US intelligence investigating Russian links

of leading Trump associates report

President-elects team denies any knowledge of inquiries, which according to
the New York Times involve ex-campaign chief Paul Manafort
Donald Trumps transition team has been forced to distance itself from reports
that American intelligence agencies have intercepted communications and
financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links
between Russia and associates of the president-elect.
On the eve of Trumps inauguration as the 45th president of the United States,
the business dealings of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort were
among the matters under investigation, the New York Times reported, citing
current and former senior American officials.
Manafort, who stood down as Trumps campaign chief in August 2016, has
made millions from consulting work while working for pro-Russia oligarchs
including Rinat Akhmetov, Dmitry Firtash and Oleg Deripaska.
The National Security Agency has conducted surveillance of Manaforts
business contacts, the Times said, for suspected links to Russias security
service, the FSB.
Other Trump associates whose contacts are said to be under the microscope
include Carter Page, an investment banker who worked in Russia and who was
a foreign policy adviser to the campaign, and Roger Stone, whose involvement
in Republican politics goes back to Richard Nixon.
However, the Trump team denied any knowledge of the investigations which
have reportedly been led by the FBI and supported by the NSA, CIA and the
treasury departments financial crimes unit or why they might be under way.
We have absolutely no knowledge of any investigation or even a basis for such
an investigation, said Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition.
Manafort called the allegations that he had interactions with the Russian
government a Democrat party dirty trick and completely false.

I have never had any relationship with the Russian government or any
Russian officials. I was never in contact with anyone, or directed anyone to be
in contact with anyone, he said in an emailed statement.
On the Russian hacking of the D.N.C., he said, my only knowledge of it is
what I have read in the papers.
The reports follow weeks of intrigue over the possible involvement of Russia in
trying to help Trump win last Novembers election.
A secret CIA analysis reportedly concluded that people with connections to the
Russian government provided emails, hacked from the Democratic National
Committee and Hillary Clintons campaign, to WikiLeaks in the runup to the 8
November election.
In December, outgoing president Barack Obama ordered US intelligence to
review evidence of Russian interference in the election, although the Times
reported that it was not clear whether the latest revelations were part of that
review.

UN urges global move to meat and dairy-free diet

Lesser consumption of animal products is necessary to save the world from

the worst impacts of climate change, UN report says
A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel
poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.
As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by
2050, western tastes for diets/rich in meat and dairy products are
unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment
Programmes (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource
management.
It says: Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to
population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil
fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial
reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet
change, /away from animal products.

Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said: Animal
products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as
sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as
damaging as [burning] fossil fuels.
The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better
for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern, former adviser to the Labour
government on the economics of climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair
of the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has
also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon
emissions.
The panel of experts ranked products, resources, economic activities and
transport according to their environmental impacts. Agriculture was on a par
with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased
economic growth, they said.
Ernst von Weizsaecker, an environmental scientist who co-chaired the panel,
said: Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy
products - livestock now consumes much of the worlds crops and by inference
a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and pesticides.
Both energy and agriculture need to be decoupled from economic growth
because environmental impacts rise roughly 80% with a doubling of income,
the report found.
Achim Steiner, the UN under-secretary general and executive director of the
UNEP, said: Decoupling growth from environmental degradation is the
number one challenge facing governments in a world of rising numbers of
people, rising incomes, rising consumption demands and the persistent
challenge of poverty alleviation.
The panel, which drew on numerous studies including the Millennium
ecosystem assessment, cites the following pressures on the environment as
priorities for governments around the world: climate change, habitat change,
wasteful use of nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilisers, over-exploitation of
fisheries, forests and other resources, invasive species, unsafe drinking water
and sanitation, lead exposure, urban air pollution and occupational exposure
to particulate matter.

Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global
freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the worlds
greenhouse gas emissions, says the report, which has been launched to
coincide with UN World Environment day on Saturday.
Last year the UNs Food and Agriculture Organisation said that food
production would have to increase globally by 70% by 2050 to feed the worlds
surging population. The panel says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be
overwhelmed by the expected population growth.
Prof Hertwich, who is also the director of the industrial ecology programme at
the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said that developing
countries /where much of this population growth will take place must not
follow the western worlds pattern of increasing consumption: Developing
countries should not follow our model. But its up to us to develop the
technologies in, say, renewable energy or irrigation methods.
Vegetarian diet is better for the planet, says Lord Stern

Meat wastes water, creates greenhouse gases and could become as socially
unacceptable as drink-driving
Eating meat could become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving because of
the impact it has on global warming, according to a senior authority on
climate change.
Lord Stern of Brentford, former adviser to the government on the economics
of climate change, said people will have to consider turning vegetarian to help
reduce global carbon emissions.
"Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts
enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better," Stern
said.
Farmed ruminant animals, including cattle and sheep, are thought to be
responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions worldwide.
Stern, whose 2006 Stern Review warned that countries needed to spend 1% of
their GDP to stop greenhouse gases rising to dangerous levels, said a
successful deal[ at the climate change conference in Copenhagen in
December] would massively increase the cost of producing meaT.

People's concerns about climate change would lead to meat eating becoming
unacceptable, he predicted.
"I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that
includes what they are eating," he told the Times. "I am 61 now and attitudes
towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student.
People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask
about the carbon content of their food."
Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank and now IG Patel Professor
of Economics at the London School of Economics, also warned that helping
developing countries to cope with the adverse effects of global warming would
cost British taxpayers about 3bn a year by 2015.
Meanwhile, an international effort to ensure that biofuel used by Britain and
other western countries to tackle global warming does not damage the
environment is on the brink of collapse.
The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an initiative of companies
and campaigners, is divided over the need to control carbon emissions and
could break up within days, insiders say.
Ministers last year introduced a demand on fuel suppliers to replace 2.5% of
petrol and diesel sold with biofuel, at least 8% of which is currently palm oil.
The RSPO was established to set and enforce environmental standards for
palm oil production, but has run into trouble after palm plantation companies
in Indonesia and Malaysia blocked efforts to curb their greenhouse gas
emissions.
"If this issue is not resolved and greenhouse gas emissions are not included in
the standard, then I don't see how the RSPO can continue to act as a certifying
body," said Marcus Silvius of environment group Wetlands International, who
sits on the RSPO's working group on greenhouse gases.
Eat less meat to prevent climate disaster, study warns

Fertilisers used in growing feed crops for cattle produce the most potent of the
greenhouse gases causing climate change

Meat eaters in developed countries will have to eat a lot less meat, cutting
consumption by 50%, to avoid the worst consequences of future climate
change, new research warns.
The fertilisers used in farming are responsible for a significant share of the
warming that causes climate change.
A study published in Environmental Research Letters warns that drastic
changes in food production and at the dinner table are needed by 2050 in
order to prevent catastrophic global warming.
It's arguably the most difficult challenge in dealing with climate change: how
to reduce emissions from food production while still producing enough to feed
a global population/ projected to reach 9 billion by the middle of this century.
The findings, by Eric Davidson, director of the Woods Hole Research Centre in
Massachusetts, say the developed world will have to cut fertiliser use by 50%
and persuade consumers in the developed world to stop eating so much meat.
Davidson concedes it's a hard sell. Meat is a regular part of the diet in the
developed world. In developing economies, such as China and India, meat
consumption has risen along with prosperity
"I think there are huge challenges in convincing people in the west to reduce
portion sizes or the frequency of eating meat. That is part of our culture right
now," he said.
Researchers have been paying closer attention in the past few years to the
impact of agriculture on climate change, and the parallel problem of growing
enough food for an expanding population. Some scientists are at work growing
artificial meat which would avoid the fertilisers and manure /responsible for
climate change.
Nitrous oxide, released by fertilisers and animal manure, is the most potent of
the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The UN's climate body has
called for deep cuts to those emissions.
Growing feed crops, for cattle and pigs, produces more of those emissions
than crops that go directly into the human food chain. Eating less meat would
reduce demand for fertiliser as well as reduce the amount of manure
produced.

Davidson also suggests changes in current farming practice such as growing

winter ground cover crops would help absorb nitrogen and prevent its
release into the atmosphere.
In reaching his conclusion, Davidson draws on figures from the Food and
Agricultural Organisation/ suggesting the world population will reach 8.9
billion by 2050, and that daily per capita calorie intake will also rise to 3130
calories.
Meat consumption is also projected to increase sharply to 89kg per person a
year in rich countries and 37kg per person a year in the developing world.
Such a trajectory would put the world on course to more severe consequences
of climate change.
Davidson is not suggesting people give up meat entirely. "The solution isn't
that everyone needs to become a vegetarian or a vegan. Simply reducing
portion sizes and frequency would go a long way," he said. So would switching
from beef and pork, which have a high carbon foot print, to chicken or fish.