COP21: Paris climate deal is ‘best chance to save planet’
The climate deal reached in Paris is “the best chance we have to save the one planet we have”, US President Barack Obama has said.
He said it could be a “turning point” for the world to take on the challenge of a low-carbon future.
China, the world’s biggest polluter, also hailed the deal. But some campaigners said it did not go far enough to protect the planet.
The Paris pact aims to curb global warming to less than 2C (3.6F)
Nearly 200 countries took part in tense negotiations in the French capital over two weeks, striking the first deal to commit all nations to cut emissions.
The agreement – which is partly legally binding and partly voluntary – will come into being in 2020.
‘Almost nothing binding’
Describing the agreement as “ambitious”, President Obama said: “Together, we’ve shown what’s possible when the world stands as one.”
“In short, this agreement will mean less of the carbon pollution that threatens our planet and more of the jobs and economic growth driven by low-carbon investments.”
Woman wins seat in Saudi election
Officials say Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi has been elected to Mecca council, with votes still being counted in first ever poll open to female voters and candidates
Agence France-Presse in Riyadh
Sunday 13 December 2015 06.28 GMT
A Saudi woman has won a seat on Mecca’s municipal council in Saudi Arabia’s first ever elections open to female voters and candidates, the country’s election commission has announced.
Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi was elected to the council of Madrakah, a region in the holy city of Mecca, the official SPA news agency reported, citing election commission president Osama al-Bar.
She was running against seven men and two women, he said.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with some of the world’s tightest restrictions on women, including a ban on driving.
It was the last country to allow only men to vote, and polling stations were segregated for Saturday’s election.
Syria in 2016 will be like the Balkans in 1914 as explosive violence breaks out on an international scale
The cost of intelligence failures is rising as the Middle East enters a more violent phase
The CIA analyst is confident about what is likely to happen in Syria. He says that “Assad is playing his last major card to keep his regime in power”. He believes that the Assad government will step up its efforts to prove that its enemies “are being manipulated by outsiders”. The probable outcome is a split within Syria’s ruling elite leading to Assad being ousted, though he admits that there is no obvious replacement for him.
The reasoning in the CIA special analysis, entitled “Syria: Assad’s Prospects”, is sensible and convincing, though overconfident that Assad’s days are numbered. The extent of this overconfidence is highlighted by a glance at the date of the document, which is 17 March 1980, or 35 years ago, and the President Assad, whose imminent political demise is predicted as likely, is not Bashar al-Assad but his father, Hafez al-Assad, who died in 2000. The analysis was released by the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act in 2013.
What’s going wrong in Afghanistan?
In Mazar-i-Sharif, the German defense minister was self-critical. Mistakes have been made and the situation underestimated, she said. The question remains: Can the mistakes be repaired?
“We’re staying,” announced Ursula von der Leyen during an inspection of German troops stationed in Camp Shaheen. The defense minister said that Afghanistan’s partners had planned the “withdrawal of the international community from Afghanistan too quickly, too ambitiously.”
This had also sent the “wrong signal” to the radical Islamic Taliban, she said, who saw the troop withdrawal as their chance to bring down the government. An admission of guilt from which first NATO and later the German government were able to draw the consequences: 12,000 foreign armed forces remain in the country, to train the Afghan army. The German armed forces increased the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan from 850 to 980.
Nearly a year after NATO officially ended its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan, the result of the over-hasty pullback appears to be disastrous: an unprecedented level of violence, the highest number of civilian deaths since the begin of the military intervention and a re-strengthened Taliban which once again controls parts of the country. In addition an ailing economy, a hardly existent infrastructure and political elites, who were deeply entangled in corruption and power struggles.
Bodies on the streets as violence rocks Burundi
Almost 90 people killed in Bujumbura, eyewitnesses accuse security forces of rounding up and shooting men dead.
| War & Conflict, Burundi, Human Rights, Africa
At least 87 people were found dead in Burundi’s capital Bujumbura on Saturday, a day after the government said an unidentified group carried out coordinated attacks on three military installations.
Burundian army spokesman Colonel Gaspard Baratuza said eight security officers were among those killed during and after Friday’s attacks.
“The final toll of the attacks yesterday is 79 enemies killed, 45 captured and 97 weapons seized, and on our side eight soldiers and policemen were killed and 21 wounded,” Baratuza was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
A climate of fear has engulfed Bujumbura after the sound of battle could be heard throughout Friday and sporadic gunfire overnight. Residents hid in their houses leaving only security personnel patrolling the streets.
IRRADIATED
The hidden legacy of 70 years of atomic weaponry: At least 33,480 Americans dead
Will the nation’s new nuclear age yield more unwanted fallout?
By Rob Hotakainen, Lindsay Wise, Frank Matt and Samantha Ehlinger
McClatchy Washington Bureau
JACKSON, S.C. Byron Vaigneur watched as a brownish sludge containing plutonium broke through the wall of his office on Oct. 3, 1975, and began puddling four feet from his desk at the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant in South Carolina.
The radiation from the plutonium likely started attacking his body instantly. He’d later develop breast cancer and, as a result of his other work as a health inspector at the plant, he’d also contract chronic beryllium disease, a debilitating respiratory condition that can be fatal.
“I knew we were in one helluva damn mess,” said
Vaigneur
, now 84, who had a mastectomy to cut out the cancer from his left breast and now is on oxygen, unable to walk more than 100 feet on many days. He says he’s ready to die and has already decided to donate his body to science, hoping it will help others who’ve been exposed to radiation.
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