Just before the release of their film Tashan, Bollywood’s very own IT couple ‘Saif-eena’ decided to take a break from the prying eyes of the media and headed off to Maldives for a quick holiday.
Saif and Kareena seem quite relaxed and completely at ease in each other’s company. Wonder what they are looking at and smiling? Is it some cartoon flick or the promo of their latest film Tashan that they are watching as part of the in-flight entertainment?
Source: http://sify.com/movies/imagegallery
He launched a book at the UN-backed Business for the Environment conference to highlight the threat to his South Asian tropical island chain favoured by tourists for its white sandy beaches, clear waters and swaying palm trees.
"My people are blessed with one of the most beautiful settings that nature has to offer... To many people across the world, our shores have indeed become an earthly paradise. This paradise, though, is endangered," he said.
"Each year, the seas that make up 99 percent of the Maldives are rising, and, slowly but surely, engulfing our 1,192 low-lying islands and posing serious risks to the lives and livelihoods of the people."
He said he chose the title "Paradise Drowning" for his book because "it evokes an image fraught with great danger" and "most clearly encapsulates the threat of climate change and sea-level rise to my people."
Speaking to reporters later, Gayoom said the country can only adapt to the problem by relocating citizens to safer islands. Building protective walls on 193 inhabited islands would cost about six billion US dollars, which the government finds too expensive, he said.
Gayoom said the real culprit for rising sea levels is global warming and the solution lies in countries cutting the carbon dioxide emissions which have been blamed for the phenomenon.
He said it was ironic that although the Maldives accounts for only 0.01 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the country could be "possibly the biggest victim of global warming."
At the rate at which sea levels are rising, the islands would be rendered "uninhabitable in the not-too-distant future," he said.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said the problem outlined by Gayoom mirrors the fate of other low-lying territories worldwide.
"The challenge they are facing is one of continued existence," Steiner told AFP on the sidelines of the conference.
"In the Maldives, it is possibly losing many of its islands and even one day... losing a whole nation," Steiner said, adding that many other coastal areas are in the same predicament.
"Many of the Asian coastal zones, Africa's coastal zones, are highly vulnerable to sea-level rise," he warned.
Steiner also criticised those who argue the threat is being exaggerated.
"If you want to know what the consequences are, take a look at what the tsunami did in a few seconds and you get an idea of what destruction will arise from sea-level rise," he said, referring to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The tsunami killed 220,000 people in countries around the region and damaged 10 percent of the Maldives' inhabited islands.
But Gayoom said there was still hope as governments are negotiating a global treaty that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change aimed at committing countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"Ultimately, what it (the book) signals is hope -- hope that humankind will find consensus and a clear will to act. I am confident that we, the peoples of the world, will not allow this paradise to drown," he said.
More than 500 business executives, government officials, environmentalists and others from 30 countries have gathered for the two-day conference.
It is organised by the United Nations Environment Programme and the UN's Global Compact, an initiative which brings companies together with UN and other agencies to support environmental and social principles.
Source: http://afp.google.com/article
By Melanie Lee and Neil Chatterjee
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Maldives, worried about rising seas from climate change, wants steeper cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions but is unwilling to curb its tourism industry, which is reliant on polluting international flights.
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in Singapore promoting his book "Paradise Drowning" at an environmental business summit, said cutting back on tourism was not the answer even though the country's survival was more important than development.
"I don't think it's a viable option for us to cut down on tourism because it's the mainstay of our economy," Gayoom told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
Tourist arrivals grew 12 percent last year to a record in the Maldives, a chain of Indian Ocean islands known for luxury resorts, expensive honeymoons and world-class scuba diving.
Tourism contributes about 5 percent to global emissions of greenhouse gases, but this is expected to rise as more people take international flights.
Scientists say emissions from jet engines have a much greater heat-trapping effect when released high in the atmosphere than when released at ground level.
This irony was not lost on Gayoom, facing the same problem as major developing countries that do not want any global agreement on emissions to constrain economic growth. The United Nations is leading talks to try to agree a new pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase ends in 2012.
With the United Nations forecasting aviation emissions to rise by two to five times by 2050, the European Union aims to make all airlines buy pollution permits whether they fly into or out of the bloc.VICTIMS
"It's up to the business community, the corporate community, to look at alternatives to air travel as it is now -- to have more efficient fuel, alternative methods of fuel consumption, safer methods, greener methods -- we are the victims," Gayoom said.
"For a country like the Maldives, development comes after survival," he said. "I'm not happy at all, because what the international community has agreed so far is not enough to save our country and other low-lying area countries."
A U.N. climate panel has forecast world sea levels are likely to rise by up to 59 cm by 2100 due to global warming.
Gayoom said some of his people could be moved to islands with higher ground but adaptation was not enough and it would cost $6 billion to build sea defences around the tiny Indian Ocean islands -- more than the Maldives could afford.
He said the country was not planning a levy on international tourists to help fund such a scheme, but was considering a trust fund combining government revenues and money from international donors.
The economy, which Gayoom said would grow between 6 and 7 percent in 2008, derives about 30 percent of revenues from tourism. Officials previously forecast 9.5 percent growth this year after 6.6 percent last year and a 19.1 percent post-tsunami boom in 2006.
Gayoom, 70, who has led the Maldives for three decades, said he planned to run in October presidential elections and was confident of adding to his tenure as Asia's longest-serving ruler.
"The introduction of a multi-party liberal democracy in the Maldives is going to be my legacy."
Source: http://in.reuters.com/article/southAsiaNews
