Critics, many Republicans - and Fox News! - will not let Obama off the hook. Which is pretty much business as usual. Fine. After his State of the Union address this week, apparently he wont move Republicans. But those that really count. THX.US politics is much too important to the American people to be left to soap box hollars. They will be there no matter who's in charge. It's about what really counts for the Americans.
'I can't say what is natural and what is not. I never talked with Guldbrandsen, so I don't know what he bases this on and what he will do.'
Apparently that you made a call to Rasmus Tantholdt from TV2?
'It doesn't change the fact that I never talked to Guldbrandsen, and I have no idea why he puts this forward. I can't comment any further, and I don't want to make an interview about what I believe, what the motive could be, and why Guldbrandsen says as he does. But I would have liked to talk with Ekko, if they had called me before printing their article. But they didn't. If you give air time to someone with an undocumented allegation - I find that strange.'
Can't you recognize the widespread thought, in your capacity as special political advisor, that people point to you?
'Not really. But I've found, that when you have a title as special advisor, you can get yourself involved in practically anything. I don't understand it, but this is how it has turned out.'
But your response is that the leak did not come from you?
'Yes, I said that to anyone who wants to listen to me.'
Today is the 65th anniversay of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. The Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, is usually held in the month of April. But on 27th January 1945 the Auschwitz camp was liberated by the Soviet Red Army after the demise of about one million Jews - alone at Auschwitz, and a total of six million Jews. So why do we commemorate this day? Because it must never happen again.
President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address this week is critical: What is the state of the union? What is he to tell Congress? He inherited two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. He inherited an economy in turmoil after the bank and real estate crises. He inherited a climate change challenge with the USA on the side line of the Kyoto treaty. He inherited continued terror threats to mainland USA. He inherited inherent opposition to change of the health care system. So what's a president to do?
The cash collections will be possible through sms/text messages, collection boxes, and a telethon. And a grand show will take place at the Tivoli Concert Hall Saturday 30th from 19-24 (7PM-12AM). Be active, be a part of it, and give your contributions. Relieve yourself in order to relieve others. From Denmark with love.
82 tonnes packed onto eight trucks. This is the amount of additional relief being sent to Haiti from the Unicef warehouse HQ in the Copenhagen Freeport over the next couple of days - expected to reach Haiti Wednesday via flight today from Amsterdam to The Dominican Republic. Wooden boxes with tents, from one huge tent HQ of 240 square metres, to several other medical station tents of 72 square metres.
Most of the boxes contain jerry cans for water storage for hospitals and other relief facilities, family water kits - containing plastic buckets, ten litre jerry cans for water storage, and packages with water purifications tablets. Along with oral rehydration powder and RUTF/ready to use therapeutic foods with nut paste and nutritiants.
According to a poll made by ABC News and Washington Post published today, Barack Obama's approval ratings are 15 percent lower than one year ago, based on his overall performance in office. With about eight in ten Democrats supporting, and about the reverse figure Republicans disapproving. Although the same poll states wide support for his personal qualities. The disapproval rates are caused by the difficulties in realizing the political election promises. A permanent political paradox - since the success of any president depends on passing bills in the two houses - and support from Democrats and Republicans alike. A reform political programme will always meet more inherent resistance to change than a status quo political programme - because You know what you have, but you don't know what you're gonna get. Taking this angle into account, he still prevails.Desperate situations yield desperate actions. The situation in Haiti is far from resolved, since the earthquake January 12 with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale. But there is still hope that the UN and international aid organisations will find ways to resolve the desperate status quo. The current status is a problem of getting the help across under the current security conditions in the country. Catastrophes just take time to resolve.
For further information, please see:
www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/14/haiti.../index.html
www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/16/.../index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8462949.stm
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=91&Body=Haiti&Body1
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/haiti-earthquake-help-victims/story?id=9547030
http://news.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/01/15/une-situation-sanitaire-catastrophique/
http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Udland/2010/01/16/041931.htm
http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article/27796484/?rss
As the year 2009 is running towards a close, and the decade is about to turn into a new one, the editor-in-chief of Paradoxical News would like to thank every follower of PN. And in particular the PN network, without the help and guidance of which nothing would have been possible. With a blurred vision, but not tone deaf, the editor-in-chief may have been preoccupied with other matters and crises to attend to. Still, 2009 has been a fairy tale ride. Don't believe for a second that it has gone by unnoticed. Thank you, I wish you all the very best. Happy New Year!
Paradoxical News would like to wish all readers, supporters, and friends of the niche publication the best possible holidays. No matter what the current circumstances - and whether it be in the nest of the family, with friends, alone, or on the job. With heart and warmth. Hope to see your smiling faces soon! 
’Monsieur le President!,’ the French journalists initiate their questions. The time is well after half past ten PM on Friday, and they have been waiting patiently in the conference hall at Hotel Crown Plaza for more than half an hour for Nicolas Sarkozy to arrive and present the results of the negotiations for COP15 at Bella Center in Copenhagen. 
Nicolas Sarkozy admits that there were severe tensions during the negotiations:’G20 can make decisions. But today we have had a crisis and a complete block. When you can't vote on anything, how are you to make decisions? There have been several countries with enormous power, because they know that when you can't reach a consensus, you can't make a decision. We have had a situation, where for instance the ambassador of Sudan has spoken on par with the American president and kansler Merkel. They haven't been on the same political level and with the same capacity for making decisions. This system has caused the collapse. So the system needs to be changed,’ the French president states his opinion.
’No the accord isn't voluntary, since the figures of each country will be published and attached as an annex to the accord. So the figures oblige politically. Second, there is an obligation to implement the accord about the precise figures into the national legislation. Each country is obliged to deliver the figures of their individual reduction objectives immediately. Not in 2020, but immediately. And each country is obliged to publish their reductions annually, so that inspections can verify them.’
Next stops: New York, Bonn, and Mexico:
PN confronted Nicolas Sarkozy with the question of an international legally binding deal for all countries.
’We didn't manage to agree upon a legally binding deal in Copenhagen. And I don't know how we should have prepared an actual treaty. Ban Ki-moon will preside the efforts to prepare a treaty from the month of September in New York. A deal of more than a hundred pages. So there's first this political accord in Copenhagen. Then both Europe and the United States want to turn the political accord into a treaty. Therefore France insists on a mid-way summit in Bonn. The political accord should lead to a treaty to be realized in Mexico next year. This treaty should include both China and India,’ the French president explains about the outlook for climate negotiations in 2010.
Paradoxically, it will take the Conference of The Parties (COP) a whole series of world wide travels and a huge amount of CO2 emissions in order to stop the CO2 emissions.
Capitalism is the one major climate sinner, and all ills of the globe could be cured, if it weren't for the capitalists. This reading of the world according to Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela.
In a show case press conference during the COP15 climate summit at Bella Center Chavez showed up on Friday afternoon, supported by a panel of Bolivian President Evo Morales, and representatives from the Nicaraguan, Cuban, and Ecuadorian governments. All representing Communist and Socialist countries. Or what you might call a counter-capitalist climate coalition. From Chavez to Morales the conclusions were absolutely clear: to combat climate change it would take a radical change of the capitalist economies. The argument was deforrestation by - Capitalist - international companies. And the remedy was a - Socialist - revolution.Paradoxical News was once again paradoxed - isn't China (and formerly the Soviet Union and its heavy industry model in developing countries) among the heavy polluting countries with heavy industry, coal firing, and the highest CO2 emissions? And so asked Hugo Chavez, but was immediately knocked out by numbers:
'You can't compare these countries. China has a population of 1,4 billion inhabitants, and the United States about 300 millions,' Chavez rebuffed PN, albeit in the most charming way (China population 1,334,790,000, and USA 308,188,000, according to Chinese and US Official Population clocks as of December 2009).
The logic being - if you outweigh others by numbers, you're simply not responsible. In particular if you're a Socialist nation, as the argument went. A follow up to his rebuff was complicated by a Teflon-like surface that repelled counter-questioning, and a swift moving on through the press crowd. In the most charming way, of course.
Saturday around noon a major demonstration started as little NGO groups slowly forming and making their trail through the pedestrian streets of Copenhagen. Among them Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke (MS ActionAid) with red ballons - of course. Their demand was simple: Rich countries - pay your climate debt! Because the developing countries are hit the hardest with the effects of climate change.
The groups later gathered in huge numbers at the parliament building of Christiansborg. Estimates varied from the police to the organizers, from 50.000 to 100.000 people. One thing is certain, the parliament area - and beyond the canals - was jampacked with colourful people, banners, balloons, and protest signs.
Among speakers to make contributions were Social Democrat leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt (A) and Danish-Peruvian model Helena Christensen. Sending a message to the negotiators at Bella Centre during the COP15 conference to seal a binding deal.Friday morning a demonstration had been arranged under the 'Don't buy the lie' slogan against the official COP15 arrangements in Bella Center - for doing too little in effect to combat climate change. It had been announced to take off from a central square in Copenhagen.
Demonstrators carried emblems to show their intent, here shown with a green ribbon for global initiatives and ecological climate solutions, and a red ribbon to mark a social radical change and demand corporate globalisation.
The demonstrators were divided into four groups: One to make noise, one to make banners and graffiti, one to occupy divers private companies considered to be particular climate sinners, and one last group to distract the police. And flyers were distributed with the route starting at Nytorv moving to Rådhuspladsen (City Hall Square), further to Forum on the other side of the lakes. But they never got further on their 15 point trail through Copenhagen, among them to Shell, Mærsk, and Bella Center (the COP15 conference centre).
As the police officer in charge noted, it hadn't been properly and formerly announced. So the police were there in great numbers to follow the moves of the couple of hundred demonstrators. The ambience was more or less like it is during the annual carnival, with drums, percussion, and shouts in unison. Nevertheless the police ended up arresting 75 demonstrators, of which 62 were visiting foreigners mostly from England, Germany, France, Austria, and Norway. The demonstrators were diffused by policemen prepared for combat, and the demonstration was dissolved at 13:30/1:30 PM.
Peace, love, and understanding! Why spend energy demonstrating against Obama, when the frustrations really belong somewhere else? Virtual or real live demonstrations, give the bridge builders a chance: Think and act positive! Please see: http://paradoxicalnews.blogspot.com/2009/12/rent-mob.html And the little green pins to mark these text messages keep coming in. Dial the word Globe to 1231 in Denmark. And the same word in the text internationally to +45 2762 2222 to participate and make the demonstrations candle lit, positive, peaceful, and constructive - please see: http://paradoxicalnews.blogspot.com/2009/12/rent-mob.html
Now, in you own fair and considered mind - would YOU be able to keep up the good spirit and a sense of humour? Would you still - after such and extended stress period of more than eight years - be able to go to town with an empty pocket, thinking 'I'm going to enjoy myself tonight?' Breaking down several times over in August. Without home, income, friends, close people, social life, job, basic food supply, health - basically living the life of a refugee in your own country - would YOU be able to go around happy-go-lucky, meanwhile being blamed for never doing the right things? Really?
PN would like to see those people, who could actually handle all of the above things at one and the same time, and still keep up trying. For more than eight years without a stop. Still keeping up the good spirit and with a smile. Or a humouristic sense writing PN. And PN is looking forward to seeing all of the above happen to people and friends the closest - just for a test. To see how it goes after more than eight years of the above. While we are waiting to see that test, PN will continue to produce paradoxical news. Tongue-in-cheek of course! Paradoxically, tragedy and humour have always been strange bed fellows.
Authors and poets Christian Bjoljahn, Mette Moestrup, and Lars Bukdahl had turned one pavillion on City Hall Square into a Cut Up Poetry salon today during the Hopenhagen Live! cultural events. In the most loyal support to the recycling efforts to save the global climate.
With a pot of freshly cut, crude words, scissors, glue, and imagination at free play they cut up words and sentences from old poems, newspapers, encyclopedia, and excerpts from the Kyoto protocol on climate from 1997 they invited visitors to recycle words and turn them into new poems. In the very best David Bowie song writing tradition.
The reconstructed poems will be glued to posters. And tonight during a reading session they will be read to visitors at an original performance. Last night I attended one of the cultural events during the COP15 summit on Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. French climber Antoine Le Menestrel made a symbolic climb from the top of the French embassy to the top of the neighbouring European Environment Agency/EEA. During this very impressive climb show he made his artistic contribution in order to Bend The Trend (of continued CO2 emissions and global warming) by manually bending a lightened curve on a graphic mural display.
And it became clear why he started at the top: he figuratively started at the top of the curve, bent it, and took it down to the level of the maximum rise of two degrees celsius, to be the end result and the deal sealed at the end of COP15. If only we could see world leaders hang from a wire in a girdle and do the same magic trick! Well, maybe next week we will see that.
For further information, please see:
One day during his travels photographer Mark Edwards was walking in a barren desert in the heat of day. A nomad came up to him and asked if he wanted some tea. He then knocked two sticks together and created fire to make him some tea. Right then and there out of his recorder sounded Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. And with a little help and goodwill from Dylan himself this later became the title of Mark Edward's photo exhibition accompanied by the Dylan song.
'It will be handed over in a symbolic gesture to the Conference of the Parties [COP]. Over a hundred heads over states are now coming, and I think it is partly because of this. People have expectations of their leaders, and these signatures is just one way of expressing the feeling, that we must act now on climate change,' Achim Steiner said.
Alison Gannett from Colorado, USA, was at the opening in Copenhagen with a global warning to signal the urgent need for fighting global warming. She is an extreme ski enthusiast, and just finished a walk from London to Brussels with her skis on her back under the motto of Save Our Snow.
And on one of the squares in Copenhagen a melting polar bear gives symbolic witness to the effects of global warming. If these things will not give a global warning to world leaders for the upcoming COP15, what will?
According to Henning Larsen and his new book entitled after those very words, the words were spoken in order to set things straight between the two men - as to who was in charge. And as an old saying goes - he who pays for the music, decides the repertoire. And that led to conflicts between the powerful business man and the architect about the architectonic details - almost all of the details, according to Henning Larsen. Mr. Møller's view was quoted by his personal assistant in the newspaper of Weekendavisen, that he saw no conflict, but was very happy with the building.Please see the THX Alternative Award Speech list below:
http://paradoxicalnews.blogspot.com/2008/10/award-speech.html
US Health Care Paradox: It should be smooth sailing for health care in America after Obama's proclamation to send more troops to Afghanistan this week. Why? Because he is building bridges. If the Republicans at West Point and in the two houses aren't satisfied with the presidential strategy by now, they would gain from looking up the word democracy at their first convenience. Obama has delivered his part to satisfy Republicans. He provides more troops to further secure the troops already in Afghanistan - in order to resolve the situation faster. Now it would suit Republicans to give back for what they got. 
For further information, please see:
http://paradoxicalnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/walter-russell-mead-in-town.html
http://paradoxicalnews.blogspot.com/2009/11/liberal-national-congress_25.html
