Established 1961 9 International Sunday, November 19, 2017 Bonn climate talks end with progress despite US pullout Almost 200 nations keep global climate deal on track BONN: Almost 200 nations kept a 2015 global agree- degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre- ment to tackle climate change on track yesterday after industrial times, ideally 1.5 (5.4F) to limit more marathon talks overshadowed by US President Donald droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels. Trump’s decision to pull out. Fijian Prime Minister Frank But existing policies are on track to cause a rise of Bainimarama, presiding at the two-week talks in Bonn, about three degrees (5.4F) by 2100. The Talanoa said the outcome “underscores the importance of keep- Dialogue would be a step towards tighter policies. The ing the momentum and of holding the spirit and vision of Bonn meeting was under the shadow of Trump’s deci- our Paris Agreement.” sion in June to withdraw from the Paris accord and Delegates agreed to launch a process in 2018 to start instead promote the coal and oil industry. Trump doubts reviewing existing plans to limit greenhouse gas emis- that man-made emissions are the prime cause of rising sions as part of a long-term effort to ratchet up ambition. temperatures. No other nations have followed suit and It would be called the even nations whose “Talanoa Dialogue, after a economies depend on Fijian word for story- fossil fuels have rallied telling and sharing expe- around. riences. And they made Nations “Everyone got progress to draft a together and said ‘we detailed rule book for the agree to limit have to protect the 2015 Paris agreement, world. We have to pro- which seeks to end the greenhouse tect the Paris fossil fuel era this century, Agreement’. Countries at the meeting in Bonn gas emissions are moving forward,” that ran overnight beyond United Arab Emirates a planned ending on Climate Minister Thani Friday. The rule book, Ahmed Al Zeyoudi said. covering aspects such as One senior European how to report and monitor each nation’s greenhouse gas diplomat said Trump’s decision had “sedated” the talks emissions, is due to be ready by December next year. into a numbed sense of unity, avoiding major confronta- Many delegates said the work needed to go faster. tions to underscore that the main faultline on policy was BONN: Photo shows a replica of the Statue of Liberty emitting smoke from the torch created by Danish artist “Right now we’re moving at a brisk walk, so all coun- between Trump and the rest of the world. Washington Jens Galschiot and displayed at the Rheinaue park during the COP23 United Nations Climate Change tries will need to really pick up the pace from here,” retains its place in the talks for now because the Paris Conference in Bonn. —AFP said Jose Sarney Filho, Brazil’s minister for the environ- pact stipulates that no country can formally pull out ment. Gebru Jember Endalew of Ethiopia, who leads the before November 2020. group of least developed countries, also said “many The fossil fuel industry was very much under the spot- energies. In seeming defiance, 20 countries and two US step in the right direction, but many issues needed to be areas of work are still lagging behind”, despite steps light during the talks. The U.S. administration’s only event states joined an international alliance to phase out coal resolved over the next year, including financial support forward in Bonn. The Paris pact aims to limit a rise in in Bonn was to promote coal, which jarred with many from power generation before 2030. for developing nations who want to cut emissions and for average world temperatures to “well below” two other nations who wanted talks to focus on renewable Environmental groups said the outcome in Bonn was a adaptation. —Reuters is a very strictly structured Renewed US-Russia Is superboss’ death organization, similar to an News in brief absolute monarchy. While rift threatens slim end of Sicilian Mafia? the king still lives, it’s not possible to think of picking a Gunbattle in Kashmir successor,” De Lucia said. Syria peace hope SRINAGAR: Five suspected rebels and an air force com- ROME: With Mafia king Toto Riina’s death, and heir “The question now is mando were killed during a fierce gunbattle yesterday in Matteo Messina Denaro on the run, is it game over for whether the organization is Indian-administered Kashmir which also left another sol- Sicily’s once all-powerful Cosa Nostra?”Boss of bosses” strong enough to identify WASHINGTON: The latest US and Russian bid to find dier injured, the Indian army said. The shootout began Riina, who was nicknamed “The Beast” because of his cru- and appoint an heir. Many of enough common ground on which to build some hope for when soldiers cordoned off a neighborhood in the north- elty, led a reign of terror including the brutal daylight its bosses have been arrest- Syria is in trouble, just days ahead of talks that could make ern area of Hajin after a tip-off that armed militants were assassinations of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and ed, and enormous amounts or break the peace process. A United Nations mediator Salvatore ‘Toto’ Riina hiding there, said army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia. Paolo Borsellino. He died Friday aged 87, just months after of its patrimony has been has called on Bashar Al-Assad’s regime and a beleaguered “Five militants have been killed in the operation,” Kalia being caught on wiretaps in jail boasting afresh about his seized” over the years, he opposition coalition to send envoys to Geneva on said. “One IAF (India Air Force) soldier was martyred bloody crimes. “Riina will go down in history as the man said. “We’ll have to see whether Riina’s death will lead to a November 28 to resolve the seven-year-old civil war. This and another army soldier was injured.” On Friday a mili- who destroyed Cosa Nostra,” Mafia expert Attilio Bolzoni new start-which I think unlikely-or whether it will be comes less than a week after Presidents Donald Trump and tant and a police officer were killed in the outskirts of the said. “With his strategy of bloody massacres in Sicily and another step towards the crime group’s demise,” he said. Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement agreeing that there main city of Srinagar during a brief shootout. Kashmir across Italy... he turned an invisible Mafia visible, with is “no military solution” to the conflict. has been divided between India and Pakistan since the hundreds, thousands of murders, carried out first with ‘The truth’ US officials then welcomed the statement as a sign of end of British colonial rule in 1947. Both claim the former Kalashnikovs, then bombs.” But prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio, who spent 20 years Himalayan kingdom in full. Rebel groups have for Russia’s commitment to a UN-backed political process “For the first time in history, the state reacted merci- in the DDA organization of anti-mafia prosecutors, warned decades fought Indian soldiers and paramilitaries that Washington feels must lead to an end to Assad’s lessly,” Bolzoni said, with the arrest of hundreds of bosses the days of shootouts and car bombs may be gone, but deployed in the disputed region, demanding independ- bloody rein. But if their show of optimism raised cynical and the introduction of harsh anti-mafia laws that saw Cosa Nostra has been growing fat instead on political ence or a merger of the territory with Pakistan. eyebrows then, it seemed even less plausible by Friday, imprisoned gangsters held in utter isolation. Caught and deals. “We have greatly weakened the military apparatus after the latest heated showdown over Syria at the United jailed in 1993 after nearly a quarter of a decade as a fugi- of the Mafia, the massacres are over, murders are rare. But Nations. There, Russia moved to thwart international tive, his revenge was swift: Cosa Nostra launched a series the Mafia has undergone a genetic modification,” Cartosio attempts to salvage a UN-led probe into Assad’s and of bombings in Rome, Milan and Florence that killed 10 said. “The political sector has lent itself greatly to... Bullet-riddled bodies extremist groups’ use of chemical weapons to slaughter people. But he was unable to stop the decimation of the (organised crime’s) infiltration of the social fabric” and, as QUETTA: The bullet-riddled bodies of five Pakistani Syrian civilians. Washington’s ambassador to the United crime group-once nicknamed “the octopus” for its tentacle a consequence, “the Mafia presence in the political sphere migrants believed headed for Europe via Iran were found Nations, Nikki Haley, was clear about what the Russian reach into all areas of society-which was gradually sup- is much greater than before,” he said. yesterday in southwest Pakistan, in the same area where veto of a US-backed resolution meant for the broader planted by the Camorra in Naples and ‘Ndrangheta in And the battle is not only against “the octopus” but also 15 bodies were discovered three days earlier, officials peace process. Calabria. the “Stidda”, a rival group formed by former Cosa Nostra said. The five migrants whose corpses were found in the “Russia proves they cannot be trusted or credible as we members during the Second Mafia War of the early 1980s. district of Ketch in Balochistan province near the Iranian work towards a political solution in Syria,” she declared. ‘An absolute monarchy’ “The Mafia is less military, less bloody than before, but it’s border had been killed two days ago, said provincial The previous US administration under Barack Obama “It’s infinitely less powerful than before.