Syria: 75% Of Labour Members Against Airstrikes

The results of the survey ordered by party leader Jeremy Corbyn come as he prepares to meet his shadow cabinet to try and agree a collective position on military action.

One of Mr Corbyn's closest allies has urged him to "show leadership" and order Labour MPs to vote against launching a bombing campaign in light of the results.

Diane Abbott said "the party as a whole" is opposed and "looking to Jeremy to show leadership".

But Graham Jones, the party's MP for Hyndburn in Lancashire, dismissed the poll, saying it "can't be a basis for decision making".

According to Labour, there were 107,875 responses, of which 64,771 were from full individual party members.

An initial analysis of 1,900 responses showed 75% were against military action, 13% in favour and 11% undecided.

Mr Corbyn has faced calls from some of his MPs for there to be a free vote - allowing them to decide according to their conscience.

But in a defiant interview at the weekend he stressed he alone would take the final decision, and Mr Corbyn said MPs must listen to the party membership, who overwhelmingly elected him in September.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who has urged a free vote, said he was sure the shadow cabinet would "arrive at a common position and hold together" after the meeting.

Mr McDonnell said: "He (Mr Corbyn) hasn't given any indication of the decision on the process but his decision is not to bomb and I think that is the position of it looks like the majority of our party members and quite a few Conservative MPs now."

A meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, a large proportion of which is believed to be considering backing military action, will follow the shadow cabinet gathering.

David Cameron has always maintained that he will only put military action to a vote if he is sure of a victory.

A spokesman for the PM said discussions were under way on the wording of a draft motion, but stressed there was not yet a timetable for it to be put before MPs.

He said any motion put to a vote would be based around four key areas: counter-terrorism, the diplomatic and political process, military action against IS and ongoing humanitarian support.

Privy councillors from Labour and other parties are being briefed, but the spokesman declined to say whether these discussions would include further details of the composition of the 70,000 "moderate" Syrian fighters who the PM has suggested are on the ground - something Mr Corbyn has doubts about.

Chancellor George Osborne has meanwhile accused opponents of the bombing campaign of "handing over" responsibility for national security.

He said: "This is not about the internal politics of the Labour Party, this is about the internal security of our country.

"We want to take the fight to this terrorist organisation.

"We have got the capabilities, we've got our allies like the French and the Americans saying 'join us in this endeavour', and we know as a country we have never ever handed our security over to anyone else."

Mugabe hits out at developed nations

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has strongly criticised developed nations at the UN climate summit in Paris, accusing them of trying to shift the burden for curbing carbon emissions onto poor countries, the AFP news agency reports.

Mr Mugabe said developed nations were historically responsible for the "precarious climate environment we currently live in."

"It is unconscionable that not only are developed countries miserly in providing the means" for developing countries, "but also want inordinately to burden us with cleaning up the mess they themselves have created," he told the gathering, AFP reports.

UN confirms DR Congo attack

A UN general has said that heavily armed insurgents attacked UN and army bases in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo last night,

A local non-governmental organisation says at least 38 people were killed, including 15 civilians and one UN peacekeeper. 

General Jean Baillaud told the BBC that the ADF-NALU, a Ugandan Islamist group, was suspected to have been behind the attack - the most serious in the area in months.

COP21: Obama Urges Leaders To 'Rise To Moment'

More than 150 leaders, including Prime Minister David Cameron, have arrived for the first day of the 12-day summit, known as COP21.

Mr Obama said the US, as the world's number two greenhouse gas emitter, "recognises our role in creating this problem" and "we embrace our responsibility to do something about it".

And he called on world leaders to show they share a sense of responsibility too.

"2015 is on pace to be the warmest year of all. No nation - large or small, wealthy or poor - is immune to what this means," Mr Obama said.

The "future is one that we have the power to change right here right now, but only if we rise to this moment," he said.

"If we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe and the food that they will eat and the water they will drink and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won't be too late for them," he told the summit.

Prince Charles used his keynote speech to warn humanity faces many threats "but none is greater than climate change".

"In damaging our climate, we've become the architects of our own destruction," he said.

Charles urged the leaders and negotiators to "think of your grandchildren, as I think of mine".

As the summit opened, leaders held a minute's silence for the 130 people killed at the Paris terror attacks on 13 November.

French President Francois Hollande told the summit that climate change and terrorism were "two major global challenges that we must overcome".

"We must leave our children more than a world free of terror - we owe them a planet protected from disasters," he said.

He said there must be an agreement in Paris as "we are at breaking point".

"Never have the stakes of an international meeting been so high, because we are talking about the future of the planet, the future of life," he said.

The talks take place amid unprecedented security in the French capital, where protesters clashed with riot police after a climate march was banned following the attacks.

But more than 600,000 people in 175 countries marched at the weekend to demand a strong deal to curb greenhouse gases. 

last major climate conference five years ago in Copenhagen failed to secure sign-up to a universal target for reducing emissions.

In advance of the Paris talks, 183 nations have submitted individual commitments, large or small, to slow global warming.

The EU has pledged to cut greenhouse gases by at least 40% by 2030, while China has vowed that its emissions will peak by 2030.

These "differentiated responsibilities" allow the world to share an overall goal of limiting emissions by 40-70% by 2050 and 100% by 2100, according to the UN.

Lead negotiator for the UN, Christiana Figueres, said the pledges covered 95% of carbon emissions and would limit the rise in global temperature this century.

"We are no longer (heading for) 4,5 or 6C," she said.

"We are now in the bandwidth of 2.7 to 3.5C. Is that enough? No, because we have to stay under 2C."

The 2C threshold is seen as the safe limit for temperature rise, beyond which the climate becomes dangerously unstable.

But there are still major issues that need to be resolved.

The EU wants any deal to be legally enforceable, but that is being resisted by the US.

And poorer countries that are most vulnerable to climate change want richer nations to pay into a fund to help them adapt to a warmer world.

Mr Cameron will call for "global action to deal with a global problem."

"We must include a five-yearly review mechanism to increase ambition in the future," he said.

"Whilst emissions reductions should always be pledged country by country, we must review our ambition regularly if we are to hit our final two degree goal."

ISIL ex-prisoners

Erbil, Iraq - One afternoon last month, Abu Wahid was told he was going to die.

A former member of the Iraqi police, he cried and read the Quran, but was not surprised about his fate. "I already knew they would kill me," he said of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters who had jailed him.

Abu Wahid, 32, who is from the town of Hawija in northern Iraq, was imprisoned by ISIL fighters eight months ago, after they seized the town in the summer of 2014. He was briefly freed and then arrested again in July. ISIL claimed that Abu Wahid passed secrets about the group's movements and positions to Kurdish armed groups that control nearby parts of northern Iraq. 

Hostages freed by US and Peshmerga forces listen to a speech by Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdish region, in Erbil last month [Reuters]

The day Abu Wahid was told of his imminent death, the local ISIL judge came to his cell and asked him, "Why have you been giving information about fellow Muslims to the Kurds?" (The vast majority of Kurds in Iraq are indeed Muslim.)

Abu Wahid denied the charge, but he was accused of lying and was kicked. He recalled that the judge told him: "You have to write a will, because tomorrow we will kill you." Two days earlier, four men in Abu Wahid's cell had been removed.

When men were taken out of the jail "they didn't come back", said Abu Wahid, speaking to Al Jazeera from the offices of Kurdish security forces in Erbil. "There was a system, and we were in a queue to be killed."

The men were taken outside to the back of the jail, which had previously been the house of a judge who fled ISIL's advance in 2014. Abu Wahid heard the sound of shovels digging a pit behind the wall of the jail. When the men were taken outside, the remaining prisoners could hear the sounds of guns and screaming. 

"When they killed one man, the next man would start shouting, 'Allahu Akbar!' ['God is great!']," said Ahmed Mahmoud, 31, another prisoner accused by ISIL of passing secrets to the Iraqi army.

ISIL subjected the prisoners to torture. During his incarceration, Abu Wahid said he was tortured eight times by his captors, who applied a charge to electric cables attached to his neck.

"First they brought me to a room, sat me down and put water on me. Next they brought electricity cables and applied a charge to my neck. For the next three days, blood would come from my mouth when I slept," he said. "When I felt dizzy and passed out because I couldn't take any more, they brought the cables to wake me up again."

When I felt dizzy and passed out because I couldn't take any more, they brought the cables to wake me up again. Abu Wahid, former ISIL prisoner

After the fifth session, when they threatened to bring his nephew and kill him, Abu Wahid confessed to informing on the ISIL fighters. "After that I started talking," he said.

After being told of his death sentence, Abu Wahid wrote his will late into the night. "I wrote to [my family] to tell them that tomorrow they will kill me, so take care of your brothers and my sister. When I finished, I rolled up the will ... and put it in my pocket," he said.

Abu Wahid had every reason to worry about the safety of the surviving members of his family. In 2006, armed fighters linked to a predecessor of ISIL beheaded his brother, accusing him of working with the Kurds. A year later, his uncle, a city council member, was murdered, and two of his cousins were on an assassination list. They were accused of working with Sunni tribes opposed to the armed group's tactics.

At 2am, not long after finishing writing his will, Abu Wahid was startled to hear helicopters and soldiers on the roof.

"Some of my friends were sleeping, so I woke them up and said, 'There are US soldiers here!'" He then heard the sound of bombs and of Kurdish soldiers shouting: "Don't be scared - we are here to help!" 

They broke down the door to the cell where the startled prisoners were crammed and asked, "Are there any Peshmerga [Kurdish soldiers] here?" When the answer came back in the negative, the prisoners were told to hurry out. "We told them there are files on us in the other room, so they broke down the door and took the files," Abu Wahid said.

In all, Kurdish and US special forces rescued 69 prisoners, detained six ISIL fighters, and killed 20 more. One US soldier, Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, died in the operation. The raid was launched to liberate captured Peshmerga who were believed to be in the jail, but who had since been moved, according to Kurdish officials. 

Amazon Deliver a Pair of Shoes via Drone

Amazon has released a new video showcasing its forthcoming drone delivery service, which the online retailer first began teasing almost exactly two years ago.

In the video — narrated by sacked U.K. Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson — a family in urgent need of a new pair of soccer cleats uses Amazon Prime Air to order and receive the shoes in the matter of half an hour. It is, Clarkson says, a “miracle of modern technology”: at a warehouse “not too far away,” the parcel is latched to an unmanned aerial vehicle that rises to 400 ft. and zips to the delivery destination.

The clip features what it says is authentic footage of an Amazon drone performing the delivery.

Amazon says on its website that the delivery service will “take some time” to implement, though Reuters reports that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration expects to finalize operation regulations for commercial drones within the next year.

Tech Billionaires Team Up For Green Energy

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is involved in the project

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon chief Jezz Bezos are among around 20 investors in the Breakthrough Energy Coalition fund.

They are pooling their cash to fund technology that will increase the world's energy output - particularly in developing countries - without contributing to global warming.

They say their financial firepower is required because investing in such technology is risky, because of the "nearly impassable Valley of Death between promising concept and viable product".

Mr Gates, who is worth £52bn, wrote on his blog: "The renewable technologies we have today, like wind and solar, have made a lot of progress and could be one path to a zero-carbon energy future.

"But given the scale of the challenge, we need to be exploring many different paths - and that means we also need to invent new approaches.

"Private companies will ultimately develop these energy breakthroughs, but their work will rely on the kind of basic research that only governments can fund. Both have a role to play."

In a Facebook post Mr Zuckerberg wrote: "Solving the clean energy problem is an essential part of building a better world.

"We won't be able to make meaningful progress on other challenges - like educating or connecting the world - without secure energy and a stable climate.

"Yet progress towards a sustainable energy system is too slow, and the current system doesn't encourage the kind of innovation that will get us there faster."

Other investors include Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, LinkedIn boss Reid Hoffman, and Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma.