CBC News: The Denial Machine:  Nov 2006 Canadian TV documentary:  "The Denial Machine investigates the roots of the campaign to negate the science and the threat of global warming. It tracks the activities of a group of scientists, some of whom previously consulted for for Big Tobacco, and who are now receiving donations from major coal and oil companies.  The documentary shows how fossil fuel corporations have kept the global warming debate alive long after most scientists believed that global warming was real and had potentially catastrophic consequences. It shows that companies such as Exxon Mobil are working with top public relations firms and using many of the same tactics and personnel as those employed by Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds to dispute the cigarette-cancer link in the 1990s. "
  11:22:06 PM    

Record-Breaking Governance Prize Launched:  Great idea: reward leaders to leave office peacefully.  "Mo Ibrahim Foundation announced today a $5 million annual prize for African leaders who were elected fairly, improved their country's standard of living, and handed over power peacefully to the next elected government.

Recipients of the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership will get $500,000 a year in their first 10 years out of office, and $200,000 a year for the rest of their lives. The prize will be the world's most generous award, according to the foundation. .. [Ibrahim] hopes to make the first award by the end of 2007.

The prize's selection committee will choose winners with the help of a governance index that is being developed by Dr. Robert Rotberg at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The foundation will spend about $500,000 a year to develop and update the index. ..

Rotberg told AllAfrica that most existing measures rely on interviews and other forms of documentation for comparison, but that he will use only quantifiable, objective measures. For example, in measuring changes to the national infrastructure, the index may count the miles of paved road in a country. To measure political freedom, team members may identify the number of journalists or opposition leaders held in prison. ..

Ibrahim said his financial models assume that leaders will live 25 years after leaving office, making the estimated net prize worth $8 million. With new winners being added each year, the cost to the foundation will quickly rise into the tens of millions, but Ibrahim said .. "We are fully funded. We are not seeking money from anybody."

Much of Ibrahim's personal fortune comes from last year's sale of his African telecommunications company, Celtel, to Kuwait's MTC for $3.4 billion."
  11:18:45 PM    

WorldChanging book and book tour:  I've been a fan of the blog for years, and now it's a book, complete with big city book tour.  Bravo!
  11:11:42 PM