Word: according
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...while China often complains that criticism by foreign governments amounts to outside interference in its internal affairs, there are signs that the rapidly modernizing country is curbing its use of the death penalty of its own accord. The reforms are modest, to be sure, but some observers see them as a rare bright spot amid an overall bleak trend for human rights in China. (Read "China's Harsh Warning to Political Dissidents...
...public shaming of feng shui hasn't stopped at that. In October, the property developer Henderson Land was derided for assigning whimsical numbers to the top levels of a luxury apartment building in order to make them accord with local numerology, which holds that 6 and 8 are auspicious. Record prices were paid for so-called 68th-floor and 88th-floor duplexes when in reality they were on the 43rd and 44th floors and the 45th and 46th floors respectively. Shortly after, bloggers chortled and tabloids leered over the case of a 55-year-old bulldozer operator who was accused...
...final plenary saw an outpouring of frustration over two weeks of negotiations, long hours and a generally poorly planned event. Di-Aping said the Copenhagen Accord would destroy Africa, and compared the agreement to the Holocaust - perhaps not the smartest metaphor that could have been used by a representative of a government accused by some of conducting genocide. That statement set off a free-for-all, but eventually, even the parties most critical of the deal begged for consensus. "Papua New Guinea supports this document, even though it is flawed," said delegate Kevin Conrad. (See the top 10 green ideas...
...compromises involved in getting even a deal that delegates could only agree to "take note of" may have stripped it of much of its operational significance. The accord contains no deadline to draft a legally binding treaty, no emissions-cut requirements, and only the vaguest reference to helping countries cut back on deforestation - a goal that many had hoped might be one of the few concrete achievements from Copenhagen. The Europeans, still the only bloc of nations with truly binding carbon caps, were unhappy, hoping for a far stronger agreement. "There is light and there is shadow," said German Chancellor...
...from saving the world, the Copenhagen Accord only begins the battle - diplomats will start almost immediately fighting over its details and working towards a better treaty. If a true compromise is an agreement that makes everyone leave the table a little unhappy, but offers them enough reason to keep the process going, Copenhagen achieved that much. Credit should go to President Obama, who arrived in Copenhagen with the negotiations in shambles and forced through what may have been the only deal within reach. For that, of course, he will also get the blame. Outside the Bella Center as delegates departed...