ARARE, Aug 23 (IPS) - In a highly contested election marred by violence and held under very difficult economic conditions, Zimbabwean women politicians defied the odds to participate as candidates in the March 29th elections.

In terms of seats actually won, results fell far short of the 50 percent female representation in political decision-making set out in the African Union (AU) Protocol on Gender and Women's Human Rights or the recently signed Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development. Women got just 14 percent of seats in parliamentary elections, down from 16 percent female representation in the previous parliament.

However, at a national conference held on 14th and 15th August in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, women celebrated the fact that they had participated as candidates in their highest numbers ever.

"We managed to mobilise each other to increase women's contestation by almost 50 percent," said Luta Shaba, executive director of the Women's Trust, the organisation that has spearheaded the 'Women Can Do It' campaign to get more women in politics.

(Fortune) -- What do Oreo cookies made by Nabisco (KFT, Fortune 500), Cheez-It crackers from Kellogg's (K, Fortune 500) or General Mills' (GIS, Fortune 500) Fiber One Chewy Bars have to do with global warming and the destruction of tropical rainforests? A lot, say environmental activists.

The link between the supermarket shelf, climate change and shrinking rainforests is palm oil, a controversial ingredient that may now be the most widely-traded vegetable oil in the world.

Here's the problem: Demand for palm oil, which is found in soaps and cosmetics as well as food, has more than doubled in the last decade as worldwide food consumption has soared. Farmers, in turn, are expanding their plantations, burning forests in Indonesia and Malaysia, where nearly all of the palm oil imported to the United States originates. Deforestation is the primary reason that Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions are the third-highest in the world

London Mayor Boris Johnson has criticised the use of a portrait of murderer Myra Hindley in a video shown at a London 2012 event in Beijing.

The image was shown during a promotional video advertising London.

A spokesman for the London Mayor told BBC News Boris Johnson was "deeply disturbed" the image had been shown for "a split second".

Turning CO2 into chalk and sand

By Davide Castelvecchi, Science News
Web edition : Friday, August 22nd, 2008

New method could make carbon sequestration cheaper

Removing carbon dioxide from smokestacks and storing it permanently is one of the possible solutions to global warming, but remains expensive to do. A new technique could make carbon sequestration economical on a large scale, while producing useful materials on the side.

Dirk Van Essendelft, a chemical engineer at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, described the method on August 19 in Philadelphia during a meeting of the American Chemical Society. He proposed a new way to mix CO2 with a type of mineral called serpentine, producing sand and another common mineral similar to chalk.

Capturing the CO2 from smokestacks requires energy. Van Essendelft said that, according to his calculations, a power plant that captures its emissions for storage into serpentine would suffer only a 10 percent loss of energy. If the technique can be applied on a large scale, storing carbon in minerals would become competitive with other proposals for carbon sequestration, such as pumping CO2 deep underground. "It puts mineral carbonation back in the game, as far as energy consumption," he said.

Mercedes Maroto-Valer of the University of Nottingham in England says that the technique could be economical for large-scale carbon sequestration.

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Osama bin Laden's brother is choosing a different path to prominence. Sheikh Tarik bin Laden wants to build a gigantic suspension bridge which would connect Africa to Asia. By 2025, he envisions two brand new cities in the desert. The price tag, though, is daunting.

Tarik's bridge would cross the Bab el Mandeb, the narrow straits where the Indian Ocean feeds into the Red Sea. Bearing a six-lane highway, a railway line and an oil pipeline, the structure would stretch fully 29 kilometers (18 miles) between continents -- an unprecedented piece of engineering. Huge pillars would have to be anchored to the sea floor some 300 meters (984 feet) below the surface. They would be spaced three kilometers apart.

Within five years, there could be deepwater ports, airports and power stations bringing plenty of jobs along with them. Research facilities, universities and 100,000 apartments are to follow within 10 years. And finally, 15 years on, the bridge will connect two ultramodern cities -- ecologically sound, low in emissions and above all, innovative.

As well as getting rid of staff, financial firms have put the squeeze on their travel and entertainment spending in response to deteriorating economic conditions.

Now McKinsey claims that some US investment banks could save up to $2bn a year by cutting costs in ways that are less likely to antagonise their remaining workers.

The consultant reckons that for some banks, spending on things like real estate, IT and office supplies grew too fast during the fat years and could now be pruned aggressively without sowing discord among the troops:

Inititatives to curb expenditures need not be extremely demoralizing to frontline employees... 80 percent of fixed costs have minimal or no impact on a bank's employees or culture. Launching initiatives that target these areas, we estimate, could in many cases produce most of the noncompensation savings that banks aim to achieve while reducing the possibility of targeting areas that could damage employee morale.

Hang on a minute. I've just noticed the fifth entry on McKinsey's list of investment bank costs that could be cut with "minimal or no impact on employees/culture". The entry says "consulting".

Let me try to get my head around that. Is McKinsey - a consultant - seriously recommending that investment banks consider ways of cutting their spending on consultants?

It looks that way to me. A McKinsey spokeswoman declined to comment.

From shotguns to bespoke suits, lingerie to leather goods, the purveyors of luxury goods to the world's rich are supposed to be immune from the credit crunch.

But on London's Savile Row, Bond Street and the Royal Exchange, most stores admit that there are signs of change. Nothing as stark as the middle class switching from Sainsbury to Aldi, but indicators, nonetheless, that even the very well-heeled are altering their behaviour.