Lincoln Tribune |  |
- Durban Climate Talks Produce Imperfect Deals
- Cat Square Parade + Nice Weather = Large Crowd
- Tens of thousands protest against alleged vote fraud in Russia
- Indonesian government threatens to cut BlackBerry data service
- Saudi man who raped daughter sentenced to 2,080 lashes
| Durban Climate Talks Produce Imperfect Deals Posted: 11 Dec 2011 01:04 AM PST Negotiators at the U.N. climate conference in South Africa have approved a package of agreements to combat global climate change. While the deal is a step forward, observers say more should have been accomplished. After hours of political wrangling and compromise on all sides, delegates emerged from an all-night session Sunday with a way forward on climate change. Going into the last-minute negotiations, the South African president of the conference, Maite Nkoana Mashabane told delegates the package of deals would not please everyone. He said, "I think we all realize they're not perfect, but we should not let the perfect become the enemy of the good and the possible." Among the biggest achievements was the approval of a European Union plan to negotiate a future legal deal to combat climate change. The agreement calls for parties to end negotiations on a future pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 and to implement the new regime no later than 2020. Emotions ran high in the middle-of-the-night plenary session about plans for the future agreement. Hood said, "And if there is no legal instrument by which we can make countries responsible for their actions then, Madame Chair, I'm saying that we are relegating vulnerable economies to the whims and fancies of beautiful words like 'self-determination' like 'access to development'; while they develop, we die in the process." The future deal will replace the Kyoto Protocol - an existing legal framework that was enacted in 2007 and was due to expire next year. Tim Gore, the climate policy advisor for Oxfam, said developing countries will not benefit much from the deals passed here in Durban. Gore told VOA, "They didn't get a great deal out of this, I think this was largely an agreement which was struck between the big boys, between the U.S., the European Union, perhaps some of the emergency economies did a deal on a future legal agreement, and that's significant, but it hasn't necessarily delivered the action that the very poorest countries, and the poorest people within them, need here and now." Parties also agreed in Durban to put into operation a Green Climate Fund, which is to provide assistance to developing nations for environmental projects. However, there was no agreement on how to actually finance the Fund, so, for the time being it remains an empty shell.
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| Cat Square Parade + Nice Weather = Large Crowd Posted: 10 Dec 2011 10:00 PM PST
Cat Square: The 2011 Cat Square Christmas Parade took over Car Square road on Saturday afternoon in western Lincoln county. The pleasant weather brought out a very large number of parade watchers and candy grabbers. More photos from this year’s parade can be viewed at: http://sportpixnc.com
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| Tens of thousands protest against alleged vote fraud in Russia Posted: 10 Dec 2011 04:22 PM PST MOSCOW (BNO NEWS) -- Tens of thousands of Russians staged anti-government protests across the country on Saturday to criticize the recent elections which they claim were rigged in favor of Vladimir Putin's governing United Russia party, authorities said. The demonstrations, which are the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union, began on the country's Pacific Ocean coast and moved westwards over eight time zones. In Moscow, thousands of protesters waved banners and chanted slogans to demand the resignation of election commission chief Vladimir Churov and other officials such as Putin himself, RIA Novosti reported. Police estimated that around 25,000 people participated in the rally in Moscow alone, although organizers said the number was closer to 40,000. "We demand new elections because what happened on December 4 was a falsification," opposition activist Yevgeniya Chirikova told the crowd. Last weekend, Russia held parliamentary elections which many Russian voters and international observers said were marred by large-scale fraud. The ruling United Russia party won more votes than any of the other three parties, but it still suffered a significant drop from the two-thirds constitutional majority it has enjoyed for the past four years. Thousands of people also rallied in other Russian cities. About 7,000 people gathered in St. Petersburg's central Pionerskaya Square, where at least ten people were arrested, a spokesman told local media. Dozens of arrests were reported nationwide, but there were no reports of serious violence, police said. At least 1,000 people have so far been arrested in protests over the past five days, according to news reports. Among those arrested during the protests earlier this week was anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and opposition activist Ilya Yashin. They were both sentenced to 15 days in prison for refusing to obey police orders, reports said. Russian expats also demonstrated on Saturday in a show of solidarity with their compatriots in the homeland. Small protests were reported in Sweden, Germany, Italy, Israel, Ukraine and other countries. There was no immediate comment on Saturday from Putin or President Dmitry Medvedev to the protests. But Andrei Isayev, a senior United Russia official, said the party would take account of the demands voiced by the protesters. "There is no doubt that people protesting against the result of the vote or against the way it was handled have a right to do this," Isayev, first deputy secretary of the party's general council presidium, told RIA Novosti. "I assure you, we will listen to this rally," he added. Putin and Medvedev have said complaints of vote irregularities would be investigated. They also said citizens have the right to assemble publicly to express their political views as long as they abide by the law. Russian police arrested more than 560 people on Tuesday as Moscow witnessed a second evening of protests over the alleged electoral fraud. Days later, Putin accused the United States of meddling in Russian affairs and encouraging the protests after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the December 4 election. (Copyright 2011 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)
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| Indonesian government threatens to cut BlackBerry data service Posted: 10 Dec 2011 04:15 PM PST JAKARTA (BNO NEWS) -- The Indonesian government has threatened to shut down BlackBerry data services in the country because the smartphone's manufacturer "has not been cooperative," a local newspaper reported on Saturday. The Indonesian Telecommunication Regulation Body (BRTI) said it may have to end BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and other BlackBerry services after the smartphone's manufacturer, Research In Motion (RIM), opted to build a regional data center in Singapore rather than in Indonesia. "Because RIM has not been cooperative, it is possible that we will soon end BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) and BBM service. BlackBerry therefore, would just be like other cellular phones," BRTI member Heru Sutadi told the Jakarta Post. The government cited "security reasons" when explaining why the services should be shut down. Currently, all BlackBerry data is processed through the Canadian tech company RIM, which makes it impossible for the government to monitor and protect data sent by its millions of Indonesian users. "With the condition as it is now, we warn that the country's users to be cautious about using BlackBerry because the data exchanged is not safe or cannot be guaranteed of its safety," Heru said. In September, RIM agreed with the Indonesian government that it would establish a server by December 31 as part of four other agreements. Although the agreement did not specify where the server would be built, the government felt that RIM should make Indonesia a priority as it is home to the largest number of BlackBerry users in Southeast Asia. Earlier this year, Indonesia's communication ministry also threatened to block BlackBerry internet browsing capabilities if pornographic internet content was not filtered out by RIM. The company later agreed to filter porn. Indonesia has enacted a strict anti-pornography law since 2008. (Copyright 2011 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)
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| Saudi man who raped daughter sentenced to 2,080 lashes Posted: 10 Dec 2011 03:20 PM PST RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (BNO NEWS) -- A Saudi man who repeatedly raped his daughter over a seven year period has been sentenced to 13 years in prison and more than 2,000 lashes, a local newspaper reported on Saturday. The General Court in Mecca, the capital of Makkah province in the country's west, found the defendant whose name has not been released guilty of repeatedly raping his teenage daughter over a seven year period while under the influence of drugs, the Okaz newspaper reported. The authorities became first aware of the case when a relative of the victim's mother told police that the girl was being sexually assaulted by her father. Investigators, which included officers from the religious police, later arrived at the man's house while he was abusing his daughter. The judge of the court sentenced the father to 13 years imprisonment and 2,080 lashes which he will receive over the course of his prison term. Rape, pedophilia and other forms of sexual misconduct can be punished in Saudi Arabia by lashes, imprisonment and in some cases the death penalty. (Copyright 2011 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)
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