Intense News

PARIS (AFP) — The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the breakway of a Jamaica-sized ice shelf from the Antarctic peninsula could accelerate global warming in this already vulnerable region.

Satellite pictures show a 40-kilometre (25-mile) ice bridge that was the Wilkins Ice Shelf’s last link to the coast had now shattered at its narrowest point, about 500 metres (yards) wide, UNEP said.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf once covered around 16,000 square kilometres (6,000 square miles) before it began to retreat in the 1990s, and by last May the ice bridge was all that connected it to Charcot and Latady islands.

The loss of the bridge “may now allow ocean currents to wash away far more of the shelf,” UNEP said.

FORMER Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been indicted for corruption while in office, including trying to sell the US Senate seat that was held by President Barack Obama.

A federal grand jury indicted the 52-year-old Democrat on 16 felony counts, including racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion conspiracy, attempted extortion and making false statements to federal agents.

Mr Blagojevich, who claims he did nothing wrong and is a victim of a political witch-hunt, has promised to fight the charges in court and has a book contract to tell his side.

If convicted, he faces more than 300 years in prison and at least $4 million in fines, plus restitution, according to the indictment.

He’ll be playing golf tomorrow.

World Bank President and Bilderberg elitist Robert Zoellick openly admitted the plan to eliminate national sovereignty and impose a global government during a speech on the eve of the G20 summit.

Speaking about the agenda to increase not just funding but power for international organizations on the back of the financial crisis, Zoellick stated, “If leaders are serious about creating new global responsibilities or governance, let them start by modernising multilateralism to empower the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank Group to monitor national policies.”

In other words, give global institutions the power to regulate national policy as part of the creation of global government.

What Zoellick is outlining is essentially the end of national sovereignty and the reclassification of national governments as mere subordinates to a global authority that is completely unaccountable to the voting public of any country

What we have is a summit without an agenda, on a crisis without an agreed cause, in a country without a functioning government. The US – whose outgoing President agreed to hold the meeting under French pressure, and whose President-elect, keen to stress that the US has “only one president at a time”, won’t even be there – has already bristled at European talk of a creating new supra-national regulators and international rules.

So little wonder everyone else is scrambling to downplay expectations for what might emerge, and to lengthen the timetable for achieving results. As one person from the UK delegation put it, “Bretton Woods took two years”.

KABUL — Taliban insurgents today rejected a U.S. offer of “honourable reconciliation” as a “lunatic idea” and said the withdrawal of foreign troops was the only way to end the war in Afghanistan.

With the Afghan conflict now in its eighth year, NATO-led forces and the Taliban are locked in a bloody stalemate with violence set to rise further this year as more U.S. troops arrive and seek to contain the insurgency ahead of August elections.

U.S. President Barack Obama is redoubling efforts with more troops, more diplomatic effort and more economic assistance, but he has also already spoken of the need for an “exit strategy.” If the U.S. plan fails to show results, analysts say, time is on the Taliban side.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an international conference on Afghanistan on Tuesday that those members of the Taliban who abandoned extremism must be granted an “honourable form of reconciliation.”

“This matter was also raised in the past,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, referring to comments by Mr. Obama last month who spoke of reaching out to moderate Taliban. “They have to go and find the moderate Taliban, their leader and speak to them. This is a lunatic idea,” Mr. Mujahid said by telephone from an unknown location.

The 21,000 extra U.S. troops ordered by Mr. Obama to join the 70,000 foreign soldiers now fighting insurgents in Afghanistan showed the United States wanted the war to continue, Mr. Mujahid said, and the Taliban would keep fighting till they left.

“There is no other way. We want our freedom and respect for our independence,” Mr. Mujahid said.

By William Maclean and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - Demonstrators clashed with riot police and smashed bank windows in Britain’s financial center on Wednesday in protest against a system they said had robbed the poor to benefit the rich.

Hundreds of protesters converged on a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland, shattering windows. Rescued by the government in October, RBS has become a lightning rod for public anger over banker excess blamed for the crisis.

The protests were timed to coincide with a G20 meeting of the world’s leading and emerging economies.