Coperhagen Cimate Summit

Guardian, UK

Thousands march on climate summit

Independent, UK

Protest hits climate talks

• Johann Hari: It's the protesters who offer the best hope for our planet

New York Times  

Climate Talks Near Deal to Save Forests

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAl

The sharp line between a Brazilian forest and a cleared section of land lies at one of the fronts in efforts to save the world’s forests.

Negotiators were closing in on a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests and other natural landscapes.

• Video: Negotiators Remain Hung Up Over Disputes
• Join the Conversation

Police Beat Back Climate Protesters

By TOM ZELLER Jr. and JOHN M. BRODER 12:49 PM ET

Reporter’s Notebook

In Copenhagen, ‘To Be Elaborated’ Is a Stalemate

By ANDREW C. REVKIN and JOHN M. BRODER

The top United Nations climate official said the many disputes at the climate conference reflected the challenge of finding common ground among 193 countries.

Viewpoints -- December 15, 2009

	Blair Sold Iraq on WMDs, but Only Regime Change Adds Up  by Hans Blix
	Why Did They Go to Pakistan?  by Jacob G. Hornberger
	Old US Allies Are Hedging Their Strategic Bets  by Leon T. Hadar

	The Slope of Masada  by Akiva Eldar
	Parting Thoughts, for Now  by William S. Lind
	The Nobel War Prize  by Thaddeus Russell

Highlights

Letter from Berlin

Details on Afghanistan Bombing Have Merkel on the Defensive

Has Germany begun targeted killings of Taliban leaders? As details about a German-ordered bombing in Kunduz continue to emerge, the list of questions surrounding the incident is growing longer. Both Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defense Minister Guttenberg face intense criticism. By Charles Hawley more...

A Greek Tragedy

Should the EU Save Athens from Bankruptcy?

In Berlin and Brussels there is growing doubt over whether Greece can solve its debt problems without external help. If nothing is done, the country risks falling into bankruptcy -- with unforeseeable consequences for the European currency. By Wolfgang Reuter more...

• Interview with Greek Finance Minister: 'Punitive Measures Are Not Appropriate'

Washington Post Editorial: 'The coming debt panic'

Monday, December 14, 2009  
IT'S TIME to stop worrying about the deficit -- and start panicking about the debt. To put it another way, short-term deficits aren't the real problem. The punishing hangover of borrowed money is. The ballooning national debt once looked like a long-term problem. Now, the long-term has become the middle-term, fast-forwarded by the cratering economy and the unavoidable and immense spending in the service of saving it. go to article

Coperhagen Cimate Summit, Dec. 14, 2009

Hopes of global emissions deal at Copenhagen begin to fade

200 more arrests as police take zero-tolerance approach to protesters

• Developing countries return to climate talks
• Sun sets on sceptics' case against climate change
• Let's get our act together, Miliband tells climate ministers
• Mark Lynas's Copenhagen Notebook
• Tens of thousands stage largest ever climate march

Protesters Mostly Quiet After Day of Action

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

Scattered protests continued on Sunday, but climate activists in Copenhagen were largely quiet after a day of mass demonstrations resulted in nearly 1,000 arrests.

Australia’s Rudd Looks for Success in Copenhagen

By MERAIAH FOLEY 6:55 AM ET

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is expected to play a key, behind-the-scenes role at the climate talks.

On Green Technology, Germany Is the Envy of the World

Danish statistician Bjørn Lomborg argued in SPIEGEL last week that efforts to halt global warming should be postponed. Fritz Vahrenholt, head of the renewable energy operations at German energy company RWE, disagrees. Never before has there been a better chance for a global climate deal, he says. more...

• SPIEGEL ONLINE's Climate Countdown: Developing Nations Stage Copenhagen Walkout

New York Times, Editorials, December 14, 2009

Europe and Afghanistan

European countries must join America, which has made disproportionate sacrifices, in what is, emphatically, a common fight in Afghanistan.

• Select Editorials on Afghanistan
  

Can We Afford It?

The argument that the nation cannot afford health care reform is at best disingenuous; the pending bills would actually reduce deficits.

• Select Editorials on Health Care 

To Beat Al Qaeda, Look to the East

By SCOTT ATRAN

The key in the Afghan-Pakistani area, as in Southeast Asia, is to use local customs and networks to our advantage.

Japan's Year in Words

By KUMIKO MAKIHARA

This year's selection of most popular Japanese phrases reflects a country battling hard times and fighting the flu.

 

Dubai Grows Up

By CLAUDIA PUGH-THOMAS

Dubai, the brashest of the seven emirates, is facing something of a midlife crisis. Lost is the blind optimism of its youth. But can the dream be reinvented?

Gone With the Windfall

By PAUL WILMOTT

Will Britain’s bonus tax make banking boring — as it should be?

Columns

Japanese Obsessions

By ROGER COHEN

This comfortable, perfectionist society of narrowed ambition leads humanity's rush into isolating forms of electronic fixation.

Disaster and Denial

By PAUL KRUGMAN

The Republican Party won’t face up to the reality of what happened to the U.S. economy. So it’s up to the Democrats.

• Columnist Page | Blog | Comments

Prisons of Our Own Making

By ROSS DOUTHAT

Conservatives need to take ownership of prison reform, and correct the system they helped build.

Viewpoints, December 14, 2009

The Taxi Driver Who Drove Us to War 
Justin Raimondo on how we were lied into Iraq

	The Strange Consensus on Obama's Nobel Address  by Glenn Greenwald
	The Dust Bowl of Babylon  by Martin Chulov
	Rearranging the Letters in Obama's 'Just War' Theory  by Thomas L. Knapp

	The Af-Pak Train Wreck  by Conn Hallinan
	Prussia in Palestine  by Uri Avnery
	The Land Mines Obama Won't Touch  by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

Obama's War Speech

Obama's War Speech: The Questions It Raises… And The Answer That Must Be Given

By Larry Everestpee

On Tuesday, December 1, at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, President Barack Obama announced that he would send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. He also called for 10,000 more NATO troops, which pushes the total U.S.-led forces to nearly 150,000, and he announced plans to step up the war on a number of fronts including (without being specific) in Pakistan. Obama has now tripled the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan since he took office.
Read on…

Editorials from the New York Times

This Week in Copenhagen

There is no chance of even an interim agreement from the global warming conference without the enthusiastic participation of China

Lifting the Silence

Military rules about soldiers in therapy should be redrawn so that every painful discussion does not open the patient’s file to the eyes of a commanding officer.

Columnists

GAIL COLLINS

Going Naked in Kabul

When did we decide that letting private contractors stand in for our military in sensitive and dangerous situations was a good plan?

Op-Ed Contributors

Obama’s Condolence Problem

By PAUL STEINBERG

The increase in suicides in the military suggests that we need to find a balance between concern for families left behind and efforts to prevent copycat suicides.

Pakistan

• The Secret US War in Pakistan

  Jeremy Scahill : Blackwater
  

  Inside sources reveal that the firm works with the US military in Karachi to plan targeted assassinations and drone bombings, among other sensitive counterterrorism operations.
  

US / Japan

ROGER COHEN

Obama's Japan Headache

Japan is growing restive with U.S. tutelage as misunderstandings between the two countries multiply. It’s time for everyone to take a deep breath.

US Economy

PAUL KRUGMAN

Bernanke’s Unfinished Mission

Sustained high unemployment is a recipe for immense human suffering. The Federal Reserve must start lending a hand to job creation.

USA

Editorials

President Obama in Oslo

President Obama’s eloquent speech accepting the Peace Prize was the one he needed to give, but we suspect not precisely the one the Nobel committee wanted to hear.

• Comments

An Illegal Immigration Patchwork

The Obama administration should urge the Supreme Court to weigh in against the improper splintering of national immigration policy.

• Select Editorials on Immigration

Easing Congress’s Heel on the Capital City

It’s time for the Senate to reverse Washington’s role as Congress’s pocket colony and restore vital home-rule initiatives.

The Season So Far

An enormous portion of the country has been scraped and glazed and numbed by several storms, with nature setting limits we must obey.

Afghanistan -- Behind the Debate

Op-Ed Contributors

A Deadline We Can Believe In?

By AHMED RASHID, MARC LYNCH and NATHANIEL FICK

Three experts share their opinions on President Obama’s announcement that troop withdrawals from Afghanistan will begin in 18 months.

Mongolia

Pastoralism Unraveling in Mongolia

By SARAH J. WACHTER

These are hard times for Mongolia’s cashmere industry, caught in a vicious circle of expanding goat herds, falling wool prices and environmental destruction.

"It's Capitalism, Stupid": Coperhagen and the Rigging of the System

'The Independent'

Leaders of the rich world are enacting a giant fraud

Johann Hari: Corporate lobbyists can pressure or bribe governments to rig the system in their favour.