Troubled UN climate talks enter final day

DOHA: UN talks seeking to halt the march of global warming enter their final day in Doha on Friday with key points still outstanding - extending the greenhouse gas-curbing Kyoto Protocol and funding for poor countries.

Delegates are preparing for a long day and night of final haggling to find consensus on interim ways to rein in climate change and smooth the way to a new deal that must enter into force in 2020.

NGOs and delegates expressed frustration at the pace of negotiations that started on November 26 and coincided with a slew of new scientific warnings that Earth faces a calamitous future of more frequent extreme weather events.

"Political negotiators need to realise urgently that the climate does not negotiate," Greenpeace chief executive Kumi Naidoo told AFP in the final hours of the talks.

"Negotiations are out of touch with scientific reality. This is about human survival."

Funding to help poor countries deal with the fallout from global warming and convert to planet-friendlier energy sources emerged as a key sticking point between negotiators from nearly 200 countries.

Developed countries were pressed to show how they intend to keep a promise to raise climate funding for poor countries to $100 billion (76 billion euros) per year by 2020 - up from a total of $30 billion in 2010-2012.

Developing countries say they need at least another $60 billion between now and 2015.

But the United States and European Union have refused to put concrete figures on the table in Doha for 2013-2020 funding, citing tough financial times.

Another point of contention was "hot air," the name given to Earth-warming greenhouse gas emission quotas that countries were given under the first leg of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and did not use - some 13 billion tonnes in total.

The credits can be sold to nations battling to meet their own quotas, meaning greenhouse gas levels decrease on paper but not in the atmosphere.

Poland and Russia emitted much less than their lenient limits, and insisted in Doha on being allowed to bank the difference beyond 2012 - a move vehemently opposed by most other parties.

Agreement on hot air is key to the Doha delegates extending the life of the Kyoto pact, whose first leg expires on December 31.

The protocol is the world's only binding pact on curbing greenhouse gases, but locks in only developed nations and excludes major developing polluters such as China and India, as well as the United States, which refused to ratify it.

A new 2020 deal, due to be finalised by 2015, will include commitments for all the nations of the world.

The Philippines urged bickering UN climate negotiators on Thursday to take heed from the deadly typhoon that struck the archipelago this week and wake up to the realities of global warming.

"As we sit here, every single hour, even as we vacillate and procrastinate here, the death toll is rising," climate envoy Naderev Sano told delegates.

German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier predicted on Thursday that the talks "will be on the knife's edge up to the last moment."

- AFP/de

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Salwa Judum leader gunned down in Bastar

RAIPUR: Armed Maoists gunned down Chinnaram Gota, a leader of the controversial anti-naxalite movement 'Salwa Judum', and one of his body guards at village Kuprel in Farsegarh area in tribal Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh.

Police said the incident took place when Chinnaram Gota, who had actively participated in the anti-naxalite movement which began in June 2005, went to his farm accompanied by two of his body guards. The rebels opened indiscriminate firing, killing Gota on the spot. His body guards returned fire but of them sustained serious bullet injures. One of the bodyguards later succumbed to his injuries.

Before fleeing from the spot, the rebels set ablaze the vehicle of the salwa judum leader and also took away three rifles.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident Maoists killed a peon, working in a local school, by slitting his throat at village Amapani in Kanker district. The rebels also left a pamphlet, stating that the person was being punished for being a police informer.

After the 'Salwa Judum', the anti-naxalite movement, the Maoists have been targeting all those who had actively participated in the movement. About a month ago, the rebels made a futile attempt on the life of senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma, a prominent anti-naxalite movement leader and former leader of the opposition in the assembly, by trying to blow up his vehicle in a landmine blast. However, Karma, who enjoys z plus security cover, had a narrow escape.

For the last couple of years, almost all leaders of the Salwa Judum are under tight security and the police had even advised them not to move out of their villages, without providing prior information to the security personnel.

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Space Pictures This Week: Lunar Gravity, Venusian Volcano

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  Cassiopeia’s Bubble

  Image courtesy T.A. Rector, UAA/WIYN/NOAO/NSF

  A new camera called the One Degree Imager, located at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, is responsible for this enticingly crisp image of the Bubble Nebula. Released on December 4, this closeup highlights the sphere of gas blown out by the nebula's central star, which is 45 times larger than our own sun.

  Located in the constellation Cassiopeia, the Bubble Nebula is ten light-years across. Intense radiation from the massive star causes the otherworldly glow that lights up what looks like a celestial soap bubble.

  (Related: "Amazing Hubble Images.")

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  











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  Midnight Light

  Photograph by Frank Olsen, My Shot

  Delicate green auroras light up the water at Buksnesfjord, Norway, in a picture taken just after midnight on December 4.

  (See pictures of auroras sparked by a massive solar flare.)

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  











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  Great Escape

  Image courtesy SDO/NASA

  Sheets of plasma—or superheated gas—break off from the surface of the sun in this image taken in extreme ultraviolet light. Before floating free, the plasma rose up and danced along pathways determined by magnetic fields. These unseen forces pushed and pulled the gas into contorted shapes.

  (Learn about the sun.)

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  











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  New Look

  Image courtesy NASA

  What looks like a jawbreaker is actually a gravity map of the moon. Red areas indicate places with higher gravity fields while blue areas indicate lower gravity fields.

  (Learn about lunar exploration.)

  Twin probes circling the moon—part of NASA's GRAIL mission—since 2011 have been recording changes in gravity as they fly over peaks and valleys on the lunar surface. As one probe flies over an area with a greater gravity field, the washing-machine-size instrument speeds up slightly, increasing the distance between it and its sister probe. These minute changes in position have enabled scientists to construct this very detailed view of local changes in the moon's gravity.

  (How well do you know your moon myths? Take our quiz.)

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  











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  Grainy Picture

  Illustration courtesy L. Calçada, ESO/NAOJ/NRAO
  

  In this artist's conception of fine-grained particles around a brown dwarf—or a failed star—bits of debris are on their way to becoming a rocky planet.

  Current thinking on Earthlike, rocky planet formation says that random collisions between tiny debris occur in the disc of material surrounding newborn stars. But the recent discovery of such a disc surrounding a brown dwarf has some astronomers rethinking that hypothesis. If planets can form from the debris around these failed stars, then rocky planets may be much more common than previously thought.

  (Related: "Coldest Star Found-No Hotter Than Fresh Coffee.")

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  











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  Night Vision

  Image courtesy Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, Suomi NPP/NASA

  The Suomi NPP satellite captured this nighttime image of the aurora australis over the Antarctic coast south of South Africa. Despite the winter darkness and a waning crescent moon, the auroras produced enough light for sensors on board the new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite to capture the boundary between the ice shelf and what some scientists call the Southern, or Antarctic, Ocean (dark line across the bright center swirl).

  Launched last year, Suomi NPP enables scientists to capture nighttime images of the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The new sensor is so sensitive, it can capture the lights from one ship at sea.

  (Learn about Antarctica.)

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  











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  Pearl Islands

  Image courtesy Michael Taylor, Landsat/NASA

  In NASA's Landsat 5 satellite image, the Mergui Archipelago shows off the vibrant greens of its rain forests and the brilliant blues of the surrounding tropical ocean. Located along the southern border of Myanmar (Burma), next to Thailand, the area is known for valuable pearl oysters (Pinctada maxima) and a highly diverse concentration of plants and animals.

  (See photos of Myanmar.)

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  











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  Venusian Volcano

  Illustration courtesy AOES Medialab/ESO

  The Venusian atmosphere is made mostly of carbon dioxide, along with periodic spikes in sulfur. Recent research has found that volcanoes on the planet's surface, seen here in an artist's conception, are likely injecting that sulfur into the upper atmosphere. Direct confirmation is difficult, however, since Venus's thick atmosphere precludes a peek at its peaks.

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  











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  Image courtesy SSI/ISA/ESA/NASA

  Published December 6, 2012

  
  

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November Unemployment Falls to 7.7 Percent

The economy generated 146,000 new jobs in November and unemployment fell to 7.7 percent, better than economists expected, despite worries that superstorm Sandy and the looming fiscal cliff would dampen hiring.

There are still 12 million people unemployed in the country, but the Labor Department said Sandy did not significantly affect jobs.

Many economists had expected employers to have added about 90,000 jobs, causing the unemployment rate to tick up slightly.

The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics dialed back job gains for the previous two months. In October, the U.S. economy added 138,000 jobs, not the 171,000 reported before the election. The jobs added in September were also revised downward to 132,000 from 148,000.

Stephen Bronars, chief economist with Welch Consulting in Washington, D.C., said many economists believed Superstorm Sandy would have influenced Friday's jobs report after causing devastation especially in the Caribbean and U.S. Northeast.

Businesses and residents in the tri-state region of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which produce about one-eighth of U.S. GDP, experienced prolonged power outages and major infrastructure damage.

Bronars said, "Sandy hit the U.S. at a place where it inflicted close to the maximal possible economic damage from a storm that size."

New Jersey and New York were the hardest hit, with at least 120,000 jobs lost, at least temporarily, in those two states.

On Wednesday, payroll provider ADP, reported that private companies added 118,000 jobs in November, down from 157,000 in October. However, ADP includes in its figures people as employed if they remain on payroll, whereas the Labor Department's includes workers as employed if they are paid.

Now that election season is over, employers and investors are surrounded by worries from another uncertainty, the fiscal cliff.

Read more: Eliminating Charitable Deduction Would Help Budget, Hurt Charities

Bronars said the November report will not have quite picked up effects of the looming fiscal cliff, as employers prepare for a mix of government spending cuts and tax increases after the end of the year.

He said the effects of the failure thus far to reach a budget deal are more likely to show up in the December jobs report which will be released in early January.

It is not entirely certain whether the payroll tax holiday will be extended. If it's not, it may raise the cost of hiring workers.

"The next most important issue is sequestration which would bring big cuts to certain employers that depend on government contractors and other employers that indirectly provide support to government contractors," Bronars said. "Employers in these industries may well take a wait and see attitude for hiring until the fiscal issues are resolved."

Concerns about a higher marginal tax rate for top earners, some of whom are employers, may take longer to show a noticeable effect in jobs figures as the disincentive to top earners may take longer to indirectly affect hiring decisions.

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Employers urged to engage with foreign workers on grievance channels

SINGAPORE: Human resource experts say it is important for employers to engage with their foreign workers in light of the two labour disputes that have taken place in the past weeks.

They said more can be done to ensure employees have and are aware of the right avenues to air their grievances.

The two labour disputes involving foreign workers have been in the limelight.

And it has been called a "wake-up call" for employers.

So what steps should employers take next?

The Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) had earlier urged employers to put in place or re-look their grievance handling procedures. And in light of the current climate, human resource experts say it is timely for companies to reassure and communicate with their workers.

Mr David Ang, Executive Director of Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI), said: "What I think companies should do is really to call a briefing or call a communication session with the foreign workers to explain to them that this thing has taken place, why it has taken place and what is wrong in the course of the action that has been taken by this group of people.

"And explain to them that if you do have an issue, and you do have a problem, bring it up to your supervisor. And to some extent, communicating in the language which the workers can best understand will be key to making sure the message goes down."

The Association of Employment Agencies said most foreign workers are aware of the channels to air their problems.

But more can be done.

K Jayaprema, President of the Association of Employment Agencies, said: "What the Ministry of Manpower, maybe what they can do is to include these information they're handing to their workers, a little bit more about the policies, the rules, the regulations of the laws against strikes in Singapore. I think that's what they should include.

"Apart from sounding out to employees about their rights, I think we are looking at the roles and responsibilities of employees also."

Employers also have a part to play.

Experts said clear terms and conditions for workers should be set out in black and white by companies who engage employment agencies.

Mr Ang added: "The bigger companies would certainly have this. But again, down at the ground level, during the course of the recruitment process itself, there could be cases of misrepresentation and so on. So a company must be aware, and be constantly checking on the accuracy of the information given to the workers."

Mr Jayaprema added: "Employers are being informed, it's really whether the employer wants to pass this message down to the employee. So I think it's really the responsibility on the employer now. You can only do so much to educate people, but I think it's the employers who should be more serious about how they are going to manage their workforce."

And experts say it will take two hands to clap to ensure the welfare of foreign workers are looked after.

- CNA/de

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Narhari Modi nets prize catch as Narhari Amin joins BJP

AHMEDABAD: In a prize catch for BJP, Narhari Amin, a former Gujarat deputy chief minister, who recently quit the Congress after being denied ticket to contest the assembly elections, joined the state's ruling party on Thursday.

Amin's entry into the BJP is expected to boost its prospects in the Saurashtra region where renegade saffron party leader and former chief minister Keshubhai Patel's newly launched Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP) is putting a stiff challenge to Narendra Modi.

Like Keshubhai, Amin belongs to the politically influential Patel community, and has a sizeable following among them.

Reflecting the significance of Amin's arrival into the BJP fold, chief minister Modi, seeking a third consecutive term in office, welcomed him into the party, describing it as a move that would strengthen democracy.

"He is a leader who has remained among people to serve them since his youth. Coming of Amin to the party will strengthen democracy," Modi said.

Amin, who had been sulking ever since he was denied Congress nomination on the ground that he had lost two successive assembly elections, said, "I am sure that BJP will win this election and Modi will secure a hat-trick in the state. I will work for the BJP now."

He had quit Congress on Tuesday along with six prominent leaders including spokespersons of Gujarat Congress Jayanti Parmar and Hitesh Patel, state party general secretary Ashish Amin, farmers cell chairman Dashrath Patel, teachers cell chairman Digvijaysinh Gohil, Ahmedabad Congress vice-president RC Patel.

Another 175 of his supporters also joined BJP today with him.

Amin, among the prominent Congress faces in the state, was involved in the poll preparations right from the beginning and was present at all important events.

The former deputy chief minister said he felt "insulted" as Congress had given tickets to little known faces ignoring leaders who had worked tirelessly to build the party.

"Everything was going fine in the Congress party till ticket distribution. At the time of ticket distribution, differences between the state Congress leaders came to fore as all of them wanted tickets to be distributed to maximum number of their supporters," he said.

"The high command also ignored senior leaders and played along with the choices of state leaders. State leaders after elections did not want to have a challenger and that is why they denied ticket to me and other strong contenders who could have easily won elections," he added.

Modi, who is apparently banking on Amin to neutralize Keshubhai Patel's political clout in the Saurashtra region, said, "Congress has not only cheated people, but it has also cheated party workers by denying them tickets. It is important to defeat family-oriented politics of Congress."

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A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?

NASA is so delighted with Curiosity's Mars mission that the agency wants to do it all again in 2020, with the possibility of identifying and storing some rocks for a future sample return to Earth.

The formal announcement, made at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting, represents a triumph for the NASA Mars program, which had fallen on hard times due to steep budget cuts. But NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld said that the agency has the funds to build and operate a second Curiosity-style rover, largely because it has a lot of spare parts and an engineering and science team that knows how to develop a follow-on expedition.

"The new science rover builds off the tremendous success from Curiosity and will have new instruments," Grunsfeld said. Curiosity II is projected to cost $1.5 billion—compared with the $2.5 billion price tag for the rover now on Mars—and will require congressional approval.

While the 2020 rover will have the same one-ton chassis as Curiosity—and could use the same sky crane technology involved in the "seven minutes of terror"—it will have different instruments and, many hope, the capacity to cache a Mars rock for later pickup and delivery to researchers on Earth. Curiosity and the other Mars rovers, satellites, and probes have garnered substantial knowledge about the Red Planet in recent decades, but planetary scientists say no Mars-based investigations can be nearly as instructive as studying a sample in person here on Earth.

(Video: Mars Rover's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

Return to Sender

That's why "sample return" has topped several comprehensive reviews of what NASA should focus on for the next decade regarding Mars.

"There is absolutely no doubt that this rover has the capability to collect and cache a suite of magnificent samples," said astronomer Steven Squyres, with Cornell University in New York, who led a "decadal survey" of what scientists want to see happen in the field of planetary science in the years ahead. "We have a proven system now for landing a substantial payload on Mars, and that's what we need to enable sample return."

The decision about whether the second rover will be able to collect and "cache" a sample will be up to a "science definition team" that will meet in the years ahead to weigh the pros and cons of focusing the rover's activity on that task.  

As currently imagined, bringing a rock sample back to Earth would require three missions: one to select, pick up, and store the sample; a second to pick it up and fly it into a Mars orbit; and a third to take it from Mars back to Earth.

"A sample return would rely on all the Mars missions before it," said Scott Hubbard, formerly NASA's "Mars Czar," who is now at Stanford University. "Finding the right rocks from the right areas, and then being able to get there, involves science and technology we've learned over the decades."

Renewed Interest

Clearly, Curiosity's success has changed the thinking about Mars exploration, said Hubbard. He was a vocal critic of the Obama Administration's decision earlier this year to cut back on the Mars program as part of agency belt-tightening but now is "delighted" by this renewed initiative.

(Explore an interactive time line of Mars exploration in National Geographic magazine.)

More than 50 million people watched NASA coverage of Curiosity's landing and cheered the rover's success, Hubbard said. If things had turned out differently with Curiosity, "we'd be having a very different conversation about the Mars program now."

(See "Curiosity Landing on Mars Greeted With Whoops and Tears of Jubilation.")

If Congress gives the green light, the 2020 rover would be the only $1 billion-plus "flagship" mission—NASA's largest and most expensive class of projects—in the agency's planetary division in the next decade. There are many other less ambitious projects to other planets, asteroids, moons, and comets in the works, but none are flagships. That has left some planetary scientists not involved with Mars unhappy with NASA's heavy Martian focus.

Future Plans

While the announcement of the 2020 rover mission set the Mars community abuzz, NASA also outlined a series of smaller missions that will precede it. The MAVEN spacecraft, set to launch next year, will study the Martian atmosphere in unprecedented detail; a lander planned for 2018 will study the Red Planet's crust and interior; and NASA will renew its promise to participate in a European life-detection mission in 2018. NASA had signed an agreement in 2009 to partner with the European Space Agency on that mission but had to back out earlier this year because of budget constraints.

NASA said that a request for proposals would go out soon, soliciting ideas about science instruments that might be on the rover. And as for a sample return system, at this stage all that's required is the ability to identify good samples, collect them, and then store them inside the rover.

"They can wait there on Mars for some time as we figure out how to pick them up," Squyres said. "After all, they're rocks."

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Kate Middleton Leaves London Hospital

Kate Middleton left King Edward VII Hospital in London this morning after being admitted four days ago following the palace's announcement that she is pregnant and being treated for hyperemesis gravidarum.

"The Duchess of Cambridge has been discharged from the King Edward VII Hospital and will now head to Kensington Palace for a period of rest," Nick Loughran, the assistant press secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, said in a statement. "Their Royal Highnesses would like to thank the staff at the hospital for the care and treatment The Duchess has received."

For Complete Coverage of the Royal Baby, Please Visit Our Special Section – Click Here

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Middleton, 30, who is less than 12 weeks pregnant, was seen leaving the hospital with Prince William at 11 a.m. GT today. A smiling Middleton was holding yellow flowers and waved to the crowd as she departed from the hospital in a black car.

The Duke and Duchess were spending time with her parents in Bucklebury when she became ill with the symptoms of hyperemesis gravidarum, or acute nausea.

Click here for photos of Kate through the years.

Prince William sprung into action and drove his wife, along with their personal security team, 50 miles in their Range Rover to the hospital, where Kate was placed on an IV drip.

The royal family was only notified of Kate's pregnancy a few hours before the rest of the world.

The royal couple decided to go public with the pregnancy because Middleton had to be hospitalized Monday afternoon, a palace source said.

Hyperemesis gravidarum, or acute nausea, is usually diagnosed about nine weeks into a pregnancy, and in most cases resolves itself by 16 or 20 weeks, according to Dr. Ashley Roman, a professor and obstetrician-gynecologist at NYU Langone Medical Center.

It can last the whole pregnancy in rare cases.

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Rubio, Ryan look to the future during award dinner speeches

Two high-profile Republican members of Congress who stand at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the party after a stinging presidential defeat delivered speeches Tuesday night aimed at turning the page with a fresh emphasis on inclusion and a renewed focus on growing the middle class.

“Nothing represents how special America is more than our middle class. And our challenge and our opportunity now is to create the conditions that allow it not just to survive, but to grow,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), the Leadership Award recipient at a dinner hosted by the Jack Kemp Foundation, a charitable nonprofit organization named for the late congressman and Housing and Urban Development secretary.

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Myanmar's Union Minister Soe Thane calls on PM Lee

SINGAPORE: Singapore and Myanmar have affirmed warm relations when Myanmar's Union Minister in the President's Office U Soe Thane called on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Wednesday.

During the meeting, Mr Soe Thane, who is also chairman of the Myanmar Investment Commission, expressed appreciation for Singapore's consistent support for Myanmar's reforms and developments.

The two men also had a substantial discussion on Myanmar's political and economic developments.

Mr Soe Thane is in Singapore on a study visit jointly organised by the Singapore Cooperation Programme and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

- CNA/lp

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