UN adopts sex bias protocol UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. General Assembly has adopted a legal protocol that will enable women for the first time to submit sex discrimination complaints directly to the United Nations if they don't get heard in their home country. The protocol does not require, however, that countries hand over information about individual cases. Acting without a vote, the assembly adopted the 21-article optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. The assembly also urged all parties to the treaty to ratify it as soon as possible. The optional protocol to the convention was opened for signatures after it was approved Wednesday. It will enter into force as soon as 10 countries have ratified it. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2561534155-12a> West Antarctic may melt completely WASHINGTON (AP) - The massive West Antarctic ice sheet may be headed for a complete meltdown in a process that a new study indicates was triggered thousands of years ago, not as a result of global warming. As scientists have been increasingly able to document melting and the discovery of icebergs breaking off from Antarctica in recent years, concerns have risen that human-induced climate change could be damaging the Antarctic ice sheet. But the future of the West Antarctic ice sheet "may have been predetermined when the grounding line retreat was triggered in early Holocene time," about 10,000 years ago, a team of scientists led by Howard Conway of the University of Washington reports in Friday's edition of the journal Science. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2561530644-e3c>
