news20090605md

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Friday, June 5, 2009
Federico García Lorca
Born this day in 1898 was Spanish writer Federico García Lorca, who in a brief career resurrected and revitalized the most basic strains of Spanish poetry and helped inaugurate a second Golden Age of the Spanish theatre.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]

Friday, June 5, 2009
1965: First American space walk
On this day in 1965, Edward H. White II emerged from the orbital spacecraft Gemini 4 during its third orbit and floated in space for about 20 minutes, thus becoming the first American astronaut to walk in space.


[GREEN POWER from Solar-Thermal Engineering]
from [Machine Design.com]

Structural Design Reduces Solar-Electric Power-Plant Costs and Improves Solar-Generating Efficiency
太陽光発電、構造[架構]設計手法でコスト削減、発電効率改善
(Shedding New Light on Solar-Array Design)
May 6, 2009

Authored by:

Allan D. Bennett
Vice President, Solar Market Development
Hydro Aluminum Extrusions Americas
Phoenix, Ariz.

Glenn A. Reynolds
President
Gossamer Space Frames
Huntington Beach, Calif.

Edited by Kenneth J. Korane
ken.korane@penton.com

Key points
• Solar-thermal plants must concentrate energy on the small focal band or efficiency drops off dramatically.
• New structural framing is strong, precise, and economical to assemble.

Resources
Acciona, acciona.com
Autodesk, autodesk.com
FormSys, formsys.com
Gossamer Space Frames, gossamersf.com
Hydro Aluminum Extrusion Americas, hydro.com/northamerica
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, nrel.gov

The challenge that has always faced alternative-energy producers is cost per megawatt (MW) compared to cheap fossil fuels. But rising natural- gas prices, political pressure, and the add-on costs of environmental regulation continue to shrink the gap between these two energy sources. Alternative energy is finally coming of age.

Alternative-energy production is also getting more competitive thanks to improved materials and designs. Such is the case of Nevada Solar One, a 64-MW concentrating solargenerating facility that came online in July 2007. Using a new aluminum frame design, the facility’s output exceeds design specs by up to 15%.

Concentrated solar
Located south of Las Vegas in Boulder City, Nev., Nevada Solar One (NS1) is the world’s third-largest solar-energy field. It spans more than 400 acres and generates approximately 130 million kW-hr of electricity annually.

Instead of the photovoltaic solar panels commonly seen on building rooftops, the facility uses parabolic troughs holding curved mirrors to concentrate sunlight on glass and steel receiver tubes. Fluid circulating through the tubes reaches temperatures as hot as 735°F(390℃) and is used to generate steam, which drives a turbine and generator to produce electricity.

One advantage solar thermal holds over other renewable resources is that, except for the troughs, the power plant is a standard design widely used by electric utilities. And generating capacity can be built close to where the power is needed. This is in contrast to wind-power-generation facilities. Because they must be near the best wind resources, they are often far from where the electricity is consumed.

NS1 is creating a lot of interest because it provides a renewable-energy alternative with no fossil-fuel emissions. In fact, the plant eliminates CO2 emissions equivalent to taking 20,000 cars off the road, according to the operators. And the sizable amount of electricity NS1 produces illustrates the potential for more parabolic- trough systems in southwestern U.S.

Solar-thermal power-plant efficiency depends heavily on how well the parabolic-mirror array concentrates and maintains the sun’s energy at the focal point of the tubes carrying the heat-transfer fluid. There is only a small tolerance band around the focal point and thermal-heating efficiency falls off dramatically outside this band. Deflection of the mirrored array and manufacturing variations from one array to the next are two reasons for deviation from the focal point.

Complicating matters, parabolic mirrors can act as large sails. High winds produce significant torques that try to rotate the panel from its commanded position. So the structural framing that supports the mirrors had to be strong, built to exacting tolerances, and yet stay within tight budget constraints.

A better mousetrap
Concentrating solar-power designs have been in commercial use since 1985, but no new solar-power plants had used this technology for more than a decade before construction began on NS1. While parabolictrough technology is 50 to 75% cheaper than photovoltaic solar collection for large-scale power plants, it simply wasn’t cost efficient enough to compete with fossil fuels during the last decade. Once power-generation cost structures began shifting, the technology was reevaluated.

NS1 developer Solargenix (now part of Acciona Solar Power, a unit of Acciona S.A. based in Madrid, Spain) realized that if they could improve the technology’s performance and reduce the costs for frame manufacturing, installation, and maintenance, they could be more cost competitive with fossil fuels. The company approached Gossamer Space Frames, Huntington Beach, Calif., for a new way to build the troughs and frames that would meet these needs.

Gossamer’s metal structure using shear pins instead of nuts, bolts, and welds met Solargenix’s basic requirements and took advantage of aluminum’s strength and low weight. Gossamer used Multiframe, a graphical structural-engineering analysis software from FormSys, Fremantle, Australia, to create and engineer the frame, and Inventor, an AutoDesk 3D solids program, for modeling and detailing.

The challenge then came down to manufacturing. “We needed a partner that had specific extrusion presscircle diameters, production capabilities for a variety of complicated shapes with extreme tolerances, and the ability to meet just-in-time delivery schedules,” said Gossamer President, Glenn Reynolds.

Gossamer turned to Hydro Aluminum’s Extrusion Americas unit to economically produce the complicated shapes with the exacting tolerances necessary for correct alignment and assembly.

Hydro recommended 6061 T6 aluminum for its strength and machinability, and also used metal with 70 to 80% recycled content. Manufacturing recycle-blended aluminum requires only 5% of the energy, yet the material retains all the performance characteristics of virgin aluminum.

Hydro manufactured 36 separate components, including connectors and frame parts, at its Phoenix plant. It then shipped the extruded parts to the company’s facility in Guaymas, Mexico, for punching, multispindle drilling, and CNC fabrication. All parts then returned to Phoenix for final inspection before shipping to the NS1 site for assembly. Hydro produced over 40,000 lb of aluminum components per day — more than 7 million lb in all — in less than nine months.

Exacting performance
Compared to other proposed support structures, the final space frame used 50% fewer parts, eliminated the need for welding, and did not require field alignment for the mirrors. This let workers assemble the frames in one-third the time. The aluminum frames have an approximate 3:1 reduction in weight compared to steel frames, which are widely used in Europe. The weight savings substantially reduced shipping and assembly costs, but did not compromise the finished frames’ torsional strength. For instance, the assemblies can withstand 85-mph winds in the upright position.

Because the solar frames are big — about 8-m long and 4-m high — there is always the concern over less-thanperfect mirror alignment. This can be caused by warping, poor connections, improper assembly, or a number of other factors. But the Gossamer/ Hydro design produced near-maximum reflectance.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory recommends a combined “slope error” (mirror error plus frame-alignment error) of ~3.0 milliradians or less for solartrough arrays. NS1 operates with a combined slope error near 2.0 milliradians. This translates to a focus improvement of 34 to 38% over NREL recommendations.

This means the trough frames are quite close to theoretically perfect performance. The net effect is a real output increase of 4%, or approximately 2.5 MW. During its first peak summer season, NS1 actually had to dump power to keep its system balanced.

Acciona has contracted Hydro to manufacture identical frames for three new solar plants currently under construction in Spain.

news20090605jt1

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
DNA test findings lead to lifer's release
DNA鑑定の結果、無期刑囚釈放
Retrial slated, expected to clear man of girl's slaying

(Kyodo News) A man sentenced to life for the 1990 murder of a 4-year-old girl was freed Thursday from Chiba Prison after 17 years behind bars as prosecutors opted not to challenge a recent DNA test that did not link him with the victim.

"I'll never forgive the real culprit, even if the statute of limitations expires," Toshikazu Sugaya, 62, told reporters in Chiba after his release. "From now on, I will work to support people who have also been (wrongfully) convicted."

Sugaya also suggested that he wants to join efforts to call for the abolishment of the statute of limitations for serious crimes, including murder.

He appeared calm before the media but raised his voice as he spoke about his time in prison while the real culprit remained at large.

Following the rare move by the Tokyo High Public Prosecutor's Office, a retrial for Sugaya is expected to begin and is highly expected to overturn his conviction, legal experts said.

Sugaya has sought a retrial ever since being convicted of kidnapping Mami Matsuda from a pachinko parlor in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture, and murdering her in May 1990.

A DNA test early on became the first to help lead to a conviction in Japan. The defense team, however, filed for a retrial with the district court in December 2002 with new evidence regarding DNA test analysis.

Sugaya's release follows a request by his counsel last month that prosecutors free him immediately. The team cited the results of a fresh DNA test conducted by the Tokyo High Court that showed a sample taken from him did not match dried body fluid found on the victim's clothing. The results contradicted those of the earlier DNA test.

Referring to the latest DNA analysis, the prosecutors said in a written opinion given to the high court: "There is a high possibility that it will be qualified to become clear evidence that will lead to an acquittal."

An analyst from the prosecution side said procedures used during the investigation in the case were still in the early stages of development and there was no established, scientific method for DNA analysis at the time that could endure as evidence in investigations and in trials.

The accuracy of DNA testing has greatly improved since its first use in criminal investigations in Japan in 1989, according to experts.

"We have decided to cease the execution of the (life) sentence today," said Keiichi Watanabe, deputy chief of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutor's Office. Watanabe, however, repeatedly stressed that the prosecutors worked on the case "sincerely and fairly."

Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, prosecutors can free an inmate who has appealed for a retrial. But it is rare for an inmate to be released before a retrial starts.

The Tokyo High Court told both prosecutors and Sugaya's defense team May 8 that recently conducted DNA tests found a sample from Sugaya to be different from the one used as evidence that helped lead to his conviction.

The high court also instructed both the prosecution and defense to submit written opinions on the results of the new tests to the court by June 12. Sugaya initially confessed to killing the girl but later withdrew the confession.

"I am innocent, and I'm grateful that the testing was done again," Sugaya was quoted as telling his lawyer when the DNA test was conducted. "I am really touched. I want to get out of this prison and pay a visit to my parent's grave."

Following the prosecutors' decision, Sugaya's lawyers and supporters expressed a mixture of relief and anger at the initial police investigation.

Manabu Sasamori, a lawyer in Sugaya's defense team, slammed the prosecutors, saying: "It is only natural that he be released. Actually, this step came too late."

The prosecutors will probably admit they forced a confession out of Sugaya once his retrial begins, Sasamori added.

Meanwhile, Itoko Nishimaki, 59, who has campaigned for the release of Sugaya for more than 15 years, said, "All we can say is we are relieved."

Nishimaki, however, said his release has opened another chapter in his legal battle, adding that she and fellow supporters will fully consult Sugaya's legal team over their next move.

According to Nishimaki, Sugaya regained his peace of mind when he met with his supporters in Chiba Prison on Wednesday and learned he would be freed soon.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Defense Ministry pushes for more policy control
防衛省、さらに政策の調整を要求

(Kyodo News) In a controversial move, the Defense Ministry might include a Self-Defense Forces officer as one of the three people it appoints as deputy director general at the Defense Policy Bureau, its powerful policymaking body.

The move, revealed in a draft of its reorganization plan, could fuel concerns about the robustness of civilian control in the national defense apparatus. No SDF officer has ever been assigned to such a senior post in the elite policy bureau, which is mostly manned by civilian officials.

The ministry also envisions setting up a strategic planning division that would be tasked with devising medium- to long-term strategies.

According to the draft, the policy bureau's deputy director general post will be filled by a Defense Ministry official, an SDF officer and a counselor from the Foreign Ministry.

In addition, another bureau combining the defense equipment groups of the Defense Ministry and the air, maritime and ground staff offices, which sit atop the three branches of the SDF, will be placed under the control of the ministry. A civilian ministry official would be appointed as the bureau's director general, while another ministry official and an SDF officer would fill the deputy director general posts.

Ranking officers would also be appointed to division chief posts in the Defense Policy Bureau and the defense equipment groups, the plan says.

The reorganization is aimed at improving the defense bodies' ability to cope with the changing security environment they face, including the nuclear and ballistic missile threat from North Korea, China's growing military power, and the increase in the SDF's forays abroad.

The Defense Ministry plans to submit bills to the Diet next year to bring about the changes.

However, the plan might draw criticism, given the flak the ministry got from the scandal involving former Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Toshio Tamogami, who was sacked last fall after questioning the government's position on Japan's wartime record.

Efforts by Tamogami to give ranking officers history classes that were criticized as rightwing cast doubt on how well civilian control was working in the defense apparatus.

In any case, it is possible the plan will be affected by the House of Representatives election, which must be called by early September, because there is a rare but realistic chance that the opposition parties will take power and hence modify the defense plan.

The Defense Ministry's plan, which toes the line draw last July by a government panel, is part of a series of changes proposed after a spate of scandals and lapses involving the ministry and the SDF, including collusion involving former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya and the fatal collision between an Aegis destroyer and a fishing boat.

As part of the reorganization, the post of defense counselor will be abolished by next March and replaced by the new post of adviser to the defense minister. The adviser post will be filled by a political appointee, such as a private-sector expert, former ministry official or SDF officer.

The ministry's Operational Policy Bureau will be abolished in fiscal 2010. Its work will be transferred to the Joint Staff Office, the SDF's top operations body.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Panasonic mulls delay of chip plant
パナソニック、チップ工場の稼働延期を検討

OSAKA (Kyodo) Panasonic Corp. is considering postponing the opening of a semiconductor plant in Tonami, Toyama Prefecture, for several months because of anemic demand for home electronics products using semiconductors, sources said Thursday.

The major electronics manufacturer is investing 94 billion in the plant currently scheduled to go onstream in August. It will produce image sensor semiconductors for digital cameras, camcorders and other products.

Poor business prospects are forcing Panasonic to backpedal on production of consumer electronics products.

The company has already put off the opening of a new plasma panel plant in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, from May until November, and a liquid crystal display panel factory in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, from next January to July 2010.

news20090605jt2

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Saito seeks ambitious 15% paring of greenhouse emissions by '20
斎藤環境大臣、温室効果ガス２０２０年までに１５％削減を提案

(Kyodo News) Environment Minister Tetsuo Saito believes a plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels is "not ambitious enough" and the nation should be able to achieve a 15 percent cut.

A 7 percent cut was supported by 45.4 percent of respondents in a government opinion poll released in late May.

Saito said however political will and appropriate policies would enable Tokyo to realize a 15 percent cut in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.

A government study panel has presented six options for the greenhouse gas emissions target for 2020, ranging from a 4 percent increase to a 25 percent cut from 1990 levels. The government is set to determine its 2020 reduction goal in mid-June.

A 2020 target is seen as crucial for Japan and other countries because it is the major focus of U.N. negotiations for a successor treaty to the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The talks are scheduled to conclude at a key U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.

For Japan to lead negotiations on setting a new emission cut framework, it is necessary for the country to demonstrate its commitment to contributing to the fight against global warming, Saito said.

The minister said if the government is to decide a 2020 target with a range, the maximum figure for emission cuts should be "ambitious."

Saito reiterated his position that Tokyo should aim for a 25 percent reduction in total — 15 percentage points by domestic efforts and the remaining 10 points by forest absorption and the purchase of emission credits from other countries.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Earth sparkles, Wakata tells kids from ISS
"地球は輝いている"、若田宇宙飛行士、宇宙船から子供たちに呼びかけ

(Kyodo News) The blue Earth looks like a "jewel in total darkness," astronaut Koichi Wakata told students from his old elementary school in Saitama.

The radio exchange from the International Space Station astronaut apparently inspired the pupils chatting with him Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Official Residence in Tokyo, with Prime Minister Taro Aso also participating in the event.

Wakata talked about his work at the ISS and how space looks from it. Asked how the Earth looks, Wakata said he was impressed by the glittering lights of urban areas on the dark side and likened the scene to a jewel glittering in space.

As for the bright side of the Earth, where he can view oceans, deserts and forests, Wakata said he "feels the power of nature," adding that the two different faces present an interesting contrast.

Asked by Aso how he spends his free time, Wakata said he either reads or gazes. "I usually watch the Earth from a Kibo window or read books," he said, referring to the Japanese laboratory module on the ISS.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Tamiflu ban for teens to continue
タミフル、子供への投与原則禁止継続

(Kyodo News) The current ban against teens taking the influenza prescription drug Tamiflu should remain in place as long as the possible causal relationship between its use and abnormal behavior is unclear, according to researchers on a health ministry panel.

The panel's view, which was agreed at a meeting Wednesday, will be reflected in a report to be submitted to the safety research committee of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, which is expected to approve the continuation of the ban.

Wednesday's discussions by the panel were based on a survey of about 10,000 flu patients, conducted by the ministry between 2006 and 2007, which found the risk of abnormal behavior, including sudden running or jumping, was 1.54 times higher among teens who took Tamiflu.

But the researchers said it is too early to reach a conclusion and further studies are needed to discover the exact cause of such abnormal behavior.

"Influenza itself is known for causing such abnormal behavior among patients," said Shigehiko Kamoshita, chairman of the panel and former head of the International Medical Center of Japan.

The health ministry decided to ban the use of Tamiflu for teens in March 2007, although the drug has been used in some cases of H1N1 swine flu detected in Japan.

On Wednesday, meanwhile, 13 new domestic H1N1 cases were confirmed, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 406. The latest cases were reported in Kanagawa, Osaka, Chiba, Shizuoka, Hyogo, Yamaguchi and Saitama prefectures, as well as Tokyo.

In Kobe, classes resumed Wednesday at a high school that was the last school to remain closed due to swine flu infections.

A total of 11 students were infected with the flu at Kobe Gakuin University High School. The school closed on May 18 and resumed a week later, only to close again on May 27 after new infections were found.

In a related development Thursday, more cases of infection were found in Shizuoka and Chiba prefectures, as well as Tokyo, bringing the tally to 410, health officials said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Morita faces more money woes
森田知事、金権のタネさらに噴出

CHIBA (Kyodo) Chiba Gov. Kensaku Morita is facing fresh allegations linked to his fundraising activities, with education groups claiming he skipped taxes on fees he received for speeches between 2005 and 2007 before he was elected.

A parent-teacher association in Chiba Prefecture said Wednesday that Morita put more than 800,000 in fees he received for speaking to three education groups into the account of his fund management body, thus evading taxes on the money.

The three groups recently pointed out that they paid Morita on an individual basis, "as a token of their gratitude to an individual actor," indicating the actor-turned-politician should have paid tax on the fees.

Morita has begun to repay some of the money, said the PTA, which paid him 120,000 for a speech in November 2007.

After he was elected governor in late March, Morita found himself in hot water over allegations he failed to report donations in 2005 from groups linked to the Liberal Democratic Party.

It was also alleged that a local LDP chapter led by Morita received illegal corporate donations in 2005 and 2006.

Morita starred in 1970s television dramas before turning to politics.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Prius tops best-seller list; Insight falls to third
プリウス新車販売で初のトップ、インサイトは３位に

(Kyodo News) Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius hybrid was the best-selling car in the nation in May after chalking up monthly sales of 10,915 units, an industry body said Thursday.

It is the first time the Prius has topped the list, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said. The figure is cumulative for both the original Prius and the fully remodeled version, but excludes minivehicles and imports.

Toyota Motor Corp. rolled out the latest version of the Prius in mid-May after rival Honda Motor Co.'s Insight gave it fierce competition.

Honda Motor's Insight hybrid hatchback, which in April became the first hybrid to top the best-seller list, fell to third in May with 8,183 units sold.

The Insight was edged by Honda's Fit compact, with monthly sales of 8,859 units, the association said.

With hybrids occupying two of the top three slots, the list shows fuel-efficient hybrid cars are growing more popular.

The popularity of the Prius stems from its relatively low price and fuel efficiency, association officials said.

"With the emergence of the Insight hybrid at a price of 1.89 million for the low-end model, prices for hybrid cars are falling and they are becoming more affordable for consumers," one official said.

The latest Prius model accounted for more than 90 percent, or 10,196 units, of Toyota's May sales.

The previous best monthly sales for the Prius had been in March 2008, at 7,680 units.

Prices for the latest, third-generation Prius start at 2.05 million, or nearly 300,000 lower than the lowest-end model. The revamped car has a larger 1.8-liter engine and achieves a fuel efficiency of 38 km per liter, an improvement of around 7 percent over the previous model.

The Prius also got a lift from government tax breaks for less-polluting cars.

Since the first-generation Prius was launched in 1997, Toyota has sold over 1.25 million hybrids worldwide.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Hitachi catalogs, ads rife with errors
日立のカタログ、多くの不正な宣伝表現

(Kyodo News) Hitachi Ltd. has found around 200 incorrect or misleading expressions in catalogs and advertisements related to the energy-saving features of home electronics appliances manufactured by its subsidiary, Hitachi Appliances Inc.

But the group stopped short of saying whether it had found similar misleading or incorrect expressions in sales brochures and ads for products manufactured by group companies other than Hitachi Appliances.

The cases included one in which Hitachi Appliances used a misleading expression about the effectiveness of the energy-saving mode of a new vacuum cleaner.

Instead of comparing the power consumption of the new model when the power-saving mode is switched on or switched off, the company compared its power consumption with that of a model the firm had released six years previously, it said.

news20090605jt3

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Capital spending dives at fastest pace in 54 years
設備投資、過去５４年最速のペースで降下

(Compiled from Bloomberg, Kyodo) Companies cut spending at the fastest pace in 54 years the previous quarter as the slump in global demand eroded profits, leaving less money for plants and equipment.

Capital spending excluding software fell 25.4 percent in the three months that ended March 31 from a year earlier, the largest drop since the government began the survey in 1955, the Finance Ministry said Thursday. Profits tumbled a record 69 percent.

Squeezed by the global economic downturn, manufacturers — the main engine of Japan's exported-oriented economy — posted their first-ever combined pretax loss, of 2.25 trillion.

Manufacturers from Panasonic Corp. to Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. have cut jobs and are closing factories or scaling back spending plans amid the unprecedented decline in exports.

Machinery orders, a key indicator of future expenditures, fell in March even as exports and production showed signs of stabilizing as companies drew down stockpiles.

"We have to assume economic growth will be subdued for a considerable period after the boost from inventory reductions wanes," said Hiroshi Shiraishi, an economist at BNP Paribas SA in Tokyo.

Panasonic, the world's largest maker of plasma TVs, said last month it plans to close about 20 factories this year and proceed with the 15,000 job cuts announced in February. Konica Minolta, a maker of film used in liquid-crystal displays, said it will ax jobs and reduce spending on research to help save 33 billion in costs this year.

"Nobody's building new factories," said Jesper Koll, chief executive officer of hedge fund adviser TRJ Tantallon Research Japan. "Capital formation is unlikely to be a driver of growth in the foreseeable future."

Combined corporate pretax profits dropped 69.0 percent to 4.27 trillion, the worst since April-June 1955 when such records were first kept.

They fell for the seventh straight quarter, hit hard by sluggish overseas demand for automobiles and high-tech products.

The government will use Thursday's Finance Ministry report to revise gross domestic product next Thursday. Preliminary figures showed the economy shrank at a record 15.2 percent pace last quarter.

The government "will reconfirm that the first quarter was the worst time for Japan's economy," said Shunsuke Saito, an economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. "Exports and production have already started recovering, and looking ahead, profits will probably stop deteriorating."

BNP's Shiraishi said there won't be in a "major" revision in the preliminary figures.

Industrial output rose at its fastest pace in 56 years in April, and companies said they planned to boost output in May and June as well, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said last week. Exports fell 39.1 percent in April from a year earlier, after dropping 45.5 percent in March.

Even as output and exports are improving, reports showed domestic demand is weakening. The unemployment rate climbed to a five-year high in April, when wages fell for an 11th month. Toyota Motor Corp., Sony Corp. and Panasonic all expect to post losses again this business year.
The employee, who is in his late 40s and works in the division that screens loans at the Tokyo-based bank, is suspected of buying shares in a company targeted for takeover by an Aozora client — around 2008 before the client publicly announced the plan.

The SESC suspects he made about 10 million through similar insider trades over the years by using the brokerage account of another person, the sources said.

The SESC is expected to file a criminal complaint against the employee if the probe generates enough evidence to back a case of insider trading.

Aozora Bank's corporate communication division said the bank intends to fully cooperate with the commission's investigation and declined comment on the content.

The probe comes at a time when Aozora Bank is slumping due to hefty losses stemming from overseas investment and loan operations hit by the global financial crisis. The bank fell into the red in fiscal 2008 with a group net loss of 242.5 billion.

In 2002, an employee of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, now Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, was indicted for repeatedly trading shares using information on takeover bids he had learned of at work. The employee was later handed a suspended 14-month prison term.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Toyota facing $1 billion hit over California law
Success breeds harsher requirement to sell zero-emission cars

By ALAN OHNSMAN

(Bloomberg) Toyota Motor Corp., ranked as the U.S. market's most fuel-efficient automaker, may have to spend more than $1 billion to meet California's requirement for zero-emission cars.

Toyota and Honda Motor Co. have the biggest market share in the state and therefore starting with 2012 models must also sell the most vehicles that don't pollute, according to California law. The rule requires that 3 percent of unit sales over a three-year period must be nonpolluting models.

California's requirement for plug-ins and zero-pollution models applies only to companies that sell at least 60,000 vehicles a year in the state. General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC's bankruptcies may cut into their sales in California, thereby reducing the costs of compliance.

"The targets of the rule initially would have been GM, Ford and Chrysler because of all their trucks, not Honda and Toyota, which are kind of the environmental darlings," said Jim Hossack, an analyst at consulting firm AutoPacific Inc. "It's ironic those two companies could take the biggest hit."

Toyota sold 24.1 percent of new autos in the state in the first quarter of 2009, ahead of Honda's 12.9 percent market share, according to the California New Car Dealers Association. Ford Motor Co. was third with a 12.1 percent share, followed by Nissan Motor Co. at 10.9 percent and GM at 10.4 percent.

"If you're only discussing the cost of batteries and other components, a $1 billion cost for Toyota may be a stretch," said Brett Smith, an advanced-vehicle analyst at the Center for Automotive Research.

"Add in all the things needed to support these vehicles — service, dealer training, marketing, warranties, new manufacturing equipment to get them into production, and that number sounds reasonable," Smith said.

The state, which buys about 12 percent of all new autos sold in the U.S., requires the sale of advanced technology models because of persistent air pollution problems. Carmakers must sell a combined 7,500 hydrogen fuel-cell or battery-electric vehicles and more than 60,000 plug-in hybrids in model years 2012 through 2014, said Anna Gromis, an air pollution specialist with California's Air Resources Board.

"There's going to be a large cost premium for this technology," said John Hanson, a spokesman for Toyota's U.S. sales unit. He declined comment on the $1 billion estimate. "We don't know yet how many consumers are going to be willing to pay the added cost plug-in vehicles carry."

Toyota's California market share means it may need to sell more than 16,000 plug-in hybrids and all-electric models over the three-year period, based on a Bloomberg calculation. Carmakers can comply by selling some plug-ins in states such as New York and Massachusetts that follow California's pollution rules.

A company failing to meet California rules can potentially be barred from selling any vehicles there.

Lithium-ion batteries needed for plug-ins with at least 16 km of all-electric driving may add $8,000 to a vehicle's cost, said Menahem Anderman, president of consulting firm Advanced Automotive Batteries. How long they will last is unknown, said Anderman, whose research is used by Toyota, Honda, GM and other carmakers.

Currently, the only electric car sold in the U.S. is Tesla Motors Inc.'s Roadster, which goes for $109,000.

Automakers' plans for a range of cars powered solely by lithium-ion batteries and plug-in hybrids that run on battery power alone for short distances until a gasoline engine kicks in also coincide with California's rules.

These include GM's $40,000 plug-in Chevrolet Volt due late next year; Nissan's plan to sell battery-only cars starting in 2010; and Toyota's aim to offer both a plug-in Prius hybrid and a tiny all-electric car that's due in 2012. Ford plans a battery-only Focus compact due in 2011.

Honda already sells small numbers of zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell sedans in California to meet state rules. While President Takeo Fukui said in April the company may also add plug-in hybrids, Honda hasn't announced details of such a plan.

Honda has favored electric vehicles powered by hydrogen over batteries because it believes they offer a better combination of low emissions and range, said Ben Knight, vice president of the company's U.S. research unit.

"We see potential for battery vehicles for short intracity use," Knight said May 27. "If it's that broader level of mobility most of us really appreciate and utilize, the fuel cell has that broad functionality and capability."

Knight declined to discuss the added expense for Honda to meet California's advanced vehicle rules.

CONTINUED ON news20090605lat

news20090605lat1

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, June 5, 2009
Toyota facing $1 billion hit over California law
Success breeds harsher requirement to sell zero-emission cars

By ALAN OHNSMAN

CONTINUED FROM news20090605jt3

Toyota said this month that U.S. demand for plug-ins may be much smaller than advocates suggest. Bill Reinert, Toyota's U.S. national manager for advanced technology, told a National Academy of Sciences panel in Washington on May 18 that the market for such vehicles may be 50,000 units a year at most and as few as 3,500.

"If at the end of the day the market says 'we don't want these cars,' we may have to take a look the requirements," Gromis said. "We have confidence that they will be accepted."


[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[World News]
Obama meets with Merkel in Germany
The president will follow his outreach to Muslims with a visit to Buchenwald, where he is expected to affirm the U.S. commitment to Israel.

By Christi Parsons Reporting from Dresden, Germany And Michael Muskal Reporting from Los Angeles
12:59 AM PDT, June 5, 2009

A day after he called for new relations with the Muslim world, President Obama turned to the other side of the Middle East peace equation as he prepared this morning to visit Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

Obama kicked off the European leg of his current trip by meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden, Germany today. He is also in Europe to commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944, when the Allies invaded Europe in the drive to defeat Adolf Hitler.

Obama arrived here Thursday night from Cairo and his almost hour-long speech designed to open a new page in U.S. relations with the Muslim world.

After meeting with Merkel, with whom he discussed some of the world's political and economic issues, Obama was scheduled to go by helicopter to Buchenwald, a concentration camp where about 56,000 people, mainly Jews, were worked as slaves or killed outright during World War II. Obama is expected to again discuss the Holocaust, its impact on survivors and its role in the founding of the state of Israel.

Politically, the visit to Buchenwald helps turn the focus on Israel and the U.S. commitment to the Jewish state, founded in the wake of the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. In his Cairo speech, Obama sharply criticized those who question whether the Holocaust took place including Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has urged that Israel be wiped out.

"Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong and only serves to evoke in the minds of the Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve," Obama said on Thursday.

Obama is the first U.S. president to visit Buchenwald. It is near a smaller camp, Ohrdruf, which was liberated with the help of Obama's great-uncle, Charles Payne, 84, who was with the American military units that captured the camps in April 1945.

"It was full of people," Payne said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "The people were in terrible shape, dressed in rags, most of them emaciated. Practically skin and bones."

Buchenwald's main gate, crematorium, hospital and two guard towers are a memorial.

The D-Day observance will be in Normandy, France, at the U.S. cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. It too has a personal note for Obama. The president's grandfather, Stanley Dunham, came ashore at Omaha Beach six weeks after D-Day. Dunham's older brother Ralph hit Omaha on D-Day plus four.

Following the Buchenwald tour, Obama was to fly to Landstuhl medical hospital to visit wounded U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. He was to end the day in Paris and meet wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha for a brief holiday after the Normandy ceremonies.

Iran and the slumping global economy were the main subjects of Obama's meeting with Merkel at a castle in this eastern city on the Elbe River. Merkel's government has worked closely with the Obama administration on so-far-unavailing efforts to get Iran to freeze its nuclear program. Merkel is campaigning to keep her job in a September election contest with her foreign minister, Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier.


[Top News]
Obama calls for end to discord with Muslim world
'America and Islam are not exclusive,' the president declares in a speech in Cairo. Muslims around the world welcome the overture -- though some of them skeptically.

By Christi Parsons and Jeffrey Fleishman
June 5, 2009

Reporting from Cairo -- President Obama's sweeping call Thursday for a "new beginning" between the United States and the Islamic world was greeted by Muslims of many countries as a conciliatory gesture aimed at setting aside suspicion and moving ahead on problems that include terrorism and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The 55-minute address at Cairo University, which was widely translated and sent across the Internet, did little to sway hardened enemies such as Iran. But it did find qualified support from unexpected voices, such as members of the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip and Islamist intellectuals in Pakistan.

Many listeners were disappointed that Obama did not lay out detailed changes in U.S. foreign policy. Nevertheless, interviews from Egypt to Turkey and Iraq suggested that they believed he was distancing himself from the George W. Bush era and was prepared to engage the Islamic world with openness and trust.

"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect," Obama said. "America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end."

That discord has been prevalent for generations, but intensified after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Americans grew increasingly wary of the Islamic world. The invasion of Iraq and President Bush's declaration of a "war on terror" angered Muslims, many of whom believed Washington was using its military power to control the Middle East and its oil. Tensions were further aggravated by Al Qaeda and an increase in terrorist attacks worldwide.

Obama called for a renewed drive to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and acknowledged the importance of reaching out to Iran, whose nuclear ambitions have been a growing, contentious concern. He said he wanted U.S. soldiers out of Iraq, promised that America would not condone torture, and stated that even though he had ordered a troop buildup in Afghanistan, Washington had no desire for long-term military bases there.

"There is a difference between his policy and Bush's policy," said Mahmoud Ramahi, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Authority parliament. "But the problem is still on the ground. Would they achieve a Palestinian independent state? If he does that, that would be a relief and good for all parties."

Others were unconvinced. Iraqi radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr said: "Obama can't change America's policies. . . . The honey talk and stylish political speeches express only one thing, and that is America will follow a different path into subjecting the world to its control and its globalization."

The American president, born of a Muslim father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, insisted that the United States is "not at war with Islam."

More than at any time in the recent past, Obama emphasized his personal roots in the Muslim world. He used his full name -- Barack Hussein Obama -- and spoke fondly of spending part of his childhood in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country. The readiness of the U.S. to fulfill its guiding principles, he said, is demonstrated by the fact that "an African American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected president."

news20090605lat2

[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[Top News]
Obama calls for end to discord with Muslim world
'America and Islam are not exclusive,' the president declares in a speech in Cairo. Muslims around the world welcome the overture -- though some of them skeptically.

By Christi Parsons and Jeffrey Fleishman
June 5, 2009

CONTINUED FROM news20090605lat1

The crowd responded with its first burst of applause when Obama offered the Arabic greeting of peace. He quoted the Koran and referred to stories familiar to people who grew up in the Islamic tradition.

The speech was not intended to launch policy initiatives. The White House had made it clear that Obama wanted to use the speech to move beyond the West's recent relations with Islam.

"I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear," said Obama, who recalled hearing prayer calls of azan at dawn and dusk while living in Indonesia.

The same principle must apply in reverse, he said. "Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire."

Zafar Jaspal, an international relations analyst at Quaid-i-Azam University in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said, "The key will be if the U.S. begins to see the Muslim world as a partner, and respects the Muslim world's wishes and rules."

Obama did not use the word "terrorism," which many Muslims associate with the U.S. drive for military action in the Muslim world. In a rare step for a U.S. leader, he referred three times to "Palestine."

And analysts said they were struck by his acknowledgment of a U.S. hand in the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953, which still is a source of Iranian anger.

Obama appealed for a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, saying that, just as Israel has a right to exist, Palestinians deserve a state.

The president said that denying the Holocaust is "baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful" and that stereotypes of Jewish people and threats to annihilate Israel are "deeply wrong." Yet Obama also emphasized the suffering of Palestinians dislocated from their homes and suffering the daily humiliations of Israeli occupation.

Palestinians must abandon violence, he said, Israel must stop its expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and Arab states must help Palestinians develop governing institutions.

"Let there be no doubt, the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable," the president said. "America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own."

He added: "It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true. Too many tears have been shed, too much blood has been shed. . . . All of us must live for the day when the mothers of Israelis and the mothers of Palestinians can see their children grow up in peace."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is being pressured by the White House to embrace a two-state solution, ordered government ministers to make no public statements. However, a statement released by his office said: "We share President Obama's hope that the American effort heralds the beginning of a new era that will bring about an end to the conflict and lead to Arab recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, living in peace and security in the Middle East."

By day's end, the president was on his way to Germany, where today he will visit the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp, a gesture intended to underscore his call to Muslims to honor Israeli history, while offering reassurance of his commitment to Israel.

But Obama also appealed explicitly to the self-interest of his listeners, arguing that collaboration on Middle East peace, human rights, democratic reforms and the containment of nuclear arms would bring mutual benefits.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is being pressured by the White House to embrace a two-state solution, ordered government ministers to make no public statements. However, a statement released by his office said: "We share President Obama's hope that the American effort heralds the beginning of a new era that will bring about an end to the conflict and lead to Arab recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, living in peace and security in the Middle East."

By day's end, the president was on his way to Germany, where today he will visit the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp, a gesture intended to underscore his call to Muslims to honor Israeli history, while offering reassurance of his commitment to Israel.

But Obama also appealed explicitly to the self-interest of his listeners, arguing that collaboration on Middle East peace, human rights, democratic reforms and the containment of nuclear arms would bring mutual benefits.

Although condemning the Sept. 11 attacks as an "enormous trauma" for the American people, he acknowledged that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq had been "a war of choice." His commitment to ban torture and to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was applauded. He addressed the tension between the United States and Iran, and set a goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Cairo was on heightened alert, with soldiers lining the sidewalks and streets closed to traffic. In the morning, before delivering his address, Obama met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the Quba Palace and toured the Sultan Hassan Mosque. The president walked through the mosque with his arms crossed over his chest. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled at his side wearing a head scarf.

Mubarak told reporters that he and Obama "discussed everything candidly and frankly without any reservation."

The audience for Obama's speech was made up largely of university students, in keeping with the president's impulse to play to young, educated people -- and with his belief that if he can win them over he can turn the page with a larger audience.

Obama's words about supporting the education and choices of women drew especially loud applause from women in the audience, some of them wearing Western dress, some wearing light head scarves and some with their hair completely covered.

"The fact that he talks about tolerance, and cited verses from the Koran and the Bible, makes me feel he is aware how people think," said Michael Fayek, 27, a Christian and recent graduate of Cairo's Ain Shams University. "I admired very much the suggestion that Jews, Christians and Muslims should live together in peace."

Obama cautioned that change would take time.

"No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point," he said.

The president drew applause when he said, "As the Holy Koran tells us, 'Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.' "

Although hailing democracy, he said, "America does not presume to know what is best for everyone."

"But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people, the freedom to live as you choose.

"The issues that I have described will not be easy to address," Obama said. "But we have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world we seek -- a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home, a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes, a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected.

"That is the world we seek," he continued. "But we can only achieve it together."

news20090605nyt

[Today's Newspaper] from [The New York Times]

[Middle East]
Addressing Muslims, Obama Pushes Mideast Peace

By JEFF ZELENY and ALAN COWELL
Published: June 4, 2009

CAIRO — In opening a bold overture to the Islamic world on Thursday, President Obama confronted frictions between Muslims and the West, but he reserved some of his bluntest words for Israel, as he expressed sympathy for the Palestinians and what he called the “daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.”

While Mr. Obama emphasized that America’s bond with Israel was “unbreakable,” he spoke in equally powerful terms of the Palestinian people, describing their plight as “intolerable” after 60 years of statelessness, and twice referring to “Palestine” in a way that put Palestinians on parallel footing with Israelis.

Mr. Obama’s speech in Cairo, which he called a “timeless city,” was perhaps the riskiest of his presidency, as he used unusually direct language to call for a fresh look at deep divisions, both those between Israel and its neighbors and between the Islamic world and the West. Among his messages was a call for Americans and Muslims to abandon their mutual suspicions and do more to confront violent extremism.

But it was Mr. Obama’s empathetic tone toward the Palestinians that attracted the most attention in the region and around the world. His words left many Palestinians and their Arab supporters jubilant but infuriated some Israelis and American backers of Israel because they saw the speech as elevating the Palestinians to equal status.

Mr. Obama said the bond between the United States and Israel was “based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.”

“On the other hand,” Mr. Obama added, “it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years, they’ve endured the pain of dislocation.” He said Americans “will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.”

Mr. Obama seemed to connect with his audience in his 55-minute speech from Cairo University as he quoted repeatedly from the Koran and occasionally sprinkled his remarks with Arabic, even beginning his address with the traditional Arabic greeting “salaam aleikum,” or “peace be upon you.”

In the speech, which was broadcast and translated around the world, Mr. Obama sounded forceful, even scolding at times, as he promoted democracy in Egypt and women’s rights and acknowledged that the United States had fallen short of its ideals, particularly in the Iraq war.

He divided his speech into seven sections, standing at the podium like the university professor he was before beginning his political career. Mr. Obama sharply criticized what he called the “disturbing tendency” among some Muslims, both Sunnis and Shiites, to “measure one’s own faith by the rejection of somebody else’s faith.”

But while he spoke uncompromisingly of the American fight against Al Qaeda, Mr. Obama never mentioned the words “terrorism” or “terrorist.” That was a departure from the language used by the Bush administration, but one that some Middle East experts suggested reflected a belief by the new administration that overuse had made the words inflammatory.

Still, Paul D. Wolfowitz, a former top Bush administration official who was an architect of the war in Iraq and is a strong supporter of Israel, offered general praise for Mr. Obama’s address.

“I could have used less moral equivalence, but he had to get through to his audience, and it’s in America’s interest for him to get through,” Mr. Wolfowitz said.

Mr. Obama’s remarks will be parsed by Israelis and Palestinians, in part because when previous American presidents have used the word “Palestine,” they have usually done so only in reference to a future Palestinian state, as President George W. Bush did in March 2002.

“Now Obama is saying ‘Palestine’ is a present reality,” said Robert Malley, director of the Middle East program at the International Crisis Group, and a Middle East negotiator in the Clinton administration.

Mr. Obama’s stark statement that “the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements” is also likely to be seen as a sharp challenge to Israeli assumptions that existing West Bank settlements will always be allowed to remain.

It was noteworthy that the only Palestinian political group that Mr. Obama specifically mentioned was Hamas, the militant Islamic organization that won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. Hamas governs Gaza, but is loathed by Israel. Mr. Obama called on Hamas to forswear violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist, but Middle East experts said that his mention was an acknowledgment that Hamas might have become a more important actor than the Fatah Party, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Mr. Obama said, “Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities.”

The president offered few details on how to solve problems around the globe. But he offered up his own biography as a credible connection to his various audiences. His message touched on a lengthy list of challenges, but his appearance here could simply be boiled down to this: Barack Hussein Obama was standing on the podium in this Muslim capital as the American president.

“I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” Mr. Obama said. “But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.”

Some Muslims were delighted.

“I feel that he spoke to my emotions, and showed a sense of recognition of the dignity of Palestinians,” said Ghaith al-Omari, advocacy director of the American Task Force on Palestine.

Although Mr. Obama strongly condemned those who would deny the Holocaust, many American supporters of Israel said they resented what they viewed as comparing it to the plight of the Palestinians.

“I understand Palestinian suffering, it is terrible,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “But it is not on the other hand to the Holocaust.”

news20090605wp

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

[World]
Obama Calls for Fresh Start With Muslims
Drawing on Islam, Speech in Cairo Electrifies Many In Arab Mideast

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 5, 2009

CAIRO, June 4 -- President Obama delivered a direct appeal to the Islamic world Thursday for a "new beginning" with the United States, acknowledging historical mistakes made over centuries in the name of culture and religion that he said are now overshadowed by shared interests.

The 55-minute address electrified many Muslims in the Arab Middle East. The president celebrated the cultural, scientific and intellectual achievements of Islam to the delight of the audience inside the domed hall at Cairo University where he spoke -- and beyond.

Using spare language and a measured explanatory tone, the country's first African American president, whose Kenyan family has deep Islamic roots, drew on history, biography, moral principles and mutual interests to dispel cultural stereotypes that divide Christians from Muslims, Arabs from Jews, and the United States from many in the Islamic faith. Seemingly small but symbolically important gestures by Obama drew warm applause, including his use of the phrase "May peace be upon him" after a reference to the prophet Muhammad. Speaking in Arabic, he offered the traditional greeting of "May peace be upon you" on behalf of the American people, again to applause.

As he urged leaders in the Muslim world to "place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party," a man shouted, "Barack Obama, we love you!" The president responded simply, "Thank you," and moved quickly back into his remarks. At the end of the speech he received a standing ovation, and some in the crowd chanted, "O-bam-a, O-bam-a."

"Egypt also has suffered from terrorism," said Ahmed el-Shoura, a 21-year-old political science student at Cairo University who attended the speech. "The question is, how do you deal with it -- through the military or something else? Obama showed today that he understands this difference and how to manage it."

Obama quoted John Adams, the Koran, the Bible and the Talmud to argue that "as long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity."

"This cycle of suspicion and discord must end," Obama said. "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition."

The highly anticipated speech drew about 3,000 invited guests, including 500 journalists, to Cairo University and an audience of tens of millions more looking in over national television networks, social-networking Web sites, and instant-messaging services set up by the administration in a variety of languages. Obama pledged during his presidential campaign to reach out directly to America's rivals if elected, and the speech Thursday marked his most high-profile attempt to change the direction of U.S. relations with Islamic nations, ties that traced a steady downward arc through the Bush administration.

The president was at times intimate and at times scolding, criticizing Islamic countries and his own for allowing differences to be exploited to violent ends "by a small but potent minority of Muslims." In a flat, angry phrase, he told the audience that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were "not opinions to be debated" but "facts to be dealt with."

As he spoke, the Arab satellite network al-Jazeera aired a new message from Osama bin Laden, urging Muslims to "brace yourselves for a long war against the world's infidels and their agents."

Drawing at times on his father's Islamic heritage and his childhood in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, Obama made his own biography the starting point for a new U.S. relationship with Islam. He nostalgically recalled hearing the call to prayer "at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk" as a boy in Indonesia, biographical details he rarely mentioned during the campaign, when his Muslim family tree was seen as suspect by some voters. He declared his Christian faith Thursday near the start of his remarks.

At the same time, Obama spoke to Muslims about their most heartfelt sources of anger in words and phrases they would use, such as the term "occupation" to describe Israel's presence in the Palestinian territories. He used similar language in his remarks on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the legacy of harsh American interrogation methods and the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He criticized Iran, Israel, the Palestinians and the United States, but he stopped short of apologizing for past U.S. policies as American conservatives warned he would.

Much of his mission was to convince Muslims that the United States is "not, and never will be, at war with Islam," reiterating a statement he made in Turkey two months ago. He described the rich role Muslims have played in American life since the country's founding. He noted that Thomas Jefferson kept a copy of the Koran in his personal library, and he told the audience of professors, political and religious leaders, students, and others that "there is a mosque in every state of our union."

"Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire," he said. "The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known."

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, reviled by the political opposition here for his iron grasp on the media and the security forces he often deploys against them, welcomed Obama with a lavish ceremony at the Qubba Palace, where the two discussed Middle East peace efforts and Iran's nuclear program. They later walked around the 13th-century Sultan Hassan Mosque and toured the pyramids.

In his speech, one of the longest he has given and the centerpiece of his five-day trip through the Middle East and Europe, Obama used stronger and more specific language than he has previously on some of the most contested issues in the Muslim world.

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obama said: "America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable." Citing the slaughter of 6 million Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, Obama said that "threatening Israel with destruction, or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews, is deeply wrong," a tacit reference to Iran's government. The audience did not applaud.

At the same time, Obama said, "it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland."

"They endure the daily humiliations -- large and small -- that come with occupation," he said, using a term he did not use after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month. "So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable."

Obama criticized Israel's policy of building in lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, saying "the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." He said that "it is time for these settlements to stop," while calling on the Palestinians to "abandon violence."

"For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation" he said. "But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America 's founding."

Obama acknowledged the "controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years," but he stated clearly for an audience that included some who oppose Mubarak's autocratic administration that "governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure."

"No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other," Obama said. But he added that "I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things," citing freedom of speech, self-government and the rule of law, among other principles.

"He was very focused and mentioned many critical elements to us," said Saneya Mohammed Rizk, 58, a Cairo University professor of community health nursing, her hair wrapped tightly in a scarf.

In addressing women's rights in his speech, Obama said to applause: "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality."

"I believe he will be able to accomplish this goal," Rizk said of Obama's ambition to begin again with the Islamic world. "He has the intent to cooperate with us, and that is good."

news20090605gdn1

[News > Environment] from [The Guardian]

[Environment > Farming]
The bizarre revival of crop circles - and advice on how to make your own
For a while there it looked as if crop circles were dying out. Had people lost interest in making them - or did the aliens stop coming? Now the circles are back, bigger and bolder than ever

John Vidal
The Guardian, Friday 5 June 2009
Article history

Adrian Potts, landlord of the Barge Inn outside Pewsey in Wiltshire, was pretty cheerful yesterday morning. The pub, on the Avon Kennet canal, is the centre of the British crop circle industry and each year, starting in early May and running for about four months, circle fans (and circle-makers) turn up from round the world. The backroom of the pub has circles on the ceiling, news of the latest formations is posted, and the chat revolves around the images that have been appearing for more than 20 years in the fields of southern England.

Potts has sold many pints on the back of crop circles, but for the last few years the Barge has been quiet. "In the late 1990s and through to 2002, [the crop circle trade] was massive. On a sunny day we'd have people here by 10am. But it dropped off and the last few years have been dreadful. The last two summers have been terrible - both in terms of weather and of circles," he says.

There are many explanations as to why the circles barely appeared in Wiltshire. The suicide of one of the chief circle-makers in 2006 and the death of two others, as well as boredom in the ranks of pranksters, have all been cited. Mostly, though, it is thought that heavy rain and high winds have made crops hard to handle and have deterred aliens and humans alike.

But just as the demise of the peculiarly English rural tradition was predicted, the circles - which can take the shape of DNA structures, scorpions, snowflakes, helices, webs, knots and complex geometric patterns - have abruptly returned in force.

The 2009 season began in April with an unprecedented six formations. The first was a series of simple circles in a field of rape; then came a 350ft yin-yang symbol in a barley field near Devizes. Three ambitious formations were reported over the last bank holiday and on Tuesday this week a giant 600ft jellyfish was found in a barley field on Bill and Sally Ann Spence's farm near Kingston Coombes in Oxfordshire.

As of yesterday, there have been more than 20 major formations spotted. Potts, who could claim to be something of an expert on the subject, has a hunch that this will be a good summer for circles: "The crops are not true enough yet. Weather permitting, I'd say the best ones will start now. In the next two weeks there should be a burst of activity."

Francine Blake, who founded the Wiltshire crop circle study group in 1995, shares Potts's optimism. She and other self-appointed investigators identify, measure, photograph, and report on all formations. They go circle-spotting at night in likely places, send crop stalks for chemical analysis in university laboratories (yes, really), and have more than 6,000 crop circles on their database.

She was excited by the jellyfish: "It's fantastic. When we look at it, it's got seven small circles, or moon shapes. It's describing the magnetic field of Earth," she says. She too is optimistic about the summer ahead: "This year started much earlier. There's one every day now. It is very intense already. I have never seen such complex designs in rape in all my years of studying this subject. Usually, the season starts with a nice little pattern, a tri-petal flower or such like, one or maybe two in rape if we are lucky. But this year they are big, complex and numerous right from the start."

"What does this mean?" Blake asks on her blog. "It means that we have to take note that something extraordinary is happening. Crop circles are not normal occurrences, they do not fit in too well with our usual beliefs. This of course is not to everyone's liking - it is not easy to face the unknown."

From this you may gather that Blake eschews more prosaic explanations for the circles. In fact the professional circle world divides neatly. One hemisphere is occupied by questors, spiritualists and paranormalists, such as Blake; the other by makers, tricksters and artists.

The first group can tell from post-holes, foot tracks, and other clear signs that the majority are made by humans. But they argue that many crop circles - perhaps 20% - defy rational explanation. Their research suggests that "true circles" are created in a very few minutes by a blast of energy. According to some, the crop cells become swollen and are bent down at the nodes, or joints. Others say the cellular structure of the plants is affected and that the composition of the soil is altered. A few circles, they say, display a phenomenal level of complexity and would be difficult to draw on paper, let alone in a field after dark.

When they cannot explain what they see, they turn to UFOs, aliens, symbols, alchemy, ancient wisdom, sacred geometry, whirlwinds, the fingerprints of God or unknown "entities" to explain what they say are messages from extra-terrestrials or signs and portents of the times.

The second group is made up of artists and pranksters. What began in the late 1970s with two Wiltshire watercolour artists, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, going into the fields for a laugh to create simple circles to tease those who believe in UFOs, was picked up by London-based artists and sculptors in the mid-1990s.

One group, now calling themselves the Circlemakers, includes situationist artists Rod Dickinson and John Lundberg, the sculptor Gavin Turk, Rob Irving and others. They say on their website that they latched on to the circle believers, created images from reading the same books that the believers read, and that they now team up with other teams of circle-makers to create ambitious formations. Together they say they have made crop circles an essential part of our popular culture, part of the myth of the English countryside.

"We weren't pushing paint around on a canvas that sat in a sterile gallery environment; we were quite literally forming and shaping the culture that surrounded us," Lundberg said in 2004. "We are the heretics, calling their belief system into question by the mere fact that we exist and talk about our circle-making activities. Sometimes this spills over into threatening behaviour on the part of the believer. We've had potatoes stuck up our exhausts, wing mirrors ripped off of our cars, and threats of physical violence, in person, over the phone, via email and through our letterboxes."

For a long time the Circlemakers kept their identities secret but they now openly claim to have made many hundreds of circles. However, they play the game that there is some inexplicable force out there by not claiming to have made them all, and never revealing which particular ones they created.

Those in the other camp are adamant the Circlemakers are destructive. "They used to call themselves Team Satan. They live in south London and it takes them days to make them even in daylight. They have nothing to do with the phenomenon," says Blake.

The other reason why there may have been fewer circles in recent years is that leading circle-makers are growing up, and can now command big money. Formations are now regularly commissioned by multinational companies, advertising agencies and the media. Nike, Pepsi, BBC1, Greenpeace, Sky, Weetabix, Big Brother, Mitsubishi, Thompson Holidays and O2 have all paid circle-makers tens of thousands of pounds for a night's work. They have been made for pop videos, corporate parties, TV dramas and ads. The Sun paid for one to publicise its campaign to bring the Olympics to Britain.

From being genuinely intriguing, amusing and innocent folk art, the formations have become worth millions of pounds to the Wiltshire tourist industry. Farmers, too, can make thousands of pounds, either in compensation from companies wanting to have their logos plastered in their fields, or from charging people £2 each to walk in a circled field. One farmer near Stonehenge is said to have made about £30,000 by charging tourists to visit circles on his land.

The "believers" also make money from conferences, books, magazines, and calendars, lectures and sightseeing tours. "A good aerial picture of a sophisticated circle picked up by TV or the press can make tens of thousands of pounds," says the head of one picture agency, who asked not to be named. "Everyone is at it."

Of course some farmers are furious to find their crops flattened. They do tend to stand up again, however, after they've been bent over; normally this is enough to smooth most feathers. And no one is suggesting that this year's circles have been commissioned by tourist boards, or have been sponsored by corporations. But it's more than likely that someone will make money from the photographs, the field, or the design of these latest additions to the oeuvre.

Blake dismisses any idea that the phenomenon is driven by art or by money. "Something important is happening. It's raining shapes every day now. Nothing man-made could be like this. That's why people can't get their heads round it."

CONTINUED ON news20090605gdn2

news20090605gdn2

[News > Environment] from [The Guardian]

[Environment > Farming]
The bizarre revival of crop circles - and advice on how to make your own
For a while there it looked as if crop circles were dying out. Had people lost interest in making them - or did the aliens stop coming? Now the circles are back, bigger and bolder than ever

John Vidal
The Guardian, Friday 5 June 2009
Article history

CONTINUED FROM news20090605gdn1

How to make a crop circle
• Prepare a detailed drawing. Keep it simple. Circles and triangles are relatively easy to make. Advanced curves, spirals, straight lines, fractals and pictures can take a long time to mark out and work.

• You will need helpers; decide who will do what and in what order the image needs to be constructed.

• You will need a marked rope or a 100ft measuring tape to mark out the site, and a foot-wide wooden board about 4ft long to do the flattening. The board should have ropes attached to each end so you can loop it over your neck.

• Ask permission from a farmer and be prepared to pay compensation. A crop circle can cause hundreds of pounds of damage.

• Wait for a moonlit night when it is dry. Enter the field by the tramlines, or marks left by tractors.

• Mark out the field carefully. Some circle makers use sticks or poles but these can leave tell-tale holes of human intervention.

• Put the rope round your neck, with the board on the ground in front of you; press down with your right foot, move it forward, press it down again, and so on.

• Leave the field the same way you entered.

• Hide your tracks.


[Environment > Climate Change]
Barack Obama seeks US-Chinese deal on global warming
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 June 2009 17.57 BST
Article history

The Obama administration said yesterday that it was pursuing a joint US-Chinese deal on action against global warming to help push the rest of the world towards a global agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Todd Stern, the US climate change envoy, said a deal between the two countries – the world's largest polluters – would boost efforts to secure a crucial accord to avoid dangerous climate change. Those UN talks are just six months away.

"China may not be the alpha and omega of the international negotiations, but it is close," Stern said in a speech to the Centre for American Progress, a liberal thinktank. "No deal will be possible if we don't find a way forward with China."

Stern's remarks represent the clearest acknowledgement yet that the Obama administration has taken on board a blueprint for US-Chinese action to address global warming. The plan is the product of secret back-channel negotiations between US and Chinese officials that were revealed in the Guardian last month.

Stern, who leaves for China on Saturday, will be accompanied by two experts who were involved in those back-channel efforts, and are now officials in the Obama administration. Obama's science adviser, John Holdren, visited China last year and David Sandalow, now an energy department official, produced a report advocating partnership with China.

Stern said the US was also seeking deals with other major economies such as India, Indonesia and Brazil.

The envoy made no suggestion that the US would seek a commitment from China to put a firm limit on its greenhouse gas emissions. That strategy, which could prove politically unpopular at home,appears modelled on the back channel talks which sought to build goodwill with China by finding potential areas of collaboration.

Instead of negotiations about caps, Stern's comments suggest he sees that the key components of a deal with China involving technical co-operation. He said that would include collaboration in developing new technologies for industrial efficiency, expanding the use of solar power and– perhaps most importantly from the Chinese point of view – developing techniques for carbon capture and storage. That would enable China to clean up its many coal-powered energy plants.

He also said there was scope for joint effort on improving building efficiency and developing electric vehicles, where the Chinese have made a big push.

China's official position still demands from the US a 40% cut in emissions by 2020, far deeper than anything being currently considered.

Stern played down prospects of reaching a deal this week. "I do not expect to have a big agreement to wave around at the end of the trip, but this trip is one piece of what is going to be an extended interaction with the Chinese," Stern said. "The vision we have is of a clean energy and climate partnership bilaterally with the Chinese."


[Environment]
Sony Ericsson unveils 'green' handsets that cut carbon footprint by 15%
Recycled plastics and reductions in packaging and manufacturing solvents make handsets more environmentally friendly, says mobile phone maker

Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 June 2009 16.46 BST
Article history

Mobile phone company Sony Ericsson will unveil two "green" handsets tomorrow with a carbon footprint 15% lower than current models. By cutting packaging, using recycled plastics and reducing the use of solvents in the paints, the electronics company claims to have made the handsets more environmentally friendly.

The new phones, the C901 GreenHeart and the Naite, part of what Sony Ericsson says will be a revised portfolio of environmentally friendly phones to be rolled out in the next two years. It is also part of the company's wider mission to cut 20% of its total carbon emissions by 2015.

"Sony Ericsson has worked continuously to become an industry leader in the area of removing harmful substances from the core of its phones and in creating industry leading energy efficiency chargers," said Dick Komiyama, president of Sony Ericsson. ."

Sony Ericsson sells around 100m phones a year globally and wants to have a series of green improvements in all its phones by 2011. More than 31m phones were bought in the UK in 2008.

Most of the CO2 reductions in the two new handsets come from a significant reduction in the amount of paper that comes with the phone. The packaging is smaller and the user manual has been replaced with an electronic version contained on the phone itself. "The major benefit to the environment is the reduction of paper weight in transportation," said Mats Pellback-Scharp, head of the corporate sustainability office at Sony Ericsson. "Compared to the same product from the year before, we save 90% of the paper shipped to each customer. That's 3kg of CO2, 15% of the carbon footprint of the complete phone."

For older phones from the company, the box and manual weighed in at 550g. This has been reduced now to 42g and means that, more than 1m phones, Sony Ericsson will save 350 tonnes of paper, around 13,000 trees or 7,500 cubic metres of wood.

Inside the box, there are no plastic bags to wrap the various components and 80% of the hard plastics used on the phone are recycled. The company has also halved the amount of solvents needed for the paints by using water-soluble inks.

Gerrard Fisher, programme manager for sustainable products at the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) said: "This is an encouraging development and we are seeing an exciting new trend in the mobile phone market, with Nokia's Evolve phone and many Motorola phones also incorporating recycled plastics. We welcome the introduction and promotion of hi-tech products with recycled content in the marketplace. It is good news that companies are considering the development of life cycle impacts, as well as promoting innovation that reduces the environmental impact of product packaging."

He added that Wrap was about to start work assessing the life cycles of mobile phones, to help identify areas where the impacts of these products could be reduced.

The new C901 will be released later this month and the Naite will come out in September. The latter phone will also come with a new low-power charged that operates at 30 milliwatts (mW), where currently the chargers are rated at 100mW.

Overall, Sony Ericsson also announced a commitment to reduce the company's carbon footprint by 20% by 2015. By the same date, it will also reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 15% from the full life cycle of its products, including mining, production and use by consumers.

The company also wants to increase its recycling scheme which takes used phones from consumers for use in recycling. It wants to collect one million phones every year from 2011.

Iza Kruszewska, toxics campaigner at Greenpeace UK welcomed the new phones from Sony Ericsson and said that the company had a good record in reducing its use of harmful chemicals. But she said the company should increase the number of its recycling points around the world. "They do mention their ambition to increase the number of collection points and take-back schemes they have globally but they are well behind Nokia on this."

news20090605slt

[Today's Paper] from [Slate Magazine]

Obama: Salaam Aleikum

By Joshua Kucera
Posted Friday, June 5, 2009, at 2:38 AM ET

President Obama spoke to the Muslim world in a heavily watched speech in Cairo, and it leads almost all the papers. In the words of the Washington Post (WP), it was "a direct appeal to the Islamic world Thursday for a 'new beginning' with the United States, acknowledging historical mistakes made over centuries in the name of culture and religion that he said are now overshadowed by shared interests." The reviews were largely positive and acknowledged Obama's ambition in giving the speech: The New York Times (NYT) called the address a "bold overture" and "the riskiest of his presidency." The Post said it "electrified many Muslims in the Arab Middle East" and the Los Angeles Times (LAT) called it "sweeping" and said it got "support from unexpected voices, such as members of the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip and Islamist intellectuals in Pakistan." Only the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) seemed unimpressed, saying Obama "waded into the heart of the Middle East conflict" and "chided" Israel. USA Today (USAT) fronts the speech but leads instead with advance word that a Federal Aviation Administration report will show that one in three U.S. airports have not taken legally mandated action to protect planes from birds.

Obama seemed to have the Cairo crowd at hello; his greeting of "salaam aleikum" (literally, peace be upon you) was greeted with applause and cheers by the audience at the university hall where the speech was delivered. The speech was widely praised by Muslims for its skillful use of Koran quotes, omission of the word "terrorist" and acknowledgement of U.S. mistakes toward the Muslim world. The NYT goes so far as to say it was structured "almost like a Friday Prayer" and the Post has good reporting on how Obama was able to achieve that level of facility with Muslim rhetorical practice, by meeting several times with American Muslim groups.

Some Jews, however, took offense at the moral equivalence implied by Obama's juxtaposition of the Holocaust with the suffering of Palestinians today, a comparison one right-wing Israeli parliamentarian called "a shocking parallel," according to the Post. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement about the speech that the Journal called "restrained," but also quoted a left-wing Israeli arguing that "better Arab-American relations may actually prove very useful for Israeli national security."

The speech was short on specifics, but the LAT, in an analysis by its Cairo bureau chief, says that is how it should be done: "[T]he speech was delivered the way you introduce yourself here to neighbors as a newcomer to town: explaining where you're from, your passions, your dreams, but not delving too deeply into prickly things. That unveiling comes later, during ensuing weeks, months and years." (Similarly, the same analysis suggests that the way Obama mentioned American mistakes, such as the Iraq war, also worked: "Saving face is a cherished Arab virtue, and a man who can keep face while listing his mistakes is respected.")

The Post and NYT both run front-page stories on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's past. The Times finds, by interviewing several people she worked with early in her career, finds that she rose through the ranks through her own merit and ambition and a few mentors rather than through the patronage of party or political bosses. And the Post analyzes several speeches, released by the White House yesterday, and notes repeated references to her Latina heritage, including several versions of the "wise Latina" line that has been the focal point of conservative opposition to her nomination. (The NYT stuffs a similar story.) The Journal, meanwhile, finds that if Sotomayor is confirmed she appears likely to ally with the Supreme Court's conservatives on criminal justice cases, based on a review of some of her key rulings as a lower court judge.

The NYT, LAT and Post front news that the Securities and Exchange Commission has accused the former CEO of Countrywide Financial, once the country's biggest mortgage lender, of fraud and insider trading. The Times calls the case "the most prominent against an executive involved in the mortgage crisis." The SEC released several emails implicating the CEO; in one he writes of one of Countrywide's offerings: "In all my years in the business I have never seen a more toxic product."

Also in the news: the social pressure is now to show how frugal you are rather than to conspicuously consume, the Post says in a front-page recession trend story. The Post also fronts another episode in its ongoing investigation of Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat accused of various forms of extreme pork-barrel politics; this time it's allegations that a defense contractor with close ties to Murtha is using government money to pay for personal expenses. The NYT profiles a new charter school in New York that is paying teachers an unteacherly salary of $125,000 a year, after assembling the "dream team" of accomplished educators found in a nationwide search. North Dakota is a rare bright spot in the nation's economy, with state budget surpluses and the lowest unemployment rate in the U.S., the Journal finds. The Journal also reports that China's excess of young men is leading to a rise in marriage scams in which women demand a high bride price (the custom in rural China) and then run off with the money after the wedding. And the LAT has, in its Column One section, a good profile of a Colorado abortion doctor and friend of the slain George Tiller.