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Hope fades over EU role for Blair

Brett — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:43:04 +0000

Tony Blair received an unwelcome 55th birthday present from France yesterday. President Nicolas Sarkozy has abandoned his efforts to push the former prime minister’s claim to be the first permanent president of the European Union Council from next year.

M. Sarkozy, who takes over the rotating EU presidency in July, is now backing the candidature of Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Prime Minister, according to senior French officials. The French President was once a strong Blair-backer, floating the idea himself last year, but he has bowed to pressure from other EU governments.

Some countries are anti-Blair. Others oppose the idea that the new post should go to a political heavyweight, who might try to inflate the importance of the new job.

By supporting Mr Juncker’s candidacy, M. Sarkozy could be placing himself on a collision course with Gordon Brown, five weeks after he made a speech in Westminster hailing a new Anglo-French brotherhood.

Canada urges Sudan to stop Darfur attacks

Brett — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:21:01 +0000

Africa is the world’s second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30,221,532 km? (11,668,545 mi?) including adjacent islands, it covers 6.0% of the Earth’s total surface area, and 20.4% of the total land area. With more than 900,000,000 people (as of 2005) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14% of the world’s human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. There are 46 countries including Madagascar, and 53 including all the island groups. Africa is widely regarded in the scientific community to be the origin of humans and the Hominidae tree. frica straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Because of the lack of natural regular precipitation and irrigation as well as glaciers or mountain aquifer systems.

Global warming blamed for ice shelf collapse

Brett — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:57:52 +0000

The disintegration of the Wilkins ice sheet, the largest on the Antarctic Peninsula to be threatened, is more evidence of rapid climate change on the continent, they claimed.

Satellite images of the Wilkins ice sheet showing its rapid collapse
Satellite images from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre show the rapid disintegration of the Wilkins ice shelf

The British Antarctic Survey said the ice shelf was “hanging by a thread”.

Satellite images from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre showed an iceberg measuring 25.5 miles by 1.5 miles - the size of the Isle of Man - broke off last month.

A large section of the sheet, a broad plate of permanent floating ice around 1,000 miles south of South America, is now held together by a four-mile strip of ice.