Report: Climate change may pose threat to economic growth
October 30, 2013 -- Updated 0529 GMT
Hong Kong (CNN) -- Nearly a third of the world's economic output will come from countries facing "high" to "extreme" risks from the impacts of climate change within 12 years, according to a new report.
The Climate Change Vulnerability Index, an annual report produced by UK-based risk analysis firm Maplecroft, found that climate change "may pose a serious obstacle to sustainable economic growth in the world's most commercially important cities."
The index ranked the vulnerability of the world's countries, and the 50 cities deemed most economically important, to the impacts of climate change, by evaluating their risk of exposure to extreme climate events, the sensitivity of their populations to that exposure and the adaptive capacity of governments to respond to the challenge.
Pakistani family gives Congress an unprecedented account of effect of CIA drone attacks on their community
Politicians gather to hear startling testimony from a family on the death of a 67-year-old woman in Pakistan
WEDNESDAY 30 OCTOBER 2013
A father and two of his young children have come to Capitol Hill to give the US Congress an unprecedented first hand testimony of the death, injury and fear visited upon innocent civilians by secret CIA drone attacks in remote northern Pakistan.
Rafiq-ur-Rehman, a primary school teacher in North Waziristan, lost his 67-year old mother, the local midwife, when a drone struck a field near his village on the sunny morning of 24 October 2012. Two of his children – Zubair, now 13, and nine-year old Nabila – were wounded in the strike. On Tuesday, the three recounted their story.
“Nobody has ever told me why my mother was targeted that day,” Mr Rehman told a briefing in a packed Congressional hearing room organised by Florida Democrat Alan Grayson and the civil rights group Reprieve, and moderated by Robert Greenwald, director of a feature documentary Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars.
Greenwald backs calls for Snowden to testify in Germany
Investigative journalist promises further NSA spying revelations
Derek Scally
Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, who first published details of US surveillance provided by Edward Snowden, has backed German calls for the NSA whistleblower to testify before a Bundestag inquiry.
Without the information provided by Mr Snowden, he said, German intelligence services would not have known the NSA had tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile for over a decade until earlier this year.
Witness protectionMr Greenwald said further NSA spying revelations were in the pipeline, he said, concerning Germany and other countries.
IRAQ
Escalating violence in Iraq
Violence is on the rise in Iraq. Hostilities between Sunnis and Shiites are at a peak: The number of victims is higher than it has been for years, and the upcoming election campaign may well make things worse.
Last weekend in Baghdad was a particularly bloody one. More than 40 people died in ten car bomb attacks that targeted a bus stop and Shiite-majority areas in the Iraqi capital on Sunday (27.10.2013.) Sunni extremists are believed to have been responsible. Attacks in other parts of the country on the same day left another 20 people dead.
The number of victims of religiously or politically motivated attacks has surged dramatically in recent months. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) says that more than 5,200 people were killed between April and the end of September this year.
Iraq has experienced innumerable such attacks since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. But in the last few months the number of booby-traps, car bombs and targeted killings has reached a five-year peak.
Himalayan Hotbed: Tensions Spike in Divided Kashmir
A cousin says that Irfan had run out of the house at about 3 a.m., suspecting that there were cattle thieves outside. That was where he was shot, says the cousin.
Syrian forces and rebels allow people to flee Damascus suburb
October 30, 2013 - 11:59AM
Damascus: A rare moment of coordination between the Syrian government and rebels has allowed 1800 civilians to flee a besieged town on the edge of Damascus, but thousands remain trapped with little food, water or medicine.
A source in the Ministry for Social Affairs said the evacuation from Mouadamiya had gone ahead with the help of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and some civil groups.
"I was living in terror and now I am free and safe with the army, thank God," a resident of Mouadamiya told a Reuters reporter on condition of anonymity.
Niger migrants die of thirst in Sahara
Dozens of migrants from Niger heading for Algeria have died of thirst in the Sahara desert after their vehicle broke down, say local officials.
Dozens of Nigerian migrants heading for Algeria died of thirst in the Sahara desert after their vehicle broke down, local officials said Monday, while police said 19 survived.
"About 40 Nigeriens, including numerous children and women, who were attempting to emigrate to Algeria, died of thirst in mid-October," Rhissa Feltou, the mayor of the main northern town of Agadez, said
"Many others have been reported missing since their vehicle broke down in the desert," he said.
The army found the bodies of two women and three adolescents, a paramilitary policeman said. No other bodies have so far turned up. However, 19 survivors were taken to Arlit, the policeman said.
"Travellers told us that they saw and counted up to 35 bodies, mostly those of women and children, by the road," said Abdourahmane Maouli, the mayor of the northern uranium mining town of Arlit.
No comments:
Post a Comment