Saturday, December 14, 2019

Six In The Morning Saturday 14 December 2019


Climate change: Call for 'flexibility' to reach consensus at talks



The Chilean official leading UN climate negotiations has appealed to delegates to show flexibility, as they struggle to reach agreement on crucial measures needed to tackle climate change.
As talks continue in Madrid, Carolina Schmidt said a deal was almost there but the outcome needed to be ambitious.
The situation was unprecedented since talks began in 1991, said Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The goal is a commitment to new carbon emissions cuts by the end of 2020.


Rohingya fury at Aung San Suu Kyi’s genocide denial to world court

Muslim victims of Myanmar ‘clearances’ voice outrage as peace prize winner dismisses atrocity charges


When Aung San Suu Kyi rose to denounce genocide charges against her country at the “world court” last week, three victims of Myanmar’s ethnic violence were sitting close behind the Nobel peace prize winner – disbelieving and seething with anger.
Hamida Khatun, Yousuf Ali and Hasina Begum had travelled from the sprawling Kutupalong refugee camp outside Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh to sit on the legal delegation attending the International Court of Justice’s emergency hearing in The Hague, in the Netherlands.
Only lawyers were allowed to address the 17 judges during the three-day session in the United Nations’ highest tribunal. The exiled Rohingya Muslims had to sit in silence, stifling their emotions.

Kidnapping, lynching and deliberate killings: Iraq’s protesters live in fear they ‘could be next’

Family and friends of two Iraqi activists disappeared in Baghdad this week tell The Independent they fear more will vanish

Bel TrewMiddle East Corresponden


The family and friends of two Iraqi activists disappeared in Baghdad this week have said they fear more will vanish, as the United Nations warned security forces and unknown militias had unleashed a campaign of abductions and “deliberate killings”.
Activist Salman Khairallah Salman and his friend Omar al-Amri were last seen on Wednesday morning heading to Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district. There they had hoped to buy tents for an encampment in the capital’s Tahrir Square, the hub of the protest movement.
But both stopped answering calls by 10.30am, and by 2.30pm their mobile phones had been switched off.

Scotland's campaign for a new independence referendum begins

Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party (SNP) will start their campaign next week for a second independence referendum - whether Westminster likes it or not. The SNP will be hoping the economic consequences of Brexit will fuel the movement for independence.
During the build-up to last Thursday’s British general election, Sturgeon’s message was simple: the future of Scotland is on the line.
Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister,  made her party’s campaign a single-issue one, and the SNP went on to win more than 80 percent of seats in Scotland. This result was the second-highest ever win for the SNP, with the party increasing its number of seats in Parliament to 48, an increase of 13 from the 2017 election.
Speaking in Edinburgh after the results on Friday morning, Sturgeon described the outcome as “an overwhelming endorsement of our campaign, message and vision”.

What tourists don't get about White Island

Updated 2245 GMT (0645 HKT) December 14, 2019


White Island is the most active volcano in New Zealand. It is also a tourist volcano.
It isn't hard to see why. Most of it lies under the ocean, with the crater conveniently rising just above sea level — ideal for short visits by boat. Although its dangers include explosive eruptions, deadly emissions of sulphur dioxide and superheated steam, boiling mud pools, earthquakes, mud slides, rock falls and even tsunamis, it erupts relatively rarely.

These 3 supertrees can protect us from climate collapse

But can we protect them?

By , and 
Photographs by Victor Moriyama, Ardiles Rante, and Sarah Waiswa

We traveled to protected areas deep inside these countries to learn the superpowers of three tree species that play an unusually important part in staving off environmental disaster, not just locally, but globally. These trees play many ecological roles, but most impressive is how they produce rainfall, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and support hundreds of other species.
If these ecosystems collapse, the climate effects are likely to be irreversible. And so what happens to these forests truly affects all life on Earth.





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