Politics

guardian.co.uk - Suzanne Goldenburg - August 1st, 2012

Drought, wildfires, hurricanes and heatwaves are becoming normal in America because of climate change, Congress was told on Wednesday in the first hearing on climate science in more than two years.

In a predictably contentious hearing, the Senate's environment and public works committee heard from a lead scientist for the UN's climate body, the IPCC, on the growing evidence linking extreme weather and climate change.

"It is critical to understand that the link between climate change and the kinds of extremes that lead to disaster is clear," Christopher Field, a lead author of the IPCC report and director of global ecology at the Carnegie Institute for Science, said in testimony.

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cfr.org - Laurie Garrett - July 18th, 2012

Last year the CIA deployed a Pakistani physician to execute a phony hepatitis vaccine campaign in Abbottabad, hoping to extract blood samples from the children living inside a compound, thought to house Osama bin Laden and his family. Because of the vaccine deception, multiple imams and Taliban leaders have declared that vaccines are CIA plots. The ruse may also be responsible for what appears to have been an assassination attempt against a World Health Organization immunization convoy that injured two people on July 17.

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by The Associated Press - The New York Times - February 21, 2012

The election authorities in Myanmar lifted restrictions on political campaigning Monday in an unusually swift response to complaints from the party of the pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The party, the National League for Democracy, had said that the restrictions risked making coming by-elections unfair. The election commission’s decision was unusually quick in a country where a nominally civilian government took office just a year ago after a half-century of military rule.

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submitted by Bob Cooper

by Nicholas Bariyo - The Wall Street Journal - February 8, 2012

KAMPALA Uganda—Rebels in oil-rich Sudan on Tuesday released 29 Chinese workers, capping a hostage drama that exposed the risks of China's investments in the conflict-prone African region.

In a statement, Sudan's Foreign Ministry said that the Chinese captives were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross early Tuesday and eventually flown to Nairobi, where they were taken to China's Embassy in Kenya.

China's Foreign Ministry described the 29 as being in good physical health "and stable mood," according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

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