Word: neutral
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...emerges the winner of the rushed and incomplete audit process now under way, Afghanistan's internal peace will depend on Karzai's opponents accepting - or at least tolerating - the outcome. Karzai's main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, has said publicly that he does not believe the U.N.'s envoy is neutral. By failing to address the obvious fraud in Afghanistan's elections, the U.N. has lost credibility that is desperately needed for it to act as a postelection peacemaker...
Lately, Costa Rica has further ratcheted up its green ambitions, pledging to become one of the only developing nations to make itself "carbon neutral" - a zero net-emitter of carbon - by 2021. (Maldives is the only other developing country to set that goal.) Costa Ricans, or Ticos as they call themselves, believe it's attainable largely because 95% of their country's energy production already comes from renewable, non-polluting sources. As a result, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is jockeying for a global leadership role on climate change. Arias was one of five keynote speakers to address...
...while Arias wins kudos abroad, many Ticos at home are starting to question whether the President is a real friend of their eco-image and the carbon-neutral campaign. His commitment to protecting national parks has come under fire from conservationists. Worse, they say, he recently lifted a ban on open-pit mining. The move is likely to result in the largest such gold mine in Central America, Las Crucitas, to be operated by a Canadian-owned firm, Infinito, and will require clearing 125 acres (50 hectares) of forest land. It also has environmentalists in Costa Rica and Nicaragua warning...
That might make Costa Rica technically carbon-neutral, but it would still leave venues like the capital of San Jose "choking" with factory pollution and Central America's notoriously black bus exhaust, says Roberto Jimenez, a Yale MBA who recently started the activist group co2neutral2021.org. "If there is a country in the world that can [achieve carbon neutrality], it's Costa Rica," says Jimenez, but he warns that the country's emissions "continue to grow unchecked." The Arias government is toying with the lofty idea of building a super-modern, solar-powered monorail system in the capital to acheive carbon...
...Conservatives in America," Halperin continues, "many of whom recently expressed joy that Obama failed on the international stage in his hands-on bid to win the Olympic Games for Chicago, will denounce Obama's award as a farce. Even some neutral critics will agree that the honor seems, at a minimum, premature." (See pictures of Obama's presidential campaign behind the scenes...