BRUSSELS, Belgium — European leaders agreed Friday to stick to an ambitious plan to fight global warming through emissions cuts and renewable energy, and on ways to share the hefty costs of setting a global example.

The plan includes concessions to heavy industry and countries in Eastern Europe worried that the cost of curbing pollution would impede economic growth. The expense of the plan had caused uproar among many countries as the continent grapples with economic downturn. The plan, agreed at an EU summit, lays out how the 27 member countries will cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the bloc's rotating leadership, called the agreement historic and urged global partners to follow Europe's example at U.N. climate change talks in Poznan, Poland. The French president says the 27-nation bloc has "now delivered" and it was "now the time" for others, including the United States and China, to follow suit. "People will not follow Europe unless we set the example," he said.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the plans "the most ambitious proposals anywhere in the world."

The Iraq War is over and "Apparently, the US lost"
from Pogge.ca via Counterpunch
"First there was their inability in the end to force the Iraqi government to hand over the oil. Now there’s the new SOFA, or Status of Forces Agreement.

the 150,000 American troops in Iraq will withdraw from cities, towns and villages by June 30, 2009 and from all of Iraq by December 31, 2011. The Iraqi government will take over military responsibility for the Green Zone in Baghdad, the heart of American power in Iraq, in a few weeks time. Private security companies will lose their legal immunity. US military operations and the arrest of Iraqis will only be carried out with Iraqi consent. There will be no US military bases left behind when the last US troops leave in three years time and the US military is banned in the interim from carrying out attacks on other countries from Iraq.

The agreement turns on their head all the key provisions that the US had put in the draft they recommended. The Americans are being kicked out. It’s a measure of how unwelcome this agreement is to the United States that they have not even translated it into English, the better to sweep it under the carpet.

Let’s put it this way: Iran has said publicly that they approve of the agreement.

Poorest need $1 bln for urgent climate projects
Wed 10 Dec 2008, 18:02 GMT
[-] Text [+]

By Megan Rowling

POZNAN, Poland, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Rich nations will be asked to contribute $1 billion to a fund to help the poorest countries implement urgent projects to adapt to climate change, a top official said on Wednesday.

Boni Biagini, who runs the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) which was set up under U.N. auspices in 2001, said funds would be raised based on an evaluation of plans from 38 of the world's poorest countries.

"They are pretty satisfied about this amount. They say $2 billion would be better, but let's start with $1 billion at least and of course scale up," she told Reuters on the sidelines of U.N. climate change talks in Poznan, Poland.

Ten more countries are still preparing programmes of action to adapt to the impacts of global warming.

The LDCF was established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and is managed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a major international funder of environmental projects.

So far, rich countries have pledged only $172 million to the fund, with Germany, Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands contributing the most.

The United States has yet to give any money, but Biagini said she hoped that would change under the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

"It is the largest economy in the world and this is a fund for the poor ... so I am making my plea to the United States of America to give a contribution to the poor," she said.

Biagini said the United States had declined to contribute in the past, arguing incorrectly that the fund was part of the Kyoto Protocol, which it has not ratified.

Saleemul Huq, an adaptation expert at the International Institute for Environment and Development, said Washington could donate because the fund was part of the UNFCCC, of which the United States is a member country.

International Group seeks nuclear weapons ban
By Gordon Corera BBC security correspondent, Paris

A group of international dignitaries have launched a new campaign in Paris to eliminate nuclear weapons. Global Zero consists of 100 leading figures seeking practical steps towards nuclear abolition and gaining public support for that goal.

They say the risk of nuclear weapons spreading to unstable countries or getting into the hands of extremist groups is too great. The group will hold meetings in Moscow and Washington in the coming days.

In the past, talk of nuclear disarmament was confined to the margins of political debate, but now a chorus of national security officials past and present have joined calls for multi-lateral disarmament.

In the US, the debate was kick-started by a joint call for "getting to zero" from a group of veterans of the Cold War, including Henry Kissinger and George Schultz.

Global Zero's aim is to translate this stance to the international arena and into public debate.

Signatories for Global Zero include former US President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, businessman Sir Richard Branson, Ehsan Ul-Haq, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Pakistan, and Brajesh Mishra, former Indian National Security Advisor.

Motivating those who attended was a sense that this is a moment pregnant with both possibilities and dangers.

Possibilities because of new leadership in the US which appears to support the goal of nuclear abolition but dangers because of the fear that if this moment passes without action then the nuclear race could quickly gather pace with many more countries acquiring weapons and the risk increasing that weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists.

"It's not about idealism, it is about public safety and security," said former British Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind who attended the conference. "If there's to be disarmament, it has to be multilateral," he added.

A key aim is to build public support for the issue in the way that activists have helped put climate change on the agenda.

Polling of 21 countries for Global Zero found an average of 76% of the population favouring an agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons within a timetabled agreement.

But members of Global Zero emphasise the need for more public information, particularly to educate the post-Cold War generation for whom the dangers of nuclear weapons may be more remote.

"We have to work on de-legitimising the status of nuclear weapons," Queen Noor of Jordan told the BBC.

The conference began on Monday with a presentation on what would happen to Paris in the event of a nuclear detonation before moving towards a discussion of what "Getting to Zero" would mean in practical steps, for instance the need for an intrusive system of inspections to ensure no country was evading its obligations.

"That process needs to start with American and Russian leadership," argued Richard Burt who was Washington's Chief Negotiator in the START talks in the early 1990s between the two countries and who chaired the press conference in one of Paris's ornate hotels.

The Global Zero group believes that reducing the still large US and Russian stockpiles - which make up 96% of all the nuclear weapons in the world - should be amongst the first steps which in turn can then draw in third parties and other nuclear powers into a wider and deeper process.

Olmert condemns settler 'pogrom'

Outgoing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has compared the violence used by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in Hebron to bygone anti-Semitism in Europe.

He told Cabinet he was ashamed by recent scenes in the West Bank city, which he said amounted to a pogrom.

The settlers shot and wounded three Palestinians and set fire to property after Israeli security forces evicted a Jewish group from a disputed building.

Correspondents say Mr Olmert's use of "pogrom" has particular resonance.

It is usually associated with the anti-Semitic violence Jewish people experienced in Europe and Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries.

"As a Jew, I was ashamed at the scenes of Jews opening fire at innocent Arabs in Hebron. There is no other definition than the term 'pogrom' to describe what I have seen," he told Cabinet members, according to public radio.

"We are the sons of a nation who know what is meant by a pogrom, and I am using the word only after deep reflection."

Video from an Israeli human rights group showed two settlers shooting Palestinian rock-throwers on Thursday.

About 600 Jewish settlers live in the city, with several thousand more in surrounding settlements.

It is not the first time Mr Olmert has used the word to condemn Jewish settlers - in October he described a rampage through a Palestinian village in the West Bank as a pogrom.
Story from BBC NEWS:

African criticism of the situation in Zimbabwe, and Mr Mugabe, is growing.
The telegraph

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe must step down or be removed by force for "destroying a beautiful country".
By Sebastien Berger and Peta Thornycroft in Harare

"I think now that the world must say: 'You have been responsible with your cohorts for gross violations, and you are going to face indictment in The Hague unless you step down'," Mr Tutu told Dutch current affairs TV programme Nova.

Asked if Mr Mugabe, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, should be removed by force, he said: "Yes, by force - if they say to him: step down, and he refuses, they must do so militarily."

Mr Tutu, a Nobel peace prize winner who was one of the continent's leading voices against the former apartheid regime in South Africa, said the African Union or the Southern African Development Community (SADC) would have the capacity to remove Mr Mugabe, 84.

Kenya's prime minister Raila Odinga, called for the continent to take action. “It’s time for African governments to take decisive action to push him out of power,” he told the BBC.

Mr Odinga is widely believed to have won last year's Kenyan presidential election but settled for a power-sharing deal himself after his rival was declared the victor and violence broke out. He has since become one of Africa's most vocal supporters of democracy and a hardened critic of Mr Mugabe...

In South Africa the government said it was obliged to help the humanitarian crisis.
"There are very clear signs people are beginning to die of starvation,” said its spokesman Themba Maseko. “South Africa and SADC (the Southern African Development Community) can’t just fold our arms.”

Kenya PM calls for Mugabe removal (BBC)

Power-sharing in Zimbabwe is dead and it is time for African governments to oust President Robert Mugabe, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said.

After talks with Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Nairobi, Mr Odinga told the BBC that Mr Mugabe had no interest in sharing power.

Zimbabwe has been in political deadlock over a unity coalition government deal, following disputed polls this year.It is also in the grip of a cholera outbreak that has claimed 565 lives.

State media meanwhile reported the arrest of 10 soldiers who allegedly ran amok ithe capital Harare on Monday because a bank had no money to pay their wages. Six other soldiers accused of looting last week had also been held.

"Power-sharing is dead in Zimbabwe and will not work with a dictator who does not really believe in power-sharing," Mr Odinga told the BBC.

The BBC's Karen Allen in Nairobi says the Kenya prime minister had also held talks with Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa's ruling African National Congress party.

Mr Zuma declared a new alliance between his party and the Kenyan leader, designed to elevate the Zimbabwe issue, she says.

Mr Odinga said that if Mr Mugabe were isolated, he would have no choice but to quit. "Therefore it's time for African governments to take decisive action to push him out of power."

Nations sign cluster-bomb ban, US and Russia refuse
DOUG MELLGREN AP News

Nations began signing a treaty banning cluster bombs Wednesday in a move that supporters hope will shame the U.S., Russia and China and other non-signers into abandoning weapons blamed for maiming and killing civilians.

Norway, which began the drive to ban cluster bombs 18 months ago, was to be first to sign, followed by Laos and Lebanon, both hard-hit by the weapons.

Organizers said 88 countries were expected to sign on Wednesday and around 100 out of the world's 192 U.N. member nations will have signed by Thursday.

Cluster bomblets are packed by the hundreds into artillery shells, bombs or missiles that scatter them over vast areas. Some fail to explode immediately. The unexploded bomblets can then lie dormant for years until they are disturbed, often by children attracted by their small size and bright colors.

"Banning cluster bombs took too long. Too many people lost arms and legs," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said as he opened the conference.

Washington, Moscow and other non-signers say cluster bombs have legitimate military uses such as repelling advancing troop columns. But according to the group Handicap International, 98 percent of cluster-bomb victims are civilians, and 27 percent are children.

The Bush administration has said that a comprehensive ban would hurt world security and endanger U.S. military cooperation on humanitarian work with countries that sign the accord.

Activists said ahead of the signing that they hope the treaty will nonetheless shame non-signers into shelving the weapons, as many did with land mines after a 1997 treaty banning them.

"Once you get half the world on board, its hard to ignore a ban," said Australian anti-cluster bomb campaigner Daniel Barty. "One of the things that really worked well with the land-mine treaty was stigmatization. No one really uses land mines," he said.

The anti-cluster bomb campaign gathered momentum after Israel's monthlong war against Hezbollah in 2006, when it scattered up to 4 million bomblets across Lebanon, according to U.N. figures.

"In southern Lebanon, for more than two years, children and the elderly have been victimized (by cluster munitions)," Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Saloukh said.

Norway called a conference to ban cluster bombs in February 2007. In May, more than 100 countries agreed to ban cluster bombs within eight years. The treaty must be ratified by 30 countries before it takes effect.

"I think it's awesome that 100 countries are coming to Oslo to sign (the new cluster bomb treaty)," said American Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to ban land mines.

See: stopclustermunitions.org