By Jen Alic of Oilprice.com*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – As Washington hunts ill-defined al-Qaeda groups in the Middle East and Africa, and concerns itself with Iran’s eventual nuclear potential, it has a much more pressing problem at home: Its energy grid is vulnerable to anyone with basic weapons and know-how.
By Vicente Paolo Yu III*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
BRUSELS (IDN) – Developing countries have long been at the frontlines of climate change and bearing the brunt of its impacts on sustainable development prospects and even, in many cases, physical survival and territorial integrity. The impacts of Hurricane Sandy in the Caribbean, the droughts that are afflicting Africa, the cyclones and typhoons that lash South and South East Asia and the Pacific islands, are all harbingers of what could become worse if no action is taken quickly and effectively by the global community with respect to climate change.
By R. Nastranis | IDN-InDepth NewsReport
GENEVA (IDN) – If governments around the world pay heed to some major stakeholders spanning the globe, the UN climate change conference in the Qatari capital Doha will endorse decisive actions leading toward a world all sensible human beings want for themselves and generations to come. Viewed from that perspective, December 7, the last day of the conference, will be a historic day.
By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport
BERLIN (IDN) – The 27-nation European Union should target 30 percent, instead of the agreed 20 percent, lower emissions by 2020, in order to send an important signal to the global climate change conference from November 26 to December 7, 2012 in the Qatari capital Doha, according to experts.
By Ernest Corea*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
Washington DC (IDN) – There’s nothing like a real-life scandal involving a spymaster, who is also a bemedalled and highly regarded retired general, to deprive a big-time political event of major headlines, whether in the print or electronic media.
The scandal turned convolute, and the entire activity considered worthy of even more headlines, when the FBI informed the Pentagon that the retired general’s successor in the army (another general) had exchanged “potentially inappropriate” emails with the woman whose informal complaint to an FBI agent sparked the investigation that initially exposed the scandal.
By Ian Dunlop*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
SYDNEY (IDN) – The latest evidence on climate change demands a radical reappraisal of our approach. The Arctic has been warming 2-3 times faster than the rest of the world, reducing the area and volume to levels never previously experienced.
Some 80% of the summer sea-ice has been lost since 1979; on current trends the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2015, and ice-free all year by 2030, events which were not expected to occur for another 100 years. More concerning, the Greenland ice sheet this year has seen unprecedented melting and glacial ice calving, adding to a trend which will substantially increase sea level rise.
By Julio Godoy
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
BERLIN (IDN) – Back in 1779, the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya painted a scene that obviously was already common at the time in that retrograde country of his: An old man – or it can be an old lady – is beating a child on the bottom in front of numerous other children in a classroom. Some of the children are crying, for they just suffered the teacher’s barbarous pedagogical methods. Goya titled his masterpiece “La letra con sangre entra” – freely translated, “spare the rod, spoil the child.”
By Ernest Corea*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
WASHINGTO DC (IDN) – Voters keeping a sharp lookout for an “October Surprise” – an unexpected event that could affect the November 6 presidential election – could not have been disappointed. They experienced several.
Some past October surprises have been both dramatic and significant. To name a few: the British-French-Israeli conspiracy and invasion to wrest control of the Suez Cana from Egypt (1956), Henry Kissinger’s announcement about the Vietnam war that “peace is at hand” (1972), and the news leak, subsequently confirmed, that some years earlier George W. Bush was arrested for drunken driving in Texas (2000).
By Devinder Kumar
IDN-InDepth NewsReport
NEW DELHI (IDN) – While official statements about the outcome of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Hyderabad, read rather upbeat, a global environment organisation, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), has criticized negotiators for focusing on false solutions to biodiversity loss and favouring corporate polluters over people and the planet.
By Jaya Ramachandran
IDN-InDepth NewsReport
BONN (IDN) – The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat has forged a first-of-its-kind partnership to assist development of emission-reduction projects under the Kyoto Protocol in countries that would appear to have been ignored until now.
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