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Larry Keiler

Surprise: Big Old New York City Is the Cutting Edge for Urban Transportation and a Visi... - 1 views

www.alternet.org/...ision_for_a_sustainable_future

Transportation Urban Planning

shared by Larry Keiler on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Larry Keiler on 16 Feb 11
     
    An excellent profile of NYC's transportation commissioner and the innovative changes happening there.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | US finds new Afghan supply route - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7901071.stm

US Afghanistan Kyrgyzstan Manas Air Base

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • The US will be able to take non-military supplies bound for Afghanistan through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, a US commander has said.
  • The announcement follows a decision by Kyrgyzstan to close a US air base - the only US military base in Central Asia.
  • "Tajikistan has given permission to use its railways and roads for the transit of non-military cargoes to Afghanistan," Harnitchek told Tajik state media. "We plan to transport 50 to 200 containers every week from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan and further to Afghanistan."
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  • The US recently invested millions of dollars in a bridge connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which will almost certainly be used to transport the supplies.
  • The US had previously announced it intended to transport supplies to Uzbekistan through Russia and Kazakhstan.
  • It comes after Kyrgyzstan accused the US of not paying enough to rent the air base at Manas, near the capital city of Bishkek.
  • The licence to close the base was signed into law this week by Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The Kyrgyz foreign ministry said on Friday that it had officially issued an eviction notice giving the US 180 days to vacate the area.
  • Analysts have suggested that Kyrgyzstan's leaders will not carry out their threat to evict the US, but are using the law as a bargaining chip to get more rent money from Washington. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates sought to play down the Kyrgyz spat on Thursday, saying the US was open to negotiation on the rent. "We are prepared to look at the fees and see if there is justification for a somewhat larger payment," he told a news conference.
Muslim Academy

Injustice sociale - 0 views

muslim-academy.com/njustice-sociale-et-terrorisme

Injustice sociale

shared by Muslim Academy on 05 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Muslim Academy on 05 Dec 12
     
    Le terrorisme est mauvais. Il devrait être condamné en toutes circonstances. Le terrorisme pourrait prendre la forme d'un chrétien radical tuant un docteur d'avortement, un homme faisant sauter une construction pour exprimer le mécontentement envers le gouvernement américain, ou le meurtre de Musulmans radical au nom de Dieu. Le 7 juillet 2005, des douzaines de banlieusards de Londres ont été tuées quand quatre bombes ont explosés dans le système de transport collectif de Londres. Comprenez s'il vous plaît que je ne ferme pas les yeux sur ces attaques. Ce sont des atrocités horribles qui ont tué des civils innocents. Le terrorisme n'est jamais le moyen approprié pour lever la voix contre l'injustice sociale, mais dans la recherche pour mettre fin au terrorisme, je veux jeter un coup d'oeil à ce que deux des criminels des attentats à la bombe de Londres ont dit dans leurs vidéos des jours avant les attaques.
Argos Media

Pakistan Strife Raises U.S. Doubts on Nuclear Arms - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...04nuke.html

Pakistan Nuclear Weapons US

shared by Argos Media on 04 May 09 - Cached
  • As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.
  • The officials emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat. President Obama said last week that he remained confident that keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure secure was the top priority of Pakistan’s armed forces.
  • Pakistani officials have continued to deflect American requests for more details about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites, the officials said. Some of the Pakistani reluctance, they said, stemmed from longstanding concern that the United States might be tempted to seize or destroy Pakistan’s arsenal if the insurgency appeared about to engulf areas near Pakistan’s nuclear sites.
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  • The Obama administration inherited from President Bush a multiyear, $100 million secret American program to help Pakistan build stronger physical protections around some of those facilities, and to train Pakistanis in nuclear security. But much of that effort has now petered out, and American officials have never been permitted to see how much of the money was spent, the facilities where the weapons are kept or even a tally of how many Pakistan has produced. The facility Pakistan was supposed to build to conduct its own training exercises is running years behind schedule.
  • Mr. Zardari heads the country’s National Command Authority, the mix of political, military and intelligence leaders responsible for its arsenal of 60 to 100 nuclear weapons. But in reality, his command and control over the weapons are considered tenuous at best; that power lies primarily in the hands of the army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the former director of Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s intelligence agency.
  • Several current officials said that they were worried that insurgents could try to provoke an incident that would prompt Pakistan to move the weapons, and perhaps use an insider with knowledge of the transportation schedule for weapons or materials to tip them off. That concern appeared to be what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was hinting at in testimony 10 days ago before the House Appropriations Committee. Pakistan’s weapons, she noted, “are widely dispersed in the country.”
  • “There’s not a central location, as you know,” she added. “They’ve adopted a policy of dispersing their nuclear weapons and facilities.” She went on to describe a potential situation in which a confrontation with India could prompt a Pakistani response, though she did not go as far as saying that such a response could include moving weapons toward India — which American officials believed happened in 2002. Other experts note that even as Pakistan faces instability, it is producing more plutonium for new weapons, and building more production reactors.
Pedro Gonçalves

Afghanistan's Mineral Riches are China's Gain - by Aziz Huq | Foreign Policy - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...chinese_takeout

China Afghanistan Pakistan US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Jun 10 - Cached
  • The real winner from new natural-resource wealth beyond the Khyber Pass will be China
  • Chinese foreign investment and aid has accelerated dramatically over the past decade, especially in Africa. In November 2009 alone, for example, China's largesse amounted to $10 billion in low-interest loans and $1 billion in commercial loans to the continent. With Beijing as cheerleader, trade has soared from $1 billion in 1992 to $106.8 billion in 2008.
  • The DRC provides the best cautionary parallel to Afghanistan: The discovery in the late 1990s of copper, coltan, and other minerals in eastern Congo gave new life to a civil war that has now claimed upwards of 4 million lives. Flagging combatants were funded by mineral extraction, and much of those resources eventually flowed to China.
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  • The fact that violence is still simmering in eastern Congo -- and despite the costs that extraction imposes on the Congolese people -- has not been enough to deter Beijing from wooing Congo's government for access to the country's abundant resources. So, if there's any thought that war in Afghanistan might dissuade Chinese investment there, it's best to dispense with that notion immediately.
  • China, which has a narrow land border with Afghanistan, already invests heavily in the war-torn Central Asian state. The state-owned China Metallurgical Group has a $3.5 billion copper mining venture in Logar province. Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei are building digital telephone switches, providing roughly 200,000 subscriber lines in Afghanistan. Even back in the war's early days in 2002 and 2003, when I worked in Afghanistan, the Chinese presence was acutely visible in Kabul, with Chinese laborers on many building sites and Chinese-run restaurants and guesthouses popping up all over the city. As Robert Kaplan has pointed out, these investments come with a gratuitous hidden subsidy from the United States -- which has defrayed the enormous costs of providing security amid war and looting.
  • With its massive wealth, appetite for risk, and willingness to underbid others on labor costs and human rights conditionality, China is the odds-on favorite for development of any new Afghan mineral resources. Chinese firms will control the flow of new funds, and the way those funds are distributed between the central and local governments. It's all well and good that Barack Obama's administration has recommitted to building civil projects in rural Afghanistan, but consider the relative scale of building a school to establishing a multimillion-dollar mine (not to mention the transport networks and infrastructure required to get the extracted minerals out) and it's easy to see what kind of influence the Chinese will bring to the table.
  • Although many have warned of a new Sino-colonialism, Brautigam's work suggests that perhaps China's awareness of its gargantuan and growing need for foreign export markets will make it a better "colonial" power than any European country ever was.
  • Stability in Pakistan should be an important goal for China. It is by now clear that the Taliban's campaign west of the Durand Line is inextricable from the destabilizing efforts of Islamist militants in Pakistan. If China does not want another nuclear basket case on its border, then it should care deeply about instability in Afghanistan. Currently, however, Beijing is still freeloading, relying on Washington to provide security for its limited interests. Perhaps the tantalizing prospect of $1 trillion in minerals might be enough to change the strategic equation.
Argos Media

Record numbers join anti-Sarkozy protests | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...icolas-sarkozy-france-protests

France Economy

shared by Argos Media on 20 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Record numbers took to the streets of France yesterday in the biggest demonstrations since Nicolas Sarkozy's election, to protest about his handling of the economic crisis. Unions estimated that more than three million people took part in demonstrations across the country, in the second general strike over the economic crisis in two months. Police put figures at about 1.2 million. With one in three people supporting the protest, it had the highest public backing for a strike in a decade.
  • Teachers and doctors protested against his long-standing reform plan, saying public-sector job cuts would kill schools and hospitals. University staff are continuing their seven-week strike against higher education reform with sit-ins and occupations. Private-sector employees, including supermarket cashiers, bank clerks and car workers, took to the street over poor pay, factory closures and the return of a traditional French scourge: unemployment, now rising at its fastest rate in 10 years.
  • The general strike disrupted transport, schools, airports, government offices and even state theatres. Unions demanded job protection, an increase in the minimum wage and a U-turn on Sarkozy's early move to cut taxes for the mega-rich. But the government has insisted there will be no concessions.
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  • Sarkozy has focused on a €27bn stimulus plan through public and private investment instead of boosting consumers' pockets with major tax-cuts or higher welfare spending. He argues that without investment leading to job creation, France, with an already weak private sector and stuttering economy, will not be able to recover as fast other countries.
  • After the last general strike in January, Sarkozy moved to defuse tension by introducing certain tax cuts and welfare payments for the poorest families. Unions said it was not enough, but the president's advisers this week said there would be no more immediate measures. "Sarkozy says there's no money for the public sector, that state coffers are dry, then he miraculously finds money to bail out the car industry," said Olivier Langillier, a nurse at the Paris march.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Iran to ban airlines not using the term 'Persian Gulf' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8527729.stm

iran Persian Gulf

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Iran has warned that airlines will be banned from flying into its airspace, unless they use the term "Persian Gulf" on their in-flight monitors.The transport minister has threatened to impound planes that fail to comply. The nation is most insistent that the stretch of water separating it from its southern neighbours should be known as the Persian Gulf. To call it the Gulf, annoys the authorities; to call it the Arabian Gulf, infuriates them even more.
  • As for the minister, Hamid Behbahani, it may or may not be a coincidence that he is making a stand on this patriotic matter at a time when he is facing calls for his impeachment for alleged lack of competence.
Argos Media

China ready for post-Kyoto deal on climate change | Environment | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...hina-seeks-climate-change-deal

Climate Change China Tyndall Centre for Climate Change US Europe Ed Miliband Su Wei

shared by Argos Media on 07 May 09 - Cached
  • China is ready to abandon its resistance to limits on its carbon emissions and wants to reach an international deal to fight global warming, the Guardian has learned.According to Britain's climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, who met senior officials in Beijing this week, China is ready to "do business" with developed countries to reach an agreement to replace the Kyoto treaty.
  • China's official negotiating position is unchanged, but the government is understood to be preparing a set of targets up to and beyond 2020 to lower the country's "carbon intensity". This translates to cutting the emissions needed to produce each unit of economic growth.
  • The shift in the Chinese position significantly improves the chances of an agreement being reached when world leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a deal that scientists say is critical if dangerous warming is to be avoided.
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  • His comments echoed the message from Chinese officials. Su Wei, a senior negotiator, told the Guardian last month that the US had made a "substantive change" under the Obama administration."The message we have got is that the current US administration takes climate change seriously, that it recognises its historical responsibility and that it has the capacity to help developing countries address climate change," Su said.
  • Miliband said he was encouraged by the change in tone since late last year in the country that emits more greenhouse gases than any other. "I think they're up for a deal. I get the strong impression that they want an agreement," he told the Guardian."They see the impact of climate change on China and they know the world is moving towards a low-carbon economy and see the business opportunities that will come with that."
  • "China used to think the developed world is not serious. That's what they were saying [at UN talks] in December," he said. "But now they know the US is on the pitch and ready to engage with them. It has made a real difference to what China is saying."
  • China wants developed nations to commit to more ambitious reduction targets, to share low-carbon technology and to set up a UN fund that would buy related intellectual property rights for use across the world. Beijing's position is complicated by the fact that it already owns a large share of the patents for wind and solar energy in developed nations.
  • Europe and the US accept the Chinese economy should be allowed to grow further, improving the living standards of its millions of poor, before it makes overall emissions reductions. Instead, the western nations are pushing for strong measures to improve efficiency and establish caps for certain industries. One possibility being considered by Chinese officials is to set a carbon intensity goal up to 2040 that would include energy efficiency, renewable energy, transport and afforestation.
  • Last month, the Tyndale centre published research showing that it was possible for China to begin reducing its total emissions from 2020.Government officials say that is unrealistic and China has so far resisted announcing a target for when emissions might peak. But the authorities tend towards the later end of the various academic forecasts of between 2020 and 2040.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel PM 'may back two states' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8053987.stm

Israel Palestine Ehud Barak Benjamin Netanyahu

shared by Argos Media on 18 May 09 - Cached
  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be prepared to endorse a peace process leading to an independent Palestinian state, his defence minister has said.Ehud Barak, a long-time rival now part of Israel's governing coalition, spoke ahead of Mr Netanyahu's first meeting with US President Obama in Washington. He told Israeli TV a regional deal could be struck within three years.
  • "Netanyahu will tell Obama: We're willing to engage in a process whose end is a regional peace accord," he told Channel 2 TV.
  • "The Arabs say 'two states,' [and] I don't see a reason why Netanyahu would not say that at the end of an accord... there will be two peoples living side by side in peace and mutual respect," he said.
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  • Mr Barak said he thought such an agreement could be reached between Israel and its neighbours within three years, and take another five years to implement. However, some members of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party cast doubt on Mr Barak's views. Transport Minister Yisrael Katz said the prime minister would "oppose any creation of an armed Palestinian state on Israel's borders, which would endanger Israel's security," the AFP news agency reported.
  • in an address to US supporters of Israel at the start of May Mr Netanyahu said he favoured a "triple track" approach. Political progress must be combined with a strengthening of the Palestinian security apparatus and moved to stimulate the Palestinian economy, he said.
Argos Media

Mission Impossible: Geman Elite Troop Abandons Plan to Free Pirate Hostages - SPIEGEL O... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,622766,00.html

Germany Somalia GSG-9 US

shared by Argos Media on 04 May 09 - Cached
  • The government was determined to break this pattern but, as it turned out, it had overestimated its capabilities. What began as an effort to send a signal of strength ended up, in the Stavanger case, as a sign of impotence. This could have serious consequences. German sailors can now expect to become prime targets for pirates, in contrast to their French or American counterparts, whose governments have not hesitated to use force to rescue their citizens.
  • Although there was no shortage of resolve in Berlin, the Germans did lack the means to complete the operation successfully. There is a vast divide between Berlin's sensitivities and the raw reality of African pirates, who care very little about turf wars among German bureaucrats. The case exposes serious deficiencies in the Germany security apparatus.
  • Although the GSG-9 is constantly being trained for maritime missions, it lacks the logistics for speedy operations beyond German borders. The German military, the Bundeswehr, can provide the logistics, but it in turn lacks a sufficient number of readily deployable special operations forces. There is poor cooperation between the two organizations, while strategists are hampered by legal restrictions. And in some cases the Germans simply lack the necessary equipment. In the case of the Hansa Stavanger, the German government had to borrow aircraft and an American helicopter carrier to transport its close combat experts within range of the freighter. But by the time these preparations were complete, three weeks had already passed since pirates captured the ship on April 4.
Argos Media

Polish Reactions to SPIEGEL Cover Story: A Wave of Outrage - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - In... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,626171,00.html

Germany Poland Nazism

shared by Argos Media on 22 May 09 - Cached
  • Polish media and politicians have sharply criticized this week's SPIEGEL cover story about Hitler's European helpers outside of Germany. They believe the article is part of an attempt by Germans to foist guilt for its own Nazi crimes off on others.
  • "DER SPIEGEL is accusing Poland and other nations of having assisted in the Holocaust," claims the daily Polska. In the future, the polemic continues, SPIEGEL could come to the conclusion that the Jews, too, assisted -- after all, there were Jewish police in the ghettos who were forced by the Nazis to round up men, women and children for the transports to the concentration camps.
  • t is particularly hurtful to Poles that SPIEGEL also reported about the so-called "Szmalcownicy," Poles who revealed their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis or extorted money from Jewish families in hiding in exchange for silence. Sometimes they even did both.
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  • This week, though, Kaczynski has found his old form again -- with the unexpected help of SPIEGEL. "The Germans are attempting to shake off the guilt for a giant crime," he said, commenting on the latest SPIEGEL cover story, " The Dark Continent: Hitler's European Holocaust Helpers."
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | North Korean ship 'turned around' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8127814.stm

North Korea US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 01 Jul 09 - Cached
  • A North Korean ship being tracked by the United States Navy on suspicion of transporting weapons to Burma has turned around, US officials have said.
  • South Korean media said it was going home.
  • The Kang Nam 1 ship set sail from North Korea on 17 June and appeared to be bound for Burma, as US ships followed it down the coast of China.
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  • "We've no idea where it's going," the official said. "The US didn't do anything to make it turn around."
Pedro Gonçalves

The Eternal Candidate: Turkey Bets on Regional Influence as EU Hopes Fade - SPIEGEL ONL... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,628575,00.html

Turkey EU Recep Tayyip Erdogan Neo-Ottomanism Ahmet Davutoglu Middle East Syria Gaza Lebanon Georgia Russia Caucasus Armenia France Germany Foreign Policy Turkish Foreign Policy

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Jun 09 - Cached
  • The Turks, who always used to complain to their Western allies about their rough neighborhood, apparently no longer have any enemies in the east. Turkey's old rival Russia has since become its most important energy and trading partner. Syria and Iraq, two countries with which Ankara has in the past been on the brink of war, are now friends of Turkey, and relations are even improving with Armenia. The Arabs, who never truly took to the successors of the Ottomans, now look with admiration to what they call the "Turkish model," a dynamic, open country that has a better handle on its problems than they do.
  • When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed office in 2003, he planned to lead Turkey into the European Union. But Europe was unmoved by this vision, and it has also lost much of its appeal within Turkey. According to Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think tank linked to the center-left Social Democratic Party, as the Europeans have become weary of expansion, Turkey has lost interest in joining the EU. Indeed, what Erdogan meant when he spoke of Turkey's "alternative" to becoming an EU member is becoming increasingly clear.
  • Critics and supporters alike describe this new course as "neo-Ottomanism." Ankara remains formally committed to its European ambitions. However, frustrated by the open rejection with which it has long been met in Paris, Vienna and Berlin, and which it has been facing once again during the EU election campaign, Turkey is focusing increasingly on its role as a peacekeeping power in a region it either ruled or dominated for centuries.
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  • The Turkish press touts Davutoglu as "Turkey's Kissinger," and even Erdogan and Gül refer to him as "hoca" ("venerable teacher"). The country's foreign policy increasingly bears his signature. For example, at his suggestion, Turkish diplomats revived talks between Syria and Israel that had been discontinued in 2000, leading to secret peace talks that began in Istanbul in 2004. However, the talks were temporarily suspended in late 2008 because of parliamentary elections in Israel and the Gaza offensive.
  • Davutoglu is convinced that Ankara must be on good terms with all its neighbors, and it cannot fear contact with the countries and organizations branded as pariahs by the West, namely Syria, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. He believes that Turkey should have no qualms about acknowledging its Ottoman past -- in other words, it should become a respected regional power throughout the territory once ruled by the Ottoman Empire (see graphic).
  • Davutoglu, like President Gül, is from Central Anatolia and a member of a new elite influenced by Islamic thought. He completed his secondary-school education at a German overseas school, learned Arabic and taught at an Islamic university in Malaysia. He believes that a one-sided Western orientation is unhealthy for a country like Turkey.
  • The Turks say that they achieved more during the Gaza conflict than Middle East veterans like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, arguing that Hamas's willingness to accept Israel's ceasefire offer was attributable to Ankara's intervention. They also say that the fact that Erdogan angrily broke off a discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Summit in Davos cemented his reputation in the Islamic world as a friend of the Palestinians. When street fighting erupted in Lebanon between supporters of the pro-Western government and of Hezbollah in May 2008, Erdogan intervened as a mediator.
  • Ankara is also seeking to reduce tensions in the Caucasus region, where the Turks have often acted against Russia, prompting Moscow to accuse Turkey of being sympathetic to the Chechen cause. After the war in Georgia last summer, the Erdogan government brought together officials from Tbilisi and Moscow. Turkey and Armenia are now seeking to overcome long-standing hostility by establishing diplomatic relations and reopening their shared border.
  • Off the Horn of Africa, the US Fifth Fleet turned over the leadership of Combined Task Force 151, which is responsible for combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia, to the Turkish navy. At the same time, a man paid an official visit to Ankara who had not appeared in public since 2007: Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, the head of the notorious Mahdi Army militia. Davutoglu had sent a private jet to bring him to Turkey from his exile in Iran.
  • Critics like political scientist Soner Cagaptay describe Ankara's foreign policy as "pro-Arab Islamist." In a recent op-ed for the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Cagaptay argued that Turkish diplomats, who had once "looked to Europe, particularly France, for political inspiration" have now fallen for the Arab world, and generally for Islamists
  • Diplomats like Hakki Akil, the Turkish ambassador in Abu Dhabi, disagree. According to Akil, Turkey has acquired "soft power" by expanding its sphere of influence from the Balkans to Afghanistan, transporting Russian, Caspian Sea and Iranian oil and gas to the West, and building housing and airports in Kurdish northern Iraq. Europe, says Akil, ought to be pleased with Ankara's course. As Akil's boss Davutoglu said in Brussels, political stability, a secure energy corridor and a strong partner on its southeastern flank are all "in the fundamental interest of the EU."
  • According to a recent internal European Commission report, Turkey has made "only limited progress." Some EU countries have already abandoned the idea of accepting Turkey into their midst. In Bavaria, conservative Christian Social Union campaigners promote a message of "No to Turkey" as they make the rounds of beer tents. At a televised campaign appearance in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy made their opposition to EU membership for Turkey clear.
  • Ironically, Turkey's strategic importance for Europe "is even greater today than in the days of the Cold War," says Elmar Brok, a German member of the European Parliament for the conservative Christian Democratic Union who specializes in foreign policy issues. And then there is the paradox of the fact that the more intensively Turkey, out of frustration with Europe, engages with its eastern neighbors, the more valuable it becomes to the West. According to Brok, the West must "do everything possible to keep Ankara on board."
  • Brok and other members of the European Parliament envision making so-called "privileged partner" status palatable to Turkey. It would enable Turkey to have a similar relationship to the EU as Norway does today and to enjoy many of the benefits of EU membership, including access to the European single market, visa-free travel, police cooperation and joint research programs. But it would not, however, become a member.
Pedro Gonçalves

China launches green power revolution to catch up on west | Environment | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...china-green-energy-solar-wind

China Climate Change Zhang Xiaoqiang US David Sandalow Europe

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 10 Jun 09 - Cached
  • China is planning a vast increase in its use of wind and solar power over the next ­decade and believes it can match Europe by 2020, producing a fifth of its energy needs from renewable sources, a senior Chinese official said yesterday.
  • Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice-chairman of China's national development and reform commission, told the Guardian that Beijing would easily surpass current 2020 targets for the use of wind and solar power and was now contemplating targets that were more than three times higher.In the current development plan, the goal for wind energy is 30 gigawatts. Zhang said the new goal could be 100GW by 2020.
  • "Similarly, by 2020 the total installed capacity for solar power will be at least three times that of the original target [3GW]," Zhang said in an interview in London. China generates only 120 megawatts of its electricity from solar power, so the goal represents a 75-fold expansion in just over a decade.
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  • "We are now formulating a plan for development of renewable energy. We can be sure we will exceed the 15% target. We will at least reach 18%. Personally I think we could reach the target of having renewables provide 20% of total energy consumption."
  • That matches the European goal, and would represent a direct challenge to Europe's claims to world leadership in the field, despite China's relative poverty. Some experts have cast doubt on whether Britain will be able to reach 20%. On another front, China has the ambitious plan of installing 100m energy-efficient lightbulbs this year alone.
  • Beijing seeks to achieve these goals by directing a significant share of China's $590bn economic stimulus package to low-carbon investment. Of that total, more than $30bn will be spent directly on environmental projects and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.But the indirect green share in the stimulus, in the form of investment in carbon-efficient transport and electricity transmission systems, would be far larger.HSBC Global Research estimated the total green share could be over a third of the total package.
  • He said the government would also plough money into the expansion of solar heating systems. He said the country was already a world leader, with 130m square metres of solar heating arrays already installed, and was planning to invest more. The US goal for solar heating by 2020 is 200m square metres.
  • David Sandalow, the US assistant secretary of energy, said the continuation of business as usual in China would result in a 2.7C rise in temperatures even if every other country slashed greenhouse gas emissions by 80%."China can and will need to do much more if the world is going to have any hope of containing climate change," said Sandalow, who is in Beijing as part of a senior negotiating team aiming to find common ground ahead of the crucial Copenhagen summit at the end of this year."No effective deal will be possible without the US and China, which together account for almost half of the planet's carbon emissions."
Pedro Gonçalves

Russia and Ukraine in Intensifying Standoff - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...28crimea.html

Russia Ukraine

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 28 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Late last month, the Ukrainian police briefly detained Russian military personnel who were driving truckloads of missiles through this port city, as if they were smugglers who had come ashore with a haul of contraband. Local officials, it seemed, were seeking to make clear that this was no longer friendly terrain.
  • President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia denounced Ukraine this month for “anti-Russian” policies, citing in particular its “incessant attempts” to harass Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol. Mr. Medvedev condemned Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership and its support for Georgia, and said he would not send an ambassador to Ukraine.
  • The Ukrainians have not only briefly detained Russian military personnel transporting missiles on several occasions this summer. They also expelled a Russian diplomat who oversees naval issues and barred officers from the F.S.B., the Russian successor to the K.G.B., from working in Sevastopol.
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  • The current concern is that a spark in Crimea — however unlikely — could touch off a violent confrontation or even the kind of fighting that broke out between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia. The situation is particularly uneasy because the population in Crimea is roughly 60 percent ethnic Russian and would prefer that the peninsula separate from Ukraine and be part of Russia. (Sevastopol has an even higher proportion of ethnic Russians.)
  • People have been upset by new Ukrainian government policies that require the use of the Ukrainian language, rather than Russian, in government activities, including some courses in public schools. Throughout downtown Sevastopol last week, residents set up booths to gather signatures on petitions in an effort to overturn the regulations.
  • And on Monday, Ukrainian independence day, ethnic Russians in Crimea held anti-Ukrainian demonstrations.
  • Sergei P. Tsekov, a senior politician in Crimea who heads the main ethnic Russian communal organization, said he hoped that Russia would wholeheartedly endorse Crimean separatism just as it did the aspirations of South Ossetia and another Georgian enclave, Abkhazia.
  • Crimean separatists have been encouraged by prominent politicians in Russia, including Moscow’s mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, and a senior member of Parliament, Konstantin F. Zatulin, both of whom have been barred from Ukraine by the government because of their assertions that Sevastopol belongs to Russia.The Kremlin has not publicly backed the separatists, though it has declared that the rights of ethnic Russians in Crimea must not be violated.
Argos Media

German Environment Minister: 'We Must Discuss Climate Change's Devastating Consequences... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,620819,00.html

Climate Change Germany Sigmar Gabriel

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • to see that Africans are the hardest hit by climate change, even though they generate almost no greenhouse gas, is a glaring injustice, which also triggers anger and outrage over those who seek to ignore it.
  • SPIEGEL: But one cannot claim that the German government is making any particular effort to stop climate change. The measures that have been introduced to date are insufficient to achieve the goal we have set for ourselves, a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Are you disappointed by Angela Merkel, the former climate chancellor?
  • Gabriel: Oh please. We are among a handful of countries in Europe that have exceeded their Kyoto climate protection goals for 2012 in 2008. And we never claimed that have already implemented all the measures that will be needed to reach our goal for the year 2020. We are still about five percentage points behind. But a great deal has been put in motion, from the expansion of renewable energy to the renovation of buildings. And just as an aside, these efforts have created 280,000 new jobs. Our counterparts in other countries, including South Africa, China and India, rate us in a completely different way and see us as role models. So why the criticism?
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  • SPIEGEL: Only 13 percent of Germany's stimulus funds are slated for environmental measures. There is little evidence here of the "crisis as opportunity" you repeatedly mention. Gabriel: That puts us in fourth place worldwide, which isn't bad. If you added the money other countries earmark for renewable energy in their national budgets, which goes through the cost of electricity in Germany, we would be even higher up in the ranking, perhaps even at the top.
  • SPIEGEL: At least that would have deserved the name environmental premium. Gabriel: But, as environment minister, I am very interested in a thriving German automobile industry, because I can only pay for the rising costs of environmental protection at home and abroad if there are people in Germany with jobs and who pay taxes. The increase in expenditures for environmental and climate protection in the federal budget from €875 million ($1.14 billion) under a Green environment minister to €3.4 billion ($4.4 billion) today would not work without the economic success of German industry.
  • SPIEGEL: And what happens to your own credibility, when you reward people for buying cars by paying a so-called environmental premium that makes no environmental sense? Gabriel: I still call it the scrapping premium, because the main goal is to stabilize auto sales. But the project clearly has an economic impact, because new vehicles emit less CO2 and pollutants per kilometer driven than old ones. SPIEGEL: But the production of new car consumes enormous resources. Gabriel: One could take that argument a step further and say: It would be best for the environment if we stopped buying or producing any new products. That would be the way to save the most energy and CO2. The next thing you'll ask me is why the government didn't give people €2,500 ($3,250) to buy tickets for public transportation.
  • The environmental industry, with its new technologies, is the biggest market worldwide. We must retain our leading position, because other countries, like the United States, have started to compete with us.
  • SPIEGEL: US President Barack Obama is depriving the Germans of their leadership role in climate protection?
  • Gabriel: No, but his economic stimulus programs are good, and he introduced an overdue change of direction in climate policy. But as far as concrete reduction targets are concerned, his current proposals are still not sufficient. America remains well removed from the European targets and the necessary international targets in climate protection. Many in politics are so pleased about the new American administration that they want to be nothing but nice to the United States. But in doing so, we fail to recognize that the American president, no matter who he is, will always strongly champion American interests.
  • SPIEGEL: Obama has offered to reduce American CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Gabriel: But that is still far from enough. International climate scientists believe it is vital that we reduce CO2 emissions by 2020 to a level 25 to 40 percent lower than in 1990. And the developing and emerging nations expect serious efforts on the part of the industrialized nations. The Americans must also show some movement if the December climate summit in Copenhagen is to be a success. Otherwise, many will hide behind the United States. If that happens, our efforts will fall far short of what is needed to stop climate change and its devastating consequences. We must now discuss this openly worldwide.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Health | 1970s lifestyle 'protects planet' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8004257.stm

Climate Change UK Health

shared by Argos Media on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Getting back to the relatively slim, trim days of the 1970s would help to tackle climate change, researchers say.
  • The rising numbers of people who are overweight and obese in the UK means the nation uses 19% more food energy than 40 years ago, a study suggests. That could equate to an extra 60 mega tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, the team calculated.
  • Transport costs of a fatter population were also included in the International Journal of Epidemiology study.
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  • A "normal" adult population, where only 3.5% are classed as obese, was compared with a population where 40% are obese. These populations reflect the proportions of overweight and obese people living in the UK in the 1970s - and what is predicted for the UK in 2010, the researchers said.
  • "Staying slim is good for health and for the environment. "We need to be doing a lot more to reverse the global trend towards fatness, and recognise it as a key factor in the battle to reduce emissions and slow climate change."
  • It is not just a UK issue - in nearly every country in the world, the average BMI is rising.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Russia may offer US Afghan access - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7979474.stm

Russia NATO US Afghanistan Kyrgyzstan

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Russia has agreed to discuss the transit of American military supplies to Afghanistan across its territory. The foreign ministry in Moscow said Russia was ready to co-operate if asked by the US.
  • Last month, Russia began allowing the movement of non-lethal supplies to US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.
  • Kyrgyzstan has also decided to close the Manas US air base on its territory, further limiting the US's options.
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  • The new offer of discussions comes a day after Russia and the US agreed to resume negotiations on reducing their nuclear arsenals.
  • Following a decision to let several Nato countries transport supplies via Russia, foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said: "Russia has expressed its readiness more than once to co-operate on these issues, including with the United States
Argos Media

Meddling in the Middle East: Iran Ups Support for Gaza and Lebanon Hardliners - SPIEGEL... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,616251,00.html

Fatah Hamas Hezbollah Iran Israel Khaled Meshaal

shared by Argos Media on 30 Mar 09 - Cached
  • ran is reportedly increasing its military aid to both Hezbollah and Hamas, according to Israeli intelligence sources. Meanwhile, Tehran is suspected of interfering in the reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian factions.
  • A 20-page dossier compiled by the Israeli intelligence agencies, which has been seen by SPIEGEL, reports that Iran "has strengthened its operative help to Palestinian terror groups." The military aid is said to take the form of supplies of weapons, ammunitions and money, as well as the education and training of fighters.
  • The weapons are reported to include mortar shells and anti-tank missiles such as RAAD missiles, which are manufactured in Iran. They are said to be transported by land, sea and air. According to the report, Teheran has sent agents to establish posts along the smuggling routes to guarantee a smooth delivery.
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  • The findings of other intelligence agencies in the Middle East also indicate that Iran is sending weapons and explosives to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to the Palestinian radical group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. The latest indication of this kind of support came with a failed attack on a shopping center in the Israeli port of Haifa on Sunday, March 22. Security forces managed to disable several dozen kilograms of explosives that had been loaded into a car parked outside the mall. Both Palestinian and Israeli experts who cooperated on the case believe that the attempted attack was the work of Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
  • Meanwhile, the Israelis have carried out aerial attacks in Sudan in an attempt to halt the delivery of weapons to Hamas -- including rockets with a range of 70 kilometers, far enough to reach Tel Aviv from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Air Force bombed a convoy of 17 trucks travelling through the Sudanese desert which were attempting to deliver weapons to Gaza via Egypt. The two bombing raids in January and February killed more than 30 people, including Sudanese, Ethiopians and Eritreans. Last Thursday a Sudanese government official confirmed the attacks took place and on Friday the New York Times quoted unnamed US officials saying Israeli warplanes had attacked the convoy.
  • The level to which Iran is intervening politically in the region is made evident by the failure of attempts so far to achieve reconciliation between the rival Palestinian factions.
  • Sources close to the Egyptian mediation efforts say that an agreement between the two sides has been tentatively close on several occasions. There had even been a deal to release 450 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in exchange for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who is being held hostage by Hamas. However, even the veteran Egyptian mediators had underestimated Iran's influence.
  • Khaled Mashaal is regarded as Tehran's man in Hamas. The politburo chief lives in exile in Damascus but in recent months he has been frequently on the move, with Iran one of his most important destinations. Many Fatah officials, such as Ibrahim Abu al-Nasha from Gaza City who has known Mashaal for over 30 years, are convinced that the Hamas leader allowed the talks to fail under pressure from Tehran.
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