Clinton addresses climate change meeting
MONTREAL, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Former President Bill Clinton made a surprise appearance Friday at the Montreal meeting on climate change, offering a compromise on the next steps.
The meeting ended with the United States and China refusing to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, the New York Times reported.
In his speech, Clinton suggested that environmentalists are pushing too much for hard targets for reduction. But he also rebuked the Bush administration for its attitude on the issue.
"There is no more important place in the world to apply the principle of precaution than the area of climate change," he said, after pointing out that the administration has adopted a precautionary attitude to terrorism.
The United States and Australia have not signed the Kyoto Treaty, which requires reductions in emissions from advanced industrial countries.
Federal agencies says seafood safe
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Federal officials and officials from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana say there is no reason to be concerned over eating Gulf states seafood.
The states and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have analyzed hundreds of samples of fish and shellfish from the waters affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"The samples were analyzed for chemical and microbiological contaminants that could have been introduced by the hurricanes in the estuaries of New Orleans to Gulf Shores, Ala.," the officials said in a statement. "The sampled areas included Lake Pontchartrain, Mississippi Sound, Mobile Bay as well as the offshore areas of the northern Gulf of Mexico."
The results of additional monitoring will be announced as they become available, the EPA said.
Some oyster harvest areas have been tested and re-opened, while other areas await routine sampling by existing state Moll scan Shellfish Programs to determine when oyster harvesting can resume.
Officers in Tube shooting may face charges
LONDON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The British police officers involved in shooting an unarmed man in a London Tube station may face criminal charges.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission says the results of its investigation into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes might be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, the BBC reported.
Menezes, an electrician from Brazil, was gunned down in the Stockwell Tube station by police who thought he might be a suicide bomber. The shooting took place in July, not long after the July 7 Transport bombings.
At the time, officers made a number of claims that proved to be untrue, including that Menezes entered the station without paying the fare.
Nick Hardwick, chairman of the IPCC, said investigators had interviewed every passenger in the station at the time of the shooting as well as the police officers.
"We are confident we know, second by second, what happened on that train," he said.
The IPCC is conducting a second investigation into Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair's handling of the aftermath.
Paramount to buy DreamWorks SKG
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures has agreed to buy DreamWorks SKG, the storied California studio that has been seeking $1 billion to change hands.
Paramount's deal comes after DreamWorks ended talks with General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, the Wall Street Journal said Friday.
The price is understood to be around $1 billion plus the assumption of about $500 million in debt.
Paramount's deal gives it access to the studio founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. It does not, however, give it access to the separate, publicly traded DreamWorks Animation SKG -- though Paramount is expected to have rights to distribute the animation company's movies.
Talks with Universal broke down earlier this year when parties failed to come to terms on price during exclusive negotiations.
