Tuesday Morning News Bucket – Late Edition

12 Comments

1. 

   ask on December 4, 2007 at 11:06 am

   In Bali, new urgency for a climate change accord

   NUSA Dua, Indonesia – Talks to frame global efforts to fight climate change begin here Monday, as delegates from more than 180 countries try to design an agreement that picks up where the 1997 Kyoto Protocol leaves off.

   The meeting represents the most rigorous test yet of whether the UN process is nimble enough to yield the deep cuts in emissions that most scientists say could forestall the more serious economic, social, and ecological effects of global warming.

   Evidence continues to mount that environmental changes are occurring faster than even the best climate models have projected.

   A new survey of recent tropical-climate studies released Sunday showed bands of semitropical arid regions that lie north and south of the equator are expanding into higher latitudes, bringing drier conditions to already water-strapped areas in the Mediterranean, the southwestern US, northern Mexico, and Australia.

   […]

   Meanwhile, scientists have noted that since 2000, global carbon-dioxide emissions have grown at a pace higher than all but the highest projections that the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses for its global warming projections. While industrial nations historically have driven greenhouse-gas levels close to their current high concentrations, currently the highest growth rates are occurring in developing countries, with China and India leading the pack.

2. 

   ask on December 4, 2007 at 11:16 am

   Iraq ministry eyes power to arrest foreign guards

   BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s Interior Ministry will have the power to arrest foreign guards involved in shooting incidents if parliament approves a bill ending foreign security firms’ immunity from prosecution, the minister said on Monday.
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   Jawad al-Bolani also said he believed Iraq would soon need fewer foreign security contractors given that violence had dropped sharply in recent months.

   Cabinet approved the draft law at the end of October in the wake of a September 16 shooting involving U.S. security firm Blackwater in which 17 Iraqis were killed. Blackwater said its guards acted lawfully, but the shooting enraged the Iraqi government.

   The bill on foreign security guards has yet to be debated in parliament but it should pass easily. Iraqi officials have previously made clear it would make foreign guards liable under Iraqi law, but they have not been specific about carrying out arrests.

   Asked if Interior Ministry forces could arrest foreign security contractors involved in shootings, Bolani said: “Yes, when the law is passed.”

   […]

   The bill to be debated by parliament intends to cancel Order 17, a decree issued by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004 shortly before it handed control to an interim Iraqi government. The old measure prevents foreign contractors from being prosecuted in local courts.

   Iraq says there are more than 180 mainly U.S. and European security companies in Iraq, with estimates of the number of private contractors ranging from 25,000 to 48,000.

3. 

   ask on December 4, 2007 at 11:21 am

   Iraqis in Syria face food shortages

   DAMASCUS, Syria — Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees in Syria face a bleak winter, with rising fuel costs that could leave many without enough money for food, the director of the World Food Program said Monday.

   About a third of Iraqi respondents in a recent United Nations study said they skipped one meal a day to feed their children. Nearly 60 percent said that they’re buying cheaper, less nutritious food to cope with a dramatic increase in prices.

   With the weather turning colder and heating prices rising, humanitarian workers predict more Iraqis will go hungry in order to keep up with rent and utilities.

   “We need more help here,” WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said in an interview.

4. 

   ask on December 4, 2007 at 11:23 am

   Let’s keep up the war rhetoric in spite of the facts…

   Bush: No change in Iran policy

   George Bush today ruled out a change in Washington’s Iran policy following the declassification yesterday of a US intelligence report that concluded Tehran had abandoned its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

   The US president denied the national intelligence estimate (NIE) – which said Tehran’s determination to develop nuclear weapons “is less … than we have been judging” – had undercut his administration’s repeated assertions that Iran was building nuclear weapons.

   “Iran was dangerous. Iran is dangerous. And Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” Bush told his first White House press conference in nearly seven weeks.

   • 

     BooMan on December 4, 2007 at 11:31 am

     what do you expect him to say?  ‘I was wrong’?

     • 

       ask on December 4, 2007 at 11:44 am

       Heh, not exactly.
       He should resign and fulfill CG’s subliminal wish in yesterday’s bucket.

     • 

       stormkite on December 4, 2007 at 11:56 am

       Actually, I expect that he’s added the intelligence agencies to the strike list for Shock and Awe II.

       I also expect that at this time there are at least as many domestic targets on that list as there are targets in Iran.

5. 

   ask on December 4, 2007 at 11:53 am

   Finland stays top of global class

   Finland and South Korea remain among the superpowers of education, according to a major international study.

   The three-yearly Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) shows that the two countries are in the top five for reading and maths.

   South Korea has made rapid progress since 2000, says the report – with its pupils improving by the equivalent of a whole school year.

   The rankings are based on tests taken by 15-year-olds in 57 countries.

   Poland has also risen sharply in the performance tables, gathered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

   […]

   The latest findings also show the extent of global competition in education – with the northern European countries now challenged by and overtaken by Asian rivals, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

   • 

     dada on December 4, 2007 at 1:13 pm

     Young Chimp Beats College Students

     Think you’re smarter than a fifth-grader? How about a 5-year-old chimp? Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won.

     That challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that “humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions,” said researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.

     “No one can imagine that chimpanzees – young chimpanzees at the age of 5 – have a better performance in a memory task than humans,” he said in a statement.

     Matsuzawa, a pioneer in studying the mental abilities of chimps, said even he was surprised. He and colleague Sana Inoue report the results in Tuesday’s issue of the journal Current Biology.

     […]

     wired

     maybe we’ve been unfairly dissin’ chimpanzees and need to find a new handle for dimson…nah…chimperor still works.

     lTMF’sA

6. 

   ask on December 4, 2007 at 2:23 pm

   Riots and hunger feared as demand for grain sends food costs soaring

   · Expert to warn industry of threats to world supply
   · Biofuels and Chinese boom put pressure on harvests

   The risks of food riots and malnutrition will surge in the next two years as the global supply of grain comes under more pressure than at any time in 50 years, according to one of the world’s leading agricultural researchers.

   Recent pasta protests in Italy, tortilla rallies in Mexico and onion demonstrations in India are just the start of the social instability to come unless there is a fundamental shift to boost production of staple foods, Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute, warned in an interview with the Guardian.

7. 

   dada on December 4, 2007 at 3:37 pm

   gibson, the revered maker of my, and many musicians, amateur and professional alike, all time favourite guitars, has sold out:

   Gibson shows new self-tuning guitar

   Musicians of the world are getting a new kind of artistic freedom with technology that eliminates the challenging chore of tuning.

   Robotics technology developed by German company Tronical Gmbh in partnership with Gibson Guitar Corp. enables Gibson’s newest Les Paul model to tune itself in about two seconds.

   […]

   link

   artistic freedom my a$$.

   wait until next year, you’ll be able to buy one that plays itself. you can skip all that practice and blisters on the fingers crap.

   BAH, HUMBUG!

   lTMF’sA

8. 

   CabinGirl on December 4, 2007 at 4:29 pm

   the Clinton campaign made on Obama yesterday?  Now they claim it was all a big joke: TPM

   This morning, Hillary adviser Mark Penn went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to explain that the release was all just a big joke. “Oh, that is so silly,” Penn said, claiming to be amazed that anyone actually took it seriously as a real attack.

   Hmm.  Two questions:  First, doesn’t the Clinton campaign have anything better to do then send out “joke” press releases all day?  Second, do they realize how similar this is to insulting someone and then claiming that they’re “just too sensitive” when they respond to the insult?

   Okay, one more:  Does HillaryCo not realize that no one believes them?  We’ve had 7 years of Bush lies, and we know ’em when we see or hear ’em.  Get real.