growing hunger around the country — just a day after President Joe Biden vowed to get all US citizens to safety. Assaulted by tear gas and by Taliban gunmen who have beaten people with clubs and whips, throngs of Afghans and their families continued to swarm the airport in hopes of getting aboard US military transport planes evacuating Americans and their Afghan allies. But the hopes of those who pressed against the airport blast walls faded as word spread that Biden had warned that his effort to evacuate Afghans was not open-ended. US officials said the most serious current threat is that Afghanistan’s Islamic State branch would attempt an attack that would both hurt the Americans and damage the Taliban’s sense of control. But it was unclear how capable ISIS, which has battled the Taliban, is of such an attack, the officials said. The security alert instructed Americans still marooned in Kabul not to travel to the airport “unless you receive individual instructions from a US government representative to do so.” John F. Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, said Saturday there had been no additional helicopter rescues of Americans in Kabul seeking to flee the Afghan capital since Thursday’s mission, but he did not rule out the possibility of similar operations in the future if local commanders believed they were warranted. The security alert came as a 2-year-old girl was trampled to death in a stampede outside an airport gate at about 10 a.m. Saturday, according to her mother, a former employee of a US organisation in Kabul. The child was crushed when the crowd surged toward the gate, knocking over the woman and several members of her family, she said. “My heart is bleeding,” the woman said. “It was like drowning and trying to hold your baby above the water.” 
 
 The Taliban’s actions and history of brutality cast doubt on their promises of amnesty, and many Afghans are afraid to venture out of their homes. The New York Times 

The embassy alert underscored the deteriorating security situation in the capital amid reports that Taliban gunmen were going door-to-door, searching for Afghans who had worked for the US government or military, or for the US-backed government. The militants are threatening to arrest or punish family members if they can’t find the people they are seeking, according to former members of the Afghan government, a confidential report prepared for the United Nations and US veterans who have been contacted by desperate Afghans who served alongside them.  The Taliban’s actions and history of brutality cast doubt on their promises of amnesty, and many Afghans are afraid to venture out of their homes. The New York Times  A 31-year-old Afghan who worked for four years as an interpreter for the US military said he had managed to get out of the country earlier this month. But he said the Taliban destroyed his home in Kabul and threatened his parents, who fled and were now living on the street in Kabul. The International Rescue Committee estimates that more than 300,000 Afghan civilians have been affiliated with the US since 2001, but only a minority qualify for evacuation. Biden said Friday that he would commit to airlifting Afghans who had helped the US war effort, but that Americans were his priority. “Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home,” he said. The president said that he was unaware of any Americans who had been prevented by Taliban gunmen or other obstacles from reaching the airport. But two resettlement agencies in the US reported that they had received panicked calls from Afghan American clients holding US passports or green cards who had been unable to reach the airport. In an interview Saturday morning, a 39-year-old Afghan, who said he worked as an interpreter for the US military and the US government, said an Afghan American friend holding a green card was unable to penetrate the crowds outside the airport gates and went back home in frustration. The Afghan, who asked to be identified as Mike — the name assigned to him by his US military colleagues — said the green card holder was turned away at an airport gate manned by British soldiers even after presenting the document. Biden administration officials have said they do not have an accurate count of the number of US citizens still stranded in Kabul and seeking to leave the country. 
 
 Khalil Haqqani, a leader of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, seated second from left, attends Friday prayer at the Pul-i-Khishti Mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday, Aug. 20, 2021 as an armed Taliban member stands watch. (Jim Huylebroek/The New York Times) 

Biden has aimed to quell a global furore over the chaotic evacuation that has followed the Taliban’s return to power.  Khalil Haqqani, a leader of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, seated second from left, attends Friday prayer at the Pul-i-Khishti Mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday, Aug. 20, 2021 as an armed Taliban member stands watch. (Jim Huylebroek/The New York Times)  But with just 10 days until his deadline to withdraw all US troops, Biden conceded that for many Afghans desperate to escape the Taliban and their history of brutality, “I cannot promise what the final outcome will be.” The administration last week put out a call for volunteers across the government to help get visas processed for people from Afghanistan. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services sent out an email describing the chance to help an “extraordinary initiative,” urging any employee in any position to apply. More than 13,000 people have been evacuated since Aug. 14, the day before the Taliban seized Kabul, according to the Pentagon. Biden said Friday that 18,000 people had been flown out since July. Life in Afghanistan has been thrown into turmoil by the Taliban’s swift and shocking takeover of the country. Taliban fighters swept into Kabul a week ago, toppling the US-backed government and there are signs they are reprising some of the same brutal elements of the Taliban government of the late 1990s. Some women in Kabul have been beaten or threatened by Taliban gunmen for not properly covering themselves, according to residents of the capital. Afghan and international journalists have said they had been beaten or manhandled while trying to report or photograph in the capital, and demonstrators waving the black, red and green flag of Afghanistan have been assaulted by Taliban fighters. On Saturday, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, wrote on Twitter that the Taliban had set up a three-member committee to “address media problems in Kabul.” He did not elaborate. A Taliban official said Saturday that the group’s co-founder, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had arrived in Kabul for talks aimed a forming a new government. On Tuesday, Baradar, who oversaw the signing of a troop withdrawal agreement with the US in Qatar in February 2020, arrived to a hero’s welcome in Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual birthplace. Baradar was expected to begin talks with former President Hamid Karzai and other politicians. “The negotiations are going on right now,” said Ahmadullah Waseq, deputy of the Taliban’s cultural affairs committee, who confirmed Baradar’s arrival. For now, he said, Taliban officials are largely talking among themselves in preparation for the negotiations. Taliban leaders have not provided details on the type of government they envision, beyond saying that it would adhere to Islamic values, a clear indication the militants intend to impose their strict interpretation of Shariah law. Witnesses at the airport described continued scenes of chaos and panic. Mike, the former translator, said he helped Taliban fighters carry two Afghan women who had fainted in the morning heat. “The women and children were screaming to the Taliban, ‘We’re going to die!'” Mike said. “They brought us a water hose.” One young family in Kabul said they were growing increasingly frightened after camping for three days outside an airport compound. The crush of people was so great that they had not been able to reach the gate to submit their names. They had been cleared for evacuation and told by British officials to come to the compound, they said, but had ended up sleeping in the open with small children — with no idea whether they would be admitted. The airport bottleneck threatened to trigger another humanitarian crisis for the beleaguered country. Relief agencies are struggling to bring food, medicine and other urgently needed supplies into Afghanistan, according to officials. Decades of war, an extended drought linked to climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to widespread suffering. At least 14 million Afghans — one-third of the country’s population — are going hungry, according to the United Nations food agency. The World Food Program said this week that 2 million Afghan children were among the malnourished. Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the agency’s country director for Afghanistan, said this week that the second devastating drought in three years had destroyed crops and livestock. She said fighting this spring and summer had displaced thousands of Afghans and that a harsh winter could make things worse. ©2021 The New York Times Company",0
" Germany's corporate chiefs are under fire after a police raid on one of the country's most respected bosses on Thursday added to the list of scandals that is shaking the public's faith in its cherished corporate system. The swoop on the home and offices of Klaus Zumwinkel, chief executive of Deutsche Post and a pillar of the establishment, in a probe into suspected tax dodging was the latest shock for Germans already seething over fat-cat pay and golden handshakes. On top of a series of scandals in the last few years which have engulfed Europe's biggest carmaker Volkswagen and Siemens, Germany's biggest corporate employer, commentators warn of political consequences and said the far-left Left party could gain. Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said the potential damage of the Zumwinkel case, which involves individuals rather than the company as a whole, was ""considerable"". ""If the public has something like this as a role model, they'll start having doubts about the economic and social system,"" said Steinbrueck, a Social Democrat (SPD) in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel's left-right coalition. The case took on even bigger proportions on Friday when a newspaper reported the investigation could stretch to hundreds of rich and prominent Germans with offshore bank accounts. Germany's post-war identity is founded on its economic and corporate prowess, epitomised by the country's status as the world's biggest exporter and by the number of companies which are world leaders in their sector. Although managers' salaries are still below U.S. and British levels, discontent is growing among Germans who feel they are not reaping the rewards of growth in Europe's biggest economy. Disposable income for lower earners has fallen and the media have launched a campaign over excessive manager pay. Targets have included Juergen Schrempp, the former chief executive of carmaker Daimler who walked off with millions in a pay off and stock options as his merger with U.S. automaker Chrysler unravelled and shareholders lost out. ""(Zumwinkel's) case is one which feeds the general suspicion many people have: 'The top people lie and cheat everyone else',"" wrote the Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an editorial on Friday. 
PUSH TO THE LEFT? Although politicians from across the spectrum, including Merkel, have criticised excessive corporate pay, commentators say public anger over what the media calls morally degenerate bosses could lead to more left-wing policies. The growing appeal of the Left party, a group of former communists and disaffected former centre-left SPD supporters, has already pulled the main political parties to the left by forcing the ruling coalition to soften its stance on welfare reforms. ""The picture of a number of greedy managers is catastrophic as it spawns a sense of social injustice which can only help the Left party,"" Klaus Schneider, head of the SdK shareholders' association told Reuters. Former German finance minister Oskar Lafontaine, a co-leader of the Left, wants to increase public spending on pensions, welfare benefits and education. Corruption watchdog Transparency International says there is no objective data to show corruption is increasing in Germany. ""But you can say that in the last 10 to 15 years the subject has become far more important in peoples' minds ... there has been a change in the climate,"" Peter von Blomberg, deputy head of Transparency International Germany, told Reuters. Von Blomberg said Scandinavian countries were something of a model, thanks to open communication channels between citizens and authorities. German firms need to introduce and enforce compliance guidelines and protect whistleblowers, he said. ""In Germany there is still quite a distaste for denouncing people -- there are historical reasons for this but I think we may see a discussion about a possible legal framework to protect whistleblowers here,"" he said.",5
" Global warming activist Al Gore on Friday urged passage this year of a U.S. law to slash greenhouse emissions, saying failure to pass legislation could cause the collapse of world climate negotiations. Gore, the former U.S. vice president and star of the Oscar-winning documentary film ""An Inconvenient Truth,"" told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that passing a climate law is a ""moral imperative"" that will affect U.S. standing in the world community. ""Once we find the moral courage to take on this issue, the rest of the world will come along,"" Gore said. ""Now is the time to act before the world gathers in Copenhagen this December to solve the crisis. Not next year, this year."" He said that the passage of this bill would be met with ""a sigh of relief"" at the Copenhagen meeting aimed at crafting a follow-up agreement to the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol. If it fails to pass, Gore said, ""I think that would be awful to contemplate ... ""If the administration went to this global negotiation without this legislation, then I think we might well see a slow-motion collapse of the (climate change) negotiations."" The United States is seen as a lead actor in global climate talks, notably at a State Department meeting in Washington next Monday and Tuesday of the 17 countries that emit the most greenhouse gases. These include rich countries like the United States, Japan and members of the European Union, along with such fast-growing developing economies as China and India. In the fourth straight day of climate hearings on Capitol Hill, Gore praised the carbon-capping legislation crafted in the Energy and Commerce Committee for its plan to rapidly introduce new green technologies that will create new jobs. Gore, a former Democratic senator from Tennessee, appeared with former Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican, who helped shepherd a carbon-cutting bill to the Senate floor last year. The bill ultimately died on a procedural maneuver, but paved the way for this year's effort. The bill now being crafted in the House of Representatives is based on a cap-and-trade system, favored by President Barack Obama, to cut U.S. emissions by roughly 15 percent by 2020 -- back to 1990 levels. ",0
"The deaths were recorded in the township of Liulin, part of the city of Suizhou in the north of the province. More than 2,700 houses and shops suffered flood damage and power, transportation and communications were also disrupted, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Rescue crews have been dispatched to the worst affected areas, including the cities of Suizhou, Xiangyang and Xiaogan, China's Ministry of Emergency Management said. The city of Yicheng also saw a record 400 millimetres of rain on Thursday. According to the official China News Service, as many as 774 reservoirs in Hubei had exceeded their flood warning levels by Thursday evening. Extreme weather in the province has caused widespread power cuts and has damaged more than 3,600 houses and 8,110 hectares of crops. Total losses were estimated at 108 million yuan ($16.67 million), the official China Daily said on Friday, citing the province's emergency management bureau. China regularly experiences flooding during its wet summer months, but authorities have warned that extreme weather is now becoming more frequent as a result of climate change. Around 80,000 were evacuated in the southwestern province of Sichuan last weekend and record rainfall in Henan last month caused floods that killed more than 300 people. The China Meteorological Administration warned that heavy rainstorms were likely to continue until next week, with regions along the Yangtze river vulnerable to flooding. State weather forecasters also issued a geological disaster warning late on Thursday, saying areas at risk include the central provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Henan and Anhui, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guizhou in the southwest as well as Zhejiang on the eastern coast.",0
"Escalating tensions between China and some countries in the South China Sea and with Japan in the East China Sea, as well as US charges over hacking and Internet spying, have provoked anger on both sides of the Pacific in recent months. A White House statement about the Obama-Xi conversation did not get into the details of US-Chinese tensions. It came after two days of talks in Beijing that were an opportunity for the world's two biggest economies to lower tensions after months of bickering over a host of issues. Obama and Xi have tried to develop a working relationship over the past year, meeting for two days in June 2013 at a retreat in the California desert and, more recently, chatting in March at The Hague on the fringes of an international summit. However, their talks have done little to resolve festering issues in the Asia-Pacific region. The statement suggested the two leaders would seek to work together when they can despite their disagreements. ""The president reaffirmed his commitment to developing a relationship defined by increased practical cooperation and constructive management of differences,"" the White House said. China's official Xinhua news agency said Xi told Obama that the two countries should continue to meet each other half way and keep strengthening cooperation on key issues like climate change. Obama told Xi he looked forward to seeing him at an Asia-Pacific summit in Beijing in November. The White House statement said Obama stressed to Xi the need for communication and coordination on actions with China to ensure North Korea meets its denuclearisation commitments. China is North Korea's only major ally. Last week, North Korea launched short-range missiles that were in defiance of a UN ban that prohibits Pyongyang from using or procuring ballistic missile technology that could be used in its nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile programs. Xinhua said only that the two leaders ""exchanged views"" on the situation on the Korean peninsula. The two leaders also reviewed efforts to persuade Iran to agree to a nuclear agreement by a July 20 deadline. The White House said the two leaders ""discussed the need for continued US-China cooperation"" in the ongoing international negotiations between Iran and six world powers. ""The president underscored the need for Iran to take the steps necessary to assure the international community that its nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful,"" the statement said. China and Iran have close energy and trade ties, and Beijing has repeatedly resisted US-led demands to impose tougher economic sanctions on Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions. Iran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful energy purposes only. Xi said that China was willing to work with the United States to ensure a comprehensive, lasting solution, despite the difficulties that still needed to be overcome, Xinhua reported.",0
"A corner of west London will see culinary and scientific history made on Monday when scientists cook and serve up the world's first lab-grown beef burger.The in-vitro burger, cultured from cattle stem cells, the first example of what its creator says could provide an answer to global food shortages and help combat climate change, will be fried in a pan and tasted by two volunteers.The burger is the result of years of research by Dutch scientist Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht, who is working to show how meat grown in petri dishes might one day be a true alternative to meat from livestock.The meat in the burger has been made by knitting together around 20,000 strands of protein that has been cultured from cattle stem cells in Post's lab.The tissue is grown by placing the cells in a ring, like a donut, around a hub of nutrient gel, Post explained.To prepare the burger, scientists combined the cultured beef with other ingredients normally used in burgers, such as salt, breadcrumbs and egg powder. Red beet juice and saffron have been added to bring out its natural colours.""Our burger is made from muscle cells taken from a cow. We haven't altered them in any way,"" Post said in a statement on Friday. ""For it to succeed it has to look, feel and hopefully taste like the real thing.""Viable alternative?Success, in Post's view, would mean not just a tasty burger, but also the prospect of finding a sustainable, ethical and environmentally friendly alternative to meat production.According to a 2006 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), industrialised agriculture contributes on a ""massive scale"" to climate change, air pollution, land degradation, energy use, deforestation and biodiversity decline.The report, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, said the meat industry contributes about 18 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions and this proportion is expected to grow as consumers in fast-developing countries such as China and India eat more meat.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), annual meat production is projected to rise to 376 million metric tons by 2030 from 218 million metric tons in 1997-1999, and demand from a growing world population is expected to rise beyond that.Post cites FAO figures suggesting demand for meat is expected to increase by more than two-thirds by 2050.Animal welfare campaigners applauded the arrival of cultured meat and predicted a great future for it.""In vitro technology will spell the end of lorries full of cows and chickens, abattoirs and factory farming,"" the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign group said in a statement. ""It will reduce carbon emissions, conserve water and make the food supply safer.""A study published in 2011 comparing the relative environmental impacts of various types of meat, including lamb, pork, beef and cultured meat, said the lab-grown product has by far the least impact on the environment.Hanna Tuomisto, who conducted the study at Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, found that growing meats in-vitro would use 35 percent to 60 percent less energy, emit 80 percent to 95 percent less greenhouse gas and use around 98 percent less land than conventionally produced animal meat.While Monday's fry-up will be a world first and only an initial proof-of concept, the Dutch scientist reckons commercial production of cultured beef could begin within the next 20 years.""What we are going to attempt is important because I hope it will show cultured beef has the answers to major problems that the world faces,"" he added.",0
"News of Rex Tillerson's possible
appointment comes as US intelligence analysts have concluded that Russia
intervened in the 2016 election to help Trump win the White House. The choice of Tillerson further stocks
Trump's Cabinet and inner circle with people who favour a soft line towards
Moscow. Tillerson, 64, has driven Exxon's expansion
in Russia for decades and opposed US sanctions imposed on Russia for its
seizure of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded
Tillerson Russia's Order of Friendship, one of the country's highest civilian
honours. Exxon's Tillerson emerged on Friday as
Trump's leading candidate for US secretary of state over 2012 Republican
presidential nominee Mitt Romney and three other people. Tillerson met with Trump for more than two
hours at Trump Tower on Saturday morning. It was their second meeting about the
position this week. The source, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said Tillerson was the expected pick but cautioned no formal offer
had yet been made. A senior official on the Trump transition
team said the president-elect was close to picking Tillerson. Trump spokesperson Jason Miller said on Twitter that no
announcement on the high-profile job was forthcoming in the immediate future.  
Transition Update: No announcements on Secretary of State until next week at the earliest. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) December 10, 2016


  Transition Update: No announcements on Secretary of State until next week at the earliest. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain Trump on Saturday attended the Army-Navy
football game in Baltimore, where he was joined by former New York Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, who withdrew from consideration as secretary of state on Friday. NBC News, which first reported the
development, said Trump would also name John Bolton, a former US ambassador to
the United Nations, as deputy secretary of state. As Exxon's CEO, Tillerson oversees
operations in more than 50 countries, including Russia. In 2011, Exxon signed a deal with Rosneft,
Russia's largest state-owned oil company, for joint oil exploration and
production. Since then, the companies have formed 10 joint ventures for
projects in Russia. Tillerson and Rosneft chief Igor Sechin
announced plans to begin drilling in the Russian Arctic for oil as part of
their joint venture, in spite of US sanctions. In July, Tillerson was one of the
highest-profile US representatives at the St. Petersburg International Economic
Forum, one of Putin's main investment forums, even as Washington had been
taking a harder line than Europe on maintaining sanctions. Trump has pledged to work for stronger US
ties with Russia, which have been strained by Putin's incursion into Crimea and
his support for Syrian President Bashir al-Assad. In a preview from an interview to be aired
on ""Fox News Sunday,"" Trump said Tillerson is ""much more than a
business executive."" ""I mean, he's a world class
player,"" Trump said. ""He's in charge of an oil company that's pretty
much double the size of his next nearest competitor. It's been a company that
has been unbelievably managed."" ""And to me, a great advantage is he
knows many of the players, and he knows them well. He does massive deals in
Russia,"" Trump said. Tillerson's Russian ties figure to be a
factor in any Senate confirmation hearing. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman
John McCain, a long-time Putin critic, told Fox News that he does not know what
Tillerson's relationship with Putin has been, ""but I'll tell you, it is a
matter of concern to me."" Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee raised concerns in a memo on Saturday citing Trump's ""cavalier
dismissal"" of US intelligence reports that Russia interfered in US
elections and the appointment of Tillerson, who has ""business ties to
Russia and Vladimir Putin, and whose company worked to bury and deny climate
science for years."" Should Tillerson be nominated, climate
change could be another controversial issue for him. The company is under
investigation by the New York Attorney General's Office for allegedly
misleading investors, regulators and the public on what it knew about global
warming. Tillerson is, however, one of the few
people selected for roles in the Trump administration to believe that human
activity causes climate change. After Trump's election, Exxon came out in
support of the Paris Climate Agreement and said it favours a carbon tax as an
emissions-cutting strategy.",1
"The pandemic has profoundly disrupted the largest public transit system in America, throwing it into financial turmoil. But getting more people on public transportation will be a crucial component of New York City’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2050. The system needs to grow — right at a time when it is facing a sharp decline in ridership and revenue. Subway rides, bus rides and car trips in New York City fell drastically last March as coronavirus cases surged and the city entered a mandatory lockdown. Some residents who could afford to left the city for second homes or rentals in the suburbs. Many employees switched to remote work and have not yet returned to their offices. Keeping the city’s buses and subways moving has been crucial for transporting medical and essential workers, but, with fewer riders, the city’s public transit organisation is facing its worst budget crisis in history. “We are still in a severe fiscal crisis caused by the pandemic,” said Shams Tarek, deputy communications director at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates many of the subways, buses and trains in the New York metro area. “But we’re optimistic about the future, given the support we’ve received in Washington. We expect ridership to gradually return to the system — it’s not a matter of if, but when — and we will continue to power New York’s recovery.” Before the pandemic, New York City’s subways were the city’s most popular mode of transit. There were nearly 1.7 billion turnstile swipes in 2019. But last March, ridership fell 90% and has only recovered to a third of what it was before the pandemic. Transportation researchers attribute New York City’s drop in public transit riders to the shift to remote work and say that the dip in tourism may also be contributing to fewer subway rides. “There’s a difference in travel right now,” said Hayley Richardson, a senior communications associate at TransitCenter, a nonprofit group that advocates for public transportation in New York City. “White-collar workers are not going to the office, fewer people are taking trips for entertainment. There’s just less movement around the city.” But subway ridership has not fallen equally in every neighbourhood. Subway stations in higher income neighbourhoods have seen much larger declines in ridership than lower income neighbourhoods. With offices shuttered, midtown Manhattan stations now see just a small fraction of their previous riders. In January, turnstile entries to the Times Square 42nd Street station hovered around 19% of what they were the year before. Neighbourhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, which are home to more people of colour and families with lower annual income than most parts of Manhattan, are also home to many of the city’s essential workers — and have retained more of their subway riders. Those subway stations report closer to 40% of their prepandemic ridership. 


  A look at how neighbourhood wealth has affected NYC public transit ridership during the pandemic. The New York Times  




 
The citywide decline in subway riders has wiped out the transit budget. Since last spring, the MTA has been operating on $8 billion in coronavirus relief payments from the federal government and an additional $3 billion in short-term loans. But that money will soon run out. The MTA will require an additional $8 billion by 2024 to avoid dramatic service cuts and layoffs.   A look at how neighbourhood wealth has affected NYC public transit ridership during the pandemic. The New York Times   The high costs of sanitization and investments in worker protections have also compounded financial problems for the organization. Systemwide, the MTA spent $371 million on pandemic-related costs in 2020 and expects to spend close to that same amount each year through 2024. Station and train cleaning efforts require closing the subway system overnight, which reduces service in the early morning hours. In the early days of the pandemic, it seemed all but impossible to follow social distancing guidelines while staying safe on New York’s crowded buses and subways. Those initial fears of infection may have spurred car purchases. And some former riders may still be avoiding transit for fear of contracting the virus, though transmission risks are lower than offices or classrooms if all passengers wear masks and practice social distancing. “Despite the fact that all of the subsequent studies have failed to show a link between COVID transmission and transit, that idea was difficult to dislodge once it got into people’s minds,” Richardson said. Bus ridership dropped precipitously in March, but rebounded faster than subway ridership. “The majority of bus riders during the pandemic were essential workers,” said Jaqi Cohen, the campaign director for the Straphangers Campaign, which advocates for public transit riders. In March, the MTA implemented rear-door boarding on buses to keep passengers distanced from drivers until plastic partitions could be installed around the driver’s seats. On local buses, the fare box is near the front door, so the policy effectively eliminated fares on those routes. When those partitions were completed in September, fares were reinstated and ridership dropped a second time. “The fact that bus ridership is only down 40% really says so much about what role the city’s bus system plays as sort of the workhorse and getting essential workers where they need to go and, you know, getting people to doctor’s appointments and grocery stores,” Richardson said. Bus riders are more likely to be older, people of colour or immigrants than subway riders, according to Richardson. The MTA has also introduced three new bus routes to serve riders during the overnight subway closures and increased service along its busiest routes. Yasmin Asad, who commutes from her home in Queens to classes at Brooklyn College, used to travel by subway but now prefers taking the bus. Along her stretch of the A line, there are longer waits on the platform and more time stopped on the tracks between stations, but buses come more frequently than they used to. That makes social distancing easier because if one bus is full, passengers don’t have to wait long for the next one. “You can respect the social distancing guidelines without running late,” Asad said. Car travel was quicker to recover than any form of public transit, though fewer people are making trips than before the pandemic, according to analyses by INRIX and StreetLight Data, two firms that specialize in mobility data. In New York City, morning rush hour on highways has subsided. With less driving overall, the city’s roadways have fewer traffic jams and higher vehicle speeds. The traffic analysis showed that the daily surge in vehicle traffic is more spread out throughout the day and into the afternoon, likely because of an increase in home deliveries and more New Yorkers running errands during the afternoon. As New York City reopens, the increase in driving will lead to bottlenecks and slower speeds. “We cannot depend on single-occupancy vehicles to function as a city,” Cohen said. “There’s only so many cars that can be on the road in New York before the streets have hit total gridlock.” For New York City to hit its climate goals, it will be critical for more people to use public transit, bikes or walking to commute than before the pandemic. When offices and businesses begin to reopen, more flexible remote options for workers could also be friendly for the planet. Transit experts also say that existing tools and policies could encourage commuters to embrace low-emissions modes of transportation. Bike shares and bike sales are experiencing a boom in the city, which could help reduce transit emissions, but cycling advocates say continued investment in bike paths and protected lanes will be key for keeping people on their bikes as commuting returns to its post-pandemic normal. Congestion pricing, which the city passed in 2019 but has yet to implement, could discourage car commuting and the fees could generate $1 billion each year to fund public transit. Dedicated bus lanes would also increase bus speeds, making public transit a more attractive option. Despite the current public transit crisis, many transit experts say the pandemic will create a temporary decline in ridership, not a lasting trend. “The fundamental conditions that created our commuting patterns have not shifted because of the pandemic,” said Matthew Raifman, a doctoral student in environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health. “If you think of a place like New York City, the challenges around owning a car, like parking and traffic, will not have gone away after the pandemic, and the benefits of biking to work or taking public transit will also still be there.” © 2021 New York Times News Service",2
" When Harper Lee wrote 'To Kill A Mockingbird' she could not have known it would be hailed as a classic, much less that it would shape the way her hometown viewed its past. Lee's novel has put Monroeville, Alabama, on the map and acted as a magnet for tourists. It has also stimulated debate in the town about the legacy of racial segregation that prevailed in the south until the 1960s. Mockingbird tells the story of two children growing up in a fictional southern town similar to Monroeville. Their father, an attorney, is selected to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. Though the man is innocent, he is convicted by an all-white jury. Some of the book's most powerful moments come as the children realize their father was fighting a doomed cause. Published in 1960, it was an instant sensation. It won the Pulitzer Prize, has sold at least 30 million copies and a film of it starring Gregory Peck is hailed as a classic. But sales only tell part of the story. US readers often cite it as their favourite novel. It ranked second only to the Bible in a reader survey of books that had affected them the most. Library Journal voted it the novel of the 20th century. Every spring, thousands of Mockingbird tourists flock to Monroeville to visit locations associated with Lee's life, the book and the courthouse used in the film. They also come to watch a stage adaptation of Mockingbird. Act One takes place in the grounds of the court but for Act Two the audience and players move indoors to the original oval-shaped courthouse where the book and film are set. That setting allows the drama to unfold with audience, judge, lawyers and defendant occupying the same positions as they would have held in a real trial. Black cast members are even confined to the gallery as they were under segregation. For the audience, part of the fascination is being witness to injustice. For the volunteer actors, the annual productions have also allowed them to reflect on the book's message. ""It's taught me you don't judge people,"" said Robert Champion, a detective with the Monroeville police department who plays Boo Radley, a reclusive figure in the novel who turns out to be a hero. ""One of the lessons is that we should be tolerant of other people but intolerant of injustice,"" said Champion, who prepared for the role by speaking with people who knew the real-life person on whom the character in the book is based. Lee may have based her story on an actual rape trial that took place in Monroeville's old courtroom, according to Jane Ellen Clark of the Monroeville County Heritage Museum. In 1934 Walter Lett, a black man, was tried for the rape of a white woman. He was sentenced to death but according to records recently uncovered, white citizens wrote anonymously to Alabama's governor to say he had been falsely accused. Lett's sentence was commuted to life in prison and he died of tuberculosis in 1937 in a state prison, Clark said. George Thomas Jones, a former businessman who writes local history, went to school with Lee and remembers her as a tomboy similar to the character of Scout, the novel's narrator. Jones, 81, said he could understand why the all-white juries of the time would have returned a guilty verdict in such cases. ""People were called 'nigger lovers.' Regardless of the circumstances they would have been branded and they would have been social and economic outcasts,"" he said. Jones said relations between blacks and whites were in some ways better at that time despite injustices against blacks, and the social climate had been misunderstood. ""There was mutual respect and we didn't have racial problems back in the '20s and '30s,"" he said. ""People that were good at heart on both sides had no problem in getting along."" Some of the major struggles of the civil rights movement were played out in Alabama but Monroeville desegregated its public facilities quietly. The biggest change was school desegregation, according to residents. The lack of protest didn't mean blacks were not resentful over segregation, said Mary Tucker, who moved to the town in 1954 and taught in both black and integrated schools. ""We were separate but not equal,"" she said of the difference between black and white schools. ""In spite of our history of segregation and oppression there were always some good people who tried to be fair as Harper Lee portrayed in (the lawyer) Atticus. There were always a few good people who tried to do the right thing,"" she said. Lee, now 81, still lives in Monroeville part time, but is rarely seen in public. ""Nelle (Lee's first name) is very unassuming, unpretentious. You may run into her in the grocery store in jeans ... She's a very shy person,"" said Tucker.",2
" Rising temperatures have forced many plants to creep to higher elevations to survive, researchers reported on Thursday. More than two-thirds of the plants studied along six West European mountain ranges climbed an average of 29 meters in altitude in each decade since 1905 to better conditions on higher ground, the researchers reported in the journal Science. ""This is the first time it is shown that climate change has applied a significant effect on a large set of forest plant species,"" said Jonathan Lenoir, a forest ecologist at AgroParisTech in France, who led the study. ""It helps us understand how ecosystems respond to temperature changes."" Earlier this week, U.S. researchers warned warming temperatures could turn many of California's native plants into ""plant refugees"" looking for more suitable habitats. They concluded that a warming climate and rainfall changes would force many of the U.S. state's native plants to range north or to higher elevations or possibly even go extinct in the next 100 years. The French team's findings suggest plants at high altitudes face the same or greater impacts from rising temperatures, Lenoir said in a telephone interview. ""Plant species move where it is optimal for them to grow,"" Lenoir said. ""If you change these optimal conditions, species will move to recover the same conditions."" Using database on plant species found at specific locations and elevations stretching back to 1905, the researchers showed many plants have steadily crept higher to conditions best suited for survival and growth. Plants move higher by dispersing their seeds in the wind, which blows them to higher elevations and cooler temperatures similar to their former location, Lenoir said. The researchers tracked 171 forest plant species during two periods -- between 1905 and 1985, and from 1986 to 2005 -- along the entire elevation range from sea level to 2,600 meters. They found that two-thirds of the plants responded to warming temperatures over that time by shifting to higher altitudes. Plants at higher altitudes also appear most sensitive to warmer conditions because slight temperature changes at higher altitudes have a bigger impact, he added.",0
" Climate change is a priority for Beijing and should be on the agenda at the Asia-Pacific leaders summit next week, China's President Hu Jintao said during a phone chat with Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Wednesday. ""Climate change affects sustainable development and the well-being of all humanity. The Chinese government attaches great importance to the problem of climate change,"" the report quoted Hu saying. He supports discussion of the issue at the summit and hopes the delegates can reach an agreement which reflects their common ground, it added. China is coming under increasing international pressure about its carbon dioxide emissions, expected to overtake US emissions by 2008. But its leaders have rejected caps on output for fear they will cramp growth. Beijing says developed countries responsible for most of the greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere should do more to cut their output and transfer clean technology to poorer nations. About 1,000 delegates are currently meeting in Vienna to seek a global deal that would tackle warming beyond 2012 and widen the UN's Kyoto Protocol to include outsiders such as the United States and China. Howard said he was ready to work with China for a positive outcome at APEC on tackling climate change, the statement said. Much of Australia is struggling with a 10-year drought, blamed on climate change by some, and which is expected to wipe up to one percent from the country's economic output. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum draws together leaders of 21 economies accounting for more than a third of the world's population, about 60 percent of global GDP and 47 percent of world trade volume. Members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan (under the name Chinese Taipei), Thailand, United States and Vietnam.",0
" Washington will consider agreeing to binding caps on greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012 despite opposing such limits under the UN's Kyoto Protocol, the chief US climate negotiator said on Friday. ""We want to launch a process that will be open and doesn't preclude any options,"" Harlan Watson told Reuters during a 190-nation Dec. 3-14 conference in Bali, Indonesia, at which the United States is isolated among rich nations in opposing Kyoto. ""That could be the end point of what occurs in 2009,"" he said when asked if the United States, the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, might agree to binding emissions caps for the long term. ""I cannot predict the outcome."" President George W. Bush has long favoured voluntary goals and investments in technologies such as hydrogen or ""clean coal"" instead of binding caps under Kyoto, which now groups all other industrial nations after Australia ratified the pact this week. Bush's administration will host new talks among 17 major emitters of greenhouse gases in Hawaii in late January, and Bush wants all to set new long-term emissions goals by the end of 2008 to help the world agree a new UN pact by end-2009. Watson said that the administration had no intention of changing its climate policies despite pressure from Congress. The House of Representatives passed an energy bill on Thursday that would boost vehicle fuel economy requirements by 40 percent by 2020, raise ethanol use five-fold by 2022 and impose $13 billion in new taxes on big energy companies. ""No,"" Watson said when asked if that would make the administration shift policy. The White House has said Bush would veto the measure in its current form. Watson said that any U.S. energy legislation would have an influence on climate measures. ""This energy bill will have a major impact on what is possible,"" he said. BALI ROADMAP Bush says that Kyoto, which now obliges 36 developed nations to cut emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 as part of a fight against climate change, would hurt the US economy. He says it wrongly excludes targets for developing nations. Bali is meant to launch a two-year ""roadmap"" to negotiate a broader successor to Kyoto by the end of 2009 that would involve all nations to help limit ever more droughts, erosion, melting Arctic ice and rising seas from global warming. A new global deal, including countries such as China and India, could plug Bush's objection that Kyoto does not demand enough of the developing world. Watson said the US delegation did not feel isolated in Bali despite Australia's ratification of Kyoto. ""We are the ones who are here, we are very involved in the 'roadmap' discussions. This administration is planning to take a positive role in that process,"" he said. And he noted that the current administration would be at the next annual U.N. meeting in Poland in late 2008. That meeting will come after the November presidential election in the United States but before Bush leaves office in January 2009.",0
"It was an unusual display of emotion for normally stoic Mumbaikars, who braved arrests on Friday night to try and stop the cutting of nearly 3,000 trees in Aarey Colony, known as the Indian city's ""green lung"". On Monday, the Supreme Court, after hearing a petition, stayed the cutting of more trees until Oct 21. As rising heat and frequent floods batter some of the world's most densely populated and polluted cities in India, urban residents are rallying around fast disappearing green spaces seen as vital safeguards. In the southern city of Bengaluru, residents protested the cutting of hundreds of trees for a flyover, while a petition led the Supreme Court to slam the amendment of a colonial-era law to open up the Aravalli mountains for real estate development. ""Earlier, villages bore the brunt of climate-change impacts, but now cities are also experiencing flooding, air pollution and water scarcity more often,"" said Kanchi Kohli, a researcher at the Centre for Policy Research think tank in Delhi. ""People have realised that disappearing green spaces are a part of the problem, and there is a strong determination to fight on the streets and in the courts because they see no other way to make themselves heard,"" she said. With almost 70% of the world's population estimated to be living in cities by 2050, mainly in Africa and Asia, cities will bear the brunt of warming temperatures, climate experts warn. Asia's booming cities are losing green spaces as a construction boom gobbles up land for offices and apartments, worsening the heat island effect and causing flooding that has killed hundreds from Mumbai to Manila, according to environmentalists. ""We're not saying, don't cut a single tree; we're only saying don't needlessly cut trees because there simply aren't enough trees,"" said Zoru Bathena, an activist who has filed several petitions against tree felling in Mumbai. ""Why should development always be at the cost of the environment?"" NET LOSS A fifth of the world's major cities will face ""unknown"" climate conditions by 2050, as rising temperatures heighten the risks of drought and flooding, scientists at the Crowther Lab in Switzerland have warned. Cities in tropical regions such as South Asia are likely to see some of the strongest impacts, the study showed. Nearly 300 people died in floods in 2015 in the coastal city of Chennai, where floodplains have long been built over. Mumbai's tree cover has fallen to less than 13% from more than 35% in the 1970s, according to the Indian Institute of Science, which recommends green cover of a third of total area. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 through tree planting and other means, alongside a push to switch to electric vehicles by 2030 to cut carbon emissions. But the loss of green spaces in urban areas cannot be offset by planting trees elsewhere, said Chetan Agarwal, an analyst at the Centre for Ecology, Development and Research. ""The loss of green spaces in cities represents a net ecological loss, as large numbers of people are concentrated there and are deprived of their benefits,"" he said. ""Small and large green spaces provide a toehold for nature in the city, with manifold benefits including better air quality and overall health,"" he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. From Athens to Seoul, big cities worldwide are planting more trees to minimise the severity of heatwaves and floods, and to boost people's physical and mental health. The United Nations recently unveiled plans to create urban forests in cities in Africa and Asia to improve air quality, cut the risk of floods and heatwaves, and halt land degradation. DUST STORMS Nearly 30% of India's land area has been degraded through deforestation, over-cultivation and depletion of wetlands, according to the government. This is evident in the Aravalli mountains, which run through four states for a distance of nearly 700km (435 miles). Dilution of environmental laws over the years have led to deforestation, construction and illegal mining, causing desertification, drying up of lakes, and more frequent dust storms. The Delhi Ridge, a stretch of the Aravallis, acts as lungs for the city's toxic smog, and is a cherished green space. In February, Haryana state amended the Punjab Land Preservation Act of 1900 to open up thousands of acres of forest land in the Aravallis for construction and mining, sparking protests in Delhi and in neighbouring Gurugram. Days later, the Supreme Court, responding to a petition by environmentalists, said it was ""shocking"" that the Haryana government was destroying the forest, and that the new law cannot be enforced without the court's permission. ""The loss of the Aravallis will impact water security, fragment wildlife habitat and corridors, and reduce the capacity to mitigate air pollution in Delhi and elsewhere,"" said Agarwal. But as urban populations expand rapidly, land is needed for housing and transport, authorities say, putting pressure on green spaces including cemeteries. ""We do not wish to cut even a single tree in Aarey, but development is also important. We will plant more trees in place of those cut,"" said Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra state where Mumbai is located. The densely wooded area, spread over 16 sq km (6 sq miles), is home to 27 tribal villages and various animal species, including leopards. Over the past few decades, swathes of land have been allocated for slum resettlement, a defence training unit and a zoo. The site for the metro shed is a 33-hectare plot. ""We're not against the metro; we all want better public transport. But this is just a shed - it can be built elsewhere without cutting so many trees,"" said Bathena. Commitments to increasing forest cover and cutting carbon emissions are not enough, said Kohli. ""Building a flyover, or a metro shed by cutting down trees can get us more convenience, but at what cost?"" ""We have to ask whose desires dominate, and if this is the sustainable urban vision we want,"" she said.",0
" Most people believe oil is running out and governments need to find another fuel, but Americans are alone in thinking their leaders are out of touch with reality on this issue, an international poll said on Sunday. On average, 70 percent of respondents in 15 countries and the Palestinian territories said they thought oil supplies had peaked. Only 22 percent of the nearly 15,000 respondents in nations ranging from China to Mexico believed enough new oil would be found to keep it a primary fuel source. ""What's most striking is there's such a widespread consensus around the world that oil is running out and governments need to make a real effort to find new sources of energy,"" said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, a global research organization that conducted the poll. Concerns over climate change, which is spurred by emissions from fossil fuels including oil, also were a factor among respondents, Kull said. The current tightening of the oil market is not temporary but will continue and the price of oil will rise substantially, most respondents said. ""They think it's just going to keep going higher and a fundamental adaptation is necessary,"" Kull said in a telephone interview. In the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer and among the biggest emitters of climate-warming pollution from fossil fuel use, 76 percent of respondents said oil is running out, but most believed the US government mistakenly assumes there would be enough to keep oil a main source of fuel. US GOVERNMENT 'NOT FACING REALITY' ""Americans perceive that the government is not facing reality,"" Kull said. The United States is alone among major industrialized nations in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to limit greenhouse gas emissions that exacerbate global warming. Last week, President George W Bush said US greenhouse emissions, especially carbon dioxide spewed by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, would stop growing by 2025 but gave no details on how this would come about. The announcement drew sharp criticism from environmental groups. Others pointed out this means emissions will continue to grow for the next 17 years. Only in Nigeria did a majority -- 53 percent -- believe enough new oil would be found to keep it a primary energy source, a reflection of its status as a major oil exporter and member of OPEC. The poll was conducted in China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Mexico, Britain, France, Iran, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, South Korea and the Palestinian territories. The margin of error varied from country to country, ranging from plus or minus 3 percentage points to plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, Kull said. WorldPublicOpinion.org involves research centers around the world, and the locations of these centers determined which countries were included in the poll. Kull noted that the poll included countries that make up 58 percent of the global population. The project is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.",0
"In a growing global movement, environmentalists are trying a new legal route to protect the planet - vesting rivers, reefs and threatened habitats with ""rights of nature"" that override the long-held human right to harm. Supporters say they are starting to notch victories and see momentum growing, particularly as the rising effects of climate change spur an openness to untried strategies. Critics call the efforts unwieldy, ineffective - or illegal. Take Toledo, a lake city in the US Midwest whose citizens have worried about the quality of their water since toxic algae seeped from Lake Erie into the city's system five years ago. Stymied residents - fed up with a lack of action - took matters into their own hands this year and voted to give their local water source, the massive Lake Erie, rights to stay clean. “It’s about saying Lake Erie has a legal right to exist, and that’s a right that we get to defend,” said resident Markie Miller. Miller said the 2014 algae outbreak in the world’s 11th-biggest lake left half a million people with no safe water over three stifling summer days. And it turned out that similar outbreaks had gone unchecked for years, a product of agricultural runoff, she said. “That bothered me — we’ve been watching and tracking this problem but not doing anything,” Miller told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. “We should be considering the whole health of the ecosystem, not just the burden on people.” Officials did little, she said, but organisers had heard about an idea that eventually went before voters: recognising Lake Erie as a legal entity, on whose behalf citizens could sue. “We’re working in a system that isn’t designed to allow us to win — it’s designed to regulate and allow harm,” she said. “So the idea behind all of this was that we wanted to change the system.” Ultimately, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, which 61% of voters approved in February, would amend the Toledo city charter to state that Lake Erie had the right to “exist, flourish, and naturally evolve” and to do so free of violation. The effort received no support from the city, Miller said, and has been tied up in legal wrangling ever since. Lawyers for local farmer Mark Drewes called it “an unconstitutional and unlawful assault on the fundamental rights of family farms” that gave the people of Toledo authority over nearly 5 million Ohio residents. A spokesman for the Toledo mayor’s office declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation. Other Ohio communities have since tried similar moves, but on July 17, state legislators outlawed all such action, saying: “Nature or any ecosystem does not have standing to participate in or bring an action in any court of common pleas.” 'IS IT THRIVING?' In Western law, the idea that nature has rights dates to the 1970s, when legal scholar Christopher Stone published a touchstone article that was cited in a Supreme Court case. It lay largely dormant until this past decade when the notion regained currency, in the United States and beyond. “It’s certainly having an effect internationally,” said Jay Pendergrass, a vice president at the Environmental Law Institute, a Washington think tank. “It’s accelerated in terms of the countries and places that are saying this is an important legal principle that they’re going to act on.” Bolivia and Ecuador have model “rights of nature” laws — the issue is even in the latter’s constitution. India has recognised rights on the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, while New Zealand has a similar agreement on the Whanganui river. In July, Bangladesh recognised all rivers in the country as having legal rights. Advocates want to use rights law to address some of the world’s worst cases of environmental destruction — be it the decaying Great Barrier Reef or the melting Himalayan glaciers. Seven countries have “rights of nature” laws, said Shannon Biggs, co-founder of the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature, which runs 'tribunals' where judges hear cases on fracking, indigenous land rights and more. “Is that ecosystem regenerating itself? Is it thriving? Those are the benchmarks,” she said of the tribunal’s decisions. It also upends long-held ideas about the rights that come with a land title. As Biggs said: “Property ownership isn’t a permission slip to destroy the ecosystem.” While the tribunals’ decisions are not binding, Biggs points to a recent case that she said had helped halt construction of a proposed highway through the Bolivian rainforest. Proponents say word is spreading far and wide, influencing distant courts and guiding countries that lack their own laws. Mari Margil, associate director at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) - a player in several key pushes to win rights of nature - pointed to a 2016 Colombian suit over the Amazon as a case in point. ""Their own environmental laws weren’t able to offer protection,” Margil said, so the court sought outside precedent. “For the first time, they declared that an ecosystem in Colombia has rights,” she said, “and they did that without their own rights of nature law.” INDIGENOUS IMPETUS Although novel in the West, this idea has long roots in indigenous communities, be it Ecuador, Bolivia or 36 US areas, including tribal communities, with similar laws, said Biggs. “We lived within the natural law” generations ago, said Casey Camp-Horinek, a councilwoman for the Ponca tribe in Oklahoma. “We didn’t separate ourselves from nature.” Today, Camp-Horinek said, the tribe feels under threat from the energy industry: hit by water pollution, health problems and thousands of small earthquakes she links to nearby fracking. With a sense that US law had failed to offer protection, Camp-Horinek said, the tribe in 2017 created a rights of nature statute and resolved to prosecute in Ponca court those who “dishonour” those rights in tribal territory. In December, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota established legal rights not for a landscape but for a product of their declining landscape - wild rice, a grain central to tribal identity that needs clean water to grow. “It’s susceptible to a lot of things in the environment, and we believe it’s in decline because of poor maintenance,” said tribal attorney Frank Bibeau. “So we have to step in.” TOOL OR SYMBOL? CELDF’s Margil compared securing the rights of nature to sweeping social movements, such as ending slavery or securing women’s right to vote, both of which began locally. Yet achievements are thin, said Mihnea Tanasescu, a fellow in political science at Vrije University in Brussels. He knows of just two cases, both in Ecuador - and suggested 'rights of nature' was used only when it suited the government. He also criticised many laws as too broad and declarative - with the result that nobody is pinned into action or punished. “It is too early to say whether (rights of nature laws) are achieving things that we couldn’t otherwise,” Tanasescu said by email, but said they must be as specific as possible to succeed. Laws lacking a specific penalty risk failing, agreed Kieran Suckling, founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, a US advocacy group. Suckling said he likes the idea of giving nature rights but wants litigation that “defines these rights to be real, prescriptive and, in many cases, limiting. If your law doesn’t prescribe or limit, it’s just symbolic.”  ",0
" To the average person, they are just ordinary swamps or bogs. But peatlands across the world are more than just simple marsh land: they are one of the largest carbon stores on earth and play a significant role in the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change. Not for long, perhaps. In recent years, experts say peat bogs have been stoking global warming through increasing greenhouse gas emissions because of massive deforestation and conversion into agricultural land and palm oil plantations, especially in Southeast Asia which accounts for a huge chunk of the world's marshes. ""When you clear land, the easiest way is by burning. But that emits sequestered carbon into the atmosphere,"" Bostang Radjagukguk, an Indonesian peat expert, told Reuters at a conference on peatlands in the historic city of Yogyakarta. ""In Indonesia, some 5 percent of 20 million hectares (49 million acres) of peatland has already been converted into agricultural land."" CARBON STORES Peat is created by dead plant matter compressed over time in wet conditions preventing decay. Peat can hold about 30 times as much carbon as in forests above ground. The world's peatlands -- a rich and fragile ecosystem formed over thousands of years -- are estimated to contain 2 trillion tonnes of sequestered carbon. When drained, peat starts to decompose on contact with air and carbon is released, often aggravated by fires that can rage for months and add to a choking smog or haze that is an annual health menace to millions of people in the region. Dutch research institute Wetlands International estimates peatlands in Southeast Asia store at least 42 billion tonnes of soil carbon or peat carbon. Wetlands senior programme manager Marcel Silvius estimates about 13 million of 27.1 million hectares of Southeast Asia peatlands have been drained causing severe peat soil degradation. Although degraded peatlands in Southeast Asia cover less than 0.1 percent of the global land surface, they are responsible for about 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, or close to 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. ""By 2025, peatland emissions will decrease because easily degradable peatlands would have disappeared altogether,"" Silvius told Reuters. ""In Indonesia alone, 3 million hectares of shallow peatland have already disappeared."" As concerns about global warming increase, environmentalists say the problem is more acute in Indonesia where emissions from peat, when drained or burnt, account for some 85 percent of total emissions from Southeast Asia. Indonesia is home to 60 percent of the world's threatened peatlands, but its marshes are being destroyed at an unprecedented pace because of massive conversion into pulp wood and palm oil plantations to feed global demand for biofuel. ""Palm oil production on peatlands requires drainage, leading to substantial emissions of carbon dioxide. This renders it unsuitable as a biofuel, as biofuels should by international standards at least be carbon neutral,"" said Silvius. MEGA RICE PROJECT Indonesia has also lost a huge chunk of peat under a project to convert about 1 million hectares of peat swamp forests into rice fields in the mid 90s, dubbed the Mega Rice Project. The project deforested and drained massive amounts of peatland in Central Kalimantan, only to find the acidic soil underneath was unsuitable for rice farming. Today, it's a giant wasteland, a spread of dry black peat releasing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. The highly combustible material lights up in the dry season, choking the area in thick haze for a couple of months a year. ""It releases carbon-dioxide, methane and a cocktail of other gases, some of them toxic,"" Professor Jack Rieley, a peat expert at the University of Nottingham, told Reuters. Now, as the world battles global warming, Indonesia's peatlands are being seen as a hot investment ticket, as keeping its vast peatlands intact could be a huge opportunity for companies seeking to trade off business-related carbon emissions for emissions reductions achieved elsewhere. Indonesia is pushing to make emission cuts from preserving peatlands eligible for trade in a new deal on fighting global warming at UN-led climate talks in Bali in December. ",0
"The three-masted sailing ship was lost in November 1915 during Shackleton's failed attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica. Previous attempts to locate the 144-foot-long wooden wreck, whose location was logged by its captain Frank Worsley, had failed due to the hostile conditions of the ice-covered Weddell Sea under which it lies. However, the Endurance22 mission, organised by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and using advanced underwater vehicles called Sabertooths fitted with high-definition cameras and scanners, tracked the vessel's remains down. Footage showed the ship in a remarkably good condition, with its name clearly visible on the stern. ""We are overwhelmed by our good fortune...,"" said Mensun Bound, the expedition's Director of Exploration. ""This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen. It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation."" The expedition - led by British polar explorer John Shears, operated from the South African ice-breaking ship Agulhas II and also researching the impact of climate change - found the ""Endurance"" four miles (six km) from the position recorded by Worsley. Despite being stranded on the ice, the 28-man crew of the ""Endurance"" made it back home alive and theirs is considered one of the great survival stories of human history. They trekked across the sea ice, living off seals and penguins, before setting sail in three lifeboats and reaching the uninhabited Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton and handful of the crew rowed some 800 miles (1,300 km) on the lifeboat James Caird to South Georgia, where they sought help from a whaling station. On his fourth rescue attempt, Shackleton managed to return to pick up the rest of the crew from Elephant Island in August 1916, two years after his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition left London.",0
"Bringing a message that America's power and wealth should be used to serve humanity, the 78-year-old pontiff said the United States must not turn its back on ""the stranger in our midst."" ""Building a nation calls us to recognise that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility,"" Francis told the Republican-led Congress in Washington a day after he met with Democratic President Barack Obama. Francis, born in Argentina to an Italian immigrant family, delivered a wide-ranging speech that addressed issues dear to liberals in the United States but also emphasized conservative values and Catholic teachings on the family. The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics called for a worldwide end to the death penalty, which is still used in 31 of the 50 US states, while advocating a more equitable economy to help people ""trapped in a cycle of poverty"" and a greater effort against climate change driven by human activities. The pope later flew to New York, where he was cheered by throngs lining Fifth Avenue as he headed in his ""popemobile"" to St. Patrick's Cathedral to the sound of the cathedral bells pealing. With organ music playing and a chorus singing, the pope was welcomed by a crowd of 3,000 inside the cathedral for an evening prayer service. Francis on Friday is due to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York and to celebrate an open-air Mass in Philadelphia on Sunday. His plea on immigration received frequent applause mostly from Democrats but also from Republicans among the lawmakers, Supreme Court justices and other dignitaries packed inside the House of Representatives chamber to hear the first address by a pope to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. Harsh rhetoric toward illegal immigrants has featured heavily in the race for the Republican nomination for the November 2016 presidential election. Republican front-runner Donald Trump says if elected he would deport all 11 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are from Latin America like the pope, and the billionaire businessman has accused Mexico of sending rapists and other criminals across the border. Francis, addressing an issue that has cost the Republicans support among increasingly influential Hispanic voters, said America should not be put off by the flow of foreigners from south of the border ""in search of a better life."" ""We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal,"" he said, speaking softly and in heavily accented English. As he spoke, Francis was flanked by two of America's most influential Catholics: House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, and Democratic Vice President Joe Biden. Boehner, who often tears up at emotional moments, cried openly during the speech. The United States has grappled for years over what to do with illegal immigrants. Republicans in Congress last year blocked a bipartisan effort to overhaul immigration laws that would have allowed illegal immigrants a chance to win US citizenship. In a Pew Research Center poll conducted in May, 51 percent of 2,002 U.S. adults surveyed said immigrants strengthen the United States because of their hard work and talents, while 41 percent said immigrants are a burden because they take jobs, housing and healthcare. It was is unclear whether the pope's speech will change hearts and minds on immigration. ""It doesn't affect my thoughts,"" said Michael Tipsword, a student at George Washington University and a Catholic. He said Francis' opinion on immigration is more related to humanitarian needs than politics. ""I'm a pretty staunch conservative,"" said Tipsword, standing on the lawn in front of the US Capitol building where thousands watched the speech on a large video screen. Invoking famous American figures Abraham Lincoln and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Francis told U.S. lawmakers who are often caught up in bitter partisan fights that politics should be ""an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good."" Presidential candidates from both sides of the divide held up the pope's comments as evidence that the leader of America's 70 million Catholics agrees with them. Alluding to abortion and euthanasia, the pope cited a ""responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development."" But he quickly turned to the abolition of the death penalty, saying ""every life is sacred"" and ""society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes."" Francis also called for an end to a global arms trade fuelled by ""money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood, in the face of the shameful and culpable silence."" In remarks welcomed by conservatives, Francis said, ""Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family,"" expressing his opposition to same-sex marriage. To underscore his message of helping the poor, Francis went straight from the US Capitol in his small black Fiat to have lunch with homeless people, telling them there was no justification for homelessness.",0
"Both disclosures are consistent with what scientists had expected from climate change, driven by global warming as a consequence of the profligate combustion of fossil fuels that dump ever greater levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But they add to the scientists’ sense of urgency at the need for rapid and radical action to cut greenhouse emissions. Of the US announcement, Dr Dann Mitchell, of the University of Bristol, UK, said: “The most recent global temperature observations are in line with what we expected, both from our underlying theory, but also our model projections and understanding of the climate system. “The atmosphere is warming, by almost 1°C globally to date, and we are getting ever closer to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C which we are so desperately trying to avoid.” The news that the oceans are continuing to warm to hitherto unknown levels comes in an updated ocean analysis from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics/Chinese Academy of Science (IAP/CAS). Its study was published as an early online release in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. The authors say that in 2017 the oceans in the upper 2000-metre layer of water were warmer than the second warmest year, 2015, and above the 1981-2010 climatological reference period. Thanks to their large heat capacity, the oceans absorb warming caused by human activities, and more than 90% of the Earth’s extra heat from global warming is absorbed by them. The study says the global ocean heat content record robustly represents the signature of global warming, and is affected less by weather-related “noise” and climate variability such as El Niño and La Niña events. The IAP says the last five years have been the five warmest years in the oceans, as the long-term warming trend driven by human activities continued unabated. The rise in ocean heat in 2017 occurred in most regions of the world. Increases in ocean temperature cause the volume of seawater to expand, contributing to the global average sea level rise, which in 2017 amounted to 1.7 mm. Other consequences include a decline in ocean oxygen, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the melting of sea ice and ice shelves. Discrepancy explained The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2017 was the third highest since record keeping began in 1880, according to NOAA scientists. There is a slight difference in the figures for 2017’s temperature. NOAA says the globally averaged temperature for the year makes it the third hottest since record-keeping began in 1880, while NASA says in a separate analysis that 2017 was the second warmest on record, behind 2016. This minor difference is explained by the different methods used by the two agencies to analyse global temperatures, they say, though they point out that over the long term their records agree closely. Both agree that the five warmest years on record have all occurred since 2010. The UK Met Office and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) also listed 2017 among the top three warmest years on record. One striking feature of the consensus on 2017’s place in the record books is less about what did happen, and more about what didn’t. Last year was the second or third hottest after 2016, and on a level with 2015, the data show. No boost But those two years were affected by El Niño, the periodic natural phenomenon in the Pacific, which helps to boost temperatures worldwide. 2017 was not an El Niño year. If it had been, the researchers say, it would probably have been the warmest year yet, outstripping the heat in 2015 and 2016. The acting director of the UK Met Office, Professor Peter Stott, told BBC News: “It’s extraordinary that temperatures in 2017 have been so high when there’s no El Niño. In fact, we’ve been going into cooler La Niña conditions. “It shows clearly that the biggest natural influence on the climate is being dwarfed by human activities – predominantly CO₂ emissions.” The WMO secretary-general, Petteri Taalas, said the long-term temperature trend was far more important than the ranking of individual years: “That trend is an upward one. Seventeen of the 18 warmest years on record have all been during this century, and the degree of warming during the past three years has been exceptional. “Arctic warmth has been especially pronounced, and this will have profound and long-lasting repercussions on sea levels, and on weather patterns in other parts of the world.”",0
" Huge profits made by London-based brokers who arrange emissions-cutting projects in developing countries contrast with little benefit for the world's poorest nations, company and United Nations data shows. The Kyoto Protocol on global warming allows rich countries to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets by paying poor nations to cut emissions on their behalf, using the so-called clean development mechanism (CDM). But evidence is emerging that while brokers stand to make enormous profits, least developed nations, especially in Africa, will get next to nothing -- raising questions over whether Kyoto is fulfilling its social as well as environmental goals. ""We're either going to have bend the rules and be softer with CDM in Africa or forget it and give them more aid,"" said Mike Bess, an Africa specialist working for London-based project developer Camco. The text of the Kyoto Protocol calls for its carbon trading scheme to assist poor countries in achieving sustainable development. The text of Kyoto's umbrella treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, says that action to combat climate change should help economic development, too. But action so far has seen the biggest potential profits going to London-based project developers, instead of projects on the ground, most of which are based in China and India. Africa has seen just 21 out of a total of 751 CDM projects officially registered with the U.N. climate change secretariat. A common argument is that Africa has a tiny fraction of the world's carbon emissions, that these emissions are widely dispersed and so difficult to bundle into profitable projects, and that the continent has high investment risk. But projects are slowly emerging. The World Bank's International Finance Corporation formally launches later this month an initiative called ""Lighting the Bottom of the Pyramid"", which aims to supply low-carbon lighting to some of the 500 million Africans who have no electricity access. It aims to apply for carbon finance through the CDM, because solar power would replace higher carbon kerosene lamps used now. ""Ten years ago you'd say there was no market for mobile phones in Africa, that people couldn't afford it,"" said Fabio Nehme, IFC team leader for the project, who estimated that there were now over 100 million mobile phone users on the continent. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan launched last November in Kenya an initiative called the ""Nairobi Framework"" to try and increase the number of CDM projects in Africa. Since then just 10 new projects have been registered in Africa, versus 348 extra elsewhere, U.N. data show, but the U.N. official leading the project defended progress so far. ""Let's give it some time,"" said Daniele Violetti. UN agencies, the World Bank and the African Development Bank will pool resources for a joint CDM project, with details likely in October following a meeting in Ethiopia, he said. Western project developers are under no obligation to show that their projects contribute to sustainable development. ""The investors should be proud,"" said Michael Wara, research fellow at Stanford University. ""You want the market to work and find the low-hanging fruit, but you want to be able to modify the system when people start extracting these kinds of profits."" In one of the biggest money-spinning projects yet, 10 investors including London-based Climate Change Capital and New York-based Natsource bought 129 million tonnes of carbon credits for 6.2 euros ($8.49) per tonne from two projects in China. The price of such carbon credits for guaranteed delivery closed last week at some 16 euros per tonne, implying potential profits for these investors of well over 1 billion euros. Climate Change Capital said last week it had a carbon credit portfolio of over 65 million tonnes, more than double Africa's entire registered portfolio of 32 million tonnes, Reuters data shows (http://www.reutersinteractive.com/CarbonNews/67999). Climate Change Capital also told Reuters that it had no registered projects in Africa, but had at least one in the pipeline. While China levies a tax of up to 65 percent on CDM profits made by local companies -- to invest in Chinese renewable energy projects -- no such tax is levied on these potentially much bigger margins made by western brokers. ""The (profit) margin isn't going into sustainable development. A lot of the money is staying in London,"" Wara said.",2
"Oct 12 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Former US Vice President Al Gore and the UN climate panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for raising awareness of the risks of climate change. Following are some details of the UN's climate panel. * WHO ARE THE IPCC? * The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 by the UN Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization to give governments scientific advice about global warming. It is open to all members of UNEP and the WMO. * Run from Geneva, it draws on work by about 2,500 climate scientists from more than 130 nations and has issued three reports this year, totalling more than 3,000 pages. The previous set was in 2001. * WHAT DO THE 2007 REPORTS SAY? -- In February, the IPCC squarely blamed mankind for global warming, saying it was ""very likely"" or more than 90 percent probable that human activities led by burning fossil fuels had caused most of the warming in the past half century. -- It said that warming was ""unequivocal"" and projected a ""best estimate"" that temperatures would rise by 1.8 to 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2-7.2 Fahrenheit) this century. -- In April in a second section on likely impacts, the IPCC said that rising temperatures could lead to more hunger, water shortages and extinctions. -- It projected that crop yields could drop by 50 percent by 2020 in some countries and a steady shrinking of Arctic sea ice in summers. By the 2080s, millions of people will be threatened by floods because of rising sea levels, especially around river deltas in Asia and Africa and on small islands. -- In May 2007, in a third report on how to confront climate change, the IPCC said costs of action could be moderate but that time is running out to avert the worst effects. The toughest scenario would require governments to make sure that global greenhouse gas emissions start falling by 2015. * PAST REPORTS: -- The IPCC's first report in 1990 outlined risks of warming and played a role in prompting governments to agree a 1992 U.N. climate convention that led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for curbing warming. -- In 1995, the IPCC concluded that ""the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate"", the first recognition that it was more than 50 percent likely that people were stoking warming. -- A 2001 study said there was ""new and stronger evidence"" linking human activities to global warming and that it was ""likely"", or 66 percent probable, that humans were the main cause of warming in the past half century.",0
" European Union and Group of Eight President Germany urged on Saturday some of the world's top politicians to work together to tackle global warming which it said was one of the most dramatic threats the world faces. German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened her speech to a security conference with an unusual message for a gathering which in recent years has focused mainly on issues such as the Middle East conflict and global terrorism. ""Global warming is one of the most dramatic long term threats we face,"" she told the conference in the southern city of Munich, adding that climate change demanded urgent action. ""One thing is clear -- this threat is touching everyone, no one can run away."" Portraying climate change as the war of the future, she said the threat demanded coordinated action from world nations. Among those in the audience were Russian President Vladimir Putin, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and US Senator for Arizona John McCain. The United States, Russia and China have been reluctant to join global efforts to tackle climate change. But Merkel has made tackling global warming a priority of Germany's dual EU and G8 presidencies. She wants to push nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy and shift to renewable fuels. She has also talked of making progress on a framework agreement to reduce greenhouse gases after the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012. Germany's left-right coalition is, however, itself divided on several energy policies and the government has resisted some EU initiatives to cut emissions.",0
"The difficult agenda facing the leaders of 20 of the wealthiest nations, their first in-person meeting since the pandemic began, illustrated a widening divide with developing countries. Those nations have argued that industrialised countries have hoarded vaccines and squandered decades of opportunities to slow the warming of the planet. After the summit in Rome, Biden and other leaders will travel to Glasgow, Scotland, for a United Nations climate conference, where they will confront demands from scientific experts and many developing countries to rapidly reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for heating the planet. The talks in Glasgow, known as COP26, come as the UN warns of a looming climate catastrophe and are shaping up as a test of whether global cooperation is even possible to address a crisis that does not recognise national borders. A senior administration official told reporters Saturday evening that American negotiators were pushing for concrete progress from the summit on reducing methane emissions, decarbonising the global power sector and ending international financing for coal projects. For Biden, who has staked his presidency on his ability to forge consensus at home and abroad, the return to in-person diplomacy presented an opportunity for good news after weeks of negative headlines. His struggles included the battle to unify Democrats in Congress behind his huge economic and environmental spending plan, as well as trying to manage the fallout from the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan. He began the weekend in Rome by smoothing things over with President Emmanuel Macron of France, acknowledging that the administration’s handling of a submarine deal had been “clumsy.” Biden faced a trickier meeting Sunday morning with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, amid tensions over Ankara’s threats to expel ambassadors from the United States and other nations and its purchase of a Russian missile-defence system. The second meeting between the men since Biden’s inauguration came just days after Erdogan had threatened to expel 10 diplomats, including the American ambassador, for calling for the release of a jailed Turkish philanthropist. That dispute was resolved with an exchange of diplomatic statements but underlined how volatile the relationship remains. The meeting Sunday ended without any result except to keep talking, reflecting a recognition of their need to engage despite the breadth of disagreements, largely in view of Turkey’s influence in several critical regions, including Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkish media played up the length of the meeting, which lasted more than an hour and reported a government official saying that it was held in a “very positive atmosphere.” Points of dispute between the leaders remain large, especially over Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 air defence system. Erdogan has refused to step back from the purchase, despite sanctions and expulsion from a US defence program to develop the F-35 stealth fighter jet. But facing pressure at home over a deteriorating economy from a strengthened opposition, Erdogan is looking for a deal to replace the F-35 program and has asked to purchase new, US-made F-16 fighter jets to update its fleet with money it had already spent for the F-35s. A senior Biden administration official said that the president “took on board” Erdogan’s desire to procure F-16s “but made very clear that there is a process that we have to go through in the US and committed to continuing to work through that process.” Congressional authorisation is required for the sale. A US statement released after the meeting said that Biden “noted US concerns over Turkey’s possession of the Russian S-400 missile system. He also emphasised the importance of strong democratic institutions, respect for human rights, and the rule of law for peace and prosperity.” A Turkish statement said the two sides agreed to boost trade, and continue to strengthen and develop strategic ties. But with no further bilateral meetings planned, the talks showed that “this is no longer a core strategic relationship for either side,” said Asli Aydintasbas, senior fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Both want to manage it, and the Biden administration is keen to avoid new crises with Turkey,” she said. Erdogan has not been able to deflect other disputes that have badly dented his country’s investment climate, including a Justice Department case that accuses state-owned lender Halkbank of violating US sanctions against Iran and the inclusion of Turkey on a global money laundering “grey list” for failing to do enough to curb terrorist financing. Ahead of the meeting, officials had said that the leaders would discuss regional issues including the conflict in Syria, where Erdogan has threatened another incursion to push back Syrian government forces and allies from an area close to the Turkish border. Afghanistan, where Turkey has been meeting with the ruling Taliban in an attempt to encourage them to adopt a more moderate stance, and Libya, where Ankara intervened militarily to support the government in Tripoli, were discussed, officials said. Despite the tensions, the two leaders were seen chatting several times at the summit Saturday, with Biden gesturing animatedly at Erdogan before all 20 leaders posed for the customary “family photo.” Biden has revelled in the return to backslapping US diplomacy, and Saturday he scored a victory as leaders endorsed a landmark deal that seeks to block large corporations from shifting profits and jobs across borders to avoid taxes. The global agreement to set minimum levels of corporate taxation is aimed at stopping companies from sheltering revenue in tax havens like Bermuda. Also Saturday, Biden met with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain to discuss rejoining the 2015 Iran nuclear pact, which President Donald Trump abandoned. While Biden said that the Iran talks — one of his most elusive diplomatic goals — were “scheduled to resume,” the other leaders walked back his statement, saying that they “welcome President Biden’s clearly demonstrated commitment to return the US to full compliance” with the agreement. ©2021 The New York Times Company",0
"An editorial ""Modi at the UN"" in the Daily Times said: ""Modi continued his charm offensive in the west with a speech to the UN General Assembly that was everything Nawaz Sharif’s was not.""Modi began with a quaint reference to India’s ancient Vedic culture, a running theme in his speech.He took the opportunity following this to rebut Nawaz Sharif’s speech from the day before.""He (Modi) was correct of course; the General Assembly is no longer a platform for serious discussion, it is a way for heads of state to build an image for their country and themselves,"" said the editorial.It noted that Modi’s speech, with its references to Indian spiritual traditions was ""written for the US public to consume, while Sharif’s bland, narrow focus was everything that western publics feel is wrong with Pakistan - an obsession with India, desire for territory and a total lack of charisma and likeability"".It went on to say that the Indian prime minister's speech did not focus on Pakistan except by implication.""Also not lost were his references to India’s large population, a way to position India as a major global market...Climate change and poverty eradication, alongside terrorism, made up Modi’s three main talking points.""The daily said that it is a credit to Modi’s political acumen that he understands how important western public opinion is to shaping policy.""India’s insistence that Kashmir is a ‘non-issue’ bilaterally reflects Pakistan’s continuance of supporting jihadi proxies to achieve strategic goals. Workable solutions exist and have been discussed but Kashmir remains unresolved, while Pakistan’s support for proxies has cost it dearly in lives and money. Neither position is tenable but India’s appears less so, partly because it de facto controls the territory.""",0
"Gray, a senior Labor party figure in the resource-rich Western Australia state, should ensure an advocate for the resources industry remains in place at a time when investment in the sector is slowing amid signs the mining boom has peaked. Prime Minister Julia Gillard also said the Climate Change Department, which has overseen the introduction of a controversial carbon tax, would now be merged with the Industry Department, and would be overseen by Climate Change Minister Greg Combet. However, Gillard made no changes to the crucial Treasury or Finance Ministry, held by Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan and Penny Wong respectively. The reshuffle was forced on the government after a botched leadership coup last Thursday by forces loyal to former leader Kevin Rudd, with three cabinet ministers and two junior ministers quitting after supporting Rudd. Gillard has set elections for September 14, which opinions polls currently show she is almost to certain to lose, meaning the reshuffle's impact is likely to be limited. Among those to resign was former Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, who was regarded as a business friendly minister and a strong supporter of the mining industry in Gillard's cabinet. Around A$400 billion ($418 billion) has been invested in Australian resources projects over the past decade, with a further A$200 billion in liquefied natural gas projects, but the boom appears to be slowing. The mining employer group Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) said Gray was well known to the industry and should help attract investment to the sector. Gray joined the Labor party in 1974. He quit the party in 2000 to work for conglomerate Wesfarmers and later as a public relations adviser for Woodside Petroleum, in order to help shape its defense in a takeover battle with Royal Dutch Shell. Shell eventually withdrew its bid after it was deemed harmful to the national interest by then Treasurer Peter Costello, thanks in part to Gray's campaign to muster public sentiment against Shell. ($1 = 0.9572 Australian dollars)",0
"Someday soon, she knows, the water will creep past the bamboo slats of her bed. It will keep rising, salty and dark and surprisingly cold. The seawater has covered the walls of Villarmia’s home with murals of mildew. It has gnawed at the legs of furniture and frozen a DVD player with its tray ajar. A corroded picture of Villarmia and her husband, now dead, hangs on the wall, from back when they were young, hopeful and unaware of the sea’s hunger. What is happening to Villarmia and her neighbours on Batasan, an island in the Philippines, is a harbinger of what residents of low-lying islands and coastal regions around the world will face as the seas rise higher. In 2013, Batasan was convulsed by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. Thousands of aftershocks followed, and the local topography was thrown off-kilter. Batasan and three neighbouring islands collapsed downward, making them more vulnerable to the surrounding water. Now climate change, with its rising sea levels, appears to be dooming a place that has no elevation to spare. The highest point on the islands is less than 6.5 feet above sea level. When the floods are bad, Villarmia has learned to subsist on cold rice and coffee. She has grown skilled at tying up her valuables so they don’t float away. She is 80, and she knows the logic of actuarial tables. “I will be gone before Batasan is gone,” she said. “But Batasan will also disappear.” Around the time of every new and full moon, the sea rushes soundlessly past the trash-strewn shores, up over the single road running along the spine of Batasan, population 1,400, and into people’s homes. The island, part of the Tubigon chain in the central Philippines, is waterlogged at least one-third of the year. The highest floods are taller than any man here, and they inundate the basketball court. They drown a painting of sea life at the primary school, adding verisimilitude to the cartoonish renderings of grinning sharks and manta rays. When the tides come, Batasan, densely packed with houses and shacks, smells not of clean sea air but of a deeper rot — sodden sofas, drowned documents and saturated sewers that expel human waste into the brine washing through houses. 
 
 A mother carries her child through flood waters on Batasan, an island in the Philippines, Nov. 28, 2019. The New York Times 

Only a few of Batasan’s coconut palms have survived. The rest have been choked by seawater.  A mother carries her child through flood waters on Batasan, an island in the Philippines, Nov. 28, 2019. The New York Times  “People say this is because of the Arctic melting,” said Dennis Sucanto, a local resident whose job is to measure the water levels in Batasan each year. “I don’t understand, but that’s what they say.” A year after the 2013 earthquake, the local government proposed moving the islanders to new homes an hour’s boat ride away. Few took the offer. “They wanted us to go to a hilly farming place,” said Rodrigo Cosicol, 66, shaking his head at the affront. “We are fishermen. We need fish. “We don’t fear the water anymore,” Cosicol added. “This is our way of living.” This unwillingness of people on Batasan to abandon their homes — instead choosing to respond, inch by inch, to a new reality — may hold valuable lessons for residents of other vulnerable island states. Rather than uprooting an entire population, with the enormous trauma and cost that entails, the more workable solution might be local adaptations. “The climate refugee message is more sensational, but the more realistic narrative from the islanders themselves is adaptation rather than mass migration,” said Laurice Jamero, who has researched the Tubigon islands for five years and runs the climate and disaster risk assessment efforts at the Manila Observatory, a research institute. And Batasan’s residents have adjusted. They have rolled up their hems. They have placed their houses on blocks of coral stone. They have tethered their goats to sheds on stilts. They have moved most plant life from floodable patches of land to portable pots. There are other concessions. The Roman Catholic priest at the local church declared that parishioners no longer have to kneel for prayer when the tides are high. “We will find a way to do things because this is our home,” said Annie Casquejo, a local health committee member who once worked off the island but has, like many others, returned to Batasan. Nature’s constant threat has imprinted resilience on the Philippine DNA. The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone countries on earth, victim to typhoons, earthquakes, floods, landslides and tsunamis, among other calamities. Early this year, Taal Volcano sent plumes of ash into the sky, threatening Manila. “Practically speaking, the entire Philippines is a hazardous landscape, so people cannot just move somewhere else and be totally safe,” said Dakila Kim Yee, a sociologist at the University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College. “We have developed this culture of adaptation and recovery.” More than 23,000 people in the Philippines died from natural hazards from 1997 to 2016, according to the Asian Development Bank. “It’s a way of life to deal with environmental challenges like typhoons or tsunamis,” said Jamero, of the Manila Observatory, referring to Tubigon islanders in particular and Filipinos in general. “Climate change has a severe impact, but this is not totally alien to them, so they have the capacity.” On Ubay, an island of 160 residents that is 20 minutes by boat from Batasan, raised walkways connect a warren of shacks. At the primary school, the floor has been lifted higher than many adults, leaving the classrooms jammed in the rafters with less than 5 feet of space. “Our teachers have to be very short,” said John Alipoyo, a local councillor in Ubay. “The students already are.” Before the renovation, children would sit in class and slosh their feet in the tides as they studied. Their attention drifted, parents said. Even as such adaptations help people deal with the effects of the flooding, life on these tiny and hot islands, spread across the Cebu Strait, remains challenging. Most days, the tropical sun bounces off the coral and sand, refracting into a hard light that gives many islanders a permanent squint. In 2016, it did not rain for four months. Dynamite fishing and coral bleaching from climate change have robbed the sea of some of its life. There is no source of fresh water, so residents depend on rainwater or drinking water brought in from elsewhere. People can grow a few herbs and vegetables, but there’s no proper farming. Protein comes from the sea — sleek anchovies, juicy mussels, fat shrimp — and cheap cans of fatty corned beef. Children on Batasan who are lucky enough to own bikes have one option — up and down the main road, the only road. The concrete strip runs for less than two-thirds of a mile, then peters out in a mangrove swamp near the home of Alma Rebucas, where thigh-high waters regularly infiltrate. She secures the family’s utensils lest they float away. Her dog and goats are swimmers. So is the cat. Rebucas said she has no plans to move away. The local government is constructing new buildings nearby, a vote of confidence — even if it’s one that rests on raised cinder blocks. She oversees a fishing business, plucking sea cucumbers, crabs and grouper from the shimmering sea. Life here is like a magic trick, Rebucas said: making something from nothing. “We don’t need much land,” she said. “We have the whole sea.” c.2020 The New York Times Company",0
"But Biden is coming with a weaker hand than he had hoped. He has been forced to abandon the most powerful mechanism in his climate agenda: a program that would have quickly cleaned up the electricity sector by rewarding power companies that migrated away from fossil fuels and penalizing those that did not. His fallback strategy is a bill that would provide $555 billion in clean energy tax credits and incentives. It would be the largest amount ever spent by the United States to tackle global warming but would cut only about half as much pollution. And that proposal is still pending; Biden was unable to bridge divisions between progressives and moderates in his own party to cement a deal before leaving for Glasgow. If the legislation passes, he hopes to pair it with new environmental regulations, although they have yet to be completed and could be undone by a future president. The president travelled to Glasgow from Rome, where the world’s 20 largest economies met and decided Sunday that they would no longer finance new coal operations overseas. But they failed to agree to set a date for ending the use of the dirtiest fossil fuel at home, with China, India and Australia especially resistant. And that did not bode well for significant progress at the climate talks in Glasgow. The leaders of the wealthy nations did say they were committed to the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the dangers of global warming grow immensely. But the world is on track to heat up 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, and the Group of 20 leaders were unable to agree on concrete steps to change that. Biden has made climate action a central theme of his presidency, winning praise from diplomats and other leaders, who expressed relief after former President Donald Trump had scoffed at climate science and had withdrawn the United States from global efforts to address the crisis. But they remain sceptical, having seen other American presidents promise ambitious action to confront climate change, only to fall short. “Every country has its own challenging legislation process, but ultimately what matters is the outcome,” said Lia Nicholson, a senior adviser to the Alliance of Small Island States, a bloc of vulnerable island nations. If Biden lacks a reliable plan for the United States to significantly cut its emissions this decade, it would “send a signal” to other major emitters that America is still not serious, she said. And it would be difficult for Biden to urge other countries to take more meaningful steps away from fossil fuels, others said. “Some of these countries are saying, ‘Oh, yeah, but look at what you did guys, and now you’re coming back and demanding after you were away for the past four years?’” said Andrea Meza, environment and energy minister of Costa Rica. Tensions were already running high before the summit. China, currently the world’s top emitter, announced a new target on Thursday that was supposed to be a more ambitious plan to curb its pollution but is virtually indistinguishable from what it promised six years ago. President Xi Jinping has indicated he will not attend the summit in person, as have presidents of two other top polluting nations, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro. Democrats close to Biden said he is painfully aware that the credibility of the United States is on the line in Glasgow, particularly after a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer and a dust-up with France over a military submarine contract. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., recently met with Biden to discuss how to salvage Biden’s legislative climate agenda. “He indicated that many world leaders like Putin and Xi are questioning the capability of American democracy to deliver, so we need to show them that we can govern,” Khanna said. Biden, who is accompanied in Glasgow by 13 Cabinet members, insists they have a story of success to tell, starting with his decision on his first day on the job to rejoin the 2015 Paris Agreement, an accord of nearly 200 countries to fight climate change, from which Trump had withdrawn the United States. Since then, Biden has taken several steps to cut emissions, including restoring and slightly strengthening auto pollution regulations to levels that existed under President Barack Obama but were weakened by Trump. He has taken initial steps to allow the development of large-scale wind farms along nearly the entire coastline of the United States, and last month finalized regulations to curb the production and use of potent planet-warming chemicals called hydrofluorocarbons, which are used in air conditioners and refrigerators. Biden is likely to emphasize the $555 billion that he wants Congress to approve as part of a huge spending bill. The climate provisions would promote wind and solar power, electric vehicles, climate-friendly agriculture and forestry programs, and a host of other clean energy programs. Together, those programs could cut the United States’ emissions up to a quarter from 2005 levels by 2030, analysts say. That’s about halfway to Biden’s goal of cutting the country’s emissions 50 percent to 52 percent below 2005 levels. “We go in with a fact pattern that is pretty remarkable, as well as real momentum,” Ali Zaidi, deputy White House national climate adviser, told reporters. Biden plans to release tough new auto pollution rules designed to compel American automakers to ramp up sales of electric vehicles so that half of all new cars sold in the United States are electric by 2030, up from just 2 percent this year. His top appointees have also promised new restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants. And earlier this year, Biden administration officials said they would roll out a draft rule by September to regulate emissions of methane, a powerful planet-warming gas that leaks from existing oil and natural gas wells. So far, the administration has not offered drafts of any of those rules. Several administration sources said that delay has been due in part to staff shortages, as well as an effort not to upset any lawmakers before they vote on Biden’s legislative agenda. But time is running out. It can take years to complete work on such complex and controversial government policies, and several are likely to face legal challenges. On Friday, the US Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, said it would review the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, potentially complicating Biden’s plans. The US track record For three decades, American politics have complicated global climate efforts. Former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, joined the first global effort to tackle climate change, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. His Republican successor, President George W. Bush, renounced the treaty. Obama, another Democrat, joined the 2015 Paris Agreement and rolled out dozens of executive orders to help meet his promises to cut emissions. His Republican successor, Trump, abandoned the accord, repealed more than 100 of Obama’s regulations and took steps to expand fossil fuel drilling and mining. Biden is facing similar resistance. No Republicans in Congress back his current climate effort. Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the House science committee, said the international community should be sceptical of the Biden administration’s promises. “I think they’ll roll their eyes just as people will continue to do in the United States,” Lucas said. Biden has also struggled to win over two pivotal players within his own party. Sen Joe Manchin, D-WVa, has been steadfastly opposed to a central feature of Biden’s climate plan: a program that would have rapidly compelled power plants to switch from burning coal, oil and gas to using wind, solar and other clean energy. Manchin’s state is a top coal and gas producer, and he has personal financial ties to the coal industry. He was able to kill the provision. Sen Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz, has also withheld her support, saying she wants a more modest spending bill. Environmental leaders said America’s past inconsistency on climate action makes it more important for Biden to succeed now. “The US has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the climate table and has slowed down action that was needed to tackle the climate crisis,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a Nairobi-based environmental think tank. “That is the legacy Biden has to deal with.” What’s at stake Average global temperatures have already risen about 1.1 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels, locking in an immediate future of rising seas, destructive storms and floods, ferocious fires and more severe drought and heat. At least 85 percent of the planet’s population has already begun to experience the effects of climate change, according to research published in the journal Nature Climate Change. This past summer alone, more than 150 people died in violent flooding in Germany and Belgium. In central China, the worst flooding on record displaced 250,000 people. In Siberia, summer temperatures reached as high as 100 degrees, feeding enormous blazes that thawed what was once permanently frozen ground. “Clearly, we are in a climate emergency. Clearly, we need to address it,” Patricia Espinosa, head of the United Nations climate agency, said Sunday as she welcomed delegates to Glasgow. “Clearly, we need to support the most vulnerable to cope. To do so successfully, greater ambition is now critical.” If the planet heats even a half-degree more, it could lead to water and food shortages, mass extinctions of plants and animals, and more deadly heat and storms, scientists say. Sara Noordeen is the chief climate envoy for the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Most of the country comprises coral islands that sit only about 3 feet above sea level. Rising seas as a result of climate change mean the Maldives, which has been inhabited for thousands of years, could be submerged within a few generations. Biden’s election has brought “a lot of hope” to countries such as hers, Noordeen said. But, she added, “he needs that legislation to go through as well.” ©2021 The New York Times Company",0
"Over 710,000 lightning strikes were recorded in British Columbia and western Alberta between 3 pm on Wednesday and 6 am on Thursday, up from an average 8,300 from the same period over the past five years, said Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist with Vaisala, a global environmental measurements company which collects the data. The Pacific province of British Columbia has been recovering from the grip of an unprecedented heat wave, which has so far caused 719 confirmed deaths, triple what would normally occur in the same time period, the province's chief coroner said on Friday. During the heat wave, the town of Lytton broke Canada's 80-plus year old heat record with a 49.6°C (121.28°F) temperature. A forest fire that started on Wednesday razed Lytton to the ground, and caused two deaths. The cause of the fire was under investigation. British Columbia usually accounts for about 5% of Canada's total lighting strikes each year, but it has reported its annual number in less than 48 hours, Vagasky said. The figure is comparable to ""what you would typically see on some of the bigger lightning days in really lightning prone regions of the United States, like Texas or Oklahoma,"" Vagasky said, and is unheard of for a region like British Columbia. The high number of lightning strikes was caused in part by the heat wave, which created high levels of moisture in the atmosphere in the form of melting snow and evaporation of water from vegetation, said Jonathan Bau, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. The moisture fuelled the unusually fierce thunderstorms. ""We're not in the middle of summer where everything's dried out,"" Bau said, adding that more lightning was forecast for the weekend. The strikes caused several forest fires across central British Columbia, with 136 fires burning as of Friday afternoon, BC officials said at a briefing. The fires are expected to burn through 100,000 hectares (247,105 acres) by the end of the weekend, officials said, a significantly higher figure than by this point in previous years - BC does not usually see its forest fire season ramp up until late July. Over 1,300 homes have been ordered evacuated, and it is not known how many people are missing. The Red Cross is running a phone line for family reunification, officials said.",0
"WASHINGTON, Thu Sep 27,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters -- including the United States and China -- sent envoys to the US State Department on Thursday for discussions on climate change and what to do about it. The two-day meeting was called by President George W Bush, whose administration has been criticized for its refusal to adopt mandatory limits for climate-warming emissions. The White House favors ""aspirational"" targets. By most counts, the United States is the No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired power plants and petroleum-fueled vehicles. But at least one study this year indicated that fast-developing China is now in the lead. Other participants are the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Indonesia and South Africa. This gathering of major economies follows a high-level United Nations meeting on Monday that drew more than 80 heads of state and government to focus on the problem of global warming. At its conclusion, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he saw a ""major political commitment"" to seek a global solution to the problem at future U.N. discussions in December in Bali, Indonesia. At the United Nations and in Washington before the State Department meeting, envoys and lawmakers called on the United States to take a leading role. ""US leadership in the area of climate change is essential, not only because it is a big emitter of greenhouse gases, but because the US is on the cutting edge of developing technological solutions and bringing them to the global market,"" said special UN climate envoys Gro Harlem Brundtland, Ricardo Lagos Escobar and Han Seung-soo at a Capitol Hill briefing. A letter to Bush from members of Congress, led by Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey, who chairs the House of Representatives global warming committee, urged mandatory curbs on carbon dioxide emissions: ""We need actual reductions in global warming pollution, not aspirational goals."" ""What would really galvanize the international efforts on climate would be a set of policies in the United States to put the United States on a fast track to building a low carbon economy,"" John Ashton, Britain's climate envoy, said in a telephone interview. ""We now need to stop talking about talking and start deciding about doing."" The Washington talks are not formal climate negotiations, but rather an airing of views on greenhouse gases, energy security, technology development and commercialization, financing -- and a daylong closed-door session on ""process and principles for setting a long-term goal"" to cut the human-caused emissions that spur climate change. Bush's proposal would come up with ""aspirational goals"" to limit emissions by the end of 2008, shortly before his administration leaves office. The Bali meeting in December is meant to begin figuring out a way to curb emissions after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires. The Kyoto plan sets out mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse emissions, but the United States has rejected it as unfairly exempting fast-growing economies like China and India.",1
"Yellen, in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, called for global coordination on an international tax rate that would apply to multinational corporations, regardless of where they locate their headquarters. Such a global tax could help prevent the type of “race to the bottom” that has been underway, Yellen said, referring to countries trying to outdo one another by lowering tax rates in order to attract business. Her remarks came as the White House and Democrats in Congress begin looking for ways to pay for President Joe Biden’s sweeping infrastructure plan to rebuild America's roads, bridges, water systems and electric grid. “Competitiveness is about more than how US-headquartered companies fare against other companies in global merger and acquisition bids,” Yellen said. “It is about making sure that governments have stable tax systems that raise sufficient revenue to invest in essential public goods and respond to crises, and that all citizens fairly share the burden of financing government.” The speech represented Yellen's most extensive comments since taking over as Treasury secretary, and she underscored the scope of the challenge ahead. “Over the last four years, we have seen firsthand what happens when America steps back from the global stage,” Yellen said. “America first must never mean America alone.” Yellen also highlighted her priorities of combating climate change, reducing global poverty and the importance of the United States helping to lead the world out of the crisis caused by the pandemic. Yellen also called on countries not to pull back on fiscal support too soon and warned of growing global imbalances if some countries do withdraw before the crisis is over. In a sharp break with the administration of former President Donald Trump, Yellen emphasised the importance of the United States working closely with its allies, noting that the fortunes of countries around the world are intertwined. Overhauling the international tax system is a big part of that. Corporate tax rates have been falling around the world in recent years. Under the Trump administration, the US rate was cut from 35% to 21%. Biden wants to raise that rate to 28% and increase the international minimum tax rate that US companies pay on their foreign profits to 21%. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in coordination with the United States, has been working to develop a new international tax architecture that would include a global minimum tax rate for multinational corporations as part of its effort to curtail profit shifting and tax base erosion. Yellen said she is working with her counterparts in the Group of 20 advanced nations on changes to the global tax system that will help prevent businesses from shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions. “President Biden’s proposals announced last week call for bold domestic action, including to raise the US minimum tax rate, and renewed international engagement, recognizing that it is important to work with other countries to end the pressures of tax competition and corporate tax base erosion,” Yellen said. “We are working with G-20 nations to agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom.” ©2021 The New York Times Company",1
" Germany will ignore a ruling by the European Commission on Wednesday that rejected Berlin's climate change targets for 2008-12, the economics ministry said on Friday. Brussels said Germany's targets for greenhouse gas emissions were too generous to industry. ""We will resist these decisions with all available means. As the economy minister said already on Wednesday, we find them unacceptable,"" a spokesman said from Berlin. ""Reports that we would be prepared to face a law suit are correct,"" he added. Germany has said it will put climate change at the top of its agenda during its presidencies of the Group of 8 and EU next year. Joachim Wuermeling, a high-ranking economics ministry official said Germany planned not to implement the EC's changes. It was up to member states how they fulfilled their Kyoto Climate Protocol targets, he said. Germany felt relaxed about a possible law suit if the EC sued as it could take years to be resolved, which was not in the Commission's interest, he said. The ministry was contacted after markets digested the scale of cuts required under the EC decision and focused on detailed stipulations, which in the case of Germany, the EU's biggest polluter, met with heavy resistance. Economy Minister Michael Glos had said on Wednesday the Commission's decision infringed on the competencies of member states. In a bid to boost its emissions trading scheme (ETS), the Commission cut the emissions permits quotas proposed by Germany to 453.1 million tonnes per annum in the 2008-2012 period. The cuts for the EU's single largest polluter came as part of EC rulings on 10 member states. They were 6 percent below targets proposed by Berlin at the end of June and 2.5 percent below another reduction offered by Germany last Friday. Brussels also threw out special rules for new industrial power stations that Berlin has suggested to encourage the construction of state-of-the art plants with low CO2 output. The rules say that new plants will be exempt from having to cut CO2 emissions in the first 14 years of operations. The EU said that such exemptions ran counter to the ideas behind the ETS, which demands wholesale CO2 reductions.",0
"Australia, Oct 29 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)- A Commonwealth leaders summit on Saturday failed to agree to appoint a human rights commissioner, despite Australia, Britain and Canada backing the move seen by rights advocates as vital for the 54-nation group to remain credible. Leaders of the mostly former British colonies are meeting in the remote Australian city of Perth under pressure to reform and toughen measures against human rights abuses in member states. But after two days of talks the leaders only agreed to take tentative steps to deal with human rights, an issue which has focused squarely on Sri Lanka and accusations of war crimes in the final stages of its civil war that ended in 2009. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, chair of an eminent persons group set up to recommend Commonwealth reforms, said failure to adopt the groups' proposals which include the commissioner would be a failure. ""If this CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) does not deliver such reforms it is our duty to sound the caution to you that this CHOGM will be remembered not as the triumph it should be, but as a failure,"" he said. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the leaders agreed to be more proactive with the Secretary General intervening early to protect political and human rights, but deferred the proposal for a commissioner. ""Australia and a number of delegations indicated they were supportive of this proposal but there were a number of delegations concerned by it,"" said Gillard. Many states were concerned a human rights commissioner would overlap the work done by the Secretary General and Commonwealth watchdog, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group. ""To address these concerns leaders agreed that the Secretary General and Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group should further evaluate this proposal and report back,"" said Gillard. Sri Lanka opposed the plan for a high commissioner. ""Such a commissioner ... could be intrusive,"" presidential spokesman Bandula Jayasekara told Reuters. Sri Lanka is under international pressure to allow an independent inquiry into accusations of war crimes during its 25-year civil war. It says will wait for the results of its own investigation next month, calling the pressure over human rights a propaganda war waged by the defeated Tamil Tigers. Canada, home to a large ethnic Tamil community, has said it will boycott the 2013 Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka unless the host country improves its human rights record. The eminent persons group said the Commonwealth in recent years had failed to maintain its strong stance in defence of human rights seen during its campaign for an end to South African apartheid. ""The Commonwealth faces a very significant problem. It's not a problem of hostility or antagonism, it's more of a problem of indifference,"" said group member former British defence minister Malcolm Rifkind. ""Its purpose is being questioned, its relevance is being questioned and part of that is because its commitment to enforce the values for which it stands is becoming ambiguous in the eyes of many member states,"" he said. Badawi's panel decided to make its report public with Rifkind calling it a ""disgrace"" that Commonwealth leaders had not authorised its release themselves. Leaders spent Saturday in seclusion in the west Australian city's King's Park and are expected to finalise their communique on Sunday. Some leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, are due to fly out before Sunday's final day. The travel plans of 17 of the leaders have been affected by Qantas Airline's decision to ground all its planes in an industrial dispute. The leaders are also under pressure to focus more on issues such as HIV/AIDS, as well as climate change and debt that are threatening many of its smaller island members, which make up more than half of the Commonwealth states. Smaller countries within the group, many at risk from the effects of global warming, are pressing for a strong statement ahead of next month's international summit of climate change in the South African city of Durban. There have also been calls on leaders to help end the practice of child brides. Twelve of the 20 countries with the highest rates of child brides are in the Commonwealth. And health advocates say laws in 41 Commonwealth states making homosexuality a crime breached human rights, hindering the fight against HIV-AIDS. Commonwealth states represent 60 percent of the world's HIV-AIDS population.",0
"In a contest Thursday to select a new member of Parliament for North Shropshire, a district near the border with Wales, to the northwest of London, voters abandoned the Conservatives in favour of the centrist Liberal Democrats in one of the biggest voting upsets of recent years. The victorious Liberal Democrat candidate, Helen Morgan, overturned a majority of almost 23,000 won by the former Conservative lawmaker, Owen Paterson at the last general election, in 2019. Paterson, a former Cabinet minister who had held the seat since 1997, resigned last month after breaking lobbying rules despite an unsuccessful effort by Johnson to save him. The defeat follows a rebellion Tuesday in which around 100 of Johnson’s own lawmakers refused to support government plans to control the rapid spread of the omicron coronavirus variant. As well as embarrassing Johnson, the mutiny forced him to rely on the support of the opposition Labour Party to pass the measures, sapping his authority. When the results in North Shropshire were announced early Friday, Morgan had secured 17,957 votes; Neil Shastri-Hurst, the Conservative, had gotten 12,032; and Ben Wood, for Labour, had received 3,686. The vote counting for Thursday’s election took place overnight. “Tonight the people of North Shropshire have spoken on behalf of the British people,” Morgan said after her victory. “They have said loudly and clearly, ‘Boris Johnson, the party is over.’ ” She added that the voters had decided that Johnson was “unfit to lead and that they want a change.” She thanked Labour supporters who had given her their votes saying, “Together, we have shown that we can defeat the Conservatives not with deals behind closed doors, but with common sense at the ballot box.” Although the Liberal Democrats had hoped to pull off a surprise victory, the size of their majority was striking and unexpected. Ed Davey, the leader of the party, described the result as “a watershed moment,” adding in a statement: “Millions of people are fed up with Boris Johnson and his failure to provide leadership throughout the pandemic, and last night, the voters of North Shropshire spoke for all of them.” Even before the loss of the seat, there was speculation that Johnson could face a formal challenge to his leadership a little more than two years after he won a landslide general election victory in December 2019. To initiate a no-confidence vote, 54 of his lawmakers would have to write to Graham Brady, the chairman of the committee that represents Conservative backbenchers. Such letters are confidential but analysts do not believe that prospect is close. Parliament is now in recess, giving Johnson a short political breathing space. Even so, Friday’s result is likely to increase jitters in Downing Street since North Shropshire was one of the Conservative Party’s safest seats, in an area of Britain that supported Brexit, Johnson’s defining political project. Despite their pro-European stance, the Liberal Democrats — who finished well behind Labour in North Shropshire in the 2019 general election — successfully presented themselves as the only credible challengers to the Tories in the constituency. By doing so they appeared to have persuaded a significant number of Labour’s voters to switch to them in order to defeat the Conservatives. This year the Liberal Democrats caused another upset when they won another seat from Johnson’s party in the well-heeled district of Chesham and Amersham, northwest of London. To some extent, the circumstances of Paterson’s resignation always made the North Shropshire seat hard to defend for the Conservative Party. But critics say that Johnson was the main architect of that situation through his unsuccessful efforts to save Paterson last month. Since then Johnson’s standing has been weakened by claims that his staff held Christmas parties in Downing Street last year at a time when they were forbidden under coronavirus restrictions. The Cabinet secretary, Simon Case, is investigating those allegations and his report is expected soon. Johnson also faces questions about whether he misled his own ethics adviser over what he knew about the source of funding for an expensive makeover of his Downing Street apartment. In recent weeks Labour has moved ahead of the Conservatives in several opinion surveys which also recorded a drop in Johnson’s approval ratings. Political analysts said that could put the prime minister in a vulnerable position, given the transactional nature of his party. “The Tory Party is a ruthless machine for winning elections,” said Jonathan Powell, a former chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair. “If that is continuing into an election cycle, the party will get rid of him quickly.” But, while the political climate remains volatile, most voters are probably more preoccupied by the impact of the omicron variant as they prepare for the holiday season. Johnson has placed his hopes of political recovery on a speedy roll out of coronavirus booster vaccinations. This year his fortunes revived when Britain’s initial vaccination effort proved fast and effective, allowing the country to remove all restrictions in July. Speaking before the North Shropshire result, Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent, said that Johnson could recover but may also be in danger of handing the next election to Labour through his errors. “I don’t think it’s over for Johnson,” Goodwin said. “I think this is salvageable.” He added: “but Johnson has entered that territory whereby oppositions don’t necessarily win elections because governments end up losing them.” Johnson was selected to lead his party in 2019 because of his track record of winning elections and because he promised to ensure that Britain left the European Union. Now that it has, his position could become vulnerable if he comes to be seen as an electoral liability to the party, Goodwin said, adding that there was a perception among Conservative lawmakers that Johnson “has no philosophical, intellectual project behind his premiership.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",4
" Britain's science academy said on Wednesday it would take part in a review of UN climate science intended to restore trust after a 2007 report was found to have exaggerated evidence for global warming. ""I can confirm that we are one of the parties (on the review panel),"" Bill Hartnett, a spokesman for The Royal Society, said. The independent review will be launched at the United Nations headquarters late on Wednesday in New York. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledged in January its report had exaggerated the pace of Himalayan glaciers melting, and last month said the report also had overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level. The errors cropped up in a report of more than 3,000 pages which cited more than 10,000 scientific papers. The next such report on climate change will be published in 2013 and 2014. ""The Royal Society is a member of the InterAcademy Council,"" Hartnett added, referring to a grouping of the world's science academies which would lead the review. Surveys suggest public conviction of global warming's risks may have been undermined by the errors and by the disclosure last year of hacked emails revealing scientists sniping at sceptics. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore, and produces the main scientific document driving global efforts to agree a new, more ambitious climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, and switch from fossil fuels to cleaner, low-carbon supplies of energy. But its 2007 report wrongly said Himalayan glaciers could vanish by 2035, a prediction derived from articles which hadn't been reviewed by scientists before publication. An original source had spoken of the world's glaciers melting by 2350.",0
" A new film that portrays Turkey's revered founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as a lonely, hard-drinking man beset by doubts has whipped up emotions in a country still grappling with his legacy 70 years after his death. Ataturk, a former soldier, founded modern Turkey as a secularist republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Portraits of a stern-looking Ataturk adorn the walls of government offices, schools, shops and living rooms across the sprawling nation, testament to a man who has achieved the status of a demi-god among most Turks. ""Mustafa,"" a documentary that chronicles Ataturk's life from childhood to his death on November 10, 1938, presents an intimate and flawed Ataturk rarely seen before, angering hardline secularists who have called for a boycott and say the film is an enemy plot to humiliate ""Turkishness."" The film, which has drawn large crowds, has fed into a climate of soul searching in Turkey, where democratic reforms, social changes and an impassioned debate over secularism is shaking the pillars of the autocratic state left by Ataturk. ""This documentary is the product of an effort to humiliate Ataturk in the eyes of Turkish people,"" wrote columnist Yigit Bulut in the secularist Vatan newspaper. ""Do not watch it, prevent people from watching it and most importantly keep your children away from it to avoid planting seeds of Ataturk humiliation in their subconscious,"" he said. On Monday, at 9.05 a.m., factory sirens wailed, traffic halted and school children stood to attention, a ritual Turks have followed for 70 years to mark the moment of his death. ""I wanted to show a more human Ataturk than the Ataturk they teach us about at school and in the military service,"" respected director Can Dundar said in an interview. ""Ataturk has been turned into a dogma or a statue by some of his supporters, but I wanted to show a more real Ataturk -- a man who fought difficulties, loved women, who made mistakes, who was sometimes scared and achieved things,"" Dundar said. Although the film contains no revelations about his life -- thousands of books are published every year on Ataturk -- ""Mustafa"" is the first film that emphasizes the private side of the deified leader over his military and nation-building feats. Dundar shows him writing love letters during the battle of Gallipoli, where Turkish troops fought foreign occupiers. Blending archive pictures, black and white footage and re-enactments, he is also seen dancing, drinking raki, wandering his palaces in lonely despair and becoming more withdrawn as he is overtaken by age and illness. He died of cirrhosis of the liver in Istanbul, aged 58. DOWN FROM A PEDESTAL ""Mustafa"" has spawned extensive commentary in newspapers and on television since it opened two weeks ago. Nearly half a million movie-goers saw it in its first five days. One Turkish newspaper said the film, with a 1-million-euro budget, had ""brought Ataturk down from his pedestal."" ""I found it interesting to learn more about who Ataturk was as a human being,"" said Gorkem Dagci, a 22-year-old engineering student. ""He was not flawless, he was like the rest of us."" ""Kemalists,"" who see themselves as true guardians of Ataturk's legacy and have built a personality cult around him, say the film is an insult to Turkey's national hero. Nationalists are furious that the boy who plays Ataturk as a child is Greek. Ataturk was born in Thessaloniki (in today's Greece) and Dundar used local children while shooting on location. Turkcell, Turkey's main mobile phone provider, pulled out of a sponsorship deal for fear of irritating subscribers. After wresting Turkey's independence from foreign armies after World War One, Ataturk set about building a country based on Western secular values. When surnames were introduced in Turkey, Mustafa Kemal was given the name Ataturk, meaning ""Father of the Turks."" He introduced the Latin alphabet, gave women the right to vote, modernized the education system and removed religion from public life. But he also created an authoritarian state and left the army as guardian of order. Under the military constitution drafted in 1982, it is a crime to insult Ataturk. Today, democratic reforms aimed at European Union membership are straining notions such as secularism, nationalism and a centralized state. The secularist old guard of generals, judges and bureaucrats is losing its grip on society as a rising and more religious-minded middle class moves into positions of power. Battles between the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and the secularist establishment over the use of the headscarf have revived the debate over Islam and secularism in modern Turkey. Critics say Kemalists have turned Ataturk's legacy into a dogma to defend the status quo. Many of his diaries and letters believed to touch on the issue of Islam and Kurdish nationalism are kept out of public view in military archives. ""The foundations of the republic are being discussed and the secularist establishment feels uneasy,"" author Hugh Pope said. ""The debate around this film is a reflection of that but also of a maturing society that can discuss these things openly.""",2
" A high-level panel of experts that has been helping to shape President Barack Obama's response to the economic crisis will step into the public view on Wednesday at a meeting to discuss energy issues and job creation. Obama announced the creation of the 16-member Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, in February, but its work had been entirely behind-the-scenes. Wednesday's meeting, scheduled for 10:00 a.m., will be open to the media and carried via a live video stream on the White House website. It is the first of what are expected to be quarterly meetings by the board. Topping the meeting agenda is Obama's proposal to create ""green jobs"" in sectors of the economy aimed at developing cleaner energy sources. Volcker's role in advising Obama is of keen interest to many on Wall Street, where the 81-year-old former central banker remains a towering figure known for breaking the back of runaway inflation during the 1980s. Volcker has continued to weigh in on public policy matters since leaving the Fed in 1987. He was a key adviser to Obama during the campaign and speaks frequently with White House officials on financial-regulatory and other issues. But he has vented some frustration to associates about his level of access within the White House economic power center. Obama's inner circle on economic policy consists of National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary; current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers; and Austan Goolsbee, a longtime Obama adviser who sits on the Council of Economic Advisers and is also chief of staff on the Volcker economic recovery panel. 'TEAM OF RIVALS' Some refer to the group as ""team of rivals"" because it consists of high-powered people who bring varying perspectives and personal styles. In an interview with the New York Times magazine published this month, Obama said his economic team is marked by ""an appreciation of complexity."" He described Volcker as ""somebody who has enormous influence over my thinking"" and someone who can provide ""counterbalance"" in discussions. The economic recovery panel, which includes Democrats and Republicans and people from business, academia, public policy and labor union backgrounds, is intended to give Obama some outside perspective on economic issues. ""The purpose of the board is not to work inside the White House, but to bring a diverse set of perspectives and voices from different parts of the country and different sectors of the economy to bear in the formulation and evaluation of economic policy,"" White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. She said the members of the panel have been conducting their own analysis to prepare for the discussion of energy issues. On Tuesday, Obama ordered the struggling auto industry to make more fuel-efficient cars under tough new standards to cut emissions and increase gas mileage. The president is also seeking action on Capitol Hill on a climate-change bill aimed at reducing carbon dioxide and other pollutants. The bill would establish a ""cap-and-trade"" system that would gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gases industrial companies could emit.",0
"- had urged delegates to move the deadline for phasing out production and use of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC) for developed countries to 2020 from 2030 and to 2030 from 2040 for developing nations. ""A deal which UNEP believes is historic has been reached on the accelerated freezing and phase-out of HCFCs,"" said UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall. He said details of the deal would be unveiled at a news conference in Montreal at 10 a.m. (1400 GMT) on Saturday. HCFCs are used in air conditioners and refrigerators. Holes in the ozone layer are blamed for increased risk of cancer and cataracts in humans. Nuttall said the deal still had to be approved by a plenary session of the conference, adding that he did not expect there to be any problems or delays. Washington says the faster phase-out of HCFCs would be twice as effective as the Kyoto protocol in fighting climate change. ",0
"The tumult has finally sounded the death knell for the English-language daily. It has now ceased all operations for good. The decision was announced during a meeting with the staff on Sunday, according to the newspaper's Executive Editor Shamim A Zahedi. ""The Independent newspaper has been shut down permanently from today. It is our owners' decision. Our Editor-in-Chief M Shamsur Rahman held a meeting today and informed everyone about the matter,” he said. All employees will be paid their dues in line with the law, Zahedi added. But the promise of payment has done little to allay the frustrations of long-time staff of the daily. Manjurul Haque Monju has been working for The Independent since its inception 27 years ago. As sports editor, he has been deeply involved in the day-to-day operations of the newspaper. ""When the meeting was called today, I was hoping that we might start printing again. But I was shocked when the editor-in-chief said, 'We're going to lay you off from today.'"" The Independent started its journey on March 26, 1995. It was among a few media outlets launched by Independent Publications Limited, a unit of leading industrial conglomerate Beximco Group. It caught the eye of readers as the first four-colour, 16-page daily in Bangladesh. It was also the first newspaper to use imported newsprint. Within two years, the newspaper introduced a 32-page weekend magazine for the first time in Bangladesh. Other outlets later soon followed suit. But the good days did not last long as the newspaper's focus later turned to survival in a recessionary market. As the political climate changed, Independent Television was launched in 2010. At the same time, The Independent also went through an overhaul. Its late Editor Mahbubul Alam said at the time, ""Our aim is to create a new trend after 15 years."" Alam was the editor of The Independent for 18 years. In 2007, he became the caretaker government's information adviser. After his death, M Shamsur Rahman took over as the editor and publisher of The Independent. But the newspaper was dealt a crippling blow in April 2020 following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. As the country went into lockdown, many people stopped buying print editions of newspapers from hawkers in fear of catching the virus. Newspaper sales in Dhaka dropped by half in one fell swoop, prompting many outlets to temporarily stop printing in a bid to cut their losses. The Independent added its name to the list on Apr 6. But hopes among its staff remained alive as the online edition of the paper kept going. That was until Sunday's announcement. Abu Zakir, a senior correspondent for The Independent, said, ""After finishing my studies, I landed jobs in Sonali Bank and Independent newspaper at the same time. I stayed here because I love journalism."" ""I have been working here since 2010, but the newspaper closed today. I never thought it would close."" Sports Editor Manjurul said, ""We've been told that the dues will be paid in a very short time. A few years ago, we were told that it would be better for the newspaper to leave the wage board and employ its staff on a contractual basis. ""We agreed to this in the interest of the newspaper. But my time on the wage board will not be taken into account. Many may not have protested, but they are sad. We didn't want the newspaper to shut down this way.""",5
"Fireflies, it turns out, use their special glowing powers in courtship: Males light up to signal availability and females respond with patterned flashes to show that they’re in the mood. But bright light from billboards, streetlights and houses is interfering and blocking potential firefly couples from pairing up. The problem can reach far from big cities: Bright light gets diffused in the atmosphere and can be reflected into the wilderness. In addition to messing with mating signals, it also disrupts the feeding patterns of the females of some species that glow to attract and eat males. The finding was part of a study published Monday in the journal BioScience. The study, by researchers at Tufts University and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, warned that fireflies could eventually face extinction globally because of multiple threats, including light pollution and habitat loss and habitat degradation from insecticides and chemical pollution. Many insects are affected by habitat loss, but fireflies have it particularly bad, said Sara M. Lewis, a biology professor at Tufts and the lead researcher on the study. “Some fireflies get hit especially hard when their habitat disappears because they need special conditions to complete their life cycle,” she said. Fireflies are a type of beetle. There are more than 2,000 species of them, found mainly in wetlands. But mangrove forests and marshes around the world are increasingly vanishing to make way for cash crops like palm oil, according to the new study. Insects like fireflies tend to be critical to their ecosystems. Their disappearance could create havoc with food webs, especially for the birds and other animals that feed on them. “Insects provide a lot of services,” said John Losey, a professor of entomology at Cornell University who was not involved in the firefly study. “They are predators and help us suppress pest populations, or they are pollinators and help us produce the food that we need.” The implications are also intangible: Just about everybody loves fireflies. In a few countries, including South Korea and Mexico, they serve as ecotourism magnets. The study was conducted by surveying experts in North and Central America, Europe and Asia. The research team found that firefly colonies faced different threats in different regions. In Japan, for example, cultivated farmland and wetland systems called satoyama, where fireflies thrive, are disappearing as more people migrate to cities and abandon traditional agriculture. In central England, drought and flooding, exacerbated by climate change, are among the biggest threats. In Malaysia, it’s the clearing of mangrove trees. The study did not lay out a time frame for the decline of fireflies, but Michael Reed, a biology professor at Tufts and a co-author of the study, said the insects “are being lost steadily.” © 2020 The New York Times Company",0
" Negotiators meet in from Monday for a UN conference seeking to create a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the UN-backed pact governing countries' actions against climate change up to end of 2012. Here are some details about China's stance at the talks, what the country has already promised to do to cut emissions and what it would like to see offered by developed nations: * China says it is threatened by global warming and the shrinking glaciers, expanding deserts, prolonged droughts and more intense storms predicted to come with a warming world. * China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity. In 2008, its output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, reached 6.8 billion metric tons, a rise of 178 percent over levels in 1990, according to the IWR, a German renewable energy institute. US emissions rose 17 percent over that time to 6.4 billion metric tons. * But China's average greenhouse gas emissions per person are much lower than those of rich nations. The average American is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions equal to 25.0 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, compared to 5.8 metric tons for the average Chinese, according to the World Resources Institute. * China says global warming has been overwhelmingly caused by the accumulated greenhouse gas emissions of rich economies, and they should lead in dramatically cutting emissions, giving poor countries room to develop and expand emissions in coming decades. China has previously said that those emissions cuts should be 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, but more recently it has been coy about specific numbers. * China says industrialized nations should also transfer much more green technology to poorer nations, and has demanded that they commit up to one percent of their economic worth to helping poor nations fight global warming. Here, too, Chinese officials have recently been vaguer on specific numbers. * Last month, China said it would cut its carbon intensity -- the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each unit of GDP -- by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. This target will still allow emissions to grow substantially over the next decade as the economy continues expanding. This goal was the first measurable curb on national emissions in China. * China has ratified the Kyoto Protocol. As a developing country, China is not required by the protocol to set binding targets to control greenhouse gas emissions. The United States and other countries have said China and other big developing nations should accept more specific goals and oversight in the successor to Kyoto. But China has said that, as a developing country, its emissions goals should not be binding under any international treaty.",0
"KATHMANDU,April 08 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Nepal and China have agreed to recognise the snow and rock heights of Mount Everest, ending a long-standing debate about the height of the world's tallest mountain, officials said on Thursday. More than 4,000 climbers have scaled the mountain that straddles the Nepal-China border since it was first summited by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in May 1953. But its exact height has remained a matter of debate. The official Everest snow height of 8,848 metres (29,028 feet) was measured by the Survey of India in 1954. Chinese mountaineers and researchers climbed Mount Everest in May 2005 to determine its height afresh and concluded that the rock height of the peak was about 3.7 metres (11 feet) less than the estimates made in 1954, or the summit was 8,844.43 metres (29,017 feet), with a margin of error of about 0.21 metres. Officials from China and Nepal who met this week said both heights were accurate. ""Both are correct heights. No measurement is absolute. This is a problem of scientific research,"" said Raja Ram Chhatkuli, director general of Nepal's survey department, and a delegate. Eight of the world's 14 tallest peaks including Mount Everest are in Nepal or on its borders with China and India. In 1999, an expedition by the National Geographic Society and Boston's Museum of Science used satellite-based technology to measure the height of the snow covered peak, and determined the mountain stood 8,850 metres (29,035 feet) high. They said they were unsure about the height of the rock peak. Nepal has stuck to the snow height determined in 1954.",2
"PATNA, India, Wed Aug 27, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Food riots erupted on Wednesday in Bihar, where more than two million people have been forced from their homes and about 250,000 houses destroyed in what officials say are the worst floods in 50 years. One person was killed in Madhepura district when angry villagers fought among themselves over limited supplies of food and medicines at overcrowded relief centres. The Kosi river in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, smashed through mud embankments and changed course last week, unleashing huge walls of water that inundated hundreds of villages and towns. The floods have since killed nearly 50 people in Bihar. Torrential rains have killed more than 1,000 people in South Asia since the monsoon began in June, mainly in Uttar Pradesh but also in Nepal and Bangladesh. Some experts blame the floods on heavier monsoon rains caused by global warming, while others say authorities have failed to take enough preventive measures to improve infrastructure. Officials said flood victims had looted grains at some places in Bihar. Others ran for miles under helicopters that were dropping food packets. One boy was killed and about 30 people were injured in Supaul district when food packets fell on them. ""We have enough stock of food grains but the problem is that we have limited means of transport to supply them among the villagers,"" Rajesh Kumar Gupta, a government official in Madhepura, told Reuters by telephone. Several prisoners took advantage of the floods and escaped from a jail in Supaul on Tuesday night, officials said. ""We are having difficulty in getting the exact number of prisoners who fled since communication networks have totally snapped,"" said Nitish Kumar, Bihar's chief minister. The U.N. children's fund UNICEF said roads had been damaged and water and electricity supplies disrupted in the affected areas. Railway tracks have been submerged and essential commodities, including food, are being transported by boat. 
FLOATING ON TREE TRUNKS Those displaced by the floods are not expected to be able to return home for another two or three months, when the embankment is repaired and the river moves back to its normal course. ""We are appealing to villagers to evacuate the (flooded) areas,"" Bihar's Kumar said in a radio address on Tuesday. ""They must understand that they are right in middle of the river and the monsoon season is still in progress."" Local people call the Kosi the ""Sorrow of Bihar"" for its regular floods and ability to change course quickly. It originates in Nepal, where it broke a dam last week. UNICEF said cases of diarrhoea and fever were being reported in makeshift camps. ""The weather has been extremely hot, aggravating the suffering of the displaced population, particularly for children, pregnant and lactating women and the aged,"" it said. Television images showed people using banana tree trunks and cots to stay afloat, some even with their cattle and goats. Officials said floods had destroyed more than 227,000 homes and damaged about 100,000 hectares of wheat and paddy crops. Last year, floods in eastern India and Bangladesh killed around 2,000 people. Millions were affected and officials fear climate change will make similar disasters more frequent. Engineers began repairing the broken dam on the Kosi river in Nepal on Wednesday to prevent it from causing further damage.",0
" As the nations of the world struggle in Doha to agree even modest targets to tackle global warming, the cuts needed in rising greenhouse gas emissions grow ever deeper, more costly and less likely to be achieved. UN talks have delivered only small emissions curbs in 20 years, even as power stations, cars and factories pump out more and more heat-trapping gases. An overriding long-term goal set by all nations two years ago to keep temperature rises to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above levels prior to the Industrial Revolution is fast slipping away. ""The possibility of keeping warming to below 2 degrees has almost vanished,"" Pep Canadell, head of the Global Carbon Project at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, told Reuters. Disagreements mean the UN climate talks in Doha, Qatar, that run until December 7 have scant chance of making meaningful progress. The talks are aimed at reaching a new deal to start by 2020 to slow climate change in the form of more floods, droughts, rising sea levels and severe storms like Hurricane Sandy that lashed the US Northeast last month. Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, have risen 50 percent since 1990 and the pace of growth has picked up since 2000, Canadell said. In the past decade, emissions have grown about 3 percent a year despite an economic slowdown, up from 1 percent during the 1990s. Based on current emissions growth and rapid industrial expansion in developing nations, emissions are expected to keep growing by about 3 percent a year over the next decade. For the talks to have any chance of success in the long run, emissions must quickly stop rising and then begin to fall. Temperatures have already risen by 0.8 C (1.4 F) since pre-industrial times. ""The alarm bells are going off all over the place. There's a disconnect between the outside world and the lack of urgency in these halls,"" Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists said at the Doha talks. Nearly 1,200 coal-fired power plants, among the biggest emitters, are proposed around the globe, with three-quarters of them planned for China and India, a study by the Washington-based World Resources Institute think-tank said last week. Emissions from China, the world's top carbon polluter, are growing 8 to 9 percent a year and are now about 50 percent higher than those of the United States. And China's carbon emissions are not expected to peak until 2030. POLLUTION In some projections, global emissions will need to go into reverse by mid-century, with the world sucking more carbon out of the air than it puts in, if warming is to be kept to below 2 C. And air pollution, mostly particles from fossil fuel use, may be masking the warming by dimming sunshine. ""Those aerosols today hide about one-third of the effect of greenhouse gases,"" Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told Reuters. Without that pollution, a breach of the 2 degree threshold might already be inevitable, he said. The latest IPCC report, in 2007, said keeping greenhouse gas concentrations low would cost less than 3 percent of world gross domestic product by 2030. So far, the panel has not assessed the costs of delays, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the panel. The report also said that world emissions of greenhouse gases would need to peak by 2015 to give a good chance of keeping the average temperature rise to below 2 C. But deep disagreement on future emissions cuts between rich and poor nations has delayed the start of a new global pact until 2020, undermining the chances of a robust extension in Doha of the existing plan, the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges almost 40 rich nations to cut emissions until the end of 2012. The deadline for a deal on new cuts due to start in 2020 has been put back to 2015, giving breathing space for the troubled talks as ever more carbon enters the air. Yet current emissions cut pledges are putting the planet on course for a warming of 3 to 5 C, a UN report said last week, adding that 2 C was still possible with tough action. ""The later we go in getting complete action and the higher emissions are in 2020, the greater is the risk that these targets are not possible or are extremely expensive,"" said Bill Hare, head of the non-profit advisory organisation Climate Analytics. Key will be a switch to nuclear or biomass power and carbon capture and storage. If these don't step up, there will be no financially feasible solutions to meet the target, he said. In Doha, both the United States and the European Union - the main emitters among developed nations - say they will not deepen their pledges for cuts by 2020. ""It's a desperate situation,"" said Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace. To be effective, the next climate pact from 2020 would need global agreement for rapid and deep cuts. Under a scenario drawn up by the IPCC, rich nations needed to achieve cuts of 25 to 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. But existing pledges are for less than 20 percent. STARK MESSAGE Canadell, citing work by the Global Carbon Project and other researchers, said that to have a reasonable chance of keeping warming to 2 C, global emissions would have to drop about 3 percent a year from 2020. Since developed nations are meant to take the lead, that would mean the rich would have to cut by between 4 and 5 percent a year, he said. That could cripple economies by prematurely shutting down coal-fired power plants and polluting factories. Global accountancy firm PwC estimated that the improvement in global carbon intensity - the amount of carbon emitted per unit of economic output - needed to meet a 2 C target had risen to 5.1 percent a year, from now to 2050. ""We have passed a critical threshold - not once since World War Two has the world achieved that rate of decarbonisation, but the task now confronting us is to achieve it for 39 consecutive years,"" PwC said.",1
"OSLO, Fri Oct 5, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore and other campaigners against climate change lead experts' choices for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, an award once reserved for statesmen, peacemakers and human rights activists. If a campaigner against global warming carries off the high world accolade later this month, it will accentuate a shift to reward work outside traditional peacekeeping and reinforce the link between peace and the environment. The winner, who will take $1.5 million in prize money, will be announced in the Norwegian capital on October 12 from a field of 181 nominees. Gore, who has raised awareness with his book and Oscar-winning documentary ""An Inconvenient Truth"", and Canadian Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, who has shed light on how global warming affects Arctic peoples, were nominated to share the prize by two Norwegian parliamentarians. ""I think they are likely winners this year,"" said Stein Toennesson, director of Oslo's International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) and a long-time Nobel Peace Prize watcher. ""It will certainly be tempting to the (Nobel) committee to have two North Americans -- one the activist that personifies the struggle against climate change, raising awareness, and the other who represents some of the victims of climate change."" Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, agreed the award committee could establish the link between peace and the environment. ""I think the whole issue of climate change and the environment will come at some point and reflect in the prize,"" Egeland told reporters last week. ""There are already climate wars unfolding ... And the worst area for that is the Sahel belt in Africa."" There has been a shift to reward work away from the realm of conventional peacemaking and human rights work. In 2004, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai won for her campaign to get women to plant trees across Africa. Last year's prize went to Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank for their efforts to lift millions out of poverty through a system of tiny loans. IN WITH A CHANCE Toennesson said others with a chance included former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, a perennial nominee for decades of peace mediation work, and dissident Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Do for his pro-democracy efforts. His shortlist also includes Russian human rights lawyer Lidia Yusupova, who has fought for victims of war in Chechnya, and Rebiya Kadeer, an advocate for China's Uighur minority. The secretive five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee does not disclose the names of nominees, though some who make nominations go public with their candidates. Toennesson said by giving the award to those fighting climate change, the committee would thrust itself into the public debate ahead of a key UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December. If Gore is seen as too political, the committee could opt instead for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the scientists who advise the United Nations and produce key reports on the climate problem, Toennesson said. To give it a face, the prize could be shared by the IPCC's Indian chairman Rajendra Pachauri, experts said, though Pachauri told Reuters in London he did not think he stood a chance. ""I have a feeling it will go to Al Gore, and I think he deserves it. He certainly has done a remarkable job of creating awareness on the subject and has become a crusader,"" he said. Watt-Cloutier told Reuters she was flattered to be mentioned as a possible winner but did not expect to win. Toennesson said Ahtisaari deserves the prize most for helping to bring peace to the Aceh region of Indonesia in 2005.",0
"Think about some of the big issues that Americans are facing, in no particular order: the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, disagreements over the appropriate role of government, a reckoning over systemic racism, inequality in wealth and health, increases in homicides and other public safety threats and educational and social safety systems that fail many people. Technology didn’t cause these problems, nor should we put too much faith that technology can solve them. I worry that when we vilify or glorify what technology and tech companies do, it makes us lose focus on what’s actually important. Technology is part of the solution, perhaps, but mostly we have to find the answers through collective human will and effective action. It’s not Uber’s fault alone that work can be precarious and many Americans have trouble making ends meet. Jeff Bezos may be delusional for wishing to move polluting industries to space, but Amazon is also not really responsible for warming the earth. And likewise, if Facebook intervened more in misleading online information, it wouldn’t erase the root causes of Americans’ doubts about vaccines, nor would our children be totally safe if schools had facial recognition cameras. We can see the ways that humans have deployed technology as tools for good, and we need to do more to mitigate the downsides of technology in our world. But I also fear that we — and me, too — overvalue technology’s importance. I’ll give you a glimpse into my contradictory feelings about both the power and the impotence of technology. There have been reflections in the past few days about how the U.S. government misled the public about the devastating effects of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 76 years ago. That kind of official misdirection or denials about war and abuses still happens, but it is more difficult in part because of the prevalence of technology like phone cameras, Facebook and Twitter that enable anyone to show their truth to the world. Thinking about what has changed since World War II made me feel optimistic about the ways that technology has helped empower us with information and a voice. But I also worry about what technology can’t really change. My colleague Somini Sengupta wrote this week that it is technologically feasible for the countries most responsible for spewing planet-warming gases into the atmosphere to shift faster to clean energy and stop destroying forests. But those choices are contentious, disruptive, expensive and difficult for many of us to accept. Climate change and other deep-seated problems are hard to confront, and it’s tempting to distract ourselves by hoping that technology can save the day. Unrealistic optimism about driverless car technology has made some policymakers think twice about transit projects or other measures to reduce emissions. My colleagues have written about concerns that the pursuit of technologies to suck large amounts of carbon from the air might allow industries to put off doing more to prevent harmful emissions in the first place. Ambitious technologies can be part of the answer to our collective challenges, as long as we put them in perspective. I am grateful for improved data-crunching that has helped scientists better understand the impacts of climate change. Tech advances including Tesla’s electric cars make it more feasible for politicians and the public to imagine shifting transportation and energy grids. It’s easy to misdiagnose the causes of our problems and hope for relatively painless solutions. But technology isn’t magic and there are no quick fixes. ©2021 The New York Times Company",0
"The flights, which were to have begun from Svalbard, a group of islands far north of mainland Norway, this month, already had been delayed when one participant tested positive for the virus while still in Germany. But late last week Norway imposed new restrictions requiring that any nonresident entering the country be placed in quarantine for two weeks. Those obstacles proved too logistically difficult to overcome. “The highly unusual situation at the moment leaves us no choice,” Andreas Herber, an atmospheric scientist with the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, which organised the expedition, said in a statement. Herber, who is the coordinator of the airborne research efforts, said if other flights planned for this summer were able to go ahead, the institute would see if it was possible to fly more often to gather more data. The yearlong expedition in the Arctic, known as Mosaic, is centred on a research icebreaker, Polarstern, that has been drifting with the pack ice for the past six months. A rotating team of researchers and technicians is on board studying the ice, atmosphere, ocean and other elements of the Central Arctic to better understand how climate change is affecting the region. The flights, which would collect data on the atmosphere and sea-ice thickness, were designed to complement the research happening at the surface. The roughly 100 researchers and crew aboard the Polarstern remain unaffected by the coronavirus outbreak. The next mission to bring a new team of researchers to the ship is scheduled for next month, when other aircraft are to make the trip from Svalbard and land on an ice runway built next to the Polarstern. Wegener Institute officials said that those flights should still be possible, unless Norway imposes even more drastic measures. The current restrictions would require that, in addition to testing negative for the virus, anyone going to the ship arrive in Svalbard early enough to wait out the quarantine. “The spreading wave of infections poses an immense challenge for this international expedition,” said Markus Rex, a climate scientist and the expedition leader. “Our safety concept represents a commensurate response to the current situation. That said, no one can predict how the situation will change over the next few months.” © 2020 The New York Times Company",2
" US President Barack Obama endorsed on Monday India's long-held demand for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a largely symbolic move that may put diplomatic pressure on rival regional power China. India says a seat on the council would reflect the growing weight of the G20 nation as its trillion dollar economy helps spur global growth and its government exerts more and more influence over issues from Doha trade to climate change talks. ""In the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed United Nations Security Council that includes India as a permanent member,"" Obama said in a speech to India's parliament in New Delhi. ""Let me suggest that with increased power comes increased responsibility,"" he added at the end of the first leg of a 10-day Asian tour that has also been seen about gathering support from countries like India to exert pressure on China on its currency. Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told a news conference ahead of Obama's speech that ""this was a full endorsement"" for India's permanent membership of a reformed Security Council. It could still be a pipe dream and likely face resistance from some countries reluctant to water down the power of the five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. But it is probably Obama's most headline-grabbing announcement on his first official visit to the world's largest democracy that has seen the US leader seeks greater trade with India's massive markets as well as to help counterbalance the rise of China. The UN Security Council has since the body's inception had five permanent members with the power to veto resolutions. It has been criticised for not reflecting global power in the 21st century. Obama's trip with more than 200 business executives, and his UN announcement, underscored the growing importance of India, which by 2020 is expected to be one of the five largest economies in the world, along with Asian powers China and Japan. Obama will also visit Indonesia, South Korea and Japan on the tour that will see Washington push to prevent countries unilaterally devaluing currencies to protect their exports, a top theme at the G20 meeting in Seoul this week. ""I don't think India is emerging. It has emerged. India is a key actor on the world stage,"" Obama told a joint news conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier on Monday. In his three day trip -- the longest stay in any foreign country by President Obama -- the US leader announced $10 billion in business deals, aiming at reassuring voters that countries like India offer benefits for US jobs rather than causing unemployment through outsourcing. Obama has also announced the United States would relax export controls over sensitive technology, another demand of India's. The US president said he would support India's membership of four global non-proliferation organisations, a move that will reassure New Delhi -- left out of these groups after its 1998 nuclear tests -- that Washington is recognising its global clout. It is unclear how much new Washington will get from India. Sectors like retail and the financial services are still heavily restricted to foreign investors and there are few signs that Singh's ruling Congress party has plans for any major reforms soon. The U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Francisco Sanchez, said in New Delhi that the United States wanted greater market access to India's infrastructure and energy sectors. India has targeted to spend $1 trillion over five years on upgrading its poor infrastructure, from potholed roads to log-jammed ports. UN SCEPTICISM For all the talk of a UN seat, it could take as much as a decade to achieve. Some in the United States have been sceptical about giving India a seat as it has often stood against the United States in UN votes. ""The UNSC (US Security Council) is not going to be reorganised in the next eight to 10 years,"" said Gurmeet Karmal, director of Centre for Land Warfare Studies, a New Delhi based think-tank. ""I do not think China will openly come in the way, but they will encourage some of its friends to vote against any such move."" Whether answering questions from students over Pakistan or talking to farmers by video link, Obama's trip has won positive coverage in a nation where US cultural influence is growing as is a new middle class, millions of consumers strong. Obama has met with some criticism at home for travelling abroad so soon after his losses in mid-term elections over unemployment, but has been well received in India, vowing to lift export controls. Obama is walking a diplomatic tightrope in New Delhi, on the one hand trying to boost diplomatic and business ties with India while on the other ensuring relations with Pakistan and China, nations often at loggerheads with India, stay stable. Highlighting the regional diplomatic jigsaw that Obama must negotiate in India, Singh appeared to rebuff calls by the US president for India and Pakistan to move forward on peace talks. Singh poured cold water on any immediate improvement in relations with Pakistan, in the doldrums since Pakistan-based militants killed 166 people in a rampage through Mumbai in 2008. Obama on Sunday had called on the two nuclear foes, who have gone to war three times since independence in 1947, to take small steps to improve ties. ""You cannot simultanously be talking and at the same time the terror machine is as active as ever before,"" Singh told the joint news conference. ""Once Pakistan moves away from this terror-induced coercion, we will be very happy to engage productively with Pakistan to resolve all outstanding issues."" Indian officials have long expressed scepticism at US support for Pakistan, saying Islamabad is hoodwinking Washington by taking aid while also backing militants in Afghanistan.",0
"A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal found policies to that end could, each year, save 5.86 million lives due to better diets, 1.18 million lives from cleaner air and 1.15 million lives through more walking and cycling by 2040. In 2015, governments set a global goal of limiting average temperature rise to ""well below"" 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times and set emissions reduction targets as a first step to getting there. On Monday, however, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged countries to take bolder action ahead of November's COP26 UN climate conference and come up with stronger 2030 targets consistent with cutting emissions to net zero by 2050. The new research highlighted how the potential health benefits of climate action could give added impetus to countries to submit more ambitious national climate plans ahead of COP26. The nine countries modelled in the study - the United States, China, Brazil, Germany, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and Britain - represent half of the world's population and 70% of global emissions. Six of them have yet to submit revised climate action plans, which were due in 2020 but put back by many countries as the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the climate summit for a year. ""Ahead of COP26, we'd like to see governments focus on health as one of the priorities in climate change policies,"" said lead author Ian Hamilton, executive director of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. ""There's good evidence to show that meeting the Paris Agreement commitments will be good for our health, and that these benefits accumulate to those individuals in the countries taking leadership,"" he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. SHORT-TERM WINS Using national and international data, the study analysed emissions generated by the energy, agriculture and transport sectors, along with factors like national diets and lifestyles. The researchers modelled the scenarios required for each country to meet the Paris accord, including changes like adopting cleaner energy and reducing car use, as well as to achieve global development goals such as zero hunger. They found that changes towards ""flexitarian"" diets - with moderate amounts of animal-based foods and a high share of plant-based foods - offered the greatest health benefits as well as reducing carbon emissions. For example, many deaths would be avoided by lower rates of non-communicable diseases such as obesity and heart disease, connected to excessive consumption of carbon-intensive red meat and processed foods, and lack of access to fruit and vegetables. ""Why wouldn't we prioritise investments that will save more lives near-term if they give us the same amount of carbon value?"" said Aaron Bernstein, interim director of The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Changing diets is a complex challenge for governments, he noted, but potential ways to do it include subsidising healthier foods and putting a price on the emissions produced by more carbon-intensive foods that require a lot of natural resources. Beef production, for instance, fuels greenhouse gas emissions as carbon-storing forests are cut down for pasture and cattle burp out methane. A focus on health is one way to make climate action more personal and appealing, Bernstein added, instead of being framed as a cost now that will bring benefits for future generations. ""We have to make this issue relevant to today, and (talk about) improving the welfare, economic opportunities and health of people in a time frame that they can get their heads around,"" he said. A separate study out on Tuesday found pollution from burning fossil fuels causes one in five premature deaths globally, totalling 8.7 million in 2018 and suggesting the health impacts of those emissions may be far higher than previously thought.",0
" Britain's new leader Gordon Brown stamped on talk of cooler relations with Washington on Saturday, saying before his first meeting with President George W. Bush that the bond between the countries remained strong. Brown flies to the United States on Sunday for his first meeting with Bush since he succeeded Tony Blair as British prime minister a month ago. Some of Brown's ministerial appointments and a comment by one of Brown's ministers that Brown and Bush were unlikely to be ""joined together at the hip"" have fuelled speculation that the cozy relationship Bush had with Blair would change under Brown. Blair was Bush's closest ally in the invasion of Iraq, but Brown is well aware that the war's unpopularity in Britain was one of the factors that forced Blair to step down early in June after a decade in power. Brown, who was Blair's finance minister, said in a statement released before his trip that ties with the United States should be Britain's ""single most important bilateral relationship"". ""It is a relationship that is founded on our common values of liberty, opportunity and the dignity of the individual. And because of the values we share, the relationship with the United States is not only strong but can become stronger in the years ahead,"" he said. None of the world's major problems could be solved without the active engagement of the United States, Brown said. ""We will continue to work very closely together as friends to tackle the great global challenges of the future,"" he said, adding that the relationship between a US president and a British prime minister would always be strong. UNITED NATIONS Brown will hold talks with Bush at Camp David before traveling to New York for a meeting with United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Brown will also give a speech at the United Nations. Brown's office said talks with Bush would cover the Middle East peace process, the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, climate change and how to reinvigorate global trade liberalization talks. While Brown and Bush will stress London and Washington's ""special relationship"" is alive and well, political analysts say the reserved, sometimes awkward Brown is unlikely to enjoy the same close relationship with the US president that Blair had. Brown will want to avoid the ""Bush's poodle"" tag that Blair was sometimes labeled with by the British press, particularly after the US president greeted him with ""Yo, Blair"" at an international conference last year. Brown regularly holidays in the United States and is a keen reader of books on US politics and economics. He has said Britain will abide by its U.N. obligations in Iraq and there will be no immediate withdrawal of British troops, as some in the ruling Labor Party want. On Iran, Brown said this week he would not rule out military action but believed sanctions could still persuade Tehran to drop its disputed nuclear program.",1
"TOYAKO, Japan Sun Jul 6,(bdnews24.com/bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The Group of Eight rich nations will seek to convince a skeptical Africa on Monday that it is living up to promises to double aid to the world's poorest continent. Underlining the importance of the issue, the G8 has invited seven African leaders to join the opening day of its annual summit, taking place at a plush hotel on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Climate change, record oil prices and a deteriorating global economy add up to a crowded agenda for the three-day meeting, but US President George W. Bush said he particularly wanted to hold fellow leaders to account for their African aid pledges. ""We'll be very constructive in the dialogue when it comes to the environment -- I care about the environment -- but today there's too much suffering on the continent of Africa, and now's the time for the comfortable nations to step up and do something about it,"" Bush, banging the lectern for emphasis, said on Sunday at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. At its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the G8 agreed to double aid to Africa by 2010 as part of a wider drive to alleviate global poverty. But a report last month by the Africa Progress Panel, which was set up to monitor implementation of the Gleneagles commitments, said that under current spending plans the G8 will fall $40 billion short of its target. Soaring food and oil prices have deepened Africa's plight, but Japan vigorously rebutted a media report that the G8 was backsliding. ""Frankly speaking, we are a little annoyed by the recent press report,"" Foreign Ministry press spokesman Kazuo Kodama said. ""That is completely false and unfounded.""",0
"The fallout may take months to assess. But the impact on the US economy is bound to be considerable, especially in Texas and other states where oil drives much of the job market. With the coronavirus outbreak slowing trade, transportation and other energy-intensive economic activities, demand is likely to remain weak. Even if Russia and Saudi Arabia resolve their differences — which led the Saudis to slash prices after Russia refused to join in production cuts — a global oil glut could keep prices low for years. Many smaller US oil companies could face bankruptcy if the price pressure goes on for more than a few weeks, while larger ones will be challenged to protect their dividend payments. Thousands of oil workers are about to receive pink slips. The battle will impose intense hardship on many other oil-producing countries as well, especially Venezuela, Iran and several African nations, with political implications that are difficult to predict. The only winners may be drivers paying less for gasoline — particularly those with older, less fuel-efficient cars, who tend to have lower incomes. “What a day, what a time,” said Daniel Yergin, the energy historian and author of “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power.” “This is a clash of oil, geopolitics and the virus that together have sent the markets spiralling down. The decline in demand for oil will march across the globe as the virus advances.” Saudi Arabia and Russia are hurt by low prices and have reasons to compromise, but both have a cushion to absorb financial losses for a few months at least. Saudi Arabia depends on high oil prices to fund its ample social programs, but it has the lowest production costs of any producer, so it can operate profitably even at lower prices. Russia has sufficient financial reserves and can devalue its currency, the ruble, to sustain the flow of money through its economy even when prices decline. That leaves the higher-cost producers, and the service companies that drill for them, most immediately vulnerable. Diamondback Energy, a medium-size company based in Texas, slashed its 2020 production plans, cutting the number of hydraulic-fracturing crews to six from nine. Other companies are expected to follow suit in the coming days. The operations in greatest jeopardy are small, private ones with large debts, impatient investors and less productive wells. Small companies — those with a couple of hundred wells or fewer — account for as much as 15% of US output, which has more than doubled over the last decade to roughly 13 million barrels a day. But medium-size companies are also imperilled, including Chesapeake Energy, according to Morgan Stanley. Chesapeake, a major Oklahoma oil and gas company, has $9 billion in debt and little cash because of persistently low commodity prices. Chesapeake did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In an investment note Monday, Goldman Sachs said that large companies like Chevron and ConocoPhillips would be prepared to handle the shock, but that Exxon Mobil could be forced to cut spending on exploration and new production, which has recently been focused on West Texas, New Mexico and the waters off Guyana. Shares of Occidental Petroleum, deeply in debt from its acquisition of Anadarko last year, declined by more than 50% over concern that it would need to slash its dividend. Halliburton and other service companies — the ones that do the drilling and hydraulic fracturing that blasts through shale rock — are exposed because explorers and producers frequently cut their services first during downturns. On the other hand, refiners like Valero may benefit from increased supplies of cheap oil, according to Goldman Sachs. And there may be an upside for natural gas producers, because a reduction in oil production will mean less gas bubbling up from oil wells, bolstering prices. American oil executives put the best face on the situation, noting that many reduced their risks over the last six months by hedging with sales contracts at $50 a barrel or higher. But they said layoffs were inevitable, as when oil prices plunged in late 2014 and 2015 and more than 170,000 oil and oil-service workers lost their jobs. Companies can adjust their spending by drilling but not finishing their wells with hydraulic fracturing, leaving them ready to ramp up when prices recover. Still, oil analysts note that even a sharp decline in new wells would not reduce American oil production by more than a couple of million barrels a day over the next year or two. Scott D Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, one of the biggest Texas oil companies, predicted that Russia and Saudi Arabia would be hurt far more than US oil producers. “We will all adjust our capital and employee work force to preserve balance sheets,” Sheffield said. “Many companies will go bankrupt, but new shareholders will own the drilling locations.” The oil industry has dealt with sharp price declines several times in recent decades. Big oil companies invested through those cycles, especially with long-term projects such as deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off Brazil and Africa. Some analysts say the global industry may not be as well prepared for the latest challenge. Increased concerns about climate change and the growing reluctance of investors to pour money into a sector that has strained to make profits in recent years hobbled the industry even before the virus hit. “In many respects, this time will be different, but not in a good way,” said David L Goldwyn, the top energy diplomat in the State Department during the first Obama administration. “Low oil prices will not necessarily result in increased demand due to the firm commitment of many countries to decarbonisation. The uncertain trend line for coronavirus suggests demand recovery will be slow in coming.” The stock market plunge that has accompanied the drop in oil prices will hurt many Americans, but at least they will be paying less at the gasoline pump. The average regular gasoline price has declined by 5 cents over the last week, to $2.38 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, and is 9 cents below a year ago. Every penny drop means a roughly $4 million a day savings for US drivers, energy economists say. President Donald Trump grasped at the silver lining. “Good for consumer, gasoline prices coming down!” he declared Monday on Twitter. But Yergin, the energy historian, noted that “low gasoline prices don’t do much for you if schools are closed, you cancel your trip or you’re working from home because of the virus.” And oil-producing states will suffer. Texas lost as many as 100,000 oil jobs the last time prices collapsed in 2014 and 2015, and some companies never replaced all their workers. The state has diversified its economy since the 1990s, but restaurants, hotels and shopping malls in Houston and across the state still rely on the energy economy. Oil companies have already been laying off employees in recent months as crude prices sagged. Internationally, the price drop will reverberate differently from country to country. China and India, as huge importers of oil, stand to gain. But it’s a different story for Venezuela, a Russian ally that depends on its dwindling oil exports. The country is short of food and medicine, prompting many Venezuelans to leave for neighbouring countries and the United States. Iran, already under pressure from tightening American oil sanctions, will also be hurt by lower prices, adding to an economic burden that has led to growing discontent. Saudi Arabia may also be hurt, even though it precipitated the crisis. Saudi government finances and social programmes are based on oil sales, which are also meant to help diversify the economy. Twenty percent of the Saudi population is invested in the national oil company, Saudi Aramco, after its initial public offering last year. With the prospect of reduced earnings, Aramco shares have fallen below their IPO price. “There could be a large number of disgruntled citizens,” said Ellen Wald, a Middle East historian and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Centre. Lower oil prices have a mixed impact on the environment. Drilling goes down, as do releases of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas connected with climate change. But if prices stay low for a while, gas-guzzling cars and trucks may find more buyers. And as with any cycle, the question is how long it will last. “What goes down will go up,” said Dan Becker, director of the Washington-based Safe Climate Campaign. c.2020 The New York Times Company",3
"The Russian invasion has bonded America
to Europe more tightly than at any time since the Cold War and deepened US ties
with Asian allies, while forcing a reassessment of rivals like China, Iran and
Venezuela. And it has reenergised Washington’s
leadership role in the democratic world just months after the chaotic US
withdrawal from Afghanistan ended 20 years of conflict on a dismal note. But the new focus on Russia will come
with hard choices and internal contradictions, similar to ones that defined US
diplomacy during the Cold War, when America sometimes overlooked human rights
abuses and propped up dictators in the name of the struggle against communism. “It feels like we’re definitively in a
new era,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser in
the Obama White House. “The post-9/11 war on terror period of American hubris,
and decline, is now behind us. And we’re not sure what’s next.” The attack by President Vladimir Putin
of Russia on his neighbour has become a prism through which nearly all US
foreign policy decisions will be cast for the foreseeable future, experts and
officials said. In recent weeks, Western officials have
spoken in terms that often echo the grand declarations that followed the 2001
terrorist attacks. On Friday, President Joe Biden said that “the free world is
coming together” to stand up to Putin — a phrase reminiscent of President
George W Bush’s talk of how “the entire free world” was at war against
terrorism. In the near term, Moscow’s aggression is
sure to invigorate Biden’s global fight for democracy against autocracies like
Russia, making vivid the threats to fledgling democracies like Ukraine. Yet
three increasingly authoritarian NATO nations — Poland, Hungary and Turkey —
play key roles in the coalition aiding Ukraine. And the United States is
grappling with internal assaults to its own democracy. The war lends urgency to Biden’s climate
change agenda, reinforcing the need for more reliance on renewable clean energy
over the fossil fuels that fill Russian coffers. Yet it has already generated
new pressure to increase the short-term supply of oil from the likes of
Venezuela’s isolated dictatorship and Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian monarchy. And it creates a powerful new incentive
for the United States to find ways of prying President Xi Jinping of China away
from Putin, who is likely counting on diplomatic and economic lifelines from Xi
amid crushing Western sanctions. But some administration officials see China as
a lost cause and prefer to treat China and Russia as committed partners, hoping
that might galvanise policies among Asian and European allies to contain them
both. While some experts warn that a renewed
focus on Europe will inevitably divert attention from Asia, several top White
House officials say the United States can capitalise on how the war has
convinced some Asian governments that they need to work more closely with the
West to build up a global ideological front to defend democracy. “What we are seeing now is an
unprecedented level of Asian interest and focus,” Kurt M Campbell, the top
White House official on Asia policy, said at a talk hosted by the German
Marshall Fund of the United States. “And I believe one of the outcomes of
this tragedy will be a kind of new thinking around how to solidify
institutional connections beyond what we’ve already seen between Europe and the
Pacific,” he said. America’s approach to the world was
already undergoing a major shift, with the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
concluded, and conversations over Islamic terrorism no longer at the fore. Many
war-weary Americans welcomed calls for a reduced military footprint overseas by
President Donald Trump, who questioned NATO’s relevance and even flirted with
withdrawing from the alliance. Biden sought to rebuild US alliances,
but did so largely in the name of confronting China. The Russian invasion has
expanded his mission dramatically and urgently, setting the stage for a seismic
geopolitical shift that would pit the United States and its allies against
China and Russia at once if they form an entrenched anti-Western bloc. But it also gives Washington a new and
nobler sense of purpose, Rhodes said. “We’ve been trying to get to a new era
for a long time,” he said. “And now I think Putin’s invasion has necessitated
an American return to the moral high ground.” Playing Hardball Over Energy Early signs of how the new US priorities
are creating diplomatic quakes have already emerged. On Friday, the United States and its
European allies agreed to pause talks with Iran that just days earlier seemed
on the verge of clinching a return to the 2015 deal that limited Iran’s nuclear
program. Western nations are refusing a demand by Moscow, which is a party to
the Obama-era agreement from which Trump withdrew, for guarantees that its
future transactions with Iran be exempted from the sanctions imposed on Russia
in recent weeks. “It’s been clear since last weekend that
negotiations to revive the Iran deal could not be walled off from the Ukraine
war,” Dalia Dassa Kaye, an Iran expert at the Rand Corp., said Friday. Last year, Biden made a new agreement a
core goal of his foreign policy. It is unclear whether one can be struck
without Russia, which is a member of the commission that supervises compliance
with the deal and would take control of Iran’s excess enriched uranium. The United States is also looking at
Venezuela from a new angle. Senior Biden administration officials travelled to
Venezuela two weeks after the Russian invasion, becoming the first to visit the
country in years. Venezuela, a partner of Russia, is under heavy US sanctions
imposed years ago to weaken the repressive government of President Nicolás
Maduro. In 2019, the Trump administration imposed additional sanctions on the
state oil company, central bank and senior officials to pressure Maduro to step
down. Now, with Biden looking to increase
global oil supplies to bring down prices, US officials are talking to Maduro’s
government about buying his oil again. The idea has drawn some sharp criticism
in Congress, however, where Sen Bob Menendez, D-NJ, chair of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, fumed that “efforts to unify the entire world against a
murderous tyrant in Moscow should not be undercut by propping up a dictator
under investigation for crimes against humanity in Caracas.” The same imperative on oil is reshaping
US diplomacy with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two Persian Gulf
nations that some Biden administration officials view with suspicion or
hostility because of their autocratic systems and leading roles in a war in
Yemen that has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe. Brett McGurk and Amos J
Hochstein, two senior administration officials, travelled to the Gulf days
before the Russian invasion to discuss security and energy issues. However, Saudi Arabia has declined so
far to increase oil production, while the United Arab Emirates waited until
Wednesday to ask the OPEC nations to do so. US officials were also furious with
the UAE for declining to vote on a United Nations Security Council resolution
to condemn Russia, although it did support a similar resolution later in the UN
General Assembly. The unreliability of the two nations and
Russia’s place in the oil economy have increased momentum within the Biden
administration to enact policies that would help the United States more quickly
wean itself off fossil fuels and confront the climate crisis. This could lead
future administrations to devote fewer diplomatic and military resources to the
Gulf nations in the long term, even if US officials want them to help on oil
now. “We may see more fundamental questioning
about the value of these partnerships,” Kaye said. “These states already believe
the US has checked out of the region, but their stance on Russia may only
strengthen voices calling for a further reduction of US forces in the region.” Israel, the closest US ally in the
Middle East, has also staked out a neutral position on the Ukraine war, largely
because of Russia’s presence in the region. But US officials have been more
forgiving of Israel’s stance as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett conducts shuttle
diplomacy. He met with Putin for three hours in Moscow on March 5 and then
spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone before returning
home. US officials said Bennett consulted with them about the talks, and
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this past week that they “appreciate the
efforts.” Zelenskyy told reporters Saturday that
Jerusalem could be a site for peace talks between the leaders of Ukraine and
Russia. Juggling Allies in Europe and Asia In Europe, Russia’s invasion has
supercharged the Biden administration’s efforts to restore the morale of a NATO
alliance that Trump undermined. But the alliance includes three nations
— Poland, Hungary and Turkey — whose democratic backsliding has troubled the
Biden administration. Hungary and Turkey were pointedly excluded from Biden’s
global democracy summit in December, and the European Union has cut billions of
euros of funding to Poland and Hungary for what it sees as erosions of legal
and democratic principles. Now all three countries are participating in the
coalition against Russia. “In times of crisis, there is sometimes
a tension between our values and our interests,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a
senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “In the short term,
we’re going to have to prioritise pushing back against Russia, at the risk of
taking our foot off the gas on the democracy and human rights concerns that had
been at the front and centre of the Biden administration’s agenda.” In the Asia-Pacific region, several
important US partners and allies are working with Washington on sanctions and
export controls on technology against Russia. These include Japan, South Korea,
Taiwan, Singapore and Australia. Some Asian nations have agreed to long-term
gas swaps with Europe to help relieve a potential Russian shut-off of energy
exports. And Australia has committed to spending $50 million to send weapons to
Ukraine, including missiles and ammunition. However, India — the most populous US
partner in the so-called Quad coalition of democracies in Asia — has refrained
from condemning Russia’s invasion because of decades-old security ties with
Moscow. That stance undermines Biden’s insistence that democratic nations band
together against autocracies. But it is the other Asian behemoth,
China, that presents the biggest diplomatic challenge for the United States.
China is Russia’s most powerful partner, and their bond has strengthened in
recent years. Even as the Russian military decimates
Ukrainian cities and kills hundreds or thousands of civilians, China has signalled
that it stands by Moscow by issuing anti-US declarations and amplifying the
Kremlin’s propaganda and conspiracy theories. Xi’s persistent support of Putin, with
whom he shares a drive to dilute US power, has made administration officials
wonder whether there is any way to pull them apart on Ukraine. On Thursday, CIA Director William Burns
told US senators he believed that Xi was “unsettled” by the war. Some China
analysts say that if Beijing wants to salvage its reputation with Western
nations, particularly in Europe, it might agree to take steps to help Ukraine
without directly breaking from Russia. Ryan Hass, a China director on the
National Security Council in the Obama White House, proposed testing Beijing
with specific requests, such as asking them to provide more humanitarian aid
and refrain from recognising Russian-installed governments in Ukraine or
shielding Russia from war crimes investigations. “If China’s leaders take concrete
actions to relieve suffering,” he said, “then lives would be saved and there
would be less centrifugal pressure toward cleaving the world into rival blocs.” © 2022 The New York Times Company",2
"UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Libya, once a pariah of the West, took a giant stride back to global respectability when it was elected along with four other countries on Tuesday to a two-year term on the United Nations Security Council. The United States, which had used its influence to foil previous Libyan attempts in 1995 and 2000 to win a coveted seat on the powerful council, took no similar action this year, diplomats from other countries said. Libya, Vietnam and the West African state of Burkina Faso easily obtained a two-thirds majority after being endorsed by regional groupings to stand unopposed for the three nonpermanent seats available for African and Asian nations. Also elected for terms starting on January 1 were Croatia, which defeated the Czech Republic in a contested race for an East European seat, and Costa Rica, which beat off a challenge from the Dominican Republic for a Latin American place. At stake, like every year, were five of the 10 nonpermanent seats on the 15-nation council, the powerhouse of the United Nations with the ability to send peacekeeping troops around the world and impose sanctions on specific countries. Unlike the five permanent members -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China -- the nonpermanent members have no individual veto. But an alliance of seven of them can stop a resolution even if the big powers want it. Libya has only recently rehabilitated itself in Western eyes from the country that once allegedly sponsored terrorist groups and organized the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland that cost 270 lives. The case led to UN sanctions on Libya, which, under a gradual shift of course by leader Muammar Gaddafi, eventually turned over suspects and admitted civil responsibility. Also key was Gaddafi's 2003 decision to abandon weapons of mass destruction programs. Just three months ago, Libya ended a diplomatic standoff by freeing five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor held since 1999 on charges, which Western countries ridiculed, that they infected Libyan children with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. ""APPEASEMENT"" Voting figures showed that 12 states did not vote for Libya. US Deputy UN Ambassador Alejandro Wolff declined to say how he had voted, telling reporters only: ""We look forward to working with all new members that are elected."" But he added: ""I noticed that there were (Pan Am 103) family members ... in the room, and I know others were watching. Their presence was felt here today. I felt it and I know other delegations felt it."" Libyan Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi said: ""I think our relations with the United States nowadays -- they are back to normal,"" adding that the Pan Am affair was ""behind us"". But Susan Cohen, whose 20-year-old daughter died in the bombing, said the election of Libya, which previously sat on the council from 1976-77, showed a US policy of appeasement. ""I feel as if America has completely capitulated on this. Gaddafi has more blood on his hands than any surviving dictator,"" Cohen told Reuters. The contest between Croatia, a former Yugoslav republic never on the council before, and the Czech Republic, which served from 1994-95, had been expected to be close, although diplomats had given the edge to the Czechs. In the first ballot, Croatia took a lead of just four votes. In the second that widened to 25, at which point the Czech Republic pulled out, as did the Dominican Republic, losing by an even wider margin to Costa Rica. Some officials suggested a speech by Czech President Vaclav Klaus to a September 24 UN conference questioning whether climate change was man-made could have lost votes. Others blamed the fact that Slovakia, once part of one country with the Czech Republic, has been on the council for the past two years. Costa Rica, by contrast, quickly took a strong lead over the Dominican Republic. Costa Rica has sat on the council twice before, while the Dominican Republic never has. The withdrawal of the Czech Republic and Dominican Republic drew applause from the assembly and relief that there would be no repeat of last year's Latin American epic between Venezuela and US-backed Guatemala. That went to 47 rounds of balloting over three weeks before Panama was elected as a compromise. Countries that will leave the Security Council on December 31 are Congo Republic, Ghana, Peru, Qatar and Slovakia. Remaining on it are Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, Panama and South Africa.",0
" Europe saw little respite on Sunday from the Arctic conditions that have closed airports and disrupted travel on the weekend before Christmas, traditionally one of the busiest times of the year. Britain's busiest airport, London Heathrow, which was forced to close both its runways for much of Saturday because of heavy snow, was not accepting inbound flights on Sunday and said only a few planes would be leaving. About 30 tonnes of snow was being removed from each parking stand around the planes, but ice was making it dangerous for the aircraft to be moved. ""There comes a point at which the weather has such an impact that it's simply not safe to fly,"" Andrew Teacher, spokesman for airport operator BAA, told BBC television. The runway at London's second busiest airport Gatwick was open but thousands of passengers were facing delays and cancellations, as they were at most other British airports. In Germany, Frankfurt airport operator Fraport said 470 flights had been canceled on Sunday so far and a worsening of weather conditions was expected from noon onwards. ""The airport halls are packed with flight guests,"" a spokeswoman said, adding that about 1,000 people were forced to stay at the airport overnight. Snow blanketed northern France, delaying trains and forcing flights to be canceled. At Paris's main Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, where 700,000 passengers were expected, a quarter of flights were canceled and delays were running on average to at least an hour. CLIMATE ADVICE Britain's Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said he had asked the government's chief scientific adviser to assess whether the country was experiencing a ""step change"" in weather patterns due to climate change and if it needed to spend more money on winter preparations. Britain traditionally experiences mild winters, but last year's was the coldest for 30 years and this December is likely to be its coldest since 1910. The Met Office said temperatures could hit minus 15 degrees Celsius in western Scotland later on Sunday and icy conditions were forecast across the country. British Foreign Secretary William Hague told Sky News: ""As my colleague, the transport secretary, has said we haven't been equipped over the last few decades in this country to cope ... with every aspect of severe prolonged cold weather. We may have to look again at that if these things are to recur frequently."" The government and transport operators have faced criticism as the cold spells have seen trains delayed and canceled, roads closed and some drivers forced to sleep in their cars. French Secretary of State for Transport Thierry Mariani urged the French to avoid driving after the government took considerable criticism earlier this month for not being better prepared for a snowstorm that trapped many people in their cars. French TGV high-speed trains were running about 20 minutes late on Sunday with 2.4 million people expected to use the train system during the holiday period.",0
" The European Union will stick with its lowest offer for cutting carbon emissions under a UN climate accord, fulfilling the wishes of industry, a draft letter shows. The 27-nation bloc has committed to unilaterally cutting carbon dioxide to 20 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade. The EU will keep open its offer to deepen those cuts to 30 percent if other rich countries make similar efforts, according to the letter, seen by Reuters, to top UN climate official Yvo de Boer. The UN's global climate talks in Copenhagen in December ended with a weak accord and no such comparable offers however. Experts say the total cuts offered there by rich countries amount to no more than 18 percent and fall far short of the 25-40 percent that UN scientists outline as necessary to avert dangerous climate change. The world is currently on track for temperatures to rise to 3.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, which would bring catastrophic melting of ice-sheets and rising seas, scientists say. But many EU countries and industries are wary of increasing cuts to 30 percent alone because the cost of cutting pollution might put factories at a disadvantage to rivals in less regulated countries. ""After the Copenhagen failure, the EU would be foolish to again unilaterally increase its greenhouse gas objective,"" Gordon Moffat, the head of steel industry group Eurofer, said in a statement on Thursday. ""Another 10 percent would be fatal."" But environmentalists say the EU is naive to think its conditional 30 percent offer creates any negotiating leverage and the bloc should move there anyway to set a moral example. ""Tackling climate negotiations with the same strategy as trade negotiations will simply get them bogged down like the current Doha round of trade talks,"" Greenpeace campaigner Joris den Blanken said. Spain, which holds the EU's rotating presidency until July and drafted the letter, will wait for feedback from all 27 EU nations before signing and sending it next week. At a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Thursday, a group of eastern European countries led by Poland joined Italy, Cyprus and Malta to call for the deletion of any reference to the 30 percent offer, diplomats said. Britain, Denmark, France and the Netherlands wanted the 30 percent offer to be prominent but to remain conditional.",0
"“Last week we saw a significant breakdown in our editing processes, not the first we’ve experienced in recent years,” said AG Sulzberger, the publisher, in a note to the staff on Sunday announcing Bennet’s departure. In a brief interview, Sulzberger added: “Both of us concluded that James would not be able to lead the team through the next leg of change that is required.” At an all-staff virtual meeting on Friday, Bennet, 54, apologised for the op-ed, saying that it should not have been published and that it had not been edited carefully enough. An editors’ note posted late Friday noted factual inaccuracies and a “needlessly harsh” tone. “The essay fell short of our standards and should not have been published,” the note said. The op-ed, by Sen Tom Cotton had “Send In the Troops” as its headline. “One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers,” he wrote. The piece, published on Wednesday, drew anger from readers and Times journalists. Bennet declined to comment. Bennet’s swift fall from one of the most powerful positions in American journalism comes as hundreds of thousands of people have marched in recent weeks in protest of racism in law enforcement and society. The protests were set in motion when George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, died last month after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a white police officer’s knee. The foment has reached other newsrooms. On Saturday night, Stan Wischnowski resigned as top editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer days after an article in the newspaper about the effects of protests on the urban landscape carried the headline “Buildings Matter, Too.” The headline prompted an apology published in The Inquirer, a heated staff meeting and a “sickout” by dozens of journalists at the paper. Bennet’s tenure as editorial page editor, which started in 2016, was marked by several missteps. Last spring, The Times apologised for an anti-Semitic cartoon that appeared in the Opinion pages of its international edition. Last August, a federal appellate court found that Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate, could proceed with a defamation lawsuit against The Times over an editorial edited by Bennet that inaccurately linked her statements to the 2011 shooting of a congresswoman. During Bennet’s first year on the job, two Times national security reporters publicly objected to an op-ed by the journalist Louise Mensch, who cited her own reporting on US law enforcement’s purported monitoring of the Trump presidential campaign. Times reporters who had covered the same story, along with reporters at other outlets, were sceptical of her claim. Bennet worked and held key jobs in the Times newsroom from 1991 until 2006, when he left the newspaper to become the editor of The Atlantic. Since his return, he had widely been considered a possible successor to Dean Baquet, who has been in charge of the newsroom for six years. In his four years as editorial page editor, Bennet sought to expand Opinion’s range, making it more responsive to breaking news and better positioned to cover the tech industry. While he hired several progressive columnists and contributors, he also added conservative voices to the traditionally liberal department. He reduced the number of unsigned editorials and encouraged editorial board members to write more signed opinion pieces; one editorial board member, Brent Staples, won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing last year for a series of opinion columns on race in America. Under Bennet, the opinion section also published investigative journalism, developed newsletters and a podcast. It also published a much-discussed op-ed by an anonymous Trump administration official who described a “quiet resistance” within the federal government. The most prominent conservative columnist hired by Bennet, Bret Stephens, angered many readers with his inaugural Times column, in which he chastised the “moral superiority” of those who look down on climate-change sceptics. Late last year, Stephens published another column, headlined “The Secrets of Jewish Genius,” that led to widespread criticism. After a review, the editors appended a note to the column and reedited it to remove a reference to a study cited in the original version after it was revealed that one of the study’s authors had promoted racist views. Bennet is the brother of Michael Bennet, a US senator from Colorado, and he recused himself from presidential campaign coverage during his brother’s unsuccessful run for this year’s Democratic nomination. Katie Kingsbury, a deputy editorial page editor, will be the acting editorial page editor through the November election, Sulzberger said in his memo to the staff. Jim Dao, the deputy editorial page editor who oversees op-eds, is stepping down from his position, which was on the Times masthead, and taking a new job in the newsroom. Baquet, the executive editor, said Sunday that he and Dao had just started discussing possible jobs for Dao. Dao did not reply to a request for comment. Kingsbury, 41, was hired in 2017. Previously she was on The Boston Globe’s editorial board, where she won a Pulitzer for editorial writing and edited another Pulitzer-winning series. In a note to the Opinion staff Sunday, Kingsbury, who declined to comment for this article, said that until a more “technical solution” is in place, anyone who sees “any piece of Opinion journalism — including headlines or social posts or photos or you name it — that gives you the slightest pause, please call or text me immediately.” Cotton’s op-ed prompted criticism on social media from many Times employees from different departments, an online protest that was led by African-American staff members. Much of the dissent included tweets that said the op-ed “puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.” Times employees objected despite a company policy instructing them not to post partisan comments on social media or take sides on issues in public forums. In addition, more than 800 staff members had signed a letter by Thursday evening protesting the op-ed’s publication. The letter, addressed to high-ranking editors in the opinion and news divisions, as well as New York Times Co. executives, argued that Cotton’s essay contained misinformation, such as his depiction of the role of “antifa” in the protests. Sulzberger said at the Friday town hall meeting and in his note on Sunday that a rethinking of Opinion was necessary for an era in which readers are likely to come upon op-eds in social media posts, divorced from their print context next to the editorial page. c.2020 The New York Times Company",2
" The man widely tipped to be South Korea's next president on Friday promised to open the economy, rein in disruptive labour unions and ditch the ideological policies he said are holding back Asia's third-most-powerful economy. Latest opinion polls show almost 50 percent of voters in December's presidential election would pick former Seoul mayor and one-time major construction firm boss, Lee Myung-bak, compared to just over 20 percent for his closest rival. ""The biggest problem with President Roh (Moo-hyun) is he doesn't run the economy based on market principles but brings in too much ideological and political logic,"" said Lee. ""Our job is to restore the market economy,"" he added. ""The South Korean economy needs to be more open. Many regulations must be removed so companies both here and from abroad have fewer burdens in doing business here."" Foreign investors repeatedly complain of the difficulties of doing business in South Korea, blaming bureaucracy to outright discrimination. Major local companies, too, have become increasingly reluctant to invest at home in what many see as an unfavourable business climate under the current liberal government, which has often focused on improving the lot of South Korea's have-nots. ""There's a need to change the economic climate ... it's a reflection of this government's economic policy that we have the lowest rate of investment in 20 years."" Lee, who will seek to be the opposition Grand National Party's presidential candidate in primaries starting in June, made clear he would come down hard on illegal strikes by unions. A recent study showed that strikes and protests, a daily part of life in the capital, cost South Korea over $7 billion a year. ""This must be corrected ... we need people to obey the law for democracy to stand."" On the controversial issue of changing the constitution so a president can have two consecutive terms in office instead of one, Lee said he backed the idea but opposed making the change in the last year of Roh's term in office. ""I don't think it's appropriate to simply change the term now. There's the possibility of trying to use it politically. There are several clauses that need to be revised, so we should do that in the next administration,"" he said, pointing to the need to ensure greater equality for women under the law. The unpopular Roh, whose ruling party has started to splinter in disarray ahead of the December election, has run into a wall of opposition to his proposal for a change now even though it would not affect his single five-year tenure. Lee, who as Seoul mayor won huge popularity for transforming a concrete road into a stream and park in the city centre, has promised to push an even bigger project if he becomes president -- a $15 billion waterway cutting the country from north to south and connecting Seoul to Pusan. Calling his popularity ratings unprecedented in South Korea, which spent its first decades under autocrats and military despots, Lee said it showed that people now wanted a businessman to take charge. ""Career politicians of the past used to make many policies but were not able to make them reality. I think there's expectation that someone who's been a CEO would be able to do that.""",1
"- greenhouse gases with a high warming effect -- by 2015. PLANT BOTTLE VISIONS In May, Coca-Cola introduced a plastic recyclable bottle up to 30 percent of which is made of waste from sugar production, which it has dubbed the ""bottle of the future."" Kent said Coke's ""intention is to get that (percentage) higher."" ""This has the beginnings for us of decoupling of our packaging from fossil fuels,"" Kent said. ""Next year we should be selling for the full year more than a couple of billion bottles (of this material) around the world, and our intention is to ratchet up the supply as much as we can,"" he said. Slightly more than half of all Coke goes into non-refillable plastic bottles, while 13 percent goes into aluminium cans, 12 percent into glass refillable bottles, 12 percent into fountain distributors, and the rest into refillable plastic bottles or other types of packaging, company material showed. Kent said the adoption of the new bottle is currently limited by supply of the material, but that would change. ""Eventually, this will replace all our bottles,"" he said, ""because sugar cane is a very big product around the world, and our intention is to ratchet this up as fast as we can."" Coca-Cola is also looking at other plant materials, such as wood chips and corn stover, that could be used to make bottles, another company executive said.",0
" Big emerging countries urged rich nations on Sunday to set ambitious mid-term targets for reducing greenhouse gases, as both sides stressed the need for funds to help developing countries limit their emissions. Ministers and representatives from the Group of Eight advanced nations and major emerging countries are gathered in western Japan to try to build momentum for U.N.-led climate change talks, a key topic for a July leaders' summit. At least one delegate, though, was pessimistic over prospects for any breakthroughs in time for the July 7-9 summit in Hokkaido, northern Japan, where G8 leaders will be joined by big emerging economies such as China for climate change talks. ""I think it is difficult. We have not enough time,"" Mexican Environment Minister Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada told reporters. ""But climate change is not waiting for any of us."" G8 leaders agreed last year in Germany to consider seriously a goal to halve emissions by 2050, a proposal favored by Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan and Canada. About 190 nations have agreed to negotiate by the end of 2009 a successor treaty to the Kyoto pact, which binds 37 advanced nations to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. But wide gaps exist within the G8 and between rich and poorer nations over how to share the burden for fighting climate change, blamed for droughts, rising seas and more intense storms. TARGETS, FUNDS, TECHNOLOGY Developing countries are putting priority on growth and balking at targets, while complaining that the United States, which together with China is a top emitter, is not doing enough. Indonesia's deputy environment minister told reporters that G8 countries needed to set their own mid-term targets before asking developing countries make commitments. ""First, they should do a mid-term target,"" said Masnellyarti Hilman. ""Developed countries should take the lead and give their commitment to give transfer of technology, finances and capacity building to developing countries,"" she added. South Africa wants the G8 to set ambitious mid-term targets to cut emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and provide more funds to help developing nations adapt to climate change and limit emissions, Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said in a prepared statement. ""As developing countries, we are looking at the G8 for leadership. This is a key ingredient towards building trust,"" he said. The European Union has said the bloc aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, but the United States says only that it will halt the growth of its emissions by 2025 and expectations are low for bold moves until a new president takes office in January 2009. Japan, seeking to show leadership as G8 summit host, urged its rich country colleagues to set bold national targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by well over 50 percent by 2050. ""It is also important for global emissions to peak out in the next 10 to 20 years to reach the long-term target, and I hope that a shared view will be come out of the (G8) summit,"" Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita added. Japan is currently debating its own national target, and domestic media have said it would announce in June a goal of reducing emissions by 60-80 percent by mid-century. Big emerging economies also want rich countries to help finance the clean energy technologies they need to cut emissions. Japan has pledged to pay $10 billion over five years to support developing countries' fight against climate change and intends to create a new multilateral fund with the United States and Britain. Now Washington and Tokyo want other donors to take part too. Mexico is pitching its own proposal for a ""Green Fund"", while the World Bank on Friday said that 40 developing and industrial nations would create two new investment funds to provide financing for developing countries to fight climate change. But the Bank specified no amounts and did not clarify the relationship to existing funding mechanisms. ",0
"Alok Sharma, the conference chairman, urged the almost 200 national delegations present in Glasgow to accept a deal that seeks to balance the demands of climate-vulnerable nations, big industrial powers, and those whose consumption or exports of fossil fuels are vital to their economic development. ""Please don't ask yourself what more you can seek but ask instead what is enough,"" he told them, in the closing hours of a two-week conference that has already overrun by a day. ""Is this package balanced? Does it provide enough for all of us?"" ""Most importantly - please ask yourselves whether ultimately these texts deliver for all our people and our planet."" But before a plenary meeting could be convened to vote on the deal, delegates from India, China, the United States and the European Union met to discuss language on an agreed phase-out of coal, a member of the Indian delegation said. The final agreement requires the unanimous consent of the countries present, ranging from coal- and gas-fuelled superpowers to oil producers and Pacific islands being swallowed by the rise in sea levels. The meeting's overarching aim is to keep within reach the 2015 Paris Agreement's target to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. A draft deal circulated early on Saturday in effect acknowledged that existing commitments to cut emissions of planet-heating greenhouse gases are nowhere near enough, and asked nations to set tougher climate pledges next year, rather than every five years, as they are currently required to do. In a public check-in round with key delegations, there was encouragement for Sharma when China, the world's biggest producer and consumer of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, said it had ""no intention to open the text again"". The West African state of Guinea, which had pressed hard on behalf of the G77 group of developing countries for greater commitments from rich countries to compensate them for ""loss and damage"" from unpredictable climate disasters, also indicated that the group would accept what had been achieved. However, India, whose energy needs are heavily dependent on its own cheap and plentiful coal, signalled unhappiness. ""I am afraid ... the consensus remained elusive,"" Environment and Climate Minister Bhupender Yadav told the forum, without spelling out whether or not India would block a vote on the package. EU Climate Commissioner Frans Timmermans, speaking after Yadav, asked if the marathon conference was at risk of stumbling just before the finish line and urged fellow delegates: ""Don't kill this moment by asking for more texts, different texts, deleting this, deleting that."" Scientists say that to go beyond a rise of 1.5C would unleash extreme sea level rise and catastrophes including crippling droughts, monstrous storms and wildfires far worse than those the world is already suffering. But national pledges made so far to cut greenhouse emissions - mostly carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and gas - would only cap the average global temperature rise at 2.4 Celsius. Saturday's draft, published by the United Nations, called for a phase-out of coal power as well as efforts to reduce the huge subsidies that governments around the world give to the oil, coal and gas that power factories and heat homes. Previous UN climate conferences have all failed to single out fossil fuels for their harm to the climate.",0
"In the first global study of the loss of life associated with longer working hours, the paper in the journal Environment International showed that 745,000 people died from stroke and heart disease associated with long working hours in 2016. That was an increase of nearly 30% from 2000. ""Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard,"" said Maria Neira, director of the WHO's Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health. ""What we want to do with this information is promote more action, more protection of workers,"" she said. The joint study, produced by the WHO and the International Labour Organisation, showed that most victims (72%) were men and were middle-aged or older. Often, the deaths occurred much later in life, sometimes decades later, than the shifts worked. It also showed that people living in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific region -- a WHO-defined region which includes China, Japan and Australia -- were the most affected. Overall, the study - drawing on data from 194 countries - said that working 55 hours or more a week is associated with a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease compared with a 35-40 hour working week. The study covered the period 2000-2016, and so did not include the COVID-19 pandemic, but WHO officials said the surge in remote working and the global economic slowdown resulting from the coronavirus emergency may have increased the risks. ""The pandemic is accelerating developments that could feed the trend towards increased working time,"" the WHO said, estimating that at least 9% of people work long hours. WHO staff, including its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, say they have been working long hours during the pandemic and Neira said the UN agency would seek to improve its policy in light of the study. Capping hours would be beneficial for employers since that has been shown to increase worker productivity, WHO technical officer Frank Pega said. ""It's really a smart choice not to increase long working hours in an economic crisis.""",0
"Beijing,Sep 08 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - China should bind itself to international goals to slash greenhouse gas pollution, one of the nation's most prominent policy advisers said, in a striking break with Beijing's official stance. Hu Angang, a public policy professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, warned failure to act could doom global climate change talks. In submissions to leaders and a recent essay, Hu has argued China could emerge an economic and diplomatic winner if it vows to cut gases from industry, farms and transport that are trapping increasingly dangerous levels of solar heat in the atmosphere. ""It's in China's own interest to accept greenhouse gas emissions goals, not just in the international interest,"" Hu told Reuters in an interview on Sunday. ""China is a developing country, but it's a very special one, with the biggest population, high energy use and sooner or later, if not now, the biggest total greenhouse gas emissions. So this is a common battlefront we must join."" Hu's arguments are likely to stoke debate about China's stance in accelerating negotiations to forge a global climate pact to build on the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. China has insisted that, as a developing country with relatively low average greenhouse gas output per person, it must grow first and not accept any caps until wealthier. Rich nations that caused most emissions must lead and help more, it says. But many experts and Western politicians say Beijing must accept measurable limits so other big polluters will also commit. Hu acknowledged that backing caps was a minority view in China. But the professor, who has helped shape environmental and social policy, said his stance would gain support as the damage from global warming and benefits of binding cuts become clearer. ""I've always started out in the minority but ended up as the mainstream,"" he said. 
CONTRIBUTOR OR VICTIM? In the scheme recently proposed by Hu in the Chinese-language Journal of Contemporary Asia-Pacific Studies, China's greenhouse gas pollution would continue rising until around 2020. The country would then ""dramatically"" curtail emissions, cutting them by 2030 to the level they were in 1990 and then half that by 2050. China's greenhouse gas emissions amounted to 3.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 1994. Hu's plan is ambitious for this fast-growing nation of 1.3 billion people. China's emissions of carbon dioxide have raced past the United States', reaching 6.2 billion tonnes in 2006, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency has estimated. But China should commit to cuts in a global pact, even if the United States resists, Hu said. Washington refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, under which China and other poorer nations need not accept emissions limits. ""Like joining the WTO, this should be used as international pressure to spur our own transformation,"" he added, referring to the World Trade Organisation, which China joined in 2001. ""If China makes a 1 percent error in handling climate change, that could mean 100 percent failure in making agreement."" Bold reductions will need infusions of pollution-reducing technology from advanced economies. But by accepting them, China would win diplomatically and economically by rising as ""green"" power and a massive market for energy innovation, Hu said. An economist often quoted in official media, Hu said he submitted his climate proposals to President Hu Jintao, no relative, earlier this year. China and other poor countries with many farmers would suffer most from rising sea levels, worsening droughts and erratic rainfall triggered by global warming, said Hu Angang. ""Unless we become one of the biggest green contributors, we will be one of the biggest victims of global warming,"" he said. ",0
" Biofuels will not solve the world's energy problem, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell said on Sunday, amid growing criticism of their environmental and social benefits. The remarks follow protests in Brazil and Europe against fuels derived from food crops. Food shortages and rising costs have set off rioting and protests in countries including Haiti, Cameroon, Niger and Indonesia. ""The essential point of biofuels is over time they will play a role,"" Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, told reporters on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum. ""But there are high expectations what role they will play in the short term."" The oil minister for Qatar, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, had harsher words to say about biofuels at the energy forum, a gathering of producers and consumers. ""Now the world is facing a shortage of food,"" Qatar's Abdullah al-Attiyah said, answering a question at a news conference. ""I don't think we should blame oil, we should blame biofuels."" 
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES Biofuels are set to play a growing role. The European Union agreed last year to get 10 percent of all transport fuel from biofuels by 2020 to help fight climate change. But concern over meeting the biofuels targets has fuelled fears that sky-high food prices may rise even further if fertile arable land in Europe is turned over to growing ""energy crops"". First-generation biofuels usually come from food crops such as wheat, maize, sugar or vegetable oils. They need energy-intensive inputs like fertiliser, which make it harder to cut emissions contributing to climate change. Second-generation biofuels would use non-food products such as straw and waste lumber. So far, their production has been mostly experimental. ""Biofuels are all about how you develop them without unintended consequences. It is not only the competition with food, it is also the competition for sweet water in the world,"" Shell's Van der Veer said. An official from the International Energy Agency also said the impact of biofuels should have been forseen. ""Maybe we should have anticipated them better,"" the IEA's deputy executive director, William Ramsay, said. ""But when you have a combination of things happening at the same time -- increasing demand for energy-intensive food, terrific droughts, things like that -- then add to that the competition in certain markets for food and fuel, the preconditions are there.""",0
"At an event in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden will announce plans to nominate Alejandro Mayorkas to be his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, his transition office said, and Avril Haines to be his director of national intelligence. He intends to name Kerry as a special presidential envoy on climate. The transition office also confirmed reports Sunday night that Biden will nominate Antony J. Blinken to be secretary of state and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser. Biden will also nominate Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be ambassador to the United Nations and restore the job to Cabinet-level status, giving Thomas-Greenfield, an African American woman, a seat on his National Security Council. Kerry will also be given a seat on the council, although his job is not a Cabinet position and does not require Senate confirmation. The emerging team reunites a group of former senior officials from the Obama administration, most of whom worked closely together at the State Department and the White House and in several cases have close ties to Biden dating back years. They are well known to foreign diplomats around the world and share a belief in the core principles of the Democratic foreign policy establishment — international cooperation, strong US alliances and leadership but a wariness of foreign interventions after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The racial and gender mix also reflects Biden’s stated commitment to diversity, which has lagged behind notoriously in the worlds of foreign policy and national security, where white men are disproportionately represented. The slate of picks also showed Biden’s determination to push forward with setting up his administration despite President Donald Trump’s continuing refusal to concede or assist him, even as a small but growing number of Republicans lawmakers and supporters of the president are calling for a formal transition to begin. If confirmed, Mayorkas, who served as deputy Homeland Security secretary from 2013 to 2016, would be the first Latino to run the department charged with implementing and managing the nation’s immigration policies. A Cuban-born immigrant whose family fled the Castro revolution, he is a former US attorney in California and began President Barack Obama’s first term as director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services. He will have to restore trust in the department after many key Democratic constituencies came to see it as the vessel for some of Trump’s most contentious policies, such as separating migrant children from their families and building a wall along the southern border. 
 
 Then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), right, confers with campaign adviser Antony Blinken as he prepares for a vice presidential debate with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in St. Louis on Oct. 2, 2008. Blinken, a defender of global alliances and one of President-elect Joe Biden's closest foreign policy advisers, is expected to be nominated for secretary of state, a job in which he will attempt to coalesce sceptical international partners into a new competition with China, according to people close to the process. (James Estrin/The New York Times) 

Top immigration officials in the Obama administration recommended Mayorkas’ nomination as a way to build support with the immigrant community while satisfying moderates and career officials within the agency who are looking for a leader with a background in law enforcement.  Then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), right, confers with campaign adviser Antony Blinken as he prepares for a vice presidential debate with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in St. Louis on Oct. 2, 2008. Blinken, a defender of global alliances and one of President-elect Joe Biden's closest foreign policy advisers, is expected to be nominated for secretary of state, a job in which he will attempt to coalesce sceptical international partners into a new competition with China, according to people close to the process. (James Estrin/The New York Times)  Haines served as deputy CIA director in the Obama administration before succeeding Blinken as Obama’s deputy national security adviser. She, too, is a former aide to Biden, serving as deputy chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2007 to 2008 while Biden was chairman. Haines also served as counsel to Obama’s National Security Council, helping him navigate legal issues around counterterrorism operations and pressing for more restraint to reduce civilian casualties. If confirmed, Haines will be the highest-ranking woman to serve in the intelligence community. The CIA director, now led by its first female director in Gina Haspel, reports to the director of national intelligence. Thomas-Greenfield is a 35-year Foreign Service veteran who has served in diplomatic posts around the world. She served from 2013 to 2017 as assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Just as important in the view of Biden officials is her time as a former director general and human resources director of the Foreign Service; they see it as positioning her to help restore morale at a State Department where many career officials felt ignored and even undermined during the Trump years. Thomas-Greenfield, who recently recounted joining a “still very male and very pale” foreign service decades ago, has also served as the US ambassador to Liberia and has been posted in Switzerland, Pakistan, Kenya, Gambia, Nigeria and Jamaica. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Biden’s decision to bring back Kerry in a new role that would signal the new administration’s commitment to fighting climate change. Kerry, 76, is a former, longtime Senate colleague and friend who campaigned for Biden through some of his candidacy’s darkest days and, Democrats say, retains his voracious appetite for international affairs. Since serving as Obama’s second secretary of state from 2013 to 2017, Kerry elevated his longtime interest in climate to his signature issue and currently runs an organisation dedicated to the topic. His will be a full-time position. “We have no time to lose when it comes to our national security and foreign policy,” Biden said in a statement provided by his transition office. “I need a team ready on Day 1 to help me reclaim America’s seat at the head of the table, rally the world to meet the biggest challenges we face, and advance our security, prosperity, and values. This is the crux of that team.” “These individuals are equally as experienced and crisis-tested as they are innovative and imaginative” he added. “Their accomplishments in diplomacy are unmatched, but they also reflect the idea that we cannot meet the profound challenges of this new moment with old thinking and unchanged habits — or without diversity of background and perspective. It’s why I’ve selected them.” In Blinken, 58, Biden chose a confidant of more than 20 years who served as his top aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before joining his vice-presidential staff, where he served as Biden’s national security adviser, then principal deputy national security adviser to Obama and then deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017. Blinken is widely viewed as a pragmatic centrist on foreign policy who, like Biden, has supported past US interventions and believes that the United States must play a central leadership role in the world. Biden likely calculated that the soft-spoken Blinken, who is well regarded by many Republicans, will face a less difficult Senate confirmation fight than another top contender, former national security adviser Susan E. Rice. Blinken began his career at the State Department during the Clinton administration. He spent much of his youth in Paris and attended high school there, and is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School. Sullivan will take the White House’s top national security job and, at 44 when he takes office, will be the youngest person to hold that position after McGeorge Bundy, who took over the job at age 41 under President John F. Kennedy. Long viewed as one of his party’s brightest upcoming talents, Sullivan followed Blinken as Biden’s top national security aide and then ascended to become a senior aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has called him a “once-in-a-generation talent.” Along the way, Sullivan found admirers even among conservative Republicans in Congress while playing a key role in the negotiations leading to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. A Minnesota native and Yale Law School graduate, Sullivan in recent months has helped spearhead a project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reconceiving US foreign policy around the needs of the American middle class.   ©2020 The New York Times Company",0
"In the town of Reivilo in the country's North West Province where Seikaneng works, patients were waiting for a diagnosis, personal protective equipment (PPE) had to be ordered, and a full week of 12-hour shifts lay ahead. ""We miss Dudu. That loss, it was so bad. But we had to come straight back to work to make sure no one else got sick,"" Seikaneng said between consultations. Seikaneng, 64, is one of 11 nurses in the town about 500 km (310 miles) west of the country's biggest city, Johannesburg, fighting the spread of the coronavirus in a nation with the highest numbers of confirmed cases on the continent. According to the Africa Centre for Disease Control, South Africa has some 681,200 COVID-19 cases. About 16,976 people have died from the disease. Seikaneng's experience in this former mining town of roughly 4,000 people is echoed by nurses across the country who have spoken out in recent months about their working conditions, with protests erupting over pay, short-staffing and a lack of PPE. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are about 28 million nurses in the global workforce - 6 million less than are needed, with 90% of the shortfall concentrated in low- and middle-income countries such as South Africa. For Seikaneng and her colleagues, minimal PPE and staff shortages have forced them to innovate and adapt to prevent more lives being lost to COVID-19. ""We're doing the best we can with the little we have,"" she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from an office in Reivilo Health Centre where she works. It has meant working longer hours when a colleague has to quarantine and carefully assessing patients' symptoms to decide whether to call for an ambulance from the nearest hospital 70 km (43 miles) away, where tests can be carried out. On some days, no PPE was delivered to the health centre, forcing the nurses to re-use masks or go without. Often their priority was simply stabilising patients until the ambulance arrived to take them to Taung hospital, which has the municipality's only COVID-19 ward. ""We're in a rural area far from supporting health services,"" Sipho Bathlaping, 29, another nurse at the Reivilo centre. ""What we need is more PPE, but also moral support,"" he said. 'WE HAVE TO KEEP WORKING' At Taung hospital, COVID-19 ward manager Vicky Shikwambana receives patients from surrounding towns including Reivilo, dividing them between rooms for suspected or confirmed cases. If a patient's condition worsens, they have to be moved to Klerksdorp hospital, some 250 km (155 miles) away. ""We only have one ventilator in the whole hospital. What can we do? We have to keep working because this is a pandemic,"" Shikwambana said. Like many nurses, Shikwambana has had to adapt to plug the gaps during the coronavirus crisis. The COVID-19 ward used to be for tuberculosis (TB) patients, who were moved elsewhere in the hospital as the pandemic gathered pace. Coronavirus has piled pressure on a health system already dealing with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, with the latter claiming an estimated 78,000 lives every year in the country, according to the WHO's Global TB report. Under-staffed, over-burdened health systems are not unique to low-income countries. According to Nurse Heroes - a joint initiative between philanthropists, media and celebrities that supports and honours nurses, within three years the United States and Europe could lack 1 million and 1.5 million nursing staff respectively. In Taung, Shikwambana knows that even minor adjustments can preserve PPE, and possibly help his small team save lives. Shikwambana and the other nurses sometimes speak to patients through the window, cutting down on the need for PPE and preserving precious supplies. ""My family are nervous about me working here, but they are also proud,"" Shikwambana said, standing outside the ward. 'SAVE OUR COMMUNITY' In Pudumong, a town of 3,000 people not far from Taung hospital, a group of community healthcare workers gathered outside the clinic, adjusting their hats in the glaring sun. ""We are here to save our community,"" said Kgomotso Moremedi, 43, who is one of 26 members of an outreach team doing door-to-door contact tracing to stem the virus's spread. Gontlafetse Leinane, 45, sprayed the last drops of hand sanitizer onto her colleagues' open palms. ""This is all the sanitizer we have today,"" she said, as the mostly women team members rubbed their hands and adjusted their face masks before heading out on their rounds. About 90% of the global nursing workforce is female, even though few women occupy leadership positions in the healthcare sector, according to the WHO. With no thermometer, they use a verbal assessment form to ask quarantining residents who they last saw and whether their symptoms are better or worse. At their first stop, nurse and team manager Rachel Asitile accompanied three outreach team members to the house of Thuso Kalanyane, a 49-year-old teacher with COVID-19 who had been self-isolating for a week. ""We're relieved and happy to see the healthcare workers,"" said his wife Mapuledi, who had been isolating with him. ""Now we feel someone is there for us, that we're not alone in this."" Asitile said the climate of fear and uncertainty was palpable in the town, which lies near the border with Botswana. ""We cannot be afraid or it will affect us psychologically"" said Asitile, adding that when funds were low she paid for sanitiser and photocopied assessment forms herself. ""All we can do is try by all means to protect ourselves and others.""",2
"The neighbouring countries are traditionally close but relations had soured under former prime minister Stephen Harper, who hectored the White House in a failed bid to push through US approval for the Keystone XL oil pipeline. 
 
 

Obama and Trudeau, whose Liberals came to power last November promising better cooperation with Washington, pledged joint steps to fight global warming, including cutting methane emissions from oil and gas operations. The countries committed to cutting emissions of methane by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025, to take steps to fight climate change in the Arctic, and to speed development of green technologies. They also told officials to look for solutions to a lengthy dispute over exports of Canadian softwood lumber, as well as promising to make it easier for goods and people to cross the long shared border. ""I am grateful that I have him as a partner ... When it comes to the central challenges that we face, our two nations are more closely aligned than ever,"" Obama told a news conference after talks with Trudeau. 
 
 

""The president and I agree on many things including, of paramount importance, the direction we want to take our countries in to ensure a clean and prosperous future,"" said Trudeau. In another sign of friendlier bilateral ties, Trudeau invited Obama to address the Canadian Parliament this year. Americans have been captivated by the photogenic Trudeau, 44, whose father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister from 1968 through 1979, and again from 1980 to 1984. His visit will be capped by a state dinner on Thursday but that could be overshadowed by the race to succeed Obama in November's presidential election. Candidates for the Republican nomination will hold a debate on Thursday night. 
 
 

Trudeau declined to say what he would do in case the next president was Donald Trump, who has mused about tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement. ""The friendship between our two countries goes far beyond any two individuals or any ideologies,"" he said. ""I have tremendous confidence in the American people, and look forward to working with whomever they choose to send to this White House later this year.""      ",0
"OSLO, Oct 31,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Both Antarctica and the Arctic are getting less icy because of global warming, scientists said on Thursday in a study that extends evidence of man-made climate change to every continent. Detection of a human cause of warming at both ends of the earth also strengthens a need to understand ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland that would raise world sea levels by about 70 meters (230 ft) if they all melted, they said. ""We're able for the first time to directly attribute warming in both the Arctic and the Antarctic to human influences,"" said Nathan Gillett of England's University of East Anglia of a study he led with colleagues in the United States, Britain and Japan. The Arctic has warmed sharply in recent years and sea ice shrank in 2007 to a record low. But Antarctic trends have been confusing -- some winter sea ice has expanded in recent decades, leaving doubts for some about whether warming was global. The UN Climate Panel, which draws on work by 2,500 experts, said last year that the human fingerprint on climate ""has been detected in every continent except Antarctica,"" which has insufficient observational coverage to make an assessment. The scientists, writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, said the new findings filled that gap. The study, comparing temperature records and four computer climate models, found a warming in both polar regions that could be best explained by a buildup of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, rather than natural shifts. FEW THERMOMETERS The link with human activities had been elusive in the polar regions because there are fewer than 100 temperature stations in the Arctic and just 20 in Antarctica, they said. The scientists said temperatures had risen about 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) in the past 40 years in the Arctic. Temperatures in Antarctica, an icy deep freeze bigger than the United States, had gained by a few tenths of a degree. The Arctic is warming fast because darker water and ground soak up ever more heat than ice and snow that reflect the sun's rays. The study also formally linked greenhouse gas emissions to rising temperatures in the Arctic, where big natural variations included a sharp temperature rise in the 1930s and 1940s. The human cause had been hinted at by the UN Climate Panel last year, which said a human impact ""has likely contributed to recent decreases in Arctic sea ice extent."" Scientists urged more study of ice and temperatures. The UN Climate Panel projects that sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 cm (7-23 inches) this century, part of shifts also likely to include more droughts, floods, heatwaves and more destructive storms. ""We really need to pay closer attention to what's going on with these ice sheets,"" Andrew Monaghan, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, told a telephone news conference with Gillett. Asked if the findings would affect his view of the likely pace of melting, he said: ""I would say that it would lean toward a little bit bleaker side of the picture.""",0
"ST LOUIS, Sun Aug 31,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, on Sunday issued some of his harshest criticism to date of the use of torture against terrorism suspects during President George W Bush's administration. In an interview on Fox News, the Arizona senator laid out his differences with Bush on a number of issues, citing torture as a key sticking point between him and the current president. ""I obviously don't want to torture any prisoners. There is a long list of areas that we were in disagreement on,"" McCain said of Bush. Fox interviewer Chris Wallace asked McCain if he was suggesting that Bush did want to torture prisoners. ""Well, waterboarding to me is torture, OK?"" McCain responded. ""And waterboarding was advocated by the administration, and according to a published report, was used."" Bush has said the United States does not practice torture. But the Central Intelligence Agency has admitted using waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, and a recent Justice Department probe cited cases of sleep disruption, ""short shackling"" and other physical techniques against terrorism suspects captured after the September 11 attacks. McCain suffered torture at the hands of his captors during more than five years in a Vietnam prison camp. Though a strong advocate of the war in Iraq and Bush's ""surge"" policy that increased U.S. troop levels there, McCain has been a critic of harsh interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects, including those held at the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. McCain has clashed with Bush on other issues as well including climate change and high federal spending. ""The first thing we would do is rein in spending,"" McCain said.",0
"COPENHAGEN (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Environment ministers tried to overcome rifts between rich and developing nations in Copenhagen on Sunday just days before a deadline for reaching a global pact on tackling climate change. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, highlighting a spat between top greenhouse gas emitters China and the United States, said he hoped all nations would seek to raise their offers in the talks. ""China is calling on the United States to do more. The United States is calling on China to do more. I hope that in the coming days everyone will call on everyone to do more,"" he said. The ministers were holding informal talks during a one-day break in the December 7-18 meeting involving 190 nations, which will culminate in a summit of world leaders on Thursday and Friday including US President Barack Obama. ""There are still many challenges. There are still many unsolved problems,"" Danish Minister Connie Hedegaard told reporters. ""But as ministers start to arrive there is also the political will."" The talks bring together representatives from rich and poor nations who have been arguing over who is responsible for emissions cuts, how deep they should be, and who should stump up cash to pay for them. Countries like China and India say the industrialized world must make sharper reductions in greenhouse gas output and provide the poor with more cash to fund a shift to greener growth and adapt to a warmer world. ""An agreement is certainly possible. If all of us trust each other and if we have the courage and conviction, we can still come to a fair, equitable deal in Copenhagen,"" Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said, heading into Sunday's sessions. Richer countries say the developing world's carbon emissions are growing so fast they must sign up for curbs to prevent dangerous levels of warming. China has said it wants to wrap up a firm deal before Premier Wen Jiabao joins other world leaders at the summit. ""My understanding is that the leaders are coming to celebrate the good outcome of the talks,"" senior Chinese envoy Su Wei said on Saturday. DEMONSTRATORS RELEASED On Sunday, South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu handed over to the UN's de Boer tens of thousands of signatures from around the world calling for climate action. An afternoon church service was also planned at Copenhagen's Cathedral, with a sermon by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and attended by Danish royalty, followed by a ""bell ringing for the climate"" in churches around the world. Police have released all but 13 of nearly 1,000 people detained after a march on Saturday, a police spokesman said. The march by tens of thousands of people was largely peaceful but violence erupted toward evening when demonstrators smashed windows and set fire to cars. Some of those detained said they were unfairly held and badly treated by police. ""They arrested us for no reason. We were all peaceful,"" said Hana Nelson, aged 24, a student from Halifax, Canada, who was released without charges.",0
"European allies France and Germany are looking for a strategic balance in relations with Beijing and Washington that ensures the European Union is not so closely allied with one of the world's two big powers that it alienates the other. ""The United States won't force allies into an 'us-or-them' choice with China,"" Blinken, on his maiden voyage to Europe as Washington's top diplomat, said at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. The European Union, led by France, wants independence from the United States, its ally and protector for over seven decades. Spain and the Netherlands urged the bloc to keep its economy open while seeking ""strategic autonomy."" ""Countries can work with China where possible,"" Blinken said noting that climate change was an area where cooperation was necessary with a country of 1.34 billion people that already emits a quarter of the world's carbon dioxide, more than the United States, but is also an investor in renewable energy. As the United States and China vie for global influence and supremacy in areas from electric cars to biomedicine, Blinken also accused Beijing of undermining the international trading order that the United States and its allies built after World War Two. ""They are actively working to undercut the rules of the international system and the values we and our allies share,"" Blinken said of China, standing by the 30 flags of the NATO alliance. ""If we work together to make real our positive vision for the international order ... we're confident that we can outcompete China on any playing field,"" he said. China's military ambitions are also growing, he said. China denies any wrongdoing and says it respects global rules upheld by international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund. Prior to the speech, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Twitter: ""The US, UK and Canada together account for only 5.7 percent of the world's population. Even if EU is added, that will be about 11 percent. They cannot represent the international community."" Blinken, speaking to reporters later, said in reference to gross domestic product (GDP): ""When we are actually working with our European partners, Asian partners and others, we might be 40, 50 or 60 percent of world GDP. That's a lot harder for Beijing to ignore."" The United States, the EU, Britain and Canada imposed sanctions on Chinese officials on Monday for rights abuses in Xinjiang, in the first such coordinated Western action against Beijing under new US President Joe Biden. Beijing hit back with broader punitive measures against the EU. China's decision to sanction European lawmakers, diplomats and institutes on Monday in response to Western sanctions appeared to galvanise opposition to Beijing at NATO and the EU, with several EU governments summoning Chinese envoys this week. Italy said in a statement after meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Rome that the sanctions were ""unacceptable"".",0
" Environment experts Saturday linked floods, droughts, cyclones, tidal surges and river erosion—commonplace in Bangladesh— to climate change caused by global warming. The observation based on available data came amid a warning that natural disasters would be more frequent and severe in future. Prof AQM Mahbub, chairman of the Geography and Environment Science department at Dhaka University, said: ""We saw almost all types of natural disasters climate change might cause. We have seen signs of climate change all the year round.""
Droughts and floods alternate in Bangladesh. The country saw a spell of drought in January and floods in July, followed by the September deluge that killed 564 people and affected over 10 million others. The floods damaged 63,431 houses and crops on 60,685 acres. As many as 510 educational institutions were totally damaged, according to a government estimate. In the wake of the floods, river eroded lands in much of the country, leaving many people homeless. Cyclone Sidr—the latest in the long line of natural disasters—struck the coast on November 15, killing more than 3,000 people. Earlier 11 depressions formed in the Bay of Bengal this year. Ainun Nishat, country representative of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), told bdnews24.com Sidr that had affected the entire country was triggered by climate change. Nishat said: ""Global warming may affect Bangladesh in many ways. Many coastal areas will go under saline water if sea level rises further."" Data collected from Coast Trust Bangladesh, an NGO, shows that up to 17 percent of land of Bangladesh would go under water leaving 20 million people homeless if sea level rose by a mere 1 metre. Dr Ahsan Uddin Ahmed, executive director of the Centre for Global Change, said: ""We have evidence of climate change. Records of rainfall and temperature of 50 years showed that night temperature in winter rose and the duration of winter shrunk. Rainfall in September and October increased."" ""In the last four decades, sea temperature rose by 0.6 degrees Celsius, which is not normal,"" he added.",6
"“Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment,” he said at UN headquarters in New York. “Scientists have been telling us for decades. Over and over again. Far too many leaders have refused to listen.” “If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change,” Guterres said. His remarks came with countries around the world far short of meeting the goals they set for themselves under the 2015 Paris accord to reduce the emissions that have warmed the planet over the last century. The next round of climate negotiations is scheduled for this year in Poland. One of the big tests at those talks will be whether countries, especially industrialised countries that produce a large share of global emissions, will set higher targets for reducing their emissions. “The time has come for our leaders to show they care about the people whose fate they hold in their hands,” Guterres said. “We need to rapidly shift away from our dependence on fossil fuels.” Guterres’ speech came days before a high-level climate meeting in San Francisco, spearheaded by Gov Jerry Brown of California, meant to demonstrate what businesses and local leaders have done to tackle climate change. Guterres sought to make the case that a shift away from fossil fuels like oil and coal would create jobs and bolster economies. Rebutting critics who argue that such a shift would be costly, he called that idea “hogwash.” He cited the steps private companies are taking to wean themselves away from polluting fossil fuels — including a hat tip to the insurance company Allianz, which has promised to stop insuring coal fired power plants — though he said such actions are plainly insufficient. “The transition to a cleaner, greener future needs to speed up,"" he said. © 2018 New York Times News Service",0
"French-American Duflo becomes only the second female economics winner in the prize's 50-year history, as well as the youngest at 46. She shared the award equally with Indian-born American Banerjee and Kremer, also of the United States. The Academy said the work of the three economists had shown how the problem of poverty could be tackled by breaking it down into smaller and more precise questions in areas such as education and healthcare, making problems easier to tackle. ""As a direct result of one of their studies, more than five million Indian children have benefited from effective programmes of remedial tutoring in school,"" the Academy said in a statement. ""Another example is the heavy subsidies for preventive healthcare that have been introduced in many countries."" The 9 million Swedish crown ($915,300) economics prize is a later addition to the five awards created in the will of industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, established by the Swedish central bank and first awarded in 1969. Economics is the last of the awards to be announced with the winners for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace having been unveiled over the course of last week. The 2018 Nobel Economics Prize was jointly awarded to U.S. economists William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, pioneers in adapting the western economic growth model to focus on environmental issues and sharing the benefits of technology. Nordhaus' recognition has proved controversial, with critics arguing the model he created to describe the interplay between the economy and the climate seriously underestimated climate change-related risks. ",0
"The 95-year-old monarch was joined by the other senior members of the British royal family, with son and heir Prince Charles and his wife Camilla and grandson Prince William and his wife Kate also present. It was their first major public event together since the funeral in April of Prince Philip, the queen's husband of more than seven decades. The reception hosted by the queen was held at the Eden Project, whose distinctive bubble-like Biomes house thousands of plant varieties. The project is near the Cornish seaside resort of Carbis Bay on the tip of southwest England, where the G7 summit is being held. As she sat for a photocall with the world leaders, Elizabeth quipped: ""Are you supposed to be looking as if you're enjoying yourselves?"", provoking laughter. ""Yes,"" British Prime Minister Boris Johnson replied. ""We have been enjoying ourselves in spite of appearances."" The event was the monarch's first opportunity to meet Biden as US President. He is the 13th US leader she has greeted during her record-breaking 69-year reign. ""Joe and I are both looking forward to meeting the queen,"" Biden's wife Jill, who joined him at the Eden Project event, had said on Thursday. ""That's an exciting part of the visit for us."" They are also due to have tea with the monarch at Windsor Castle on Sunday after the summit has concluded. Prince Charles also addressed the G7 leaders about his Sustainable Markets Initiative, which aims to involve business and private sector investment in government efforts to combat climate change. ""The fight against this terrible pandemic provides, if ever one was needed, a crystal-clear example of the scale, and sheer speed, at which the global community can tackle crises when we combine political will with business ingenuity and public mobilisation,"" the prince told them. ""Ladies and gentlemen, we are doing it for the pandemic. So if you don't mind me saying so, we must also do it for the planet,"" said Charles, 72, who has spent much of his life campaigning on environmental issues.",0
" BP finished pumping cement into its ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday to seal off the source of the world's worst offshore spill, paving the way to permanently plug the blow-out later this month. The daylong cementing operation followed earlier injections of heavy drilling mud this week that had subdued the upward pressure of oil and gas inside the deep-sea Macondo well. The crippled wellhead was provisionally capped in mid-July. ""This is not the end, but it will virtually assure us that no oil will be leaking into the environment,"" retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who oversees the U.S. oil spill response operation, said at a briefing in Washington. ""Monitoring of the well is under way in order to confirm the effectiveness of the procedure,"" BP said in a statement announcing completion of the cementing work. The so-called ""static kill"" at the top of the well is due to be finished off with a ""bottom kill"" later in August with more mud and cement injected through a relief bore being drilled into the ruptured well shaft. This relief well is regarded as the final step in plugging the reservoir 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) beneath the seabed. ""I will declare this well dead once we've intercepted the annulus (the space between the well pipe and surrounding rock) and we've assessed how much mud or cement we need to do from the bottom to finally kill this well,"" Allen said. Allen said BP would likely resume drilling the relief well 24 to 36 hours after the cementing was done, with the initial intercept expected within five to seven days after that. Progress in shutting off the cause of an environmental disaster for the U.S. Gulf Coast came as a relief for both BP, whose image and stock took a beating, and U.S. President Barack Obama, whose approval ratings suffered over criticism of his administration's handling of the spill. For full spill coverage link.reuters.com/hed87k Graphic on relief well link.reuters.com/xes52n Reuters Insider link.reuters.com/ren23n Reflecting hopes that an end to the 108-day-old drama is now in sight, BP shares hit two-month highs in early trading in London. They later fell back, closing up 0.42 percent. BP shares finished 3 percent higher in New York. BP shares have gained strongly since hitting a 14-year low on June 25. ""Nobody thinks they (BP) are going to go bust in the next five years any more,"" said Iain Armstrong, an analyst at Brewin Dolphin. BP, which has lost over a third of its market value since the April 20 blast that killed 11 workers, sank the Deepwater Horizon rig and triggered the spill, has said it would sell about $30 billion in assets to cover costs related to the disaster. OFFSHORE DRILLING CONCERNS With the U.S. government announcing this week that some 75 percent of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil spewed by the well has either evaporated, dispersed or otherwise been contained, some environmental experts say the U.S. Gulf Coast may have dodged a nightmare scenario. But the incident has had far-reaching repercussions for the oil industry from a safety and regulatory point of view. A group of investors, including the two largest U.S. public pension funds, asked 27 leading oil and gas companies on Thursday to disclose what they have done to improve offshore drilling safety in the wake of the BP spill. Industry experts have warned that new government regulations and rising insurance costs stemming from the crisis are expected to drive up the expenses of drilling in the Gulf, pushing many of the smaller oil and gas producers out of the prolific energy zone. Independent company Plains Exploration & Production Co (PXP: Quote, Profile, Research) planned to sell its Gulf of Mexico assets and expand onshore, due to the regulatory backlash. Mexico's state oil company Pemex will delay the start of its Maximino exploration well in the Gulf until next year due to concerns about deep-water drilling, a regulator said. WHERE'S THE OIL GONE? Despite the encouraging announcements from BP and the Obama administration, many Gulf Coast residents, who have seen their fishing, tourism and livelihoods devastated by the spill, were wary, asking where the remnants of the leaked oil had gone. ""Where is this remaining oil? It's in the reeds, salt marshes, mangroves and on the beaches or it's still at sea -- either floating on, in or near the surface,"" said Simon Rickaby, chairman of the London-based Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMarEST) Pollution and Salvage Special Interest Group. BP and U.S. authorities have said that cleanup efforts, though being scaled back, would continue. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft said the fragile but environmentally important salt marshes of Louisiana -- the hardest hit of the five Gulf states -- appeared to be more resilient than expected. During a flyover on Thursday of Barataria Bay, one of the region's most spill-impacted areas and a prime nursery for its seafood industry, Zukunft said he saw healthy pelicans diving for fish. He also said crab traps lined with absorbent boom and submerged in the marshland have attracted little crude. ""There is very little observable oil out there,"" Zukunft said, though he added that tar balls are expected to keep washing ashore for ""months, potentially years."" Carol Browner, Obama's Energy and Climate Change adviser, on Thursday assured anxious business owners in the Florida Panhandle, which suffered oil pollution on some of its beaches, that the administration would continue to assist them. ""I just want to tell you that we are not going anywhere,"" Browner said. ""We remain committed. It's an important regional treasure, but it's also a national treasure,"" she said, referring to the state's famous white-sand beaches. Hundreds of miles of shoreline have been soiled by the spill, which also has killed thousands of birds and other wildlife, idled much of the region's fishing and tourism industries and ultimately cost the job of BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, widely criticized as seemingly insensitive. BP, which faces an avalanche of economic damage lawsuits, has said it will pay all legitimate claims. Transocean Ltd RIGN (RIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research), which operated the destroyed rig, reassured investors that BP would bear most of the liability linked to the spill.",0
"""Today the American people can be proud because this historic agreement is a tribute to American leadership. Over the past seven years, we've transformed the United States into the global leader in fighting climate change,"" Obama said. He said the accord shows what is possible when the world stands as one, adding: ""This agreement represents the best chance we have to save the one planet that we've got."" Speaking at the White House hours after the deal was completed, Obama said that ""no agreement is perfect, including this one,"" and that negotiations that involve nearly 200 nations are always challenging. ""Even if all the initial targets set in Paris are met, we'll only be part of the way there when it comes to reducing carbon from the atmosphere,"" Obama added. Obama has made combating global climate change a top priority of his presidency but has encountered stiff resistance to his proposals from Republicans in Congress. Republican Jim Inhofe, a global warming skeptic who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the climate deal was ""no more significant to the United States"" than the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the last major climate deal. Unlike the Kyoto pact, forged with Democratic President Bill Clinton in office, the Paris agreement will not be a fully legally binding treaty, which would almost certainly fail to pass in the US Congress. Clinton's White House successor, George W. Bush, concluded that the Kyoto pact was giving big emerging economies such as China and India a free ride, and would cost US jobs. Having signed the deal, Washington never ratified it. ""Senate leadership has already been outspoken in its positions that the United States is not legally bound to any agreement setting emissions targets or any financial commitment to it without approval by Congress,"" Inhofe said. Besides Inhofe, few Republicans voiced their opinions on the deal. None of the top Republican presidential candidates nor Republican leaders in Congress had commented on the deal on Twitter as of 6:00 pm Eastern (1100 GMT) Saturday. Previously, Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump has cast doubt on science that attributes the warming of the climate to carbon emissions, saying the world's temperature ""goes up and it goes down."" Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton released a statement via Twitter applauding the agreement and pushing back against its critics. ""We cannot afford to be slowed by the climate skeptics or deterred by the defeatists who doubt America's ability to meet this challenge,"" Clinton said, vowing to make climate change a top priority if elected president. Representative Raul Grijalva, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, urged quick action by the Republican-led Congress to fund and support the Paris accord. ""Too many people have spent their careers pretending that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by shadowy environmental groups and Machiavellian research scientists,"" Grijalva said. ""The American public knows full well that's not the case.""",0
"The decision, by the company’s ads team, means that it will no longer permit websites or YouTube creators to earn advertising money via Google for content that “contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” And it will not allow ads that promote such views from appearing. “In recent years, we’ve heard directly from a growing number of our advertising and publisher partners who have expressed concerns about ads that run alongside or promote inaccurate claims about climate change,” the company said. The policy applies to content that refers to climate change as a hoax or a scam, denies the long-term trend that the climate is warming, or denies that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity is contributing to climate change. Google limits or restricts advertising alongside certain sensitive topics or events, such as firearms-related videos or content about a tragic event. This is the first time Google has added climate change denial to the list. Facebook, Google’s main rival for digital advertising dollars, does not have an explicit policy outlawing advertisements denying climate change. In addition to not wanting to be associated with climate change misinformation, ad agencies, in an echo of their shift away from the tobacco business decades earlier, have begun to reevaluate their association with fossil-fuel clients. Agencies such as Forsman & Bodenfors have signed pledges to no longer work for oil and gas producers. Calls have increased to ban the industry from advertising on city streets and sponsoring sports teams. Greenpeace USA and other environmental groups filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year accusing Chevron of “consistently misrepresenting its image to appear climate-friendly and racial justice-oriented, while its business operations overwhelmingly rely on climate-polluting fossil fuels.” Exxon faces lawsuits from Democratic officials in several states accusing it of using ads, among other methods, to deceive consumers about climate change. © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
" Most world leaders plan to attend a climate summit in Copenhagen this month, boosting chances that a new U.N. deal to fight climate change will be reached, host Denmark said on Tuesday. The number of leaders planning to come to the December 7-18 talks had risen to 98 out of the 192 members of the United Nations, Denmark said. The number was up from 65 in a first count after invitations were sent last month. ""It gives me a strong feeling that we are on the right track,"" Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told a news conference. Many analysts say chances of healing deep rifts between rich and poor nations over how to fight global warming have improved after leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jibao have said they would come to Copenhagen. Obama plans to attend on December 9, a day before he is due to collect the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Most other leaders plan to come on December 17-18, pinning prestige on getting a deal done. Denmark has not issued a list of names. In Australia, a government plan to introduce carbon trading was headed for defeat in the Senate after the opposition picked a new leader hostile to the scheme, which would be the biggest economic policy change in modern Australian history. The United States is watching Australia's debate closely. A political agreement on carbon trading in Australia could help garner support for action from other countries. Australia's new Liberal opposition leader Tony Abbott said conservative senators, many of them climate change skeptics, would reject governments plans for emissions trading laws if they were not deferred until early 2010. ELECTION Abbott said he believed in climate change but told reporters he was opposed to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's planned emissions trading scheme (ETS) model. Rejection by the Senate could trigger an early election in 2010. ""This is going to be a tough fight. But it will be a fight. You cannot win an election without a fight,"" said Abbott, a boxer in his university days who once studied for the priesthood. Australia's Assistant Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the government would still push for its carbon trade laws to be passed this week, and said he hoped some opposition lawmakers would side with the government and defy Abbott. He wants emissions trading to start in Australia in July 2011, covering 75 percent of emissions in the developed world's bigger per capita emitter. The planned carbon trade scheme would be the biggest outside Europe, the cornerstone of European Union efforts to help avert warming that it says will cause more powerful cyclones, mudslides, desertification, species extinctions and rising seas. But there are deep rifts to be resolved. India on Monday rejected as a ""dead end"" a draft Danish text that suggested a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from 1990 levels. Rasmussen said Denmark had issued no formal proposals. Developing nations such as China and India want the rich to do far more, starting with cuts of 40 percent in their own emissions by 2020 below 1990 levels, before asking poorer developing nations to forsake fossil fuels. In one brighter spot in the tortuous U.N. negotiations, most countries support a U.N. scheme that aims to reward developing nations for protecting their remaining forests. Trees soak up carbon dioxide as they grow. Investors such as banks and some rich nations are pushing for the project to slow deforestation -- known as REDD -- potentially ushering in a carbon trading scheme from 2013 that could be worth billions of dollars a year. In Brussels, a report said that Europeans could help cut climate warming emissions to much safer levels for just 2 euros ($3) each per day, but they would also have to cut back on driving and meat eating.",0
"The Republican rout was wide and deep in what was bound to be seen as a sharp rebuke to Obama, who has lurched from crisis to crisis all year and whose unpopularity made him unwelcome to Democratic candidates in many contested states.The Republicans also strengthened their grip on the House of Representatives. When the new Congress takes power in January, they will be in charge of both chambers of Congress for the first time since elections in 2006.The Republican takeover in the Senate will force Obama to scale back his ambitions to either executive actions that do not require legislative approval, or items that might gain bipartisan support, such as trade agreements and tax reform.It will also test his ability to compromise with newly empowered political opponents who have been resisting his legislative agenda since he was first elected. And it could prompt some White House staff turnover as some exhausted members of his team consider departing in favour of fresh legs.Obama, first elected in 2008 and again in 2012, called Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress to the White House on Friday to take stock of the new political landscape.He watched election returns from the White House, and saw little to warm his spirits.Before the election results, the White House had signalled no major changes for Obama. Officials said Obama would seek common ground with Congress on areas like trade and infrastructure.""The president is going to continue to look for partners on Capitol Hill, Democrats or Republicans, who are willing to work with him on policies that benefit middle-class families,"" White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Tuesday.Obama, a one-term senator before he became president, has often been faulted for not developing closer relations with lawmakers.He will find one familiar face in a powerful new position.Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who won a tough re-election battle against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, will replace Democrat Harry Reid as Senate majority leader. Reid has been one of Obama's top political allies and helped him steer the president's signature healthcare law through the Senate in 2010.“Some things don’t change after tonight. I don’t expect the president to wake up tomorrow and view the world any differently than he did when he woke up this morning. He knows I won’t either. But we do have an obligation to work together on issues where we can agree,"" McConnell said in his victory speech in Louisville.Toss-ups Become Republican WinsIn Tuesday's comprehensive rout, Republicans won in places where Democrats were favoured, taking a Senate race in North Carolina, pulled out victories where the going was tough, like a Senate battle in Kansas, and swept a number of governors' races in states where Democrats were favoured, including Obama's home state of Illinois.Of eight to 10 Senate seats that were considered toss-ups, Republicans won nearly all of them. They needed six seats to win control of the 100-member Senate, and by late evening they had seven.The winning margin came when Iowa Republican Joni Ernst was declared the winner over Democrat Bruce Braley and Republican Thom Tillis defeated incumbent Democratic Senator Kay Hagan in North Carolina.The Iowa race was particularly indicative of Republican fortunes. Ernst came from behind and surged in recent weeks despite herculean efforts by powerful Democratic figures to save Braley, including a campaign visit by Obama's wife, Michelle.Republican Senate candidates also picked up Democratic seats in Montana, Colorado, West Virginia, South Dakota and Arkansas.'Responsibility ... To Lead'Once the euphoria of their victory ebbs, Republicans will be under pressure to show Americans they are capable of governing after drawing scorn a year ago for shutting down the government in a budget fight. That will be a factor in their ambitions to take back the White House in 2016.Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a conservative firebrand who may run in 2016, told CNN: ""The American people, they’re frustrated with what’s happening in Washington, but now the responsibility falls on us to lead.""While there was talk of conciliation, no major breakthrough in Washington's chilly climate is expected soon.Partisan battles could erupt over immigration reform, with Obama poised to issue executive actions by year's end to defer deportations of some undocumented immigrants, and over energy policy, as Republican press the president to approve the Keystone XL pipeline carrying oil from Canada.Jay Carney, Obama's former spokesman, said he expects Obama to make an ""all-out push"" on his priorities regardless of the makeup of Congress.Whatever the case, Obama will face pressure to make changes at the White House. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 75 percent of respondents believe the administration needs to ""rethink"" how it approaches major issues facing the United States. Sixty-four percent said Obama should replace some of his senior staff after the election.The Republican victory had been widely predicted ahead of Tuesday's voting to elect 36 senators, 36 state governors and all 435 members of the House of Representatives.Obama and other White House officials blamed the electoral map - noting that many key Senate races took place in conservative states that Obama lost in 2012.Election Day polling by Reuters/Ipsos found a dour mood among the electorate with less than one-third of voters believing the country is headed in the right direction.Roughly 40 percent of voters said they approved of the job Obama is doing as president, though they were split over whether they expected the economy to improve or worsen in the coming year.In a consolation for Democrats, Jeanne Shaheen won re-election over Republican Scott Brown in New Hampshire in what polls had forecast as a tight race.In Virginia, heavily favoured Democratic incumbent Senator Mark Warner found himself in a surprisingly close fight against Republican challenger Ed Gillespie, with much of the vote counted. By late evening, he claimed victory but Gillespie had not yet conceded.In the most closely watched governors' races, Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott edged out Democrat Charlie Crist, and Republican Scott Walker survived a challenge from Democrat Mary Burke in Wisconsin.",4
" Democratic White House hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama speak often about green jobs, emissions cuts and renewable energy. But they have more than global warming on their minds when they talk of environmental policy. The long-term goal may be saving the planet, but the short-term one is winning the backing of former Vice President Al Gore. Gore, who won a Nobel prize for his work to combat rising temperatures, is also a superdelegate, one of the influential Democratic Party leaders likely to determine whether Obama, an Illinois senator, or Clinton, a New York senator, wins the party's presidential nomination. So the dueling candidates praise Gore during campaign stops, offer up the prospect of roles for him in future administrations, and -- most of all -- they stay in touch. ""They both call. And I appreciate that fact,"" Gore said on the CBS television program ""60 Minutes"" last week. Obama, the Democratic front-runner, says he keeps in regular contact with Gore and has pledged to make him a major player on global warming in an Obama administration. ""I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem,"" Obama said. Clinton told reporters she did not know whether Gore wanted to get back into government but was sure the American people would welcome it. ""I am very dependent upon the work that Al Gore has done for so many years on behalf of climate change,"" she said. Gore's spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider, declined to comment on the Obama offer and was complimentary about the presidential candidates, including Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. ""Former Vice President Gore thinks that both candidates are very strong. Both of them have offered plans to address the climate crisis ... as has Senator McCain,"" she said. ""It's a real turnaround to have candidates on both sides of the aisle offering, you know, solutions and plans to the climate crisis."" REAL CHANGE Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush, has dedicated most of his professional life since then to fighting climate change. Although he may not be eager to get back into the political fray, he has an agenda: to put fighting global warming on the top of the next president's to-do list. That shouldn't be too hard. All three candidates have made climate proposals that go far beyond Bush's policies, including a cap on industrial carbon dioxide pollution and an emissions trading system similar to the European Union's. ""The most important role that Vice President Gore plays for all candidates is to raise the bar very high on what needs to be done to solve this critical problem,"" said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. Keeping the issue prominent on the campaign trail will give the next U.S. president a mandate to put new policies into place, he said. The candidates discuss the issue regularly at rallies and town hall meetings, where lines about global warming often draw applause, especially from Democratic audiences. Environmentalists say a new president, armed with the right policies and a cooperative Congress, could make Washington an influential leader in talks to form an international climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which goes through 2012 and which the United States has not ratified. But for any new U.S. policies to succeed, American citizens will have to be engaged, a problem Gore aimed to address with a newly launched $300 million climate campaign. Obama talks about the need for an attitude adjustment among Americans and boasts of a trip he made to Detroit, where he admonished car makers to make more fuel efficient vehicles. Clinton says she would promote ""green-collar"" employment to replace lost manufacturing jobs around the country. McCain says even if global warming is not real, working to stop it will have beneficial effects. The talk has attracted the attention of environmentalists and policy makers around the world who see a chance for a significant shift in U.S. climate policy starting in 2009. ""Everybody in Europe is watching the election very closely,"" said Mahi Sideridou of the environmental group Greenpeace in Brussels. ""No matter which party wins ... we're pretty sure that we're going to see a huge shift in policy making in climate change.""",0
" Arm raised in a Nazi-style salute, the leader of Greece's fastest-rising political party surveyed hundreds of young men in black T-shirts as they exploded into cheers. Their battle cry reverberated through the night: Blood! Honour! Golden Dawn! ""We may sometimes raise our hand this way, but these hands are clean, not dirty. They haven't stolen,"" shouted Nikolaos Mihaloliakos as he stood, floodlit, in front of about 2,000 diehard party followers filling an open-air amphitheatre at Goudi park, a former military camp near Athens. ""We were dozens, then a few hundred. Now we're thousands and it's only the beginning,"" cried the leader of Golden Dawn, a far-right party that is seeing its support soar amid Greece's economic collapse. Last month's rally revealed the party, which describes itself as nationalist and pledges to expel all illegal foreigners, has a new-found sense of triumph, even a swagger, that some find menacing. Riding a wave of public anger at corrupt politicians, austerity and illegal immigration, Golden Dawn has seen its popularity double in a few months. A survey by VPRC, an independent polling company, put the party's support at 14 percent in October, compared with the seven percent it won in June's election. Political analysts see no immediate halt to its meteoric ascent. They warn that Golden Dawn, which denies being neo-Nazi despite openly adopting similar ideology and symbols, may lure as many as one in three Greek voters. ""As long as the political system doesn't change and doesn't put an end to corruption, this phenomenon will not be stemmed,"" said Costas Panagopoulos, chief of ALCO, another independent polling company. ""Golden Dawn can potentially tap up to 30 percent of voters."" The party now lies third in the polls, behind conservative New Democracy and the main opposition, the radical leftist Syriza. Violent behavior by Golden Dawn members, who often stroll through run-down Athens neighborhoods harassing immigrants, seems to boost rather than hurt the party's standing. As the government imposes yet more austerity on an enraged public, the collapse of the ruling conservative-leftist coalition remains on the political horizon. The possibility that Golden Dawn could capture second place in a snap election is slim but real, say pollsters. Analysts believe that, ultimately, the party lacks the broad appeal and structure needed to gain mass traction. In World War Two Greece suffered massacres and famine in its fight against the Nazis, and the spectre of the 1967-1974 military junta still hangs heavy over its modern politics. So why are many Greeks now turning to a party whose emblems and rhetoric, critics say, resemble Hitler's? Golden Dawn denies any such resemblance. In an interview with Reuters at an open-air cafe in the Athens district of Papagou, a traditional neighbourhood for military personnel, Ilias Panagiotaros, a Golden Dawn lawmaker and spokesman, explained the party's appeal. ""Golden Dawn is the only institution in this country that works. Everything else has stopped working or is partially working,"" he said. ""We operate like a well-organized army unit, because the military is the best institution in any country."" Greece's far-right party goes on the offensive (PDF) link.reuters.com/rut83t > Greece's other debt problem (PDF) link.reuters.com/ryq82t NO LONGER MARGINAL Short, squat and combative, Mihaloliakos once praised Hitler and denied the Nazi gas chambers existed. A former special forces commando in the Greek army, he met the leaders of the Greek military junta while in prison for carrying illegal weapons and explosives as a member of a far-right group in 1979. When pressed on such issues, Golden Dawn says they are all in the past and it is looking to the future. For years after Mihaloliakos founded the party in 1985 it remained marginal: in the 2009 elections Golden Dawn won just 0.29 percent of the vote, or fewer than 20,000 votes. Yet in June, the party amassed votes from across the political spectrum, wiping out the more moderate nationalist LAOS party and winning support from as far left as the communist KKE party, pollsters said. Now it is stealing votes from New Democracy, which flip-flopped on the international bailout keeping Greece afloat and, after coming to power, imposed harsh cuts instead of relief measures. Though Golden Dawn attracts mainly urban male voters up to 35 years old, the party is also gaining its share of women and the elderly, primarily those suffering unemployment or falling living standards, say pollsters. Part of its appeal is down to the sort of welfare work that Hamas, the Palestinian party, does in Gaza. Golden Dawn distributes food in poor neighborhoods, helps old ladies get money safely from ATMs - and has also set up a Greeks-only blood bank. One story repeated at cafes, but not verified, is that of a Greek whose house is taken over by immigrants. When he asks the police for help, he is given the Golden Dawn number. Not only do they throw out the squatters but deliver the house clean and painted, the tale goes. ""I voted for Golden Dawn for the first time in June and I will vote for them again because they are the only ones who really care about Greece,"" said 45-year-old Demetra, an unemployed Athenian, as she walked through the party's rally at Goudi park. ""All the other politicians have sold us out."" The gathering was a chance for the party to relish achievements and flex muscle. Well-built youths in black T-shirts emblazoned with the Swastika-like party logo stood in military formation at the entrance. Two men stood to attention on both sides of the podium, flagged with a big sign reading ""Getting the stink off the country"", while speakers delivered patriotic oratories. A short film showed highlights of the year, which included attacks on immigrant street vendors, clashes with police outside parliament and food distribution to the poor. When the film showed Golden Dawn lawmaker Ilias Kasidiaris slapping a female communist lawmaker, Liana Kanelli, across the face on live TV, youths bellowed profanities against the victim. ""Golden Dawn's target is simple. We want the absolute majority in parliament so we can replace the constitution with our own,"" Kasidiaris told the crowd. ""It will then be easy to immediately arrest and deport all illegal immigrants."" Pollsters were ready to write off the party when Kasidiaris slapped Kanelli after she swatted him with some papers during a dispute he was having with a Syriza lawmaker. Kasidiaris says he was defending himself; Kanelli says she was coming to the aid of the Syriza lawmaker after Kasidiaris had thrown water at her. Painting Golden Dawn as an aberration stemming from the financial crisis, pollsters said the party's support would dwindle. The opposite happened - the party gained 3 to 4 percentage points in polls as a direct result of the Kasidiaris incident. ""In this slap, Greek society saw the whole, immoral political establishment get slapped,"" said Panagiotaros, a thick-set man with a shaved head and a goatee. ""People thought: finally!"" 'SPEAK GREEK OR DIE' In parliament Golden Dawn's 18 lawmakers cluster in a rear corner of the marble-covered hall, but make no attempt to hide their ideology. Recently, Panagiotaros asked the welfare ministry to find out which babies admitted to state day-care centers were actually Greek. Eleni Zaroulia, wife of party leader Mihaloliakos and also a lawmaker, described immigrants as ""every sort of sub-human who invades our country carrying all sorts of diseases."" Artemis Matthaiopoulos, another Golden Dawn lawmaker, was formerly the bassist for a heavy metal band called Pogrom, which produced songs such as ""Speak Greek or Die"" and ""Auschwitz"". Rights groups say racist attacks in Greece have been surging, but that many immigrants are reluctant to report them because of their illegal status or mistrust of the police. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other groups recorded 87 racist attacks in the first nine months of the year (comparable statistics for previous years are not available). Perpetrators often used clubs or crowbars and sometimes large dogs, say rights groups. In May an Albanian was attacked with a sword by a masked motorcycle rider; in August a young Iraqi was stabbed to death. ""This is not even the tip of the iceberg - there are even more attacks that are not recorded anywhere,"" said Daphne Kapetanaki of the UNHCR. Victims or witnesses sometimes identify Golden Dawn members as the attackers. Javied Aslam, head of the Pakistani Community in Greece organization, estimates that about 400 Pakistanis have been attacked in the past eight months by Golden Dawn supporters. ""There is a huge climate of fear,"" he said. ""People don't leave their houses and workers who leave for their jobs in the morning fear they may not come back home."" Golden Dawn strongly denies any involvement in racist attacks. Several of its members have been detained in relation to such assaults, but have been released for lack of evidence. One Nigerian victim, 31-year-old Confidence Ordu, said he was beaten up by Golden Dawn supporters in broad daylight in Athens in January as passersby looked on without intervening. Ordu, who was granted asylum when he came to Greece five years ago, said he was walking out of a central Athens subway station when four men dressed in black attacked him, shouting ""You don't belong here. Greece is for Greeks"". ""I tried to fight back but there were four of them,"" said Ordu. ""They kept punching and hitting me while I was on the ground. There was nothing I could do. So I acted like I was dead until they left. I had blood all over my face and arms."" Bleeding profusely, he went to a nearby police station. He says police first demanded to see papers proving he was a legal immigrant before taking down details of the assault. ""I'm scared all the time and I watch my back all the time,"" he said. ""I only go to places I know. I never go out at night."" Like other victims, he accuses Greek police of supporting Golden Dawn and hindering immigrants in reporting attacks. In a July report, advocacy group Human Rights Watch said gangs of Greeks were regularly attacking immigrants with impunity and authorities were ignoring victims or discouraging them from filing complaints. Greek police deny accusations they are soft on, or even sometimes work with, Golden Dawn. Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias has vehemently denied reports that police were beating up illegal immigrants and has threatened to sue British newspaper The Guardian over the issue. He is at such odds with Golden Dawn that the party ridiculed him during the youth festival at Goudi park. But a member of the police officers' union, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, admitted there was some sympathy for the party among the ranks. ""There are some among the police who ideologically support Golden Dawn and a handful that have been violent against illegal immigrants,"" the unionist said. ""But these cases are being probed by justice."" WEIMAR REPUBLIC With more than one million foreign nationals in Greece, a country of 11 million people, tensions are unlikely to ease any time soon. While the government regularly rounds up thousands of immigrants, only a few hundred are sent to specially-built detention centers. Many migrants pouring in from Asia and Africa, mainly through Greece's porous border with Turkey, dream of moving on to other European countries, but find themselves trapped in Greece by EU rules that return them to their point of entry. Aid groups say they are often forced into crime to survive. In one case that shocked the nation in 2010, two Afghans lethally stabbed a 44-year-old Greek on the street to steal his video camera as he was taking his pregnant wife to hospital. They were caught trying to sell the camera for 80 euros ($101) and were later sentenced to life in prison for murder. In another much-publicized case, a grandfather was killed on a bus for a handful of coins. Such incidents, unheard of in Greece a few years back, have fanned resentment against foreigners, who are also seen as stealing jobs while one in four Greeks is unemployed. The jobless rate among young Greeks is even higher - more than 50 percent for those under 25. Ahead of a visit to Berlin in October, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, leader of New Democracy, told German media that Greece's woes were similar to conditions that led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic in Germany and ushered in the Nazis. Extreme leftist populism and ""an extreme right, you could almost say fascist, neo-Nazi party,"" were clashing in the same way that battles between communists and fascists marked the 1919 to 1933 Weimar years, he said. Syriza is already leading New Democracy in some opinion polls and Golden Dawn could grow stronger, say some observers. George Kyrtsos, an editor who managed the election campaign of the far-right LAOS party, said: ""If New Democracy shows signs of collapse, we may see outrageous situations... the two top parties fighting it out on the streets."" Golden Dawn, which gives few details of its finances beyond saying it is funded by supporters, is now opening offices across the country and in Greek communities overseas, including New York. Panagiotaros, the party spokesman, said he and his colleagues would even be ready for the top spot. The party's priorities for government, he said, would include eradicating corruption and jump-starting the economy, but most importantly closing the borders and expelling all illegal immigrants.",2
"The country’s first blockbuster set in space, “The Wandering Earth,” opens Tuesday amid grandiose expectations that it will represent the dawning of a new era in Chinese filmmaking. It is one in a series of ambitious, big-budget films tackling a genre that, until now, has been beyond the reach of most filmmakers here — technically and financially. Those movies include “Shanghai Fortress,” about an alien attack on Earth, and “Pathfinder,” about a spaceship that crashes on a desert planet. “Filmmakers in China see science fiction as a holy grail,” said Raymond Zhou, an independent critic, who noted that Hollywood had set the technological standards, and thus audience expectations, very high. “The Wandering Earth,” shown in 3D, takes place in a distant future in which the sun is about to expand into a red giant and devour the Earth. The impending peril forces the world’s engineers to devise a plan to move the planet to a new solar system using giant thrusters. Things go very badly when Earth has to pass Jupiter, setting off a desperate scramble to save humanity from annihilation. The special effects — like the apocalyptic climatic changes that would occur if Earth suddenly moved out of its cozy orbit — are certain to be measured against Hollywood’s, as ever here. And the preliminary reviews have been positive. “It’s like the coming-of-age of the industry,” Zhou said. “The Wandering Earth” opens with the Lunar New Year, the beginning of an official, weeklong holiday that is traditionally a peak box-office period in China. It has a limited release in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. At home, it will compete with “Crazy Alien,” a comedy inspired by “ET the Extra-Terrestrial” about two brothers hoping to capitalise on the arrival of a visitor from outer space. Both “The Wandering Earth” and “Crazy Alien” are adapted from works by Liu Cixin, the writer who has led a renaissance in science fiction here, becoming the first Chinese winner of the Hugo Award for the genre in 2015. His novels are sprawling epics and deeply researched. That makes them plausible fantasies about humanity’s encounters with a dangerous universe. Translating them into movies would challenge any filmmaker, as the director of “The Wandering Earth,” Guo Fan, acknowledged during a screening in Beijing last week. That has made the film, produced by Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism Co and the state-owned China Film Group Corp, a test for the industry. Guo, who uses the name Frant Gwo in English, noted that Chinese audiences have responded coolly to many of Hollywood’s previous sci-fi blockbusters. Studios, therefore, have been wary of investing the resources required to make convincing sci-fi. The film’s budget reportedly reached nearly $50 million, modest by Hollywood standards but still significant here in China. More than 7,000 people were involved in the production. Much of it was filmed in the new Oriental Movie Metropolis, an $8 billion studio in the coast city of Qingdao, built by real estate and entertainment giant Dalian Wanda. “I really hope that this movie will not lose money at least,” said Guo, whose previous film, “My Old Classmate,” was a romantic comedy. “As long as this one does not lose money, we can continue to make science-fiction films.” The popularity of Liu’s novels could help. So could two recent Hollywood films, “Gravity” and “The Martian.” Both included important plot twists that, not incidentally, cast China’s space program in a positive light, and both were huge hits here. The openings also come as China reached a milestone in space: the landing of a probe on the far side of the moon in January. Although decades behind Russia and the United States, China has now put astronauts in orbit and has ambitious plans to join — or even lead — a new age of space exploration. “I think there is a very close connection between Chinese cinema and the nation’s fortunes,” said Sha Dan, a curator at the China Film Archive, who moderated a discussion with Guo. He cited the most popular film in China last year: “Operation Red Sea,” an action drama loosely based on the Chinese rescue of several hundred civilians from Yemen when war erupted there in 2015. “When we have the ability to go to war, we can make movies like ‘Operation Red Sea,' ” he said, alluding to China’s military modernisation in recent years. “Only when China can enter the space era can we make works like ‘The Wandering Earth.' ” Unlike “Operation Red Sea” or the two “Wolf Warrior” movies, which featured a Rambo-like hero battling Western villains, “The Wandering Earth” is not jingoistic, though it does star Wu Jing, hero of the “Wolf Warrior” films, who put up his own investment in the project. He plays an astronaut aboard an international space station who has to contend with a HAL-like computer. Guo said he consciously avoided making Wu’s character a do-it-alone superhero. The fight to save Earth is fought instead by an ensemble, including an affable Russian cosmonaut who explains why his country prohibited alcohol in space, at least officially. (To say more would be a spoiler.) “The Wandering Earth” takes for granted China’s central role in future space exploration, but it also has a vision of the international collaboration necessary to cope with the threats facing the planet, a theme that runs deeply through Liu’s fiction. Liu, who attended a screening last week, noted that science-fiction films in China dated as far back as the 1930s, when director Yang Xiaozhong made ones like “Exchanged” and “Visiting Shanghai After 60 Years,” but those were largely forgotten here after the Communist revolution in 1949. A 1980 movie, “Death Ray on Coral Island,” was a campy, propagandistic flop. There have been few attempts since. “This is mainly because Chinese society is relatively closed and conservative,” Liu said in a written response to questions. “There were not the conditions for science-fiction movies to have an impact.” A film project based on Liu’s best-known work, the trilogy that began with “The Three-Body Problem,” was optioned and even filmed in 2015 but has since languished in postproduction, reportedly because of technical challenges and costs. The conditions now seem ripe. Seeing the “The Wandering Earth” on the screen, Liu said, was “soul shaking.”   © 2019 New York Times News Service",2
" Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, took the oath of office on Monday and immediately signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, ending his country's decade of opposition to the global climate agreement. The move isolates the United States, which will now be the only developed nation not to ratify the agreement which sets binding limits on developed countries to curb the carbon emissions blamed for global warming. ""This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change,"" Rudd said in a statement. Climate scientists said the development was a major step for Australia and sent a clear message to Washington. ""This has given America no excuse now. They are now the only country who won't ratify Kyoto, they are the ones most responsible for the problem and they are not living up to their responsibility,"" said Barry Brook, professor of climate studies at Adelaide University. Rudd, 50, led the centre-left Labor party to victory at the Nov. 24 election, ending nearly 12 years of conservative rule, by promising a new generation of leadership and committing to sign the Kyoto pact. The former conservative government refused to ratify Kyoto, saying it would unfairly hurt the Australian economy with its heavy reliance on coal for energy and export income, while countries like India and China were not bound by targets. But a new report from the environment think tank the Climate Institute, written by government and university scientists, found that Australia's economy could easily cope with strong cuts in greenhouse emissions. It said growth would fall by only 0.1 percent of gross domestic product annually if Australia set a target of 20 percent cuts in emissions by 2020 and aimed to be carbon neutral by 2050. ""Leading the way on climate is an affordable, prudent and achievable investment,"" Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said on Monday. Shortly after Rudd was sworn in, the Kyoto decision was approved by Governor-General Michael Jeffery, who represents Britain's Queen Elizabeth in Australia's constitution and who must approve all international treaties. Under UN guidelines, full ratification takes place 90 days after the United Nations receives the formal Instrument of Ratification, meaning Australia will be a full member of the Kyoto club by the end of March. The way is now clear for Rudd to play a stronger role at the UN climate talks in Bali, which opened negotiations on Monday on new carbon emission targets for beyond 2012. He is to lead a delegation of four Australian ministers at the conference. The previous government said Australia would meet its Kyoto targets, despite not ratifying the pact, but Rudd said the latest advice suggested it would miss its target to curb greenhouse emissions growth to 108 percent of 1990 levels by 2012. ""We are currently likely to exceed, or overshoot, our target by one percent,"" Rudd said, adding that Australia faced penalties under new targets beyond 2012. Rudd has set a long-term target of cutting carbon emissions by 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2050, but has yet to announce an interim target for emissions by 2020.",1
"Copenhagen, Dec 19(Reuters/bdnews24.com)--US president Barack Obama reached a climate agreement on Friday with India, South Africa, China and Brazil, a U.S. official said. The deal outlined fell far short of the ambitions for the Copenhagen summit. Here are reactions. YVO DE BOER, HEAD OF THE U.N. CLIMATE CHANGE SECRETARIAT ""The mountain goes on and on, it seems. I do think we need to see how this text is received by the broader group of countries. It's great that small group of leaders gets together and tries to advance the process. But ultimately the way things work here it has to be acceptable to every country."" ""If this makes it through the meeting in a couple of hours' time then I see it as a modest success. We could have achieved more."" FRENCH PRESIDENT, NICOLAS SARKOZY ""The text we have is not perfect.. If we had no deal, that would mean that 2 countries as important as India and China would be liberated from any type of contract....the United States, which is not in Kyoto would be free of any type of contract. That's why a contract is absolutely vital."" BRITISH PRIME MINISTER, GORDON BROWN ""I came here to Copenhagen wanting the most ambitious deal possible. We have made a start. I believe that what we need to follow up on quickly is ensuring a legally binding outcome."" GERMAN CHANCELLOR, ANGELA MERKEL ""The decision has been very difficult for me. We have done one step, we have hoped for several more."" EUROPEAN COMMISSION SPOKESWOMAN ""A deal is better than no deal. What could be agreed today, falls far below our expectations. But It keeps our goals and ambitions alive. It addresses the needs of developing countries. It was the only deal available in Copenhagen."" CO-AUTHOR OF A U.S. SENATE CLIMATE BILL, SENATOR JOHN KERRY ""This can be a catalyzing moment. It's a powerful signal to see President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma agree on a meeting of the minds. These are the four horsemen of a climate change solution. With this in hand, we can work to pass domestic legislation early next year to bring us across the finish line."" HEAD OF CHINA'S CLIMATE DELEGATION, XIE ZHENHUA ""The meeting has had a positive result, everyone should be happy. After negotiations both sides have managed to preserve their bottom line. For the Chinese this was our sovereignty and our national interest."" BRAZIL'S CLIMATE CHANGE AMBASSADOR SERGIO SERRA ""It's very disappointing I would say but it is not a failure...if we agree to meet again and deal with the issues that are still pending.""
""We have a big job ahead to avoid climate change through effective emissions reduction targets and this was not done here."" JOHN SAUVEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GREENPEACE UK ""The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. There are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty. ""It seems there are too few politicians in this world capable of looking beyond the horizon of their own narrow self-interest, let alone caring much for the millions of people who are facing down the threat of climate change."" ALBERT BINGER, FROM GRENADA, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE ALLIANCE OF SMALL ISLAND STATES ""It seems they didn't want to make any hard decisions and they found some sort of compromise. But I don't think it does the job. The science is telling us we need much more cuts. We need definitive cuts, we need a peaking (year), we need things that people can be held accountable to."" ROB STAVINS, PROF OF BUSINESS AND GOVT AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY ""The most striking thing, it's incredible, virtually unprecedented, is that heads of state sat down in a room together and did the negotiations themselves."" ""It's less than many people had hoped for and expected even two weeks ago. What was needed was to bring the rapidly growing economies and that's what was achieved."" PEW CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE, ELLIOT DIRINGER ""If accepted by other parties, this tentative agreement would be an important step forward. As President Obama said, it's well short of what's ultimately needed. But it would provide a reasonable basis for negotiating a fair and effective climate treaty. It would for the first time secure political pledges by all the major emerging economies to curb their emissions."" STEVE SAWYER, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE GLOBAL WIND ENERGY COUNCIL ""Standing on its own a political declaration like that doesn't do much other than paper over the fact that that governments have failed to keep the promises they made to each other (in Bali, Indonesia two years ago at the launch of the two-year climate talks meant ot agree a climate pact)."" JOHN ASHE, CHAIR OF KYOTO PROTOCOL TALKS UNDER U.N. ""Given where we started and the expectations for this conference, anything less than a legally binding and agreed outcome falls far short of the mark."" ""On the other hand though I'm a bit of a realist so I do realize that perhaps the bar was set too high and the fact that there's now a deal ... perhaps gives us something to hang our hat on. I hope it sets the stage for serious work in 2010 so that we can conclude ... perhaps as soon as June, failing that by December 2010."" NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ""The agreement reached tonight in Copenhagen is a breakthrough in the global effort to combat the climate crisis."" TIM JONES, CLIMATE OFFICER, WORLD DEVELOPMENT MOVEMENT, ANTI-POVERTY LOBBY GROUP ""This summit has been in complete disarray from start to finish, culminating in a shameful and monumental failure that has condemned millions of people around the world to untold suffering. ""To say that this deal is in any way historic or meaningful is to completely misrepresent the fact that this deal is devoid of real content. It is actually meaningless."" NNIMMO BASSEY, CHAIR OF FRIENDS OF THE EARTH INTERNATIONAL ""Copenhagen has been an abject failure. Justice has not been done. By delaying action, rich countries have condemned millions of the world's poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates. The blame for this disastrous outcome is squarely on the developed nations."" CARL POPE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE SIERRA CLUB ""The world's nations have come together and concluded a historic if incomplete agreement to begin tackling global warming. President Obama and the rest of the world paid a steep price here in Copenhagen because of obstructionism in the United States Senate."" JOHN LANCHBERY, BIRDLIFE INTERNATIONAL ""It sounds very vague. There's no next step, nothing to link through to how to get a final deal done."" FRED KRUPP, HEAD OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND ""Today's agreement takes the first important steps toward true transparency and accountability in an international climate agreement. The sooner the U.S. speaks through Senate legislation, the sooner we can set the terms of engagement for talks to come."" LEADER OF WWF GLOBAL CLIMATE INITIATIVE, KIM CARSTENSEN ""They tell us it's over but it's not. Copenhagen produced a snapshot of what leaders already promised before they arrived here. The biggest challenge, turning the political will into a legally binding agreement has moved to Mexico. What was good about Copenhagen was the level of national pledges for climate action in most countries. We are disappointed but remain hopeful."" JAKE SCHMIDT OF THE NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL The deal will ""get big countries moving in the right direction"" on reducing their carbon emissions.",0
" Scientists using DNA have catalogued and described 100 new species of sharks and rays in Australian waters, which they said on Thursday would help conservation of the marine animals and aid in climate change monitoring. More than 90 of the newly named species were identified by scientists in a 1994 book ""Sharks and Rays of Australia"" but remained scientifically undescribed. One rare species of carpet shark catalogued was found in the belly of another shark. The new names and descriptions will now feature in a revised 2009 edition of the book by Australia's peak scientific body. The Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) said its cataloguing of the new species was critical for the management of sharks and rays, which reproduce slowly and are vulnerable to overfishing. CSIRO scientists said sharks and rays as apex predators play a vital role in the ocean's ecosystem and can be indicators of climate change. ""Their populations are sensitive to small-scale events and can be an indicator of environmental change,"" CSIRO team leader Peter Last said in a statement announcing the cataloguing. Some of the new species named include: * The endangered Maugean Skate shark, closely related to an ancestor from the Gondwanan period in Australia some 80 million years ago, found at the southwest of the island state of Tasmania. It is one of the only skates in the world found in brackish or freshwater and its survival could be affected by climate change, said the scientists. * The critically endangered gulper shark or the Southern Dogfish which is endemic to the continental shelf off southern Australia. * The Northern Freshwater Whipray and the Northern River Shark, which grow to over two meters (six feet) in length, and are among the largest freshwater animals in Australia. Until recently these were confused with similar marine species. Environment group WWF-Australia said the cataloguing of 100 new species of sharks and rays would boost conservation moves to protect the marine animals. ""It is a major scientific breakthrough,"" said WWF-Australia fisheries manager Peter Trott. ""We now need to know what changes in management are needed to conserve these animals."" Trott said confusion between separate species of sharks and rays meant that new, rare or endangered species may be mistaken for more common species and inadvertently taken by fishermen. ""We are literally fishing in the dark when it comes to sharks and rays. In many cases we simply do not know what species we are plucking from Australian waters, Trott said in a statement.",0
" The United States came under pressure on Monday to follow other rich countries and set a 2020 goal for cutting greenhouse gases to rescue chances for a climate deal due next month in Copenhagen. The prospective Danish hosts ratcheted up pressure on the United States at a final preparatory meeting in Barcelona, saying it could not come ""empty-handed"" to Copenhagen. Some African countries threatened to walk out of the Barcelona talks, saying rich countries had to deepen their emissions-cutting targets. The head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat said a US number was essential. ""We need a clear target from the United States in Copenhagen,"" Yvo de Boer told a news conference. ""That is an essential component of the puzzle."" President Barack Obama, speaking at the White House to reporters, held out hope for ""an important deal"" in Copenhagen. But he tempered that optimism, saying such a deal might not solve ""every problem on this issue, but takes an important step forward, and lays the groundwork for further progress in the future."" The United States has not yet offered a firm target for reducing emissions by 2020. By contrast, the European Union has promised a cut of at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and several other developed nations have set goals. Democrats in the US Senate said they would try to start pushing legislation through a key committee on Tuesday, ignoring a planned boycott by minority Republicans. That legislation calls for a 20 percent reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions by industry, from 2005 levels. Even if the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee signs off on the bill in coming weeks, there is no evidence any measure will be approved by the full Senate this year. Delegates at the Barcelona talks that run to Friday said time was fast running out to break a deadlock over how to share curbs on emissions between rich and poor and ways to raise billions of dollars to help developing nations combat climate change. The role of forests threatened to add another complication to the faltering talks. Moscow ""will insist that the ability of Russia's forests to absorb carbon dioxide be taken into account,"" Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, speaking after talks in Moscow with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen. Rasmussen told Reuters he hoped within weeks to have enough on the table to invite world leaders to the December conference. Australia said its emissions fell last year, if the effect of forest fires was excluded. 'EMPTY-HANDED' Both Denmark and the European Union urged Obama to do more to unlock a deal at the Dec. 7-18 talks. Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard said she found it ""very hard to imagine"" that Obama could collect the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10 ""in Oslo, only a few hundred kilometres (miles) from Copenhagen, and at the same time has sent an empty-handed delegation to Copenhagen."" ""We have seen a significant, real change in the American position ... but we still expect more,"" said Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. Washington said it was committed to a UN deal. ""The notion the United States is not making enough effort is not correct,"" said Jonathan Pershing, head of the US delegation in Barcelona, pointing to a series of measures under Obama to promote clean energy and cut emissions. ""Our view is that it is extremely important to be a party to this (Copenhagen) deal,"" he said. The United States is the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter after China. African nations called for tougher emissions curbs from the developed world, and Gambia, Ethiopia and Algeria spoke in favor of walking out of the UN talks, said Antonio Hill of Oxfam. Outside the conference center, protesters lined up hundreds of ringing alarm clocks to show time was running out to reach a deal meant to slow rising temperatures and floods, heatwaves, wildfires and rising seas.",0
" China, Brazil, South Africa and India want a global climate treaty wrapped up by June 2010, according to a joint draft document prepared for the Copenhagen climate summit which opened on Monday. Some 192 countries gathered in the Danish capital for the world's biggest climate conference, meant to agree the outline of a new climate treaty. World leaders will attend the closing on Dec 18. Decisions by leaders to join the Copenhagen talks have buoyed the Dec. 7-18 meeting but time has run out to agree a full legal treaty, intended for next year. Copenhagen will instead merely agree a ""politically binding"" text. The four major emerging economies responsible for 30 percent of global carbon emissions targeted June to end talks on a legal text. Some other countries have suggested an end-2010 deadline. ""The (negotiating) group shall complete its work by June 2010 and present the outcome of its work to the conference ... at the resumed session"" of the Copenhagen meeting, the draft obtained by Reuters said. The draft recognised a scientific target to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius and rejected the notion of border tariffs which added a surcharge on imports from high-polluting nations. ""Parties shall not resort to any form of unilateral measures, including fiscal and non-fiscal border measures, against goods and services,"" it said. The draft did not specify how far rich countries should cut greenhouse gases by 2020, a key target year, nor how much money the four wanted from the industrialised world to help them prepare for climate change and cut their own greenhouse gas emissions. China and India have called on rich countries to cut their emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. When asked whether developing nations had dropped that demand, India's special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran in Copenhagen told Reuters: ""The reason is that there are some countries in the G77 and China (the larger group of developing nations) who want a higher percentage. ""You have the Alliance of Small Island States who say that the minimum should be 45 percent, not just 40 percent. So this is a matter for further discussion."" The draft text called for a global climate fund to help developing countries prepare for and mitigate against climate change, to be administered by the Global Environment Facility.",0
"In its most comprehensive analysis yet of the impacts of climate change, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) painted a worst-case scenario of a rise of up to 5.1 degrees celsius by 2090 if there are no actions taken to cut greenhouse emissions. ""There is a very high confidence that hot days will become more frequent and hotter,"" CSIRO principal research scientist Kevin Hennessy said. ""We also have very high confidence that sea levels will rise, oceans will become more acidic, and snow depths will decline."" The dire warning from the government-funded agency is at odds with the official line from Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who in 2009 declared the science of climate change was ""crap"". Abbott last year scrapped a tax on carbon pricing and abolished the independent Climate Commission, saying recent severe droughts that have crippled cattle farmers were ""not a new thing in Australia."" As the host of the Group of 20 last year, he attempted to keep climate change off the agenda, resulting in an embarrassing backdown at the Leaders Summit in Brisbane after U.S. President Barack Obama used a high-profile speech to warn Australia that its own Great Barrier Reef was in danger. One of the world's biggest carbon emitters per capita, Australia has declined to join the United States, Japan, France and others in contributing to the United Nations' Green Climate Fund. Abbott has instead committed A$2.55 billion ($2.21 billion) to a domestic initiative to reduce the country's emissions by 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020. The new research by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, using some 40 global climate models, has Australia warming at a greater rate than the rest of the world. The 5.1 degree celsius projection for 2090 is at the top end of a range starting at 2.8 degrees celsius and is dependent on how deeply, if at all, greenhouse gas emissions are cut. The world average is for an increase of between 2.6 degrees celsius and 4.8 degrees celsius. The report said the annual average temperature in Australia would likely be up to 1.3 degrees celsius warmer in 2030 than the average experienced between 1986 and 2005.",0
"The couple disembarked from a British Royal Air Force plane, after an eight-hour flight, at about 9.30pm (1630 GMT) at Nur Khan Airforce base in Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad. They were greeted by Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Thomas Drew, the British High Commissioner, as well as two children who gave them bouquets of flowers. The Duchess of Cambridge wore a long pale blue variation of the shalwar kameez, a dress or tunic worn over trousers, Pakistan's traditional national outfit that many on social media and in the fashion industry had hoped she would don during her visit. Prince William wore a navy suit with a blue tie. The trip has been described by Kensington Palace as the most complex the couple have undertaken due to security and logistical issues. It is the first by members of the British royal family in more than a decade. The release of public details of the tour were limited due to tight security, but the visit would take them around the north and west of the nation of 208 million people, with the focus on climate change, access to education and security. ""The couple would like to see the breadth and depth of the country from the leafy capital here in Islamabad to the vibrant city of Lahore, the mountainous countryside of the north and the rugged border regions of the west,"" the British High Commissioner said in a video on his official Twitter account. ""They're looking forward to building a lasting friendship with the people of Pakistan. I know they will get a very warm welcome,"" he added. Excitement built up on Monday, with '#RoyalVisitPakistan' trending on Twitter and television stations airing footage from historic royal visits, including one by Prince William's grandmother Queen Elizabeth in 1961. Some rickshaw drivers in Lahore and Rawalpindi, a garrison city next to Islamabad, painted their vehicles with the Pakistani and British flags. Foreign policy experts and officials have said the trip, made at the request of the British foreign office, represented a soft power push, which may help both sides further their diplomatic aims. It comes as Britain seeks to reinvigorate its foreign relationships with the looming deadline for Britain's departure from the European Union, while Pakistan works to repair its global image to boost tourism and investment.",0
"The Environmental Protection Agency's proposal is one of the most significant environmental rules proposed by the United States, and could transform the power sector, which relies on coal for nearly 38 percent of electricity.Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Monday that between 2020 and 2030, the US amount of carbon dioxide the proposal would reduce under the plan would be more than double the carbon pollution from the entire power sector in 2012.States will have flexible means to achieve ambitious but attainable targets, regardless of their current energy mixes. States which rely heavily on coal-fired power plants are thought to have the toughest tasks ahead.""The flexibility of our Clean Power Plan affords states the choices that lead them to a healthier future. Choices that level the playing field, and keep options on the table, not off,"" McCarthy said in remarks prepared for delivery on Monday.The plan has come under pre-emptive attack from business groups and many Republican lawmakers as well as Democrats from coal-heavy states like West Virginia.But the plan looked less restrictive than some had feared, with targets arguably easier to reach because carbon emissions had already fallen by about 10 percent by 2013 from the 2005 baseline level, partly due to retirement of coal plants in favour of cleaner-burning natural gas.The National Association of Manufacturers has argued that the plan will hurt American competitiveness.The plan gives states several ways to achieve their emission targets. Those include improving power plant heat rates; using more natural gas plants to replace coal plants; ramping up zero-carbon energy, such as solar; and increasing energy efficiency, said sources briefed on the proposal.States also have an option to use measures such as carbon cap-and-trade systems as a way to meet their goals.Share prices for major US coal producers like Arch Coal, Peabody Energy and Alpha Natural Resources were mixed on Monday but already near multi-year lows.A legacy issueMonday's rules cap months of outreach by the EPA and White House officials to an array of interests groups.The country's roughly 1,000 power plants, which account for nearly 40 percent of US carbon emissions, face limits on carbon pollution for the first time.Climate change is a legacy issue for Obama, who has struggled to make headway on foreign and domestic policy goals since his re-election.But major hurdles remain. The EPA's rules are expected to stir legal challenges on whether the agency has overstepped its authority. A public comment period follows the rules' release.Last week the US Chamber of Commerce warned the rules could cost consumers $289 billion more for electricity through 2030 and crimp the economy by $50 billion a year.That assessment keyed off a more stringent proposal by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an influential environmental group. The NRDC had proposed cutting emissions by at least 30 percent from a 2012 baseline by 2020.The National Association of Manufacturers also argued on Monday that the plan will hurt American competitiveness.McCarthy noted on Monday that the regulations could yield over $90 billion dollars in climate and health benefits.From a public health perspective, soot and smog reductions that would also be achieved through the plan would translate into a $7 health benefit for every dollar invested in the plan, she said.The EPA estimates that reducing exposure to particle pollution and ozone could prevent up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children and as many as 3,300 heart attacks by 2030, among other impacts.Global reachThe rules, when finalised, are expected to have an impact that extends far beyond the United States.The failure to pass ""cap and trade"" legislation in Obama's first term raised questions about how the United States would meet commitments the president made to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions roughly 17 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels.The new EPA caps are meant to answer those questions.They could also give Washington legitimacy in international talks next year to develop a framework for fighting climate change. The United States is eager for emerging industrial economies such as China and India to do more to reduce their emissions, too.""I fully expect action by the United States to spur others in taking concrete action,"" UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said in a statement Sunday.Chinese and Indian negotiators have often argued that the United States needs to make a more significant emission reduction because of its historical contribution to climate change.Obama will hold a conference call at 2pm ET on Monday with public health groups, hosted by the American Lung Association.",0
" The Nobel Peace Prize panel on Thursday defended its award to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo as based on ""universal values,"" rejecting Beijing's accusation that it is trying force Western ideas on China. China maintained its combative tone on the eve of the prize ceremony in Oslo, and announced the award of its own ""Confucius Peace Prize"" to former Taiwan vice-president Lien Chan, though his office said he was unaware of the award. China jailed Liu last Christmas Day for 11 years for subversion of state power and for being the lead author of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for democratic reform in the one-party state. Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told a news conference the award of the prize to Liu was not a protest. ""It is a signal to China that it would be very important for China's future to combine economic development with political reforms and support for those in China fighting for basic human rights,"" he said. ""This prize conveys the understanding that these are universal rights and universal values, they are not Western standards,"" he added. His comments were unlikely to placate Beijing, where Communist Party ideologists consider ""universal values"" to be codewords for Western liberalization. CHINA ATTACKS U.S. CONGRESS Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu criticized the U.S. House of Representatives for calling on China to release Liu and his wife Liu Xia, who is under house arrest. Jiang told a regular news briefing any attempts to pressure or ""deter China from its development"" would not succeed. ""China urges the relevant U.S. lawmakers to stop the wrong words and activity on the Liu Xiaobo issue and to change their arrogant and rude attitude,"" Jiang said. ""They should show respect to the Chinese people and China's legal sovereignty."" ""The U.S. Congress' so-called resolution distorts the truth, it is widely meddling in China's internal affairs,"" she said. ""Liu Xiaobo was not convicted because of his remarks,"" she said. ""Liu wrote and published inflammatory articles on the Internet, organizing and persuading others to sign it, to stir up and overthrow China's political authority and social system. ""Liu's problem is that he has gone beyond general criticism; it was an act that jeopardized society,"" Jiang said. China's crackdown on dissidents, rights activists and friends and family of Liu has continued. Police barred lawyers, scholars and NGO representatives from attending a seminar on the rule of law at the European Union's embassy in Beijing, the EU's ambassador to China said. ""It is a pity and in fact it is a shame,"" Serge Abou said. China has flexed its economic muscle in drumming up support for a boycott of the Oslo award ceremony for Liu on Friday. Most of the 18 or 19 states joining the boycott have strong commercial ties with China or share its hostility toward Western human rights pressure. China said the ""vast majority"" of nations would boycott the ceremony. The Norwegian award committee says two-thirds of those invited would attend. ""WESTERN CRUSADE"" The Chinese delegation to UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, has refused to meet Oslo's team, led by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Environment Minister Erik Solheim. ""There is no doubt that China sees the Peace Prize as a part of a Western crusade against their form of government,"" Solheim was quoted as saying. Chinese state-run media accused the West of ""launching a new round of China-bashing."" A number of countries and international human rights organizations have criticized Beijing for its sweeping crackdown on dissent ahead of the Oslo ceremony, preventing Liu's friends and family from attending. ""The Chinese government should be celebrating this global recognition of a Chinese writer and activist,"" said Salil Shetty, secretary general of rights group Amnesty International. ""Instead, the government's very public tantrum has generated even more critical attention inside and outside China -- and, ironically, emphasized the significance of Liu Xiaobo's message of respect for human rights,"" Shetty said. Beijing has briefly blacked out BBC and CNN reports on Liu and his supporters over the past few days, though foreign news channels are generally only available in upmarket hotels and apartment buildings mostly inhabited by foreigners.",1
"Every country has to agree on every word in the text. If the negotiators huddled inside the huge conference centre here had windows to look out of, they might be reminded of the stakes. On the banks of the Clyde River, just behind the centre, is a 230-foot-long art installation made of 3,723 LED lights. “No New Worlds,” it reads. Summit organisers have issued an initial draft of an agreement that calls on countries, by the end of 2022, to “revisit and strengthen” their plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and to “accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels.” If it stays in the final version, the language on coal and government fossil fuel subsidies would be a first for a U.N. climate agreement. But environmental groups said the rest of the document was too vague on crucial details. Money is one of the big differences looming over the final negotiations. Rich countries have failed to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020, as promised, for poor and middle-income countries to shift their energy systems away from fossil fuels and adapt to the effects of climate change. This year, there’s a push to create another pot of money to compensate for the irreparable harms of climate change in countries that are least responsible for the problem, a fund for what’s known as “loss and damage” and one that rich countries have blocked for nearly 30 years. On Thursday, Alok Sharma, the British lawmaker who is president of the summit, said that he was “concerned at the number of issues outstanding on finance items the day before we are due to conclude.” There’s also disagreement over the call to end fossil fuel subsidies, rules on carbon markets, and whether countries should return every year with new climate targets instead of every five years. Calls for tougher action from activists and nations are growing louder. Scientific consensus demands that countries around the world limit global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, between preindustrial times and the end of this century. Beyond that threshold, the risks of deadly heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and species extinction grow considerably. At the moment, that goal is not within reach — nowhere close, in fact, according to the latest independent analysis by Climate Action Tracker. Still, there was some promising news from the summit Wednesday evening, when the United States and China, the world’s two biggest polluters and its biggest rivals, announced an agreement to “enhance ambition” on climate change and do more to cut emissions this decade. China also committed for the first time to reduce methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and said it would “phase down” coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, starting in 2026. But both pledges came without precise timetables — a reminder that at these climate talks, promises are easier than details.   ©2021 The New York Times Company",0
"The stone sculpture, a nearly 1,200-year-old relic, was
voluntarily surrendered by an Italian collector to the Consulate General of
India in Milan on Thursday. “The climate is changing for restitution,” said Christopher
Marinello, a lawyer who specialises in tracking down looted and stolen art, who
helped negotiate the statue’s return. “Collectors are being criminally charged
worldwide and collections are being seized as more and more jurisdictions let
it be known that it is unacceptable to possess looted and stolen art.” Marinello tracked down the missing Buddha in partnership
with Vijay Kumar, founder of the India Pride Project, a nonprofit organisation
that works with the Indian government to retrieve looted artefacts. Four years ago, Kumar was searching for the sacred sculpture
when it appeared in the sales catalogue of a French dealer. He said this week
that regulations in France protecting good-faith buyers of stolen artefacts
made it difficult to act quickly. With only two weeks before the sale, Kumar
did not formally request an inquiry into its provenance, which he said would
have required him to notify Interpol and acquire police reports from when the
idol was looted almost 20 years ago. But the statue didn’t sell and the trail
went cold. Marinello joined the case last year and located the object
in an Italian collection. The owner of the Buddha, also known as an
Avalokiteshwara Padamapani idol, voluntarily relinquished the object when
presented with archival photographs showing it in the Indian temple. As a
condition of the handover, officials are not disclosing the owner’s identity. The statue depicts Buddha holding the stem of a blossoming
lotus in his left hand, the Indian government said in a statement, with two
female attendants below his feet. It was sculpted for the temple sometime
between the eighth and 12th centuries. The temple is near Kurkihar, a village
where a trove of more than 220 bronzes were unearthed in an archaeological dig
in 1930. Most of those sculptures are now held in the Patna Museum in Bihar. When it arrives in India, the sculpture will be sent to the
Archaeological Survey of India in New Delhi for study. Kumar and Marinello are among a growing number of citizen
activists hunting for stolen antiquities on behalf of Asian countries. In
December, the pair also retrieved a 10th-century goat head yogini statue from a
garden in the English countryside. “Repatriation of our rightful artefacts continues,” the
Indian culture minister, G Kishan Reddy, said at the time. The work never seems to end. “We are still scratching the
surface,” said Kumar, who said he knows of thousands more looted Indian
artefacts. Nearly 250 artefacts were returned by US officials last year as part
of an investigation into a looting ring that authorities say was operated by
antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor. Kapoor is currently jailed in India on
smuggling and theft charges. “Each successful return is a deterrent,” Kumar said. “Now
criminals know that Indian art is no longer fair game.” © 2022 The New York Times Company",1
"But they share the same big dream. Both want a better life for the families who run the world's half a billion small farms, many of whom remain steeped in poverty despite producing about 80% of food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations. It is a tough ask as climate change makes life even harder for millions of small-scale farmers - with scientists predicting more frequent and intense floods, droughts and storms. In Mutoko in northeastern Zimbabwe, Gofa, 25, is seeing yields from her rain-fed maize dwindle, as the start of the planting season is delayed from mid-October to late December. In 2016, her farm produced about 700 kg (1,543 lb) of maize, but this year, she only got 500 kg, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Goodman, 24, is also struggling at his family farm outside Malawi's capital Lilongwe, which grows seeds for crops such as maize, soy bean and groundnut, and works closely with about 5,000 small farmers every season. The beginning of the rainy season has shifted from October to mid-November, older farmers told Goodman. When showers do come, they often turn heavy, destroying crops and eroding the soil's fertile layer. This forces farmers to buy more inputs such as fertilisers to keep yields up but the higher costs then push them back into poverty, he added. A recent study led by University College London (UCL) showed such experiences could become widespread as the planet warms, with significant implications for hunger and inequality. It looked at 18 crops - including those grown mainly in developing nations such as cassava, groundnut and rapeseed - representing 70% of the world's crop area and about 65% of its calorific intake. The study found that harvests of key crops - such as pulses in West Africa, rice in India and Pakistan, and wheat in Sudan - would fall if temperatures rose 1 degree Celsius above today's levels, even without other impacts such as floods. Globally, the average temperature has so far risen a little more than 1C since pre-industrial times, although the change varies in different parts of the world - and projections are for warming to increase further to 3C or more this century. The study also said countries where increasing temperatures cause the most negative impacts already have lower-than-average yields and are struggling to feed their citizens, denting their resilience and ability to adapt to additional heating. Poor nations face a triple whammy with food production pummelled, higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide reducing nutrients in crops, and a resulting spike in hunger and malnutrition, warned Paolo Agnolucci, the study's lead author. About 690 million people, or one in 11, went without enough to eat in 2019, and the United Nations has warned the COVID-19 pandemic could add another 132 million to that number in 2020. The social implications of even 1C of additional warming could be ""massive"", added Agnolucci, associate professor at UCL. OLIVES CRUSHED Some developed countries that enjoy high yields of crops like potatoes, soy and maize - for example, in northern Europe - are likely to benefit if the climate heats up by another 1C, the study said. But climate impacts are getting harder to ignore even here, other scientists noted. Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, an associate professor at Cornell University researching the historical impacts of climate change on agriculture, pointed to the unusual and brutal 2019 spring floods in the US Midwest that inundated huge swathes of farmland. In Italy, meanwhile, where olive oil is part of the country's cultural heritage, olive farmers like Gianni Proietti say they have been battered by climate disasters. Proietti's 50-hectare farm in the picturesque Umbrian hills in central Italy has in recent years suffered more frequent and severe plant diseases and extreme weather such as spring frosts and hailstorms. Increases in average seasonal temperatures and humidity are to blame, said the 62-year-old, who now grows cereals, legumes and grapes as well as olive trees. Insuring his crops against weather damage helps him cope with the losses but the most effective support would be measures to halt and reverse climate change, he added. ABANDON SHIP? With global climate action moving at a slow pace, many small farmers in Africa are diversifying crops, to adapt to worsening weather extremes and shifting climate patterns. Gofa in Zimbabwe now concentrates on sorghum and millet, which are more drought-resistant than maize, and is receiving training from international charity ActionAid on eco-friendly farming techniques. Still, she faces many difficulties. For example, digging ridges in the soil so it holds more water is labour-intensive because she lacks equipment, she said. For Goodman, obstacles in Malawi include getting hold of affordable, quality seeds for soil-friendly crops like legumes, and reliable information on weather, greener farming practices, crop performance and market prices. He is working with aid organisations to address these issues, but said the situation was ""unfair"" to poor farmers. ""How do you tell somebody to fight climate change, when they do not contribute to even a fraction of that climate change?"" Millions of small farmers have ""woefully low access"" to mobile networks and the Internet, putting digital technologies that could help them out of reach, said a study this month. Less than 40% of farms smaller than a hectare have 3G or 4G cellular services and the cost of data remains prohibitive in many parts of Africa, said the International Center for Tropical Agriculture. The UCL-led study said expansion of irrigation and increased use of fertilisers and pesticides could protect yields, but would come with environmental costs, from growing water scarcity to nitrous oxide emissions from fertilisers. The only long-lasting solution is cooperation to help transfer technology from rich to poor countries, said UCL's Agnolucci. Without this, the number of farmers quitting their land and migrating north could grow, he warned. But Cornell's Ortiz-Bobea said migration should be part of adaptation strategies. At some point, it will likely become impossible to improve productivity on land where soils are poor and water is scarce, even with the latest technology, he noted. More radical ideas may be needed, he added. ""Maybe the best way to ensure food security is not necessarily for small-scale farmers to grow their own food, but being able to get an education and work in a sector where they can buy that food,"" he said.",0
" Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived in India on Sunday, hoping to boost business and add more substance to the growing ties between two of the world's biggest developing nations. The three-day state visit is the latest in a series of high-level exchanges between the distant countries, which have forged a common stand in recent years on global trade and strategic issues. The two have been key partners within the G20 group of developing countries pushing rich nations for freer global farm trade and are also seeking a permanent seat in the UN Security Council along with Germany and Japan. ""The meaning of my visit to India is to reiterate our readiness to forge a strategic alliance between our countries,"" Lula wrote in an article published in India's Hindu newspaper on Sunday. ""The size of our respective populations, the economic vigour and the technological advances of both of our countries manifestly indicate how hard we still have to work in order to achieve our potential of cooperation and friendship,"" he said. Trade and business are expected to be on top of the agenda when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh holds talks with Lula, who arrived with a delegation of about 100 businessmen. Lula is also due to address a conference of business leaders in the Indian capital on Monday. Although bilateral trade has grown steadily it is seen to be nowhere near its true potential, with Brazil unhappy about New Delhi's hesitation to further open its markets to farm imports despite slowing Indian agricultural output. While total trade touched $2.4 billion in 2006, Brazilian exports to India fell 15 percent to $937 million, and Lula's team is expected to push New Delhi for easing investment and trading norms. The two countries aim to quadruple trade to $10 billion by 2010. Increasing the use of bio-fuels, an area in which Brazil is a world leader, would be a key area to push cooperation for India, whose energy needs are surging with its scorching economic growth, an Indian foreign ministry official said. New Delhi would also seek Brazil's support at the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an organisation that governs global nuclear trade, which it needs to buy nuclear fuel and reactors after the conclusion of a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, he said. In addition, the two sides would prepare to forge a common stance on issues such as climate change and global trade talks ahead of this week's G8 meeting in Germany, which both Lula and Singh are attending. Analysts were optimistic Lula's India visit would help build stronger bonds between the two emerging market giants. ""I think both India and Brazil are beginning to recognise that distance should not matter and there should be greater trade between the two countries,"" said Rajiv Kumar, director of the Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations. ""It is also the coming together of intermediate or medium-sized countries for a greater role in global governance and international financial architecture,"" he said.",1
" Snow storms in China that have killed more than 60 people are not directly linked to climate change, say scientists, but simply an extreme event caused by very cold winter temperatures and a La Nina weather pattern. La Nina has brought moist air over southern China at a time of very cold winter temperatures, resulting in heavy snow falls, said Chinese weather experts. ""This is mainly related to abnormal atmospheric circulation and the La Nina event,"" Dong Wenjie of the National Climate Centre told the official People's Daily. ""The National Climate Centre predicts that this La Nina event will continue at least up to summer 2008 at a medium to strong level,"" Dong said. ""With climate warming, extreme weather events are clearly increasing in frequency and intensity."" The worst snows in 50 years in southern China have hit as tens of millions of people attempt to return home to celebrate the Lunar New Year with families. Australian climate scientist Penny Whetton, one of the authors of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fourth assessment report, said the Chinese explanation for the storms was valid, adding the bad weather was not linked to climate change. ""Those conditions are things that occur naturally and so every few years, few decades, everything just comes together right to produce an extreme event,"" said Whetton, who wrote the IPCC chapter ""Regional Climate Projections"". The panel's four reports were released last year in phases. ""My guess is this is a natural event without any particular reason to link it to climate change. The climate change models are not predicting increases in snow events like this,"" Whetton told Reuters on Thursday. She said China could expect a less stable climate because of global warming, with various regions experiencing drier, wetter, hotter conditions, as well as more intense tropical storms. ""Cold extremes are generally not predicted to become more intense and frequent because we have a warming climate,"" she said. WORLD'S CLIMATE UNBALANCED But as China warms, its cold northern regions might experience more intense snow storms as moisture levels in the atmosphere rise, creating similar conditions to those that have caused the snow storms now in southern China. ""Snow will hang around for less but you will probably get more heavy snow events in winter,"" said David Jones, head of climate analysis at Australia's National Climate Centre. ""We are seeing that in places like northern Canada, where there's been almost a doubling of rain and snow in the last few decades, and that's exactly what you expect cold polar desert regions to become, a lot wetter in a warmer world."" Jones also said China's snow storms could not be directly linked to climate change, unlike floods, heat waves and fires that are a result of rising world temperatures and rainfall. ""Winter is a time of year in the northern hemisphere where you often get these extreme events. We have always had them and we will always have them,"" he said. One of the world's largest scientific bodies, the American Geophysical Union, says the world's climate is now out of balance and the rate of climate change is no longer natural. In its first revised climate change report since 2003, the union said last week that the world's climate system was ""now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural"". The AGU has a membership of 50,000 researchers, teachers and students in 137 countries. ""Not only are we moving into a hotter world but a different world,"" said Jones. ""You get more and more surprises as the world changes, because you are moving into a world where the atmosphere and climate just doesn't behave like it used to.""",0
" Cyclone Ivan killed 60 people when it tore through Madagascar last week, officials said on Tuesday, more than doubling the previous death toll of 22. ""More than 200,000 people are affected,"" Jean Rakotomalala, head of the country's National Office of Disasters and Risk Management, told reporters. ""Most of them still need urgent help in many areas ... mostly the south, the north, the east coast."" Bruno Maes, the local UNICEF representative, said the United Nations would announce a new appeal by the end of the week. Ivan, one of the biggest cyclones ever to hit Madagascar, was packing winds that topped 125 mph (200 kph) when it swept onto the giant Indian Ocean island's east coast early last week. Six cyclones struck Madagascar last year, killing at least 150 people. Scientists say warming seas linked to climate change are likely to increase the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones in coming decades, and some suspect they already have.",0
"They said that the chances of such a heat wave
increased by at least 30 times since the 19th century, before widespread
emissions of planet-warming gases began. On average the heat wave is about 1
degree Celsius (about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than a similar event would
have been in those preindustrial times, the researchers said. “Climate change is a real game changer when it
comes to heat waves,” said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial
College London. “It’s really a major factor.” Otto is an author of a report on
the heat wave by World Weather Attribution, a collaborative effort among
scientists to examine extreme weather events for the influence, or lack
thereof, of climate change. The relentless heat, with temperatures soaring
beyond 100 degrees Fahrenheit for days, particularly in northwestern India and
southeastern Pakistan, has killed at least 90 people, led to flooding from
glacial melting in the Himalayas, contributed to power shortages and stunted
India’s wheat crop, helping to fuel an emerging global food crisis. The study found that a heat wave like this one
now has about a 1 in 100 chance of occurring in any given year. Before warming
began, the chances would have been at least about 1 in 3,000. And the chances
would increase to as much as 1 in 5, the researchers said, if the world reaches
2 degrees Celsius of warming, as it is on track to do unless nations sharply
reduce emissions. The world has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius since
the late 19th century. South Asia is no stranger to heat this time of
year, but this heat wave began early, near the beginning of March, and is
continuing in some areas where little relief is expected until monsoon rains
arrive in the next few months. The scientists analysed maximum daily
temperatures for March and April, and used computer simulations of the world as
it is now and of a fictional world where emissions, and warming, never
occurred. While this study has not been peer reviewed, these model-comparison
techniques have been peer-reviewed in the past and are now widely used and
accepted. Because of the lack of a long observational
record and other uncertainties, the researchers said, the findings are
conservative, and the chances of such an event are likely more than 30 times
greater than they were before warming began. The analysis also looked at the effects of the
prolonged heat. Arpita Mondal, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of
Technology Bombay in Mumbai and an author of the study, said gathering data
about the effects on wheat, a crop that is sensitive to extreme heat, was
difficult, despite anecdotal reports of damage. “But what has been quite startling is that
India has banned its wheat exports to the rest of the world,” she said. “That
in itself is evidence enough that our agricultural productivity has been
affected.” The ban, coupled with the effects of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine on wheat exports from there, has international
agencies concerned about the potential of a global food shortage. Another author, Roop Singh, a climate risk
adviser with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, said that, like other
heat waves, this one shows that the effects tend to fall disproportionately on
the poor. She said there have been reports of widespread
power outages, in part because the need for more cooling strains the system,
and in part because of a coal shortage in India. “This is particularly
impactful for the poorest people who might have access to a fan or to a cooler,
but might not be able to run it because they can’t afford a generator,” she
said. The findings of the study are consistent with
many other analyses of similar events over the past two decades, including an
extraordinary heat wave last summer in the Pacific Northwest and Western
Canada. This field of research, called attribution analysis, has contributed to
a growing understanding among scientists and the public that the damaging
effects of global warming are not some far-off problem but are already
occurring. Because emissions have raised the world’s
baseline temperature, the link between heat waves and climate change is
especially clear. Otto said that in studies of other extreme events like floods
or drought, climate change is usually only one factor among several. In a recent paper, Otto and others argued that
the influence of global warming on heat waves is now so apparent that it is
“fast becoming an obsolete question.” The “next frontier” for attribution
science, they wrote, is to provide information to help people decide how to
adapt to extreme heat. ©2022 The New York Times Company",0
"WASHINGTON, November21 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Rude immigration officials and visa delays keep millions of foreign visitors away from the United States, hurt the country's already battered image, and cost the US billions of dollars in lost revenue, according to an advocacy group formed to push for a better system. To drive home the point, the Discover America Partnership released the result of a global survey on Monday which showed that international travelers see the United States as the world's worst country in terms of getting a visa and, once you have it, making your way past rude immigration officials. The survey, of 2,011 international travelers in 16 countries, was conducted by RT Strategies, a Virginia-based polling firm, for the Discover America Partnership, a group launched in September with multimillion-dollar backing from a range of companies that include the InterContinental Hotels Group, Anheuser Busch and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. The survey showed that the United States was ranked ""the worst"" in terms of visas and immigration procedures by twice the percentage of travellers as the next destination regarded as unfriendly -- the Middle East and the Asian subcontinent. More than half of the travelers surveyed said US immigration officials were rude and two-thirds said they feared they would be detained on arriving in the United States for a simple mistake in their paperwork or for saying the wrong thing to an immigration official. The survey was taken between Oct. 25 and Nov. 9 against the backdrop of growing concern in parts of the US business community over a steady decline in the number of foreigners visiting the United States. ""Between 2000 and 2006, the number of overseas visitors, excluding those from Mexico and Canada, has declined by 17 percent,"" said Geoff Freeman, executive director of the Discover America Partnership, ""and business travel in that period has dropped 10 percent."" Travel Industry Association statistics show that the US share in world tourism declined from 7.4 percent in 2000 to 6 percent last year. A one-percentage point increase, according to the association, would mean 7.5 million additional arrivals, $12.3 billion in additional spending, 150,000 additional US jobs, $3.3 billion in additional payroll and $2.1. billion in additional taxes. With about 50 million visitors a year, the United States is the world's third most-popular destination, after Spain and France. ""The problem is that since September 11, this country has viewed visitors more as a threat than an opportunity,"" Freeman said. ""The entry process has created a climate of fear and frustration that is keeping foreign visitors away."" ""Unless Congress understands there is a problem, nothing will be done ... though it wouldn't take much to make a change,"" Freeman said.",2
"While some companies are preparing to call back workers to their offices, the amount of office space available for lease in Manhattan has soared to the highest rate ever, according to reports released Thursday, underscoring how the sudden shift to remote work during the coronavirus pandemic is upending the city’s commercial real estate industry. Across Manhattan, home to the two largest business districts in the country, 18.7% of all office space is available for lease, a jump from more than 15% at the end of 2020 and more than double the rate from before the pandemic, according to Newmark, a real estate services company. Many New York employers are offering greater flexibility to their workforce, allowing at least some remote work even as the pandemic recedes and recalculating their space needs. As a result, companies continue to end their leases or seek tenants to take over their existing leases at a steady pace. Some neighbourhoods are faring worse, such as Downtown Manhattan, where 21% of offices have no tenants, Newmark said. Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, an influential business organisation, said that New York City was facing its biggest crisis since the 1970s, when half of the city’s 125 Fortune 500 companies moved out. “This is as close as we’ve come to that type of scenario where there’s an exodus from the city, and the recovery took 30 years,” Wylde said. “The city has to attract people for reasons other than going to the office.” No other city in the United States must confront the changing workplace more so than New York, whose offices, before the pandemic, had attracted 1.6 million commuters every day and helped sustain a swath of the economy, from shops to restaurants to Broadway theatres. The pandemic has also placed enormous pressure on the commercial real estate sector, a pillar of the New York economy, as landlords rush to redesign offices and dangle incentives like lower rent to retain and attract companies. Property taxes are the largest source of revenue for New York City, with commercial property accounting for the largest share of that at 41%. Commercial districts across the country are struggling, but office towers in Manhattan continue to empty out even as other cities, including Atlanta and Los Angeles, show signs that they have moved beyond the worst of the pandemic. While New York’s vacancy rate was higher than the national rate of 16.2% at the end of March, many other cities are also struggling to fill their offices. In Los Angeles, 24.1% of its offices are without tenants, and in Chicago, the office vacancy rate is 21.9%. But both cities also entered the pandemic with much higher vacancy rates than New York: In Los Angeles the rate was 18.1%, while it was 15.5% in Chicago. There are signs that the situation in New York could get worse. A third of leases at large Manhattan buildings will expire over the next three years, according to CBRE, a commercial real estate services company, and companies have made clear they will need significantly less space. The overall availability rate in New York City is the highest since it started to be tracked in the mid-1970s, when the city was plunged into a financial crisis and the Manhattan skyline was being transformed by the rise of towering office buildings like the Twin Towers at the World Trade Centre. Franklin Wallach, a senior managing director for research at the real estate firm Colliers, said that the amount of available office space in Manhattan would most likely continue to climb, as new construction is completed and large companies complete relocation plans that were announced before the pandemic. About 14 million square feet of office space is under construction in New York City, which is equal to about double the size of Orlando, Florida. Just as the broader economic recovery has been uneven with some industries faring better than others, so too will the office market rebound in different ways in Manhattan, Wallach said. Neighborhoods close to major transportation hubs, like Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal, could recover faster than other parts of Manhattan. “The long-term, overall market will recover,” Wallach said, “but the when, where and how — that will vary where you are standing.” One real estate firm, Savills, said the Manhattan office market would not likely rebound to pre-pandemic levels until “late 2022 or beyond.” At the end of May, just 12%of Manhattan’s office workers had returned to their desks, according to a survey of companies by the Partnership for New York City. More than 60% of workers are estimated to return in September, the group said, but many companies will allow their employees to work remotely at least several days a week. Throughout the pandemic, just one industry — the technology sector — has signed significant leases in New York. But those companies, such as Facebook and Google, are also perhaps best equipped to shift seamlessly to remote work. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said in June he planned to work outside the office for half of next year. Wylde said that the growth of the tech sector increasingly appeared to be a short-lived success, as employees in those companies demand that they be allowed to work remotely or on a hybrid schedule on a permanent basis. They are telling their employers that they do not want to pay expensive apartment leases in New York to work in the office only a few days a week, she said. “The other cities have become more competitive as a result of the pandemic and the whole remote-work phenomenon,” she said. “It’s going to require a real shift in public policy toward focusing on quality of life, a positive business climate and affordability.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",5
"OSLO, Sun, Apr 5, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - An ice bridge which had apparently held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place during recorded history shattered on Saturday and could herald a wider collapse linked to global warming, a leading scientist said. ""It's amazing how the ice has ruptured. Two days ago it was intact,"" David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, told Reuters of a satellite image of the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. The satellite picture, from the European Space Agency (ESA), showed that a 40 km (25 mile) long strip of ice believed to pin the Wilkins Ice Shelf in place had splintered at its narrowest point, about 500 meters wide. ""We've waited a long time to see this,"" he said. The Wilkins, now the size of Jamaica or the U.S. state of Connecticut, is one of 10 shelves to have shrunk or collapsed in recent years on the Antarctic Peninsula, where temperatures have risen in recent decades apparently because of global warming. The ESA picture showed a jumble of huge flat-topped icebergs in the sea where the ice bridge had been on Friday, pinning the Wilkins to the coast and running northwest to Charcot Island. bdnews24.com/lq/2118. ""Charcot Island will be a real island for the first time in history,"" Vaughan said. Vaughan, who landed on the flat-topped ice bridge on the Wilkins in January in a ski-equipped plane with other scientists and two Reuters reporters, said change in Antarctica was rarely so dramatic. It was the first -- and last -- visit to the area. The loss of the ice bridge, jutting about 20 meters out of the water and which was almost 100 km wide in 1950, may now allow ocean currents to wash away far more of the Wilkins shelf. ""My feeling is that we will lose more of the ice, but there will be a remnant to the south,"" said Vaughan. Ice shelves float on the water, formed by ice spilling off Antarctica, and can be hundreds of meters thick. Nine other shelves have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B in 2002 further north. DISAPPEAR FROM MAP Cores of sediments on the seabed indicate that some of these ice shelves had been in place for at least 10,000 years. Vaughan said an ice shelf would take many hundreds of years to form. In January, the remaining ice bridge had been surrounded by icebergs the size of shopping malls, many of them trapped in sea ice. A few seals were visible lolling on sea ice in the low Antarctic sunshine. On that visit, Vaughan put up a GPS satellite monitoring device and predicted the ice bridge would break within weeks. The plane left quickly, in case the ice was unstable on a part of the world about to disappear from the map. Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have risen by up to about 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) in the past 50 years, the fastest rate of warming in the Southern Hemisphere. ""We believe the warming on the Antarctic Peninsula is related to global climate change, though the links are not entirely clear,"" Vaughan said. Antarctica's response to warming will go a long way to deciding the pace of global sea level rise. About 175 nations have been meeting in Bonn, Germany, since March 29 as part of a push to agree by the end of 2009 a new U.N. treaty to combat climate change. The talks end on April 8. The loss of ice shelves does not affect sea levels -- floating ice contracts as it melts and so does not raise ocean levels. But their loss can allow glaciers on land to slide more rapidly toward the sea, adding water to the oceans.",0
" Retaliatory steps that comply with world trade rules could be found against China and India if they fail to help international efforts to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, a senior US diplomat said on Tuesday. Speaking before a meeting on climate change in Washington to be attended by the world's 16 biggest greenhouse gas emitters, US ambassador to the European Union C. Boyden Gray said steps could include a tax on carbon emitted by manufacturers. Gray said it was vital to get China and India on board in reducing emissions. ""We just can't do without them,"" he told a news briefing. ""I think there are mechanisms that could be retaliatory ... that could be utilised if China and India don't engage. ""You could probably find a WTO-compliant way -- for example you could require goods to have to pay a fee related to the carbon expended in manufacture,"" he said. ""There are ways you could do this and our Congress is certainly looking at it, but I think it would be better to have an agreement ... and that's what this is all about -- trying to get China and India to engage."" Gray said he believed that up to one-third of California's pollution blew across the Pacific Ocean from China. ""If they don't sign up, nothing which we do is going to matter very much,"" he said, adding that one estimate showed that shutting down all emissions from Britain would be cancelled out within a year by growth in emissions from China. Gray said it was positive that China and India had agreed to send representatives to the two-day conference on climate change and energy security in Washington from Thursday. ""I think we've seen a breakthrough ... it's the first time they've really shown up with high-level people who are going to discuss this in great detail."" 
ALL BIG EMITTERS The meeting will be attended by the Group of Eight rich countries -- the United States, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan -- as well as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia. These countries account for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and the Washington meeting will try to advance the adoption of clean energy technology to contribute to UN talks. UN climate change negotiations will take place in December in Bali to try to agree a way to cut emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires. President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto treaty, which requires 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Bush says Kyoto unfairly burdens rich countries while exempting developing countries such as China and India. Developing nations say rich states built their economies without emissions restraints and argue that they should have the same opportunity to establish their economies now. Gray also said the European Union would likely face a trade battle if it went ahead with plans to include aviation in its emissions trading system despite US efforts to discourage it. ""We don't think Europe has the authority to do it,"" he said. ""I think that's what it's going to end up as -- as a trade dispute ... the Europeans are confident of their legal position; people on the other sides are equally confident of their position. Sounds like a lawsuit to me.""",0
"Tougher sanctions may jeopardize the latest detente between the two Koreas amid their preparations to create conditions appropriate to hold a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. A senior US administration official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, called the new penalties “the largest package of new sanctions against the North Korea regime,” without giving details. US Vice President Mike Pence had hinted at such a plan two weeks ago during a stop in Tokyo that preceded his visit to South Korea for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he wants to boost the “warm climate of reconciliation and dialogue” with South Korea after a high-level delegation including his sister returned from the Winter Olympics. Last year, North Korea conducted dozens of missile launches and its sixth and largest nuclear test in defiance of United Nations sanctions. However, it has now been more than two months since its last missile test in late November. The new US sanctions will be announced while Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is visiting South Korea to attend a dinner with Moon and the closing ceremony of the Games. In addition to the dinner which will feature a kosher menu for Ivanka’s dietary restrictions, the Blue House has planned a small traditional Korean music performance for her delegation. Her visit coincides with that of a sanctioned North Korean official, Kim Yong Chol, blamed for the deadly 2010 sinking of a South Korean navy ship that killed 46 sailors. His delegation will also meet with Moon. The Blue House has said there are no official opportunities for US and North Korean officials to meet. “RIGHT PERSON” Kim Yong Chol is the vice-chairman of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee and was previously chief of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a top North Korean military intelligence agency which South Korea blamed for the sinking of its navy corvette the Cheonan. North Korea has denied any involvement in the sinking. South Korea on Friday said it approved the Winter Olympic visit by Kim Yong Chol in the pursuit of peace and asked for public understanding. “Under current difficult circumstances, we have decided to focus on whether peace on the Korean peninsula and improvement in inter-Korean relations can be derived from dialogue with (the visiting North Korean officials), not on their past or who they are,” said Unification Ministry Baik Tae-hyun in a media briefing. A South Korean lawmaker briefed by the country’s spy agency said on Friday that Kim was the “right person” for inter-Korean and denuclearisation talks. “Kim Yong Chol is the top official regarding inter-Korean relations and he is being accepted (here) as the right person to discuss various issues like easing military tension, improving inter-Korean ties and denuclearisation,” said Kang Seok-ho to reporters. Kim currently heads the United Front Department, the North’s office responsible for handling inter-Korean affairs. PROTESTS AGAINST NORTH KOREA DELEGATION South Korea’s decision on Thursday to allow Kim, currently sanctioned by the United States and South Korea, across the border has sparked protest from family members of the dead Cheonan sailors and opposition parties. Some 70 members from the main opposition Liberty Korea Party staged a protest in front of the presidential Blue House on Friday, demanding the government withdraw its decision. “President Moon’s decision to accept the North’s facade of peace is a serious issue and it will go down in history as a crime eternal,” said the party in a statement. A group of family members of those killed in the Cheonan sinking has said it will hold a press conference against the decision on Saturday. Acknowledging public angst over Kim’s pending visit, Baik said the South’s stance that the Cheonan sinking was instigated by the North has not changed. “However, what’s important are efforts to create actual peace on the Korean peninsula so these kind of provocations don’t occur again,” said Baik, adding the government would make “various efforts” to assuage the public’s concerns.",1
" India made its voice heard on global trade and climate change at a G8 summit in Italy this month, in a sign of growing diplomatic heft that can help it push for a bigger role in global governance. India's emergence is seen as a logical outgrowth of two of the world's biggest current challenges, the financial crisis and climate change, and its ability to help resolve those problems with a trillion dollar economy still growing at about 7 percent. While the slowdown spurred a shift towards economic inclusion, a landmark civilian nuclear deal with the U.S. last year also helped India's entry into the global order as it vies with a rising China for a say in international policymaking. Just two years ago Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned from a G8 summit in Germany complaining that India was a sideshow and attending such meetings as an invitee was a waste of time. Italy saw a far more strident India, speaking with authority on trade protectionism and climate change, which boosted hopes of Asia's third largest economy gaining a seat at the high table of global governance. ""What has changed India's profile is the relative dynamism of its economy -- its estimated 7 percent growth -- vis-a-vis the global economy"", said Siddharth Varadarajan, strategic affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper. ""Any decision in the name of global community that leaves out China and India will not be seen as legitimate."" U.S. President Barack Obama said there was a need to include the big emerging players in policymaking, which India can count as a victory for its own aspirations. At the end of the summit, Obama said tackling global challenges ""in the absence of major powers like China, India and Brazil seems to be wrongheaded."" TRADE AND CLIMATE At the summit, India stirred the pot with a firm stand on climate change, refusing to give in to pressure from rich nations to sign up to carbon emission targets. While India seeks a climate solution that does not impede growth and efforts to pull millions out of poverty, its position, along with other developing nations, underlined the difficulties of securing a new U.N. climate pact in Copenhagen in December. The European Union has already hinted its frustration at what it sees as developing countries' unwillingness to play ball, and said negotiations have slowed because too many countries were asking others to do something without acting themselves. On the other hand, global trade talks, locked for almost a decade, got a boost at the summit after developing countries led by India and rich nations agreed to conclude the Doha Round by 2010, in a possible end to squabbles over tariffs and subsidies. ""It is the ability of India to bring some substance to the table which has put it in focus"", said Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based strategic affairs expert and director of the National Maritime Foundation. But while such issues underscore India's growing relevance, the country's long-term goal is to find a place at the high table of global powers and be taken as seriously as China, government officials say. ""India doesn't want to be a one-issue or a two-issue country, but an equal partner in global decision-making"", said a senior Indian official. ""I think this summit shows India has begun moving towards that goal ... India's voice has been bolstered."" Singh -- not usually known to use tough diplomatic language -- called for reforming global institutions to recognise the relevance of major emerging economies. ""It is clear to me that meaningful global action on all these issues requires a restructuring of the institutions of global governance, starting with the U.N. Security Council,"" Singh said at the end of the summit in the central Italian city of L'Aquila. To that end, India is participating in alternative fora like the G20 group of industrialised and developing economies and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) gathering of the world's biggest emerging markets.",1
" Banks are contributing to global warming by funding coal and oil exploration, and should adopt policies that cut their negative impact on the environment, according to a report by a network of NGOs. BankTrack, a grouping of civil society organisations and individuals tracking the financial sector, said banks should end support for all new coal, oil and gas extraction and delivery projects, new coal-fired power plants and the most harmful practices in other greenhouse-gas intensive sectors. ""Banks are in a unique position to either finance business as usual and be complicit in causing further climate change, or help catalyse the necessary transition to a new economy,"" said BankTrack in a report called ""A Challenging Climate"". UN talks in Bali, Indonesia, this week are trying to set a roadmap to a climate pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, but the United States is opposed to binding targets, while developing nations such as China want access to clean technologies. Deutsche Bank has said government efforts to tackle climate change are creating a ""megatrend"" investment opportunity that should tempt even those sceptical about global warming. By October, the German bank had attracted more than $8.5 billion into climate change funds, which target firms that cut greenhouse gases or help adaption to a warmer world. BankTrack said banks should assess and report on all greenhouse gas emissions associated with their loans, investments and financial services, and establish stringent portfolio and business-unit emissions reduction targets. The report said banks should also increase support for the development of climate-friendly technologies, such as renewable energy production and energy efficiency -- but avoid ""false solutions"" such as nuclear power, large hydropower or biofuels. Morgan Stanley has said global sales from energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal and biofuels could grow to as much as $1 trillion a year by 2030. The bank said last year it will invest $3 billion in carbon markets over five years. ""All large banks nowadays seem to have a climate initiative of sorts, but these barely scratch the surface of what really needs to happen,"" said Johan Frijns, coordinator of BankTrack. Utrecht-based BankTrack is funded by private foundations and government agencies.",0
"Excessive-heat warnings were in effect across inland California and the Southwest through the weekend, and the National Weather Service predicted that temperatures would approach an all-time high by Saturday in Las Vegas. A high of at least 130 degrees — which would be one of the highest temperatures reliably recorded on earth — was forecast for Death Valley. In California, the agency that runs the state electrical grid asked residents on Thursday to set their thermostats at 78 degrees or higher to reduce power usage, and Gov Gavin Newsom expanded a regional drought emergency to cover all but eight of the state’s 58 counties. He also asked Californians to cut their water consumption by 15%. Three weeks into a brutal summer across much of the nation, the heat has claimed lives in the Pacific Northwest in record numbers, threatened water supplies and set the stage in the West for what is expected to be another catastrophic fire season. In Washington, the state health department reported that extreme heat had played a role in the deaths of 78 people since late June, while Oregon’s medical examiner raised the heat-related death toll in that state to at least 116. The large number of deaths in a part of the country where summers historically have been temperate and heatstroke has rarely been a danger underscored both the sweep of climate change and the vulnerability of vast swaths of the population. Many of the deaths in the Pacific Northwest were among homeless people and those who were older or had medical issues. The hazards have been particularly acute on job sites where manual labour is being done under the sun or in workplaces where a lack of air-conditioning has historically not been an issue. On Friday, Oregon officials were investigating a possible heat-related workplace fatality at a Walmart warehouse. A middle-aged man who was a trainee at Walmart’s distribution centre in Hermiston, Oregon, “began stumbling and having difficulty speaking” at the end of the afternoon shift on June 24, said Aaron Corvin, a spokesperson for Oregon Occupational Safety and Health, known as Oregon OSHA. The man, who has not been identified, was transferred to a hospital and then to a medical centre in Portland, where he died. The cause of the man’s death has not yet been determined, and it could take several months to complete the investigation. The man’s co-workers, who said he was in his 50s and had underlying health problems, said he had been with Walmart for about two weeks, earning about $18 an hour, and was working inside a hot trailer in which a fan was the only cooling mechanism. The National Weather Service reported a high that day of 97 degrees. “We are devastated by the loss of one of our associates and are doing everything we can to support those affected,” said Scott Pope, a spokesperson for Walmart. “The details surrounding the associate’s passing are being assessed by medical professionals and OSHA. Out of an abundance of caution, we provided all information available to Oregon OSHA and are cooperating fully in their investigation.” The Walmart distribution centre, a landmark in a community of about 17,000, employs about 1,000 people and serves more than 100 stores in the Pacific Northwest. State records indicate the facility was cited by Oregon OSHA after a February 2020 inspection, but the violation — a damaged floor grating — was not deemed serious and was subsequently repaired. For the past week, temperatures in the Pacific Northwest have dipped more toward their usual cool levels. But global warming has dramatically amplified the region’s hot spells. On June 26, a farmworker on an irrigation crew collapsed and died in 104-degree heat while moving irrigation lines in a field at a plant nursery in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The following day, managers at an Amazon warehouse complex in Kent, Washington, became so concerned about the rising heat that they handed out iced scarves and scattered floor fans around the building to augment the facility’s usually sufficient climate control measures, workers told The Seattle Times. Oregon Gov Kate Brown directed Oregon OSHA to adopt emergency rules before the incoming heat wave, including requirements for employers to provide workers with shade, rest time and cool water during extreme-heat events. The state had been working since last year to adopt permanent heat regulations for employers, but the effort was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. “No one should have to decide between their health and a paycheck,” Brown said in a statement. “I am concerned that our recent record-breaking heat wave in the Willamette Valley is a harbinger of what’s to come.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
" Japan plans to focus on its efforts to improve 21 technologies to help the world halve greenhouse gases by 2050, a trade ministry official said on Wednesday. The technologies that need to be improved to combat global warming include coal-fired power generation, power generation using natural gas, solar power, vehicles powered by fuel cells or biofuels, and hydrogen-based steelmaking, the official said. Without the envisaged innovative technologies, global greenhouse gas emissions could rise to up to 60 billion tonnes in 2050 from about 27 billion tonnes in 2005, he said. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Tuesday launched a panel of experts on environmental issues, nominating former Japan Business Federation chairman Hiroshi Okuda to head the panel. Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe proposed last year a global target to halve greenhouse gases by 2050. The target was shrugged off as too vague and lacking teeth without binding targets. Analysts say Japan is pushing to reassert its leadership on climate change issues ahead of the Group of Eight industrialised nations meeting this summer that Fukuda will chair, and where global warming will be a key issue. Because the current global deal for fighting climate change carries the name of Japan's ancient cultural capital, Kyoto, the prospect of failure is particularly embarrassing for Tokyo. Nor would a country famous for its efficiency, and high-tech ""green"" products such as the Prius hybrid car, relish the idea of becoming an international emissions pariah. But Japan, the world's fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter, has been lagging its Kyoto Protocol commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent from 1990 levels over the 2008-2012 period.",2
"The latest research suggests the Earth's average surface temperature is running at or near record levels so far in 2015 and the trend is not slowing down. Last year's temperature has already broken the record for the hottest year, Xinhua news agency reported.Researchers say shifts in key global climate patterns, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, an El Nino in the tropical Pacific and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation are underway.""With the potential that next year could be similarly warm, it' s clear that our climate continues to change,"" said Prof. Stephen Belcher, head of the Met Office Hadley Centre.""We can't be sure this is the end of the slowdown but decadal warming rates are likely to reach late 20th century levels within two years,"" he added. ",6
"Xi's statement will be uploaded to the official conference website following addresses by world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and President Emmanuel Macron of France. According to the list of speakers released by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Xi is the only leader to address the ""First Part of the High-Level Segment for Heads of State and Government"" in a written statement. China is the world's biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, making it a key player at COP26, the latest round of talks aimed at strengthening the fight against global warming, which got underway on Sunday. However, Xi, who has not left China since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, had not been expected to attend the conference in person. In updated pledges, China confirmed to the United Nations last week that it would bring its emissions to a peak before 2030 and cut them to ""net zero"" by 2060. It also promised to raise total wind and solar power generation capacity to 1,200 gigawatts by 2030 in order to reach its goals. However, climate watchers were hoping for new pledges to cap energy consumption and an earlier start to reducing the use of coal, currently scheduled to begin in 2026.",0
" Chinese media and Australian neighbour Indonesia have welcomed the Labor Party victory that has swept a conservative coalition from power in Canberra and made former diplomat Kevin Rudd prime minister of Australia. Some Japanese media, however, sounded a note of caution on Sunday over Rudd's close ties to Tokyo's sometime rival, Beijing. Mandarin speaker Rudd, 50, presented himself to voters as a new-generation leader and is expected to forge closer ties with China and other Asian nations than his predecessor, John Howard. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's spokesman for foreign affairs, Dino Patti Djalal, said Indonesia welcomed Rudd's election because it would improve the chances of success at next month's UN climate change summit in Bali. ""President (Yudhoyono) invited Kevin Rudd to attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. And we are sure that his attendance will have a symbolic meaning for the conference and also will change the political dynamic ... because Australia has not signed the Kyoto Protocol."" Speaking to media in Brisbane, Rudd said: ""President Yudhoyono formally invited me to attend the Bali conference, which will of course deal with climate change and where we go to now on Kyoto. I responded positively."" China's official Xinhua news agency carried reports on Sunday of Rudd greeting Chinese President Hu Jintao in fluent Mandarin in September and of his posting to Australia's Beijing embassy in the 1980s. ""This period of history gave him close contact with China and a chance to observe and understand China's politics, economy and culture,"" the report said. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sent a separate message to Rudd, congratulating him on his election victory. But Rudd's anticipated warmth towards China had some Japanese media worried it might weaken Tokyo ties with Canberra, which in recent years saw the start of talks for a free trade agreement and the signing of a joint defence pact. ""There are views there could be a setback in Australia-Japan relations under the new Rudd administration,"" the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said. ""Rudd, a former diplomat who studied Mandarin, is seen having friendly views towards China,"" it added.",0
" Vladimir Putin will be sworn in as Russia's president at a glittering ceremony on Monday, hours after clashes between police and protesters laid bare the deep divisions over his return to the Kremlin for six more years. The former KGB spy will take his oath before nearly 2,000 guests in the Kremlin's St Andrew Hall, the former throne room with sparkling chandeliers, gilded pillars and high Gothic vaults, before being blessed by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and taking charge of the nuclear suitcase. He will also deliver a short speech, inspect the Kremlin presidential guard and host a lavish reception featuring only Russian food and drink. Although he has remained Russia's supreme leader for the past four years as prime minister, Putin will take back the formal reins of power he ceded to his ally Dmitry Medvedev in 2008 after eight years as president. He is returning with his authority weakened by months of protests that have polarized Russia and left him facing a battle to reassert himself or risk being sidelined by the powerful business and political elites whose backing is vital. In the latest protests on Sunday, police detained more than 400 people, including three opposition leaders, after tensions boiled over at a rally attended by about 20,000 people across the Moscow river from the Kremlin. Police hit protesters on the head with batons as they tried to stop demonstrators advancing towards them, carrying metal crowd barriers and throwing objects. The crowd fought back with flagpoles before the police eventually restored order. ""Putin has shown his true face, how he 'loves' his people - with police force,"" said Dmitry Gorbunov, 35, a computer analyst who took part in the protest. A few kilometers (miles) across Moscow, several thousand people staged a rally supporting Putin, seen by his backers as the only leader capable of defending Russia's interests on the world stage and the guardian of the economy at home. While Putin's critics have tired of a political system that concentrates power in one man, many of his supporters welcome his domination of the country of more than 140 million. ""Democracy is the power of the majority. Russia is everything, the rest is nothing!"" Alexander Dugin, a Kremlin-aligned nationalist, told the pro-Putin crowd. RUSSIA HAS CHANGED The rival rallies underlined the rifts opened by Putin's return to the Kremlin and protests that were sparked by allegations of electoral fraud but fuelled by many Russians' frustration that one man continues to dominate the country. Some opposition activists plan to try to stage a protest outside the Kremlin before the inauguration ceremony. Although the protests had lost momentum before Sunday's rally, they have given birth to a civil society, two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that is gradually chipping away at Putin's authority. Putin, who will be 60 in October, grew up in Soviet days and worked as a spy in communist East Germany, is under pressure to show he can adapt to the new political landscape. Few think he has changed much - if at all. Putin has eased up on the choreographtranquilizerics that burnished his image at his peak in Russia, such as riding horseback bare-chested and shooting a tiger with a tranquilizer gun. Harder to shake off will be his habit of seeking total control and learning to cope with political opponents and a middle class demanding more political freedom. He has to quell rivalries between liberals and conservatives battling for positions in the new cabinet under Medvedev, who is swapping jobs with Putin. The outcome of the struggle could help determine how far reforms go to improve the investment climate. The $1.9 trillion economy is in better shape than in most European countries but is vulnerable to any change in the price of oil, Russia's main export commodity. The budget is under pressure from Putin's lavish election spending promises. Putin has said he wants to attract more foreign investment by improving the business climate, reduce corruption and red tape, and end Russia's heavy dependence on energy exports. He has not spelled out how he will do this. Putin is likely, as in the past, to use tough anti-Western rhetoric on foreign policy to drum up support if times get tough in Russia. But he has never yielded his strong influence over foreign policy as premier, so a major policy shift is unlikely.",2
"Benchmark Brent oil fell more than $4 to $73.50 a barrel on fears that the global oversupply will build up in coming months as Saudi Arabia kept silent about what would prompt it to consider production cuts. With an OPEC statement making no mention of any extraordinary meeting or a need for members to stop overproducing, Thursday's decision represents a major shift in the group's policies away from its usual drive to defend prices. The outcome effectively means a battle for market share between OPEC and non-OPEC countries as a boom in US shale oil production and weaker economic growth in China and Europe have already sent crude prices down about a third since June. ""It was a great decision,"" Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said as he emerged smiling after around five hours of talks. Asked whether OPEC had decided not to cut production and to roll over existing output policies, he replied: ""That is right"". Venezuelan Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez left the meeting visibly angry and declined to comment on the outcome. Wealthy Gulf states have made clear they are ready to ride out the weak prices that have hurt the likes of Venezuela and Iran - OPEC members that pressed for output cuts to stabilise the market and ease pressure on their budgets, but cannot afford to make any themselves. A price war will also seriously hurt top non-OPEC exporter Russia, which has clashed with Saudi Arabia over Moscow's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russia is already suffering from Western sanctions over its actions in Ukraine and needs oil prices of $100 per barrel to balance its budget. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries accounts for a third of global oil output. If it were to cut exports without similar action by its competitors, it would lose further market share, including to North American shale oil producers. Gulf producers could withstand for some time the market-share battle that could drive down prices further, thanks to their large foreign-currency reserves. Members without such a cushion would find it much more difficult. Kuwaiti Oil Minister Ali Saleh al-Omair said OPEC would have to accept any market price of oil, whether it were $60, $80 or $100 a barrel. Iraq's oil minister, Adel Abdel Mehdi, said he saw a floor for oil prices at $65-70 per barrel. A price war might make some future shale oil projects uncompetitive due to high production costs, easing competitive pressures on OPEC in the longer term. ""We interpret this as Saudi Arabia selling the idea that oil prices in the short term need to go lower, with a floor set at $60 per barrel, in order to have more stability in years ahead at $80 plus,"" said Olivier Jakob from Petromatrix consultancy. ""In other words, it should be in the interest of OPEC to live with lower prices for a little while in order to slow down development projects in the United States,"" he added. The North American shale boom has taken many at OPEC by surprise. ""The US is producing in a very, very bad manner. Shale oil, I mean it is a disaster from the point of view of climate change and the environment,"" Foreign Minister Ramirez, who represents Venezuela at OPEC, said. OPEC agreed to meet next on June 5, 2015.",0
" President George W Bush on Tuesday called for Americans to cut their gasoline use by 20 percent over a decade, mostly through a nearly five-fold increase in use of home-grown fuels such as ethanol by 2017. In his annual State of the Union address to Congress, Bush also called for tighter vehicle fuel efficiency standards and doubling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve's capacity to 1.5 billion barrels by 2027. Bush asked US lawmakers to ""join me in pursuing a great goal"" of reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent -- the equivalent of 75 percent of current oil imports from the Middle East. Most of that reduction comes from a massive increase in ethanol made from both corn and unconventional sources such as wood chips and farm cast-offs. ""We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol - using everything from wood chips, to grasses, to agricultural wastes,"" Bush said. Bush's ""Twenty by Ten"" strategy furthers a theme he has tried to drive home in his annual speeches since 2001 to cut US dependence on crude oil imports. In a surprise pronouncement a year ago, Bush said the United States was addicted to crude oil. Bush steered clear of calling for mandatory caps on US emissions of carbon dioxide, despite a concerted push by big US companies like General Electric Co. to cut heat-trapping emissions. In his speech, Bush called global climate change a ""serious challenge"" that should be addressed through technology. Bush also called for more use of hybrid vehicles and electricity produced from carbon-free sources like wind, solar and nuclear power plants. A rising focus on ""energy security"" by both the Bush administration and Congress has added momentum to efforts to employ home-grown fuel sources like ethanol to reduce US dependency on oil imports. About 60 percent of US petroleum supplies currently come from imports. Specifically, Bush called for Congress to raise a mandatory federal renewable fuels standard to 35 billion gallons by 2017, and increase the scope of the program to include fuels like cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and methanol. That alone would displace about 15 percent of annual US gasoline use, the White House said. The rest of the reduction would come from reforming US automobile fuel efficiency standards, which could save about 8.5 billion gallons of gasoline in 2017, the White House said. Big automakers, DaimlerChrysler AG, parent of US-based Chrysler Group, and Ford Motor Co., said overhauling standards as Bush proposes is preferable to new mandates using the current formula of fleet-wide averages, which some Democrats seek. Current U.S. law requires 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be mixed with gasoline supplies by 2012. US renewable fuel consumption will likely reach that target ahead of schedule -- biorefineries produced about 5 billion gallons of ethanol last year. The US corn-growing lobby applauded the proposal, but crude oil refiners and livestock producers warned it could lead to higher prices at the gas pump and the supermarket. US corn prices have nearly doubled since last fall, mostly due to soaring demand for ethanol, which has replaced the water-polluting methyl tertiary butyl ether as the additive of choice for refiners to comply with federal clean air rules. ""There's no question that the production of corn is going to have to increase,"" said Ron Litterer, first vice president at the National Corn Growers Association, saying 15 billion gallons of ethanol could come from corn by 2015. Charles Drevna, executive vice president at the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, warned that a higher ethanol requirement could boost U.S. gasoline prices by making refiners use more expensive additives. ""You can't legislate technology,"" Drevna said. ""Mandates are anathema to market-based realities."" It's unclear how US lawmakers will treat Bush's proposals.",0
"Bangladesh, she said, will continue its efforts to build cooperation among nations in order to solve economic, social, cultural or humanitarian problems and to contribute to worldwide peace and security. She made the comments in a message issued on the eve of the United Nations Day to be celebrated on Thursday across the world. The United Nations Day marks the anniversary of the entry into force in 1945 of the UN Charter. With the ratification of this founding document by the majority of its signatories, including the five permanent members of the Security Council, the United Nations officially came into being. The day is devoted to making known to peoples of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations Organization. United Nations Day is part of United Nations Week, which runs from Oct 20 to 24. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly declared October 24, the anniversary of the Charter of the United Nations, as which “shall be devoted to making known to the peoples of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations and to gaining their support for” its work. Since then Oct 24 has been celebrated as United Nations Day. This year the day is themed on ‘Greening the Blue’. The prime minister described the theme as a time befitting one saying, the present government has demonstrated “remarkable leadership in undertaking massive adaptation and mitigation measures against climate change.” She wished continuous strengthening of the engagement of Bangladesh with the UN system. She said Bangladesh joins the international community in reiterating its “firm conviction to uphold peace; ensure security; protect human rights and promote development across the globe, as enshrined in the UN Charter and the Bangladesh Constitution.” Bangladesh joined the UN in 1974 under the leadership of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, three years after independence in 1971. The prime minister recalled Bangabandhu’s first speech at the UNGA in 1974 when he stated: “The Bengali people have aspired to live in peace and friendship with all the nations of the world. The noble ideals enshrined in the United Nations Charter are the very ideals for which millions of our people have made supreme sacrifice.” She hoped that the UN system will continue to serve humanity and bring peace, harmony and sustainable development for all.",1
"A palace source said the decision not to attend had been taken as a ""sensible precaution"" and to let everyone know in advance. The 95-year-old queen remains in good spirits and wants COP26 to be a success, the source added. ""Following advice to rest, The Queen has been undertaking light duties at Windsor Castle,"" Buckingham Palace said. ""Her Majesty has regretfully decided that she will no longer travel to Glasgow to attend the Evening Reception of COP26 on Monday, 1st November."" The world's oldest and longest-reigning monarch stayed overnight in hospital on Wednesday after undergoing ""preliminary investigations"" for an unspecified but not COVID-19 related ailment. Aides gave no details on what had prompted the medical attention, which followed the cancellation of a visit to Northern Ireland, and some royal correspondents said they hoped the official version of events painted the full picture. She carried out her first official engagement since the hospital stay earlier on Tuesday, holding two virtual audiences to welcome new ambassadors to Britain from South Korea and Switzerland. Elizabeth, who is queen of 15 other realms including Australia, Canada and New Zealand and next year celebrates 70 years on the throne, is known for her robust health. She is still carrying out many public duties. Last Tuesday she hosted a drinks reception at Windsor Castle for billionaire business leaders, including Bill Gates, attending a green investment conference ahead of COP26. News of the cancellation is likely to raise concerns about her health. She was recently overheard saying she was irritated by world leaders who talked about climate change but did nothing to tackle it. The queen had been due to attend an evening event next Monday at the conference where world leaders will meet, including US President Joe Biden and the prime ministers of Britain, Australia and India. She will deliver an address to the assembled delegates via a recorded message, the palace added. Elizabeth's son and heir, Prince Charles, and his eldest son, Prince William, are still due to attend. Britain has cast COP26, which begins on Oct 31, as the last big chance to slow rising temperatures, and it hopes to persuade leaders to adopt tougher climate targets. Chinese President Xi Jinping is not expected to attend, however, and Russia's President Vladimir Putin is also not coming. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday it was ""touch and go"" as to whether COP26 would succeed in securing the requirements needed to limit the rise in the average global temperature to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.",0
"VATICAN CITY, Jan 1(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Pope Benedict used his traditional New Year address on Friday to call on people to change their lifestyles to save the planet, saying environmental responsibility was essential for global peace. Recalling that world leaders had gathered in Copenhagen last month for the UN climate conference, the pope said action at a personal and community level was just as important to safeguard the environment. ""Nevertheless, in this moment, I would like to underline the importance of the choices of individuals, families and local administrations in preserving the environment,"" the Pope told the thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square. ""An objective shared by all, an indispensable condition for peace, is that of overseeing the earth's natural resources with justice and wisdom."" The pope, who had a scare last week when a woman with a history of mental problems knocked him down during Christmas Eve mass, also said ""ecological responsibility"" should be taught as part of the education syllabus. The pope and his predecessor John Paul have put the Vatican firmly on an environmentalist footing. Last month, in a message sent to heads of state and international organisations, the pope called on rich nations to acknowledge responsibility for the environmental crisis and shed consumerism.",0
" Three Democratic senators who are to lead powerful environmental committees in Congress urged President George W Bush on Wednesday to combat global warming by putting mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. ""Unfortunately, we have not been satisfied with the level of US participation in the international negotiations or in reducing our own domestic greenhouse gas emissions,"" the senators wrote in a letter that referred an international conference on global climate change in Kenya this week. The three lawmakers -- Barbara Boxer of California, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who was re-elected as an independent but has identified himself as a Democrat -- urged Bush to work with them ""to signal to the world that global warming legislation is on the way."" The letter mentioned the elections last week that delivered Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. ""The recent elections have signaled a need to change direction in many areas, including global warming,"" the senators wrote. ""If we are to leave our children a world that resembles the earth we inherited, we must act now to address GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. ""When the 110th Congress begins in January, we pledge to work to pass an effective system of mandatory limits on greenhouse gases."" The Bush administration's representative at the Nairobi talks on global warming, Paula Dobriansky, rejected pleas by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday for the United States to rejoin the Kyoto Protocol setting limits for participating countries on greenhouse gas emissions. Bush, who was traveling in Asia on Wednesday, withdrew from the Kyoto agreement in 2001, his first year as US president, saying it would cost US jobs and unfairly exempted developing countries from the emissions requirements. Boxer is the incoming chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Bingaman is to chair the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Lieberman will chair the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.",0
" Chinese negotiators achieved their goal at Copenhagen climate talks in ensuring financial aid for developing nations was not linked to external reviews of China's environmental plans, its top climate envoy said on Saturday. Britain, Sweden and other countries have accused China of obstructing the climate summit, which ended last month with a non-binding accord that set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius but was scant on details. China would never accept outside checks of its plans to slow greenhouse gas emissions and could only make a promise of ""increasing transparency,"" Xie Zhenhua, deputy head of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, said at a forum. Developed nations' promise of $100 billion in financial aid by 2020 to help poorer countries adapt to climate change offered a good stepping stone for negotiations, he said. ""Next time, we can talk about when will they pay the money and how much each country will pay,"" he said. Xie also said that China was well on track to meeting its goal of cutting energy intensity -- or the amount of energy consumed to produce each dollar of national income -- by 20 percent over the five years through 2010. It had already made a 16 percent cut as of the end of last year, he said. ""As long as we continue to make efforts, we are likely to achieve the targeted 20 percent cut this year,"" he said. Xie added that China was drafting tough guidelines for reducing the carbon intensity of its growth in its next five-year plan for economic development, which will cover the 2011-2015 period. China has pledged to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of economic growth by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.",0
" The Group of 20 will take on the role of caretakers of the global economy, giving rising powers such as China more clout, and roll out tougher rules on bank capital by the end of 2012, a draft communique said on Friday. Heading into the second day of a summit aimed at ensuring the world economy emerges from its worst recession in generations with better safeguards against another crisis, the G20 also vowed to keep emergency economic support in place until a recovery is secured, according to the draft obtained by Reuters. ""We will act to ensure that when growth returns jobs do too. said. ""We will avoid any premature withdrawal of stimulus."" The document said G20 countries had a ""responsibility to the community of nations to assure the overall health of the global economy"" and pledged to try to secure next year a deal in long-running world trade talks. The group, which accounts for 90 percent of the world's economic output, also agreed to rein in financial industry excesses that triggered the credit crisis two years ago, and to tighten rules on how much capital banks must have to absorb losses. The new rules aimed at improving the quality and amount of capital should be ready by the end of 2010 and will be phased in in the following two years, the draft said. It also tackled the contentious issue of bankers' pay schemes, blamed for fostering a high-risk corporate culture that led to heavy losses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. The document suggested linking pay to ""long-term value creation, not excessive risk-taking."" However, it did not mention direct monetary caps on pay as proposed by French President Nicholas Sarkozy and some other European Union leaders. The final version of the communique will be issued when the leaders wind up their meeting on Friday evening and French officials said the summit has not yet reached final agreement on executive pay. EMERGING WINNERS Emerging economies looked to be the surprise winners as the leaders sought to finalize agreements on an ambitious agenda that included building a more stable world economy, reforming bank regulations and tackling climate change. In another boost for countries such as China or India, the G20 unexpectedly moved close to a deal shifting more voting power at the International Monetary Fund to some developing countries, recognizing their growing economic power. In return, as the draft communique suggested, the G20 won their commitment to do their part in rebalancing the world economy. That rebalancing act involves the debt-laden United States saving more and export powerhouse China consuming more. The draft said that G20 countries with either ""sustained, significant"" surpluses -- a description that could fit China -- pledged to ""strengthen domestic sources of growth."" By the same token, countries with big deficits -- such as the United States -- pledged to support private savings. It was, however, unlikely any countries would consent to G20-imposed rules on how to run their domestic economy. Some of that shift is already happening as a consequence of the global recession. U.S. consumers -- long viewed as the world's ""shoppers of last resort"" -- have cut spending as sinking home and stock values took a big chunk out of household wealth, while China is spending about $600 billion to stimulate its domestic economy and make it less dependent on exports. U.S. President Barack Obama's first G20 summit as host tests his ability to juggle domestic and foreign policy. As Obama welcomed G20 leaders to a working dinner in Pittsburgh on Thursday, lawmakers in Washington were hashing out terms of a contentious healthcare reform bill that is the cornerstone of his domestic policy agenda. TOP FORUM After two years of financial turmoil, the global economy now appears to be recovering far faster than many economists had predicted, largely thanks to furious interest rate cuts, emergency central bank lending, and roughly $5 trillion in government stimulus money. But with unemployment high and banks still struggling to absorb heavy losses primarily from failing U.S. mortgage loans, the pressure is on the G20 to sustain the economic assistance and coordinate how and when the emergency stimulus is phased out. ""We designated the G20 to be the premier forum for our international economic cooperation,"" the draft communique said. The move means the G20 supplants the G7 and G8 -- institutions dominated by rich Western economies, which will now remain forums for discussing geopolitical issues, diplomats said. The G20, which includes the world's richest nations and fast-growing emerging economies including China, India and Brazil, has become the primary venue for world leaders to meet on the financial crisis. Pittsburgh is the third G20 summit in less than a year. The draft communique also showed leaders endorsed an agreement on phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels, a measure aimed at helping combat global warming, but with no fixed date for the change. Many G20 governments, including countries such as China, India and Russia, give tax breaks and direct payments to companies that help them produce coal, oil and other fossil fuels that cause greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.",0
" Here are the main policy issues for Australia's national elections to be held on Nov. 24: IRAQ Australia's election will decide the future for Australia's military commitment in Iraq. Australia has about 1,500 troops in and around Iraq, and conservative prime minister John Howard was one of the first to commit to the US-led war against Saddam Hussein in 2003. Howard, a close friend and ally of U. S. President George W. Bush, has promised Australian forces will remain in Iraq until it can look after its own security. Opposition Labor leader Kevin Rudd has promised to withdraw about 500 Australian frontline troops, who are mainly based in Iraq's relatively peaceful south. CLIMATE CHANGE Howard's government has steadfastly refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol or set targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions, saying the move would unfairly hurt Australia's economy and massive coal exports. Labor has promised to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions, and has promised to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2050. Climate change has become an increasingly important issue, with Australia going through its worst drought in a century and most Australians now subjected to restrictions on water use because of the long dry period. Labor says Howard is out of touch and a climate change sceptic, while the government has accused Labor of a knee-jerk response that will hurt Australia's economy and ongoing prosperity. LABOUR LAWS In his fourth term, Howard introduced sweeping new labour laws which make it easier for employers to sack workers, limit the influence of unions, and encourage workers to sign individual work contracts rather than work under award conditions. Employers, particularly mining companies in booming Western Australia state, have embraced the new laws, which give added flexibility to their operations. But the laws have led to increased uncertainty among workers, with the union movement running a concerted campaign warning that bosses can now sack workers with no reason, and hire them back on lower wages -- claims the government rejects. Labor has promised to wind back the workplace laws. ECONOMY Economic management has long been an electoral strength for Howard's conservative government, which has presided over 11 years of sustained economic growth, with close to full employment and record levels of private share ownership. Howard won his fourth term in office in 2004 on the back of his government's strong economic management, tight control of government spending and promises to keep inflation and interest rates low. A sustained boom, fuelled by China's demand for Australian resources, has put pressure on inflation and interest rates, which have risen five times since Howard won the last election with a promise to keep rates low. Interest rates are a sensitive political issue in Australia, where home ownership is a national obsession. Housing affordability is at record lows and many people in key outer suburban electorates are feeling the impact of rising interest rates and increasing levels of debt. Home loan mortgage rates have risen five times since the last election, with economists forecasting another possible hike in the months ahead, blunting Howard's usual advantage over Labor on economic management. Labor's Kevin Rudd has attempted to neutralise the economy as an issue through television advertisements where he says he is an economic conservative.",0
"Barcelona, Spain,Oct 08 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - A ""deadly dozen"" diseases ranging from avian flu to yellow fever are likely to spread more because of climate change, the Wildlife Conservation Society said on Tuesday. The society, based in the Bronx Zoo in the United States and which works in 60 nations, urged better monitoring of wildlife health to help give an early warning of how pathogens might spread with global warming. It listed the ""deadly dozen"" as avian flu, tick-borne babesia, cholera, ebola, parasites, plague, lyme disease, red tides of algal blooms, Rift Valley fever, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis and yellow fever. ""Even minor disturbances can have far reaching consequences on what diseases (wild animals) might encounter and transmit as climate changes,"" said Steven Sanderson, head of the society. ""The term 'climate change' conjures images of melting ice caps and rising sea levels that threaten coastal cities and nations, but just as important is how increasing temperatures and fluctuating precipitation levels will change the distribution of dangerous pathogens,"" he said. ""Monitoring wildlife health will help us predict where those trouble spots will occur and plan how to prepare,"" he said in a statement. The UN Climate Panel says that greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from human use of fossil fuels, are raising temperatures and will disrupt rainfall patterns and have impacts ranging from heatwaves to melting glaciers. ""For thousands of years people have known of a relationship between health and climate,"" William Karesh of the society told a news conference in Barcelona to launch the report at an International Union for Conservation of Nature congress. Among phrases, people said they were ""under the weather"" when ill, he noted. He said that the report was not an exhaustive list but an illustration of the range of infectious diseases that may threaten humans and animals. ",0
" Rich nations must come up with billions in new money to help poor countries fight global warming and not just repackage development aid to score diplomatic points, environmentalists at a meeting of top polluters said on Friday. The three-day Japan meeting gathers 20 of the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases and includes rich nations the United States and other G8 states as well as rapidly developing China, India and Brazil. Funding schemes for clean energy projects and helping poor nations adapt to droughts, rising seas and more intense storms will be a major theme. But even as the talks were about to start, environmentalists spoke about poor nations' disillusionment about the management and lack of consultation about the funds, a key element in the global fight against climate change. ""What seems to be happening is that you have three announcements from Japan, Britain and the U.S. that have now been combined into a World Bank special strategic climate fund,"" said Jennifer Morgan of environmental institute E3G. But she said the multi-billion dollar scheme did not appear to have much new money, had left developing countries out of negotiations on how the money would be used until very recently, and had quite a number of conditions attached. ""It's been used by the Bush administration to promote their own major emitters' meeting process,"" Morgan said, referring to separate U.S. talks with big polluters outside U.N. discussions seeking a global pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol. ""It is not creating a very good mood going into the G20,"" said Morgan. U.N.-led talks in Bali in December launched two years of negotiations on a successor to Kyoto, whose first phase ends in 2012 and so far binds only rich nations to make emissions cuts. Bali's final draft called for more financial resources and investment for developing nations, which demand rich countries cut their own emissions and pay for costly clean energy projects. ""RECYCLED AID"" Japan announced this year a $10 billion package to support developing countries' fight against climate change. U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged $2 billion for a clean technology fund, while Britain has pledged 800 million pounds ($1.6 billion) for a separate scheme. Britain has since asked the World Bank to administer its money and has teamed up with Japan and the United States. It is not clear how much of the Japanese and U.S. money would eventually go towards the World Bank clean technology fund. But Morgan said only the money from Britain appeared to be new and she described the Japanese money as recycled development aid. Congress has not yet approved Bush's $2 billion. The U.N. said in a report last year that the cost of returning greenhouse gas emissions to present levels by 2030 would be about $200 billion annually, through measures such as investing in energy efficiency and low-carbon renewable energy. ""Even if these funds by the Japanese, the U.S. and Britain represented real, new money that totals about $14 billion over the next five years, or about one percent of the need,"" Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists told the briefing. Ailun Yang of Greenpeace China said Beijing needed to do more to tackle global warming and that rich countries should cooperate. ""Climate change requires developing countries and developed countries to work in ways we have never done before,"" she said, adding China must balance development and protection for the environment. ""If China fails, we will see the biggest environmental disaster in human history."" ",4
"PORT FOURCHON, La., 14 May (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Energy giant BP on Friday stuck by its lower estimate of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and geared up for its latest effort to contain its offshore well leak as some scientists said the true amount of crude escaping could be much higher. President Barack Obama will hold a White House meeting midday on Friday with members of his Cabinet and other administration officials to discuss efforts to stop the spill and how to help affected coastal communities. The spill is threatening an ecological and economic calamity along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Scientific projections of how much oil has been spewing unchecked for three weeks from the ruptured undersea well has ranged wildly, from BP's 5,000 (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) to 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons/15.9 million litres) per day. For a related graphic, click link.reuters.com/teb93k BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles appeared on morning U.S. television shows defending the company's efforts to stem the flow and its estimates that about 5,000 barrels of oil were escaping per day. ""I think that's a good range,"" Suttles said on CNN. ""I don't know the precise number, but I think it's somewhere around that number."" On CBS, he added: ""We're mounting the biggest response ever done and it's not related to whether it's 5,000 barrels per day or a different number."" BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd are all under intense scrutiny over the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 workers and triggered what could eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and become the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Fisheries and tourism, two of the Gulf Coast's economic mainstays, along with birds, sea turtles and other wildlife, are threatened by the spreading slick. The accident also could cripple attempts in Washington to overhaul U.S. energy policy. U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen said at a news briefing on Friday, ""It has the potential to be catastrophic. ... I am going to act as if it is."" He added, ""We're attacking this as if it were a much larger spill anyway."" BP, whose shares have tumbled and wiped out $30 billion of market value since the rig fire on April 20, has said the oil spill had cost it $450 million so far. BP shares were down about 2 percent in midday trade in London. ""EDGES OF TECHNOLOGY"" BP was moving forward on Friday with its deep sea efforts to stop the unchecked flow of oil. Suttles told ABC the company hoped to be able to insert a tube into the ruptured riser pipe by late in the day to contain at least part of the leak and siphon oil into a tanker. ""The techniques we're going to try over the next 24 hours, we need to remember, are about trying to contain this leak, they won't stop it,"" Suttles said. Other efforts over the next few days include deploying a small containment dome, known as a ""top hat,"" to trap the oil at the site of the leak. ""I know some people feel like ... we're just kind of reaching for everything here,"" Suttles said on ABC. ""We have the best people in the world working on this. ... We're pushing the very edges of technology."" If such short-term efforts fail, it could take 90 days for the company to drill a relief well to cap the ruptured one. The White House has said Obama is ""deeply frustrated"" that the massive mile-deep (1.6 km deep) leak has not been plugged. Obama and officials in his administration have stressed that BP must pay for the spill's cleanup and other economic impact on the region. The president is expected to repeat that -- while putting pressure on the company to achieve results -- in a public statement after his meeting on Friday. OIL GLOBS ASHORE As the undersea effort goes on, oil has increasingly begun to show up on land since first being found in the Chandeleur Islands east of Louisiana. At Port Fourchon, the tip of southeastern Louisiana's Lafourche Parish and the main supply harbour for the Gulf's deepwater oil and gas industry, gooey, rust-colored globules were found washed up on a beach this week. Similar globs turned up on Thursday several miles (km) away on a beach called Elmer's Island in neighbouring Jefferson Parish. Elsewhere off Louisiana and west of the Mississippi Delta, oil debris has been reported on East Timbalier Island near Port Fourchon, Whiskey Island further to the west near Terrebonne Bay, and Raccoon Island still further to the west. Oil debris also washed up on Port Eads, Louisiana, near the tip of the Delta's South Pass channel, as well as on Alabama's Dauphin Island at the bottom of Mobile Bay. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said southeast winds are expected to continue through the weekend. The Mississippi Delta, Breton Sound, the Chandeleur Islands and areas directly north have a potential for ""shoreline contacts"" of oil by this weekend, it said. Federal authorities said more than 520 vessels are responding to assist in containment and cleanup efforts in addition to dozens of aircraft and undersea remotely operated vehicles working on the ocean floor. While the spill threatened coastlines, local businesses and animal habitats, it also created complications for Obama's energy policy. Two lawmakers introduced legislation this week in the U.S. Senate to fight climate change and expand production of renewable fuels, but the spill has dampened the public appetite for an expansion of offshore drilling -- a component originally designed to encourage Republican support.",0
"The announcement in the opening session of the Group of 20 summit marked the world’s most aggressive attempt yet to stop opportunistic companies like Apple and Bristol Myers Squibb from sheltering profits in so-called tax havens, where tax rates are low and corporations often maintain little physical presence beyond an official headquarters. It is a deal years in the making, which was pushed over the line by the sustained efforts of Biden’s Treasury Department, even as the president’s plans to raise taxes in the United States for new social policy and climate change programs have fallen short of his promises. The revenue expected from the international pact is now critical to Biden’s domestic agenda, an unexpected outcome for a president who has presented himself more as a deal-maker at home rather than abroad. Leaders hailed the agreement, which was negotiated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with nearly 140 countries signing on. “Today, every G20 head of state endorsed an historic agreement on new international tax rules, including a global minimum tax that will end the damaging race to the bottom on corporate taxation,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who joined Biden in Rome, said in a statement. “It’s a critical moment for the US and the global economy.” The agreement would impose a minimum 15% corporate tax rate in nearly every country in the world and punish the few holdouts who refuse to go along. The OECD estimates the accord will raise $150 billion per year globally from tax-fleeing companies. Such an agreement was not the top tax promise on Biden’s campaign agenda when he won the White House. But it has become the centrepiece of Biden’s efforts to raise corporate taxes back home, in order to fund a sprawling domestic agenda that includes investing in child care and fighting climate change, and to shift the global balance of power toward American workers. But so far, Biden has failed to deliver on his pledge to raise the corporate income tax rate to 28% from 21%, partly undoing a rate cut signed by former President Donald Trump, which lowered the rate from 35%. Biden announced a new plan to unite Democrats around that agenda Thursday shortly before leaving for Rome, but it did not include an increase in the corporate rate. Instead, his framework contained two new 15% minimum taxes: one on the income US companies earn abroad, and one on the profits that large corporations report to their shareholders. It also proposed penalties for companies that operate in the United States but keep their headquarters in countries that refuse to join the global deal and put in place a similar minimum tax. The global minimum tax that Biden endorsed would be enacted separately by every country, in an attempt to eliminate havens with rock-bottom tax rates. Those companies that still use havens would face tax penalties in the United States. Biden’s proposed domestic minimum tax would exclude a few deductions, like for clean energy, but otherwise try to raise money from companies that have reduced their tax bills through a variety of incentives in the code, like deductions for investment. The Biden administration estimates these measures, along with other changes to the international side of the tax code, will raise $350 billion in tax revenue over a decade. Biden said he was confident that Democrats would unite behind the framework after months of turbulent negotiations. But it still has not passed Congress, and it is still unclear whether Biden has the votes. Administration officials, who have made it their goal to end the global practice of profit-shifting, celebrated the international tax provisions this past week and said they would be significant steps toward Biden’s vision of a global economy where companies invest, hire and book more profits in the United States. But they also conceded that infighting among congressional Democrats had left Biden short of fulfilling his promise to make corporations pay their “fair share,” disappointing those who have pushed Biden to reverse lucrative tax cuts for businesses passed under Trump. The framework omits a wide range of corporate tax increases that Biden campaigned on and pushed relentlessly in the first months of his presidency. He could not persuade 50 Senate Democrats to raise the corporate income tax rate to 28% from 21% or even to a compromise 25%, or to eliminate incentives that allow some large firms — like fossil fuel producers — to reduce their tax bills. “It’s a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, step,” Erica Payne, president of a group called Patriotic Millionaires that has urged tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, said in a statement after Biden’s framework announcement Friday. “But it’s a step.” Business groups fought the president’s plans to raise corporate taxes, with the help of some Democrats in the House and Senate, and they denounced the increases included in Biden’s framework. The National Association of Manufacturers said in a statement that the domestic minimum tax would punish investment and “harm our industry’s ability to drive our economic recovery.” Infighting among Democrats also jeopardised the Biden administration’s strategy to raise $700 billion in tax revenue without increasing tax rates at all. Plans to invest $80 billion in strengthening the IRS and making banks provide the agency with more information about the finances of their customers have faced fierce opposition from lawmakers, who are poised to jettison the bank reporting requirement. The administration is continuing to negotiate with sceptical lawmakers to find a way to keep the IRS policy alive. The Treasury Department said Friday that even the additional enforcement money for the IRS could still generate $400 billion in additional tax revenue over 10 years and said that was a “conservative” estimate. An administration official said that the difficulty in rolling back the Trump tax cuts was the result of the fact that the Democrats are a big-tent party ideologically with a very narrow majority in Congress, where a handful of moderates currently rule. In Rome, Biden’s struggle to raise taxes more has not complicated the sealing of the international agreement. The move by the heads of state to commit to putting the deal in place by 2023 looms as the featured achievement of the summit and Biden’s surest victory of a European swing that also includes a climate conference in Scotland next week. Briefing reporters Friday evening, a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to preview the first day of the summit, said Biden aides were confident that world leaders were sophisticated and understood the nuances of US politics, including the challenges in passing Biden’s tax plans in Congress. The official also said world leaders see the tax deal as reshaping the rules of the global economy. The international tax agreement represented a significant achievement of economic diplomacy for Biden and Yellen, who dedicated much of her first year on the job to reviving negotiations that stalled during the Trump administration. To show that the United States was serious about a deal, she abandoned a provision that would have made it optional for US companies to pay new taxes to foreign countries and backed away from an initial demand for a global minimum tax of 21%. For months, Yellen cajoled Ireland’s finance minister, Paschal Donohoe, to back the agreement, which would require Ireland to raise its 12.5% corporate tax rate — the centrepiece of its economic model to attract foreign investment. Ultimately, through a mix of pressure and pep talks, Ireland relented, removing a final obstacle that could have prevented the European Union from ratifying the agreement. Some progressives in the United States say that Biden’s ability to follow through on his end of the bargain was a crucial piece of the framework spending bill. “The international corporate reforms are the most important,” said Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, who specialises in tax policy, “because they are linked to the broader multilateral effort to stop the corporate race to the bottom. It’s so important for Congress to act this year to give that effort momentum.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
" A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only plausible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades. A panel of 41 scientists from across the world reviewed 20 years' worth of research to try to confirm the cause of the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which created a ""hellish environment"" around 65 million years ago and wiped out more than half of all species on the planet. Scientific opinion was split over whether the extinction was caused by an asteroid or by volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in what is now India, where there were a series of super volcanic eruptions that lasted around 1.5 million years. The new study, conducted by scientists from Europe, the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan and published in the journal Science, found that a 15-kilometre (9 miles) wide asteroid slamming into Earth at Chicxulub in what is now Mexico was the culprit. ""We now have great confidence that an asteroid was the cause of the KT extinction. This triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale, and continental landslides, which created tsunamis,"" said Joanna Morgan of Imperial College London, a co-author of the review. The asteroid is thought to have hit Earth with a force a billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Morgan said the ""final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs"" came when blasted material flew into the atmosphere, shrouding the planet in darkness, causing a global winter and ""killing off many species that couldn't adapt to this hellish environment."" Scientists working on the study analyzed the work of paleontologists, geochemists, climate modelers, geophysicists and sedimentologists who have been collecting evidence about the KT extinction over the last 20 years. Geological records show the event that triggered the dinosaurs' demise rapidly destroyed marine and land ecosystems, they said, and the asteroid hit ""is the only plausible explanation for this."" Peter Schulte of the University of Erlangen in Germany, a lead author on the study, said fossil records clearly show a mass extinction about 65.5 million years ago -- a time now known as the K-Pg boundary. Despite evidence of active volcanism in India, marine and land ecosystems only showed minor changes in the 500,000 years before the K-Pg boundary, suggesting the extinction did not come earlier and was not prompted by eruptions. The Deccan volcano theory is also thrown into doubt by models of atmospheric chemistry, the team said, which show the asteroid impact would have released much larger amounts of sulphur, dust and soot in a much shorter time than the volcanic eruptions could have, causing extreme darkening and cooling. Gareth Collins, another co-author from Imperial College, said the asteroid impact created a ""hellish day"" that signaled the end of the 160-million-year reign of the dinosaurs, but also turned out to be a great day for mammals. ""The KT extinction was a pivotal moment in Earth's history, which ultimately paved the way for humans to become the dominant species on Earth,"" he wrote in a commentary on the study.",0
"By late March, he had decamped to his ranch in West Texas, focusing on Amazon as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the United States. After years of working almost exclusively on long-term projects and pushing day-to-day management to his deputies, Bezos, 56, has turned back to the here-and-now problems facing Amazon, the company said, as the giant retailer grapples with a surge of demand, labor unrest and supply chain challenges brought on by the coronavirus. He is joining daily calls to help make decisions about inventory and testing, as well as how and when — down to the minute — Amazon responds to public criticism. He has talked to government officials. And in April, for the first time in years, he made a publicized visit to one of Amazon’s warehouses. “For now, my own time and thinking continues to be focused on COVID-19 and how Amazon can help while we’re in the middle of it,” Bezos wrote to shareholders last week. Bezos’ daily oversight hasn’t led to perfectly smooth sailing. Amazon has struggled to respond quickly to the growing number of coronavirus cases in its workforce, and it has been slammed with orders from consumers. But Amazon is one of the few companies that have benefited financially from the crisis. Because of all the customer demand, shares of the company have hit record highs. That has made Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world, $25 billion richer since early March. Bezos’ change reflects how completely different managing is during a crisis, said Bill George, a former chief executive of the medical device company Medtronic who teaches leadership at Harvard Business School. “That you analyze, plan, delegate, hold people accountable — all those good techniques kind of go out the window,” George said. “The leader, no matter how large the company, does need to take charge.” Before the pandemic, Bezos increasingly spent his time away from Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle. He traveled the world and devoted a day each week to Blue Origin, his space exploration company. At Amazon, Bezos typically gave his priority to projects that addressed a major risk to the business or where he felt he was uniquely qualified to get involved, according to two people familiar with his process, who like others interviewed for this article requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss Amazon’s operations publicly. That meant he was spending more time on fun, futuristic bets. Before the voice assistant Alexa was released, he held several meetings a week to track the product’s development. He closely followed the cashierless Amazon Go stores. Focusing on the long term is “pretty much all” he did, Bezos told Forbes in 2018, in one of the few in-depth interview he has done about Amazon in recent years. “I very rarely get pulled into the today,” he said. The coronavirus crisis changed that luxury. At first, he publicly went dark. No trips were documented on his Instagram account, and on March 4, when Amazon told its headquarters employees to work from home, the email came from a generic office safety email account, signed by “Amazon Human Resources.” The company’s board meeting, scheduled in Seattle the next week, was held online, and Bezos began talking regularly with his executives, focused on responding to COVID-19. Eventually, he held the calls daily, including on weekends. Bezos has been “incredibly focused on this and is participating in, and driving, our leadership meetings” for the response, Jay Carney, the company’s senior vice president for corporate affairs, said in a March 31 interview. As the coronavirus gripped the country, cases appeared among workers in Amazon’s warehouses. By mid-March, Amazon’s vaunted logistics operations were breaking; customers wanted more products just as fewer warehouse workers showed up for their shifts, afraid to risk getting the virus or left to care for children whose schools had closed. Bezos and the other executives soon approved plans to stop accepting low-priority items into warehouses and to delay customer shipments of other items that Amazon considered low demand, according to three people briefed on the changes. Bezos helped decide which features to remove from the Amazon website to reduce customer demand, such as burying its popular page promoting daily deals, one of the people said. He also approved delaying Prime Day, the company’s summer shopping extravaganza. Still, workers and lawmakers increasingly called for more precautions at the warehouses. On March 21, Bezos sent a rare letter to all of Amazon’s employees, which the company immediately posted on its blog. He said the company had ordered millions of face masks for workers, though few of those orders had been filled. “My list of worries right now — like yours I’m sure — is long,” he wrote. Waiting weeks to address his employees was a mistake, particularly when Seattle had an early outbreak of the virus, George said. “You need to be out there early, every day, and talking to your people,” he said. “If the people are risking themselves, you need to be there with them.” Amazon said the senior executive who oversees operations had communicated with employees earlier. In late March, Bezos posted on Instagram a picture of him holding a video chat with Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state, one of several officials he has talked with. The photo gave a glimpse of Bezos’ puppy, which sometimes yaps during calls, and the Saltillo tile at his West Texas ranch. (Amazon said he had worked from other places as well.) Inslee said in an interview in late March that Bezos had focused on the issue of vastly increasing testing for the coronavirus in the state and country. “We were talking about whether we could somehow activate the Amazon supply chain to see if we could mobilize the production and distribution of those assets, including the delivery logistics,” Inslee said. Testing has animated Bezos, Carney said. “How do we get to a point where tests are available on demand,” Carney said about Bezos’ thinking, “where results are as close to instant as possible?” That would let Amazon and other employers identify and quickly “isolate places where there are potential outbreaks and then defeat this,” Carney said. Meeting notes from Bezos’ call with executives on April 1, which were obtained by The New York Times, showed that they had discussed working with medical organizations to focus on expanding testing capacity for its workers and others “to help immunize from criticism that we’re selfish in using the tests for employees.” The company would later announce plans to start building its own small lab. “We are not sure how far we will get in the relevant time frame, but we think it’s worth trying,” Bezos told shareholders. He has joined the daily calls from the new testing team, which has procured tests and is close to rolling out a pilot program to test employees, according to a person familiar with the effort. Notes from the daily meeting, which were first obtained and published by Vice, also showed that the warehouse crisis, and organizing by workers to raise safety concerns, continued to be a risk to the company. While the notes do not mention Bezos by name, they reported “general agreement” among the executives about how Amazon should handle an employee who the company said had been fired for breaking quarantine rules when he protested its safety measures. The notes said the company should make him “the face of the entire union/organizing movement,” adding that he was “not smart, or articulate.” Amazon’s general counsel, who wrote the meeting notes, later apologized. The publication of the notes prompted criticism from New York officials and several US senators. On April 8, when the virus had spread to more than 50 Amazon facilities, Bezos made a surprise visit to a Whole Foods store and an Amazon warehouse, both near Dallas, which the company filmed. Afterward, he asked other executives why masks, which the company had finally obtained, weren’t being required, according to a person involved in the response. A few days later, Amazon told its warehouse workers that they had to wear masks. c.2020 The New York Times Company",0
" The second meeting of experts' committee on SAARC Environment and Forestry began in Dhaka Monday to devise modalities for a regional environmental treaty and ensure water flow in the trans-boundary rivers. The meeting will prepare a ground for the ministerial meeting scheduled to take place in the capital on Wednesday. Prior to the ministerial conference, a meeting of senior officials of the SAARC-family will be held on Tuesday. Inaugurating the experts' meeting, Environment and Forest Minister Tariqul Islam called on the member states to extend cooperation and look forward to implement the directives of the 13th SAARC Summit held in Dhaka. ""I believe, there is a vast scope for cooperation in the various fields of environment, particularly in disaster and coastal zone management, arsenic contamination, water conservation, greening south Asia and sharing of trans-boundary flow,"" he said. He also called on to move forward to consider the modalities for establishing a SAARC environment treaty in furthering environmental cooperation among the member states. Meeting sources said experts, comprising from both GOs and NGOs, discussed the issues relating to develop a comprehensive framework on disaster management and disaster prevention, set modalities for environment treaty and plan to observe 2007 as Green South Asia Year. Experts had also discussion on ensuring minimum water in the trans-boundary rivers to prevent ecological disorder in the region. ""A minimum water flow in rivers is essential to ensure ecological balance. We need to set modalities for having reserving a water level in the trans-boundary rivers,"" said Ainun Nishat, Adviser of Bangladesh delegation and also Country Representative of the IUCN in Bangladesh. He said experts in the region are concerned over the deterioration of environment including soil erosion, landslide and climate change."" Establishment of the regional environment treaty will help the SAARC states to address environmental issues in more coordinated manner,"" he said.",1
" US Senator John Kerry ratchets up the fight to pass his well-telegraphed bill to combat global warming on Wednesday, unveiling legislation just as the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster complicates the measure's already slim chances of passage. Kerry, a Democrat, and Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent, are to unveil the bill at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT). Most of the details of the bill, which aims to cut planet-warming emissions in the United States by 17 percent in the next decade, already have been leaked. Crucially, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who helped write the bill but withdrew from talks over the immigration reform debate, will not attend the ceremony. The bill still has provisions to encourage offshore drilling but would allow US states to prohibit offshore oil activity within 75 miles of their coasts. But analysts said that may not be enough to win drilling opponents from coastal states as concerns mounts over the growing the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Backers of the bill had hoped to bring in wavering Democratic lawmakers, and Graham had been expected to help bring in other Republicans to reach the 60 votes needed to pass the bill. The White House on Wednesday promised to work to pass the bill into law. President Barack Obama's top energy and climate advisor, Carol Browner, told reporters in a conference call that the administration would review details of the bill. But it is unclear if Obama is willing put the same kind of political capital behind the climate bill as he did for healthcare legislation earlier this year, as some advocates have been seeking. Without a big White House push, the bill faces slim chances this year with the already clogged Congressional schedule, such as dealing with financial industry reform and a Supreme court nomination. Mid-term elections later this year also will distract many lawmakers from focusing on legislation that could boost prices for gasoline and electricity in coming years as the country struggles out of recession. ""Everyone knows this is Congress's last, best chance to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation,"" Kerry said late Tuesday. If it fails, he added, ""Congress will be rendered incapable of solving this issue."" POLITICAL TOXIN The bill includes provisions for boosting nuclear power and offshore drilling in order to help win votes from states where the economies depend on energy production. Earlier versions of the legislation relied more on boosting alternative energy such as wind and solar. Analysts said measures for drilling may hurt the chances of the bill. ""The Gulf of Mexico spill has turned offshore drilling -- an issue that once greased the wheels of the grand bargain -- into a political toxin,"" said Kevin Book, analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, who until a month ago had been optimistic about the bill's chances. Still, environmentalists said the bill must be passed this year to give businesses confidence to move forward with clean energy sources. Many utilities with big investments in low-carbon nuclear power, natural gas or wind and solar power hope to benefit from a crackdown on greenhouse gases. Utilities such as FPL Group, Duke Energy and Exelon have lobbied alongside environmental groups for the climate bill as has General Electric, a manufacturer of clean coal and natural gas systems for power plants and wind turbines. ""Enacting a strong federal clean energy and climate program will give business the certainty it needs to unleash significant investments that will create jobs and grow our economy,"" said Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change.",1
" ""Is it not said 'A hungry man is an angry man'?"" commented Simon Nkwenti, head of a teachers' union in Cameroon, after riots that killed dozens of people in the central African country. It is a proverb world leaders might do well to bear in mind as their impoverished populations struggle with food costs driven ever higher by record oil prices, weather and speculators trading in local market places and on global futures exchanges. Anger over high food and fuel costs has spawned a rash of violent unrest across the globe in the past six months. From the deserts of Mauritania to steamy Mozambique on Africa's Indian Ocean coast, people have taken to the streets. There have been ""tortilla riots"" in Mexico, villagers have clashed with police in eastern India and hundreds of Muslims have marched for lower food prices in Indonesia. Governments have introduced price controls and export caps or cut custom duties to appease the people who vote for them, but on streets across Africa, those voters want them to do more. Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable: most people survive on less than $2 a day in countries prone to droughts and floods where agricultural processes are still often rudimentary. For African households, even a small rise in the price of food can be devastating when meals are a family's main expense. ""People have been driven to destruction because they no longer know what to do or who to talk to,"" said Ousmane Sanou, a trader in Patte d'Oie, one of the areas worst hit by February riots in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou. ""They understand it's the only way to get the government to change things. Prices must come down -- otherwise we're heading for a catastrophe."" Over 300 people were arrested in some of the worst violence for years in normally calm, landlocked Burkina, prompting the government to suspend custom duties on staple food imports for three months -- measures some other countries have also taken.
But unions have threatened to call a general strike in April unless prices fall further. Anger over rising prices also fuelled violence in Mauritania late last year. And at least six people were killed when taxi drivers in Mozambique rioted over fuel prices in February. In Senegal, police raided a private television station last Sunday after it repeatedly transmitted images of police beating demonstrators with electrified batons and firing tear gas during an illegal protest over high food prices in the capital Dakar. The poor country on Africa's west coast witnessed the worst rioting in more than a decade last year, as hundreds of youths smashed windows and burned tires in anger at high prices and government efforts to clear away street traders. MARKET FORCES The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) says staple food prices in some parts of Africa have risen by 40 percent or more in six months. And this on a continent where malnutrition rates in some areas regularly top emergency levels even in an average year. Food inflation in Africa is 2.8 percentage points higher than headline inflation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said this month. In South Africa last week, central bank Governor Tito Mboweni warned consumers to ""tighten their belts"" as the targeted inflation measure reached a five-year high at 9.4 percent year-on-year in February, from 8.8 percent in January. Already, consumer spending has slowed sharply, and confidence levels are at multi-year lows -- all this on top of chronic energy shortages in Africa's biggest economy. In Cameroon, a taxi drivers' strike over rising fuel costs -- caused by many of the same factors pumping up food prices -- triggered widespread rioting exacerbated by anger over the cost of food, high unemployment and plans by President Paul Biya to change the constitution to extend his 25-year rule. Government ministers said around 25 to 40 people were killed, although a human rights group put the toll at over 100.
The rising food prices have affected both Africa's small middle-class, like consumers in resource-rich South Africa, and poorer people like Sanou, the trader in Ouagadougou. While famines like those witnessed in the 1980s are less common now thanks to aid and development programmes, there is the risk of a return to chronic inflation which could threaten the relative economic stability achieved by many African states. ""We are frustrated. We are disgruntled,"" said Jean-Martin Tsafack, a 32-year-old law graduate who sells imported second-hand clothes in Cameroon's capital Yaounde. ""Some of us have become hawkers, others truck pushers (barrow boys). Many girls who were my classmates in university have now become prostitutes just to have something to eat. Life is becoming unbearable,"" he said. GLOBAL ISSUES There are several reasons for the spiraling cost of living. Record oil prices driven by strong demand and insecurity in major production areas have pushed up fuel pump costs, making anything that has to be transported to market more expensive. Rising consumption of livestock fodder and other foods by fast-expanding China and India, and the use of land and crops for biofuels have boosted demand. Erratic weather, perhaps due to climate change, has trimmed harvests in some growing regions.
Meanwhile, investment funds and other speculators have bet on prices to continue up in a self-fulfilling cycle. Across the world, governments are facing the consequences.
Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo asked Vietnam earlier this year to guarantee Manila up to 1.5 million tonnes of annual supply of rice because of fears that shortages later this year could spell political trouble for her. Indonesia, where President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is expected to seek a second term in office next year, has unveiled new measures to stem rising prices, targeting palm oil-based cooking oil, wheat flour, rice and soybeans. And in just one example from Latin America, Peru said last week it would give away food to its poorest citizens and set up a fund to absorb high oil prices -- this as President Alan Garcia's approval rating has fallen to below 30 percent. POLITICAL RISK In Africa, countries like Mauritania, which imports 70 percent of its food, have been among the worst affected. ""I can't take it any more. I've stopped eating a meal in the evening,"" said Ami Gandega, 36, a civil servant in the capital Nouakchott.
The government suspended import tax on cereals last year and is bolstering village grain stores with subsidized stocks -- but aid workers believe this is not enough. The WFP fears Mauritanian families will not only have to ration what they eat, but also cut back on education spending, sell livestock, or even send children to work or beg to survive. ""Inflation of staples is really out of control. We've never seen this before,"" said WFP representative Gian Carlo Cirri. ""If we don't react now, this summer will be full of danger."" WFP has forecast a ""perfect storm"" of woes for its operations: it is faced with a $500 million funding shortfall purely due to rising costs of buying and distributing food, even before taking into account greater need for aid now. And that need is ever growing. Last week, 40 aid agencies urged the world to focus attention on Somalia's ""catastrophic"" humanitarian crisis where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from war, drought and food shortages. Some humanitarian workers fear the growing furor over rising prices could even encourage traders to hoard stocks. Government reaction -- through cuts in duties or subsidies -- may slow down real economic adjustment to higher prices, such as encouraging local farmers to grow more. But they help cushion the blow for governments and the poor. ""There are very few governments, especially in this region, that are going to be strong enough to be able to encourage that normal economic incentive to come through over the course of time,"" said Standard Chartered Africa research head Razia Khan. ""Any measures to allow the price of imported food to be reflected at the consumer level will be very rapidly reversed."" So more and more governments in Africa may opt for food aid, especially subsidies, as recommended by donors like the IMF. Perhaps, at the back of their minds, they will remember Liberian President William Tolbert, who was stabbed to death in 1980 in a crisis sparked by riots over a rice price increase.",0
"Dhaka, June 3 (bdnews24.com)—Bangladesh and India will face instability if the latter goes ahead with its construction of Tiapaimukh dam and other proposed hydropower projects in the region, said the head of an environmental forum on Wednesday. ""India is planning to generate around 50,000 megawatts electricity by building dams across 48 different rivers in its seven northeastern states,"" said Mozaffar Ahmad, president of Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA). ""They aim to export power,"" he said. ""But the entire region will face chaos with the construction of dams across the rivers."" Speaking to reporters at a round table on Climate Change and People, Mozaffar said: ""The rivers of Bangladesh will dry up during winter and overflow during the monsoon with the construction of Tipaimukh dam."" The former president of Transparency International Bangladesh stressed the need for raising public awareness about the negative environmental impacts. Referring also to infiltration by Indian separatists into Bangladesh territory in the past, he said,"" We will also fall into a volatile socio-political crisis if the proposed dam is constructed."" He said, BAPA would launch a movement against the Tipaimukh dam. Citing the example of displaced people during the construction of the Kaptai dam for power generation in Bangladesh, he said: ""Similarly, the people of northeastern India are also protesting against the construction of the Tipaimukh dam."" Indians against it too The Action Committee Against Tipaimukh Project (ACTIP) in India comprises academics, politicians, students and around 20 influential socio-political organisations. They fear the dam will bring more miseries than benefit to most people and severe damage to the environment. The project will be one of the largest hydroelectric projects in eastern India to date and will be located 500 metres downstream of the confluence of the Tuivai and Barak rivers in Monipur, near the Mizoram border. 'India won't hold back water Meanwhile, Indian high commissioner to Dhaka, Pinak Ranjan Chakrabarti, said Wednesday that although India will have sole control over water flow at the proposed dam site, it will not hold it back. The flow of river water and flood control will remain in the hands of India, he told reporters after a courtesy call with communications minister Syed Abul Hossain at the ministry. But, he said, Tipaimukh dam is a hydro-electric project that will generate electricity from the flow of water, and then will release the water back. India expects to generate around 1500 megawatts of hydropower from the project, which concerns many in Bangladesh as three rivers—the Surma, Kushiara and the mighty Meghna—lie downstream of the proposed dam. Experts say it will reduce the natural monsoon flood patterns of the Sylhet region adversely affecting cultivation and livelihoods in the area on a vast scale. They also fear India could hold up water flow during the dry season.",1
"“If everyone who will need humanitarian aid next year lived in one country, it would be the world’s fifth largest nation,” UN aid chief Mark Lowcock said. “The pandemic has wreaked carnage across the most fragile and vulnerable countries,” he added. The United Nations has set out 34 humanitarian response plans covering 56 countries for 2021, aiming to help 160 million of what it forecasts to be 235 million most vulnerable people worldwide facing hunger, conflict and the impacts of climate change and the coronavirus pandemic. “We always aim to reach about two-thirds of those in need because others, for example the Red Cross, will try to meet the remaining gap,” Lowcock said. He said this year donors gave a record $17 billion to fund humanitarian operations and data showed that aid reached 70% of the people targeted. While Lowcock noted the $35 billion needed for 2021 was a lot of money, he said it was a “very small” amount compared to what rich countries have spent protecting their citizens during the pandemic. Key among the concerns for Lowcock is averting famines in countries including Yemen, Afghanistan, northeast Nigeria, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burkina Faso. “There is a clear and present danger of really a large scale famine in Yemen now and the single biggest reason for that is because some very important countries who provided a lot of assistance for our relief operation in 2018 and 2019 have not done that in 2020 and those are the countries of the Gulf,” he said.",0
" The decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was called into question by new Fifa executive committee member Theo Zwanziger on Sunday, with the German saying some of his fellow members had been pressurised by their governments to vote for the bid. The comments from the 66-year-old president of the German Football Association (DFB) to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper are significant as he was appointed last week by Fifa to head one of the new committees established to clean up the organisation. Accusations of bribery and corruption over the last year have dogged world soccer's governing body. Zwanziger, who has been a constant vocal critic of last December's decision to give the tiny Arab state the World Cup, pulled no punches. ""In my opinion the vote for Qatar was decided by some members of the executive committee who are in a very close relationship with their governments, who pushed the political case for Qatar,"" he said. ""I think the choice of Qatar from a sporting perspective is still questionable because, due to the summer climate and the size of the country, a World Cup should not be held there. ""This was also evident in the report of the evaluation committee,"" he added. Zwanziger, who was not on the exco when the decision was taken, replaced Franz Beckenbauer on the committee after this year's Fifa Congress but said the German chancellor had never tried to exert any pressure on his predecessor, although he doubted that was the case in other countries. He also referred to the infamous email, leaked by former executive committee member Jack Warner, that was sent to the Trinidadian by Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke. Valcke wrote that banned former executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hamman of Qatar ""thought you can buy Fifa as they (Qatar) bought the World Cup."" Zwanziger said: ""I have not forgotten this sentence - this must be cleared up. ""I think the word 'buy' does not necessarily mean that bribes to certain individuals were paid, but rather a political influence was meant."" After the email was made public by Warner, Valcke said he did not mean to suggest that bribes were offered, but rather Qatar used its ""financial strength"" to lobby for support. Qatar has denied any wrongdoing and believes it won the right to host the World Cup fair and square. NOT RIGHT Zwanziger also said it was time Fifa stopped thinking it was right about everything it did all the time and that all of its critics were wrong. ""We at Fifa are the 'good and the powerful', the others who are against us, are 'always the bad guys.' This kind of thinking needs to change,"" he said. Zwanziger also said it was time the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the game's law-making body which is made up of the four British associations and four representatives from Fifa, was scrapped. The IFAB, which was formed in 1886 - 18 years before Fifa came into existence, is seen by many as an anachronism in the modern game, although its supporters say its arch-conservatism regarding law changes ensures the game remains pure. But Zwanziger said: ""I am convinced that things can not continue. The methods are rather like the Empire and is not a modern democracy. You propose a sensible amendment and often you do not even get a proper answer."" He said the DFB had proposed a sin-bin experiment in amateur or lower league football but that it had been postponed ""without explanation."" He said: ""I don't think that's very transparent and democratic.""",1
"Deputy Secretary of State William Burns hosted a ""productive"" lunch meeting with Indian Ambassador S. Jaishankar and both sides affirmed the importance of the US-India strategic partnership and ""discussed initial preparations for a range of upcoming bilateral meetings and exchanges,"" a statement from the US State Department said.""They agreed that the past several weeks have been challenging, and affirmed that we are both committed to moving forward to resume cooperation on the broad range of bilateral issues,"" the statement said.The two officials also discussed matters raised by the Foreign Ministry during the dispute, including alleged issues with the American Embassy School, the statement said. Burns said Washington took the concerns ""very seriously and will continue to address them via appropriate diplomatic channels.""The statement said both Burns and Jaishankar ""affirmed our shared commitment to continue joint US-India work on issues such as clean energy and climate change, defense, economic and trade engagement, counterterrorism, and civil nuclear development.""On Saturday, India blamed the United States for what it called a ""mini crisis"" over the arrest and strip search of its deputy consul general in New York last month and said more work was needed to repair ties.The diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, 39, was arrested in December on charges of visa fraud and lying to US authorities about what she paid her housekeeper. Her treatment provoked protests in India and dealt a serious blow to US efforts to strengthen ties.TIT FOR TATIndia sharply curbed privileges offered to US diplomats in retaliation and asked Washington on Friday to withdraw a diplomat from New Delhi in response to Khobragade's effective expulsion from the United States last week.As part of its measures, India last week ordered the US Embassy to close a club for expatriate Americans in New Delhi and a government source said it was also preparing to take steps against the embassy school, which it suspected may be employing some staff in violation of visa requirements.The dispute also led to the postponement of two high-level visits by US officials, including one by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.On Tuesday, a lawyer for Khobragade asked a US judge to throw out the charges against her, arguing that her diplomatic status, granted by the State Department last week as part of a deal that saw her leave the country, gave her absolute immunity from prosecution, even for incidents that allegedly occurred before her accreditation.If Judge Shira Scheindlin were to dismiss the indictment, that would presumably permit Khobragade, whose husband and children are US citizens, to travel freely to the United States. State Department officials have said they do not believe her immunity is retroactive.Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said on the weekend the United States should have warned senior officials visiting Washington a day before Khobragade's arrest. He added, however, that the core of the US-Indian relationship was very strong and that he did not expect lasting damage from what has turned into the biggest rift in years.The two countries cooperate on a wide range of issues including counterterrorism, regional security and defense. India is also a major market for US weapons.",0
" A slowdown of deforestation from the Amazon to the Congo basin could generate billions of dollars every year for developing nations as part of a UN scheme to fight climate change, a study showed on Monday. Burning of forests by farmers clearing land accounts for 20 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions. A 190-nation UN climate conference agreed in Bali, Indonesia, in December to work on ways to reward countries for slowing deforestation. ""Even with quite conservative assumptions, you can generate substantial amounts of money and emissions reductions,"" said Johannes Ebeling of EcoSecurities in Oxford, England, of a study with Mai Yasue at the University of British Columbia in Canada. They said a 10 percent decline in the rate of tropical forest loss could generate annual carbon finance for developing nations of between 1.5 billion and 9.1 billion euros ($2.4 to $14.30 billion) assuming carbon prices of 5 to 30 euros a tonne. Such curbs would represent about 300 million tonnes of avoided carbon dioxide emissions a year -- about the amount of heat-trapping gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, emitted by Turkey, or half the total of France. The United Nations wants reduced emissions from deforestation to be part of a new long-term climate treaty beyond 2012 to help avert more droughts, heatwaves, outbreaks of disease and rising seas. Ebeling told Reuters that any credits for avoided deforestation would have to be matched by tough restrictions elsewhere, for instance forcing coal-fired power plants or cement factories to pay for right to emit carbon dioxide. 
BRAZIL The study, published in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, said there were big challenges in designing a fair system. So far, most focus in the UN debate had been on rewarding countries with high deforestation rates -- such as Brazil and Ecuador -- for slowing the losses. But nations such as Guyana or Suriname, which have maintained high forest cover, or others like Costa Rica and Chile, which have slowed or reversed deforestation, would gain little. There were also problems such as judging the rate of deforestation or creating controls to ensure that protecting one forest does not lead to logging or clearance of another. And some poor countries that could benefit -- such as Liberia or Myanmar -- may simply lack controls needed to regulate land use. Still, Ebeling said he was optimistic a system could be worked out because of a widening political willingness to address deforestation as part of a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2013. -- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/",0
"“Iraq is between friends who are 5,000 miles away from us and a neighbour we’ve had for 5,000 years,” Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said in a New Year’s Day telephone call with Trump, according to a close adviser, Abdul Hussain al-Hunain. “We cannot change geography and we cannot change history, and this is the reality in Iraq.” Iraq is caught in a vise. Many Iraqis were furious that the United States violated their country's sovereignty by carrying out airstrikes on Iraqi soil. A spate of strikes in December killed at least two dozen members of a pro-Iranian Iraqi military unit, provoking the assault on the US Embassy. A separate strike last week killed Iran’s top military commander, the deputy chief of a coalition of Iraqi militias and eight other people, leading to a vote by Iraq’s Parliament to expel US forces from the country and a counterstrike by Iran on two US military posts in Iraq early Wednesday. But acceding to the political pressure to rid the country of US troops would be a “disaster” for Iraq, militarily and economically, a senior Iraqi official said. The main mission of the roughly 5,200 US troops stationed at a handful of bases around Iraq is to help the country fight the Islamic State group. If they leave, the official said, it would not only hamper that battle but also have a host of knock-on effects, from the departure of troops from other coalition countries to dire financial hardship if, as Trump has threatened, the United States imposed economic sanctions. 
 
 Mourners, some standing on the flags of Israel and the United States, gather for the funeral of the funeral ceremony of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a commander in the Popular Mobilization Forces, at a mosque in Baghdad on Tuesday, Jan 7, 2020. He appears on the banner in the background together with Iranian Maj Qasem Soleimani, top. (Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times) 

“Yes, there is big pressure from our people to have the troops leave,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. “But we can bear this big pressure much better than we can bear the departure of the Americans.”  Mourners, some standing on the flags of Israel and the United States, gather for the funeral of the funeral ceremony of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a commander in the Popular Mobilization Forces, at a mosque in Baghdad on Tuesday, Jan 7, 2020. He appears on the banner in the background together with Iranian Maj Qasem Soleimani, top. (Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times)  For now, however, Abdul-Mahdi seems to be moving ahead with plans to implement Parliament’s will. On Friday, he said that he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to send a delegation from the United States to discuss steps for withdrawal. Pompeo fired back that the United States would do no such thing, despite the military’s frequent refrain that it is a guest of the Iraqi government and will comply with its host’s demands. “We are happy to continue the conversation with the Iraqis about what the right structure is,” he said at a news conference Friday. But the US mission in Iraq is to train Iraqi forces to fight the Islamic State, he said, and “we’re going to continue that mission.” After the Iraqi Parliament vote Sunday, Trump threatened to impose “very big sanctions” on Iraq if it ousted US forces — “sanctions like they’ve never seen before.” He also said that Iraq would have to reimburse the United States for billions of dollars it had invested in a major air base there. But for many Iraqis, booting out the Americans was long overdue. Although many remain grateful that the United States ousted longtime dictator Saddam Hussein and fought alongside Iraqi forces to drive out the Islamic State, they are still pained by US military mistakes and decisions, including massive civilian casualties during the war that followed the US invasion and the humiliating abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The recent US airstrikes killed Iranian proxy fighters who were also members of the Iraqi security forces — and considered heroes by many Iraqis for their role in helping fight the Islamic State. The final straw appears to have been the US drone strike last week that killed the Iranian military leader, Gen Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy chief of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, the armed groups that have fought against the Islamic State. 
 
 Graffiti on the walls surrounding the US Embassy in Baghdad on Thursday, Jan 9, 2020. As US-Iran tensions flare, Iraq is caught in the middle. (Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times) 

“We are in a state of enthusiasm in Iraq,” al-Hunain said. “The process of the US withdrawal reclaims a part of Iraq’s dignity after the airstrikes and violations of Iraqi sovereignty.”  Graffiti on the walls surrounding the US Embassy in Baghdad on Thursday, Jan 9, 2020. As US-Iran tensions flare, Iraq is caught in the middle. (Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times)  The feeling is especially strong among Shiite Muslims, who make up a majority in Iraq; many have ties to Iran’s Shiite theocracy. Iran has long sought the ouster of US troops, which it views as a threat on its border. But the unanimous vote in Parliament — taken in the heat of the moment, with no consideration of the potential consequences and costs to the country — suggests more unity than may be the case. Only 170 out of 328 members voted, with most Sunni Muslim and Kurdish members refusing to attend. One of the few Sunni members who did attend the session, Ahmed al-Jarba, raised a red flag, saying that the departure of US troops might benefit Iran. After the Americans leave, he asked, “Are our neighbors our friends or our masters?” referring to Iran. “Are we going to hand the country’s wealth and decisions into the hands of neighboring countries?” Al-Hunain, the senior adviser to the prime minister, said that Abdul-Mahdi’s hope was that if the US forces left, Iran would no longer have security concerns about them and would leave Iraq alone. Senior Iraqi government officials, diplomats and scholars laid out the opposite scenario: Iraq, they said, could be forced into the arms of Iran, deprived of US dollars, and isolated from the West. As worrying — even for Iran — is the risk that the Islamic State might return if there are no Americans to help fight it. The Sunni extremist group no longer controls territory in Iraq and is much diminished, but it still launches near-daily attacks. A second senior Iraqi official and a senior Western diplomat said that if the Americans left, so would European and other coalition forces because they depend on US logistical and technical support. The US hospital at the Baghdad International Airport, for instance, treats the personnel of all 30 countries in the international coalition. The economic sanctions that Trump threatened would be intended not only to punish Iraq but also to effectively extend the administration’s pressure campaign against Iran. The two countries’ economies are closely entwined. Iraq would risk being cut off from its main source of dollars because its account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York could be frozen. Iraq deposits the proceeds of its oil sales there, withdrawing them to pay government salaries and contracts. The United States could also end the waivers that allow Iraq to buy Iranian gas to fuel its electricity generators in the south, which supply at least 35% of the country’s power. Iraq could seek another source, but it could be difficult to find one on short notice. The other option — making do with less electricity — could spawn unrest in the south as soon as the weather heats up, as electrical shortages did in 2018. American and other foreign companies might reduce or suspend operations if they become concerned about safety. A number of American contractors left in the days after Soleimani’s death because they wanted to stay out of the line of fire. So far, Abdul-Mahdi appears willing to face those potential consequences. If he harbors any thoughts of compromise, he has kept them to himself, perhaps wary of the anti-American political climate. “It looks like the decision making and opinion in the prime minister’s office is turning eastward,” a senior Iraqi official said. “They are almost in denial about what a drastic path they are going down.” The problem, said Joost Hiltermann, the Middle East and North Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, is that no one in the government is seriously considering possible compromises. “The Iraqis don’t want either the United States or Iran, but if they have to have one, they would rather have both because they balance each other out,” he said. “The US is a counterweight to Iran.” There are a few glimmers of potential ways out. Abdul-Mahdi’s adviser, al-Hunain, said that while the US forces are not welcome now, the government does want other international forces to stay. Talks with other coalition countries could open the door to keeping at least some Americans, those arguably needed to sustain the coalition and help fight the Islamic State. The Europeans, for their part, would like to preserve the ability to fight the Islamic State in Iraq, fearing that any relaxing of pressure would allow the group to reconstitute. A senior Western diplomat said the British and French were working to outline an alternative mission for the international forces relying on a smaller number of troops focused on ensuring that “the gains made against ISIS are not lost.” Perhaps the most promising sign that Abdul-Mahdi might be open to compromise was his request for a briefing paper from Iraq’s National Security Council on the options for proceeding with the parliamentary mandate. Abdul-Mahdi is an economist and has served as finance minister, a background that gives him an understanding of the price of economic isolation even if he now seems more swayed by political concerns. The council provided three options, according to a senior official who works closely with the council: The first was to require US troops to leave as quickly as possible, an approach that could at least deter Iranian-backed armed groups from attacking them. The second option was a negotiated withdrawal, which would slow the drawdown and potentially allow the fight against the Islamic State to go on in some places even as troops were withdrawing from others. The third was a renegotiation of the agreement with the US-led coalition that might allow for some troops to stay, which would open the door to having other international forces stay as well. The National Security Council recommended Option 3. © 2020 The New York Times Company",5
"TOKYO Nov 10, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Japan said on Tuesday it would give Afghanistan up to $5 billion in new aid, a package Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama hopes will improve strained security ties with Washington ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit this week. Tokyo and Washington have feuded over plans to relocate a US military base on Japan's southern island of Okinawa as part of a broad reorganisation of US troops. It is the first big test of ties between Washington and a new Japanese government that wants a more equal relationship with its closest security ally. Hatoyama is expected to present the aid package to Obama, who is in the midst of a lengthy review of US strategy for Afghanistan, at a summit on Friday in Tokyo. The aid would be delivered over five years. Both sides have said the row over the reallocation of the Futenma air base, which threatens to stall a realignment of the 47,000 US military personnel in Japan, would not be the main focus of the talks on Friday, but Hatoyama is under pressure to make a decision soon. Obama and Hatoyama agreed by phone on Tuesday to strengthen US-Japan ties and discuss global issues such as Afghanistan and climate change at their summit, Japan's top government spokesman Hirofumi Hirano said. Under a 2006 agreement, the Futenma Marine base is to be closed and replaced with a facility built partly on reclaimed land at Henoko, a remoter part of the island, by 2014. The deal, which Washington wants to push through after years of what a military official called ""painful"" negotiation, is part of a wider plan to reorganise U.S. troops and reduce the burden on Okinawa by moving up to 8,000 Marines to Guam. ""We must reach a conclusion that lessens the burden on the Okinawan people, when considering the suffering they have gone through to this day,"" Hatoyama told reporters on Monday. That view was supported by 70 percent of Okinawa residents in a poll published this month by the Mainichi newspaper. But that may not be fully shared by the overall public. A survey by the mass circulation Yomiuri newspaper showed on Tuesday that 63 percent wanted Japan to implement the plan to relocate the Futenma base as planned or with minor changes. Hatoyama has repeatedly said he would not rush a decision on the issue ahead of Obama's visit, adding the US president would be keen to discuss Japan's assistance to Afghanistan. The aid package, which comes ahead of a planned halt to Japan's naval refuelling mission in support of US-led operations in Afghanistan, will focus on civilian steps including job training for former Taliban fighters. The package, a hefty increase from the $2 billion Tokyo has spent on the country in recent years, will also include steps to improve agriculture, infrastructure and education in Afghanistan.",0
"The measure provides $400 billion for $1,400 direct payments to most Americans, $350 billion in aid to state and local governments, an expansion of the child tax credit and increased funding for vaccine distribution. Forecasters expect it to supercharge the US economic recovery. ""Help is here,"" Biden wrote in a tweet after the vote. The White House said he plans to sign the bill on Friday. Approval by a 220-211 vote in the Democratic-controlled chamber came with zero Republican support after weeks of partisan debate and wrangling in Congress. Democrats described the legislation as a critical response to a pandemic that has killed more than 528,000 people and thrown millions out of work. ""This is a historic day. It is the beginning of the end of the great COVID depression,"" Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky said. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement that passage of the legislation was a pivotal day for the US economy and would speed its recovery. But Republicans said the measure was too costly and was packed with wasteful progressive priorities. They said the worst phase of the largest public health crisis in a century has largely passed and the economy is headed toward a rebound. ""It's the wrong plan at the wrong time for so many wrong reasons,"" Republican Representative Jason Smith said. Nevertheless, before final passage, Democrats predicted that Republicans would tout the benefits of the bill to constituents, despite their lock-step opposition in the House and Senate. Indeed, Republican Senator Roger Wicker wrote on Twitter: ""This funding will ensure small businesses can survive the pandemic by helping to adapt their operations and keep their employees on the payroll."" Democrats were eager to get the final bill to Biden's desk for his signature before current enhanced federal unemployment benefits expire on Sunday. POPULAR SUPPORT Although many Republicans supported coronavirus relief under former President Donald Trump's administration, no Republican lawmaker voted for the bill in the House or Senate. But the bill is popular with the public. A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll, conducted March 8-9, showed that 70% of Americans support the plan, including majorities of Democrats and Republicans. Among Republicans, five out of 10 say they support the plan, while nine out of 10 Democrats supported it. The legislation could have high stakes for both parties. If it succeeds in giving the economy a major boost, the plan could improve Democrats' political fortunes as they attempt to hold their slim majorities in Congress in the 2022 midterm elections. Only one House Democrat, Jared Golden of Maine, voted against the package, saying its high borrowing costs endangered the recovery. The version passed by the Senate in an marathon weekend session removed a $15-per-hour federal minimum wage increase by 2025; tightened the eligibility for $1,400 direct payments, capping them at those earning below $80,000, cut the unemployment insurance payment to $300 per week from the House's $400 and targeted some of the state and local government aid to smaller communities. States that voted for Trump in the November election are due to get a larger amount of education and child-care aid per resident than those that backed Biden, according to estimates from two congressional committees. Residents of Republican-leaning states, which tend to have lower household incomes, also are likely to get larger stimulus checks and tax breaks as well, according to an independent research group. The massive spending push is seen as a major driver, coupled with a quickening pace of COVID-19 vaccinations and a slowing infection rate, in a brightening outlook for the economy. Morgan Stanley this week pegged 2021 economic output growth at 8.1%. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Tuesday predicted US growth would top 6% this year, up from an estimate of around 3% three months ago. With the COVID-19 aid bill now completed, attention turns to Biden's next round of major legislation, including massive infrastructure investments, immigration reforms and climate change initiatives. While conservatives bridled at the $1.9 trillion cost of the COVID-19 bill, it could be possible to get Republican buy-in on immigration and climate change legislation in the Senate, said Paul Sracic, a political science professor at Youngstown State University. But getting enough Republican support for Democratic initiatives to propel them to passage will be a challenge and ""anything that gets 60 votes in the Senate is likely to be a problem with progressive Democrats in the House,"" Sracic added.",0
"Her Conservatives struck an outline deal with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for support on key legislation. It was a humiliating outcome after an election that May had intended to strengthen her ahead of the Brexit push. Instead, voters stripped the Conservatives of their parliamentary majority. As May struggled to contain the fallout, her two closest aides resigned. Newspapers said foreign minister Boris Johnson and other leading party members were weighing leadership challenges. But Johnson said he backed May. May called the early election in April, when opinion polls suggested she was set for a sweeping win. May's aides, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill quit on Saturday following sustained criticism within the party of the campaign. Gavin Barwell was named new chief of staff. The Conservative lawmaker who lost his seat on Thursday and has experience working as a party enforcer in parliament. The change was unlikely to significantly quell unrest within the party. Most of May's cabinet members have kept quiet on the issue of her future, adding to speculation that her days as prime minister are numbered. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times newspaper found 48 percent of people felt May should quit while 38 percent thought she should stay. More Complicated The DUP, whose 10 seats in the new parliament give May just enough support to pass legislation, agreed in principle to a ""confidence and supply"" arrangement, Downing Street said. That means it will support a Conservative minority government on key votes in parliament without a formal coalition deal. A source close to the DUP said the party was seeking more funding for the province and concessions for former British soldiers in exchange for supporting May. Still the deal with the DUP risks upsetting the political balance in Northern Ireland. It aligns London more closely with the pro-British side in the divided province, where a power-sharing government with Irish nationalists is suspended. The Observer newspaper said the DUP arrangement fell short of a full coalition agreement because of concerns among some Conservative lawmakers about the socially conservative DUP's positions on gay rights, abortion and climate change. The turmoil engulfing May has increased the chance that Britain will fall out of the EU in 2019 without a deal. Previously, she said she wanted to take Britain out of the EU's single market and customs union in order to cut immigration. Her party is deeply divided over what it wants from Brexit. The election result means businesses still have no idea what trading rules they can expect in the coming years. EU Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said it may now be possible to discuss closer ties between Britain and the EU than May had initially planned, given her election flop. ""For instance, if London were to stay in the customs union, then it would not have to renegotiate all trade agreements,"" he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper. The pound on Friday fell 1.7 percent against the US dollar GBP= and 1.4 percent against the euro EURGBP=. After confirming on Friday that her top five ministers, including Chancellor Philip Hammond, would keep their jobs, May must name the rest of her team, who will take on one of the most demanding jobs in recent British political history. May has said Brexit talks will begin on June 19 as scheduled, the same day as the formal reopening of parliament. She confirmed this to German leader Angela Merkel in a phone call on Saturday. She also reiterated that she would seek a reciprocal agreement early in the talks on rights of EU and British citizens, Downing Street said. Elmar Brok, a German conservative and the European Parliament's top Brexit expert, told the Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper that the two-year talks would now be more complicated. ""May won't be able to make any compromises because she lacks a broad parliamentary majority,"" he said. ""She's Staying - For Now"" Britain's largely pro-Conservative press questioned whether May could remain in power. The Sun newspaper said senior members of the party had vowed to get rid of May, but would wait at least six months because they feared a leadership contest could propel the Labour party into power under Jeremy Corbyn, who supports renationalisation of key industries and higher taxes for business and top earners. Survation, the opinion polling firm that came closest to predicting correctly the election's outcome, said a new poll it conducted for the Mail on Sunday newspaper showed support for Labour now 6 percentage points ahead of the Conservatives. ""She's staying, for now,"" one Conservative Party source told Reuters. Former Conservative cabinet minister Owen Paterson, asked about her future, said: ""Let's see how it pans out."" May had repeatedly ruled out the need for a new election before changing her mind. Labour stunned even its own supporters by taking enough seats from the Conservatives to deny them a majority. The Times newspaper's front page declared that Britain was ""effectively leaderless"" and the country ""all but ungovernable"". ""The Conservatives have not yet broken the British system of democracy, but through their hubris and incompetence they have managed to make a mockery of it,"" it said in an editorial. If May is to honour the wish of the 52 percent of voters who opted last year to take Britain out of the EU, she must find a way to bridge the differences within her party. Its eurosceptic wing has long been a thorn in the side of Conservative prime ministers. On the other hand, pro-Europe Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said she wanted to be involved in ""looking again"" at Britain's aims for Brexit. Davidson was one of the few Conservative success stories in the election as the Scottish wing of the party won 13 seats. She has said she favours retaining the greatest possible level of access to Europe's single market. Davidson also said she had received reassurances from May that the party's deal with the DUP would not involve a rollback of gay rights.",0
"""Micronesia asks our American and Chinese friends to reinforce their cooperation and friendship with each other ... to achieve what is best for our global community,"" the Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo told the UN General Assembly in a video address. Micronesia - with a population of about 113,000 - and its Pacific Island neighbours have long been stuck in a diplomatic tug-of-war between the world's biggest economic powers as China takes on US influence in a region Washington has considered its backyard since World War Two. During his Friday address to the gathering of world leaders - pre-recorded due to the pandemic - Panuelo acknowledged that competition had been beneficial for some people in the Pacific. But he warned that the efforts ""also potentially threaten to fracture long-standing alliances within our Pacific community, and could become counterproductive to our collective desire for regional solidarity, security, and stability."" The US-Chinese showdown is now playing out at the 193-member United Nations, where Beijing has pushed for greater multilateral influence in a challenge to traditional US leadership. Tensions between the two superpowers have hit boiling point at the world body over the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Micronesia's plea stood out during the annual - yet virtual - gathering of world leaders at the United Nations this week because while most countries called for unity to combat COVID-19, other references to US and Chinese frictions were generally oblique. International Crisis Group UN director Richard Gowan said most leaders want to avoid getting entangled in the tensions. ""A lot of the UN's members think the US is destructive and China is power-hungry. They don't find either very appealing,"" he said. ""Ambitious Europeans like (French President Emmanuel) Macron see a chance to fill the leadership gap, so they are willing to challenge Beijing and Washington."" RIVALRY Macron addressed the General Assembly on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump demanded that China be held accountable for having ""unleashed"" COVID-19 on the world, prompting Beijing to accuse him of ""lies"" and abusing the UN platform to provoke a confrontation. ""The world as it is today cannot come down to simple rivalry between China and the United States, no matter the global weight of these two great powers, no matter the history that binds us together,"" Macron said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also warned the world is heading in a dangerous direction and ""cannot afford a future where the two largest economies split the globe in a Great Fracture — each with its own trade and financial rules and internet and artificial intelligence capacities."" In the Pacific, China has been forging stronger economic ties with small island nations, and drawing countries out of their long-term alliances with Taiwan, winning over Kiribati and the Solomon Islands in the past year. China considers Taiwan its own territory with no right to state-to-state ties. Four of Taiwan's remaining 15 diplomatic allies are in the Pacific - Palau, Nauru, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. All four states spoke in support of Taiwan during their leaders' addresses to the United Nations. Though tiny in land mass, Pacific nations control vast swaths of highly strategic waters, forming a boundary between the Americas and Asia. As oceans warm and sea level rises, they are also on the frontlines of the global climate crisis. ""It is my hope ... that the United States of America and the People's Republic of China jointly champion global causes for global solidarity and cooperation, from climate change to COVID-19,"" Panuelo said.",1
"The price of nickel doubled in one day last week, prompting the London Metal Exchange to freeze trading and effectively bring the global nickel market to a standstill. After two years of supply-chain chaos caused by the pandemic, the episode provided more evidence of how geopolitical tensions are destroying trading relationships that companies once took for granted, forcing them to rethink where they get the parts and metals they use to make cars and many other products. Automakers and other companies that need nickel, as well as other battery raw materials such as lithium or cobalt, have begun looking for ways to shield themselves against future shocks. Volkswagen, for example, has begun to explore buying nickel directly from mining companies, Markus Duesmann, CEO of the carmaker’s Audi division, said in an interview Thursday. “Raw materials are going to be an issue for years to come,” he said. The prospect of prolonged geopolitical tensions is likely to accelerate attempts by the United States and Europe to develop domestic supplies of commodities that often come from Russia. There are nickel deposits, for example, in Canada, Greenland and even Minnesota. “Nickel, cobalt, platinum, palladium, even copper — we already realized we need those metals for the green transition, for mitigating climate change,” said Bo Stensgaard, CEO of Bluejay Mining, which is working on extracting nickel from a site in western Greenland in a venture with KoBold Metals, whose backers include Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. “When you see the geopolitical developments with Ukraine and Russia, it’s even more obvious that there are supply risks with these metals.” But establishing new mining operations is likely to take years, even decades, because of the time needed to acquire permits and financing. In the meantime, companies using nickel — a group that also includes steel-makers — will need to contend with higher prices, which will eventually be felt by consumers. An average electric-car battery contains about 80 pounds of nickel. The surge in prices in March would more than double the cost of that nickel to $1,750 a car, according to estimates by trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Russia accounts for a relatively small proportion of world nickel production, and most of it is used to make stainless steel, not car batteries. But Russia plays an outsize role in nickel markets. Norilsk Nickel, also known as Nornickel, is the world’s largest nickel producer, with vast operations in Siberia. Its owner, Vladimir Potanin, is one of Russia’s wealthiest people. Norilsk is among a limited number of companies authorised to sell a specialised form of nickel on the London Metal Exchange, which handles all nickel trading. Unlike other oligarchs, Potanin has not been a target of sanctions, and the United States and Europe have not tried to block nickel exports, a step that would hurt their economies as well as Russia’s. The prospect that Russian nickel could be cut off from world markets was enough to cause panic. Analysts expect prices to come down from their recent peaks but remain much higher than they were a year ago. “The trend would be to come down to a level close to where we last left off,” around $25,000 a metric ton compared with the peak of $100,000 a ton, said Adrian Gardner, a principal analyst specialising in nickel at Wood Mackenzie, a research firm. Nickel was on a tear even before the Russian invasion as hedge funds and other investors bet on rising demand for electric vehicles. The price topped $20,000 a ton this year after hovering between $10,000 and $15,000 a ton for much of the past five years. At the same time, less nickel was being produced because of the pandemic. After Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the price rose above $30,000 in a little over a week. Then came March 8. Word spread on the trading desks of brokerage firms and hedge funds in London that a company, which turned out to be the Tsingshan Holding Group of China, had made a huge bet that the price of nickel would drop. When the price rose, Tsingshan owed billions of dollars, a situation known on Wall Street as a short squeeze. The price shot up to a little over $100,000 a ton, threatening the existence of many other companies that had bet wrong and prompting the London Metal Exchange to halt trading. The exchange tried to restart trading in nickel twice this week with new price limits, but sudden drops caused trading to halt once again. “The market is broken,” said Keith Wildie, head of trading at London-based metals firm Romco. There is no sign that nickel prices will lead to factory shutdowns in the way that shortages of components made in Ukraine brought assembly lines at Volkswagen, BMW and other carmakers to a standstill. It will take a few weeks for price increases to ripple through the system. For now, automakers and other big nickel buyers such as steel-makers may be able to find alternative suppliers, use more recycled material or switch to battery designs that require less nickel. “There is enough nickel,” Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius said in an interview this week. But carmakers might have to pay more, he said, adding, “It’s not unlikely that we will have secondary effects from this conflict.” The Ukraine conflict has underscored the urgency of moving away from fossil fuels, said Duesmann. Russian oil plays a much bigger role in the global economy than Russian nickel. “It would be too shortsighted to say, ‘Electromobility doesn’t work,’” he said. Beyond the immediate disruption to supplies, automakers are concerned about a retreat from the open markets that have been so good for business. Katrin Kamin, a trade expert at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany, noted that global commerce had held up remarkably well during the pandemic. “Perhaps we should speak less of globalisation being in crisis and more of international relations being at a low point,” Kamin said in an email. But the Ukraine conflict, she added, “is a major blow to trade.” © 2022 The New York Times Company",0
"WASHINGTON, Fri Jun 6, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US legislation that would have set up a cap-and-trade system to limit climate-warming carbon emissions died on Friday after a procedural vote in the Senate. The bill, which had bipartisan support but not enough to overcome opposition, aimed to cut total US global warming emissions by 66 percent by 2050. Opponents said it would cost jobs and raise fuel prices in an already pinched American economy. Known as the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, the bill's chances of passage were always slim. Even if Congress had approved it, President George W Bush had vowed a veto. Bush has consistently opposed any economy-wide program to curb the carbon dioxide emissions that spur climate change, arguing that this would hurt the US economy. US greenhouse gas emissions would drop by about 2 percent per year between 2012 and 2050, based on 2005 emission levels, under a summary of the measure by its Senate supporters. Carbon dioxide, which contributes to the climate-warming greenhouse effect, is emitted by fossil-fueled vehicles, coal-fired power plants and natural sources, including human breath. Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, the respective Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, were not present for Friday's vote, but both support limiting human-generated emissions that spur climate change.",0
"After a private meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi showed no sign of backing down despite Kerry urging China to take action to reduce tension in the South China Sea. ""With regard to construction on the Nansha islands and reefs, this is fully within the scope of China's sovereignty,"" Wang told reporters, using the Chinese name for the Spratly islands. ""I would like to reaffirm that China's determination to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity is as hard as a rock,"" he said. ""It is the people's demand of the government and our legitimate right."" Wang made the comments at a joint news conference with Kerry, who is on a two-day visit to China likely to be dominated by deepening concern about Beijing's ambitions in the South China Sea. China claims about 90 percent of the 3.5 million sq km (1.35 million sq mile) sea. The Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam also claim large parts of it. China's rapid reclamation effort around seven reefs in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea has alarmed other claimants such as the Philippines and Vietnam. At the same time, China has expressed its concern about a possible US plan to send military aircraft and ships to assert freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Kerry did not respond when asked to clarify whether the United States intended to follow through on what a US official on Tuesday said was a proposal to send US military aircraft and ships within territorial limits China asserts around reclaimed land. ‘Smart diplomacy’ The United States does not take a position on the rival territorial claims in the South China Sea, but says international law does not allow for sovereignty to be ""manufactured"" by building up underwater reefs. Kerry said the United States had stated its concerns about the pace and scope of China's land reclamation in the sea. ""I urged China through Foreign Minister Wang to take actions that will join everybody in helping to reduce tensions and increase the prospect of a diplomatic solution,"" he said. He said he believed he and Wang agreed the region needed ""smart diplomacy"" in order to conclude a code of conduct between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China, ""and not outposts and military strips"" - an apparent reference to airstrips the United States believes China is building on reclaimed land. Kerry said the United States and China had ""a lot to accomplish together ... as two of the world's major powers and largest economies"" and that millions of people around the world depended on them to ensure ""high standards of behaviour and aspiration"". Wang said that while both countries had differences on the South China Sea, they were committed to freedom of navigation and peace and stability in the area and added that China hoped to continue a dialogue to improve understanding on the issue. The South China Sea dispute is the latest source of friction between the world's two biggest economies, which have sparred over everything from trade and human rights to exchanges of accusations of hacking. Despite this, they cooperate in many areas such as climate change, North Korea and Iran. Recent satellite images have shown that since about March 2014, China has conducted reclamation work at seven sites in the Spratlys and is constructing a military-sized air strip on Fiery Cross Reef and possibly a second on another reef. The Philippines, a US treaty ally, has called for urgent action. China rejects US involvement in the dispute and has blamed the United States for stoking tension by encouraging countries to engage in ""dangerous behaviour"". China has reiterated that the only way to address the issue is through bilateral talks. On North Korea, Kerry said he was hopeful a potential nuclear deal with Iran could be a ""message"" for Pyongyang, but added that whether or not North Korea ""is capable of internalizing that kind of message, that's still to be proven"". Kerry's trip is intended to prepare for annual US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue next month in Washington and President Xi Jinping's expected visit to Washington in September. 

",0
" Scientists who advise the United Nations about climate change will issue a report in Paris on Friday, the first of four this year outlining the risks from global warming. Following is a calendar for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up in 1988 by the United Nations to guide governments. It draws on work by about 2,500 specialists from more than 130 nations and last issued reports in 2001. PARIS, Feb 2 - The first report will give evidence linking human activities, led by use of fossil fuels, to a warming in the past 50 years. It will also project likely climate changes to 2100. A draft of the report, 'The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change', says there is at least a 90 percent chance that human activities are the main cause of global warming since 1950, scientific sources say. The previous report in 2001 said the link was 'likely', or at least a 66 percent chance. It will also project a 'best estimate' of a temperature rise of 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The 2001 report projected a rise of between 1.4 and 5.8 Celsius, without saying which end of the scale was most likely. BRUSSELS, April 6 - The second report will detail the likely impacts of climate change around the globe and ways to adapt to warming. Australian newspaper The Age said a draft of the report, entitled 'Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability', projects that between 200 and 700 million more people could face food shortages by 2080 and that 1.1 to 3.2 billion more people could suffer water shortages. BANGKOK, May 4 - The third report, 'Mitigation of Climate Change', will analyse ways to fight global warming, including options and costs for reining in emissions of greenhouse gases. VALENCIA, Spain, Nov 16 - A fourth 'Synthesis Report' will sum up the findings.",6
"On Friday, Blinken met with the foreign ministers of Australia, Japan and India at a summit in Melbourne of the four-nation coalition called the Quad. His message was clear: Despite crises in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world, the United States is committed to bolstering its presence across Asia and presenting a different vision of the future than the one offered by China. “Countries deserve to have the freedom to work together and associate with whom they choose,” Blinken said as he stood alongside the other foreign ministers before their meeting Friday afternoon. Australia is only the first of three stops for Blinken, who is also scheduled to meet with foreign officials in Fiji and Hawaii. The weeklong trip to the farthest reaches of Asia and the Pacific shows the intensity with which the Biden administration wants to signal that the vast region is the most important focus of its foreign policy. In late January, Blinken had to do shuttle diplomacy in Kyiv and other European cities to address Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine. Since then, President Vladimir Putin has continued massing troops along Russia’s border with Ukraine for what could be a deadly follow-up to his forceful annexation in 2014 of the Crimean peninsula and incursion into eastern Ukraine. Blinken said at an evening news conference in Melbourne after the ministers had met that a Russian invasion could even occur before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, an event at which Putin and President Xi Jinping of China issued a long joint statement in which they said the partnership of the two nations had “no limits.” “We continue to see very troubling signs of Russian escalation, including new forces arriving at the Ukrainian border,” Blinken said. While Blinken and some of his foreign counterparts did discuss Russia and Ukraine, that was not the focus of their talks. The Quad, which has gained momentum in recent years after being established in 2007, is an important part of President Joe Biden’s vision for countering China, which has a powerful economic presence in every corner of the globe and a growing military footprint in Asia and parts of the Indian Ocean. The coalition also seeks to address broad regional issues, and the ministers said they talked Friday about climate change, COVID-19 vaccines, counterterrorism, regional infrastructure and repression in Myanmar, among other matters. Biden has said he plans to strengthen the traditional alliances and partnerships of the United States and build up new ones. That is a stark contrast to the approach of the Trump administration, which created strains with partner countries over issues such as trade and defense funding. Leaders of the Quad nations have viewed China’s actions with growing anxiety in recent years, as Xi has become more aggressive in his foreign policy. China has continued to assert its territorial claims to islands in the East China Sea that are known as the Diaoyu in China and the Senkaku in Japan, which administers the area. Chinese troops have clashed with the Indian military along the two nations’ border in the Himalayas. And Beijing has engaged in what some Western officials call “influence operations” in Australia, including building ties with politicians in the country. At the same time, all these nations, as well as the United States, have deep economic ties with China, which presents a central dilemma in their relations with the Asian superpower. On the final leg of the 27-hour flight to Melbourne, after a refuelling stop in Pago Pago, American Samoa, Blinken told reporters that he wanted to emphasise the Biden administration’s work with the Quad because the group was “very representative of what we’re doing in different ways around the world, which is building, energising, driving different coalitions of countries focused on sometimes overlapping issues.” That is a common refrain of officials in the Biden administration. In contrast to their predecessors in the Trump administration, they assert that America’s strength comes from its alliances and partnerships, and that this approach is more important than ever because of China’s enormous economic leverage. Blinken’s trip “underscores just how important — and how challenging — it is for Washington to maintain focus on the Indo-Pacific,” said Charles Edel, Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former official in policy planning at the State Department. “The Quad was formed largely in response to China’s increasing use of military and economic coercion, and is meant to prove that democracies can deliver needed public goods across the region. There have been some major successes this year — particularly around vaccine distribution — but now the work, and the success, of the Quad depends on moving from conception phase to coordination and delivery,” he added. Australia, which the United States sees as a model for how smaller nations can stand up to a more aggressive China, has become particularly important to US officials as a cornerstone of the coalition and a regional defense and intelligence partner. In contrast to European nations, Australia’s ties with the United States grew stronger during the Trump administration, and that has continued into the Biden administration. Last September, Biden announced a new security pact with Australia and Britain called Aukus and declared that the United States would help Australia build nuclear-powered submarines — a move that infuriated France, which had a lucrative deal with Australia to supply less-advanced submarines. Chinese officials said at the time that the trilateral pact was “extremely irresponsible” and “seriously undermines regional peace and intensifies the arms race.” On Wednesday, Global Times, a newspaper published by the Communist Party, struck a similar note in criticising the meeting of the ministers in Melbourne. “The tone of the four Quad foreign ministers’ meeting scheduled for Friday in Australia is still based on ideological differences and a Cold War mentality,” it said in an article. On Friday morning, Marise Payne, the Australian foreign minister, drew a sharp line between the influence of the United States in the region and that of China. She said at the start of a meeting with Blinken that “more than one authoritarian regime is presenting itself in the current world climate as a challenge — the DPRK, China as well.” Payne was using the initials of the formal name for North Korea, an ally of China that has conducted an alarming number of missile tests in recent weeks. “We strongly support US leadership on those challenges,” she added. When the leaders of the Quad nations met in Washington last September for their first ever in-person meeting, the nations issued a communiqué that listed seven broad areas of cooperation: COVID-19 and global health aid, infrastructure, climate change, people-to-people exchange and education, emerging technologies, cybersecurity and outer space. The leaders had already said at a virtual summit in March that they would work together on delivering COVID-19 vaccines, and in September they said the goal was to donate 1.2 billion doses of vaccines worldwide, in addition to their commitments to a World Health Organization vaccine programme. At the time, they said they had delivered nearly 79 million doses in the Asia-Pacific region. “I think the most important thing is to maintain a sense of momentum on those topics,” said Susannah Patton, a research fellow and project director in the Power and Diplomacy Programme at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. Patton said that Australia saw the Quad as further integrating the United States into a strategic role in the region and committing it to continuing what President Barack Obama called a “pivot to Asia,” away from the long-running and costly wars of the Middle East and Central Asia. However, she said it was important that Washington come up with a comprehensive plan for economic engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. Obama had intended for the proposed 12-nation trade pact called the Trans-Pacific Partnership to do that, but President Donald Trump blocked any US role in the agreement. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and other liberal politicians also had denounced the pact, saying it would harm American workers. Obama and Biden, when he was vice president, argued that the pact would help raise environmental and labour standards across Asia and give the member nations alternative trading partners to China, which had not been a founding member. Last September, with the United States absent from the trade agreement, China applied to join. © 2022 The New York Times Company",0
"SINGAPORE, Fri Dec 4,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - A multi-billion dollar scheme driving clean-energy investment in poorer nations is faltering and urgently needs reforms mandated by negotiators at this month's UN climate talks, a report released on Friday said. The International Emissions Trading Association said the scheme, called the Clean Development Mechanism, has proved a great success but was now a victim of poor management, delays and conflicting rulings that was stifling investment. ""Given the current economic climate, the CDM�s enduring lack of predictability and consistency is causing investors to pull back, quickly,"" IETA said in the report, ""State of the CDM 2009"". ""Uncertainty over the post-2012 framework has only hastened this retreat,"" it said, adding that ""the CDM, as it is, is barely working for us anymore"". The CDM allows investors from rich nations to develop clean-energy projects, such as wind farms, in poorer countries and earn carbon offsets in return that can be sold for profit or used to meet mandatory emissions targets. According to U.N. data as of Thursday, 1,920 CDM projects have been formally approved and registered and more than 355 million offsets called CERs have been issued. The CERs are currently trading above 12 euros ($18) in Europe, the main buyer. The CDM, part of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol climate pact, though, has suffered from increasing uncertainty over its future shape and function after 2012, when Kyoto's first phase ends. Such worries are undermining demand for CERs from projects after 2012. Negotiators and government leaders are meeting in the Danish capital Copenhagen from Monday till Dec 18 to try to agree on the outlines of a broader agreement to expand or replace Kyoto from 2013. Reform of the CDM is a critical issue, IETA said. TIME-CONSUMING A key issue is the project-by-project approval process that takes up to two years and involves time-consuming requests for review or corrections to project design, among other issues. This needed streamlining, IETA said. It said there was a need to expand the CDM's reach to much broader deployment in developing countries. It also called for Copenhagen to ensure long-term investment security ""by declaring eligibility for full (offset) crediting post-2012 for projects registered in host-countries or sectors before they move to a sectoral crediting mechanism"". Europe, for instance, wants the CDM to shift to driving emissions reductions across industrial sectors in poorer nations. IETA also called for nations meeting in Copenhagen to expand CDM eligibility to carbon capture and storage projects. The association pointed to lack of CDM staff, the need for more expertise, unclear rulings, lack of an appeal process and inadequate standardisation of CDM processes that were also among issues frustrating investors. IETA said the CDM's main policy-making and technical bodies functioned on a part-time basis, severely limiting the amount of time spent taking decisions or resetting policy. ""The CDM exhibits a glaring neglect of administrative due process rules to ensure basic procedural fairness, which reflects a fundamental flaw in its governance,"" it added. In response, IETA proposed appointing an outside body to drive reforms and suggested nations meeting in Copenhagen create a steering committee to push through changes. It also suggested engaging independent regulatory consultants to guide the reform agenda and urged officials at Copenhagen to push for an end to project-by-project reviews. IETA recommended the hiring of a CDM managing director, make the project methodology panel into a full-time, permanent body, expand its mandate, improve training of staff and raise salaries.",0
" The government published its Climate Change Bill on Thursday, starting a parliamentary process that could lead to a legal limit on national carbon emissions within six months. The bill sets a target of cutting national emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide by 60 percent by 2050 and about half that by 2025. It would make Britain the first country to adopt such a legally binding commitment. Environmentalists and many politicians had campaigned for a higher goal of 80 percent and annual targets on the way. But the government has rejected annual targets in favour of rolling five-year ""carbon budgets"" and has until recently ruled out raising the end goal above 60 percent. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said last month he would ask a climate-monitoring committee to be set up by the bill to see if 80 percent was necessary or feasible. Scientists say global average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century due to burning fossil fuels for power and transport. This will cause floods, droughts, and storms, and threaten millions of lives. Environmentalists also note that while Britain is on track to meet its Kyoto Protocol commitment to cut carbon emissions by 12.5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012, that is more due to the decline of its smokestack industries than good planning. They note the country's carbon emissions have risen steadily since the Labour government took power in 1997. United Nations environment ministers will meet on the Indonesian island of Bali early next month to try to agree to negotiate a successor to Kyoto which is the only international carbon-curbing treaty but which expires in five years' time. The goal is to get a deal within two years, giving three more years for ratification by enough nations to make it come into effect -- half the time it took to negotiate and ratify the original treaty.",0
"In throwing his weight behind his former rival, Sanders is sending an unmistakable signal that his supporters should do so as well, at a moment when Biden still faces deep skepticism from many younger progressives. The two men appeared via livestream on split screens talking to each other. “We need you in the White House,” Sanders said to Biden. “And I will do all that I can to make that happen.” Biden said: “I’m going to need you. Not just to win the campaign, but to govern.” Biden provided a clue earlier, saying he would be “joined by a special guest” for his scheduled livestream at 2 p.m. The scene was a striking example of the ways the coronavirus has upended traditional campaigning. In normal times, both men likely would have appeared onstage together at a rally — or at least done so at an event with more pomp. At times almost jovial, the two men went back-and-forth on issues, with Biden asking Sanders if he had any questions for him, and Sanders responding by asking Biden if he supported policies that the Vermont senator has championed for years, including a $15 minimum wage and tuition-free public college. The two men said they would form “task forces” on issues including the economy, education, immigration, health care, criminal justice and climate change. The scene, which unfolded less than a week after Sanders ended his own campaign, was a sharp departure from the drawn-out, often-acrimonious process of reconciliation between Sanders and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. The event followed weeks of discussion between the Biden and Sanders camps over how the two men could find common ground on Sanders’ key policy priorities. A day after Sanders left the presidential race, Biden announced he was embracing several new, more progressive positions on matters including health care and education, in an explicit overture to Sanders’ base. ©2020 The New York Times Company",0
" A 190-nation UN climate meeting in Bali from Dec 3-14 is seeking to launch two years of formal negotiations meant to end with agreement on a broad new UN pact to fight global warming. About 10,000 delegates on the Indonesian island are considering a draft document, issued by Indonesia, Australia and South Africa, that lays out a ""roadmap"" of guiding principles for the talks on a UN treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. THE PROBLEM Kyoto, the current UN pact for slowing warming, binds 36 industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gases by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 to curb ever more floods, droughts, a spread of disease and rising seas. But Kyoto countries make up only about a third of world greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, which are surging when scientists say they need to be axed. The United States is outside Kyoto and developing nations such as China, India, Brazil have no 2008-2012 targets. Many countries want a 2009 deadline to work out a broad new treaty -- that would give parliaments three years to ratify and help plan before Kyoto's first period runs out on Dec. 31, 2012. PRINCIPLES FOR TALKS The draft says: -- There is ""unequivocal scientific evidence"" that rich nations will have to cut emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst impacts. -- Global emissions will ""need to peak in the next 10 to 15 years and be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000 by 2050."" -- ""The challenge of climate change calls for effective participation by all countries"", led by rich nations. Ending poverty will remain the top priority for developing nations. ACTIONS NEEDED The draft says that countries will step up actions to curb climate change, such as: -- For developed nations, ""quantified national emission objectives"". For poor nations, an easier goal of actions to ""limit the growth of, or reduce, emissions"". -- New policies and incentives to help reduce emissions from deforestation by developing countries, more sharing of green technologies, new financing and investment, more efforts to help countries adapt to the impacts of climate change. LAUNCH OF NEW TALKS The draft lays out three options: 1) Two years of informal talks that do not necessarily lead to a new treaty. 2) Global talks to lead to a new treaty at a conference to be held in Copenhagen in late 2009. In addition, there would be separate talks on new commitments by current Kyoto participants. 3) Twin-track talks among all nations, immediately merging with the Kyoto track, leading to a new treaty in Copenhagen in 2009. TIMETABLE The first talks will be held at a meeting of senior officials, now set for June 2008. That meeting would work out a detailed timetable. -- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/",1
" California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore are set to join world leaders for a UN meeting on Monday aimed at spurring global negotiations on how to cool a warming planet. Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder and movie star who has pushed for environmental reforms in California, acknowledged that rich and poor countries have differing responsibilities when it comes to global warming, but said it is time to stop the blame game. ""The time has come to stop looking back at the Kyoto Protocol,"" Schwarzenegger said in remarks prepared for delivery. ""The consequences of global climate change are so pressing it doesn't matter who was responsible for the past. ""What matters is who is answerable for the future. And that means all of us."" The one-day gathering is meant to send a ""strong political message"" about the urgency of the problem of curbing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, according to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It is the first of three US events on climate change this week that are likely to focus attention on whether Washington can make good on its pledge to take a leading role in curbing the emissions that cause global warming. But it is not a negotiating session. That will come in December in Bali, Indonesia, where climate experts will try to craft a successor to the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Gore, the former presidential candidate and creator of the global warming documentary, ""An Inconvenient Truth,"" is also to address the UN meeting. US President George W. Bush will not speak at this gathering, but he will dine with Ban after it ends. Bush has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that requires 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. He contends the accord unfairly burdens rich countries while exempting developing countries like China and India and that it will cost US jobs. Developing countries have said it is unfair to ask them to curb their emissions as their economies grow while industrialized nations have been polluting for decades. Bush does plan to speak at a two-day Washington meeting at the State Department on Thursday and Friday, a gathering of ""major economies"" -- the world's biggest global warming contributors -- on energy security and climate change. A third conference, the nongovernmental Clinton Global Initiative, will convene in New York from Wednesday through Friday to discuss climate change with participants from business, academia, entertainment and environmental organizations. ",0
"Not only must Changla Mro and other women of the Mro ethnic group trek for hours along steep paths slicing through trees and bamboo, they must also brave snakes, wild pigs and fishing cats that lurk in the thick undergrowth. But since a water collection and treatment system was installed a year ago, serving about 21 families living in Bandarban district, such dangers have faded into memory. ""Two women were victims of snake bites last time they went to collect water at night time,"" Changla Mro told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. ""Now we have no fear of snake bites or wild animals attacking since we collect our drinking and household water from the water plant."" Around the world, deforestation, greater weather extremes linked to climate change and population growth are putting ever larger demands on the world's limited supply of fresh water. Finding innovative ways to capture and conserve it, to keep supplies steady throughout the year, is a growing priority. 
 
 Women gather water at the community water treatment plant in Bandarban. Thomson Reuters Foundation 

Fewer trees, less water Water is a particularly precious commodity in the 5,500 sq mile (14,200 sq km) Hill Tract area of Bangladesh, home to roughly equal numbers of Bengali-speaking settlers and tribal people from 13 ethnic groups. Years of deforestation have stripped away the soil's ability to conserve water, leading to shortages in the dry season when most of the surface water evaporates. This is acutely felt in the districts of Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrhachharhi where the Mro community live. Kangchag Mro, 50, said she used to spend hours in search of water in springs and streams, and was afraid of catching waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera. But now clean drinking water gushes from taps at the community's water treatment plant, a small, concrete building topped with a sheet of corrugated iron. ""Collecting water in this hilly area is a really hard task. But the water plant makes our job easy,"" she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation with a smile. A hillside reservoir 500 metres away supplies the water plant, which was built with funding from the Arannayk Foundation, a joint forest conservation initiative of the Bangladesh and US governments. The man-made reservoir collects water that flows down from the hills. The water then goes through a pipeline to the treatment facility below where it is purified for household use. The success of the gravity flow water system, which does not require expensive pumps, has prompted plans for a wider rollout. Chief engineer of the Department of Public Health Engineering, Md Wali Ullah, said the government was considering plans to supply water to more indigenous communities in the Hill Tract area. Ullah said his department had already sent a proposal to other related government ministries. 
 
 A stream runs in Bandarban. Thomson Reuters Foundation 

Stepping up forest protection Mro leader Khamchang Mro said his community now realised the importance of forests, which act as a sponge to collect rainfall during the monsoon season and release it slowly into streams and rivers. Community members now have been trying to conserve forested areas to ensure a consistent flow of water to springs and canals all year round. ""We reforested the degraded area of our village forests,"" Khamchang Mro said. ""As a result, our village forest has now gained a healthy condition."" Farid Ahmed Khan, the executive director of Arannayk Foundation, said local communities had no alternative but to protect their forests. ""If forests are degraded, there will be a severe water crisis,"" Khan warned.  Women gather water at the community water treatment plant in Bandarban. Thomson Reuters Foundation   A stream runs in Bandarban. Thomson Reuters Foundation ",0
" Asian countries led by Bangladesh and China dominated an index produced on Monday by the United Nations that estimates which populations are most at risk from earthquakes, floods, cyclones and landslides. The Mortality Risk Index was issued by the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) before a four-day meeting of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction opening on Tuesday at which 1,800 officials and experts will examine natural catastrophes. ""There literally are no countries in the world that are not potentially affected by hazards,"" UNISDR chief Margareta Wahlstrom told a news conference. Wahlstrom said countries that were not major risks now could be in the future as climate change affects weather and sea levels. The index, measuring where people are most likely to die in a disaster, looks at hazard -- the risk that the disaster will occur, but also exposure and vulnerability, which reflect how countries cope. For instance vulnerability to earthquakes takes into account the rapidity of urban growth. Other factors would include hospitals and other infrastructure.  IMPACT OF DISASTERS Wahlstrom said the index showed that countries could reduce the impact of disasters. For instance Japan has the highest exposure to cyclones but ranks as only a medium risk for the category because of civil defence and other mitigation measures. ""Our message is: you don't have to be defeated, because you have a choice,"" she said. Four countries with big populations -- Bangladesh, China, India and Indonesia -- are in the extreme category for average number of people at risk in absolute terms. But when the index is weighted for population the list is headed by Colombia, with a number of small nations such as Comoros, Dominica, Vanuatu and Fiji also high up. A ""multi"" index averages these two to reflect both perspectives. The index throws up some strange neighbours, with the United States, Haiti and Ethiopia all categorised as ""medium high"" risks overall. The United States is exposed to both earthquakes and cyclones, and as Hurricane Katrina showed, large groups of poor people in the United States are vulnerable to disasters UNISDR Scientific Adviser Pascal Peduzzi said the one weakness of the index was that it excluded droughts, because their impact was often linked more to civil unrest or conflict than weather or other natural factors. If drought were included, many African countries would be much higher in the index, he said. The index draws on data from 1977 to 2007 for earthquakes and cyclones, and scientific modelling for other categories.",0
" BP(BP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday the cement seal on its crippled Gulf of Mexico oil well was holding and a relief well to permanently plug the ill-fated borehole was on track to reach its target in mid-August. As the final stages of the long-awaited ""kill"" operation moved forward, nagging questions remained about the lasting environmental and economic impact to the U.S. Gulf region from the world's worst offshore oil accident. More than 100 days after the start of the catastrophic spill that ravaged ecologically sensitive wetlands and lucrative coastal economies, BP said no oil was leaking from the undersea Macondo well and no ""recoverable oil"" was left on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. BP finished pumping cement on Thursday into the ruptured well one mile (1.6 km) below the surface after injections of drilling mud earlier this week subdued the pressure of oil and gas. The wellhead was provisionally capped in mid-July. The so-called ""static kill"" at the top of the well is due to be finished off with a ""bottom kill"" later in August with more mud and cement injected through a relief bore that will be drilled into the well shaft. This relief well is regarded as the final solution to plug the reservoir 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) beneath the seabed. BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, Doug Suttles, told reporters at a briefing the cement job ""appears to be performing as expected."" ""All of the indications so far look very encouraging,"" he said in New Orleans. Engineers were pressure-testing the injected cement. Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who heads the oil spill response for President Barack Obama's administration, said the relief well was scheduled to reach the well shaft below the seabed ""somewhere between August 14th and 15th."" ""We are unequivocally committed to completing the relief wells,"" Allen said in a conference call. A second, back-up relief well is also being drilled. For full spill coverage link.reuters.com/hed87k Graphic on relief well link.reuters.com/xes52n Asked if BP would sell its rights to the Macondo field, Suttles replied: ""We just haven't thought about that."" ""Clearly there is lots of oil and gas here and we will have to think about what to do with that at some point,"" he said. The well's sealing was a relief for both the British energy giant, whose shares and image have taken a beating from the spill, and for Obama's administration, which has faced criticism over its response and has pledged to help the pollution-struck Gulf Coast recover. BP shares, which have recovered strongly since hitting a 14-year low on June 25, appeared once again to be buoyed by the news of the progress in plugging the well. They rose more than 2 percent in early London trading before falling back to close up 0.46 percent. In New York, BP shares were up 1.7 percent in late-day trading. ""FAR FROM FINISHED"" Suttles, who had led BP's overall oil spill response in the Gulf but was now returning to his chief operating officer role in Houston, nevertheless acknowledged the coastal cleanup effort was ""far from finished."" ""Clearly we feel like its moving to a new phase because we've been three weeks without new oil flowing into the sea, and we don't have oil out on the open water anymore. But we still have a lot of work around the shoreline,"" he said. Mike Utsler was appointed to take his place in BP's Gulf spill response operation. The company has lost over a third of its market value since the April 20 blast that killed 11 workers, sank the Deepwater Horizon rig and triggered the spill. Questions remain about the final total of the cleanup bill and the damage liabilities and possible fines BP will face. ""If chapter one of BP's corporate nightmare took place largely under sea in the battle to plug the leak, the next chapter in this odyssey is likely to play out in courtrooms and law offices,"" IHS Energy analyst Andrew Neff wrote in a briefing note. BP, which already agreed to a $20 billion escrow fund to guarantee cover of economic damage claims, has said it would sell about $30 billion in assets to address the costs related to the spill, and this asset selling process has started. ""More assets are expected to be up for grabs as BP shrinks itself to steel the company for a vastly different future than it envisioned back in April, when the firm was reportedly days away from announcing a massive oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico,"" Neff added. FEARS OF LONG-TERM IMPACT Many Gulf Coast residents have seen their fishing and tourism livelihoods devastated by the spill. They and some scientists have expressed skepticism about the government's assertion this week that around 75 percent of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked by the well had either evaporated, dispersed or otherwise been contained. Carol Browner, Obama's energy and climate change adviser, on Friday defended the government declaration. ""No one is trying to oversell or undersell anything,"" she told a community forum in St. Petersburg, Florida, where local business owners said even the threat of oil washing ashore had been enough to dent their income. There was no actual oil impact on the St. Petersburg part of the Florida coastline. BP was working to produce a Gulf Coast recovery masterplan within six months and hoped to get support for it from federal, state and local government, according to James Lee Witt, a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and now a crisis management consultant, who has been contracted by BP. Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist with the ocean conservation advocacy group Oceana, said it could be years before experts fully understood the spill's effects on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, or on species like the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which spawns in these waters. ""It's like trying to prove a negative. You have to wait longer for the absence of something,"" he said, as the group prepared to embark on a two-month trip to assess long-term impacts on coral, fish, sharks and other marine life.",0
"The royal couple, on a five-day visit, also toured a school and a national park in the capital Islamabad where they chatted with children and admired their drawings. The trip, which focuses on climate change and access to education, has been described by palace officials as the most complex the couple have undertaken due to security issues. On Tuesday afternoon, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met Khan at his official residence. William’s mother Princess Diana, a hugely popular figure in Pakistan, visited Pakistan several times in the 1990s and helped Khan raise money for a cancer hospital. Earlier William and Kate met students at an Islamabad Model College for Girls, discussing education with a group of older students and visiting the classrooms of younger students. As they left, a group of girls sang one of Pakistan’s national songs and the couple greeted preschoolers who had lined up to chant ‘bye bye’. They then visited the Margallah Hills National Park on the edge of Islamabad, which is under threat from poaching, wildfires, invasive species and littering. For the morning events, Kate wore a periwinkle blue silk shalwar kameez, the national outfit of Pakistan consisting of a loose tunic worn over trousers. Many on social media and in the fashion industry had been hoping she would don the outfit, which Princess Diana had worn during visits. The designer, Maheen Khan said on Twitter: “It is an honor to have been asked to create this outfit for the Duchess.” The Duchess of Cambridge’s fashion choices, including a bright green tunic over white pants to meet with the Prime Minister, appeared to echo many of the colors and outfits worn by Diana. Foreign policy experts and officials have said the trip, the first by a British royal family member in more than a decade and made at the request of the British foreign office, represented a soft power push, which may help both sides further their diplomatic aims. It comes as Britain seeks to reinvigorate its foreign relationships as the deadline looms for its departure from the European Union, while Pakistan works to repair its global image to boost tourism and investment.",0
" G8 leaders pledged $20 billion in farm aid to help poor nations feed themselves, surpassing expectations on the final day of a summit that has yielded little progress on climate change and trade. The United States used the meeting of world leaders to push for a shift toward farm investment aid from food aid and will make $3.5 billion available to the 3-year program. But African nations reminded the rich of a need to honor past commitments. ""Working with the G8, African and European countries and multinational bodies, we had the satisfaction of increasing the $15 billion to $20 billion over three years,"" said Italian PM Silvio Berlsuconi. The United Nations says the number of malnourished people has risen over the past two years and is expected to top 1.02 billion this year, reversing a four-decade trend of declines. ""$20 billion was a last-minute agreement and it was greeted with great happiness by all of us in the conference room. While we are rebuilding agriculture we need to continue supporting food assistance because the financial crisis is pushing another 103 million people into hunger this year,"" said Staffan de Mistura, vice executive director of the World Food Program. After two days of talks focused on the economic crisis, trade and global warming, the final day of the meeting in Italy looked at problems facing the poorest nations. G8 leaders promised in Gleneagles in 2005 to increase annual aid by $50 billion by 2010, half of which was meant for African countries. But aid bodies say some G8 countries have gone back on their word, especially this year's G8 host, Italy. African leaders said they would voice their concerns, with Ethiopian premier Meles Zenawi telling Reuters: ""The key message for us is to ask the G8 to live up to their commitments."" LIFE AND DEATH DECISIONS Besides Meles, the leaders of Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa joined their G8 counterparts to discuss food security and farming, and to push their demand for compensation for the ravages of climate change. It was not clear how much of the $20 billion was new funding and how much each country would give. The focus on agricultural investments reflects a U.S.-led shift away from emergency aid assistance toward longer-term strategies to try to make communities more self-sufficient. Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade told Reuters that Barack Obama, who will make his first visit to Africa as U.S. president after the G8, brought a welcome new focus on African farming. Wade, who has championed efforts to increase agriculture in his West African country, which relies heavily on food imports, said Obama ""really has the will to focus on food in Africa."" ""The United States produces maize and some crops and sends it to people in famine, but the new conception is to produce these crops in Africa and not in the United States,"" Wade said. The $20 billion over three years may compare unfavorably with the $13.4 billion the G8 says it has already disbursed between January 2008 and July 2009, but aid groups said the funds pledged on Friday were more clearly focused. British charity ActionAid has warned that, with one billion hungry, decisions at the G8 could ""literally make the difference between life and death for millions in the developing world."" Japan and the European Union were championing a code of conduct for responsible investment in the face of growing farmland acquisition or ""land grabs"" in emerging nations. SUMMIT FRUSTRATION The l'Aquila summit has produced chequered results on other issues, making only limited progress in crucial climate talks following the refusal by major developing nations to sign up to the goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. ""There is a bit of frustration because one would like to convince everyone about everything and obtain all the results straight way, but things are progressing,"" French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters late on Thursday. G8 leaders said the global financial crisis still posed serious risks to the world economy. Further stimulus packages for growth might still be required and it was dangerous to implement ""exit strategies"" from emergency measures too early. ""Reaching the bottom of the slump is not when you start with exit strategies. We need to choose a point where we've already got some way out of the trough,"" German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday. She dismissed a Chinese proposal, aired at the summit, for debate on seeking an alternative global reserve currency to the dollar in the long term as something that was not of ""practical relevance"" for the time being.",0
"But even as he prepares to push hard for the broadest possible overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, he and his aides have started to signal openness to more targeted approaches that could win citizenship for smaller, discrete groups of immigrants living in the United States without legal permission. At a CNN town hall Tuesday, he said such efforts would be acceptable “in the meantime.” In a private telephone call with activists Wednesday, top immigration aides to Biden said they supported what they called a “multiple trains” strategy, which could target citizenship for “Dreamers,” the young immigrants brought into the country illegally as children; farmworkers who have toiled for years in US fields; and others. Smaller bills could move forward as the president tries to build support for the broader legislation, which is scheduled to be introduced Thursday, according to two people who were on the call. If he chooses to move step by step, Biden appears unlikely to anger the most powerful pro-immigration groups, which are embracing a more pragmatic strategy after spectacular defeats under Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama. For more than two decades, activists have tried and failed to secure passage of a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws that would create a path to citizenship for most immigrants living in the United States without legal permission, a faster path for Dreamers, expanded visa access for highly skilled workers and a new programme for seasonal agricultural labourers. They are betting that Biden will struggle even more than his predecessors did to win support from a Republican Party that became more anti-immigrant during the Trump administration. While the activists are willing to let Biden try for a bipartisan deal this year, they have warned that they will not wait forever. “We want 11 million people legalized. That is our North Star,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice and a veteran of immigration wars in the nation’s capital for more than 30 years. “But we can’t come home empty-handed. We’re not going to adopt an all-or-nothing approach. We have to achieve a breakthrough.” For those like Sharry, that is a major shift, and it could herald fierce debates over whether Democrats should use parliamentary tactics in the Senate to ram through individual immigration measures without any Republican support. The activists are mobilising on behalf of separate bills that would legalize Dreamers, farmworkers, immigrants granted temporary status after fleeing war and natural disasters, and “essential workers” living in the United States illegally who have been on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. Publicly, the White House is insisting that Congress should pass the president’s broad immigration overhaul. Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, said this week that Biden was pushing for comprehensive changes because “they all need to be addressed — that’s why he proposed them together.” And the chief backers of Biden’s legislation in Congress — Sen Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Rep Linda Sanchez of California — say abandoning the broader effort before it has even begun would be a mistake. Menendez and Sanchez are expected to reveal details about the president’s legislation Thursday morning after it is introduced in the House. A Democratic aide familiar with the legislation said if immigration activists ask for only “half a loaf,” they should not be surprised when they end up going home with just a single slice of bread. “We have an economic and moral imperative to pass big, bold and inclusive immigration reform — reform that leaves no one behind,” Menendez said Wednesday evening. He criticised advocates for not being willing to fight for legislation that would eventually legalise all the country’s immigrant population. “We must not start with concessions out of the gate. We are not going to start with 2 million undocumented people instead of 11 million,” he said. “We will never win an argument that we don’t have the courage to make. We must make our case for bold, inclusive and lasting immigration reform.” How to successfully revamp the nation’s immigration system has for decades eluded policymakers in Washington. The last time a major immigration bill was signed into law was in 1990, when President George Bush expanded legal immigration into the United States, before an explosion of illegal crossings at the southwestern border in the following 20 years. The surge in illegal border crossings prompted demands for increased enforcement from conservatives even as backlogs in legal immigration created a growing crisis for businesses looking for workers and for families seeking refuge in the United States from violence and disasters at home. For nearly three decades, those in favour of immigration have argued for a single, comprehensive bill with elements that could unite Democrats and Republicans, labour unions and big businesses, security-minded conservatives and liberal immigration supporters. Such bills — which were introduced in 2001, 2006, 2007 and 2013 — centred around a trade-off: amped-up border security and immigration law enforcement in exchange for a path to citizenship for people living in the United States without legal permission. They also included increases in the number of temporary workers allowed into the United States, more resources for processing asylum applications, new opportunities for high-skilled workers from other countries, some limits on immigration based on family ties, and protections for people living in the United States illegally who arrived as children. But none of those efforts succeeded. Despite support from Bush, the Senate and House failed to reach a compromise in 2006, and legislation in 2007 was defeated in the Senate. In 2013, Obama secured bipartisan Senate passage of an immigration overhaul, 68-32, only to see it ignored by the Republican-controlled House. Over the past four years, some of the conservative side of the equation — border security — was secured by President Donald Trump in the form of tough restrictions on asylum-seekers and partial construction of Trump’s border wall. Biden won the presidency in part by pledging that he would bring back bipartisanship and saying that his long-standing relationships in the Senate would help him bridge the partisan divides that have grown deeper in recent years. Psaki said the president has outlined “the tenets of what we think the proposal should look like” in the hopes of addressing the root causes of immigration problems. But immigration advocates say the history of failure is driving a change in strategy this year. “You’re talking about a fight that we’ve had for over three decades at this point,” said Lorella Praeli, president of Community Change Action. “I’m not interested in a dance. I’m committed to seeing this through and delivering on concrete changes.” Praeli and other proponents praised Biden, Menendez and Sanchez for their broader bill. But they also called on the president to promise that he would also use a budgetary tool known as reconciliation to enact smaller components of the legislation even as he pushes ahead with the larger effort. Under Senate rules, legislation that significantly affects the nation’s budget can be passed with only a majority vote, avoiding filibuster rules that require the support of 60 senators. With the current 50-50 Senate, that would give Democrats the ability to pass reconciliation bills without Republican support and with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote — if they can stay united. Immigration proponents say some more targeted efforts to legalize some immigrants living in the United State illegally would pass muster under the sometimes baffling rules of reconciliation, which are supposed to bar pure policy measures from bills that are supposed to deal with government taxation and spending. Because newly legalised residents would affect tax revenue and government benefits, the groups say immigration legislation could be tailored as budget measures. Reconciliation is already being used to muscle through Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, but another budget measure is expected to address infrastructure funding and climate change. “We should be included in that package,” said Sharry of America’s Voice. Biden’s immigration efforts face even more headwinds than those of Obama and Bush. Many Republican senators who had been supporters of immigration — including John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona; Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee; Orrin Hatch of Utah; Dean Heller of Nevada; and others — have left the Senate. Others, like Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who helped negotiate previous immigration packages, shifted right in the Trump years. Kerri Talbot, deputy director of the Immigration Hub, said that it was clear to many of the groups that Republicans cannot be counted on to support a broad overhaul of immigration without the kind of extreme measures that Trump insisted upon during his presidency. She said that pursuing smaller, popular measures like providing legalization for Dreamers would put Republicans on the spot. “We’re always open to having a broader discussion, but absent that, we want to move forward with pieces that can pass,” she said. “We would love to have bipartisanship. I’d love to have that conversation again. But it’s really up to Republicans.” Praeli said she and others who have fought over immigration for years believed it was time to “put the ‘W’s’ on the board” by granting a path to citizenship to as many people as they can. “We’re in a different moment,” said Praeli, who became a citizen in 2015 after living in the United States for years without legal permission following her arrival as a small child. “We can see that Trump is no longer here, but Trumpism did not go away.”   c.2021 The New York Times Company",0
"Essa, 36, would often end up either using too much water on her 2-feddan (2-acre) plot outside Samalout city or hiring another farmer to take over the irrigation duties, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Then, in December last year, the mother of four joined a new government project that uses sensors to allow her to see exactly when the soil is dry and just how much water she needs - all from an app on her phone. ""When I first heard about the new system, I did not know exactly how it would benefit me. But when people showed me how it works, I found it really helpful and (it) would save me a lot of effort and money,"" she said in a phone interview. In the few weeks since she adopted the system, Essa has been using 20% less water and her labour costs have dropped by nearly a third. The system, developed by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and Cairo's MSA University, uses a sensor buried in the soil to measure moisture levels and a transmitter to send the data to the user, who accesses it through a mobile app. Even if they are away from their fields, farmers can tell whether their crops need more water or have had enough. Essa is one of dozens of farmers who have started using the new system, launched in December, in Upper Egypt's Minya governorate and in New Valley governorate in the southwest. The project, in its pilot phase, is part of a nationwide strategy to encourage the use of modern irrigation methods, said Mohamed Ghanem, spokesman for the water ministry. The aim is to reduce water use, increase crop productivity and lower production costs as Egypt faces increasing water pressures, he said. ""The preliminary results indicate success in saving large quantities of water and reducing production costs,"" he said by phone, adding that the government is still in the process of collecting data on the project's impact. The ministry has so far provided 200 free devices to farmers, but after the trial period ends, it will start selling them countrywide, Ghanem added, without specifying the price. WATER 'POOR' At another farm near Essa's in Minya governorate, Gerges Shoukri said combining the new mobile system with the drip irrigation he and his wife installed early last year had been a big boost. Shoukri, 32, said he now uses 15% less water, while the quality of his vegetable crops has improved and production has jumped by about 30%. ""We have to be prepared in case of any water shortages by adopting new irrigation and agricultural methods,"" he said. A 2019 report by the Egyptian Center for Strategic Studies noted that every year agriculture consumes more than 85% of the country's share of the Nile, which provides the bulk of Egypt's water supply. Officials say Egypt currently has about 570 cubic metres (150,000 gallons) of water per person per year. Experts consider a country ""water poor"" if its annual supply is less than 1,000 cubic metres per person. 
 
 A farmer passes with his cart at a wheat field in El-Dakahlya governorate, Egypt Feb 7, 2021. REUTERS 

In 2017, Egypt embarked on a 20-year strategy to tackle its water challenges, which experts say are becoming increasingly urgent in the face of a growing population, climate change-related drought and fears of losing much of its access to the Nile River's waters.  A farmer passes with his cart at a wheat field in El-Dakahlya governorate, Egypt Feb 7, 2021. REUTERS  According to Egypt's statistical agency, about 70% of the country's water comes from the Nile, which amounts to 55.5 billion cubic meters a year based on a 1959 deal with upstream Sudan. But the deal is not recognised by Ethiopia, which has now started filling the reservoir behind its new Grand Renaissance mega-dam upstream from Egypt. TOO HIGH-TECH? Some agricultural experts are sceptical about the effectiveness of the new mobile irrigation system, pointing to the cost and the fact that many farmers will not be familiar or comfortable with the technology. Abbas Sharaky, an associate professor of economic geology at Cairo University, said the system could benefit large commercial farmers, but would not be useful to many small-scale farmers. ""Some companies in Egypt are already starting to apply (mobile irrigation technology) in agriculture for better quality and management,"" he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. ""But applying it to individuals would be difficult because they would need training and adequate resources."" Youssef El Bahwashi, an agricultural engineer who has a farm in Giza city and has not installed the new system, said many farmers do not even use mobile phones. ""With their long experience in irrigation and agriculture, they cannot be easily convinced to use a new device which will cost them money and which most probably they will not be able to deal with,"" he said. Safaa Abdel Hakim, supervisor of the project in Minya city, said the farmers who receive the devices get training on how to use them. Essa said that, as someone who is not tech-savvy, it was quite difficult to keep up with all the changes. But, she believes that embracing new irrigation trends and evolving attitudes about water consumption will help Egypt's farmers deal with whatever comes down the line. ""Getting educated about the new technologies will not only help me better manage my land but also ... adapt to any changes in the future,"" she said.",2
" The United States held its first talks with Australia's new government on Wednesday, with a top US official declaring that differences over Iraq and climate change would not hurt strong ties between the two countries. New Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised to pull about 500 Australian combat troops out of Iraq by the middle of 2008, and has ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, further isolating Washington on both issues. US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns met senior members of Rudd's government on Wednesday, including Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and said Washington would work well with the new administration. ""We may have tactical differences on a number of issues, Iraq, we certainly have a tactical difference on the issue of Kyoto, but it doesn't mean we cannot work well together,"" Burns told reporters. He said Washington and Canberra would look at other ways in which Australia could support building stability in Iraq if troops were withdrawn. Rudd's centre-left Labor Party won power on Nov. 24, ending almost 12 years of conservative rule by John Howard, a close personal and political ally of U.S. President George W. Bush. Rudd's decision to ratify Kyoto means the United States is now the only developed nation not to back the agreement's binding curbs on the greenhouse emissions blamed for global warming. Rudd, who will lead the Australian delegation to the United Nations climate summit in Bali next week, urged the United States on Wednesday to change its stance and ratify the Kyoto pact. ""All developed and developing countries need to be part of the global solution (to global warming),"" Rudd told Australian radio. ""And therefore we do need to see the United States as a full ratification state when it comes to Kyoto."" Smith, sworn in as foreign minister only on Monday, has also reassured Washington that Australia's military alliance with the United States will remain the cornerstone of Canberra's strategic and foreign policy. ""It remains a key pillar of our foreign policy approach,"" Smith told foreign diplomats on Monday. ""Our friendship with the United States is deep and valued by both sides."" Australia has about 1,500 troops deployed in and around Iraq, including naval and air support and forces protecting diplomats. About 500 frontline forces and trainers are based in Iraq's more peaceful south. Rudd has raised the possibility that Australia's military could continue to train Iraqi forces, but in a neighbouring country.",0
"CHITOSE, Japan, Sun Jul 6,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US President George W Bush arrived in Japan on Sunday for the Group of Eight rich nations' meetings where North Korea's nuclear weapons program, soaring oil and food prices, and climate change top the agenda. Six months before his term ends and shadowed by low job approval ratings, questions abound whether Bush and the other leaders can forge any major agreements, particularly on how to deal with unchecked oil prices and curbing greenhouse gases. The Bush administration has also been under pressure from abroad to take action to stabilize the weak US dollar, another issue likely to come up during the meetings at the luxury hotel overlooking the lakeside resort of Toyako on July 7-9. Upon arriving, Bush headed to bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Later this week he will also hold one-on-one talks with the leaders of Russia, China, Germany, India and South Korea. Bush will want to rally support for pressuring North Korea to fully account for its nuclear weapons activities and finish dismantling its program. Other topics include Iran's nuclear program, the political turmoil in Zimbabwe and aid to Africa.",0
"The small
study — based on measurements from cooktops, ovens and broilers in 53 homes in
California — estimated that stoves emit between 0.8 percent-1.3 percent of the
natural gas they consume as unburned methane, a potent greenhouse gas. During
the course of a typical year, three-quarters of these emissions occur when the
devices are shut off, the study showed, which could suggest leaky fittings and
connections with gas service lines. Over a
20-year period, emissions from stoves across the United States could be having
the same effect in heating the planet as half a million gas-powered cars, the
study estimated. “People are
so attached to their stoves,” said Eric D Lebel, a senior scientist at the
nonprofit research institute PSE Healthy Energy and lead author of the study,
which was published Thursday in the journal Environmental Science &
Technology. “There’s something human about cooking on a gas stove, over an open
flame.” But more and
more evidence, he said, suggests that stoves are “damaging health and climate
all at once.” Growing
numbers of US cities, largely in Democratic-leaning states such as California
and Massachusetts, are shifting homes away from gas-powered cooking and
heating. New York City last month banned gas hookups in all new buildings. But
at least 20 mostly Republican-leaning states have barred cities from
restricting gas use, often with the support of natural gas companies and
utilities that see electrification as a threat to their bottom lines. There were
more than 40 million gas stoves in US households in 2015, the last year for
which there is detailed data from government surveys. In all, homes and
buildings are responsible for an estimated 13 percent of America’s greenhouse
gas emissions. Methane is
the main component of natural gas, and if it isn’t burned when released, it can
warm the Earth more than 80 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide
over a 20-year period. Methane also contributes to ground-level ozone
pollution, which can cause breathing problems and other health issues. Methane
leaks from oil and gas installations have attracted increasing attention in
recent years, and efforts are underway to plug thousands of inactive,
methane-spewing oil and gas wells across the country. But less research has
been done on emissions inside residences, said Rob Jackson, an earth scientist
at Stanford University who worked on the new study. Lebel,
Jackson and two co-authors used plastic sheets to seal off kitchens in private
homes, Airbnb rentals and properties for sale or rent. They found that on
average, igniting a burner on a gas stove emitted about the same amount of
methane as leaving it on and burning for 10 minutes. Gas ovens emitted methane
at a higher rate than cooktop burners, they found, because ovens periodically
ignite and extinguish their main burner to maintain the set temperature. The
researchers also measured emissions over five-to-10-minute periods when stoves
were off, though they did not try to pinpoint the sources of the leaks. “It’s almost
an inevitable byproduct of the natural gas supply chain,” Jackson said. “Every
coupling, every fitting, has the potential to leak, especially over time as the
stoves sit there for years.” None of the
gas leaks the researchers measured were of a concentration that might lead to
explosions, Lebel said. The
researchers found that when it came to methane emissions, older stoves did not
perform differently from newer ones, nor did pricier models outperform cheaper
ones. They
acknowledged, however, that they would have liked to conduct tests in more
homes owned by people who could not afford to replace or maintain old
appliances. This would help their results better capture the disproportionate
effects of gas emissions on low-income families, they said. Levels of
methane in the atmosphere have been skyrocketing in recent years, and
scientists do not fully understand why, said Kathryn McKain, a researcher with
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research
Laboratory who did not work on the new study. More methane
seems to end up in the air than is accounted for by gas consumption on the
ground. Home appliances, McKain said, are “just one piece of the puzzle.”   © 2022 The
New York Times Company ",0
"When a torrential downpour on July 12 inundated London, dumping a month’s worth of rain in a single day, sewage backed up into May’s basement, soiling his carpets with a “stinking sludge” and wrecking photo albums, scrapbooks and other treasured mementos, he recounted on his Instagram account. “It’s disgusting, and actually quite heartbreaking,” May wrote, likening the ordeal to being “invaded” and “desecrated.” There was an especially cruel poignancy to the floodwaters finding May’s cellar, which is standard size and came with his gracious house in moneyed Kensington. For years, he has been a withering critic of wealthy neighbours who tunneled deep into the ground to install multistory basements, complete with swimming pools, wine cellars, movie theaters and exotic-car showrooms. To May, these vast subterranean complexes are not only a symbol of wretched excess but also an abuse of their neighbours, who had to suffer through years of head-pounding noise as excavators clawed the London clay. Now he has added a climate-related charge: oversize basements obstruct underground aquifers and interfere with natural drainage, causing sewage overflows of the kind that hit him. With his homeowner’s howl, May has managed to knit together two politically resonant issues: the escalating threat from extreme weather, which scientists broadly agree is a manifestation of climate change, and the environmental impact of years of extravagant building projects by London’s superrich. “Digging down can be seen as environmentally bad or environmentally good, depending on your perspective,” said Tony Travers, an expert in urban affairs at the London School of Economics. “But if you’re building a basement and you’re rich, you’d be well advised to install a pump.” May’s rock-star fame and scientific credentials, Travers said, guaranteed that his warnings would register with people, certainly more than another academic paper or a Cassandra-like politician. The musician’s story has focused attention on London’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change, which are real, if less obvious than in low-lying coastal cities like Miami or Mumbai. Directly linking any single weather event to climate change is difficult, of course. But after a scorching heat wave, bracketed by two Southeast Asia-style rainstorms that flooded London’s streets, subways and even hospitals, it seems timely to ask whether the city is prepared to deal with a future of wild weather. The problem, Travers said, is that London’s weather is usually so moderate and predictable that no single weather episode, however damaging, is likely to galvanise politicians into taking major action to climate-proof the city. Alarmist reactions to bad weather are a well-worn London tradition: Heat waves bring warnings of buckled railroad tracks; a light coating of snow paralyses the streets. But they tend to wash away with the return of clouds and drizzle. Even if there was a climate reckoning, the most obvious remedy — rebuilding London’s Victorian-era sewage system, which was built to serve a city less than half the size it is today — would be prohibitively expensive. The city is currently digging a giant tunnel system, the Thames Tideway, to carry sewage that flows into the river when it rains. The cost of that alone is nearly $7 billion. “There’s no question that this Victorian infrastructure is not capable of handling that much water,” said Roger Burrows, a professor of cities at Newcastle University. “Poor Brian May’s basement is merely an example of that.” Burrows, who has written about the proliferation of megabasements in London, said it was a stretch to blame them for overflowing sewers. After all, the city already sits on a vast amount of excavated underground space, most recently the Elizabeth line, a new 60-mile railway that currently connects Paddington Station and Liverpool Street Station and will ultimately link Heathrow Airport in the west with Essex in the east. But, Burrows added: “The very fact that the superrich and merely wealthy have extracted 12 times the mass of St Paul’s Cathedral from under London is bound to have an effect. The water is going to go somewhere.” He predicted a noisy era of “subterranean politics,” with critics who have derided megabasements as playthings for oligarchs now able to brand them as climate villains, the rich-neighbourhood equivalent of coal-burning power plants. Mary Dhonau, a consultant who advises on flood risks, said that large basements were only one of several factors that conspired to make London more susceptible to flooding. Homeowners had also paved over the equivalent of about 22 Hyde Parks — or around 10 Central Parks — in their gardens to create parking spaces. That makes the ground less permeable to rainwater, which is then forced into their homes, she said, “almost like a waterfall.” “When you remove that much earth in any given location, you’re losing places for the water to percolate through and seep away naturally,” Dhonau said. “There are a lot of things happening in London that when you put them together, it makes the flooding so much worse.” As a city that sits on a floodplain, London has already taken some important steps. In addition to the Thames Tideway, scheduled for completion in 2025, the city in 1982 built a gargantuan retractable barrier in the Thames River to hold back water from storms and from tidal surge flowing up from the North Sea. In its first decade of operation, it was closed 10 times; in the past decade, it has been closed 80 times. Now, city officials are talking about installing 3-foot-high glass barriers along a stretch of the Thames to prevent the river from bursting over the existing barricades. They also say they will have to upgrade or retrofit other floodgates. And some parts of London are restricting development in flood-prone areas. The market for sprawling basements has cooled anyway, in part because the local authorities are stingier in approving their construction. Homeowners must submit costly hydrology, geology and soil-testing reports, according to Paul Schaaf, a partner in the Basement Design Studio, which has designed more than 2,000 of them. Schaaf disputes the contention that other people’s basements caused the flooding in May’s house. Water, he says, finds a way to flow around such obstacles. As for the basements he designs, technological advances now allow homeowners to install sophisticated pumps to keep their premises dry, he noted. At some point, however, Schaaf conceded, it is a simple matter of physics. “If the water level is one foot above the manhole outside your house,” he said, “there’s nothing you can do.” For his part, May seems to be trying to move on. Asked to elaborate further on his views about basements and flooding, his publicist declined, saying May was busy preparing for the reissue of his 1992 album — aptly named in these stormy times — “Back to the Light.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
"Beyond the measures announced by the German carmaker on Friday, VW executives, customers, investors and workers alike are struggling to divine what lies ahead. The new chief executive, 62-year-old Matthias Mueller, until now head of the Porsche sports-car division, faces a host of problems that had already been looming before the diesel scandal broke and may now be worsened by its repercussions. Not least among these is falling profitability at the VW brand, but the immediate priority will be to clean up the mess in the United States, whose potential impact on the company has been compared to the 2010 BP oil spill. First may come a sustained show of contrition in a US advertising campaign, said one VW manager, who asked not to be identified. ""Humility will be the name of the game,"" he said. Following the crisis-management path taken by General Motors and News Corp, VW has tapped a US law firm to lead a thorough investigation. It promises to be a long and rough ride. VW faces dozens of public and private lawsuits, government investigations, compensation and recall expenses, the combined cost of which could exceed the 6.5 billion euros ($7.28 billion) it has put aside. The company's market value has plunged by 23 billion euros, or 30 percent, in the week since US authorities revealed that it had used a ""defeat device"" to mask illegal levels of nitrogen oxide pollution from diesel engines. Dealing with the fallout in the United States must override all other considerations, said a European fund manager who is among Volkswagen's 20 biggest shareholders. ""Then we need to talk about strategic direction,"" the fund manager said, adding that VW could review its commitment to diesel because of a likely consumer and regulatory backlash. ""This scandal has given them an opportunity to consider where they should go with their portfolio of models."" Mueller should go further and abandon US diesel vehicles altogether, said Bernstein analyst Max Warburton, recommending that the company funnel cash into plug-in hybrids and other low-emissions technology instead. ""VW needs to think big and bold,"" he said. Another big challenge for Mueller will be navigating a sharp downturn in China, where VW's bumper earnings have until recently more than offset its underperformance in Europe. Many insiders are calling for a change of corporate culture. VW's centralisation under Winterkorn and Ferdinand Piech - ousted as chairman in April - was ill-suited to a 12-brand empire with 119 plants in 31 countries. The ""climate of fear"" may have been a factor in the test-rigging, said one company official, just as it was two years earlier when Chinese customer complaints about defective gearboxes were suppressed for months. ""We need to create an atmosphere in which problems can be communicated openly to superiors rather than concealed,"" labour chief Berndt Osterloh told staff on Thursday. A lot of phone calls The emissions trickery and its consequences are also spreading beyond North America. Germany's transport ministry said VW had also manipulated tests in Europe, with 2.8 million vehicles affected in Germany. Worst hit in reputational terms will be the VW brand itself, already struggling to find 5 billion euros in savings and lift profitability that has slumped below rivals such as Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen. Under new boss Herbert Diess, the division had promised the first 1 billion euros in cuts this year, a goal reiterated three days before the diesel cheating emerged, in an investor presentation entitled ""Stability in Volatile Times"". Volkswagen's humiliation could weaken its European prices, further eroding the core brand's narrow margins and requiring still bigger cuts from unions. ""The (US) disclosures may impact negatively on VW's ability to maintain its global premium pricing power,"" Morgan Stanley analyst Harald Hendrikse said in a note this week. To limit the damage, dealers are already urging VW to improve its communication with baffled customers. Sales staff said they were ""getting a lot of phone calls"" from clients but silence from Wolfsburg headquarters. One dealer in Cologne said he was eager to recall some 2,000 vehicles for the illegal engine software to be neutralised, generating 1.5 million euros in servicing revenue as well as opportunities to repair customer relationships - or even sell some more cars. ""It's a tough market and we don't mind the extra business,"" he said, ""as terrible as it is for the brand."" But any silver linings look paper-thin to VW's 593,000 employees around the world - almost half of whom are in Germany. A groundsman articulated their bemusement as he mowed the lawn in Wolfsburg on Friday morning. ""I just don't understand why VW did this,"" he said. ($1 = 0.8933 euros)",0
"Proposed new coal power capacity globally has plunged 76% since the Paris Agreement in 2015, with 44 countries agreeing to end new projects, according to a report by think-tank E3G released on Tuesday. Asia however is still at the centre of the world's remaining pipeline, which means action by six countries alone - China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey and Bangladesh - could remove over four-fifths of planned projects before construction. Ending the use of coal - the most polluting fossil fuel - for power production has been a key focus for climate change activists, leading to funding and insurance for new projects rapidly drying up. Swiftly ending coal use is seen as vital to global goals of capping global warming at ""well below"" 2 degrees Celsius and ideally 1.5C and avoiding swiftly worsening climate threats such as harsher storms, floods, wildfires and crop failures. But coal remains a mainstay for power generation in Asia, which accounts for 75% of global coal demand, according to the International Energy Agency. Countries with significant coal deposits or energy systems reliant on the fuel have been slow to abandon it, tied down in part by the costs of abandoning still-functioning plants and mines or reluctant to break commitments to new plants. China also remains a major funder of new coal energy, even as declining prices for solar and wind power make green energy more competitive than coal in most parts of the world. ""The economics of coal have become increasingly uncompetitive in comparison to renewable energy, while the risk of stranded assets has increased,"" said Chris Littlecott, the report author and an associate director at E3G. 'LAST MAN STANDING' China alone is home to about 53% of the new coal power capacity under construction globally, the report noted. That is despite a 74% reduction in its project pipeline since the Paris climate accord, according to E3G. The Asian giant, however, is not only under scrutiny for its coal projects at home but also for funding projects abroad, after two other major financiers - South Korea and Japan - said this year they would end overseas coal financing. ""China is the last man standing in supporting coal projects abroad,"" Li Shuo, a Beijing-based policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. ""The Chinese government should get ahead of this trend by declaring an overseas coal moratorium. Doing so before COP26 will contribute momentum into the year-end global climate gathering,"" he said. Getting countries to commit to more ambitious emission-cutting plans and providing the necessary finance to put them into place are key themes at the COP26 summit, billed as the last chance to galvanise the action needed to limit global warming to 1.5C. Alok Sharma, the British official who will preside over the talks, has said the summit, scheduled to take place in Scotland in November, needs to ""consign coal power to history"". Countries from Indonesia to the Philippines have been part of a new wave of commitments across Asia to not approve new coal power projects - but projects already planned or under construction will still go ahead in most cases. With new plants needing to run for decades to pay back the costs of building them, failure to reverse those plans could doom climate goals, climate scientists and activists say. ""We have to talk about terminating 'under construction' projects, and cancelling the 'planned projects' when it comes to coal in Asia,"" said Sejong Youn, a director at Solutions for Our Climate, a Seoul-based non-profit on climate change. ""That is the real target we need to be pushing in COP26."" Youn said there is a ""high likelihood"" China will ""quietly, virtually"" end overseas coal finance at some point, but he expects the country will not announce such a move to avoid being seen as caving in to outside pressure. COSTS OF COAL SWITCH Any efforts to ditch coal should also take into account how that would impact impoverished communities and workers across Asia and potentially deepen inequalities, said Indonesian campaigner Arti Indallah Tjakranegara. Transitioning to cleaner energy in Indonesia could create millions of new green jobs in the country of 260 million but also lead to the unemployment of tens of thousands and threaten the economy of coal-producing regions. Indonesia, the world's top exporter of coal for power generation, currently sources 60% of its own energy from coal. It plans to stop using coal, oil and gas by 2060 and aims to have 85% of its energy needs from renewable sources then. ""Energy transition is like two sides of the same coin. There are also risks to be mitigated,"" said Tjakranegara, a manager at Yayasan Humanis dan Inovasi Sosial, an Indonesian non-profit working on climate change issues. ""A just energy transition needs to address the main challenges of unemployment, environmental degradation and inequality,"" she said by phone from Jakarta.",0
"In his first address to the annual 193-member UN General Assembly since taking office in January, Guterres said the crisis over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile program must be solved through a political process. ""This is the time for statesmanship,"" said the former prime minister of Portugal. ""We must not sleepwalk our way into war."" Trump has warned North Korea that military action was an option for the United States as Pyongyang has carried out a series of tests toward developing the ability to target the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile. The UN Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006 and Guterres appealed for the 15-member body to maintain its unity on North Korea.  


  Guterres, a former head of the UN refugee agency, also spoke of being ""pained to see the way refugees and migrants have been stereotyped and scapegoated - and to see political figures stoke resentment in search of electoral gain."" Shortly after taking office in January, Trump moved to put a 120-day halt on the US refugee program, bar Syrian refugees indefinitely and impose a 90-day suspension on people from six predominantly Muslim countries. He says the move is needed to prevent terrorist attacks. ""I myself am a migrant, as many of you are. But no-one expected me to risk my life on a leaky boat or cross a desert in the back of a truck to find employment outside my country of birth,"" he said. ""Safe migration cannot be limited to the global elite."" Guterres also warned of the dangers of climate change and urged world leaders to implement the 2015 Paris climate agreement to reduce emissions ""with ever greater ambition."" Trump, who campaigned in the 2016 presidential election on an ""America First"" platform, has said the United States would withdraw from the accord. Trump said it would harm US industries, cost US jobs, weaken American national sovereignty and put the country at a permanent disadvantage to other nations. ""It is high time to get off the path of suicidal emissions. We know enough today to act. The science is unassailable,"" Guterres said. On counterterrorism, Guterres said he plans to convene next year the first gathering of heads of counterterrorism agencies of UN member states to forge a new international counterterrorism partnership.",0
" The United States is going out of its way to build a warmer economic relationship with China and the strategy seems to be paying early dividends. In the past two weeks, China has endorsed a US-backed commitment to rebalance the global economy, and impressed some European officials by backing up the pledge with specific steps it planned to take to reconfigure its own economy. In addition, what looked like it could have been the start of a trade war when the United States imposed tariffs on Chinese tires fizzled out with minimal drama. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said China had delivered a surprisingly forthright speech at an International Monetary Fund meeting in Istanbul this past week. ""What really hit me was the change of speech, and I suppose of economic policy of China,"" she said, adding that China had spelled out policy goals on improving social security, pensions, infrastructure and other areas that ""correspond to calls to rectify imbalances."" Some officials and private analysts credit a change in tone out of Washington for helping build credibility in Beijing. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner held a series of phone conversations with Chinese finance officials within weeks of taking office in late January, and visited Beijing in June. He has fought for greater representation for China on the international economic stage, even though it put him in direct conflict with some European allies who saw it as a threat to their own global influence. Last week, President Barack Obama broke with tradition when he declined to meet with the Dalai Lama who was visiting Washington, opting instead to delay the meeting until after his official trip to China in mid-November. And at bilateral talks in Washington in July, the United States downplayed the touchiest issues including human rights violations and whether China's yuan currency is undervalued. Obama sought common ground over a non-controversial topic -- basketball. He referenced Chinese star Yao Ming and presented the Chinese delegation with a signed basketball. ECONOMIC REALITIES The strategy is aimed at showing that the United States is not simply trying to impose its will on China. Both sides have something to gain -- and lose -- from the relationship. For the United States, China remains a critically important buyer of US government debt, holding some $800 billion as of July, according to Treasury Department data. For China, which relies on exports to generate jobs for the millions of workers migrating to urban areas, the United States is still the most reliable customer, although the recession has clearly put a dent in demand. The US trade deficit with China stood at $143.7 billion for the year through August, government data shows. While that still makes China easily the largest single contributor to the trade gap, it is down 15 percent from the $169.2 billion recorded in the same period a year ago. Those figures are at the center of the global rebalancing equation. Economists have warned for years that U.S. debt and Chinese surpluses could not keep growing indefinitely, yet it took a global recession to begin reversing them. The United States wants China to do more to shift its economic focus to its own consumers rather than exports, which involves allowing the yuan to rise more rapidly and building a stronger social safety net so that households won't need to save as much for retirement or health care expenses. But until recently, Washington had little success in prodding China to alter its policies. Geithner, who has a master's degree in east Asian studies and once lived in China, seems to have found the right touch. ""He's recognized that just bashing them on the exchange rate is not as productive as putting it into a broader context,"" said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. ""There's a distinct change in approach compared with the past administration."" FRICTIONS ON DISPLAY There is also a distinct change from the earliest days of President Barack Obama's administration. The relationship got off to a rocky start in January when Geithner wrote to a congressional committee that Obama believed China was manipulating its currency. US officials later backpedaled, saying Geithner was merely repeating comments Obama had made on the presidential campaign trail. For former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, urging China to let the yuan rise more quickly was a focal point of his talks with Beijing on how to reduce imbalances. Geithner has taken a more circuitous route, stressing that this is a shared problem and the United States has its own issues to address -- particularly boosting savings and paring the mountain of public and private debt. The gentler strategy has yet to yield success in other areas such as climate change or security threats from North Korea and Iran, and it is not without political risk at home. US unemployment is nearing 10 percent and some of Obama's staunchest supporters -- manufacturing trade unions -- blame China in part for contributing to job losses here. Those frictions may be on display next week, when Treasury is scheduled to release a semi-annual report on currency practices of key trading partners. Some labor and manufacturing groups want Washington to formally label China a currency manipulator, which looks highly unlikely. ""Failing to act on currency leaves in place ongoing pressure and complaints about the trade relationship with China,"" said Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO. ""You can't do anything until you admit you have a problem.""",0
" US and Chinese officials began grappling on Monday with how and when to withdraw the huge economic stimulus spending each has applied and to put in place measures to promote steadier long-term growth. On the first of two days of economic and political talks, a US delegation including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged China to boost domestic consumption and Beijing responded with tough questions about how Washington intends to rein in its soaring budget deficits. Behind the so-called Strategic and Economic Dialogue lies the reality that the United States and China are two leading powers with sometimes conflicting interests but a common need to get a wobbling global economy back onto a job-creating growth path. ""The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st century, which makes it as important as any bilateral relationship in the world,"" US President Barack Obama said. ""That reality must underpin our partnership."" Obama said the two nations needed to overcome mutual wariness and deepen cooperation on issues from the global economic crisis to climate change and North Korea. But he also risked China's displeasure by urging it to respect and protect its ethnic and religious minorities -- an apparent reference to unrest among ethnic Uighurs and Tibetans in western China and subsequent crackdowns from Beijing. The dialogue wraps up on Tuesday with a closing communique in late afternoon, followed by press conferences and remarks at an evening dinner by Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as Vice Premier Wang Qishan, who leads the Chinese delegation. Officials said on Monday both sides felt the acute financial crisis of the past two years was easing but neither was completely confident and each indicated strong opinions about what the other should do to help. TOUGH ROAD AHEAD ""The foundation of economic stability and turnaround is not solid enough and China's economic rebound will be a complex and tortuous process,"" warned China's Assistant Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao. ""We sincerely hope that the U.S. fiscal deficit will be reduced year after year, according to the objectives of the Obama administration."" US government spending is forecast to exceed its income by a staggering $1.8 trillion in the current financial year, giving rise to concern that the dollar's value could suffer because of the flood of debt Washington is issuing. At the start of talks on Monday, neither side mentioned publicly past US efforts to persuade China to let its yuan currency appreciate more rapidly, but they later acknowledged the sensitive issue had been on the table. ""We hope that the yuan/dollar exchange rate remains stable and we are focused on the security of China's investments in the US,"" Zhu said. The U.S. Treasury's coordinator for the talks, David Loevinger, was more circumspect. ""We talked about China's exchange rate policy, they talked about their desire to reform the international monetary system, and I'll just leave it at that,"" he said. Loevinger said there was agreement that China must move toward more domestic consumption to keep its economy growing. ""If China's going to grow, it's not going to be able to grow by exporting to the U.S. and as far as we can tell to the rest of the world,"" he said. DON'T DEPEND ON THE AMERICAN CONSUMER Geithner and Obama renewed a pitch for China to rely less on exports for growth and instead make it possible for its citizens to spend more at home. Many social services like health care are relatively underdeveloped in China, forcing people to curb consumption and save for emergencies. Obama said the impact of the financial crisis will permanently alter U.S. spending habits and China needs to accept that it will not be able to export as much. ""As Americans save more and Chinese are able to spend more, we can put growth on a more sustainable foundation, because just as China has benefited from substantial investment and profitable exports, China can also be an enormous market for American goods,"" Obama said. Wang, the top Chinese official at the talks, said China's efforts to stimulate its economy were working and this would help the U.S. and other major economies. But US manufacturing groups complain China heavily subsidizes its exports, including by keeping the value of its currency artificially low against the dollar. ""China's multiple predatory trade practices severely weaken America's domestic economy,"" said Kevin Kearns, president of the US Business and Industry Council. ""The time for simply talking with China is long past. In fact, more chit-chat diplomacy is harmful to US interests."" The United States has consistently been China's best customer for products from shoes to furniture, creating a trade deficit -- which reached a record $268 billion in 2008 -- that has caused economic and political friction. Clinton praised Chinese cooperation in dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons but said the path ahead would not always be easy. The United States needs to sustain Chinese resolve over North Korea, where tensions are escalating after several missile launches and the testing of a nuclear device in May. Obama also called for greater unity on efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and ending the suffering in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.",0
"As thousands of scientists, government officials and business leaders met in Glasgow, Scotland, this month for the pivotal United Nations climate conference, hundreds of members of the trillion-dollar tourism industry came together and made the first commitment toward a shared road map to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and reach “net zero” by 2050. More than 300 global travel stakeholders, including tour operators, tourism boards and hotel chains, have signed the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, requiring them to submit a concrete and transparent plan within 12 months. While the details have yet to be put forward, the companies and countries that signed on, from Germany railway company Deutsche Bahn AG to Panama, will be expected to disclose their carbon emissions and offer clear strategies for how to reduce them. The process is being spearheaded by the UN World Tourism Organization and the World Travel & Tourism Council, two industry bodies that have previously sparred on climate matters. “This is undoubtedly the biggest climate commitment our industry has come together for,” said Jeremy Smith, co-founder of Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency, an initiative that supports climate action and provided the framework for the Glasgow Declaration. “Our initiative launched two years ago because the industry had no collective plan, and we did well getting over 400 tourism organisations on board without funding,” he said. “But the Glasgow Declaration builds on our work. It’s the coming together of major players in our sector, and it’s owned by everyone who has signed it, establishing collective responsibility.” The travel industry is a large contributor to global carbon emissions, with a footprint estimated between 8% and 11% of total greenhouse gases, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council. Aviation alone represents around 17% of total travel carbon emissions. Each year, a growing number of destinations and communities heavily dependent on tourism — countries like Thailand, India and Madagascar — are hit hard by the effects of climate change, in the form of rising sea levels, drought, wildfires, deforestation and biodiversity loss. The pandemic spotlighted the adverse effect of industry growth and overtourism on Venice, Italy; Bali, Indonesia; and other popular destinations, forcing some places to take stock and pivot toward more sustainable and environmentally friendly business models. Yet with most operators and destinations reeling from the industry shutdown last year, it is unclear how many of those plans will be prioritised over the need for a fast recovery. “We need a cultural change, and we need to move beyond the traditional growth-oriented mindsets to see a more sustainable, responsible and climate-neutral tourism ecosystem,” said Patrick Child, deputy director general of environment at the European Commission. ‘A Lot of Apathy’ The declaration has four main targets: measurement, requiring companies to disclose all travel- and tourism-related emissions; decarbonisation, by setting targets aligned with climate science; regeneration, to restore and protect natural ecosystems; and collaboration, to ensure that best practices are shared and financing is available to follow through. A recent analysis by the World Travel & Tourism Council of 250 travel businesses found that only 42% had publicly announced climate targets, and many of them were not based on the latest science. In early November the council published a road map for different industries within travel, providing concrete guidance on how to reach “net zero” targets by 2050. “There has been a lot of apathy, with some people not quite sure about what they need to do and how to do it, or some thinking they are not significant enough, and that’s why it’s really important for larger organisations to show the way,” said Darrell Wade, co-founder and chairman of Intrepid Travel, the only global tour company with a climate target verified by the Science Based Targets initiative, which promotes best practices in emissions reductions in line with climate science. Joining Deutsche Bahn and Panama in signing the Glasgow Declaration are big companies like Accor, Skyscanner, the Travel Corp and Iberostar Group, as well as countries that are already affected by climate change, including Norway and Barbados. Signatories hope that more destinations will participate in the coming weeks. Throughout his experience in the Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency initiative, Smith found it easier to get smaller, more agile companies and smaller countries involved. When it came to larger companies, there were more barriers and obstacles, he said. “When you reach a destination, or even a city, it becomes even harder because there are multiple different players with different interests at the scale of a country,” he said. “It takes time.” Panama, one of only three carbon-negative countries in the world (meaning that it absorbs more carbon emissions than it emits), has taken a lead role in establishing initiatives for economic growth in tourism, which also benefit and preserve local communities and resources. “Our main plan for our sustainable tourism market is to empower local communities, particularly Indigenous people, so that they can generate an income through tourism that allows them to preserve their ancestral way of life, allowing them to sustainably manage their natural resources like forests and coral reefs,” said Ivan Eskildsen, Panama’s tourism minister. He pointed to an example of a trail that was built in a national park that was designed to involve local communities in the active management of the area. “Over 30% of our land and sea are preserved national parks, so it’s humanly impossible to supervise all these areas,” he said. “The community can benefit economically from these areas and will also be prone to stay and take care of it instead of only coming there for short-term income.” Visit Scotland, that country’s national tourism organisation, which helped draft the declaration, has also taken a lead role. The organisation has reduced its own carbon emission by 74% since 2008, and more than 850 local businesses have been given green tourism awards for their sustainability efforts. Challenges Persist While the Glasgow Declaration has garnered great momentum and established common objectives, challenges lie ahead, especially when it comes to setting a global standard for reporting emissions figures for such a wide range of sectors within the industry, from tour operators to destinations, and airlines to cruise ships. Signatories are expected to hold each other accountable and set common standards throughout international supply chains. Once action plans have been submitted within the next year, a reporting framework will be necessary. Anyone who fails to submit a road map within that time frame will be removed from the declaration. “It is really important to bring value chains together,” said Catherine Dolton, chief sustainability officer at IHG Hotels and Resorts. “Hotel developers, hotel owners, investors, franchisees, as well as the operators, are all impacting sustainability at different stages of the hotel life cycle.” Visibly absent from the list of signatories were members of the cruise industry. The sector made a separate pledge to pursue carbon-neutral cruising by 2050 and reduce emissions 40% by 2030 in an annual environmental report published recently by the Cruise Line International Association, an industry trade group. While the report makes detailed commitments to reducing the cruise industry’s carbon footprint using new technology and alternative fuels, it does not address other environmental issues such as discharge of waste. “Despite technical advances and some surveillance programs, cruising remains a major source of air, water (fresh and marine) and land pollution affecting fragile habitats, areas and species, and a potential source of physical and mental human health risks,” according to a recent report by the Marine Pollution Bulletin Journal. Though there was some disappointment about the limited participation of some industries in the pledge, the overall sentiment was one of optimism and a belief that the declaration would lead to real change and less “greenwashing,” a term used to describe companies that try to portray themselves as more environmentally minded than they actually are. “I’ve long been quite pessimistic about travel and tourism’s approach toward climate change,” said Wade of Intrepid Travel, which recently published a toolkit, available online, to help travel businesses measure and reduce their carbon emissions. “But now I’m really very optimistic because there is broad-level support from the industry to actually reduce emissions, and it’s the first time I’ve seen real concrete commitments from industry and governments.”     © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
" US President Barack Obama pushed job creation to the top of his agenda on Wednesday and promised not to abandon his struggling healthcare overhaul after a political setback that raised doubts about his leadership.  ""Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010,"" he said in his annual State of the Union address as US unemployment remained at a painful 10 percent and the weak economy dominated the debate before coming congressional elections in November. Obama admitted he had made mistakes and that his first year in office had been a difficult one, but vowed not to give up in his efforts to change the way that Washington works and push through his ambitious legislative agenda. ""I don't quit,"" he told the US Congress. ""Let's seize this moment -- to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more."" Obama pledged to slap tough new regulations on Wall Street. He said he would work to dig the country out a ""massive fiscal hole"" and was willing to use his presidential veto power to enforce budgetary discipline. Still smarting from the loss by his Democratic Party of a pivotal US Senate seat in Massachusetts, Obama said he would not back down from efforts to revamp the US healthcare system and forge bipartisan consensus on climate change. But he put the greatest emphasis on the need to fix the still-struggling US economy and bring down the punishing unemployment rate. ""People are out of work. They are hurting. They need our help. And I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay,"" he said. BUDGET CHALLENGES Obama proposed a three-year freeze on some domestic spending programs to take aim at soaring budget deficits. He called for the creation of a bipartisan commission to tackle long-term budget challenges, such as the Social Security retirement program and Medicare health program for older Americans. Obama took office promising to bring wholesale change to Washington, including the push for healthcare reform and a drive to set caps on carbon emissions to fight climate change. But the healthcare reform legislation faces possible failure now that Democrats no longer hold a ""supermajority"" of 60 Senate votes to overcome Republican procedural hurdles. The climate legislation has stalled and even some of its supporters believe it may be sidelined this year. He insisted he was not giving up on health care reform. ""By the time I'm finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. Millions will lose it this year,"" Obama said. ""I will not walk away from these Americans. And neither should the people in this chamber."" He criticized ""bad behaviour"" and recklessness on Wall Street and demanded Congress pass robust legislation on financial regulation. Obama promised to push back against financial industry lobbyists who are seeking to water down or kill the proposed legislation. ""We cannot let them win this fight. And if the bill that ends up on my desk does not meet the test of real reform, I will send it back,"" Obama said. Many of his Democratic allies fear they will lose their seats in November's election, but Obama highlighted economic improvements and tried to deflect criticism that the healthcare push shifted his focus. The economy was shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month when Obama took office but it has begun to slowly grow again.",0
"COPENHAGEN Dec-8 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Developing nations demanded deeper emissions cuts from rich nations, particularly the United States, at UN climate talks in Denmark on Tuesday, as a study showed that 2009 is the fifth warmest year on record. The first decade of this century was also the hottest since records began, the World Meteorological Organization said, underscoring the threat scientists say the planet faces from rising temperatures. A record 15,000 participants at the talks are trying to work out a climate pact to combat rising seas, desertification, floods and cyclones that could devastate economies and ruin the livelihoods of millions of people. But negotiators are struggling to reach agreement on the depth of emissions cuts needed to slow the pace of climate change and are worried about the cost to their economies of switching from polluting fossil fuels to cleaner energy. ""We're off to a good start,"" Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said of the Dec 7-18 talks. He urged delegates to sort out technical details of an accord but said that the big issues such as emissions targets for rich nations and funds for the poor would have to wait for a December 18 summit that will be attended by over 100 world leaders. Emission cuts offers from rich nations were far below what was needed, Dessima Williams of Grenada, chair of the 43-nation Alliance of Small Island States, told Reuters. AOSIS wants emissions cut 45 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. ""Our 45 percent remains on the table. Germany is at 40, the EU as a whole and some other countries are at 30. This is the time to escalate, to be ambitious,"" she said. Washington, whose provisional offer to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels works out at just 3 percent below 1990 levels, said on Monday it had legal authority to curb planet-warming emissions, a step delegates cautiously welcomed. CAUTIOUS The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled that greenhouse gases endanger human health, allowing it to regulate them without legislation from the Senate, where a bill to cut U.S. emissions by 2020 is stalled. ""It's welcome. It's not good enough from where we sit on the outside,"" Williams said. India was equally cautious. ""It's for the U.S. to indicate how that will be reflected here in the negotiations in terms of targets and how those targets are going to be enforced,"" said Shyam Saran, India's special envoy for climate change. De Boer said the ruling was ""like having a stick behind the door...something to fall back on"" for President Barack Obama. ""I think that will boost peoples' confidence in the US coming forward with a number, and that number making it through,"" either as cap-and-trade or as regulation, he said. The United States, as the world's number two emitter after China, is key to a deal in Copenhagen to break deadlock between rich and poor nations about sharing out the burden of curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Most emissions are created by burning fossil fuels. China said the talks must deliver on climate cash to help poor nations adapt to climate change impacts and to green their economies and that the money must be new and substantial. ""This conference can't be like the ones of the past, with the developed countries handing out empty cheques that ultimately come to nothing,"" state news agency Xinhua quoted Xie Zhenhua, China's top climate negotiator, as saying. Pressure is building on Copenhagen to deliver at least a political deal to curb emissions and agree on a ""fast-start"" climate fund from 2010 that the UN says should be at least $10 billion a year. The troubled UN climate talks, launched two years ago, were meant to agree on a legally binding treaty at Copenhagen to expand or replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. But that looks to be out of reach for now. The UN says any Copenhagen deal must contain ambitious emissions cuts by rich nations, financing pledges for poorer nations and steps by major developing countries to curb their greenhouse gas pollution.",0
"In fragile states like Yemen and South Sudan, competition for scarce natural resources is increasing while a growing need for humanitarian aid undermines states' ability to deal with climate risks, said Johan Schaar of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. ""I don't see big, shooting wars but I think you will have an increasing frequency of very localised conflicts and tensions that could then escalate into much more,"" Schaar told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at World Water Week in Stockholm. Climate-related disasters often force people from their homes, putting a strain on the communities into which they move and stirring grievances, he added. In South Sudan, the world's newest country, climate change is shortening and delaying the rainy season, while almost 80% of the rural population is affected by droughts and floods, said Alier Oka, undersecretary at the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. ""Climate change has impacted resources. Rainfall variability is the key issue,"" he told the conference. That is pushing some herders to consider moving to new areas in search of pasture and water, where they are likely to run into problems with settled farmers. ""This is common in South Sudan and happening now,"" he said. As a result, looting of cattle and tribal fighting are occurring more frequently, he added. WAR OR PEACE? In Yemen, embroiled in a bloody civil war since 2015, water has become ""weaponised"", said Muna Luqman, chair of Food4Humanity, a local charity. Half the population has no access to safe drinking water, which was already a scarce commodity in the parched Middle Eastern country before conflict broke out, she said. Now both sides have targeted the resource as a tool of war, she added. A lack of laws to regulate water use, combined with climate stresses such as drought and extreme heat, has worsened health and social problems with women and children worst-hit, she said. ""(Fighters) speak about freedom and human rights... while they kill and maim women fetching water for their starving families,"" she said. Yemen is suffering its third major cholera outbreak since 2015, when a Saudi-led military coalition intervened to try to restore Yemen's internationally recognised government after it was ousted from power by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement. But using water wisely can foster peace, said Luqman, who has worked on projects to encourage tribes in remote areas to share water stations. More than half the world's population is likely to live in water-scarce areas by 2050, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, which launched a ""Blue Peace"" index earlier this month to better manage shared water supplies. Elisabeth van Duin, a director at the Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, warned that a lack of safe water, migration and population growth could all ""destabilise societies and contribute to regional conflict"". From Syria to Lake Chad, climate change has escalated tensions, she said, with global hotspots in the future likely to include India and China, where millions of people are set to become victims of droughts and floods by 2050, she added. ""Water can become a weapon in conflict,"" she told the conference, adding that climate and water stress would be ""particularly hard on the developing world"".",0
" Climate change could push the cost of US allergies and asthma beyond the current $32 billion annual price tag, conservation and health groups reported on Wednesday. A warming planet makes for longer growing seasons that would produce more allergy-provoking pollen in much of the heavily populated eastern two-thirds of the United States, the National Wildlife Federation and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America said in their report. The cost of coping with allergies and allergen-driven asthma in the United States is at $32 billion in direct medical costs, lost work days and lower productivity, the report said. ""Climate change could allow highly allergenic trees like oaks and hickories to start replacing pines, spruces and firs that generally don't cause allergies, exposing many more people to springtime allergy triggers,"" said Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist at the wildlife federation. Spring-like conditions are already arriving 14 days earlier than 20 years ago, Staudt said. In the fall, ragweed plants will grow larger and more loaded with pollen over a longer growing season, Staudt said in a telephone interview. There is also evidence that ragweed, the biggest US allergy trigger, grows faster as carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that spurs climate change, is emitted by human-made sources like fossil-fuelled vehicles and coal-fired power plants as well as natural sources including human breath. CARBON DIOXIDE CONNECTION ""With more carbon dioxide, each ragweed plant can produce more pollen and can even produce more allergenic pollen, so fall allergies are going to get a pretty big hit,"" Staudt said. The average global temperature last year tied for the second highest year on record and the decade from 2000-2009 was the hottest on record, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. This means agricultural and natural growing zones are shifting northward, allowing pollen-bearing trees to survive over a wider range than they have historically, the report said. About 10 million US residents have so-called allergic asthma, in which asthma attacks are triggered by pollen or other airborne allergens. These attacks are likely to increase as global warming causes these allergens to become more widespread, numerous and potent, the report said. Poison ivy, one of the top 10 medically problematic plants in the United States with more than 350,000 cases of contact dermatitis reported annually, would become more toxic and more widespread as the climate changes. When exposed to more carbon dioxide, poison ivy plants produce a more allergenic form of urushiol, the substance that makes skin itch.",0
" Colombia's Marxist rebels called a two-month unilateral ceasefire on Monday, the first truce in more than a decade, as delicate peace talks began in Cuba to try to end a half century of war. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos' government reiterated, however, that there would be no halt to military operations until a final peace deal is signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC. The rebel group said it would halt all offensive military operations and acts of sabotage against infrastructure beginning at midnight on Monday and running through January 20. ""This decision by the FARC is a decisive contribution to strengthen the climate of understanding needed so the parties ... can achieve the purpose desired by all Colombians,"" lead rebel negotiator Ivan Marquez said, standing outside a convention center for the start of talks in Havana. The gesture is a sign that the rebels may be keen to push talks to a successful end - something that was thrown into doubt by long, drawn-out speeches by its leadership calling for major changes to Colombia's political system. The warring sides arrived at the talks in black luxury cars and will meet almost daily until negotiations end. A crush of journalists surrounded the bearded, bespectacled Marquez who stood with other FARC delegates, including Dutch national Tanja Nijmeijer in Havana's plushest neighborhood. Some FARC members wore caps and T-shirts of Simon Trinidad, an official guerrilla negotiator who is in prison in the United States. Others shouted ""Long Live the Army of the People."" The head of the Colombian government delegation, Humberto de la Calle, smiled and waved as he entered but made no comment. Speaking from Bogota, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon doubted the sincerity of the FARC's ceasefire pledge. ""Security forces have the constitutional duty to pursue all criminals that have violated the constitution,"" he said. ""Hopefully they keep their promise, but history shows that this terrorist group never complies with anything."" Colombia's war has dragged on for 50 years, taking thousands of lives, displacing millions more and causing damage to infrastructure in Latin America's longest running insurgency. A failure of the latest peace process would mean years of more fighting and further blight on the reputation of a country eager for foreign investment and regional clout, yet which has been unable to resolve its most serious domestic problem. Residents in western Cauca province, one of Colombia's most war-ravaged areas, celebrated the FARC ceasefire. ""We hope it's not just two months, we hope that it's definitive,"" Orlando Ramos, a resident in Miranda, Cauca, said on local television. 'GRAIN OF SALT' The announcement by the FARC could be a breather for oil and mining companies, the target of many FARC attacks in recent months as the group sought to hobble Santos' main source of international revenue. The war costs Latin America's fourth-largest economy 1 to 2 percentage points of gross domestic product every year, according to the government, and makes large tracts of arable land unsafe due to combat or landmines. ""A peace agreement with the FARC could entice more sectors and investors into Colombia,"" said Eurasia Group's Latin America analyst Heather Berkman. ""The opportunities for agriculture production in particular could reshape the country's export sector, particularly as both small-scale and larger farmers could produce on land long off-limits due to security troubles."" Santos wants an agreement within nine months, while the rebels say the process will likely take longer. The two sides face plenty of thorny issues in their five-point agenda, which will begin with rural development. Previous peace attempts have failed, but both the government and the FARC have expressed optimism that this time might be different. Not everyone is so upbeat though. ""You have to take this announcement with a grain of salt,"" Felix Lafaurie, head of Colombia's National Federation of Cattle Ranchers, said on Colombian radio. ""I hope this is going to be a sign of the FARC's good will and not that they'll then take swipes on substantive issues."" The vast majority of Colombians support the peace process, although they think it will ultimately fail. Even so, the talks are the biggest gamble in Santos' political career and their success or failure may decide the outcome of the next election in 2014. The conflict dates back to 1964 when the FARC emerged as a communist agrarian movement intent on overturning Colombia's long history of social inequality. During the 1990s, the FARC controlled large parts of the country. In the early 2000s, billions of dollars in US aid, improved intelligence and increased mobility began to turn the tide of the war in favor of the government. The FARC has lost at least half a dozen top commanders and been pushed back into remote jungle hideouts in recent years, though the rebels are far from a spent force and still wage attacks on security forces and economic infrastructure. Violence was among the reasons previous peace talks failed. In the last attempt from 1999 to 2002, the government broke off negotiations after the FARC hijacked an airplane. ""The FARC have heard the voice of many Colombians, that rightly have been skeptical about its willingness to reach an end to the war, given the past,"" said Juan Fernando Cristo, a senator for the Liberal Party. ""The decision for a unilateral truce should fill us with optimism about what's coming at the negotiating table.""",5
"Johnson did not draw an explicit parallel between Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump after talks with the Democratic president in the English seaside resort of Carbis Bay on the eve of a summit of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies. But his comments made clear Biden had taken a much more multilateral approach to talks than Trump, whose vision of the world at times shocked, angered and bewildered many of Washington's European allies. ""It’s a big breath of fresh air,"" Johnson said of a meeting that lasted about an hour and 20 minutes. ""It was a long, long, good session. We covered a huge range of subjects,"" he said. ""It’s new, it’s interesting and we’re working very hard together."" The two leaders appeared relaxed as they admired the view across the Atlantic alongside their wives, with Jill Biden wearing a jacket embroidered with the word ""LOVE"". ""It’s a beautiful beginning,"" she said. Though Johnson said the talks were ""great"", Biden brought grave concerns about a row between Britain and the European Union which he said could threaten peace in the British region of Northern Ireland, which following Britain's departure from the EU is on the United Kingdom's frontier with the bloc as it borders EU member state Ireland. The two leaders did not have a joint briefing after the meeting: Johnson spoke to British media while Biden made a speech about a US plan to donate half a billion vaccines to poorer countries. NORTHERN IRELAND Biden, who is proud of his Irish heritage, was keen to prevent difficult negotiations between Brussels and London undermining a 1998 US-brokered peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Britain that Biden had a ""rock-solid belief"" in the peace deal and that any steps that imperilled the accord would not be welcomed. Yael Lempert, the top US diplomat in Britain, issued London with a demarche - a formal diplomatic reprimand - for ""inflaming"" tensions, the Times newspaper reported. Johnson sought to play down the differences with Washington. ""There’s complete harmony on the need to keep going, find solutions, and make sure we uphold the Belfast Good Friday Agreement,"" said Johnson, one of the leaders of the 2016 campaign to leave the EU. Asked if Biden had made his alarm about the situation in Northern Ireland very clear, he said: ""No he didn't. ""America, the United States, Washington, the UK, plus the European Union have one thing we absolutely all want to do,"" Johnson said. ""And that is to uphold the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, and make sure we keep the balance of the peace process going. That is absolutely common ground."" The 1998 peace deal largely brought an end to the ""Troubles"" - three decades of conflict between Irish Catholic nationalist militants and pro-British Protestant ""loyalist"" paramilitaries in which 3,600 people were killed. Britain's exit from the EU has strained the peace in Northern Ireland. The 27-nation bloc wants to protect its markets but a border in the Irish Sea cuts off the British province from the rest of the United Kingdom. Although Britain formally left the EU in 2020, the two sides are still trading threats over the Brexit deal after London unilaterally delayed the implementation of the Northern Irish clauses of the deal. Johnson's Downing Street office said he and Biden agreed that both Britain and the EU ""had a responsibility to work together and to find pragmatic solutions to allow unencumbered trade"" between Northern Ireland, Britain and Ireland.""",0
"In 13 of 26 countries, people listed climate change as the top global threat, with the Islamic State militant group topping the list in eight and cyber attacks in four, the non-profit, non-partisan Pew Research Center said in its report. Worries about climate change have increased sharply since 2013, with double-digit percentage point increases seen in countries including the United States, Mexico, France, Britain, South Africa and Kenya, according to the poll of 27,612 people conducted between May and August, 2018. North Korea’s nuclear program and the global economy were also significant concerns, while respondents in Poland named Russian power and influence as the top threat. The largest shift in sentiment centered on the United States, it said, with a median of 45 percent of people naming US power and influence as a threat in 2018, up from 25 percent in 2013, when Barack Obama was US president. In 10 countries, including Germany, Japan and South Korea, roughly half of respondents or more saw U.S. power and influence as a major threat to their nation, up from eight in 2017 and three in 2013, the poll showed. In Mexico, where those concerns have spiked since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, the percentage jumped to 64 percent, the poll showed. Trump has railed against illegal migration and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and is pressing to build a wall between the two countries. In 2018, a median of 61 percent of respondents across all countries represented viewed cyber attacks as a serious concern, up from 54 percent in 2017. The number of countries that saw Islamic State as a threat fell by double-digit percentage points in Israel, Spain, the United States and Japan.",0
" Australia's John Howard ended his 11-year reign as Australian prime minister on Saturday after a crushing defeat for his conservative party in a general election, leaving a booming economy but deep divisions over social issues. Howard, who describes himself as an economic liberal but a social conservative, won four straight elections from March 1996, largely due to his record of economic management and iron grip on national security and illegal immigration. He strengthened Australia's ties with the United States, staunchly backing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and intervened to stop the collapse of troubled Pacific island nations. ""I leave the office of prime minister with our nation more prouder and more prosperous,"" Howard said in conceding defeat. ""I accept full responsibility for the Liberal party campaign and I therefore accept full responsibility for the coalition defeat in this election campaign,"" he said. The swing to opposition Labor left Howard, 68, struggling to retain his own seat, although he was expected to resign from parliament even if he managed a narrow win. The seeds of the election defeat were sewn with his fourth victory in 2004, when Howard won a majority in the upper house Senate, making him the most powerful prime minister in 25 years and allowing him to pass his agenda without amendments. Emboldened by his new mandate, Howard set about his long-held goal of reforming Australian employment laws, making it easier for employers to sack workers and promoting individual work contracts instead of union-based award conditions. The changes were unpopular with workers, and prompted widespread protests across the country and a concerted campaign from unions, who said the reforms undermined job security and would drive down wages. The changes have been a lightning rod for disgruntled voters Australia's biggest cities, with job security falling while house prices and home mortgage interest rates rise. ""Howard has had some successes in managing a prosperous economy,"" political analyst Nick Economou told Reuters. ""But then they made a major error by instilling insecurity in people at a time of prosperity."" RELAXED AND COMFORTABLE When he first won power in 1996, Howard said he wanted Australia to be ""relaxed and comfortable"" about its place in the world, rather than a nation struggling with its European cultural roots and its geographical location in the Asia-Pacific. He has overseen growing trade with China and Japan, stronger ties with Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, and has championed free trade, negotiating a string of bilateral free trade agreements. But his close political and personal affiliation with U.S. President George W. Bush led the media to describe Howard as Bush's ""deputy sheriff"" in the region. A survey of foreign policy analysts, by the respected Lowy Institute, said Howard's decision to join the 2003 war on Iraq was his government's biggest foreign policy mistake, followed by his decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The same survey nominated Howard's support for East Timor's independence from Indonesia, and the decision to send 5,000 troops to restore order after East Timor's 1999 independence vote, as the highlights of his premiership. Under Howard, the government eliminated inherited debt and has delivered a series of budget surpluses, with unemployment at 33-year lows and and an economy growing strongly, mainly due to Chinese demand for Australian resources. But Economou said said the economic gains came at the expense of social issues and a series of scandals, which voters have largely overlooked over the past 11 years. Howard's tough stand against asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, who are detained in remote immigration detention camps or sent to centres in Nauru or Papua New Guinea, has attracted widespread criticism from human rights groups. Howard's government also failed to act when warned that the country's monopoly wheat exporter had paid more than $220 million worth of bribes to the former government of Saddam Hussein in return for wheat deals ahead of the Iraq war. And immigration authorities have been embroiled in a series of blunders after deporting or detaining Australian citizens as suspected illegal immigrants. Howard also angered Aborigines with his steadfast refusal to apologise for past injustices, despite a major report calling for an apology to help reconcile differences between Aborigines and other Australians.",0
" Across the globe, chickens and pigs are doing their bit to curb global warming. But cows and sheep still have some catching up to do. The farm animals produce lots of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that gets far less public attention than carbon dioxide yet is at the heart of efforts to fight climate change. Government policies and a UN-backed system of emission credits is proving a money-spinner for investors, farmers and big polluters such as power stations wanting to offset their own emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). The reason is simple: methane is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere and it is relatively simple to capture the gas from animal waste, landfills, coal mines or leaky natural gas pipes. ""A fifth of all greenhouse gas-induced global warming has been due to methane since pre-industrial times,"" said climate scientist Paul Fraser of Australia, where ruminant farm animals belch out vast amounts of the gas. Methane concentrations have increased about 150 percent in the air since 1750 and now far exceed the natural range of the past 650,000 years, the UN's climate panel says. And human activities are largely to blame. The panel will be focusing on ways to curb methane and other greenhouse gas emissions when it releases a major report on mitigating the effects of climate change in Bangkok in early May. ""It's been argued that the reductions from methane are potentially cheaper than from carbon dioxide,"" said Bill Hare, climate policy director for Greenpeace and a lead author of the mitigation report. ""A lot of policy discussion in the United States has focused on methane rather than more difficult problems such as CO2 from coal,"" he added. This is because capturing methane from landfills, mines, or from fossil fuel production or natural gas lines is pretty straight forward and makes economic sense. Methane is a major component of natural gas and can be burned to generate power. Agriculture was a greater challenge, Hare said. A MATTER OF BALANCE ""There are more difficult areas for methane from livestock and from rice agriculture where, at best, longer time scales are required to change practices in agriculture than you might need in industrial areas,"" Hare said. Rice paddies and other irrigated crops produce large amounts of methane, as do natural wetlands. Vast amounts of methane are also locked up in deposits under the ice in sub-polar regions, in permafrost or under the sea. Hare said there are lots of options being looked at, such as additives for cattle and sheep to cut the amount of methane in their burps and moving away from intensive livestock feed lots to range-fed animals. ""And for example in rice, just changing the timing and when and how you flood rice paddies has great potential to reduce methane emissions."" For the moment, the amount of methane in the atmosphere is steady after levelling off around 1999, said Fraser, leader of the Changing Atmosphere Research Group at Australia's government-funded Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. This is thought to be because the drying out of tropical wetlands seems to cancelling out a rise in emissions from the oil and gas industry. But how long this lasts is anyone's guess. ""Most people would agree that some time in the future methane is going to start growing again, just because of the world demand for natural gas, rice and cattle,"" Fraser said. POO POWER All the more reason why chicken manure and pig waste are hot commodities. Under the UN's Kyoto Protocol, a system called the Clean Development Mechanism allows rich countries to keep within their emissions limits by funding projects that soak up greenhouse gases in poor countries, getting carbon credits in return. This has made huge pig farms in South America and poultry farms in India attractive investments. The waste is put into digesters and the methane extracted and burned to generate electricity or simply flared to create CO2 -- not perfect, but a lesser greenhouse gas evil. And interest is growing in these kinds of projects, said N Yuvaraj Dinesh Babu of the Singapore-based Carbon Exchange, which trades Kyoto carbon credits and helps broker emissions off-setting deals. The Kyoto system of emissions credits has proved popular and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which administers it, says dozens of methane-abatement projects have been approved in recent years with more being considered. But Stephan Singer of conservation group WWF thinks this is not the complete solution. He believes more attention should be paid to controlling carbon dioxide emissions and the sources of methane not so easily controlled. Only about 50 percent of all methane emissions are being controlled, namely from landfills, coal mines and the oil and gas industry, said Singer, head of WWF's European Energy and Climate Policy Unit. ""What worries me is the increased methane coming out of the stomachs of ruminants, mainly for increased beef consumption within an increasingly wealthy world. The diet of the West has a big impact on the atmosphere."" In the United States, cattle emit about 5.5 million tonnes of methane per year into the atmosphere, accounting for 20 percent of US methane emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency says. In New Zealand, emissions from agriculture comprise about half of all greenhouse gas emissions. But what worries Singer most is a rapid release of methane stored in sub-polar permafrost or in huge methane hydrate deposits under the sea. While this has not happened, some scientists suggest it might occur in a warmer world. ""If methane hydrates leak, then we're gone, then it's over.""",0
" Climate change is turning the oceans more acid in a trend that could endanger everything from clams to coral and be irreversible for thousands of years, national science academies said on Monday. Seventy academies from around the world urged governments meeting in Bonn for climate talks from June 1-12 to take more account of risks to the oceans in a new UN treaty for fighting global warming due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December. ""To avoid substantial damage to ocean ecosystems, deep and rapid reductions of carbon dioxide emissions of at least 50 percent (below 1990 levels) by 2050, and much more thereafter, are needed,"" the academies said in a joint statement. The academies said rising amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted mainly by human use of fossil fuels, were being absorbed by the oceans and making it harder for creatures to build protective body parts. The shift disrupts ocean chemistry and attacks the ""building blocks needed by many marine organisms, such as corals and shellfish, to produce their skeletons, shells and other hard structures"", it said. On some projections, levels of acidification in 80 percent of Arctic seas would be corrosive to clams that are vital to the food web by 2060, it said. And ""coral reefs may be dissolving globally,"" it said, if atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide were to rise to 550 parts per million (ppm) from a current 387 ppm. Corals are home to many species of fish. ""These changes in ocean chemistry are irreversible for many thousands of years, and the biological consequences could last much longer,"" it said. The warning was issued by the Inter-Academy Panel, representing science academies of countries from Albania to Zimbabwe and including those of Australia, Britain, France, Japan and the United States. UNDERWATER CATASTROPHE Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, the British science academy, said there may be an ""underwater catastrophe"". ""The effects will be seen worldwide, threatening food security, reducing coastal protection and damaging the local economies that may be least able to tolerate it,"" he said. The academies' statement said that, if current rates of carbon emissions continue until 2050, computer models indicate that ""the oceans will be more acidic than they have been for tens of millions of years"". It also urged actions to reduce other pressures on the oceans, such as pollution and over-fishing.",0
" China went on the global warming offensive on Monday, unveiling a climate change action plan while stressing it will not sacrifice economic ambitions to international demands to cut greenhouse gas pollution. The official launching the plan said emissions caps that dented growth in poor nations would do more damage than climate change itself -- despite the storms, droughts and rising sea levels that global warming threatens to generate. ""The ramifications of limiting the development of developing countries would be even more serious than those from climate change,"" said Ma Kai, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, which steers climate change policy. ""China will not commit to any quantified emissions reduction targets, but that does not mean we will not assume responsibilities in responding to climate change,"" he told reporters. China's first national plan on climate change vows to combat global warming through energy saving, agricultural adaptation and forest planting. But the document will also serve as a shield for tough international talks ahead. Beijing faces rising calls to sign up to quotas for taming greenhouse gas emissions trapping more heat in the atmosphere. The plan appeared two days before President Hu Jintao attends a meeting of Group of Eight leaders in Germany which will focus on global warming. ""This is more of a mobilisation rally to draw the battle line as the G8 approaches. Beijing wants to make sure that China is not the target of world opinion on global warming issues,"" said Wenran Jiang, an energy expert at the University of Alberta. The plan says wealthy powers produced most of the gases currently heating the globe and still have far higher per capita emissions than China, so they should fund clean development rather than forcing poor countries to accept emission limits. Rich countries had shifted manufacturing to poor nations like China and then blamed them for rising pollution, while dragging their feet over promises to share clean technology, he said. ""We feel that there's been lots of thunder but little rain, lots of talk but little action,"" he told the news conference when asked if China was satisfied with technology transfers. Ma said that in 2004 his nation's average per capita emissions were about one fifth of US levels for the same year. Contention over greenhouse gases is set to intensify as negotiations open on extending a UN treaty on global warming beyond 2012, when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol's first phase ends. China on Monday welcomed US President George Bush's recent proposals on global warming as a ""positive change"", but joined several European leaders in calling for a single global approach. Bush aims to convene 15 top polluting nations, including China, to develop long-term goals to combat global warming. Some critics fear Bush's proposal for separate talks could rival UN efforts. Ma said they should be a ""helpful complement, not a substitute"". But he disputed an EU target of limiting temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius, calling for further studies on the social and economic impacts of the target. ""I think that as yet there is no scientific basis for that,"" Ma said. The national plan spells out the threats China sees from global warming in coming decades -- intensified droughts and floods, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, and declines in grain yields unless counter steps are taken. It promises to support clean transport, wind and solar power, recycling in industry, ""stress-resistant"" crops, and shore walls to withstand rising seas. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will head a ""national leading group"" to orchestrate climate change policy, the plan said. The creation of the group ""indicates increased seriousness about the climate change issue"", said Gorild Heggelund, who analyses Chinese global warming policy at the Fridjof Nansen Institute in Norway. Beijing now had in place broad goals to navigate climate politics in years ahead, said Zou Ji of the People's University of China, who advised the government on the plan. He said resistance to emissions quotas would not shift. ""But that doesn't mean there's not room for cooperation or negotiation,"" he added. ""It does mean that cooperation has to be on the basis that economic development has to continue.""",0
" Dhaka will be home to the South Asian branch of a global network that works to ensure that public institutions are held responsible and accountable to the people for delivering public services. The Affiliated Network for Social Accountability-South Asia Region (ANSA-SAR) was officially launched in the capital on Sunday. It will be coordinated from the Institute of Governance Studies at BRAC University. ""We need to move from elections to what happens between votes,"" Gopakumar Thampi, chief operating officer of ANSA-SAR, said in the launching ceremony. Funded by the World Bank Institute, the network has already partnered with organisations from seven countries to focus on four areas including climate change adaptation and mitigation, right to information, procurement rules and citizen watchdogs (third party monitoring). Members from partner organisations in different countries came to attend the launching ceremony. They emphasised the need to share knowledge in an effort to enhance capacities for tackling corruption and ensuring accountability. The acting vice chancellor of BRAC University Md. Golam Samdani Fakir was also present at the launch at the Journalism Training and Research Initiative.",2
"This week, he is attempting both as he dispatches two of his most senior envoys to Japan and South Korea in his administration’s highest-level foreign travel since it took office in January. The visits to the United States’ strongest partners in East Asia are a prelude to the Biden administration’s opening round of face-to-face contact with Beijing. One of the envoys, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will travel on to Alaska and join Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, in a meeting with China’s two top diplomats. The administration sees the gathering as a chance to establish ground rules and set red lines for a relationship that Blinken has called “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.” US officials have described it as “a one-off session” to identify issues where Washington can work with Beijing — and then “lay out, in very frank terms, the many concerns that we have,” Blinken told Congress last week. The flurry of diplomacy, which began Friday with a virtual summit with the US’s so-called Quad allies — Australia, India and Japan — establishes the Asia-Pacific as a top priority for the Biden administration after Barack Obama’s halting “pivot” to Asia and Donald Trump’s bluntly transactional approach to alliances in the region. The dialogue with allies less than two months into the new administration also underlines the president’s goal of shoring up international partnerships to face down adversaries and, in turn, further US interests. “The more China hears, not just our opprobrium, but a course of opprobrium from around the world, the better the chance that we’ll get some changes,” Blinken told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington last week. It will not be easy. China, having brought the coronavirus to heel early in the pandemic, has only bolstered its economic position as rivals in the West struggle to recover. And militarily it has narrowed the gap with the United States through huge investments. Those strengths have helped embolden China on the global stage. Even as Washington tries to chart a new, if still wary, relationship with Beijing, US officials on Friday downplayed the notion that China would overshadow the three days of discussions in Tokyo and Seoul. Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd J Austin III are expected to discuss a range of subjects, including the pandemic, climate change and the large US troop presence in the region. Relations between Japan and South Korea, which have reached a low point over historical disputes, are likely to be a topic of conversation. Also on the agenda will be the month-old military coup in Myanmar and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, which remain firmly in place after the Trump administration’s failed flirtation with the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un. The decision to make Japan the first destination for Blinken and Austin was seen as a significant and reassuring development in Tokyo, which worked hard to maintain close ties with Trump even as he demanded huge increases in payments to keep US troops in the country. On Friday, the White House announced that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga would be the first foreign leader to meet with Biden in Washington. “At the end of the Trump administration, with regard to Asia, we were bickering with our allies over how much to pay for the cost sharing in terms of defence,” said Victor Cha, who oversaw Asia policy at the White House during the George W Bush administration and advises the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We had a very unilateral view when it came to alliances as a nation, almost a disdainful view with regard to them.” “At the same time,” Cha said, “China was using its economic leverage all around the region to bully other countries.” The Trump administration took an often contradictory approach toward China. Trump often flattered its authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, as he tried to strike trade deals. At the same time, his administration criticised Beijing’s human rights abuses, military and cyberspace incursions, and assaults on democracy. The Biden administration’s strategy could prove just as dizzying. Blinken has described seeking a relationship that is based at once on cooperation, competition and, as needed, confrontation with China. To make it work, the United States is banking on backup from allies like Japan and South Korea. Both countries have tried to walk a fine line on China: Their prosperity depends on trade with Beijing, but they break with China on matters of security, democracy and human rights. Tokyo has grown more vocal as the Chinese military has made incursions around islands that Japan administers in the East China Sea, known in Japan as the Senkakus and in China as the Diaoyu. Seoul has used its temperate relations with Beijing as a pressure tactic against North Korea, which depends on China to keep its economy afloat. For their part, China’s leaders have said they are eager to get the relationship with the United States back on an even keel. Some analysts have warned that any steps toward a detente could just buy China more time to develop technological and military capabilities before a diplomatic breakdown. “As two countries with different social systems, China and the United States naturally have differences and disagreements,” Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, said at a news conference in Beijing on March 7. Wang and Yang Jiechi, China’s top diplomat, will be meeting with Blinken in Alaska. Wang called it normal to have a “healthy competition on a fair and just basis for the purpose of self-improvement and mutual enhancement, rather than finger-pointing or zero-sum competition.” Yet Chinese leaders also appear concerned about the Biden strategy of rallying allies into a coherent bloc against China, something that could hurt Beijing politically and economically. Last week, for example, the Quad countries announced an effort to ship coronavirus vaccines to Southeast Asia, countering China’s own efforts at so-called vaccine diplomacy. Wang cited the pandemic, the economic recovery from it and climate change as areas where China and the United States could cooperate, though he provided no details. But he said that the United States and others had no right to interfere in what he described as internal matters — human rights abuses against ethnic Uighurs in China’s western Xinjiang region, efforts to subvert democracy in Hong Kong and surveillance and repression in Tibet. He also drew a “red line” on the question of Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island that Beijing claims as an inalienable part of a greater China. Days later, a US destroyer passed through the Taiwan Strait. The United States describes such voyages as routine, but they are seen as hostile by China. It was the third since Biden came into office, signalling support of Taiwan. While Japanese officials are sure to seek assurances from Austin that the US military would come to Japan’s aid in the event of a conflict with China over the Senkaku Islands, his time in Seoul is expected to be consumed with the question of whether to resume regular large-scale military exercises with South Korea, which Trump abruptly cancelled. Last week, the two countries reached a cost-sharing agreement for stationing US troops in South Korea, a presence that Trump had also threatened to end. After the meetings in Tokyo and Seoul, Austin will travel to India, which is at its lowest point in relations with China in decades after a deadly border incursion last summer. Blinken will arrive in Alaska on Thursday for the meeting with the Chinese envoys. As he wished Blinken luck for the talks, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that “we cannot treat them as a normal adversary.” “We are truly in an ideological struggle fighting for democracy against authoritarianism and promoting freedom over oppression,” McCaul said. He added that the United States had for four decades “turned a blind eye” to China’s ruling Communist Party in hopes of persuading its leaders to follow international norms. “Unfortunately, it just didn’t work,” McCaul said.   © 2021 New York Times News Service",0
"PORT OF SPAIN, Nov 29, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - For Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, the cold scientific numbers of the climate debate add up to the very survival of his tropical Indian Ocean state. If global temperatures rise just 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ""we won't be around, we will be underwater,"" he told Reuters in Trinidad and Tobago, where he and other leaders of the 53-nation Commonwealth pledged support for a definitive climate deal in Copenhagen next month. World leaders seeking to thrash out a binding global treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming cite an estimate by scientists that the world must limit average global warming to 2 degrees Celsius to avoid dangerous climate change, such as rising sea levels and flooding. Nasheed tells his fellow heads of state that 2 degrees Celsius warming would risk swamping the sand-rimmed coral atolls and islets, dotted with palm trees and mangrove clumps, that form his small country. If U.N. predictions are correct, most of the low-lying Maldives will be submerged by 2100. ""Really, we are sandbanks, very precarious and delicate,"" Nasheed said. The archipelago has a population of some 400,000 islanders, whose livelihood from fishing and tourism is already being hit by climate change. ""Ocean temperatures have risen and during the last four years we've had very bad fisheries,"" the president said. ""A number of islanders are having to relocate themselves because of erosion ... (and) of course, with sea water rise, the water table is being contaminated,"" he added. This disruption of sewage and water systems was also causing outbreaks of disease like Chikungunya, a viral disease transmitted to humans by the bite of infected mosquitoes. The Maldives and 41 other low-lying coastal and small island countries that form the Alliance of Small Island States are on the front line of the climate change threat that will occupy some 90 heads of state and government at Dec. 7-18 U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen. UNDERWATER CABINET MEETING Nasheed, 42, is pushing world leaders to set even more stringent curbs to limit greenhouse gas emissions -- the 2 degrees Celsius warming figure is associated with a concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of 450 parts per million of CO2 equivalent. ""We want to see if we can get that down to 350 parts per million. But they're talking about, if anything, 450 ... . With 450, we've really lost it. It's really, really not enough for us and a number of other small island states,"" he said. Nasheed said that even a rise of 70 centimeters (27.6 inches) in the ocean level in the next 40 years would wipe out 30 percent of the dry land area of his country. At the Commonwealth summit in Port of Spain, the Maldives leader did receive a sympathetic response to his plea for ""fast track money"" to help small and vulnerable states counter the effects of global warming and sea level rise. The Commonwealth, swinging its weight behind momentum for a climate deal in Denmark next month, backed a plan to establish a Copenhagen Launch Fund, starting next year and building to $10 billion annually by 2012. Nasheed said this money could be used to create anti-flooding and sea-rise defenses like breakwaters. He said the funds could also be used in poor states like the Maldives to finance the transfer of technology from rich nations. He mentioned biological engineering techniques aimed at shoring up coastlines, such as developing genetically modified coral to form barrier reefs. More mangroves could also be planted to secure soil from erosion. ""You have to understand local conditions, and consult with the people and see what is best for them,"" said the president, who last month donned scuba gear to hold the world's first underwater Cabinet meeting in a symbolic cry for help over rising sea levels. Citing what he called island mentality -- ""you are confined to this little space with horizon all around you"" -- Nasheed said many Maldives inhabitants would oppose being relocated to avoid a potential climate change catastrophe. ""We have been there for the last ... 2,000 years, and it's very, very difficult for us to convince anyone to move,"" he said. But people grasp the significance of climate change. ""Unlike evolution, which is hard to sell for traditional societies ... climate change is very much in line with what the Scripture is talking about, the End,"" Nasheed said.",0
"The Metropolitan Police Department of
Washington, DC, said that Wynn Bruce, 50, of Boulder, Colorado, had died
Saturday from his injuries after being airlifted to a hospital following the
incident. Members of his family could not be reached immediately for comment. Kritee Kanko, a climate scientist at the
Environmental Defense Fund and a Zen Buddhist priest in Boulder, said that she
is a friend of Bruce and that the self-immolation was a planned act of protest. “This act is not suicide,” Kritee wrote on
Twitter early Sunday morning. “This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to
bring attention to climate crisis.” She later added that she was not completely
certain of his intentions, but that “people are being driven to extreme amounts
of climate grief and despair” and that “what I do not want to happen is that
young people start thinking about self-immolation.” Bruce had set himself on fire at the plaza in
front of the Supreme Court at about 6:30 pm Friday, police and court officials
said. A video posted to Twitter by a Fox News reporter showed a National Park
Service helicopter landing in the plaza to airlift Bruce to a nearby hospital. The court had heard arguments in late February
on an important environmental case that could restrict or even eliminate the
Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to control pollution. The court’s
conservative majority had voiced scepticism of the agency’s authority to
regulate carbon emissions, suggesting that a decision by the justices could
deal a sharp blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to address climate
change. Bruce, who identified as Buddhist, set himself
on fire in an apparent imitation of Vietnamese monks who burned themselves to
death in protest during the Vietnam War. A Facebook account that Kritee
identified as Bruce’s had commemorated the death of Thich Nhat Hanh, an
influential Zen Buddhist master and anti-war activist who died in January. Thich Nhat Hanh, in a letter he wrote in 1965
to the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, had idolised those monks. Kritee cited
that letter in another tweet on Bruce’s death Sunday morning. “The press spoke then of suicide, but in the
essence, it is not. It is not even a protest,” Thich Nhat Hanh wrote of the
monks, adding that “to burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying
is of the utmost importance. There is nothing more painful than burning
oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is to say it
with utmost courage, frankness, determination, and sincerity.” David Buckel, a prominent civil rights lawyer
turned environmental advocate, also set himself on fire in Brooklyn’s Prospect
Park in 2018 to protest climate change and died. In a letter beforehand, Buckel
alluded to the spiritual roots of self-immolation in protests, including in
Tibet. Bruce had, on his own Facebook page nearly
three weeks before his act, recently edited a 2021 comment — under his post in
2020 warning of “irreversible” climate change — to include the date of his
planned self-immolation, with a fire emoji. The apparent announcement of his
plans was buried in his account timeline. Other posts from Bruce’s Facebook account
going back to April 2020 criticised “war profiteers,” President Donald Trump
and collective inaction in the face of a worsening climate crisis. He also
praised young climate activist Greta Thunberg, quoted King, and as recently as
March spoke of the “compassion” of Ukrainian refugees. Kritee said that the last time Bruce had
communicated with her was in a Facebook message he had sent in January, asking
if she had seen his post about Thunberg. She added that if she or any other
Buddhist teacher in Boulder had known of his plan to set himself on fire, they
would have discouraged him from doing so. There have been previous instances of public
self-immolation in Washington. Arnav Gupta burned himself in front of the White
House in 2019 and later died of his injuries. A motive in that case was never
determined. Mohamed Alanssi, a Yemeni-born FBI informant, set himself on fire outside
the White House in 2004 in protest of his treatment by the government, but he
survived. Norman R Morrison, a Quaker man, burned himself to death outside the
Pentagon in 1965 in protest of the Vietnam War. ©2022 The New York Times Company",0
" Leaders of 16 Asian countries, including top polluters China and Japan, agreed to a vague pact on climate change on Wednesday, trying to put aside discord over Myanmar's suppression of democracy protests. In the declaration signed in Singapore, leaders of the East Asia Summit (EAS) committed to stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations in the long run. But the pact, which contains no fixed targets on cutting emissions or even limiting their growth by a specific date, would serve as a basis for climate change negotiations at a major UN meeting next month in Bali. The EAS -- 10 Southeast Asian nations plus China, India, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand -- -- also agreed that ""all countries should play a role in addressing the common challenge of climate change, based on the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities."" Asked why the declaration did not include any numerical targets, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said: ""This is a declaration of intent, not a negotiated treaty of what we are going to do to restrict ourselves."" Australia said the pact would make it easier to negotiate a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations hopes the Bali meeting will kick off two years of talks to agree on a new global framework to fight climate change. ""There has been a turning of the tide in China and India's position -- they're saying 'yes we need to do something to stabilise emissions',"" Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said earlier. China, the world's second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide after the United States, and India have steadfastly refused to agree to fixed targets and want rich nations to take the lead in cutting emissions and pay for cleaner energy technology. ""It's not positive but what can we expect? We can't expect countries like China or India to be on the same line as Japan -- these emerging countries are not ready to move first,"" said Emmanuel Fages, carbon analyst at French bank Societe Generale. ""There's nothing homogenous in Asia,"" he added. The only numerical target in the climate pact was on forest cover. The group agreed to ""work to achieve an EAS-wide aspirational goal of increasing cumulative forest area in the region by at least 15 million hectares (37.5 million acres) of all types of forest by 2020"". MAD ABOUT MYANMAR While the East Asian leaders tried to focus on climate change and trade, the issue of how to encourage wayward member Myanmar to embrace democracy soured ASEAN's 40th anniversary celebrations at which the grouping adopted a legal charter. The Philippines broke ranks with other Association of South East Asian Nations members and called for the immediate release of detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. ""We particularly deplore the treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi. She must be released. Now,"" Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement. Arroyo said on Monday the Philippine Congress might not ratify the charter if Myanmar did not commit to democracy and release Suu Kyi. The charter -- which gives ASEAN a legal identity and enshrines principles of democracy and human rights -- needs to be ratified within 12 months following the signatures on Tuesday. ""All countries have to ratify it to bring it into effect,"" Singapore's Lee told reporters. He added the sanctions that Western countries had slapped on Myanmar were ineffective because the regime had chosen to isolate itself from the outside world. ""You say I don't want to do business in Myanmar but it's water off a duck's back,"" Lee said.",0
"Desperate families queued for blocks in the heat to search a morgue for loved ones who died when several rivers burst their banks in the early hours of Saturday, sending water, mud and debris crashing down streets and into houses as people slept. Bodies wrapped in white sheets lay on the concrete floor of the morgue as officials sought to bury them as soon as possible to avoid the spread of disease. The government will begin vaccination against infectious disease on Monday. ""My father's funeral is planned for this afternoon, but if his body becomes too fetid, we'll have to do it without the ceremony,"" said Maria Helena Benitez, a 50-year-old farming housewife. The death toll may rise further as rescuers searched with dogs and machinery in the mud-choked rubble. Many families in Mocoa spent all night digging through the debris with their hands despite a lack of food, clean water and electricity. Only about 45 bodies have been identified so far. President Juan Manuel Santos, who made a second visit to the area on Sunday, blamed climate change for the disaster, saying Mocoa had received one-third of its usual monthly rain in just one night, causing the rivers to burst their banks. Others said deforestation in surrounding mountains meant there were few trees to prevent water washing down bare slopes. More than 500 people were staying in emergency housing and social services had helped 10 lost children find their parents. As many as 43 children were killed. Families of the dead will receive about $6,400 in aid and the government will cover hospital and funeral costs. Even in a country where heavy rains, a mountainous landscape and informal construction combine to make landslides a common occurrence, the scale of the Mocoa disaster was daunting compared to recent tragedies, including a 2015 landslide that killed nearly 100 people. Colombia's deadliest landslide, the 1985 Armero disaster, killed more than 20,000 people. Santos urged Colombians to take precautions against flooding and continued rains. Flooding in Peru last month killed more than 100 people and destroyed infrastructure.",0
"SINGAPORE, Sep 14, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - A team of scientists studying rock samples in Africa has shown a strong link between falling carbon dioxide levels and the formation of Antarctic ice sheets 34 million years ago. The results are the first to make the link, underpinning computer climate models that predict both the creation of ice sheets when CO2 levels fall and the melting of ice caps when CO2 levels rise. The team, from Cardiff, Bristol and Texas A&M Universities, spent weeks in the African bush in Tanzania with an armed guard to protect them from lions to extract samples of tiny fossils that could reveal CO2 levels in the atmosphere 34 million years ago. Levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, mysteriously fell during this time in an event called the Eocene-Oligocene climate transition. ""This was the biggest climate switch since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago,"" said co-author Bridget Wade from Texas A&M University. The study reconstructed CO2 levels around this period, showing a dip around the time ice sheets in Antarctica started to form. CO2 levels were around 750 parts per million, about double current levels. ""There are no samples of air from that age that we can measure, so you need to find something you can measure that would have responded to the atmospheric CO2,"" Paul Pearson of Cardiff University told Reuters. Pearson, Wade and Gavin Foster from the University of Bristol gathered sediment samples in the Tanzanian village of Stakishari where there are deposits of a particular type of well-preserved microfossils that can reveal past CO2 levels. ""Our study is the first that uses some sort of proxy reconstruction of CO2 to point to the declining CO2 that most of us expected we ought to be able to find,"" Pearson said on Monday from Cardiff. He said that CO2, being an acidic gas, causes changes in acidity in the ocean, which absorbs large amounts of the gas. ""We can pick that up through chemistry of microscopic plankton shells that were living in the surface ocean at the time,"" he explained. Evidence from around Antarctica was much harder to find. ""The ice caps covered everything in Antarctica. The erosion of sediments around Antarctica since the formation of the ice caps has obliterated a lot of the pre-existing evidence that might have been there."" ""Our results are really in line with the most sophisticated climate models that have been applied to this interval,"" Pearson added. The results were published online in the journal Nature. ""Those models could be used to predict the melting of the ice. The suggested melting starts around 900 ppm (parts per million),"" he said, a level he believes could be reached by the end of this century, unless serious emissions cuts were made.",0
" Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will seek Moscow's support for a new global initiative to curb greenhouse gases on Saturday when he has his first meeting with Russia's outgoing and incoming presidents. Japanese officials said a territorial dispute over four islands in the Pacific -- a running sore in relations since World War Two -- will be touched on only briefly. Japan will host this year's Group of Eight summit on its northern island of Hokkaido and has placed finding a more effective replacement for the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012, at the top of the summit agenda. Fukuda is to have talks on Saturday with president-elect Dmitry Medvedev, who will be sworn in as head of state on May 7, and with President Vladimir Putin, who is stepping down but will stay on as prime minister and remain an influential player. The main aims of Fukuda's visit are to ""establish a personal relationship of trust with President Putin and president-elect Medvedev, and second, to prepare for the upcoming G8 summit,"" said a Japanese foreign ministry official. Tokyo hopes the G8 summit will help draft a climate change agreement that would embrace the biggest polluters such as the United States, China and India. None of these has signed up to the Kyoto Protocol's limits on emissions. Russia, a G8 member, was one of the biggest emerging economies to sign up to Kyoto commitments. Japanese officials hope Moscow will support a successor agreement in Hokkaido. The disputed islands, known in Russia as the Southern Kuriles and in Japan as the Northern Territories, lie just north of the G8 summit venue in Hokkaido. 
PERSONAL RELATIONS They were seized by Soviet troops in the last days of World War Two, and since then neither side has recognised the other's sovereignty over them. The issue has prevented Russia and Japan from signing a treaty ending wartime hostilities. Fukuda will urge the Russian leaders to accelerate talks aimed at resolving the territorial row, a senior Japanese government official said. ""Prime Minister Fukuda is expected to tell them that it is indispensable for the two countries to advance negotiations in a concrete fashion in order to elevate bilateral ties to a higher dimension,"" the official said. Russia has said it is ready to talk about the dispute, but has given no sign it is prepared to give up the islands. ""There is no change in our position. We do not expect any breakthroughs (in the talks with Fukuda),"" said a Kremlin official. Trade between Russia and Japan was worth $20 billion in 2007, fuelled by automakers such as Toyota Motor Corp which has set up a factory to tap into the booming Russian market. But trade is far smaller than the volumes between Russia and its biggest trading partner, the European Union. Japan says it is a natural partner to help Russia achieve its ambition of developing its Far East region, a huge and sparsely-populated area of largely untapped energy resources. Japanese firms have taken stakes in vast oil and gas projects on Russia's Pacific Sakhalin island, and a pipeline is under construction that will eventually deliver oil from eastern Siberia to the Pacific coast. ",0
" India has postponed the launch of its first genetically modified (GM) vegetable, saying it would adopt a cautious approach and wait for more scientific studies on the impact of the new variety of eggplant. ""The moratorium will be in place until all tests are carried out to the satisfaction of everyone ... If that means no start of production, so be it,"" Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told reporters on Tuesday. Until the tests are done, the country should build a broad consensus to use GM technology in agriculture in a safe and sustainable manner, he said. The decision is seen as boosting the Congress party among its main farming vote base, much of which is fearful of GM use, and comes despite pressure from Farm Minister Sharad Pawar who supported introduction of genetically modified ""BT Brinjal"", or eggplant. It also signals Congress's leading position within the ruling coalition made up of difficult allies such as Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party. The Congress and Pawar, who also controls the food portfolio, are currently involved in a blame game over rising food prices. ""The Congress has taken one step back in the hope of taking two steps forward later,"" political commentator Amulya Ganguli told Reuters. ""The government has been sensitive to public opinion and they have defused an upsurge among its farmer voters by this decision. It has more to do with politics, not any scientific reason."" The move also marks a personal victory for Ramesh, a rising reformist minister who played a crucial role in nuancing India's climate change stand and brokering a political accord in the December Copenhagen conference on global warming. Ramesh conducted public debates across the country to test the support for GM foodcrop. Most of those meetings saw strident opposition to the idea. Most non-Congress-ruled state governments, including the major eggplant-growing areas, were opposed. ""They killed three birds with one shot. They have defused the public sentiment against them, number two is the political opposition was neutralised and three they prevailed over Sharad Pawar,"" said N. Bhaskara Rao of the Centre for Media Studies. A government panel last year supported introduction of genetically modified eggplant, but the government said it would consult experts and farmers before accepting the recommendations. ""It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary, principle-based approach,"" Ramesh said. BLOW TO MONSANTO? The decision could come as a blow to seed producers such as Monsanto Co looking to enter India's huge market in GM food crops and where the company has substantial investment, including for research and development. ""Very serious fears have been raised in many quarters on the possibility of Monsanto controlling our food chain if (GM eggplant) is approved,"" Ramesh said. Advocates of genetically modified crops argue such varieties can easily increase food supply for India's 1.2 billion people and protect farmers as GM crops can withstand adverse weather and increase output significantly. ""Nearly 1.4 million (eggplant) farmers will be deprived from (GM) technology,"" said Bhagirath Choudhary of the South Asia office of International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a GM advocacy group. ""This would amount to a net loss of $330 million per year to Indian brinjal farmers"". But opponents say GM seeds can be a hazard for the environment and public health, and must be tested thoroughly before they are commercially used. India allowed the use of genetically modified seeds for cotton in 2002, and crop productivity has increased sharply as it is now grown in 80 percent of India's cotton area.",0
" Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, took the oath of office on Monday and immediately signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, ending his country's decade of opposition to the global climate agreement. The move isolates the United States, which will now be the only developed nation not to ratify the agreement which sets binding limits on developed countries to curb the carbon emissions blamed for global warming. ""This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change,"" Rudd said in a statement. Climate scientists said the development was a major step for Australia and sent a clear message to Washington. ""This has given America no excuse now. They are now the only country who won't ratify Kyoto, they are the ones most responsible for the problem and they are not living up to their responsibility,"" said Barry Brook, professor of climate studies at Adelaide University. Rudd, 50, led the centre-left Labor party to victory at the Nov. 24 election, ending nearly 12 years of conservative rule, by promising a new generation of leadership and committing to sign the Kyoto pact. The former conservative government refused to ratify Kyoto, saying it would unfairly hurt the Australian economy with its heavy reliance on coal for energy and export income, while countries like India and China were not bound by targets. But a new report from the environment think tank the Climate Institute, written by government and university scientists, found that Australia's economy could easily cope with strong cuts in greenhouse emissions. It said growth would fall by only 0.1 percent of gross domestic product annually if Australia set a target of 20 percent cuts in emissions by 2020 and aimed to be carbon neutral by 2050. ""Leading the way on climate is an affordable, prudent and achievable investment,"" Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said on Monday. Shortly after Rudd was sworn in, the Kyoto decision was approved by Governor-General Michael Jeffery, who represents Britain's Queen Elizabeth in Australia's constitution and who must approve all international treaties. Under UN guidelines, full ratification takes place 90 days after the United Nations receives the formal Instrument of Ratification, meaning Australia will be a full member of the Kyoto club by the end of March. The way is now clear for Rudd to play a stronger role at the UN climate talks in Bali, which opened negotiations on Monday on new carbon emission targets for beyond 2012. He is to lead a delegation of four Australian ministers at the conference. The previous government said Australia would meet its Kyoto targets, despite not ratifying the pact, but Rudd said the latest advice suggested it would miss its target to curb greenhouse emissions growth to 108 percent of 1990 levels by 2012. ""We are currently likely to exceed, or overshoot, our target by one percent,"" Rudd said, adding that Australia faced penalties under new targets beyond 2012. Rudd has set a long-term target of cutting carbon emissions by 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2050, but has yet to announce an interim target for emissions by 2020.",0
"Merkel did not mention by name US President Donald Trump, who criticized major NATO allies and refused to endorse a global climate change accord, but she told a packed beer tent in Munich that the days when Europe could completely count on others were ""over to a certain extent"". ""I have experienced this in the last few days,"" she said.  ""And that is why I can only say that we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands - of course in friendship with the United States of America, in friendship with Great Britain and as good neighbors wherever that is possible also with other countries, even with Russia."" ""But we have to know that we must fight for our future on our own, for our destiny as Europeans,"" Merkel said. The two-day G7 summit in Italy pitted Trump against the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Japan on several issues, with European diplomats frustrated at having to revisit questions they had hoped were long settled. The American tycoon-turned-president backed a pledge to fight protectionism at the end of the G7 summit on Saturday, but refused to endorse the climate pact, saying he needed more time to decide. But EU Council President Donald Tusk said on Sunday he was more optimistic now than after the US election last November after EU leaders held talks with Trump in Brussels.""What I am absolutely sure after this meeting is that despite some extraordinary ... expressions, behaviors, etc, etc, our partners in the G7 are much more responsible than the first impression after the election in the United States,"" Tusk said in the Slovak capital. At the NATO summit on Thursday, Trump intensified his accusations that allies were not spending enough on defense and warned of more attacks such as this week's Manchester bombing unless the alliance did more to stop militants. Turning to France, Merkel said she wished President Emmanuel Macron success, adding to applause: ""Where Germany can help, Germany will help, because Germany can only do well if Europe is doing well."" France is Germany's second-biggest trading partner and the presidential election victory of the pro-European centrist reformer Macron over far-right protectionist rival Marine Le Pen in early May has sparked hopes that Berlin will ally with Paris in spearheading a broad-based economic revival in Europe.",0
"The deluge swept away most of the village in the Nuristan province, destroying around 200 homes, and caught most residents off guard because they were sleeping. By Thursday night, villagers had recovered around 80 bodies; as the search continues, local officials expect the death toll to surpass 200. “It is wiped out; nothing remains after floods,” said Abdul Naser, a resident of the district who visited the village Thursday. “No aid has arrived yet, and there are no measures for caskets, coffins and funerals.” The flash flood is the latest blow for Afghanistan, where fighting between government forces and the Taliban has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in recent months and pushed the country to the brink of a humanitarian crisis, aid agencies say. Since international troops began withdrawing in May, the Taliban have made a swift military advance, gaining control of more than half of the country’s 400-odd districts. But as the militant group presses on in its offensive, raising the possibility of a complete Taliban takeover, many have questioned whether they could effectively govern the war-stricken and foreign aid-dependent country if they seize power. The flood, in Kamdesh district, offered an early test for the Taliban’s ability to provide relief services — a sign of effective governance — in the areas they control. On Thursday afternoon, local officials called on the Taliban to grant aid groups access to the district to provide emergency services. But by the afternoon, search and rescue teams had still not been able to reach the remote village largely because the Taliban control the roads into the district, according to a statement from the Ministry for Disaster Management. Local disaster management committees in nearby Kunar and Laghman provinces were working on getting their rescue teams to the area. “The area is under Taliban control. If the Taliban allow us, we will take aid to the area,” said Hafiz Abdul Qayum, the governor of Nuristan province. In a statement Thursday evening, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that the group welcomed aid organizations’ assistance. The casualty toll from the deluge in a Taliban-controlled district in Nuristan province was expected to rise as the search for victims continues. © 2021 The New York Times Company",1
" Barack Obama said on Tuesday the United States would ""engage vigorously"" in climate change talks when he is president, and he pledged to work to reduce emissions sharply by 2020, despite the financial crisis. The Democratic president-elect, who regularly criticized the Bush administration's attitude toward global warming, reiterated his plans to start a ""cap and trade"" system that limits carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from big industries. ""We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them by an additional 80 percent by 2050,"" he said in a video address to a global warming summit in California attended by US governors and representatives from other nations. ""My presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process,"" he said. Obama said he would not attend UN-sponsored climate talks in Poland in December as President George W. Bush will still be in office. But he sent a message to international delegates who have spent years battling Bush representatives over targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt global warming. ""Once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change,"" Obama said. The president-elect said he asked members of the US Congress who would be present in Poland to report back to him. European nations have pushed the United States for years to show more leadership on climate change so that China and India, developing nations whose emissions are outpacing the developed world's, will follow suit. PAINFUL ACTION Though Obama's remarks were a reiteration of his campaign promises, the timing signaled his commitment to potentially painful environmental objectives despite a teetering auto industry and a financial crisis. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who hosted the conference, praised Obama's climate goals. Schwarzenegger backed Republican John McCain in the Nov. 4 election. ""This new administration is very much interested in adopting the same kind of regulations that we have adopted here in California,"" Schwarzenegger said, noting the state's landmark 2006 law to cap greenhouse gas emissions. Obama promised during his White House campaign to create an emissions trading system, similar to the European Union's, which sets limits on the amount of CO2 factories can emit and lets companies trade permits that allow them to pollute more. That system is known as ""cap and trade."" The president-elect said his plans to invest $15 billion every year in solar power, wind power and other renewable fuels would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and improve national security while helping the planet. ""It will also help us transform our industries and steer our country out of this economic crisis,"" he said, citing a frequently mentioned estimate of 5 million jobs that could be created in ""green"" or environment-related industries. Environmentalists welcomed his approach and saw significance in the timing of his words. ""As world leaders gather in the coming weeks in Poland to negotiate a pathway out of the climate crisis, the eyes of the world will be upon America and our newfound resolve to rejoin global efforts,"" National Wildlife Federation president Larry Schweiger said in a statement. ""With today's call for action on global warming, President-elect Obama has kicked the gears of change into motion."" ",1
" Fifty-five countries accounting for almost 80 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions have pledged varying goals for fighting climate change under a deadline in the ""Copenhagen Accord"", the United Nations said on Monday. ""This represents an important invigoration of the U.N. climate change talks,"" Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said of the national targets for curbs on emissions until 2020 submitted by Jan. 31. The countries, including top emitters led by China and the United States, mostly reiterated commitments unveiled before December's UN summit in Denmark, which disappointed many by failing to agree a tough, legally binding UN treaty. De Boer said pledges covered 55 of 194 member nations and amounted to 78 percent of emissions from energy use. The UN says the deadline is flexible and others can submit plans later. ""Greater ambition is required to meet the scale of the challenge,"" he said. ""But I see these pledges as clear signals of willingness to move negotiations towards a successful conclusion."" Mexico will host the next annual UN meeting from Nov. 29-Dec. 10 as part of world efforts to avert more droughts, wildfires, floods, species extinctions and rising sea levels. The Copenhagen Accord seeks to limit a rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and sets a goal of $100 billion a year in aid for developing nations from 2020 to help confront climate change. FILLING THE BLANKS It left blanks for countries to fill in climate targets for achieving the 2 C goal by Jan. 31. Analysts say that the current targets will mean temperatures rise by more than 2 Celsius. The 2020 goals include a European Union goal of a 20 percent cut from 1990 levels, or 30 percent if other nations step up actions. President Barack Obama plans a 17 percent cut in US emissions from 2005 levels, or 4 percent cut from 1990 levels. But US legislation is bogged down in the US Senate. China said it will ""endeavour"" to cut the amount of carbon produced per unit of economic output by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 from 2005. The ""carbon intensity"" goal would let emissions keep rising, but more slowly than economic growth. ""Following a month of uncertainty, it is now clear that the Copenhagen Accord will support the world in moving forward to meaningful global action on climate change,"" said Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute. ""However, although important in showing the intent to move to a low-carbon economy, the commitments are far below what is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,"" she said. And de Boer's statement did not even mention the Copenhagen Accord -- the main outcome of the low-ambition summit. Originally worked out by the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa on Dec. 18, the accord was not adopted as a formal UN pact after opposition from a handful of developing nations including Sudan, Venezuela and Cuba. Monday's statement only outlined 2020 pledges and did not say how many countries backed the deal -- the Copenhagen Accord is due to include a list of those who want to be ""associated"" with it. Submissions from some big developing countries such as China and India do not spell out if they want to be ""associated"". Indian officials said they want the 1992 UN Climate Change Convention to remain the blueprint for global action, not the Copenhagen Accord. South Korea's climate change ambassador Raekwon Chung said that US legislation was now vital. ""Every other country in the world is watching the US ... If (US climate change legislation) does not happen this year, what will be the impact on the negotiations? I think the impact would be quite serious,"" he said.",0
"CAPE TOWN, Mon Sep 22,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The ruling African National Congress will name party deputy head Kgalema Motlanthe as South Africa's caretaker leader after the ousting of President Thabo Mbeki, ANC members of parliament said on Monday. ANC leader Jacob Zuma made clear his backing for Motlanthe as he pledged that the party would ensure a smooth transition and economic policy continuity despite the biggest political crisis since the end of apartheid in 1994. ""We have in cabinet many experienced ministers, including the deputy president of the ANC, Kgalema Motlanthe. I'm convinced that if given that responsibility, he would be equal to the task,"" said Zuma, in his first public remarks since Mbeki announced he would resign in the face of ANC demands to quit. Motlanthe is a left-leaning intellectual, widely respected by both the radical leftists and business tycoons within the ANC. He is seen as a figure who could help heal the deepest divisions in the party's history. ""He's a very solid person and if you've read his statements he always avoids wild rhetoric. He seems to also avoid making enemies and in the present political climate that's a good thing,"" said Keith Gottschalk, a political analyst at the University of the Western Cape said. ""Certainly, most would regard him as presidential material."" ANC militants led the charge to force out Mbeki after a judge threw out graft charges against his rival Zuma and suggested there was high-level political meddling in the case. African National Congress parliament members told Reuters the party would name Motlanthe to replace Mbeki until the poll expected around April, which the ANC is widely expected to win. The opposition Democratic Alliance said parliament would elect Mbeki's successor on Thursday. FORMER PRISONER Motlanthe is a former student activist, a trade unionist and a former soldier in the ANC's disbanded military wing UmKhonto we Sizwe. In 1977 he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and was jailed on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela and Zuma under the racist apartheid regime. Policy changes under Motlanthe in the short interim period would be unlikely but foreign investors eager for stability and a continuity of policy in Africa's biggest economy will be watching closely for clues on the ANC's future policy. ""In the short term, uncertainty will remain as the new political regime settles in, with some cabinet changes likely in coming weeks,"" said Mike Davies, Middle East and Africa analyst at Eurasia Group. The rand currency fell after Mbeki's resignation, but it recovered some losses on Monday and bonds and equities firmed. Zuma sought again to reassure markets that he will not give in to pressure from leftist union and Communist Party allies to shift away from Mbeki's business-friendly policies if he becomes president in 2009. Motlanthe's appointment is almost certain to be officially approved by the ANC-dominated assembly. But Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he was ""deeply disturbed"" by the ANC's ouster of Mbeki. ""It is good old-fashioned tit-for-tat. Our country deserves better. The way of retribution leads to a banana republic,"" the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told reporters. Uncertainty may still deepen if Mbeki supporters split from the ANC and contest elections as a breakaway party in 2009, as media reports suggest they will. Seeking to ease concerns that an exodus of pro-Mbeki ministers would hurt the country, Zuma said the party wanted all current cabinet ministers to remain in their posts. That suggests widely respected Finance Minister Trevor Manuel -- a key figure for foreign investors -- will remain. Manuel indicted on Saturday he will not resign and has repeatedly said he will serve at the request of any president.",4
" Norway laid out ways to reach one of the world's toughest climate goals on Wednesday with measures to clean up sectors from oil to transport that it said would trim just 0.25 percent from the economy by 2020. The ""Climate Cure"", outlined by state-run agencies to guide deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, said costs would range up to 1,100 to 1,500 crowns ($188-$256) per tonne of avoided carbon dioxide emissions. That is way above a current price of about 13 euros ($17.85) per tonne in the European Union market. Even so, one main scenario in the 300-page report projected only a 0.25 percent cut in the projected size of the oil-dependent economy by 2020. ""It means we'd be as rich by Easter in 2020 than we would otherwise be at Christmas"" in 2019, Environment Minister Erik Solheim said of the small cut. The impact on growth would be modest partly because penalties for emitting carbon would bring in tax revenues that could boost growth in cleaner sectors. The report also assumed technological advances that would spur the economy. ""Let's start with the measures that are cheapest and simplest,"" Solheim said of the report, which will help design legislation for fighting climate change. Using different assumptions, the UN panel of climate scientists projected in a 2007 report that tough measures to combat global warming could cost 3 percent of world economic growth by 2030. Norway has set a unilateral goal of cutting emissions by 30 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, and by 40 percent if other nations sign up for deep cuts as part of a new U.N. treaty to slow desertification, heatwaves, flooding and rising sea levels. The targets are among the toughest in the world. CARBON CAPTURE The report assessed measures such as capturing and storing greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas installations, biofuels, more electric cars and energy efficiency in buildings. Among cost-effective measures were building cycle paths in cities to discourage car use. Norway wants at least two-thirds of its cuts to be achieved domestically, rather than by a cheaper option of buying quotas on foreign markets or by investing abroad, for instance by protecting the Amazon rainforests or building wind farms. Emissions have grown to 54 million tonnes from about 50 million in 1990. The report examined ways to cut between 15 and 17 million tonnes a year by 2020, including three million absorbed by pine forests. Norway has no real economic problem in buying quotas if it wants -- it has a fund totalling $450 billion invested in foreign stocks and bonds built up from oil and gas revenues. Deep cuts in Norway are likely to be more costly than in many other nations, Ellen Hambro, head of the Climate and Pollution Agency, told Reuters. ""We don't have coal-fired power plants to close,"" she said. Almost all of Norway's electricity comes from clean hydropower.",0
" Mankind is to blame for climate change but governments still have time to slow accelerating damage at moderate cost if they act quickly, a draft UN report shows. Underlining the need for speed, it says a European Union goal of holding temperature rises to a maximum 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times is almost out of reach. The 21-page study, due for release in November, lays out possible responses to global warming but cautions that some impacts are already inevitable, such as a gradual rise in sea levels that is set to last for centuries. The report gives a first overview of 3,000 pages of research by the UN's climate panel already published in three instalments this year about the science, the likely impacts and the costs of slowing climate change. The authoritative summary, obtained by Reuters and meant to guide governments in working out how to slow warming, reiterates that humans are to blame for climate change but that clean technologies are available to offset the most harmful emissions. ""Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (from human activities) greenhouse gas concentrations,"" it says. ""Very likely"" means at least 90 percent probability, up from 66 percent in a previous report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001 when the link was only judged ""likely"". The IPCC draws on work by 2,500 scientists. The report shows a table indicating worsening damage such as bleached corals, coastal flooding, increasing costs of treating disease, deaths from heatwaves and rising risks of extinctions of species of animals and plants. But it says: ""Many impacts can be avoided, reduced or delayed"" by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Among options to offset warming, blamed mainly on greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are energy efficiency, wider use of renewable energies, carbon markets or burying carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. The report indicates that the cost of such initiatives would be manageable for the world economy. Global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2030 would be reduced by up to 3 percent in the most stringent case that would require emissions to peak within about 15 years. Other less tough goals would mean only a fractional loss of GDP by 2030. The report will be issued in Valencia, Spain, on Nov. 17 after review by governments, along with an even shorter 5-page summary. The draft is dated May 15 -- an updated version has been written this month to take account of government suggestions, scientists said. ""Warming of the climate is now unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global mean sea level,"" the summary begins. The report reiterates best estimates that temperatures will rise by 1.8 to 4.0 Celsius (3 to 7 Fahrenheit) this century and that sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres. But it says ocean levels are likely to keep rising ""for many centuries"" even if greenhouse gases are stabilised, because water expands as it heats up. The deep oceans will keep heating up as warmth filters down from the surface. Under a range of scenarios, such thermal expansion of the oceans alone would bring sea level rises of 0.4 to 3.7 metres in coming centuries, without counting any melting of ice in glaciers or in the vast Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets. About 1,000 delegates from 158 nations are meeting in Vienna this week to discuss ways to extend the UN's Kyoto Protocol for fighting warming beyond 2012 and to widen it to include outsiders such as the United States and developing nations. ",0
" British Airways and American Airlines need to complete a transatlantic deal to link operations if they are to win the fight against high fuel costs and thwart rival alliances. The two are close to agreeing a revenue-sharing agreement that would create a major force controlling over 50 percent of the lucrative flights between London and the United States, a source briefed on the matter has told Reuters. The move is seen as a shot back at BA's archrival Air France KLM, which has forged a transatlantic alliance with Delta and Northwest. ""BA has been totally left behind in terms of the global consolidation of the industry. They need to come to the party and participate,"" Royal Bank of Scotland analyst Andrew Lobbenberg told Reuters. BA and AA still need regulators to grant the combined entity anti-trust immunity which would allow them to collude on transatlantic routes and pricing alongside a third partner, Spain's Iberia. Four analysts polled by Reuters think there is a better than 50/50 chance an approval will be granted. Fuel costs have soared as oil flirts with $145 a barrel, a trend likely to force all airlines to cut capacity and hike passenger fares to protect margins. ""This is a need to do deal,"" said Andrew Fitchie, an analyst at Collins Stewart. ""The high oil price makes many airline operations unsustainable, (and) this sort of deal allows them to get to grips with supply of seats and pricing."" He added that where the two airlines currently fly at similar times on the key London-New York route, they could now strip out the duplicate and save cash. Gert Zonneveld at Panmure Gordon added that the move would be both defensive against the current climate and an offensive strike against rivals. ""They can come up with a frequency and schedule that is better than what the others have, while also making cost savings,"" he said. HEATHROW SEEN KEY Two key issues are whether regulators will grant anti-trust immunity and subsequently how they will view the pair's dominance of the world's busiest airport, Heathrow, and some UK-U.S. routes. Virgin Atlantic spokesman Paul Charles told Reuters there were routes between London and U.S. cities such as Chicago and Boston that are only operated by BA, AA and Virgin -- thus reducing competition from three to two carriers in the event of an alliance. ""It would reduce competition and push up prices,"" he said. BA and American have tried twice before to gain immunity, but on both occasions were told they would only get it if in turn they divested a major part of their stranglehold on Heathrow -- a price they were unwilling to pay. But since the launch of the 'Open Skies' agreement earlier this year, any U.S. or EU airline may fly across the Atlantic to Heathrow, albeit at a high price for slots. Analysts suspect that this major industry change will make regulators more sympathetic. Andrew Lobbenberg said there is a good chance that approval would be granted, noting Air France had already won such backing. ""The combination of BA and American would have a lower market share than the 'Skyteam' immunized grouping,"" he said, referring to the Air France KLM-Delta-Northwest deal. The carriers may still be asked to forfeit some Heathrow slots, but fewer than on previous occasions, he said.",3
"An estimated 400 protesters mounted the Backwater Bridge and attempted to force their way past police in what the Morton County Sheriff's Department described as an ""ongoing riot,"" the latest in a series of demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline. A media statement from the agency said one arrest had been made by 8:30 pm local time, about 2.5 hours after the incident began some 30 km south of Bismark, the North Dakota capital. The Backwater Bridge has been closed since late October, when activists clashed with police in riot gear and set two trucks on fire, prompting authorities to forcibly shut down a protesters encampment nearby. The Morton County Sheriff's Department said officers on the scene of the latest confrontation were ""describing protesters' actions as very aggressive."" Demonstrators tried to start numerous fires as they attempted to outflank and ""attack"" law enforcement barricades, the sheriff's statement said. Police said they responded by firing volleys of tear gas at protesters in a bid to prevent them from crossing the bridge. Activists at the scene reported on Twitter that police were also spraying protesters with water in sub-freezing temperatures and firing rubber bullets, injuring some in the crowd. Police did not confirm the use of rubber bullets or water. The clashes began after protesters removed a truck that had been on the bridge since Oct 27, police said. The North Dakota Department of Transportation closed the Backwater Bridge due to damage from that incident. The $3.7 billion Dakota Access project has been drawing steady opposition from Native American and environmental activists since the summer. Completion of the pipeline, set to run 1,185 km from North Dakota to Illinois, was delayed in September so federal authorities could re-examine permits required by the Army Corps of Engineers. Plans called for the pipeline to pass under Lake Oahe, a federally owned water source, and to skirt the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation by about half a mile. Most of the construction has otherwise been finished. The Standing Rock tribe and environmental activists say the project would threaten water supplies and sacred Native American sites and ultimately contribute to climate change. Supporters of the pipeline, owned by Energy Transfer Partners, said the project offers the fast and most direct route for bringing Bakken shale oil from North Dakota to US Gulf Coast refineries and would be safer than transporting the oil by road or rail.",0
"NEW DELHI, Fri May 29, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The government has started a pilot project to quantify climate benefits from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the anti-poverty scheme that could become one of the country's main weapons to fight criticism it is not doing enough to tackle global warming. The flagship anti-poverty plan, started three years ago, provides 100 days of employment every year to tens of millions of rural poor, a move that partly helped the Congress party-led coalition return to power in a general election this month. About 70 percent of works under the NREGA are ""green jobs"" such as water harvesting, afforestation and land development. ""Here is a programme which is an anti-poverty project that also yields co-benefits of adaptation to climate change and reduction of vulnerabilities against climate change,"" said Rita Sharma who heads the ministry overseeing the jobs scheme. The pilot project is being carried out in four states in collaboration with experts from the premier Indian Institute of Science. ""Within the next two years we should begin to get some handle on what kind of quantification is happening as a result of the NREGA works,"" Sharma said, adding some data could be available from smaller samples in about a month. India's current stand on climate change does not please Western countries, which want more commitment to curbing rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions from one of the world's top polluters. The top U.S. energy forecast agency said on Wednesday that much of the growth in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels over the next two decades will come from developing countries, which already produce more than half of mankind's carbon pollution. By 2030, carbon dioxide emissions from developing countries should hit 25.8 billion tonnes, while the pollution from rich countries should be 14.6 billion tonnes, said the Energy Information Administration in its annual International Energy Outlook. PRIORITY New Delhi says priority must go to economic growth to lift millions out of poverty while gradually shifting to clean energy led by solar power as well as increased energy efficiency. Despite rapid expansion of renewable energy, such as wind turbines, coal is likely to remain a growing source of energy to power India's economy. Indian officials say the West must recognise the huge amount of benefit, such as carbon sequestration and emission reductions, achieved through projects such as NREGA. But some experts worry India could use such projects as a way to avoid additional investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency. According to official figures, even if renewable energy was expanded 40-fold, carbon dioxide emissions could rise from one billion tonnes per year to 3.9 billion tonnes per year by 2031-2032. Under energy projections that assume an even higher rate of coal use, such emissions could rise to 5.5 billion tonnes per year by 2031-2032. So, experts say, climate benefits accruing from development projects would fall way short in fighting any exponential rise in pollution in India. ""At best, climate benefits from development schemes should be be treated as a supplementary effort to the main climate change plan,"" said K. Srinivas of Greenpeace's India climate change programme. But Sharma said such views only reflected a narrow Western outlook which did not have the required mechanism to recognise the climate contribution from social projects. ""The Clean Development Mechanism and other mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol are yet not fine-tuned enough so that programmes of this kind could be recognised,"" she said. Under the CDM, companies and governments can invest in emissions cuts made by projects in developing nations, and in return receive offset credits that can be used to meet Kyoto targets or sold for profit. ""There is both a need for us to do the quantification and on the other hand there is also need for the international community to be able to develop mechanisms that recognise and give credit for such programmes.""",1
"OSLO Mon Nov 17,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Greenhouse gas emissions in many industrialised nations are still rising, especially in the former Soviet bloc, despite agreements to cut back, the UN Climate Change Secretariat said on Monday. Emissions by 40 industrialised nations grew by 2.3 percent to the equivalent of 18.0 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2006 from 17.6 billion in 2000, it said. They dipped 0.1 percent in 2006 compared with 2005 but underlying trends were still up. ""Greenhouse gase emissions in industrialised countries continue to rise,"" the Secretariat said of the 2000-06 trend, in a statement on its annual official compilation of data used to assess compliance with UN treaties. It said the biggest recent gains were by nations of the former Soviet bloc, whose emissions had risen 7.4 percent since 2000 to 3.7 billion tonnes after crashing in the early 1990s with the collapse of former smokestack industries. It said the rising trends showed the need for the world's environment ministers to make progress on a new UN climate treaty, due to be agreed by the end of next year, at talks in Poznan, Poland, from Dec. 1 to 12. ""The figures clearly underscore the urgency for the UN negotiating process to make good progress in Poznan and move forward quickly in designing a new agreement to respond to the challenge of climate change,"" said Yvo de Boer, head of the Secretariat. The UN Climate Panel says global emissions should peak by 2015 and then fall, to avoid the worst of climate change that could bring water and food shortages by causing floods, heatwaves and more powerful storms. US DECLINE The 2006 dip of 0.1 percent from 2005 was caused mainly by a fall in U.S. emissions to 7.0 billion tonnes from 7.1 billion tonnes in 2005, helped by factors including rising oil prices and a mild winter that cut demand for heating. A Reuters compilation of national data in September also showed that decline. President George W. Bush, who has kept the United States out of the UN's Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, projects that US emissions will peak only in 2025. President-elect Barack Obama wants far tougher action that would cut emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. He plans investments in a clean energy economy of up to $150 billion over 10 years. Monday's data only covers industrialised nations -- developing nations face no obligation to cut or even report annual emissions. Despite the rising trend since 2000, emissions were down 4.7 percent from 1990 levels of 18.9 billion tonnes, caused mainly by the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Kyoto calls for average cuts of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Monday's report did not consider how far the 2008 global economic slowdown may affect emissions, which have grown worldwide by 70 percent since the 1970s.",0
" These are the main challenges facing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was sworn in for a second term on Friday after the election victory of his Congress party-led coalition. ECONOMY * Faced with India's highest fiscal deficit since the early 1990s, Singh will have to decide how much to prioritise reforms such as labour laws and privatisations over pressure to spend more on social programmes that helped Congress win the election. * The new government must lift growth in Asia's third-largest economy amid a global slump and contracting domestic demand. Growth could be as low as 6 percent this year compared with nearly double digits in earlier years. Economists believe the economy may now have bottomed, with a return to vigorous likely towards the end of this year. * A stimulus through higher government spending will increase already-heavy borrowing, which is also crowding out private investment needed to expand factory capacities. * India's consolidated fiscal deficit is estimated at 9 percent of gross domestic product for 2009/10, and fresh stimulus measures would mean widening the deficit and higher borrowing. * Another key challenge for the new government and the central bank would be to urge commercial banks to reduce their lending and deposit rates. * Industry bodies are demanding cuts in corporate and individual income tax rates, and extension of tax breaks for infrastructure sectors. But there is little fiscal space for the new government to cut tax rates this year. REFORMS * Singh faces pressure to progress on a host of reforms, after years of being blocked by his communists allies during the last government. * Some reforms that had been blocked by the left will be relatively easy, such as opening up the pension and insurance sector to help access to credit across the economy. * The government could also move quickly to open up foreign investment in infrastructure projects and the defence sector. * Other reforms, such as allowing foreign investment in the the retail sector, could face more opposition from within the Congress party, mindful of the millions of small shopkeepers who could lose their jobs. * Laws to make it easier to hire and fire workers, long a demand of large corporations, could be put on the backburner due to a possible backlash from voters in the middle of an economic downturn. * Foreign investors may have opportunities in the auto, chemicals and white goods sectors. PAKISTAN * Remains New Delhi's biggest foreign policy challenge after the Mumbai attacks. The relationship between South Asia's nuclear powers is dogged by mutual suspicion and the fate of Kashmir. * India wants Pakistan to do more to crack down on militants operating on its soil, who have in the past crossed the border and launched attacks on Indian cities. New Delhi accuses its neighbour of egging on militants to destabilise India. * India may face pressure from the United States to resume a stalled peace process and start talks about Kashmir, as President Barack Obama needs Pakistan's focus to be on fighting a powerful insurgency in Pakistan and Afghanistan. DOHA TRADE TALKS * India must somehow negotiate a favourable deal at the Doha world trade talks. Rich countries have tried to lean on India to agree to open its markets more but India worries hundreds of millions of poor farmers will be hit. Years of negotiations on a deal ran into a brick wall as the United States and large developing countries, especially India, failed to agree on tariff cuts and subsidies. CLIMATE CHANGE * India, the world's fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, may face international pressure to impose legally binding cuts at the next climate change talks in Copenhagen. * New Delhi has so far refused to play ball, saying priority must go to economic growth and pointing out that it lags well behind rich countries on per-capita emissions. * India, however, is likely to be one of the biggest casualties of climate change that could dry up its rivers, affect the crucial monsoon rains and wipe out forests and glaciers.",1
"COPENHAGEN, Dec 18, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US President Barack Obama met other world leaders in a last push for a new global climate deal on Friday, after negotiators failed to reach a deal on carbon cuts in all-night talks. Obama and other leaders tried to muster agreement on central issues from carbon cuts to international scrutiny of climate actions at the UN-led talks in Copenhagen. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking as the meeting broke up, said there was still no deal and Chinese resistance to monitoring of emissions was a sticking point. Also at the meeting were Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Negotiators from 193 countries reached consensus on financing and on temperature targets. A draft text called for $100 billion (62 billion pounds) a year by 2020 to help poor nations cope with climate change and sought to limit warming to two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels. But the all-night meeting broke up in the morning without a deal on the central element of a climate deal -- the timing and degree of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Obama was due to meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao later on the sidelines of the talks. Andreas Carlgren, the environment minister of EU president Sweden, said only the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters China and the United States could unlock a deal. ""Through the whole process the real problem has been on the one hand the United States, who are not able to deliver sufficiently (and) on the other hand China, and they delivered less. And they have been really blocking again and again in this process, followed by a group of oil states. That's the real difference, the real confrontation behind this,"" said Carlgren. At stake is an agreement for coordinated global action to avert climate changes including more floods and droughts. DESPERATE Two weeks of talks in the Danish capital have battled intense suspicion between rich and poor countries over how to share out emissions cuts. Developing countries say rich nations have a historic responsibility to take the lead. Negotiators agreed on an initial draft which called for a two degree Celsius cap on global temperatures, according to a draft document seen by Reuters. Scientists say a 2 degrees limit is the minimum effort to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change including several metres sea level rise, extinctions and crop failures. The Copenhagen draft also proposed $30 billion in climate funds for least developed countries from 2010-2012, and a ""goal"" of $100 billion a year funding by 2020 to help developing nations prepare for climate change and cut carbon emissions. But there was no statement on who would pay the $100 billion or how they would raise the money. And no emissions targets were specified in the draft. ""The situation is desperate,"" said a top Indian negotiator after the earlier, all-night talks. ""There is no agreement on even what to call the text -- a declaration, a statement or whatever. They (rich nations) want to make it a politically binding document which we oppose."" The aim of the talks is to agree a climate deal which countries will convert into a full legally binding treaty next year, to succeed the Kyoto Protocol whose present round ends in 2012. The United States never ratified Kyoto, and the pact doesn't bind developing nations. The draft text foresees ""continuing negotiations"" on one or more legal treaties, ending no later than the end of 2010.",0
"Australia has 15 cases of the virus but has not had any new cases since the travel ban was first put in place on Feb.1, Morrison said. The ban will be reviewed each week. ""Our current measures are working, they are effective, they are doing the job,"" he told a press conference in Canberra. ""That's why this afternoon we have agreed to accept recommendations to maintain the ban on entry restrictions."" Australian citizens and permanent residents returning home are exempt from the ban but are required to isolate themselves for 14 days after their arrival. The health department said that all but one of the 15 cases in Australia involved people who had come from Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the outbreak was first identified late last year. Five people who had been ill have since recovered, the department said. More than 1,350 people have died in mainland China as a result of the epidemic, and authorities said that rate are some 60,000 confirmed cases.",2
"According to the 5th assessment report of the IPCC, ""the urban areas will face increased risks among other things, for people, health, assets and economies."" On the other hand, the rural area will experience major impact on water availability and supply, food security, infrastructure, agricultural income including the shifts in the production areas of food and non-food crops. This will affect the achievements in food and water security, poverty reduction, raising the income level of the people in the deltaic regions and coastal zones. At the ‘Dhaka Declaration’ of the Delta Coalition adopted after the second ministerial meeting ended on Saturday, they also acknowledged that financing is “indispensible” for implementation of sustainable delta solutions. “Responding to the climate challenge requires collective action from all countries, cities, businesses, and private citizen”. Delta Coalition is the world’s first international coalition of governments that have formed a partnership to deal with integrated management and sustainable development of the Deltas. The Coalition currently includes 12 members from four continents. Bangladesh is the current chair. Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly organised the meeting as the co-chairs of the Coalition. The theme of the Conference was ' Sustainable Delta for Life'. Member countries including Egypt, France, Japan, Mozambique, Philippines, Netherlands, South Korea and Vietnam participated in the Dhaka meeting which also adopted 'Terms of Reference of the Coalition'. According to the Dhaka Declaration, they decided to express their resolve to increase and demonstrate the visibility of the Coalition in various multilateral and international conferences and programmes. They showed commitment to raising awareness at national levels in the deltaic countries in tandem with the civil society, academia and experts, funding agencies and private sectors to promoting and deploying a pragmatic response to the pressing delta issues and climate change.   They also decided to launch a drive to include new members and observers and develop relations with civil society and academia to strengthen and enhance the knowledge base of the Coalition. The meeting also decided to include Argentina as a new member of the Coalition.",6
" The European Commission will propose allowing the poorest new central European member states to increase greeenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 percent by 2020 over 2005 levels under a major energy and climate change plan to be unveiled next week, EU sources said on Monday. The sources said the 15 old member states would bear the brunt of cuts required to meet the 27-nation European Union's goal of an overall reduction of 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, with national targets set according to GDP per capita. Under the proposals, which could still be changed before the Jan. 23 announcement, the richest old member states will have to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming, by up to 20 percent from 2005 levels.",0
"For a month of 10-hour days, Dr Amina Abdulkadir Isack, 27, tended to anaemic mothers, children with malaria and pregnant women as a volunteer in central Somalia, where record floods had left thousands of people in dire need of help the government could scarcely provide. But only days after coming home, on a hot Mogadishu morning in late December, terrorists detonated an explosives-laden truck in a busy intersection, killing 82 people and injuring nearly 150, including university students studying to become health specialists and doctors like her. Isack sprang right back into action, helping a youth-led crisis response team of volunteers who tracked the victims, called their families, collected donations and performed many services the government was too overwhelmed to manage on its own. “The youth are the ones who build nations,” Isack said. “We have to rely on ourselves.” Much like the floods before it, the attack in Mogadishu, the deadliest in Somalia in more than two years, underscored the feeble emergency response in a nation that is no stranger to natural and man-made disasters. The Somali government struggles to provide basic public services like health care and education, let alone a comprehensive response to emergencies. 
 
 Customers outside of Beydan Pastry coffee house in Mogadishu, Somalia on Jan 2, 2020.  The New York Times 

Yet in the face of the country’s mounting challenges — from a changing climate to the indiscriminate violence of terrorism — young Somalis are increasingly getting organised and bootstrapping their way out of crises, rather than waiting on help from their government or its foreign backers.  Customers outside of Beydan Pastry coffee house in Mogadishu, Somalia on Jan 2, 2020.  The New York Times  Government officials say they do respond to the country’s emergencies, including establishing a national committee to aid the victims of the Dec 28 attack. Turkey and Qatar airlifted dozens of the badly injured. But many youth activists in Somalia say that the response from the authorities is often tardy or inadequate, making it all the more essential for citizens like themselves to jump in and help fill the gaps. Somalia has experienced one degree or another of chaos for almost three decades, bedevilled first by clan infighting and then by violent extremism. But through it all, Somalis have found ways to not only establish thriving businesses, but also take on core state services like building roads and providing health care and education. 
 
 A view of Mogadishu, Somalia on Jan 2, 2020. The New York Times 

This independent spirit was amplified after militants with al-Shabab, a terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaida, surrendered control of Mogadishu in 2011, effectively leaving the capital in the hands of an internationally-backed but weak government that has often been unable to secure the capital, much less the country.  A view of Mogadishu, Somalia on Jan 2, 2020. The New York Times  Since then, young Somalis, including members of the diaspora who have returned home, have taken a leading role in the stabilisation and rebuilding process. They have worked on rehabilitating child soldiers, reviving domestic tourism, responding to humanitarian crises, organising multiple book fairs and even selling Somali camels to customers worldwide using bitcoins. When a truck bombing in Mogadishu in 2017 killed 587 people and injured 316 others, hundreds of volunteers marshaled to identify victims, launched social media campaigns to appeal for global attention and collected tens of thousands of dollars to assist the operations of Mogadishu’s only free ambulance service, Aamin Ambulance. Organisers of the response said they collected $3.5 million in donations; the government later contributed $1 million. The year “2017 was a turning point for us,” Isack said. “Everyone knew someone who was impacted. It showed us we could do something to save lives.” Despite their efforts, civilians can only do so much when attacks happen. And instead of learning from previous tragedies, the authorities remain disorganised and unprepared for the next one, said Saida Hassan, a Somali-American who previously worked with the ministry of education. After the big attack on Dec 28, Hassan said, she attended a government crisis meeting in which officials squabbled and didn’t have a plan of action. “I kept thinking ‘There are people dying every second we keep talking,’” she said. After leaving the meeting “so heartbroken,” Hassan helped form the Gurmad Ex-control rescue initiative — the volunteer group that Isack joined. “It’s frustrating,” Hassan said. “It often feels like we are crawling when we cannot only walk, but also run if we want.” 
 
 A staff member of Aamin Ambulance, who were the first responders after a truck bombing killed 82 people and injured 150, in Mogadishu, Somalia on Jan 1, 2020. The New York Times 

Somalia’s government has made some strides toward developing the economy, reforming state institutions and improving security. Yet the country’s progress has been undermined by rampant corruption, the government’s tight resources and limited presence across the country, as well as a political stalemate between the central government and federal member states.  A staff member of Aamin Ambulance, who were the first responders after a truck bombing killed 82 people and injured 150, in Mogadishu, Somalia on Jan 1, 2020. The New York Times  For young people trying to build the nation’s future, the prospects for change sometimes look bleak. Sami Gabas is the founder of Saamionline, an online retailer that serves thousands of Somalis across the country. While the authorities in the various regions are quick to demand taxes, Gabas said, they barely understand the difficulties of setting up and running a startup, let alone offer help or incentives. “We just don’t want to do business,” he said. “We want to create and innovate and help move the country forward.” For those who defy all the odds, insecurity remains a serious impediment. Al-Shabab remains strong and continues to carry out deadly attacks against civilians and the government. Beyond that, activists and business people continue to be killed in mysterious circumstances. Mohamed Sheik Ali was a serial entrepreneur who opened a number of businesses, including Mogadishu’s first post-war flower store and dry-cleaning service. He also ran a mentoring program for local entrepreneurs, and participated in events and shows that helped turn their ideas into successful businesses. Six years after he launched his first business in Mogadishu, unknown assailants fatally shot Ali in August 2018. He was 31. In a country with a young population and high unemployment rates, his philosophy was all about self-reliance, his sister Sagal Sheikh-Ali said in an interview. When engaging with young people like himself, he used to tell them, “‘If you have an idea and a passion, just go ahead and do it,’” she recalled. Following his death, his sister said she felt angry and didn’t want to stay in Mogadishu. But afterward, she felt that it was her “duty” to step into his shoes and keep the businesses going. “If I leave, then I guess he died for nothing,” she said. “But if I stay, then it meant something. His name will always continue. His legacy will continue. His drive and passion will continue in others.” Still, the frequent attacks and at times tepid response from the authorities leave many feeling numb and discouraged, Hassan said. She said some of her friends have derided her for constantly wanting to act, when even the authorities seem resigned. The attacks from al-Shabab have become so normal that she and her friends try to guess when the next one will happen. Barely an hour after the interview, a suicide car bomb killed three people and injured 11 others near an intersection close to the Parliament building in Mogadishu. “I don’t think we should wait for the government,” Hassan said. “It’s become our reality and we know these attacks are coming. I just want us to be prepared so that we can save ourselves.” For volunteers like Isack, there is no option but to rush to the scene of the next disaster. In January, the Somali Medical Association recognised her efforts in saving lives during the floods. “I myself could face harm tomorrow,” Isack said. “So I am providing support to my people while I can.” © 2020 New York Times News Service",2
"Just three months after centre-left Prime Minister Enrico Letta took office at the head of an uneasy coalition with Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL), Italy, the euro zone's third largest economy, is again mired in uncertainty.The 76-year-old billionaire reacted angrily to the decision by the supreme court to reject a final appeal against his conviction, protesting his innocence and accusing magistrates of persecuting him since his entry into politics 20 years ago.The ruling, confirming a sentence for tax fraud involving inflated invoices at his Mediaset broadcasting empire, was the first definitive sentence he had received after dozens of previous trials on charges ranging from tax to sex offences.""No one can understand the real violence which has been directed against me,"" he said in a video message broadcast on Italian television after the verdict. ""A genuine campaign of aggression that has no equal,"" he said.Berlusconi is unlikely to have to serve any time in jail because of his age, and the supreme court ordered part of the original sentence, imposing a ban on holding political office, to be reviewed. But the ruling has dealt an unprecedented blow to the man who has dominated Italian politics for two decades.""His conviction is like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989,"" crowed Beppe Grillo, leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and a ferocious critic of Berlusconi.Berlusconi said he would continue his political activities under the ""Forza Italia"" (Go Italy!) name of his first party and press for a reform of the justice system, but he made no direct reference to the future of the coalition with Letta.Senior allies also reacted with bitterness, but said the ruling would not hit the coalition between Letta's centre-left Democratic Party and Berlusconi's People of Freedom.""This sentence will not affect the Letta government, which was created to serve the country and which will continue to serve it as far as we are concerned,"" former Justice Minister Nitto Palma said after a meeting in Berlusconi's Rome residence.CAUTIONAs millions of Italians head off for their sacrosanct August summer holidays and parliament prepares to go into recess, there was little expectation of an immediate government crisis that could trigger snap elections.But what might come over the next few months remains completely uncertain, with Letta struggling to contain increasing unhappiness in his own Democratic Party at the alliance with the scandal-plagued Berlusconi.President Giorgio Napolitano, the man who would have to decide whether to call new elections if the ruling coalition fell apart, urged calm and said the country needed ""serenity and cohesion."" His comments were echoed by Letta.""For the good of the country, it is necessary that, despite legitimate internal debate among political forces, a climate of calm and support for our institutions ensures that the interests of Italy prevail over party interests,"" he said in a statement.But the ruling added another obstacle to Letta as he struggles to lead Italy out of its longest postwar recession, reform its stagnant economy and cut its mountainous public debt. More challenges may lie ahead.As well as the tax fraud case, Berlusconi is also fighting a separate conviction for paying for sex with a minor, in the notorious ""bunga bunga"" prostitution case that tarnished his final months in office in 2011.With the European Central Bank promising support if needed, investors have so far shown little concern, with the main barometer of market sentiment, the spread between Italian 10- year bonds and their safer German equivalents at 270 points on Thursday, well below levels in previous crises.That could change if prolonged political instability fuelled doubts about Italy's badly strained public finances and created the kind of pressure that brought down Berlusconi's last government as the euro zone crisis peaked two years ago.",1
" World climate negotiators will gather in Bonn next month to edit an ""indigestible"" set of proposals into a manageable document for international consideration, the head of a key UN panel said on Tuesday. The August meeting is the first step in a timeline aimed at reaching a new worldwide agreement to combat climate change in Copenhagen in December, said Michael Zammit Cutajar, chairman of a working group of the UN Framework Convention on Climate change. Not previously planned or publicized, the Bonn meeting precedes already scheduled gatherings in Bangkok and Barcelona, in addition to forums in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York City to discussing the problem of climate change. ""The juicy details will really start to come forward in the last quarter of this year,"" Zammit Cutajar told reporters. The meetings in Bonn, set for August 10-14, are supposed to be informal, thematic talks aimed at guiding negotiators through the ideas contained in an unwieldy 200-page paper, he said. ""The document itself is horribly complicated ... It's indigestible, it's not meant to be read from top to bottom. And what we're doing now ... is (working on) a guide to the use of this document ... identifying issues for discussions, some way of getting discussion going in a thematic way,"" he said. LONG-TERM U.S. VISION Zammit Cutajar and his committee crafted a 50-page paper that was considered at a climate meeting in June in Bonn. That document ballooned to 200 pages with contributions from various delegations. This draft text is aimed at agreeing on a treaty in December that would succeed the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012. The United States, alone among major industrialized nations, never ratified the Kyoto pact. Those earlier talks ended with some progress toward a new world treaty to curb climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, but with proposed cuts by industrialized nations that disappointed developing countries. These global negotiations are taking place as the United States considers a carbon-capping law that was narrowly approved by the House (of Representatives) and is expected to be debated in the Senate starting in September. This legislation aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 levels by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. U.S. participation is considered essential to any global climate agreement, and Zammit Cutajar was encouraged by the U.S. long-term ambition to reduce carbon emissions. The United States has ""already started to bring ... the sense that it's serious, that it's going places and that it has a vision up to 2050, that's very important,"" Zammit Cutajar said. ""It would be great if there were a Senate outcome that was strong (before Copenhagen) ... a signal from both chambers that they're on the same track.""",0
" German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday she was unsure whether an upcoming G8 summit would lay the groundwork for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. ""It is important that the G8 develops a common understanding how climate change can be tackled and what agreements can be made for the period beyond 2012. I dont know if we will succeed in that at Heiligendamm,"" Merkel said in a speech to the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament. She also said she believed a breakthrough on the stalled Doha round of trade talks was still possible. Merkel will host a meeting of Group of Eight (G8) leaders in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on June 6-8 that is expected to focus on climate change, fostering growth in Africa and global economic cooperation.",0
"Billionaire benefactors Bill and Melinda Gates have decided to seek a divorce following 27 years of marriage, the couple said on Monday in a joint announcement that rocked the philanthropic world. ""After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,"" the two said in a statement posted on the Twitter account of Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft Corp. ""We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life,"" their statement said. Financial details of the decision were not immediately clear. The couple have three children. The two are listed as co-chairs and trustees of their nonprofit, Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which was launched in 2000. The foundation ended 2019 with net assets of $43.3 billion, according to the latest full-year financials disclosed on its website. 
 
 Bill Gates and Melinda Gates listen as former US President Barack Obama (not pictured) speaks at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeepers event in Manhattan, New York, US, September 20, 2017. Reuters 

From 1994 through 2018, Bill Gates, 65, and Melinda Gates, 56, have provided gifts of more than $36 billion to the foundation, the website said.  Bill Gates and Melinda Gates listen as former US President Barack Obama (not pictured) speaks at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeepers event in Manhattan, New York, US, September 20, 2017. Reuters  The foundation has focused its attention on public health, education and climate changes, with donations ranging from support of the makers of vaccines, diagnostic tests and potential medical treatments for the coronavirus pandemic to the development of solar-powered toilets. The foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the group would be run following the Gates' separation. The split comes two years after Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos said that he and his then-wife, MacKenzie, were getting divorced. Gates dropped out of Harvard University to start up Microsoft with school chum Paul Allen in 1975. Gates owned 49% of Microsoft at its initial public offering in 1986, which made him an instant multimillionaire. With Microsoft's explosive growth, he soon became one of the world's wealthiest individuals. After an executive tenure in which he helped transform the company into one of the world's leading technology firms, Gates stepped down as CEO of Microsoft in 2000 to focus on philanthropy. He remained chairman until 2014 and left the company's board in March 2020. Known in the technology industry as an acerbic and ruthless competitor, Gates drew the ire of rivals and eventually the US government for Microsoft's business practices. The Bill-Melinda Gates romance started with a rejection The software giant was convicted of antitrust violations in the late 1990s but the verdict was overturned on appeal, and the company then settled the case out of court. Gates' public persona softened into an avuncular elder statesman as he turned his attention to philanthropy, and he has largely steered clear of the many controversies currently roiling the technology business. Gates' spouse, who recently began referring to herself as Melinda French Gates on most websites and social media, was raised in Dallas and studied computer science and economics at Duke University. She later joined Microsoft, where she met her future husband. In 2015 she founded Pivotal Ventures, an investment company focused on women, and in 2019 published a book, ""The Moment of Lift"", centred on female empowerment. 

pic.twitter.com/padmHSgWGc— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 3, 2021 

 pic.twitter.com/padmHSgWGc",0
"WASHINGTON, Fri Jul 31, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The United States must prepare for unstoppable climate changes that will have a major impact on farming, industry, recreation and government services, Obama administration officials said on Thursday. ""As much as we can try to avoid (it), there will undoubtedly be changes in our climate that will have devastating impacts, very significant impacts, on all sectors from recreation to industry and business to agriculture"" and government, US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said. A new National Climate Service charged with making detailed national and regional climate forecasts is ""badly needed"" to help individuals, companies and all levels of government to make plans, Locke told the Senate Commerce Committee. ""We need to understand what's coming down the road,"" Locke said. ""So many people are going to be dependent on this information for investment decisions."" Even if Congress passes legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, the amount of gases already in the air are enough to keep the planet warming for decades, John Holdren, director of the White House office on Science and Technology Policy, told the panel. Fossil fuels such as oil and coal are the main source of the heat-trapping gases. ""It's not enough to focus on mitigation,"" Holdren said, referring to efforts to curb emissions. ""We have to be ready on the adaptation side for whatever comes."" That means boosting research in drought and heat-resistant crops, making plans for rising sea levels in coastal areas and taking steps to increase resistance to tropical diseases that are likely to become more prevalent. ""We're already finding climate change becoming more abrupt than we expected even a few years ago ... It could become even more abrupt. Nobody knows for sure,"" Holdren said. The House of Representatives in June passed a comprehensive energy bill to cut US greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, compared to 2005 levels. Prospects for action in the Senate this year are unclear as lawmakers grapple with another major piece of legislation to reform the US health care system. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller said he believed Congress would eventually pass a climate change bill, despite tough political obstacles. He called it ""probably the most important piece of legislation ... we will ever do.""",0
"Two days of sudden, intensely hot air that swept across the country in April disrupted the rice's growth, destroying the crop his family was supposed to survive the year on, the 45-year-old farmer from Kishoreganj district explained. ""The same thing happened to the adjacent field of mine. My dream crop is finished,"" he said with tears in his eyes. ""I can't think of how to support the family for a whole year. I invested my savings and planted five hectares (12 acres) of high-yielding rice. Now it's all over."" The heat stress - caused by a mix of high temperatures, low rainfall and low humidity - ruined thousands of hectares of crops in Bangladesh's main rice-growing region this spring, with climate experts warning the phenomenon could threaten food supplies. More than 36 districts were affected when temperatures reached as high as 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) for two consecutive days in early April, according to the government's Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI). 
 
 Hamidul Khan, a farmer in Lalmonirhat, northern Bangladesh, looks over his rice field, which was devastated by heat stress, May 8, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation 

The average maximum temperature for April in Bangladesh is about 33C, according to the country's Meteorological Department.  Hamidul Khan, a farmer in Lalmonirhat, northern Bangladesh, looks over his rice field, which was devastated by heat stress, May 8, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation  While other crops were affected - including maize, peanuts, and bananas - Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) figures shared with the Thomson Reuters Foundation show the bulk of the damaged plants were rice. According to the data, more than 68,000 hectares of rice were either partially or completely destroyed over the two days, affecting more than 300,000 farmers and resulting in losses of an estimated 3.3 billion taka ($39 million). Bangladesh already faces increasingly extreme weather - including droughts, floods and storms - but last month saw the most destructive bout of heat shock since the BRRI started keeping records in 2012. Heat stress is a fairly new problem for Bangladeshi farmers, said Md. Nazmul Bari, an entomology expert at the rice institute. ""There was no notable heat shock before (2012),"" he said, adding that the first recorded incident affected crops in only four districts. 
 
 Shafiqul Islam Talukder holds a handful of empty stalks that were ruined after two days of extreme hot, dry air in April, in Kishoreganj district, northeast Bangladesh, May 4, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation 

The heat experienced this April was the worst ""attack"" yet, Bari said.  Shafiqul Islam Talukder holds a handful of empty stalks that were ruined after two days of extreme hot, dry air in April, in Kishoreganj district, northeast Bangladesh, May 4, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation  ""The temperature was rising day by day (and) there was not much rain. So the humidity in the air was very low. That is the big reason for this massive heat shock."" THREAT TO FOOD SECURITY Romij Uddin, an agronomy professor at Bangladesh Agricultural University, said heat stress on crops is directly linked to global warming and rice is particularly vulnerable to high temperatures. April's event hit the plants during their flowering stage, when rice plants self-pollinate, interrupting their natural reproduction cycle, Uddin explained. ""Temperature is very crucial for pollination and high temperatures during this stage may cause sterility,"" he said. At an annual rice festival in Ballabhpur haor, a wetland area, there were no smiles on the farmers' faces this year, only talk crop devastation. ""I have never seen such hot air in my 60 years,"" said Helal Mia, a farmer from Ballabhpur village who lost four hectares of rice to heat stress. 
 
 Rice crops destroyed by heat stress in Ballabhpur village, Bangladesh, April 25, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation 

""I have borrowed money for paddy cultivation. How can I repay the loan now? How can I support my wife and children all year round? I can't see anything but darkness before my eyes.""  Rice crops destroyed by heat stress in Ballabhpur village, Bangladesh, April 25, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation  Climate experts warn that if Bangladesh continues to experience bouts of heat stress, the country may face food shortages. About a quarter of the nation's approximately 160 million people are already considered food insecure, meaning they have inadequate or uncertain access to nutritious and safe food, according to the United Nations' World Food Programme. ""We have to pay more attention to heat shock,"" said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development based in the capital Dhaka. Huq predicted that if incidences of heat stress persist, they could result in an overall 20% decline in rice production this year. HEAT-TOLERANT VARIETIES Huq and other agricultural experts say that, along with making sure rice crops are sufficiently watered, the best way to minimise the effects of heat stress is to encourage farmers to plant more heat-tolerant rice varieties. Md. Sazzadur Rahman, principal scientific officer of the BRRI's plant physiology division, said the institute is developing new varieties that can stand up to heat and early results look good. ""It yields well, it yields fast. The rice lines we developed will be able to tolerate up to 38 degrees Celsius of daytime temperature,"" he said over the phone. ""Heat shock could affect our food security, but we are trying to prevent this disaster.""",0
" Sea levels are rising 60 percent faster than UN projections, threatening low-lying areas from Miami to the Maldives, a study said on Wednesday. The report, issued during UN talks in Qatar on combating climate change, also said temperatures were creeping higher in line with UN scenarios, rejecting hopes the rate had been exaggerated. ""Global warming has not slowed down, (nor is it) lagging behind the projections,"" said Stefan Rahmstorf, lead author at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research that compared UN projections to what has actually happened from the early 1990s to 2011. The study said sea levels had been rising by 3.2 mm (0.1 inch) a year according to satellite data, 60 percent faster than the 2mm annaul rise projected by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over that period. ""This suggests that IPCC sea-level projections for the future may also be biased low,"" the authors from Germany, France and the United States wrote in the journal Environmental Research Letters. ANTARCTICA The IPCC's latest report in 2007 said seas could rise by between 18 and 59 cm this century, not counting a possible acceleration of the melt of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that could add more still water to the oceans. In the last century, seas rose by about 17 cm. Rahmstorf told Reuters his best estimate for sea level rise was between 50 cm and a metre this century, possibly more if greenhouse gas emissions surged. Higher temperatures would melt more ice on land and expand the water in the oceans. That would leave low-lying regions - from Pacific island states and Bangladesh to Tokyo and New York - facing a greater risk of storm surges, erosion and, in a worst case scenario, complete swamping by flood waters. The IPCC was criticised after it had to correct parts of its 2007 report that exaggerated the rate of melt of Himalayan glaciers and wrongly said they might vanish by 2035. People sceptical that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are stoking climate change also wonder if warming has flattened out. They note that 1998, 2005 and 2010 are tied as the warmest years since records began in the mid-19th century. But the study said overall warming was in line with IPCC projections of a gain of 0.16 degree Celsius (0.3 F) a decade from 1990 to 2011, after correcting for natural variations caused by volcanic eruptions, El Nino events that warm the Pacific and shifts in the sun's output. Almost 200 nations are meeting in Doha from November 26-Dec 7 as part of floundering efforts to work towards a UN deal to curb global emissions of greenhouse gases from 2020. ""Unless we reduce our carbon pollution rapidly, this study clearly shows we are heading for the nightmare world at the top end of the IPCC predictions,"" said professor Mark Maslin of University College, London. The IPCC says rising temperatures could cause more floods, droughts, heatwaves, mudslides and desertification that would strain water and food supplies for a rising world population. ""The authors have stressed what many of us have thought for some time - the IPCC is far from alarmist in its projections,"" said Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College, London.",0
" European Union leaders agreed an offer to put on the table at global climate talks in Copenhagen in December after healing a rift over how to split the bill. Developing countries will need 100 billion euros ($148 billion) a year by 2020 to battle climate change, leaders said at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday. About 22-50 billion euros of the total will come from the public purse in rich countries worldwide and the EU will provide a share of that. Many countries expect the EU's portion to be somewhere between 20 and 30 percent. ""I think this will be seen as one of the major breakthroughs that is necessary for us to get a Copenhagen agreement,"" British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said. East European countries said the summit had settled a rift over how to split the EU's portion of the bill in a way that would not hurt their economies as they recover from crisis. ""We consider this a success for Poland,"" said the Polish minister for Europe, Mikolaj Dowgielewicz. ""We want to develop quickly. We don't want to become the museum of folklore of eastern Europe."" Leaders fell short of agreeing a concrete formula for carving up the bill and handed that job to a new working party. ""I would prefer this burden-sharing mechanism to be ready now, but this proved too difficult,"" Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. MANDATE The two-day summit secured a complex negotiating mandate for the Copenhagen talks to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations anti-climate change scheme expiring in 2012. Success at those talks is likely to hinge on money. Developing countries say they will not sign up to tackling climate change without enough funds from rich nations, which bear most of the responsibility for damaging the atmosphere by fuelling their industries with oil and coal over decades. Developing countries might use such funds to adapt their agriculture or find new sources of water in drought zones. But the European leaders put on hold earlier plans to come up with ""fast start"" financing for developing nations in the three years before any new climate deal takes effect. Anti-poverty group Oxfam said Europe's bid was insufficient and lacked guarantees that the money would not simply be diverted from existing aid commitments. ""If rich countries steal from aid budgets to pay their climate debt, the fight against poverty will go into reverse,"" Oxfam's Elise Ford said. HOT AIR The opposition to a deal from east European countries largely dissipated after Sweden, which chaired the talks, leveraged the divisive issue of so-called ""hot air"" -- the 17 billion euros of carbon permits held by eastern Europe. The eastern European states, Russia and Ukraine hold spare permits for about 9 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, left over when their economies collapsed after communist rule ended. The spare permits, known as AAUs, can be sold to big polluters such as Japan for about 10 euros per tonne. The eastern European countries want to keep selling AAUs under the deal that replaces Kyoto. But some countries such as Germany say they undermine the integrity of the agreement and want to scrap them because they lessen the need for action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Sweden won eastern Europe's support for the overall deal in return for postponing any bold action on AAUs, one EU diplomat said. The deal also included action on domestic emissions, with a pledge to strengthen cuts to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 if other nations take similar steps.",0
"Although major crimes were down overall, an additional 4,901 murders were committed in 2020 compared with the year before, the largest leap since national records started in 1960. The significant rise in homicides has roughly coincided with the 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The high murder rate has continued into 2021, although the pace has slowed as the year has progressed. Overall, the toll of about 21, 500 people killed last year is still well below the record set during the violence of the early 1990s. Still, several cities — including Albuquerque, New Mexico; Memphis, Tennessee; Milwaukee; and Des Moines, Iowa — are recording their highest murder numbers ever, according to the report. There is no simple explanation for the steep rise. A number of key factors are driving the violence, including the economic and social toll taken by the pandemic and a sharp increase in gun purchases. “It is a perfect storm,” said Chief Harold Medina of the Albuquerque Police Department. He cited COVID, the fallout from social justice protests and bail-reform efforts that in some cities saw more incarcerated people released back onto the streets. “There is not just one factor that we can point at to say why we are where we are,” he said. The report from the FBI, which tabulates crime numbers reported by almost 16,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, also showed that murders were more widespread, occurring in all regions of the United States and not limited to major cities. Overall, the statistics indicated that the use of guns has become far more prevalent, with nonfatal shootings rising as well. About 77 percent of reported murders in 2020 were committed with a firearm, the highest share ever reported, up from 67% a decade ago, said Jeff Asher, a crime analyst based in New Orleans. Gun sales spiked during the pandemic, although experts noted that it often takes years for legal gun sales to filter into the illegal market for guns that plague cities such as Chicago. The wider geographic distribution differs from past decades, said Asher. In 1990, New York City and Los Angeles accounted for 13.8 percent of US murders, compared with 3.8% in 2020, he said. Murders so far this year rose about 10 percent from 2020 in 87 cities whose current numbers are available, Asher said. The FBI reports statistics for the previous year annually in September, so 2021 figures are not yet fully available this year. The pandemic undoubtedly played a significant role, causing economic and mental stress, forcing people together for longer periods and creating a climate of uncertainty and unease. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, businesses and in some cases their housing because of the pandemic. The widespread sense of desperation helped to fuel social friction and crime. Many Americans also experienced the trauma of losing loved ones. “People are desperate and they don’t have a lot of options, so they turn toward violence as a way to solve things,” said Enrique Cardiel, a community organizer and public health worker in the Albuquerque neighborhood with the highest number of murders in the city. The pandemic also meant that police departments sometimes struggled with the number of officers under quarantine, while the pandemic curbed public services such as mental health counseling and simultaneously aggravated related problems such as homelessness. “This is a country where everybody is suffering a little post-COVID traumatic syndrome, and not knowing what is going to happen,” said Peter Winograd, a professor at the University of New Mexico who works as a consultant for the Albuquerque Police Department. “That is huge.” The report also breaks down the murder victims by race, ethnicity and sex, with 9,913 Black people killed in 2020, 7,029 white people, 497 from other races and 315 of unknown race. There were 14,146 men killed and 3,573 women. While various medium-sized cities were rocked by a record number of homicides, certain major cities, while still enduring high murder rates, were well down from their worst years. New York City, for example, experienced about 500 murders in 2020, compared with 319 in 2019, but both figures were far below the city’s worst year, 1990, when there were more than 2,200. Chicago had 771 murders last year, compared with about 500 in 2019 and 939 in 1992, one of the city’s most violent years. There were 351 murders last year in Los Angeles, compared with 258 in 2019; its record is 1,010 murders in 1980. The protests that erupted after the killing of George Floyd were also an important factor, although experts differ about why. Some argue that the police, under intense scrutiny and demoralized, pulled back from some aspects of crime prevention. Others put the emphasis on the public, suggesting that diminished respect for the police prompted more people to try to take the law into their own hands. “The distrust of police, the low morale among police, the fact that the police are being less proactive because they are legitimately worried about being backed up by their superiors” were contributing factors, according to Winograd. Law enforcement officers also cited what they called the revolving jailhouse door created by bail reform as a factor driving up violence, although critics of that hypothesis noted that violent crime also increased in places where those changes have not occurred. Other factors are more constant. The combination of drugs, money and guns, for example, has long provided a fuse for violent deaths among young men. “A lot of it really does go back to people stressed by poverty and mental health issues and by drug addiction, and resolving a lot of these disputes by firearms,” said Liz Thomson, who used to supervise homicide investigations for the Albuquerque Police Department. Even before the pandemic, people seemed more prickly, with minor disputes escalating into violent confrontations that ended in murder, law enforcement and other analysts noted. That tendency only deepened during the pandemic, they said, with perceived personal insults among the most common motivations for murder. There have been two murders this year in Haskell, Oklahoma (population 2,000), the kind of small town that did not used to appear on the murder map. One man was stabbed to death in an argument over money, and a young woman was shot dead in a car. “It is not something that we typically run into,” Haskell Police Chief Michael Keene said of the eight-officer department. Robberies were another common reason. And although domestic-violence killings dropped slightly from recent years, they were still a factor. In late May, the police in southwest Albuquerque were dispatched to an imitation adobe home to discover that Lee Marco Cuellar had murdered his wife during an argument, strangling her to death with a sleeveless white T-shirt. Cuellar, 41, an ROTC instructor at a local middle school, told the officers that after dinner with his wife — Rosalejandra Cisneros-Cuellar, 26, known as Ally — he became convinced that she was a demon who would hurt his family, so he had to kill her, according to the criminal complaint. Murders tend to have the most devastating impact of all crimes, and to attract the most attention, but they actually constitute a small percentage of major crimes, a classification that includes rape, armed assault, robbery and car thefts. Given that people were staying at home far more during the pandemic, some categories such as burglaries dropped in 2020, the FBI numbers show. Major crimes overall dropped about 5 percent. The downward trend in overall crime started for years before the pandemic. With murders still elevated in 2021, but slowing, it is difficult to predict how long the current wave of violent crime might endure. Crime patterns tend to be cyclical in nature. The FBI data shows that the gun violence driving much of the surge is concentrated among a relatively small number of people within communities where retaliatory shootings are more common. The pandemic curbed both the community outreach programs and the policing that helped to keep murders and other violent crime in check. “It is those people and places, the pandemic’s impact on those people that matters most,” said Thomas Abt, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice. “For the men who are at the highest risk of violence, living in poor communities of color, typically, they were already under pressure, they were already under strain, they were already marginalised and isolated, and the pandemic exacerbated that significantly.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",2
"Singapore, Oct 2 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)— The world's largest coral reef - under threat from Australia's surging coal and gas shipments, climate change and a destructive starfish - is declining faster than ever and coral cover could fall to just 5 percent in the next decade, a study shows. Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in the northeastern city of Townsville say Australia's Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its coral in little more than a generation. And the pace of damage has picked up since 2006. Globally, reefs are being assailed by myriad threats, particularly rising sea temperatures, increased ocean acidity and more powerful storms, but the threat to the Great Barrier Reef is even more pronounced, the AIMS study published on Tuesday found. ""In terms of geographic scale and the extent of the decline, it is unprecedented anywhere in the world,"" AIMS chief John Gunn told Reuters. AIMS scientists studied data from more than 200 individual reefs off the Queensland coast covering the period 1985-2012. They found cyclone damage caused nearly half the losses, crown-of-thorns starfish more than 40 percent and coral bleaching from spikes in sea temperatures 10 percent. The starfish are native and prey on the reefs. But plagues are occurring much more frequently. Ordinarily, reefs can recover within 10 to 20 years from storms, bleachings or starfish attacks but climate change impacts slow this down. Rising ocean acidification caused by seas absorbing more carbon dioxide is disrupting the ability of corals to build their calcium carbonate structures. Hotter seas stress corals still further. Greens say the 2,000 km (1,200 mile) long reef ecosystem, the center-piece of a multi-billion tourism industry, also faces a growing threat from shipping driven by the planned expansion of coal and liquefied natural gas projects. Those concerns have put pressure on the authorities to figure out how to protect the fragile reef. FALLING FAST The researchers say the pace of coral loss has increased since 2006 and if the trend continues, coral cover could halve again by 2022, with the southern and central areas most affected. Between 1985 and 2012, coral cover of the reef area fell from 28 percent to 13.8 percent. ""Coral cover on the reef is consistently declining, and without intervention, it will likely fall to 5 to 10 percent within the next 10 years,"" say the researchers in the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. They called for tougher curbs on greenhouse gas emissions as a crucial way to stem the loss. Shipping and new ports on the Queensland coast are another major threat, Greenpeace says. Coal is one of Australia's top export earners and the state of Queensland is the country's largest coal-producer. It also has a rapidly growing coal-seam gas industry for LNG exports. Earlier this year, Greenpeace estimated port expansion could more than triple Queensland's coal export capacity by 2020 from 257 million metric tons (283.29 million tons) now. That would mean as many as 10,000 coal ships per year could make their way through the Great Barrier Reef area by 2020, up 480 percent from 1,722 ships in 2011, according to the group. The Queensland and national governments, which jointly manage the reef, have launched a major review of managing the risks facing the UNESCO-listed reef and its surrounding marine area. The review will look at managing the threats from increased shipping to urban development. Gunn said better management was all about buying time and improving the reef's resilience to climate change. A key area was improving water quality from rivers flowing into the reef area, with studies suggesting fertilizer-rich waters help the crown-of-thorns starfish larvae rapidly multiply.",0
"The renaming of India's tech hub and other cities coincided with Karnataka's 59th formation day.An official told IANS here: ""The state government late Friday notified that Bangalore and 11 other cities across the state will be pronounced and spelt in Kannada from Nov 1, following approval by the central government to rename them in the local language.""As the fifth largest city in the country, Bangalore drew global attention over the last decade, riding on the success of its resilient IT industry, talent pool, salubrious climate and cosmopolitan culture of its nine million denizens.Other well-known cities like Mysore will be pronounced and spelt Mysuru, Mangalore as Mangaluru, Belgaum as Belagavi, Bellary as Ballari, Hubli as Hubballi and Gulbarga in the state's northern region as Kalaburgi.The remaining five cities - Bijapur became Vijayapura, Chikmagalur Chikkamagaluru, Hospet Hosapeta, Shimoga in Malnad region as Shivamogga and Tumkur Tumakuru.Heralding the Karnataka Rajyotsava Day at a colourful cultural event in the city centre, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah told the gathering that it was a proud moment for the 60-million people of the state to pronounce names of a dozen cities in Kannada and use them officially hereafter.He said: ""We propose to rename other cities and towns in the state in due course after assessing the impact of changes to the 12 cities with a population of 0.5-1 million.""Though old timers and majority of citizens, including locals speak and write Bengaluru in Kannada, they use Bangalore when conversing or writing in English.N Mahadevappa, a college teacher, told IANS: ""Bangalore has been Bangalored! Renaming has robbed the city's charming Anglican name and fame. It's official. We have no choice but follow and get used to it.""US Secretary of State John Kerry was the first politician who coined or used ""Bangalored"" in the run-up to the 2008 presidential poll to highlight how low-cost Indian software firms were taking away thousands of tech jobs from his country due to increasing outsourcing of services.The official said: ""Renaming states and cities is not new. We are behind other states like Maharashtra which made the historical Bombay into Mumbai, while Madras became Chennai, Calcutta Kolkata, Poona Pune, Baroda Vadodara and Orissa Odisha. We have done to popularise our cities' original names and respect the people's sentiments.""The renaming exercise began in 2006 when the state's first coalition government between Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) proposed to mark the state's golden jubilee (50 years) in response to the demand by social, cultural and political organisations. It was also endorsed by the state legislature during the former BJP rule.The state government will Monday direct corporations, departments and institutions to change their nameplates and stationery accordingly.Chief secretary Kaushik Mukherjee said: ""Private firms or organisations will not be compelled to change their registered names if there is reference to any of the 12 cities.""",2
" Imagine a city of 50,000 with no cars, no carbon, no waste, a green city of the future. Now imagine it in the Gulf desert, where summer temperatures can hit 50 degrees and 24-hour air conditioning is a way of life. British architect Norman Foster has his work cut out in Masdar City, a project the Abu Dhabi government hopes will bring the United Arab Emirates' carbon footprint down to size. ""We are involved in a number of projects in Abu Dhabi and this is
without question the most idealistic. It is probably the most
idealistic project in the world today and the most relevant to any
conferences from Kyoto to Davos,"" Foster told Reuters. ""This is not about fashion, this is about survival."" The rapid economic growth of the United Arab Emirates and fellow Gulf Arab countries flush from record oil prices comes at a time of
mounting international concern over climate change. The UAE is among the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gas in the world but the capital Abu Dhabi announced on Monday it would be investing $15 billion in developing renewable and clean energy, including Masdar City, scheduled to be built in seven phases from 2008 to 2018. To do that in a desert climate is no mean task and the formidable
Foster, whose firm is behind a slew of famous designs from London's Millennium Bridge to Berlin's rebuilt Reichstag, says he went back to basics in designing Abu Dhabi's green city. ""This is a specific response to a place that is more climatically
demanding in terms of achieving zero carbon. It is more difficult in
the desert than in temperate environments. it would be easier in the
Mediterranean or northern Europe,"" he said in a telephone interview. ""But I think it is all about working with nature, working with the
elements and learning from traditional models."" Masdar will be a walled city in traditional Arab style. With no cars
allowed, it will be a compact city, with narrow, shaded streets
amenable to walking, not dissimilar to the way urban spaces were
traditionally organized to shelter shoppers and pedestrians from the
harsh sun of the Middle East. It will also feature eco-friendly transport systems to ferry people
around, including a light railway, unusual in a part of the world
where public transport is minimal and people rely heavily on big cars. Rather than spreading out buildings, which is common in Gulf Arab
countries that have plenty of empty desert to work with, Masdar will
go for density not sprawl. It will draw its power from solar panels in a part of the world with
year-round sunshine, will harness wind and thermal power and rely on photovoltaic farms, all with the aim of making it self-sustaining. ""Take Venice. You don't feel any deprivation in Venice because there are no cars. Quite the reverse. It is so attractive it is in danger
from being too popular,"" Foster said. ""We are talking about the technology to do more with less.""",0
"CHICAGO, Oct 6, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US researchers have found a way to make efficient silicon-based solar cells that are flexible enough to be rolled around a pencil and transparent enough to be used to tint windows on buildings or cars. The finding, reported on Sunday in the journal Nature Materials, offers a new way to process conventional silicon by slicing the brittle wafers into ultrathin bits and carefully transferring them onto a flexible surface. ""We can make it thin enough that we can put it on plastic to make a rollable system. You can make it gray in the form of a film that could be added to architectural glass,"" said John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research. ""It opens up spaces on the fronts of buildings as opportunities for solar energy,"" Rogers said in a telephone interview. Solar cells, which convert solar energy into electricity, are in high demand because of higher oil prices and concerns over climate change. Many companies, including Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp Corp and Germany's Q-Cells are making thin-film solar cells, but they typically are less efficient at converting solar energy into electricity than conventional cells. Rogers said his technology uses conventional single crystal silicon. ""It's robust. It's highly efficient. But in its current form, it's rigid and fragile,"" he said. Rogers' team uses a special etching method that slices chips off the surface of a bulk silicon wafer. The sliced chips are 10 to 100 times thinner than the wafer, and the size can be adapted to the application. Once sliced, a device picks up the bits of silicon chips ""like a rubber stamp"" and transfers them to a new surface material, Rogers said. ""These silicon solar cells become like a solid ink pad for that rubber stamp. The surface of the wafers after we've done this slicing become almost like an inking pad,"" he said. ""We just print them down onto a target surface."" The final step is to electrically connect these cells to get power out of them, he said. Adding flexibility to the material would make the cells far easier to transport. Rogers envisions the material being ""rolled up like a carpet and thrown on the truck."" He said the technology has been licensed to a startup company called Semprius Inc in Durham, North Carolina, which is in talks to license the technology. ""It's just a way to use thing we already know well,"" Rogers said.",0
" A Nigerian court freed on bail former militia leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari on Thursday, meeting a demand by armed groups who have disrupted oil production and kidnapped expatriate workers in the Niger Delta. The release of Asari, who is on trial for treason, comes after rebel groups in the delta freed hostages, declared a truce and said they were willing to try a dialogue with the government of newly inaugurated President Umaru Yar'Adua. Their peace moves remain tentative, however, and the effect of the killings of eight suspected militants by troops during an attempted attack on an oil well in Bayelsa state in the delta on Tuesday was not yet clear. Asari's lawyer applied for bail on health grounds and prosecutors did not oppose the application. ""I'm convinced the accused is not playing to the gallery. The accused is ordered to be released on health grounds,"" said Justice Peter Olayiwola. The judge added that Asari should not hold any political rally or engage in any political activities and his movements should be reported to the security services. The Supreme Court had denied Asari bail last Friday after a 20-month legal process, arguing he represented a threat to national security. Prosecutors had steadfastly opposed his release until now. Activists close to nascent peace negotiations between the government and the delta rebels said Thursday's court decision was the result of a political deal. Asari has been in detention since September 2005 and his trial has dragged on from one adjournment to the next. There were several unsuccessful attempts by elders from his Ijaw ethnic group to broker a deal to get him out. The climate changed after the swearing-in of Yar'Adua, who used his inaugural speech on May 29 to call for a ceasefire in the delta. Since then, powerful state governors from the region have publicly called for Asari's release. Ijaw activists said Thursday's ruling would boost efforts to pacify armed rebels demanding local control over oil revenues and compensation for oil spills in the impoverished delta. ""This was part of what we've been demanding. The action is in the right direction,"" said Ifeanyi Jonjon, head of the Ijaw Youth Council. The Ijaw are the most populous ethnic group in the delta. ""Asari can be used to reach out to the freedom fighters and redirect them away from carrying guns and towards peace,"" he said. Asari, who has lost a lot of weight in detention and has complained of ill treatment by the State Security Services, was not present in court but his supporters were jubilant. ""This is good news for anyone with a business in the Niger Delta. It will pour cold water on the situation. Asari is key to bringing peace to the delta,"" said Emmanuel Diffa, an Ijaw elder who has been campaigning for Asari's release.",0
" Prime minister Sheikh Hasina asked world leaders gathered in Rome on Monday, if trillions of dollars could be spent to save collapsing financial markets, why a similar duty was not felt to feed the world's hungry. Hasina called on the leaders to adopt sustainable food policies, mobilise global funds and stressed the need for an equitable food governance system to fight world hunger. She also argued for preferential treatment for LDCs in transfer of technology and fair trade rules, in her address to the World Summit on Food Security. Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the summit hunger was ""the most devastating weapon of mass destruction on our planet"". With the number of hungry people in the world topping 1 billion for the first time, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation called the summit in the hope leaders would commit to raising the share of official aid spent on agriculture to 17 percent of the total (its 1980 level) from 5 percent now. Declaration disappoints But the Summit Declaration adopted on Monday included only a general promise to pour more money into agricultural aid, with no target or timeframe for action. A pledge to eliminate malnutrition by 2025, one of the early aims of the summit, was also missing from the Declaration, which merely stated that world leaders commit to eradicate hunger ""at the earliest possible date"". Anti-poverty campaigners were writing the summit off as a missed opportunity, with most G-8 leaders skipping the event. The sense of scepticism had already taken hold ahead of the gathering as US president Barack Obama and other leaders backed delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later. Meanwhile, the United Nations opened the two-day conference by saying that a climate change deal in Copenhagen next month is crucial to fighting global hunger as rising temperatures threaten farm output in poor countries. Food, climate link UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there could be ""no food security without climate security"". ""Next month in Copenhagen, we need a comprehensive agreement that will provide a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty on climate change,"" he said. Africa, Asia and Latin America could see a decline of between 20 and 40 percent in potential agricultural productivity if temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius, the U.N. says. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be the hardest hit from global warming as its agriculture is almost entirely rain-fed. Pressing issues for Bangladesh Both climate and food security are immense issues for Bangladesh. ""The threat to food security seems now to be more than ever before, in the backdrop of sudden scarcity of food and its price spiral in 2007-2008, the recent worldwide financial meltdown and the looming impacts of climate change,"" Hasina said in her address. ""The picture we see now is a cruel one for a world where one-sixth of its population, or over a billion, are faced with the spectre of hunger."" She said the vast majority of these people reside in Least Developed Countries facing food shortage, negation of development gains, and erosion of Millennium Development Goals. Only production of food alone cannot guarantee food security, said the prime minister. ""Available food must be accessible, particularly to the marginalised and the vulnerable. For which a fair and an equitable food governance system is required at both, national and international level."" Mentioning the Summit Declaration, adopted earlier in the day, Hasina said it provided all scope to strengthen global governance on food security, including enhanced role of the Committee on Food Security. She stressed provisions for sustainable agricultural policies, transfer of technology, equitable and fair trade rules for food and agricultural products ""with special and preferential treatment for LDCs"". 'Funds needed' She said implementing the provisions of the Declaration would require substantial funds. ""If developed countries could provide trillions of dollars to save collapsed financial markets, should they not feel any obligation to feed the starving millions?"" She welcomed a recent G-8 decision to mobilise $20 billion over three years for small farmers in food deficit developing countries. But she said the amount was insufficient. She said additional funds would be available if only the developed countries fulfilled their ODA commitment of 0.7% of their Gross National Income to developing countries, and 0.2% to the LDCs by 2010, as affirmed in the Brussels Program of Action. Hasina said food security was also directly related to climate change. ""Bangladesh stands out as a stark example where agricultural production has become hostage to frequent and erratic natural disasters, thereby, adversely affecting food production,"" sahe said. ""Significantly, the demands for meeting the adverse effects of climate change is diverting funds has also severely affecting sensitive social sectors as health, education, energy etc."" ""Shortage of fund has also severely restricted our research efforts in agriculture, particularly in food production."" She said her new government, on assuming power in January, had been confronted with all these challenges. She said agricultural policies were being put in place again, which helped Bangladesh attain food autarky once before. These include cutting production costs, striving for fair prices for farmers, and removing bottlenecks in the marketing chain, she said. It meant resurrecting agricultural research to find flood, drought, and salinity resistant food and cash crops, access for small farmers to sustainable technologies, social entrepreneurship, and financial credit. 'How to feed the world' FAO has convened the Nov 16-18 Summit in a bid to marshal political will behind increased investment in agriculture and a reinvigorated international effort to combat hunger. Three important events in October prepared the ground for the Summit, says FAO. A High-Level Expert Forum on How to Feed the World in 2050 examined policy options that governments should consider adopting to ensure that the world population can be fed when it nears its peak of nearly 9.2 billion people in the middle of this century. The Committee on World Food Security considered reforms that will enable it to play a much more effective role in the global governance of food security. The theme of World Food Day (Oct 16) this year was how to ensure food security in times of crisis.",4
" US President Barack Obama told the United Nations on Wednesday there was no short cut to Middle East peace but Palestinians said they would press on with a request for UN recognition of their nascent state. Amid frantic efforts to avert a diplomatic disaster, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the United Nations to grant the Palestinians the status of observer state, like the Vatican, while outlining a one-year roadmap to peace. A year after telling the General Assembly he hoped to see a Palestinian state born by now, the US president said creating such a state alongside Israel remained his goal. ""But the question isn't the goal we seek -- the question is how to reach it. And I am convinced that there is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades,"" he told the assembly. With US sway in the Middle East at stake, Obama had hoped to dissuade the Palestinians from asking the Security Council for statehood despite Israeli wrath and a US veto threat. But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seems determined to pursue his plan to hand an application for statehood to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday. Obama told Abbas in a meeting that UN action would not lead to a Palestinian state and that the United States would veto such a move in the Security Council, the White House said. Asked if Abbas had given any sign he might change course, Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said: ""He has been very clear what his intent is ... which is to go to the Council and to begin the process of securing membership there."" Abbas' spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said the two leaders had reiterated their positions, without any apparent result. Obama, echoing Israel's position, told the United Nations that only negotiations can lead to a Palestinian state. ""Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN,"" he said. ""Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians -- not us -- who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem."" However, it is the failure of 20 years of US-brokered negotiations that has driven Abbas to take his quest for a state to the United Nations -- a ploy that could embarrass the United States by forcing it to protect its Israeli ally against the tide of world opinion. Obama earlier met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and assured him of unwavering US support. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to hold separate talks with Abbas and Netanyahu in the evening. BLEAK PROSPECTS Although Obama said he had set out a new basis for negotiations in May, chances of reviving peace talks look bleak. The two sides are far apart. The Palestinians are divided internally and Obama will not want to risk alienating Israel's powerful US support base by pressing for Israeli concessions as he enters a tough battle for re-election next year. In more evidence of Obama's domestic constraints, a US Senate committee voted to prohibit aid to the Palestinians if they joined the United Nations. France has grown frustrated at the lack of progress, saying negotiations should be widened to include a more hands-on role for Europe given the impasse in US-led efforts. ""Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters and begin negotiations,"" Sarkozy said. ""The moment has come to build peace for Palestinian and Israeli children."" Sarkozy said negotiations should begin within one month, an agreement on borders and security should be clinched within six months and a definitive agreement be reached within a year. Rhodes said there was some ""overlap"" between Obama and Sarkozy on their Middle East peace ideas, but they differed on Palestinian membership of the United Nations. The Palestinians see statehood as opening the way for negotiations between equals. Israel says the Palestinian move aims at delegitimizing the Jewish state. Flag-waving Palestinians rallied in West Bank city squares to back the recourse to the United Nations. The drama at the United Nations is playing out as Arab uprisings are transforming the Middle Eastern landscape. Obama pledged support for Arab democratic change, called for more UN sanctions against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and urged Iran and North Korea to meet their nuclear obligations -- twin standoffs that have eluded his efforts at resolution. Iran freed two Americans held for spying, in what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a compassionate gesture before he addresses the United Nations on Thursday. DELAYING ACTION The Security Council could delay action on Abbas' request, giving the mediating ""Quartet"" -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- more time to craft a declaration that could coax both sides back to the table. A French presidential source said the Quartet was unlikely to issue such a declaration within the next three days. A senior Palestinian official, Nabil Shaath, said the Palestinians would give the Security Council ""some time"" to consider the statehood claim before they took it to the General Assembly, where Washington has no veto. Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, said Obama's speech was a disappointment, accusing him of being selective when upholding principles of freedom and self-determination.
""When it comes to Palestinians suffering from an oppressive foreign military occupation, somehow ... these principles do not apply. They only apply when Arabs rebel against their own oppressive regime."" Whatever happens at the United Nations, Palestinians will remain under Israeli occupation and any nominal state would lack recognized borders or real independence and sovereignty. It is a measure of their desperation that they are persisting with an initiative that could incur financial retribution from Israel and the United States. In his speech to the General Assembly, Ban asked governments to show solidarity in meeting ""extraordinary challenges"" for the world body, ranging from climate change to peacekeeping.
""Without resources, we cannot deliver,"" he declared, pledging to streamline UN budgets to ""do more with less.""",0
"The message was writt by Facebook’s own employees. Facebook’s position on political advertising is “a threat to what FB stands for,” the employees wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times. “We strongly object to this policy as it stands.” For the last two weeks, the text of the letter has been publicly visible on Facebook Workplace, a software programme that the Silicon Valley company uses to communicate internally. More than 250 employees have signed the message, according to three people who have seen it and who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation. While the number of signatures on the letter was a fraction of Facebook’s 35,000-plus workforce, it was one sign of the resistance that the company is now facing internally over how it treats political ads. Many employees have been discussing Zuckerberg’s decision to let politicians post anything they want in Facebook ads because those ads can go viral and spread misinformation widely. The worker dissatisfaction has spilled out across winding, heated threads on Facebook Workplace, the people said. For weeks, Facebook has been under attack by presidential candidates, lawmakers and civil rights groups over its position on political ads. But the employee actions — which are a rare moment of internal strife for the company — show that even some of its own workers are not convinced the political ads policy is sound. The dissent is adding to Facebook’s woes as it heads into the 2020 presidential election season. “Facebook’s culture is built on openness, so we appreciate our employees voicing their thoughts on this important topic,” Bertie Thomson, a Facebook spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We remain committed to not censoring political speech and will continue exploring additional steps we can take to bring increased transparency to political ads.” Facebook has been struggling to respond to misinformation on its site since the 2016 presidential election, when Russians used the social network to spread inflammatory and divisive messages to influence the US electorate. Zuckerberg has since appointed tens of thousands of people to work on platform security and to deter coordinated disinformation efforts. But figuring out what is and isn’t allowed on the social network is slippery. And last month, Facebook announced that politicians and their campaigns would have nearly free rein over content they post there. Previously, the company had prohibited the use of paid political ads that “include claims debunked by third-party fact checkers.” This month, President Donald Trump’s campaign began circulating an ad on Facebook that made false claims about former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running for president. When Biden’s campaign asked Facebook to remove the ad, the company refused, saying ads from politicians were newsworthy and important for discourse. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is also running for president, soon took Facebook to task. She bought a political ad on Facebook that falsely claimed Zuckerberg and his company supported Trump for president. Neither Zuckerberg nor Facebook have endorsed a political candidate. Warren said she wanted to see how far she could take it on the site. Zuckerberg had turned his company into a “disinformation-for-profit machine,” she said. But Zuckerberg doubled down. In a 5,000-word speech to students at Georgetown University in Washington this month, the chief executive defended his treatment of political ads by citing freedom of expression. He said Facebook’s policies would be seen positively in the long run, especially when compared with policies in countries like China, where the government suppresses online speech. “People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a fifth estate alongside the other power structures of society,” Zuckerberg said at the time. Zuckerberg also said Facebook’s policies were largely in line with what other social networks — like YouTube and Twitter — and most television broadcasters had decided to run on their networks. Federal law mandates that broadcast networks cannot censor political ads from candidates running for office. Inside Facebook, Zuckerberg’s decision to be hands off on political ads has supporters. But dissenters said Facebook was not doing enough to check the lies from spreading across the platform. While internal debate is not uncommon at the social network, it historically has seen less internal turmoil than other tech companies because of a strong sense of mission among its rank-and-file workers. That has set it apart from Google and Amazon, which for the last few years have grappled with several employee uprisings. Most notably, 20,000 Google workers walked off the job in 2018 to protest the company’s massive payouts to executives accused of sexual harassment. Last week, Google employees again challenged management over new software that some staff said was a surveillance tool to keep tabs on workplace dissent. At an employee meeting Thursday, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said he was working on ways to improve trust with employees, while acknowledging it was challenging to maintain transparency as the company grows. A video of Pichai’s comments was leaked to The Washington Post. Amazon has faced employee pressure for nearly a year to do more to address the company’s effect on climate change. Some employees worked on a shareholder resolution to push the company on the matter, and more than 7,500 Amazon workers publicly signed a letter to support the proposal. In September, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, announced the company was accelerating its climate goals, aiming to be carbon neutral by 2040. In the Facebook employee letter to Zuckerberg and other executives, the workers said the policy change on political advertising “doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.” It added, “We want to work with our leadership to develop better solutions that both protect our business and the people who use our products.” The letter then laid out product changes and other actions that Facebook could take to reduce the harm from false claims in advertising from politicians. Among the proposals: changing the visual design treatment for political ads, restricting some of the options for targeting users with those ads and instituting spending caps for individual politicians. “This is still our company,” the letter concluded. c.2019 The New York Times Company",2
"Bank governor Nor Shamsiah Mohamad Yunus said the recent shroud of haze in Malaysia and neighbouring Indonesia and Singapore from burning forests was a reminder of the environmental challenges facing countries. ""It presents a major economic issue with direct implications on financial stability,"" she said at a regional conference on climate change in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. ""It is for this reason that Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), along with many other central banks around the globe, are giving serious attention to climate risk."" She said new reporting requirements for financial institutions will kick in once classifications on green assets are finalised with the Securities Commission Malaysia and the World Bank. ""This framework aims to support informed decisions and analysis of exposures to climate risk in fund raising, lending and investment activities,"" Nor Shamsiah said. The Bank expects to issue the first draft of the green assets classification by the end of this year for industry feedback. ""Information gathered through this process will be used by the Bank to consider changes to prudential standards to better reflect risks from climate-related exposures,"" she said. The governor did not describe the institutions but said the financial ecosystem included banks, insurers, venture capital and private equity firms. CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, Malaysia's second-largest lender by assets, this week joined a coalition of 130 banks worldwide, representing more than $47 trillion in assets, to commit to align their business with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. CIMB said it was among 30 banks, and the only one from Southeast Asia, that drafted the principles of what is known as responsible banking under the UN Environment Programme's Finance Initiative. Economic losses from disasters in Asia and the Pacific could exceed $160 billion annually by 2030, the United Nations development arm estimated in a report last year. The region experiences more natural disasters than any other, though Malaysia is largely spared. Between 2014 and 2017, nations in the region were affected by 55 earthquakes, 217 storms and cyclones, and 236 cases of severe flooding, according to UN data. On Wednesday, Scientists behind a UN-backed study of the links between oceans, glaciers, ice caps and the climate warned the world to slash emissions or watch cities vanish under rising seas, rivers run dry and marine life collapse.",0
"ABU DHABI, Mon May 25, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The world economy has avoided ""utter catastrophe"" and industrialized countries could register growth this year, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said on Monday. ""I will not be surprised to see world trade stabilize, world industrial production stabilize and start to grow two months from now,"" Krugman told a seminar. ""I would not be surprised to see flat to positive GDP growth in the United States, and maybe even in Europe, in the second half of the year."" The Princeton professor and New York Times columnist has said he fears a decade-long slump like that experienced by Japan in the 1990s. He has criticized the US administration's bailout plan to persuade investors to help rid banks of up to $1 trillion in toxic assets as amounting to subsidized purchases of bad assets. Speaking in UAE, the world's third-largest oil exporter, Krugman said Japan's solution of export-led growth would not work because the downturn has been global. ""In some sense we may be past the worst but there is a big difference between stabilizing and actually making up the lost ground,"" he said. ""We have averted utter catastrophe, but how do we get real recovery? ""We can't all export our way to recovery. There's no other planet to trade with. So the road Japan took is not available to us all,"" Krugman said. Global recovery could come about through more investment by major corporations, the emergence of a major technological innovation to match the IT revolution of the 1990s or government moves on climate change. ""Legislation that will establish a capping grade system for greenhouse gases' emissions is moving forward,"" he said, referring to the US Congress. ""When the Europeans probably follow suit, and the Japanese, and negotiations begin with developing countries to work them into the system, that will provide enormous incentive for businesses to start investing and prepare for the new regime on emissions... But that's a hope, that's not a certainty.""",0
" Brazil, China, India and South Africa have urged rich nations to hand over $10 billion to poor countries this year to help fight climate change. The funds were pledged in a non-binding deal agreed at last December's Copenhagen climate conference. The group - known as BASIC - said the money must be available at once ""as proof of their commitment"" to address the global challenge. The plea was issued after a meeting of the four nations in Delhi on Sunday. The four nations, led by China, also pledged to meet an end-month deadline to submit action plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Environment ministers and envoys from the four nations met in New Delhi in a show of unity by countries whose greenhouse gas emissions are among the fastest rising in the world. The bloc was key to brokering a political agreement at the Copenhagen talks in December and its meeting in India was designed in part to put pressure on richer nations to make good on funding commitments. ""We have sent a very powerful symbol to the world of our intentions,"" the Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said at a joint press conference after seven hours of talks. The group discussed setting up a climate fund to help nations most vulnerable to the impact of global warming, which it said would act as a wakeup call for wealthier countries to meet their pledges on financial assistance and give $10 billion in 2010. Rich countries have pledged $30 billion in climate change funding for the 2010-12 period and set a goal of $100 billion by 2020, far less than what developing countries had wanted. The group in New Delhi said releasing $10 billion this year would send a signal of the rich countries' commitment. The four said they were in talks to set up an independent fund for the same purpose, but gave no timeline or figure. ""When we say we will be reinforcing technical support as well as funds to the most vulnerable countries, we are giving a slap in the face to the rich countries,"" Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said through a translator. The non-binding accord worked out at the Copenhagen climate summit was described by many as a failure because it fell short of the conference's original goal of a more ambitious commitment to prevent more heatwaves, droughts and crop failures. China is the world's top CO2 emitter, while India is number four. China was blamed by many countries at Copenhagen for obstructing a tougher deal and has refused to submit to outside scrutiny of its plans to brake greenhouse gas emissions. China has pledged to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of economic growth by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. For India, that figure is up to 25 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. Xie Zhenhua, deputy head of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, said the world needed to take immediate action to fight climate change. But in the wake of a controversial exaggeration by the U.N. climate panel on the threat of global warming to the Himalayan glaciers, he called for an ""open attitude"" to climate science. ""(There is a) point of view that the climate change or climate warming issue is caused by the cyclical element of the nature itself. I think we need to adopt an open attitude to the scientific research,"" he said through a translator. ""We want our views to be more scientific and more consistent.""",0
"- to die out since the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s. ""To say something is extinct requires quite a lot of proof, of negative evidence, and may take many years to collect,"" said Craig Hilton-Taylor, who manages Red List. Scientists working on the ""possibly extinct"" list rummage in the undergrowth for rare plants, frogs or rats, set up night-time traps for bats or moths, or scour the seabed for corals. Some experts liken the difficulties to ""proving"" that the mythical Loch Ness Monster does not exist. The Christmas Island shrew has not been seen on its Australian island since 1985. The Venezuelan skunk frog, known from a cloud forest habitat of 10 sq km (3.9 sq mile), has not been spotted despite repeated searches. Despite the difficulties of proof, scientists say species are disappearing at an ever faster rate. Some 76 mammals have gone extinct since 1500, a much faster rate than in previous centuries, and 29 are ""possibly extinct"" on the 2008 Red List. BACK FROM THE DEAD Extinct species have often unknown economic value, such as the Australian gastric brooding frog, which incubated its young in its stomach and might have pointed to ways to treat ulcers. Or South Africa's bluebuck antelope, which could have boosted tourism. While most news is bleak, a few ""Lazarus"" species give cause for celebration -- last year, a lizard presumed extinct turned up on La Palma in Spain's Canary Islands after no sightings in 500 years. Australian scientists were even delighted to find two dead night parrots in 2006 and 1990, taken as signs the reclusive species survives. A few years ago the fabulous green sphinx moth, known from one Hawaiian island, was written off as extinct but then experts on another island were flabbergasted to catch one in a net. Nevertheless, Hoffmann said Red List's demands for evidence meant that it probably underestimated the pace of extinctions. Searches have to be rigorous, at the right seasons, and in nearby habitats, with the correct equipment. ""Scientists want to be cautious"" because of the finality of extinction, Hoffman said. ""Possibly extinct"" is a category so bleak that it does not even include the critically endangered ivory-billed woodpecker -- subject of speculation about a U.S. comeback after reported sightings in Arkansas in 2004. ""It has never been listed as 'possibly extinct' because there were sightings 20 to 30 years ago in Cuba,"" Hilton-Taylor said. ""There is still good habitat there."" One result of declaring a species extinct is that it inevitably ends cash for conservation -- lending agencies such as the Global Environment Facility use Red List data. And, when one species goes extinct, new ones become endangered, as is happening on the Yangtze River, where the finless porpoise and the Chinese paddlefish, reported to grow up to 7 meters (23 feet), are also in danger. ""The problem with the Yangtze is that the threats are still there and they are escalating,"" Turvey said. And there are wider threats. The U.N. Climate Panel said in 2007 that up to 30 percent of species will face increasing risks of extinction if temperatures rise by another 1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit). The panel, which says temperatures rose 0.7 C in the 20th century, also forecasts more droughts, heatwaves and rising seas linked to human emissions of greenhouse gases spurred mainly by burning fossil fuels. In a 2006 report, Birdlife expert Stuart Butchart wrote that 150 bird species had gone extinct since 1500, or 0.3 a year. That was 30-300 times the background rate of extinctions -- a natural process deduced from fossil records. And no one knows the number of species on earth -- one U.N.-backed study estimated 5-30 million against about 2 million documented so far. The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity estimates they may be vanishing faster than they are found, at a rate of three per hour, the fastest in millions of years.",0
"In one of the strongest criticisms of the COP26 draft deal, Yadav said developing nations had the right to use the remainder of the so-called global ""carbon budget"", or the amount of carbon dioxide the world can release before warming crosses the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold. ""Mr President thank you for your efforts to build consensus,"" he told Britain's COP26 president, Alok Sharma, at a so-called stocktaking plenary. ""I am afraid, however, the consensus remained elusive. ""In such a situation, how can anyone expect that developing countries can make promises about phasing out coal and fossil fuel subsidies when developing counties have still to deal with their development agendas and poverty eradication?"" The issue of subsidies for oil, gas and coal has become a major sticking point at the summit, where negotiators have already missed a Friday deadline to strike an agreement aimed at keeping alive a goal to limit global warming to 1.5C. Earlier, a new draft of the agreement negotiated over the past two weeks called upon countries to accelerate ""efforts towards the phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies"". On Friday, two sources close to the negotiations said China and Saudi Arabia were among a group of countries seeking to prevent the deal in Scotland from including language that opposes fossil fuel subsidies. Yadav also criticised what he described as ""lack of balance"" in the agreement, an argument developing countries have made before when pushing for more money to better adapt their countries to deal with the effects of climate change.",0
"Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Beijing, the second leg of his three-day trip to China during which both sides have pledged to boost cooperation between the two Asian giants. ""We have the ability to make the global political and economic order move in a more just and balanced direction,"" Li said. The two countries agreed to start annual visits between their militaries, expand exchanges between the border commanders and start using a military hotline that has been discussed in recent years to defuse flare-ups on the border, according to a joint statement.  Tensions rose between China and India last year over the disputed border. China lays claim to more than 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) ruled by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas. India says China occupies 38,000 square km (14,600 sq miles) of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west. India is also suspicious of China's support for India's arch-rival, Pakistan. ""We both believe in maintaining the momentum of talks between special representatives on the border issue in seeking a plan for resolution that is fair and reasonable,"" Li told reporters. ASIAN CENTURY  In a reminder of the underlying tensions between the two countries, Modi said he ""stressed the need for China to reconsider its approach on some of the issues that hold us back from realising full potential of our partnership"". Related Video The world's two largest countries by population also discussed ways to tackle climate change. China and India are the world's No.1 and No.3 emitters of carbon dioxide. More than 20 agreements have been signed for cooperation in areas such as railways and clean energy technologies. The desire to realise what both sides call ""the Asian Century"" is driving much of the goodwill. On Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Modi to ""realise the strategic needs for our national rejuvenation"" and ""work together to promote the international order in a more just and fair direction"".  Modi told reporters that ""the re-emergence of India and China and their relationship"" would have ""a profound impact on the course of this century"". Behind the apparent detente is a push by Xi to invoke nationalistic themes to win public support as he seeks to boost China's role as a bigger player in international politics. His remarks also appear aimed to appeal to Modi, who believes in a strong and proud India.  The Global Times, an influential tabloid owned by the ruling Chinese Communist party mouthpiece the People's Daily, said in an editorial that ""it is obvious that the Western elite doesn't want to see India and China drawing closer to each other, because it will confront their vision for Asia's future"".",0
"BEIJIN, Dec 12, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will attend U.N. climate change talks in Copenhagen on Dec. 17-18, the Foreign Ministry said, firming up dates for his previously announced trip. The ministry gave no other details in a brief statement issued on its website (www.mfa.gov.cn) late on Friday. Wen will be there at the end of the meeting, joining US President Barack Obama, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. A rift between rich and poor nations has stalled the Dec 7-18 climate talks in the Danish capital, which aim to agree a new global pact to fight warming. China on Friday attacked a top US envoy as either ""extremely irresponsible"" or lacking in common sense, for saying at the summit that no US climate aid would go to China.",0
"After a red carpet welcome by President Barack Obama at an air base near the capital, the 78-year-old Argentine headed off to Washington not in a limousine as is customary but in a modest Fiat. School children cheered the pontiff as his Alitalia plane landed, chanting ""We love Francis, yes we do. We love Francis, how about you?"" Obama, his family and Vice President Joe Biden greeted the pope in an honor given to few foreign dignitaries. The pope's motorcade ride in the black Fiat 500L was in sharp contrast to the way that U.S. presidents and visiting world leaders sweep into town in limousines and large SUVs after arriving at Joint Base Andrews air base. The six-day visit to America gives Francis a chance to showcase some of his favorite themes like compassion and simplicity in the world's most powerful country. The pontiff has often taken aim at capitalism, but on the plane bringing him from Cuba he said it would be wrong to presume that his concerns about economic injustice make him a leftist. “Maybe an explanation was given that led to the impression that I am a bit to the left but it would be an error of explanation,"" Francis told reporters. The first Latin American pope has electrified liberal-leaning US Catholics, Democrats and many non-Catholics with a shift in emphasis toward concern for the poor and immigrants and his appeals for action against climate change. But his criticism of unbridled capitalism has unsettled U.S. conservatives. The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, Francis said his teachings on economic fairness and climate change are ""all in the social doctrine of the Church."" ""It is I who follow the Church,"" he said. Francis will give the first speech by any pope to the US Congress on Thursday, an address to the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday and an open-air Mass in Philadelphia where 1.5 million people are expected to attend. Francis ended a four-day Cuba trip and headed to the United States with a message of reconciliation for the former Cold War foes while avoiding controversy on the US trade embargo or human rights on the Communist-run island. The pope told reporters he hopes the United States will lift its long trade embargo on the Communist-run island but does not plan to raise it in his address to Congress this week. His decision to go from Cuba to the United States is weighed with symbolism as the pope pushes the Church to pay greater heed to people who live on the periphery since becoming pope in 2013. He has never visited the United States. Obama and the pope meet more formally on Wednesday at the White House where the atmosphere is likely to be cordial. ""I think that you can say that both President Obama and Pope Francis, have, over the course of their careers, both demonstrated a commitment to values related to social and economic justice,"" White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. After the meeting, Francis will then parade past some of Washington's monuments before a crowd expected to reach tens of thousands. A poll on Monday showed that 51 percent of Americans viewed Francis favorably, with just 9 percent of respondents to a MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist poll reporting an unfavorable view. US Republicans, who control Congress, often struggle to agree with Francis' economic messages. But they applaud him for defending Church teachings that oppose abortion and same-sex marriage.",0
" Want to have a go at building you own eco-city of the future? London's Science Museum is offering visitors the chance to do just that in an exhibition opening later this week. ""The Science of Survival"" show offers visitors an interactive trip through the problems climate change poses to daily life and an array of options for rising to that challenge. The end result is a custom made eco-community. ""At the end you have your 2050 community built with all the choices you have made during your visit,"" said Malinda Campbell of The Science of... company, a joint venture between the Science Museum and Fleming Media. ""Along the way every choice you make is shown to have pros and cons, telling you there is no one answer, so the same is true of your virtual city. But the end message is positive,"" she told Reuters on a preview visit. Each visitor gets a computer chip card and is then introduced to the basic problems and four animated characters, each with their own individual approach to the solutions. There is the continue-as-normal avatar, the technology-holds-all-the-answers avatar, the green-is-the-holy-grail avatar and one that takes a piece from all the others. The exhibition is broken down into five lifestyle sections -- water, food, entertainment, transport and building -- each explaining the problem from that perspective and offering a range of solutions through the computer avatars. For instance, a message at the outset states: ""Of every 100 drops of water on earth 97 are too salty to drink, two are trapped in ice and one is fresh water."" ""At first glance that may suggest that global warming and melting ice caps offers a solution to growing shortages of drinking water. But as you get deeper into the exhibition you find the other side of that,"" said Campbell. At each stage the visitor takes part in a game ranging from designing a mode of transport and how to build and power it to making a meal, building a house and choosing a power supply. Each of these decisions is stored in the computer chip card out of which springs the 2050 eco-community at the end. ""The aim is to challenge what is being taken for granted by millions of people in the developed world. We want to connect to people on a personal level,"" said Campbell. The exhibition opens on Saturday and runs to November. An exact duplicate will open in New Jersey in the United States in the Autumn, and there are plans to take it one the road round the world. ""It will be interesting to see if different places come up with different answers,"" said Campbell.",0
"Trump has said he wants to find ways to work with Putin, a goal made more difficult by sharp differences over Russia's actions in Syria and Ukraine, and allegations Moscow meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. The two men met during an informal gathering of G20 leaders at the start of the summit, with the US president reinforcing their handshake by patting the Russian leader on the arm. In a video of the encounter, Trump was later shown patting Putin on the back. Both men smiled. They are to hold a formal meeting later in the day at 3:45pm local time, when every facial expression and physical gesture is likely to be analysed. ""I look forward to all meetings today with world leaders, including my meeting with Vladimir Putin. Much to discuss,"" Trump wrote in a tweet on Friday. ""I will represent our country well and fight for its interests!"" The meeting is slated to begin shortly after a G20 working session on climate and energy starts. Trump, who has angered world leaders with his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris accord on climate change, will likely have to leave that session early to make the Russia meeting. 
 
 US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin shake hands during the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany in this still image taken from video, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Steffen Kugler/Courtesy of Bundesregierung/Handout via REUTERS 

Some fear the Republican president, a political novice whose team is still developing its Russia policy, will be less prepared for their sit-down than Putin, who has dealt with the last two US presidents and scores of other world leaders.  US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin shake hands during the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany in this still image taken from video, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Steffen Kugler/Courtesy of Bundesregierung/Handout via REUTERS  ""There's nothing ... the Kremlin would like to see more than a (US) president who will settle for a grip and a grin and walk away saying that he had this fabulous meeting with the Kremlin autocrat,"" Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee, said in an interview on MSNBC. As investigations at home continue into whether there was any collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, the US president has come under pressure to take a hard line against the Kremlin. Moscow has denied any interference and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia. 
 
 US President Donald Trump, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker talk during the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany in this still image taken from video, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Steffen Kugler/Courtesy of Bundesregierung/Handout via REUTERS 

  US President Donald Trump, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker talk during the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany in this still image taken from video, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Steffen Kugler/Courtesy of Bundesregierung/Handout via REUTERS  'Destabilising behaviour' On Thursday, Trump won praise from at least one Republican hawk in the US Congress after a speech in Warsaw in which he urged Russia to stop its ""destabilising activities"" and end its support for Syria and Iran. The remarks were among Trump's sharpest about Moscow since becoming president, though they stopped short of any personal criticism of Putin. ""This is a great start to an important week of American foreign policy,"" said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has often been critical of Trump on security issues. Putin had been fully briefed about Trump's description of Moscow's behaviour as destabilising, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding he would take that and other remarks by US officials into account. Still, Trump declined on Thursday to say definitively whether he believed US intelligence officials' assertion that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US election. ""I think it was Russia but I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure,” Trump told a Warsaw news conference. 
 
 US President Donald Trump, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker talk during the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany in this still image taken from video, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Steffen Kugler/Courtesy of Bundesregierung/Handout via REUTERS 

Ahead of Trump’s meeting with Putin, three US senators wrote to Trump to express “deep concern” about reports that his administration planned to discuss the return to Russia of diplomatic compounds in Maryland and New York that were seized by the Obama administration last year in response to alleged Russian election meddling.  US President Donald Trump, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker talk during the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany in this still image taken from video, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Steffen Kugler/Courtesy of Bundesregierung/Handout via REUTERS  Republican Senators Johnny Isakson and Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen said returning the facilities would ""embolden"" Putin and encourage further efforts by Russia to interfere in Western elections. All three are on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The White House declined to offer details on what Trump would request of Putin and what he might offer in exchange for cooperation. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump wanted to talk about how the two countries can work together to stabilise war-ravaged Syria. ""The United States is prepared to explore the possibility of establishing with Russia joint mechanisms for ensuring stability, including no-fly zones, on-the-ground ceasefire observers, and coordinated delivery of humanitarian assistance,"" Tillerson said before leaving the United States to join Trump in Germany.",0
"Dhaka, Nov 2 (bdnews24.com)—Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina arrived in Hanoi on Friday morning on a three-day official visit to Socialist Republic of Vietnam before going to Laos to attend the 9th Asia-Europe Meeting Summit (ASEM9). A Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight carrying Hasina and her entourage had taken off at 7:30am from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital. It landed at the Noi Bai International Airport at 10:50am local time where Deputy Foreign Minister of Vietnam Le Luong Minh and Bangladesh Ambassador in Hanoi Supradip Chakma received the Prime Minister. She was accorded a red-carpet welcome at the airport and two children presented bouquets to her. Hasina was taken to Sheraton Hanoi Hotel where she will be staying during her Nov 2-4 visit to Vietnam. Thenafter, she is scheduled to go to Laos to attend the 9th ASEM Summit of Heads of State and Government scheduled for Nov 5-6. Foreign Ministry officials said the Prime Minister on Friday would hold talks with Vietnamese leaders and also attend several agreements signing ceremonies between Bangladesh and Vietnam. She is also scheduled to make courtesy calls on Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong and Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Sinh Hung. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will host a dinner and cultural programme in the honour of the Prime Minister. On Saturday, Hasina will visit the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh and monuments of national heroes and martyrs, and will pay her respects by placing wreaths. Later, she will also attend a business seminar and pay a field trip to the industrial zone and agriculture fields. She will leave Hanoi for Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on Nov 4. She will meet the leaders of Lao People's Democratic Republic at the Presidential Palace the same day. On Nov 5, she will join the opening ceremony of the 9th ASEM Summit at the National Convention Centre in Laos. The theme for this year's ASEM9 is ""Friends for Peace, Partners for Prosperity"". It is expected that the leaders of Asia and Europe would discuss regional and international issues of common interest and concern, including, food and energy security, sustainable development, financial and economic crisis, climate change, natural disaster response and socio-cultural cooperation. Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, Ambassador-at-Large M Ziauddin and Press Secretary to the Prime Minister Abul Kalam Azad, among others, are accompanying Hasina during her visit to Vietnam and Laos. A 36-member business delegation, led by Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) President AK Azad, is also part of the Prime Minister's entourage. Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury, Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Muhammad Faruq Khan, Railway Minister Mujibul Haque and Chief Whip Abdus Sahid saw her off at the airport in the morning. Among others, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hussian Bhuiyan, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Shaikh Mohammad Wahid Uz Zaman, chiefs of the three services, Home Secretary and the Vietnamese Charge d'Affaires in Dhaka were also present.",1
" India is not seeking to contain China and peace and stability in Asia are in the common interest of both the world's fastest-growing major economies, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday. There was room enough for the rise of both countries, which together comprise more than 20 percent of the world's population, he said. ""The primary task of our foreign policy is to create an external environment that is conducive to our rapid development,"" he said in a speech at Beijing's Chinese Academy of Social Science. ""Our policy seeks to widen our development choices and give us strategic autonomy in the world."" Beijing has been wary of New Delhi's burgeoning friendship with the United States, and India's navy was involved in war games last year with those of the United States, Australia, Japan and Singapore, in what some analysts saw as an emerging alliance of democracies ranged against China's military might. But Singh, on his first visit to China as prime minister, made a point of stressing that there was room for India to develop ties around the globe. ""The independence of our foreign policy enables us to pursue mutually beneficial cooperation with all major countries of the world,"" he said. ""... There is enough space for both India and China to grow and prosper while strengthening our cooperative engagement."" In talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday, there was no hint of a breakthrough on a decades-old border dispute that has dogged relations and that flared into a brief war in 1962. But Singh said the two countries had an obligation to get beyond ""problems that have troubled our relations in the past"" and said he believed the boundary issue could be settled on the basis of political parameters agreed when Wen was in India in 2005. ""We are confident that those principles will guide us to a mutually satisfactory solution of this issue,"" he said. China and India also agreed to set up a mechanism to look at trans-boundary rivers, following concerns in New Delhi that Beijing was seeking to divert the headwaters of the Brahmaputra in Tibet toward its parched western provinces. Both countries share domestic development as a priority, which gives then common ground in foreign policy, in their desire for regional peace and stability and on global environmental issues, Singh said. ""We need ... to address critical challenges to energy, food and water security and climate change,"" he said. ""These are challenges that China faces as well."" He also called for increased exchanges between people in both countries to ""eliminate misconceptions and prejudices"". China and Inda, Singh said, would be at the centre of the global order in this century. ""We are at an exciting point in history when the centre of the gravity of the world economy is moving towards Asia,"" he said. ""Just as the world economy was largely about Western nations in the 20th century, it could be largely about Asia in the 21st century."" ",0
"On Monday, a task force of eight governors, 16 mayors and two tribal leaders will meet with Vice President Joe Biden and senior White House officials to present recommendations on how they can help local communities deal with extreme weather.White House officials will also unveil a set of measures, including a Web-based climate resilience toolkit, to help local leaders adopt measures to prepare municipalities for rising sea levels, droughts, diseases and other climate impacts.The recommendations come as Congress engages in sharp partisan debate over whether to approve the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, and as new Republican leadership eyes reining in the executive actions in President Barack Obama's Climate Action Plan.The task force, appointed last November by Obama, said recommendations focus on how Washington can modernise programmes and policies to incorporate climate change, remove barriers to community resilience and provide tools to help local communities better design their own adaptation measures.One example cited by the task force calls for climate-sensitive health-tracking tools to limit climate change-caused diseases.Another calls on Washington to integrate climate resilience planning criteria in all federal programs, such as those that provide transportation funding, ""to ensure these projects will last as long as intended.""The recommendations don't require federal funds for recommended programmes, but would ""reorient"" existing resources.Seeking new funding for climate programmes would be problematic in Congress since the new leadership has said it would use federal purse strings to weaken the president's climate plan.""At the local level, we just shake our heads at Washington. The Congressional dialogue seems to be a fight over ideology rather than the realities on the ground which we deal with every day,"" said task force member Ralph Becker, mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah.Another task force participant, Republican Mayor Jim Brainard of Carmel, Indiana, added since local leaders interact more frequently with their communities, they are better in touch with climate change concerns than Washington lawmakers.""Neither party should want to be the party for dirty water or dirty air,"" Brainard said.",0
"But severe floods that struck Bangladesh the last week of June, driven by heavy monsoon rains, are now keeping the 22-year-old from that work as well. Instead, he finds himself stuck at home, one of millions of Bangladeshis affected by the flooding, which has hit nearly half of the country's 64 districts and killed 41 people so far. ""My wife and I lost our jobs because the factory said they weren't getting orders due to the coronavirus,"" Sumon said. ""At my hometown I managed a job as a mechanic but that did not work because the water had risen and I couldn't step out,"" he said. Now, with a baby daughter born just nine days ago, ""I don't know how we will manage. I am depending on a loan right now, but if things continue like this, we will be in trouble,"" he said. Low-lying, heavily populated Bangladesh is regularly hit by flooding, but experts fear the impact this year may be worse due to job losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic and floods that have lingered for an unusually long time. Thousands of workers have been sacked from the country's garment sector - responsible for 80% of Bangladesh's exports - as European brands cancelled clothing orders worth millions of dollars as their shops shut due to the coronavirus. Bangladesh, one of the biggest exporters of manpower in the world and heavily dependent on remittance, has also seen the return of thousands of its citizens from abroad as many lose their jobs in the pandemic. In Bangladesh itself, more than 238,000 people have contracted the virus, and more than 3,100 have died, according to a Reuters tally. Flooding has only made matters worse, government and other experts said. ""Normally, the water begins to recede after a certain point and people start going back to their homes from flood shelters,"" said Sajedul Hasan, who works for the humanitarian programme of BRAC, a Bangladesh-based development organisation. ""But this time, the water level increased for a second time in July soon after it began to recede... this was because of excessive rainfall,"" he explained. A major Bangladeshi river, the Jamuna, has been flowing above the danger level for more than 30 days according to data from Bahadurabad station in north Bangladesh. ""This is the highest number of days that we have seen since 1998,"" said A.K.M. Saiful Islam, of the Institute of Water and Flood Management at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. According to the country's Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre, the water level is now receding and the situation is likely to improve by next month. But both Islam and Hasan fear that economic hardships due to the pandemic and floods may lead more students to drop out of school, or compel families to migrate to the country's overburdened cities for jobs, which could lead to exploitation. Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, said he could see the ""fingerprint"" of climate change in the recent floods. The country used to see severe floods once every two decades - but in the last 20 years Bangladesh has seen at least four of them, Huq said. The country now needs to try new strategies to be more prepared to tackle the changes, he said. One of those, implemented by the United Nations in Bangladesh, is forecast-based funding which gives vulnerable people money in advance of predicted extreme weather so they are better prepared. Aklima Begum, 40, who lives in Kurigram in North Bangladesh, was one of thousands who received about $50 ahead of the floods this year. She was able to buy food, hire a boat and take shelter in a place the floodwaters didn't reach. ""The money that I got did help, but I have still been badly affected. My goats and chickens died because of the flood,"" she said.",0
" Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard reshuffled her cabinet on Monday, focusing on job creation and labor relations, as she tries to reverse plummeting voter support ahead of elections due within two years. Gillard's changes included promoting junior minister Bill Shorten to a new super ministry for jobs, prosperity and industrial relations, while other major economic, defense and foreign ministry portfolios were unchanged. ""Our focus will always be jobs for Australians today and jobs tomorrow. That means we need to keep our economy strong now and we need to be modernizing it for the future,"" Gillard told a news conference. ""I believe that with this new cabinet in place we will see an important mix of new energy and talent, as well as wise heads in cabinet. This new mixture will give us new focus and the fire power we need in 2012 to pursue the government's priorities."" Gillard, heading the first minority government in Australia in decades, expanded her senior ministry to avoid demotions that could have worsened a rift with Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who she deposed as leader last year to try and end a damaging poll slump. But backing for Labor and for Gillard fell again in a Nielsen poll in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Monday, reversing recent end-of-year gains as the government introduced hard-fought reforms including a carbon price. Opposition conservatives lead Labor by 57 percent to 43 -- a 2 percent swing in a month -- while Gillard's position as preferred prime minister fell 3 points to 42 percent, against 46 percent for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. The prime minister is bracing for a battle with employers over changes to work laws championed by Gillard, but which business groups say have made it too easy for workers to strike and too difficult for employers to negotiate with unions. Marius Kloppers, the boss of the world's biggest miner BHP Billiton, said recently Gillard's Fair Work Act had ""broadened the range of issues that can be put on the table,"" while Rio Tinto this month accused the government of having an ""aggressive"" industrial relations agenda. Shorten, 44, regarded by some political watchers as a prime ministerial contender, impressed senior colleagues with his aggressive criticism of moves by Qantas to ground its fleet over an industrial dispute in late October and his defense of the government's labor relations umpire. He is a former head of the powerful Australian Workers Union and was one of ruling Labor's so-called ""faceless men"" who engineered the political coup in 2010 to oust Rudd. In other major changes, Gillard promoted Climate Minister and chief troubleshooter Greg Combet to give him additional responsibilities for industry and innovation, while Health Minister Nicola Roxon was shifted to Attorney-General Roxon led a campaign for controversial plain pack tobacco laws being challenged by tobacco giants Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco, and Gillard said she would now spearhead the government's defense of the world-first laws. The bookish Combet was rewarded for steering the hard-fought introduction of a carbon price and eventual emissions trade scheme, which the conservatives have pledged to repeal if they win elections likely to be fought around climate change and economic performance. Global uncertainty over the European debt crisis recently forced the government to cut its economic growth and revenue forecasts in November, and outline new cuts so the government can return the budget to surplus mid 2013. Failure to deliver the surplus in a country wary of government borrowing could imprint Labor in voter minds as fiscally incompetent, and seal a conservative win. Gillard hopes Shorten can imprint the conservatives as a threat to jobs. Political analysts said while Gillard had finished the year with more political momentum, she now had to prove she could plug Labor's haemorrhaging support or risk a leadership challenge from Rudd and more instability ""Gillard remains in disaster territory,"" said veteran political commentator Michael Gordon in The Age newspaper.",0
" Global warming sent marauding wolves into an Alaskan hamlet, killed Norwegian reindeer with unlikely parasites and may even spur suicide among Inuit youth, Arctic leaders said on Thursday. As scientists and government officials in Bangkok put the finishing touches on a report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on what to do about global warming, the three Arctic emissaries came to Washington to tell how the phenomenon was making their lives more difficult now. Sarah James, a member of the Gwich'in nation, said climate change had brought formerly unheard-of species -- black bears, beavers and cottonwood trees -- to the small community of Arctic Village, Alaska, where she lives. It also changed the way wolves hunt for food, forcing them to band together in a pack and prey on dogs tied up outside villagers' homes instead of hunting solo in snow-covered areas, James said. That is because the snow failed to come as expected last September; it finally arrived in December, but by then the ground was frozen deep and solid, James said in an interview. ""The wolf, it's hard for them to run after caribou or rabbit for food because they can't run fast on hard ground because it tears up their skin under their paws,"" she said. ""They're much easier to run on soft snow, so they couldn't get their food, so they had to pack."" James represents Gwich'in Council International and has won the Goldman environmental prize for defending the caribou herd that has sustained her people for 20,000 years. She has no doubt the changes in the north are due to global warming. Neither did Olav Mathis Eira, a Norwegian reindeer herder and vice president of the Saami Council, which represents the indigenous Saami people of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. ""We're seeing the same changes in Norway too on the other side of the pole,"" he said in the same interview. Eira said there was more precipitation and more extreme weather, including thawing and refreezing in winter, which creates layers of ice that make it hard for reindeer to find food. There are also new ""bugs"" that manage to survive the winter to attack the reindeer, Eira said. ""They (the reindeer) were infected with a parasite that usually dies during a cold winter, but since the winter was so warm, it survived and infected the reindeers and they found about 70 reindeers that had died of that infection,"" he said. ""That's quite scary."" Megan Alvanna-Stimpfle, who is from Nome, Alaska, and heads the Inuit Circumpolar Youth Council, said the change in climate undermined a supportive culture and may be one cause for suicide among the young. ""There's a high rate of youth suicide in Inuit villages and we think it's correlated to our loss of language and the ability to live healthily in isolated Arctic communities,"" Stimpfle said in the interview. The youth council aims to revive Inuit culture, she said, ""but it's complicated by the change in the climate, because people are unable to read the ice."" ""Reading the ice"" means relying on millennia of Inuit observation to determine when and where ice is safe, Stimpfle explained. The changing Arctic climate has undermined that traditional system, and some Inuit have fallen through ice in places where it used to be safe, she said. But why should the majority of the world's people, who live in temperate or tropical areas, worry about the effects of global warming in the Arctic? ""You will see the changes first in the Arctic ... but the changes are coming south,"" Eira said. ""And the people here will face these changes in the near future.""",0
"In late April, the provincial government banned their “use, purchase, export or import"" in an effort to cut plastic waste and pollution, and rolled out first deliveries of cloth shopping bags. Now those hang in shops, and many customers have started bringing bags from home - though not everyone is happy with the change. “The use of plastic bags is not only handy, but also very cheap as compared to cloth and paper bags,"" said Ikram Jamal, a trader in the city's main market. “It is a challenge for customers as well as for traders to instantly ban plastic bags, amid the lack of availability of an alternate option,” he said, noting only a limited supply of cloth bags was so far available. But 50-year-old Shamim Bagum, a shopper in the market, said she was adjusting. “After shopkeepers refused to give us polythene bags, I now myself bring a cloth bag to take groceries home,"" she said. Carrying cloth bags for all shopping can be a challenge, but people need to obey the government's decision, she said. Around the world, cities, regions and countries are trying to cut back on plastic waste, banning the use of items such as throw-away plastic shopping bags and drinking straws. The pioneers of the movement, however, are not just in richer nations, but in many developing ones as well, from Tanzania to Bangladesh and now Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region, the country's northernmost territory. WIDENING BANS Hunza was the first district in Pakistan to ban plastic shopping bags, said Malik Amin Aslam, the prime minister's adviser on climate change. But the bans are now spreading, with Punjab province and the city of Quetta now outlawing bags as well, and Islamabad set to do the same in August. In Hunza, the provincial government worked with the Gilgit-Baltistan Environmental Protection Agency and the Karakoram Area Development Organization to launch the pilot ban, which aims to clean up the narrow, mountain-flanked valley that attracts more than half a million tourists a year. The scenic Karakoram Highway, which connects Pakistan with China, runs through the district. At least some tourists stopping in Hunza said they thought the bag ban was a good idea. “The shopkeeper declined to give me plastic bag when I purchased a bottle of mineral water from his shop in a market in Hunza. This is a positive change,"" said 30-year Ishtiaq Bhatti, visiting Hunza's Sikandarabad village from Lahore. Kamal Uddin, chief executive of the Karakoram Area Development Organization, said the ban came about after his group and the city of Hunza discovered in a survey that about 70,000 plastic bags were used and discarded each month in the valley. Uddin said using cloth bags for shopping is hardly an innovation - until the arrival of cheap plastic bags it was the norm in the area, he said. Restoring the use of cloth bags also can provide jobs, he said. At least 50 local women and more than a dozen disabled people have been hired to stitch bags, he said. An initial 10,000 shopping bags, carrying slogans about the anti-plastic campaign, were provided by the government and distributed free locally, said Shahzad Shigri, director of the Gilgit-Baltistan environmental protection agency. But additional bags will be produced locally, Uddin said. SUPPORT - AND CHALLENGES Local people and traders say the plastic ban is a good step toward greater environmental protection - but the changeover is proving a bit of a headache. “We appreciate the initiative for a good cause”, said Taj Muhammad Rumi, a trader in Sust market near the Chinese border. He said population growth and a large number of tourists have had an adverse impact on the area's environment. ""But the challenge is still there that no proper and systematic mechanism is in place to provide cloth bags,” he said. Qasim Ejaz, Hunza's assistant district commissioner, said the plastic bag ban needs to be expanded to all plastic throwaway items. But policing even the bag ban will be challenging, he said, with tourists often bringing in bags from outside. The valley sees 600,000 to 700,000 visitors a year, he said. Shigri, of the Gilgit-Baltistan environmental protection agency, said his agency now aims to expand the plastic bag ban to all national parks in the northern territory. For now, despite the ban, plastic bags still lurk in the region's markets. A young trader in the main Aliabad city market said that shop owners are still parceling a few out to customers that come without a shopping bag, particularly if cloth bags are unavailable. “Though there is no open display of plastic bags in the market due to fear of administrative curbs, yet they are still in use in some areas amid unavailability of cloth and paper bags,” he said. Uddin, of the Karakoram Area Development Organization, said that's to be expected. “It is a huge task and will take some time to completely phase (plastic) out,"" he said.",0
" Owners of gas-guzzling cars will have to pay 25 pounds ($49) a day to drive them in central London from October, mayor Ken Livingstone said on Tuesday. The decision, following a year of consultations, is part of a package that Livingstone is bringing in to cut London's carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2025. ""I believe that this ground breaking initiative will have an impact throughout the world with other cities following suit as they step up their efforts to halt the slide towards catastrophic climate change,"" he told a news conference. Livingstone, who has made the environment a central plank of his tenure, is facing a tough re-election battle in May in which green issues have featured heavily. London, which generates some 7 percent of Britain's climate-warming carbon emissions, is in a vanguard of a group of 40 major cities worldwide pooling their knowledge to play their part in fighting climate change. The city's plan is far more ambitious than legislation going through parliament to cut national emissions of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 60 percent by 2050. The 25 pound daily tax on vehicles in central London's Congestion Charge zone emitting 225 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre would apply in the same way as the normal eight pounds daily charge does to all but the cleanest cars. But to force home the environmental point of a congestion scheme that initially had no green goal, the exemption granted to residents in the zone will be removed from drivers of the polluting four-wheel drive and top-end luxury cars. That means that the owner of a gas-guzzler who chooses to drive in the zone every day will end up paying 6,500 pounds a year for the privilege.",0
" If there is anything Oscar voters love, it is a good drama. But as a key festival stop on the road to Hollywood awards got down to business on Friday, dramas were less on movie screens and more behind the scenes where the film genre is troubled. The Toronto International Film Festival, which has long been considered a starting point for movie awards -- Oscar winner ""Slumdog Millionaire"" got a big boost here last year -- opened on Thursday night with Charles Darwin drama ""Creation,"" which came into the event seeking a US distributor. The festival boasts more than 330 films screening over 10 days, and ahead of opening week about a third of them lacked key distribution, including titles such as Atom Egoyan's ""Chloe"" and Oliver Parker's ""Dorian Gray."" Facing the recession at home, audiences have flocked to escapist fantasies and comedies, causing distributors of the dramas that vie for Oscars to snap up rights for those genres, leaving serious-minded fare in the dust. Industry players say lovers of good dramas are not gone, nor is the genre dead. They see the issue as cyclical and more a marketing and cost problem than one of creative content. Still, if you are making movies like 2007's ""No Country for Old Men,"" which earned a best film Oscar, times are tough. Director Jon Amiel, whose ""Creation"" tells of Charles Darwin struggling with his theories of evolution in the 1850s, called ""drama"" the new ""five-letter word"" in Hollywood. ""If you're making a movie about a dead, bald Englishman, you're not making a movie that even the indie distributors are flocking to buy these days,"" Amiel said. ""There are just many, many movies that American audiences are not going to see."" BOX OFFICE BLUNDERS? The waning interest can be seen at box offices. Two big hits of the art house market this past summer were war drama ""The Hurt Locker,"" which earned $12 million -- a solid number for a low-budget film but far less than twice the roughly $29 million earned by romantic comedy ""(500) Days of Summer."" ""There's a real conservative attitude (and) dramas are viewed as risky in today's marketplace,"" said Steven Beer, an entertainment attorney with law firm Greenberg Traurig. Still, industry players say dramas can lure fans and make money. The key is devising the right production and marketing model that makes sense given today's movie going climate. In many cases, those marketing strategies call for grass roots campaigns that target key groups, lovers of science and period pieces for a movie such as ""Creation,"" for instance. Production costs must fall to account for lower box office and declining DVD sales, which have dropped by double-digits on a percentage basis due in large part to competition from other forms of home entertainment. ""These have always been tough movies and they'll always be tough movies. In a tough economic climate perhaps even tougher, which is why those models have to change,"" said Tom Ortenberg, president of theatrical films at The Weinstein Co. Industry watcher David Poland of MovieCityNews.com, said the drop in DVD sales had been a key factor in distributors' unwillingness to back expensive dramas but, like the other experts, he noted there remained an appetite for the genre. Still, distributors remain selective when looking at dramas, and that leaves little room for another breakthrough at Toronto 2009 such as ""Slumdog"" proved to be last year when it was acquired by Fox Searchlight ahead of awards season. ""You're going to have a lot of buyers coming to Toronto that are a lot more cautious than in the past, and I think that that's something that is different,"" said Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics.",2
"Carrying an unconventional weapon, Lani Malmberg travels the American West in an Arctic Fox camper, occupying a small but vital entrepreneurial niche in that battle. Malmberg, 64, is a goat herder and a pioneer in using the animals to restore fire-ravaged lands to greener pastures and make them less prone to the spread of blazes. She developed the fire-prevention technique in graduate school and is among a few individuals using grazing methods for fire mitigation. It’s a word-of-mouth business, and private landowners and local governments hire her to remove weeds while restoring the soil. Malmberg works with her son, Donny Benz; his fiance, Kaiti Singley; and an occasional unpaid intern. The team runs on the goats’ time and have their dinner only when the day’s job is done. They arrive early and open the trailer. The goats jump out, ready to eat, as Malmberg watches that they do not stray. The team sets up an electric fence to confine the goats and their meals to a specific area overnight. After the goats digest the brush, their waste returns organic matter to the soil, increasing its potential to hold water. Goats are browsers that eat the grass, leaves and tall brush that cows and other grazers cannot reach. This type of vegetation is known as the fire fuel ladder and leads to wider spread when wildfires spark. More than to quell a fire, Malmberg aims to prevent it from even starting. “By increasing soil organic matter by 1 percent, that soil can hold an additional 16,500 gallons of water per acre,” Malmberg said. “If helicopters come and dump water on the fires, nothing is done for the soil.” In 2020, Malmberg helped found the nonprofit Goatapelli Foundation to train people in how to use goats to prevent wildfires. She said that of the 200 or so participants, only a few had started their own businesses. Startup costs could total $360,000, Malmberg said, including equipment and the livestock, which she trains herself. “Lani is a leading example of someone who has carved the pathway and is a trailblazer in this industry of prescribed grazing,” said Brittany Cole-Bush, one of Malmberg’s mentees and the owner of Shepherdess Land and Livestock in Ojai Valley, California. “We want to support ecology as much as possible. We want to support the growth of native perennial grasses.” Cole-Bush, who uses goats and sheep in her business, says that fortifying perennial grasses, rather than planting grass annually, will make the land more tolerant of drought. Malmberg, who has a master’s degree in weed science from Colorado State University, spends most of the year traveling around the West on jobs. Last year, for the first time, the Bureau of Land Management contracted Malmberg and her goats for fire mitigation in Carbondale, Colorado. “We thought that the goats could achieve our objectives with their ability to work on steep slopes,” said Kristy Wallner, a range land management specialist for the bureau’s Colorado Valley field office. “It’s going to be a useful tool for us to use moving forward.” In the rush to prevent worsening wildfires, state and local agencies that want to remove excess weeds rely on herbicides and machinery as well as prescribed burns: intentional fires that periodically clear underbrush, dead trees and other fuels. “Because of the wildfires, more people are understanding the urgency and willing to try different tools beyond what they’re used to,” said Jenn Balch, a Goatapelli Foundation board member who plans to start a business in the Northeast that uses goats to restore meadows and overgrown recreational areas. Malmberg’s assignments can take a day to six months; she prices them after evaluating the site. In late August, she was hired to work on a property in Silverthorne, Colorado, that took six days and cost more than $9,000. At the beginning and end of every job, Malmberg asks the spirits in the area to protect her herd of 1,500 goats. She lights a ceremonial stick of tobacco and calls out to introduce herself, an intruder on the land, to the animals living there. With 100 acres to cover, Malmberg and her team spent a day moving the goats from one parcel to another across a highway. Police halted traffic so the animals could cross. The work can take longer because of on-the-ground conditions. The Carbondale mitigation project was pushed back three weeks because mudslides caused by last year’s wildfires had closed Interstate 70, the state’s main highway. Scientists say that wildfires have become hotter, more intense and more destructive in recent years. Experts attribute the longer, more ferocious fire seasons to climate change. Wildfires in the West are growing larger, spreading faster and reaching higher, scaling mountains that were once too wet and cool to support them. Studies have shown that wildfires are leading to skin damage and premature births. The cost of fire suppression has doubled since 1994 to more than $400 million in 2018 — a cost, Malmberg says, that does not account for how people are affected by the loss of their land and homes. “How do we value the nest that supports us?” Malmberg said. “We’re just about out of time to change the ways of how we do things.” © The New York Times Company",0
" Global warming could lead to severe droughts in parts of India and floods in other parts affecting agriculture and leaving forests and coastal areas vulnerable, a minister said on Monday. Minister of State for Environment and Forests Namo Narain Meena said projected climate change scenarios indicate increase in and variable trend of both rainfall and temperature into the 21st century. ""The initial analysis has revealed that climate change may have adverse effects in terms of severity of droughts and intensity of floods in various parts of the country,"" he said. Experts say the Indian subcontinent will be one of the most seriously affected regions in the world, with more frequent and more severe natural disasters, more diseases like malaria and more hunger. Currently contributing to around three percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions, India is already among the world's top polluters, along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Despite pressure from industrialised nations and environmental groups to cut emissions, India is not required under the Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions -- rising annually by 2-3 percent -- at this stage. New Delhi says it must use more energy to lift its population out of poverty -- something rich nations which burnt fossil fuels unhindered for a century -- should understand. Meena said existing laws and policies together with conservation of rivers, enhanced forestation and promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency would help address the challenges posed by climate change.",0
"“It was a little scary to, you know, rely on it and to just, you know, sit back and let it drive,” he told a US investigator about Tesla’s Autopilot system, describing his initial feelings about the technology. Geoulla made the comments to the investigator in January 2018, days after his Tesla, with Autopilot engaged, slammed into the back of an unoccupied fire truck parked on a California interstate highway. Reuters could not reach him for additional comment. Over time, Geoulla's initial doubts about Autopilot softened, and he found it reliable when tracking a vehicle in front of him. But he noticed the system sometimes seemed confused when faced with direct sunlight or a vehicle in front of him changing lanes, according to a transcript of his interview with a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator. He was driving into the sun before he rear-ended the fire truck, he told the investigator. Autopilot’s design allowed Geoulla to disengage from driving during his trip, and his hands were off the wheel for almost the entire period of roughly 30 minutes when the technology was activated, the NTSB found. The US agency, which makes recommendations but lacks enforcement powers, has previously urged regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to investigate Autopilot's limitations, potential for driver misuse and possible safety risks following a series of crashes involving the technology, some of them fatal. ""The past has shown the focus has been on innovation over safety and I’m hoping we’re at a point where that tide is turning,"" the NTSB's new chair, Jennifer Homendy, told Reuters in an interview. She said there is no comparison between Tesla's Autopilot and the more rigorous autopilot systems used in aviation that involve trained pilots, rules addressing fatigue and testing for drugs and alcohol. Tesla did not respond to written questions for this story. Autopilot is an advanced driver-assistance feature whose current version does not render vehicles autonomous, the company says on its website. Tesla says that drivers must agree to keep hands on the wheel and maintain control of their vehicles before enabling the system. LIMITED VISIBILITY Geoulla’s 2018 crash is one of 12 accidents involving Autopilot that NHTSA officials are scrutinising as part of the agency’s farthest-reaching investigation since Tesla Inc introduced the semi-autonomous driving system in 2015. Most of the crashes under investigation occurred after dark or in conditions creating limited visibility such as glaring sunlight, according to a NHTSA statement, NTSB documents and police reports reviewed by Reuters. That raises questions about Autopilot’s capabilities during challenging driving conditions, according to autonomous driving experts. ""NHTSA’s enforcement and defect authority is broad, and we will act when we detect an unreasonable risk to public safety,"" a NHTSA spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters. Since 2016, US auto safety regulators have separately sent 33 special crash investigation teams to review Tesla crashes involving 11 deaths in which advanced driver assistance systems were suspected of being in use. NHTSA has ruled out Autopilot use in three of those nonfatal crashes. The current NHTSA investigation of Autopilot in effect reopens the question of whether the technology is safe. It represents the latest significant challenge for Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive whose advocacy of driverless cars has helped his company become the world's most valuable automaker. 
 
 A photo provided by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department shows emergency responders examining a Chevrolet Tahoe that was struck by a Tesla Model S as it was operating on Autopilot in Key Largo, Fla, in 2019. The crash highlights how gaps in Tesla’s driver-assistance system and distractions can have tragic consequences. (Monroe County Sheriff's Department via The New York Times) 

Tesla charges customers up to $10,000 for advanced driver assistance features such as lane changing, with a promise to eventually deliver autonomous driving capability to their cars using only cameras and advanced software. Other carmakers and self-driving firms use not only cameras but more expensive hardware including radar and lidar in their current and upcoming vehicles.  A photo provided by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department shows emergency responders examining a Chevrolet Tahoe that was struck by a Tesla Model S as it was operating on Autopilot in Key Largo, Fla, in 2019. The crash highlights how gaps in Tesla’s driver-assistance system and distractions can have tragic consequences. (Monroe County Sheriff's Department via The New York Times)  Musk has said a Tesla with eight cameras will be far safer than human drivers. But the camera technology is affected by darkness and sun glare as well as inclement weather conditions such as heavy rain, snow and fog, experts and industry executives say. ""Today's computer vision is far from perfect and will be for the foreseeable future,"" said Raj Rajkumar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. In the first known fatal US crash involving Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving technology, which occurred in 2016 west of Williston, Florida, the company said both the driver and Autopilot failed to see the white side of a tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky. Instead of braking, the Tesla collided with the 18-wheel truck. DRIVER MISUSE, FAILED BRAKING NHTSA in January 2017 closed an investigation of Autopilot stemming from that fatal crash, finding no defect in the Autopilot performance after some contentious exchanges with Tesla officials, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. In December 2016, as part of that probe, the agency asked Tesla to provide details on the company's response to any internal safety concerns raised about Autopilot, including the potential for driver misuse or abuse, according to a special order sent by regulators to the automaker. After a NHTSA lawyer found Tesla's initial response lacking, Tesla's then-general counsel, Todd Maron, tried again. He told regulators the request was ""grossly overbroad"" and that it would be impossible to catalog all concerns raised during Autopilot's development, according to correspondence reviewed by Reuters. Nevertheless, Tesla wanted to co-operate, Maron told regulators. During Autopilot’s development, company employees or contractors had raised concerns that Tesla addressed regarding the potential for unintended or failed braking and acceleration; undesired or failed steering; and certain kinds of misuse and abuse by drivers, Maron said, without providing further details. Maron did not respond to messages seeking comment. It is not clear how regulators responded. One former US official said Tesla generally co-operated with the probe and produced requested materials promptly. Regulators closed the investigation just before former US president Donald Trump's inauguration, finding Autopilot performed as designed and that Tesla took steps to prevent it from being misused. LEADERSHIP VACUUM IN NHTSA NHTSA has been without a Senate-confirmed chief for nearly five years. President Joe Biden has yet to nominate anyone to run the agency. NHTSA documents show that regulators want to know how Tesla vehicles attempt to see flashing lights on emergency vehicles, or detect the presence of fire trucks, ambulances and police cars in their path. The agency has sought similar information from 12 rival automakers as well. ""Tesla has been asked to produce and validate data as well as their interpretation of that data. NHTSA will conduct our own independent validation and analysis of all information,"" NHTSA told Reuters. Musk, the electric-car pioneer, has fought hard to defend Autopilot from critics and regulators. Tesla has used Autopilot’s ability to update vehicle software over the air to outpace and sidestep the traditional vehicle-recall process. Musk has repeatedly promoted Autopilot’s capabilities, sometimes in ways that critics say mislead customers into believing Teslas can drive themselves - despite warnings to the contrary in owner's manuals that tell drivers to remain engaged and outline the technology's limitations. Musk has also continued to launch what Tesla calls beta - or unfinished - versions of a ""Full Self-Driving"" system via over-the-air software upgrades. ""Some manufacturers are going to do what they want to do to sell a car and it’s up the government to rein that in,"" the NTSB's Homendy said.",1
"The 228-to-206 vote late on Friday is a substantial triumph for Biden's Democrats, who have bickered for months over the ambitious spending bills that make up the bulk of his domestic agenda. Biden's administration will now oversee the biggest upgrade of America's roads, railways and other transportation infrastructure in a generation, which he has promised will create jobs and boost US competitiveness. Democrats still have much work to do on the second pillar of Biden's domestic program: a sweeping expansion of the social safety net and programs to fight climate change. At a price tag of $1.75 trillion, that package would be the biggest expansion of the US safety net since the 1960s, but the party has struggled to unite behind it. Democratic leaders had hoped to pass both bills out of the House on Friday, but postponed action after centrists demanded a nonpartisan accounting of its costs - a process that could take weeks. After hours of closed-door meetings, a group of centrists promised to vote for the bill by Nov 20 - as long as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that its costs lined up with White House estimates. ""Welcome to my world. This is the Democratic Party,"" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters earlier in the day. ""We are not a lockstep party."" The $1.75 trillion bill cleared a procedural hurdle by a vote of 221 to 213 early on Saturday, which will enable Democratic leaders to quickly schedule a final vote when the time comes. The standoff came just days after Democrats suffered losses in closely watched state elections, raising concerns that they may lose control of Congress next year. The infrastructure bill passed with the support of 13 Republicans, fulfilling Biden's promise of passing some bipartisan legislation. The phrase ""infrastructure week"" had become a Washington punch line during his predecessor Donald Trump's four years in the White House, when plans to focus on those investments were repeatedly derailed by scandals. ""Generations from now, people will look back and know this is when America won the economic competition for the 21st Century,"" Biden said in a statement. AIM TO MOVE FORWARD The party is eager to show it can move forward on the president's agenda and fend off challenges in the 2022 midterm elections in which Republicans will seek to regain control of both chambers of Congress, which they lost to the Democrats under Trump. Congress also faces looming Dec. 3 deadlines to avert a politically embarrassing government shutdown and an economically catastrophic default on the federal government's debt. With razor-thin majorities in Congress and a united Republican opposition, Democrats need unity to pass legislation. The infrastructure bill, which passed the Senate in August with 19 Republican votes, would fund a massive upgrade of America's roads, bridges, airports, seaports and rail systems, while also expanding broadband internet service. The ""Build Back Better"" package includes provisions on child care and preschool, eldercare, healthcare, prescription drug pricing and immigration. It would bolster the credibility of Biden's pledge to halve US greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 during the UN climate conference taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. Republicans uniformly oppose that legislation, casting it as a dramatic expansion of government that would hurt businesses. ""This is potentially a very black day for America,"" said Republican Representative Glenn Grothman, who characterised the legislation's child-care and preschool provisions as a ""Marxist"" effort to have the federal government raise children. The nonpartisan US Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the social-spending bill would raise $1.48 trillion in new tax revenue over the next decade, short of its $1.75 trillion cost. Pelosi and other top Democrats have said that fails to account for increased tax enforcement and savings from lower prescription drug prices.",0
" Russia and the United States sparred over Kosovo and US missile shield plans on Wednesday, souring a meeting aimed at preparing the ground for next week's Group of Eight summit on the Baltic coast. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke bluntly on disagreements over Kosovo, a major irritant in Russia's relations with the European Union and the United States. He also traded barbs on Lebanon and the missile shield. ""Our positions are diametrically opposed and I don't see any chances of the positions moving any closer together,"" he told a news conference on Kosovo after the meeting of G8 foreign ministers south of Berlin. Serbia, backed by Russia, opposes a plan proposed by UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari offering the Albanian majority province independence under international supervision. Western powers have backed a UN resolution that would grant Kosovo effective independence. Lavrov, however, said other world powers should let Serbs and Kosovo Albanians sort out the question of the future status of the province themselves. Rice emphasised Kosovo was an issue of international concern and she wanted agreement as soon as possible. ""We and several of my European colleagues here believe that the Ahtisaari report provides the right basis for resolving the issue,"" Rice told the news conference. G8 president Germany hopes to avoid a showdown between the United States and Russia at the Heiligendamm leaders' summit which will focus on climate change and aid to Africa. But US officials travelling with Rice said the Russians had sought conflict at every turn. ""It's hard to know exactly what is eating (at) the Russians,"" said a senior US State Department official. Rice and Lavrov were publicly courteous to each other, mentioning that US President George W Bush had invited Russia's Vladimir Putin to his family's home in Maine in July. But differences over Kosovo and US plans to install a missile shield in central Europe were difficult to hide. Lavrov dismissed Rice's comments that Russian opposition to the US's planned shield was ""ludicrous"" and said Moscow was still waiting for answers about the system. ""At the moment all they are saying is 'don't worry it is not aimed at you',"" he added. The United States wants to deploy a radar system in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland by 2011-12. It says the system would counter threats from so-called ""rogue states"" like Iran and North Korea, but Moscow sees it as an encroachment on its former sphere of influence. Lavrov also sniped at US military shipments last week to Lebanon's government and cautioned against such aid further destabilising the region. ""(The United States) is not interfering in Lebanese affairs,"" said Rice pointedly. However, the ministers appeared more united on other issues, including the nuclear standoff with Iran. In a joint statement, the G8 ministers said they regretted that Iran, who western nations suspect wants to build a nuclear bomb, was expanding its uranium enrichment activities. ""If Iran continues to ignore demands of the Security Council we will support further appropriate measures as agreed in Resolution 1747,"" they said. Afghanistan and Pakistan, invited by Germany to the meeting, vowed to deepen cooperation between their governments ""at all levels,"" particularly in the fight against terrorism and repatriating Afghan refugees. The two, who accuse each other of failing to stop a Taliban insurgency, are seeking ways to seal their long, porous border.",0
"In a video message on the first day of the conference in Scotland, the queen urged leaders to rise above ""the politics of the moment"" and said the legacy of a successful summit would help ""our children's children"". The 95-year-old, the world's oldest and longest-reigning monarch, was due to attend the event in person in Glasgow but pulled out after doctors advised her to rest. ""It is the hope of many that the legacy of this summit - written in history books yet to be printed - will describe you as the leaders who did not pass up the opportunity; and that you answered the call of those future generations,"" the queen said. ""The benefits of such actions will not be there to enjoy for all of us here today: we, none of us will live forever. But we are doing this not for ourselves but for our children and our children's children."" She paid tribute to her late husband, Prince Philip, who died earlier this year aged 99. She remembered how he had warned an academic gathering in 1969 about the need to tackle the threats from pollution. ""If the world pollution situation is not critical at the moment, it is as certain as anything can be that the situation will become increasingly intolerable within a very short time,"" she quoted him as saying. The queen said she ""could not be more proud"" that his work had been continued by her two closest heirs, her son Prince Charles and grandson Prince William, who are both attending the summit. On Monday, the queen was pictured driving by herself around her Windsor Castle estate after she last month cancelled some engagements and spent a night in hospital for an unspecified ailment, her first such overnight stay for years. ",0
"In a harbinger of the searing conditions expected, a number of fires burnt out of control in South Australia as temperatures topped 40 degrees C (104 F) across much of the state and strong winds fanned flames. Victoria declared a state of disaster across areas home to about 100,000 people, with authorities urging people to evacuate before a deterioration expected on Saturday.  “If they value their safety they must leave,” Michael Grainger of the state’s police emergency responders told reporters. “I’d suggest personal belongings are of very, very little value in these circumstances. “These are dire circumstances, there is no doubt.” At the summer holiday peak, authorities have advised tens of thousands of holidaymakers and residents to leave national parks and tourist areas on the south coast of New South Wales, where a week-long state of emergency has been called. A death confirmed on Friday takes the state’s toll this week to eight. Two people have died in Victoria, and 28 are unaccounted for. In Victoria, naval vessels Choules and Sycamore started evacuations of about a quarter of the 4,000 people stranded on a beach in the isolated town of Malla­coota. With roads blocked, sea transport and some airlifts are the only way out of the stricken town, although heavy smoke prevented flights on Friday. People in the fire-devastated New South Wales town of Cobargo angrily confronted Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a visit on Thursday, with one shouting that the leader should be “ashamed of himself” and had “left the country to burn”. Morrison’s conservative government has long drawn criticism for not doing enough to battle climate change as a cause of Australia’s savage drought and fires. This season’s fires have scorched more than 5.25 million hectares (13 million acres) of bushland, with 1,365 homes destroyed in New South Wales alone, including 449 this week on the south coast. * Weather officials on Friday rated the danger from fire “very high” to “extreme” in most districts in South Australia, with a similar outlook for New South Wales and Victoria on Saturday. * Please click on links to see maps posted on Twitter by emergency services in both states to predict the spread of fires on Saturday: bit.ly/2QnjU9L and bit.ly/2sL7dfR * The head of the opposition Labor Party demanded a national response. “We haven’t, in my lifetime, had people on beaches waiting to be evacuated in life jackets...like it’s a peacetime version of something that we have seen during wartime,” Anthony Albanese told a news conference. * Since Monday, wildfires have killed ten people in New South Wales and Victoria, with 28 still missing in the latter. * Police and emergency officials urged tourists to leave the south coast and Snowy Mountains of New South Wales because of dangerous fire conditions, and set a Friday deadline of 10 a.m. (2300 GMT Thursday) to leave Kosciuszko National Park. * Thousands of people had already been evacuated from East Gippsland in Victoria, one of the largest such exercises since more than 35,000 people evacuated from the northern city of Darwin in the aftermath of cyclone Tracy in 1974. * A contingent of 39 firefighters from North America arrived in Melbourne this week, taking to almost 100 the number of U.S. and Canadians helping to tackle the crisis. * New Zealand will send 22 more firefighters to Australia next week, adding to 157 sent since October. * Morrison blamed a three-year drought and lack of hazard reduction for the unprecedented extent and duration of the bushfires. * Morrison said he was inclined not to proceed with plans for a Jan. 13 visit to India because of the fires, following which he was to have visited Japan. * United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the world was “not winning” the race to tackle global warming",0
"“At this time of national mourning, I offer the support of the United Nations to work alongside the people of the island,” Efe news agency quoted Ban as saying. The UN chief, who is attending the Global Sustainable Transport Conference in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, extended condolences to the Cuban people and Fidel Castro’s family, particularly the late revolutionary leader’s brother, Cuban President Raul Castro. “I hope that Cuba will continue to advance on a path of reform and greater prosperity,” he added, referring to Raul Castro’s project of “updating” Cuba’s socialist economic model by allowing more scope for private enterprise and foreign investment. Ban said he met with Fidel Castro in January 2014, adding that they had discussed topics including sustainable development and climate change. Under the leadership of Fidel Castro, who passed away Friday night at the age of 90, Ban said that Cuba had “made advances in the fields of education, literacy and health”. Castro formally resigned as Cuba’s president in 2008, two years after falling ill with diverticulitis and ceding power to his younger brother.",1
" It has survived ice ages, volcanic eruptions and the intrusion of humans on its South Pacific island home, but New Zealand's last survivor of the dinosaur age may become extinct due to global warming. Mounted with spiny scales from head to tail and covered by rough, grey skin that disguises them among the trees, the tuatara is one of the world's oldest living creatures. But the lizard-like reptile is facing increasing risk of extinction from global warming because of its dependency on the surrounding temperature which determines the sexes of unborn young while still in their eggs. ""They've certainly survived the climate changes in the past but most of them (past climate changes) have been at a more slower rate,"" said Jennifer Moore, a Victoria University researcher investigating the tuatara's sexual behaviour. ""So you wouldn't expect these guys to be able to adapt to a climate that's changing so rapidly."" The sex of a tuatara depends on the temperature of the soil where the eggs are laid. A cooler temperature produces females, while a warmer soil temperature results in male offsprings. So named by New Zealand's indigenous Maori people because of the spines on its back, the tuatara is the only survivor of its species of reptile that flourished during the age of the dinosaurs, some 200 million years ago. It can grow up to 50 centimetres (20 inches) and weigh up to one kilogram (2.2 pounds) and like its reptile relative, the turtle, the slow-moving tuatara can live more than 100 years, feeding mainly on insects. But scientists say its long life span as well as its four-year breeding cycle -- relatively slow for a reptile - will make the adaptation process more difficult. According to Moore, a temperature above 21.5 degrees Celsius (71 degrees Fahrenheit) creates more male tuatara while a cooler climate leads to females. Already male tuatara on a tiny predator-free island near the top of New Zealand's South Island outnumber females by 1.7 times, Moore explained. Thanks to its geographic isolation, New Zealand is home to a host of unique wildlife, such as the flightless kiwi bird. But most have come under threat since the arrival of humans, starting with the Maori about 1,000 years ago then European settlers in the 19th century. Some indigenous species, such as the giant moa bird, went extinct because of overhunting and the introduction of predators, such as rats, dogs, and weasels. But New Zealand today is known as a leader in wildlife conservation, saving the likes of the Chatham Islands black robin from extinction. In 1980 there were just five black robins, now there are about 250. Peter Gaze, a senior conservation officer at the Department of Conservation, says global warming has become a new challenge for many of New Zealand's wildlife. ""I think the impact of temperature change is widespread and diverse,"" he said. He says rare species such as the rock wren -- ancient, tailless birds found only in the South Island mountain ranges -- could become extinct if the warmer climate lets predators, like rats, to live in higher altitudes. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's top authority on global warming, predicted in a report in February that global temperatures would rise by 1.8 to 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2-7.2 Fahrenheit) this century. It also warned that between 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species face an increased risk of extinction if the rise in the average global temperature exceeds 1.5-2.5 degrees Celsius. Once found throughout New Zealand, the tuatara is now limited to around 30 isolated islands. Alarmed by the rapid decrease, New Zealand has listed the tuatara on its endangered species list and has bolstered their numbers through artificial breeding and returning them to uninhabited islands eradicated of predators. Scientists say the tuatara population has recovered to around 50,000-60,000, but the little dinosaurs may find themselves giving birth only in laboratories if temperatures continue to climb. ""The easiest way for the tuatara to survive would be for nesting female tuatara to change their behaviour and modify the areas where they nest, such as laying eggs deeper in the soil,"" Victoria University's Moore said. ""There is a possibility that they will be able to adapt but I think the problem is that temperatures may rise so quickly they won't have time.""",0
" Environment ministers, attending the climate summit here, were seen busy on Saturday evening having cursory briefings from their delegations. The ministers were then dispatched in luxurious buses to an official dinner hosted by the summit organisers. Bangladesh's Hasan Mahmud arrived at the sprawling luxurious resort, hosting this year's UN climate summit, ahead of the high-level ministerial segment beginning on Monday. He declined to entertain any question 'in the context of' negotiations of the 16th conference of parties to the UN climate convention, where about 190 countries are trying to lay down a roadmap towards an overarching a deal to address global warming and changing weather. The minister, looked exhausted due to his long journey, is set to receive a full briefing on Sunday evening, when all official negotiations will remain suspended and to be kicked off the following morning. While Mahmud chatted with the Bangladeshi delegation about a new text released earlier, Jairam Ramesh, his Indian counterpart, appeared there what generally serves as the main lobby of the Moon Palace. Ramesh was quick to dismiss the Japanese rejection to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 when its first commitment period expires. ""It's very unhelpful and I do hope they'll come around,"" he told bdnews24.com. Equally unwilling to dwell on the finer aspects, he talked about Fast Start Financing, hyped as one of the successes of the last year's summit in Copenhagen, ""Its neither fast, nor start, nor financing."" Delegation members have, however, indicated that India, and a few other developing countries are keen about money mostly destined to help the poor and vulnerable countries to cope with changing weather. They point out that even as a mechanism for the $30 billion quick funds is being developed along with a similar instrument for the long-term finance of $100 billion, the relevant language in the texts appears to increasingly ignore preferential treatment of the poorest countries and the small island states. This is apparently happening at the behest of G77 & China, a large grouping of over 130 developing countries, where India plays a strong role. Indeed, one of the key players of the entire summit, India's environment minister once again shot down the veiled Japan's suggestion of continuing Kyoto Protocol if major polluters like China and India also agree to reduce their carbon emissions since the deal only addresses less than a third of global emissions. ""We will pledge nothing over and beyond what we have in Copenhagen,"" said Ramesh before getting into the almost full bus to find a seat.",0
"WASINGTON, July 4 (BDNEWS)- President George W Bush has ruled out US backing for any Kyoto-style deal on climate change at the G8 summit. Speaking to ITV, he said he would instead be talking to fellow leaders about new technologies as a way of tackling global warming. But he conceded that the issue was one ""we've got to deal with"" and said human activity was ""to some extent"" to blame. Tony Blair is hoping for deals on climate change and Africa when he hosts the summit in Scotland this week. Mr Bush said he would resist any deal that would require countries to reduce carbon emissions - similar to the 1997 UN Kyoto protocol, which the US never signed. ""If this looks like Kyoto, the answer is no,"" he said in an interview with ITV's Tonight With Trevor McDonald programme. ""The Kyoto treaty would have wrecked our economy, if I can be blunt.""
He said he hoped the other G8 leaders would ""move beyond the Kyoto debate"" and consider new technologies as a way of tackling global warming. The US was investing in developing techniques such as sequestration of carbon dioxide in underground wells, hydrogen-powered cars and zero emission power stations, he said. ""I think you can grow your economy and at the same time do a better job of harnessing greenhouse gases,"" he said. In the past, he has strongly opposed any action on climate change in favour of further studies on the issue. But he rejected the idea he should support British Prime Minister Tony Blair's G8 plan in return for his support during the war in Iraq. ""Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for keeping the peace and winning the war on terror, as I did,"" he told the programme. ""So I go to the G8 not really trying to make him look bad or good, but I go to the G8 with an agenda that I think is best for our country."" The G8 leaders - from Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US - meet in Gleneagles on Wednesday for the start of the three-day summit.I5",1
" After a long and bitter campaign, Americans cast their votes on Tuesday in elections that could sweep Democrats from power in Congress and slam the brakes on President Barack Obama's legislative agenda. Anxiety over the stumbling economy and discontent with Obama and government in Washington have propelled Republicans to the threshold of huge gains that could give them a majority in the House of Representatives and perhaps even the Senate. Opinion polls and independent analysts project Republican gains of at least 50 House seats, far more than the 39 they need to take control and topple Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from power. Republicans are also expected to make big gains in the Senate, although it appears more difficult -- but not impossible -- for them to pick up the 10 seats they need for a majority. Obama won office two years ago on a wave of hope he could lead the United States out of a deep economic crisis, but persistent high unemployment and a gaping budget deficit have turned many voters against him. The public mood gave rise to the political phenomenon of the Tea Party, a conservative grass-roots movement wary of Obama that backed less government, lower taxes and reduced spending. Republican control of even one chamber of Congress would likely spark a long bout of legislative gridlock, weakening Obama's hand in fights over extending the Bush-era tax cuts and passing comprehensive climate change or immigration bills. Republican candidates have pushed an agenda of spending cuts, deficit reduction and the repeal of at least portions of the healthcare overhaul, but Obama would wield veto power over Republican initiatives. Polls open before dawn in some areas of the eastern United States and will start to close at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT), but it will be hours before results are known in many crucial races. All 435 House seats, 37 Senate seats and 37 state governorships are at stake in Tuesday's voting. Many states have been conducting early and mail-in voting for weeks. Dozens of races are considered too close to call. Candidates in both parties launched a frenetic round of last-minute campaign stops and fundraising appeals on Monday. HARRY REID IN TROUBLE In perhaps the country's most high-profile race, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid is embroiled in a neck-and-neck re-election fight with Republican Sharron Angle. Former President Bill Clinton campaigned in West Virginia for Democratic Senate candidate Joe Manchin. Republicans need to string together wins in seven of eight tight races in California, Washington, Nevada, Wisconsin, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois and West Virginia to win a Senate majority. Obama, who hit four states over the weekend trying to pump up Democratic voter turnout, stayed out of public view in the White House on Monday. He conducted radio interviews and made get-out-the-vote phone calls to key battleground states. In an interview with a radio show, Obama said he should have called his political foes ""opponents"" instead of ""enemies"" in a radio interview he gave last week. Republican John Boehner, in line to become the next House speaker if his party takes control, condemned Obama at a campaign rally in Ohio for his use of the word ""enemies."" ""There's a word for people who have the audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution and the values of limited government ... That word isn't enemies. It's patriots,"" Boehner said in Cincinnati. Democrats mounted a huge get-out-the vote operation to ensure supporters made it to the polls. They were encouraged by their lead among early voters in some key states. ""The voters are going to surprise all of these Washington pollsters when they go out,"" Representative Chris Van Hollen, head of the Democratic House campaign committee, told CNN. ""I think there's early evidence of that fact, especially in the early vote."" Democrats have battled a sour political climate all year, with voters in a foul mood over persistent high unemployment, a growing budget deficit and the perceived failures of government in Washington. The climate put Democrats on the defensive in dozens of once-safe House and Senate seats, with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report estimating there are now more than 90 endangered Democratic-held House seats. Tea Party-backed Republican candidates Ken Buck in Colorado, Joe Miller in Alaska and Angle in Nevada are threatening to knock off incumbents in tight Senate races, and Rand Paul in Kentucky has a big lead in opinion polls. Republican Tea Party-favorite Christine O'Donnell in Delaware badly trails Democrat Chris Coons in the race for Vice President Joe Biden's old Senate seat.",0
" When writer Anton Chekhov arrived on the Russian island of Sakhalin in 1890, he was overwhelmed by the harsh conditions at the Tsarist penal colony. It wasn't just the floggings, forced prostitution and ill-treatment of children in the colony. It was the environment itself. ""There is no climate on Sakhalin, just nasty weather,"" Chekhov wrote. ""And this Island is the foulest place in all of Russia."" More than a century on, Sakhalin's prisoners have been replaced by oil and gas workers, most of whom seem to agree that Chekhov's description still fits. The sparsely populated island -- which is the length of Britain -- has some of the most extreme weather on earth. Marine cyclones and violent snowstorms rip through its forested hills, and the ocean waters off its northern coast freeze solid for a good part of the year. In winter, temperatures drop to minus 40 Celsius and snow can pile three meters high. Workers at Exxon's Odoptu oil field, eight km (five miles) off the northeast coast of Sakhalin, had to shovel their way out of their dormitory last winter to clear pipe valves and free oil pipelines of snow. ""The blizzards were so bad that at one point we had to evacuate half of the staff,"" says Pavel Garkin, head of the field's operations. Now Moscow hopes to attract global oil players to another extreme location: its icy Arctic waters. Shared by Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Russia and the United States, the Arctic may hold around one-fifth of the world's untapped oil and gas reserves according to a U.S. Geological survey. The past few years have seen a rush of activity in the region, with UK oil explorer Cairn Energy drilling for oil off the west coast of Greenland and Norway's Statoil, one of the world's largest offshore oil producers, pushing further and further up the Nordic country's serpentine coastline, drilling wells inside the Arctic Circle beneath both the Norwegian and Barents Seas. In September, Russia and Norway put an end to a 40-year dispute over maritime boundaries in the Barents Sea, freeing Russia to push for increased exploration under its portion of the waters just three years after the country spelled out its Arctic claim by planting a rust-proof flag on the sea bed more than four km (14,000 ft) under the North Pole. The rewards could be huge. Russia, the world's top oil producer with output of more than 10 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), estimates that its Arctic zone holds around 51 billion tonnes of oil, or enough to fully meet global oil demand for more than four years, as well as 87 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. Unlike Norway, Russia is not currently producing in its Arctic offshore, but the country's Natural Resource Ministry says it wants to invest at least $312.8 billion by 2039 to explore the shelf. Most of this money will go to the Arctic. But even as Russia opens its northern waters to exploration, there's reason to pause. In the wake of BP's catastrophic leak in the Gulf of Mexico this spring, Russian officials and experts warn an oil spill under the ice could turn out far worse than one in warmer deepwater climates. Arctic conditions -- remoteness, fragile ecosystems, darkness, sub-zero temperatures, ice, high winds -- make dealing with an oil spill a massive task. At an annual conference for global oil and gas heavyweights held on Sakhalin at the end of September, Russian government officials and offshore industry professionals paid close attention to the dangers of drilling on the Arctic continental shelf. ""I have attended 13 of the 14 Sakhalin oil conferences, and this is the first where government regulators were visibly and vocally concerned about offshore oil spill risks,"" says Michael Bradshaw, an expert on Russia's Far East energy industry and professor at the University of Leicester. It's not that a spill is more likely in the Arctic than in a warmer, deep-water locale, says Nils Masvie, a director at Norwegian offshore risk-assessment firm Det Norske Veritas. ""But you cannot extrapolate and say the risk is the same in a cold climate. No, the risk is higher."" That's because it's so much harder to manage a spill and offshore emergency in the ice and dark. ""Sometimes search and rescue operations stop in the evening because it is too dark, resuming again at eight o'clock when the light returns. But if something happens on the Arctic Barents Sea in November it would be, 'OK, we'll come back for you in March,'"" says Masvie, whose company verifies and certifies equipment used in offshore oil and gas production, such as the Nord Stream gas pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea for Russian gas giant Gazprom. LESSONS FROM KOMI Russia's track record with oil spills does not inspire confidence. During the 1970s oil boom, primitive production, drilling and pipeline technology caused pollution levels in rivers, oceans, lakes and ground water to soar. In 1975, for example, several large West Siberian rivers that run north through Russia's biggest oil production region and empty into the Arctic Ocean had oil concentrations 21 times the maximum permissible level, according to a government report, ""Status of Environmental Pollution in the USSR 1975-1976"". Scientists attributed the large-scale contamination to the widespread use of such unsophisticated oil production practices as intense water flooding, where workers inject water into wells at high pressures to drive out the oil. Most pipes also lacked leak-detection technology. One of the worst spills occurred in August, 1994, when the aging pipeline network in the northern Komi Republic sprang a leak. The oil spill was officially put at 79,000 tonnes, or 585,000 barrels, though independent estimates put it at up to 2 million barrels. At the high end that would have been half as big as BP's 4 million barrel Gulf disaster. Two months after the spill started, heavy rains broke a dam that contained the oil, releasing a massive slick into rivers and across forested tundra near the city of Usinsk. Komi borders the Arctic Circle where the cold makes it hard for oil to evaporate. The oil that didn't immediately spill into the Arctic Ocean-bound Kolva, Usa and Pechora rivers spread over 186 sq km (72 square miles) of marshland and tundra. There it froze during winter months, according to an environmental case study by the American University in Washington. The following spring, the oil from the frozen tundra washed back into the streams, seeping into the surrounding vegetation or traveling further down the Pechora to empty into the Barents Sea. A Greenpeace witness reported that April, ""as we feared, the spring has brought a deadly tide of oil over the area. There are acres and acres of blackened marshland, and every river and stream has oil in it."" Geopolis, an environmental consultancy commissioned by the Russian government to conduct a detailed examination of the spill, warned that the local environment near Usinsk would be ""significantly impacted"" by the spring ice thaw. Ecosystems with only a thin ""active"" layer of soil above permafrost typically have slow growth rates and are particularly sluggish at filtering out pollutants. ""Following disturbance, recovery is slow because of the short growing season and low annual production of nutrients,"" the World Conservation Union explains in its Environmental Guidelines for Oil and Gas Production in the Arctic. Water bodies in cold climates are just as vulnerable. ""The chemistry of large Arctic lakes is unusual because of the near-absence of annual cycles of nutrients and micro-organisms and the low quantities of dissolved solids,"" the guidelines state. Smaller oil spills have occurred in the same region almost annually since the 1994 accident, some documented by Russian oil giant LUKOIL, which bought the Komi oil company in 1999, and by Russia's environmental agencies. Others have been spotted only by green groups and citizens' organizations. ""Each spring when the Kolva (River) thaws, the bottom of the ice comes up black,"" says Nikolai Feyodorov, who lives in the village of Ust-Usa. ""It happens every year, around May. I haven't caught a clean ide (fish) even from streams in 20 years."" LUKOIL, which counts Komi as one of its biggest oil-producing regions, says it spent 4.6 billion roubles ($150 million) between 2000 and 2005 to clean up, re-cultivate and reforest over 10 sq km (3.9 square miles) of polluted land. The company recycled more than 230,000 tonnes of oil waste, it says, and replaced 878 km (546 miles) of old pipeline. Following the clean-up the area was taken off Russia's list of environmental disaster zones. By comparison, BP's latest estimate of the total likely cost of its Gulf of Mexico spill was $40 billion. LUKOIL concedes Komi's climate is a problem for monitoring pipeline leaks, and says it would be impossible to replace the entire pipeline system, which was built in the 1970s and is thousands of km long. ""It's a very harsh climate,"" a LUKOIL press secretary told Reuters. ""Most of the year it is freezing, and when there is a lot of snow and everything is covered in ice you don't see the leaks and this makes monitoring difficult. The snow melts in June, and the oil can be seen mostly in streams. This is not a secret."" WORSE IN THE ARCTIC Environmental groups agree and say the Komi disaster is further proof of how hard it would be to deal with an oil spill in Arctic seas. ""If companies can't handle 50 meters of frozen mass, how could you expect them to handle a spill on open ocean in Sakhalin or the Arctic?"" says Vladimir Chuprov, Greenpeace's top energy specialist in Russia. ""Cleaning up oil under ocean ice is impossible. You would have to break and remove thousands of tonnes of ice as the oil keeps moving with the currents further out into the ocean."" Stanislav Meshryakov, head of the department for environmental matters in heavy industry at Russia's Gubkin University of Oil and Gas, concurs. ""The conditions on an open, uncovered surface of water are well understood. But under ice, a slick gets trapped, the current takes it away but you can't see how far, where to, how deep,"" Meshryakov told Reuters in a phone interview. The standard procedure for an under-ice spill is to cut a wide band of ice around the affected area to expose the water. As in oil spills in warmer waters, the contained oil can then be mechanically removed using booms and skimmers, burned, or dispersed using chemicals sprayed from a helicopter. ""You must have special machinery, and it is a long process. By the time the hole is cut, the heavy oil fractions would have sunk down and been carried away by currents, and the light ones stick to the underside of the ice,"" says Meshryakov. In Russia, the State Marine Emergency and Rescue Administration, responsible for leading all oil spill response operations at sea, keeps a stock of oil recovery equipment at Russia's nine major ports, harbors and terminals. The port of Murmansk on the Barents Sea has specialized Arctic vessels and ice-breaker escorts. In the United States, the Coast Guard, oil companies and their contracted emergency responders are required to stockpile clean-up equipment and technology engineered to withstand Arctic conditions. But even with all that preparation, conditions severely limit how effectively equipment can be transported and deployed, creating what the industry calls a ""response gap."" An added problem, according to a report on Arctic spill response challenges by the World Wildlife Fund, is that sea ice can move or damage oil containment booms. Skimmers can freeze or get clogged by ice chunks, while slush ice can prevent burning fluid from igniting the oil in burn operations. To create a stronger, more realistic Arctic oil-spill response plan, the WWF recommends being more realistic about the limitations of equipment. ""This assessment requires analysis and study of the response equipment and procedures beyond stating that they are present on-scene and citing manufacturer ratings; the effectiveness of the system in actual conditions that may exist in the likely operating environment must be demonstrated."" Norway, which has some of the world's toughest oil safety regulations, learned to do this the hard way. In 1977 a blowout on the offshore Ekofisk platform gushed crude for eight days, releasing 202,381 barrels of oil in the North Sea's largest ever spill. The poor performance of the equipment was one of the reasons the spill was so damaging. Immediately following the disaster, in 1978, the country created the Norwegian Clean Seas Association for Operating Companies, which has focused on improving oil spill response technology and so far prevented any repeat of the Ekofisk disaster. As Norwegian firms prepare for more drilling in the Arctic, the association has developed new operating systems and equipment that will help run clean up operations even when it's dark. A POST-BP PAUSE Following the blowout at BP's Macondo well, many Arctic oil- producing countries including Russia have revisited their safety and drilling regulations. The Obama administration decided to put a hold on offshore drilling in Alaska until at least 2011 as it reviews its safety and environmental regulations. In September, White House oil spill commission co-chair Bill Reilly said the BP spill had shown that even in a warm-water climate, advances in spill response and clean-up technology have not kept pace with offshore development. Before the Gulf spill, Obama had proposed ending the drilling moratorium in territorial waters and opening up the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in the Arctic Ocean to exploration and development. But the U.S. Interior Department has now stopped issuing new drilling permits in the Arctic, and adopted a more cautious approach to development in the region because of its unique environmental conditions. A court ruling has also blocked any Chukchi Sea drilling in the near future. Canada said in August that while its offshore safety regulations are adequate and no drilling moratorium is necessary, it will investigate if more safeguards, such as relief wells, are needed and will consider raising the liability cap for operators. Ottawa has also asked Greenland to provide it with more information on the offshore licenses it has issued for drilling in the Davis Strait, part of the North Atlantic Ocean that separates Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, from Canada. Canada, along with Denmark, is a designated oil-spill responder for Greenland, which according to the WWF has none of its own emergency oil-spill equipment stockpiles. Norway, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, whose powerful oil industry is looking to expand drilling in the Arctic archipelagos of Lofoten and Vesteraalen, has said it will not issue new deepwater licenses until the government fully investigates what the BP well blowout means for its own regulations. In Russia, Putin's administration drafted a new bill on oil spill removal that, if passed by the state Duma, would overhaul Russia's safety and environmental regulations. Oil companies say Russia already has some of the tightest regulations in the world, but point out that they are inconsistently applied and often open to corruption. Exxon's Odoptu operation started producing only two months ago. But the road to it from the northern town of Okha -- whose municipal emblem is a seagull flying over an oil rig -- is flanked by the telltale signs of oil-related degradation from earlier work by other operators: evidence, locals say, of the lax regulatory regime. Even before a pair of abandoned oil rigs appears on the horizon, the flaxen sand dunes take on a darker color and the scrub and dwarf pines that dominate the coastal landscape lose their natural evergreen hue. Further on, several rigs pump away, their jacks rhythmically rapping the sand for oil like woodpeckers on a tree for bugs. An oily sheen gives the scrubland a charred look. NEW REGULATIONS PROPOSED But even if operators aren't ready for an Arctic oil spill, don't expect the post-BP pause to last forever. Norway and Russia's recent detente over maritime boundaries has both countries pushing for more exploration in the region. Norway plans to auction off 51 new blocks in its part of the Barents Sea for oil and gas exploration [ID:nLDE65M0VK], while Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Russian energy officials hope to see more offshore oil exploration in its part of the Sea. Under current legislation only Gazprom and Rosneft have the right to develop Russia's continental shelf, but as of January 1, Moscow will open it up to foreign producers. [ID:nLDE68S0RB] Rosneft is already talking to Western oil and gas majors with experience in offshore drilling, including BP and France's Total with a view to forming joint ventures in the Arctic. In a recent interview, Rosneft's vice president Peter O'Brien said the capital investment in Arctic offshore development was so high foreign investors were not interested in signing up unless Russia switched to a profit-based tax regime, which would tax a producer's excess profits on oil production and move away from differentiated taxes adopted by the government for different oil fields. ""For folks to take even exploration risk, some of the partners are requesting clarity on taxation. If changes happen in the legislation then we will consider new structures that optimize the situation under the new legislation,"" he said. And it's not just tax that foreign firms worry about. In December 2006, Shell and its Japanese partners ceded control of their $22-billion oil and gas project on Sakhalin to their junior partners Gazprom, after facing months of intense regulatory pressure. Before Gazprom took the reigns and Shell reduced its stake to 27.5 percent, Russia's environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, threatened to hit the foreign operators with billions of dollars in fines for ecological violations. Many analysts have described the ecological campaign as a drive by the Russian state to take back control of a lucrative energy concession. Could new regulations be used to do the same thing, or is the government honest in its attempt to improve conditions around Russian oil wells? Under the proposed regulations, Moscow wants all oil companies and related organizations dealing with oil transport, marketing and storage to create an oil-spill response plan (OSR) for each deposit and installation they operate. ""This certainly is a first step, and I want to believe that it will work,"" says Nina Lesikhina, a Russian oil and gas specialist at the Norwegian environmental non-governmental group Bellona. ""The new rules provide for much more control over a company's emergency response. As they are now, there is little oversight."" INADEQUATE But Lesikhina and others remain critical of the Russian bill for lowballing the flow rate that the companies will use to figure out what equipment they need on-hand in the event of a spill. According to the bill, the maximum volume of oil companies drilling offshore would need to account for in their emergency response plan is 5,000 tonnes (36,650 barrels). ""This is completely inadequate. In the Gulf of Mexico 50,000 barrels were being spilled each day,"" says Lesikhina. The bill, drafted by the Natural Resource Ministry, also states that a company's emergency oil spill response would be considered finished when the spill is controlled and all the oil collected and disposed of properly. ""There is no mention of remaining environmental damage after the oil is cleaned up. The companies don't have to account for this financially or logistically in their oil response plan,"" Lesikhina says. The Natural Resource Ministry said it could not immediately respond to questions. The State Duma's Natural Resource Committee is also in the process of drafting a new law entitled ""The Protection of the Russian Federation's Seas from Oil Pollution,"" which the head of Russia's WWF climate and energy division, Alexei Kokorin, says is a much better alternative to the one proposed by the Natural Resource Ministry. ""This bill works on the principle of precaution and prevention, is much more technical, stringent, and will bring the law into accordance with international norms,"" says Kokorin. But it's unlikely that any new rules will severely restrict operators: the Russian government gets more than 50 percent of its revenues from oil and gas and Prime Minister Putin's stated aim is to keep producing more than 10 billion barrels a day through 2020. ""In Russia, the oil and gas industry is king,"" says Kokorin. Take Exxon's Russian subsidiary, ENL (Exxon Neftegaz Ltd). If all goes well, it will soon be producing 30,000 bpd at the Odoptu field. But during the Sakhalin oil and gas conference, ENL's environmental protection manager, Alexander Ponomarev, could not say whether the company had a specific plan for under-ice spills. ""We are studying the issue and looking for solutions,"" Ponomarev told Reuters. ""We can't have the magic answer.""",0
"The business on the outskirts of Dhaka previously used large amounts of sulphuric acid to remove excess caustic, a chemical that strengthens fabric, from its waste water. But in 2010, the factory installed two plants that recover from the water 95% of the caustic used to rinse the fabrics made into goods like sheets and pillow covers, saving 6.5 million litres of caustic soda annually as well as sulphuric acid. The plants also generate hot water as a by-product, which is used in machines to process fabrics at high temperatures, economising on water and electricity. The plants cost about $2.3 million to set up but have helped the factory save $3.8 million a year through buying fewer chemicals, treating less waste water and lowering energy bills. ""Using green energy, or installing plants that recycle, saves cost in the long run,"" said Zakir Hossen, sustainability head for the factory which employs 8,000 workers. Climate activists say the global fashion industry should intensify efforts to cut climate-heating emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals of limiting average temperature rise to ""well below"" 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times. Zaber and Zubair Fabrics has rooftop solar panels that can generate about 400 kilowatts of power. While that is less than 1% of the factory's needs, it plans to add more solar capacity in the coming years. ""To survive, we have to give customers good products at a low price. And if we don't gradually shift to green energy, we won't be able to do that... This also helps the environment,"" Hossen told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The apparel industry produces 4% of the world's planet-warming emissions, equal to the combined annual total of France, Germany and Britain, according to a 2020 study by the nonprofit Global Fashion Agenda and consultants McKinsey and Company. The UN Environment Programme in 2019 put the fashion industry's share of global carbon emissions at 10% - more than for all international flights and maritime shipping - and said it was the second-biggest consumer of water. Bangladesh's overall emissions are tiny compared with industrialised countries, but its garment sector is the world's second-largest exporter of clothes and employs about 4 million people. BRANDS PAY THE SAME Last year, the Green Climate Fund, the main UN-backed climate finance channel for developing countries, approved a $250-million loan programme for projects to make garment factories in Bangladesh more energy efficient. Buoyed by economic arguments and pressure from brands to reduce emissions along the fashion supply chain, an increasing number of Bangladeshi factories are taking steps to lower their energy usage, industry experts said. The Partnership for Cleaner Textile (PaCT), a programme led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to assist Bangladeshi factories in adopting cleaner production practices, said it has helped 338 factories cut their greenhouse gas emissions by more than half a million tonnes a year. ""That’s equal to removing over 119,000 cars from the road,"" said Nishat Chowdhury, programme manager for PaCT, which was launched in 2013 and is supported by Denmark, Australia and the Netherlands, as well as major clothing brands. ""More and more factories are nominating themselves for the programme, because they know they must go green to remain competitive in the international market. However, uptake is slow due to policy barriers... This market needs to grow,"" she added. PaCT's recommendations include installing heat recovery boilers to utilise exhaust gas heat from generators, cutting power usage through energy-efficient appliances, and recycling water after condensation. These steps have helped factories each save thousands of dollars annually, curb emissions and save water, five owners told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Bangladesh also has more than 140 factories certified by LEED, a US-based rating system for green buildings. Constructing such factories requires at least 15-20% more capital investment, the owners said. ""You need to spend on expensive things,"" said Asif Ashraf from Urmi Group, which owns a LEED-approved factory. ""For instance, you need a special toilet that doesn't use more than a specific amount of water - you also need a special AC"" Despite their extra investment, factory owners said they had failed to secure better prices from international brands. Buyers need to pay more if they want their supply chains to be climate-neutral or climate-positive in the future, manufacturers said. ""If (brands) want to achieve this goal, they will need to give a favourable price... They need to motivate factories,"" said Faruque Hassan, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, which has about 4,000 members. Mohammad Tamim, dean of the School of Engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said he did not think it would be possible for most factories to go fully ""climate positive"" or depend solely on renewable energy. ""Factories can further minimise emissions and maybe go to net zero at some point. But with the limited space (they) have, renewable energy can at best serve just 5% of their power needs (now),"" he added. ADAPTING LABOUR Shifting towards a greener model could lead to an increase in factory automation, suppliers said. They predicted differing impacts on the sector's workers, thousands of whom lost their jobs at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year when brands shut shops and cut orders. One supplier said the arrival of energy-efficient machines that cut threads sprouting from finished clothes could make workers now responsible for that task redundant. ""Having an adequately skilled labour force that can adapt to new technologies will be critical for jobs in the future,"" Wendy Werner, IFC country manager for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Other suppliers believe the apparel industry is less suitable for high levels of automation as fashion changes fast. Some said a shift to green energy would benefit workers. ""An upgrade to the machines would decrease physical work and that would in turn improve the work atmosphere in the factories and make it more labour-friendly, aside from helping the environment,"" said Hassan of the garment manufacturers' group. Regardless of the impact, workers rights activist Kalpona Akter believes there is no alternative to a green energy shift. ""Energy from fossil fuels is hurting our environment and wildlife ... also nobody can stop automation,"" she said. ""We need to have an alternate industry that can give more jobs and not just focus on garments.""",0
"WASHINGTON, Mar 17 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)-- In the wake of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in northern Japan, the debate over the safety of nuclear energy has been re-ignited in America. Jon Decker reports. In the wake of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in northern Japan, the debate over the safety of nuclear energy has been re-ignited in America.  
Experts say the United States has 23 nuclear power plants that share the same design as the Daiichi plant. And while US officials have said it's too early to draw any conclusions, US President Barack Obama has said he remains committed to nuclear energy-- which provides about 20 percent of the country's electricity. White House spokesman Jay Carney. WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN JAY CARNEY, SAYING: ""More broadly, I would just say that he's committed to a multi-dimensional, or multi-source approach to our energy needs in the future. Nuclear is one of those sources, and he believes that we need to proceed responsibly, with the safety and security of the American people in mind, and if we can do that, nuclear can continue to be an element in our energy arsenal."" The concern in America over nuclear power's safety is nothing new. Since the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, many Americans have been reticent about the industry and the safety of its reactors. Kevin Kamps is a radioactive waste specialist for Beyond Nuclear, a group dedicated to ending nuclear energy and weapons development. (SOUNDBITE) (English) KEVIN KAMPS, RADIOACTIVE WASTE SPECIALIST AT BEYOND NUCLEAR, AN ANTI-NUCLEAR ENERGY ORGANIZATION, SAYING: ""We need to phase out nuclear power as a safety matter, as a security matter, as a cost-savings matter. It's being trumpeted as some kind of solution for the climate crisis, but it's too expensive. It would take too long to deploy, and then it has these insurmountable risks, these inherent dangers that extend from nuclear weapons proliferation, wherever nuclear technology, to the potential for catastrophic nuclear radioactivity releases due to accidents or attacks, to the radioactive waste problem that has not been solved in nearly 70 years."" While environmentalists say renewable energy - such as wind and solar power - could greatly reduce US dependency on nuclear power, President Obama has requested up to $36 billion for loan guarantees to help build new nuclear reactors - arguing that they will help meet US energy needs, fight climate change, and reduce America's dependence on fossil fuels.",0
"Wired together, these units will form Europe’s largest battery, the operators say, able to pump out powerful bursts of electricity to offset fluctuations in the power grid when ebbing winds or cloudy skies slow the generation of renewable electricity. As more power comes from wind and solar, the need for giant batteries will grow. One of the companies behind this 40-million-pound (about $56 million) project is Royal Dutch Shell. Like other oil giants, Shell is under pressure to move away from climate-damaging fossil fuels, and it is recasting itself as more of a renewable energy company, looking for investments as it sidles toward a new future. Shell’s foray into the English countryside in Minety, about 90 miles west of London, provides a clue to that future. But for a company more used to offshore oil rigs and producing natural gas, the giant battery is part of what some critics see as a tortuous turnaround that, they say, must quicken to have a real impact on the factors causing climate change. A subsidiary of Shell called Limejump is managing the device — it manages many such batteries — and will share in revenues from selling the power stored in it in a deal with two Chinese investors. Limejump is the type of business that catches the eye of Shell executives these days. With 80 software engineers, traders and forecasters, the company buys electricity from 675 wind farms, solar installations and other mostly renewable generators scattered across Britain, and sells it to businesses that want their energy to be green. The company, which Shell acquired two years ago, is one of dozens of investments the company has made in the clean energy area. Another is in Sonnen, a German battery supplier that fashions its own power networks to challenge big utilities. Shell is also building up an electric vehicle charging business around the globe and nurturing hydrogen fuelling stations in California. Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive, has been talking about the need to cut emissions since 2017. In the view of some, though, Shell has dragged its feet. The company’s clean energy investments since 2016 add up to $3.2 billion, while it has spent about $84 billion on oil and gas exploration and development, according to estimates by Bernstein, a research firm. “You cannot claim to be in transition when you only invest” such a small percentage of capital in new businesses, said Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, a Dutch investor activist group. All of the big oil companies, especially in Europe, share a similar dilemma. Their leaders see that demand for petroleum products is likely to eventually fade and that their industry faces growing disapproval, especially in Europe, because of its role in climate change. Shell is responsible for an estimated 3% of global emissions, mostly from the gasoline and other products burned by its customers. Yet Shell and other companies still make nearly all their profits from fossil fuels, and they are naturally wary of shedding the bulk of their vast oil and gas and petrochemical assets — worth about $180 billion in Shell’s case, according to Bernstein — especially when the consumption of petroleum is forecast to continue for years, a point underlined by this year’s surge in oil prices. In a recent article on LinkedIn, van Beurden wrote that “it would not help the world one bit” if Shell stopped selling gasoline and diesel today. “People would fill up their cars and delivery trucks at other service stations,” he wrote. Shell also appears to be playing a longer, more cautious game than some rivals, like BP, that are pouring money into renewable energy projects. Shell executives seem to be sceptical about the profit potential of just constructing and operating renewable generation assets, like wind farms. “It’s a much more multifaceted strategy than I think people necessarily anticipated,” said Adam Matthews, director of engagement and ethics at the Church of England Pensions Board, who has worked closely with Shell on targets to reduce its emissions. Shell executives say they want to put their chips on technologies and businesses that may evolve into key cogs in the cleaner energy system that is emerging. They want to not only produce clean energy but make money from supplying it to businesses like Amazon and retail customers through large, tailored contracts, or electric vehicle plug-in points or utilities that Shell owns. The investment numbers will increase, they say, to up to $3 billion a year of a total of about $20 billion annual capital expenditure. “We are thinking ahead; where is the future going?” said Elisabeth Brinton, Shell’s executive vice president for renewables and energy solutions. Brinton cited Limejump as the type of new energy move she wants to make. Buying the eight-year-old company made Shell a player in batteries, which some experts consider the hottest area in renewable energy. Limejump also filled holes in Shell’s abilities in the buying and selling of electric power, which is traded on exchanges like oil or soybeans — a business likely to grow as the world turns to electricity to curb emissions. Batteries like the one at Minety address a shortcoming of wind and solar systems: Their output varies with the wind and the sun. In addition, clean-energy power grids must accept electricity from a broad range of sources — from giant wind farms in the North Sea to rooftop solar arrays — and yet provide a reliable, constant stream of power whenever a homeowner flicks on the lights. It makes managing power grids much trickier than it used to be. Limejump manages dozens of batteries, and more are coming, some likely larger than the one at Minety, that can respond rapidly when the grid “asks for” a burst of power. “This is the way we actually get renewables to properly work,” said Catherine Newman, Limejump’s CEO. At the moment the only practical way to smoothly add more wind and solar power to the grid is through additional batteries, she said. The arrival of the Minety battery, which has a capacity of 100 megawatts and is going through final checks before going live, means that wind power sufficient to light up several hundred thousand homes can be added to the system. Shell’s financial strength was a key “enabler” in persuading two Chinese companies — CNIC, a government-backed fund, and China Huaneng Group, a power company — to invest around 40 million pounds in the battery, according to Richard Thwaites, CEO of Penso Power, an energy developer that arranged the deal. Rubbing shoulders with people from startups like Limejump and Sonnen is bringing new talent and, maybe, new thinking to Shell, whose consensus-driven culture is notoriously slow moving. “You need to be able to move fast in power,” Newman said. “Shell recognised that they are not good enough in that space.” The pressure on Shell to change may increase. On May 26 a Dutch court rocked the company by ordering it to speed up its plans for reducing emissions. Van Beurden responded by saying Shell would most likely accelerate its efforts to reduce carbon, but he also said the company expected to supply oil and gas products “for a long time to come.” One reason: to make sure it has the financial resources to invest in low-carbon energy. Yet Shell executives seem uninhibited about making investments in new areas when they find the case convincing. This year, Shell bought Ubitricity, which installs electric vehicle charging points in lampposts and other structures in London and other cities. Poppy Mills, who worked on the deal for Shell and now serves as Ubitricity’s commercial officer for Britain, said that even though the economics of such businesses were “challenging,” Shell had bought the company as a way to reach the large percentage of city dwellers who kept their cars on the street and did not have access to chargers. “It was a gap in our portfolio, not having an on-street network,” she said. That approach seems likely to propel the growth of clean energy at Shell and other oil companies. “These businesses are tiny in the overall scheme of things,” said Stuart Joyner of Redburn, a research firm. “But they are the bit that is growing quite quickly.” © 2021 New York Times News Service",0
"Britain's new leader Gordon Brown stamped on talk of cooler relations with Washington on Saturday, saying before his first meeting with President George W Bush that the bond between the countries remained strong. Brown's spokesman said, he will not unveil a plan for an early withdrawal of British troops from Iraq in talks with US President George W Bush on Sunday. Brown sets out later on Sunday for his first meeting with Bush since succeeding Tony Blair as prime minister last month. Brown flies to the United States on Sunday for his first meeting with Bush since he succeeded Tony Blair as British prime minister a month ago. Some of Brown's ministerial appointments and a comment by one of Brown's ministers that Brown and Bush were unlikely to be ""joined together at the hip"" have fuelled speculation that the cozy relationship Bush had with Blair would change under Brown. Speculation has been rife in British media that Brown could distance himself from Blair's policy on Iraq. Opposition to the war contributed to the pressure on Blair, a staunch supporter of US policy there, to step down early after a decade in power. The Sunday Times newspaper reported a senior aide to Brown had sounded out Washington on the possibility of an early British troop withdrawal from Iraq. It said Simon McDonald, Brown's chief foreign policy advisor, had left the impression he was ""doing the groundwork"" for Brown when he asked a group of US experts this month what they believed the effect of a British pullout would be. However, Brown's spokesman told reporters the prime minister would not unveil a plan to withdraw British troops, who are due to remain in southern Iraq until the Iraqi army is capable of maintaining security. ""Simon McDonald made very clear at the meeting that the British government's position had not changed,"" the spokesman said in London prior to Brown's departure. However, he said that decisions ""clearly have to be made"" on when to hand over control of Basra to Iraqi forces. The head of the British military said on Thursday that Britain should be in a position to hand over control of Basra by the end of the year. In a statement on the eve of his departure, Brown dismissed talk of cooler relations with Washington, saying the bond between the countries remained strong. ""It is a relationship that is founded on our common values of liberty, opportunity and the dignity of the individual,"" he said. ""And because of the values we share, the relationship with the United States is not only strong but can become stronger in the years ahead."" Brown will hold talks with Bush at Camp David before travelling to New York for a meeting with United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Brown will also give a speech at the United Nations. Brown's office said talks with Bush would cover the Middle East peace process, the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, climate change and how to reinvigorate global trade liberalisation talks. Blair was Bush's closest ally in the invasion of Iraq, but Brown is well aware that the war's unpopularity in Britain was one of the factors that forced Blair to step down early in June after a decade in power. Brown, who was Blair's finance minister, said in a statement released before his trip that ties with the United States should be Britain's ""single most important bilateral relationship"". ""It is a relationship that is founded on our common values of liberty, opportunity and the dignity of the individual. And because of the values we share, the relationship with the United States is not only strong but can become stronger in the years ahead,"" he said. None of the world's major problems could be solved without the active engagement of the United States, Brown said. ""We will continue to work very closely together as friends to tackle the great global challenges of the future,"" he said, adding that the relationship between a U.S. president and a British prime minister would always be strong. UNITED NATIONS Brown will hold talks with Bush at Camp David before traveling to New York for a meeting with United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Brown will also give a speech at the United Nations. Brown's office said talks with Bush would cover the Middle East peace process, the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, climate change and how to reinvigorate global trade liberalization talks. While Brown and Bush will stress London and Washington's ""special relationship"" is alive and well, political analysts say the reserved, sometimes awkward Brown is unlikely to enjoy the same close relationship with the U.S. president that Blair had. Brown will want to avoid the ""Bush's poodle"" tag that Blair was sometimes labeled with by the British press, particularly after the US president greeted him with ""Yo, Blair"" at an international conference last year. Brown regularly holidays in the United States and is a keen reader of books on US politics and economics. He has said Britain will abide by its UN obligations in Iraq and there will be no immediate withdrawal of British troops, as some in the ruling Labor Party want. On Iran, Brown said this week he would not rule out military action but believed sanctions could still persuade Tehran to drop its disputed nuclear program.",0
" Britain urged world leaders on Monday to turn up in person to salvage a UN climate deal in Copenhagen in December, and Australia and India outlined ways to curb their greenhouse gases. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told representatives of 17 major emitters meeting in London that success was still within reach for 190-nation talks in Denmark from Dec. 7 to 18, up to now intended as a gathering for environment ministers. ""We must frankly face the plain fact that our negotiators are not getting to agreement quickly enough,"" he said. ""Leaders must engage directly to break the impasse,"" he told the two-day talks ending on Monday. ""I've said I'll go to Copenhagen, and I'm encouraging them to make the same commitment."" Talks are bogged down in disputes between industrialized and developing countries over how to share out curbs on emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels. Just one week of formal talks remains before Copenhagen, in Barcelona in early November. The two-year UN talks launched in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007 are particularly stuck on how big carbon cuts recession-hit rich countries should make by 2020, and how much they should pay developing countries to fight global warming. Among signs of action on Monday, Australian Climate Minister Penny Wong said the government would bring carbon trade legislation back to parliament on Thursday and will demand a vote on the controversial laws before the end of November. POSSIBLE ELECTION The conservative opposition on Sunday demanded changes to the scheme, already rejected once by the upper house to avert a second defeat that would give Prime Minister Kevin Rudd an excuse to call a possible snap election. The government, which is ahead in opinion polls and could benefit from an election, wants to start carbon trading from July 2011, putting a price on greenhouse gas and helping curb emissions in one of world's highest per capita polluters. The Australian scheme will cover 75 percent of Australian emissions from 1,000 of the biggest companies and be the second domestic trading platform outside Europe. Companies will need a permit for every tonne of carbon they emit. An Indian newspaper said Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh wanted New Delhi to accept curbs on the country's rising carbon emissions, dropping insistence that they should hinge on new finance and technology from rich nations. ""We should be pragmatic and constructive, not argumentative and polemical,"" The Times of India quoted Ramesh as writing in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In an interview with Reuters on Friday, Ramesh signalled a willingness to make compromises to win a deal. India, China and other big developing countries fear they will be hard hit by climate change and say it is in their national interest to try to limit the effects more extreme droughts, floods, rising seas and melting glaciers that feed major rivers. The London talks of the Major Economies Forum focus on how to turn a patchwork of national policy plans, from China to the United States, into a deal. Countries attending account for 80 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. ""The rich countries in the Major Economies Forum must urgently put new money on the table,"" said Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner Asad Rehman. A big sticking point for Copenhagen is that the United States, the only industrialized country outside the current Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, is unlikely to pass carbon-cutting laws by December. In Cape Town, South Africa pointed to one area of soaring emissions -- next year's soccer World Cup. Emissions would leap almost tenfold from a 2006 benchmark set by Germany, partly because air travel would be added to the count. ""The FIFA 2010 World Cup will have the largest carbon footprint of any major event with a goal to be carbon neutral,"" Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said.",0
" The cost of damage to the world's oceans from climate change could reach $2 trillion a year by 2100 if measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions are not stepped up, a study by marine experts said on Wednesday. The study found that without action to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions, the global average temperature could rise by 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century causing ocean acidification, sea level rise, marine pollution, species migration and more intense tropical cyclones. It would also threaten coral reefs, disrupt fisheries and deplete fish stocks. In the study, ""Valuing the Ocean"", marine experts led by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) analysed the most severe threats facing the world's marine environment and estimated the cost of damage from global warming. It found nitrogen-rich fertilisers and waste would strip more ocean areas of oxygen, causing what is known as hypoxic dead zones, which are already found in more than 500 locations. ""By 2100, the cost of damage if we do not radically cut emissions rises to $1.98 trillion, or 0.37 percent of global gross domestic product,"" the SEI said. The loss of tourism would incur the highest cost at $639 billion per year. The loss of the ocean carbon sink, the seas' ability to soak up carbon dioxide (CO2), would cost almost $458 billion, the study showed. Warmer water holds less CO2. RADICAL TECHNOLOGIES If cuts in emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases were carried out more urgently and temperature increases were limited to 2.2 degrees C, nearly $1.4 trillion of the total cost could be avoided, the study found. However, such progress would require the widespread use of radical carbon removal technologies like sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, Frank Ackerman, one of the report's authors told Reuters. ""The faster we stop emissions rising, the lower the damage will be. But on current technology, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up on a 4 degree C pathway,"" said Ackerman, senior economist and director of the Climate Economics Group at SEI's US Center. The study did not put a monetary value on the loss of some species which inhabit the world's oceans, critical processes like nutrient cycling or the loss of coastal communities' traditional ways of life. ""The challenge is to figure out what parts of the ocean environment have a value you can put a meaningful price on. There are very important areas which we still can't incorporate into a market,"" Ackerman said. The study also recommended that the United Nations appoints a High Commissioner for Oceans to coordinate research and action, that ocean services should be more integrated into economic policy and that there should be more preparation for a 1-2 metre sea level rise by the end of the century. A new potential market in ""blue carbon"" could also present an important economic opportunity, SEI said. Marine ecosystems, like mangroves and sea grasses, contain far more carbon than terrestrial forests but are being degraded at a more alarming rate and are not yet included in carbon offset schemes, which reward investors in emissions reduction projects in developing countries with carbon credits. ""There are many questions about the legal responsibility for different parts of the ocean. Tracking terrestrial carbon offsets is enough of a challenge, tracking the marine ones is going to be a new challenge,"" Ackerman said. ""But they need to be included. Leaving out an area like that could undermine progress being made in areas that are being taken care of.""",0
" France's president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy takes his first step into international diplomacy on Friday when he meets Tony Blair, the British prime minister preparing to bow out after a decade in power. The two leaders, both in their 50s, say they get on well and share views on many issues, including moves to introduce a slimmed-down version of the European constitutional treaty that was rejected by French voters in 2005. Important European Union and G8 meetings next month will form the core of their discussions, due to start at 1530 GMT, after Blair calls on outgoing President Jacques Chirac. ""With Nicolas Sarkozy, you can anticipate the discussions will cover key forthcoming international meetings such as the EU, looking at the treaty, and obviously the G8, looking at climate change and follow-up to the Gleneagles agenda,"" Blair's spokesman told reporters. Blair, who will step down on June 27, took the unusual step of welcoming Sarkozy's election on Sunday with a tribute delivered in French and posted on the YouTube Web site. He said the right-winger's success presented a ""fantastic opportunity for Britain and France to work together in the years ahead"". Sarkozy wants a less ambitious treaty modernising the EU's institutions to be passed by parliament and has ruled out another referendum on the constitution. ""I don't speak for Nicolas Sarkozy and obviously that's something they will be discussing,"" Blair's spokesman said. The prime minister supported an amended treaty rather than a full-blown constitution, he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom Sarkozy will meet next week after officially assuming his functions as president, has made reviving the charter a priority of her EU presidency. Sarkozy has stressed his desire to overcome the lingering suspicions caused by France's fierce opposition to the U.S.- and British-led war on Iraq and has made improving relations with Washington and London a priority. His recognition of the importance of the traditional alliance with Germany will be marked next week when he visits Berlin on Wednesday, the day he takes office. ""For the chancellor, this is an extraordinarily strong signal of Franco-German friendship,"" German government spokesman Thomas Steg said.",0
" The fight against global warming will only work if big developing countries took on legally binding targets, Canada's environment minister said on Wednesday, underlining a major split at climate talks in Bali. About 190 nations are meeting in a luxury Indonesian beach resort from Dec. 3-14 to try to launch two-year negotiations on a new global climate change deal to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol from 2013. ""If we want to take a voluntary approach for 70 percent of the world's emissions I think that's just a non-starter, it doesn't work,"" said John Baird, referring to major emitting nations, including big developing countries. He told Reuters that China and India should act now to rein in their soaring greenhouse gas emissions. Rich countries, which historically have produced the bulk of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, are under pressure from the developing world to first commit to deep emissions cuts before asking poorer nations to follow suit. But emissions in many developing countries are rising quickly as they try to lift millions out of poverty. China, for example, is poised to overtake the United States as the world's number one carbon emitter, but has produced far less of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, and is worried limits on fossil fuel use will harm the poor. India is the world's no. 4 emitter of greenhouse gases that threaten to cause rising seas, more severe floods, droughts, famines and extinctions of wildlife. The United States refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts developing nations from binding emissions curbs in its first phase that ends in 2012. Baird rejected any mention in a final Bali statement later this week of emissions reduction targets that did not refer to a global effort, dismissing goals just for industrialised nations. Asked whether it would be alright for China to take on voluntary targets, he said: ""People told me voluntary targets don't work for the developed world. If someone can explain to me how they work in the other world, I'm open to hear the argument."" SHIFTING THE PROBLEM Baird argued that if only rich countries accepted emissions targets that would simply shift emissions somewhere else in the world, rather than cut overall global levels. ""We can close a steel mill today in Canada. But if we just import the steel from China what will we have accomplished? Absolutely nothing."" Baird repeated Canada's position that its present targets under the Kyoto Protocol were ""unattainable"", a failing he blamed on the preceding Liberal Party administration. Canada has a Kyoto target to cut emissions by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. However, Canada's emissions are now more than 30 percent above those levels. Baird said the country wanted to discuss its possible penalty under Kyoto -- which is to take the amount by which it misses its Kyoto limit, plus 30 percent, and subtract that from any new emissions cap. Asked whether developing countries would be happy to take part in a new treaty after Canada had failed to meet its targets in the original Protocol, Baird said: ""This is not a game. Increases in greenhouse gases are having a devastating effect on the planet, wherever you live. If we're going to accomplish anything we're going to need all the big players on board."" He said Canada planned to set up its own carbon emissions trading scheme which could link immediately with planned regional or possible federal markets in the United States, and in several years might link with an EU scheme.",0
"Last week, during a keynote presentation at Facebook’s annual virtual reality conference, Mark Zuckerberg appeared in a feature-length video detailing his plans for “the metaverse,” an immersive digital world powered by his own products. In Zuckerberg’s imagined realm, humans will teleport across the globe in hologram form. Virtual fish will swim in the sky. You’ll have a big virtual telescope in your house, and a floating cast-iron chiminea, and David Attenborough will be there. You’ll still have to spend your days on video conference calls for work, but now some of your colleagues will look like cartoons. Zuckerberg’s metaverse will be influenced by his financial interests and his strategic impulses, but also by his tastes. In his world, he could become our architect, decorator, concert promoter, film distributor, fitness guru, curator and stylist, or at least their boss. It’s time to assess Zuckerberg not only as a corporate leader but as a cultural one. What is the Mark Zuckerberg aesthetic? What does he even like? His nearly 20 years in public life provide few clues. We know that he has expressed interest in Morgan Freeman’s voice and Vin Diesel’s oeuvre. In 2015, he hosted a Facebook book club with an absurdly broad brief, selecting works by both Michelle Alexander and Henry Kissinger. He has streamed himself smoking meats on Facebook Live. His personal style is expeditious. Like a comic-book character, he seems to have a closet full of unindividuated outfits, all dark jeans and subtly heathered crew-neck tees. His hair has been cut into the same shape, close-cropped and featuring the tiny bangs of a medieval squire, for more than a decade. At 37, his pale, oddly smooth visage lends him a vampiric quality. There is something unnerving about the static nature of his image, of its imperviousness to the passage of time and his own ballooning wealth. It is as if he has always been moving through the world as an avatar. Some things, however, have changed. When we first met Zuckerberg, he was a hoodied dorm-room hacker improbably vaulted to power. “The Social Network,” David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s 2010 interpretation of Facebook’s founding, pegged him as a socially frustrated nerd with girl problems. But as the company amassed global influence, he began to be seen as a kind of dark online prince, and he laboured to restyle himself as a plausible civic leader. He started quoting Abraham Lincoln. His bearing may have been stiff and charmless, but now it was kindly, too, like an android programmed for a custodial role. On Instagram, he presented as an aggressively normal dad, stocking his feed with images of his wife, Priscilla Chan, their children and their moplike family dog. He has twice posted a blurry, too-close nighttime selfie in front of the Louvre. His caption style is mechanical: “Happy Mother’s Day!”; “Here’s to a great 2019!”; “We hope you had a spooky Halloween!” Back in 2017, Zuckerberg published a manifesto dedicating Facebook to crafting the “social infrastructure” for a “civically-engaged community.” He wrote of “spreading prosperity and freedom,” “fighting climate change” and “preventing pandemics.” (Oops.) When he referred to “building the world we all want,” he was talking about the real world. Now he has retreated to a place chiefly concerned not with democracy or planetary survival but what he calls “joy”: attending virtual concerts, playing virtual chess and head-nodding at colleagues in virtual offices. Though the term “metaverse” suggests a fully articulated sci-fi realm, Zuckerberg is using it to glamorize a network of virtual and augmented reality apps and gear, like headsets, that he swears will one day create a seamless illusion of a “deep feeling of presence.” He is devoting $10 billion this year to these projects (and more in the coming years), assigning 10,000 workers to them and changing his company name to “Meta.” And he’s retooling his online persona, too, as he steps into another improbable role: that of virtual impresario. In recent months, Zuckerberg’s Instagram feed has grown sleekly professionalized. He appears as a sportsman practiced in elite hobbies: foiling, fencing, rowing, spear throwing. In an Instagram video posted on the 4th of July, he cuts through the water on a hydrofoil, hoisting an American flag to the tune of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” This summer, paparazzi captured Zuckerberg in bizarre leisure scenes: heading into the jungle to hunt boar with a posse of friends, wearing tactical gear and knit sneakers; surfing in the ocean, his face covered in opaque white sunscreen like some kind of tropical mime. Recently he posted a series of videos shot through Facebook’s new smart glasses, inviting the viewer to see through his eyes as he pilots a boat or lunges in a backyard fencing match. Now, in his keynote presentation, Zuckerberg becomes our avatar for experiencing the whole metaverse. The video begins in a home, presumably Zuckerberg’s own. Stock music thrums as he lopes through a beige expanse punctuated with knotty driftwood, ceramic vessels and fossilized sea urchins. When he beckons us into the metaverse (really, simulated images of a virtual reality product that does not exist), his living room dissolves into a grid, and a computerized fantasy version of his home appears. It features several globes, a bonsai growing from an urn and a row of costumes — a Spartan, an astronaut. Vast windows overlook the kind of nature images used in screen savers that come preloaded onto a computer: tropical islands on one side, snow-capped mountains on the other. The most conspicuous item in Zuckerberg’s fantasy home is a slim television mounted to the wall. “You can do anything you can imagine,” Zuckerberg says. “You will experience the world with ever-greater richness,” he promises. And yet mostly he foresees us consuming content in ever more elaborately anti-social ways. He stages a virtual concert followed by a virtual after-party featuring virtual swag, all of which may be experienced from a slackened position on a living room couch. In his keynote monologue, he speaks reverently of the “virtual goods” that we will treasure in the metaverse, holding them close as we trudge from app to app. He refers incessantly to “experiences,” an idea that has become a buzzword signalling the commodification of life itself. And yet the aesthetics of the metaverse, with its ghastly translucent holograms, evoke the spectre of death. Its schedule of activities reads like an advertisement for a virtual retirement community where isolated millennials can live out their final days, gazing at what Zuckerberg calls “a view of whatever you find most beautiful” as advertisers conceive of new ways to drill advertisements directly into their skulls. It’s enough to make you long for a truly eccentric billionaire, someone who will at least offer a thrilling spectacle in exchange for becoming entrapped in his thought prison. Sadly, Zuckerberg is not the only internet tycoon building a new world to his bland specifications: While Zuckerberg moves to colonize the mind, Jeff Bezos is extending his influence into the cold reaches of space, where he plans to construct a private space station pitched as a “mixed-use business park.” Together they have slain our childlike fantasies of space exploration and virtual reality adventure, redirecting our imaginations into sealed corporate environments that can be exploited for profit. The “Social Network” portrait of Zuckerberg as driven by romantic resentment never felt quite right. It felt too human. Even his hobbies and personal habits reek of transaction. On his Instagram account, he embodies the “work hard, play hard” ethos, ruthlessly converting leisure time into opportunities for technical mastery. When he posts images of his children on the platform he assures the populace that there is nothing troubling about plugging their own private lives into his products. He has said that he wears the same thing every day “so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community,” as if acting less like a person could possibly benefit the rest of humanity. Given the disquieting events that Facebook has been accused of facilitating, some people are naturally sceptical of the idea of transforming the platform into an immersive playground where we might experience, say, racist screeds or body dysmorphia even more vividly. Instead Zuckerberg has offered up a different kind of horror: a frictionless world where nothing unpredictable, or unmonetizable, ever occurs. His metaverse is inhabited by smoothed, presumably neutered cartoon figures who converse in phrases like “Yo,” “This is wild” and “Let’s get together real quick for a debrief.” And if that all becomes overwhelming, Zuckerberg assures us, we may “teleport to a private bubble to be alone.” Alone in a bubble: This is the dream of the future. The reality will surely be much worse. © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
" Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, accompanied by more than 400 business leaders, will seek to boost trade with India and soothe tensions between the world's fastest-growing major economies when he visits on Wednesday. Wen's visit is the first by a Chinese premier in five years. He is accompanied by China's top tycoons, underscoring the growing commercial ties of countries which, between them, house more than a third of the world's population. ""Impressive business delegations have accompanied Barack Obama and David Cameron, but when the Wen circus rolls into town with 100 of China's top tycoons, the red carpet needs to be a bit longer,"" said a commentary in the Hindustan Times on Wednesday. ""Let trade do the talking, other issues that add to the trust deficit will hopefully get addressed on the way."" The two countries, one-time rivals who went to war in 1962, are now entwined by their booming trade relationship and rising global clout. Both have stood together to resist Western demands in world trade and climate change talks, but they have also clashed over China's close relationship with Pakistan, fears of Chinese spying and a longstanding border dispute. Wen is expected to announce more Chinese investments in India or lower trade barriers to assuage the worries of Indian politicians, peeved that the Sino-Indian trade balance is heavily in China's favour. India's deficit with China could reach $24-25 billion this year, analysts said. The deficit rose to $16 billion in 2007-08, from $1 billion in 2001-02, according to Indian customs data. India has sought to diversify its trade basket, but raw materials and other low-end commodities such as iron ore still make up about 60 percent of its exports to China. In contrast, manufactured goods -- from trinkets to turbines -- form the bulk of Chinese exports. China is now India's largest trade partner and two-way trade reached $60 billion this year, up from $13.6 billion in 2004. ""Economic ties constitute literally the bedrock of our relations ... Both sides are keen to further enhance mutually beneficial trade and are looking at new initiatives,"" said an Indian foreign ministry spokesman on Monday. Still, total investment by China in India is small, amounting to only $221 million in 2009, representing only about 0.1 percent of China's total outward foreign direct investment stock in that year. That figure is seven times less than what China has invested in Pakistan, according to data from China's Ministry of Commerce. TIBETAN PROTESTS The Sino-Indian trade relationship is overlaid with political and strategic rifts. Beijing's longest running grudge against India is over its granting of asylum to Tibetan leader Dalai Lama, who fled to India in the 1950s following a failed uprising, setting off a chain of events that led to the war between them. Hundreds of demonstrators wearing orange T-shirts with slogans such as ""Free Tibet Now"" took to the streets of central Delhi, shouting ""Wen Jiabao go back!"" and ""Tibet's independence is India's security."" The Tibetan protests, which usually accompany visits by Chinese leaders to India, were peaceful, watched over by a heavy police presence. Security was also stepped up outside the Chinese embassy in Delhi. The Dalai Lama is due to visit Sikkim, an Indian state on the Chinese border, during Wen's visit to Delhi, something that could inflame tensions. FRAGILE RELATIONS The two nations have pursued divergent paths in their development: for India, a democracy, economic reforms began only in 1991; for China, a one-party state that implemented market reforms in 1979, catapulting the country's economy. Although both India and China have said they are exploring a possible free-trade agreement, no real progress is expected on that front as there is some scepticism in New Delhi that Beijing may only want to dump cheap manufactured goods on India's booming $1.3 trillion economy. [ID:nSGE6BC04V]. While the two are often lumped together as emerging world powers, China's GDP is four times bigger than India's and its infrastructure outshines India's dilapidated roads and ports, a factor that makes New Delhi wary of Beijing's growing might. ""Relations are very fragile, very easy to be damaged and very difficult to repair. Therefore they need special care in the information age,"" China's envoy to India, Zhang Yan, told reporters in New Delhi. India fears China wants to restrict its global reach by possibly opposing its bid for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat or encircling the Indian Ocean region with projects from Pakistan to Myanmar. Long wary of Washington's influence in South Asia, Beijing's overtures toward New Delhi also come just a little over a month after U.S. President Barack Obama's trip to India, during which he endorsed India's long-held demand for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and announced $10 billion worth of business deals. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron also visited India this year. After Wen's Dec. 15-17 visit he travels straight to Pakistan, India's nuclear armed rival, for another two nights. In the days leading up to Wen's trip, China and India have agreed on a series of business deals. Chinese telecoms gear maker Huawei, whose imports were banned by India only in May over spying fears, said on Tuesday it aims to invest more than $2 billion in India over the next five years. India is the world's fastest growing mobile phone market and second only to China in subscribers. India's Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) will sew up about $3 billion in loans from Chinese banks, while Reliance Communications will sign an accord with China Development Bank for a $1.93 billion, 10-year loan. The loans are yet another example of the growing challenge the BRIC group consisting of the frontier markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China are giving Western banks, which have traditionally been the destination for companies like ADAG.",0
" Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who faces political turmoil at home over a civilian nuclear deal with the United States, said on Wednesday that ties with Washington have never been as good as now. After meeting President George W. Bush on the sidelines of the G8 summit, Singh said Delhi and Washington must stand ""shoulder to shoulder"" on issues such as climate change and managing the global economy. ""I am very pleased with the state of our relationship, which has truly acquired the characteristic of a genuine strategic partnership,"" Singh said to reporters after meeting Bush. India's communist parties on Tuesday withdrew support for Singh's government and said they would call for a vote of no confidence to protest the nuclear deal with the United States, which they say makes India subservient to Washington. Bush said the two discussed the nuclear deal, but he gave no further details. They also talked about the environment, free trade, and education, he said. ""All-in-all it was a really good meeting among two friends,"" Bush said. Singh added that the two nations had made progress in nuclear, space, defense and education cooperation in recent years. ""Our relationship with the United States has never been in such good shape as it is today,"" he said. ",0
"It is the latest calamity to strike the delta nation of 165 million people. Only two months ago, a cyclone pummelled the country’s southwest. Along the coast, a rising sea has swallowed entire villages. And while it’s too soon to ascertain what role climate change has played in these latest floods, Bangladesh is already witnessing a pattern of more severe and more frequent river flooding than in the past along the mighty Brahmaputra River, scientists say, and that is projected to worsen in the years ahead as climate change intensifies the rains. “The suffering will go up,” said Sajedul Hasan, the humanitarian director of BRAC, an international development organisation based in Bangladesh that is distributing food, cash and liquid soap to displaced people. This is one of the most striking inequities of the modern era. Those who are least responsible for polluting Earth’s atmosphere are among those most hurt by its consequences. The average American is responsible for 33 times more planet-warming carbon dioxide than the average Bangladeshi. This chasm has bedevilled climate diplomacy for a generation, and it is once again in stark relief as the coronavirus pandemic upends the global economy and threatens to push the world’s most vulnerable people deeper into ruin. An estimated 24% to 37% of the country’s landmass is submerged, according to government estimates and satellite data. By Tuesday, according to the most recent figures available, nearly 1 million homes were inundated and 4.7 million people were affected. At least 54 have died, most of them children. The current floods, which are a result of intense rains upstream on the Brahmaputra, could last through the middle of August. Until then, Taijul Islam, a 30-year-old sharecropper whose house has washed away, will have to camp out in a makeshift bamboo shelter on slightly higher ground. At least he was able to salvage the tin sheet that was once the roof of his house. Without it, he said, his extended family of nine would be exposed to the elements. Islam’s predicament is multiplied by the millions among those on the front lines of climate change. Vanuatu is literally sinking into the Pacific. Pastoralists in the Horn of Africa are being pushed to the edge of survival by back-to-back droughts. In the megacity of Mumbai, the rains come in terrifying cloudbursts. The inequity is striking, no matter which way you slice it. One recent analysis found that the world’s richest 10% are responsible for up to 40% of global environmental damage, including climate change, while the poorest 10% account for less than 5%. Another estimated that warming had reduced incomes in the world’s poorest countries by between 17% and 30%. Poor countries have long sought a kind of reparations for what they call loss and damage from climate change. Rich countries, led by the United States and European Union, have resisted, mainly out of concern that they could be saddled with liability claims for climate damage. It doesn’t help that the rich world has failed to deliver on a $100 billion aid package to help poor countries cope, promised as part of the 2015 Paris accord. Coronavirus recovery plans have lately begun to open the door to new discussions about debt relief linked to climate resilience. In June, the Alliance of Small Island Developing States, led by Belize, pressed for what it called a new compact with private and bilateral creditors “to deliver debt relief and increase resilience financing.” Caribbean countries, with their economies ravaged by hurricanes in recent years, now find themselves falling deeper into debt as the pandemic dries up tourism revenues. A study commissioned by the United Nations found that the 20 most climate-vulnerable countries have paid more than $40 billion in additional interest payments because of losses stemming from extreme weather events. 
 
 

In Bangladesh, the flooding of the Brahmaputra reflects the unequal pain of extreme weather.   The floods began in June. In most cases, heavy rains upstream in neighbouring India swelled the river basins that flow through Bangladesh before draining into the Bay of Bengal. Those who live along the Brahmaputra are no strangers to flooding. When the river swells, work stops, land erodes, people move to higher ground and wait for the waters to recede. They rely on their savings or aid to feed themselves. This year was different, though. By the time the river flooded, in June, people were already running out of food, said Hasan of BRAC. Because of the lockdown, working people had all but stopped working. Remittances from relatives abroad, many of them newly unemployed, had dried up. In the countryside, people had begun to sell their goats and cattle at bargain prices. They had no food to eat. When the river first swelled, Taijul Islam, the sharecropper from the Kurigram district in the country’s north, rushed to save his livestock — cattle, goats, chickens, ducks. A few, he rescued. Many, he lost. The river took away the small vegetable garden next to his house, then his house, where he had stashed roughly 1,300 pounds of rice. Then it washed away a small shop that he ran when he wasn’t working on other people’s land. Also the school that his 6-year-old son attended in the village. All he can think of now is where he can go to earn a living. He is the sole breadwinner of his extended family. All nine of them had been living on rice, boiled potato and lentils. Vegetables are unaffordable, let alone fish or meat, which, he said, “are now unimaginable.” Akkas Ali, 48, had already been through a bad flood. He moved to Islam’s village six years ago, when his old village washed into the Brahmaputra. Two weeks ago, as the river rose, breaking through its embankments, his four acres of farmland went underwater. The village mosque and market washed away. So, too, a secondary school where more than 250 children were enrolled. Ali worried where they would go to school now, if at all. His house still stood this week, but the river, which had been one-quarter mile away, had rushed dangerously close. He was sure it, too, would wash away soon. The Brahmaputra is a fearsome, shape-shifting 2,400-mile river that erupts from the Tibetan Himalayas and spills into northeastern India before merging with the Ganges in Bangladesh and emptying into the Bay of Bengal. It irrigates vast areas of farmland but it’s also unpredictable, often swallowing the islands that form within it, like the one where Ali’s village once stood. Climate change, too, is altering its fate — and that of the people who live along its banks. The rains are more unpredictable and the river is rising above dangerous levels far more frequently than it did before, according to 35 years of flooding data analysed by A.K.M. Saiful Islam, a water management expert at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka. The last five years alone have brought four major floods, eroding people’s capacity to adapt, Islam said. More and worse floods loom. Even if average global temperature increase modestly — by 2 degrees Celsius over the average for preindustrial times — flooding along the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh is projected to increase by 24%. With an increase of 4 degrees Celsius, flooding is projected to increase by more than 60%. No matter what, Islam, the water management expert, said, the country will have to adapt. That requires money to dredge rivers, maintain embankments, improve drainage and offer aid to those who are repeatedly displaced and impoverished. Advocates for the poor say Bangladesh’s predicament with disasters illustrates exactly why climate negotiations, postponed until 2021, need to deliver compensation for people who have not caused the problem. “People are losing whatever little they have,” said Farah Kabir, the Bangladesh country director for ActionAid International. “When and how are they going to be supported? When is the global community going to take responsibility?”",0
"The failure by Obama and Republicans to agree to halt the $85 billion ""sequester"" cuts virtually guaranteed that fiscal issues would remain center stage in Washington for weeks, crowding out Obama's proposals to reform immigration, tighten gun laws and raise the minimum wage.The economic effects of the spending cuts may take time to kick in, but political blowback has already begun and is hitting Obama as well as congressional Republicans.A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Friday showed neither Republicans nor Obama and his fellow Democrats escaping blame.Obama's approval rating dropped to 47 percent in a Gallup poll on Friday, down from 51 percent in the previous three-day period measured.While most polls show voters blame Republicans primarily for the fiscal mess, Obama could see himself associated with the worst effects of sequestration like the looming furloughs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers. He signed an order on Friday night that started putting the cuts into effect.In his weekly radio address on Saturday, Obama appealed for Republicans to work with Democrats on a deal, saying Americans were weary of seeing Washington ""careen from one manufactured crisis to another.""But he offered no new ideas to resolve the recurring fiscal fights, and there was no immediate sign of any negotiations.""There's a caucus of common sense (in Congress),"" Obama said in his address. ""And I'm going to keep reaching out to them to fix this for good.""At the heart of Washington's persistent fiscal showdowns is disagreement over how to slash the budget deficit and the $16 trillion national debt, bloated over the years by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and government stimulus for the ailing economy.The president wants to close the fiscal gap with spending cuts and tax hikes, what he calls a ""balanced approach."" But Republicans do not want to concede again on taxes after doing so in negotiations over the ""fiscal cliff"" at the end of last year.The president offered a litany of hardships in his radio address he said would flow from the forced spending cuts.""Beginning this week, businesses that work with the military will have to lay folks off. Communities near military bases will take a serious blow. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who serve their country - Border Patrol agents, FBI agents, civilians who work for the Defense Department - will see their wages cut and their hours reduced,"" he said.'IT'S CALLED LEADERSHIP'At Yellowstone National Park, a massive and costly annual operation to clear the roads of snow that was scheduled to start on Monday will be postponed due to the cuts,Park managers have to trim $1.75 million from Yellowstone's $35 million annual budget, which will delay the opening of most entrances to America's first national park by two weeks.It could mean millions of dollars in lost tourism and tax revenues for small, rural towns in Montana and Wyoming.""I think it's counter-productive, and I expect a lot of people to be raising hell,"" said Mike Darby, whose family owns the Irma Hotel in Cody, Wyoming, at the east gate of the park.Critics said Obama should have held meaningful talks with congressional leaders long before Friday's last-minute meeting at the White House, which failed to prevent the automatic cuts written into law during a previous budget crisis in 2011.""The president should call the senior representatives of the parties together to Camp David - or any place with a table, chairs and no TV cameras - for serious negotiations on replacing the sequester with firm, enforceable beginnings of a comprehensive long-term debt stabilization agreement,"" former Republican Senator Pete Domenici and fiscal expert Alice Rivlin said in a statement released on Friday.The budget veterans, who lead the Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Reduction Task Force, called on Obama and congressional Republican leaders to ""be willing to tell those on the polar extremes of their parties that a central majority consensus will govern. It's called leadership.""After months of silence on political issues, Obama's Republican opponent in last November's election resurfaced to take a swipe at the Democrat's handling of the sequestration mess. ""No one can think that that's been a success for the president,"" Mitt Romney said in an interview to air on ""Fox News Sunday.""The former Massachusetts governor accused Obama of ""flying around the country and berating Republicans and blaming and pointing,"" instead of striking a budget deal.Twenty-eight percent of Americans blame Republicans for the lack of a deal to halt sequestration, while 22 percent hold either Obama or the Democrats in Congress responsible, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll. Thirty-seven percent blame them all.The budget standstill has overshadowed Obama's aggressive set of policy goals ranging from boosting pre-school education to fighting climate change and reforming America's immigration system. But Obama vowed on Friday the fiscal troubles would not prevent him from advocating for those proposals.""I think there are other areas where we can make progress even with the sequester unresolved. I will continue to push for those initiatives,"" he told a news conference.",1
" To understand the climate change debate, it helps to understand the jargon, a mixture of diplomatese, pundit-speak and techno-talk. Here are some terms likely to be heard this week at a trio of US meetings on global warming. Kyoto - Short for Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement adopted in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, which sets binding targets for emission of greenhouse gases that spur global warming. Under this agreement, developed countries are to cut their emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below what they were in 1990. The United States rejects this agreement, arguing that it unfairly exempts developing countries like China and India. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Framework - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a 1992 agreement that the United States and 191 other countries have signed. Like Kyoto, it seeks to keep greenhouse gases from hitting a level that would interfere with climate, but has no legally binding requirements. Greenhouse gases - Chemicals that trap the sun's heat near the Earth like a blanket. These substances include carbon dioxide, which is emitted by humans and all other creatures that breathe air. They are also emitted by coal-fired power plants and petroleum-fueled vehicles. They are not the most intense greenhouse gas -- methane is 10 times more powerful in contributing to global warming -- but carbon dioxide from fossil fuel consumption produces 82 percent of the world's human-generated greenhouse gases. Cap and trade - Policy tool that sets limits on harmful emissions, giving allowances to affected industries and countries within these limits, or caps. Those with emissions above the cap can trade with those with emissions below it. Also known as emissions trading. Carbon footprint - A measure of the impact of human activities on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases they produce, measured in units of carbon dioxide. Carbon offsets - Paying to make up for carbon emissions. One example is planting trees or contributing to a wind farm to make up for the carbon dioxide emitted during air or car travel. UN climate panel - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Program, which has produced a series of reports on climate change. Their fourth assessment, released this year, said it is 90 percent probable global warming is occurring and humans contribute to it. Bali - Indonesian city where scientists and policy makers are scheduled to gather in December to discuss how to cut climate-warming emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The aim is to come up with a plan by 2009 so all parties have time to ratify it. Major Economies - The world's biggest emitters of carbon dioxide. They are: the United States, China, the 25 countries of the European Union, Russia, India, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia and South Africa.",0
" The Australian government put back its much-vaunted carbon-emissions trading scheme by a year on Monday, giving in to industry demands for more relief amid a recession while opening the door to an even deeper long-term reduction. Attempting to strike a balance that will help win the political support he needs to pass the world's most sweeping cap-and-trade scheme outside of Europe, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the start of trading would be delayed until mid-2011 but that he still aimed to push laws through parliament this year. But it became immediately clear that Rudd's political battles were far from over as both the opposition and a key independent senator rejected the new approach as ""flawed,"" making its eventual success still far from assured. ""Starting slower because of the global economic recession and finishing stronger, with the prospect of a bigger outcome for greenhouse gas reductions... we believe (this) gets the balance right,"" Rudd told reporters. The set back was not unexpected after months of hardening resistance to Rudd's plan, one of the cornerstones of his election platform, and some in the carbon industry welcomed a delay they hoped would help clear away the uncertainty that had stymied early trade and clouded the outlook for corporate costs. The new draft included several short-term concessions to big industry in Australia, one of the world's biggest emitters per capita: a low fixed carbon price capped for a year at A$10 ($7.36), with a transition to full market trading in July 2012; increased eligibility for free emissions permits, including a 95 percent for the heaviest export-oriented polluters. But Rudd also opened the possibility of deeper reductions. While maintaining his interim 2020 emissions reduction target at 5 to 15 percent below 2000 levels, he said the government could increase the cut to 25 percent if other rich nations agreed to similar reductions at Copenhagen -- a measure aimed at appeasing Green party legislators who wanted tougher targets. But even their support may now be insufficient after both the head of the major opposition and kingmaker senator Nick Xenophon, one of two swing independent votes necessary to win passage, rejected it. ""If you give a lame duck a hair-cut, it is still a lame duck,"" said Xenophon. ""The government's (scheme) is fundamentally flawed. Their model is unfixable and the changes announced today are simply window dressing."" COPENHAGEN, ELECTIONS LOOM Rudd is walking a thin line ahead of elections next year, with business and conservatives pulling his center-left Labor party toward a softer carbon regime, and key Greens demanding he not undermine global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, when world governments will seek a successor to the Kyoto Protocal. The delay enables Australia to await the outcome of those talks before deciding whether to match tough world targets or opt for a softer target in the event of a global impasse. Greens Leader Bob Brown had written to Rudd with an offer to break the Senate deadlock and support the legislation if amendments made it environmentally effective. But the new plan still falls short of Green demands for an unconditional emissions cut of 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, with a commitment to move to a 40 percent cut if climate talks in Copenhagen forged a new global climate pact. Major emissions industries and conservatives had complained the original regime start date on July 1 next year would hamper an economic recovery from a recession tipped to see 1 million unemployed by next year. The changes will help placate companies most exposed, like flag carrier Qantas Airlines, OneSteel and top steelmaker Bluescope, whose chairman last week attacked the emissions plan as an economic ""de-stimulus."" Australian electricity futures for later in 2010 fell 12 percent as the expected price of carbon was removed. Some participants in the nescient carbon market said the delay was welcome relief after months of deepening uncertainty. ""I'm a little surprised but I suppose the good thing is at least it gets resolved... The worst outcome is continued uncertainty about what is going to happen,"" said Gary Cox, vice president of commodities and energy at global brokers Newedge.",0
"""For the first time in history we have committed to setting a target to end poverty,"" World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said on Saturday following a meeting of the World Bank's Development Committee. ""We are no longer dreaming of a world free of poverty; we have set an expiration date for extreme poverty,"" he added.The goal aimed to reduce extreme poverty to 3 percent globally and targets the bottom 40 percent of people living in each country in the developing world.Developing economies are growing on average about 6 percent annually, lifting millions of people out of poverty and creating a new global middle class, which has also given rise to growing inequality.""We recognize that sustained economic growth needs a reduction in inequality. Investments that create opportunities for all citizens and promote gender equality are an important end in their own right, as well we being integral to creating prosperity,"" the Development Committee said.The new World Bank target aim to guide the work of the institution, and coincides with efforts by the United Nations to draw up a post-2015 poverty strategy to replace existing goals.New figures released by the World Bank this week show that extreme poverty globally has plunged to 21 percent in 2010, from 43 percent in 1990, with most of the world's poor now concentrated most heavily in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, as China has successfully slashed extreme poverty.Kim said climate change and the need for more investment in health and education were also discussed by ministers.""As I talked about in several meetings, we need a plan that is equal to the challenge of a disastrously warming plant,"" said Kim, who has made tackling climate change one of his main priorities since taking the reins of the institution 10 months ago.IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said there was no better opportunity while developing countries are growing strongly to tackle extreme poverty.""Timing is everything,"" Lagarde said, adding that the global economic recovery was proceeding at a three-speed recovery with strong growth in emerging and developing economies. She said the IMF would step up its policy advice to developing countries on managing natural resources, job creation, financial sector development, and subsidies.FUNDRAISING FOR THE POORESTThe Development Committee called for a ""robust"" donor fund-raising campaign by the World Bank's fund for its poorest borrowers and urged ""strong participation"" by all countries.Donors from rich and developing economies gather every three years to pass the hat around to raise funds for the Bank's International Development Association, or IDA.Traditionally, the United States, Britain and Nordic nations have been the biggest IDA funders, but over the past several years countries such as Brazil, India and China, Chile, Argentina and Peru have also ponied up money.With belt-tightening across Europe and in the United States, the World Bank will have to show more strenuous oversight of how the money is used and that it does have an impact on the poor.Kim has said more emphasis should be on helping fragile and conflict-hit countries.""Given the fiscal pressures on donors around the world, we believe that the World Bank can and must do more to maximize the development impact of each dollar spent,"" new Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in a statement to the Development Committee.",0
"JAKARTA, Thu Feb 19, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Indonesia on Thursday that Washington would not neglect Southeast Asia and addressed anger in the predominantly Muslim country over US policy in the Middle East. Clinton also discussed economic cooperation and efforts to reach a new global agreement on climate change with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during her 24-hour sidetrip to Southeast Asia's biggest economy, before heading for South Korea for meetings on the North's military threat. After meeting Yudhoyono, Clinton said the United States had neglected Southeast Asia and that her decision to visit Indonesia on her first trip abroad in her new job aimed to redress that. ""We don't want to be absent,"" she told local journalists. ""We want to be present."" Some Southeast Asian nations felt Washington had not paid the region enough attention under President George W. Bush, allowing China to fill the vacuum. Clinton was given a welcome more typical of a head of state. Yudhoyono, who is seeking re-election in July, greeted her outside his office in the white colonial-style presidential palace in Jakarta before the two went in for talks. ""The president underlined that a global consensus (on climate change) cannot be achieved without U.S. leadership,"" presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal told a news conference afterwards. MIDDLE EAST Earlier, Clinton made small talk on a popular music TV show and toured U.S.-funded aid projects as she tried to improve America's image in Indonesia, a country where many of the Bush administration's policies, including the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, were deeply unpopular. Appearing on ""Dahsyat"" (""Awesome""), a local youth music show, Clinton got a cheer when she said the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were among her favourite musicians, but she politely declined an offer to sing herself. She also fielded questions about the anger of Indonesians at U.S. policy in the Middle East, saying Obama had decided to push hard for Israeli-Palestinian peace despite the challenges of ending the six-decade conflict. ""We are going to work very hard to try to resolve what has been such a painful, difficult conflict for so many years ... so that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace."" Clinton confirmed that she would attend a conference on rebuilding Gaza in Cairo on March 2. Clinton, like Bush Administration officials in the past, held up Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, as proof that modernity and Islam can co-exist as she visited the country where Obama spent four years as a boy. She lavished praise on Indonesia for its transformation from an autocracy under former President Suharto -- who was forced to resign in 1998 -- to a vibrant democracy. Her talks also covered the financial crisis, and Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said on Wednesday that Jakarta had discussed the possibility of US assistance in the form of a currency swap agreement and possible contingency funding. Indonesia is already seeking to extend a $6 billion currency swap arrangement with Japan and has similar deals, each worth $3 billion, with China and South Korea. Clinton is due to arrive in Seoul later on Thursday. North Korea has repeatedly threatened in recent weeks to reduce the South to ashes and on Thursday said it was ready for war. Pyongyang is thought to be readying its longest-range missile for launch in what analysts say is a bid to grab the new US administration's attention and pressure Seoul to ease up on its hard line. Clinton has said such a launch would not help relations. After South Korea, Clinton will go to China, the last stop on an Asian tour that also included Japan. The trip is her first outside the United States since taking office.",0
"The revised
estimate reduces global sea level rise by 3 inches if all glaciers were to
melt. But it raises concern for some communities that rely on seasonal melt
from glaciers to feed rivers and irrigate crops. If glaciers contain less ice,
water will run out sooner than expected. While some
ice naturally melts throughout the year, rising temperatures due to climate
change are speeding up glacier retreat. Between 2000 and 2019, these rivers of
ice lost roughly 5.4 trillion tonnes. Countries
are already struggling with disappearing glaciers. Peru is investing in desalination
to make up for declining freshwater. And Chile hopes to create artificial
glaciers in its mountains. But,
""we've had quite a poor understanding of how much ice is actually stored
in glaciers,"" said lead study author Romain Millan, a glaciologist at
Université Grenoble Alpes. Past analyses, for example, double-counted glaciers
along the peripheries of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, overestimating
ice volume. The Nature
Geoscience study assessed how quickly glaciers were moving across the landscape,
or their velocity. Such measurements allow scientists to more accurately
measure volume, as the way glaciers flow indicates where ice is thick or thin.
But collecting this information has been limited by technology. High-resolution
satellites deployed in recent years, however, allowed for the first analysis of
how 98 percent of the world's glaciers are moving, ""from small glaciers in
the Andes up to massive glaciers in Svalbard and Patagonia,"" said Millan. The work
analyzed more than 800,000 pairs of images of glaciers taken between 2017 and
2018, and found that many were shallower than previously assessed. Scientists
now estimate there is 20 percent less glacial ice present with the potential to
melt into the ocean and raise sea levels. Currently, glaciers are responsible
for 1 mm of annual sea level rise, or 30 percent of the yearly increase. ""This
is one of the first really impressive results coming out"" from satellite
advances, said Daniel Farinotti, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich not involved in
the research. Millan and
his colleagues also found that Asia's Himalayas contain 37 percent more ice
than previously estimated, while South America’s Andean glaciers contain
roughly 27 percent less ice. Already, Peru's glaciers have lost 40 percent of
their surface area since the 1970s. ""This
will put more pressure on freshwater in the Andes,"" he said. ""On the
contrary, water will be more secure in the Himalayas.""",6
"On Wednesday night, the apartment turned into a death trap as water gushed into his unit and quickly overwhelmed him. He screamed for help — “Ayúdame por favor,” “Please help me” — as the water climbed to the ceiling. He never made it out. Cramped basement apartments have long been a prevalent piece of New York City’s vast housing stock, a shadowy network of illegal rentals that often lack basic safety features like more than one way to get out, and that yet are a vital source of shelter for many immigrants like Bravo. But after Wednesday’s record-shattering rainfall, the underground units turned into tormented scenes of life and death: Of the 13 people killed so far in New York City in Wednesday’s storm, at least 11 were in basement units, nearly as many dead as in Louisiana, where Hurricane Ida made landfall earlier this week. That people living in illegal basement apartments face danger is not new. But while the worry has traditionally focused on fires or, to a lesser degree, carbon monoxide poisoning, climate change has now made these low-lying homes increasingly treacherous for a different reason: the likelihood of deadly flooding, when a wall of water blocks what is often the only means of escape. “If there was ever proof that we need to address this basement issue, this is it,” said Annetta Seecharran, executive director of the Chhaya Community Development Corp., a group that works on housing issues for low-income South Asian and Indo-Caribbean New Yorkers. “We’re going to continue to have these climate-related issues.” The floods on Wednesday have placed fresh scrutiny on New York City’s regulation of basement apartments. Because most are illegal, there is no reliable count of how many exist, but the number is likely in the tens of thousands. In one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, they have offered low-income New Yorkers, including many working-class families who work in restaurants and hotels, affordable places to live. The basement apartments also provide some extra income for small landlords, many of whom are also immigrants. “In most places if you have a house and your basement is big enough, most people are renting out their basements,” Seecharran said. This week, however, as rain inundated New York, harrowing scenes played out in those basements. Deborah Torres, who lives on the first floor of a building in Woodside, Queens, said she heard desperate pleas from the basement apartment of three members of a family, including a toddler, as floodwaters rushed in. A powerful cascade of water prevented anyone from getting into the apartment to help — or anyone from getting out. The family did not survive. At a home in Forest Hills, Queens, floodwater burst through a glass sliding door into a basement apartment, pinning Darlene Lee, 48, between the apartment’s steel front door and the door frame. The property manager, Patricia Fuentes, heard Lee screaming for help, as others tried to free Lee while the waters rose. But they could not save her. There have been long-standing problems with regulating such apartments. The law governing these apartments is complex, and includes rules that say a basement’s ceilings must be at least 7 feet 6 inches high and that living spaces must have a window. The city must approve apartments with a certificate of occupancy before they can be rented. Between January 2011 and Tuesday, the city had received more than 157,000 complaints involving illegal conversions. Illegal conversions include not only basements that have been made into residential units, but also single-family homes that have been altered into multifamily buildings, and units that have been converted into short-term rentals. But more than half of the cases were closed after an inspector couldn’t gain access to the dwelling, a New York Times analysis of buildings department data shows. 
 
 Ricardo Garcia salvages what he can from his water-damaged basement apartment in Brooklyn on Thursday, Sept 2, 2021. The New York Times 

More than 77,000 of the complaints were in Queens, where at least 59% of cases were closed without inspectors gaining access — the highest rate of any borough.  Ricardo Garcia salvages what he can from his water-damaged basement apartment in Brooklyn on Thursday, Sept 2, 2021. The New York Times  At one home in Queens, where an 86-year-old woman was found dead in Wednesday’s storm, city records also showed two complaints of illegal basements in 2012. The complaints were closed after city building inspectors could not gain access to the basement. A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Buildings said inspectors were required to make two attempts at gaining access to a property before the case can be closed. Tenants also have the right to deny entry, the spokesperson said. In many cases, tenants or homeowners may not have an incentive to report any issues with safety because of a fear of getting fined or losing the home, said Jessica Katz, executive director of the Citizens Housing Planning Council, a nonprofit housing group. She said the storm’s toll “highlights the housing crisis that we have that leads people to have to live in unsafe conditions in the first place, a code enforcement system that’s complaint-driven that wouldn’t necessarily be able to meet the needs of these tenants in such a situation, and a set of codes that make it very difficult to make the apartment safer.” The office of Mayor Bill de Blasio did not answer questions about the city’s response to illegal basement homes on Thursday. But a City Hall official said anyone living in a basement apartment could call 311 or 911 to report issues without fear of being vacated, unless there were pressing life safety dangers. The official, who declined to be identified, said the city would announce additional measures on Friday. Seecharran said that because of the growing need for affordable housing in New York City, and because many lower-income homeowners need supplemental income, people would continue to seek homes in basements, regardless of whether they were illegal. “We need to bring basement apartments out of the shadows and into the light,” Seecharran said. The city recently launched a pilot program in East New York, Brooklyn, designed to help people convert illegal units to legal, rentable apartments that meet safety standards. That program is ongoing but had been slowed by budget cuts during the coronavirus pandemic. De Blasio called for legalising basement units by helping homeowners with regulations and costs for conversion. Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor who is favoured to win in November, also has expressed support for legalizing those units. It is not clear whether all of the homes where people died during the storm on Wednesday were illegal units, but many have a history of complaints and violations of city code. At the Woodside home, a certificate of occupancy shows that the basement had not been approved for residential use. At another home near Jamaica, Queens, where a 45-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man were found dead, a complaint claims that the space had been illegally converted to a residential space. A spokesperson for the Department of Buildings said earlier Thursday that the agency was investigating the deaths, but did not have “any records of any previously issued violations at these properties related to illegal conversion issues.” As the rains stopped and the sun shone, many residents of basement apartments in wide swaths of Queens were displaced and trying to find shelter. Property owners were struggling to access aid that could help them repair their homes and prevent mould or other problems from arising, Seecharran said. “The damage has been done to countless basements, and for many people the basement is their home,” Gov Kathy C Hochul said at a news conference. “This is not a lower level where people have a game room, this is their home, and that’s what’s happened, so now we have a homeless situation, people who have to be in shelters.” At the basement apartment where Bravo, 66, lived near Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, his brother, who owned the building, cleared out the debris on Thursday brought in by the floodwaters. Bravo had served in the Ecuadorian army before immigrating to the United States in the 1980s, according to his brother Pablo Bravo. Roberto Bravo used to work in construction and paint homes. In recent years, however, he had gotten divorced and his health had deteriorated. He walked to a senior centre every day to eat and socialize, according to Walter Reyes, 68, who took care of him on many days. Asked if he knew whether the apartment was legal, Pablo Bravo said a building inspector told him it was not. “I thought I was helping a family member,” he said. Another tenant, Ricardo Garcia, 50, who works construction, said he pays $500 a month for his room in the home. He said he found out about the place from a friend. Oliver De La Cruz, 22, a delivery driver, heard about another basement room from his cousin’s husband. De La Cruz said he never considered whether the apartment might be illegal. He said he also never considered — or was warned about — the possibility of a flood and having to struggle to save himself. He said he would never live in a basement apartment again.   © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
"We Mean Business, a coalition of advocacy groups, said dozens of companies had joined the initiative in the two months leading up to a United Nations summit taking place on Monday, which aims to spur faster action on climate change. “Now we need many more companies to join the movement, sending a clear signal that markets are shifting,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. The coalition was launched in June with a call to action by the United Nations, business and civil society leaders. The first 28 companies to join announced the following month. We Mean Business said 87 companies are now involved, with total market capitalisation of more than $2.3 trillion. Some companies in the coalition have agreed to slash their carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, including Swiss food company Nestle, French building materials company Saint-Gobain, and French cosmetics maker L'Oreal . Others have stopped short of committing to go carbon neutral but say they will align their operations with a goal of limiting the increase in average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement. This group includes Finnish telecoms company Nokia , French food group Danone and British drug maker AstraZeneca Plc, We Mean Business said. As accelerating climate impacts from melting ice caps to sea-level rise and extreme weather outpace climate models, scientists say the world needs to halve its greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade to avoid catastrophic warming. With fossil fuel companies still developing new oil and gas fields and many developing countries expanding coal-fired power, the coalition's pledges are minuscule relative to rising global emissions. Some experts have questioned whether publicly traded companies committed to maximising shareholder returns will be able to make the sweeping investments required to fight climate change. Yet many investors have been pressuring companies to act on climate risks, and chief executives also face pressure from an upsurge in youth-led activism, which mobilised millions around the world to protest on Friday. We Mean Business believes pledges by a core of mostly European, and some North American and Asian companies, to commit to independently-verified emissions targets will prompt others to follow suit. “These bold companies are leading the way towards a positive tipping point where 1.5°C-aligned corporate strategies are the new normal for businesses and their supply chains around the world,"" said Lise Kingo, chief executive of the UN Global Compact, which promotes responsible business practices. UN chief Guterres sees the private sector as crucial to securing more ambitious pledges at Monday's Climate Action Summit in New York, which aims to boost the Paris deal before it enters a crucial implementation phase next year. Companies such as Danish power group Orsted, Spanish energy company Iberdrola and German insurer Allianz are due to speak alongside governments at the one-day gathering, according to a draft agenda.",4
"TAIPEI, Mon Jan 12, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The global PC industry stood tall for most of last year as other technology sectors foundered, but it too has caught the bug of a deepening economic downturn that has hit demand from both consumers and corporate buyers. As recently as November, J.T. Wang, chairman of Acer, the world's No. 3 PC seller, was confident PCs were immune to global downturns due to the growing importance of computers in everyday life. ""Children will still need to go to school. They will need computers! Businesses will continue running. They too will need computers!"" Wang had said. Fast forward two months, when a slew of recent sales warnings and cuts in business forecasts signal the sudden downturn will last through most of 2009, if not longer. ""Demand is weak, and I don't think we're alone in forecasting negative growth in 2009,"" said Pranab Sarmah, an IT analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research. ""We may see demand picking up only in the second half of 2009, when the traditional back-to-school season begins and consumers start spending again."" Analysts' forecasts for global PC shipments in 2009 vary, but many expect sales to fall. Research firm IDC expects spending on PCs could drop 5.3 percent this year to about $267 billion, versus its previous forecast of a 4.5 percent increase. Brands such as Dell and Lenovo, the world's No. 2 and 4 PC sellers, could face more pain mostly due to their reliance on sales to businesses, which have cut back their spending more sharply than consumers, said Gartner analyst Lillian Tay. ""They've already been shifting their focus toward the consumer space, but can they reform in time? Anyway, even consumer spending is seasonal, trending upwards only during the festive and back-to-school periods, which is not now,"" she said. Shares in global leader Hewlett-Packard and Acer, both of which have a strong presence in the consumer sector, outperformed their benchmark indexes in 2008. Downward revisions to 2009 shipment forecasts from leading data tracking firms IDC and Gartner were the first hint of problems in the system. Those were followed by analyst downgrades and reorganization announcements by Dell and Lenovo. The latest bombshell came last week, when top chipmaker Intel Corp -- whose chips are the ""brains"" behind more than 80 percent of the world's PCs -- issued a revenue warning, saying demand for PCs was even worse than it feared. Q4 SLOWDOWN PC shipment growth in the fourth quarter of 2008 is likely to be soft, as the global recession led both companies and consumers to cut back on an item viewed as a discretionary item for many. Brands catering to corporate customers may be taking a harder hit than those chasing consumers with a wide array of low-cost computers, as companies reduce or delay new technology spending in the brutal economic slowdown, analysts said. HP and Dell have both lost market share recently to consumer-focused competitors such as Acer and Asustek, both of Taiwan. Last week, Lenovo forecast a quarterly loss as China's slowing economy hit sales, and said it will axe 2,500 jobs as part of a restructuring to cope with falling demand for computers. Lenovo has also been hit by its purchase of IBM's PC business in 2005, which focused on corporate customers. As times get leaner, Acer and Asustek have scored success with a new category of low-cost notebooks, called netbooks, which many others initially dismissed. With the dramatic slowdown in corporate spending, the big brands are also racing to focus more on consumers. Smaller players such as NEC and Sony have also embraced computers aimed at budget-conscious shoppers. ""Growth in the market has been in the consumer side, and Lenovo has been bogged down by their commercial business,"" said Bryan Ma, an IDC analyst. ""That's not to say they're doing badly, they're still great, but compare them to what Acer was doing on the consumer front and that's where you can see the difference."" But even consumer-focused names are beginning to hurt. Asustek, widely credited with helping create the wildly popular netbook market, said last week it will miss its shipment targets for the fourth quarter of 2008 as it reported a 20 percent year-on-year drop in December sales. Many analysts say the current climate is too volatile to forecast a specific recovery. That could mean good news in the form of lower prices for consumers but bad news for PC makers who will see their already-thin margins erode further. ""The price of technology will always go down, that goes without saying,"" said Daniel Chang, a PC analyst at Macquarie Securities. ""But with demand so weak, if PC brands want to sell their products, they're going to have to depress their average selling price even further sometime soon."" It's a prospect many consumers at Taiwan's popular Kuanghwa computer mart are eagerly waiting for. ""I'm going to hang in there for a while more,"" said student Nick Chen, as he examined one of Asustek's newest releases: the Eee Top touchscreen-enabled desktop. ""If nobody's buying, they'll just have to cut prices even more.""",6
"This year, EV demand has stayed strong even as the
average cost of lithium-ion battery cells soared to an estimated $160 per
kilowatt-hour in the first quarter from $105 last year. Costs rose due to
supply chain disruptions, sanctions on Russian metals and investor speculation. For a smaller vehicle like the Hongguang Mini, the
best-selling EV in China, the higher battery costs added almost $1,500, equal
to 30% of the sticker price. But gasoline and diesel fuel costs for internal
combustion vehicles have also skyrocketed since Russia invaded Ukraine, and
experts noted that environmental concerns also are pushing more buyers to
choose EVs despite the volatile economics. Manufacturers from Tesla to SAIC-GM-Wuling, which
makes the Hongguang Mini, have passed higher costs on to consumers with
double-digit price increases for EVs. More may be coming. Andy Palmer, chairman of Slovak EV
battery maker InoBat, says margins in the battery industry are already wafer
thin, so ""rising costs will have to be passed onto carmakers."" Vehicle manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz will likely
shift increases to customers if their raw material prices keep rising. ""We
need to keep margins,"" Chief Technology Officer Markus Schaefer told
Reuters. But EV shoppers have so far not been deterred. Global
EV sales in the first quarter jumped nearly 120%, according to estimates by
EV-volumes.com. China’s Nio, Xpeng and Li Auto delivered record EV sales in
March. Tesla delivered a record 310,000 EVs in the first quarter. ‘DIFFERENT KIND OF TIPPING POINT’ “There is a different kind of tipping point that we
seem to have hit — an emotional or psychological tipping point among consumers,”
said Venkat Srinivasan, director of the Centre for Collaborative Energy Storage
Science at the US government’s Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. He said
""more and more people"" would buy EVs ""notwithstanding the cost
of the battery and the vehicle."" This spike in battery costs could be a blip in the
long-term trend in which technology improvements and growing production pushed
costs down for three straight decades. Industry data showed that the $105 per
kilowatt hour average cost in 2021 was down nearly 99% from over $7,500 in
1991. Experts say battery costs could stay elevated for the
next year or so, but then another big drop is probably in store as big-ticket
investments by automakers and suppliers in mining, refining and battery cell
production, and a move to diversify raw material sources, tip the balance from
shortage to surplus. ""It's like a bubble -- and for that bubble to
settle down, it's going to be at least the end of 2023,"" said consultant
Prabhakar Patil, a former LG Chem executive. British battery company Britishvolt is due to launch
battery production at a 45-gigawatt-hour plant in northeast England in 2024.
Chief strategy officer Isobel Sheldon said the advice the company is getting
from raw materials suppliers is “don’t fix your prices now, wait for the next
12 months and fix the prices then because everything will be on a more even
keel.” “This over-securing of resources should be behind us
by then,” she said. DEMAND BEATS SUPPLY The industry has long been awaiting the battery cell
cost threshold of $100 per kilowatt-hour, as a signal EVs were reaching price
parity with fossil-fuel equivalents. But with gasoline prices soaring and
consumer preferences changing, that may no longer matter as much, analysts say. EV demand in China and other markets ""is going up
faster than people thought -- faster than the supply of materials"" for EV
batteries, said Stan Whittingham, a co-inventor of lithium-ion batteries and a
2019 Nobel laureate. Concern about the environment and the climate also has
motivated buyers, especially younger ones, to choose EVs over those that burn
fossil fuels, said Chris Burns, chief executive of Novonix, a Halifax-based
battery materials supplier. “Many younger people entering the market are making
buying decisions beyond simple economics and are saying they will only drive an
EV because they are better for the planet,” Burns says. “They are making the
plunge even though it would be cheaper"" to drive a gas-powered car. “I don’t think we will stop seeing reports trying to
show a trend in battery prices down towards $60 or $80 a kilowatt-hour as
aspirational targets, but it is possible that those may never get met,” he
said. “However, it doesn’t mean that EV adoption will not rise.”",0
" Ban Ki-moon is planning to formally announce his candidacy for a second five-term as UN secretary-general early next week, UN diplomats said on Saturday. The former South Korean foreign minister had already received assurances of support from the United States and other key members of the UN Security Council, diplomats said in March, making his re-election all but certain. UN diplomats said on condition of anonymity that Ban planned to meet on Monday morning with the so-called Asia Group, a cluster of UN member states that includes nations from Asia and the Middle East, to discuss his candidacy. Afterward, he will hold a news conference at which he will announce publicly he is running for a second term after his first term ends on December 31. Ban is unopposed so far. ""I think Ban Ki-moon's chances of winning a second term under the circumstances are as close to 100 percent as you can get,"" a Security Council diplomat told Reuters. Officially, UN secretaries-general are elected by the 192-nation UN General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. In reality, it is the five permanent veto-wielding council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- that decide who gets the top UN job. The decision by the five is then rubber-stamped by the full 15-nation council and the assembly, UN diplomats said. The formal re-election process for Ban should be over by the end of June, they added. Ban's understated approach and less-than-perfect English set him apart from his more outspoken predecessor, Kofi Annan, who ran afoul of the administration of then-US President George W Bush for declaring the 2003 invasion of Iraq ""illegal."" But diplomats praise Ban for his energetic support for the fight against climate change and push for nuclear disarmament. Over the past four years, Ban has been accused by human rights groups of putting too much faith in quiet diplomacy. They have also criticized him for not taking China and other countries to task for what they say are rampant rights abuses. The secretary-general was hit with a barrage of criticism last year when he failed to mention human rights or the jailing of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo during a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in China. Ban never congratulated Liu or called for the dissident's release. But the secretary-general's recent support for military intervention in Libya and Ivory Coast, and his public statements of support for pro-democracy demonstrators in North Africa and the Middle East, increased his standing in the United States and Europe, although it clearly annoyed Russia and China. Still, Russia and China have no serious objections to a second term for Ban and are expected to back him, envoys said.",0
" At New York's Del Posto, diners can share a $130 entree of wild branzino fish with roasted fennel and peperonata concentrato and a $3,600 bottle of Dom Perignon. They cannot share a bottle of Perrier or San Pellegrino water. The Italian restaurant backed by celebrities Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich is one of several shunning bottled water, along with the city of San Francisco and New York state. ""The argument for local water is compelling and obvious,"" said Bastianich, who is phasing out bottled water across his restaurant empire, which stretches to Los Angeles. ""It's about transportation, packaging, the absurdity of moving water all over the world,"" he said. As environmental worries cut into sales from traditionally lucrative bottled water, beverage companies such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle and SABMiller are becoming more attuned to the risks of negative consumer environmental perceptions. Water is becoming scarcer, raising a fear that so-far manageable price increases could spike and leading drink companies to take action to maintain access to water and fight their image as water hogs. ""Water is the new oil,"" said Steve Dixon, who manages the Global Beverage Fund at Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder, repeating what has become a mantra as climate change and population growth tax water supplies. ""As an investor, I'm not concerned about the reality,"" Dixon said, guessing there will always be enough water overall. ""But I'm aware of the perceptions ... and you can't totally shrug it off because perceptions are important."" About a third of the world's people now live in areas of water stress, said Brooke Barton, manager of corporate accountability for Ceres, a network of environmental groups and investors seeking to address sustainability challenges. By 2025, she said it will be more like two-thirds. COST Water is still cheap, but that is changing. ""(Water) is currently not a very big cost. The issue is where it will it go in the future,"" said Andy Wales, head of sustainable development for brewer SABMiller, which used 94.5 billion liters of water in its latest fiscal year. That works out to 4.5 liters for every liter of beer it made. Water and energy combined only made up 5 percent of its costs, overshadowed by brewing ingredients, bottling materials and labor. Still the brewer said water costs at a Bogota, Colombia plant are rising some 12 percent a year from increased soil being washed into the river as cattle grazing upstream causes deforestation. New water pricing schemes are emerging, such as the European Union's Water Framework Directive that will tax water from 2010 to encourage more sustainable use. Some 70 percent of the water the world uses is for agriculture, while industry uses 20 percent. But any industry reliant on agriculture -- from meat to jeans -- has more to wade through than its own use. SABMiller is one of a few companies, including Coke and Pepsi, calculating ""water footprints."" It found that water used throughout its supply chain, such as to grow barley and hops, can be 34 times more than its use alone. With 139 breweries on six continents, the brewer's total water use can range from about 40 liters for a liter of beer in Central Europe to 155 liters in South Africa. Using the smaller ratio as a proxy, SABMiller's entire ""water footprint"" was roughly 8.4 trillion liters of water last year, more than double what the small nation of Iceland used in 2004. ""In the long term we do see it as a risk,"" Wales said. REPUTATION As they face criticism, multinational drink companies are setting water conservation targets, building community wells and more efficient factories, working with locals on sustainable farming, water harvesting and reforestation and looking for new technologies to reduce their water consumption even as they make more drinks. ""For our type of business, or any that have a very direct link to water ... We've got to play that role,"" said Greg Koch, Coke's managing director of global water stewardship. Within their own walls, nonalcoholic drink makers use one out of every 3,300 gallons, or 0.03 percent, of the groundwater used in the United States, according to the American Beverage Association. But its symbolism as a visible user puts the sector at the forefront of the fight over water resources, said Kim Jeffery, chief executive of Nestle Waters North America. ""Picking on our industry is like a gnat on the elephant,"" said Jeffery, whose 2003 contract to build a bottling plant in McCloud, California has been derailed by opposition from residents and groups concerned about the environmental impact and the threat of water privatization. Nestle just began a 3-year study of the area's resources, but Jeffery said there is a good chance the project will never happen, due to changing economics and cold feet on both sides. ""At the end of the day, if they don't want us there, we won't be there,"" he said. Tom Pirko, president of consulting firm Bevmark LLC, said it is key for companies to act in line with consumers' mindsets on such issues, since it is hard in such a crowded marketplace to regain support once it evaporates. Coca-Cola learned that the hard way, after a drought in the Indian state of Kerala led to the closure of its bottling plant there amid criticism that it was sucking the water table dry. Coke said its plant did not fuel the shortages, but an outcry still spread across the globe, with students in Britain and North America urging boycotts. Massachusetts' Smith College even severed a five-decade relationship with the company by refusing to let it bid for its soft drink contract. ""What we lost there was the social license to operate,"" Koch said. Environmental and community groups are still fighting to kick Coke out of other villages in India.",0
"In a country with rampant online crime, a challenging telecommunications infrastructure and little experience with cyber attacks, authorities are rushing to protect government websites and those of Fifa, soccer's governing body.Furious about the 33 billion reais (8 billion pounds) in federal funds being spent on World Cup preparations, more than a million Brazilians took to the streets last June in a wave of mass demonstrations, calling for better public services, greater transparency, and a crackdown on corruption.Now, hackers say they will join the fray.""We are already making plans,"" said an alleged hacker who goes by the nom de guerre of Eduarda Dioratto. ""I don't think there is much they can do to stop us.""Reuters contacted Dioratto and other self-proclaimed members of the international hacker network known as Anonymous by finding them online. Though unable to confirm their true identities, Reuters spoke with them in the interest of understanding their threats and what impact they might have on the World Cup.They said the event offers an unprecedented global audience and an opportune moment to target sites operated by Fifa, the government, other organizers or corporate sponsors.""The attacks will be directed against official websites and those of companies sponsoring the Cup,"" a hacker known as Che Commodore said in a late-night Skype conversation.While most of the fretting ahead of the tournament is focused on the completion of stadiums by kickoff on June 12, experts agree that little attention is being paid to Brazil's telecommunications infrastructure.Problems include overstrained networks, widespread use of pirated software and low investment in online security. To make matters worse, Brazil is home to one of the world's most sophisticated cyber-criminal communities, which is already disrupting ticket sales and other World Cup commerce.""It's not a question of whether the Cup will be targeted, but when,"" said William Beer, a cyber security expert with the consultancy firm Alvarez & Marsal. ""So resilience and response become extremely important.""Brazil says it is ready, or as ready as it can be.""It would be reckless for any nation to say it's 100 percent prepared for a threat,"" said General José Carlos dos Santos, the head of the cyber command for Brazil's army. ""But Brazil is prepared to respond to the most likely cyber threats.""A Fifa spokesperson declined to comment on online security.FAST, DAMAGING AND SIMPLEKnown internationally for their high-profile attacks against the US Central Intelligence Agency, Sony and even the Vatican, Anonymous flexed its muscle in Brazil in 2012 when it disabled the websites of some of the country's biggest banks, including Banco do Brasil, Itaú Unibanco and Bradesco.During that attack, dubbed #OpWeekPayment by the hackers, they launched denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, in which thousands of computers simultaneously access target websites, jamming them. The method would be their preferred weapon this time, too.""It's fast, damaging and relatively simple to carry out,"" explained Che Commodore.With that in mind the army created a Cyber Defense Center, which leads a multi-agency task force for the Cup. Besides DDoS attacks, they may also face website defacement and data theft.The worst-case scenario would be an attack sophisticated enough to cripple Brazil's power grid, communications or air-traffic control systems. But General dos Santos said in a recent interview that authorities aren't expecting anything that bad.""The probability for that is much lower,"" he said.For their part, the Anonymous members said they would not do anything to target the Brazilian people. The government and event organizers, however, are another matter.And despite the government's preparations, the hackers say they are fully up to speed, and not terribly impressed by what they see as meagre defences.""It's nothing out of this world"", said an activist called Bile Day. ""Security remains very low.""Indeed, security experts said Brazil could be caught ill-prepared. The country, with no geopolitical enemies, is not used to being on guard and, as such, may not even be aware of the extent of its vulnerabilities.""Brazil is a big target, it's neutral and has a challenging infrastructure,"" said Marcos Oliveira, an executive with US network security firm Blue Coat. ""It's the perfect storm.""Aside from the banks, which now invest heavily in online security, Brazilian companies pay little attention to the problem. And more than half of Brazil's computers run pirate software, which makes them more vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack.GROWING BREACHESBrazil is not entirely untested.The government grew far more sensitive to cyber security issues last year after reports that the US National Security Agency spied on President Dilma Rousseff and millions of ordinary Brazilians.Officials have also tracked a growing number of online security breaches during other big events in recent years. In 2012, during a United Nations conference on climate change in Rio de Janeiro, the cyber command detected 140 attempted security breaches. Attacks climbed to more than 300 for last year's Confederations Cup, a dress rehearsal for the World Cup.""We expect that number to be much higher for the Cup,"" said General Dos Santos. And they will likely increase once again when Rio hosts the 2016 Olympics.ATOS, a French company in charge of information technology networks for the Rio Olympics, said it detected around 255 million security events during London 2012.""It's huge,"" said Michele Hyron, who heads the ATOS team for the Rio games. ""And it had absolutely no impact on the Games.""Problems can occur ahead of the events, though, especially in a country with fast-growing Internet access and booming online banking services, but little regulation for either.Seeking to capitalize on the massive demand for World Cup tickets, criminals are already finding ways to steal from would-be buyers online.Most of the attacks are so called ""phishing,"" where users are redirected to fake sites of banks and firms and tricked into entering their credit card data. Online security firm Kaspersky said it is blocking between 40 and 50 fraudulent sites using the theme of the Cup daily.""The World Cup is the theme of the moment,"" said Fabio Assolini, a security analyst with Kaspersky in São Paulo, ""and cyber criminals are taking full advantage of that.""",0
"COPENHAGEN, Dec 17, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Prospects for a strong UN climate pact grew more remote on Thursday at the climax of two-year talks as ministers and leaders blamed leading emitters China and the United States for deadlock on carbon cuts. Dozens of heads of state were arriving in the Danish capital to address the Dec. 7-18 conference, meant to sign a new pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions on Friday. Negotiators' failure to draft a coherent text means they have a mountain to climb. ""The news that we've been receiving is not good,"" Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German parliament. ""I must say very honestly, that the United States offer to cut by 4 percent compared to 1990 levels is not ambitious."" Environment ministers at the talks have so far failed to close a rift over how far the developing world should join industrialised countries in cutting carbon emissions. U.S. President Barack Obama has offered cuts in greenhouse gases of 3-4 percent versus 1990 levels by 2020, or 17 percent against 2005 levels. The European Union has said it will cut by at least 20 percent against 1990. Talks stalled overnight on procedure, after some developing nations and China rejected a proposal by the Danish hosts to break talks into smaller groups to speed up progress. They insisted that everyone should see Denmark's proposal. ""I fear a triumph of form over substance,"" said Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. China told participants it saw no possibility of achieving a detailed accord to tackle global warming, an official from another nation involved in the talks said. The official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the Chinese had instead suggested issuing ""a short political declaration of some sort."" India's environment minister accused rich countries of planning a ""propaganda campaign"" to blame developing nations for any breakdown in negotiations. Developing economies are expected to add almost all future growth in carbon emissions. ""We are in the end game,"" said Jairam Ramesh. ""It's only a matter of time before the blame game starts. Already some developed countries are accusing the G77 (developing nation group), Africa. This is completely, incomprehensively wrong."" European environment ministers said talks were in danger. ""We've got a serious situation,"" German environment minister Norbert Roettgen told Reuters. LEADERS COMING The Copenhagen summit is meant to agree a global climate deal, as a basis for agreement on a full treaty next year, intended to avoid dangerous climate change and drive a shift to a greener global economy less dependent on fossil fuels. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters on Thursday that China was committed to the negotiations. ""China hopes the Copenhagen meeting is successful, and has always taken a constructive attitude,"" she said. About 120 heads of state and government will join the talks on Thursday and Friday. Obama plans to arrive on Friday morning. While the overall picture appears bleak, there has been some progress in areas critical to reaching a deal. Africa dramatically scaled back its expectations for climate aid from rich nations on Wednesday, and Japan pledged about $11 billion in public funds to 2012 to help poor countries adapt to a warmer world and cut their emissions.",0
"Maruf Mallick
bdnews24.com's environment correspondent Copenhagen, Dec 16 (bdnews24.com)–Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has proposed that adaptation funding must be at least 1.5% of GDP of developed countries, separate from ODA as stipulated in the Brussels Program of Action. Addressing the main plenary meeting of the ongoing UN climate talks at Bella centre in Copenhagen on Wednesday, she said disbursement of fund for adaptation must take into account the extent of vulnerability to climate change, size of population exposed to risk, adaptation initiatives by countries concerned and immediate action. ""Developed countries must also allow transfer of eco–friendly technology, particularly to Most Vulnerable Countries (MVCs) and LDCs, at affordable costs. ""These must be kept outside the Intellectual Property Rights Regime. There is also need to establish an International Center for Adaptation, Research and Training under UNFCCC for bolstering capabilities through shared experiences on adaptation."" Shed said climate refugees are increasing by the day in Bangladesh. ""Visible sea level and temperature rise are destroying fish sanctuaries, and livelihood of our fishermen. ""Natural disasters, river bank erosions and salinity intrusion are taking toll on lives, and uprooting farming families in millions,""the prime minister said, describing the current situation of Bangladesh. ""They are swelling our cities and causing social disorders. Fund allocated for development are being diverted for their rehabilitation affecting our MDGs. In fact, climate change is costing us significant share of our GDP."" ""It is estimated that a meter rise in sea level due to global warming would inundate 18% of our land mass, force 20 million climate refugees with 40 million more losing their livelihood by 2050,"" she pointed out. Hasina said to meet climate change challenges, all nations must take immediate action on the basis of the Bali Action Plan on sustainable development for survival. Developed countries must commit to deep and legally binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. ""Indeed Annex One Parties must reduce emissions by 45% by 2020, below 1990 level, allow peaking by 2015, reduce greenhouse gas concentration to 350 ppm by 2100, and limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees or to no more than 2 Degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels."" She rattled off a list of initiatives Bangladesh has taken to adopt to climate changes. At national level, she said, Bangladesh has brought a paradigm shift from relief and rehabilitation, to disaster risk management. ""We have also adopted adaptation and mitigation programs comprising 134 action plans, and designated authorities for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The prime minister said Bangladesh's greenhouse gas contribution is negligible, but is one of its worst victims. Climate change, and increased frequency, ferocity and erratic pattern of natural disasters are causing havoc in Bangladesh. ""The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction has ranked Bangladesh as the most vulnerable country to floods, third most to tsunami, and sixth most to cyclones in terms of human exposure. In addition, salinity intrusions in coastal areas are reducing our cultivable land and threatening the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sunderbans, a UNESCO World Heritage Site"". Hasina said, an important development is developed countries' realization of their responsibility of unbridled greenhouse gas emissions, which have resulted in global warming and climate change. Important also is their readiness to cut emissions for reversing the present adverse climate trends. ""However, to achieve science recommended levels, political will and bold decisions are needed for investment of resources and technologies"" she said.",3
"The hunting habits of the wolf – ancestor of man’s best friend, the dog – evolved over millions of years to cope with profound climate change, according to new research. Borja Figueirido, of the Department of Ecology and Geology at the University of Malaga in Spain, and colleagues report in Nature Communications that they examined the elbows and teeth of 32 native North American species of the dog family from between 39 million and 2 million years ago. Ambush and pursuit What they found was clear evidence that, in response to changing climate and foliage cover, dogs evolved from ambush predators that survived by surprising their prey, to pursuit predators that wore them down. The story begins with a warm, wooded North America in which a canine creature with flexible forelimbs, and not much bigger than a mongoose, used stealth to surprise and pounce cat-like on its dinner. Ultimately, it gave way to animals like wolves, which could chase a deer all day. In the course of those 37 million years, the climate cooled, the forests gave way to savannah and prairie, and the dog family began to evolve new strategies − including the short pursuit-and-pounce technique of the coyote or the fox, and the long-distance stamina hunting of the wolf. “It’s reinforcing the idea that predators may be as directly sensitive to climate and habitat as herbivores,” says Christine Janis, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University in the US, and a co-author of the report. “Although this seems logical, it hadn’t been demonstrated before.” The scientists backed up their conclusions by studying the teeth and forelimb structures of a wide range of hunting animals, including cheetah, hyena and wild dog in Africa, the tiger and snow leopard in Asia, and the jaguar, puma and wolverine in the Americas. Conservation worries Their formal conclusion is that when things changed for the herbivores that shaped the landscape, the predators also responded. Such research confirms the worries of wildlife conservationists that man-made climate change in response to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere − as a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels − could seriously alter the evolutionary conditions and the ecosystems from which civilised humankind and its domestic animals emerged. The scientists say their studies demonstrate that “long periods of profound climatic change are critical for the emergence of ecological innovations, and could alter the direction of lineage evolution”.",0
"Johnson, who wanted to minimise any disruption from the cabinet reshuffle, quickly appointed Javid's deputy Rishi Sunak, an ultra-loyal supporter of the prime minister who has often been put in front of the cameras to sell government policy. The prime minister's team had carefully choreographed the reshuffle, presenting it as an opportunity to foster new talent, particularly among women, while also rewarding loyal supporters to deliver his vision for Britain beyond Brexit. But the finance minister's resignation - which some commentators said might have been sought by Johnson's team - due to a dispute over Javid's advisers added to the picture that the prime minister will not tolerate dissent in his government. ""He has turned down the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister),"" a source close to Javid said. The source said Johnson had told Javid he would have to sack his advisers and replace them with advisers from the prime minister's Downing Street office. ""The Chancellor said no self-respecting minister would accept those terms."" Sunak, who once worked for investment bank Goldman Sachs and is married to the daughter of an Indian billionaire, is seen by many Conservatives as a safe pair of hands who will easily get on board with Johnson's agenda for a post-Brexit Britain. Sterling rose on the expectation of investors that Sunak's appointment would pave the way for a more expansionary budget next month. Johnson has promised to reduce the wealth and opportunity gap between parts of Britain by channelling investment into northern and central England, where he won the votes of traditional supporters of the main opposition Labour Party. ""CHAOS"" Johnson had not been expected to change the biggest-hitting posts in his government, keeping change to a minimum. But even the smaller changes in the lower ranks of government offered some insight into how he wanted to tighten his grip on power. His sacking of Northern Ireland minister Julian Smith, who only a month ago had helped broker the restoration of a government in the British province, prompted criticism from politicians north and south of the border with Ireland. Smith, who had been in charge of parliamentary discipline for Johnson's predecessor, Theresa May, was the first minister to lose his job in the reshuffle. He was joined by business minister Andrea Leadsom and environment minister Theresa Villiers. Ultra-loyal Alok Sharma, a former minister for international development, was appointed as the new minister for business and also the head of the COP26 climate change summit in Scotland in November, due to be attended by world leaders. But it was Javid's move which shook up the 'business as usual' look that Johnson had wanted to portray. Downing Street aides had previously played down suggestions, based on Johnson's senior adviser Dominic Cummings' well-publicised desire to see a radical reorganisation of government, that there would be major changes. A source in Johnson's office said on Wednesday the prime minister wanted the ""reshuffle to set the foundations for government now and in the future"" and to promote new talent, particularly women. It was clear that loyalty mattered to Johnson to be able to deliver his agenda and meet the promises he made in the run-up to the December 12 election, in which he won a large majority. But opposition politicians said the reshuffle was a mess. ""This is a historical record. A government in chaos within weeks of an election,"" said John McDonnell, finance spokesman for the main opposition Labour Party.",0
" Aborigines with didgeridoos and wearing loin cloths opened a summit of Australia's brightest minds on Saturday, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urging fresh ideas to solve indigenous inequality and ease climate change. ""Today we are throwing open the windows of our democracy to let a little bit of fresh air in,"" Rudd told the gathering of corporate chiefs, scientists, unionists and central bankers, as well as Hollywood actors Cate Blanchett and Hugh Jackman. The two-day summit at parliament aims to throw up at least 10 big ideas to improve Australia's future by 2020, including governance, lifting creativity and how to narrow a 17-year life expectancy gap between black and white Australians. Other issues for the 1,000 attendees include tackling drought, how to spend billions of dollars from the country's China-driven resource export boom and keep economic growth rolling at near 3.9 percent a year. ""We need to anticipate change ahead or else we'll be swamped by it,"" Rudd said, pointing to the rise of China and India fast re-shaping the world's future, before appearing to doze off in one televised session on climate change. Power participants included the chief executive of mining giant BHP Billiton, Marius Kloppers, and Australia's richest man and Fortescue Metals mining head Andrew Forrest, who mingled with military commanders and welfare workers. Treasurer Wayne Swan told economic thinkers, including Reserve Bank chief Glenn Stevens, they had ""a hunting licence for new ideas"" on dealing with an ageing population, inflation touching 3.6 percent and not squandering the resource boom. ""Our terms of trade are likely to increase more in the coming year than they have in any year since the boom began,"" Swan said, just weeks from an austere May 13 Budget delivering a expected surplus of around A$20 billion to combat rising inflation. MAD, BAD -- OR BOTH Aboriginal Ngambri tribe elder Matilda House-Williams, wearing a cape of possum fur, opened the summit with a challenge to improve the lives of indigenous people, who often live in remote settlements with poor access to health and education. ""I want to see our people healthy, living in this lucky country. That's a target,"" House-Williams said, urging Rudd and others to be open to ideas ""mad or bad, or both"". Rudd, whose centre-left Labor government ended almost 12 years of conservative rule in November, said he would respond to summit suggestions by the end of the year. ""I say it's worth having a go through this summit, even if we fail. What is there to be lost from trying?"" Rudd said. Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett, chairing a creativity brainstorming panel, brought her third son Ignatius, born only six days earlier. ""Cate Blanchett is a superwoman. I think she is flawless as a person and I am thrilled that she is leading our stream,"" said fellow participant Hugh Jackman, who starred as ""Wolverine"" in the X-Men cinema franchise. ($1=A$1.07) ",0
" A bid to slow global warming by reducing the tonnes of food air freighted around the world ran up on Tuesday against the worries of poor African growers who fear it will hurt their business. The Soil Association, the largest organic group in Britain where sales for organic produce, much of it imported from Africa, are rising rapidly, met to debate withdrawing its seal of approval for goods shipped in by air freight. ""As climate scientists warn us that we have just 10 years to stabilise global emissions it seems ridiculous to be flying food half-way round the world,"" said Emily Armisted, a campaigner for Greenpeace, who attended the meeting. The association certifies more than 70 percent of organic produce sold in Britain and its summit drew representatives of environmental groups and development agencies. A final decision is not expected until next year, but already African growers are worried. ""The repercussions will certainly be bad. This ban will only serve as an incentive to kill all environmentally friendly agriculture in Kenya,"" Stephen Mbithi, Chief Executive of Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya, told Reuters. Air freighted produce currently accounts for less than one percent of the organic food sold in Britain but the total is rising, according to the Soil Association. The group is also considering other options including a selective ban which would allow for exemptions, labelling for air freighted produce and carbon offsetting. ""I hope the Soil Association air freight standard will provide a permanent exemption for the least developed countries,"" said Bill Vorley, senior researcher at the International Institute for the Environment and Development. African farmers also dispute claims their air freighted exports do more damage to the environment than European production, citing university studies. 
TROPICAL EFFICIENCY ""All these studies prove that African organic produce is four-to-six times lower in greenhouse gas emissions in reaching the European market, than European produce,"" Mbithi said. ""Producing crops in tropical lands is more energy efficient than in European lands. That's basic science. There is more sunshine and the temperature is more conducive to growing crops, than temperate climates,"" he added. Some African producers worry that a ban starting in the UK may spread across the European Union. ""Right now we fear the ban will be implemented by other EU countries, causing a severe economic and social impact on the livelihood of our farmers, and risking the survival of our own organic market,"" said Eustace Kiarii, National Coordinator for The Kenya Organic Agriculture Network. Even a total ban may not, however, prove fatal to African organic exports as they could turn to other British certification groups. The Soil Association certifies much of the organic produce sold in Britain but in some sectors, such as poultry and eggs, other groups dominate. ""We would not support a blanket ban,"" Richard Jacobs, chief executive of separate certification group Organic Farmers and Growers said, noting some air freight used empty space on passenger planes. ""If the Soil Association were to ban air freight we would certainly consider taking on the certification,"" he added. The debate, however, is further evidence of significant public concern in Britain which has prompted retailers Tesco and Marks and Spencer to start labelling air freighted produce. ""The public concern most frequently raised with us is the perceived inappropriateness of air freighting organic food. This is a concern shared by many organic businesses,"" said Anna Bradley, chair of the Soil Association standards board.",0
" Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, faces his first diplomatic test this week when he meets President Barack Obama in New York as the two allies grapple with disagreements that investors fear could damage ties. Hatoyama will also seek a high profile for Japan at a U.N. climate change conference by pledging ambitious targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and offering more environmental help to developing nations. Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which trounced its long-dominant conservative rival in an August election, has vowed to forge a more equal partnership with Washington, setting goals such as revising deals on U.S. forces based in Japan. The untested government confronts the challenge of finding ways to agree on these issues quickly and without alienating Japan's biggest ally or the DPJ's pacifist coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party. Hatoyama meets Obama on Wednesday on the sidelines of a U.N. General Assembly meeting. Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said last week he wanted to resolve a row over how to ease the burden of U.S. military bases on Japan's southern island of Okinawa within the first 100 days of the new administration. Although Washington appears to have softened an earlier refusal to consider changes to a roadmap dealing with U.S. forces on Okinawa, some analysts say Japan's Democrats may have bitten off more than they can chew. ""Japan and the U.S. have been negotiating about the Okinawa bases for more than 13 years, so I do not think they can so quickly conclude any new kind of agreement,"" said Chris Hughes, a Japan expert at the University of Warwick in Britain. ""I think any negotiations are going to be very long and hard."" Under an existing deal, a U.S. Marine base would be moved from a town in Okinawa to a less populated part of the island. Hatoyama has said the base should be moved off Okinawa completely, although he has not proposed an alternative location. It is disagreements such as those that concern investors. A Reuters survey of 33 financial market traders and analysts last month showed a third saw strained ties with Washington as one of the key risks for Japan. The U.S.-educated Hatoyama also raised eyebrows in Washington with a recent essay, published in English, in which he attacked the ""unrestrained market fundamentalism"" of U.S.-led globalization. He has since played down those comments. AFGHAN CONUNDRUM For its part, Washington wants a decision from Japan on how it will contribute to stabilizing Afghanistan before Obama visits Tokyo in November, Japanese media say. Okada has been vague about whether Tokyo would continue a relatively low-risk refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of U.S.-led military operations, saying only that there would be no ""simple extension"" of its legal mandate, which expires in January Sending troops to Afghanistan is not an option under current security conditions, Okada told a television talk show on Sunday, adding money might be the focus of Japan's assistance. Okada's pledge to complete by November an investigation into a decades-old ""secret agreement"" between Washington and Tokyo that effectively allowed nuclear-armed U.S. vessels to enter Japan has also sparked concern in the United States. It also underscores the nuclear dilemma Japan faces. As the only nation to have suffered nuclear attacks, Hatoyama has said it is Japan's ""moral mission"" to strive for a nuclear-free world. At the same time, Japan relies on the U.S. arsenal to protect it from regional threats such as unpredictable neighbor North Korea.. Hatoyama has said he will ask Obama to promise that U.S. vessels would not bring nuclear weapons into Japanese ports. That could lead to ""a diplomatic mashup,"" according to Brad Glosserman of Pacific Forum CSIS, a think tank based in Hawaii. ""I don't think the DPJ has thought through the implications. It strikes me as a dangerous position. It's one thing to expose the hypocrisy of your predecessors, it's another to be faced with punishing dilemmas."" Building trust is Hatoyama's goal for his first meeting with Obama but it may be hard to pull off, some analysts said. ""By supporting one another through policies, you create good ties. If your policies are at odds, you can't form a good relationship,"" said Fumiaki Kubo of Tokyo University.",0
" World trade powers must agree on the headline figures for a long-delayed global free trade deal within the next three weeks or the current round of talks will fail, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday. Blair said he still thought it possible to get a deal on the World Trade Organisation's Doha round, but that failure to do so would be a blow to confidence in world trade. ""The reality is that if we don't get ... the headline agreement in the next two to three weeks then we won't do it,"" he told a meeting of European business leaders in London. ""If we don't agree very soon the headline numbers on this, then there won't be time to do this deal ... I still think there is a possibility of getting there."" Blair is due to resign on June 27, handing over to finance minister Gordon Brown. Ministers from the United States, the European Union, India and Brazil said on Friday they were still confident of wrapping up the Doha round by the end of 2007. The four countries, known as the G4, have picked up the pace of negotiations ahead of a crunch time for the round in late July or early August. That is when a blueprint of a deal needs to be agreed by the WTO's 150 members to meet the year-end goal. If they do not meet that target, the accord is likely to be delayed by several years as US presidential elections in 2008 and elections in India in 2009 prevent governments from making politically sensitive concessions on trade, officials warn. Agriculture is a sticking point for the Doha round, which was launched in late 2001. Washington faces calls to offer far deeper subsidy cuts but says developing nations must open up their markets more. Blair, who discussed world trade with Bush in Washington last week, said: ""I think America does want a deal, I think Brazil is anxious for a deal and I think for Europe it's really in our interests to have a deal -- even what is on the table at the moment would be a significant step forward."" But he added: ""In Europe and the US at the moment there are protectionist forces that are really quite strong."" Blair also said he was optimistic of a deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions to stop climate change at a summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations in Germany in June. ""I can't say at this point if we'll succeed in Germany in a couple of weeks' time, but I think it is possible,"" he said. He said the US administration was ""looking to see whether it's possible to find a basis for a global deal"" and that recent contacts with China and India had suggested they were more in favour of a global agreement than before.",0
" The road to this island on Finland's western coast winds through pristine fields and forests, an idyllic place for a cottage by the shore -- if you ignore the heavy-duty power lines overhead. The nuclear plant they lead to is at the frontier of European efforts to fight climate change while also meeting demand from Finland's energy-hungry industry. Alongside two existing reactors, industry-controlled utility Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) is building a third in a bid to meet European Union carbon dioxide reduction targets and feed a growing economy -- a rare new nuclear project in largely nuclear-sceptical Western Europe. In a little more than a decade there could be two to three new reactors, despite Environment Minister Paula Lehtomaki joining environmental groups in expressing alarm at what she sees as a growing acceptance of nuclear power as an environmentally friendly alternative to other forms of energy. ""We have become somewhat of a tourist attraction. High level (foreign) politicians are meeting me weekly, keen to hear how we are doing,"" said Jukka Laaksonen, head of Finland's nuclear watchdog STUK, overseeing the construction in Olkiluoto. After an almost two-decade moratorium on building new reactors in much of Western Europe following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, political debate on reviving nuclear energy has renewed in countries such as Britain. German industry has been hoping to reopen discussion about nuclear power but Chancellor Angela Merkel is bound to a deal to phase out nuclear energy in the country by the 2020. In Finland, half a dozen municipalities have responded to the most recent plans to build more new reactors saying they would be keen to host one in the hunt for jobs and tax revenue. Among the newer EU members there are nuclear projects ongoing in Bulgaria and Romania, while Russia and Ukraine are between them building nine new plants. 
DIFFICULT COMPROMISE Finland is already a leading user of renewable energy, with almost a quarter of its output coming from sources like wood and some hydro and wind power. Olkiluoto's two existing 860 MW units and two more 488 MW blocs at utility Fortum's Loviisa plant make up about a quarter of electricity used in Finland. But with no domestic source of oil and a reliance on Russian natural gas, its options are limited for feeding demand from industry, plus 5.3 million people needing electricity and heating during the bitterly cold winters. According to Energy Minister Mauri Pekkarinen, it is partly the EU's new goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 that is pushing Finland to consider more nuclear power in addition to the Olkiluoto project. ""Finland would have to stop using coal and oil in electricity and heat production by 2020,"" Pekkarinen told Reuters. ""I do not believe this shortage could be taken care of with just bio-based energy."" Memories also still linger in the Nordic region of when Chernobyl spewed radiation over much of Europe in the world's worst nuclear accident. But opinion in this environmentally conscious country has been shifting. Just five years ago, thousands of people marched in Helsinki to mark the anniversary of the disaster and protest against plans to build a new nuclear plant in Finland. A poll in May by agency Taloustutkimus for weekly magazine Suomen Kuvalehti said 57 percent of Finns favoured more new nuclear power, while 35 percent think it is a bad idea. A year ago the corresponding numbers were 53 in favour and 41 against nuclear. 
OPPOSITION The utility TVO says the reactor will be the first to use so-called third-generation nuclear safety technology, with a double-reinforced concrete structure and a pressure resistant, air-tight inner shell. Its outer shell is designed to withstand external impacts up to the equivalent of a commercial jetliner crash, developers say. But delays and sharply rising costs have plagued the construction of the new Olkiluoto facility. ""Building something which is first of its kind is always very difficult,"" the EU Commissioner for Energy, Andris Piebalgs told reporters during a visit to Olkiluoto. And there is still opposition from environmental groups. They argue that the billions to be spent on new nuclear plants would be better used on efficiency measures, renewable energy and decentralised networks, which they say could deliver emissions cuts more quickly and cheaply. Greenpeace campaigner Lauri Myllyvirta spent five days in a crane suspended 60 metres above the Olkiluoto construction site in protest. ""I see it as a threat that Finland is being profiled as a country with nuclear sympathies and no criticism,"" he said.",0
" Growth in global emissions of the heat-trapping greenhouse gas carbon dioxide slowed slightly last year, preliminary data from the US Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) suggest. CDIAC is the primary source of climate-change data and information analysis for the US Department of Energy. In the past, its preliminary emissions estimates have been subsequently revised upwards. ""Tt is hard to put too much emphasis on the last number in a time series, it is always the most subject to revision,"" said Gregg Marland, senior scientist at CDIAC and at Austria's International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Marland told Reuters that CDIAC's latest, unpublished data show carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, making cement and flaring natural gas, rose 2.6 percent in 2006, versus 3.3 percent in 2005. Emissions in 2004 and 2003 rose 5.4 and 4.7 percent respectively. Global carbon emissions are rising especially because countries like China and India are fuelling their rapid economic growth by burning more coal. Carbon dioxide is the commonest of several man-made greenhouse gases and is produced as a result of burning fossil fuels. Asia-Pacific leaders gather this week for their annual Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) meeting, where trade and climate change will top the agenda. A series of major reports by a panel of UN scientists earlier this year painted a bleak picture of more extreme weather including droughts, heat waves and floods unless mankind gets a grip on its output of greenhouse gases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that emissions had to peak within eight years to keep the world on a course which the European Union says would avoid dangerous climate change. CDIAC's preliminary estimates for 2005 and 2006 are based on fuel consumption data from oil company BP, while earlier estimates use UN energy data.",0
"The cables were published late Saturday by The Mail on Sunday, which called them “The Washington Files.” They span a period from 2017 to the present and include candid assessments of US domestic politics and Washington’s treatment of Iran over its nuclear weapons program. It is unclear who leaked the documents and how The Mail obtained them. But the British news outlet identified only one recipient in Britain: Mark Sedwill, the nation’s national security adviser, who became Cabinet secretary in 2018. As of Sunday morning, the White House had not commented on the leak, but Trump has been known to react badly to criticism. The British government recently hosted the US president for his first state visit, which included a lavish banquet at Buckingham Palace and a 41-gun salute — gestures seemed aimed at winning his good will. As Britain barrels toward Brexit, set for Oct 31, a hard exit from the European Union appears more likely, and Trump has repeatedly dangled an advantageous trade deal with the United States. The British Foreign Office, which did not challenge the authenticity of the leaked documents, said in a statement: “The British public would expect our ambassadors to provide ministers with an honest, unvarnished assessment of the politics in their country. “Their views are not necessarily the views of ministers or indeed the government,” it said. “But we pay them to be candid. Just as the US ambassador here will send back his reading of Westminster politics and personalities.” In the cables, the British ambassador, Kim Darroch, says that British analysts do not believe that the Trump administration “is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.” On Sunday morning, Nigel Farage, the Brexit Party leader who has a close relationship with Trump, called for Darroch to step down, calling him “totally unsuited to the job.” The diplomat noted that Trump has regularly survived scandals in the past and suggested that he could win a second term as president. “Trump may emerge from the flames, battered but intact, like Schwarzenegger in the final scenes of ‘The Terminator,’” Darroch wrote, referring to the 1984 science-fiction film. He warned of “real risks on the horizon,” as Trump guided US policy away from consensus with Britain. “This ‘America First’ administration could do some profoundly damaging things to the world trade system: such as denounce the WTO, tear up existing trade details, launch protectionist action, even against allies,” he wrote. “It could further undermine international action on climate change, or further cut UN funding.” He noted that Trump’s decision to order a missile strike on a Syrian air base had been a political success, but warned that “a less well judged military intervention is not inconceivable.” There is some history to the relationship between Trump and the British ambassador. Shortly after he took up the post in 2016, a memorandum by Darroch was leaked, suggesting that Trump would be “open to outside influence if pitched right.” Trump then recommended, via Twitter, that his friend Farage, then the leader of the UK Independence Party, be appointed as ambassador to Washington in Darroch’s place. “He would do a great job!” Trump wrote. A Downing Street spokesman responded swiftly that Darroch had the government’s support. A diplomat for 29 years, Darroch has served as Britain’s permanent representative to the EU, as head of the Foreign Office’s press office and as national security adviser. 
 
 Kim Darroch. Photo: Kim Darroch/Twitter/UK government 

Among other revelations in the leaked cables:  Kim Darroch. Photo: Kim Darroch/Twitter/UK government  — British officials cast Trump’s state visit as a strategic coup, writing that his team was “dazzled” by their reception. “These are close contacts, with whom we have spent years building relationships: These are the gatekeepers and the ‘Trump whisperers,’ the people we rely upon to ensure the UK voice is heard in the West Wing.” — In a confidential letter dated June 27, 2017, and addressed to Sedwill and a handful of senior Downing Street figures, Darroch says allegations that the Trump camp colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign “cannot be ruled out.” — Darroch’s six-page letter gave a harsh assessment of Trump’s domestic accomplishments, writing, “Of the main campaign promises, not an inch of the Wall has been built; the executive orders on travel bans from Muslim countries have been blocked by the state courts; tax reform and the infrastructure package have been pushed into the middle distance; and the repeal and replacement of Obamacare is on a knife edge.” — In that letter, the ambassador described the White House as “a uniquely dysfunctional environment” and said that Britain should be prepared for more outbursts from Trump. “There is no filter,” Darroch wrote. “And we could also be at the beginning of a downward spiral, rather than just a roller coaster: something could emerge that leads to disgrace and downfall.” — The letter outlines Britain’s efforts to influence Trump’s thinking, writing that “it’s important to ‘flood the zone’: You want as many as possible of those who Trump consults to give him the same answer.’ So we need to be creative in using all the channels available to us through our relationships with his Cabinet, the White House staff, and our contacts among his outside friends.” — The ambassador advised against taking the path chosen by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France, who were shunning Trump. “I don’t think we should follow them,” he wrote, advising that British interlocutors should sometimes push back. “Arguably, you get more respect from this president if you stand up to him occasionally — provided the public comments do not come as a surprise and are judicious, calm and avoid personalizing,” he wrote. — Another memo, sent on June 10, 2017, expresses scepticism about the project of deepening trading arrangements after Brexit, saying that “divergences of approach on climate change, media freedoms and the death penalty may come to the fore.”   © 2019 New York Times News Service",0
"WASHINGTON, Fri Jun 26, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The US House of Representatives is poised to vote on Friday on one of the most significant environmental bills in history -- a sprawling measure that aims to wean industry off of carbon-emitting fuels blamed for global warming. Democratic leaders were working hard to ensure there were at least 218 votes in the 435-seat House to pass the legislation that is a high priority for President Barack Obama. ""It's all hands on deck,"" one House Democratic aide said of the work lawmakers and the Obama administration were doing to try to ensure passage of the climate change bill. With House Republicans mostly opposed and warning it would hit recession-weary consumers in their pocketbooks with higher prices for energy and other everyday goods, supporters were attempting to counter those arguments. ""It is a jobs bill,"" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday, referring to the hoped-for growth in ""green technologies"" industries. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy agreed, saying, ""Savings from reduced energy use will be reinvested locally, creating a multiplier effect that will generate economic activity and jobs."" Both Pelosi and Obama also framed the climate bill as being important to national security by reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil in favor of developing domestically produced alternative fuels such as wind and solar energy and possibly ""clean coal."" At the core of the 1,200-page bill is a ""cap and trade"" plan designed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels. CHANGES DESIGNED TO WIN FARM-STATE SUPPORT Big polluters, such as coal-fired utilities, oil refiners, steel, paper, cement and glass manufacturers and other companies would receive government permits to emit lower amounts of carbon dioxide each year. Companies that end up with more permits than they need could sell them to companies that had not managed to adequately reduce their harmful emissions. Even if Obama and his fellow Democrats manage to pull off a victory this week, the legislation faces a difficult road in the Senate, where Republicans would have an easier time using procedural hurdles to block the bill. But passage by the House this year would let Obama attend a December international conference on climate change with a major victory in hand. That conference aims to lay out a global approach to dealing with climate change over the next few decades. In her quest to find enough votes for the bill, Pelosi has allowed several changes since it was approved in late May by the Energy and Commerce Committee. Those have included new protections for agriculture interests, resulting in House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson announcing his support -- a move that could also win the support of about two dozen lawmakers from farm states. Supporters of the bill received other breaks this week, including the release of a Congressional Budget Office analysis concluding the bill's impact on average households would be around $170 a year in higher costs -- far below the $3,100 or more Republicans have been warning. A new Washington Post/ABC poll found that three-quarters of the public think the US government should regulate climate-warming greenhouse gases that are being blamed for more severe weather patterns, melting polar ice and threats to animal and plant species. Even so, Pelosi and Obama were struggling to nail down victory, with the president personally courting a handful of undecided Democrats at the White House. Some won't be moved, however. Representative Artur Davis, a Democrat who is considering running for governor of Alabama, told Reuters he would vote against the measure. ""The bill has been improved, but this is the wrong time,"" he said, noting the hard economic times and the lack of commitment from heavy-polluting countries like China and India to significantly reduce their emissions.",1
" China and the European Union vowed on Friday to seek balanced trade and foster cooperation in climate change in high-level meetings dogged by tension over Tibet protests and the Olympics. EU officials led by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso had intended meetings with senior Chinese officials in Beijing this week to help ease rifts over China's big trade deficit and to foster agreement on ""sustainable"" growth. Economic tensions have festered as China's trade surplus with the EU bloc surged to nearly 160 billion euros ($251 billion) last year, according to EU data. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the two sides had agreed to enhance cooperation on energy conservation and emissions reduction. ""Our mutual benefits by far outweigh the conflicts. As long as we respect, trust and learn from each other, there will surely be a better future for the Sino-EU relationship,"" Wen told reporters. Barroso said the main focus of the talks was climate change and China had signalled its will to make domestic emissions part of a global agreement to tackle climate change after 2012. He said there were ""major imbalances"" in trade and both sides had agreed on the necessity for a rebalance. The long-prepared talks have been upstaged by anti-Chinese unrest across Tibetan areas last month, followed by Tibet protests that upset the Beijing Olympic torch relay in London and Paris, and then nationalist Chinese counter-protests. Barroso welcomed China's announcement that it would hold talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama. ""While fully respecting the sovereignty of China, we have always advocated the need for dialogue because we believe this is the best way to achieve sustainable, substantive solution to the Tibet issue,"" Barroso told reporters. ""As far as I understand the Chinese position, the Chinese say they are ready to discuss everything except sovereignty for Tibet."" EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson on Thursday urged an end to mutual threats of boycotts. The European Parliament has asked EU leaders to boycott the opening ceremony at the Beijing Games in August unless China opens talks with the Dalai Lama. Such calls, and Chinese public counter-campaigns to boycott European companies, especially the French supermarket chain Carrefour, served neither side, Mandelson said on Thursday.",0
"The air quality index of the US Embassy in New Delhi stood at ""hazardous"" levels of 497 as of 0630 GMT, with levels of airborne PM 2.5 - particles that can reach deep into the lungs - touching nearly 700 in parts of the city. That is more than 10 times the recommended safe limit of 60 for PM 2.5. A dip in wind speed and temperature is making air denser, trapping pollutants and worsening air quality, said Vivek Chattopadhyay, a senior programme manager at New Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment. The city government of Delhi, a metropolis of over 20 million, is restricting the use of private cars until Nov 15 with an ""odd-even"" system - allowing cars on alternate days, depending on whether their licence plate ends in an odd or even number. The scheme, which includes a two-day waiver for a religious festival, has helped little, prompting environmentalists to call for urgent action. ""The chief minister (of Delhi) needs to declare an emergency,"" said Bharati Chaturvedi, founder of the Chintan environmental advocacy group. ""If this was the plague, he would have declared an emergency."" Every year, as India's winter season approaches, farmers in Delhi's neighbouring Punjab and Haryana states, where agriculture is a mainstay, burn off rice field stubble in preparation for the sowing season. The smoke from fields mixes with vehicle exhaust and construction dust, making Delhi the world's most-polluted capital. India's Supreme Court last week chided authorities for their failure to curb the pollution and asked the city government, its neighbouring states and the federal government to work together to help improve air quality.",0
" A potentially deadly strain of fungus is spreading among animals and people in the northwestern United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia, researchers reported on Thursday. The airborne fungus, called Cryptococcus gattii, usually only infects transplant and AIDS patients and people with otherwise compromised immune systems, but the new strain is genetically different, the researchers said. ""This novel fungus is worrisome because it appears to be a threat to otherwise healthy people,"" said Edmond Byrnes of Duke University in North Carolina, who led the study. ""The findings presented here document that the outbreak of C. gattii in Western North America is continuing to expand throughout this temperate region,"" the researchers said in their report, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens here ""Our findings suggest further expansion into neighboring regions is likely to occur and aim to increase disease awareness in the region."" The new strain appears to be unusually deadly, with a mortality rate of about 25 percent among the 21 US cases analyzed, they said. ""From 1999 through 2003, the cases were largely restricted to Vancouver Island,"" the report reads. ""Between 2003 and 2006, the outbreak expanded into neighboring mainland British Columbia and then into Washington and Oregon from 2005 to 2009. Based on this historical trajectory of expansion, the outbreak may continue to expand into the neighboring region of Northern California, and possibly further."" The spore-forming fungus can cause symptoms in people and animals two weeks or more after exposure. They include a cough that lasts for weeks, sharp chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, fever, nighttime sweats and weight loss. It has also turned up in cats, dogs, an alpaca and a sheep. Freezing can kill the fungus and climate change may be helping it spread, the researchers said.",0
"Maruf Mallick
bdnews24.com environment correspondent Dhaka, June 5 (bdnews24.com)—With the global temperature gradually on the rise, Bangladesh being a tropical delta has also been experiencing comparatively higher humidity and temperature through the past couple of decades, threatening agriculture, climatologists have observed. The country's average temperature recorded an increase of 1 degree centigrade in the past 30 years, which, if continued, may cut the boro harvest per acre by 20 to 50 percent towards 2050, a study of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology said. ""To determine the possible impact of climate change trends on our agriculture in the 2030s, 2050s and 2070s, we researched with the climate data on precipitation, temperature and sunlight collected from SAARC Meteorological Research Centre,"" professor M Ashraf Ali of BUET civil engineering department, the guide of the study, told bdnews24.com. He said temperature changes will very much affect the cropping patterns. For example, the yield of the boro varieties now cultivated will be slashed by 20-50 percent due to higher temperatures. The north-western region will be specially affected, he said and added sowing a bit earlier might save losses to a minimum though. Ali said salinity-tolerant paddy species have been developed by Bangladeshi scientists. Bangladesh Rice Research Institute is working on species which will grow withstanding increasing temperatures too. Dr Nazrul Islam, head of synoptic division of SMRC, told bdnews24.com that Bangladesh would have to adopt region-specific planning to cope with the climate change menaces, because some regions might suffer from drought whereas zones may experience heavier rainfalls resulting in flash floods. The mean temperatures or other values will not be good to work with just at any place. The innovations instead have to be locale specific. The years 2013 and 2014, for example, will experience less rainfall on average, Islam said. Again, 2018 will have five percent more precipitation, the future scenarios indicate. Dr Jiban Krishna Biswas, another BRRI scientist, told bdnews24.com that the agricultural scientists have been working on developing crop varieties to suit the changing climate.",6
" India softened climate demands on Friday, helping bridge a rich-poor divide, but said a global deal may miss a December deadline by a few months. In contrast, European Union states struggled to agree a common stance for financing a U.N. climate pact, meant to be agreed in Copenhagen at a Dec. 7-18 meeting. India wanted generous aid on advanced carbon-cutting technologies but dropped a core demand that industrialised countries cut greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020. ""If we say, let's start with 25 percent, that's a beginning. I'm not theological about this. It's a negotiation. We have given a number of 40 but one has to be realistic,"" environment minister Jairam Ramesh said in a Reuters interview. Ramesh said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, keen to overturn India's image as obstructionist in multi-lateral negotiations, had mandated him to be flexible. ""I tell you my prime minister has told me two days ago, 'don't block, be constructive...make sure there's an agreement.' What more can I say?"" Indian is now in line with the European Union, which has promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20-30 percent by 2020 below 1990 levels. U.S. President Barack Obama wants to return U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by then. India also now supported a British estimate that the developed world should pay about $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with and slow climate change. Until now it has suggested that the developed world pay 1 percent of their national wealth -- a far higher figure which some rich countries branded a fantasy. But Europe struggled to find a common position on climate finance on Friday, as member states guard national treasuries with a robust economic recovery still not in sight. SILENT The EU was silent about stepping up climate aid to developing nations, after talk last month from its executive Commission of paying up to 15 billion euros ($22.4 billion) a year by 2020 to break the impasse between rich and poor. China and India say they cannot cut emissions and adapt to changing temperatures without help from industrialised nations, which grew rich by burning fossil fuels, emitting carbon. A draft EU report for finance ministers called the past figures ""a useful estimate for overall public and private efforts"" but pointed to the ""uncertainty...of such numbers"". And cracks emerged over EU plans for cuts in emissions. The 27-country bloc has pledged to cut its own emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and to increase cuts to 30 percent if other rich regions take similar action. But Romania and Slovakia have proposed making the increase to 30 percent less of a foregone conclusion, documents obtained by Reuters show. Romania also questions proposals to cut emissions by up to 95 percent by 2050. In Nairobi, the United Nations on Friday urged a smarter approach to biofuels that could be part of a shift to renewable energies under a Copenhagen deal. ""A more sophisticated debate is urgently needed,"" U.N. Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner told reporters. Generating electricity at power stations using wood, straw, seed oils and other crop or waste material was ""generally more energy efficient than converting crops to liquid fuels""",0
"Seddiner lake, in the state of Brandenburg, south-west of Berlin, has sunk 60 cm annually on average over the past few years, with local geographer Knut Kaiser calling it the beginning of the end for the region's lakes. ""You could say that Seddiner is a symbol of a situation, or to put it more dramatically, it has become a portent for climate change here in Brandenburg,"" Kaiser, from the German Research Centre for Geosciences, told Reuters TV. Spanning 218 hectares, it is fed from groundwater, leaving it at the mercy of rainfall and human water usage. At a high point in 2013, the lake was full enough to flow naturally into a smaller neighbouring lake. In 2020, piers along the water's edge stand high and dry. The state has the third most lakes in Germany relative to its size, but is the second most arid, according to the German Weather Agency. After the drought years of 2018 and 2019, Kaiser said the lake will likely lose a massive amount of water in 2020 for the third year running. ""This is a bad sign! You could put it more starkly: It is a horror story for the region's water landscape,"" he said. While scientists agree that the main problems facing Brandenburg's lakes are linked to climate change, human influence also plays a role. Reeds, which clean the lake and act as a place for fish to spawn, have been exposed by low water and are often trampled by people heading to beaches, Kaiser said. Falling water levels pose a problem for locals like Mannfred Mannheim. He used to catch enough fish for the family smokery business from the lake, but now has to source it elsewhere. ""For the last three years I have been waiting and things are just getting worse,"" Mannheim said. ""One day this lake won't be here anymore.""",0
" Summer doesn't last long on the edge of the Arctic circle, but on the remote Solovetsky Island on Russia's White Sea it marks the remarkable return every year of Beluga whales just metres from the shore. Scientists say it is the only place in the world where the whales come so close. Like many whales worldwide, these belugas are threatened -- not by hunting but by the quest for energy and people's gradual encroachment on their habitat through shipping. The whales come most days in good weather. Highly gregarious, the adult white mammals frolic and twist together with their calves, sometimes in schools of 50, lazily breaking the surface with their long backs, before diving underwater again at a location now known as Beluga Cape. Described by environmentalists as one of Russia's national treasures, the beluga -- which resemble large dolphins -- will be fighting for survival as the Arctic develops and shipping, energy projects and pollution threaten their natural habitat, Russian scientists say. ""The greatest dangers for beluga whales are oil and gas - energy development, marine traffic and even eco-tourism,"" said Dr Roman Belikov, of the marine mammal group at the Institute of Oceanology in the Russian Academy of Sciences. He fears that unless properly managed, tourists seeking to enjoy the wildlife could disturb the whales. Belikov has spent every summer for the last eight years with a small band of marine biologists studying the belugas. He is optimistic that given time, the whales can adapt. ""They can learn to accept motor engines, if fishermen are careful with the distance and speed. It's like people in cities adopting to the nearby sound from underground trains,"" he said. Climate change may also threaten the belugas, but so far, there is no conclusive proof whether warming seas or changing currents are affecting them, he says. Like the other biologists, Belikov talks affectionately of the animals and willingly spends two months in basic conditions with no electricity, running water or toilets, so he can observe them. QUASIMODO AND BELLE Wading out to the observation tower on the foreshore of the cape every day the whales appear, his colleague and team leader, Vera Krasnova, is returning for the 12th summer. Her husband is also a researcher on the island and they work together, leaving their young daughter with her grandmother in Krasnoyarsk, East Siberia. Krasnova laughs when asked to explain why she finds the belugas so fascinating, as they swirl around in the sea, yards away. ""These are animals with a very graphic, very vivid social organization, it's interesting to study their behavior in a group, to see how they come together,"" she says. In eight colonies around the world, there are an estimated 100,000 belugas, with 2,000 in the White Sea. Krasnova and her three assistants spend hours making careful notes of individual animals, with nicknames like 'quasimodo' for a male and 'belle' for a female. Belikov, an acoustic expert, has been trying to crack beluga communications, but says he still has a lot to learn. ""They're very noisy and when they gather here for reproduction, they communicate with each other very intensively,"" he says. The observation tower fills with these sounds, transmitted from the seashore by special microphones. ""They have a very diverse vocal repertory, with many different sounds, like whistles, squeaks and howls. Some sounds seem like a baby crying or a bird when it chirrups,"" he says. Belikov recoils when asked if he believes the whales should be fished commercially for their meat. ""Eat them? They are very kind, clever and nice. I think it's impossible, I see no reason to do it -- why? why?"" he asks. FUNDING The project receives aid from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) which shares the concerns for the belugas' natural habitat as Russia plans to develop energy reserves in the Barents Sea, said Igor Belyatskiy, IFAW's spokesman. ""Like any major oil and gas development, it might pollute the sea with intense ship and air traffic, with a lot of noise. The whales are very sensitive to any kind of noise,"" he said. Belyatskiy said that Russia's biggest challenge is not an absence of laws, but implementing existing controls in full. ""People are starting to understand that the main treasure of Russia is its nature, after the people. Oil and gas will disappear, but nature, and these animals must stay."" IFAW hopes the entire Solevetsky island will also be declared a UNESCO heritage site, as well as the famous monastery on its Southern tip which was converted into Stalin's first major gulag and lies close to the belugas' isolated playground. ""We have these dark times behind us. And its good to come here and see a corner of untouched nature. You have a feeling of a long culture and of nature -- still mostly untouched.""",0
"PARIS, Mon May 25, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Top emitters of greenhouse gases tried on Monday to break a deadlock about sharing the burden of cuts in a UN climate pact, and Washington rejected charges that it was lagging Europe in fighting global warming. Environment ministers from 17 nations including the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Germany and France met for the first of two days of U.S.-led talks in Paris hoping to ease splits on emissions cuts, aid to the poor and new technologies. France told the meeting that a new UN climate treaty, expected to be agreed in Copenhagen in December, would bring economic opportunities and would not herald a downturn caused by rising energy costs. ""Copenhagen ... is not the start of a recession, it is a new start toward a development that is low in carbon, sustainable, robust and job-creating for all countries of the world,"" French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told the opening session. In the UN negotiations, developing nations led by China and India have accused rich nations of worrying about recession and failing to keep promises that they would take the lead in cutting the use of fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases. Also, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday that Washington was lagging the European Union in promises to fight global warming, even though President Barack Obama plans far tougher curbs than his predecessor, George W. Bush. ""I don't think it's correct to say that Europe is proposing a lot and the United States little,"" Todd Stern, US Special Envoy for Climate Change, told Tuesday's edition of the French daily Le Monde. ""If you look at things from the point of view of the progress that each nation will have to make to reach its objectives, the US level of effort is probably equal, or superior, to that of Europe,"" Stern said. 2020 CUTS A bill approved by a key congressional panel last week would cut US emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 -- to just below 1990 levels after a sharp rise -- and by 83 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. The European Union has promised to cut emissions more deeply, by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and by 30 percent if other rich nations follow suit. The aim of the reductions is to slow global warming, averting more heatwaves, rising sea levels, extinctions, floods and droughts. Stern said that Europe's cuts were helped by ""a good policy"" but also factors such a collapse of east German emissions, closure of coal mines in Britain and slower economic growth than in the United States. Bush rejected any caps on US emissions. Analysts say the Major Economies Forum (MEF) talks at the French Foreign Ministry, the second of three preparatory meetings before a summit in Italy in July, are a chance to air differences away from the public gaze. ""The UN negotiations have somewhat fallen back to North-South finger-pointing,"" said Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. ""The MEF is a crucial place where you can make progress on some of the difficult issues out of the limelight."" The EU cuts fall far short of demands by China and India that Europe cut its emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. The UN Climate Panel had suggested 2020 cuts by rich nations of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels to avoid the worst of climate change.",0
" Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday promised to put a ""notable"" brake on the country's rapidly rising carbon emissions, but dashed hopes he would unveil a hard target to kickstart stalled climate talks. The leader of the world's biggest emitter told a United Nations summit that China would pledge to cut ""carbon intensity,"" or the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each dollar of economic output, over the decade to 2020. His promise is a landmark because China had previously rejected rich nations' demands for measurable curbs on its emissions, arguing that economic development must come first while millions of its citizens still live in deep poverty. ""It's still a very significant step -- a Chinese leader standing on that platform and saying China will make a mid-term carbon intensity target,"" said Yang Ailun of Greenpeace China. ""We should think of this as a clear signal that China wants to de-couple carbon emissions from economic growth,"" she said. But without a firm figure attached, the offer to reduce emissions intensity may not be enough to rekindle faltering talks on a new global deal to tackle climate change. Hu said only that carbon intensity would come down ""by a notable margin by 2020 from the 2005 levels,"" which still leaves Beijing and other major powers room for manoeuvre before final negotiations in Copenhagen in December. ""I didn't hear new initiatives so much,"" said Todd Stern, special envoy on climate change in the United States, one of the most vocal critics of China's emissions policy. ""It depends on what the number is and he didn't indicate the extent to which those reductions would be made."" But Xie Zhenhua, China's top environment official, later told reporters China would soon unveil a target, based on projections that by 2020 it will double its use of renewable energy and dramatically cut energy use per dollar of GDP. ""After further study and discussion, we should be able to announce a target soon,"" he said in New York. Hu's choice of a global stage to answer rich nation demands that China take stronger, verifiable steps to control carbon dioxide output, was a sign of how rapidly climate change has risen up the agenda of leaders in Beijing. The country's geography has made it particularly vulnerable to the effects of a warming world, from droughts to flooding and rising sea levels, adding to their sense of urgency. ""IMPRESSIVE LEADERSHIP"" Nobel laureate Al Gore praised China for ""impressive leadership"" and said Hu's goals pointed to more action. ""They are very important and we've had ... indications that in the event there is dramatic progress in this negotiation, that China will be prepared to do even more,"" he said. Hu also made clear, however, that China had high expectations from the rest of the world, repeating a long-standing request for more support in moving away from dirty growth. Backed by India and other developing nations, China argues that rich nations emit more per person and enjoyed an emissions-intensive industrialization, so they have no right to demand others do differently -- unless they are willing to pay for it. ""Developed countries should take up their responsibility and provide new, additional, adequate and predictable financial support to developing countries,"" Hu said. Hu also repeated well-established targets including boosting the portion of renewables in China's energy mix, to 15 percent by 2020, as the country strives to move away from dirty coal. Beijing's worries about energy security and severe pollution have already prompted the introduction of an energy intensity target from 2006. A carbon target should speed up a planned boost in renewables like wind and hydropower. It will also appeal to those in the financial industry who hope to see China set up a carbon trading scheme, because Beijing will be forced to step up its ability to measure output of the gasses, which is key to any market in credits to emit. But while carbon intensity is a financially viable way to contain emissions growth, if economies expand too fast, even massive improvements in efficiency might not be enough to contain dangerously high output of greenhouse gasses.",0
" Former US vice-president Al Gore was quoted as saying he believed a global climate deal would be agreed in Copenhagen later this year because a ""political tipping point"" had been reached. Gore, who won an Oscar for his 2006 climate change documentary ""An Inconvenient Truth"", said he believed the support of world leaders, including US President Barack Obama, and many business leaders, had given political momentum to the issue. Tackling the global economic crisis would provide a framework for a climate deal, he was reported as saying in Saturday's edition of the Guardian newspaper. ""There is a very impressive consensus now emerging around the world that the solutions to the economic crisis are also the solutions to the climate crisis,"" Gore was quoted as saying. ""I actually think we will get an agreement at Copenhagen."" He said he had held private talks with Obama last December in which they reportedly discussed the ""green"" components of the $787 billion US stimulus package. Nearly 200 nations will meet in Copenhagen at the end of the year to try to seal a new international climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012. ",0
"Coastguard vessels assisted by tourist boats have picked up 631 people since late Thursday from three beaches on the island of Evia, where the flames have burned through a vast area of pine forest since Tuesday and reached the sea. They were all moved to safety and sea patrols are continuing in case of emergency, a coastguard official said. The skies of Athens were again clouded by thick smoke from wildfires on the northern outskirts of the city, which burst back into life on Thursday after dying down earlier in the week. A number of suburbs have been evacuated as the fire burned around the main highway linking Athens to northern Greece and hundreds of firefighters with water-bombing aircraft were trying to prevent the flames reaching the nearby town of Marathon. Temperatures have been over 40 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) all week and no let up was expected on Friday with gale force winds expected to spread the flames further. So far, at least nine people have been taken to hospital with varying degrees of injury, including two volunteer firefighters treated for burns in intensive care units in Athens, health officials said. With neighbouring Turkey also battling huge wildfires for more than a week, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday Greece needed to strengthen its preparedness for severe weather brought on by climate change.",0
"Investment in Russia has slowed to a trickle, capital flight has risen and the economy has been sliding into recession since oil prices tumbled last year and the West imposed economic sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis. But in a 29-minute speech to a business forum and a question-and-answer session that lasted more than an hour, Putin ignored calls by many investors to unveil new plans to end the downturn. Instead, he warned the West not to meddle in Moscow's affairs and shifted blame for the conflict in Ukraine onto the West, primarily the United States. ""I would like to point out that at the end of last year we were warned - and you know this well - that there would be a deep crisis,"" Putin said in the speech in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg. ""It has not happened. We have stabilised the situation ... mainly because the Russian economy piled up a sufficient supply of inner strength,"" he told an audience including rows of foreign and Russian businessmen and much of the Russian government. Russia's central bank reduced its main interest rate by a percentage point to 11.5 percent on Monday, inflation has slowed from 16.9 percent in April to 15.8 percent in May, and the rouble has risen to around 54 to the dollar after briefly hitting 80 in December. Even though the bank expects the economy to contract by 3.2 percent in 2015, Putin said: ""With us are businessmen, people and new leaders prepared to work for Russia and its development. For this reason we are absolutely certain of success."" State Department spokesman John Kirby disagreed with Putin's assessment, telling a regular news briefing in Washington, DC: ""We know otherwise. We know that the costs have remained high on him and the economy, and that they will continue to do so."" Many US investors stay away Despite Putin's optimism, relations with the West are at their lowest ebb since the Cold War and former finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Thursday Russia was still in the ""eye of the storm"". He recommended bringing forward the 2018 presidential election to give Putin a stronger mandate to reform the economy. The chief executives of many Western companies which would usually have attended Russia's annual showpiece economic forum stayed away for the second successive year, though the heads of some major oil companies were present. The US government urged US companies to shun last year's forum, soon after Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, but refrained from doing so this year. ""There is some wariness (about attending) but I think overall, Western companies want to continue working with the Russians because ... the opportunity space is very large,"" said Hans-Paul Buerkner, Chairman of Boston Consulting Group. Ian Colebourne, Chief Executive Officer of Deloitte CIS, said: ""Some of the anxieties perhaps that we were seeing last year have reduced. I mean certainly not gone away by any means, but the tension has been reduced."" Putin has turned to Asia to drum up business since the Western sanctions started biting, and he shared the platform with representatives of several Asian countries. Another guest was Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose country is building ties with Russia as it tussles with its European Union partners over its debt crisis. The two countries signed a memorandum deepening energy ties and one Russian official said Moscow might consider offering Greece financial aid if it requested it. Putin said he did not intend better ties with Asia and Greece to upset other countries, but made clear he believes it is up to the West, not Russia, to change its behaviour if it wants a better geopolitical climate. ""We will not be talked to in the language of ultimatums,"" he said.",1
"The case against India was brought by the US. The ruling, by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), says India’s National Solar Mission − which would create local jobs, while bringing electricity to millions of people − must be changed because it includes a domestic content clause requiring part of the solar cells to be produced nationally. What a difference two months make.  On Dec 12 last year, US President Barack Obama praised the Paris Agreement on tackling climate change, just hours after it was finally concluded. “We’ve shown what’s possible when the world stands as one,” he said, adding that the agreement “represents the best chance we have to save the one planet that we’ve got”. Clear-cut victory The WTO says that its dispute settlement panel “handed the US a clear-cut victory . . . when it found that local content requirements India imposed on private solar power producers in a massive solar project violated trade rules, although the two sides are still discussing a potential settlement to the dispute”. One official of India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy told India Climate Dialogue that the ruling might make the country’s solar plan more expensive, and would definitely hit domestic manufacturing and, consequently, the possibility of creating jobs in the sector. The government-funded programme aims to generate 100 gigawatts of solar energy annually by 2022. One gigawatt is enough, for example, to supply the needs of 750,000 typical US homes. Sam Cossar-Gilbert, economic justice and resisting neoliberalism programme co-ordinator at Friends of the Earth International, says the ruling “shows how arcane trade rules can be used to undermine governments that support clean energy and local jobs. The ink is barely dry on the UN Paris Agreement, but clearly trade still trumps real action on climate change. Stumbling blocks “Trade agreements are often stumbling blocks for action on climate change. Current trade rules limit governments’ capacity to support local renewable energy, undermine clean technology transfer, and empower fossil fuel companies to attack climate protection in secret courts. Trade policies are preventing a sustainable future. “In the last three months alone, Ecuador was ordered to pay $1billion for cancelling a petrol contract under a Bilateral Investment Treaty . . . Governments must be free to implement sound climate policy. “This ruling shows the dangers posed by more wide-ranging trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which will liberalise trade in dirty fossil fuels and restrict government options even further.” ",0
" Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of Qatari Emir, made a courtesy call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a five-star hotel in Dhaka on Monday morning. During the meeting, they discussed various issues of mutual interest. Press Secretary to the Prime Minister Abul Kalam Azad briefed the newsmen after the meeting. Sheikha Mozah expressed Qatar's interest to extend cooperation in more areas between the two countries including in education, health, and information and communication technology (ICT). She was highly appreciative of Bangladesh's tremendous successes in various fields under the able leadership of Sheikh Hasina, Azad said. The Prime Minister highlighted Bangladesh's remarkable development and progress in various fields including healthcare, education, agriculture and ICT. The issues of climate change and food security were discussed during the call on. Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni, Ambassador-at-Large M Ziauddin and Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad were also present on the occasion.",1
"So people will generate more heat and release more carbon dioxide just to stay cool as the thermometer soars.Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan began asking questions earlier this year about whether air conditioning created more energy demand than central heating: he now reports in American Scientist that investment in air conditioning technology in the developing world could lead to an “unprecedented increase” in energy demand.Right now, the US uses more energy to keep cool than all the other countries in the world combined.“But this distinction might not remain true for long,” he says.“Several developing countries rank both among the most populous and hottest areas of the world. As personal incomes rise in those countries, their use of air conditioning will likely go up.”In just one Indian city, metropolitan Mumbai, he calculates there could be a potential demand for cooling that is about a quarter of the current demand of the entire US.In all, 87 percent of US households now have air conditioning and it takes 185 billion kilowatt hours of energy annually to keep American homes cool.But other countries have begun to turn down the thermostat. In 2010 alone, 50 million air conditioning units were sold in China. Air conditioning sales in India are growing at 20 percent a year.Cooling is a complicated business. Humans have only to step into their own homes to raise indoor temperatures: body heat - along with the heat from cooking, refrigeration and other activities - stays within the four walls.If the outdoor temperature is 18°C or more, then the surest way to keep the indoor temperature to an equable 21°C is to install air conditioning.Demand to riseDr Sivak used an index of the potential demand for cooling - a quantity called annual person cooling degree days - to calculate future demand and work out what energy usage would be if air conditioning became as prevalent in other countries as it is in the US.Out of his top 25 countries, 14 were in Asia, seven in Africa and two each were in North and South America. The US has the coolest climate of these 25 countries, even though it has the highest demand for cool indoor breezes.Altogether, he reasoned, eight of the world’s nations have the potential to exceed US air conditioning use: India would surpass the US 14-fold if Indians adopted US standards of cooling; China more than five times and the Indonesians three times.Because 22 of the 25 countries are by World Bank definition low-income nations, demand is currently nowhere near its potential peak. But, he writes, future demand has the potential to exceed demand in the US by a factor of 50.The calculations are crude. They don’t factor in local variations in cloud cover, building design, available personal space, variations in energy efficiency or local difference in the tolerance of high temperatures.But, Sivak warns, as affluence increases, and as global average temperatures rise, so will demand:“This trend will put additional strains not only on global energy resources but also on the environmental prospects of a warming planet.”",0
" Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called an election on Saturday for August 21, with the poll to be fought over policies on economic management, climate and border protection. Australia's first female prime minister was appointed three weeks ago by the ruling Labor party as the government faced electoral defeat and has resurrected voter support to put Labor narrowly ahead in opinion polls. Conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott needs to win only nine seats to form government with four independents or 13 seats to take office outright. ""Today I seek a mandate from the Australian people to move Australia forward,"" Gillard told a news conference. ""Moving forward means moving forward with budget surpluses and a stronger economy,"" said Gillard, who toppled leader Kevin Rudd in a party coup on June 24. Australia's robust economy, which dodged recession in 2009 and emerged strong from the global financial crisis, will be key to the 2010 election. And Gillard has said she would seek re-election on a platform of creating jobs. But while the government has said it will return a budget surplus by 2013, opinion polls show voters view the opposition as better economic managers, despite Labor steering the economy through the global financial crisis and avoiding recession. The opposition has also vowed to return to a budget surplus and keep a cap on government spending. ""Racing for the centre,"" said the headline of a story in The Australian newspaper comparing Gillard and Abbott. Yet, voters will be given stark choices: * Gillard plans to introduce a 30 percent mining tax, raising A$10.5 billion ($9.12 billion) from 2012, and Abbott has vowed to dump it. * Gillard believes a carbon price to fight climate change is inevitable, with a emissions trading scheme possibly brought in after 2012-13, Abbott does not. * Gillard has proposed a possible East Timor regional asylum processing centre to stop boatpeople arriving in Australia, Abbott plans to reopen Pacific island detention camps. ""We are ready to govern,"" opposition leader Abbott said in a speech on Saturday which focused on jobs. He said conservative parties would abandon a policy of tough labor laws, conceding it lost them power in 2007. ""Trust will only be restored by demonstrating, over time, that the coalition again has the steady hands in which people's job security and pay and conditions can once more safely rest."" ELECTION ABOUT LEADERSHIP David Briggs of pollster Galaxy Research said the focus of the election will be leadership, in particular the performance of new Prime Minister Gillard. ""It is about Julia Gillard and it is the election for Labor to lose,"" Briggs told Reuters. Newspaper's editorial did not endorse either Labor or the Liberal-National opposition, but the Sydney Morning Herald called Gillard the ""hollow woman"" who in three weeks as leader has given little indication of where she would take Australia. ""Voters deserve to pass judgment not just on her as prime minister, but on the tumultuous events that saw her grab the job...,"" said the Herald. While voters will be given policy choices, they will also face two contrasting personalities in Abbott and Gillard. Abbott is a pugnacious and socially conservative Catholic, who once trained for the priesthood, and is opposed to same sex marriages and abortions. Gillard in contrast does not believe in God, is unmarried but has a long-time partner, and is childless. But both Gillard and Abbott are skilled, intelligent politicians, whose campaign skills may prove the key to who wins the election. ""I think it will be a tight election. I think it will go down to the wire,"" said Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen.",0
" Bangladesh has demanded immediate release of quick funds and agreement on a robust plan for next year's climate summit in Durban, South Africa. Bangladesh's state minister for environment, Hasan Mahmud, told a high-level plenary session at the Cancún climate talks on Wednesday that he wanted to see an ambitious work plan leading to the next summit in Durban. The junior minister suggested that the 16th session of the UN climate convention where about 190 countries were expected to lay down the foundation for an overarching climate deal during the 17th climate session, must take up ambitious plans. Mahmud, however, reminded his audience that although one had to be realistic, ""time is of the essence"", indicating the dire plight of millions of people suffering from the fall-out of climate change. He stated Bangladesh's preference for an agreement under the UN convention as well as continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, saying, ""The two existing tracks must continue in the negotiation process."" The Bangladesh junior minister spelled out that a 'Cancun Package' should ensure ""preferential treatment"" of the poorest countries, island states and African countries — considered to be most threatened by climate change — ""in allocation of fast start finance"". He ended his speech calling, once again, for a comprehensive and collective emission reduction plan and also suggested that regardless of their exemption in the Kyoto Protocol, emerging and developing countries must also take on obligatory emission reduction commitments because their situation has changed since the protocol was agreed upon. ""All countries of the world should play their due role in mitigation, whether voluntarily or on a mandatory basis irrespective of definitions or special status for countries agreed to twenty years earlier because circumstances of many countries have changed dramatically since then,"" said Hasan Mahmud.",0
"The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which a year ago refused to cut supply to retain market share against higher-cost rivals, in its 2015 World Oil Outlook raised its global supply forecasts for tight oil, which includes shale, despite a collapse in prices. Demand for OPEC crude will reach 30.70 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2020, OPEC said, lower than 30.90 million bpd next year. The expected demand from OPEC in 2020 is about 1 million bpd less than it is currently producing. Oil has more than halved its price in 18 months and sank to an 11-year low of $36.04 a barrel this week. The drop has helped to boost oil's medium-term use, although OPEC said the demand stimulus of low crude prices will fade over time. ""The impact of the recent oil price decline on demand is most visible in the short term,"" OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri wrote in the foreword to the report. ""It then drops away over the medium term."" OPEC is increasingly divided over the merits of the 2014 shift to a market-share strategy, which was led by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, and at a Dec 4 meeting failed to agree a production ceiling for the first time in decades. Nonetheless, the report shows that the medium-term outlook - from OPEC's point of view as the supplier of a third of the world's oil - has improved. In the 2014 edition, demand for OPEC crude was expected to fall to 29.0 million bpd by 2020. OPEC said it stopped modelling work on the report in mid-year, since when it has updated its forecast of 2016 non-OPEC supply to a decline. OPEC figures in the report do not include Indonesia, which rejoined in December. The main figures in the report showing OPEC medium-term market share under pressure are unchanged from those in a confidential OPEC report Reuters obtained in November. Resilient shale OPEC initially downplayed the impact of shale oil, although its annual outlook in 2012 acknowledged for the first time that the effect could be ""significant"". Years of high prices - supported by OPEC's former policy of cutting supply – helped make non-conventional oil such as shale viable. In a change of tack from previous reports, OPEC now says many projects work at lower prices too. ""The most prolific zones within some plays can break even at levels below the prices observed in 2015, and are thus likely to see continued production growth,"" the report said. Global tight oil output will reach 5.19 million bpd by 2020, peak at 5.61 million bpd in 2030 and ease to 5.18 million bpd in 2040, the report said, as Argentina and Russia join North America as producers. Last year's estimates were 4.50 million bpd by 2020 and 4 million bpd by 2040. Under another, upside supply scenario, tight oil production could spread to Mexico and China and bring supply to almost 8 million bpd by 2040, OPEC said. As recently as 2013, OPEC assumed tight oil would have no impact outside North America. The report supports the view that OPEC's market share will rise in the long run as rival supply growth fades. OPEC crude demand is expected to reach 40.70 million bpd in 2040, amounting to 37 percent of world supply, up from 33 percent in 2015. OPEC nudged up its medium-term world oil demand forecast, expecting oil use to reach 97.40 million bpd by 2020, 500,000 bpd more than in last year's report. But factors including slower economic growth, the limited share of the crude cost in pump prices and the falling value of some domestic currencies against the dollar will limit the demand response to lower crude prices, OPEC said. By 2040, OPEC expects demand to reach 109.80 million bpd, 1.3 million bpd lower than a year ago, reduced by energy efficiency and climate-change mitigation efforts. Only a gentle recovery in oil prices is seen. OPEC's basket of crude oils is assumed in the report at $55 in 2015 and to rise by $5 a year to reach $80 by 2020.",1
"The two legendary Buddhist masters' interactions were much more than personal exchanges. Their conversations have been considered one of the highlights of the long-running dialogue between the two ancient Asian civilisations. In the ancient Greek language, Asia means ""the Land of Sunrise."" Over the millennia, the continent has been the cradle of many diverse civilisations on the Mesopotamia Plain, in the Indus Valley and Ganges River Valley, as well as along the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. In olden times, dynamic business exchanges along the ancient Silk Road trade routes and enlightening pilgrimages by Buddhist monks or Muslims have made dialogue between civilisations not only a reality, but also a tradition. Today, as delegates from Asia and beyond gathered in Beijing for the first Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations (CDAC), which opened on Wednesday, a brand new platform for exchanges and mutual learning among civilisations is taking shape. History shows that civilisations thrive as they learn from each other. In the current world, dialogue among civilisations, especially on the Asian continent, carries unique significance. In his speech at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation headquarters in 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, ""Civilisations have become richer and more colourful with exchanges and mutual learning. Such exchanges and mutual learning form an important drive for human progress and global peace and development."" 
 
 The song and dance ""A Youthful Asia"" is staged at the Asian culture carnival held at the National Stadium, or the Bird's Nest, in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. Xinhua 

During the medieval period of Europe, the Abbasid Caliphate of the Arabic world launched a movement to translate ancient classics that recorded Greek and Roman knowledge.  The song and dance ""A Youthful Asia"" is staged at the Asian culture carnival held at the National Stadium, or the Bird's Nest, in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. Xinhua  The translation movement saved the old wisdom from perishing with the fall of the Roman Empire, and enabled the European cultures in later times to revive in the Renaissance. For Asian countries, exchanges between civilisations can also help them rediscover their identity on the world stage in this new and changing era. There was a time when Asia was the envy of the world, a land of great empires and home to ancient philosophers, poets and writers. Algebra, the astrolabe, paper and printing were invented here. Over the past decades, Asian nations have shaken off the yoke of imperial colonialism, achieved independence, accumulated miraculous economic and social progress, and inched back to the centre stage of the international arena. A recent Financial Times report predicts that Asian economies, as defined by the UN Conference on Trade and Development, will be larger than the rest of the world combined in 2020 for the first time since the 19th century. As a whole, Asia is capable of making larger contributions to human civilisation and world prosperity. At present, platforms and mechanisms for regional cooperation such as the Boao Forum for Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are maturing. The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to build trade and infrastructure networks connecting Asia with Europe and beyond, also heralds a stronger connectivity of peoples and cultures. The dialogue conference came with the recent public invoking of ""clash of civilisations"" worldview in the West, which is dangerously irresponsible and may lead to hatred and confrontation. Beijing's message is loud and clear. It has chosen conversation over confrontation with a deep belief that boosting inter-civilisation dialogue can help nations around the world shrink trust deficits, promote mutual understanding and friendship, and thus bolster their cooperation. In this age of growing interdependence when the international community is grappling with a string of non-traditional security threats such as terrorism, refugee crises and climate change, no single nation or civilisation can stand alone. To meet common challenges and create a better future for all, China looks to culture and civilisation to play their role, which is as important as the role played by economy, science and technology, said Xi while addressing the opening of the CDAC. The conference, he added, is convened just for this purpose, as it creates a new platform for civilisations in Asia and beyond to engage in dialogue and exchanges on an equal footing to facilitate mutual learning. And in that process, dialogue and cooperation are the only sure path leading towards a better world for all, or in Xi's words, a community with a shared future for mankind.",0
"Sure, it isn’t all lexicographic fun and frolic. 2017 saw the triumph of “toxic.” Last year, the winner was “climate emergency.” But then came 2020, and you-know-what. This year, Oxford Languages, the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary, has forgone the selection of a single word in favour of highlighting the coronavirus pandemic’s swift and sudden linguistic effect on English. “What struck the team as most distinctive in 2020 was the sheer scale and scope of change,” Katherine Connor Martin, the company’s head of product, said in an interview. “This event was experienced globally and by its nature changed the way we express every other thing that happened this year.” The Word of the Year is based on usage evidence drawn from Oxford’s continually updated corpus of more than 11 billion words, gathered from news sources across the English-speaking world. The selection is meant “to reflect the ethos, mood or preoccupations” of the preceding year, while also having “lasting potential as a term of cultural significance.” The 2020 report does highlight some zippy new coinages, like “Blursday” (which captures the way the week blends together), “covidiots” (you know who you are) and “doomscrolling” (who, me?). But mostly, it underlines how the pandemic has utterly dominated public conversation, and given us a new collective vocabulary almost overnight. Take, for starters, “pandemic”: Use of the term increased more than 57,000% since last year. “Coronavirus” — a word coined in 1968, but until this year little used outside medical contexts — also surged, breaking away from run-of-the-mill topical words. Back in January, it was neck-and-neck with “impeachment,” then surging because of the proceedings against President Donald Trump. But by April, “coronavirus” had become one of the most common nouns in English, overtaking even stalwarts like “time.” And that, Martin said, is highly unusual, perhaps even unprecedented (another word, by the way, whose usage soared, according to the report). Usually, when a topical word surges, she said, “it becomes more common relative to other topical words, but not relative to words we all say in English all the time.” The Oxford report also highlights words and phrases relating to social justice, including “Black Lives Matter,” “Juneteenth,” “decolonise,” and “allyship,” some of which surged dramatically starting in late May, amid the protests following the killing of George Floyd in police custody. But those increases, while notable, were nowhere near those of pandemic-related terms. And the pandemic may have actually reduced the frequency of other topical words. Last year, Oxford released an all-climate related shortlist, topped by “climate emergency.” But in March, as the pandemic took hold, the frequency of the word “climate” itself abruptly plunged by almost 50%. (Usage has since rebounded a bit, and the report also flagged the emergence of some new climate-related terms, like “anthropause,” proposed in an article in the journal Nature in June to describe the sudden drastic reduction in human mobility, and its impact on the natural world.) The pandemic turned once-obscure public-health terminology like “social distancing” or “flatten the curve” into household terms, and made words and phrases like “lockdown” and “stay-at-home” common. More subtly, it also altered usage patterns for ho-hum words like “remote” and “remotely.” Previously, the most common collocates (as lexicographers call words that appear most frequently together) of “remote” were “village,” “island” and “control.” This year, Martin said, they were “learning,” “working” and “work force.” The Oxford report also highlights increased use of “in-person,” often in retronyms, as lexicographers refer to a new term for an existing thing that distinguishes the original from a new variant. (For example: “land line” or “cloth diaper.”) In 2020, it became increasingly necessary to specify “in-person” voting, learning, worship and so on. Most years, a lot of the fun of Oxford’s shortlist comes from portmanteaus, or blend words, like “mansplain” or “broflake.” But this year, even the neologisms were a bit downbeat. For every “covidiot” and “Blursday,” there was a “twindemic” (the concurrence of two epidemics) and an “infodemic” (an anxiety-arousing explosion of pandemic-related information). So … is it fair to say that in 2020, even the words were, well, kind of terrible? Martin declined to be so negative. But she confessed to some nostalgia for the days of playful, dare-you-to-put-it-in-the-dictionary coinages like “lumbersexual,” from Oxford’s 2015 shortlist. She said she hoped 2021 would bring more “fun, positive words that didn’t seem to hold the weight of the world on their shoulders.”   © 2020 New York Times News Service",2
"Of the more than 1.1 billion vaccinations administered globally, the vast majority have gone into the arms of people who live in the wealthiest countries. The United States, where nearly half the population has received at least one dose, sits on millions of surplus doses, while India, with a 9% vaccination rate, shatters records in new daily infections. In New York City, you hear cries of relief at the chance to breathe free and unmasked; in New Delhi, cries for oxygen. The vaccine gap presents an object lesson for climate action because it signals the failure of richer nations to see it in their self-interest to urgently help poorer ones fight a global crisis. That has direct parallels to global warming. Poor countries consistently assert that they need more financial and technological help from wealthier ones if the world as a whole is going to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. So far, the richest countries — which are also the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases — haven’t come up with the money. More immediately, this year’s vaccine shortages in the nations of the global South could hinder their ability to participate in the United Nations-led climate talks in Glasgow set for November, minimising their voice in critical policy decisions about how to wean the global economy away from fossil fuels. “Equity is not on the agenda,” said Gregg Gonsalves, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and a veteran activist for global access to AIDS drugs. “If we can’t do it for the worst pandemic in a century, how are we going to do it for climate change?” Gonsalves is among those who favour waiving drug-company patents for COVID-19 vaccines, sharing technology with vaccine manufacturers and ramping up production around the world. Pharmaceutical industry groups and their backers in the White House have opposed freely sharing intellectual property with rival drugmakers, and some in the administration have argued that vaccine raw materials are needed for production of vaccines for Americans. India has pushed to relax COVID-19 vaccine patents and United States export rules on vaccine raw materials to allow Indian companies to ramp up production. In Brazil, several lawmakers have recently sought to suspend patents for COVID-19 vaccines and medicines. The United States has so far blocked efforts at the World Trade Organization to relax patent rules. Of course, the devastation of the pandemic in countries like Brazil and India can’t be laid at the feet of rich-world patent holders alone. Brazil’s right-wing populist president, Jair Bolsonaro, scorned public health guidance and insisted that lockdowns and mobility restrictions would be a bigger threat to the country’s weak economy. Brazil now has one of the world’s highest death tolls and its economy is in tatters. India’s right-wing populist prime minister, Narendra Modi, who earlier this year boasted of conquering the virus, allowed large religious and political gatherings. And instead of securing vaccines for India’s 1.4 billion citizens, India began exporting Indian-made doses to other countries. Today, India has become the worst-hit country in the world, with close to 380,000 new infections daily over the past seven days. The long running global battle over intellectual property rights to medicines has a parallel to climate action, too, with the Paris climate agreement explicitly calling for the transfer of technology to develop clean energy infrastructure. Developing countries have long said they cannot cope with the effects of climate change if the rich world does not share money and technology, and that problem is only made more acute by the economic collapse brought on by the pandemic and the inequitable access to vaccines. Not least, the consequences of global warming are unequal, hurting the poorest people in poor countries hardest. “If this is the way rich countries conducted themselves in a global crisis — where they took care of their own needs first, took care of companies, did not recognise that this is an opportunity to reach out and demonstrate solidarity — then there’s no good track record for how they will conduct themselves in the face of other global crises, such as the climate crisis, where poorer countries will bear the highest burdens,” said Tasneem Essop, a former government official from South Africa who is now executive director of Climate Action Network, an advocacy group. Money is at the heart of the distrust. The Biden administration promised to double grants and loans to developing countries to $5.7 billion a year, a target that is widely seen as both insufficient and lagging behind the pledges of other wealthy industrialised nations, notably in Europe. Many low- and middle-income countries are carrying so much debt, they say it leaves them nothing left to retool their economies for the climate era. In addition, the rich world has yet to fulfil its promise to raise $100 billion a year that could be used for green projects, whether solar farms or mangrove restoration. “In both cases, it’s about a willingness to redistribute resources,” said Rohini Pande, a Yale University economist. In the case of coronavirus response, it’s about helping vaccine makers around the world manufacture billions of doses in a matter of months. In the case of climate change, huge sums of money are needed to help developing countries retool their energy systems away from dirty sources like coal. The next few weeks will be critical, as world leaders gather for meetings of the seven richest countries, the Group of 7, in June and then of the finance ministers of the world’s 20 biggest economies, the Group of 20, in July. Those meetings will then be followed by the UN-led climate negotiations in Glasgow in November. Those negotiations, known as the 26th Conference of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, or COP26, to a significant degree could determine whether the world can slow down the rate of warming that is already causing Arctic ice melt, worsening wildfires and other crises. At that meeting, countries big and small are set to present more ambitious plans to keep the average global temperature from rising past 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial times. “We will not have a successful outcome at COP26,” said Christiana Figueres, a former UN climate diplomat who helped negotiate the Paris Agreement in 2015, “unless we have financial commitments that are commensurate with the impacts that many developing countries are feeling.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",4
" Australian Prime Minister John Howard reshuffled his ministers ahead of a tough 2007 election on Tuesday, with Iraq, environment and nationalist values looming as key issues as he bids for a fifth term in office. The changes came as a new poll found the centre-left Labor opposition maintained a 10-point lead over the conservative government, with its new leader Kevin Rudd gaining ground on Howard as preferred prime minister. Treasurer Peter Costello, Finance Minister Nick Minchin, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Defence Minister Brendan Nelson retained their jobs in the reshuffle. With an election due in the second half of 2007, Howard dumped Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone and revamped the portfolio to focus more on citizenship, rather than ethnic diversity under the policy of multiculturalism. ""It is a step towards a particular position on national values and nationalism,"" John Warhurst, professor of politics at the Australian National University, told Reuters. ""It's tougher language. It's arguing that multiculturalism emphasises diversity too much and it is out of favour."" Debate on values and citizenship has been prominent since clashes between Australian-Lebanese and white Australian youths on Sydney's beaches in late 2005, and with ongoing tensions with parts of the small Muslim community. Howard has long criticised Australia's policy of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity, preferring immigrants let go of allegiances to former homelands and commit to vague values of fairness and ""mateship"". ENVIRONMENT Howard used the reshuffle to promote high-profile politician Malcolm Turnbull to the environment portfolio, giving him responsibility for climate change and water as much of the country suffers amid the worst drought in a century. Turnbull, a wealthy former merchant banker, lawyer and former head of the republican movement, will take on Labor's charismatic rock star and environment spokesman Peter Garrett. Vanstone was replaced as Immigration Minister by Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews, while Environment Minister Ian Campbell will be moved to the Human Services ministry. ""I think it is an effective concentration of the firepower of the prominent people within the government,"" Howard told reporters. Howard said climate change and water issues would be crucial in the lead up to the next election, with Labor maintaining a strong lead in polls on the back of promises to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Rudd, who took over as Labor leader in December, has also boosted his party's support with a promise to bring troops home from Iraq if he wins power. A Newspoll, published in the Australian newspaper on Tuesday, found Rudd's Labor leads the government with 55 percent support to 45 percent for Howard's conservatives. The poll also found Rudd, 49, closing the gap as preferred prime minister to just two points, well down from the 30-point lead Howard enjoyed over former opponent Kim Beazley last November. Howard, who will be 68 in July, has been in power since 1996 and is the country's second longest serving prime minister.",0
" Iran must stick to its promises to be more open with the International Atomic Energy Agency about its nuclear power plans and the international community must encourage it, the body's chief said on Thursday. Mohamed ElBaradei, receiving a special award for services to nuclear power, welcomed Iran's promise last week and said compliance would be crucial. ""The next couple of months will be critical for Iran to demonstrate its good faith in implementing what it is committed to do,"" the IAEA head told reporters. ""If they do that I think we will begin to move into a completely different phase."" ""I hope that Iran would move and the international community would continue to encourage it to move in that direction,"" he said at a meeting of the World Nuclear Association. He made no comment on criticism that the IAEA's deal with Iran was merely a further bid by Tehran to buy time while it secretly developed a nuclear weapons capability. Iran denies having nuclear weapons ambitions and says it want to develop nuclear power instead. ElBaradei told the meeting nuclear-produced electricity had an important role in combating climate change from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, but added that safety, security and non-proliferation had to be guaranteed.",0
"New Delhi,May 12 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Forty years after he helped rescue the world from growing famine and a deepening gloom over the future of food supplies, Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan is once again agitating for revolution -- this time a perpetual one. The 82-year-old scientist, dubbed here the father of the Green Revolution for helping development a hybrid wheat seed that allowed Indian farmers to dramatically increase yields, says the current food crisis offers the world a chance to put farmers on the right road to unending growth. In the twenty-first century's ""Evergreen Revolution"", as he calls it, conservation farming and green technology will bring about sustainable change that could allow India to become an even bigger supplier of food to the world. ""I'm very happy now, because in every crisis is an opportunity,"" he told Reuters at his government apartment in the heart of New Delhi, a perk of his membership in India's upper house. ""This time it will lead to an evergreen revolution."" That would be welcome news for the millions of impoverished people and food-importing nations who are struggling to cope with the surge in basic crop prices over the last year, caused in part by protectionist trade bans by some exporters, including India. This year's near trebling in the price of rice -- the main staple for most of the world's poor -- has driven the issue home. It has triggered riots in Haiti and raised the risk of starvation for the hundreds of millions who depend on subsidized foods. With anxiety over food supply running higher than anytime since the 1960s, the former Cambridge scholar is busier than ever, just as passionate and in high demand. ""My wife says I have a one-track mind,"" he said during an interview squeezed between a meeting with an analyst from Asian brokerage CLSA and a consultation with a pack of regional politicians. His wife Mina, a women's rights campaigner who met Swaminathan in Cambridge over 50 years ago, enforces quiet time during his daily siesta, part of a regime that helps give him the energy and focus of a man several decades his junior. A slight stoop and white hair are rare signs of his advanced age. TAKING CUES FROM 1960s Today's crisis is still far from that of the 1960s, when China was engulfed in deadly famine and India barely got by on hand-to-mouth imports, reviving the grim Malthusian view that the world's population was expanding too quickly to feed itself. Back then, Swaminathan, a young scientist who turned down plumb positions in academia and the government to work in agriculture research, helped cross-breed wheat seeds that allowed India to more than treble its annual crop in just 15 years. US production has risen only about a third since then. Scientists in the Philippines had also developed a super strain of rice at the same time, and better irrigation and use of fertilizer helped pull India back from the brink of famine. But Swaminathan says that some seeds of the current crisis were sown in his own revolutionary heyday. ""The Green Revolution created a sense of euphoria that we have solved our production problem. Now we have a plateau in production and productivity. We have a problem of under investment in rural infrastructure,"" he says. With genetically advanced seeds, farmers overlooked the potential ecological damage of heavy fertilizer use, the drop in water tables due to heavier irrigation and the impact of repeated crop cycles on soil quality. He believes we've learned from those lessons, and the next wave of improvements will have environmental considerations at their core, without the need to return to the genetics lab. ""A short-term gain will have to be a long-term disaster in agriculture,"" says Swaminathan, who held a series of leadership roles in world agriculture organizations before establishing his non-profit Chennai-based M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation 20 years ago to promote farm growth that will aid the poor, particularly women, and bio-diversity. COURSE MEAL But not all his ideas are popular. Some abroad are unimpressed by his focus on India's self-sufficiency as the primary goal, and those at home question the cultivation of more easily grown foods such as courser grains rather than finer, more costly wheat or rice. ""Would you eat them?"" India's food secretary T. Nand Kumar asked earlier this week. Not that Swaminathan has given up on the staples. In a world threatened by rising temperatures, he says India should grow more rice rather than wheat, the latter of which India was forced to import over the past two years. ""Wheat is a gamble in temperatures... Rice is going to be the savior crop in the era of climate change,"" he said. With a host of measures suggested to kickstart the struggling sector, Swaminathan believes farmers should be allowed to play a pivotal role in leading the change, though he regrets it took a crisis to finally shift the world's attention back to the land. ""Only when disasters come, farmers become important.""",0
" World Bank has pledged a first phase donation of $100 million to assist Bangladesh in implementing the current fiscal budget, a WB official said Sunday. This first phase assistance will be provided for the government's food security programmes for the 2008-09 fiscal year, the new World Bank vice president for South Asia, Isabel Guerrero, told reporters after a meeting with finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam at the Planning Ministry. The WB official said that her organisation would continue its assistance in ensuring food security, as well as extending assistance in tackling the effects of climate change. The donor agency might end up doubling its assistance in the current fiscal year, she added. Guerrero said that the country was currently facing three major challenges: climate change, impact of worldwide inflation and food security. The WB would provide assistance to Bangladesh in all three areas, she said. Finance adviser Mirza Aziz said: ""The WB has ensured assistance in the food security sector to reduce budget deficit."" ""The development organisation also assured its assistance in tackling the losses due to climate change,"" he added. The WB vice president also mentioned an international conference titled Focus Bangladesh, to be held in London on Sept 10. The conference will discuss ways to extend assistance to Bangladesh in facing climate change, including an emphasis on food security. Guerrero arrived in Bangladesh Saturday night after replacing Praful C Patel in the post of WB vice president for the South Asia region. This was her first visit to Bangladesh. Donors recently pledged a total $340 million for food security programmes, with the Asian Development Bank committing half the amount. ""The World Bank, ADB and other donors will provide Bangladesh with food security assistance worth 340 million dollars, of which the ADB slice will amount to 170 million,"" outgoing ADB resident representative Hua Du announced on July 14 ahead of her departure from Dhaka.",3
"President Donald Trump last year pulled the United States out of the pact, making the country the only one opposed to it. Bloomberg, in a CBS interview, said he hopes by next year Trump will have changed his mind. Bloomberg will continue to provide money for the pact if the United States does not rejoin the agreement, according to a news release from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charity he founded. ""Our foundation will uphold our promise to cover any cuts to UN climate funding by the federal government,"" Bloomberg said in the statement. Trump staunchly opposes the agreement and his administration has rolled back a number of environmental regulations.",0
" Prospects for leading nations to agree on joint action to avert a global economic downturn brightened on Friday after the European Central Bank softened its tone and underlined high uncertainty to the economic outlook. Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors began arriving in Tokyo for meetings on Saturday to discuss ways to tackle deteriorating economic growth and market turmoil. They are expected to deliver no new message on exchange rates. The ECB left interest rates on hold on Thursday, but markets saw more scope for rate cuts this year after ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet dropped a threat to act pre-emptively against inflation and stressed risks to the economy. It is ""a change that goes in the right direction"", a G7 government official said of Trichet's comments. A draft of the communique to be issued after Saturday's gathering of G7 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan and the United States -- says the global economy is facing ""a more challenging and uncertain environment"" than at the time of the group's last meeting in October. But the draft, read to Reuters by another source on Thursday, added that global economic fundamentals remained ""solid"". Ahead of the Tokyo meeting, the IMF cut its global economic growth forecast to a five-year low of 4.1 percent for this year, down from an initial estimate of 4.4 percent. ""It is true that economic sentiment is worsening in both the United States and Europe,"" said Susumu Kato, chief economist at Calyon Securities in Japan. ""I think the ECB will cut rates by the middle of this year."" EUROPEAN RATES A Reuters poll showed most economists still expect a 25 basis point ECB cut to 3.75 percent by June, unchanged from last week, but analysts brought forward the timing of a second cut to the third quarter from the fourth. In addition to the Federal Reserve's big rate cuts in January, the Bank of England lowered interest rates for the second time in three months on Thursday, underscoring worries about a worldwide economic slowdown. Still, the G7 meeting is unlikely to see any announcement on coordinated monetary easing or other stimulus measures, as different economic problems and policy priorities weigh on the group of the world's rich nations. Whether the emerging economies can come through the U.S. shakeout relatively unscathed will be on the agenda when G7 officials meet with finance ministers of China, Indonesia, South Korea and Russia for dinner on Saturday. The head of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, said on Friday fiscal stimulus could be an option for emerging Asian economies if global growth slows further but the main concern for now is to contain inflation. LESS HEAT ON FOREX? While focusing on fallout from the U.S. slowdown and market jitters, the G7 club is unlikely to single out foreign exchange rates this weekend. ""Exchange rates will be less important this time than discussions on the economic climate and responses to the crisis,"" the first G7 source, speaking to reporters in Tokyo, said. In October the finance ministers stressed the need for an accelerated appreciation of the Chinese yuan while repeating that excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates are undesirable for economic growth. Europeans are concerned about the euro's rise after the Fed's big rate cuts and resist the idea that the euro alone is shouldering the burden of adjustments in global imbalances. Europe's largest business organisation called on G7 finance leaders' to show a clear commitment against further euro appreciation. ""Compared to the outcome of the G7 last October, when they addressed only China -- it is not only China which is a problem. Others are also a problem,"" Philippe de Buck, BusinessEurope secretary-general, told Reuters in an interview.",0
"Working together, local people pulled out trash and invasive species, replanted native plants and restored the pond's natural water flow. ""We thought we will just clean the pond that my aunt, an artist, loved gazing at and sketching,"" said Sharada Kerkar, a 28-year-old member of citizen's group CatcH2o. ""It was meant to be a very small initiative that some of us friends were doing but it has grown into something bigger. We have done five ponds now and keep getting calls to do others."" CatcH2o's successes has come just ahead of the harsh Indian summer which, as climate change strengthens, is increasingly associated with parched cities and a worsening drinking water crisis across the country. A government think-tank report in 2018, when India suffered what was called the worst water crisis in its history, predicted that at least 40% of India's 1.3 billion population will have no reliable access to drinking water by 2030. Changing that will likely require not just government efforts to shore up water security but community ones, conceived and carried out by residents, climate adaptation experts say. The transformation of Goa's village ponds coincided with a new plan by the western state's wetland authority to encourage people to protect their own ecosystems. Launched in February, the Shram Shakti se Jal Samrudhi (water security through hard work) programme for the first time allots funding for people to carry out projects they develop, as well as to join up the work of different government agencies. ""The idea is to preserve, revive and restore water bodies,"" said Pradip Sarmokadam of the Goa State Biodiversity Board. ""We will provide the technical assistance, but want people to own these water bodies."" GENERATING JOBS In southern Tamil Nadu state, more than 1,000 women from 21 villages in Vellore district four years ago cooperated to build rainwater harvesting structures to boost the lagging flow of the nearby Naganadhi River. Those structures include recharge wells, which trap rainwater runoff, including from roofs and roads to help boost the water table, and check dams, which slow down water flow on rivers or streams. ""When we first heard the idea, we scoffed,"" said Vidya Bhaskaran, one of the women from Salamanatham village who worked on the recharge wells. ""We were dependent on borewells, which were giving us muddy water only and thought it was impossible to find water again. But I am glad we were eventually convinced and worked on it."" Today Chandrasekaran Kuppan, the man behind efforts to rejuvenate the Naganadhi, is now collaborating with district officials to take his model to 300 more villages, training 20,000 women in the process. In a rare collaboration, the government pays the women via its rural employment guarantee scheme, while the humanitarian Art of Living Foundation bankrolls technical studies and Kuppan's charity oversees much of the execution. ""The idea is simple,"" Kuppan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. ""When people in my village first mentioned the water crisis to me, I sat down with them to understand what could be done to resolve it."" The answer was to combine the traditional knowledge of villagers with technical advice from geologists, Kuppan said. Such efforts to consult with and source solutions from local people is seen as key to ensuring the success of work to build resilience to climate threats. In Goa, CatcH2o achieved its successes with similar efforts to combine skills and knowledge. After getting technical experts on board, local people recruited migrant workers stranded at home during lockdown to provide labour to revive the pond in Saligao. With plenty of labourers - who were paid the minimum wage - the group managed to avoid using heavy machinery, which could have damaged the pond's ecology. ""The results are there to see,"" Kuppan said. ""The dry villages have good groundwater now, the idea to work with communities is being used across the state and in the process employment is being generated."" ONLY WAY OUT In recent years, many city residents also have come together to clean lakes, better harvest rainwater and increase water storage capacity at home. But tens of thousands are still dependent on deliveries by water tanker trucks, paying for each litre of clean water they need. Many areas in Goa, including tourism spots, struggle with providing drinking water, with chief minister Pramod Sawant telling reporters last month that the state faced a shortage of 76 millions litres a day. ""Traditionally Goans have not had any water storage mechanisms, given the great rainfall in the state and open wells,"" Sarmokadam said. ""But things have changed and therefore fresh efforts are needed."" Bhaskaran, who helped revive water supplies in Salamanatham, couldn't agree more. ""Making recharge wells was hard work but we sang songs, chatted and got it done,"" said Bhaskaran. ""Now we have drinking water available all 24 hours rushing out of taps in every home. And we have set an example for others.""",0
"More children are in hospital with breathing problems as pollution levels remain dangerously high in New Delhi, doctors warned on Wednesday, and the government shut five power stations and extended school closures to try to contain the crisis. The city of 20 million was the world's most polluted capital for the third straight year in 2020, according to IQAir, a Swiss group, and air quality has hit hazardous levels there and in other parts of northern India this month. On some cloudless mornings the sun struggles to break through the smog, and landmarks just a few hundred metres away are barely visible. Hospitals are seeing a sharp increase in the number of children with respiratory complaints, raising concern among parents and doctors about their health in the short and long term. Numbers have jumped threefold in the past seven to 10 days, according to Arvind Bountra, head of paediatrics at Max Super Speciality Hospital. ""This is directly linked to high levels of pollution that the city of Delhi and NCR are witnessing..."" Bountra said, referring to the National Capital Region that includes Delhi's satellite cities. Extended exposure to pollutants, including lead, could lead to more severe complications. ""There is some study that shows that the cognitive functions of the brain (among kids) are also affected by these very small particles,"" Bountra added. On most days, the Air Quality Index (AQI) has stayed above 451 on a scale of 500, indicating ""very poor"" and ""severe"" conditions that affect even healthy people and seriously impact those with existing diseases, according to the federal pollution control board's guidance. The AQI measures the concentration of poisonous particulate matter PM2.5 in a cubic metre of air. The government prescribes a ""safe"" PM2.5 reading at 60 micrograms per cubic meter of air over a period of 24 hours. TRUCKS STOPPED, CONSTRUCTION HALTED India's Supreme Court has rapped the government over its failure to mitigate pollution for residents who endure toxic air almost every winter when temperatures and wind speed drop and pollutants get trapped in thick smog. The country's top court also asked the Commission for Air Quality Management, a panel under the federal Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, to come up with measures to cut pollution. After the Court's intervention, the Commission on Wednesday shut down five coal-fired power plants around New Delhi, banned trucks carrying non-essential goods and stopped construction in the capital and its satellite cities. The panel also indefinitely extended the closure of schools, after the Delhi government ordered them to shut for a week last Saturday. At least half of government employees should work from home until Nov. 21, it added. November usually brings worsening pollution, with a surge in the concentration of tiny airborne particles, partly because farmers burn crop waste ahead of a new sowing season. India's efforts to reduce the burning of crop waste, a major source of air pollution during winter, have had little benefit, despite spending billions of rupees over the past four years.",0
" Singapore opened a new 'green' airport terminal on Wednesday, boasting energy-saving skylights, a butterfly garden and over 200 species of foliage spread over enough floor space to cover 50 soccer fields. The S$1.75 billion ($1.22 billion) terminal at state-owned Changi Airport received its first passengers, who landed on a Singapore Airlines flight from San Francisco amidst a high-powered welcoming committee including government ministers. The new terminal, Singapore's third, boosts Changi's total passenger capacity by around 45 percent to 70 million, as airports throughout Asia expand to gear up for predictions of strong growth in regional travel. Among the 28 aerobridge gates in the terminal are eight that are specially designed to handle the new Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, the first of which is being flown by Singapore Airlines. But booming air travel is seen by environmentalists as bad news for greenhouse emissions, with aviation likely to be a controversial topic in discussions run by the United Nations to choose a pact to follow the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The terminal is designed to run on lower energy costs compared to the older terminals, mainly via natural lighting from the 919 skylights and by positioning air-conditioners nearer to floor-level. ""The cost to run the terminal should be lower. But it's still too early to project what the cost-savings will be,"" said a spokesman from the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, which manages the airport. The terminal has a striking five-storey high wall of hanging plants, a butterfly garden and koi ponds dotted amid its gleaming 380,000 square metres (4 million sq ft). But for Australian traveller Dawn Massey, 51, transiting with her husband on a flight back to Perth from the United Kingdom, the green features were barely noticeable. ""That's not something very important to us,"" said Massey, adding that she was more impressed with the new terminal's cleanliness and orderly signs. ""It's very reflective of Singapore actually,"" she said. The city-state has long cultivated a reputation as a ""garden city"" and is also well-known for the cleanliness of its streets, where chewing gum is banned and littering draws heavy fines. Singapore is competing against Hong Kong and Bangkok to be the region's top aviation hub.",0
"While the United States is the largest financial contributor to the UN budget, President Donald Trump has questioned the value of multilateralism as he focuses on an ""America First"" policy and touts the protection of US sovereignty. Trump's first UN envoy, Nikki Haley, stepped down at the end of 2018, and was replaced just last week by Kelly Craft, whose foreign policy experience pales in comparison to that of her veto-wielding Security Council counterparts from Russia, China, France and Britain. ""China is taking advantage in the UN of the relative antagonistic, critical attitude of the USA towards the UN itself, and is occupying spaces and projecting influence much more than before,"" said a senior European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. During the high-level UN gathering next week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the United States would seek support in calling out China's detention policy in remote Xinjiang, where the United Nations says at least 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained. Pompeo in July called China's treatment of Uighurs the ""stain of the century,"" saying at an international conference in Washington that China was ""home to one of the worst human rights crises of our time."" A senior US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House was considering whether Trump might mention China's treatment of the Uighurs and possibly its broader human rights record in his speech to the 193-member UN General Assembly next Tuesday. The White House said Trump would host a “Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom” at the United Nations on Monday, the day before his address to the General Assembly, and would be introduced by Vice President Mike Pence. “The President will call on the international community to take concrete steps to prevent attacks against people on the basis of their religion or beliefs and to ensure the sanctity of houses of worship and all public spaces for all faiths,” White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham in a statement on Tuesday. HINGES ON TRADE Beijing describes the complexes in Xinjiang as ""vocational training centers"" helping to stamp out extremism and give people new skills. But China is worried about public criticism and has met with some foreign envoys ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York and a session of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, according to four Beijing-based diplomats. ""With Hong Kong as well, these are not topics China wants called attention to ahead of the 70th anniversary,"" one of the diplomats said, referring to the massive military parade President Xi Jinping will oversee in Beijing on Oct 1 marking seven decades of the People's Republic of China. Months of sometimes violent demonstrations show no sign of letting up in Hong Kong where protesters are angry about what they see as creeping interference by Beijing in their city's affairs despite a promise of autonomy. There was no indication, however, that tougher talk at the gathering would translate into concrete action on the issue against Beijing. The senior US administration official said Pompeo and Pence could also address China's treatment of the Uighurs at events on the sidelines of the UN gathering, but a final decision on any US remarks ""is expected to hinge on how the trade issue is going."" China and the United States are set to resume trade talks in October, but most analysts do not expect a durable trade deal, or even a significant de-escalation, any time soon. In unusually blunt remarks, China's UN ambassador, Zhang Jun, told reporters last month - during his first week on the job - that while Beijing was willing to cooperate with other UN member states, China would never allow interference in the country's ""internal affairs, especially on issues related to Xinjiang, Tibet and to Hong Kong."" Last week, China condemned a US bill that calls on the US government to exert more pressure on China over Xinjiang-related issues. The bill is a ""flagrant interference in China's internal affairs, and will only make the Chinese people more indignant,"" the Foreign Ministry said. ACTIVE CHINA Some UN diplomats said China has been working to spread and formalize President Xi Jinping's political thought. ""Xi Jinping-thought attempts to rewrite the rules of multilateralism,"" said a senior European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. ""We may disagree with them ... but 'Xi Jinping' is a clear concept, which they promote and get into resolutions."" An example is that for the past three years a Security Council resolution to renew the mandate for the UN political mission in Afghanistan included a reference to China's Belt and Road initiative, a massive plan to recreate the old Silk Road. But the United States and other members said this year they could no longer accept that language. A senior Asian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States had made it easy for China to show leadership at the United Nations. ""For example, the US has been largely absent from discussions at the UN on sustainable development, climate change and financing for development,"" the diplomat said. ""This gives China and other countries the opportunity to show support for these important issues and also showcase their own contributions, like the Belt and Road Initiative."" A US defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said there was concern about growing Chinese influence in international organizations as the United States has pulled back in some ways, but called it a ""slow-moving train."" Former UN political affairs chief and veteran US diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution, argued that the United Nations had become more of a competitive rather than cooperative environment. ""It's not realistic to think that the United States is going to be able to single-handedly lead these organizations the same way that they could after 1989,"" he said, referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union. ""If the US leaves a vacuum in the leadership of the UN, others will fill it. China is doing a very good job of increasing its influence.""",0
"At the time, the slow mutation rate struck one young scientist as odd. “That really made my ears perk up,” said Alina Chan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Chan wondered whether the new virus was somehow “pre-adapted” to thrive in humans, before the outbreak even started. “By the time the SARS-CoV-2 virus was detected in Wuhan in late 2019, it looked like it had already picked up the mutations it needed to be very good at spreading among humans,” Chan said. “It was already good to go.” The hypothesis, widely disputed by other scientists, was the foundation for an explosive paper posted online in May 2020, in which Chan and her colleagues questioned the prevailing consensus that the lethal virus had naturally spilled over to humans from bats through an intermediary host animal. The question she helped put on the table has not gone away. In late May, President Joe Biden, dissatisfied by an equivocal report he had received on the subject, asked US intelligence services to dig deeper into the origins question. The new report is due any day now. In last year’s paper, Chan and her colleagues speculated that perhaps the virus had crossed over into humans and been circulating undetected for months while accumulating mutations. Perhaps, they said, the virus was already well adapted to humans while in bats or some other animal. Or maybe it adapted to humans while being studied in a lab, and had accidentally leaked out. Chan soon found herself in the middle of a maelstrom. An article in The Mail On Sunday, a British tabloid, ran with the headline: “Coronavirus did NOT come from animals in the Wuhan market.” Many senior virus experts criticised her work and dismissed it out of hand, saying she did not have the expertise to speak on the subject, that she was maligning their specialty and that her statements would alienate China, hampering any future investigations. Some called her a conspiracy theorist. Others dismissed her ideas because she is a postdoctoral fellow, a junior scientist. One virus expert, Benjamin Neuman, called her hypothesis “goofy.” A Chinese news outlet accused her of “filthy behaviour and a lack of basic academic ethics,” and readers piled on that she was a “race-traitor,” because of her Chinese ancestry. “There were days and weeks when I was extremely afraid, and many days I didn’t sleep,” Chan, 32, said recently at an outdoor cafe, not far from the Broad Institute. Chan’s story is a reflection of how deeply polarising questions about the origins of the virus have become. The vast majority of scientists think it originated in bats, and was transmitted to humans through an intermediate host animal, though none has been identified. Some of them believe that a lab accident, specifically at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, cannot be discounted and has not been adequately investigated. And a few think that the institute’s research, which involved harvesting bats and bat coronaviruses from the wild, may have played a role. It is an acrid debate. In May, 18 scientists, including Chan, published a letter calling for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. In July, a group of 21 virus experts — including one who had signed the May letter — posted a paper compiling the evidence for an animal source, saying there was “no evidence” of a laboratory origin. Scientists on all sides say they have been threatened with violence and have faced name-calling for their positions. The attacks were so fierce that Chan worried for her personal safety and started taking new precautions, wondering if she was being followed and varying her daily routines. The backlash made her fear that she had put her professional future in jeopardy, and she wrote a letter to her boss, in which she apologised and offered her resignation. “I thought I had committed career suicide, not just for me but for the whole group that wrote the paper,” Chan said. “I thought I had done a huge disservice to everybody, getting us mired in this controversy.” But Chan’s boss, Benjamin E Deverman, who was a co-author on the paper, refused to accept her resignation, saying only that they had been naive not to anticipate the heated reaction. Chan’s role has been so contentious that many scientists declined to discuss her at all. One of the few virus experts who was willing to comment flatly dismissed the possibility of a lab leak. “I believe there is no way the virus was genetically modified or person-made,” said Susan Weiss, co-director of the Penn Centre for Research on Coronaviruses and Other Emerging Pathogens at University of Pennsylvania, who also dismissed the possibility that the virus may have accidentally escaped the lab. “It is clearly zoonotic, from bats.” Others said Chan was brave to put alternative hypotheses on the table. “Alina Chan deserves the credit for challenging the conventional narrative and asking this question,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. “It is not easy for a junior scientist to openly challenge an established narrative.” (Iwasaki also credited a loose group of internet sleuths who go by the acronym DRASTIC.) “The degree to which the origin question became so inflammatory and polarised is mind-boggling,” Iwasaki said. “The fact is, we don’t know exactly where the virus came from, period. It was important to point that out.” As she sipped unsweetened ice tea and chatted about her ideas recently, Chan seemed an unlikely provocateur. She insisted that she was still on the fence about the virus’s origins, torn “50-50” between the natural route and lab accident hypotheses. No scientific journal ever published her paper. Determined to draw the attention to what she considered a critical question that had to be answered in order to prevent a future pandemic, Chan took to Twitter, mastering the art of tutorial threads and gathering followers. She is now in “worse shape” than before, Chan said: “Now I’m getting attacked from both sides. The scientists are still attacking me, and the lab leak proponents are attacking me, too, because I won’t go all the way and say it’s from a lab. I keep telling them I can’t, because there is no evidence.” Critics say Chan bears some responsibility for the backlash. Early last year on Twitter, she appeared to accuse scientists and editors “who are directly or indirectly covering up severe research integrity issues surrounding the key SARS-2-like viruses to stop and think,” adding, “If your actions obscure SARS2 origins, you’re playing a hand in the death of millions of people.” (She subsequently deleted the tweet.) Lab-leak proponents — who have called her “an apologist” for virus experts — have also been irked by the fact that Chan received so much credit for putting the question on the public agenda. Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology said in early 2020 that they had found a virus in their database whose genome sequence was 96.2% similar to that of SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus. But it was internet sleuths and scientists who discovered that the virus matched one harvested in a cave linked to a pneumonia outbreak in 2012 that killed three miners — and that the Wuhan lab’s genomic database of bat coronaviruses was taken offline in late 2019.  Chan also landed a deal with Harper Collins, for an undisclosed amount, to co-author a book with Matt Ridley, a bestselling but controversial science writer who has been criticised for downplaying the seriousness of climate change. She denies accusations that she is writing the book for financial gain, saying she simply wants a complete record of the facts that will last longer than a Twitter feed. She plans to donate the proceeds to a COVID-related charity. “I don’t need money and frills,” she said. Chan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but her parents returned to their native Singapore when she was an infant. She was a teen when the SARS epidemic hit there. “People were dying of SARS, and it was nonstop on TV,” she recalled. “I was 15, and it really stuck with me. There were pictures of body bags in hospital hallways.” “When COVID started, many people in Boston thought it was no big deal, that flu is worse,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘This is serious business.’ ” She returned to Canada after high school, studying biochemistry and molecular biology at University of British Columbia, and completing a Ph D in medical genetics. By age 25, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, and then she took a position working for Deverman, who is the director of the vector engineering research group at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Chan is “insightful, incredibly determined and apparently fearless,” Deverman said, and she has an uncanny ability “to synthesise large amounts of complex information, distill all of the details down to the most critical points and then communicate them in easy to understand language.” A self-described workaholic, Chan married a fellow scientist during a break at an academic research conference a few years ago. “We took the morning off and went to city hall and came back to the conference, and my boss asked, ‘Where were you?’ ” she said. “I was like, ‘I got married.’ I don’t even have a ring. My mother is horrified.” She remains equivocal about the origins of the virus. “I’m leaning toward the lab leak theory now, but there are also days when I seriously consider that it could be from nature,” she said. “On those days, I feel mostly really, really sorry for the scientists who are implicated as possible sources for the virus,” she said. Referring to Shi Zhengli, the top Chinese virus expert who leads the research on emerging infectious diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chan said, “I feel really sad for her situation. The stakes could not be higher.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
" Fall air temperatures have climbed to record levels in the Arctic due to major losses of sea ice as the region suffers more effects from a warming trend dating back decades, a report released on Thursday showed. The annual report issued by researchers at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other experts is the latest to paint a dire picture of the impact of climate change in the Arctic. It found that fall air temperatures are at a record 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees C) above normal in the Arctic because of the major loss of sea ice in recent years that allows more solar heating of the ocean. That warming of the air and ocean impacts land and marine life and cuts the amount of winter sea ice that lasts into the following summer, according to the report. In addition, wild reindeer and caribou herds appear to be declining in numbers, according to the report. The report also noted melting of surface ice in Greenland. ""Changes in the Arctic show a domino effect from multiple causes more clearly than in other regions,"" James Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle one of the authors of the report, said in a statement. ""It's a sensitive system and often reflects changes in relatively fast and dramatic ways."" Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, part of the University of Colorado, reported last month that Arctic sea ice melted to its second-lowest level this summer. The 2008 season, those researchers said, strongly reinforces a 30-year downward trend in Arctic ice extent -- 34 percent below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000, but 9 percent above the record low set in 2007. Last year was the warmest on record in the Arctic, continuing a regionwide warming trend dating to the mid-1960s. Most experts blame climate change on human activities spewing so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.",0
" US President Barack Obama is unlikely to sign climate legislation ahead of a UN global warming meeting in Copenhagen that starts in early December, the White House's top climate and energy coordinator said on Friday. ""We'd like to be (finished with) the process. That's not going to happen,"" Carol Browner said at a conference called the First Draft of History. She said the administration is committed to passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation ""on the most aggressive timeline possible."" Democratic Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer unveiled a climate bill this week but it remained unclear whether it would win the required 60 Senate votes for passage. Even if the bill does pass, the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives would have to reconcile their versions of the bill in committee. That would leave little time for Obama, who has made climate one of his top issues, to sign the bill before 190 nations are due to meet in Copenhagen from early December in hopes of hammering out a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. The U.S. Congress has been focused on health care legislation, delaying work on the Kerry-Boxer bill. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters later on Friday that Obama would consider attending the climate talks in the Danish capital if heads of state were invited. Browner said she did not know if a global agreement on binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions could be made in Copenhagen. But she had hope for progress saying the world's top leaders recognize global warming is a problem. ""Copenhagen isn't the end of a process, it is the beginning of a process,"" she said. The administration has been pleased with recent talks with China, the world's top greenhouse gas polluter, on tackling climate change, she added. STATES Browner expressed optimism Congress would pass the bill in due time but said the administration has options if that did not happen. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could work with states that already have formed carbon markets to extend those programs, said Browner, former head of that agency. ""That may be a way in which you could form a regime using these models that are already out there,"" she said. Ten eastern U.S. states have formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. In addition, California and several other states in the West plan to regulate six greenhouse gases from smokestacks and tailpipes beginning in 2012.",1
" Links between the sun's magnetic pulse and Earth's climatic systems point to heavy rainfall later this year and in 2008, which could break Australia's worst drought in 100 years, new scientific research says. The theory, which has been submitted for publication in the journal Solar Terrestrial Physics, is based on correlations between Australian rainfall and 11-year peaks in the sun's magnetic emissions, and switches in the sun's poles, which also occur every 11 years. The last flip occurred in 2001. ""The sun is now in a similar position in terms of its magnetic field as it was in the 1920s,"" Associated Professor Robert Baker of the University of New England said. Eastern Australia this year and next is seen following a similar path to the particularly wet years of 1924 and 1925. ""If it keeps tracking...we would therefore expect average and above rainfall for eastern Australia,"" Baker said. ""The sunspots are starting to increase again and as it increases over the year historically that's been a time of above average rainfall,"" he said. According to Baker's theory, 2009 would be the next period of potential drought in Australia. Baker produced his theory from work on physical models of sunspot behavior, which showed correlations between sunspot minimums and eastern Australian droughts over the last 100 years. ""It just went from there... It's just asking good questions."" Baker says that weather effects of changes in the sun are additional to the impact of ""flavor of the month"" climate change from greenhouse gases. The theory opens the way for better predictions of droughts and floods, Baker said. After the present cycle of increased sunspot activity, the following cycle will be dominated by the lowest activity from sunspots and magnetic activity in 100 years. This raised the possibility of widespread drought again, in the 2020s. ""The last time that happened was the Federation Drought of around 1900,"" Baker said. The link between sunspots, solar magnetic activity and increased rain occurs through interaction by solar activity with Earth's atmosphere to increase cloud formation. In following established patterns of pulses in the sun, the theory is hoped to lead to increased forecasting certainty and management of water resources.",0
"In one of the strongest criticisms of the COP26 draft deal, Yadav said developing nations had the right to use the remainder of the so-called global ""carbon budget"", or the amount of carbon dioxide the world can release before warming crosses the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold. ""Mr President thank you for your efforts to build consensus,"" he told Britain's COP26 president, Alok Sharma, at a so-called stocktaking plenary. ""I am afraid, however, the consensus remained elusive. ""In such a situation, how can anyone expect that developing countries can make promises about phasing out coal and fossil fuel subsidies when developing counties have still to deal with their development agendas and poverty eradication?"" The issue of subsidies for oil, gas and coal has become a major sticking point at the summit, where negotiators have already missed a Friday deadline to strike an agreement aimed at keeping alive a goal to limit global warming to 1.5C. Earlier, a new draft of the agreement negotiated over the past two weeks called upon countries to accelerate ""efforts towards the phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies"". On Friday, two sources close to the negotiations said China and Saudi Arabia were among a group of countries seeking to prevent the deal in Scotland from including language that opposes fossil fuel subsidies. Yadav also criticised what he described as ""lack of balance"" in the agreement, an argument developing countries have made before when pushing for more money to better adapt their countries to deal with the effects of climate change.",1
" A new plan to curb global warming risks becoming a battleground between rich and poor nations and could struggle to get off the ground as negotiators battle over the fate of the ailing Kyoto climate pact. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol covers only emissions from rich nations that produce less than a third of mankind's carbon pollution and its first phase is due to expire end-2012. Poorer nations want it extended, while many rich countries say a broader pact is needed to include all big polluters. Australia and Norway have proposed negotiations on a new agreement, but say it is unrealistic to expect that to be ready by 2013. They have set a target date two years later, in 2015. ""This is the only way ahead. There is no other way than failure,"" said a senior climate negotiator from a developed country on the Australia-Norway proposal, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the talks. Developing nations insist Kyoto be extended to commit rich countries to tougher carbon cuts and fiercely resist any attempts to side-line the world's main climate pact, meaning the Australia-Norway plan faces a tough time . Failure to agree on a new climate deal could lead to nations committing only to voluntary steps that are unlikely to put the brakes on climate change, risking more extreme droughts, floods, storms and crop failures. It would also weaken efforts to put in place tough policies to promote cleaner fuels and green energy. Graphic on world's top CO2 polluters, click link.reuters.com/myh24s The proposal calls on major economies to quickly strengthen steps to curb emissions, agree on a way to standardise actions and a system to compare and verify what everyone else is doing. Marathon UN-led climate talks failed to meet a 2009 deadline to agree a new pact to start in 2013 and a major conference in Durban, South Africa, in two months is under pressure to launch a process to negotiate a new treaty. WILD WEATHER As negotiators haggle, data show the world is heating up, as emissions, particularly from big developing nations, keep growing from burning more coal, oil and gas. Scientists say floods similar to those that left millions homeless in Pakistan last year and ravaged parts of Australia, could become more common, along with more intense Atlantic hurricanes and wildfires. The United States has already tied its yearly record for billion-dollar weather disasters and the cumulative tab from floods, tornadoes and heat waves this year has hit $35 billion, the National Weather Service said in mid-August. That doesn't include billions in losses and disaster relief from Hurricane Irene , which struck in late August. All this throws the spotlight on emissions curbs by the world's major economies and the fact that these are not enough. When Kyoto was agreed, emissions from poorer nations were much smaller. Now they dwarf those of rich countries. At the least, the talks need to restore faith that countries can do more to fight global warming. ""We need to push away from this annual cycle of what are we going to achieve into a more realistic timeline of when can we achieve a new agreement. My sense is that none of the negotiators disagree with that. It's obvious,"" said the senior delegate. The Australia-Norway proposal will be a focus of UN-led climate talks in Panama this week, the last round before the conference in Durban. ""RECIPE FOR INACTION"" The EU said it broadly supported the submission. ""It tries to take forward the international climate negotiations into the next years, seeing how we can build a broader climate regime,"" Artur Runge-Metzger, the EU's chief climate negotiator, told Reuters. ""We think that this seems to be a workable timeline."" He said it was crucial the Durban meeting agrees on building a new climate framework for all countries, referring particularly to the United States and major developing economies. China produces about a quarter of mankind's greenhouse gas pollution and is the top global emitter. While the government is taking steps such as promoting energy efficiency and vehicle fuel standards, these are voluntary. The proposal will prove divisive for poorer countries. None more so than nations most vulnerable to climate change, such as low-lying islands that face ever rising sea levels, flooding and shrinking fresh water supplies. They want faster action by big polluters and feel Kyoto is the way to go. ""It basically delays real action to address climate change and vulnerable countries aren't going to like it,"" said Ian Fry, lead climate negotiator for the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, told Reuters, adding: ""It's a gift to the United States."" India, the world's third largest carbon polluter, has also dug in its heels over the proposal. ""Such a plan takes the focus away from Kyoto and redraws negotiating paradigms. Why should the developing countries agree?"" said an Indian official with knowledge of the global negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The United States, the world's second-biggest polluter, never ratified Kyoto, saying the pact is flawed because it doesn't commit big developing economies to meet legally binding emissions curbs. The proposal could however benefit investors in cleaner power generation, carbon-offset projects and greener buildings. ""Anything which moves the world towards more unified action increases the confidence level of investors,"" said Geoff Rousel, global head of commodities, carbon and energy for Westpac Institutional Bank in Sydney. ""Therefore, if this plan was to be accepted, you'd be more likely to see more confidence in capital expenditure in energy efficiency and emissions abatement,"" he said. The United States remains cautious. ""A legal agreement has to apply with equal legal force to at least the major developing countries so that means China, India, Brazil and so forth,"" said chief US climate envoy Todd Stern in recent remarks to the media. And that meant no ""escape hatches"" or conditions on meeting those commitments, he said.",0
"Kuwait will also require incoming travellers
to quarantine at home for 10 days unless they receive a negative PCR test for
the coronavirus within 72 hours of their arrival.",1
"Sadly, I was right. And as I also warned at the time, Obama didn’t get a second chance; the perceived failure of his economic policy, which mitigated the slump but didn’t decisively end it, closed off the possibility of further major action. The good news — and it’s really, really good news — is that Democrats seem to have learned their lesson. Joe Biden may not look like the second coming of FDR; Chuck Schumer, presiding over a razor-thin majority in the Senate, looks even less like a transformational figure, yet all indications are that together they’re about to push through an economic rescue plan that, unlike the Obama stimulus, truly rises to the occasion. In fact, the plan is aggressive enough that some Democratic-leaning economists worry that it will be too big, risking inflation. However, I’ve argued at length that they’re wrong — or, more precisely, that, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says, the risks of doing too little outweigh any risk of overheating the economy. In fact, a plan that wasn’t big enough to raise some concerns about overheating would have been too small. But how did Democrats get so bold? The answer is that they’ve learned some important things about both economics and politics since 2009. On the economic side, Democrats have finally stopped believing in the debt boogeyman and the confidence fairy, who will make everything better if you slash spending. There was a time when many Democrats — including Obama — accepted the proposition that public debt was a huge problem. They even took seriously warnings from people like Rep Paul Ryan that debt was an “existential threat.” But predictions of an imminent fiscal catastrophe kept being proved wrong, and at this point mainstream economists have become much more relaxed about debt than they were in the past. Some Democrats also used to worry that big spending programmes would hurt the economy by undermining business and investor confidence and conversely that caution would be rewarded with higher private investment. But this doctrine has also been belied by experience; austerity doesn’t instil confidence, it just imposes pain. But if Democrats have learned a lot about economic reality since 2009, they’ve learned more about political reality. Obama came into office sincerely believing that he could reach across the aisle, that Republicans would help him deal with the economic crisis. Despite the reality of scorched-earth opposition, he continued to seek a “grand bargain” on debt. He regarded the rise of the Tea Party as a “fever” that would break in his second term. He was, in short, deeply naive. Many progressives worried that President Joe Biden, who had served in the Senate in a less polarised era, who talks a lot about unity, would repeat Obama’s mistakes. But so far he and his congressional allies seem ready to go big, even if that means doing without Republican votes. One thing that may be encouraging Democrats, by the way, is the fact that Biden’s policies actually are unifying, if you look at public opinion rather than the actions of politicians. Biden’s COIVD-19 relief plan commands overwhelming public approval — far higher than approval for Obama’s 2009 stimulus. If, as seems likely, not a single Republican in Congress votes for the plan, that’s evidence of GOP extremism, not failure on Biden’s part to reach out. Beyond that, Biden and company appear to have learned that caution coming out of the gate doesn’t store up political capital to do more things later. Instead, an administration that fails to deliver tangible benefits to voters in its first few months has squandered its advantage and won’t get a do-over. Going big on COVID relief now offers the best hope of taking on infrastructure, climate change and more later. Oh, and Democrats finally seem to have learned that voters aren’t interested in process. Very few Americans know that the Trump tax cut was rammed through on a party-line vote using reconciliation, the same manoeuvre Democrats are now pursuing, and almost nobody cares. Finally, I suspect that Democrats realise that getting policy right is even more important in 2021 than it was in 2009 — and not just because of the economics. When much of the opposition party won’t acknowledge election results, condones insurrection and welcomes conspiracy theorists into its ranks, you really don’t want to pursue policies that might fall short and thereby empower that party in the years ahead. Put it this way: Debt isn’t and never was an existential threat to our nation’s future. The real existential threat is an illiberal GOP that looks more like Europe’s far-right extremists than a normal political party. Weakening policy in ways that might help that party’s prospects is a terrible idea — and I think Democrats realize that. So this time Democrats are ready to seize the day. Let’s hope it will be enough.   c.2021 The New York Times Company",1
"Or a chicken, or a salmon fillet, or any of a few hundred items that are hours from their midnight expiration date. Food that is nearly unsellable goes on sale at every one of S-market’s 900 stores in Finland, with prices that are already reduced by 30 percent slashed to 60percent off at exactly 9pm. It’s part of a two-year campaign to reduce food waste that company executives in this famously bibulous country decided to call “happy hour” in the hopes of drawing in regulars, like any decent bar. “I’ve gotten quite hooked on this,” said Kasimir Karkkainen, 27, who works in a hardware store, as he browsed the meat section in the Vallila S-market. It was 9:15 and he had grabbed a container of pork miniribs and 2 pounds of shrink-wrapped pork tenderloin. Total cost after the price drop: the equivalent of $4.63. About one-third of the food produced and packaged for human consumption is lost or wasted, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. That equals 1.3 billion tons a year, worth nearly $680 billion. The figures represent more than just a disastrous misallocation of need and want, given that 10 percent of people in the world are chronically undernourished. All that excess food, scientists say, contributes to climate change. From 8 to 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are related to food lost during harvest and production or wasted by consumers, a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found. Landfills of rotting food emit methane, a gas that is roughly 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide. And to harvest and transport all that wasted food requires billions of acres of arable land, trillions of gallons of water and vast amounts of fossil fuels. For consumers, cutting back on food waste is one of the few personal habits that can help the planet. But for some reason, a lot of people who fret about their carbon footprint aren’t sweating the vegetables and rump steak they toss into the garbage. “There’s been a lot of focus on energy,” said Paul Behrens, a professor in energy and environmental change at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. “But climate change is as much a land issue and a food issue as anything else.” Reducing waste is a challenge because selling as much food as possible is a tried, tested and ingrained part of all-you-can-eat cultures. Persuading merchants to promote and profit from “food rescue,” as it is known, is not so obvious. 
 
 Shoppers can choose from a variety of marked-down food items at the S-market in the Vallila neighbourhood in Helsinki, Aug. 22, 2019. Food that is nearly unsellable goes on sale at every one of S-market’s 900 stores in Finland, with prices that are already reduced by 30 percent slashed to 60 percent off at exactly 9pm as part of a two-year campaign to reduce food waste. 

“Consumers are paying for the food, and who wants to reduce that?” said Toine Timmermans, director of the United Against Food Waste Foundation, a nonprofit in the Netherlands composed of companies and research institutes. “Who profits from reducing food waste?”  Shoppers can choose from a variety of marked-down food items at the S-market in the Vallila neighbourhood in Helsinki, Aug. 22, 2019. Food that is nearly unsellable goes on sale at every one of S-market’s 900 stores in Finland, with prices that are already reduced by 30 percent slashed to 60 percent off at exactly 9pm as part of a two-year campaign to reduce food waste.  A growing number of supermarkets, restaurants and startups — many based in Europe — are trying to answer that question. The United States is another matter. “Food waste might be a uniquely American challenge because many people in this country equate quantity with a bargain,” said Meredith Niles, an assistant professor in food systems and policy at the University of Vermont. “Look at the number of restaurants that advertise their supersised portions.” Nine of the 10 USsupermarket chains that were assessed by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity last year were given a C grade or lower on food waste issues. Only Wal-Mart did better, largely for its efforts to standardise date labels and to educate staffers and customers. Some of the most promising food waste efforts are apps that connect food sellers to food buyers. Think Tinder, except one party in this hookup is a person and the other is an aging loaf of bread. Among the most popular is Too Good to Go, a company based in Copenhagen, with 13 million users and contracts with 25,000 restaurants and bakeries in 11 countries. Consumers pay about one-third of the sticker price for items, most of which goes to the retailer, with a small percentage paid to the app. In Denmark, food rescue has attained the scale and momentum of a cultural movement, one with its own intellectual godmother: Selina Juul, a graphic designer who immigrated from Russia at the age of 13. “I came from a country where there was a fear that we wouldn’t have food on the table tomorrow, where there were food shortages,” she said in a phone interview. “When we emigrated, I had never seen so much food. I was shocked. Then I was shocked again when I saw how much food people wasted.” In 2008, at the age of 28, she started a Facebook group called Stop Wasting Food. Within weeks, she was being interviewed on the radio. Soon after that, she came to the attention of Anders Jensen, buying director at REMA 1000, the largest supermarket chain in Denmark. “I was on a business trip to Scotland and I read about Selina in a newspaper,” Jensen recalled. “Around that time, we learned that every Dane was throwing out 63 kilos of food per year” — about 139 pounds — “and I was sitting in this airport thinking, ‘she’s right.’” After the two met in a Copenhagen cafe, REMA 1000 eliminated in-store bulk discounts. As of 2008, there would be no more three hams for the price of two, or any variations on that theme. “It exploded in the media because it was the first time a retailer said, ‘It’s OK if we sell less,’” Jensen said. REMA 1000 and Juul recognise that there is a limit to how much one company can do to reduce waste. Consciousness-raising was necessary. So Juul has enlisted famous Danes to join her cause. She’s co-writing a book on cooking with leftovers with Princess Marie, who worked in advertising and marketing before marrying into the Danish royal family. Celebrity chefs, like Rene Redzepi, have spread the word. Mette Frederiksen, the current prime minister, even made it a campaign issue this year. In Finland, reducing food waste has yet to become a political issue, but it is a selling point for at least one restaurant. Every dish on the menu of Loop, which is housed in a former mental hospital in Helsinki, is made from past-due ingredients donated by grocery stores and bakeries. Donations vary, so Loop’s chefs have no idea what they’ll be making until they walk into the restaurant’s kitchen. “It’s like an episode of ‘Master Chef’ every day,” said Johanna Kohvakka, founder of the nonprofit From Waste to Taste, which operates Loop. “But we try to make every dish look great so that people can share images online and say, ‘This was about to be wasted.’” Kohvakka says Loop turns a profit and could serve as a model for similar ventures. Executives at S-market in Finland make no such claims about their happy hour. Mika Lyytikainen, an S-market vice president, explained that the program simply reduces its losses. “When we sell at 60 percent off, we don’t earn any money, but we earn more than if the food was given to charity,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s now possible for every Finn to buy very cheap food in our stores.” It’s not unusual to find groups of S-market shoppers milling around with soon-to-be-discounted items from the shelves and waiting for the clock to strike at 9. “I’ve done that,” Karkkainen said, as he headed for the exits with his pork miniribs. Other Finns, it seems, haven’t fully embraced S-market’s anti-waste ethos. Harri Hartikainen, 71, was shopping one evening in Vallila and considered a 60percent  off box of Kansas City-style grilled chicken wings. “I’ve never tried these before,” he said, dropping them into his shopping basket. “But it’s so cheap, if I don’t like it, I can just throw it out.” ©2019 The New York Times Company",0
"As a presidential candidate, he urged moderation, suggesting that the country was not as progressive as some Democratic rivals insisted. As vice president, he was the White House emissary dispatched to negotiate with unbending Republicans in Congress, at times with too little success and too willing capitulation in the eyes of liberals. And across his decades in the Senate, Biden tended to find his way to the centre of the fray — civil rights debates, judicial hearings, the crime bill, the Iraq War — priding himself on a reputation as the lawmaker most likely to befriend Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond in the same lifetime. “For the man who will see, time heals,” Biden said in a generous 2003 eulogy for Thurmond, the avowed South Carolina segregationist whom he saluted for moving to “the good side” eventually. “Time changes.” Now, as Biden prepares to assume the presidency in a divided Washington, he will confront the ultimate test of how much times have changed and how much he has. While Democrats have retained hope that two runoff elections in Georgia might deliver them narrow control of the Senate after all, Biden allies have begun preparing for the prospect that Republicans will rule the chamber. Even an optimistic scenario for him — a 50-50 Senate with Kamala Harris supplying tiebreaking votes as vice president — would place a Biden administration at the mercy of the most centrist Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. As a matter of policymaking, this is plainly a significant disappointment for the Biden team, instantly complicating the legislative path for priorities like health care and climate action and raising the chances that even Cabinet confirmations will require serious Republican cooperation. At the same time, it would be difficult to conjure a more consequential proving ground for the arguments Biden has made throughout his career: that compromise is good, that modest progress is still progress and that he is the man to help make it happen. “The vast majority of the 150 million Americans who voted — they want to get the vitriol out of our politics,” Biden said in a speech Friday night. “We’re certainly not going to agree on a lot of issues, but at least we can agree to be civil with one another. We have to put the anger and the demonization behind us.” Friends say the election results seem likely to reinforce Biden’s belief in his own style, if only because he sees no other course available. He recognises that the world has changed, they suggest; he is just less convinced that his worldview should. The realities of a Republican-led Senate might even lend Biden some cover with the left, delaying or at least dulling thorny intraparty tussles over contentious progressive proposals like Supreme Court expansion. “He won’t be so captive to a certain element in his own party,” said Chuck Hagel, who worked with Biden as Barack Obama’s defence secretary and as a Republican senator from Nebraska. “In a way I think that strengthens his hand for his style of governing and how he approaches governing. There’s no other option. He’s got to reach out and work with both parties.” 
 
 Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, gives an address in Wilmington, Del., on Friday, Nov. 6, 2020. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times) 

Some younger Democrats have accused Biden of clinging to a bygone — and, they say, forever gone — vision of collaborative government.  Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, gives an address in Wilmington, Del., on Friday, Nov. 6, 2020. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)  This was a week, after all, during which some Republican lawmakers indulged or even wholly embraced President Donald Trump’s baseless, dangerous claims of wide-scale election fraud. “Joe Biden will have defeated Donald Trump by millions of votes in a resounding victory,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, a group that helped elect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives to Congress. “And meanwhile, the Republican Party’s leadership is on television delegitimising the next four years.” Shahid urged Biden not to treat Republicans as good-faith governing partners. “We are just in a very different time now,” he said. But Biden has long held himself out as a figure with uncommon powers of persuasion, one determined to see the good in people and unencumbered by rigid ideology. He has often told audiences of advice he says he received early in his career from Mike Mansfield, the longtime Senate majority leader: “It’s always appropriate to question another man’s judgment,” Biden recalled him saying, in a 2015 address, “but never appropriate to question his motives because you simply don’t know his motives.” The trouble for Biden now is that Republican motives and incentives will almost certainly run counter to his much of the time. When Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, last faced a Democratic White House — the one in which Biden served — he said explicitly that his goal was to make Obama a one-term president. While Biden maintained a far more cordial relationship with McConnell in those years and has said he would work with the Republican “where we can agree,” he often strained in his 2020 bid to land on a compelling explanation for why a Biden administration would succeed in fostering bipartisanship where an Obama administration could not. His point often seemed to be that he had to try anyway. “We don’t talk to each other anymore,” Biden lamented last year, earning a scolding from some Democrats after warmly invoking the “civility” that defined his relationships with segregationist peers early in his Senate life. But then, this has always been the question for Biden in this campaign: Is he a man for this Washington moment or an old one? Is he too fixated on the latter to understand the former? 
 
 Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) listens during hearings for Judge Robert H. Bork during Bork’s Supreme Court nomination, in Washington, Sept. 18, 1987. Biden has spent his career devoted to institutions and relationships. And those are the tools he will rely on to govern a fractured nation. (Jose R. Lopez/The New York Times) 

The voters, at least, saw fit to find out.  Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) listens during hearings for Judge Robert H. Bork during Bork’s Supreme Court nomination, in Washington, Sept. 18, 1987. Biden has spent his career devoted to institutions and relationships. And those are the tools he will rely on to govern a fractured nation. (Jose R. Lopez/The New York Times)  In interviews, former colleagues seemed split on Biden’s capacity to transcend today’s pervasive partisanship, with some doubtful that the Republican posture would change much even with Trump out of office. “I don’t think it’s transferable,” former Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat who served with Biden through the 1990s, said of the chamber’s productive tenor in that age. “He was there for eight years under Obama. He knows that the Republicans can be very, very obstructionist if they want to be.” Still, Kerrey added, maybe it was useful to be “a little naive” and make bipartisan overtures regardless, in part to “get public opinion on his side for his big initiatives.” Carol Moseley Braun, a former Democratic senator from Illinois, said that much of Biden’s expertise in Washington power and procedure remained relevant. “He knows the levers of government better than anybody,” she said. She recalled his help in gaming out Senate dynamics in 1993, when she was a freshman senator seeking to block a request to grant the United Daughters of the Confederacy a renewed patent on an emblem with the Confederate battle flag. Of course, some snapshots of compromise and collegiality from Biden’s career around that time have aged poorly with Democrats. Among other reconsiderations, he has expressed regret for the Judiciary Committee’s treatment of Anita Hill at the 1991 confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas, when many liberals say Biden, the committee chair, was too deferential to Senate Republicans who subjected Hill to demeaning and invasive questioning. 
 
 Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and his wife, Jill, at the announcement of his candidacy for president in Wilmington, Del., June 9, 1987. Biden has spent his career devoted to institutions and relationships. And those are the tools he will rely on to govern a fractured nation. (Keith Meyers/The New York Times) 

More relevant to Biden’s present mindset, those who know him say, are the Obama years. Their two terms were hamstrung by opposition from Tea Party Republicans who directed their fury at the nation’s first Black president and showed little interest in working with him. None of it caused Biden to abandon his instinct for consensus-building, whether or not such an aim was always possible.  Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and his wife, Jill, at the announcement of his candidacy for president in Wilmington, Del., June 9, 1987. Biden has spent his career devoted to institutions and relationships. And those are the tools he will rely on to govern a fractured nation. (Keith Meyers/The New York Times)  “It tested his faith in that kind of thinking,” said Matt Teper, a top speechwriter for Biden at the time. “But it never manifested itself in any kind of frothy animosity.” Several supporters cited Biden’s pledge this past week to be a president “for all Americans,” the sort of generically hopeful message they say the times demand. In remarks Wednesday, Biden said that once the election passed, the hour would finally come “to unite, to heal, to come together as a nation.” “This won’t be easy,” he said. “I’m not naive.” No one has challenged the first part.   ©2020 The New York Times Company",2
"Most historic in the package are provisions that should sharply reduce child poverty. If these measures are made permanent, a Columbia University study suggests, child poverty could fall by half. By half! Biden will have done for children something analogous to what Franklin Roosevelt did for older adults with Social Security. This represents a revolution in American policy and a belated recognition that all society has a stake in investing in poor kids. To understand the returns that are possible, let’s look to lessons from halfway around the world. Bangladesh was born 50 years ago this month amid genocide, squalor and starvation. Henry Kissinger famously referred to Bangladesh then as a “basket case,” and horrifying photos from a famine in 1974 sealed the country’s reputation as hopeless. Back in 1991, after covering a cyclone in Bangladesh that killed more than 100,000 people, I wrote a bleak article for The Times suggesting that the country was “bountiful primarily in misfortune.” I was right that Bangladesh faces huge challenges, not least climate change. But overall, my pessimism was dead wrong, for Bangladesh has since enjoyed three decades of extraordinary progress. Economic growth rates rose steadily, and for the four years before the current pandemic, Bangladesh’s economy soared by 7% to 8% per year, according to the World Bank. That was faster than China’s. Life expectancy in Bangladesh is 72 years. That’s longer than in quite a few places in the United States, including in 10 counties in Mississippi. Bangladesh may have once epitomised hopelessness, but it now has much to teach the world about how to engineer progress. What was Bangladesh’s secret? It was education and girls. In the early 1980s, fewer than one-third of Bangladeshis completed elementary school. Girls in particular were rarely educated and contributed negligibly to the economy. But then the government and civic organisations promoted education, including for girls. Today, 98% of children in Bangladesh complete elementary school. Still more astonishing for a country with a history of gender gaps, there are now more girls in high school in Bangladesh than boys. “The most dramatic thing that happened to Bangladesh has to do with transforming the status of women, starting with the poorest women,” Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who pioneered microcredit in Bangladesh and elsewhere, told me. Yunus founded Grameen Bank, which turned women into entrepreneurs — nearly 100,000 became “telephone ladies” over four years, selling mobile phone services — in ways that helped transform them and their country. As Bangladesh educated and empowered its girls, those educated women became pillars of Bangladesh’s economy. The nation’s garment factories have given women better opportunities, and that shirt you’re wearing right now may have been made by one of them, for Bangladesh is now the world’s largest garment exporter, after China. Granted, factories in Bangladesh pay poorly by Western standards, have problems with abuse and sexual harassment, and pose fire risks and other safety problems; a factory collapse in 2013 killed more than 1,100 workers. But the workers themselves say that such jobs are still better than marrying at 14 and working in a rice paddy, and unions and civil society pushed for and won huge though incomplete improvements in worker safety. Educated women also filled the ranks of nonprofits like Grameen and Brac, another highly regarded development organisation. They got children vaccinated. They promoted toilets. They taught villagers how to read. They explained contraception. They discouraged child marriage. Bangladesh hasn’t had great political leaders. But its investments in human capital created a dynamism that we can all learn from. The World Bank calls Bangladesh “an inspiring story of reducing poverty” — with 25 million Bangladeshis lifted from poverty over 15 years. The share of children stunted by malnutrition has fallen by about half in Bangladesh since 1991 and is now lower than in India. You skeptical readers are shaking your heads and muttering: Overpopulation will undo the progress. In fact, Bangladeshi women now average only two children each (down from seven). In short, Bangladesh invested in its most underutilised assets — its poor, with a focus on the most marginalised and least productive, because that’s where the highest returns would be. And the same could be true in America. We’re not going to squeeze much more productivity out of our billionaires, but we as a country will benefit hugely if we can help the 1 in 7 American children who don’t even graduate from high school. That’s what Biden’s attack on child poverty may be able to do, and why its central element, a refundable child tax credit, should be made permanent. Bangladesh reminds us that investing in marginalised children isn’t just about compassion, but about helping a nation soar. © 2021 New York Times News Service",0
"The data, published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science, shows that the oceans have experienced consistent changes since the late 1950s and have gotten a lot warmer since the 1960s, CNN reported. The oceans are heating up much faster than scientists calculated in the UN assessment of climate change released in 2014, the study said. For the new study, scientists used data collected by a high-tech ocean observing system called Argo, an international network of more than 3,000 robotic floats that continuously measure the temperature and salinity of the water. Researchers used this data in combination with other historic temperature information and studies. ""The ocean is the memory of climate change, along with melted ice, and 93 per cent of the Earth's energy imbalance ends up in the ocean,"" said study co-author Kevin Trenberth, part of the Climate Analysis Section at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research. ""Global warming is close to ocean warming, and 2018 will be the warmest year on record, followed by 2017, then 2015. ""Global warming is rearing its head,"" Trenberth said. A warmer ocean causes sea level to rise, bringing problems like dangerous coastal flooding. It leads to the loss of sea ice, heating the waters even further. It can affect the jet stream, allowing cold Arctic air to reach farther south, making winters more intense and endanger the lives of animals that depend on sea ice like penguins and polar bears. A warmer ocean also contributes to increases in rainfall and leads to stronger and longer-lasting storms like Hurricanes Florence and Harvey. Thursday's study fits within other reports like the UN warning in October that humanity has just over 10 years to act to avoid disastrous levels of global warming, CNN said. A US government report in November delivered a similar dire warning that the country could lose hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives by the end of the century due to climate change.",6
"In a growing global movement, environmentalists are trying a new legal route to protect the planet - vesting rivers, reefs and threatened habitats with ""rights of nature"" that override the long-held human right to harm. Supporters say they are starting to notch victories and see momentum growing, particularly as the rising effects of climate change spur an openness to untried strategies. Critics call the efforts unwieldy, ineffective - or illegal. Take Toledo, a lake city in the US Midwest whose citizens have worried about the quality of their water since toxic algae seeped from Lake Erie into the city's system five years ago. Stymied residents - fed up with a lack of action - took matters into their own hands this year and voted to give their local water source, the massive Lake Erie, rights to stay clean. “It’s about saying Lake Erie has a legal right to exist, and that’s a right that we get to defend,” said resident Markie Miller. Miller said the 2014 algae outbreak in the world’s 11th-biggest lake left half a million people with no safe water over three stifling summer days. And it turned out that similar outbreaks had gone unchecked for years, a product of agricultural runoff, she said. “That bothered me — we’ve been watching and tracking this problem but not doing anything,” Miller told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. “We should be considering the whole health of the ecosystem, not just the burden on people.” Officials did little, she said, but organisers had heard about an idea that eventually went before voters: recognising Lake Erie as a legal entity, on whose behalf citizens could sue. “We’re working in a system that isn’t designed to allow us to win — it’s designed to regulate and allow harm,” she said. “So the idea behind all of this was that we wanted to change the system.” Ultimately, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, which 61% of voters approved in February, would amend the Toledo city charter to state that Lake Erie had the right to “exist, flourish, and naturally evolve” and to do so free of violation. The effort received no support from the city, Miller said, and has been tied up in legal wrangling ever since. Lawyers for local farmer Mark Drewes called it “an unconstitutional and unlawful assault on the fundamental rights of family farms” that gave the people of Toledo authority over nearly 5 million Ohio residents. A spokesman for the Toledo mayor’s office declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation. Other Ohio communities have since tried similar moves, but on July 17, state legislators outlawed all such action, saying: “Nature or any ecosystem does not have standing to participate in or bring an action in any court of common pleas.” 'IS IT THRIVING?' In Western law, the idea that nature has rights dates to the 1970s, when legal scholar Christopher Stone published a touchstone article that was cited in a Supreme Court case. It lay largely dormant until this past decade when the notion regained currency, in the United States and beyond. “It’s certainly having an effect internationally,” said Jay Pendergrass, a vice president at the Environmental Law Institute, a Washington think tank. “It’s accelerated in terms of the countries and places that are saying this is an important legal principle that they’re going to act on.” Bolivia and Ecuador have model “rights of nature” laws — the issue is even in the latter’s constitution. India has recognised rights on the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, while New Zealand has a similar agreement on the Whanganui river. In July, Bangladesh recognised all rivers in the country as having legal rights. Advocates want to use rights law to address some of the world’s worst cases of environmental destruction — be it the decaying Great Barrier Reef or the melting Himalayan glaciers. Seven countries have “rights of nature” laws, said Shannon Biggs, co-founder of the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature, which runs 'tribunals' where judges hear cases on fracking, indigenous land rights and more. “Is that ecosystem regenerating itself? Is it thriving? Those are the benchmarks,” she said of the tribunal’s decisions. It also upends long-held ideas about the rights that come with a land title. As Biggs said: “Property ownership isn’t a permission slip to destroy the ecosystem.” While the tribunals’ decisions are not binding, Biggs points to a recent case that she said had helped halt construction of a proposed highway through the Bolivian rainforest. Proponents say word is spreading far and wide, influencing distant courts and guiding countries that lack their own laws. Mari Margil, associate director at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) - a player in several key pushes to win rights of nature - pointed to a 2016 Colombian suit over the Amazon as a case in point. ""Their own environmental laws weren’t able to offer protection,” Margil said, so the court sought outside precedent. “For the first time, they declared that an ecosystem in Colombia has rights,” she said, “and they did that without their own rights of nature law.” INDIGENOUS IMPETUS Although novel in the West, this idea has long roots in indigenous communities, be it Ecuador, Bolivia or 36 US areas, including tribal communities, with similar laws, said Biggs. “We lived within the natural law” generations ago, said Casey Camp-Horinek, a councilwoman for the Ponca tribe in Oklahoma. “We didn’t separate ourselves from nature.” Today, Camp-Horinek said, the tribe feels under threat from the energy industry: hit by water pollution, health problems and thousands of small earthquakes she links to nearby fracking. With a sense that US law had failed to offer protection, Camp-Horinek said, the tribe in 2017 created a rights of nature statute and resolved to prosecute in Ponca court those who “dishonour” those rights in tribal territory. In December, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota established legal rights not for a landscape but for a product of their declining landscape - wild rice, a grain central to tribal identity that needs clean water to grow. “It’s susceptible to a lot of things in the environment, and we believe it’s in decline because of poor maintenance,” said tribal attorney Frank Bibeau. “So we have to step in.” TOOL OR SYMBOL? CELDF’s Margil compared securing the rights of nature to sweeping social movements, such as ending slavery or securing women’s right to vote, both of which began locally. Yet achievements are thin, said Mihnea Tanasescu, a fellow in political science at Vrije University in Brussels. He knows of just two cases, both in Ecuador - and suggested 'rights of nature' was used only when it suited the government. He also criticised many laws as too broad and declarative - with the result that nobody is pinned into action or punished. “It is too early to say whether (rights of nature laws) are achieving things that we couldn’t otherwise,” Tanasescu said by email, but said they must be as specific as possible to succeed. Laws lacking a specific penalty risk failing, agreed Kieran Suckling, founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, a US advocacy group. Suckling said he likes the idea of giving nature rights but wants litigation that “defines these rights to be real, prescriptive and, in many cases, limiting. If your law doesn’t prescribe or limit, it’s just symbolic.”  ",2
"Dhaka, Aug 27 (bdnews24.com)—The least developed nations are experiencing exacerbating social problems coupled with widespread unemployment in the backdrop of the ongoing global economic recession, said AK Abdul Momen, Bangladesh's permanent representative to the UN on Thursday. A press release issued by the Bangladesh's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said Momen made the remarks as the leader of the LDCs while conducting a roundtable discussion on the LDCs challenges, L'Aquila G-8 Summit and the ensuing Pittsburg G-20 Summit. Assisted by Bangladesh's Permanent Mission, the roundtable was hosted by the US's Permanent Mission to the United Nations. The Bangladesh permanent representative discussed the LDCs' unemployment, immigration, remittance, attainment and maintenance of MDGs, IMF's concessional funding and combating new challenges in the face of global climate change, the press release said. Of the LDCs, Benin, Laos, Nepal, Tanzania, Malawi, Guinea Bissau, Iritrea, Afghanistan, Samoa and Cape Verde permanent representatives also spoke at the roundtable.",0
" The global average temperature last year was the ninth-warmest in the modern meteorological record, continuing a trend linked to greenhouse gases that saw nine of the 10 hottest years occurring since the year 2000, NASA scientists said on Thursday. A separate report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the average temperature for the United States in 2011 as the 23rd warmest year on record. The global average surface temperature for 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 degrees C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline temperature, researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies said in a statement. The institute's temperature record began in 1880. The first 11 years of the new century were notably hotter than the middle and late 20th century, according to institute director James Hansen. The only year from the 20th century that was among the top 10 warmest years was 1998. These high global temperatures come even with the cooling effects of a strong La Nina ocean temperature pattern and low solar activity for the past several years, said Hansen, who has long campaigned against human-spurred climate change. The NASA statement said the current higher temperatures are largely sustained by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is emitted by various human activities, from coal-fired power plants to fossil-fueled vehicles to human breath. Current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceed 390 parts per million, compared with 285 ppm in 1880 and 315 by 1960, NASA said. Last year was also a year of record-breaking climate extremes in the United States, which contributed to 14 weather and climate disasters with economic impact of $1 billion or more each, according to NOAA . This number does not count a pre-Halloween snowstorm in the Northeast, which is still being analyzed. NOAA's National Climatic Data Center said the average 2011 temperature for 2011 for the contiguous United States was 53.8 degrees F, which is 1 degree above the 20th-century average. Average precipitation across the country was near normal, but this masks record-breaking extremes of drought and precipitation, the agency said.",0
"The world's most prestigious political accolade will be unveiled on Oct 8. While the winner often seems a total surprise, those who follow it closely say the best way to guess is to look at the global issues most likely to be on the minds of the five committee members who choose. With the COP26 climate summit set for the start of November in Scotland, that issue could be global warming. Scientists paint this summit as the last chance to set binding targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for the next decade, vital if the world is to have hope of keeping temperature change below the 1.5 degree Celsius target to avert catastrophe. That could point to Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, who at 18 would be the second youngest winner in history by a few months, after Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai. ""The committee often wants to send a message. And this will be a strong message to send to COP26, which will be happening between the announcement of the award and the ceremony,"" Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told Reuters. Another big issue the committee may want to address is democracy and free speech. That could mean an award for a press freedom group, such as the Committee to Protect Journalists or Reporters Without Borders, or for a prominent political dissident, such as exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya or jailed Russian activist Alexei Navalny. A win for a journalism advocacy group would resonate ""with the large debate about the importance of independent reporting and the fighting of fake news for democratic governance,"" said Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. A Nobel for either Navalny or Tsikhanouskaya would be an echo of the Cold War, when peace and literature prizes were bestowed on prominent Soviet dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Oddsmakers also tip groups such as the World Health Organisation or the vaccine sharing body COVAX, which are directly involved in the global battle against COVID-19. But prize watchers say this could be less likely than might be assumed: the committee already cited the pandemic response last year, when it chose the UN World Food Programme. While parliamentarians from any country can nominate candidates for the prize, in recent years the winner has tended to be a nominee proposed by lawmakers from Norway, whose parliament appoints the prize committee. Norwegian lawmakers surveyed by Reuters have included Thunberg, Navalny, Tsikhanouskaya and the WHO on their lists. SECRETS OF THE VAULT The committee's full deliberations remain forever secret, with no minutes taken of discussions. But other documents, including this year's full list of 329 nominees, are kept behind an alarmed door protected by several locks at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, to be made public in 50 years. Inside the vault, document folders line the walls: green for nominations, blue for correspondence. It is a trove for historians seeking to understand how laureates emerge. The most recent documents made public are about the 1971 prize, won by Willy Brandt, chancellor of West Germany, for his moves to reduce East-West tension during the Cold War. ""The Europe you see today is basically the legacy of those efforts,"" librarian Bjoern Vangen told Reuters. The documents reveal that one of the main finalists Brandt beat out for the prize was French diplomat Jean Monnet, a founder of the European Union. It would take another 41 years for Monnet's creation, the EU, to finally win the prize in 2012.",2
" EU President Slovenia and the three countries that will succeed it in the EU chair agreed with European Parliament leaders on Thursday to aim to enact ambitious laws on energy and climate change by April 2009. Slovenian Environment Minister Janez Podobnik told a joint news conference with his French, Czech and Swedish counterparts the aim was to pass legislation on the measures proposed by the European Commission before the June 2009 European elections. The Commission outlined ambitious proposals on Wednesday to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels, increase the use of renewable energy in power production to 20 percent and use 10 percent of biofuels for transport by 2020. ""We would like to arrive at first concrete results as soon as possible ... leading to final adoption of the package by spring 2009 at the latest,"" Pobodnik said. He said the main political groups and committees in the European Union legislature had pledged to work fast to achieve an agreement on first reading with the 27 EU member states, rather than the slower procedure of a second reading. French Secretary of State for Ecology Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet told reporters she hoped they might even reach a political accord late this year under France's six-month EU presidency, in time for a climate conference in Poznan, Poland. The ministers did not discuss objections to the package from energy-intensive industries, which want a better guarantee of protection from competitors in less environmentally regulated countries, and from some member states to national CO2 targets. Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said a quick deal based on the Commission package would enable Europe to take the lead in negotiations on an international agreement to fight global warming due to conclude in Copenhagen in December 2009. ""It's also a way to show that Europe should really and will really be prepared for Copenhagen in 2009,"" he said.",0
" Tackling climate change and other environmental hazards is affordable but urgent action is needed to avert irreversible damage, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Wednesday. The 30-nation OECD said possible environmental safeguards might slow world growth by just 0.03 percent a year -- meaning that by 2030 the global economy would be 97 percent bigger than in 2005 instead of almost 99 percent larger with no measures. ""This is not a lot to pay,"" said Angel Gurria, head of the Paris-based OECD group of rich democracies in a 520-page Environmental Outlook issued in Oslo, saying costs were similar to those of an insurance policy. ""The consequences and costs of inaction...would be much higher,"" he said. The study identified issues for most urgent action including global warming, losses of species of animals and plants, water scarcity, illegal logging, pollution and hazardous chemicals. ""If no new policy actions are taken, within the next few decades we risk irreversibly altering the environmental basis for sustained economic prosperity,"" it said. The report recommended overhauling sectors that cause most damage -- energy, transport, agriculture and fisheries. ""Removal of environmentally harmful subsidies, particularly for fossil fuels and agricultural production, is a necessary first step,"" Gurria said. 
POLLUTION A hypothetical policy package included a 50 percent cut in farm subsidies, a $25 per tonne tax on emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide phased in by region, new biofuels, measures to cut air pollution and improved sewerage systems. The measures would limit overall growth in greenhouse gas emissions to 13 percent rather than 37 percent by 2030. Stiffer greenhouse gas goals would be a slightly bigger brake on economic growth. The study adds to evidence that curbing global warming, blamed mainly on use of fossil fuels, is affordable. Last year, the U.N. Climate Panel also said that measures to curb climate change would cost between 0.06 and 0.1 percent of world gross domestic product a year to 2030. And a 2006 report by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern warned that unchecked warming would be as damaging as world wars or the Great Depression with more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising seas. More than 190 governments agreed in Bali, Indonesia, in December to work out by the end of 2009 a new treaty to fight climate change and succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 37 developed nations to cut emissions by 2012. The United States is outside Kyoto, with President George W Bush reckoning it would damage the US economy and saying it wrongly omitted 2012 curbs for developing nations. Washington has agreed to join a new global plan. To combat climate change, the OECD said ""developed countries will need to work closely with emerging economies -- especially Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa."" Without curbs, greenhouse gas emissions from China, India, Russia and Brazil alone ""will grow by 46 percent to 2030, surpassing those of the 30 OECD countries combined,"" it said. The OECD said that its members can point to some successes in recent decades -- industrial pollution has fallen, the area of forests and natural protected areas has increased and economies have become more efficient. -- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:",0
" African nations must forge a united front at climate negotiations next month to win help to protect millions from the harm warmer weather is expected to bring, experts say. Tens of millions of Africans face increasing water scarcity by 2020, posing potential food shortages and a rise in disease, scientists say, and Africa must push hard for the finance and expertise to enable it to devise regional solutions, they say. ""It's critical for African countries to be sure that they have a strong and unified negotiating position when negotiations begin in Bali"", Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the Bonn-based U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said. ""Africa should ensure that concerns about the continent are firmly on the negotiating agenda,"" he said at a meeting of African and Mediterranean nations in Tunis about climate change. More than 100 of the world's environment ministers will meet in Bali next month to launch two years of talks on a broad international deal to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto treaty obliges 36 industrial nations to cut emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. A new deal would aim to involve outsiders led by the United States and China, which have no Kyoto goals. Experts say big developing countries, such as China and India, have won far more funds than Africa from rich nations to help cut greenhouse gases, for instance by investing in wind farms, hydropower dams or in cleaning up industrial emissions. ""We have non-skilled human resources and weak institutions which cannot address this important threat"", said Youba Sokona, executive secretary of Sahara-Sahel Observatory, a Tunis-based body which campaigns against desertificiation in Africa. ""What we need is new and strong ways of cooperation between the institutions at national, sub-regional and international levels. We are in climate change and we have to adapt."" MORE DISEASES, MORE PESTS The U.N. climate panel's final 26-page summary report, released in Spain on Saturday, says that Africa, the Arctic, the deltas of major rivers in Asia and small island states are likely to be especially affected by climate change. For Africa, it says that between 75 and 250 million people on the world's poorest continent are projected to face increased water stress by 2020. In some African countries, it says yields from rain-fed farming could be cut by up to 50 percent by 2020. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said Africa had to act fast at sub-regional level to improve climate policy. ""Countries with geographical links should come up with a common action plan. Action has to start today."" ""Climate change will obviously have an impact in the social sense, on the life of people dependent on farming ... ""There will be more diseases and more pests due to the rise in temperatures and heat waves. We have to worry about that."" He said solutions would include improving information systems and boosting local infrastructure ""to know when and what to do if there is a heat wave.""",0
"The penalty imposed on the lawyer, Hossam Bahgat, was relatively modest, but the prosecution was just the latest chapter in a legal odyssey that has brought him to near ruin. It began more than five years ago, when the authorities opened an investigation into his activities and subjected him to an open-ended travel ban that he says crippled his career and sent him into depression. On Monday, Bahgat was spared jail time and fined about $650 — an outcome that experts said appeared calculated to serve two purposes: a guilty verdict that would intimidate government opponents into silence while simultaneously presenting a more reasonable face to the audience abroad by not imprisoning him. “It gets harder, it doesn’t get easier,” Bahgat said as he walked out of the courthouse. “They think they can change the rhetoric and leave everything as is. And so far it’s working.” As the host of a major global climate summit next year, COP27, the country’s president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, is showing signs of growing increasingly conscious of global opinion when it comes to human rights. But for all the appearance of a softer tone, the reality on the ground in Egypt remains grim for critics of his rule. The conviction of Bahgat, who runs one of the few remaining independent human rights groups in Egypt, followed a series of convictions with harsher penalties than the one imposed on him. In June, Ahmed Samir Santawy, an Egyptian researcher and graduate student of anthropology in Vienna, who was detained during a visit to Egypt and questioned about anti-government posts he had made on social media, was sentenced to four years in prison on charges of spreading false news. And this month, five activists and politicians, including a former member of Parliament, were sentenced from three to five years in prison, also on charges of spreading false news and using their social media accounts to undermine national security. More trials of other researchers, activists and bloggers are expected in coming weeks. Rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of dissidents who have been incarcerated in the past few years, many without a trial, still languish in Egyptian prisons. The continuing trials and jailings of activists underscore the increasingly authoritarian direction the country has taken under the leadership of el-Sissi, who became president in 2014. “I see darkness,” said Mohamed Anwar Sadat, a former head of the human rights committee in Parliament, who has more recently played an informal role mediating between civil society groups and the state. “We thought the trial would bring a better end to these cases and serve as a way out of the crisis, but we’re in shock.” Bahgat, the founder and executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, was on trial under a cybercrime law for a Twitter post last year accusing a government official who had presided over the elections authority of overseeing a fraudulent parliamentary election. The official was a judge who had died. Monday’s conviction came shortly after el-Sissi made several announcements that had appeared to suggest the state would ease its stranglehold on political opposition and freedom of expression. In September, he said that Egypt would honour all “obligations toward human rights and fundamental freedoms.” And in October, he declared an end to a 4-year-old state of emergency that had given the government and its security forces sweeping powers to crush dissent and detain citizens. The announcements had led to some hope in Egypt that the country might be adopting a more tolerant approach that would allow civil society groups to operate without police harassment and the continuous threat of detention. Sceptics, however, pointed to the introduction of other laws that strengthened the grip of the authoritarian government, and dismissed el-Sissi's assurances as hollow, made to fend off criticism from the West. “That discourse seemed to signal an opening, but the reality shows the opposite,” said Khaled Ali, a former politician and lawyer who represents some of the activists still on trial. “It’s a huge contradiction.” Going after Bahgat, critics said, is the latest evidence of a state that is not willing to let up on its efforts to quash free speech and the political opposition, often in the name of maintaining order and stability in a region rife with conflict. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there were “issues of concern” in Egypt before the bilateral talks that took place earlier this month. “Making tangible and lasting improvements on human rights is also essential to strengthening our bilateral relationship,” Blinken said, as he highlighted the issues he planned to cover with his Egyptian counterpart during the meetings. First on the list, and before human rights, was regional stability. Bahgat is still embroiled in a separate criminal case against a number of nongovernmental organisations and dozens of their members that the authorities have accused of receiving foreign funding illegally. He came under investigation in 2016 and has since been banned from travel and had his assets frozen. Before Monday’s verdict, 46 human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, issued a statement calling on Egypt to “cease the harassment and persecution” of Bahgat. “This represents the unprecedented state of oppression that we’ve been living under,” said Nasser Amin, a former member in the National Council for Human Rights. “There are no practical or realistic measures that point to any real intention or desire to improve the state of human rights in Egypt.” ©2021 The New York Times Company",2
"In the aftermath, regional and national officials initially suggested that little could have been done in the face of a storm of such magnitude. But an analysis of how the authorities responded that day — based on government documents, interviews with experts and Chinese news reports — shows that flaws in the subway system’s design and missteps in its operations that day almost certainly contributed to the deaths in the tunnel. Zhengzhou’s difficulties hold lessons for other urban centres in an era of climate change — including New York City, which shut down its subway Sept 1 during a downpour less than half as heavy. The flood showed the challenge that global warming poses to China’s go-go development model of the past four decades. It highlighted questions about how well China’s cities, including its subways, can cope as extreme weather occurs more frequently. Zhengzhou’s subway only began to reopen Sunday. “We humans need to learn to dance with wolves and survive with extreme weather and climate,” said Kong Feng, an associate professor of disaster and emergency management at China Agricultural University in Beijing, “because we currently have no better way to stop it.” The Chinese government now appears to be acknowledging missteps by local officials, as well as the possibility that severe weather events will become increasingly common. In a visit nearly a month after the flood, Li Keqiang, China’s premier, warned that the country needed to address any shortfalls in preparedness “to warn future generations.” A government investigation team referred unspecified “acts of dereliction of duty” to law enforcement, according to an official statement. The topic has become politically sensitive. Posts critical of the government’s actions have been removed from social media platforms. A Communist Party organisation encouraged harassment of foreign journalists covering the disaster. Still, the images and stories resonated across China before they disappeared. Deep in the subway tunnels, water raged outside a train’s windows like turbulent brown rapids. Commuters struggled for air as the water rose. “I felt like I was just there waiting for my death, though I didn’t know how — whether it would be by suffocation or drowning,” said Zheng Yongle, a passenger who got stuck on Zhengzhou’s Line 5 train. The 14 deaths on Line 5 were only one part of the catastrophe, which temporarily displaced 1.4 million people, but they resonated deeply with the public. On the night of July 19, Zhengzhou’s meteorological service issued the first of a series of emergency alerts that continued through the next day. According to government regulations in Henan province, which includes Zhengzhou, the alerts should have triggered the closing of all but essential businesses. For reasons that remain unclear, the city did not issue such an order. The rain culminated in the record-setting cloudburst on July 20. From 4 to 5 pm, 7.95 inches of rain fell, twice what the authorities had forecast over the next three hours. The deluge compared with an hourly peak of 3.15 inches in New York City on Sept. 1 and similar peak rainfall during deadly flooding in Tennessee on Aug 21. Christopher Burt, a weather historian for Weather Underground, a forecasting subsidiary of IBM, said it was the heaviest single hour of rainfall reliably measured in the center of a major city anywhere in the world. “The Zhengzhou and Manhattan downpours show that climate change means that existing calculations of the frequency of torrential rains may no longer be valid,” he said. The Zhengzhou Metro subway system, including its pumps, drainage ditches and pipes, was designed to meet central government drainage standards — but only for the type of storm that, under earlier assumptions, should have had a 1-in-50 chance of occurring in a given year. By contrast, Zhengzhou meteorologists estimate that a downpour like the one in July had less than a 1-in-1,000 chance of occurring in a year — although China’s national meteorological agency cautioned that the country only has reliable records dating to the early 1950s. City officials had conducted emergency drills for heavy flooding, but not for a cataclysmic deluge, said Kong of China Agricultural University. “There are hidden vulnerabilities in the city, which were never discovered until this disaster happened,” he said. A vulnerable point in the subway system, officials have said, was a retaining wall built in an area that the city identified more than a decade ago as prone to flooding. The wall stood beside a maintenance yard and next to the base of a slope. A six-lane avenue ran down the slope from a row of 30-floor apartment towers. As the cloudburst raged, water sluiced down the slope. The wall collapsed. Water poured into tunnels used to bring trains aboveground for cleaning and repair, filling Line 5, one of the system’s newest and busiest. The retaining wall collapsed at about 6 p.m., according to the Zhengzhou Metro, 10 minutes before authorities shut the subway down. Social media accounts show that there was flooding in the system before then. “If the subway could have suspended services beforehand, casualties could have been avoided,” Kong said. By then, water had already begun to swamp a train on Line 5, which loops around the city center. Zheng and more than 500 other passengers were trapped. Zhengzhou authorities have not yet revealed why trains kept running. The next day, China’s Ministry of Transport said subway train drivers could act immediately in response to safety issues and check with their dispatchers later. During the deluge, the subway had seemed like a lifeline for those still trying to move around the city. Wang Yunlong told Chinese news organizations that he and a colleague on a business trip from Shanghai had decided to take the subway because they were unable to hail a taxi from their hotel. Although Zhengzhou Metro had begun to close some entrances, they were able to board a Line 5 train at Huanghe Road station. It went only two stops before encountering difficulties at Haitan Temple station, where it paused for about 20 minutes. At 5:50 p.m., the train began moving again, heading toward Shakou Road through a tunnel that dips to become the deepest stretch of Line 5. The driver stopped between the two stations as the tunnel began to fill with water. He tried to reverse the train. It was too late. What happened next unfolded in terrifying detail in photographs and videos posted to China’s social media platforms. Some passengers were able to exit the train from the front and make their way to Shakou Road station through treacherous water surging down the tunnel. Wang and Zou Deqiang were among those who tried, but Zou lost his grip and was swept away in the torrent. Witnesses recounted a slow and confused effort to evacuate the tunnels, while passengers gasped for oxygen near the ceilings of the train’s cars as the murky water rose. Rescuers were able to reach the train when the water began to recede around 9 pm, people who were there said. The deaths prompted demands that those responsible be held to account. The widow of Sha Tao, a passenger who died, posted a message on Weibo blaming the subway system for continuing to operate. In a telephone interview the day after the flooding, she had described her desperate search for him. She complained that authorities were slow to search for him after the subway flooded. His body was found nearly a week later. “The responsibility of Zhengzhou Metro,” she wrote, “is heavy and cannot be shirked.” © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
" Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) reappointed Pascal Lamy as director-general for a second four-year term, the WTO said Thursday. The 62-year-old Frenchman was the only candidate to head the body that referees world trade and was approved by consensus at a meeting of the WTO General Council. It was the first time in the WTO's 15-year history that the candidacy had not been contested. The first term of the marathon-running former trade chief of the European Union has been dominated by efforts to conclude the WTO's seven-year-old Doha round to liberalize world trade and help poor countries prosper through exports. Lamy argues that concluding the round, to boost business confidence and bolster bulwarks against protectionism in the economic crisis, is the WTO's top priority. ""Beyond the trade-offs required to conclude the Doha round and also beyond the market access that it will bring, lies its hugely important systemic value,"" he told the council on Wednesday. ""The biggest prize in the Doha round is the certainty, predictability and stability it will bring to global trade. It is in a moment of crisis, such as the one we are witnessing today, that the value of this insurance policy increases."" Lamy, whose new term starts in September, told the council the 153-member state body had to address other issues such as climate change, food security, energy, labor and financial protectionism. But serious work on these questions should not start until the immediate task of reaching a Doha deal was in sight. He estimated 80 percent of a Doha agreement was in the bag. Lamy said the WTO's dispute settlement system, resolving trade rows between countries involving billions of dollars, was working well. But developing countries need to be given more help to make use of the complex and expensive dispute processes, and more needs to be done to ensure all countries comply promptly with decisions of WTO dispute panels that go against them. Besides bringing in ministers to clinch a Doha deal, the WTO should hold a regular ministerial conference this year to set strategy and review how the body is working, Lamy said. He noted it had not held a ministerial conference since 2005. WTO rules require one every two years. Lamy was widely credited with nursing French bank Credit Lyonnais -- now part of Credit Agricole -- back to health from near-bankruptcy. He became director-general of the WTO in September 2005.",0
" The government will distribute Al Gore's dramatic global warming film to all secondary schools in England in its fight to tackle the climate crisis, Environment Minister David Miliband said on Friday. The announcement came as a panel of the world's top scientists issued a new report blaming mankind for the crisis and predicting that average temperatures would rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this century as a result. ""The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over, as demonstrated by the publication of today's report,"" Miliband said. ""I was struck by the visual evidence the film provides, making clear that the changing climate is already having an impact on our world today, from Mount Kilimanjaro to the Himalayan mountains,"" he added. 'An Inconvenient Truth', a film of the former US vice president's lecture tour illustrating the dramatic change to the environment due to human activities, has already been a box office hit. The film will be part of a global warming information pack distributed to schools as the government strongly pushes the message that everyone has a role to play. Gore, a dedicated climate crusader, has begun a programme of training what he calls climate ambassadors to travel the world. ""As the film shows, there's no reason to feel helpless in the face of this challenge. Everyone can play a part along with government and business in making a positive contribution in helping to prevent climate change,"" Miliband said. The government is drafting a Climate Change Bill to set in law its own self-imposed target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2050. But environmentalists have called for a far tougher target and on Friday the head of a cross-party parliamentary environment committee urged Miliband to raise the figure. ""I will be asking David Miliband to scrap that target and instead introduce a formula which works towards a safe and sustainable concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which minimises the danger of catastrophic climate change,"" said Colin Challen.",0
" The prime minister said on Monday he wanted to lower the average age of his cabinet, a remark that could signal a greater role for young and reformist ministers in a team dominated by a socialist old guard. Prime Minister Manmohan's Singh's comments came ahead of a possible cabinet reshuffle before the winter parliament session begins in November. Several elderly and powerful ministers have been criticised for scuttling new thinking in the government, frustrating Singh's efforts toward rapid reforms, like opening up retail to foreign investors, after last year's resounding election victory. ""I would like to reduce the average age of my cabinet,"" Singh was quoted by the semi-official Press Trust of India news agency as saying after the 77-year-old leader met newspaper and television editors in New Delhi. The Congress party-led government's term has seen the rise of some younger figures like Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who who created a stir last year by suggesting that India could be more flexible in its negotiating stance at the Copenhagen climate change summit. He soon backed down under pressure. Singh's drive for youth is also backed by Rahul Gandhi, 40-year-old son of Congress party head Sonia Gandhi and a likely future prime minister. ""Younger people are more dynamic, they are open to newer ideas and can be more flexible -- all these are things investors will like,"" said DH Pai Panandikar, head of the New Delhi-based private think-tank RPG Foundation. The average age of Singh's cabinet is almost 64 -- old compared with that of Britain at about 51 years or even the United States at just above 57 years. Most ministers heading top ministries are about 70 years old or more. The younger ministers have been in the headlines, for trying to push established norms of policy-framing or even the use of modern technology such as Twitter. But any attempt at building a younger cabinet may mean Singh will only bring in more young faces rather than drop ageing ministers, most of whom remain powerful. He may give more responsibilities to incumbent junior ministers who are young.",1
"Polls show Erin O'Toole's Conservative Party has a chance of winning the election and ending six years of Liberal rule. Trudeau called the vote two years early as a referendum on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trudeau, sometimes looking agitated, rounded several times on O'Toole, who has had trouble making himself known to Canadians since taking over his party a year ago. O'Toole says he will offer serious leadership to clean up after what he calls a corrupt, incompetent and spendthrift Trudeau government. Trudeau accuses O'Toole of harbouring an extremist agenda and not being serious on topics such as climate change. Trudeau also favours mandates to ensure people are inoculated against COVID-19, a move O'Toole says goes too far. ""The problem with Mr O'Toole and his principles is, he says all the right sounding things and he's working on reassuring everyone that he's right there as a strong leader, but he can't convince his candidates to get vaccinated,"" said Trudeau. Polls show O'Toole with a slight lead amid voter unhappiness with Trudeau's decision to call the election early.  The leadership debate was the only one of three in English, spoken by two-thirds of Canada's 38 million people, and is traditionally seen as a key means of influencing voters. However, Nanos Research pollster Nik Nanos said by email ""there were no major gaffes nor any knock-out punches from any of the parties ... this wasn't a game changer"". Trudeau spoke over the other four party chiefs several times, forcing the moderator to cut him off. Darrell Bricker, chief executive officer of Ipsos Public Affairs, said he did not see anything from Trudeau or O'Toole that would change the direction of their campaigns. ""When he (Trudeau) did try to go at O'Toole it came off as very hot and frantic. O'Toole wasn't a huge factor tonight but that's OK,"" he said by email. Trudeau is fond of noting that earlier this year most Conservative lawmakers voted in favour of draft legislation that would have banned some abortions. The initiative failed. O'Toole insisted he was in charge and would not bow to the views of legislators with hard line social views. ""I am driving the bus to make sure we get this country back on track. And I'm here to defend the rights of all Canadians, women, members of the LGBTQ community,"" he said. O'Toole conceded that in the past, Conservatives had not done enough to combat emissions of greenhouse gases and needed to win back public trust. A three-day rolling Ekos phone poll of 1,365 adults released on Thursday showed the Conservatives at 33.6% public support, versus 30.7% for the Liberals and 15.7% for the smaller left-leaning New Democrats. The poll had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.",0
"The Landscape Resilience Fund (LRF) was developed by green group WWF and Swiss-based social enterprise South Pole and is starting with $25 million from luxury brand Chanel and $1.3 million from the Global Environment Facility. An independent nonprofit, the LRF aims to attract a further five to 10 additional investors to help finance small businesses and projects that foster climate-resilient agriculture and forestry practices, and protect natural systems. Martin Stadelmann, a senior director at South Pole, which will manage the LRF, said it was a pioneering way for a major multinational company to invest in adaptation to climate change. ""As (with) other companies, some of their supply chains are under threat because of climate change,"" he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. One million animal and plant species are at risk of extinction due to humankind's relentless pursuit of economic growth, scientists warned in a 2019 landmark report on the devastating impact of modern civilisation on the natural world. Environmentalists largely blame production of commodities like palm oil, beef and minerals for destruction of forests, as they are cleared for plantations, ranches, farms and mines. Cutting down forests has major implications for global goals to curb climate change, as trees absorb about a third of the planet-warming emissions produced worldwide, but release carbon back into the air when they rot or are burned. Forests also provide food and livelihoods, and are an essential habitat for wildlife. Better conservation, restoration and management of natural areas, such as parks, forests and wildernesses, is seen as key for nations to meet targets to reduce planet-heating emissions and reverse the loss of plant and animal species. Global annual spending to protect and restore nature on land needs to triple this decade to about $350 billion, a UN report said in May, urging a shift in mindset among financiers, businesses and governments. Presently, only about 5 percent of total climate finance goes to adapting to a warmer planet, with most of that coming from public funds, South Pole officials said. ""The fund really targets the 'missing middle' where there is currently no commercial financing,"" said Urs Dieterich, a fund manager at South Pole and managing director of the LRF. The fund will provide cheap loans and technical assistance to small businesses that work with smallholders in vulnerable landscapes – such as cocoa or coffee growers and rattan harvesters – and help them access better farming inputs, such as drought-resistant seeds, as well as training and finance. Repaid loans will be re-invested in other small businesses working on climate adaptation. Projects can apply online for funding or approach the LRF directly, and will be assessed for their climate change exposure and adaptation plans. Their progress will be tracked by local staff and published in annual reports, fund officials said. ""There has never been a more critical time for the private sector to step up and help close the investment gap needed for effective climate adaptation,"" Andrea d'Avack, chief sustainability officer at Chanel, said in a statement. The LRF offers an opportunity to ""explore different approaches that could help advance changes in our own supply chain and business practices"", d'Avack added.",0
" China is pushing to complete its first commercial-scale power plant that can capture and store emissions, but must do more research on how and where to lock away carbon dioxide if the technology is to get wide roll-out. Pressure is building on the world's top emitter of greenhouse gas to curb the growth of its carbon dioxide (CO2) output. China itself is also worried about the impact of rising world temperatures on its climate and food output. But coal is China's most plentiful domestic source of energy, and Beijing hopes for several more decades of rapid economic growth to lift millions from poverty. That means capturing and storing carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming -- in underground reservoirs is likely to be crucial to containing emissions. But officials worry about the expense and the environmental impact of the process. ""There are still a number of outstanding issues in relation to this technology,"" said Ma Yanhe, Director-General of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. ""Apart from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is not making very significant contributions to sustainable development. ""The technology itself is also energy intensive and the significant energy consumption is quite worrisome. Finally, there is no reliable assessment methodology for the long-term environmental impact of this technology."" Among the considerable obstacles facing scientists is uncertainty about how best to store CO2. If there were problems with storage and large amounts of gas were released at once, perhaps in an earthquake, it could kill people at the surface, while leaks would void the expected contribution to fighting climate change. Work has already begun on the first stage of the power project, a high-tech plant near the port city of Tianjin that will eventually strip CO2 out of gasified coal before combustion, but will run first for several years as a cleaner power station. ""We plan to start construction in 2014 and complete the works and start operations in 2016,"" Su Wenbin, head of China Huaneng Group's Greengen zero-emissions project, told a recent CCS conference. Greengen also has a demonstration plant in Beijing where some of the gas stripped out is used to carbonate soft drinks. CHINA'S OPTIONS China's storage needs will be vast if it decides to push sequestration as a key part of efforts to curb emissions. A 1 gigawatt (GW) power plant with a 40-year life span will generate about 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, according to a recent study by the China-Britain Near-Zero Emissions Coal initiative (NZEC), which is exploring China's CCS options. China's installed generating capacity was already 793 GW in 2008, and is forecast to hit 1,600 GW by 2020. Some geological forecasts are optimistic. There is potential to store 3,066 gigatonnes of gas underground or under the seabed, equivalent to more than 400 years of current emissions, the US National Resource Defense Council said in a report. More than 90 percent of the country's major CO2 producing centers are no more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) from a potential large underground storage site, the report added. But 99 percent of this potential capacity is in saline aquifers, a storage option that has not been fully researched. Although PetroChina this year started a trial project in the northeast to pump CO2 into depleted oil and gas fields to extract more fuel, using a proven technology, this is an option for only a small portion of the country's CO2 output. There are worries that leakage could be a major problem at the major, older fields, which have been punctured by numerous wells during their exploitation. Offshore storage has been suggested as an alternative, but this increases cost and technological challenges. WHERE TO PUT YOUR MONEY? The cost of most carbon transport and storage in China should be the equivalent of $2 to $8 per tonne, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said in a report. But the separation of carbon emissions can be hugely expensive, whether retrofitting plants or building new ones. There is also a question mark over who will pay for seismic and other studies rarely included in costings for CCS plants -- but if companies themselves are hunting for storage sites or paying others to do so, it could push up costs. ""Data access will be an important issue because much data held by oil and gas companies is commercially sensitive,"" said Graham White, at the British Department of Energy and Climate Change. Further down the line, carbon capture projects might be covered by the Clean Development Mechanism, an international scheme to tackle global warming that allows rich nation polluters to pay for output cuts in poor nations. For now, however, it is not eligible as opponents say the system is meant to fund verifiable reductions, not technological innovation, and CCS is as yet unproven. They also worry that it could divert investment from renewables and efficiency.",0
"BARCELONA, Spain, Nov 5, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Developing countries said on Wednesday they risked ""total destruction"" unless the rich stepped up the fight against climate change to a level that even the United Nations says is out of reach. The top US climate diplomat Todd Stern blamed a ""17-year divide"" between rich and poor nations for slow progress at the UN talks meant to agree a global climate deal in Copenhagen in December, and slammed ""debating society"" pranks. Keeping up pressure in Barcelona, the final preparatory session for the December meeting, the poor said that even the most ambitious offers by the European Union, tougher than most nations, were far too weak for a new UN climate pact. ""The result of that is to condemn developing countries to a total destruction of their livelihoods, their economies. Their land, their forests will all be destroyed. And for what purpose?"" said Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping of Sudan, chair of the Group of 77 and China, representing poor nations. ""Anything south of 40 (percent) means that Africa's population, Africa's land mass is offered destruction,"" he told a news conference. Developing countries at the Barcelona talks insisted that rich nations should cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- far more than on offer. But even the United Nations said that would involve too wrenching a shift. African nations resumed negotiations in Barcelona on Tuesday after a one-day partial boycott following agreement on more focus on cuts by the rich. ""I think to get to minus 40 is too heavy a lift,"" Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. Such a shift would require ""going back to the drawing board"" and would economically ""come at a huge cost,"" he said. DIVIDE In Washington, the top U.S. diplomat on climate change, Todd Stern, criticised entrenched positions in talks since the world agreed the U.N. climate convention in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. ""The divide between developed and developing countries that has run down the center of climate change discussions for the past 17 years is still alive and well,"" he told a panel in the U.S. House of Representatives. ""We are not engaged right now in a debating society"", he said of the international talks. So far, developed nations are planning cuts averaging between 11 and 15 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels to slow climate change that could lead to more droughts, floods, rising sea levels, more powerful cyclones and a spread of disease. Sudan's Di-Aping said ""in real and absolute terms (the effort) is minimal"". He said rich nations spent billions of dollars on solving the financial crisis or on defence. Cuts of 40 percent as demanded by African nations ""would be extremely difficult,"" said Anders Turesson, head of the Swedish delegation which holds the European Union's rotating presidency. The United States is the only nation outside the existing Kyoto Protocol for curbing industrialised nations' emissions to 2012 and the Senate is debating a bill that would cut emissions by about 7 percent below 1990 levels. A panel of UN climate scientists said in 2007 that emissions by developed nations would have to be cut by between 25 and 40 percent by 2020 to avoid the worst of global warming. European Union lawmakers gave final approval to hand polluting industries including steelmakers free carbon emissions permits for up to a decade, to safeguard them from unfair competition with countries which faced no carbon limits. About 100 activists blocked the exit of the UN climate summit building in Barcelona for an hour to demand urgent, ambitious carbon reductions by 2020, chanting ""no way out"".",0
" Six months after achieving Oscar glory for his climate change documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth,' former Vice President Al Gore is headed back to the red carpet for the Emmys, US television's highest honors. Gore is expected to receive an 'interactive television services' Emmy, a noncompetitive award, on Sunday for his fledgling cable network and online video venture Current TV, which he launched in August 2005. Current is one of five finalists for the award, decided by an interactive-media 'peer jury' of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and presented for the first time during the live telecast of the Primetime Emmy Awards. Gore, chairman of the venture, plans to attend the Emmys with chief executive and business partner Joel Hyatt, a spokeswoman said. Billed by Gore as a revolutionary TV outlet that encourages a 'two-way conversation' with its audience, the 24-hour network airs a mixture of professionally produced segments with viewer-produced videos running from a few seconds to 15 minutes. Organizers say about 25 percent of Current's programming 'pods' -- a term borrowed from Apple Computer's iPod portable digital music player -- consist of homemade pieces dubbed viewers contributed content, or 'VC Squared.' The rapid-paced format is targeted at Internet-savvy viewers 18 to 34 years old, a generation Gore said ""wants to be in control of its media."" Programming subjects range from fashion and lifestyle trends to news and current events. Current TV was converted from a defunct cable channel, Newsworld International, that a Gore-led investor group purchased in 2004 from Vivendi Universal for a reported $70 million. With an estimated reach of 50 million homes in the United States and Britain, Current is carried to subscribers through satellite service DirecTV and various cable systems. Gore, the Democratic nominee for president in 2000, last plied the Hollywood red carpet in February, when the big-screen version of his slide-show lecture and book about the threat of global warming, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' won the Academy Award for best documentary feature.",0
" Climate change should be treated as a public health issue, especially by the United States, the world's biggest long-term emitter of greenhouse gases, health and ecology experts said on Tuesday. An Earth transformed by climate change could lead to more climate-related diseases, especially those transmitted by insects and those borne by water supplies, the experts said at a meeting of the American Public Health Association. The United States and other rich countries bear special responsibility because their climate-warming emissions will have a disproportionate impact on poor countries that emit the least and have the fewest resources to deal with public health problems, said Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin. ""There is ... an issue of disproportional vulnerability,"" Patz said at a news conference. ""But ... in the industrialized world, because we live in a globalized economy, an increase in disease anywhere in the world really puts everyone at risk."" Health hazards related to climate change include severe heat waves and droughts, which can affect the food and water supply; more severe storms; and more ground-level ozone, also known as smog, which is sensitive to temperature and can affect people with breathing problems such as asthma. ""Climate change is one of the most serious public health threats facing our nation,"" said Dr. Georges Benjamin, the association's executive director. ""Yet few Americans are aware of the very real consequences of climate change on the health of our communities, our families and our children."" The United States has long been the top emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases, notably the carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and petroleum-powered vehicles. At least one study this year found China was overtaking the United States on this score, but over time, the United States has still emitted more. ""In the aggregate, we are still the number one country responsible for climate change,"" he said, noting that carbon dioxide stays in the environment for about 70 years. Patz and Benjamin stressed that rising awareness of climate change can be seen as an opportunity to improve public health. To that end, Benjamin announced a six-month plan to develop recommendations to help public health professionals deal with the situation. Public health professionals include doctors, nurses, lawyers and health educators. The recommendations are expected to be released in April, Benjamin said.",0
" Germany's Social Democrats have leaned to the left ahead of a party congress starting on Friday to win back voters angry at painful economic reforms. The SPD's support has slumped below 30 percent and chairman Kurt Beck, after months of criticism of weak leadership, pounded his fist on the table last week and put forward proposals to change a pillar of the coalition government's ""Agenda 2010"". Beck's plan to extend the length of jobless benefits for older workers to 24 months is not a major shift but it cheered the SPD's left wing which has felt ignored in the SPD's coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats. Beck will likely win a comfortable majority for the proposal from the congress in Hamburg, where 525 delegates will also vote on Beck and three deputy chairs who are all running uncontested. The government's plans to partially privatise the railways and Germany's participation in a peacekeeping mission to Afghanistan are also key themes at the three-day meeting. Extending jobless benefits was an about-face for the SPD that adopted reform policies favourable to business under ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder four years ago. They have since suffered a string of electoral defeats as a result. Beck, a centrist and the SPD's likely candidate for chancellor in 2009, says the SPD is fed up with Merkel's CDU grabbing the glory for the coalition's achievements. ""Merkel and the conservatives even try to claim credit for the accomplishments of SPD ministers,"" said Beck. ""That's not good for the coalition's climate. ""There's been a lack of fairness,"" the 58-year-old, a trained electrician, added in an interview with the Neue Presse newspaper. ""It's a mistake and endangers the ability of the coalition to function."" Merkel's conservatives criticised the shift left and Beck's complaints about the climate in the coalition. It is far from clear if his plan to extend jobless benefits will become law. Manfred Guellner, managing director of the Forsa polling institute, said Beck's change of stance is going down well with the party's shrinking membership but will turn mainstream voters off. The SPD has, however, recovered slightly in recent polls. ""Beck has decided to satisfy the party's soul by rolling backwards to the left,"" Guellner said. ""But it's unlikely to help them with the electorate."" Guellner said the SPD needs 20 million votes in 2009 if it wants to beat the CDU. By shifting left, he said it will keep the 11 million core SPD voters happy but lose the middle ground. ""An SPD renaissance under Beck seems unlikely,"" he said.",2
" Australia unveiled its most sweeping economic reform in decades on Sunday with a plan to tax carbon emissions from the nation's worst polluters, reviving hopes of stronger global climate action with the largest emissions trade scheme outside Europe. Prime Minister Julia Gillard said 500 companies including steel and aluminum manufacturers would pay a A$23 ($24.70) per tonne carbon tax from next year, rising by 2.5 percent a year, moving to a market-based trading scheme in 2015. ""It's time to get on with this, we are going to get this done,"" said Gillard after a bruising battle to win political support for the scheme, which has polarized voters and business. A parliamentary vote on the scheme is expected before year-end.  
Australia is the developed world's worst per-capita greenhouse gas emitter because of its heavy reliance on cheap coal for power generation. Emissions are set to rise in the booming economy without a carbon cost, the government says. The stakes are high for Gillard's Labor party, which relies on the support of Greens and independents for a one-seat lower house majority. Her popularity has slumped to record lows over the scheme. With the details now finally released after months of waiting, Gillard will now try to convince voters opposed to the plan ahead of a parliamentary vote, trying to deflect a campaign against it by the hardest hit businesses. ""It is absolutely critical that the government sells this very effectively,"" said Tony Wood, director of the energy program at the Grattan Institute, a policy think tank. Australian retail and clean-energy stocks were expected to be among the winners, and airlines and miners among the plan's losers, but analysts said financial markets overall were tipped to take the policy in their stride. The scheme aims to cut national emissions by 5 percent of 2000 levels by 2020, which would mean a cut of about 160 million tonnes. The package already has the broad support of the Greens and independents, although crossbenchers said they had yet to support extra measures to protect steelmakers and jobs in the vital coal industry. Parliament twice rejected previous attempts to price carbon in 2009 and any fresh rebuff in a vote expected around October would seriously threaten Gillard's government. The danger is that a vigorous campaign by the conservative opposition and business groups opposed to the tax, could erode public support and frighten political backers ahead of elections due by 2013. ""This tax is going to go up and up and up as time goes by. I think this package is going to compound the trust problem that has dogged the prime minister. This package certainly sets up the next election to be a referendum on the carbon tax,"" said conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott. Abbott has seized upon voter fears of a new tax and higher costs from a scheme that aims to transform how the nation generates and uses energy across the economy. To neutralize opposition, Gillard said more than A$24 billion to be raised from pollution permit sales over the next three years would go to households through generous tax cuts worth more than A$15 billion. SCHEME MAY BE LINKED TO OTHERS Australia's scheme will cover 60 percent of carbon pollution apart from exempted agricultural and light vehicle emissions, with Treasury models showing it would boost the consumer price index by 0.7 percent in its first year, in 2012-13 (July-June). It could also aid global efforts to fight carbon pollution, which have largely stalled since U.S. President Barack Obama last year ruled out a federal climate bill his present term. Outside the EU, only New Zealand has a national carbon scheme. ""Other countries will look at one of the most carbon polluting economies on the planet that has made one huge stride forward toward putting a price on carbon,"" said John Connor, chief executive of The Climate Institute. Australia said it hoped to link its scheme, which would cost A$4.4 billion to implement after household and industry compensation, to other international carbon markets and land abatement schemes when its emissions market was running. Europe's system, which covers the 27 EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, has forced power producers to pay for carbon emissions, driving cuts where power plants were forced to switch to cleaner natural gas or biomass. Gillard said her government would spend A$9.2 billion over the first three years of the scheme to ensure heavy polluting industries like steel and aluminum production were not killed off, and help close the oldest and dirtiest power stations. Assistance would come from free carbon permits covering 94.5 percent of carbon costs for companies in the most emissions-intensive and trade-exposed sectors, such as aluminum smelters and steel manufacturers, while moderate emitting exporters would get 66 percent of permits for free. Coal miners, including global giants Xstrata Ltd and the coal arms of BHP Billiton, would be eligible for a A$1.3 billion compensation package to help the most emissions intensive mines adjust to the tax, which would add an average A$1.80 per tonne to the cost of mining coal. ""We support action on climate change but are disappointed at the government's lack of genuine consultation,"" said Xstrata Coal spokesman James Rickards in a statement. The Minerals Council of Australia criticized the scheme as a ""dangerous experiment with the Australian economy."" Australia, a major coal exporter, relies on coal for 80 percent of electricity generation, which in turn accounts for 37 percent of national emissions. The government would also set up loan guarantees for electricity generators through a new Energy Security Fund, to help the industry refinance loans of between A$9 billion and A$10 billion over the next five years. The government would fund the shut-down or partial closure of the dirtiest brown-coal generators in Victoria state and remove up to 2,000 megawatts of capacity by 2020, replacing them with cleaner gas, while short-term loans would help them re-finance debt and buy permits. Australia's booming liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, which is due to decide on A$90 billion worth of new projects, would also be included in the scheme, despite calls for 100 percent protection. The sector will receive 50 percent assistance, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said. Steelmakers, including Australia's largest, BlueScope and OneSteel Ltd, will receive 94.5 percent of free permits and A$300 million in grants to help support jobs. ""GREATEST CHALLENGE"" The scheme also set-up a A$10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund new renewable and cleaner generation capacity, such as wind, solar, gas and wave power plants. ""This is the moment where Australia turns its back on the fossil fuel age, and turns its face toward the greatest challenge of the 21st century, and that is addressing global warming,"" said Australian Greens deputy leader Christine Milne, whose party wields the balance of power in the Senate. To soothe voters, with polls showing 60 percent opposition to a carbon tax, the government has offered tax cuts to low and middle-income households, as well as increased state pension and welfare payments. Treasurer Wayne Swan said all taxpayers earning below A$80,000 a year would get tax cuts worth around A$300 a year, which analysts said could actually help boost the struggling retail sector, where spending has been sluggish.",0
" US President George W. Bush, hosting major polluting nations last week, sought to convince skeptics that he wants to help shape the next global deal on climate change, despite his long history of shunning such efforts. But with only 15 months left in office, his chances of becoming a major player in the debate over climate change are diminishing quickly, analysts and diplomats said. They added that his resistance to the kind of mandatory emissions limits sought by many allies in Europe and Japan may further weaken his influence as negotiations intensify over a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. That treaty, which Bush rejected, expires in 2012. Bush told a gathering of envoys from the 17 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases that he took global warming seriously and that the United States would do its part to combat it. His acknowledgment of a problem highlighted a shift from his previous questioning of the science linking human activity to rising temperatures. But Bush found himself at odds with many of the invited delegates as he tried to rally support for voluntary measures and declined to embrace the binding targets many believe are essential to tackling global warming. ""I think there was a lot of hope that the United States would show some movement,"" said Alex Lennon, a national security analyst and climate specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Now, Lennon said, ""a lot of countries are already looking past this administration."" A European participant in the two-day climate session echoed that sentiment. ""I know that with this administration we will not reach any results because the time is too short,"" the visiting official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. OUTSIDER STATUS In another indication that Bush has failed to shed his status as an outsider in climate talks, he skipped a high-profile meeting on the subject at the United Nations a few days before the Washington session. He did attend a UN working dinner on climate, however. When Bush first proposed convening a series of meetings of major emitters in May, many worried it was an attempt to undermine the UN negotiations on climate. The countries attending the Washington session together account for 80 percent of the global economy and 80 percent of global emissions. They include large European countries such as Britain and Germany as well as fast-growing developing countries like China, India and Brazil. ""The mere fact that this meeting took place is a sign that the administration has changed its tune,"" said Charles Kupchan, professor of international relations at Georgetown University. Still, Kupchan added, ""The agenda he laid out for addressing the problem falls well short of what many industrialized countries -- particularly the Europeans -- would like to see."" Bush tried to overcome some of the skepticism about the gathering by emphasizing that he hoped it would help build momentum for the UN talks. The next set of UN negotiations are to take place in December in Bali. Just one month before that, Bush will host German Chancellor Angela Merkel at his ranch in November and is sure to find himself in the familiar role of facing pressure to support tougher climate steps. But the message Merkel brings may be aimed as much at the American public as at Bush himself. In the years since Bush rejected the 1997 Kyoto treaty, the debate within the United States has shifted toward growing concern about global warming. The Democratic-led Congress is considering several bills that would set mandatory emissions limits. Prominent corporations like General Electric and DuPont are calling for strong action on global warming, as are some Republican politicians such as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. That has led many to many to believe that the president who succeeds Bush in early 2009 is almost certain to be more sympathetic to a tougher approach on climate change. ""I don't think that anyone believes that the next president -- whether Republican or Democrat -- will follow Bush's lead on climate,"" said Nicholas Eisenberger of Green Order, a New York consulting firm that advises companies on climate issues. ""The question for President Bush is whether he has anything relevant left to say,"" Eisenberger said. ""If he does not, the world will just move on without him.""",0
"Storm Ana passed over Madagascar on Jan 22, adding to days of already intense rainfall. The country declared a state of disaster on Thursday night, reporting a rise in the death toll from Ana to 48, with people killed by landslides and collapsing buildings or washed away. Ana then made landfall in Mozambique on Jan 24, where 18 have been reported dead, before moving inland to Malawi, where it triggered massive power cuts. Malawi's death toll rose to 20 on Thursday. read more Across all three nations, Ana has affected hundreds of thousands of people and lead to widespread flooding and destruction, according to the United Nations. ""This latest storm...is a blunt reminder that the climate crisis is very much a reality,"" said Maria Luisa Fornara, UNICEF Representative in Mozambique. The region has been repeatedly struck by severe storms and cyclones in recent years, destroying homes, infrastructure and crops and displacing large numbers of people. In some cases, communities still recovering are hit again, compounding the impacts. Experts say storms are becoming stronger and more frequent as waters warm due to climate change, with rising sea levels also making low-lying coastal areas vulnerable. Another storm, dubbed Batsirai, is now travelling towards Africa's east coast. Meteo France on Friday described Batsirai as a small system that presented no immediate threat to a group of islands to the east of Madagascar, including the French territory of Reunion, because it was still days away. However, it said the evolution of Batsirai's intensity and trajectory remained uncertain. Mozambique's National Institute of Meteorology warned Batsirai still had the potential to evolve into a severe tropical storm.",0
" The United Nations praised on Thursday a step by a US Senate committee to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the world's top carbon emitter even as Washington reaffirmed opposition to mandatory caps. ""That's a very encouraging sign from the United States,"" Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said at 190-nation U.N. talks in Bali, Indonesia, of a vote by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. His comments underscored the isolation of President George W. Bush's administration at the Dec. 3-14 talks. Australia's new government ratified the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, leaving the United States as the only developed nation outside the pact. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has also offered to act as a bridge on climate change between China and the West, a Rudd spokeswoman told Reuters on Thursday. China is poised to become the world's top carbon emitter and is not bound by emissions caps under the Kyoto Protocol. Getting China, which is already pursuing energy efficiency targets for its booming economy, to join a broader climate pact is regarded as crucial by many as nations prepare for rising seas, melting glaciers, severe storms and water shortages. The U.S. Senate committee voted 11-8 on Wednesday for legislation outlining a cap-and-trade system for industry, power generators and transport. The bill is headed for debate in the full Senate. ""It will not alter our position here,"" US chief climate negotiator Harlan Watson told reporters in Bali of the vote. Bush says Kyoto would harm the economy and wrongly excludes goals for developing nations until 2012. Instead, he favors big investments in clean technologies but dismisses emissions caps. Watson said Washington was pushing ahead with its own track by inviting big economies to Honolulu, Hawaii, next month for climate change talks after a first Washington meeting in September. He said he believed the dates were Jan. 29 and 30. BALI TO HAWAII Bush wants 17 big emitters, accounting for more than 80 percent of greenhouse gases, to agree to new climate goals by the end of 2008 -- just before he leaves office -- and feed into a new UN pact meant to be agreed by the end of 2009. Delegates in Bali are seeking ways to bind all nations more tightly into a fight against climate change. But China, India and other developing nations say rich countries must commit to deep emissions cuts first. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he believed in principle there should be mandatory capping. ""However, I know there are some concerns in some of the developing countries, therefore this issue should be discussed in the future negotiation process,"" he told reporters in New York. Ban said the Bali gathering showed there was momentum on the issue, ""and, I hope, the political will to act."" More than 200 climate scientists from around the world urged nations at the Bali talks to make deeper and swifter cuts to greenhouse emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels. They said governments had a window of only 10-15 years for global emissions to peak and decline, and that the ultimate goal should be at least a 50 percent reduction in climate-warming emissions by 2050. ""We appreciate this is a significant challenge for the world community,"" Professor Andy Pittman, from the University of New South Wales in Australia, told reporters in Bali. ""But it is what is required to reduce the risks of dangerous climate change, and that is what we are all trying to do here."" Underscoring the financial risk of global warming, the International Monetary Fund said in Washington it would spell out the economic implications of climate change in research and discussions set for early 2008. ""This research will analyze in greater depth the macroeconomic implications of climate change and policy responses to it, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation,"" Deputy Managing Director Takatoshi Kato said at the Fund's first news conference on the economic effects of warming. Kato will join world leaders in Bali next week. Ban said the Bali process was a chance to engineer eco-friendly transformation of the global economy -- ""One that spurs growth and development rather than hinders it, as many national leaders fear.""",0
" Owners of gas-guzzling cars will have to pay 25 pounds ($50) a day to drive them in central London from October in a push to cut carbon emissions, mayor Ken Livingstone said on Tuesday. Livingstone admitted it would have little immediate impact on emissions but said the lifestyle signal and other moves such as recycling initiatives and new building rules would help cut London's carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2025. ""I believe that this ground-breaking initiative will have an impact throughout the world with other cities following suit as they step up their efforts to halt the slide towards catastrophic climate change,"" he told a news conference. London, which generates 7 percent of Britain's climate-warming carbon emissions, is one of 40 world cities pooling their knowledge to fight climate change. Livingstone said the new scheme would raise 30 million to 50 million pounds ($60 million to $100 million) a year and cover most of the cost of a major cycling initiative he unveiled on Monday that will include a Paris-style roadside bicycle hire scheme in the city centre. Environmentalists welcomed Tuesday's move as a step in the right direction, but said far more was needed. ""We now know that we face an emergency situation on planet Earth that requires us to bring down carbon dioxide emissions very quickly indeed,"" said Friends of the Earth's Tony Juniper. But motoring organisations were not so keen. ""We welcome incentives for cleaner, greener cars. However, larger families who do low mileage will be clobbered by this new tax,"" said Automobile Association president Edmund King. Livingstone, who has made the environment a central plank of his tenure, is facing a tough re-election battle in May. If he loses, his emissions policy is likely to go with him. The 25 pound daily tax on vehicles emitting 225 grams of carbon dioxide per km would apply in the same way as the normal 8 pounds ($16) daily charge does to all but the cleanest cars. ""I have every sympathy with a Scottish hill farmer who needs his 4x4 to get around. But there is absolutely no justification for cars producing high amounts of pollution being driven in central London,"" Livingstone said. ",0
"China’s electricity shortage is rippling across factories and industries, testing the nation’s status as the world’s capital for reliable manufacturing. The shortage prompted authorities to announce Wednesday a national rush to mine and burn more coal, despite previous pledges to curb emissions that cause climate change. Mines that were closed without authorisation have been ordered to reopen. Coal mines and coal-fired power plants that were shut for repairs are also to be reopened. Tax incentives are being drafted for coal-fired power plants. Regulators have ordered Chinese banks to provide plenty of loans to the coal sector. Local governments have been warned to be more cautious about limits on energy use that had been imposed partly in response to climate change concerns. “We will make every effort to increase coal production and supply,” Zhao Chenxin, secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning agency, said at a news briefing Wednesday in Beijing. Depending on how much coal can be mined and burned soon, China’s electricity shortage could call into question whether Beijing can deliver in the coming months the strong economic growth that China’s people have come to expect. The electricity crunch has also laid bare one of China’s strategic weaknesses: It is a voracious, and increasingly hungry, energy hog. China has also emerged as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases by a wide margin, thanks mainly to its already heavy dependence on coal. The world’s No 2 economy relies on energy-intensive industries like steel, cement and chemicals to power growth. While many of its newer factories are more efficient than their US counterparts, years of government price controls for electricity lulled other industries and most homeowners into putting off improvements. As the winter heating season arrives, which will require China to dig up and burn still more coal, Beijing must confront whether to allow factories to continue running full-tilt producing industrial materials for global supply chains. “They have to sacrifice something to make sure households will have heat and power,” said Chen Long, a co-founder and partner of Plenum, a Beijing economics and politics research firm. “They have to cut energy-intensive industries.” Power rationing appears to have eased somewhat since late last month, when widespread blackouts and power cuts caught factories by surprise. But the winter heating season officially begins Friday in the country’s northeast and continues into north-central China next month. China faces tough choices. It burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and is the No. 2 consumer of oil after the United States. China has been rapidly expanding its use of natural gas as well as solar panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric dams. Yet China still does not have enough energy to meet demand. Even shifting to green energy could take significant power; the country’s tight electricity supplies have raised its costs for making solar panels. Sustained tight supplies could force China to remake its economy, much as the high oil prices of the 1970s forced North American and European nations to change. Those countries developed more efficient cars, embraced other fuels, found plentiful new supplies and shifted manufacturing overseas, much of it to China. But the process was long, painful and costly. For now, China is revving up coal consumption less than a month before world leaders gather in Glasgow, Scotland, to discuss confronting climate change. Board members of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said Wednesday that electricity shortages had worsened this week in some cities and eased in others. They predicted electricity problems would last until March. Until enough power comes online, China’s factories risk unexpected and destabilizing stoppages. Factories in China consume twice as much electricity as the rest of the country’s economy. China’s factories tend to require 10 percent to 30 percent more energy than counterparts in the West, said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing research and advocacy group. China has made more gains in energy efficiency in the past two decades than any other country, said Brian Motherway, head of energy efficiency at the International Energy Agency in Paris. But because China started the century with an inefficient industrial sector, it still has not caught up with the West, he said. Zhao said that even with Wednesday’s push for more coal production, China would continue efforts to become more energy-efficient. He pointed out that the United States has also been burning more coal this year as the U.S. economy has begun to rebound from the pandemic. The impact of the power shortages has been mixed. Car assembly plants in northeastern China had been given permission to keep running, but tire factories nearly stopped running. Wuxi Honghui New Materials Technology, which makes chemicals for the world’s paint manufacturers, disclosed that electricity cuts had hurt production. Others disclosing difficulties include Toly Bread, with its national chain of bakeries, and Fujian Haiyuan Composites Technology, a manufacturer of battery cases for China’s fast-growing electric car industry. Fred Jacobs, a 57-year-old software marketer in Seattle, ordered two high-performance solid-state drives in late summer from China, only to be offered a refund a week ago because a lack of electricity would cause factory delays. “I was flabbergasted because I’ve heard about shipping issues with China but not power issues or infrastructure issues with Chinese suppliers,” he said. “Now the risk is much higher, and I will buy from US vendors even if I have to pay more.” The power outages have taken a human toll, which could worsen if homes lose power during winter. At least 23 workers were hospitalized in northeast China late last month with carbon monoxide poisoning when the power failed at a large chemicals factory. The government has been taking steps to improve efficiency, like allowing utilities to raise prices for industrial and commercial users as much as 20 percent so that they can buy more coal. China practically stopped new coal investments in 2016 as concerns developed about the industry’s sustainability. Anti-corruption officials have launched investigations focused on some important coal fields in the Inner Mongolia region, discouraging investment further. In late summer, many mines were closed for safety reviews. Flooding this autumn in Shanxi province, China’s biggest hub for coal mining, has forced the closing of at least one-tenth of the province’s mines. With demand rising post-pandemic, prices jumped. Power plants found themselves losing money with every ton of coal they burned, so they ran at around three-fifths capacity. Chinese officials hope to replace much coal-fired power with solar power. But China’s manufacturing processes for solar panels require enormous amounts of electricity, much of it from coal. Polysilicon, the main raw material for solar panels, has more than tripled in price recently, with most of the increase in the past couple weeks, said Ocean Yuan, president of Grape Solar, a solar panel distributor in Eugene, Oregon. In China, the cost to build large solar panel farms has jumped about 25% since the start of this year. “We haven’t seen such a level in years,” said Frank Haugwitz, a Chinese solar panel industry consultant. China is also looking to improve steelmaking efficiency. Its steel mills use more electricity each year than all the country’s homes and account for about one-sixth of China’s greenhouse gas emissions. Chinese steel companies still rely on coal-fired blast furnaces that melt mostly iron ore to make steel. The West has mostly switched to producing steel in efficient electric arc furnaces, which melt a mix of scrap and iron ore. China is trying to improve scrap collection from demolished buildings, but switching to electric arc furnaces will be gradual, said Sebastian Lewis, a Chinese energy and commodities consultant. For now, China’s worries are focused on the winter. During a severe cold snap in December, some cities ran short of coal and curtailed factory operations, turned off streetlights and elevators and limited heating of offices. The problems appeared even though power plants started the winter with several weeks of coal in stockpiles. This year, China’s biggest provinces have only nine to 14 days’ worth in storage, according to CQCoal, a Chinese coal data firm. “The stocks are low, much lower than they should be,” said Philip Andrews-Speed, a specialist in Chinese energy at the National University of Singapore. “And they’re panicking for winter.”   © 2021 The New York Times Company",0
" Leaders from some of the largest Western powers rallied support Tuesday behind a US plan to build a more balanced global economy and warned against returning to business as usual once recovery takes hold. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was substantial backing among the Group of 20 nations for creating a new framework to shrink surpluses in export-rich countries such as China and boosting savings in debt-laden nations including the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also supported the idea of a rebalanced global economy, to be monitored by the International Monetary Fund, saying world growth can no longer hinge solely on ""overextended"" US consumers. But French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said she feared growing signs of economic recovery could undermine commitments to rework and regulate the world financial order. ""We are currently seeing, notably in the United States, sufficient signs of recovery that numerous players are saying ... let's go back to our old habits and carry on with our business as we did in the past,"" she told a news conference. Brazil, one of the emerging heavyweights of the developing world, spoke out against the US rebalancing proposal, saying the IMF already played a role in monitoring economies. ""The way it is, this proposal is obscure and we do not agree with it,"" Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega told reporters in New York. The G20 club of rich and developing economies holds a two-day leaders summit in Pittsburgh from Thursday and the United States wants to see rebalancing high on the agenda. Also up for discussion are the issues of how to nurture an economic recovery, rein in risk-taking by banks and bankers, and save the planet from global warming. It is the third leaders' meeting since the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers a year ago and they are moving now from ways to end the worst global recession since the 1930s to discussing ways to prevent it happening again. The G20 wants to figure out how to build a lasting economic recovery which is less prone to painful boom-bust cycles. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday the world's biggest economy was at the ""beginnings"" of a recovery, and the key was to ensure that the recovery was self-sustaining. ""To make sure that as we recover from this crisis we are laying the seeds for a more balanced, more sustainable recovery: That is the agenda,"" Geithner said. BROAD SUPPORT US plans for a more balanced global economy could meet resistance from China, which is unlikely to agree to reforms that would threaten its growth, analysts said. It was also unclear whether Germany and Japan, two other big exporters, would back the proposal. But Britain's Brown, currently chairman of the G20, said there was broad backing. ""I have been talking to many countries in Asia, as well as in Europe, and I have been talking to President Obama and others, and I believe that there is support for that framework,"" he said. ""We are looking at how we can put in place for the future the mechanism or path that can lead us to making decisions about better ways of creating growth."" A document outlining the US position ahead of the summit said big exporters should consume more while debtors like the United States ought to boost savings. The G20 must also address the sensitive issue of reforming the IMF, to win full support from emerging economies, said Ouseme Mandeng, head of public sector investment advisory at Ashmore Investment Management in London. ""They are the two sides of the same coin,"" he said. ""There are opportunities to present a new vision in the post-crisis world. I'm not sure if they have the courage to do so."" China and other fast-growing nations are clamoring for more say at the IMF and other international financing institutions. The United States has backed a plan to shift 5.0 percent of voting power to certain emerging economies from rich nations. However, Europe has yet to fully support that proposal and the emerging economies have pushed for a 7.0 percent shift. In an interview with Reuters, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said European countries ""understand it is time to move"" on reforming voting power in the IMF, and he expected China to be the biggest beneficiary. BANKING AND CLIMATE CHANGES Curbing huge pay packages for bankers is also high on Europe's to-do list for the summit. At a meeting of G20 finance leaders in London this month there was general agreement on the need to change the risk-taking culture of banks to ensure employees are not rewarded for making risky investments that later collapse. G20 officials also concurred that there should be tighter restrictions on how much capital banks must hold to absorb losses when loans go bad, but offered no specifics. Britain's top financial regulator said the G20's regulation coordination arm, the Financial Stability Board, would ask leaders to back its guidelines on how banks must structure pay policies to avoid big, risky bets by traders. The FSB will state ""it is essential that priority use of high profits should be to rebuild the capital needed to support lending, allow official measures to be removed, prepare institutions to meet higher capital requirements, and that bonus and dividend policies should be consistent with this priority,"" Financial Services Authority Chairman Adair Turner told bankers in London. On climate change, rifts remain between rich and developing economies over how quickly to cut carbon dioxide emissions and who should foot the bill. However, there were signs of progress Tuesday as Chinese President Hu Jintao announced goals to slow growth in his country's emissions. The G20 is under pressure to show progress before 190 nations gather in Copenhagen in December to try to reach a deal to slow climate change.",1
"Energy ministry officials said in a gazette notification early this year that the country will begin using maize, broken rice grains and molasses to produce ethanol to mix with petrol fuel at a 5 percent ratio. But in a heavily populated country that produces relatively little in the way of climate-changing emissions and that already relies on imports of maize and other grains, the result could be rising food prices, especially for the poor, economists, business leaders and environmental experts warned. Moshiur Rahman, who convenes the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Coordination Committee, called the move to begin using grain for fuel “suicidal”. Much of Bangaldesh’s maize is used to feed animals, including chickens. But the country grows only half of the maize it needs, importing the rest from the United States and Brazil, he said, which means rising demand could mean rising prices. “Maize prices will go up if it is used for ethanol production. The price of eggs and chicken will go beyond the reach of common people,” Rahman warned. He said growing concerns about food security have led other countries – including China – to stop giving permission for new biofuel projects. Food to fuel According to a study by Bangladesh’s energy ministry, the country could produce 18 million liters of ethanol a year, or about 75,000 liters each working day. That would require 60,000 tonnes of broken rice each year – about 3.5 percent of the country’s total production. Alternately the county could produce the ethanol with 62,000 tonnes of maize (2.8 percent of production) or 97,000 tonnes of molasses (nearly all of the country’s production). The study warned that if the government scales up ethanol production beyond those levels, it will raise demand for grain to the point that it could hurt food security. But junior energy minister Nasrul Hamid told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone that Bangladesh needs to go for greener and more varied fuels in the future, like other nations. “So, we are exploring the possibility of using bio-ethanol with other fuels. You can’t remain out from the global trend of energy use,” he said. He confirmed the ministry plans to give permission for ethanol production, and then would judge from early experience whether to scale up the experiment. “Yes, we are going to give permission for bio-fuel soon. Let’s see what happens first. Its impact on food security will be considered then,” Hamid said. But others warn that Bangladesh has decided to burn food grains to produce ethanol without taking into consideration the food security of its 160 million people. That is a particular worry in a low-lying country that faces severe climate change threats, including loss of crops and crop land to worsening salt-water intrusion, droughts, floods, storms, sea level rise and erosion. Already many people face daily hunger and can manage meals only once or twice a day, experts say. Last year, Bangladesh ranked in the top 25 percent of the world’s most hungry countries, according to the Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute. Bangladesh today produces about 1.8 million tonnes of broken rice, about 100,000 tonnes of molasses and less than half the 6 million tonnes of maize it needs each year, according to the country’s Energy Ministry. Besides being used as livestock food, maize is eaten by poorer people, mixed with flour as a cereal or made into biscuits. Lower-income people also eat broken rice for breakfast and make it into cakes. But prices for the grains are rising. A kilogram of coarse rice is now being sold at 42 taka (50 cents) in Dhaka, up 25 percent in price from a year ago, according to the government Trading Corporation of Bangladesh. Rising food prices are a major concern, with a growing portion of people’s earnings now being spent on food. The country’s food inflation rate in February was 6.8 percent, up from a record low of 3.8 percent a year ago. About 13 percent of Bangladesh’s people fall below the national poverty line of $2 per day, according to World Bank data. The country produces about enough rice to meet demand but imported 4.5 million tonnes of wheat last year to meet demand for that grain, according to the country’s food ministry. Wrong-headed decision? Despite rising demand for food, Khan Md Aftabuddin, managing director of Sunipun Organics Ltd. – the company that first applied for government permission for ethanol production – said turning grain into fuel would not pose any threat to food security for Bangladesh. He said the byproducts of ethanol production could be used as poultry or fish food, and that more maize could be grown on delta islands if demand for it rises. “If needed, we will produce maize in char lands of the country as raw material for our plant,” Aftabuddin said. Bangladesh needs to turn to renewable energy to keep its environment clean, he said. But Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah, secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, said creating fuel using maize – which is increasingly being imported to make up for rice and wheat shortfalls – doesn’t seem to make sense. “I do not see any valid reason for using maize and broken rice for ethanol production,” he said. M. Asaduzzaman, a fellow of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and a member of the country’s climate change negotiations team, said he also disagreed with the move toward producing ethanol from grain. “We have tremendous difficulties in livestock nutrition. If maize is now used to produce ethanol, the cost of livestock production will go further up causing further animal protein deficiency,” said Asaduzzaman, also a former vice chairman of the International Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change. “This is a wrong-headed decision,” he said. Bangladesh’s per capita carbon emissions are tiny compared to those of more developed countries, and should not be as great a concern as protecting food security, he said. “When we can’t meet basic nutritional need, we don’t need to go for clean energy,” he said. Khondaker Golam Moazzem, a research director at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a Dhaka-based think tank, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that he is concerned that ethanol production, once started, could be scaled up in the future, particularly if oil prices eventually rise. That could lead to more demand for maize and for land to grow it. “Then, staple food production will be hampered since Bangladesh suffers from acute farmland scarcity,” he warned.",0
" Osama bin Laden urged an end to reliance on the US dollar as one solution to the global financial crisis and blamed developed countries for climate change, in an audiotape said to be of the al Qaeda leader. The authenticity of the tape, aired on Friday and the second by bin Laden to air on Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera this week, could not be immediately confirmed. ""It is necessary for us to avoid doing business in the dollar, and to finish with it in the fastest possible time,"" bin Laden said on the brief tape. Saudi-born bin Laden has never been found and is believed to still be hiding in the mountainous border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is known to suffer from ill-health. US soldiers and Afghan militia forces launched a large-scale assault on the Tora Bora mountains in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in pursuit of bin Laden, believed to have been hiding in the region with supporters after Afghanistan's Taliban government was removed from power. In excerpts from Friday's tape lasting under three minutes, bin Laden also blamed Western countries for climate change. ""Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality,"" he said. ""All of the industrialised countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis."" He added that while wealthy nations had agreed to the Kyoto Protocol that binds them to emission targets, former US President George W. Bush had later rejected such limitations before Congress in deference to big business. The United States never ratified the existing Kyoto Protocol, whose present commitments expire in 2012, and has said it will not sign up to an extended Kyoto Protocol, preferring a new agreement. In a separate audiotape earlier this week on Al Jazeera also purportedly of bin Laden, he claimed responsibility for the failed Dec. 25 bombing of a US-bound plane and vowed to continue attacks on the United States. In that message, addressed ""from Osama to Obama"", bin Laden said the attempt to blow up the jet as it neared Detroit was a continuation of al Qaeda policy since Sept. 11 2001.",0
"Turning to what may be the most important foreign relationship of his presidency, Biden warned the Chinese leader about American concerns with Beijing’s aggressive policies abroad and human rights abuses at home while offering to cooperate on global priorities of mutual interest. In a summary of the call, the White House said that Biden “underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan.” But the leaders also discussed “the shared challenges of global health security, climate change and preventing weapons proliferation,” according to the summary. Although it was their first conversation since becoming their nations’ respective leaders, Biden and Xi are well acquainted. In 2011 and 2012, when Biden was the vice president and Xi was the heir apparent to China’s presidency, the two men spent dozens of hours together. In a recent interview with CBS News, Biden said that he believed he had spent more time with Xi than he has with any other world leader. “I know him pretty well,” Biden said. Biden’s personal approach to Xi is likely to be a marked shift from that of President Donald Trump, who spent his first three years in office showering the Chinese leader with praise and flattery in pursuit of a grand trade deal he never achieved, before bitterly turning on him last spring after the coronavirus emerged from China and devastated the US economy. All the while, Trump’s advisers treated China as the United States’ top strategic threat. By the end of Trump’s presidency, foreign policy experts generally agreed that relations between Washington and Beijing were near their lowest point since the 1949 communist revolution. But most also believe the two nations have no choice but to cooperate on matters such as trade, climate change and global economics. While Biden and Xi established something of a rapport during the Obama era, Biden has also been sharply critical of his counterpart, who soon after assuming China’s presidency in 2013 initiated a severe political clampdown at home and pursued aggressive territorial claims in East Asia. “He’s very bright,” Biden told CBS of Xi. “He’s very tough. He doesn’t have — and I don’t mean it as a criticism, just the reality — he doesn’t have a democratic, small-D, bone in his body.” Biden said that he and the Chinese president “need not have a conflict,” but warned that “there’s going to be extreme competition.” “I’m not going to do it the way Trump did,” Biden added. “We’re going to focus on international rules of the road.” In a briefing for reporters before the call, senior administration officials underscored that point. They said Biden would continue some of the Trump administration’s confrontational policies toward Beijing, which included contesting Chinese territorial claims in Asia, defending Taiwan’s independence and Hong Kong’s autonomy, and cracking down on China’s cybertheft and hacking. The Biden administration officials said their approach would be more effective than Trump’s with renewed ties to traditional US allies with whom Trump often picked fights. They said they would retain the tariffs Trump imposed on China’s exports to the United States while they conducted a broad review of US-China trade policy. The work of competing with Beijing would begin at home, the officials said, with their efforts to defeat the coronavirus and rebuild the US economy, including by bolstering next-generation technologies like artificial intelligence and 5G networks, in which China threatens to take a lead. They also called it crucial to restore the United States’ damaged political institutions and reputation as a defender of human rights and democracy, areas in which Trump was often indifferent. Earlier on Wednesday, Biden announced sanctions against Myanmar’s ruling generals for their role in a military coup this month, an action senior officials labelled a clear demonstration of America’s renewed commitment to democracy abroad — in this case, in China’s backyard. And during an afternoon visit to the Pentagon, Biden announced the creation of a Defence Department task force to review US military policies toward China. It will report its findings by summer. Perhaps reflecting Biden’s tough campaign messaging about China and its leadership, Xi was among the last world leaders to publicly congratulate Biden on his victory. He was likewise among the last major leaders to speak to the new American president after his election. That coolness is far from the friendly tone the men adopted in their several meetings in the United States and China during the Obama administration. During a 2013 trip Biden made to Beijing, Xi addressed him in the Great Hall of the People as “my old friend.” Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, about human rights and democratic values, stability in Asia and China’s “undermining of the rules-based international system,” according to a State Department summary of the call. In a speech this month to the National Committee on US-China Relations, Yang said that the Trump administration had plunged the relationship “into its most difficult period since the establishment of diplomatic ties.” “A strong case is made for cooperation instead of confrontation between China and the United States,” he added. But he warned the United States to “stop interference in the affairs of Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang,” and “stop attempts to hold back China’s development by meddling in China’s internal affairs.”   © 2021 New York Times News Service",0
"Typhoon Lingling struck the island of Jeju and southern port cities overnight, knocking out power and damaging buildings as it moved north at 49 kph (30 mph), the Ministry of Interior and Safety said in a statement. A 75-year-old woman was killed in Boryeong, southwest of Seoul, and at least two other people were injured. A total of 124 flights were cancelled, the ministry said. The storm is expected to pass by the capital Seoul and reach North Korea by about 6pm local time (0900 GMT), a ministry official told Reuters. The centre of the typhoon is expected to pass over the North Korean capital Pyongyang, according to a tracking map by the Korea Meteorological Administration posted on its website. North Korea held an emergency meeting on Friday under the guidance of leader Kim Jong Un to discuss ""urgent emergency measures to cope with the typhoon,"" state media reported on Saturday. Kim criticised senior officials for being ""helpless against the typhoon, unaware of its seriousness and seized with easygoing sentiment,"" the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, adding that Kim called for full emergency measures. KCNA said in a separate statement that government officials and the armed forces were preparing to ""urgently dispatch forces to damaged areas by using various kinds of alarm and communications means, and secure relief goods and building equipment and materials and mobilise transport"".",1
" French President Nicolas Sarkozy, sinking in the opinion polls and facing growing economic problems, is trying to get his reform agenda back on track after weeks of government infighting and policy confusion. With approval ratings at record lows, a fractious cabinet and a worsening economic climate, Sarkozy is counting on a televised address on Thursday to restore momentum. Just under a year after his triumphant election in May 2007, the climate has changed starkly for his centre-right government. Discord among ministers, grumbling by rank and file members of parliament and a series of missteps over issues ranging from family benefits to genetically modified crops had made ""couac"" (""wrong note"") the newspapers' favourite word in recent weeks. The opinion polls have followed. Sarkozy's most recent approval rating of 36 percent, down a point from the week before, is the lowest recorded by a modern president after his first year in office, according to the Journal du Dimanche, the Sunday newspaper that published the poll. Sarkozy was forced to read the riot act to his squabbling cabinet last week, threatening to sack any minister who could not stick to an agreed government line. That followed a series of barely concealed rows, which broke open most bitterly when junior environment minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet accused colleagues of ""cowardice"" over a proposed new law on genetically modified crops. The opposition Socialists, used to attacking Sarkozy for arrogance, have increasingly switched their accusation to incompetence and have even been backed by some from the centre-right's own ranks. ""This is a government that's all over the place,"" Herve de Charette, a former foreign minister and current member of parliament for the ruling UMP party said last week. 
GAFFES Sarkozy's aides have brushed off the turbulence and dismiss criticism from the Socialists and what they say is a handful of disaffected voices from the UMP. But a string of gaffes and upsets over past few weeks has underlined the difficulty of keeping the government focused, while implementing potentially unpopular changes. Earlier this month, confusion over funding for discount rail cards offered to large families led to suspicions the government planned to abolish a much-treasured benefit introduced in 1921. That was followed by a spat over reimbursement of the cost of new spectacles and then by a change to family benefits the government said was aimed at helping very young children but which critics denounced as a de facto cut. ""There is a permanent muddle -- back-tracking and denials following on from spectacular announcements,"" Bertrand Delanoe, the Socialist mayor of Paris and potential challenger to Sarkozy at the next election in four years told the Le Parisien daily. The economy has not helped. After recent consumer sentiment data showed morale at its lowest in 20 years, inflation data last week showed prices rising at their fastest since the 1990s, adding to chronic worries over declining spending power. The government has already cut its growth forecast for 2008 to 1.7-2.0 percent and faces growing scepticism over how it will meet its pledge to eliminate its bloated budget deficit by 2012. After a year of near-constant movement when he appeared omnipresent, Sarkozy appears to have toned down the sometimes brash personal style that ended up by grating with many voters. But the Journal du Dimanche survey still found that 79 percent do not believe he has improved the situation in France.",0
"About 80% of the trees razed each year in the tropics are cleared to make space for growing cocoa, soybeans, palm oil and cattle that are the raw materials for chocolate, cereal, leather seats and thousands of other products. Ten years ago, some of the world’s largest companies, including Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, Walmart and Mars, pledged to change their practices to help end deforestation by 2020. Some, like Nestle and Carrefour, went even further, saying they would eliminate deforestation from their supply chains altogether. The 2020 deadline arrived, and some companies reported advances toward their goal. No company, however, could say it had eliminated forest destruction from its supply chain. Many others did not even try, said Didier Bergeret, sustainability director for the Consumer Goods Forum, an industry group of more than 400 retailers and manufacturers that organised the pledge. And annual deforestation in the tropics, where trees store the most carbon and harbour the most biodiversity, has lately been on the rise. Do companies know what’s in their supply chains? Many companies that committed to achieving “net zero” deforestation at first assumed the goal could be accomplished by buying from certified sustainable sellers, said Justin Adams, director of the Tropical Forest Alliance, an organisation that helps companies meet their commitments. Looking back, Adams said, that was a naive approach to a complex problem. For one thing, companies have to figure out exactly where their commodities come from. Mars, for example, is one of the world’s largest users of cocoa, which it buys from suppliers like Cargill. But those suppliers buy their cocoa, too, and at the beginning of the chain are the growers, some of whom are small farmers in Ivory Coast, Ghana and elsewhere. By the end of 2020, Mars said that it was able to trace about 43% of its cocoa to specific farms. The company has had better luck mapping its palm-oil supply chain. When it did, it discovered that its oil came from 1,500 palm-oil mills, a number the company described as “far too complex to manage.” It has since reduced that number to 87. Along with a nonprofit organisation called the Earth Equalizer Foundation, it uses satellite imagery to monitor land use on the plantations it sources from to ensure they aren’t cutting down forest. Nestle reported in 2020 that its suppliers of palm oil, pulp, soy, sugar and meat were 90% deforestation-free. The company did some on-the-ground and satellite monitoring, but the determination largely drew on the fact that the commodities came from “low-risk regions” like Europe or the United States, where there is unlikely to be deforestation for products like soy. The company did not include cocoa or coffee in its original goal but said those crops would be part of its next effort to reach zero deforestation in 2025. If companies can’t track a commodity’s origin, they can’t be certain that it was grown without eliminating trees. As The New York Times recently documented, ranchers in Brazil operating on illegally deforested land sold at least 17,700 cattle over 3 1/2 years to intermediaries, who then sold them to giant meatpackers. The original illegal farm did not appear in the supply chain documents. All of these factors make it difficult to rate the success of companies’ efforts. Are there other ways to make a difference? The companies that have voluntarily made progress on this front are in the minority, but some are pushing for these standards to be more widely adopted, and for governments to enact legislation that would force change across the entire industry. Laws and public pressure have already made a difference. Brazil is backsliding now — a result of President Jair Bolsonaro’s aggressive development policies in the Amazon — but just a few years ago, it was being hailed as a conservation success story. Between 2004-12, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 84%. Brazil brought more of the forest under legal protection and stepped up enforcement of illegal logging laws. In 2006, following an uproar from groups like Greenpeace, the Brazilian government also brokered a voluntary moratorium with major soy buyers like Cargill, which significantly reduced deforestation for soy. “What Brazil did to reduce deforestation could happen in other countries, and has happened to some extent in Indonesia,” said David Gibbs, research associate at the World Resources Institute. “But those reductions in deforestation are always potentially temporary and can be reversed.” “So in that way,” he added, “Brazil is both a hopeful tale and a cautionary tale.” In Indonesia, tropical forests and peatlands fell to the palm oil industry, which exploded in response to biodiesel incentives in the US and Europe. The catastrophic environmental damage that followed galvanised new efforts to limit the clearing and burning of forest. Indonesia’s annual deforestation rate is now the lowest it has been in nearly 20 years, according to Global Forest Watch. This striking reversal shows what can happen with enough motivation. But recovering from damage is not nearly as easy as inflicting it. New trees can be planted, but it takes decades for trees to develop the “photosynthetic machinery” needed to sequester carbon at high rates, said Mark Harmon, a forest ecologist at Oregon State University. “It is not an instantaneously renewable resource,” he said. What do promises accomplish? There is cause for hope, said Nadia Bishai of CDP, a nonprofit group that tracks and ranks companies that have the greatest influence on tropical deforestation. In the past, biodiversity was the main argument for preserving tropical forests. But “forests have become central to the climate discussion,” she said. And trees’ carbon sequestering powers motivated European Union rules aimed at curbing deforestation as well as the recent pledge by leaders of more than 100 countries, including Brazil, China and the United States, to end deforestation by 2030. The signatory countries are home to about 85% of the world’s forests, making it the most sweeping agreement yet on forest conservation. “I think we’re a bit more hopeful this time around,” Bishai said. “This collective action is the key for the future.” As companies’ 2010 pledges make clear, a vow is not an outcome. But it can at least point the way. © 2021 The New York Times Company",2
"POZNAN, Poland, Mon Dec 1, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) -UN climate talks opened in Poland on Monday with pleas for urgent action to fight global warming despite the economic slowdown, and a warning that inaction could mean water shortages for half the world by 2050. US President-elect Barack Obama also won praise at the opening ceremony of the Dec. 1-12 talks among 10,600 delegates from 186 nations for setting ""ambitious"" goals for fighting climate change. ""Our work on the natural environment should be timeless ... irrespective of the economic situation,"" Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said amid worries that the financial crunch is distracting from a drive to agree a new UN climate treaty. ""We must understand, and let this idea be a landmark of this conference, that financial crises have happened in the past and will happen in the future,"" he said. The talks in the western Polish city of Poznan are the half-way point in a two-year push to agree a climate pact at the end of 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which sets 2012 goals for 37 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. ""The financial crisis should not prevent the commitment to other urgent issues like climate change,"" said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will host a meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009 meant to agree the UN deal. Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the UN Climate Panel, said that many people had still not woken up to the risks of what could be ""irreversible change"" if the world failed to act. By illustration, he said the number of people living in river valleys with water stress could rise from more than 1.1 billion in 1995 to more than 4.3 billion in 2050, or ""almost the majority of humanity"". GREENLAND It was also possible that the Greenland icecap could melt down. Ever more species of animals and plants were at risk of extinction, he said. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said the world had to step up work to reach a deal by next year. ""The clock is ticking, work now has to move into a higher gear,"" he said. The WWF environmental organisation handed out walnuts to delegates as they arrived at the conference centre and urged them to ""crack the climate nut"". Greenpeace unveiled a 3 metre (10 ft) high sculpture showing the planet threatened by a giant wave of wood and coal. Rasmussen praised Obama's policies after years of disputes with President George W Bush. ""I am delighted to see that Obama is planning ambitious climate and energy policies as part of the solution to the economic slowdown,"" he said. De Boer also described Obama's policies as ""ambitious"" on Sunday. Obama plans to cut US emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020. US emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars, are about 14 percent above 1990 levels. Bush's policies foresee a peak only in 2025. In Europe, the economic slowdown has exposed doubts about the costs of an EU goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. UN talks host Poland, which gets 93 percent of its electricity from coal, and Italy are leading a drive for concessions in a package meant to be agreed at a December 11-12 summit of EU leaders in Brussels.",0
" An Indian official on Sunday complained about US pressure on India to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emerged from their talks upbeat about a solution. ""There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,"" Jairam Ramesh, India's minister of state for environment, told Clinton in their talks. ""And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours,"" he added in a statement he made to Clinton in private, repeated to journalists and then handed out to the media. The comments took some of the shine off an event that Clinton staged at a ""green"" building outside New Delhi to show the potential of energy-saving technologies. The red brick building, built by India's ITC tobacco and hotels conglomerate, maximizes natural light and its glass lets in light but not heat, which respectively reduce the need for artificial light and air-conditioning. Making her first trip to India as secretary of state, Clinton was, however, upbeat about bridging U.S.-Indian differences on how to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. ""We had a very fruitful discussion today,"" Clinton told reporters after a one-hour discussion with Ramesh. ""We have many more areas of agreement than perhaps had been appreciated."" TECHNOLOGY PACT The United States wants big developing countries such as India and China, whose emissions are skyrocketing as their economies grow, to agree to rein them in. Developing countries say industrial nations must curb their own pollution and provide funding to help developing nations before they are asked to set limits that could crimp their economic expansion. Both sides appeared to be playing to the Indian domestic audience, with Clinton saying Washington did not wish to do anything that would reduce India's growth and Ramesh seeking to blunt criticism his government might concede too much. Todd Stern, the US special envoy for climate change, accompanied Clinton and will hold talks over the next few days with senior Indian officials. With a new UN climate treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December, tackling global warming is one of the central issues on Clinton's visit to New Delhi. On Monday she will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna to discuss defence sales, nuclear power and non-proliferation. US officials expect to sign a pact to ensure that US arms technology sold to India is used for its intended purposes and does not leak to third countries, a step required by US law. Such a pact would allow US firms to compete for India's plan to buy 126 multi-role fighter aircraft, which would be one of the largest arms deals in the world and could be a boon to Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co. The United States also hopes India will announce that it has reserved two sites for US companies to build nuclear power plants, which could be worth as much as $10 billion in business for American firms. And they want to establish a ""strategic dialogue"" between the two countries to be led by Clinton and Krishna, reflecting US President Barack Obama's desire to strengthen ties with India.",0