U.N. chief signals shift on Kosovo

Source: The Christian Science Monitor | By Robert Marquand

For 16 months, Russia and the West have been a bit eyeball-to-eyeball in the United Nations Security Council over the status of Kosovo. But to borrow Dean Rusk’s famous phrase during the 1963 Cuban missile crisis, it appears that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has just blinked.

U.N. warns attack on Iran will spark ‘fireball’ in Middle East

Source: The Telegraph | By Tim Butcher

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has warned that a military strike on Iran to prevent it developing atomic weapons would turn the region into a “fireball”. Mohamed ElBaradei said unilateral military action, which has not been ruled out by Israel or the US, would push the Islamic republic into a “crash course” of developing nuclear weapons and threatened to resign if an attack took place.

World poll finds global leadership vacuum

Source: WorldPublicOpinion.org

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 20 nations around the world finds that none of the national leaders on the world stage inspire wide confidence. While US President George W. Bush is one of the least trusted leaders, no other leader–including China’s Hu Jintao and Russia’s Vladimir Putin–has gained a broad international base of support.

Climate change’s toll on Africa

Source: UNEP

Africa‘s rapidly changing environmental landscape, from the disappearance of glaciers in Uganda‘s Rwenzori Mountains to the loss of Cape Town‘s unique ‘fynbos’ vegetation, is presented today to the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN).

Climate change pushes Kiribati underwater

Source: International Herald Tribune and AP

The leader of a country slowly being submerged by the Pacific Ocean told an environment conference Thursday that climate change is an issue of human survival, not economic development. Speaking in New Zealand — the host country for the U.N.’s World Environment Day on Thursday — Kiribati President Anote Tong said global efforts to curb climate change may already be too late for low-lying Pacific islands.

Albright: The end of American intervention

Source: The New York Times | By Madeleine K. Albright*

Totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world’s necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion — in places like Haiti and the Balkans — would seem impossible in today’s climate.

Is the US ready to tackle climate change?

Source: The Mercury News | By US Senator Barbara Boxer

Last week, the United States Senate had a landmark moment in the fight against global warming when 54 senators came down on the side of tackling this issue now. While the floor debate on the Climate Security Act was ultimately cut short by a Republican filibuster, our strong vote proves that we are moving in the right direction.

US and EU pledge cooperation on climate change

Source: Xinhua

The European Union (EU) and the United States will enhance cooperation to underpin stability in the international financial system, and join hands on climate change and energy security, according to the final draft of the declaration to be issued after Tuesday’s EU-U.S. summit.