Word: australia
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...United States’ failure to ratify the Protocol is tragic in contrast with the tenor of the global warming discussion virtually everywhere else: Witness the dire climate assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, and Prime Minster-elect of Australia Kevin Rudd’s winning campaign promise to sign the protocol. As it stands, 172 parties (either countries or governmental entities) have ratified the protocol, including virtually every developed country in the world besides the United States. The central argument against ratifying the protocol is that it treats countries...
...news is that the White House is seemingly the only place green hasn't gone mainstream. Just last week, 150 top global corporations - including General Electric, Johnson & Johnson and Shell - endorsed a petition calling for mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, a business position unthinkable just a year ago. Australia - a Kyoto holdout, like the U.S. - just elected a new Prime Minister with a strong environmental record who says he'll ratify the Protocol. States and cities in the U.S. have taken their own steps on climate change in the absence of action from the White House, and Congress...
...Balancing security and cultural ties to the U.S. with economic ties to China is a major preoccupation for Australia. Howard worked hard at it, and in 2003 invited Hu and President George W. Bush to address joint sittings of Parliament. Rudd shares Howard's vision of Australia as a bridge between the U.S. and China. On his first trip overseas as opposition leader, he addressed Washington's Brookings Institution on the implications of China's rise for U.S.-Australian relations. As a junior diplomat and later a business consultant, Rudd lived in China for a few years...
...tread carefully. "The Chinese are always sensitive about our relationship with the U.S., even though they know we have the alliance," Mackerras says. "The fact that Howard was so pro-American was not a plus. A withdrawal from Iraq is likely to please the Chinese." A perception that Australia is too close to China, however, could displease Australia's Asia-Pacific allies. "I'm rock solid on the alliance with the U.S." Rudd has said. "I have never seen that as being mutually exclusive of a strong relationship with the People's Republic of China." His Washington trip is likely...
...Humanitarian Response Index 2007 rankings: 1. Sweden 2. Norway 3. Denmark 4. Netherlands 5. European Commission 6. Ireland 7. Canada 8. New Zealand 9. United Kingdom 10. Switzerland 11. Finland 12. Luxembourg 13. Germany 14. Australia 15. Belgium 16. United States 17. Spain 18. Japan 19. France 20. Austria 21. Portugal 22. Italy 23. Greece