The White Helmets, also known as the Syrian Civil Defense

Posted on February 16, 2015February 16, 2015 by Denise Simon

While most of the citizens of the West think that Syrians are jihadist, now is the time to rethink that. Syria had and in some cases still has It was just a few months ago, that Syrian Christians were begging the West to help Syria such that they could stay in their country and not flee as refugees. Their pleas have fallen on ears of the West that refuse to hear and it must be noted that the recent White House proposal of Authorization of Use for Military Force does not even mention Syria such that Assad would be removed from power. While the turmoil and the civil war continues there remains some good people in Syria.

Unpaid, Unarmed Lifesavers in Syria

WHO would have thought there could be an uplifting story from Syria?

Yet side by side with the worst of humanity, you often see the best. In Syria, that’s a group of volunteers called the White Helmets. Its members rush to each bombing and claw survivors from the rubble.

There are more than 2,200 volunteers in the White Helmets, mostly men but a growing number of women as well. The White Helmets are unpaid and unarmed, and they risk their lives to save others. More than 80 have been killed in the line of duty, the group says, largely because Syrian military aircraft often return for a “double-tap” — dropping bombs on the rescuers.

Wearing simple white construction helmets as feeble protection from those “double-tap” bombings, the White Helmets are strictly humanitarian. They even have rescued some of the officers of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad who are bombing them.

Since the White Helmets began in 2013, its members have saved more than 12,500 lives by its count.

One video taken by the group shows White Helmets frantically pulling aside rubble as a baby wails beneath. Finally, a rescuer is able to reach with his arm deep into a crevice and pull out an infant, crying lustily but not obviously injured.

A reputation for nonpolitical humanitarianism has allowed the White Helmets to work across lines of rival militias, including the Islamic State. In a land short of heroes and long on violence, many rally round the White Helmets. Syria may be notorious today for cruelty and suffering, but these men and women are a reminder of the human capacity for courage, strength and resilience.

“They have been doing extraordinary work in a terrible situation,” notes Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

“They are the real deal,” says Lina Sergie Attar, a Syrian-American architect engaged in humanitarian aid in Syria.

One of the leaders of the White Helmets is Farouq al-Habib, 33, an English-speaking former banker with a doctorate in business. When the Syrian revolution began peacefully in 2011, he emerged as a leader of the movement in the city of Homs, thinking that, within a few months, the Assad regime would be overthrown.

It didn’t work out that way, and Habib was imprisoned and tortured in 2012. Friends bribed the authorities to limit the torture and eventually free him, but the experience seared him. “Every day there were dead bodies from torture” in the prison, he said.

Now Habib helps manage the White Helmets, who survive on modest financing from the United States, Britain and private donors. Women were incorporated into the White Helmets last year, partly because some conservative Syrians didn’t want men digging through rubble to find women who might not be fully dressed.

The White Helmets, also known as the Syrian Civil Defense, are campaigning to pressure President Assad to stop dropping so-called barrel bombs, which are full of shrapnel and take a tremendous toll on civilians. They argue that the West is so focused on the Islamic State that it is ignoring the far greater killing by Assad.

“We can only ease the suffering of our people,” says Raed Saleh, the chief of the White Helmets. “Only you in the international community can end it.”

President Obama’s greatest foreign policy failing has been Syria. It’s not clear that other approaches would have succeeded, but his policy and the world’s have manifestly failed.

“When we started the revolution, we thought we shared the same values as the West,” Habib said. “But I’m ashamed to say our friends failed us. We should have had friends like China, Russia, Iran, because they were credible.”

Now Obama and other leaders are focused on military solutions in Syria. The problem is that there may not be one. Arming rebels might have worked in 2012, but it may be too late now. Sadly, there are more problems in international relations than there are solutions.

But what we can do is provide more support for the White Helmets and, above all, do far more to help Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. The majority of Syrian refugee children are not attending school, according to the United Nations, and an entire generation of young Syrians is growing up impoverished, uneducated and, in some cases, radicalized.

“They’re going to be like the Palestinians, floating around the Middle East for decades,” Landis warns.

The United States is withdrawing troops from the Ebola fight in West Africa — a very successful deployment, for which Obama deserves credit — so how about now dispatching them on a temporary mission to Jordan to build schools for Syrian refugees?

Every day there are scores of bombings or missile strikes across Syria — for months, the beautiful ancient city of Aleppo was enduring 50 attacks a day — and, each time, these are the crews that extinguish the fires and help the injured.

Obama Approves Minsk Agreement, Great for Putin

Posted on February 15, 2015February 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

The new Minsk ceasefire agreement empowers Russia-backed separatists with a number of leverages over Ukraine. If implemented, the agreement could provide a functioning framework for a mutually acceptable political settlement. In the event of non-implementation, a re-eruption of hostilities is highly likely.

In Minsk on 12th February, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande managed to reach an agreement on the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine, and the outlines of a conflict settlement.

Formally, the document was signed not by the heads of state, but by the Trilateral Contact Group (composed of representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE) as well as the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk separatists. This indirect scheme allowed Kyiv to reach an agreement with the separatists without formally recognizing them as legitimate partners.

The document, composed of thirteen points, refers to the separatist entities as “particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts”, using the same wording as the September 2014 Minsk agreement. Hence, neither their self-proclaimed names, Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, nor the Russian term Novorossiya are used, which is a strong signal that none of the parties questions that these regions belong to Ukraine.

*** So what else needs to be known? Who is still supporting Putin and why….

The segments of the Russian population that, arguably, have the best chance to dissuade President Vladimir Putin from his actions in Ukraine are business leaders and the rich. But despite having lost millions of dollars because of sanctions against Russia , the falling ruble and low oil prices, they still rally behind their leader-both privately and publicly.

‎

Despite a cease-fire announced Thursday , Western sanctions on Russia over its support of insurgents in neighboring Ukraine have already pushed Russia’s borrowing costs higher and crushed its currency (Exchange: RUBUSD=). The problems have been made worse by the price of oil, whose fall since September has further undercut the petro-state’s ability to fund itself. Yet Putin still enjoys broad domestic support, and experts tell CNBC that the country’s monied class is no exception. Timothy Ash, who heads emerging markets research at Standard Bank (Johannesburg Stock Exchange: SBK-ZA), summarizes the phenomenon in a few words: “Nationalism plays very well with many people,” he told CNBC

Alexander Kliment, director of Russia research at Eurasia Group, said the sanctions have actually strengthened elite support for Putin because they have bolstered the government’s position as a last-resort lender for them. “Also, sanctions have inflamed patriotic sentiment and been a convenient scapegoat for economic woes,” Kilment told CNBC.

“If you are an oligarch, it’s bad to suffer sanctions from the West,” he said, “but you’re still pretty well-off as part of the Russian system. It’s an awfully big leap to turn your back on that, which would risk literally everything you have.” Read More Total CEO: US will not become energy independent Edward Mermelstein, a New York-based attorney who works with Russian business clients, told CNBC that Putin’s popularity is no longer dependent on finance as much as the might of Russia.

“As long as the country is perceived as strong, he will continue to dominate domestically. The Russian citizen can withstand famine, but they cannot withstand the appearance of weakness,” he said.

While some companies are getting hit hard by what Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has acknowledged is an economy in “dire straits,” others are finding ways to benefit.

*** Now comes the alternate banking system. Almost 91 domestic credit institutions have been incorporated into the new Russian financial system, the analogous of SWIFT, an international banking network.The new service, will allow Russian banks to communicate seamlessly through the Central Bank of Russia. It should be noted that Russia’s Central Bank initiated the development of the country’s own messaging system in response to repeated threats voiced by Moscow’s Western partners to disconnect Russia from SWIFT.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev meeting with miniters

SWIFT (The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is a Belgium-based international organization that provides services and a standardized environment for global banking communicating that allows financial institutions to send and receive messages about their transactions. Earlier this month Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov expressed confidence that Russia would not be disconnected from SWIFT. In her turn, Russian Central Bank First Deputy Chair Ksenia Yudaeva called upon Russian civilians and financial institutions not to dramatize the current situation.Russian experts point to the fact that Western businesses would face severe losses if they expelled Russia from the international SWIFT system. On the other hand, the alternative system launched by Russia might reduce the negative impacts caused by measures imposed by the West, including possible disconnection from SWIFT, and diminish Western financial dominance over Russia.

It’s Your Money and the Democrats Don’t Care

Posted on February 14, 2015February 14, 2015 by Denise Simon

Do you know how legislative bills begin and then what happens? Do you know what they may cost the taxpayers?

Sponsors of 700 bills in Congress didn’t put price tags on their proposals

Almost half of the bills introduced in the last Congress authorized spending tax dollars, but not specifically how many dollars. Instead, the proposals simply provided that “such sums as necessary” should be spent.All 20 congressmen who most frequently used the “such sums as necessary” formulation are liberals and among the most ardent proponents of expanding the federal government. House Republicans were advised by their leaders not to use the phrase, but some of them ignored the advice.Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed “Democratic socialist,” led the list as the sponsor of 19 such bills.

His 10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2014, for example, would require “the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a program to provide rebates for the purchase and installation of photovoltaic systems with the goal to install 10 million systems.”

The Sanders bill provided specific instructions for what the government would need to do, and the cost of the solar panels would be known to his staff. The goal of the bill — increasing alternative energy sources — has significant public support. But Sanders didn’t include how much his proposal would cost, thus depriving his congressional colleagues and taxpayers of the means to weigh benefits versus costs.Nowhere in the bill is there a cost figure. It simply says “there are authorized to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to carry out this Act.”Florida Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson’s Fiscal Sanity Act for Appropriations bill is another whose cost is simply as much “as necessary.”

“It shows they aren’t serious fiscal stewards — they aren’t concerned with how much it costs, often-times. If they were, they could write in offsets saying ‘this fund over here will be decreased by the amount necessary,’” said Demian Brady, who tracks individual congressmen’s spending propensities for the National Taxpayers Union.

“It could also be a way to avoid accountability. If they did say $20 million for a gun buyback program, media and everyone would say she wants to spend $20 million. If you leave it blank, it’s a shield you can hide behind, even if they know how much it’s going to cost,” he said. Some were token efforts that sponsors never expected to go anywhere — they were introduced only so their sponsors could tell campaign backers that they tried. But occasionally those proposals wind up becoming policy anyway.“They say, ‘we didn’t bother to get an estimate because we didn’t expect it to go anywhere,’ but then soon we’ll find it as part of bigger legislation,” Brady said.When Rep. Maxine Waters wanted a “minority diabetes initiative,” the California Democrat didn’t care how much it cost, and didn’t attempt to measure it, craft a budget estimate or find a way to fund it. Instead, she asked colleagues to essentially vote for a blank check.

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey’s Caregiver Corps Act of 2014 would require the Department of Health and Human Services to “contract with a nonprofit” and “[a]llows the Secretary to award grants for the operation of local Corps programs.”Yet there is no mention of cost anywhere. At the very end of the description of the proposed program, it says simply, “There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section, such sums as may be necessary.”“It’s very bad practice to put these things in place because they also lead to bloated appropriations. The authorizers have kind of punted,” said a senior Senate Republican aide. “We’d like to have all the authorizers be more accountable to things.”

Congress must first pass a bill “authorizing” money to be spent, and then another, separate appropriation bill officially funds it — generally one of a few major bills passed by the appropriations committee.

The handful of powerful congressional “appropriators” who meet in back rooms and until recently were able to dole out earmarks as favors have been the subject of significant ire as poster children for what is wrong with Washington.

But when lawmakers write bills that “authorize” funding without specifying amounts, they are ceding authority to the appropriations committees, who will have to fill in an amount, even though they’re much less acquainted with the purpose.

The Examiner analyzed legislation from the two-year congressional session that ended last month. Dollar amounts — or lack thereof — were extracted from the bill text by the Cato Institute as part of the libertarian think tank’s Deepbills project.

One reason for the Democratic dominance of the “such sums as necessary” list is that Democrats introduce more bills in general than Republicans. But another is that House Republican leadership cautioned its members not to use “such sums as necessary” at the beginning of last Congress, as one of nine “legislative protocols.” “Any bill or joint resolution authorizing discretionary appropriations shall specify the actual amount of funds being authorized,” the protocol says. “This protocol is designed to improve transparency and accountability in the authorization of discretionary programs.”

But it only discourages, not forbids, House Republicans from using the technique. The House Select Committee on Benghazi, formed to investigate Hillary Clinton’s State Department, was funded by “such sums as necessary,” leading Democrats opposed to the investigation to protest that it is irresponsible to allocate open-ended amounts of money with no end date.

And it doesn’t bind senators, who lead the list in bills introduced.

Sanders and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-NJ. the most frequent users, didn’t respond to the Examiner’s requests for comment.

WRITING THE MOST BLANK CHECKS

Name Bills
Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT) 19
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) 14
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) 13
Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) 13
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) 11
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) 10
Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) 10
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) 10
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) 9
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)

But Barack Obama does not care either. His budget was presented last week and has zero chance of advancing with good reason. Obama’s Budget Hikes Taxes by $1.6 Trillion In his budget, Obama also proposes that over the next 10 years, tax cuts of $349 billion be accompanied by tax increases of $1.9 trillion, for a net 10-year tax increase of $1.6 trillion.

The president’s budget would repeal, let expire or limit:

the Lifetime Learning Credit;
the student loan interest deduction (for new borrowers);
Coverdell accounts; and
529 education savings plans.

The president’s budget would:

triple the maximum Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC);
expand the American Opportunity Tax Credit;
create an auto-enroll IRA for workers without an employer-based retirement plans (with an option to opt out);
create a new second earner credit of up to $500 for families where both spouses work; and
expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for workers without children and for non-custodial parents.

The president’s budget would raise taxes in many ways. For example, it would:

increase the capital gains and dividend tax rate to 28 percent (inclusive of the net investment income tax);
end stepped-up basis by treating bequests and gifts as realization events that would trigger tax liability for capital gains;
raise estate and gift taxes;
limit the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent;
create an additional alternative minimum tax designed to ensure certain high income taxpayer pay at least 30 percent of income —after charitable contributions—in taxes;
impose a 19 percent on the foreign earnings of U.S. companies;
raise tobacco taxes; and
impose a tax on the debt of financial institutions.

In addition, Obama’s budget increases the corporate welfare provided through the tax code, with substantially higher subsidies for alternative energy and politically favored infrastructure.

The budget does contain a constructive provision that would permanently extend section 179 expensing allowing small business to deduct up to $1 million of capital expenses.

White House Invited Muslim Brotherhood Policy

Posted on February 12, 2015February 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

A ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION WITH “THE STOP QATAR NOW COALITION”

Who Are the Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Leaders Obama Met?

US President Barack Obama, privately met with 14 Muslim leaders, including several leaders of Muslim Brotherhood front groups with ties to Hamas.

Imam Mohamed Magid, President of the Islamic Society of North America and the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center.

The White House has released the names of senior American Muslim leaders that President Obama met with personally last week. The list of names was included on the transcript of the White House daily press briefing on Thursday, despite journalists having requested the information much sooner. Prior to that, the White House had refused to name the leaders.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the President meeting with representatives from any faith community and with the Muslim community in particular. Yet some of the individuals who met with the President have alarming links to the Muslim Brotherhood

and organizations that have funded terrorism.

Azhar Azeez represented the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in the talks with Obama. Declassified FBI documents show that ISNA was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group as early as 1987 and its past leaders include Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who was convicted on terrorism related charges in 2004.

In 2007, ISNA was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity shut down by the U.S. government for financing Hamas. The U.S. Department of Justice listed ISNA as one of the “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.”

Mr. Azeez is also the senior National Director of Islamic Relief USA, the American branch of Islamic Relief worldwide. The United Arab Emirates lists Islamic Relief Worldwide as a terrorist organization. Israel also banned Islamic Relief from operating in the disputed territories it administers, accusing it of funding Hamas.

According to the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs “The IRW provides support and assistance to Hamas’s infrastructure. The IRW’s activities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip are carried out by social welfare organizations controlled and staffed by Hamas operatives. The intensive activities of these associations are designed to further Hamas’s ideology among the Palestinian population.”

Five senior members of Islamic Relief USA were named in a list of 30 Muslim Brotherhood operatives in America by the leading Egyptian newspaper El-Watan. Azeez’s bio also says he is a founder and past president of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator. CAIR is also listed as a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

Imam

Mohamed Magid is the President of the Islamic Society of North America and head of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society ( ADAMS) Center, in which capacity he met with the President. The ADAMS Center was investigated by the FBI for connections to terrorism funding and was raided in 2004 by federal agents.

Mohamed Magid signed a letter in September 2014 alongside other Islamist leaders which condemned the Islamic State while asserting the need for an Islamic Caliphate

and supporting the hudud

punishments of sharia

law, which include amputation, flogging and the execution of apostates. The letter said that a person could only be regarded as an apostate if the person “openly declares disbelief.”

Azhar Azeez also signed the aforementioned letter. Among the other signatories to that letter was terrorist supporting Sheikh

Abdullah bin Bayyah, who in the past endorsed a fatwa

that authorized the killing of US soldiers. He also said that giving donations to jihadists who fight Israel count as zakat

and said as recently as 2013 that Muslim leaders should give Hamas financial and military assistance to fight Israel. Bin Bayyah was cited by Obama in an address to the UN in September 2014 as a Muslim leader who supports peace.

Hoda Hawa is National Policy Advisor of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). MPAC was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of which, Mather Hathout, served jail time in Egypt for his membership in the group.

In 2001 the then President of MPAC said that Israel should be included on the suspect list of those who might have perpetrated 9/11. MPAC cooperated with other Muslim-Brotherhood aligned groups to oppose the appointment of Muslim anti-Islamist activist Dr. Zudhi Jasser to the U.S. Commission on International Freedom.

MPAC co-founder Mather Hathout has also made statements in the past in support of Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah.

They also have a very limited following. A 2011 Gallup poll found that only 6% of Muslim-American males and 1% of females chose MPAC as the organization that most represents their interests, even though MPAC has large resources and has been around since 1988.

Also present was Rahat Hussain, president of the Universal Muslim Association of America (UMAA) . The UMAA received thousands of dollars from the Alavi Foundation, an Iranian propaganda front group, from 2005 onwards. Clarion Project discovered that they received at least $138,000 from the Alavi Foundation between 2005 and 2012. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office investigations chief, Adam Kaufmann, said “We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation.”

The British Government is set this week to launch a major clampdown on Muslim Brotherhood front groups and the funding of terrorism after lengthy investigations found multiple Muslim Brotherhood entities operating within the country.

Yet in America the State Department received a delegation from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The meetings were described as “fruitful” by one of the delegates. The State Department, after facing criticism for the meeting, then doubled down on their decision to do so in a later press briefing.

This is while Brotherhood representatives in Turkey are calling for violence on the streets in Egypt, saying “we are now in the retaliation phase.” At the same time, a Brotherhood TV station based in Turkey broadcast a threat to all foreigners in Egypt that they must flee the country or face being targeted by terrorist attacks, while another Muslim Brotherhood figure said “It is time to begin armed insurrection.”

Given that these American Muslim leaders have highly problematic connections to Muslim Brotherhood front groups, why are they being given access to meet the President personally, especially when one takes into account the presence of genuine anti-Islamist Muslim leaders like Dr. Zudhi Jasser who are denied such opportunities?

The Stop Qatar Now Coalition of good Patriots have spent weeks gathering evidence, documents and performed interviews to bring to publication the facts on the Muslim Brotherhood penetration into the American culture against the will and knowledge of Americans and the U.S. Constitution…

BROADTCAST LIVE WORLDWIDE: THURSDAYS – 9:00PM (eastern) / 6:00pm (pacific) on WDFP – Restoring America Radio , Red State Talk Radio, American Agenda, Nightside Radio Studios, and on Freedom In America Radio

Have You Met Christiana?

Posted on February 10, 2015February 10, 2015 by Denise Simon

She is a member of the Carbon Finance Advisory Panel
She is an Advisory Committee Member of Green Cross International, founded by Pres. Gorbachev
She is an invited member of the Clinton Global Initiative
She is a member of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change led by Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia University
She is a technical advisor to the Prototype Carbon Fund at the World Bank
She was personally trained by Al Gore to deliver his presentation of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
She is the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
She even blogs at the UNFCCC

Are you beginning to see a crusader here because there is notoriety and money and power involved? Wonder how many times she has visited the White House…

UN Climate Chief: We Are Remaking The World Economy

The United Nation’s climate chief says that reordering the global economy to fight climate change is the “most difficult” task the international body has ever undertaken.

“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history,” Christiana Figueres, who heads up the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters.

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution,” Figueres said.

Figueres’s remarks come ahead of a meeting in Geneva next week where delegates will pour over draft treaty texts that the U.N. hopes countries will agree to in December. She doesn’t expect global warming to be solved by one treaty, but was optimistic in will be solved in the coming years. “That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 – you choose the number,” she said. “It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation.”

The climate chief even held up President Obama as a shining example of steps countries can take to tackle global warming.

“The international community is quite grateful for the fact that in his second term, President Obama has turned his attention quite clearly and quite decisively to climate change,” Figueres told reporters.

“He has not only spoken about his commitment both to his national agenda on climate change, but also to the international process, and has been quite clear in his political leadership,” Figueres said, touting the EPA’s success cutting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

The EPA will finalize rules to cut carbon emissions from new and existing power plants this summer. Critics of these rules say they will hurt the economy through job losses and higher energy prices. Supporters, however, say it will spur green energy development and set an example for other countries to follow.

Obama’s 2016 budget proposal boosts EPA funding to help it finalize emissions rules for power plants. The budget would also give the EPA $4 billion to reward states that reduce emissions even more than federal mandates require.

Figueres also cheered Obama’s agreement with China to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 and to give the U.N.’s climate fund a $3 billion boost.

“So for all of these reasons, certainly a very welcome leadership from the United States as a single nation,” Figueres said. “Countries can attain a certain level of emission reductions on their own, but they can do much more if they collaborate with each other, in particular with certain specific sectors.”

But while Figueres seems rosy about a deal, there are already signs of countries backing away from a tough international climate treaty.

France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, told an audience at an event in New Delhi, India that a climate treaty should not hurt national economic growth. “An agreement that would leave some countries to consider their growth hampered by its provisions will not be accepted,” Fabius said. *** If you can stand this nonsense and fleecing of policy and global threats, you can read more here about Christiana. One more thing, controlling climate change brings gender equality….really?