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World on course for catastrophic 6 degree C rise, reveal scientists

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Steve Connor, Michael McCarthy - Nov. 18 (News Report) - The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. Such a rise – which would be much higher nearer the poles – would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation.

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Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - In the mosques across the city, I hear a fringe of young men talk dreamily of flocking to Afghanistan to "resist". Yet this whisper never has an immigrant accent. It shares my pronunciations, my cultural references, and my national anthem. Beneath the beards and the burqas, there is an English voice.

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Accept the facts – and end this futile 'war on drugs'

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - The prohibitionists are – from the best intentions and the highest motives – unleashing a catastrophe. Human beings have been finding ways to get stoned or high since we lived in caves. In our attempt to end this natural impulse, we have created a problem worse than drug use itself.

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We broke the law, admits CIA agent convicted of rendition

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By David Usborne - Nov. 06 (News Report) - In an interview earlier this year with an Italian newspaper, Mr Lady was candid about the seizure of the cleric. "Of course it was an illegal operation," the newspaper quoted him. "But that's our job. We're at war against terrorism".

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Britain rules out climate treaty at summit

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Michael McCarthy - Nov. 06 (News Report) - Although there are various stumbling blocks, there is no doubt that the continued lack of a serious American offer on cutting its greenhouse gas emissions and providing climate finance for the developing nations – the bill which might provide them is stuck in the US Senate – is the principle obstacle to progress. "Copenhagen is one of the most important meetings in human history. But the politicians seem determined to blow it," said Joss Garman, climate campaigner for Greenpeace.

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America is performing its familiar role of propping up a dictator

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

rawa.org - By Robert Fisk - Nov. 04 (Opinion) - it's part of a dreary pattern. US forces were participating in a civil war in Vietnam while claiming they were supporting democracy and the sovereignty of the country. In Lebanon in 1982, they claimed to be supporting the "democratically" elected President Amin Gemayel and took the Christian Maronite side in the civil war. And now, after Disneyworld elections, they are on the Karzai-government side against the Pashtun villagers of southern Afghanistan among whom the Taliban live.

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Oscar-winning director: why I'm leaving Scientology

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Guy Adams - Oct. 27 (News Report) - Haggis, who wrote Crash, Million Dollar Baby, and the last two James Bond films also registered his anger at the church's alleged "disconnection" policy, complaining that it encouraged his wife to live estranged from her parents. His letter was sent to Scientology's official spokesman, Tommy Davis, in August. But it leaked to the Hollywood press this weekend, bringing further tricky publicity to the already-embattled organisation.

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Caught in the crossfire of war against the Taliban

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Oct. 23 (News Report) - Gul Hassan is incandescent with rage. As the Pakistan military mounted its most ambitious anti-Taliban offensive yet, the farmer and his family were not ready. "Bombs were falling all around us," he recalls, gesturing animatedly. "We were very scared. We didn't know what was going to happen to us."

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From North Carolina, a model of how to transform education

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Oct. 16 (News Analysis) - In small numbers, in an ordered environment, these poor children can quickly be brought up to the level of the rest, and indeed exceed them in many cases. But when they form the majority of a school's pupils, the teachers can't cope, discipline breaks down, and learning stops. A school for poor children soon becomes a poor school.

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Decline of a tribe: and then there were five

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By The Huffington Post News Editors - Oct. 12 (News Report) - They are the last survivors: all that's left of a once-vibrant civilisation which created its own religion and language, and gave special names to everything from the creatures of the rainforest to the stars of the night sky. Just five people represent the entire remaining population of the Akuntsu, an ancient Amazonian tribe which a generation ago boasted several hundred members, but has been destroyed by a tragic mixture of hostility and neglect.

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We must stop the 'vulture funds' that feed on the world's poor

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Sep. 18 (Opinion) - Would you ever march up to a destitute African who is shivering with Aids and demand he "pay back" tens of thousands of pounds he didn't borrow – with interest? I only ask because this is in effect happening, here, in British and American courts, time after time. Some of the richest people in the world are making profit margins of 500 per cent by shaking money out of the poorest people in the world – for debt they did not incur.

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No quick fix when it comes to training the Afghan army

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Kim Sengupta - Aug. 17 (Opinion) - The training of the Afghan security forces is a key element in the West's exit strategy from Afghanistan and there is considerable focus on whether this is actually being achieved

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Millions Of Afghan Women Will Be Denied Vote Due To Female Staff Shortage

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Jerome Starkey, Kim Sengupta - Aug. 17 (News Report) - Millions of Afghan women will be denied their chance to vote in presidential elections this week because there aren't enough female officials to staff the women-only polling stations. A desperate shortage of female staff is threatening to undermine the legitimacy of the elections, which are the pinnacle of western-led efforts to build a peaceful democracy. Strict cultural norms mean women can’t vote in male-run stations. Women’s activists said the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which is organising the polls, still needs to recruit 13,000 women before Thursday’s elections.

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Mr Obama fights back

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Aug. 13 (Opinion) - Mr Obama is fighting back doughtily, as he must. It would be tragic if the reform agenda of a President whose election showed America at its open-hearted best should be derailed so soon by arguments that epitomise America at its selfish worst.

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UK output continues to decline as recession ends in France and Germany

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Aug. 13 (Editorial) - David Buik of BGC Partners said Germany and France would recover more quickly because of their prowess in exporting - contrasting with the UK's emphasis on services and banking. "If one ignores manufacturing output and industrial production ... financial chickens come home to roost," he said.

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Wish you weren't here: The devastating effects of the new colonialists

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Aug. 08 (Special Report) - A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, says Paul Vallely, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs.

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Are wind farms a health risk? US scientist identifies 'wind turbine syndrome'

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Margareta Pagano - Aug. 02 (News Report) - Living too close to wind turbines can cause heart disease, tinnitus, vertigo, panic attacks, migraines and sleep deprivation, according to groundbreaking research to be published later this year by an American doctor. Dr Nina Pierpont, a leading New York paediatrician, has been studying the symptoms displayed by people living near wind turbines in the US, the UK, Italy, Ireland and Canada for more than five years. Her findings have led her to confirm what she has identified as a new health risk, wind turbine syndrome (WTS). This is the disruption or abnormal stimulation of the inner ear's vestibular system by turbine infrasound and low-frequency noise, the most distinctive feature of which is a group of symptoms which she calls visceral vibratory vestibular disturbance, or VVVD. They cause problems ranging from internal pulsation, quivering, nervousness, fear, a compulsion to flee, chest tightness and tachycardia – increased heart rate. Turbine noise can also trigger nightmares and other disorders in children as well as harm cognitive development in the young, she claims. However, Dr Pierpont also makes it clear that not all people living close to turbines are susceptible.

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'Children are tools to achieve God's will,' the Taliban commander told me

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy - Jul. 29 (Opinion) - Hazrat Ali longs for the day when his turn will come to be a suicide bomber. "There are thousands of us. The Taliban now have the power to defeat the army." Qari Abdullah, a Taliban commander in charge of child recruitment, told me children are an essential element of Jihad. "If you're fighting, then God provides you with the means [to win]. Kids themselves are tools to achieve God's will. And whatever comes your way, you sacrifice it." Children as young as five and six years old are being recruited from poor families, he said. "The kids want to join us because they like our weapons."

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Johann Hari: We've forgotten the force which really drives political change - Johann Hari, Commentators

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Jul. 29 (Comment) - Far from being some dreamy call to kumbaya, collective political action is the single biggest reason your life is incalculably better than that of your great-grandparents. When people first called for equality for women, when people first started to conduct scientific experiments, when people first suggested paid weekends and holidays for ordinary workers, they were greeted by the same glib pessimism we hear today. It'll never happen! What can we do? But ordinary people who believed they were necessary gathered together. They spoke and argued and marched and lobbied in their defence – and they won.

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Did leak from a laboratory cause swine flu pandemic?

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Steve Connor - Jun. 30 (Special Report) - It has swept across the world killing at least 300 people and infecting thousands more. Yet the swine flu pandemic might not have happened had it not been for the accidental release of the same strain of influenza virus from a research laboratory in the late 1970s, according to a new study.

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Now Mousavi's family feels force of crackdown

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Kim Sengupta - Jun. 25 (News Report) - There were fears last night that the wife of Iran's opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi had been arrested after a defiant statement that protesters should not buckle despite being in a situation she likened to martial law.

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Oil boom threatens the last orang-utans

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - Jun. 23 (Special Report) - A famous British company, Jardines, is profiting as the lowland forest – which shelters the few remaining orang-utans – is razed to make way for massive palm oil plantations, reports Kathy Marks in Tripa, Indonesia

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Battle for the Islamic Republic

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Robert Fisk - Jun. 21 (News Analysis) - Now that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has placed himself shoulder to shoulder with his officially elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the very existence of the Islamic regime may now be questioned openly in a nation ever more divided between reformists and those who insist on maintaining the integrity of the 1979 revolution. Had Khamenei chosen a middle ground, some small compromises towards the countless millions – for in the election, it appears, they were indeed uncounted – who oppose Ahmadinejad, then he might have remained a neutral father-figure. Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters had religiously – in the most literal sense of the word – refused to criticise the Supreme Leader or the existence of the Islamic Republic during last week's street demonstrations

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In Tehran, fantasy and reality make uneasy bedfellows

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Robert Fisk - Jun. 20 (Opinion) - Fantasy and reality make uneasy bedfellows, but once they are combined and spread with high-speed inaccuracy around the world, they are also lethal. Sham elections, the takeover of party offices, a massacre on a university campus, an imminent coup d'état, the possible overthrow of the whole 30-year old Islamic Republic, the isolation of an entire country as its communications are systematically shut down.

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The dead of Iran are mourned – but the fight goes on

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Robert Fisk - Jun. 19 (Opinion) - "President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and the quotation marks are becoming ever more appropriate in Iran today – is in real trouble. There are now three separate official inquiries into his supposed election victory and the violence which followed, while conservative Iranian MPs fought each other with their fists at a private meeting behind the assembly chamber, after Ahmadinejad's members objected to an official's reference to the "dignity" with which the opposition leader, Mirhossein Mousavi, answered parliamentary questions. Those close to the man who still believes he is the President of Iran say that he is himself deeply troubled – even traumatised – by the massive demonstrations against him across the country.

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