[Premium Times] This year, the COP29 agenda is expected to be anchored on climate finance, mitigation, and adaptation, with the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) designed to provide support for vulnerable communities in global climate solutions.

[Liberian Observer] What is COP29?

[African Arguments] With the Global South hoping COP29 can bring progress on the $215-387 bn per year needed for adaptation, we spoke to the head of the Adaptation Fund.

[Africa Renewal] At COP29, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for action to transform Africa into a global renewable energy leader, emphasizing the continent's untapped potential and the urgent need for investment and reforms

[UN News] UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on Tuesday for countries to step up contributions to a financial mechanism to assist developing countries affected by climate change.

[The New Humanitarian] Nairobi -- While it may be clear from a forecast when a good time to act might be, with regards to livelihoods it is never straightforward to decide what exactly should be done.

[Natural Justice] Baku, Azerbaijan -- The 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP29) has opened amid deep divisions over agenda items, fossil fuel lobbying by the host nation, and new carbon market rules that threaten to derail urgent climate action. Critical issues such as climate finance, just transitions, human rights, and the protection of Indigenous land and environmental defenders are already at risk.

[New Times] The African Group of Negotiators (AGN) on Climate Change, at the ongoing 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, are pushing for a significant boost in climate financing and ensuring that adaptation measures, as well as addressing loss and damage, are given the same level of importance as mitigation actions.

[ISS] More attention should be given to how remittances can help African countries withstand and adapt to climate change.

[RFI] Africa continues to grapple with plastic pollution, a waste crisis, and limited investment, activists report, as discussions unfold at the UN climate meetings in Azerbaijan. To shed light on these overlapping challenges, RFI interviewed campaigners and negotiators from across the continent.

[Africa Check] No, South African political party the Democratic Alliance didn't hoist a giant Israeli flag on Cape Town's iconic Table Mountain

[Vanguard] Vanguard Media Limited hereby issues a public warning to disregard a falsified visual circulating online, which purports to be a screenshot of our website.

[The Conversation Africa] We're increasingly aware of how misinformation can influence elections. About 73% of Americans report seeing misleading election news, and about half struggle to discern what is true or false.

[Dabanga] This week, the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, hosts the main event commemorating the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. This year's theme, "Journalists' Safety in Crises and Emergencies," resonates deeply in Sudan.

[Dabanga] Addis Ababa / Port Sudan -- The African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is hosting a critical event today and tomorrow, November 6 and 7, commemorating the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. This year's theme, "Safety of Journalists During Crises and Emergencies," resonates deeply in Sudan, where the ongoing conflict has created a perilous environment for those reporting on the war.

[WHO-AFRO] In public health, data serves as a critical foundation for understanding challenges and making informed decisions. Without clear, accurate information, it's difficult for individuals and communities to take meaningful action, and policymakers to devise and implement effective solutions. Recognizing this need, the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with Ghana's Ministry of Health, organized a media training ahead of the Ghana STEPS Survey 2023 report launch to ensure its findings are

[Leadership] Donald John Trump is returning to the White House after a historic victory in the keenly contested US Presidential election on Tuesday, November 5.

[Leadership] The government of Equatorial Guinea has launched an investigation into a series of leaked pornographic videos allegedly involving high-ranking civil servant Baltasar Engonga engaging in sexual acts with multiple women, including the wives of prominent officials. In response to the scandal, the government has ordered installing surveillance cameras in courts and ministries to combat "indecent and illicit acts."

[RSF] At the summit co-organised by UNESCO and the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa on 6 and 7 November to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on authorities in Sahel countries to sign a regional declaration on the right to information.

January 27, 2006 – Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had reached a settlement agreement to fine ChoicePoint $10 million. The fine is a result of two data breaches last year that exposed personally identifiable financial data of 160,000 consumers to identity thieves. The exposure led to more than 800 cases of identity theft.

December 20, 2005 – A small but significant change was made to the Real ID Act, when Congress modified certain requirements for victims of domestic violence. Specifically, language inserted in another law will allow victims of domestic violence to use a PO Box instead of a physical address when obtaining a driver’s license.

February 14, 2006 – ACCESS has been concerned for months that the State Department’s plan to include RFID chips in passports has not been well thought out. The original plan would have placed an RFID chip in every passport which would have contained unencrypted data about the passport holder. After a storm of protest, the State Department revised the standard to include some encryption. Now, a Dutch television news program has along and broken that encryption in less than two hours. The ramifications of this to passport holders are anything but positive.

February 15, 2006 – If you think you don’t have much in the way of financial privacy right now, you are correct. Banks can disclose your information to their affiliate companies without your permission (You can thank Congress for that). Database companies gather, store and resell your information (including your Social Security Number) to the highest bidder. But if you think financial privacy is lacking already, the Bush Administration is trying to hard to make the situation even worse. If they get their way, copies of your credit card bills and your ATM card purchases will be sent straight to the IRS. So much for due process!

August 10, 2005 – There are a lot of people carrying large credit card balances which they will be lucky to pay off in their lifetime. Some consumers are being hit with interest rates in excess of 30% even though they have never been late on their credit card payments. The reason for this is that many credit card companies now use a system called "universal default", which allows them to raise your interest rate for reasons other than being late in the payment of your credit card bill.

August 31, 2005 – As the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) swings into high gear to provide disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina, ACCESS has learned that the Social Security Administration has no procedures to help many of these same victims get back on their feet. The problem that many victims face is that they escaped with only the clothes on their backs; meaning that they have too little iformation for the Social Security Administration to reissue them Social Security Cards. This means that storm victims face a variety of problems that neither they, nor the Federal Government have ever even considered.

January 19, 2006 – There is a lot of talk in the media about natural disasters. In the past year the United States has faced hurricanes, flooding, tornados and fires. The first thing on the mind of anyone who goes through a disaster is physical survival. But what very few people consider is economic survival. Just because you lose all of your physical possessions doesn’t mean that you have to lose everything that you have worked for all of your life. But in order to survive economically, you need to do some pre-planning.

January 30, 2006 – In his State of the Union Speech tomorrow night, President Bush will propose a new approach to dealing with soaring costs associated with health insurance. But the proposal he will make does little to make insurance more affordable at the consumer level, and does nothing to address the underlying causes for the steep rise in insurance prices. Those who don’t have insurance for affordability reasons, or who can’t get it because for some reason they have been declared uninsurable will find virtually no light at the end of the President’s tunnel.

Sorti depuis plus d’un an en accès anticipé, Techtonica, développé par le studio Fire Hose Games, est un jeu coopératif où vos compagnons et vous-même devrez explorer les profondeurs de la planète Calyx à l’aide d’outils variés et de machines automatisées. Le but est de récolter piller et d’exploiter de manière équitable à une échelle industrielle […]

Jim Kloss reacted extensively to some basic questions. Join the discussion ..

A few weeks ago I mused about the possibilities of 'location based services' through podcasting and GPS. At the moment though only a tiny fraction of mobile handsets are GPS-enabled.That's why this press release from seekerwireless.com in Australia caught my eye: "Seeker Wireless have developed capabilities that use existing GSM, CDMA and 3G handsets to enable the location of a mobile subscriber

26 Great Ideas for Blog Posts!
Blogs have increased in popularity because they provide a steady stream of new and unique content. The only issue presented by this quality of blogs is that it may become difficult for those who run blogs to think of interesting and novel posts. If you have jumped on the blogging bandwagon but suffer writer's block, do not panic: we have created a list of 26 ideas for blog posts.

1. Make it visual.
Include a photo or other graphic in a blog post to break up the text, attract your reader's interest, or help illustrate a point. Better yet, talk about the image you have included to further incorporate it into the post.

26 Great Ideas for Blog Posts!

Just as the second generation of search engines and directories evolved into niche topic specific portals we are seeing the same occur in the area of RSS feed directories and search engines. While some directories are admittedly more niche than others the trend is obvious.
Financial Industry
If you are in the finance industry you can monitor currency exchange rates, bank rates and track investments using RSS feeds. Financial institutions have found RSS to be an optimum way to communicate CD rates, interest rates, currency conversions, and even investors are using to monitor stocks. Use RSS to track currency conversions, stocks, bonds, bank rates and other financial related information.

Why Niche RSS Feeds

There is little argument from webmasters and publishers that RSS brings in traffic. So once you've made the leap and created a feed, how do you tell your visitors about the feed?


1. Submit Your RSS Feed to RSS Directories.
This will not only increase the number of sites linking to your website and increasing your link popularity, it will also increase the RSS feeds profile. A number of RSS search engines and RSS directories exist that allow you to freely submit RSS feeds. Feeds are generally categorized and grouped together by subject. Web surfers looking for RSS feeds about a specific subject will often search the RSS directories, to locate a feed that matches their specific criteria. Topic specific RSS feed and podcasting directories are also emerging. Choose a web feed's category carefully and only submit relevant feeds to topic specific directories.

Publicize Your RSS Feed

It is All About Content Syndication

Creating Content
New websites are being launched daily. In order to compete, webmasters need to find alternative ways of producing themed websites. Highly focused articles are often sought by wembasters. Why? Because content on the web is still king! In order to attract search engines and site visitors, webmasters rely heavily on providing new, innovative and fresh content. If the web site content is rich, visitors will come. If the website content is updated regularly, visitors will return. When evaluating a website's traffic it is easy to see that the low cost of syndicated content can increase a website's value. Sites that contain multiple pages related to a specific topic increase the likelihood of being 'found' when a variety of search phrases are used for that topic.

Content Syndication

Independent artists have long struggled to gain recognition and attract an audience. Without the backing of a major label it can be very difficult for independent artists to obtain radio play time, that is, until now. Podcasting a revolutionary new medium, has opened new distribution channels for independent artists. Podcasting is the process of distributing audio files using the RSS format and has become very popular with the younger generations.

Why Independent Artists and Musicians Should Podcast

Nothing really polishes a podcast more than background music or theme music. In the music world, these music segments are referred to as intros and extros. While many enjoy streaming Internet Audio and recording songs they like over the Internet, these songs cannot legally be used in a podcast.

How and Where to Locate Podsafe Music

Publicize your RSS feed.
There is little argument from webmasters and publishers that RSS brings in traffic. So once you've made the leap and created a feed, how do you tell your visitors about the feed?

1. Submit Your RSS Feed to RSS Directories.
This will not only increase the number of sites linking to your website and increasing your link popularity, it will also increase the RSS feeds profile. A number of RSS search engines and RSS directories exist that allow you to freely submit RSS feeds.

Publicize Your RSS Feed

Learn the intricacies of RSS feeds and podasting in the RSS Learning Center.

RSS Educational Articles

Independent artists have long struggled to gain recognition and attract an audience. Without the backing of a major label it can be very difficult for independent artists to obtain radio play time, that is, until now. Podcasting a revolutionary new medium, has opened new distribution channels for independent artists. Podcasting is the process of distributing audio files using the RSS format and has become very popular with the younger generations.

With the use of technology, independent artists have a unique opportunity available, using technology they can significantly expand the exposure of their music.

Why Independent Artists and Musicians Should Podcast

26 Great Ideas for Blog Posts!

Blogs have increased in popularity because they provide a steady stream of new and unique content. The only issue presented by this quality of blogs is that it may become difficult for those who run blogs to think of interesting and novel posts. If you have jumped on the blogging bandwagon but suffer writer's block, do not panic: we have created a list of 26 ideas for blog posts.

Great Ideas for Blog Post Topics