Like just about every other big, international conference, from world trade to human rights, it appears the Copenhagen climate summit has ended in a complete fiasco.
BBC: Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after the African group withdrew co-operation.
African delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol.
As news spread around the conference centre, about 200 activists responded with chants of "We stand with Africa - Kyoto targets now".
Typical.
Between the "Climategate" leaks, and another set of leaks about how developed countries planned to screw over developing ones, the whole thing was doomed from the start. And even without those snags, it was all talk.
2. inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his north pole sums don't add up
Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years. In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.” However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.” Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.
3. Berlusconi 'amazed' at attack, always wished everyone well
Silvio Berlusconi yesterday spoke of his amazement that anyone would wish him ill, following the assault on Sunday night that put him in hospital. The Prime Minister, who is being treated for facial wounds after the attack at the end of a political rally, told the priest at Milan's San Raffaele Hospital, Don Luigi Verzè, of his bafflement. "I wish everyone well, everyone," he said, according to Italian press reports. "I can't understand why they hate me now."
4. Israel summons UK envoy to stop this silliness over arrest warrants
The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned the British envoy to Israel to rebuke him over the arrest warrant issued for Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Israel views the arrest warrant with utmost gravity, Naor Gilon, deputy director at the Foreign Ministry in charge of Western Europe, told British ambassador Tom Phillips. Gilon also called on Phillips to urge his government to change the law that allows for arrest warrants to be issued against senior Israeli officials over alleged war crimes perpetrated in Gaza during the winter conflict between Israel and Hamas.
read more @ haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135207.html
5. Miliband attacks judges over torture ruling
The Government has launched a damaging attack on the judiciary in its increasingly desperate legal battle to stop the public from seeing evidence of Britain's involvement in torture.
Lawyers acting for the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, yesterday accused two High Court judges of acting "irresponsibly" when they delivered a ruling in favour of disclosure of sensitive material relating to the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident, by US agents.
6. Merkel set to become target in Kunduz affair
The opposition Social Democrats in January will try to question Chancellor Angela Merkel over the deadly Afghan air strike affair as they broaden their political attack on the government, news magazine Der Spiegel reported Tuesday.Merkel, who has remained largely silent on the matter since the air strike happened last September, would have to face the parliamentary committee examining the German-ordered attack and the government’s subsequent false denials that civilians had been killed.
7. vandals target Westerwelle's car
The personal car of German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has copped the fury of political critics, with unknown assailants sticking nails in the car’s tyres, daily Berliner Morgenpost reported Tuesday.
It is believed the attackers specifically sought out the car, which was parked in the western Berlin suburb of Charlottenburg, for the attack which happened last Friday night.
...The attack comes at a time of rising concern over political targeting of politicians and other authority figures. At the beginning of this month, part of the Chancellery building, where Chancellor Angela Merkel has her offices, was attacked with light bulbs full of paint.
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