Obama starts climate change forum for big economies Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:49pm EDT

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By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Saturday invited 16 "major economies" including the European Union and the United Nations to take part in a forum on climate change to facilitate a U.N. pact on global warming.

Obama, a Democrat who has taken a more aggressive stance on climate change than his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, invited the group to a preparatory session on April 27 and 28 in Washington.

The White House made clear that Obama’s new initiative would aim to augment U.N. talks that are meant to culminate in an agreement in Copenhagen in December.

"Our goal is to use this forum very much as a key part in how we reach an overall agreement," a senior administration official told Reuters, adding the review was "an important piece of the puzzle of how we get from here to Copenhagen."

The "Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate" has echoes of a similar set of meetings organized by the previous administration.

Bush’s "major economies" initiative drew skepticism from participants, who were wary the process was his administration’s way of circumventing broader U.N. talks to forge an international deal.

The U.S. official said countries around the world had expressed interest in restarting the major economies process because of Obama’s differences from Bush on climate change.

The president, who took office in January, has said he wants the United States to take the lead in global warming talks.

The April meeting, to be hosted at the State Department, would likely touch on a range of issues including technology, financing, and emissions trading, the official said.

POLITICAL WILL

In a statement, the White House said the forum would "help generate the political leadership necessary" to achieve an international pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions later this year.

It said the meeting would spur dialogue among developed and developing countries about the issue, "and advance the exploration of concrete initiatives and joint ventures that increase the supply of clean energy while cutting greenhouse gas emissions."

The major economies include: Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States.

Denmark, which is hosting the U.N. meeting in December to forge a pact that would take over from the Kyoto Protocol, was also invited.

The group’s preparatory sessions are to culminate with a major meeting on the subject in La Maddalena, Italy, in July, hosted by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The Group of Eight rich nations also meets at the same location in Italy in July, and the senior official said the climate summit would take place on the margins of the G8.

The U.S. official said he expected other meetings would take place before July, probably outside of the United States.

Obama’s announcement comes shortly before a fresh round of U.N. climate talks on Sunday. Up to 190 nations are to meet in Bonn, Germany, to work on plugging huge gaps in the international pact, which is slated to be agreed to in Denmark in December.

Obama wants to cut U.S. emissions by roughly 15 percent back to 1990 levels by 2020 — tougher than Bush, who saw U.S. emissions peaking as late as 2025.

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Analysis: Americans wary about war in Afghanistan

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From Bill Schneider
CNN Senior Political Analyst

WASHINGTON (CNN) — How does the American public feel about the war in Afghanistan? In a word, wary.

U.S. forces have been engaged in fierce fighting to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan.

President Obama on Friday announced his strategy to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a plan that includes more troops, new legislation, improved troop training and added civilian expertise.

"The United States of American did not choose to fight a war in Afghanistan. Nearly 3,000 of our people were killed on September 11, 2001," Obama said Friday.

"We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan," he said.

Stressing that "the safety of people around the world is at stake," Obama said the "situation is increasingly perilous" in the region in and around Afghanistan, where the United States has been fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban for more than 7½ years after attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.

Nevertheless, the American public has been wary about the war in Afghanistan, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted in February.

 

Last month, Americans were almost evenly divided between those who support the war and those who oppose it, the poll showed, with 47 percent in favor and 51 percent opposed.

Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is more muted than opposition to the war in Iraq, but it’s not so muted among Democrats. Two-thirds of Americans overall oppose the war in Iraq, but 64 percent of Democrats oppose the war in Afghanistan.

The anti-war movements in Vietnam and Iraq helped define what the Democratic Party stands for.

 

"If we don’t learn from our Iraq experience, we are doomed to repeat it," Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-California, said on the House floor Thursday.

Why are Americans wary about Afghanistan? The recession. Iraq War fatigue. And frustration.

Only 31 percent of Americans believe the United States is winning the war in Afghanistan. Fifty percent believe the United States is winning in Iraq — the highest number in at least five years. But Americans still want to get out of Iraq.

Last month, when President Obama said he would send 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, the public was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Democrats were willing to go along with the president, but they were less enthusiastic than Republicans

A solid majority of Americans believe the United States can win a military victory in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan has become a political war. Winning depends, not just on what the United States can do, but also what Afghanistan and Pakistan can do.

Americans have far less confidence in them.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll surveyed 1,046 adult Americans by telephone on February 18-19, 2009. The sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

HIV/AIDS may be prevented by new lubricant

digg_url = “http://livisun.blogspot.com/2009/03/hivaids-may-be-prevented-by-new.html”;digg_title = “HIV/AIDS may be prevented by new lubricant”;digg_bgcolor = “#FFFFCC”;digg_skin = “normal”;digg_url = undefined;digg_title = undefined;digg_bgcolor = undefined;digg_skin = undefined;

This animation highlights the groundbreaking HIV/AIDS prevention research discovered at the University of Minnesota.
Researchers have identified a compound that, applied vaginally, can prevent transmission of the primate version of HIV. While its not a cure and the compound still must go through human clinical trials before it used to prevent HIV the research is a huge step toward prevention of the devastating disease that impacts 33 million people around the globe.

Hackers Go After Pirate Bay Investigator

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Written by Ernesto on March 27, 2009 

A police IT forensics specialist has had some of his personal details leak via The Pirate Bay. Jim Keyzer, who led the investigation into the popular tracker, has just discovered that his girlfriend’s email account was compromised by hackers, who obtained several passwords and other personal documents.

The torrent, titled “Where did the money come from?” exposes some of the policeman’s passwords and account details, including some documents relating to a house he recently bought. The title hints at Keyzer’s short employment at Warner Bros. while he was working on the police investigation, but this implied link seems a little tenuous.

According to the release info the documents were released by the ‘Keyzer Defender’ and were obtained from Keyzer’s girlfriend’s Hotmail account. “These attachments are taken from mails in the Hotmail account belonging to Jim Keyzer’s girlfriend. Also included are login credentials and some of Jim’s passwords,” it reads.

Keyzer has contacted the Pirate Bay team and said that he found it unfortunate that his girlfriend was hacked because of his involvement with The Pirate Bay case. He did not ask for the torrent to be removed, which shows that he learned at least one thing during the investigation.

Release Notes.

Keyzer became the subject of some controversy when he started working for Warner Bros. before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed. After a short stay at the movie company Keyzer terminated his leave of absence, and returned to the IT Crime Unit in Stockholm.

The Pirate Bay crew were not amused by Keyzer’s dual role, and filed a complaint with the police. The police looked into the case briefly but decided not to investigate it because there was “no reason to believe that a crime has been committed by anyone employed by the police.”

During the Pirate Bay trial Keyzer inexplicably disappeared but now weeks later, his girlfriend appears to have been dragged into the dispute. The Pirate Bay certainly provokes a certain passion in their fanbase, and some are clearly prepared to go to extreme lengths to show that their beloved site is not to be messed with.

Online TV Shows by Ustream

Gerri Martin-Flickinger, CIO of Adobe, thinks that in the future Rich Internet Applications are going to have many uses, separate from the browser. For example, users will be able to customise their application interface, and the RIAs will provide visibility into back office applications.

Pupils to study Twitter and blogs in primary schools shake-up

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from :http://www.guardian.co.uk/ 

Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war under proposals to overhaul the primary school curriculum, the Guardian has learned.

However, the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes.

The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.

It emphasises traditional areas of learning – including phonics, the chronology of history and mental arithmetic – but includes more modern media and web-based skills as well as a greater focus on environmental education.

The plans have been drawn up by Sir Jim Rose, the former Ofsted chief who was appointed by ministers to overhaul the primary school curriculum, and are due to be published next month.

The papers seen by the Guardian are draft plans for the detailed content of each of six core "learning areas" that Rose is proposing should replace the current 13 standalone subject areas.

The proposals would require:

• Children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain "fluency" in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker alongside how to spell.

• Children to be able to place historical events within a chronology. "By the end of the primary phase, children should have gained an overview which enables them to place the periods, events and changes they have studied within a chronological framework, and to understand some of the links between them." Every child would learn two key periods of British history but it would be up to the school to decide which ones. Schools would still be able to opt to teach Victorian history or the second world war, but they would not be required to. The move is designed to prevent duplication with the secondary curriculum, which covers the second world war extensively.

• Less emphasis on the use of calculators than in the current curriculum.

• An understanding of physical development, health and wellbeing programme, which would address what Rose calls "deep societal concerns" about children’s health, diet and physical activity, as well as their relationships with family and friends. They will be taught about peer pressure, how to deal with bullying and how to negotiate in their relationships.

The six core areas are: understanding English, communication and languages, mathematical understanding, scientific and technological understanding, human, social and environmental understanding, understanding physical health and wellbeing, and understanding arts and design.

John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said: "It seems to jump on the latest trends such as Wikipedia and Twitter. Then it has very traditional descriptions of chronological teaching of history. It seems to be about trends on the one hand, then political pressure on the other hand – the government didn’t want to look like it is scrapping traditional education. Computer skills and keyboard skills seem to be as important as handwriting in this. Traditional books and written texts are downplayed in response to web-based learning."

Teresa Cremin, president of the United Kingdom Literacy Association, said: "We are very pleased to see a higher profile given to oracy but we are concerned that there seems to be no drama in the upper primary years linked to literacy. But our main concern is that there is no emphasis on reading for pleasure or the enjoyment of literacy."

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "They are much more sensible programmes of study. We are pleased they give the profession much more flexibility to meet the needs of their pupils. Children need to be enthused by learning, so they want to learn and gain the skills which will enable them to learn in later life. The debate is not about whether the Victorians are in there or not."

The leak led to a row when it emerged unions had been excluded from the consultation about what should be included, and subject specialists were given only three days to respond. Bousted said: "It’s entirely unacceptable that it hasn’t come to the teaching unions. Our members have to teach this. We’ve responded at all other stages of consultation. I don’t know why we have been missed out now."

The Department for Children, Schools and Families, which initially refused to comment on the leaked report, issued a statement last night setting out its "general position" on history in primary schools. "Of course pupils in primary school will learn about major periods including the Romans, the Tudors and the Victorians and will be taught to understand a broad chronology of major events in this country and the wider world," it said.

Eco-Friendly Van Meets All-in-One Mobile Home | dornob

Eco-Friendly Van Meets All-in-One Mobile Home | dornob

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Tonga volcano spews spectacular plume into South Pacific sky: Scientific American Blog

Tonga volcano spews spectacular plume into South Pacific sky: Scientific American Blog

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