A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.
Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.
In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report. Read the full story
Cash from organized crime ‘rescued’ banks during crisis: UN official
The vast majority of an estimated $352 billion in proceeds of organized crime, mostly from the drug trade, was funneled through the global banking system during the financial crisis of the past two years, and in some cases, the money rescued banks from collapse, says the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Antonio Maria Costa told the UK Observer that intelligence agencies and prosecutors alerted him 18 months ago to evidence that drug money was being “absorbed into the financial system.”
“In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital,” Costa said. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”
The Observer reports:
Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, [Costa] said.
“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities… There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.” Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.
Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.
Costa has been head of the UN’s drug and crime office since 2002, and is known for his tough stance on illicit drugs, including marijuana. He recently warned that Africa is becoming a major drug hub, following an investigation into the crash of a Boeing 727 in Mali that had flown in from Venezuela carrying 10 tons of cocaine.
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor
Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations‘ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.
This will raise questions about crime’s influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. “In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor,” he said.
Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.
“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities… There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.” Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.
“That was the moment [last year] when the system was basically paralysed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. The progressive liquidisation to the system and the progressive improvement by some banks of their share values [has meant that] the problem [of illegal money] has become much less serious than it was,” he said.
The IMF estimated that large US and European banks lost more than $1tn on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009 and more than 200 mortgage lenders went bankrupt. Many major institutions either failed, were acquired under duress, or were subject to government takeover.
Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.
British bankers would want to see any evidence that Costa has to back his claims. A British Bankers’ Association spokesman said: “We have not been party to any regulatory dialogue that would support a theory of this kind. There was clearly a lack of liquidity in the system and to a large degree this was filled by the intervention of central banks.”
NEW YORK – Brazil has recently generated positive headlines with its 2016 Olympic bid victory, as well as its increased economic and political visibility.
Based on current economic trends, it could be one of the world’s five biggest economies — along with China, the United States, India and Japan — by the middle of this century, according to The Economist.
Yet, the evidence of progress has been marred by the nation’s troubling crime statistics — and reports of unlawful methods employed by the security forces. Read the full story
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel triggered a fresh rift with Washington over settlement building on Tuesday by approving the building of 900 homes for Jews on West Bank land it occupied in a 1967 war and annexed to its Jerusalem municipality.
The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said U.S. President Barack Obama’s envoy, George Mitchell, had asked an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a meeting in London on Monday, to block the proposed construction at the settlement of Gilo.
But a government planning commission approved the addition of 900 housing units at Gilo, where 40,000 Israelis already live.
The Israeli decision drew an unusually sharply worded rebuke from the White House, which said it was “dismayed” and accused Israel of undermining Obama’s efforts to resume peace talks with Palestinians stalled since December. Read the full story
* Brazil says hunger a “weapon of mass destruction”
* Summit declaration dilutes hunger and farm aid targets
* Berlusconi the only G8 leader attending
By Silvia Aloisi and Daniel Flynn
ROME, Nov 16 (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Monday that agreeing a climate change deal in Copenhagen next month is crucial to fighting global hunger, which Brazil’s president described as “the most devastating weapon of mass destruction”.
Government leaders and officials met in Rome for a three-day U.N. summit on how to help developing countries feed themselves, but anti-poverty campaigners and even some participants were already writing off the event as a missed opportunity. Read the full story
U.S. President Barack Obama has called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to personally congratulate him for agreeing to take part in a run-off election on November 7. Afghanistan’s election commission called for another round of voting after a U.N.-backed commission determined the original August balloting was rife with fraud. Read the full story
Defense Minister Ehud Barak told world diplomats on Tuesday that the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza, is “false, distorted and promotes terror.”
Speaking to the foreign ministers of France, Britian, Spain and Norway, among others, ahead of a United Nations debate on the report scheduled for Thursday, Barak said that adopting the report would give terror organizations around the world an advantage.
“The democratic nations of the world must understand that adopting the report will cripple their ability to deal with terror organizations, and terror in general,” Barak said.
On Wednesday, it emerged that the UN Human Rights Council’s debate over the Goldstone report will also deal with Jerusalem, the Temple Mount riots and the siege of Gaza, according to a resolution the Palestinian Authority and a group of countries intend to submit.
Haaretz has obtained a copy of the document: Click here for the full text of the Palestinian draft resolution.
According to a political source in Jerusalem, the PA’s ambassador to UN institutions in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told the ambassadors of the countries involved, most of them Arab and Muslim, that the main motivation behind the Palestinian request to discuss the Goldstone report stemmed from “Israeli provocations in Jerusalem.” The Palestinians had originally decided not to have the report discussed.
The Palestinian ambassador said Israel must be shown that it cannot evade international law.
The new draft resolution is entitled “The human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
The resolution, which Foreign Ministry sources have described as “very extreme,” has three parts: East Jerusalem, the Goldstone report on Operation Cast Lead, and the report by the UN’s human rights commissioner on conditions in the Gaza Strip.
An official at the Foreign Ministry says the draft “will only serve to show how excessive the Palestinian claims really are.”
The deliberations at the council will take place Thursday and Friday, with a vote on the resolution on Monday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Friday that Israel must prepare for a protracted struggle against a damning United Nations report on its winter offensive in Gaza, after the UN’s Human Rights Council endorsed the report. Read the full story
The Palestinian Authority would not oppose the prosecution of Hamas militants on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court, Israel Radio on Saturday quoted the PA’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva as saying. Read the full story
The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the “privilege” of building a huge trade deficit.“Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s ‘privilege’ to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity,” UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said. Read the full story
The U.N. Secretary-General is condemning the terrorist attack that killed five World Food Program aid workers in Islamabad, Pakistan. Several other people were injured in the attack as well. Read the full story
Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has handed the Kremlin a list of Russian scientists believed by the Israelis to be helping Iran to develop a nuclear warhead. He is said to have delivered the list during a mysterious visit to Moscow.
Netanyahu flew to the Russian capital with Uzi Arad, his national security adviser, last month in a private jet. Read the full story
JERUSALEM: Video of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was handed over to Israeli authorities yesterday in exchange for the release of 20 female Palestinian prisoners.
It was the first image of Sergeant Shalit released by the militant Palestinian nationalist movement Hamas since his capture in June 2006. Read the full story
FRANCE today led a walkout of delegations, including Australia, to protest a fiery speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the UN General Assembly. Read the full story
Clearly you can see in this more recently released video a line of demo charges going off vertically on the right middle of the building. Note the charges start going off and only then does the building start to collapse with them. And I say this to any who will insist that the “structural failure” caused these effects. Nuh uh, no way in hell.
Something went off inside that building, in a line, just like demo charges!
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