An appalling assault on lemurs, and ultimately the local communities of Madagascar is underway. After Madagascar’s coup earlier this year, many international bodies including the World Bank and the US government suspended conservation and development work in Madagascar weakening environmental governanace. Fringe criminal gangs are taking advantage of the absence of law and international support. Illegal logging is on the rise and recently reported is the illegal hunting and selling of lemurs to restaurant owners as bushmeat. More than anything else, these poachers are killing the goose that laid the golden egg, wiping out the very animals that people most want to see, and undercutting the country and especially local communities by robbing them of future ecotourism revenue. Russell Mittermeier, President, Conservation International A stable government is vital to the health and well-being of every country’s people and ecosystems. Help support our work around the world. Make a gift today. Sadly, once the dust settles on these profiteers’ criminal actions, what is left will be an empty forest without the natural resilience necessary to continue delivering the water, climate and sustainable food sources on which all life in Madagascar depends. Lemurs are just one fragile piece of Madagascar’s unique biodiversity. CI has been working with the people and government of Madagascar on conservation issues for 19 years. Now, we must do everything we can to put Madagascar’s people first and stop this exploitation at the hands of criminal profiteers. Act now—Support CI’s work in critical areas around the world such as Madagascar.	Last week, CI released reports of massive illegal logging and hunting of lemurs in Madagascar. Removing lemurs and the forests of Madagascar will ultimately hurt the people of this country. Support our important conservation work around the world TODAY.
Photo credits:Malagasy children © CI/photo by Russell Mittermeier Lemurs © CI/photo by Haroldo Castro Deforestation in Madagascar © CI/photo by Haroldo Castro

Live in Small Bitescopyright Annie Kate2008

Five days in and the campers admit things are a little boring – there are no more toilets to put up and the police have vanished. But a plan for direct action should put the zip back into things
The weather can’t make up its mind, and the campers can’t either. One minute the Climate Campers are convinced that this is the best climate camp ever, most welcoming, chilled-out and up-for-it atmosphere, and the next they’re admitting that perhaps it feels a little flat and even – God forbid – a little bit boring.
Five days in and there are no more toilets to put up, no more drainage systems to figure out, no more marquees to erect. The camp neighbourhoods all have their kitchens working, the rotas are full, the water hasn’t run out and no one has set fire to anything.
As for the police, they have been pretty much invisible, going so far as to reject the idea of training a light on the camp at night in case it’s seen as “invasive”. On Thursday there was a mobile police station parked 40 or so metres from the perimeter of the Climate Camp fence. By Sunday even that has gone. The police have vanished, gone to confiscate some drugs at the Notting Hill carnival or practise their handbrake turns on the M25.
And the campers admit that, actually, it feels a bit odd without them. After all, much though they may deny this, the police have actually been incredibly useful to Climate Camp – uniting the campers in the face of the common enemy, and keeping them in the headlines in the months between camps. Now members of the legal team are wandering around like lost souls. The hay-bale barricades erected around the gate earlier in the week have been dismantled and turned into comfy seats.
However, there is now a plan for some direct action which should put the zip back into things. Firstly, there will be a flash mob tomorrow at midday at City Airport. And then on Tuesday morning, campers who want to take part in an action will be split into groups for the Rambling Raffle of Resistance.
Before Climate Camp got going, the organisers published a list of their targets which included BP, the Bank of England, E.ON, and various government departments. Now all these targets will be put into a hat, and the campers will fan out to target them.
Given that the full title of the camp is the “camp for climate action”, it will be a relief to supporters of the camp to see that the camp is not just going to be about “movement building” and “educational workshops” this year. The police may even be hoving into sight again too. And just as it looked as if things were all getting a bit dull …

By BJøRN LOMBORG
We have precious little to show for nearly 20 years of efforts to prevent global warming. Promises in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to cut carbon emissions went unfulfilled. Stronger pledges in Kyoto five years later failed to keep emissions in check. The only possible lesson is that agreements to reduce carbon emissions are costly, politically arduous and ultimately ineffective.
But this is a lesson many are hell-bent on ignoring, as politicians plan to gather again—this time in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December—to negotiate a new carbon-emissions treaty. Even if they manage to bridge their differences and sign a deal, there is a strong likelihood that tomorrow’s politicians will fail to deliver.
Global warming does not just require action; it requires effective action. Otherwise we are just squandering time.
To inform the debate, the Copenhagen Consensus Center has commissioned research looking at the costs and benefits of all the policy options. For example, internationally renowned climate economist Richard Tol of Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute finds that a low carbon tax of $2 a metric ton is the only carbon reduction policy that would make economic sense. But his research demonstrates the futility of trying to use carbon cuts to keep temperature increases under two degrees Celsius, which many argue would avoid the worst of climate change’s impacts.
Some economic models find that target impossible to reach without drastic action, like cutting the world population by a third. Other models show that achieving the target by a high CO2 tax would reduce world GDP a staggering 12.9% in 2100—the equivalent of $40 trillion a year.
Some may claim that global warming will be so terrible that a 12.9% reduction in GDP is a small price to pay. But consider that the majority of economic models show that unconstrained global warming would cost rich nations around 2% of GDP and poor countries around 5% by 2100.
Even those figures are an overstatement. A group of climate economists at the University of Venice led by Carlo Carraro looked closely at how people will adapt to climate change. Their research for the Copenhagen Consensus Center showed that farmers in areas with less water for agriculture could use more drip irrigation, for example, while those with more water will grow more crops.
Taking a variety of natural, so-called market adaptations into account, the Carraro research shows we will acclimatize to the negative impacts of global warming and exploit the positive changes, actually creating 0.1% increase in GDP in 2100 among the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In poor countries, market adaptation will reduce climate change-related losses to 2.9% of GDP. This remains a significant, negative effect. The real challenge of global warming lies in tackling its impact on the Third World. Yet adaptation has other benefits. If we prepare societies for more ferocious hurricanes in the future, we also help them to cope better with today’s extreme weather.
This does not mean, however, that we should ignore rising greenhouse-gas emissions. Research for the Copenhagen Consensus Center by Claudia Kemfert of German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin shows that in terms of reducing climate damage, reducing methane emissions is cheaper than reducing C02 emissions, and—because methane is a much shorter-lived gas—its mitigation could do a lot to prevent some of the worst of short-term warming. Other research papers highlight the advantages of planting more trees and protecting the forests we have to absorb C02 and cut greenhouse gases.
Other more speculative approaches deserve consideration. In groundbreaking research, J. Eric Bickel, an economist and engineer at the University of Texas, and Lee Lane, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, study the costs and benefits of climate engineering. One proposal would have boats spray seawater droplets into clouds above the sea to make them reflect more sunlight back into space—augmenting the natural process where evaporating ocean sea salt helps to provide tiny particles for clouds to form around.
Remarkably, Mr. Bickel finds that about $9 billion spent developing this so-called marine cloud whitening technology might be able to cancel out this century’s global warming. The benefits—from preventing the temperature increase—would add up to about $20 trillion.
Climate engineering raises ethical concerns. But if we care most about avoiding warmer temperatures, we cannot avoid considering a simple, cost-effective approach that shows so much promise.
Nothing short of a technological revolution is required to end our reliance on fossil fuel—and we are not even close to getting this revolution started. Economists Chris Green and Isabel Galiana from McGill University point out that nonfossil sources like nuclear, wind, solar and geothermal energy will—based on today’s availability—get us less than halfway toward a path of stable carbon emissions by 2050, and only a tiny fraction of the way towards stabilization by 2100.
A high carbon tax will simply hurt growth if alternative technology is not ready, making us all worse off. Mr. Green proposes that policy makers abandon carbon-reduction negotiations and make agreements to seriously invest in research and development. Mr. Green’s research suggests that investing about $100 billion annually in non-carbon-based-energy research could result in essentially stopping global warming within a century or so.
A technology-led effort would have a much greater chance of actually tackling climate change. It would also have a much greater chance of political success, since countries that fear signing on to costly emission targets are more likely to embrace the cheaper, smarter path of innovation.
Cutting emissions of greenhouse gases is not the only answer to global warming. This week, a group of Nobel Laureate economists will gather at Georgetown University to consider all of the new research and identify the solutions that are most effective. Hopefully, their results will influence debate and help shift decision makers away from a narrow focus on one, deeply flawed response to global warming.
Our generation will not be judged on the brilliance of our rhetoric about global warming, or on the depth of our concern. We will be judged on whether or not we stop the suffering that global warming will cause. Politicians need to stop promising the moon, and start looking at the most effective ways to help planet Earth.—Mr. Lomborg teaches at the Copenhagen Business School and is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is the author of “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming.”Printed in The Wall Street Journal Europe, page 14

August 27, 2009 Speak out to save the amazing western Atlantic bluefin tuna from extinction The Atlantic bluefin tuna is an amazing fish that can swim almost 45 miles per hour and weigh up to 1,500 pounds. But rampant overfishing has reduced the western Atlantic population of bluefin by 80 percent since 1970, and it is now in danger of extinction. The federal government, however, is actually proposing to allow more bluefin to be caught, including in the Gulf of Mexico, the only known spawning site this side of the Atlantic. In the late spring and early summer, fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico using “long-line” fishing gear with miles of baited hooks to catch yellowfin tuna and swordfish also catch bluefin tuna that are in the gulf to spawn. Bluefin tuna are not the only “bycatch” — in 2007 the long-line fishing fleet in the gulf also caught and discarded almost 35,000 sharks, 1,400 blue and white marlin, and 300 turtles. Other, less wasteful fishing gear is available to catch yellowfin tuna and swordfish that will not jeopardize the future of the western Atlantic bluefin tuna. But instead of eliminating this harmful fishing practice and despite the western Atlantic bluefin tuna population being at its lowest level on record, the National Marine Fisheries Service is proposing to allow commercial fishermen to kill and sell more bluefin tuna. The National Marine Fisheries Service is accepting public comments on the proposed change through this Monday, August 31st. What to do Send a message, before the August 31st comment deadline, urging the not to increase the amount of western Atlantic bluefin National Marine Fisheries Servicetuna that long-line fishermen can catch and sell, but rather to save this magnificent fish from extinction by stopping the use of this harmful and wasteful fishing gear in the Gulf of Mexico bluefin spawning area.

Live in Small Bitescopyright Annie Kate2008

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today highlighted the importance of trust – both among States and in the United Nations – in tackling a range of global crises, while calling for a renewed multilateralism that delivers results for the world's people.

Charming though they are, the protesters should spend more time convincing others their arguments are sound

Peter Beaumont
The Observer, Sunday 30 August 2009
Through a fence and beyond the hay bales, past the polite inquisitors who call for a “media escort” and towards the lines of tents and hastily installed turbines and solar panels is… well, precisely what? The Climate Camp on London’s Blackheath is helpfully labelled in multicoloured letters and signs, but its naming does not answer the question of what it represents. Nor do its temporary inhabitants who on Friday were being buffeted by squalls of rain.
I spot Leila Deen, famous for a minute or so for sliming Peter Mandelson. Behind her, a squad of campers, some wearing balaclavas, is being put through direct action training, charging silently among the marquees.
What bothers me is a question of function and purpose. Is this, presented as one of the models of the “new protest”, all that it advertises? What is the Climate Camp in London for? Answers – some vague – are supplied by the camp’s handbook in its 10 reasons to be camping here. It talks about the “tall buildings” as a symbol of the “transnational corporation”, and streets as home to banks, poverty, activists and politicians. Other answers are supplied by campers: veterans of Greenham Common and Kingsnorth, and the Vesta wind turbine factory occupation on the Isle of Wight. They talk about the camp as a model of an alternative way of sustainable living. Of its organisation, through consensual democracy – everybody has an equal say in the decision-making process – as an exemplar for a new kind of society.
Its critics have levelled many charges whenever it has appeared over the last few years: for sloganeering that combines anti-capitalism with a global-warming message; actions that invite confrontation with the police; for the involvement of a sometimes aggressive anarchist fringe; even for the dilettantism and grandstanding of some of its more middle-class supporters.
And while some criticisms have a kernel of truth, it remains hard to argue that a movement fighting climate change and promoting social equality is a bad thing. But that is not the question. Rather, Climate Camp should be judged on its own ambitions. How effective is the camp in inspiring change?
It is confronting this issue that lies at the heart of one of the key works on grass-roots organising: Rules for Radicals written by Saul Alinsky who inspired US radicals in the 1960s and 1970s. A revolutionary in outlook who began agitating for social change in the Chicago stockyards in the 1930s, Alinsky’s methodology has proved to have had a greater relevance and longer shelf-life than perhaps he ever expected. In recent history, it not only informed Barack Obama’s early political organising, but its tactics have been adopted by the US Republican right to disrupt Obama’s health policies. So how does the Climate Camp fare judged by his rules?
In some respects, Alinsky, who died in 1972, would have admired the Climate Campers’ dedication. “Liberals protest; radicals rebel,” he wrote. “Liberals become indignant; radicals become fighting mad and go into action.” Alinsky, however, is unlikely to have approved of much of the Climate Campers’ methodology. The problem with the Climate Campers is not a lack of conviction (as some commentators try to argue); it stems, rather, from an obsession with its own structures and its relationship with media and the police.
More seriously, seen from Alinsky’s point of view (he believed in “not rhetoric, but realism”), the Climate Camp suffers from a preoccupation with measuring its achievements in terms of the protests it has undertaken rather than a series of achievable goals that those outside the camp movement can easily identify with.
Alinsky insisted the radical must be able to make a persuasive case for why change is necessary and urgent, a task to which the theatrics of protesting are subsidiary. He taught another crucial lesson, one that has been highly visible in the right’s campaign against Obama’s health reforms, that campaigners should avoid targeting abstracts such as phenomena and institutions; instead, they should single out individual figures to act as the “personification… of a particular evil”. To lever their positions through ridicule and criticism.
I mention Alinsky because he seems to crystallise many of the failings, not just of the Climate Camp, but of significant sectors of the wider anti-war and anti-globalisation movement which have struggled either to articulate precisely what is their message or who have chosen, literally at times, to pitch their tent at the margins of the political debate.
While the campers are articulate in explaining the logic of this positioning and tactics in their rejection of the “hierarchical structures” of both mainstream politics – which they believe to be redundant – as well as many of Europe’s green parties, which many believe to have sold out, it does not change the fact of where they have chosen to locate their activism. Outside of the conversation with decision makers.
I sit down with Martin Shaw, a 44-year-year old veteran who had his back broken in an encounter with the police. He admits that Climate Camp has had to confront how to balance living both by its own radical ideals – saying “something must happen now [on climate change]” – with being more inclusive. Shaw believes things are getting better, not least in persuading local communities into which they parachute to engage with them.
“Ten years ago, we were much more closed. But we’re not naive. We recognise the media are supported by advertising from firms involved in air travel and cars with which the problem of climate change is intrinsically linked.”
Another rationalisation is supplied by Ruth, a Greenham Common veteran, who believes that, as Greenham may not have “changed anything in itself”, it became a symbol of an anti-nuclear movement which impacted on the public consciousness and ultimately on policy makers. A symbol. Like Brian Haw, the anti-war protester, on his endless, solitary vigil outside Westminster.
And that is the greatest threat to the campers: that their political relevance is defined not by a meaningful encounter that challenges both the political mainstream and a wider community, effecting change, but is defined, as it increasingly appears to be, by the act of protest itself.
Because the reality of an organisation for successful political change is that it requires a mass movement behind it, drawn not just from those who already passionately believe in it but from those who have been persuaded. And those who may be persuaded.
Climate Camp, with its often hazy message and complex inner negotiations, with its indulgent obsession with its own workings, its insularity and the suggestion of elitism of its direct-action hard core, is in danger of becoming about Climate Camp, the institution, rather than about the wider fight to halt global warming. With all its energy and motivation, that would be a shame.

Former Libyan political prisoner Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Seif al-Islam speaking on national television after Abdel’s release from a Scottish prison. The US administration has made political attacks on Libya in the aftermath of his return.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

August 30, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

No ‘Hero’s Welcome’ in Libya

By SAIF AL-ISLAM EL-QADDAFI
Tripoli, Libya

CONTRARY to reports in the Western press, there was no “hero’s welcome” for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi when he returned to Libya earlier this month.

There was not in fact any official reception for the return of Mr. Megrahi, who had been convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The strong reactions to these misperceptions must not be allowed to impair the improvements in a mutually beneficial relationship between Libya and the West.

When I arrived at the airport with Mr. Megrahi, there was not a single government official present. State and foreign news media were also barred from the event. If you were watching Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, at the time the plane landed, you would have heard its correspondent complain that he was not allowed by Libyan authorities to go to the airport to cover Mr. Megrahi’s arrival.

It is true that there were a few hundred people present. But most of them were members of Mr. Megrahi’s large tribe, extended families being an important element in Libyan society. They had no official invitation, but it was hardly possible to prevent them from coming.

Coincidentally, the day Mr. Megrahi landed was also the very day of the annual Libyan Youth Day, and many participants came to the airport after seeing coverage of Mr. Megrahi’s release on British television. But this was not planned. Indeed, we sat in the plane on the tarmac until the police brought the crowd to order.

So, from the Libyan point of view, the reception given to Mr. Megrahi was low-key. Had it been an official welcome, there would have been tens if not hundreds of thousands of people at the airport. And the event would have been carried live on state television.

At the same time, I was extremely happy for Mr. Megrahi’s return. Convinced of his innocence, I have worked for years on his behalf, raising the issue at every meeting with British officials.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently confirmed my statement that Libya put Mr. Megrahi’s release on the table at every meeting. He also made it clear that there was never any agreement by the British government to release Mr. Megrahi as part of some quid pro quo on trade — a statement I can confirm.

Mr. Megrahi was released for the right reasons. The Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill, freed Mr. Megrahi, who is dying of cancer, on compassionate grounds. Mr. MacAskill’s courageous decision demonstrates to the world that both justice and compassion can be achieved by people of good will. Despite the uproar over the release, others agree. A recent survey of Scottish lawyers showed that a majority of those surveyed agreed with the secretary’s decision.

It’s worth pointing out that we Libyans are far from the only ones who believe that Mr. Megrahi is innocent of this terrible crime. In June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission determined that a “miscarriage of justice” may have occurred and referred the case to the High Court. A retired Scottish police officer who worked on the case has signed a statement saying that evidence was fabricated. The credibility of a key witness, a shopkeeper in Malta, has subsequently been disputed by the Scottish judge who presided in the review. Even the spokesman of a family group of Lockerbie victims has said that the group was not satisfied that the verdict in the Megrahi case was correct.

What’s more, although we Libyans believe that Mr. Megrahi is innocent, we agreed in a civil action to pay the families of the victims, and we have done so. In fact, we could have withheld the final tranche of payments last year, because the United States had not kept its part of the deal, to fully normalize relations within the formally agreed-upon time frame. Still, we made the final payment as an act of good will.

The truth about Lockerbie will come out one day. Had Mr. Megrahi been able to appeal his case through the court, we believe that his conviction would have been overturned. Mr. Megrahi made the difficult decision to give up his promising appeal in order to spend his last days with his family.

Libya has worked with Britain, the United States and other Western countries for more than five years now to defuse the tensions of earlier times, and to promote trade, security and improved relations. I believe that clarifying the facts in the Lockerbie case can only further assist this process.

I once again offer my deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of those lost in the Lockerbie tragedy. They deserve justice. The best way to get it is through a public inquiry. We need to know the truth.

Saif Al-Islam El-Qaddafi is the chairman of the Qaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation.

General Vo Nguyen Giap of the Vietnam People’s Army has recently celebrated his 99th birthday. General Giap, a revolutionary journalist and military tactician, is respected throughout the world.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Havana, Wednesday August 26, 2009. Year 13 / Number 239

Legendary General Giap celebrates 99th birthday

Susana Ugarte Soler

Hanoi, August 25 (PL) .- The Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, hero of the Indochina campaign against French colonialism and war strategist with the United States, today celebrates its 99th birthday with deserved recognition.

Leaders of the Communist Party (PCV), the government, the State and the Vietnam People’s Army visited the heroic fighter for national liberation from the decade of the 20s of last century.

CPV General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, Giap wished long life and always lucid, while highlighting their continued contribution with valuable opinions on the building and national renewal.

Born in the central province of Quang Binh, and inseparable companion of President Ho Chi Minh, Giap from adolescence joined the student protests in 1929 and founded the Indochina Communist Federation, suffered imprisonment and loss of his close to hand of the French colonialists.

In the early ’40s of his encounter with the historic leader of Vietnam, Uncle Ho, marked the long road that continued until the final release in 1975 and the year after the reunification of this Asian nation.

Just to mention two notorious moments of national history tied to General Giap: Diem Bien Phu 1954, defeat of colonial France in the region, and the 1968 Tet offensive, which triggered the setback of the powerful U.S. military soon after.

http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2009/08/26/interna/artic11.html

Ethiopian troops said to be in a Somalia town. The Ethiopian troops withdrew in January 2009 after occupying the country at the aegis of the United States.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Saturday, August 29, 2009
14:18 Mecca time, 11:18 GMT

Ethiopian troops enter Somali town

Ethiopian troops left Somalia in January under the terms of a peace agreement

Ethiopian troops have crossed into neighbouring Somalia and seized control of a town from Islamist fighters, witnesses say.

Hundreds of troops reportedly entered the strategically important town of Beledweyne on Saturday.

Abdinur Ahmed Maow, a local resident, told The Associated Press news agency that the armed opposition fighters had left “without a single shot”.

Abdulahi Faramiliq, another resident of Beledweyne, said that the troops were cordoning off residential areas and going from house to house searching for weapons.

However, General Muqtar Hassan Afrah, the Somali military commander in the region, denied that any Ethiopian troops were in the region.

Unpopular presence

Ethiopian forces withdrew from Somalia in January as part of a peace deal, more than two years after moving in to help the UN-backed interim government battle the Islamic Courts’ Union, which had seized control of much of the south and centre of the country.

Their presence was unpopular with the majority of Somalis and was used by local Islamist groups as a recruiting tool.

Rashid Abdi, a Kenya-based Somalia analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that it is unlikely that Ethiopia is planning to send a larger force across the border.

“It’s a strategic town for them,” he said, referring to the Beledweyne’s location near the border.

“They want a buffer zone and they won’t allow it to be in hostile hands.”

There have been several reports of Ethiopian troops crossing the border in recent months, but the Somali government has not confirmed their presence.

Somalia’s government is struggling to control the country, despite including several factions of the Islamic Courts’ Union.

Fighters from al-Shabaab and Hizb ul-Islam groups have seized control of large areas of the country and have vowed to topple the administration of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the current president and former Islamic Courts leader.

Source: Agencies