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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (79705)	10/22/2004 10:58:28 AM
From: RinConRon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793957

Sad news: Russia Duma Ratifies Kyoto Environment Pact 41 minutes ago By Oleg Shchedrov MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Duma ratified the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) on Friday, clearing the way for the long-delayed climate change pact to come into force worldwide. The State Duma's ratification pushes the 126-nation U.N. accord, aimed at battling global warming, over the threshold of 55 percent of developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions needed to make it internationally binding after a U.S. pullout in 2001. "We'll toast the Duma with vodka tonight," Greenpeace climate policy adviser Steve Sawyer said in a statement ahead of the expected vote in favor of the pact. The bill was passed in the lower house of parliament by 334 votes in favor, with 73 against and two abstentions. It still has to go through the upper house and be signed into law by its key advocate, President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites). But these are seen as formalities and Friday's vote in the Duma, controlled by pro-Kremlin parties, is the key to ratification. Hailing the decision "as the moment in history when humanity faced up to its responsibility," Sawyer said the international community now had to build on the Kyoto Protocol to agree on much deeper emissions reductions. Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations (news - web sites) Environment Program (UNEP), said the decision was a milestone that "will concentrate the efforts of governments, business and industry on meeting the Kyoto targets and concentrate efforts on how we can deliver the even deeper cuts." Kyoto obliges rich nations to cut overall emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 by curbing use of coal, oil and natural gas and shifting to cleaner energies like solar or wind power. EXTREME WEATHER Rising global temperatures have been linked to extreme weather patterns, including droughts, flooding and rising sea levels which are seen by some as possible sparks for regional conflicts. Moscow signed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in 1999. But it signaled it would ratify it only this year in exchange for EU agreement on the terms of Moscow's admission to the World Trade Organization (news - web sites). Russia, which accounts for 17 percent of greenhouse gas emissions by developed nations, became the key to Kyoto after the United States pulled out in 2001, saying it was too expensive and wrongly excluded developing nations. With Russia, Kyoto will represent 61 percent of emissions against a current 44 percent. The U.S. share is 36 percent. Proponents of Kyoto say that, apart from improving the environment worldwide, the pact would force Russia to upgrade its industry to new standards. They also believe Russia, whose smokestack industries have cut emissions by about 38 percent since the collapse of the Soviet Union, could earn billions of dollars by selling excess quotas for gas emissions to polluters abroad. But opponents insist new emission limits could constrain Russia's economic growth and undermine Putin's plan to double gross domestic product in 10 years. Russian debates reflect worldwide arguments over the pact, which could cost trillions of dollars to implement. "There are far more important problems to address like HIV (news - web sites), malaria, malnutrition and ways to improve free trade," said Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" who reckons Kyoto is money badly spent. (Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Oslo)

To: LindyBill who wrote (79705)	10/22/2004 11:00:32 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793957

ING Raids Mosque By Alan Brain From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) : Iraqi forces backed by US troops left a mosque they were raiding for suspected insurgents in Mosul after coming under fire, witnesses said.They said American troops and Iraqi National Guards had surrounded a mosque in the northern city during the Friday midday prayer sermon and broken the gate of the compound. A US military spokesman said 106 Iraqi National Guards had conducted the raid and no US forces had entered the mosque. “There were no US forces within two city blocks,” Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings said. “US participation was restricted to the outer cordon.” Earlier the preacher, Sheikh Rayan Tawfiq, said that unarmed worshippers had prevented US and Iraqi forces from entering the mosque itself. He told Reuters by telephone the American troops sparked an uproar when they entered the women’s section of the mosque. A US military statement later said the Iraqi National Guards had detained suspected bomb-makers in the mosque. “As the (National Guard) soldiers were searching the mosque, terrorists fired small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at them,” the statement said, adding that one civilian had been slightly wounded....

To: LindyBill who wrote (79705)	10/22/2004 11:11:53 AM
From: SBHX	Respond to of 793957

Reaganomics or voodoo economics has the premise that lowering taxes puts money back in the hands of the people and though they depress tax revenue in the short term, over the long haul the people and businesses who are the foremost experts at using their own money can most efficiently put the money to good use. This in turn fuels growth and that will in the end increase total tax revenue. The idea was ridiculed by the Keynesians who rely on the government spending side of the GDP equation (and was somewhat discredited when things like liquidity trap and stagflation ruined their party). The approach to taxes and the idea of americans as entrepreneurs was the real Reagan legacy in economics. In the end, it turned out Reaganomics was correct, and Milton Friedman (a brilliant economist with a real nobel prize [not the kind you give to conspiracy theorists]) had a few things to say about that. pbs.org