Negative Blogs

Euro zone finance ministers agreed on Tuesday to lay the groundwork for bailing out Ireland’s banking sector with the IMF, but said Dublin had to decide itself whether to request the aid.

Before the ministers announced their decision in Brussels, Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen resisted pressure to request a bailout — even though the nation’s banking and budget crisis risks spreading to other weak euro zone economies and could endanger the stability of the wider currency bloc.

Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund would hold talks with Ireland, whose large budget deficit is largely due to the cost of rescuing its banks.

Juncker, who chaired Tuesday’s talks, vowed to protect the stability of the 16-nation currency zone if necessary.

“The discussions that will take place between Ireland and the Commission and the ECB and the IMF will enable us to have at our disposal all the elements and instruments we need were Ireland to make a request for assistance to the EU, the IMF and the Eurogroup,” he told a news conference.

“We confirm that we will take action as the Eurogroup … in a determined and coordinated manner to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area if that is needed,” said Juncker.

He said the means were available to help Dublin “were Ireland to make a request for assistance to the EU, the IMF and the Eurogroup.”

The IMF said Irish authorities requested it take part in the talks.

“An IMF team will participate in a short and focused consultation, together with the European Commission and the ECB, to determine the best way to provide any necessary support to address market risks,” the IMF said in a statement.

Cowen said in Dublin the Irish government was fully funded until mid-2011, and that only its banks may need help.

He also acknowledged the government was no closer to publishing a four-year plan for tackling the budget deficit despite its financial crisis.

“I said before that I had hoped it (the plan) would be available for publication, assuming approval, … next week but I can’t anticipate the outcome of discussions in relation to it. We are working to an indicative schedule,” Cowen said.

Irish banks have grown increasingly reliant on funding from the European Central Bank, as other commercial banks have been reluctant to lend to them following the financial crisis in fellow euro zone member Greece.

Bank of Ireland, the country’s largest lender, signaled last week it had suffered a 10 billion euro outflow of deposits from early August until the end of September.

Allied Irish Banks, which will be more than 90 percent owned by the state following a rights issue later this year, will issue a trading statement later this week with details about its funding situation.

By reuters.com

A sign hangs on the railings of the Bank Of Ireland, in central Dublin, November 15, 2010.

Security experts say that parcel bombings sent to embassies across Athens on Monday and Tuesday have all the hallmarks of anarchist groups looking to make a ’symbolic gesture.’

Athens, Greece

A two-day barrage of parcel bombings targeting embassies in Athens bears the hallmarks of anarchist groups in Greece that may have used the attacks to draw international support for their revolutionary cause.

Police have declined to say officially whom they suspect in the attacks, other than it is likely a local anarchist group unconnected to mail bombs from Yemen attributed to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. One of the suspects taken into custody Monday has been identified as a member of the Conspiracy of the Cells (or nuclei) of Fire, referred to as SPF, which is among a number of anarchist groups that have surfaced in the past several years.

“SPF has a track record of international actions,” says Brady Kiesling, a former American diplomat and expert on Greek terrorism. “It is definitely an anarchist group looking for a symbolic gesture.”

Security experts say they have recently noticed an uptick in Internet chatter among anarchist groups looking to make a statement about the economic crisis in Greece and Europe, and to strike out against countries where anarchists are currently imprisoned. They say that could explain the selection of embassies that were targeted since Monday.

“These letter bombs were not strong enough to kill anyone,” says Mary Bossis, a terrorism expert at the University of Piraeus. “But they were strong enough to send a message around the world.”

There were no injuries in the explosions at the Swiss and Russian embassies on Tuesday, and police were able to intercept and detonate parcel bombs addressed to the Bulgarian, Chilean, and German embassies.

Today’s bombs followed botched attempts to send explosive parcels to the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Dutch, Belgian, and Mexican embassies Monday. A suspicious package sent Tuesday to the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel marked with the Greek economic ministry’s return address may also be connected.

On Monday, the Greek police apprehended two men, ages 22 and 24 at a courier center in the Athens neighborhood of Pangrati. They were reportedly armed with pistols and bulletproof vests and allegedly caught with explosive parcels. A courier company employee became suspicious of the men because of their wigs and baseball caps.

The younger of the two suspects has been identified as the member of SPF, one of the groups that has risen to prominence in the last few years, especialy since Dec. 6, 2008 when the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy by police set off nationwide youth riots.

Embassies in Greece have been on full alert following the bombings that began Monday. The German and Bulgarian embassies notified the police of suspicious packages and they were disposed of in controlled detonations. A courier handed over another package addressed to the Chilean embassy.

Greeks have become somewhat accustomed to anarchists setting off bombs from time to time, typically without injury. But this recent increase, coupled with several recent fatalities, will do little to generate much sympathy for their cause, say security experts. An Afghan boy and his mother were killed in March when he accidentally set off a bomb while rummaging through a dumpster. On June 24, a booby-trapped parcel addressed to minister Michalis Chrisochoides killed top aide George Vassilakis.

“Greeks have an understanding with their terrorists,” Mr. Kiesling says. “You don’t hurt anybody and we don’t look for you too hard.”

The mistakes made by the two men caught on Monday practically delivered them to the police, Kiesling says.

“The members of these groups are young amateurs,” adds Ms. Bossis. “But they are inventive amateurs and dangerous.”

By csmonitor.com

A police officer prepares for a controlled explosion of a suspect package in Athens, Greece, Monday. Petros Giannakouris/AP

Riot police clashed with protesting workers barricading the ancient Acropolis on Thursday, using tear gas to clear the entrance to one of Greece’s most famous landmarks.

Up to 100 Culture Ministry workers had shut down the Acropolis on Wednesday morning, complaining they were owed up to 22 months’ worth of back pay. The protesters barricaded themselves inside, padlocked the entrance gates and refused to allow any tourists in until their demands were met.

Police in riot gear arrived Thursday morning after a court order said the protesters were hindering access to an ancient site and its 2,500-year-old marble temples.

“Riot police and violence won’t break the strike,” the protesters chanted, clinging to the entrance gates.

But police used a side entrance to break into the site, then used pepper spray to clear the protesters and journalists covering the standoff from the main gate. At least one protester was led away in handcuffs to a waiting police bus.

Dozens of bemused tourists who had arrived early Thursday morning to visit the ancient site looked on as the standoff unfolded, occasionally snapping pictures of the riot police.

“We know the workers have a right to protest, but it is not fair that people who come from all over the world to see the Acropolis should be prevented from getting in,” said Spanish tourist Ainhoa Garcia shortly before the clashes broke out.

Greece is in the midst of a tough austerity program that has cut public workers’ salaries and trimmed pensions in an effort to pull the country out of a severe debt crisis. The austerity plan has led to a series of strikes and demonstrations as workers’ unions protest the cutbacks.

Guards and workers at archeological sites have long been complaining they are owed months of back pay, and have shut down the Acropolis before in protest, though usually only for a few hours at a time.

But authorities often are sensitive to protests at the emblematic ancient site, particularly as the country largely relies on tourism for revenue.

Visitors who had travelled from far-flung countries were unimpressed by the protest.

“We think this is a shame. We will not recommend that people come to Greece,” said Veronica Traverso, a tourist from Argentina standing with a friend outside the padlocked gates. “We are not to blame for Greece’s troubles.”

Traverso said she had only two days to spend in Athens and was due to leave the city in a couple of hours — her hopes of visiting the Acropolis dashed.

By cbc.ca

Police use tear gas to disperse workers outside the archeological site of the Acropolis hill in Athens on Thursday. (Panagiotis Tzamaros/Icon/Reuters)

President Obama called on fellow world leaders Thursday to back up his efforts to help forge peace in the Middle East, and he challenged Iran to meet its international obligations to negotiate the terms of its nuclear program.

“The door remains open to diplomacy should Iran decide to walk through it,” Obama told leaders in his second annual address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. “But the Iranian government must demonstrate a clear and credible commitment and confirm to the world the peaceful intent of its nuclear program.”

So far, efforts to engage Iran have failed, leading to the toughest set of sanctions ever against the country. “Iran must be held accountable,” Obama said.

In his own speech before the assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the podium to propagandize about capitalism and the 9/11 attacks. A host of diplomats walked out of the room when he said the United States either orchestrated the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 in order to boost the economy or at least supported the attacks as a way to strengthen Israel.

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Israel’s seats in the chamber already were empty. The diplomats were absent all day, observing the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Outside the U.N. complex, Iranian-American protesters carried signs denouncing Ahmadinejad, the adultery stonings imposed in Iran and the exile of those who support democracy.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican who was in office on 9/11, told the crowd that “your goals are our goals. They are the goals of all democratic people. You want to see freedom of religion … of the press.”

None of the Iranian-American protesters would give their names, expressing concern that their relatives in Iran would be sought out and punished.

“It’s a shameful day for New York, a shameful day for the USA,” said retired Swedish teacher Osborn Hommstramd, who carried two signs, one reading “Iran hangs children” and the other, “Iran stones their women.”

Obama will take his message directly to the Iranian people in an interview today with BBC Persia, the White House announced after his U.N. speech.

Obama will “build on the same message that he’s delivered repeatedly over the last 20 months, including today, which is that we seek a better relationship with the people of Iran,” national security aide Ben Rhodes said.

In addition to pressuring Iran’s leaders, Obama called on Israel to tamp down tensions in the Middle East by extending its moratorium on building new Jewish settlements in the West Bank and to embrace the notion of a Palestinian state. He also called on Arabs to “stop trying to tear Israel down” and reaffirmed U.S. support for Israel.

“It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States,” Obama said.

Referring to the willingness of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, to join a fresh round of peace negotiations with Israel, Obama said, “Make no mistake: The courage of a man like President Abbas — who stands up for his people in front of the world — is far greater than those who fire rockets at innocent women and children.”

By usatoday.com

"The door remains open to diplomacy should Iran decide to walk through it," said President Obama during his U.N. address Thursday.

For the last several years, one big theme has dominated talk of the future of Asia: as China rises, its neighbors are being inevitably drawn into its orbit, currying favor with the region’s new hegemonic power.

The presumed loser, of course, is the United States, whose wealth and influence is being spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and whose economic troubles have eroded its standing in a more dynamic Asia.

But rising frictions between China and its neighbors in recent weeks over security issues have handed the United States an opportunity to reassert itself — one the Obama administration has been keen to take advantage of.

Washington is leaping into the middle of heated territorial disputes between China and Southeast Asian nations despite stern Chinese warnings that it mind its own business. The United States is carrying out naval exercises with South Korea in order to help Seoul rebuff threats from North Korea even though China is denouncing those exercises, saying that they intrude on areas where the Chinese military operates.

Meanwhile, China’s increasingly tense standoff with Japan over a Chinese fishing trawler captured by Japanese ships in disputed waters is pushing Japan back under the American security umbrella.

The arena for these struggles is shifting this week to a summit meeting of world leaders at the United Nations. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, has refused to meet with his Japanese counterpart, Naoto Kan, and on Tuesday he threatened Japan with “further action” if it did not unconditionally release the fishing captain.

On Friday, President Obama is expected to meet with Southeast Asian leaders and promise that the United States is willing to help them peacefully settle South China Sea territorial disputes with China.

“The U.S. has been smart,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy who studies security issues in Asia. “It has done well by coming to the assistance of countries in the region.”

“All across the board, China is seeing the atmospherics change tremendously,” he added. “The idea of the China threat, thanks to its own efforts, is being revived.”

Asserting Chinese sovereignty over borderlands in contention — everywhere from Tibet to Taiwan to the South China Sea — has long been the top priority for Chinese nationalists, an obsession that overrides all other concerns. But this complicates China’s attempts to present the country’s rise as a boon for the whole region and creates wedges between China and its neighbors.

Nothing underscores that better than the escalating diplomatic conflict between China and Japan over the detention of the Chinese fishing captain, Zhan Qixiong, by the Japanese authorities, who say the captain rammed two Japanese vessels around the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. The islands are administered by Japan but claimed by both Japan and China.

The current dispute may strengthen the military alliance between the United States and Japan, as did an incident last April when a Chinese helicopter buzzed a Japanese destroyer. Such confrontations tend to remind Japanese officials, who have suggested that they need to refocus their foreign policy on China instead of America, that they rely on the United States to balance an unpredictable China, analysts say.

“Japan will have no choice but to further go into America’s arms, to further beef up the U.S.-Japan alliance and its military power,” said Huang Jing, a scholar of the Chinese military at the National University of Singapore.

In July, Southeast Asian nations, particularly Vietnam, applauded when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the United States was willing to help mediate a solution to disputes that those nations had with China over the South China Sea, which is rich in oil, natural gas and fish. China insists on dealing with Southeast Asian nations one on one, but Mrs. Clinton said the United States supported multilateral talks. Freedom of navigation in the sea is an American national interest, she said.

President Obama meets on Friday with leaders from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. The Associated Press reported that the participants would issue a joint statement opposing the “use or threat of force by any claimant attempting to enforce disputed claims in the South China Sea.” The statement is clearly aimed at China, which has seized Vietnamese fishing vessels in recent years and detained their crews.

On Tuesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, criticized any attempt at mediation by the United States. “We firmly oppose any country having nothing to do with the South China Sea issue getting involved in the dispute,” she said at a news conference in Beijing.

China has also been objecting to American plans to hold military exercises with South Korea in the Yellow Sea, which China claims as its exclusive military operations zone. The United States and South Korea want to send a stern message to North Korea over what Seoul says was the torpedoing last March of a South Korean warship by a North Korean submarine. China’s belligerence only serves to reinforce South Korea’s dependence on the American military.

American officials are increasingly concerned about the modernization of the Chinese Navy and its long-range abilities. In March, a Chinese official told White House officials that the South China Sea was part of China’s “core interest” of sovereignty, similar to Tibet and Taiwan, an American official said in an interview after the visit. American officials also object to China’s telling foreign oil companies in recent years not to work with Vietnam on developing oil fields in the South China Sea.

Some Chinese military leaders and analysts see an American effort to contain China. Feng Zhaokui, a Japan scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an article on Tuesday in the Global Times, a populist newspaper, that the United States was trying to “nurture a coalition against China.”

In August, Rear Adm. Yang Yi wrote an editorial for the PLA Daily, published by the Chinese Army, in which he said that on the one hand, Washington “wants China to play a role in regional security issues.”

“On the other hand,” he continued, “it is engaging in an increasingly tight encirclement of China and is constantly challenging China’s core interests.”

Asian countries suspicious of Chinese intentions see Washington as a natural ally. In April, the incident involving the Chinese helicopter and Japanese destroyer spooked many in Japan, making them feel vulnerable at a time when Yukio Hatoyama, then the prime minister, had angered Washington with his pledges to relocate a Marine Corps air base away from Okinawa.

His successor, Mr. Kan, has sought to smooth out ties with Washington and has emphasized that the alliance is the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy.

“Insecurity about China’s presence has served as a wake-up call on the importance of the alliance,” said Fumiaki Kubo, a professor of public policy at the University of Tokyo.

By nytimes.com

Premier Wen Jiabao of China spoke about tensions with Japan during a meeting with representatives of Chinese nationals and Chinese Americans on Tuesday in New York.

China suspended high-level exchanges with Japan on Sunday and promised tough countermeasures after a Japanese court extended the detention of a Chinese captain whose trawler collided with two Japanese coastguard ships.

The spat between Asia’s two largest economies has flared since Japan arrested the captain, accusing him of deliberately striking a patrol ship and obstructing public officers near uninhabited islets in the East China Sea claimed by both sides.

“China demands that Japan immediately release the captain without any preconditions,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement on the ministry’s website (www.mfa.gov.cn), repeating that Beijing viewed the detention as illegal and invalid.

“If Japan acts willfully despite advice to the contrary and insists on making one mistake after another, the Chinese side will take strong countermeasures, and all the consequences should be borne by the Japanese side,” Ma said.

Japan’s decision has “seriously damaged Sino-Japan bilateral exchanges,” Chinese state television added, reading out a separate response from the Foreign Ministry.

China has suspended ministerial and provincial-level bilateral exchanges with Japan, halted talks on increasing flights between the two countries and postponed a meeting about coal with Japan, the report said.

Xinhua news agency added that Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya had made “solemn representations” to the Japanese ambassador, Uichiro Niwa, and expressed “strong indignation” over the captain’s detention.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that the trawler captain’s detention, which had been due to expire on Sunday, had been extended until September 29.

The Japanese court could not be reached for comment.

Sino-Japanese ties have long been plagued by feuds over wartime history and rivalry over territory, resources and military intentions, although they had improved after a chill in 2001-2006, as deep economic ties raise the risk from rows.

GAS FIELD FEUD

Japan urged calm and said the captain’s case would be dealt with appropriately according to its domestic laws.

“Regarding individual issues, what is needed is to respond calmly without becoming emotional,” said Noriyuki Shikata, a spokesman for the Japanese prime minister’s office.

“Japan’s basic stance is that we should seek to create cooperative Sino-Japanese ties based on strategic, mutually beneficial relations,” he told Reuters by telephone.

Takeshi Matsunaga, assistant press secretary for Japan’s foreign ministry, said the unilateral steps that China has taken are “regrettable.”

The Chinese captain, Zhan Qixiong, has remained in custody after a Japanese court approved for the first time on September 10 an extension of his detention. Prosecutors can hold him for up to a total of 20 days while deciding whether to take legal action.

The latest feud over the uninhabited isles — called the Diaoyu islands in China and the Senkaku islands in Japan — has stirred mutual distrust over sovereignty and control of potentially valuable oil and gas reserves.

China has repeatedly demanded Japan free the captain and has shown its anger by cancelling planned talks with Japan over natural gas reserves.

On Saturday, about a hundred protesters in several Chinese cities demanded Japan free the boat captain. Police presence was still heavy at the Japanese embassy in Beijing on Sunday but there were no signs of protests.

The Nikkei business daily reported earlier on Sunday that Japan may start drilling near a gas field in disputed waters of the East China Sea if China does the same.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his foreign minister said Tokyo will take “countervailing steps” if China starts drilling at the Chunxiao gas field to which Beijing recently sent equipment, Nikkei said, adding that Tokyo had looked into possibly taking the case to the international maritime court.

The two countries are at odds over China’s exploration for natural gas in the East China Sea, while Beijing is also involved in territorial feuds with southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea over an area rich in energy and key to shipping.

The Sino-Japanese row centers on where the boundary between the two sides’ exclusive maritime economic zones falls. In 2008, the two countries agreed in principle to solve the feud by jointly developing gas fields.

Estimated net known reserves in the disputed fields are a modest 92 million barrels of oil equivalent, but both sides have pursued the issue because there may be larger hidden reserves.

By Ben Blanchard and Linda Sieg

A Chinese fishing boat is inspected by Japan Coast Guard crew members after it collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels near the disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku isles in Japan and Diaoyu in China, September 7, 2010. Japanese authorities say the Chinese vessel was fishing illegally in their waters and that the collision appeared to have happened while Japanese Coast Guards were chasing the vessel out.

Police maintained tight security around the summit site, but largely did not intervene as marchers destroyed property. Several protesters were being treated for injuries by fellow demonstrators.

Canadian Police used tear gas to disperse protesters during a massive and violent anti-G20 protest march that saw at least two police vehicles set ablaze, and store and bank windows damaged.

Demonstrators broke the windows of several business establishments, including a Scotia bank, CIBC and a Starbucks.

Protesters also threw bricks at a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) van, breaking its windows.

Toronto Transit Corporation (TTC) streetcars were abandoned on Queen Street.

Two were spray painted with anti-summit graffiti and anarchy symbols.

Police with shields and clubs pushed back a small group of protesters who tried to head toward the security fence around the site of the G-20 summit.

Some demonstrators hurled bottles at police.

About an hour later the group, dressed all in black, smashed the windows of a bank, a coffee shop and some stores.

Police maintained tight security around the summit site, but largely did not intervene as marchers destroyed property.

“We have an enormous amount of resources at our hands,” Constable Wendy Drummond who characterised the police response as “measured” said.

The dynamic in the crowd changed around 3 pm as police donned gas masks.

Some parts of the riot line are as many as three officers deep as the crowd chanted: “Let us through!” Several protesters were being treated for injuries by fellow demonstrators amid reports that paramedics faced delays in getting to the area.

By Thehindu

A police car burns after activists and protesters set it on fire along the streets of downtown Toronto during the G20 Summit. Photo:AP

Petty squabbles earlier hindered the climate change battle.

Tackling climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing South Asia. Regional leaders are meeting in Bhutan this week, but are they any nearer agreeing to an action plan? The BBC’s Navin Singh Khadka reports.

The issue of climate change is the main item on the agenda of the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit under way in the Bhutanese capital Thimpu.

But given the poor track record of co-operation achieved by the regional grouping over other sensitive issues in the past, will the thorny issue of climate change become bogged down in rhetoric and recriminations?

Experts say the vulnerability of the region to climate change means that there is an urgent need for concrete action.

Words not action

“South Asian countries have started to face the effects of climate change and are particularly at risk,” says the United Nations Environment Programme’s (Unep) 2009 outlook.

“Intense floods, droughts and cyclones have impacted on the economic performances of South Asian countries and the lives of millions of poor, it also puts at risk infrastructure, agriculture, human health, water resources and the environment,” it says.

This is not the first time that Saarc summit has discussed the issue.

The declaration of the 14th summit in Delhi in 2007, for instance, said leaders had agreed “to commission a team of regional experts to identify collective actions in sharing of knowledge on the consequences of climate change”.

A year later, the 15th Saarc summit adopted the Dhaka Declaration on climate change.

But, experts say, hardly any of these words have been matched by actions.

In its climate change national action plan launched two years ago, India - the main regional player - stressed the need for co-operation.

“We will need to exchange information with South Asian countries and countries sharing the Himalayan ecology,” the plan read.

“Co-operation with neighbouring countries will be sought to make a comprehensive network for observation and monitoring of the Himalayan environment, to assess fresh water resources and the health of the ecosystem.”

There have been no serious follow-up since this bold pronouncement was made.

Drought

With regional co-operation confined to academic papers, key issues like regional flood forecasting are just not happening.

“Some countries in the region are not willing to share water-related data because they regard it as confidential,” says Mats Eriksson, a senior hydrologist with the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development which has spent years trying to bring together South Asian countries for flood forecasting at a regional level.

But as millions of people in South Asia suffer from floods every monsoon, there is a worrying and growing uncertainty over the uneven distribution of monsoon rainfall in the region.

In recent years, some places have experienced heavy rainfall while others have seen far smaller amounts - and have even been hit by drought.

“Climate change could influence monsoon dynamics and cause lower summer precipitation, a delay to the start of the monsoon season and longer breaks between the rainy periods,” a study by Purdue University in the US found recently.

While everyone now seems to be well informed as to the extent of the problem, questions remain over Saarc’s response to it. But not everyone is pessimistic.

“This is the first time you have a Saarc summit where the leaders of countries in the region are getting together on a very specific subject and I am optimistic,” said the chairman of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, who also heads the Energy Research Institute in Delhi.

Ainun Nishat, climate chief for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Bangladesh, is also positive.

“I believe frequent contact between the leaders is essentially the first step that will lead to some concrete action because they always want to show progress.”

But recent international climate negotiations, such as last year’s Copenhagen summit, have shown that the countries in the region have different interests.

India’s fast-growing economy, for instance, wants a global climate treaty that requires rich nations - and not rapidly developing countries - to cut carbon emissions.

It also wants global temperature rises to be limited to 2C from pre-industrial levels.

Bitter disputes

Whereas least developed countries in the region that are most vulnerable to climate change are lobbying for an international treaty irrespective of who has to reduce carbon emissions.

They want global warming to be limited to 1.5C from pre-industrial levels.

“I therefore do not expect Saarc countries to take common action in terms of dealing with climate change,” says noted Indian environment activist Sunita Narain.

“I expect governments of the region to use Saarc as a meeting point in which they can put forward their respective actions against climate change.”

But is that possible when major region players like India and Pakistan, for example, are engaged in bitter disputes?

One of the latest disputes between the South Asian nuclear rivals is that of sharing of water resources which, experts fear, will get worse as the climate change problem itself remains unaddressed.

The climate change issue urgently demands a meeting of minds.

The House sent its historic health care reform legislation to President Barack Obama for his signature, The Associated Press reported. The bill, which would extend health care coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans and ban insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, passed the House 219-212 on Sunday. “I want to thank every member of Congress who stood up tonight with courage and conviction to make health care reform a reality,” Obama said. “I know this wasn’t an easy vote for a lot of people. But it was the right vote.” Republican lawmakers attacked the legislation and said the voters would hold House members accountable for passing it. “In this economy, with this unemployment, with our desperate need for jobs and economic growth, is this really the time to raise taxes, to create bureaucracies and burden every job creator in our land? The answer is no,” Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) said.

In other news: The U.S. warned ships sailing off the coast of Yemen to be wary of a possible al Qaeda attack, Reuters reported. The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence said it received information that ships in the Red Sea, the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait between Yemen and Djibouti and the Gulf of Aden along Yemen’s coast were at the greatest risk of attacks similar to the suicide bombing of the U.S. warship Cole that killed 17 in 2000.

Sandstorms whipped across China today, shrouding cities and towns with sand and grit. According to The AP, the sweeping storms have prompted officials to suspend some services due to poor visibility and issue health warnings. Breathing in the sand can cause chest discomfort and respiratory problems, even in healthy people. Click here to see images of the sandstorms.

Lastly, the British Airways strike entered its 3rd — and busiest — day on Monday, The AP reported. The union representing the cabin crew and the airline both claimed victory over the walkout that has caused BA to cancel hundreds of flights. The acrimonious dispute over pay and working conditions is expected to cost the airline more than $95 million. Last week, BA offered a proposal that would reduce 3,000 workers from full- to part-time status, freeze wages for a year and cut cabin crew sizes on long haul flights.

Most read stories: Three Swiss pilots set a new speed record after completing a round the world trip in less than 58 hours, Reuters reported. The charter plane flew over 33 countries, and stopped to refuel 10 times.

Readers were also interested in this AP obituary for Margaret Moth. The CNN war zone camerawoman died on Sunday from cancer at the age of 59. Moth was seriously wounded by sniper fire in 1992 in Sarajevo. After undergoing several reconstructive surgeries, she returned to the war-torn country to record the documentary “Fearless: The Margaret Moth Story.” Moth also covered the rioting that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 and the Israeli invasion of the West Bank in 2002. Hard money training.

China moved swiftly on Saturday to suspend military exchanges with the United States after Washington’s announcement of arms sales to Taiwan, widening rifts in their far-reaching relationship.

The Defense Ministry, in a strongly-worded statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency, condemned the proposed U.S. sale of weapons to self-ruled and democratic Taiwan, which China considers an illegitimate breakaway province.

“Considering the severe harm and odious effect of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the Chinese side has decided to suspend planned mutual military visits,” Xinhua quoted the ministry as saying.

Qian Lihua, director of China’s Defense Ministry Foreign Affairs Office, also summoned the U.S. defense attache to lodge a “solemn protest” about the sales, Xinhua added.

The Obama administration told the U.S. Congress on Friday of the proposed sales to Taiwan, a potential $6.4 billion package including Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot “Advanced Capability-3″ anti-missile missiles, and two refurbished Osprey-class mine-hunting ships.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told the U.S. ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, that the arms deal could jeopardize bonds with Washington, which has looked to China for help in surmounting the financial crisis, dealing with Iran and North Korea, and fighting climate change.

The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have joined trade imbalances, currency disputes, human rights, the Internet, and Tibet among rifts dividing the world’s biggest and third-biggest economies.

Washington and Beijing have also recently traded angry words about Internet policy after the search engine giant Google Inc earlier this month threatened to shut its Chinese google.cn portal and pull out of China, citing censorship problems and hacking attacks.

In coming months Obama may meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader China calls a dangerous separatist, adding to Beijing’s ire with Washington.

Vice Minister He hinted the anger would be felt in a number of areas.

“The United States’ announcement of the planned weapons sales to Taiwan will have a seriously negative impact on many important areas of exchanges and cooperation between the two countries,” said He in the remarks, published on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Web site.

He said the arms sales were “crude interference in China’s domestic affairs and seriously harm China’s national security”, words notably tougher than Beijing’s recent statements on the issue.

“This will lead to repercussions that neither side wishes to see,” said He. He urged the U.S. to halt the planned sales. Hard money training.