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"World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan says she is disappointed a deal on climate change was not struck in Copenhagen. But she says important steps were taken that, she believes, will ultimately result in an agreement to stop or retard climate change. She says the relationship between climate change and health is obvious. For example, she says millions of people will suffer from either too much water or too little water under climate change. Chan says extensive flooding may lead to loss of life from drowning and disease. She says contaminated floodwaters can cause fatal illnesses, such as diarrhea and cholera. On the other hand, she says some areas will have too little water and prolonged drought will affect the kind of crops people normally grow. "The prediction is that in the next 20 years to 30 years, if the situation continues to get worse, the productivity from the agricultural sector and from subsistence farming in Africa, the production would reduce by as much as 50 percent," she said. "If there is any truth to that, can you imagine the impact on hunger, on acute and chronic malnutrition?" Scientists say the warming of the planet will be gradual, but that extreme weather events will increase in frequency and intensity. They say the effects of more storms, floods, droughts and heat waves will be abrupt and profound. The World Health Organization says the effects of so-called climate-sensitive diseases already are killing millions of people. WHO reports more than three-and-a-half million people die every year from malnutrition-related causes. It says diarrhea-related diseases kill nearly two million people and almost one million die from malaria."

"The world could be in for a spell of cooler temperatures, rather than hotter conditions, as a result of cyclical changes in ocean currents for the next 20 or 30 years, it is predicted. Research by Professor Mojib Latif, one of the world's leading climate modellers, questions the widely held view that global temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years. Pen Hadow climate change trek makes it less than half way to North Pole But Prof Latif, of the Leibniz Institute at Germany's Kiel University and an author for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), believes that the cool spell will only be a temporary interruption to climate change. He told a UN conference in September that changes in ocean currents known as North Atlantic Oscillation could dominate over man-made global warming for the next few decades. Controversially, he also said that the fluctuations could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years. Prof Latif told one newspaper at the weekend: "A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles - perhaps as much as 50 per cent. "

"A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it. Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report. It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Related Internet Links * Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on Himalayan glaciers * How New Scientist reported the row Related Links * Global warming blamed for rise in malaria * Experts clash over sea-rise 'apocalypse' Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change. "

"2009 ended with a flurry of important events on the climate-change front. In November, the Climategate scandal broke. An anonymous whistle-blower released over 1,000 e-mails from key scientists (both British and American) in the alarmist climate-change camp. The e-mails revealed a shocking pattern of the abuse of science by both American and British scientists collaborating at the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University the source of various global-warming studies that have formed the alleged scientific justification for capping human CO2 emissions. E. Calvin Beisner wrote that the e-mails showed: serious scientific malfeasance the fabrication, corruption, destruction, hiding, and cherry-picking of data as well as intimidation of dissenting scientists and journal editors and efforts to evade disclosure under Freedom of Information Laws in the United Kingdom and the United States. James Delingpoles blog found Conspiracy, collusion manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more. The incriminating e-mails were followed in December by charges from Russia's Institute of Economic Analysis that Britain's Meteorological Office deliberately skewed Russia's temperature data. With the underlying climate-change science so thoroughly compromised, did policymakers pause to reconsider the need for colossally expensive CO2-curbing policies? No. Instead they are locked into automatic-pilot mode. In the United States, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) dismissed Climategates revelations as irrelevant and continued to push her expensive cap-and-trade proposal (potential cost: trillions of dollars; potential climate impact according to its own proponents: a few hundredths of a degree). Internationally, last month's U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen ignored it. The delegates didn't skip a beat in pursuing a multi-trillion-dollar transfer of wealth from developed to undeveloped countries. Could it be that climate-change politics is more a

"It has been a bleak winter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The credibility of the UN body came under attack days before the opening of the Copenhagen climate summit in December, when leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia appeared to show manipulation of temperature data used by the panel. Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, was forced to spend much of his time at the conference defending the integrity of the science contained in the panel's reports. Now it has been forced to apologise for including a highly alarmist claim in its most recent report that Himalayan glaciers were very likely to vanish by 2035. Most glaciologists believe the melting would take hundreds of years and some doubt that it will ever happen, pointing to evidence of glaciers advancing in the neighbouring Karakoram mountain range. The IPCC reports underpin every country's decisions about climate change. If the panel cannot be trusted, it becomes much more difficult to justify the global effort to cut greenhouse gases. That is why it is vital to place the allegations against the IPCC in context. While it is alarming that none of the 2,500 scientists who contributed to its 2007 report spotted the error, this is explained partly by it appearing in a single sentence on page 493. Climate sceptics around the world have spent two years scrutinising every claim made by the panel. So far they have identified one serious error; it seems unlikely that they will find many more. The IPCC should now re-check all the sources of statements in its report, but this process will not alter its conclusion that man-made emissions are very likely to be the main cause of global warming. "

"Call it the mystery of the missing thermometers. Two months after "climategate" cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming. Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada. In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada. Worse, only one station -- at Eureka on Ellesmere Island -- is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle. The Canadian government, meanwhile, operates 1,400 surface weather stations across the country, and more than 100 above the Arctic Circle, according to Environment Canada. Yet as American researchers Joseph D'Aleo, a meteorologist, and E. Michael Smith, a computer programmer, point out in a study published on the website of the Science and Public Policy Institute, NOAA uses "just one thermometer [for measuring] everything north of latitude 65 degrees." Both the authors, and the institute, are well-known in climate-change circles for their skepticism about the threat of global warming. Mr. D'Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and another U.S. agency, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have not only reduced the total number of Canadian weather stations in the database, but have "cherry picked" the ones that remain by choosing sites in relatively warmer places, including more southerly locations, or sites closer to airports, cities or the sea -- which has a warming ef

"WASHINGTON - Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she lacks the votes to quickly move the Senate's sweeping health overhaul bill through the House, a potentially devastating blow to President Barack Obama's signature issue. Pelosi, D-Calif., made the comment to reporters after House Democrats held a closed-door meeting at which participants vented frustration with the Senate's massive version of the legislation. Her concession meant there was little hope for a White House-backed plan to quickly push the Senate-approved health bill through the House, followed by a separate measure making changes sought by House members, such as easing the Senate's tax on higher-cost health plans. Such an approach would be "problematic," she said, though Democrats haven't completely ruled out pursuing it. "In its present form without any changes I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House," Pelosi said, adding, "I don't see the votes for it at this time." Pelosi also signaled that advancing health legislation through Congress will likely be a lengthy process - despite Democrats' desire for a quick election-year pivot to address jobs and the economy, which polls show are the public's top concern. "We're not in a big rush" on health care, Pelosi said. "Pause, reflect." Two days after the stunning special election in Massachusetts - where Republicans captured the Senate seat held for decades by the late Edward Kennedy - many House Democrats said one lesson was that the public wanted a more modest approach to overhauling the health care system. Several said Democrats should refocus the legislation onto popular proposals like barring insurance companies from denying coverage to sick people."

"WASHINGTON - The U.S. health care system is in serious need of changes, but the Democratic plan to overhaul it is badly flawed and should be repealed and replaced, the Senate Republican leader says. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Saturday in the GOP radio and video address that "nobody is satisfied with the health care system as it is." Costs are out of control and "people are being squeezed out of the market," he said. But he said the health care bill signed by President Barack Obama this week doesn't solve those problems and undermines what is best about health care in this country - a wide variety of medical options and innovations. The main health care law and a companion "fix-it" measure aim to crack down on insurance industry abuses and to reduce federal deficits by an estimated $143 billion over a decade. Most Americans would be required to buy insurance for the first time or face penalties. McConnell was emphasizing a new GOP political approach opposing Democrats' health care measures that proposes "repealing and replacing" the bill rather than just repealing the new health care law. Republicans say they can push for parts of the health care overhaul without adopting elements they don't like, such as tax increases. "We can do better," he said. "We can expand access to people with pre-existing conditions. We can keep people from being kicked off their plans. We can lower costs and premiums. We can do all of these things without undermining the things we do best and without raising taxes that kill jobs in a bad economy." Republicans want to appeal to tea party supporters and other conservatives upset at the size and scope of the legislation, while acknowledging that many people, including moderate Republicans and independents, want to see changes in American health care. Obama said this week that he welcomes a political fight with Republicans over efforts to repeal the bill. Repeal is highly unlikely because Repu

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Published: 7:00AM GMT 01 Mar 2010 Ed Miliband, Britain's climate change secretary, has spoken of his frustration at the chaotic end to the Copenhagen summit and admitted he had wanted Ed Miliband said agreement was 'not an easy task' Photo: REUTERS A United Nations meeting in Copenhagen at the end of last year broke down in chaos because rich and poor countries could not agree the best way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The main problem was that developing countries wanted an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, that imposes targets on rich nations, while developed countries wanted a whole new treaty.

"PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday proposed setting up a group of 28 countries to guide global negotiations on climate change and avoid a repetition of last year's chaotic talks in Copenhagen. In a New Year address to the diplomatic community, Sarkozy said United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December had failed because of the huge number of countries involved in preparing the accord. "The main lesson from Copenhagen is that you can't negotiate in a round of 192," Sarkozy said, arguing that national leaders had arrived in the Danish capital to sign the accord only to find an illegible text full of disputed clauses. He proposed forming a "balanced, representative" group of 28 countries that would provide ideas and prepare for the next round of negotiations in Cancun. He did not name any of the proposed participants. "The wisest option would be to pursue a twin strategy -- talks among the 192, as that involves the whole international community, and among ministers and sherpas from the Group of 28," he said. Sarkozy said he wanted the Group of 28 to hold monthly meetings, starting in March, in New York or Bonn. Last month's Copenhagen talks ended with a bare-minimum agreement when delegates "noted" a deal struck by the United States, China and other emerging powers that fell short of the conference's original goals. Mexico will host the next talks in Cancun in November/December, building on the Copenhagen deal which seeks to limit the rise in temperature to 2 Celsius above the average recorded in pre-industrial times. The Copenhagen accord did not spell out how to achieve that goal."

"The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little. More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government's largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won't affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota."

"It's a new year, which means it's time to make resolutions, take on fresh challenges, learn new things and change our lives for the better. Perhaps you want to lose 10 pounds, travel more, or get the job you really want? Mashable (Mashable) has been building a vast archive of how-to guides on everything from professional networking to planning a vacation online - what better time to release a combined list than at the beginning of a new decade? If you're looking to improve your life in 2010, we hope you'll find these 40+ How-To guides useful. You can find even more How-To guides and tips in the How-To section of this site."

"SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. will stop censoring its search results in China and may pull out of the country completely after discovering that computer hackers had tricked human-rights activists into exposing their e-mail accounts to outsiders. The change of heart announced Tuesday heralds a major shift for the Internet's search leader, which has repeatedly said it will obey Chinese laws requiring some politically and socially sensitive issues to be blocked from search results available in other countries. The acquiescence had outraged free-speech advocates and even some shareholders, who argued Google's cooperation with China violated the company's "don't be evil" motto. The criticism had started to sway Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who openly expressed his misgivings about the company's presence in China. But the tipping point didn't come until Google recently uncovered hacking attacks launched from within China. The apparent goals: breaking into the computers of at least 20 major U.S. companies and gathering personal information about dozens of human rights activists trying to shine a light on China's alleged abuses. Google spokesman Matt Furman declined to say whether the company suspects the Chinese government may have had a hand in the attacks. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Google allegations "raise very serious concerns and questions" and the U.S. is seeking an explanation from the Chinese government."

"U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned the U.S. faces a double-dip recession because of the taxes and regulations under consideration by the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama. "Congress, the administration and states must recognize that our weak economy simply could not sustain all the new taxes, regulations and mandates now under consideration. It's a sure-fire recipe for a double-dip recession, or worse," Donohue said in a speech providing the Chamber's outlook for 2010. Donohue said the lawmakers should not let former President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of year and lambasted Democratic efforts on healthcare and financial regulatory reform as well as climate change."

" Published: 7:00AM GMT 03 Jan 2010 The year is 2050, and a diplomatic dispute between China and Britain risks escalating into all-out war. But rather than launching a barrage of ballistic missiles and jet fighters to destroy key British targets, Beijing has a far simpler plan for defeating its enemy. It simply turns off the lights. At the flick of a switch elite teams of Chinese hackers attached to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) launch a hi-tech assault on Britain's computer systems, with devastating consequences. Within minutes the country's power stations, water companies, air traffic control, government and financial systems are totally shut down. Related Articles * 'Dad believed he was a July 7 bomber' * Lord Adonis: no need to cut travel to save the planet, says Transport Secretary * The Korean crisis is China's chance to show the world it has changed * Is Britain no longer special to America? * We must treat China as a friend and ally in this financial crisis * New Zealand hockey coach banished to stands for match officials' 'pants' decision Britain's attempt to respond by launching nuclear-armed Trident missiles at China has to be abandoned, as the computer systems that control the weapons system are no longer functioning. At a time when relations between China and Britain are supposed to be improving, the prospect of Beijing launching a cyber attack against Britain and its allies might seem to be the stuff of fantasy. After all, it is only two years since Gordon Brown made a highly successful visit to Beijing where the two countries agreed to increase trade by 50 per cent by this year, and to cooperate on a range of issues, such as global warming. As one of the world's leading economic powers, China's role on the world stage has transformed dramatically over the past decade, with the huge wealth that Beijing has accumulated from its impressive economic growth playing a key role in sup

"Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by "Climategate." If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom's University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and the U.S. who are closely associated with the authoritative (albeit controversial) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the more troubling revelations were data adjustments enhancing the perception that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other atmospheric greenhouse gases. Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic. The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations. Climate alarmists would like you to believe the science has been settled and all respectable atmospheric scientists support their position. The believers also would like you to believe the skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil and that they are few in number with minimal qualifications."

"Jordan has asked Canada to seize the selected parchments of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls that have been on display in Toronto, invoking international law in a bid to keep the artifacts out of Israel's hands until their "disputed ownership" is settled, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail reported last week. The Isaiah Scroll portion of... The Isaiah Scroll portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Photo: The Israel Museum SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World In its request, Jordan invoked the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which is concerned with safeguarding cultural property during wartime. The 1954 convention requires signatories "to take into its custody cultural property imported into its territory either directly or indirectly from any occupied territory." The Jordanians claim Israel acted illegally when it seized the scrolls from the Rockefeller Museum, located in eastern Jerusalem, during the Six Day War. On Sunday, Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum ended its exhibit "Words That Changed the World," which featured scroll fragments on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority. "

"Vatican City, Jan 11 (AP) Pope Benedict XVI denounced the failure of world leaders to agree to a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen last month, saying today that world peace depends on safeguarding God's creation. He issued the admonition in a speech to ambassadors accredited to the Vatican, an annual appointment during which the pontiff reflects on issues the Vatican wants to highlight to the diplomatic corps. Benedict has been dubbed the "green pope" for his increasingly vocal concern about the need to protect the environment. Under his watch, the Vatican has installed photovoltaic cells on its main auditorium to convert sunlight into electricity and has joined a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its CO2 emissions. For the pontiff, it's a moral issue: Church teaching holds that man must respect creation because it's destined for the benefit of humanity's future."

"If you asked most people on the street which nation produces the most oil most of them would say that the answer is Saudi Arabia of course. But they would be dead wrong. The truth is that Russia is the number one oil producer in the world. Not only that, but Russia is also the number one natural gas exporter in the world. So what does that mean? It means that Russia is the top energy superpower on the globe. Russia pumped more than 10 million barrels of oil per day during November, and now they have done something which will give them even more power over energy. Russia has just finished a new oil pipeline and port complex that enables them to export more oil than Saudi Arabia. On December 28th, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was on hand to celebrate the opening of Russia's first modern Pacific-based oil export facilities. The Pacific port of Kozmino is a project that Putin is extremely proud of, and it promises to literally change the world. So what makes this port so significant? The new Kozmino complex promises to be a gate through which Russia's vast East Siberian oilfields will supply oil for Asia's energy-hungry economies. Notice that the Middle East and the West are not part of that equation. According to Reuters, the first oil transport will load at Kozmino on January 15th. Hong Kong is scheduled to receive that first shipment. But this is just the latest sign that Russia has more than recovered from their past economic woes. In fact, the Russian Bear is back."

""The Europe as you know it from visiting, from your parents or friends is on the verge of collapsing," Geert Wilders said in a speech in the United States last year. The leader of the Netherlands' populist Party for Freedom added: "We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe's destiny and might send the Continent in what Ronald Reagan called 'a thousand years of darkness.' " And not just Europe, but America as well. Been to Europe lately? Thought it was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The passage of the Lisbon Treaty, hailed by President Obama, nailed the coffin shut on national sovereignty in Europe. The people of Europe fought it, but were overwhelmed by their political elites and the lack of American leadership in this age of our rather Marxist, collectivist U.S. president. Come Jan. 1, 2010, a disastrous and suicidal pact called the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Europe/Mediterranean) goes into effect with little fanfare or examination. It boggles the mind that such a consequential and seismic cultural shift could be mandated and put into play without so much as a murmur from the mainstream media. Why should Americans care about this? Americans have to care because this global gobbledygook is coming to our shores, thanks to our globalist president. The European human rights group called Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE) has been working tirelessly to expose the mass Muslim immigration plan of the Euro-Med Partnership."