[As emotions ran high with MPs referring to a
video that allegedly suggests LTTE chief Prabhakaran's 12-year-old-son was shot
in cold blood, the government found it hard to balance diplomatic relations
with popular sentiment. Even Congress's outside supporter Samajwadi Party chief
Mulayam Singh Yadav took potshots at the government for mishandling ties with
Sri Lanka. ]
NEW DELHI: With all parties uniting to condemn alleged atrocities against
Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Manmohan Singh government is under intense pressure to
back a resolution critical of the island nation at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in
Geneva.
External affairs minister Salman Khurshidstopped short of any commitment but told the Lok Sabha at the end of a heated four-hour discussion that the government will keep concerns voiced by MPs in mind while taking a final decision on the March 21st vote.
Khurshid's response did not satisfy DMK,AIADMK and BJP-led NDA and all three political formations walked out of the House protesting against what they said was the government's inability to support Tamils in Sri Lanka.
The minister said India has demanded an independent inquiry into reported abuse of human rights of Tamils, specifically stating that the death of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)leader V Prabhakaran and members of his family should also be investigated.
The discussion saw Congress ally DMK call for the trial of the top leadership of the Rajapakshe government for "war crimes" while BJP demanded withdrawal of Lankan army from Tamil areas and AIADMK sought imposition of economic sanctions.
The mood of the House was deeply hostile towards Sri Lanka as allegations of torture and rape inflamed sentiments despite Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar's call for restraint while referring to Sri Lanka and its public figures.
Responding to BJP leader leader Yashwant Sinha's charge that the UPA government was complicit in allowing the Lankan armed forces to act without restraint against Tamil civilians, Khurshid said it was unfair to reach such a conclusion.
Khurshid reminded Sinha that the infamous Kandahar swap of terrorists for hostages could be criticized but was not necessarily a betrayal of national interest. He pointed out India's decisions "...should not be thrown back at us in the future as everybody is not our friend".
Despite the government's misgivings over implications for issues like Jammu & Kashmir, Congress moved to assuage Tamil sentiment with party chief Sonia Gandhi deputing three MPs to attend the Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) meet in Delhi on Thursday. Minister of state in PMO V Narayanasamy also attended the meeting. Sonia sat through much of the discussion in the Lok Sabha.
"The government may have to support the resolution. It may try to ensure the language is not too offensive to Sri Lanka," said official sources.
As emotions ran high with MPs referring to a video that allegedly suggests LTTE chief Prabhakaran's 12-year-old-son was shot in cold blood, the government found it hard to balance diplomatic relations with popular sentiment. Even Congress's outside supporter Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav took potshots at the government for mishandling ties with Sri Lanka.
Khurshid was frequently interrupted by DMK's T R Baalu and AIADMK's Thambidurai who sought to know the government's stand on whether it would move its own resolution or amend the one being moved at the UNHRC.
Sinha said the government must be forceful in getting the Lankan government to respect the human rights of Tamils that are still being violated and ensure the implementation of promises to grant the northern areas enhanced autonomy.
"We don't play the policeman of the world or the big brother in any country," Khurshid said when members, especially those from Tamil Nadu protested that the Centre is "ignoring" the plight of Tamils and the "genocide" by the Sri Lankan army.
DMK MPs protested when TMC's Saugata Roy alleged LTTE was also responsible for plight of Tamils living in the island nation. Roy said "LTTE was thoroughly a terrorist organisation".
Roy's was the lone voice on Thursday as MPs seemed to have developed amnesia about LTTE's refusal to commit itself to anything short of an independent Eelam and the organization's track record of using truce intervals to recoup and launch fresh terrorist attacks.
LTTE's repeated attacks on targets in Sri Lanka and the organization's global network of sympathizers who contributed to mobilizing funds and arms did not find mention either also Sinha referred to India's role in promoting the outfit and then cracking down on it.
Opposition AIADMK on Thursday also demanded public apology from Congress and key UPA ally DMK over condition of Tamils in Lanka and asked the government not to take part in the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Governments' Meeting (CHOGM) in the neighbouring country.
AIADMK member V Maitreyan, while speaking on motion of thanks on the President's address in the Rajya Sabha, attacked DMK and Congress for handling of the issue and expressed concern over no mention of it in the Presidential speech.
He said the US was moving a resolution on the Tamil issue in the UN Human Rights Council and urged the government to support it and "not dilute it like the last time".
External affairs minister Salman Khurshidstopped short of any commitment but told the Lok Sabha at the end of a heated four-hour discussion that the government will keep concerns voiced by MPs in mind while taking a final decision on the March 21st vote.
Khurshid's response did not satisfy DMK,AIADMK and BJP-led NDA and all three political formations walked out of the House protesting against what they said was the government's inability to support Tamils in Sri Lanka.
The minister said India has demanded an independent inquiry into reported abuse of human rights of Tamils, specifically stating that the death of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)leader V Prabhakaran and members of his family should also be investigated.
The discussion saw Congress ally DMK call for the trial of the top leadership of the Rajapakshe government for "war crimes" while BJP demanded withdrawal of Lankan army from Tamil areas and AIADMK sought imposition of economic sanctions.
The mood of the House was deeply hostile towards Sri Lanka as allegations of torture and rape inflamed sentiments despite Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar's call for restraint while referring to Sri Lanka and its public figures.
Responding to BJP leader leader Yashwant Sinha's charge that the UPA government was complicit in allowing the Lankan armed forces to act without restraint against Tamil civilians, Khurshid said it was unfair to reach such a conclusion.
Khurshid reminded Sinha that the infamous Kandahar swap of terrorists for hostages could be criticized but was not necessarily a betrayal of national interest. He pointed out India's decisions "...should not be thrown back at us in the future as everybody is not our friend".
Despite the government's misgivings over implications for issues like Jammu & Kashmir, Congress moved to assuage Tamil sentiment with party chief Sonia Gandhi deputing three MPs to attend the Tamil Eelam Supporters Organisation (TESO) meet in Delhi on Thursday. Minister of state in PMO V Narayanasamy also attended the meeting. Sonia sat through much of the discussion in the Lok Sabha.
"The government may have to support the resolution. It may try to ensure the language is not too offensive to Sri Lanka," said official sources.
As emotions ran high with MPs referring to a video that allegedly suggests LTTE chief Prabhakaran's 12-year-old-son was shot in cold blood, the government found it hard to balance diplomatic relations with popular sentiment. Even Congress's outside supporter Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav took potshots at the government for mishandling ties with Sri Lanka.
Khurshid was frequently interrupted by DMK's T R Baalu and AIADMK's Thambidurai who sought to know the government's stand on whether it would move its own resolution or amend the one being moved at the UNHRC.
Sinha said the government must be forceful in getting the Lankan government to respect the human rights of Tamils that are still being violated and ensure the implementation of promises to grant the northern areas enhanced autonomy.
"We don't play the policeman of the world or the big brother in any country," Khurshid said when members, especially those from Tamil Nadu protested that the Centre is "ignoring" the plight of Tamils and the "genocide" by the Sri Lankan army.
DMK MPs protested when TMC's Saugata Roy alleged LTTE was also responsible for plight of Tamils living in the island nation. Roy said "LTTE was thoroughly a terrorist organisation".
Roy's was the lone voice on Thursday as MPs seemed to have developed amnesia about LTTE's refusal to commit itself to anything short of an independent Eelam and the organization's track record of using truce intervals to recoup and launch fresh terrorist attacks.
LTTE's repeated attacks on targets in Sri Lanka and the organization's global network of sympathizers who contributed to mobilizing funds and arms did not find mention either also Sinha referred to India's role in promoting the outfit and then cracking down on it.
Opposition AIADMK on Thursday also demanded public apology from Congress and key UPA ally DMK over condition of Tamils in Lanka and asked the government not to take part in the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Governments' Meeting (CHOGM) in the neighbouring country.
AIADMK member V Maitreyan, while speaking on motion of thanks on the President's address in the Rajya Sabha, attacked DMK and Congress for handling of the issue and expressed concern over no mention of it in the Presidential speech.
He said the US was moving a resolution on the Tamil issue in the UN Human Rights Council and urged the government to support it and "not dilute it like the last time".
RECENT HEAT SPIKE UNLIKE ANYTHING IN 11,000 YEARS: STUDY
[The study shows the recent heat spike "has no precedent as far back as we can go with any confidence, 11,000 years arguably," said Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann, who wrote the original hockey stick study but wasn't part of this research. He said scientists may have to go back 125,000 years to find warmer temperatures potentially rivaling today's.]
[The study shows the recent heat spike "has no precedent as far back as we can go with any confidence, 11,000 years arguably," said Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann, who wrote the original hockey stick study but wasn't part of this research. He said scientists may have to go back 125,000 years to find warmer temperatures potentially rivaling today's.]
AP
WASHINGTON: A new study looking at
11,000 years of climate temperatures shows the world inthe middle of a dramatic U-turn, lurching
from near-record cooling to a heat spike.
Research released on Thursday in the journalScience uses fossils of tiny marine organisms to
reconstruct global temperatures back to the end of the last ice age. It shows
how the globe for several thousands of years was cooling until an unprecedented
reversal in the 20th century.
Scientists say it is further evidence that modern-day global warming isn't natural, but the
result of rising carbon dioxide emissions that have rapidly grown since the Industrial Revolutionbegan roughly 250 years
ago.
The decade of 1900 to 1910 was one of the coolest in the past 11,300 years —
cooler than 95 percent of the other years, the marine fossil data suggest.
Yet 100 years later, the decade of 2000 to 2010 was one of the warmest, said
study lead author Shaun Marcott of Oregon State
University. Global thermometer records only go back to 1880, and those show the
last decade was the hottest for this more recent time period.
"In 100 years, we've gone from the cold end of the spectrum to the warm
end of the spectrum," Marcott said. "We've never seen something this
rapid. Even in the ice age the global temperature never changed this
quickly."
Using fossils from all over the world, Marcott presents the longest continuous
record of Earth's average temperature. One of his co-authors last year used the
same method to look even farther back. This study fills in the crucial
post-ice age time during early human civilization.
Marcott's data indicates that it took 4,000 years for the world to warm about
1.25 degrees from the end of the ice age to about 7,000 years ago. The same
fossil-based data suggest a similar level of warming occurring in just one
generation: from the 1920s to the 1940s. Actual thermometer records don't show
the rise from the 1920s to the 1940s was quite that big and Marcott said for
such recent time periods it is better to use actual thermometer readings than
his proxies.
Before this study, continuous temperature record reconstruction only went back
about 2,000 years. The temperature trend produces a line shaped like a
"hockey stick" with a sudden spike after what had been a fairly
steady line. That data came from tree rings, ice cores and lake sediments.
Marcott wanted to go farther back, to the end of the last ice age in more
detail by using the same marine fossil method his colleague used. That period
also coincides with a "really important time for the history of our
planet," said Smithsonian Institution research
anthropologist Torben Rick. That's the time when people started to first
domesticate animals and start agriculture, which is connected to the end of the
ice age.
Marcott's research finds the climate had been gently warming out of the ice age
with a slow cooling that started about 6,000 years ago.
Then the cooling reversed with a vengeance.
The study shows the recent heat spike "has no precedent as far
back as we can go with any confidence, 11,000 years arguably," said Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann, who wrote the original hockey
stick study but wasn't part of this research. He said scientists may have to go
back 125,000 years to find warmer temperatures potentially rivaling today's.
However, another outside scientist, Jeff Severinghaus of the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography thinks temperatures may have been notably warmer
just 12,000 years ago, at least in Greenland based on research by some of his
colleagues.
Several outside scientists praised the methods Marcott used, but said it might
be a bit too oriented toward the Northern Hemisphere.
Marcott said the general downward trend of temperatures that reversed 100 years
ago seemed to indicate the Earth was heading either toward another ice age or
little ice age from about 1550 to 1850. Or it was continuing to cool naturally
until greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels changed everything.
The reason the globe warmed after the ice age and then started cooling about
6,000 years ago has to do with the tilt of the Earth and its distance from the
sun, said Marcott and Severinghaus. Distance and angle in the summer matter
because of heat absorption and reflection and ground cover.
"We have, through human emissions of carbon dioxide and other
heat-trapping gases, indefinitely delayed the onset of the next ice age and are
now heading into an unknown future where humans control the thermostat of the
planet," said Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, responding in an email.
