Arctic ice melting to a record low, scientists warn
Global warming and a huge storm are blamed for the fastest decrease in sea coverage ever seen
The area of the Arctic Ocean covered by floating sea ice is likely to hit a record low next week, with the melting due to continue well into September, according to researchers monitoring the region by satellite.
Click HERE to view graphic
Arctic sea ice partially melts each summer and reforms again in the winter, but over the past 35 years of satellite readings the summer retreat has been getting significantly greater, with a record summer minimum recorded in September 2007.
However, scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, said that this summer's melt season in the Arctic has been so rapid and extensive that 2012 will almost certainly see sea ice coverage reach a new low.
The Irish Times - Wednesday, August 22, 2012
French government to hold talks on plight of Roma after fresh evictions from camps
ANGELIQUE CHRISAFIS in Lille
FRANCE’S NEW Socialist government is to hold emergency talks today on the plight of the country’s Roma after a wave of evictions of makeshift camps prompted accusations that François Hollande was following Nicolas Sarkozy’s lead in persecuting the ethnic minority.
Human rights groups expressed outrage at a recent series of dawn raids and forced evacuations of caravan sites and squats across France. The police raids left hundreds of Roma, including many children, homeless after caravans were impounded and no arrangements for temporary housing were made. Others were persuaded to board flights home to Romania.
Burmese media cautious despite relaxed censorship
August 22, 2012
Thomas Fuller
BANGKOK: The lifting of press censorship in Burma has been greeted by local publications as a big step towards media freedom in a country whose military governments have tried for decades to control the flow of information.
''It is a very significant step - a big change,'' the owner of The Yangon Times, U Ko Ko, said. ''It is in line with a democratic society.''
The government announced on Monday it would no longer censor private publications, which have thrived since the President, Thein Sein, began taking steps last year to open up the economy and move towards democracy.
Somali parliament sworn in despite presidential election delay
Somalia swore in its new parliament in a historic ceremony yesterday policed by African Union troops, as the war-torn nation tries once more to end two decades of conflict.
The swearing-in, held on the tarmac of the capital's airport, was the culmination of a UN-backed process in which lawmakers were chosen by a group of 135 traditional elders.
It brought an official end to Somalia's transitional government after eight years of political infighting and rampant corruption.
However, the election of a new president was delayed. Lawmakers said the process would begin in a "few days", with multiple candidates vying in a fierce race to unseat incumbent President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
The South gathers in Tehran
Middle East
By Vijay Prashad
Next week, representatives from 118 of the world's 192 states will gather in Tehran for the 16th Non-Aligned Movement summit.
Created in 1961, the NAM was a crucial platform for the Third World Project (whose history I detail in The Darker Nations). It was formed to purge the majority of the world from the toxic Cold War and from the maldevelopment pushed by the World Bank. After two decades of useful institution-building, the NAM was suffocated by the enforced debt crisis of the 1980s. It has since gasped along.
Created in 1961, the NAM was a crucial platform for the Third World Project (whose history I detail in The Darker Nations). It was formed to purge the majority of the world from the toxic Cold War and from the maldevelopment pushed by the World Bank. After two decades of useful institution-building, the NAM was suffocated by the enforced debt crisis of the 1980s. It has since gasped along.
In the corners of the NAM meetings, delegates mutter about the
arrogance of the North, particularly the US, whose track record over the past few decades has been pretty abysmal. Ronald Reagan's dismissal of the problems of the South at the 1981 Cancun Summit on the North-South Dialogue still raises eyebrows, and George W Bush's cowboy sensibility still earns a few chuckles.
Dispute Over Islands Reflects Japanese Fear of China’s Rise
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: August 21, 2012
ISHIGAKI, Japan — When the flotilla of 21 fishing boats arrived at an island chain at the center of a growing territorial dispute withChina, the captains warned the dozens of activists and politicians aboard not to attempt a landing.
Ten of the activists jumped into the shark-infested waters anyway, swimming ashore on Sunday and planting the rising sun flag that evokes painful memories of Imperial Japan’s 20th-century march across Asia.
“We feel that they dragged us into an international incident,” said Masanori Tamashiro, one of the boat captains.
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