Obama Blames Congress For Inaction On Climate Change, While Calling For Increase In Fossil Fuel Production | ThinkProgress

Praising the boom in domestic oil and gas drilling, Obama announced that he is “directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” He called for “every possible action” to develop “a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years.”

The “one hundred years” supply of gas is questionable. More importantly, burning that supply would emit about 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

NOAA: 2011 a year of climate extremes in the United States | NOAA

According to NOAA scientists, 2011 was a record-breaking year for climate extremes, as much of the United States faced historic levels of heat, precipitation, flooding and severe weather, while La Niña events at both ends of the year impacted weather patterns at home and around the world.

Guantanamo, Ten Years On | Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International

On Jan. 11, 2002, the United States brought the first 20 prisoners to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, marking the beginning of a program of indefinite detention without charge or trial of terrorism suspects that has lasted 10 years. Since then, a total of 779 prisoners have been held at the facility. Provisions in the NDAA for 2012 codify the practice of indefinite detention without trial into US law.

The International Context of Global Outrage | Counterpunch

In 2011, social and political rebellion has re-emerged in the streets and on squares all over the world. It has appeared in new forms and been given new names: the Arab Spring, the Indignados, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The main regions affected are North Africa and the Middle East (including Israel), Europe and [...]

Yemen: The Amazing Life March Arrives in Sanaa | Global Voices

Yemen’s revolutionaries are not deterred nor did they give up on their demands despite the signing of the strongly rejected Gulf Cooperation Council’s initiative proposed in April and finally signed by Saleh on November 23rd, providing a so called mechanism for him to “relinquish” power. They went out on a 264km march on foot from [...]