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Saturday, December 31, 2011
The Sad Story of a Real Life R2-D2 Who Saved Countless Human Lives and Died [Bots Of War]
Friday, December 30, 2011
2011 'second warmest' year in UK
30 December 2011
Last updated at 14:21 ET
This year was the second warmest on record for the UK, the Met Office says.
Provisional figures show that only 2006, with an average temperature of 9.73C (49.5F), was warmer than 2011's average temperature of 9.62C (49.3F).
This year saw high temperatures for lengthy periods; including the warmest April and spring on record, the second warmest autumn and the warmest October day.
Early figures suggest 2011 is ending with a "close to average" December.
The Met Office said its figures were a mean temperature taken over day and night.
'Unseasonably warm'The mean temperature for the first 28 days of December was 4.7C (40.5F); a big swing from 2010, says the Met Office, when temperatures were 5C below average for the coldest December on record.
Continue reading the main storyAnalysis
The warmth of 2011 certainly catches the attention, especially as it contrasts with the bitterly cold end to 2010, but equally notable are the huge variations in rainfall across the UK.
Scotland notched up quite an achievement with its wettest year on record. However, this fact stands out even more when you consider parts of England have been exceptionally dry.
East Anglia has had its second driest year on record and it has been the third driest in the Midlands.
The reason for the uneven distribution of rainfall can be found in some prolonged periods when the weather pattern across the north-west of Europe was blocked, that is to say stayed the same for several weeks.
High pressure kept much of England relatively dry with rain-bearing Atlantic weather systems deflected north, resulting in the exceptionally wet year in Scotland.
The BBC weather centre is predicting another "very mild" day for New Year's Eve with highs of 13C (55F). Forecasters say it will be mostly cloudy and windy, with perhaps a few brighter spells in the north and east of the UK and the odd outbreak of mainly light rain or drizzle.
John Prior, national climate manager at the Met Office, said: "While it may have felt mild for many so far this December, temperatures overall have been close to what we would expect.
"It may be that the stark change from last year, which was the coldest December on record for the UK, has led many to think it has been unseasonably warm."
All bar one of the top 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1997 and all the UK's top seven warmest years happened in the past decade.
The warmest temperature recorded this year was 33.1C (91.5F) on Monday 27 June at Gravesend in Kent. The Met Office said it was the warmest temperature recorded in the UK for five years.
Apart from January, the other months that had below-average temperatures were June, July and August.
Gravesend was also the location for the warmest October temperature ever, when 29.9C (85.8F) was recorded on 1 October, beating the previous record of 29.4C (84.9F) in the Cambridgeshire town of March on the same day in 1985.
The coldest temperature was -13C (8.6F) at Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands on 8 January, while the strongest gust of wind was 165mph (265.5kph), recorded at the highest point of the Cairngorms mountain range on 8 December.
'Massive challenge'Dr Chris Huntingford, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said the temperature increase was "in agreement with simulations by many independent climate centres around the world".
"As each year passes and we hear that a warming record has been broken, or nearly broken again, it provides further evidence that unfortunately we are not just seeing a natural cycle of global warming, and that instead humans are having an effect on the climate," said Dr Huntingford, who works with climate models to understand the implications of increased levels of greenhouse gases.
He said that despite the global economic crisis, emissions remained high and there was a feeling that economic growth was "totally aligned to the need for burning fossil fuels".
"There is a huge challenge ahead to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to stay below 2C of global warming, and without damaging the economy," he said.
"At present, there is an almost one-to-one correlation between global GDP and magnitude of carbon dioxide emissions, so new energy technologies are desperately needed that break that link."
Wettest yearScotland had its wettest year on record with 73.2in (1859.5mm) of rain, beating a previous record set in 1990.
However, some parts of England have had very low levels of rainfall, according to the Met Office. East Anglia had its second driest year on record with 17.6in (449mm) of rain and the Midlands its third driest with 23in (586.5mm).
On 23 December, the government granted a drought order to South East Water to help it protect Ardingly reservoir in Sussex after water levels dropped to 12% by the end of November. The water company said an "exceptionally dry" September, October and November had "raised the urgency of the situation".
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-16366078
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The top 10 tech stories of 2011
By Rosa Golijan
AP file / Khaled Desouki/AFP - Getty Images / Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Whew! Good ol' 2011 is almost over and that means that we're gonna take a little break from tech news and relax until the spring.
Just kidding! What the end of the year really means is that we're getting a bit sentimental and reviewing the top tech stories of the last 365 days. Here are the 10 which stood out to us, in no particular order.
Apple
The landing page of the official Apple website, as it was for weeks after the death of Steve Jobs.
The death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs
When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs?died on Oct. 5, at age 56, the loss resonated?throughout the tech world?in?unprecedented ways.?He was described as?our generation's Thomas Edison?and his legacy was celebrated accordingly.
The Internet mourned the passing of the man with over?2.5 million tweets?in the twelve hours following his death. People around the world sent?over one million emails?filled with wishes, memories and words of sympathy to an address set up by Apple.
Samsung and Google, some of the company's competitors, delayed the release of new products out of respect for the loss of the man who launched Apple.
As his eponymous biography by Walter Isaacson hit the shelves, we?dissected everything about Jobs from minutia ??such as his?final words, eating habits, reading list, workaholic nature?and?old pranks???to grand concepts such as?his life's work. (It is worth noting that the Jobs biography became Amazon's best-selling book of 2011?and?Sony Pictures is said to be working on a movie version.)?
Lulzsec (R) and Anonymous (L)
Pictured are the logos used by hacking groups Lulzsec (R) and Anonymous (L).
The trouble stirred up by Anonymous and Lulzsec
What's any year without a couple of big security scares? In 2011, hacking groups Anonymous and Lulzsec were two entities that struck fear in a lot of network administrators' hearts.
Between the two groups?? who even teamed up at one point???there was a great deal of trouble stirred up.
Lulzsec, a mysterious and loosely knit organization, took out (or at least claimed credit for affecting)?multiple gaming websites,?an?FBI website,?a porn site,?a?Senate website, a CIA website, Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper website?and more. The fun was over once the group's key member and spokesperson?? a fellow who goes by the name "Topiary"?? was nabbed by authorities in the U.K.
Anonymous on the other hand didn't suffer any similarly large casualties or stumbling points while taking credit for?sharing thousands of military email addresses, taking down a tourist-oriented website in Orlando, Florida, hacking an FBI partner site, snatching files from servers belonging to large U.S.-based companies, conducting a DDoS attack on MasterCard, as well as some miscellaneous mischievous deeds.
Now?this all may sound?somewhat funny, but you should probably keep in mind that the individuals responsible for these events are heralding a world of heightened security and constant threats.
?
Jesus Diaz/Gizmodo
The many headaches suffered by RIM
This year made me want to hug Research in Motion's troubled executives. The folks over there just couldn't catch a break as one of the company's shiny new gadgets?? the BlackBerry Playbook?? got slammed in reviews, its share of the U.S. smartphone market shrunk?and its freshly launched music-sharing service was ridiculed.
And as if that's not enough, the company's sites were hacked after it offered to cooperate with U.K. authorities in order to research what?? if any?? role the BlackBerry Messenger service might've played in inciting riots in early August.
But hey, at least the company managed to squeak by with a decent quarter?(if you ignore millions of dollars worth of unsold BlackBerry Playbook tablets, that is).
Khaled Desouki/AFP - Getty Images
An Egyptian man, holding up a sign praising the social network Facebook, joins others in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Feb. 1.
How the Internet helped bring down a dictator
As much trouble as the Internet ??or rather, social media ??can cause, it can also do quite a bit of good at times. In 2011, we saw a great example of this phenomenon as?the Internet and social media played a pivotal role in a revolution.
What happened? Well, on Jan. 27, right before the Egyptian government pulled the plug on the country's Internetin order to quiet protestor activity, there was a great deal of traffic coming to social networks, Facebook in particular. What better place to get organized?than Mark Zuckerberg's playground, after all?
You'd think that the whole business of shutting down the Internet would've eliminated social media and the like from the big fight against the 30-year government of Hosni Mubarak, but Egyptians kept in touch with the outside world using a series of workarounds.
Anyway, long story short: When the Internet switch was flipped back on, Egyptian's were celebrating the end of Mubarak's rule and social media was praised for aiding a revolution.
Netflix
Netflix and its wacky business moves
A recent consumer study revealed that the satisfaction levels of Netflix customers have dropped?significantly and?? unless you've been sleeping under a rock with no Wi-Fi connection?? you shouldn't be surprised by that.
After all, the company alienated and angered a lot of folks when it announced that it would?no longer be offering a combined DVD and streaming plan and?would instead separate the services, for a minimum cost of about $16 a month if you still want both.
And as if people weren't riled up enough over that?? and boy, were they riled up!?? Netflix announced that it would split itself into two separate businesses, video-streaming company Netflix and DVD rental company Qwikster. No one truly understood?where that particular idea came from or why the heck Netflix didn't secure the @Qwikster Twitter username before announcing its plans.
None of that matters anymore though, because Netflix made our heads spin all the way around again by canceling the whole plan to split into two.
Apple
The release of the iPhone 5, er, 4S
Every year since 2007 has brought us a shiny new smartphone from Apple and 2011 was no different. The year marked the introduction of the iPhone 4S?? yes, it really wasn't called the iPhone 5?? and its built-in voice-activated personal assistant Siri.
After months of wildly inaccurate speculation?and a keynote sans Mr. Jobs, we stood in lines, whined about little technical hiccups, and found silly things to giggle over as soon as the device was released.
It's worth noting that the hardware?? the actual iPhone 4S itself?? wasn't really the big star this year. Instead iOS 5, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, made us swoon with all its new features.?
The launch of Google+
There's no such thing as too many social networking services, right?
Well, at least Google didn't think so when it launched something called Google+.
The service?? which is finally open to everyone after a long period of being invitation-only?? is now unavoidable. It's?integrated into our Gmail accounts, has the obligatory mobile apps, keeps us busy with privacy issues that we can debate?and has some confusing labels that we still haven't entirely figured out. (What do you call adding a friend on Google+? I still maintain that "plussing" someone sounds slightly dirty.)
It's worth noting that despite the fact that Google+ is so darn difficult to avoid, interest in the social network appears to be waning?after initially rocketing when the service opened its doors to the general public.?
Android's dominance
Even as the token Apple?? and iOS?? fangirl around here, I couldn't turn a blind eye to how Android's been doing this year. It seemed that not a day could pass before there was yet another study, survey, or other data set that listed Google's mobile platform as being the No. 1 something-or-other or the top thingamajig-of-some-sort.
Don't believe it? Alright, let's run down a couple of highlights.
Android is the No. 1 smartphone platform in the U.S. (based on market share), comes out on top of worldwide sales statistics, rules?about 50 percent of the global smartphone market, dominates the southern part of the U.S., has the biggest chunk of the mobile app download market, has more daily Facebook users than iPhone, it's the most popular mobile platform for malware, and may have nicer users than iOS.??
Oh, and in case you wanted more statistics: Nowadays over 700,000 new Android devices are supposedly activated each day. We don't really know if that earns Android another No. 1 trophy as Apple hasn't released any official numbers for comparison.
Getty Images
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (L) jokes with comedian Andy Samberg during a keynote address at the Facebook f8 conference on Sept. 22, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif.
Facebook Timeline re-design (and Mark Zuckerberg's silly antics)
No end-of-the-year story round up would be complete without a mention of Facebook or its founder's antics. So let's hit on the big topics of the year?? aside from the usual privacy drama that always surrounds the social network.
In 2011 we were introduced to Timeline, a new Facebook profile design which naturally got us riled up. (Because we don't like change, darn it!) We didn't mind most of the new apps that were announced along with the redesign?though ? until we realized that the way they're integrated could lead to a lot of embarrassment?(and reveal our love of Justin Bieber songs).
Upset with Facebook's features and designs or not, we still aren't really managing to stay away from the social network. At least that's what a study suggested when it showed that we're all only about four degrees of separation apart on Facebook (rather than the six degrees assumed by the popular Kevin Bacon-themed game).
Facebook itself aside, many of us?? yours truly included?? were once again far more fascinated by the social network's founder than anything else. How could we not be when the man revealed that he is currently only eating animals which he kills and keeps?slipping us private photos thanks to technical glitches?
Apple
The release of the iPad 2
What? You think that one major Apple product release a year should be enough? Sorry, buddy?? but 2011 brought us the iPad 2 on top of the iPhone 4S.
The second generation tablet?? which was upgraded to iOS 5, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, months after its release?? is everything a shiny new toy should be: It's thinner, lighter, and more powerful than its predecessor.
Live Poll
Which do you think was the top tech story of 2011?
171884
The death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs
60%
171885
The trouble stirred up by Anonymous and Lulzsec
5%
171886
The many headaches suffered by RIM
1%
171887
How the Internet helped bring down a dictator
18%
171888
Netflix and its wacky business moves
2%
171889
The release of the iPhone 5, er, 4S
2%
171890
The launch of Google+
0%
171891
Android's dominance
9%
171892
Facebook Timeline re-design (and Mark Zuckerberg's silly antics)
0%
171893
The release of the iPad 2
3%
VoteTotal Votes: 479
We naturally waited in line for it, collected every detail we could while preparing for its release date, and hugged it tightly as soon as we picked it up. (Ok, maybe only I did that last part.)
All in all, we treated the release of the iPad 2 like any other major product release: With glee. But neither that behavior nor the actual iPad 2 itself were the big story this year. The gadget was such a darn big deal because it showed that the public finally grasped the notion of tablets, of life in a post-PC world.
The device topped holiday wish lists, was among the most searched terms on Google, earned the Consumer Reports seal of approval, sold out insanely quickly (and mostly to first-time iPad buyers), and kept selling despite constantly delayed shipping times. And if you prefer that in terms of hard statistics: Apple sold a whoppin' 11.12 million iPads during the fourth quarter of its fiscal year. (Yes, that's a lot??? an all-time record for iPad sales.) ?
Related stories:
Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.
Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/29/9781095-the-top-10-tech-stories-of-2011
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Vote for the Most Important Gadget of the Year: Round 3 [Gadget Of The Year]
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Slate?s Most-Read Stories
Every year, Slate publishes a list of its most-read stories, and it?s always intriguing to see which topics piqued reader interest. In 2011, you were avidly following the red-hot Republican primary race, reading stories about Rick Perry?s ranch, and Michele Bachmann?s ?crazy eyes.? You were also fascinated by the secret history of the Muppets? catchy ?Mahna Mahna? song?which has its origins in an Italian soft-core film?and enthusiastic about Farhad Manjoo?s fervent takedown of the practice of putting two spaces between sentences. But the top story of the year was ?Ghost Ship,? Paul Collins? tale of the mysterious Mary Celeste, whose crew disappeared without a trace in 1872. Below you?ll find links to Collins? story and the rest of our most-read pieces.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=8e59cd01186ebc35390b8d6203292e35
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
WordPress for Android 2.0 ? Blogging Re-Imagined
The biggest and most used blogging platform available right now is WordPress, and having apps for our mobile devices to be able to?approve comments, write/edit posts and much more is pretty essential to the success of any small, personal, or even major blog.
WordPress for Android 2.0 has brought a ton slew of new features for us to utilize including:
- New UI; Action Bar and Dashboard
- New Post Editor
- Tablet Support
- Stats chart improvements
- Background post uploading
- WordPress.com Read feature improvements
- Post Status is now displayed in post list.
- Reliability improvements and more!
You can watch the video, below, of all the changes ? put together by the great guys at WordPress ? and see for yourself how awesome this update is, and let us know how you like them in the comments below.
Download WordPress for Android from the Market.
Alexander Maxham
Alex is passionate about everything technology. He loves reading and writing about any type of technology, but Android is his favorite. Alex also loves what he does here covering all the latest and breaking news about Android.
Source: http://www.androidauthority.com/wordpress-for-android-2-0-blogging-re-imagined-40006/
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NY sheriff hawks naming rights for helicopter (AP)
SYRACUSE, N.Y. ? A high-tech helicopter has helped Sheriff Kevin Walsh chase down fugitives, airlift accident victims and spearhead search-and-rescue missions in the Syracuse region of central New York since 1999. In 2012, Air-1 could be grounded by budget cuts.
Walsh's proposed solution? Slap a corporate logo on the Bell 407 chopper to raise ad revenue and keep her flying.
"We (police) have put up with donut jokes for our entire existence. I think we can tolerate jokes about the Price Chopper chopper or the Wegmans whirlybird showing up," Walsh said, referring to two supermarket chains. "I don't like the idea of our having to fund public services with private donations, but the option is not to have that public service."
While hawking naming rights for municipal stadiums, parks, mass-transit stations and other public entities is nothing new for the nation's cash-strapped cities, sponsorship deals with police agencies are much less common, and typically less lucrative.
On top of that, watchdog groups ? and many in uniform ? are wary about potential conflicts when law enforcement cozies up with advertisers, such as officers possibly looking the other way on matters involving corporate sponsors.
"I feel very confident my officers wouldn't be compromised," said John Kelly, police chief of Littleton, Mass. A town-approved $12,000-a-year contract with a grocery chain pays for one of Kelly's five patrol cars. In return, the cruiser has been adorned for nine years with a modest Donelan's Supermarkets bumper sticker.
Kelly said he's endured plenty of flack, but "my position is I have to give my officers tools to provide the necessary services our citizens paid for. At 2:30 in the morning, someone laying out on a local highway because of an accident really doesn't care who's paying for the cruiser or what it says on its side."
In 2002, dozens of cities jumped at an offer by a Charlotte, N.C., company to provide new police cars for $1 each in exchange for festooning them with race car-style logos. The venture fizzled, in part because the line between tactful and tacky advertising can be a narrow one, and the company has gone out of business.
"We can't let cutesy things" subtract from "making us look serious," said police Chief Philip Thorne in Springfield, Fla., which turned down a chance to save $500,000 over three years.
"It sounded like a good idea," recalled Bruce Owens, police chief in Summerville, S.C. "But the main concern is the potential ethical issues you might encounter, because no one gives something for nothing."
Russ Haven of the New York Public Interest Research Group fears the drive to find sponsorship arrangements in budget-strapped times "may in some instances seem unseemly or feel like it's going too far.
"When it comes to law enforcement, you have this additional layer of concerns," Haven said. "If the sponsor becomes a target of an investigation, does the public have confidence they'll be treated equally under the law?"
In addition, "what's the appropriate valuation for naming rights?" Haven said. "Does it put government in the position of deciding what is an inappropriate sponsor, which could raise First Amendment issues?"
In Syracuse, the sheriff's budget woes in recent years deepened this fall when the county Legislature eliminated $591,000 in taxpayer aid in 2012 for the helicopter known by its radio call sign. Bought for $2.3 million, Air-1 costs around $500,000 on average to operate and maintain each year.
Walsh has appealed for private donations and hopes to secure federal grants to help pay for Air-1's four-pilot roster. Getting a commercial operator's license from the Federal Aviation Administration to allow him to charge fees for medical flights might come through soon, potentially raising $125,000 to $200,000 a year.
Selling naming rights could prove vital in filling the gap. Talks are under way with two potential sponsors who remain unidentified, and Walsh's administrative chief, John Balloni, hopes to add at least $100,000 a year in advertising revenue.
While conceding that Air-1 might have to stop operations in 2012, Balloni said: "There will be some revenue streams coming in and we have full expectation we'll keep it in the air. The extent of our success in 2012 will determine how much we fly in 2013."
Landing private funding wouldn't be a first for a police airborne unit. In Missouri, St. Louis County police got cash donations and electronic equipment worth upward of $200,000 from three helicopter manufacturers in 2004 in exchange for putting the companies' decals on three of its six choppers, said Capt. Kurt Frisz, a pilot.
"It kept us flying at a critical time and got us equipment we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise," said Frisz, who says the decals are hardly visible from the ground. "The value for the vendor is if a picture of our helicopter shows up in a law enforcement trade magazine such as Air Beat."
Onondaga County sheriffs have deployed helicopters of their own since snapping up a Korean War-era bubble model in 1975.
Supporters praise the new chopper's versatility and credit it as a vital public safety tool not only in the county but in emergencies across a five-county metro area of 640,000 people along Lake Ontario's southeast corner.
Air-1 and its crew logged hundreds of hours of missions in 2011. It airlifted a badly injured toddler who was run over by a lawnmower, alerted sheriff's deputies to a rifle-toting fugitive hiding up a tree and rescued a man whose snowmobile plunged through the ice on a lake.
Opponents view it as a financial burden that duplicates services already provided at no cost to taxpayers by private medevac helicopters and a state police chopper stationed in Syracuse that runs missions farther afield in upstate New York.
A county Legislature resolution to auction off Air-1 was voted down 18-1 on Dec. 6. Walsh will likely renew his funding request when the Legislature returns Jan. 1 with seven new members.
"Short of robbing banks," said Balloni, his deputy, "any way we can keep this ship flying is the way we're going to do it. I took an oath to protect and serve and, to me, the lives it saves are what's sacred."
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Photos of an Empty London on Christmas Morning (IanVisits)
Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.
Source: http://wik.io/info/UK/306342221
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Google Chrome Browser Shortcut
All apps ? Tools ? Google Chrome Browser Shortcut
1,000-5,000 downloads, 5 ratings ( average), 19 kb
This app will give you the sleek look of the Google Chrome logo with your favorite browser.This is not a web browser! This app only launches your web browser.
Recent changes:
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Latest version: 1.0 (for Android version 2.1 and higher)
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Source: http://www.appbrain.com/app/google-chrome-browser-shortcut/com.bba.chrome
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Monday, December 26, 2011
kstatesports: RT @ESPNAndyKatz: Long beach state vs Kansas state in diamond final sounds like an NCAA tourney game to me in march. Martin and Monson d ...
Long beach state vs Kansas state in diamond final sounds like an NCAA tourney game to me in march. Martin and Monson doing solid jobs in '11 Source: http://twitter.com/kstatesports/statuses/150631356454543360
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China to try another dissident for "subversive" online essays (Reuters)
BEIJING (Reuters) ? China will try a veteran dissident, Chen Xi, on charges of "inciting subversion" for pro-democracy essays he published online, his wife said on Sunday, days after another dissident was jailed for nine years on similar charges.
Chen, a human rights campaigner in Guiyang city in Guizhou, southwest China, was arrested last month and will be tried for "inciting subversion of state power," a charge often used against critics of the ruling Communist Party, said his wife Zhang Qunxuan.
"They accused him because of 36 essays he published at home and overseas," Zhang told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"I don't know exactly what the charges are, because the court and prosecutors wouldn't show me the indictment. They said there are rules against showing that to family members," she said, adding that one of Chen's lawyers told her about the subversion accusations.
Chen, 57, is sure to maintain that he is innocent, but is certain to be found guilty and jailed by China's party-controlled judiciary, Zhang said.
"He's definitely going to fight the charges," she said, citing her discussions with his defense lawyers. She was told of the trial date on Friday, she added.
"But it looks certain that he'll be convicted. That's what courts always decide."
Chen was arrested last month after being released from a week-long detention triggered by his campaigning for independent candidates seeking to win places on China's party-controlled People's Congress assemblies, said Zhang.
Police confiscated his computer, she added.
"Then on November 29, the police called him and said he could come and get his computer," she said. "Instead, they lured him to the public security bureau and arrested him."
Calls to the Guiyang People's Intermediate Court were not answered on Sunday, a rest day in China,. Another human rights activist, Lu Yongxiang, told Reuters he also knew of the trial on Monday through Chen Xi's friends and supporters.
The trial will come after a court in Sichuan province, also in southwest China, convicted rights advocate Chen Wei and sentenced him to nine years in jail after a brief trial on Friday -- the stiffest punishment in a crackdown on dissent this year.
Chen in a common family name in China, and the two men are not related.
Chen Wei's wife, Wang Xiaoyan, and lawyers said he was jailed as punishment for essays that he had published on overseas Chinese websites.
China uses a "firewall" of Internet filters and blocks to prevent citizens from reading websites abroad that are deemed to be politically unacceptable or socially unsound.
Chen Wei's sentence was the third-longest term ever handed down for inciting subversion after Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, who has been serving an 11-year sentence since 2009, and Liu Xianbin, who was jailed for 10 years in March this year.
Earlier this year, Chinese police held hundreds of dissidents, rights activists and protest organizers in a crackdown on dissent this year, when the ruling Communist Party sought to prevent potential protests inspired by anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world.
Many of those detained have been released but remain under police watch. But officials appeared determined to "make an example" of Chen, said Huang Qi, a human rights advocate in Chen's home Sichuan province and a long-time friend of his.
Chen Xi, who faces trial on Monday, is a former soldier and factory worker who was jailed for three years for his support for the 1989 pro-democracy protests across China that ended after troops crushed demonstrations, said his wife.
He was again jailed in 1996, but since his release in 2005 has been an organizer of a citizens' human rights forum in Guiyang.
(Editing by Yoko Nishikawa)
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
Kia's Ray EV hasn't heard about aerodynamics, sets out to defy naysayers in Korea
Continue reading Kia's Ray EV hasn't heard about aerodynamics, sets out to defy naysayers in Korea
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Alternatives to carbon markets to finance REDD | redd-monitor.org
By Chris Lang, 23rd December 2011
At the beginning of the UN climate negotiations in Durban (COP17), FERN published a short report looking at carbon markets as a means of financing REDD. The briefing, which was signed on to by 28 organisations explains why carbon markets will not deliver for southern governments, forests and people.
The briefing can be downloaded here. It starts with the question, ?How much money is needed?? and explains that although this has been a primary focus of discussions on REDD, it is the wrong question. More important than the amount of money needed, is ?a clear action plan to address the underlying drivers of forest loss coupled with sufficient political will to implement the plan?.
In the period 2010-2012, more than US$8 billion has been promised or is expected from government funds for REDD, compared to US$600 million from voluntary markets and nothing whatsoever from compliance markets. This is unlikely to change much before 2020, the briefing argues, because the largest carbon market, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme does not currently accept forest offset and will not do so until at least 2020.
Most of the growth in carbon trading volume up to 2010 was in the secondary markets. In other words, most carbon trading is carried out by banks and speculators. Even this growth is currently stagnating. Since 2008 Bank of America,?ABN Amro,?UBS
Warburg?and?Credit Suisse have closed or reduced the size of their carbon trading desks. Meanwhile, ?Forest offsets in the voluntary carbon market have been fraught with difficulties,? the briefing notes. There are several examples of dubious or damaging forest carbon projects in the largely unregulated voluntary carbon market.
Even with a forest carbon market, little money would actually reach the forests. Most of the money would end up in the hands of intermediaries: speculators, banks, consulting firms, certifying firms and so on. It is also unlikely that a carbon market would finance forest conservation in countries where the risks of corruption are high. More than 75% of CDM projects are in three countries: China, India and Brazil. A similar pattern is likely with REDD finance via carbon markets.
The briefing also lists some alternatives to financing REDD through carbon trading (see the briefing for footnotes and sources). REDD-Monitor welcomes discussion on the merits (or otherwise) of these suggestions:
- Financial Transaction Tax (FTT)
A tiny tax on financial transactions ? as little as one hundredth of a percent ? could raise US$650 billion per year.[17] Although many adaptation and mitigation measures would need to be financed through such a fund if it ever materialised, a small proportion would provide enough to help reduce deforestation. The European Commission and many European governments, including Germany and France, already support the FTT, and research from economic institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has shown it to be technically feasible.[18] - Tax on international shipping and aviation
There are many different proposals on the table to tax international aviation and ?bunker? (shipping) fuel. The emissions from these industries are significant, and they are currently not only under-taxed, but also benefit from fossil fuel subsidies.[19] Redirecting these subsidies to climate mitigation and adaptation is another potential large source of finance.[20] - Public funds
Even in times of austerity measures, if government spending priorities were brought in line with their climate change policies, money would also become available for forest projects and for activities to deal with the drivers of deforestation. Government funding is still the major funding source for REDD as chart 1 shows.
Public funds could also be used to address illegal logging. The World Bank (WB) estimates that illegal timber may comprise over a tenth of a total global timber trade worth more than US$150 billion a year.[21] More funding and political support to address illegal logging would therefore go a long way to keep forests standing and provide funds to Southern governments. - Private investments
Projects where companies buy forests to speculate on financial markets (as is the case with trading in forest carbon credits) have led to many problems. However the Forest Trust?s Climate Tree project is an example of an initiative which channels private investment into improving forest use without letting Northern companies off the hook with regards to reducing their own emissions as carbon offset projects do.[22]
Footnotes:
17. Bonn Brief no. 8, Innovative sources of climate finance, June 2011. http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/Bonn_2011_08InnovativeSources.pdf
18. See: World Bank Group, IMF, OECD. Mobilizing Climate Finance: A Paper prepared at the request of G20 Finance Ministers, September 19, 2011; and: IMF (2010). A Fair and Substantial Contribution by the Financial Sector, Final Report for the G-20. www.imf.org/external/np/g20/pdf/062710b.pdf
19. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/03/fossil-fuel-subsidies-renewables
20. For more information about these alternatives and others see, Assessing the Alternatives ? Financing Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Developing Countries http://www.stampoutpoverty.org/?lid=10939
21. OECD, OECD Environmental Outlook (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001), p122.
22. http://www.tft-forests.org/climate-tree/
Full Disclosure: Part of REDD-Monitor?s funding comes from FERN. Click here for all of REDD-Monitor?s funding sources.
Source: http://www.redd-monitor.org/2011/12/23/alternatives-to-carbon-markets-to-finance-redd/
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