Exposed: The myth of the global warming 'pause'
Failure to record temperature rises in the Arctic explains apparent ‘flatlining’, study finds, undermining sceptics’ argument that climate change has stopped
Scientists can now explain the “pause” in global warming that sceptics have used to bolster their arguments. Sceptics had claimed we have nothing to fear from climate change because it has stopped being a problem.
A new study has found that global temperatures have not flat-lined over the past 15 years, as weather station records have been suggesting, but have in fact continued to rise as fast as previous decades, during which we have seen an unprecedented acceleration in global warming.
The findings will undermine the arguments of leading sceptics, such as the former Chancellor Lord Lawson, who have criticised scientists from the Met Office and other climate organisations for not accepting that global warming has stopped since about 1998.
Indonesia recalls ambassador to Australia over spying claim
November 18, 2013 - 7:35PM
Michael Bachelard
Indonesia correspondent for Fairfax Media
Indonesia will call back its ambassador to Australia and "review" Australian diplomatic positions in Jakarta as anger rises in Indonesia over revelations that Australia tapped the phone of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife.
A statement from the office of the Co-ordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Security, Djoko Suyanto, said Indonesia would:
- Contact Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to say the [spying] issue will not be healthy for the Indonesia-Australia relationship;
- Ask Australia to provide an official and public explanation and make a commitment not to repeat their actions;
- Summon to Jakarta the Indonesian ambassador to Canberra, Primo Alui Joelianto, for a "consultation";
- Review the co-operation on the exchange of information between the Indonesian and Australian governments, including the assignments of Australian officers in the Australian embassy in Jakarta; and
- Review all co-operation on the exchange of information and other co-operation with Australia.
NUCLEAR
Japan begins removing radioactive fuel rods from Fukushima reactor
Japanese engineers have begun removing fuel rods at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. The removal is a crucial first step toward a full cleanup and decommissioning that is expected to take decades.
Workers started removing uranium and plutonium fuel rods Monday from one of four reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said.
The Unit 4 reactor was offline at the time of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, and its core did not melt down as the other three did. Two other offline reactors also survived. However, hydrogen explosions damaged the Unit 4 building and weakened the structure, leaving it extremely vulnerable.
The building has since been reinforced but experts say keeping so many fuel rods in a storage pool in the building still poses a major safety risk and the threat of another earthquake is also a major concern.
Nigeria's Boko Haram seize slave 'brides'
Boko Haram is abducting Christian women whom it converts to Islam on pain of death and then forces into "marriage" with fighters.
In the gloom of a hilltop cave in Nigeria where she was held captive, Hajja had a knife pressed to her throat by a man who gave her a choice—convert to Islam or die.
Two gunmen from Boko Haram had seized the Christian teenager in July as she picked corn near her village in the Gwoza hills, a remote part of north-eastern Nigeria where a six-month-old government offensive is struggling to contain an insurgency by the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group.
In a new development, Boko Haram is abducting Christian women whom it converts to Islam on pain of death and then forces into "marriage" with fighters—a tactic that recalls Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in the jungles of Uganda.
The three months Hajja spent as the slave of a 14-strong guerrilla unit, cooking and cleaning for them before she escaped, give a rare glimpse into how the Islamists have changed tack in the face of Nigerian military pressure.
Brazil's Bolsa Família: welfare model or menace?
Bolsa Família provides small stipends to families in exchange for kids going to school and getting regular checkups. It's been globally imitated, but some Brazilians say 10 years of welfare is enough.
The streets in this run-down town of 130,000 are nearly empty during work hours. There are few jobs here. But in the wee hours of the morning, bleary-eyed workers pile into buses headed forRio de Janeiro, about two hours away, or the Petrobras state oil refinery under construction in nearby Itaboraí.
But one office in Maricá is bustling: the government benefits center. About 20 women and children fidget on the worn chairs lined in front of the cramped office where notebooks filled with applications for antipoverty programs are stacked almost to the ceiling.
Many are here applying for the Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, a landmark poverty reduction effort in Brazil that has helped raise 36 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty and is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary. In Maricá alone, some 6,000 families receive monthly payouts.
Andrew NorthSouth Asia correspondent
Nepal's World Cup trail brings misery
If it wasn't for a game of football there would never be a link between Mandu and Doha.
A bigger divide is hard to imagine than between this isolated hamlet clinging to the Himalayan foothills and the ambitious steel and glass spires of that desert capital.
Yet when Rajendra Sharma set off for a job in Qatar building its World Cup airport he was following a well-trodden path, taken by hundreds of Nepalis every day.
The way his journey ended was all too common as well: this summer his wife Manju got a message to say he had died from a heart attack, one of scores of South Asian migrant workers who have perished helping the tiny Gulf nation transform itself for the football championship.
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