Archive - Dec 14, 2009

• Congress prepares to raise the roof on the national debt
• Kyoto holds key to Copenhagen consensus
• Mass arrests mark COP 15 protests
  (click here for web only special)
• Investigative reporters re-visit New Orleans police shootings after Hurricane Katrina
  (click here for web only special)
• Water pollution plagues China

• Iran says hikers will stand trial
• US Supreme Court refuses further review of detainee rights and upholds immunity for senior officials
• HRW calls for UN to quit all support for military in Congo
• Hyderabad returns to normal after weekend protests over new state – opposition persists 
  
• Belusconi remains hospitalized
• Voters in Chile fail to cast majority in presidential elecs – run-off in January
• Dozens of civilians killed in air raid on Yemen market
• Schwarzenegger calls UC protest “terrorism” after Chancellor’s house damaged

The House or Representatives is prepared to raise the debt ceiling this week. This comes as Congress is working to pass its spending bills, and possibly another jobs creation bill. FSRN’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports.

In Copenhagen today, international climate negotiations grew tense after African countries objected to what they described as an attempt by rich countries to kill the Kyoto Protocol. The United States has expressed it will not sign on to the legally binding treaty that is currently in effect, saying reduction targets would apply only to a new treaty. But African nations are reluctant to move forward with the negotiation without the Kyoto treaty.

The dispute put the brakes conference negotiations for a few hours. The African countries want separate agreements for Kyoto and for the new protocol rather than merging the two into one, as the agenda called for today. Maria Bengashi is a negotiator from South Africa.

"We support our African chair...We support an open, bottom up , party driven process... the Kyoto process should come first."

As we go to broadcast, it appears the African countries succeeded in getting Kyoto back onto the negotiating agenda. A member of Ghana's delegation told FSRN he is hoping the negotiation gets back under way quickly.

"There's an acute sense that we're running out of time on this on this one. Maybe it's good and whips up the urgency on everybody's part but we've lost time and it's not going to be put together in the final analysis."

Another key issue moving forward at the conference is REDD - the program to reduce emissions from forest destruction and degradation when land is cleared for agriculture. Negotiators have been looking to the program to achieve 20 percent of the needed reductions in greenhouse gases. But indigenous groups and environmentalists say safeguards are missing from the text that has emerged out of the weekend negotiations. FSRN's Jenny Johnson has the story.

Activists at the climate talks in Copenhagen kicked off a week's worth of protests with a single massive demonstration that marched from Copenhagen's Parliament square and ended in a candlelit candlelight vigil at the entrance to the conference center where the official talks are taking place. Organizers say over 100,000 people participated. Brian Edwards-Tiekert was there.

There were roughly 1000 arrests during Saturday's rally, most from a group arrest danish police made toward the back of the March. Police say some demonstrators there were throwing objects and attempting to destroy property. Witnesses say most of those arrested had nothing to do with such actions. Most were held for 12 hours under a new Danish law that that allows police to hold protesters in preventative detention for 12 hours without cause. Upon release, many complained of being forced to sit outside on cold pavement in near-freezing temperatures for hours while police were conducting the arrest.

Much of the news from Copenhagen contains grim warnings about the effects climate change can have on human societies - from the drowning of island nations to mass migrations fueled by natural disasters. The most devasting natural disaster in recent US history continues to be Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall near New Orleans in late August 2005 and wrecked the city's levees. The storm profoundly impacted New Orleans society, leaving scars that have yet to heal and questions that remain unanswered.  

More than 4 years after the storm, a group of reporters from the Times-Picayune, PBS's Frontline, and the non-investigative newsroom ProPublica are taking a fresh look at 10 police shootings of civilians in the days after the levees broke. Shannon Young spoke with AC Thompson, an investigative reporter with ProPublica.

A web-only extended version of this interview is available here.

Articles and other materials from the ongoing investigation can be found here.

Hear FSRN's interview with AC Thompson about his investigation into post-Katrina white vigilantism in Algier's Point.

Water pollution is one of China’s most severe environmental problems. According to environmental monitors it affects almost 70% of the country’s rivers, lakes and reservoirs. The Chinese government has tried to implement a number of laws to address the problem, but a series of recent reports by Greenpeace has shown that the situation is only getting worse - and they're blaming major companies for continuing to dump their waste. From Beijing, FSRN’s Shuk-Wah Chung has more.