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Show posts MenuQuoteEssentially, they've talked about talking about something that probably will result in jack shit.
United Nations members have reached an agreement on how countries should tackle climate change.
Delegates have approved a framework for setting national pledges to be submitted to a summit next year
Differences over the draft text caused the talks in Lima, Peru, to overrun by two days.
Environmental groups have criticised the deal as a weak and ineffectual compromise, saying it weakens international climate rules.
The talks proved difficult because of divisions between rich and poor countries over how to spread the burden of pledges to cut carbon emissions.
'Not perfect'
The BBC's Matt McGrath in Lima says none of the 194 countries attending the talks walked away with everything they wanted, but everybody got something.
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Muslims discovered the Americas more than three centuries before Christopher Columbus, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
He made the claim during a conference of Latin American Muslim leaders in Istanbul, pointing to a diary entry in which Columbus mentioned a mosque on a hill in Cuba.
Mr Erdogan also said "Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178".
He said he was willing to build a mosque at the site Columbus identified.
The Turkish president - whose AK Party is rooted in political Islam - gave no further evidence to back up his theory, instead stating: "Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th Century."
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Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters are blocking Hong Kong's streets, shutting down its business hub and ignoring appeals to leave.
The demonstrations have spread to other areas including a shopping district and a residential area.
Riot police withdrew on Monday after overnight clashes in which they used batons and fired volleys of tear gas to try to disperse the crowds.
China has warned other countries not to support the "illegal rallies".
Its foreign ministry said it opposed any interference in China's internal affairs.
Meanwhile the British government called for the right to protest to be protected.
"It is important for Hong Kong to preserve these rights and for Hong Kong people to exercise them within the law," the UK foreign office said in a statement.
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"These peacetime intrusions into the networks of key defence contractors are more evidence of China's aggressive actions in cyberspace," senator Carl Levin, chairman of the committee, said.
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US and British intelligence services are able to secretly access information from German telecoms operators, according to a German newspaper report.
A programme called Treasure Map gives the NSA and its UK counterpart, GCHQ, data from operators including Deutsche Telekom, Der Spiegel said.
The data is said to include information from networks as well as from individual computers and smart-phones.
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Atheists in the US are rallying together, launching a new TV programme and providing support for those who go public with their beliefs.
The parents of Katelyn Campbell, 19, from West Virginia, have been very supportive of her stance as an atheist. Her problem has been other members of the community. "In high school, when I walked down the hallway it would be completely silent, or I would be spat on," Katelyn says.
A recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre shows Americans would rather have a president who was either in their 70s, or openly gay, or who had never held any public office than one that was atheist.
Astonishingly, a previous poll by Pew suggested respondents in the US regarded atheists as less trustworthy than rapists. One of Atheist TV's new phone-in programmes, The Atheist Experience, has already had a taste of how many Americans perceive "non-believers".
"So you were studying to be a minister, and now you don't believe in God? You're the devil," one caller tells the host. "You're a Marxist, you're an atheist and you're from Russia," says another.
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Johnson himself was a great patriot, and one of the most affecting incidents in his life came towards its end, when George III invited the great lexicographer into his own library so he could practise regal reading habits.
For Johnson, royalism and patriotism were completely entwined - and I think he was right about this. Which is not to say that a republican state cannot have its patriots, only that they, like the subjects of a monarchy, need some thing or one in which to invest their loyalty - the entire nation is too amorphous for this. We can see this if we analyse what "loving one's country" might involve. Does one need to feel passionate about every blade of grass and each sticky crumb of asphalt? Need we love all our fellow countrywomen and men - or only some? And what about its institutions, its customs and its folkways? Again, is pick-and-mix allowed, or does the true patriot embrace everything unswervingly?
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NEW DELHI (AP) â€" A 14-year-old girl was dragged into a forest and raped on the orders of a village council in remote eastern India in retaliation for a sex assault blamed on her brother, her family and police said Friday.
Jitendra Singh, a top local police official, said two men have been arrested in the rape case. They include the village headman and the main suspect, identified as the husband of the woman who was allegedly molested by the victim's brother.
The victim's brother has also been arrested on charges of molestation.
The girl's mother told CNN-IBN news channel that she pleaded with the council and other villagers when they ordered the rape but no one listened.
"We kept begging them. We begged with folded hands but they would not listen. They dragged her away to the forest," she said.
The attack took place after midnight on Sunday in a small village in Jharkhand state's Bokaro district.
"They attacked her in retaliation and we are taking this case very seriously," Singh said, adding that police expect to complete the investigation and file charges in the next few days.
Across much of rural India, deeply conservative local councils wield great power. They can pass decrees on any subject they choose â€" from how women should dress to whether young lovers deserve to live or die. They usually enforce strict social norms about marriage and gender roles.
In January, a council of elders in West Bengal state had ordered the gang rape of a 20-year-old woman as punishment for falling in love with the man from a different community.
The village councils are often the only practical means of delivering justice in areas where local governments are either too far away or too ineffective to settle disputes. Their power is often derived from the fact that they can order that villagers be ostracized for ignoring their decrees.
In some of the most extreme cases, the councils have sanctioned so-called honor killings, usually against men and women suspected of out-of-wedlock sex or marrying outside the community.
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Money can’t buy everything â€" including great health care.
The U.S. spends the most of any country on its health care system, and yet it ranked the lowest out of 11 industrialized nations in overall healthcare quality, according to a report published Monday by the Commonwealth Fund.
The report, which covered the years 2011-2013, compared more than 80 indicators of U.S. health care spending, quality and performance to the likes of Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and Sweden, among other developed nations.
The UK, which was ranked highest, blew the U.S. out of the water, despite the fact that the country spends less than half as much on health care per capita ($3,406 on average, compared to $8,508 in the U.S.). The U.S. also spends the most on health care as a percentage of GDP (17%) than any other other nation.
Lead author Karen Davis, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says the findings were disappointing, but not surprising. This is the fifth time in a row that the U.S. has landed at the bottom of the heap in the semi-annual report, in large part due to the fact that, until recently, access to affordable health care was severely lacking.
Beyond basic affordability, however, the U.S. suffered as well from a deeply fragmented health care system, Davis says.
“[Our low ranking] is also related to time and administrative hassles that come from dealing with health insurers, trying to resolve billing disputes, administrative issues,†she says. “Even doctors report that they spend a lot of time getting [treatments] approved by insurance companies.â€
Here’s where the U.S. health care system is failing:
Death rates: The U.S. ranked lowest among other nations in infant mortality rates and deaths that could have been preventable with timely access to health care. The country also had the second-lowest life “healthy expectancy age†at 60.
Access to affordable care: Low-income people in the U.S. were far likelier to ignore medical issues because of cost than other nations. Nearly 40% of American adults with below average incomes said they did not visit a doctor or fill a prescription due to costs, compared to less than 10% in of adults in the U.K., Sweden, Canada, and Norway. Low-income people in the U.S. were also more likely to wait longer to see a specialist than high-income patients. Even doctors take notice. In the report, nearly 60% of U.S. doctors admitted that health care affordability was a problem for their patients.
Health care quality: Quality was one of the few measures the U.S. showed strength in the Commonwealth report. The U.S. had relatively high scores (4th place) in effective care and patient-centered care (care delivered with the patient’s needs and preferences in mind), but it suffered from low scores in safe and well-coordinated care.
Efficiency: With so much money pumped into health care and so little to show for it, it’s no wonder the U.S. ranked last in efficiency. It scored lowest in reports of administrative hassles (e.g., dealing with insurers), timely access to records and test results, and re-hospitalization. Forty percent of U.S. adults who went to the E.R. in 2011 said their condition could have been treated by a regular physician but could not be seen in time â€" more than twice the rate in the U.K. The U.S. also scored lowest in communication among healthcare providers and duplicate medical testing.