Global/International

UNESCO's International Day for Biological Diversity on May 22 focussed strongly on conserving our marine diversity. One of the important marine ecosystems are the seagrass meadows around the coasts of the world. A new global scientific research study just released has shown that seagrass meadows store significantly more carbon than any land based forest. They are very important as carbon sinks. But they are also suffering a major decline due to pollution from agricultural and mining development and chemical runoff, coastal development changing water turbidity upsetting photosynthesis in seagrass, and increasing sea surface temperatures affecting seagrass growth due to global warming.

The new global study of seagrass meadow ecosystems has found that coastal seagrass beds store much more carbon than can be stored in even the most carbon dense forests, such as the temperate native forests of Victoria. Seagrass meadows can store up to 83,000 metric tons of carbon per square kilometre, mostly in the soils below them. In comparison, a typical land forest stores around 30,000 metric tons per square kilometre mostly as wood. It is the first global study to analyze the carbon storage capacity in seagrasses.

More Information: Seagrass Watch | Global Seagrass Monitoring Network

The signing of the Long term partnership between Australia and Afghanistan by Julia Gillard and Hamid Karzai at the NATO summit in Chicago on 20th May is being presented by the government and the press as an “aid commitment” as part of the “end of the Afghanistan war”. This is a lie.

Whilst the majority of Australian troops are returning from Afghanistan in 2013, these are the troops involved in training the Afghan army, the agreement is a commitment for Australian Special Forces to occupy Afghanistan indefinitely alongside the U.S. Our Special Forces, the only Australian troops in a combat role, will continue in the name of “security” to operate as defacto assassination squads for the U.S. Peace activist will be saying no to both the U.S. alliance, escalating militarism and the occupation of Afghanistan when they blockade the Swan Island military base where the SAS train in September at the Swan Island Peace Convergence 2012
Related: Text of the Agreement -- Interview with Defence Minister Stephen Smith -- The SAS dirty war -- WSWS analysis

http://www.radio4all.net/responder.php/download/60147/67026/80521/?url=h...

Nachrichten Kommentar mit Wolfgang vom 19. Mai 2012 in Nimbin

14:00 min 128 kbps stereo 13 MB

Gerry Georgatos
Ali Jasmin was 13 years old when the Commonwealth of Australia locked him up in an adult prison for being a deckhand on a boat of Asylum Seekers, and hence for assisting people in the safe passage of Asylum to our shores. International maritime laws and the various United Conventions and protocols asserting the rights of those seeking Asylum would cast this young boy as a hero, and rightfully so however not the Australian government and its institutions.