ECM WORLD WATCH: GLOBAL & NATIONAL NEWS

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August 4, 2011 (San Diego’s East County)--ECM World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflecting all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views.

Top world and U.S. headlines include:

 

U.S.

• FAA shutdown: Obama urges Congress to settle latest row (BBC)
• Deal could endanger healthcare law (Politico)

• General Mills partners with American Refugee Committee to aid famine relief efforts in Somalia (Wall Street Journal Market Watch)
• Obama signs U.S. debt bill into law (BBC)
• The Fires This Time (Fairness and Accuracy in Media)
• Accused Fort Hood plotter got bomb-making recipe from Al Qaeda (Christian Science Monitor)
• Study: Forests absorb much more greenhouse gases than previously known (Christian Science Monitor)
• Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say (Los Angeles Times)

 

WORLD

• Somali famine’s brutal toll: 29,000 kids dead in 3 months (Newser/AP)
• Arab League discusses Palestinian state (Al Jazeera)
• Nigeria Ogoniland cleanup ‘could take 30 years’ (BBC)
• Islamist show of state in Tahir state angers activists (Christian Science Monitor)
• Iran vows to skirt nuclear shutdown; watchdog embarrassed (Reuters)
• Hamas executives two Gazans as spies for Israel (Jerusalem Post)
• Norway shooting: Names and photos of victims published (Norwegian press)
• Fukushima radiation levels rise, area closed (Christian Science Monitor)
• Mubarak’s trial begins in Cairo (BBC)

 

 

U.S.

 

FAA SHUTDOWN: OBAMA URGES CONGRESS TO SETTLE LATEST ROW


August 4, 2011 (BBC)--President Barack Obama has again urged Congress to end a funding row that has partially shut down the body which oversees US air safety. He said it was a "lose-lose situation" that could cost the government $1bn (£610m) in uncollected air fare taxes.
Many lawmakers left for summer breaks after the US debt crisis was resolved, without extending the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) budget.
 

About 70,000 construction workers on airport projects have had to stop work.
Safety inspectors are now being asked to work without pay. Air traffic control is not affected.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14391886

DEAL COULD ENDANGER HEALTHCARE LAW

 

August 4, 2011 (Politico)The debt ceiling agreement could jeopardize millions of dollars, and perhaps billions, in initiatives from President Barack Obama’s health care reform law if the super committee can’t come up with required spending cuts.
 

Many of the pots of money in the law — one of the Democrats’ most prized pieces of legislation — could get trimmed by the debt deal’s sequestration, or triggered cuts. The funds for prevention programs and community health centers, grants to help states set up insurance exchanges and co-ops, and money to help states review insurance rates could be slashed across the board if the panel can’t find enough cuts this fall.

Funding for the temporary high-risk pools for pre-existing conditions could be sliced, too, as well as grants to improve maternal and child health.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60634.html#ixzz1U4UyH16W

 

GENERAL MILLS PARTNERS WITH AMERICAN REFUGEE COMMITTEE TO AID FAMINE RELIEF EFFORTS IN SOMALIA

 

August 3, 2011 (Wall Street Journal Market Watch) -- The General Mills Foundation today announces up to $100,000 in support to the American Refugee Committee (ARC) to speed famine relief efforts to the millions of Somalis on the brink of starvation. An initial $50,000 donation has been made to ARC, a humanitarian organization based in the Twin Cities that has a team in Somalia distributing food in the nation's capital of Mogadishu.
 

To encourage further corporate giving, the General Mills Foundation has offered to match contributions from other Twin Cities companies, up to $50,000, that support ARC's relief work in Somalia.
 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/general-mills-partners-with-american-refugee-committee-to-aid-famine-relief-efforts-in-somalia-2011-08-03?reflink=MW_news_stmp

 

OBAMA SIGNS US DEBT BILL INTO LAW

 

August 2, 2011 (BBC)--President Barack Obama has signed legislation to increase the US debt ceiling and avert a financial default, after Congress voted in favour of a bipartisan compromise deal.
…But the bill's passage failed to lift financial markets.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14379240

 

 

THE FIRES THIS TIME

In coverage of extreme weather, media downplays climate change

 

August 2011 (Fairness & Accuracy in Media)…The wildfires that raged out of control across the Southwest in May and June were mostly covered as an unexpected natural disaster, without much thought of causes; in one exception, the Arizona Republic (6/12/11) fixed the blame squarely on the state having too many trees—a charge also brought up by the New York Times (6/11/11), which reported that, among other things, “Some [residents and experts] complained that it was environmentalists who had caused the forests to become tinderboxes by preventing the thinning of trees as they sought to protect wildlife.”

 

This common conservative claim, Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm noted (6/12/11), was refuted in a 2006 paper (Science, 8/16/06) that found that fires were increasing the most at higher elevations, where forest restoration is less of an issue, but where warmer temperatures have a huge impact by melting winter snows earlier and increasing summer drought.

 

In fact, scientists have long predicted that one result of climate change would be a dramatic increase in Western wildfires, as Pete Spotts of the Christian Science Monitor explained in a rare article making such connections (6/9/11). The National Academy of Sciences projected (7/16/10) that a 1-degree Celsius increase in global temperatures—just half the best-case scenario in most climate models—could more than triple the acreage burned by wildfires in the U.S. West. Washington Post blogger Jason Samenow (6/14/11) reported on this study, but it went unmentioned in the newspaper’s wildfire coverage.

 

Similarly, a NASA wildfire model released last year (10/27/10) projected that climate change would lead to an increase of fires in the U.S. West of between 30 and 60 percent by 2100. “I want you to think a little bit of fire as a metaphor for the many things that climate change holds for us,” NASA earth sciences director Peter Hildebrand told a conference in Colorado in early April—though the only reporter to note this statement was environmental journalist Brendon Bosworth on his self-titled blog (4/8/11).
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4366

 

ACCUSED FORT HOOD PLOTTER GOT BOMBMAKING RECIPE FROM AL QAEDA

 

July 29, 2011 (Christian Science Monitor)--A soldier suspected of plotting a bomb and handgun attack against military personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, was using a bombmaking recipe from an Al Qaeda-linked online magazine, according to federal court documents released on Friday.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/0729/Accused-Fort-Hood-plotter-got-bombmaking-recipe-from-Al-Qaeda

STUDY: FORESTS ABSORB MUCH MORE GREEN HOUSE GAS THAN PREVIOUSLY KNOWN

 

July 15, 2011 (Christian Science Monitor)--Want to save the planet? Plant a tree.
Or maybe a lot of them. Or maybe don't cut down so many.
 

These are the implications of a new study, which found that the world's forests play an unexpectedly large role in climate change, vacuuming up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and storing the carbon in wood, according to research published online Thursday by the journal Science.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/0715/Study-Forests-absorb-much-more-greenhouse-gas-than-previously-known


MISSING IRAQ MONEY MAY HAVE BEEN STOLEN, AUDITORS SAY

 

U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war.

 

June 13, 2011 (Los Angeles Times)--After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born.

 

Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.
 

 

This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missing-billions-20110613,0,4414060.story

 

 

WORLD

 

 

SOMALI FAMINE”S BRUTAL TOLL: 29,000 KIDS DEAD IN 3 MONTHS


All under the age of 5, according to the U.S.

 

August 4, 2011 (Newser/AP)-- The UN has said that the famine in Somalia has killed tens of thousands, and the first specific estimate to emerge paints an even more heartbreaking picture. More than 29,000 children under the age of five have died in just the last 90 days in the southern part of the country, a US official told a congressional committee yesterday. The UN yesterday added three new regions in Somalia to the area deemed a famine zone, and noted that 3.2 million of the country's 7.5 million people require immediate lifesaving aid, reports the AP
http://www.newser.com/story/125068/somalia-famines-brutal-toll-29k-kids-under-age-5-dead-in-3-months.html


ARAB LEAGUE DISCUSSES PALESTINIAN STATE

 

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat says application to recognise Palestine as a state by UN will preserve peace process

August 4, 2011 (Al Jazeera)-- Representatives of the Arab League have met in Qatar to discuss the Palestinian Authority's application to the United Nations for official recognition as a Palestinian state.

…At the next UN General Assembly meeting in September, Palestinian leaders plan to put forward a proposal for the UN to recognise an independent Palestinian state.

The United States has said that it will veto any such proposal, and has pushed for another round of talks between Israel and the Palestinians instead.

The Palestinian leadership, however, has urged the US to reconsider that position.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/08/20118441614328796.html

 

NIGERIA OGONILAND OIL CLEAN-UP ‘COULD TAKE 30 YEARS’

 

August 4, 2011 (CNN)--Nigeria's Ogoniland region could take 30 years to fully recover from oil spills, a UN report says.

The long-awaited UN study says environment restoration could prove to be the world's "most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up" ever taken.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14398659

 

ISLAMIST SHOW OF FORCE IN EGYPT’S TAHIR SQUARE ANGERS ACTIVISTS

July 29, 2011 (Christian Science Monitor)--Salafis, who follow an ultraconservative brand of Islam, had agreed to a set of unified demands for today's rally with secular activists. But they reneged, even shouting pro-military chants.

A rally that was supposed to demonstrate unity between Egypt’s Islamist and secular liberal forces instead showcased the divide between the two.
 

Thousands of Islamists flooded into Cairo's Tahrir Square today, dominating the protest and chanting slogans about turning Egypt into an Islamic state governed by sharia, or Islamic law.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0729/Islamist-show-of-force-in-Egypt-s-Tahrir-Square-angers-activists

 

 

JAPAN VOWS TO SKIRT NUCLEAR SHUTDOWN, WATCHDOG EMBARRASSED

 

(Reuters) - Japan will strive to avoid a complete shutdown of its 54 nuclear reactors and avert crippling power shortages in the near term while charting plans to reduce the nation's dependence on nuclear power, the government said on Friday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/29/us-japan-nuclear-kan-idUSTRE76S3K620110729?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FworldNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+International%29

 

HAMAS EXECUTES TWO GAZANS AS SPIES FOR ISRAEL

 

July 26, 2011 (Jerusalem Post)--Islamist group finds father and son guilty of providing IDF with intel that helped track down Palestinians, including the movement's chief.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=231039&R=R3


NORWAY SHOOTING: NAMES AND PHOTOS OF VICTIMS PUBLISHED (IN NORWEGIAN):
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/oslobomben/ofre/

 

 

FUKUSHIMA RADIATION LEVELS RISE, AREA CLOSED

 

August 2, 2011 (Christian Science Monitor)--Fukushima radiation has been found at potentially lethal levels at two locations. The area around the leaks has been evacuated.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2011/0803/Fukushima-radiation-levels-rise-area-closed?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fworld+%28Christian+Science+Monitor+|+World%29

 

 

MUBARAK’S TRIAL BEGINS IN CAIRO

 

August 3, 2011 (BBC)-- Egypt's ex-President Hosni Mubarak has denied charges of corruption and ordering the killing of protesters, on the opening day of his trial in Cairo.
He was wheeled on a hospital bed into a cage in court to the astonishment of onlookers outside, correspondents say.
 

The 83-year-old is being tried with his sons, who also deny charges against them, ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and six other former officials.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14382997  
 


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