World important news by Suanne

By Shashi Tharoor The opinions expressed are his own When the Commonwealth heads of government meet in Australia later this month, one prominent leader is almost certain to be conspicuously absent: India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. India is a strong backer of the association of former British colonies (and some new entrants without that shared heritage, notably Mozambique and Rwanda), so no displeasure with the Commonwealth is implied. Instead, rumours in New Delhi suggest that the decision to send a delegation led by India’s ceremonial vice-president, albeit an able former diplomat, might be a not-so-subtle rebuke to the summit’s host, Australia. On the face of it, it is hard to imagine two countries with less cause for conflict. United by the English language, similar democratic political institutions, and a shared passion for cricket, and divided by no significant issues of contention, India and Australia seem obvious candidates for the sort of benign relationship of which most diplomats dream. Two years ago, a sensitive area did emerge, when reports of Indian students being brutally attacked in “hate crime” incidents in Melbourne and Sydney inflamed India’s excitable media and threatened to derail the relationship. But this has been dealt with successfully, mainly through adroit diplomacy on both sides and effective preventive policing by Australia. The Commonwealth summit might well have provided an opportunity to celebrate the restoration of bonhomie. Instead, relations have been strained by the continuing refusal of Australia’s Labour Party government to sell uranium to energy-starved India for its civilian nuclear program. A regular supplier of uranium for China’s extensive nuclear-weapons program (while overlooking its record of facilitating Pakistan’s clandestine weapons development), Australia nonetheless justifies its stance on the grounds of India’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India’s stance was based on principle: the NPT is the last vestige of apartheid in the international system, granting as it does to five countries the right to be nuclear-weapons states while denying the same right to others. If nuclear weapons are evil — and India agrees with Australia that they are — then no one should have them. What is the moral, ethical, or legal basis for suggesting that some can and others cannot? What virtue do the “official” nuclear powers possess that democratic India lacks? A long-time advocate of global nuclear disarmament, India’s position on the NPT enjoys near-consensus backing within the country. If everyone disarms, India will gladly do so, too. The issue is, above all, one of strategic common sense: China, which went to war with India in 1962, has nuclear weapons pointed at it, making it irresponsible to sign a treaty that would disarm India unilaterally. Moreover, unlike Iran and North Korea, which signed the NPT and then violated its provisions through clandestine nuclear-weapons programs, India has breached no international obligation, openly pursued its own nuclear development, and has a clean record on proliferation: it has never exported its technology or leaked a nuclear secret. Its nuclear program is strictly in civilian hands. And its nuclear doctrine rests on deterrence, backed by a credible retaliatory threat, rather than a destabilising first-strike capacity, which India has not developed even against a superior potential adversary like China. India does not dispute that the risk of nuclear conflict over the next 20 years has increased with the potential emergence of new nuclear-weapon states and the threat that terrorist groups could acquire nuclear materials. Pakistan’s willingness to allow its territory to be used for attacks against India, like the assault on Mumbai in November 2008, inevitably carries the risk of sparking a larger conflagration, and its refusal to sign a “no first-strike” agreement with India is a serious cause for concern. There are also genuine questions regarding the ability of a state like Pakistan to control and secure its nuclear arsenal in the event of internal disruption. This helps explain why Singh has made such an extraordinary effort to sustain dialogue with Pakistan — and why India remains a strong proponent of universal nuclear disarmament. India’s approach is based on the belief that non-proliferation cannot be an end in itself; rather, it must be linked to nuclear disarmament in a mutually reinforcing process. Effective disarmament must enhance the security of all states — not, as the NPT ensures, merely that of a few. India set out its goals regarding nuclear disarmament as far back as June 1988, when then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi presented to the United Nations an Action Plan for ushering in a nuclear-weapons-free world. He argued that the “alternative to co-existence is co-destruction.” Even today, India is perhaps the only nuclear-weapons state ready and willing to negotiate a treaty leading to global, non-discriminatory, and verifiable elimination of these deadly armaments. So Australia’s refusal to emulate the United States in recognising that India merits an exception on nuclear supplies rankles Indians. In fact, India has all the uranium it currently needs from other suppliers; the issue is one of principle. Just four years ago, India, Australia, and the U.S. participated in joint military and naval exercises, together with Japan and Singapore. It is safe to assume that Australia will need to rethink its position on uranium exports before anything like that happens again. This piece comes from Project Syndicate

In a measure decried by Wall Street and trading companies as a misguided political attempt to cap soaring oil and grain prices, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is set to vote in favor of “position limits” that will cap the number of futures, swaps and options contracts any trader can hold.If the rule maintains several of the key measures from a draft seen last month by Reuters, there will be some cause for relief in the industry. Tough limits on whether separately controlled accounts must be aggregated and whether swaps and futures positions can be offset were relaxed in that draft.But yielding on those details will do little to temper deep frustration over a contentious plan that could force banks such as Morgan Stanley and industry traders including Cargill to scale back business, stemming an influx of investor capital and hedge fund trading and upending age-old practices.A lawsuit to stop the measure coming into force seems likely, say industry experts and lawyers, one more hurdle for CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler, who is struggling against emboldened Republicans and a hostile Wall Street to put in place the rules required by the Dodd-Frank financial reforms.”I would be very surprised if there’s not some kind of lawsuit around these regulations,” said one executive with a major fund who declined to be identified. “It’s not clear whether the case has been made about the specific benefits.”After an eight-month battle, the Securities and Exchange Commission in July had its first Dodd-Frank rule overturned when a federal appeals court found the SEC had conducted a flawed analysis to support a rule that would make it easier for shareholders to nominate directors to corporate boards.The position-limits rule may be challenged on similar grounds — that the costs outweigh the benefits of a plan that many industry officials say will make markets riskier by driving trade to less-regulated overseas venues.NO AGREEMENTDozens of academic, government and bank studies on the subject have differed on whether speculators influence prices long-term or whether prices simply respond to market conditions. The CFTC’s own economists have yet to produce any economic evidence to connect speculators to price spikes.Some politicians, however, have clamored for the CFTC to clamp down since early 2008, as oil and grain prices were shooting toward historic peaks.”The bottom line is that we have a responsibility to ensure that the price of oil is no longer allowed to be driven up by the same Wall Street speculators who caused the devastating recession that working families are now experiencing,” independent Senator Bernie Sanders said on Monday.The rule will almost certainly seek to put some limits on the large long-only commodity index funds that have grown from nearly nil to over $300 billion in the past decade, nicknamed the “massive passives” for buying and holding futures contracts without regard to market fundamentals.Gensler has worked tirelessly to win support from the commissioners, and as Reuters reported last week, he finally won over enough votes to push through the rule on Tuesday when the CFTC meets from 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT).But his work is far from over. To prevent the “regulatory arbitrage” that many fear may ensue, he will need to ensure overseas regulators keep up with the CFTC.Over the weekend, France lost its battle to force mandatory curbs on energy and food commodities, and Britain’s Financial Services Authority — which overseas most of the major non-U.S. commodity exchanges — has maintained its opposition to mandated limits.

This is an excerpt from Unmeasured Strength, Lauren Manning’s account of surviving the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Center and her struggle to recover from severe burn injuries. The flames were consuming me, and as the first searing pain hit, I thought, This can’t be happening to me. The fire embraced my body tighter than any suitor, touching every inch of my flesh, clawing through my clothes to spread its hands over me, grabbing left and right, rifling over my shoulder blades, down my back, wrapping my legs in agony, gripping my left arm, and taking hold of both my hands. I covered my face, but I could not scream. My voice was powerless. I was in a vacuum, the air depleted of oxygen, and everything was muffled. The screams, the roar of the fire, the shattering sound of breaking glass— all that was very far away. I was suspended in space. Then my captor slammed me forward. I lurched toward the doors in a desperate effort to get away. As I did, something— I have no idea what— hit me in the back of the head. For a moment, I was pushed against the glass; then I was sucked backward again by a monstrous inhalation that pulled me toward its heart. I battled to escape, fighting my way through the outer doors as the fire grew over me, spreading farther down my head, my arms, my back, my legs. Then, abruptly, I was spit from the fire’s mouth out onto the sidewalk, where I had been standing just seconds before. The fire was all around me now, a shroud of flame. I was suffocating with every gasp of charring fumes. I saw nothing but concrete and pavement, but I knew there was a narrow strip of grass on the other side of West Street, in front of the World Financial Center. I knew with absolute certainty that I had to get there, that the patch of grass offered my only chance to put out the flames, and that if I did not push myself toward it with a razor-edged act of will, I would be annihilated, devoured by unbearable pain and terror. I felt myself sliding toward blackness— and then something primal rose up from the deepest part of my being. My mind was flooded with a vision of Tyler, who’d not celebrated his first birthday. I can’t leave my son. I haven’t had him long enough. I can’t abandon him. I can’t go out like this, running across the street in flames to die in a gutter. All my strength was now focused on a single goal. I had to reach that strip of grass. Without breaking stride I was already running toward it. I could think of nothing else. As I came off the curb, one of my ankles turned under me and snapped. I felt a momentary crushing sensation; for a split second, the focus of my pain shifted, and then the fire took over again. I pushed myself over the cement median. The journey seemed to last for hours. Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening. This pain can’t be real. I prayed for death, in that unspeakable way that people who are experiencing unimaginable pain can. As if summoned, Death seemed to be running beside me, dancing and beckoning, smelling of burned cloth and flesh. But I didn’t believe that even Death would deal a final blow to the pain and end my agony. I reached the grass and dropped down. I began to roll. A man came charging across the grass toward me. He ripped off his jacket and used it to help smother the flames, and as he bent over me, he became the focus of all my pain and anger. Shouting, I implored him to get me to a hospital, to please help me find a way out of this hell. I told him my husband Greg’s cell phone number and yelled at him to call Greg. “Tell him to get down here and help me!” At least three or four others had also reached the grass. At first they’d been screaming, but now they were silent and lay motionless on the bank. I saw more people start to pour out of the tower, some stunned, mouths agape in shock, others screaming in horror. My clothes had been incinerated or torn away. I was writhing in pain, but my adversary’s prolonged and intimate assault was only just beginning. The burn enveloped me, squeezing tighter and tighter. Though its flames were extinguished, its boiling venom was spreading, moving deeper and deeper, its pincers tearing through layer after layer of dermis, fat, and muscle. I twisted and turned, trying to escape, but it kept me effortlessly in its grasp, a weightless force with infinite strength to hold on to me. The pain intensified, breaking upon me in pounding waves, each threatening to send me under. The air was filled with noise, but I was in such agony that I heard only vague, distant sounds: the impact of objects slamming into the ground, the sirens of emergency vehicles, the grinding thunder of bending steel and breaking glass. Far above, a dark cloud belched from the punctured sides of Tower One with such velocity that the tower seemed to cut through the blue ocean of sky, trailing a deep, black scar in its wake. It seemed so incongruous that the same force that tore a gash so high up on the building could have created the fire that engulfed me in the lobby so far below. The pain kept burning through every ounce of my being. I prayed to somehow climb out of my body to escape it. I rocked back and forth in a futile effort to break free. Again I felt myself losing hold, as if my fingers were being pried off a ledge one at a time as I dangled over an abyss. I pleaded with God: I can’t leave, I can’t leave my son. I haven’t had enough time with him. I worked so hard to have him. I can’t leave him now. The impulse to let go grew overwhelming, and I knew I had to push beyond the seductive veil of softness that offered to envelop me and usher me deeply into the bowels of death. My eyes closed, and once again I saw my son’s face. Had it all been in vain? The thought that my love for my son might not be enough, that I might fail to return to him and to all those who needed me, was devastating. I knew I had to do everything possible to get back to him. This was it, the moment when I had to fight to hold on with the last full measure of my strength. I decided to live.

Whenever Al Gore raises the bull’s-eye of global warming, darts start to fly — aimed at him. Google the phrase “I hate Al Gore” and 42,000 entries appear, including a Facebook page called “Telling Al Gore he’s full of crap” that has 17,000 fans. Critics of the former vice president and Nobel laureate point to his multiple homes and use of a private jet as hard-fast hypocrisy, and his investments in clean technology as a conflict of interest. Add to that the specter of an old misquote from a CNN interview that won’t go away, about “inventing the Internet.” “If you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me,” he told a House Energy and Commerce subcomittee in April 2009. “Do you think there’s something wrong with being active in business in this country? I am proud of it.” So tonight, when Gore’s 24-hour multi-media presentation “24 Hours of Reality” hits screens around the world, viewers can watch for how the Oscar-winning environmentalist attempts to engage his most vocal critics – the ones who show up at speaking events with placards calling for him to debate climate science with them. Appetites were whetted earlier this week: “There will be a full-on assault on climate skeptics, exploring where they get their funding from, ” the chief executive of the event’s UK partner Global Action Plan told Reuters. In 13 languages, 200 new slides will pick up the message of Gore’s 2006 Oscar-winner “An Inconvenient Truth”, broadcast in every time zone and over social media channels as supporters of the campaign hand over control of their accounts on Facebook and Twitter for the 24-hour period.   It’s a first. For 24 hours people who deny that human carbon emissions are to blame for extreme weather can tune into a targeted argument just for them. If they are watching.