UN climate conference approves landmark deal
New accord will put all countries under the same legal requirements to control greenhouse gases by 2020 at the latest.
Last Modified: 11 Dec 2011
The president of a United Nations climate conference in South Africa has announced agreement on a programme mapping out a new course by all nations to fight climate change over the coming decades.
The 194-party conference agreed on Sunday to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all countries under the same legal regime to enforce their commitments to control greenhouse gases. Approved by 2015, it would take effect by 2020 at the latest.
However, key components of the accord remain to be hammered out, and observers say the task will be arduous. Thorny issues include the still-undefined legal status of the accord and apportioning cuts on emissions among rich and poor countries.
Immigrant cleaner leads revolt against Spanish mortgage trap
Aida Quinatoa leads the fightback as Ecuadoreans struggle to escape ‘impossible’ home loans in their adopted homeland
Giles Tremlett
The Observer, Sunday 11 December 2011Aida Quinatoa is a tiny, soft-spoken Ecuadorean woman who still wears the colourful, ribbon-trimmed hats of the Quechua-speaking people of Bolívar province as she wanders the streets of Madrid, her new home city.
A dozen years after emigrating to Spain, where she works as a cleaner, Quinatoa is leading a rebellion against banks that have left hundreds of thousands facing destitution.
Defecting Syrian soldier tells of his marriage torn apart by brutal conflict in Homs
Syria’s brutal conflict is not only tearing communities apart – families and even marriages are also falling victim. A defecting soldier from the besieged town of Homs tells his story.
By Ruth Sherlock in Akkar, Lebanon
As Major Haitham Emhammed prepared to return to Syria from his hiding place in Lebanon and fight for the overthrow of President Bashar al Assad’s regime, his wife called him repeatedly on his mobile phone.
Mrs Emhammed, who is still inside Syria, wasn’t calling to urge him to fight for freedom, or even to beg him to be careful. His wife, a member of the Alawite ethnic group that make up Mr Assad’s hard-core of support, was calling her Sunni Muslim husband to lambast the rebel movement he has joined, and bemoan the fact that he had left his family.
Good heavens, it’s a dream come true
Helliconia, the new Earth I imagined 30 years ago, has now been located just a few light years away, writes British sci-fi author Brian Aldiss.
December 11, 2011
I HAVE always been fascinated with the arbitrary nature of the world we live in. Why are there still seven days in a week, or 52 weeks in a year? Our modern world is built at least in part on ancient ones: those calendars date back to ancient Mesopotamia, where they were of religious import. Time is fascinating: a day so short, a life so long. And our little tinpot year, composed of a mere 365 days – the period our planet takes to orbit the sun. Supposing we lived on a planet whose orbit round its sun took 5000 years. What then?
ANC offers Zanu-PF a hand
The ANC has offered to help Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe’s party to win elections
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Dec 11 2011 07:33
The Sunday Times reported that ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe told delegates at a Zanu-PF national conference on Thursday that his party would assist Zimbabwe’s ruling party retain power at the next elections.
“We are willing to assist in coming up with election messages and strategies that would deliver victory. You should now start sending the materials to us so that we could work on them and [we] add something to it,” Mantashe said.
Secretaries general of Southern Africa’s former liberation movements were invited to address the conference.
Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home front
Unmanned aircraft from an Air Force base in North Dakota help local police with surveillance, raising questions that trouble privacy advocates.
By Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau
Reporting from Washington– Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.
Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.
He also called in a Predator B drone.
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