If conventional media wisdom is to be believed, President Obama's top climate and energy adviser Carol Browner's admission in early October that there will be no climate legislation coming out of Congress this year pretty much dooms the upcoming UN climate talks in Copenhagen.
Source: In These Times
For all the talk of polarization and partisanship in U.S. politics, what’s remarkable is the extent to which President Obama has continued policies and practices of his predecessor, George Bush, in domestic economics and military affairs.
Economically, Obama has continued the bailout of Wall Street, maintained Bush-era tax cuts, pursued “stimulus” through large deficit spending and re-appointed Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman who was a Bush favorite.
Source: The New Internationalist
With fireworks, music and dancing ‘nuns’, on Friday 25 September Montevideo was host to the March for Diversity, Uruguay’s equivalent of Gay Pride.
Part of a year long-programme of activities organized by the Uruguayan Government called Actúa Montevideo: Más igualdad, más diversidad (Act Montevideo: more equality, more diversity), it took place in September, a month that this small but open-minded country has dedicated to sexual diversity for the second year running.
Two years ago singer-songwriter and activist Bob Geldof was so excited about biofuels he even became the special advisor to biomass company Helius. At the time, Geldof visited jatropha curcas plantations in Swaziland run by UK biodiesel producer D1 Oils. Geldof was quoted as saying that these plantations had 'life changing potential'. Since then, D1 Oils dropped out and Mr Geldof silenced.
In the last month, following the announcement of the death of Norman Borlaug, we have been reminded of the sweeping claims that have been made about the successes of the green revolution. Borlaug was an agricultural scientist who, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, developed dwarf varieties of wheat and rice that are widely reported to have produced miraculous yields, and which "saved the lives of millions of people" in the developing world who would otherwise have starved.Norman Borlaug
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019