Mountain Day at the Durban Climate Change Conference May Not Lead to Changes (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Today has been declared Mountain Day at the Durban Climate Change conference in South Africa. The United Nations Conference of the Parties will allow researchers from the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development to present their findings about the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region. Although the media is portraying the publication of its results as a monumental event, ICIMOD has previously noted that a full report may only be seen in 2013.

New Data

The International Center for Integrated Mountain Development has found disturbing data on the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region. Despite gaps in information and the need for more extensive studies, ICIMOD has already found that there is an ongoing reduction in mass in the glaciers. The loss of glaciers can lead to flooding in some areas and a reduction of a water supply in others. The focus on climate change is at the heart of the ICIMOD research.

Unfortunately, the reports from the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development also illustrate an ongoing problem in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region that needs to be addressed immediately. The enormous gaps in data are disturbing, and I am shocked to see the minimal amount of research that has been devoted to this area. Although ICIMOD has highlighted the organization's hopes of ongoing studies and more data, funding is limited, and it is not certain how this will be accomplished.

Impact

It is difficult to assess the full impact of the ICIMOD research on the United Nations climate talks. The findings from the organization are being presented today and have essentially been relegated to the outskirts of the United Nations Conference of the Parties. I do not think the reports will have a strong influence on the climate talks because they have not been given an adequate audience.

The Kyoto Protocol is still at the center of the COP17, and the glaciers of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region are not going to remove the focus from the debate. Although this region may hold the answers to understanding global climate change, the Conference of the Parties will probably overlook most of its limited data while politics continue to reign.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/environment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111204/sc_ac/10592029_mountain_day_at_the_durban_climate_change_conference_may_not_lead_to_changes

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Occupy Wall Street, Act II: Go local

With many encampments razed or in jeopardy, Occupy Wall Street needs a second act. For now, many activists are settling on issues of concern to local residents. Will that weaken the movement, or strengthen it?

As their encampments are razed, or as their tent cities dwindle with the onset of cold weather, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement ? now almost three months old ? needs a second act. And organizers of this grass-roots movement, which asserts that "the 99 percent" of Americans who are not Wall Street bankers, hotel chain heiresses, or real estate titans are getting a raw deal these days, appear to have lit upon an answer, for now: Go local.

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So it is that the Occupiers in Knoxville, Tenn., plan to start occupying foreclosed homes, to dramatize banks' actions. In Detroit, protesters are collecting provisions for the city's neediest. And in Los Angeles, Occupy activists are readying for a Dec. 12 action to close the Port of Los Angeles for a day ? part of a larger call for port closings from Tacoma, Wash., to San Diego to protest perceived union-busting tactics against organized longshore workers.

The question is whether Occupy forces are scattering their fire in so many directions that the movement will inevitably fragment and dissolve, or whether they will grow in strength and accomplishments by proving former House Speaker "Tip" O'Neill's famous pronouncement that, in the end, "all politics is local."

Until lately, the movement has been largely about occupying ground in the name of the 99 percent ? and trying to hold that ground in the face of city and police intervention. Since Sept. 17, when the first Occupiers settled in on Wall Street in New York, thousands of protesters have been arrested in cities across the United States (usually for refusing to obey police orders or for resisting arrest). The Occupy movement has been a way for people to rise up and vent their frustrations, but critics fault it for being unwilling or unable to devise a national action plan around something concrete, such as backing the Democrats' push to raise taxes on millionaires or proposing a constitutional amendment to limit special-interest money in political campaigns.

But that is as it should be, say those involved with the movement as well as its close observers.

"The question of engaging with local issues brings inherent challenges to the Occupy movement, but it is also the only way it can really move forward," says George Ciccariello-Maher, a political theorist and assistant professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, a city where police cleared an Occupy encampment on Nov. 30. The alternative is to remain on the level of macroeconomic analysis and national issues ? and to jump into national electoral politics or lobbying. At this point in the movement's development, he says, those approaches would be difficult to sustain.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/LGk0L7hx8-A/Occupy-Wall-Street-Act-II-Go-local

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The Next Time You're Drowning, You'd Better Hope One of These Is Nearby [Video]

Dragging a body any distance is tough enough on land, much less while swimming. And the faster you land that person, the more likely you are to resuscitate him. Unfortunately, most conventional life-saving equipment is either slow moving, like kick-boards, or slow launching, like wave-runners. Hence, the Asap Water Rescue Craft. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/khsfnLRPwIY/the-next-time-youre-drowning-youd-better-hope-one-of-these-is-nearby

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Samsung's two-faced SCH-W999 Android plays the dual core, dual SIM game

Remember Samsung's second-gen dual-screen Android clamshell we spotted about a month ago? Well, here it is at last: announced in partnership with China Telecom, this SCH-W999 flip phone packs two 3.5-inch 480 x 800 Super AMOLED panels back to back, along with a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8660, Android 2.3 with TouchWiz, HyperSkin back cover (as featured on the Galaxy Nexus for grip plus anti-smear), five megapixel camera, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi and WAPI (China's not-so-successful take on WiFi, basically).

Like many phones on China Telecom, the W999 comes with dual SIM slots and dual-mode connectivity (GSM and CDMA2000, with the latter offering EV-DO 3G), but with the additional support for penta-band radio for globetrotters. Want to nab one? We're looking at a 2012 launch, though there's no word on prices just yet -- well, just so you know, the predecessor W899 starts from ¥8990 ($1,410), so good luck with your garage sale. We got you some pictures from the China launch event after the break, courtesy of Samsung Mobile.

Continue reading Samsung's two-faced SCH-W999 Android plays the dual core, dual SIM game

Samsung's two-faced SCH-W999 Android plays the dual core, dual SIM game originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/03/samsungs-two-faced-sch-w999-android-plays-the-dual-core-dual-s/

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Suicide kit maker, 93, pleads guilty to tax offense (Reuters)

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) ? A great-grandmother who sold do-it-yourself asphyxiation kits from her home in California pleaded guilty on Friday to a misdemeanor tax-related offense stemming from an investigation of her mail-order business.

Sharlotte Hydorn, 93, a retired public school science teacher, admitted failing to file a federal income tax return from 2007 through 2010, years in which investigators said at least seven customers used her kits to commit suicide.

Prosecutors said Hydorn sold about 1,300 of the devices during that time but had agreed to stop making or selling the kits as part of her plea deal.

The San Diego County district attorney, who was a party to the settlement, agreed not to prosecute Hydorn for her role in any of the six known deaths that occurred in that county.

Federal prosecutors said they would recommend probation and a fine as punishment.

Hydorn, whose San Diego-area house was raided in May by federal agents seizing documents, computers and sewing machines, has said her so-called "exit kits" were intended to help terminally ill people end their lives with dignity in their own homes.

The product, sold for $60 each including instructions and shipping, consisted of a plastic hood that closed around the neck and tubing that connected the hood to a tank of helium or other inert gas that users had to supply themselves.

She acknowledged selling the kits for the past 20 years under the brand name GLADD, which stands for Glorious Life and Dignified Death, without performing background checks or screening the individuals who ordered the apparatus. But she has insisted she made little money from the enterprise.

Still, Leslie DeMarco, a special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service field office in Los Angeles, said Hydorn "was operating a for-profit business without regard to the identity of her clients, their current medical condition or the federal tax laws."

"It was clear that Hydorn, in fact, has no way of knowing if a purchaser was simply depressed or a minor acting without the consent or guidance of their parent," DeMarco said.

'A COMMITTED PERSON'

Hydorn's lawyer, Charles Goldberg, said she never deposited payments from her patrons, and that FBI agents found hundreds of uncashed checks and envelopes of cash in her home.

"She was a committed person with strong beliefs that a person had a right to determine the quality of their life, particularly in the last days," Goldberg said.

Hydorn has said her interest in helping the terminally ill stemmed from the loss of her husband to colon cancer in 1977.

The income she failed to report to the IRS was mostly from her retirement pension, Social Security and rent from two small apartment units, he said.

Goldberg added that "the great majority of people who purchased the kit from her never used it."

"It was an alternative in the event that their life became so unlivable that they wanted to end it," he said.

Hydorn made headlines after one of her mail-order customers in Oregon, Nicholas Klonoski, 29, described by his family as suffering from depression but otherwise healthy, used one of her kits to kill himself in December 2010.

Outrage over that case led Oregon state lawmakers to pass legislation to ban sales of such devices, even though Oregon is one of two U.S. states with laws on the books legalizing physician-assisted suicide for people with incurable, fatal illnesses.

Federal investigators said they have documented that six other people in San Diego County alone who purchased her kits used them to commit suicide during the past four years. The federal prosecutor's statement announcing the plea deal said the four most recent, all from 2010, ranged in age from late 40s to the mid-80s, and none was terminally ill.

The misdemeanor to which Hydorn pleaded carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $100,000 fine. Prosecutors said in court documents they would recommend five years of supervised probation and a fine at the "low end" of federal guidelines.

The IRS estimates Hydorn owes $15,000 to $30,000 in back taxes, which she has agreed to pay. She remains free on $10,000 bond. A sentencing hearing was set for February.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111203/us_nm/us_suicide_kits_california

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Fla. man charged with killing couple with bat

(AP) ? A North Florida man has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder after authorities say he beat a man and a woman to death with a baseball bat and then photographed their bodies.

Authorities said Saturday that Craig Arron Lede, 40, of Spring Hill is being held without bond after telling investigators that he killed John Ketsemidis, 29, and Dana Nelson, 28, at Lede's house on Wednesday when he became enraged that a debt couldn't be repaid. The suspect also allegedly drove to the home of the male victim's mother the next day trying to get money while the female victim's body was stashed in the trunk.

"The defendant stated he killed John and Dana because he was tired of being 'screwed over,'" Hernando County Sheriff's Detective Randy Wiliamson wrote in an arrest affidavit. "The defendant demonstrated how he swung the baseball bat and struck both victims. The defendant stated he photographed the bodies and intended to keep the picture as a trophy..."

According to a news release from the sheriff's office, Ketsemidis' mother called authorities Friday in a panic because she hadn't heard from her son in a few days. She told authorities that Lede had come by her house on Thursday, telling a bizarre story that her son was at a local hospital and that he needed money. Lede was driving her son's BMW, she said.

Hernando County sheriff's deputies headed to Lede's home that afternoon in an effort to locate Ketsemidis ? they had also traced him to the address through an ankle-monitoring device he was wearing because he was on probation. There deputies noticed what they believed was a body wrapped in a blanket on the garage floor, according to the news release.

"At that time Craig became very nervous and asked the deputies to leave unless they had a search warrant," according to the statement.

Lede, who is unemployed and had a warrant for a probation violation, was immediately taken into custody. It's unclear if he has an attorney.

As deputies pursued an arrest warrant, Lede began talking to investigators at the sheriff's office, authorities said,

Lede said the couple came to his house late Wednesday night and that Ketsemidis said he couldn't repay money he owed him, the news release said. Authorities said Lede became enraged and used a bat to strike Ketsemidis in the head, knocking him to the ground, and then to strike Nelson in the head.

"Once the victims were down and helpless, the defendant struck them in the head and upper body several times causing eventual death," the arrest affidavit says. "The defendant used his camera to photograph the deceased victims."

Authorities subsequently found both bodies in Lede's garage ? Ketsemidis' wrapped in a blanket, and Nelson's in the trunk of Ketsemidis' BMW.

The arrest affidavit says Lede acknowledged that he had "run errands with Dana's body still in the trunk."

Lede was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of armed robbery. Authorities said Lede was wearing a gold Bulova watch that he removed from Ketsemidis' body.

Authorities believe Lede acted alone. He is currently being held without bond.

The St. Petersburg Times reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/uEtXPg ) that Lede has a history of domestic violence and a September 2010 battery charge. His father-in-law David Stenger told the newspaper that Lede once struck Stenger's daughter, prompting her to leave the marriage, file a restraining order against him and begin the divorce process.

Stenger said Lede's behavior worsened following a devastating car accident and he became addicted to painkillers.

Lede and the two victims had all been patients at Hope Pain Management Clinic, which was closed a month ago after a lengthy investigation by the sheriff's office.

"There is little doubt that (prescription drugs) significantly contributed to the deaths of these two young people," Sheriff Al Nienhuis said in a statement. "This is a perfect example that prescription drug abuse is not a victimless or a non-violent crime."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-03-Couple%20Slain-Baseball%20Bat/id-e2a1e44f7e094ca0ac5440a76f2ed80c

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Syrian activists: Shooting near Lebanon border (AP)

BEIRUT ? Activists have reported heavy shooting in the western Syrian town of Talkalakh, near the border with Lebanon.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited witnesses as saying shooting erupted early on Friday and that dozens have been wounded.

There also were reports of anti-government protests in Idlib province, near Turkey. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

Syria is trying to crush an 8-month-old revolt challenging President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule.

On Thursday, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Syria has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead since mid-March and an increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army to fight Assad's regime.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111202/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

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Debt funds needed in all eurozone states: Germany (Reuters)

BERLIN (Reuters) ? Every country in the euro zone needs to set up a special national fund for sovereign debt that is more than 60 percent of gross domestic product, Germany's finance minister told a newspaper.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, detailing a proposal he will make at a European Union summit on December 9, told the Passauer Neue Presse that a total of 500 billion euros ($672 billion) would need to go into the German fund.

"We need a redemption fund in every single country of the euro zone," he told the newspaper in comments released on Saturday.

Tax revenues should be used to support the funds, Schaeuble said, adding that Germany would not need to raise taxes to implement the plan.

"Around 500 billion euros needs to be stored in the fund. This affects federal, state and municipal debt," he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes Schaeuble's proposal could help restore confidence in the euro, her spokesman said on Friday.

"The chancellor welcomes the proposal of introducing national redemption funds as very interesting," Steffen Seibert told a news conference.

Merkel has ruled out the idea of common euro zone debt issuance as a way to restore confidence in the currency bloc and Schaeuble again underlined Germany's opposition in the newspaper interview.

"There cannot be euro bonds. The German economy would be overburdened should we have to guarantee the debts of all the states. On top of this, the necessary pressure on countries to sort out their national debt problems would fall by the wayside.

If all were to keep to the stability criteria, then the problem is solved by itself."

Asked whether the European Central Bank's recent bond buying activities could increase inflation risks, Schaeuble said there was no reason to fear this.

"Serious economists see neither risk nor signs of inflation dangers. The euro is stable, inside and out."

He also rejected the idea of kicking Greece out of the euro zone as a way to help end the crisis.

"We can't just show states the door if they have difficulties. Also, the economic consequences would be totally unforeseeable were one or more countries to leave the euro zone. The vast majority say that this would be the worst of all developments."

($1 = 0.7446 euros)

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111203/bs_nm/us_germany_eurozone_fimmin

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Theicebreak For iPhone Wants To Make Your Already Great Relationship More Awesome

Screen Shot 2011-12-01 at 7.33.17 PMIn the same space as BeCouply and Tokii, social "network" for couples theicebreak is now available on the iPhone -- for those that want to stay hyper-connected their SOs via mobile. Upon opening theicebreak gives you two options: First is the option to answer an "icebreaker" or a question related to your partner, your relationship or your personality -- like, "What are the best words to hear from your partner?" or "What's your favorite thing to do when the weather gets cold?" You also have the option to "capture today's moment," or share a picture of something you saw during the day that "amazed you."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/akYPxHnsRqQ/

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Video: The Most Riskiest Global Banks

Insight on the institutions that would have the most impact on the economy if they fall into financial trouble, with Robert Engle, 2003 Nobel Laureate Economics, NYU Stern School Of Business professor.

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Business & financial news headlines from msnbc.com

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/45490565/

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