5:
Report: All Major Oil Companies Knew of Climate Change by 1970s
A new investigation by the Pulitzer Prize-winning outlet InsideClimate News suggests that nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company was aware of the impact of fossil fuels on climate change as early as the late 1970s. Earlier exposés by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times have revealed that Exxon scientists knew about climate change as early as 1977, and for decades Exxon concealed its own findings that the burning of fossil fuels causes global warming, alters the climate and melts the Arctic ice. Now, internal documents obtained by InsideClimate News reveal that the entire oil and gas industry had similar knowledge. From 1979 to 1983, the oil and gas industry trade group American Petroleum Institute ran a task force to monitor and share climate research. The group’s members included senior scientists and engineers from not only Exxon, but also Amoco, Phillips, Mobil, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco, Sohio and Standard Oil of California and Gulf Oil, the predecessors to Chevron. The documents show that as early as 1979, the task force knew carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was rising steadily. The task force even briefly considered researching how to introduce a new energy source into the global market, given the research about fossil fuels’ impact on global warming. But in 1983, the task force was disbanded, and by the late 1990s, the American Petroleum Institute had launched a campaign to oppose the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted by many countries to cut fossil fuel emissions but was never ratified by the United States.
Democracy Now
4:
The man who exposed the lie of the war on drugs
Pablo Escobar was “the first to understand that it’s not the world of cocaine that must orbit around the markets, but the markets that must rotate around cocaine”.
Of course, Escobar didn’t put it that way: this heretical truth was posited by Roberto Saviano in his latest book Zero Zero Zero, the most important of the year and the most cogent ever written on how narco-traffic works. Here is a book that speaks what must be told at the end of another year of drug war spreading further and deeper, that tells what you will not learn from Narcos, Breaking Bad or the countless official reports.
The realisation that cocaine capitalism is central to our economic universe made Escobar the Copernicus of organised crime, argues Saviano, adding: “No business in the world is so dynamic, so restlessly innovative, so loyal to the pure free-market spirit as the global cocaine business.” It sounds simple, but it isn’t – it is revolutionary and, says Saviano, it explains the world.
The Guardian
3:
Anti-Islam Protesters in Corsica Burn Qur’ans And Chant ‘They Must Be Killed’
What started as a show of support for three injured emergency responders in Corsica on Christmas Day escalated into a violent attack on a Muslim prayer room, where angry protesters attempted to burn Qur’ans and prayer books.
Around 150 people gathered in front of police headquarters in Ajaccio, the French island’s capital city, in solidarity with the two firefighters and police officer who were reportedly “ambushed” by “several hooded youths” the previous night in a housing project in Jardins de L’Empereur, a low-income neighborhood. But then many of those showing solidarity broke away and headed towards the housing project where the previous night’s events had unfolded. An AFP correspondent reported that the crowd was about 600 strong, with protesters shouting: “Arabs get out! and “This is our home.” Many residents of the area are Muslim immigrants from Arab nations, in many cases former French colonies.
Vice News
2:
Syrian rebel commander’s killing threatens peace talks
The death of Syrian rebel leader Zahran Alloush is being seen a major blow to a tenuous peace process, with the opposition’s interim leader warning that other rebel commanders and political opponents could also be targeted for assassinations.
Alloush, the leader of the Jaysh al-Islam group, was killed on Friday in an air strike claimed by Syrian government forces.
“They killed a man who was going to play a crucial role in Syria,” Ahmad Tumah, the designated opposition prime minister, told Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbara on Saturday.
Aljazeera
1:
NSA HELPED BRITISH SPIES FIND SECURITY HOLES IN JUNIPER FIREWALLS
A TOP-SECRET document dated February 2011 reveals that British spy agency GCHQ, with the knowledge and apparent cooperation of the NSA, acquired the capability to covertly exploit security vulnerabilities in 13 different models of firewalls made by Juniper Networks, a leading provider of networking and Internet security gear.
The Intercept
