By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
The world's poorest countries, inundated by rising seas and worsening disasters, made a last ditch plea for financial help early Saturday as negotiators at United Nations climate talks struggled to reach an ambitions deal to combat global warming.
Somalia's extremist Shebab fighters have joined ranks with al-Qaeda, terror network chief Ayman al-Zawahri announced in a video message posted on jihadist forums on Thursday.
Four British men fueled by the words of a U.S.-born Muslim cleric pleaded guilty Wednesday to involvement in an al-Qaeda-inspired plot to spread terror and cause economic damage by bombing the London Stock Exchange at Christmastime.
"The expectations we had for a great deal in Doha is no more. That is dust," said Mohammed Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi who is a lead negotiator for a coalition of poor nations called the Least Developed Countries or LCD.
"We are facing day in and day out the adverse effects of climate change," he said. "Nobody is nearby to rescue them. You see President Obama asking for huge funding for Hurricane Sandy ... But we won't get that scale and magnitude of support."
