news20090629BRT

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
June 29


[On This Day] from [Britannica]
June 29



[Today's Word] from [Dr. Kazuo Iwata]
June 29
It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance.
If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?
T. Huxley (died this day in 1895)
（重要なのは、だれが正しいかではなく、何が正しいかということである。
もし生物識が危険なら、危険を脱するほどの知識の持主がどこにいるか？）

news20090629JT

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, June 29, 2009
Aso, Lee confirm cooperation on N. Korea
By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

Prime Minister Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak agreed Sunday to intensify joint efforts to stop Pyongyang's nuclear programs and urged North Korea to abide by a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning its recent nuclear test.

Lee arrived in Tokyo on Sunday for a day of talks as part of the shuttle diplomacy designed to build closer relations between the two nations, after bilateral ties soured during the tenure of Lee's predecessor, the late Roh Moo Hyun.

"Japan, South Korea and the U.S. must work in coordination," Aso said.

"We must unite and properly handle the matter" to get Pyongyang to drop its nuclear programs and become part of the international community, Lee replied at the outset of the meeting as reporters watched.

North Korea has remained confrontational, announcing it will proceed with its uranium enrichment program for military use, even though the U.N. has condemned the hermit state's May 25 nuclear test.

Sunday's meeting was the eighth the two leaders have had since Aso took office last September, with a Foreign Ministry official describing the frequent shuttle diplomacy as a sign of a "mature partnership."

"This was not a visit to resolve a pending matter, but an occasion for the two heads of state to speak frankly," the official said.

Even so, responding to North Korea's belligerence topped the agenda.

The two sides agreed that implementing the U.N. resolution is a vital step in facing the threat.

Aso and Lee exchanged opinions on holding a meeting with the U.S., China and Russia to discuss the future of the six-party talks, which have been at a stalemate since Pyongyang's withdrawal earlier this year.

They also agreed to consider arranging a meeting of the five countries apart from North Korea to explore ways to break the diplomatic impasse, Aso said.

"North Korea's nuclear and missile issues are serious threats to the security of the region," Aso said during a joint news conference after the meeting.

"We also agreed that collaboration with China is imperative" to urge the North to abandon its nuclear programs, Aso said.

He said Japan and South Korea will hold a working-level meeting Wednesday to revive talks on a free-trade agreement, which have been stalled since 2004 due to disagreements on trade barriers.

"A free-trade agreement is in line with the global trend," Lee said. "There is a chance that we could reach an agreement sooner than expected."

According to a Foreign Ministry official, Aso and Lee avoided touching on thorny historical disputes during their closed-door meeting, and they did not discuss the territorial dispute over Takeshima Island, known as Dokdo in South Korea.

The officials said Aso asked Lee to support Japan's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Lee replied he would relay the message to the parties concerned in his country, adding it would be favorable for South Korea if the Games are held in Japan.

During their news conference, Lee said he asked Aso to grant Korean residents in Japan the right to vote in local elections.

Many permanent residents of Korean descent, mostly descendants of Koreans who came to Japan before or during World War II and had Japanese citizenship, have long demanded that they should be allowed to vote in local elections while retaining their postwar Korean citizenship.

"Considering their historical background, I requested active cooperation from Prime Minister Aso," Lee said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, June 29, 2009
Finding U.S. landing site faces delay

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) A candidate site for a permanent facility in Japan for U.S. warplanes to practice landing on aircraft carriers will not be selected by the primary deadline of July, according to Japanese and U.S. sources.

The training is currently being conducted on a provisional basis on Iwojima, or Iwoto as it is now named, by U.S. naval aircraft stationed at the Atsugi base in Kanagawa Prefecture. Iwoto is about 1,200 km from Honshu.

The May 2006 agreement between Japan and the United States on the realignment of U.S. military forces specified that a site for the permanent training facility should be selected by next month or at the earliest possible date thereafter.

According to the sources, Tokyo already notified Washington of the delay when it turned down a U.S. request for a site to be selected within 180 km of the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture. The Defense Ministry and the Maritime Self-Defense Force, which are responsible for the project, have been trying to select a site from a broader area.

Because aircraft activities, including night landing practice, cause serious noise pollution, the selection process for the facility has been hard going.

The Japanese government considered Okurokami Island in Hiroshima Prefecture, Mage Island in Kagoshima Prefecture and the vicinity of Sukumo, Kochi Prefecture, as candidate sites, but the plans were aborted after strong protests.

The U.S. side appears to be unhappy with the delay, according to the sources, because it could affect the schedule for relocating naval aircraft from Atsugi to Iwakuni.

An official in the U.S. Department of Defense reiterated the importance of the training facility and said the selection of a site is a basic premise for the aircraft relocation from Atsugi to Iwakuni.

According to a Defense Ministry source, the training facility issue is considered one of the key but hidden obstacles to the realignment of the U.S. forces in Japan.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, June 29, 2009
LDP hoping to get bills passed fast, call election

(Kyodo News) The Liberal Democratic Party sought cooperation Sunday from opposition parties to get key bills through the Diet as soon as possible.

Senior opposition leaders responded positively, which is expected to make it easier for Prime Minister Taro Aso to dissolve the Lower House soon and call a general election.

"We want to debate important bills promptly," LDP Secretary General Hiroyuki Hosoda said on an NHK talk show.

Hosoda was referring to a bill on inspections of North Korean cargo vessels, an amendment to the Organ Transplant Law, and a bill to provide help for people not yet recognized as victims of the Minamata mercury-poisoning disease.

Later in the day, Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama said the DPJ is willing to end deliberations quickly on the transplant and Minamata bills, and his party "will not aimlessly prolong the deliberations" on the ship inspection bill.

Aso told Hosoda on Saturday to try to get the bills passed soon, which was widely interpreted as indicating Aso's intention to dissolve the Lower House in mid-July for a general election.

Hosoda said on NHK that passing key bills will not necessarily be a condition for dissolving the chamber, but added, "It is the minimum responsibility of the Diet to settle (debates on the key bills)."

news20090629LAT

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

[Top News]
Honduran president ousted in coup; replacement is named
The head of the Honduran Congress, a foe of President Manuel Zelaya, is named acting president. Global outcry against the coup is growing.
By Tracy Wilkinson and Alex Renderos
June 29, 2009

Reporting from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Mexico City -- In a throwback to Latin America's unstable past, the Honduran army ousted President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday, sending the leftist leader into exile as a hastily convened Congress replaced him with its speaker, one of Zelaya's fiercest enemies.

The coup was a brazen blow to the region's seemingly solid move to democratic rule, the first such military action in Central America in 16 years. It followed weeks of confrontation between Zelaya and conservative forces in Honduras that came to a head over possible changes to the constitution. Zelaya was seized from his home, still in his pajamas, hours ahead of a nonbinding vote on the reforms, including one that could allow presidential reelection in Honduras.

"This has been a brutal kidnapping," Zelaya said later Sunday in a news conference at the airport in San Jose, the Costa Rican capital.

He described how masked soldiers burst into his home before dawn, firing warning shots, shouting and pointing a gun at his chest. He was hauled away to a Honduran air force jet, he said, and flown to Costa Rica.

Zelaya declared that he remained the president of Honduras and vowed to finish out the last six months of his term.


"They have betrayed our country," Zelaya said of the coup plotters. "They have betrayed democracy."

The military action came hours ahead of a referendum in which Zelaya was hoping to gauge public opinion on proposed changes to the constitution, including one that would end presidential term limits.

Army leaders, as well as the Congress, the Supreme Court and election officials had opposed the national vote, calling it illegal. In response, Zelaya fired the nation's top military commander and ignored a Supreme Court order to reinstate him.

Zelaya's foes suspected he was seeking to amend the constitution to stay in power, as other Latin American leaders have done. But Zelaya, prone to fiery rhetoric, has said he is not interested in reelection.

Condemnation of the coup from world leaders -- including President Obama and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez -- was swift.

Obama said he was "deeply concerned" by the developments and called on "all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms [and] the rule of law."

"Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference," he said.

Chavez, a close Zelaya ally, said the coup was "a troglodyte act of the 19th century."

The coup left Honduras, one of the region's poorest countries, awash in tense intrigue. As Zelaya was in Costa Rica lashing out at his foes, an official at the Honduran Congress read out a purported resignation letter from the president. Asked about it in Costa Rica, Zelaya said it was "completely false" and evidence of a "broader conspiracy."

Then the Congress voted to replace Zelaya for actions that it said had "polarized" the nation. The vote was unanimous, but it was unclear how many legislators were in attendance. Some waved copies of the constitution and chanted "Long live Honduras!"

The Congress swore in as new president Roberto Micheletti, who was the head of the law-making body and a bitter foe of Zelaya.

As news of the coup spread, angry Zelaya supporters took to the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa. "Mel! Mel! Don't go!" they shouted, using the president's nickname. But large protests did not materialize. Troops moved through the city and surrounded the presidential palace and other government buildings. Some radio and television stations were knocked off the air and electricity was cut in some areas.

Honduras' new rulers imposed an overnight curfew late Sunday, forcing citizens to stay indoors after dark. One leftist legislator reportedly was killed as troops tried to arrest him.

Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas, speaking to a television network, called on the public to "fight in the streets for the president to return to Honduras." She said, "We will resist until he returns."

Later, Venezuela claimed that Rodas, along with its ambassador and those of Cuba and Nicaragua, was briefly detained by Honduran troops. The report could not be independently verified.

U.S. officials had been bracing for upheaval in Honduras. On Friday, the State Department expressed concern over "the breakdown in the political dialogue among Honduran politicians" over the vote on constitutional reform.

But within Honduran institutions, there was support for Zelaya's removal. Sunday evening, after being sworn in, Micheletti gave a speech in which he said his rise to power was "completely legal." Zelaya's removal will allow divisive wounds to heal, he said. The army was following orders from the Supreme Court, he added, to cheers from his supporters.

The events Sunday seemed to have come out of a past many thought long dead. Latin America suffered army takeovers for decades, into the '60s and '70s, but had since moved into an increasingly stable period of civilian democratic rule. In Honduras, the army overthrew elected presidents in 1963 and 1972 and held on to power until 1981.

"This coup is regrettable, not just for Honduran democracy but for Central America and the entire hemisphere," said Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to end conflict in the region. He spoke alongside Zelaya in a show of support.

"We thought Central American democracy had consolidated sufficiently to avoid this," Arias said. "It is sad to see some civilians applaud a coup just because they disagree with policies. This has shown us that democratic institutions in Central America are still fragile . . . vulnerable."

The previous military coups often had U.S. backing or blessing. Perhaps recalling that history, Zelaya on Sunday speculated that the U.S. might have had a hand in his ouster. "If the United States is not behind this coup, then the plotters won't last 48 hours in power," he said.

U.S. officials denied involvement.

Honduras was for years a faithful ally to the United States. In the 1980s, Honduras lent its territory to U.S. and U.S.-backed forces fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government in neighboring Nicaragua. But as U.S. interest in the region waned after the Cold War and crises elsewhere demanded attention, Honduras joined many other Latin American countries that moved further to the left and away from Washington's sphere of influence.

Zelaya is one of a new crop of leftist presidents, such as Chavez and Ecuador's Rafael Correa. Zelaya led efforts to get the Organization of American States to lift restrictions on Cuba during the group's summit in Honduras last month.

The coup was the first in Central America since the Guatemalan army in 1993 forced President Jorge Serrano to resign after he dissolved Congress and attempted to suspend the constitution.

news20090629NYT

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

[P0litics]
Obama Opposes Trade Sanctions in Climate Bill
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: June 28, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Sunday praised the energy bill passed by the House late last week as an “extraordinary first step,” but he spoke out against a provision that would impose trade penalties on countries that do not accept limits on global warming pollution.

“At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade,” Mr. Obama said, “I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there.”

He added, “I think there may be other ways of doing it than with a tariff approach.”

The passage of the House bill on Friday night was an important, if tentative, victory for the president, becoming the first time either chamber of Congress had approved a mandatory ceiling on the gases linked to global warming.

Mr. Obama, hoping to build momentum in the Senate after the narrow victory in the House, delayed the start of a Sunday golf game to speak to a small group of reporters in the Oval Office.

He acknowledged that the initial targets for reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases set by the House bill were quite modest and would probably not satisfy the governments of other countries or many environmental groups. But he said he hoped to build on those early targets in fashioning a more robust program in the future as part of his administration’s efforts to move the nation from an economy based on fossil fuels toward one built on renewable energy sources.

Mr. Obama predicted that similar energy legislation would face a difficult slog through the Senate and require months of tough negotiations and additional compromises. The horse-trading and vote-buying that helped House leaders secure a 219-to-212 victory will be magnified in the Senate, where several powerful committee leaders are already asserting authority and Democratic moderates hold more power than their counterparts in the House.

Mr. Obama set no timetable for Senate action but exhorted its leadership to take the House bill as a benchmark and “seize the day.”

The president used the interview to put the House vote in the context of his broader efforts to modernize the American economy by shifting to cleaner and more efficient forms of energy.

He said the House bill was a “comprehensive approach” that included a cap-and-trade program to limit heat-trapping gas emissions, incentives for new energy efficiency measures and support for wind and solar energy as well as nuclear power and so-called clean coal technology.

He said that those measures, combined with the administration’s new automobile mileage standards and stimulus spending on research and home weatherization, represented a sea change in American energy policy.

“I think it’s fair to say that over the first six months we’ve seen more action on shifting ourselves away from dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels than at any time in several decades,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Obama linked the energy and health care fights, saying that major revisions in both were necessary because “everybody knows what we’re doing isn’t working.”

“The status quo is unacceptable,” he said.

As he has done in the health care discussions, Mr. Obama refused to deliver definitive judgments on specific provisions of the energy bill, leaving the legislative wrangling to members of Congress. But he said his bottom line for energy and climate change legislation included meaningful reductions in heat-trapping gas emissions, strong incentives for energy efficiency, protections for consumers and businesses against spikes in energy costs, and deficit neutrality.

“If it meets those broad criteria,” he said, “then it’s a bill I want to embrace.”

The House bill contains a provision, inserted in the middle of the night before the vote Friday, that requires the president, starting in 2020, to impose a “border adjustment” — or tariff — on certain goods from countries that do not act to limit their global warming emissions. The president can waive the tariffs only if he receives explicit permission from Congress.

The provision was added to secure the votes of Rust Belt lawmakers who were wavering on the bill because of fears of job losses in heavy industry.

In the floor debate on the bill Friday, one of its authors, Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said, “As we act, we can and must ensure that the U.S. energy-intensive industries are not placed at a competitive disadvantage by nations that have not made a similar commitment to reduce greenhouse gases.”

In the interview on Sunday, Mr. Obama said American industries like steel, aluminum, paper and glass had legitimate concerns about competition from developing nations. But he warned that trade sanctions based on the extent to which other countries curbed carbon dioxide emissions might be illegal and counterproductive.

Mr. Obama has sometimes sent mixed signals about his attitude toward free trade. In the Democratic presidential primary, he was fiercely critical of several free trade agreements with China, Caribbean countries and Mexico for failing to include strict enough environmental standards. He argued that the United States should threaten to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement to renegotiate protections for the environment as well as workers’ rights.

But as president, Mr. Obama has not made a priority of renegotiating Nafta or other trade agreements. And he has always indicated that though he favors adjusting some rules, he supports the principle of free trade.

In the interview, Mr. Obama had few words of comfort for those who may have taken a political risk by voting for the House climate change bill, and no threats for the 44 House Democrats who defied their leadership to oppose it.

“I think those 44 Democrats are sensitive to the immediate political climate of uncertainty around this issue,” Mr. Obama said. “They’ve got to run every two years, and I completely understand that.”

Many of the Democrats who voted against the legislation represent districts that rely heavily on coal for electricity and manufacturing for jobs.

Mr. Obama said the House bill contained transitional assistance for these regions.

But he expressed scorn for the Republicans who fought the bill in the House. He noted that some of them had predicted political doom for those who voted for it, recalling the 1993 battle over an energy tax that failed and helped Republicans gain control of the House a year later.

Those Republicans “are 16 years behind the times,” he said, comparing their position to that of Republican leaders in the energy and health care debates of the early Clinton years.

“They’re fighting not even the last war,” he said. “They’re fighting three wars ago.”

news20090629WP

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

[Iran]
Crackdown In Iran Puts Mousavi in Tight Spot
Ahmadinejad, Allies Tighten Their Grip
By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 29, 2009

TEHRAN, June 28 -- With the opposition visibly weakening in Iran amid a government crackdown, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters have begun to use his disputed victory in this month's election to toughen the nation's stance internationally and to consolidate control internally.

In recent days, they have vilified President Obama for what they call his "interventionist policies," have said they are ready to put opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's advisers on trial and have threatened to execute some of the Mousavi supporters who took to the streets to protest the election result.

On Sunday, news agencies reported that the police broke up another opposition gathering -- witnesses said it numbered about 2,000 -- and detained eight British Embassy staff members, accusing them of a role in organizing the demonstrations.

The actions reflect the growing power of a small coterie of hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, Iranian analysts say. Revolutionary Guard members, in particular, have proved instrumental to the authorities since the June 12 election, and analysts say their clout is bound to increase as the conflict drags on.

The emerging power dynamics leave Mousavi with tough choices. Confronted with increasing political pressure over what supporters of the government say is his leading role in orchestrating riots, he can either acknowledge his defeat and be embraced by his enemies or continue to fight over the election result and face imprisonment.

"Everything now depends on Mousavi," said Amir Mohebbian, a political analyst. "If he decreases the tension, politicians can manage this. If he increases pressure, the influence of the military and security forces will grow."

Should he continue to fight, other analysts say, Mousavi and many of his advisers could be jailed, which would mean the end of their political influence within Iran's ruling system. The exclusion of such a large group would end Iran's traditional power-sharing system. Authority would rest in the hands of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and his supporters, leaving the parliament as the lone outpost of opposition voices.

On the other hand, accepting defeat might allow Mousavi to create a political party that, although unable to challenge the rule of Khamenei, could give him an opposition role during Ahmadinejad's second term. Mousavi's supporters, who are still enraged over post-election violence that they blame on the government, would be extremely disappointed by such a move.

The one possible wild card in Mousavi's favor seems to be coming from the holy city of Qom, one of the most influential centers of Shiite learning. There, several powerful grand ayatollahs have issued statements calling for a compromise and, most tellingly, have not joined Khamenei in his unequivocal support of Ahmadinejad.

"Events that happened have weakened the system," Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili said during a meeting with members of the Guardian Council, the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported Saturday. "You must hear the objections that the protesters have to the elections. We must let the people speak."

Another grand ayatollah issued two fatwas, or religious edicts, on Saturday, saying Islam forbids security forces from hitting unarmed people. Grand Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat Zanjani said the protests were Islamic. "These gatherings are the lawful right of the people and their only method for informing the rulers of their requests," he said.

Mousavi and another opposition candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, have vehemently refused to recognize the election results, which officially gave Ahmadinejad a landslide victory. They have also declined to participate in recount efforts by the Guardian Council, which must certify the final results Monday but which the opposition insists is biased.

Their refusal plays into the hands of the president's camp, which, strongly supported by state media, has launched a campaign against Mousavi, the protesters and his advisers. According to the official narrative of this campaign, opposition unrest was fomented by Iran's foreign enemies -- including the United States, Great Britain and Saudi Arabia -- in an attempt to overthrow the regime.

The Iranian government and its allies are gearing up to use those accusations to bring to court some political opponents, a move aimed at silencing the opposition for a longer period, analysts here say. The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said Sunday that more than 2,000 people are in detention and that hundreds more have gone missing since the election.

"We are very worried about my husband's fate," said Mahdieh Mohammadi, wife of journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi, a government critic. He was arrested the day after the election. "When you know nothing at all for the past two weeks, naturally you start to worry about everything."

State media have rolled out a daily serving of alleged plots and conspiracies involving Mousavi supporters. They refer to the protesters as "rioters" and "hooligans." Mousavi's aides are linked to plans for "a velvet revolution" meant to overthrow Iran's complex system of religious and democratic governance. Some demonstrators have been forced to make televised statements in which they admit to being the pawns of foreigners.

The head of the parliament's judicial commission has said that Mousavi could be put on trial. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a staunch ally of Iran's supreme leader, called Friday for "severe and ruthless" punishments for the "leaders of the agitations," asking the judiciary to try them as those who "wage war against God." Such crimes are punishable by death under Iran's Shiite Islamic law.

Khamenei has said that those organizing the "riots" will be held responsible for the "violence and bloodshed." He has openly supported Ahmadinejad, breaking with the Islamic republic's tradition of the supreme leader being above the fray.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose power mushroomed after the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively, is in position to gain even more sway in the government. The 120,000-member corps acts as a praetorian guard, protecting Iran's Islamic ruling system, and its commanders are close to top Iranian leaders. In recent years, the corps has added divisions, expanded its intelligence operations, helped professionalize the voluntary militia known as the Basij and taken greater control of the borders.

"We are now in a security situation. That is increasing their influence," said Mohebbian, the analyst, who is critical of both main presidential candidates. "Mousavi's extremist actions have made it easy for military people to get involved in politics, which is always bad for democracy."

Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an Ahmadinejad rival who supported Mousavi, on Sunday broke his post-election silence and called for an investigation into complaints of election irregularities.

"I hope those who are involved in this issue thoroughly and fairly review and study the legal complaints," Rafsanjani said.

news20090629GD1

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Climate Change]
Energy bills 'too low' to combat climate change
Royal Society report says current government policy is not enough to pay for green technology
Alok Jha
The Guardian, Monday 29 June 2009
Article history

Consumers will need to pay more for energy if the UK is to have any chance of developing the technologies needed to tackle climate change, according to a group of leading scientists and engineers.

In a Royal Society study to be published today, the experts said that the government must put research into alternatives to fossil fuel much higher among its priorities, and argued that current policy in the area was "half-hearted".

"We have adapted to an energy price which is unrealistically low if we're going to try and preserve the environment," John Shepherd, a climate scientist at Southampton University and co-author of the report said. "We have to allow the economy to adapt to higher energy prices through carbon prices and that will then make things like renewables and nuclear more economic, as carbon-based alternatives become more expensive."

Shepherd admitted higher energy costs would be a hard sell to the public, but said it was not unthinkable. Part of the revenue could be generated by a carbon tax that took the place of VAT, so that the cost of an item took into account the energy and carbon footprint of a product. This would allow people to make appropriate decisions on their spending, and also raise cash for research into alternatives.

"Our research expenditure on non-fossil energy sources is 0.2% of what we spend on energy itself," said Shepherd. "Multiplying that by 10 would be a very sensible thing to do. We're spending less than 1% on probably the biggest problem we've faced in many decades."

He said that the priority should be to decarbonise the UK's electricity supply. Measures such as the government's recent support for electric cars, he said, would be of no use unless the electricity they used came from carbon-free sources.

Though the creation of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was a good move, Shepherd said: "We've had a lot of good talk but we still have remarkably little in the way of action."

He cited the recent DECC proposals on carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an example. The department plans to legislate that any new coal-fired power station must demonstrate CCS on a proportion of its output. Once the technology is proven, a judgment made by the EnvironmentAgency around 2020, power plants would have five years to scale up to full CCS.

Shepherd said the proposals were not bold enough. "Really, it needs to be 'no new coal unless you have 90% emissions reductions by 2020'. That is achievable and, if that were a clear signal, industry would get on and do it. It's taken a long time for that signal to come through and now that it has, it's a half-hearted message."

A spokesperson for DECC argued that its proposed regulatory measures were "the most environmentally ambitious in the world, and would see any new coal power stations capturing at least 20-25% of their carbon emissions from day one".

Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, said that a white paper due next month will lay out how Britain will source its energy for the coming decades.

"This white paper will be the first time we've set out our vision of an energy mix in the context of carbon budgets and climate change targets. We have identified ways to tackle the challenges – we will need a mix of renewables, clean fossil fuels and nuclear and we're already making world-leading progress in those areas. It's a transition plan, a once in a generation statement of how the UK will make the historic and permanent move to a low-carbon economy with emissions cut by at least 80% in the middle of the century."

The Royal Society report will argue that energy policy has been too fragmented and short-term in its outlook, with a tendency to hunt for silver-bullet solutions to climate change. "That really isn't the case. What we need is a portfolio of solutions, horses for courses," said Shepherd.


[Conservation]
Map of elephant DNA reveals trail of ivory smugglers
Robin McKie, science editor
The Observer, Sunday 28 June 2009
Article history

Scientists have used a revolutionary genetic technique to pinpoint the area of Africa where smugglers are slaughtering elephants to feed the worldwide illegal ivory trade.

Using a DNA map of Africa's elephants, they have found that most recent seizures of tusks can be traced to animals that had grazed in the Selous and Niassa game reserves on the Tanzania and Mozambique borders.

The discovery suggests that only a handful of cartels are responsible for most of the world's booming trade in illegal ivory and for the annual slaughter of tens of thousands of elephants. The extent of this trade is revealed through recent seizures of thousands of tusks in separate raids on docks in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan. These were aimed at satisfying the far east's growing appetite for ivory, a new status symbol for the middle classes of the region's swelling industrialised economies.

As a result, ivory prices have soared from $200 a kilogram in 2004 to more than $6,000. At the same time, scientists estimate that between 8% and 10% of Africa's elephants are now being slaughtered each year to meet demand.

"In the past, law enforcement agencies - including Interpol - thought these shipments of ivory had been put together by traders cherry-picking small stockpiles across Africa," said Professor Sam Wasser, director of the University of Washington's Centre for Conservation Biology, where the DNA elephant map was developed.

"Our work shows that isn't true. The vast majority of poaching is being carried out by a few big organisations - possibly one or two major syndicates - that are targeting one area and then hammering its elephants. It is grim, but it also suggests we can target our anti-poaching efforts very specifically by focussing efforts on these regions."

At present, Tanzania is at the centre of the world's ivory slaughter. However, other work by Wasser and his team indicates that different areas, including parts of Zambia and Malawi, have been targeted in the recent past.

Ivory poaching was halted by an international campaign in the 1990s after it reached a peak between 1979 and 1989, when more than 700,000 elephants were killed for their tusks. However, aid that helps African nations fight poachers has dried up and the illegal ivory trade has returned to its previous high levels.

Killing for tusks is a particularly gruesome trade. Elephants are highly intelligent animals whose sophisticated social ties are exploited by poachers. They will often shoot young elephants to draw in a grieving parent, which is then killed for its tusks. "Our estimates suggest that more than 38,000 elephants were killed using techniques such as this in 2006 and that the annual death rate is even higher today," said Wasser.

His team's technique - outlined in the current issue of Scientific American - involves two separate sets of analyses. First, volunteers and researchers across Africa collected samples of elephant dung. Each contains plentiful amounts of DNA from cells, sloughed from the intestines of individual animals. These provide material for DNA fingerprints, which have since been mapped for the whole of Africa. Animals from one area have very similar DNA fingerprints, the researchers have found.

As part of the second analysis, a section of tusk seized from smugglers is ground up and its DNA is carefully extracted. Again a DNA fingerprint is made and compared with those on the dung map, in order to pinpoint the origin of the elephant.

In this way, Wasser and his colleagues analysed ivory seized when more than 11 tonnes of tusks were found in containers in raids on Taiwan and Hong Kong docks in July and August 2006. About 1,500 tusks were discovered and all were traced to elephants from the Selous game reserve, a Unesco heritage site in Tanzania, and the nearby Niassa game reserve in Mozambique. However, Japanese authorities - who had made another seizure of ivory that summer in Osaka - refused to co-operate and have since burnt the 260 tusks they found before their origins could be established. "You can draw your own conclusions," said Wasser.

Since then, major seizures of ivory have been made in Vietnam and the Philippines, both this year, and Wasser and his team are now preparing to use their DNA map to trace its origins.

"Ivory is now traded globally in the same illegal manner as drugs and weapons," said Wasser. "It is shameful that this has happened and we need to press the countries whose elephants are being targeted this way and get them to halt this trade."

news20090629GD2

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment]
China recruits algae to combat climate change
Chinese firm behind ambitious plan to breed microalgae in greenhouse with the potential to absorb carbon emissions
Jonathan Watts in Langfang
The Guardian, Monday 29 June 2009
Article history

The garish gunk coursing through a greenhouse filled with transparent pipes appears to belong on the set of a particularly slimy episode of Star Trek.

Multiplying rapidly as it flows through tubes, stacked 14 high in four long rows, the organism thickens and darkens like the bioweapon of a deranged scientist.

But this is not a science fiction horror story, it is one of humankind's most ambitious attempts to recruit algae in the fight against climate change.

Developed by a groundbreaking Chinese firm, ENN, the greenhouse is a bioreactor that breeds microalgae, one of the fastest growing organisms on the planet, with carbon captured from gasified coal.

China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely because it relies on coal for 70 per cent of its power. Almost none of the carbon dioxide is captured, partly because there is no profitable way of using it.

Algae may be the answer. The organism can absorb carbon far more quickly than trees, a quality that has long attracted international scientists seeking a natural method of capturing the most abundant greenhouse gas.

At ENN's research campus in Langfang, an hour's drive from Beijing, scientists are testing microalgae to clean up the back-end of a uniquely integrated process to extract and use coal more efficiently and cleanly than is possible today.

Coal is first gasified in a simulated underground environment. The carbon dioxide is extracted with the help of solar and wind power, then "fed" to algae, which can be then used to make biofuel, fertiliser or animal feed.

Foreign experts are enthusiastic. "Algae biofuels and sequestration are being tried in a bunch of places, but never with such an innovative energy mix," said Deborah Seligsohn, of the World Resources Institute, who visited ENN recently with a group of international energy executives. "It is really interesting and ambitious."

Researchers at the algae greenhouse plan to scale up the trial to a 100 hectare (247 acre) site over the next three years. If it proves commercially feasible, coal plants around the world could one day be flanked by carbon-cleaning algae greenhouses or ponds.

"Algae's promise is that its population can double every few hours. It makes far more efficient use of sunlight than plants," said Zhu Zhenqi, a senior advisor on the project. "The biology has been proven in the lab. The challenge now is an engineering one: We need to increase production and reduce cost. If we can solve this challenge, we can deal with carbon."

The algae must be harvested every day. Extracting the oily components and removing the water is expensive and energy intensive.

ENN is experimenting with different algae to find a hybrid that has an ideal balance of oil content and growth speed. It is testing cultivation techniques using varying temperatures and acidity levels.

Algae tests are also being carried out at the University of Ohio. In Japan, algae is farmed at sea where it absorbs carbon from the air. Elsewhere carbon is sprayed or bubbled into algae ponds. But ENN is focusing on a direct approach.

"Here we can control it, like in a reactor," said Gu Junjie, a senior advisor. "Theoretically we can absorb 100% of carbon dioxide emissions through a mix of microalgae and chemical fixing with hydrogen."

This might work on a large scale in the northern deserts of Inner Mongolia, where land is cheap, plentiful and in need of fertiliser. But elsewhere, application may be limited because of the large areas of land or water needed for cultivation.

"Algae is not likely to be the main solution for the carbon problem because of the amount of CO2 that needs to be consumed," said Ming Sung, Chief Representative for Asia Pacific of Clean Air Task Force. But, he said: "Algae is part of the solution and is closer to what nature intends. Being one of the simplest forms of life, all it takes is light and CO2 in salt water,"

The advanced algae, solar and coal gasification technology is the latest stage in the rise of ENN, which has been spectacular even by modern Chinese standards. Founded in 1989 as a small taxi company, it has branched successfully into the natural gas industry and now into the field of renewable energy. The private company now employs about 20,000 people, and owns a golf course and hotel near its headquarters in Hebei province, where a new research campus is under construction.

In the short term, ENN's advanced underground coal gasification technology is likely to prove more significant than its algae work. This technique enables extraction of fuel from small, difficult-to-access coal seams, and could double the world's current coal reserves. It also avoids the release of the pollutants sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

The company is also one of only a small handful in the world capable of mass producing thin-film solar panels, which can be manufactured with less water and energy than conventional photovoltaic materials. Late last year, the World Bank's International Financing Corporation announced a US$136m loan for ENN's solar business.

ENN executives have talked to the US department of energy about joint research , a sign that the transfer of low-carbon technologies is no longer a one-way street from west to east.

The development of the algae technology trails the others, but Zhu says the results from the 10,000 litre algae greenhouse have been sufficiently encouraging to move ahead.

For the 100 hectare test facility, ENN is looking at sites near the company's 600,000 tonne-a-year coal mine in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, where the cold winters will require a heated greenhouse, and a location on Hainan Island, where the hot weather would allow the algae to be grown more cheaply in open ponds, but further away from China's main coal deposits.

With China building the equivalent of more than one new 500MW coal-fired plant every week and likely to be dependent on coal for at least two decades, the further studies planned by ENN could be crucial.

Recognising the continued role of the fossil fuel in China, the European Commission proposed a plan this week to co-finance a demonstration coal plant that aims to have near zero emissions through the use of carbon capture and storage technology.

If members states and the European parliament agree on the €50m plan, the facility would be operational by 2020.

news20090629GD3

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Business > BP]
BP shuts alternative energy HQ
• 'Beyond Petroleum' boast in doubt as clean energy boss quits
• Renewables budget will be reduced by up to £550m this year
Terry Macalister
The Guardian, Monday 29 June 2009
Article history

BP has shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed budget cuts in moves likely to be seen by environmental critics as further signs of the oil group moving "back to petroleum".

But Tony Hayward, the group's chief executive, said BP remained as committed as ever to exploring new energy sources and the non-oil division would benefit from the extra focus of being brought back in house.

BP Alternative Energy was given its own headquarters in County Hall opposite the Houses of Parliament two years ago and its managing director, Vivienne Cox, oversaw a small division of 80 staff concentrating on wind and solar power.

But the 49-year-old Cox – BP's most senior female executive, who previously ran renewables as part of a larger gas and power division now dismantled by Hayward – is standing down tomorrow.

This comes alongside huge cuts in the alternative energy budget – from $1.4bn (£850m) last year to between $500m and $1bn this year, although spending is still roughly in line with original plans to invest $8bn by 2015.

The move back to BP's corporate headquarters at St James's Square in London's West End made sense, particularly when the group was sitting on spare office space due to earlier cutbacks, said Hayward.

"We are going through a major restructuring and bringing the alternative energy business headquarters into the head office seems a good idea to me.

"It saves money and brings it closer to home ... you could almost see it as a reinforcement [of our commitment to the business]," he said.

Cox was stepping down to spend more time with her children, Hayward added. "I know you would love to make a story out of all this," he said, "but it's quite hard work."

The reason for the departure of Cox is variously said by industry insiders to be caused by frustration over the business being downgraded in importance or because she really does intend to stay at home more with her young children. Cox had already reduced her working week down to three days and had publicly admitted the difficulty of combining different roles.

She will be replaced by another woman, her former deputy Katrina Landis, but the moves will worry those campaigning for more women in business, especially as Linda Cook, Shell's most senior female executive, has recently left her job too.

BP has gradually given up on plans to enter the UK wind industry and concentrated all its turbine activities on the US, where it can win tax breaks and get cheaper and easier access to land.

In April the company closed a range of solar power manufacturing plants in Spain and the US with the loss of 620 jobs and Hayward has publicly questioned whether solar would ever become competitive with fossil fuels, something that goes against the current thinking inside the renewables sector.

Hayward has also moved BP into more controversial oil areas, such as Canada's tar sands, creating an impression that he has given up on the objectives of his predecessor, Lord Browne, to take the company "Beyond Petroleum".


[Business]

Nuclear industry accused of hijacking clean energy forum
Critics say France is using debate about where to base new Irena global renewables body to co-opt organisation
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 June 2009 14.52 BST
Article history

The nuclear power industry has been accused of trying to muscle in on plans to establish a global body to represent the renewable energy industry at a key meeting in Egypt tomorrow.

France – a major user and exporter of nuclear technologies – is accused by critics of trying to win the top job inside the renewable organisation so it can move the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) towards being a promoter of "low-carbon" technologies – including atomic power.

The talks in Sharm el-Sheikh are already threatening to become a major standoff between Germany and the United Arab Emirates over which country should win the right to have the headquarters of Irena based in its country.

France, which recently signed a nuclear co-operation agreement with the UAE, is supporting Abu Dhabi. It also wants one of its own civil servants, Hélène Peloss, to be given the top role.

Britain, which only signed up for membership on Friday, has given no indication whether it plans to cast its vote in favour of Bonn or Abu Dhabi, while the US is expected to join Irena in Egypt and then lend its support to Germany.

Karsten Sach, an official in the German environment ministry with responsibility for Irena, said he was "very optimistic" that his country would be chosen but he refused to be drawn on the competition with Abu Dhabi or the role of France.

"I think we have an excellent offer in terms of experience, policy frameworks and vibrant research but we are not campaigning against any other offer," he argued.

Bonn is considered by many to be the more obvious location because the renewables agency was the brainchild of the Germans, who have led the way in the clean technology sector through its determined championing of solar power. The promoters of Bonn are also suggesting that the Danish renewables policy expert Hans Jørgen Koch should be chosen as director general.

But Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, is pushing its claims to host Irena by emphasising its new commitment to clean technology through the construction of the hugely ambitious, low-carbon Masdar City project. It is also arguing that a developing country rather than the west is better placed to pursue the vital north-south dialogue needed to beat global warming.

At previous planning meetings for Irena, the French have talked about "low-carbon" technologies, encouraging speculation about its ultimate motives.

Eric Martinot, a senior research director with the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies in Tokyo, and a former environment specialist at the World Bank, told the Huffington Post, an online newspaper, that the French manoeuvres should be resisted.

"An Irena located in Abu Dhabi under such circumstances would be 'nuclear tainted' because the negotiating process used to select a host country would be based on support for nuclear power," said Martinot.

"Are the original goals of Irena being co-opted so that renewables become a mere appendage to a nuclear agenda? 'Sprinkling some renewables on top of our nuclear power'?" he asked.

More than 100 countries have signed up to the new organisation, although the US and China have yet to do so. Sach said he was hopeful that the US might join in Egypt and that China would eventually come on board.

The renewable agency will have a mandate to disseminate knowledge, develop regulatory framework and to actively promote the widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies around the world.

It comes ahead of vital new talks in Copenhagen at the end of this year about how to tackle global warming and amid excitement that the US and China are finally starting to play more constructive roles compared with the past.

news20090629GD4

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Fishing]
French fishermen hit back at stars' bid to save bluefin tuna
Threat to livelihood sparks anger in Mediterranean port as celebrities campaign over plight of species
Jason Burke in Marseille
The Observer, Sunday 28 June 2009
Article history

It has been a long few weeks for captain Jean-Louis Donnarel and the crew of the Provence-Côte d'Azur II. Long, rough and not very profitable. After sailing a total of 6,600 nautical miles - first to Cyprus, then the length of the Egyptian coast, to Malta, around the Balearics and then home - the Provence-Côte d'Azur II returned with 84 tonnes of bluefin tuna, a catch that will barely cover the costs of the voyage.

"We found fish on the last day," Donnarel said last week. "Without that, we would have been finished. Someone has to take a decision. Do they want us to fish or not? If not, they should put us out of our misery."

Donnarel and his crew are at the sharp end of an increasingly bitter row: one that links globally known restaurants, top celebrities, huge international conglomerates, sushi shops and supermarkets across half the world to the livelihoods of a few thousand fishermen.

At stake is the survival of the bluefin tuna, a single specimen of which can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars - a price that has seen stocks decline in some areas by up to 90%.

This month Sienna Miller, Elle Macpherson, Jemima Khan, Sting and others signed a letter to Nobu, a famous upmarket restaurant chain part-owned by Robert De Niro, threatening a boycott of their favourite haunt. Stephen Fry, one of the celebrity campaigners, wrote: "It's astounding lunacy to serve up endangered species for sushi. There's no justification for peddling extinction, yet that is exactly what Nobu is doing in restaurants around the world."

The restaurant has so far refused to take it off the menu, citing its cultural importance in Japan and "enormous demand", but the battle goes on. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Atlantic bluefin will be wiped out in three years unless radical action is taken.

Meanwhile, fishermen such as Donnarel are unimpressed by the celebrity-inspired pressure on their livelihoods. "We have become hooligans, bandits," said Donnarel. "Tuna fishing has become politically incorrect and we are pariahs. Once it was fine to fish; now it isn't."

With their 40-metre, £3m boats, the vast nets used to encircle and sweep up entire schools of tuna making their way into the Mediterranean, and their apparent disregard for the limits the EU have previously tried to impose, the French fishermen have been cast as the villains of the piece. The fishermen themselves are very defensive - angry with consumers, governments, conservationists and the EU. Few speak to the press.

And they are now being closely watched. When this year's season ends next week, France's fleet of tuna boats will have fished less than its quota of just over 3,000 tonnes. After seriously exceeding limits in previous years, a huge operation involving French navy ships, observers and constant monitoring of a boat's position and catch has meant "total control and total transparency", according to Bertand Wendeling, spokesmen for the 11 tuna boats working out of the French port of Sète.

Even the campaign groups agree that there have been "steps in the right direction", but they also say it may too little. too late.

Tuna fishing is managed by the Madrid-based International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. Conservationists claim the body is primarily interested in protecting the fishing industries of its 45 member countries and they also allege that is ignores its own scientists' recommendations, setting quotas twice as high as those believed necessary to allow the bluefin to survive.

The EU has agreed that catches must be cut by 30% by 2010, but conservationists say this will not be enough to prevent the eventual "collapse" of stocks to levels from which recovery will be impossible.

"The real problem is not going to be solved by more controls," François Chartier, a French Greenpeace campaigner, said. "It is only going to be solved by better management. Both the number and the size of the bluefin currently fished remain in serious decline. There's not much time left."

The fishermen, while doubting the scientists' figures, know the boom times are over. For decades, prices for bluefin and other species such as the more common skipjack have risen and EU funds flowed into the industry. That was then.

"It's as if someone gave you a permit to build a house, helped you build it and then told you to knock it down," said Virginie Donnarel, the fisherman's daughter. "These are family businesses that employ scores of people. If they want to close us down, so be it. But it's only right that we are properly compensated."

The environmentalists deny claims that "coastal communities" need to be protected, alleging that many of the crews are recruited in Morocco or Benin and paid a pittance. Donnarel's crew, however, is all French. "Some of these guys can barely read or write. They will need proper retraining and new jobs," he said.

In fact, the big money is largely made by the major conglomerates that buy the Mediterranean tuna for export to the far east. Though the EU may be cracking down, many other fishing countries are not. Turkey, which has a large if inefficient fleet, is asking for a higher quota next year.

The one bright spot for the likes of Donnarel is the skipjack. Unlike the slow-breeding bluefin tuna, skipjack is smaller and spectacularly fecund: the "chicken of the seas" is most likely to be the tuna in your tin or sandwich. But it is a world away from the bluefin.

"As long as people want to eat bluefin, someone will fish it," said Donnarel. "It just probably won't be me."


[Climate Change]
Victory on climate change boosts president's position
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 28 June 2009
Article history

The epic battle over universal health care is still to be fought, but Barack Obama moved to capitalise on a defining moment of his presidency yesterday - a vote in Congress to act on global warming - saying the time had arrived for America to show international leadership on climate change.

The White House shifted the topic of Obama's address from healthcare to energy after the vote, seeking to build momentum for the ambitious climate change bill ahead of its next hurdle in the Senate. The first round, in the house of representatives on Friday night, barely went to Obama. The Democratic leadership, despite making concessions to dissidents from oil and coal states, eked out only a 219-212 victory. A total of 44 Democrats opposed the bill.

But environmentalists claimed the vote as a milestone: the first time either house of Congress had acted to reduce the carbon emissions that cause climate change. It was also a validation of Obama's powers of persuasion. The president put energy reform at the heart of his White House agenda and jumped into a furious lobbying effort for its passage.

In his video address, Obama sought to bring home Friday night's victory, calling on the Senate to approve the bill so that America could catch up to the rest of the world in moving to a cleaner energy economy.

"We have seen other countries realise a critical truth: the nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy," he said. "Now is the time for us to lead."

The international community had been waiting for America to take action on climate change and the vote gave a boost to efforts to reach a deal to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

India, a key player in the negotiations to reach a deal at Copenhagen, gave a cautious welcome. "Obviously having the US take the lead on climate change would have a significant impact on the current multilateral negotiations," India's climate change envoy said. "We would hope that the US will lead with ambitious actions."

Environmentalists, who had despaired during eight years of George Bush of ever seeing action on climate change, said the bill, though weaker than they might have liked, was still a signature achievement.

"The fact is, just weeks ago, few in Washington believed that this day would come to pass. The best bet - the safe bet - was that after three decades of failure, we couldn't muster the political will to tackle the energy challenge despite the necessity and urgency of action," Obama said on Friday night.

The bill would gradually impose a ceiling on the carbon emissions that cause global warming, ultimately cutting them by 83% from 2005 levels by 2050 by forcing industries to obtain permits for the emissions they release in the atmosphere, or to buy offsets by investing in cleansing projects like planting trees.

The bill would also compel utility companies to obtain a share of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar.

The biggest weakness in the bill is its target of cutting carbon emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020, which represents only a marginal reduction compared with Europe.

However, Greenpeace opposed the package, saying it had been badly weakened by the concessions made to win over conservative Democrats from oil and coal states.

news20090629NT

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 28 June 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.603
News
Spooky computers closer to reality
Solid-state quantum processing demonstrated.
Katharine Sanderson

The computers of tomorrow could be quantum not classical, using the quantum world's strange properties to vastly increase memory and speed up information processing. But making quantum computing parts from standard kit has proved difficult so far.

Now physicist Leonardo DiCarlo of Yale University, New Haven, and his colleagues have made the first solid-state quantum processor, using similar techniques to the silicon chip industry. The processor has used programs called quantum algorithms to solve two different problems. The work is published in Nature¹.

Classical systems use a series of 0s and 1s, or bits, to convey information. Two bits, for example can be combined as either 00, 11, 01 or 10. But quantum systems have a property called superposition, where all these combinations can exist at once. This vastly increases the amount of information that can be stored and the speed at which it can be processed.

Quantum bits, or qubits, can also be entangled — the state of one qubit influences the state of another even at a considerable distance. A quantum computer would use entangled qubits to process information.

Solid work

Quantum algorithms have been processed before, but only in exotic systems using lasers or ions suspended with strong magnets. To make something more similar to a computer, a solid-state system is needed.

DiCarlo made his device out of two transmon qubits. These are tiny pieces of a superconducting material consisting of a niobium film on an aluminium oxide wafer with gaps etched into it. A current can 'tunnel' across these gaps — another special property of the quantum world, where waves and particles can cross barriers without breaching them. The two qubits are separated by a cavity that contains microwaves, and the whole system connected to an electric current.

(“The appeal of our processor is that it is an all-solid-state device.”
Leonardo DiCarlo
Yale University)

"The appeal of our processor is that it is an all-solid-state device," says DiCarlo. It was made using standard industrial techniques. But the analogy with ordinary computers shouldn't be overstretched, he cautions — the device works at just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero and requires special refrigeration technology.

The researchers controlled the system using a microwave 'tone' with a frequency that causes the qubits to become entangled. A voltage pulse is then applied to control how long the two qubits remain entangled and in their superpositional state. Longer entanglement allows the qubits to process more complex problems.

DiCarlo was able to keep the qubits entangled for a microsecond, which is the state of the art, he says.

Qubit calling

The system processed two algorithms written specially for quantum systems.

The first is Grover's search algorithm, also known as the reverse phone book search, where someone's number is known but not the name. The processor essentially reads all the numbers in the phone book at once to find the single correct answer. "At the end the qubit will be in one state, not superposed, and that's the answer," says DiLorio.

The second, more simple, algorithm, the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, tests whether the flip of a coin is fair or not.

DiCarlo's processor got the reverse phone book search right an impressive 80% of the time and the coin-flip algorithm right about 90% of the time.

To read out the answer, DiCarlo used a microwave tone at the same frequency as the cavity in the system. "Depending what state the qubit is in, the cavity will resonate at a certain frequency. If the tone is transmitted through the cavity, we know it's in the right state," he says.

But this technique could not read out the answer in a system with many more qubits, says quantum-computing expert Hans Mooij from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The development of the processor is good news Mooij adds. "This is a necessary step," he says. "If this can be done, the next thing can be done."

DiCarlo is cautious. "We've made a very simple quantum processor," he says. "It's by no means a quantum computer."

He is working to give the processor more qubits, and so more processing power. He thinks that scaling up to three or four quibits will be relatively straightforward, but beyond that the problem becomes a lot harder, and the coherence time needed will be very difficult to attain. Mooij agrees: "From three or four to ten they will need to make a big step again."

References
1. DiCarlo, L. et al, Nature, doi:10.10383/nature08121 (2009)

news20090629SLT

[Today's Paper] from [Slate Magazine]

Military Coup Shakes Up Honduras
By Daniel Politi
Posted Monday, June 29, 2009, at 6:53 AM ET
The Los Angeles Times (LAT) leads with the Honduran army ousting President Manuel Zelaya and forcing him into exile in Costa Rica yesterday. Soldiers stormed the presidential palace early in the morning, hours before a controversial referendum was set to begin that could have paved the path to rewriting the country's constitution to potentially allow presidential reelection. It was the first military coup in Central America in 16 years. "This has been a brutal kidnapping," Zelaya said at the airport in San Jose, Costa Rica, where he was still wearing his pajamas. Leaders throughout the Americas condemned the coup. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) leads its world-wide newsbox with the latest from Iran, where nine Iranian employees of the British Embassy were arrested. Iranian media tried to portray the British Embassy employees as instrumental players in the recent unrest. Meanwhile, security forces forcefully beat back thousands of protesters in Tehran. The Washington Post (WP) also leads with Iran but focuses on taking a look at how opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi faces a tough choice now in choosing whether to continue contesting the election at a time when leaders in Tehran are consolidating their power.

The New York Times (NYT) leads with President Obama calling the energy bill that passed the house on Friday an "extraordinary first step," but he criticized a measure that would impose tariffs on imports from countries that do not impose limits on carbon dioxide emissions. "At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we've seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out," Obama said. USA Today (USAT) goes across its front page with a look at how Michael Jackson was preparing for the 50 shows he was scheduled to give at London's O2 arena. The night before he died, Jackson rehearsed at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and those who witnessed it say they saw hints of the old Jackson on stage. While some say he looked underweight, they insist he was energetic and didn't appear to be sick as he put on the finishing touches to what everyone expected would be his comeback.

Zelaya called his ouster a "brutal kidnapping," and the Organization of American States called for an emergency meeting. President Obama said he was "deeply concerned" and called on Honduran politicians to "respect democratic norms." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of the Honduran president, said the coup was carried out by "the bourgeoisie and the extreme right." Lawmakers and Army leaders had opposed the referendum, and the Supreme Court had ruled that it was illegal. The WSJ hears word that it was the Supreme Court that gave the order to the military to detain the president. Despite the worldwide condemnation, the Honduran Congress officially voted Zelaya out of office and named congressional leader Roberto Micheletti to the presidency.

The WP hears word that the Obama administration plans to work with the Organization of American States to restore Zelaya to power, but "a senior Honduran official" says it's unlikely that the new government will be giving up its new power very easily. Regardless, analysts say it's important for Obama to strongly condemn the coup and insist on the reinstatement of Zelaya, even if U.S. officials share concerns that he might have been following Chavez's example of using the ballot box to hold on to power. At the very least, if Obama speaks strongly on the issue it should help take some attention away from Chavez. "This would prevent Chávez from stealing the show," one expert tells the WSJ.

Early morning wire stories reveal that a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry said five of the Iranian British Embassy employees have been released, and four are still being held for questioning. Despite the recent brutal crackdown on demonstrators, thousands still flowed to the streets on Sunday only to be met, once again, by security forces that used tear gas and batons to disperse the crowds.

The WP states that the recent unrest in Iran has allowed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to consolidate control and grant more power to a small group of hard-line clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders. Mousavi must now choose between continuing to fight the election results and likely face imprisonment or accept his defeat and become a strong opposition force inside the government. If he accepts defeat, he would certainly anger supporters, but if he doesn't it's likely that he and his advisers would be jailed. The WP says that the "one possible wild card in Mousavi's favor" could come from the holy city of Qom, where several grand ayatollahs are calling for compromise and have pointedly refused to support Ahmadinejad. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani broke his post-election silence. While the WP and NYT interpret Rafsanjani's words as support for the demonstrators, the WSJ calls it a "double-edged comment that chilled expectations he might play an influential role in favor of the opposition."

The WP fronts at how General Electric has become the biggest beneficiary of a government program to help out banks. The world's largest industrial company has been able to save billions of dollars by raising money at lower interest rates, as part of the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. GE Capital "has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program," notes the paper. Although GE's huge financing arm isn't a bank, it was able to take advantage of a loophole that the Obama administration is now trying to close. So far, GE has been able to essentially "live in the best of both worlds," as the WP puts it, because it can take advantage of the federal safety net while also avoiding the stricter regulations that banks have to endure.

The LAT fronts the death of Billy Mays, the well-known infomercial pitchman who hawked OxiClean stain remover, Orange Glo, Mighty Putty, and a host of other items, died at his home yesterday. He was 50. The cause of death is not known. On Saturday afternoon, Mays was on a flight that had a rough landing, apparently due to a ruptured tire. Mays told a local TV station he was struck hard on the head by a falling object during the landing. "I hate to say it, but the king is dead," Anthony Sullivan, an infomercial veteran who has worked with Mays, said.