Category: World News & Politics

Kyoto Accord Takes Effect

After years of delays, the Kyoto global warming pact is now in effect, requiring dozens of industrial nations to reduce emissions of “greenhouse” gases believed linked to climate change.

The agreement, negotiated in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997 and ratified by 140 nations, calls on 35 industrialized countries to rein in the release of carbon dioxide and five other gases from the burning of oil and coal and other processes.

Its impact, however, will be limited by the absence of the United States, the world’s leader in greenhouse gas emissions. Australia has also rejected the plan.

Of course the US government wants out of this accord.
How else would they burn all the oil they’ll be getting out of Iraq?!

[Source: CNN]
[Via: AquaCool]

The Future of Al-Jazeera

Al-Jazeera, the Arab news TV channel that emerged back in 1996 as the only bastion of free press in an authoritarian Middle East, is now approaching an important crossroads in it’s life.

Al-Jazeera has been a government owned and funded station ever since it’s creation. Qatar spends roughly $100 million a year in funds for the TV station, and even though it generates other revenue from advertisements, sponsorships, program sales and subscriptions in Europe and North America, it still remains a losing enterprise.

So lately, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (Emir of Qatar), ordered the government to produce a privatization plan for the channel, which has pushed many people to wonder about who will buy it, and what the station will look like in the future.

The main concern is that whoever takes over control of the channel could change the editorial policy and bring to an end the freedom of press that is enjoyed in it’s newsroom today.

I think this is very important and critical. Al-Jazeera launched a revolution in the Arab media market, uncovering the facts and telling the news from all sides of the story, breaking out of the mold of state controlled media in the Arab world.
It was an eye opener for a lot of people and for it to be stripped of it’s freedom is such a great loss.

Al-Jazeera has plans to launch an English language news channel this year, which I think is a great and very necessary project to show the world a side of the news that they don’t usually see.

I truly hope that the future is a very bright one for the channel and that it goes from success to even greater success.

Rafik Al-Hariri Killed in Bomb Attack

In what has been described as the biggest blast since the dark days of the Lebanese civil war…

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri has been killed in an apparent large-scale bomb attack on his motorcade in Beirut, a bodyguard and officials at the American University of Beirut hospital told CNN.

Hariri, 60, a multi-billionaire businessman who resigned from government last October, recently joined calls by the opposition for Syria to quit Lebanon in the run-up to general elections in May, Reuters reported.

Hariri served as prime minister from 1992-98 and again from 2000 until his resignation after parliament amended the Lebanese constitution to extend Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud’s term by three years. Lahoud had been set to leave office last November.

[Source: CNN]

It’s really a shame for something like this to happen and break the peace.

I am no expert in Lebanese affairs, but from what I do know, i believe Rafik Al-Hariri did a lot of great things for Lebanon and it’s economy.
I think his death is a really big loss for the country.

May his soul rest in peace…

Israel Plans Big Jerusalem Land Grab

The Sharon government intends to strip thousands of West Bank Palestinians of their property in occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli press quoting newly released government documents.

At stake are thousands of donoms of land belonging to Palestinians who live in the West Bank and are now unable to access their land due to Israel’s separation barrier.

By some estimates, the total land to be expropriated could add up to half of all East Jerusalem property.

[Via: Al Jazeera]

And who’ll be raising a finger as Israel steals these people’s properties and strips them of their land in yet another abuse of their rights? Absolutely nobody!

And then you hear talk of a fair peace process!
How can peace ever be possible when the world is biased and supports a terrorist state like Israel in all the atrocities it commits against the Palestinian people?!

Big Lies

“The great masses of the people … more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads and they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others … Therefore, something of even the most insolent lie will always remain and stick — a fact which all the great lie-virtuosi and lying-clubs in this world know only too well and also make the most treacherous use of.”

Adolph Hitler
Mein Kampf
1925

It seems Bush has been taking a few lessons from Adolf Hitler’s book.

[More: Billmon]

Iraq Was Free of WMDs

The White House has confirmed that the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has been given up by the United States.

Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost the lives of more than 15,000 Iraqis and over 1000 US soldiers, the US’ top weapons inspector has declared that Iraq was free of WMDs before last year’s invasion.

So there you go, as everyone already knew, over 16,000 lost lives for nothing!
Oh of course, we’ll be hearing all that talk about the removal of Saddam Hussein from power being for the good of the whole world, but try telling that to the families of the people who died in this war!
Was the removal of one man worth all those lost lives?
Is Iraq any better now than when Saddam was in power?
Is the world any safer now than before the war?
I honestly don’t think so!

[News Source: Al Jazeera]