Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time - Two Hundred Thirty SIX
Palash Biswas
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indian economy decoupling - Palash Speaks
... Chapter 417 Palash Biswas Economy showing signs of upturn: ... Tags: indian economy decoupling · More posts tagged with "indian economy decoupling" ... Study in Free Market Democracy Promoted by US Corporate WAR Economy Zionist! ...
palashspeaks.blog.co.uk/tags/indian-economy-decoupling/ -Decoupling Hypothesis for India and Myth of Sisyphus - Palash Speaks
8 Nov 2009 ... Palash Biswas. Economy showing signs of upturn: Manmohan Singh ... from Natural resources to PSUs and everything tagged as Government. ... Constitution is killed as India Incs take over Governance, Policy making and Legislation led by .... Accenture, USA, a Co-Chair of the India Economic Summit. ...
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22 Aug 2009 ... The One-Eyed Doe : Indian Diplomacy Palash Biswas Contact: Palash C ..... Just becuse of being tagged with United states Of America and Israel! ... the WAR CIVIL WAR ECONOMY divering national Revenue, ECONOMIC policies, ...
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Caste War in India and Global Hindutva. Palash Biswas. .... HSS: The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh is the US equivalent of the RSS. ... Mumbai: Despite the tag of being an "uneasy" alliance, the Congress-NCP coalition in Maharashtra ..... of economic reforms; when the Australian economy has just demonstrated to the . ...
anaryadravidvangaindigenous.blogspot.com/.../maoists-free-abducted-west-bengal-cop.html - Cached -Anarya Dravid Vanga Indigenous: Decoupling Hypothesis for India ...
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter 417. Palash Biswas .... on everything on Sell Off , from Natural resources to PSUs and everything tagged as Government. ... FIIs Rule the Economy. Monetary and Fiscal Policies are modified in accordance with the ..... Accenture, USA, a Co-Chair of the India Economic Summit. ...
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... Parties in free Market Democracy have been tagged with Zionist Global and galaxy ..... So much so the entire economy of the Arab world came to be managed by the ..... Tragically, US policy in the Muslim world continues to be driven by ...... Palash Biswas The Indian Express Group … China begins building dam on ...
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- [ Translate this page ]Palash biswas द्वारा 1 नवंबर, 2008 12:31 AM पर पोस्टेड # ... Indian Economy Plunges in Love America! Recession Alarm Rings around the Globe! .... Exploded with the US Tagged Global Economy, Global Market and Globalisation in Turmoil! ... Terms of Services | Privacy Policy (c) 2008 Webdunia.com ...
hindi.mywebdunia.com/search/aisa/9.html?type=text -खोज परिणाम
- [ Translate this page ]Face of the RESISTANCE MANIK MANDAL Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 210 Palash Biswas News results for Indian Economy Rate cuts fail to revive ...
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Indian Blogs with Tag Obama. ... So far, Obama has proved to be a pragmatic centrist as far as economic policy is concerned. His decision to give quiet ...
blogs.oneindia.in/obama/12/showtags.html - Cached -Agrarian Crisis NEVER Addressed - Contribute - MSNIndia
by Palash Biswas 20 Nov 2009. This story has been read 187 times. ... do all the tasks of Mass destruction and Indian Economy has nothing for the Peasants. ...
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Flipkart.com: The End Of Corporate Imperialism: C. K. Prahalad ...
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An essay or paper on Corporate Imperialism. Large companies help build and maintain ... Two excellent examples of this happening are the East India Company, ...
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HBR Classics: The End of Corporate Imperialism ... Hundreds of millions of people in China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil are eager to enter the marketplace. ...
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14 This is neo-mercantilism restructured into corporate imperialism functioning to .... China, and India in trade for their industrial development. ...
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Ecological Degradation Due to Exploitation of Natural Resources ...
Natural resources are being exploited in the name of economic development. Indira Gandhi's interpretation is that the real conflict is not between ...
ignca.nic.in/cd_07007.htm - Cached - Similar -Capitalism and Exploitation of Natural Resources: Some Thoughts ...
20 Nov 2009 ... In this story of corporate exploitation of natural resources in the ... the exploitation of the natural resources in India by mobilizing ...
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www.flipkart.com/exploitation.../0471500771-1xw3f9fag6 - Cached -Biotechnology – applications to environmental remediation in ...
India Environment Portal : Knowledge for Change ... Biotechnology – applications to environmental remediation in resource exploitation ... updated in terms of environmental remediation while exploiting natural resources. ...
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Resources on Management of Risks in Water Quality - Examples; Referrals ... Government of India has set up a Working Group on Natural Resources Management ...
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Exploiting Natural Resources
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Resource Exploitation and the Natural Environment. Impacts of Mining ... ing Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and India, to meet the rise in global ...
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In this paper, the exploitation of petroleum resources in India is analyzed by developing a ...... The economics of production from natural resources: note. ...
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by RD Rao - 2002 - Cited by 2 - Related articles - All 5 versionsChina mulls tougher taxes on resource exploitation. - PTI - The ...
PTI - The Press Trust of India Ltd. ... Agriculture, Resource Exploitation, and Environmental Change ... (economists are trying to find news ways to calculate natural resource exploitation)(Sustainable Development - Forestry) ...
www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-160775600.html - Cached -Impact of Misuse of Natural Resources | TutorVista
In many countries (including India) the land available for cultivation is restricted. The exploitation of ... how are the natural resources being exploited ...
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Economy of India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Assessment of India's pre-colonial economy is mostly qualitative, owing to the lack of quantitative information. One estimate puts the revenue of Akbar's ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India - Cached -Economic history of India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An estimate of India's pre-colonial economy puts the annual revenue of ... By the end of the colonial rule India inherited an economy that was one of the ...
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13 Sep 2009 ... Quotes on economic activity and policies in and of India through the ... 1.1 Colonial Economy; 1.2 Pre-liberalisation; 1.3 Liberalisation ...
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Amazon.com: Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National ...
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Citation: Goswami, Manu, Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2004). ...
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www.flipkart.com/...economy-colonial-india/0521650127-fzw3f9yin9 - Cached -The Transition to a Colonial Economy - Cambridge University Press
Powerful revisionist statement on the effects of colonialism on the Indian economy • Detailed research into labour in pre-colonial South India ...
www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521570425 - Cached -Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India | Book ...
Susan Wolcott, "Review of Tirthankar Roy, Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India." EH.Net Economic History Services, Feb 20 2001. ...
eh.net/bookreviews/library/0326 - Cached - Similar -The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings ...
The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720-18oo. By Prasannan Parthasarathi. Cambridge: Cambridge University ...
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Growing Indian Maoist Menace, Train Hostage Drama: Who is ...
27 Oct 2009 ... Growing Indian Maoist Menace, Train Hostage Drama: Who is Responsible? ... The abducted driver was later released and Central Reserve Police ...
trendsupdates.com/growing-indian-maoist-menace-train-hostage-drama-who-is-responsible/ - Cached -Living with India's 'Red Menace' - LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE
Maoist Battle. 09 Nov, 2009 09:45:04. Living with India's 'Red Menace'. MARKAPAR, November 9, 2009 (AFP) - In a rural Maoist stronghold in central India, ...
www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=1072754135 - Cached -AFP: Living with India's 'Red Menace'
Living with India's 'Red Menace'. By Rupam Jain Nair (AFP) – Nov 8, 2009. MARKAPAR — In a rural Maoist stronghold in central India, off limits to the police ...
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20 Jul 2006 ... Thousands of people are living in camps because of the Naxalite violence in Central India while government struggles with a response.
indianmuslims.in/maoists-menace-in-chhatisgarh/ - Cached -Maoist menace: Ministers grill CM - Worldnews.com
24 Sep 2009 ... Maoist menace: Ministers grill CM Indian Express 2009-09-24 .... Central ban on the Communist Party of India (Maoist) operating in the state ...
article.wn.com/view/2009/09/.../Maoist_menace_Ministers_grill_CM/ - Cached -Living with India's 'Red Menace' - Yahoo! News
9 Nov 2009 ... In a rural Maoist stronghold in central India, off limits to the police ... including arming children to fight the so-called "Red Menace." ...
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091109/wl_sthasia.../indiaunrestmaoist - Cached -INDIA The bloody network of Indian Maoists - Asia News
27 Nov 2009 ... In 1977, when the Congress Party lost control of the central .... Faced with the Maoist menace the Left Front government in Bengal is now ...
www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16965&size=A - Cached -Bangladesh Open Source Intelligence Monitors: India: Maoist ...
7 Nov 2009 ... 06 NOV: Indian security forces and anti-government Maoists should ensure civilians' safety during their armed struggle in central India and ...
bdosintmonitors.blogspot.com/.../india-maoist-insurgency-update-7th_07.html - Cached -Member Blogs on Communist party of India-Maoist
But according to Mr. P Chidambaram, Home Minister of India, the menace has ... of Maoists aims at armed seizure of power, as its central and principal task ...
newshopper.sulekha.com/.../maoists.../combatng-terror-of-the-red-brigade-in-india-part.htm - Cached -The Maoist Menace: Terrorism in India by Prof. R N. Mishra and Dr ...
The Maoist violence has greatly stirred up the deep-rooted inequities prevailing in Indian society since long. To quell up the growing menace of violence ...
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Catalysts for Sodium Chlorate in Weed Destruction : Abstract : Nature
Letters to Editor. nature 150, 737-738 (19 December 1942) | doi :10.1038/150737b0 ... Novartis Healthcare Private Limited; Hyderabad, A.P. 500081 India ...
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by EA DANCASTER - 1942 - Cited by 2 - Related articles - All 3 versions
Vascular normalization in : Rgs5: -deficient tumours promotes ...
Nature 453, 410-414 (15 May 2008) | doi :10.1038/nature06868; ...
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/abs/nature06868.htmlA Practical Handbook on Rat Destruction : Abstract : Nature
Syngene International; Bangalore, Karnataka 560099 India. More science jobs ...
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v118/n2968/abs/118407c0.htmlMore results from nature.com » Human carelessness adds to the destruction | India Environment Portal
India Environment Portal : Knowledge for Change ... Once you disturb nature, you will have to face her rage)." Date: 30/10/1992 ...
www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in › News - Cached - Similar -The CAUSES of RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION
Due to the delicate nature of rainforest soil and the destructive nature of ... In India and South America, hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests ...
www.rainforestinfo.org.au/background/causes.htm - Cached - Similar -Toxics Link : Destruction of wildlife habitats
An open letter concerning the destruction of wildlife habitats. ... Wildlife in India continues to suffer serious threats, with over 5% of species being in danger of .... Dilip Gode, Vidarbha Nature Conservation Society, Nagpur ...
www.toxicslink.org/mediapr-view.php?pressrelnum=7 - Cached - Similar -What will the destruction of nature and natural resources lead to ...
what can u say about this year rainfall condition in India??????????is it ... Its natures fury against mans destruction of the mother nature which can not ...
sawaal.ibibo.com › Others › Miscellaneous - Cached -Primary and secondary education reform should be India's top ...
11 posts - 2 authorsIn very rare cases I meet a person with a PhD degree from India who is aware of ... no ethics, deterioration of law and order, destruction of nature etc. ...
network.nature.com/groups/natureindia/forum/topics/3340?page=2 -Urban Dictionary: destruction of nature
During the "Hug The Tree" Movement in India in the 1970's, there were many women displaying ecofeminism who rallied against the destruction of nature. ...
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=destruction+of+nature -Destruction of Nature costs 2000 billion euros per year ...
23 May 2008 ... In addition, the destruction of nature and global warming tend to reinforce one another. When sea levels rise and mangrove forests disappear ...
www.elrst.com/.../destruction-of-nature-costs-2000-billion-euros-per-year/ - Cached -Ayurvedic Natural Health Centre, Goa India | Ayurvedic Treatment ...
29 Jun 2009 ... Ayurvedic Natural Health Centre, Goa India. All over the world today the progress of man has resulted in the destruction of nature. ...
www.healthandayurveda.com/ - Cached - Similar -Free Journal: The Destruction of Nature
17 Dec 2007 ... The slow destruction of nature; or is it rapid? ... Countries like India and China go on and destroy the world more than we realize and yet ...
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Access : Cancer among HIV people : Nature India
28 Apr 2009 ... Cancer as a clinical problem among HIV-infected people in India needs to be taken more seriously now as better management of other ...
www.nature.com/nindia/2009/090428/full/nindia.2009.112.html -
The People of India : Abstract : Nature
The People of India. Top of page. THIS memorial edition of the late Sir H. ...
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v96/n2403/abs/096309a0.htmlPsychological wellbeing among carers of people with spinal cord ...
Nature Publishing Group, publisher of Nature, and other science journals ...
www.nature.com/sc/journal/v38/n9/abs/3101035a.htmlMore results from nature.com » New Institutes in India- Is this the solution? (page 2) Nature Network
11 posts - 4 authors - Last post: 7 AugGovt. of India is in an overdrive to open hundreds of new institutes under the old ..... At the end of the day it all depends on people associated with such ...
network.nature.com/groups/natureindia/forum/topics/5186?page=2 -Human migration and evolution of social groups of India (page 2 ... - 10 Oct 2009
Influence of corporate culture in reasearch from Nature India ... - 24 Sep 2009
India R & D 2008: Nanotechnology from Nature India forum on Nature ... - 17 Sep 2008
Science is for people. Is Indian science doing enough for the ... - 17 Sep 2008
India on Nature Network
Science is for people. Is Indian science doing enough for the people of India? Are people aware of the science they need to know? Posted by: Krushna Mavani ...
network.nature.com/groups/india - Similar -Hinduism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Temples are usually dedicated to a primary deity along with associated subordinate ... For most people in India, the betrothal of the young couple and the exact date .... There are texts with a sectarian nature such as Devī Mahātmya, ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism - Cached - Similar -India: people versus nature or World Bank and government versus ...
India: people versus nature or World Bank and government versus people? In different countries of the world conflicts have arisen between the protection of ...
www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/20/India.html - Cached -Aparajita Datta - Nature Conservation Foundation,-Wildlife ...
After finishing my PhD, I finally left the Wildlife Institute of India, ... This can only happen through a sincere engagement with local people and informed ... the Wildlife Conservation Society with whom I was associated till recently. ...
www.ncf-india.org/people.php?name=Aparajita+Datta - Cached - Similar -Orissa: Where the Nature of India comes alive by Suniti Chandra Mishra
It was a great relief for the majority of people, especially from the lower ... Thus, this multi-colored state of India has closely been associated with the ...
www.boloji.com/places/00408.htm - Cached - Similar -Vitamin D is 'nature's antibiotic' - Health - Health & Fitness ...
Nearly one billion people world-wide are deficient," the new report concluded. ... Higher levels of a protein linked to vitamin D have been associated with reduced ... India thrash SL by innings · Lara to flaunt her curves again ...
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life/health...is-natures.../5263795.cms - Cached -- [PDF]
INDIA NATURE TRAILS
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INDIA NATURE TRAILS. 11, POST OFFICE ROAD, CLEMENT TOWN, .... are the source of so much peace and happiness among the people to live close to them ... SIKH temple – a worth see as the miracle ficus tree associated with a legend from the ...
www.indianaturetrails.com/Tour1.pdf - Similar - Split Magazine | Chilled By Nature: In Conversation with Pete Lawrence
11 Apr 2007 ... Can you tell us about your project, Chilled By Nature? I've not had much spare time, ... Do you have any message for the people in India? ...
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India's climate stand at CHOGM progressive, say experts
Press Trust of India - 3 hours ago
... Science and Environment (CSE), said "the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) has called for equity burden sharing which itself supports India's stand that ...
Peking Ducked Outlook
India for emission cuts with equitable burden sharing Earthtimes (press release)
US to help India set up eco authority
Economic Times - Nov 26, 2009
NEW DELHI: AS part of the India-US Green partnership, the United States will help India set up a National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA). ...
Video: PM-Obama: The next step
NDTV.com
NDTV.com India-US relationship to focus on five Es IBNLive.com
PM invites Indian diaspora to see new creative India Hindustan Times
Tata Motors hits profit track
Calcutta Telegraph - 19 hours ago
Analysts are of the view that the performance is not just a flash in the pan and will be sustained in the coming months as the environment in India and ...
Tata Motors in black, posts Rs 22cr profit Times of India
Jaguar Land Rover see sales rise BBC News
INDIA: Tata swings to profit in second quarter just-auto.com (subscription)
JET SETTER
Calcutta Telegraph - 19 hours ago
... in the armed forces or a welcoming environment for women. The president may have created history, but it may be long before India experiences its impact.
Cutting carbons
Chandigarh Tribune - - 20 hours ago
In the new security environment, in which coastal security has become important, an entirely war fighting role for the Navy can no longer be sustained; ...
Video: Mumbai attacks remembered ITN NEWS
ITN NEWS Much remains to be done GulfNews
Talk us out of this mess Hindustan Times
India hit century on road to top
CricInfo.com - - Nov 27, 2009
At the same time every player got his own space and subsequently the dressing-room environment has become more positive and transparent. ...
Shylock comes to Shimoga
Times of India - 8 hours ago
At first glance, Heggodu looks like any other village in south India with kirana shops, an old school building, a rustic primary health centre, ...
News results for Environment in India
Globe and MailFACTBOX-us and India agree on environment goals - 3 days ago
WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (Reuters) - US President Barack Obama and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed their countries would work together to develop ...Reuters - 3659 related articles »
China and India Say No On the Environment - Everything PRMinistry of Environment & Forests, Government of India
Official Government of India site on planning, promotion and co-ordination of environmental and forestry programmes.
www.envfor.nic.in/ - Cached - Similar -Home | India Environment Portal
India Environment Portal: on climate change, public transport, water pollution, air pollution, sanitation, pesticides, forests, poverty, food security, ...
www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/ - Cached - Similar -India Together: Environment issues in India: news articles ...
Portal for news in India about biodiversity, education, fishery, forests pollution, waste, and water quality.
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Studies on Human and environmental impact of hydroelectric projects in India and Canada, dam safety, energy profile of India, environment profile of Kerala, ...
indiafocus.indiainfo.com/society_and_culture/environment/ - Cached - Similar -Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) Home Page
Centre for Environment Education, CEE
Category:Environment of India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pages in category "Environment of India". The following 16 pages are in this category, out of 16 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Environment_of_India - Cached - Similar -THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT INDIA
Environment - India
India also lost 50% of its mangrove area between 1963 and 1977. ... consequent economic development; in 1980, the Department of the Environment was created. ...
www.nationsencyclopedia.com › Asia and Oceania › India - Cached - Similar -Climate Change - Environment & Forests - Sectors: National Portal ...
This section includes the information about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilise ...
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Copenhagen conference: India, China plan joint exitTimes of India - - 3 hours ago They agreed to let China, which initiated the exercise, to present the draft of the developing nations at Copenhagen. "This BASIC draft fully meets India's ... Copenhagen must not fail Manila Times India ready for emission cuts but with conditions: PMTimes of India - 11 hours ago PTI 28 November 2009, 11:02am IST PORT OF SPAIN: Pushing for a legally binding substantive outcome at the Copenhagen climate change meet, Prime Minister ... India warns against protectionism under a green label Hindustan Times UN Chief acknowledges India's plan for renewable energy Business Standard On Copenhagen, India flexible but won't bend Indian Express Sarkozy asks India to attend Copenhagen SummitCentral Chronicle - 24 minutes ago French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed the hope that India would never stand in the way of agreements at Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change next month ... Attend Copenhagen summit, Sarkozy requests PM IBNLive.com India has major stake in success of Copenhagen summit: Manmohan Hindustan Times Summit deal gives UN chief hope for Copenhagen talks Sydney Morning Herald It's a long way to CopenhagenWinnipeg Free Press - - 7 hours ago When I was 16 I got to spend a week in Copenhagen by myself. The Danish capital is one of the most beautiful and liveliest cities in Europe -- or at least ... Canada PM to attend Copenhagen climate meeting The Associated Press Terence Corcoran: All policy is now climate policy National Post Global Warming Consensus: Garbage in, Garbage outThe Gouverneur Times - - 5 hours ago As Air Force One heads to Copenhagen for the climate summit Dec. 9, it will presumably not make a U-turn while flying over the Climate Research Unit (CRU) ... Barrackpore man to attend climate meet Times of India A climate of suspicion Financial Times Kevin Rudd pledges to help small nations cope with climate changeThe Australian - - 10 hours ago KEVIN Rudd is uncertain about the prospects of reaching a global agreement at next month's climate change summit in Copenhagen to cut carbon emissions, ... Rudd shrugs off climate woes at CHOGM Sydney Morning Herald Climate change induces meltdown in Australian opposition party Nature.com (subscription) Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change processguardian.co.uk - Nov 27, 2009 Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters Gordon Brown proposed a new global fund today to "kick-start" the Copenhagen climate change process and encourage poorer ... UNDP: China's emissions cut target injects momentum into Copenhagen climate summitXinhua - 4 hours ago The announcement injects a momentum in leading up to the Copenhagen summit," United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark said ... Will Geneva render trade and climate justiceExpressindia.com - - 7 hours ago A trap is being carefully laid in Copenhagen to allure the developing countries with sops like technology and finance transfer and modifications in carbon ... Finland expects for political agreement at Copenhagen Climate ConferenceXinhua - - 17 hours ago 27 (Xinhua) -- Finland pledges to do all it can to push for a political agreement at the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Conference, according to a statement ... |
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Home - COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009
Official site provides news and information about the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Includes calendar, facts, blog, forum, ...
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Global business leaders issued "The Copenhagen Call" at the close of the World Business Summit on Climate Change on May 26. Click here for the Call. ...
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Global business leaders issued "The Copenhagen Call" at the close of the World Business Summit on Climate Change on May 26. Click here for the Call. ...
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Telegraph.co.ukChina's climate pledge raises expectations for Copenhagen summit - 22 hours ago
... global warming dramatically raised expectations for the Copenhagen summit. ... to the global effort in tackling climate change," the State Council said. ...Los Angeles Times - 5778 related articles »
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News and analysis on the UN Copenhagen climate change conference 2009. ... Countdown to Copenhagen climate change summit clock ...
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1 May 2009 ... Environment ministers and officials are meeting at a UN conference in Copenhagen in December to thrash out a global deal on climate change.
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In September, at the UN climate change summit in New York, over 100 world leaders stood up and committed to seal a successful Copenhagen climate deal. ...
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6 Nov 2009 ... A world treaty on climate change will be delayed by up to a year and ... six months after the Copenhagen summit, which ends on December 17. ...
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The International Scientific Conference on Climate Change will take place in Copenhagen on the 10 - 12 March 2009. The Congress contributes to the ...
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Jump to Climate Summit (COP15): global climate treaty is not only possible, ... Creating international awareness of the importance of the Copenhagen UN Climate Summit and ... by demonstrating that tackling climate change also has ...
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Growing Indian Maoist Menace, Train Hostage Drama: Who is ...
27 Oct 2009 ... Growing Indian Maoist Menace, Train Hostage Drama: Who is Responsible? ... The abducted driver was later released and Central Reserve Police ...
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Maoist Battle. 09 Nov, 2009 09:45:04. Living with India's 'Red Menace'. MARKAPAR, November 9, 2009 (AFP) - In a rural Maoist stronghold in central India, ...
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Living with India's 'Red Menace'. By Rupam Jain Nair (AFP) – Nov 8, 2009. MARKAPAR — In a rural Maoist stronghold in central India, off limits to the police ...
www.google.com/.../afp/.../ALeqM5gIwZXKzx3Vh6zbEyQjYxumq03ctA -Maoists Menace In Central India — Indian Muslims
20 Jul 2006 ... Thousands of people are living in camps because of the Naxalite violence in Central India while government struggles with a response.
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24 Sep 2009 ... Maoist menace: Ministers grill CM Indian Express 2009-09-24 .... Central ban on the Communist Party of India (Maoist) operating in the state ...
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9 Nov 2009 ... In a rural Maoist stronghold in central India, off limits to the police ... including arming children to fight the so-called "Red Menace." ...
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27 Nov 2009 ... In 1977, when the Congress Party lost control of the central .... Faced with the Maoist menace the Left Front government in Bengal is now ...
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7 Nov 2009 ... 06 NOV: Indian security forces and anti-government Maoists should ensure civilians' safety during their armed struggle in central India and ...
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But according to Mr. P Chidambaram, Home Minister of India, the menace has ... of Maoists aims at armed seizure of power, as its central and principal task ...
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The Maoist violence has greatly stirred up the deep-rooted inequities prevailing in Indian society since long. To quell up the growing menace of violence ...
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Chipko movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The modern Chipko movement started in the early 1970s in the Garhwal Himalayas of Uttarakhand, with growing awareness towards rapid deforestation. ...
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In the 1970s and 1980s this resistance to the destruction of forests spread throughout India and became organised and known as the Chipko Movement. ...
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From their origins as a spontaneous protest against logging abuses in Uttar Pradesh in the Himalayas, thousands of supporters of the Chipko movement, ...
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In the 1970s, an organized resistance to the destruction of forests spread throughout India and came to be known as the Chipko movement. ...
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Eco India provides some useful information on the Chipko Movement, started in India in 1970's. It was based on the Gandhian peaceful means.
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23 Jan 2009 ... The Chipko Movement refers to the unique form of protest adopted by the rural people in the Himalayan region of India in the 1970s and 80s, ...
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The story of India's Chipko Movement, protecting forests and human rights in the Himalayas.
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The Chipko Movement in the Uttarakhand region of the Himalayas is often treated as a women's movement to protect the forest ecology of the Uttarakhand from ...
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Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Chipko Movement. Chipko Movement. Information about Chipko Movement in the Hutchinson encyclopedia. the chipko ...
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Against these harmful deforestation policies a movement called Chipko was born. ... In the 1980s the ideas of the Chipko movement spread, often by women ...
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| MR UNIVERSE - Cosmic tagliatelle | |
The Complete Cosmicomics By Italo Calvino, Penguin, £13.50 In an interview on television in 1968, the year he published the third collection of his Cosmicomic stories, Italo Calvino was asked why he had been saying that Galileo was the greatest Italian writer. Calvino replied that Galileo used language "not as a neutral utensil, but with literary awareness, with a continuous commitment that is expressive, imaginative and even lyrical". Calvino then described how he sought out the passages in which Galileo speaks of the moon: "It is the first time that the moon becomes a real object for mankind, and is minutely described as a tangible thing, yet as soon as the moon appears one feels a kind of rarefaction, almost a levitation, in Galileo's language. One rises with it into an enchanted state of suspension." It was only natural for Calvino that Galileo was a keen reader of the poets, Ariosto and Tasso, "cosmic and lunary poet that he was". More familiar with the precise erotic puzzles of Difficult Loves, the gem-like pieces of fantastical allegory in Invisible Cities, and the light, effortless range and sharpness of Calvino's critical writing, and never quite managing to fathom how some highly intelligent adults refused to outgrow science fiction and fantasy, I was not looking forward to reading The Complete Cosmicomics. But these nuggets of fiction (some of them not so much stories as intricate mind-games) that Calvino wrote and rewrote throughout the Sixties, continually arranging and rearranging them into different sequences, immediately drew me into their vortex of words, ideas and narratives. They kept me whirling and floating in there for three intense and breathless days, and then gently returned me to my everyday life like a celestial spin-dryer. I never felt that I was reading 'science fiction', for the best of these 30-odd stories, rather than projecting me into a dystopian fantasy located in the future, kept bringing me back to the stuff of my own body and to what the mind could be made to do, to their location in real space, and to the various kinds of time and history that converge in or open out from or behind them. This time and this space, real as they were, seemed to exist in the stories on a scale — cosmic and plurimillennial — that I had never before presumed to associate with my own physical or subjective being. It had never occurred to me to project myself into the history of the universe in any actual and immediate sense. I never imagined that such an activity could become essential to my apprehension of the present, to the sensations that I carry every moment within my blood and bones. But Calvino's narrator, unpronounceably called Qfwfq, whom I visualize as the blind old Borges sitting with his walking stick at the edge of the universe from the beginning of time and perhaps from even before, takes us through every conceivable kind of evolution — galactic, solar, terrestrial, biological, animal — as if that were the only context in which one could reflect by the fireside on life, death, desire, language, time, logic and art. Qfwfq's eternal contemporaneity is at once a dizzying intellectual and imaginative exercise and a licence to indulge in one of the most primal of pleasures, that of telling and being told stories. Reading this book took me back to two early experiences: growing up with Ray's Professor Shonku and reading Paradise Lost for the first time as an undergraduate. The madcap down-to-earthness of Ray's professor, who sets no limits to what can be known, imagined or brought about on an ordinary day, and Milton's transformation of doctrinal 'truth' by the depth and range of the human imagination: both have a profound affinity to the cosmos of these stories. It is Calvino's achievement to render pointless any attempt at distinguishing myth from fiction, and both from scientific truth and hypothesis, to separate the comic and the cosmic, Shonku from Satan, Galileo from Ovid, Dante and Ariosto, or Newton from Milton. For Calvino in the Sixties, this was an escape from the neo-realism of his early fiction towards a universe that was of its time, given the Sixties' obsession with exploring space and putting man on the moon. It was also a return to what he called "the true but forgotten source" of the Italian tradition, going back through Galileo to Dante: "the notion of the literary work as a map of the world and of the knowable, of writing driven by a thirst for knowledge that may by turns be theological, speculative, magical, encyclopedic, or may be concerned with natural philosophy or with transfiguring, visionary observation." Another Italian I was continually reminded of while reading this book is Fellini. In the universe's journey from undifferentiated nothingness to infinite and ever-evolving diversity, one unifying principle is desire. Even when the first cells desire one another other, or when two molluscs fall in silent, eyeless love with each other, this endlessly varied theme of desire remains much more than reproduction or sex in the stories. It becomes the universal principle of Eros, like the two Venuses in Plato's Symposium, brought to life there by one of the greatest writers of comedy in Socrates' time. In Calvino's stories, the cells and molluscs, or the various forms of male and female life that feel desire and reproduce, never cease to be what they literally are. Yet they are also unabashedly anthropomorphized, letting Calvino create a splendid range of unforgettable women who are at once other (often earlier) forms of life, actual women and recognizable comic-realist types straight out of Amarcord, La Dolce Vita, Juliet of the Spirits, La Strada or 8½. From the brittle and evanescent Maddalena to the luscious sex-goddess in the fountain, from the rumba-dancing Saraghina with her gigantic thighs to the mythic Mammas with their immense mammaries, Calvino gives us the entire range. Here is the universally desired Mrs Ph(i)Nko from "All At One Point". She existed billions of years ago, when all the universe's matter was concentrated at a single point. The men loved this state of being, for it allowed them total proximity to Mrs P. And when space suddenly began to expand, they lamented having to detach and distance themselves from her. But Mrs P hated never having enough space to be fully herself. Calvino gives her possibly the longest, and greatest, sentence in the book. "It was enough for her to say, at a certain moment: 'Oh, if I only had some room how I would like to make some tagliatelle for you boys!' And in that moment we all thought of the space that her round arms would occupy moving backwards and forwards with the rolling pin over the dough, her bosom leaning over the great mound of flour and eggs, which cluttered the white board while her arms kneaded and kneaded, white and shiny, with oil, up to the elbows; with thought of the space that the flour would occupy, and the wheat for the flour, and the fields, to raise the wheat, and the mountains from which the water would flow to irrigate the fields, and the grazing lands for the herds of calves that would give their meat for the sauce; of the space we could take for the Sun to arrive with its rays, to ripen the wheat; of the space for the Sun to condense from the clouds of stellar gases and burn; of the quantities of stars and galaxies and galactic masses in flight through space which would be needed to hold suspended every galaxy, every nebula, every sun, every planet, and at the same time we thought of it, this space was inevitably being formed, at the same time that Mrs Ph(i)Nko was uttering these words: '…ah what tagliatelle, boys!' the point that contained her and all of us was expanding in a halo of distance in light-years and light-centuries and billions of light-millennia, and we were being hurled to the four corners of the universe…, and she, dissolved into I don't know what kind of energy-light-heat, she, Mrs Ph(i)Nko, she who in the midst of our closed, petty world had been capable of a generous impulse, 'Boys, the tagliatelle I would make for you!', a true outburst of general love, initiating at the same moment the concept of space and, properly speaking, space itself, and time, and universal gravitation, and the gravitating universe, making possible billions and billions of suns, and of planets, and fields of wheat, and Mrs Ph(i)Nkos, scattered through the continents of the planets, kneading with floury, oil-shiny, generous arms, and she lost at that very moment, and we mourning her loss." | |
| AVEEK SEN |
WHEN THE SKY CHANGED COLOUR | ||
From a Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb By Timothy Knatchbull, Hutchinson, £13.99 It could not have been easy for Timothy Knatchbull to write a book like this. Knatchbull's book, after all, recounts "the echoes of that day" — Monday, August 27, 1979 — when the Irish Republican Army exploded a bomb on a boat carrying Timothy and some of his family members. Timothy and his parents were grievously injured in the attack, but they survived. However, Timothy's grandfather (Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India and a member of the royal family), his grandmother and his twin were killed along with another teenager. Timothy's twin was 14 years old. His name was Nicholas. It would be unfair to interpret From a Clear Blue Sky simply as a literary reconstruction of a gruesome act of terror. It is actually a brave attempt on the part of a survivor at piecing together the fragments of a tragedy, to confront, and come to terms with, the loss of his loved ones. Nonetheless, as a work of literature, it suffers from certain crucial flaws that cannot be overlooked. Lord Mountbatten, in spite of his brief appearance, is undoubtedly one of the central characters of the book. Given Knatchbull's closeness to his grandfather, readers would have expected him to add to their knowledge of the man who is considered to be a significant figure at a time when the Empire was crumbling in many parts of the world. We are told that Mountbatten was a caring family man, that he was a disciplinarian, and was fond of toys and of telling stories to his grandchildren. Beyond these snippets, we get to know very little about how his personal life differed from his public persona. Mountbatten's relationship with his Irish employees at Classiebawn — a turreted Victorian manor house in County Sligo, where Mountbatten and his family went for their holidays — could have been dwelt on more extensively. It is also possible that readers will react more strongly to Nicholas's death than to Mountbatten's. The brothers had been inseparable from birth, and Knatchbull's account of his initial shock and grudging acceptance of Nick's absence is moving without being maudlin. Knatchbull's book cannot be considered as a comprehensive account of a particularly troubled period in Ireland's history. To be fair to Knatchbull, he does attempt to answer questions related to the troubles towards the end of the book, but his efforts are not enough to plug the gaps that are likely to occur in a layman's understanding of the IRA, its violent agenda, and the factors that led to its creation. One possible reason for this is that Knatchbull's return to Sligo in 2003-04 was informed by a cathartic intent. His journeys were attempts to take on the ghosts of a painful past. The trips were certainly not aimed at a causal reconstruction of a momentous event. The pace of the novel, especially in the early chapters, is grindingly slow, and is hampered by too much detail. As a piece of investigative journalism, Knatchbull's work raises more questions than it chooses to answer. The central question, the probable reason behind the IRA's plot against Mountbatten, continues to niggle till the very end. Yes, Mountbatten was a possible target because of his elevated political status. But Knatchbull would have us believe that although Mountbatten kept himself away from the intricacies of Irish politics, he sympathized deeply with Irish nationalism. Why did the IRA then decide to do away with him? Was it merely a ploy to draw attention to its cause? The slips in Mountbatten's security are alluded to, and there is even the dark hint of a possible mole, but Knatchbull chooses to leave these tantalizing leads largely unexplored. One is also left wondering why the British government allowed Mountbatten to continue with his risky holidays. Was he then simply a pawn in the dangerous game between the British government and the Irish separatists? The book succeeds, when it does, because of Knatchbull's unflinchingly personal tone. The reader has no difficulty in identifying with Knatchbull's inner battle to come to terms with the loss of his twin. In one poignant moment, out of many, Knatchbull narrates how, years later during one of his return trips, he stood looking into the mirror in a Dublin hotel, only to rediscover the facial similarities he shared with his dead brother. That very day, he had been shown a photograph of Nicholas's lifeless body. As he stared at the glass that caught his reflection, Timothy began to cry. But that solitary moment in an Irish hotel also made Timothy realize that the tears did not signify the reopening of an old wound. They were merely the first signs that the scars he carried within were beginning to heal. | ||
| UDDALAK MUKHERJEE |
UN environment head still hopeful
AFP Video Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009 09:56PM EST
The United Nations says climate talks in Copenhagen next month must deliver a credible result. UN Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner spoke to AFP about the challenges and hopes for the upcoming summit.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/video/un-environment-head-still-hopeful/article1379393/
Copenhagen conference: India, China plan joint exit
Saibal Dasgupta, TNN 28 November 2009, 06:58pm IST
BEIJING: In an unprecedented move, India on Saturday joined China and two other developing countries to prepare for a major offensive on rich nations at the Copenhagen conference on climate change next month.
The four countries, which include Brazil and South Africa, agreed to a strategy that involves jointly walking out of the conference if the developed nations try to force their own terms on the developing world, Jairam Ramesh, the Indian minister for environment and forests (independent charge), said.
"We will not exit in isolation. We will co-ordinate our exit if any of our non-negotiable terms is violated. Our entry and exit will be collective," Ramesh told reporters in Beijing.
The move comes after reports suggested that rich nations led by Denmark are trying to set the agenda of the conference by presenting a draft containing a set of specific proposals.
The BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China- decided to throw the gauntlet at rich nations by coming up with a counter-draft that will be presented at the conference. They agreed to let China, which initiated the exercise, to present the draft of the developing nations at Copenhagen.
"This BASIC draft fully meets India's goals and aspirations. We hope it is made the basis of discussions at the conference," Ramesh said.
The draft, which was originally prepared by China, was finalized after some changes during a 7-hour long meeting of BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China besides Sudan as the chair of G-77.
This joint front forged on Saturday is a major political initiative -- the first major India-China accord on international affairs--that is likely to impact not just the dimension of the talks on climate change but international diplomacy as a whole. The move comes after recent discussions on climate change held with Indian and Chinese leaders by US president Barack Obama, who appears to have made little impact on them.
Denmark is expected to unveil its draft to a group of select countries that includes the United States, several European nations, India and China on December 1. It will be later presented at the conference. Around the same time, the BASIC nations plan to circulate their own counter-draft in order to influence the course of negotiations.
The four nations issued a joint press release, which made it clear the developed nations should be ready to contribute funds and share green technology if they expected the developing and poor nations to take major actions on environmental protection.
The four countries and the chair of G-77 said they were keen to make a "contribution towards a consensus in Copenhagen".
The release said: "We are in agreement on major issues including those relating to the establishment of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as shared vision for long term cooperative action on climate change, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation to the impact of climate change, and the provision of finance and technology to support and enable these actions, taking into account the special needs of the least developed countries, the small island developing states and African countries."
The United States, which refused to endorse the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, might find it difficult to handle the new onslaught mounted by four developing nations including India and China. They are demanding an extension of the Kyoto Protocol.
In fact, there are serious questions on whether US president Barack Obama will keep his promise of attending the Copenhagen conference on climate change next month to avoid pressures to accept a "second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol". Obama recently met both Chinese leaders and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in order to soften the stance of developing nations and avoid exactly the kind of situation that is now emerging.
Besides the elements of the Kyoto Protocol, there are "significant new features" in the draft proposal worked out by BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China-at a meeting here on Saturday, Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for environment and forest said.
These countries have decided not to allow rich nations to make climate change an excuse to set up trade barriers or resort to trade protectionism. Rich countries should be ready to contribute funds for stopping the process of forest degradation including the one in Amazon valley in Brazil and also invest in the process of creating new forests.
The developing nations will also not accept any pressure from developed countries to establish legally binding emission targets at Copenhagen. Developing countries want to be allowed to reduce emissions voluntarily and take what they consider to be "nationally appropriate actions" he said.
Ramesh said India will under no circumstances accept the concept of a peaking year under which each country will have to indicate on what date they will reach the highest level of pollution before beginning to come down.
India will also not accept any unsupported mitigation actions without any effort by developed countries to provide funds and technology support to improve environment in developing nations.
New Delhi has also set its face against any international measurement, reporting and verification of the work done in India for environment protection.
The Indian minister said that China, Brazil and South Africa were also in agreement on these issues.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Copenhagen-conference-India-China-plan-joint-exit/articleshow/5279771.cms
New online CAT faces hiccups on day one
2009-11-28 17:00:00
Last Updated: 2009-11-28 17:35:34
New Delhi: The hugely competitive common admission test (CAT) for admission into business schools went online for the first time Saturday, but several students had a harrowing time as computers crashed in 11 centres across the country.
The unexpected fault occurred soon after the CAT examination began in 32 cities, but organisers said it affected only a small number of the 12,000-odd aspirants who appeared on the first day of the staggered exam.
The CAT determines admissions into the country's prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other B-schools.
The organisers termed the failure as "teething problems" since the test switched over this year to a computer-based system from the earlier optical reader marking paper-based tests.
Satish Deodhar, convenor of the CAT committee of the IIMs, said the main reason for the problem was "incompatibility of some softwares at centres with servers".
"This is the first time the CAT is being held online. Despite our efforts to keep a demo online, the students clicked wrong buttons which in turn led to the students facing problems. These are just teething problems. We will ensure that the students are accommodated in the slots that will be held over the next 10 days.
"If such a thing is not possible, then one day would be added to accommodate all the students who faced a problem. Hopefully, this problem will not be repeated again," Deodhar said.
Ulhas Vairagkar, director of TIME Institute, a preparatory school for IIM aspirants, said: "We got calls from students in six cities saying they were not able to give the test because the computer system crashed. The affected students have been told they can take another time slot."
Candidates complained of chaos.
Said Mohini P. in Bangalore: "It is very disappointing. I had come fully prepared and could not write the exam as I failed to log into the computer. No one came forward to help me."
Added an aspirant outside a Delhi centre: "There was complete mess. Nobody knew how we had to log in. Let alone the students, the administration did not know the password."
In Mumbai, some complained of lack of communication from the authorities.
"When I started my tutorial the screen went blank. We were not allowed to do anything after that. We were not allowed to move out, We were not allowed to leave. We were asked to sit there quietly. After two hours the authorities came and told us that our exam had been rescheduled," said one student in Mumbai.
US firm Prometric has developed the computer system for CAT. The company and the CAT committee said the test had been mostly successful.
Prometric managing director Soumitra Roy said: "Thousands of tests were successfully delivered throughout India. To accommodate the maximum number of candidates, Prometric and IIMs delayed the start of the morning session by about half hour. As a result of isolated technical issues, some candidates are being rescheduled and provided a new appointment."
Around 240,000 students have registered for the CAT this year, which is scheduled at 105 centres in 32 cities, all linked to a main server.
Besides New Delhi, complains of computer crashes came from Bangalore and Mumbai.
IIMs and Prometric had issued a disclaimer to all the students appearing for the exam to refrain from discussing the new format and questions till Dec 7 when the exam ends.
Last year, nearly 276,000 students across India took the test. Several experts told IANS earlier that the fall in registrations this year was due to CAT going online.
CAT exam assesses quantitative, logical, verbal and data interpretation ability of management aspirants.
http://sify.com/news/new-online-cat-faces-hiccups-on-day-one-news-education-jl2rabiadff.html
The Complete Cosmicomics !
The Queen Reminds the Raj!
As Latest Gimmick For MASS Destruction Sought in Copenhagen!
World leaders spruik climate deal chances!The United Nations chief has urged world leaders to "seal a deal" on climate change when they meet in Copenhagen next month. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believed an agreement was in sight, with recent moves by some countries a positive step ...World leaders on Friday rallied to a diplomatic offensive to forge a UN climate deal in Copenhagen next month and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said an agreement was "within reach". ...Leaders of the Commonwealth's two billion people and the UN chief joined Friday to push for a deal at upcoming climate talks to save the planet from catastrophic global warming. Just 10 days before the talks in Copenhagen, ...However, Canada contradicts climate change consensus at Commonwealth!Junior minister says Copenhagen agreement a 'long shot'!
Economy, energy, environment, education and empowerment -- the India-US relationship will accord new emphasis to these areas, says Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, adding that ties in defence, security and counter-terrorism will be consolidated.Meanwhile, China's decision to voluntarily slow the growth of its carbon emissions, ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit on December 7, appears to have put pressure on India to emulate the example it has set.When a Chinese delegation visited Delhi last month, and signed an agreement with India on climate change, many didn't agree. They pointed out that an association with China doesn't make sense. After all, India's greenhouse emissions are just a fifth of China's.India's food products export to the United States was $1.4 billion (around Rs 6,530 crore) in 2008-09, industry chamber Assocham said today.On the other hand,BJP today accused Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh of speaking a different language abroad on the issue of climate change after buckling under international pressure and suggested that India should follow the policy of voluntary emission cuts.
Hopes for a new global climate pact have risen after rich nations at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago offered to help poorer countries bear the costs of implementing any deal.
The Commonwealth has an opportunity to lead once more, this time in the fight against climate change, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II said as she opened the summit of the 53-nation group, ahead of the UN Copenhagen summit on climate change.
The Commonwealth can be proud of the fact that in each of the last six decades, it has shaped the international response to emerging global challenges, the Queen -- titular head of the group -- said at the opening ceremony on Friday night at the newly-built National Centre for the Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain.
"And on this, the eve of the United Nations Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, the Commonwealth has an opportunity to lead once more," she told the assembled heads of government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh among them.
The Queen said that the threat to our environment is not a new concern. "But it is now a global challenge which will continue to affect security and stability for years to come. Many of those affected are among the most vulnerable, and many of the people least well able to withstand the adverse effects of climate change live in the Commonwealth."
The chances of an agreement at next month's key Copenhagen climate change conference are a "long shot," a minister in Stephen Harper's government said Friday.
At the end of the first day of the Commonwealth leaders' summit, Canada's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Peter Kent contradicted more optimistic statements from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Kent admitted that some leaders "still do have an optimistic outlook" but others who were fixed on an agreement weeks ago are now accepting that a consensus in Copenhagen is unlikely.
India needs to find a balance between remaining competitive and being financially secure and stable in a troubled economic climate, Infosys' Chief Mentor, N R Narayana Murthy said here today. Identifying education and business as areas of reconnecting with Indian diaspora, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday invited them to undertake a "pilgrimage" to the "new creative India" and be active partners of the country's development and progress by making use of investment and business opportunities.The hype surrounding the just announced emissions reduction targets of the United States and China is just that: hype and hyperbole, says India's leading environment body Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).Hopes for a new global climate pact have risen after rich nations at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago offered to help poorer countries bear the costs of implementing any deal.The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is all set to launch a major initiative costing $7 million to promote energy efficiency in selected energy intensive micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) clusters ...The size of the food industry in the country is expected to touch $258 billion by fiscal 2015 from the current level of $181 billion. "The food processing industry in India is one of the largest in terms of production, consumption, export and growth prospects.As an indication of their growing economic interaction, the United States and India have agreed to float a new kind of partnership to strengthen their engagement on economic, financial and investment-related issues.A senior Indian official on Wednesday reiterated call for the United States to lift restrictions on American technology transfer to India a day after U.S. President Barack Obama's meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House. Addressing a forum held by the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, an economic advisor to Singh ..Over the past decade, vaccines have resurfaced as an attractive commercial proposition for Pharma. The developed world has been the initial focus of vaccine makers due to the better healthcare infrastructure and higher price levels.
We must learn from the Galalio lesson! Truth may not subside despite Hegemony Getsapo genocide Culture!Gordon Brown reveals satellite intelligence will police global environment deals!India may follow China's example and for the first time set a specific target to limit the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said here on Friday. ...As the U.S. and China issue pledges in advance of the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen, India holds back on announcing any goal that it fears could hinder economic development. India found itself under growing pressure this week to set an emission reduction target after China and the United States announced their pledges in advance of a global summit on climate change that opens ...However, India's environment minister said the country may have to be more flexible over climate change talks after China unveiled its first firm targets to cut carbon emissions, a newspaper reported on Friday.It is calimed that India has taken steps to curb rampant illegal mining as high iron ore prices spurred by Chinese demand lead local resources companies to dig up the metal with scant regard for the environment and local communities.I am in Constant Touch with the Coalfields in India for last Three Decades and even after the madhu Koda Graft Exposure , I see no sign to stop the Menace of Illegal Mining, Subsidence and Underground Fire.Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Saturday that New Delhi was willing to commit to ambitious carbon emission reduction targets provided it was a part of an equitable burden sharing plan.On the other hand, Twenty-five years after poisonous plumes of chemicals leaked from the Union Carbide factory here, survivors are protesting a government plan to open the site to the public.Nevertheless, Word that India will soon roll out emission reduction targets signals an emerging consensus toward a climate-change agreement next month at Copenhagen, despite the Canadian government's much-noticed ambivalence.
India warns against protectionism under a green label!Meanwhile, Central paramilitary forces have taken up positions to begin the offensive against Maoist guerrillas in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh in the first half of December, senior officers here say.The schedule has been worked out, forces have been deployed and, if everything goes well, the first phase of the operations could take off as early as next fortnight. According to rough estimations, over 60,000 security personnel from the central paramilitary forces would be in acction against 6,000-7,000 armed Maoist cadres. Officials say the Maoists are armed with heavy as well sophisticated weapons like light machine guns, AK-47s, AK-56s and Insas rifles.
Meanwhile, India's recovery from the global financial crisis is "still fragile", according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D Subbarao.It means the Hype for false recessionin the inflated economy, continues and revenue as well as Fiscal Management would Prove BOLTS from the Blue for Indian Masses! STIMULUS is bound to stay and Foreign Capital Inflow would cross every leagl Hardles and new methods of repression would be in Vogue quite soon with Overlapping Mind Contrlo and reality Shows in and out of Indian Parliament. Copenhagen Showcase is amongst one of them!Pointing out that the kharif output was estimated to decline by 18 per cent and exports had gone down for 12 months in a row, Subbarao said inflationary pressure was building up.Further, the deceleration in non-food credit (- 4.4 per cent) indicated the weak nature of the recovery, he said.
Being an Active Environment Activist since seventies with the Experiences of Chipko Movement and Naionality Identitty movements accross the Himalayas, I rather had to welcome the gestures of our Policy makers as far as Environment, ecology and climate are Concerned. But the FRAUD is quite wide open to me as I witnessed Great Environment Activists ally with the Ruling Hegemony and opening NGOs having won international Applaud. In Seventies, there had been NO NGO in entire Uttarakhand while we had been busy in Chipko movement, as soon as tehri dam Project was launched we saw Sunderlal bahuguna, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Pratap Sikhar, Dhoom Singh Negi, Kuwanr Parasoon, Shekhar Pathak, Girda and all the big names including all color of ideologies turn to become NGOs.Fredrick Smetcheck of Indo German Origin used to run S.A.V.E and he used to insist that I should adopt Environment journalism in the line of Anil agrawal and Bharat Dogra.But Environment Politics trasformed such a big Business even during Seventies, I dared not.Meanwhile, I have seen how all the Hill satations including Nainital and Gangtok have been burdened with the Over Constructions! Lake region is another name of Destruction. Glaciers are Polluted. religious Places have become Honey Moon spots. Forests have turned into Resorts. Sea Coast is Captured by India Incs. Mangrove is wiped out.
My father Pulin Babu was not Educated and belonged to Untouchable Black Dalit Bengali resettled refugee communities and voiced their grievances life long. but he had roots in Folks, Rural Riverine Persecuted East Bengal inhibited by Nature Associated communities. He suspported us in our mobilisation to save the Environment. it is not a matter of Academia. As the Bishoni Tribal people in Rajsthan protect the Wild Life and Sundervan people seem concerned with Bio Cycle endangered, I have seen throuout the Himalayan region how the Masses were against Deforestation.
You just Destroy the Forests and hand Ove all kinds of Natural resources to the MNCs and IOndia Corporations and then, use Military as well as Religious Forces to kill the Nature Asoociated Communities, then you just call to protect the Environment from Latin Ameriaca, america and Europe, I ma not just IMPRESSED at all! It is the latest GIMMICK for MASS Destruction!
Economic Reforms and Environment may not go Together. Gangrape with the Nature and Ethnic cleansing of the Nature assocaited Aboriginal, Indigenous, converted Minority Comminites may not Resist either Cor[porate Imperialism. Dissecting Central India and Himalayan landscape with Brutal miltary as well as Military Forces may not Help any one to Protest Rich countries to have their way imn Cpoenhagen! Kyto Protocol has proved the Political Diplomatic Follies much earlier!
One of the major issues engaging our policy makers is the forthcoming Copenhagen meeting on global warming and climate change. The last agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, expires in 2012. Even though that agreement did not have American and Australian ratification, many European countries did try to bring down the levels of emission.Believed to be the first important step towards decreasing the speed of climate change and stabilising greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol provides the essential architecture for any future international agreement on climate change like the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Summit.
Amid growing pressure from developed countries to accept carbon curbing targets, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday pushed for "an ambitious, substantive and equitable outcome" at the UN summit on climate change but warned developed countries against pursuing "protectionist policies under a green label".
The Copenhagen meeting is designed to finalise and replace the agreement which would have the consent of all countries, particularly the US which is the world's biggest emitter.
There is incontrovertible scientific evidence that global warming, a result of carbon dioxide emission is making a far-reaching impact on our lives and will jeopardise the future of the planet.
Meanwhile, Gordon Brown reveals satellite intelligence will police global environment deals!
Mirror reports:
Spy-in-the-sky technology will be used to police new global environment deals, Gordon Brown revealed yesterday.
He said satellites will be used to ensure poorer countries do not go back on promises to stop ripping up forests and building new power stations.
The plan puts the PM on collision course with China, which is resisting the proposal in the runup to a key climate change conference in Copenhagen. Speaking at a Commonwealth summit in Trinidad, the Mr Brown said it was vital to ensure international green deals are honoured.
He added: "One of the big issues is how we monitor what is happening, how we prevent illegal logging even where there have been government promises. Satellite systems are going to be important."
The plan came as Mr Brown proposed a new £13.4billion programme to fund immediate action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Illegal logging and deforestation account for around a fifth of the global problem, which is being added to by developing nations such as China.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/11/28/gordon-brown-reveals-satellite-intelligence-will-police-global-environment-deals-115875-21856490/
Commonwealth countries are home to two billion people, or a third of the planet's population - including major global players like Britain and India, and smaller island states like Nauru and the Maldives.
The United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen joined 53 Commonwealth leaders to work on the issue of climate change ahead of next month's conference in Copenhagen.
"Success in Copenhagen is in sight," UN chief Ban Ki-moon told the summit.
He and Mr Rasmussen praised a move by Britain and France to launch a multi-billion-dollar fund for developing nations.
Mr Rasmussen said it was now "realistic" to expect Copenhagen to result in the framework for a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
But he stressed the deal to be hammered out by some 87 leaders including US President Barack Obama must include "commitments, numbers and precise language".
Mr Ban, who has led the push towards Copenhagen, agreed it must not become just another talking shop, saying, "We will come out with a very concrete foundation for a legally binding treaty."
The need to address a changing climate was a point reinforced by Queen Elizabeth at this morning's opening ceremony.
"The Commonwealth can be proud of the fact that in each of its six decades it has shaped the international response to emerging global challenges," she told the gathered leaders.
"And on this, the eve of the UN Copenhagen summit on climate change, the Commonwealth has an opportunity to lead once more."
The Queen told the summit that many of those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change lived in Commonwealth countries.
"The threat to our environment is not a new concern but it is now a global challenge which will continue to affect the security and stability of millions for years to come," she said.
Canada singled out
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper faced growing international pressure to take action, with some activists even calling for Canada to be suspended from the Commonwealth.
Mr Ban singled out Canada at the Commonwealth summit, saying Ottawa should act as soon as possible to create an ambitious target to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
He said given that Canada is hosting the G8 and G20 meetings next June, it should be setting an example.
The International Energy Agency ranks Canada alongside Australia in the world's top 5 per cent of polluters, per capita, yet Ottawa still has no policy to combat climate change.
Mr Harper has now reversed his earlier position and says he will attend the climate talks in Copenhagen.
Momentum builds
Much of the new momentum for a climate deal stemmed from a joint overture by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Mr Sarkozy.
The two European leaders proposed to compensate developing countries for the economic disadvantages they would face in cutting carbon emissions.
"Poorer countries must have an understanding that the richer countries will help them adapt to climate change and make the necessary adjustments in their economies," Mr Brown said on his website.
For the first time, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he was willing to commit his country to ambitious global carbon emission cuts, provided others shared the burden.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also welcomed what he called "a fast-start fund".
"Australia is of the view that such a fast-start fund can assist in bringing about a good outcome at Copenhagen, but most critically, assist those most vulnerable states dealing with adaptation challenges now," he said.
Mauritius is reportedly already looking for a new home. Maldives, Seychelles, Sunderbans in India, large parts of Bangladesh and coastal cities would go underwater requiring the existing habitation to be relocated in other areas. Changing patterns of monsoon, cyclones and typhoons of unprecedented velocity will result in the destruction of agriculture patterns. Rainfall precipitation may vary from flood to drought. Clearly the present trajectory is unsustainable.
In a strong message barely ten days before the Cophenhagen conference, Manmohan Singh said it was "unfortunate that the global discourse on climate change has become enmeshed with arguments about maintaining economic competitiveness or level playing fields".
"Climate Change is becoming the pretext for pursuing protectionist policies under a green label. This would be contrary to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and a violation of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) as well," he said.
"India and other developing countries will strongly resist this," Manmohan Singh said in his intervention at the special session on climate change at the 53-nation Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
Pushing for "a global and a collaborative response," Manmohan Singh pushed for "an ambitious, substantive and equitable outcome" at the Dec 7-18 UN summit on climate change.
He said: "India has repeatedly emphasised the need for the Copenhagen outcome to be comprehensive, balanced and above all, equitable."
Explaining India's negotiating stance, the prime minister asked developed countries to resist "a partial outcome" and pushed for a legally binding instrument based on core principles of the UNFCCC and the 2007 Bali Action Plan.
"It must be comprehensive in the sense that it must cover all the inter-related components of mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology. This means we should resist a partial outcome," he said at the summit meeting.
"Furthermore, there must be balance and equal priority given to each of the four components," he said.
"And most important from our perspective, is the need to ensure an equitable outcome corresponding to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities," the prime minister said.
"The battalions of the Border Security Force (BSF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) had already taken their positions in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, from where we would first start the operations," a senior officer dealing with anti-Maoist operations told IANS on condition of strict anonymity.
The BSF, ITBP and CRPF would be jointly operating in Chhattisgarh, he added.
Four battalions from the ITBP and at least two from BSF have moved to Chhattisgarh. Each battalion comprises 700 personnel. The CRPF is present in large numbers in Chhattisgarh, the most affected by Maoist violence.
"In Maharashtra the onus of taking on the Maoists largely lies on the shoulders of the CRPF. The force has moved additional three battalions in the state," the officer added.
The CRPF, one the world's largest paramilitary forces, has 207 battalions.
Another senior officer, who was not authorised to speak to media, said: "The operations will be jointly launched in synergy in both the states. It will be coordinated and additional forces would be rushed as per the requirement."
Asked about the launch of offensive operations, the officer said: "It will not be launched nationwide. In first half of December we would be covering Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh."
"After the setting up of a government in Jharkhand, which is presently undergoing elections, we will take up operations there," he said, adding that no timeline had been set for commencing operations in the state.
And, once the election process is complete in Jharkhand, the BSF and CRPF battalions which are presently posted there will undergo specific training related to anti-Maoist operations and will be deployed in Orissa.
"Once they are trained, we would be deploying them in Orissa for the offensive against the Maoists. All the operations would be in phases and one after the other. The plan is to capture and control Maoist controlled areas in the affected states one by one," the official added.
Senior officials confided to IANS that it will not be before March when the security forces will launch their operations in all the Maoist-affected states.
Karat slams Trinamool demand for president's rule in Bengal
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday slammed Trinamool Congress' demand to impose president's rule in West Bengal, saying it was against 'basic democratic principles'.
'Anybody who makes such demand should know that the demand of Article 356 (to impose president's rule) goes against the basic democratic principles. The Supreme Court has already said that the use of Article 356 against an elected government is unconstitutional,' Karat told reporters here before entering a party meeting at CPI-M state headquarters.
Welcoming the central team which is scheduled to visit trouble-hit areas of Hooghly district, he said: 'Let the central team come and review the situation 'objectively and impartially'.
'If the central team looks at the situation, they will understand who is responsible for it. Everyone knows who is trying to destabilise the state.'
The CPI-M general secretary also met communist patriarch Jyoti Basu at his Salt Lake residence and enquired about his health.
'Karat came to meet Basu at his Salt Lake residence today (Saturday) afternoon to enquire about his ailing health. He talked to Basu for less than 10 minutes,' Basu's personal assistant Joykrishna Ghosh said.
He said the CPI-M general secretary did not continue the talks for long as the communist veteran was not well.
'It was just a courtesy meeting,' Ghosh said.
Karat arrived in Kolkata Saturday morning to attend a party meeting Saturday and Sunday. The West Bengal unit of the CPI-M will meet to discuss the issue of rectification guidelines for its party workers.
Does not appear China will ditch us: Jairam Ramesh
Saibal Dasgupta, TNN 28 November 2009, 07:29pm IST
BEIJING: Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for environment and forests, on Saturday rejected speculation in some quarters that China would do a
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side deal with the United States before the Copenhagen talks in December and betray the cause of other developing nations like India.
"After today's discussions, it does not appear China will ditch us," Ramesh said. It is China, which has brought the four developing nations to form a joint front, he pointed out.
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is himself involved in the discussions making it nearly impossible for Beijing to backtrack from its stance now, he said.
Critics have said that China is so closely linked to US companies that it might do a side deal with Washington in order to get access with green technology and a range of unrelated benefits.
A European Union official recently told TOI that she feared Beijing might enter into a "under the table agreement" with Washington to weaken the resolutions at the Copenhagen meet so that US companies do not have to make major emission cuts.
"They are playing for long stakes for leadership in the green technology movement," he said talking about the Chinese leadership. "China knows that with 23 per cent (carbon) emissions it is the world's biggest emitter," Ramesh said suggesting that the Chinese leadership is extremely conscious of its international responsibilities.
China already a major supplier of power equipment and contributes 20% of the new electricity generating sets being put up in India, he said.
India won't be deal breaker at Copenhagen: Sarkozy
PTI 28 November 2009, 09:37am IST
PORT OF SPAIN: Sharing India's views, French President Nicolas Sarkozy today said the upcoming Copenhagen meet on climate change should not miss
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the opportunity to tackle the problem as it would be a "historic failure" and asserted that New Delhi will not be a deal-breaker.
Sarkozy, who held a luncheon meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here and discussed climate change, said he was "fully confident" that the latter would attend the Copenhagen Summit being held on December 18.
As of now, Singh, who is here for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), is not going to Copenhagen where Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh will be representing India at the meet.
"India has nothing to lose and everything to gain by being in Copenhagen. If India is to be heard, it needs to be present," Sarkozy said addressing a press conference here.
Noting that there was a "tremendous sense of urgency" surrounding the Copenhagen summit, Sarkozy said, "We can't afford to miss the opportunity. It is imperative that heads of state and government are present on December 18-19 in Copenhagen."
His views reflect those of India which has been insisting that the efforts to take some decision should not be given up and some results must be achieved at the upcoming meeting.
"We need to get commitments with binding decisions," Sarkozy said, adding the industrial and emerging countries like Brazil must commit to a 50 per cent carbon reduction by 2050.
Commonwealth backs $10 billion climate adaptation fund
By Pascal Fletcher
Reuters
Saturday, November 28, 2009; 10:54 AM
PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - Commonwealth leaders will lobby for an international climate deal that includes $10 billion for next year to help poor and vulnerable states fight the effects of global warming, the Maldives president said on Saturday.
Mohamed Nasheed, whose small Indian Ocean state risks being swamped by rising sea levels caused by climate change, said the proposal for such funding was part of a draft climate statement to be issued on Saturday by Commonwealth leaders meeting in Trinidad and Tobago.
"The Commonwealth is going to call for a reliable adaptation fund of $10 billion for next year, and 10 percent of that earmarked for small islands," Nasheed told Reuters in Port of Spain.
"We've just finalized the draft and I believe that the Commonwealth is going to adopt that," he added.
Leaders of the 53-nation Commonwealth have been seeking consensus for a comprehensive climate deal to be negotiated at U.N. talks in Copenhagen on December 7-18. They were joined in their discussions on Friday by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the presidents of Denmark and France.
Nearly half of the Commonwealth's members are small island states which are directly threatened by rising sea levels caused by global warming, and developing nations are appealing for financial aid from rich governments to help them counter climate change and reduce carbon pollution.
Nasheed said the major developed countries of the Commonwealth -- Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand -- had agreed to the idea of the $10 billion a year fund, which would go toward helping the poorest countries adapt to climate change with stronger sea and flood defenses, tackling deforestation and building new, cleaner energy sources.
"I believe the Commonwealth understands our predicament more than the others ... they have put concrete things on the table," the Maldives president said.
On Friday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the creation of the $10 billion-a-year fund, arguing such financing should be made available as early as next year, well before any new climate deal takes effect.
The idea was also backed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who along with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen attended the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago as invited guests to lobby on the climate issue.
While next month's U.N. talks in Copenhagen are not expected to result in the approval of a detailed climate treaty, U.N. chief Ban said a political deal to lay the foundation for such a legally binding accord was now "within reach."
The accord the United Nations is aiming for in Copenhagen would cover tougher emissions targets, climate financing for poorer nations and transfer of clean-energy technology.
The climate treaty, now expected to be adopted as a final text next year, will replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
(Editing by Vicki Allen)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/28/AR2009112801104.html
Global warming: India in a fix as China pledges big emission cuts
Saibal Dasgupta, TNN 26 November 2009, 09:30pm IST
BEIJING: China has announced that it will cut emissions by a drastic 40-45 per cent compared to 2005 levels by the year 2020. The pledge, which
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is far ahead of the promises made by the United States, is also expected to cause jitters in New Delhi and raise questions about the efficacy of the India-China deal on the issue. ( Watch Video )
There is also a sense that Beijing has pre-empted other developing countries as it made the announcement a day before it was set to hold dialogue on Friday with India, South Africa and Brazil on preparations for the Copenhagen conference on climate change in December.
Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh is set to meet Chinese premier Wen Jiabao and Xie Zhenhua, deputy head of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission in Beijing. This meeting follows recent discussions on climate change held by US president Barack Obama with Chinese leaders and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
China's emission levels are a lot more than India, which may be expected to set lower targets. But New Delhi has been reluctant to announce any targets at all. Beijing's announcement will put pressure on India, South Africa and Brazil to announce targets if they wish to stick with China in a joint front at the Copenhagen meeting, sources explained.
It is Xie, who made the announcement that China would aim to cut carbon intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product — by a range of 40% to 45% by 2020. It came a day after Obama said the US intends to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83% by 2050.
Xie also said premier Wen will attend the global climate change summit in Copenhagen next month. He also indicated Beijing will use the meeting to push developed nations to be less miserly in sharing green technology and contributing funds.
"So far we have not seen concrete actions and substantive commitments by the developed countries," Xie said at the press conference. "As we've made this commitment, well, Chinese people stick to their word," he further said suggesting China was ready to stand by its promise.
But it is not clear if Beijing was prepared to allow outside world to carry out investigation on the implementation of its environmental program. Both India and China had earlier opposed any outside interference on this issue.
China has proposed that developed nations contribute 1 per cent of gross domestic product to subsidize efforts by poorer nations to cut carbon-dioxide emissions. That translates to more than $140 billion for the US alone. Of course, Washington is far from accepting it.
"Appropriate handling of the climate change issue is of vital interest to China's social and economic development and people's fundamental interests, as well as the welfare of all the people in the world and the world's long-term development," the Chinese State Council said in the statement.
India offers to cut carbon intensity by 20-25%
Saibal Dasgupta & Nitin Sethi, TNN 28 November 2009, 12:16am IST
BEIJING/NEW DELHI: The battle for scoring PR points at the climate change talks has been joined in right earnest. On Friday, India dramtically
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announced that it could consider voluntarily reducing its carbon intensity by 20-25% on a purely domestic level.
This represents a big leap on the measures announced so far by the government to cut emissions, and will extend to the entire economy rather than be restricted to specific sectors as is the case now.
The swift response to a similar announcement by the Chinese on Thursday is meant to save the country from being seen as the deal breaker in the coming green gabfest at Copenhagen over climate change.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh, in Beijing for a meeting of key emerging countries hosted by China, acknowledged that India could not afford to be seen as lagging behind in offering voluntary reduction in energy consumption. "We have to look at it. I don't think we can sweep (aside) the fact that
China, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa and peer group countries have put down voluntary, unilateral, non-legally binding, quantitative targets," the minister said.
On Thursday, China had announced its willingness to bring down its energy intensity by 40-45% from 2005 levels in the next decade. The Chinese announcement was itself a response to the US offer to reduce its emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.
By showcasing their voluntary reductions, India, China and US hope to fend off pressure that awaits them from other developed countries as well as resourceful NGOs who have often set the global green agenda.
While it suits all three, it will be particularly beneficial for the US which has resisted taking emission reduction targets under an international regime.
In so doing, India has also upped the target that it had set for itself. The government here had so far announced only strong actions on solar power and energy efficiency fronts. But if the proposal mooted by Ramesh in Beijing is really acted upon, it would mark the first move to bring down emission across the economy.
After a 70-minute meeting with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, Ramesh said, "This is a leadership-cum-public relations drive by China. The message of the meeting is that China wants to lead and it has fulfilled its international obligations. They have called the meeting from a position of strength as they have already announced emission targets."
But the minister clarified that "India and China cannot be on the same page when it comes to emissions".
India comes fifth in the ranking of emission intensity with 1.8 tonnes of emissions per thousand dollars of GDP compared to China's 2.85 tonnes.
Sources pointed out that China already has a high-energy intensity level because of its greater reliance on the manufacturing sector. India, in comparison, is more dependent on the service sector for its economic growth. "The question the government has to consider before it takes such a target is, will it hamper the growth of manufacturing sector -- which is obviously more energy intensive -- in the years to come," said an official close to the moves.
"China has already built up its infrastructure -- roads, power plants etc -- and has a large manufacturing sector and in the process its energy intensity is higher today. Its now offering to dip a bit. India's energy intensity is bound to rise as its economy grows, do we have the space to undertake this manouver, is the moot question," he said.
Ramesh, speaking to TOI in Beijing, said, "There is a considerable room for reducing emission and energy intensity in India keeping the 7-8% GDP growth profile without jeopardising growth."
Ramesh is in Beijing to attend a conference of key developing countries -- including South Africa, Brazil and India -- called by China. On Saturday, the group is expected to discuss a joint strategy for the Copenhagen negotiations starting on December 7.
Ramesh said the Chinese premier had assured him that China would stick to its stance about not allowing any international review of its environmental programmes including its emission intensity reduction target.
Ramesh's clarification on China and India's proposal was seen by observers as a move to clarify that this was not part of any `flexibility' being shown by either of the two countries at Copenhagen before the industrialised countries but purely a domestic imperative.
The US and other developed economies have asked India, China and other emerging economies to put their domestic targets up for international scrutiny even if they do not fund such actions.
With the proposed move, India and China have only shown ramped up domestic action in order to reduce the clamour from industrialised countries for international commitments.
Environmental Information Centre (EIC) has been setup by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), India as a professionally managed clearinghouse of Environmental Information on the Indian sub-continent. EIC provides comprehensive, easy-to-use environmental data on India and information on the environmental clearance process and environment regulations in India. The integrated environmental database on India is derived using the Geographical Information System (GIS) and includes pollution data. It eases the preparation of environmental impact assessment (EIA) to expedite the environment clearance process.
Mission of EIC :
To provide high quality environmental data and information on India in a timely and cost-effective manner, to improve Environmental Studies, project screening & scoping, and the decision-making process.
http://www.eicinformation.org/
policyproposalsforindia.com is a site that aims to reach out to academics, researchers, media professionals and policy makers at all levels in the government and corporate sector in India. It focuses on some of the most challenging issues the country is facing and at the same time offers concrete policy suggestions that can help them in achieving rational outcomes in their endeavours. The areas covered include public administration, strategic affairs, economy, social development, education, health, environment and science & technology.
http://www.policyproposalsforindia.com/
Summit may help settle Latin American spats
2009-11-28 19:10:00
Latin American leaders have a chance to defuse some of their continent's political tensions at a summit opening Sunday.
The annual Iberoamerican meeting brings together 19 Latin American countries and European nations Spain, Portugal and Andorra.
Though resolving diplomatic tensions was not part of the summit's formal agenda, Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado said the quarrels "will without doubt be the topic of lots of conversations, lots of chats in the corridor and closed-door meetings."
The heads of government are also to examine ways of harnessing new technology to help Latin American economies diversify away from oil, farming and mining.
Relations between Venezuela and its neighbor Colombia, and between Honduras and Brazil, have soured in recent months.
"Our relationships have always had controversial aspects," said Enrique Iglesias, secretary-general of the Iberoamerican secretariat. "We need to sit down together, talk openly ... and help calm things down."
Venezuela and Colombia have been feuding over an agreement between Bogota and Washington that allows the U.S. military to build up its presence at seven Colombian bases under a lease agreement.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned that Venezuela must prepare for a possible armed conflict because he said the United States and Colombia could attack. He claims U.S. "imperialists" want to undermine his "Bolivarian Revolution" — a political movement named after 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar.
Honduras' interim government last month filed a case at the U.N.'s highest court accusing Brazil of meddling in its internal affairs because Brazil permitted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, ousted in a coup last summer, to stay at its embassy in Tegucigalpa.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva have confirmed they will attend the summit in Estoril, a Portuguese coastal resort 19 miles (30 kilometers) west of the capital Lisbon. It was uncertain whether Chavez would turn up.
Organizers say they will allow only Zelaya, or an official appointed by him, to represent Honduras at the talks.
Latin American nations are keen to reduce their economic reliance on natural resources and expand investment in science and technology. Spain and Portugal, mired in economic crises but in some ways more technologically developed than Latin America, hope their close historical ties will generate new business with that continent.
"The world crisis offers a fresh opportunity to Latin America ... but it depends on their ability to innovate," Iglesias said.
Prime ministers of three Balkan countries meet on environment
The prime ministers of Greece, Albania and Macedonia met informally on Friday in northwestern Greece for talks on environment.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and their Macedonian counterpart Nikola Gruevski met on the Lake Prespes, which straddles the borders of the three countries.
They are to discuss the prospects of cooperation in the protection of the Prespes National Park region. The three countries sighed a joint communique about ten years ago declaring their commitment to cooperate for protection of the region.
Papandreou early this week extended his invitations to the two neighbors to the informal meeting, which comes just days ahead of a crucial UN international summit on climate change in Copenhagen.
Papandreou is expected to hold talks on the sidelines with Gruevski on a name dispute that has soured the two neighbors' relations for the past 18 years.
Greece says it will block Macedonia's EU accession unless the country changes its name, arguing its name of Macedonia implies a territorial claim on its own northern province of the same name.
Source: Xinhua
China will not swerve from emission cut target: official
China will never swerve from its carbon emission cut target despite all pressure and difficulties, said a senior official Thursday evening.
Xie Zhenhua, vice minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, made the remarks at a press conference.
China's State Council, the Cabinet, announced Thursday that the country is going to reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in 2020 by 40 to 45 percent compared with the level of 2005.
This is a "voluntary action" taken by the Chinese government "based on our own national conditions" and "is a major contribution to the global effort in tackling climate change," the State Council said.
Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei also attended the press conference. "China made the emission cut target without financial and technological support from developed countries. This is not only for the country's own sustainable development, but also for the benefit of all the mankind," said He.
However, China is still hoping developed countries would take actions as soon as possible, He said, adding that the Bali Road Map has set binding targets and actions on emission cut, investment and technology for developed countries.
China faces huge pressure and special difficulties in controlling greenhouse gas emission, as the country has a large population and relatively low economic development level and is at a critical period to accelerate industrialization and urbanization, Xie said.
"It demands great courage for the government to announce such a target," said Yu Jie, an official in charge of Climate Group's policy and research. The Climate Group is a British-based non-governmental environmental organization.
As a developing country, China still faces various problems in both economic and social development, and it is not easy to make such a commitment, Yu said.
The announcement of China's carbon emission target has broken one of the deadlocks challenging the upcoming Copenhagen summit, she said. It is also an answer to President Hu Jintao's promise at the September United Nations climate summit in New York that China would cut emission intensity by "a notable margin" by 2020 from the 2005 level.
China's target is made after scientific research and calculations, combining the efforts to both tackle climate change and promote social and economic development, said Yao Yufang, professor at the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). "Any party that asks China for higher cut is acting unreasonably."
China can and will achieve the target if the country endeavors to improve energy efficiency, promote the development of renewable energy and optimize industrial structure, Yao said.
"The country has set a specific quantitative target far beyond the Bali Road Map demands for developing countries, which reflects China's sincerity to make the Copenhagen summit successful and its commitment to tackle the climate change," said Pan Jiahua, director of the CASS Research Center for Urban Development and Environment.
Li Gao, an NDRC official and a key climate change negotiator representing the Chinese government, said Tuesday: "We will try to make the summit successful and we will not accept that it ends with an empty and so-called political declaration."
Source:Xinhua
China Gains in U.S. Eyes, and India Feels Slights
The statement, on its surface, seemed like any other bland missive released at the end of a polite visit by a head of state. It was put out by the United States and China after President Obama's visit there, and said that the two countries would "work together to promote peace, stability and development" in South Asia.
But on the eve of a visit by the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to the White House, where on Tuesday he will be the guest of honor at Mr. Obama's first state dinner, the words rank as one of several perceived slights that have dampened hopes for a new chapter in the sometimes rocky relationship between the United States and India.
The vague statement has been widely interpreted here as an invitation to China to meddle in India's backyard, and prompted howls of dismay across the political spectrum.
"How can you make China responsible for keeping peace in South Asia?" said Prem Shankar Jha, a newspaper and magazine columnist, channeling the prevailing sentiment among New Delhi's political analysts. "China has done nothing in South Asia except to play a destructive role here," he continued, referring to China's close ties to India's archrival, Pakistan.
Beyond the surface issues, however, lies a deeper tension, in which India sees a warmer relationship between Washington and Beijing under the Obama administration as a threat to its own rise as a global power, and worries that India is being relegated to a regional role on par with its troubled neighbors Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"There is a feeling that in Obama's international calculations, India is not that important," said Lalit Mansingh, a former foreign secretary and ambassador to Washington. "The suspicion is building up that Obama is not as keen on the strategic partnership with India as George W. Bush was. There is, underneath the surface, a suspicion that the Americans are scared or too dependent on the Chinese."
Mr. Obama's declining to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington last month was also seen as evidence that he was unwilling to offend China, never mind that India barred foreign journalists from covering the Dalai Lama's visit to a disputed border region in part to mollify China, which opposed the visit.
India and the United States grew closer than at any time in their history during Mr. Bush's presidency, spurred in large part by a pact on nuclear technology that tacitly legitimized India's nuclear weapons program and will allow India to import technology to build much-needed nuclear power plants. The Bush administration saw India as a natural counterweight to a rising China.
The Obama administration has been received more coolly. While Mr. Bush saw India as a singular and vital ally, Mr. Obama "has tended to use Pakistan as the fulcrum of South Asia, and sees India as one knotty strand in the Afghanistan tangle," said a disapproving editorial in the newspaper Indian Express on Monday.
Indeed, with the United States mired in the Afghan war, and with Pakistan's growing chaos increasingly inseparable from the Afghan morass, India worries that it will once again become merely a variable in a very complicated regional equation.
In this context, what is seen as American reluctance to confront China on tricky issues has created the impression that the United States worries more about its pragmatic interests with China, to which it owes $800 billion, than standing up for the values it shares with India, analysts and former diplomats here said.
"His bowing before the emperor of Japan was an act of courtesy," Mr. Mansingh said. "But his bending over backwards before the Chinese was an act of appeasement."
These tensions in many ways predate both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama. India and the United States would seem to be natural allies — both are vast, multiethnic and religiously diverse nations that embraced democracy after throwing off the British colonial yoke. Indeed, the United States was an early supporter of Indian independence.
But the relationship has always been rocky, and has foundered on precisely the same grounds: India's prickliness at being seen as anything but a singular nation with a unique destiny. Cold war politics put the United States solidly on the side of Pakistan. India, under its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was officially neutral in the cold war but had socialist leanings and a cozy relationship with the Soviet Union. But India chafed at being defined by these ideologies.
Obama administration officials have taken pains to paint the United States-India relationship as essential and to be respectful of India's separate path.
"The U.S.-Indian partnership is one of the real keys to global order and global prosperity in the 21st century," declared William J. Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, in a statement released after he visited India last month.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state, went on an extensive visit to India in July, making a point of visiting Mumbai and staying at the Taj Palace Hotel, which was attacked by Pakistani terrorists last year.
Prime Minister Singh himself sought to play down any disenchantment with the new administration.
"I have no apprehension that our relations with the United States would in any way suffer because of the change of administration," he told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, and repeated his oft-stated view that "India and China are not in competition."
China, meanwhile, has signaled that it has no intention of playing a role in mediating India's longstanding quarrels with Pakistan. And despite the joint statement issued at the end of Mr. Obama's visit, it has not expressed any interest in getting involved in Pakistan's domestic troubles.
Indeed, the relationship between India and the United States encompasses so many spheres that it is difficult to imagine any serious rupture, analysts said. Beyond billions of dollars in trade, there are millions of Indians and people of Indian origin in the United States.
Since the attacks in Mumbai last November, cooperation between Indian and American intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been growing, with each side providing the other with vital information on terrorist threats and networks.
Salman Haidar, a former Indian foreign secretary, said that the natural alliance between India and the United States, frustrated for so long by historic events, is now too strong to be shattered by perceived blunders.
"The exchanges till now between Obama and Manmohan Singh have been very cordial and pointed toward mutual appreciation and respect," he said. "I think that there is a comfort level that has not been disturbed."
From N.Y. Times
China not taking sides on Kashmir
Chinese experts say China isn't interfering in the dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, despite a separatist leader of the India-controlled part of the region applying for a visa to visit China.
And the experts stress that China criticism of India for extending an invitation to the Dalai Lama has nothing to do with the border dispute.
"I believe China is not a party to the Kashmir conflict, but it has a stake as far as peace in the region is concerned," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the moderate faction of the Kashmiri separatist Hurriyat Conference, said in astatement late Friday, according to AFP.
"China has a direct link with Kashmir, as certain parts of Kashmir, including Aksai Chin, are under its control," he said, adding that he will visit China this Saturday on an invitation from a China-based non-governmental organization.
Farooq, who is chief priest at Kashmir's main mosque, also welcomed a joint statement earlier in the week by Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President Barak Obama, who voiced support for better India-Pakistan relations.
Farooq's secretary, Shahidul Islam, was quoted by Rediff News as saying that the leader would be applying for the visa after the Eid festival, and that "he will be highlighting the Kashmir issue during his visit to China, which is now an important player in the region."
The statement on China's role in the Kashmir dispute was the first by separatist leaders since a revolt against New Delhi broke out in 1989, and Farooq will be the first among them to visit China if his visa application is approved.
A day after his remarks, Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, a senior leader of the People's Democratic Party, the main opposition, said China should not be introduced as another stakeholder in Kashmir, but it should be asked to return the territory under its control.
"We should not over-estimate China's role in Kashmir. It has no stake in Kashmir," Beigh told Rising Kashmir, a local newspaper.
Source:Global Times
Wen: China disagrees to so-called G2, calling for effort to fight protectionism
China disagrees to the suggestion of a "Group of Two" (G2), Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said at a meeting with visiting U.S. President Barack Obama in Beijing on Wednesday.
China is still a developing country with a huge population and has a long way to go before it becomes modernized, Wen said, stressing "We must always keep sober-minded over it".
China pursues the independent foreign policy of peace and will not align with any country or country blocks, Wen said.
Global issues should decided by all nations in the world, rather than one or two countries, he added.
"Meanwhile, we believe Sino-U.S. cooperation can play a unique role in advancing the establishment of the new international political and economic order, as well as promoting world peace, stability and prosperity," Wen said.
Wen noted that the bilateral trade volume between China and the United States has increased greatly since the two countries established diplomatic ties 30 years ago.
"This is in the fundamental interests of both countries and their people," Wen said. "We do not pursue trade surplus and I hope the United States would lift its policy of restricting high-tech products exports to China and increase their proportion in the U.S. exports to China.
"Meanwhile, our two countries should strengthen mutual investment and cooperation in such fields as energy, environmental protection and high technology for a more balanced bilateral trade," Wen said.
The revival of world trade and investment is beneficial to the global effort to cope with the financial crisis and help accelerate the recovery of the world economy, he said.
"China and the United States should work together to fight against protectionism in trade and investment," Wen said.
Obama, who described U.S.-China relations as of global significance, said U.S.-China cooperation is crucial as far as major global issues such as economic recovery, climate change and regional and global peace are concerned.
He hoped the two countries would abandon distrust and misunderstanding, strengthen exchange and cooperation, so as to push U.S.-China relations forward.
The United States appreciates and supports the Chinese government's efforts in developing the economy and reducing poverty, said Obama, adding that the development of China is beneficial to the world.
The United States and China are important trade partners for each other, which has brought huge benefits to both countries, while trade protectionism does no good to either side, Obama said.
He said the United States appreciates China's efforts to adjustthe economic structure, expand domestic demand, protect intellectual property rights and reform the Renminbi exchange rateregime.
The United States would properly handle bilateral trade frictions so that they would not harm the interests of the two countries, Obama said.
The United States has noted China's concern over the export control to China and is willing to take measures and increase high-tech product exports to China, he added.
Before their formal meeting in the State Guesthouse Wednesday morning, Wen said Obama's fruitful visit, the first state visit to China since he took office in January, would be of far-reaching significance.
He expressed his "sincere hope" that Obama's China visit would lift the comprehensive and cooperative China-US relations to a new level.
"The history of Sino-US relations has made it clear that cooperation benefits both sides while confrontation results in harms, and mutual trust brings progress while suspicion causes setbacks," Wen said.
Cooperation is better than containment, dialogue is better than confrontation, and partnership is better than rival ship, he added.
Wen and Obama also exchanged views on global climate change, the Korean Peninsula situation, the Middle East issue and Doha round of world trade talks.
Obama arrived in Shanghai on Sunday night to kick off his four-day visit to China, where on Monday he met with municipal officials and college students and then flied to Beijing in the afternoon.
On Tuesday in Beijing, Chinese President Hu Jintao held talks with Obama, and they reached a wide range of agreements on furthering strategic mutual trust, maintaining exchanges at all levels and meeting global and regional challenges together.
A joint statement was issued after the talks.
Obama also met with China' top legislator Wu Bangguo during his stay in Beijing.
Source: Xinhua
China to take next giant leap in moon probe
China's second lunar probe, Chang'e-2, will be launched in October 2010, a top space scientist said Thursday.
Ye Peijian, chief designer of the nation's first moon probe, told the third International Conference on Space Information Technology in Beijing yesterday that the country's lunar lander and rover, Chang'e-3, is also well on the way toward liftoff -- the project is in the prototype stage and its launch is set for before 2013.
Ye said the second lunar orbiter will carry different payloads and orbit the moon in a different way.
"It will orbit 100 km closer to the moon and be equipped with better facilities. We expect to acquire more scientific data about the moon with increased accuracy," he told China Daily.
Though Chang'e-2 was at one time the backup to Chang'e-1, it has gone through technical upgrades for its new mission. Payloads on board have been improved, and the vehicle now boasts a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera on board, which has a much higher resolution than the camera on China's first lunar probe.
Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist with China's lunar exploration team, said on Wednesday during an interview with people.com.cn that systems on Chang'e-2 are undergoing "match-up and drills" and everything has gone well.
Tests will also be carried out during Chang'e-2's mission to prepare for the lunar lander and rover, Ye said.
Chang'e-3, China's first lunar lander and rover, is scheduled to be launched from a Long March 3B launch vehicle from the Xichang satellite launch center before 2013, he said.
At present, work on Chang'e-3 has gone beyond the planning stage and the machinery is now in the prototype stage.
"Completion of the planning stage means there is no technical barrier for us," he said.
The landing site on the moon for Chang'e-3 has also been chosen. Ye said it will be in the Sinus Iridium (Bay of Rainbows).
The scientific objectives of the project include investigating the lunar landscape and exploring the geological structure of the moon. The mission will also help China study the material composition of the moon and search for usable resources.
Scientists also hope the Chang'e-3 project will let them study the internal structure of the moon and, ultimately, they want to build an observatory on the surface.
Earlier reports by Xinhua News Agency said the lunar rover will leave Chang'e-3 and work on the moon's surface for three months. Scientists have decided to use an isotope technique generator to produce energy for the rover to enable it to cope with the lunar nights, where temperatures can drop to 200 C below zero.
Chang'e-2 and Chang'e-3 are part of the second phase of China's lunar exploration program.
The third phase will see China send a spacecraft to the moon to collect samples and return. That project is slated for before 2017.
China launched its lunar mission in 2007 when it successfully put an unmanned probe, Chang'e-1, into lunar orbit. The spacecraft transmitted pictures of the moon's surface in January 2008.
Chang'e-1 ended its 16-month mission on March 1 when it impacted the moon's surface. The successful conclusion brought the first phase of the nation's three-stage lunar mission to an end.
China became the third nation - after the US and Russia - to put people into space when Yang Liwei went into orbit aboard the spaceship Shenzhou-V on Oct 15, 2003.
Another three astronauts traveled to space in Shenzhou-VII and carried out the country's first space walk in September 2008.
Source:China Daily
Center for the Environment hosts air quality summit
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Saturday, November 28, 2009 12:20 AM
By Juanita Teschner
Center for the Environment
Elected officials from Rowan and Cabarrus counties were updated recently on the air quality problem the region faces and learned how the Center for the Environment intends to address it through the Campaign for Clean Air. They met in the center facility on the Catawba College campus.
John Wear, center executive director, and Shelia Armstrong, air quality outreach coordinator, told the group that the center's new Campaign for Clean Air is designed to educate the public about air quality issues and to empower them to take action to address the problem.
Armstrong explained the center's new Web sites, which provide information on air quality and the campaign. One is a joint effort with the Salisbury Post. To access it, individuals may visit www.salisburypost.com and click on "environment." It provides the most recent news about air quality issues. The center's dedicated Web site for the entire campaign is www.campaignforcleanair.org , which will be updated regularly with useful information for the public.
The campaign, which is funded by a reimbursement grant from the N.C. Department of Transportation, focuses on health issues related to poor air quality, alternative fuels and modes of transportation, bike paths, sidewalks, preservation of green space and energy conservation.
Jay Laurens, the center's director of development, explained the center must provide outreach education services before it is reimbursed by the Department of Transportation at 80 percent of the cost. The center must raise $272,000 in matching funds. It has secured pledges amounting to $121,600 so far.
Donnie Redmond, ambient monitoring section chief of the N.C. Division of Air Quality, told the group that ground-level ozone levels across North Carolina have improved and are expected to continue on that positive trajectory despite population growth. However, the Metro-Charlotte area, which includes Cabarrus and Rowan counties, is the only remaining area in the state that has not achieved the 1997 ozone standard established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The current ozone standard was lowered in 2008 to 75 parts per billion, and the EPA will likely tighten the standard yet again because scientists and medical professionals find that health problems associated with ground-level ozone are not abating sufficiently.
The region's lack of compliance with the EPA air quality standards means continued restrictions on transportation and industrial expansion, Redmond said. If the area is designated "serious," industries would face additional restrictions and limitations. They currently have to get special federal permits if they emit more than 100 tons of certain pollutants per year. If Rowan and Cabarrus are placed in the serious category, the threshold for being required to get one of those permits drops to 50 tons. It would also require industries to install more emission-control equipment.
The N.C. Division of Air Quality has notified 37 facilities in Rowan and Cabarrus counties that could be affected if the area is designated serious. The EPA estimates that it generally costs $3,000 to $5,000 per ton to control emissions, though costs can vary widely.
Dan Mikkelson, the city of Salisbury's director of engineering and development services, told the group the city is examining the merits of multi-use development, which allows commercial and residential buildings to be located in close proximity. While city officials are taking care not to compromise the value of properties or sacrifice the integrity of Salisbury's development, they recognize that multi-use development improves traffic flow, air quality and the quality of life for its citizens.
Ken Geathers , chairman of the local Metropolitan Planning Organization, expressed a sense of urgency that Rowan and Cabarrus officials take steps to improve the area's air quality to prevent the loss of millions of dollars in federal highway funding.
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Environment stocks gain on China's carbon target
Environment-related stocks rose in morning trade Friday on China's firm target to curb greenhouse gas emissions, despite an overall drop at the two main stock exchanges.
The sector rose 0.93 percent on average as of 11:30 a.m., while the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.05 percent to 3,137.65 points and the Shenzhen Component Index slid 1.25 percent to 13,121.24 points.
Fujian Longking Co., a manufacturer of electro filter equipment and flue gas desulfurization equipment, gained 7.18 percent to 31.65 yuan (4.65 U.S. dollars). FeiDa Group Co., producer of air and water cleaning equipment in Zhejiang Province, rose by the daily limit of 10 percent to 16.12 yuan.
The State Council, or the Chinese cabinet, announced Thursday that China was going to reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in 2020 by 40 to 45 percent compared with the level of 2005.
Qin Xiaobin, analyst with the China Galaxy Securities, told Xinhua that the target unveiled yesterday showed the government would intensify efforts on combating climate change and improving energy efficiency.
The pledge promised a long-term and fast growth for the companies in the sector, he said.
Source: Xinhua
Research and Markets: Latin American Pharmaceutical Market Outlook to 2014: Policy Environment, Market Analysis, Forecasts and Growth Opportunities
* Press Release
* Source: Research and Markets
* On 10:00 am EST, Friday November 27, 2009
DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b82621/latin_american_pha) has announced the addition of the "Latin American Pharmaceutical Market Outlook To 2014: Policy Environment, Market Analysis, Forecasts and Growth Opportunities" report to their offering.
The $28.8bn Latin American market delivered 15.3% y-o-y growth in 2008 as per IMS Health data. The market is expected to grow to $51.3bn in 2014 at a CAGR of 10.1%. Inconsistency in regulatory protocol in the seven major Latin American countries - Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru - has been the greatest concern to research based pharmaceutical companies. Several companies faced severe sales erosion due to launch of unauthorized generic versions of their leading brands.
However, the situation has improved considerably ever since these countries became signatories to TRIPS and other international trade treaties. The improved regulatory environment is beckoning pharmaceutical companies of all types including research driven firms as well as generic players to Latin America. Companies that already have registered their presence in the region have raised investments in their local production facilities. They have also increased the number of clinical trials conducted in the region due to progress in regional healthcare standards and resources.
Historically, multinational players have held a majority share of the Latin American market. However, the market share held by domestic companies have continued to grow, while that held by multinational companies is steadily declining. The volume based business model of domestic companies, focused on generics, has proven to be the growth formula for success in Latin America. Considering the domination of generics in the region, multinational drug firms have accelerated their entry into generic business by raising investments in their local production facilities as well as acquiring local players.
The report details therapeutic segmentation of regional markets in light of subtle variations in strategies of major players across countries. Distribution of sales across therapeutic segments in the seven major Latin American countries have been analyzed, highlighting regional differences in brand dynamics, generic incursion suffered by major brands and recent drug launches. Further, the report examines the competitive landscape in the region as well as individual countries, analyzing the interplay of various drivers and resistors."
Key Topics Covered:
Latin American Pharmaceutical Market Outlook to 2014
Chapter 1 Macroeconomics, demographics and health status
Chapter 2 Pharmaceutical regulatory environment
Chapter 3 Therapeutic market analysis
Chapter 4 Competitive landscape
Chapter 5 Appendix
Companies Mentioned:
* Schering-Plough
* Pfizer
* Bayer
* Novartis
* Sanofi-Aventis
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b82621/latin_american_pha
Source: Business Insights
'One step closer to having a pollutant-free environment'
Published: Tuesday, November 24, 2009
By Bob Keeler
Staff Writer
Before there were more modern forms of refrigeration, homes and farms had "root cellars" or "cold cellars" and farmers dug a hole in the milkhouse, then filled it with water into which cans of milk were placed.
A new geothermal unit at Mennonite Heritage Center in Harleysville will use some of the same ideas to heat and cool the building on Yoder Road.
"For Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania, we're going back to the past for technology of the future," said Chris Detweiler, board president.
"Going back into the ground," said Dan Lapp, director of development.
"What the closed loop geothermal system does is it takes heat or cold from the building and it transfers it out into the earth," Detweiler said.
"There are 15 wells, 300 feet deep each," he said. "A circulator pump is really all that you need to make that transfer happen."
The 20-year-old heating and cooling systems in the building were wearing out, Lapp said, and had to be replaced.
Replacing the old ones with the same thing – an electric heat pump system - would have cost about half the price of the $120,000 geothermal project, but the geothermal system is expected to cut the energy costs in half and is an environmentally green system, Detweiler said.
"With the energy savings that we're getting, the system is gonna pay for itself in about eight to 10 years," Detweiler said.
Increasing fuel prices in recent years have decreased the payback time, which in some cases is less than being projected at the Mennonite Heritage Center, according to Chris Landes, of I.T. Landes & Sons, the installing contractor.
His business has installed more than 300 geothermal systems in the past 15 years, Landes said.
Reduced energy costs are just one of the benefits, he said.
"There's no emissions into the air. There's no pollutants and you're self-sustained. No fuel tanks. Nothing to fill. No one to call," Landes said.
More information on geothermal systems is available at www.itlandesgeothermal.com.
"I feel that every geothermal system that we put in is helping the environment and each job is one step closer to having a pollutant-free environment," Landes said.
"That is the significant thing when you think about it," Lapp said. "Some people don't believe in global warming, but whatever you do, you know it can't hurt anything doing this."
Tax credits of 30 percent for homes and 10 percent for businesses are currently available for installing a geothermal system, Landes said.
The historical group is a not for profit organization, so there won't be a tax break, but there are the savings for electricity and in operating costs, Detweiler said.
"The parts are simpler," he said. "It's cheaper to replace the units that are left because it's a simpler technology."
A low-interest state loan from funds designed to encourage green technology will save the center about $10,000 over the next 10 years. The rest of the funding comes from donations.
The wells were dug in four days last week.
"We had great conditions here," Detweiler said. "They did hit some water. No oil, though. We were hoping they would hit some oil and we'd have to stop right there."
There was also some rock, but it was no problem for the well driller.
The total project is expected to take three weeks to complete.
"Recalling Our Landscape: A Memoir in Pictures," a visual celebration of rural life in the region, will be presented 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 28 at Franconia Mennonite Meetinghouse on Route 113.
Historian and writer John Ruth, a Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania board member, will be the speaker.
The program is sponsored by the Mennonite Heritage Center. There is no admission charge, but an offering will be received and matched by the Curtis and Mildred Moyer Family Foundation.
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http://montgomerynews.com/articles/2009/11/28/souderton_independent/news/doc4b0b73998c248250266695.txt
ABCs for conserving fuel, environment
By René Bruemmer, The GazetteNovember 26, 2009
MONTREAL - The Canadian Automobile Association and non-profit group Pollution Probe today announced the release of a new, 109-page primer on how to increase your car's fuel efficiency and reduce emissions, measures that can aid the environment and save drivers significant amounts of money at the same time.
Changes in driving techniques can save drivers as much as 40 per cent in fuel usage and costs, said Jeff Walker of the CAA, and you don't have to shell out cash for a Toyota Prius to do so.
"There are some Canadians who think the only way to really save fuel is to drive a hybrid," Walker said. "Any car can be made more efficient, and if you use our tools, you'll save gas."
Transportation accounts for 25 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and passenger vehicles make up half of that figure. Changes made by everyday drivers could have a major effect on the amount of pollutants spewed into the environment, and save them considerably at the gas pump, Walker said.
Among the tips to cut back on fuel use:
Avoid aggressive driving, jackrabbit starts and stops – possible savings of 38 per cent
- Use cruise control in dry conditions on highways to maintain a constant speed – possible savings of as much as 30 per cent
- Slow down – Studies have shown that cutting your speed from 110 km/h to 90 or 95 km/h can cut fuel use by 20 per cent
- Avoid extra weight – carting around an extra 100 pounds can increase fuel consumption by 2 per cent
- Take off the roof rack when you don't need it – a large load up top could mean you'll get 100 kilometres less on a full tank
- Minimize air conditioning, which can decrease fuel efficiency by 10 to 25 per cent.
- Install a block heater – A cold engine burns 50 per cent more fuel.
The study was launched in Montreal because polls have shown Quebecers are the most concerned about excessive fuel use in Canada, and the most likely to change their habits given the proper guidance.
Interest in fuel efficiency peaked when gas prices soared to $1.50 a litre in the summer of 2008, Walker said. "It wasn't about the environment."
Among the myths about fuel efficiency and driving:
- Newer vehicles are always more efficient than older vehicles.
While newer vehicles produce much less smog-causing air contaminants than older, pre-2004 vehicles, fuel efficiency levels haven't changed much since the mid-1980s - studies have shown the average car built in 2006 is as fuel efficient as those built in 1986
- It's more fuel efficient to use air conditioning on the highway than to leave windows open.
At normal highway speeds, the energy lost to air resistance from open windows is usually much less than the energy required to power your vehicle's air conditioner. Only at speeds well above the posted limit is A/C more efficient. As a general guide, until the noise from the wind becomes too loud to speak over, you're probably saving more fuel by keeping them open.
- Choosing a fuel efficient vehicle means compromising safety
Studies of modern vehicles and highway fatality statistics in the U.S. find no relationship between fuel-efficiency and risk of injury in a collision.
To see the primer online, go to www.caa.ca/primer
http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/ABCs+conserving+fuel+environment/2270188/story.html
Let's try not to repeat the errors of Kyoto at Copenhagen
Canadian forestry industry recognizes climate-change action is crucial
By AVRIM LAZAR, FreelanceNovember 27, 2009
In just a few weeks, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to address climate change. Twelve years ago in Kyoto, the lurking question was whether there was really a need for global action on climate change. Parties reached a deal there that put us on the right path, but we all knew it was deeply flawed. Our mission now, as we start the Copenhagen process, is to avoid the mistakes made in Kyoto.
This time there is no question about the need to act. And this time, the bar needs to be set higher. Simply achieving a "deal" can no longer be the reference point. Instead the reference point has to be a solution that actually works in mitigating the climate-change threat. The test for the next deal has to be its effectiveness.
I joined the Forest Products Association of Canada in 2002 after 25 years in the public service and after leading, for Environment Canada, the development of our government's policy position for Kyoto. That effort, and my subsequent work with Canadian forest-industry leaders on achieving the Kyoto targets, (in fact we surpassed them 10 times over), has forced me to spend a lot of time thinking about what we all need to do better in Copenhagen.
The bottom line is simple: You cannot address climate change with the kind of thinking that created it. Climate change is the result of our failure to see, acknowledge, and act on how things in this world are connected to each other - how our actions affect the environment; how the world is not divided into polluters and innocents, and how there is no safe haven from global environmental issues.
We like to think in safe, comfortable slices but the world works as a system. Much of where Kyoto failed was the result of this type of thinking - focusing on the separate pieces of the puzzle rather than on their interconnectedness.
So looking toward the Copenhagen process, this is what we need:
1. Cumulative global targets and actions that are ambitious enough to seriously affect the climate. Gestures, pilot projects and half-measures have been defended in the past as ways to get things going, and they have. But people need to believe that we are doing something effective if they are to buy into the cost of making real change.
2. Far less emphasis on offsetting emissions and far more emphasis on the deep retooling needed to reduce them. We can't hide the greenhouse gases under the bed - we need to stop emitting them. Of course, offsets help in short run but they distract us from the real work of retooling our industries and infrastructure.
3. Controls and counting regimes that are based on total carbon footprint. The use of massive amounts of fossil fuel to support the production and use of bio-fuel in the U.S. is one example of what happens when you don't measure total carbon footprint.
Also, the movement of production from one country to another might allow one country to claim a reduction in emissions, but that doesn't help the climate.
4. Better integration of other environmental imperatives into the climate program. Biodiversity, air and water quality are severely affected by climate change and in need of protection. Sacrificing them for carbon reasons is to repeat the mistakes of the past.
5. A far more robust acknowledgment that we need to live within nature's cycles rather than trying to reverse-engineer our way out of nature's imperatives.
6. A willingness to deny access to global markets to those who choose to ignore their environmental responsibilities. For example, banning products that caused deforestation or that came from illegally logged forests.
In Canada, the forestry sector realized years ago that it must transform itself to meet the challenges of climate change.
During the past decade, our forest industry - the world's largest exporter of forest products - has reduced its greenhouse-gas emissions from its mills by 60 per cent, removing 8 million tonnes a year from the atmosphere.
By retooling our plants and mills and switching from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, we have learned to live within our natural forests, to do business while preserving biodiversity.
Over the past few years, our industry has seen at close range the dangers of climate change.
Warmer winters have allowed pine beetles normally killed by the cold to multiply. The destruction they have left in Canadian forests has resulted in 25,000 families in this country losing their livelihood.
This is just one problem, in one industry, in one nation. And it is just one reason why we in the forest industry have realized that climate change is not an abstract threat for the future, but today's reality.
We have made much progress but the challenges remain daunting. That is why we are going further in addressing our total carbon footprint by committing to becoming carbon neutral from cradle (the forest), to grave (recycling), without purchasing carbon offsets.
With 300 communities across this country relying on the forest industry and one in 25 Canadians working directly and indirectly in the forestry sector, we realize action on climate change is crucial.
Kyoto accommodated the skeptics, we need Copenhagen to empower the believers.
Avrim Lazar is the president and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/repeat+errors+Kyoto+Copenhagen/2274157/story.html
Op-Ed Contributor
A Growing Disaster
By RUSSELL HARDING
Published: November 28, 2009
Midland, Mich.
THE ethanol industry, once the darling of corn growers, environmentalists and the auto industry, has fallen on hard times. Producers spent this year caught between falling ethanol prices and rising corn costs, causing many to go bankrupt. In response, they are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to increase the amount of ethanol they can blend into gasoline to 15 percent, up from the current 10 percent. Allowing this, however, would only double down on a discredited environmental policy without solving the industry's fundamental economic problem.
That problem is simple: Ethanol prices trend higher and lower along with the price of gasoline, yet the cost of producing ethanol tends to rise with demand, since higher ethanol production exerts upward pressure on the price of corn. In a free market, corn prices might be expected to eventually fall as the market adjusts to increased demand. But because the government heavily promotes ethanol use through subsidies and regulation, the market is continually strained.
The problem is magnified because corn is a water- and fertilizer-intensive crop that requires considerable investment. Worse, since fertilizer is often an oil-based product, the cost of growing corn tends to rise at the very moment ethanol prices, which rise with oil prices, might bring a good return.
The ethanol industry has less incentive to control its costs and diversify its market as long as the federal government guarantees it a place at the pump. Yet Congress's solution to the plight of ethanol suppliers has been to mandate more ethanol use in gasoline. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 mandated that use of renewable transportation fuel rise from nine billion gallons last year to 36 billion gallons in 2022. Although some of this mandate must be met by advanced biofuels from switchgrass and other sources, corn-produced ethanol is the only large-scale alternative fuel currently available to meet Congress's mandate.
The ethanol industry appears to recognize that without government mandates there can be no sustainable market, hence the push for 15 percent ethanol fuel. But we should be wary on several grounds. First, many researchers are convinced that 15 percent ethanol in gasoline will cause problems in small engines in everything from lawnmowers to portable generators and boats. Some car engines will most likely tolerate the higher blend of ethanol, but others — especially those in older vehicles — will require costly repairs, a hardship likely to be borne by lower-income Americans.
Second, if ethanol use was really helping the environment, it might be worth putting up with higher costs. But many environmental groups dropped their support for corn-based ethanol after two studies published by the journal Science last February concluded that ethanol production actually increases the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. The main culprit is large-scale conversion of forest and grassland to corn production. Researchers at Princeton University estimate it would take 167 years of ethanol use in cars to offset the release of carbon from converting lands to agricultural production.
Third, a 2008 report prepared for the World Bank concluded that "the most important factor" in rising global food prices "was the large increase in biofuels production in the U.S. and the E.U." High food prices may be a hardship for American consumers, but they are downright deadly in poor African nations.
Last, Washington already protects American companies with a 54 cent per gallon tariff on sugar cane ethanol from Brazil and other countries that produce it at much lower costs than American farmers can. This tariff not only hits United States motorists in the pocketbook, it also leads to other mischief. An entire industry designed to evade the protectionist tax has cropped up in Trinidad and 23 other Caribbean countries that are exempt from the tariff. Trinidadian companies import sugar cane ethanol from Brazil, dehydrate it to comply with the American tariff exemption on products "substantially transformed" in the Caribbean Basin, and then sell it in America.
Allowing a higher percentage of ethanol in gasoline will not make us less dependent on such foreign energy sources. It will not help the environment. It will not lower consumer prices. And it will result in the poor of the world having less to eat. Instead of raising federal mandates on ethanol, Congress and the Obama administration should end them entirely.
Russell Harding, a former director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, is an environmental policy analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/opinion/28harding.html?em
Bee afraid: vampire to cause havoc in hives
November 28, 2009
A small but deadly mite is heading our way, writes Environment Reporter Ben Cubby.
THERE is a very good reason why the honey produced by Australia's bees is considered to be among the world's cleanest and most delicious.
The country is one of the last in the world to resist the insidious encroachment of the varroa mite, a pinhead-sized insect that has devastated bee populations around the world in the past 30 years.
Australia's sea border and quarantine methods have so far kept the deadly mite away, allowing the nation's apiarists to manage their hives without the armoury of chemical sprays that keep bees in Europe, North America and most other places alive.
Honey in Australia is still the product of bees doing what they do, with a minimum of human interference.
But the latest report from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, reflecting mainstream opinion on the topic, says an outbreak of varroa mites here is ''almost inevitable''.
One strain, known as Varroa destructor, latches on to European honey bees and sucks their blood, weakening bees and spreading viruses and deformities among a colony. The honey bees have no answer to the mites once they enter a colony.
''Bees have been in decline everywhere since varroa got into the population,'' said Dr Denis Anderson, a CSIRO virologist and world expert on bee health.
''In the US, for example, they had about 5 million colonies in 1987 when varroa first got into the population - now they have about 2.5 million and that's with a lot of expensive chemicals being used. It won't destroy the European honey bee completely but until we come up with some way of controlling the mites, bees everywhere are in trouble.''
Dr Anderson has made it his crusade to understand and, if possible, overcome the varroa threat since he began studying the encroachment of Asian honey bees into Irian Jaya in the 1980s. His research led to the recognition of the deadly Varroa destructor strain in 2000.
The mites have now spread further than PNG, and New Zealand's quarantine measures were breached in 2000.
The consequences are not limited to the well-being of bee colonies. In Australia a growing industry is built on bee pollination and transporting mobile hives around the country to pollinate food crops.
Almonds, strawberries, apples, pears, cherries and most citrus fruit crops depend either totally or mainly on bees to pollinate.
''If honey bee pollination were to stop immediately and completely, large losses would be felt in a horticulture sector that provides produce valued at around $3.8 billion per annum,'' the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation report said. ''This is because approximately 65 per cent of horticultural and agricultural crops produced in Australia require pollination services from honey bees.
''There is a widely held view in the Australian scientific community that an incursion of the highly destructive varroa mite, potentially from either New Zealand or Papua New Guinea, is almost inevitable,'' it said.
The bee community in Australia - which manages about 500,000 productive hives - is preparing for the threat.
Bees buzzing around most of Australia's major sea ports also provide a kind of airborne early-warning system. A network of 37 strategically placed hives are maintained by a Federal Government grant and regularly studied for any sign of an outbreak.
''There's no doubt that if the varroa strains ever got in among our bees it would be devastating,'' said Lindsay Bourke, a beekeeper and chair of the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council.
''I'm optimistic that we can keep them out but the whole world has got it except us,'' he said. ''We're about as well prepared for this as we're ever going to be.''
Dr Anderson said the best hope was studying the DNA of the mites and the bees, and looking for a natural immunity that could be encouraged by selective breeding.
Once harmless bug has sting in its tale
THE first reports of varroa mites emerged in Asia at the beginning of last century, when the reddish-brown, millimetre-long parasites were found clinging to the bristles of Asian honey bees. The bugs appeared to be benign.
Sometime in the middle of the 20th century, the mites crossed Siberia, probably as accidental stowaways on a truck or train. In the 1970s a mysterious outbreak of disease among European honey bees had the apiarist community abuzz.
The mites appeared to be the culprit, but they had been able to live as parasites among the bees for years without doing much damage.
The mystery was solved in 2000 when Australian researcher Denis Anderson discovered that a new strain of mite, christened Varroa destructor, was killing the bees. It differed only slightly from the the older mite Varroa jacobsoni, but it was enough to allow the mites to reproduce until they dominated and destroyed colonies.
The story is told in a documentary, Honeybee Blues, to be screened on SBS at 7.30pm on Tuesday, which documents Dr Anderson's quest to develop an answer to the mite threat.
Among the scientific detail, Dr Anderson reveals that he has been stung thousands of times, though he says: ''It's always the first sting of the day that hurts most — the rest are fine!''
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
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