This is our new Friday Digest! Every Friday, this weekly news round-up gives us the occasion to share with you news from various topics: politics to arts, entertainment, media, science, sports, fun and less fun news… This digest is a list of news published this week on the Internet (Friday to Friday), selected by the Sama Team, and it is by no means exhaustive.

If you want to suggest a news to be added in the next Friday Digest, contact us.

The list goes from oldest to newest news.  See you on Sunday, for our weekly Twitter Sunday!

UN climate change talks in Cancun agree a deal
UN talks in Cancun have reached a deal to curb climate change, including a fund to help developing countries. Nations endorsed compromise texts drawn up by the Mexican hosts, despite objections from Bolivia. The draft documents say deeper cuts in carbon emissions are needed, but do not establish a mechanism for achieving the pledges countries have made. Some countries’ resistance to the Kyoto Protocol had been…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11975470

Tirades Against Nobel Aim at Audience in China
As much of the world on Friday focused their eyes on the empty seat in Oslo that starkly represented the absence of the Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, a lone Chinese blogger posted the image of a chair on the country’s most popular microblogging site. Within minutes, it had been deleted by a censor’s unseen hand. That small gesture of solidarity with Mr. Liu, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for “subversion of state power,”…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/world/asia/11china.html

Madoff Son Found Dead of Apparent Suicide
One of Bernard Madoff’s sons was found dead of an apparent suicide Saturday on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest, according to a law enforcement official. Mark Madoff, 46, was found hanged in his apartment in Manhattan’s fashionable SoHo section, according to the official. A family member notified police around 7:30 a.m. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press…
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/12/11/business/AP-US-Madoff-Son.html

Coltan: a new blood mineral
The controversy surrounding blood diamonds from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has made headlines over the past decade, but a relatively obscure mineral is also prompting international concern. Human rights observers charge that coltan, used in electronic devices such as cellphones, DVD players, video game systems and computers, has been directly linked to financing civil wars in Africa, especially in the DRC…
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/12/10/coltan-faq.html

Using Waste, Swedish City Cuts Its Fossil Fuel Use
When this city vowed a decade ago to wean itself from fossil fuels, it was a lofty aspiration, like zero deaths from traffic accidents or the elimination of childhood obesity. But Kristianstad has already crossed a crucial threshold: the city and surrounding county, with a population of 80,000, essentially use no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long frigid winters…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/science/earth/11fossil.html

Ex-Wikileaks Folks Start Openleaks, The Next-Generation Of Leaking
That certainly didn’t take long. The former number two at Wikileaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, has said that he will launch the next-generation of leaking software (I guess you’d call it software) in the “coming months.” It’s to be called Openleaks, previously covered here, and it will try to fix some of the problems associated with the Wikileaks model, namely centralization. Unlike Wikileaks, Openleaks…
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/12/13/ex-wikileaks-folks-start-openleaks-the-next-generation-of-leaking/

Civil Society Groups Urge Arrest of al-Bashir
The Zambian government should make clear that President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan will be arrested if he travels to Zambia, African civil society organizations and international organizations with a presence in Africa said in a letter to the Zambian president made public today. News reports indicate that al-Bashir may travel to Zambia to attend the special summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes…
http://allafrica.com/stories/201012140536.html

Julian Assange to appear in court to appeal for release
The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, will try to win his release from prison tomorrow, a week after being held on remand after Sweden requested his arrest over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women. Even if the judge at Westminster magistrates court in London grants Assange bail, he could still be held. The Crown Prosecution Service, which will represent the Swedish authorities in the UK court, has the right to…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/13/assange-in-court-appeal-release

Murdered mexican women inspire exhibition
Mexico and its people have scarcely been out of the news all year. Western media interest has tended to focus either on the wetbacks, economic migrants crossing the Rio Grande into the United States, or on the endemic violence in the country associated with the warring drug cartels. As the year draws to a close two new narratives have opened. Cancun is hosting the fifth Ministerial Conference on Climate Change…
http://artthreat.net/2010/12/400-women/

Sudanese Police Arrest 43 Protesters Against Indecency Law in Khartoum
Sudanese police arrested 43 people protesting against the Public Order Law, a week after a video circulated on the Internet showing police whipping a woman, one of the detainees and an opposition spokeswoman said. “We were expressing our anger peacefully,” Amal Habani said by phone from inside the police station in Khartoum, the capital. “We want the abolishment of all laws that humiliate Sudanese women.”…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-14/sudan-arrests-protesters-against-indecency-law-opposition-says.html

Warhol Foundation issues ultimatum to Smithsonian over censored artwork
The controversy over the Smithsonian Institution’s decision to remove a piece of artwork that was on display in the National Portrait Gallery took another turn Monday when the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts issued a letter vowing to stop funding future exhibitions at all Smithsonian institutions if the artwork is not restored immediately. Joel Wachs, president of the Warhol Foundation, wrote a letter addressed…
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/12/warhol-foundation-issues-ultimatum-to-smithsonian-over-censored-artwork.html

To Conquer Wind Power, China Writes the Rules
Judging by the din at its factory here one recent day, the Spanish company Gamesa may seem to be a thriving player in the Chinese wind energy industry it helped create. But Gamesa has learned the hard way, as other foreign manufacturers have, that competing for China’s lucrative business means playing by strict house rules that are often stacked in Beijing’s favor. Nearly all the components that Gamesa assembles…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/business/global/15chinawind.html

Is Your Mobile Device or Laptop Funding Conflict Mineral Wars?
Many of our electronic devices are made up of minerals like tantalum, used to make the capacitors in most cell phones, and tin, which makes up the inside lining of some cell phones and is used to solder circuit boards. Unfortunately, many of these materials come from conflict-ridden areas of the Congo, where increasing profits from electronic sales help fund the inhumane treatment of people who live and work…
http://techland.time.com/2010/12/15/is-your-mobile-device-or-laptop-funding-conflict-wars/